COVID-19, Family, Ilana Mercer
My husband has taken to cooking defensively. When I say, “I’m off to the kitchen to make dinner,” he’s like, “Don’t worry; I’ll cook today.” But inside he’s screaming, “Noooooo.” I’m a terrible cook. I try my best. Sometimes it works. Mostly it doesn’t. He, however, has become a really good cook.
Conservatism, COVID-19, Ilana Mercer, IlanaMercer.com, Intelligence, Internet, Iraq, Paleolibertarianism, War
Please pray for my longtime reader and dear friend James Huggins. A member of my American family, really.
James was diagnosed yesterday with COVID-19, among other serious ailments that come with age.
As with so many seniors, COVID was likely contracted in a nursing facility.
I love James and I am moved to tears—humbled—that he urged his kids to contact me as soon as he was hospitalized, so as to keep me in the loop. We are usually in regular contact on Facebook, which he joined at my urging. We had messaged about a month or two ago, and I had been worrying about James since he fell silent.
Over the years, my column has proven a good litmus test for drawing quality people to me. And James was one of the first to hound me mercilessly on WND.COM, in the early 2000s, for what he believed was my misguided anti-war stance. (Archive here.)
But so bright and free a man is James (“I’m cleaning my guns on the kitchen table,” he would email), that he quickly came to the philosophy of freedom, which precluded much of the Republican Party’s politics, and certainly Bush’s war.
After we had had one of our arguments about Bush’s war, James once wrote, at WND, that he’d rather go up against Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guards than confront Mercer. So enamored was I of the man’s good-natured, Southern flare—idiom and humor—that I urged James to contribute to BAB.
James soon became a regular and valued contributor to my Barely A Blog. Regrettably, BAB’s thriving Comments section was closed, at the urging of one Christy Kiltz, an arrogant web-developer to avoid. (This Oregonian, and the coven of tantrum-prone witches that huddled at her office, generally got irate when their client dared to politely reject their ugly designs and rotten, shrill advice. Apparently, a client’s role is to comply with the girl gurus. (Kiltz, moreover, has the audacity to call herself a guru of coding, when she could not even convert a PHP archive to WordPress for me. A real guru did it in a matter of days.) Sadly, however, Kiltz was successful in intimidating me into closing “Comments.” (“Spam,” you know.) At the behest of this unpleasant and errant brander and developer, I lost the readers that frequented the site daily. With my blog closed to Comments, I also lost valued, daily contact with James Huggins.
Here are some of his BAB blog posts:
“Letter of the Week: In Defense of Coulter”
“In Defense Of David Koresh.” [Well, of course.]
This bright, funny and fabulous granddad deserves—and must have—many good years ahead. Join me in praying he gets them.
America, Conservatism, COVID-19, Culture, Donald Trump, Elections, Republicans
A mild-mannered, conservative man and his wife were interviewed by CNN at the National Mall on July 4.
It looked like they could be closeted Trump voters. The telltale signs: Much to the irritation of the CNN reporter, the couple refused to say anything bad about the president and kept the discussion classy and neutral. In other words, white, typically nice; a middle-class, older American couple: the Trump cohort.
To the question, “Do you like the idea of big crowds here?”, the man apologetically replied: “I’m old and diabetic. I don’t want to die. Protect me with your actions.” He was not over 55, so not in the least “old.” Yet he had certainly been conditioned to think of himself as redundant.
In the youth-horsewhipping, silly society that is America, the man had reason to be afraid: Older people have been cast as nonessential livers. Remember the asinine Republican pol who proclaimed, “There are more important things than living”? Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) was directing his life-cherishing message to the older Trump voter. “Come on. Be a sport. Give it up for the greater good.”
Indeed, conservatives keep being dismissive about COVID. And when the older, at-risk age-group is mentioned, Republicans routinely imply they should self-isolate—and should certainly not expect anyone to wear a mask for them.
Hunker in-place if you’re over the hill.
