Netanyahu is one of the most accomplished and shrewd politicians both internally and internationally.  He is far from defeated.

Dominic Green:

“…On Wednesday, Netanyahu met with the leaders of the religious parties, Likud’s historic partners, and also with the leaders of the parties of the nationalist right — apart, of course, from Lieberman — and obtained their consent to act as a single bloc in coalition talks. ‘We decided unanimously that we’re going forward together to negotiations that will establish a government led by me,’ Netanyahu announced afterwards.

This maneuver allows Netanyahu to claim that he represents 55 seats, not 31, and to be the first to attempt to form a coalition. It turns Lieberman from kingmaker to petitioner at the gate. It reduces the scale of Blue & White’s leverage, and raises the possibility of splitting Blue & White. ‘Now there are only two possibilities,’ Netanyahu explained on Wednesday with his usual charm, ‘a government led by me, or a dangerous government that depends on the Arabs.’

The likely outcomes from this election aren’t so different from the last. Netanyahu comes out on top, one way or another. He tries to form a majority coalition, with Lieberman and immunity from prosecution as the stumbling blocks. If he can’t, he can try to rule with a plausible minority coalition, with annexing parts of the West Bank as the issue that will split Blue & White. If that fails, there’ll be a third election in the space of one year. The voters, who didn’t want a second election, will be even more angry about a third, and will, rightly, blame Lieberman and Blue & White. Given which, Netanyahu will probably lose that third election better than he did this election, and perhaps lose it even better than he lost April’s election…”

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Austin Bay summarizing and commenting at Instapundit on a piece by Wilfred M. McClay at Commentary:

Commentary Magazine relies on logic and facts to resist the NYT‘s distorted “1619 Project.”

Considered strictly as an exercise in historical understanding, and in deepening the public’s understanding of a profound issue in our national past, the Project represents a giant missed opportunity. It passes over the complex truth in favor of an exaggeration bordering on travesty. And if it has any influence, that influence will be as likely as not to damage the nation and distort its self-understanding in truly harmful ways—ways that will perhaps be most harmful of all to Americans of African descent, who do not need to be supplied with yet another reason to feel cut off from the promise of American life.

MORE:

…what we are to make of the New York Times’ decision to take on this project in the way that it has. Is it the proper role of a journalistic organization, especially one as powerful as the Times, to promote and advocate for a particular interpretation of American history? Do such actions constitute responsible journalism? Do they contribute to the solution of our current problems through the introduction of honest, unflinching, and fair-minded consideration of the issues raised by the American experience with slavery?

Or are they doing something far less creditable, less balanced, and more polemical, using a distorted and one-sided account of our history to intervene in our current political wars, in ways that can only broaden and deepen those conflicts, and turn them into far worse forms of warfare?

MORE:

It seems fairly clear that, to the extent that the Times’ assessment draws upon slavery scholarship, its sources have been scholars associated with the so-called new history of capitalism. They seek to link the alleged productivity of slavery to the triumph of capitalism in America—and thereby seek to transfer the stain of slavery to every malady of present-day American life, from income inequality to climate change to the decline of unions to the Great Recession of 2008.

Far from downplaying the effects of the legacy, these scholars play it up, finding it to be massive and all-determinative. In the process, as economic historian Philip Magness has brilliantly pointed out, they have virtually rehabilitated the claims of antebellum Southern planters that “Cotton is king,” and that slavery was the true source of the bulk of the nation’s wealth. For example, Cornell historian Edward Baptist’s 2014 book The Half Has Never Been Told argues that the wealth piled up by the minutely managed institutions of slavery was the source of all subsequent American wealth. Baptist asserts that almost half of the economic activity of the United States by the year 1836 was a product of slavery. That stunning statistic was cited recently by the journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates in his testimony before Congress, in favor of reparations for slavery.

The only problem is that Baptist’s statistic is demonstrably wrong…

The article, written by Wilfred M. McClay (a professor at Oklahoma University), absolutely eviscerates the NYT‘s 1619 Project. At one point McClay says the it is part of the “Times’ journalistic battlefield preparation for the 2020 election.” So perhaps we should call it the Desperate Democrats’ 2020 Political Propaganda Project?

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Commentary Article

Biden Aims to Put ‘720 Million’ Women to Work. There’s Just One Problem

NY Times Completes Its Long Journey Down the Toilet With ‘Women Poop’ Article

STEPHEN KRUISER:

“…America’s most obnoxious alcoholic grandmother left her porch rocker to scare the neighbor kids with stories again.

Undoubtedly reeking of mothballs and failure, MeeMaw Clinton was speaking to the Democratic version of bitter clingers and continuing to spread the baldfaced lie that Stacey Abrams should be Georgia’s governor right now.

The most galling aspect of Hillary’s post-2016 political wandering in the desert isn’t that she keeps offering untruthful versions of why she isn’t president; it’s that she does it completely unchallenged by anyone in our brave media.

Despite her many and obvious flaws, Hillary Clinton remains the Delusion Whisperer for the collective fever dream that keeps Democrats believing that every political failure of theirs is the result of subterfuge…”

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Kurt Schlichter:

“…The clownish antics of Tex Kennedy, that drunk driving furry and El Paso punchline, are much less funny now that he is promising to convert millions of Americans into felons and send armed government agents to their homes to steal their constitutionally-guaranteed property. Maybe he doesn’t know – whether due to pharmaceuticals or simply because he’s stupid – that two Democratic administrations ago, right up the road, the feds sent a bunch of armed men to take the forbidden guns of some people who were minding their own business and it turned out poorly. That debacle resulted in four dead ATF agents and over 70 dead civilians – including dozens of kids the feds burned alive.

