I’m not sure exactly what to say about this little girl. I find her very endearing. She’s remarkably composed. She’s remarkably mature. And she’s remarkably concerned with what she wears:
If I were one of those House Democrats in a Trump-friendly district who had been talked into voting against my better judgment for Trump’s impeachment…
…I’d be hopping mad right about now.
To Pelosi and the leftist wing of the party: You made me put my seat at grave risk for this? And then you shelve the whole thing for an indeterminate time and a foggy reason?
I’m not at all sure how many members of Congress match my description. Originally there were said to be 31 such Democrats in the House who come from districts that voted for Trump and yet elected a Democrat – usually one who promised to be moderate and relatively independent – in 2018. One of them, Jeff Van Drew, voted against impeachment and has become a Republican since the brouhaha. Another, Collin Peterson, voted against impeachment as well.
The 29 others voted for impeachment. Of course, some of them may have felt that impeachment was justified and needed no pressure to vote that way. But I would bet (without knowing) that most of the 29 felt they were signing their own political death warrants, and did so reluctantly.
Or maybe not so reluctantly. Maybe they are already sick of Washington. Maybe they were promised good jobs from other Democrats if they get turned out of the House in 2020 as a result of their vote. But I bet a lot of them are spitting mad right now and feeling as though they walked into a trap.
Of course, I don’t know what Pelosi has planned at this point, if anything. She’s a politician who often has something up her sleeve. But I can’t imagine exactly what it could be at the moment. More Steele dossiers? More “whistleblowing” moles with reports of horrible things the president supposedly said?
Or is she at a loss herself about what to do next?
I know a lot of people will say that what the Democrats actually have planned is a lot of cheating in the 2020 elections. I assume, however, that’s rather difficult to accomplish in Trump-friendly districts. It would be much easier to do successfully in large blue cities, but the districts we’re talking about don’t tend to conform to that description.
In-depth interview with Devin Nunes
Take a look:
Nunes was reviled for years for his statements on Russiagate. Turns out that Nunes was overwhelmingly correct, although I’m not seeing a load of apologies from his detractors. And I doubt the vast majority of them will ever issue them.
Merry Christmas! (another golden oldie from the neo archives)
On Christmas Day—blog?
I’d rather have grog,
Or maybe eggnog,
Then go walk the dog.
Or watch a Yule Log,
And eat like a hog,
Then go for a jog.
Blogging’s a bog.
My mind’s in a fog,
Or maybe agog
From much dialogue.
I’ll return to the slog
Tomorrow, and blog.
And Happy Chanukah!
[NOTE: On the words “the dog,” that’s a picture of the dog we had when my son was little.]
‘Twas the blogger’s night before Christmas
[NOTE: This small poetic effort of mine has become somewhat of a holiday tradition at the blog. So here it comes again—just like the holiday itself. Merry Christmas Eve to you all!]
‘TWAS THE BLOGGER’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the ‘sphere
Bloggers were glad to see Christmas draw near.
Their laptops were turned off and all put away
The bloggers were swearing to take off the day.
Their children were nestled all snug in their beds
While visions of extra time danced in their heads
With a father or mom not distracted by writing
No posts to compose, and no links to be citing.
But we all know that vows were just meant to be broken
And the vows of a blogger can be a mere token.
There’s always a chance that some sort of temptation
Will rise up to make them of fleeting duration.
For instance, there might be found under the tree
A sleek Mac; well, what better sight could there be?
And who could neglect it and wait the whole day?
It cries to be tried out, one just can’t delay.
Or maybe somewhere there’s a fast-breaking story
Important, and possibly leading to glory.
It can’t be ignored, there’s really no choice,
So add to the din every blogger’s small voice.
And then there are some who may just like to rhyme
(I’m one who at times must confess to this crime),
And it’s been quite a while since Clement Clarke Moore
Wrote his opus (though authorship’s been claimed by Gore).
So it seems about time it was newly updated
And here’s my attempt – aren’t you glad you all waited?
Forgive if it sounds a bit awkward to read.
In writing, I set a new record for speed.
I had to get under the wire and compose it
Before Christmas Day. Now it’s time that I close it.
But let me exclaim (or, rather, I’ll write)
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!
