Amid Fake News Assault, Trump's Supporters Dig In Deeper

Why this should surprise anyone is beyond me, but leftists and Democrats aren't too bright.

At NYT, "As Critics Assail Trump, His Supporters Dig In Deeper":

NY Times finds “overblown” media attacks on Trump driving Republicans closer to him —> As Critics Assail Trump, His Supporters Dig In Deeper, via @nytimes https://t.co/aawSaItsms

— Brit Hume (@brithume) June 24, 2018

LEESBURG, Va. — Gina Anders knows the feeling well by now. President Trump says or does something that triggers a spasm of outrage. She doesn’t necessarily agree with how he handled the situation. She gets why people are upset.

But Ms. Anders, 46, a Republican from suburban Loudoun County, Va., with a law degree, a business career, and not a stitch of “Make America Great Again” gear in her wardrobe, is moved to defend him anyway.

“All nuance and all complexity — and these are complex issues — are completely lost,” she said, describing “overblown” reactions from the president’s critics, some of whom equated the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children and parents to history’s greatest atrocities.

“It makes me angry at them, which causes me to want to defend him to them more,” Ms. Anders said.

In interviews across the country over the last few days, dozens of Trump voters, as well as pollsters and strategists, described something like a bonding experience with the president that happens each time Republicans have to answer a now-familiar question: “How can you possibly still support this man?” Their resilience suggests a level of unity among Republicans that could help mitigate Mr. Trump’s low overall approval ratings and aid his party’s chances of keeping control of the House of Representatives in November...

Keep reading.

John Yoo: Asian Americans Should Bail on the Democrats

I met John Yoo in 2011, at the David Horowitz Freedom Center's West Coast Retreat.

And here he is, at LAT, "Asian Americans need to wise up and end our blind loyalty to the Democratic Party":

For all their smarts, Asian Americans can be pretty dumb.

They support Democrats in droves, and Democrats support race-based affirmative action. Last week, a lawsuit revealed just how discriminatory that kind of decision-making can be. At Harvard, racial balancing — in the guise of a personality score for applicants — appears to be systematically reducing the admission of Asian American students to the university.

The Harvard scandal contains a lot of takeaways, but here’s the one I hope sticks with my fellow Asian Americans: It’s time for us to end our blind loyalty to the Democratic Party and support instead politicians who will promote our interests.

Asian Americans are the most dynamic minority group in the U.S. Between the 2000 and 2010 censuses, the Asian population in the U.S. grew by nearly 50%. According to social science surveys and the census, they are the wealthiest and best-educated Americans. They are more likely to run a small business than any other racial group. They are deeply religious, with strong family values and a low divorce rate. Asian families push their children hard to score at the top of standardized tests and to achieve sterling grade-point averages.

In recent presidential elections, Asian Americans have consistently voted Democratic. In 2012, exit polling shows that 73% of Asian voters turned out for Barack Obama, second only, among racial/ethnic groups, to African Americans. In 2016, two-thirds of Asian voters supported Hillary Clinton, again second to black Americans and this time tied with Latinos. Asian Americans last voted for a Republican for president way back in 1996, when they went for Bob Dole (about the only voters who did, it seems).

The Democratic Party has rewarded this unwavering support with an unyielding defense of race-based school admissions and government programs such as the one that’s been working against Asian Americans at Harvard.

Every Supreme Court justice appointed by a Democratic president has upheld race-based school admissions programs in the name of diversity. Democratic administrations have aggressively supported these same programs in court. In California, Democrats have sought repeatedly to overturn Proposition 209, the law that prevents UC Berkeley and UCLA from rescurrecting the use of race as a factor in their admission process. In New York City today, Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio proposes to end the standardized single-test admission system used by magnet schools — because too many Asians do too well on the tests.

Harvard, and the Democratic Party, favor “holistic” admissions policies that yield what is considered to be the “right” balance of racial and ethnic groups on campus. Under pressure of a lawsuit filed by Students for Fair Admission, the university disclosed that Asians would make up 43% of the student body if academic scores alone dictated admissions. But Harvard ranks applicants on their strengths in five categories. Even though Asians score highest on academics and extracurricular activities, Harvard gave them the lowest possible score on personal traits such as humor, sensitivity, creativity, grit and leadership.

