How's this for a response to a rock-history student's concerns?

Got this message from one of my students based on her experience of the first week of class:

Hello Mr. Quick,
I was wondering what material will exactly be covered on future quizzes and tests. What we went over on the first day was a lot for me to handle, on top of 6 other classes, and I felt very lost with dates/names/venues. No break for almost 3 hours might have been taking its toll on me as well. I tried to take the best notes I could. If you're able to reassure me on this course, that'd be great. If not, I will have to consider dropping.

Well, let's start with your basic concern.

Not very much at all will be "covered on future quizzes and tests." The point of the first week was to set the table for the actual birth and evolution of the musical genre known as rock and roll. So you will not see any questions directly probing whether you retained any of what I said or presented in print form about, say, Will Marion Cook, or Victor Herbert, or Buddy Bolden, or James C. Petrillo or Ralph Peer or Bessie Smith.


Re: no break for almost three hours: I have 15 years experience at this. It is customary for me to get behind the first week. We may be able to take breaks as the semester progresses, but, if, as you are probably expecting, I am going to wind the course up in late April at the present juncture of this subject, to do justice to what transpired in the early years, I must fill the class time with vital information.

Re: being "lost with names / dates / venues": That is why I gave you the outline titled "Musical Developments Pertinent to the Birth of Rock," and have assiduously compiled web links for the people, places and phenomena enumerated therein.

That said, I highly encourage you to give it two more weeks. For one thing, the videos, audio recordings and readings will probably be more of a tone you can relate to. Also, you will see how the first-week material sets the table for what is being discussed then.

Perhaps I was not as effective as I'd thought at using the first week of class to extend an invitation. I invite you to sink into this material, to let yourself be fascinated by the colorful figures, such as those enumerated above, as well as the ones coming up in the next couple of lectures: Syd Nathan, Wynonie Harris, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler, Dewey Phillips, Alan Freed, Johnny Otis, Etta James, Les Paul.

I will provide study guides at least two weeks prior to quizzes and major exams, so maybe that can alleviate your anxiety a bit.

But this is not just a music-appreciation course. This is a journey through a particular aspect of American and British culture over the last seventy years. It's possible for you to have your perspective on who you are and how you fit into society widened beyond anything you'd considered.

So, if I may, I would ask you to give it another couple of weeks, and see if you don't get a bit clearer sense of the vibe.

Sincerely,


Barney Quick

John Lewis is not the good guy in this

Only he and the Almighty know whether he really swallows his own hooey about how "the Russians participated in getting this man elected, and they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton," and how that is going to preclude his attendance at the inauguration.

To reiterate two basic facts, yes, the Russians did engage in attempts to affect this election, but that is because they were certain, like most American prognosticators, that Hillary would win, and they wanted to deal with a hobbled president, and it's a bit rich for Dems to quite suddenly ascribe adversary status to Russia.

Lewis has long since blighted whatever was noble about his civil-rights-movement leadership in the 1960s with his grandstanding and outright lying, most notably his claim that he was subjected to racial taunts outside the Capitol building.

Yes, once again Trump has taken the bait and has lit into Lewis on Twitter. That's what childish people do.

And now we have the Freedom-Hater party using Squirrel-Hair's tweets in a fundraising email.

It's going to be a long four years.

The three factors shaping the era we're now embarking upon

The avalanche of developments this week has been particularly intense, has it not?

The discrediting of Buzzfeed for trumpeting the dossier compiled by that private British intelligence firm, Squirrel-Hair's wild press conference, Senate confirmation hearings for cabinet appointees, the Most Equal Comrade's farewell speech, the last-minute overturning by the MEC regime of the longstanding wet foot-dry foot policy for Cuban refugees.

With regard to the confirmation hearings, it seems to me that they serve as an encapsulation of our current political dynamic. Dem lawmakers basically use their questioning opportunities as a stage for agonized howling, for cornered-animal baring of teeth. Probably the clearest example of that is Kamala Harris of California asking CIA-head appointee Mike Pompeo about his past statements on "climate change." Talk about an angle of inquiry completely irrelevant to the proceedings at hand! But before she let him respond, she announced to the world what a tiresome twit she is by reciting the thoroughly discredited claim that 97 percent of the world's scientific authorities are certain that the global climate is in some kind of trouble due to human activity. Pompeo responded courteously and effectively, but Harris having got her two cents in will be the point of obsession for much of the chattering class.

Ditto the exchange between HUD-head appointee Ben Carson and Elizabeth Warren. From what orifice did she pull her question - couched in oh-so-cordial language about how she really understands his earnest desire to run a tight ship; she really does - about how he would make sure no grant money from his department would end up in the Trump family's pockets?

Then there is Cory Booker, who had the gall, not only to vaguely and without substantiation, hint that Jeff Sessions holds callous disregard for certain demographics in American society, but to invoke Selma, for crying out loud - mere months after cosponsoring a bill with Sessions awarding the Selma marchers the Congressional Gold Medal and saying he was "blessed and honored" by the collaboration.

