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“…Jim Webb, the iconoclastic former Democratic senator from Virginia who served as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of the Navy, is under consideration for Defense secretary, according to an administration official with knowledge of the process.
Webb would be an eye-opening choice as a member of the opposing party who briefly ran for president in 2015.
But his views on foreign policy and military affairs align with President Donald Trump in key respects. For example, he ran for the Senate in 2006 on a platform to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, even campaigning while wearing his Marine son’s combat boots…”
“…The dossier operation has not only damaged institutions like the FBI and DOJ, it has also poisoned the public sphere, perhaps irremediably. As a result, it is now accepted journalistic practice to print, and reprint, any garish fantasy so long as it’s layered with Russian intrigue and Trump team treason. Even as the rest of the country sees an institution that has made itself a laughingstock, the press continues to salute itself for its bravery—or the courage and industry required to take leaks from law enforcement and intelligence officials and Democratic operatives in an effort to topple a president it doesn’t like, elected by neighbors it holds in contempt…”
From Ed Driscoll:
GLOBAL WARMING IS IMPACTING PEOPLE FROM HEAD TO TOE AND EVERYWHERE IN BETWEEN. JUST ASK NBC!
—Headline and subhead, NBC News, Christmas Eve.
● Chaser: NBC Blasted For ‘Worst New Year’s Show Ever’; Included ‘Vaginal Steaming’ Comment.
—The Daily Wire, today.
Paul Bedard:
‘…President Trump has made good and then some on his pledge to slash costly federal regulations, issuing the fewest new rules in recorded history in his first two years, according to a new analysis.
In fact, the efforts by the White House, Office of Management and Budget, and several agencies to cut and reduce the flow of regulations this year have only ever been topped once: by the same Trump team last year.
“At year-end 2018, how is President Donald Trump’s regulatory reform project going? Better than Obama, Bush II, and Clinton in terms of fewer regulations; but not as good as Trump’s own first year,” said the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
CEI regulations guru Clyde Wayne Crews Jr. said in a year-end report provided in advance to Secrets that Trump ended the year with 3,367 new regulations. That is the lowest since records were first kept in the 1970s.
But Crews noted that Trump’s number of new regulations is lower. The reason: the government requires a “regulation” to kill a regulation, and Trump is continuing on his promise to kill two regulations for every new one he proposes. . . .
In what Crews has dubbed the “Unconstitutionality Index,” Trump has has also slashed the percentage of new rules to new laws passed by Congress and signed by Trump, he wrote in a second report issued Monday…”
Victor Davis Hanson on California. A long piece but worth clicking over.
“…Third, both legal and illegal immigration have also radically changed the demography of the state. It is not just that about 40 percent of the nation’s 11–20 million immigrants live in California, a state in which now one in four residents was not born in the United States.
Rather, it is the result of two or three generations of mass influxes of impoverished residents who on average arrive without a high-school diploma, English proficiency, capital, or often legality. California now hosts one of three Americans who are on some sort of federal, state, or local welfare supplement. About a fifth of the state lives below the poverty level. Half of all births in California were paid for by the state-run Medi-Cal program, and 30 percent of Medi-Cal births were to mothers of undocumented immigration status. The San Ysidro border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego is the world’s busiest, where some 70 million people cross on foot and in cars into and out of California each year…”
Ed Driscoll strung this together:
TWO NBCs IN ONE:
—Headline and subhead, NBC News, Christmas Eve.
● Chaser: Chuck Todd Bans ‘Climate Deniers’ from Climate Change Special:
Chuck Todd gave a stunning example of the phenomenon this morning in his introduction of a Meet the Press special edition on climate change. Todd quite literally announced that dissent would not be tolerated. Here was Todd:
“Just as important as what we are going to do this hour is what we’re not going to do. We’re not going to debate climate change, the existence of it. The Earth is getting hotter, and human activity is a major cause. Period. We’re not going to give time to climate deniers. The science is settled, even if political opinion is not.”
* * * * * * * *
Note segundo: As Oren Cass has written at National Review: “The epithet ‘climate denier,’ intended to invoke Holocaust denial, has always been tasteless and inapt . . . But climate activists delighted in defining their opposition this way.” Chuck Todd should know better than to engage in this kind of ugly name-calling.
—NewsBusters, today.
Just think of Todd as a former and current Democratic party activist, now with a byline, and it all makes sense.
