On Wednesday Mark returned to not just the Number One cable-news show, not just the Number One show in all of cable TV, but latterly the top show in all primetime TV, the ratings phenomenon "Tucker Carlson Tonight". The subject under discussion was Seattle hiring as its "street czar" a former pimp - and for a salary higher than more than three-fifths of US governors':
"If you were seriously interested in any of the issues that have been roiling America for the last six months, you would not be appointing a pimp as a 'street czar' for 150 grand," said Steyn, who added that such hiring decisions explain the "permanent decline" of some American cities.
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Because most movie theaters around the planet are closed right now, Climate Hustle 2 is premiering as a livestream, with a screening tonight at 8pm - that's 8pm wherever you and your viewing apparatus happen to be. So it's 8pm Greenwich Mean Time, 8pm in Helskini, 8pm in Cairo, 8pm in Vancouver, 8pm in Ouagadougou... Tickets are $14.99 and available here.
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"The Left is at war with Nature." I think that crystallizes it perfectly.
I was once given the following assignment: go out into the projects of Atlanta and knock on doors until I found X number of young men with two felonies under their belts who could then be signed up for a mayor's program to teach rap music production as a jobs training grant for such "forgotten" youth. I saw a lot of guns, wads of cash, cocaine scales, wheors (as I called them), and yet nobody got mad at me, used as they were to stupid white people showing up to shower them with cash. One guy even made me a cup of coffee. He even had fresh milk. He was pleased that I was impressed, as they had no other furniture. That is still my standard of good manners.
The program was run by the usual ministers, who now get their bennies directly from Koch Industries anti-incarceration projects.
You can't make this stuff up. Remember the good old days when William Kunstler chowed down behind bars on lobster with mob boss Gerald "The Frenchman" Ouimette and Gotti whilst Oumeitti was in the can for stuff like killing people? Curiously, the guy who put him there was Sheldon Whitehouse, using the Biden-Clinton 1994 crime bill to do it (4th time it was so used). So I wonder if Whitehouse will ask during hearings replacing RBG whether the nominee agrees with the 1994 bill, which saved thousands of lives, like mine, or whether she is of Biden's opinion that it was a failure. And I wonder how Whitehouse will respond to the reply.
A nice cup of coffee, perhaps.
The film was very illuminating and well-done, Mark. Thanks for offering the chance to buy tickets and view from home. If I could change one thing about it, I would edit out Al Hore and the Hollywood jerks. They're completely repulsive to me now. Everything else about the film I really enjoyed.
Tucker's comment that the left is at war with nature is correct but not complete: It is at war with reality. A war is currently being waged on elementary math. The idea is that 2 + 2 = 4 is now thought by educrats to be colonialism and Western supremacy.
Their position is highly convenient for getting out of teaching math. Those who think that they are not just as serious as the guy smashing windows are wrong.
Good point, Denyse. They're more calculating and serious. They're the ones calling the orders. The guys smashing windows destroying statues, violating people who are just doing their jobs or enjoying their meal at an establishment are the revolutionary worker bees, foot soldiers, with minds already wiped clean of their own thoughts. They checked with their superiors early on.
How did we get here? I know it has been explained before but I guess it happened so fast it was a blur, like the scenery when you're a passenger on a train. When the Soviet Union fell the communists had to put their energy into something else so they put it into environmentalism and green energy. That's why they got the nickname "watermelons" I guess. Green on the outside, red on the inside.
Steyn used to repeat a quote by the late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that went something like, "the facts of life are conservative". The Left believes in utopian fantasies but the only way they have a chance of succeeding is if the ideology and its byproducts (laws, rules) are vigorously enforced. That's where totalitarianism comes into play. It's tenets are not compatible with human nature nor a free, democratic society.
I have a friend, a woman in her 80's, who worked for Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California. She was an investigator for the now-defunct Office of Economic Opportunity. This state entity gave money, often lots of it, to minority groups and organizations in underprivileged and economically depressed neighborhoods around the state. Reagan was adamant about following up on what was actually being done with the money and who was benefiting from it. Not surprisingly, little, if any, found its way to the people it was supposed to help, as it was being siphoned off by those in charge of the various programs and organizations. Instead of doing anything to benefit their communities, these corrupt thugs were buying weapons (in the Oakland area the Black Panthers got a hold of the money) and drugs. My friend, a pretty, petite lady, had to be armed when dealing with these characters, and she told me she often feared for her life when she confronted them about stealing and/or misusing the money. I wonder if the mayor of Seattle, or anyone else for that matter, will be as vigilant as Reagan was in making sure the "street czar" does his job competently and the public funds he will undoubtedly have access to are being used appropriately.
AlyM, you write, " I wonder if the mayor of Seattle, or anyone else for that matter, will be as vigilant as Reagan was in making sure the "street czar" does his job competently and the public funds he will undoubtedly have access to are being used appropriately."
As you know. to ask that question is to answer it. But, I am told, Seattle will will vote for virtue. It will not vote for reform. After a while, people who have anything to lose besides their virtue will leave. The situation of the rest is unfortunate, just as it is in many poor cities across the world.
Enlightening exchange, A., F. and D. All very third world, then, and not a recent thing. Well, seems that you tackle problems by racial categories, and the racial categories grow teeth and come back to bite you. I am interested to see where it will lead: "voting for virtue", wow.
The screaming you hear isn't me: it is the Chinese around the water-cooler enjoying some incomprehensible joke.
Segnes Schonken: Voting for virtue means a lot in a place where advancement and esteem depend on toeing the progressive line. The trick for Virtuous Seattle-ites is to support the mayhem but know when to cut and run.
That is, run when the neighbour's family is terrorized and their house is destroyed - but not one's own. Then the virtuous (and still safe) Wokesters can flee to some so-far unscathed community, their Virtue intact.
Poor and disadvantaged Seattle-ites are still stuck with the criminals, rioters, and looters. But none of this was ever about them anyway. If it were, a crackdown on street crime would have been the first thought.
No, it was all, always, about the Rewards of ... Virtue.
If the Dems win this election, expect the mayhem to travel widely and get very much worse. Many more people will want and NEED to be in on the Rewards of Virtue.
Thanks, D. I'm also not a great respecter of sanctimony or the sanctimonious. It'll soon be compulsory, though, if it isn't already. We live in strange, strange times. I have been criticised for judging everything by economic criteria. Feeding the brute comes first. Economic criteria? Heresy! No virtue there! No rewards in heaven for me (as if I were ever destined for heaven).
I'm bereft of virtue. Also, quickness of wit. I've just seen off the person who will represent the Australian Labour party in our upcoming state election, clad in his clean new pillar-box red undershirt and trailing a miasma of sweet armpit-perfume. He had opened his unsolicited visit by declaring that he'd be my champion against unfairness. I thanked him for calling, told him that he needn't apologise and asked him to close the gate in departing, upon which he walked off with a defiant "No worries, mate." Seems I can't get anything right. I wasn't worried, I'm not his mate, and I don't have a gate.
I need a Rottweiler. "Labour party candidate, meet Oleg. Oleg, eat Labour party candidate."
I tried to report the outright theft of $105,000 from a DHHS grant once. Went to the Southeast Regional Director of VISTA in the Richard Russell building. Chubby bearded twat who laughed hysterically when I told him I was turning my boss in. He said, and I quote, "white women can't accuse black men in VISTA."
Then he told me I could keep my health insurance if I kept my mouth shut about it and quietly accepted a transfer. I said I would keep the insurance, take the transfer, report the theft anyway, and report his behavior.
The DHHS never responded to my report. Nor did the FBI. Nor did the GAO. Nor did the VISTA chief receive any consequences.
My ex-boss continued receiving fat federal grants for years. I was given a special award for my service to women and children from war zones. And I got one heck of an education. Several educations, actually. I am sincerely grateful to that band of prejudiced thieves to this day. Government may seem to have a heck of a time getting out of bed most mornings, but it is efficient as heck at fraudulent activity. Bless their hearts.
If you're hearing stunned silence, T., it's probably because your audience has been stunned. Your account deserves wide readership. This really is stuff which I know happens - but had thought happens largely in Africa and the Arab world and certainly not in leading Western states.
I for one regularly revise my premises and opinions in consequence of MSC inputs, and am grateful for it, and I know that I am not unique. Thank you.
Tina - you need to write a book.
$150,000 for a pimp. That's a bargain! Public service wages are out of control over here. You wouldn't find an Assistant Tea Lady in the Photocopying Bureau collecting less than $300,000 in Canberra. And like you said, at least this guy has done some 'real' work. Maybe his 'street smarts' might even achieve something. Unlike Premier Dan in Victoriastan who has never done an honest days work in his life; slithering straight from student politics to Premier with barely a sideways glance at the mugs who actually pay taxes.
Well said, D.
This is so well said! I love this!
By now LinkedIn should be promoting Pimping as a mainstream career. The wokesters will insist on gender neutral treatment of the Pimp profession. There will be features on Women in Pimping, promoting it as a super career for young minority women. "Minority" men already have made great strides in leading the profession to new heights.
