Posts Tagged ‘Woody Allen’

Library Additions: Seven Non-Fiction Books

Sunday, December 24th, 2023

I usually note library additions in the other blog, but all of these but two are political or military books. Two are also signed copies replacing or supplementing unsigned copies.

  • Bush, Barbara. A Memoir. Scribner’s, 1994. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine- dust jacket with slight bumping at heel and trace of wear at points, inscribed by Bush: “To Chris Hyatt/With best wishes/Barbara Bush/December 1998. Autobiography by First Lady Barbara Bush, wife of 41 and mother of 43, who died in 2018. Not my usual thing, but I stumbled across it checking for signatures in books by 41 and 43. Bought for $14.48 at Half Price Books.

  • Hemple, Stuart. Dread & Superficiality: Woody Allen as Comic Strip. Abrams Comic Arts, 2009. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Near Fine dust jacket with slight waviness, slight grubbiness to uncoated stock, and a thin scratch across bottom of spine. Received as a Christmas gift only because, many moons ago, I noted to Dwight my incredulity that this comic strip ever existed at all. Yes, Woody Allen’s neurotic nebbish character was so well known in the 1970s that a comic strip based on it (but written and drawn by someone else) appeared in numerous newspapers from 1976-1964. I am equally incredulous that someone found the strip worth of a prestige retrospective collection. Supplements my copy of Non-Being and Somethingness, which contains selections from the strip.

  • Hill, Doug and Jeff Weingrad. Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live. Beech Tree Books, 1986. First edition hardback, a Fine- copy with bumping at head and heel in a Near Fine dust jacket with with one 1/16″ chip at heel, crease to bottom of front flap, slight bumping at head and heel and a bit of pull to top jacket edge. History of Saturday Night Live. Part of a very small collection of books on early SNL. Most people today don’t realize how amazingly funny, daring and groundbreaking the original cast SNL was. Bought for $4.99.

  • King, Florence. Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye. St. Martin’s Press, 1989. First edition hardback, a Near Fine copy with slight bumping at head and heel and thrift store stamp to insider rear cover, in a Fine- dust jacket with slight bumping at head, in a Mylar dust jacket protector. Collection of essays. Replaces an Ex-Library copy. Bought for $7.99.

  • McBride, H. W. A Rifleman Went to War. Small-Arms Tactical Publishing Company, 1935. First edition, second printing (according to Dwight’s bibliography of this press), a Near Fine copy with a slight bit of spine wear and previous owner’s bookplate, in a Very Good- dust jacket with 1 1/2″ wide x 1/2″ deep chip at head, small chip at heel, creasing along front flap fold, and general wear, but no loss of lettering anywhere, in a Mylar dust jacket protector. Memoirs of the experiences of an American rifleman who joined the Canadian expeditionary forces during World War I (my second favorite World War). A Christmas gift from Dwight, who collects this press.

  • Murray, Charles. Losing Ground: American Social Policy 1950-1980. Basic Books, 1984. Third printing, a Fine- copy in a Fine- dust jacket, with slighting bumping at head and heel, a trace of wear at points, and a touch of surface wear, inscribed by Murray: “To Dr. Harry Schmitt,/with best wishes/Charles Murray/18 July 1986.” (I wonder if this was inscribed to former astronaut and Republican senator Harrison Schmitt.) This is probably the most important book ever written about the American welfare state, in which Murray showed in meticulously researched detail why the welfare state expansions instituted by Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society inflicted lasting economic and social harm to black families in America. Without Losing Ground, the welfare reform act of 1996 never would have happened. It came out back when some Democrats will still willing to look at research and data rather that automatically calling critics of the welfare state racist. Highly recommended. Supplements an unsigned first printing. (I had a second printing inscribed to me that I foolish lent out and never had returned.) Bought for $5.99.

