Blogging and the future.

I started posting here on Blogspot some 15 years ago, in the spring of 2004.  Originally I named my political blog 'Dreams Into Lightning'; later on I changed the name to 'Covenant Lands'.  Blogging was new, the internet itself was still new, and it was very exciting. A short time later, I inherited a modest annuity, which allowed me to live more comfortably than would otherwise have been possible; so, with an interest in world affairs, time on my hands, and an internet connection, I began to post.  Around 2005 - 2006 I was posting prolifically, and typically getting traffic at around 100 hits a day.

In 2007, I became involved in a full-time relationship that was to last about two years.  She had first contacted me over Thanksgiving weekend of 2006; in early 2007, pregnant from her prior relationship, she became my girlfriend and I became the little girl's daddy.  She would leave this world - leaving behind a daughter - exactly twelve years later.  You can go to my LiveJournal to read her story.

So I was caring full-time for a baby girl from the fall of 2007 on for the next two years, and co-parenting for several years after that.  Around that same time, Facebook and Twitter exploded onto the internet and took a big bite out of long-form blogging.  I yielded to the trend myself, and started posting more frequently on Facebook.  Of course, the 2008 election brought the beginning of the Obama years, during which I saw many discouraging developments in the Middle East and in America.  But I'll come back to politics shortly.

More recently, video blogging and audio podcasts have entered the world of internet debate.  Programs like The Rubin Report proved that you could have a serious, intelligent, long-format talk show on topics of conservative interest, and have success.

Myself, though, I have always felt more at home with the written word.  I'm not particularly shy around people or about speaking, but I can't see myself sitting in front of a webcam.  Expressing myself in writing comes more naturally.

And I like to have the freedom to explore events and ideas at length, referencing multiple sources if appropriate.  This in particular is one thing I find limiting about short-form social media:  it's easy to share a single link on Twitter or Facebook, but decent blogging demands the ability to link and compare multiple sources.  A good blog post never just says "HEY GO READ THIS RIGHT NOW!"

We survived Obama and were spared Hillary Clinton.  I did not know what to make of Trump at first, but was willing to give him a chance.  Suffice it to say that by now I think it's clear he has surpassed all expectations.

But the 2016 election brought panic for the Democrats and their enablers in the left-leaning technology industry - the Masters of the Universe, to use Breitbart's phrase.  The giants of Silicon Valley had done everything they could to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump - and yet Trump still won.  Determined not to repeat the outcome of 2016, they redoubled their efforts to stamp out "hate speech" and "far-right extremism" - meaning anything not conforming to their political agenda - and launched a massive purge of social media which continues to the present moment.

And so, Milo Yiannopoulos, Tommy Robinson, Carl Benjamin, Laura Loomer, Gavin McInnes, Jordan Peterson, and countless other conservative (or non-leftist) voices have been banned from social media outlets, or had their content summarily demonetized.

Nor is it just the newer social media - longtime blogging platform WordPress.com has deplatformed two sites for political reasons.  I am sure it is only a matter of time before Google - on whose platform you are viewing this very post, dear reader - decides to follow suit.

The good news is that there's been a burst of new, underground, free-speech-oriented social media:  Gab, MeWe, Minds, Parler, BitChute, and a forthcoming project backed by Jordan Peterson called ThinkSpot. 

So the bottom line is this:  I'll be looking for a new venue for a long-format blog.  Meanwhile, though, feel free to follow me:

asherabrams at Gab
Asher Abrams at MeWe

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'Game of Thrones': two views.

Michael Weingrad: A Jewish view of 'Game of Thrones'.

And it’s not only politics that [George R. R.] Martin treats with bracing realism. His books are shorn of much of our present-day, feel-good notions about the goodness of human nature, the malleability of gender, and other contemporary dogmas. The idealizations he avoids are less chivalric than progressive ones.

