There’s a lot to be thankful for.
Hope you have a great meal today with friends and loved ones.
Apparently, the Harris campaign always knew she would lose
It’s one of those “now it can be told” things. Then again, perhaps it’s a lie. But the current scuttlebutt is that the campaign’s internal polling never showed Harris in the lead.
We often hear that internal polls are different than the polls we peons get to see. Apparently, this is a case of such a discrepancy, and another reason to see public polling as more of an attempt to shape voting behavior than to describe or predict it.
This report also seems to go along with statements about how Biden’s awful record was what doomed Harris rather than her own sorry failure to make a case for herself. But what has long puzzled me is not why she lost, but why so many people voted for her when she was unable to speak coherently on most of the topics of the day, or to answer questions asked of her. I’ve seen a lot of presidential campaigns, but I’ve never seen anything remotely like hers in terms of incompetence. In fact, I’ve never seen any politician so poor at expressing himself or herself, or so oddly disconnected.
Well, perhaps we won’t have Kamala Harris to kick around anymore. Perhaps she’ll segue into some professorship or become head of something like Planned Parenthood; I saw that latter suggestion somewhere and it seemed as though that is something for which she might feel a calling. But, looking at some recent YouTube videos of Harris just now, I see that plenty of people think she’s just great and would like her to run in 2028.
Or maybe they’re bots; that’s possible too.
To see what I”m referring to, just take a look at the comments to this video featuring Walz and Harris thanking their campaign workers, and you’ll see plenty of sentiments like this:
You were both perfect. I’m grieving what could have been. Kamala is the President of my heart.
And these:
So proud of you and Kamala! You’ll always be my President and vice! Trump for JAIL.
Anyone else crying…..so poignant…so tender…she’s speaking to us. It’s devastatingly lovely. How can we give up with such beautiful examples of hope. Thank you Kamala. Thank you Tim.
Jay Bhattacharya: once thwarted, now nominated for NIH director
Jay Bhattacharya has been up, then down, and now up again. His academic pedigree has always been stellar: it’s Stanford all the way, from undergrad to medical degree to PhD in economics. Then work at RAND, teaching at UCLA, then the Hoover Institution and back to a Stanford professorship.
A star.
That is, until he gave commonsense suggestions regarding COVID masking and lockdowns – suggestions that ran against the official line.:
He is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a proposal arguing for an alternative public health approach to dealing with COVID-19, through “focused protection” of the people most at risk. In it, Bhattacharya and the two other researchers called on governments to overturn their coronavirus strategies and to allow young and healthy people to return to normal life while protecting the most vulnerable. This would let the virus spread in low-risk groups, with the aim of achieving “herd immunity”, which would result in enough of the population becoming resistant to the virus to quell the pandemic. The authors conceded that it was hard to protect older people in the community, but suggested individuals could shield themselves and that efforts to keep infections low “merely dragged matters out”.
It seems reasonable now – and it seemed reasonable then. But it was heavily criticized.
Then, in March of 2021, he wrote that the lockdowns were the “biggest public health mistake we’ve ever made.” I wrote this post at the time about what he’d said. An excerpt:
In the US – the country I know best – I believe that initially it really was a public health decision, borne of fear, the unknown, and the desire to be as safe as possible and buy time to prepare. But not long after, the lockdown took on another life and was propelled by much more than the public health considerations, as people in charge saw the crisis as a golden opportunity to accomplish a host of things they might otherwise have difficulty achieving.
First and foremost was to harm Donald Trump’s presidency and chances of re-election. Mission accomplished. Next was the sheer exercise of power over the little people. That can be very intoxicating, particularly for the left, and they learned a lot from it. One of the things they learned is that fear can encourage Americans to part with a very significant amount of liberty. What useful information that is to the left! Not only is power intoxicating and even contagious for those in charge, but fear is apparently contagious to much of the public, and the habit of fear is hard to break.
Another possible motive in this country was to harm the non-elite and reward the elite. …
Voices of warning were drowned out almost from the start. I recall writing a post one year ago, almost to the day, that mentioned that the amount of fear seemed way out of proportion to the actual risk involved with COVID. I wasn’t the only one saying this, but we were in the minority.
