Dan McLaughlin: GradingTrump's First 100 Days: C-

Tough but fair.

RIP David Horowitz

Damn.

I recommend Radical Son.

Homan: Biden Was The First President To Intentionally Unsecure The Border

Well, it certainly seemed that way.

I just want to point out that (I think) I got this right: that Biden would basically be a puppet of radical progressives in his administration / on his staff. I think that's how we got the intentional quasi-opening of the southern border.

I also suspect it is in accordance with my stratified motives view. There are some Democrats (and pseudo-Democrats) who are hard-core globalists, more-or-less wanting the U.S. (and other nations...but mostly the U.S.) to wither away. Then there are the less-radicals who want to pump up the population of blue states to strengthen Dems in the electoral college. Then there are the less-radical useful idiots who basically don't know or care about anything beyond Oh, the poor brown people...why can't we just be nice? These are the most numerous blue-teamers--AWFLs and the like. 

Anyway, yeah, I'm skeptical of people who say such things...but Biden could have stopped the tsunami whenever he wanted to. Or, rather: if he had wanted to. But he didn't. Maybe he just wanted to own the wingnuts. More probably he was talked into it by his penumbra of progressives. But, yeah: he could have stopped it and he didn't. So, very probably, he just didn't want to.

Who's Dumber, Trump or the Canucks?

Trump helped install another Trudeau, and the damn Canucks screwed themselves to spite him:

Canadian Boomers top election issue was “Donald Trump” and their bottom issue was “Making Canada a better place to live”…

Can’t make it up. https://t.co/qUPFJh8uwt

— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) April 29, 2025

Rufo: "We Can't Hire a White Guy"--a Prof on Life at Princeton

DEI has permeated and further perverted my own much more modest institution. I'd bet a fair amount of money that, under our previous dean and provost, we engaged in race-based hiring. Though that's just one aspect of the left's influence on campus.

   One aspect of the Princeton prof's story is a lot like something that happened here. Our previous dean used to say that we had to hire more Hispanic faculty because we were projected to have more Hispanic students in the near future. I questioned this bizarro argument, asking whether he'd say we needed to hire more white faculty if we were projected to get more white students. No answer. And, of course, since SFFA, we probably are projected to have more white students. This is pretty standard fare. Bullshit rationalizations that the purveyors would never dream of generalizing to less-favored demographic groups. This is one way universities ratchet themselves ever leftward.

   Our previous provost illegally re-wrote our hiring guidelines over one summer. Many faculty did revolt about this...but mostly went along with the new guidelines in the end. They were designed to give the provost a freer hand in selecting from the short list mostly chosen by faculty. (I say mostly because we were (and may still be for all I know) under certain rules that (a) required us to have a certain number of candidates on the short list from "underrepresented" groups, and (b) we weren't allowed to drop those candidates from the list unless we deemed them unacceptable--a low standard indeed. We actually had to do this once. The candidate from the "underrepresented" group was awful.) The provost specifically cited "equity" as a reason for the illegal rule changes. An ad hoc group of pissed off faculty began working against the guidelines...but none of them cared nor would even recognize that DEI and leftist preferences were at the root of the problem. I emphasized in many meetings of the group that "equity" was the provost's acknowledged motive. No one would even respond to my point. We were on Zoom, and every time there would just be dead air after my comment. 

   In addition to hiring candidates on the basis of--or at least heavily influenced by--their race, here's another thing that happens: extremely left-friendly areas of specialization are preferred to more traditional specializations on DEI grounds. So DEI is used as a reason not only for hiring nonwhite, non-heterosexual, and female candidates, it's also used as an excuse for hiring candidates who special in left-leaning areas of scholarship like CRT, colonialism, feminism, "gender" studies, "queer theory," etc. Our two most important positions--history of ancient and history of modern--remained empty for something like five years after the retirement of the profs. We were told that we could hire "philosophy of disability" or "world philosophy"...neither of which is central to a philosophy department...but the dean wouldn't let us fill the positions we really needed. We finally filled one of them a couple of years ago because we had to hire for a different reason and managed to hire somebody in one of the relevant areas of specialization. We just now finally hired to fill the other one. And we were able to do so mainly because the previous dean and provost aren't around anymore. The dean moved on to a more prestigious university--which the goal of everyone around here. The provost "quit"...but no one thinks she did so voluntarily. She did not mention where she was going. Which means she probably wasn't going anywhere. Though she didn't seem old enough to retire...

   Anyway.

   As I've said before, DEI is almost nothing more than a catspaw for the academic left to strengthen its grip on campus. It's not the heart of the problem, but it's a tool and an additional motive for moving institutions leftward.

[Written in even more haste than usual; probably some infelicities up there. sry.]

Trump Loses Another Election for Conservatives--This Time in Canada

Dumbass.

Poilievre seemed to have this one in the bag until Trump wouldn't shut up about the 51st state nonsense.

How many elections has he lost for conservatives now?

The White House: Lab Leak: The True Origins of COVID

LOL for all his flaws, Trump kicks a lot of ass.

Can't believe I didn't post this when it first came out.

Wish I could remember who it was on Twitter who said I was "in tinfoil hat territory" for saying I thought the lab-leak hypothesis was most likely back in 2020.

Brainwashed cultist.

Another Hegseth Signal Fiasco?

Big if true.

Seems pretty clear that he ought to go if we're getting the straight dope about this.

He never sounded like the greatest appointee--though his book is pretty good.

