Thursday blend: sundry edition

I am freaking tired today. In related news, it's Thursday.

From the Bee:

Man Surprised To Learn Babylon Bee Has Full Articles To Go With The Headlines

More:

The Babylon Bee Presents: The Leftist's Guide To Defending Critical Race Theory:

Objection: But wait, those last two are facts! Shouldn't we be teaching children facts?                 

Answer: Facts are white supremacy, you racist, fascist, homophobe! 

Remind this loon that facts and objectivity are simply constructs of whiteness. We teach whatever will help us reach the political goals we want; whether it's true or not is unimportant.

Covid stuff:

I honestly don't know enough nor care (even though I know I should) enough to sift through thousands of articles in a likely futile attempt to glean some helpful information about COVID variants. But here's an article written for a 5 year-old, and about as helpful as can be expected:

Lambda

The Lambda variant was first detected in Peru in December 2020 and is now spreading rapidly through South America. A lab study in Japan, which has not yet been peer reviewed, found that the Lambda variant could be more resistant to vaccines than the original strain of COVID and could be highly infectious. Another non-peer reviewed study from NYU researchers found that vaccines generally worked well against this variant.

 

Monopoly money:

How about we don't print another trillion as inflation soars?

A $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill on Thursday faces its biggest test of this week's U.S. Senate debate when the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office delivers its judgment on whether the measure fulfills a promise of not adding to Washington's budget deficits. 

Cryptocurrency crackdown would raise tens of billions for infrastructure plan, analysis finds:

A proposal to crack down on cryptocurrency transactions could raise tens of billions of dollars for new infrastructure spending, as lawmakers advance a bipartisan plan.

Increasing reporting requirements on cryptocurrency transactions is expected to raise nearly $28 billion over the course of 10 years, according to an estimate released by The Joint Committee on Taxation on Monday.

The group projected that, collectively, the provisions in the bill would boost revenue by $51 billion over the same time period.

With any luck, this latest attempt at theft-by-government will be a little less retarded (and I will not apologize for using the R-word. Because the infrastructure bill is retarded, especially relating to cryptocurrency, and you need to lighten up):

A trio of senators on Wednesday introduced an amendment to the bipartisan infrastructure bill that would rewrite part of a section, setting up reporting requirements for cryptocurrency transactions.

Sens. Cynthia Lummis, Pat Toomey and Ron Wyden started working on an amendment after pointing to "unworkable" and "overly broad" language which they say would implement "broker" reporting requirements on people who are not really brokers.

These people, like the bitcoin miners who confirm transactions in the system, would not even be capable of satisfying the requirements in the bill, Toomey, R-Pa., said.

There should be a law, at least with respect to important and expensive bills, that pet project amendments cannot be added in.

😂😂🤣 pic.twitter.com/Fl1FtFKNT4

— Demetri Kofinas (@kofinas) August 4, 2021

At Instapundit: IF YOU LIKE YOUR VITAMIN D, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR VITAMIN D: While they scare you with “variants,” Congress wants to make dietary supplements prescription only.

Meanwhile:

Big-tech anti-trust legislation

 There are some new anti-trust laws being proposed in Congress aimed at big-tech. I am not optimistic. I suspect it is a lot of theater for the sake of voter appeal, while they continue to rake in donations from big-tech. Both parties get these huge donations, especially the Democrats of late.

American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which prohibits the use of a dominant platform to discriminate against rivals by giving preference to its own products. 

 

Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, which bars the use of acquisitions to smother competitive threats. 

 

Ending Platform Monopolies Act, which restrains dominant platforms from using their power across multiple types of business to give themselves unfair advantages. 

 

Augmenting Compatibility and Competition by Enabling Service Switching Act, or Access Act, which promotes competition by making it easier for businesses and consumers to move data when they want to switch to a new provider.  

 

Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, which amends filing fees for the first time in two decades and provides the government funds to pursue antitrust actions. 

 

What matters is the end-result, if anything, to-what extent it was re-worded by big-tech lobbyists, and how nobody will talk about it once made law (funny how that happens). How many Republicans are on the take you think?

.@Google censored videos where Republicans discussed whether children should be forced to wear masks.

And now @Google is lobbying Republicans to oppose antitrust reform legislation. pic.twitter.com/GnjDZBEuH1

— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) June 18, 2021

 

Relatedly, Facebook has been big on pushing new internet regulations lately (which sound nice, but mostly suck): 

Internet companies should be accountable for enforcing standards on harmful content. It’s impossible to remove all harmful content from the internet, but when people use dozens of different sharing services — all with their own policies and processes — we need a more standardized approach.

Forcing internet companies to police speech, how nice. Not only is this a dystopian nightmare, it would cripple any small competitor's ability to merely exist (conveniently for Facebook). Free speech isn't (and shouldn't be) always nice speech.

Online political advertising laws primarily focus on candidates and elections, rather than divisive political issues where we’ve seen more attempted interference. Some laws only apply during elections, although information campaigns are nonstop. And there are also important questions about how political campaigns use data and targeting. We believe legislation should be updated to reflect the reality of the threats and set standards for the whole industry.

If I can trust any of my American history and constitutional studies, then political speech was one of the big reasons for the first amendment. What is a political ad if not political speech? The laws we have are bad enough. Either you believe in free speech or you don't. The answer to bad speech (i.e., stuff you don't like, misinformation, fake news, etc.), is more speech (rebuttals, facts, logic), not censorship. And that is exactly what more political ad/speech regulation would be.

This all disturbingly corresponds to what Ace has been saying since about 2016, and today:

Now CNN assigns its Chief Deplatforming Officer Oliver Darcy to begin writing stories pressuring corporations to stop running advertising on the channel, pressuring their tech monopolist partners to limit and censor the channel, and asking hyperpartisan, pro-censorship Democrats if it's time to pass laws outlawing these channels.

6. The tech monopolies, now feeling pressure from corporations and threats of interference from state actors, do what they probably wanted to do anyway, and begin banning/limiting the channels the leftwing doesn't like.

And step 7:

7. Despite the fact that threats from the state contributed to the censorship by alleged "private corporations," NeverTrump and Conservative, Inc. say that the sovereignty of the tech monopolies must never be challenged and we must respect their completely-voluntary choice to censor alternative media. Which just happens to be a competitor of NeverTrump and Conservative, Inc. media as well.

In other words, they benefit personally, politically, and pecuniarily from these censorship campaigns just as the leftwing does, and support these censorship drives for the same craven, mercenary, disgusting reasons.

Remember, we have to "protect the public" from "disinformation," and force them to watch "real news."

"Real news," like CNN.

CNN, which suggested that the Indonesian airline was destroyed by a black hole.

Real news like that.

Tater has reason to push this agenda. I mean, apart from Jeff Zucker ordering him to.

He needs the competition to be outlawed more than almost anyone.

Facebook looks at step 6 like an opportunity: why not streamline it, get favorable state interference while making it harder for smaller competitors. Remember when the Wuhan lab-leak theory was a bannable fake-news conspiracy theory? Now it is at least a legitimate newsworthy question. Remember when buying masks were bad, then they were mandatory? Remember when coronavirus was not viewed as serious and banning travel was racist and excessive? Boy did that pendulum swing.

The experts, the consensus, the big-tech monopolists are and have been frequently wrong. Imagine them with more power over speech, with the help, support, and blessing of the government.

Incitement?

Excuse me, I'm trying to find the video of Trump inciting the riots. 

While I don't doubt Trump is capable of such, and wouldn't be surprised if he did in fact start the riot with a poor choice of words, I am having trouble finding the video of him using language slightly more specific than platitudinous schlock, and at least half as damning as what many, many antifa sympathizers (a lot of which hold office) had to say this past summer.

The president should be held to a higher standard. And Trump falls far short daily when it comes to word-choice and rhetoric. No "buts" here, except this one: every citizen deserves the same due process. Incitement is one of few asterisks to the first amendment, and proving it requires (or should require) a lot more than a mob.