The personal rating kept Asians to 26% of admissions in 2013. Harvard then made “demographic” adjustments that further reduced the class to 19% Asian, which magically appears to be the same percentage of Asians that’s been admitted to Harvard for years.

RTWT.

BONUS: See Glenn Reynolds, at USA Today, "Why is Harvard discriminating against Asian Americans? 'Diversity' is no excuse for racial bias."

Godwin's Law Update

So, even Mike Godwin's going Godwin. What can you do?

 At LAT, "Do we need to update Godwin's Law about the probability of comparison to Nazis?":

Does Godwin’s Law need to be updated? Suspended? Repealed? I get asked this question from time to time because I’m the guy who came up with it more than a quarter century ago.

In its original simple form, Godwin’s Law goes like this: “As an online discussion continues, the probability of a comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches one.” It’s deliberately pseudo-scientific — meant to evoke the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the inevitable decay of physical systems over time. My goal was to hint that those who escalate a debate into Adolf Hitler or Nazi comparisons may be thinking lazily, not adding clarity or wisdom, and contributing to the decay of an argument over time.

Godwin’s Law doesn’t belong to me, and nobody elected me to be in charge of it. Although I’m sometimes thought to be referee for its use, I’m not. That said, I do have thoughts about how it is being invoked nowadays.

Since it was released into the wilds of the internet in 1991, Godwin’s Law (which I nowadays abbreviate to “GL”) has been frequently reduced to a blurrier notion: that whenever someone compares anything current to Nazis or Hitler it means the discussion is over, or that that person lost the argument. It’s also sometimes used (reflexively, lazily) to suggest that anyone who invokes a comparison to Nazis or Hitler has somehow “broken” the Law, and thus demonstrated their failure to grasp what made the Holocaust uniquely horrific.

Most recently GL has been invoked in response to the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” border policy that resulted in the traumatic separation of would-be immigrants from their children, many of whom are now warehoused in tent cities or the occasional repurposed Walmart. For example, former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden — no squishy bleeding heart — posted a couple of tweets on June 16 that likened that policy to the Nazis’ treatment of children in Germany’s concentration camps. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (a Democrat but also a security hawk) has made the comparison as well.

The response has been predictable: Debate for some people has been derailed by the trivial objection that, even if it is terrible to separate children from their parents (and sometimes lose track of them, or make it impossible for their parents contact them, or even deprive them of the comfort of human touch), it’s not as awful as what the Nazis did. Or as bad as the slave trade. Or as bad as what the expansion of the United States westward did to Native Americans.

My name gets cited in a lot of these discussions. And of course my ears are burning. It hasn’t mattered that I’ve explained GL countless times. Some critics on the left have blamed me for (supposedly) having shut down valid comparisons to the Holocaust or previous atrocities. Some on the right have insisted that I’m “PC” for having tweeted (a bit profanely) that it’s just fine to compare the white nationalists who plagued Charlottesville, Va., last year to Nazis. (I think they were mostly aspirational Nazi cos players.)

I don’t take either strain of criticism too seriously. But I do want to stress that the question of evil, understood historically, is bigger than party politics. GL is about remembering history well enough to draw parallels — sometimes with Hitler or with Nazis, sure — that are deeply considered. That matter. Sometimes those comparisons are going to be appropriate, and on those occasions GL should function less as a conversation ender and more as a conversation starter.

So let me start another conversation here. Take the argument that our treatment of those seeking asylum at our border, including children, is not as monstrous as institutionalized genocide. That may be true, but it’s not what you’d call a compelling defense. Similarly, saying (disingenuously) that the administration is just doing what immigration law demands sounds suspiciously like “we were just following orders.” That argument isn’t a good look on anyone.

The seeds of future horrors are sometimes visible in the first steps a government takes toward institutionalizing cruelty...

More.

Whatever you thing about "GL," this "debate" is completely stupid, mainly because it's only being raised now, when Trump is in office. We could've had this debate in 2014, when Obama was locking up families --- and separating them --- on the border.

GL or no GL, politics is stupid. And yes, if you've got to resort to calling your opponents Nazis, you've lost the debate.

This Is How You Got Trump

This is beyond Trump derangement. Leftists are out and out advocating the slaughter of Trump supporters, and I'm seeing this multiple times a day, and not just on social media.

