At the Other McCain, "Meet the Women Who Ruined Twitter."
#SJWs: Meet the Women Who Ruined #Twitter: https://t.co/n10nZECdQF Via @PatriarchTree pic.twitter.com/mXLviqB679
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) July 27, 2019
Saturday, July 27, 2019
SJWs Ruined Twitter
I'm trying to adjust to the new Twitter layout, but it's hard. One can go back to "legacy" Twitter, which I'm thinking about. We'll see. We'll see.
At the Other McCain, "Meet the Women Who Ruined Twitter."
At the Other McCain, "Meet the Women Who Ruined Twitter."
Friday, July 26, 2019
Megan Parry's Friday Forecast
It's a beautiful day.
And here's the beautiful Ms. Megan, at ABC News 10 San Diego:
And here's the beautiful Ms. Megan, at ABC News 10 San Diego:
Brooke Shields Bikini Photos
She's looking good!
At Egotastic!, "Brooke Shields Just Got MILFy as Hell in a Yummy Lands’ End Bikini."
At Egotastic!, "Brooke Shields Just Got MILFy as Hell in a Yummy Lands’ End Bikini."
Orioles Beat Angels in 16 Innings: Outfielder Stevie Wilkerson, Pitching 55 MPH, Records the Save (VIDEO)
What a game!
Second longest in Angels history, and also in Orioles history.
At the L.A. Times, "Angels use 10 pitchers in a 16-inning marathon but lose to Orioles."
My mouth was hanging open watching this guy Stevie Wilkerson pitch. He was throwing up softballs, but it was so late in the game, players were clearly tired, and no one could adjust to the lobs. It was freaky.
Second longest in Angels history, and also in Orioles history.
At the L.A. Times, "Angels use 10 pitchers in a 16-inning marathon but lose to Orioles."
My mouth was hanging open watching this guy Stevie Wilkerson pitch. He was throwing up softballs, but it was so late in the game, players were clearly tired, and no one could adjust to the lobs. It was freaky.
Orioles utility man Stevie Wilkerson has taken the mound three times this season. He notched the first save for a position player with an average pitch speed below the limit for cars on the Beltway. https://t.co/ipmCFj0DGC
— The Baltimore Sun (@baltimoresun) July 26, 2019
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Doddering Robert Mueller: How Long Has He Been Like This?
At the Federalist, "How Long Has Robert Mueller Been Like This?":
How Long Has Robert Mueller Been Like This? https://t.co/jfIUo0wA11— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 25, 2019
Robert Mueller, in his current state, should not have been allowed to supervise the Russia collusion investigation. But the greater question is, how long has Robert Mueller been like this?
The regulation on the appointment of a Special Counsel provides that the person named as the Special Counsel “shall be a lawyer with a reputation for integrity and impartial decision making, and with appropriate experience to ensure both that the investigation will be conducted ably, expeditiously and thoroughly, and that investigative and prosecutorial decisions will be supported by an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies. The Special Counsel shall be selected from outside the United States Government.” The regulation further provides that the Special Counsel’s responsibilities “shall take first precedence in their professional lives, and that it may be necessary to devote their full time to the investigation, depending on its complexity and the stage of the investigation.”
On July 24, 2019, Democrats staged vivid and irrefutable proof that the appointment of Robert Mueller came to violate these principles. Watching even a few minutes of the hearing testimony, it swiftly became apparent that the stammering and confused Robert Mueller lacked even a basic understanding of the underlying facts of the Russia collusion investigation.
How, for example, could anyone following the story not be familiar with Fusion GPS? It was clear that Mueller didn’t write the report as he seemed to read for the first time excerpts cited by interrogators. He didn’t know what was and was not in the report. He didn’t write his letter to AG Barr complaining about Barr’s summary of the underlying conclusions. He didn’t write his script in the May 2019 press conference. Mueller can’t keep his story straight about whether he would have indicted the president but for the Justice Department Policy prohibiting the indictment of a sitting president. He didn’t even know that one of his top attorneys who headed up the Papadopoulos investigation (Jeannie Rhee) actually represented Hillary Clinton in litigation over emails.
So I’ll ask this again: How long has he been like this? ...
Inside the Fight Over the Democrat Party's Future
Well, this is interesting, at least.
