Daily Digest

---

• Running for the School Board? You’re QAnon!
• The art of the con
• Biden’s dishonest defense of his Afghanistan pullout
• Michael Barone to the two political parties: Grow up
• New frontiers in “equity”

Running for the School Board? You’re QAnon! Posted: 09 Jul 2021 05:01 PM PDT (John Hinderaker) The Democratic Party is rightly concerned that the overwhelming unpopularity of Critical Race Theory will destroy its chances in the 2022 election. Democrats are therefore trying out various messages to try to stem the tide. This one, from NBC News, is comical, but it is not clear that the Democrats have anything better: “QAnon’s new ‘plan’? Run for school board.” In the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election defeat and the disappearance of the anonymous online account “Q” that once served as QAnon’s inspiration, many people who spout QAnon's false claims have hatched a new plan: run for school board or local office, spread the gospel of Q, but don't call it QAnon. It’s a scene that has played out at other school boards and comes as many local meetings have emerged in recent months as cultural flashpoints in a broader battle over the perceived encroachment of race-conscious education — sometimes separately lumped together under the label critical race theory. The context for NBC’s “news” story is that conservative groups like mine have been urging local activists to run for their school boards to eject CRT from their communities’ schools. Several such efforts have received national publicity, but there are a great many more normal Americans running for their local school boards to wrest control from far-left activists, usually supported by the teachers’ unions, who advocate the racist, anti-American doctrines of CRT. Rather than report on that reality, which to say the least is uncomfortable for Democrats, NBC prefers a diversion: the pretense that anti-CRT parents somehow are related to QAnon. I don’t know anything about QAnon. Of my hundreds of conservative friends, I have encountered only one who professed sympathy with QAnon, which I take it has something to do with child sex abuse. This is unrelated to Critical Race Theory, and has nothing to do with the movement among parents and other concerned citizens to take back control of our public schools from the far left. NBC just wants to smear those activists with the QAnon brush. A final observation: like other liberal news outlets, NBC does not hesitate to refer to QAnon’s “false claims,” which apparently have forever discredited that group, or movement, or whatever it was. But how about the greatest false claim of our time, the lie, paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian state in the 2016 election? NBC News participated in spreading that lie. Is NBC News now forever discredited? If not, why not? What is the difference? Will NBC News ever acknowledge its false reporting and apologize to President Trump? Don’t hold your breath. For my part, I put QAnon and NBC News on a par. Both spread bizarre conspiracy theories that turned out to be false. The difference is that for NBC News, there has been no accountability.

The art of the con Posted: 09 Jul 2021 01:21 PM PDT (Scott Johnson) The good news is that Hunter Biden has figured out how to make up whatever income he lost when his term on the board of Burisma expired. The bad news is that his replacement gig may be even shadier. As Andrea Peyser puts in her New York Post column on Hunter’s new gig: “In October, a snazzy art gallery in New York City's high-rent Soho district is scheduled to put on the market some 15 works created by the president's son, 51, whose artistic experience, as far as I know, until now has been limited to doodles on strip club cocktail napkins.” What’s so shady about that? Peyser explains: “These multi-media monstrosities, which one critic said resemble renderings of the COVID-19 virus, but to me look like bacteria — on acid — are expected to fetch between $75,000 and $500,000. Each. The White House is insisting that the identities of buyers remain secret, from Hunter Biden as well as from the public.” Can secrecy serve as an ethical keystone? Byron York considers the possibilities in his Examiner Daily Memo Newsletter. This is almost funny: “Hunter Biden himself would not comment, but a White House spokesman claimed that the secret-buyer deal shows that the Biden administration ‘has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history.'” It is what might be called in other circumstances the art of the con.