At their most compelling, the books and the television series offer characters who see the world and themselves through commitments to family, clan, and nation, rather than our narrow, present-day lens of atomized individuals and their arbitrary desires. “Everything I did, I did for my house and my family,” says Jamie Lannister, an admission echoed at one time or another by most of the show’s characters.

The evident fascination of so many readers and viewers with such thick social connections is worth noting. I happen to live in Portland, surrounded by people indifferent if not hostile to tradition, people who want to live their lives independently of family, religion, canons of art and literature, nationhood, biology, market behavior, and probably the laws of physics. Yet many of them are deeply invested in the continuity of House Stark and House Targaryen.

Unfortunately, the writers of the HBO series seem in the end to have been unable to sympathize with the possibility of a positive identity not reducible to a 21st-century self. This imaginative failure sounded ever louder in the characters’ speech, as when Arya Stark, rejecting her courtly role, explains “It’s not me,” or when Danaerys’s advisors repeatedly proclaim their desire to “make the world a better place” and to “leave the world a little better than we found it.” (Given that the show runners are both Jewish, I was relieved that none of the characters mentioned “tikkun olam,” but it was surely a close thing.) The Starbucks cup inadvertently left on a feasting table in one scene was widely reported as a gaffe, but it wasn’t out of place with the show’s contemporary ethos at that point. ...

Michael Totten: Three cheers for 'Game of Thrones'.

In a world without peaceful transfers of power, the only checks and balances available against tyrants are assassination and war. The Mad King Aerys Targaryen ruled from the Iron Throne in the years before those covered in Game of Thrones Season One. He, too, was a murderous psychopath, burning alive lords who displeased him and advisors who disobeyed him. Half the realm rose up in arms—including Ned Stark and later-king Robert Baratheon. When Tywin Lannister’s army approached the capital, the Mad King ordered his pyromancers to lace enough explosives throughout the city to destroy King’s Landing as thoroughly as a nuclear weapon. “Burn them all!” he screamed. “Burn them all!”

Jaime Lannister, head of his very own King’s Guard, ran a sword through his back in the throne room.

Almost everywhere in Westeros is governed badly, not just by modern standards but by its own. “All I ever wanted was to fight for a lord I believe in,” says the imposing female warrior Brienne of Tarth. “The good ones are dead and the rest are monsters.”

Unlike the Westerosi, modern audiences know the way out: liberal democracy, republicanism, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. Lest we assume these are part of the natural order of things, Game of Thrones—with its echoes of our own distant past—reminds us that they are not, and that maintaining them is as difficult as it is essential.

No Jeffersonian figures inhabit the Game of Thrones universe. Such a modern intrusion would break the spell of epic high fantasy and violate the compact between author and audience. A Jeffersonian wouldn’t make historical sense, anyway. The American Revolution grew out of the European Enlightenment, and no such philosophical movement ever existed in Westeros. Even so, consumers of fiction, whether it’s written or filmed, need someone to identify with, someone who shares at least some of their values. Martin gives us the dangerous yet inspiring Daenerys Targaryen. ...

Go read the rest at the links.

Soldier, where's your hatred now?

SOLDIER, WHERE'S YOUR HATRED NOW? (F.I., March 1943)

Soldier,
Where's your hatred now?
You haven't any? But you ought to have.
Remember the advice we gave.
Where will you be anyhow
If you forget that you must fight,
That they are wrong, and we are right?
You must make their heads to bow.

"I will fight because I must.
My hatred falters. In the heat of war
The hatred that was once a sore
Festered with a bitter lust,
Becomes a heartache, throbbing deep,
So that I cannot help but weep
Seeing comrades fall to dust."

Soldier,
Why that tear-wet eye?
Your fallen comrades you won't see again?
Remember, this affair is plain:
You may be about to die
Like them; but while you live, be strong,
For right will conquer all that's wrong.
Fight till they for mercy cry.

