Sasha Stone: The Season Finale of 'Catch Trump If You Can'

I'm probably more concerned about Hutchinson's testimony than Stone is, but I'm pretty sympathetic to this.

And: the Megan Kelly video is really good.

Supremes: Biden Can End "Remain in Mexico" Policy

I'm a fan of the MPP/Remain-in-Mexico policy. But, again, this is out of my areas of expertise, and I haven't even tried to read the opinion. But, intuitively, it does seem like the sort of thing I'd think that administrations should be able to do. The snippets of the opinion at LI make sense. 

   So seems like everything went by the numbers here, even if I'm not in favor of the specific policy decision in question.

Supremes "Abort" the Green New Deal; Strikes Down EPA's Carbon Emissions Power Grab

I don't really deserve an opinion on this, but it sounds like win-win to me: reducing the power of the administrative state and putting the brakes on climate apocalypticism. But I'd be inclined to applaud the former even if I disagreed with the latter. 

But, again: I really don't deserve an opinion on this. I'm merely reporting on my gut reactions, really.

History Will Something Something the Day Something the Name Something Cassidy Something JANUARY SIXTH!!!!11111

These people are completely unhinged.

The Federalist: Hutchinson's Anti-Trump Testimony Collapses Hours After She Gave It

Falsus in uno...

"Biden Isn't To Blame For Inflation"

I have no idea whether this is right or not.

"Dems Found Their Star Witness and She Delivered" [Update: Testimony Already Debunked?]

I listened to part of Hutchinson's testimony, but not all of it, for two reasons: (a) because it was too painful to hear if true and (b) it probably isn't true.

   First, these sorts of Trump stories always turn out to be false. Remember how Trump totally called American war dead in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery "losers"? Despite there never being a shred of evidence for that, and despite its clear refutation, you'll still find reports of that nonsense, unretracted, at reputable leftist/MSM sites. 

   I've always taken these reports seriously, only for it to turn out that I wasted my time and concern. I expect this one to be the same.

   Can USSS agents be subpoenaed for something like this? If so, we'd be hearing it from them, not second (third?) hand.

   Scuttlebutt is that the agents allegedly involved deny the story and are willing to testify that it didn't happen. Big if true. I'd not be surprised. But I guess we'll see. So much--maybe--for the Dems' shocking surprise witness...

   If this goes by the numbers, we'll be left asking, yet again: if Trump is so terrible, why do you people have to lie about him every. single. time?

[Here's a report alleging that the allegations have already been debunked. PJ Media...but maybe.]

RIP TIA, RIP Reddit

I stopped frequenting Reddit quite some time ago, though I do drop in sometimes on /r/warcollege, /r/lesscredibledefense, and one or two others. The history of Reddit is like a microcosm of the history of the interwebs: started out a place for smart weirdos with a libertarian lean, ended up just another colony ruled by the shrieking moonbats of the CTRL-left.

   TIA has long expected this, and, honestly, I thought they already got smashed by the banhammer...I dunno...last year or something. I just assumed.

   I repeat myself, but: the progressive left is a totalitarian mind-control cult, and it now rules even institutions that are supposed to be bastions of free thought and discussion. It's taken over everything from the AMA through Reddit to knitting magazines. It rules universities with an iron grip. The Democratic party is its willing slave. The President of the United States is not much more than an animated corpse that does the cult's nefarious bidding. And its power is still expanding. 

   Blah blah blah. 

   You know the deal.

Andrew Doyle: The Experts Are Lying To You

Right on target.

Gleichschaltung Watch: Colin Wright Kicked Off Paypal and Etsy for "Expressing...Belief in Biological Reality"

I'm so old I remember when it wasn't obligatory to believe contradictions in order to make a living.

Turley: "Democrats Continue to Struggle to Find a Crime to Fit the Offense"...But They HAVE Shown That Trump Lost It

Turley seems right on target IMO: the hearings have provided us with additional evidence that Trump lost it after the election, siding with the lawyers (e.g. Giuliani) on "team crazy" rather than those (e.g. Barr) on "team sane." On that we should all be able to agree. But--and here I'm out of my depth--Turley makes a plausible prima facie case that the Dems have not shown that Trump committed any crime. But when you have no expertise in a subject like law, you have to hear other opinions, especially opposing ones, in order to make anything like a decent guess. 

   It's tough--given the unhinging of the left--not to make every question comparative. But this one shouldn't be. Though I've wavered on this question, Trump categorically ruled himself out of consideration in '24. Period. The comparative question can't be put off forever, though, and there's the rub: the Dems have, long ago, categorically ruled themselves out, too. And not just one or two of them--but, as things stand now, the whole party. There is simply no possibility of supporting them unless/until they return to some approximation of sanity. Like Barr, I can't imagine not supporting the Republican candidate for President in '24. Or, rather, I can't imagine supporting the Dem. And therefore etc. I don't think Trump will be the candidate. But if he is, that doesn't mean I'll support the Dem. Rather, it means we'll face an electoral Kobayashi Maru. It's an extreme understatement to say that I hope that does not happen.

"Climate McCarthyism"

Actually Lysenkoism.

Lysenkoism Watch: "'Pattern Recognition' Is Another Name for Racism and Sexism"

Progressive leftism in a nutshell

Jeez, better not tell 'em about stereotype accuracy...

NPR: 7 "Persistent" Claims About Abortion "Fact"-Checked; or: Remember How NPR Didn't Used to be a Total ****ing Joke?"

 facepalm

God grant me the strength not to waste the time and energy shredding that piece of crap...

American Birthright: The Civics Alliance's K-12 Social Studies Curriculum

Among other things, AB is a response to The 1619 Project.

Julie Kelly: "Did Cops Attack and Provoke Peaceful Protesters on January 6th?"

Hm.

   I'm not given to making excuses for the Capitol rioters...but that story raises clear grounds for suspicion. We know that the Dems lie relentlessly about everything Trump-related. We know they've nipped and tucked and trimmed some of the evidence presented in the TDS telethon. Given the immense amount of time and energy they've devoted to this, and given the length of the hearings, it's suspicious that the video evidence starts when it does instead of including the relevant parts--the video that would establish which side initiated the violence. It'd be easy to show these parts of the videos. It would be most natural to include those parts if one wanted to establish the truth about who initiated the violence. And, of course, we know that lots of the protesters were allowed and even invited into the Capitol. And that MAGA folk generally do not initiate violence at protests.

   One thing's very clear: if this video continues to be withheld, that will be prima facie evidence that it shows something the Dems don't want shown.

James Freeman: "Another Tough Day for the Left"

From Merick Garland's meltdown to their continuing inability to figure out what women are, the left is, as they say, a hot mess.

Damon Root: "Alito's Ruling Overturning Roe Is An Insult To the 9th Amendment"

This is a pretty damn important consideration and I'm embarrassed not to have thought of it.

SCOTUS Overturns Roe!

Even more amazing!

And I do merely mean: surprising/astonishing, not necessarily good. Nor bad. Just amazing.

Not that we didn't know this was coming...but it still seems unreal.

I don't have much of a position on abortion, though I do tend, on general libertarian grounds, to think it should be legal, especially early in pregnancy. But the consensus among people I trust is that it was bad law. Though I can't even remember whether I ever read it. But I think I did in Con Law, for whatever that's worth. Anyway: sounds like it's bad law. I maintained a commitment to it for years for the bad reason that I wanted a right to privacy. Boo for me. That was big, fat cheating.

Of course the important questions are (i) was it bad law, and (ii) was this decision right on the legal merits? I don't know the answers to those questions.

The important thing: don't judge the decision according to whether it accords or fails to accord with your view about the permissibility of abortion.

Anyway: amazing.

SCOTUS Strikes Down Restrictive NY Concealed-Carry Law

Wow.

Haven't read it, but ground for the decision certainly sound plausible.

Trump DoJ Officials Cite Pressure From Him To Overturn 2020 Election

Genuinely inexcusable, obviously, despite the fact that he seems to have genuinely believed--or permitted himself to believe--that the election had actually been stolen. Culpable epistemic irresponsibility, IMO. The guy was never fit for office, as I've said from the beginning. But Democrats are incapable of not lying about him, of course, and they've been doing their thing in the hearings, too (see e.g. the account of the Raffensberger phone call). And we're only getting their carefully tailored side of the story. And, of course, they're collectively losing their marbles. And their Trump-relevant marbles are long gone..

   Still, they've turned up even more damning evidence about Trump's post-election actions. 

   His presidency was still a big positive for the country--but that was always the Trump gamble: take the good policies and the desperately-needed stiff-arming of the left...risk Trump's personality flaws blowing something up. 

   To quote myself again: I fear Trump because I'm never sure what he'll do; I far the Dems because I am sure what they'll do.

   Biden has already harmed the nation far more than Trump--whose presidency was, by far, a net positive--did. 

