Saturday Snark

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and its Comments section.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on

the Week in Politics.

Films That Traumatized Us

If you should chance to search "movies that scared us as kids" or "traumatized us as kids" you'll find a whole bunch of lists people have compiled. I ran across one of them on Apple News and it triggered a childhood memory.

Perhaps the first film I ever saw in a theater was a black and white talkie based on the novel Les Miserables. An Internet check suggests it was probably the 1935 version with quite a notable cast. When I saw it it wasn't a recent release. Whatever Disney films of the era were, Les Miserables was the polar opposite.

This was in the pre-TV era so I'd never seen much in the way of actual moving pictures. What moved my parents to take me to that particular film I cannot fathom to this day. If you know the story, you know it is about a morally wrongful persecution that goes on and on. 

I do know I was young enough not to understand what I was seeing was fiction. I remember it as bleak and unremitting. It scared the living hell out of me and we left in the middle of the film. 

I don't know if my folks ever did see it. I seem to remember it was a couple more years before they could get me to go back to a theater.

Brain Fog

People are writing about Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan. In the pre-Trump days she wrote some outstanding columns. 

Kamala Harris isn’t the only one looking bad on TV.  I saw Noonan being interviewed on TV recently and she embarrassed herself.

I’m truly sad to report she appeared to be either inebriated or showing signs of dementia. Honestly I hope she’d overdone it at cocktail hour. Wikipedia says she is 74; that is young to exhibit the degree of brain fog I saw.

The Barista Proletariat

Michael Barone has been writing smart things about politics longer than most people have been alive, and he’s not done yet. Today he looks at the Democrats’ rumination in response to their sweeping loss on Nov. 5. Barone blames “the groups” and the “barista proletariat” for the loss, which he explains.

Ruy Teixeira ... writes that Democrats have moved sharply left on cultural matters, on racial quotas and preferences, on increasing rather than reducing immigration, toward stands that have repelled “the white working class” in the 2010s and now repel the nonwhite working class in the 2020s.

Once upon a time, Democrats relied on policy advice from state and city party bosses who were in touch with ordinary people. These days, argues economist Noah Smith, they are overly reliant on “a variety of activists and special interests — collectively known as The Groups,” who, in the contemporary equivalent of smoke-filled rooms, “persuade Democratic staffers and politicians of their ideas ... well out of the public eye.”

These “groups” make claim to represent various constituencies Democrats wish to support - Blacks, Hispanics, Unions, LGBTQ+, etc. They actually push policies their supposed constituencies largely reject. 

Barone notes there is a constituency for the ideas “the groups” favor, and that’s the barista proletariat. Found often around university campuses and a particular sort of urban neighborhood which he describes as.

Relatively low-rent, mostly but not all white neighborhoods, usually subway-accessible and marijuana dispensary-dotted quarters in our largest cities.

And who lives in these barista proletariat neighborhoods?

A segment of the electorate whose orientation is essentially adolescent — with no steady community tie through homeownership or job tenure, devoted to freedoms defined by lack of adult restraint or supervision, with an adversary posture to middle-class mores and American traditions. These are people aching with personal dissatisfaction and disposed of, often by lessons taught in schools and colleges, that their complaints can be easily assuaged by government bureaucracies.

The barista proletariat does populate the staffs of nonprofit groups and electoral politicians, the ranks of publishers’ assistants, and newspaper and magazine junior editors and writers. Their readiness to protest and shut down Democratic and media operations is a source of power, deployed often with the gleeful abandon of adolescents granting themselves a day off.

These were the Bernie Sanders supporters when he ran for the Democrat presidential nomination. More recently they forced the resignation of a New York Times editor. In Barone’s view they are the current Democrat core constituency, And therein lies the Party’s problem - its policies favor disaffected adolescents, unlikely to ever be, or become, a majority.

Blame Ken Kesey

RealClearPolitics links to a Los Angeles Times article echoed at msn.com, on homelessness. It quotes interesting statistics which reflect the underlying causes of most of it.

According to one survey, 82% of homeless adults in California reported having experienced a serious mental health condition, and 65% had used illicit drugs at some point.

More proof, if any is needed, that homelessness is largely the result of closing mental hospitals in favor of treatment “in the community (sic).” The mentally ill and addicted now live on the streets and self-medicate with illegal street drugs, preferring them to what would be prescribed for their conditions.

This is a result of one of the most evil collaborations of left and right ever experienced. The left believes we all have a “right” to be whatever form of neurodivergence may (a) spontaneously occur or (b) be chemically induced, unmolested by society. The right disliked spending the large sums of money involved with warehousing the more psychotic and chemically based forms of neurodivergence in mental hospitals. 

