The New York Times Discovers Free Speech

This is hilarious.

I was actually cracking up halfway through it.

   Now, don't be like me. Don't be distracted by the ad hominem. NYT sucks. Its editorial page is a rolling, flaming train wreck. And the train is made of horseshit.

   The editors of the NYT should be stricken mute for mentioning the name of Orwell.

   NYT might as well be Pravda.

   Here's a clue, leftards: purging gender pseudoscience from government sites is not a violation of free speech. In fact, it's undoing the batshit crazy nonsense the left has imposed on the government and the culture for a decade. It's as if your side had all suddenly become Scientologists, and infused tends of thousands of websites with drivel about Xenu and Dianetics and becoming "clear." Trump is undoing your abject madness.

   For a decade you totalitarian moonbats have suppressed speech and inquiry in the USA.

   And now Trump is undoing your moonbattery.

   Taking your Newspeak out of government websites is not only not a violation of the First Amendment, it's a rational imperative. Newspeak and the control of language is on the totalitarian left's main weapons.

   Undo it.

   Crush it.

   Commit it all to the dustbin of history.

   And as for the "Gulf of America" nonsense...well, here's my longstanding view of that: the left actual controls thought and speech by infusing its bizarrely effective pseudo-scholarly clown-talk into everything. The right gives us tongue-in-cheek dumbassery like "freedom fries."

   And "the Gulf of America."

   

   Now.

   Though NYT deserves our contempt, even a stopped clock, etc. A lot of what they write is lies or otherwise misleading. (See e.g. the Nazi ads BS on Twitter). Removing 'T' and 'Q' from the notoriously ever-expanding abbreviation is perfectly reasonable--there's no such thing as being transgender, and 'queer' is arguably a philosophical/political category. Pulling books from library shelves? Pray, what kind of books? You know what kind...

   Deporting legal immigrants for engaging in protected speech is nonsense, and the courts will slap it down hard--as they should.

   But, despicable though the big leftist lie machine is, free speech is too important to be made partisan. Sure, they're a gaggle of big, fat, lying hypocrites...but that doesn't mean they're never right about anything.

   Do not make the mistake of thinking that they care a single bit about freedom of speech.

   But we care.

   And we've got to hold Trump and company just as accountable as we have to hold the barking moonbats of the left.

Susan B. Glasser: "Why Aren't We in the Streets?"

It's hard not to be enthusiastic about what Trump is doing when it brings out this kind of feckless puling in his detestable, effete opponents.

Trump may not be right about everything--in fact, he certainly isn't. But he's right about a lot. And he's at least largely right about government waste. He's right that the uniparty--though particularly the Democrats--have turned the government--our government--into a vast patronage system, dispensing our money to unworthy people promoting unworthy causes...and running us into a financial ditch in the process.

I have grave concerns about the Trump/Elon/DoGE approach. Many of which come down to: I don't understand it.

But it's hard to hear my own inner worrywart over the screeching and whimpering of the detestable lot on the other side.

If Susan Glasser and the New Yorker are against it, that's just about enough for me to be for it.

No, I do not think this is a justifiable attitude.

I'm just being honest.

The Canadian Residential School / Mass Graves Hoax: And Now, A Meta-Hoax

The mass graves hoax never existed!

Jesus Christ, these people.

Data Republican ("Small 'r' ") on USAID / NGO / Uniparty corruption

I sort of suspect that the person in the video isn't Data Republican herself/himself...but that's just a hunch.

Jeffrey A. Tucker: America's Future Depends on DOGE

I'm inclined to agree.

But I'm far from certain.

This seems pretty right to me:

As we’re seeing now, substantial opposition awaits anyone who challenges the bureaucracy. Unions are powerful. Intimidation from those with institutional knowledge can be overwhelming. Fear of the media has also been a deterrent to action. Every president has been at least somewhat fearful of the intelligence agencies. Industry leaders who have captured the agencies, including many campaign donors, have been too powerful to unseat or control.
Countless cabinet secretaries come and go with the intention of changing the system. They get big offices, a nice portrait and social status, but the bureaucrats know that the political appointees are temporary and easily can be ignored. Frustrated by institutional inertia, the appointees often leave outwitted, outgunned and demoralized.
Meanwhile, the American people feel increasingly oppressed, taxed, regulated, spied on, browbeaten, hectored and harassed. Voting never made a difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies rule all. We’ve come to know this in our gut, which is why voters’ trust in the system has eroded as agencies’ power has built up.
The Biden years underscored this point. We didn’t even need a conscious or active president, only a figurehead. Behind the scenes, institutions ran everything.
How can the U.S. deal with this problem? President Trump alone figured it out in his last term: He simply took charge of agencies in a limited way with selective firings, which he believed he had the legal authority to do. This unleashed howls of horror and whispers of plots from his critics, including in the media. Entrenched administrators hatched clever schemes to thwart his plans and show him who was boss—not the democratically elected president but the bureaucracy.
The message from today’s civic elites is that the president’s job is to pretend to be in charge while doing nothing meaningful. Shut up. Don’t disturb the administrative state. Let it keep doing its thing without oversight or disruption, and you’ll get your library and bestselling memoir.
Mr. Trump refuses this deal. In his second term, he’s determined to slay the bureaucratic beast he knows all too well from his first term and the Biden years. DOGE’s efforts are epic, breaking more than a century of acquiescence to the deep state. The Trump team is courageously confronting the problem head-on, come what may. Mr. Trump’s allies know that they must act quickly and with some degree of ferocity, even recklessness, lest we default back to the status quo of leaders who pretend to be in charge while the embedded “men of the system”—to adapt a phrase from Adam Smith—run things behind closed doors.

Trump Ending Benefits to Illegal Aliens is a Game-Changer

This should not be controversial.

Heels 96 - 'Noles 85

4th win in a row...

First four out or bust!

I can't believe Leonard Hamilton is retiring.

America: TRUMP KICKS ASS

Permit me this bit of irrational exuberance.

Trump's policies are extremely popular--e.g. much more popular than Biden's.

There is absolutely no surprise there whatsoever.

Now, I don't put all that must stock in such polls. For one thing, I'm sure most respondents don't know much about the policies their commenting on. I sure don't really understand some of them.

But, anyway--and this is an obvious point many people have made: the left went so far left that it left a wide avenue of sanity open straight down the middle of the American political spectrum.

Trump--Donald Trump--was the guy who turned down that road and returned the USA to sanity.

Donald Trump may well save the nation.

Donald.

Freakin'

Trump.

This is the weirdest timeline.

Charles W. Cooke: In the Time of Peak Trump

I think I'm inclined to agree with pretty much all of this.

Trump won, IMO, because (as Cooke and others note) the Dems have ceded the middle. In fact, the American left has lost its collective mind. Trump, by comparison, was the normal option, the guy out there defending common sense--despite his Trumpiness. Basically, we had no real choice. But Trump's standard deviation is high. He has the capacity to do (and, obviously, to say) crazy things.

Anyway, to repeat myself repeating myself: I fear Trump because I don't know what he'll do. But I fear the (contemporary) Democrats because I do know what they'll do.

The safest prediction seems to be: the Pubs will err by hubris. They'll go too far in various ways...and Trump will say and do some stupid shit. The Dems will probably regress to the mean. Eventually the difference between the two parties will be less. I expect the Dems to be competitive again sooner than you might think. Of course the Pubs will also have a more normal candidate by '28. Vance, probably. But if the Dems moderate a bit, and run a competent candidate (e.g. Shapiro) who can plausibly be represented as a centrist, they could win. Hell, they came closer this time than they should have. And Trump fatigue will have set in by then...and that'll count against Vance.

Eh, what do I know?

I have no special understanding of any of this.

"Trump's Endgame"?

Possible.

Samuel Lair: How "Postcolonial" Education Endangers Our Way of Life

The left has a whole array of nonsense views: Marxism, Freudianism, Critical Theory (including CRT), queer theory, poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, radical feminism, gender ideology...but one thing they all have in common: they all have a radical leftist, anti-Western orientation. It's a kind of rotating magazine of anti-Western ammunition. Revolution and the destruction of the West is always right there at the center of this skeptical, relativistic, irrationalist, anti-liberal mess.

   Philosophers generally just think about addressing particular views on philosophical terms.

   But more and more I think it does matter what the ulterior motive behind it all is.

   Each view is really a mere cover story for the real, ultimate goal, the one that remains through all the philosophical change--the destruction ("dismantling") of Western Civilization.

"The Gulf of America" and the AP's Recent History of Linguistic Atrocities

Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico is stupid.

The AP is right about that one, and no doubt.

But that name-change is nothing compared to the woke PC madness the AP has engaged in over the past few years.
Just for the record.

"Pregnant people" is a funny one. Decades ago I remember thinking that "pregnant women" was a bit odd because redundant. Every pregnant person has, of course, been a woman. If the point of 'pregnant people' were, indeed, to eliminate that redundancy, that would at least be one thing. But it isn't. As AP itself says, it's (mostly) because some women pretend to be men--even when pregnant. Of course the actual number of pregnant men (all time) is 0.00. But this isn't about facts and logic, it's about Lysenkoism.

Also again: 'Denali' is a much cooler name than 'Mt. McKinley'...

"Zizian" Trans Murder Cult

WSJ thinks it's more important to identify them as "militant vegans"...

For the real story on these guys, you really need to go to Andy Ngo, though I don't have any links handy.

Scott Bessent: Economic Partnership Will Protect Ukrainian People and U.S. Taxpayer

Ok, I mentioned this previously and it IS grounds for optimism, seems to me. So I was wrong to say that I don't like anything I'm hearing about the negotiations. This seems like one of those weird, "disruptive" Trumpian solutions that just might work. But I'm basically kibbitzing in the dark, so...

WSJ: How a U.S. President Pivoted Toward Russia

I don't understand such negotiations at all, but I dislike just about everything I'm hearing about Trump's Ukraine negotiations. The WSJ newsroom is just about as anti-Trump as any other, so there's a lot of contentious spin in this story. For example, its account of Trump's 9/19 phone call with Zelenskyy. The story gives a thoroughly blue account of the incident, with no mention of, e.g., the fact that Trump was probably right about Biden family money shenanigans in Ukraine, and that his inquiry was legit. He was impeached for asking legitimate questions. Biden wasn't touched for his family's underhanded business dealings...but Trump was impeached for asking about them.

   And there is, of course, no mention of the Democrats' Russiagate hoax in radicalizing Trump on this score...

   But a President shouldn't allow himself to be driven by such resentments about this sort of thing, appalling that it is. And, however despicable the left's treatment of him, his approach to the Russia-Ukraine problem seems way, way wrong. To me, anyway.

   It's certainly true that the American right has basically allowed itself to be similarly thrown off track, and has embraced Russia basically just because the left has become so obsessively anti-Russia. I mean, the American left is certainly right that Russia is the bad guy in this situation. Their reaction to the mess--turning it into another occasion for virtue-signaling and political cheerleading--has been weird. But it's nothing compared to the right's loony reaction to it all.

   Very damn concerning.

   But, again: I knew who I was voting for.

Can the 5EX Eagle Compete With 5th-Gen Fighters?

   Honestly, this doesn't surprise me all that much. Even trying to ignore my inner F-15 fanboy, I think the Super Eagle is an important piece of the American defense puzzle.

(I refuse to use the extremely nonstandard designation "Eagle II." It's not an Eagle II. The A-10 is the Thunderbolt II. The F-35 is the Lightning II. The EX is not a different aircraft named after an older aircraft. It's an upgrade--like the Super Hornet. IT'S THE SUPER EAGLE.)

   It can fly higher and faster than either of our stealth fighters. It's got longer range and can carry nearly 30,000 lbs. of ordnance. We are never not going to want a high, fast, long-legged, maneuverable fighter with a big-ass radar--even if it's just serving as a missile truck. (And this is not even to mention EPAWSS...) Stick some AIM-174s on that baby and bring on the Might Be Draggin's...

   But it's sounding like the EX might not be relegated to the missile truck role...:

Tinian B-29 Base Fully Reclaimed for Future Pacific Fight

This is cool.

Also, turns out a friend did some work there on a related project.

Kurt Volker: Why a U.S.-Ukraine Resource Deal Makes Sense for Ukraine

I know nothing about this, but it sure does sound prima facie plausible.

The Gorge: Anya Taylor-Joy is Your Manic Pixie Dream Sniper

Spoiler alert?

This movie has everything: Anya Taylor-Joy, chess, guns, monsters, jeeps (or halftracks or something, I don't remember) winching themselves up cliffs...you name it.

   And I'll watch just about anything with ATJ (who Jonny Quest calls "that fish-eyed girl") in it.

   On the down side, this seems to have been made to be some kind of Valentine's Day movie, if you can believe that...

   Also, Eddie Eagle and the entire NRA firearm safety team would have seizures if they saw the scene where ATJ and...I dunno...what's-his-name...are flirting by shooting at each other. Not even kidding.

   Anyway, almost all such movies collapse in the last half-hour or so, and this one is no exception.

   But the setup was actually interesting enough that I was pretty into it...until it turned into a romance. But that didn't really last all that long. It's really just something for the movie to do until they have to disappoint the audience with the big reveal. Not all that many movies can really pull off the monster part--Alien(s), Cloverfield, the original Godzilla...but not all that many more.

   My long-standing theory is that, if you've got a move idea, just set that mofo at Christmas and you'll make twice as much money for, like, ever.

   Valentine's Day, however, is basically the lamest holiday. So I don't see that angle really working for it.

   Anyhoo, I may change my mind after watching it again.

   But, for now, Philosoraptor say: check it out.

Carolina 97 - State 73

Excellent.

Did This House Dem Suggest that Women Don't Go Into Manufacturing Because the Word Has 'Man' in it?

The radical academic left loves asshat arguments like this.

Back in the paleo-PC era, a professor in NC got sent to reeducation camp for using the word 'niggardly'.

I am not making this up.

The 'Dear Colleague' Letter that Changes Everything: Die, Die, DEI

Donald Trump might actually save Western Civilization.

This is the strangest timeline....

National Review: Ukraine is Not the Problem

It certainly isn't.

The right will try to represent this as a savvy negotiating strategy, of course.

Christian Schneider: Trump is an Arsonist Posing as a Fireman

Reluctantly agree.

Not surprised.

If only he could be 10% less Trumpy.

If he screws this up--or does enough things that the big blue propaganda machine can represent as screwing things up--we could end up with President Warren or President Buttigieg in 2029...

(I presume that potential President Newsome's chances have gone up in smoke...but I guess you never know...)

This Week's Stupidest Article of All Time: Rebecca Traister, "Woke is Not to Blame for Trump"

tl;dr: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

To repeat myself: wokeness is probably largely responsible for so many people switching parties from D to R. However, wokeness is a cancer on the nation and the world, and so it's natural to attribute responsibility to it. What better explanation for people abandoning a political party than it's adopting an ideology that is a cancer on the nation and the world? But sometimes the obvious thing isn't the real cause. And such complex things as political routes are often multicausal.

   It wasn't a paradigmatic route, of course...but it was routey.

   Traister has only one interesting point: that there was no red wave in the '22 midterms, at what she deems the height of Woketarian asshattery. Though she doesn't use exactly that terminology...

   The response to that point seems obvious: the pro-abortion hysteria in the wake of Dobbs. I mean, I tend to be libertarian on abortion...but it was hysteria. Donald Trump killed abortion and all that. Not to mention the Handmaid's Tale cosplay and whatnot. They really love that shit, don't they? Kinda like the giant puppets at all those World Bank protests. Those people are weird... (Which is, incidentally, my take on why they tried the They're weird campaign against Trump and Vance--it was an attempt to block the obvious charge from being thrown at them...)

   Anyhoo, you can't always answer such questions from the armchair. But, from where I'm sitting, it seems that:

Woketarianism is fucking insane and evil

People tend to dislike fucking insane and evil things

The Democrats were and are largely Woketarians

There's a whole movement of people reporting that "the left left them" by rocketing to their left

So:

It seems likely that Woketarianism played a significant role in Trump's win

   But, then, I do want it to be the case that Woketarianism is responsible...so take it with a grain of salt.

   People on the not-left like to say: Hey, you guys keep on REEEEEing on. Keep on being woke, so that you keep on losing elections.

   Part of me agrees.

   Part of me says: Be careful what you wish for. This moonbattery isn't gone. It's back on its heels right now, thanks to Trump's Shock and Awe campaign. But it isn't gone. They'll get their footing soon enough and be back to trying to Wokefy and Sovietize the USA before you know it.

   And they will win elections again--probably soon.

   And they didn't lose by nearly as much as such a lunatic faction should have lost.

   And, even if the good guys win decisively this time, I still don't believe they're gone for good. This multifaceted Marxist-feminist-Critical-Theory-poststructuralist-postmodernist-Lysenkoist madness is so deeply entrenched in the academy, that crucial, Leninist bottleneck of the culture, that it'll be back.

   To caution you again with My Great Wisdom and Experience: we thought we beat this shit back in the '90s. 

   We did not.

   Maybe it'll be different this time.

   But maybe it won't.

Marc J. Dunkelman: How Progressives Broke the Governement

Seems like thinly-veiled excuse-making to me...

   I mean, I agree that progressivism seems to advance incompatible positions: big gubmint, anti-freedom with respect to some issues, nearly anarchic with respect to others. E.g.: freedom to own guns: bad; freedom to have abortions: unlimited! Government must regulate everything Americans do--but mustn't do anything to stop non-Americans from pouring over the border...

   But, then, conservatives embrace nearly equal and opposite inconsistencies.

   But there is no way I'm buying the claim that the main failure of progressivism is being too Jeffersonian.

   Is anybody really going to buy that?

   Basically, progressives have decided that anything having to do with sex--especially nonstandard sex--must be free, free, free! Even to such a point that not-quite-born-yet babies have no moral standing. Even to such a point that they incoherently decided that people get to--magically, counterfactually--choose their own sex! Just declare it! Saying so makes it so!

  As for any other freedoms: fuck you. Do as you're told, comrade...

  I'm ok with civil libertarianism--that is, a libertarianism that excludes nonsense like open borders. I'd rather err on the side of protecting individual choice about how to live our lives--including weird sex and most abortions...with some constraints on the latter. But I'm not buying the bizarre mixture of totalitarianism and freedom from facts that is the contemporary American left.

ATF Sent Adam Tate Adamiak to Federal Prison for 20 Years for Owning a Non-Firing Replica STEN Gun

Hey, when you guys are done with USAID, I've got another agency I'd like you to look into...

Hinternet Windbag is Full of...Well...Let's say Wind...

It's not that there's nothing of any interest in here...it's rather that I'm tired of fake conservatives calling for their butlers to fetch them to their fainting couches because Z0MG THREE WEEKS OF TRUMP!!!111

   Ten years of rule by Tumblr--at least he gets that part right--is somehow balanced by three weeks (or three years, according to him) of fictional "rule by 4Chan." 

   Granted, there's more than a whiff of that about Musk and his team. But anybody who thinks they're somehow equally, if oppositely, bad is, IMO, full of shit.

   4Chan, to summarize, was the inventor of the "It's OK to be White" campaign and the OK sign = racism hoax. The Tumblristas and their heirs are the ones that lost their very shit about those things...

   But, you see, gloating about breaking free of the culture-wide Lysenkoist madness we've endured is just so terribly unseemly...not exactly the right kind of conservative for the Hinternet guy...

   Eh, maybe I'm missing something.

Josh Blackman on The DoJ Dust-up: "Two Very Different Conceptions of the Federal Criminal Justice System"

I have no idea what's going on.

Jacobson: The Only "Constitutional Crisis" Is That The Dems Lost; Now They're Trying To Govern From The Bench

This seems plausible to me...but I continue to not be a lawyer...

Maher: BSA Name Change (to "Scouting America") "the Kind of Thing That Gets Trump Elected"

Maher is still trying to not admit that Trump is right about a lot. He's still using him as a kind of reductio ad absurdum against the left--you're doing the kind of thing that leads to the horror of Trump being elected. 

   He ought to be saying: you're doing the kind of thing that makes Trump a better (or at least: less-bad) option.

CFR: Europe's "Migration" Dilemma: It's Being Inundated by Third-World Immigrants...but This "Fuels Support for Far-Right Parties"!!!111

Beautifully illustrative of leftoid brain death.

   How is this a dilemma? The left is permitting--even encouraging--the destruction of Europe via virtually unchecked admission of largely hostile immigrants. In response, people are supporting the only parties standing up to this insanity. This only resembles some kind of dilemma from the perspective of the left: Gee, we really want to destroy Europe...but a lot of people don't like that, so then they vote for parties that oppose us.

James Freeman: Justice for Elizabeth Warren (?)

I don't understand the issues here at all.

Itxu Diaz: If Wokeism Dies, What Cause Will The Left Embrace Next?

A very good question.

I continue to say that Woketarianism won't die, but will retreat into academia again, like Sauron into Mirkwood, until its hour comes round again...

Barton Swaim: Trump Somehow Lowers the Temperature in Washington

Progressives are basically mean girls, and they don't know how to deal with this loss of popularity.

But be careful declaring victory against the Woketarian menace.

Trump's DoJ is Already Out of Control

This is not good.

Senate Confirms RFKj

I'm not wild about this.

But what do I know?

Lawrence Kraus: Another Blow to DEI--DoE Ends PIER Requirements for Grants

link

I thought the academic DEI juggernaut was unstoppable. Then, a week after President Trump’s inauguration, I got an email with an announcement from the Department of Energy: “The Office of Science is immediately ending the requirement for Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plans in any proposal submitted. . . . Reviewers will not be asked to read or comment on PIER Plans. Selection decisions will not take into consideration the content of PIER Plans or any reviewer comments on PIER Plans.”
PIER plans, which the Biden administration instituted in 2022, required every grant application to “describe the activities and strategies of the applicant to promote equity and inclusion as an intrinsic element to advancing scientific excellence.” In the words of the announcement, “The complexity and detail of a PIER Plan is expected to increase with the size of the research team and the number of personnel to be supported.”
The end of the PIER Plan and other DEI-related requirements is seismic. The major source of physical science research support in the country has sent a message to universities: Stick to science. It may be the death knell of what appeared to be an invulnerable academic bureaucracy that has been impeding the progress of higher education and research for at least a decade.
The massive, expensive and overwhelming DEI infrastructure at universities is motivated in large part by the need to respond to and comply with regulations associated with federal support of research and education. The DOE’s Office of Science is the single biggest funder of physical sciences in the U.S. It provides support for university programs and oversees the 10 U.S. National Laboratories, which provide facilities used by university faculty across many disciplines.
Last year a colleague of mine and I used ChatGPT to examine all 12,065 awards made by the National Science Foundation and classified more than 1,000 of them, accounting for more than $675 million, as focused on DEI rather than science. And under Biden decrees, even science-focused grants were evaluated on DEI grounds.

Steven Levitsky: Trump and the New Authoritarianism

link

1. I wonder, ad hominem, whether Dr. Levitsky raised such objections against the leftist soft totalitarian madness that's reigned in country for the last decade?

2. Seems like an overreaction, but it's important. Needless to say, we can't allow Trump to exercise autocratic power. The mere fact that the left is worse/crazier shouldn't deter us from objecting to any Trumpian overreach. Of course, most of us aren't too clear on what counts as overreach here... So that's a complication.

Rufo / Stepman: How Trump Can Make Universities Great Again

Most importantly: force them to refocus on knowledge rather than activism.

That basically entails getting rid of DEI, since DEI is, in actual fact, a kind of totalitarian catspaw for implementing leftist ideas.

Sullum: Trump is Flat-Out Lying About the 60 Minutes Interview with Harris

link

I haven't watched nor compared the raw footage/transcripts to the broadcast version.

Mostly because Trump's accusations sound loony to me, almost no matter how bad the discrepancy.

They frankly sound about as nutty as the Letitia James case against Trump.

sigh

Well, this won't be the dumbest case he pushes over the next four years, I'm sure.

If only the guy were 15% less Trumpy, he'd be a force of nature.

VA Dems Fire Stanley Goldfarb from ODU BoV for Asking Questions About DEI

link

To answer the question Goldfarb was fired for asking: DEI almost certainly permeates ODU's medical curriculum.

So far as I can tell, my own institution is trying to allow many of the crazy leftist excesses (DEI being only one part of them) of the last ten years to quietly fade away.

But the deep academy will not give this stuff up. They may hide it, rename it, withdraw temporarily, even give up some prominent bits...at least temporarily...

But we've been through this before. The commitment to postpostmodern irrationalism--which includes hard-left politics as a prominent component--is not going away.

Probably not, anyway.

I'll be happy to be wrong.

But e.g. the absolute obsession with race, sex-or-gender, and "power"...those have ruled the humanities and qualitative social sciences for something like 50 years now. And they've expanded into STEM. It's a seductive ideology.

I predict we'll be fighting this battle again before most of us exit this scholarly vale of tears...

Trump and Radical Change

Incidentally, I expect this stuff not to work.

Radical changes are typically big gambles.

Which is why I'm generally against them.

To roll the dice on ideas like this, you basically have to think that the bureaucracy / deep state is such a clear and present danger that it's better to roll the dice for something very different.

I don't understand it all well enough to be confident that that's right.

But I think the Trump team's view is:

It can't be reformed slowly.

That's the nature of this beast.

It only allows itself to be ratcheted in one direction: bigger and bluer.

Counterpoint: that's two directions, dumbass.

Countercounterpoint: blue is not a direction.

...

So: if there's any hope of mitigating the slow-motion train wreck (as they see it), it lies in sudden change.

In some cases, the change is clearly warranted--e.g. mystical gender pseudoscience, DEI, etc.

But those hardly count, because they're just a matter of undoing radical, obviously crazy changes imposed by the blue team.

Firing everybody at USAID...that's a whole different kind of thing.

I expect it to turn out to be a mostly bad idea--though a mostly bad idea with at least some benefits, to whatever extent that matters.

Just my WAG.

Was Trump Right to Ax USAID?

I have no idea.

Forced to bet, I'd bet not.

Robbie Soave: USAID Sucks, and Politico Sucks, but the USAID Money to Politico Isn't a Scandal

He makes a more-or-less conclusive case.

    USAID was subscribing to a hot-shot legislative update feature; many Republican legislators subscribe to the same feature. The money in question was actually more like $44k, and that seems to be since 2016.

    The strangest part of this story is that Soave thought it was worth responding to Benny Johnson, a prominent YouTube righty bullshitter.

Lefty Freakout: Elie Mystal, PARENTING MY BLACK SONS IN THE AGE OF TRUMP MAKES ME SARAH CONNOR AND TRUMP IS THE TERMINATOR...OR MAYBE SKYNET...IDK

Or: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I know--Elie Mystal and the Nation. What next? Jeet Heer and Jacobin?

Well, write your own stupid blog and you can make fun of a higher class of idiot.

But look, you gotta admit, this is gold:

It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day atrocities committed by the Trump administration. Every hour brings a new crisis, every day something precious or useful gets smashed. That’s on purpose. The torrent of Trump lawlessness is designed to keep us forever focused on what’s happening right now, constantly defending ourselves against the latest unhinged pronouncement. 

I would have fallen deep into this myopic trap these past two weeks, but there has been one thing keeping me focused on the long horizon: my children. I have two boys, ages 12 and 9. Every day I look at them, I am forced to contemplate the future—to worry about the future Trump is stealing from them, and the terrible suffering that awaits them in the world Trump seeks to create.

Like any parent worthy of the title, I don’t give a damn about what happens to me. I’ve had my chances. Born in 1978, I had the opportunity to grow up during a brief window where this country seemed genuinely interested in becoming the multi-racial, multi-ethnic democratic polity that it always promised to be but never once achieved. I benefited from the heroic efforts of my parents and ancestors.
...
For inspiration, I’ve looked to a fictional parent who knows what it’s like to be raising a child on the cusp of the apocalypse: the heroine of the Terminator movies, Sarah Connor. For people unfamiliar with this 40-year-old movie, allow me to regale you with a brief synopsis. On August 29, 1997 “Skynet,” a military artificial intelligence, became self-aware and unleashed a nuclear holocaust. It created a race of sentient robots, Terminators, to crush the remaining human opposition. In 2029, one such Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent back to 1984 Los Angeles to kill Sarah Connor, who is the mother of the future human resistance leader, John Connor. Future John Connor is able to send one soldier back in time to protect his mother. 

When we meet Sarah Connor (played by Linda Hamilton) in 1984, she is weak. She’s a classic Hollywood “damsel in distress” updated for the 1980s with big hair and spunkiness. She spends most of the first movie running and hiding, and nearly ensures her doom by calling her mother. She and the soldier bang, and the soldier sacrifices himself to try to destroy the Terminator. He fails to kill it, but Sarah is able to lure the robot into a hydraulic press and… terminate it. The movie ends with her visibly pregnant with the soldier’s baby, who will become John Connor, and is leaving audio tapes for him about what the world was like before the tragedy she now knows is coming. Little does she know that Schwarzenegger will be back, more or less as a good guy. 

Fast forward to Terminator 2: John Connor is now 10-years-old, but he’s living with foster parents because his mother has been sent to a prison psychiatric institution because she has (entirely reasonably) become a bit of a terrorist trying to stop the people building Skynet from bringing about the end of the world. When we first see Sarah Connor in T2 she is ripped. She’s changed her physique from Olivia Newton John to something approaching Rambo. She is hardened. She can kill. When she breaks out of prison, we find out that she’s been stashing guns and ammo all throughout the Southwest, and has been training her son in military strategy and computer hacking. She has transformed herself, body and soul, from a victim of forces beyond her control, into John-the-Baptist of badasses. 

I believe that every liberal parent is now in the position of Sarah Connor after the first Terminator movie. We can see the future awaiting our children, and it is bleak. Our mission, our only mission, is to prepare our kids for what is coming, and maybe see if there’s anything we can do to stop Trump’s future from happening. We’re going to need to teach our children skills that we never had, to face a future different from anything we ourselves experienced. We’re going to need to get in shape and learn how to fight for them in ways that disregard what others may think of our methods.

Gold, baby.
Gold.

Lefty Freakout: Ed Kilgore "The Day 'Democrats Must Work With Trump'" Died

What an abject tool.

And, gosh, they were so looking forward to working with him. For the good of the country or whatever.

Anne Applebaum is Retarded

Is there any kind of coherent argument in here?

I honestly couldn't pay attention all the way through.

Steven Malanga: How The Catholic Church Became a Champion of Democrats' Open Borders

Yeah, the Catholic Church is a big problem with respect to immigration. Some groups even openly help illegals get across the border.

Immigrants from south of the border are also helping to prop up failing churches.

I mean, I kind of admire them in that this does seem to me to be the proper Christian response...

But, then: I'm not a Christian and this isn't a theocracy.

USAID Was Funding GamerGate??????

I...I can't...I can't even........WTFF????

I'm so freaking outraged right now that I'd better stick with:  big if true.

Audrey Fahlberg: Democrats Struggle to Unite Behind a Coherent Anti-Trump Message

"He's a Nazi" isn't coherent?

Besides...when has the progressive left ever cared about coherence?

I thought all that stuff was white supremacy or something.

Eric-Clifford Graf: The Kirkpatrick Doctrine Applied to Domestic Policy

link

As my Morpheus (i.e. redpill-father) McCarthy likes to say: The right just wants you to behave; the left wants your soul.

Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education

link

Could be wrong, but I'm inclined to agree, FWIW.

Executive Order: No Men in Women's Sports

Yet another win for sanity.

Fox News link rather than e.g. AP because they accurately title their story, rather than using progressive Newspeak like 'trans women.'

Wikipedia: Bias re: Approved Sources?

link

Wikipedia is extremely left-biased--there's no doubt about that.

But this NYP story contains no links.

The "De Facto Deprecated sources" page on Wikipedia does not list the NYP, but it does list a lot of righty sources. (It does, e.g., list the Daily Mail, but not, e.g., the Guardian.)

I've seen Quillette rejected as a source on Wikipedia.

Anyway. If the NYP story is accurate--which I can't confirm--it would be substantial.

One might, of course, reasonably judge that the NYT is generally more reliable than NYP, despite the great and many failures of the former, and the many good stories run by the latter.

However, I don't see any way to reasonably argue that Vox is reliable but NYP isn't. Not to mention Jacobin...

Lee Jussim at Unsafe Science: The Last 4 Years Were the Most Repressive of My Life

link

National Review: USAID is a Failure

Worse than a failure: an organization positively promoting harmful, crackpot, radical-left ideas.

If it were merely a failure, it would merely fail to accomplish (presumably good) goals.

As it stands, it actively seeks to accomplish bad goals.

It must be some sign of how far over the edge these agencies have gone that they thought what they were doing might be ok.

But the fact that they tried to conceal a lot of this is evidence of consciousness of guilt.

WSJ: Hurricane Musk and the USAID Panic

link

The agency in the Biden years supported electric vehicles in Vietnam and a “transgender clinic” in India. A Serbian LGBTQ group called ‘Grupa Izadji,’ received $1.5 million to ‘advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities.” There are many other examples.

There's just no excuse for spending tax dollars on such projects. If leftists want to contribute to those projects, there are plenty of organizations they can contribute to.

David Samuels: "Rapid-Onset Political Enlightenment"

The first half of this is very interesting, IMO.

But it's a bit long, and about 3/4 of the way through it gets pretty speculative and I have a hard time following--much less assessing--the argument.

But I've only read it once.

Needless to say, I don't know whether these claims about Obama are true.

Why Is the Trump Admin Relying on the "Criminal Aliens" Excuse?

If you're in the country illegally, you should be kicked out. We don't need any other excuse. We're enforcing the law.

   As I've said for years, the progressive left's position is becoming more and more difficult to distinguish from open borders. They basically flung open the border, and now their position is: you can't send them back. Let them in and don't send them back is, basically an open borders position.

   We might make exceptions for good residents who have been here for decades--but that case has to be made separately. The burden of proof is not on the right for enforcing immigration laws. Enforcing immigration laws gets presumption. We don't have to explain to you why we're deporting illegal aliens. The burden of proof is on the left to prove that we are obligated to allow illegal aliens to stay.

   This is why it concerns me that the administration is basically saying that it's going to deport only criminals (ignoring the fact that illegal entry is a criminal offense) and people consorting with criminals. It's like the left has, again, managed to swing presumption over to its side--as if, again, we needed an excuse for deporting people who entered the country illegally.

   But we don't.

Rich Lowry: Trump's Win in Panema

link

Lee Jussim: "Burn Academia Down?"

Notes from the USC censorship conference.

Gerard Baker: "Pray for Surrender in Trump's Dumb Trade War"

I don't understand anything about this.

Rubio: USAID Will Now Be Aligned With Our National Interest

Which means, inter alia: no more "trans" comic books in Bolivia or wherever.

Excellent.

No more wasting taxpayer dollars on leftist pseudoscience.

"Corporate America Isn't Abandoning DEI, Just Rebranding It"

These clowns are obviously committed to the train wreck that is DEI. So, for all I know, they're bullshitting to keep the bullshit diversity-industrial complex alive. Or, as so many of us predicted, this is, in fact, what businesses--and universities--are doing.

   As I've said, I don't expect the left to give up on the DEI bonanza that easily--it's a cuddly-sounding way to turn organizations to leftist purposes.

   Of course that doesn't mean that we give up--it just means that we have to hunt this madness down wherever it hides, under whatever new names.

   Their argument is pretty weak--though I'm befuddled today from some kind of virus that's kicking my ass. So I could be missing something. But they seem to be arguing that 486 Fortune 500 companies "still have diversity statements or commitments on their websites." That's a measure alright--but not a great one.

   I'll wait for an argument from a more objective source.

The Dumbest Trade War Fallout Begins

I don't understand anything about this.

DNC "Gender" Follies

I can't believe what I just listened to. The DNC Leader interrupted the party election to tell members that not enough non-binary candidates have been elected, so they MUST now vote for one.

"With the results of the previous four elections, our elected officers are currently two… pic.twitter.com/8CelMVzyE6

— George (@BehizyTweets) February 1, 2025

WSJ: The Dumbest Trade War in History

I have no idea what's going on.

link

But it certainly seems really dumb on its face.

Trump Probably Shouldn't Prohibit Pronoun Declarations in Sig Lines

 Look, listing "your" pronouns is idiotic.

That's not how the language works.

And absolutely, pronoun-prompts in Outlook etc. should be turned off.

But I'm not wild about prohibiting such declarations in government emails. 

One might argue that gender ideology has been on the march in part because it made such announcements of acceptance/compliance so common. And I suppose you could see such proclamations as declarations of political/cultural/religious affiliation...kinda like having "Jesus is Lord" or "God is my copilot" in your gov't sig line or bio...

Hm.

Well, maybe that's right.

But I'm not really for it.

More thought needed.

Abigail Shrier: How the Gender Fever Finally Broke

I'm pretty sure this is the craziest thing that's happened in American politics, culture, science, universities...anywhere...in my lifetime.

I still have acquaintances--intelligent people with PhDs--who insist that men can be women.

I also have acquaintances--intelligent people with PhDs--who insist that no one has ever believed it--it's all been politeness kabuki...

Which, as I keep explaining, means that the left has been willing to sexually mutilate children...in order to be polite...

There's simply no way to make sense of this madness.

Carolina 70 - Duke 87

That score makes it seem closer than it was.

30 point game at one point.

Doesn't really matter--Carolina's cooked anyway. They're not going to make the tournament--barring someone else knocking d00k off in the ACC tournament...and then a miracle happening...

The only real questions at this point are:

(1) Will this year's performance harm recruiting?

(2) Is it time for Hubert to go?

Again, I like Hubert...but another year of not making the tournament...not good...

We knew they were going to have a down year, given that J-Wash just can't form the basis of an effective frontcourt. But damn... Just kinda seems that they shouldn't be this bad...

Rationality and Objectivity are Signs of "White Supremacy"

Old news, but we should never let this insanity die.

We should bring this stuff up in every election.

People stupid enough to have fallen for this need to have it carved into their tombstones.