The Bookworm Beat 2/9/16 — the “nothing about New Hampshire here” edition and open thread

Woman-writing-300x265All of the posts I’ll link to pre-date today’s New Hampshire primary. This is a NH primary-free zone. You might find it refreshing. And now, to the good stuff:

Trump could destroy conservativism in America for decades.  I think Charles Krauthammer hits the ball out of the park on this one (not to mention hitting the nail on the head):

The threat to the GOP posed by the Trump insurgency is not that he’s anti-establishment. It’s that he’s not conservative. Trump’s winning the nomination would convulse the Republican party, fracture the conservative movement and undermine the GOP’s identity and role as the country’s conservative party.

There’s nothing wrong with challenging the so-called establishment. Parties, like other institutions, can grow fat and soft and corrupt. If by establishment you mean the careerists, the lobbyists, and the sold-out cynics, a good poke, even a major purge, is well-deserved.

That’s not the problem with Trump. The problem is his, shall we say, eclectic populism. Cruz may be anti-establishment but he’s a principled conservative, while Trump has no coherent political philosophy, no core beliefs, at all. Trump offers barstool eruptions and whatever contradictory “idea” pops into his head at the time, such as “humane” mass deportation, followed by mass amnesty when the immigrants are returned to the United States.

Turning our military into a vast climate change boondoggle. The worst news this week was the announcement that, as Islamic jihad gets more aggressive around the world, climate change will become the military’s top priority. Only old-fashioned war-mongering fascists will cling to the outdated notion that the military’s top priority is defending America against foreign enemies.

A couple of comments. First, I’ve already seen this pivot to climate change in action during Fleet Week in San Francisco. The Navy ships I’ve visited, rather than boasting about their military capacity, boast about their carbon footprint (or lack thereof).

Second, this will turn the military budget into the greatest, and most corrupt, slush fund ever in the history of American government. The only good thing will be that, once the military is a giant green machine that can’t fight, but does use little batteries to power its tanks, we’ll stop hearing from inane Leftists horrified by the thought that their children, who enjoy the benefits of a nation under the protection of the greatest military in the world (and one, moreover, subject to constitutional control), might actually view our military as a blessing, rather than a curse.

The media couldn’t find a single person who knew Obama in his college days, but it did find Ted Cruz’s past classmates.  You won’t be surprised to know that Ted Cruz’s classmates at uber-Leftist Princeton and Harvard didn’t think well of him (here’s the link to Jezebel, if you want to give that site traffic).  Frankly, I think that’s a good thing.  You can tell as much about a person by his enemies as by his friends.  Cruz’s Ivy League enemies are hardcore Progressives who are deeply opposed to individual liberty, small government, a strong border, the free market, a strong national security stance, etc.  The less they like him, the more I like him.

People decry Cruz’s opportunism, but his Senate votes show him to be one of the few consistent conservatives.  One of the most common complaints I read about Cruz is that he’s an opportunist, who’s just out for himself.  This is horse puckey.  If that were really the case, Cruz would long ago have become a RINO — it’s much easier.

Instead, this is a man who has staked out often difficult positions that have left him disliked by his Senate colleagues, which is not considered the best way to get ahead.  And when it comes to his strongest supporters in Congress, I found some interesting information through a Facebook post.

Conservative Review looks at Congress critters’ votes and determines whether they are voting for a Leftist or conservative agenda.  It then gives the Senators “Liberty Scores” based upon how conservative their votes are.  Only four Senators score in the 90s (i.e., a grade of “A”), and one of those is Senator Cruz, with a 94%, making him the second most conservative person in the Senate.  Also, he 19 colleagues who endorse him aren’t RINOs; they’re other conservatives, including 6 endorsements from members with scores of A. The average conservative score of those who endorse him is 81%.

Marco Rubio’s vote tally puts him at 79% (i.e., a grade of “C,” albeit a high “C”).  He’s picked up more endorsements than Cruz has (having taken fewer principled stands, I guess).  Thus, Rubio has 36 endorsements, but none come from Congress critters with A scores; only one comes from a critter with a B score; and the rest come from critters scoring C or below — including 22 members in the D or F range.  The average conservative score of those who endorse him is 60%.

If you believe endorsements matter, then you should also believe that the quality of the person doing the endorsement matters too.  To the extent that Cruz is respected by his true conservative colleagues, while Rubio is respected by those who are RINOs at best, I’m pretty happy when I look at both Cruz’s friends and his enemies.

Is Cruz or Hillary the “antisemite” in this campaign?  There is a disgraceful meme going around, which uber-Leftist Dana Milbank has embellished upon, saying Cruz, a true friend to Israel, is antisemitic.   David Harsanyi effectively destroys this slander.

