Prediction: Worst ‘Debate,’ Ever

Posted on | June 27, 2024 | 2 Comments

Every day, I watch CNN (so you don’t have to) and for the past several days, they’ve been hyping up tonight’s so-called “debate” between Joe Biden and Donald Trump as the Most Important Debate in World History. Like everything else on CNN, this is a lie.

There will be no actual debate tonight. That is to say, the way the rules are set up, there will be no back-and-forth between the candidates. In collusion with Team Biden, CNN decided that, to prevent interruptions, the microphones of the candidates will be shut off when it’s not their turn to speak. So when Biden predictably starts spewing arrant nonsense, Trump will not be able to say, “Wait a minute, that’s not true.” Or, if he does say that, you won’t be able to hear him say it.

Obviously, both “moderators” for the debate — CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash — are notoriously dishonest partisan Democrats and, my brother Kirby has predicted, CNN supplied Team Biden with copies of the “debate” questions in advance (cf., Donna Brazille in 2016). So if the CNN operatives appear to throw a “hardball” question at Biden, and he handles it so well that you might think, “Wow, that was pretty quick thinking,” do not be deceived. Biden has spent the past seven days practicing answering these questions — his team had them word-for-word, a week in advance — and no one should be surprised that he’s got his answers thoroughly prepared. It’s all a set-up, the result is pre-ordained. When the debate is over, everyone will proclaim Biden the winner, and they’ll have the 30-second sound-bite clips to prove it.

Trump supporters watching the debate tonight will be seething with anger the entire 90 minutes at the gross unfairness of it all, and guess what? There’s nothing you can do about it. Team Trump agreed to this debate six weeks ago, and if they expected CNN to do anything other than what they predictably will do — i.e., orchestrate the “debate” to be a free Biden campaign commercial — they were incredibly naïve.

Is it possible that I’m wrong about all this? Is it possible that this “debate” will be anything like a fair colloquy between the two candidates, so that Trump could win and Biden could somehow lose? Feel free to get back to me after the debate and tell me if I was wrong, but I expect to be completely vindicated. Jake Tapper and Dana Bash get paid to lie on behalf of Democrats, and I’m sure they’ll earn their pay tonight.

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Category: CNN, Debates, Donald Trump, Joe Biden

In The Mailbox: 06.25.24

Posted on | June 26, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.25.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: What Of You Called 911 And The System Wouldn’t Answer Your Call?
EBL: Mr. Custer
Twitchy: The Mar-A-Lago Security Cameras Were Turned Off During FBI Raid “For Agents’ Safety”, Squad Favorite Bowman Gets Crushed In NY Primary, and Sixteen Nobel Prize-Winning Economists Raise Alarms Over Trump’s Re-Election
Louder With Crowder: Relive South Park’s PROPHETIC take on trans athletes competing in girls’ sports, Oakland’s woke mayor gets raided by the FBI, naturally she is blaming “right-wing forces”, NYC awards trans prisoner $350K after claims of “discrimination” being housed with other male prisoners, and NCAA champion trans athlete now vowing to break ALL the records set by real girls
Vox Popoli: The Harsh Lessons of History, The Sack of London, The Left Can’t Meme, Diversity and Finance, Judgment, Not Blessing, and Subscribe, Scan, and Stockpile
Stoic Observations: The Mathematics Of Piling On Kendi
Postcards From Barsoom: The Prophet Of The 20th Century

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: “This post is for paid subscribers”, also, My Thoughts on Viganò
American Conservative: Rand Paul Was Right About Covid, Trump’s Income Tax Repeal Promises an American Revolution, and You Have No Idea How Soviet We Really Are
American Greatness: The Logic in All the Madness, Illegal Aliens Receiving Voter Registration Forms Ahead of November Election, Resolution Declaring J6 Committee Illegitimate Awaits Action, and Pistol Packing Pedagogues
American Thinker: The 10 Commandments Are about More than the 10 Commandments, also, Do Angels Still Walk among Us in a Modern, Messed Up World?
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, also, Animal’s Daily Changing Sides News
Babalu Blog: Leaked documents reveal FAA gave Cuban communist officials tours of U.S. airports, Cuba remains on the lowest tier in State Department’s human trafficking report, and ‘This has been horrific’: Cubans in Havana describe disastrous flood, lack of government response
Baldilocks: Accounting
BattleSwarm: Mexican Cartels & Underground Chinese Bankers Team Up, Grandpa BUFF Gets An Upgrade, and All California’s 2023 Job Gains Were Fake
Behind The Black: France’s CNES space agency begins work adapting commercial launchpad at French Guiana for specific startup rocket companies, Are Chang’e-6’s lunar samples on the way back to Earth? Firefly to launch from Wallops instead of Cape Canaveral, Scientists surprised by new Webb data of the upper layers of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Airbus forced to write off almost a billion dollars, and More garbage science about wildfires and global warming from Nature magazine
Cafe Hayek: Jerry Jordan on Trade Deficits, The Horse Being Beaten Isn’t (Alas) Dead, Economic Ignorance Fertilizes All Sorts of Nonsense, and U.S. Productivity Growth Relative to France and Germany
CDR Salamander: Soviets? Us? The Ones Who Won The Cold War?
Chicago Boyz: Takin’ Care of Business
Da Tech Guy: Under the Fedora Reality edition, I Don’t Know Art But I Know What I Don’t Like, Say his name: Jai’mani Amir Rivera, The Hamas Gonculator Caucus, Trump is Counting on the CNN Moderators being Themselves, and Making farming better
Don Surber: AOC draws Biden-sized crowd
First Street Journal: Bad causes attract bad people, also, The United Nations caves to the Taliban
Gates Of Vienna: Progressive Indignation is Baloney, When Rape and Torture Are Expressions of Cultural Values, The Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden, Part 19, Roland Freisler’s Coronafascist Heirs, and A Teenybopper Gang Rape
The Geller Report: L.A. Democrat Mayor Told Police to “Stand Down” in Face of Pogrom by Hamas Terror Mob, also, The Biden Regime Has Fundamentally Changed the Country for Decades
Glenn Reynolds: Crime & Punishment In The 21st Century
Hollywood In Toto: She Rises Up Praises Hard Work Not Victimhood, Shyamalan’s Imperfect Village Doesn’t Deserve Your Hate, How Youth Without Youth Led Coppola to Megalopolis, Batman at 35 – Bleak, Brooding and Worth the ’80s Hype, and SHOCK: Corporate Press Ignores Huge Disney Story
The Lid: 46% of American Electric Vehicle Owners Regret Buying an EV
Legal Insurrection: Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Reaches Agreement With DOJ to Avoid Prison in U.S., Anti-Israel Rep. Jamaal Bowman Loses Democratic Primary, Democrats and the Media Have Spent Years Pushing Real ‘Cheap Fakes’, Biden’s Campaign Chair Admits Florida Is No Longer A Battleground State, Illegal Alien Accused of Raping, Murdering Houston Teenager Wore ICE Ankle Monitor During the Attack, and Oklahoma Supreme Court Rules Catholic Charter School Unconstitutional
Nebraska Energy Observer: Saturday – just for you, Debate Week, and I don’t think
Outkick: Jim Schlossnagle Officially Hired By Texas Longhorns, Eighteen Hours After Pledging His Love For Texas A&M, Black Woman Claims JJ Redick Called Her The N-Word In College, 20 Years Ago With No Proof, You Might Not Like Them, But Tennessee Winning A National Championship Is Great For College Baseball’s Future, The Cubs Hired The Highest Paid Manager In MLB And Got Worse, Panthers Take Stanley Cup For A Swim, Waterboard A Guy With Beer, Magic Johnson Weighs In On Caitlin Clark/Angel Reese Rivalry, But Gets Basic Facts Wrong, and Caitlin Clark/Angel Reese Rematch Draws Historic TV Ratings
Power Line: Jammin’ with Jamaal, The paranoid style in academic politics, and Another Biden Fruitcake
Shark Tank: Castor Introduces Bill To Accelerate Care For Metastatic Breast Care Patients
Shot In The Dark: Pogrom, Open Letter To A Honest Future US/MN Attorney General, Punching Laterally-To-Down, We Live In An Age Of Miracles, and A Little Soggy
The Political Hat: The Othering Of America
This Ain’t Hell: Yes, she really said it, Stolen Valor, UK Police Edition, End of Elko’s Stolen Valor and Chili Cookoff Assn., Airmen applying for conscientious objector status over US support for Israel, Remember Iraq in 1990? Fundraising Drive Again Already??!! and What is the Military doing about foreign nationals infiltrating US military installations?
Transterrestrial Musings: “Cultural Safety”, The “Ecocide” Of Easter Island, Debate Advice For Trump, and SV Preference Cascade For Trump?
Victory Girls: WH Issues Reprehensible Statement About Rachel Morin And Jocelyn Nungaray, The Culture War We Are Poised to Lose, and Focused On Needs Of Nonbinary Service Members – Pentagon
Volokh Conspiracy: Two Federal Courts Rule Against Biden’s New Student Loan Forgiveness Plan on the Same Day
Watts Up With That: Exploding Batteries Spark Deadly S Korea Factory Fire, Queensland Petition Against Wind Farms in Protected Wilderness Regions, New York’s Energy Transition Guru Responds To Basic Questions, ESG and Stakeholder Capitalism: A Necessary Deconstruction, and Wash Post Editorial Board Denounces ‘De-Growth Communism’ – ‘Ending Growth Won’t Save the Planet’
The Federalist: Supreme Court Strikes A Blow Against Government’s Union Favoritism, Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange To Go Free After Striking Plea Deal With Biden DOJ, Read The False Flag Book Review Amazon Banned As ‘Hate Speech’ (Or Something), DoD Report Hides How Many Taxpayer Dollars It Sends To Chicom Labs, Trump Should Hit Biden For Completely Ignoring The Fentanyl Problem, 1,500 Illegal Immigrants From ISIS ‘Recruiting Ground’ Country Have Crossed The Border Since 2020, and 4 Policy Prescriptions For Turning Little Smartphone Zombies Into Happy, Healthy Kids
Mark Steyn: Steyn on the Sidewalk, Hot Topics: Telling the Truth in Chronicle of a Summer, Franz and Friend, Waxing and Wuthering, and Where Do You Go to, My Lovely?

