Errant Nonsense

The New York Times recently announced that it had hired Sarah Jeong, a journalist to complement its editorial board. Jeong previously wrote for the Verge. Shortly after she was hired however, it was discovered that Jeong has a copious and colorful history of vile racist comments against whites, most particularly white men. Here is a sampling of her views: “dumba fing white people,” musing about how much joy she gets “out of being cruel to old white men” and how “white men are bullsh.” For good measure she also compared white people to “groveling goblins” and questioned why they’re “genetically predisposed to burn faster in the sun.”

You can find a listing of Jeong’s greatest hits: here.

Why the Times would give this angry woman a forum at the “newspaper of record”. Is one of the reasons conservatives dismiss the mainstream media as nothing more than an extension of the Democratic Party. Her hire represents a classic example of one of the essential tenets of progressivism. Establish a standard, in this case former statements of conservatives that are sufficiently derogatory according to the catechism of liberalism to justify the individuals termination — no matter how sincere the apology.

But, if the same standards are not applied to progressives. Indeed, one of the cardinal principles of progressivism is they progressive are immune from the application of the very same standards they themselves have established for others. By definition, unless a standard is applied universally, it is no longer a standard, but rather a manifestation of partisan hackery.

Here is an eye opener for all white people, not some, but all, who think they aren’t racist and can never be absolved of racism, or, what is now commonly described in the fever swamps of the radical academic left as “white privilege.”

The Timed hired Jeong for her anticipated brilliance in addressing such momentous issues as: What would it be like if we all deleted Facebook? What does the future of online privacy look like?Why can’t the tech industry diversify? And, two of my favorites: Are monkeys allowed to sue over copyrights? And what in the world is #cockygate?

Another tweet reads, “oh man it’s kind of sick how much joy I get from being cruel to old white men.”

The Times hiring and defense of Jeong’s racist rants against white people finally clarifies that the entire fraudulent concepts of“diversity” and “inclusion” are nothing more buzzwords that gives those members of a “protected class” a license to vilify and discriminate against white men. Or as Seth Barron at City Journal accurately describes it as, “Get Whitey.” The intellectual giants who proselytize this giddy nonsense at our colleges and universities would argue that Jeong’s comments were not only appropriate, but justified.

The Times has defended its hiring of Jeong by claiming, without a shred of supporting evidence, that her comments were in response to being trolled online by malicious white men. The evidence that Jeong’s racist rants were the result of her being harassed? The Times says so, and for them, that’s all the evidence they need.

We are going to see more examples of this social theory in action, particularly in connection with the policy platform of the Democratic Party, which itself has now been overrun and held hostage by the radical and crazy left. Jeong’s views as well as all the zany social theories birthed by the academic left. now represents what has become the intellectual underpinnings of today’s Democratic Party.

In a recent article, Politico seems to believe that former consultant Steve Schmidt’s divorce from the GOP is a big story and that party stalwarts are all abuzz. The article almost reads like a PR piece for Schmidt. The truth of the matter is that all the commotion over Schmidts departure is much ado about nothing. Well over a year after the election people in the party care not one whit about Steve Schmidt’s current views of the GOP or his plans for the future.

The reality is that Steve Schmidt has never really been interested in any one other than Steve Schmidt. His attack on his former client’s running mate was beyond the pale and indicative of a mercenary whose allegiances blow in the wind.

How convenient for Schmidt to have his road to Damascus moment well after his disastrous involvement in the 2008 campaign. It should be noted that Palin was Schmidt’s recommendation for VP. If he had second thoughts and believed Palin would be an anchor around the ankles of McCain’s presidential bid, he could have eliminated her as a running mate. Instead, Schmidt got on board at the time and along with many other GOP illuminates, including the now exiled Bill Kristol, thought it was a shrewd game-changing political event.

No one in the GOP is weeping over Schmidt’s departure from the Republican Party. Long before Trump announced his candidacy, the execrable Steve Schmidt, was a regular and very welcome guest on partisan hack, Chris Matthew’s MSNBC talk show. How anyone could consider Schmidt remotely resembling a member of the Republican Party at that time beggars the imagination.

