Elon Musk, Paul Pelosi and the low status of factual information

Elon Musk is one of those figures whose presence on my radar screen was incidental. I knew the basics of his life story, was aware that he was the world's richest person, and could see that he had a slew of eccentricities. But I never regarded him as crucial to the direction of the world, at least in the short or intermediate term. Maybe one of his big ideas would eventually have some kind of major impact on human history, but not in the foreseeable future. 

Then his purchase of Twitter became a thing, and speculation ran rampant as to where he'd take the company. 

Okay. That seems like a natural reaction when Moneybags Number One makes such a move. But I didn't see how it was going to affect my ability to interact with the friends I've made on the site, or use it to disseminate LITD posts, Precipice essays or my occasional writings elsewhere.

But then comes along this series of moves:

Twitter's new owner Elon Musk appeared to have deleted a tweet posted on Sunday referencing an unfounded theory regarding the attack on the husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at their San Francisco home.

The since-deleted tweet was in response to one by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who blamed the attack on hateful rhetoric by the Republican Party and linked to an L.A. Times story about how the suspect promoted far-right conspiracy theories online.

"There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye," Musk replied to Clinton, linking to a site called the Santa Monica Observer that fact-checkers have described as a purveyor of hoaxes, including that Clinton herself had died and been replaced by a body double. The Observer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It's hard to find details about the allegation in the tweet now, since self-respecting news outlets are reluctant to perpetuate the unsubstantiated gay-lovers'-quarrel angle. But Musk's taking time to fool with it raises the question of why, as the new chief executive of a major social-media company, he doesn't have more important matters on his plate at present. 

Another speculative tidbit ought to be mentioned here. Trumpist sites like Breitbart and Gateway Pundit raised the question of whether a third person was in the Pelosi home when the police arrived, but San Francisco police and Tom Winter of NBC News shot that down pretty decisively. 

Whataboutists had some legit fodder to chew on in asking why coverage of the beating of a Marco Rubio canvasser was scant compared to that for the Pelosi incident. 

There's also the rush among Dems, certainly, and the occasional Republican such as Mitt Romney, to show that they are Caring Human Beings by stating their hopes for Paul Pelosi's full recovery and their assertion that there is no place for this kind of behavior in a civil society. I don't want to ascribe anything but laudable motives to these people, but it just strikes me as a little icky, sort of a let-the-record-show-I'm-not-one-of-those-despicable-creatures-making-this-incident-worse gesture. 

But the Dems among this bunch aren't above making hay over DePape's Qanon rantings on social media, as if he had it together mentally enough to be on board with the ultra-MAGA movement. He didn't. The guy lived in a nudist colony, for cryin' out loud, and had a slew of problems such as hard drug use. This is a pattern that has been detectable at least since that nutter in Tucson beaned Gabbby Giffords in the noggin. Most 21st century gun-wielders who shoot politicians or their associates more closely fit the model of unhinged marginal types than ideologically focused assassins. 

The main point here is that this story's only three days old, and it's already covered in layers of pure speculation. And the new owner of Twitter isn't helping matters any.

This is what we get in a nation so badly polarized - no, make that fractured - and so unable to distinguish the trivial and silly from the grave and profound. Too few care about objective truth to muster the patience for that to be revealed.

It's not going to get better. It's very late in the day.

 

Thoughts on Pelosi visiting Taiwan

 She can't really not go now, can she?

The entire Asian trip, with an itinerary that includes such key Pacific rim allies as Japan and South Korea, was supposed to happen in April but got delayed due to COVID. And the rhetoric from China has been ratcheting up ever since the trip has been rescheduled. Hu Xijin, a prominent commentator for Global Times, has tweeted that shooting down Pelosi's plane is an option if her trip includes a stop in Taipei. 

It's a done deal, as far as the Taiwanese government is concerned.  She's expected to stay overnight.

The Biden administration is not so keen on the idea, of course, but it can't stop her. The three branches of our government are coequal. 

tLots of seasoned observers of the world stage caution against it, and they have a point. It's a high-stakes gambit, for sure. It raises that age-old question of when and where, if at all, to make irreversible changes to the global balance of power.

