Nate the Lawyer: Time's Illegal Alien of the Year Deported

Trump Again Threatens Military Action to Take Greenland

Insanity.

Bullshit Studies: "The Earth is a Big Badass Butch Dyke in Menopause"

Behold, academia.

Jeb Rubenfeld: Trump's (Unconstitutional?) War on Big Law

Train wreck.

Brendan O'Neill: Woke Elites, Not Trump, Purged Museums

Tearing down statues and covering up exhibitions and whatnot is not purging, bigot.

Putting them back up or uncovering them is purging.

John Naughton: Scientists Fear Being Refused Readmittance to the U.S. After International Conferences

Sounds very bad...but it's the Grauniad, so...

Andrew Noymer: COVID-19: The Evidence Lopsidedly Favors a Lab Leak

As it always has.

Well, I think there were a few brief periods when it wasn't clear, or when the needle pointed slightly in the other direct after some big pro-zoonotic publication. I'd have to go back and look at my past ranting about this.

Perhaps it looked different from the perspective of experts--but, if so, they didn't or couldn't adequately articulate their reasons in the public discussion. And many of the reasons that were represented as expert opinion in favor of the zoonotic hypothesis were outright bad.

Wait, there was the stuff that was hot for awhile about finding DNA in the drains at the wet market...hard to remember the details of that argument now, and I'm too lazy to look it up.

Of course we still could be surprised.

But it's very, very clear that the bizarre anti-lab-leak propaganda was just more Lysenkoism, basically from the blue team. The lab-leak hypothesis was never crazy.

And why politicize this issue?

It's almost as if they're not happy unless they can politicize every issue that comes along.

Though, TBF, the red team often does its fair share. See e.g. the anti-vax hysteria among the reds. Holy crap did they ever lose it about that. The blues were way nutty about it, too--treating it as almost some kind of sacrament, and sometimes identifying themselves as "team Pfizer" or "team Moderna"...weird...

Crazy times.

2WAY: Trump Forces Lefty Law Firm Paul Weiss To Surrender

My gut is kinda with Spicer, but I fear Halperin and Turrentine may be right.

I mean, what these psychos like Perkins Coie did to Trump...my non-lawyer reaction is: they belong in jail...

But that doesn't mean that the President should do what Halperin claims he's doing.

I supported Trump--not in the primary, but in the general--because the Democrats have lost their collective mind. But, as I've said many times, it was a gamble. He's doing good things and bad things. Thus far the former outweigh the latter...but there's no excuse for it being a close call.

And, of course, even if Trump does do more harm than good, he's very unlikely to do as much more harm than good as Harris would have done. But, again: there's no excuse for it being a close call.

I do want to see these Democrat lawfare firms wrecked. But not by the President.

The Bee: Atlantic Journalist Reveals Shocking Trump Messages

Trump Signs EO Requiring Proof of Citizenship in Federal Elections

On the one hand, I tend to favor this...OTOH, I tend to favor leaving things to the states when possible.

So I don't know.

There seem to be substantial evidence that voter fraud by noncitizens isn't that common.

OTOH, there's at least some evidence that some of it is slipping through the cracks.

One reasonable observation is that elections need not only to be fair, but to be obviously fair. This in order to produce confidence in the outcomes. And the Dems' bizarre recent radicalization on this (and many other) issue(s) does the opposite--it obviously decreases the confidence we can have in the results.

Tightening restrictions on mail-in ballots is good. Apparently it's fairly common knowledge that mail-in ballots are less-secure than in-person voting. I agree with the Pubs that we should go back to having an election day, with mail-in ballots only for absentee voting and suchlike--e.g. for people too old or sick to make it to the polls.

Given the Dems' bizarre radicalization over the past decade or so, I'm suspicious of their efforts to loosen up voting laws. They've gone to the mat for de facto open borders. Many are now certainly speaking and acting as if they believe that deportation is never, or almost never, permissible. Some Democrat cities have begun allowing noncitizen voting in local elections. Thing is, I've become suspicious of the general ideas that are motivating the left in this respect (and in others, of course). It just seems that they don't quite believe in a hard-and-fast distinction between citizens and noncitizens anymore. It kind of seems that they just don't think that noncitizen voting would be such a big deal. And IMO this is cause for concern.

Yglesias: "Trump's War on Science"

Weak sauce.

After a decade of the left Lysenkoizing science, this is decidedly unimpressive.

JFKj is basically the only notable entry in his list.

He's not nothing--he does concern me. (Though he's not wrong about everything.)

Look, here's a prediction that is barely even a prediction because we know it will be confirmed: if the right continues its ascent, it'll start messing with science, too. We pretty much know this will happen.

But right now, what it's mostly doing is unLysenkoizing it.

Hence the girlish blue-team shrieking.

Here's another prediction: I'll likely be slow to acknowledge it when the right starts doing it. Because I'm so appalled by what the left has become that I've developed a fondness for its most salient enemies.

So don't expect me to be the canary in the coal mine on this one.

In fact, I was very slow to recognize how loony and politicized both climatology and criminology had become. The race stuff and sex (now "gender") stuff I've been on about in one form or another since grad school--though I really though it had died out, so I didn't say much about it for a while.

Anyway.

Shellenberger: Climate Change Hysteria Is Waning

The left has been wrong about just about all its big, hysterical freakouts for the last decade.

Climate apocalypticism being, of course, among them.

