Was "Flattening the Curve" a Lie?

Or did Birx just choose her words poorly?

A Peek Into COVID Hysteria: "COVID...Hits Home"

CDS--COVID derangement syndrome--is apparently still ravaging Americans.

Well...progressive Americans, anyway...

David Randall: The Strange World of "Citational Justice"

Oh yeah.

   Philosophy has become a joke in many ways. Just one way is the proliferation of "x justice". Citational "justice," epistemic "justice," hermeneutic "justice," and on and on. And "x justice" is elliptical for "x social justice." Which means: the leftist conception of justice. So, re: "citational justice," you won't find arguments to the effect that you ought simply to cite the sources you actually used. Rather, it's all about "equity" and the citational analog of redistribution. The goal isn't accuracy. It's re-engineering academia along leftist lines, promoting the work of favored demographics, demoting that of evilwhitemales etc.

   Totalitarians gonna totalize.

The Cult Tries to Shout Down Kathleen Stock at the Oxford Union

Ya know what comes after soft totalitarianism?

Biden Sexual Assault Accuser Tara Reade Moves to Russia Allegedly for Fear of Her Life

Her case against Biden is stronger than Carroll's against Trump--which isn't saying much. 

Anyway, this adds evidence to the she's a kook hypothesis.

Hey, remember that whole #MeToo thing, and "Believe all women" and all that jazz?

Good times.

There's No Out-Trumping Trump

I shudder to think what that would be like...

   A key to this puzzle (do puzzles have keys?) is of a general kind: find a saner candidate who can maximize the good about Trump, minimize the bad.

   The Dems cannot recognize / cannot allow themselves to recognize what Trump is right about, and what's good about him. The GOP doesn't really have that problem. So they can do it in principle. 

   Seems ridiculously generous to me to call Trump a "master of the 24-hour news cycle. He's just an outrageous loudmouth, and that captures people's attention. I have no idea how to combat that. 

   Trump is right about so much that it's mind-blowing. For all his absurdity, he's far less deeply crazy than the Dems. He's a bull in a china shop--but it's a china shop because it's made of views that are fragile as a consequence of their insanity. He, as I keep saying, shouldn't be allowed withing 100 miles of the Oval Office. The contemporary Dems--not within 1000 miles. So waddayagonnado? Pray, if you're a praying man, I guess...

   Anyway. To address the gorilla in the room (to squeeze in another animal cliche): populism becomes more rational as the "elites" become more irrational. Ours have joined the cult of Woketarianism en masse. Hence populism (in that sense) is now more rational than the alternative. 

Were Anti-COVID Policies a Disaster?

I've inclined to think so, FWTW, for quite some time.

link

   I suppose we won't know for years. But, forced to bet, I'd bet that the costs outweighed the benefits.

Mostly this is because, from fairly early on, it was clear that we were being bullshitted, and that the threat to young, healthy people was being exaggerated. It was hysteria.

   Seemed to me that the Great Barrington Declaration was on the right track. (I suggested in a meeting that JMU should follow it's advice, and was immediately shot down.) 

   Anyway, I don't blame anyone for the initial freakout. It's the seeming effort to prop up hysteria levels and maintain quasi-lockdown conditions long after they had come to seem unjustified that I'm sore about.

Memorial Day

A link.

PC Newspeak / Double-Standards: 'Congo-Crimea Hemoragic Fever' is Totally Not Stigmatic...Bigot

First, a moment of reflection for the two people dead from this. 

   It does not sound like a good way to go.

   My own interest in the term, however, has to do with the left's irrational (as should go without saying), impressionistic terminological diktats. Progressives and the MSM (but I repeat myself) squealed hysterically about 'Wuhan virus' (the term I still use), 'China virus,' and 'Chinese virus.' (Not to mention 'Kung flu', heaven forfend!) We still didn't even know whether it was The Big One, and the press was already going into hysterics about Trump saying 'China virus.' ("Because it's from CHI-NA".) Racist! Stigma! Xenophobic! Transphobic! No, wait...

   Despite the fact that using place-of-origin names is well-established*--and at least used to be the scientific standard--the politically correct thought-police cannot go a minute without reminding us that they exist, and believe themselves to be the arbiters of language. No matter how stupid their reasons.

   The CDC and WHO had whole pages of academic gobbledygook about "stigma"--as if that were their expertise, and they were speaking ex Cathedra. Thus contributing to the suicide of expertise by pagaging left-wing political opinion as expert conclusions about helth.

   My favorite is the reporter in the CHI-NA press conference who says something like (I'm not going to look it up) "There have been dozens of hate crimes against Asians...ethnicity does not cause the virus...why do you keep calling it 'China virus'?" As if anyone thought that race ("ethnicity") caused it. And as if there were any link whatsoever to violence against Asians. 

   At any rate: I suppose the deadly batflu is small enough in the rearview mirror at this point that the left doesn't feel like maintaining the charade.

* Spanish flu, Lyme disease, Ebola, Dengue fever, and on and on.

(Long Past) Time for Fast Nuclear Reactors

link

   One way we know that the left isn't serious about climate change is that they're not calling for nuclear. Breeder reactors radically mitigate the waste problem. I take it that the main concern with Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs) is that they produce plutonium, and that makes it easier to produce nuclear weapons. Everything's a tradeoff. The idea that we can gain a benefit without incurring a cost is a fantasy. And the plutonium worry is not that serious, IMO. 

   At any rate, climate apocalypticism is actually a way to push for longstanding leftist desiderata like socialism, increased power for world government, decreased consumerism, etc. It's easy to see that something's up when the consequences of climate hysteria are given selective attention and promoted selectively. Wind and solar--weak "solutions," but beloved of the left: good! Nuclear--strong solution, but hated by the left: bad! And so on.

Elizabeth Palley: When States Outlaw [Teaching] Critical Race Theory, They Outlaw Training Social Workers

I went in to this with an open mind. Because I, of course, am skeptical of any such government interference with university education. (Not K-12 so much--that's more heavily-regulated, and I don't understand it.) 

   But, of course, no one is "outlawing" CRT. Much less the teaching thereof. Which is different. What FL laws are trying to ban is indoctrination--which, make no mistake about it, has become extremely common inside--and outside--universities. No one thinks teaching about CRT should be--or could be--banned. The idea is to prevent people from having to endure what are, in effect, political indoctrination sessions as a condition of their employment or education. And a big part of the problem is that CRT and related leftist tales are being represented as fact, not opinion/theory/speculation. The left rules academia, and CRT and (trans)gender ideology are the twin flagship insanities/inanities of the left. Thus they've taken over everything and are--as are all progressive dogmas--protected from criticism by the shrieking Reavers of "cancel culture." 

   At any rate, I went into the essay with a reasonably open mind, somehow having thought it might be about the dangers of government interference in such things. 

   Wrong.

   In fact, the essay basically makes the case against CRT. The author argues that social work and social work training are impossible without CRT. Which is preposterous. To quote:

What does learning about race and identity have to do with providing mental health care, addiction treatment, and other vitally needed services? According to the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), the national governing body that accredits social work programs, everything.
The CSWE explicitly requires that all bachelors and masters social work programs teach students to “understand the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination and recognize the extent to which a culture’s structures and values may oppress, marginalize, alienate, or create privilege and power.”

It is simply not possible that social work cannot be done except by learning a radical, highly-idiosyncratic, irrationalist, pseudoscientific theory about "structural oppression," "privilege" and "power." Wikipedia says that social work long predates these concepts--which were generated round about last Tuesday in the weakest regions of the humanities and social sciences. Palley's essay is an exemplar of the problem: it shows that these idiosyncratic, far-left ideas have become so dominant on the academic left that they are now seen almost as axioms. We are told that it is impossible to teach about slavery without teaching CRT--even that it is impossible to teach  about racism at all!--or even about American history without it! Amazing! CRT wasn't even fabulated until the mid-1970s. So before about the bicentennial of the nation, there was no American history, no history of slavery, no one had ever noticed racism...and there was no social work.

   This is basically why it is reasonable to bad CRT from things like K-12, general education curricula, "training"s required for employment, and the like--it's become a religion, and is taught as some impossible combination of science and faith: science in that it's been proven, faith in that it cannot be questioned. 

[Addendum: Oh, and: even if FL-style constraints on teaching CRT, gender ideology, etc. pass, I myself will insist that they be revisited asap. But, for right now, we need to stop the bleeding.]

Coulter: How Not to be President

Savage.

Nate The Lawyer Cracks the So-Called "Bike Karen" NYC Case

The left's demand for racism outstrips the supply...and, of course, the cornerstone of their view is that facts are racist...

   I'll admit that I kind of fell for the original spin. But that story failed to hold up to even a few minutes' reflection.

   It would be stupid that this story has become so notorious--but, since it's yet another example of the left going apeshit over imagined racism, and attempting to ruin someone's life, it ends up being actually notable.

   This kind of story has gotten absurdly predictable. And yet the left keeps pushing them--and keeps getting away with it.

   Ms. Comrie is acting a bit weird...but she's just pregnant and has just gotten off a 12-hour shift, and, as Nate the Lawyer shows, she's being gratuitously harassed/bullied by a group of five males. They seem to be trying to, in effect, rob her by taking a rental bike she's just rented--though, in the end, they are apparently content just to frighten and intimidate her. They're also cursing her, saying that her baby will be deformed, and just generally acting like disgusting, criminal fuckheads.

   Your blue future, citizens.

   On the bright side, she's apparently going to sue the leftoids who were mindlessly promoting accusations of racism about her.

   Oh, and don't forget: NBC news went around telling her neighbors that she was a racist.

   Oh, and: the 'Karen' meme is stupid as hell.

"DeSantis's Unhinged War on Woke"

This seems to be published under several different titles.

   No sexual brainwashing and mutilation of children! No DEI indoctrination (well, less of it...)...no kids at live "adult" performances...sending illegals to "sanctuary" cities outside the state...THE MONSTER!!!

   The overall thrust of this is good--though you can't trust the MSM to accurately represent it, and, true to form, USAT selectively lies about many of the measures--e.g. "bans" on drag shows, "don't say 'gay'...." (Actually, businesses can lose their licenses if they allow kids to attend "adult performances." Now, one can argue that this should be a parental decision. Though...when there used to be pr0no theaters, could parents take their kids to XXX movies?)

   The final story says that one parent complained about one poem in one book, and--allegedly--kids in one county's K-8th grades are--currently--prohibited from seeing that book. And it is an innocuous poem. 

   So, y'know: mass brainwashing and sexual mutilation of kids...some 4th graders have to go to the public library to see a certain poem...six a' one, half-dozen of the other, I say...

   IMO the problems are so serious now that we have to do something to stop the madness. And there will be some suboptimal decisions--no matter what we do. There were suboptimal decisions before FL did any of these things. But we're talking about general policies, not individual decisions. I'm also a lot less worried about the right going--very slightly--too far about this stuff, as this isn't just about the now. This isn't settling things for all time. the left will always push leftward. We're trying to find a temporary anchor against that relentless, destructive current. Compared to the abject insanity of the woketarian torrent, it is, I argue, foolish to worry overmuch about some possibly-suboptimal details. Nevertheless, after we acquire some experience, we can revisit the decisions. 

   An overall point about (trans)gender ideology in K-12: it has no business there. Not only does it have no business there, schools have shown they can't be trusted with it. They've already used it to advance hard-left, postmodern progressive ideology (which is really the point of "queer theory"), and they've already destroyed innumerable young lives with it. And don't forget: it's all crazy pseudoscience, anyway. This is like banning schools from teaching kids that Scientology is true, and that maybe they need an "audit"...

   Perhaps, in an ideal world, teachers would have more freedom to discuss such things. But in the actual world, we've seen--beyond any real doubt--that too many teachers will misuse it. Little is lost and much is gained by just purging it from schools.

   And, of course: schools aren't even teaching the things they're supposed to be teaching very well. There's no reason for them to be discussing radical, obscurantist sex theories to kids--especially when (as I'm sure is the case) the arguments and positions are not analyzed, evaluated and criticized, and alternative views are not adequately represented. 

   When the editor Scientific American is parroting (trans)gender pseudoscience, I don't trust third-grade teachers, who have largely been indoctrinated themselves in ed. schools (which are radically woke) to deal with the subject reasonably.

   Anyway. I'm always on the look out for authoritarianism--and DeSantis constitutes no exception to that rule. I'm more worried about what he's done at the New College of Florida--though: at least it's something, it's not unreasonable, and it's better than simply standing by and watching the postmodern progressive left destroy the world.

The Progressive Left in Yet Another Nutshell: FL Political Refugees Edition

Any advice for political refugees fleeing Florida? pic.twitter.com/OC3H1bznHF

— Dr. Jebra Faushay (@JebraFaushay) May 24, 2023

Republicans Pounce!: Nobody Wants to Take Your Gas Stove, Bigot

Democrats don't want to take your gas stoves, except of course they do, but if Republicans point that out and oppose it it's culture war.

Get it?'

Bigot.

Also how can you care about gas stoves when "BLACK AND BROWN" PEOPLE ARE DYING???

Funny How "Gender Identity" is the Only Innate Characteristic of Human Beings...

 Sex...race...both observable, measurable, publicly accessible...yet totally "socially constructed!" So weird! 

   "Gender identity"--only discovered,* like, last Tuesday: not observable, not measurable, not independently-verifiable...totally innate and incontrovertible! What are the odds! 

   Weirdly Cartesian, too--knowledge of "gender identity" is direct, certain, indubitable, infallible... We have what's known in epistemology and the philosophy of mind as privileged* access to it. So weird!