  • Thorburn, Wayne. Red State: An Insiders Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics. University of Texas Press, 2014. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine-dust jacket with just a touch of wear, signed by Thorburn. This is an interesting book that describes (among other things) how leftists deliberately drove conservatives and moderates out of their own party so they could control the Democratic Party. Of course, they expected voters would simply keep voting for Democrats, but that didn’t happen. Recommended. Bought for $7. Replaces an unsigned copy.

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    Posted in Media Watch, Military, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    LinkSwarm for April 16, 2021

    Friday, April 16th, 2021

    Greetings! Welcome to an extra-late Friday LinkSwarm! I had a doctor’s appointment and have been running behind all day. This week: #BlackLivesMatter activists raking off that sweet, sweet graft, mainstream media keeps up its assault on independent thought, and a bunch of Texas news.

    • Hustling the rubes for #BlackLivesMatter Dane-geld must really pay well for “trained Marxist” Patrisse Khan-Cullors, because she just bought herself a $1.4 million home in an exclusive Los Angeles neighborhood where “the vast majority of residents are white.” Evidently disdaining “whiteness” is for .
    • But her buying spree didn’t end there! She bought a total of four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone.
    • Cullors isn’t the only BLM biggie buying houses on the grift. The FBI arrested Toledo, Ohio #BlackLivesMatter activist Sir Maejor Page for allegedly spending “over $200,000 on personal items generated from donations received through BLMGA Facebook page with no identifiable purchase or expenditure for social or racial justice” and is facing “federal wire fraud and money laundering charges for allegedly spending the money on tailored suits, a home in Ohio, and guns.”
    • Biden Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants a global minimum corporate tax. Since other countries aren’t stupid, I doubt she’ll get it. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
    • “Teachers union power, not rate of COVID transmission, determines whether schools are open for instruction.”
    • After an embarrassing hidden camera footage of CNN personal admitting their liberal bias, Twitter permanently bans Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe.
    • Here’s what Twitter doesn’t want you to see:


      

    • And now O’Keefe is suing them for defamation.

      I am suing Twitter for defamation because they said I, James O’Keefe, ‘operated fake accounts.’” O’Keefe wrote in an emailed statement to The Federalist. “This is false, this is defamatory, and they will pay. Section 230 may have protected them before, but it will not protect them from me. The complaint will be filed Monday.”

      The discovery process for that is going to be lit…
      

    • Speaking of Twitter being petty, they will “not allow the National Archives to make former President Donald Trump’s past tweets from his @realDonaldTrump account available on the social media platform.”
    • Also, they locked the account of black journalist Jason Whitlock for daring to criticize Cullors for her house-buying spree. Presumably there’s a secret Twitter algorithm setting for “Uppity.”
      

    • Speaking of censorship, the Epoch Times had to suspend printing of its Hong Kong edition after its presses were busted up. For the fourth time.
      

    • “NYT Journalist Erases ENTIRE Twitter After National Pulse Unearths Posts Admitting “Working For The Chinese Communist Party.” That would be one Jonah K. Kessel.
    • Why Iranians are furious at New York Times reporter Farnaz Fassihi.

    • How Biden’s “job plan” would hurt the American economy.
    • College threatens to fire professor unless he takes “mandatory diversity training.” Professor tells them to get stuffed. College blinks.
    • Truth:

    • “Black Lives Matter, So Refund the Police“:

      Public officials across the country are only now discovering the foreseeable consequences of these decisions. City legislatures are realizing that in their attempt to make life better for marginalized groups, they have only contributed to the disproportionate hardships they already face. As it becomes apparent that moves to defund the police have exacerbated criminality, some local authorities are reversing cuts to police budgets passed last year amid much radical breast-beating but without much thought for who would bear the likely consequences.

