All entries by this author

All that glitters

May 11th, 2018 10:58 am | By

Greg Sargent at the Post spells it out about the white nationalist motivation.

This year Democrats repeatedly offered Trump deals with money for the wall in exchange for protecting the dreamers, and he rejected them all, because Trump also wanted deep cuts to legal immigration. After that, multiple immigration packages failed to pass the Senate. The one based on Trump’s framework — citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers traded for $25 billion in wall money and deep cuts to legal immigration — got the fewest votes, at 39, with 14 Republicans defecting.

The bottom line is that Trump will not accept anything that protects the dreamers unless it also contains deep cuts to legal immigration. But nothing like

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Trump yelled about the United States’ porous border

May 11th, 2018 10:38 am | By

Once again people who work for Trump are surprised to find that he’s not a nice man or a reasonable boss. Once again I wonder where they’ve been for the past two years.

Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, told colleagues she was close to resigning after President Trump berated her on Wednesday in front of the entire cabinet for what he said was her failure to adequately secure the nation’s borders, according to several current and former officials familiar with the episode.

Did she think he wouldn’t act like that? Did she think he’s mean only to the nasty brown people but kind to nice blonde people with Norwegian names?

(That’s probably exactly what she thought.)

Mr. Trump’s anger

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Selection

May 11th, 2018 9:37 am | By

May 13 updating to correct: Jared Keller explains that the event was not at the White House and wasn’t military spouses in general.

The photo was actually taken at the annual Joint Armed Forces of Washington Luncheon (JAFOWL) on April 24, not the White House. In fact, it only shows members of the Air Force Officers’ Spouses’ Club.

Given that the wives in this photo chose to marry Air Force officers — 20 percent of whom identify as a racial minority, below the rate for officers across the entire U.S. armed forces — it would make sense that there might be a distinct under-representation of black and Asian military spouses, and it’s certainly a problem. But the issue isn’t

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No escape

May 10th, 2018 1:50 pm | By

Oliver North. We thought we’d escaped him, didn’t we. Not so fast there, buddy – he’s back. He’s the new head of the NRA, and he’s on Fox News saying all Iranians are liars.

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Colonel, you alerted me before we came on the air. I made some phone calls, top sources in Israel have confirmed that multiple rockets were fired at Israel within the last couple hours. And Israel has in fact — they were fired from Syria, Israel has responded. No Israelis were injured, though, in the attack against them. This having to do with Israel’s previous military attacks against Syria in recent weeks. Nothing to do with the Iranian deal, I was told, at

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The common room was off-limits for sleeping

May 10th, 2018 1:25 pm | By

Another one of these – another “___ while black” item. This time it’s falling asleep while working on a paper in the dorm common room while black.

Other entrants include: couponing while blackgraduating too boisterously while blackwaiting for a school bus while blackthrowing a kindergarten temper tantrum while blackdrinking iced tea while blackwaiting at Starbucks while blackAirBnB’ing while blackshopping for underwear while blackhaving a loud conversation while blackgolfing too slowly while blackbuying clothes at Barney’s while blackor Macy’sor Nordstrom Rackgetting locked out of your own home while blackgoing to the gym while

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How do they hold their dangerous conversations?

May 10th, 2018 12:27 pm | By

The Graun did a sarcastic Q&A about the Intellecshual Dark Web:

How do they hold their dangerous conversations? Through some kind of shadowy underground network? They go on Rubin’s YouTube show, which has 700,000 subscribers. Or they host popular podcasts, attracting thousands in monthly donations.

Talk about being sidelined.Who are these people? Among those often included are former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro; husband and wife “professors in exile” Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, who resigned from Evergreen State College after denouncing a planned Day of Absence, where white students were asked to leave the campus; and psychologist and political correctness scourge Jordan Peterson.

You mean it’s all just … terrible people? Professional controversialists, I would call them. They

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This looks like a nice spot for it

May 10th, 2018 11:32 am | By

The BBC on a trial at the Old Bailey:

A teenage girl plotted a gun and grenade attack at the British Museum after her attempts to become a jihadi bride were thwarted, a court has heard.

