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OCTOBER 2,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

FILM HISTORY – FROM PAGE SIX:  Michael Jackson did a lot as an entertainer, but there was one thing he wanted to do that he was never able to — play James Bond.  In his new memoir, “Who is Michael Ovitz?,” longtime Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz recalls a meeting when the King of Pop told him he wanted to play British Secret Agent 007.  “As he talked, his hat fell into the guacamole in front of him, and he picked it out and put it back on – unfortunately, with a blob of guacamole attached, which began to slide down the brim. Ron Meyer tapped my leg to draw my attention to it, and we all watched in horrified fascination as it slid lower and lower while Michael was pitching us hard on how he was America’s next action hero.  In a Hollywood agent meeting someone would say, "Yeah, hey Michael, that's a cool idea.  You'd blow 'em all away – Sean Connery, Roger Moore – all the white bread.  Let me get started on that."  Then all the suits would have a crisis meeting to decide how to tell Michael that he wasn't going to be
007.  Maybe 003.

ANOTHER NON-NEWS DAY:  Anyone have any real stories?  To me, the big story of the day was the splash that Melania Trump made in Africa.  But the purveyors of news showed little interest.  They'll notice her only if she wears an IMPEACH TRUMP sweater.  They were more interested in the endless speculation over whether Brett Kavanaugh threw ice at someone in a college food fight.  The usual leaks from the FBI investigation were posted, not one of them with any corroboration.  We're now told the probe might wind up tomorrow.  On the other hand it might not.  The new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico hasn't moved the interest needle at all, even though it will affect all of us for years to come.  Maybe tomorrow we'll get from actual news stories.  I'm for change, always change.

GREAT MOMENTS IN SCHOLARSHIP – FROM PJ MEDIA:  Nearly 100 students at the University of Southern California attended a rally at noon on Monday demanding a tenured professor be fired after he sent a reply-all email last Thursday to the student body noting that “accusers sometimes lie.”  “If the day comes you are accused of some crime or tort of which you are not guilty, and you find your peers automatically believing your accuser, I expect you find yourself a stronger proponent of due process than you are now,” emailed Professor James Moore.  The email — in response to a reply-all email that urged students to “Believe Survivors” on the day of Christine Ford’s testimony  — triggered what one school admin said was “hundreds” of emails from concerned students and alumni since Thursday.  USC students Audrey Mechling and Joelle Montier then organized a Facebook rally against the engineering professor, entitled “Times Up for James Moore.” Monday at noon at the USC Argue Plaza, nearly 100 students yelled, “Times Up, No Moore!” dozens of times.  Ah Germany.  Ah 1930s.

October 2, 2018       Permalink

WISDOM – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 12:52 P.M. ET:   At times like these we look to the wise, not simply to those with letters after their name.  "Wisdom" is not a word you hear much.  It's like "honor," a word out of the past.  But without wisdom, and honor, knowledge is useless and potentially corrupt.

One of the wisest recent members of Congress is Tom Coburn, who served as Republican senator from Oklahoma.  He assesses the current events in Washington, and gives us this warning.  From RealClearPolitics: 

In America you can’t be pro-victim and pro-justice and confused about the rule of law and the presumption of innocence. In our system, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. The alternative to the rule of law is either the rule of rulers or mob rule.

In the rule of rulers, each new dictator or regime gets to write new rules favorable to that regime. In mob rule, truth gives way to frenzy. Justice isn’t determined by facts but by whatever side of the mob can scream the loudest or intimidate most effectively. The Senate exists to protect all Americans, especially political minorities, from tyrannical rulers and mobs.

The pursuit of justice requires humility, honesty and intellectual integrity. The late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan often said that senators are entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.

Too many senators have lost touch with the Moynihan rule. For instance, Cory Booker praised Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for coming “to tell your truth.” Booker is missing a key point. In the American system there is not her truth or his truth. There is only the truth. In a nation governed by the rule of laws – rather than the whims of rulers or mobs – facts, evidence and objective reality are paramount. No one is above the law. Both sides submit to what facts, objective reality and truth declare.

The Senate is scheduled to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination in a few days. The week’s delay for an FBI investigation into allegations against Kavanaugh may or may not shed any light on the truth. But the delay will certainly give senators time reflect on the first principles that are at stake for our country.

COMMENT:  Be sure to read the rest of Senator Coburn's piece, reviewing the other "first principles" that are at stake in the Kavanaugh episode. 

I wish I could recommend a journalist with Tom Coburn's wisdom, but Charles Krauthammer has passed.

October 2, 2018       Permalink 

I LOVE IT – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  One of the most quotable members of the US Senate is John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana.  We haven't quoted him before, but he's just issued a gem on the Kavanaugh spectacle.  From RealClearPolitics: 

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said anybody who thinks the FBI probe into Brett Kavanaugh is about searching for the truth is kidding themselves. In an interview with FNC's Martha MacCallum, Kennedy said the Washington "cosmopolitan culture crowd" think the American people are too stupid to figure this out.

"I'm going to stand by what I said two weeks ago. This is a freak show. An intergalactic freakshow. It's a grotesque carnival. And it's only going to get worse. And I am embarrassed for the United States Senate. We have hit bottom and started to dig," Kennedy said.

"I don't know. I really don't know," Kennedy said about Republicans having the votes to confirm Kavanaugh.

Kennedy also responded to people saying Kavanaugh doesn't have the "demeanor" to be a Supreme Court Justice.

"It's never going to be enough," he said about Democrats. "And when we're finished with the FBI investigation the Democrats will argue... he doesn't have the demeanor. Well, they called him a rich, drunk, lying sexual predator and the man took offense to that. And they say as a result he doesn't have the demeanor to be on the Supreme Court? They must really think the American people are stupid."

COMMENT:  Very well said.  I'm hoping Kennedy is right, and that the American people understand what's happening.  Sometimes it takes them some time to pay attention and catch up.  Democracies are like ocean liners.  They turn slowly, but, when they do turn, they turn decisively.  I hope the election in a month shows that we're turning in the correct direction.

October 2,  2018     Permalink

OCTOBER 1,  2018

SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

KAV – You may have noticed a great deal of talk about a Judge Kavanaugh.  And you may have noticed that there's not much news to go with it.  Be careful this week.  The FBI is conducting the ordered, extended background check on the judge, but news organizations have to fill time and space.  And they push a lot of "stories" that are of no significance at all.  We may learn in the next day or so – I have it on the best authority – that Brett Kavanaugh kissed Katie Simmons in kindergarten.  Be prepared for the headlines.  And be prepared for extended discussions featuring "youthful kiss" experts, who will tell us why this matters on the US Supreme Court.  I think we'd all be better served if the news networks would show old travelogues this week, and stop trying to convince us that every minute moves us closer to the end of the Republic.

HEIDI IN TROUBLE – FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER:  A new poll shows Republican challenger Rep. Kevin Cramer leading Sen. Heidi Heitkamp by a 10- point margin, with North Dakotans overwhelmingly in favor of confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Losing a race in North Dakota would make it significantly more difficult for Democrats to retake the Senate.  The poll, from Mason Dixon and North Dakota's NBC affiliate, shows Cramer opening up a 51 percent to 41 percent lead over the Democratic incumbent.  The poll also finds North Dakotans support the confirmation of Kavanaugh by a 60 percent to 27 percent margin. Furthermore, the survey found that at 21 percent, more people rated Kavanaugh as their top concern than any other single issue.   This shows why contests in the states are vastly more important than national polling averages.  We are electing members of Congress in a month, district by district, state by state. 

AND IN MISSOURI – FROM NATIONAL REVIEW:  The heated battle over Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has hurt vulnerable Democratic senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri in her race for reelection, according to a recent poll.  The poll, conducted by Remington Research Group Wednesday and Thursday, found that 49 percent of the 1,555 likely Missouri voters questioned said they were less likely to vote for McCaskill after witnessing Kavanaugh’s confirmation process, while just 42 percent said they were more likely to vote for her. Notably, 47 percent of women said the Kavanaugh process had made them less likely to vote for McCaskill compared to 42 percent who said the opposite.  McCaskill announced Wednesday evening that she would oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination due to his judicial record, absent any consideration of Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he drunkenly pinned her down and attempted to rape her at a high-school party more than 30 years ago.  McCaskill’s opponent, Republican state attorney general Josh Hawley, has been steadily climbing in the polls, and the Real Clear Politics poll average has him behind by just one percentage point.  The Senate is at stake.  If the GOP loses the Senate, judgeships at all levels are in jeopardy.

