glenn reynolds
Glenn Reynolds - Instapundit
Summary (posts follow):
Law professor at the University of Tennessee who writes the blog Instapundit. Strong supporter of the tea parties and apparently one of the owners of Pajamas Media.
On October 1, 2008 I sent him and other major rightwing bloggers an open letter detailing a highly effective way they could help defeat Barack Obama. I encouraged him to find people to engage Obama in debate on video at his public appearances. Not only would that have revealed the flaws in Obama's policies, but it would have helped raise the level of debate in the U.S.
If you're familiar with Reynolds' snarky, passive-aggressive style I don't need to tell you that he ignored the open letter, as did the others.
Instead, Reynolds supports things like mocking politicians and holding up "bunny ears" behind their head. That's despite the fact that in the latter case engaging that politician in debate on video could have shown hundreds of thousands of people on Youtube just how wrong his policies are.
Glenn Reynolds also told me to "STFU" on two different occasions (and perhaps more), while cowardly hiding behind a pseudonym.
Reynolds is a libertarian with Randroid tendencies, and he's repeatedly highlighted cases of those who threaten to "go Galt". That would consist of those who don't like policies crafted by our elected representatives turning their backs on the U.S. - taking their marbles and going home - even as the U.S. fights two wars and has massive unemployment. Some patriots.
Last modified Sep 7, 2014
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):
Rich Lowry embraces Trump's unpatriotic idiocy (NFL protests) - 09/23/17
Standing athwart idiocracy screaming Bring It On, Rich Lowry of National Review blogs "Why Donald Trump Is President" [1]:
Daniel Hannan says "free movement of labour" will continue, despite Brexit. See who hyped him. - 06/26/16
From the Daily Mail [1]:
A leading Tory Brexiteer has insisted quitting the EU does not mean the numbers of people coming to Britain will be slashed - and claimed Vote Leave never said it would.
After a bitter referendum battle dominated by immigration, senior MEP Daniel Hannan insisted the Vote Leave campaign had only ever demanded control and not a specific number.
Don't take Glenn Reynolds' advice, Part 7271930B (Instapundit, USA Today, "A revolution in the works?") - 02/05/13
University of Tennessee law professors Glenn Reynolds of the "Instapundit" blog shows yet again why you shouldn't take his advice.
This edition is in USA Today ( peekURL.com/zpU5SAG ) entitled "A revolution in the works?":
...According to a Pew poll released last week, more than half of Americans view government as a threat to their freedom.
Elizabeth Price Foley confused by terms "liberal" and "conservative" - 10/15/12
Elizabeth Price Foley is a constitutional law professor and author of the book The Tea Party: Three Principles. Over at the site of Glenn Reynolds, she offers a guest post [1] that even someone like Sean Hannity would realize is clueless:
A question about Tea Party cleaning up trash left by Obama supporters (San Francisco, Sally Zelikovsky) - 10/09/12
A recurring theme of the Tea Parties movement is that they clean up after themselves. Literally: by picking up their own trash after their events. They contrast that with the dirty, filthy librul hippies who support Obama or who are in the Occupy Wall Street movement. This theme is largely true, but it's also incredibly ironic as I'll discuss below.
Walter Russell Mead blames the victims of globalization, mass immigration (California, The American Interest, Kotkin) - 07/15/12
For a while I've been tracking the "Fiscal Con": examples of fiscal conservatives deflecting blame from the impacts of the policies they support or ignore.
Now, Walter Russell Meade ("WRM") offers what might be called the "Global Con".
From '"Green" Energy Bias Killing California' [1]:
Tea Party incompetence: an example from PJMedia (Helen Smith v. John Scalzi) - 05/20/12
Here's yet another example of a Tea Party leader showing how incompetent they are (note: see Tea Parties for our extensive coverage).
There is, however, one difference between the current and most past instances.
In the past, Teapartiers seemed to have being the prime example of the "Dunning-Kruger effect" [1] as their goal.
In this case, at least the Teaparty leader has admitted they're incompetent.
Two examples of conservative failure (CPAC, rap, Crowder, Reynolds, V. Jackson) - 02/11/12
The first example is from an Ed Morrissey post [1] about a Friday event at CPAC ("Conservative Political Action Conference"):
Rightwing's muted response to Brown signing unpopular, anti-American immigration law - 10/09/11
If California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that dared raise taxes on multi-billionaires by even a few pennies, you can bet that rightwing internet activists would be up in arms about it.
Amity Shlaes dares not tell you a major cause of high teen unemployment (Glenn Reynolds) - 07/04/11
Amity Shlaes is a Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow and writes a column for Bloomberg News. As such, acknowledging that massive low-skilled immigration just might be a major cause of massive teen unemployment is something that she dare not do lest she be drummed out of the establishment.
How many millions of his fellow citizens does Glenn Reynolds think are "parasites"? - 05/31/11
The reader will forgive me if I admit to being momentarily taken aback by Glenn Reynolds referring to potentially millions of his fellow citizens as "parasites"; given his history I shouldn't be surprised that he'd write this [1]:
WILL AMERICA SEE EUROPE-STYLE RIOTS? Newsweek sounds hopeful, but in America, unlike Europe, it’s usually the taxpayers who are behind the revolutions, not the parasites.
George Will misleads about a root cause of California problems - 05/21/11
Fiscal conservatives and libertarians have a cruel trick they like to play on the people of California: whine about the problems California faces in order to push one part of their agenda, while ignoring how another part of their agenda caused the problems in the first place. See the fiscal con page for a detailed description and several examples.
The latest pundit to pull the Fiscal Con is George Will of the Washington Post, who offers "Golden State blues", link. In the article, he misleads his readers by not revealing a major cause of high spending:
[California's supposedly high] tax levels...
Glenn Reynolds, Ace support mindless, authoritarian heckling of Newt Gingrich - 05/17/11
The video below shows Newt Gingrich being confronted by an angry GOP voter in Iowa about Gingrich's recent comments about Paul Ryan. The voter presents no argument against anything Gingrich has ever said or done but instead just tells Gingrich: "You undercut [Ryan].... you're an embarrassment to our party...
What Koch defenders aren't telling you (Reddit, Reason, Glenn Reynolds, Powerline, Weigel) - 02/24/11
It used to be that only a small number of people had heard about the billionaire Koch family and the "Kochtopus" (those persons and groups funded by or otherwise linked to them). Now, because of the standoff between Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and public employee unions in that state, that's all changed and the Kochs are fast assuming the role that George W Bush played for the Left (and George Soros plays for the right).
Sure as night follows day, various sources are rushing to defend the Kochs. But, oddly enough, all those defenses fail to point out two key items on the Koch's agenda:
1...
Yet another example of Teaparty being useful idiots for the Koch brothers? (Madison union protests) - 02/19/11
Are the tea parties useful idiots for an attempt by the billionaire Koch family to fight unionization in order to increase their profits? The latest example of the Koch family pushing an agenda that helps their bottom line and getting help from the teapartiers in that endeavor comes from the protests between public sector unions and Republican governor Scott Walker in Madison, Wisconsin. I haven't been closely following the issue, but at the very least it's clear that the Kochs are attempting to take advantage of the issue to push their agenda. And, pushing that agenda would help the bottom...
Jared Loughner: anti-Bush, pro-small government? Intellectually dishonest Tea Party defenders - 01/17/11
Enablers of the tea parties have, of course, been completely intellectually dishonest when attempting to defend themselves against claims that Jared Loughner is linked to them in one way or another. One example is here, and today's example involves the New York Times piece "Looking Behind the Mug-Shot Grin" (link).
Based on the relevant portion of that article [1], Loughner sounds a bit like a libertarian or perhaps anarchist [2]. Instead of considering the whole of the relevant portion of the NYT article, Tea Party enablers stop at the part about not liking George W Bush, attempting to...
Did Pima County Sheriff Dupnik ignore Jared Loughner's warning signs before Gabrielle Giffords shooting? - 01/13/11
Almost immediately after the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and several others by Jared Lee Loughner, Pima County, Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik began politicizing the tragedy [1]. Part of that politicization was justified, part was not. Specifically, considering the role that an overly hostile political environment might have played in the tragedy and urging calm is acceptable, but naming specific persons (Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh) as possible contributing factors is not.
In any case, supporters and enablers of Palin, Limbaugh, and the tea parties movement responded by going on a...
Glenn Reynolds denies Tea Party's history of intimidation (Giffords shooting, Loughner) - 01/09/11
Glenn Reynolds takes to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to offer "The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel" (link) in which he tries to run away from the toxic political environment that the tea parties movement - of which he is a leader - has created:
With only the barest outline of events available, pundits and reporters seemed to agree that the massacre had to be the fault of the tea party movement in general, and of Sarah Palin in particular. Why? Because they had created, in New York Times columnist Paul Krugman's words, a "climate of hate." ...There's a climate of hate...
Tea Party "Patriots" mostly silent about anti-American DREAM Act (and rightwing bloggers too) - 12/07/10
The "patriots" in the tea parties aren't exactly going all out to oppose the anti-American DREAM Act amnesty. The loudest voices against the Obama administration have mostly gone silent against an amnesty which could cover between one to two million illegal aliens and which would allow those illegal aliens covered by it to take college resources away from their fellow citizens.