China is not currently the only adversary rattling a saber in an alarming manner. Russia and North Korea are mentioning nuclear war as part of their rhetoric. Iran is enriching uranium to levels sufficient for nuclear breakout.

Consider, though, the viewpoint of Senator Ben Sasse, one of the last remaining persons of principle and depth in the U.S. government:

“Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist Party can do about it. No more feebleness and self-deterrence. This is very simple: Taiwan is an ally and the Speaker of the House of Representatives should meet with the Taiwanese men and women who stare down the threat of Communist China.”

He has a point, too. If, at some point, the U.S. does not demonstrate leadership and loyalty to that portion of the world that shares our basic values, the bad guys run the place.

Op-ed writers, buy definition, are expected to offer conclusive opinions on matters such as this. Since this is a blog, I don't feel constrained in that way.

There are downsides to either choice that the House speaker makes. And she either will or she won't stop by Taiwan on her trip. 

I just hope that American society can see now that the era of corporate joint ventures, student visas and supply chains heavily dependent on the People's Republic of China ought to be behind us. China only ever opened up to the West for its own advantage. It remains the snake in the grass it's been since 1949.

LITD is no Pelosi fan by any stretch, but this was the right move

 Here's the Speaker's statement on why she's giving the big thumbs-down to having Jim Banks and Jim Jordan serve on the select committee being organized to look into January 6. It basically boils down to "C'mon, man, don't send us your most ate-up MAGA types. This is supposed to be a serious inquiry."

Yes, she will do what she can to tilt the investigation toward her presumptions. But for Republicans to have any credibility, they need to provide principled conservatives, not Kool-Aid guzzlers. A party as in thrall to a cult as the GOP perhaps can't be expected to give credence to such folks, but it's what ought to happen. The two names Kevin McCarthy ought to submit are those of Adam Kinzinger and Peter Meijer. 

Pass the popcorn; it's a Freedom-Hater girl fight

I can't see this helping Sandy From Westchester's dismal poll numbers in her district. They hired her to do her job, not grandstand.

This kind of whining would get one fired in the private sector. Maybe it will get Sandy fired in November 2020:

The civil war between the Democratic Party’s left flank and extreme left flank is heating up.

Days after Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi mocked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and trio of her freshmen colleagues — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) — for focusing on Twitter and PR at the expense of legislation, AOC issued another broadside against Pelosi. 

"All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world," Pelosi told the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd published Saturday. "But they didn't have any following. They're four people and that's how many votes they got."

Today in an interview with WNYC’s “New Yorker Hour,” AOC accused Pelosi of intentionally saddling her with work to keep her out of the spotlight.

“I was assigned to some of the busiest committees and four subcommittees,” AOC said. “So my hands are full. And sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to keep me busy.”

The New York lawmaker had been describing why she declined Pelosi’s offer to sit on a standing committee on climate change. AOC said she declined the Speaker’s offer after she had refused AOC’s demands for what the committee should do. 

Asked about how the relationship with Pelosi is generally, AOC deadpanned: “I think sometimes people think that we have a relationship.”

She got assigned to busy committees! The horror! And pouted about not getting to call the shots on the climate change committee.

She's a real piece of work, that Sandy.

The camaraderie displayed in that March Rolling Stone "Women Shaping the Future" cover was short-lived, wasn't it?

It's this kind of stuff - today's edition

There's obviously nothing becoming, let alone productive, about Nancy Pelosi's call for someone in Trump's inner circle to stage an intervention, but count on the most embarrassing president in history to confirm the basis of her lambasting.

Pelosi went first, with demure shrugs and practiced sass. Then, as a tornado warning blared across Washington, Trump followed with a derisive nickname — something he had declined to give her, up to now.

“She’s a mess,” Trump told reporters at an afternoon news conference in which he lined up White House staff to testify to his calmness the day before when he walked out after three minutes at a meeting with Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer.

“Crazy Nancy. ... I watched Nancy and she was all crazy yesterday.”

As for himself, he declared, “I’m an extremely stable genius.”

People of little depth are also generally people of little imagination, as evidenced by the increasing mediocrity of the nicknames he confers.

I read this and thought, I don't even have to speculate that the spin will commence pretty much instantly. And sure enough, the next item I read was a post about it by the once-singularly-incisive-and-now-routinely-dismaying (she not only digs Trump, but Kurt Schlichter and Paul Joseph Watson as well) Bookworm.