October 1, 2018       Permalink

WHAT AMERICA DO WE WANT? – AT 12:08 P.M. ET:   The Kavanaugh hearings have exposed deep and serious problems with America's concept of itself.  We may be at a crossroads, where we determine whether we want a great and free America, or something considerably less.  From Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness: 

The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and their endless sequelae have ended up as an epitaph for a spent culture for which its remedies are felt to be worse than its diseases. Think 338 B.C., A.D. 476, 1453, or 1939.

The coordinated effort to destroy Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court required the systematic refutation of the entire notion of Western jurisprudence by senators and much of the American legal establishment. And there was no hesitation in doing just that on the part of Senate Democrats, the #MeToo movement, and the press. And I write this at a moment in which conservatives and Republicans still control the majority of governorships, state legislatures, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, the Supreme Court and the presidency—a reminder that culture so often is far more powerful than politics.

So, here we were to be left with a new legal and cultural standard in adjudicating future disagreements and disputes, an utterly anti-Western standard quite befitting for our new relativist age:

1 The veracity of accusations will hinge on the particular identity, emotions, and ideology of the accuser;

2 Evidence, or lack of it, will be tangential, given the supposed unimpeachable motives of the ideologically correct accuser;

3 The burden of proof and evidence will rest with the accused to disprove the preordained assumption of guilt;

4 Hearsay will be a valuable narrative and constitute legitimate evidence;

5 Truth is not universal, but individualized. Ford’s “truth” is as valid as the “Truth,” given that competing narratives are adjudicated only by access to power. Ford is a victim, therefore her truth trumps “their” truth based on evidence and testimony.

6 Questionable and inconsistent testimony are proof of trauma and therefore exactitude; recalling an accusation to someone is proof that the action in the accusation took place.

7 Statutes of limitations do not exist; any allegation of decades prior is as valid as any in the present. All of us are subject at any moment to unsubstantiated accusations from decades past that will destroy lives.

8 Assertion of an alleged crime is unimpeachable proof. Recall of where, when, why, and how it took place is irrelevant.

9 Individual accusations will always be subservient to cosmic causes; individuals are irrelevant if they do not serve ideological aims. All accusations fit universal stereotypes whose rules of finding guilt or innocence trump those of individual cases.

10 The accuser establishes the conditions under which charges are investigated; the accused nods assent.

Our cultural traditions are being insidiously rewritten in this new Dark Age. We know now that Euripides’s Phaedra should have been believed, as a female accuser of rape. Perhaps university presses can either reissue properly corrected editions or ban the Hippolytus entirely. No doubt we will ban Racine’s Phèdre as well. Harper Lee’s Tom Robinson deserved his fate because his female accuser should have been believed—and perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird  should be rewritten as well.

In our time, we have finally and only now belatedly realized that Tawana Brawley’s voice was stifled.

COMMENT:  Please read the whole thing.  It is brilliant.  You might also consider the term "outmigration."  I'll be writing about this.  I fear that, if trends continue in America, we might suffer the same fate as other failing societies and see our best people starting to leave, even starting small nations elsewhere. 

Ronald Reagan warned that we are always one generation away from losing our freedoms.  I'm afraid he was right.

October 1, 2018        Permalink

WHERE THE PRESIDENT STANDS – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  In the midst of the Kavanaugh mess, the president stands well.  From Rasmussen: 

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 48% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 34% who Strongly Approve of the president is performing and 42% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -8.

COMMENT:  The new NAFTA agreement should add to Mr. Trump's approval.  He's promised to be out there fighting for Republican congressional candidates, and he might just turn some races around.

October 1,  2018     Permalink