Daily Digest |  |
- Slow Joe vs. The Gipper
- The lonesome death of America Thayer
- Podcast: The 3WHH, with a Fight Club Sequel and Sidecar of FDR
- The Week in Pictures: Lockdown Sequel Edition
- Censorship Is Here. What to Do About It?
| Posted: 31 Jul 2021 10:46 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) John and Scott have been keeping tabs on President Dementia, which got me to thinking back to President Reagan. Reagan left office in 1989 at age 77, and a few years later was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. There’s been lots of speculation ever since that he suffered cognitive decline during his second term, though my own opinion is that he showed normal age-related change in memory and performance, whereas President Biden, at age 78, appears to be well along the road to genuine dementia. In doing some new Reagan research, I came across the following clip of a half-hour interview Reagan did in late 1987 (when he was 76) with the anchors of the three major networks plus CNN (Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, and Bernard Shaw), and I recommend scrolling to any point in this media session to note how well Reagan performs—without a teleprompter or note cards. Sure, you can say that Reagan had memorized talking points (though it seems to me he answers spontaneously to several sharp questions designed to throw him off), but right now Joe Biden can’t even seem to do that. Ask yourself this question: is there any chance that Biden could get through a half-hour interview of this kind with the anchors of the major networks?
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| The lonesome death of America Thayer Posted: 31 Jul 2021 07:09 AM PDT (Scott Johnson) The brutal murder of America Mafalda Thayer is heartbreaking, horrifying, and enraging at the same time. She was beheaded in broad daylight on Thursday in Shakopee, Minnesota. America appears to have been a delightful Cuban immigrant; she legally changed her name to America when she became a citizen. Shakopee sits in Scott County on the south bank of the Minnesota river 25 miles southwest of Minneapolis. It one of the Twin Cities metropolitan area’s beautiful small towns. Prince’s old Paisley Park home/studio in Chanhassen is six miles up the road. At the time of her death America was working at a MyPillow facility in Shakopee. The Star Tribune quotes a written statement by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on her death: “America has been with My Pillow for many years, bringing smiles to so many faces. She was so sweet and kind. We are devastated and are praying for her family.” America was involved in an abusive relationship with one Alexis Saborit. She wanted out. That appears to have been what prompted Saborit to deploy his trusty machete on her. Saborit was quickly apprehended and charged with America’s murder. Is he an illegal alien, a legal resident, or a citizen via Puerto Rico? He has yet to get up to speed in English. In his court appearance yesterday he spoke in Spanish, claimed self-defense, and asked to be deported to his own country rather than stand trial in Scott County. The judge set bail at $2.5 million. Let us pray that Kamala Harris does not set up a GoFundMe page to spring Saborit pending trial. Saborit had a criminal record of domestic abuse. At the time he murdered Thayer he was on his way to court on a 2020 arson charge. He had tried to burn down his apartment building in Shakopee. He wielded a gasoline can, a baseball bat, and his trusty machete in a standoff with police on that occasion. Despite concerns expressed about his mental health by his own attorney in that case, Saborit was out on bail. He was released from custody at least twice on bond, most recently in April. A mental health evaluation was ordered. Most recently, his conditional release was ordered revoked and a court document found he was a danger to others. He was asserting a mental illness/cognitive impairment defense in the case. Scott County Judge Richard C. Perkins nevertheless ordered him released. Why, I do not know. Crime Watch MN/Alpha News covers this aspect of the case here. This story tries to piece together the infuriating details. The paragraph above is based on the Alpha News story and embedded tweets. The Star Tribune doesn’t even mention this aspect of the case in the Chao Xiong/Paul Walsh story linked above. Why Saborit was out and about at the time of the murder remains a mystery. Someone in a position of authority needs to answer why. In addition to the Star Tribune and Alpha News items above I recommend the following stories for readers seeking to piece this story together with more details: • Danielle Cinone, The Sun, “HORROR DEATH America Thayer beheaded latest – Alexis Saborit arrested in Shakopee, Minnesota after video of 'bloody body' shared.” (At the bottom, the story misplaces Shakopee in Iowa.) • Staff, FOX 9, “Search warrant: Woman killed in Shakopee was beheaded, suspect in custody.” • Dana Thiede, KARE 11, “Charges filed in Shakopee domestic murder.” • Lou Raguse is the dogged KARE 11 reporter I have gotten to know covering the Noor and Chauvin trials. He was at yesterday’s bail hearing. His Twitter feed is also a valuable source of details.