With regard to the more directly Squirrel-Hair-related developments, such as the setting up of a trust for his business dealings to deflect any hint of conflicts of interest, or the business about his attorney having been in California when the "intelligence report" claimed he was meeting with a Russian operative in Prague, or the dustup involving Buzzfeed, CNN and golden showers, the shakeout seems to be that the "journalistic community" in post-America is discredited to an even greater degree than it had been.

Which is not to say that S-H comes off looking like some noble figure. Most definitely not, as evidenced by the latest Quinnipiac poll. His jackassery was on full display at his presser, as it was in such tweets as that regarding Schwarzenegger's Apprentice ratings, in which he made a third-person referral to himself as "the ratings machine, DJT."

Upshot of it all: This is unfolding just about the way I foresaw it once November 8 made the way forward a done deal:

• Conservatism, while it has the obstacle of the juvenile aspects of S-H's personality to deal with, has its best opportunity in decades to inform public policy.
• The Left will employ ever more venomous - and insane - tactics in mounting a resistance to that, and 
• Squirrel-Hair will be an embarrassment on a regular basis.

And, barring the introduction of some entirely unforeseen development into the mix (always a possibility in this jagged reality we inhabit), that is the table setting for the era now upon us.

It's still late in the day - identity politics edition

We conservatives are long past the point of having accusations of racism / bigotry make our guts grind. I know that my reaction anymore is generally a roll of the eyes.

Still, it's out there all the time, and the plain fact is that there's not a damn subatomic particle of substantiation for it.

Race-, ethnicity-, and sexuality / gender-hustling, however, are practiced hourly by the Left, and continue to divide and polarize Americans.

There is MTV writer Ira Madison's tweet that Jeff Sessions ought to return his Asian granddaughter to Toys R US.



There is the back-and-forth between Rep. Duncan Hunter, who keeps taking down the cops-as-pigs painting, which violates the rules of the contest for art students into which it was entered, from its place of display in the Cannon Tunnel of the Capitol, and Rep. Lacy Clay, who keeps putting it back up. Clay wants us to believe that this is a First Amendment issue and that he is deeply concerned about it. What a lot of dog vomit. He is hard leftist and a second-generation Capitol Hill race hustler, his father having founded the Congressional Black Caucus. He authored Missouri's hate-crime law while in the state legislature. He added his name as cosponsor of a bill calling for Dick Cheney's impeachment.

There is the lecturing of white participants in the upcoming Women's March on Washington to "understand" that they have a degree of "privilege" that other participants don't.

There is the "Men's Project" at the University of Wisconsin - Madison:

“Men’s Project creates a space for critical self-reflection and dialogue about what it means to be a man and how masculinity impacts us and those around us,” organizers state in promoting the effort.

“The experience focuses on the examination of societal images, expectations, and messages around masculinity to empower men to better understand themselves, promote the advancement of gender equity, and raise consciousness in their communities,” organizers add.

It’s open only to “men-identified students” at the public university and “operates on a transformative model of social justice allyship,” according to a news release on the university’s website, which adds “by encouraging that kind of dialogue among a men-identified cohort, the goal is to create a sense of security in vulnerability throughout the six-week program.”

Participants will begin the project with a weekend retreat in February and continue meeting weekly, discussing topics such as media and pop culture, vulnerability, sexuality, hook-up culture, alcohol, relationships and violence.

The program is now in its second year and was most recently offered in fall 2016, accordingto its Facebook page.

There is the demonization of Kim Burrell:

[Golden Globes] nominee film "Hidden Figures," a box-office hit about the true story of three black women mathematicians who played important roles at NASA in the early days of the space program, is also generating unexpected controversy.

The controversy surrounds Kim Burrell, the black gospel singer whose song "I See A Victory" appears on the soundtrack of the film.

Burrell, in addition to being a gospel singer is a pastor, and, with the release of "Hidden Figures," a video emerged on the internet of her passionately preaching in her church against homosexuality.

Burrell was scheduled, as part of the film's promotion, to appear and perform, along with the film's soundtrack producer, Pharrell Williams, on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show." But DeGeneres, an open lesbian, canceled Burrell's appearance as a result of the video.

Next, Burrell's radio show, which is produced at Texas Southern University, was canceled. Then she was disinvited from the BMI Trailblazers of Gospel Music Awards, where she was a co-honoree. 

Okay, that's enough for now. Perhaps you just had breakfast and would like to keep it down.

But here's the crux of the divide between Right and Left post-America: We get slammed as bigots for merely pointing out that situations like these are infantile and destructive.

A position that would have been considered normal and decent twenty years ago.

One last look at the Most Equal Comrade's legacy of tyranny and planned decline

So the Lightworker-in-Chief, He Who Would Quell the Rise of the Seas, disciple of Heather Booth, Greg Galluzzo, Harry Boyte, Jeremiah Wright, Frank Marshall Davis and Rashid Khalidi, gave his farewell address in which he referred to himself 75 times.