      Minneapolis is the epicentre of the defund movement—the city in which George Floyd died last May as he was being taken into police custody. In spite of a spike in crime there in 2020, including a 70 percent increase in homicides, the Minneapolis City Council decided in December to redistribute $8 million from the police budget to other violence prevention services. At the time, Mayor Jacob Frey said there were “good reasons to be optimistic about the future in Minneapolis.” The move to reallocate funds away from the police department was proclaimed a “Safety for All” plan by its supporters. Unfortunately, it has made the streets of Minneapolis considerably less safe. In the first three weeks of 2021, Minneapolis saw a 250 percent increase in gunshot wound victims from the same time last year.

    • Since defunding, murders are up 64% in Minneapolis.
    • “Texas Supreme Court Delivers Dallas Salon Owner Shelley Luther a Delayed Victory.” “The remaining five days in jail and $7,000 fine ordered by the district court is now off the table entirely.”
    • “Majority of Voters Say Preventing Fraud in Elections Is More Important Than Making Voting Easier.”
    • “China Fighter Jets Will Fly Over Taiwan to Declare Sovereignty.” What could possibly go wrong?
    • “Biden is making the Trump presidency seem like a golden age of unity.”

      Until Biden came along, every single covid-19 relief bill was approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses. Congress passed three covid relief packages in March 2020 with margins of 96-1, 90-8, and 96-0 in the Senate, and with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House. This was followed in April by the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, which passed 388-5 in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate. Indeed, the votes were so bipartisan that Democrats blocked another covid relief package until after Election Day — because they did not want to let President Donald Trump claim credit for another bipartisan victory before voters went to the polls. But after he lost and they finally allowed another covid bill to come up for a vote in December, it passed both houses of Congress with similar margins.

      Yeah, but bipartisan doesn’t curry favor with the hard left who want massive graft payoffs and total control.

    • Speaking of graft: “Nancy Pelosi’s Husband Uses Call Options To Buy Microsoft Ahead Of Big Govt Contract.”
    • “Former House Speaker John Boehner Falsely Claims Ronald Reagan Was ‘Pro-Abortion.'” He was no Newt Gingrich…
    • The Russian bounty story was always a complete lie. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
    • Texas Republican U.S. Representative Kevin Brady announces his retirement.
    • Former Texas Lt. Governor David Dewhurst was arrested on Class A Misdemeanor Assault Family Violence charges in Dallas after a scuffle over a laptop. “Hotel management told police officers that the woman was assaulted by Dewhurst. Officers spoke with the woman who said that Dewhurst was boarding a bus when the woman remembered that she had his laptop. It was a shared laptop that they both had access to, the affidavit said.” I wonder if the woman is the same 40-year old “live-in girlfriend” Leslie Caron who allegedly broke two of his ribs last year. Also makes you wonder: 1. Just what was on that laptop, and 2. What Dewhurst, a man with a reported net worth of over $200 million, was doing riding a bus…
    • Yesterday was Everybody Blog About Rebekah Jones Day.
    • Mike Rowe on why raising the minimum wage is a stupid idea:

      I want everybody who works hard and plays fair to prosper. I want everybody to be able to support themselves. But if you just pull the money out of midair you’re going to create other problems, like there is a ladder of success that people climb and some of those jobs that are out there for seven, eight, nine dollars an hour, in my view, they’re simply not intended to be careers.

    • The problem with Austin this time of year is that the air is just filled with pollen:

    • Spotify keeps deleting Joe Rogan podcasts.
    • The line between reality and Titania McGrath grows ever thinner:

    • “$251 Billion State Budget Passes Texas Senate, Stays Below Target Spending Line.”
    • SB10, a taxpayer funded lobbying ban, also passed the Texas Senate.
    • “Texas House Approves Constitutional Carry, Bill to Be Sent to Senate.”
    • “Nigeria’s Muslim communications minister: “We are all happy whenever unbelievers are being killed.'”
    • The public doesn’t want to read books by corrupt scumbag crackhead adulterous whoremongers? Do tell… (Hat tip: Mollie Hemingway.)
    • Evidently the “new” case against Woody Allen is as shoddy as the old case:

      There is no doubt that part of the goal of Allen v. Farrow was to finish off both Allen’s career and his legacy by presenting a definitive guilty verdict in the court of public opinion. The filmmakers, aided by a mostly uncritical press, have undoubtedly won over a large segment of the public—those who come to this subject for the first time through their HBO subscriptions, or who aren’t inclined to question “survivors.” But for those of us who are familiar with the story, or who take the trouble to check it out, the effect is the opposite. If making the case against Allen requires his cultural prosecutors to weave this kind of intellectually dishonest, emotionally manipulative, selectively edited account of the underlying drama, then the case for acquittal becomes stronger, not weaker.

    • Florida Man floors it.
    • Murica table.
    • “Minneapolis Target Holds Semi-Annual ‘Everything Is Free‘ Sale.”
    • “In Fun, Innovative Science Project, Middle Schooler Makes A Battery Out Of Brian Stelter.
    • Smile:

    For some reason, WordPress is now putting random gaps between bullet points in the LinkSwarm, so I’m having to tinker with the look and feel a bit. I may even have to update to a more current version…

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    Posted in Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Texas, unions, Waste and Fraud | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for March 20, 2020

    Friday, March 20th, 2020

    I hope you’re enjoying your splendid isolation on the first day of spring. As in previous weeks, the Wuhan coronavirus dominates the news with the reminder that the Gods of the Copybook Headings are never far away…

  • President Donald Trump invokes the Defense Production Act of 1950 to fight the Wuhan Coronavirus. “The legislation allows the president to require production and orders from certain industries to prioritize the response to a national emergency.”
  • Not just the flu. “On a scale of 1 to 10, he said, the pain was 15… Imagine your lungs turning solid. It’s like suffocating.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Dr. Anthony Fauci: You better believe the China travel ban made a difference.
  • Don’t let the MSM revisionism fool you; President Trump was relentlessly slammed by Our Media Betters for that decision:

  • So many dead bodies in Iran that trenches for them can be seen from space.
  • The problem with the CDC isn’t underfunding, it’s refusing to focus on its actual job:

    The Centers for Disease Control has a $6.6 billion budget and one job which it messes up every time.

    The last time the CDC had a serious workout was six years ago during the Ebola crisis. Back then CDC guidelines allowed medical personnel infected with Ebola to avoid a quarantine and interact with Americans until they showed undeniable symptoms of the disease. There were no protocols in place for treating the potentially infected resulting in the further spread of the disease inside the United States.

    At the height of the crisis, confidence in the CDC fell to 37%. Meanwhile, CDC personnel had managed to mishandle Ebola virus samples, accidentally sending samples of the live virus to CDC labs. And the heads of the health bureaucracy blamed the lack of funding for their failure to have an Ebola vaccine.

    Snip.

    During the Ebola crisis, the CDC had been spending a mere $2.6 million on gun violence studies. But the CDC has a history of wasting money on everything from a $106 million visitor’s center with Japanese gardens, a $200K gym, a transgender beauty pageant, not to mention promoting bike paths.

    The occasional outbreak only calls the CDC’s general incompetence to everyone’s attention. The rest of the time its incompetence, like that of other government agencies, just ticks along wasting money.

    In 1999, the CDC announced a plan to end syphilis in 5 years. The Clinton era National Plan to Eliminate Syphilis was an unserious social welfare proposal that wanted to battle racism and was such a success that by 2018, syphilis rates had hit a new record high. But Democrat presidential candidates using the CDC for imaginary proposals to end a disease, not by utilizing science, but social welfare, had become a bad habit under Obama, diverting resources from what the CDC could realistically do for political scams.

    In 2011, Hillary Clinton had promised an “AIDS-free generation” by, in part, using the CDC. Like her presidency, the “AIDS-free generation” never arrived and was never going to.

    The CDC isn’t prepared to fight epidemics because it’s too concerned with pushing gun control, fighting obesity, and waging social justice. (Hat tip: Zerohedge.)