The Supreme Court Killed March Madness

Whoever done it, it's dead.

Or at least dying.

I've found myself watching less and less.

Of course this coincides with Roy leaving and more ACC expansion. Though Roy left largely because of the transfer portal--and perhaps NIL.

Anyway. It's just not the same game. Stanford is in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Absurd. Carolina is likely to leave the ACC and join the SEC. Discussion boards are now filled with talk of how much NIL money we have to spend.

Might as well watch the NBA...and the NBA sucks.

Blehar: The Last Defense of the Signal Scandal Died This Morning

Yep.

Those are definitely war plans.

I have only a vague conception of what the conventions are here, but this does, indeed, seem like a massive fuckup.

I don't know what the right response is. 

Of course the Dems are squealing and trying to get maximum mileage out of this. But just ignore them: even people at eg National Review are calling for firings.

Over on the right, they've been circling the wagons since the get-go--and I fell for some of it.

I don't much care what's done, honestly, as long as it doesn't happen again.

Looks Like the Signal/Houthi-Attack-Plan Dust-Up Story Was, In Fact, Bullshit

Full Signal text chain has been released.

There's nothing in it but the pros and cons of striking now vs waiting a month.

It's not war plans. It's not classified info.

It's a conversation, and nice to see cabinet members and staffers hashing out the best way to move forward.… pic.twitter.com/OTNYgHr3VP

— Shawn Farash (@Shawn_Farash) March 26, 2025

The Signal Scandal Maybe NBD

Apparently the Signal app was approved for use by the Biden administration and came pre-loaded on the principal's phones. And, according to Gabbard, MSM reports that "highly classified" information was discussed were false.

   I view stories about such things in the MSM as being roughly equivalent to DNC press releases...though sometimes even the DNC gets things right...

   Basically we know that the media will rabidly spin things against Trump whenever possible. So, bad as this incident may have been, I try to mostly discount the first wave of hysteria from the Fifth Column. No, wait...fourth. Oh and: estate.

   I'm perfectly willing to admit that a lot of guys in the administration may be clowns, and that this may be really bad. But Jeffrey Goldberg is a lying, TDS-addled moonbat. And we just won't really know what's going on until the initial hysteria dies down. Right now the goal of most of these stories is get Trump, not find truth.

   Ultimately, I kind of doubt that this will even be important for us to look back on it with the sobriety of hindsight.

Jeffrey Blehar: Why Even Both Classifying Our War Plans If We're Just Going To Give Them Away?

Kinda sounds like I'm wrong about this one.

Lowry: Progressives Like Michelle Wu Can't Give Up Their Near-Theological Commitment to Illegal Immigration

This is right.

Can Dems Recover From Record-Low Approval Ratings?

They can and they will. The only question is: how soon?

A lot of conservatives are saying that they hope the Dems stay crazy so that they will continue to lose elections. But that's a dangerous hope. Remaining radical will lower their odds of winning elections, but will make them more destructive when they do, inevitably, win again. Which is likely to be, y'know, next year.

Mass Blue Temper-Tantrum Scheduled for April 5th

Whatever.

Super Hornets Now Carrying Stormbreakers

Nice

The Heseth/Golderg/Houthi/Signal Defense Leak Dust-Up

By induction, I conclude that Golberg is lying about this...

If something did happen, I don't know how bad this is.

If it's bad, then the normal things should happen--whatever those are. Firings or whatever.

Very much of the reaction I'm seeing seems to be the blue team and blue-team outlets taking advantage of this to score political points against Trump--

--but there still could be enough there there to warrant major repercussions.

Another thing I don't know.

Josh Blackman Rebuts Judge Luttig's NYT Op-Ed

It seems laughable to me to say that this dust-up would "cripple" Trump's Presidency if he lost.

Sounds like little more than wishful thinking on Littig's part.

Blackman seems right to me.

Alan S. Blinder: More Worries About Recession and Stagflation

Whatever else is true, it'll all be on Trump...and the Pubs.       link

RIP Mia Love

Very sorry to read this this morning.

Lefties Trashing Teslas

And in some cases, committing what counts as terrorism.

Every time I think I might be able to regain a bit more neutrality with respect to the cultural/political/intellectual battle between left and right, the lefties do something else crazy.

Seriously.

The blue team has lost it.

John Daniel Davidson: The Judicial Insurrection is Worse Than You think

Ok, I don't know which side is righter about this.

But I share Davidson's concerns.

I mean, I share the Dems' concerns, too.

I think we tend to jump to quickly to choosing sides to some degree because we see that one side has good points that aren't being generally acknowledged. The people in my world generally just line up with the blue team and often never even hear the red team's case articulated clearly. Even when they honestly try to understand, they think they're going to get the straight dope from the NYT. If they check that version of the story, it might be by listening to NPR...so...hey, confirmation!

Anyway.

I certainly understand that the courts are supposed to restrain the President if he seems to be breaking the law. But it's obvious that much of what's going on there is partisan monkey-wrenching--the President can't do anything--and if he tries to, some leftist judge somewhere in the country is willing to grant some leftist NGO (or whatever) an injunction (or whatever).

I (sort of) get the two positions.

I have come to expect that the blue team is up to more no good than the red team.

But honestly, I simply don't know in this case.

But this seems significant:

More nationwide injunctions and restraining orders have been issued against Trump in the past month that were issued against the Biden administration in four years.