Here’s a video of the original, with some 50s-type nostalgia for those who remember. There are a few odd anomalies (“safe in their beds” instead of “snug in their beds”). But it brought back memories of pincurls, and the days when parents were assumed to sleep in twin beds (even though I don’t recall that most people did).
I think I had the book on which this is based. The illustrations look very familiar:
The Times and the truth: the 1619 Project and the teaching of history
The NY Times isn’t convincingly pretending that it’s in any business but that of disseminating propaganda:
The NYT refused to issue any corrections [to its pieces from the 1619 Project, its campaign to make it seem as though slavery was the true founding principle of the American enterprise], it announced Thursday, despite a letter written by five historians concerned about the project’s “misleading” and “factual errors.” Some of the historians that signed onto the original letter expressed frustration and concern to the Daily Caller at the NYT’s unwillingness to issue corrections…
“The Times has not addressed our many citations of factual errors,” Oakes said in an email to the Daily Caller Sunday. “I am particularly distressed by Matt Desmond’s essay. It is based on a body of scholarship that has been subjected to severe criticism by experts in the field, experts who San [sic] the spectrum from mainstream economists to Marxist sociologists.”
“As a result Desmond repeats claims that cannot be substantiated by the evidence.”
I applaud the letter-writers, and yet if they thought the Times had a particle of interest in what historians say (rather than what Marxist historians say) on the subject, they are demonstrating remarkable naivete. The Times can find people who say exactly what the Times wants the public to hear, and is completely uninterested in airing anything that counters that message:
The NYT declined to issue any correction, writing that they “welcome criticism” but “don’t believe that the request for corrections … is warranted.”
In the letter to the editor, the historians cited specific examples of what they believe are factual errors and misleading commentary currently published in the project. One notable issue is the project’s depiction of the American Revolution.
“On the American Revolution, pivotal to any account of our history, the project asserts that the founders declared the colonies’ independence of Britain ‘in order to ensure slavery would continue,’” the historians’ letter to the editor reads. “This is not true. If supportable, the allegation would be astounding — yet every statement offered by the project to validate it is false.”
The historians also took issue with how the “1619 Project” portrayed “Abraham Lincoln’s views on racial equality.” The project “ignores his conviction that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed universal equality,” according to the letter published in the NYT.
The NYT defended its decision not to issue any corrections, writing that “numerous scholars of African-American history and related fields” were consulted prior to the project launching.
The Times has always had its problems with truth (Duranty, for example). But for years now, it has been lowering itself further to engage nearly constantly in the enterprise Iowahawk (David Burge) has described on Twitter as one of the main tools of the left:
1. Identify a respected institution.
2. kill it.
3. gut it.
4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.#lefties— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 10, 2015
In this case, the Times is doing this to US history, as well as to the Times itself. And make no mistake about it, the Times’ project is not limited to publishing a few articles. The paper has an agenda involving education in the school system and elsewhere:
The project has gone on to include a five-episode podcast, a kids’ section of the print newspaper, and a broadsheet for the print newpaper that includes an article on how slavery is taught in U.S. schools as well as a history of slavery in 15 objects that was curated by the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The Pulitzer Center supported the project as an education partner, providing free reading guides, extension activities, lesson plans and physical copies of the magazine to educators across the country.
Teachers across all 50 states have accessed the Pulitzer Center educational resources since the project’s launch, and many have shared their students’ work by posting to Twitter and emailing student work to education@pulitzercenter.org. Educators from hundreds of schools and administrators from six school districts have also reached out to the Center for class sets of the magazine. Teachers are using the magazine in their classes to teach subjects ranging from English to History and Social Studies, and their engagement with the project has guided students in creating essays, poetry, visual art, performances, and live events that demonstrate their learning…
These events, which will continue into 2020, have been lively opportunities for both teachers and students to engage in the material and showcase their work. At Dunbar High School in Washington, DC, students interviewed Hannah-Jones, asking her about every aspect of her process from how she brought the idea to her editors to how she conceived of the audience for this project.
At one point, the conversation turned to Hannah-Jones’s own education and how she had come to the idea to commemorate the year 1619. A student asked: “At school, was this [year] really a topic, or were they trying to cover it up? Like, did you have to go and find it out for yourself?”
In response, Hannah-Jones described the one Black Studies class she had taken as a high schooler, and the book she read which described the significance of this year, called Before The Mayflower.
