Today's Squirrel-Hair-is-a-catastrophe-in-the-making must-read

Angelo Codevilla's piece at The Federalist. I'd been catching excerpts from it elsewhere all day, and just read it in its entirety.

It's so true. The plain fact of the matter is that real rule of law and fealty to the Constitution has been in the process of erosion for decades. It has resulted in the kind of rule by fiat that the Most Equal Comrade has been imposing since 2009. It happened because

[d]uring the twentieth century’s second half, both parties and all branches of government made a mockery of the Constitution of 1789. Today’s effective constitution is: “The president can do whatever he wants so long as one-third of the Senate will sustain his vetoes and prevent his conviction upon impeachment.”

And there's much truth to the notion that a very wide swath of post-America has had it with the snobbery involved in the mentality that says that only those of a certain pedigree are fit to draw conclusions about what post-America is about and where it goes from the present moment.

As I have shown at length elsewhere, America is now ruled by a uniformly educated class of persons that occupies the commanding heights of bureaucracy, of the judiciary, education, the media, and of large corporations, and that wields political power through the Democratic Party. Its control of access to prestige, power, privilege, and wealth exerts a gravitational pull that has made the Republican Party’s elites into its satellites.
This class’s fatal feature is its belief that ordinary Americans are a lesser intellectual and social breed. Its increasing self-absorption, its growing contempt for whoever won’t bow to it, its dependence for votes on sectors of society whose grievances it stokes, have led it to break the most basic rule of republican life: deeming its opposition illegitimate. The ruling class insists on driving down the throats of its opponents the agendas of each its constituencies and on injuring persons who stand in the way. This has spawned a Newtonian reaction, a hunger, among what may be called the “country class” for returning the favor with interest.

Okay, I'm nearly done excerpting from this please-read-it-all essay. I'll just leave you with the concluding paragraph. It's not too much of a spoiler, I don't think, because you can probably see where he was going.

Neither Obama nor Trump seem to know or care that cycles of reciprocal resentment, of insults and injuries paid back with ever more interest and ever less concern for consequences, are the natural fuel of revolutions—easy to start and soon impossible to stop. America’s founders, steeped in history as few of our contemporaries are, were acutely aware of how easily factional enmities deliver free peoples into the hands of emperors. America is already advanced in this vicious cycle. The only possible chance of returning it to republicanism lies in not taking the next turn, and in not following one imperial ruler with another.

What do you think? Shall we try to save post-America from this?

LITD likes Ben Sasse a lot

Herewith excerpts from a Facebook post about Squirrel-Hair:

To my friends supporting Donald Trump:

The Trump coalition is broad and complicated, but I believe many Trump fans are well-meaning. I have spoken at length with many of you, both inside and outside Nebraska. You are rightly worried about our national direction. You ache about a crony-capitalist leadership class that is not urgent about tackling our crises. You are right to be angry.

I’m as frustrated and saddened as you are about what’s happening to our country. But I cannot support Donald Trump. 

Please understand: I’m not an establishment Republican, and I will never support Hillary Clinton. I’m a movement conservative who was elected over the objections of the GOP establishment. My current answer for who I would support in a hypothetical matchup between Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton is: Neither of them. I sincerely hope we select one of the other GOP candidates, but if Donald Trump ends up as the GOP nominee, conservatives will need to find a third option.

Mr. Trump’s relentless focus is on dividing Americans, and on tearing down rather than building back up this glorious nation. Much like President Obama, he displays essentially no understanding of the fact that, in the American system, we have a constitutional system of checks and balances, with three separate but co-equal branches of government. And the task of public officials is to be public “servants.” The law is king, and the people are boss. But have you noticed how Mr. Trump uses the word “Reign” – like he thinks he’s running for King? It’s creepy, actually. Nebraskans are not looking for a king. We yearn instead for the recovery of a Constitutional Republic.

 He juxtaposes the greatness of this nation with the meanness, vindictiveness and admiration for raw power one finds in Squirrel-Hair:

THE MEANING OF AMERICA

America is the most exceptional nation in the history of the world because our Constitution is the best political document that’s ever been written. It said something different than almost any other government had said before: Most governments before said that might makes right, that government decides what our rights are and that the people are just dependent subjects. Our Founders said that God gives us rights by nature, and that government is not the author or source of our rights. Government is just our shared project to secure those rights.

Government exists only because the world is fallen, and some people want to take your property, your liberty, and your life. Government is tasked with securing a framework for ordered liberty where “we the people” can in our communities voluntarily build something great together for our kids and grandkids. That’s America. Freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech – the First Amendment is the heartbeat of the American Constitution, of the American idea itself.

WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO MR. TRUMP?

So let me ask you: Do you believe the beating heart of Mr. Trump’s candidacy has been a defense of the Constitution? Do you believe it’s been an impassioned defense of the First Amendment – or an attack on it?

