A Diminished Trump Meets a Damning Narrative

At the New York Times, "Former President Donald Trump’s current woes extend beyond the report by the House Jan. 6 committee, but the case the panel laid out against him further complicates his future":

As the summer and the House Jan. 6 committee’s hearings began, former President Donald J. Trump was still a towering figure in Republican politics, able to pick winners in primary contests and force candidates to submit to a litmus test of denialism about his loss in the 2020 election.

Six months later, Mr. Trump is significantly diminished, a shrunken presence on the political landscape. His fade is partly a function of his own missteps and miscalculations in recent months. But it is also a product of the voluminous evidence assembled by the House committee and its ability to tell the story of his efforts to overturn the election in a compelling and accessible way.

In ways both raw and easily digested, and with an eye for vivid detail, the committee spooled out the episodic narrative of a president who was told repeatedly he had lost and that his claims of fraud were fanciful. But Mr. Trump continued pushing them anyway, plotted to reverse the outcome, stoked the fury of his supporters, summoned them to Washington and then stood by as the violence played out.

It was a turnabout in roles for a president who rose first to prominence and then to the White House on the basis of his feel for how to project himself on television.

Guided by a veteran television executive, the committee sprinkled the story with moments that stayed in the public consciousness, from Mr. Trump throwing his lunch in anger against the wall of the dining room just off the Oval Office to a claim that he lunged at a Secret Service agent driving his car when he was denied his desire to join his supporters at the Capitol.

On Monday — the second anniversary of Mr. Trump’s Twitter post urging his followers to come to Washington to protest his loss, promising it “will be wild!” — the committee wrapped up its case by lending the weight of the House to calls for Mr. Trump to be held criminally liable for his actions and making the case that he should never again be allowed to hold power...

That's what it's all about. That's always been what it's all about. 

 

Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia

This man is an incredible historian.

Check it out, at Amazon, Orlando Figes, The Story of Russia.

L.A.'s P-22 Has Been Put Down

The coolest cougar, the most obstreperous mountain lion to walk the hills of Los Angeles --- if not the only one to walk the hills of Los Angeles!

People are literally bawling over the death of this animal. 

At the Los Angeles Times, "P-22, L.A. celebrity mountain lion, euthanized due to severe injuries."

P-22 on the front page of today’s @latimes, in the photo that made him famous.

My obituary with @JamesQueallyLAT: https://t.co/Mg9ct3NeTL pic.twitter.com/Xt4i2pTppG

— Laura J. Nelson 🦅 (@laura_nelson) December 18, 2022

We are deeply saddened by the news of the passing of P-22, L.A.’s beloved mountain lion. We were just informed that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife made the difficult decision to euthanize him due to the serious injuries he suffered earlier in the week. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/2ZX7HYR0J7

— Natural History Museum of L.A. County (@NHMLA) December 17, 2022

We join our partners, friends, and community members here in Los Angeles, and around the world, in remembering mountain lion P-22: https://t.co/XOC1XCbico

Goodbye, P-22. Your scientific legacy will live on.

Photo by Steve Winter pic.twitter.com/4ZfISqgjF3

— Santa Monica Mtns (@SantaMonicaMtns) December 17, 2022

Another Veronica

Following-up from last night, Veronika.

Here's Veronica Bielik, on Instagram (smokin' on Instagram, dang!). 

'Into You Like a Train'

The Psychedelic Furs, live from 1981:

Antisemitism Is Rising at Colleges, and Jewish Students Are Facing Growing Hostility

Yes, and it ain't "right-wing" antisemitism.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Some students report being spat upon and harassed, while some campus groups have forced out those who support Israel":

Some college students say they have started hiding their Jewish identity in fear of rising antisemitism. “We have basically been shunned.” https://t.co/ibsI06h6xa

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 14, 2022

Adina Pinsker commutes to Rutgers University in Newark, N.J., to study supply-chain management. She is also active in Hillel International, the nation’s largest collegiate Jewish organization.

When she arrives on campus, she takes an indirect route to class and tucks inside her shirt the silver Star of David she wears around her neck. These are precautions, she said, to avoid harassment from students who dislike Israel, the people who support it, or both.

“We have basically been shunned,” said Ms. Pinsker, who said she has been subject to derogatory remarks about her beliefs.

Ms. Pinsker’s actions are emblematic of rising fear among some Jewish college students around the country, who have begun shrouding their religious identity and political beliefs to avoid growing ostracism and harassment, according to interviews with dozens of students.

College campuses have long hosted heated debates about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But now, students say anti-Jewish antagonism is on the rise: Antisemitic incidents have increased, and a growing number of campus groups bar students who support Israel from speaking or joining.

Hostility, including vandalism, threats and slurs toward Jewish students on college campuses increased more than threefold to 155 incidents in 2021 from 47 in 2014, according to the Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish civil rights organization which has tracked reports of such behavior since 2014. The group counted 2,717 antisemitic incidents in the U.S. overall last year, up 34% from 2020 and the highest number in its records dating to 1979.

Students at schools including the University of Vermont, Wellesley College and DePaul University have ejected Jewish students who support Israel from clubs and study groups, according to interviews with affected students.

Students at Tufts University, University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles tried to prevent Jewish classmates from serving in student government or attempted to remove them from positions in student government because of their support of Israel, according to students, administrators and campus news reports.

The uptick in incidents and tension on some campuses comes amid a string of recent high-profile controversies that have drawn renewed attention to antisemitism. This month Twitter suspended the account of rapper and entrepreneur Kanye West—who now goes by the name Ye—after he tweeted to his 32 million followers an image of a swastika merged with the Star of David, weeks after he tweeted: “I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.”

On campus, students say that stereotypical antisemitic slurs are directed at Jews, but that much of the hostility derives from growing criticism of Israel’s handling of its political and military conflict with Palestinians over land rights. Jewish students say harassment often compounds when criticism of Israel increases.

Most American Jews feel an attachment to Israel, though many are critical of the Israeli government, according to a 2021 survey from the Pew Research Center.

Some of the conflict on campus stems from competing definitions of antisemitism and anti-Zionism and whether they overlap.

Anti-Zionism is a political position distinct from antisemitism, which is a prejudice, said Dylan Saba, an attorney with New York-based Palestine Legal, which works to support the civil and constitutional rights of people in the U.S. who advocate for Palestinians. The two are conflated by supporters of Israel to discredit critics, he said.

Condemning Israel may make some Jewish students feel uncomfortable, but that doesn’t mean it is antisemitic, he said. “All we are asking for is equal rights,” he said...

Bullshit. 

Anti-Zionism is anti-Israel is antisemitic. Full stop. "From the desert to the sea, Palestine will be free" means wiping Israel --- and all its Jewish citizens --- off the face of the map.

It's easy to prove, too. Just walk up to any pro-Palestine student organization --- literally in any college campus in America --- and ask its leaders if they support Hamas. In my experience they will not answer. Not only that, in my case, they'll call the police on you. 

Race for the Next RNC Chair Gets Ugly

Ronna McDaniel's performance as party chair since 2016 has been pathetic. I don't think about it that much, but with Harmeet Dhillon in the race with a bulldog campaign to replace her, one takes notice.

At the Associated Press, "Inside the ugly fight to become the next Republican chair."

And on Fox News with Laura Ingraham:

The Obligatory Taylor Lorenz Suspended From Twitter Post

Lorenz is headlining on Memeorandum. 

She long ago blocked me, but it's not hard to find out what evils she's up to on the platform. 