At Time Magazine:
At Time Magazine:
Rounding out our cover package on the Democrats: My piece on the party's divisions and what they mean for the future https://t.co/qlKjAyKnTA pic.twitter.com/QlC3oDdiEr
— Molly Ball (@mollyesque) July 25, 2019
They are both Democrats: Joe Biden, the 76-year-old former Vice President, and Ilhan Omar, the 36-year-old freshman Congresswoman. An old white man, with blind spots on race and gender and a penchant for bipartisanship; a young Somali-American Muslim who sees compromise as complicity. To Biden, Donald Trump is an aberration; to Omar, he is a symptom of a deeper rot. One argues for a return to normality, while the other insists: Your normal has always been my oppression.More.
How to fit those two visions into one party is the question tying the Democrats in knots. What policies will the party champion? Which voters will it court? How will it speak to an angry and divided nation? While intraparty tussles are perennial in politics, this one comes against a unique backdrop: an unpopular, mendacious, norm-trampling President. As Democrats grilled Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, on July 24, their sense of urgency was evident.
The one thing Democrats agree on is that Trump needs to go, but even on the question of how to oust him, they are split. Ninety-five of the party’s 235 House Representatives recently voted to begin impeachment proceedings, a measure nearly a dozen of the major Democratic presidential candidates support. The party’s leadership continues to insist that defeating the President in 2020 is the better path. Half the party seems furious at Speaker Nancy Pelosi for not attacking Trump more forcefully, while the other is petrified they’re losing the American mainstream, validating Trump’s “witch hunt” accusations with investigations into Russian election interference that most voters see as irrelevant to their daily lives.
These divisions have come into focus in recent weeks. Two parallel conflicts–the fight among congressional Democrats, and debates among the 2020 candidates–have played out along similar lines, revealing deep fissures on policy, tactics and identity. A consistent majority of voters disapprove of the President’s performance, do not want him re-elected and dislike his policies and character. Even Trump’s allies admit his re-election hopes rest on his ability to make the alternative even more distasteful.
But for an opposition party, it’s never as simple as pointing out the failures of those in power. As desperate as Democrats are to defeat Trump, voters demand an alternative vision. “You will not win an election telling everybody how bad Donald Trump is,” former Senate majority leader Harry Reid tells TIME. “They have to run on what they’re going to do.”
The Democrats’ crossroads is also America’s. As Trump leans into themes of division, with racist appeals, detention camps for migrants and an exclusionary vision of national identity, the 2020 election is shaping up as a referendum on what the country’s citizens want it to become. This is not who we are as a nation, Trump’s opponents are fond of saying. But if not, what should we be instead?
“That little girl was me.” With this five-word statement at the Democrats’ June 27 debate in Miami, Senator Kamala Harris did not just strike a blow against Biden. She showed where the party’s most sensitive sore spots lie.
Harris explained that she had been bused to her Berkeley, Calif., public school as part of an integration plan; Biden, as a Delaware Senator, had worked to stop the federal government from forcing busing on school districts that resisted integration. On the campaign trail this year, Biden had boasted about being able to work with political opponents, citing his chumminess with Senators who were racists and segregationists. “It was hurtful,” Harris said, “to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States Senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country.”
It was a powerful appeal, drawn from the personal experience of a woman of color whose life’s course was altered by the public-policy choices made in the halls of power. What was exposed wasn’t so much a real policy difference–after the debate, Harris took essentially the same position as Biden against mandatory busing in today’s still segregated schools–but a dispute about perspective. Biden, clearly ruffled, became defensive and eventually gave up, cutting himself off midsentence: “My time is up.” Biden remains the front runner, but the line had the ring of a campaign epitaph.
Presidential primaries are always the battleground for political parties’ competing factions, and some of the debates Democrats are enmeshed in now are ones they’ve been having for decades. Swing to the left, or tack to the middle? Galvanize the base, or cultivate the center? Tear down the system, or work to improve it? These familiar questions are now shadowed by the specter of Trump and his movement. If Americans are to reject Trumpist nationalism and white identity politics, what’s their alternative?
With two dozen presidential candidates and the race only just begun, the majority of Democratic voters say they are undecided. But a top tier of five candidates has emerged as the focus of voters’ attention: Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Harris and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg. At the moment, it is Warren and Harris who appear on an upward trajectory, while the three male candidates trend downward.
Biden’s pitch to voters is moderation, electability and a callback to the halcyon days of the Obama Administration. Sanders seeks to expand the fiery leftist movement he built in 2016. Warren has staked her campaign on wonkishness and economic populism, while Harris paints herself as a crusader for justice. Buttigieg offers a combination of generational change and executive experience. To imagine each of them in the White House is to conjure five very different hypothetical presidencies come January 2021.
On Capitol Hill, the party has been spread along a similar axis of race, power, perspective and privilege. To address the humanitarian crisis on the southern border, Pelosi pushed a compromise bill this summer that sought to fund migrant detention while protecting the rights of asylum seekers. She was opposed by members of the so-called Squad–a quartet of outspoken freshman Representatives who have become champions of the party’s rising left wing: Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. All women of color, all 45 or under, all adept with a Twitter zinger and prone to inflammatory statements, they seek to build a movement and shake up the party–a markedly different theory of change from Pelosi’s dogged insistence on vote counting and the art of the possible.
The ugly sight of a President luxuriating in “send her back” chants laid down a marker for 2020. As much as traditional Republicans might like the President to campaign on a healthy economy, a tax cut that put more money in the pocket of two-thirds of Americans and a slate of new conservative federal judges, Trump plans instead to plunge even further into fear and division. And as much as Democrats might like to talk about health care, climate change and the minimum wage, their candidate will inevitably be dragged into his sucking morass of conspiracy mongering and tribalism.
For a moment, the controversy unified the bickering House Democrats, who passed a resolution condemning Trump’s comments. But behind the scenes, Democrats’ reactions to the spectacle were a test for the electoral theories of their feuding factions. Progressives (and many Republicans) argued that Trump was only making himself more toxic to swing voters. But some in the Democratic establishment fretted that Trump’s repellent statements were a political masterstroke, elevating four fringe figures as the face of the party...
Leftists Taking the Mueller Debacle Really Hard (VIDEO)
Here's Sarah Kendzior, who's been a regular on MSNBC spreading the hate against this administration, routinely smearing the president as an "autocrat" dictator.
And at the video, Rachel Maddow calls for the entire Mueller team to testify before Congress. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross had something to say about the stages of grief, man.
And at the video, Rachel Maddow calls for the entire Mueller team to testify before Congress. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross had something to say about the stages of grief, man.
"The public has a right to know whether its own government constitutes a threat to national security and if the president is complicit in a crime." https://t.co/lPkanzgOK7 pic.twitter.com/YIMptkV88r
— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) July 25, 2019
The 2020 Election: The One Way to End the Trump Presidency
It's not gonna happen, although this is an excellent piece.
At WaPo, "Democrats are now left with one option to end Trump’s presidency: The 2020 election":
At WaPo, "Democrats are now left with one option to end Trump’s presidency: The 2020 election":
From @danbalz: “Many Democrats long have considered Robert S. Mueller III a potential savior, as the agent of President Trump’s eventual undoing. Wednesday’s hearings on Capitol Hill probably shattered those illusions once and for all.” https://t.co/gjfPgTt52C #TheLedeOfLedes— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) July 25, 2019
Many Democrats long have considered Robert S. Mueller III a potential savior, as the agent of President Trump’s eventual undoing. Wednesday’s hearings on Capitol Hill probably shattered those illusions once and for all. If Democrats hope to end the Trump presidency, they will have to do so by defeating him at the ballot box in November 2020.
In reality, that has been the case for months. Still, scheduled testimony by the former special counsel before two House committees offered the possibility that he would say something that would suddenly change public perceptions and dramatically jump-start long-stalled prospects for an impeachment inquiry. That was certainly the Democrats’ goal. If anything, things could move in the opposite direction.
Regardless of the evidence of obstruction contained in Mueller’s report, impeachment is a fraught strategy for the Democrats, given public opinion and the dynamics in the Senate. After Wednesday, the prospects for impeachment appear more remote, which means it will be left to the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, with the help of the party, to develop a comprehensive case against the president, one that can win 270 electoral votes. To date, that hasn’t happened.
House Democrats have fumbled in their efforts to hold Trump and his administration accountable, despite promises to do so. Presidential candidates are more focused on one another and playing to their internal constituencies than on organizing the brief against the president to take into the general-election campaign. That remains a major challenge as the contest moves forward.
Next week’s Democratic debate in Detroit will offer the candidates a fresh opportunity to begin to frame the election — the case for their party and the case against Trump — as well as to state or restate their views about impeaching the president. With Mueller’s testimony over, the onus will be on them to show the leadership what rank-and-file Democrats are looking for.
