Daily Archives: January 19, 2021

Peter Weirs 2003 masterpiece, Master and Commander, is a film about manhood, fatherhood, service, and sacrifice. Adapted from three novels in Patrick OBrians epic Aubrey-Maturin series and starring Russell Crowe, the film is set at sea during the Napoleonic Wars and tells the story of British Captain Jack Aubreys mission to find and sink a French privateer thats been harassing the British whaling fleet off the coast of Brazil.

In other words, its not a comic-book film for woke zoomers and millennials trapped in adolescence. Its a film for adults who want to see a nuanced portrayal of masculine virtue set amid breathtaking cinematography and awesome naval battle scenes.

Crowe himself explained as much over the weekend when someone on Twitter snarked that Master and Commander was so boring it might help as a sleep aid during the pandemic. Ive never made it past the ten minute mark, wrote Ian McNabb, to which Crowe replied, Thats the problem with kids these days. No focus.

Peter Weirs film is brilliant. An exacting, detail oriented, epic tale of fidelity to Empire & service, regardless of the cost. Incredible cinematography by Russell Boyd & a majestic soundtrack. Definitely an adults movie.

Crowes critique of the Twitter troll McNabb strikes at the heart of why a film like Master and Commander might seem boring to young people in todays culture, especially young men.

Yes, the film is a slow burn essentially a drawn-out chase scene as Aubreys ship first eludes and then hunts the French privateer. But as the tension slowly mounts, the virtues of a bygone era are made manifest, not just in the friendship between Aubrey and Dr. Stephen Maturin, the ships surgeon, but also in the paternal relationship Aubrey has toward his officers and crew.

In a time when close male friendship and fatherhood are increasingly rare for young men, Master and Commander is an even more important film to watch and contemplate, and then watch again. If you cant get through the first 10 minutes because youre bored, I assure you the problem isnt with the film, its with you. Grow up.

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Russell Crowe Is Right, If You Think 'Master And Commander' Is Boring, You Need To Grow Up - The Federalist

The top Democrat contender for the speaker position in the Illinois House of Representatives is facing scrutiny from his colleagues and others for his history of domestic abuse.

Reporting by the Chicago Tribune indicates that in 2002, officers responded to Rep. Emanuel Chris Welchs house after his ex-girlfriend claimed he slammed her head into a kitchen countertop numerous times after she called him a loser when she was at his house to pick up some of her belongings. Police reports also suggest Welch blocked her from leaving the home, which is when she called the police. Welch denied the allegations.

While the woman originally sought to press charges against Welch for domestic battery and unlawful restraint, she eventually declined to do so.

A few days later, the woman reported a bruise on her arm, police said, as reported by the Tribune.

Eight years later, another woman filed a federal lawsuit for sexual harassment and retaliation against Welch, saying she lost her job at a school after she broke up with him while he was still president of the school board. The case was eventually dismissed following the beginning of settlement talks.

Welch said the incidents, especially the domestic abuse, are no longer relevant and only resurfaced because Republicans are threatened by the potential growth of my profile.

This verbal argument occurred nearly two decades ago, Welch said in a statement. I will be honest that I have reconciled with the individual since that night.

These charges, however, are concerning to some representatives who note that, if chosen as the speaker, Welch would be replacing his political ally, current Speaker Michael Madigan, who received backlash after a Me Too scandal in 2018 in his office, resulting in the firing of one of his longtime aides.

Despite Welchs quick support and endorsement from the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, Alaina Hampton, the female campaign worker who came forward in 2018 after her supervisor in Madigans office sent her inappropriate texts, condemned Welchs bid for speaker.

How does our state go through a #MeToo scandal that lasted two years and the solution to replacing Michael Madigan is with a person who appeared in a police report write-up over domestic violence allegations? she asked.

Current speaker Madigan was also under investigation by the House Executive Committee, chaired by Welch, for a Commonwealth Edison bribery scandal, but the committee adjourned with no action.

According to House Republican leader Jim Durkin, Welch is merely an extension of Mike Madigan.

Weve gotta break from the past, said Durkin. And trust me, Mike Madigan is going to do everything he can to make sure he passes that baton off to somebody thats going to continue the business model of Madigan Inc.

Jordan Davidson is a staff writer at The Federalist. She graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism.

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Illinois Dem With #MeToo History Could Be The Next State House Speaker - The Federalist

Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway warned leaders ought to be wary of new dangers presented to American civil liberties in the aftermath of the attack on Capitol Hill just as new restrictions were passed following the September terrorist attacks in 2001.

People were terrified, Hemingway said after Al-Qaeda terrorists brought down the World Trade Centers and flew a plane into the Pentagon, and that resulted in a very big constriction of civil liberties that was not always in the countrys best interest and not always constitutional.