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Category: Linkagery

NY16 Primary Results: Challenger Latimer Defeats Jew-Hater Jamaal Bowman

Posted on | June 25, 2024 | 3 Comments

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Gaza)

9 p.m. ET: Polls just closed in New York, where the Democratic primary in the 16th congressional district pits deranged Jew-hater Jamaal Bowman against a slightly less crazy challenger, George Latimer.

9:15 p.m. ET: Seriously, polls in New York are open from 6 a.m. until 9 p.m. — 15 hours on Election Day, and never mind the “early voting” and mail-ins. When I was a young man in Georgia, there was no “early voting,” you had to go to the courthouse and fill out a sworn affidavit to obtain an absentee ballot, and polls were only open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. According to 21st-century Democrats, this means my civil rights were violated. I was a victim of “voter suppression.” But those were just the rules, the way elections had always been held, and nobody thought anything was wrong with it, because Democrats had not yet become so desperate to win “swing” states, and this partisan desperation is the sole inspiration for claims of “voter suppression,” which in turn led to this newfangled early-voting/mail-in voting stuff, as well as the extension of Election Day voting hours, as if 12 hours of voting was not enough.

UPDATE 9:20 p.m. ET: With 31% reporting:

George Latimer ………… 16,181 (58.1%)
Jamaal Bowman ………. 11.670 (41.9%)

UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: Will tonight’s results feature any midnight “surprise” discoveries of batches of previously uncounted mail-in ballots or other such shenanigans? Probably not. It’s a Democratic primary in a deep-blue district and, while Democrats are not averse to cheating each other in primaries, they always save their most blatantly illegal shenanigans for “swing states” in presidential years.

UPDATE 9:40 p.m. ET: With 46% reporting:

George Latimer ………… 22,823 (54.9%)
Jamaal Bowman ………. 18,739 (45.1%)

And NBC News just projected Latimer to win this one.

UPDATE 9:45 p.m. ET: That didn’t take long, did it? How is it that, whenever we have a presidential election, they’re still counting votes past midnight in Democrat-controlled urban counties in “swing” states, yet even in the most contentious Democratic congressional primary campaign in history — more than $23 million spent on ads — they somehow get a result within an hour of polls closing?

The #NY16 primary is one week away. It's seen over $23M in spending and reservations, making it the most expensive House primary ever.

Here's an updated look at top spending advertisers, as AIPAC-affiliated group United Democracy Project makes up 61% of total spending. pic.twitter.com/DGpQXJNtiG

— AdImpact Politics (@AdImpact_Pol) June 18, 2024

BREAKING: Jamaal Bowman loses his election to George Latimer.

Bye Bye fire alarm puller pic.twitter.com/mbXNYLbIAP

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) June 26, 2024

pic.twitter.com/m2mNaBgMLT

— Mike Nessen (@Mike_Nessen) June 26, 2024

UPDATE 10 p.m. ET: NBC News reports:

Progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., lost his primary Tuesday to a moderate challenger who was backed by pro-Israel groups, NBC News projected, following a bitter and expensive race that exposed the party’s divisions.
The race in New York’s 16th District between Bowman and Westchester County executive George Latimer drew more ad spending — $25 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact — than any House primary in history. Nearly $15 million of that spending came from the United Democracy Project, a super PAC linked to the powerful pro-Israel lobby American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which backed Latimer.
The 48-year-old Bowman, one of Congress’ fiercest critics of Israel, is the first incumbent Democratic lawmaker to lose a primary this election cycle and the first member of the so-called “squad” of progressive lawmakers of color to be ousted from power since the group formed after the 2018 elections. Other squad members, including Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Summer Lee, D-Pa., have been targeted, but survived primary challenges.
A former Bronx middle school principal, Bowman stormed Washington after unseating 16-term Rep. Eliot Engel, then the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and one of the most powerful Jewish lawmakers in Congress, in 2020.
Latimer, 70, has been involved in local and state politics for more than 35 years. He first won election in New York to the Rye City Council in 1987, and would go on to win seats in the Westchester County Board of Legislators, and New York state Assembly and Senate.

One group spending $15 million in a congressional primary? Wow. I guess they were trying to send a message.

