Dec
21
2020

URLs du Jour

2020-12-21

  • Our Eye Candy du Jour is from Mr. John Elwood who noticed something amusing in one of Friday's legal stylings from Trump attorney Lin Wood.

    I know spelling flames are considered bad form and have been for a long time. But, sorry, too good to let that guidance prevail.

    Karma dictates I'll probably make a few dozen spelling mistakes in the rest of this post…

  • But really, Lin Wood deserves a lot of scorn. So does Trump. And so does Dr. Kelli Ward, whose tweet is highlighted in this Patterico post: Trump Discussed Possibility of Imposing Martial Law to Steal the Election.

    As Patterico points out, that "crumbing" spelling is bad enough, but the "cross the Rubicon" thing should be beyond the pale:

    Kelli Ward says she wants to keep our republic from “crumbing” but she urges Trump to “cross the Rubicon” — which, as a reminder, was Julius Caesar’s point of no return when he decided to end the Roman republic and turn himself into an emperor. (As a further reminder, it did not work out too well for him in the end.) In the end, Caesar crossing the Rubicon was the very thing that “crumbed” the Roman republic, and it crumbed it real good.

    I thought the "Dr. Kelli Ward" thing was a joke aimed at "Dr. Jill", but Kelli Ward is an Osteopath, and I guess they have a better claim to the honorific than an Ed. D. recipient. In any case, Arizona Republicans deserve better.

  • In case you missed anything important on the general topic of republic-destruction, check Jacob Sullum at Reason, who seems to have it covered: Desperate To Stop Biden From Taking Office, Trump Suggests Military Intervention, Voting Machine Seizures, and Appointing Sidney Powell To Investigate Her Own Fraud Claims.

    Axios reporter Jonathan Swan says "senior Trump administration officials…tell me that Trump is spending too much time with people they consider crackpots or conspiracy theorists and flirting with blatant abuses of power." One of his sources said "people who are concerned and nervous aren't the weak-kneed bureaucrats that we loathe." Rather, they are Trump appointees "who have endured arguably more insanity and mayhem than any administration officials in history."

    People have been claiming that Trump was insane for years; I've always assumed that was overblown: he just had various personality quirks that were several sigma away from the mean. But maybe…

  • Hans Bader writes a reality check at Liberty Unyielding: Many people never accept an election loss. He reviews the various conspiracy claims that Democrats floated in 2004. But bringing it back to today, in a full circle:

    Trump should have fired lawyers like long-time Democrat Lin Wood, who embarrassed him by making transparently bad arguments in a careless way in their challenges to the election results. Wood was consistently foolish and sloppy to the point of misspelling his own name, and declaring that his facts were “plenty of perjury” — unintentionally calling himself a liar.

  • Kevin D. Williamson (NRPLUS article) tells us, unsurprisingly: There’s Nothing Unfair about Investigating the Bidens’ Shady Dealings.

    In an interview with Stephen Colbert, who was inspired as an imaginary commentator but is insipid as a real one, President-elect Joe Biden blew off the investigation of his son, Hunter: “great confidence,” “not concerned,” nothing but “foul play,” etc.

    Colbert asked:

    People who want to make hay in Washington are going to try to use your adult son as a cudgel against you. In terms of your job as president, can you reach across the aisle to people who’ll be using this as an attack on you when it is such a personal attack, because it’s about family?

    Colbert is wrong on almost every point: The investigation of Hunter Biden is not simply about political haymaking, though hay will be made; it is not simply being used as a cudgel against Joe Biden; and — most important — it is not about “family.” How much and exactly what kind of a weasel Hunter Biden is constitutes the minor question, but the major question is: How much and exactly what kind of a weasel is the incoming president?

    I am reminded of a bit of dialog between Nick Danger and villain Rocky Rococo from Firesign Theatre's The Further Adventures Of Nick Danger:

    NICK: Why, that's nothing but a two bit ring from a Cracker Back Jox.

    ROCKY: I'll sell it to you for five thousand dollars.

    NICK: Huh!? What kind of chump do you take me for?

    ROCKY: First class!