Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Quick Hits: CLXXXV

- I used to believe there was nary a more smug, self-congratulatory industry then Hollywood, specifically when it comes to its award shows.

Ah, but these days the leftist media is rivaling such swooning.




So in their minds, the Cronkite folks believe "advancing a national conversation" includes:

*A sitting sheriff overlooking his department's failures to intervene in a spree killing in an effort to throw the National Rifle Association under the bus.

*NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch being the target of threats and invective from the town hall audience.

*A high school student indicating he could hardly look at Sen. Marco Rubio because Rubio's pro second amendment stance causes the student to picture a mass murderer.


Again, I can't emphasize enough how much I disagree with President Donald Trump constantly referring to certain media outlets as the "enemy of the people." However, given the woeful lack of self-policing when it comes to shameful demagoguery like at the Parkland Town Hall, it's becoming a greater challenge to convey a rational defense of today's media elites.


- On Tuesday, Gov. Tim Walz displayed a kind of petulance that would have made his predecessor proud.

(T)he Democratic governor gazed into a giant pothole on Highway 47 in Anoka – a construction flagger held up traffic so he could do it – and said the real problem on that road was one of Minnesota’s most dangerous railroad crossings.

Local officials said regular backups at the crossing cause car crashes, including a fatal one in 2003. It’s not clear why a proposed overpass has languished without funding for decades, but Walz said a gas tax increase would allow the state to finally do the job.

“I have brought it out here, out under the dome of the Capitol, because I am done trying to watch somebody jam an ideological peg into what is truly a practical situation that needs to be solved,” Walz said during a news conference in Anoka.

Hey, you know what else is a practical solution? Easing up the congestion of oil tankers on those tracks. And exactly how would one accomplish that? Oh, I don't know, maybe allowing construction of underground pipelines in order to transfer oil safer and more efficiently. Hmmm. I wonder what's inhibiting such activity to commence. 


- One of the more pervasive chanting points coming from "Never Trump" Republicans these days is how President Trump's "bull in a china shop" approach to his administration is a "destruction of norms." As such, the Tom Nichols, Bill Kristols and Charlie Sykes of the world vow to not cast another vote for a GOP candidate until the party rids itself of Trump. Nichols even goes so far as to say he will faithfully vote Democrat to ensure the GOP's thorough destruction. Only then, he contends, can the party be put back together.

The problem with that theory is there would likely be a point of no return if indeed today's Dems are ever able to obtain the absolute power they desire.

Even putting aside the radical policies they are proposing, Democrats want to make structural changes to the American system of government to benefit their own political agenda.

Just this week, leading 2020 Democratic candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachussetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, and Kamala Harris of California said they would be open to expanding the Supreme Court so they can pack it with liberal judges. Asked about this idea, their rival Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was open to exploring all options for changing the Supreme Court, including imposing term limits.

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who has been generating a lot of attention for his longshot presidential bid, has touted a plan to expand the Supreme Court to 15, with five Republican appointees, five Democratic appointees, and the remaining five to be appointed by a unanimous vote of the 10 judges — an idea also floated by former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas.

Liberal activist and former Hillary Clinton aide Brian Fallon tweeted, "There is no longer any debate about whether Democrats must reform the Supreme Court. The only discussion is about the how. Term limits are a good step but we also must expand the Court's size."

There were two ways that Democrats could have reacted to Trump.

One would have been to campaign on restoring norms, strengthening institutions, and returning to a more stable form of politics. The other was to use Trumpism as an excuse to embrace radicalism and tear down the institutions that they don't like. It's becoming increasingly clear in which direction they're heading.

Yep. Leftists decrying the "separation of children from their families at the Mexican border" rings hollow when abortion up to nine months is becoming a mainstream Dem position. Accusing Trump of embracing white supremacist viewpoints is stunningly hypocritical when anti-Semitism within Democrat ranks is not punished in any meaningful way.

I can certainly understand people on the political right being hesitant to vote for Trump's reelection. However, it requires quite the mental gymnastics to vote for today's Democrats.

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