   I think they think that "sexual orientation" (formerly "sexual preference"...but that's hate speech now, bigot--as Amy Coney Barret found out.***)

The progressive left is deeply committed to pseudoscience, relativism, mysticism, and magical thinking.

* LOL

** No relation.

*** The linked CNN article, PC to the core, explains why ACB is a bigot for saying 'sexual preference'...and says that 

For example, as recently as last month, Merriam-Webster included the term sexual preference under its definition of the word “preference” to refer to sexual orientation. The dictionary has since updated its entry to reflect the way the term is now interpreted.

...intentionally failing to state that MWD "updated" it's definition like five minutes after the incident between Hirono and ACB... Not to put too find a point on it: MWD rather clearly updated in order to bolster the claim that ACB was inexcusably un-PC. This is idea laundering par excellence.

The Wokefication of College Debate

Debate basically started down the same trajectory as everything else--but a little earlier. I read something probably fifteen years ago about recent Continental philosophy infecting it. Radical left crazification seems to follow inevitably. And it has.

VDH: The Left Has Pushed the Envelope, Waging Cultural Revolution Against Traditional America

Or any sane version of America.

This is not an ordinary disagreement between conservatives and liberals. I'm in no way committed to cultural stasis. The very idea that I now count as a conservative (or sorts, anyway) should be some indicator of how unhinged the left has become. 

This is a battle between sanity and insanity.

Between reason and unreason.

Iowa Poll: Trump Holds 3-1 Lead Over DeSantis

This doesn't bother me.

Probably just a name-recognition thing, no?

   What worries me is that the hard-core MAGA types might not vote for anybody but Trump. Progressives like to pretend that Trump voters are mindlessly pro-Trump, but, in fact, very few seem like that to me. But such voters do exist...and they're kinda cracked. So the Republican nominee will have to endure the slings and arrows of Trump's outrageous mouth, beat him in the primary, and emerge with enough money and dignity left to take on the big blue machine. 

   Well...assuming that Trump isn't the nominee...

Miranda Devine: Google Manipulates Searches to Favor the Left and Tip Elections

Gosh, I couldn't be more surprised.

DeSantis Throws His Hat In

Some good news for a change.

Insty: "The Biggest Threat to Our Military Just Might Be DEI Indoctrination"

He begins with a question I've often asked, too:

If a foreign power had infiltrated us and was trying to weaken and destroy our institutions, what would it do differently?

Though this applies to the whole program of the progressive left, not just DEI.

Scientific American Turned into Tumblr So Gradually I Didn't Even Notice

Pseudoscience is now orthodoxy.

Christopher J. Ferguson: How BLM Got Police Violence Wrong

The key to sustaining the leftist fable about racist police is political correctness: rabidly shrieking that anyone who questions the "narrative" is racist.

Greenwald: Politically Correct Leftist Media Distorts Reality--But Americans See Through It To At Least Some Extent

link

AMA Embraces Woke Pseudoscience

Advocates for removal of sex designation on birth certificates, on the usual mix of pseudoscientific and overtly leftist-political grounds.

Destroyer USS John Finn Commanding Officer Fired

link
Ignorant guess from the outside: DEI-related. 
2 of 3 ship's commanding officers the Navy has removed this year have been female.

The crazification of the left has brought us to such a state that Ann Coulter is now a voice of reason.

Explosion of AP climate change stories following $8 million environmental grant

link

"Calls for Legal Child Sex Rebound on Luminaries of May '68"

All the following signed one or more petitions calling for the legalization of sex with children: Sartre, de Beauvoir, Foucault, Derrida, Barthes.

   

Cleese Caves to the Woketarians

"Forced" to cut Stan/Loretta out of the stage adaptation of Life of Brian.

Because you can write a whole movie making fun of Christianity, but TRANS WOMEN ARE WOMEN, BIGOT.

Durham Report Shows Biden and Obama Knew the Truth of Trump Collusion Hoax but Kept Silent

We've known this for years--knew there had been an Oval Office meeting in which the matter had been discussed. Still. 

I voted for Obama/Biden twice and Hilary once.

I am an idiot.

Techno Fog: Durham Analysis: Media Lies and Political Bias

Haven't read the Durham Report yet, but this is what conservatives have argued all along, and I've agreed.

Boys Will Be Boys

Ergo, not girls.

The Cult of the Vaxx: Nobody Is Safe From The Pandemic Of The Unvaccinated!!!!

 Uh...

Waking Up Early Is Racist, Racist

Behold, the ideology that now controls the nation.

MTG and "Jewish Space Lasers:" Not Jewish, Not Lasers

I've ridiculed MTG about this along with my leftish friends...and I thought I'd looked it up once. I knew better than to accept the blue "narrative" without really knowing what was up...

   I mean, it's loony alright. Like, waaay loony. 

   So loony that, in a sane world, you'd wonder how such a person ended up on Congress...but not, of course, in this world...

   But not lasers, and not Jewish.

   Rather, apparently MTG thinks it's plausible that some companies--including "Rothschild, Inc." (is that an actual company?)--may have already started beaming solar power to earth, and thereby started the recent CA wildfires. Because apparently somebody saw "blue beams" around the location of the fires or something?

   So there's that.

Nebraska State Senator's Unhinged Transgender Rant

Ben Weingarten: The Media's Role in Perpetuating and Inflating Russiagate

Absolutely brutal.

But that's the beauty of political correctness. It has personal manifestations in the individual minds of leftists, and institutional manifestations at the level of social organizations. So individual progressives have--partially by brainwashing, partially out of wishful thinking, partially from fear of cancellation, and, probably, partially as a matter of innate predilection--become more and more willing to ignore counterevidence. And the same is true of "converged" leftist institutions like the media and academia...and, well, now: all the rest of them. Once you've adopted the (politically) correct attitudes, habits and beliefs, even when some counterevidence is so strong that it bashes its way through your institutional epistemic shields, it's unlikely to have the power to create the kind of cognitive dissonance that commonly drives involuntary belief-change. And more evidence is just more evidence...and progressives are already committed to subordinating it to their dogmas. 

   Russiagate flourished on the left far beyond what the evidence warranted. A patently absurd collection of tales grew like doxastic kudzu in the fertile, febrile soil of progressive minds rabid with TDS. It has been obviously absurd nearly the entire time, and now the evidence is undeniable. But the institutional shields are strong, and the strength of the evidence is dampened on the way through. 

   We live in hope that truth will win out in human lifetimes.

   But I dunno, man.

   We're dealing with a faction that not only believes that some women are male, but that thinks that denying this is an act of bigotry equivalent to racism, and which thinks people deserve to have their lives destroyed for that. Make sure you keep in mind: they would make it illegal if they had the power to do so. 

   As I keep saying: this is basically the equivalent of War is peace, or the sky is green or 2+2=5. Once someone has the kinds of epistemic habits and attitudes and policies and beliefs that lead them to accept overt material contradictions as truths--let alone as undeniable axioms that can only be denied by moral criminals--well, slightly complicated and easily-obfuscated matters like those revealed in the Durham report are very unlikely to break through the shields.

   Finally: one of the more depressing parts of all this is the second-order delusion/lying. Not only did the NYT and the WaPo print all that bullshit, but they won the Pulitzer for it. It didn't just happen in the journalistic heat of the moment--in a cool hour, the American journalism went back and deemed those stories to be the best journalism of the year...

   Very depressing.

Durham Shows Mueller Report Was a Cover-Up

link

I've long maintained that the Mueller probe couldn't have honestly failed to uncover the Dem dirty tricks and FBI collusion.

David Cole: Yes, There Are Non-White White Supremacists

Even in the actual meaning of the term 'white supremacist.'

   I was going to complain about this cheap argument about Mauricio Garcia, the Texas mall shooter, anyway. I mean, the fact that he wasn't white makes it less likely that he'd be a white supremacist...but not impossible. Cole says Hispanic white supremacists are the worst...which could be I guess. But anyway: they exist.

   It's fun to dunk on the moronic, sanctimonious left...but that sort of thing can lead you into error.

"Intersectional Climate Scientist" Says "White Supremacy" is Causing Climate Change

Bullshit bullshit capitalism, bullshit bullshit racism, bullshit bullshit colonialism, bullshit bullshit patriarchy.

In conclusion: bullshit.

At the "intersection" of idiocy and ignorance, I guess.

Oh and Harry Potter.

More embarrassingly stupid shit from the same woman.

David Cole on the Decline and Decline and Decline of America

Takimag is one of the few places at which you can expect straight talk anymore.

David Cole: Pessimistic River

link

"Russian Collusion is the Only Possible Explanation"

Before I shut down comments around 2017...because I was going to shut down the blog...and still am! Y'know...soon or whatever... I remember some of the old commenters here--who I do miss--insisting that the only possible explanation of Trump's actions and behavior was Russian collusion. The only possible explanation! 

   Well, I was right. It was clear by late 2017 that Russiagate was bullshit--as I said at the time. Of course the majority of criticisms of Trump were bullshit. As much as there is to criticize about the guy, the left, nevertheless, can't resist making shit up about him right and left. All Mexicans are rapists! White supremacists are very fine people! Inject bleach! Madness.

   Anyway. As I may have mentioned, I was right. 

   I just remembered that nonsense about "the only possible explanation." Which I saw other places, too--not just here. Imagine how scrambled your brains had to be about it to think that "collusion" was the only possible explanation...

   Crazy.

"What is a Woman? Many Philosophers Know, But Aren't Allowed to Say"

link

(Trans)gender ideology is, by far, the stupidest idea to sweep through the country in my lifetime. It is perfectly clear that women are adult, female humans and men are adult male humans, as I've pointed out here hundreds of times since this madness erupted around 2014. These idiotic ideas originated in the weakest parts of the humanities--including especially women's and "gender" studies--and have now taken over the rest of the university and basically all our other institutions as well. What we've come to see is that the literary humanities, now dominated by bad philosophy and bad politics, together with the power of shrieking hordes crazies and an organized, relentless cancel culture willing to ruin the careers and lives of all who disagree with them, can get the United States of America, for the love of God, to accept outright contradictions--e.g. some women are male and some men are female.

   And philosophers will not only sit by and watch, many of them will help the crazies.

Durham Exposes Mueller Cover-Up

As I've suggested many times.

A competent Mueller report would have exposed a fair bit of the real story. So the investigation seemed to stop arbitrarily. They tried to find evidence against Trump, but pulled up short when they were in danger of finding evidence against the Clinton Campaign and the FBI. Kooky as it sounds, I've also long suspected that Mueller's borderline-incompetence in the hearing was to some extent a put-on. That would be a way of taking some of the edge off the questions, and lay the groundwork for a defense if/when the dishonesty of the report was challenged. But, obviously, that a little tinfoil hattish. 

   Of course this whole thing sounds tinfoil hattish. 

   In a sane world with even vaguely objective news media this would be the biggest political story since Watergate. Instead Russiagate--100% fake--got two years solid of hysterical coverage, and the report proving that it was all a blue-team dirty trick gets crammed down the memory hole. 

   This is what happens when one political faction controls almost all major institutions. They can create whatever stories they want, brainwash people into believing them, and cover up any information that threatens to expose them.

   There are, incidentally, lots of lefties out there who still argue that Trump was "colluding" with the Russians. Some will even assert that Mueller proved it...

How Trump Single-Handedly Completely Destroyed Science, and Why It Might Take Millenia for Us to Return to Medieval-Level Proto-Science

 Orange Man bad.

"Why Nature Supports Joe Biden For President"

TDS

   Joe Biden thinks that men can become women by saying so. That is the most unscientific idea to enter into public debate in my lifetime. Nothing Trump has ever said has come close to that.

   Biden also buys climate change apocalypticism. Now, personally I suspect that anthropogenic climate change is overblown. I'm skeptical about the IPCC and its output. However, I don't think people can be blamed for accepting what is plausibly the scientific consensus with respect to such issues. So I don't think Biden is epistemically blameworthy for believing what the IPCC says. However, Biden also believes that ACC is an "existential threat" to humans. So far as I can tell, even the IPCC does not believe that. It tends to say things like: climate change is a "threat to human wellbeing." 

   Then of course there's CRT and associated race pseudoscience, including hysteria about police use of deadly force. Actual statistics are simply ignored. "White supremacy" is everywhere...and unfalsifiably so. The Marxist roots of such views are always obvious.

   Trump's views and actions on COVID were basically in line with the advice he got from Fauci, Birx etc. To the extent that he balked at it, he was right to do so. Of course everything he ever did or said provoked shrieking from the left. E.g.: shutting down some travel. (Racist!!! Of course.) And that's all Nature is really doing, too. 

   This is PC. Political views come first, then comes the rationalization. Politics is the dog. Science the tail. And politics must pervade everything. Even science must contort itself to fit leftist preconceptions. 

Andrew Prokop: "The Failure of the Durham Report"

Note: Vox: not an actual news source.

   Nothing in there's too surprising. You know where Vox will stand on this. The idea there isn't objective inquiry, but partisan debate. Prokop repeats the "Russia, if you're listening" nonsense, though at least doesn't overtly pretend that Trump was seriously requesting help from an ally. 

   Anyway, it's another perspective.

   Also anyway, looks like I'm going to have to read the damn report for myself when I get a chance. Both sides seem to be spinning the report exactly as you'd predict.

F-16s to Ukraine?

HERE COMEZ THE VIPERZ, BITCHEZ

ahem

Well, possibly anyway.

