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Emily Jashinsky:
“…As Variety noted in May, “Year to date, Fox News’ ‘Gutfeld’ has secured a bigger average viewership – more than 1.73 million – than any of TV’s late-night offerings except CBS’ ‘Late Show’ and NBC’s ‘Tonight Show.’” A Washington Examiner analysis of Nielson data for the year compared Gutfeld’s average audience on Fox News to his competitors’, and the results were illuminating:
Gutfeld’s show, which airs on Saturdays at 10 p.m. EST, has an average of 1.7 million viewers. Meaning his show averages more viewers than:
-HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” (1.5 million viewers)
-NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers” (1.2 million viewers)
-CBS’ “Late Late Show with James Corden” (1.2 million viewers)
-HBO’s “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” (1 million viewers)
-TBS’ “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” (835,000 viewers)
-Comedy Central’s “Daily Show” (732,000 viewers)
The difference between Gutfeld’s show and the programs eating his dust is a steady drumbeat of media coverage inflating their cultural influence. Outlets regularly pluck clips from every late-night show trailing Gutfeld’s while virtually ignoring him, despite the gaps in viewership…”
JOHN HINDERAKER:
“…In my view, the main significance of the jury’s verdict is that is shows how normal people react when they are exposed to today’s campus leftism. You cannot sell to a normal person the idea that it is “racism” for a store to catch a student stealing a bottle of wine, and call the police, merely on account of the student’s skin color. Social justice warrior culture is insane, and is properly judged as such by normal people, who–luckily for them–tend not to encounter it often. The jury’s reaction to the demonization of Gibson’s bakery is, I think, a good indication of how most Americans will respond if, and when, they realize how depraved the Left has become…”
J. Frank Bullitt:
“…At roughly the same time one Republican said he was thinking about co-sponsoring a carbon tax bill, another was tacitly telling Prince Charles to buzz off with his crackpot global warming theories.
Thankfully, the latter is president and can veto lousy legislation as well as withdraw from counterproductive international climate pacts.
Some Republicans in Congress, prominent among them Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, are warming (yes, warming) to the idea of enacting a carbon tax to do Al Gore’s work, which is “fighting” a windmill called “climate change.”
E&E news reports Romney is “considering co-sponsoring a carbon tax bill amid shifting attitudes in the GOP and increasingly strong advocacy for carbon pricing programs in corporate America.” The Wall Street Journal says “some Republican lawmakers” are breaking with their “party on climate change.” These congressmen “favor market-based solutions over government regulations.”
“Solutions” implies that there’s a problem. Can these GOP lawmakers clearly identify the problem? Where’s the evidence that human-produced carbon dioxide emissions are warming Earth? With what degree of certainty can any politician, scientist, or activist say that man is causing the climate to change in ways that threaten him? 100%? No one can say this. 75%? No serious person would make such a claim. 50%? A 50-50 chance simply isn’t worth the known costs of carbon taxes and other mitigation proposals (Green New Deal, for instance). 25%? No serious person should consider such low odds to be grounds for making significant policy changes — the unknown is too great.
Despite the 1994 revolution, the Tea Party protests, and the 2010 midterm turnaround, it seems little has changed in the GOP. It’s easily bullied by a hostile, agenda-driven media, and would rather incrementally surrender to Democrats’ big-government urges than put up a fight on principle.
But one Republican who has been a registered Democrat, and has even said “in many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat,” is refusing to give in to the demands that we have to let governments take over the global economy to neutralize a mirage. While on his recent visit to the United Kingdom, President Trump met with Prince Charles, who a decade ago said the we had “less than 100 months to act” to save the planet from irreversible climate change. Their scheduled 15-minute meeting went 90 minutes, during which, Trump said, the prince “did most of the talking.” Trump listened politely, but implicitly told the prince he wasn’t interested in joining him to bay at the moon.
Trump has said the global warming scare is a “Chinese hoax.” We don’t believe it’s a hoax, Chinese or otherwise. Or even a conspiracy.
It is, however, hysteria gone wild. Activists, politicians, and journalists want global warming. They have to have it. They can’t live without it. Nothing ever persuades them they might be wrong, not the deeply flawed warming models, not the unreliable and doctored temperature record, not the fact that multiple factors, not just CO2, affect the climate. Religious fervor overwhelms their rational thinking. They want to shame, shut up, and shun those who don’t share their mania.
This is the fanaticism that some Republicans have decided to give in to. We understand keeping an open mind, and we’re willing to change ours if the facts prove our skepticism wrong. But surrender is not a sound policy agenda. The GOP leadership needs to reel in its wayward lawmakers…”
Nate Gartrell:
“…California inmates are now free to possess marijuana without fear of legal consequences by the state, thanks to a new appeals court ruling.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal overturned criminal convictions for five Sacramento defendants who had been caught with marijuana in their prison cells. The 20-page ruling says, “Consumption, not possession, is the act voters determined should remain criminalized if the user is in prison.”
The reason? The authors of California Proposition 64 — which voters passed in 2016, allowing recreational marijuana use — did not put anything in there that outlaws marijuana possession for incarcerated folks, the court ruled.
But the ruling comes with a major caveat: Consumption of marijuana by California prisoners remains a violation of the state penal code, and possession can still be punished as a rule violation by the California Department of Corrections. But if an inmate wants to keep a jar of weed next to his or her bunk, the district attorney can’t file charges, according to the ruling…”
Jon Gabriel:
“…Politicians love fighting the last battle. Every four years, we see a slew of candidates relitigating the last presidential race, often using the same strategy that lost the previous time.
This trend is dominant in 2019 with the rise of Biden’s candidacy and the continuing rear-guard battle by anti-Trump Republicans. Joe’s main message is a return to the supposed normalcy of 2008-2016. “Know what I was most proud of?” Joe said Wednesday, “For eight years, there wasn’t one single hint of a scandal or a lie.”
Hey, there’s a lie right there. Has it never occurred to him that the Obama years are what created Trump?
Meanwhile, a handful of institutional Republicans are pushing their own return to normalcy. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan or former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld will save the GOP with center-left branding and Acela-approved personalities.
Washington sophisticates, and the DC press corps in particular, are deeply parochial. Trump didn’t create worldwide skepticism about globalism, resentment of sinecured elites, or frustration with an out-of-touch cultural vanguard. He merely rode them to power.
Politicians and pundits can disagree with this populist trend, but it’s electorally suicidal to ignore it. As I note in USA Today, one look around the globe shows that, in many ways, Trump is the new normal…”
Hard to tell, isn’t it?
Liz Sheld:
“…The intelligence community’s crisis communication firm, The New York Times, spun into action yesterday, “reporting” that A.G. Barr is going to investigate the CIA’s participation in the RUSSIA-collusion hoax.
Before I get into the details of this press release written by and published in the NYT, take a moment and ask yourselves, should there be oversight for the CIA? Who conducts that oversight? The CIA “sources” referenced in the NYT press release seem a little miffed that some folks want to check their math.
According to the press release:
The ties between the efforts by the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. to examine Russia’s election interference are broader. In the summer of 2016, the intelligence community formed a task force housed at the C.I.A. to investigate Russian interference. The group shared intelligence with F.B.I. investigators who opened the bureau’s Russia inquiry in an effort to determine whether any Americans were working with the Russians on their interference during the election.
What about CIA activity before “the summer of 2016”? This is the time period when some foreign intel assets were recording and trying to entrap George Papadopoulos (Papa-D.) Papa-D met with a fake “RUSSIAN spy” (but likely Western intelligence asset) Joseph Mifsud in April 2016. Now the pretend story is that after Papa-D met with Mifsud and “learned” the RUSSIANS had dirt on Hillary, he shared that information with Australian diplomat/spy Alexander Downer and a honey pot in May. Downer waited until July (“the summer of 2016”) to tell the U.S. and that kicked off the counterintelligence investigation. Why would a Western asset like Mifsud, who trains spies in Italy at The Link, tell a low-level volunteer what he “heard” about the RUSSIANS? Did the CIA deploy Mifsud to fish Papa-D back in April? Was it that punk Brennan? The British spooks? Let’s find out…”
Ben Bland:
“…Hong Kong is facing an existential threat. A vast protest on Sunday reflects the culmination of angst over changes that are undermining the foundations of the Chinese city’s economic prosperity and its distinct identity. How the impasse is resolved has implications not only for this former British colony and global financial center, but for the future of relations between China and the Western democratic world.