Biden "Disinformation" Crazy Nina Jankowicz Lobbying for Speech Restrictions in Europe Now

This loon is an enthusiastic commissar in a slightly different timeline.

Becket Adams: Conservative Rhetoric Did Not Cause the Media Credibility Crisis

The left just can't take responsibility for anything.

Ontario Must Pay for Surgery to Give "Trans" Resident Both a Penis and "Vagina"

Crazier and crazier.

Of course he's a dude. So he already has a penis. But they have to pay to have a fake vagina fabricated for him.

UK: Migrant Pedo Can Stay Because He's an Alcoholic

You can't make this shit up.

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, "Maryland Man"

The left has lost its shit.

McCarthy: Trump's Job is to Enforce Congress's Immigration Laws, Not Make Up His Own

The great Andrew McCarthy:

Go read the whole thing.

In actuality, as the above snippets from relevant Supreme Court jurisprudence instruct, the involvement of the courts in immigration enforcement is extremely limited — confined to the narrow authority Congress has vested in them. Sure, it is also the judiciary’s 

constitutional duty to uphold due process protections; in the immigration realm, though, that is not much protection because Congress decides what process is due and aliens do not have the full array of due process rights enjoyed by citizens. 

As the Supreme Court has recognized in Johnson v. Eisentrager (1950), the rights of aliens become more robust as they lawfully weave into the fabric of our society. The foreigner who has never entered the United States has no constitutional rights; the illegal alien at the border has nearly none; the illegal alien who has entered has marginally more; the alien on a temporary visa has still more but less than an immigrant with a green card. 

Let’s set aside for a moment the difficult cases of legal aliens the Trump administration seeks to expel because of pro-Hamas agitation. What the president, the vice president, and their staffers are mainly squawking about are deportable aliens, near the lowest end of the sliding scale of due process rights. 

Read more »

UK Toddler Kicked Out of Nursery School for "Transphobia"?

Sounds like that's what happened.

Bryan Caplan: Why GMU Should End DEI For Real

Exactly.

And so should all other universities.

Hannah E. Meyers: Trans Criminals: the Problem We Refuse to Acknowledge/Quantify

Crazytime

Dreher: Owning the Libs is Not a Strategy

agreed

"Dark Woke:" The Dems are the Party of Cringe

LOOOLOLLOLOLOL

LOOOLOLOOOLLOLOLOLOLOLLOOLOLOOL

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

OMGICAN'TBREATHE

Yet Another Reason to Like Elon

He makes lefty girly-men want to scratch his eyes out.

Democrat Judge Blocks...Noncitizen Voting + Cities That Give Aid and Comfort to Illegal Aliens Edition

Democrat judge blocks Trump admin from requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration.

Democrat judge blocks...Trump from withholding funds from traitorous "sanctuary" cities.

Jesus Christ.

KBJ: Not Smart

In case you hadn't noticed.

Coulter: Rachel Maddow's Very, Very, Very Special Friend

Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid are, of course, both abject morons.

David Brooks: TRUMP IS NOT NORMAL WE NEED AN UPRISING REEEEEEEEEEEE

Dude, I'm not at all convinced that everything Trump is doing is right. And given his demeanor and whatnot, I understand being concerned about the overall sweep of his actions--I'm also concerned.

   But c'mon, enough with the melodramatic puling.

   And this is just stupid:

Trumpism is threatening all of that [stuff he weepily enumerates]. It is primarily about the acquisition of power — power for its own sake. It is a multifront assault to make the earth a playground for ruthless men, so of course any institutions that might restrain power must be weakened or destroyed. Trumpism is about ego, appetite and acquisitiveness and is driven by a primal aversion to the higher elements of the human spirit — learning, compassion, scientific wonder, the pursuit of justice.

   Really, how can anyone be confused enough to believe that? This is just something people say as an ad hominem. Many have made the same charge agianst the PC/woke left: they just want power...

Bullshit.

   Trump, like the left, believes in what he's doing.

   If you don't realize that, you're probably stuck in an echo chamber.

   In the case of the left: it's worse than if they only wanted power. I wish they only wanted power. That's at least a minimally sane goal. Unfortunately, the PC left actually believes the crazy shit it says, and actually thinks its goals--re-engineering society, brainwashing children, open borders etc.--are good.

   Trump &co. at least have sane goals--mainly: push back on the left's lunatic program. Save Western Civilization.

   Now, you may not like his goals. And, like me, you may be concerned about some of his methods.

   But you're deluded if you think he just wants power.

   A reminder: I don't think Trump is the kind of person who ought to have a lot of political power. But that's largely beside the point here.

Mason Econ Grad Student Asks, of Trump and His Administration, "When Must We Kill Them?"

On the one hand, it's just one lefty douchebag (but I repeat myself) grad student. You can find people in any faction who are saying psycho things. Both sides, etc., etc.

OTOH, well, dude doesn't really seem like that much of an outlier...

Turley: SCOTUS Hears Major Case Over Mandatory "LGBT..." Readings

link

On the one hand, I don't see a problem with some readings having non-heterosexual characters in them--obviously. OTOH, we all know what's going on here: this is part of the concerted, culture-wide program of advancing the "queer theory" agenda, and of the institutional capture of public institutions and use of them as instruments of leftist indoctrination. There is no doubt that that's really the point of all this.