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Category: Democrats, Election, New York

In The Mailbox: 06.24.24

Posted on | June 25, 2024 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 06.24.24

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The No Consequence Justice System In NYC
EBL: Brats, Milk Shaming (it is a thing now) , and Beer Drinking For Clean Water
Twitchy: German Woman Jailed For “Offending” Migrant Accused Of Child Rape, Texas Childrens’ Hospital Doubles Down On Child Castration & Mutilation, and Texas Rangers Not Holding Pride Night, LGBTWTFBBQ Activists Predictably Butthurt
Louder With Crowder: Insane clip shows rival porch pirates roll up, fight over stealing the same package, also, Jerry Seinfeld annihilates pro-Palestine heckler for two minutes straight, explains how comedy works
Vox Popoli:
Tessellations: Blockchain Insurance, also, Every Day Is Father’s Day
L’Ombre de L’Olivier: The #Resistance Is Coming
Upstream Reviews: The Last Ancestor, also, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad
Gab: Celebrating The Day Of Life

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Ethics & Ethical Failure In The Profession Of Arms – On Midrats, also, Emperor Tiberius Consulting
Dana Loesch: Last Week In Legal – Judge Cannon Edition,
Don Surber: Should I link NYT?
Glenn Reynolds: Having A Salena Zito Moment
Michele Catalano: Damn Right I’ll Rise Again
STUMP: The Week In Meep – Mystic Invertebrates & Brooklyn Sumo, also, 2024 National Lightning Safety Week

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Category: Linkagery

Pro-Hamas Mob Targets L.A. Synagogue

Posted on | June 24, 2024 | 1 Comment

Kristallnacht 2.0 in Los Angeles:

Violent clashes broke out in the Pico-Robertson area as pro-Palestinian protesters encountered counter-protesters.
The violence broke out near the Adas Torah synagogue on Pico Boulevard Sunday morning.
Police in riot gear showed up trying to restore order.
What started as heated verbal confrontations escalated into physical fighting. Videos posted to social media showed punches being thrown, people wrestled to the ground and kicked. Some social media posts indicated it started when pro-Palestinian protesters tried to prevent people from entering the synagogue.
“Do your message, spread your message, it’s the First Amendment. But when you’re pepper-spraying little girls, it’s messed up,” said Mishah Klein, one area resident.
Several people were detained on the scene but according to LAPD no one was officially arrested. One person was cited for refusal to disperse.

Helpful background information from Joel Pollak at Breitbart:

Several dozen pro-Palestinian activists targeted an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in the heart of the Pico-Robertson on Sunday, blocking the entrance to an event promoting real estate investment in Israel.
A source on the scene told Breitbart News that the activists were blocking pedestrians on the south side of Pico Boulevard, the main street through a predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in west Los Angeles.
According to the Forward, a left-wing Jewish publication, the protest targeted the synagogue in part because of an event within the Jewish community promoting Israeli real estate, whether for emigration, vacation, or investment.
There has been a worldwide surge among Jews in applications to emigrate to Israel — to make aliyah, or “ascent,” as it is described within the community — after October 7 in solidarity with Israel and in reaction to local antisemitism.
Sunday marked was the second time pro-Palestinian activists have targeted a synagogue in L.A. in the past several days. On Friday, protesters targeted another synagogue and school in the Valley Village area, for unknown reasons.

Andy Ngo reports that, after Jews started fighting back against the “activists,” suddenly these Antifa-aligned radicals (who hate cops) expected police to protect them from the Jews.

Antifa videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel was attacked toward the end of the riot after the pro-Palestine extremists were chased away following an attempted storming of the Adas Torah Synagogue. pic.twitter.com/AkzpeWIDd6

— Andy Ngô ???? (@MrAndyNgo) June 24, 2024

However, #Antifa — you know, the people who claim to be ANTI-FASCIST? — think Jew-hating mobs are perfectly fine. https://t.co/6gSFCBLqfz

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) June 24, 2024

Irony doesn’t get much richer than that.

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Category: California

Rule 5 Sunday: Leave Room For Cream

Posted on | June 24, 2024 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

There used to be a bikini barista drive-through coffee joint in Las Vegas down by the Palms, but I think it went under thanks to then-Governor Sisolak’s stupid COVID shutdown. The baristas at the Vegas Dunkin Donuts stores are more modest than this young lady, at least in my experience. H/T kbdabear on X.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

I’ll have a Boston Cream with that, honey.

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Government Waste Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon.