Which of the following quotes give you great comfort that he’s in love with the First Amendment, that he is committed to defending the Constitution, that he believes in executive restraint, that he understands servant leadership?

Statements from Trump:
***“We’re going to open up libel laws and we’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before.”
***“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak…”
***Putin, who has killed journalists and is pillaging Ukraine, is a great leader.
***The editor of National Review “should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him.”
***On whether he will use executive orders to end-run Congress, as President Obama has illegally done: "I won't refuse it. I'm going to do a lot of things." “I mean, he’s led the way, to be honest with you.”
***“Sixty-eight percent would not leave under any circumstance. I think that means murder. It think it means anything.”
***On the internet: “I would certainly be open to closing areas” of it.
***His lawyers to people selling anti-Trump t-shirts: “Mr. Trump considers this to be a very serious matter and has authorized our legal team to take all necessary and appropriate actions to bring an immediate halt...”
***Similar threatening legal letters to competing campaigns running ads about his record.

And on it goes…

Super Tuesday voters: reject this charlatan. Send a message that a critical mass of post-Americans can still distinguish between virtue and spiritual darkness.

H/T: Jazz Shaw at Hot Air.

Well, looky here!

Some cracks are appearing in the climate-change monolith:

The “Pause” in global warming is real – not an urban myth concocted by evil ‘deniers’ – a study has found, signalling the development of a major schism within the climate alarmist camp.

“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims,” the paper in Nature Climate Change says.

Though the paper’s findings are not controversial – few serious scientists dispute the evidence of the temperature datasets showing that there has been little if any global warming for nearly 19 years – they represent a tremendous blow to the climate alarmist “consensus”, which has long sought to deny the “Pause’s” existence.

First, the study was published in Nature Climate Change a fervently alarmist journal which rarely if ever runs papers that cast doubt on the man-made-global-warming scare narrative.

Secondly, it directly contradicts a widely-reported study produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) last year which attempted to deny the existence of the “Pause” (also known as the “hiatus”). This NOAA study was widely mocked, quickly debunked and is now the subject of a Congressional investigation by 

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

60%

. What’s novel about this new study in Nature Climate Change, though, is that it’s not skeptics and Republicans doing the mocking and the debunking: it’s the kind of people who in the past were very much in the alarmist camp, including – bizarrely – none other than Michael “Hockey Stick” Mann, who co-authored the paper.

What we have here, in other words, is signs of a major rift within the climate alarmist camp with different factions adopting different tactics to cope with the failure of their collapsing narrative.

On one side are people like Thomas Karl and Thomas Petersen, the hapless NOAA scientists given the unenviable task of producing that risible paper last year which did its best to deny that the Pause was a thing.

On the other are what might be called the “rats deserting the sinking ship” faction who have produced this new paper for Nature Climate Change, in which finally they concede what skeptics have been saying for many years: that there has been no “global warming” since 1998.

This divergence in the alarmist camp is now going to create a dilemma for all those liberal media outlets – from the BBC to the Guardian to the LA Times – which reported on NOAA’s “death of the pause” study as if it were a reliable and credible thing.

I knew that someday the lack of credibility would overwhelm the narrative.

Get your kids out of government schools - today's edition

It's come to this:

A police officer father in the United States has taken to social media to complain about a piece of artwork displayed at his daughter’s school.

Kentucky cop Dave Hamblin is outraged by the painting which depicts two black people with a gun pointed at their head.

On one half of the painting, under the title “1930″, a Ku Klux Klan member is pointing the gun.

On the other half, titled “2015″, a white police officer is shown pointing the gun at what looks like a African American child.

The painting was from a school project  inspired by racial violence depicted in Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird. 

Police officer Dave Hamblin, who goes by the name Dave Kingmen on Facebook, says the picture is upsetting and creates “future cop haters”.

“We speak of tolerance, we speak of changing hostile environments, we speak of prejudice, and we speak of racial relations, yet, when it comes to hostility toward police, their families, and profiling them through bigotry we are expected to tolerate it,” “Kingmen” wrote.. “I will not, nor will my child.”

The cop has asked for the picture to be removed but the school has seemingly turned down his request.

“When discussing social injustice, people will likely be offended by some topic,” said  Tracy Green, a school spokesperson. 

“The drawing is a student’s artistic representation based on the lens through which the student viewed that issue and the student has a First Amendment right to share that opinion.”

This Tracy Green person has a steaming chunk of dog vomit where decent people have souls.

Staring directly into a nightmare scenario

Remember last spring, how we all talked about what a deep bench full of principled conservatives we had, how the debates and primaries were going to be full of lively exchanges of ideas and policy proposals and thoughtful observations of where America is at this moment?

And then Squirrel-Hair happened.