Schmidt is but one of many exiled former GOP consultants, who for years have milked the Republican Party. Vying for this distinction along with Schmidt is his fellow has-been GOP consultant Rick Willson, another one of the many perpetually deranged never-Trumpers.

Here is the most important and salient fact to remember about Schmidt and his fellow former GOP consultants: their records in terms of winning elections was dreadful, yet they continued to remain on the GOP payroll. As I note in my book, Election 2016: How Donald Trump And The Deplorables Won And Made Political History,

Some of the most prominent members of the Old Guard are the consultant class, who for the past several election cycles maintained an incestuous and profitable relationship with the RNC. Win or lose, the same names would usually crop up: Mike Murphy; Steve Schmidt; Stuart Stevens; John Weaver and Rick Wilson. These political strategists all fed off the parasitic relationship with the party establishment. They repeatedly bilked the RNC and its donors —both large and small. They all sang the same old song. They could all be seen on the cable TV and Sunday morning talk show circuit, their appearances ostensibly booked due to their expertise, which was comical, given their dismal track record.

Schmidt is leaving the GOP not on principle but because his cushy consultant gigs with the party is over. As I further note,

The track record of the consultant class pariahs was dreadful, yet the party continued to hire them. It was a unique and enviable employment relationship where the worse you performed the greater your job security and the more you were paid.

What is astonishing, is that the Republican Party is known, above all else, as the party of business and home of successful entrepreneurs. How members of this elite business club could repeatedly shower astronomical sums and continue to employ the consultant gang that couldn’t shoot straight, time and again, is one of the most endearing mysteries of the GOP of the past thirty years. If the Republican Party were forced to compete in the private sector with the same business plan employed repeatedly by the RNC, they would sooner or later be forced to file for bankruptcy.

After the election, Schmidt realized he had no prospect of ever working for another Republican politician ever again. Hence, his recent and expedient conversion to the Democratic Party.

Whatever fellow Republicans one thinks of Trump, all should be delighted that this Quisling will never set foot in party headquarters for the remainder of their lifetimes.

That’s what political analyst Jay Cost thinks. In a recent article for National Review, titled Why a Democratic Wave Looks Likely.

First, it should be noted, as Cost acknowledges, that the party out of power nearly always does well in the mid-term elections. Should the House fall to the Democrats, this would not be a unique event.

Despite the fact that history favors the Democrats this November, Republicans have reason to believe that they are in reasonably good shape for the mid-terms. The economy is still growing; indeed, it just registered 4.1% GDP growth. This is notable, especially after the tepid and lackluster growth rates under Obama. Furthermore, unemployment is at the lowest level since 1968. Additionally, the country is not bogged down in any overseas conflicts. Despite these favorable factors, that at first blush would seem to inure to the GOP’s benefit, Cost nonetheless argues that a blue wave is likely.

The major premise of Cost’s argument is that even though the economy is humming along, most Americans want their president to behave in a dignified manner that does justice to the office.

Cost initially notes that, “Trump is incapable of acting the way most Americans expect their president to act.” He then contrasts Trump’s demeanor with that of George Washington,

Our monument to George Washington may be a plain, white obelisk, but it is still a monument. The person who occupies Washington’s chair is expected to act like that great man, at least a little bit. He is supposed to be measured, restrained, and dignified.

Trump has been none of those things. He has undoubtedly advanced the conservative agenda, but he has not done so in a presidential manner.

As an example of Trump’s unpresidential behavior that Cost believes many swing voters will find not befitting the office was the firing of Comey. Here Cost makes an inductive leap that simply is not warranted by the political facts that not only propelled Trump to the Oval Office, but that have kept his approval ratings fairly steady in the 40-45% range — a rating that is similar to that for Obama at the same period in his presidency.

