Questions and Observations

That’s where I’ll be for the next week or so.  Good timing in reality.  Looking forward to the downtime and also looking forward to resuming blogging afterward.

Hope you all have a great week – see you when I get back.

~McQ

I wonder if Chuck Todd is man enough to own up to the fact that he flat blew it when he said Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore was “ignorant” of the Constitution because he thinks rights come from God?  Obviously the ignorant one is Todd, seeing as how the founders made it clear that they thought that we had certain “unalienble rights” that were given to us by our “creator”.  However you choose to interpret that, the point is the founders were of the opinion that those rights were inherent in our existence as man and not granted by man, or government, or kings, or … whatever.

They obviously wouldn’t be rights if they were granted by anyone or anything – they’d be privileges.  Privileges the granting authority could revoke at whim.  The power of inherent or “unalienable” rights is they can be violated but they can never be revoked.  Consequently whoever or whatever violates them is considered to be morally wrong and consequences follow.

Todd should know better.

And then there’s Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota.  Ventura claimed today that “if the wall goes up, the Statue of Liberty should come down.”

The obvious question is “why?”  Is immigration being stopped for all?  No?  Are we turning legal immigrants away then?  No?  Oh, you mean steps to try and stop those who are illegally trying to enter the country and bypass the system?  What in the world has that to do with legal immigration and the Statue of Liberty then?

Ventura needs to calm down and understand that this nation has had immigration laws since 1875 and the Statue of Liberty has happily  overseen them since it was installed in 1886. There is nothing “anti-immigrant” in a wall to keep out illegal aliens.  Meanwhile legal immigrants are welcome.  I’m not sure how that’s so difficult for some to understand.

Ah where would we be without smug lefties to lecture us daily on our shortcomings?  Hit the link and watch the video of this racist woman “womansplaining” to a white Antifa type why he’s just pathetic.  Make sure to watch the top video because it is close captioned.

She ends up telling this fellow traveler, this “ally” that he’s just not cutting it.  And she knows why.  “You’re still white!  It’s your fault.  All of this is your fault.” she yells after him. “You’re inherently racist! It’s in your blood! It’s in your DNA.”

Boy could she use a mirror.  On the other hand, it’s kind of entertaining to watch Antifa eat their own.

I remember when I went to college the instructors and professors there set the curriculum.  Today, apparently, the students are in charge of that now.  Cornell, for instance, where a black student group has made these demands among 6 pages of others:

“We demand that all students, undergraduate and graduate, to have appropriate, ongoing, and mandatory coursework that deals with issues of identity (such as race, class, religion, ability status, sexual/romantic orientation, gender, citizenship status, etc.). We want this coursework to be explicitly focused on systems of power and privilege in the United States and centering the voices of oppressed people, assembled by professional diversity consultants and student leaders. Every Dean of every college should implement this requirement, and hire faculty to teach this work who are well equipped to do so.”

* * *

“We demand that all employees of the university, academic and otherwise (including tenured professors), to have appropriate, ongoing training (tied to evaluations and payroll) that deals with issues of identity (such as race, class, religion, ability status, sexual/romantic orientation, gender, citizenship status, etc.). We want this coursework to be explicitly focused on systems of power and privilege in the United States and centering the voices of oppressed people.”

Boy are they going to be busy. I can’t, for the life of me, see how anyone at Cornell is going to have any time to do anything else – you know like teach and attend classes other than these.  The inmates are running the asylum.

And finally, an epic takedown of the woman who just won’t seem to go away.  Hillary Clinton – need I say more?

Well said and well deserved.  Now, Ms. Clinton, just go away.

~McQ

Well, it’s fun to see the celebs, not wanting to be left out of the latest virtue signaling fad, taking a knee in photos they then hasten to release publicly.

Here’s a clue: if they’re not playing the National Anthem when you kneel, no one cares. No one. Kneel all you want.  Enjoy. Remember that for most people, sane people or people with at least a grounding in history, kneeling signals submission.  Good luck trying to redefine the act.

As for the players kneeling who claim it isn’t about this, that or the other a note: if you have to constantly try to explain why you’re protesting or what you’re protesting you can be assured your protest isn’t very effective.  And a further note, when those that object are able to define their objection well and find support among the majority, you’ve probably failed at your protest.

Here’s the mistake the left constantly makes in the Trump era.  And so eager are they to go after Trump that they cannot resist the bait he continues to use to troll them.

I don’t need to debate the merits or the wisdom behind Kaepernick’s actions.There’s been too much of that already. But what is up for debate is the wisdom of the political left throwing in with a gesture that still, to this day and despite what you see on cable news and social media, remains largely unpopular with the voting public.

And;

The left has chosen to make kneeling for the national anthem now a referendum on Trump himself. A larger problem for them, and the NFL in general, is they picked this fight on a day meant to honor Gold Star mothers.