Now, Hemingway argued, following another attack on the nations capital this time coming from domestic political extremists, the same reaction repeating itself coming primarily from big tech implementing a widespread purge of non-leftist voices in the 21st-century public square.

Youre having very powerful people, tech oligarchs, and other people working with Democrats and people in the media to suppress all political opposition, Hemingway said. Thats a very real danger that needs to be taken seriously by our leaders.

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Hemingway: Leaders Should Be Wary Of Post-9/11 Style Crackdown - The Federalist

National Review

Joe Biden has not yet been sworn in, but already, he is at war with American energy which is to say, at war with American prosperity. Biden has promised to sabotage the Keystone XL pipeline, a privately financed, multi-billion-dollar project already under way, and cancel it on his first day, according to a briefing document cited by the BBC. The Keystone pipeline would, if it were allowed to, carry crude from the oil sands of Alberta to Nebraska, where the pipeline would link up with the existing distribution network to send that oil on to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. This would benefit Canadian producers and their investors, American refineries and their large, excellently paid work forces those good, high-paying, blue-collar jobs Biden talks about and, most important, American consumers, who would have access to yet another source of fuel at attractive prices from a nearby friendly country. This sort of thing is the point of international economic cooperation. The notional case against Keystone is environmental in the main part, and in the lesser part an issue of Indian lands and rights. The environmental case is unsound: Canada has ratified the Paris agreement and takes environmental issues relatively seriously. Innovation and technological improvements have substantially reduced the greenhouse-gas emissions associated with Canadian tar-sands productions by 30 percent since the 1990s, as the Canadian government calculates. Of course, it matters relatively little whether a gallon of gasoline in the tank of a Cadillac Escalade in Houston is refined from Canadian tar-sands oil or from West Texas oil the relevant emissions come overwhelmingly from the point of combustion. Of course there are environmental challenges associated with the oil sands, as there are with any usable source of energy, including wind and solar. These are regulatory and practical challenges that are perfectly manageable. (Which is not the same thing as a guarantee that U.S. or Canadian authorities, or businesses, will manage them perfectly that kind of oversight is hard work and a serious business.) The same is true of fracking and other petroleum-extraction practices. There are many reasonable ways to manage tradeoffs between economic development and environmental priorities if environmentalists were interested in reasonable tradeoffs, which they arent. Biden, already looking over his shoulder at a restive progressive caucus, apparently intends to buy environmentalists off with other peoples money. Why? Fossil fuels, far from being the great villain of the climate story, have been the main source of greenhouse-gas reductions in the United States over the past several decades, as relatively clean-burning natural gas displaces relatively dirty coal in electricity generation. But that is not the kind of intelligent tradeoff that interests American environmentalists, who are moralists and romantics and committed to the notion that hydrocarbon fuels are, simply, evil and that they must be fought on every front. Hence, the American Lefts comprehensive and total war on any and all infrastructure associated with our most abundant energy sources not only oil pipelines but natural-gas pipelines, too, along with rail-shipping facilities, refineries and other plants, and West Coast export depots intended to help U.S. producers in Asian markets. If it produces, consumes, moves, or processes oil or gas, the American Left opposes it. If Joe Biden is interested in improving the employment and wage outlook for middle-class Americans, he ought not make our industrial, chemical, manufacturing, transportation, and electricity sectors hostage to the narrow-minded concerns of a small group of fanatics. There is a worrying Hayekian lesson in this, too: It is impossible for American businesses to make big, long-term investments in a political environment in which every project is up for renegotiation or summary economic execution every time the White House changes hands. Why invest in building and moving physical goods, and taking on the political risk that goes along with such investments, when you could join the booming financial sector and put your money into the money business? This is not to sniff at finance or other work in the service economy, but, surely, in a continental nation as vast as ours, with an economy as complex as ours, it shouldnt be possible for one man serving a short term in a temporary elected office to undo years of work and billions of dollars in investment. This is pure foolishness, and it will cost us. Joe Biden is getting ready to get off to a poor start. And if he thinks that he can buy off the green lobby by sacrificing Keystone, he is mistaken. Their ambitions are bigger and broader than that, and they will not be easily satisfied: Lapptit vient en mangeant. If you were wondering who actually has Joe Bidens ear, now you know.

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Attorney and Federalist Society member sounds alarm about 'progressive tide' in small towns - Yahoo News

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer

January 15, 2021, 5:06 PM

5 min read

NEW YORK -- When Joe Biden addresses the country for the first time as president, his inaugural speech is likely to echo calls for unity that predecessors have invoked since the first time George Washington was sworn in.