Patriot FTW

Patriots took out six (!) Kinzhal air-launched ballistic / (kinda) hypersonic missiles in Kyiv last night. 12 other missiles, including several Kalibr cruise missiles were also downed. But the Ukrainians have lots of different anti-missile systems, so I don't think we know how they took the other missiles out. Patriot battery damaged, but allegedly not too bad. 

"Black Face of White Supremacy" Watch: Daniel Cameron Edition

So predictable.

Barr: Durham Probe Shows Russiagate Investigation Was a "Grave Injustice" to Trump

link

Compare Barr's words about Trump to Trump's about Barr.

Barr also hasn't yet said that he wouldn't vote for Trump if he were the nominee...

We all live in hope that that won't come to pass.

Trump: It Was an Honor to Have Fired Barr

What a lunatic that guy is.

   I take Barr to be unusually objective, smart and knowledgeable about all this stuff. He supported Trump and even came out of retirement to work for him at an incredibly difficult position. He stuck with him until he lost his shit. Even after that, he said that, given the unhinging of the contemporary Dems, he couldn't imagine not voting for whoever the Pub nominee is. He's only started to criticize Trump more harshly as Trump has, himself, come more unhinged.

NYT: After Years of Political Hype, Durham Report Fails to Deliver

Nothing to see here, citizens.

Move along.*

*In actual fact, there are significant points here. I'm just sick of these people. There are obvious responses, too...but we don't want to turn into a mirror-image of the Cult. So I'll have to actually read the damn thing to see which side of this story is rightest. 

   But the weakest/stupidest argument is (as others have noted): This is all old hat! Response: old hat doesn't mean no hat. the blue team dismissed the revelations when they were new hat, too.

The Outer Limits Predicts The PMSM

The progressive MSM in a nutshell:

Jenkins: John Durham's Report and a Presidency in Crisis

link

Taibbi: Durham Is Too Late To Stop The Madness

link

The Durham Report: Trump Was Right

Oh yeah. Not only was I right, but Trump was right.
Again.

That guy may actually be right more than I am--which, a priori, I would have thought impossible...

That guy has got to get downright tired of being right all the time.

But here it is again.

Him being right that is.

Trump was 100% right about Russiagate from the very beginning. The blue team was 100% wrong. 

That's all there really is to it.

Trump has bitchslapped the left right across the room.

Now, of course, the left owns the refs. Even after the Mueller report came up empty, the left refused to believe it, and were aided in this project by the MSM, aka Blue Pravda. They did what they always do in such cases, soft-peddling the bad news, dismissing it, delaying the revelation of the worst parts until they would do less damage. They outright ignored the Durham investigation as long as they could. There's been some hysterical lying about it on MSDNC and the like, but that's really not the most effective method. Just squelch it by 30% or so at every turn. SOP.

Anyway.

The MSM will contain the damage. It's their job. 

But Trump was right.

And they were wrong.

Again.

The Durham Report: I Was Right

I've only read accounts of it and haven't printed out my own copy yet, nor dived in, but I do want to gloat because I was right. Not really me, because lots of conservatives have been saying all this stuff for years. And I was hardly on the cutting edge. But at least I was the first kid in my neighborhood to see what was really going on in Russiagategate. 

And, as I said in many posts back in the days before COVID wiped everything else off the docket: if the red team turned out to be right about this, it would be game, set, match, tournament, series, championship...whatever comes after that. They have absolutely eaten the blue team's lunch on this. They have been right about everything, and the blue team was not only wrong about everything, the blue team did the damn crime. 

Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue 2023: Another Dude on the Cover

LOL what the hell is up with SI's obsession with the Decepticons?

Isn't this like two years in a row?

Oh and also, apparently, Martha Stewart, 81.

The Federalist: 61 Hacks Who Peddled Russian Collusion and Should Never Be Trusted Again

via Insty:

61 Hacks Who Peddled Russian Collusion And Should Never Be Trusted Again pic.twitter.com/Fw1sJBku43

— The Federalist (@FDRLST) May 16, 2023

Mike Lee on the Durham Report

 🧵 1. The gravity of the misconduct uncovered by Mr. Durham cannot be overstated. washingtonpost.com/national-secur…

2. The LEAST one can say of it is that it involved a malicious use of federal law-enforcement officers to conduct a contrived investigation utterly lacking any valid, factual foundation from the very beginning. That is itself incredibly troubling—and also unconstitutional. 

3. But this was SO MUCH WORSE than that. It was an effort to use use a powerful, long-respected, federal law-enforcement agency to render a presidential candidate unelectable—entirely in the absence of any valid, good-faith basis for doing so. 

4. So make no mistake—this can’t be dismissed as mere carelessness or even a severe example of garden-variety misconduct. No—this is as corrupt and as subversive of the Constitution as it gets. 

Durham Proves that Hillary and the FBI Tried to Fix the 2016 Election

link

And the cope is so thick on the left you can cut it with a knife...

YOUNGKIN ALSO FTW

Jesus, how'd I miss this?

Maybe Western Civilization will survive a bit longer...

DeSantis Defunds DEI

RON DESANTIS FTW

   I haven't read the bill yet. You can't trust MSM reports about anything in education that in any way challenges DEI. So I don't know what's in it, and won't have time to find out until grades are in. I won't be at all surprised if there are things we have to push back against. But DEI is destroying academia, and what's needed is a sledgehammer blow against it. There'll be some scalpel work that has to be done in the future. But this is the general kind of thing that's needed now.

Techno Fog: The Durham Report: A Quick Analysis

Six years ago, this would have been unbelievable.

NY Post: Media Gaslighting Goes to the Max as U.S. Border Fully Opens

link

Read This!: A. G. Sulzberger: Journalism's Essential Value

To busy today to read all of this now, but on a partial read and a glance at the rest, this looks super interesting.

John Sciortino: Why Are We Stricter With Tattoos Than with "Transgender" Treatment?

Consistency is "transphobic," bigot.

Bruce Gilley: Junk Citations Create Distrust of Research

link

Bruce Gilley, always out there fightin the good fight.

Edward E. Waldrep: The Anti-American Psychological Association

At Lee Jussim's digs.

Postpostmodern progressivism takes over the APA:

This ideology has a horrendous track record for humanity. Simply relabeling the ideology does not change that fact. American Psychologist, the “flagship publication” of the APA, went so far as to dedicate an entire special issue promoting this ideology in 2021. The edition editors criticize the field of psychology for “failing” to focus on structural power dynamics and for not creating “lasting social change” (Eaton, Grzanka, Schlehofer, & Silka, 2021). These are references to postmodern philosophy, Marxist structural determinism and social engineering. The authors go on to state “articles in this special issue build the case for a public psychology that is more disruptive and challenging than simply aiming dominant, canonical, and mainstream psychological research and practice outward” (pg. 1211).