It's readily available in case you missed it. Myself, I opted for the IU - Maryland game.

But if you love freedom and understand how Western civilization had been as unique blessing to humankind, you know that the eight years of his having his grip on post-America's throat have been a time of tyranny and planned decline.

Let us review the ways:

1.) The deliberate backing away from the US position of world leadership, predicated on the notion that assuming that position is an act of arrogance. We've seen it in the 2009 apology tour, sitting through Daniel Ortega's anti-US diatribe at the OAS meeting without even making any subsequent remarks let alone walking out of it, accepting the Noam Chomsky book from Hugo Chavez at the same meeting, the Iranian New Year greetings to Ayatollah Khameini, doggedly pursuing an "agreement" on Iran's nuclear program, nixing the strategic defense systems for Poland and the Czech Republic, the tone of every one of the MEC's UN General Assembly addresses (which included such assertions as that the US has its own human-rights struggles, and that Ferguson is an example thereof), inaction on Assad crossing the chemical-weapons red line, and the shameful treatment of Israel.

2.) The "A"CA, which made health care less affordable for most people, limited their ability to care for their health as they see fit, caused attrition among healthcare professionals, and caused chaos in the insurance industry.

3.) The race-baiting intrusion of the federal Department of Justice into local crime situations.

4.) Hosting vulgar "entertainers" at White House functions, including a hip-hop artist wearing a house-arrest ankle bracelet.

5.) Making statistically abnormal modes of human sexuality the object of celebration and obsessive outreach, such as lighting up the White House in rainbow colors after the SCOTUS decision about homosexual "marriage," which is impossible by definition. Also the prioritization at the CIA and departments of State and Defense of making "transgendered" people - that is, people whose mental disturbances have them convinced that they are a gender other than what their DNA says they are - "comfortable."

6.) Adding as much to the national debt in his eight years of rule as had been incurred in the previous 200-plus years.

7.) Ruinous and tyrannical meddling in the energy industry, such as making good on his vow to bankrupt the coal business, nixing the Keystone XL pipeline, subsidizing wind and solar "companies" that have for the most part gone bankrupt, and putting prime oil fields off-limits for drilling.

8.) Giving a pass to illegal immigration in such ways as taking a hands-off approach to sanctuary cities, which makes a mockery of the rule of law and national sovereignty.

Now, with regard to let night's speech itself, Ben Shapiro at Daily Wire has enumerated 15 fibs the MEC told during the course of it:

1. He Believes Change Comes From Ordinary People. Obama said, “I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged, and come together to demand it. After eight years as your president, I still believe that.” Really? That’s odd. His signature legislation forced benighted Americans to purchase health insurance and required religious Americans to forego their religious objections to contraceptives and abortion coverage. This is the same fellow who once referred to half the electorate as bitter clingers obsessed with God and xenophobia thanks to their poverty, and labeled the Tea Party as a terrorist entity.
2. American Exceptionalism Lies In Our Capacity To Change. No, actually, all people are capable of change, if some more so than others. Change may be worthwhile, but that’s not what makes America unique. What makes America exceptional is the foundational principles of individual freedom and limited government enshrined in our founding documents. But Obama said, “So that’s what we mean when we say America is exceptional.  Not that our nation has been flawless from the start, but that we have shown the capacity to change, and make life better for those who follow.”

3. He Created A Thriving Economy. Obama bragged about “revers[ing] a great recession, reboot[ing] our auto industry, and unleash[ing] the longest stretch of job creation in our history.” Actually, he was responsible for the weakest recovery in American history, he blew out the national debt, and he ensured that trillions of dollars in investment money remained on the sidelines, as well as keeping underemployment at significant highs.

4. He Fixed Cuba. Obama bragged about “open[ing] a new chapter with the Cuban people.” But the Cuban people are still stuck living under a communist tyranny that has now been significantly enriched and empowered by Obama’s support.

5. He Disarmed Iran. Obama said he had “shut down Iran’s nuclear weapons program without firing a shot.” That’s patently untrue. The Associated Press reported yesterday that the Obama administration greenlit a shipment of tons of uranium to Iran. Iran has been secretly pursuing nuclear development, and Obama’s been ignoring it, as well as their material support for terrorism.

6. He Won “Marriage Equality.” Actually, Obama opposed same-sex marriage until his 2012 re-election campaign. It was Anthony Kennedy and his extraconstitutional mandate that “won” so-called “marriage equality.”

7. He “Secure[d] The Right To Health Insurance.” Actually, Obama just mandated that Americans buy health insurance at gunpoint. That’s not securing a right. That’s controlling others with coercion.

8. He Supports “Solidarity.” There has been no more divisive president in modern history than Obama. Obama has demonized his oppositions, termed them enemies, urged his followers to bring a gun to a knife fight. He has overrun limits on executive power, grandstanded on race, and labeled those who oppose him idiots who just don’t understand the moral arc of history.

