URLs du Jour

2018-10-12

[Amazon Link]
(paid link)

  • I'm sure we'll have a Kavanaugh-free day Real Soon Now, but… not today, friends. At NR, Kevin D. Williamson takes a hard look at what happens After Kavanaugh.

    One can almost admire the brazen, cynical genius behind the Democrats’ smear campaign against Judge Kavanaugh, which is only the logical extension of the similar campaigns they conducted against Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas — and, for that matter, George W. Bush, about whom the Democrats said more or less exactly what they say today about Donald Trump, i.e., that he represented a unique threat to American democracy, a clear and present danger to the republic not seen since . . . the last time there was a Republican president. The Democrats lost this one, and they do care about winning, but this kind of mau-mauing is not only about winning in the particular matter at hand: It is about fear. Even if you don’t win this round, you can encourage would-be participants to sit out future contests — especially if they have families.

    The Democrats’ strategy can be summarized: “Sure, you may win an election. And, sure, you may be an accomplished jurist with a sterling record. But if you come between us and what we want — and what we want is the power to dominate you — then we will slander you as a rapist, and our media friends will see to it that this slander, no matter how obviously false, is the first thing people think about when they think about you, for the rest of your life. You may beat us in an election, but we’ll take it out on your children, and we have the New York Times and the Yale Law School. Enjoy your victory.”

    I have to admit that I view politics like a lot of people view sports, an interesting source of entertainment. There are differences though. Example: sports fans love watching actual games. The closest analog in politics is (I suppose) candidate debates, which I can't stand to watch.

    And, if I have to root for anyone, I have to root for the hapless, hopeless, half-crazy, Libertarians. Might as well be a Cleveland Browns fan.

    I can't bring myself to cheer for Republicans, who talk about their small-government ideals, but never manage to implement them. (Closest NFL analogs: Bills and Vikings)

    But Democrats have given me more than enough reasons, seemingly daily, to cheer against them. I feel about them the same way most non-New Englanders feel about the Patriots. (There's an impressive array of anti-Patriot product at Amazon, but we'll go with something a little more pro for our Product du Jour.)


  • Jacob Sullum notes (at Reason) another Reason why Democrats should not be allowed to have nice things: Hillary Clinton Says Democrats Can't Be Civil Until They're Back in Power. You've probably heard that story, but here's Jacob's conclusion:

    Clinton's idea of civility—the grace that good people with power deign to grant their defeated and benighted opponents—reminds me of Nira Cain-N'Degeocello, the smug Sacha Baron Cohen character who sees his mission as "listening respectfully, without prejudice, to Republicans, with the hope of changing their racist and childish views." But when she says "you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for," she demonstrates an even more disturbing failure of empathy, since she denies the possibility that people may sincerely disagree with her for what they take to be good reasons and may therefore think she is trying to destroy what they stand for. If civility is out of the question in that situation, peaceful and rational debate is impossible.

    Only quibble with the above: see Kevin D. Williamson arguing against empathy.


  • We've gotten the habit of live-watching the 5pm local news on Manchester's WMUR, which—aieee!—unfortunately means political ads. The Democrat's gubernatorial candidate is Molly Kelly, and her ads savage incumbent Chris Sununu for daring to oppose "paid family and medical leave", a feelgood issue that apparently focus-groups well among those who don't want to be bothered with the details. Unfortunately for Molly, at Inside Sources, Michael Graham looks at the details: Molly Kelly’s “Unsustainable” Attack on the Paid Family Medical Leave Issue. The problem being that the legislation Sununu opposed was "opt-out", which would make the whole thing insolvent.

    (Which, of course, is the idea: eventually, down the road, you have to make it mandatory.)

    Conclusion:

    As it stands, Molly Kelly is attacking Gov. Sununu for not supporting a paid family leave plan that even the researchers who worked with its advocates concede is unsustainable. The failure is built in.

    The obvious solution would be for Kelly to offer her own plan. But that would involve admitting that Sununu made the right decision by killing the plan backed by House Democrats. It appears that Molly Kelly would rather have the political issue than a sustainable solution.


  • And our Google LFOD News Alert rang for an LTE from Rick DeMark of Meredith NH in the Laconia Daily Sun: We have to start taking our country back on November 6.

    November 6, Election Day 2018, can be the day we start taking our country back. We have allowed our community, county delegation, state Legislature, governor’s office, Congress, the presidency and now the Supreme Court to be hijacked by people who don’t care about the plight of working families, don’t care if people have affordable health care, don’t care about sexual assault, don’t care about women’s reproductive rights, don’t care that guns are making our communities dangerous, don’t care that fossil fuels are poisoning our air and destroying our ability to live on this planet, don’t care about public education, don’t care about Social Security, don’t care about discrimination and injustice, and don’t care about the spreading of hate, intolerance and lies.

    The people we have allowed into places of power, the people who don’t care, are members of the so-called Tea Party, the Free-State Project, and now unfortunately many people who were once just mainstream Republicans. These people masquerade using themes of frugalness, school choice, right to life, right to work, right to bear arms, and now putting America first. We have allowed these ploys to deeply divide our neighborhoods and country. They have succeeded in placing two legislative constitutional amendment questions on the N.H. ballot — in the guise of live free or die and taxes are unfair — that if approved will further dismantle the support systems we depend on as a society.

    I can't help but admire the lack of self-reflection necessary to (1) paint vast swaths of your fellow citizens as poisoners who want to see the survivors of such poisoning get sick, impoverished, raped, shot, stupid, and (even) discriminated against; (2) blame them for also "spreading hate, intolerance, and lies". Rick's solution: elect Democrats to save us from certain doom and also hurt feelings. Fine.

    But just a side note on the two proposed constitutional amendments: the first, "Accountability of Magistrates and Officers; Public’s Right to Know" was "Passed by the N.H. House 309 Yes 9 No; Passed by State Senate 22 Yes 2 No"; the second, "Right to Privacy" was less lopsided: "Passed by the N.H. House 235 Yes 96 No; Passed by State Senate 15 Yes 9 No", the nine nays all Democrats.


Last Modified 2024-01-24 3:32 PM EDT