Friday, August 23, 2019
Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning
At Amazon, Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
Reparations Won't Make Blacks Whole
At LAT, "Slavery’s descendants say a reparations check won’t make the pain go away":
Many African Americans in South Carolina support reparations.— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 18, 2019
But others say that what they want just as much is for the country to grasp the painful history they live with every day. https://t.co/mYWRRcLeCt
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Five years before the first shots of the Civil War rang out from the harbor here in 1861, alderman Thomas Ryan and a business partner opened Ryan’s Mart at No. 6 Chalmers St.Keep reading.
Their merchandise was slaves: African men, women and children who were prodded, picked over and auctioned off to the highest bidders.
The finest adult males could fetch up to $1,600 apiece —$49,000 in today’s dollars. The most able-bodied women could sell for $1,400.
Today, the former showroom in Charleston’s historic quarter, hidden on a narrow lane of row houses blazing with pink blossoms and palmetto trees, serves as the home of the Old Slave Mart Museum.
The museum and other historic sites in the American South lay bare a shameful chapter in the nation’s past, one that’s getting new attention in the debate over whether the government should pay financial reparations to an estimated 40 million descendants of slaves.
Many African Americans in this part of South Carolina support reparations. But they say what they want just as much is for the country to grasp the painful history they live with every day.
Their ancestors often were separated from their children on the auction block. Women were raped by their white owners. Slaves were beaten for waking up too late, not working hard enough or trying to escape. They were stripped of their African names and given the last names of their masters.
The hardship and humiliation didn’t end when the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865. Black Americans continue to endure racist violence, entrenched poverty and inequities in areas such as education, employment and the criminal justice system.
“What the reparations debate is about is not so much people wanting to get money,” said Daniel Littlefield, a historian from Columbia, S.C. “Black people feel they deserve some acknowledgment of ongoing wrong.”
The reparations debate comes at an especially tense time. Since 2016, there’s been a nationwide rise in racially motivated hate crimes. Videos of police killings of African Americans have become all too common. President Trump’s attacks aimed at black leaders and immigrants have kept people on edge...
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Jarrett Stepman, The War on History
Megan Parry's Thursday Forecast
Here's the fabulous Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
YouTube: Publisher or Public Forum?
Eric George explains, for Prager University:
Kate Bock Mega Babe (VIDEO)
Greenland
At the New York Times:
“Is this some sort of joke?” a former Danish prime minister asked. It was not. President Trump canceled his meeting with the prime minister of Denmark because she was not interested in selling Greenland.https://t.co/EV6R1sNnC4— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 21, 2019
And the trolling on Twitter. Jon Gabriel got picked up by POTUS and it's awesome.
Greenland in 10 years. pic.twitter.com/akqWowauyu
— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 15, 2019
I promise not to do this to Greenland! pic.twitter.com/03DdyVU6HA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 20, 2019
— jon gabriel (@exjon) August 20, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Populism Rises Because the Left Has Become Unbearable
It's Piers Morgan, who I've liked but stopped paying attention to after he went on his gun-control jihad while still at CNN.
In any case, he's seen the light. I doubt that's changed his opinion on guns, but he's quite lucid on the problem facing all of us today, all of us in the Western industrial democracies where leftist PC-culture is destroying liberalism.
At RCP, "Piers Morgan: Populism Is Rising Because Liberals Have Become Unbearable":
The liberals get what they want, which is a humorless void where nothing happens, no one dares do anything or laugh about anything or behave in any way that doesn't suit their rigid way of leading a life. No thanks. So what's happening around the world? Populism is rising because people are fed up with the PC culture. They're fed up with snowflakery, they're fed up with people being offended by everything and they're gravitating towards forceful personalities who go: "This is all nonsense!"
Which, by the way, it is in most cases. So why are we surprised? I'm not surprised. It doesn't mean to say I agree with all of it, but it means I can understand it, and I understand why the liberals, my side, if you like, are getting it so horribly wrong. They just wanna tell people, not just how to lead their lives, but if you don't lead it the way I tell you to it's a kind of version of fascism. If you don't lead the life the way I'm telling you to then I'm going to ruin your life. I'm gonna scream abuse at you. I'm gonna get you fired from your job. I'm gonna get you hounded by your family and friends. I'm gonna make you the most disgusting human being in the world.
Christina Hendricks
At Celeb Jihad, "CHRISTINA HENDRICKS’ NUDE TITS ARE OUT OF CONTROL."
Position Players Pitching
I posted last month, for example, "Orioles Beat Angels in 16 Innings: Outfielder Stevie Wilkerson, Pitching 55 MPH, Records the Save (VIDEO)."
At USA Today, and third baseman Wade Boggs, back in 1997, below:
It's garbage time, all the time! MLB is seeing a historic spike in position players getting work on the mound. https://t.co/QYG7nQWT4A pic.twitter.com/mMIitzFZ5G
— USA TODAY Sports (@usatodaysports) August 21, 2019
Today In 1997: Wade Boggs uses his knuckleball to pitch a scoreless inning in a #Yankees 12-4 loss to the #Angels at Anaheim Stadium! #OTD #MLB #History pic.twitter.com/XndILRH90m
— Baseball by BSmile (@BSmile) August 20, 2019
Megan Parry's Wednesday Forecast
Here's the beautiful Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
President Trump Blasts Jewish Democrats for 'Great Disloyalty' (VIDEO)
The story's at the New York Times, of course, "Trump Accuses Jewish Democrats of ‘Great Disloyalty’."
