Brazen

If there were a Benegram Twitter account, I'd be retweeting this over and over again:

@allahpundit

Comey’s not going to clear Hillary on the very day Obama starts campaigning with her, is he?


Apparently so.

Democrats Hold a Slumber Party

As I watch the Democrats hold their gun-control "sit-in" -- quixotically comparing themselves to civil rights heroes who faced far more risk -- I keep asking myself why they're not blazing mad at U.S. Senators in their own party, who just failed to passed two pieces of gun legislation authored by Senate Republicans. Why be so angry at one party and not the other?

Could it be that this would defeat the whole purpose of their tantrum -- not to reduce gun violence, but rather to try to score political points?

I'm Not with Her

...and will not be with her anytime soon.

AOL, I am tired of seeing this woman's face on my cell phone, the laptop computer, and various desktop computers I happen to use.

Stop telling me to click on something to say I'm with her. I view her political ad with the same revulsion that my vegetarian self feels when an ad for Omaha Steaks comes up, or my teetotaling self feels when some smelly wine is being hawked, or how I'd view a before-and-after for Preparation H.

I don't care if the eleven-car pileup known as Huffington Post bought out AOL or not.

I want this "I'M WITH HER" sewage off my AOL.

Make it happen.

Facebook and a Doctored Cake

...so the drama regarding a cake sold at an Austin Whole Foods turns out to have been the result of a crudely executed hoax (as many of us predicted). Turns out, the bakery employee who served Pastor Jordan Brown actually isn't a latent homophobe who added a three-letter homophobic slur to Brown's order (as many of us warned). Video evidence demonstrates that Brown likely added it himself (as many of us suspected) so as to set up a narrative of evil and bigotry.

I'm happy that Whole Foods's name has been cleared; in fact, the market has dropped its countersuit against Brown. Of course, the "never mind" part just never seems to be given the prominence that the original charge, does it?

Mr. XYZ Accused of Sexual Assault (front page)
Charges Against Mr. XYZ Dropped; Accusations Proven Invalid (p. 18., lower-right corner)

I think I'd put a few chips on the table to say that this happened on social media in the Whole Foods story. Remember that to say that something has "gone viral" is to compare a story to something quite harmful, and often fatal. That close-up photo of that bad little word that rhymes with "bag" was probably posted by a few million Facebook users by the time fifteen minutes had elapsed after the story first hit the 'net, accompanied by the contest of Who Can Denounce This in the Strongest Terms -- without waiting to see if there was more to the story or not. See also "University of Virginia" or anything said by a Republican figure that HuffPo can then twist into something horrible.

A university student will scream and holler about a racial slur or a swastika made out of feces she found on her dorm-room dry-erase board. The Twitterverse will explode. It'll be the top thing trending on FB. Then, the administration will tell her that, not to worry, we'll look at the video at who did it.

"Uh...video?" she'll ask nervously.

And, then -- as many of us guessed -- the video will show that the student herself was the one to adorn the offending word(s) or image(s) there, so she could complain about how bigoted her school is. Then the story will probably fade out on social media, without any real contrition or retraction. After all, it served its purpose just fine. There'll be another fake thing coming along any day now to satisfy our righteous indignation.

Of course, we know that the good people of Planet Zuckerberg will see to it that everything's made square, right?

Adult Stem Cells Used to Combat Blindness in Newborns, and Myasthenia Gravis in Adults

A hat tip to Wesley J. Smith for spreading word about these items.

First came the news that adult stem cells have been used successfully to restore sight in human infants.

Then there was word that they have caused remission of myasthenia gravis -- again, in human patients.

Recall that, fifteen years ago, embryonic stem cells were being touted every week on the nightly news as the "holy grail" of medicine, and that adult stem cells were a cheap imitation that would never amount to anything. They had it backwards, as we have been saying.

BeneGram's 2016 Final Fourcasts

Let's see how we're doing here...

WOMEN: South Carolina [sigh], Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and Connecticut. Connecticut over South Carolina in the final.
MEN: Villanova, Baylor, Virginia, Xavier. Virginia over Baylor in the final. Yeah, I know.

Freedom of Speech Doesn't Mean Stifling Someone Else's

I'm not what you would call a fan of Donald Trump. I think his mouth outpaces his brain by about four lengths, and he speaks in sound bites and pep-rally jargon rather than gives specifics. Marco Rubio [sigh] would have made a much better candidate, and a much more formidable opponent than Trump would be, if polls are to be believed.

That said, I don't believe the lunacy at Trump rallies is all his fault. DJT's events are being disrupted by activists with the same sort of tactics seen at college campuses, where students and their aging mentors simultaneously cry out for free speech and chant to drown out any speaker they don't like. Consider what Milo Yiannopolous and Ben Shapiro have had to contend with in the last few weeks.

"Free speech for me, but not for me," as Nat Hentoff put it.

It's one thing to stand outside a Trump rally with a sign in silent protest; it's another to cause a disruption at an event. This is not to comment on how such disruptions are handled, except to point out that any protestor who displays violence should expect the right of self-defense to be availed.

I'd rather have any other Republican as president than Donald Trump, but I don't want harm to come to him.

This Leap Year's Fun Fact, Same as the One Before

The adjustment known as leap year isn't as simple as "every four years." If that's all we did, our calendar would still be quite screwed up. To be even more precise and keep the earth from gaining or losing too much time, every year that is a multiple of 100 but not a multiple of 400 will not be a leap year. You may remember that 2000 was a leap year, though 2100, 2200, and 2300 will not be leap years, and then 2400 will be one.

Want to experience them with me? Eat your vegetables.

Clinton Wants to Have It Both Ways on the Supreme Court

Letter of mine ran here in THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER on February 19. My original appears below. (And, yes, those cases were about specific appointees. My point is about the selective outrage, which any regular reader here would know is a common theme at BeneGram.)

I see that Sec. Hillary Clinton is now lambasting Republicans for the suggestion that the process to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who passed suddenly on February 13, should be delayed. Let us recall that Clinton was one member of the United States Senate to engage in filibuster against Samuel Alito when President Bush nominated him during his second term. (Then-Senators Barack Obama and John Kerry did the same.) Clinton, in fact, also used the filibuster against many Bush nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As for the years before Clinton was even First Lady, one need only enter the name "Robert Bork" into a search engine to see how Democrats have behaved when faced with a nominee they didn't like. 

So, apparently, Democrats, such as Clinton, are opposed to obstructing the process of replacing a Supreme Court justice -- except when they aren't.

Justice Scalia

As news spreads about the surprising passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, I don't suppose that left-wingers commenting on message boards can refrain from being buttholes for at least the first 24 hours.

Oh, wait. Too late.

BOTH Sides Care About Gun Violence

I believe that President Obama's tears shed over gun violence were genuine, but I wish for a cessation of the rhetoric. I've never owned a gun or been a member of the National Rifle Association, but I'm tired of the NRA being vilified as an amorphous force that needs to be "stood up to." It is an organization comprising more than five million Americans, who are just as horrified by gun violence as everyone else. Hundreds of thousands if not millions of instances occur each year in which a gun prevents or prematurely ends a crime -- most of the time without even being fired.

 

Those who disagree with the president's proposals and attitude do not love their guns more than they love their children; they want the right of protection because they love their children.

 

(edited, published version printed here: http://articles.philly.com/2016-01-16/news/69796762_1_home-care-gun-lobby-certified-nursing-assistants)