Why Joseph Fein isn't credible (political analyst/fund raiser; Los Angeles; DC, "Valley of the Shadows") - 11/17/10
Joseph Fein is a blogger and political analyst who, as will be shown below, isn't a credible source. He describes himself as a political analyst involved with fundraising and research and as a legislative analyst involved with appropriations and Central Asia oil and history. And, he recently attacked me on his blog "Valley of the Shadows" [1] and did so in a way that shows he has trouble analyzing and understanding.
A nobody saying bad things about me would mean little, except Glenn Reynolds linked to it [2]. In the same post, Reynolds linked to a Google search for "shut the f--- up lonewacko...
Glenn Reynolds still supports childish mocking of politicians rather than intellectual challenges - 11/03/10
It's been two weeks since I last showed how Glenn Reynolds is wrong, so let's take a look at his latest childish, thuggish advice [1]:
BARNEY FRANK SURVIVED SEAN BIELAT’S CHALLENGE, but as this “train-wreck” victory speech demonstrates [2], it really got under his skin and he’s lashing out in what looks more like an angry concession speech. I think Barney Frank is actually hurt that he had to take it, not just dish it out this time around. But the Tea Party movement has not yet begun to dish . . . .
But Frank’s childish behavior provides a good lesson in how to deal with the political class....
The Glenn Reynolds, Don Surber, Joe Walsh propaganda team (Illinois) - 10/22/10
About eight months ago, a congressional candidate conducted an overt publicity stunt, asking why a public meeting wasn't being started with the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, something similar is playing out - perhaps spontaneously or perhaps covertly - involving the congressional campaign of Joe Walsh of Illinois, who's running against Melissa Bean. Spontaneous or not, the latest incident has the hallmarks of a "boob bait for Bubba" GOTV propaganda effort, and that's heightened because one of those involved is Glenn Reynolds [1].
First, I'd like to ask you to read this post about "Allez Java"....
Ask John Yoo about how to save California for real - 10/02/10
Torture memo author John Yoo offers "How to Save California: Outlaw Public Employee Unions" [1]. That's definitely an idea worth considering, but Yoo oddly enough is ignoring a more fundamental issue that would help California even more. That issue, of course, is immigration and specifically illegal immigration.
Ed Morrissey, Glenn Reynolds, Newsbusters don't tell whole truth about Bell, California - 09/22/10
Eight public officials in the city of Bell, California were recently arrested regarding the pay scandal in that city (link).
Tea Party "Patriots" Admit Failure (They Just Don't Know It) - 09/12/10
The Tea Party "Patriots" have released a promo video in which they admit that they've failed. And, to compound that failure, they don't realize that they're admitting that they've failed. You can see their promo at peekURL.com/vudfmnw and my video response is attached (and also available at peekURL.com/v5ky22y ).
The script of my response is below, first some notes:
* See tea parties for my extensive coverage, including things you won't hear from them or their other opponents.
Delusional John Hinderaker on the "Tea Party Majority" (Powerline) - 09/07/10
There are few groups more delusional than the tea parties, but John Hinderaker of Powerline is apparently trying to give them a run for their money. In the Glenn Reynolds-linked [1] post "Tea Party Majority" [2] he says the following about the image below:
One could draw many conclusions from this, but I would suggest two. First, far from being a fringe phenomenon, the Tea Party movement represents the solid core of mainstream American opinion. Second, when the Republicans take control of Congress, they should not be afraid to cut spending and programs.
That's just, well, nuts. The underlying...
Mark Levin's insane tea party rant - 08/31/10
Glenn Reynolds [1] and Dan Riehl [2] direct our attention to the opening of yesterday's Mark Levin show in which that right-wing radio host gave, per them, a "Rousing Call To Arms For The Tea Party Movement": link.
Bankrupting America's misleading government spending video ("Rebel Economist") - 08/13/10
Gretchen Hamel - formerly part of the Trade Representative's office in the George W Bush administration and now with the website Bankrupting America - offers the video entitled "REAL or FAKE: Can you tell which of these government spending projects are real or fake?" ( peekURL.com/v1mwxc7 ).
Rand Simberg's Darwinistic, anti-American citizenship policy - 08/12/10
It's time to reach into the Big Bag of Crazy known as the Glenn Reynolds / Pajamas Media universe. This time with the anti-American screed called "The Real Anchors / Anchor babies? Maybe we should worry more about native anchors" (pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-real-anchors) by one Rand Simberg. The fact that he's turning to Robert Heinlein to craft a new citizenship policy is actually the least of his sins.
