* Second Hour: Theater Thursday: Tombstone (1993)
* Weekly Standard: How Jeff Flake’s One-Week Delay Helped Clear Brett Kavanaugh’s Name
* New York Post: Democrats’ Kavanaugh assassination is reuniting the right
* WP: The rise and the reckoning: Inside Brett Kavanaugh’s circles of influence
* ‘Never Trumpers’ unite to back Trump’s battle for Kavanaugh
* WIRED: IT’S TIME TO TALK ABOUT ROBOT GENDER STEREOTYPES
* Israel Uses Canary Mission Blacklist Info To Bar Activists
Israel is one of the intellectually freer nations, which helps explain how an Israeli political philosopher, Yoram Hazony, has suddenly established himself as perhaps the most interesting thinker of the post–Merkel’s Mistake era with his spectacular new book, The Virtue of Nationalism.
With Israel being nationalism’s prime success story in recent decades, this Israeli nationalist is well positioned to offer a resounding intellectual justification to his fellow nationalists in America, Britain, and the Netherlands. Israel is one of the rare nation-states where nationalism is not demonized by elites, so its defense attracts more elite talent than in the West. Hazony explains:
“I have been a Jewish nationalist, a Zionist, all my life…. My family came to Jewish Palestine in the 1920s and early 1930s with the aim of establishing an independent Jewish state there. They succeeded, and I have lived most of my life in a country that was established by nationalists, and has been governed largely by nationalists to this day…. Among them, nationalism is not some unfathomable political illness that periodically takes over countries for no good reason and to no good end, as many in America and Britain seem to think these days.”
In contrast, North Atlantic intellectuals have largely been employed in molding minds in support of two vast neo-imperial projects, the European Union and the new world order imposed by the air supremacy of American bombers. Hazony points out that imperialist intellectuals, such as the late neoconservative Charles Krauthammer with his Latin term “pax Americana,” are consciously drawing upon the imperial tradition of their models: Rome, Austro-Hungary, and Westminster.
But,
“…almost all public discussion of these efforts was conducted in a murky newspeak riddled with euphemisms such as “new world order” “ever-closer union,” “openness,” “globalization,” “global governance,” “pooled sovereignty,” “rules-based order,” “universal jurisdiction,” “international community,” “liberal internationalism,” “transnationalism,”…“the right side of history,” “the end of history,” and so on. All of this endured for a generation—until finally the meaning of these phrases began to be clear to a broad public….”
And brought us Brexit and Trump.
Hazony, an American-educated Israeli academic and former Netanyahu aide, is a Modern Orthodox Jew, the Jewish persuasion that perhaps optimally balances social conservatism with intellectual curiosity. (The downside of Modern Orthodoxy is that it’s very expensive.) Hazony has nine children, which may help explain his disdain for the current year’s conventional wisdom.
He has a quotable prose style that reminds me a little of G.K. Chesterton, the unbelievably quick-witted English newspaper philosopher. In a century of trying, nobody has come close to Chesterton’s mastery of paradox, but Hazony sometimes is in the running.
* Hazony is basically a neocon in the mold of David P. Goldman aka “Spengler”, who is also a religious Orthodox Jew critical of more imperial minded neocons like Kristol and Krauthammer. Like Hazony, Goldman is also wary of Catholicism and Islam, as both claim to supersede Old Testament revelation and the Jews’ status as the Chosen People of God, with all the political and social implications this entails for Jewish life in seriously Catholic and Islamic polities.
It is not accurate to say that Hazony is opposed to imperialism and supports nationalism in principle. Post-Cromwellian England, the United Netherlands, and America were expanding empires. Not only their Protestant, pro-Semitic character, but also their imperial and commercial expansion at the time attracted mobile Jewish financiers and migrants. And obviously it’s unlikely that Hazony is a fan of Nazi Germany on account of its nationalism.
It’s equally unlikely that Hazony favors the same sort of nationalism Israel enjoys being allowed for all nations. He would not be a fan of English or Dutch nationalism if it became too stringent or exclusive in his eyes. Hazony, like Goldman, is not so much supportive of nationalism in principle for all peoples, but supportive of nationalism that is not too nationalistic, and imperialism that is not too imperialistic. Nationalism like that of Israel allowed for other nations is obviously not necessarily good for Jews, particularly diaspora Jews. While too much imperialism requires an imperial authority that supersedes all in the realm (like the imperial cult of Rome, the papacy, Islam, etc.) and imperils the privileges of smaller identities and allegiances like that of Judaism, and also includes many more constituents whose interests will not align with those of other minorities.
Hazony and Goldman are more removed from the day to day politics (Hazony is based in Israel, Goldman works in finance) of the West and thus can see that things have moved too much in the imperial direction and are thus bad for their interests. More ordinary neocons like Kristol and Krauthammer are/were too much ensconced in policy that the bigger picture was less visible.
* Israel is one of the most (if not the most) expansionist powers on the planet, whose borders increase in size every day. Not only has it dominated the Palestinians, it has encouraged the subversion of foreign governments, installed its own puppet regimes, and engaged in programs of political intimidation around the world – all forms of subjugation.
If nationalism “inculcates an aversion to the conquest of foreign nations” then Israel is clearly not nationalist.
* Actually, Israel has radically decreased in size since 1967.
* There are plenty of stupid goys who make the same argument just as well. They just aren’t as welcome in these parts.
Civic Nationalists just need a Jewish path to Ethnic Nationalism. It makes them feel cleaner.
But make no mistake, Civic Nationalism – sorry, but the kind that Steve advocates – is a dead-end. It won’t worked. I have no idea what this country will be like in 50 or 100 years, but it won’t be some multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural kumbaya of various tribes rallying around the Constitutional and civic nationalism.
I think the world of Steve and believe that he’s a national (my nation) treasure. God knows that he runs rings around me intellectually, but he’s wrong about Civic Nationalism. Wrong in the way that only someone what wants to believe is wrong.
I don’t care how much propaganda is shoved down the throat of people via TV, movies, university and the internet. Ethnic nationalism will triumph over civic nationalism eventually the same way that I can only hold a chair over my head for so long. It’s nature.
* The laws of political power, and thus of politics, are absolute. True political power can only be cultivated from ethnic nationalism. Everything else is a diversion / delusion. That’s not a wishful statement. That’s a statement that best reflects human social behavior and its real world political result.
* Trump should incorporate Hazony into his speeches – by name. Let the NY Times readership have their heads explode.
* Hazony’s a more respectable/palatable Moldbug.
* For God’s sake, even our best defenses of nationalism are written by Jews.
* Ex-Boyfriend of Blasey Ford Comes Forward with a Few Minor Scandals
* From MPC: “The Ford allegation was a Democratic political operation from the start. I have no doubts that the letter was written with the aid of party operatives to make its claims unfalsifiable given Kav’s bio. They didn’t even risk giving a range of dates, because they couldn’t be sure that Kav wouldn’t have an iron clad alibi (his party planning letter, for example, refers to a vacation in Ireland immediately before Beach Week, and putting the event during that week would have been utterly fatal). Indeed, her account was altered serially after first contact with Eshoo in order to line the dates up (instead of the original account putting Kav at Yale in the mid-eighties). Katz was chosen in order to handle the puppet Ford as best as could be done under the circumstances.”
* Steve Sailer: The success of Israeli nationalism
* Famously Nice Paul Krugman on “The Angry White Male Caucus”
Democrats declare war on white men: "A lot of white men don’t know what it’s like to feel threatened, powerless & frustrated. As we go through the reckoning of this lopsided power balance, there’s going to be a lot more of this” #BrettKavanaugh https://t.co/5BrjILnIx8
— Kevin Michael Grace?????????⚜?? (@KMGVictoria) October 2, 2018
* Imagine if They Tried to #MeToo Snoop Dogg
* Heading into the season finale, Better Call Saul serves up multiple crises
NEW: GOP Senators leaving their party lunch say leadership is telling them they are expecting the FBI to deliver the summaries of their interviews for the supplemental background investigation into Kavanaugh LATER TODAY. Cloture vote would be Friday.
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 3, 2018
* Book Club: McLuhan For Beginners
* Breitbart Breaking News On Kavanaugh
* Calgary Herald column defending Brett Kavanaugh slammed by city councillors, advertiser
.@JeffFlake: “I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to but not more than one week, in order to let the FBI do an investigation, limited in time and scope to the current allegations that are there.” https://t.co/FVPyEJhAJf pic.twitter.com/GZbxe2MPWb
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 28, 2018
Your SCOTUS Nominee- #DelayTheVote pic.twitter.com/uMCrqTy7eG
— Matt Nolan (@mattnolan888) September 28, 2018
If I was married or in a committed relationship— why on earth would I have an issue making my man a sandwich?