“I really started thinking about the year 1619 in high school,” Hannah-Jones said. But a lot of her knowledge since then, she said, came from her own research.
The theme recurred at the Smithsonian event, when Nikita Stewart asked a panel of educators to describe a lie about slavery that they learned as students, and how they unlearned it. As the panelists discussed the issue, several of them encouraged the students in the crowd to do their own learning.
Much much more at the link.
“The Democrats have made Trump a sympathetic character”
I want to highlight this comment by “JFM”:
The Democrats have made Trump a sympathetic character.
That sums up something I’ve been thinking for quite some time, and especially since the impeachment hearings began.
Trump has always been a brash guy, a loudmouthed New Yorker, born in privilege (pardon the “woke” word, but it applies here) and wealth, and parlaying that wealth into more wealth by wheeling and dealing and writing books and generally promoting himself. You either liked him or hated him (or like me, were indifferent to him and pretty much ignored him) prior to his running for office.
But one thing you didn’t do is sympathize with him or find him to be some sort of victim. I just don’t think that would have entered anyone’s mind.
And that situation continued for a while after his election. He was definitely one to blow his own horn, and to give as good as he got to his enemies.
But over the years, the actions of the Democrats and what has come to be called the “deep state” have dramatically increased the number of people who feel Trump has gotten a raw deal. They have accomplished what would have been thought nearly impossible, which is to make Trump seem a persecuted person, the victim of unfair and powerful forces out to get him.
I haven’t seen a poll on whether this change of public opinion has really occurred, but it’s what I observe in comments around the blogosphere and elsewhere. And it can’t be good for the Democrats.
The desire to humiliate: they impeached Trump in order to make him wear the scarlet “I”
I’ve noticed that many of the justifications for impeaching Trump involve some sort of gloating that now he must bear the shame of having been one of the few presidents in our history who have been impeached. In other words, they want him to wear for all time a scarlet “I”.
But did it ever occur to them that it might look to a lot of people – even including historians of the future – like a scarlet “M” for “martyred”?
If you impeach someone for trivial reasons, or based on lies, or both, how does that make the impeached person look bad?
Hadn’t you better make sure that your accusations appear to be sound? Framing someone or over-reacting to something that person has done makes you seem hysterical, mendacious, scheming, histrionic, fake. And piously intoning how sad and reluctant you are as you do it, when it’s crystal clear that’s just a pose and you are joyful, doesn’t make you look good and your target look bad, either.
George Burns once said, “If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.” Well, the Democrats can’t fake sincerity, and I don’t think they’re got it made.
The impulse is the one so clearly stated by Robert de Niro, who recently said this:
“It would feel kind of good to punch him. Not hurt him. Just punch him in the face,” said [Michael] Moore. “Just cathartic.”
De Niro responded, “I’d like to see a bag of shit right in his face. Hit him right in the face like that, and let the picture go all over the world. And that would be the most humiliating thing.”
He added, “He needs to be humiliated. He needs to be confronted, and he needs to be humiliated by whoever his political opponent is.”
De Niro explained that he would like to see the 2020 Democratic candidate tear Trump down, even if it’s not in an “obviously physical way.”
“The people have to see that. For him to be humiliated,” De Niro said.
Yes, we get it: humiliated. What a primitive impulse De Niro is describing, that of the schoolyard bully. Why would we think less of Trump and more of De Niro and/or the thugs carrying out such a wish? Or even expressing such a wish? The only person De Niro is humiliating here is himself, but he can’t even see that.
And I maintain that public humiliation is a large part of the impetus behind all of this. And so far it’s just not working – except as a boomerang.
Boris Johnson wishes the Jews of Britain a Happy Chanukah
“To all our Jewish friends, neighbors, and relatives, wherever you are in the world, let me wish you a very happy Hanukah,” said Johnson…
…Today, as Britain’s Jews seek to drive back the darkness of resurgent anti-Semitism, you have every decent person in this country fighting by your side.”
“Because Britain would not be Britain without its Jewish community.”
Some biographical notes on Boris Johnson’s own rather diverse heritage: did you know that Johnson had a paternal great-grandfather named Ali Kemal who was a Turkish writer and politician during the Ottoman Empire?:
Kemal was a journalist who travelled widely and took his holidays in other countries. On one of several visits to Switzerland, he met and fell in love with an Anglo-Swiss girl, Winifred Brun, the daughter of Frank Brun by his marriage to Margaret Johnson. They were married in Paddington, London, Middlesex, on 11 September 1903.