Trump Accuses Jewish Democrats of ‘Great Disloyalty’ via @juliehdavis https://t.co/ugcTHz0gBa— Annie Karni (@anniekarni) August 21, 2019
Here's the video, and Caroline Glick's response below:
I find it stunning that the left taking over the Democratic can libel the Jewish state, slander Israel's Jewish supporters in the US, use BDS to push American Jews out of public spaces and then attack @realDonaldTrump for calling them out.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
We are watching the Corbynization of the Dem party. Rather than protest and take the party back, American Jews are laying down and letting it happen and then deliberately misinterpreting Trump's words to accuse him of the very Jew hatred they refuse to fight on the left.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Trump wasn't calling American Jews disloyal to America but to their interests as Jews. And he's right. American Jews have the right to the same freedoms as everyone else. BDS, that Tlaib, Omar, AOC, etc., are promoting aims to take those rights away.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Trump speaks uncarefully but you have to really want to misunderstand him to believe he was calling Democratic Jews disloyal. Which brings us back to the Jewish Dems who don't want to see BDS, Tlaib, Omar, JVP, IfNotNow, etc. for what they are.../— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
Also at Memeorandum.By all means, stay in the Democrat party, but for heaven's sake, stop being doormats. Stop accepting the libels. Stand up for yourselves. BDS isn't about Israel. It's about you. Fight back.— Caroline Glick (@CarolineGlick) August 21, 2019
What Happened to Bernie's Financial Backers?
Well, that was then.
Bernie's moment has passed. He's just one of a dozen or more socialists on the stage nowadays.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Bernie Sanders’ famed $27 donors are split in 2020’s sprawling Democratic field":
Bernie Sanders' famed $27 donors are split in 2020's sprawling Democratic field https://t.co/lZmUtzzYTR
— Seema (@LATSeema) August 21, 2019
Small-dollar donors made Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid one of the most successful insurgent campaigns in Democratic Party history, allowing him to be competitive with establishment favorite Hillary Clinton."Washed up."
But in the 2020 race, nearly 1.7 million, or more than 80%, of the donors who fueled his earlier run have stayed on the sidelines, according to a Times analysis of campaign finance disclosures through June 30.
The 2016 donors who are contributing this election cycle have given more than $32 million to the Democratic field. More than $16.2 million of that went to Sanders, making up about 45% of the money he has raised. But nearly as much went to his rivals, a sign of how split Democrats are as they try to figure out the best candidate to take on President Trump.
“Bernie’s washed up. I just think he’s too old,” Audrey Tieger, 68, said of the 77-year-old Sanders...
Sounds like a boxer passed his prime: "I coulda been a contendah!"
Keep reading.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Edward E. Baptist, The Half Has Never Been Told
The '1619 Project' at the New York Times
I read the hard-copy "1619 Project" at the New York Times Magazine yesterday.
No universal healthcare.— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) August 14, 2019
Highest rates of mass incarceration.
The brutality of capitalism.
An epidemic of sugar in our diets.
No aspect of modern American life has been untouched by slavery. These essays in our #1619project explain how https://t.co/Lq2z4ZKgqg (thread)
I was actually looking forward to it, and it's interesting and impressive.
It's also wrong.
The main problem is with the central goal and agenda of the entire enterprise, "to reframe American history by considering what it would mean to regard 1619 as our nation's birth year."
That is, to "rewrite" history with America's "original sin" as the singular variable that explains all consequent history of the United States, from the landing of the first black slaves sold in Virginia to the present day of political polarization, incessant racist recrimination, and the politics of Twitter call-out culture. Racism, slavery, white supremacy --- this is the "master" paradigm to understand where we are today, and of course, the master variable that implies only one way forward, the leftist Democrat way, the progressive big-government way, that demonizes and destroys the history of the tremendous courage and sacrifice of all Americans in making this nation --- and our exceptional national experiment --- the greatest in human history.
Like I said, there's a lot on this.
Start with Damon Linker, at the Week, "The New York Times surrenders to the left on race":
The New York Times surrenders to the left on race. https://t.co/YovTlDKyUq pic.twitter.com/hmb1FOZq6Y— Damon Linker (@DamonLinker) August 20, 2019
This [project] turns historical scholarship into propaganda for a left-wing political movement.Also very good is Rich Lowry, at the New York Post, "The left's vile smear of America's founding."
Saying so doesn't at all imply that journalists should refrain from drawing on the work of historians. But it does mean that when they do draw on that work, they should do so with caution and a fair amount of historiographical sophistication, realizing that no single narrative of the past is the indisputably right one, and that new interpretations that break sharply from a past consensus often go too far. That's especially true when the new claims advance a radical political agenda.
And the 1619 Project is all about advancing a radical political agenda. The message it aims to convey is clear: The United States is and always has been, from its very origin, a racist country infected by a white supremacist ideology that has birthed and nurtured institutions and systems — from Congress to capitalism — that systematically disadvantage black Americans. Political actors of the present have a simple choice: They can either embrace (invariably left-liberal or socialist) policies that will begin the process of dismantling these pervasive forms of structural injustice — or they can oppose doing so and ensure that the injustices continue, with toxic racism remaining where it has been for the past four centuries, at the very center of American life. Those are the choices.
You're either part of the solution or part of the problem.
That line is a paraphrase of Eldridge Cleaver, an early leader of the Black Panthers, the revolutionary black nationalist organization founded in 1966, and it's fitting to refer to him here, since the publication of the 1619 Project represents the definitive triumph of left-wing activism over journalistic skepticism, circumspection, and restraint at The New York Times — and not just at the NYTM, since the newspaper has promised to publish more contributions to the 1619 Project in the coming days and weeks. As if the content of last Sunday's paper wasn't evidence enough of this development, the leaked transcript of a recent town-hall meeting at the Times gives us an added glimpse of how reporters and editors now think and talk about race. Here is a representative comment addressed to executive editor Dean Baquet:
Staffer: I just feel like racism is in everything. It should be considered in our science reporting, in our culture reporting, in our national reporting. And so, to me, it's less about the individual instances of racism, and sort of how we're thinking about racism and white supremacy as the foundation of all of the systems in the country. And I think particularly as we are launching a 1619 Project, I feel like that's going to open us up to even more criticism from people who are like, "OK, well you're saying this, and you're producing this big project about this. But are you guys actually considering this in your daily reporting?" [Slate]Racism is in everything. White supremacy is the foundation of all of the systems in the country. Those are fairly extreme, unmodulated statements. Did Baquet respond by pointing out that, while racism exists and needs to receive coverage in the paper, there are many other ways to talk about America and its history — by placing it in international context, by highlighting aspects of the American past that go beyond race, by raising issues of class and ethnicity and gender, by engaging with contrary intellectual, cultural, and economic currents, social trends, and ways of understanding?
The left’s vile smear of America’s founding https://t.co/6ipY4rFGV6 pic.twitter.com/P2ebM6FwGm— NY Post Opinion (@NYPostOpinion) August 20, 2019
Plus, Dan McLaughlin has an incredible Twitter thread, which would be better for students to learn in school that NYT's slavery project --- and I don't exaggerate.
At Twitchy, "Class is in SESSION: Dan McLaughlin’s thread on American history makes New York Times look even more desperate."
That's one of the more obviously ahistorical claims in this piece, if you know anything at all about the history of British or American abolitionism or the origins of the American revolution. https://t.co/HariFOnJEk https://t.co/4q5sdTrZf1— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) August 19, 2019
Also, via Memeorandum, at Slate, "Who Got the Maddest About the New York Times’ Slavery Coverage?"
The Pulitzer Center has the pdf of Sunday's magazine, so no worry about the Times' paywall.
Kendra Sunderland Bikini Smokin' Reefer
On Twitter:
I feel blessed 💕 pic.twitter.com/zO1LokyJe7— Kendra Sunderland (@KSLibraryGirl) August 20, 2019
And flashback, "Kendra Sunderland, Former Oregon State University Student, Arrested After Making Porn Video in Campus Library."
Olympia Valance
At Drunken Stepfather, "POTENTIALLY OLYMPIA VALANCE NUDE OF THE DAY."
And at the Fappening, "Olympia Valance Nude Leaked."
Monday, August 12, 2019
Our Poisoned Information System
The system is poisoned all right, but it's not like the Old Gray Lady is completely innocent here. Dan Gainor points out the two-year long Russia conspiracy hoax as an example.
In any case, FWIW:
Strong column by @cwarzel. Begs the question: would things improve if all journalists got off Twitter? https://t.co/qEptXGel4X— Bari Weiss (@bariweiss) August 11, 2019
Imagine the dystopia that is a country divided in a hashtag battle accusing a former president and the current president of staging the suicide of a pedophile emperor to cover up their child molestation.#TrumpBodyCount#ClintonBodyCount— Cameron Kasky (@cameron_kasky) August 10, 2019
This creates big incentives to game trending. Either:— Renee DiResta (@noUpside) August 10, 2019
1) press will cover it & amplify
2) press will debunk & still amplify, while creating controversy
3) press will very occasionally ignore,then conspiracy press will cover to ask why 🤔
if you make it trend, you make it true.
Mr. Epstein’s apparent suicide is, in many ways, the post-truth nightmare scenario. The sordid story contains almost all the hallmarks of stereotypical conspiratorial fodder: child sex-trafficking, powerful global political leaders, shadowy private jet flights, billionaires whose wealth cannot be explained. As a tale of corruption, it is so deeply intertwined with our current cultural and political rot that it feels, at times, almost too on-the-nose. The Epstein saga provides ammunition for everyone, leading one researcher to refer to Saturday’s news as the “Disinformation World Cup.”
At the heart of Saturday’s fiasco is Twitter, which has come to largely program the political conversation and much of the press. Twitter is magnetic during massive breaking stories; news junkies flock to it for up-to-the-second information. But early on, there’s often a vast discrepancy between the attention that is directed at the platform and the available information about the developing story. That gap is filled by speculation and, via its worst users, rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.
On Saturday, Twitter’s trending algorithms hoovered up the worst of this detritus, curating, ranking and then placing it in the trending module on the right side of its website. Despite being a highly arbitrary and mostly “worthless metric,” trending topics on Twitter are often interpreted as a vague signal of the importance of a given subject.
There’s a decent chance that President Trump was using Twitter’s trending module when he retweeted a conspiratorial tweet tying the Clintons to Epstein’s death. At the time of Mr. Trump’s retweet, “Clintons” was the third trending topic in the United States. The specific tweet amplified by the president to his more than 60 million followers was prominently featured in the “Clintons” trending topic. And as Ashley Feinberg at Slate pointed out in June, the president appears to have a history of using trending to find and interact with tweets.
On Saturday afternoon, computational propaganda researcher Renée DiResta noted that the media’s close relationship with Twitter creates an incentive for propagandists and partisans to artificially inflate given hashtags. Almost as soon as #ClintonBodyCount began trending on Saturday, journalists took note and began lamenting the spread of this conspiracy theory — effectively turning it into a news story, and further amplifying the trend. “Any wayward tweet … can be elevated to an opinion worth paying attention to,” Ms. DiResta wrote. “If you make it trend, you make it true.”
That our public conversation has been uploaded onto tech platforms governed by opaque algorithms adds even more fodder for the conspiratorial minded. Anti-Trump Twitter pundits with hundreds of thousands of followers blamed “Russian bots” for the Clinton trending topic. On the far-right, pro-Trump sites like the Gateway Pundit (with a long track record of amplifying conspiracy theories) suggested that Twitter was suppressing and censoring the Clinton hashtags.
Where does this leave us? Nowhere good.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Democrat 'Talking Points' on Jeffrey Epstein Suicide
Via Conservative Treehouse, "Far-Left Panic Over Epstein’s “Suicide” – Shareblue Dispatches Urgent Talking Points For On-Line Activists…"
Saturday, August 10, 2019
Orange County Stabbing Rampage (VIDEO)
At LAT, "Suspect in Orange County knife rampage charged with four counts of murder."
Police said they were stunned by the cycle of events, which began at an apartment building in Garden Grove and then spread to businesses. https://t.co/2FuKcTET0g— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) August 8, 2019
Jeffrey Epstein's Suicide is 'Unfathomable'
At Instapundit, "OH, I DUNNO, I THINK I CAN FATHOM IT."
How does one commit suicide while on suicide watch...or was it not suicide? https://t.co/7PX3iHG9Ri
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
That is difficult to believe. Epstein already made one suicide attempt and everyone knows that pedos are not very popular with the prison population. How many inmates could implicate several Presidents as well as a Prince of England not to mention many other high powered names?
— ColorMeRed 🇺🇸 📌 (@ColorMeRed) August 10, 2019
#ClintonBodyCount
On Twitter:
My God, they’re already covering it up. Twitter has completely replaced the hashtag #ClintonBodyCount with #TrumpBodyCount on the trending newsfeed even though the numbers were higher.
— Mindy Robinson 🇺🇸 (@iheartmindy) August 10, 2019
The media bias is UNREAL at this point. pic.twitter.com/38QBO7HBIB
People close to Epstein fear he was murdered...as Epstein told authorities someone tried to kill him in a previous incident weeks earlier. He was described as being in good spirits in recent days... https://t.co/J9QNSo1N2v
— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) August 10, 2019
The New Nativists: Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
It's all a Russia-back plot to spread disinformation, you see.
At the Old Gray Lady, FWIW:
Sweden views itself as a moral and progressive superpower, but an anti-immigration backlash has allowed right-wing populism to take hold. Aiding the rise in far-right, national sentiment: a global disinformation machine. https://t.co/YD1jn8oU3S
— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 10, 2019
Brooke Baldwin Breaks Down
If you cry enough maybe something will be done, right?
At CNN:
Jeffrey Epstein Dead
Epstein was actually not on suicide watch when he died. But folks on Twitter are already alleging he was murdered. #EpsteinMurder and #TrumpBodyCount are among the almost exclusively Jeffrey Epstein trending topics.
And at the New York Times, via Memeoranum, "Jeffrey Epstein Dead in Suicide at Manhattan Jail, Officials Say."
And those trending topics weren't favorable to Democrats earlier today. What happened?
Funny how it always goes against conservatives.
it took the conspiracy people no time to go overdrive on peddling that the clintons killed epstein pic.twitter.com/MhJKPFoJQm
— Ali Breland (@alibreland) August 10, 2019
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Megan Parry's Wednesday Forecast
Here's the lovely Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
The Lie That Latinos Are 'Living in Fear' After El Paso Shooting
“It’s quite a transition from being invisible to being visible in a lethal way. It’s something new to my community. We are used to the basic darkness of racism, not this.” https://t.co/Dap8EGaIWe— Patricia Mazzei (@PatriciaMazzei) August 7, 2019
And at the Los Angeles Times from earlier as well:
For Latinos, the El Paso slaughter & its bigoted motive have marked a devastating new low in the Trump era. Stay tuned for coverage of the candidates later today. /4 https://t.co/wFv1f4IXO6— Michael Finnegan (@finneganLAT) August 5, 2019
Yet, see this morning's piece at LAT, "Migrants say El Paso shooting won’t deter them from seeking new lives in the U.S.":
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — The massacre at an El Paso Walmart store on Saturday hasn’t diminished Silvia Ivania’s desire to move to the United States — even if the killer of 22 people was apparently motivated by hatred of Latino immigrants.
“That’s something that can happen anywhere,” said Ivania, 37, a citizen of Honduras, speaking at the Good Samaritan migrant shelter in this border city across the Rio Grande from El Paso. “The violence in Honduras is a lot worse than in the United States.”
She and several other migrants interviewed Tuesday at the shelter — temporary home to about 100, mostly Central Americans, but including U.S.-bound Cubans, Africans and others — agreed that the mass killing would not dissuade them.
“If anything, I want to go to the United States even more than before,” said Danieska Del Toro, 34, from Havana. “They arrested the guy, right? Maybe he was crazy. In Cuba we have violence too, even if the regime says there is none.”
Along the nearby Rio Grande, which separates the U.S. and Mexico, scattered groups of migrants could be seen Tuesday scampering across the river — which, at the moment, has been reduced to a few scattered puddles amid a narrow ribbon of green, and easy to traverse on foot. Its shallow depths seem to mock signs warning people of the danger of drowning.
At midday, amid 100-degree-plus temperatures, about 20 people — some holding their children’s hands — surrendered to U.S. Border Patrol vans waiting on the other side. As is usually the case, the migrants didn’t attempt to evade U.S. immigration authorities, but sought them out.
Mexican National Guard troops posted on the south side said they urged border crossers not to proceed, but didn’t prevent their passage.