Unity has since been a theme, and an anxiety, for many incoming presidents, who have faced economic and social crises and moments when the very future of the U.S. was in doubt. Historians mention the first inaugural speeches of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as possible parallels for Biden, who has said his goal is to restore the soul of the country.

Biden, who assumes office just two weeks after an armed seige of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, will preside over a nation in which millions believe Trump's baseless claims that the election was stolen. Few presidents have faced such questions about their own legitimacy.

Unity has always been an aspiration," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. It seems like whenever we have foreign policy flare-ups, we use the word freedom. But when we have domestic turmoil we use the word unity.

The United States was forged through compromise among factions that disagreed profoundly on slavery, regional influence and the relative powers of state and federal government. When Washington assumed office in 1789 he cited the blessings of providence in noting that the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established.

Jefferson was the third U.S. president, and the first whose rise was regarded by opponents as a kind of emergency. The 1800 election won by Jefferson marked the beginning of competing political parties Jefferson was a leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, losing incumbent John Adams a Federalist and critics regarded the new president as a dangerous atheist. "JEFFERSON AND NO GOD!!! was how one Federalist paper described Jefferson's candidacy. Adams did not attend the inauguration, a breach rarely repeated although Trump has vowed to do the same.

Let us then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind," Jefferson urged in his address. "We are all republicans: we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it."

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, a Federalist who administered the oath of office to Jefferson, wrote later that the speech was in the general well judged and conciliatory.

Lincoln's pleas were more dire, and tragically unmet, despite what historian Ted Widmer calls his genius to combine urgency with literary grace. Seven out of 11 future Confederate states had seceded from the U.S. before he spoke, in March 1861, over fears he would end slavery. The Civil War would begin a month later. We are not enemies, but friends, Lincoln had insisted, reminding fellow Americans of their mystic chords of memory while also warning that resistance to the will of voters would destroy democracy.

"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism, he said.

Historian David Greenberg, whose books include Nixon's Shadow" and Republic of Spin, cites Richard Nixon's inaugural in 1969 as another speech given at a time of social turmoil. The U.S. was violently divided over the Vietnam War and civil rights, and Nixon himself had long been seen as an unprincipled politician exploiting fears and resentments appealing to what he would call the silent majority. His speech at times was openly and awkwardly modeled on the 1961 inaugural of John F. Kennedy, who had defeated Nixon in 1960.

We are caught in war, wanting peace. We are torn by division, wanting unity, Nixon stated. We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

Some presidents asked for unity, others asserted it.

Franklin Roosevelt, elected in a landslide in 1932 during the Great Depression, said in his first inaugural speech: If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other. Four years later, having won by an even greater landslide, he declared the country had recognized a need beyond financial help, a deeper need, to find through government the instrument of our united purpose.

Unity can prove more imagined than real. When James Buchanan spoke in 1857, three years before the Civil War, he claimed that all agree that under the Constitution slavery in the states is beyond the reach of any human power except that of the respective states themselves wherein it exists. Rutherford B. Hayes, whose presidency was marked by the retrenchment of federal troops from the post-Civil War South and ongoing resistance from Southern whites to equal rights for Blacks, declared during his 1877 inaugural that true peace could be achieved through the united and harmonious efforts of both races and the honest work of local self-government.

A president often claims the country is united behind a belief when its more wishful thinking than reality, Widmer says. Im not sure how many Americans wanted to do something for their country after JFK asked them to although there were impressive new kinds of volunteers, like the Peace Corps. And I think that many Americans still appreciated help from the government, even after Ronald Reagan declared that government is the problem. Thats the problem with soundbites: They often oversimplify.

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Unity has long been a theme, and anxiety, for new presidents - ABC News

Well, weve seen the first Star Wars series on Disney+ in The Mandalorian, and now, were treated to the first Marvel series for the Mouse House streaming service: WandaVison. This homage to sitcoms of yesteryear is not your typical television show, and thats what makes it fun.

Each less than thirty-minute episode is a journey through a trippy, alternate reality version of Nick at Nite. The first episode is a nod to the classic 1950s television series like I Love Lucy and the 1960s mainstay The Dick Van Dyke Show. Wanda Maximoff and Vision live in an idealized suburban TV community, but dont seem to know how or why they are there.

Of course, if youre even a passing fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe you might be asking, Isnt Vision dead? Yes, yes, he is, which makes this entire situation all the weirder. Vision died during the events of Infinity War, so the fact that Wanda has recreated him or resurrected him and thrust the couple into this strange version of a sitcom life is all the more curious.

What makes all these odd references, homages, and peculiar situations work are the stellar acting chops of Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. In the first episode, Bettany is buried in 1950s style physical comedy gags like broken plates on his head and moments at work when hes trying to figure out exactly what it is that his company does.

