Google Embraces Censorship

October 10th, 2018

The leadership of Google is very, very upset that you commoners keep making political choices of which they disapprove, so they’ve crafted a document to justify why they have to censor your views. They favor a “European” regime to emphasize “safety” from your non-liberal views over that pesky and outdated “free speech.”

The fact that they actually label the document “The Good Censor” sort of gives the game away, doesn’t it?

An internal company briefing produced by Google and leaked exclusively to Breitbart News argues that due to a variety of factors, including the election of President Trump, the “American tradition” of free speech on the internet is no longer viable.

Despite leaked video footage showing top executives declaring their intention to ensure that the rise of Trump and the populist movement is just a “blip” in history, Google has repeatedly denied that the political bias of its employees filter into its products.

But the 85-page briefing, titled “The Good Censor,” admits that Google and other tech platforms now “control the majority of online conversations” and have undertaken a “shift towards censorship” in response to unwelcome political events around the world.

Examples cited in the document include the 2016 election and the rise of Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) in Germany.

Responding to the leak, an official Google source said the document should be considered internal research, and not an official company position.

The briefing labels the ideal of unfettered free speech on the internet a “utopian narrative” that has been “undermined” by recent global events as well as “bad behavior” on the part of users. It can be read in full below.

It acknowledges that major tech platforms, including Google, Facebook and Twitter initially promised free speech to consumers. “This free speech ideal was instilled in the DNA of the Silicon Valley startups that now control the majority of our online conversations,” says the document.

You can tell the document has came out a while ago (the date on it is March 2018), since the “Russia hacked the election” fantasy still plays a prominent role.

PP26-34 – The briefing explains how “users behaving badly” undermines free speech on the internet and allows “crummy politicians to expand their influence.” The briefing bemoans that “racists, misogynists, and oppressors” are allowed a voice alongside “revolutionaries, whistleblowers, and campaigners.”

“Social Justice Warriors: Good! Republicans: Bad!” How dare the proles be allowed to express approval for politicians of which we disapprove? And always remember that “racists, misogynists, and oppressors” is SJW-speak for anyone who refuses to toe the party line.

P45 – After warning about the rise of online hate speech, the briefing approvingly cites Sarah Jeong, infamous for her hate speech against white males (Google is currently facing a lawsuit alleging it discriminates against white males, among other categories).
P45 – The briefing bemoans the fact that the internet has until recently been a level playing field, warning that “rational debate is damaged when authoritative voices and ‘have a go’ commentators receive equal weighting.”

“Stop embarrassing our experts! Only experts with approved political opinions should be allowed to hold the conch!”

Page 70 indicates the shift to censorship is in response to “user demand,” which is false in the aggregate. Users aren’t clamoring for censorship, only the SJW hard left is doing that. Ordinary users want freedom of information, not what Google thinks we should be reading because the left keeps losing elections.

It ends with lots of fig-leafs about “transparency,” but the real purpose of the doc is to talk about the “problems” of free speech.

You can read the entire document itself in all its 85 pages of PowerPoint glory.

Google’s assertions to the contrary, this is not an internal document to decide what to do, this is an internal document to justify what they were already doing.

I don’t want my Internet search engine to be a “good” censor, or indeed any kind of censor. I don’t want my search results filtered for the “correct” opinions Google’s far left leadership wants me to hold. Between this, James Damore’s firing, and their decision to build a better censorship engine for China, Google already made the decision to embrace their inner censor before this document was ever commissioned.

Now would be a good time to switch your default search engine to DuckDuckGo, if you haven’t already…

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Kavanaugh: The Aftermath

October 9th, 2018

Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed to the United States Supreme Court, but the Democrats’ last-minute Hail Mary smear attack has inflicted lasting damage…on themselves:

  • What exactly do Democrats mean by “take the gloves off?”

    There is a dangerous and irresponsible strain of opinion telling the Democratic Party today that when they lose, it’s because they aren’t fighting hard enough…The thesis goes something like this: the left has total dominance of the culture, and total dominance of the popular vote, so the answer to why they lose not infrequently is that the system is rigged against them, and they must fight all the harder and “take the gloves off” or something like that to achieve their ends.

    The gloves have been off for a very long time in American politics. How quickly we forget the attempted murder of multiple Republican politicians including Steve Scalise, who may never walk normally again. Just this past week we saw a Democratic staffer who doxxed multiple Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee indicted, facing nearly 50 years in federal prison for his crimes. We saw Cory Gardner revealing his wife had received graphic texts of a beheading after his vote for Kavanaugh, along with their home address. And in Washington, we saw whatever all this is.

    And this is not new, of course – it stretches back a long time. The gloves were off for the American Left in the late 1960s, when campus and activist violence became normalized. They were off in the 1970s when the outgrowth of that spirit of protest led to the sequence of Weathermen bombings that crisscrossed the nation.

    Snip.