“That’s their decision; we just tell them of the risks,” said one Mexican National Guard officer, who declined to be named because she wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.
Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy is a 'Hoax' (VIDEO)
Here's Tucker from last night:
Via the leftist Daily Beast, "Tucker Carlson: White Supremacy Is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘Not a Real Problem in America’."
Joaquin Castro Doxxing Trump-Supporting Constituents (VIDEO)
See David Harsanyi, at the Federalist, "Joaquin Castro’s Doxxing of Voters is Un-American."
Sad to see so many San Antonians as 2019 maximum donors to Donald Trump — the owner of @BillMillerBarBQ, owner of the @HistoricPearl, realtor Phyllis Browning, etc.
— Joaquin Castro (@Castro4Congress) August 6, 2019
Their contributions are fueling a campaign of hate that labels Hispanic immigrants as ‘invaders.’ pic.twitter.com/YT85IBF19u
MSNBC's Willie Geist to Joaquin Castro after he doxxed @realDonaldTrump supporters:
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 7, 2019
"These people are undoubtedly are already being harassed ... they will be because you put their names in public."
Castro later responds: "I didn't create the graphic."
Give me a break Castro. pic.twitter.com/XgBw8fkevA
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
President Trump's Statement on the Mass Shootings in Texas and Ohio (VIDEO)
At the White House page, "Remarks by President Trump on the Mass Shootings in Texas and Ohio."
What's Really Behind the 'White Supremacy' Terrorism Scare
Julie Kelly today at American Greatness with What’s Really Behind the ‘White Supremacy’ Terrorism Scare https://t.co/AAGEOGmfii pic.twitter.com/73L20945u9
— American Greatness (@theamgreatness) August 6, 2019
The anti-Trump forces, now stripped of their Russian collusion ammunition, have invented another imaginary threat they hope to weaponize against the president: The public menace posed by “white supremacist” terrorism.
Much like the collusion conspiracy theory—which relied on random incidents, fictional villains, unconvincing evidence, and the Bad Orange Man in the White House—there is little substance to this purported danger.
Unironically, the whole ruse is being pushed by the same people who foisted the Russian collusion hoax on the American people for three years in the hopes of prompting President Trump’s impeachment and removal. The political agenda behind this manufactured white supremacy crisis is equally sinister because its specific purpose is to influence and undermine the 2020 elections.
The “white supremacy” canard is intended to further demonize Trump; falsely defame his supporters as white supremacists; and pressure nervous voters into defeating Trump and Republican candidates next year. The strategy is as cynical as it is pernicious...
Sunday, August 4, 2019
8chan Founder Says 'Shut It Down'
Following-up, "El Paso Shooting Suspect Posted Online 'Manifesto' Decrying 'Ethnic Replacement' in the U.S. (VIDEO)," and "'Shitposting Nihilist Trolls' and the Lolz of the El Paso Shooting Massacre."
At the New York Times, "8chan Is a Megaphone for Gunmen. ‘Shut the Site Down,’ Says Its Creator":
I talked to the founder and former admin of 8chan this morning. He told me he wants the site to be shut down, after being involved in 3 mass shootings this year. https://t.co/tewgBEqYeF
— Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) August 4, 2019
Fredrick Brennan was getting ready for church at his home in the Philippines when the news of a mass shooting in El Paso arrived. His response was immediate and instinctive.
“Whenever I hear about a mass shooting, I say, ‘All right, we have to research if there’s an 8chan connection,’” he said.
Mr. Brennan started the online message board 8chan in 2013, as a spinoff of 4chan, the better-known message board. In its early years, the site was known as an unmoderated free-for-all site populated by anonymous posters, where shocking and offensive humor reigned.
Now, 8chan is known as something else: a megaphone for mass shooters, and a recruiting platform for violent white nationalists. And Mr. Brennan, who stopped working with the site’s current owner last year, is calling for it to be taken offline before it leads to further violence.
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“Shut the site down,” Mr. Brennan said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s not doing the world any good. It’s a complete negative to everybody except the users that are there. And you know what? It’s a negative to them, too. They just don’t realize it.”
So far this year, three mass shootings — El Paso, the mosque killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, and the synagogue shooting in Poway, Calif. — have been announced in advance on 8chan, often accompanied by racist writings that seem engineered to go viral on the internet.
Moments before the El Paso shooting on Saturday, a four-page message whose author identified himself as the suspected shooter appeared on 8chan’s politics board, known as /pol/. The person who posted the message encouraged his 8chan “brothers” to spread its contents far and wide.
Given its repeated involvement in mass shootings, 8chan has become a focal point for those seeking to disrupt the pathways of online extremism.
“8chan is almost like a bulletin board where the worst offenders go to share their terrible ideas,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. “It’s become a sounding board where people share ideas, and where these kinds of ideologies are amplified and expanded on, and ultimately, people are radicalized as a result.”
8chan has been run out of the Philippines by Jim Watkins, a United States Army veteran, since 2015, when Mr. Brennan gave up control of the site.
The site remains nearly completely unmoderated, and its commitment to keeping up even the most violent speech has made it a venue for extremists to test out ideas, share violent literature and cheer on the perpetrators of mass killings. Users on 8chan frequently lionize mass shooters using jokey internet vernacular, referring to their body counts as “high scores” and creating memes praising the killers.
Mr. Brennan, who has a condition known as brittle-bone disease and uses a wheelchair, has tried to distance himself from 8chan and its current owners. In a March interview with The Wall Street Journal, he expressed his regrets over his role in the site’s creation, and warned that the violent culture that had taken root on 8chan’s boards could lead to more mass shootings.
After the El Paso shooting, he seemed resigned to the fact that it had.
