Bookworm Beat 11/27/18 — the Samizdat Twitter edition and open thread

Because I’m a small target, Twitter is the perfect Samizdat vehicle to pass on news about Leftist insanity — news I later develop here, at Bookworm Room

Samizdat TwitterWhy I’m still on Twitter. Even as Glenn Reynolds has backed off of Twitter, many of you have probably noticed that I’ve seriously escalated my Twitter use. This is not because I see Twitter as an effective forum for debate. Indeed, I too am horrified by the way in which Twitter is shutting down any non-Progressive ideas while refusing ever to censor Proggies, no matter how often or blatantly they violate Twitter’s ostensible rules. But….

I am currently staying on Twitter for two reasons. The first is because I’m not yet willing to let Twitter run me off. I’m a little gal and it’s not paying attention to me, so I still have room to say with impunity verboten things such as “there are two genders” or “Bruce Jenner and Bradley Manning” or “Michelle Obama is a singularly mean and angry woman.” As such, I feel a little like a Samizdat Twitter activist, still able to make noise while Twitter goes after the bigger targets.

The second reason I’m still on Twitter is that I’ve discovered that it’s a very useful way for me to store articles or ideas that I later want to blog about. Over the years, I’ve tried capturing those articles in Word files, bookmarking them in my web browser, or even noting them down on paper. No system, however, has worked as well for me as just scanning my Twitter feed. Indeed, I’m very sorry I didn’t figure this out ten years ago, rather than a few months ago. So as long as Twitter is a useful repository for things that interest me, I’m inclined to keep going with it.

And speaking of things that interest me….

Even temperate analysts are seeing Watergate echoes. Michael Barone, the long-time political observer and analysis is a very temperate man. He will never turn to wild accusations or comparisons. That’s why I think it’s a big deal when he finally joins those conservatives who have long been saying that Obama took Watergate’s example and put it on steroids. Instead of using two-bit robbers, he turned the FBI and CIA into his Watergate-style accomplices:

The crime at the root of Watergate was an attempt at surveillance of the DNC after George McGovern seemed about to win the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, just as the government misconduct in Russiagate was an attempt at surveillance of the Republican Party’s national campaign after Trump clinched its nomination.

In both cases, the incumbent administration regarded the opposition’s unorthodox nominee as undermining the nation’s long-standing foreign policy and therefore dangerous to the country. McGovern renounced the Democrats’ traditional Cold War policy. Trump expressed skepticism about George W. Bush and Obama administration policies on NATO, Mexico, Iran and (forgetting Barack Obama’s ridicule of Mitt Romney on the subject) Russia.

[snip]

Both the Watergate wiretap and the Obama appointees’ investigator/spy infiltration were initially inspired amid fears that the upstart opposition might win.

[snip]

There are two obvious differences between Watergate and the Obama administration’s infiltration. The Watergate burglars were arrested in flagrante delicto, and their wiretaps never functioned. And neither the FBI nor the CIA fully cooperated with the post-election cover-up.

That’s quite a contrast with the Obama law enforcement and intelligence appointees’ promotion of Christopher Steele’s Clinton campaign-financed dodgy dossier and feeding the mainstream media’s insatiable hunger for Russia collusion stories.

Has an outgoing administration ever worked to delegitimize and dislodge its successor like this? We hear many complaints, some justified, about Donald Trump’s departure from standard political norms. But the greater and more dangerous departure from norms may be that of the Obama officials seeking to overturn the results of the 2016 election.

On politicians and promises. Donald Trump has been an amazing president because he’s kept (or, at least, tried to keep) almost all his campaign promises. The media, of course, hate him for this, because they hate his plan for a strong, safe America. They’d rather have a Leftist lie to get into office.

Lest you think I’m lying with that last sentence, I’m not. Just take a gander of this article lauding Gavin Newsom, California’s governor-elect, for blatantly lying on the campaign trail (emphasis mine):

Candidate Gavin Newsom promised the people of California that he would get them universal health care. Gov. Gavin Newsom is not going to fulfill that promise. And that’s fine. He won’t be the first politician to make a commitment on the campaign trail that didn’t happen once he took office. He certainly won’t be the last.

During his campaign, Newsom’s most ambitious commitment was to provide health care to all Californians through a government-run, single-payer system. This declaration allowed him to separate himself from the other Democrats in the race, making him not just the early front-runner, but also the preferred candidate for the party’s energized progressive base. His most prominent opponent, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, dismissed Newsom’s goal as “snake oil,” but it’s entirely possible that Newsom would not have been elected without making such a pledge.

[snip]

Through no fault of his own, Newsom will never achieve his audacious goal. But he still intends to spend tremendous amounts of government money on a more generous health care system for Californians. Even in the face of a likely economic downturn, he will move forward with expansive and expensive programs to extend coverage to more state residents.

Oh, joy! Even when he lies, Newsom is still going to suck up our money in pursuit of the holy grail of third-rate medicine and vastly increased government power.

China gives us a preview of 21st century total totalitarianism. Paul Joseph Watson has a real knack for exposing the Left. This video about China’s horrifying “social credit system” would be bad enough to watch if it just focused on China. What makes it truly horrifying is that PJW reminds us that America’s overwhelmingly powerful Silicon Valley technocrats, who control the news, social interactions, and finances have already started to impose their hard-Left vision of a “social credit system” on America — and that Democrat politicians are getting on board with the idea.

As Elmer Fudd famously said, “Be afwaid. Be vewy afwaid.”

Things people can and cannot do when schools ban armed teachers. If there’s one thing paying attention to the facts shows, it’s that, if a good guy with a gun is nearby when a bad guy with a gun shows up to go on a shooting spree, the bad guy’s spree ends really fast. It therefore makes sense to have armed teachers and other staff on campuses, as they would surely be a deterrent to anyone looking for the twisted joy of a a “turkey shoot” with human targets.

However, most school districts have opted for the turkey shoot method by banning guns on campus. This ensures that the local weirdo has endless soft targets for the eight, twenty, or forty minutes until the police show up.

Some schools, however, have signed up for a program called ALICE, which seeks to give people greater options than just hiding under desks hoping that the psychopath won’t shoot the lock off the door and fire at them. Jeff Sanders wrote about the ALICE approach and I was impressed enough to send his post to both of my kids. It’s not a magic shield, but it does encourage kids to be proactive in their defense, rather than sitting ducks (or, to continue my metaphor, sitting turkeys).

Mike McDaniel, however, has looked at Sanders’ description and points out that there are some dangerous flaws in the ALICE program. He explains that following some ALICE advice can put students in greater danger than they would have been otherwise. Overall, though, I agree with Mike’s ultimate conclusion that, if school districts are foolhardy enough to ban armed staff, “then ALICE might be the best of lesser tactics sure to result in some number of wounded and dead.” It’s just that Mike’s look at the flaws in ALICE’s program is so wise I really think that ALICE’s creators should study his post and think about modifying their program.

Even the most “modern looking” Muslim Middle Eastern countries are actually medieval sharia strongholds. You may have heard about Matthew Hedges, the British man who was convicted of spying in the United Arab Emirates and sentenced to life in prison. Although the British government eventually put pressure on the UAE and got a “clemency” discharge for Hedges, Bruce Bawer uses Hedges’s travails to point out the disgusting hypocrisy of hard-Left universities raising buckets of cash by doing business with medieval countries:

A few decades ago, the idea of establishing branches of Western universities in a country like the UAE would be considered ethically problematic. No free speech, no free press, no due process, and all that. Premarital sex and the drinking of alcohol are punishable by flogging. The penalty for adultery and apostasy is death by stoning.

Fortunately for the American and British universities in question, these drawbacks are more than balanced out by the huge piles of cash that are in it for them. In any event, as you know, it’s politically incorrect – Islamophobic, in fact – to get too worked up about sharia law. And nowhere are people more determined not to be politically incorrect or Islamophobic than at your typical American or British university.

I guess the fact is that, while these Leftist universities may part ways with the UAE on its treatment of women and homosexuals, it’s completely on board with its totalitarianism, creating a match made in Hell.

The Leftist locusts are changing Texas. One of the worst things Leftists do is destroy a state, both economically and socially. Then, having successfully turned their state into a dystopian nightmare, those with money move on to destroy another state. (Watch this video and tell me it doesn’t remind you of Locust Leftists.) We’ve already seen migratory Leftists turn Colorado blue and they’re working hard to do the same to Texas.

The latest example of the damage Locus Leftists are inflicting on Texas is this nauseating report about a little boy whose mother is using her warped fantasies about his gender in order to fight his father’s custody. That she’s a sick, evil woman goes without saying. What’s horrific is that the Dallas judicial system is letting her get away with this delusion madness.

Let me remind you again that there is no scientific basis whatsoever for this type of gender madness. None.

Is George Soros trying to destroy Mark Zuckerberg? Here’s an interesting Twitter thread. Two comments from me: (1) I can’t vouch for its accuracy, but it is consistent with what I’ve been reading elsewhere, and (2) this is a battle I’d like to see end with both sides losing:

About that invasion on our southern border. I don’t want to write a whole post about the invasion on our southern border (yeah, that’s me being lazy), so I’ll simply publish my favorite tweets here (which is part of why I stay on Twitter):

Making roses in the ashes or fish in the dirt. In my part of the world, when people’s car windows get really dirty, smart alecks will often write “wash me” in the dirt. Someone (in China?) has a different approach: