George Rebane

The destruction of America’s economy in order to demonstrate climate change ‘leadership’ hangs over our heads like the sword of Damocles.  Elsewhere in these comment streams I recently remarked, “Nothing will speed post-Americanism more than acceding to the economy busting hysterical nostrums that are supposed to counter anthropogenic global warming. That is one of the many forms of now operant national suicide that the Left is busy implementing.”  In the 1nov16 WSJ two more scientists again attempt to teach the teachables that atmospheric CO2 in the realistically contemplated concentrations will indeed warm the earth slightly.  But that warming will be a blessing to the nutritional and living space needs of the arriving billions over the remainder of this century.  Meanwhile technology has already and continues to reduce/remove environmental toxins and CO2 emissions without the draconian measures prescribed by the promoters of Agenda21 objectives and those non-participants expecting a handout in the process.  (more here)

Don Rogers, publisher of our local newspaper The Union, goes through a tortured analysis cum apology (here) of why he decided to publish the now notorious 29oct16 political advertisement by Mr Frank Pinney.  His soul searching concludes with a remarkable statement that I hope he, upon reflection, will reconsider.  Mr Rogers’ apologetic ends with –

Where “censorship” and “judgment” meet is highly subjective and ever present. Where do we trust readers to make their own determinations and where do we decide to protect sensibilities beyond the conventions of libel in this era, and this race in particular? … From what I’m hearing from readers, we drew the lines too loosely. Or rather, I did. I made the final call. Ironically enough, I did so not out of sympathy for the positions taken, but in trying to apply standards of libel, invasion of privacy, obscenity and clearness of opinion from facts. And also from the standpoint of political rhetoric in an advertisement as opposed to news or commentary. … This does raise an obvious question that doesn’t seem to bother our big league brethren: If it wouldn’t make the cut for commentary, why should it get a chance as a political advertisement? … It’s one we’ll have to consider more thoroughly in the future, plainly.

First, we’ll forgive him for confusing the orthogonality of “trusting readers to make their own determination” with his self-anointed task “to protect sensibilities beyond the conventions of libel”.  The answer here is simple – trust your readers!  But the apex of his suffering comes from mistaking advertised political speech for commentary qualifying as the paper’s editorial content.  Conflating the two as eschewed by his “big league brethren” does indeed expose his tendency to become the community’s censor of political speech.  The rules for libel, especially in a heated election season, are almost non-existent as evidenced by the torrent of invectives from the candidates and their political ads nationwide.  In this category Mr Pinney’s exhortations were low-grade ore.  So Mr Rogers, ignore the progressive pinhead contingent of your readership, and let it be.  

FBI Director Comey should fall on his sword advises Bret Stephens (in the 1nov16 WSJ) with some considerable merit.  His brief review of Comey’s career does indeed allow us to dispense with the carefully crafted picture of him as a “straight shooter”, and more accurately supports the argument that “Mr. Comey is a familiar Washington type—the putative saint—whose career is a study in reputation management.”  For years he “was always on the right side of Beltway conventional wisdom” successfully substituting “self-regarding” actions for the appearance of partisanship.  That worked until he decided to toady up to the dynamic duo of Obama-Lynch who decided from the gitgo that Hillary’s path to the White House would not be deterred by something as minor as prosecution for criminal mishandling of classified materials, then covering up her dastardly deeds, and always publicly lying about it to all who would listen.

In the most divisive political season in memory, Mr. Comey has become the rare object of political consensus, his motives distrusted by Trump and Clinton voters alike, his judgment doubted by congressional Republicans, Democratic Justice Department officials and probably a great many agents in his own bureau. He needs to go.

The major Clinton counter to her foundation and email scandals has been that Trump adores Putin and has Russian relationships which will make him Vladimir’s puppet.  There has been no evidence presented on which to base those charges.   But its frequent repetition in the lamestream over recent months has convinced the nation’s light thinkers to consume it as ground truth.  Today we hear that this dog will no longer hunt.  The Gray Lady (NYT) herself has decided to muster enough journalistic courage to print on page 25 of today’s edition the FBI’s finding that Clinton’s charge is baseless. (more here)   Now the question is how many of her constituents will or even can read this carefully concealed copy.  Kinda reminds some of us of JFK’s “missile gap” claim during the 1960 campaign which contributed to his becoming President, after which (March 1961) he told the nation that he had just been kidding, there was no missile gap.  (Liberal readers will here attempt to substitute Bush2’s WMD finding which is really a quadruped of a different hue.)

[2nov16 update]  My now longstanding position on legalizing RMJ would be incomplete if I didn’t report on recent data that is not favorable to the widespread availability and use of the weed.  Numbers have now come in on the impact of RMJ from the four states that have legalized its use.  Data shows that minors’ use of RMJ in these states has increased (e.g. Washington +3.2%, Colorado +9.5%) in spite of the fact that nationwide young people’s use as dropped 2.2%.  Employers there are finding it difficult to find drug-free workers, RMJ related traffic accidents/deaths have soared, and the supposed benefit from lower arrest rates for minority youth have gone in the wrong direction – Hispanics +58%, blacks +29% while for whites -8%.  And the same bad news comes in for (yes) overdoses and addiction rates.  Yet US support for legalizing RMJ continues to grow, now standing at 57%.  I hope that what we are seeing is a transitionary phase after which the rates will again go down and normalize.  Californians will vote on Prop 64 to determine our road to RMJ legalization.  (more here and here)