9. Healthcare Costs Are Under Control. Obama said that health care costs are rising at the lowest rate in 50 years. This is a far cry from Obama’s claim that Obamacare would lower the cost of a typical family’s premium by $2,500 per year. Instead, premiums have skyrocketed inside Obamacare, and insurance companies have also raised premiums for employer-based insurance to compensate for the new regulations.

10. Race Relations Have Improved Under Obama. Obama stated, “I’ve lived long enough to know that race relations are better than they were 10, or 20, or 30 years ago – you can see it not just in statistics, but in the attitudes of young Americans across the political spectrum.” It’s true that race relations are better now than they were in 1994. But they have gotten markedly worse by every poll over the last eight years. That’s because of Obama’s insistence that a post-racial America is impossible. And Obama insisted that white people acknowledge that “when minority groups voice discontent, they’re not just engaging in reverse racism or practicing political correctness; that when they wage peaceful protest, they’re not demanding special treatment, but the equal treatment our Founders promised.” That’s not always true, though. Does it apply when protesters burn Baltimore or Ferguson over baseless claims of police brutality? 

11. Obama Is Anti-Bubble. He said, “we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our opinions on the evidence that’s out there.” Yes, Mr. President, you’ve made this a habit. And this speech was proof of it.

12. “No Foreign Terrorist Organization Has Planned And Executed” A Terror Attack. He also said ISIS was under control. Nonsense. His oddly specific formulation about terrorism is ridiculous. We’ve seen multiple major terrorist attacks in the United States under Obama, from Fort Hood to Boston to Orlando to San Bernardino. And we know from audio from John Kerry that the Obama administration allowed ISIS to grow long after Obama realized they were no longer the jayvee squad.

13. He’s “Worked To Close Gitmo, And Reform Our Laws Governing Surveillance.” Actually, he’s failed to close Gitmo, and his surveillance reform was prompted not by his own desire to protect civil liberties, but by widespread outcry at the extent of surveillance under the NSA as revealed by Edward Snowden.

14. The American Creed Is “Yes We Can.” No, actually. There are several American creeds, but “Yes We Can” isn’t among them. That was just a cheap slogan. E Pluribus Unum – that’s a creed Obama opposed with his intersectionality. In God We Trust – that’s a creed Obama opposed throughout his presidency. Liberty – nope, he wasn’t a fan. A Nation of Laws, Not of Men – nope. We Are Endowed By Our Creator With Certain Inalienable Rights – well, unless you cross the collective. 

5. “Yes We Did.” No, actually. We didn’t. Which is why Obama leaves with his legacy in flames and the world on the brink of a serious period of international crisis.

In a way, the rule of the Most Equal Comrade is a testament to this nation's resilience. We have survived, albeit in somewhat tattered and endangered form, the worst president in the country's history.

In case you needed confirmation of what your instinct and experience had already told you . . .

The Ft. Lauderdale airport guy was a jihadist:

The Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter is a Muslim convert who years before joining the U.S. Army took on an Islamic name (Aashiq Hammad), downloaded terrorist propaganda and recorded Islamic religious music online, according to public records dug up by the investigative news site of an award-winning, California journalist. This is pertinent information that the Obama administration apparently wants to keep quiet, bringing up memories of the Benghazi cover up, in which the president and his cohorts knowingly lied to conceal that Islamic terrorists attacked the U.S. Special Mission in Libya.

Information is slowly trickling out that links the Ft. Lauderdale Airport shooter to radical Islam while the official story from authorities is that the gunman is a mentally ill, Hispanic Army veteran named Esteban Santiago that became unhinged after a tour in Iraq. Only one mainstream media outlet mentions the possibility of Santiago’s “jihadist identity,” burying it in a piece about New York possibly being his initial target. A paragraph deep in the story mentions that investigators recovered Santiago’s computer from a pawn shop and the FBI is examining it to determine whether he created a “jihadist identity for himself using the name Aashiq Hammad…” The reset of the traditional mainstream media coverage promotes the government rhetoric that omits any ties to terrorism even though early on a photo surfaced of Santiago making an ISIS salute while wearing a keffiyeh, a Palestinian Arab scarf.

The public records uncovered in the days after the massacre suggest Santiago (Hammad) is a radical Islamic terrorist that’s seriously committed to Islam. Besides taking on a Muslim name, he recorded three Islamic religious songs, including the Muslim declaration faith (“there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”) known as the Shahada. He also posted a thread about downloading propaganda videos from Islamic terrorists on a weapons and explosives forum. The investigative news site that unearthed this disturbing information connected the dots between Santiago, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and Hammad, an identity he created in 2007.

Can wee now please stop the obscenity of this we-have-no-idea-what-motivated-this-lastest-attacker stance?