    What this whole “we’re the wet rag party” talk really translates too is: we, the abidingly secular Americans who were repeatedly promised we were the ethnically and sexually diverse and dominant coalition during the Obama years, now feel frustrated by being merely ascendant and feel instead entitled to absolute and immediate victory. And that justifies the “we’re coming for you” attitude today. Because any roadblocks or speedbumps for that agenda are now viewed as the vestiges of dead old white men protecting the interests of modern old white men.

    This was a surprisingly dominant viewpoint as recently as a few years ago, accepted even among intelligent people on the right. Then a surprising group of people came along willing to say: No. And that has made all the difference.

  • The Kavanaugh witch hunt has radicalized the normals:

    Even the gimpiest of conservagimps can’t pretend that the attack on Kavanaugh isn’t an attack on us. The last few weeks has made it impossible for them to live in denial any longer. Hell, when Bret Stephens wakes the hell up you know the alarm is going off. At this rate, next we will see anti-Trump sex symbol George Will announce that the Democrats have been “unsporting.”

    Snip.

    But the rest of us are woke, and getting woker . We are red-pilled, and getting red-pillier. We are getting, you might say, militant.

    See, we Normals get that if they can do this to Brett Kavanaugh, they can do this to anyone. If they win, they can destroy anyone Normal, or Normal-friendly, by a mere accusation (Notice how none of this applies to the elite – since they really don’t care about sexual abuse, their own gross collection of woman beaters, abusers, and pervs get a pass). This is the left’s dream tool. They don’t have to prove anything. They simply have to point, screech “Witch!” and their enemy disappears like in that bizarro universe Star Trek episode where Spock had a beard.

    But it has become clear that we are not accepting this, because to accept this is to accept our own submission to these goofs in perpetuity. At first, the response was anecdotal. Hugh Hewitt had a bunch of women callers dial in, all of them irate, in what he described to me as an unprecedented “avalanche.” I personally got emails from center right folks, Normals, who do not like politics. In fact, they hate politics. But now they are paying attention. And they are mad. Every man knows he has a bull’s-eye on his back. Every woman knows her husband, brother, or son could be next. These people aren’t afraid of men being held accountable for things they did, but of false accusations that liberals would strip them of their ability to defend themselves against.

    he attempted human sacrifice of Brett Kavanaugh on the altar of unrestricted abortion is too much for them. And now the polls are making it clear that that they are angry, ticked off, and ready to low crawl over jagged glass shards to vote against the Democrats who instigated this atrocity.

    Sure, anecdotes are tricky. But the polls are less so. Heidi Heitkamp is gone. She’s toast. Claire McCaskill, toast. That goofy guy in Indiana, looking bad. Manchin? He knows what time it is, so he might weasel through.

    We are not going to forget what happened here. And this is going to have a lasting impact, but not one the Democrats are going to like.

  • More proof of the Kavanaugh effect on 2018 races:

    Several public polls have shown a fading “enthusiasm gap” between Democratic and Republican voters since the Kavanaugh fight escalated. The campaign arm for House Republicans reported an explosion in small-dollar donations. “[W]hat the Kavanaugh experience has done is gotten Republicans excited,” Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, chairman of the NRCC, told Fox News.

    Other polls showed Republicans pulling away in red-state Senate races. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., both broke 50 percent in the CBS/YouGov polls. Blackburn is running to replace Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., who voted against Kavanaugh, is down by nearly 9 points in the RealClearPolitics average. The Cook Political Report has shifted the Montana Senate race in the GOP’s favor.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Even Democrats taking back the house is no longer the slam dunk Democrats previously pretended.
  • Poorly written editorial blames white women for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, voting Republican. “After a confirmation process where women all but slit their wrists, letting their stories of sexual trauma run like rivers of blood through the Capitol, the Senate still voted to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.” Yes, there’s nothing like spicing up your turgid, far-left Social Justice Warrior feminist prose by breaking out the purple pulp writing cliches of the 1930s!

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    “We ain’t cray cray like ya’ll!”

    October 8th, 2018

    Enjoy this Terrence K. Williams tweet about the left’s ongoing meltdown, complete with embedded video of liberal lunacy. “Ya’ll need to go to bed!”

    Who was it in the Democratic Party that decided “Yeah, chanting, screaming lunatics, that’s the look we want for our party!” It used to be these lunatics would come out for special occasions like May Day and then go away. However, since Occupy Wall Street and the Wisconsin recall, they now seem like a year-round phenomena of rent-a-protestor lunacy. It’s not entirely a coincidence that their rise has coincided with a dramatic decline in Democratic Party officeholders.

    It seems their primary accomplishment is keeping Democrats focused on pleasing the hard left while alienating moderates and independents, which is hardly a recipe for electoral success. It’s more like a recipe for becoming the Texas Democratic Party: Pleasing your activist base while throwing away all chances of top-of-the-ticket success.

    A smarter party might realize that and correct course, but today’s Democratic Party is quite far from smart…

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    Official Roll Call Record of the Kavanaugh Vote

    October 7th, 2018

    Since I went looking for this and actually had trouble finding it, here are links to the official roll call records of the cloture and confirmation votes for Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court:

  • The cloture vote, with 51 Yeas and 49 Nays.

    Brett Kavanaugh Cloture Vote Alphabetical

    Brett Kavanaugh Cloture Vote Yea or Nay

  • The confirmation vote, with 50 Yeas, 48 Nays, and a paired set of Present (Murkowski (R-AK) and Not Voting (Daines (R-MT)).

    Brett Kavanaugh Vote Alphabetical

    Brett Kavanaugh Vote Yea or Nay

    • One reason I’m putting this up is a saw someone on Twitter stating that Vice President Mike Pence cast a deciding vote, but in fact he was not required to break a tie for either vote. Thus far the only vote Vice President Pence has cast to break a tie in the Senate was the vote confirming Russell Vought as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

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    Kavanaugh Confirmed and Sworn In

    October 6th, 2018

    I was going to post a “Kavanaugh will be confirmed today” post this morning, but then figured an extra large helping of sloth would let me report that he was confirmed. “The Senate confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court Saturday, in a close 50-48 vote that saw just one Republican and one Democrat cross party lines.” The Democrat was Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and the Republican was Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, of whom Sarah Palin is already making noises about primarying.

    After being confirmed, Kavanaugh was quickly sworn in:

    Now some links on the subject:

  • The more the Democratic Party embraces the radical elements of its base, the further power slips from its grasp:

    A Democratic Party lacking the White House, majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, and the Supreme Court imitated strength in practicing rudeness. Now, hours before the confirmation vote that they sought to postpone, the Democrats’ boisterousness appears, belatedly at least, as camouflage for weakness. This weakness, which may seem anything but when in earshot of protesters, appears most apparent in the U.S. Senate. Democrats lack the raw numbers to win.

    Unable to rely on an institutional or the democratic apparatus to derail Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, they embraced a by-any-means-necessary strategy.

    Jackson A. Cosko, 27, a “fellow” paid by an outside group to work for Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and a recent employee of Senator Maggie Hassan, appeared in federal court on Thursday on charges related to the doxxing — the unauthorized publication of personal details for the purpose of harassment — of several senators, including Orrin Hatch, Mike Lee, and Lindsey Graham. Cosko allegedly posted personal telephone numbers and home addresses using a Senate computer.

    “If you tell anyone[,] I will leak it all,” the perpetrator allegedly told a Democratic staffer who witnessed Cosko accessing a computer in Hassan’s office. “Emails[,] signal conversations[,] gmails. Senators[’] children’s health information and socials.”

    The doxxing of Kavanaugh supporters follows death threats to the judge’s family and the repeated interruptions at his confirmation hearings that turned the proceedings into chaos — chaos perpetuated by Kamala Harris and other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee — on Day One, which witnessed Capitol police arrest 70 (they arrested over 300 on Thursday). Democrats planned this spontaneous show of outrage on a conference call. Anti-Kavanaugh protesters similarly occupied state offices of Susan Collins and Joe Manchin, resulting in multiple arrests.

    More recent confrontations, including two activists trapping Senator Jeff Flake in a Capitol elevator, also initially appeared as grassroots outrage, a perception that evaporated with the revelation that the two women, like one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, work as social-justice activists (yes, and people make a living playing video games, too). They identified themselves as sexual assault survivors. One failed to note her employment as the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy, a far-left advocacy group.

    As one Hill staffer explained to me, the protesters work in shifts the way assembly-line workers do. They clock-in, then shout, hold signs, and hector lawmakers. Some, finding their way to the House side of Capitol Hill, need impromptu education sessions instructing that the lower-chamber does not vote on judges. When their shifts end, they abruptly clock-out and another group of workers takes their place. The insult that liberals protest because they do not hold jobs does not work here. These liberals protest as part of their jobs.

    Snip.

    Perpetuating this minority status ironically comes at the expense of, and in service to, the minority rule enjoyed by Democrats for decades. Democrats did not need the U.S. Supreme Court to institute Social Security or establish the Peace Corps. But abortion on demand, gay marriage, prohibition on school prayer, the abolition of the death penalty, and much else on the liberal wish list became the law of the land because of the U.S. Supreme Court, a parallel national legislature when controlled by the Left.

    A party without the speaker’s gavel or the word “majority” prefixing “leader” struggles to pass substantive legislation. Add to these handicaps widespread public contempt for much of that party’s agenda, and one begins to see why Democrats need the courts so much. Unfortunately for them, the rude, no-holds-barred gambit for the high court (dishonestly used as something other than a court in their hands) makes it even further from their grasp.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

    Tucker Carlson on how the Democrats lost the fight:

    Ironically, the Democrats adoption of scorched-earth #Resistance tactics, partially in response of Trump’s unorthodox methods and willingness to fight back, has had the effect of uniting the Republican Party behind President Trump.

  • How Democrat tactics in the Kavanaugh hearing threatens all Americans:

    Any rational observer of the Democrats’ non-stop character assassination machine can see that something is seriously sick in our republic. Instead of allowing Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee were permitted to use trumped-up, hip-pocketed charges to stage a show trial more in tune with a totalitarian system.

    Like Justice Clarence Thomas before him, Kavanaugh has undergone pre-meditated, well-coordinated attacks by Democrat elites who cling to the apron strings of an anti-human brand of feminism to justify this craft. There’s a good term for the practice they’re engaged in: ritual defamation.

    Perhaps an apt metaphor for ritual defamation is the gang rape of one’s character and good name. Whatever the end result, this episode represents an underhanded rape of the rule of law, as well as of Brett Kavanaugh’s character.

  • Which, in turn, links to Laird Wilcox’s checklist for The Practice of Ritual Defamation.

    • Also, UT beat OU and James Woods had his Twitter account restored, so all in all the last few days have been very good…

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    LinkSwarm for October 5, 2018

    October 5th, 2018

    Welcome to the season where ugly monsters in lurid costumes go running around shrieking at the sheer delight at scaring other people. And those are just the Democratic protestors on Capitol Hill!

    The Brett Kavanaugh cloture vote today, and the Supreme Court confirmation vote is Saturday. And Kavanaugh links dominate the top of this LinkSwarm:

  • Republicans are fired up after the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, and the Democratic edge for the 2018 midterms has disappeared. Or so says that notorious Republican shill organization, NPR.
  • More on the same subject:

    Let’s say you’re Joe Manchin in West Virginia. What you needed was for this nomination to be uncontroversial, and a sure thing for confirmation. A party-line contested vote the whole country is watching is a nightmare. Why? Because in a red state like the one Manchin represents, the majority will favor confirmation and find it to be a decisive issue in their vote — so Manchin voting against Kavanaugh will set him up to reap the wrath of the voters in a state which went 65 percent for Trump in 2016.

    But it’s worse than that for Manchin, because he doesn’t have a good escape from the Kavanaugh confirmation. You’d say his easy way out is to vote yes, except what the Left has done is to so whip up their voters with the Ford allegations and the copycats who followed that Manchin will lose votes from his own side if he votes to confirm the judge.

    This isn’t a theory, by the way. It’s what the polls show.

  • A new poll finds that 58 percent of voters in West Virginia think Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court following his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
  • The Public Opinion strategies poll commissioned by the Judicial Crisis Network found an overwhelming majority of West Virginians (59 percent) thought Kavanaugh’s testimony was more believable than Christine Blasey Ford, who accused the federal judge of sexually assaulting her more than 35 years ago at a drunken high school party. Those who believe Kavanaugh include 81 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of Independent voters.

    • Manchin is locked in a dead-heat race against Patrick Morrissey, West Virginia’s Attorney General, and his vote is now going to be the defining issue in that race either way.

    Manchin’s conundrum isn’t unique. Claire McCaskill in Missouri is already a committed no on Kavanaugh, and her troubles have begun as well…

  • A new poll released by The Missouri Scout on Saturday shows that Republican challenger Josh Hawley has taken a two-point lead over Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in the Missouri Senate race just days after she announced she will be voting against the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
  • Hawley leads McCaskill by a margin of 48 percent to 46 percent in the poll conducted by Missouri Scout over two days, from Wednesday, September 26 to Thursday, September 27.
  • McCaskill announced her opposition to Kavanaugh on September 19. The second day of the poll was conducted on the same day Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of attempting to sexually assault her 36 years ago at a time and place she cannot recall and with no corroborating witnesses or evidence, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    The Missouri Scout poll had worse news for the incumbent Democrat — in that what’s driving down her numbers is unquestionably the Kavanaugh vote…

  • Significantly, the poll found that 49 percent of likely voters said the Supreme Court confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh has made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while only 42 percent said it made them more likely to vote for her.…
  • Among female respondents, 47 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 42 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among male respondents, 50 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 41 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Non-Partisan respondents, 46 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 39 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Republican respondents, 85 percent said the confirmation process made them less likely to vote for McCaskill, while 8 percent said it made them more likely.
  • Among Democrat respondents, 82 percent said the confirmation process made them more likely to vote for McCaskill, while 8 percent said it made them less likely.

    • Also, a new poll commissioned by NBC North Dakota News showed the race between Democrat incumbent Heidi Heitkamp and Republican challenger Kevin Cramer has the latter with a commanding 51-41 lead. That poll has the Kavanaugh nomination as the most important (with 21 percent) of nine named issues in the race, with 60 percent of North Dakota voters polled saying they support the judge’s confirmation against only 27 percent opposed. Heitkamp has publicly called herself a “no” vote, which amounts to more or less a surrender in the race. Without North Dakota, there is only a minuscule chance of the Democrats winning control of the Senate.

  • And still more:

    Of all the cohorts measured by the poll (including Independent men and women), Democratic women are the only group to display less enthusiasm for the midterms this week than they did in July. Meanwhile, Republican women seem invigorated. In July, 81 percent of Democratic women said the November elections were very important, compared to 71 percent of Republican women. Now, Republican women are 4 percentage points likelier to view the midterms that way (83 percent to 79 percent). That’s a 14-point swing in female voters’ interest in the midterms—after the hearings, and in Republicans’ favor.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Will the ‘Brett Bounce’ Unseat Bob Menendez in New Jersey?” Let’s hope so. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • “Accused doxxer of GOP senators allegedly threatened to publish lawmakers’ children’s health info.” I just can’t imagine why Republicans are so upset with Democrats in congress…

  • And unless Kavanaugh is confirmed, things will get worse:

    There is no circumstance where everyone involved with those norm-breaking steps suddenly wakes up, has a crisis of conscience, and realizes that they were morally wrong. The only way they decide not to take similar steps in the future is if they conclude that those steps are not effective.

    If these sorts of tactics work, we will get more of them. Right now, Kavanaugh could be a squish who wimps out on Roe vs. Wade and I’d still want him on that court, because this isn’t really about him anymore. This is about what kind of proof is needed before you believe a man is a monster. This is about whether decades of respected public and private life can be wiped away by an allegation without supporting witnesses. This is about whether anyone who ever knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind . . . or whether people who never knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind.

  • The Democrats’ war against the presumption of innocence:

    Social justice presumes the guilt of certain people because of their politics, their positions, their races and their genders. It creates different rules for different classes of people with some entitled to an absolute presumption of innocence, even in the face of indisputable guilt, and others forced into an equally absolute presumption of guilt, even in the absence of any indisputable proof of their guilt.

    America cannot operate under two systems of guilt and innocence, one public and one private. If the majority of Americans are to be judged by a system that presumes their guilt, that attitude will inevitably go on to permeate the courtroom. By eroding the presumption of innocence in public life, the left is eroding it as a legal right. Lynch mobs and kangaroo courts can’t be expected to stop at the courthouse door when they are celebrated and operate freely throughout the rest of the land.

    Kavanaugh’s case is about more than the malicious exploitation of the #MeToo movement to destroy a political opponent. It’s the latest assault on the social presumption of innocence by shadowy forces whose ‘scoops’ dominate the media through cut-outs while their sources remain silently invisible.

    If kangaroo courts and media lynch mobs succeed in overturning a Supreme Court appointment, they will have proven that their war on the presumption of innocence extends even to the highest court in the land. If a Supreme Court justice can’t be presumed innocent, what hope do the rest of us have?

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Let’s not put too fine a point on it: Christine Blasey Ford is a liar.

  • China used it’s supply chain to implant a spy chip in many of America’s top companies, including Apple and Amazon. This is why outsourcing so much of your technological infrastructure is a national security issue.
  • Apple and Amazon issue strenuous denials. I’m not sure they could do otherwise, even if the allegation is true, especially since Amazon currently derives the lion’s share of its profits from AWS. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • President Donald Trump’s approval rating hits 50%.
  • Including 35% of blacks. That’s disasterous for Democratic electoral chances. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Theresa May will change her Brexit policy, or the Tories will change their leader.

    Worse than Remain? Well, yes. May’s Brexit proposals — now known as “Chequers,” after the PM’s country house, where they were imposed on a surprised cabinet days after May had personally assured the secretary of state for exiting the EU that she had no such intentions — would effectively keep Britain inside the EU’s single market (i.e., by accepting its current and future regulations) and its customs union, and keep it subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice while forfeiting its votes in all EU institutions.

    Not enough for you? Then ponder this: The London Times has reported that the government is now prepared to cut a deal with the EU that would prevent a post-Brexit U.K. from reaching free-trade deals with other countries such as Australia, Canada, and . . . the United States. Such a deal would breach the reddest of red lines laid down by Theresa May and the Tory party since the 2016 referendum. Yet no one thinks the report is mistaken. And May has continued to say in interviews that final agreement with the EU will require concessions from both sides. But what has May left to concede?

  • More pushback on the Linux SJW-inspired CoC change. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
  • Saudi solar project flops. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 96 sheriffs endorse Ted Cruz.
  • Austin government needs an independent audit. Naturally the the city power structure is opposed…
  • “Kamala Harris: ‘We Would Apply The Same Fair Standards To Any SCOTUS Nominee Whose Life We Were Trying To Destroy.'”
  • A typeface to help retain memory? There’s just one tiny problem…

  • First edition of The Wealth of Nations to be auctioned.
  • “Bottle of whisky sold for world record £848,000.”
  • “Swedish road covered in herring after elk accident.”
  • Happy birthday, Wallace Stevens.

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    Iran Tugs On Superman’s Cape

    October 4th, 2018

    Did you notice that Iran threatened to attack U.S. military bases?

    Iran has issued a number of threats on Friday following official charges made by leaders in Tehran that Saudi Arabia and the UAE funded a terrorist attack on a military parade in a southwest district last Saturday which killed 25 people, including members of the elite Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

    Iranian military officials declared “red lines” against the two Gulf countries, threatening war, while in a separate statement a senior cleric said US regional bases will not be safe if “America does anything wrong”.

    “If America does anything wrong, their bases around Iran would not remain secure,” Ayatollah Mohammadali Movahedi Kermani was quoted as saying by Mizan news agency while leading Friday prayers in Tehran.

