Assorted

     I haven’t done one of these in a while. Feels like it’s time.

---

     The always excellent Thales (previously known as Dystopic (previously known as Wonko the Sane (previously known as “the artist previously known as...))) has produced a creditable tirade that punctures feminists’ ranting about “patriarchy.” My favorite bit:

     [T]he phenomenon of catering to female delusions is far greater than merely enabling that particular movement. We are supposed to see the raised pink fists, the pussy hats, the women dressing up as giant vaginas as somehow changing the world by their mere presence. All the millions of marching Starbucks drinkers; all the hopey-changey bologna spouted by the feminists achieves nothing, but we are supposed to believe otherwise. As if a woman chanting “I am fierce” somehow makes it true. Various vaguely female trolls say “this pussy grabs back” as if Donald Trump has some kind of interest in having sex with them (itself a delusion). None of this means anything in the great political struggles of our age, but the media ardently pretends otherwise.

     A more accurate headline might be “a million cat ladies descend on Washington to complain about something they can’t do shit about.”

     Indeed. But then, claiming to be a “victim” of “oppression” and screaming absurd demands is the sociopolitical currency of the moment, and feminists are anything but innovators.

     A large part of feminists' notions about “patriarchy” is in reality the consequence of millennia of implicit bargaining between men and women: “Women, if you give us men this, we men will give you that. Sold? Sold!” That allows us to reframe the majority of feminist demands as “We want what we want and we refuse to pay for it!” This illuminates the innate unattractiveness of feminists and feminism better than many other encapsulations.

     As one of Robert A. Heinlein’s trademarked older-and-wiser characters once said, “Most women are damn fools and children.” It was true in 1951 and it remains true today; only a few minor characteristics of female tantrums have changed.

---

     In the wake of the Atlantic’s firing of only-just-hired Kevin Williamson upon the discovery that he is (gasp!) an actual conservative, the mighty Ace of Spades has spotlighted the major media’s exploitation of weak-water conservatives’ yearning to be heard:

     I have long been saddened by the self-hatred of the conservative movement, a movement which frequently views acceptance by their enemies as the ultimate accolade, and a Token Hiring by a leftist magazine as the crowning achievement of their careers.

     What is it among the allegedly individualist conservatives that makes them so smitten with leftist collectives? What is about allegedly can-do, future-friendly conservatives that makes them so giddy about opportunities in the already-built-by-other-hands legacy media and so disdainful of DIY garage-band success stories like the Federalist?

     A friend of mine noted that the left hates The Federalist so much precisely because they don't see any way to get them fired or compel them to play nice by threatening to no longer invite them on to CNN -- most of them have internalized that that ship has sailed, so no veiled threat from a CNN stooge that "you're burning bridges" can bring them to heel.

     And that's probably why allies of Fusion GPS are pushing their stupid "Who funds The Federalist?" hashtag campaign, suggesting -- absurdly -- that THE RUSSIANS are funding it.

     Some conservatives are sincere individualists who wouldn’t abandon their true intellectual homes even under torture. Others are as avid for large-scale audiences, adulation, and acceptance as any would-be starlet, and as willing to strip naked to get them. The former sort tend toward the classical-liberal / constitutionalist libertarian position. The latter will say and do whatever they think might get them a few more clicks. It’s important to know the one from the other.

     I’ve already written about the Williamson matter. The moral remains what it was: Conservatives and libertarians must build our own platforms, and we must remain loyal to them. There is no other way to break the Left’s stranglehold on the media.

---

     The Robert Mueller-ordered raid on the office of Michael Cohen, for a long time Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has raised more than a few eyebrows. Wolf Howling has captured the scandalous core of it:

     This morning, the DOJ, based on allegations passed on by Bob Mueller, executed a warrant on Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, sweeping up a host of material covered by attorney client privilege. Indications are that the information related to Stormy Daniels, something completely unrelated to a single thing about Trump-Russian collusion. This from the same bastards who have yet – two years after the fact – to execute a warrant to verify that the single most basic fact of the collusion story, that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians. This from the same bastards that allowed Hillary to maintain her private server for months after it became known that she had run all State Dept. business through that server, all but certainly exposing thousands of confidential, secret and top secret documents and items of information in violation of our state secrets laws. During that time, Hillary and her attorney wiped that server clean. And now these bastards, seemingly having found nothing on which to charge Trump relating to Russian collusion, and having given Hillary and her team a pass on crystal clear felonies, go after Trump and/or his personal attorney on a technical violation of election law? These worthless bastards are out of control.

     They’ve been out of control for quite some time. Indeed, they were encouraged to place themselves above the law by the Obama Administration, which regarded the Department of Justice as an instrument with which to torment the enemies of the Democrats.

     Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch weren’t given the Attorney-General post in recognition of their exemplary service to the nation. They were hatchet men for Barack Hussein Obama from the first moment of their respective appointments. In recognition thereof, they put their fullest efforts toward politicizing the Justice Department and using its manifold capabilities to undermine anyone deemed an opponent to Obama’s extra-Constitutional rule.

     Throughout the Obama Administration, the DoJ turned a blind eye to the outrages of its friends and allies while mercilessly scrutinizing and when possible prosecuting its adversaries. The finishing stroke was Loretta Lynch’s collaboration with the Clinton Administration at putting Hillary Clinton above the law, despite her demonstrated felonious behavior in the handling of classified material. After that it could no longer be denied that the Department of Justice had been made into yet another political action committee for the Democrat Party, but with guns, subpoenas, and indictment powers.

     Wolf Howling writes that “The single biggest mistake [Trump] has made to date has been to allow the utterly lawless prior administration and the related deep state to skate on all of their illegal actions.” I concur – and if Mueller isn’t hauled up by the short hairs and keelhauled for this outrageous violation of Trump’s attorney-client privilege – over a matter neither illegal nor in any way connected with the “Russian collusion” investigation! — the Trump Administration will have signaled that it has no will to defend itself.

---

     That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. The rest of the day goes to fiction. I hope to return tomorrow.