  • If you calculate Wuhan Coronavirus deaths per capita, America is crushing it.
  • “Beijing Fears COVID-19 Is Turning Point for China, Globalization.” Ya think?

    What Beijing cares about is clear from its sustained war on global public opinion. Chinese propaganda mouthpieces have launched a broad array of attacks against the facts, attempting to create a new narrative about China’s historic victory over the Wuhan virus. Chinese state media is praising the government’s “effective, responsible governance,” but the truth is that Beijing is culpable for the spread of the pathogen around China and the world. Chinese officials knew about the new virus back in December, and did nothing to warn their citizens or impose measures to curb it early on.

    Instead of acting with necessary speed and transparency, the party-state looked to its own reputation and legitimacy. It threatened whistleblowers like the late Dr. Li Wenliang, and clamped down on social media to prevent both information about the virus and criticism of the Communist Party and government from spreading.

    Unsurprisingly, China also has enablers abroad helping to whitewash Beijing’s culpability. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus refused for months to declare a pandemic, and instead thanked China for “making us safer,” a comment straight out of an Orwell novel. This is the same WHO that has refused to allow Taiwan membership, due undoubtedly to Beijing’s influence over the WHO’s purse strings.

    Most egregiously, some Chinese government officials have gone so far as to claim that the Wuhan virus was not indigenous to China at all, while others, like Mr. Tedros, suggest that China’s response somehow bought the world “time” to deal with the crisis. That such lines are being repeated by global officials and talking heads shows how effectively China’s propaganda machine is shaping the global narrative. The world is quickly coming to praise the Communist Party’s governance model, instead of condemn it.

    The reality is that China did not tell its own people about the risk for weeks and refused to let in major foreign epidemiological teams, including from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. Thus, the world could not get accurate information and laboratory samples early on. By then, it was too late to stop the virus from spreading, and other world capitals were as lax in imposing meaningful travel bans and quarantines as was Beijing.

    Because of China’s initial failures, governments around the world, including democratic ones, now are being forced to take extraordinary actions that mimic to one degree or another Beijing’s authoritarian tendencies, thus remaking the world more in China’s image. Not least of the changes will be in more intrusive digital surveillance of citizens, so as to be able to better track and stop the spread of future epidemics, a step that might not have been necessary if Beijing was more open about the virus back in December and if the WHO had fulfilled its responsibilities earlier.

  • Are Chlorequine or Hydroxychloroquine a cure for the Wuhan Coronavirus? They just got approved for that use so I suspect we’re going to find out. Props to reader Greg Timoney for pointing out this post a few days before the news broke more generally.
  • Debunking Cornavirus lies about the Trump Administration.
  • Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar endorses President Trump’s policies to combat the Wuhan Cornavirus:

    And the moon became as blood… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • CNN praises Trump’s coronavirus leadership. And the stars of the heavens fell unto the earth…
  • “After this, whenever after is, we should never let the relationship with the Chinese state go back to normal.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Pretty good thread on what is and isn’t available in various supermarkets in various parts of the country. This week week at my local HEB, chicken was low but ground beef was available, as well as bread and eggs. Lots of things were picked but usually alternates were available if you were willing to switch brands or sizes. Didn’t check toilet paper.
  • Texas-based used bookstore chain Half Price Books has closed all it’s stores due to the coronavirus.

    I’ve bought a number of books there over the years…

  • List of which Austin-area employeers are letting their employees work from home, and which aren’t. I can well understand semiconductor manufacturers like Samsung and AMD keep running their fabs; an idle fab line can lose up to $1 million an hour, and you’re not going to catch coronavirus in a bunny suit in a cleanroom anyway…
  • Nancy Pelosi tried to slip taxpayer-funded abortions into the coronavirus relief bill, because of course she did.
  • Important data reminder:

  • Another professor caught shilling for China.
  • The Austin City Council has decided that there’s no need to clean up homeless encampments in the present crisis. “In the current situation, however, homeless encampments ought to be the first place you look to shut down transmission of infectious diseases. Instead, those are the one place that will be left completely alone.”
  • “GOP wins three special Pennsylvania [State] House races, including a ‘Hillary district.'” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Harris County finally settles a lawsuit to provide information on foreign nationals illegally registered to vote.