Flynn and colleagues, 2021, discuss civil disobedience and criticize nonviolence as the only acceptable form stating, “we encourage psychologists to think critically about the effects of privileging certain acts of civil disobedience over others on the basis of decontextualized tactics alone, such as the assertion that property destruction invariably denotes a protest tactic outside the bounds of civil disobedience” (pg. 1220). They go on to describe strategies to twist and manipulate APA Ethics to justify any means they appear to see fit to dismantle “systems of oppression”. For example, regarding Principle C: Integrity, they state, “we also read it as authorizing clandestine methods of civil disobedience to contest injustice (e.g., deception, evasion) when methods maximize benefits and minimize harm” (pg. 1224). This stretches the intent of the use of deception from research methods, a researcher pretending to be a student for example, to justifying outright dishonesty.
And of course, the special issue would not be complete without an article criticizing “good” psychology. Note, the use of “Critical” in this context is related to neo-Marxist “Critical Theory” and not critical thinking. Grzanka and Cole, 2021, make an argument for what they describe as “bad psychology”. They argue that “good psychology” (maintaining rigorous methodological, scientific, and objective standards) is a problem because it gets in the way of the radical political agenda of transforming society the way that they think is best.  They state, “we contend that what is commonly thought of as ‘good’ psychology often gets in the way of transformative, socially engaged psychology. The radical, democratic ideals inspired by the social movements of the 20th century have found a voice in the loose network of practices that go by the term critical psychology and includes liberation psychology, African American psychology, feminist psychology, LGBTQ psychology, and intersectionality” (pg. 1335).
The authors do, conveniently, leave out the fact that the ideology underlying the radical social movements of the 20th century are attributed with mass murder on an unimaginable scale. Throughout the special edition, the argument is made, consistently, that this ideology, advocacy, and radical social transformation should be incorporated through all aspects of psychology: research, training, and delivery of clinical services.
How could the American people continue to trust the organization if this ideology is being actively promoted? What would psychotherapy look like within this ideological framework? I would argue that society would not and should not continue to trust APA if this continues. This is not sound, competent, professional, empirically informed psychology. This is Psychological Lysenkoism.

 Lysenkoism is just political correctness in science. It's not a bug it's a feature--from the perspective of the popomo left.

"Encourage Women to Smell Their Poop to be More Inclusive to Trans Women"

facepalm

"Science Needs To Stop Using Terms Like 'Male', 'Female,' 'Mother' and 'Father,' Researchers Say"

link    It started with 'man' and 'woman.' Banned from using those correctly, people shifted to 'male (human)' and 'female (human)'. So those have to go, to. So people began shifting to e.g. 'people with penises' and 'people with vaginas' (or uteruses). Because there are logical links of meaning between 'man,' 'male,' 'penis', etc. As I predicted long ago, eventually we'll be told to say that there are long, tubular vaginas that protrude from the body. They did try 'innie' and 'outie' for awhile, and the really repulsive 'front hole.' 

   When they first started pretending that 'man' and 'woman' don't mean what they mean, and some of us objected, one of their common responses was "why do you care so much about the word"?

   Because words mean things, you fucking midwits.

CLIMATE CHANGE EXACERBATES "GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE"....AGAINST WOMEN!!!!

Another step toward the Grand Unified Theory of leftism...currently racism and climate change are neck-and-neck in the race for the Fundamental Evil...
But the smart money is on capitalism in the end...

Roger Kimball: Deliver Us From Reality

link
Two quotes from Hannah Arendt:

[1] 
There is no doubt that the elite was pleased whenever the underworld frightened respectable society into accepting it on an equal footing. The members of the elite did not object at all to paying a price, the destruction of civilization, for the fun of seeing how those who had been excluded unjustly in the past forced their way into it. They were not particularly outraged at the monstrous forgeries in historiography of which all totalitarian regimes are guilty and which announce themselves clearly enough and totalitarian propaganda.

[2]
Before they seize power and establish a world according to their doctrines, totalitarian movements conjure up a lying world of consistency which is more adequate to the needs of the human mind than reality itself; in which, through sheer imagination, uprooted masses can feel at home and are spared the never-ending shocks which real life and real experiences deal to human beings and their expectations.

"White Privilege" in Physics

facepalm

Turley: Anthropologists Call For An End To Classifying Human Remains By "Gender" [sic] And Ancestry

Actually, as usual, many anthropologists are calling for further infusing every PC dogma into their area of study. Just one bit:

Graduate students like Emma Palladino have objected that “the archaeologists who find your bones one day will assign you the same gender as you had at birth, so regardless of whether you transition, you can’t escape your assigned sex.”

 Without PC "interventions," someday your skeleton might be dug up and an anthropologist might note your sex! Without regard to some pseudoscientific story you tell yourself about your secret spiritual sex-or-gender! "You can't escape"...well...the facts about your body that cannot be changed... The horror! Hell, they might even note your height and age of death! But what about how you "identify"???

I kinda don't understand how biological anthropology could survive with any pretension to be a science if it continues to be afflicted by postpostmodern quasi-religious pseudoscience... Doublethink is Orwell's answer, the actual strategy of leftists (and other religious types, probably).

Singal: Americans Don't Mind Hearing and Learning About Racism--They Just Don't Like The Weird, Religiously-Tinged Way Educated Liberals Talk About It

Well duh.

Actually: progressives.

But whatever.

We don't mind talking about any of that stuff--race, sex, "gender," slavery, racism, transgender ideology...anything. It's just that the left has gone nuts about it all. We don't like the fact that they've taken over our institutions and the culture, and they use them as platforms from which to preach their cultish bullshit, pretending that it's true--and beyond question. I don't mind talking about religion. I just don't want crazed evangelicals taking over my university and cramming Jesus into everything.

Zach Goldberg/Eric Kaufmann: "School Choice is Not Enough: The Impact of Critical Social Justice in American Schools"

link

Tumblr in Action is Dead--Long Live Tumblr in Action!

The left has taken over Reddit (like everything else), and it's very difficult for any non-cult subs to survive. r/conservative survives largely by relentlessly policing its comments. But the less-staid subreddits have largely been nuked. But it turns out that TiA moved to saidit--and survives, albeit with a tiny fraction of its former readership. 

WeekendGunnit also survives, having moved to .win.

What They Really Trust

Living in the Country Killz

Live in the pod, eat the bugs...you'll own nothing and you'll like it. 

If you don't want to live in a giant megalopolis you're disinformation and white supremacy privilege or whatever.

Your Vax Skepticism is Causing Side-Effects and Death in People Getting the Vax

The vax is beautiful and perfect, bigot. But your skepticism is killing people:

In the era of Covid 19 and mass vaccination programs, the anti-vaccination movement across the world is currently at an all-time high. Much of this anti-vaccination sentiment could be attributed to the alleged side effects that are perpetuated across social media from anti-vaccination groups. Fear mongering and misinformation being peddled by people with no scientific training to terrorise people into staying unvaccinated is not just causing people to remain susceptible to viral outbreaks, but could also be causing more side effects seen in the vaccination process. This brief review will offer data that may demonstrate that misinformation perpetuated by the anti-vaccination movement may be causing more deaths and side effects from any vaccine. A mini review of published literature has been conducted and found that mental stress clearly causes vasoconstriction and arterial constriction of the blood vessels. Therefore, if subjects are panicked, concerned, stressed or scared of the vaccination, their arteries will constrict and become smaller in and around the time of receiving the vaccine. This biological mechanism (the constriction of veins, arteries and vessels under mental stress) is the most likely cause for where there has been blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, dizziness, fainting, blurred vision, loss of smell and taste that may have been experienced shortly after vaccine administration. The extreme mental stress of the patient could most likely be attributed to the fear mongering and scare tactics used by various anti-vaccination groups. This paper does not aim to rule in or out every side effect seen, but it is highly likely that many apparent side effects seen shortly after a subject has received a vaccine could be the result of restricted or congested blood flow from blood vessel or arterial constriction caused by emotional distress or placebo based on fear around vaccines.

Again, for the record, I'm not anti-vax, but I'm also not buying their bullshit. I got the first one--though I probably shouldn't have, since I'm not really at risk. Then the pro-vax propaganda got really insane, and the pressure to get more of them mounted, and so I didn't get any more because that's the kind of guy I am. Of course it all turned out to be a lie when it came out that the vax had little or no effect on transmission. Well, not all... But it was false claims about preventing transmission that drove the mandates. As with the left's mask fetish, it was also largely about compliance. Though there was also the fearmongering about a wave of overloaded ERs. Which never really materialized in any significant way, so far as I can tell.

   The anti-vaxxers are nutty, too. Don't get me wrong. I mean...I've seen some absolutely insane crap from them. The best one was: if you leave the vax unrefrigerated, it basically turns into a tiny version of the bug aliens from Starship Troopers... The really fringy anti-vaxxers are completely off the deep end. That's the craziest sector of vax space.

Mother Jones: "This Is How Racist Your Air Is"

facepalm

Goldman-Sachs' Global Macro Research Team on US-China Relations

Some interesting stuff here, it seems.

Sandboxx: Patriot Shot Down Kinzhal

Alex Hollings is on it.

I guessed that the nosecone in the pix might have been part of the payload, not the external nosecone. So one cheer for me:

Oh and: 

There's just so much BS and confusion in popular discussions of hypersonics--not that I'm an expert. But that the Kinzhal is just an air-launched ballistic missile is more-or-less par for the course.

Pentagon Confirms Ukrainian Patriot Shot Down Rooskie Hypersonic Missile

Not too shabby for a 40-year-old system...

It's fails all around for Putin, seems like.

Global Warming Causes "Hate Speech"

Still working toward that Grand Unified Theory of Woketardation, I see.

But how do the transformer/decepticons figure into this?

Ferret-Birdflu is 10,000 More Worse Than the Coof, Could Jump to Humans AT ANY TIME!!!!!!

Perpetual fear is our only hope.

Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine Suggests Use of Terms 'Chestfeeding,' 'Human Milk Feeding,' and 'Father's Milk'

Ok lemme know when they change the name of their outfit to Torsonourishment USA.

You really can't take them seriously so long as their very organization has a hateword in its name.

And, Really, Who ISN'T Curious About How to Use "Spore/Spores" "Pronouns"?

Robert E. Wright: So Why Aren't We Paying Down The National Debt?

The eternal question...

The F-4(?) Super Phantom

 

Trump on the Border

He's absolutely right.

And good policies >> mean tweets.

On the bright side, two years on, it sounds like the Brandon administration is going back to Trump's policies.

Global Warming Revives Ancient SUPERCOVID; Women, Children, BIPOC/LGBTQIAA++2S% Hardest Hit

First go at a wokest headline.

MEDIUM COVID IS WORST COVID

facepalm

Francis Aaron: Boys Will Be Girls

 

"...Masks Reduce Racism..."

I swear. to. God. the American left did not used to be this crazy.

"Seven Tik Tok Dances You Can Do To Save Roe v. Wade

The stupid...it burns...

In the UK, "Boys as Young as Twelve Might be Asked If They Are Pregnant"

link

Ok lemme defend this one:

It's probably just a manifestation of The Crazy...but maybe not.

At a time when people are pretending to be the opposite sex, and some are even undergoing extreme medical treatments up to and including hormone treatments, puberty blockers, and amputation / reconstruction of sex organs...you can't be too careful. Just because someone looks male and claims to be male, that person could be female. 

So, yeah. We live in clown world. That sign is pretty likely to be a manifestation of the clown cult worldview...but it might instead be a reaction to it.

"'Childism' is Another Tenet of Progressivism"

I mean, you can't really be surprised by this.

This sort of thing is rushing from the left in a torrent. 

Sometimes you see such things and think You can't make this shit up...

   But sometimes you see it and recognize it as an obvious consequence of what's come before. Shit's even predictable. It doesn't exactly take a genius to see where the lines converge. The sexualization of children, the idea that parents have no particular authority over them, encouraging interaction between kids and drag queens etc., dragged-up children, the attempt to characterize pedos as "minor attracted persons"... Gosh, I just have no idea what the endgame is here...what could it be???

   Oh, and don't forget: the idea that it's impermissible to be uninterested in or averse to sex with certain kinds of people. In particular we've been told that we are obligated to find overweight people attractive, that straight dudes must be attracted to dudes pretending to be women...and, most important of all: lesbians must be attracted to them too. That's currently their flagship demand. But it won't be the last such demand, nor the most appalling one..

   Re: the post I linked to: I don't agree with the religious stuff, of course. Just for the record.

Trump CNN Town Hall

I saw like a minute and couldn't even bear to watch the rest of the highlight reel.

On the basis of the even higher-pitched shrieking from the left, I gather that he did pretty well...by some allegedly relevant standards or other.

Still won't admit losing the election, apparently.

2024 could be gut-wrenching.

David Bernhardt: "The Deep State Is All Too Real"

link

And the Deep Academy is even worse.

Scott Gerber: "DEI Brings Kafka To My Law School"

A familiar type of story by now.

But remember! This is not happening. And if it is, the right is worse.

Also, DEI is pure good. And anyone who questions it is a racist.

The Harm Caused by Masks

Big if true.

And grim.

   I think mask mandates were stupid, and largely motivated by the weird idiosyncrasies of the left, which include excessive risk-aversion and a desire to control the actions and beliefs of others. As with many things about the pandemic, I understand panicking and pushing such stuff in the early stages. But soon enough it became fairly clear that much of what was being made mandatory could not be justified. Or, at least, was not being justified to the public. 

   OTOH, there seems to be some tension between (a) masks don't retain the virus and (b) they do retain CO2. That's not an irresolvable tension, but it's worth resolving. 

