NRO's The Corner: Obamacare ‘like a house on fire’ with more flammable parts yet to come

cuz Jonah said so.

sounds like an impending disaster! can we buy reverse credit-default-swaps on obamacare's house?

our friend:

In the latest Need to Know, Mona Charen starts off by talking about music. Then she gets into the tawdry subject of Bill Ayers, that “old, washed-up terrorist,” as John McCain described him during the 2008 campaign. We also talk about IRS harassment, Barack Obama, and the press. Mona gives a social-science tour de force on the matter of family breakdown. We wax lyrical, and truthful, about the ability of free enterprise, under the rule of law, to uplift the poor.

please add truthful to the thread title somehow

The Value of Putin
Putin ends up existing to warn us in the West of what we are not.
By Victor Davis Hanson

All that said, there is a value for us in Putin. I don’t mean the strange Pat Buchanan–style admiration for Putin’s creepy reactionary social agenda and his tirades about Western social decadence. Rather, I refer to Putin’s confidence in his unabashedly thuggish means, the brutal fashion in which a modern state so unapologetically embraces the premodern mind to go after its critics, be they journalists or academics, or stifles free debate without worry over Western censure. Putin is a mirror showing more than just what we should not be.

We in the West get into fiery debates over civil union versus gay marriage as the appropriate legal means of recognizing homosexual unions, with all the accompanying charges of insensitivity — without much notice of how the vast majority of gays are treated elsewhere in the world. In contrast, Putin, mostly to global silence, does nothing as his thugs with impunity terrorize gay activists (who mostly demonstrate for basic freedom of speech, not marriage). Miley Cyrus insults our sensibilities and becomes fabulously rich; the Pussy Rioters go to jail.

We in California divert life-saving water to save a baitfish; Putin’s $50 billion Olympics may prove to be an ecological disaster.

that goddamn miley always insulting my sensibilities, maybe she should go to jail, makes you think

on first glance I thought VDH had written Miley was an ecological disaster.

lol @ the idea that the star of Hannah Montana had to insult our sensibilities in order to become fabulously rich

the Pussy Rioters insult our sensibilities and go to jail

bet VDH smacked his lips over that one

the life we save might be a baitfish

We in California divert life-saving water to save a baitfish

i hate him so much

there's no water to divert or not divert. that's the problem. that's the fact.

yup. we should be building new reservoirs, not debating this non-issue

In contrast, Putin, mostly to global silence, does nothing as his thugs with impunity terrorize gay activists (who mostly demonstrate for basic freedom of speech, not marriage).

this isn't true you lying sack of shit

also "Well, we in the liberal West don't care about gays unless they demonstrate for marriage" fuck you

You know he can't hear you, right?

oh shit how do I retract

lol at right-wing putin envy. here's the best part:

Putin is almost Milton’s Satan — as if, in his seductive evil, he yearns for clarity, perhaps even a smackdown, if not just for himself, for us as well. He is not the better man than Obama but, again like Milton’s Satan, the more interesting, if only because he reminds of us of our own limitations.

this is a whole other kettle of right-wing zaniness but TAC's rod dreher -- who normally writes as the magazine's token 'thoughtful christian' voice -- wrote some really disgusting, hateful, misogynistic stuff about pussy riot, pretty much applauding their arrest. finally got me to quit reading that site altogether, except for larison.

did they just compare obama to god? or is it just any american president who's god.

"there are some people to whom health-insurance ought to remain an aspirational luxury"

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/arkansas-private-option-medicaid-021114

goole! Your boy has some thoughts on feminism.

always behind his own stable, that guy

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370451/feminist-mystique-kevin-d-williamson

Feminism began as a simple grievance, mutated into a kind of conspiracy theory (with “patriarchy” filling in for the Jews/Freemasons/Illuminati/Bohemian Grove/reptilian shape-shifters/the fiendish plot of Dr. Fu Manchu/etc.), spent the 1980s in grad school congealing into a ridiculous jargon, and with the booming economy of the 1990s was once again reinvented, this time as a career path.