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| Podcast: The 3WHH, with a Fight Club Sequel and Sidecar of FDR Posted: 31 Jul 2021 05:53 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) We're back! After a hiatus for a week while I was overseas, Lucretia and I return to the bar with some new whiskies and a sequel to our last episode that talked about the hysterical attacks on our friends at the Claremont Institute. Little did we know the liberal hysteria was just getting started! Damon Linker, the columnist at The Week and a previous guest on this podcast, thinks our Claremont friends are going all-in for dictatorship. This seems a bit overwrought, but it provides a good occasion to look back at a genuine example of "Caesarism" in the form of Franklin Roosevelt, and especially his imperious and authoritarian First Inaugural Address. Most people recall only one famous line from the speech—"We have nothing to fear but fear itself." (Did FDR's speechwriters actually get this from a newspaper ad? We review the evidence.) Much less recalled are FDR's multiple references to how the American people needed and wanted "discipline," and that he was more than ready to be the disciplinarian, especially if Congress didn't step up and grant him the extraordinary powers he wanted. Just imagine what the left would say if Trump had said anything like this. Also, is it really correct to call Edmund Burke "the Jane Fonda of the American Revolution"? Curtis Yarvin thinks so, and it briefly throws Lucretia off her game. But not to worry; she recovers quickly and puts Burke back in stir. You know what to do now: lace up your gloves and punch the play button here, or wander over to our hosts at Ricochet.   This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The Week in Pictures: Lockdown Sequel Edition Posted: 31 Jul 2021 03:43 AM PDT (Steven Hayward) You can almost feel the Biden Administration and blue state governors jonesing for another lockdown and mass masking madness. It’s in the air. Like a virus in fact. But sequels are almost always disappointing. Too bad we can’t come up with a vaccine for leftism. Especially since the infection fatality rate is so high.
Headlines of the week:
 Jernalizm.
And finally. . .
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| Censorship Is Here. What to Do About It? Posted: 30 Jul 2021 05:31 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) The dark night of censorship isn’t just threatening, it is already here. The most recent case–one of hundreds, if not thousands–is that of Dave Rubin, a popular conservative commentator with a large following on Twitter. Rubin tweeted this:
Rubin’s statements of fact were, I think, entirely correct. We were told that if we got vaccinated, we were home free. No masks, no worry about covid. Therefore everyone should get vaccinated. In a matter of weeks, that turned around. Now we are told that, contrary to the CDC’s expectation, vaccinated people are getting and transmitting covid in substantial numbers. I am not sure whether that is true, but it is the rationale for another round of hysteria, with mask mandates and shutdowns in the offing. To those true statements, Rubin added the opinion that our society should “take a pause.” The exact meaning of “take a pause” is not clear, but presumably it refers to a step back from hysteria and renewed destructive mandates. That is an opinion that, in all likelihood, a majority of Americans share. But Twitter blocked Rubin’s ability to recite those facts and add his opinion:
As Tyler Durden points out at the link, this censorship is exactly what Democratic politicians have been urging Twitter, Facebook et al to do in Congressional hearings and other forums. In suppressing facts and opinions that diverge from the Democratic Party line, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon and other tech companies are reprising the contemptible role played by Pravda, Tass, FARS, Granma, Xinhua News and other state-run or state-dominated organs of censorship in totalitarian countries. The idea that censorship by Twitter et al. is beyond remedy because they are private companies is ridiculous. When they cut off communications at the behest of the government, they are state actors subject to the First Amendment. Moreover, the monolithically left-wing tech companies–Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft–control a large majority of the venues in which Americans communicate about current affairs. Still, their control is not quite complete. But that could change. The far Left is awash with cash; it could buy up all of the telecom companies and ban conservatives from talking on the telephone. Would that be acceptable? Similarly, the Left’s money bags would easily pay for all of America’s printing presses. Would it be OK for leftists to buy up all the presses and refuse to print anything that diverges from the Biden administration line? Our freedoms are under threat as they have not been in a very long time. The question is, what to do about it. Private action is appropriate; we should support non-leftist alternatives to platforms like Facebook and Twitter, for example. But that is not going to be good enough. The major platforms may be natural monopolies on account of network effects, and I don’t know how individual action can create alternatives to Amazon’s web hosting dominance or the Apple-Google duopoly. We need to bring government action to bear while we still can. Specifically, we need to encourage as many states as possible to legislate against internet censorship. In my opinion, the best way to do that is through state legislation that creates a private cause of action when a tech platform discriminates on the basis of political or philosophical viewpoint. I won’t elaborate on this idea at length; I have drafted legislation to that effect which I embedded here. The basic idea of that proposed law is to ban discrimination in the moderation of content on social media sites on the basis of race, sex, religion, or political orientation. The bill was introduced in the Minnesota legislature and triggered a panic on the part of the tech giants, who mobilized to oppose it. More about that legislative concept here, here and here. Others have suggested alternative legislative frameworks that may also be useful. Regardless, a sense of urgency is mandatory. Our freedoms are slipping away, and we need to move aggressively to reclaim them.   |
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