Gamergate 2.0?

Gamergate was a revolt against the Woketarian takeover of video games journalism. Needless to say, the freaks and grifters who had begun to take over sites like Kotaku did what the Woketarian cultist always do: they began shrieking hysterically about sexism, harassment, racism, blah blah blah. Needless to say, the then-already-wokifying mainstream media sided with the shrieking lefties. Wikipedia--which is now basically a left-wing propaganda site--claims without qualification that Gamergate was a harrassment campaign against women in video gaming. That is a lie.

   Note, incidentally, that the wikipedians can't even get past the title of the entry without editorializing. That title is:  "Gamergate (Harassment Campaign)"

   LOOOOOOOL

   Seriously, you can't make that shit up.

   Gamergate, round 2 is basically same shit, different day. Grifter organizations like "Sweet Baby Inc." and "Black Girl Gamers" assist companies in wokifying video games. This is what's going on, and there is simply no denying it. Gamers are now organizing to avoid these wokified games...and this is being described as harassment by these leftist companies and the MSM. 

   Here's one MSM story. What bullshit.

   Gamergate 1 actually had two components: (a) the wokification of video games journalism and (b) leftist grifter Zoe Quinn's attempts to redirect attention away from her grifting and high-profile infidelities. So Quinn and others like Anita Sarkeesian started screaming "harassment!" They alleged that they got loads of death threats--never proven--and so on. I have no doubt that they got some mean emails--that's SOP on the internet now. But that's not what Gamergate was. "Brianna" "Wu" also made such claims, but he was somewhat less central to the dust-up.

   If people would have taken Gamergate more seriously, we might not have been taken so by surprise when the SJW/Woke/neo-PCs erupted into our more serious institutions. 

   I did take it seriously--and there are quite a few posts on this blog to prove it.

Concerns About Governor Abbott's Executive Order re: Antisemitism at TX Universities

I agree:

I am committed to the fight against antisemitism on campus, but I am concerned about the highlighted provisions in Governor Abbott's executive order, which instructs universities to "update free speech policies" to prohibit "antisemitic speech."

How is such a policy different… pic.twitter.com/Cb7ZHMrCcT

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 27, 2024

FIRE Statement on Gov. Abbott's Executive Order on Antisemitic Speech at Universities

I haven't read the order yet, but it sounds worrisome, to say the least.

Maryland City Equity Official Wants the U.S. to "Burn Down;" "MY Ideology Can Arise From the Ashes"

I'm like a broken record, but: all factions have their crazies. I don't hold that against them too much. But on the contemporary progressive left: (a) crazy fringe beliefs have become orthodox, taking over the center, and (b) the crazy fringe sets the agenda. The American right doesn't follow its rightest wing. There is no academic-political complex as there is on the left. But there is an intellectual left that does not distinguish itself from activism--in fact the subordination of scholarship (and, in fact, all thought) to activism is one of their central ideals. Absolutely insane ideas flourish there--and they always, always, always push toward madness and destruction. Those ideas are then laundered and repackaged into bleeding-heart-liberal-esque form: oh, the poor, oh, the oppressed, oh, the cruelty...weep for the less-fortunate and less-successful...

   The average progressive in the street doesn't want to destroy the USA, nor the West, nor Capitalism. But the vanguard does. The vanguard realizes that de facto open borders will wreck the country; it also knows that more centrist lefties don't want that. So to them, the vanguard says Oh look at the huddled masses...diversity is our strength...where is your compassion??...how can we who are so fortunate to have been born in the greatest (though most racist, misogynist, x-phobic-for-every-value-of-x, and just generally evil) nation on Earth refuse to share our fortune with those who are less fortunate by mere chance? We have no RIGHT to American citizenship.... 

   This is part of what accounts for the weird dual aspect of progressivism--the weeping, puling pathos on the one hand, and the vicious, violent, destructive rage on the other. In the end the left basically thinks: destroy free speech, bring down America, "dismantle" "whiteness" and the West, "decolonize," smash capitalism...  Whether all this gets down via violent rage or smarmy sentimentality matters not. An incoherent mixture is just fine too...

How Scotland Became an Orwellian Nightmare

This is the realm of madness into which the left is herding us.

All basically so that men pretending to be women can use the law to coerce others into acceding to their delusions.

Sweet Sixteen Collapse: Carolina 87 - Alabama 89

No disrespect to 'Bama--I always (or, rather, usually...) like playing them.

But a lot had to go wrong for Carolina to lose that game.

And unfortunately, it all did.

They've been a streaky team, so it's not entirely unexpected. And, again: Alabama is good. But the way we lost was surprising. Namely: R. J. Davis, ACC POY, national POY candidate: 4 of 20, 0 of 9 from 3. Given that bit of extremely bad luck, I suppose it's surprising it was as close as it was. 'Bama's length bothered our guards, but that didn't really seem to be R. J.'s main problem--he was even missing wide-open shots that are usually routine for him. Just an off night...for our most important player...  All the missed chippies also played a role, including Bacot's late-game, wide-open missed dunk... Then there was J-Wit's really, really, really, really ill-advised 3 late in the game when we had a 1-point lead...and his follow-up bad defense and weak foul. Anyway. It took a lot of bad luck / suboptimal play to lose from where we were with a minute left. But, y'know, shit happens. Really too bad about R. J. missing the front end of a 1-and-1 at the end of the first half... And as for CHD sitting both Cadeau and Trimble almost the entire second half and playing Pax and J-Witt instead...I didn't get it. But, as Lo Pan would say, I was not brought upon this world to 'get it'...not in this context, anyway.

So here's CHD's bizarre post-season record thus far: stomp Kansas in the first half of the final game ('22), collapse in the second. Miss tournament entirely ('23). Win the first half against Alabama, more-or-less collapse in the second (Sweet Sixteen, '24)...don't even crack the final 8...

A disappointing ending for a really good team--one of my all-time favorite Tar Heel teams, actually. They really deserved a better final game than this. But it doesn't change the fact that they're obviously a great bunch of guys, lots of fun to watch play, and they gave us an exciting season. Props to them.

Youngkin Vetos Bill Legalizing Sale of Recreational Weed

Well, I disagree.

But I understand his position.

Does KBJ Understand the First Amendment?

Worrisome.

Doug Schoen on James Carville on "Preachy Women Ruining Biden's Chances"

Schoen's a Democrat, and it's pretty funny that he can't even state the thesis, opting instead for coyness.

   Here's a hint: no, the "preachy" women in question are not AOC and "Dr." Jill...

   Woketarianism is a notably female/feminine movement. And the word Carville was probably searching for probably wasn't 'preachy'... Maybe 'shrill.' Or 'hysterical.' Or 'psychotic'...

   But it's not one or two high-profile women. It's a mass of unhinged women who have dragged the Dems/left over the edge of sanity. And men, of course. But the soul of the movement is a kind of hysterical irrationalism bolstered by mean-girls-esque social punishment of apostates, heretics and other enemies of the cult. 

   But on the progressive left, speaking politically incorrect truths is verboten--even, apparently, at the cost of losing to the Bad Orange Man..

   

David Brooks: "What Would You Have Israel Do To Defend Itself?"

I'm inclined to agree with the vast majority of this.

Amanda Marcotte: "Trump's Call for a 'Bloodbath' was Literal--Let's Not Waste Time Pretending it was Ambiguous"

I ask yet again: if Trump is so bad, why do progressives invariably lie about what he says?

   One thing Marcotte accidentally gets right: indeed, what he said was in no way ambiguous. He was predicting an economic "bloodbath" for automobile  manufacturers if he's not elected...because (according to him) we need tariffs to protect the industry.

   There is absolutely no doubt about what he said.

   Note that Marcotte is still flogging the "Very fine people" hoax, among others... Another case in which Trump said something perfectly clear, but the left-wing noise machine just cranked up and repeated the same lie about it over and over until it's now an article of faith on the blue team...

   It's hard to make Trump look good...but the MSM propaganda industry manages to do it.

TRUMP THREATENS NUCLEAR WAR

Quoth the Orange man: "This guacamole is the bomb." 

Carolina 1 Seed in the West

GDTBATH

Bloodbath Bloodbath!

CAN YOU BELIEVE TRUMP USED THAT WORD???

SUPERCUT!