The left picks the wrong side (only because Trump has the other side) in an highly emotional issue concerning flag and country in which (depending on poll) 64 to 70% of the people find the protests objectionable and then double down with the rhetoric.

And they wonder why Trump is in the White House.  They better thank the good lord that the Republicans are just too stupid to take advantage of the situation.

I have to admit, I have been enjoying the smackdowns in the UN delivered by this administration much more than the serial apologies delivered by the past administration.  This week it was VP Pence swinging for the fences as he addressed the farce that is the UN’s “Human Rights Council.”

“Cuba sits on the Human Rights Council, an oppressive regime that has repressed its people and jailed political opponents for more than half a century. Venezuela sits on the Human Rights Council, a dictatorship that undermines democracy at every turn, imprisons political opponents, and, as we speak, is advancing policies that worsen deprivation and poverty that is costing the lives of innocent men, women, and children.”

We’ve been talking about how much of a farce it is for years. Nice to see the US speaking truth to travesty.

Speaking of Venezuela, when it is all going to crap, what’s a dictator to do?  When the people are fully focused on your shortcomings, how does one distract them.  Well, if you’re strongman Nicholas Maduro of Venezuela you can’t put together bread and circuses because there is no bread and everyone has eaten the circus animals.  So, instead, talk about war and attempt to rally some sort of nationalistic spirit with the nonexistent threat:

“We have been shamelessly threatened by the most criminal empire that ever existed and we have the obligation to prepare ourselves to guarantee peace,” said Maduro, who wore a green uniform and a military hat as he spoke with his army top brass during a military exercise involving tanks and missiles. “We need to have rifles, missiles and well-oiled tanks at the ready….to defend every inch of the territory if needs be,” he added.

Yeah.  That’ll work.  When a place is in as bad a shape as Venezuela it is more likely that if this nonsense was true, the people would be on the beach welcoming the invaders with flowers.

Finally, in the realm of abject but arrogant stupidity, the commie West Point grad who exploded onto the internet this week has to be in the top 3.  I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures.  He’s a walking UCMJ violation.  And it’s not just the pro-communist message written in his dress cap or the Che shirt he word under his uniform at graduation.  Those are bad enough.  However, this is what will get the cretin shown the door by the military:

In a tweet dated June 8, 2017, Rapone tweeted at a podcaster, stating: “Was so pumped for you to go in on Mattis on the latest ep. Definitely the most vile, evil f*ck in the current administration.”

Not only that, but Rapone also attacked Vice President Mike Pence in a tweet from August: “Holy s*** what world do these people live in? “Mediocre and conservative?” Pence is a f*cking medieval, cold-blooded killer.”

While the other may be court-martial offenses, those little jewels are unquestionably court-martial material.

Such statements run the risk of violating Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to Article 88, “Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

The maximum punishment under Article 88 is dismissal from the military, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and prison for a year.

Give him Chelsea Manning’s old cell.

~McQ

Question for the NFL.  Whatever happened to the “customer is always right”?  Same question for Target.  And Starbucks.

Social unrest has consequences.  Just ask the University of Missouri:

When the Mizzou football team vowed to quit all football-related activities in November 2015 until the university system president was removed or resigned, The New York Times cheered the players for “lending heft” to the racial activists’ cause. Two years later, the Times had to admit that all the campus hysteria and the administration’s decision to cave to it turned out to be exactly what many predicted it would be: an absolute “disaster” for the university. Over the next two years, freshmen enrollment dropped a stunning 35%, forcing the school to shut down seven dorms and lay off over 400 employees. As for the football team, which saw millions in donations disappear overnight, well, it’s now a full-fledged dumpster fire.

And their football team’s last two seasons have been predictably awful as well.  When those who would engage in the activities that caused this mess whine about their “right of free speech” that’s not what they are really whining about.  What they really want is the “right” to no negative consequences for their “free speech”.

Richard Fernandez makes a great point.  It’s one we’ve talked about in the past and it is one of the inherent problems the left continues to face.

Left wing politics needs a slippery slope. You can’t stop at 71 genders. You can’t stop at the national anthem. It’s always “top this”.

Many times the initial reason for a protest is something the majority of the country can support.   But the left never seems to know where to stop.  There is no “governor” on the engine, no brake, no real goal.  It’s more of “how far can we push this”.  And 9 times out of 10, they overreach and have the majority opinion turn on them.  Of course, they’re blind to that or the fact that the opinion has changed.  That, my friends, is one of the reasons we have Trump.

If you need an example of the point, here’s a great one (one among many):

This video perfectly illustrates the point.  What you see here is blatant racism. Racism on a stick.  You can’t be anymore racist than is this young woman.  And she does everything that she accuses whites of doing.  Stereotyping an entire race based on the color of their skin and basically calling them inferior because they can’t help what they are.  But she is completely blind to that.  Listen to the assurance with which she speaks her hateful ignorance.  Notice how she hasn’t any appreciation for the irony of what she says, or it’s hypocrisy.

That’s today’s left.

Our favorite traitor gets a reality check.  Oh, Canada:

According to the letter Manning received from the Canadian government, she was “inadmissible on grounds of serious criminality for having been convicted of an offense outside Canada,” the letter reads.

The letter further describes Canada’s decision to bar Manning by comparing the offense she was convicted of in the U.S.

Finally for the Chicken Little global warming crowd.  Those proclaiming that the hurricanes we’ve seen announce the beginning of the end due to global warming need to get a grip.  For them, this chart.

And some advice – get a grip.

~McQ

Ah, the NFL.  It has, as some wag pointed out, chosen to enter the world of politics and activism and it apparently feels it should suffer no consequences (and as it does, it continues to deny the reality).  I ask again, what in the world should they expect when they insult and show disrespect to the beliefs of a huge portion of their viewer and fan base?

Look, this all began when an also-ran quarterback for SF took a knee during the National Anthem to try to impress his BLM girlfriend (done during the Obama administration, btw). It then mushroomed into “solidarity” after he was criticized.  Solidarity for what isn’t clear.  Now it is simply defiance in the face of criticism. What are they really protesting?

Secondly there’s very little empathy to be had for pampered elite athletes, making more money in a year than most of their fans will make in a lifetime, when they claim “oppression”, or “racism” or whatever it is they think they’re protesting.  Common sense tells you they are neither oppressed or victims of racism simply by the fact that they’re protesting something with the apparently full backing and support of their employer.

Third – we’re at war.  Yesterday was Gold Star parent day.  Nice way to honor the sacrifice of the Gold Star parents wasn’t it?

I’ve read a number of people saying the playing of the National Anthem should simply be stopped.  It was started in wartime and it isn’t anymore of a tradition than we make it.  Most believe the wartime playing was during WWII.  But, in fact, it was 1918.  It was first played at the 7th inning stretch of the World Series between the Cubs and Red Sox.  The crowd loved it.   The Sox played it during the pre-game when the series moved to Boston and the reaction was the same if not more enthusiastic.  Thus the tradition was born.  Oh, and by the way, the Star Spangled Banner wasn’t officially made the National Anthem until 1931.

So the playing of the anthem is very much a tradition started during a war, but it is a much older and deeper tradition than those who would denigrate its importance would like to admit.  And there is absolutely no legitimate reason I can see to stop doing it.

To the larger point – Are the NFL players entitled to do what they’re doing?   Of course, this is America.  And in that crowd, “entitlement” runs deep.

That protest is exactly what the children of the Gold Star parents died to protect.  It would have been nice if the self-centered and self-absorbed athletes had recognized that and acknowledged it yesterday.  But we know better than to expect that.

Here’s ground truth:  just because one is free to act like an unappreciative jackass doesn’t mean anyone has to view what they do as anything other than the actions of unappreciative jackasses and act accordingly.

The right to act as a jackass is unequivocal.  The right, by others, to impose consequences for those sort of actions is just as sacrosanct.  And, if the ratings are to be believed for this weekend’s games, those consequences are being imposed.  Note that college game attendance and viewership is at its normal high.  So those claiming that it’s just a lack of interest in football in general are wrong.  The nation, in general, loves football.  What it apparently doesn’t love is the injection of politics in the guise of disrespect to a flag of the nation it loves as well.

Donald Trump decided to weigh in on the controversy this week as well.  All he managed to do is ruffle feathers, focus attention on the protests this weekend and turn it all  into a media feeding frenzy (North Korea?  Important elections in Germany? Church shooting? Forget about it, Trump tweeted!).  But here’s what the left and the media still don’t seem to get or understand.  What he did, whether you like him or what he said or not, was say what millions upon millions of Americans who don’t have that voice believe.  So while media gleefully airs and writes their smug little denunciations of Trump’s tweet, a whole bunch of America is saying “damn right”.   The media and the left still haven’t figured out how Trump ended up in the White House, nor does it seem they ever will.

The NFL, unlike NASCAR for instance, has chosen to take a side in the culture war.  That is a huge mistake.  There’s really a very basic and simple reason they should have just played football:

“Several new studies prove what we already suspected: Fans are leaving the NFL because of the players’ political activism that disrespects our country, its heritage, and its people. Sports executives such as CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus get it, too, but they’re caught in a crossfire that is only partly of their own making. . . . Sports have traditionally been a refuge from cultural and political controversy where Americans could come together and enjoy time with family, friends, and even complete strangers. Entering the stadium, they could check the cares of the world at the turnstile. That’s changed recently.”