Well, Bhattacharya was really in the minority, and as a result his voice was stifled:
According to a December 2022 release of the Twitter Files, Bhattacharya was placed on a Twitter “Trends blacklist” in August 2021 that prevented his tweets from showing up in trending topics searches. It appeared to coincide with his first tweet on the service, which advocated for the Great Barrington Declaration’s herd immunity proposal.
And yesterday, Trump named him as the prospective head of NIH. Seems like a really good pick to me. He’s got the credentials – including a specialization in the economics of health care. In my opinion, he’s earned the post.
Happy day-before-Thanksgiving to you!
[NOTE: This is a slightly-edited reprint of a previous post.]
I happen to like Thanksgiving. Always have. It’s a holiday for anyone and everyone in this country—except, of course, people who hate turkey. There are quite a few of those curmudgeonly folks, but I’m happy to report I’m not one of them. Even if the turkey ends up dry and overcooked, it’s nothing that a little gravy and cranberry sauce can’t fix. And although the turkey is the centerpiece, it’s the accompaniments that make the meal.
My theory on turkeys is that they’re like children: you coax them along and just do the best you can, but as long as you don’t utterly ruin or abuse them, they have their own innate characteristics that will manifest in the end. A dry and tough bird will be a dry and tough bird despite all that draping in fat-soaked cheesecloth; a tender and tasty one can withstand a certain amount of cooking incompetence.
One year long ago my brother and I were cooking at my parents’ house and somehow we set the oven on “broil,” an error that was only discovered an hour before the turkey was due to be finished cooking. But it was one of the best turkeys ever. Another time the turkey had turned deep bluish-purple hue on defrosting and was so hideous and dangerous-looking that it had to be abandoned. Another terrible time, one that has lived in infamy ever since, my mother decided turkey was passe and that we’d have steak on Thanksgiving.
Since I like to eat, I’m drawn to the fact that Thanksgiving is a food-oriented holiday with a basic obligatory theme (turkey plus seasonal autumnal food) and almost infinite variations on that theme. Sweet potatoes? Absolutely—but oh, the myriad ways to make them, some revolting, some sublime. Pie? Of course, but what kind? And what to put on it, ice cream, whipped cream, or both?
For me, there are three traditional requirements—besides the turkey, of course. There has to be at least one pecan pie, although eating it in all its sickening sweetness can put an already-sated person right over the top. The cranberry sauce has to be made from fresh cranberries (it’s easy: cranberries, water, and sugar to taste, simmered on top of the stove till mushy and a bright deep red), and lots of it (it’s good on turkey sandwiches the next day, too). The traditional stuffing in my family is non-traditional – and I already gave the recipe for it yesterday.
Thanksgiving is one of the few holidays that has a theme that is vaguely religious – giving thanks – but has no specific religious affiliation. So it’s a holiday that unites – although good luck on that. It’s one of the least commercial holidays as well, because it involves no presents. It’s a home-based holiday, which is good, too, except for those who don’t have relatives or friends to be with. One drawback is the terribly compressed travel time; I solve that by not usually traveling very far.
The main advantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over. The main disadvantage to hosting the day is having leftovers left over.
I wish you all a wonderful Thanksgiving Day, filled with friends and/or family of your choice, and just the right amount of leftovers.
Open thread 11/27/2024
Last night I was about to go to the supermarket, but when I went to my car I saw that the windshield was covered by the thinnest ice layer I’ve ever seen, in a beautiful swirling design. I took this photo, which doesn’t begin to do it justice:
My family’s turkey stuffing recipe
It’s different. It’s very very rich. I think it may originally have been for duck or goose.
Here it is. There are no measurements because the proportions are whatever you want:
Take a large quantity of cut-up Granny Smith or other tasty cooking apples and cook in a fair amount of sherry as well as a ton of butter till a bit soft. Then mix with dried prunes, almonds, and one Sara Lee poundcake reduced to small pieces by crushing with the hands. Stuff the turkey shortly before placing in oven. Or cook in a casserole as you would with any other stuffing cooked outside the turkey.
That’s it. Enjoy.
Roundup
(1) MSNBC says it was unaware of Kamala Harris’ campaign’s donation to Al Sharpton’s nonprofit. Were they also “unaware” of Al Sharpton’s history of bigotry and deception?
