Saturday Miscellany

First, an appetizer, by way of Glenn Greenwald. He had this to say about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. One remarks that certain Democrats consider her to be a viable presidential candidate for 2028:

Whenever AOC talks about foreign policy, she sounds like a 7th grader having to stand in front of the class while nervously summarizing an assigned article that she only read 20% of. A few phrases she recalls pop into her head and she recites them but with no cogency.

Second, another appetizer, this time from the also inimitable Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, regarding the Hollywood Trump haters:

Here’s what I think. I think these people are goofy. They have the right to their opinion, but they’re just goofy. They hate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. 

They think our kids ought to be able to change genders at recess. They carry around Ziploc bags of kale to give themselves energy. To me—to each his own. To me, kale tastes like I’d rather be fat. 

Now, these people are entitled to their opinion, but they have an unwarranted sense of moral and intellectual superiority. “They think they’re smarter and more virtuous than the American people. And they think we’re not real people. But we were, and we are real people. 

Third, from Don Surber, a note about the death of DEI and of wokeness. We have been following the story in these columns, so Surber’s remarks are a nice topping:

The second-biggest political story of the year was the death of woke in corporations. The lemmings in boardrooms across the nation embraced the racism, sexism and heterophobia of the left, falsely believing that straight white people will be dragged away by an army of RuPauls.

Democrats marketed their campaign well by creating a deity called DEI. Diversity is our strength, they said. Equity is better than equality, they said. Inclusion will make up for past discrimination, they said.

This was brainwashing, pure and simple. Coca Cola held a training seminar that instructed people to “try to be less white.”

Fourth, as soon as the Trump election victory was announced, Democrats across the nation had a hissy fit-- how dare he deport so many fine, abiding non-citizen criminals.

And besides, they intoned, it would cost too much. As though the question of cost ever crossed the mind of a Democrat.

Now, the Washington Examiner explains that the cost of illegal migrant crime largely surpasses the cost of mass deportation.

The cost of crime from 662,000 criminal illegal migrants sought for deportation has been pegged at three times the much-hyped price of President-elect Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” plan.

In an analysis from the Crime Prevention Research Center, the costs of crime from the top targets of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations was set at $166.5 billion. That number is based on the cost to victims, a price list developed by the National Institute of Justice.

Crime Prevention Research Center President John R. Lott Jr., who did the analysis for Real Clear Investigations, said the cost was based on just one of the crimes “each of the 662,566 ‘non-detained’ noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list” has been previously accused of.

“Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs. Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses,” he wrote.

Fifth, speaking of post-election fallout, nowhere has the impact been more damaging than in the world of leftist television networks, as in MSNBC and CNN. It began in the aftermath of the election. It is continuing.

Newsmax has the story:

MSNBC’s primetime audience has dropped off by 53% since the week before the presidential election, while CNN’s has plummeted by 47%, Fortune reports.

MSNBC had an average of 632,000 primetime viewers in the week ending Nov. 24, compared to 1.34 million in the week ending Nov. 3 ahead of the election. CNN’s audience plunged from 754,000 to 398,000 in that period.

You can’t say they did not earn it.

Sixth, if  you would like to keep a step ahead of the news cycle, as soon as Democrat officials tire of defending criminal migrants, the next phase will be the debate over whether or not Trump should pardon the imprisoned January 6th demonstrators.

Newsmax has the story:

Forty percent of registered voters say they think President-elect Donald Trump will "very likely" pardon Jan. 6 protesters when he takes office in January, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The survey, conducted by Morning Consult for Politico on Nov. 20-22 among 4,012 registered voters, found that:

• 32% of registered voters said those who were charged and convicted of crimes related to the attacks on the U.S. Capitol should receive pardons/clemency on their sentences compared with 57% who said no.

• 69% said it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that Trump will pardon Jan. 6 rioters, and 15% said it was either somewhat unlikely or very unlikely.

• 25% said they were either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that another event like Jan. 6 will happen again after the 2024 presidential election, while 55% said they were either "not too concerned" or "not at all concerned."

Seventh, taking a cue from dysfunctional Canada, the British parliament has voted for euthanasia. If you can’t heal them; kill them.

To which Daniel Greenfield responded:

The UK's NHS was practicing euthanasia for a long time.

Not only was killing the 'unfit' legal in the UK, but parents like those of Alfie Evans, were banned from trying to take them out of the UK to save their lives.

Euthanasia is a vital part of socialized medicine.

Eighth, as a final flash, President Joe Biden was walking around Nantucket holding a copy of a book by old Obama buddy, Rashid Khalidi. The thrust of the book: Israel does not have a right to exist.

From the New York Post:

Retiring President Biden hit the shops on Black Friday and surprised onlookers by picking up a copy of a book describing the establishment of Israel as “colonialism” that’s been met with Palestinian “resistance” — an acquisition its author bemoaned was “4 years too late.”

Biden, 82, left Nantucket Bookworks holding in full view of the press a copy of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017” by Columbia University professor emeritus Rashid Khalidi.

The book argues that “the modern history of Palestine can best be understood in these terms: as a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.”

So, people in Israel will be finding that their understanding of the mind of the Biden administration was correct. Perhaps Joe had not had his mind infested by this form of anti-Semitism, but other members of his administration cannot plead ignorance.

Considering the extent of the administration foreign policy failure, it is good to have an indication of why it went so wrong.

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