    And simultaneously the Fars news agency quoted Brigadier General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the IRGC, as saying in reference to the Saudis and Emirates: “If you cross our red lines, we will surely cross yours. You know the storm the Iranian nation can create.”

    I would just like to point out to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran that, historically, attacking American military installations has not been a source of continued happiness for the attackers.

    It doesn’t help Iran that their economy is on the verge of collapse:

    Many economics experts believe that Iran is entrenched in a financial death spiral. Officials within the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) claim that the gravity of economic crisis in Iran is overstated. Furthermore, Islamist regime-sponsored lobby factions in the United States (US), such as the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), argue that fiscal predicaments that the country is facing are consequences of malign US policies toward the Iranian regime, including the enforcement of crippling economic sanctions. The truth is, precarious economic circumstances in Iran have been primarily – if not exclusively – triggered by a plethora of iniquitous economic policies adopted by the regime…

    The conversion rate of Iranian Rial (IRR) to foreign currencies is one of the most important tools by which the country’s economic well-being can be gauged. IRR has lost its value by nearly 70% since April 2018, a month before US President Donald J. Trump reimposed sanctions on the Iranian regime over its rogue nuclear activities.

    Continued protests in Iran include a truckers strike. “Hundreds of gas stations and many factories throughout the country are closed as gas and materials for production have no longer been transported by the truckers.”

    The United States has also withdrawn from a 1955 treaty with Iran normalizing relations. Which is only proper, since there’s nothing “proper” about the mullahs’ regime.

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    Trump, Cruz, Pentagon Attacked by Chemical Warfare

    October 3rd, 2018

    “Two people were hospitalized after being exposed to a “white powdery substance” that was addressed to Sen. Ted Cruz’s Houston campaign office, according to the Houston Police Department.”

    Fortunately, “Tests later determined that the substance was negative for any hazardous substance, the Houston Fire Department said.”

    That was not the case of two suspicious envelopes sent to the Pentagon, which tested positive for ricin.

    Neither got close to their targets, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Navy head Admiral John Richardson.

    A third package was sent to President Donald Trump, but intercepted by the Secret Service. I think the official Secret Service policy frowns on assassination attempts against the President of the United States of America.

    Remember: The previous perpetrators of ricin and anthrax letter attacks were never caught.

    And now for an interlude from the Dead Kennedys:

    Update: The FBI has made an arrest:

    The FBI has arrested a former Navy sailor after a ricin scare when letters laced with a mysterious substance were sent to the Pentagon and other key locations around the nation’s capital Tuesday.

    William Clyde Allen of Logan, Utah, is in custody under federal prosecutors’ authorization, ABC News reported Wednesday. A complaint against Allen could be filed in federal court as early as Friday, officials told ABC News.

    The letters were addressed to President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson and GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s Houston campaign office. The substance on the letters was determined to be castor seeds, from which the toxic protein ricin is made, reported ABC News.

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    Posted in Crime, video | No Comments »

    [INSERT SNAPPY TITLE TO SOMEHOW ACTUALLY MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO READ ABOUT A TRADE PACT HERE]

    October 2nd, 2018

    Late Sunday, President Donald Trump announced that the Canadian government had given in and was joining the United States and Mexico in a revision of the NAFTA trade agreement, one of Trump’s key 2016 campaign promises.

    Here are some highlights of the agreement:

    1. Canada agreed to ease protections on its dairy market, among them, it will now provide US access to about 3.5% of the market (Canada is likely to compensate dairy farmers);
    2. The US relented on its demand to eliminate the dispute settlement system on Chapter 19, a big win for Canada;
    3. Canada agreed to the terms of the US-Mexico deal, among them a de minimis of US$100 (the amount of imports without duties, which in NAFTA is US$20), stricter rules of origin for autos, a 10 year sunset clause with a 6 year revision and an update on several topics from labor to commerce to intellectual property; and
    4. The US and Canada reached an agreement to protect Canada’s autos from high auto tariffs if the US imposes them under law 232 with a quota of 2.6 million vehicles exported. The latter is similar to the “side-letter” that Mexico agreed with the US that protects 2.4 million vehicles. So far there are no exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs.

    Here’s the text of the deal itself.

    What strikes me is that the most contentious ongoing U.S. Canada trade dispute issue, softwood lumber, does not seem to have been addressed. (I say “seem” because a search of the document on the ustr.gov site just brought up an error.)

    The Last Refuge was quite happy about the pact:

    I’m still going through the USMCA text (even speed reading, it will likely take a while); here’s the link to the AGREEMENT DETAILS. However, many people have asked about how the NAFTA loophole was being closed.

    Well, the answer is exactly what it had to be – there was really no option. The U.S. now has veto authority over any trade deal made by Canada and/or Mexico with third parties. This is what Ambassador Lighthizer described as the “Third pillar”.

    Last year, despite the inevitability of it, we didn’t think Canada and Mexico would agree to it. The NAFTA loophole was/is a zero-sum issue: Either Can/Mex agree to give veto authority to the U.S. –OR– President Trump had no option to exit NAFTA completely.

    Well, Canada and Mexico have agreed to the former, so there’s no need for the latter.