You’re in a late stage of rabid feminism. Seek medical help, immediately. https://t.co/rh4x3iCewm
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) September 28, 2018
* Theater Thursday: Barry Lyndon (1975)
* Christine Blasey’s fear of flying
* The Guardian: High school slut-shaming still haunts me. Kavanaugh made me relive it
* Yahoo: Barbra Streisand to Trump in new song: Don’t lie to me!
* New York Daily News in 2010:
One of the media elite’s most whispered-about scandals went public Wednesday when married CNN correspondent Jeffrey Toobin squared off with a woman who says he’s the father of her baby.
Yale-educated lawyer Casey Greenfield – the daughter of eminent CBS News analyst Jeff Greenfield – had a chilly faceoff with Toobin in Manhattan Family Court.
The ex-lovers barely spoke in the waiting area before joining their lawyers behind closed doors with a court referee to hash out custody and money issues.
Toobin, who glumly sat several rows away from Casey Greenfield before the hearing, is said to have privately admitted to fathering the child, believed to have been born last summer, sources said.
A friend of Greenfield’s said the outspoken Toobin has resisted putting his name on the infant’s birth certificate and hasn’t given his former lover the child support she’s requested.
Greenfield, who wore a magenta blouse and dark tailored suit, has responded by refusing to let Toobin see the baby, the source said.
The ex-lovers and their lawyers declined all comment.
“Respectfully, I have nothing to say,” said Toobin, who was nattily attired in a spread-collar tattersall shirt, striped tie and blue suit.
Greenfield and Toobin appeared to be doing their best to avoid eye contact before the hearing, which was closed to the media.
He had his nose buried in a newspaper. She vigorously typed on her smartphone.
Greenfield, 36, was married to screenwriter Matt Manfredi in 2004 by federal Judge Kimba Wood, who became known as the “Love Judge” after an an affair of her own in 1995.
Manfredi, whose credits include “Crazy/Beautiful” and “Aeon Flux,” filed for separation fewer than two years later.
Toobin, 49, has been married since 1986 to his Harvard sweetheart, 51-year-old Amy McIntosh, who has held top positions with Verizon and the Zagat Survey.
The couple has two teenage children.
Toobin, who weighed in on former President Bill Clinton’s sex scandal in his best-seller, “A Vast Conspiracy,” wouldn’t say whether he and McIntosh are still living together.
He was wearing his gold wedding ring in court.
The legal analyst, who has covered some of America’s biggest court cases for CNN and written for The New Yorker, provoked double-takes from other lawyers in Family Court.
* I don’t think it is very similar to what Anita Hill said. Her claims were far less phantastic, and it would have been plausible that she remembered exactly what had happened.
But now, we have
– an accuser who does not remember when and where exactly an attempted rape decades ago occurred, but she claims to know which schoolboy it was, while there are no witnesses that she ever mentioned it to anyone earlier in her life
– stories about Kavanaugh allegedly being a member of a rape gang
Probably, soon, stories about Kavanaugh eating babies alive will emerge.
It is hard to see in what way this should be more crazy and more evidence-free than the Pizzagate allegations against Hillary Clinton.
This nomination process shows to the whole world how degenerated the political processes in the US have become. People don’t discuss political issues any more, but they accuse their political opponents without evidence of being puppets of foreign governments or of having been members of rape gangs in high school or running pedophile rings.
The Democrats’ cynical exploitation of women who, even if they speak the truth, have such murky memories of the events decades ago that they could hardly know whether the schoolboy they have in mind really was Kavanaugh is also disrespectful towards victims of rape who will have more difficulties being taken seriously after such an instrumentalization of phantasic allegations for political purposes.
* Perhaps running a gauntlet of personal attacks might become a standard hurdle in the careerist trajectory, like getting into the right school, scoring the right internship, chasing the right promotions. If you want to grasp the few coveted prestige jobs (at least in public service) you’ll be expected to survive a humiliating public crucible. It would be a ritual of passage, which may already be operating if you’re a careerist on the Right.
* I think that if Kavanaugh makes it through the confirmation vote, he’ll turn out to be a great justice like Clarence Thomas because of this fiasco.
The rip on Kavanaugh from the right is that he is a D.C.-born, Yale-educated, establishment Republican — something of a swamp creature. Republicans have been talking about putting him on SCOTUS for years… and he’s only 53. He was a golden boy and probably never saw this coming. He was completely blindsided by it.