Cost’s reasoning is that the manner in which Trump fired Comey was so undignified, or“unpresidential” that swing voters will pull the lever for the Democrats come November because previous presidents would have behaved differently.

“The president was well within his constitutional rights to fire Comey, but the way he went about it was erratic and capricious. The left-wing #Resistance and diehard Never Trumpers took this as evidence of a crime, but that is not how the average swing voter — the sort who may well hand Democrats control of the House — came to see it. She saw it as unpresidential.”

Cost’s argument is rather weak and his conclusions specious. The Democrats may very will capture the House this November, but it will most likely not be due to the fact that Trump is unpresidential — a term that Cost leaves pristinely undefined. The degree to which Cost’s unpresidential thesis rests, in whole or in part, on a comparison of Trump to George Washington, is not only unfair, it makes his imminent blue wave conclusion wholly suspect. It must be noted in this regard that any president, past or future, is going to to be found wanting if they are compared to George Washington.

Furthermore, Cost does not address the fact that throughout the Republican primaries and during the general election, Trump was consistently “unpresidential” according to the few examples he offers, but he nonetheless defeated Hillary Clinton. The very same swing voters that Cost claims will give the House to the Democrats, simply found Clinton too corrupt, shifty and dishonest — in short, to paraphrase Cost, many voters found her unfit for the presidency.

Finally, Cost ignores the radical shift that has occurred within the Democratic Party lately. The radical left wing has held the party hostage. Many of its illuminates, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an unabashed and self-proclaimed Bernie Sanders socialist, all favor open borders, eliminating ICE, free college education, etc. Many of their policy pronouncements are utterly incoherent.

These positions are far outside the mainstream.

The defining issue for voters come November, may not be so much Trump’s unpresidential behavior, but whether or not Americans want to transform the country into a larger version of Denmark.

We keep hearing the perennial phrase: America is a nation divided. And, indeed it is — particularly with regards to their policies on illegal immigrants. A recent Rasmussen poll has revealed that only a slight majority of Democrats , 54%, oppose giving noncitizens the right to vote. By contrast, 91% of Republicans polled said they oppose the idea.

Already some cities, like San Francisco are granting illegal immigrants the right to vote in local school board elections.

It is a certainty that left-wing Democrats are not going to stop at bestowing the right to vote in local districts only, thereby widening the gap between the parties on this issue.

The position of Democrats on the granting illegal immigrants the right to vote debases the whole notion of citizenship, which puts them outside the mainstream on this issue.

In fact, those districts that have either introduced or implemented the idea have all been located on either coast. San Francisco has the policy and Boston has recently proposed a similar measure.

A Rasmussen poll, that phrased the questions differently had an even more astonishing result. The Rasmussen poll found that a majority of Democrats favor granting noncitizens the right to vote. Two questions were put to respondents.

The first question asked: Should illegal immigrants be allowed to vote if they can prove that they live in this county and pay taxes? The second , Do you favor or oppose letting illegal immigrants vote for local officials in the area where you live?

As noted in Hot Air,

Note how much more expansive the phrasing of the first question is than the second. The second specifies local elections; the first doesn’t, and yet there’s actually more support for letting them vote in the first case than in the second. I assume that’s because of the reference to paying taxes. A small but meaningful minority may believe that if you’re paying into the system then you deserve a say in how it operates, whether or not you have any legal right to be present in the United States. Either way, Democrats clearly prefer a residency requirement rather than a citizenship requirement for democratic participation. Is there any more basic disagreement between the two parties right now?

Reviewing these results, a question arises: Which party is the extremist on the issue of illegal immigrants?

After stonewalling for months, last Saturday, the FBI released documents related to the Carter Page FISA warrants including the applications, the certifications made by FBI agents and the warrants themselves.

Even though the documents are heavily redacted, Andy McCarthy writing in National Review, notes that the unverified Steele dossier with its salacious and sensational allegations paid for by the Clinton campaign was the basis on which the Trump Russian collusion investigation was initiated.