Sarah Sanders. Pam Bondi. Melania Trump. All of these women have been targeted and threatened by leftist mobs and Hollywood idiots over the last few days.

MSNBC's Donny Deutsch smeared Trump supporters as Nazis, "If you vote for Trump, you're the bad guy."

It feels like we're heading toward open warfare sometimes. That's one of the reasons I went offline during the vacation, and even then I was still on Twitter, so I never really get away from it. It's all leftist hatred all the time, and it's sickening.

Make this idiot famous. pic.twitter.com/SzXLbwv8zx

— R. Wolfe (@WhoWolfe) June 10, 2018

Trump Exposes Democrats' Hypocrisy and Lies, Outsmarts Them Again

From Rush Limbaugh:

RUSH: This today, ladies and gentlemen, may be one of the biggest See, I Told You So opportunity days I have had in years, maybe ever. And that’s really saying something, because I’ve had a lot of these over a stellar broadcast career. So forgive me if I point out your host — your beloved host, I, El Rushbo — predicted every single reaction that we are seeing from the news media and the rest of the Democrat Party. I have been chomping at the bit all night to get here.

It started shortly after the program ended yesterday, and I know all of you were watching the news and keeping track. I know you all noticed it. I know you’re out there saying, “It’s exactly what Rush said was gonna happen,” and it has happened. I don’t know if Donald Trump is a strategic genius, but I can tell you that he is an instinctive one. I don’t know how much Trump sits around and strategizes and tries to play, for example, a long game and say, “Okay. If I do this and do this, I know they’re gonna do this and this. So, after that happens, I’m going to do this.”

I don’t know if he’s that many steps down the board or not. But I know that his instincts are practically infallible here. He has turned these people inside out, upside down. He has forced them, made them, caused them — his enemies — to expose their hypocrisy, to expose their lies, and to expose the fact that they’re dishonest when reporting so-called news. For starters, ladies and gentlemen, I predicted the press would say that Trump caved, that they would begin to take credit for it, that they indeed had put so much pressure on Trump that finally they had made him cave.

Dana Bash at CNN was the first to start shouting with great happiness that they had made Trump cave. It was their first reaction. There were lots of articles with headlines claiming that Trump caved. There were other stories talking about Trump’s base supporters being tragically saddened and disappointed by this, that Trump didn’t have the guts to stick to his policy, that Trump is even less committed to this than Obama was. There was all kinds of stuff. But then — and you remember this — they began to realize, as I also predicted they would. (laughing)

In fact, the first guy to get up was a little bald head guy yesterday afternoon on CNN. (laughing) It was so fun to watch. We had the sound bite from the guy, Zac something or other. He’s the guy that the Fox infobabes love having this guy on. You can just tell that they are as amused as hell. He’s like a pet! You know, he’s like a talking pet. They’re just amused as hell when this guy gets wound up and gets going. He stands up out of his chair, starts gesticulating wildly, and they look at each other with the suppressed smiles. (laughing) They don’t even try to stop him!

Anyway, he was the first to figure it out. (laughing) They realized that this only meant one thing, that Trump was gonna keep families detained, if we’re gonna keep ’em together, they’re gonna stay detained, quote-unquote, “behind bars.” What the left has been looking for here all along is catch-and-release. That’s what they want to return to. They thought Trump caving meant that his executive order was gonna be, “We no longer detain children,” and since we can’t separate families, if we’re gonna detain the children, we can’t deign the adults.

Therefore nobody’s detained, thereby everybody is free to roam America and get lost. (laughing) Well, that’s not what the executive order says. And then I predicted that there would be a court challenge to this before the next day — today — arrived. And I predicted that the court challenge would be on the fact that Trump had usurped his executive authority, that he cannot trump (no pun intended) existing law as written by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the Flores decision, which the media never talked about during any of this.

When they’re clamoring for Trump to end his supposedly policy of separation, the no tolerance. It isn’t his. It never was, which you know. But they’re demanding that he end it. And all during those days where they’re demanding that he end it, they never once said that there was an opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals called the Flores decision that prevents him from ending it. Then when he signs his executive order, then all of a sudden they discover Flores to say that his executive order may not be valid. (laughing)

They fell right into this at every step!

More at that top link.

Lindsey Pelas Greetings

She's so sweet.

HI ✨✨✨✨ pic.twitter.com/gmLCp0Dyyb

— Lindsey Pelas (@LindseyPelas) June 21, 2018

I’d rather be in Mexico today 🔥 how about you? pic.twitter.com/yDeH9NkRkc

— Lindsey Pelas (@LindseyPelas) June 23, 2018

Alexis Ren on the Beach (VIDEO)

At Sports Illustrated Swimsuit:

Jamie Leigh Thornton

At Maxim:

"Don't start a DM with 'Dannnnng girl you got a nice rack.'" https://t.co/bUyrPWurZQ

— Maxim (@MaximMag) June 17, 2018

Jennifer Delacruz's Saturday Forecast

It's really overcast in Irvine today. And come to think of it, that's weird, considering that Monterey Bay was clearing up before Noon.

Be that as it may, here's the lovely Ms. Jennifer, for ABC News 10 San Diego:

Time Magazine Stands by #FakeCover Story Featuring Crying Migrant Child Who Was Not Separated from Her Mother

I think this is probably the fakest of fake news stories I've ever seen.

I don't have all that much to add to the commentary. I was on Twitter all this last week while on vacation and I tweeted a lot of commentary. My main take: This is a fake crisis, perpetuated by fake journalists exploiting fake migrants, to foist a fake political controversy ahead of the November elections.

The Washington Post has a huge rundown, "The crying Honduran girl on the cover of Time was not separated from her mother."

And at AoSHQ, "#FakeNews: TIME's Open Borders Propaganda Cover Story Is Fake In Every Way An Article Can Be Fake."

Plus, here's Shannon Bream, at Fox News:

Delilah Hamlin Bikini Model

At Drunken Stepfather, "Delilah Hamlin Bikini Model of the Day."

BONUS: "Kaili Thorne [Bella's sister] is Topless of the Day."

Lily-Rose Depp for Vogue Russia

At People Magazine, "Lily-Rose Depp Smiles While Posing Topless on the Beach in Vogue Russia Shoot."

ADDED: "Lily-Rose Depp by Boo George for Vogue Russia July 2018."

And at the French magazine Gala, "PHOTO – Lily-Rose Depp topless, la fille de Vanessa Paradis se lâche."

Far-Left Cynthia Nixon Smears ICE as a 'Terrorist Organization,' Wants It Abolished (VIDEO)

She's really, really far left.

Her daughter is now her transgender son. See People, "Cynthia Nixon Reveals Her Oldest Child Is Transgender as They Mark Trans Day of Action."

And she attacked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a "terrorist organization."

She's exactly the goofy leftist far-left New Yorkers deserve.

Here's her appearance on the View from a few days ago:

Who's Really to Blame at the Border?

From Heather Mac Donald, at City Journal:

Who’s really to blame at the border? https://t.co/WV6B0i4XEj pic.twitter.com/LArcwLXgdg

— City Journal (@CityJournal) June 23, 2018

So it was a ruse. The hysteria over the separation of illegal-alien asylum-seekers from their children (or their purported children) was in large part pretextual. The real target of rage was the Trump administration’s policy of prosecuting all illegal border-crossers for the federal misdemeanor of illegal entry.

In April, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero-tolerance” policy for illegal entry. Henceforth, virtually all aliens caught entering the country illegally would be held for prosecution, rather than being released on their own recognizance for a later noncriminal deportation proceeding, to which few ever showed up. (This new enforcement policy would have come as a surprise to anyone who had fallen for the advocates’ decades-long lie that illegal entry is not a crime.) Under the new policy, even if the adult had brought a child with him across the border—the usual accoutrement of an asylum-seeker, for reasons explained below—the adult would still be prosecuted. The adult would be held in a U.S. marshal’s facility pending trial, while the child would be placed in a dormitory run by the U.S. Health and Human Services department, since children cannot be held in criminal lockups.

Images of child border-crossers, separated from their adult companion and crying or looking upset—and the experience would undoubtedly be traumatic for most young children—triggered nonstop coverage of Trump administration cruelty. MSNBC and CNN set up border encampments from which reporters and pundits pontificated on the child-separation crisis. Nazi and Holocaust analogies flew around the Internet; faculty petitions invoked the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Mexico and four other Latin American countries filed a human rights complaint against the U.S. Politicians and religious leaders lined up to denounce White House racism and anti-immigrant hatred.

