URLs du Jour

2021-02-06

  • Michael Ramirez has a pictorial take on Marjorie Taylor Greene:

    [Way Out There]

    But basic old-fashioned gallantry requires me to provide a less graphic take, from the NR editors: Democrats Will Regret Their Move against Marjorie Taylor Greene.

    At least Marjorie Taylor Greene won’t have to spend time sitting at the end of the dais during long committee hearings.

    House Democrats voted to boot her from her committee assignments in an act that they will surely come to regret, perhaps as soon as January 2023.

    If the majority can keep members of the opposition party off of committees based on incendiary comments, it’s not clear why the GOP ever let, say, Maxine Waters serve on any committees when it had control of the chamber, or why it ever will again.

    The media will be more than happy to cooperate with Democrats in making Marjorie the face of the post-Trump GOP.


  • I don't have an obsession with MTG or anything, but she shows up in David Boaz's post: Who Are "The People"?. Specifically, he responds to a tweet:

    David:

    But of course “the people” of the United States are not all that enamored of the former president, either now or at any point. He got 45.9 percent of the vote in 2016, 46.8 percent in 2020. He got 3 million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton and 7 million fewer than Joe Biden. He’s the first president ever whose approval rating in the Gallup Poll never reached 50 percent, and as he left office his average poll rating was 38 percent. So it doesn’t really seem that the American people are “absolutely 100% loyal” to him. Yet on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere you can find constant affirmations that the elites may not like Trump but “the people” support him. Who are these people?

    Claiming the mantle of “the people” is a common theme of populists, of course, from William Jennings Bryan, who asked “Shall the People Rule?” but lost three presidential races, to Hugo Chavez, who denounced his opponents as homosexual, Zionist, and tools of “the bourgeoisie” and the Americans. Political scientists Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell described populism as an ideology that “pits a virtuous and homogeneous people against a set of elites and dangerous ‘others’ who are together depicted as depriving (or attempting to deprive) the sovereign people of their rights, values, prosperity, identity, and voice.” Populists typically claim to speak for “the people” against some set of elites and/​or against groups who are not elite but are in some way “other” — foreigners, immigrants, Jews, racial or sexual minorities, etc.


  • Also at NR: Ben Sasse Responds to Nebraska GOP Censure. There's video of Sasse's remarks to the Nebraska GOP State Central Committee at that link, but also a "rough transcript". Excerpt:

    January 6th is gonna leave a scar. For 220 years, one of the most beautiful things about America has been our peaceful transfer of power. But what Americans saw three weeks ago was ugly – shameful mob violence to disrupt a constitutionally mandated meeting of Congress to affirm that peaceful transfer of power.

    It happened because the president lied to you. He lied about the election results for 60 days, despite losing 60 straight court challenges – many handed down by wonderful Trump-appointed judges.

    He lied by saying that the vice president could violate his constitutional oath and just declare a new winner.

    He then riled a mob that attacked the Capitol – many chanting “Hang Pence.”

    If that president were a Democrat, we both know how you’d respond.

    But, because he had “Republican” behind his name, you’re defending him.

    Something has definitely changed over the last four years…but it’s not me:

    -Personality cults aren’t conservative.

    -Conspiracy theories aren’t conservative.

    -Lying that an election has been stolen isn’t conservative.

    -Acting like politics is a religion isn’t conservative.

    I love Nebraska (lived there 1961-1969). Nebraska should thank its lucky stars to have Senator Sasse.


  • David Henderson writes on Margins and the 2020 Presidential Election. In response to an article from John Goodman blaming Trump's loss on "health care". Yes, but that's not all…

    I think John is right. But one could also say that if he hadn’t been so incredibly rude and nasty in the first debate, he would have won also. (Although we now know in retrospect that Trump was probably awfully sick with COVID-19 during that first debate. When you’re sick, you tend to let out your inner self. And Trump’s inner self is nasty.)

    […]

    Imagine what would have happened if Trump had been neutral, not nice but simply neutral, to the memory of John McCain. He probably would have won Arizona. (Of course, that’s like asking what would have happened if Trump hadn’t been Trump.) What if he had pointed out the record growth in median incomes for various minority groups? He might have won Georgia. What if had actually run a campaign based on his accomplishments up to the end of 2019? He might have won Wisconsin. Etc.

    If only Trump… hadn't been Trump.

    But let's not take our eyes off the real culprits: the people who voted for him in 2016.


  • Philip Greenspun takes up a theme we've mentioned before: Save lives by limiting cars to 35 mph?.

    Following up on Why do we care about COVID-19 deaths more than driving-related deaths? (March 26, 2020) … by shutting down for a year we’ve spent way more per life-year in our attempt to reduce coronaplague deaths than I ever could have imagined. If we infer from this how much saving a life-year is worth to us, it would be rational to limit cars and tracks, nearly all of which are electronically controlled, to 35 mph. Consider that most people who die in car accidents had many decades of life expectancy in front of them, unlike the typical 82-year-old victim of COVID-19.

    An SUV-driving suburban Bostonite who runs his own law practice (representing workers’ compensation plaintiffs who aren’t typically expert computer users and who therefore prefer to meet in person): “I go to work every day at 80 miles per hour.”

    Obviously setting the speed limit to 35 mph and relying on police enforcement wouldn’t work. For one thing, our heroic law enforcement officers don’t want to interact with potential COVID carriers (all who want to be vaccinated have been vaccinated, but many refused the experimental (“investigational”) vaccines and it is unknown whether the vaccines work against variants).

    Phil's modest proposal is to update vehicle firmware at inspection time, making it impossible to breach 35 mph. Unless you drive off a cliff or something.

    My comment: "Please also consider mandatory helmets for all drivers and passengers. And a thick outer layer of bubble wrap. For the vehicle and its occupants."


  • At the single Tea Party event I attended in Manchester back in 2009, I was favorably impressed with Jennifer Horn. Yes, I admit it!

    Since then, she's drawn the ire of many a New Hampshire conservative, becoming one of the founders of the anti-Trump "Lincoln Project". Until yesterday, apparently. The Daily Caller reports: Lincoln Project Co-Founder Resigns Following John Weaver’s ‘Sickening’ Behavior, Cites Diverging Views.

    Jennifer Horn, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, has resigned from the group following revelations that John Weaver, another co-founder, had sexually propositioned men and boys on social media, The New York Times reported Friday.

    “John Weaver’s grotesque and inappropriate behavior, coupled with his longstanding deceptions concerning that behavior, are sickening. It is clear at this point that my views about how the Lincoln Project’s efforts are managed, and the best way to move the Lincoln Project forward into the future in the wake of these awful events, have diverged.’’

    For its part, whoever is left at the Lincoln Project, fired back:

    Me-ow!

    Did I mention that Jennifer Horn isn't particularly popular among NH conservatives? Here's Steve MacDonald at Granite Grok: Lincoln Project Lets "The Door" Hit Jen Horn In the "Ass".

    After wearing out her welcome in the New Hampshire State Republican Party, she latched on to the Log Cabin Republicans. She might tell you it was to advocate for their interests, but it was because she needed the money and thought hating Trump was the ticket.

    When the Log Cabin endorsed Trump, she quit and landed with the Trump-Hating Lincoln Project. I have no clue what value she brought to that organization, but she thought highly of that value, and clearly, they did not.

    And there’s plenty of money. The Lincoln Project is rolling in it; they didn’t want to give any of it, Jennifer.

    Well, I'm sorry things didn't work out for her. I'm sure she had heartfelt opinions, but politics ain't beanbag.


Last Modified 2024-02-02 4:50 AM EDT