If you’re looking for the real antisemite in the race, you need look no further than Hillary Clinton.  Joseph Klein provides chapter and verse on Hillary’s hatred for Israel, as exposed in her emails, many of which enthusiastically embrace the worst kind of slanders about the Jewish state and the Jews.  In this way, she was the perfect Secretary of State for Barack Obama and is the perfect standard-bearer for the increasingly antisemitic Democrat.

And yes, in today’s world, hatred for Israel is a proxy for antisemitism.  There is no other way to explain the vitriol directed at the only liberal democracy in the whole Middle East, even as the world’s other worst actors consistently get a pass from the same people.

While I’m on the subject of this canard, when a conservative Jewish friend of mine, with great and sincere concern, posted Dana Milbank’s vile screed against Ted Cruz on his Facebook page, I hastened to assure my friend that Ted Cruz is a true friend to Israel.

A Jewish Leftist government lawyer read my comment and, without offering any facts sneered that I didn’t know what I was talking about.  I politely asked her which candidate she was supporting.  (Because her Facebook page identifies her as a “proud” Obama voter, and because she’s an older female Leftist, I’m betting money that she’s a Hillary supporter.)  She ignored my question and hurled more insults at me.  I again politely asked her which candidate she supported.  I also linked to Joseph Klein’s article.  After that, she posted this, directed at our mutual conservative Jewish friend:

Your obnoxious friend is quite annoying and not an ‘open dialoguer.’ I do not engage w/ fake, tone-deaf, pseudo-intellectual, uninteresting bullies. I do not consider you any of the foregoing.

Honestly, I’m incredibly proud of myself.  Without doing more than (1) saying Cruz is a friend to Israel, (2) asking politely “which candidate do you support?”; and (3) linking to the Joseph Klein article, I really got under her skin.  All in all, a good day’s work, with a payoff almost as rewarding as ice cream.

America’s campuses are becoming increasingly antisemitic.  One of the interesting things about safe spaces is that not all college students are considered equal for purposes of enjoying the benefit of those safe spaces.  Increasingly, those “safe” spaces are becoming judenrien — yup, no Jews are allowed in the “safe space” club.

You don’t need any fancy college-level euphemisms to know what this is — it’s good old-fashioned antisemitism.  If I had power in Washington, I would yank federal dollars from every single school that allows this disgraceful conduct to occur.

Chelsea Clinton is an adult political operative and should be treated as such.  Huzzah to Jack Shafer for saying the obvious, about the press’s habit of treating Chelsea as a protected class:

She has maintained a role as adviser and advocate inside the Clinton family’s political dynasty since leaving Stanford University. In late 2011, she crossed over to the dark and often invasive art of journalism, working at NBC News as a special correspondent ($600,000/year) until August 2014. Today, Chelsea serves as vice chair of the politically controversial Clinton Foundation, which has raised $2 billion since 2001. She’s a board member at Barry Diller’s IAC (paid a reported $300,000 a year, plus stock awards). She charges $65,000 per speech. Last fall, she published a book on “empowerment” for kids. She’s powerful. She exercises influence. She’s all grown up, soon to be the mother of two. If she isn’t newsworthy, nobody is.

No one would ever call Donald Trump classy.  Neo-Neocon is a very classy lady.  I can say this both because I know her writing, which is always thoughtful and elegant, and because I know her — and she is thoughtful and elegant.  Her thoughtful and elegant take-down of Donald Trump’s very classless behavior the other day is a thing of great beauty.

Why big government is a bad thing.  A friend sent me an email with this observation:  “In capitalism, people in the private sector get rich, in socialism, it is people in government who do.”  I promptly turned it into a poster (and, being me, made it wordier):

Socialism v Capitalism
And then I read Glenn Reynold’s article explaining that every time our government gets bigger and more complex, a politician benefits.

See?  It all comes together….

Because a good fisking is always a pleasure . . . you will enjoy reading Larry Correia’s take-down of NPR’s insistence that movies have proportional Hispanic representation.  Don’t you just love seeing taxpayer-funded, Leftist-NPR attacking uber-Progressive white Hollywood, which is increasingly making its big money through overseas releases in Africa and Asia, where lots of people hate America?  It’s just so, so . . . well, so something.

To be continued….

I would write more, but I’m people summoned to watch The People v. O.J. Simpson, a show in which I find I have surprisingly little interest.  There are too many big names in the show congratulating themselves for their mimicry, not to mention the fact that (somewhat to my surprise), I simply don’t care to see this 1990s debacle rehashed.