Too bad that ridiculous dwarf George Stephoplatypus didn’t query The Waco Kid on how many Waco reruns he and his fascist friends are willing to accept to show us rubes who’s boss.

After all, that’s what this AR-15 immoral panic is all about. There are 20 million scary fake “assault weapons” out there in the safest of all possible hands – that of American citizens for use in defending themselves, their families, their communities and their Constitution. How many of them were used this year by scumbags to hurt other people in the mass shootings that get exponentially more coverage than the blue city bloodbaths that are exponentially worse?…”

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China economic slowdown sparks debate over what caused the slump, and how Beijing should intervene.

Yes, China’s economic slowdown. What could have caused that? I wonder what Beijing could do the resolve the issue?

Matt Vespa:

“…Things fall apart…again. For Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the liberal media once again decided to launch a full-blown blitz to get him removed from office. The Left thought this drive was going to be a game-winning drive, like the Desert Storm push by Norman Schwarzkopf. Finally, we can nail this guy who took Merrick Garland’s seat. We have revenge, except they didn’t. They got a face-full of buckshot. Once again the liberal media proved themselves to be Trump deranged, shoddy, irresponsible, and an enemy to the American people. Trump won. Conservatives won. And you lost—and you’re still losers. Kavanaugh is in. He’s confirmed—and there’s really nothing you clowns can do about it. Yell all you want. Whine all you want. We won. You lost. And Trump gets to kick your teeth in again…”

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PIERS MORGAN:

Referring to the NYT

“…So they deliberately withheld from their readers a staggeringly important piece of information that would have led the vast majority of those readers to have a very different perception as to the veracity of this story?

This is the very worst kind of indefensible guttersnipe journalism; a trumped-up smear with no credible basis of evidence to support it, designed to destroy the reputation of one of America’s highest ranking lawmakers, and possibly cost him his job.

And it raises a number of very difficult questions for the New York Times.

First, who took the decision to leave out that salient fact, and who else knew?

Second, why did they take that decision?

Third, what is the New York Times doing publishing such scurrilous unverified gossip like this in the first place?

It’s hard not to conclude that they did it because their anti-Trump agenda is now so embedded in the newspaper’s DNA they’re prepared to play fast and loose with facts if it helps take him down…”

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Alleged Victim In New York Times Kavanaugh Story Denies Any Recollection Of Incident

Mollie Hemingway:

“…New York Times reporters Robin Pogebrin and Kate Kelly are out with a new book that attempts to buttress the unsubstantiated claims deployed last year against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

“The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation” is neither a look at the education of Brett Kavanaugh nor an investigation. They admit they found no evidence to support the claims made by Christine Blasey Ford or Debbie Ramirez, although they say their “gut reaction” to the allegations is that they are true. They generously concede that their “gut” tells them that Michael Avennati client Julie Swetnick’s claims are not true, citing the lack of corroboration.

In any case, Stier’s claim, which even two Democratic senators’ offices didn’t find particularly worthwhile, was that he had seen an inebriated Kavanaugh, pants-down, at a freshman-year party. Stier’s claim to the staffers, we’re told, was that other people at the party put Kavanaugh’s genitalia into the hands of a classmate. Another unnamed person alleged said that he or she might have remembered hearing that the female student had transferred out of her college because of Kavanaugh, “though exactly why was unclear.”

The reporters, who describe Democrats in glowing terms and Republicans otherwise, say that Stier is a “respected thought leader” in the defense of the federal bureaucracy. They don’t mention his history of working for the Clintons. As for the victim? They say she “has refused to discuss the incident, though several of her friends said she does not recall it.”

To repeat: Several of her friends said she does not recall it.

So to summarize, the only new claim in the new book is that a Democratic attorney told two senators that he saw an incident where a third party allegedly did something to Kavanaugh and the young woman. In their book, the authors are upset that this claim didn’t lead to a massive FBI investigation, although they don’t explain why they think it should have.

Pogebrin and Kelly left the victim’s denial out of their New York Times story. It is unclear why the reporters and editors allowed the story to be published without this salient fact that they conceded, albeit briefly, in their own book…”

The only true journalism being practiced in relation to this sad story is by Mollie Hemingway. The NYT “reporters/authors” are not journalists, but activists with a cavalier attitude to truth.

Without fake hate crimes what would the professional victim class do?

In this case it appears tied to mundane business failure. That this guy would resort to racial fakery is a tell about just how sick identity politics and racial grievance politics have become. I feel sorry for the guy, but he should be prosecuted.

Disgusting lefty smears against conservative justices edition. Has the left gone completely bonkers?

Interesting analysis of demographic changes in suburban and exurban areas and how the changes affect the parties.

Amy Walter:

“…In other words, Democrats can’t make up for losses in rural areas by winning ‘the suburbs.” Democrats also need to also perform better in suburbs that aren’t in — or around — big population centers. And, mid-size city suburbs also happen to be in states that have an outsized influence on the Electoral College.

Boston College’s David Hopkins lays it out clearly here: “Just as Democrats appear to be gaining in the largest Sun Belt population centers, for example, they must contend with clear signals of eroding popularity in smaller suburbs (and rural areas) in midwestern states like Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa: a trend that resulted in the party’s unexpected defeat in 2016. These countervailing developments have left Democrats locked in perennially close and bitter electoral competition with a Republican Party that has been able to defend, and even expand, its own suburban base surrounding the mid-size and small cities of the nation’s midsection—still the electoral backbone of red-state America.”…”

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Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns. At ‘woke’ medical schools, curricula are increasingly focused on social justice rather than treating illness.

What could go wrong?