Biden’s dishonest defense of his Afghanistan pullout Posted: 09 Jul 2021 11:52 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Joe Biden is pulling the U.S. out of Afghanistan and the country is spiraling toward civil war (maybe) and a takeover by the Taliban (almost certainly). Biden is no stranger to catastrophic pullouts. As vice president, he was behind our withdrawal from Iraq which led to the rise of ISIS and the creation of its caliphate. We had to return. Biden tried to defend the current pullout yesterday. He said he anticipated that difficult challenges would arise during the withdrawal. I suppose we should be thankful that Biden retains the mental capacity to have anticipated difficult challenges, obvious though they are. Unfortunately, the difficulties won’t be confined to what occurs during the withdrawal, though that seems to be all Biden cares about. The real disaster — the bloodbath, the oppression of an entire country, the ascent of terrorist organizations in a position once again to attack the U.S. and its allies — will occur mostly thereafter. Why accept these consequences? Biden answered by asking supporters of our engagement, “how many thousands more Americans, daughter and sons, are you willing to risk?” For his part, Biden declared “I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome.” The dishonesty of this defense is breathtaking. Early this year, we had around 3,500 American troops in Afghanistan. In 2020, ten American troops died there. Only four were killed in action. Thus, there is no question of “sending another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan.” Nor would maintaining our 2020 force level there put “thousands of Americans,” much less “daughters,” at meaningful risk. Finally, we need not expect a different outcome to justify our small, but important presence in Afghanistan. The current outcome — or the one that prevailed before implementation of Biden’s pullout began — was worth preserving at the current low cost. Certainly, the Taliban hasn’t been defeated. However, it had been thwarted in its effort to take over the country. Many millions of Afghans, especially women, enjoy freedom from the unspeakable Islamist oppression that prevailed before we intervened. Folks who courageously sided with the U.S. against the Taliban are (or were) largely safe from reprisals. Moreover, as far as we know, none of the terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan — the Taliban, al Qaeda, ISIS, and whomever else — has been able to export terrorism from there to the West. They have been deprived of a springboard for international terrorism, like the one al Qaeda had before we intervened or the one ISIS had in Iraq-Syria after that Biden pullout, before we reengaged. Not to worry, though. Biden promised, “I intend to maintain our diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. . and we’re going to engage the determined diplomacy to pursue peace and a peace agreement that will end this senseless violence.” Senility would be the best defense for a statement like that. I’m afraid, though, that the real explanation lies in deep cynicism and dishonesty.

Michael Barone to the two political parties: Grow up Posted: 09 Jul 2021 10:32 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Michael Barone contends that both political parties are failing to respond to signals in the political marketplace. I think Barone is right and has stated the problem neatly. The market signals to the Republican Party are pretty clear. In 2020, the GOP couldn’t defeat an uninspiring Democrat presidential candidate whose mental capacity obviously is diminished, perhaps significantly. The signals to the Democratic Party aren’t faint, either. They couldn’t defeat an immensely unlikeable and politically inexperienced presidential candidate in 2016. Nor could they avoid losing seats in the House last year, in what should have been a strong cycle for the Dems. Yet, the Democrats keep doubling down on leftism. They are trying to parlay their razor slim majority in the Senate (51-50, in effect) into the radical transformation of America. Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to be doubling down on Trump, at least for now. This is true both in Congress and among the rank-and-file. Polling suggests that almost half of registered Republicans support Trump more than they support the party. Barone credits Trump for “some unique policy successes.” However, he observes that Trump’s “non-credible insistence that he won the 2020 election combines his solipsism with rear-view-mirror vision — an election-losing formula.” Barone sums things up this way: Democrats have been allowing players with adolescent mindsets to determine their policies, and Republicans have been embracing a leader with adolescent behavior control problems. His message is: It’s time for the parties to grow up and pay attention to the signals and cues voters are sending them in the political marketplace. Which party, if either, will grow up first?

New frontiers in “equity” Posted: 09 Jul 2021 05:40 AM PDT (Scott Johnson) Is it possible to satirize the calculated malice and unthinking stupidity underlying the movement supporting the replacement of “equality” (meaning equal rights) with “equity” (meaning equal results)? I don’t think so. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Today the Star Tribune reports on new frontiers in “equity.” Now we have “tree equity.” Taking up the local angle on tree equity, the Star Tribune looks at how St. Paul measures up in Zoë Jackson’s story and disseminates this excerpt of Jackson’s story in its Eye on St. Paul email this morning. Jackson writes with a straight face (and even the prose is stupid): Just as St. Paul is ramping up efforts in its multiyear struggle to combat emerald ash borer by removing ash trees across the city, a national report is pointing out disparities in leafy canopies among neighborhoods nationwide, including locally. A new Tree Equity report by the nonprofit American Forests reveals tree cover disparities along race and class lines in many cities. The group gave St. Paul an equity score of 83, which indicates the city is performing well overall, but with some neighborhoods lacking suggested tree cover. The biggest disparities are on private property, not on city boulevards and parks, according to city officials. The importance of tree coverage has grown in recent years as concern for climate change grows. A neighborhood with fewer trees is significantly hotter than a neighborhood with more trees. One tree can have the effect of 10 room-sized air conditioners, said Karen Zumach, director of community forestry at Tree Trust, a Twin Cities nonprofit that works to grow the urban forest and new jobs. I’m posting this under Laughter Is the Best Medicine, but it’s not funny.

You are subscribed to email updates from Power LinePower Line. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States