Of course you could say: well, Trump has broken more laws in one month than Biden broke in four years.

But I think there's virtually no chance that's true.

UK Police Still Harassing Women Who Speak Up About Pakistani Muslim Grooming/Rape Gangs

link

Jeb Rubenfeld: Are the Venezuelan Deportations Legal?

I think a version of something similar by him I think I already posted.

Anyway: seems extremely reasonable.

link

Jeff Tang: Reciprocal Tariffs are Just What the U.S. Needs to Fix Its Manufacturing Decline

Doesn't sound crazy.

Kinda weird how everybody's all of a sudden a free-trader when Trump starts talking tariffs..

Me, I know barely anything about it. 

But I like the idea of getting some of our manufacturing back.

MAGA Furious at ACB; And: The Rise of "Common-Good Constitutionalism"

link

First: one thing that really drives me nuts is people getting mad because SCOTUS doesn't rule the way they want--purely based on outcomes. People often reject legal decisions without even having heard the arguments.

Second: I've already seen some of roughly this stuff on the right--and by 'this stuff' I mean: moving away from views that restrain government power. As conservatives become more powerful, some on the right want to emulate the left and use government power to effect their ends. One line I've heard about universities is, roughly: well, now that we're in the drivers' seat, let's not push institutional neutrality too hard; let's implement (basically) pro-American civics instruction first.

"Abundance" Leftism

This is a new buzzword on the left. I don't have and don't deserve an opinion about it at this point. I don't even understand it. Perhaps to some extent it's a reaction against the puritan, quasi-asceticism on the left. A certain sub-orientation on the left loves things like recycling, dietary restrictions (e.g. veganism), public transportation, tiny houses and whatnot. Recall the "voluntary simplicity" movement. (It was crucial to advertise that it was voluntary--people needed to know that you were rich...but righteous...) This is one thing that makes global warming so popular over there--it's a blanket reason to throttle back on consumption. An excuse for an aesthetic commitment to asceticism. And, of course: eat the bugs, live in the pod...you'll own nothing and you'll like it...

   But I don't know.

   And, of course, I'm just suspicious of anything that goes on over on the left anymore. Eventually the right will beclown itself sufficiently to balance things out in my head a bit. They'll start pushing for religion in schools or what the hell ever. But at this point, conservative stupidity seems to be the left's best hope. It's hard to see them saving themselves.

Unmitigated Academic Bullshit

A mind virus has infected academia for at least 50 years. Not-terribly-bright people produce unmitigated bullshit that sounds vaguely intellectual and meshes well with left-wing nonsense, and then pass it on to not-terribly-bright students.

   I've actually read a fair bit of this sort of thing, and take it from me: it's even stupider than it superficially sounds.

   I actually feel bad for this girl. She's been sold a bill of goods. She's spent, perhaps, years studying something that makes no sense at all, and has actually made her stupider than she was when she stepped foot on campus.

There WILL Be an NGAD (aka F-47), and Boeing Will Build It

link!

Carolina 64 - Ol Miss 71

Basketball is a stupid game.

Wales: Statues of 'old white men' (e.g. Wellington, Nelson) could be destroyed b/c 'offensive' to 'diverse modern public'

The Gleichschaltung proceedeth apace.

Veronique de Rugy: No One In Washington Is Serious About The Debt

Seems true, unfortunately.

I am not an economist...but it certainly seems that entitlement reform is the only way.

Yes, Mr. Boylan, "Trans Women" Are, Indeed, Really Men

Just more of the same brainless bullshit from the Orwellian left.

Then think that if they repeat the same idiotic incantations enough times they will become true.

I mean, I guess...

They certainly have no arguments.

Tariffs May Cause Stagflation

Well that's just great.

Blue Bias at Wikipedia and Snopes

Absolutely nothing at all surprising in either of these:

Wikipedia:

Dozens of Wikipedia editors colluded on years-long anti-Israel campaign, bombshell ADL report claims

I mean, it's the ADL...but that IS one of the ways Wikipedia operates: many dedicated ideologues relentlessly editing and rules-lawyering over years to produce entries as consistent as possible with the progressive-left worldview.

Snopes:

How Snopes Buried the Truth About Ilhan Omar's Father

Aaand that's one of the ways Snopes now operates, too.

Does the left have a particular tendency to take over institutions and corrupt them, turning them to their ideological purposes?

Or if conservatives dominated these sites, would they be any more objective?

I currently think it's the former--but I'm not that sure about it.

But the two sides don't seem symmetrical to me in this respect.

It's the authoritarian/totalitarian thing again...

The Trump Administration Is Right, and The ACLU Et Al. Are Wrong, About Using The Alien Enemies Act Against TdA Terrorists

I mean...this thread of arguments by Jay Town (via Instapundit) seems to just totally annihilate objections.

For one thing, the oft-repeated ACLU claim that it can only be used against groups on which Congress has declared war is just patently false.

Guess I shoulda looked that up...

Addendum:

Yeah, I really should have--b/c:

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That whenever there shall be a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government...

The weak point in Towns's argument seems to be where he argues that the Administration argues that TdA and the government of Venezuela constitute a "hybrid criminal state."

   I thought there for awhile that any "predatory incursion" triggered the act.

   Anyway, I take it back: the administration is not obviously right about this. That hybrid state point seems pretty shaky. But I don't know any details about the relationship between TdA and the Venezuelan government. 