On Wednesday, Trump called their bluff. He signed an executive order that would house illegal-alien adults with minors in Department of Homeland Security or other government facilities.  The zero-tolerance policy, however, would continue. Democratic politicians and illegal alien advocates immediately cried foul. “Make no mistake: the President is doubling down on his ‘zero tolerance’ policy,” Democratic U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, said in a statement Wednesday. “His new Executive Order criminalizes asylum-seekers . . . . Locking up whole families is no solution at all—the Trump Administration must reverse its policy of prosecuting vulnerable people fleeing three of the most dangerous countries on earth.”

The Harvard Kennedy School’s Juliette Kayyem told CNN’s Don Lemon on Wednesday night: “The real problem is Sessions’ decision to prosecute [illegal border crossers] 100 percent.” A CNN anchor on Thursday morning asked U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, if his position was: don’t criminally charge each person who illegally crosses the border. Schiff responded: “We don’t have to criminalize everyone that’s coming here seeking asylum.” NPR interviewed the director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women’s Refugee Commission, Michelle Brané. “Families will be just as traumatized, children will be just as traumatized” under the executive order, she said on Thursday morning. “Exchanging one form of trauma for another is not the solution”; getting rid of the prosecutorial mandate is. 

And the open-borders lobby possesses a powerful weapon for doing just that. The extraordinarily complex thicket of interpolated rules and rights that govern U.S. immigration policy (the result of decades of nonstop litigation by the immigration bar) contains a series of judicial mandates that defeated even the Obama administration’s tepid efforts to bring some semblance of lawfulness to the border. A long-running class-action lawsuit in the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, originally styled Flores v. Reno, has held that alien minors cannot be confined by the government for longer than 20 days. This 20-day cap contributed to the flood of Central American child-toting asylum seekers that picked up steam during President Obama’s second term. Asylum petitions typically take months, if not years, to adjudicate, given the long backlog of such cases in the immigration courts. If an adult crosses the border alone and utters the magic asylum words—a fear of persecution in his home country—he could in theory be held in detention until his asylum claim was adjudicated. If, however, he brings a child with him and makes an asylum pitch, he puts the government to a choice: detain the adult separately until his claim is heard and release the child after 20 days, or release both adult and child together.

The Obama administration usually chose the second option...

Naturally.

But keep reading.

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Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Charged with Wire Fraud

This woman should be behind bars. If Martin Shkreli was sent to prison for securities fraud, this woman should as well. White collar criminals get away with murder, and this Holmes woman is way worse than Shkreli, IMHO.

Here's Ryan Barber, "Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes INDICTED on charges she defrauded investors. Two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, nine counts of wire fraud."

And at CNBC, "BREAKING: Justice Dept. announces that a federal grand jury has indicted Elizabeth A. Holmes and Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani in alleged wire fraud schemes."

More at Business Week, via Memeorandum, "Theranos Says Elizabeth Holmes Has Stepped Down as CEO."

(Photo by Max Morse for TechCrunch, via Wikipedia.)

Ireland Baldwin in Skimpy Bikini

At London's Daily Mail, "Ireland Baldwin PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: Blonde bombshell flashes the flesh in skimpy bikini for racy beach photo shoot."

Ireland Baldwin flashes the flesh in skimpy bikini for racy beach photo shoot https://t.co/M1vkQ6dAGu

— Daily Mail Celebrity (@DailyMailCeleb) June 15, 2018

Also at Drunken Stepfather, "Ireland Baldwin Bikini of the Day."

Here's Yet Another Piece Bemoaning the Rise of 'Illiberal' Populist Nationalism

I think it's interesting, since at the moment all those complaining about the collapse of so-called democratic norms and the rise of "illiberal" populist nationalist regimes are the ones losing elections and being sidelined from decision-making. I love that.

At Der Spiegel, "Rise of the Autocrats: Liberal Democracy Is Under Attack":

Our new @DerSPIEGEL cover story now in English: “Rise of the Autocrats: Liberal Democracy Is Under Attack” https://t.co/HxjatzEeTi via @SPIEGELONLINE pic.twitter.com/u7A2mVPAwt

— Mathieu von Rohr (@mathieuvonrohr) June 13, 2018

Autocratic leaders and wannabes, from Putin to Trump, are making political inroads around the world. In recent years, Western liberal democracy has failed to live up to some of its core promises, helping to fuel the current wave of illiberalism.

Russian President Vladimir Putin isn't actually all that interested in football. He's more of a martial arts guy, and he loves ice hockey. But when the World Cup football championship gets started on Thursday in Moscow, Putin will strive to be the perfect host. The tournament logo is a football with stars trailing behind it, evoking Sputnik, and a billion people will be tuning in as Putin presents Russia as a strong and modern country.

During the dress rehearsal, last summer's Confed Cup, Putin held an opening address in which he spoke of "uncompromising, fair and honest play ... until the very last moments of the match." Now, it's time for the main event, the World Cup, giving Putin an opportunity to showcase his country to the world.

The World Cup, though, will be merely the apex of the great autocrat festival of 2018. On June 24, Turkish voters will head to the polls for the first time since approving President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's constitutional reforms last year. The result of the vote will in all likelihood cement his claim to virtually absolute power until 2023 or even beyond. Should he miss out on an absolute majority in the first round of voting -- which is certainly possible given rising inflation in the country -- then he'll get it in the second round. The result will likely be a Turkey -- a country with around 170 journalists behind bars and where more than 70,000 people have been arrested since the coup attempt two years ago, sometimes with no grounds for suspicion - that is even more authoritarian than it is today.

And then there is Donald Trump who, after turning the G-7 summit in Canada into a farce, headed to Singapore for a Tuesday meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. And many pundits have argued this week that the greatest beneficiary of that summit was actually Chinese President Xi Jinping, the man who poses a greater challenge to Western democracy than all the rest.

At home, Trump is continuing his assault on the widely accepted norms regarding how a president should behave. He has the "absolute right" to pardon himself in the Russian affair, he recently claimed -- and then he went off the rails in Canada, picking fights with his allies and revoking his support for the summit's closing statement by sending out a tweet from Air Force One as he left. Trump, to be sure, is an elected president, but he is one who dreams of wielding absolute power and sees himself as being both above the law and above internationally accepted norms of behavior.

The Backward Slide

The upshot is that global politics are currently dominated by a handful of men -- and only men -- who have nothing but contempt for liberal democracy and who aspire to absolute control of politics, of the economy, of the judiciary and of the media. They are the predominant figures of the present -- and the decisions they make will go a long way toward shaping the future ahead. The globalized, high-tech, constantly informed and enlightened world of the 21st century finds itself in the middle of a slide back into the age of authoritarianism.

And this is not merely the lament of Western cultural pessimists, it is a statement rooted in statistics. A recent study by the German foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung found that 3.3 billion people live under autocratic regimes, while the UK-based Economist Intelligence Unit found that just 4.5 percent of the global population, around 350 million people, live in a "full democracy." In its most recent annual report, issued in January of this year, the nongovernmental organization Freedom House wrote that in 2017, "democracy faced its most serious crisis in decades." It went on to note that "the right to choose leaders in free and fair elections, freedom of the press and the rule of law are under assault and in retreat globally."

How can this global trend be explained? Are autocrats really so strong, or are democrats too weak? Is liberal democracy only able to function well in relatively homogeneous societies where prosperity is growing? Why do so many people doubt democracy's ability to solve the problems of the 21st century, challenges such as climate change, the tech revolution, shifting demographics and the distribution of wealth?

The optimistic Western premises -- that greater prosperity leads to more freedom, increased communication leads to greater pluralism, and more free trade leads to increased economic integration -- have unraveled. Following the end of the Cold War, the American political scientists Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan said in 1996 that Western democracy was "the only game in town." Now, though, it would seem to have lost its attraction. The expectation that democracy's triumphant march would be impossible to stop has proven illusory. China is currently showing the world that economic success and societal prosperity are also possible in an authoritarian system.