It's still late in the day - today's edition

I tend to concur with David French's assertion that the Left still prevails culturally in post-America, even in the wake of the massive state-and-federal-level victories for Republicans in November:

Even while Streep was still speaking, conservative Twitter sparked to life, making all these critiques and more. Yet there was one sentiment that I thought was misplaced, a dash of triumphalism that rang hollow. “This is why Trump won,” said some. “Keep talking like this, and Trump wins again,” said others. In the narrow political sense, there’s some truth to this. Lots of voters don’t like to be hectored. Lots of voters defy Hollywood’s commands.

Indeed, since 1968 — when the modern Left really got rolling — the Democratic party has been largely losing ground. It’s lost most presidential races, it’s lost its stranglehold on the House of Representatives, it has lost the Senate, and now its fortunes in the states are at a low ebb. For all their celebrity star power, the Democrats are the weakest they’ve been in generations.

But in that same period, whose cultural values have most advanced? The secular Left has taken a sledgehammer to God, family, and country — the pillars of our national culture — and Hollywood has led the way. American irreligiosity is rising, the family (especially in our most vulnerable communities) is collapsing, and generations of children are now raised to view their nation not as a flawed but indispensable beacon of freedom but rather as a bigoted oppressor, an instrument of evil across the globe. 

In fact, it’s strange to even think of Trump as somehow a triumph over Hollywood. In many ways, he is Hollywood — a towering celebrity who has exhibited and lived exactly the personal values that fill the pages of People magazine and Us Weekly. To “beat” Hollywood, the GOP turned to Hollywood. It can mock celebrity culture no longer. 

Hollywood sells the best cultural drugs. Truth is optional, self-indulgence is a virtue, and bullying is bravery. And last night it was all wrapped in Streep’s alluring package, an emotion-laden call to arms that stirred the hearts of millions.

Over the long sweep of history, what matters more? Donald Trump’s immigration policy or the fate of the family? Paul Ryan’s entitlement reforms or the faith of a nation? The fate of the family and the faith of the nation narrow and constrain our politics, limiting our choices to those options that are palatable to an increasingly dependent people. Hollywood is helping redefine our nation’s character. And if the Left keeps winning our culture, the GOP can keep winning our politics and the nation will still lose.

So laugh all you want at Streep, conservatives. When it comes to the things that truly matter, she’s winning, we’re losing, and Donald Trump isn’t going to turn the tide.

Still, it's hard not to see an impending crackup on the Left, as identity politics demands such impossible contortions of its adherents that the fissures can't be healed:

The New York Times published a story today about racial divisions that are springing up around the Women’s March on Washington, the progressive event scheduled for the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. At the core of the story is Jennifer Willis, a white woman from South Carolina who was planning to attend the march with her daughters. But after reading something online which she found off-putting, Willis decided to cancel her trip. From the NY Times:

Ms. Willis, the South Carolina wedding minister, had been looking forward to the salve of rallying with people who share her values, a rarity in her home state, where she said she had been insulted and shouted at for marrying gay couples.

But then she read a post by ShiShi Rose, a 27-year-old blogger from Brooklyn.

“Now is the time for you to be listening more, talking less,” Ms. Rose wrote. “You should be reading our books and understanding the roots of racism and white supremacy. Listening to our speeches. You should be drowning yourselves in our poetry.”

Willis felt offended at the assumption that she wasn’t already aware of her advantages but told the NY Times, “The last thing that is going to make me endeared to you, to know you and love you more, is if you are sitting there wagging your finger at me.”

For her part, ShiShi Rose tells the Times she wasn’t trying to discourage anyone from attending the march, but adds, “I needed them to understand that they don’t just get to join the march and not check their privilege constantly.”

The last word in the piece is given to Willis who asks, “Can you please tell me what that means?” I think she already has an instinctive sense of what it means, which is why she was offended. It’s progressive code for: Shut up! 

But maybe that's the endgame, what final leftist "victory" looks like: Somali-level anarchy and the momentary rule of a succession of tribal warlords.

You know, something like a state of affairs in which "many . . . fall away, and betray one another and hate one another . . . [and] many false prophets  . . . arise and lead many astray."

The more the 21st century progresses, the more I come to see the importance of cultivating traits like humility and clarity. I'm less inclined to see any of my fellow fallen mortals as the embodiment of all I hope to see prevail in this realm.

One encounters much talk in conservative enclaves of reversing the cultural rot depicted above by French - that sledgehammer that has been taken to our culture's pillars. I'm beginning to see that such a process will not be birthed at any kind of convention held in some big urban hall or in the panel discussions in the banquet rooms at some scenic resort. There will be no drafting of a document that will serve as our unshakable road map to a future of restoration.

There will be no New Era for the material realm in which safety, peace, happiness, general prosperity and comity reign without disruption.

There is no substitute for the real work we must do: fix our gaze on our real home and pray that He who reigns there will have the mercy to let us in.

One of the main problems with Pubs having cast their lot with Squirrel-Hair

First off, was Meryl Streep's Golden Globes outburst repugnant, oozing with self-importance, and riddled with the vilest kind of innuendoes about Republicans?