Trump Insists He Will Make Canada The 51st State

facepalm

Abject idiocy.

Trump's Counter-Revolution, In General

Trump has a lot of good points.

The left refuses to acknowledge this.

OTOH, it's the commonest thing in the world to have a good point and still be wrong.

I think we're caught in a pretty familiar cycle now.

The left lost its mind. The other side is reversing a lot of that--and it's hard not to cheer for it. Indeed, it's bizarre not to cheer for it.

But it's easy to fall into too much agreement. He's certainly not right about everything.

The Tren de Aragua deportations are a good example--there's something just objectively good about it. And something just objectively bad about the left's passionate refusal to acknowledge that.

But this is exactly the kind of case in which--seems to me--the law has to step in and make sure that the rights of innocent people aren't being violated and the system isn't being wrecked.

Exactly the kind of case that needs to be handed over to and decided by SCOTUS.

We don't want to just become the mirror image of the left, which recognizes the objective badness of turning away at the border poor people seeking a better life...but fails/refuses to think the next obvious thought: if we don't do it, the nation will be wrecked. We can feel sympathy for them, and should. But no borders, no country, and no border enforcement, no borders.

Anyway.

RIP John "Paddy" Hemingway, Last Surviving Battle of Britain Pilot

Hemingway led a truly heroic life.

RIP

McCarthy: Administration Acting Illegally in Boasberg's Order to Suspend Deportation Flights of Alleged Tren de Aragua Gangsters

Pretty safe bet that McCarthy is right about this.

Does Carolina Deserve To Be In The Tournament?

Turns out to be a very contentious question.

Doesn't help that our AD, Bubba Cunningham, is the head of the Selection Committee...

I kinda want to point out that Tom Butters, Duke AD, was in that position for years...and it did kinda seem that they were getting good draws...but those kinds of things are easy to spin in your head when the team in question is a big rival.

But that's not really relevant.

Do we deserve to be in?

I don't know.

The main argument against the Heels is their lack of Quad 1 wins. And word is that Bubba has long been skeptical of that metric. It's fairly new, and not the greatest measure. But it's certainly something.

Anyway: again, I don't know.

Trump Uses Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to Deport TdA Gangsters; Dems Once Again Take the "20" Side of an 80/20 Issue

You've undoubtedly heard the phrase get Medieval on your ass...

Well, Trump is getting early national period on their asses.

It's very satisfying, actually.

Now...is it legal?

I do not know.

Remember: not a lawyer.

And if it isn't legal, it isn't legal.

This is where it gets thrown over to the courts and, within reason, they decide.

I'm good with that.

I want to draw attention to the other most salient aspect of this case: that the left takes up the anti-American side in virtually every argument. I can't find it now, but the timeline associated with these deportation flights is pretty amazing. As 250 gangsters and other criminals are being flown out of the country, leftist open-borders/anti-America/pro-crime activists--including the remnants of the once-proud ACLU--kicked into action to try to turn the planes around. They've judge-shopped ahead of time, and rushed to one of their reliably-leftist judges...and here we are.

Again: I understand that protecting people's rights isn't always popular, and doesn't always seem to make sense at a gut level.

I'm not oblivious to that fact.

But just step back and take a look at this shit.

These people--including the remnants of the ACLU--don't (or barely) raise a finger to protect freedom of speech, Second Amendment rights, etc. of ordinary, law-abiding Americans. They have become focused almost exclusively on advancing the interests of criminals and wackos, and opposing the rights and interests of ordinary people.

I'm not denying that they might be right given the details of the law--how would I know at this point?

I'm saying that, when a group or a faction consistently seeks to enforce (sometimes very fine) points of law only when it is destructive of the nation and the public good, this is a notable fact that we ought to recognize and keep in the forefront of our minds. It's important.

Are there innocent people among the deported?

I wouldn't be surprised.

Should we work to get innocents released?

Yes.

Of course.

Who would deny that?

But spare a thought for the other glaring fact here: the fact that the left is religiously devoted to principles that entail the destruction of the country and the lives of ordinary Americans. 

Deporting murderers and rapists??? REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The Trump administration says that it's eager for this to go to the Supremes--and says that it will win.

Reynolds, in the link, says--and I think he's right--that one of Trump's strengths is his knack for getting the Dems to take up the 20 side of 80/20 issues. They are so irrationally anti-Trump that they oppose him even when he's obviously right (not that it's obvious in the case at hand). I think there's truth in that...but also: the Dems have just abandoned common sense. They've already taken up--or are committed to principles that push them to take up--the 20 end in a lot of cases.

As others have asked: Does the left want to destroy the country?

And:

What would they be doing differently if they did?

Not much, it sometimes seems...

Nevertheless: it would be good to get a SCOTUS ruling on this.

Dems Flip-Flop on Filibuster; Sinema Busts 'Em

Hey, remember how the filibuster was racist and Jim Crow and whatnot? Like borders and police and voting laws and, well, laws?

   Well now the filibuster is back, bay-bee!

Mina Svard: My Stolen NCAA Championship

Ms. Svard is right; Mr. Telfer should be stripped of the women's championship, on the grounds that he is, well, not a woman. He's a dude.

Peter Wood: The Great Un-Wokening Meets Campus Resistance

The Deep Academy will be tougher to beat than the Deep State--says me anyway.

PC Brainwashing on Parade: Asking NYC "What is a Woman?"