Trump critics would never use a term like “bloodbath” pic.twitter.com/6dSTMwsfJa

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 17, 2024

ACC Tournament Final: State 84 - Carolina 76

Congrats to State.

Turley: From GA to NY: Selective Prosecution and Unequal Treatment of Left-Wing and Right-Wing Defendants

There's no denying it anymore.

Turley doesn't even mention the E. Jean Carroll farce.

ACCT Semi-Finals: Good News / Bad News

d00k lost / State won.

Such is life.

ACC Tournament Final is Set: UNC vs. NCSU

Like old times...

Report: Trump DID Propose 10,000 National Guard Troops on 1/6/21

As Turley relentlessly argues here this offer basically refutes the claim that Trump intended for the protest to constitute an "insurrection."

New Transanity Drops: J.K. Rowling Suggested Nazis Did Not Burn "Trans" Books; THIS IS HOLOCAUST DENIAL, BIGOT

It's almost beyond belief how nutty these people are.

Did the Nazis burn books about transgenderism and/or about transgenders?

I don't know.

And frankly don't care.

The Nazis burned a lot of books. The Nazis burning a book on x doesn't make x good, and doesn't make people who are x good, and it doesn't make them "victims of the Holocaust," and it doesn't make you a "Holocaust denier" if you don't know or don't care about whether such books were burned. 

Honestly, just about the time the progressive left seems to have reached its nadir of sanity, it manages to go ahead and outdo itself.

And I'll add: this is not exactly the best time for lefties to try elbowing Jews aside in order to pretend to some sweet, sweet Holocaust victim cred...

Bottom line: J. K. Rowling is right about this. The lefties are wrong...and crazy.

[Addendum: apparently as soon as this dispute cropped up, lefties went in and altered the relevant sections of Wikipedia to create the illusion that it bolsters their case. So apparently the argument gets started, then low-rent lefty outlets like The Mary Jane post stories about it, then the lefties who run Wikipedia immediately link to those stories as sources. Apparently e.g. Rowling's page is one of the ones that's been Pravdafied...]

Judis/Teixeira: Democrats and the Rise of Racial Radicalism

Agreed.

ACC Tournament: Carolina 92 - FL State 67

boom

Matt Taibbi: The New Yorker, "Andrea" Long Chu, and "The Dumbest Cover Story Ever": "Freedom of Sex"

I haven't read this New Yorker story...but, then, I don't have to. I know all the arguments and they are, indeed, stupid.

   One thing you have to realize about the left: it's an incoherent mish-mash of negative, intentionally destructive arguments. Its goal is not to say something coherent about the status quo--it's not even clear how much of the left even believes in coherence, nor how much that does believes it to be a desideratum. The contemporary left is an incoherent mass of individually incoherent quasi-literary, quasi-philosophical theories that aims to destabilize the status quo. Queer theory is one component of the left that openly admits this. At its heart, queer theory is not about non-heterosexuality--it's about undermining the intellectual foundations of society--Western civilization in particular. Capitalism, of course, is always Public Enemy Number One for them. Followed closely by the nuclear family. As Larry Correia has said, approximately: it's about destroying everything that works and replacing it with an imaginary utopia made of unicorn farts.

   If there were really such a thing as sex changes, or if the pseudo-sex-changes we can currently perform were reversible, fewer people would object to them. If people could take a pill and genuinely transform into the opposite sex--and especially if this were similarly reversible--there wouldn't be much to object to. We might even permit this for kids. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is that children are being brainwashed with incoherent, leftist, postpostmodern bullshit--brainwashed into undertaking life-destroying and semi-destroying medical procedures that that they simply are not in a position to really understand. "Gender" has become an incoherent pseudo-concept to obscure what's really going on here. (And don't get me started on the phrase "gender-affirming care"...) And "sex changes" are not sex changes at all, but sexual mutilation. And the left is insisting that children be allowed to make these decisions.

   Another problem with the left is that, in order to support their first-order policy preferences, they commonly have to presuppose a boatload of insane, pseudo-philosophical meta-positions--e.g. reality is socially constructed, truth is relative or subjective, language cannot refer to non-linguistic objects, natural kinds are not real, women, indigenous people and other allegedly oppressed groups have special "knowledges" or "ways of knowing" that evilstraightwhitemales cannot fathom, capitalism is the source of Western science and metaphysics, etc. etc. etc. To defend their first-order positions, they have to dump a whole truckload of unsupportable, generally unintelligible philosophical views onto the debate. This means, in reality, they cannot support their positions--their arguments require that they first be able to win intractable debates by defending incoherent positions. Chu can defend his conclusions only if you basically grant him premises like Capitalism created the sexes. As soon as you realize that, you should decare the debate over. It's obviously false--in fact, insane--and such arguments have no place in policy discussions. It's as if you refused to acknowledge the property line between your land and your neighbors' on the grounds that Marx questions the legitimacy of private property. Even aside from the obvious point that the burden of proof is on you (and you can't carry it), this is an egregious violation of the presuppositions of ordinary reasoned discussion. You might as well take my lawn mower and then argue that it's not really mine because we're in the Matrix and none of the physical objects we see are real...

   The left would never let the right get away with such a thing--and rightly so. If the right made another push to get creationism or intelligent design theory taught in schools, and if their alleged justifications required the acceptance of a bunch of heavy-duty metaphysics about God and the creation and original sin or whatever...or if they explicitly made appeals to faith or direct religious experience in their arguments...progressives would laugh them off the stage. As well they should. But that's exactly the sort of thing the left is doing on basically every front in the culture war.

"Why Would a Rape Survivor Endorse Donald Trump?"

link

Well, Mace was lying when she said Stephanopoulos was trying to "shame" her. She was, indeed, as the author claims, "playing the rape card."

Stephanopoulos was being a jackass propagandist...and would never have treated a progressive rape victim in that way. He's a partisan hack making the case for his side. 

And Mace is pushing the case for her side. Probably to some extent she's telling the truth about honoring the views of her constituents. Maybe she's doing that out of principle, maybe to stay in office. Probably to some extent she also knows that no one can stand up to the Trump steamroller. 

The "card-playing" strategy is one the right has basically learned from the left. Almost the only "argument" the left has is the playing of such cards--on behalf of self or others. That's racist/your racist; that's misogynist/you're a misogynist; that's x-phobic/you're x-phobic...blah blah blah. I hate to see the red team pick this sophistry up...OTOH, it sure seems to work for the blue team...

My own view, though, is that such strategies facilitate only Pyrrhic victories. We may win individual battles, but perhaps at the cost of helping to entrench such sophistries in the unwritten rules of our public discussions.

Also, of course: E. Jean Carroll is probably lying.

And it's all part of the illicit, anti-democratic blue-team lawfare strategy--a strategy far more harmful to the nation than the January 6th Capitol clown show.

And, of course, both sides are similarly hypocritical. The red team accepted the Clinton rape accusations, the blue team defended him. The blue team readily accepted such accusations against Trump, the reds defend him.

Then of course there's the minor technicality that Trump was not found guilty of rape...and that the whole case was yet another progressive lawfare circus... 

Everybody Crazy: George Stephanopoulos vs. Nancy Mace re: Trump / Carroll

Imagine that someone on Fox treated a woman who was a Democrat like this:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/10/opinions/katie-britt-border-biden-speech-sotu-obeidallah/index.html

Now, I don't see that he is trying to "shame" Mace. But I don't think he'd have asked a question like this of a Democrat known to have been a rape victim. And I can't believe he'd relentlessly press the issue in the way he does. He's just obnoxious as hell. He needs a good slap upside the head. [To be clear: I think Mace's (apparently false) accusation that GS is intending to "shame" her is reprehensible. She could have said something more like: It's not permissible to ask me that question.]

   But aside from all that: he's lying about the judgment. As York notes, Trump was not found liable for rape. It's a lie. 

   And that's not even to mention the fact that the whole thing is a farce--just more Democrat lawfare. Politics by other means.

   And, of course, Carroll herself is almost certainly lying.

   The whole interconnected structure of the vast, society-encompassing progressive platform is built of lies. 

   So much so that the sad, rickety red-team alternative looks downright respectable...or, well, almost so...by comparison.

Nutty Crap About Illegal Immigration, Left and Right

Everybody here is nuts.

Britt told a relevant but misleading story. 

Everybody seems to know that many women (and even children) are raped by gangs and coyotes during the trek to the U.S. border...though the left no longer seems to care about that, as illegals > women in the oppression Olympics (Again: women basically always get jostled to the bottom of the totem pole of victims.) 

Contrary to what CNN claims, Trump was right: illegal aliens bring crime, including rape, into the country. They bring drugs, including deadly fentanyl. See, they are unvetted. This is what happens when huge numbers of unvetted foreigners pour across your border...

Trump, of course, had to ratchet up the rhetoric, and ended up producing that "poisoning the blood" of the nation line. Nice. Yeah, don't say it that way. The general idea is right. The more specific metaphor--not good.

CNN, of course, does what the left always does and simply drops the illegal...whoops...I mean "undocumented"...part, and, with absolutely shameless dishonesty, pretends that the discussion is about immigrants generally. It's just unbelievable how often the left/MSM does this (hint: just about every time)...and how often it seems to work.

Oh, and, needless to say: shrieks RAAAACISM!!!!1111

Now hear this: no one is against legal immigration... And none of this has anything to do with racism.

The left merely shrieks the shriek automatically, about everything, and everyone, always.

(Though actually there are important arguments that we need to adjust it and throttle back on it a bit--a million a year is...a lot... But I don't have a view about this. I just think we have to be able to discuss it without one side shrieking RACISM!!111... Or, just keep discussing it even while they're shrieking it..)

Anyway.

Biden Apologizes for Not Using Correct Newspeak Term for Illegal Aliens

First, 'illegal alien' is the actual term. It's a legal term (or was, until leftists purged it). There's nothing insulting about it. 'Resident alien' is also a perfectly fine term. The left often deploys the following sophistry: No human is illegal! They falsely assert that the term means that illegal aliens are somehow inherently illegal qua persons. Which makes no sense whatsoever. 'Illegal alien' is like 'illegal contractor' or 'illegal truckdriver.' Illegal aliens are foreigners in the country illegally. Illegal contractors are people contracting illegally. Etc. This is not complicated. There is, indeed, no such thing as a person being illegal qua person. Which, if nothing else were, should be your clue that that's not what such terms mean. In each case, a person is doing something in an illegal manner.

   Such bullshit isn't innocent. The progressive left has proven to be astonishingly adept at manipulating language. Its aim in cases like this is to repeatedly replace terms with negative connotations with cushier, happier-sounding terms in order to make something actually bad seem less so. 'Illegal alien' is accurate. And being in the country illegally is bad. So 'illegal alien' takes on the appropriate negative connotation. So the left then stomps its little feet and shrieks that the term is NOT POLITICALLY CORRECT. We were then told to say 'illegal immigrants.' But that's still got 'illegal' in it. So then 'undocumented immigrants.' Still not happy/dishonest enough. Next the term became just 'migrants.' See? No even mention of illegality! And heck, you can't even tell they're coming in! They may be going out. You don't know. They may just be wandering around... Recently, of course, they floated 'newcomer'... You really almost can't make this shit up.

   Other times they just insist that we follow their whimsical linguistic preferences--e.g. "people of color." Sure, it's basically 'colored people'...which sounds archaic to just about everybody...but it's different! See...it's rearranged! One is basically a racial slur, bigot! The other is the right one! The left's impressionistic linguistic preferences are to be our commands...

   Enforcing its preferences even when they don't matter, however, also serves the purpose of conditioning people to do as their told, linguistically...

   Of course, the really important thing is that we not refer to the murderers of American girls in politically incorrect terms...:

Biden on calling Laken Riley’s murderer an illegal: “I shouldn't have used 'illegal.' It's undocumented. I’m not going to treat any of these people with disrespect. Look, they built the country. The reason our economy’s growing.” pic.twitter.com/M6RVENKVWk

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) March 10, 2024

    

   And as for "they built this country"...wut?
   The left has just lost its mind. It can never come to rest on a reasonable position--e.g. the standard American view that legal immigrants are welcome, but illegal ones are not. The internal, radicalizing logic of the left pushes it ever leftward. If not defeated politically by saner movements, this internal, radicalizing logic ultimately leads to the elimination of borders, of distinctions between citizens and non-citizens, and of nations themselves. It's not like this should come as a surprise--the vanguard of the left has made it clear for a hundred years that it wants to elminate nations. The vanguard, however, translates its destructive revolutionary ends into the ooey-gooey language of empathy and inclusion attractive to the trailing edge of the movement.
   A nation that imports millions of third-world immigrants becomes that much more like the third world. Slowing accepting reasonable numbers of legal immigrants who assimilate and move toward citizenship is one thing. What the Democrats have inflicted on us is something else entirely.