Elon's suspended her. Haven't heard yet if it's a permanent ban, but if anyone deserves it, it's Lorenz. 

Too bad, though, because apparently she's been reinstated. 

At Fox News, "Taylor Lorenz suspended from Twitter, claims Elon Musk personally removed her from platform: Elon Musk recently suspended several journalists before restoring their accounts."

Her message to followers before the reinstatement, full of self-aggrandizement and unearned self-importance. Gawd:

Presstitutes https://t.co/mtFqUEuUX6

— 🍁 Bean 🍁 (@BeanFromPA) December 18, 2022

Christmas Shopping

Check out all the sales, at Amazon.

BONUS: Husqvarna 570BTS powerful X-Torq engine, 65.6 cm³ Speed Backpack Blower.

Max Hastings, Vietnam

At Amazon, Max Hastings, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975.

The Most Empty Downtown in America

The nation's most empty downtown? That would be San Francisco's. 

Michelle Tandler frequently talks about this on Twitter.

And now at the New York Times, "What Comes Next for the Most Empty Downtown in America":

What Comes Next for the Most Empty Downtown in America - The New York Times https://t.co/UP3hmmSwEZ

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) December 17, 2022

Tech workers are still at home. The $17 salad place is expanding into the suburbs. So what is left in San Francisco?

The coffee rush. The lunch rush. The columns of headphone-equipped tech workers rushing in and out of train stations. The lanyard-wearing visitors who crowded the sidewalks when a big conference was in town.

There was a time three years ago when a walk through downtown San Francisco was a picture of what it meant for a city to be economically successful. Take the five-minute jaunt from the office building at 140 New Montgomery Street to a line-out-the-door salad shop nearby.

The 26-story building, an Art Deco landmark that was once the tallest in the city, began its life as the headquarters for the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Company. Decades later, it served as the home of the local search company Yelp. The nearby salad store was part of a fast-growing chain called Mixt.

Yelp and Mixt had little more than proximity in common, which at that time was enough. Yelp was an idea that became billions of dollars in value on the internet. Mixt was a booming business serving lunchtime salads to the workers who traveled on electrified trains and skateboards to their jobs in downtown cubicles.

Their virtuous cycle of nearness, of new ideas becoming new companies, feeding other ideas that become other companies, was the template for urban growth. Businesses like Yelp took root in the high-energy, high-density city; chains like Mixt flourished alongside them as their workers ventured out for lunch. As downtowns have emptied out, their once-symbiotic relationship is coming undone.

“This area was always packed with people,” recalled Maria Cerros-Mercado, a Mixt manager who built her career in food service downtown. “People would get off the BART, buy coffee, buy this, buy that. There was always just so much walking.”

Today San Francisco has what is perhaps the most deserted major downtown in America. On any given week, office buildings are at about 40 percent of their prepandemic occupancy, while the vacancy rate has jumped to 24 percent from 5 percent since 2019. Occupancy of the city’s offices is roughly 7 percentage points below that of those in the average major American city, according to Kastle, the building security firm.

More ominous for the city is that its downtown business district — the bedrock of its economy and tax base — revolves around a technology industry that is uniquely equipped and enthusiastic about letting workers stay home indefinitely. In the space of a few months, Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executive of Yelp, went from running a company that was rooted in the city to vacating Yelp’s longtime headquarters and allowing its roughly 4,400 employees to work from anywhere in their country...

 

Veronika

This is the smokin' hottie who wants to marry Tom Brady. See, "Model Veronika Rajek gushes over Tom Brady after wild post-divorce win."

Maybe he should give her a tryout, IYKWIMAITYD. (*Wink.*)

On Instagram.

Totem Electric Bike for Adults 26”

I appreciate those who've made purchases through my Amazon links. 

Keep shopping! Nine days left till Christmas! 

Check it out: Totem Electric Bike for Adults 26”, Electric Mountain Bicycle 350W Motor, 20MPH Victor 2.0 with 36V 10.4Ah Removable Battery, E-MTB with Shimano 21 Speed Gears, Upgraded Adjustable stem.

Americans Expect Worsening U.S. Economy in 2023, WSJ Poll Finds

Well, Goldman-Sachs will layoff "thousands," and will deny bonuses to "underperforming employees," whatever that means (completely arbitrary?). 

So, it's not looking like a great holiday season for many American workers. 

I'm not getting laid-off, thank goodness. 

Be kind to your neighbors out there, and perhaps say a pray for the less fortunate (or hand 'em some cash while they're out panhandling on the median at the traffic light, *sigh*).

At the Wall Street Journal, "Over a third of voters say inflation is causing them major financial strain":

A majority of voters think the economy will be in worse shape in 2023 than it is now and roughly two-thirds say the nation’s economic trajectory is headed in the wrong direction, the latest Wall Street Journal poll shows.

The survey, conducted Dec. 3-7, suggests a recent burst of positive economic news—moderating gas prices and a slowing pace of inflation—haven’t altered the way many feel about the risk of a recession, something many economists have forecast as likely.

“I just think we are headed toward a recession and it could be a pretty big one,” said Republican poll participant David Rennie, a 61-year-old retired executive with the Boy Scouts of America who lives in Shelton, Conn. “Interest rates are skyrocketing and that’s going to take us down.”

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday approved an interest-rate increase of 0.5 percentage point and signaled plans to keep raising rates at its next few meetings to combat high inflation. The move reflected some moderation after four consecutive increases of 0.75 point.

Economic pessimism is strongest among Republicans, with 83% expecting the economy to worsen. Slightly more than half of independents feel that way, while 22% of Democrats do.

“Our economic diagnostics have become partisan,” said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. “If there was a Republican president, we might see the reverse.”

Mr. Fabrizio said Democrats aren’t paying as much of a political price as one might expect for so many people having negative feelings about the economy. “You would normally see that translate into being bad news for the Democrats,” he said.

Democrats did better than expected in last month’s midterm elections, keeping control of the Senate while losing the House by a narrower margin than nonpartisan analysts forecast...

After this last election, it's pretty clear that the old standard of economic indicators is not what voters are basing the electoral decisions on. If it were otherwise, we'd see big Republican majorities in both chambers of Congress come January 3rd. Nothing that I can see foretells a weakening of the hateful partisanship that's driving the current political scene. If anything, things will get worse. While Elon's takeover of Twitter is great for owning the libs, if you look at the reaction on the left --- the fanatical, practically murderous reaction --- it's a safe bet that 2024's going to be as nasty as ever.

There's more at the link, in any case. 

Andrew Marantz, Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation

At Amazon, Andrew Marantz, Antisocial: Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.

Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth

At Amazon, Jonathan Crary, Scorched Earth: Beyond the Digital Age to a Post-Capitalist World.

Sofia Bevarly

Dream woman, on Instagram.

Women and Trans Students Fear Harassment and Hate at California State University’s Maritime Academy

If true, it's wrong. Very wrong. Because it feeds into stupid leftist memes that degenerate trans people are the greatest victims of hate crimes in the history of the world. 

Just leave people the fuck alone. If you don't like them, fight their agenda through the political process. Sheesh.

At the Los Angeles Times, "‘Always have a knife with you’: Women and trans students fear harassment, hate at CSU campus":

MORROW COVE, Calif. — The outrage and frustration had been building for years at California State University’s Maritime Academy, an elite training ground for students bound for work on the sea. It reached a peak last year, when student cadets publicly confronted the school’s president, a retired rear admiral.

Dozens of cadets gathered on the Quad that day to protest what they said was widespread sexual misconduct, racism and hostility toward women and transgender and nonbinary students.

One student told President Thomas Cropper that a male classmate sexually harassed her. Another accused administrators of failing to adequately discipline cadets who exchanged messages disparaging trans people as “fags” and comparing them to a castrated dog.

The reckoning in November 2021 exposed what students have long discussed among themselves at the school, one of seven maritime academies in the United States and the only one of its kind on the West Coast.

Long-standing claims of sexual harassment and misconduct, homophobia, transphobia and racism on campus and during training cruises have roiled Cal Maritime and triggered an atmosphere of dread for many students, a Times investigation has found.

One woman told The Times she was raped by a male classmate and dropped out earlier this year to avoid facing her alleged attacker while a campus investigation has dragged on for months.

A cadet discovered their motorcycle tires slashed and the word “dike” carved into the gas tank. Another student said she now carries a knife for protection after a cadet tried to coerce her into having sex.

And a university official who sent out a campus email demanding that the school do more to combat hate and racism found herself the subject of discipline — for unauthorized use of school email.

The accusations at the 800-student campus on San Francisco Bay are yet another crisis for the California State University system, which has been rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct and retaliation, sparking calls for reforms and leading to the resignation of top executives.

Times investigations earlier this year found breakdowns and inconsistencies in the way that campuses in the nation’s largest public four-year university system handle sexual misconduct and retaliation claims.

Until now, Cal Maritime, the smallest and most insular of the CSU campuses, has escaped the public scrutiny that has roiled other schools in the system. One reason is that the school prepares cadets, as they are called, for careers in the maritime industry, and some fear formally reporting misconduct will damage their future job prospects, according to students, faculty and alumni.

Cropper did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this report. Two weeks after Times reporters visited his campus office this fall to seek an interview, he announced that he would step down in August. He said he made the decision in the summer.

Cal Maritime said in statements that top administrators have “strongly and repeatedly denounced” misconduct and contend that they have taken a variety of actions to combat the problems. They said the school improved the complaint reporting process by hiring two consultants, increased campus wide training on sexual harassment and how to report misconduct, hired a full-time advocate for victims, hosted campus forums and opened a community center that serves as a “welcoming place for cadets to gather and study.”

Other university promises have gone unfulfilled...

 

A Fast-Growing Network of Conservative Groups Is Fueling a Surge in Book Bans

Good.

It's not like they're banning A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or To Kill a Mockingbird.

We're talking about perverted, nasty stuff that's powering the left's child-grooming pipeline.

At the New York Times, "Some groups are new, some are longstanding. Some are local, others national. Over the past two years, they have become vastly more organized, well funded, effective — and criticized":

The Keller Independent School District, just outside of Dallas, passed a new rule in November: It banned books from its libraries that include the concept of gender fluidity.

The change was pushed by three new school board members, elected in May with support from Patriot Mobile, a self-described Christian cellphone carrier. Through its political action committee, Patriot Mobile poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Texas school board races to promote candidates with conservative views on race, gender and sexuality — including on which books children can access at school.

Traditionally, debates over what books are appropriate for school libraries have taken place between a concerned parent and a librarian or administrator, and resulted in a single title or a few books being re-evaluated, and either removed or returned to shelves.

But recently, the issue has been supercharged by a rapidly growing and increasingly influential constellation of conservative groups. The organizations frequently describe themselves as defending parental rights. Some are new and others are longstanding, but with a recent focus on books. Some work at the district and state level, others have national reach. And over the past two years or so, they have grown vastly more organized, interconnected, well funded — and effective.

The groups have pursued their goals by becoming heavily involved in local and state politics, where Republican efforts have largely outmatched liberal organizations in many states for years. They have created political action committees, funded campaigns, endorsed candidates and packed school boards, helping to fuel a surge in challenges to individual books and to drive changes in the rules governing what books are available to children.

“This is not about banning books, it’s about protecting the innocence of our children,” said Keith Flaugh, one of the founders of Florida Citizens Alliance, a conservative group focused on education, “and letting the parents decide what the child gets rather than having government schools indoctrinate our kids.”

The materials the groups object to are often described in policies and legislation as sensitive, inappropriate or pornographic. In practice, the books most frequently targeted for removal have been by or about Black or L.G.B.T.Q. people, according to the American Library Association. In Texas, 11 school board candidates backed by Patriot Mobile Action, the political action committee formed by the cellphone company, won in four districts this year, including Keller. The committee’s aim is to eliminate “critical race theory” and “L.G.B.T.Q. indoctrination” from schools, Leigh Wambsganss, its executive director, said on Steve Bannon’s show, “War Room.”

Even books without sexual content can be problematic if they include L.G.B.T.Q. characters, because they are “sexualizing children,” she said: “It is normalizing a lifestyle that is a sexual choice.”

“Those kinds of lifestyles,” she added, shouldn’t “be forced down the throats of families who don’t agree.”

By August, about three months after the new members were seated, the Keller school board had restricted or prohibited books containing profanity, violence, sex scenes or nudity. These changes resulted in the removal of at least 20 books from the district’s schools, including Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and several young adult novels with L.G.B.T.Q. characters, like Adam Silvera’s “More Happy Than Not.”

In November, the board added the ban on books that refer to gender fluidity. Laney Hawes, who has four children in Keller schools, was there that day. She and some other parents felt outflanked, she said, by deep-pocketed organizations whose actions can change longstanding policies in a matter of months.

“They ran on the campaign of, ‘We’re going to get pornography and sexually explicit books out of our school libraries,’” Ms. Hawes said. “The parents didn’t have a PAC. We couldn’t compete with these people.”

Individuals and groups opposing book restrictions say crafting a national response is difficult, since policies are set locally. But some are pushing back. The restrictions, said Emerson Sykes, a First Amendment litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union, infringe on students’ “right to access a broad range of material without political censorship.”

The A.C.L.U and other advocacy groups filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Keller school district, arguing that banning books about gender fluidity creates “a pervasively hostile atmosphere for L.G.B.T.Q.+ students.”

Librarians in Texas formed Freadom Fighters, an organization that offers guidance to librarians on handling book challenges. In Florida, parents who oppose book banning formed the Freedom to Read Project, which urges its members to attend board meetings and tracks the work of groups like Florida Citizens Alliance.

“We’re trying to document the censorship movement,” said Stephana Ferrell, one of the founders of Freedom to Read. “They don’t want to use the word ‘ban.’ Instead they remove, relocate, restrict — all these other words that aren’t ‘ban.’ But it’s a ban.”

According to a recent report from the free speech organization PEN America, there are at least 50 groups across the country working to remove books they object to from libraries. Some have seen explosive growth recently: Of the 300 chapters that PEN tracked, 73 percent were formed after 2020.

The growth comes, in part, from the rise of “parental rights” organizations during the pandemic. Formed to fight Covid restrictions in schools, some groups adopted a broader conservative agenda focused on opposing instruction on race, gender and sexuality, and on removing books they regard as inappropriate.

Other groups, like Florida Citizens Alliance, have been around for years. Established in 2013, the alliance has longstanding ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis: Its co-founders, Mr. Flaugh and Pastor Rick Stevens, served on the DeSantis transition committee. The group also has partnerships with over 100 other groups, including Moms for Liberty and Americans for Prosperity Florida, a local branch of a national group founded by the billionaires Charles and David Koch.