   Schools--in particular, many in MD--are not doing their jobs. But political brainwashing is both easier and more emotionally gratifying to a certain kind of teacher. Many of whom went into teaching precisely to gain an ever-renewing captive audience. Even if the kids were learning the important stuff, the indoctrination would be unacceptable. But the two things together are just absurd.

   It's great that we've had some victories this year. But I say again: this will be an on-going fight. The left has evolved into an institution that strives mainly for mind-control. It has seized on a tangle of ideas and arguments from the humanities and recent Continental philosophy that have a proven power of confusing and misleading. These ridiculous ideas and sophistical arguments have been scrambling the brains of literary types for 40 years now. The general form of their argument is:

[Massive tangle of jargon-laden pseudo-philosophical bullshit that leaves most people in stunned silence]

Therefore:

[Insane conclusion to the effect that everyone and everything must be re-engineered in accordance with the fantasies of the left.]

41.2% of Vienna Students Are Muslim: ‘No Longer Immigration,’ But ‘Displacement’

I would very much like for someone to give me a reasonable argument for the conclusion that the immigration situation in Western Europe is not a catastrophe.

Sullum: By Openly Retaliating Against Disfavored Law Firms, Trump Attacks Free Speech and the Right to Counsel

Yeah, I've been fretting about this.

These firms suck. They're dedicated to the despicable blue-team practice of ceaseless lawfare.

But--and, again: I am not a lawyer--this sound pretty bad on its face.

I've already got stage three Trump fatigue.

Hegseth

So here we are again, not knowing whether the Trumpistas are incompetent, the media are lying hacks...or both.

   I've been skeptical of Hegseth from the get-go...but I just don't understand whether Signalgate is actually bad or just another cheap opportunity for the MSM to score points against the evil Orange Man. Signalgate 1.0 sounded pretty bad. Then Signalgate 2.0 just seemed utterly nuts. Who, after just getting busted for this very sort of thing, then texts his wife basically the same kind of (classified?) information??? You'd have to be a complete moron.

   Just one of the joys of a Trump administration--you can't really tell which of the 10,000 weekly "outrages" is for realz...

   Anyway, I'm happy for Hegseth to go if he should. I just don't understand what's going on.

Lauren Rowello: "Yes, Kink Belongs at Pride. And I Want My Kids to See It."

[Wide-eyed, horrified stare]

Gerard Baker: Is Trump a Tyrant, a Savior, or Merely a Bungler?

A little bit of column A, a moderate amount of column B, and a whole lotta column C, IMO.

The Woke Pope

One of the most alarming things about political correctness / woketarianism is its ability to infiltrate and corrupt even institutions you'd think would be immune--e.g. religion and the military. Ok, we can note that the military was wokified largely by orders of the civilian leadership. But religion? I know one guy who quit his church because it was so woke--and I don't know that many people who go to church. I've read other similar accounts.

   That's all I've got.

Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932

Well that's just great.

Trump Blows Poilievre's Lead

Nice work, dumbass.

Pervert Teachers are Coming for your Kids [NSFW]

"Its important i talk to your children about assplay" can we stop pretending degenerates whose lives are ruled by their fetishes being in charge of shaping young minds is sensible? https://t.co/sXuWhD7o6x

— MoshiMoshiMoan (@MoshiMoshiMoan) April 19, 2025

What the hell is wrong with these people?

I don't have a puritanical bone in my body, but this is fucking insane.

This teacher thinks not merely that it's permissible to talk to kids about this stuff, but that it's obligatory for them to.

This is no different than some middle-aged dude walking up to kids in the park and taking to them about it.

Straight to jail.

She's not just sick, she's also a fucking idiot.

I can't believe the father was so calm about it.

Noah Carl: Should Whites Pursue "White Interest"?

Nobody likes that shit.

But...

I do think it's reasonable for, say, blacks to keep an eye on social and political trends with an eye to protecting the rights and interests of blacks. Seems to me that it's just about as reasonable to take a special interest in the rights and interests of your race or sex as it is to take a special interest in the rights and interests of your friends and family. Or yourself. You're your first line of defense. If you don't take a special interest in your own rights and interests, who will?

   I've never much believed this about whites...but...now that the left has made us the enemy, we kind of have to do it. That doesn't mean "white identity" politics nor any such horseshit... But the left has forced us into this position. Everybody should be concerned about the left's anti-white lunacy, just like everybody should be concerned about racial lunacy against blacks, Asians, American Indians...whoever. But we do have special obligations to ourselves--again, we're our own first line of defense.

   I'd rather see us go back to / advance the idea of non-racial concern with everybody's rights. But that's not the nation we currently live in. There are lots of non-whites out there opposing the anti-white crackpottery of the left. And, really, everybody should be concerned when a faction targets a race.

   But there's plenty of room between the Klan and the antiwhite PC left. It's not like we have to walk some tightrope or anything.

The Rumeysa Ozturk Case

Not wild about this.

Lexington and Concord at 250

Holy crap.

I remember the bicentennial!

I'm old!

Forgot to post something yesterday, but I didn't forget the...whatever the 250-year anniversary is. The heptaseptahemi-duodecacennial or whatever it is.

SCOTUS Temporarily Blocks Deportations Under Alien Enemies Act

That sucks.

Which is not to say I think they're wrong on the law--why the hell would I deserve an opinion on that?

But it sucks

Brian Karem: Trump’s open defiance of the law leaves no room for Republican redemption

Well, sure it sounds bad when you put it that way...

I'm happy about the good things Trump is doing...but extremely concerned about manner and methods. Things are happening fast, it's hard to control for MSM bias and hysteria, hard to control for my own biases and blind spots...

Things could be good or things could be awful...I sort of can't tell.

   I was pretty much with Karem for the first half--though I had to repeatedly wonder whether I was just being suckered by the leftist propaganda machine yet again.

   In the second half his TDS breaks out into the open:

Trump has vowed to do something, anything, about the so-called (and non-existent) migrant invasion by April 20. This has some people fearful he will declare a national emergency and martial law that day, or shortly thereafter, to snuff out any resistance to his authoritarian regime. Some protesters are calling for a general strike, while Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland headed to El Salvador on Wednesday to try and arrange for Abrego Garcia’s release from prison.

and: 

There is no truth in anything Trump does, says or envisions. “He is suffering from a worsening dementia and delusion,” his niece Mary said. “And he has no one telling him otherwise. Stephen Miller is in the Oval Office telling Donald he won a Supreme Court ruling 9-0 when they lost – and no one is pushing back. I guarantee you he hasn’t read the report. None of his minions want to tell him the truth.”

Wow. I mean...they really have basically lost their minds. They just did the very thing that they're now accusing the Trumpistas of. I mean--to pick out just one of the more minor problems there...

   Anyway.

   The blaring blue team propaganda just makes things worse. They scream bloody murder at even the neutral and the good things Trump does. Eventually the shrieking becomes little more than background noise. In fact, you have to strive to shut it out or you'll go nuts. But then these are the very people who would naturally be canaries in the coal mine when the administration does genuinely bad things--as it undoubtedly will...

   LOL almost forgot one of my favorite bits from that first quote:  "the so-called (and non-existent) migrant invasion." LOLOLOLOLOL

   Non-existent now that Trump is in office, you twit.

   Though of course the flood waters are still here--they're rising only slowly now, but they haven't subsided...

   Well, anyway.

   I remain concerned.

   But hopeful.

Steven Levitsky's TDS

I have no respect for people who advance leftist totalitarianism then whine that Trump is a right-wing authoritarian for trying to stop them.

Like this Levitsky tool.

As usual, let me note: I'm not exactly the biggest Trump fan. He's got strengths and weaknesses. I'm not all that wild about some of the things he's doing. I find him amusing and largely likeable...but I don't think he should be President.

Though...who has done as much to thwart the lunatic left as Trump has?

But whiny little leftist bitches who promote the much-worse-than-Trump left...or who refuse to adequately criticize it...well, I just don't take their puling about Trump seriously.

Even though I have my own concerns about him.

A Hill Academia is Willing to DEI On?

These people:

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors, described the letter as “a deep political intrusion into the operations of higher education institutions” that “must be responded to with absolute conviction and force.” The AAUP seeks to challenge the directive in court and secure an injunction, and Wolfson hopes higher ed institutions do the same.
“I would stand with every inch of my soul against every one of these intrusions and bring all my members with me and put our bodies on the line to stop it,” he said.
But he’s most alarmed by the possible limits the Dear Colleague letter could impose on universities’ research and curricula. He believes government interference into those core aspects of academic life should be fought at all costs.
He’s particularly worried that the Trump administration could stymie research “for the collective good” on topics like child literacy or infant mortality rates in communities of color. He sees such studies as not just enlightening for students but also critical to solving wider societal problems. An attack on this type of research would be “an affront to every single American,” he said.
He doesn’t want to see the Trump administration dictating what’s taught in the classroom, either.
“We cannot have Big Brother standing over us saying, ‘You’re not allowed to read that book,’” he said. “There’s no such thing as higher education if that’s happening.”

Whoa...the left has rediscovered Orwell suddenly?

   If I weren't going to quit the AAUP anyway, this would probably do the trick:

“I would stand with every inch of my soul against every one of these intrusions and bring all my members with me and put our bodies on the line to stop it,”

These people really are cosplaying the civil rights movement.

   Except when they're cosplaying the communist revolution...

   Elsewhere they repeatedly refer to "university workers"...meaning faculty...if you can believe that...

   I don't understand much about the various Trump executive orders...but getting rid of DEI and otherwise pushing back against the left's hegemony over universities are good. Leftism is like a sickness pervading the university. Needless to say, leftists should get to voice their crackpot views at universities, just like every other group. But that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about them running the institution and bending it to their political purposes.

   What they're objecting to is the administration challenging their undisputed dominion over the institution.

Rove: America Gets Trump Fatigue

Is it 2028 yet?

I'm willing to put up with a certain amount of chaos...but this is ridiculous.

Though, TBF: still not as bad as the ceaseless prope-Marxist cultural chaos sown by the progressive left. At least we don't have to worry that there will be a decree that adults are children, children are adults, dogs are cats, the sky is down, or summer is that cold season around Christmas...

   We successfully evaded the pack of ravening, globalist, nonbinary wolves by jumping off a cliff into a raging, populist cataract.

   Good luck everybody...

In Landmark Ruling, UK Supreme Court Rules Men Don't Count as Women Under Anti-Discrimination Law

Next up: 

Freedom: slavery or what?

Mike Gallagher: Time for Accountability on the COVID Lab-Leak Coverup

Way, way past time.

Rufo: Welcome to the Right-Wing Civil Rights Regime

The left has weaponized civil rights law for 75 years...now it's squawking because the right has decided to give it some of its own medicine.

Private universities can do pretty much whatever they want...but we don't have to give them public money to do it.

The Left Hates Dogs Now

Libs: "We have a 21% approval rating and just got our doors blown off in the last election. How can we improve our standing?"

Also Libs: "How about we hate dogs." pic.twitter.com/MSvQCi957R

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) April 15, 2025

Shapiro Arson

 WTFF?

Dude there is a reason why arson used to be punished by death.

You firebomb somebody's house--especially the fcking governor--you go to jail for a long, long time...at least.

This shit has got to stop.

Joel Kotkin: Trump is Right to Take on the Free Trade Fundamentalists

There are a lot of loose parts in this argument, but I'm generally sympathetic. But, again, I'm not an economist and I realize that my half-assed, largely intuitive position on this is largely worthless. If you gave me a chance to determine policy by pushing a button, I'd have to go with what I take to be the consensus of economists--that Trump's policy isn't smart. Nevertheless, I have to say, the specific arguments I've read from that side haven't struck me as all that strong.

Chris Bray: Academia Pretends It Was Apolitical and Public-Spirited Before Trump Came Along

This is right smack dab on the damn money.

At my own university, the AAUP is holding a rally today that basically presupposes the attitude Bray describes. They think that DEI is an unmitigated, purely objective good that all right-thinking people--especially faculty--support. That universities are bastions of right-thinkingness because that means leftism. AND that ideological capture of academia is a myth...although they also think that every human institution is basically pure ideological capture--there is no such thing as anything else. To ideologically capture is human... But it's only the evil Dominant Culture that has ideologically captured anything ever. Western Civilization is The Man, aka The Oppressor. Academia has somewhat counteracted this, creating a somewhat liberated environment, but it's still almost entirely Dominant-Culture dominated. I suppose it'd be really genuinely politically correct only if it was pure, unmitigated CRT and DEI in every department and every class...

The thing is, the thought that academia might be ideologically captured and distorted by the left never really seems to even enter their heads. (I'm speaking here of academicians in the main, and AAUP types in the main--certainly not of our local AAUP-folk, who are a cut above the normal AAUP claptrap in my experience.) Part of the ideological capture is that the main opposing view is never even articulated on campus. The politically correct orthodoxy is damn near pervasive...but the most relevant other perspective just...isn't.

Mark Helprin: Trump's Provocation Principle

The administration is too addicted to shock, awe and intimidation to see the harm it is doing to itself.

In regard to its initiatives across all categories, the administration puts at risk its genuine accomplishments. Its delight in shock and awe feeds upon itself in complete disregard of history and without projecting forward in view of the relative powers it seeks to marshal against those of the world, the laws of economics, and the very weight of reality, all of which it seems to imagine it is somehow able to intimidate. The price will be steep.

Tough but fair.

It's pathological.

Why gratuitously make things harder than they need to be? What's with recreationally pissing off Canada? Threatening Denmark? Although I didn't imagine this lunacy in particular, it's of the general kind I feared. He just can't stand to be challenged. This is the dark side of his admirable immunity to the rhetorical slings and arrows of the left--call him a racist, call him a rapist, call him a fascist, use the courts to steal his money and give it to an obviously crazy woman who slandered him, try to put him in jail...he don't care. He's just going to keep punching back. He's antifragile, as my buddy McCarthy says.

   And look at how great the guy is with regular people. They love him--the non-TDS-addled, anyway. He's got a long history of genuine, warm interactions with real, actual folk. You can look it up...

   But.

   When challenged by people he considers near-peer or genuine threats, he gets crazy nasty. Look at how he talks to candidates who challenge him--Republicans worst of all. And now Canada...

   To some extent, Trump's just a guy. Or, rather: just a bro. He's giving his roommate shit, and when said roomie can't handle it, it's blood in the water. But this is bad manners in polite society. Hence the pearl-clutching...

   The pearl-clutchers do end up looking a bit ridiculous. But from the perspective of established norms, accepted by all nations and pretty much all businesses and professional organizations, and by academia...Trump's acting like a lunatic...

...or a bully. I guess I never really recognize that latter point--maybe because I'm not bullyable myself. I see such macho bravado as either ridiculous or some weird kind of foppery. Or a provocation to respond in kind. Anyway, I tend to dismiss all the blue squealing about bullying...but I guess that's what it is--bullying.

   Don't get me wrong--Canada is dropping the ball by not playing the game. It should just give shit back. Troll him. Make fun of him. (a) Then you win. (b) Side-effect: he'll respect you more.

   Anybody who thinks that there is any nonzero chance whatsoever of us attacking Canada is nuts. Canada must realize this...yes?

   But: remember that what we're being told about Canada's reaction is mostly the kind of propagandistic blue-team spin we always get from the media. But this time, it's filtered through two different levels/kinds of blue-team media. Everything I hear from blue-team media is blue-team anti-Trump hysteria. Even when I think they are likely to be right about something, I can't be sure. Could just be Gell-Mann amnesia...

   Booing the national anthem at hockey games is, I'll bet, a much better gauge of Canadian public opinion... But in this case, it seems to agree with the picture painted by the media.

  Anyway, some of the parties Trump tears into absolutely deserve it. Others don't. But every time he goes over the top, as with the tariffs and bombing Canada, there's a cost to be paid. And his belligerent, arrogant, annoying attitude means that the cost will generally be higher than it needed to be. 

Dems Still Want a Great Replacement

Yeah, as I keep saying: PC/woketarianism isn't dead. It's just gone into remission.

That won't last.

Hey, remember when it was Stop having babies because climate change you evil Western bigots?