Pimping is also a fashion statement. Get a load of this guy's threads. There must be a Pimp Boys Haberdashery out there somewhere (sounds like a prop for a Three Stooges short). But as you say, the look will have to accommodate a more diverse clientele.
I think he gets fashion advice from Mark. I know of nobody else who uses pocket squares.
I do! Not at work, no one in the office wears them, but when my wife and I used to go out I always managed a jacket and square evn in very casual settings. So my pocket squares have fallen to Covid as we do t go anywhere anymore, they just sit in the drawer with the stylish sweaters overseen by the rack of little worn ties :-(
I hear you. The guy who picks up the dry cleaning has forgotten where we live. With zoom I can go all week in a t-shirt and shorts, even the same t-shirt for the week! I bought a suit the other day and the guy asked if I even wear suits anymore to which I replied that most days I don't wear pants.
Too bad they don't bring back Frasier to the telly. They might not be able to bring back Eddy, my favorite tv woof woof, but they sure would have enough new material in the Wokeseattle town to go far in the twenties with nutso storylines. Nigel would probably have weekly catatonic fits every time he strolled outside, or rather he would take a liking to be a lifelong shut-in. The skies the limit with that town. The transit system even promotes a black lab that hops on the bus alone, gets comfy for five stops then exits at the dog park. The idea of that is to impress how easy it is to move around the town. Once you get up the courage to leave your condo.
I feel utterly gobsmacked, more than usually depressed, and in immediate need of comfort food. Is this the absolute worst of the United States circa 2020? It is at least the equal of Caligula appointing a horse as a senator (although it sounds like a winning candidate for our current Senate.)
As pending refugees from California, we are shortly commencing a trip to Flagstaff, AZ to explore options. Spokane, WA is out, as is Anywhere, OR. The majority of my relatives live in Louisville, KY - now that's a nice, peaceful city these days.
So hoping President Trump wins a second term.
If I may so suggest, B., there has always been an element of populism in American politics (and, as far as I can tell, the politics of every Western democracy). It's probably inevitable. I submit that the clip provides a good case study of what the seamy side of populism might entail. I'm sure that I risk setting up a hue and cry among those who view populism as an unqualified good by saying so, but life is never quite so simple. The best ideas have downsides, and I'm not even sure that populism is among the best of ideas.
The Oxford dictionary's primary definition of populism is "[a] political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups". Put like that, the concept has appeal. In practice, however, most honest folk would prefer their concerns to be considered in and by the institutions of government and by their representatives there - the "established elite groups" so despised by anarchists - and lately by folk who ought to know better, but who can probably be excused or even envied for not having direct experience of the ugly face of populism. Most folk - certainly most Republicans of my acquaintance - do not prefer to be represented by what I venture to term the counter-elites - people from the other end of society, like pimps. Or harlots. Or bandits. Or tramps. Or parasites. Or idiots. That, I submit, is why Republicans will never support BLM, even when they worry about the representation of their own concerns.
That is also why this seems to be a time to back the institutions, however aware we might be of their undeniable shortcomings. And that is also the reason for suggesting that the institutions should be improved wherever and whenever improvement is necessary the better to attend to the concerns of honest people. That is what I have always considered to be the essence of progressivism and why I so deeply resent the Left's appropriation of the term. Well, in my view. Only ever in my view.
I have recently been (quite fairly) rebuked for stating the obvious. Please forgive me if I've done so again, and thank you for bearing with me.
Flagstaff is very nice... Up in theountains so not hot like Phoenix or Tucson. Don't know about the politics.
This time I think American populism is a little different. Instead of the usual rabble, this time it is a disappointed middle-class that has seen it's standard of living erode over the last 40 years and a super-rich oligarchy emerge. I'm talking about the bitter clingers to guns and God. I don't think they're quite as susceptible to the oratory of a new leader driving them to violence because they got to be middle class by being steady, silent workers. This time the clingers have had their faith in the institutions of Congress, the law and justice severely reduced by the attacks of the last 4 years. I do think the "undecideds" can be galvanized to vote much as they did in 2016. Rioting in the streets and calling them racists is going to have a backlash.
Perhaps there's more than one populist movement afoot, W. If I may, I'll set before you my sense of things with an invitation to tell me what I do not know. It seems to me that the populist movement which most certainly exists as a discernible, relatively coherent movement is the one which has resulted in the appointment of a pimp to government office and whose primary flag-bearers are BLM and Antifa.