^^ NRO knows its audience.

a challenger appears

http://thefederalist.com/

Celebrate Love, Not War: Don’t Use Valentine’s Day to Attack Men

Yes, men and women are different. But the answer is not a feminist Promised Land that is exhausting, devoid of love, and not much fun at all.

Bill De Blasio’s Law Enforcement Racket

Is Bill de Blasio about to take New York City’s public safety back to the bad old days of rampant street crime and murder – or is it just a charade?

Most of these contra-feminist pieces rely on the technique of first defining feminism in exactly the terms they prefer to apply to it, then attacking that version. The inevitable conclusion: feminism is horrible and ought to be rejecting by all right-thinking people. What is rarely clear is what they endorse, which is usually a misty, nebulous, sentimental warm-fuzziness that they are certain would arise spontaneously if only feminism weren't impeding its arrival.

I'd say that's the least of their problems, but you are not wrong.

if they're attempting to rebrand the war on women as just ye olde war on feminism that's probably the smartest response they've had yet (/= actual smart respone ftr). there's still alot of women, esp among independent voters, that reject the feminist label cuz they 'don't hate men' or some other taylor swift reason.

http://www.nationalreview.com/node/370957/print

Geographically, trans in Latin is a preposition that meant “on the other side” (Caesar refers to the Germans, who dwell “trans Rhenum,” on the other side of the Rhine) and cis meant “on the same side” (Livy describes how in early Rome a certain banished ethnic group, if caught “cis Tiberim,” on this side of the Tiber, had the price of their liberty set at a thousand units of bronze, which sounds like a good deal more than the Gang of Eight would ask for).

Where we now like to apply these to galling (for some) concepts about gender and sex, the Romans used them as prefixes to refer to the province of Gaul that was on the same side of the Alps as the city of Rome — Cisalpine Gaul — and the part that was on just the other side — Transalpine Gaul.

haha

sorry I guess this isn't from The Corner, just NRO.

what we claim is lawless unconstitutional kenyan muslimism under soetero we'd be cool with under the mormon

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370854/democrats-media-slam-president-romney-over-health-care-law-changes-charles-c-w-cooke

thohan
• 3 hours ago

Excellent piece. It's nice to have guys like Cooke on my side.

Check Your Privilege, Facebook! Social Media Giant Slights Members of 51st Gender
By Alec Torres
February 13, 2014 4:34 PM
Comments0

As Patrick Brennan recently discussed on the Corner, it’s getting harder to know how to refer to another person’s gender(s). Now, Facebook is making it even harder.

The Associated Press recently broke the news that Facebook now offers users a customizable gender option with about 50 different gender-identifying terms people can use to describe themselves along with three separate pronoun choices: him, her, or them.

The grammatical debate over the application of the plural pronoun “them” to a single subject aside, it’s a sad sign of the times that Facebook excluded whatever the 51st gender descriptor is, thus committing a hate crime against the dozens of people who probably describe themselves with said descriptor.

How dejected — nay depressed — must flexual people feel knowing that Facebook now accepts cisgender females, Trans*Men, and Trans*Males (don’t worry, the distinctions elude me, too) but not them and their girlfag peers.

Or what of all the trigender people who find out that Facebook will let one choose up to “bigender” but not beyond. They must be at least a third as offended as the flexuals.

it gives me pleasure to think how bad these assholes are gonna hate the future

guys, we're over here: NRO's The Corner: Obamacare ‘like a house on fire’ with more flammable parts yet to come

MODS?

xpost amen
fuck y'all str8 men

jesus christ, that Charles C. W. Cooke 'satire' piece has its head so far up its ass, it could probably discover three or four new genders just by opening its eyes

I used to be way into subjecting myself to the internet conservative cesspool; nice to see that the quality of the prose hasn't slipped:

Among her most enthusiastic boosters is Cecile Richards, daughter of the late Texas governor, who is paid nearly a half-million dollars a year for her work defending the surgical dismemberment of unborn children in the furtherance of sexual convenience.