Absolutely, and everybody who is not a Freedom-Hater knows it.

That said, the Tweeter-in-Chief responded badly, calling her "one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood."

We must assume that he's bright enough to know that someone would quickly unearth his assessment of her from a year and a half ago. 

Donald Trump, in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, published August 19, 2015:

Any actress you love?

Julia Roberts is terrific, and many others. Meryl Streep is excellent; she’s a fine person, too.The problem is I’ll name three or four or five and then the hundred that I know will be insulted, and I don’t mean to insult them.

As Patterico succinctly puts it at the linked RedState piece, the explanation is right in front of us:

He’s a child. You praise him and he loves you no matter how evil you are. Insult him and he’ll call you stupid even if yesterday he said you were smart. Ugly even if yesterday he said you were gorgeous. Unpopular even if yesterday he said the crowds love you.

A child.

I sure hope no foreign leader (like say, the truly evil Vladimir Putin) is able to see through Trump this easily.

Oh wait . . .

This is not going to be the linear, robust stride toward a healed and restored America that the glossers-over are trying to sell us on.

Nevertheless, he's what we've got. As I said the day after the election,  let's hope for a proactive Congress, principled reform in the cabinet-level departments and agencies, and good judicial-branch picks. It's probably too much to ask for a maturation process in Squirrel-Hair, so we're in for some wincing. At least.

Monday roundup

Massive rally of Palestinians in Gaza celebrating that terrorist attack in which a truck driver rammed into a Jerusalem crowd, killing several IDF soldiers. And  Facebook videos of a Palestinians handing out sweets to passersby in celebration.

NFL fans did not appreciate ABC showing a trailer for an upcoming Blackish episode:

“Why does the NFL keep playing an anti-Trump commercial for the terrible show Blackish?” wrote one tweeter. “They must not know their audience”. Another viewer fumed: “I am offended at the preview for the show #blackish about voting for Trump makes you a racist!”

Matt Falk tweeted: “No one watch #blackish. Not everyone who voted for Trump is a racist, That show caters to the lowest common denominator” while Steve James declared on the online social networking service: “Man, Blackish looks so original! A Trump voter isn’t racist because she has black friends! Can’t wait to never watch a second of that show.”

Melinda Byerley, CEO of the Bay Area-based marketing firm TimeShareCMO, posted this rant , ostensibly and article about how middle-American communities can practice economic development, to Facebook:

“One thing middle america could do is to realize that no educated person wants to live in a shithole with stupid people. Especially violent, racist, and/or misogynistic ones,” she wrote.

The CEO then listed her demands: “So if you want jobs, clean up your act and make your town a place that people like us want to live in. Add fiber internet. Make it a point to elect a progressive city council and commit to not being bigots.”

Lotta folks were repulsed:

Her remarks sparked a controversy on social media, with most people laying into the CEO. “Peak liberal othering. I almost can’t believe someone wrote this,” saidThe New York Times political reporter Nick Confessore. “Listen up poors. I’m not moving to your farm town until you get three apple stores and sign a pledge to not be racist,” one Twitter user wrote, paraphrasing Byerley.

Josh Jordan, who covers politics, wrote: “There’s no better way to persuade people to be more like you than to call them all bigots who apparently live in squalor. Unbelievable.” 

Nicholas Maduro wants to raise Venezuela's minimum wage by 50 percent. It would be the fifth minimum-wage hike in a year.

And Hollywood's most self-important puked all over themselves in a thank-you-Most-Equal-Comrade gush-fest at the Golden Globes. And the Clinton Crime Family received a standing ovation as they arrived for a Broadway-revivial performance of The Color Purple.

Mattis and Squirrel-Hair: not exactly on the same page re: staffing the Defense Department

You ought to read this whole piece by Streiff at RedState just because the way he sets the table for his main point - talking about how patronage worked in such environments as early-20th century Jewish neighborhoods on the Lower East Side, or 19th-century appointments to juicy positions in the British Royal Navy, as well as his own experience some years ago in the Pentagon. It's just really great writing.

But his gist is this:

This is what is playing out now in the Department of Defense where Secretary of Defense-designee James Mattis is locked in a battle of wills with the Trump transition team.

The honeymoon seems to be ending between retired Gen. James N. Mattis and Donald Trump’s transition team amid an increasingly acrimonious dispute over who will get top jobs in the Defense Department — and who gets to make those decisions.

With only two weeks left before Inauguration Day and days before Mattis’s Senate confirmation hearing, most major Pentagon civilian positions remain unfilled. Behind the scenes, Mattis has been rejecting large numbers of candidates offered by the transition team for several top posts, two sources close to the transition said. The dispute over personnel appointments is contributing to a tenser relationship between Mattis and the transition officials, which could set the stage for turf wars between the Pentagon and the White House in the coming Trump administration.
…
Initially, both Mattis and the Trump team intended to engage in a collaborative process whereby Mattis would be given significant influence and participation in selecting top Pentagon appointees.