The result: we stopped involuntarily warehousing the addicted and mentally disabled and left them to their own devices. They ended up living in tents, shacks, and their vehicles, abusing alcohol and street drugs to ease their evident discomfort. Some percentage make enough of an unbearable nuisance of themselves to end up in jail or prison. 

Disproportionally the unhoused ended up in coastal California where the weather makes living outdoors less miserable than elsewhere. Beautiful Santa Barbara was one of the first communities to experience this blight decades ago, then it spread up and down the coast as the numbers increased.

Properly understood, homelessness is a problem we created when we stopped involuntarily incarcerating those unable or unwilling to follow societal norms. Author Ken Kesey was the pied piper who led us down this primrose path.

Happy Thanksgiving Day

If your day today isn't like the famous Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover below, I hope you at least have a clear memory of one such, particularly from your childhood. 

My mother was one of seven children, they'd all gather at grandmother's farmhouse with spouses and kids and it was crazy fun. We cousins would eat at a separate table.

There was always plenty of food, one of Mom's brothers raised and sold turkeys commercially. Good memories, good times.

Empiricism

Thanksgiving in the American mind is inextricably associated with the Plymouth Plantation and the Mayflower colonists. It is good to remember the colony began as a socialist experiment and, when the collectivism failed, reverted to private property which then succeeded. 

Power Line has reprinted an excellent column by a historian of note who describes this series of events. I recommend it to you on this day of giving thanks for our many blessings, one of which certainly is that we took that early lesson to heart. 

The “Eff It” Election

A lot has been written about why the election turned out as it did, and I am certain there is more to come. At Sp!ked Brendan O’Neill interviews author Bridget Phetasy about why she decided to vote for Trump. Hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the link.

It boils down to her being tired of the Democrats’ B.S. put-downs of normal people for being normal. She calls it “the f*ck it election” and - in my opinion - she may well be correct. 

Ever since the Obama era Democrats have been telling us that what passes for common sense among normies is bad, wrong, awful, and destroying the planet and humanity. Phetasy says she’s sick of it, and I am willing to bet there were tens of millions more who felt the same.

It turns out there are way more normies than weirdies who feel left out. We normies are tired of being told to eat our broccoli when what we want is a greasy burger, fries and a Diet Coke. 

We wanted a president who not only understands but also shares our normie tastes. Who will run the U.S. for our benefit, whose behavior and pronouncements will reflect common sense and practicality. Who believes and acts as though problems have actual solutions that will work in real time.

Midweek Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.

CA Exodus Redux

Power Line's Steve Hayward posts data about people moving away from California. Check it out, things have gotten so nasty even the poor are leaving. 

We have an unequivocal answer to the question: "Can paradise be spoiled by lousy government policy and action?" That answer is Yes. 

Democrats didn't just eat the serpent's apple. Metaphorically, they hired a herpetologist to make sure the satanic snake was well cared-for. 

Like the DrsC, many native Californians now live in less-desirable locales which have better human systems and are okay with the trade-off. I'll be interested to see the most recent data.

Quagmire

Writing at UnHerd, Mary Harrington calls this a “winter of Great Britain’s discontent.” Her point is that one unpopular U.K. government is following another without anything getting better. 

She recollects the Margaret Thatcher years and notes Maggie had the courage needed to cut Gordian knots and create temporary pain to improve the quagmire in which she found her nation. Someone with similar vision and courage being obviously needed now, although Harrington sees no reasonable candidates on the horizon. I particularly like this suggestion.

We might even look to the most radical policy shift of all: leaving behind the fantasy of “global Britain” for some form of re-unification with Greater Britain, which is to say the historic Anglosphere.

One supposes by “Anglosphere” she refers to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and to some extent the U.S.; places where English is most people’s native tongue and the culture is largely first world. Ireland should be included, but wouldn’t join out of post-colonial pique - their loss. 

Not that most Americans have paid attention but illegal immigration is at least as much a problem for the U.K. as it is here. They have “boat people” coming across the Channel on nearly anything that will float.

Self or Other?

I will admit to a prejudice. I tend to believe, a priori, the people running Singapore are more likely to be right than wrong, more likely to be right than others. Since achieving independence from Malaysia, they have an awfully good track record.

Now comes a RealClearPolitics piece by George Yeo - the former foreign minister of Singapore and himself ethnically Straits Chinese - who argues that China is unlikely to become a colonial power because the mainland Chinese are inwardly focused and don’t wish to become close to other cultures, something becoming a regional hegemon would require.

Since independence, Singapore has been multi-ethnic and seems content to be so. Its founders were Straits Chinese, members of the Peranakan Chinese diaspora who can be found across Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. They tend to be a successful minority wherever found (except in Singapore where they dominate) and seem content to be so.