Mueller gave the Democrats some things they wanted. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, he rebutted Trump’s claim that he was totally exonerated by the report. Not true, Mueller said. Nor, he told the House Intelligence Committee, was his investigation a hoax or a witch hunt, as the president has claimed. And he seemed to suggest that Trump was not charged with obstruction because Justice Department regulations say that a sitting president cannot be indicted and that a president can be charged after leaving office.
But there was some ambiguity surrounding statements about whether Trump would have been indicted absent those regulations. Before the intelligence committee, Mueller corrected his previous comment, noting that the report did not definitively answer the question of whether Trump had committed a crime.
Meanwhile, the rest of Mueller’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee proved a disappointment to any Democrat who thought that he would take up the role of witness for the prosecution. Laurence H. Tribe, a Harvard law professor and impeachment advocate, tweeted Wednesday afternoon: “Much as I hate to say it, this morning’s hearing was a disaster. Far from breathing life into his damning report, the tired Robert Mueller sucked the life out of it.”
Mueller proved to be a reluctant — and at times shaky — witness. He had warned the Democrats in a brief public statement when he exited the Justice Department in May that he would not go beyond the written report if called to testify...
Megan Parry's Thursday Forecast
Oh boy it's been hot.
Here's the lovely Ms. Megan, at ABC 10 News San Diego:
Here's the lovely Ms. Megan, at ABC 10 News San Diego:
When Stalin Faced Hitler
Summer reading, at Foreign Affairs.
And don't miss Kotkin's incredible two-volume biography, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, and Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941.
And don't miss Kotkin's incredible two-volume biography, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, and Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941.
Stephen Kotkin discusses Hitler, Stalin, and how the German-Soviet non-aggression pact fell apart.https://t.co/t5K4ZTI9TE
— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) July 17, 2019
Hailey Baldwin
Justin Bieber scored by marrying this chick. Let's see if he doesn't lose her and blow it.
At Taxi Driver:
At Taxi Driver:
Hailey Baldwin Bieber Rock Hard Nipple Pokies in the Ocean - https://t.co/u7GUpMgG6x - pic.twitter.com/S6SGV8iV3V
— Taxi Driver (@TaxiDriverMovie) July 24, 2019
Mueller Testimony Sinks #Dems Hopes for Impeachment
There's just too much titillating commentary on yesterday's debacle. I'll try to get to some of it throughout the day.
Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, "Mueller’s testimony seems unlikely to boost impeachment — but could vindicate Pelosi":
And at Instapundit, "GUY BENSON: As America Yawned, Mueller’s Testimony Damaged Him, Made Impeachment Less Likely," and "LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘The Robert Mueller Story’ Was Box Office Poison."
Meanwhile, at the Los Angeles Times, "Mueller’s testimony seems unlikely to boost impeachment — but could vindicate Pelosi":
WASHINGTON — Robert S. Mueller III did little on Wednesday to boost the prospects of impeaching President Trump.More.
The former special counsel’s highly anticipated testimony before Congress did not deliver the sort of splashy moment that circulates on cable TV. Instead, as he promised, Mueller stuck carefully to the text of his investigative report, occasionally — at times haltingly — offering a nuance, but often providing one-word answers to questions.
The result seemed likely to do little more than harden the opinions held by the public — and lawmakers — on President Trump and whether he should be removed from office.
Even Democratic supporters of impeachment were openly disappointed that the hearing did not deliver fireworks...
And at Instapundit, "GUY BENSON: As America Yawned, Mueller’s Testimony Damaged Him, Made Impeachment Less Likely," and "LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: ‘The Robert Mueller Story’ Was Box Office Poison."
Matt Margolis, Trumping Obama
Out Tuesday, at Amazon, Matt Margolis, Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama's Legacy.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The Mueller Disaster
Well, things didn't go well today for the Dems, and it's a laugh right, heh.
At BuzzFeed, via Memeorandum, "A Bit of a Dud” — Some Democrats Say the Mueller Hearings Didn't Live Up to Expectations."
And at the Other McCain, "Mueller Hearing a Democrat Debacle."
And Instapundit, "WHEN YOU’VE LOST CHUCK TODD: Todd calls Mueller hearing an optics disaster for Democrats."
At BuzzFeed, via Memeorandum, "A Bit of a Dud” — Some Democrats Say the Mueller Hearings Didn't Live Up to Expectations."
And at the Other McCain, "Mueller Hearing a Democrat Debacle."
And Instapundit, "WHEN YOU’VE LOST CHUCK TODD: Todd calls Mueller hearing an optics disaster for Democrats."
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