The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Rule 5 Sunday: Claudia Cardinale

Posted on | August 5, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Claudia Cardinale, the glorious Tunisian/Italian actress who featured in a lot of spaghetti westerns, first came to my attention in perhaps the greatest of those not starring Clint Eastwood: Once Upon A Time In The West, where she played a beautiful widow beset by the eeeeevil Henry Fonda. More appropriately, she played the Algerian lover of Anthony Quinn’s Colonel Raspeguy in Lost Command, a mid-sixties film based on Pierre Larteguy’s famous novel The Centurions, which follows a group of French Army officers from Dien Bien Phu to the Battle of Algiers. Here’s Cardinale’s Aisha with her colonel.

The beginning of a tragic relationship.

On a far more cheerful note (and if you’ve read the book, you know exactly what I mean), Ninety Miles From Tyranny serves up something extra this week with Hot Pick of the Late Night, 90 Miles Mystery Box Episode 699, Morning Mistress, Girls With Guns, and the bonus 90 Miles Mystery Video – Nyctophilia #2. At Animal Magnetism, it’s Rule 5 UFO Kookery News and the Saturday Gingermageddon (the 250th!), while Bacon Time serves up Larsa Pippen.

This week, EBL brings us rats, National Chicken Wing Day, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Marianne Williamson, Harriet Tubman, Tulsi vs. Kamala, National Water Balloon Day, and Darleen Love.

A View From The Beach presents Little Miss Starlight – Erin Moriarty, “And Then He Kissed Me”, I Hope It Was At Least High End Luggage, Katy Loses Plagiarism Suit, “Backwater Blues”, A Shot of Salvation for Chesapeake Logperch, Blue Monday, Still Too Much Russiagate, Making Lemonade and Outlaw Artist Uses 225,000 Plastic Straws.

Proof Positive’s Friday Night Babe is Mariska Hargitay and his Vintage Babe is Jayne Mansfield. At Dustbury, it’s Birgitta Haukdal and Nadia Ali.

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious linkagery!

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Category: Rule 5

Two Mass Shootings in 14 Hours: Thoughts on ‘The Gamification of Terror’

Posted on | August 4, 2019 | 2 Comments

 

Saturday night on The Other Podcast with John Hoge, we opened the show discussing the shooting at an El Paso Wal Mart that left 20 people dead and 26 injured. The gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, evidently drove more than 600 miles from his family’s home near Dallas to commit this atrocity. He posted online a four-page manifesto citing the March massacre in New Zealand as his inspiration, and saying he expected to be killed. Instead, Crusius was “taken into custody without incident” and reportedly “told investigators he wanted to shoot as many Mexicans as possible.” Even as we were beginning to digest that news, however, there was another massacre in Ohio:

Nine people have been killed and at least 26 injured after a shooting at a bar in Ohio today in the second US massacre in 14 hours.
Police responded to calls about an active shooter in the area of East 5th Street in the Oregon District on Dayton, according to WHIO-TV.
The the gunman, who was using a ‘long gun’, was killed by police who were nearby in the early hours of this morning.
Customers said on social media many at Ned Peppers Bar were ‘piling on top of each other to get out’.
Witnesses described ‘casualties everywhere’ and an attacker who was a ‘white man dressed all in black’.

The Dayton shooter has been identified as 24-year-old Connor Betts, and this bloodbath would seem to fit the pattern of other recent incidents, including not only the El Paso shooting, but also last weekend’s massacre in Gilroy, California (see “The Poison Fruit of Radical Seeds”).

Young white men — the Gilroy shooter was 19, the El Paso shooter was 21, and the Dayton gunman fit the same profile — are succumbing to despair and rage, believing their lives are worthless, without meaning or purpose. Seeing no hope for their own future as individuals, they project their nihilistic sense of doom onto society at large, and resort to a sick “blaze of glory” fantasy, a suicidal impulse whereby they attempt to kill as many people as possible before they die.

While these massacres are characterized as “far right” or “white supremacist” in their ideology — the media wants to blame President Trump — Daniel Greenfield points out that the El Paso shooter’s manifesto also made an environmentalist argument:

“The American lifestyle affords our citizens an incredible quality of life. However, our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations,” the El Paso shooter wrote.
“This phenomenon is brilliantly portrayed in the decades old classic ‘The Lorax'”, Crusius wrote, citing a children’s story commonly used as a text by environmentalists.
“Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations. Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent,” he ranted.
“We even use god knows how many trees worth of paper towels just wipe water off our hands. Everything I have seen and heard in my short life has led me to believe that the average American isn’t willing to change their lifestyle, even if the changes only cause a slight inconvenience. The government is unwilling to tackle these issues beyond empty promises since they are owned by corporations.”
At this point the El Paso shooter seems to be channeling Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.
“Corporations that also like immigration because more people means a bigger market for their products. I just want to say that I love the people of this country, but god damn most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.”

Anyone who has read Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer knows that, whatever the “cause” may be — left, right or otherwise — radicalism always attracts certain types of personalities, including “misfits” who for one reason or another are unable to obtain satisfaction in the ordinary pleasures of an ordinary life. Furthermore, the misfit who resorts to terroristic violence has, by his action, expressed a loss of hope in ordinary political activity as a means of influencing society in whatever direction he believes it should go. It is this hopelessness, a sense of inescapable doom, that distinguishes the terrorist from anyone engaged in ordinary politics, whatever their ideology might be.

There’s something else going on here, as online forums have created what journalist Robert Evans calls “The Gamification of Terror”:

In this discussion thread [on the 8chan forum], after one anon posts screenshots of the El Paso shooter’s thread, another asks, “Is nobody going to check these incredible digits?” This statement is likely a reference to the shooter’s substantial body count. . . .
Ever since the Christchurch shooting spree, 8chan users have commented regularly on Brenton Tarrant’s high bodycount, and made references to their desire to “beat his high score” . . .
What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out. Brenton Tarrant livestreamed his massacre from a helmet cam in a way that made the shooting look almost exactly like a First Person Shooter video game. . . .
Until law enforcement, and the media, treat these shooters as part of a terrorist movement no less organized, or deadly, than ISIS or Al Qaeda, the violence will continue. There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer’s “high score”.

In other words, the livestreamed New Zealand massacre functioned as a template upon which other angry misfits might model their own massacres, each attempting to exceed the “high score” of fatalities, a concept directly derived from first-person-shooter videogames. The nihilism and hopelessness of these killers is exacerbated by their social isolation, as spending endless hours playing videogames tends to prevent them from forming real-life friendships or romantic relationships.

We therefore have a “terrorist movement” of nerds and losers.

UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds recommends Loren Coleman’s 2004 book The Copycat Effect: How the Media and Popular Culture Trigger the Mayhem in Tomorrow’s Headlines and, speaking of books, has Professor Reynolds mentioned he’s got a book about the toxicity of social media?



 

Category: Crime, Terrorism

FMJRA 2.0: This Is My Rifle

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Rule 5 Sunday: Victoria Baldessara
Animal Magnetism
Ninety Miles From Tyranny
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

FMJRA 2.0: Kryptonite
A View From The Beach
EBL

Red Pill: Celebrity Pastor Josh Harris Divorces Wife, Renounces Christianity
Sticks, Stories, & Scotch
EBL

‘Avenge the Patriotic Gore That Flecked the Streets of Baltimore’
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.29.19
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous
Dark Brightness
Pushing Rubber Downhill
EBL

MSNBC Guest Threatens ‘Civil War’
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.30.19
357 Magnum
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

‘Dark Psychic Forces’ 2020
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 07.31.19
A View From The Beach
Proof Positive
EBL

Crazy People Are Dangerous
Dark Brightness
EBL

In The Mailbox: 08.01.19
Proof Positive
EBL

‘Florida Man’ Strikes Again
Dark Brightness
EBL

Her Superhero Name Was ‘Whorella’
Da Tech Guy
Dark Brightness
357 Magnum
EBL

In The Mailbox: 08.02.19
Proof Positive

Top linkers for the week ending August 2nd:

  1.  EBL (14)
  2.  Proof Positive (6)
  3. A View From the Beach (5)

Honorable mention: Dark Brightness

Thanks to everyone for the linkagery!