   And, of course, the abomination of the Russiagate hoax--an effort to de facto overturn the election of 2016--continues to be covered-up and minimized by the progressive cabal of Dems, MSM etc.

   But none of that changes the fact that Trump lost his shit after the election and seems to have performed inexcusable actions.

CDC Fake News Re: Childhood COVID Mortality

I read this a few days ago, and tentatively altered my view of vaxing children because of it. I was a bit skeptical on account of not knowing anything about childhood mortality--for all I know, being the fifth leading cause of it might not be very significant. Though that seemed like a stretch, so I was skeptical of my skepticism. Of course it's long been clear that the progressive establishment is pushing COVID hysteria hard. What I should have been skeptical about was the claim itself. Which is apparently false. 

   Needless to say, one reason people like me are skeptical about such things is that the progressive establishment always errs on the same side of the issue. Which is good evidence that they're committed to producing irrational fear-- as well as their favored responses thereto, masking and vaxing.

   Why has this wave of dogmatism, politicization, and fear-mongering arisen among progressives on so many different fronts (e.g. racist police violence, climate change)? Is it because they've become so locked into groupthink that they seize on alleged problems and alleged solutions thereto and then see no way to rationalize their positions other than exaggerating danger? Honestly, I just do not know...

RIP The Great Lenny Rosenbluth

link

Hard to believe we won't see him at the games in the Dean Dome anymore.

Domestic Terrorism from the Progressive Left (Again): Abortion Edition

Wow, these people really like abortions, huh?

Sorry.

   That's not really indicative of my view about abortion, which is agnosticism. Or: agnosticism + default libertarianism. Forced to guess, currently I tend to think that abortion is often bad but less-often wrong. Perhaps on the order of killing a puppy: a very serious matter that absolutely cannot be taken lightly--but permissible in order to avoid ruination of a young woman's life.

   At any rate, there's a heavy burden of proof on anyone who wants to force someone to keep something living in her body. And the available arguments for such a conclusion aren't nearly strong enough, IMO. 

   But: humans are terrible at philosophy. It's not my area, and, so far as I can tell, even people who focus on the question aren't all that good on it. It's not clear to me that it's the kind of question philosophy ought to be able to answer even in principle. But I'm not sure about that (either).

   One thing I think is pretty clear: the protestors parading around proclaiming their love of abortions, that they're happy to have had them, that they'd get pregnant just to have one...these people have been possessed by a madness. I can understand how they got there--it's actually fairly natural when you think that others are illicitly trying to control your actions. But it's a twisted place to be. Compare: I killed a puppy because I was unable to care for it and no one else would take it--and I enjoyed it and would eagerly do it again!... Anyone who'd say such a thing belongs in an asylum.

   Reminds me of carnivores who respond to evidence of horrific cruelty in meat-production by leeringly holding forth about meat being tasty--something I'm pretty sure I've done in the past. Disgusting. I still think that eating animals is permissible. But refusing to take their suffering seriously is not.

"Betsey DeVos's Mission to Rescue Teachers' Unions' 'Hostages'"

Yet another set of issues about which conservatives and libertarians are right and liberals and progressives are wrong.

Gov't to Halt Sale of Excess 5.56 to Public? (As Part of Anti-Gun Agenda?)

Maybe (and maybe).

Peter Van Buren: The Capitol Riot Wasn't A Coup. Me: But Isn't The More Important Question: Did Trump Attempt to Interfere With The Process?

Interesting.

But the conclusion could also be: 

[LAME] if it was a coup, it was a limiting case of a coup--on account of its extreme lameness.

   A more relevant/important question: did Trump and/or the rioters intend to perpetrate a coup?

   An even more relevant/important question: did Trump intend to disrupt the working of Congress, e.g.  certification?

   Because it's pretty clear to me that [LAME] is true. But it's kinda setting the bar too high...or low...

   Not perpetrating a coup is not the proper standard by which to measure a President's actions.

   Nor is even not intending to perpetrate one.

   Intending to disrupt proceedings of another branch is sufficient, in my book, to damn a President to the relevant hell.

   And even that standard isn't quite right.

   Acting and speaking irresponsibly in a way that encouraged the riot would be enough, in my book.

  However...the judgment is made somewhat more difficult, as usual, by the unhinged antics of the lunatic remnants of the Democratic party. Which has hilariously insisted that Trump engaged in direct incitement in his comments to the crowd on 1/6. This is ridiculously false. Contra those guys, Trump did not engage in direct incitement--and it's not even close, not even on the table, an absolutely ridiculous view. But, again: not the proper question/standard.

