And the bad idea of the Century Award goes to….

Instapundit links

Chris Hughes, the owner of The New Republic, said on Friday that he had sold the magazine to Win McCormack, a publisher and editor based in New York and Portland, Ore., who founded the literary quarterly Tin House.

Mr. McCormack will appoint Hamilton Fish, the publisher of The Washington Spectator and a former publisher of The Nation, to be publisher and editorial director, The New Republic said.

— The New Republic Is Sold, RAVI SOMAIYAFEB. 26, 2016, NYT.COM

This was the magazine the published Scott Thomas’ fake articles and faker Stephen Glass and sockpuppeter Lee Siegel.

And someone bought this crap?

A fool and other people’s money I guess.

Poetic justice give the damage this rag did, I’m just sorry it’s taking good money instead of going under.

“America as the new Scandinavia”

Question:

That’s right. That’s right. And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong when you have more income and wealth equality? What’s wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, higher minimum wage than we do, and they are stronger on the environment than we do? Look, the fact of the matter is, we do a lot in our country, which is good, but we can learn from other countries. (Bernie Sanders)

Democratic politicians, and especially the furthest-left ones like Sanders, have always been more open to the Scandinavian example than others—but it’s been a long time since anyone so liberal has achieved Sanders’s prominence nationally. It’s especially unusual for any Republican to follow suit, but Jeb Bush did just that when he returned from a jaunt to Europe, marveling at technological innovation in government services: “You can fill out your tax return in Estonia online in five minutes.” (Yahoo)
— Is the U.S. Ready to Become Scandinavia? (Yahoo.com)

Answer:

Dare we dream? America as the new Scandinavia (HotAir.com)

Dare we dream? America as the new Scandinavia Greece.

It’s called learning from history – and other countries.
— Athos on August 2, 2015 at 1:04 PM, comment thread in repose to the above article

Ah, the Nordic “model”, as Reason.com points out: “A touch too much in the way of conformity, high taxes, and “benign totalitarianism”.

And Sweden is trying to privatize large parts of it’s industry, Finland has pretty much let Nokia die after selling large parts of it to Microsoft (Mariana Mazzucato can’t be reached for comment).

A lot of ink has been spilled and a lot of memes and pictures on the internets been used to say that America should be more like Scandinavia. Mostly so the young liberals can live like teenagers.

The problem is paying for all of it.  Even Scandinavia is trying to find out how to pay for all that socialism, unlike Greece.

The Iron Lady on socialism.

The New Republic’s swan song

Shot:

In 2007, using the pen name “Scott Thomas”, Beauchamp filed three entries in The New Republic about serving at Forward operating base Falcon, Baghdad. These entries concerned alleged misconduct by soldiers, including Beauchamp, in post-invasion Iraq.
…
“We are not going into the details of the investigation,” Maj. Steven F. Lamb, deputy public affairs officer in Baghdad, wrote in an e-mail message. “The allegations are false, [Beauchamp’s] platoon and company were interviewed, and no one could substantiate the claims he made.”
— Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy

Chaser:

The New Republic will not publish the issue that had been slated to hit shelves on December 15, following Friday’s mass resignation by top editors and contributors.
—TNR cancels December issue after mass staff resignation

A fitting end for a liberal rag that has abandoned the truth for the pouring of hate and progressive ideas . Liberals love to talk about their “reality based” community and how the media is “unbiased”. TNR shows the sad fact that liberals and facts are in a messy divorce.

The midterms showed that we’re not socialists now (that was Newsweek, that got sold for pennies on the dollar after not being in print for awhile).

The “liberal moment” is over and the progressives have lost. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

And Salon Jumps the Shark

A WTF from Salon.com as they exceed their own parody:

Put a man in uniform, preferably a white man, give him a gun, and Americans will worship him. It is a particularly childish trait, of a childlike culture, that insists on anointing all active military members and police officers as “heroes.” The rhetorical sloppiness and intellectual shallowness of affixing such a reverent label to everyone in the military or law enforcement betrays a frightening cultural streak of nationalism, chauvinism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, but it also makes honest and serious conversations necessary for the maintenance and enhancement of a fragile democracy nearly impossible.
— David Masciotra, quotes at This Ain’t Hell.

Yeah, douchenugget, it’s not the uniform that makes folks worthy of respect and a measure of adulation, it’s what the uniform says about the person wearing it and their commitment to the ideals that they are defending. Anyone can buy a uniform and put it on – our Stolen Valor page is chocked full of people who do that. Those spazwads do it because the uniformed services are the last government institutions which accomplish that for which they were created.
— Jonn Lilyea’s response.

Of course the left hates the military. After Vietnam, many leftists seethed. They almost got what they wanted. From the 70’s to the early 90’s the psycho veteran and military conspiracy was a stock trope of Hollywood movies. Phrases like “permanent war economy” and “military industrial complex” were twisted into knots until the men and women of the armed forces were seen as villains.

But there was always a group of people who did the right thing. From Welcome Home parties for Vietnam vets, service organizations that helped military families and those who say “thank you for your service.”

On my blog I have many former soldiers leaving comments about their time in the Army. They don’t talk about the garbage David Masciotra spews. Their comments are fond memories of their time in green.

David Masciotra, I don’t see your panty waist helping military families who’ve lost a loved one. No leftie has ever said “welcome home” nor have they tired to offer job placement for returning vets. Ditto their never helping police families or crime victims.

Nope, they love the stolen valor losers, posers and pot smoking hippies rail about the poor and imperialism. They praise murderers, dictators, criminals and hold signs that support terrorism.

David Masciotra does not support or help anyone but himself. Better men and women have died to protect his right to be a jerkass, for that at least he should be thankful.

A look at the left and it’s efforts to criminalize dissent…

Remember when  dissent was patriotic?  Good times:

The Ohio Inquisition, and the Minnesota Inquisition, and Harry Reid’s war on the First Amendment are hardly isolated episodes. Consider that the same Texas prosecutor that has indicted Governor Rick Perry on two felony counts for the so-called crime of exercising his constitutional authority to veto a bill — a bill providing funds to that prosecutor’s office — is now preparing to indict University of Texas regent and whistleblower Wallace Hall, on charges of . . . hmm.
— Democrats’ Push to Criminalize Dissent NRO.com

“For the past half decade, those cliques focused on “social justice” have been insulting, smearing and misrepresenting individuals or groups they decided represent “the other”. Because they received little or no push-back, they wrongly believed they represented the majority opinion on a given issue.”
—#GamerGate–the free ride is over,littletinyfrogs.com

I LOVE THE SPREAD OF THE TERM “SOCIAL JUSTICE WARRIOR” TO DESCRIBE THE NEVER-SATISFIED LEFTY ACTIVISTS WHO TRY TO TAKE OVER EVERYTHING, Instapundit.

And so it came to past that the left has jumed the shark. The same tired old rhetoric and memes ain’t selling anymore. Zoe Quinn (a.k.a. Chelsea Van Valkenburg) slept her way to the top, tried to cover it up and then had her white knight dorkpire attempt to talk about her “harassment”.

R.S. McCain has more at his blog. And how sadly most Gaming websites all fell in lockstep, censoring discussion of their ading and abetting a fame whore in the name of “feminism”. All while Miss Van Valkenburg is trying to get her nude pr0n work censored away because of reasons.

This has been like those glasses in”They Live“: Accuse the accuser, pick a target and personalize it. Call people names and throw bombs. Lie, cheat and change the topic of discussion. Remember Bill Clinton? He gutting the military, missed Bin Laden and lied under oath. But to hear the lefties, it was all about the oval sex in the oral office. -_-

The left never changes. Will the twenty-somethings of today wake up?

And the “racist military” smear continues.

All thorough out Hollywood and the media’s depiction of the military, we’re shown a bunch of mooks beacuse the military is teh evilz!

Part of this meme is that the US military is/has/trains/recruits rabid racists. They become “veterans” who are planning to/training to/stocking up guns for/working for INSERTSINISTERPLANSHERE.

Jackasses like Timothy McVeigh get branded about every so often (a SF washout and marginal soldier who was demoted from E-5 to E-1).

“Frazier Glenn Cross, also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, is accused of killing three people outside a Jewish community center and Jewish retirement community on April 13, according to media reports. The Fayetteville Observer reported that Miller is a former Ku Klux Klan leader as well as a retired master sergeant who served in Army Special Forces. He was forced to retire in 1979 for distributing racist materials.”
— Veterans slam New York Times piece linking vets to hate groups, Militarytimes.com

Yep, another “veteran”. And here is the MSM stock narrative:

“The number of Vietnam veterans in that movement was small — a tiny proportion of those who served — but Vietnam veterans forged the first links between Klansmen and Nazis since World War II. They were central in leading Klan and neo-Nazi groups past the anti-civil rights backlash of the 1960s and toward paramilitary violence. The white power movement they forged had strongholds not only in the South, but also in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, California and Pennsylvania. Its members carried weapons like those they had used in Vietnam, and used boot-camp rhetoric to frame their pursuit of domestic enemies. They condoned violence against innocent people and, eventually, the state itself.”
— Veterans and White Supremacy, By KATHLEEN BELEW, NYT.com

Plenty of “weasle words” there, I’ve highlighted them. She goes on to say:

Mr. Miller obviously represents an extreme, both in his politics and in his violence. A vast majority of veterans are neither violent nor mentally ill. When they turn violent, they often harm themselves, by committing suicide.

And here is the epic smack down:

“Make no mistake—if there were extremists in the ranks, commanders would be quick to give them the boot; the Army’s regulations give them plenty of latitude to do so. In fact, that actually happened in the case of Frazier Miller,
…
Finally, understand that Mr. Miller represents just one of over 20 million veterans in America—roughly the entire population of the state of New York. One person does not make a trend.”
—
Racists in the ranks? Not in this Army., Crispin J. Burke, Medium.com

As both XBradTC, the Military Times and the Department Of Defense are quick to point out, being a racist nutjob gets a soldier back on the street with a quickness.