EBL: Jordon Hudson, Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Melanie McLaren, Anti-MAGA Debate Camp, Summertime, Summer Starts Now, Oh Crap It’s Almost Midsommar, Talulah Riley, European Sports Hooliganism, Diane Franklin, and Connie Francis

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Herbert’s Girls, Fish Pic Friday – Touch The Sky, Cheap Fakes or Cheap Thrills?, Obsessed, The Wednesday Wetness, Tattoo Tuesday, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Random Celebrity News, Forget It Jake, It’s Baltimore, Is Weiss Going After Hunter on FARA violations? and Palm Sunday

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. for June 21

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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AOC, ‘ADOS,’ and the Strange New Contours of ‘White Supremacy’

Posted on | June 23, 2024 | 1 Comment

One of the basic problems of young extremists — this is equally true of Nick Fuentes and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — is that they don’t know history, and cannot be made to understand why history matters. A few years ago, Michelle Malkin tried to get Fuentes to abandon his Jew-hating (thus to make his “Groypers” a force capable of influencing mainstream politics), but that proved to be a futile effort. There is a puerile attitude, an adolescent thrill-seeking mentality, the frisson of defying the taboo, in youth who engage in anti-Semitism the way other youth get their thrills by illegally riding ATVs in the city. The attraction of being a neo-Nazi type, as in any kind of extremism, is the opportunity to be a Big Fish in a Small Pond. A desire to “be somebody” in the political realm means entering a competition with all the other players in the game; it’s much easier to “be somebody” among the radical fringe, where the numbers are much smaller and your competitors for influence are generally not the sharpest tools in the shed. But I digress . . .

What is the real problem with American foreign policy? Is it, as AOC and Nick Fuentes apparently agree, that Jews have too much influence?

This was the burden of AOC’s “freakout” about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which is trying to unseat New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary:

In response to AOC’s preposterously bratty shot at AIPAC, the organization responded, correctly, that polling definitively shows American voters to be pro-Israel and therefore members of Congress are responding to their constituents, not fear of Jewish money.
To that, Ocasio-Cortez shot back: “If AIPAC positions were so popular, they’d be free. Instead, they’re bought.” Ocasio-Cortez posted that last night, but I am writing this now because I have only just stopped laughing at her attempt at wit. Not with. At.
In fact, AIPAC’s positions are unquestionably popular on the whole—even AOC is capable of seeing that. But the overall point that campaign donations represent only unpopular opinions is ironic given that, as others pointed out to her, AOC is no fundraising lightweight. If her position is that she is bought and paid for, and therefore she assumes that to be true of others—well, that is quite the projection, but please leave the American Jewish community out of it.
At this point, Ocasio-Cortez essentially exists to live-tweet a 2024 adaptation of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Indeed. But is Fuentes correct that an “America First” policy is (or should be) as reflexively anti-Israel as AOC and Jamaal Bowman? Is that the real problem with American foreign policy? No, the real problem is that the United States foreign policy establishment has never developed a coherent worldview since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s brought an end to the Cold War. This problem can be summed up in a mindlessly repeated phrase: “Our European allies.”

For more than 40 years, American foreign policy was organized around the principle of containing Communism, countering the Soviet nuclear threat, and blocking efforts by the Soviets to spread their Marxist-Leninist ideology through revolution, subversion and military aggression — “wars of national liberation.” The NATO alliance was crucial to that geopolitical strategy, and thus pandering to the concerns of “our European allies” became part of American diplomatic practice. The collapse of the Soviet Union created an opportunity to reorient American policy, particularly by helping the former Communist bloc countries successfully enter the global market economy and develop democratic socio-political cultures, but that opportunity was squandered by the Clinton Administration, which was run by people with zero understanding of human nature, and no apparent desire to advance U.S. interests. Then came the GW Bush years, 9/11, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which among other things exposed the fact that most of “our European allies” had ceased to be capable of mounting any kind of large-scale military expedition. If “allies” are not helpful in time of war, what’s the point of the alliance? How many armored divisions could France or Germany (or Belgium, etc.) deploy if push came to shove? How many boots could they put on the ground? Even if you could go down the list of our NATO allies and list a certain number of combat-ready battalions, what are the chances that we could persuade them to actually put those troops in harm’s way? “Our European allies” are decadent — they are weak and cowardly and not worth a damn in terms of any deterrent effect. The “peace-through-strength” calculation that is our only true basis of security is ruined by the reality of European weakness.

That, my friends, is the basic problem of American foreign policy, and while I don’t have any simple solutions to this problem in mind, my point is that anyone whining about Israel is completely misguided in terms of what “America First” should mean. At least Israel has an effective military and is willing to use it, which is something you can’t say for most of “our European allies.” It should be obvious that left-wingers like AOC hate Israel mainly because Israel is a good ally — anything that’s good for America, AOC will predictably be against it. As for Nick Fuentes, it’s probably best to view him an irresponsible brat, like a schoolboy scrawling swastikas in his notebook just to make his teacher mad.

‘White Supremacist’ = Jew-Hater?

Let us now, however, examine the way AOC uses the term “white supremacy” in denouncing Nick Fuentes. What exactly does she mean by this phrase? Until about 10 years ago, the accusation of “white supremacy” was rare, even in the liberal media. Accusations of racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — were fairly common, but as Trump emerged as a GOP contender, suddenly “white supremacy” loomed large.