(2) DEI “anti-racism” training has been found to do more harm than good. Reading the material made “participants more likely to imagine racial bias where none was evident … [as well as] ready to punish the admissions officer for this imagined bias.”
No surprise at all – in fact, common sense would tell a person that. But common sense doesn’t seem to be all that common.
Oh, and media outlets suppressed news of the study.
(3) Can this really be Trump’s typical daily fare?:
Breakfast – nothing. Lunch – nothing. Dinner – a McDonald’s, KFC, pizza or a well-done steak. Twelve Diet Cokes a day, and snacking on Doritos.
Maybe on the campaign trail. I doubt that’s what he eats in the White House.
(4) Charges dropped in the J6 case against Trump.
(5) This is what is happening to Rudy Giuliani in the courtroom these days. Not good.
Trump’s tariffs
Yesterday Trump announced that he plans to impose a 25% tariff on all goods from Mexico and Canada, and increase the tariff on goods from China 10%. Most of the coverage (including the article I just linked) assumes that it would raise prices here. That may indeed be a valid assumption. Most of the articles don’t emphasize the other part of the equation – which is that he says he will do it until the border countries do something to curtail the importation of fentanyl, and to stem the tide of illegal aliens crossing their respective borders.
Trump claimed:
This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country! …
I have had many talks with China about the massive amounts of drugs, in particular Fentanyl, being sent into the United States — But to no avail. Until such time as they stop, we will be charging China an additional 10% Tariff, above any additional Tariffs, on all of their many products coming into the United States of America.
So the way I see it is that this is Trump’s opening bid in a complex negotiation – let’s make a deal. Whether Trump will get what he wants from those countries, or whether this will be economically disastrous or at least difficult for US consumers, remains to be seen.
Will the costs be passed on to US buyers and cause inflation? Will companies absorb them? Will the costs be offset by other de-inflationary policies such as lowered energy costs or tax cuts? If we become more energy independent, will we not need to import much oil from Canada? And will Mexico and/or Canada and/or China blink and actually do something about fentanyl and/or about the border traffic?
The assumption by the left is that of course this will be inflationary and that Trump is a stupid dodohead Nazi whatever. But at this point I would’t underestimate Trump.
Why doesn’t Trump explain his strategy better, so that the American people can understand all the thinking behind this?
(1) Maybe he really is a stupid dodohead.
(2) Maybe he doesn’t want to tip his hand and reveal too much to the other sides in the negotiations.
(3) Maybe he will explain better later.
(4) Maybe he wants to make all his enemies and opponents predict something dire that doesn’t happen, and be wrong again.
Israel agrees to ceasefire in Lebanon [see UPDATE]
I think that this might be an accurate summary:
There is no question that this is a better deal and that Israel has better leverage than in 2006; there is also no question that the formula for the next war is present in today’s ceasefire.
The ceasefire takes effect tomorrow:
A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced by the Israeli cabinet at 10:30 p.m. by a vote of 10 to 1, according to a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office.
Presidents Biden and Macron will announce the deal during the night, with the agreement set to take effect at 10 a.m. tomorrow.
This comes after several days of strained last-minute negotiation, in which Israel pushed for the removal of France as guarantor of the security situation in Lebanon, citing current diplomatic tensions between France and Israel. …
An Israeli official told Maariv that the ceasefire was not the end of the war and that Israel maintained its right to respond to any threat.
The source also said that the severing of the connection between the Gazan and Lebanese fronts would leave Hamas isolated, something also highlighted by Netanyahu in his speech.
Sources told Saudi channel Al Hadath that there would be no buffer zone in South Lebanon according to the agreement.
I don’t quite understand what this is all about. Perhaps it’s a temporary pause in a war that might resume when a new and more cooperative US administration comes into office and Biden is gone. Maybe the IDF needs to rest and regroup – although this allows Hezbollah to rest and regroup, too. It certainly doesn’t solve the problem of Hezbollah, although the terror group is weakened. The pause may have something to do with focusing on Iran instead. It doesn’t seem to be a situation that would allow the evacuated northern Israelis to return to their homes, either.
UPDATE 4:50 PM
THis may shed some light on the subject:
“We will act,” the official promises, noting that Israel is accepting a ceasefire, not an end to the war.
“We don’t know how long [the ceasefire] will last,” the official says. “It could be a month, it could be a year.”
