Displaying posts published in

August 2018

MEDIA Comments turned off

New York Times Columnist Can’t Figure Out If Racist Tweets Are A Fireable Offense Or Not Bret Stephens praised ABC when it fired Roseanne for a single tweet, yet he defends the racist tweets of Sarah Jeong.By Sean Davis

By on August 11th, 2018

http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/10/new-york-times-columnist-cant-figure-out-if-racist-tweets-are-a-fireable-offense-or-not/

New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, an outspoken NeverTrump activist, effusively praised ABC when it fired Roseanne Barr for a single tweet, but when it comes to a mountain of racist tweets over nine years, he says his new colleague Sarah Jeong deserves a whole lot of grace and a second chance. What could possibly explain this blatant double standard?

To recap: Roseanne Barr, creator and star of the hit sitcom bearing her name, was swiftly fired by ABC in May after she posted a tweet comparing former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, who is black, to a terrorist ape. Shortly after her firing created a social media firestorm, Stephens used his column at the New York Times to praise ABC and its executives who fired Barr, while declaring that she deserved to be fired not because of a single tweet, but because she is simply a bad person unworthy of having any public platform.

“Barr’s tweet about Jarrett, in other words, wasn’t the odd needle in the haystack,” Stephens wrote. “It was the last straw.”

“This is not a ‘one bad tweet’ issue,” Stephens claimed, before endorsing the characterization of Barr as a “boor,” a “notorious believer and propagator of conspiracy theories related to 9/11,” and “a MIRVed ICBM ready to go off in all directions at any time.”

Continue reading →
ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Problem with Gay Marriage By David Solway

By on August 11th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/the_problem_with_gay_marriage.html

Lately I’ve been thinking of a former close friend and colleague who happens to be one of the most brilliant and insightful political writers of our time. I had referenced his work in my own books long before I got to know him and was honored to find after we’d met that the esteem was mutual. I regarded his camaraderie as one of the blessings that conservative affiliations can afford, especially to those toiling in the scribbling trade.

Our relationship lasted many years. We met often when he visited our shores, enjoyed many pleasant, conversation-rich dinners, shared the same circle of friends, continued to read one another’s works with admiration, exchanged emails several times a week, and even wrote for the same magazines. I introduced him to my wife, with whom he developed a friendship and appreciation for her own contributions to the conservative movement. We were like an extended family. What could possibly go wrong?

The short answer is, a lot. Our relationship foundered over the vexed issue of redefining marriage, for my friend was gay and expected us to affirm the legalization of gay marriage in the United States and his forthcoming betrothal, as he referred to it, to his longtime partner. This we could not do. He objected to a rather obscure Facebook comment in which my wife deplored how the gay lobby’s justifiable plea for tolerance, with which she was fully on board, had morphed into the triumphalist demand for the unconditional celebration of all things gay, from gay politicking to Gay Pride to so-called gay marriage.

Continue reading →
ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Wind and Solar Energy: Good for Nothing By Norman Rogers

By on August 11th, 2018

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/wind_and_solar_energy_good_for_nothing.html

The defenders of wind and solar claim that subsidies are a minor help to get a new industry going. These defenders counter critics with the fallacious claim that fossil fuels receive huge subsidies. Actually, the fossil fuel industry pays huge taxes.

Focusing on explicit subsidies is the wrong approach for understanding the subsidies provided to wind and solar. The explicit subsidies include such things as a 30% construction subsidy for solar and a 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour subsidy for wind. Both technologies benefit from tax equity financing, a scheme based on special tax breaks and gaming the corporate income tax of a highly taxed corporate partner.

A better way to measure the wind and solar subsidies is to look at the benefits and losses to the economy. A net loss to the economy implies a subsidy. Once it is recognized that a subsidy is present, the next step is to figure out who is paying for it. Invariably, it is either the taxpayer or the consumer of electricity.

For example, if it costs $5 a bushel to produce soybeans, and they are sold in the soybean market for $4 a bushel, there is a net loss to the economy. Someone has to pay for the loss. That someone could be the farmers, soybean speculators, or taxpayers if the government subsidizes the loss. Selling soybeans for $4 that cost $5 makes the economy poorer.

Continue reading →