It's downright horrifying what sheep humans can be.

This is the general kind of cultish idiocy I used to associate with the right--and I'm sure it's in there with respect to some issues...but...damn...

It's somehow more revolting that such people are held up as our cultural betters, when they are so brainless and easily manipulated with respect to one of the simplest concepts we have.

Now, tbf, some of it is that people aren't used to producing clear, accurate definitions. And some of it is that people don't quite understand what's being asked, and they think he's prompting them to wax poetic...

But mostly it's pretty clear. Most of these people have mindlessly accepted utter batshittery because it's the dogma of their social circle.

Only the guy in the big green chair and the foreign woman are sane--the latter basically understanding that she's being asked to articulate the currently-fashionable PC dogma, but admitting that she doesn't understand it.

God damn this is creepy as hell:

David Catron: The Democratic Party Is Collapsing

Well, they've certainly radicalized = lost their collective mind.

They now hold a variety of positions that are actually, literally deranged.

Consequently, they have, as many have noted, left a wide path down the center for Trump and the GOP to occupy.

OTOH, that has had the effect, wrt some issues, of moving the party toward the left. (Contrary to another one of the Dems' delusions, the Pubs have not moved generally to the right--they've generally moved toward the left.) That tends to seem good to me...but should real conservatives think that's good?

Anyhoo, I read someone the other day claiming that Trump may have crushed the Dems and put the GOP in the driver's seat for a generation.

I'm skeptical of this general kind of (quasi-)prediction.

Remember "the emerging Democratic majority" and the inevitable victory of the blue team...because demography?

Or, the case I now most often think about: in 2022, Carolina beat Duke in Coach K's final game in Cameron. In front of a packed house that included not only the normal Crazies/scions of fat cats, but 100 former Duke players. And, apparently, some "celebrities," whatever those are. Then we beat them in the Final Four a few weeks later. People were saying things like "I didn't know you could win a rivalry..." Me, I said: well, we'll see I guess...

And over the course of the last couple of years, they've pretty much pw0ned us.

All our base are belong to them.

Such things can change quickly.

Here's the alternate scenario I think is most likely: Trump fucks something (or several things) up so profoundly that the GOP is more gravely injured even than the Dems. E.g.: the economy. The Dems drop a couple of their most insane ideas--e.g. men are women, trans all the kids!, fuck white people, crime is good, open up the borders!--and maybe go all in on a lefty version of economic populism. If tariffs wreck the economy...or if the Ukraine situation blows up...or if the bad effects of slashing the federal workforce are bad enough...well, again: things could change fast.

Also: victory breeds hubris.

Also also: given how utterly nuts the blue team has gone, and how clownish their candidates and campaign were, they really didn't lose by that much. I mean, a party basically runs on brainwashing and sexually mutilating children, institutionalized racism, Lysenkoism and open borders...and their main slogans are "brat," "joy," and something about being "unburdened by what has been"...and they only lose the popular vote by like 1.5%?

Even when their opponent was Trump, that's pretty scary.

Turley: House Should Not Impeach Judge Boasburg re: Tren de Aragua Restraining Order

Rather, the administration should appeal the decision.

Curiously, I am still not a lawyer...

But this seems perfectly reasonable to me.

As per usual from Turley.

Mark Judge on Our Lying, Failing, Fake-News Media

These people really are despicable.

Heels Are In

I don't know how, but they are.

Play-in game/0th round vs. San Diego State in the South region.

Well...Go Heels!

NYT Admits Truth About COVID Lab-Leak Hypothesis

The truth bats last, I reckon.

Turley: Fourth Circuity Reverses Nationwide Injunction on ending DEI Funding

Sounds bad if you read it incautiously, as I did at first.

But it's good.

Rich Lowry: Does Anyone Know What a Nazi is? Hint: Elon Isn't One, Ya Retards

I mean, there's basically no reason to try to reason with the left anymore.

But it's good to remind ourselves of some obvious truths every now and again.

Sarah Jones: Andrea Dworkin Saw Trump's Female Enablers 40 Years Ago

Andrea Dworkin may be the first really crazy lefty I read when I was an undergrad.

   If they're going to Dworkin out onto the board in response to Trump, I guess that means that, in their crucial choice betwee:

(a) Acknowledging their recent unhinging

and

(b) Doubling down

it's (b) all the way...

   My favorite bit of this is probably that bit where she refers to Dworkin as "a rigorous thinker."

   She is not.

   She's more like a bad, angry poet.

   Don't forget that the left hates liberalism and liberals even more than it hates conservatism and conservatives. The incremental, experimental, at-least-to-some-extent rational progress liberalism has made relieves social pressure and makes the prope-Marxists' beloved, long-hoped-for revolution less likely. Liberalism hasn't been an unmitigated improvement. To some extent that's because it hasn't been able avoid sliding into illiberal leftism--though I don't want to pretend that liberalism per se is flawless. We worked hard and had fair success with respect to improving the lot of women (and everybody else) in the West. That produced other problems, I'd say--but it was still an improvement. More sexual freedom, for example, led to hookup culture, and then to Tinder etc...which have not been unmitigated wins for women generally. 

   Leftists like Dworkin--among many other loony things--want you to believe that our only options are (i) The Handmaids' Tale and (ii) whatever the hell their bizarre dystopian "utopia" is. Incremental compromise and ad hoc, experimental improvement are anathema to them.