   What he did, IMO, is something that's (become?) distressingly common in American politics: he irresponsibly said a bunch of bullshit that made it in some sense reasonable for people who believed him to do something very bad. He'd just spent two months laying out what amounted to an argument in favor of the riot.

   I'd guess that Trump genuinely believed that the election had been stolen. I'm not even sure it was crazy to think that. The Dems clearly undermined rational confidence in the election. They made fraud much, much easier in states that mailed out ballots to everyone. Courts illegally rewrote election laws. And after Russiagategate, is there really anything you'd put past the blue team?

   Well, more-or-less bottom-line for me: in a sane world, Trump's actions relevant to the Capitol riot would make him politically radioactive--no one would/could even consider voting for him again. He did nothing criminal, contra the Dems' prime-time Long TDS Telethon. But he should never again be considered a serious candidate for, well, anything. 

   In a, y'know, sane world.

   But what about the actual world? The ridiculous timeline we find ourselves in? The world in which it could come down to a choice between Trump and the utterly unhinged, ridiculous Democrats? The party seemingly hellbent on destroying the country by first making it mad... What if it came down, Saints preserve us, to Trump v. Biden again? Or worse? (All the plausible Dem candidates are probably even worse, actually...which a priori one might have thought impossible...) Well--obviously--they're also a completely unacceptable option. So I guess that would mean comparing degrees of unacceptability...

   As I've said, I'm with Bill Barr on this one: progressivism is the greatest domestic threat to the USA I've seen in my lifetime. It's virtually impossible for me--a nearly life-long Democrat--to imagine supporting a now-thoroughly-progressive Democratic party. Which means: I see no real alternative to supporting the GOP candidate, whoever he might be. Even you-know-who.

   For these reasons as well as others, I'm pulling hard for DeSantis '24...

McSweeny's: Lou Ann Lang: "How To Practice Best Practices: A Guide For Faculty"

Refer to everything you do as a “best practice.” For example, when you photocopy a random New York Times op-ed ten minutes before class and ask your students to “relate it to the reading,” that is a best practice. Also, using a green board marker if there are no black ones left.
Always professorsplain what a best practice is. Otherwise, everyone may not be aware of how innovative you’re being.
If anyone asks why your lesson constitutes a best practice, say it “aligns with national best practices.” 

... 

F-15EX Cancellation?

Big if true.

Your Blue--Globalist, Dystopian--Future

This Is The Most Important Video You Have Ever Seen pic.twitter.com/R5vsBENp15

— Grant Taylor (@grantltaylor) May 29, 2022

Coulter: Dinesh's Stupid Movie

I haven't seen it, but Barr made similar points.

I'll always be grateful to D'Souza for Illiberal Education, the first of the anti-PC books to come out during the paleo-PC outbreak. It's a very good book and it was a morale boost to read the case laid out so clearly. But I don't believe I've seen anything good from D'Souza since. But one good book is more than most people write... Also but: I don't expect much from 2000 mules. The argument sounds pretty week. 

I object to the Dems' illicit rewriting of election laws, slackening restrictions, mailing ballots to everyone in entire states, use of Zuck Bucks, and their general undermining of election law. But I don't buy the fraud allegations. This position is consistent with what Barr writes in his memoir.

I also tend to agree with Coulter that he lost his nerve on a lot of issues.

And, of course: he could have easily won again if he had any control over his big, stupid mouth. Instead he blew it, and handed the country over to the catastrophic idiots currently running it into the ditch.

Musk: All Lives Matter

People should say this at every opportunity, because it pisses off progressives and BLM types (but I repeat myself). 

I don't personally believe that all lives matter--I think there are a lot of terrible people in the world, and that their live don't matter. Hitler's life didn't matter, to take a convenient example. Or if it did, it didn't much. 

Nevertheless, it's a decent sentiment, even if false.

Progressives/BLMers say that it's racist...but they say everything is racist. So who cares what they say? I think BLM's slogan is supposed to suggest that it means "black lives matter too"...as if the meaningfulness of nonblack lives were a given. I'm no longer convinced that's what it means. Now I suspect it means just what it says. And nothing more.

At any rate, progressives think they get to set the rules by fiat. So it's good to take every opportunity to make it clear--to them and everybody else--that they don't.

So: all lives matter.

Not, again, that I believe that.