Like Clarence Thomas, if Kavanaugh makes it onto the Court he’s going to be so red-pilled about who these people really are that I think he’s going to take the civil liberties of right-wingers and the potential for abuse of government in the hands of the Left very, very seriously.
* Don’t know Kavanaugh. Don’t necessarily believe him a saint, nor the devil. And while I haven’t closely analyzed the tea leaves of his prior decisions on the appellant bench, don’t necessarily think he represents our (i.e.: we, the plebes) best interests.
In other words, I have no dog in this fight other than substantive ones — how will he rule on privacy; first, second and fourth amendment issues; corporate rule…
That said, the Senate should confirm him, if his accuser(s) provide no credible evidence or supporting witnesses at todays hearing. After all, they’ve had plenty of time (over thirty years) to prepare. The standard applied must be the same afforded any other person accused of a serious crime — no evidence, no conviction.
Or in this case, no evidence — confirmation.
If all his accuser(s) offer are a “she said it, so it must be true” argument, it presupposes a woman will not lie or cannot be mistaken, and that there is no larger partisan political agenda in play. Neither supposition is true.
Having dealt with women, attorneys and politicians over the years, it has come to my attention that some will lie if they believe it serves their interests.
Absent a presumption of innocence and exercise of due process to sort through a complaint and determine its merit, those claims become nothing more than a means of attacking another person for whatever reason the claimant desires.
Absent rule of law, we descent into a hell of accusations as convictions — much like we put in place in Afghanistan and Iraq where we imprisoned thousands for merely being accused as “terrorists”…
Absent credible evidence and witnesses supporting these claims against Kavanaugh, vote to confirm Senators — unless, of course, there is some substantive and articulable reason not to do so in his prior decisions or answers to the committees’ substantive questions…
To do otherwise is not merely a slippery slope — it pitches us into the abyss.
* I totally blame Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski, and Sue Collins. This whole thing is for their benefit. It gives Flake a shot to screw his constituency one last time, a la McCain. It gives Sue Collins a chance to preen in Friday in front of her purple constituency. I’m not sure what it does for Murkowski, but she is mumbling about the need for a 7th FBI background check for probably the most boring guy in the work.
* I think they view Ford as a win-win. If they block Kavanaugh then great! If not well then it’s the evil misogynistic republicans hating and abusing women angle they can push heavy on a month away from elections.
* Kavanaugh should be the wake up call for everyone who is still in doubt that being religious, faithfully married, have school aged daughters, and live a suburban lifestyle does not protect you from the leftist lynch mob. In fact, it probably incenses them. This is true for all whites, male liberals as well as social conservatives, religious conservatives and neo-cucks. You have been warned.
One of the reasons Trump got so much resistance from fellow Republicans is that it was believed his sexual history would make him a easy target. They were right but did not understand that in this day and age any Republican was fair game to the faithless liberals who have no morals and no compunction. Ironically, Trump was probably the best prepared for this onslaught which is a big reason why we elected him. Every time he would publicly spar with a woman people would gasp while at the same time his ratings would climb (it was the same with race). He was a champion and a man who would fight and not hide in the closet of marriage. Huzzah!
* Reading from a completely prepared statement, zero eye contact, zero details, no emotions other than fear from being on national TV in front of the Senate. She’s lying. Oh, and the only picture we’ve seen of her must be about 15 years old.
* She’s a hysteric.
Grown women of that age don’t lament high school party non sexual encounters with boys as some sort unique burden and lifelong trauma. Farce.
* Fear? No, she looks thrilled to be on national TV. She was smiling before and during Grassley and Feinstein’s opening arguments. She’s loving the attention.
Her voice was tremulous as she recounted this fake event, but the whites of her eyes are unclouded by redness, there’s no blotchiness around her eyes or anywhere on her face and, most importantly, she is shedding NO tears. The latter three symptoms are involuntary, the quavery voice is voluntary.
She is lying.
Oh, she is so thrilled to be on the teevee!
* Vocal fry, ach nein!
It’s a strange affectation for a 51-year-old woman. Most women in their fifties don’t speak with this affectation.
It means Professor Dr. Blasey Ford spends a lot of time around up-talking millennials and emulates her students. It makes her feel young.