Five years ago, Mr. Flaugh and Pastor Stevens helped draft a bill that gave all county residents, not just parents, the power to challenge a book in a school district. Opponents say it contributed to waves of book challenges. The bill’s supporters, however, say local tax dollars fund the school system, so all residents have a right to influence how that money is spent.

“They’re the ones that pay for it,” said Representative Byron Donalds, who co-sponsored the bill when he was in the Florida Legislature...

Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison's book are for mature audiences, no doubt. But these groups should shy away from banning the classics and stick to banning the left's despicable LBGTQIA+ groomer literature. It's disgusting.

 

Ron DeSantis Holds Early Lead Over Donald Trump Among GOP Primary Voters, WSJ Poll Shows (VIDEO)

He's seen on Laura Ingraham's last night, below, and at the Wall Street Journal, "The former president’s standing among Republican voters has fallen after candidates he promoted lost in midterm elections":

Republican primary voters have high interest in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as a potential 2024 presidential nominee and view him more favorably than they do former President Donald Trump, a new Wall Street Journal poll shows.

In a hypothetical contest between the two, Mr. DeSantis beats Mr. Trump, 52% to 38%, among likely GOP primary voters contemplating a race in which the first nomination votes will be cast in just over a year.

The poll found that Mr. DeSantis is both well-known and well-liked among Republicans who say they are likely to vote in a party primary or nominating contest, with 86% viewing the Florida governor favorably, compared with 74% who hold a favorable view of Mr. Trump. One in 10 likely GOP primary voters said they didn’t know enough about Mr. DeSantis to venture an opinion of him.

Among all registered voters, Mr. DeSantis is viewed favorably by 43%, compared with 36% for the former president. Favorable views of Mr. Trump were the lowest recorded in Journal polling dating to November 2021 and have been pulled down by a decline in positive feelings among Republicans. Since March, his favorable rating among GOP voters has fallen to 74% from 85%, while the share who view him unfavorably has risen to 23% from 13%.

The decline in Mr. Trump’s standing among GOP voters follows midterm election losses that some in the party have attributed to his significant involvement in candidate endorsements and promotion during the primary process.

Democrats had a net gain of two governorships and one Senate seat, while limiting their House losses to single digits, despite high inflation and with an unpopular president leading their party. The result bucked a historical pattern in which the party that holds the White House almost always suffers a double-digit loss of seats in the House during a president’s first term.

Mr. Trump is the only Republican who has announced a 2024 presidential bid, although others are expected to do so in the coming months. If Mr. DeSantis decides to run, aides have said he isn’t likely to announce a White House campaign until after Florida’s legislative session ends in May.

Mr. DeSantis has become a formidable force in politics, winning a second term last month in a landslide—by 19 percentage points—reflecting big gains in support in Florida since his first election, by less than half a percentage point, to the governor’s office in 2018...

 

Bruce Kuklick, Fascism Comes to America

At Amazon, Bruce Kuklick, Fascism Comes to America: A Century of Obsession in Politics and Culture.

Biden Trades a Terrorist Gun-Dealer Who Plotted to Kill Americans to Get Back Drug Smoking WNBA Flake; Gives Up Trying to Get Back the Marine Russia's Kept in Prison for Four Years

Previously: "American Brittney Griner Released in Prisoner Swap."

And quite something of a follow-up, at AoSHQ, "Biden's bragging that he got back a woman who is important to his key constituencies of LGBT Activists and CRT Grievance Stokers and literally no one else ... The Great Diplomat is less forthcoming about the man he's putting on a plane in exchange for this pothead scofflaw."

How Trump and MAGA Allies Are Defending Violent Jan. 6th Rioters

From Amanda Carpenter, at the Bulwark, "He says he’s sticking with them—and he hopes they’ll stick with him."

And from Charles Sykes, yesterday, a humdinger, "So Much #Losing: Down goes Herschel."

They Lived Together, Worked Together and Lost Billions Together: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Doomed FTX Empire

At the Wall Street Journal, "The emerging picture of what went wrong suggests the crypto empire was a mess almost from the start, with few boundaries, financial or personal":

NASSAU, Bahamas—Sam Bankman-Fried’s $32 billion crypto-trading empire collapsed in an incandescent bankruptcy last week, prompting irate customers, crypto acolytes and Silicon Valley bigwigs to ask how something that seemed so promising could have imploded so fast.

The emerging picture suggests FTX wasn’t simply felled by a rival, or undone by a bad trade or the relentless fall this year in the value of cryptocurrencies. Instead, it had long been a chaotic mess. From its earliest days, the firm was an unruly agglomeration of corporate entities, customer assets and Mr. Bankman-Fried himself, according to court papers, company balance sheets shown to bankers and interviews with employees and investors. No one could say exactly what belonged to whom. Prosecutors are now investigating its collapse.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s companies had neither accounting nor functioning human-resources departments, according to a filing in federal court by the executive brought in to shepherd FTX through bankruptcy. Corporate money was used to buy real estate, but records weren’t kept. There wasn’t even a roster of employees, to say nothing of the terms of their employment. Bankruptcy filings say one entity’s outstanding loans include at least $1 billion to Mr. Bankman-Fried personally and $543 million to a top lieutenant.

The lives of the people who ran FTX and its related companies were similarly blurred. Ten of them lived and worked together in a $30 million penthouse at an upscale resort in the Bahamas. The hours were punishing, and the lines between work and play were hard to discern. Romantic relationships among Mr. Bankman-Fried’s upper echelon were common, as was use of stimulants, according to former employees.

Mr. Bankman-Fried, 30 years old, kept a hectic schedule, toggling between six screens and getting by on a few hours of sleep a day. He was at times romantically involved with Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old CEO of his trading firm, Alameda Research, according to former employees.

“Nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is,” Ms. Ellison once tweeted. A lawyer for Ms. Ellison declined to comment. To the outside world, Mr. Bankman-Fried was the mayor of cryptoland, the man charged with convincing lawmakers, investors and enthusiasts that he’d built a new kind of finance. He urged Congress and regulators to approve his model for crypto trading. On his cryptocurrency trading exchange, FTX, positions and risk were cross-checked by computers, and algorithms would react within milliseconds to protect bad trades from spilling over to hurt other customers, he said. On Twitter, he admonished competitors for practices he called unsafe.

But behind the scenes, Mr. Bankman-Fried was taking huge risks himself. Though he said publicly that Alameda was just a regular user on the exchange, the firm ran up a bill of $8 billion buying stakes in startups, trading on credit that no other user could get. Much of that money, much of which belonged to FTX’s customers, is likely gone.

FTX’s swift collapse—it went from paragon to bankrupt in just over a week—has renewed questions about crypto’s viability, its unregulated status and how so many well-heeled investors could have been misled for so long. Investors have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into digital currencies in recent years. Staid financial institutions were finally getting in on the action, too.

The executive tapped to guide Mr. Bankman-Fried’s companies through bankruptcy said the state of FTX’s affairs was the biggest mess he had seen in a decadeslong career that includes unwinding the accounting scandal that was Enron Corp. In a court filing he said many of the firm’s records of its digital assets seemed to be missing or incomplete; in many cases, he was unable to locate relevant bank accounts.

In last week’s bankruptcy papers, a Kenya-based money-transfer company was listed as an FTX entity. That surprised its CEO, Elizabeth Rossiello.

In a 2021 financial report, FTX said it had agreed to buy her company for about $220 million. FTX never did. There was no agreement, at any price, said Ms. Rossiello. “We were going to be their exclusive partner in Africa,” she said, nothing more.

“From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented,” John J. Ray III said in court papers.

A full accounting of what went wrong at FTX is likely months away, but a reconstruction of what the firm did and how its executives operated makes plain its public image—a team of brilliant quants bringing a sophisticated, digital approach to risk—was a mirage.

Mr. Bankman-Fried has blamed the misuse of customer funds on sloppy record-keeping and a flood of unexpected customer withdrawals...

Still lots more.

 

Corinna

On Instagram, with 6.9 million followers!

American Brittney Griner Released in Prisoner Swap

American Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine imprisoned four years at some remote penal colony in outback Russia, was left behind.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Brittney Griner freed from Russian penal colony in high-level prisoner swap."

And at the New York Times, "Brittney Griner's Release Puts a Spotlight on Paul Whelan."

Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept

Gordon W. Prange, At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor.

Anniversary of Pearl Harbor Attack, December 7th, 1941 (VIDEO)

Today's an important day, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, December 7, 1941. The U.S. declared war on Japan the next day, and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany declared war on the U.S. three days after that. 

See, from 2016, "Pearl Harbor’s 75th Anniversary: A Look Back at the Attack."

Please take the time and watch the video below, featuring U.S. Air Force Captain Jerry Yellin, who flew the last combat mission of World War II. In later life, he reconciled with the Japanese and at home he worked on various causes to support American veterans of foreign wars, especially those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Yellen passed away in 2017 at the age of 93. Yellen, and men like him, are the last of a dying breed --- patriotic Americans who volunteered for military service to defend their country, and they were just boys, teenagers often of 18, or even younger, as the young one lied about their age because they wanted to serve their nation so badly. 

Yellen's youngest son married the daughter of a Japanese Kamikaze ("divine wind") pilot. The joining of family was a major element of healing for Captain Yellen and serves as an example of American honor and magnanimity in the wake of the evil of man's inhumanity to fellow man.

Think hard about the men (and women) of this generation, sometimes called the "Greatest Generation." Would you sign up for military service at 18-years-old, still just a babe in the woods, barely out of high school, prepared to fight and die for your country --- with few if any reservations whatsoever?  The fact is, millions of Americans today --- in particular far-left Democrats (who often despise American and its history) --- would not. (Scroll down to "WHAT WOULD AMERICANS DO?")

I can't help but think the decline of patriotism among young people, and their unwillingness to sacrifice for one's country, foretells bad things for America in the future, and the not too distant future at that. Liberty is not free, and there's nothing to guarantee its survival, unless those who enjoy its blessings will stand up --- in time of need --- for truth, justice, and the American way of good in the world. 

Again, think hard. What would you do if faced with virtually the same circumstances, the specter of world totalitarianism threatening peace and freedom in the world? 

Here, below, Captain Yellen tells his story, during a visit to Iwo Jima, in 2010. 

Have a great day. 

Epic Holiday Deals

At Amazon, Epic Holiday Deals for Everyone.

BONUS: Mark Bauerlein, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up: From Stupefied Youth to Dangerous Adults.

Bruce Cannon Gibney, How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

At Amazon, Bruce Cannon Gibney, A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America.

Fandy

On Instagram.

Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and a Very Modern Media Maelstrom

I was wondering when this story would hit the big MSM. 

CNN had a piece a day or two ago, but besides that, I've seen no coverage at the other major networks and newspapers.

See, "A release of internal documents from Twitter set off intense debates in the intersecting worlds of media, politics and tech:"

The sleazy, pro-censorship pack of liberal employees of media corporations united last night to attack @mtaibbi -- as they do to any journalist who breaks a real story about real power centers -- and, because they were so desperate to discredit it, showed what they are. Watch: pic.twitter.com/DWEIL70G1h

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 3, 2022

It was, on the surface, a typical example of reporting the news: a journalist obtains internal documents from a major corporation, shedding light on a political dispute that flared in the waning days of the 2020 presidential race.

But when it comes to Elon Musk and Twitter, nothing is typical.

The so-called Twitter Files, released Friday evening by the independent journalist Matt Taibbi, set off a firestorm among pundits, media ethicists and lawmakers in both parties. It also offered a window into the fractured modern landscape of news, where a story’s reception is often shaped by readers’ assumptions about the motivations of both reporters and subjects.

The tempest began when Mr. Musk teased the release of internal documents that he said would reveal the story behind Twitter’s 2020 decision to restrict posts linking to a report in the New York Post about Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s son, Hunter.

Mr. Musk, who has accused tech companies of censorship, then pointed readers to the account of Mr. Taibbi, an iconoclast journalist who shares some of Mr. Musk’s disdain for the mainstream news media. Published in the form of a lengthy Twitter thread, Mr. Taibbi’s report included images of email exchanges among Twitter officials deliberating how to handle dissemination of the Post story on their platform.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi framed the exchanges as evidence of rank censorship and pernicious influence by liberals. Many others — even some ardent Twitter critics — were less impressed, saying the exchanges merely showed a group of executives earnestly debating how to deal with an unconfirmed news report that was based on information from a stolen laptop.

And as with many modern news stories, the Twitter Files were quickly weaponized in service of a dizzying number of pre-existing arguments.

The Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who often accuses liberals of stifling speech, made the claim that the “documents show a systemic violation of the First Amendment, the largest example of that in modern history.” House Republicans, who have called for an investigation into the business dealings of Hunter Biden, asserted with no evidence that the report showed systemic collusion between Twitter and aides to Joe Biden, who was then the Democratic nominee. (Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive at the time, later reversed the decision to block the Post story and told Congress it had been a mistake.)

Former Twitter executives, who have lamented Mr. Musk’s chaotic stewardship of the company, cited the documents’ release as yet another sign of recklessness. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, said that publicizing unredacted documents — some of which included the names and email addresses of Twitter officials — was “a fundamentally unacceptable thing to do” and placed people “in harm’s way.” (Mr. Musk later said that, in hindsight, “I think we should have excluded some email addresses.”)

The central role of Mr. Taibbi, a polarizing figure in journalism circles, set off its own uproar.

Once a major voice of the political left, Mr. Taibbi rose to prominence by presenting himself as an unencumbered truth teller. He is perhaps best known for labeling Goldman Sachs a “vampire squid” in an article that galvanized public outrage toward Wall Street. But his commentary about former President Donald J. Trump diverged from the views of many Democrats — for instance, he was skeptical of claims of collusion between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign — and his fan base shifted.

Skeptics of Mr. Taibbi seized on what appeared to be an orchestrated disclosure. “Imagine volunteering to do online PR work for the world’s richest man on a Friday night, in service of nakedly and cynically right-wing narratives, and then pretending you’re speaking truth to power,” the MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan wrote in a Twitter post.

Mr. Taibbi clapped back on Saturday, writing: “Looking forward to going through all the tweets complaining about ‘PR for the richest man on earth,’ and seeing how many of them have run stories for anonymous sources at the FBI, CIA, the Pentagon, White House, etc.”

Mr. Musk and Mr. Taibbi did not respond to requests for comment.

That Mr. Musk is a fan of Mr. Taibbi, who left Rolling Stone to start a newsletter on Substack, is no big surprise; Mr. Musk often hails the virtues of citizen journalism. On Saturday, in a live audio session on Twitter, Mr. Musk said he was disappointed that more mainstream media outlets had not picked up Mr. Taibbi’s reporting.

The New York Times requested copies of the documents from Mr. Musk, but did not receive a response.

Mr. Musk said on Saturday that he had also given documents to Bari Weiss, a former editor and columnist at The Times whose Substack newsletter, Common Sense, bills itself as an alternative to traditional news outlets. Ms. Weiss declined to comment on Sunday.

The commotion has also generated some odd bedfellows. Mr. Taibbi once compared former President George W. Bush to a “donkey.” On Sunday, his reporting was defended by the House Republican leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy, during an interview on Fox News. “They’re trying to discredit a person for telling the truth,” Mr. McCarthy said of Mr. Musk...

 

James Holland, Brothers in Arms

At Amazon, James Holland, Brothers in Arms: One Legendary Tank Regiment’s Bloody War From D-Day to VE-Day.

The Lonely American (VIDEO)

An outstanding segment, from Laura Ingraham:

Kim Denise

She's dreamy.

On Instagram.

Crazy People Are Dangerous (and They’re Working for the Biden Administration)

At the Other McCain, "Sam Brinton is self-evidently crazy. He is daft, deranged, bonkers, berserk, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Exactly why Joe Biden would appoint this lunatic to a job working with nuclear technology in the Department of Energy — well, Democrats do crazy things all the time, and appointing a “genderfluid” kook to be Deputy Assistant Secretary is probably about par for the course."

The Perpetually Irrational Ukraine Debate

From hardcore neorealist, Stephen Walt, of Harvard's Kennedy School, at Foreign Policy, "The war continues to be discussed in ways that are self-serving—and self-defeating":

Because war is uncertain and reliable information is sparse, no one knows how the war in Ukraine will play out. Nor can any of us be completely certain what the optimal course of action is. We all have our own theories, hunches, beliefs, and hopes, but nobody’s crystal ball is 100 percent reliable in the middle of a war.

You might think that this situation would encourage observers to approach the whole issue with a certain humility and give alternative perspectives a fair hearing even when they disagree with one’s own. Instead, debates about responsibility for the war and the proper course of action to follow have been unusually nasty and intolerant, even by modern standards of social media vituperation. I’ve been trying to figure out why this is the case.

What I find especially striking is how liberal interventionists, unrepentant neoconservatives, and a handful of progressives who are all-in for Ukraine seem to have no doubts whatsoever about the origins of the conflict or the proper course of action to follow today. For them, Russian President Vladimir Putin is solely and totally responsible for the war, and the only mistakes others may have made in the past was to be too nice to Russia and too willing to buy its oil and gas. The only outcome they are willing to entertain is a complete Ukrainian victory, ideally accompanied by regime change in Moscow, the imposition of reparations to finance Ukrainian reconstruction, and war crimes trials for Putin and his associates. Convinced that anything less than this happy result will reward aggression, undermine deterrence, and place the current world order in jeopardy, their mantra is: “Whatever it takes for as long as it takes.”

This same group has also been extraordinarily critical of those who believe responsibility for the war is not confined to Russia’s president and who think these war aims might be desirable in the abstract but are unlikely to be achieved at an acceptable cost and risk. If you have the temerity to suggest that NATO enlargement (and the policies related to it) helped pave the road to war, if you believe the most likely outcome is a negotiated settlement and that getting there sooner rather than later would be desirable, and if you favor supporting Ukraine but think this goal should be weighed against other interests, you’re almost certain to be denounced as a pro-Putin stooge, an appeaser, an isolationist, or worse. Case in point: When a handful of progressive congressional representatives released a rather tepid statement calling for greater reliance on diplomacy a few weeks ago, it was buried under a hailstorm of criticism and quickly disavowed by its own sponsors.

Wartime is precisely when one should think most dispassionately and carefully about one’s own interests and strategies. Unfortunately, keeping a cool head is especially hard to do when the bullets are flying, innocent people are suffering, and rallying public support takes priority. A narrowing of debate is typical of most wars—at least for a long time—with governments encouraging patriotic groupthink and marginalizing dissident views. And the war in Ukraine has been no exception thus far.

One reason public discourse is so heated is moral outrage, and I have a degree of sympathy for this position. What Russia is doing to Ukraine is horrific, and it’s easy to understand why people are angry, eager to support Kyiv any way they can, happy to condemn Russia’s leaders for their crimes, and willing to inflict some sort of punishment on the perpetrators. It’s emotionally gratifying to side with an underdog, especially when the other side is inflicting great harm on innocent people. Under the circumstances, I can also understand why some people are quick to see anyone with a different view as being insufficiently committed to a righteous cause and to conclude that they must somehow sympathize with the enemy. In the present political climate, if someone is not all-in for Ukraine, then they must be siding with Putin. Moral outrage is not a policy, however, and anger at Putin and Russia does not tell us what approach is best for Ukraine or the world. It’s possible that the hawks are right and that giving Ukraine whatever it thinks it needs to achieve victory is the best course of action. But this approach is hardly guaranteed to succeed; it might just prolong the war to no good purpose, increase Ukrainian suffering, and eventually lead Russia to escalate or even use a nuclear weapon. None of us can be 100 percent certain that the policies we favor will turn out as we expect and hope.

Nor does outrage at Russia’s present conduct justify viewing those who warned that Western policy was making a future conflict more likely as being on Moscow’s side. To explain why something bad happened is not to justify or defend it, and calling for diplomacy (while highlighting the obstacles such an effort would face) does not entail lack of concern for Ukraine itself. Different people can be equally committed to helping Ukraine yet favor sharply differing ways to achieve that end.

Debates on Ukraine have also been distorted by a desire to deflect responsibility. The United States’ foreign-policy establishment doesn’t like admitting it’s made mistakes, and pinning all the blame for the war on Putin is a “get out of jail free” card that absolves proponents of NATO enlargement of any role in this tragic turn of events. Putin clearly bears enormous personal responsibility for this illegal and destructive war, but if prior Western actions made his decision more likely, then Western policymakers are not blameless. To assert otherwise is to reject both history and common sense (i.e., that no major power would be indifferent to a powerful alliance moving steadily closer to its borders) as well as the mountain of evidence over many years showing that Russian elites (and not just Putin) were deeply troubled by what NATO and the European Union were doing and they were actively looking for ways to stop it.

Proponents of enlargement now insist Putin and his associates were never worried about NATO enlargement and that their many protests about this policy were just a giant smokescreen concealing long-standing imperialist ambitions. In this view, what Putin and his allies really feared was the spread of democracy and freedom, and restoring the old Soviet empire was their true objective from their first day in power. But as journalist Branko Marcetic has shown, these lines of defense do not fit the facts. Moreover, NATO enlargement and the spread of liberal values weren’t separate and distinct concerns. From the Russian perspective, NATO enlargement, the 2014 EU accession agreement with Ukraine, and Western support for pro-democracy color revolutions were part of a seamless and increasingly worrisome package.

Western officials may have genuinely believed these actions posed no threat to Russia and might even benefit Russia over the longer term; the problem was that Russia’s leaders didn’t see it that way. Yet U.S. and Western policymakers naively assumed that Putin wouldn’t react even as the status quo kept shifting in ways that he and his advisors found alarming. The world thought democratic countries were benignly expanding the rules-based order and creating a vast zone of peace, but the result was just the opposite. Putin should be condemned for being paranoid, overconfident, and heartless, but Western policymakers should be faulted for being arrogant, naive, and cavalier.

Third, the war has been a disaster for Ukrainians, but supporters of U.S. liberal hegemony—especially the more hawkish elements of the foreign-policy “Blob”—have gotten some of their mojo back. If Western support enables Ukraine to defeat an invading army and humiliate a dangerous dictator, then the failures of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and the Balkans can be swept into the memory hole and the campaign to expand the U.S-led liberal order will get a new lease on life. No wonder the Blob is so eager to put Ukraine in the victory column...

Still more.

 

Four College Kids Were Brutally Murdered In Idaho But There's No Attack Angle for the Democrat Party So Their Deaths Don't Matter

At AoSHQ, "On November 13, between 3am and 4am, a killer crept into a house and butchered four people with a knife on the campus of the University of Idaho. They victims are not members of Democrat Grievance Group nor was the weapon used a Hate Weapon like a gun so the Corporate Propaganda Press has decided that these murders are Non-Useful --- Oh, also: The murders did not happen in NY, LA, or DC. Just some Flyover Country corpses. No big deal."

For the Left, 'Antisemitism' is Just a Partisan Talking Point

From David Harsanyi, at the Federalist, "Anti-Jewish sentiment is far from a one-party problem":

“Jews are thriving in America, and even with the violent resurgence of antisemitism in the Trump era, I’ve rarely felt personally threatened, perhaps a function of my privilege,” writes New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg in a piece headlined “Antisemitism’s March Into the Mainstream.”

It must be privilege, then, that explains how a New Yorker could write an entire column in a New York paper about the resurgence of antisemitism during the “Trump era” without once noting what was going on in her hometown. As Armin Rosen detailed only a few months ago, there have been hundreds of violent attacks targeting Jews in New York since 2018, “many of them documented on camera, [and] only a single perpetrator has served even one day in prison.” Of course, mentioning that the culprits of anti-Jewish violence are predominantly black or Hispanic, and live in one of the nation’s most left-wing cities, would necessitate acknowledging that antisemitism can’t be neatly laid at the feet of Republicans. That is inconvenient, no doubt...

RTWT.

 

New York City Will Hospitalize Mentally Ill People Involuntarily

This really is the direction we need to go on this, and kudos to Mayor Adams for having the balls to push forward with the program.

At the New York Times, "New York City to Involuntarily Remove Mentally Ill People From Streets: Mayor Eric Adams directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they posed no threat to others."

And from the Letters to the Editor:

To the Editor:

Re “New York Aims to Clear Streets of Mentally Ill” (front page, Nov. 30):

It is many years overdue but, finally, Mayor Eric Adams has courageously acted to bring relief caused by the failed policies that have long harmed mentally ill people in New York City.

By ordering involuntary hospitalization, he is replacing an immoral and scandalous indifference to severe chronic illness with a humane and moral approach.

Claiming autonomy and personal choice as reasons to keep severely mentally ill people who lack competence on our streets makes no sense. Allowing the sick to “rot with their rights on” may appeal to single-minded civil libertarians, but it is deeply disrespectful to the dignity and kindness that mentally ill people deserve.

While the lawsuits will surely fly, the real challenge is to find enough money, beds and providers to ensure that homeless (and incarcerated) men and women with severe mental illness receive care, not a cardboard box.

Arthur Caplan

Ridgefield, Conn.

The writer is a professor of bioethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.

To the Editor:

Mayor Eric Adams’s plan to involuntarily hospitalize homeless people with no indication that they are a threat (to anything besides his city’s image) is discrimination veiled in compassion.

Addressing the well-being of the unhoused would involve improving the root structural issues leading to poverty and the inability to afford rent. Poor mental health is often a side effect of housing insecurity and being put on the margins of society.

Forcing someone into a hospital system not designed for long-term stays, and that is already strained, does not fix this issue. Slapping a bandage on a bullet wound, or temporarily removing the homeless from the street, does not a compassionate policy make.

I don’t see a mental health crisis as much as I see a desperate need for appropriate and affordable housing.

Loren Barcenas

Chapel Hill, N.C.

The writer is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health.

To the Editor:

As a disability rights lawyer, I’ve represented many clients with mental illness. I’ve also witnessed the tragedy of three immediate family members suffering from schizophrenia, including both my parents in the 1960s and 1970s.

Choices about involuntary treatment can be excruciating. Psychiatric drugs sometimes have severe side effects. Worse, America has failed to ensure that hospitals provide safe, clean, therapeutic treatment settings. I’ve visited psychiatric hospitals that no one would want a family member to be forced to stay in; my mother died in one when I was a teenager.

That said, we’ve also done a disservice to mentally ill people through revolving-door hospitalization that both frustrates family members and dumps at-risk patients back into the community, untreated, where they often face homelessness or worse.

Mayor Eric Adams’s call for workable plans to connect discharged patients with ongoing care can work only if safe, high-quality care is available. For the sake of America’s most vulnerable people, officials must see that it is.

David Scott

Columbus, Ohio

 

When V.I.P. Isn't Exclusive Enough: Welcome to V.V.I.P.

At the New York Times, "Every sports venue has its own tiered system of luxury. The World Cup in Qatar is providing a reminder that there is always a higher level":

AL KHOR, Qatar — With its haughty aura of exclusivity, the red-carpeted, velvet-roped V.I.P. entrance at Al Bayt Stadium seems designed to inspire maximal awe and envy. As regular fans were herded through their gates at the England-United States game on Friday, the V.I.P. guests were welcomed by an exotic figure dressed as some sort of antelope, covered head to toe in shimmering golden squares.

(When pressed on its identity, the figure, who was not supposed to speak, muttered under its breath: “Oryx.”)

Not that it is available, or even fully visible, to you. Flanked by barriers and cut off from the normal road system, Al Bayt’s V.V.I.P. entrance is a sweeping thoroughfare on which the most important fans, starting with Qatar’s emir, who arrives by helicopter with his entourage and then hops into a Mercedes, are chauffeured directly into their special enclave in the stadium. That way, they are never required to interact with, or even occupy the same general space as, regular fans.

Every sports venue has its tiered system of luxury — the owner’s box, the business lounges, the special-access elevators, the ridiculously expensive seats, the even more ridiculously expensive seats. But at this year’s World Cup, the convergence of two entities awash in luxury and entitlement — Qatar, where all power and privilege flow from the emir, and FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, with its vast wealth and patronage network — provides a bracing reminder that there is always a more rarefied degree of exclusive.

The main difference between the luxury and non-luxury seats at this year’s World Cup is alcohol. In a shock to fans (and to Budweiser, the official beer of the tournament since 1986), Qatar reversed itself and decreed just before the event began that the sale of alcoholic beer (indeed, alcohol of any kind) would be banned in and around the stadiums.

But that didn’t affect the flow of free beer — or free champagne, Scotch, gin, whiskey, wine and other drinks — available to non-regular fans in the V.I.P., V.V.I.P. and hospitality areas. The rules, it seemed, did not apply to them.

At a $3,000-a-seat hospitality lounge at Al Bayt during the U.S.’s game with England, for instance, the bar menu included Taittinger Champagne, Chivas Regal 12-year-old whisky, Martell VSOP brandy and Jose Cuervo 1800 tequila.

“If you want to drink, you can’t drink in the stadiums,” said Keemya Najmi, who was visiting from Los Angeles with her family. “So this is just a lot more comfortable.”