And he keeps happening. Some brave folks are trying whatever measures are available to prevent what is increasingly looking inevitable.

Such as an independent candidate:

Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to research the feasibility of mounting a late, independent run for president amid growing fears that Donald Trump could win the Republican nomination.

A memo prepared for the group zeroes in on ballot access as a looming obstacle for any independent candidate, along with actually identifying a viable, widely known contender and coalescing financial support for that person. The two states with the earliest deadlines for independent candidates, Texas and North Carolina, also have some of the highest hurdles for independents to get on the ballot, according to the research.

“All this research has to happen before March 16, when inevitably Trump is the nominee, so that we have a plan in place," a source familiar with the discussions said. March 16 is the day after the GOP primary in Florida, a winner-take-all contest that Marco Rubio supporters have identified as a must-win to stop Trump's early momentum.

“It’s critical some serious attention is given to this,” the source said.

The document, stamped “confidential,” was authored by staff at Data Targeting, a Republican firm based in Gainesville, Fla. The memo notes that “it is possible to mount an independent candidacy but [it] will require immediate action on the part of this core of key funding and strategic players.”

Guy Benson at Townhall proposes a Rubio - Kasich ticket.  I don't much cotton to the idea. Kasich is ate up with Reasonable Gentleman Syndrome, as I discussed in a post yesterday. Actually, Benson has big problems with it, but puts it out there because it's  . . . well, very late in the day.

This may feel like a Hail Mary...because it is one. I take this position not out of strong conviction, but out of transparent desperation. But it's well-foundeddesperation, borne of a gnawing fear about what is about to befall the conservative movement at such a consequential juncture in our history. I urge you to read Douthat's piece on the Kasich-for-VP gambit, which is characteristically compelling. Do I have serious issues with Kasich, especially on Medicaid expansion? You bet. Do they pale in comparison to my concerns about Trump's healthcare vision (if you can even call it that)? They do. Kasich would bring several things to the table that would complement Rubio nicely, including significant executive experience, seasoning, and rust belt appeal. I don't care who you are, or how weak your opponent was: Winning re-election in America's preeminent swing state with a whopping 64 percent of the statewide vote is nothing to sneeze at.  Plus, there are worse ideas than a ticket featuring a Floridian and an Ohioan.  Just look at Kasich's eye-popping favorability numbers in the crucial battleground state he leads. Of course there are risks associated with naming a running mate at this early stage in the process (Kasich can be a loose cannon and has shown little inclination to play ball -- and could rebuff a Rubio trial balloon, or even use it to embarrass Rubio), but these uniquely desperate times call for an uncomfortably accelerated and precarious timeline. Then again, might these bizarre commentssignal that he's open to a running mate overture?  Is he angling for a spot on Trump's ticket?

Which brings us to the Cruz portion of this complicated equation.  Cruz's struggles in South Carolina and Nevada, especially among evangelicals, are blinking neon warning signs that his victory scenario isn't tracking towards success. Read this excellent and sobering piece by Dan McLaughlin spelling out in excruciating detail why, barring a miraculous, sweeping set of triumphs next Tuesday, the Cruz campaign will be over, for all intents and purposes.  That's particularly true if new polling and whispers about a virtual tie in the Lonestar State (whose Republican delegates are proportionally allocated) are confirmed. For the record, I believe Cruz will win his home state on Tuesday. Put bluntly, both Cruz and Rubio now have treacherously narrow paths to the nomination.  Rubio's is wider (but could also collapse on March 15), due almost entirely to the data breadcrumbs we've seen thus far, as well as the nature of the calendar ahead.  Indeed, several reports suggest that a number of Cruz loyalists are beginning to waver, and are at least encouraging the hard-charging Senator to lay off of Rubio.  Promisingly, thisa serious rhetorical adjustment.  A thaw, perhaps?

Enter the "Justice Cruz" option. In the event that Rubio is nominated and wins the general election -- likely meaning that Republicans would have retained their Senate majority -- he would nominate his erstwhile rival to replace the great Antonin Scalia on the High Court. This is not pure fantasy; Cruz is eminently qualified for such a position. He's a brilliant constitutional scholar who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he served as primary editor of the extremely prestigious Harvard Law Review. He clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, served as Texas' Solicitor General, and has argued nine cases before SCOTUS. Given his youth, a Justice Cruz would shape American jurisprudence for decades, penning opinions and dissents that would reverberate for generations. But would the Senate confirm him? A few points: (1) Congress' upper chamber has a long bipartisan history of confirming its own to executive appointments.  Fifteen US Senators have served on the Supreme Court, six of whom were sitting members when they were nominated.  (2) Senate Democrats have already blown up the judicial filibuster for lower court appointments, and are discussing doing the same for Supreme Court nominees if they regain a majority in 2017. Republicans would be well within their rights to trigger this option to confirm Cruz.  (3) As he'll eagerly tell you, Cruz is reviled in the Senate, including among many members of his own caucus. "Exiling" him from the political realm may be a dream come true for some of his Senate colleagues, with the added bonus of banishing him to a post where popularity doesn't matter at all, and where constitutional originalism is of the utmost importance. When I floated this idea on social media a few nights ago, some Cruz fans objected, arguing that Cruz is so hated by his colleagues that they'd reject him out of spite. I don't share that opinion, but let's grant it for the sake of argument. If that's the case, what does that say about his prospects to win the presidency, let alone govern?  In short, Court seems like the ideal spot for man of Cruz's background, intellect and passions. He would be far more valuable to the constitutionalist cause ensconced in the judicial branch.

