Too Little, Too Late Most Probably

This is interesting.  Quoting from Instapundit:

REPORT ON BIDEN’S ACTIVITIES WITH CHINA. “First, it is almost exclusively taken from public sources and documentation. Everything from Chinese news reports to corporate records. The report is immaculately cited so that anyone who wishes to replicate where a specific piece of information was found or see the underlying documentation can do so.”

The full report is here. Looks like lots of stuff for investigative journalists to run with, if there are any of those left.

Redstate picked it up, but you can bet nobody in major media will touch it, and Facebook and Twitter will do everything they can to suppress it.

Winston Smith has been Working Overtime

 

Word of the Day - Hypocrickets

 Hypocrickets - The media silence that ensues when what should be a major story doesn't fit The Narrative™.

Pushing an Agenda

Foreign Policy magazine comes out with a shrieking Gloom-'n-Doom piece, A Moment of National Shame and Peril—and Hope subtitled "We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of American democracy, but there is still a way to stop the descent."

What has so frightened author John Allen, "president of the Brookings Institution, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan"?

Well, this:

The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.

The president of the United States stood in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday, railed against weak governors and mayors who were not doing enough, in his mind, to control the unrest and the rioters in their cities, and threatened to deploy the U.S. military against American citizens. It was a stunning moment. But, in particular, it was notable for three important reasons.

First, Donald Trump expressed only the barest of condolences at the murder of George Floyd, but he also said nothing about the fundamental and underlying reasons for the unrest: systemic racism and inequality, a historic absence of respect, and a denial of justice. All of these factors are centuries old and deeply engrained in an American society that systematically delivers white privilege at the expense of people of color.

Yes, he mentioned George Floyd, but he did not touch on long-standing societal problems at all. He sees the crisis as a black problem—not as something to be addressed by creating the basis and impetus for a move toward social justice, but as an opportunity to use force to portray himself as a “law and order” president. The reasons were irrelevant to the opportunity. Remember the supposed invasion of the southern border and his deployment of federal troops ahead of the 2018 midterm elections? The president’s failure to understand the reality of the problem was on full display when, on Saturday, he attempted to explain that his supporters, the so-called Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, “love African American people. They love black people. MAGA loves the black people.” Evidently his movement, MAGA, is a coherent thing, and it’s white, which leads to the next point about his speech.

Second, Trump was clear he views those engaged in the unrest and criminal acts in these riots as terrorists, an enemy. He said so, ostensibly as justification to deploy the U.S. military to apply federal force—his “personal” force—against the riots.

I'll admit, I was initially wary of the invocation of the Insurrection Act, until I discovered that, although passed in 1807 it has been used by several Presidents, mostly Democrats, since passage.  An incomplete list:

Rutherford B. Hayes (R), October, 1878 -- to suppress the Lincoln County War

Grover Cleveland (D), July, 1894 -- the Pullman Strike (look into that one.)

Woodrow Wilson (D), April, 1914 -- the Colorado Coalfield War

Herbert Hoover (R), July 1932 -- the Bonus Marchers in D.C. (definitely look into that one)

Franklin D. Roosevelt (D), July, 1943 (while the military was already quite busy with other things) -- the Detroit race riot.  Hmm, sound familiar?

Dwight D. Eisenhower (R), September, 1957 -- Protecting the Little Rock Nine

John F. Kennedy (D) - twice:  September 1962, and September 1963 -- the first for The Battle of Oxford, the second to enforce desegregation of Alabama public schools.

Lyndon B. Johnson (D) - FOUR TIMES: July, 1967 -- '67 Detroit Riot, April, 1968 -- Washington DC riots, April 1968 -- Baltimore riots, April 1968 -- Chicago riots.  1968 was a year of widespread riots.  Sound familiar?

George H.W. Bush (R) - twice:  September 1989, Saint Croix, Virgin Islands in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, May, 1982 -- the Rodney King riots in LA.

I had to go look these up, because no major media outlet bothered to inform me.  For them, history started yesterday.

