From the moment Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election, a plan was hatched to blame Russia for her historically epic loss and use it to hamstring Donald Trump’s presidency.More.
Always a hive-mind, Democrats in and out of the media could be counted on to do their parts, and they’ve done just that. But what started out as a few near-riot protests to keep their base angry has morphed into a slow-rolling coup.
The book “Shattered” documented how the Clinton campaign was not interested in an autopsy, it had a plan:
That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.From that, the idea that horrified Democrats during the campaign – that one of the participants would refuse to accept the election results – became an accepted, forgotten fact and the first salvo in what would become a sustained war against the duly-elected president.
Since that meeting, the media dutifully has gone over and above its duty to the cause. After eight years of slumber, print and cable news “journalists” became “woke” to the cause and blew past reporting to a level of propaganda activism that would make Leni Riefenstahl tell them to pump the brakes.
There has been enough embarrassment to go around, but none have beclowned themselves more than CNN’s Jim Acosta. He spent a month whining about not having the cameras on in the press briefing room to capture his antics and add to his sizzle reel so he could get his own show. Then, he showed himself to be the Forrest Gump of the press pool when he equated a poem written to raise money to build the base of the Statue of Liberty with actual law. He then proceeded to congratulate himself, repeatedly, for his performance.
But the media isn’t just a clown show of correspondents fumbling basic facts and shunning logic in its progressive pursuit of a new Nixon. It’s the PR wing of the Democratic Party’s “resistance.” No story is too absurd, no leak too damaging to the nation’s security not to publish. After years of repeating Obama administration spoon-fed talking points, they media now gleefully reports anything that might damage the Trump administration for that sake alone...
Sunday, August 6, 2017
A Slow-Rolling Coup D'état
From the great Derek Hunter, at Town Hall, "We’re Witnessing a Slow-Rolling Coup D'état":
Saturday, August 5, 2017
Robert Graves, I, Claudius
*BUMPED.*
I'm currently reading this masterpiece. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for almost 30 years.
[Added: I'm almost halfway through this one, and I can say that once you wade through the first few chapters, the book gets fairly lively indeed. I'm enjoying it. And I love how historical dates are appended to the margins, to give accurate temporal context to events. Impressive book.]
At Amazon, Robert Graves, I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 (Vintage International).
I'm currently reading this masterpiece. It's been sitting on my bookshelf for almost 30 years.
[Added: I'm almost halfway through this one, and I can say that once you wade through the first few chapters, the book gets fairly lively indeed. I'm enjoying it. And I love how historical dates are appended to the margins, to give accurate temporal context to events. Impressive book.]
At Amazon, Robert Graves, I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 (Vintage International).
Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe
*BUMPED.*
Pre-order at Amazon, Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam.
Pre-order at Amazon, Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam.
Raheem Kassam, No Go Zones
This dude's been getting hassled and suspended on Twitter.
Come out with a "diverse" opinion and the left will target you for destruction.
At Amazon, Raheem Kassam, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You.
Come out with a "diverse" opinion and the left will target you for destruction.
At Amazon, Raheem Kassam, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You.
Angels Storm Back, Keep Playoff Hopes Alive
The Angels beat the Athletics last night, 8-6 at Anaheim Stadium. They were down 6-2 in the sixth inning, and I thought there for a minute the team would lose. It'd have been the first time they lost while I was in attendance for the last five years or so. Really, when I go to the park, they always win. And they did it again last night. I was pretty magical.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels mount comeback to beat A's, stretch winning streak to four and improve to .500":
The rally monkey did the trick last night. I love that, heh.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Angels mount comeback to beat A's, stretch winning streak to four and improve to .500":
The Angels are still not healthy, still receiving lackluster seasons from an array of hitters, still struggling to capture the public’s interest, still unlikely to actually qualify for the postseason.More.
But they are undeniably making this thing interesting. They secured their fourth straight victory and sixth in seven tries Friday, scoring six unanswered runs to come back to beat Oakland 8-6 at Angel Stadium. They are 55-55, and only two games separate them from playoff position.
“Better late than never,” said Ben Revere, who scored Friday’s winning run.
It has become the team’s refrain this summer, enjoyed because of its duality: “We’re still in it.”
Applicable to their 32 comeback victories and to their playoff odds, the Angels cite it in interviews and tell it to their pregame visitors during batting practice, a subtle reminder to one another that they can yet contend in 2017. With each passing week, the idea appears more plausible. They do not have to play particularly good games, especially while hosting Philadelphia, Oakland and Baltimore on this homestand. They can always come back, as they did Friday.