All I could find so far was a short CNN clip where the worst thing I found Trump saying was to "show strength and be strong" which was preceded by images of the rioting--labelled an insurrection--and followed by snarky narration of judgment damning Trump--objective reporting there, top marks.

Kurt Schlichter: Trump punked the GOPe by getting punked by Chuck Schumer, or something

I guess when you're a prolific social media whore, you tend to say a bunch of things, things which may not always conform to what you said the day before.

You hate libertarians one day, they're your best friends the next.

Whatever gets you to point B right?

So I'll just get straight to the point: on Monday, Kurt wrote an article about how the GOP establishment/NeverTrumpers were spinning Trump's "deal" with Pelosi and Schumer as defection to the Democrats. But Trump is always 10 steps ahead in 3-dimensional chess:

No one outside the Beltway cares if the Smarmy Dope and Elderly Mutant Establishment Turtle got disrespected. We avoided was a fight right now that would have taken up the 12 whole days of legislative work that Ryan and McConnell somehow stuffed into the 30 days of September after taking August off. Now the Congressional GOP is free to focus its entire attention on failing at tax reform.

Trump isn’t “betraying” the base. He’s treating the Congressional GOP like the hacks they are. They have done nearly nothing except posture, pose and issue passive aggressive proclamations about how Trump offends their tender sensibilities. Trump doesn’t respect them because they haven’t earned any respect; this week, he saved them from making fools of themselves once again, at least until the holidays.

The rest of the article reads much the same. Some great points. I sure don't give a flying rat's ass about the GOPe, and it's always good to see them get mud on their face.

But three days later, Kurt's saying something a little different:

So, though the haters like to personalize it, it's not so much that Trump is changing his position, because he’s always telegraphed that this was his position, but that he's being so stupid as to let Chuck Schumer make a fool out of him. He and Nancy Pelosi have dinner with him, then walk out and basically disrespected him in public in a way sure to turn his base against him. It was actually a brilliant move on the Dems’ part, in a volcano-lair supervillain kind of way.

So first Trump saved the GOP by making a deal with the Dems, but now it was all an epic supervillain play by Schumer and Pelosi.

The pseudo-right component of the bipartisan cartel will be only too happy to deliver, using Democrat votes, while actual conservatives are left cut out and fuming. It's the same sucker play George H.W. Bush fell for when he went back on his "Read my lips" pledge. Democrats offer a gullible Republican some magic beans and get him to split his base apart.

Wonder what he'll say tomorrow.

I do not envy Rand Paul

He's got a really tough job.

As Senator? Please, that job's nothing compared to being the libertarian diplomat in conservativeland (and sometimes liberalland).

He differs from his father Ron, in that he actually seems to want to win over conservatives and all their variations, while staying (mostly) true to his libertarian ideals. As a libertarian myself, I often wonder why many conservatives and liberals do not join together, considering we all tend libertarian on many issues. It's tempting, therefore, to try to bridge the gaps, to bring these seemingly disparate groups together under common cause. I mean here's just a few things most of use can agree on:

• Increasing transparency and accountability in government.
• Curbing waste, fraud, and abuse.
• A simpler tax code (not necessarily lower or higher taxes, just simpler).
• Privacy protection from both corporate and government entities.
• Ending corporate welfare.

It's good he's trying. And even if he doesn't win over any lefties, you would think he would do fairly well with conservatives, especially during the Obama administration. But that's not the world we live in.

Here in realityville, politicians frequently miscalculate. For example, one isn't granted carte blanche after scoring a few political points, to unnecessarily demagogue about Dick Cheney and the Iraq war after all these years. Why pick at those scabs when our current president is eagerly inflicting new wounds? Rand is going to have to explain that to the hawkish conservatives he needs, if he ever wants to be more than a Senator. He's got enough explaining to do for them already.

With all due respect Rand, please don't go full Ron Paul. Even this lefty thinks you went too far:

Make no mistake: As someone who opposed the Iraq War, I enjoy watching Cheney get slapped around on the issue as much as the next gal. But it’s one thing to accuse the former veep of ideologically driven Machiavellianism; ’tis quite another to suggest that he did what he did out of loyalty to his Halliburton cronies. That is a far darker charge that, while already generating glee on the left, is also the kind of right-on-the-knife’s-edge-of-nuttiness conspiracy-spinning likely to bite Paul on the butt as he tries to capture his party’s nomination. [emphasis mine]

I don't mean to tell the libertarian diplomat how to do his job; I'm sure he's got far more qualified and capable people than I for that. I'm just pointing out the sad, pathetic fact that people suck, especially politicians--even ones you like. And I like Rand Paul. Even if he thought the Iraq war was entirely based on Halliburton's bottom line, I would still vote for him over Jeb or Hillary.

Here's the thing about presidents: Let's pretend your perfect candidate is on the ballot. You agree with him/her on every single issue. From taxes to foreign policy, abortion to gay marriage, which football team is the best, and on down to your favorite beverage--all prioritized exactly the way you want it. And better yet, your candidate not only wins, he/she wins by a huge landslide--giving the president-elect an undeniable mandate.

You have a few months to bask in the glory of your shared victory, and then watch the historical inauguration over and over (since you obviously recorded it, fanboy) so you can glutton yourself with gleeful tears of joy. But after that inauguration, the honeymoon is officially over. Oh, it won't feel like it's over, but it is. Work has to start. President Perfect now has to negotiate all those pesky checks and balances. And he/she doesn't really have all that much power (thankfully).

That new tax policy you wanted: guess what, it's Congress's job. That health care reform you wanted: Congress. National debt? Congress. Gay Marriage? Supreme Court. That big fancy new immigration law the president spearheaded? Congress shat all over it. Well what about those executive orders you wholly supported? They got badly interpreted and poorly applied in the labyrinth of bureaucracy. Your neighbor's annoying dog? Your dogcatcher hates you.

But not so fast, you say: the president has a lot of power when it comes to foreign policy! To which I respond: Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jr., Barack Obama. Virtually the same foreign policies, plus or minus a few scandals. But your president is different! To which I say: yes, but the environment in which he/she operates remains the same, and largely dictates his/her foreign policy, of which Congress has quite a bit of say in. You can vote out the man, but you can't vote out the system. You can change your clothes, but you can't change the weather.

Let's pretend Rand Paul is an extreme isolationist (which he's not): all other things being equal, our foreign policy would change some, yes, but only to the extent Congress and the American people allowed it. Elected officials don't routinely contradict will of those who put them there, nor do they routinely ignore the changing wishes of their constituents. If President Paul recalled every member of the military and cut all ties with our foreign friends, Congress would delay the recall to a virtual standstill (it takes funds to move people), and the president would be out of office within the month, likely sooner. The only way such a thing would happen, is if the vast majority of us wanted it to happen, in which case, you probably wouldn't be complaining.

Realistically, I don't see our foreign policy changing much, regardless of who is elected. And in some ways, that's unfortunate.

I've digressed a bit to illustrate what would likely happen (almost nothing), versus what people fear might happen (we get invaded by every other country) should this scary libertarian guy get nominated. This is why Rand the libertarian diplomat has a difficult job. He's different. We've never had a libertarian president before (at least for a long, long time). We may not like or agree with Jeb Bush, but at least with him we'll get the same turd sandwich we got before, and by golly, we'll like it!

Rand has the awful task of persuasively painting himself as different enough to bring about change we want, but not so different to bring about the scary change we fear. Considering righty libertarians, lefty libertarians, hawkish conservatives, social conservatives, and moderates all have different hopes and fears, uniting them will require a very precarious dance. If he pulls off the nomination, I will be very impressed. I don't envy him.

On Syria: we're less than sheep

Democrats abandoned the anti-war movement when Obama was elected. Which is why the movement more or less fizzled out.

And now that Obama painted his red line into a corner, Democrat-friendly MSNBC is now the War Channel.

At least the hawks are taking this very seriously. But not really though.

Even when Sec. of State John Kerry isn't ruling out boots on the ground.

Kerry is saying we'd put boots on the ground in #Syria if we do the same thing we did in #Libya and get the same result. #wmd @AceofSpadesHQ
— Chip (@cyamas) September 3, 2013

Why the hell are we thinking about bombing (and potentially invading) Syria? Credibility? Purely humanitarian reasons? To give one side in their civil war a little help? None of those reasons are even remotely persuasive. Maybe it's all of the above or some combination. But that does not make it any wiser.

Image credit: Erika Simon

Count me among the thinking people, both right and left, whom are highly skeptical, and are leaning heavily toward opposition:

From Allahpundit at HotAir:

The fact that [Kerry], of all people, has ended up in the Colin Powell role of war salesman here is so ironic that the whole thing seems a touch surreal to me, like a “Twilight Zone” twist to repay all the liberals who posed as anti-war circa 2004 but who were really just anti-Bush and anti-GOP. All we need now is Joe Wilson making the case for intervention on the Sunday shows and we’ll be set.

From David Atkins at Daily Kos:

The idea behind a limited missile strike campaign is supposed to be to degrade Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons capability, purely as an effort to "enforce" chemical weapons law. But it's questionable whether such an action would actually constitute credible enforcement of the principle. Enforcement of the principle would involve punishing the actors involved, not limiting the ability to engage in the act again. And it goes without saying that limited strikes that might degrade his chemical weapons capability will do next to nothing to address the conventional weapons capability that is giving Bashar al-Assad the upper hand in the civil war.

Which leads to the second question: is the U.S. actually attempting to alter the balance of the Syrian civil war against Bashar al-Assad? Few in government are suggesting the sort of war footing that would be required to accomplish that goal, and for good reason. The cost would be astronomically high both in blood and treasure, it would likely bog the United States down in yet another quagmire, and it is quite likely to put theocrats in power who would be even worse for human rights in Syria and abroad. Even just destroying Assad's chemical weapons capacity might even embroil the United States in a bogged-down conflict without even the slimmest hope of a positive outcome.

It's cliche to say we're a nation of sheep, but I think it's worse than that. Sheep at least have a shepherd who is to some extent, responsive to them. We however, appear to be immaterial.

Update: A one-party system, two factions.

Lyle Denniston Willfully Deceiving the Public

There is so much stupid in this article I don't know where to begin.

I suppose I'll start with what motivated this post. Lyle Denniston, famous for SCOTUSblog, wrote some weird editorial for Yahoo, in which he refers to himself in the third person, about the Second Amendment not being absolute, while implying Ted Cruz is an idiot for thinking otherwise. And almost immediately he takes a blogger better than he, and simultaneously Senator Cruz, out of context.

After summarizing Ted Cruz's questioning of Dianne Feinstein about the limits of Congress with regard to the Second Amendment, Denniston quotes Allahpundit of HotAir:

Harvard Law grad Ted Cruz is willfully deceiving the public into thinking the Second Amendment is more absolute than the Supreme Court says it is.

Yep, that's all he quotes from Allahpundit. One very brief sentence, which is uncharacteristic of this blogger, which is highly suggestive of something else going on we're not seeing. He then pivots from this to the meat of his argument. Classy.

Now let me quote the next few sentences from Allahpundit's post at HotAir:

Why, clearly, Harvard Law grad Ted Cruz is willfully deceiving the public into thinking the Second Amendment is more absolute than the Supreme Court says it is. He’s acting like Heller never happened! Like I say, that’s what you might think if you watched Cruz-versus-Feinstein and nothing more. If you watched the rest of the Judiciary Committee hearing, you know better. [emphasis mine]

Denniston even omitted the "Why, clearly" part. What a douche. I guess Denniston thinks he's pretty safe since Allahpundit can't really fight back for a few reasons: 1. Doing so on HotAir would seem petty and beneath the standards of that blog. 2. Allahpundit has to remain anonymous lest certain people find out who and where he is. I'll add he has legitimate reasons for remaining anonymous, as his pseudonym might suggest.

Well here at the Daily Mud, pettiness is something aspired to. As for Ted Cruz, what pray tell, was in the rest of the Judiciary Committee hearing? See for yourself:


Not only is Ted Cruz familiar with Heller, he was on the winning team.

And he correctly acknowledges such restrictions on the Second Amendment that Heller identified, such as the "current prohibition on fully-automatic machine guns." There you go. Ted Cruz just acknowledged that the Second Amendment is not absolute. Excuse me while I clean up this mess of straw Denniston so bravely fought.

And there's more.

Much more, but I'm just going to tackle one egregious deceit (or conceit, depending on how you look at it). Denniston claims that concerning the Second Amendment,

The almost universal understanding (until several modern scholars began questioning it) was that the right only applied to state militia organizations, like the modern National Guard.

Almost universal, meaning very, very few people understood it as a personal right to keep and bear arms. Until those modern scholars came along messing up the Constitution with their subversive ideas:

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.¹

Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American.²

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.³

A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms.⁴

Darn those modern scholars!

 I'm sure Mr. Denniston is a good guy, just not when he's lying and taking things out of context.
___________________________________________

¹ Thomas Jefferson, 1776
² Tench Coxe, 1788
³ James Madison, 1787
⁴ Richard Henry Lee, 1788

Jesse Jackson, Jr. on suicide watch?

Details have been shortcoming, but the congressman from Illinois has been under investigation for some time:

Jackson is currently being investigated by the House Ethics Committee for his involvement with Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s attempts to sell the Senate seat in Illinois as well as using campaign funds to fly his mistress to Chicago.

And it's not such a stretch to think he could be a danger to himself. The few details we have paint an unsettling picture:

A statement from Mr. Jackson’s office gave few particulars about his condition, but it noted that he was undergoing “further evaluation and treatment at an in-patient medical facility.”

“Recently, we have been made aware that he has grappled with certain physical and emotional ailments privately for a long period of time,” read the statement from Frank E. Watkins, the director of communications for Mr. Jackson’s office in Washington.

It also said, “According to the preliminary diagnosis from his doctors, Congressman Jackson will need to receive extended in-patient treatment as well as continuing medical treatment thereafter.”

According to WaPo sources, Jackson was typically energetic and not one to shy away from media coverage, until now:

[T]he announcement is the latest in a long line of troubles for the civil rights scion. Previously, Jackson and his wife acknowledged that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship, and Jackson has also been linked to convicted former governor Rod Blagojevich’s (D) efforts to sell the open Senate seat vacated by President Obama in 2009 (though he has not been charged with wrongdoing).

What's going on Congressman?

Word on the streets in Chicago is @RepJJJr (Jesse Jackson Jr.) can't take the heat, tried to swallow a bottle of pills and check out. #loser
— RebelPundit (@RebelPundit) July 5, 2012

Update: His father, Rev. Jesse Jackson denies the rumors:

But the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., in an interview with POLITICO, pushed back on an unconfirmed report that his 47-year-old son attempted suicide.

The elder Jackson was responding to a “rumor” broadcast by an Illinois radio station Tuesday. WLS of Chicago cited “two high-ranking people on the Democratic side of the aisle..."

Update II: NBC is reporting that Jesse Jackson, Jr. is being treated for alcoholism and addiction:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The congressman's spokesman is claiming that he's being treated for a "mood disorder". I suppose it could be both.

Rand Paul: teaching Congress to read

I like the cut of this guy's jib:

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced legislation that would force the Senate to give its members one day to read bills for every 20 pages they contain.

"For goodness sakes, this is a 600-page bill. I got it this morning," Paul said Friday, just before the Senate approved a massive bill extending highway funding, federal flood insurance and low student loans rates.

"Not one member of the Senate will read this bill before we vote on it," he added.

Paul also introduced related legislation Friday, S. 3359, that would prohibit the inclusion of more than one subject in a single bill.

Since they're essentially illiterate preschoolers now, maybe he should phase it in slowly. Like for the first year make it one day for every 5 pages, then after 10 years they could sit at the big boys table and read 20 or more. Nobody likes doing too much homework now Senator Paul.

New RNC ad: Pelosi's Failure

This is just a taste of "the most ethical congress ever." I think the RNC could make about ten more of these ads.