   I found wearing a mask burdensome, and basically quit doing it. I took it off more than I kept it on while teaching, and basically made it clear that the things were optional in my classes. I found fake masks on Amazon, made basically of gauze, and often wore those when I couldn't get away without one. Which is a wimpy way out, but you can't fight every battle.

   Much of my aversion had to do with the campus hysteria. When the hysterical majority is shrieking that you must comply with measures that seem clearly irrational, it pushes you in the other direction, perhaps excessively Well, me, anyway.

CIA Apparently Solicited Signatures for Hunter Biden Laptop Letter

I honestly don't even know what to say about this.

Madness.

Alan Dershowitz on the Weird Trump-Carroll Verdict

link

I didn't know about all the seemingly weird things about the trial, like the anonymity granted the jurors (which doesn't seem unreasonable to me--but I don't remember such a thing happening even in cases in which that would have seemed to have been more important. Also what do I know?). Also I'd forgotten about the suspension of the statute of limitations--which seems like a particularly strange thing in this kind of case. 

   What makes no sense though is that the ruling seems to be that Trump didn't rape Carroll, but he defamed her by denying that he raped her. 

   Not a lawyer, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's overturned. 

   This could be a convenient way to get Trump out of our hair...not an inconsequential advantage... But OTOH it may strengthen the effectiveness of the Kavanaughing tactic, which may well be deployed again against whichever male Republican runs in '24 and after. I abhor such practical arguments anyway. What matters, needless to say, is truth and justice. If he's guilty, he should have been in jail 25 years ago. Though there's nothing even approaching sufficient evidence for that. 

   Everything is supid.

Climate Clock LOL

facepalm

   I have the same prediction about this nonsense that I have about all related nonsense: when we fail to meet the deadline, the apocaleptics will not say: Whelp, missed it. We can quit trying now.

   Like "systemic racism," climate hysteria is a part of the dark faith of the progressives. I'm not sure what it would take to kill it.

   It may even be that contemporary climate hysteria is a result of the long list of failed climate prophecies. When prophecy fails, more fervent commitment to the beliefs is a common consequence.

Matt Walsh: What is a Woman?

Walsh succeeded while the entire discipline of philosophy either cowered or actively helped the crazies:

PITT: Letter to an NYT Columnist

Shit is horrifying and I don't even have kids.

So many of these stories are so consistent--and the really chilling part is the instant "affirmation" by doctors. 

The whole thing is so transparently insane. It's hard to believe that so many people--and people like doctors who are supposed to be quasi-scientists--fell so hard so fast for such patent pseudoscience. In fact, the whole gender ideology thing smacks of superstition or supernaturalism. You have to have a completely nonfunctional bullshit-detector to believe such a story. 

Even just the willingness to believe such patent absurdities is difficult to fathom. But when conjoined with the fact that this pseudoscience is causing people--again, including doctors--to sexually mutilate children...my God... You'd think that at least that part would slap some sense into people.

Just creepy as hell.

What are progressives going to do in ten years when the spell is broken? They won't full fess up, I'm sure. I'm sure there'll be a lot of people saying things like "Well, I didn't really believe it.." But that will raise the question: "So...you knew kids were being, in effect, brainwashed and sexually abused...but you didn't say anything?" I very much doubt that there will be an open "trans" "reckoning"... Progressives are not going to admit that the weight of their whole faction was thrown behind such madness... But, especially in the age of the internet, I'm not sure how they're going to wriggle out of it... Maybe the left will have such control of the net by then that they'll scrub it of evidence? That seems impossible...

Stop It. Get Some Help.--"Trans Genocide" / Screaming Edition

 

Trump's Access Hollywood Tape May Cost Him the Rape Trial--and the Presidency

While it'd be convenient for Trump to be taken out of the running, the allegations are almost certainly false. False sexual assault and harassment accusations are common--and commoner now that the left has adopted them as part of the faith. And it's clear by now that basically any prominent conservative makes himself a target for them. They're easy to make, hard to refute, and proof basically doesn't matter. The accusation's the thing. It alone accomplishes the dirty work.

   Carroll's story is extremely implausible. She has virtually no evidence to offer. A jury would have to be cracked to rule in her favor, even given the almost absurdly light burden of proof in such cases. But I won't be surprised if that's what happens.

   Some of the other accusations--e.g. those of Stoynoff and Leeds--well, sadly, they don't seem that implausible to me. Terrible thing to say, really, in the absence of proof, and given that such accusations are now thrown around indiscriminately and strategically. The "Me Too" insanity, and the outrageous Kavanaugh business should have slapped some sense into people about all this... Progressives, I mean. But it didn't. False accusations of sexual harassment and assault are Woketarian sacraments now.

"The Question of Joe Biden's Age is a Legitimate Concern"

This is rather embarrassingly hagiographic.

And the age issue is much more than merely a legitimate concern.

Though I'm not sure it's decisive.

   Biden was a buffoon even at his best. (Trump too, not that it's relevant. (Well, maybe not at his best best--but that was long ago.)) I used to find his buffoonery kind of endearing, especially when Obama was doing all the real work, and Biden could just play the goofy sidekick. I find it less endearing now that Biden's hand is actually on the rudder.  

   (Oh and: his treatment of Thomas during the Anita Hill business was worse than buffoonish. Though I, too, fell for the Hill story at the time.)

   But mostly it's because the evidence indicates that he's been at the center of a massive influence-peddling operation. We don't know for sure yet, because, of course, the media's propaganda drives are running at max rpms to silence, obscure, spin and otherwise downplay the story. The same media that shouted every absurd accusation against Trump through its massive array of megaphones does everything it can to cover up this story about Biden. 

   Fake Russiagate dominated the news for two years. Real Laptopgate has been almost deleted. Seems that the media now realizes that the story won't go away, so they're using their standard back-up strategy: foot-dragging. That is: delaying the emergence of the facts so as to minimize their impact. They should have come out a month before the election, when the NY Post broke the story. But the media/deep-state alliance machine successfully fabricated and advanced a new version of their favorite fable: Rooskie disinformation. If they hadn't, we might have been spared both Trump's post-election freakout and a Biden presidency.

   But anyway. If Biden were an otherwise good President, I'd be less concerned about his age. But, even aside from my disagreements with him: 80's too old. An exceptional 80-year-old, yes. Joe Biden, no. 

   To make matters worse, I was right about his Presidency: there's not enough of him left to effectively oppose the insane wing of his party. Not that he necessarily would have done so even in his prime. Even HRC has capitulated to the Woketarian mob. I knew Biden would be basically a rubber stamp for the left. And his age doesn't seem to be helping him. 

   Oh and: he's doing everything wrong.

   Except Ukraine. 

   I still think this administration is right about Ukraine. Except for the apparent refusal to negotiate. But this is an area about which I know next to nothing.

   In conclusion:

   Help us, Obi-Wan DeSantis--you're our only hope...