Category Archives: Pop-Culture

UPDATED (5/17): Witless And Wall-less In America. Lots of Wars On The Go, Though

Ann Coulter, Celebrity, Conservatism, Donald Trump, IMMIGRATION, Media, Neoconservatism, Pop-Culture, Private Property, War

UPDATED (5/17):


Stephen Colbert: Witless.

Another banal brain. So boring:

The Wall?

Those grants of government privilege, continued.

Nothing changes. Fox News never keeps them honest.

Borders abroad: We’ll pay to protect those.

MAGA? No. This doesn’t even making Afghanistan Great Again.

Fighting wars of choice is the neocon way.

Linguistic evolution needed.  Tribal leaders say they don’t have word for Wall in their languages. Then time to invent one. Languages evolve.

Is an epic betrayal in the offing?

Ann Coulter is mad as hell this week and was mad as hell last week. As she should be.

Bill O’Reilly’s Best Joke Ever

America, History, Pop-Culture, Pseudo-history

Bill O’Reilly is definitely funny. He’s funnier than his sidekick, Dennis Miller, whose humor hasn’t aged well.

O’Reilly was especially hilarious, the other day, when attempting to illustrate the historically unprecedented venom toward Donald Trump and his presidency. Said Mr. O’Reilly, “As a historian … “

LOL.

Bill O’Reilly is no historian. I suppose O’Reilly is an historian in the same way court historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is. If you treat O’Reilly’s books as works of history, you’re in deep intellectual trouble. (Join the nation.)

Recommended, in the context of O’Reilly’s “scholarship,” is Thomas DiLorenzo’s review of Killing Lincoln, O’Reilly’s “big, boring bag of nothingness” about the assassination”:

Over 100 books are already in print on the subject, and all O’Reilly and his coauthor do is cut and paste what others have written on the subject, but without including a single footnote! The authors also have the annoying habit of writing things like, “in his mind, he was thinking that . . ., ” as though they could know what Lincoln was thinking when he did this or that 150 years ago. This is a standard practice of the “Lincoln scholars,” who also constantly claim to know what was “in his heart” (nothing but love and kindness, of course) in their writings.
There is nothing at all in O’Reilly’s book about Lincoln’s policies and behavior in office. There is nothing about his statist economic policies, his trashing of the Constitution by illegally suspending Habeas Corpus and mass arresting thousands of Northern political dissenters, his intentionally waging war on Southern civilians in violation of all moral and legal codes regarding warfare, his lifelong obsession with deporting all black people, free or slave, from America, etc. In addition, it is apparently so full of historical errors that it has been banned from the bookstore at Ford’s Theater, the famous site of the assassination.

If you want to understand The Idea of America, read foundational books on American republican virtues (not least the title linked). Begin with the book The Power in The People by Felix Morley, and you’ll be able to watch or read Bill O’Reilly’s folderol, and such stuff, and assess it for the shallow nothingness that it is.

Truth is not about the penny plan, or the red line in Syria, or whether to beat up on Russia or not. It’s about grasping the foundational principles of liberty and the limits of government—the principles Jefferson, Madison, Mason, John Roanoke, John Calhoun held dear; grasping those core issues and applying them to the issues of the day.

The other exquisite text by Morley is Freedom and Federalism.

For starters, let’s see these texts on your coffee tables.

UPDATED (1/9): The Unbearable Banality Of Fox News (Tucker Carlson Excepted)

America, Conservatism, Intelligence, Media, Politics, Pop-Culture, Republicans

“Tocqueville in the 19th century, and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th, noted that conformity of thought is powerfully prevalent among Americans.” Thus, the possibility that a lonely voice telling an unwanted, original truth might be heard on Fox News is small.

With this in mind, I couldn’t resist bringing you the “mind-blowing” Fox headlines for December 22, 2016, the kind of insights that are off-the-charts brilliant (cynicism alert):

“Germany’s Refugee Policy Has Been a ‘Complete Disaster.'” [You don’t say!]

“Gutfeld Slams ‘Divisive, Alienating’ YouTuber Who Claimed Racism on Plane.” [Yawn.]

Meghan McCain, one of the dumbest women on TV: “‘I’m So Blown Away’ That Some Dems Want a 3rd Hillary Run.”

“‘Russia Didn’t Elect Trump, America Did'” [OMG!]

Prepare for the clincher: “‘Tolerance Is One-Sided’ on the Left.” [The truly brilliant Christopher Hitchens must be tossing in his grave. His brilliance has finally been bested.]

Mediocrity.

UPDATE (1/9):

UPDATED (12/13): Trevor Noah Applies The South African Experience To The US

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Political Correctness, Pop-Culture, Propaganda, Race, Racism, South-Africa

“Rioting and looting: That’s what happens when there is protest, a lot of the times,” asserts the unfunny, South African, Trevor Noah, to Tomi Lahren. He is the imported host of The Daily Show. (After all, there are not enough left-liberal, black, talented comedians in the US.) She a young, pretty, enormously popular, rather humdrum, internet broadcaster. Nothing Lahren says is particularly original or controversial. Conservatives have been mouthing the “diversity of thought, not color” line for over 40 years.

And Noah: Rioting and looting happen in South Africa* all the time. When they happen here in the West on a regular basis; we worry about the rule of law and the future of ordered liberty.

Noah is not exactly fast on his feet, but then the right response to, “Why are you so angry,” a question he posed to Lahren, should have been: “There is nothing wrong with righteous anger.” Anger shaming is a common liberal tactic. See “TESTOSTERONE, Going, Going, Almost Gone …”

Does this tedious Noah add anything original to the storyline of eternally oppressed blacks? Import a talent such as the late Christopher Hitchens. Not this idiot.

Boring.

*See: “When America Becomes South Africa”

UPDATE (12/13): Obama joins Noah.