Also adding to the comfort: a dedicated check-in desk staffed by smiling hosts doling out special passes and little gift bags; a coriander-infused welcome drink that was a jolt to the system; tables bedecked with nuts, dates, popcorn and potato chips; an endlessly sumptuous buffet comprising dishes like slow-cooked lamb shoulder and marinated tuna steak, along with a carving station and a selection of six desserts; and a band belting out cross-cultural fan favorites like “Sweet Caroline.”

In all, there are five tiers of “hospitality” in the stadiums, according to Match Hospitality, a FIFA partner that operates those sections, beginning with $950 stadium seats that serve street-style food, along with wine and beer. At the highest end are private suites that cost about $5,000 per person and offer six-course meals prepared by a private chef, cocktails served by sommeliers and mixologists and the promise of “guest appearances” by unnamed celebrities.

The most exclusive suite is the Pearl Lounge, right above the halfway line at Lusail Stadium, which offers each guest an “exceptional commemorative gift.” There is also, according to someone who has been in it, a suite at Al Bayt that, for some reason, boasts a retractable bed and a bathroom equipped with a shower.

This World Cup has taken in about $800 million in hospitality seat sales — a sports industry record, a Match Hospitality spokesman said. But many of those guests have paid for the privilege, unlike, it seems, the V.I.P.s (or the V.V.I.P.’s).

The taxonomy of V.I.P.-ness has been a matter of some debate among those on the other side of the velvet ropes. There are different theories. “The V.I.P.s are the sponsors,” declared a woman who, it must be said, works for one of the sponsors herself and was speaking in a hospitality lounge, not a V.I.P. suite. (She is not authorized to talk to the press and asked that her name not be used.)

No, said a Saudi journalist in the stands who also asked that his name not be used. “The V.I.P.s are usually from business and the banking sector,” he said. “The V.V.I.P.s are the emir and the people around him — his family, his father — and foreign officials.” Those would include, presumably, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who sat near the emir during the opening match, as well as Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who were spotted in a luxury box at the U.S. match.

There’s a consensus that top FIFA officials, like President Gianni Infantino, are V.V.I.P.s, but that other FIFA and FIFA-adjacent personnel are merely V.I.P.s.

Meanwhile, a Qatari involved in organizing logistics for the tournament, who did not want to speak on the record because he is not allowed to, said that sometimes there is a surfeit of V.I.P.s at Qatari events. In that case, so many people end up getting bumped up to V.V.I.P. status that the organizers are forced to create a new tier entirely: V.V.V.I.P., the human equivalent of a seven-star hotel...

Oh brother. V.V.V.I.P. Keep adding Vs and the designation is meaningless after a while. I mean, no self-respecting emir would let some commoner out V him in the luxury hospitality competition.

More at the link.

Cyber Monday!

Today's the day! The deals are in!

Here: Shop Cyber Monday Deals 2022. 

And check out the Top 100 Deals. 

Plus, Lightning Deals and Everyday Essentials. 

BONUS: Cormac McCarthy, The Passenger.

Shop Early for Cyber Monday

Get an early start, here: Cyber Monday 2022. 

When Ideology Trumps Empathy

From Heather Mac Donald, at City Journal, "Progressives profess to care deeply about inner-city black Americans, but their voting patterns suggest otherwise."

Sofia

On Instagram:

Frank Dikötter, China After Mao

At Amazon, Frank Dikötter, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower.

Political Demonstrations in Open-Carry States Favor Right-Wing Viewpoints

Seems like an obvious point, since open-carry states are more likely to lean right than non-open carry states, so the New York Times has got something of a tautology going on here.

But in any case, here, "At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking":

Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s.

This month, armed protesters appeared outside an elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake. In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors.

In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day. A group led by a former Republican state legislator protested a gay pride event in a public park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Men with guns interrupted a Juneteenth festival in Franklin, Tenn., handing out fliers claiming that white people were being replaced. Among the others were rallies in support of gun rights in Delaware and abortion rights in Georgia.

Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger.

But the effects of more guns in public spaces have not been evenly felt. A partisan divide — with Democrats largely eschewing firearms and Republicans embracing them — has warped civic discourse. Deploying the Second Amendment in service of the First has become a way to buttress a policy argument, a sort of silent, if intimidating, bullhorn.

“It’s disappointing we’ve gotten to that state in our country,” said Kevin Thompson, executive director of the Museum of Science & History in Memphis, Tenn., where armed protesters led to the cancellation of an L.G.B.T.Q. event in September. “What I saw was a group of folks who did not want to engage in any sort of dialogue and just wanted to impose their belief.”

A New York Times analysis of more than 700 armed demonstrations found that, at about 77 percent of them, people openly carrying guns represented right-wing views, such as opposition to L.G.B.T.Q. rights and abortion access, hostility to racial justice rallies and support for former President Donald J. Trump’s lie of winning the 2020 election.

The records, from January 2020 to last week, were compiled by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a nonprofit that tracks political violence around the world. The Times also interviewed witnesses to other, smaller-scale incidents not captured by the data, including encounters with armed people at indoor public meetings.

Anti-government militias and right-wing culture warriors like the Proud Boys attended a majority of the protests, the data showed. Violence broke out at more than 100 events and often involved fisticuffs with opposing groups, including left-wing activists such as antifa

Republican politicians are generally more tolerant of openly armed supporters than are Democrats, who are more likely to be on the opposing side of people with guns, the records suggest. In July, for example, men wearing sidearms confronted Beto O’Rourke, then the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, at a campaign stop in Whitesboro and warned that he was “not welcome in this town.”

Republican officials or candidates appeared at 32 protests where they were on the same side as those with guns. Democratic politicians were identified at only two protests taking the same view as those armed.

Sometimes, the Republican officials carried weapons: Robert Sutherland, a Washington state representative, wore a pistol on his hip while protesting Covid-19 restrictions in Olympia in 2020. “Governor,” he said, speaking to a crowd, “you send men with guns after us for going fishing. We’ll see what a revolution looks like.”

The occasional appearance of armed civilians at demonstrations or governmental functions is not new. In the 1960s, the Black Panthers displayed guns in public when protesting police brutality. Militia groups, sometimes armed, rallied against federal agents involved in violent standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990s.

But the frequency of these incidents exploded in 2020, with conservative pushback against public health measures to fight the coronavirus and response to the sometimes violent rallies after the murder of George Floyd. Today, in some parts of the country with permissive gun laws, it is not unusual to see people with handguns or military-style rifles at all types of protests.

For instance, at least 14 such incidents have occurred in and around Dallas and Phoenix since May, including outside an F.B.I. field office to condemn the search of Mr. Trump’s home and, elsewhere, in support of abortion rights. In New York and Washington, where gun laws are strict, there were no

Many conservatives and gun-rights advocates envision virtually no limits. When Democrats in Colorado and Washington State passed laws this year prohibiting firearms at polling places and government meetings, Republicans voted against them. Indeed, those bills were the exception.

Attempts by Democrats to impose limits in other states have mostly failed, and some form of open carry without a permit is now legal in 38 states, a number that is likely to expand as legislation advances in several more. In Michigan, where a Tea Party group recently advertised poll-watcher training using a photo of armed men in camouflage, judges have rejected efforts to prohibit guns at voting locations.

Gun rights advocates assert that banning guns from protests would violate the right to carry firearms for self-defense. Jordan Stein, a spokesman for Gun Owners of America, pointed to Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager acquitted last year in the shooting of three people during a chaotic demonstration in Kenosha, Wis., where he had walked the streets with a military-style rifle.

“At a time when protests often devolve into riots, honest people need a means to protect themselves,” he said.