McCarthy is a former federal prosector and in that role, he has worked on numerous occasions with FBI agents who were charged with verifying and certifying to the court information on which various warrants were based. McCarthy has been a credible analyst and knowledgeable commentator of the entire Russia collusion proceedings and his comments on the disclosed documents is damning.

The facts revealed by the released documents are particularly disturbing because McCarthy had previously asserted, adamantly, that those who argued the raw uncorroborated Steele dossier, in and of itself, was the sole evidence on which the FISA court issued the warrants to spy on Carter Page were badly mistaken.

McCarthy’s position was based on his own involvement with FBI agents and the procedures they assiduously and rigorously employed in connection with verifying and certifying facts on which warrants were based when an application was made to the court. McCarthy’s original position was based on his justifiable credulity that the FBI and Justice Department would never have engaged in such chicanery. After a review of the recently disclosed material, McCarthy has been forced to retract his earlier statements on the entire FISA matter, as in his own words,

“I am embarrassed by this not just because I assured people it could not have happened, and not just because it is so beneath the bureau — especially in a politically fraught case in which the brass green-lighted the investigation of a presidential campaign. I am embarrassed because what happened here flouts rudimentary investigative standards. Any trained FBI agent would know that even the best FBI agent in the country could not get a warrant based on his own stellar reputation. A fortiori, you would never seek a warrant based solely on the reputation of Christopher Steele — a non-American former intelligence agent who had political and financial incentives to undermine Donald Trump. It is always, always necessary to persuade the court that the actual sources of information allegedly amounting to probable cause are believable.”

In this case, the FBI’s own standard operating procedures were intentionally jettisoned in order to obtain a warrant to surveil an American citizen based on a document whose information was based on double and triple hearsay from questionable sources.

McCarthy reviews the various Carter Page applications and his conclusions should trouble every American — regardless of their political affiliation. Astonishingly, as McCarty states,

The bulk of the first Carter Page FISA application consists of allegations against Page that were disclosed to the FBI by Mr. Steele and are also outlined in the Steele dossier. The application appears to contain no additional information corroborating the dossier allegations against Mr. Page.

McCarthy correctly outlines standard FBI protocol,

The FBI would go to the FISA court only with independent evidence corroborated through standard FBI rigor.

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The most newsworthy event to emerge from the Maxine Waters affair wasn’t her call for mob harassment tactics against Trump Administration officials, nor the attendant inflammatory language employed, but rather, the swift reaction of two women’s activist groups who castigated House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, for her audacity in reproaching Waters.

The two letters are significant because they not only convey the ideological principles on which the progressive opposition to the Trump Administration will be based but also, because they forebode the inevitable internecine conflict that will soon engulf the Democratic Party.

The contents of both letters are rife with extremism and provide a glimpse into the soul of modern progressive identity politics.

The letters also are evidence that the zany social theories and concepts of group identity politics, spawned by diversity beast’s need for instances of perpetual grievance and once confined to the fringes of the academic left, have now become incorporated into the mainstream vocabulary and policies of the Democratic Party.

The first letter from a group of black women politicians states an obvious but unpleasant identity politics political reality for the Democratic Party. In order to win national elections, Democrats needs to capture almost ninety percent of the black vote. The letter indelicately reminds Pelosi of the long-term fealty of African-Americans to the party in stark and unforgiving terms.

“For Black women, who are the most loyal base of the Democratic Party and the Progressive Movement, Congresswoman Waters is our shero sic.”

The letter further reminds the Minority Leader that,

“Disparaging or failing to support Congresswoman Waters is an affront to her and Black women across the country and telegraphs a message that the Democratic Party can ill afford: that it does not respect Black women’s leadership and political power and discounts the impact of Black women and millennial voters.”

For purposes of gleaning the nature of Pelosi’s insolence, here is what Waters said,

“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd,” Waters said at an event in Los Angeles. “And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

How is it possible to denounce the ultra-liberal House Minority Leader of the party for criticizing these incendiary remarks? How can a congresswoman who utters such rabble-rousing comments not be subject to censure? [click to continue…]

Democrats continue their implacable lurch leftward right off the cliff by showering praise on the latest star of their party, unabashed Socialist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. None other than DNC chairman, Tom Perez has claimed she is the new face of the Democratic Party.