When the U.K. handed back control of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Beijing promised the city that it could maintain an independent legal system, democratic freedoms and a “high degree of autonomy” for at least 50 years. This “One Country, Two Systems” formula has underpinned the city’s success because it allowed Hong Kong to maintain access to global markets as a separate, law-abiding and free-trading member of the World Trade Organization. But as President Xi Jinping has concentrated more power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, Hong Kong’s autonomy – and therefore its economic raison d’etre – has come under ever greater threat.
The proximate reason for the protest, which drew hundreds of thousands of people, was a proposed amendment to the law that for the first time would allow Hong Kong to extradite people to mainland China, and other jurisdictions with which it has no formal extradition treaty. This seemingly technical change has alarmed everyone from local judges to foreign bankers because it lowers the shield that protects Hong Kong’s legal system from the capricious and repressive judicial practices across the border.
The Hong Kong government, while making some concessions, has refused to back down, and the extradition bill will receive its second reading in the city’s Legislative Council on Wednesday. The government’s efforts to allay concerns have failed partly because the extradition issue is just the latest in a long list of threats to the city’s autonomy and rule of law. In the past few years the Hong Kong government has disqualified elected lawmakers, outlawed a political party, jailed pro-democracy protest leaders, expelled a senior Financial Times journalist, and looked the other way when Beijing’s agents kidnapped a bookseller and a billionaire from Hong Kong.
The violations of One Country, Two Systems have become so blatant that Western governments have warned the city’s success as an international business hub is in danger. On Monday, the U.S. State Department expressed “grave concern” over the extradition law. “The continued erosion of the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ framework puts at risk Hong Kong’s long-established special status in international affairs,” spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said…”
Joel Kotkin:
“…The recent California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco exposed the divide between the state’s progressive and working-class voters. Progressives, in their militant certitude, support left-wing policies that often don’t affect them; it’s the working class that suffers the consequences of these proposals. But the Green New Deal, widely embraced by party leaders, pushed too far, triggering a backlash at the convention. The state’s private-sector labor unions, notably the building trades, organized a “Blue Collar Revolution” protest against the Democrats’ climate legislation.
The Democrats are calling for the elimination of fossil fuels by 2030, which would result in California’s immiseration, especially for workers in the state’s energy-production sector, the nation’s fourth-largest. In 2012, the oil and gas industry employed over 400,000 Californians, but these workers—unionized and well-paid—can expect pink slips with the green package. California’s renewable mandates also threaten the building-trades unions, which count 400,000 members statewide—a sizable contingent, though considerably below the industry’s 2007 numbers.
While new wealth drives demand for expensive housing, building restrictions that stymie expansion into suburbia limit the sector’s growth. Not long ago, building-trade union members were considered part of California’s aristocracy, but they can no longer afford median-priced homes in any of the state’s urban counties. Residential sales have dropped statewide, and California’s rate of new housing permits has fallen behind the national average, making construction workers’ economic prospects even dimmer. And the manufacturing sector has stagnated—this despite a 4 percent national expansion, along with 5 percent and 14 percent growth in neighboring Arizona and Nevada.
California’s working- and middle class can expect this trend to continue as the state’s climate-regulation polices become ever more draconian. The cost of living will rise, and Californians can anticipate more taxes on items like soda, guns, and tires. Yet progressives ignore the burdens these put on residents in the name of equity and climate change. In an effort to hide their huge carbon footprint, it’s worth noting, Silicon Valley’s tech leaders have transferred servers and relocated facilities to Texas, the Midwest, and China—places with higher rates of greenhouse-gas emissions—and sending jobs out of state, too.
California elites insulate themselves against an economy that saddles workers with high energy and house prices, especially in the state’s less-temperate interior. In mild coastal climates like the Bay Area or west Los Angeles, electricity prices aren’t such a burden, but in inland cities like Bakersfield, summer temperatures regularly soar over 100 degrees, leading to massive cooling costs. In a state with the nation’s highest poverty rate, high energy bills can be devastating.