Wesley Yang: Progressivism and the Successor Ideology

Yang is smart, and has done a lot of good observing of and thinking about this madness:

VDH: The Sovietization of American Life

Truth

Seth Barron: Democrat Hysteria Undermines 1/6 Hearing

I kinda thought that nonsense was over. I saw like one clip from it yesterday in which one innocuous claim by Ivanka was blown out of proportion--both metaphorically and actually, by being projected onto a gigantic, ultra-high-def screen. And why was everything so blue? And dark? Apparently "Hollywood production values" is an actual selling point they are pointedly selling. And there are going to be more of these. And they are spread out over at least a month.

   Is anybody falling for this? After the massive fraud of Russiagate was used to hobble one of the most important presidencies of our lives...and after one laughably fraudulent impeachment effort...then another massively fraudulent impeachment effort...can people possibly fall for this? I used to live and die with such stuff. I used to take all such claims seriously and spend innumerable hours of my life trying to assess them. 

   But you know where I am now? Right here: fuck the Democrats. They are insane. They are afflicted with what we can only hope is terminal TDS. These hearings are laughable and fraudulent. The only reason I'll tune in ever at all is to point and laugh. These people are bat. shit. crazy.

Did Obama Set Us on the Path to/of Energy Independence...and Are We Still on It?

Sounds like yes and yes, contra what people like me think.

"Trump's" Pentagon Offered National Guardsmen to Secure Capitol 4 Days Before 1/6/21

This is significant, though kinda complicated IMO. 

One view of this seems to be that this is tantamount to Trump his ownself offering it--thus showing that he did not intend to prompt the riot / storming of the Capitol. That doesn't seem to me to be quite right--but maybe he did and that will come out. Rather, though, I'd say; it probably shows that nobody prior to 1/6 thought Trump had laid sufficiently significant groundwork for the riot. Now, he clearly didn't engage in direct incitement on the day of. That's as obvious as it could be. My complaint has been: (a) he basically laid out premises that made the riot a plausible practical conclusion, and (b) he was shit when it came to telling everybody to go the goddamn hell home. But the real--and only--question is: is (a) true? Rejection of assistance from the Guard shows that nobody (or not enough-bodies) thought Trump had created a sufficient threat. Which is the best evidence that he hadn't, and is innocent. And he didn't change that on the day of. So he's innocent even by a very high standard. 

OTOH, some on the right think it shows that Pelosi rejected the Guard's offer in order to facilitate the breach of the Capitol. I don't think that at all--and, in fact, I think that would be worse for Trump, because it would mean that she judged that he'd created a real threat. Better for him that he didn't...which I sort of think is right...but am not sure.

All OTTOMH, basically...

Matt Walsh's "What is a Woman?": The Mad, Sad World of Gender Ideology

I didn't pay to see the whole thing, but if you've seen clips from it, you know how crazy the people he interviews are. Nothing qualitatively new there--you've already seen near-identical NPCs saying near-identical things. And, in case this point has slipped past you somehow: it isn't just gender ideologues. The core problem is political correctness, i.e. the postmodern-progressive left's subordination of facts and reason to leftist dogma. Aided, of course, by the obscurantist methods and terminology and free-form, quasi-poetic interpretive "method" they adopt from recent Continental philosophy / the weaker humanities and qualitative social "sciences." It's the relativistic orientation and religious obsession with leftist politics that leads to all the more particular kinds of madness. Bad methods, deliberate obscurantism, and a disregard for truth/reality--that philosophical foundation will lead you somewhere crazy, whatever particular kind of crazy that might turn out to be.

   Bartosch says that Walsh is clearly building on the work of people like Kathleen Stock, and should acknowledge it. I admire Stock for standing up to the crazies, and I started reading Material Girls. But, honestly--absolutely no criticism intended--the errors of ("trans")gender ideology are pretty clear to everyone as soon as they encounter it. Everyone knows that women are adult, female humans--I bemusedly explained that to the first person who shrieked tGI at me on the interwebs. Woman is such a simple concept that anyone can "analyze" it--or, rather, easily identify its three constituent properties. Abigail Shirer is, IMO, more important because she's revealed facts about the medical side of things--and those you can't figure out on your own, obviously. Though the most important person on that side of things, IMO, has been Alice Dreger. Galileo's Middle Finger was not just a wake-up call, but a fire alarm. I guess it seems like ancient history now. But basically all the madness of the (trans)gender ideologues was described in there--though I don't think they'd started going after the kids yet. Anyway.

