Daily Digest |  |
- The migration crisis: “Americanists” vs. “Transformationalists”
- “Let’s Go Brandon!” In the Skies [with comment by Paul]
- Stephen Hunter: The Shooting
- In the Virginia race
- Sunday morning coming down
| The migration crisis: “Americanists” vs. “Transformationalists” Posted: 31 Oct 2021 11:20 AM PDT (Paul Mirengoff) Last weekend, American Greatness featured an article by John Fonte on the migration crisis as its “Weekend long read.” This weekend, I commend Fonte’s lengthy article to Power Line readers. Fonte’s piece is called “Migration Crisis Overview: Americanists vs. Transformationists.” His thesis is that Joe Biden's immigration policy represents an existential conflict for America. Before getting to that argument, Fonte provides an excellent discussion of the harrowing state of our border with Mexico, a summary of Biden’s immigration policy, and a persuasive argument tying former to the latter. He then analyzes the border crisis through the lens of a power struggle of clashing interests, values, and cultures among five competing forces: 1) the cartels, 2) the Mexican and Central American governments, 3) the migrants themselves, 4) the Americanists, and 5) the Transformationists. Who are the “Americanists”? Fonte describes them as follows:
By contrast, the “transformationalists” are “those political, cultural, and ideological forces in America who favor the ‘fundamental transformation’ of the United States.” They believe that America has been plagued for centuries by "systemic racism" that remains embedded in our core institutions, such that the "fundamental transformation" of the nation is required. Fonte proceeds to demonstrate that the Biden-Harris Administration has explicitly rejected the three core principles of the Americanist immigration tradition: 1) that immigration should first and foremost serve the interests of American citizens; 2) that immigration policy should be implemented with the consent of the American people; and that 3) patriotic assimilation is the end goal of immigration. As to the third prong, he notes that in April, Biden went so far as to ban use of the word "assimilation" by federal agencies. Thus, in Fonte’s words, the president “repudiated a core Americanist symbol from George Washington to Barbara Jordan that many regard as a quintessential manifestation of the traditional success of America's immigration story.” Accordingly, Fonte concludes that Biden is on board with “the Transformationist goal (and expectation). . .that the vast majority of the 1.5 million or so migrants illegally entering the United States this year (with, perhaps, the exception of some Asians and anti-communist Cubans) will be ‘integrated’ into the new group rights regime (equity rather than equality) established by American progressive elites.” The newcomers will be "integrated" into the "oppressed" group category in today's prevailing cultural Marxist framework of American life as a conflict between "oppressor" groups and "oppressed groups." That, at least, is the idea. If this analysis of the situation is correct, and I think it probably is, then it’s difficult to dispute Fonte’s view that Biden’s immigration policy represents an existential conflict for America.     |
| “Let’s Go Brandon!” In the Skies [with comment by Paul] Posted: 31 Oct 2021 09:53 AM PDT (John Hinderaker) On Friday, a Southwest Airlines pilot signed off with the usual chatter directed at his passengers, and added, “and remember, let’s go Brandon.” It was a low-key invocation of the ubiquitous phrase:
Reportedly, “Let’s go Brandon” is being heard on Southwest Airlines pilots’ radios even when not audible to passengers, and I have it on good authority that the same thing is happening on other airlines. This is hardly a surprise; a few days ago, four of the top ten songs on iTunes were variations on “Let’s go Brandon.” What is interesting about this seemingly minor episode is the Left’s extreme reaction to it. It is all over Twitter, with liberals denouncing the Southwest pilot and demanding that he be investigated or fired. Twitchy features this tweet by a liberal activist who is a former Obama employee and now is a lecturer at the Kennedy School:
Of course it isn’t just this pilot: liberals are hysterical about “Let’s go Brandon,” not to mention the actual “F**k Joe Biden” chants that have broken out at college football games and elsewhere. You see this everywhere on Twitter, among other places. Apparently these people have forgotten the last five years. If they thought it was unacceptably crude to say “F**k the president,” they should have thought of it in 2016. A simple Google search–“fuck Donald Trump”–turns up 17,900,000 results. One could cite endless examples of such vulgarity. Here is one, from the Facebook feed of a Lutheran minister who is engaged in campus ministry:
There is no one in the Democratic Party–literally not a single person, as far as I am aware–who has objected to the unceasing stream of obscenity that Democrats have directed at Donald Trump for the last five years. “Let’s go Brandon” is remarkably subtle and unobjectionable compared with what we see from the Democrats every day. (Then of course we have far more serious misconduct, like multiple physical assaults on Senator Rand Paul and his family. But that is material for another post.) And the incivility continues. To cite just one of countless instances, we have Democratic Party activists crashing and ruining a wedding because Kyrsten Sinema was one of the guests:
STEVE adds: Wouldn’t it be a wonderful flying experience if liberals decided to boycott Southwest en masse? Southwest could help along this blissful prospect if they start serving Black Rifle Coffee. PAUL adds: “Let’s go Brandon” is political commentary. In my opinion, pilots should not subject a captive audience of passengers to it. JOHN responds: In principle, I agree with Paul. In a parallel universe that isn’t crazy, my belief that captive audiences shouldn’t be exposed to political commentary, even in humorous, three-second doses, would govern. However–speaking of captive audiences–I am mindful of the fact that I have spent many hours at airport gates being subjected to left-wing harangues on CNN. When I have spent an equal number of hours listening to conservative commentary from pilots, I will call it even.   |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 06:16 AM PDT (Scott Johnson) Our friend Stephen Hunter describes the column below as “one more Alec Baldwin piece, this from a film critic and acknowledged firearms expert.” Steve was the Pulitzer-Prize winning film critic of the Washington Post and is the author of the Bob Lee Swagger novels. His new novel is TARGETED, which will be published in January by Atria/Emily Bestler Books and is available for pre-order now. Steve writes: What did Alec Baldwin know of the firearm with which he killed Halyna Hutchins? The answer, based on his filmography, is not much. Whether intentionally or by chance, he has had a remarkably gun-free career as a film actor. He has never made a Western. His most recent exposure dates back to 1994’s “The Getaway,” in which he used a .45 automatic, as did Steve McQueen in Sam Peckinpah’s original. However the automatic is a pistol from another era (1911 on) and its protocols are entirely different than the Italian clone of the Colt Peacemaker he reportedly used on the set of “Rust.” The perdurable Peacemaker is a genre icon. It has been used safely in literally tens of thousands of Westerns, from “The Great Train Robbery” of 1903 to this year’s “Old Henry.” In today’s professional film culture, even with diminished production of Westerns, there still must be hundreds of men and women highly proficient in its use. New Mexico, where the film shoot had gone, has to be jammed with savvy Colt users. There’s even an under-the-radar sport called Western Action Shooting by which thousands of ordinary folks dress up cowboy and use period-accurate firearms in matches. In other words, there’s no shortage of expertise. Clearly, Baldwin was not a western action shooter. One must further wonder if his reputed anger issues or his CEO status as producer precluded some old-salt type from giving him a basic rundown on what he could or could not do or what he should never do with the pistol. If so, that would be one more catastrophe in the chain of catastrophes that killed Ms. Hutchins. The gun that Baldwin used was a functional Italian replica of the Colt revolver which came into being in the early years of industrialized firearm development, far before such elementary issues as safety became of consideration. It was one of the first cartridge-firing handguns from Connecticut’s gun valley, originally released in 1873. Besides or perhaps in spite of being beautiful and ergonomic, its power, reliability, ease of operation and sturdiness made it a perfect marketplace fit. It was designed to be a short-range, quick-to-deploy mankiller, mandatory protection in the frequent episodes of violence that marked the frontier. Its engineers never cared about safety because they assumed the men who used it to be of practical nature, good with their hands, skilled in survival skills, shooters of experience, of great need to do the necessary fast. They never envisioned it in the hands of actors. All these years later, it retains some features that make it dangerous to the tenderfoot. As a single-action revolver, its trigger does one thing; it drops the cocked hammer. That hammer must be cocked by hand, usually with the thumb, wrapping around and securing the upswept spur, drawing it back until it locks in place. Thus–usually–shooting requires two discrete behaviors–the hammer must be cocked, then the trigger pressed. The art of drawing and shooting the single-action Colt is therefore highly refined, an integration of contradictory motions–the draw is up and out, the cocking down and back — that demand coordination, dexterity, hand strength and practice. It is not something to be picked up quickly, which is why many producers use shooting doubles, like armorer Hannah Guiterrez-Reed’s legendary father Thell Reed, in closeups. One exception confuses the issue and Clint Eastwood will be eternally grateful for it. He burst into big-screen consciousness in 1967 when he–or an Italian shooter-double in close-up–blew five galoots out of their boots as if he had a submachine gun. “A Fistful of Dollars” helped make him a star. Eastwood or the double had fanned the pistol. It is a feature of the Colt–of any revolver– that when the trigger is held back, that is, pinned against the rear of the trigger guard, the cocking function is bypassed. There are mechanical reasons for this, but I won’t explain them because I am not without mercy. Still, it is this feature which makes fanning possible: if the shooter holds back the trigger, he can slap the hammer back and it flies forward and fires at each slap, over and over. With practice and talent he can get really fast and even accurate. So it was this big iron that ended up on the hip and then in the hands of Alec Baldwin. I believe the most likely scenario for the incident at Bonanza movie ranch had to involve “inadvertent fanning.” There’s even an incident of inadvertent fanning on the record. In John Ford’s magnificent “The Searchers” Ethan (John Wayne) tosses The Reverend (Ward Bond) his loaded Colt. “Watch it, it’s loaded,'” says Ethan. But the Reverend doesn’t watch it. As he raises the pistol to fire at the charging Comanches, his thumb slips off the hammer and he accidentally discharges a shot at 45 degrees into the river. Something like this must have happened to Baldwin. The actor, as reported, was sitting in the pew of the church, practicing. He was trying mightily to get the draw-cock rhythm down and that was his focus, though dangerously adding the element of speed. It never occurred to him that the gun was loaded. (Rule No. 1: All guns are always loaded.) He was unaware that his muzzle had drifted onto the camera crew where Ms. Hutchins and director Joel Souza were crouched. (Rule No. 2: Never let your muzzle cover anything you aren’t willing to destroy.) In practicing the draw-while-cocking integration, his index finger had wandered onto the trigger, depressing it just far enough to bypass the cocking function. (Rule No. 3: Don’t touch the trigger until you’re ready to shoot.) Struggling awkwardly, he released the hammer under the impression he had cocked the pistol. He hadn’t. The hammer flew forward. The gun fired. (Rule No. 4: Always know what your target is.) It is quite possible that absent knowledge of these mechanics, he still believes the gun fired on its own, out of some defect. The defect was his. Most gun accidents are confluences of unlikelihoods, defying logic and all odds. Just consider the train of “if onlys” that produced this one. But distraction, more than anything, is a root cause. Whatever the legal, professional, or moral outcome, it should remind all shooters, Hollywood or Baltimore or any place in between, to pay attention. Let me add Rule No. 5: When you have a gun in your hand, it is the only thing in the world.   |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:49 AM PDT (Scott Johnson) Glenn Youngkin campaigned early yesterday morning in Arlington, deeply Democratic territory just across the river from Washington. He tweeted out the photos below to convey the size of the crowd he drew. It’s probably a mistake to make much of crowds in this context — I’ll never forget my night among the throng packed into the old Minneapolis Auditorium for George McGovern in the summer of 1972 — but Youngkin must be doing well to be spending time in northern Virginia on the closing weekend of the race.
