Nov
25
2021

URLs du Jour

2021-11-25

Wishing y'all a Happy Thanksgiving…

  • I wouldn't work for a TV news network that would have me as an employee. But that's me. Jonah Goldberg recently announced his departure in disgust from Fox News. Kevin D. Williamson has thoughts on that: The Fox Fix.

    Understandably, people care a great deal more about Jonah Goldberg’s exit from Fox News. You can tell that Tucker Carlson and others care about it by how much, how loudly, and how bitterly they are talking about how much they don’t care. That’s familiar stuff, too: Every sub-Fox News nobody over at AR15RedStateJesus.com has written 500 blog posts and tweets about how “irrelevant” National Review is, and they’ll write 500 more this year. As the philosopher said, “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da.”

    “This is war,” they tell us. It isn’t, of course, not by a damned sight, and thank God for it. But if you want to think of our recent national convulsions as war, then you should think of the cable-news gang as war profiteers. They have convinced millions of Americans that they are part of a great crusade, without quite disclosing that they are part of a great crusade to make sure that Sean Hannity never has to fly commercial and that Rachel Maddow can afford sustainably grown cedar planks for her weekend retreat in Massachusetts. And don’t think for a second that Hannity and Maddow aren’t in the same business and on the same team — if you believe otherwise, you are a sucker and a mark.

    I don’t blame people for wanting to make money — I do my best to make some, too — but there are times when I think I might respect these entrepreneurs a little more if they just sold heroin.

    That's just a small excerpt, and (as always) I recommend you RTWT. Jonah's own words on the topic here.

    I think my last sustained viewing of any TV news network was the Blue Origin launch of William Shatner. Other than that, it's our local news station for about a half-hour, which is all I can stand.

  • Come on, man. James Freeman, in his Best of the Web column at the WSJ writes on President Biden and American Gratitude. He could have added, but did not: "and Dereliction of Duty".

    “We have nothing to announce at this time,” says White House National Security Council assistant press secretary Patrick Evans via email today on the potential scheduling of a Medal of Honor ceremony for American hero Alwyn Cashe. This Thanksgiving week President Joe Biden should express the thanks of a grateful nation and honor the memory of the courageous Cashe.

    A year ago this column noted the amazing sacrifices Cashe made for his fellow soldiers while sustaining fatal burns in Iraq in 2005. Even while on fire, he pulled his wounded comrades out of a Bradley fighting vehicle under furious attack.

    It's not as if he has anything better to do… Oh, wait.

  • He had to do this instead. Scott Shackford takes a look at what's eating up Wheezy's time: Thousands Beg President Joe Biden for Mercy as He Pardons a Couple of Turkeys.

    On Friday, President Joe Biden continued the meaningless tradition of "pardoning" two turkeys prior to Thanksgiving. The two birds, named Peanut Butter and Jelly, were presented before Biden, who said "instead of getting basted, these two turkeys are getting boosted."

    At The New York Times, Katie Rogers notes that there was no talk of Biden's domestic agenda, though that apparently wasn't for lack of trying by reporters at the event. Steven Nelson of the New York Post asked the president if he would be pardoning any actual people. Biden played it off as a joke, asking Nelson if he needed one. Nelson subsequently asked the same question of White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who essentially shrugged it off: She had no updates about any potential mercy for actual human beings.

    Every year, the turkey pardon highlights the absurd gap between presidential performance and actual policy. Despite campaign trail promises that he would roll back some of the harsh laws he was responsible for helping pass in the first place, Biden has done little in this arena during his first year as president. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.), Ed Markey (D–Mass.), and Jeff Merkley (D–Ore.) sent a letter to Biden earlier in November asking him to use executive authority to mass pardon any federal prisoners with non-violent marijuana convictions, but thus far nothing has come of it.

    Yeah, fine. Lame jokes and cheap symbolism. Maybe you could fit Alwyn Cashe in there too?

  • That "(ish)" carries a lot of weight, unfortunately. David French invites his fellow citizens: Come On in America, the Libertarian(ish) Water Is Fine.

    When people press me to identify my ideology, the answer depends on the sophistication of the audience. When I’m casually talking to someone I just met, and they ask me about where I stand politically, I’m not going to say, “I’m a libertarian-leaning pro-life classical liberal.” The best-case response is someone thinking, “Nerd!” Worst-case, you’ll come across as some sort of pretentious ass. So I just say “conservative” and see where things go. 

    But I really am a libertarian-leaning pro-life classical liberal, and the stories above help illustrate why. As I explained at length in a recent Sunday newsletter, I’m drawn to classical liberalism by its respect for the dignity of the individual. I am pushed more toward libertarianism by the relentless failures of central planning and the disproportionate impact of those failures on vulnerable communities. 

    Uh fine. But it's only been a little over a week since French was inveighing against "open carry" of weaponry, advocating that states "tightly restrict" such.

    As I've said before: such laws would be literally unprecedented in New Hampshire, which has never had prohibitions or major restrictions on open carry. As far as I can tell, we ain't quaking in fear about that.

    So I fear that French's "libertarian(ish)" bent is: "libertarian, unless you're doing something that offends me or creeps me out".

  • Apologizing for numbers. PowerLine (and many others) noted this tweet:

    Comments:

    What is most striking to me, apart from the sheer stupidity of this tweet, is the low opinion that liberals seem to have of other liberals. The Women’s March people evidently assume that their fellow liberals are so fragile that they will be emotionally wounded by the mention of $14.92. Hence the need for an apology. I don’t know, maybe they are right. Maybe liberals really are that pathetic. But I think if I were a liberal, I would be offended.

    Just wait until their average donation is $19.84.


Last Modified 2023-05-31 4:50 AM EDT