How's this for lame and flimsy?

Yes, I know it’s tacky when he talks about “Crazy Nancy Pelosi” or “Dumb as a Rock” Rex Tillerson, but we are living in tacky times, with a political party now devoting its entire energy and political capital to destroying a president. Dems have no other goals than to thwart Trump. Abnormal times seem to call for abnormal measures.

Here’s the way I see it: Being tacky is not an impeachable offense. 

That's shameful. But it captures the essence of how Trump's shills views the lay of the land. They've completely lost sight of the fact that the waging war against the Democrats - and, to be sure, we must wage war against the Democrats - can be done far more effectively, in a way that presents a compelling case to those remaining citizens who are not ate up with tribalism. But as it is, you see, we have forfeited an essential arrow in our quiver: the conservative insistence on dignified bearing - on basic maturity.

It's still early in the day. I haven't checked out too many outlets yet, but I'm sure more "defenses" of this nature are being posted even now. For instance, I'll bet the daily lineup at Townhall will include an ample share of gleeful fist-pumping. If anyone out there has the stomach for how it's being treated at Gateway Pundit and American Greatness, let us know.

The dilemma for actual conservatives remains what it has been for four years. Leftists can hold this guy up and say, "Behold the face of the Right in modern America," and the Trump throne-sniffers will actually be in agreement with that basic utterance.

Jobs numbers and the GDP are in excellent shape, but culturally and spiritually, post-America is in the same state of rot it has been in for decades. And the economic good times are going to be fleeting, too. The number of people in a position to craft, implement and defend policy based on really and truly addressing this nation's $25-plus trillion debt is too few to matter.

Again, I say, I wish that someday I'd awaken to find that this blog's name had become obsolete, but such a bright morn still eludes me, and us.

Thoughts on the VSG's handling of the infrastructure meeting with Pelosi and Schumer

It was classic VSG, that's for sure. Why did he agree to set such a meeting up in the first place? I suspect it was to stage what he did for maximum effect. Storm out just as it's beginning and immediately call an impromptu presser in the Rose Garden.

I would imagine that Pelosi's "coverup" remark hours earlier was the deal-breaker. From what we know of the way his mind works, he's fine with meeting with people with whom there is a track record of exchanged insults - the Kim summits come to mind - but he couldn't abide by one more after the meeting had been scheduled.

I do think he's on solid ground saying "no meetings about anything as long as you people are investigating me." It just would have been advisable to have that be the hard and fast rule as soon as the post-Mueller report Dem desperation began. After all, how can any negotiations be in good faith when it's clear that Dems are laser-focused on taking him down?

But the way he handled this reinforces the image of a petty and impulsive figure.

It does bring into sharp relief the extent to which post-America's government reflects the overall nation's brittleness. Deep hate is just part of the context now.

Tuesday roundup

The media's attempt to sour public opinion on the tax cuts is really sinister:

The benefits of the Trump tax cuts have been powerful and broad. A whopping 82 percent of middle-class Americans saw a tax cut last year, with an average savings of more than $1,260. A full 90 percent of workers saw an increase in pay after the IRS adjusted withholding tables to reflect the new law. Last year, wages grew an average of 3.3 percent, the best in a decade. The Republican tax cuts accelerated job growth by nearly 25 percent and opportunity zones led investors to put their money into distressed communities. Finally, the Trump tax cuts doubled the child tax credit, saving working families an estimated $100 billion.

These aren't just Republican talking points. The Tax Policy Center estimated that 82 percent of middle-income Americans will receive a tax cut for an average reduction of individual income taxes of $1,260 in 2018, increasing after-tax incomes by 1.7 percent. Lower-middle-class households saw the largest tax cut as a percentage of their income, The Wall Street Journal reported. The new withholding tables lower the amount of money employers withhold from workers' paychecks, according to USA Today. According to the Treasury Department, 90 percent of Americans saw an increase in their take-home pay. The Bureau Of Labor Statistics reported a 3.3 percent average wage increase.