Terry McAuliffe called on Kamala Harris to whip up the enthusiasm of the crowd in Norfolk. I draw the inference that McAuliffe thinks he needs help. If Harris is the help you need, you might be in deep trouble, but he also had Pharrell Williams on hand to deliver a weirdly impersonal message.
That isn’t to say the event didn’t draw a crowd. It did. Rich Edson tweeted out the photo below.
Nick Arama collects a few more clips in the RedState post “Cringeworthy Kamala’s Effort for McAuliffe Just Might Make People Vote for Youngkin.” Arama’s roundup includes a clip of Pharrell Williams’s pitch to the crowd “to vote and be a part of the process of being a Virginian.” Woo hoo! If McAuliffe pulls this race out on Tuesday the only conclusion to draw is that Virginia has become a deep blue state.   |
| Posted: 31 Oct 2021 05:08 AM PDT (Scott Johnson) If you listen to the right radio stations at this time of the year, you will hear a few songs associated with Halloween. On WUMB’s Highway 61 Revisited show yesterday, host Albert O devoted the entire four hours to songs fitting the day. He played oldies ranging from the traditional “Long Black Veil” (Johnny Cash’s cover) to Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” (covers by Vanilla Fudge as well as Al Kooper/Stephen Stills on Super Session) and the traditional “Tam Lin” (covered by Fairport Convention). He never fails to include “I Scare Myself” by Dan Hicks. The show has become an annual event and is a complete blast. By my lights, “I Put a Spell on You” by the artist known as Screamin’ Jay Hawkins is foremost among the songs that have made their way into Albert’s lineup. I’d like to take the liberty of revisiting the song this year just for the pleasure of it. Here is the improbable backstory offered by Bill Diehl at AllMusic: “Hawkins originally envisioned the tune as a refined ballad. After he and his New York session aces (notably guitarist Mickey Baker and saxist Sam ‘The Man’ Taylor) had imbibed to the point of no return, Hawkins screamed, grunted, and gurgled his way through the tune with utter drunken abandon.” Screamin’ Jay recalled: “[T]he producer brought in ribs and chicken and got everybody drunk, and we came out with this weird version … I don’t even remember making the record. Before, I was just a normal blues singer. I was just Jay Hawkins. It all sort of just fell in place. I found out I could do more destroying a song and screaming it to death.” The song was first recorded during a session in late 1955. However, that version was relegated to the vault. In 1956 Hawkins took another stab at the song and produced the hit version. You can hear Screamin’ Jay screaming on what I assume is that version in the video below. It’s a novelty song. Who first heard the possibilities in the song? It must have been Nina Simone. Simone turned it into a tortured love song (the sax solo is by Jerome Richardson, I think) in 1965. She titled her album of that year after the song. Now we were getting somewhere. Her version is a keeper. In 1968, the British rocker Arthur Brown harked back to the theatricality of Screamin’ Jay on The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. “I Put a Spell on You” fit right in. That same year Creedence Clearwater Revival recorded the song for their debut album. Playing lead guitar and shredding his voice on the vocal, John Fogerty took possession of the song. It’s no joke. This is epic. I love this version. The video above places CCR’s album track over the band’s live performance of the song at Woodstock in 1969. Fogerty could pull it off live as well. Below is the Woodstock track. CCR kept the live Woodstock recording in the can so that it would not compete with their own studio work at the time. Now it can be heard. It doesn’t get much better than Simone’s or CCR’s version, but we can’t stop time in 1969. The song has been covered by many artists over the years. Joe Cocker recorded a good version in 2004 with a little help from Eric Clapton on guitar. Jeff Beck turned in a surprisingly restrained cover featuring Joss Stone on the vocal for Emotion and Commotion in 2010. This gets down to the basics. Lest there be any doubt that the song lives, listen up to Samantha Fish and her band give it a workout, blues style, in the 2014 performance below. Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Samantha Fish. I don’t want to beat it into the ground. I’m going to wind it up here this morning and encourage you to pursue it further on your own if you are so inclined (and I hope you are).   |
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