But the arrangement started going south only two weeks later when Mattis had to learn from the news media that Trump had selected Vincent Viola, a billionaire Army veteran, to be secretary of the Army, one source close to the transition said.

“Mattis was furious,” said the source. “It made him suspicious of the transition team, and things devolved from there.”

Service secretaries represent potential alternate power centers inside the Defense Department, and Mattis as defense secretary has an interest in having secretaries who are loyal to him and don’t have independent relationships with the White House.

What Mattis is doing is shrewd and he’s also one of the very few cabinet secretaries who can pull this off and make it stick.

Trump has invested a lot personal capital in appointing Mattis to be SecDef. As you know, in order for Mattis to be confirmed Congress must pass a special law waiving the provision of Title 10 US Code that requires a commissioned officer of the regular component of any service have been retired or separated for at least seven years before serving as SecDef. This gives Mattis immense leverage. The political drama of Mattis simply walking away over the White House not letting him appoint subordinates would be immense.

If Mattis is able to bludgeon the administration into giving him his choice of subordinates, he might very well be a truly transformative Defense Secretary. If I were betting on who wins this fight I know my money would be on Mattis. 

I could see this happening in some other departments as well. Conservatives are generally enthusiastic about DJT's cabinet picks, but that's because Mr. Rudderless is choosing principled people. We shall now see how it goes when they want to act on their principles and that comes up against the new president's notions of who ought to be where in government.

Nat Hentoff, RIP

We've lost an American original, an encapsulation of the myriad layers of the nation's life over the last century:

Nat Hentoff, the author, journalist, jazz critic and civil libertarian who called himself a troublemaker and proved it with a shelf of books and a mountain of essays on free speech, wayward politics, elegant riffs and the sweet harmonies of the Constitution, died on Saturday. He was 91.
His son, Nick Hentoff, announced the death on Twitter.

Mr. Hentoff wrote for The Village Voice for 50 years, and produced articles for The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Down Beat magazine and dozens of other publications. He wrote more than 35 books — novels, volumes for young adults and nonfiction works on civil liberties, education and other subjects.

The Hentoff bibliotheca reads almost like an anthology: works by a jazz aficionado, a mystery writer, an eyewitness to history, an educational reformer, a political agitator, a foe of censors, a social critic. He was, indeed, like the jazz he loved — given to improvisations and permutations, a composer-performer who lived comfortably with his contradictions, though adversaries called him shallow and unscrupulous, and even his admirers sometimes found him infuriating, unrealistic and stubborn.

In the 1950s, Mr. Hentoff was a jazz critic in Manhattan, frequenting crowded, smoky nightclubs where musicians played for low pay and audiences ran hot and cold and dreamy. “I knew their flaws as well as their strengths,” he recalled, “but I continued to admire the honesty and courage of their art.”

He was always his own man:

While his sympathies were usually libertarian, he often infuriated leftist friends with his opposition to abortion, his attacks on political correctness and his criticisms of gay groups, feminists, blacks and others he accused of trying to censor opponents. He relished the role of provocateur, indirectly defending racial slurs, apartheid and pornography.

He had a firebrand’s face: wreathed in a gray beard and a shock of unruly hair, with dark, uncompromising eyes. Once a student asked what made him tick. “Rage,” he replied. But he said it softly, and friends recalled that his invective, in print or in person, usually came wrapped in gentle good humor and respectful tones. 

He first came to my attention in my youth as a byline on liner notes on album covers. As I broadened  my range of interests and deepened my understanding of human freedom, there he was again, insisting that conversations about liberty leave no aspect glossed over.

And I have to say I identify with his answer to the student who asked what made him tick.

Saturday night just-because music dose two

One of the actual talents to come out of the turn-of-the-decade scouting mission of the pop-rock labels on the streets of the Italian neighborhoods of Philadelphia.

Bobby had actual chops, and this arrangement is impeccable.

Saturday night just-because music

The Newbeats, 1965

Post-America's new Caribbean buddy: up to its eyeballs in spying on us

The Left's new-found indignation about what Russia is up to - most prominently manifested by the Most Equal Comrade's expulsion of 21 diplomats - doesn't extend to such a focus on post-America's newest partner in patty-cake, Cuba.

Quite the contrary. For Cuba, diplomacy equals spying:

 . . . in a rare hiccup of honesty (or ghastly error) CNN itself admits to some very important Cuba-sponsored unpleasantness, about which most Americans remain ignorant. “The Most Dangerous U.S. Spy You’ve Never Heard of,” is how they titled a special on this Castro-sponsored spy named Ana Belen Montes (16 years after her arrest.)

In brief: the spy’s name is Ana Belen Montes, known as "Castro’s Queen Jewel" in the intelligence community. In 2002 she was convicted of the same crimes as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and today she serves a 25-year sentence in Federal prison. Only a plea bargain spared her from sizzling in the electric chair like the Rosenbergs.

