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• Germany plans on closing all its coal-fired power plants over the next two decades to fight global warming.
• However, it’s doubtful Germany’s anti-coal effort will have any measurable impact on global warming.
• Germans already pay about three times more for electricity than Americans thanks to taxes and green subsidies.

But hey, when the head of government was born & bred under a Communist regime, such virtue-signaling that gives the non-political class an economic hit makes perfect sense.

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Until recently, I have read arguments supporting this view of ‘elites vs everybody else’ with some skepticism, because I didn’t really understand what exactly that division was (I still don’t) and I didn’t consider being lectured to about global warming by a professor at the University of Nowhere as a phenomenon worth discussing. Who cares who those people are or what they think? But for some reason, Roger Stone’s recent arrest had a big impact on me. I think that was a significant event in our nation’s history. Either that or I’m just now catching on to what’s been happening for a long time.

I viewed his arrest as significant for a few reasons. Certainly not because Roger Stone is important (he’s not) and not because he is falsely accused (it appears that at least some of the charges against him have some merit.). He was released on bail a few hours later, so nothing interesting happened while he was in custody, either. This arrest wasn’t even a surprise for Mr. Stone. He had reportedly already agreed to come in to be booked, with his attorney present, whenever they called him. He knew what was coming, and had already agreed to cooperate.

What I found so significant (and terrifying) was that his arrest involved the cooperation and coordination of three very powerful forces: First, the FBI, who apparently made the decision to arrest Mr. Stone. Second, a SWAT team of some kind that made what should have been a routine arrest of a wealthy elderly man look like a military operation, including military uniforms and weapons. And then the third participant in this event is what I find most concerning: CNN. A military unit is told by our federal government to invade the home of an American citizen. CNN is offered a chance to participate. And they agree to participate in this coordinated attack? That borders on astonishing.

UPDATE: Were 29 Agents with Machine Guns in Body Armor Really Enough?

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Perhaps because socialism keeps rising from the dead.

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Being governed by Democrats will do that for you.

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And it couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people.

Andrew Sullivan turns over a rock.

Hollering through a bullhorn at a group of Native Americans, the speaker boomed: “You ain’t no child of God. You are the Indian. You are a blue-eyed demon. That’s the last Mohican.” Then: “You’re still worshipping totem poles. You out of your mind! You have to repent. You worship the buffalo. You worship the eagle. You worship the phoenix. These are the idols you’ve been worshipping. A damn buffalo ain’t gonna save you. You worship the creations and not the creator … That’s why you’re drunkards in the casinos and the damn plantation.” Another: “Dumb-ass niggers. Bunch of demons. You’re a bunch of Uncle Tomahawks.” They snarled the word “savages” at Native Americans. The yelling was deafening, aggressive, vile, and threatening. But an inscrutable smile by a white teen was enough for some elite liberals to urge punching a schoolboy in the face.

Joel Kotkin gets a visit the ghost of Stalin.

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin once labeled writers and other creative people “engineers of the soul.” In his passion to control what people saw and read, Stalin both coddled artists and enforced unanimity through the instruments of a police state. Today, fortunately, we don’t face such overt forms of cultural control, but the trends in American and to some extent European mass culture are beginning to look almost Stalinesque in their uniformity. This becomes painfully obvious during awards season, when the tastes and political exigencies of the entertainment industry frequently overpower any sense of popular preferences, or even artistic merit.

Our cultural climate has become depressingly monochromatic. Award ceremonies, once a largely nonpolitical experience, have become reflecting pools for preening progressive artistes. Those emceeing the awards must be as politically pure as possible—sorry, Kevin Hart—and those winning acclaim get the best press if, besides thanking their producers and agents, they take a shot at Donald Trump.

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No good deed goes unpunished.

The subtext of the Independent article, of course, is that this wouldn’t happen in a Modern Progressive Country with Socialized Medicine Like Britain.

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There certainly is systematic racism in America today, but it’s anti-white racism, which nobody in the Chattering Class will admit.

To the extent that there is any anti-minority racism, it’s a result of modern minority misbehavior rather than a relic of the Bad Old Days.

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J. K. Rowling, having grown up in modern Democratic Socialist Britain, couldn’t conceive of an area of life that wasn’t regulated by the State — so, OBVIOUSLY, there HAD TO BE a ‘Ministry of Magic’. (Which, apparently, pays for a full ride of all the students at Hogwarts.)

And yet Rowling, despite portraying accurately the pernicious effects of such government regulation in the Harry Potter books, remains a dyed-in-the-wool proglodyte.