... And You Will Know Her by the Surgical Dismemberment of Unborn Children in the Furtherance of Sexual Convenience

also, I mean, just, huge roffles at these guys scratching their heads all "The ideology of feminists is incoherent—some of them want one thing, but others want this different thing!! Whatta buncha flighty dames!!!!" (You don't need to keep capitalizing 'feminist' — ED.)

"why is it okay for Hillary to call other women in politics 'whiny', but not for me, a white man at a computer, to continue dragging Anita Hill's name through the mud??" *tears flow into bib*

hahahaha

It’s one thing to be tolerant of what once were known as “alternative lifestyles.” It’s another thing to be asked to celebrate them, as the exuberant mythologizers of Michael Sam and Johnny Weir ask us to do. And it is way beyond the pale to hold forth on any sort of sex life — perhaps apart from self-restraint — as if it’s a form of heroism.

Yet the culture of the professional Left, enthusiastically aided by the establishment media, is going bonkers in pushing active homosexuality (or any one of several exotic variants thereof) as an absolute virtue. One can hardly turn around these days without facing, in fiction or in real life, what amounts to homosexual chic. From the amount of primetime air time afforded to gay Americans, one would think they constitute at least a large minority of the population, rather than the 3 to 5 percent they actually do.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” as Seinfeld wisdom had it. Most Americans assuredly don’t much care what other people do as long, as the saying goes, as they “don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” And if the Bible tells us it’s a sin, well, we can leave that issue between the putative sinner and a God famous for both judgment and mercy. Our job, speaking spiritually rather than physically, is to love our neighbor, not from some misguided impulse to charity but instead genuinely, as equals — and to worry about not committing our own particular brands of transgression.

active homosexuality (or any one of several exotic variants thereof)

ooh do tell!

*fans self*

Steve_Seattle • 33 minutes ago

For liberals, it is an easy step to go from support of fornication, abortion, pornography, and prostitution to support of homosexuality. It costs them nothing, while giving them an opportunity to bash conservatives as bigoted and unenlightened. For that reason alone, the MSM will not soon drop this issue.
But I sometimes wonder how sincere is this liberal celebration of homosexuality. In less-guarded forms of liberalism, such as blue-collar liberalism, you still hear gay jokes and gay epithets, and these typically go unchallenged even if the participants don't care much about gay marriage. And in unguarded moments, liberals such as Alec Baldwin resort to gay epithets when they are angry, or will refer to some conservative as a "closet homosexual."

I am looking forward to crowds of conservatives, milling about, holding crude signs and fervently chanting, "Down with fornication!"

For liberals, it is an easy step to go from support of fornication, abortion, pornography, and prostitution to support of homosexuality.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kYBdM44_J58/Sa3OeSHaArI/AAAAAAAABbU/k2MeHt1WpXE/s400/PornInUtah.JPG

I hope he writes a novel

I hope he starts a suicide cult.

Why are these people so dramatic?

I think he’s having the time of his life.

I don’t know how he’s fixed for disposable income but being a weird natl conservative on the internet is key to that flow

I heard that these conservatives moving to Hungary for the fascism usual only last a year or so once they realize that, for instance, you get fines for putting the wrong kinds of plants on your balcony.

i miss these guys

was about to post the same

Even Mona Fucking Charen has joined the resistance:

https://www.thebulwark.com/what-country-is-the-wall-street-journal-living-in/

Hahahahaha https://t.co/nRaZhwvxqt

— noah kulwin (@nkulw) January 3, 2023

Minority opinion on here I'm sure but I kinda like French. I think he's wrong about a zillion things of course, but he's super critical of the current evangelical-political movement, and he and his wife have done legit investigative journalism in exposing some religious sexual abusers. I'll take him over Brooks and Douthat, however low that may be setting the bar.

I don't like French but, yeah, he's better than the others; it's just infuriating, though, that the NYT has a ticker-tape parade every time they add yet another conservative to their op-ed section.

Is there even anyone actually good in the NYT columnist rotation? Jamelle Bouie I guess. So tired of almost all of them.

bouie is excellent. michelle goldberg and zeynep tufekci are good.

check out what you're missing in the washington post op-ed section!

https://i.imgur.com/ze02A1i.png

bouie is in his element on tiktok and twitter imo

wrong thread?

lol AOC missed vote 3 and I think I heard her holler "Jeffries!" a few seconds later.

whoops def wrong thread

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/how-often-do-men-think-about-the-roman-empire/

Apparently, men think about the Roman Empire frequently. This is news to most women, who I’d venture rarely obsess over Marcus Aurelius.

A TikTok video of a woman asking her husband how often he considers the Roman Empire went viral this week. He responded without pause that it was an “everyday thought.” More women are adding to the trend, asking their spouses and boyfriends how much brain space Rome occupies.

So, men: Is this serious? How often do you think about the Roman Empire? There are many reasons to think about Rome — reasons one of my dude-brained colleagues will probably flesh out in the future — but women . . . don’t. Or, at least, we think about it less frequently. Although I’m reminded of Rome often, it doesn’t pop into my head randomly, except in the cases of a few Catholic or architectural queries.

That men and women are different is, it seems for many online, still shocking. To destroy, conquer, and build empires has historically been the stuff of men. While there’s room for sexes to blend their interests, women tend to care more about the social aspects of history and probably identify better with aesthetic traditions (Jane Austen’s romanticism, Renaissance art, qualities of various royal reigns) instead of specific eras.

There’s no cause for social uproar every time we notice another distinction between men and women — isn’t it enough to just admit that we’re different? This week’s viral trend will probably manifest into think pieces over how the Roman Empire came to be a male-exclusive interest, or how more women need history degrees.

The Rome discourse mirrors an office discussion we had the other week, about our favorite films. The men couldn’t narrow down their lists unless they devised categories, and even then, there was painful debate on the merits of each movie’s script, score, and technical quality. Meanwhile, I’ve had the same favorite movie for the past decade, and my girlfriends agree that we choose our favorite films based more on emotional appeal than anything else.

Thousands of years have passed, and hundreds of empires have burned, only for men and women to remain fundamentally different. Some things never change.

how many ages hence
shall this our lofty scene be acted over
in states unborn, by dudes as yet unknown

been too long

Still got it

Conservative media is the most robust affirmative action program in the world pic.twitter.com/RHtPQhV00r

— Jay Willis (@jaywillis) December 6, 2023

singing "imagine there's no country" at the funeral of a country singer smh

https://i.imgur.com/HEtfLKO.png

Now I can't unsee it

missed u boo

Entirely reasonable description of January 6 as an event in which 'many of the...protesters broke the law in what may have started as a protest but turned into a riot.' Especially so in light of absence of DOJ insurrection charges against anyone involved. https://t.co/FfQfKTjYet

— Byron York (@ByronYork) April 5, 2024

probably need a new thread but that site is full of tired cranks griping about woke

Are you familiar with that old joke from the Eric Andre Show, where the host asks a guest, “Why would you say something so controversial yet so brave?” It’s become ironically memetic shorthand for moments when someone expresses an entirely banal or inoffensive opinion. And yet, strangely enough, Fetterman’s position on the Gaza war fits this frame to an almost shockingly perfect degree: It’s both popular among his constituents, and certainly among Americans at large, while also authentically controversial and brave, certainly when compared to where his Democratic peers in the Senate are. I hesitate to speculate about the origins of the seeming change that has come over him, other than guessing that the discipline and strength of character required to recover from a life-altering stroke also suggests a certain willfulness. (To be fair, I do also like my other theory, which is that Chuck Schumer unwittingly leveled him up by stuffing him back into a suit.) Fetterman has clearly demonstrated he is now his own man and also a savvy hand at public relations; I doubt he’s unaware of the political armor his medical situation gives him, and good for him — he’s wearing it straight into battle.

Ah yes that old joke

https://i.imgur.com/ZpRcTsq.jpeg

Thought this would be a revive for NRO staking out its anti-Dolly Parton position. Always a good sign when you're trying to rally the troops against a national treasure with universal appeal.

oh that was the Federalist not NRO

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/09/opinion/presbyterian-church-evangelical-canceled.html

yeah I thought this revival would be about that idiot David French realizing the racist church he joined six years ago is racist.

lmao i hate this entire class of pundit just categorically now, i wish they would all get hobbies like gardening or model ship building

Seems so nostalgic to even talk about NRO anymore, if it ever meant anything it definitely doesn't in 2024. (Ditto NYT columns, I suppose.)

I would expect classic NRO to be losing their shit about the criticism of Alito and Thomas.

Let's check in:

Throw these two items on the growing pile of utterly unconvincing attempts to craft a rationale for Harris’s price-fixing scheme — one that Harris herself has not provided. It’s not that Harris has failed to communicate her proposal effectively. The problem is us and our thick-headed failure to intuit her meaning in ways that reflect favorably on Harris. We’ve really blown this one.

But let’s be charitable. Let’s say that Harris’s well-meaning proposals have been “misconstrued” and “taken out of context.” If only there was some way that Harris could clear up the confusion. Would that she had some way to communicate directly with us from beyond the veil with which her campaign has shrouded her. In the absence of an Ouija board, we’re forced to collect clues and assemble into something resembling a cogent defense of Harris’s discredited policy instincts. But that hasn’t stopped Harris’s defenders in the press from completing her sentence for her. Maybe they are holding a séance without us.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/according-to-the-press-america-has-already-let-kamala-harris-down/

Charles W. Cooke:

So it is with vacuous campaigns of affinity. Politicians who are known for concrete ideas or achievements are often able to weather storms. Politicians whose reputations are built atop fluff and adorned with baubles are not. I think that Kamala Harris may well win the election in November. But, even if she does, she is going to come unstuck before long, because, pace all the press-installed scaffolding that is holding her up at present, she remains a shallow, mediocre, off-putting, unlikeable fool. That ghastly cackle that has temporarily been transmuted into a virtue? It won’t appear that way when things get serious. Her total inability to construct sentences that don’t read like a drunk non-English speaker wrote a fortune cookie using Google Translate? When the stakes are high, it’ll be a liability. The preposterous flip-flopping, which is being sold as healthy pragmatism? It’ll bite when applied to a salient issue on which voters do not want to be dismissed.

Talk about an audience talking to itself.

*cackles ghastily*

It's all normal ad feminam stuff but it's especially funny when deployed on behalf of Trump.

oh they INSIST they've published more anti-Trump garbage than Politico.

wow the comments are hilarious

Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review says the N-Word https://t.co/yOSjCtwLSl pic.twitter.com/pwtYNse7GI

— greg (@mistergeezy) September 16, 2024

after seeing "we need a return to respectable conservatives like Buckley, et al" bubble through social media, Lowry didn't get the memo that the second part included "who only used racial slurs in private"

Maybe this episode is a one-off — a mere curiosity that deserves none of the attention it has generated from both sides of the fracas over Trump’s intervention in Washington, D.C. That is likely. If there is a deeper meaning here, however, it seems less reflective of the simmering hostility toward federal law enforcement officers in D.C. and more a warning of what political radicalization can lead those with impaired judgment to do. Today, the weapon was a sandwich. It may be something worse tomorrow.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-search-for-meaning-in-throwing-sandwiches-at-law-enforcement/

You laugh, but it could be hot soup.

Or a whole plate of spaghetti! Mama mia.

the same stupid 'slippery slope' argument that conservatives have used for decades. it starts with throwing sandwiches and ends with god only knows what violence and lawlessness!

'the search for meaning in throwing sandwiches'

my parents had a paperback of this in the 70s