"You are right, my hatred's gone,
But I remember they are human too -
Those boys who in a sick world grew,
Groping - while afar, the dawn
Awaits to shine on them again
As it has on Freedom's men.
Can I , hating, speed the dawn?"

Soldier,
Spare no love for those
Who try to tear down what we want to save.
They're bestial, and they're not so brave.
Bring conflict to a quicker close:
Destroy their tanks, destroy their planes;
It is this Justice ordains.
Give them death if death they chose!

"I will wreck their tanks and planes
And let their cities fall, for all I care,
And in the name of right, I'll tear
Their bowels out, and smash their brains,
(For you, my country, killed my soul)
And as we approach the goal,
Clamp them in Revenge's chains!"

Soldier,
Bear it for a while,
And if you find no hatred for the foe,
Hate, then, the evil that brought woe.
Hate the greed and hate the guile.
Hate, then, the motive, not the man.
Love the Truth, for if you can,
Soldier, you have won God's smile.

- anonymous soldier of the 136th Field Artillery Battalion

http://pacificmemories.blogspot.com/

California: Anti-semite attacks Poway Chabad, one dead.

Chabad:

A gunman walked into a Chabad-Lubavitch center outside San Diego during services on the last day of Passover on Saturday morning and opened fire, killing one person and injuring three. The suspect, John Earnest, a 19-year-old white male from San Diego, is in custody.

Around 11:30 a.m., as the congregation had been listening to the biblical verses describing the observance of Passover, the service was abruptly interrupted by gunshots. Once, twice, they rang out from the lobby, fatally striking Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of Poway and grievously injuring the synagogue’s rabbi, Yisroel Goldstein, who later required surgery on both hands. Six more shots then rang out, injuring 8-year-old Noya Dahan and her uncle, 34-year-old Almog Peretz of Sderot, Israel, who suffered a gunshot wound to the leg as he led his niece and a group of children to safety.

As the terrorist paused to reload, a Chabad regular and U.S. military veteran heroically rushed him. As the shooter fled, an off-duty Border Patrol officer shot and struck the shooter’s vehicle four times. ...

Arutz Sheva:

Multiple people were injured Saturday in a shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue. Poway is approximately 20 miles north of San Diego.

The attack occurred at just prior to 11:30 a.m. local time.

All four of the patients were sent to the Palomar Medical Center.

60-year-old Lori Gilbert Kaye was identified as the woman who was murdered in the shooting attack. ...

Daily Caller - unarmed combat vet charges shooter:

The man who fired a semi-automatic weapon inside the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego on Saturday froze, dropped his gun and sprinted to his car when he saw Oscar Stewart come barreling toward him, yelling so loud the priest at a neighboring church could hear.

“Get down!” Stewart yelled, according to his wife and others who were at the scene. “You motherfucker! I’m going to kill you!”

Others who were there later told him it sounded like four or five people were shouting. He thinks maybe an angel was standing behind him and speaking through his voice. When the shooter ran, he immediately gave chase. ...

Jewish Journal - Lori Gilbert-Kayre remembered:

Today at synagogue an anti-Semitic murderer shot and killed my friend Lori Gilbert Kaye z”l, age 60. Lori you were a jewel of our community a true Eshet Chayil, a Woman of Valor. You were always running to do a mitzvah (good deed) and gave tzedaka (charity) to everyone. Your final good deed was taking the bullets for Rabbi Mendel Goldstein to save his life. Lori leaves behind a devastated husband and a 22-year-old daughter. ...

Bloody Sunday: Muslim terrorists kill over 200 Christians on Easter in Sri Lanka.

Debka:

The death toll from the seven explosions that ripped through Sri Lanka’s churches and hotels on Easter Sunday has shot up again to 215 with 500 injured. Among the dead are scores of tourists, believed to be American, British, Dutch, Danish, Chinese, Japanese, Pakistani, Moroccan and Indian. They have not been identified. No organization has taken responsibility for the atrocity. After an emergency cabinet meeting in Colombo, investigators were still groping in the dark, although Indian sources say the multiple attack on Christian worship, including at least two suicide attacks, bears all the hallmarks of the Islamic State,

The cabinet in emergency session initially responded by imposing a night curfew on all parts of Sri Lanka and shutting down access to the social media, in an attempt to restore a semblance of control. By afternoon, the government ordered all universities closed until further notice and the mail rail service suspended, apparently in expectation of more attacks. The defense ministry reported a raid on a home and the arrest of 7 people suspected of planning and executing the terrorist attacks. This report was greeted with general skepticism as an attempt to prove the authorities were in control. ...

Long War Journal:

The Islamic State has released three statements and a video claiming responsibility for the bombings in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday.

The first, a terse statement by Amaq News Agency, offered no details about the operation, saying simply that a security “source” told the group’s media arm that the so-called caliphate’s “fighters” had carried out the attacks.

The Islamic State subsequently released a longer statement, saying that 1,000 people were killed or injured in the orchestrated assault. That statement highlighted the fact that Christians were the intended target, as they are supposedly at war with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s enterprise. The statement also provides the aliases for several of the bombers.

Amaq News then produced a third statement, including a photo of the eight alleged perpetrators standing in front of the flag typically flown by the group. ...

CNN roundup here.

Genesis: Crime and punishment.

Mankind's archetypal crime, Cain's murder of Abel, points to a persistent flaw in human nature: It is always easier to tear the other guy down, than to try to improve yourself.

The consequence in politics is that it is easier to erase the progress of others, so as to give yourself a lower bar by which to be judged. It's hard to stand tall among temples and skyscrapers; easier, on a plain filled with rubble.

*

G-d showed mercy to Cain, and what's the thanks He got? Mankind devolved into violence. The mark of Cain, meant to protect the killer from arbitrary mob justice, became a status symbol. Four generations later, Lemech could brag, "I've killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for bruising me - if Cain was avenged 7 times, then Lemech for 77." Mankind had perverted G-d's compassion into a literal license to kill. No wonder He's pissed.

After the Flood, G-d decrees that there are going to be some new rules. "Who sheds the blood of man, by man shal his blood be shed."

USA: President Trump at CPAC.

Full speech here.

Transcript via UPI.

North Korea / USA: Trump, Kim meet in Hanoi for summit.

Breitbart:

Thousands flocked to see President Donald Trump arrive in Vietnam on Tuesday for the diplomatic summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.

Trump landed at the Hanoi airport early evening and was welcomed by over a dozen Vietnamese officials and American diplomats.

He traveled about 30 minutes to his hotel, as thousands of people lined the streets to welcome the president, according to reporters. Many of the locals waved U.S. and Vietnamese flags. ...

Austin Bay at StrategyPage on DJT and US/NK diplomacy:

This “first brush” narrative in this section describes ongoing history. It collects illustrative, connected events and actions that occurred from March 2017 to March 2018. When examined in concert, theysketch a concerted effort to wage twenty-first-century “cocktail” warfare by employing and coordinating American power in pursuit of a geo-strategic goal: denuclearizing North Korea. Subsequent events will determine the effectiveness of this particular multi-dimensional operation.

The Coercive Diplomacy narrative actually begins with Donald Trump’s October 24, 1999 Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert.

The interview is a historically illuminating flash forward to his administration’s 2017–2018 “de-nuclearizing” North Korea coercivediplomatic effort. It also adds convincing depth to the US narrativethat “North Korea has gone too far.” ...

Portland: Antifa at town hall meeting.