    After two years of hiding public voter data, the state’s biggest county will finally disclose records of foreigners illegally voting in Texas elections, ending a court battle initiated by an election integrity group.

    This week, Harris County settled a lawsuit brought against its top voter registration official and agreed to release all records of noncitizen voters requested by Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm that specializes in fighting to enforce federal voter roll maintenance laws.

    Snip.

    PILF sued Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector and Voter Registrar Ann Bennett in 2018, after Bennett’s office refused access to records of registered voters identified as noncitizens, as well as actions taken by the county regarding those registrations.

  • “Baltimore Mayor Begs Residents To Stop Shooting Each Other So Hospital Beds Can Be Used For Coronavirus Patients.”

  • Production on Saturday Night Live shut down. I’m so old I remember when it was funny…
  • Christopher Hitchens, anti-identitarian:

    Hitchens detested tribal and parochial feelings of any kind, which is why he was dismayed when he witnessed the emergence of identity as a catalyst for political mobilization in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In his memoir, Hitch-22, Hitchens attacked radicals who thought it was “enough to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic ‘preference,’ to qualify as a revolutionary.” When Hitchens first heard the expression “the personal is political,” he knew “as one does from the utterance of any sinister bullshit that it was—cliché is arguably forgivable here—very bad news.” As he put it in a 2008 article:

    People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of ‘race’ or ‘gender’ alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason.

  • Cancel culture comes for Woody Allen.

    In the summer of 1992, actress Mia Farrow found out that her adopted daughter Soon-Yi was still romantically involved with Mia’s ex-long-time-boyfriend and collaborator, Woody Allen. According to then-21-year-old Soon-Yi, Mia responded by telling a psychologist that Woody was “satanic and evil,” and that she needed to “find a way to stop him.” Three days later, seven-year-old Dylan Farrow, Mia’s daughter, accused Allen of molesting her in Mia’s Connecticut house. But when the child’s accusations, which were captured on videotape with reported coaching from Mia, were investigated by the Connecticut State Attorney, the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of Yale-New Haven Hospital and the New York Department of Social Services, no credible evidence could be found to support the allegations. As Kyle Smith reported in a definitive National Review article, Mia’s own nanny “quit the family rather than support Mia’s version of events.” And Dylan’s brother Moses wrote in 2018 that the Mia-Dylan abuse narrative simply made no sense given the architecture of the Connecticut house where the abuse allegedly took place. Yet Woody Allen was nonetheless smeared as a rapist and pedophile. And last week, his publisher, Hachette Book Group, announced it would cancel its deal to publish Allen’s memoirs.

    The accusation always struck me as bunk. You can believe that Allen marrying his girlfriend’s stepdaughter is a creeper move without believing he’s a pedophile.

  • Former Ars Technica writer and Anti-GamerGater Peter Bright found guilty of attempted enticement of a minor for sex.
  • “Trump Says, ‘I Don’t Want Any Americans To Die’, NYT Quotes As ‘I… Want… Americans To Die.'”
  • Funny dog tweet the first:

  • For Dwight:

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for May 25, 2018

    Friday, May 25th, 2018

    Looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend…

  • Are we supposed to have Strong Opinions and Takes of Elevated Temperature over the fact that President Donald Trump has cancelled the summit with North Korea? Because the MSM certainly seems to have no shortage of such takes, despite the fact that Scott Adams (who keeps explaining President Trump’s persuasion techniques again and again to a press that refuses to listen) called it a month ago:

    It isn’t just that liberals, the MSM and #NeverTrump hate President Trump, it’s that they hate him with such a blinding, all-encompassing rage that they refuse to learn from their mistakes and keep making the same ones over and over again…

  • President Trump’s immigration crackdown is forcing companies to actually hire women.
  • Israel says it’s the first country to actually use F-35s in combat. (Hat tip: Neontaster’s Twitter feed.)
  • President Trump is killing off what little leftwing idealism of the 1960s remained:

    The children of the ’60s — you know, the hippies — and their ideological offspring in academia, politics, and, most especially, the media, are now not only okay with a sitting president’s weaponizing the intelligence community against a rival presidential campaign; they are all rolling over like whipped dogs to believe everything the intelligence community tells them, most especially when it is coming from the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI.

    Basically, Trump has driven the hippies and their offspring so crazy they are not only A-okay with the CIA’s spying on American citizens, totally cool with FBI spies infiltrating a rival campaign, and feeling warm all over about wiretaps, unmasking, and lying to federal judges, they do not want any of this investigated.

    The other day, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame was on CNN fuming over the fact that there will now be an investigation of the Obama administration, the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI, after it was discovered they are all guilty of spying on the political rival of a sitting president.

    Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want the watchmen watched. Carl freakin’ Bernstein is swallowing every treat being fed to him by the CIA — the CIA! — and the FBI. Carl freakin’ Bernstein does not want an investigation, does not want to learn anything more than what he is being told (by the CIA!), and does not want the public to know anything more.

  • A Russian in Norway thinks the Norwegians are crazy to let their country be Isalmicized.
  • War with China within two years? I’m not sold on that idea, but it’s something to consider. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • Bird is an annoying “scooter sharing” startup plaguing a few cities. Turns out that a recharging reward makes it even more annoying than it sounds, with rechargers gaming the system for maximum rewards by hoarding scooters. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Bomb detonates inside Indian restaurant in Canada, injuring 15.
  • Three more arrested in south Texas on that voting fraud that Democrats swear doesn’t exist.
  • President Trump nominates Texan Andy Oldham to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Harvey Weinstein finally charged with rape.
  • Moses Farrow, adopted son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow, talks about why he believes Allen and what a nightmare it was to live with Farrow:

    It was common knowledge in Hollywood that my grandfather, the director John Farrow, was a notorious drinker and serial philanderer. There were numerous alcohol-fueled arguments between her parents, and Mia told me that she was the victim of attempted molestation within her own family. Her brother, my uncle John, who visited us many times when we were young, is currently in prison on a conviction of multiple child molestation charges. (My mother has never publicly commented on this or expressed concern about his victims.) My uncle Patrick and his family would often come by, but those visits could end abruptly as Mia and Patrick would often wind up arguing. Patrick would commit suicide in 2009.

    My mother, of course, had her own darkness. She married 50-year-old Frank Sinatra when she was only 21. After they divorced, she moved in to live with her close friend Dory Previn and her husband André. When my mother became pregnant by André, the Previns’ marriage broke up, leading to Dory’s institutionalization. It was never spoken of in our home, of course, and not even known to me until a few years ago. But, as I look at it – as a licensed therapist as well as an eyewitness – it’s easy to see the seeds of dysfunction that would flourish within our own home.

    It was important to my mother to project to the world a picture of a happy blended household of both biological and adopted children, but this was far from the truth. I’m sure my mother had good intentions in adopting children with disabilities from the direst of circumstances, but the reality inside our walls was very different. It pains me to recall instances in which I witnessed siblings, some blind or physically disabled, dragged down a flight of stairs to be thrown into a bedroom or a closet, then having the door locked from the outside. She even shut my brother Thaddeus, paraplegic from polio, in an outdoor shed overnight as punishment for a minor transgression.

    Snip.