Example of Tea Party not handling racism correctly; supporting massive immigration + far-left concepts; Glenn Reynolds stupidity - 07/31/10
This post will briefly outline yet another example of the tea parties unknowingly supporting far-left concepts and massive immigration, not handling charges of racism correctly, and, to start with, yet another example of why taking the advice of Glenn Reynolds is a very bad idea.
At pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/103874, Reynolds links to this using its sub-headline: "Spencer Wilking Finds That New York’s Tea Partiers Aren’t The Bigoted White Guys You Fear." In other words, the article is saying that the New York group consists of the "good ones"; the sub-headline implies that other tea party...
Glenn Reynolds has horrible advice for opposing the "ruling class" - 07/18/10
Just a couple years ago, Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") was a strong supporter of the status quo. Sure, he had a few quibbles with spending here and there, but he was a big fan of the George W Bush administration. Nowadays, of course, he hunkers in his bunker preparing for the end of the world and the time for the Righteous to make their journey to Galt's Gulch. And, now as before, he dispenses horribly bad advice.
Glenn Reynolds still promoting bad, dangerous, anti-American policies - 06/27/10
Glenn Reynolds names his "comment of the day" [1]:
A reason for the “wealth or income gap”: Smart people keep on doing things that are smart and make them money while stupid people keep on doing things that are stupid and keep them from achieving.
Clueless: Nick Gillespie can't see problems with massive illegal immigration (Mickey Kaus, Reason Magazine) - 06/04/10
The video at [1] has an interview Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine did with Mickey Kaus. At the beginning they discuss immigration, and Gillespie, rather unbelievably, asks "what was the negative outcome of the 1986 immigration reform [bill]".
Mickey Kaus on immigration: not as bad as most Democratic Party leaders - 06/01/10
Mickey Kaus is challenging fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer in the California Senate primary; he realizes the futility of that effort and he's just doing it to raise certain issues including immigration.
Is Glenn Reynolds an anti-American extremist who hopes the "entitlement class" riots, or not? - 05/16/10
Glenn Reynolds ("Instapundit") excerpts "Arnold Schwarzenegger calls for state welfare to be ended in California" (instapundit.com/99408, article: link).
Will teaparty and rightwing bloggers stumble us into amnesty? - 05/09/10
As if there wasn't enough to worry about, here's something else: rightwing bloggers and the tea parties might "oppose" amnesty in such a way that makes amnesty more likely.
Glenn Reynolds promotes ineffective tirades against politicians (borderline harassment; alcohol) - 04/13/10
On Sunday, Barney Frank was flying from L.A. to Boston when two sisters on the flight - apparently ophthalmologists - tried to engage him in debate about Obama healthcare. When he declined, they began shouting at him, and apparently alcohol was involved (link). Per one of the passengers: "The women had been drinking, and they were crying and shouting... They were clearly the antagonizers, and Mr. Frank was kind of minding his own business."
So, how does tea parties promoter Glenn Reynolds respond? Does he suggest that drunken, mid-air tirades against politicians aren't effective and just...
Why Shikha Dalmia isn't credible on immigration (Part 1?) - 04/07/10
At Forbes, Shikha Dalmia of Reason Magazine offers "Obama Can't Handle Immigration Reform/The leading proposal will curtail liberties without making life better for immigrants" [1]. The article shows yet again why she isn't a credible source on this issue, at least for patriotic Americans. Those who put libertarian ideology or corporate profits ahead of the interests of U.S. citizens are quite welcome to consider her a credible source.
In the article she comes out against the Graham-Schumer amnesty plan due to, among other things, its national ID card component. [2] She also suggests waiting...
Do Glenn Reynolds & Spencer Jakab of FT really think California needs a torturing dictator to keep spending under control? - 04/05/10
Spencer Jakab of the Financial Times offers the blog post "California and Kazakhstan - just who is the underdog?" (peekURL.com/zyurdj8). Referring to a letter that California treasurer Bill Lockyer sent to Goldman Sachs complaining about them marketing default swaps that "wrongly brand our bonds as a greater risk than those issued by such nations as Kazakhstan", Spencer Jakob says:
...Californians may derive their hazy image of Kazakhstan from Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical take on a country where he claims the main forms of entertainment include the "running of the Jew". The real...
Jack Cashill shows yet more tea party incompetence, analyzes McClatchy tea parties-as-racists article - 04/02/10
Over at the ironically-named American Thinker, Jack Cashill offers "How Quickly Spread the Tea Party Smear" (americanthinker.com/blog/2010/04/how_quickly_spread_the_tea_par.html, linked of course by Glenn Reynolds, pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/96898).