Via Andy Ngo at YouTube. Andy's account of the incident follows:

'On Feb. 22, 2019 at a "listening session" at Maranatha Church organized by the Portland Police chief on policing issues, the public raged at her, the mayor, and conservatives who showed up. The previous week, a slanted report from Willamette Week portrayed Portland Police Lt. Niiya as a "collaborator" with Patriot Prayer, a right-wing protest group. The public and city council expressed outcry, despite the fact that it was the responsibility of Niiya to build rapport with a variety of protesters to gather intel. The intel he gathered was fed directly to the Mayor's office to track protest plans. Niiya has been removed from his position and Mayor Wheeler demanded an investigation into him following the report's release. At the town hall meeting, citizens called police chief Danielle Outlaw a "traitor" to black and brown people, and demanded that Portland Police be disbanded. At one point, Haley Adams, a Jewish right-wing activist, yelled at the panel for allowing the public to mistreat the few conservative speakers (an elderly woman was told to sit down; an elderly man was called 'racist'). Adams was surrounded and called "Nazi Scum." She was kicked out for disorderly behavior.'

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Israel opens Rwanda embassy.

Arutz Sheva:

Israel opened its first embassy in Rwanda on Friday, offering support to the East Africa nation from health to education and agriculture, as well as communication technology including cyber-security, AFP reported.

"This country shares a lot of similarities with state of Israel and offers a lot of ground for mutual cooperation," new Israeli ambassador Ron Adam said after meeting with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame.

Rwanda, a largely Christian nation, has said it is keen to encourage tourists to the country, especially to see its famous mountain gorillas.

Rwandair, the national airline, has said it will begin direct flights to Israel in 2019. ...

Leaving the hipster ghetto.

Long story short, I moved out of Portland at the end of 2017 for a live/work situation near Scappoose. That didn't work out, and I went back to work last summer (2018) in Beaverton. I'm now living and working in Hillsboro.

I like the Portland area, but it's unlikely that I will move back to Portland proper. When I first moved to the city, I found it walkable, liveable, affordable, and generally nice. Things are different now.

I no longer find Portland endearingly quirky. Between the rent, the crowding, the traffic, and Antifa apparently being given free rein in the streets, I'm content with my nostalgic memories of living downtown.

Follow Andy Ngo on Twitter and on YouTube to keep up with the latest from Portland and the culture wars generally.

WalkAway

My post in the #WalkAway campaign.

I grew up in Connecticut, in a liberal home; but the word meant something different then. My parents were old-school liberals - Kennedy Democrats. Mom in particular had no use for Communism, and admired Soviet dissidents like Solzhenitsyn. (Another Soviet dissident of the day - a Jewish activist - would later play an important role in my own thinking.) Our family didn't follow an organized religion, although we were nominally Unitarians.

We were book-lovers and intellectuals, and Mom and Dad instilled a love of learning in my sister and me. But we were also a very troubled family. As a kid I had a love of science and a nerdy bent. (This was in the 1970s, before the computer revolution made geekiness cool. In those days, "nerd" was definitely not a compliment.) I didn't want to spend the rest of my life hiding in books, like in the Simon and Garfunkel song "I Am a Rock."

I joined the military after high school and served 10 years active duty in two branches - the Air Force and the Marines. It was a great challenge and an opportunity to grow as a person. Surrounded by all different kinds of people from very different backgrounds, I learned more than I ever would have learned in a classroom.

I was still independent and unconventional in my thinking, though, including my politics. I spent about seven years as an active member of the Green Party in California and Oregon (where it's known as the Pacific Green Party for historical reasons). This was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I liked the camaraderie and the sense of engagement. Even then, though, I probably would have identified my politics as "classical liberal" (rather than "progressive" or "leftist") - which put me firmly to the right-of-center among my fellow Greens!

As a young adult I had started to gravitate toward religion, first learning Hebrew (so as to understand the Bible better) and eventually attending synagogue services on a regular basis. The party chapter I belonged to was not anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic as far as I could tell, but I realized with growing unease that this could not be said of many of our comrades on the Left. I also noticed a strange affinity for radical Islam in some corners. The local "progressive" newspaper (oh, how I wish I'd saved that copy) ran a glowing article on the role of Islam in western Asia. That issue was published in the summer of 2001.

The September 11 attacks forced me to re-think a lot of things, but it wasn't until 2003, I think, that I officially left the Greens and joined the Democratic Party. The primaries were underway, and one of the early Democratic hopefuls was an Orthodox Jewish Senator from my home state, who struck me as a decent man and a principled liberal of the old style. I got to hear him speak once at my synagogue.

Senator Joe Lieberman dropped out of the primary on February 3, 2004, and that was my #WalkAway moment. It was clear that the Democratic Party and I were headed in different directions. I changed my registration to Republican the next day.

In the following months I began following Republican politics and learning more about conservatism. I avidly followed the freewheeling debates in National Review Online's 'The Corner'. I discovered that conservatism had nothing in common with the caricatured image presented in the news media and in TV shows like 'All in the Family'. I came to understand the importance of small government, individual liberty, and free markets. I also started to understand the role of social institutions - churches, fraternities, and even families - in a healthy, functioning Republic. And I also started to see the media bias more and more clearly.

Fast forward through the Obama years (please!) and to the recent elections. I was a Ted Cruz guy in the primaries, and did not know what to make of this Donald Trump character. I thought his supporters seemed like zealots, and a little bit unhinged. I followed the debates in the news, on the blogs, on YouTube and Facebook. And I noticed something strange: as crazy as the pro-Trump people sometimes sounded, the anti-Trump people were worse. Even among supposed Republicans and conservatives.

So I voted for Trump in the general election, not knowing what to expect, but knowing for darn sure I wasn't going to vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Obama years had convinced me that the people at the helm of the Democratic Party were not simply misguided or over-zealous reformers - they were anti-American. The deaths at Benghazi, and the untimely demise of numerous persons inconvenient to the Clintons, convinced me that something very dark and sinister was afoot.

When I started listening to what Trump was actually saying - instead of what the media were telling me he was saying - I started to like what I was hearing. Grow the economy, fight illegal immigration, move the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem - sounds great! But would a President Trump actually do any of those things?

Now we are getting our answer. In retrospect I realize that my fellow Republican voters called it right.

Our Nation - our Republic - is something unique and precious in the world. We are blessed with freedoms few other nations enjoy (even the so-called "democratic" nations of Europe), and with a rich intellectual and spiritual heritage. But we live in a difficult world, where totalitarian forces would like to see us defeated. Our security and our liberty depend on our strength as a nation.

It's good to be independent in your thinking, but it's also good to understand where other folks are coming from, and to understand the importance of traditions and of institutions. We need freedom, but we also need purpose. ("Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life." - Viktor Frankl, 'Man's Search for Meaning') We need to be individuals, but we draw strength from a larger identity. ("The enemy's will is strong because his identity is strong. And we must match his strength of purpose with strong identities of our own." - Natan Sharansky, 'Defending Identity')

The ancient Israelites walked away from slavery in Egypt, not knowing where they were headed. They wandered in the wilderness for weeks before receiving the Torah that gave their lives meaning, and years more before settling in the homeland where they would build a national identity.

The search for meaning and identity is the work of a lifetime - but the first step is to #WalkAway.

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Financial Times: Portland near bottom in fiscal health index.

KATU:

PORTLAND, Ore. — The city of Portland is currently about $3.4 billion in debt and ranks near the bottom of a national "fiscal health index."

The Fiscal Times evaluated the finances of 116 U.S. cities with populations greater than 200,000 and ranked Portland No. 103 last year.

Officials say Portland's debt has risen by more than 20 percent over the past 10 years from $2.82 billion in 2008.

The city currently pays more than $500 million annually to service its debt, which includes both principal and interest. The city's total budget this year is $5.1 billion. ...

Go to the KATU link for a breakout and analysis of the debt from city debt manager Eric Johansen.

China / New Zealand: Concern over PRC influence in NZ.

Business Insider:

A former CIA analyst has raised the prospect of kicking New Zealand out of an international intelligence-sharing alliance, which includes the US.