“Another 8chan shooting?” he tweeted on Saturday. “Am I ever going to be able to move on with my life?”
Mr. Watkins, who runs 8chan along with his son, Ronald, has remained defiant in the face of criticism, and has resisted calls to moderate or shut down the site. On Sunday, a banner at the top of 8chan’s home page read, “Welcome to 8chan, the Darkest Reaches of the Internet.”
“I’ve tried to understand so many times why he keeps it going, and I just don’t get it,” Mr. Brennan said. “After Christchurch, after the Tree of Life shooting, and now after this shooting, they think this is all really funny.”
Mr. Watkins did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
In the early days of 8chan, Mr. Brennan defended the right of 8chan users to post anonymously, without censorship. And he dismissed incidents of harassment or violence by users of the site as the price of being an open forum...
Jennifer Delacruz's Sunday Forecast
In any case, get out and enjoy your day. If you're in SoCal, stay cool indoors or go out to the pool with a cold drink. It's going to be a beautiful day.
And here's the beautiful Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Neera Tanden Trounced for Dancing on Graves, Campaigning for #Dems, After Mass Shootings
At Twitchy:
Never let a crisis go to WASTE --> Neera Tanden TROUNCED for dancing on El Paso/Dayton graves to campaign for Dems https://t.co/DYa5JklEoB
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 4, 2019
Never let a crisis go to waste, eh Neera? Instead of an intelligent conversation about what’s driving these shootings, who’s responsible, and how to stop them, why not attack your ideological opponents to score points?
— Tryx™️🌪 (@Tryxt3rocks) August 4, 2019
You don’t care about lives, you only care about power.
'Shitposting Nihilist Trolls' and the Lolz of the El Paso Shooting Masscre
‘Media and politicians DON’T get it’: Brian Cates’ thread on the gunman’s alleged ‘manifesto’ is a must read https://t.co/rSDkI6aykT— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) August 4, 2019
We’re now facing something new.— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
Before, a person intensely motivated by politics would write a manifesto to explain their reasons for resorting to violence.
Shitposting trolls on the chans aren’t trying to affect real political change.
The manifesto is PART of the trolling.
The **Antifa** guy from three weeks ago, now THAT was an old style attempt at a mass murder.— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
He left behind a rambling, disjointed manifesto enumerating political reasons for his attack on the ICE facility. https://t.co/ZDA16zeYhT
But something new has been added into the mix in the last year and we have to recognize it:— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) August 4, 2019
Mass shootings done for **fun** as the ultimate troll where these shitposters write confusing manifestos and then sit back & watch the fun as both sides claim he belongs to the other.
Trump Must Condemn 'White Nationalist Terrorism'
I’m going to agree here. But, if Trump denounces “White nationalist terrorism” blood thirsty #Democrats won’t be satisfied. That’s the problem when it all gets politicized. Double standards will get more people killed. 🤷♂️ #ElPaso #CieloVista #MassShooting #Walmart https://t.co/noG9uWz0jY
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2019
#Democrat Pete Buttigieg Warns Against the 'Domestic White Nationalist Terror' Threat (VIDEO)
Following-up, "Democrat Beto O'Rourke Politicizes Mass Slaughter at #CieloVista #Walmart in #ElPaso (VIDEO)."
Buttigieg, who otherwise often sounds reasonable, is pathetic and desperate here.
#Democrats in a race to demonize law-abiding citizens for the actions of an evil individual filled with racist hatred. STFU and fix your #Democrat thug-controlled cities before blaming #Republicans for this evil act. #ElPaso #CieloVista #MassShooting 🙏🤷♂️ https://t.co/zK4fypY6YJ
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2019
El Paso Shooting Suspect Posted Online 'Manifesto' Decrying 'Ethnic Replacement' in the U.S. (VIDEO)
And click through at Gateway Pundit to read the shooter's racist screed, which cites the New Zealand Christchurch massacre as inspiration: "El Paso Walmart Shooter Patrick Crusius Admits in Manifesto That he Chose a Gun-Free Zone for Obvious Reasons."
And at Russia Today (with the obvious caveats):
El Paso Shooting Suspect Could Face Death Penalty (VIDEO)
At the El Paso Times, "Capital murder charge filed, death penalty sought against man arrested in El Paso Walmart mass shooting."
Democrat Beto O'Rourke Politicizes Mass Slaughter at #CieloVista #Walmart in #ElPaso (VIDEO)
#Beto is really hitting the “blame Trump” talking points hard. Politicizing #ElPaso won’t turn out well for #Democrats, especially when the left’s inevitable gun confiscation propaganda goes into overdrive. #FakeNewsCNN #Dems #CieloVista #massShooting 🤷♂️— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2019
This is what I’m talking about. 🙄 #Beto https://t.co/vz1rjdWN7V #ElPasoShooting #CieloVista #MassShooting https://t.co/u1PLugKNXv— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) August 4, 2019
A tragedy like this is not an opportunity to reboot your failing presidential campaign.— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) August 4, 2019
This is disgusting and wrong.https://t.co/gHfPHx1Oet
Saturday, August 3, 2019
House Republicans Head for the Exits (VIDEO)
WASHINGTON — Imagine being swept out of power in Congress and relegated to the role of spectator and naysayer as your political opponents dictate the terms of legislative debate. Add in the specter of a painful slog to re-election, sharing the ticket with President Trump and being asked to answer daily for his every tweet and incendiary statement.
Now picture doing all of that only to risk landing in the minority again, possibly under the other party’s president.
Such is the plight of House Republicans contemplating whether to seek re-election in 2020, and the bleak outlook is taking its toll. A half-dozen Republican members of Congress have announced over the past two weeks that they will retire rather than face voters again next year, and more are expected to follow in the coming weeks, dealing an early setback to the party’s uphill battle to win back the House.
The rush for the exits is also providing evidence about how difficult the House Republican Conference is becoming for the few women and people of color who remain in it.
Among the retirements announced in the past week are Representatives Will Hurd of Texas, the only African-American Republican in the House, and Martha Roby of Alabama, one of only 13 Republican congresswomen. Representative Susan Brooks of Indiana, the head of recruitment for the party’s campaign committee, had been tasked with replenishing the ravaged ranks of Republican women; she announced in June that she would retire, an indication of the long odds of that effort.
“It’s a reflection of the pessimism Republicans feel about regaining the majority in 2020,” said David Wasserman, the House editor of the Cook Political Report, which tracks congressional races...
Olivia Brower Intimates (VIDEO)
Danielle Gersh's Saturday Forecast
Marianne Williamson (VIDEO)
At CNN and Real Time with Bill Maher:
BONUS: At Hot Air, "Bill Maher: All Democrats Need To Do To Win Is Not Be Crazy, And They Can’t Do It."
Georgia Police Officer Dragged (VIDEO)
At ABC World News Tonight:
Trump Targets Cities as Bastions of Crime, Poverty, and Corruption
At LAT, "It’s not just Baltimore; Trump is running against America’s cities":
.@Michael_Nutter told me efforts to demotivate black voters may do the opposite.
— Eli Stokols (@EliStokols) August 3, 2019
“In 2016, people just couldn’t believe that this kind of bizarro character had any possible chance.. Now, I think that folks’ eyes are wide open. People are fully woke.”https://t.co/2ZXkJb1JpQ
WASHINGTON — He was born in Queens and lives on Fifth Avenue. His skyscrapers dot city skylines on several continents. But President Trump is increasingly intent on disparaging urban areas, depicting them as blighted and overrun by criminals and homelessness — all part of a divisive reelection strategy heading into 2020.
Trump’s denigration of cities is part of an effort to animate a base of rural, mostly white supporters while depressing minority turnout in places like Milwaukee, Detroit and Philadelphia — a repeat of the two-pronged strategy that helped him to a surprising electoral college victory in 2016 and could be determinative again four years later.
“No one has paid a higher price for the far-left destructive agenda than Americans living in our nation’s inner cities,” Trump said Thursday night at a rally in Cincinnati, drawing cheers from the mostly white crowd. “We send billions and billions and billions for years and years, and it’s stolen money, and it’s wasted money.”
“For 100 years it’s been one party control, and look at them,” he continued. “We can name one after another, but I won’t do that because I don’t want to be controversial.”
In reality, the country’s largest urban areas are major engines of the national economy and generate more tax money than they receive from the federal government. By contrast, most rural areas receive more from Washington than they generate.
The president singled out California and two of its largest cities, commenting on a homelessness problem that he laid at the feet of the state’s leaders.
“Nearly half of all the homeless people living in the streets in America happen to live in the state of California. What they are doing to our beautiful California is a disgrace to our country. It’s a shame,” he said.
“Look at Los Angeles with the tents, and the horrible, horrible disgusting conditions. Look at San Francisco, look at some of your other cities,” Trump added.
Trump’s administration has not made homelessness a priority and has offered no new policy ideas for dealing with the problem.
After a skirmish in the crowd, as Trump supporters swarmed around a small group of protesters who had unfurled a sign that read “Immigrants Built America,” the president took the opportunity to punctuate his chosen message.
“Cincinnati, do you have a Democrat mayor?” Trump asked the crowd. “Well, that’s what happens.”
Last weekend, Trump tweeted more than 30 times about Baltimore, the nation’s 30th largest city, calling it a “very dangerous & filthy place” where “no human being would want to live.”
He blamed Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is investigating the administration on multiple fronts, and described his district, which includes parts of Baltimore as well as its suburbs, as a “disgusting, rat- and rodent-infested mess.”
A Trump campaign aide defended the president against critics who called those statements racist.
“It’s notable that no one has challenged the President’s descriptions of the problems in Baltimore and other cities. Critics would rather focus on the word ‘infested,’ which is the very same word Congressman Cummings used to describe his own city’s drug problems in a congressional hearing 20 years ago,” said Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for Trump’s reelection campaign.
“After all this time, why hasn’t it gotten better? It’s completely legitimate to call out the leadership in cities where conditions haven’t improved decade after decade.”
“When the nation and our economy are clearly on the right track, why would we turn the country over to the same political party whose ideas have failed so many of our city residents?” Murtaugh added, noting, as the president often does, that African-American unemployment is dropping.
While Trump avoided mentioning Cummings by name at the rally Thursday night, he did assert that Baltimore’s homicide rate was higher than several Central American countries...
Three Killed in #Encinitas Cliff Collapse (VIDEO)
At the San Diego Union-Tribune, "‘Normal beach day gone awry': 3 killed in Encinitas bluff collapse."
Laura Loomer to Run for Congress
The one real way to effect change is to get into the arena yourself. Even if you don't win, you raise the profile of the things that matter. You can effect change and move the agenda. Sometimes you don't win the first time, but House elections are every two years, and a lot changes.
At Washington Examiner, "Laura Loomer announces bid for Congress."
Laura Loomer (yes, Laura Loomer) announces her bid for Congress in Florida, challenging incumbent Democrat @RepLoisFrankel who ran unopposed in 2018. https://t.co/Eics3HDCWR
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) August 2, 2019
BREAKING: Laura Loomer is running for Congress in Florida's 21st Congressional district.