Now it's: Throw open the border so the Third World can indiscriminately replace you and the children you didn't have. Bigot.

The ideological facade changes as is convenient...but the ultimate goal--the destruction of Western Civilization--persists.

Crap Argument Files: Michael Moore Says Deported Illegals Could Have Cured Cancer, Saved Us From Asteroid

facepalm

Nobody makes an argument that bad unless they're so committed to the position that they're not actually thinking about it.

One snappy conservative comeback is to make an analogous argument about aborted fetuses/babies...

(Though that argument isn't quite so satisfying for those of us on the libertarian side of the abortion disagreement.)

And since we're doing pure maybes...maybe one of those illegal aliens we shooed out...instead of being the next Steve Jobs...would be...HITLER II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO!!!!111

Then, instead of stylish, overpriced computer equipment, we'd have MORE HOLOCAUSTS...

...Ever think of that, Chubby?

Tyler Cowan: An Epidemic of Uncertainty

Agreed: uncertainty is bad.

"Abundance" Leftism

Slogan: Now with seconds on bugs.

"Frightening How Institutional Washington Coalesced to Ignore* [sic] Biden's Health Problems"

 * hide

Lauren Smith: The All-Male Women's Pool Final

So how long are they going to try to keep this bullshit up?

VDH: The Left Rages Against Trump But Offers No Real Alternatives

I agree with most of this.

In particular:

Please make the argument that the real losers are the recent economies of India, China, or Mexico, which supposedly foolishly tax imports and yet demand tariff-free exports, all to run up surpluses. Are they suicidal and we, the masters of trade deficits, the real geniuses?

Economists inveterately opposed to tariffs may well have an answer to this--but I haven't run across it yet.

   Again, I'm not saying that I deserve and opinion about this, nor that anybody should listen to me about it. But I'm not convinced that basically every other country in the world is stupid, and shooting itself in the foot with its own tariffs...and we're the smart ones for letting them do it. They put tariffs on our goods and we didn't reciprocate. Win!

Market Turmoil Deepens in Response to Trump Tariffs

Whelp.

School Children Taught that Joan of Arc was "Non-binary"

These crazy people are going after your kids.

Matt Ridley: How Scientists Mislead the World About COVID Origins

Lysenkoism.

David Catron: The Global Censorship Cancer

Agreed.

Ann Coulter: "Who's Defying Court Orders, Again?"

Dunno whether this is right, but it sounds plausible.

Inez Feltscher Stepman: A Reckoning For Higher Education

I agree.

As usual, I'll add that I think that one major cause of these problems is the totalitarian inclination of the left. It's radical and generally tends to radicalize more over time. Conservatives tend to resist change, the left tends to welcome it--in a certain rather narrow range of directions--always leftward. It also tends to see its political ends as constituting the most important ends, ends that override all others. In academia, even the search for and transmission of truth, and the transmission of the best that has been thought and said must be subordinated to leftist ideology. Free inquiry, objective research, free speech, all are merely subordinate, so all may be subordinated. It's not merely that political considerations sometimes override other goals--they always do. If free and open inquiry requires questioning the new leftist axiom that some women are male, then so much the worse for inquiry. Hence political correctness--the subordination of actual correctness--truth, justification, evidence--to that which is deemed correct by leftist idealogues.

   Some have even suggested that the left is driven to radicalization because leftists gain internet cred by adopting more radical ideas than their peers--the crazier/leftier the ideas, the greater the cred. Credo quia absurdum est.

   If leftist ideas were crazy, but the left weren't hellbent on injecting them into everything and re-engineering society in accordance with them, that would be a problem, but a lesser one. Or if the left were dedicated to injecting certain sane ideas into everything, that, again, would be a problem, but a lesser one. But the combination of radical, obviously absurd ideas with the totalitarian objective of injecting them into everything...this is a catastrophic combination.

   This is all made possible by another characteristic of the left, the acceptance of bad philosophy and bad methods. The former include relativism and social constructionism, the rejection of the very possibility of even moderate degrees of objectivity, skepticism, nihilism, subjectivism, prope-Marxism...the list goes on and on...  Add to these the academic left's introduction of bullshit, quasi-poetic, free-associative methods of reasoning that allow basically any conclusion to be "derived" from virtually any premises via inscrutable, irrational, jargon-laden bullshitting. Check out the writings of its heroes--e.g. that champion of transanity, Judith Butler. Utter bullshit. Not to even mention people like Bruno Latour, Deleuze, Helen Longino--hell, you can just throw in almost all the famous feminists of the last 50 years--Lacan, much of Foucault, most of the critical theorists... What you find in such writings is mostly bullshit--bullshit promoting left-wing ideas--pasted together and obscured by neologisms and inscrutable, quasi-poetic prose. Undergraduate-level reasoning behind a smokescreen of pseudo-scholarly cant.

   This method meshes will with another of their favorites: ceaseless, groundless accusations of prejudice--racism, misogyny, a whole array of "-phobia"s--against anyone they disagree with. The left is always able to "find" "racism" in anything its opponents say or do because (a) it is a philosophical assumption that all their opponents are racist (etc.), and (b) their "method" of "reasoning" is so loose and free-wheeling that they can, with enough babbling, "prove"--i.e. assert--anything they want.

   And, of course, we should add: they even deny the difference between genuine inquiry and sophistry to promote political ends. That's a liberal, rationalist hangup, my friends. One reason they adopt the view that "everything is political" is so that they can, with a clear conscience, slander their political opponents even when they know they are lying. Truth is your hangup, liberal. Nothing trumps the importance of the revolution...