Ocasio-Cortez, like her mentor Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders, has called upon the Democratic Party to offer voters a lot of free stuff. In addition, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez  has issued the battle cry for progressives to occupy airports to protest the treatment of migrants at the border. That stunt, if attempted, will truly put them in the good graces of voters. In addition of course, she is calling for the abolition of ICE, a position no different from every one of the Democratic 2020 presidential hopefuls.

Ocasio-Cortez now feels enabled to continue spreading her gospel of socialism, no doubt due to the effusive praise showered upon her by leading Democrats as well as from a solicitous media who has been treating her like a rock star.

I thought the GOP was the stupid party but the Democrats have one-upped them by associating the party with this idiot.

It is going to be great fun watching the Democrats walk themselves right off the cliff as they continue to embrace the philosophy of the perpetually-angry Bernie SandersSmatters, whose ultimate goal is to turn the United States in to a 21st century version of Denmark.

If Democrats truly believe that Ocasio-Cortez is the wave of the future, then Republican should do everything they can to assist the Democratic Party destroy itself by political acts of self-immolation.

I agree with Guy Benson who wrote in Townhall recently,

“Abolish ICE” is an ascendant litmus test for the Democratic Party’s left-wing base, attracting sufficient support as to inspire hilarious backflips from craven panderers with presidential ambitions. Some “progressives” went so far as to file a bill to dismantle the immigration enforcement agency.”

In short, their own bill would have given them enough rope to hang themselves. It would have forced the finger-in-the wind politician, Kristen Gillibrand to vote and then ultimately reverse her position. Why then did the stupid party not force a vote on the issue? As Benson further notes,

The GOP plan, based on widespread reports, was to give Democrats a chance to actually vote on their colleagues’ (will unpopular) idea. Recognizing the trap, the authors of the legislation balked at their own idea, amusingly denouncing the planned vote, on the exact bill they championed, as a “stunt.”

It is mystifying then, why the GOP congressional leadership would refuse to assist Democrats in their walk-back?

It seems like the Republican Party is incapable of capitalizing on gifts handed to them on a silver platter.

Ever since the G7 summit, president Trump has criticized European leaders harshly. Trump is no Metternich, Disraeli or Kissinger; he is blunt and his comments indecorous. But the pointed criticisms he has made to the Europeans, especial Germany’s Angela Merkel, are not only well deserved, they are long overdue.

Since the beginning of the Cold War a rapacious Soviet foreign policy was kept in check by United States troops stationed primarily in Germany. These troops were often characterized as a “trip wire”, that if engaged by the Russians, would lead to inevitable armed hostilities. The peace was kept due to the deterrent effect of the American strategic nuclear umbrella.

The unconditional and unwavering military commitments made by the United States for the defense of Europe during the Cold War as well as the Marshall Plan, were primarily responsible for Europe’s ability to rebuild their post-war economies. During this period of recovery, Europe ran up trade surpluses with the United States that continued up until the recent G7 meeting.

Trump indelicately informed the spoiled and haughty Europeans that this grotesque imbalance was going to be redressed.

Trump merely asked the Europeans to pay their fair share of military expenditures as members of NATO. Indeed, under the treaty the Europeans were required to pledge a specified amount of their GNP for defensive capabilities; most of them balked, and with the exception of Great Britain, have contributed a pittance. Germany, the economic power house of Europe, was only paying a laughable 1% and simultaneously running trade surpluses with America, while the U.S. taxpayer subsidized its defense capabilities.

This was obscene and Trump indelicately informed the stunned and militarily dependent Europeans that their days of post-war freeloading were over.

Relieved of the mettlesome cost of providing for their own defense, the European, especially Germany, spent enormous sums on lavish social welfare programs that in the end, were indirectly subsidized by U.S. taxpayers.

Despite the collapse of the former Soviet Union, did any previous American president ever ask why U.S. troops are still stationed in Germany long after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

Europe has been drifting away from the United States culturally and economically. Political elites favor consolidation of decision making with European Union bureaucrats in Brussels. Many of the old European countries have willingly ceded their sovereignty for the idea of a common or unified Europe. Merkel has opened her borders to migrants from the Middle East and they have flooded in, unwilling to adopt or assimilate to the cultural and national mores of their host country.

Replacement birth rates in Europe are dangerously low. In short, Europe is dying a slow death; a fate suffered by its own hands.

There is very little substance or commonality left within the Transatlantic alliance. Trump understands this reality and has acted accordingly, reversing decades of counterproductive and unenlightened U.S. foreign policy that had never adopted to the changing geopolitical realities.

Trump has thrown down the Pochahantos gauntlet on Senator Elizabeth Warren to prove she has a Cherokee heritage.

Last Thursday In his typical trademark bombastic style, presidnet Trump challenged Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts to take a blood test in exchange for $1 million that would definitively prove whether or not she has Cherokee blood.

Trump spoke as if he were debating Warren in a presidential election contest, Trump said his team would purchase a DNA blood test kit and during the debate,

“And we will say, ‘I will give you a million dollars, paid for by Trump, to

your favorite charity if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian,”

Trump said. “And we’ll see what she does. I have a feeling she will say no

but we will hold it for the debates.”

Warren naturally changed the subject when she responded,

“Hey, @realDonaldTrump: While you obsess over my genes, your Admin is conducting DNA tests on little kids because you ripped them from their mamas & you are too incompetent to reunite them in time to meet a court order. Maybe you should focus on fixing the lives you’re destroying.”

Through this challenge, Trump did more in one day to halt the pernicious influence of identiy politics that has coursed through the political veins of the country than the entire Republican establishment has done since the Reagan presidency.

In fairness to the anti-Trump wing of the party, when you contrast something against nothing, Trump will always prevail.

Trump is going to prove to be one of the most brilliant politicians of our lifetime for the simple reason that he came to Wasahington with a wrecking ball and he hasn’t stopped swinging it. Trump has no political experinece and that is just what the times call for to shake up the corrupt swamp in Washington. Those in flyover country who are not enthralled with the political elites who have overseen the nations decline are cheering raucously at Trump’s takedown of the the patent fraud, Elizabeth Warren.

Trump’s audacious and unorthodox stunt was another adroit political move unappreciated by the brain-dead establishment and anti-Trump wing of the party. Trump accomplished three things with the good natured contest. First, he insures that the entire identiy politics scam for which Warren is an exemplar is exposed for what it is: an exercise in monuental silliness that lays bare progressives obsession with race as the determinative factor in politics.

Second, Trump can resurrect the phoniness of Warren at will. He refused to be bound by the strictures and rules that were established by the mainstream media to circumscribe Republican president’s choices in the political arena. Since starting in office, Trump has gone over the heads of the media and communicated directly wiht the American people. This insures that the Pocahontas story will not be buried or ingnored completely by the mainstream media.

Third, by publicly shaming Warren, Trump is going to put the nail in the coffin of a pernicious political idelogy that provides succor for the hard left and now for the entire Democratic Party.

Trump is not going to let Warren off the hook. Rest assured, we have not heard the last about Warren’s shameful saga.

It is gong to be great fun watching Warren squirm as she steadfastly refuses to take the simple blood test that would exonerate her claims of Cherokee ancestry and end the mystery once and for all.

And that is precisely the reason Trump is going to keep pressing the issue.

Warren’s refusal to take the test will have the same effect as a criminal defendant taking the Fifth.

On multiple occasions, Warren had an opportunity to rescind her silly claims and end the matter definitively. She chose to cotinue to stick her foot in her party’s sacrosanct identity politics muck and she will never be able to extract herself from the morass.

The Republican attack ads will practically write themselves.