Significantly, Ana Belen Montes was arrested on September 21st 2001. That’s exactly ten days after Al Qaeda demolished the Twin Towers. By then she had been uncovered for a while, but, as is customary in such cases, was being monitored to see if her activities would reveal others within her spy network. That monitoring was scheduled to continue for much longer, but her access to U.S. intelligence secrets unrelated to Cuba (mid-east, for instance) demanded she be shut down—and quickly.

Interestingly, just days after the 9-11 terror attack, Castro’s KGB-founded and mentored intelligence mounted a major deception operation attempting to trip-up our investigation into the terrorist culprits:

“In the six months after the 9/11 attacks,” ran the Miami Herald investigative report, “up to 20 Cubans walked into U.S. embassies around the world and offered information on terrorism threats. Eventually, all were deemed to be Cuban intelligence agents and collaborators, purveying fabricated information. Two Cuba experts said spies sent by Cuba to the United States were part of a permanent intelligence program to mislead, misinform and identify U.S. spies.”

"Montes passed some of our most sensitive information about Cuba back to Havana" revealed then Undersecretary for International Security, John Bolton.

Shortly after Montes’ conviction a Cuban spy named Gustavo Machin, who worked under diplomatic cover in Washington D.C. (and thus enjoyed “diplomatic immunity”) along with 14 of his KGB-trained Cuban colleagues, were all booted from the U.S. for serving as accomplices to super-spy Ana Belen Montes.

Now, thanks to Obama’s “normalization” with the Castro-Family-Crime-and-Terror-Sponsoring Syndicate (commonly and grotesquely mislabeled as “Cuba” by the media and Obama State Dept.) Gustavo Machin is a regular visitor and main operative in the newly-opened Cuban embassy in Washington D.C.!

And it's not just Machin:

"All Cuban personnel now working in the (U.S) Interests Section (in Havana) work for Cuban State Security,” revealed high-ranking Cuban intelligence defector Pedro Riera Escalante last year. “All housing for (U.S.) officials may have microphones and other devices installed.”

"Virtually every member of Cuba's U.N mission is an intelligence agent," revealed Alcibiades Hidalgo, who defected to the U.S. in 2002 after serving as Raul Castro's Chief of Staff and himself as Cuba's ambassador to the U.N. 

But it was more important for the MEC to stoke his ego and convince himself that he had left some kind of grand legacy of unicorns and rainbows that it was to see to actual US security.

There is no front, no aspect of American life, that has not been gravely harmed by this outgoing regime.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday morning roundup

Andrew McCarthy at NRO says never mind talking about pulling US funding from the UN. What needs to be done is kick it out of its headquarters on the East River.


David Harsanyi at The Federalist reminds us that a cornerstone of Dem scaremongering regarding repeal of the "A"CA is the taunt, "Yeah? What are you gonna replace it with?"  Well, "replacement" is kind of an odd word to use (unless your point is to scaremonger).

Now, if by “plan,” [the NYT's Nicholas] Kristof is using the contemporary Left’s definition, meaning a expensive, constricting federal regulatory scheme that forces Americans to participate through a series of mandates, then one hopes Republicans never have a “plan.” If the word “plan” still means “a proposal for doing or achieving something,” the GOP have many.

The rest of Harsanyi's piece turns to what those who have always opposed the "A"CA have indeed been proposing.

It is worth reiterating that the replacement plan doesn’t have to be conceptually or functionally similar to Obamacare, no matter how often the Paul Krugmans of the world demand it. The comprehensiveness and rigidity of Obamacare are things to avoid. So replacement plans can be passed piecemeal.

For instance, the GOP can start by overturning the “nondiscrimination rule” that assaults religious freedom. They can get rid of the individual mandate. They can cut funding to abortion mills. They can deregulate to bring down costs and grant waivers that allow states to innovate in ways previously closed to them. Democrats demanded change overnight. The GOP doesn’t have to do the same. 

Wolf Howling, guest posting at Bookworm Room,  looks at the full range of leftist reaction to the Chicago incident in which an autistic white 18-year-old was held hostage, tortured and taunted by four black people, and how it encapsulates the excuse-making impulse that keeps any of our cultural ills from getting healed.

John Hinderaker at Power Line says that while the report crafted by the FBI, CIA and NSA doesn't provide any evidence whatsoever that Russia hacked the DNC email system, it does provide an important overview of Russian involvement in disruptive movements in the US, from such recent phenomena as Occupy Wall Street to Soviet-era utilization of "intelligence officers, influence agents, forgeries and press placements" to bad-mouth pro-freedom, pro West US political figures. The current situation is a prime example of the Left seizing the opportunity to mouth the right words - Russia is a wily adversary tireless in its efforts to take the US down a peg - but those words ringing hollow given their blatant ignoring of the problem in question having gone on for decades.

How you're supposed to respond when you encounter adversity

Like this.