   And here we are...a hundred million broken eggs, and not a single omelette...

   Anyway.

   My $0.02 FWIW...

Rich Cromwell: "If You're Hysterical About Trump's Tariffs, Go Touch Grass"

You've really gotta look for these pieces supporting Trump... The Federalist has been good on some things, but it's staunchly pro-Trump, and I have no reason to think they're any good on economics.

   Again, this kinda seems to make sense to me--not that that matters much. Maybe you could always plead transitoriness any time the market crashes. But in this case there really does seem to be independent, principled reason to predict a crashy event and then eventual recovery. And a much better position for the U.S. after that. Maybe, anyway.

   I'm not defending Trump on this, really. I mean, we KNOW that the left and the MSM (but I repeat myself) will lose its/their mind about everything Trump does. They even seem to have become pro-government-waste and pro-illegal-alien-Venezuelan-gangsters. So we can basically just divide through by anything they say.

   But in this case, it's not just the left that's freaking out--not by a long shot.

   Though, if I could flip a switch, I'd trade somewhat higher prices for more American manufacturing jobs.

Shane Harris: "Elites Hate Trump's Tariffs Because They Work"

I mean, honestly, the more I think and read about it, the less I understand about why this tariff business is so terrible. I'm not an economist, and I'm not stupid enough to substitute my less-than-half-assed understanding of this for the--apparent, anyway--consensus of, like, everybody else...

   I'm just saying that, if I were forced to decide on this question on the information I currently have and without knowing that basically everybody else including all the economists think it's a disaster...I'd probably opt for tariffs--at least reciprocal ones.

   It sure seems that the consensus is that that's dumb--I'm not denying that. And I'm not denything that it's dumb. I'm just saying that I apparently don't understand enough to see why the dumb decision is dumb.

Pelosi, Sanders, Obama: All Favored (Reciprocal) Tariffs in the Recent Past

1) 1996 Nancy Pelosi encourages all of Congress to back reciprocal tariffs

2) 2008 Bernie Sanders wants tariffs, says jobs are going overseas

3) 2018 Barack Obama calls for reciprocal tariffs

4) 1988 Donald Trump says foreign countries must pay tariffs

Only 1 hasn’t sold out pic.twitter.com/6jqXqaYALC

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 4, 2025

WSJ: Trump Owns the Economy Now

I have no right to an opinion, but just about everybody on just about all sides seems to be panicking.

So that doesn't sound too good.

link

Chase Spears on Military Public Affairs Officers and the Hysterical Overreaction Strategy Against the Anti-DEI Initiative

The same sort of thing is happening in academia, too:

Last week, the Department of Defense reinstated multiple historical websites and social media posts featuring the Tuskegee Airmen, the Enola Gay, the WWII Navajo Code Talkers, the Women Airforce Service Pilots, Jackie Robinson, and the Marines at Iwo Jima, among others. These were not removed due to an official directive or innocent mistake, but rather as an act of internal sabotage—an attempt by military agents to paint the new administration as historically illiterate and regressive. The actual order was to eliminate content promoting Marxist DEI ideologies that divide the military, not to erase American history.

This hysterical overreaction strategy first (so far as I know) appeared in response to Florida's efforts to push back against ideological capture in academia. Lefty professors started claiming that they had to stop teaching certain courses, that basically U.S. history couldn't be taught, and other such loony things. The left is caught with its pants down here. Its ideas are indefensible, so it's decided to pretend that the rational efforts to roll back its totalitarian capture of academia is itself totalitarian! If you won't let us take over your truth-seeking institutions and turn them to our propagandistic ends, then you are the totalitarians! See?! If you won't let us brainwash your kids with CRT, then we can't teach American history at all!

   This is the final stage of the standard 5-phase defense of a crazy leftists idea (below, x):

There's no such thing as x

We're not doing x

We are doing x, but that's ok.

We are doing x, and that's a good thing.

It's impossible not to do x!

Ruy Teixeira: Democrat Delusions Aren't Going Away Any Time Soon

Agreed.

But a disagreement: the Dems aren't economic determinists anymore--but they remain cultural/social determinists of a different sort. They are afflicted by societism which is a form of irrationalism: basically only non-rational social causes influence belief. In fact, society even "constructs" reality itself... As is normal for such things, these views are rarely clearly articulated or explicitly endorsed--but they show up so commonly in the justifications/rationalizations the left gives for its policies and actions that it's undeniably operating at some level.

   The important thing is: humans--and especially non-leftists--never believe or act on genuinely good reasons. We are always pushed around by irrational social forces. Economic forces used to be the most popular on the left. Now the Standard Litany of prejudices--the boilerplate "-ism"s and "-phobia"s--are the preferred version. I tend to blame Marx and Freud for the left's bizarre obsession with hidden, non-rational motives...but, honestly, I'm not sure where it ultimately comes from.

Newest Ford-Class Carrier, Enterprise, to be Renamed After Elon Musk

Just plain fuck this.

This is idiotic.

The blurb at the bottom about the USS Constitution is obviously at least mostly a joke...but God knows...

Institutional Capture Watch: Hospitals Should "Resist" ICE?

They will never stop unless/until they've corrupted every institution.

NC Universities Trying to Hide DEI Requirements?

The deep academy.