    Then they print the text of Article 32.10.

    Both Canada and Mexico structured key parts of their independent trade agreements to take advantage of their unique access to the U.S. market. Mexico and Canada generate billions in economic activity through exploiting the NAFTA loophole. China, Asia (writ large), and the EU enter into trade agreements with Mexico and Canada as back-doors into the U.S. market. So long as corporations can avoid U.S. tariffs by going through Canada and Mexico they would continue to exploit this approach.

    By shipping parts to Mexico and/or Canada; and by deploying satellite manufacturing and assembly facilities in Canada and/or Mexico; China, Asia and to a lesser extent EU corporations exploited a loophole. Through a process of building, assembling or manufacturing their products in Mexico/Canada those foreign corporations can skirt U.S. trade tariffs and direct U.S. trade agreements. The finished foreign products entered the U.S. under NAFTA rules.

    Why deal with the U.S. when you can just deal with Mexico, and use NAFTA rules to ship your product directly into the U.S. market?

    This exploitative approach, a backdoor to the U.S. market, was the primary reason for massive foreign investment in Canada and Mexico; it was also the primary reason why candidate Donald Trump, now President Donald Trump, wanted to shut down that loophole and renegotiate NAFTA.

    This loophole was the primary reason for U.S. manufacturers to relocate operations to Mexico. Corporations within the U.S. Auto-Sector could enhance profits by building in Mexico or Canada using parts imported from Asia/China. The labor factor was not as big a part of the overall cost consideration as cheaper parts and imported raw materials.

    If the U.S. applies the same tariffs to Canada and Mexico we apply to all trade nations, then the benefit of using Canada and Mexico -by those trade nations- is lost. Corporations will no longer have any advantage, and many are likely to just deal directly with the U.S. This is the reason for retaining the Steel and Aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico.

    I reached out to Vance Ginn of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who is much more of a fan of the original NAFTA than President Trump, and asked him a few questions about the new agreement:

    1. How big a win for President Trump is this, if it is indeed a win?

    I’m cautiously optimistic about the USMCA because even though certain industries, like producers of autos and dairy products, will likely benefit, the provisions related to the auto sector will cost Americans more for autos along with potentially reducing profitability of the auto sector as higher priced cars reduce the number consumed. People prosper from trade so the focus should be on reducing trade barriers, which the USMCA may have done but we won’t know until all details are available. Based on what we do know, it appears that there is reason to believe the original NAFTA should have remained intact.

    2. What do you see as the most important provision for increasing free trade?

    Most important is that there aren’t many changes to the original, beneficial NAFTA. However, the USMCA provision to ban tariffs on digital trade appears to be the most important. In addition, removing trade uncertainty is a big plus, though there is now a 60 day waiting period before it can be voted on by Congress.

    3. The summaries I’ve seen don’t cover the longest-running and thorniest US/Canadian trade dispute, namely softwood lumber subsidies and tariffs. What, if anything, does the agreement do to address that dispute?

    I haven’t seen anything. Mostly covers the trade dispute of dairy products. One of the things to look for when the details are revealed.

    4. How applicable will the 2018 NAFTA precedent be for President Trump’s other trade disputes?

    The USMCA could provide a framework to get marginal gains while protecting specific sectors, like manufacturing, comes at a cost. The takeaway shouldn’t be that tariffs are a good bargaining chip because taxes aren’t a reasonable tool to use for that purpose. Taxes should be used to only collect revenue to fund limited government spending. Instead of looking at trade deficits and fair trade rhetoric, there should be a focus on making the U.S. and states as competitive as possible in the global market by instituting sound policies while working to eliminate barriers to trade.

    My own impression is that President Trump scored a solid single here thanks to his unorthodox negotiating style, and probably increased his trade negotiating leverage somewhat with other countries.

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    Posted in Economics | 2 Comments »

    Kavanaugh Kavanaugh Kavanaugh Kavanaugh

    October 1st, 2018

    So the already prolonged Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings are going to drag out through Friday thanks to Republican Senator Jeff Flake demanding it.

    I have two competing theories for the reason behind the delay:

    1. We’ve all died and gone to Hell, and for our sins we’re required to witness the ever-more-rage-inducing hearings FOR ALL ETERNITY!
    2. Sen. Majority leader Mitch McConnell realizes that every week the senate has to stay in session is a week vulnerable Democrats can’t concentrate on fundraising and campaigning back home.

    So this week, like last week, is going to sound an awful lot like the “Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich” scene of Being John Malkovich, only with “Kavanaugh” instead of “Malkovich.”

    Some links:

  • Andrew Sullivan weighed in on the unfairness of the whole thing:

    At first, I was shocked by what seemed to me to be his shouting and belligerence. But then he drew me in. Of course he was angry. Wouldn’t you be if you were innocent or had no idea where this allegation suddenly came from? He wasn’t being accused of sexual harassment, or sexual abuse as an adult in a way he could have refuted or challenged. His long-lost teenage years as a hard-drinking jock were now under the microscope. Even his yearbook was being dissected. Stupid cruelties and brags from teenage boys were now being used to define his character, dismiss his record as a judge, his sterling references, his respected scholarship, his devoted family, his relationship with women in every capacity. He had to fend off new accusations, ever more grave and ever more vague.