So there you have it: A barely-plausible desperation heave toward the endzone with Team Trump playing prevent defense (which, for him, includes taking lots of potshots). President Rubio, Vice President Kasich, and Justice Cruz -- with a primetime convention speech from Dr. Ben Carson, detailing his remarkable life story and path to improbable achievement. That's not how many people would have drawn things up at the onset of this cycle, but here we are. 

I seriously never thought I'd live to see a scenario this ugly and insane.

It's the final product of the dumbing-down process, but a particularly sinister aspect of it all is how it's been aided and abetted by well-read, well-connected, erudite people who have stoked the populism-and-nationalism narrative for all its' worth. How do they sleep at night?

We'll be naming names here at LITD. And pointing out the basic truth tirelessly: Donald Trump is a bad person. Not just a faulty candidate. A bad person to his core.

This ain't no just-because music; this is essential listening

This

Friday roundup

A few minutes ago, I posted on Facebook: "There are only three candidates for president left who aren't an embarrassment to the country, and only two of them have a sliver of hope of getting their party's nomination. Its been a little dismaying to have to field the question, "Which three?"

I'll tell you that my list of three does not include John Kasich, who becomes more of an embarrassment by the day. We knew about his expansion of Medicaid, his justification for it in the form of what he'd get asked about at the pearly gates, and his support for illegal-alien amnesty. Now, he offers as a response to a question about the government forcing Christian providers of wedding services to accept homosexual customers: "Bake a cupcake and move on."

And Chris Christie is dead to me.

And speaking of really stupid responses to questions, check out how Secretary Global-Test answered a question at a Senate subcommittee hearing yesterday:

Appearing before the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Kerry made the statement while testifying about the State Department’s budget request for the fiscal year 2017.

During the hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) asked Kerry for his thoughts on Ibrahim al Qosi, the former Guantanamo detainee who is now a prominent al Qaeda leader, and had staffers hold up a picture of the terrorist for Kerry to see.

“Let me just ask one question,” Kirk said to Kerry. “I want to show you a picture of Ibrahim al Qosi, who was recently released by the administration to the Sudanese, and he appeared on some al Qaeda videos recruiting people for AQAP [al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula].”

Kirk went on to say, “Now that he’s out, I would hope we would end the policy of issuing terrorists to terrorist nations, and where they can get out.”

Sudan, where al Qosi was released, has a long history of terrorist activity with Sunni jihadist groups and individuals like al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden as well as with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Sudanese government has also been internationally accused of committing genocide in Darfur.

Kerry paused for a moment before saying to Kirk, “Well, Senator, he’s not supposed to be doing that. And there are consequences for that, and there will be. But apart from that, the fact is that we’ve got people who’ve been held without charges for 13 years, 14 years in some cases. That’s not American, that’s not how we operate.”

Charles C. W. Cooke at NRO's Corner says we must not accept the too-little-too-late narrative one sees in various places today with regard to how Ted and Marco delivered solid blows agains Squirrel-Hair last night.

A tried and true jihad brand is still very much with us:

n 2016 . . . a resurgent al Qaeda is emerging from the shadows. While ISIS has been soaking up headlines, its older sibling has been launching attacks and grabbing territory too, and U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News they are increasingly concerned the older terror group is poised to build on its achievements. 

"Al Qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains in 2016," James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, warned the House Intelligence Committee Thursday. 

Because of those far-flung affiliates, al Qaeda "remains a serious threat to U.S. interests worldwide," Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress recently.

Charles Krauthammer invites us to take in the sum total of very bad developments occurring on the world stage in this seventh year of the Most Equal Comrade's "foreign policy": the missiles and jets China has installed on that island in the South China Sea, Syria, Ukraine, and Russia's sale of S-300 anti-aircraft batteries to Iran, in blatant violation of UN Security Council prohibitions. and the increasing presence of ISIS in Africa. He could have also mentioned what North Korea has been up to so far this year.