That graphic, showing the frequency of use of “white supremacy”/“white supremacist” in four major media outlets (the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal), was done by Zack Goldberg of Tablet in 2020, and I’d urge everyone to read the whole thing. Goldberg’s focus was the emergence of “woke” racial rhetoric in the media, but what I specifically wish to call to the attention of readers is the anti-Semitic connotation of “white supremacist,” its function as a “dog whistle” to the Jewish audience.

As I have sometimes observed, everybody is “racist” in some sense of that word. One synonym for “racist” is ethnocentric, which is to say, we are concerned not only with ourselves as individuals, but also, considering ourselves to be members of some particular ethnic group, are also concerned with the welfare of whatever group that may be. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this ethnocentric attitude, which is merely an expression of human nature. Mankind has always been tribal, it’s the basic wiring of our social outlook. Living in an affluent, technologically advanced society, especially where communication systems give us immediate access to people and places across the globe, it’s easy to lose sight of the tribal aspect of human nature. The educated person is always tempted to think of himself as a sophisticated cosmopolitan — un citoyen du monde — but this attitude is itself a manifestation of our innate tribalism, since the cosmopolitan seeks to identify himself as a member of a “tribe” of like-minded people (e.g., the Ivy League assholes who run the State Department).

What is my “tribe”? How do I identify? Years ago, Michael Barone, the veteran chronicler of political demographics, took notice of those who, when asked on Census forms to identify their ancestry (Irish, Italian, etc.) chose “American.” These people, Barone explained, tended to live in rural areas and to be of what has sometimes been called “Old Stock” ancestry. That is to say, they are descended from the pioneer colonial settlers, so that all their ancestors are listed in the first Census of 1790.

That’s the grave of my ancestor who served in the South Carolina militia that defeated the British in the Battle of Cowpens. As I said in my Memorial Day post: “An awareness of one’s ancestry provides a deeper appreciation of history, which is valuable to our sense of who we are, and gives us a perspective that we might not otherwise possess.” Unfortunately, most Americans know nearly nothing of their ancestry — many couldn’t even tell you their paternal grandmother’s maiden name — and so lack this sense of themselves as the heirs of a historical legacy.

The stigmatization of white people (which is what the media rhetoric about “white supremacy” is really about) produces different reactions in different white people, depending on their own sense of identity. One way that some people try to deflect this insult is to say that their ancestors were immigrants who arrived after the Civil War — the Ellis Island cohort, largely from southern and eastern Europe — so that they cannot be held responsible for slavery, Jim Crow, etc. This was a big reason why the term “WASP” (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) enjoyed a remarkable vogue during the 1960s and ’70s: If you were an Irish Catholic, Italian, Polish, etc., and wanted to distinguish yourself in a way to disavow responsibility for racism, you’d point the finger toward those “WASPs” as being the real villains of the American racial melodrama.

Excuse me if such “WASP”-bashing has always offended me. What you are saying, Mister Kowalski, is that your grand-grandmother from Krakow was somehow better than my great-grandmother from Alabama? And that, by logical inference, you are therefore superior to me?

Most people know nothing more about logic than they know about genealogy, of course, and one must learn to shrug off such unintended insults, but the point I’m trying to get at is how the term “white supremacy” acquired a connotation of anti-Semitism that “racist” does not have. Furthermore, I wish to persuade you, many of the people who are nowadays slinging around the accusation of “white supremacy” do so with exactly that connotation in mind. That is to say, Democrats know damn well that when Jewish people hear the term “white supremacy” they think of Jew-hating neo-Nazis, so that accusing Republicans of “white supremacy” functions as a propaganda tactic to keep Jewish voters from questioning their loyalty to the Democratic Party, in a way analogous to Joe Biden’s infamous warning to black voters about Mitt Romney: “They gonna put y’all back in chains.”

Joe Biden is a serial race-baiter who spent decades fanning the flames of hatred and trafficking in fear and division.

8 years ago today, he told Black Americans that Republicans wanted to “put y’all back in chains!” pic.twitter.com/9HZ5cgOucM

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 14, 2020

Winning elections by appealing to irrational fear — why is it that Democrats are never held accountable for such tactics? Except of course, that the news media are “Democratic operatives with bylines,” so they cheerfully applaud such tactics by Democrats. If any Republican engages in similar demagoguery, however, suddenly the media are full of indignant outrage: “How dare they do the same thing we do!”

Tribalism as a Zero-Sum Game

Democratic Party rhetoric is like the made-up “Festivus” holiday from Seinfeld — its main point is The Airing of Grievances. Various groups must be told, over and over again, how they are Victims of Oppression, and how Republicans are somehow responsible for this alleged oppression. In Minnesota, Democrats actually incorporated this idea into their name, the Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFL), expressing the idea of an inherent unity of interest between farmers (i.e., impoverished peasants) and “labor” (i.e., the proletariat of Marxist jargon), all of whom were somehow oppressed by . . . Well, who, exactly?

The crypto-Marxist mentality of the DFL, with its implied representation of one side of a struggle between economic classes, stands in contradiction to the meritocratic view of Americans society, where everybody is free to get ahead by their own efforts. The essential message of Democratic Party rhetoric (not just in Minnesota) is that the American Dream of opportunity is a cruel lie. Anyone who is not already rich is forever doomed to poverty and misery — and BLAME REPUBLICANS!

However successful this message may be in mobilizing Democratic voters, the Festivus-style Airing of Grievances approach to politics has a harmful psychological impact on individuals. Is it any wonder that liberal young women are experiencing a mental health crisis? They have immersed themselves in “woke” politics, where the Victimhood Mentality is a sort of secular gospel, and this is the antithesis of healthy thinking.

Jon Haidt has analyzed the ways in which “woke” beliefs impair mental health by denying personal agency. If you know anything at all about mental health, you know how important it is for people to feel that they are in control of their own lives, rather than being subject to an “external locus of control.” Arguably the worst form of psychosis, paranoid schizophrenia, is characterized by the patient’s belief that he is menaced by controlling outside forces, the CIA monitoring his brain waves or whatever. Developing a sense of personal agency means that we must accept responsibility for our own flaws and failures, which can be difficult, but the alternative — blaming all our problems on some external “them” — is a roadmap to insanity. And it’s this blame-game view of life that Democrats are constantly promoting, which explains why the Democratic Party attracts lunatics like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Check this unhinged psycho Hamas supporter…pic.twitter.com/4uufbGVTcy

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) June 22, 2024

The Airing of Grievances would be bad enough if it were limited to controversies and conflicts in the here-and-now. Yet Democrats encourage people to feel resentments based on grievances inherited from the past. Conjuring up fears of “white supremacy” among Jews involves making them think that today’s Republican is not essentially different from the Nazis who perpetrated the Holocaust, even if — in the here-and-now context — nearly all the Jew-hating rhetoric is coming from the Left. The message is: “Vote for the party of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar because Donald Trump is Literally Hitler! Orange Man Bad!”

Anyone who closely examines the so-called “pro-Palestine” movement will see that it’s based on the same crypto-Marxist ideology that inspires every other left-wing cause, including Black Lives Matter, #MeToo feminism, LGBTQIA+ radicalism, etc. — the us-and-them conflict of Oppressors and Victims, the appeal to historic grievances, the exaggeration of wrongs, etc. And, of course, if you attempt to interrogate their claims, the advocates of these social justice causes will denounce you as a hateful enemy. Identity politics involves a zero-sum-game worldview, in which inflicting harm on them (the enemy) is always good, even if there is no obvious benefit to us. It’s like the old Russian joke about two peasant ladies who “lived across the road from each other. One had a cow, sold milk and was therefore (by local standards) rich. The other old lady had no cow and was poorer. A genie appeared and offered the poor lady one wish. Thinking for a moment she answered: ‘Kill my neighbor’s cow.’” This is exactly the attitude of Hamas supporters toward the Jews in Israel — the Jews are hated because they are more successful than their Arab neighbors. And never mind asking why the Jews are successful, because the answer might not be flattering to the Arabs.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng

‘ADOS’ and Black Authenticity

My friend Juliette Ochieng, a/k/a “Baldilocks,” is an old school blogger from way before I even started my own blog. During the Great LGF Blog War of 2009, when Charles Johnson became obsessed with me — me! — as proof that the Republican Party was being taken over by “white supremacists,” Juliette never flinched from her conviction that CJ was the problem, and not me (or Pamela Geller or anyone else at whom CJ pointed the accusatory finger). Seems like a million years ago . . .

Juliette’s got up a Substack post about black Americans who “strive to differentiate themselves from black Africans and Caribbean immigrants using two terms: African-American Descendants of Slaves (ADOS) and Foundational Black Americans (FBA).” Several years ago, I became aware of this “ADOS” discourse not from grudge-holding left-wing ax-grinders, but rather from some black conservatives who pointed out that Kamala Harris is not “black,” in this sense, nor is she truly “African-American,” because none of her ancestors were from America. Harris’s mother, Shyamala Gopalan, is from India. Shyamala first came to the United States as a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley, where she got her Ph.D. in 1964, while Kamala’s Jamaican father, Donald Harris, who also came to the U.S. as a graduate student, got his Ph.D. at Berkeley in 1966. And despite the efforts of media “fact-checkers” to obscure the truth, Donald Harris himself cited his descent from prominent Jamaican slave owner Hamilton Brown.

Here are the names of the 200+ slaves owned by Kamala Harris’ ancestor Hamilton Brown in Jamaica in 1817. One of the largest planters in Jamaica, Brown now has a town named after him, Brown’s Town pic.twitter.com/6QnBpEQyez

— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) August 12, 2020

Do such distinctions among black Americans matter, and if so, why? Juliette (whose father is from Kenya and whose mother is “ADOS”) rejects such “splintered, scattered thinking,” and notes that many ADOS activists, who generally disparage latter-day African immigrants, had no problem with Barack Obama, who is half-Kenyan/half-white.