Safaa Boular was 17 when she allegedly decided to be a “martyr” after her Islamic State fighter fiancé was killed in Syria, the Old Bailey was told.

It’s an interesting choice, the British Museum. Not Parliament (been done), not anything royal, not the Bank, not some hub of commerce – but a museum of history, art, culture, learning, archaeology. It is of course a product and symbol of Empire along with all that, but you can’t smash that symbol without smashing a lot … Read the rest



How much more attention do they want?

May 9th, 2018 2:47 pm | By

Nathan Robinson on the silenced chatterers, the suppressed best-sellers, the censored columnists and podcasters so bravely championed by Bari Weiss in the Times.

Weiss uses the nation’s paper of record to introduce audiences to a group of people whose voices are supposedly being kept out of mainstream institutions, but who for some reason I seem to hear about all the damn time.

The “intellectual dark web” is neither on the dark web nor comprised of intellectuals. It is a phrase coined by one of Peter Thiel’s deputies to describe a group of people who share the following traits in common: (1) they are bitter about and feel persecuted by Leftist Social Justice Identity Politics, which they think is

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Of no party or clique

May 9th, 2018 10:47 am | By

From a transcript of the Atlantic staff meeting Jeffrey Goldberg held along with Ta-nehisi Coates after (and about) the Kevin Williamson mess: Coates is asking himself why he didn’t say don’t hire him:

So I thought about it, like, you know how did I miss that? I’m Mr. Blackity Black, how did I miss that? And I think one of the things that happened is, again, like understanding the mission of The Atlantic, which I get. It might not be my mission, but I get it, and I work here. I understand it. Debate various views, you know, we fight it out. “Of no party or clique,” right? And I told Jeff this already, but we have been

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At a very particular moment of sunset

May 9th, 2018 8:43 am | By

Alice Dreger could have been part of Bari Weiss’s absurd “intellectual dark web” but she decided not  to. Hilariously, part of her reason was that absurdly dramatic photography that y’all have been mocking overnight.

At some point, Bari decided to do a story on this—the “intellectual dark web,” not our dietary problems—and at that point I started joking about it, asking if we would all get to have a uniform. I had in mind the jumpsuits from The Incredibles. To me, the joke was the idea that a bunch of renegades would have anything in particular in common. It seems kind of, um, contradictory to consider us as a group since the point is we are all bad

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Take away credentials?

May 9th, 2018 7:51 am | By

He’s musing aloud about suppressing the news media again.

The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake). Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?

Says … Read the rest



Dinner with the vanguard

May 8th, 2018 5:57 pm | By

Well this one sure has all the kids talking: Bari Weiss at the Times explaining the “intellectual dark web” and how courageously iconoclastic and awesome it is.

Here are some things that you will hear when you sit down to dinner with the vanguard of the Intellectual Dark Web: There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Free speech is under siege. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart. And we’re in a dangerous place if these ideas are considered “dark.”

I was meeting with Sam Harris, a neuroscientist; Eric Weinstein, a mathematician and managing director of Thiel Capital; the commentator and comedian Dave Rubin; and their spouses in a Los Angeles restaurant to

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Debates in our country should be informed by facts

May 8th, 2018 3:37 pm | By

Obama on Trump’s bad move:

There are few issues more important to the security of the United States than the potential spread of nuclear weapons, or the potential for even more destructive war in the Middle East. That’s why the United States negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in the first place.

The reality is clear. The JCPOA is working – that is a view shared by our European allies, independent experts, and the current U.S. Secretary of Defense. The JCPOA is in America’s interest – it has significantly rolled back Iran’s nuclear program. And the JCPOA is a model for what diplomacy can accomplish – its inspections and verification regime is precisely what the United States … Read the rest



What happens when you elect a damn fool

May 8th, 2018 3:25 pm | By

The BBC on Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran deal:

Calling it “decaying and rotten”, he said the deal was “an embarrassment” to him “as a citizen”.

Going against advice from European allies, he said he would reimpose economic sanctions that were waived when the deal was signed in 2015.

In response, Iran said it was preparing to restart uranium enrichment, key for making both nuclear energy and weapons.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said: “The US has announced that it doesn’t respect its commitments.”

Trump has announced.

But then what is Trump but everybody’s idea of The Worst American?

Analysis by Jonathan Marcus, BBC defence and diplomatic correspondent

With a stroke of his pen President Trump has jeopardised the one

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He told her that she simply wasn’t “liberated” enough

May 8th, 2018 10:08 am | By

More from the Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow article on Eric Schneiderman:

Evan Stark, a forensic social worker and an emeritus professor at Rutgers, is the author of a landmark book, “Coercive Control,” in which he argues that domestic abuse is just as often psychological as it is physical. Abusive men, he writes, often “terrorize” and “control” their partners by demeaning them, particularly about the traits or accomplishments of which they are proudest. Manning Barish says that Schneiderman often mocked her political activism. When she told him of her plan to attend an anti-gun demonstration with various political figures and a group of parents from Sandy Hook Elementary School, he dismissed the effort, calling the demonstrators “losers.” He added,

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A striking resemblance

May 8th, 2018 9:29 am | By

This again. Somebody at the White House pretends Melania Trump wrote a thing that was actually written by someone in the Obama administration. Why do that?

US First Lady Melania Trump has been caught up in another plagiarism row, following the launch of her new online safety for children campaign on Monday.

A booklet put out by Mrs Trump bore a striking resemblance to one published under the Obama administration.

The text and graphics of the “Be Best” booklet were nearly identical to those in the previous edition.

Well that’s not “a striking resemblance,” it’s plagiarism. Words aren’t like faces; you don’t have a resemblance, you have the same words. The word “good” isn’t “like” the word “good”; it … Read the rest



Yearning to breathe free

May 8th, 2018 8:55 am | By

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A reckoning of his own

May 8th, 2018 8:46 am | By

Now there’s Schneiderman.

Eric Schneiderman, New York’s attorney general, has long been a liberal Democratic champion of women’s rights, and recently he has become an outspoken figure in the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment. As New York State’s highest-ranking law-enforcement officer, Schneiderman, who is sixty-three, has used his authority to take legal action against the disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, and to demand greater compensation for the victims of Weinstein’s alleged sexual crimes.

Great. But…

Now Schneiderman is facing a reckoning of his own. As his prominence as a voice against sexual misconduct has risen, so, too, has the distress of four women with whom he has had romantic relationships or encounters. They accuse Schneiderman of having subjected

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There can be only one loudmouth fool at a time

May 7th, 2018 5:34 pm | By

Uh oh – the honeymoon is over.

President Donald Trump is growing increasingly irritated with lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s frequently off-message media blitz, in which he has muddied the waters on hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels and made claims that could complicate the president’s standing in the special counsel’s Russia probe.

Not to mention Rudy is getting all that attention. Attention is supposed to be for Donnie, all for Donnie. No amount is ever enough.

Trump also expressed annoyance that Giuliani’s theatrics have breathed new life into the Daniels story and extended its lifespan. It’s a concern shared by Trump allies who think Giuliani is only generating more legal and political trouble for the White House.

Darn … Read the rest



These ideas were laundered to smell a bit better

May 7th, 2018 11:54 am | By

Talia Lavin notes with what a light heart men can ask hey now if we talk about fairness in the distribution of wealth, income, health care, housing, why can’t we talk about it in the distribution of access to women’s genitalia?

Let’s reconstruct this sequence of events, shall we?

Shortly before he committed mass murder on April 23, Alek Minassian, 25, logged on to Facebook. “Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161,” he posted. “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

It looks like typical online bullshit, but he wasn’t joking or playacting or bullshitting; he meant it.

A few

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