And it has changed to the detriment of those who don’t understand the reason they exist.  Like Roger Goodell, the NFL hierarchy and the protesting players.  For heaven sake, even the (irony alert) Patriot fans booed their team yesterday.

As I said in an earlier post, when fans tune into a baseball or football game, they want to see baseball or football.  What they don’t want to see or hear is any player’s opinion about politics or culture.  The designated hitter travesty in baseball?  Sure.  Racism in America.  Uh, no, thank you very much.  Pretty basic, but apparently the wise heads of the NFL think they know better.

Let them then reap the “rewards” of their arrogance and stupidity.

~McQ

So the “consensus” got it wrong?  Oh, my … tell me something I didn’t know:

Climate change poses less of an immediate threat to the planet than previously thought because scientists got their modelling wrong, a new study has found. New research by British scientists reveals the world is being polluted and warming up less quickly than 10-year-old forecasts predicted, giving countries more time to get a grip on their carbon output.

An unexpected “revolution” in affordable renewable energy has also contributed to the more positive outlook.

Experts now say there is a two-in-three chance of keeping global temperatures within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the ultimate goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

What you see above is so-called “science” walking back their outrageous and unfounded claims.  By the way, their entire “science” and all their claims were based on these miserably poor models.  Nothing more.  And one must remember, they still haven’t gotten one right yet.

The second part is simply nonsense but nonsense designed to save face.  There has been no revolution in “affordable renewable energy”.  Again, just as with these models, one only has to turn to the numbers (output, cost) to know that is another lie.  And the final statement is simply a “best guess”.  Pretty much like their entire litany of “best guesses” based on horribly faulty models.

Why should anyone take them seriously ever again?

There is a lot a “yes, yes indeed” in this Kurt Schlichter paragraph about social justice warriors.  They need all of us to stand up to them:

These suburban-born aspiring Red Guards aim to lead their own Cultural Revolution from safe havens within academia and deep in the fetid bowels of the internet, but they’d just be yet another group of hapless leftist losers except that they discovered how to exploit a key vulnerability. They learned they can rely upon the dedication to reason and essential decency of normal people to protect them from what should be the painful consequences of their actions. SJWs succeed for one reason, and one reason only – too few people simply burst into laughter when these mayo-loving white people with dreads and daddy issues announce that today they identify as black, or that prominent Jewish conservatives are “Nazis,” or that some women have penises.

As I’ve said repeatedly, all that is needed is a few adults to act like adults and say “that’s enough of this crap!” and mean it.  By mean it, they then have to take appropriate action to make an impression on these infantile, non-intellectual, wanna-be, know-nothing authoritarians.

But that just doesn’t happen on campus does it?  It’s like Frankenstein’s monster there.  Dr. Frankenstein created it and now has no control (or refuses to try to exercise control) over it.  It’s time to, as Schlichter says, hold them in contempt and, frankly, laugh at them and their asinine ideas.

Meanwhile, the left keeps finding new frontiers of identity politics to exploit.  Like claiming that straight black men are the white people of black people … or something:

In a column for The Root’s “Very Smart Brothas,” writer Damon Young accused straight black men of having the “type of privilege created for and protected by whiteness.” Black men, while victims of the white man’s oppressiveness, are the oppressors of the nonheterosexual/male black person.

That, my friends, is what gobbledygook looks like.  It is intellectual hogwash.  However, you can be sure that there are those out there that will not only embrace it as ‘truth’, but mindlessly repeat it when it comes in handy.

This has got to stop!  As I’ve been saying for years, this is not only unAmerican, it is unConstitutional by any measure.

The Civil Asset Forfeiture program has its roots in English law that American colonists rebelled against. Their rebellion was ultimately codified in the Fourth Amendment, which reads, in part: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”

Despite that unambiguous language, civil asset forfeiture was revived in the 1930s Prohibition era against bootleggers and mobsters. It was revived again in the 1980s war on drugs and continues to this day.

“It’s absolutely astonishing that civil forfeiture is a policy that we have in this country,” said Clark Neily of the Cato Institute. “It is totally unjust, unfair, and I think it’s unconstitutional.”

Sen. Rand Paul, (R-KY) agrees.

“There are instances of people, young people, getting some money and saying, ‘I’m moving to California from Boston.’ They’re stopping in some small town in Nevada, and they have a thousand bucks their dad gave them to get started,” Paul said. “And the police just take it and say: ‘You prove to us that this isn’t drug money.’”

Hey, do-nothing Congress, since you’re apparently no busy with anything else, how about finally addressing this?!  This is wrong in every conceivable way and the fact it hasn’t been fixed yet is, well, criminal.  Make sure to read the story about how a guy lost his truck because he had 5 pistol rounds in his possession.

~McQ