Tattoos are inspected, background checks are done. Sure there are some idiots who fall through the cracks. But contrary to what liberals, progressives and places like the Southern “Poverty” Law Center think, there is no mass movement of racist “vets”.

Extremist groups try, they send pamphlets, use the internets and attempt to use social media. And the IG, the DoD’s special law enforcement agencies and the FBI are quick to find them.

I suspect that this “meme” is more battlespace prep for 2014 and backlash over the fail of progressive causes. Expect to see Tea Party rallies peppered with “racist milita” and veterans running for office smeared with this.

The left hates the military and this is one way they have to swipe at recruitment and the treatment of vets.

High on Koch…

“If the goal is to “stir up the base” with a targeted message to a narrow, liberal audience in order to bring in fundraising dollars, that’s one thing. But Reid’s speech on the Senate floor suggests a broader Democratic strategy to run on a message focused on the Koch brothers, two wealthy men most whom voters have never heard of and probably could care less about.”
—The Democrats’ Dumb Koch Strategy, The Daily Beast.com

---

“Of course it is a dumb strategy, but you underestimate how dumb the democrat constituency is. They’ll regurgitate anything the DNC puts out. Bunch of mindless drones.”
—Murphy9 on March 6, 2014 at 7:23 PM, comment at HotAir.com

It’s an Alinsky rule: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.”

So the left picked two billionare brothers (creepy twins in their thinking) so that they can turn out the crazies, the stoners, the college kids, the puppet heads and the MSNBC pundits.

The Koch brothers bought the government!

They spend, spend spend!

In reality the big labor unions and silicon valley spend much, much more.

But stay classy lefites! I’m sure the unemployed and those with out health insurance will care about two brothers most haven’t heard about.

ailment

Ah the sound of liberal hurt feelings:

This is just the crisis to make themselves seem relevant again within the GOP—even if they’re undermining the commander in chief at a pivotal moment.
— Why Neocons Love the StrongmanMichael Tomasky, The Daily Beast

---

It’s likely, then, that the J-20 no more represents the end of US air superiority than did Cope India or the T-50’s debut. What it does represent is the world’s second economy finally joining a club of nations long-accustomed to designing, building and operating advanced fighter aircraft.
— China’s Over-Hyped Stealth Jet, David Axe, The Diplomat.

---

Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how much the J-20’s design changes matter and indeed how effective an aircraft it is. But it is evident that the plane’s flight testing, at least, is far more than just a publicity stunt.
—Stealth Changes for China’s Stealth FighterGERRY DOYLE, NEW YORK TIMES. Gobssmacks David Axe.

It must hurt when reality overtakes liberal fantasy.

For decades the left’s orthodoxy was that the West was to make peace with Russia/The USSR, China and that “the tide of war was receding”.

Russia is INVADING the Ukraine. They used TBM’s on Georgia. China is building a modern networked force.

And yet, Michael Tomasky makes current events be all about the left and how those meanie Neo-cons runied everything.

Lest we forget, the media and the left (I repeat myself) went easy on Putin, Hugo Chavez and China. David Axe seems to think that the US military sucks and we have nothing to fear.

So when real life starts to hurt them, they either face reality (and start crying) or escape to fantasy.

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy.
— Washington Post, Editorial Board

And so it begins.

The Bigger the Government…

..the smaller the people.

Armies

“This isn’t 1940. Moreover, as an instrument of coercion, that smaller army would be more lethal than the much larger one that helped defeat Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Given a choice between a few hundred of today’s Abrams tanks and a few thousand vintage Shermans, Gen. George Patton would not hesitate to choose the former.”
—

Do we really need a large Army?By Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Post.

This is the same paper that whitewashes the drone strikes. George Bush would never have been given an article titled “5 myths of the Iraq war”.

And yet the “argument” for cutting the military persists.
This Ain’t Hell skewers Tom Rick’s argument for “going to a cadre-like military, with only two Army divisions kept at high readiness”.

The left believes that troops are stupid. Just draft the bodies you need, buy the tanks, trucks and planes and then send them off to war. Lefties won’t go of course, the draft dogers of the 60’s became to leaders of today.

No they want to cut to the bone and keep cutting. there is talk of a new round of BRAC. Closing MORE bases, gutting civilian towns, eroding the defense industrial base. All for more spending on “domestic programs”.

Once the troops leave, their expertise is gone forever. You can’t draft leadership, tribal knowledge or hours in the cockpit.

“In the meantime, the world, from East Asia to the Middle East, is “unsettled” and becoming ever more so. Does anyone doubt that the decision in Washington to slash its defenses has been fully noted in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Tehran, and North Waziristan? Like Jeremiah, we say judgment is inevitable. Unless the present course is reversed, the wages of weakness will be paid in increased instability, crises, and ultimately conflicts that might well have been avoided.”
—
“Deeply Unsettling“, Gary Schmitt and Thomas Donnelly, WeeklyStandard.com

It’s 1938 all over again.

UPDATE: Told you so…