Saturday Miscellany

First, correct me if I am wrong, but when you want to find out what manliness is, you do not ask superflack Jen Psaki.

And yet, the failure of the Harris campaign to reach male voters impelled Psaki to declare that Doug Emhoff, husband to Kamala, was redefining manliness.

In the time that it took to digest that one, we discovered, via the tabloid press, that Doug had knocked up his nanny, had helped induce a miscarriage, and had slapped around a woman in Cannes. 

Maureen Callahan reported in the Daily Mail:

Had Psaki and the rest of the left-leaning media actually investigated this story, they might have learned that the nanny has a much more disturbing claim about Emhoff and what happened to her baby — because loose-lipped Doug reportedly told the woman he allegedly hit all about that.

Yes, Doug allegedly described how he paid the nanny $80,000 to go away, made her sign an NDA and dismissed her claims about how her reported miscarriage came about.

But hey — strength through joy, people!

For the record, Emhoff has denied it all. The press accounts have multiple sources.

Second, as you have been told, and I assume you believe everything you have been told, Hurricane Helene, and many other natural catastrophes, have been caused by climate change. Joe Biden said so, and, is there really a higher authority?

Steve Milloy tried to set the record straight.

Alarmists assert storms are “made more likely by climate change. I have no idea what they're talking about,” Milloy told me. “Storms have always happened. They always will happen. The ocean water … has warmed recently. But once again, the atmosphere cannot warm the ocean.” Rather, “the primary warmer of the ocean is the sun, and the other is [that] water can be warmed from beneath. That's probably how El Nino has developed. So both of these things are natural, have nothing to do with humans.”

And also,

It has been repeatedly illustrated that “the climate models don't work. That's been proven again this past year,” Milloy concluded. “No climate alarmist prediction has ever come true. They can't demonstrate that emissions are really having any effects on anything other than maybe they're helping the planet get greener, which means there's more life.” Obviously, “we need plant growth, because that's where we get our food from.”

Of course, if you are truly convinced that carbon dioxide is ruining the planet, you can make your own small contribution, by not exhaling.

Third, Bret Stephens wrote what I consider an important article about how American Jews have recently awakened to a pervasive anti-Semitism.

Naturally, Stephens tries to be fair and balanced about it all, and includes anti-Semites on the left and the right. And yet, when we break it down, anti-Semites on the left are out persecuting and harassing Jews while right wing anti-Semites are saying stupid things. To me this does not feel commensurate:

The home of an impeccably progressive Jewish director of a prominent art museum was vandalized with red spray paint and a sign accusing her of being a “white supremacist Zionist.” A storied literary magazine endured mass resignations from its staff members for the sin of publishing the work of a left-wing Israeli. A Jewish journalist scrolled through Instagram and recognized an old friend from Northwestern gleefully tearing down posters of Hamas’s hostages while saying “calba” — dog in Arabic — to the pictures of kidnapped infants and elderly people. 

A leading progressive congresswoman was asked during a TV interview about Hamas’s rapes of Israeli women and called them an unfortunate fact of war before quickly returning to the subject of Israel’s alleged perfidy. An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor petitioned the Berkeley City Council to pass a Holocaust Remembrance Day proclamation in light of the resurgence of antisemitism and was heckled by demonstrators. An on-campus caricature depicted an affable Jewish law school dean holding a knife and fork drenched in blood. A Columbia University undergraduate posted on Instagram: “Be grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” Tucker Carlson platformed a Hitler apologist. Trump warned Jews that he is prepared to blame them should he lose the election.

With some chagrin Stephens notes that American Jews have long since championed progressive causes. When push came to massacre, their supposed progressive allies were AWOL, if they were not throwing rocks at Jews.

A proud history, but whatever we poured of ourselves into the pain and struggle of others was not returned in our days of grief. Nor should we expect much understanding: In an era that stresses sensitivity to every microaggression against nearly any minority, macroaggressions against Jews who happen to believe that Israel has a right to exist are not only permitted but demanded.

These gross manifestations of anti-Semitism, beginning with activities on college campuses, continue to exist because the authorities allow them to persist.

Whether it is local law enforcement or weak kneed administrators, the left wing leaders of these places are allowing anti-Semitism to fester.

Fourth, we recall the trash talk about the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. As I have reported, Tommy Friedman of the New York Times has been hard at work blaming him for the recent events in the Middle East. Better to blame BiBi than to blame Joe.

Economic historian Niall Ferguson marks the ascendance of Netanyahu, by comparing him to the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck:

At home, the left sees him as cynical, conniving and corrupt; while the right sees him as tired, weak and unambitious. Abroad, he is almost universally loathed and distrusted. And yet no one can deny his Machiavellian mastery of the dirty game of politics, domestic and international.

Modern history has produced only two figures who fit this description. The first is Germany’s Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. The second is Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. For Bibi – his nickname and the title of his recent autobiography – read Bibismarck.

How did Netanyahu recover after the debacle that was October 7?

And no wonder. Hamas has largely been vanquished in Gaza, its remaining fighters confined to tunnels under a heap of rubble. More impressively, Israel has conducted arguably the most successful clandestine operation of the 21st century, maiming around 3,000 Hezbollah operatives with explosive pagers. And it is waging a war in all but name in Lebanon, attacking more than 5,000 targets in the past month and eliminating 16 of Hezbollah’s most senior operatives.

Fifth, on the mass migration front, Sweden is showing us the way-- to national oblivion.

The number of people who are illiterate in Sweden is expected to exceed 800,000 in winter of this year, with researchers expecting the number to soon reach 1 million, in large part due to mass immigration.

Evidently, this causes significant immediate damage in schools.

Sixth, speaking of standardizing testing, Twitter offers this fact:

Results from standardized math testing of California 8th graders showed Asians performing about six grade levels above blacks and Hispanics. That's right — six grade levels.

Make of it what you will.

Seventh, in the world of women’s volleyball San Jose State has been playing a transgender woman, aka, a man. Once other teams found out they began forfeiting their matches- because they remember Payton McNabb. The schools that refused to compete were Boise State, Southern Utah University, the University of Wyoming and Utah State University.

Naturally, this has caused something of a kerfuffle, and some lawsuits. But, truth be told, it’s the least the girls could have done. Good for them.

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