Five Eyes is the name of the intelligence alliance between the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand that has routinely shared sensitive intelligence since 1955. But failure to respond to interference attempts by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) should endanger New Zealand's membership, Peter Mattis, a former CIA China expert testified to the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission last month.

"In New Zealand, both the last prime minister, Bill English, and Jacinda Ardern, have denied that there's a problem at all," Mattis, now a fellow at The Jamestown Foundation, said. ...

Jonathan Spyer: Iran's strategic response.

Jonathan Spyer:

Iran can be expected to respond with a counter-strategy of its own, designed to stymy and frustrate western and allied efforts. What form will this Iranian response take? What assets does Iran possess in the furtherance of this goal?

First of all, it is worth noting what Iran does not have: Teheran is deficient in conventional military power, and as such is especially vulnerable when challenged in this arena. The Iranians have neglected conventional military spending, in favor of emphasis on their missile program, and their expertise in the irregular warfare methods of the Revolutionary Guards Corps and its Qods Force. ...

California: New water rationing laws.

The Organic Prepper:

Governor Jerry Brown is retiring but not before he passes a few draconian laws as parting gifts for California. Two bills were signed into law on Thursday of last week to “help California be better prepared for future droughts and the effects of climate change.”

The mandatory water conservation standards will be permanent, according to their wording, and not just for use in times of crisis. To make a long story short, now that these bills are law, it’s illegal to take a shower and do a load of laundry in the same day because you’ll exceed your “ration.” ...

About Assembly Bill 1668:

The bill, until January 1, 2025, would establish 55 gallons per capita daily as the standard for indoor residential water use, beginning January 1, 2025, would establish the greater of 52.5 gallons per capita daily or a standard recommended by the department and the board as the standard for indoor residential water use, and beginning January 1, 2030, would establish the greater of 50 gallons per capita daily or a standard recommended by the department and the board as the standard for indoor residential water use. The bill would impose civil liability for a violation of an order or regulation issued pursuant to these provisions, as specified.

Sacramento Bee:

Assembly Bill 1668 by Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, and Senate Bill 606 from state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, D-Los Angeles, give water districts more flexibility than the strict cuts mandated under Brown’s emergency drought order and will eventually allow state regulators to assess thousands of dollars in fines against jurisdictions that do not meet the goals. ...

The "decent people".

They are a class of people who believed they could discern a "decent" person by the individual's decorum and speech. Their whole world-view is based on this shallow, superficial, and trivial understanding of human nature. In reality, decent and honorable people may be plain-spoken and even at times crude. But the manners brigade will die before they'll admit they were wrong about that.

Gender and category errors.

The anti-trans social conservatives understand correctly that gender has both an external component (our reproductive organs) and an internal component (our psychological makeup), which are aligned or matched-up in a certain way in most people. What they are unable or unwilling to see is that exceptional cases may exist where the matching is different from most people. (Were this not the case, it would be the only phenomenon in all of nature that hasn't got a single exception or deviation.) They imagine that transgender people are "trying to destroy society".

Anti-trans feminists (or TERFs) make the opposite error, and deny any natural correlation between reproductive sex and innate gender identity. For them, all gender identity is "socially constructed" and the product of patriarchal stereotypes. From there, it is a short step to declaring all generalizations about men and women inherently oppressive and evil.

Of the two errors, the latter is more useful to socialists and radical leftists (who really ARE trying to destroy society) because it attacks the process of organizing our experience on the most fundamental level - it attacks reasoning itself. A botany book contains idealized diagrams of flowers, and an anatomy book contains idealized diagrams of people; no one imagines that these diagrams represent every case, or even exactly represent a single example, but they are useful tools for learning the overall properties of the thing under consideration.

It is not so difficult to say, "This is the general case, but execptions also exist. Each case is unique, and yet certain things are true of the overall population." And yet this is exactly what political correctness aims to do, with the intended and demonstrated result that the whole educational process grinds to a halt. And this is precisely what we've seen in ecucation for the past 50 years or more.

FBI raids New York office of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen.

Breitbart: FBI raids office of Michael Cohen.

The F.B.I. raided President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen’s office on Monday, seizing records related to “several topics including payments to” porn-star Stormy Daniels, the New York Times reported.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had obtained the search warrant, after receiving a referral from special counsel Robert Mueller. Cohen’s lawyer called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary,” according to the Times.

The search does not appear to be related to the special counsel investigating Russian meddling and potential collusion by the Trump campaign, but a separate investigation that might have resulted from information he uncovered and handed over to prosecutors in New York.

Cohen’s lawyer, Stephen Ryan, said the F.B.I. seized “privileged communications” between Cohen and his clients. ...

PJ Media: Trump furious over raids.

The FBI raided the office and residence of President Trump's longtime personal attorney, confidant and "fixer" today, prompting an angry reaction from the president and caution from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who advocated that special counsel Robert Mueller be able to stay the course in his investigation.

About a dozen agents were reportedly involved in serving multiple warrants on Michael Cohen's office, his home and the Loew's Regency hotel where he has been staying, seizing his computer, phone, emails, tax documents, business records and related materials.

Cohen has publicly admitted to making a $130,000 payment, from his home equity line of credit, to adult-film star Stormy Daniels in October 2016 in return for her silence about an alleged 2006 affair between Trump and Daniels, and to setting up a limited-liability company in Delaware to make the payment 10 days before the money transfer. The payment was flagged by Cohen's bank in a suspicious activity report at the time.

An outstanding question is whether investigators determine the payment was an undisclosed "in kind" campaign contribution intended to influence the outcome of the election, which would violate the $2,700 contribution limit as well as disclosure rules. ...

Fox: Trump attacks Mueller "witch hunt".

"It's a disgraceful situation. It's a total witch hunt," said Trump, who claimed that he had "given over a million pages in documents to the special counsel. They continue to just go forward ... and I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. Actually it's much more than that. You could say right after I won the [2016 Republican] nomination it started."

Trump also accused Mueller's investigators of being "the most biased group of people [with] the biggest conflicts of interest" and said Attorney General Jeff Sessions "made a terrible mistake for the country" when he recused himself from overseeing the Russia investigation last year. ...

Popehat: What we can infer immediately.

1. According to Cohen's own lawyer, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (widely regarded within itself as being the most important and prestigious U.S. Attorney's Office in the country) secured the search warrants for the FBI. Assuming this report is correct, that means that a very mainstream U.S. Attorney's Office — not just Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office — thought that there was enough for a search warrant here.

2. Moreover, it's not just that the office thought that there was enough for a search warrant. They thought there was enough for a search warrant of an attorney's office for that attorney's client communications. That's a very fraught and extraordinary move that requires multiple levels of authorization within the Department of Justice. ...

Fake news master Christopher Blair tells all.

Boston Globe: Fake news creator did it for our own good.

Blair says he was raised a Massachusetts Democrat. When the economy crashed in 2008, he lost work and struggled to support his family. He blamed it on President George W. Bush. Social media and online forums became welcome places to vent his anger. Busta Troll was born after the election of Barack Obama, and was triggered, Blair says, by the rise of the Tea Party movement that arose in opposition. Online, he found himself aligning with a small offshoot of people who live to goad and prank and maybe silence extreme conservatives.

In 2014, Blair, as Busta Troll, pulled off a prank that won him wide admiration in that community. The United States had just traded five Taliban prisoners for Bowe Bergdahl, an Army soldier captured in Afghanistan after deserting his post. The prisoner swap ignited anger in far-right groups, and a Facebook page dedicated to the issue quickly became a “dumping ground for bilious accusations against Bergdahl and anti-Obama chatter,” according to the Los Angeles Times, which wrote about it at the time. ...

Related: Fake news creator Jestin Coler (NPR, November 2016).