Perhaps, as you suggest, there is a second, opposed middle-class populist movement afoot. I know that there are commentators who wish such a movement were afoot and who see themselves as its flag-bearers. Speaking for myself, I certainly hope that rioting in the streets and calling honest folks racists is going to have a backlash, but it seems to me that it will be an institutional one, at the ballot-box. (I don't deny that the best way to turn somebody into a racist is to call him a racist.) In other words, the people involved do believe that their concerns will be represented by the institutional "elites" as long as they can prevail by institutional means. At this point I cannot, from my remove, discern a coherent populist movement which carries the flag for such a backlash.
Perhaps I am tripping over a problem of definition. From where I stand, as I indicated, there is a long history of populist elements in the Republican side, as well as in the Democratic side. I'm old enough to remember, for instance, the politicians who tried to appeal to the "hard-hat Republican" vote, and also those who pandered to the Black Panthers. I'll not mire myself in the question of which of those was a movement and which just an element, if you'll bear with me. However, folk who describe themselves as Trump supporters aren't really populists. I cannot think of a clearer way of expressing confidence that "established elite groups" (as the Oxford dictionary has it) has their concerns at heart than supporting the president of the country. It would be disingenuous to argue that the president, however embattled, is not at the apex of an "established elite group" when he was installed by one of two political parties from whom America's "established elite group" is drawn, setting aside for a moment the prosperous part of society which is also described as an "established elite group", and which also, as it happens, includes Mr Trump.
So, in sum, I wouldn't be opposed to a form of American populism such as you describe, but I see the principal populist force as Antifa and BLM.
P.S.: ... who are *N*A*S*T*Y*.
Hello Segnes,
I always learn from your erudite and very humorous comments. Rock on, my friend!
Hi James,
I've heard Flagstaff is purple re politics. We shall see!
You're a real pal, B. Hope your wishes will be granted.
Mark, apropos the real Prisoner of Windsor, did you see President Trump's thoughtful advice to Harry? I laughed my head off.
Tom Wolfe's "Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers," written fifty years ago, recounted how clever black activists figured out that Whitey was anxious to dole out money for "minority programs," but didn't know who to give it to. These activists realized that all they had to do was to set up some "organization," appoint themselves as leader and ask - no, demand- the government pay them to do "youth outreach," and they'd be on easy street for years. It was, however, not intended to be a "how-to" manual. Yet, here we are, and you've got to give this brother props for figuring out how to jump on the gravy train.
By the same token, as a former pimp, he knows how to bring women into the workforce with jobs that allow them to set their own hours. In addition, as a manager, he's handled a stable of diverse workers and knows how to properly motivate them. He's a self-described genius, obviously smarter than Mayor Jenny and probably more of a capitalist. I think we're looking at the next Mayor of Seattle, folks.
David, we have one such organization in our community that does "youth outreach" in the urban area, and it is funded by a combination of local philanthropy, state and federal money. It's run by your garden variety, loud and brash community organizer type. Anyway, several years ago, an audit was done and it was discovered that more than $300,000 could not be accounted for. Care to guess what eventually happened? The audit got broomed after the organization's leader had a "yeah but" recital for several days which caused the local powers that were to start giving it a good leaving alone. The explanation from the organization was along the lines of "we don't have the staff to do the bookkeeping and reporting to comply with all financial record keeping requirements." And "you know, a lot of times we have meetings that run into the late evenings and we order pizzas to be brought in. Nobody thinks to keep the receipts for things like that." $300,000 worth of pizza. With $300,000 you could open your own restaurant. Maybe he did.
Telling stuff, D. The new elite grows out of the fertile compost of the old, then. Isn't the resilience of humanity amazing?
I've thought that urban Liberal Whites, especially women, are scared to death of Black criminals. They are an ever present threat in their environment. If arrested and jailed, the criminals will be released a few years later and they come back worse than ever, schooled in advanced criminality and hoodlum culture. Then the big city elected officials make the classic mistake of trying to buy them off. There is a lot of uncommitted and loosely accounted for money floating around uni-party city government, so $150k is chump change.
And as Tucker pointed out, the taxpayers are the chumps.
Ask not what your country can do for you with your taxes; ask how you can pay more taxes. Or don't: it's all in the pipeline regardless of dumb questions.
Washington State is tilted left, and everything loose is sliding into Seattle...
I support this plan, and I would like to offer my services to my home town, Detroit, as a Street Czar. I do not have Andre's resume in detail as an entrepreneurial pimp, but I have coordinated and attended countless director and VP-level meetings in the Automotive industry as part of a larger organization, which gives me tremendous experience as both a prostitute and a sponsor / agent of others so inclined. This is obviously a promotion for we former pimps, and as Detroit is larger and older than Seattle, I will expect more than $150k, of course. Yes indeed, I may eclipse my governor's salary, but you must pay what the market bears, and we pimps are strong proponents of free markets, most especially in the world's oldest profession.