What is unclear is whether Yeo is describing a culture he views as unlike his own or whether he views himself as reporting from “inside the dragon.” Whether in short Yeo speaks as Straits Chinese or as ethnic Chinese. One suspects it is the former.

I suppose an analogy would be when an anglophone Canadian writes about the United Kingdom, does he write as a Canadian or as someone whose relatively recent ancestors were Brits? You’d guess “Canadian” and you’d often (but not always) be correct.

Perhaps Yeo thinks we should know where he stands. However, since he writes with apparent authority about the culturally driven intentions of the PRC, in this instance a clarification would not have been redundant.

Being Thankful

In anticipation of Thanksgiving Day tomorrow, let me say that readers of this blog are likely to be thankful for the election just completed. Our great nation just took a step in the right direction, a step back from a precipice, a step of reaffirmation.

Warts and all, this intentional community of immigrant peoples is the envy of the world. We have done so many things right historically, even if it took a few years to finally get comfortable with all of them.

Our composite character is the result of cherry-picking the best parts of the many cultures from which we sprang. The resulting mix is uniquely American, uniquely good. 

Tomorrow let us celebrate the result. God or, if you prefer, good fortune has truly blessed America.

Loving Who We Are

Writing at the Claremont Review of Books, political scientist Charles R. Kesler thinks deeply about the election just concluded. I believe you’ll enjoy his conclusion, I recommend reading the entire article.

Trump has his own style of hyperbole, of course. But notice how his differs from the Democrats’. Conceiving of their own party as being on the right side of history, and the Republicans as ensconced firmly on its wrong side, the party of the glorious future versus the party of the discredited, oppressive, immoral past, makes it very difficult for today’s progressives to admire the American character and the American dream.

Trump feels no such reservations or doubts. For all his rough edges as a candidate and a human being, he thinks of Americans as a beautiful people based on a beautiful set of commonsense ideas. Perhaps that’s why he is on his way to building a new majority party, a truly ascendant coalition, brethren of the same principle.

At the end of the day, which suitor do you prefer? Someone who says you could become wonderful, or someone who believes you are wonderful? We may listen to the first one on Sunday morning at church, but we marry the second one.

Wasting Your Taxes

Lame-duck President Biden is throwing away your tax money. ABC News reports the Biden administration has approved a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian to build a Georgia plant to make cheap EV cars for which there is no market.

Sensing the soft market for EVs, Rivian had wisely put the development of the plant on hold. Now with money from the government they will likely go ahead. Smart investors believe there is little chance the "loan" will ever be repaid when Rivian goes under.

The politically astute believe Biden's motivation for this move is to damage the market prospects for Tesla and therefore for Elon Musk who is Tesla's founder, major stockholder and a noted Trump supporter. The Bidens are engaging in revenge with your tax dollars as they head out the door.

Bad Publicity

The 23 campus California State University System is the “largest public university system in the United States.” It produces 110,000 baccalaureate degrees every year. 

My undergrad alma mater - San Jose State University - is the oldest (est. 1857) of the 23 CSU campuses and the 5th largest in enrollment. The other DrC’s B.A. is from another campus of this system. 

Outside the greater Bay Area, San Jose State rarely makes the news. The current exception is over the presence on its girls volleyball team of a transsexual player. 

Several other schools in the Mountain West athletic league have refused to play SJSU and forfeited their scheduled games. This isn’t how I prefer my alma mater to be identified in the public mind. But then, I don’t favor former men playing in women’s sports. 

It’s no coincidence there are no former women competitively playing in men's sports. The XY physical advantage is real, Darwin was no dunce. Men and women evolved to fill different niches in our species’ overall survival strategy, our abilities are complementary. This should be obvious to everyone who has paid attention.

Who Became Extreme?

The charts guy at Power Line - Steve Hayward - posts a chart which answers the question "To what extent has each of the major political parties become extreme?"

Clearly Republicans have shifted slightly to the right, while Democrats have shifted sharply to the left. and become outliers. The U.S. remains what it has always been - a mildly conservative nation.

So in 2024, what segment of the voting public voted with Democrats? Answer: those who could afford, and/or actually benefitted from, "luxury beliefs."

Today's MAGA Republican Party is very different than your grandpa's "country club" GOP.

Look-alikes

I'm good at remembering faces, and sometimes life gives me a hand in this regard. I happened to be watching a travelogue on Spain, probably on PBS, and saw a segment on Doménikos Theotokópoulos, whom Spaniards called El Greco or "the Greek." The artist was known for his tall, somewhat strange portraits of aristocratic Spaniards.

Then the news brought Special Counsel Jack Smith to the fore. It was reported he asked the judge to drop two federal cases against Donald Trump. 

What struck me is that Jack Smith has a face El Greco painted time and time again five hundred years ago. I'd been thinking he looked oddly familiar and here, I believe, is an explanation for my deja vu.

Jack Smith has an El Greco face.

Baja Utah

We are finally getting resettled in our winter place, which I think of as located in "Baja Utah." Technically it is in Nevada's Clark County, separated from Utah by the northwest corner of Arizona, but it was founded by Mormon homesteaders and their descendants run it to this day. 

It is a NV border town with 3 casinos and a giant liquor store, reimagined as a new "Palm Springs for the Mountain West." There are several quite large 55+ “country club” retirement developments with golf courses, populated by relatively affluent retirees who have chosen to stop dealing with snow. There are also several large RV parks catering to "snowbirds."

Some residents live here year round and deal with the blistering hot summers. Others winter here as we do, and spend their summers back home up north where the snow has finally gone and the air is pleasantly warm. It has most of the winter advantages of the greater Phoenix area but is a whole day's drive closer to "home" up north.

Unlike a lot of southwestern desert towns, it doesn't look "down at the heels" and worn out. That's the noted resemblance to Palm Springs and it's no accident, the "town fathers" keep the place looking neat and cared for.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

They Are the Bus

Joe Klein has been writing about politics from a Democrat perspective since the days of Bill Clinton. He writes that his party has gone off into the tall weeds and left him behind, a man without a party. I would share with you some of his insights.

[Ruy Teixeira] just wrote an essay arguing that it’s time to throw the Democratic interest groups under the bus. I agree, but there’s a problem: they are the bus (emphasis in original).

There are two Democratic bus “drivers” that are inimical to the cause of good government, which supposedly is the root project of the party. They are lawyers and public employees unions, especially the teachers.

Now, I’d be grateful if someone could explain to me why federal employees, many of whom are over-protected as it is by the civil service system, need unions too. And then, there’s this eternal question: If industrial unions—which I favor—are organized against the power of capital, what are public employees unions organized against? The public? (italics in original)

There is no counter-vailing force to the power of the public unions in the Democratic Party.

The point is, these are the people driving the Democratic bus. They are forces of reaction, of profound sclerosis. And no one wants to talk about it.

So Joe Klein writes about it, as does Ruy Teixeira. Given civil service protections, public employees should not be allowed to strike or bargain collectively. 

Public employee unions funding election campaigns is like criminal organizations paying the expenses of judges. I write this as a retired more-or-less-lifelong public employee.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists

on the Week in Politics.

Gaetz Withdraws, Replaced by Bondi

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, whom Trump had sought to appoint as his Attorney General, has decided to decline that honor. Fox News reports Gaetz’ words:

It is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition. There is no time to waste on a needlessly protracted Washington scuffle, thus I'll be withdrawing my name from consideration to serve as Attorney General. Trump's DOJ must be in place and ready on Day 1.

It would appear what Gaetz learned from Senators was that he had little chance of being nominated, and every chance of being pilloried. Trump needs to view this stumble as a minor loss, and keep moving forward. 

Later ... Trump announces his new pick for Attorney General - Pam Bondi. She is a two-term Attorney General of the State of Florida, a long-time Trump supporter, and telegenic enough to work for Fox News.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

A Prowler

Last night we had an experience that, in retrospect, was funny and I'll share it with you. Better than that, I'll refer you to the other DrC's description of what happened. 

Our robot vacuum, nicknamed Dobby the House Elf, "woke up" in the middle of the night and went walkabout. He hasn't done this since sometime last spring. Needless to say, his peregrinations were neither authorized nor welcome. 

Abandonment

Stephen Green who posts at Instapundit makes a trenchant political observation which I endorse.

Democrats have by and large abandoned the business of governing in favor of unpopular social crusades and punishing heretics.

Indeed ... and it isn't working.

Two Reps Go TERF

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is no shrinking violet, she says what's on her mind, usually in a flamboyant way. She was asked by a woman reporter about the newly elected Congressperson from Delaware, a biological male who "identifies" as Sarah McBride (the first "trans" member of the House). The Daily Mail has Green's reply.

If you're going to ask stupid questions, don't advocate for mentally ill men pretending to be women invading our spaces. Yes, he's mentally ill. He's a biological male pretending to be a woman.

Greene later elaborated on her views. 

He's a man. He's a biological male, so he is not allowed to use our women's restrooms, our women's gym, our locker rooms and our spaces that are that are specified for women. He's a biological male. He has plenty of places he can go.

Implicit in that last comment is a place both fiery and sulfurous. Meanwhile Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) has introduced a bill which would limit use of women's facilities in the Capitol to biological women.

Mid-Week Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics' Cartoons of the Week.