[Here's a near-future leftist cause: "Non-Citizen Suffrage"]

Carolina 84 - Duke 79

Got 'em.

T(hree). Rex?

 Tyrannosaurus Rex May Have Actually Been Three Separate Dinosaurs - IGN

SOTU / Response

Bleh.

I couldn't bear it. TBH, I just watched highlights. Same old shit.

The GOP response was ridiculous. Britt is a Senator?? Her tone was so breathless that I found it difficult to even focus on what she was saying.

Par for the course for the Republicans.

All they'd have to do to win big and remain in the driver's seat for the next couple of election cycles would be: don't be ridiculous. But they can't manage it. That's too tall an order for the GOP.

Biden Influence-Peddling / Hunter's Testimony

I used to be skeptical. Now I'm convinced Biden's a crook. The only defense they really have at this point basically depends on their having spread the pieces of the puzzle around sufficiently to make their guilt less-that-perfectly obvious.

   Many Dems continue to insist that THERE IS NO EVIDENCE...which is, of course, utterly delusional. But, as always, the MSM helps them out by concealing and creating, spinning, nipping and tucking the evidence to create a tale that is as pro-Biden as can be got away with. 

   I'm not optimistic anything will happen. The Pubs almost seem disinterested. But we know they have to be interested. So there's got to be another explanation. Maybe they know they can't make the case stick. Or they think an impeachment will rally the blue team when it's down. Or they don't want to give the Dems a reason to ditch the eminently beatable Biden. Dunno.

   Me, I'm inclined to think that our situation is so desperate that we have to just ignore backward-looking considerations of justice. (Actual justice--not "justice" in the contemporary sense of: a contraction of "social justice"...which is usually not justice at all...) Say Biden was a big, fat influence-peddler...but he's not doing it now. Well, we may just have to ignore it--at least for five more years. Trump's a harder case, but the same thing goes: if the Dems pose enough of a danger, we may have to ignore his post-election freakout. It's not going to happen again--so long as he wins in November. If he loses...who knows? One can argue that it's the fact that he's capable of such things that matters. And I'd agree to a large extent. But I'd add: the question now is: who will help the nation more and harm it less 2025-2029, Trump or Biden? The answer in 2020 was pretty obvious (as I argued repeatedly): Biden would be worse than Trump. That has been confirmed: Trump was better on policy and appointments--i.e. better in the ways that really matter. Especially re: the Supremes. Will a Trump hellbent on revenge be better than an even-more-in-decline Biden for another year or so, then Harris? Harder call, IMO. One thing to remember is that Trump is all/mostly talk. So he's not going to actually work for most of either the good things or the bad things he talks about. Perhaps more importantly: the whole power of the elite complex will, again, be against him. Basically, he'll be thwarted at every turn...whereas Joe will function primarily as a cog at the center of the big blue machine, insuring its smooth functioning. 

   I dunno, man.

   I dunno.

Trump Lawfare Update / Progressive-Left Totalitarianism

Byron York summarizes the lawfare campaign against Trump.

The use of lawfare/the courts against its political enemies is an aspect of the progressive left's totalitarianism. The ideology that's seized the left holds, in effect, that its ends are so important and so obviously right that it is justified in advancing them by any means necessary. Liberals, when we had them, recognized that the courts should not be used for partisan ends, that free speech protections should be content neutral, that the aim of schools was to educate children and of universities to research and transmit knowledge--not to advance ideology. All of these were to be kept, to the extent possible, isolated from politics. 

   That's all over now.

   The antiliberal progressive left sees everything as a legitimate weapon in its war against the infidel. The media can legitimately be turned into a propaganda machine. Similarly schools and universities. The goal of the bureaucracy is advancing The Cause. Lawfare is just politics by other means. Everything is...

   None of this should be much of a surprise--and not merely because we're used to it by now. 

   Rather: the left has told us who it is. Its intellectuals have been proclaiming that everything is political for decades now. (Most notably: the personal is political.) They've clearly said that they don't believe in objectivity--how can it be a surprise that they make so little effort to be objective? The leftmost sectors of the left simply do not recognize any such obligations independent of that to advance their ideology. Even the lives of children are not sacrosanct. Children are merely means to the great end...

   You can, of course, point out that the centerward sectors of the left don't really believe such things--and that would be true. But it's the leftmost sectors that set the left's agenda--and they do believe such things. And the centermost sectors just follow along docilely. No enemies to the left. The right is always worse. No matter what the left does, the right is always worse. That's an axiom, not an observation.

All of the Following Can Be True Simultaneously

The Democratic party has lost its mind and is pushing quasi-insane, extremely destructive policies and ideas.

Donald Trump, mainly on account of his demeanor, doesn't belong anywhere near the Oval Office.

Donald Trump was a generally good President who implemented more good policies than bad, made some good and crucial appointments, and generally left the country better off than when he took office, insofar as that was possible under the circumstances (e.g.: COVID).

Joe Biden has been a generally bad President who has implemented more bad policies than good, made several bad and crucial appointments and generally left the country worse off than when he took office.

Donald Trump's actions after his electoral loss in 2020 would disqualify him from the Presidency even if his personality and intellectual dispositions didn't.

Joe Biden's age is a very serious concern.

Donald Trump is a bullshitter and, when it suits him, a liar. 

Joe Biden is a bullshitter and a liar.

Donald Trump is willing to speak important and unpopular truths that few other prominent people are willing to utter.

Joe Biden engaged in influence peddling on behalf of himself and his family, often with our enemies.

Donald Trump represents a major challenge to a complex of elite/progressive institutions and interests that are harming--one might even, perhaps, say: in the process of destroying--the United States.

Joe Biden is very nearly a passive instrument of that complex of elite/progressive institutions and interests.

Four more years of Biden (which isn't going to happen) would leave the country worse off.

Four more years of Trump would likely leave the country better off...supposing he doesn't do anything crazy...which cannot be guaranteed...

This is going to be a gut-wrenching eight months.

Carolina 84 - Irish 51

It kinda wasn't really that close...

Could have easily been a 40-point game

UN Report: Hamas Committed Rape on 10/7

Prominent people on the left continue to deny the obvious.

Sex Pseudoscience and the WPATH Files

It may have actually been somewhat worse than we thought itwas.

Kavanaugh Hoaxer Ruth Marcus Won't Stop Harassing One of Justice Thomas's Female Clerks

Given that one of the characters in this little drama is apparently known for Photoshopping fake texts...not to mention that the alleged text itself has apparently never turned up...it's pretty clear that Marcus is off her rocker about it. 

It's also pretty funny that, as Hemmingway argues, Marcus's own daughter is vulnerable to the very same kind of argument Marcus deploys against Clanton.

Alien Nation: New Progressive Newspeak Just Dropped: Biden Admin Deems Illegal Aliens "Newcomers"

I wondered what could possibly be worse than "migrants." Not even immigrants anymore...got to even obscure the fact that they're pouring into the country. I mean, hey, migrants...they could be coming in...could be going out..who knows? They're just kinda wandering around I guess... 

   But "newcomers"...not merely a near-parody of newspeak...but right out of a B+-grade sci-fi movie of the '80s...

   My God these people are just unbelievable.

"The White Rage That Could Put Trump Back in the White House"

Science!

 I'm not saying that Trump doesn't suck (at least in many ways), nor that a fair percentage of his supporters don't (at least in many ways). They do, and they do.

   But what it really comes to is that this is kind of hard to take from the postpostmodern irrationalists and progressive elites who have basically got us into this mess by being such dickheads.

   Sometimes I think: the (as we would say back home, pardon my French) backwards-ass country f*cks who constitute a large percentage of the crazies on the right...well...they're just an inevitable part of politics and human life. Cost of doing business. Like the flu, blisters, copperheads, and whatnot. The crazies on the left are not. They didn't have to be there. The crazy wing of the left is almost entirely manufactured by the left itself--largely the intellectual/academic left. There's really no excuse for the deification and continued influence of Marx, Gramsci, and, to be honest, Lenin. The crazy left is like a UFO cult--it took a lot of creativity to come up with that shit. The other guys I see as one of the default conditions of humanity. Not so for the left.

   Also, though this is almost too obvious to say: the right is no more conspiracist than the left--it's rather that crazy beliefs of the left are not deemed to be conspiracy theories by...the left! Or, more precisely, the left-controlled institutions that have arrogated to themselves the authority to make such decrees. Russiagate: conspiracy theory. Russia stole the 2016 election: conspiracy theory. Hunter's laptop as Russian disinformation: conspiracy theory. America = "systemic racism:" conspiracy theory. "The patriarchy:" conspiracy theory. These conspiracy theories consume(d) the left and were/are taken seriously as a result. QAnon has never been anything but an object of ridicule...despite the fact that, as I initially denied, there turns out to be an uncomfortable hint of truth in it... And I haven't mentioned any of the older left-adjacent conspiracy theories about AIDS, crack, vaccines, GMOs, Bush's alleged pre-knowledge of 9/11, Republican theft of the 2000 election, Republican theft of the 2004 election (which yours truly bought into for quite awhile), the "vast right-wing conspiracy" against Bill Clinton, vast Jewish-Zionist conspiracies, the World Bank, "disaster capitalists"....and undoubtedly some I'm forgetting. [Like: October Surprise theory in the 1980 election.]

   Again, none of this is to deny that rural Americans, Trump supporters, and conservatives don't have their own problems. Rather, it's just me bitching again about how blind the left is to its own bullshit and lunacy. And to complain at the outright disdain our "elites" have for ordinary Americans.

The Best Thing I've Ever Read on Political Correctness: Angelo Codevilla, "The Rise of Political Correctness"

You should read it.

The Fate of the Free World Hinges on You Putting "Your" Pronouns in Your Email

And in pretending that this dude pretending to be a woman is a woman and not a dude.

Heels 79 - Pack 70

Props to State--they were tough.

Israel on Deadly Gaza Aid Stampede: "No Strike Was Conducted Toward the Aid Convoy"

"Once again a Palestinian lie travels halfway around the world before the truth..." gets its boots on

Radley Balko Defends the George Floyd Orthodoxy/Verdict: "The Retconning of George Floyd"

This guy seems to be a lefty loon, but he's got some interesting arguments defending the orthodoxy on Floyd. I haven't read the whole thing--largely because the author is obviously so biased and far to the left that he can't be trusted to produce the straight dope. I'm not interested enough in the issue to go through it all with a fine-tooth comb, so I'll wait to see what e.g. Coleman Hughes has to say about it. Also, there's already dishonest bullshit a few paragraphs into the thing...and that's enough for me to put this thing on the back burner unless someone I trust says otherwise. For example, a few paragraphs in, the author claims:

It is not true — not by a long shot — that MRT is what Derek Chauvin used on George Floyd.

Then he goes on to argue--to put it accurately instead of the way the author does--that Chauvin did use the MRT, but didn't use it exactly as the manual specifies. This doesn't seem to be a line-drawing quibble over the difference between using it incorrect and not using it, either. Rather, the author is apparently claiming that, because the officers didn't also employ a hobble, as specified by the manual, Chauvin wasn't using the MRT. 

   I'd also guess--just a guess, to be clear--that the training manual is largely for CYA purposes--for the MPD, not for individual officers. I'd guess--guess--that the officers involved in the Floyd incident followed the complicated procedures about as well as such procedures are ever followed.

   Furthermore, the author obscures--in what I read, anyway--the fact that representatives of the MPD and the prosecutors lied in court about whether the MRT was an MPD-approved technique.

   The author also writes that Floyd was "passively resisting" the officers during the arrest--a patent lie. Watch the full video--there's no way to rationally argue that Floyd was merely "passively resisting." The author's argument seems to be that, since he didn't punch or kick anyone, that's passive! (Actually, I think he did kick the cops at some point, anyway.) 

   But, anyway, mixed in with his bitchy rhetoric there do seem to be arguments worth taking seriously.