After Mike Trout hit an infield single to short in the first inning, Albert Pujols tapped into an inning-ending double play. It was the 351st double-play groundout of his career, which holds grand significance. It broke Pujols’ tie with Cal Ripken and staked him alone to the all-time record.
Making the first start of his career, the Angels’ Troy Scribner did not give up a hit until the second inning. It was a three-run home run to Matt Chapman — a walk and an error preceded it — that gave the Athletics an early lead. The Angels made it 3-2 with three singles, two errors, a sacrifice fly, and a hit by pitch in their half of the second. With the bases loaded and two out, Trout flied out to left field.
Over the next three innings, they mustered two baserunners — both on doubles, by Trout and Kole Calhoun. Neither man advanced...
The rally monkey did the trick last night. I love that, heh.
Friday, August 4, 2017
Far-Right YouTubers Dominate
At the New York Times, via Memeorandum, "For the New Far Right, YouTube Has Become the New Talk Radio":
I obviously can do without the rank anti-Semitism. Interestingly, though, Ezra Levant has fired a number of his vloggers who've veered too far over into the outwardly racist right (here's looking at you, Lauren Southern). That said, I like Paul Joseph Watson, and Stephen Molyneux, the latter who nearly breeches the line at times, as well.
Whatever. These kind of people are shaking things up, giving voice to a lot of unconventional and politically unpopular opinions. They're helping to beat back radical leftism, and that's a good thing overall.
In June, Zack Exley, a political organizer and a fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, published a report on “Black Pigeon Speaks,” a political commentator on YouTube. In Exley’s judgment, B.P.S. is emblematic of a marginal but ascendant sort of YouTube figure — a type that is becoming a meaningful force in the practice of politics online. B.P.S. has, by any objective standard, a significant and engaged audience; at the moment, he has about 215,000 followers, and his uploads have been viewed more than 25 million times. In an introductory video, he describes himself as something like a pundit or an analyst: “I attempt to make sense out of the increasingly nonsensical world we all share,” he says of his channel. “I try and be only as offensive as I need to be.” His videos are unhurried, heavy on explanation and argument, regularly stretching over the 10-minute mark. And, as Exley notes, his politics skew right. Hard right:RTWT.
He is a traditionalist in many ways, and is positive about Christianity as a cultural force and foundation of Western civilization, but he is not a Christian. He defies the postwar “fusion” of classical libertarianism and evangelical Christianity. B.P.S. believes in a global conspiracy of central bankers led by the Rothschilds who are driving immigration into predominantly white countries to increase the pool of “debt slaves” and to drive down wages; thinks that “cultural Marxism” is a Jewish conspiracy that is undermining Western civilization; and believes that women being allowed to do whatever they want, including choosing their own mates, is the deathblow to Western civilization.Like its fellow mega-platforms Twitter and Facebook, YouTube is an enormous engine of cultural production and a host for wildly diverse communities. But like the much smaller Tumblr (which has long been dominated by lively and combative left-wing politics) or 4chan (which has become a virulent and effective hard-right meme factory) YouTube is host to just one dominant native political community: the YouTube right. This community takes the form of a loosely associated group of channels and personalities, connected mostly by shared political instincts and aesthetic sensibilities. They are monologuists, essayists, performers and vloggers who publish frequent dispatches from their living rooms, their studios or the field, inveighing vigorously against the political left and mocking the “mainstream media,” against which they are defined and empowered. They deplore “social justice warriors,” whom they credit with ruining popular culture, conspiring against the populace and helping to undermine “the West.” They are fixated on the subjects of immigration, Islam and political correctness. They seem at times more animated by President Trump’s opponents than by the man himself, with whom they share many priorities, if not a style. Some of their leading figures are associated with larger media companies, like Alex Jones’s Infowars or Ezra Levant’s Rebel Media. Others are independent operators who found their voices in the medium....
*****
The YouTube right may be comparatively marginal and ragtag, but it’s also comparatively young. If talk radio primed listeners for Trump’s style and anticipated the American right’s current obsessions, the YouTube right is acquainting viewers with a more international message, attuned to a global revival of explicitly race-and-religion-based, blood-and-soil nationalism. Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars, 35, is perhaps the archetypal YouTube-right vlogger; he has nearly a million followers, and his videos have been viewed more than 215 million times. He has in the last month published videos with titles including “Staged Video Shows ‘Refugee’ Fake Drowning,” “Finsbury Mosque Terror: What They’re NOT Telling You,” “The Truth about Refugees” and “Why Leftists Submit to Terror.” The scripts for these videos are straightforward nativist polemics, with a particular focus on Europe — Watson is from Northern England — delivered in a relentlessly insistent tone, and quite close to the camera. Watson posts extended “roasts” of his political villains, as well as rants that betray a peculiar blend of self-taught reaction: against pop culture, broadly, but also against “modern architecture” and “modern art.” If one video sums up what a receptive viewer might take from subscribing to his channel, it’s “Some Cultures are Better than Others.”