   Bartosch also criticizes Walsh--rather gently, I grant--for "having a problem with feminism." Which...well...you ought to have a problem with feminism. Feminism is no longer a liberal, egalitarian view, and hasn't been for decades. Feminism--especially academic feminism--is a collection of crazy, anti-male, anti-liberal, anti-rationalist views that generally make pretty much no sense. Feminism is how we got GI. The splinter group--"TERFs"--who are now rebelling against it are dissenters from the feminist mainstream. It's still mainly an anti-male--and, worse, anti-rationalist--movement. A small, dissident splinter group just happens to be right about GI. Don't mistake them for fellow travelers...not, at any rate, about any other topic. 

Blah blah blah.

Kavanaugh Target of Assassin

Just about the least surprising thing that could have happened.

I Hate Bein' Right All the Time: Biden the Progressive Sock Puppet Edition

Just a relevant snippet from VDH:

Had Biden followed through on his “unity” rhetoric, he could have lorded over Trump’s successful record as his own, while contrasting his Uncle-Joe ecumenicalism with supposed Trump’s polarization.
Of course, serious people knew from the start that was utterly impossible. A cognitively challenged Biden was a captive of ideologues. Thus, he was bound to pursue an extremist agenda that could only end as it now has—in disaster and record low polls. [emphasis mine]

 Too bad I was 100% right about that. But it was as obvious as it could be.

"Chesa" Boudin Recalled

Finally.

I still refuse to believe that that's his real name.

It's hard to see this as much of a victory. Dude with a lunatic, anti-law-enforcement orientation is made DA...diligently works to further crime-ify major city for years... You would think that a recall was inevitable. The only notable thing here, really, is that it took so long. 

Biden's $3.5 Trillion Tax Hike

I can't believe I used to fall for such nonsense.

Climate Hysteria of a Different Type

Huh.

   Funny that pumping kids' heads full of falsehoods about the world ending in their lifetimes causes them anxiety. Unfortunately I can't think of any solution to this problem other than turning the USA into a totalitarian socialist state dependent for its energy on unreliable, economically unviable, science-fictiony technologies...

   Honestly, progressivism is driving the country mad.

   Not that I would believe this bullshit. What could be less reliable than a WHO report telling us we need to do something that the left already wants to do anyway?

"Drag Your Kids to Pride," or: Remember When We Thought They'd Try to Normalize Polygamy Next?

Ew.

   And get a load of all those NPR contributin' parents happily/mindlessly encouraging their kids to put money in the pervs' waistbands.

   Can you believe I didn't want kids because I was afraid I'd be a bad parent? I mean, in my defense, the bar didn't used to be set this low...

James Freeman: How to Spin the Failures of the Left

Might as well get used to it.

Supposing sanity ever returns to the country, the blue team is going to have to do a whole damn lot of this.

Jay Bhattacharya: The White House Keeps Stoking COVID Fears

Well, I've fallen into just pushing one side of this debate, but it does seem like the right side to me. Stoking COVID fears is a more general problem than the particular application of COVID hysteria to kids, and to schools. I'm just baffled by the general hysteria-mongering and vaccine-and-mask devotion of the blue team. And I have my own personal glimpse into the effects of shutting down schools, and it isn't pretty. This year's college freshman class just didn't seem to know how to school. I don't have kids, so I'm an outsider on that one, but pumping vaxes--multiple ones, even--into kids just seems like insanity to me. They simply aren't at real risk, and that's been clear for a long time. As with so many beliefs on the left, this seems to have become a kind of religious commitment.

Trump Indicted?

Because the Dems are not crazy and unpopular enough already...

The reason Holder gives is just stupid. They're not going to win on the basis of lies and one out-of-context quote.

Ezra Klein: Don't Stop Having Kids Because Climate, or: Be Hysterical...Just Not So Hysterical You Stop Making Babies