The fact that established dictatorships in the world, such as those in Belarus, Zimbabwe or Vietnam, aren't showing any signs of change is only part of the problem. Rather, everywhere in the world, authoritarian phases are following on the heels of brief -- or more extended -- experiments with democracy, a development seen in places like Egypt, Thailand, Venezuela and Nicaragua, for example. At the same time, liberal democracy is eroding in many countries in the West.

Perhaps the greatest danger, though, is the increasing attraction of autocratic thinking in Europe. Some elements of such systems are sneaking into Western democracies, such as the growing contempt for established political parties, the media and minorities.

In Italy, a new government was just sworn in under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, an avowed Putin fan. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán just won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held, according to OSCE election observers, in an atmosphere of "intimidating and xenophobic rhetoric." Polish voters are set to go to the polls next year, and there too, the right-wing nationalist PiS stands a good chance of emerging victorious.

Across the Atlantic, the U.S. under the leadership of Donald Trump has thus far resisted sliding into autocracy, but only because the institutional hurdles in the form of the judicial and legislative branches of government have managed to hold their ground. Nevertheless, liberal democracy is under attack in precisely the country where it first emerged.

Anxiety is likewise growing in other Western democracies. "Until recently, liberal democracy reigned triumphant. For all its shortcomings, most citizens seemed deeply committed to their form of government. The economy was growing. Radical parties were insignificant," writes the Harvard-based German-American political scientist Yascha Mounk in his book "The People vs. Democracy." But then the situation began changing rapid: Brexit, Trump's election and the success of other right-wing populist movements in Europe. The question, Mounk writes, is "whether this populist moment will turn into a populist age -- and cast the very survival of liberal democracy in doubt."

The Western political system, Mounk writes, is "decomposing into its component parts, giving rise to illiberal democracy on the one side and undemocratic liberalism on the other." The one, he argues, is dominated by manipulated majority opinion while the other is controlled by institutions such as central banks, constitutional courts and supranational bureaucracies like the European Commission that can operate independent of direct, democratic debate.

"Take back control" was the slogan used by the Brexiteers during their successful campaign. Indeed, the feeling of living in an era in which they have lost control is likely a common denominator among all European populists. Taking back that control is something they all promise.

It is combined with the desire to shake off the corset that allegedly makes life in the West anything but free. All the laws, rules, decrees and contracts that dictate to people, companies and entire countries how to behave. What they are allowed to say and what not. What they can buy and what is off limits. How things may or may not be produced. This desire to apply a new set of self-made, simpler rules to the world is feeding the popularity of the autocratically minded.

These days, it is rare that democracies collapse under attack from armed, uniformed adversaries. Such images belong to the past; the coup d'état has become a rarity. On the contrary, many autocrats have come to power by way of the ballot box, govern in the name of the people and regularly hold referenda to solidify their power.

But once in power -- in Turkey, Venezuela or Russia -- they bring the institutions of democracy under their control. They tend not to be committed ideologues. Rather, they are strategists of power who used ideologies without necessarily believing in them themselves. Furthermore, they don't generally wield violence indiscriminately, another difference to the murderous regimes of the past. Sometimes, a journalist loses their life, or an oligarch ends up in jail. But otherwise, the new autocrats are much subtler than their totalitarian predecessors. Generally, a timely threat issued to insubordinate citizens suffices. And they are particularly adept at the dark art of propaganda. They know that many people have become insecure and are afraid of the future and foreigners. They have learned how to augment those fears, so they can then pose as guarantors of stability...

Still more.

California Judge Finds in Favor of Jarod Taylor and 'American Renaissance'

I didn't realize he'd been banned from Twitter.

At Bloomberg, "Twitter to Face Claims by ‘White Advocate’ Over Banned Accounts":

Twitter Inc. lost its bid to dismiss a lawsuit by a “white advocate” who was banned from the site in a challenge to the company’s ability to exclude users it deems objectionable.

California Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn in San Francisco rejected Jared Taylor’s claims that Twitter violated his free speech rights and discriminated against him when it permanently suspended his accounts in December.

But he said Taylor properly supported his allegations that Twitter’s policy of suspending accounts, in the judge’s words, “at any time, for any reason or for no reason” may be unconscionable and that the company calling itself a platform devoted to free speech may be misleading and therefore fraudulent...