Early in his life, Kemal had acquired strong liberal democratic convictions, which caused him to be exiled from the Ottoman Empire under Abdul Hamid II, but immediately after the end of the Sultan’s personal rule in July 1908, he became one of the most prominent figures in Ottoman journalistic and political life. Because of his opposition to the Young Turks who had made the revolution, he spent most of the following decade in opposition.
Much more at the link, but I think it’s interesting that Boris Johnson is also a journalist as well as a politician.
But Boris Johnson’s heritage is more diverse than that. He had a maternal great-grandfather who was a Russian Jew:
Johnson’s maternal great-grandfather was a Russian Jewish immigrant named Elias Avery Lowe. Lowe was not a practicing Jew but was descendant of a strictly Orthodox Jewish rabbi from Lithuania…
Throughout his political career, Johnson has been a strong advocate for Israel. Writing for The Jewish Chronicle, Daniella Peled reported in 2007 that Johnson is, “an enemy of politically correct anti-Zionism and immensely proud of his own Jewish ancestry.” She quoted Johnson saying, “I feel Jewish when I feel the Jewish people are threatened or under attack, that’s when it sort of comes out. When I suddenly get a whiff of antisemitism, it’s then that you feel angry and protective.”
In addition to his Jewish ancestry, Johnson has even stronger ties to Israel through his Jewish stepmother, Jennifer Kidd Johnson, who married his father Stanley in 1981.
In 1984, Johnson, age 20, and his sister Rachel spent six weeks in Israel, volunteering on Kibbutz Kfar Hanasi, approximately 22 miles north of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel.
Quite a contrast with Corbyn.
[NOTE: Here’s a look at Kemal from an Armenian perspective. Interesting. That article also mentions that Kemal was “the son of a Circassian slave and a Turkish business magnate.” And if you want to know something about Circassian slaves, see this:
A large percentage of officials in the Ottoman government were bought slaves, raised free, and integral to the success of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century into the 19th. Many slave officials themselves owned numerous slaves, although the Sultan himself owned by far the most. By raising and specially training slaves as officials in palace schools such as Enderun, where they were taught to serve the Sultan and other educational subjects, the Ottomans created administrators with intricate knowledge of government, and fanatic loyalty…
Circassians, Syrians, and Nubians were the three primary races of females who were sold as sex slaves in the Ottoman Empire. Circassian girls were described as fair and light-skinned and were frequently enslaved by Crimean Tatars then sold to Ottoman empire to live and serve in a Harem. They were the most expensive, reaching up to 500 pounds sterling, and the most popular with the Turks.]
Lebkuchen again!
[NOTE: Regulars here may remember that most years I put up a family Christmas recipe. And here it is again, with a slight but important change in the size of the baking pans.]
This recipe was brought over from Germany sometime in the mid-1800s, and was my favorite of all the wonderful treats cooked by my great-aunt Flora, a baker of rare gifts. She and my great-uncle were not only exceptionally wonderful people, but to my childish and wondering eyes they looked very much like Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.
The name of the treat is lebkuchen, but it’s quite a different one from the traditional recipe, which I don’t much care for. This is sweet and dense, can be made ahead, and keeps very well when stored in tins.
Flora’s Lebkuchen:
(preheat the oven to 375 degrees)
1 pound dark brown sugar
4 eggs
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
4 oz. chopped dates
1 cup raisins
1 tsp. orange juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. lemon juice
Sift the dry ingredients together (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon).
Beat the eggs and brown sugar together with a rotary beater till the mixture forms the ribbon. Add the orange juice, lemon juice, and extracts to it.
Add the dry mixture to it, a little at a time, stirring.
Add the raisins, dates, and walnuts.
Grease and flour two 8 X 8 cake pans [NOTE: In previous years I sometimes said 9 X 9, but 8 X 8 is actually much better and makes for a far moister product.] Put batter in pans and bake for about 25 minutes (or a little less; test the cake with a cake tester at 21 or 22 minutes to see if it’s done yet). You don’t want it to get too dark and dry on the edges, but the middle can’t still be wet when tested.