Is there such a thing as institutional nihilism? It must be cutting edge societal evolution. I guess Seattle will let us know how it works out.
What Seattle should have done is hire some local gangbanger warlord for 10 times that amount, given him carte blanche to grease any agitator or rioter causing problems and begin the payments to him only when the chaos dies out and stays that way. He's not a cop so he has that going for him. It's like the old Chinese proverb...doctors should only get paid when people are well and healthy. I think that plan would work remarkably efficiently.
A few weeks ago I remember being mesmerized by a video showing (if I recall) the LA Crips pushing a bunch of pasty Antifa thugs out of a neighbourhood. I remembering thinking how crazy I felt cheering for the Crips but there you have it, kind of 2020 in a nutshell.
Laura, in Chicago the Latin Kings took charge of protecting their neighborhoods by informing Antifa and BLM that rioters, arsonists, and looters would be killed. They also let the police know they would not need their services. Consequently, zero trouble in Latin King controlled areas. It's tragic when gangs provide more protection than the police.
Great story but it's not true. They did stand guard against some looters. But they are perpetrators of crime and looting as well. Trafficking, drug running, pimping, abusing women, and high rates of child molestation, rape, assaults and internecine and other shooting do not suggest model minority-dom. Highest levels of government dependency are another form of plunder.
Dave Chapelle had a great skit called I Know Black People. One of the questions was, "Is pimping easy?" The white people and the Korean grocer all answered "Pimpin' ain't easy" to which Dave, the host, agreed with them. The black contestant answered,"Hell, yeah" to which Dave answers, "That is correct." Seattle just made it even easier.
I was glad to see that Tucker hasn't shied away from reminding everyone of the George Soros connection to the funding of this overthrow attempt of the country. After what happened to Newt last week, I was worried that all Fox hosts had been banned from mentioning Soros' name.
I'm hoping that Tucker is teaching Republicans about what Conan said about what the best thing in life is:
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women.
We need a little DeLecto the Barbarian, I think.
A Street Czar named...Desirée? No, Andrè, I see, but a fellow can try.
As a native of the great Pacific Northwest, I can attest firsthand to the second city syndrome of Portland compared to Seattle. They got a basketball team before we did (and lost it, I note gloatingly, to Oklahoma City), a football team and TWO baseball teams to our none, and now a Street Czar. Mayor Squeaky Wheeler must be gnashing his Crest Whitestrips and rending his Pendleton flannels over the humiliation. He could try to play catch-up by appointing the "I AM A WOMAN!" fellow Street Czarina, but who besides Joe Biden remembers the second person to invent the light bulb? Portland pipsqueaked again! Welcome to my psychological hell.
Caught the Steyn segment while flipping between Tucker and baseball. My daughter asked who the guy was with the weird accent. I said he's the man whose writings taught me about the country's fertility problems and contributed to our decision to have your baby brother. To which my daughter replied "oh, then I don't care for him"
HA!
Haha, that's awesome. It reminds me of when we had our second child, a boy, and our 4-year old daughter would say "does that guy have to come" - that guy being our 1-year old son.
That's a hoot!
When the left is creating "street czars" out of pimps in order to replace the police, what they want is no real answer to the problems in these communities. All that money to one person to do something meaningless is what the left views as a "real job" and they've pushed that view to minorities and their base for decades. I'd rather have Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld be the street czar because at least he has name recognition.
I wonder if the city had business cards printed up for the new czar. Is he going to collect a pension when he retires? Is he going to have his own parking space at city hall? This dude must be laughing his arse off. A hundred and fifty large! Did Seattle's HR department post this job and comb through applications and resumes, or did the worthless mayor just dream all of this up and made it happen? How did they decide on this pimp to be czar? Frankly, someone who gets through life by beating up defenseless women doesn't cut it for me with this czar gig. Why didn't they pick someone who has the balls and chops to go up against most thuggish elements of our society? If you're going to go with this crackpot scheme, at least hire someone with the proven ability to get things done what you're trying to accomplish.
You went too far with the parking space.
Brian,
Your comment about preferring Cosmo Kramer to be street czar reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer borrowed a flamboyant costume from the wardrobe manager for the "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" Broadway production. It made him look like a pimp as he strutted down the street with it. That was a great episode. I wonder if you can still make TV shows like that today?
Oh, I don't know. How many people working for the city of Seattle making $150,000 per year or more don't have their own parking space? You wouldn't expect someone as important as a pimp on the public payroll to be taking mass transit to work or paying for parking and mixing with the hoi polloi, do you?
I can't believe you both forgot the city car to go with the parking space.
What are you saying, R.? You didn't approve of the Kennedy clan, then?