    The summer between first and second grades, she was having new wallpaper installed in the bedroom I slept in, across the hall from hers on the second floor of the Connecticut house. I was getting ready to go to sleep, when my mother came over to my bed and found a tape measure. She gave me a piercing look that stopped me in my tracks and asked if I had taken it, as she had been looking for it all day. I stood in front of her, frozen. She asked why it was on my bed. I told her I didn’t know, that perhaps a workman had left it there. She asked again and again and again.

    When I didn’t give the answer she wanted, she slapped my face, knocking off my glasses. She told me I was lying and directed me to tell my brothers and sisters that I had taken the tape measure. Through my tears I listened to her as she explained that we would rehearse what should have happened. She would walk into the room and I would tell her I was sorry for taking the tape measure, that I had taken it to play with and that I would never do it again. She made me rehearse it at least a half-dozen times.

    That was the start of her coaching, drilling, scripting, and rehearsing – in essence, brainwashing. I became anxious and fearful. Once, when I was given a new pair of jeans, I thought they would look cool if I cut off a couple of the belt loops. When Mia saw what I had done, she spanked me repeatedly and had me remove all my clothing, saying, “You’re not deserving of any clothes” and making me stand naked in the corner of her room, in front of my older siblings who had just returned from dinner with their father André.

    Plus how Farrow had drilled her children into reciting the details of the alleged “assault” over and over again.

    Read the while thing. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)

  • Amazon demonetizes Legal Insurrection, lies about the reasons.
  • Rachel Dolezal charged with welfare fraud. That’s taking your “I was born a poor black child” cosplay way too far…
  • One of those “Yeah, you just have to put it up” tweets:

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    Posted in Border Control, Communism, Foreign Policy, Military, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »

    LinkSwarm for January 29, 2014

    Wednesday, January 29th, 2014

    Lots of news from around the world, where the global economy is handing like a Kia that’s just started losing traction on an icy hill:

  • Bundesbank: Don’t look at us, broke PIIGS, you’re going to have to screw your own people.
  • Does a big default loom in China?
  • Russian bank halts all cash withdrawals?
  • Meanwhile, reports that Chinese banks have stopped allowing withdrawals turns out to be a false alarm.
  • European earnings outlook: Zero.
  • Problem: Greek economy still sucking wind. Solution: change how GDP is calculated.
  • Japan hits record trade deficit. Remember when they were supposed to take over the world?
  • The ruble flirts with record lows.
  • Obama and the Democratic Party’s numbers are worse than they were in 2010.
  • Planned Parenthood wonders what’s the big deal with a little statutory rape among friends?
  • Florida heroin kingpin is an illegal alien on food stamps.
  • Another Democrat convicted of that vote fraud that doesn’t exist. (Hat tip: Dwight.)

  • Democrats actually polling worse than they were in 2010. And that’s from Dem pollster/booster John B. Judis.
  • Target’s part-time workers get ObamaCared.
  • We have a winner for troll of the year:

    Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.

    Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.

    Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average.

    Amy Glass, come down and collect your coveted Trolly! (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV Show”
  • In case you didn’t notice, Iran’s mullahs are still lying, violent scumbags.
  • Strangely enough, Israeli’s trust Netanyahu more than Obama. Funny how a mere 40+ years Palestinians breaking every agreement they’ve signed will sour people on the peace process…
  • Michael Totten wanders around Cuba some more, where he let’s us know that Cubans can be arrested for unauthorized shrimp.
  • California Court determines that disgraced serial journalistic liar Stephen Glass is too dishonest to be a lawyer.
  • In other news, Eugene Volokh stuns Washington Post readers with non-liberal thoughts on guns and other topics.
  • Have you ever considered the possibility that Woody Allen isn’t a child molester?
  • Drive a Fit, a Prius, a Yaris, or a Fiat 500? Hope you’ve made out a will.
  • Anthony Weiner forced to downsize to an apartment whose rent is a mere 6 times my mortgage.

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    Posted in Border Control, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | No Comments »