As far as MAGA being a white thing?  Look here.  If the media won't tell you about how the Insurrection Act has been used in the past, what makes you think they'll admit that not all black people live on their plantation?

General Allen (Ret.) further states:

Finally, the governors have sufficient law enforcement capacity—and, if necessary, the combat power of the National Guard—to handle their respective crises. If not, they can ask for federal assistance. There is no precedent in modern U.S. history for a president to wield federal troops in a state or municipality over the objections of the respective governor.

Neither Eisenhower nor Kennedy got the permission of the governors involved.  Those governors were quite happy with the status quo.  "No precedent in modern U.S. history"?  Pull my other leg.  And the gist of the phone conversation Trump had with the various governors was "You have all the law enforcement capacity you need - use it, or I'll send in troops who will."  Seems it worked.

FUCK I'm tired of this shit.

Another Plastic Turkey Story

So the media has been ranting about Trump's march through Lafayette Park to St. John’s Episcopal Church, the victim of arson the previous night. 

ABC:  Police use munitions to forcibly push back peaceful protesters for Trump church visit

CBS affiliate WUSA9:  Tear gas, flash bangs used to clear protesters from LaFayette Square before surprise President Trump photo opp

AP News:  Tear gas, threats for protesters before Trump visits church

Time Magazine:  President Trump’s Big Moment in Front of a Church Shows He Has Missed the Point of the Protests

I could go on, but it's not necessary.  The story is bullshit, like so much coming from the media.  These days, nearly everything.

It's another Plastic Turkey! story, so good, so juicy it just HAS to be true!  ORANGE MAN BAD!!

Quote of the Day - Matt Ridley Edition

From his recent Uncommon Knowledge interview on his new book How Innovation Works:

The late Hans Rosling, who is one of the so-called Godfathers of rational optimism...he did a poll of a thousand people in the U.S. and they need to repeat it in the UK and a number of countries, and he said: "In the last 20 years, has the percentage of the world population that lives in extreme poverty halved, doubled, or stayed the same?  Which of those do you think is correct?"  In the US about 65% of people think it's doubled and about 5% think it's halved.  The 5% are right and the 65% are wrong.

That's striking enough, but then he says- "Hang on.  If I wrote those three answers on three bananas and threw them to a chimpanzee, the chimp would pick up the right answer 33% of the time.  It would do six times as well as human beings at answering a question about human society.  That's the measure of how much we've indoctrinated ourselves into global pessimism.

ABCNNBCBS and all the rest of media, news and entertainment, are to blame for this.  Good news doesn't sell.

The Narrative™

I was recently asked to answer the question: “What do you think of John Solomon? Is he the evil mastermind of the right wing narrative?” My answer in the link basically asked IS there a Right Wing Narrative?

There is definitely a Left-wing narrative. In fact, there are several. Author and former newspaper columnist Stephen Hunter wrote about The Narrative™ in one of his novels:

You do not fight the narrative. The narrative will destroy you. The narrative is all-powerful. The narrative rules. It rules us, it rules Washington, it rules everything.
--
The narrative is the set of assumptions the press believes in, possibly without even knowing that it believes in them. It's so powerful because it's unconscious. It's not like they get together every morning and decide "These are the lies we will tell today." No, that would be too crude and honest. Rather, it's a set of casual, nonrigorous assumptions about a reality they've never really experienced that's arranged in such a way as to reinforce their best and most ideal presumptions about themselves and their importance to the system and the way they've chosen to live their lives. It's a way of arranging things a certain way that they all believe in without ever really addressing carefully. It permeates their whole culture. They know, for example, that Bush is a moron and Obama is a saint. They know communism was a phony threat cooked up by right-wing cranks as a way to leverage power to the executive. They know that Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, the response to Katrina was fucked up.... Cheney's a devil. Biden's a genius. Soft power good, hard power bad. Forgiveness excellent, punishment counterproductive, capital punishment a sin.
--
And the narrative is the bedrock of their culture, the keystone of their faith, the altar of their church. They don't even know they're true believers, because in theory they despise the true believer in anything. But they will absolutely de-frackin'-stroy anybody who makes them question that....