Greenwald: Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder Flee U.S. Just Ahead of DOGE Death Squads

Oh, also apparently Snyder's wife, also a Yale lefty prof.

As I've said before, Snyder's first book, Bloodlands, about the Holodomor, is pretty good. His second (?) book--a pamphlet, really--On Tyranny starts out ok, but turns into a thinly-disguised anti-Orange-Man screed. Politically, Snyder's an idiot.

Stanley is just an idiot. Period.

John Sailer: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Bankrolls Radical Activists in Higher Ed

Bullshit pseudo-scholarship and radical leftist politics are basically joined at the hip. Without each other, I'm not sure either could survive in academia--certainly they wouldn't be the destructive force they've been for the last 10-60 years (depending on how you count it...).

Jason L. Riley: The Campus DEI Retreat is a Tactical Withdrawal

Well, you know where I stand on this.

   DEI isn't the main problem--not by any stretch of the imagination.

   The problem is the ideological capture of the university.

   The left seems to have inherent totalitarian tendencies that lead it to take over institutions and bend them to its ideological ends. There is no reason to think that this tendency will go away. In fact, it's a very safe bet that it won't. And schools and universities--and young people in general--seem to be among its favorite targets. This, per Lenin, is correct strategy: occupy the bottlenecks and brainwash the youth.

   The left will remain in control of universities for the foreseeable future. And it will never stop searching for new and better ways to inject its pernicious ideology into the institution and, thus, into the minds of the young.

   The problem of the "deep state" is nothing compared to that of the deep academy.

   "Diversity," which morphed into "DEI," (note that no one ever voted on adding to / expanding this concept--it was just decreed by the left) has been a mere catspaw--an incredibly effective one, but nothing more. It won't go away completely (many programs and administrators will simply be "rebranded") but even if it did, the academic left would replace it. The left already has other Trojan Horse terms that are used to sneak totalitarian leftism into our institutions of learning. "Social justice"--already often even more misleadingly shortened to "justice"--for one. The term sounds plausibly neutral on its face, and seems to have an undeniable positive moral valence--who could possibly be against justice? Nobody, of course. But 'social justice'--and 'justice'--in the mouth of the academic left doesn't mean justice. It means far left conceptions of justice. 'Social justice,' like 'political correctness' is specifically designed to have both exoteric and esoteric meanings. To the uninitiated, it sounds uncontroversial, politically neutral and undeniably good. But its real, esoteric meaning is quite different: "social justice" is the implementation of far-left ideology. The term is almost never used approvingly on the right. If you hear someone advocating for "social justice" with respect to taxation, you know what they'll be arguing for--and it won't be letting everyone keep more of the money they earn...

   'Sustainability' is another term almost always used as a Trojan Horse for leftist ideas and policy--it almost always conceals leftist views about the environment, fossil fuels, global warming, (lower) consumption and (less) prosperity. 'Wellness' seems to be an emergent new terminological weapon--almost anything can be snuck in under that rubric--and at least one popular declaration in academia includes things like "community wellness" and "environmental (see: 'sustainable') wellness." "Civic engagement" seems to commonly mean doing work for left-leaning NGOs and the like--but I tend to think this has little to do with the terminology; it's just where HS and college students will be funneled...

   Anyway.

   None of this means that we shouldn't make them beat their DEI swords into scholarly plowshares--just that this is a necessary condition for saving academia, not a sufficient one.

   This battle, in my estimation, will never be over. Liberal, conservative and libertarian normies who want ideologically neutral, truth-seeking institutions will always be at war with a left that rejects the very ideas of objectivity and neutrality, and that thinks that ideological capture is inevitable--and/so it wants to be the captor.

CO Bill Penalizes "Misgendering," "Deadnaming" in Public Places, Forces Gender Pseudoscience onto Families and Schools

The blue team is still insane.

We have always been at war with Eurasia, bigot.

Happy Liberation Day Everybody!!!

[sigh]

This is gonna be real bad, idn't it?

   This is my guess about how it all goes sideways: tariffs and mass Federal firings do major (even if only short-term) economic damage. The Dems bounce back, e.g. winning the midterms. Suddenly red-team triumphalism is a joke on the order of their confidence in the "red wave" of '22...and then we're right back on the road to 1984...
   Apparently Trump has a point--though perhaps not as strong a point as he thinks--about tariffs. But this isn't a hill I want the counterrevolution to die on. Trump's got so many irons in the fire, and is shocking and aweing on so many fronts... I'd say that several failures are virtually guaranteed, just on the basis of how much he's doing, and how fast. It might not take all that much to change the national mood. And once the left is off the ropes, and the media regains control of "The Narrative"...we're back to playing defense...

   The last thing we need right now, IMO, is to let the Dems think they can stay crazy and still win. Which, well...see Wisconsin just now... To have a healthy democratic aspect of our democratic republic, we really do need two sane parties.

   Also, of course, there are some worrying signs of right-wing crazy getting out of the bottle... That's the other last thing we need right now...

   And as for Trump himself: Well, I knew the Trump fatigue was coming...but I didn't think I'd already be in stage 3 by April...but here we are.

Crawford Wins WI Supreme Court Race

Sorry, badgers.

Not sure "in rebuke of Trump, Musk" is part of a legit news headline...but what do I know?

No Statutory Basis for Universal/Nationwide Injunctions?

John Kennedy FTW.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

Ugh. This is a big one.

The polls I've seen put Crawford ahead. If they were just routinely blue-leaning polls that wouldn't matter much--but one was Atlas Intel.