Just because music - this evening's edition

There's so much to parse, study and contemplate about Sam Cooke. There's the six-degrees-of angle, which yields us such sideshoots as Billy Preston, Lou Rawls, Reverend C. L. Franklin, Rev. Franklin's daughter Aretha, Hugo & Luigi and Herb Alpert & Lou Adler. There's the sociocultural angle: look how clean and smooth, impeccably handsome and poised he is. He had a stellar gospel background. By 1963, he had a string of children by various women, some of whom he'd been married to, and some not.

There's the black-American-music angle. He was born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1931, same place and year as Ike Turner. The list of other notables from Clarksdale is long.



There's the moves. The stage presence. The obvious standard he set for connecting with the audience.



And then there's just Sam giving us what he's got. His gifts. That essence that, like any of our unique contributions to this world, can't be duplicated, and so must be appreciated while it's in our midst.







Just

Ben's da man!

Yesterday I posted about California State U - LA barring Ben Shapiro coming to speak as part of the campus's chapter of Young America's Foundation series.The school prez cited the need for a more "inclusive event" if Shapiro were going to be welcome.

That's not enough to deter Ben:

Shapiro and YAF have vowed to take their event to campus anyway, without the permission of the school. “The campus fascists have taken over,” Shapiro told Breitbart News. “I pay taxes in the state of California; I’m paying for these whiny children to be indoctrinated by radical leftists. For CSULA to pretend that they’re trying to provide balance isn’t just stupid, it’s insultingly stupid. I am the balance, and they’re too afraid to let me speak. These aren’t diversity warriors. They’re jackbooted thugs. If they want to call the men with guns to shut down free speech, they’ll demonstrate clearly just who they are. I’ll be there on Thursday. See you there, snowflakes.”

YAF announced in a statement, “In recognition of the school’s dire need for ideological diversity, Young America’s Foundation and CSULA YAF, in cooperation with Ben Shapiro, fully intend to hold the event, which is part of YAF’s Fred R. Allen Lecture Series, without the university’s approval. The Foundation is prepared to take legal action if the school fails to recognize these students’ rights.”

Walkin' the talk.

How things roll in a post-American world

When the world's formerly most righteous and free nation-state, opts out of its leadership role on the world stage, this is what fills the vacuum:

Two days before Christmas, as American policymakers were settling into the holidays, Russia quietly signed a sweeping air defense agreement with Armenia, accelerating a growing Russian military buildup that has unfolded largely under the radar. It was the most tangible sign yet that Putin is creating a new satellite state on NATO’s border and threatening an indispensable U.S. ally.

The buildup in Armenia has been glossed over in Washington, despite being a key piece of Vladimir Putin’s plan to dominate the region — along with its proxy Syria and growing military ties with Iran. Most importantly, Armenia shares an approximately 165 mileborder with Turkey, a NATO member and the alliance’s southern flank. 

Over the last six months — as Russia’s war in Syria and pressure on Turkey has intensified — the flow of its arms and personnel into Armenia has escalated to include advanced Navodchik-2 and Takhion UAV drone aircrafts, Mi-24 helicopter gunships and Iskander-M ballistic missiles. Last July, Putin ordered snap combat readiness checks in Armenia to test the ability of his forces to react to threats to Russia’s interests abroad. Earlier this month on orders of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu, Russia began a massive military exercise in its “southwestern strategic direction,” which includes Armenia. The total strength of the regional operation included approximately 8,500 troops, 900 ground artillery pieces, 200 warplanes and 50 warships.

The growing Russian military presence in Armenia is but the latest indicator of a worrisome trend: Putin’s threat to NATO and America’s interests in Europe. 

And since the Republican party has apparently decided to commit suicide and, as a result, Hillionaire will be the next dictator of post-America, continuing the Most Equal Comrade's agenda of planned decline, there will be no countervailing force.

Everybody's on his own in in the 2010s.

The skies over post-America continue to darken

None of the following is going to brighten your day.

Then again, think about the significance of your day juxtaposed against the fate of Western civilization.

Scott Johnson at Power Line gives us a bracing look into how the next couple of years are likely to unfold:

Putting to one side the merits of what would be an utterly dispiriting contest, does anyone in his right mind seriously think that Donald Trump stands a reasonable chance of beating the Democratic nominee in a general election? I don’t, and I think Trump will take the Republican majorities in Congress down with him, not to mention the Supreme Court, of course. Trump seems to me the worst and most destructive candidate remaining in what has turned into a weak field.

Ben Shapiro at Townhall says that, in the absence of noble, refined, virtuous masculinity, the variety embodied by the likes of Squirrel-Hair fills the vacuum:

This is the natural effect of the unmanning of American politics.

Obama told Americans for years on end that they were racist, sexist, bigoted homophobes who just didn't understand that our brash, confident attitude alienated people all around the world and led to terrorism against us. Hillary Clinton is running for president on the basis of her X chromosomes; America, she says, needs a female president. Bernie Sanders says that our unchecked aggressive instincts have ill-served us; we need a kinder, gentler America.

Meanwhile, the Republicans have self-castrated. Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., spent years telling conservatives that Obama couldn't be stopped, and that attempts to stop him would be uncivil and counterproductive. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner did the same. So, too, has new Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. George W. Bush ran on the basis of "compassionate" conservatism, implying that traditional conservatism was too musky for metrosexual America. Marco Rubio's brand of politics relies on a feelings-first approach; Rubio said last week, "If a significant percentage of the American family believes that they are being treated differently than everyone else, we have a problem. And we have to address it as a society and as a country." This is pure Obama, Republican-style. 

Trump, however, doesn't bother with the niceties. He's a big, swinging set of political testicles. He says, just like a good mafia boss would, that he'll take care of all of your problems.

There is a culprit to be identified in what has happened:

Normally, the masculinity gap in American politics could be filled by an upstanding man -- a man, yes, but one tied to values, a man who uses the aggressive instinct in pursuit of defending the innocent and punishing the guilty. But the feminist movement has made such men obsolete. Men were simply too dangerous; it was safer to emasculate them. Now men are expected to be betas; the only alphas left are toxic alphas willing to break every taboo and violate every standard. 

There's still a space for masculinity in American politics. But thanks to the vacuum of decent men, indecent men rise. Men like Donald Trump. 

And consider that his slavish devotees will eat this kind of rhetoric up:

TRUMP: I’ve met much tougher people than Ted Cruz, he’s like a little baby compared to some of the people I have to deal with. He’s like a little baby. Soft, weak, little baby by comparison. But for lying, he’s the best I’ve ever seen.

And this:

“I’m very proud of this record. Wouldn’t this be good to have for the U.S.? Every person’s that attacked me has gone down.” 

If it's not all over for this grand 240-year experiment, somebody please tell us how.

When they're not spewing identity-politics indoctrination, they're churning out incomprehensible gobbled-gook

It's not every day LITD is going to link to an American Prospect article, but actually it was a bit surprising to see this piece in that venue.

You see, it's by an academic who is pulling back the curtain on the whole self-perpetuating Arcane Paper Industry:

I don’t know if there is a statute of limitations on confessing one’s sins, but it has been six years since I did the deed and I’m now coming clean.

Six years ago I submitted a paper for a panel, “On the Absence of Absences” that was to be part of an academic conference later that year—in August 2010. Then, and now, I had no idea what the phrase “absence of absences” meant. The description provided by the panel organizers, printed below, did not help. The summary, or abstract of the proposed paper—was pure gibberish, as you can see below. I tried, as best I could within the limits of my own vocabulary, to write something that had many big words but which made no sense whatsoever. I not only wanted to see if I could fool the panel organizers and get my paper accepted, I also wanted to pull the curtain on the absurd pretentions of some segments of academic life. To my astonishment, the two panel organizers—both American sociologists—accepted my proposal and invited me to join them at the annual international conference of the Society for Social Studies of Science to be held that year in Tokyo.

I am not the first academic to engage in this kind of hoax. In 1996, in a well-known incident, NYU physicist Alan Sokal pulled the wool over the eyes of the editors of Social Text, a postmodern cultural studies journal. He submitted an article filled with gobbledygook to see if they would, in his words, “publish an article liberally salted with nonsense if it (a) sounded good and (b) flattered the editors' ideological preconceptions.” His article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” (published in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue), shorn of its intentionally outrageous jargon, essentially made the claim that gravity was in the mind of the beholder. Sokal’s intent was not simply to pull a fast-one on the editors, but to challenge the increasingly popular “post-modern” view that there are no real facts, just points-of-view. His paper made the bogus case that gravity, too, was a “social construction.” As soon as it was published, Sokal fessed up in another journal (Lingua Franca, May 1996), revealing that his article was a sham, describing it as “a pastiche of Left-wing cant, fawning references, grandiose quotations, and outright nonsense … structured around the silliest quotations [by postmodernist academics] he could find about mathematics and physics.”

Sokal’s ruse was more ambitious than mine. He wrote an entire article. I simply wrote a 368-word abstract. He submitted his for publication. I just submitted mine to a conference. Although his paper was filled with absurd statements, it actually reached a conclusion—however bogus—that gravity was still an idea open to serious debate. In doing so, Sokal actually had a serious point to make about the silliness of much “post-modern” thinking that viewed science as a version of the humanities where all views should be given equal weight. 

My paper had no point at all. It was filled entirely with non-sequiturs. I didn’t even bother to mention anything about “the absence of absences,” because I had no idea what it meant and would have thus revealed my ignorance of the panel’s organizing theme. 

In writing my abstract for the “Absence of Absences” panel, I violated every rule of good writing to which I usually try to adhere. 

He pulled names out of his wherever in order to include some highfalutin-sounding quotes, one of which he just plain made up. By the way, he misspelled Martin Heidegger's name.

His conclusion makes a point that one can apply to the broadest scope: We are a balkanized society in which self-identifying groups of citizens can't even understand what each other are saying:

I am more than willing to admit that just because I don’t understand something doesn’t mean it isn’t well reasoned or accurate. But the proportion of things published in academic journals has become less and less accessible to anyone who isn’t a specialist in that field. We live in an era of increasing academic specialization. As academia becomes more and more fragmented and balkanized into more narrow niches, an increasing proportion of what academics produce is unnecessarily obscure and obtuse, and, not surprisingly, poorly written. Graduate students read this drivel written by their academic elders, and then seek to emulate it, perpetuating the rule of pompous prose.

In the 39 years since I finished graduate school, specialization has become more and more narrow, so that even people in different subfields of the same discipline—say, Japanese history and colonial American history, or Renaissance literature and Southern poetry—aren’t expected to understand, or at least judge the quality of, others’ work. I realize that all academic disciplines have their own language, concepts, history, disputes, and intellectual paradigms that require a level of specialized knowledge to fully understand. I can read, but I can’t understand, most articles published in physics, zoology, or mathematics journals.  

It's a naked-emperor world.

Another voice from the can't-vote-for-Squirrel-Hair-under-any-circumstances-camp

And perhaps the most cogent I've come across so far. Ross Kaminsky at The American Spectator touches on pretty much all the reasons why I'm inclined that way.

He comes in for a substantial beating in the comment thread, but it's mostly attempts to paint him as being selective in the application of his principles. From what I understand, the case is quite the contrary. To be sure, some folks stick up for him. The term "good guy" is used more than once.

He recounts giving a speech at an event in Colorado recently:

And so, thinking of the one lonely Trump supporter in the room, I offered this: “While I have in the past frequently put principle over electability and voted Libertarian, this year because it’s so important to make sure Hillary Clinton does not become president and because there are several acceptable (even if imperfect) Republican candidates, I will follow William F. Buckley’s rule and vote for the most conservative electable candidate. This means I’ll vote for the Republican nominee… unless the nominee is Donald Trump.”

And around the room, angry eyes threw daggers at me.

When we got to the Q&A, the first question to me was why I would refuse to vote for Trump if that might mean ceding the presidency to Hillary. My answer was, roughly, “He will do more harm to the nation and to the GOP in the long run than Clinton will do. He will destroy what’s left of the Republican brand and he will ensure Democratic control of Congress… which will then destroy the country when Trump loses his re-election bid to a Democrat. Beyond that, he’s not a conservative, he has no principles, and, sticking with the Buckley rule, he’s the Republican least likely to beat Hillary Clinton anyway” — although I realize that last point is more of an argument for the primaries than for the general election.

The tone of the assemblage was somewhat different when he engaged various audience members one-on-one:

Later in the evening, several people approached me on the topic. One, the head of the local young Republicans — and understandably a cheerleader for the party — gently chastised me for not simply going with whomever the GOP nominates, especially given the stakes. I told him that his argument was not ridiculous and not invalid, but also not convincing.
I explained, to his obvious but unstated dismay, that that sort of thinking is the reason that I gave up my Republican Party registration nearly eight years ago. I noted that people often use the term “lesser of two evils” as a comparison between one truly awful, unacceptable choice and a mediocre but palatable-if-you-hold-your-nose choice. And I’m willing to play that game — as I did in 2012, voting for Mitt Romney.
But when the lesser of two evils really is evil, so much so that you’re not sure which one is the lesser, I simply won’t go along. That’s the situation I would find myself in if the general election ended up being a contest between Hillary Clinton (whom I expect to be the nominee, even if she is indicted) versus Trump (whom I still think will not be, though I’m far less sanguine than I used to be).

On the bright side, a majority of the people who approached me after the dinner had ended looked around carefully, checked over their shoulders, and then whispered to me some variant of “I agree with you.” 

And, in perhaps the most refreshing part of the piece for me, he gives a proper smackin' to the one-note-johnnies who elevate one of the issues facing post-America above other equally urgent concerns:

Later that morning, when another speaker asked, “How many of you rank immigration as the most important issue in this election,” only a single-digit number of hands went up — again, in a room of a few hundred active and passionate conservatives and libertarians. The speaker, conservative 23-year-old Tomi Lahren, expressed surprise, a perfect representation of why Trump supporters (of whom Ms. Lahren is not one despite her question) don’t recognize Trump’s electoral ceiling just as others, including me, have underestimated his floor.

In short, more people than I would have predicted buy Trump’s ludicrous economic populism and blatant Know-Nothing-ness and xenophobia. More people than I would have predicted are willing to support a man who campaigns by insult because they think he seems “strong” while ignoring the fact that his website addresses only a small fraction of the major issues facing this country — notably leaving out entitlement reform, likely the single biggest economic challenge of the next conservative president, as well as any aspect of terrorism and national security.

He's not quite done with the smackdown:

If you support Donald Trump, you cannot honestly ever call yourself a conservative again even if you can point to one or two conservative talking points that Trump parrots without conviction. A true conservative cannot and must not support an obvious statist and the worst sort of cronyist rent-seeker.

Exactly. And those still claiming to be conservative icons and carrying Squirrel-Hair's water are killing the movement.

Laura Ingraham, isn't it becoming a bit painful to look in the mirror these days?

The post-American university: a sewer of intolerance and indoctrination - today's edition

Glad to see Ben is going to fight this:

On Monday evening, just three days before Breitbart News Senior Editor-At-Large was scheduled to give his speech at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA) titled “When Diversity Becomes a Problem,” the president of the university officially cancelled the lecture, citing the need to organize a more “inclusive event.”

In an email to the Young America’s Foundation chapter at CSULA, university president William Covino wrote, “After careful consideration, I have decided that it will be best for our campus community if we reschedule Ben Shapiro’s appearance for a later date, so that we can arrange for him to appear as part of a group of speakers with differing viewpoints on diversity. Such an event will better represent our university’s dedication to the free exchange of ideas and the value of considering multiple viewpoints.”

Shapiro and YAF have vowed to take their event to campus anyway, without the permission of the school. “The campus fascists have taken over,” Shapiro told Breitbart News. “I pay taxes in the state of California; I’m paying for these whiny children to be indoctrinated by radical leftists. For CSULA to pretend that they’re trying to provide balance isn’t just stupid, it’s insultingly stupid. I am the balance, and they’re too afraid to let me speak. These aren’t diversity warriors. They’re jackbooted thugs. If they want to call the men with guns to shut down free speech, they’ll demonstrate clearly just who they are. I’ll see them on Thursday.”

YAF announced in a statement, “In recognition of the school’s dire need for ideological diversity, Young America’s Foundation and CSULA YAF, in cooperation with Ben Shapiro, fully intend to hold the event, which is part of YAF’s Fred R. Allen Lecture Series, without the university’s approval. The Foundation is prepared to take legal action if the school fails to recognize these students’ rights.”

Covino clearly had no problem with the university hosting radical leftists ranging from Dr. Cornel West to Angela Davis and Tim Wise without the need for a conservative counterpoint. “Balance at CSULA only runs one way,” Shapiro said. “This event obviously threatens the feelings of the precious snowflakes at the university. Tough.”

That's how it's done: Resist. Defy.

What happens in a world where a United States of America is not demonstrating moral and strategic leadership

You get this kind of thing:

ISIS, which has reportedly been running low on cash and converts, struck again earlier today in Syria with multiple bombings that left 119 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

As reported by the Daily Mail,

Bomb attacks in the central Syrian city of Homs and near a shrine outside Damascus killed at least 119 people as Washington pursued efforts for a ceasefire.

Double car bombings killed at least 57 people and wounded more than 200 people in the Zahra district of Homs on Sunday morning, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Later, at least 62 people were killed in a series of attacks near the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab south of the capital, according to the Observatory.

Attacks at the shrine included a car bombing and two suicide blasts, which ripped through the area.

In Homs, graphic footage from pro-Assad television channels showed charred corpses buried among rubble, damage to shop fronts and debris littering a wide area. Many cars were on fire, sending out plumes of black smoke. Wounded people walked around dazed.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in an online statement that two of its members had driven explosives-laden cars into crowds of residents.

The Observatory said the attack was the second most deadly of its kind in Homs since 2011, and the deadliest for almost a year and a half.

The attacks come amidst a series of talks between the United States and Russian diplomats regarding the withdrawal of Russian forces from the region. Secretary John Kerry issued a statement on their progress stating,

‘We have reached a provisional agreement, in principle, on the terms of the cessation of hostilities that could begin in the coming days,’ Kerry said.

‘It is not yet done and I anticipate that our presidents, President (Barack) Obama and President (Vladimir) Putin, may well speak somewhere in the next days or so in order to try to complete this task,’ Kerry told a press conference with Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh.

Hopes for ceasefire, which had been due to take hold on Friday, had floundered as fresh violence shook Syria last week.

But Kerry was optimistic that it could still be implemented.

‘We are in fact making progress even as a I stand here today,’ he said. ‘We are closer to a ceasefire today than we have been.’

Closer than ever to peace in Syria? Tell that to the families of the 119 dead, Mr. Secretary. 

And meanwhile, we are engaged in a clown show as our way of determining who is going to deal with this come seven months from now.