    And there were times, it seems to me, that he simply couldn’t win. If he hadn’t hired and mentored many women, it would be proof he was a misogynist and rapist. But the fact that he did hire and mentor many of them was also proof he was a misogynist and a rapist, who only picked the pretty ones. If he hadn’t shown anger, he would have been obviously inhuman. When he did express rage … well, that was a disqualifying temperament for a judge. It didn’t help that the Democrats made no pretense of having an open mind, or that any glimpse at mainstream media — let alone media Twitter — revealed that it had already picked a side. This was, for the major papers, especially the New York Times, a righteous battle against another white straight male, and the smug, snarky virtue-signaling on Twitter was in overdrive. Even Kavanaugh’s choking-up was mocked — just another contemptible “bro-crier.”

    And so when Lindsey Graham suddenly unloaded on the Democrats, I felt a wave of euphoria. “Yes,” I said to myself. “Go get ’em, Butters!” When Senator Blumenthal got all self-righteous about a single lie destroying someone’s credibility, I actually LOL-ed. Then I remembered all those op-eds and essays that decided to judge one moment in one man’s teens as somehow deeply revealing about … white privilege, toxic masculinity, white supremacy, toxic homosociality, bro culture, alcoholism, patriarchy … you name it, Kavanaugh was suddenly its foul epitome. He was an instant symbol of all the groups of people the left now hates, by virtue of their race or gender or orientation. And maybe he is. But did any of that necessarily make him guilty of anything, except by association?

    Snip.

    To the extent that the hearing went beyond the specifics of Ford’s allegations and sought to humiliate and discredit Kavanaugh for who he was as a teenager nearly four decades ago (a dynamic that was quite pronounced in some Democratic questioning of the nominee), it was deeply concerning. When public life means the ransacking of people’s private lives even when they were in high school, we are circling a deeply illiberal drain. A civilized society observes a distinction between public and private, and this distinction is integral to individual freedom. Such a distinction was anathema in old-school monarchies when the king could arbitrarily arrest, jail, or execute you at will, for private behavior or thoughts. These lines are also blurred in authoritarian regimes, where the power of the government knows few limits in monitoring a person’s home or private affairs or correspondence or tax returns or texts. These boundaries definitionally can’t exist in theocracies, where the state is interested as much in punishing and exposing sin, as in preventing crime. The Iranian and Saudi governments — like the early modern monarchies — seek not only to control your body, but also to look into your soul. They know that everyone has a dark side, and this dark side can be exposed in order to destroy people. All you need is an accusation.

    The Founders were obsessed with this. They realized how precious privacy is, how it protects you not just from the government but from your neighbors and your peers. They carved out a private space that was sacrosanct and a public space which insisted on a strict presumption of innocence, until a speedy and fair trial. Whether you were a good husband or son or wife or daughter, whether you had a temper, or could be cruel, or had various sexual fantasies, whether you were a believer, or a sinner: this kind of thing was rendered off-limits in the public world. The family, the home, and the bedroom were, yes, safe places. If everything were fair game in public life, the logic ran, none of us would survive.

    And it is the distinguishing mark of specifically totalitarian societies that this safety is eradicated altogether by design. There, the private is always emphatically public, everything is political, and ideology trumps love, family, friendship or any refuge from the glare of the party and its public. Spies are everywhere, monitoring the slightest of offenses. Friends betray you, as do lovers. Family members denounce their own mothers and fathers and siblings and sons and daughters. The cause, which is usually a permanently revolutionary one, always matters more than any individual’s possible innocence. You are, in fact, always guilty before being proven innocent. You always have to prove a negative. And no offense at any point in your life is ever forgotten or off the table.

    Naturally, the mob made him issue a partial mea culpa for daring to say rational things about their designated hate object…

  • “When Brett Kavanaugh admitted that he’d been a virgin in high school and the mob took it as corroboration that he was a rape-gang impresario, that’s when I knew we were looking at the madness of crowds.”
  • Step 1: Determine if something is true. Democrats just aren’t interested in that.
  • The Democratic Media Complex is going after Kavanaugh’s kids.
  • This American Thinker piece contends the Kavanaugh fight isn’t over Roe vs. Wade, it’s over the future of gun control.
  • “This may be a watershed moment in Identity Politics.”

    This was a great example of how identity has been weaponized for political gain. Don’t think this is the end of Identity Politics, though. The Democrats need identity to survive. Mao’s Cultural Revolution relied on hearsay and Identity, and was implemented shortly after the Great Leap Forward had failed to propel the nation forward economically. The Democrats are failing massively. They are launching their own Cultural Revolution. I’ve warned friends of mine who are sympathetic to the ’cause’ to be careful. Movements like this eat their young.

    • Last week was a crazy, stupid week in politics. Chance are, this week will be even crazier and stupider…

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    Posted in Democrats, Media Watch, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court | No Comments »

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