I obviously can do without the rank anti-Semitism. Interestingly, though, Ezra Levant has fired a number of his vloggers who've veered too far over into the outwardly racist right (here's looking at you, Lauren Southern). That said, I like Paul Joseph Watson, and Stephen Molyneux, the latter who nearly breeches the line at times, as well.
Whatever. These kind of people are shaking things up, giving voice to a lot of unconventional and politically unpopular opinions. They're helping to beat back radical leftism, and that's a good thing overall.
Democrats in Crisis
Here's Dana Loesch below, from Fox & Friends this morning.
Related, at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "West Virginia's governor is switching parties. And Democrats just hit a new low."
Related, at WaPo, via Memeorandum, "West Virginia's governor is switching parties. And Democrats just hit a new low."
Michael Korda, Alone
*BUMPED.*
Out next month.
At Amazon, Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory.
Seems like the publisher would have moved up the release date to coincide with the movie (perhaps there's no corporate tie-in). But still, looks great.
Out next month.
At Amazon, Michael Korda, Alone: Britain, Churchill, and Dunkirk: Defeat Into Victory.
Seems like the publisher would have moved up the release date to coincide with the movie (perhaps there's no corporate tie-in). But still, looks great.
Because It's Never Been Tried!
Following-up from the other day, "Venezuela's Useful Idiots Have Gone Silent."
From Frank Fleming, seen at Instapundit:
From Frank Fleming, seen at Instapundit:
Thursday, August 3, 2017
California State University to End Placement Exams and Remedial Classes for Freshmen
Remember my entry from a couple of weeks back, "Eloy Ortiz Oakley, California Community College Chancellor, Calls for End to Algebra Requirement for Non-STEM Majors."
The eradication of high standards for California's public education students continues apace. In a few years, students will be able to enter the university, and then likely graduate with a "four-year degree," without any foundation or completion of rigorous math, sciences, and languages.
Educational officials no doubt are dealing with a wave of unprepared students, thrust into the system by the massive open immigration we've had for the last few decades. It's really reaching critical mass. When I started teaching at Long Beach City College in fall of 2000, fully one-third of students enrolled came from a traditional white working-class background. I thought that was minuscule at the time, but now the number's down to about 13 percent white students.
There's nothing wrong with the diversity. In fact, Latinos at my college are more than half of the student population, and they're totally fine. Many, though not all, are indeed very outstanding. On the other hand, I'm having more and more students ---- including many Asians ---- who literally do not speak English. I don't know how they expect to succeed. But they're here and this is the reality in California.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Cal State will no longer require placement exams and remedial classes for freshmen":
The end result will of course be to exacerbate social inequality, not reduce it. The economically privileged will continue to have access to very high-quality education, in all aspects of rigorous training, especially math and sciences. And these kind of people will float to the top. It's a system of social sorting that's been going on for a while, made more intense by the nature of the high-tech knowledge economy.
The eradication of high standards for California's public education students continues apace. In a few years, students will be able to enter the university, and then likely graduate with a "four-year degree," without any foundation or completion of rigorous math, sciences, and languages.
Educational officials no doubt are dealing with a wave of unprepared students, thrust into the system by the massive open immigration we've had for the last few decades. It's really reaching critical mass. When I started teaching at Long Beach City College in fall of 2000, fully one-third of students enrolled came from a traditional white working-class background. I thought that was minuscule at the time, but now the number's down to about 13 percent white students.
There's nothing wrong with the diversity. In fact, Latinos at my college are more than half of the student population, and they're totally fine. Many, though not all, are indeed very outstanding. On the other hand, I'm having more and more students ---- including many Asians ---- who literally do not speak English. I don't know how they expect to succeed. But they're here and this is the reality in California.
At the Los Angeles Times, "Cal State will no longer require placement exams and remedial classes for freshmen":
Cal State plans to drop placement exams in math and English as well as the noncredit remedial courses that more than 25,000 freshmen have been required to take each fall — a radical move away from the way public universities traditionally support students who come to college less prepared than their peers.More.
In an executive order issued late Wednesday, Chancellor Timothy P. White directed the nation’s largest public university system to revamp its approach to remedial education and assess new freshmen for college readiness and course placement by using high school grades, ACT and SAT scores, previous classroom performance and other measures that administrators say provide a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of students’ knowledge.
Cal State will no longer make those students who may need extra help take the entry-level mathematics (ELM) test and the English placement test (EPT).
The new protocol, which will go into effect in fall 2018, “facilitates equitable opportunity for first-year students to succeed through existing and redesigned education models,” White wrote in a memorandum to the system’s 23 campus presidents, who will be responsible for working with faculty to implement the changes.
The executive order comes at a time when educators and policymakers across the nation are questioning the effectiveness of traditional remedial education and placement exams. At Cal State, about 40% of freshman each year are considered not ready for college-level work and required to take remedial classes that do not count toward their degrees.
Currently, students who enter Cal State without demonstrating college readiness in math and/or English are required to take up to three traditional remedial classes before they are allowed to enroll in courses that count toward their degrees. (If students do not pass these remedial courses during the first year, they are removed from university rolls.)
The problem is that these noncredit remedial courses cost the students more money and time, keep many in limbo and often frustrate them to the point that some eventually drop out, administrators said. In a recent study of similar college-prep work at community colleges, the Public Policy Institute of California found that remedial programs — also called developmental education — largely fail to help most students complete their academic or vocational programs.
Under the new system, all Cal State students will be allowed to take courses that count toward their degrees beginning on Day 1. Students who need additional support in math or English, for example, could be placed in “stretch” courses that simultaneously provide remedial help and allow them to complete the general math and English credits required for graduation.
Faculty are also encouraged to explore other innovative ways to embed additional academic support within a college-level course. A few other states have experimented with these approaches, and the results so far are encouraging, administrators said.
“This will have a tremendous effect on the number of units students accumulate in their first year of college,” said James T. Minor, Cal State’s senior strategist for academic success and inclusive excellence. “It will have an enormous effect on college affordability, on the number of semesters that a student is required to be enrolled in before they earn a degree, and it will have a significant impact on the number of students that ultimately cross a commencement stage with a degree in hand, ready to move into the workforce, ready to move into graduate or professional school."
In addition to redesigning remedial requirements systemwide, the executive order instructs campuses to strengthen their summer Early Start programs...
The end result will of course be to exacerbate social inequality, not reduce it. The economically privileged will continue to have access to very high-quality education, in all aspects of rigorous training, especially math and sciences. And these kind of people will float to the top. It's a system of social sorting that's been going on for a while, made more intense by the nature of the high-tech knowledge economy.
America's Car Culture Will Never Die (VIDEO)
As long as Americans value and defend their freedom, they'll continue to want to own and drive their own cars.
The left is trying to change that. Have you seen the push to ban gas-powered cars in Europe? Volvo's phasing out gas-powered vehicles from its lineup.
This trend has really bugged me. I'm in the market for a new car --- I'm currently saving for a substantial down payment --- and I was berated for wanting a muscle car while out to lunch with some of my leftist faculty colleagues earlier this year.
So, I sure hope automotive expert Lauren Fix is right about this. Leftists are tenacious. Even diabolical in their demonization programs.
At Prager University:
The left is trying to change that. Have you seen the push to ban gas-powered cars in Europe? Volvo's phasing out gas-powered vehicles from its lineup.
This trend has really bugged me. I'm in the market for a new car --- I'm currently saving for a substantial down payment --- and I was berated for wanting a muscle car while out to lunch with some of my leftist faculty colleagues earlier this year.
So, I sure hope automotive expert Lauren Fix is right about this. Leftists are tenacious. Even diabolical in their demonization programs.
At Prager University:
Oh Brother: 'Inconvenient' Al Gore Compares Trump Administration to 'Red Wedding' Episode on Game of Thrones (VIDEO)
The video's at the link.
At Twitchy, "Climate change in DC causes Al Gore to compare Trump WH to gruesome ‘Game of Thrones’ scene."
What cracks me up is how "reasonable" the Goracle tries to come off. He's "Mr. I'm-Right-and-You're-Wrong," when it's really the other way around.
At Twitchy, "Climate change in DC causes Al Gore to compare Trump WH to gruesome ‘Game of Thrones’ scene."
What cracks me up is how "reasonable" the Goracle tries to come off. He's "Mr. I'm-Right-and-You're-Wrong," when it's really the other way around.
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