There is no hope.

Jon Gabriel lays it out.

Another week, another dumb internet outrage. This time it was about the Covington kids. Before that, it was the fake news story and that celebrity who said the thing and a mean lady who yelled at a nice man and the bad man who was mean to the dog.

Each time, the usual suspects bellied up to their keyboards and rage-typed at each other until the next “scandal” made them type at different people. If you want to remain sane in the face of today’s Outrage-Industrial Complex, I’ll let you in on a secret: Twitter doesn’t matter. The viral video doesn’t matter. Our opinions don’t matter. This article doesn’t matter. None of this matters.

…

What does matter is holding a damp towel to your sick kid’s forehead and bringing in the groceries for your elderly neighbor and surprising your wife with take-out from that Vietnamese place she loves even though you hate fish sauce. Almost no one will notice it; certainly not the strangers who “follow” you online or the historians of the next age. These little acts still matter more than anything.

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‘Vegan’ and ‘happy meal’ do not belong in the same sentence.

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Give ’em guns and send ’em back. Tell them they have to solve their own problems

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My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

I guess he’s taking over from Jeff Flake.

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Time to start eating at home.

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It won’t happen, of course. But sometimes the old ways are best.

Do Pelosi while you’re at it.

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‘Placed on leave’? How about ‘locked in jail’?

Ace of Spades dishes the dirt.

Prosecutors are currently looking at a Stolen Valor charge against him….

The Antiplanner turns over a rock.

More than eighteen years ago, the Onion reported that “98 percent of commuters favor public transit for others” so that everyone else can drive on uncongested roads.

Read it.

Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar continued to promulgate a debunked narrative on Tuesday by misrepresenting an incident between Catholic high school boys, black supremacists and American Indian activists.

…

Omar tweeted on Tuesday evening that the Covington students were “taunting 5 Black men before they surrounded Phillips and led racist chants.” The five black men the Minnesota congresswoman was referring to were members of Black Hebrew Israelites, an organization designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a black supremacist group “on the extremist fringe.”

The full video shows that while the Black Hebrew Israelites criticized the students’ “racist” MAGA hats and referred to them with derogatory terms such as “crackers” and “incest children,” the students did not engage in the confrontation. Rather, they chanted the Covington Catholic spirit cheer to drown out the vulgar shouts.

UPDATE: Isn’t it rich?

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Google’s charitable branch Google.org has donated $250,000 to the Southern Poverty Law Center, since 2016. The SPLC is a liberal bastion of hate against Christians, conservatives, and anyone who dares to question left-wing values. It has worked with Google and its sister company YouTube in the past. The SPLC is also one of the trusted flaggers responsible for marking videos considered to be “hateful” on Google’s sister site YouTube.

Google also recently announced that it had launched a new program to pay its employees to do work for nonprofit groups that are partnered with Google. One of the partners, listed on Google.org’s website, is the SPLC. Google will theoretically pay its employees to work for the SPLC, should they choose to do so.

Not really news, but a useful reminder.

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I’ve eaten felafel. I’d rather starve.

There’s a reason Syrian refugees are fleeing there and coming here.

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For sufficiently eccentric values of the term ‘men’.

I am not making this up.

I wish I were.

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Why has the conduct of the black nationalists escaped notice while that of the Covington students has been unfairly denounced? I think it’s due, in large part, to the identity politics hierarchy. Black women (though under challenge) remain at the top. Black men aren’t far behind. White Catholic boys are firmly entrenched at the bottom.

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Well, at least they don’t have those white racists running their country and being productive and oppressing everyone.

(Man, that’s dedication! He gave up his Davos trip!)

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And why wouldn’t they? Fashionable Victim status brings enough Pokemon Virtue SignallingPoints that can be traded for valuable prizes.

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It’s no question that Saturday Night Live has just about completely lost its ability to be funny. If you’re still scratching your head as to why the once loveable sketch comedy has fallen so far off, just look to the behavior of its creative staff. On Monday SNL writer Sarah Beattie posted a crude Twitter status offering lewd sex acts for anyone willing to harm Nicolas Sandmann, the Catholic teen accused of racism for merely standing in front of a triggered native American man.

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See, this is why we need open borders. These people would feel right at home in Chicago or any other Democrat-run metropolitan area.

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The liberal media had been left reeling after a weekend of spreading misinformation and smears against a group of innocent Catholic high school students who were being harassed in front of the Lincoln Memorial. At the start of the Monday’ edition of his show, on Fox News Channel, Tucker Carlson shamed those who jumped to the conclusions that fit into their narrative. Naming names, Carlson also called out those on the right who did the same thing.

Nice to find at least one person willing to do the heavy lifting on this.

Read it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

We are in a state of bloodless civil war. No common principles, no respect for common institutions or traditions unite the various groups of politicians who are struggling for power. To loot somebody or something is the common object under a thick varnish of pious phrases.

— Robert 3d Marquess of Salisbury, 5 February 1889

There is nothing new under the sun.

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Twitter has refused to delete many calls for violence by verified Twitter celebrities against conservative Catholic students or let the offenders stay on the platform.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

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Plenty of room in Orthodoxy for ex-Catholics. They make some of our best converts.

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And why not? You don’t have to DO anything or actually BE anything, just ‘identify’.

Fashionable victim status can be traded for valuable prizes.

Steve Sailer continues following the Two Minute Hate of the Catholic kids.

UPDATE: A Statement by the Student in the Middle of the Maelstrom

UPDATE: Merciless Indian Savages and Their Mendacious Media Sodomites, by Audacious Epigone

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Well, at least they don’t have those white racists running the country and being productive.

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Obviously Virginia isn’t what it used to be. All those Democrats moving into participate in the D.C. trough, no doubt.

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All across the United States, private property rights are under assault – assault by state and federal legislators and regulators, environmentalist groups, wealthy liberal foundations, corporations and other special interests, often acting in coordination or collusion with one another. They are seizing or taking control of lands and other valuable property without due process or just compensation, under a host of environmental and other justifications, many of which are fictional at best.

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Well, at least they don’t have all those racist white people running the country and being productive.

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On Thursday’s New Day, CNN senior political analyst John Avlon presented another of his infamous “Reality Check” segments, which is more akin to liberal spin than an actual effort to clearly inform viewers about the issues.

The CNN analyst argued against a border wall as he cited Politifact to dismiss claims of 2,000 homicides being committed by illegal immigrants in one year being reported by ICE for FY2018.

The Other McCain is there for you.

Read it.

Sure, open the border! Let ’em all in! What could go wrong?

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That sounds fair.

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I guess they weren’t all that advanced.

The most advanced weapon I can think of is a battalion of radical feminist professors trained to parachute behind enemy lines and persuade them to question their toxic masculinity.

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Now that the DSM lists severe hoarding as a disorder apart from OCD, psychologists are asking what explains its prevalence.

Hey, tenure doesn’t grow on trees, you know.

I have Don’t-Give-A-Shit Disorder. I wonder what causes it.

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Richard N. Haass is the President of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to that was he was Special Assistant to President George H.W. Bush and the National Security Council Senior Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs. For that, Bush 41 gave him the Presidential Citizens Medal for developing and explaining US policy during Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

In 2000 he called for a new “American Empire” to be designed and operated on the model of the British Empire of the 19th Century. He further said it would have to be “informal” because “American democracy could not underwrite an imperial order that required constant, costly applications of military power.” Now he has changed his tune a bit.

Since the French Revolution, radical democracies have succumbed to the temptation to spread the blessings of their particular flavor of government to all & sundry; America’s ‘neoconservative’ adventurers are only the most recent iteration of a very old story. John Quincy Adams is, of course, rolling in his grave.

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“Restorative justice” is a euphemism for trying to impose less punishment on disruptive students because these students are, as a group, disproportionately African-American. The motive for “restorative justice” is racial. The sociology/pedagogy brought to bear on its behalf is superstructure, to put it as kindly as I can.

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The best possible result — the deal was about the worst that could have been constructed by people deliberately attempting to create a bad deal.

Traditionally in Britain after a defeat of this magnitude the government resigns, the Opposition is invited to form a government, and they immediately recommend a dissolution and general election.

But that was then; this is now. God knows what will happen next.

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Tencent is an archetypical Chinese tech company, creator of the ubiquitous QQ and Wechat chat-and-mobile payment apps. The company’s Communist Party Committee has gone all out with the hammer-and-sickle motif, placing the symbol on the chest of its penguin-with-a-scarf mascot. These charming tchotchkes were sent as gifts to journalists, according to a tweet from a journalist at another state-run outlet, Global Times.

The requirement to pledge loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is in fact inescapable. Middle-aged academics and local officials alike have resorted to posting praise of the Party in their private WeChat and other messaging groups. As ridiculous as they think these rants are, they are impelled to go “on the record” with their loyalty, even when communicating with their colleagues, in the hopes of staving off accusations of insufficient fervor for the party line of the day. There is even a “Clap for Xi Jinping” app.