The blue-collar revolt isn’t limited to a party convention. In an unprecedented lawsuit against the state Air Resources Board—the agency leading the implementation of green mandates—some 200 civil-rights leaders claim that these expensive policies disproportionately affect minorities and the poor…”
Victor Davis Hanson:
“…One of the media and beltway orthodoxies we constantly hear is that just a few bad apples under James Comey at the FBI explain why so many FBI elites have been fired, resigned, reassigned, demoted, or retired — or just left for unexplained reasons. The list is long and includes director James Comey himself, deputy director Andrew McCabe, counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, attorney Lisa Page, chief of staff James Rybicki, general counsel James Baker, assistant director for public affairs Mike Kortan, Comey’s special assistant Josh Campbell, executive assistant director James Turgal, assistant director for office of congressional affairs Greg Bower, executive assistant director Michael Steinbach, and executive assistant director John Giacalone. In short, in about every growing scandal of the past two years — FISA, illegal leaking, spying on a presidential candidate, lying under oath, obstructing justice — someone in the FBI is involved.
We are told, however, that the FBI’s culture and institutions are exempt from the widespread wrongdoing at the top. Such caution is a fine and fitting thing, given the FBI’s more than a century of public service. Nonetheless, many of those caught up in the controversies over the Russian-collusion hoax were not recent career appointees. Rather, many came up through the ranks of the FBI. And that raises the question, for example, of where exactly Peter Strzok (22 years in the FBI) learned that he had a right to interfere in a U.S. election to damage a candidate that he opposed.
And why would an Andrew McCabe (over 21 years in the FBI) think he had the duty to formulate an “insurance policy” to take out a presidential candidate? Or why would he even consider overseeing an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s improper use of emails when his wife had been a recent recipient of Clinton-related PAC money? And why would McCabe contemplate leaking confidential FBI information to the press or even dream of setting up some sort of operation to remove a sitting president under the 25th Amendment? And how did someone like the old FBI vet Peter Strozk ever end up at the center of the entire mess — opening up the snooping on the Trump campaign while hiding that fact and while briefing the candidate on Russian interference in the election, interviewing Michael Flynn, preening as a top FBI investigator for Robert Mueller’s dream team, right-hand man of “Andy” McCabe, convincing Comey to change the wording of his writ in the Clinton-email-scandal investigation, softball coddling of Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, instrumental in the Papadopoulos investigation con — all the while conducting an affair with fellow FBI investigator and attorney Lisa Page and bragging about his assurance that the supposedly odious Trump would be prevented from being elected. If a group of Trump zealots were to call up the FBI tomorrow and allege that a member of Joe Biden’s family has had unethical ties with the Ukrainian or Chinese government, would that gambit “alarm” the FBI enough to prompt an investigation of Biden and his campaign? How many career-professional Peter Strozks are still at the agency?…”
Eric Felten:
“…Ohr has since confirmed to Congress who the conspiracy theorists were: “Chris Steele, as I understand it, was hired by Fusion GPS to do research or gather information. He provided information to me,” Ohr has testified. “Glenn Simpson, who is, as I understand it, a principal of Fusion GPS, on a couple of occasions, he provided information to me. And on one occasion my wife, who was a contractor with Fusion GPS, provided some information to me.”
The average opposition researcher would be hard-pressed to get the attention of an associate deputy attorney general, let alone his cooperation. But the Fusion GPS crowd had the right connections. Steele and Ohr are close enough that Steele could sign an email to his old friend with “Love and Best Wishes to you, Nellie and all the family.” Simpson is an acquaintance of long standing. Nellie is, well, Ohr’s wife.
Fusion GPS didn’t just get Bruce Ohr’s valuable attention, the firm used it to make an ask. Nellie Ohr acknowledged in her own congressional interview what Fusion GPS had in mind when Steele invited her and her husband to breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel on July 30, 2016. “Chris Steele was hoping that Bruce would put in a word with the FBI to follow up on the information in some way.” He did just that.
With one phone call, Ohr arranged to take an assortment of unverified accusations — some of them lurid, all of them partisan-financed — directly to the deputy director of the FBI…”
