Daily Digest |  |
- Tune In To the Dennis Prager Show Tomorrow…
- The Wuhan Flu, One Year Later
- Small-Government Conservatism and the Golden Turkey
- Columbia to hold separate graduation events based on race, ethnicity, etc.
- Literal Fake News from Our Garbage Media
| Tune In To the Dennis Prager Show Tomorrow… Posted: 17 Mar 2021 04:26 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) …because I will be guest hosting. We have a good slate of guests, and it promises to be an interesting three hours. I plan to spend an entire hour on the Derek Chauvin trial, so if you want to weigh in on that you should tune in and take the opportunity to call. Beyond that, I will have guests talking about the Texas blackout, the radicalism of the Biden administration (that would be Steve Hayward), how blacks can find a better path forward than BLM, and more. If the schedule breaks our way, we may also hear from a leading contender for the national GOP ticket in 2024. The Prager show runs from noon to 3 p.m. Eastern time (9 to 12 on the West Coast). You can find a station near you or listen here. I hope you will join us.     |
| Posted: 17 Mar 2021 04:17 PM PDT (Steven Hayward) As we know, it about a year ago that we began the two-week lockdown to “flatten the curve,” which will linger in the annals of government doublespeak for a long time, since “two weeks” turned out to mean “a year.” Somewhere along the way, it became “racist” to call it the “Wuhan virus,” which must be insulting to the West Nile virus, the Spanish influenza of 1918, the Zika virus, the Hong Kong flu, and all the other viruses named for their geographical place of origin that never got the protection of political correctness. In any case, good to have a look back at how the media discussed the virus a year ago, courtesy of the Media Research Center:
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| Small-Government Conservatism and the Golden Turkey Posted: 17 Mar 2021 01:16 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) At the federal level, traditional small-government conservatism is on life support. Even before the “Biden administration’s” $1.9 trillion money-printing spree, the forces of limited government hadn’t been heard from in Washington for quite a while. Things are different at the state level, however. State governments can’t Minnesota is one state where spending has long been out of control, and taxes are high. Therefore, my organization has taken aim at wasteful spending through our Golden Turkey Award. It was Bill Proxmire who realized that most people can’t process sums involving billions of dollars, so it is necessary to highlight waste of a magnitude that people can absorb. The $400 hammer lives on in memory. We presented our first Golden Turkey just before last Thanksgiving. The winner was a $6.9 million refrigerated fruit warehouse that Governor Tim Walz bought as an overflow morgue to house all the dead bodies that wouldn’t fit in the state’s mortuaries. Needless to say, it has never been used. Yesterday we held a press conference to announce our second Turkey which, like the first, was decided by a vote of thousands of Minnesotans among four nominees. The winner was a $7.2 million public bathroom at a rest area on Highway 35 between the Twin Cities and Duluth. The video immediately below is the press conference, which we held on site at the rest area. The second video is a tour of the facility itself. In keeping with the spirit of the award, the videos have, I think, some entertainment value:
To advertise the Golden Turkey competition, we erected two billboards on northbound Highway 35. One was 14 miles ahead of the rest area, the other five miles ahead, sort of like Burma Shave or Wall Drug signs. This is one of the billboards:
Notwithstanding the current tsunami of government spending at all levels, I do not believe there is a viable form of conservatism that does not include smaller, more limited government as a core principle.   |
| Columbia to hold separate graduation events based on race, ethnicity, etc. Posted: 17 Mar 2021 10:18 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Columbia University will hold six separate graduation ceremonies this year. According to Fox News, there will be ceremonies for Native, Asian, “Latinx” and Black students taking place for Columbia College, Columbia Engineering, General Studies and Barnard College. In addition, there will be a “FLI Graduation” for the “first generation and/or low income community” and a “Lavender” graduation for the “LGBTIAQ+ community.” Due to the pandemic, these ceremonies will be “virtual.” I’m happy to report that Columbia will also hold a regular graduation ceremony for all students. The University explained that the boutique graduations (my term) “exist in addition to, not instead of, University-wide commencement and individual school Class Days.” They are “voluntary” (thank God) and “open to every student.” Columbia clearly wants it both ways — a balkanized campus but not a segregated one. It’s a fine line, though. I wonder whether the boutique graduations will reduce participation in the university-wide event. I also wonder why Columbia is stopping at just six such graduations. Why shouldn’t Pacific Islanders have their own ceremony? Why shouldn’t the “second generation community”? The answer is probably that these groups haven’t demanded one. There’s a good chance, however, that new groups will do so in the coming years. I assume that Columbia’s attitude will be “the more, the merrier.” Finally, why not a separate graduation ceremony for Whites? Shouldn’t these students have the opportunity, if they wish, to celebrate their graduation in the absence of those who view them contemptuously as “privileged” and inherently “racist”? If Columbia is going to hold boutique graduation ceremonies, they should hold one for Whites. But don’t expect the University’s “more the merrier” attitude to extend that far.   |
| Literal Fake News from Our Garbage Media Posted: 17 Mar 2021 09:35 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) Our news media . . . do I even need to continue this sentence? Of course not. But I’m going to. Because sometimes the media is so disgraceful and repugnant that the normal day-to-day epithets are insufficient. It was almost exactly 40 years ago (April 1981) that the Washington Post had to return a Pulitzer Prize for Janet Cooke’s completely fake story of the eight-year-old heroin addict, “Jimmy’s World,” which no one at the Post thought to question (how does an eight-year-old support a heroin habit exactly?) because the story conformed exactly to elite liberal stereotypes about race and poverty. The assistant managing editor of the Post at the time who signed off on the piece was a fellow named . . . Bob Woodward—yes, that Bob Woodward, who actually said the following after the hoax was revealed, the Pulitzer returned, and Cooke fired: “It is a brilliant story—fake and fraud that it is. It would be absurd for me or any other editor to review the authenticity or accuracy of stories that are nominated for prizes.” Well okay, but how about when it is initially turned in? Since the Cooke scandal 40 years ago we’ve seen many sequels at the New York Times and elsewhere (Jayson Blair anyone? Stephen Glass? Sabrina Erdley? Jack Kelley?), and this sordid history of literal “fake news” comes to mind with the revelation earlier this week that the Washington Post‘s huge scoop in early January about President’s Trump’s phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensburger was incorrect. This has to rate as one of the most astonishing corrections in the annals of modern journalism:
Keep in mind that the fake quotes from the original piece was included in the articles of impeachment against Trump. Will there be any accountability for this at the Post? Will there be any transparency about how the “mistake” was made? Will we learn the identity of the source of the quotes? That might go a ways to helping judge the credibility of the entire journalistic process here. Don’t hold your breath. Increasingly it seems Trump’s epithet “fake news” isn’t strong enough. UPDATE: The original source has been identified: Jordan Fuchs, Georgia’s deputy secretary of state, who told the Post that the original quotes were “an interpretation, and not meant to be direct quotes.” PJ Media reports: “Fuchs was not identified in the original story, but referred to as ‘an individual familiar with the call who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the conversation.'” (Emphasis added, though that description should have raised alarm bells.) Certainly builds a lot of confidence in the rigors of the Post‘s reporting and editing. Want some good news (that’s true)?
What—the COVID “Relief for Liberal Interest Groups” bill didn’t include payoffs for the media? Serves them right for the complete incuriosity about reporting what was actually in the bill (less than 15% for actual COVID-related purposes). I guess the whole media take their editorial orders from Nancy Pelosi now: you have to pass the COVID “Relief for Liberal Interest Groups” bill to find out what’s not in it.   |
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