I, Sniper, pp. 231-232

Remember the JournoList? If you think it’s gone, or something similar does not now exist, I’d like to know what you’re vaping.

And if you’d like an example of The Narrative™ please watch this:

Read This. No, Seriously.

My Secret Life as a Reporter for “Doll Reader” Magazine

It’s not long. It’s the story of a woman who graduated with a double major in Women’s Studies and English who wanted to be a Journalist (capitalized on purpose - it was her calling!) for the Washington Post, but ended up writing for a collectible doll trade magazine and discovered that the B.S. that had been poured into her head her entire life actually was B.S.

The sheer arrogance and disdain she admits to towards people she considered beneath her (and that’s pretty much everyone she worked with) is TEXTBOOK for the Anointed Left.

She managed, at least somewhat, to overcome it. Reality has a tendency to do that.

WHO Exactly is Living in a Bubble?

Interesting piece:  I’ve been a Democrat for 20 years. Here’s what I experienced at Trump’s rally in New Hampshire.

Pullquote:

You see, I was one of those Democrats who considered anyone who voted for Trump a racist. I thought they were horrible (yes, even deplorable) and had worked very hard to eliminate their voices from my spaces by unfriending or blocking people who spoke about their support of him, however minor their comments. I watched a lot of MSNBC, was convinced that everything he had done was horrible, that he hated anyone that wasn’t a straight, white man, and that he had no redeeming qualities.

Do read the whole thing.

Quote of the Day - Instapundit Edition

From this post:

Were White Nationalists Really Planning To Attack The Virginia Gun Rights Rally? According To Police Records, Not Exactly. “Firstly, the group decided not to actually go to a rally. They also decided not to start any violence. They planned to wait for a race war to start, as voice recordings show, and then join in.” So basically their take was the same as the media’s.

Analysis:  True.  And SAVAGE.

Did You Ever Wonder...

...why we red-necked, knuckle-dragging, gun-hugging, bible-thumping, cousin-humping, racist, sexist, misogynist, homophobic, Islamophobic Neanderthals with low sloping foreheads won't vote Democrat?

These guys do:


Wait until November.  Who'll be laughing then?

UPDATE:  The RNC has (timely for a change) responded, and done it well:

Quote of the Day, Spectator Edition

From their piece on the ongoing war between the Babylon Bee and CNN (no link on purpose.)

The humor may or may not be to your taste but it’s hardly about to bring the republic crashing down in a slurry of ignorance. That’s what the Department of Education is for.

Satire?  CNN couldn't tell.

Does This Signal the Beginning of the End for Political Correctness?

I'm sure by now you've seen this, or heard it, or read the transcript, but Ricky Gervais, hosting the 2020 Golden Globes (for the last time) went absolutely SAVAGE on Tinselgrad:


The transcript (because I'm sure that every effort will be made to scrub all copies of the video from the internet):

Hello and welcome to the 77th annual Golden Globe Awards, live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel here in Los Angeles. I’m Ricky Gervais, thank you.

You’ll be pleased to know this is the last time I’m hosting these awards, so I don’t care anymore. I’m joking. I never did. I’m joking, I never did. NBC clearly don’t care either — fifth time. I mean, Kevin Heart was fired from the Oscars for some offensive tweets — hello?

Lucky for me, the Hollywood Foreign Press can barely speak English and they’ve no idea what Twitter is, so I got offered this gig by fax. Let’s go out with a bang, let’s have a laugh at your expense. Remember, they’re just jokes. We’re all gonna die soon and there’s no sequel, so remember that.

But you all look lovely all dolled up. You came here in your limos. I came here in a limo tonight and the license plate was made by Felicity Huffman. No, shush. It’s her daughter I feel sorry for. OK? That must be the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to her. And her dad was in Wild Hogs.

Lots of big celebrities here tonight. Legends. Icons. This table alone — Al Pacino, Robert DeNiro … Baby Yoda. Oh, that’s Joe Pesci, sorry. I love you man. Don’t have me whacked. But tonight isn’t just about the people in front of the camera. In this room are some of the most important TV and film executives in the world. People from every background. They all have one thing in common: They’re all terrified of Ronan Farrow. He’s coming for ya. Talking of all you perverts, it was a big year for pedophile movies. Surviving R. Kelly, Leaving Neverland, Two Popes. Shut up. Shut up. I don’t care. I don’t care.

Many talented people of color were snubbed in major categories. Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do about that. Hollywood Foreign press are all very racist. Fifth time. So. We were going to do an In-Memoriam this year, but when I saw the list of people who died, it wasn’t diverse enough. No, it was mostly white people and I thought, nah, not on my watch. Maybe next year. Let’s see what happens.

No one cares about movies anymore. No one goes to cinema, no one really watches network TV. Everyone is watching Netflix. This show should just be me coming out, going, "Well done Netflix. You win everything. Good night." But no, we got to drag it out for three hours. You could binge-watch the entire first season of Afterlife instead of watching this show. That’s a show about a man who wants to kill himself cause his wife dies of cancer and it’s still more fun than this. Spoiler alert, season two is on the way so in the end he obviously didn’t kill himself. Just like Jeffrey Epstein. Shut up. I know he’s your friend but I don’t care.

Seriously, most films are awful. Lazy. Remakes, sequels. I’ve heard a rumor there might be a sequel to Sophie’s Choice. I mean, that would just be Meryl just going, "Well, it’s gotta be this one then." All the best actors have jumped to Netflix, HBO. And the actors who just do Hollywood movies now do fantasy-adventure nonsense. They wear masks and capes and really tight costumes. Their job isn’t acting anymore. It’s going to the gym twice a day and taking steroids, really. Have we got an award for most ripped junky? No point, we’d know who’d win that.

Martin Scorsese made the news for his controversial comments about the Marvel franchise. He said they’re not real cinema and they remind him about theme parks. I agree. Although I don’t know what he’s doing hanging around theme parks. He’s not big enough to go on the rides. He’s tiny. The Irishman was amazing. It was amazing. It was great. Long, but amazing. It wasn’t the only epic movie. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, nearly three hours long. Leonardo DiCaprio attended the premiere and by the end his date was too old for him. Even Prince Andrew was like, “Come on, Leo, mate.You’re nearly 50-something.”

The world got to see James Corden as a fat pussy. He was also in the movie Cats. No one saw that movie. And the reviews, shocking. I saw one that said, "This is the worst thing to happen to cats since dogs." But Dame Judi Dench defended the film saying it was the film she was born to play because she loves nothing better than plunking herself down on the carpet, lifting her leg and licking her ass. (Coughs) Hairball. She’s old-school.

It’s the last time, who cares? Apple roared into the TV game with The Morning Show, a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in China. Well, you say you’re woke but the companies you work for in China — unbelievable. Apple, Amazon, Disney. If ISIS started a streaming service you’d call your agent, wouldn’t you?

So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.

So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and fuck off, OK? It’s already three hours long. Right, let’s do the first award.

Edited to add (from Ed Driscoll at Instapundit):

Bringing Sandra Bullock on stage to announce the final award, Gervais said, "Our next presenter starred in Netflix’s ‘Bird Box,’ a movie where people survive by acting like they don’t see a thing. Sort of like working for Harvey Weinstein." After the crowd erupted in boos, Gervais replied, "You did it! I didn’t, you did it!"

WOW. The savagery was cranked to eleven!

UPDATE 1/10/20:  Another data point -  Boy George comes out swinging against wokeness

Pullquote:

80s icon Boy George has joined the ranks of Morrissey and Kanye West by rejecting woke ideology and advocating for common sense. As a result, he has come under fire for speaking truth to trans. He expressed himself over a few days, saying that regardless of his own inclinations to costume, radical trans ideology is basically a crazy trend.

Quote of the Day - Twitter Edition

Comment prompted by this Project Veritas video from yesterday:

ABC News: Multiple allegations against pedophile Jeffrey Epstein didn’t meet our standards for air.

Also ABC:

Check out these uncorroborated allegations against Kavanaugh in middle of his confirmation.

Also, here’s some Syria war footage that's actually from a KY gun range - Jason Howerton

Two+ Years and No Results

Is Rachael Maddow melting down?

I've gotta replay this:

Civil War

America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. - Abraham Lincoln

--

Peace - the word evokes the simplest and most cherished dream of humanity.  Peace is, and has always been, the ultimate human aspiration.  And yet our history overwhelmingly shows that while we speak incessantly of peace, our actions tell a very different story. - Javier Perez de Cuellar

--

Conflict, like poverty, is the normal condition of Man.  Instead of seeking the causes of conflict, one would be better off studying the causes of peace and the prosperity it makes possible. - Anonymous

--

We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace. - Jeane Kirkpatrick

--

Revolution, n. - In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment. - Ambrose Bierce

A recent Pew poll indicates that a majority of the population believes that political violence is imminent.  A February 2019 column from the BBC asked Are We On the Road to Civilization Collapse? Sara Hoyt wrote in March a piece entitled We Are Dancing on a Powder Keg.

These are not isolated examples, oh no:

It’s Time For Conservatives To Choose: Fight Back Or Surrender

The Battle Isn't Right vs. Left. It’s Statism vs. Individualism


Georgetown University poll: Nation at edge ‘of civil war,’ but voters reject compromise

The Civil War

America's Second Civil War Has Already Begun

Which way to the revolution

Democrat Congresswoman To Conservative Teen: “You’re Right To Be Afraid Of Us”

America’s Cold Civil War

Eric Holder: Democrats Should Consider Packing SCOTUS

America Is Over, But I Won’t See It Go Without An Epic Fight

That's an even dozen, and I didn't have to work hard to compile them.

The concept of the "meme" was coined by anti-theist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It's not just those humorous images that make up a significant portion of Facebook postings, though they're an exhibit of the general concept. Merriam Webster defines a meme as "an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture." Dawkins himself said:

Memes (discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on) are to culture what genes are to life. Just as biological evolution is driven by the survival of the fittest genes in the gene pool, cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes.

This is a mega-überpost, but if this interests you (or frightens you) get a snack and a beverage, get comfortable then please click below and continue. 

Quote of the Day - New York Times Edition?!?

‘Most of Government Is Unconstitutional’

No shit, Sherlock.

Quote of the Day - Glenn Reynolds Edition

Like he needs a link from me, but I wanted to archive this one.  In response to the New York Times deputy managing editor Rebecca Blumenstein stating:

‘We are in no way anti-Trump.’
Glenn zings back:

ALSO, NO ONE IS STARVING IN THE UKRAINE
That ought to leave a scar.

This I HAVE to See

Is Broward County a Smaller Version of Chicago?

There's been a lot of outrage toward Broward County, FL's Sheriff Scott Israel over his department's lack of response to the rampage shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. See also this.  I'd like to point out that the Broward County Sheriff's Department has a longer history that people should be aware of.

During the waning days of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (that wasn't), then-Sheriff Ken Jenne invited CNN's John Zarella to demonstrate to him the difference between the then-legal semi-automatic weapons and those that had been banned by the 1994 AWB.  It was one of the earliest things I posted about here at TSM.

He had a deputy fire four rounds from a (legal) AK-clone into cinderblocks.

He then demonstrated that rifle rounds from that AK-47 clone would penetrate the "bulletproof" vests worn by law enforcement - vests that are rated, at best, to stop pistol rounds. Zarella was shocked. He was told that the rifle held only ten rounds, as per the law. He was not told that 30-round magazines were still legal and still fit in that rifle.

Then he ostensibly demonstrated a banned AK-clone. Thirty-round magazine, FULL-AUTO.

A transcript of the clip (video not available) is here.

The NRA responded to this episode of "fake news."

And Sheriff Jenne? Well, he suffered a rather spectacular fall from grace not long afterward.

Is Broward County a smaller version of Chicago?