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Category: FMJRA Award

How Dangerous Is Baltimore?

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | 1 Comment

It’s worse than the countries from which “refugees” are fleeing:

WJZ reviewed data from 2018, the last full year for which data is available. Data from the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council lists El Salvador’s murder rate at 50 per 100,000 residents in 2018.
The council’s report listed Guatemala’s 2018 murder rate at 22 per 100,000.
Honduras’ 2018 murder rate was not included in OSAC’s annual crime and safety report published in April, but a report from the Observatory of Violence at the National Autonomous University of Honduras gave a figure of 41.4 murders per 100,000 residents.
HOW DOES BALTIMORE COMPARE?
Charm City ended 2018 with a total of 309 murders, according to the Baltimore Police Department. So far in 2019, police report 196 homicides have occurred. Using the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 2018 population estimate for the city of 602,495, Baltimore’s 2018 murder rate is 51.3 murders per 100,000 residents.

Not only is Baltimore more dangerous than El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras, but in 2015, the Washington Post reported: “Fourteen Baltimore neighborhoods have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Eight are doing worse than Syria.” (Hat-tips: Hot Air, Instapundit.)



 

Category: Crime, Maryland

They Told Me If I Voted for Trump, Jews Would Suffer Legal Persecution …

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | Comments Off on They Told Me If I Voted for Trump, Jews Would Suffer Legal Persecution …

. . . and they were right!

A non-profit is fighting back against a lawsuit from the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has forced its closure and shut down its crowdfunding platform.
Arthur Goldberg has been a target of SPLC since 2012. He and non-profits with which he is affiliated have been sued twice, once as the co-director of Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) — which offered counseling for those struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction — and most recently as co-director of Jewish Institute for Global Awareness (JIFGA), the parent organization for Funding Morality.
On Thursday, Hudson County, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Peter Bariso, Jr. slapped Goldberg and JIFGA with over $3.2 million in punitive fines and legal fees for allegedly violating a 2015 injunction and settlement agreement against JONAH that forbids him from providing counseling referrals.
In a move meant to “deter and punish,” he also barred Goldberg from serving as a director of any nonprofit organization in the state of New Jersey —–a condition that may violate Goldberg’s rights. As a result, JIFGA and the crowdfunding site, Funding Morality, will have to suspend operations. . . .
“We expect to appeal the decision, which we believe is at odds with the facts and infringes upon our constitutional rights to freedom of speech, religion, and association,” [Goldberg] said.
“Our appeal seeks to vindicate our constitutional right to promote biblical values,” he said. “Today’s politically correct progressive ideology seeks to eliminate the free exchange of ideas whenever certain views may be antithetical to current prevailing opinions.”
“This is part of the left-wing agenda to cut off conservative speech and shut down voices that disagree with them,” Goldberg said.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Anyone with an iota of common sense can see that New Jersey’s law against “reparative therapy” (a/k/a “conversion therapy”) is an unconstitutional infringement of First Amendment religious liberty, when such counseling is provided through the auspices of a religious institution. Careful examination of the SPLC’s role in this case demonstrates how these tax-exempt totalitarians are endangering free speech, seeking to limit “acceptable” opinion and, in effect, to make it illegal to express disapproval of homosexuality.

“There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel.”
— Deuteronomy 23:17 (KJV)

Do the courts of New Jersey intend to declare the Word of God illegal?



 

Category: Constitution, Gays, New Jersey, Religion

The Poison Fruit of Radical Seeds

Posted on | August 3, 2019 | 5 Comments

 

Last weekend a gunman opened fire on the annual Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California, killing three and injuring 12. The shooter was soon identified as Santino Legan, 19, and as to his motive, there was a cryptic Instagram reference to Might Is Right by Ragnar Redbeard.

We cannot ask the killer what he intended by this reference, because he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. However, the text of the 1896 edition of Might Is Right is available online and its author, “Ragnar Redbeard,” has been identified as Arthur Desmond (1859-1929). A native of England, Desmond emigrated to New Zealand as a young man and became involved in radical politics there, before moving in 1892 to Australia, where he published a radical journal called Hard Cash. This made him a target of government investigation, and by 1895, Desmond had emigrated to the United States, taking up residence in Chicago. There, under a pseudonym — which also included the false claim of having a law degree from the University of Chicago — Desmond published Might Is Right, or The Survival of the Fittest.

To summarize its contents as briefly as possible, Desmond’s book combines the nihilistic atheism of Nietzsche with the “scientific” theory of Darwin in an attack on Christianity, particularly criticizing the themes of the Sermon on the Mount. Desmond mocks the dignity of labor: “All hireling labor is corroding, corrupting, degrading, devilish. . . . Labor performed for oneself is passable — when performed for others, it is utterly debasing — ruinous to brain and body” (pp. 163-164).

That is, as it was intended, antithetical to Christian belief — and to common sense, as well. Nothing is more conducive to health and happiness than hard work; the worker who commits himself wholeheartedly to his task, seeking to become more efficient and productive, has entered into a worthy competition: “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men” (Proverbs 22:29 KJV). For all the political attacks on the alleged unfairness of a free economy — the demonization of the 1% and so forth — any honest and intelligent young man willing to work hard can still begin as a teenager in “hireling labor” and, by being “diligent in his business,” rise to wealth and influence in America.

Yet we need not indulge in the errors of the “prosperity gospel” to defend the dignity of labor. A man’s lot in life may be poverty and obscurity, a constant struggle to make ends meet, yet the diligent laborer has no cause for shame. However little he may have, he has earned it by hard work, and in supporting himself and his family he has accomplished a more noble task than anything done by the so-called “intellectual elite.”

Given the clear influence of Nietzsche on Desmond’s work — we can only Might Is Right as a crackpot exegesis of The Will to Power — we are not surprised to find him expressing a theory of racial supremacy, which was by no means unusual in that era:

“Purity of blood has played, (and is yet to play), a leading role in the drama of racial evolution. Races held in bondage are necessarily mongrelized, degraded, ‘equalized.’ . . .
“Our race cannot hope to maintain its predominance, if it goes on diluting its blood with Chinamen, Negros, Japanese, or debased Europeans. . . . The Latin race is hopelessly effete in both the old world and the new” (pp. 156-157).

There are innumerable treatises from the 19th and early 20th centuries that express a similar viewpoint, but what makes Might Is Right distinctive is the way Desmond merges an anarchist sentiment — a celebration of power expressed through violence — with racialist theory. It is as if Desmond had read Hobbes’s description of society without law as the “war of all against all” (Bellum omnium contra omnes) and said, “Isn’t that awesome?” The point that Hobbes intended to make, however, was that government and law are necessary for human beings to enjoy any sort of civilized existence, guaranteeing the security of our lives and property. That the wealthy and powerful have an interest in preserving the established order is obvious enough, but what recent history has shown is that the destructive forces of radicalism generally make life worse for the “masses” in whose name revolutionaries claim to act. From the French Revolution to modern-day Venezuela, radical promises of “liberation” for the oppressed have invariably produced nightmares of bloodshed and misery. However much any Third World peasant might have resented the yoke of European colonialism, was it worse than the terroristic dictatorships of Mao, Mengistu or Mugabe?

When the teenage killer Santino Legan’s endorsement of “Ragnar Redbeard” was reported, the media rushed to label him a “white supremacist,” and thus someone linked to the “far right” which, by the prestidigitation of journalistic smear tactics, might make it possible to blame President Trump and conservatives generally. Yet it is dishonest to suggest that any conservative, who as a basic premise is committed to upholding the constitutional order, would endorse random violence inspired by the work of a 19th-century anarchist crackpot.

A mature and responsible adult can study any piece of radical literature — The Communist Manifesto or whatever — without being drawn into a vortex of deadly madness. The danger of such literature is always its appeal to alienated and emotionally vulnerable young people. If you’ve never studied logic and rhetoric, if you are unfamiliar with history and have few years of experience upon which to base your judgment, it is easy to be seduced by the arguments of radical crackpots, whether they are as famous as Bernie Sanders or as obscure as Arthur Desmond.



 

Category: Crime, Intellectuals

In The Mailbox: 08.02.19

Posted on | August 2, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: The Thing That Would Not Die
EBL: A$AP Rocky Free At Last To Leave Sweden
Twitchy: Occasional Cortex’s Chief Of Staff, Comms Director Leaving
Louder With Crowder: Black Man Illustrates Insanity Of “Everything Is Racist!” With Hilarious Video
According To Hoyt: New Worlds For Old
Monster Hunter Nation: July Update Post
Vox Popoli: Self-Destruction Is The Aim

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The Fresh Air Edition
American Greatness: Don’t Kill Whitey
American Power: RFK Granddaughter Saoirse Kennedy Hill Dies of Drug Overdose
American Thinker: President Trump Shatters Left-Wing Myths
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five UFO Kookery News
Babalu Blog: Nangaras In NYNJ Celebrate Cuba’s Enslavement
BattleSwarm: Will Hurd (TX-23) Not Running For Re-election, also, LinkSwarm For August 2
Camp of the Saints: The Kennedy Klan – Curse Or Tragedy?
CDR Salamander: Vietnam Plays A Smart Game, also, Fullbore Friday
Da Tech Guy: Progressive Good Intentions vs. Inner City Realities, also, Ever Hear Of Teleconferencing, Greta?
Don Surber: Trump Asks, Why Trade With Red China?
Dustbury: Here I Come To Save The Day
First Street Journal: Good News! White Robots Are Raaaaacist!
Fred On Everything: Who The Hell is Mitch McConnell Anyway?
The Geller Report: CAIR Demands NY Young Republicans Cancel Pamela Geller Appearance, also, Watchdog Group Says UK Antisemitic Incidents Hit Record High
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Gillette Gets Woke, Goes Broke
Hollywood In Toto: Hobbs & Shaw – Loud, Dumb, Silly, & Spectacular
Joe For America: After “Winning” Debates, Fartacus Faces Arrest For Escorting Illegals Across The Border, also, Antifa Says It’s Coming To Texas For Ten Day Siege; Texas: Don’t Threaten Me With A Good Time
JustOneMinute: Seven Up!
Legal Insurrection: U. Michigan Accused of Trying To Out Gay Student Suing Over Alleged Abuse By Prof, also, We Called It On Tulsi Gabbard
The PanAm Post: Leopoldo Lopez And The Guerilla Country In Colombia
Power Line: The Shameless Mr. Sharpton, also, Thoughts From The Ammo Line
Shark Tank: Jeb Bush Backs Taylor For Clay County Sheriff
Shot In The Dark: No Guns No Coverage, also, The War On Dissent
The Political Hat: Firing Line Friday – The Socialist Workers Party & American Politics
This Ain’t Hell: Navy Orders Probe Into Actions Of JAG Corps Leaders, also, Valor Friday
Victory Girls: Cincinnati Trump Rally – Filled With Patriotic Goodwill
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Judge Blocks NY State From Turning Over Trump’s Tax Returns To Congress, also, Fauxcahontas Says She’ll Keep America Safe By Giving Enemies A Free First Nuclear Strike
Megan McArdle: Democrats, Welcome To Your Very Own TEA Party Problem
Mark Steyn: Guardians Of The Theocracy, also, Self-Knitting Antimacassars

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Category: Linkagery

‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

Posted on | August 2, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘Stupid and Crazy’: Debates Expose Democrat Party at War With Itself

 

After Marianne Williamson emerged as the surprise winner of Tuesday’s Democrat presidential debate, the second night’s performance on Wednesday saw Joe Biden get tag-teamed by his rivals, and Tulsi Gabbard turning the tables on Kamala Harris. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have become dismayed by these donnybrooks:

Democratic lawmakers were left shaken and worried by Wednesday night’s bruising presidential debate, which left some fearing the fight will hurt the party and result in a damaged nominee.
Senate Democrats are frustrated that candidates are spending too much time and effort attacking each other for relatively small policy differences, while not focusing their ire on President Trump. . . .
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) blamed the debate moderators for much of the negativity.
“I think these debates are really silly,” he said. “Just the incessant focus on these relative minor divisions between candidates might make for good TV but I don’t think gives people an accurate portrayal of the stakes of this election.”
Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) also voiced concern about the tone of the debates, in what could have been a signal to the candidates.
“No circular firing squads,” he said during an interview Thursday with SiriusXM’s Joe Madison.