CNBC reported the wage growth for October and December 2018 was tied for the best since April 2009. The Bureau Of Economic Analysis reported that real GDP grew by 3.1 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018. The opportunity zones provision is helping struggling communities, and the child tax credit is tailored to help lower-income families. 

Yet Americans are skeptical of the Trump tax cuts. According to the RealClearPolitics average, only 36.3 percent of Americans approve of the cuts, while 40.8 percent disapprove of them, giving the Trump tax cuts a negative 4.5 percent. Only 17 percent of Americans think their taxes were cut, according to a Wall Street Journal poll from earlier this month.

How could so many post-Americans be so misinformed to come to such a dim conclusion?

Matthew Yglesias, a liberal writer for The American Prospect, The Atlantic, Slate, and a co-founder and editor at Vox, bragged about orchestrating this misinformation campaign.

"Nobody likes to give themselves credit for this kind of messaging success, but progressive groups did a really good job of convincing people that Trump raised their taxes when the facts say a clear majority got a tax cut," Yglesias tweeted. 

Scumbags.

Nancy Pelosi is trying to have it both ways re: AOC, dismissing her and her House freshmen radical buddies as marginal, yet appearing with them on that Rolling Stone empowered-women cover.

One can't help but give at least a little fist pump for Tiger Woods, coming back from sex addiction, a divorce, a DUI, back surgery and a resultant opioid addiction to win the 2019 Masters. Quite a testament to human determination.

Lots of well-articulated laments about Notre Dame today. Rich Lowry's at National Review is particularly good.

Erick Erickson at The Resurgent says that faith is really not hard. It's about saying yes to a God who insists on loving you.

 

Thoughts on how the shutdown ended (and a thought or two about the Roger Stone arrest)

Don't look for a hot take here.

I'm definitely past the point of defending any turf in this cringe-inducing debacle. This is gotcha-level stuff. No immutable principles are involved. That's why you've seen a lot more focus here at LITD on the cultural (Covington kids, New York abortion law) and economic (Dem tax policy intentions) than on any of this.

Where to start? I guess with the range of reaction among the Very Stable Genius's drooling zombie-eyed cult followers. That range spans from Ann Coulter's declaration that the VSG is a wimp (and here I don't want to digress too much, but the tweet in which she did so said he'd surpassed George H.W. Bush as the wimpiest president of all time; I was glad to see it pointed out to her that Bush 41 signed up to be a Navy pilot at age 17 and was shot down over the Pacific, and, as president, very handily defeated Iraq in Desert Storm.) to the take of Bill Mitchell that, now more than ever, we need to stand behind this supremely courageous protector of all that is noble and righteous. Memo to both Ann and Bill: He's neither. He's still the same narcissistic, shallow blowhard with a hot mess for a mind and a reckless tongue that he's always been.

Then there's the fact that Dem Congressional leadership has definite standing to crow. Even the crowd discussed in the paragraph above knows this was a win for the Pelosi-Schumer camp. What in the hell is going to happen in the next three weeks that would get them to agree to wall funding?

Then there's the wall itself. The Right generally has understood that immigration policy in recent decades has been undermining national sovereignty and the primacy of the rule of law - even Marco "Gang of Eight" Rubio. Most understood that barriers in appropriate places along the border were an important part of the array of measures needed to address the matter, although E-Verify, beefing up ICE, and taking on the sanctuary-city movement were at least as important.

But from the get-go, the VSG just had to turn The Wall into a symbol and put the focus entirely on the percentage of illegal aliens who smuggle drugs and rape people. This juncture was inevitable because the VSG made it his hill to die on.

Now, the latest position that the author of The Art of the Deal had taken on this was quite reasonable. Some wall funding - of the kind and the amount that Schumer and other key Dems are on record as supporting in recent times - for letting DACA people stay (with some reasonable conditions attached). Alas, it got the big thumbs down, for the glaringly obvious reason. Democrats hate Trump.

And because he is who he is, the VSG has had no interest in even appearing any less hatable. That's what his slavishly devoted base loves about him. He doesn't give a f---.

The timing of this Roger Stone arrest is interesting, is it not? And that sure was a lot of guns to bring out a guy being busted for process crimes.

The thing is, folks can point out that the charges have nothing to do with any supposed Russian collusion all they want, but the post-American public takes in its information in images and short soundbites. Close confidant of president frog-marched out of his home is the message that sticks.