* Diane Feinstein personally asserted in her opening statement– neither directly quoting nor evincing that she was intending merely to paraphrase the accusation by another– that Judge Kavanaugh had exposed himself to Ms. Ramirez, thus making the accusation Senator Feinstein’s own. She read a veritable laundry list of other unsupported accusations belatedly leveled against Judge Kavanaugh, knowing full well that those accusers were not to be witnesses before the committee, at least not during this hearing itself. She was rightfully chastised by the committee chairman (who otherwise seems rather cringe-worthy in his inability even to read his own opening statement without fumbling for the words that are sitting in front of him).
* Christine has lived a more comfortable, privileged life than 99% of the people on the planet.
Yet, according to her, that is still not good enough.
* Ford is a boozy, floozy broad and is most definitely supported by others in this attack on Kavanaugh. She is a middle-aged woman who has aged horribly (which I can tell is due to her wild, younger days – when even then she was not attractive – and not anything Kavanaugh did to her). She looks like she’s on Prozac or Ambien right now.
* KMAC: Christine Ford is a nutcase emotional wreck. Maybe she should be allowed to take a warm bath with candles while testifying. She obviously doesn’t want to testify, or if she is willing, it will be under the least stressful conditions.
* Blasey strikes me as typical neurotic post-menopausal female. If she were here testifying to her abduction by space aliens or that she wore tinfoil inside her pussy hat to protect herself from Trump mind control beams she would sound exactly the same.
Female logic is a sight to behold – I was afraid that someone might break in and assault me in my home so I made sure to put in lots of doors to provide extra points of entry. The woman, despite her semi-illiterate letter, possesses a certain degree of intelligence but it’s clear that she is rule by emotion rather than reason, so her powers of reason are wasted on her. If it were possible, she would donate some of her wasted IQ points to some deserving ghetto child.
* Her critical mistake was this: she avoided remembering any falsifiable details, like where the assault took place, when it took place, or how the hell she even got home.
* I think that she loves having the nation’s attention while she tells us that she is so irresistibly hot that men lose control and force themselves on her.
* She comes across as a burned-out Valley Girl, who’s still living off her dead daddy’s money. THE VIEW crowd must be eating this crap up and loving it. If Kavanaugh survives this steaming pile of shit, he’s one extremely lucky bastard. Once again, the Republicans wind up getting beaten like a red-headed step-child by shoddy Dem tricks. The GOP simply don’t have a political Game in any way shape or form.
* It’s about an hour into her testimony and I have come to understand why she had a psychotherapist. She looks a little off. Not normal. Not wholesome.
But I’m a Republican. The Democrats see Joan of Arc and the Republicans see a scheming neurotic who has triumphed in her quest to smite Trump and to appear on national TV.
* Would love to know if this woman talks with this much vocal cry all the time. Seems put on. I think she has convinced herself of some of her purported details but not others. It could even be true. Of course, I don’t care if it is true.
If it is true, it’s an allegation against a literal minor. It is way too dangerous of a precedent to set to hold people accountable for unproven childhood dalliances. Ludicrous to consider it. Confirm him and move on.
* That was mind-blowing. She was treated with kid-gloves from start to finish. More than anything she came across as dim. She has made massively terrible accusations on the basis of no evidence and the witnesses she named could not corroborate what she said.
She has a PhD! I have one of those, and I now almost feel ashamed of it
At the end of that content-free mind-fart she was told that she had taught America an amazing lesson.
The female population of America will now cry in sympathy and vote Dem in November.
* I wanted Grassley (or another) to end by asking:
“Given your memories of this experience, what advice did you give your daughters (or nieces) to help them avoid this sort of situation?”
When she–inevitably–starts whining about and providing advice for men, cut her off:
“I didn’t ask about advice for men. Traditional Christian men, know they should not taken advantage of a woman. And we’ve all heard–endlessly–lectures from feminists both that all men are rapists and that when women go out to get drunk and “have fun” it is the duty of the drunk men, to make sure that the drunk women get home and tucked into bed safely and unmolested.
“No i asked about advice to young women. Based on your memories of this experience as a teenager, what advice can you offer young women to avoid getting groped or being in a situation where she is worried about being raped? What should young women do to be responsible for their own safety?”
* Its all about her feelings. Thats a losing topic. Very light on facts. If you’re viscerally revolted by Hillery, Ford is disgusting. K better be ready to defend himself.
* The uptalking, the vocal fry. The whiny, phony tears and shaky little girl voice.
So many fingernails across the blackboard. It is detestable.
But it is our future.
