Where Undernews Was, MSM Shall Be: If they’re really going after financier Jeffrey Epstein for sex trafficking of minors, maybe we’ll finally get answers to the two great mysteries of this case, a case that has been bubbling furiously in the Undernews for decades. 1) How does Epstein make his money? Supposedly he’s just an ace trader/hedge funder with billionaire clients. OK! But many Wall Street types are skeptical he is actually financing his unbelievable lifestyle this way. (“The trading desks don’t seem to know him.”) Alternative theories abound. 2) How much of America’s ruling class is involved? We know Bill Clinton has some splainin’ to do. But I don’t think his relationship with Epstein can account for all the heat that has been applied to various prosecutors along the way. As Ann Coulter said, in what remains the best short summary of the case, “This is not just a Clinton sex scandal; this is the elites getting cozy and covering up and protecting one another. It also involves the Bush administration ...." It’s a bad French movie come to life.
There’s also the possibility that the case will be twisted by prosecutors to fit the needs of the moment, with Epstein pressured to implicate Trump. That would get those elites off the hook, and might perversely accomplish what most of the elites want (i.e.: to end Trump’s term in office). I’m being paranoid here. Always a sound policy. Epstein would hardly be a very credible witness at this point. Still …
P.S.: Graydon Carter also has some ‘splainin to do too. What happened when Epstein showed up at the Vanity Fair office to (apparently successfully) talk him into making a cut in a 2003 profile? Don’t think the disingenuous PR statement here —about it being a “financial story”— or the earlier reported statement that Epstein’s “sensitive about the young women” really does the trick. …
More: Here's a book on Epstein by Conchita Sarnoff, who may know more about Epstein than anyone ...
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Ban Me, Jack! — Don’t Call It a ‘Race Card’: Now that we know Kamala Harris’ position on busing is the same as Joe Biden’s (up to local school districts) we can appreciate how deeply cynical her pre-planned debate stunt was. It’s one thing to ambush your opponent on an issue you disagree with them about—say, Bernie attacking Biden for being too incrementalist on health care, or for having supported the Iraq War. But it takes impressively treacherous ambition to sandbag someone for agreeing with you.
Yet what much of the coverage missed was the ploy Harris used to get the floor:
“HARRIS: "As the only black person on this stage, I would like to speak...
“TODD: I...
“HARRIS: ... on the issue of race."
For some reason the New York Times transcript doesn't record this on-the-nose playing of the race card. They say the key part is "[inaudible]. It's not.
P.S.: I got some blowback** on Twitter for saying Harris played the “race card,” Watch it for yourself. Start around 54:00 in. They’re talking about race and a police shooting in Buttigieg’s city. Then Marianne Williamson speaks up for reparations. Then the moderators are clearly about to go to someone-who-is-not-Harris when Harris demands her time “as the only black person.” Some card is being played. If it’s not the race card, I don’t know what it is. … But: I admit that after Williamson’s talk of reparations it did seem slightly strange for all these white people to be lecturing us about racism without the participation of the black person on stage. Sort of like a TV show I saw with two critics discussing the films of Bruce Baillie while ignoring Baillie himself, who sat silently between them. … Still: Harris didn’t use her opportunity to jump into the conversation about racism (or police shootings). She used it for her preplanned sandbag of Biden. …
Be sure to: Watch the video until 57:42, a few seconds after she commandeered the floor, when Harris smiles what seems to me to be a “Wow, I totally got away with that” smile … It’s hard to imagine Barack Obama trying the same move in 2008. (He won, in part, as the Guy Who Didn’t Play the Race Card, no?)
**— I did notice that all the people who thought “race card” is something you just can’t say are in academia, where I guess you have to be extra careful. Academics, I’m so sorry for you! Of course, it’s wrong to dismiss something as ‘playing the race card,” but that doesn’t mean the card doesn’t exist and is never played. See, most obviously, MSM coverage of the OJ murder trial …
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Isn’t the obvious analogue to Trump in 2020 Richard Nixon in 1972? Country is prosperous. Dems moving too far to the left. Yet incumbent is weighted down by non-economic concerns (for Nixon: Vietnam War and his character; for Trump: his character and his character). ….
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Lost in the Census Question coverage: We really do want to know how many citizens, and non-citizens, and illegals there are in the U.S., a point Hugh Hewitt makes in a recent column. That’s no pretext. For illegals, especially, there’s a lively (under-the-MSM, if not exactly undernewsish) debate about how many are here. The conventional take—largely backed even by Steven Camarota of the restrictionist think tank Center for Immigration Studies—says 10-11 million. Others (Yale researchers, Bear Stearns researchers) championed by restrictionists like Coulter say double that number. Makes a big difference if, for example, you’re thinking of extending health care to cover illegals.
So who’s right? In the end it all comes down to what the undercount of illegals is in the census’ data—e.g. how many people are people lying or evading the survey. Is the standard-but-now-kinda-old estimate of a 10% undercount — the estimate used to produce the conventional 10-11M take — still accurate? Would seem kind of odd if it hadn’t changed over the years as the immigration issue has been increasingly cathected, with greater threats of deportation, etc. Has it?
Here’s the thing: Including the citizenship question on the Census would help us answer that question. That’s because, when a question is on the big decennial census, the Census Bureau then conducts an elaborate after-action survey in which it goes into a sample of communities to see how many people are actually there (versus what the Census survey showed). They don’t do that for questions that aren’t on the decennial census, like questions on the far smaller, ongoing American Community Survey that Dem opponents of the Citizenship Question would have us rely on.
In other words, the Citizenship Question could resolve a festering public policy dispute. Now we’ll probably never know the answer, thanks to Justice Roberts. …
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Cars: Alfa Romeo lives up to its reputation. That’s not a good thing! Larger point! — Italians have a reputation for building unreliable cars. Maybe it’s the Italian culture or maybe it’s just the specific culture of the dominant Italian auto supply chains (i.e. FIAT, which owns Alfa). If you ignore this culture when buying a car, you are likely to end up with a lemon. A bit weird, then, that we’re often proscribed from taking culture into account in far more important decisions, like starting wars (Everyone’s ready for democracy! Iraq! Afghanistan! What are you, a racist?) or picking immigrants (Everyone assimilates equally! What are you, … ?). That doesn’t mean cultural concerns should dominate. It doesn’t mean politics can’t change culture, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s famous quote affirms—or that you shouldn’t buy an Alfa.** Just seems crazy to ignore it. …
**— Don’t buy an Alfa.
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