Bottom line: Dems are emboldened, Pubs are reeling, and meanwhile, state legislatures are, to cheers and applause, legalizing the murder of the most innocent among us, yet another identity-politics hustler whose who public persona is a flat-out lie (I'm speaking of Nathan Phillips) is granted legitimacy while those he harassed have to fight mightily to un-damage their reputations, and millennials lose all understanding of why handing over their money to government is succumbing to tyranny.

We're tussling over a shiny object while Western civilization's flatlining continues apace.

Why we call them Freedom-Haters - today's edition

So San Fran Nan wants to appoint Andre Carson to the House Intelligence Committee.  What could go wrong?  I mean, his participation on a panel with Mazen Mokhtar, he of the deepTaliban and al-Qaeda ties, is an innocuous bit of policy-wonking, right?

This goes beyond "tolerance" grandstanding.  This clearly indicates a hatred for America's essence.

Friends, allies, and tactical partners

One favorite tactic of lefties seeking to discredit the beginnings of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq is to hearken back to the Reagan era and cite aid to the mujahedeen, who became the Taliban, and providing weapons to the Baathist regime led by Saddam Hussein during Iraq's war with Iran.

The basic principle that counters such a line of argument is that the moments comprising history often make for alliances borne out of urgency.  The case in point I've generally employed is the alliance of Churchill and Roosevelt with Joseph Stalin.

But we're seeing it again now.  If we engage in any kind of military mission - surveillance flights, air strikes - in Syria against the Islamic State, we are de facto on the side of Assad, who was in disfavor with the Most Equal Comrade and Secretary Global-Test scant months ago (which was after Global-Test had been dinner buddies with Assad at the presidential palace in Damascus).  We have a stake in his prevailing over IS.  (There just isn't an adequate "moderate rebel" faction to get behind.)

My only point here is to say to those who bring up the "well-we-aided-the-guys-who-later-became-our-enemies" line, "Oh, knock it off.  Put on the big-boy pants and live in the real world."

As I say, there was a time when Assad was considered by libbos to be the least-bad-and-actually-kind-of-intriquing dictator in the Middle East. Ophthalmologist with a fashionable wife.  Spread in Vogue.  Visits by Global-Test and Pelosi.

Does that mean that if post-America can get someone into the office of president who is actually a serious human being, we wouldn't want to get firm big-time with Assad if the IS can be rolled back?  Probably, depending on all other circumstances of such a time.

But it's about strategic objectives, national interests, and, indeed, standing for principles - in this case, the principle that it's not okay for a fanatical army-state to behead, crucify and enslave its way across the territory of two sovereign nations.

But it's not about wearing badges for the sake of preening.  In this world, friends are few and far between, so you sometimes pick your allies on a least-bad-option basis, and you don't make too much of it.  It ain't no kumbaya moment.

Why Nancy Pelosi is every bit as poisonous a Freedom-Hater as the Most Equal Comrade

This pro-fetal-death pretender to Catholic faith had the temerity to show up on the Texas-Mexico border and say that "every child, every person, has a spark of divinity within them and is therefore worthy of respect."

And then get a load of how she distorts the meaning of the term "community."

"This is a community with a border going through it. And this crisis — that some call a 'crisis' — we have to view as an opportunity," Pelosi told reporters at a press conference. 

Rock-festival people have been trying to peddle that line since Woodstock in 1969.  No, you're not a community. You're a bunch of late-adolescent and early-"adult" attendees of a music festival for which you either paid for a ticket or crashed the gate.  And the same here.  This is no "community."  But the use of the word can reinforce some kind of notion of "solidarity" among the kids hopping on those trains in Honduras and El Salvador and heading northward.  Like what binds them as a "community" is some kind of entitlement to the blessing of life in what they still imagine to be the United States of America without having to give a s--- about the founding principles that made those blessings possible.

This one has to be on any top ten list of her most vulgar utterances.  What shameless pandering to thousands of desperate people and those post-Americans who are desperate to seek out desperation and have "compassion" toward it.

But we can't make her go away because she represents an unassailable stronghold of such dog vomit, and will get re-elected as long as she chooses.