— Michael Coudrey (@MichaelCoudrey) August 2, 2019
If elected, she will likely be a very strong fighter against tech censorship on Capital Hill. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/ZwHo8mKUdX
Friday, August 2, 2019
Citizenship and American Identity
At City Journal, "If We Extend American Citizenship to Everyone in the World, Can We Still Be a Country?":
Citizenship and American Identity: If we extend the designation to everyone in the world, how can we still be a country? https://t.co/uAYlbsWsEe pic.twitter.com/Gs3kyMiyu3— City Journal (@CityJournal) August 2, 2019
And ICYMI, Andrew Sullivan's must read on Democrat immigration proposals, "Democrats Offering a Great Deal to People Who Aren't Americans."
Megan Parry's Friday Forecast
You should be at the beach!
Here's the wonderful Ms. Megan, for ABC News 10 San Diego:
Saoirse Kennedy Hill, Robert F. Kennedy Granddaughter, Dead of Drug Overdose (VIDEO)
It's indeed a curse on the Kennedy family, man.
At the New York Post, "Saoirse Kennedy Hill is latest victim of the ‘Kennedy curse’."
And NYT:
Some sad news:
— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) August 2, 2019
RFK’s granddaughter, Saoirse Hill, overdosed today on Cape Cod. She was 22.
Her death comes 50 years after Chappaquidick and 20 years after JFK Jr died in a plane crash. https://t.co/7X1BlNrItp
“Our hearts are shattered by the loss of our beloved Saoirse,” the family of Saoirse Kennedy Hill, who died on Thursday, said in a statement. “Her life was filled with hope, promise and love.” https://t.co/cTgMMJYzku
— NYT National News (@NYTNational) August 2, 2019
Kourtney Kardashian Posing in a Pool
Democrats Put Private Health Insurance Up for 'Debate'
At LAT, "News Analysis: Democrats ask if Americans are ready to give up job-based health coverage":
Voters have repeatedly punished both Democrats and Republicans who've threatened to take away their health coverage, no matter how flawed it is. Are Dems ready to risk trying again? https://t.co/thjrXEdzsB
— Noam Levey (@NoamLevey) August 2, 2019
WASHINGTON — Sharp disagreements among the presidential hopefuls at this week’s debates have crystallized a critical and explosive political question: Are Democrats willing to upend health coverage for tens of millions of their fellow Americans?Still more.
The party is closer than it’s been in decades to embracing a healthcare platform that would move all Americans out of their current insurance and into a single government-run plan.
Plans pushed by three of the four leading candidates — Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California — differ in their particulars but would all end the job-based system that provides coverage to more than 150 million people.
That’s a hugely risky strategy, as more-centrist rivals reminded the three senators during the two nights of heated, sometimes confusing, debates.
Sweeping healthcare plans have never fared well in American politics.
For decades, voters repeatedly have punished presidents and Congresses — Democratic and Republican alike — who have threatened to take away existing health plans, no matter how flawed.
Just last year, the GOP suffered historic losses in the House of Representatives after the party’s unsuccessful effort to roll back the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
But at a time when rising insurance deductibles and medical bills are crippling growing numbers of American families, many Democrats on the party’s left believe public discontent with the current system has changed that dynamic.
“It’s time that we separate employers from the kind of healthcare people get,” Harris said Wednesday night, acknowledging that her “Medicare for all” plan would, after a lengthy phase-in period, end job-based insurance.
Harris, Sanders and Warren have made Medicare for all a central plank of their campaigns, riding a wave of discontent over rising medical costs to call for a historic expansion of government insurance.
Their more-moderate rivals say the three have misjudged the public mood and that by overreaching, they would squander an opportunity to enact significant, if incremental, reforms.
A survey earlier this year by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that support for a single government plan fell from 56% to 37% when respondents were told that it might involve eliminating private insurance companies or requiring more taxes.
“It doesn’t make sense for us to take away insurance from half the people in this room,” warned Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is among many Democratic presidential candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who back more limited approaches.
The more-centrist Democrats would preserve the current employer-based system, as well as state Medicaid programs and the insurance marketplaces created by the 2010 healthcare law.
They would add an additional choice to allow Americans to buy into a Medicare-like government plan, often called a “public option.”
“Every single person in America would be able to buy into that option if they didn’t like their employer plan,” Biden said Wednesday.
Critics on the left say that approach would ultimately cost more and would preserve an outsized role for private insurance companies.
“We have tried this experiment with the insurance companies,” Warren said from the debate stage Tuesday. “And what they’ve done is they’ve sucked billions of dollars out of our healthcare system. And they force people to have to fight to try to get the healthcare coverage that their doctors and nurses say that they need.”
But threatening Americans’ current health coverage has proved disastrous for previous Democratic efforts to expand protections, including President Clinton’s doomed initiative in the early 1990s.
The 2010 healthcare law was almost sunk by labor unions angry about a new tax on the kind of generous health plans many of their members enjoy.
And even though the law was designed to have minimal impact on the existing insurance system, President Obama faced a firestorm when a few million people found their health plans canceled after new rules took effect requiring plans to offer more-comprehensive benefits.
“Traditionally, fear of losing benefits — however flawed they may be — trumps hope of getting something better,” said Chris Jennings, an influential Washington health policy advisor who worked for Clinton and Obama...
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Kamala's Rough Night (VIDEO)
At the Washington Examiner:
NEW FROM ME: Tulsi Gabbard just humiliated Kamala Harris in front of 10 million peoplehttps://t.co/Che1czChA1
— Brad Polumbo (@brad_polumbo) August 1, 2019