Let me here note that I’ve never indulged in the common habit of some right-wingers of loudly condemning black racism. As I’ve said, everybody is “racist” in some sense of that word, and I don’t think there is much to be gained, in terms of political persuasion, in acting indignant about black people being racist. In all honesty, if I were black, while I might not be jumping aboard the Louis Farrakhan bandwagon or joining the “Black Hebrew Israelite” cult, certainly I’d find some way of expressing my sense of racial pride. Whoever you are, whatever niche of humanity you belong to, an ethnocentric sense of pride would seem beneficial, and not harmful. If I were Jewish, I’d be a proud Jew; if I were Greek, I’d be a proud Greek; as it is, I’m an American and proud of it.

Ah, but what about diversity? And what about the not-so-secret racial spoils system of quotas that are imposed in the name of “diversity”?

That’s what the “ADOS” activists really have in mind when they make a big deal about who is (and is not) authentically black. When an elite university imposes admissions quotas — and, as evidence in a recent Supreme Court case showed, Harvard University had a 14% quote for black students — it makes a big difference who gets counted as black. If the objective of Harvard’s “diversity” policy is to deliver some degree of social justice to black people in America, isn’t it rather important to point out that the descendants of Cotton Belt slaves derive no benefit from Harvard granting admission to the offspring of wealthy immigrants?

See, these catch-all racial categories — white, black, Hispanic, Asian — are too large to be useful as measures of where any one individual might fall within the “privilege”/“oppression” matrix that those who operate diversity programs intend to adjust via social engineering. Not everyone who counts as Hispanic is an impoverished mestizo laborer, not every black person is fresh out of the ghetto, and certainly not every white person in America is “privileged,” a point that J.D. Vance sought to drive home in Hillbilly Elegy. Yet these sorts of stereotypical assumptions are built into the “diversity” regime, which is why I can’t imagine any white male even bothering to apply to an Ivy League school nowadays, as these “elite” universities have long since made clear that they are organized on the basis of a categorical hatred of white males.

‘Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes’

The ranting idiot known as AOC, who strives to identify as a Woman of Color (and thus, automatically, a Victim of Oppression) grew up in affluent Westchester County, where she was known as “Sandy” Cortez to friends. Her father was the CEO of an architectural firm, and her whole radical left-wing “struggle” against oppression is just a shtick she learned while attending Boston University (annual tuition $65,168). All this rhetoric about social justice — especially including what AOC and her comrades say about Israel and Gaza — is based on the idea that membership in some group justifies people in a Festivus-style “Airing of Grievances” attitude, giving rise to universal animosity, what Hobbes described as bellum omnium contra omnes, “the war of all against all.”

In the same way (and for the same reason) that Democrats hype the threat of “white supremacy,” they also accuse Republicans of promoting “Christian nationalism.” It should be obvious that both of these propaganda phrases are aimed at keeping Jews so afraid of Republicans — “Orange Man Bad!” — that they’ll vote for Joe Biden, despite the disastrous consequences of Biden’s policies for Israel, despite the blatant anti-Semitism expressed by Democrats like Jamaal Bowman, and despite the fact that American Christians are overwhelmingly pro-Israel.

Joe Biden got 77 percent of the Jewish vote in 2020, and if we’re going to engage in the collective-guilt game of identity politics, if any Jew wants to apologize for electing Joe Biden, I’d be willing to consider accepting their apology. But in lieu of such an apology, I’ll just be satisfied if Biden gets less than 77% of the Jewish vote this time around, and I don’t expect to be disappointed in that hope. Fears of a “right-wing” threat to American Jews are mostly hypothetical, whereas the Hamas threat is very real, and if you didn’t already know which party was pro-Hamas, AOC and her friends are doing everything they can to make it clear to you.

People need to wake the hell up, before it’s too late.

Hamas Supporters Protest AOC, Bernie For Not Being Pro-Hamas Enough
Read more:https://t.co/w0WXAsMHKb pic.twitter.com/kPTI5WI85g

— FrontPage Magazine (@fpmag) June 23, 2024

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Category: Democrats, History, Racism

FMJRA 2.0: Bullpen Blues

Posted on | June 23, 2024 | Comments Off on FMJRA 2.0: Bullpen Blues

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Senators went 2-3 this week, losing two games against the Pirates thanks to poor pitching by the relief corps until Reggie Cleveland went the distance in Game Three to salvage a win. Next, we split a pair at Kansas City, where Joe Coleman won his 12th game against Bert Blyleven in an 8-0 blowout. Unfortunately Pat Dobson lost his 11th game because our hitters, who on paper should completely demolish lefty pitchers, couldn’t score even one run off Clyde Wright, and we lost that one 3-0. Still in in fifth place in our division at 39-45, four games in back of the Twins and four ahead of the A’s.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.