   This article is likely just an outlier. But it may, of course, portend a broader return to the hard-core lefty source material.

   Guess we'll see.

Space Bat Day, aka Ascension

RIP, little buddy.

RIP.

Columbia Prof Participated in Illegal Demonstration, and her "Research" Promotes Racial Pseudoscience

Academia is rotten with faculty like this.

Depleted Duke Still Too Much For Heels: 71-74

So close, though.

Good on the Heels for fighting back and making it a game.

Could easily have gone the other way.

Too bad about that lane violation.

The Nutty Left in Yet Another Nutshell: Paul Rosenberg/Jessica Calarco, The Left is Rational, but Can Win by Making Up Fables Like the Evil Right Does...or Something...

What a giant, steaming pile of bullshit that...to mix metaphors...spins out of control like 1/3 of the way through. The left is still stuck at like Phase II of getting your ass handed to you politically: they're still more interested in representing their most recent electoral loss as noble and good than they are in winning the next election. This Calarco person does clearly want the left to win--she's a sociologist at UW-Madison, if that tells you anything (yes, it tells you something)--but weaving a tale of the left's superior virtue and reason seems much more important to her. The left, you see, is logical--virtually pure logos! The right is all mythos. Bad right. Stupid right. Irrational right! The left has the science! The left has the stats! All the right has is some terrible fables that scapegoat the downtrodden...oh and they also have tax-cuts for the rich. Boooo... hissssss...

   If only the left were as good at the irrational part as it is at the rational part!

   If only the left were as good at the irrational part as the right is!

   If only the left weren't so smart and good and rational and clear-eyed and....oh, curse the left and its rationality!!

   How will the rational faction ever win when Americans are so stupid??

   

   There is just no reason to engage with any of this on a serious level. It's fantastical, self-serving bullshit.

   But I can't resist two points:

   Calarco says that conservatives see government as the problem, whereas lefties recognize it as a/the solution. 

   Well, there's your problem right there.

   Government is sometimes a problem, sometimes a solution, but, per Sowell, most often a tradeoff. Sometimes the tradeoff is worth it, sometimes not. These tradeoffs tend to look better to lefties because each one IS more likely to be beneficial to them. Expand government to address problem P, you're basically handing power and money to the left. Because lefties tend to populate government, thus tend to agitate for more expansion. And, as we've seen, they use that position to shower money and contracts onto their comrades. Expending government is basically expanding and empowering the left.

   Note also that Calarco can't even decide among her crackpot pro-government initiatives. UBI or universal health care? Just one won't do it! We've gotta have all of 'em....  Something something intersectionality or something!

   Currently, the left seems to think that the solution is to eliminate the vital functions of government--defense, law enforcement, border security--and expanding emphasis on functions it shouldn't be doing in the first place--paying people not to work, brainwashing and sexually mutilating children, censorship and indoctrination, enforcing racial preferences...and on and on and on...

   Er, what was that other thing I wanted to complain about...?

   Oh yeah, maybe it was: I am SO SICK of this "narrative" shit. First, that's a paleo-PC term. It caught on and now even conservatives use it without so much as cringing. And the whole point of the term "narrative" was/is to blur the line between falsehood, theory and established truth. It's all just a story, you see? Not even explicitly theoretical, hypothetical, tentative but aiming, fallibly, at fact. No...it's just a story...but not a story you should even think to question. We just say stories at each other... They don't even rise to the level of hypotheses... We don't even want you thinking about whether it's true or false. Don't think--just accept. Thinking is reactionary, bigot. So are truth and falsehood.

   It's all just story.

   There is nothing outside the text...

   Unfortunately, the "text" pushed by the left looks more and more like 1984...

Carolina 65 - Deacs 59

That was a close one.

VAL was a monster.

Jed Rubenfeld: Both Left and Right are Wrong About Mahmoud Khalil

link

Scott McKay: Entitlement Fraud is Now a Stated Aim of the Democrat Party

Basically, yeah.

Michael Lind: Why Tariffs Are Good

Seems pretty reasonable...

Holman Jenkins: "Is Trump Throwing It All Away?"

Sure seems that way.

Julian E. Zelizer: An "Abundance Agenda" for Gov't is the Anti-DOGE

Well, that's a view I guess.

There are things government can do better than private industry. However, there's a cost. Growing government is inherently bad even if it's sometimes worth it. For one thing, we already have an overpowered government that exerts too much control over our lives--and which is, then, ripe for abuse. Furthermore, it's already being abused. Finally, Conquest's Second Law of Organizations (possibly apocryphal) seems to have turned out to be true: any organization not right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. For whatever reason--I hypothesize it's the totalitarian tendencies of the left--leftists...and even, I suppose, I must reluctantly add: liberals...tend to take over organizations and bend them to their political purposes. See e.g. universities. The government has become a vast patronage system mostly to the benefit of Democrats. Consequently, even when a good idea for expanding government comes along--say, just as an example I have no opinion on, Obamacare--we have to figure in the cost: it will be turned into a center of Democrat power that distributes lots of money to smaller, often NGO, Dem organizations. Which then also work to spread Democrat ideas and polices, engage in selective GOTV campaigns, pay huge salaries to Democrat administrators, etc. etc.

   DEI has spread largely because the Democrats control so much of government. Government became a delivery system for a bad set of ideas that, whatever they were ideally, were de facto a mechanism for spreading and enforcing progressive-left ideas, ideals and policies. Which have been outright Orwellian for at least the last decade.

   I used to oppose tax-exempt status for churches for roughly this reason--I thought we were basically publicly funding organizations dedicated to spreading conservative views--conservative political views, that is. I still have this concern...though it also concerns me how rapidly (and eagerly) so many churches seem to have adopted Woketarian madness. Anyway, I had sort of come to see churches as important counterbalances to the leftist consolidation of power in the government... Now I don't know what to think.

   I barely understand any of this anyway.

Allysia Finley: What's Behind the Rise in Autism Diagnoses?

Whatever else it is, I say: the romanticism of certain kinds of mental illness, popular with the young since at least, well, Romanticism + social contagion, largely via social media + practical incentives like academic "accommodations"--now given out to enormous numbers of students with little gatekeeping.

   Currently, about 15% of my students get "accommodations" like extra time on exams and a special, extra-quiet "testing environment" (though, interestingly, most students who cand take such "accommodations" don't avail themselves of them). Some such accommodations are patently unreasonable--our "Office of Disability Services" once told me that it was a violation of the ADA to give pop quizzes. (I told them to get bent.) Another time I was told that a student had been granted the following "accommodations": (i) an assigned note-taker, (ii) permission to record the class, (iii) access to all my overheads. (Again, I told ODS to get bent. I don't give out my overheads. (Well, sometimes, but not routinely).)

   As one of my colleagues recently argued in the Chronicle, there are basically no checks on "accommodations." High schools grant them liberally to avoid getting sued...and colleges accept whatever "accommodations" a student got in high school. It's mostly a big scam, and anyone not zombified by bleeding-heart progressive groupthink knows it. Which mean many academicians go along with it because [insert appeal to pity here]. Awww.... Think of the children!

   I mean, go knows what poison we're breathing, eating, drinking...but I'll bet it's mostly the other stuff.

   And maybe screen time, too. That's probably fucking kids up right and left.

   He says, shooting from the hip and knowing nothing about it all...

Andy Kessler: How's Trump Doing?

Great in ways, crazy in ways.

Peter Thiel Kicks Ass

He's confused about the relationship between skepticism, relativism and nihilism...but just about everybody (other than...ahem...yours truly) is.

Emma Camp: U.S. Attorney Threatens Georgetown Law For 'Teaching DEI'

Well, here we go.

Ed.'s recent Dear Colleague letter was good.

Interfering with course content / academic freedom--not good.

Although even the AAUP--which is devoutly leftist--does not consider indoctrination to be protected by academic freedom.

Nevertheless, if Camp is right, it sounds like even indoctrination is protected by the First Amendment, so...

Hard to understand how Trump thinks he's "restoring free speech" if he's endorsing violations of First Amendment law.

Lots of people on the right are gloating about the Dems coming apart.

But Trump barely won against a party that long ago lost its mind...and that ran a laughable pair of candidates.

All it will take for the Dems to win in the midterms--and maybe even in '28--is for Trump to keep this shit up.

He won last time because the Dems basically took themselves out of the running by being so abjectly crazy.

If Trump keeps it up, even the Dems might start looking pretty good to people.

I've already got Trump fatigue, to be honest about it.

And I'm already contemplating voting for Dems in the midterms just to give us divided government.

Rich Lowry: Canada Is Not The Enemy

Harassing and threatening Canada is probably Trump's dumbest idea yet--and there's stiff competition for that title.

In the same vein as Truman, John F. Kennedy said of Canada, “Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.”

James Lynch: UVA Dissolves DEI Office To Comply With Federal Order

Good.

Donald Jason Raymond: There's Waste in the Department of Defense; Trust Me, I Was There

link

My main question: what's it like to have three first names?

As If It Weren't Obvious: Antisemitism Isn't Illegal

 I presume Trump really is talking about illegal protests--taking over buildings, blocking access to parts of campus, threatening and assaulting people, etc.

Antisemitism per se is loathsome...but legal.

Carolina 69 - d00k 82

Meh.

Dan Boudreaux: On Trade Policy Trump is Terrifying

link

Jonathan Zimmerman: The New Republican Political Correctness

Although this ends on a laudably anti-PC, pro-free-speech note, I don't buy the main argument--which seems to be: reversing the PC takeover of language is itself political correctness.

   Obviously I'm not exactly dispassionate about the subject, but I disagree: reversing the PC takeover of language is not itself PC. Or so I'm inclined to think. Resetting to normal language by dumping the pseudo-technical, pseudo-scholarly bullshit terms beloved of the PC left is, well, just resetting to normal. It's anti-PC, not another kind of PC.

   Furthermore, Trump is not trying to engineer the entire language in such a way as to control thought and stack the deck for esoteric, pseudoscientific, politically radical ideas. He's just saying that the government isn't going to use the left's bullshit, politically loaded lingo.

   Again, I've been fed up with PC for about 40 years now...it's such a monumental load of totalitarian horseshit that I've nearly lost the ability to be dispassionate about it. Obviously I could be wrong on this point.

   Again, though, Zimmerman doesn't seem to be one of the PCs. Not that his motives are decisive for anything here.

Yuval Levin: Cut Spending by Using the Law, Not Breaking It

link

Noah Rothman: Republican Incoherence on Ukraine is a National Embarrassment

 link

It has been nothing less than a national embarrassment to watch Republicans fish for a rationale that justifies what they’re talking themselves into. What they’re articulating is a monarchical conception of America’s national mission, in which its geostrategic priorities are either set or altered in accordance with the prestige of one man. Even if you believe Zelensky has been insufficiently grateful to the West and America in particular — a subjective and evidentiarily deficient claim — that does not justify the wholesale reappraisal of America’s posture toward its allies and enemies or its grand strategic objectives. But a comprehensive renovation of American foreign policy is what Trump and company want to engineer, and Republicans are looking for a permission structure that allows him to get there without encountering much cognitive dissonance along the way.

I'm trying to understand Trump's position...but for now I have to regretfully agree with the above. 

Rupert Darwall: Driving a Stake Through Stakeholder Capitalism (and ESG)

link

I haven't given ESG the attention is seems to deserve. But it strikes me as being similar to DEI--a set of ideas/principles that are already fairly consistent with the ideas/principles of the left...but which are so protean that they can be used more-or-less however the left wants to use them. So they basically become catspaws. That's my view of DEI, anyway. Perhaps it's not so true of ESG. But, again, that's an aspect of the whole train wreck that I haven't really attended to. Largely because I know nothing about business and woefully little about economics.

But the totalitarian tendencies of the left incline it to basically take over every institution and endeavor, and to turn them to its nefarious ends. The right is filled with crackpottery of various kinds, but it just doesn't seem to have this same totalitarian...whatever it is. Center of gravity or something. Hence Jean Kirkpatrick's view of the authoritarian/totalitarian distinction. As the great Jeremiah McCarthy puts it: the right just wants you to behave; the left wants your soul.

Trump Is On Fire

Dude is hilarious, you've gotta give him that.

Carolina 91 - VA Tech 59

5-game winning streak!

Noah Rothman: Democrat Incoherence on "Transgender" Sports

It's the secular-political analog of a religion.

The Dems' new motto might as well be credo quia absurdum est.

Should Trump Pardon Derek Chauvin?

Yes.

Stephen Wertheim: Is Europe Misunderstanding Trump's Position on Ukraine?

This was a real surprise.

A Grauniad piece that was not only pretty good (IMO), but which offered a reasonable and justificatory hypothesis about   Trump's position on Ukraine.

   For the record, I don't like/understand/agree with Trump's approach to Ukraine overall.

I'm pretty bone-headed about this stuff: Putin bad. NATO good. Invasion bad. Zelenskyy > Putin. Put on your game face and convince Ivan that we are implacable in our defense of Ukraine, ergo we are (as a friend likes to say) willing to fight to the last Ukrainian. Ergo they can't win. Ergo might as well go back home, eat potato.

   According to the Trumplings, Trump is never wrong, he's just playing 12 dimensional chess and normies can't understand his God-level strategy.

   Problem: that often actually seems to be kinda true...

   I finally came to acknowledge that Trump is good at this sort of thing, and I am not. He's negotiated like $100bn worth of deals or whatever. I have negotiated for...a very old Ford Ranger once that fell apart on the way home. One of Trump's cognitive super powers is merely that he is immune to the blue-tinged groupthink that colors all our public discussions.

Again: I don't agree with what I hear coming from him...but, forced to bet, I suppose I'd have to bet that he's up to something I don't get.

   Which may not add up to a smart strategy, of course.

   But it's probably not stupid and evil, as the blues would have us think.

   I've already acknowledged that the mineral deal seems smart and promising.

   

   Anyway.

William Deresiewicz: Academe's Divorce From Reality

I've linked to this before, but it's great, so here it is again.

Wesley J. Smith: Science Blogger Says It Should Be A Crime To Dissent From Scientific Consensus

link

Ethan Siegel is apparently an idiot.

Kevin Roberts: Why Trump Tilts Toward Peace in Ukraine

Maybe the best defense of Trump's approach I've seen...though hardly decisive.

I would like to see us try another "reset" with Russia. Though maybe that has to wait until Putin kicks the bucket.

China seems to be the real threat.

Ideally, we'd be able to coax Russia at least a little Westward and have some kind of rough alliance with them against China.

Trump often knows a lot more and sees things a lot more clearly than people like me give him credit for. But I'm not really getting his NATO/Ukraine/Russia strategy.

WSJ: Putin Wins the Trump-Zelensky Oval Office Spectacle

Can you win a spectacle?

Well, anyway...

Maine's Transanity

link

Trump/Vance-Zelenskyy

Ugh.

Not good.

WI Governor Evers Wants 'Mother' Replaced With 'Inseminated Person' in (a) State Law

For stupid reasons.

Snopes, needless to say, does what it usually does--spins the facts as hard as possible leftward.

They try to turn this into some pro-same-sex-marriage thing. But that makes no sense. In the relevant law, if this were their goal, they'd need to change 'husband' to 'spouse' in one place.

But, of course, that's not what this is really about.

It's about advancing gender pseudoscience.

Understand that, in all likelihood, the left is never going to give this up. They'll just keep making up pseudo-scholarly neologisms, attempting to redefine ordinary words, and pushing this bullshit in whatever way they can find.

'Inseminated person' is just idiotic. It's also dehumanizing. It's reminiscent of their suggestion that 'front hole' should replace 'vagina.' 

Progressivism has become more and more difficult to distinguish from mental illness.

Carolina 92 - Miami 73

Five in a row.