The other great episode-long gag is watching both Wanda and Vision figure out why their day is supposed to be special. Being a fake couple in what seems to be a fake world, theyre not sure why there is a heart on their kitchen calendar. Wandas neighbor, played by the great Kathryn Hahn, convinces her that it must be the couples anniversary and sets about planning a very 1950s era evening complete with candles, a seductive dress, and a fancy dinner. Meanwhile, Vision is at work and eventually realizes that the heart on their kitchen calendar was to remind them that his boss, Mr. Heart, and his wife, played by Fred Melamed and Debra Jo Rupp, were coming to dinner.

So, at the end of his workday, Vision arrives home, boss and wife in tow, only to find candles, romantic music, and his wife dressed in a negligee. Hilarity ensues with Wanda passing it off as being European and then scrambling to make lobster thermidor, chicken a la king, and steak Diane. As you would expect from a twenty-something superhero, she has no idea how to make a 1950s gourmet meal and instead settles on breakfast for dinner.

Once theyre sitting down to dinner the couple gets peppered with questions about when they got married, where they moved from, and who they are, none of which theyre prepared to answer. Indeed, a great thing about the series is that Wanda and Vision are sometimes just as lost and puzzled by the whole thing as the viewer is. When his boss starts choking on his dinner, Vision reaches into his throat, because hes a superhero and can do that, and plucks out the obstruction in his airway, saving the day and earning a promotion to boot.

By the time we get to the second episode, were in a tribute to Bewitched complete with the cheesy animations and a matching theme song. We also start to get a glimpse that something here is wrong.

In their idyllic suburban setting, Wanda and Vision are now concerned with participating in the town talent show to raise money for the children. Theyre going to do a magic act, the fitting being that shes the Scarlett Witch, and he can fly. Theyre also each trying to fit into this new environment theyre living in, Wanda by joining the local womens group and Vision by becoming part of the neighborhood watch.

While heading to the womens group, we get our first experience of someone trying to break through this comedic setting to get to Wanda. A red and yellow toy helicopter with the S.W.O.R.D. logo on it shatters the black and white esthetic of the episode when it falls into the front yard rose bushes with a loud thud. We get another clue that something is amiss at the womens luncheon when a radio playing The Beach Boys Help me Rhonda in the background suddenly says, Wanda can you hear me? Whos doing this to you, Wanda?

We also meet the adult version of Monica Rambeau, played by Teyonah Parris, who we first met as a kid in Captain Marvel. Here shes going by Geraldine, and shes not quite sure why shes here. In the comics, Monica Rambeau eventually takes over the moniker of Captain Marvel. Here she may be an agent of S.W.O.R.D., the intergalactic answer to S.H.I.E.L.D. Yes, Marvel, like the federal government, loves its acronyms.

We also get a series of great gags when Vision goes to the meeting of the neighborhood watch group at the local public library (remember those?). We get perfectly timed for the era jokes about mastication, communism, and Vision trying to deflect that he doesnt eat (because hes a robot superhero and all).

As an essentially drunk magician who has forgotten that he has to conceal his superhero identity from the town flies lifts a piano with one hand and leaves his wife scrambling to cover for him, making the assembled town folks laugh and keeping them off the scent that theres something quite different about this couple of newlyweds.

By the end of the episode, Vision and Wanda are back at home and Wanda has a visible baby bump. Standing in their living room theyre disturbed by a sound, which upon further investigation turns out to be a beekeeper in a S.W.O.R.D. outfit coming out of the manhole cover in the road. Wanda says No, and were rewound to the moment they realize shes pregnant. Suddenly the whole world is in brilliant Technicolor. As the show fades out, we hear again, Whos doing this to you, Wanda?

We dont know exactly who the big band guy is in this show yet, or how exactly it plays into the next phase of the MCU, but we do know that WandaVision leads us straight into the next Doctor Strange movie, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, followed by the third Spider-Man movie. There has been lots of speculation online as to which Marvel villain could be pulling the strings here, but I think we have to wait for a few more episodes before we get a clearer view of exactly whats happening. Until then, bring on the continuing tributes to classic American sitcoms!

Brad Jackson is a writer and radio personality whose work has appeared at ABC, CBS, Fox News, and multiple radio programs. He was the longtime host and producer of Coffee & Markets, an award-winning podcast and radio show with more than 1,500 episodes. Brad covers all things edible and cultural for The Federalist. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram at @bradwjackson.

Photo Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany as Vision in Marvel Studios' WANDAVISION exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. Marvel Studios 2020. All Rights Reserved.

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Disney And Marvel's 'WandaVision' Is As Fun As It Is Weird - The Federalist