Netanyahu decided Israel had no choice but to accept a ceasefire out of a fear that the Biden administration could punish Israel with a United Nations Security Council resolution in its final weeks, asserts the official, though the US has not given any indication that it would do so.
Israel is also missing capabilities it needs from the US, including 130 D9 bulldozers, says the official.
You may recall that in its lame duck months (December 2016), the Obama administration did just that: punished Israel in the UN. Perhaps some of the same “advisors” are involved in the Biden/Harris administration. Back then:
The United States … abstained as the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution — vigorously opposed by President-elect Donald Trump and the government of Israel — that criticizes Israeli settlement construction in land claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.
The measure, though largely symbolic, was the first the Security Council has adopted on Israel and Palestine in roughly eight years, and it prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lash out against those who voted for it as well as President Barack Obama, a man with whom he’s long had chilly relations.
“The Obama administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at the U.N., it colluded with it behind the scenes,” the Israeli leader said in a statement, according to Reuters. “Israel looks forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful effects of this absurd resolution.”
Remember, that was in 2016. There may be a parallel situation now, or fear of one.
Open thread 11/26/2024
Jack Smith pulls an Emily Litella regarding the Trump J6 case (plus, Dershowitz on the anti-Trump prosecutors)
Well, well, well. Fancy that:
The nation was put through a traumatic and disruptive series of court cases designed to stymie and hamstring and bankrupt and discourage – and if possible imprison, although that was a secondary goal – Donald Trump, and to convince the American people that he was an evil criminal unworthy of their votes.
It didn’t work. But not for lack of trying. And if I had a dime for every time the Harris campaign used the “convicted felon” ploy as part of their message, I’d have a tidy sum of money. And I know people who to this day are unaware of the Soviet kangaroo-court-style nature of the charges against Trump.
Now that the majority of the American people voted for his re-election, it is revealed (not that those paying attention didn’t already know) how twisted the efforts were to convict him. Of course, neither the DOJ nor Jack Smith is admitting that. On the contrary, they are taking pains to make it clear that “the Government stands fully behind” the charges. It’s only because they are not allowed to prosecute a sitting president that they are asking that these charges be dropped.
Note that this does not affect the NY state charges that were the vehicle by which the “convicted felon” appellation came to be used.
I am also convinced that among the many goals of the anti-Trump lawfare was to confuse a public that isn’t always knowledgeable about the difference between federal and state cases, and criminal and civil prosecutions. The idea was to engender a “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” mentality and discourage support for Trump on the part of voters. As many have pointed out, it mostly had the opposite effect, except among those already predisposed to hate Trump.
Here Alan Dershowitz discusses whether the lawyers who prosecuted/persecuted Trump should be themselves tried or at least disbarred. His conclusion: not Jack Smith, but Fani Willis and her boyfriend, both of whom almost certainly committed perjury, and those behind the 65 Project (I wrote about the latter here).
The self-named Resistance: how’s it doing this time?
At Axios they say it’s more muted:
2016 birthed The Resistance, a political movement to protest Trumpism online and in the streets. There’s still plenty of resistance to Trump across the country, but little mass mobilization.
That’s not the Resistance. That’s just the outward manifestation of dislike; and it’s true that the demonstrations aren’t what they used to be. But this time it more often takes the form of personal anger towards friends, relatives, and acquaintances who voted for Trump; I’ve seen tons of articles about this and experienced isolated instances myself.
But still, that’s not the Resistance and never was.
The real “Resistance” is leftist activism to undermine Trump: lies about him in the media and by government agencies (for example, the entire operation known as Russiagate). It’s lawfare, which is sputtering out in its current form but might well be revived either now or especially after his term is up. It’s – perish the thought – the encouragement of assassination. It’s similar operations against anyone who might have the temerity to work for him.
It’s the workings of many members of government bureaucracy, who are now especially agitated and motivated because their jobs are threatened by Trump’s promise to drain the swamp – which in many cases might mean they lose their jobs.
It’s actions by states and governors of states who have pledged to undermine and/or defy whatever Trump might want to do. It’s damaging leaks from people he hires who might betray him. And it’s surveillance of his every move.
Have I left anything out? Probably. But I very much doubt that those forces have spent their energy.