Anything that makes Chuck Schumer unhappy is good for America. Likewise, we should be encouraged by the gloomy mood at MSNBC:

Several MSNBC personalities took aim at the 2020 Democrats for leveling several “attacks” at the Obama administration over President Trump.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough took to Twitter and and repeatedly slammed the Democrats for challenging policies under President Obama like Obamacare and immigration.
“Ok. Let me get this straight. Democrats hate Obamacare AND hated his immigration policies? What planet are they from?” Scarborough tweeted. “You know you have extreme ideologues running for president when @BarackObama is a punching bag for being too conservative. [For what it’s worth], President Obama is the only Democrat to twice win a majority of the vote since FDR (and is still hugely popular in the Democratic Party.) Not. Smart.”
He added, “These candidates are attacking Barack Obama’s policy positions more than Donald Trump. That is politically stupid and crazy…. Democrats who think trashing @BarackObama is a political winner, will be the political losers.”
MSNBC host Joy Reid expressed a similar sentiment on her network’s post-debate analysis.
“It was weird for me to watch about 40, almost 40 minutes of primary attacks on the Obama administration’s policies. It was odd,” Reid told the panel, later citing New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attacks on Obamacare. “So it was an odd strategy to me… It’s almost as if the debate forgot who is president because the attacks on Donald Trump- I don’t remember his name being mentioned that much.”
Former Missouri senator-turned MSNBC commentator Claire McCaskill also called the repeated attacks on the Obama administration the “weirdest thing.”
“The weirdest thing to me which I’m having a hard time with is… is it a smart strategy to attack the Obama administration?” McCaskill asked. “I mean, this is a Democratic president elected twice. I think he’s the only Democrat we’ve had with the margins he’s had since FDR that did that, remains wildly popular in the Democratic Party.”

Democrat strategist and longtime Clinton adviser Paul Begala had this exchange Thursday with Jake Tapper:

BEGALA: This is my problem with the whole two-day debate. I believe many of these candidates seeking to win the nomination are setting themselves up to lose the presidency to Donald Trump.
TAPPER: By running so far to the left?
BEGALA: Yes.

 

Obama’s former chief of staff was also demoralized:

Rahm Emanuel told “WSJ at Large” on FOX Business that it’s foolish to try to paint Obama’s record negatively in order to attack his former vice president and now presidential hopeful, Joe Biden.
“The guy (Obama) is 90 something percent (in popularity ratings) among Democrats,” he argued. “The most successful progressive, prolific president who had an incredible Chief of Staff, let me say that– since the Great Society. What are they doing?”
Emanuel, who was a member of the House of Representatives Opens a New Window. before his stint at the White House, then became mayor of Chicago, said Democrats would be crazy to separate themselves from the former president.
“Every element of progressivity, from literally (Woodrow) Wilson to Teddy Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt to the Great Society and forward builds on the progress of the generations before for generations to come. This is nuts!” . . .
Earlier in the week, he sent a memo to the candidates saying, “If you win the nomination in a way that forecloses a path to victory in the general election, we will lose, and your name will go down in infamy.”

Perhaps the best news of all is that David Brooks of the New York Times — whom I hate like God hates sin — has endorsed Williamson:

Trump is a cultural revolutionary, not a policy revolutionary. He operates and is subtly changing America at a much deeper level. He’s operating at the level of dominance and submission, at the level of the person where fear stalks and contempt emerges. . . .
In Freudian terms, he’s operating on the level of the id. . . .
The Democrats have not risen to the largeness of this moment. They don’t know how to speak on this level. . . .
It is no accident that the Democratic candidate with the best grasp of this election is the one running a spiritual crusade, not an economic redistribution effort. Many of her ideas are wackadoodle, but Marianne Williamson is right . . .
“We’ve never dealt with a figure like this in American history before. This man, our president, is not just a politician; he’s a phenomenon. And an insider political game will not be able to defeat it. … The only thing that will defeat him is if we have a phenomenon of equal force, and that phenomenon is a moral uprising of the American people.”

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen.”



 

Category: Debates, Democrats, Election, Media Bias
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