I've been wondering how progressives were going to deal with this. Conventional mythology on the left has it that if we don't reduce CO2 output by [some absurdly large amount] by [some absurdly near-future date], we're all going to die. Conventional progressive mythology has it that climate change is an "existential crisis." Oh, Sorry. I meant EXISTENTIAL CRISIS!!!1111   It's a small step to All your kids are going to die horrible climate-deaths. I certainly used to believe something slightly different, but just as goddamn stupid. (See: last decade's screeds on TEH OVERPOPULATIONZ!!!111). Now, I'm not saying that I don't want progressives to have kids... Though...if somebody isn't reproducing,,,well...they wouldn't be the worst choice...   But it seems that even the more sober climate hysteriacs--who mostly know that there isn't really going to be a climate apocalypse--really can't go on tacitly promoting a false belief that's leading their more gullible comrades to make profoundly life-altering decisions. So props to Ezra for breaking ranks. I don't have the stomach to read the comments--I'm sure he'll get some hate for sobering up. But I think he does manage to keep the hysteria level pumped up pretty high even while trying to talk the more hysterical hysteriacs down a bit. And, hey, from my perspective, it's a big step in the right direction. At this rate, who knows? Maybe progressives will be ready to admit that it's a problem, not a crisis by the time they fail to hit Biden's absurd target of 50% reduction of CO2 output by 2030. I mean, when one or another made-up drop-dead date rolls around and we don't meet the goal, what are they gonna do? As I've pointed out several times, there's exactly zero chance that they'll say Whelp, the window has closed. Might as well quit trying. I mean, they kinda believe that tipping point shit...but not so much as to give up on getting rid of fossil fuels, personal automobiles, and socialism... Climate apocalypticism is still their best chance at getting all those things in one fell swoop. Sure, we'll make fun of them when they update their eschatological nonsense yet again...but who cares what we think? They'll keep riding this horse until it drops stone dead...and they have to come up with some other fictive enviro-nightmare...

The Dems' Two-Tier "Justice" System: Peter Navarro Edition

These people are crazy and dangerous. 

Like their reactions to COVID and the George Floyd incident, their reaction to the Capitol riot has been worse and more destructive than the incident itself.

   Whereas BLM/Antifa rioters were generally handled with kid gloves, people allegedly involved in the Capitol riot languish in jail, often in solitary confinement, often waiting, still, to even be charged. And let's not even get into the differential treatment of Michael Flynn and Michael Sussman...

Welcome to the Year Zero, bigot. The idea of equality before the law is explicitly rejected by CRT, our new state religion. If you've got a problem with that, keep it to yourself. Free speech is white supremacy or something.

Poe's Law: *Smell Yer Poop, Bigot* Edition

"Encourage Women To Smell Their Poop To Be More Inclusive To Trans Women."

Cannot tell whether this is satire.

The whole site is like that.

Everything seems like low-key (f*ck that term) satire...but, if it is, they never tip their hand.

Who can tell with the left anymore?

Air Power: NGAD Update

You are gonna want to watch this one until the end:

Matt Walsh: "What Is A Woman?": Africa Edition

I'm not exactly sure what the status of this disagreement is. It's an entirely open-and-shut case... Or, rather: it's a case that was so closed there was no such things as opening it. Or, rather: it's not even a case. It's as if a political faction known for its unshakable commitment to promoting the interests of the third shift as opposed to the first were to suddenly begin insisting that "for" some people, night is actually day. I mean, look: day is when you work, and some people work from 9-7. Also, dawn and twilight are not exactly either night or day--so something something "nonbinary" something. So day and night are socially constructed. I mean, we made up the words, right? And, unlike us, some cultures tend to lump dawn more with night than with day, and twilight more with day than with night. And night on one side of the globe is day on the other. And what about the poles, huh? Besides, everybody has always known that day was really a kind of night and night was a kind of day--that's the way it's always been! You just somehow never noticed that. Bigot.

   There's so little room for disagreement here that basically everyone realizes that it's a mere semantic disagreement. Well, not even that, really. Rather, it's merely a proposal--in the sense of insistence--that we start using words differently. Gender ideologues will often say things that show that they recognize this, but will rarely admit it outright. As is so often the case with the pomo-prog left, they don't really know what they think. To some extent they kinda believe what they're saying is fact, to some extent they're just insisting that we speak their new language. To some extent they're really just saying REEEEEEEEEEE. 

   Some views really are inherently incoherent, so there's no clarifying them. ("Trans")gender ideology survives largely on the basis of unclarity. As do many views. That's not a bug, it's a feature. The term 'gender' in particular acts as a kind of buffer, so elastic that it can dampen the force of most criticisms with skillful equivocation. The term means at least four or five different things, though I've never diligently counted. On the theoretical side, 'socially constructed' does that job, since that term is used in (I did count once) about ten different ways. 

   The Africans don't realize that they're supposed to take this nonsense seriously--or pretend to. We were all just as baffled by this nonsense the first time we heard it. We've just been badgered into pretending it's a serious position. In fact the right response is something more along the lines of: this is absurd. Stop wasting my time with it.