And, at American Renaissance, "Jared Taylor Wins First Round in Anti-Censorship Suit Against Twitter":

For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Henry Wolff
Assistant Editor
Phone: 703-716-0900
Email wolff@amren.com

Yesterday, California Superior Court Judge Harold E. Kahn rejected Twitter’s petition to dismiss the suit Jared Taylor brought against Twitter for banning his Twitter account and that of his organization, American Renaissance. The judge also rejected Twitter’s motion under California’s Anti-SLAPP law to strike the complaint, adding that it was “hard to imagine a clearer public interest lawsuit.”

Judge Kahn described Taylor’s complaint as “very eloquent,” adding that “it goes to the heart of free speech principles that long precede our constitution.”

Judge Kahn recognized Taylor’s claim under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL) that Twitter could be, in effect, guilty of false advertising by holding itself out as a public forum for free speech while reserving the right to ban the expression of ideas with which it disagrees. Judge Kahn also recognized Taylor’s claim under the UCL that Twitter’s terms of service—according to which it claims the right to ban any user any time for any reason—may well be “unconscionable,” and a violation of the law.

In oral argument, Judge Kahn asked: “Twitter can discriminate on the basis of religion, or gender, or sexual preference, or physical disability, or mental disability?” Counsel for Twitter conceded that it claimed that right—even though it would never exercise it. Judge Kahn denied that Twitter has such a right.

This is the first time censorship by a social media platform—an increasingly widespread practice seen by many as discrimination against conservative viewpoints—has been found actionable under state or federal law. This finding could have far-reaching consequences for other internet platforms that have become essential vehicles for the expression of ideas but that silence voices with which they disagree.

Twitter now has 30 days to answer Taylor’s claims.

The hearing transcript is available here. Coverage: Bloomberg, Associated Press, Law 360.

Jared Taylor and American Renaissance are represented by Washington, D.C., attorney Noah Peters (noah@noahpeterslaw.com), Michigan State University law professor Adam Candeub (candeub@msu.edu), and prominent free speech advocate Marc Randazza (702-420-2001).

More.

Note that it's not a First Amendment lawsuit, but is basically civil rights and fair business practices litigation.

Clarinetist Eric Abramovitz Discovers Ex-Girlfriend Faked Rejection Letter to Dream Music School in Los Angeles

This is mind-boggling, particularly the brazen faked rejection emails. Man.

At WaPo, "Clarinetist discovers his ex-girlfriend faked a rejection letter from his dream school":

Eric Abramovitz was 7 years old when he first learned to play the clarinet. By the time he was 20, the Montreal native had become an award-winning clarinetist, studying with some of Canada’s most elite teachers and performing a solo with Quebec’s finest symphony orchestra.

During his second year studying at McGill University, he decided to apply to the world-class Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, which offers every student a scholarship covering tuition, room and board, and living expenses. He hoped to study under Yehuda Gilad, an internationally renowned clarinet professor who accepts only two new students per year at Colburn.

Abramovitz spent hours every night practicing, he said in an interview with The Washington Post. And after his live audition in Los Angeles in February 2014, he was confident that he would be accepted.

Weeks later, he opened an email signed by Gilad and letting him know he had not been selected for the program. He was crushed. Abramovitz ended up finishing his bachelor’s degree at McGill, delaying his professional musical career.

I just invested so much,” Abramovitz said. “I gave it all I had.”

But two years later, Abramovitz would find out that he was, in fact, accepted to the program. The letter was sent not by Gilad but by Abramovitz’s girlfriend, a flute student at McGill who had spent night after night consoling him about the rejection, Abramovitz said.

The girlfriend had logged onto his email account and deleted his acceptance letter to Colburn, Abramovitz said. She impersonated Abramovitz in an email to Gilad, declining the offer because he would be “elsewhere.” Then she impersonated Gilad through a fake email address, telling Abramovitz he had not been accepted, according to Abramovitz.

Abramovitz suspects it was a scheme to ensure that he wouldn’t move away. Or perhaps, he wonders, was the girlfriend jealous?

On Wednesday, a judge in Ontario Superior Court awarded Abramovitz $350,000 in damages in Canadian dollars (more than $260,000 U.S. dollars) caused by his girlfriend’s “reprehensible betrayal of trust” and “despicable interference in Mr Abramovitz’s career,” the judge, D.L. Corbett, wrote...

More.