Meanwhile, make the frosting.
Melt about 6 Tbs. of unsalted butter and add 2 Tbs. hot milk, and 1 Tbs. almond extract. Add enough confectioner’s sugar to make a frosting of spreading consistency (the recipe says “2 cups,” but I’ve always noticed that’s not exactly correct). You can make even more frosting if you like a lot of frosting.
Let cake cool to at least lukewarm, and spread generously with the frosting. Then cut into small pieces and store (or eat!).
Enjoy!
Scott Johnson of Powerline makes a good point about the MSM and Russiagate
Here it is, on the topic of the fact that media reports were almost uniformly wrong about Russiagate, the Nunes vs. Schiff memo, the Steele dossier’s reliability, and so much else:
If reporters were burned, they should be angry, and corrections should be forthcoming. If there isn’t an effort to reverse the wrong coverage, it will look like certain outlets (particularly cable channels) were complicit in knowingly giving oceans of airtime to shaky stories. It’s a bad look either way, but door number two is worse.
He’s right. If reporters were duped by the FBI and people such as Schiff, the MSM should be saying so and attacking those who deceived them, and trying to find out why it happened. The paucity of such articles, even now, suggests two things. The first is that it’s difficult for our self-righteous journalists to admit that they got this whole thing wrong, wrong, wrong. That’s hard because of both the natural human tendency to admit wrongdoing, as well as the fact that the truth goes in a political direction (defense of Donald Trump) that is anathema to them.
But the second is that they may indeed have known they were lying.
It’s another variant of ye olde “fools vs. knaves (or both)” question.
Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling gets a taste of the left’s medicine when she stands up for liberty
At my son’s request, I read the first two Harry Potter books shortly after they first came out. They were okay as that sort of thing goes, but since I’m not keen on that sort of thing, I stopped reading them somewhere in the middle of the third book. The series just didn’t hold my interest, and I figured I’d sufficiently paid my Harry Potter dues – although my son felt I had shown remarkable dereliction of maternal duty.
I’ve also noted over subsequent years that J. K. Rowling, the books’ author, tended to voice the usual leftist line on many things. Rowling is a Brit and a writer, two reasons that stance didn’t surprise me.
But now that Rowling has stood up for liberty and freedom of expression against transgender orthodoxy, the hounds of war have been loosed on her – proving once again that, to the left, you’re only as good as your most recent party line:
She has been called a stupid cunt, a bitch, trash, an old woman and so fucking ugly by an army of tweeting sexists. Her crime? She defended the right of a woman to express her opinion about sex and gender without losing her job.
The witch-hunting of JK Rowling, the ceaseless online abuse of her over the past day and night, exposes how unhinged, hateful and outright misogynistic the transgender movement has become. Rowling’s sin was to tweet in defence of Maya Forstater, the charity worker who was sacked for her belief that there are two sexes and that sex is immutable. That is, a man cannot become a woman, and vice versa. This week, an employment tribunal outrageously upheld Ms Forstater’s sacking and in the process it decreed what it is acceptable for people in the workplace to think and say. The judge said the kind of views held by Forstater are ‘not worthy of respect in a democratic society’. This essentially gives a green light to the harassment, isolation and expulsion from the workplace of anyone who questions the transgender ideology.
This is a ruling by an employment tribunal and is not legally binding in terms of the British court system, but it’s a chilling development in line with some of the “pronoun” fights that have gone on in Canada and which catapulted Jordan Peterson into fame when he fought them in the name of liberty.
More about the Forstater case can be found here:
“It is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate even if it violates their dignity and/or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment,” [the judge] continued.
“The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”
Funny thing, but just a few short years ago this belief was standard and completely acceptable, and science agreed that transgender people never fully became a member (in the biological sense) of the sex to which they transitioned. More recently, transgender activists have openly pursued several goals on their agenda, and this is one of them: to force people to accept their view of things and to act accordingly or to have those people (or people such as Rowling who support their right to speak freely) pay a steep price in public shaming as well as suffer financial loss.
The United States has a legal tradition, as well as laws and presumptions, that favor the exercise and protection of free speech and liberty far more than anyplace in Europe (or perhaps even the world, although it’s Europe about which I know more). Although the curtailment of such liberty has been slower to come here, in part for that reason, there’s no reason to think it won’t happen here.