Honest Title: Schellenberger is Right About Homelessness, But It Pisses Me Off and I Refuse to Admit It

MSM follies.

" 'Better Than Trump' Isn't Nearly Good Enough"

Um...and you've got a glitchy presupposition there...

Thiessen: High Gas Prices Are Part of Biden's Plan

I don't see how anyone could deny this.

   Actually, I think it might be a rational approach if climate change were as big a threat as the left believes it to be. So the only way to avoid bad policies like this one is to address climate hysteria directly. 

   Though maybe not. One important argument goes like this: even if climate hysteria is justified, our best hope of fighting AGW is via innovation. And the best driver of innovation is prosperity. And high gas prices undermine prosperity. 

   But in general, this is why I voted for Trump in '20. The American left has radicalized, and adopted a large number of utterly insane beliefs and attitudes. And that radical left has taken over the Democrats. Thus, just about the worst thing we can do now is to hand control of...well...anything...to the Dems. In particular it was a bad idea to trade Trump for Biden. Trump was the monkey wrench in the works preventing the newly-radicalized machine of the left from running smoothly--and running us smoothly over one cliff or another. Or, more likely: several of them. The hysterical opposition to Trump from all our "elite" institutions prevented him from accomplishing as much as he might have--but functioning as monkey wrench was far, far better than nothing. Electing Biden was a terrible idea, and obviously had a high probability of leading us into disaster. Though, TBH, even I didn't think he'd be this bad... 

   Trump's a buffoon, but not half the buffoon Biden is. And a buffoon with good instincts and good policies--and not possessed by an insane, cultish, pseudoscientific quasi-religion--beats the other kind of buffoon any day.

   I'm not among those who think that Biden voters owe the country an apology. But I do hope that this functions as a--as they say--"learning experience" for at least many of them.

Turley on Sussman Verdict

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Maverick

Spoiler alert: some spoilers

Saw it Monday in IMAX.

I give it a solid thumbs up. 

There's a little nod to Lockheed early on in the form of a skunk on the test plane's vertical stabilizer. The plane itself seems to be some kind of successor to the SR-71. This early chunk of scenes doesn't really make a lot of sense, but it gets our hero back to the Navy Fighter Weapons School--and updates his credentials as a loose cannon maverick. 

   Lots of great F-18 footage. At one point they refer to the back-seater at the Weapons Systems Officer (Wizzo), which I thought was a mistake--I thought that was the Air Force term, and that it was always Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the Navy. But I looked it up and the Navy now uses 'Wizzo,' too, apparently. 

   The Tomahawk attack on the airfield:  realism score D-. They send like 20 cruise missiles to take out one airstrip, whereas one dropping cluster munitions would have (I think) done the trick. (But what do I know?) That's $40 million instead of $2 million. I also don't believe they're going to fire the cruise missiles right past a flight of aircraft.

   Nonstop homages to Star Wars. No need to tell you to look for 'em--they're not subtle and you can't miss 'em. By the end I was genuinely surprised that the ghost of Goose did not speak to Maverick on his run.

   Big spoiler you already know about: Maverick ends up back in a Tomcat* to face the Final Boss--a pair of Su-27s--always referred to only as "fifth-generation fighters." These Felons always show up on radar immediately (and, well, I'm willing to believe that about Russian stealth), and exhibit supermaneuverability only when dramatically convenient. (Of course that sort of thing is a staple of movies.) Now, I'm resigned to the tsunami of Tomcat love by the F-14 fanboys...but I do have to admit that this final boss battle was a great idea and fun to watch--though honestly I think it should have been a little more Tomcatty. The variable wing geometry is only referenced with respect to takeoff, whereas it should have been made the deciding factor in the dogfight. I'll bet the 'Cat with its wings out has a much, much, much lower minimum speed than the Felon. And, since they're in a canyon, the fight scene basically writes itself. My one general complaint is that, after all the hype about all the time spent with F-18s and whatnot...the writer and director still neither know nor care much about the aircraft. (At one point in an interview the director refers to the Hornet as 'F-15'. Which could happen to anybody...but...) Yeah, I know: 3D thrust-vectoring beats variable wing geometry...but maybe kinda sorta plausibly not when in a canyon. Also: we're talking cool movie fun here, not reality. But, for the love of God, at least understand the aircraft well enough to produce cool fiction about it.

   Anyway--I think I might go see it again.

*This bit was actually more believable than I ever thought it could be. Except for the startup sequence which I know nothing about...but imagine to be significantly more complicated than represented.

WSJ: The Sussman Verdict

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