Week of February 23rd, 2020

Happy leap day! Hope you’re doing well. I have had a hell of a week due to a massive project that was due on Wednesday in which I had to build a shell from basically scratch. Many very late nights were involved. I’m looking forward to Break week after next when we can catch up and I can start editing my movie.

First, politics! Yay!

I know you watched the debate and heard Senator Sanders taking heat and having a tough time. The audience was giving him a lot of shit. After the debate, the Senator remarked about the makeup of the crowd while parroting some apparently not exactly true information. But it makes you wonder why he didn’t say as much onstage. I can’t help but remember this glorious moment of Trump destroying Jeb! in 2016 as an establishment candidate. I think the more that Senator Sanders evokes Trump, the better he will do in this election. Also, why the hell do these debates have live audiences?

I’m sure you’ve heard the “Bernie Bro” narrative making a resurgence. Yes, the biggest problem with Senator Sanders isn’t that he’s an anticapitalist with a soft spot for communist dictators, it’s the toxicity of his young fans on Twitter. I can’t believe this is a narrative the media is really trying to pass off as honest. Every politician has toxic fans, so of course the most popular one in the race, whose fans tend to be younger, would have a such a base on the most toxic social media platforms. Jennifer Rubin, per her tendency, published an opinion piece so comically wrong that it demands to be seen. (Trump is right about her.)

Seeing this come up in debates is almost surreal. I can’t help but think it’s due to President Trump weirdly legitimizing Twitter as a central part of the political discourse. I wouldn’t suggest that Twitter ought to be ignored outright, but it’s influence is way overemphasized. And Senator Sanders’s opponents are trying to capture his bloated base, so instead of attacking him for his odd admiration for the Soviet Union, they play the whole Social media game. The Daily Beast has a whole section Ahead in the Trolls about this bullshit, including an article about a Senator Sanders staffer EXPOSED for the crime of being extremely funny on a private Twitter account. I’m particularly partial to the following:

Amy Klobuchars face looks like that optical illusion where it’s an old lady but also a young woman depending on how you look at it but with her it’s just two different old ladies

I can’t stand people pretending to be humorless to score political points.

Next, here’s one of the worst ideas in U.S. political history: telling Republicans to vote for independent Senator Bernie Sanders to weaken the DNC to help Trump win. God this looks like a monkey’s paw situation. I don’t understand what people find so hard about the concept of “vote for the best electable candidate.” Senator Sanders was an independent because he was to the left of the Democratic party. I find this clip to be particularly hilarious. Just watch the face of the white woman in the background light up. I can only hope to one day be involved in such an ill-conceived but cool-sounding O P E R A T I O N   C H A O S.

As I touched on with the silly Jennifer Rubin article, there’s been much discussion about how the Democratic National Convention ought to operate. So called “democrats” are so rightfully afraid of Senator Sander’s campaign, that they, including this President Obama campaign staffer, think that maybe democracy was a mistake. The superdelegates can save us! And isn’t it fucking hilarious that Elizabeth Warren speaks so strongly against the electoral college but thinks that the DNC just ought to do what it do. God she’s full of shit.

Speaking of Senator Warren, her Super PAC is now up and running and shady as hell! It’s worth remembering this. Hell, it’s still on her website!

Coronavirus did a number on the market, and it’s worth being worried about. It’s spread to every inhabited continent, and isn’t really slowing down. There will be a U.S. outbreak. Trump is being a big idiot and not listening to his own experts. The response is being headed by Vice President Pence, and he said this week on The Rush Limbaugh Show that Trump picked him in part for his experience handling the HIV outbreak in Indiana as governor. Well, that’s terrifying, because he did a terrible job at that. Free HIV testing was no longer available due to the local Planned Parenthood closing. Experts found that the outbreak was coming from needle use and recommended that free sterile needles be distributed in at-risk areas. He initially declined, citing moral objections to giving drug users needles which I think is exactly what you would imagine a Governor Pence doing. The delay almost certainly worsened the outbreak.

All that being said, the number of diagnosed Americans is still in the double digits, which is why this article is so absurd. We can’t blame President Trump for a pandemic yet to happen. And Senator Warren, yep her again, announced the greatest possible solution: redirect wall money to Coronavirus action. Because nothing slows down an international epidemic than open borders.

Also, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez touted her “awards from MIT Lincoln Lab &others for accomplishments in microbiology” in a Twitter feud with Senator Cruz (in which he was also being a dingus). Those accomplishments in microbiology? She got second place in a High School science fair sponsored by MIT. I’m not kidding. I need AOC to write my resume.

Moving on from all that, here’s the follow-up to the quantum mechanics video I shared, if you’re interested… and I’m guessing you’re probably not. I find this stuff fascinating.

Fuck Disney. I know, a real hot take. But, sorry, faking wokeness while serving Chinese communists pisses me off. As I’m sure you’ve heard, they’re making a live-action Mulan movie for some fucking reason. But they’re removing Captain Li Shang, the romantic interest. Why? Well, really it’s fucking obvious why, isn’t it. By the text of the film, it is obvious that Captain Li falls in love with Mulan while she’s presenting as a man. And then he’s totally unbothered when she turns out to be a woman. It’s the gayest straight romance Disney could possible fabricate, and a lot of overly-online bisexuals love this shit. It’s a good time. Type “Li Shang,” and Google suggests “bi.” And that means it ain’t flying in China! So they cut it.

And if Disney just said, “Uh, that’s on Communist China, not us,” I’d be fine with it. I’m not that guy, you know? But that’s not what they did. No, they say they removed Captain Li because he’s Mulan’s commanding officer and that the romance made them feel uncomfortable in the post #metoo era, as if Captain Li was rapey. If you watch the fucking movie, there’s absolutely nothing untoward, though, probably due to the creators not wanting that shit to be too homosexual. Mulan asks HIM out after the war. Captain Li is respectful and dutiful. The film demonstrates the flaws in China’s social structure at the time. The excuse falls so flat. China’s censorship is really harming American progress, and anyone trying to let them get away with that is being weak.

Billie Eilish is in trouble for saying true things about Hip Hop music. I don’t have much to say about this, but I know this article will make you mad.

Well that’s all I got. World’s going to shit. What else is new?

Thanks,
Jacob Morris