Is anyone aware of the average age group of those doing cutting-edge COVID research?
Prognosticating about America’s 2020 election, The Economist notes the reason that “Donald Trump’s facing a much bigger task than he did in 2016″:
Mr Trump is being dragged down by the dramatic movement of older voters, horrified by the now-exploding spread of covid-19, away from him. Overall, Mr Biden’s vote margin has increased by about five points over Mrs Clinton’s final performance in 2016 among people who voted last time round, according to an analysis of YouGov’s data. Voters over 65 have led the charge; their vote margin for Mr Biden is six points better than Mrs Clinton’s was, whereas that of voters under 30 has not budged at all. White voters have also fled Mr Trump’s ranks in much larger numbers than voters of colour. Mr Biden is seven points ahead of Mrs Clinton’s position among whites, while Hispanics have moved six points towards Mr Trump (though they still overwhelmingly oppose him).
UPDATED (7/12/020): LinkedIn for some, but not others?
“LinkedIn is replete with political commentary and political commentators. Yet, here is an individual attempting to banish a perfectly proper inquiry (all inquiries are proper), echoed in an august news magazine. Other than his offense of censorship and cancel culture—why does said individual just not hang-out around motivational speakers like himself? Why silence others?
Already an attempt to censor me on https://t.co/r3GuHkeTBD, which is replete with political commentary and commentators. Yet, here is an individual attempting to banish a perfectly proper inquiry, echoed in an august news magazine. https://t.co/uPUnY6wgCX
— ILANA Mercer (@IlanaMercer) July 12, 2020
China, COVID-19, Economy, Globalism, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Nationhood
On July 2, 2020, I joined my favorite broadcaster, “Col. Mike” of the John Fredericks Show, syndicated out of Virginia, for a wide-ranging discussion about the issues of the day—from the Soweto-style shantytowns that had sprung-up in Seattle, to China and the Covid quagmire, to America’s immigration-visa labyrinth, and more.
In his interview style, the Colonel, so dubbed in deference to his military rank, will remind older listeners of the legendary George Putnam (by whom I was honored to be interviewed years back).
To wit, when this columnist ventured that the Seattle police had no business deserting their headquarters and posts; that their first duty was to uphold the negative rights of the citizens of Seattle, not to obey the politicized commands of Police Chief Carmen Best and Mayor Jenny Durkan—Col. Mike, who knows a thing or two about a chain-of-command, roared:
“They should all be fired.”
Businesses looted and boarded-up are currently suing the City of Seattle. This farce was explored during the interview—for who do think will pay for their legal remedy? You, the taxpayer! Taxpayers are subsidizing the degeneracy of politicians like Mayor Jenny, who should be collared and cuffed for abnegating her constitutional duty to uphold the property rights of her constituents.
Spotlighted was the manner in which high-tech was changing the city, draining it of its character and of the many quirky characters that made Seattle what it was.
Discussed, too, was the outsourcing of American lives to China (and India), a matter this column has been covering since the early 2000s. By “lives” we mean the very stuff of life. Not mere jobs; but careers, not just some products, but entire production lines; not one or two manufacturing plants, but the means of production.
More crucially, China didn’t force the traitors of the American economy to shift crucial production lines to its country and strand Americans without surgical and N-95 masks and medication; homegrown turncoats did. Giants of industry and technology, aided by the philosophical pygmies in government: They made these decisions, all by their lonesome.
COVID saw many a Chinese multinational galvanize to ship supplies to the Mother Ship: back home. Ostensibly international, Chinese companies operating in Australia, for example, began vacuuming up tons of medical materials in the host country and beyond, between January 24 and February 29, in order to send back to China.
Indeed, home is where you ship your masks to.
And much more.
The spouse alleges that I blurted out that the sight of policemen and guardsmen across the U.S. kneeling before their black tormentors conjured scenes from the film “Deliverance.” Denied!
If nothing else, you’ll enjoy the debonair Colonel: