Supercut of Spanberger's DEI Czar

Behold, what passes for a moderate Democrat in 2026.

The Left's Fantasy World: OD Edition: "Affordable"/"Renewable" Energy

Dems wasted no time getting down to business...wrecking the OD.

This offshore wind farm nonsense is a testament to their unshakable faith in their ideologically-generated fantasy world.

   It's not affordable...by any estimate. And anyone who thought it would lower prices is a fool--or vastly ignorant. The cheap sources of energy are in the ground. You might not like it, but that's the fact. If you think we're all going to die from (scary voice) cliiIiIiIimaaaate chaAaaAaAange, and, somehow, you think that a wind farm off Virginia will do anything to mitigate that...well...you're clueless...but perhaps not stupid... But thinking it'll be cheaper...there's just no excuse for that.

   Look, this shit isn't even "renewable." The source of the energy is, of course: the wind will keep blowing. But the means of collecting that energy isn't. Turbines are expensive. Offshore turbines are really expensive. They have to survive a salt-water environment...I haven't even seen anyone discussing this, and I can tell you right now, this boondoggle will end up costing a helluvalot more even than predictions. In 20 years...soon after the thing comes online...we'll be paying gazillions of dollars to dismantle it. Though we'll probably be able to get federal $$...and pass the cost of our prof-left folly on to our countrymen in other states...

   So it is predicted...so will it be...

   The left derives its descriptive worldview from its normative worldview. It thinks "renewable" energy would be good/cool...so it must work! And not only be cleaner but--magically!--cheaper too!

   This also helps explain how they can be so wrong about everything--and some such explanation is needed. 

YtG: Still More Moonbat Mega-Madness

Hoo boy.

They may even be getting crazier...which I didn't think was possible...

Peter Suderman: Stephen Miller's Hardline Immigration Tactics are Backfiring

Not very good, IMO, but possibly right...and we like hearing the voice of the opposition here at the 'Raptor...

   I do think Stephen Miller would be more of an asset if he toned it down a bit when he himself speaks about immigration. However, that's not to say he's wrong...he's actually kinda too right...

   More to my point: everybody who hates Trump and/or disagrees with his immigration policies claims that they're backfiring--generally citing lefty polls making such claims But those are mostly just attempts to get Trump to change his policies. Lefty polls--like lefty everything else--aim at effecting lefty goals--not at finding the truth...something the left generally doesn't believe in anyway... Say that Trump's policies are backfiring, hey, you might get him to change them. Or you might get red-team types to panic and start agitating to change them. Who knows?

   Now, there's an equal and more-or-less-opposite movement on the right claiming that Hispanics are even more on-board with Trump's immigration policies now...I don't believe that shit either.

   The libertarians are basically lefties on immigration. They really can't be trusted on the topic.

   

Don Leh-Mohn Arrested for (a) Covering or (b) Taking Part in...Church Invasion

I haven't been following this story closely, but:

prima facie, Lemon shouldn't be arrested nor charged.

Prima facie he was covering the church invasion, not taking part in it.

If he was taking part in the invasion, that should be easy enough to prove.

Who should be arrested and charged are the shit-bag moonbat assholes who did the invading...

...but lefty judges have already ruled that invading private buildings and refusing to let people in those buildings leave is permissible...if the left does it.

   I can tell you right now that, if I'm in a building and anybody tries to prohibit me from leaving, he'll be a small bump on my road out--and he/she/they/xe will have to limp out on his/her/their/xir way out later.

   I'm not a Christian, and I don't put up with such shit.

   That shit is kidnapping.

   But, even if it were legal, I wouldn't abide it.

   Instructions: (a) bust up chair; (b) secure leg of same; (c) lay about you with it; (d) walk out, over the bodies of your enemies if necessary.

   Or, y'know, just punch 'em.

Dan McLaughlin: New Jersey and Seattle Take Further Steps Toward Open State Insurrection

Sieg Heil.

I keed...but imagine someone got a pic of a red-team type analogous to that one of Sherrill. Reddit and BlueSky would be in Total Meltdown mode instantaneously.

Jeffrey Blehar: Bleats of Minneapolis

Ugh.

The quoted lyrics were more than enough for me.

I haven't listened to the song, and don't plan to.

But, man, I still remember the first time I heard Born to Run...damn...

THE WALLS ARE CLOSING IN ON TRUMP

AGAIN

or...

STILL

or...

WHATEVER...

NR: Dems' Demand for Judicial Warrants for Immigration Arrests: Bad

Seems plausible.

[link corrected. SHUT UP MYSTIC

For the record, those K1 ice cleats kick ass.]

The Soul Snatcher

Ouch.

Gotta try it!

Alex Pretti Was Shot by CBP, not ICE

I was wrong about that like many others.

Actual Justice Warrior set me straight.

Sasha Stone: Oh, Hillary. Empathy? Please.

Well, I think this is exactly right.

I couldn't bring myself to watch all the stories of lefty madness, nor finish the illegal alien rape van story (yes, turns out that's real). I couldn't look at more than one or two of the moonbat anti-Charlie-Kirk memes.

Look, there's heinous stuff on the right, too.

Don't forget that.

Again, though, it's the mainstreaming of the crazy lefty fringe that's so alarming. Most political movements will have a lunatic fringe. IMO it's only when the fringe becomes extra-loony, or when it becomes mainstream, that it's surprising and notable. Both of those things have happened with the left's lunatic fringe...

HRC: Trump's War on Empathy

facepalm

Ok, I'll try to read this some day.

   But that day is not this day...

I started off skeptical given the title (obvs)...immediately it was like hitting a wall of molasses...I felt myself rapidly losing momentum...Pretti shooting was like the parable of the good Samaritan...well, no, not really so much...quoting Adam Serwer..."the cruelty is the point"...oh...the very dumbest of many dumb Adam Serwer points, then...not what you'd call a good sign...violating the Constitution...??? how's that?...

   Anyway.

   Maybe you're a better person than I am and can make it through that thing.

   Maybe I'll be such a person some day...

   Jeez, I voted for her in 2016...

Bomb Iran

Hey you crazy cats and kids, here's a blast from the past--high school to be more precise--relevant again...:

Crackpot Illegal Alien Policy Idea

I've already said this, but:

I wonder whether it'd be feasible to:

[1] Let blue states do what they want with respect to illegal aliens.

[2] Have some provision for red states to sue blue state is illegal aliens cross over into them.

This would the advantage of protecting states' rights--the blues would be free to have all the illegals they want--while still protecting red states and their citizens.

   Not that I think this would work (nor that it's that good of an idea) because I don't.

   But...for it to even be considered, we'd have to change the rules on Congressional apportionment. Illegal aliens shouldn't count.

"Bombshell" Pretti Video "Nukes the Lib Narrative" (???)

I don't see what implications this video from like 10 days before Pretti was shot is supposed to have. I mean...dude is a nutty moonbat...but that does nothing to justify his shooting...despite what many wingnuts seem to be thinking.

Colion Noir on the ICE/Pretti Shooting

Yeah...I'm sorry to say, I think CN may well be right about this. And the analysis of the video he posts incudes still more considerations left out of previous analyses...perhaps most notably that the agent who first shot Pretti had been turned away, watching the other scrum, and fires his weapon within 5 seconds of turning around...despite the fact that the had a clear view of Pretti's empty holster and another agent removing the Sig from the scuffle.

One of the things that's puzzled and concerned me about the video is the long pause between the initial shots and the last 5 or 6ish shots. And this video seems to make it clear that, when those shots are fired, Pretti is laying motionless on the ground.

It's already prima facie a bad shooting. I've been trying to find some rationale for it...but...it's mostly looking less justified rather than more to me.

Nate the Lawyer: Alex Pretti: Murder or Justified Use of Force

I'm a big fan of Nate. This is eminently reasonable, as usual...though, of course, I'm not a lawyer, so I can't say whether he's got all the legal avenues covered. Every analysis I've seen of this footage thus far leaves something out or leaves something underexamined. I'd say this one is no exception. Seems to me that he moves through the crucial final seconds a bit too fast...but, overall, as usual, I'd say he makes a reasonable case for his conclusions.

   I hadn't seen video of the minute or so leading up to the incident. It's become SOP on the left to cut out the part where rioters/activists provoke agents into reacting and, honestly, I just assumed Pretti and the women had done something to warrant the officer's behavior...

   But not so.

   After seeing all this, I'd say the fault lies just about 100% with the rogue BPE (? ICE?) agent who started it all by unjustifiably shoving the women and then attacking Pretti when he interposed himself:

Congresswoman Omar Sprayed with Unknown Liquid in Attack

Crazy sonofabitch.

Completely unacceptable.

I'd say throw him in jail...but I'll bet he's legit crazy.

So: throw him in an asylum.

I hope Omar is ok, and whatever was sprayed on her wasn't too dangerous or disgusting.

Trump's comments, as is common, were stupid and borderline-incoherent.

I also read somewhere that he later said that Omar had set this up herself.

What a dumbass.

NR: An Unprecedented Drop in Murder Rates (and a Historic Low?)

No mention of an obvious factor: rolling back progressive-left madness like "depolicing" and "decarceration,"expanding conservative tough-on-crime policies, getting rid of some of the Soros prosecutors...in effect, further eroding the Ferguson effet and the penumbra of crackpot policies that surroundit.

   (Don't forget: the left is still pretending that it was the pandemic that caused the spike in crime...an obvious falsehood.)

   Violent offenders can be roaming the streets or they can be in prison. Those are our only two real options. Some few can be rehabilitated. But most just have to be separated from sane society--at least until they hit 40 or so.

   This is one of the many topics about which the progressive left is just nuts, and its pet theories are simply false. Utopian. Panglossian. Stupid. Brandon Johnson spoke for the left when he said that imprisoning criminals is "racist" and has been "proven" not to work. Bullshit. One hundred percent bullshit. That's the progressive left in yet another nutshell: boilerplate whimpering about bigotry + an outright, undeniable, laughable falsehood.

   So long as the left is gripped by political correctness, they must be opposed at every turn. The willingness to say that 2+2=5 is the most pernicious force in contemporary politics--and it is rampant on the left. There's always a certain amount of it in every faction. But the left has elevated it to their most sacred principle. Trump's habitual bullshitting is awful--but it's nothing compared to the institutionalized commitment to patently counterfactual theories we find on the left.

Geraghty: Trump Isn't the Only One Changing Course in Minnesota

Well, I guess I'm not as optimistic as Geraghty.

I worry about allowing the left to have (as KD put it to me recently) a veto over policies/laws.

If they win this--or even think they won it...or even think they kind of won it--they're going to keep doing such things. I think we're fighting a battle and a meta-battle. The battle is over enforcing immigration laws. The meta-battle is over enforcing laws at all... The left now thinks it gets to determine pretty much everything that happens in the country--what we can say, what we can do, what we can own, what we can think, who can be President, what laws can be enforced... They are enraged when people say or do or even think thinks they don't think people should say or think. If they come to think that they can basically nullify laws by getting out in the street and threatening and abusing and pushing and shoving and shrieking and blowing whistles at cops, we are right and truly screwed...

NR: Trump At Year One

It was the best of terms, it was the worst of terms...

I agree with this...but more so.

Trump is driving me fucking crazy. Trump fatigue has turned into Trump dread. I fear the internet and fear the news because I don't want to know what idiotic thing he's said or done most recently...

And yet...I still think he's plausibly--perhaps probably--the best President of the 21st Century...and perhaps a great President in many ways. I consider political correctness / woketarianism the greatest threat to America and the West at least since the USSR...and maybe even since WWII. It's a plague of madness that is rotting the country from the inside. And Trump is the most important opposition figure. He seems to do hard things well and easy things terribly. If we were to look only at the positive side of the leger--or even if we just ignored his unforced errors--he would likely be a great President. (Note: not all Presidents would be great even by that permissive standard...Biden, for example...)

   The turnaround on illegal immigration--just to take one example--has been phenomenal. And Americans support his policies. But...he can't seem to get the bullshit marketing strategy right. All he needs is a point man who doesn't come off like Darth Vader's little brother...that is, somebody not like Stephen Miller. But he can't manage it. He plays right into the insane left's strategy of weaponizing feels. He comes off as mean and vindictive...which he kind of is...but also kind of isn't..

   Consider Ukraine: Trump's approach, shitty and chaotic though it's been, has been the most humane: stop the slaughter. The Euro-shitheads are milling about randomly saying things like Sacre bleu! and American blue-team types are saying things like (one has said exactly this to me) We should be willing to fight to the last Ukrainian... 

   Anyway...sorry...back to open borders: he may lose this battle yet.

   And if he does, we are right and truly screwed.

   Of course he's done many things by executive action...and as the Spamburgler has shown, the next crazy Democrat (but I repeat myself) to hold the office will likely just undo it all...

   Compare Trump's Iraq strategy to Obama's. Good Lord. Night and day...

   Well, I'm just repeating myself here.

   But, yeah...Trump has been the mixedest of bags to occupy the office in my lifetime. And, really, if he could just keep his big fat mouth shut, he might save Western civilization...

...but, of course, he can't do that.

Not to save his life...nor even to save Western Civilization...

AJW on the ICE/Pretti Shooting

I had heard Noem's comments about the shooting, but wasn't paying close attention. I remember being annoyed by her inaccurate, propagandistic description, but Sean is right: it's really bad. In fact, now that I've paid attention to it, it pisses me off more than it seems to piss him off. Noem's description is the moral equivalent of a lie.

   She needs to go.

   Like, yesterday.

   You can be incompetent. Or you can be dishonest. But both is just too much.

   And Trump needs to stop hiring people for their looks.

   AJW also reveals--and I had no idea this was part of the story--that Pretti was carrying a Sig P320...and it seems to have suffered an unintentional discharge just after the agent relieved Pretti of the firearm. The slo-mo video seems to show the slide going back immediately after the first shot is heard. The agent with possession of the firearm is moving away from the scrum, and doesn't seem to have his finger on the trigger--it would be crazy if he did, of course.

   I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the P320 is notorious for unintentional discharges.

   So, after the agents discover Pretti's firearm, and you hear someone say "gun, gun, gun," and the firearm is being taken away from the fight, the Sig goes off...and then a second agent mag dumps Pretti.

   I was skeptical about this shooting...but if that's the true timeline...it certainly seems defensible. The obvious explanation is that the second agent, hearing "gun, gun, gun" and a shot, and likely not realizing that Pretti had been disarmed, thought he (Pretti) had fired the shot at ICE.

   If that's what happened, it's tragic.

   Sean also shows footage of Pretti, in his capacity as a nurse, reading a very respectful statement about a veteran who had passed away. A reminder to righties that they didn't know this man, and he's not likely to be the America-hating moonbat of their imaginations...

   

Record High Gun Ownership, Record Low Homicide Rate, Media Silent

link

Brittany Bernstein: Media Inflame Anti-ICE Tension With False Kidnapping Claims

Well, they basically just lie about everything.

Jim Geraghty: The Administration's Crazy Claims About Firearms Re: The Pretti/MN Shooting; Noem Needs To Go

link

   The anti-Second-Amendment rhetoric from the administration (esp. Noem and Patel) is nuts. Pretti was an idiot, but not a domestic terrorist. And carrying without proper ID is dumb, but not some kind of grounds for getting shot.

   Now, I think it's dumb to carry when you think you might get into a scuffle with the cops...especially when your side is in the wrong...and it's the side that always initiates the confrontations... If we were actually in a shooting war, things would be different, of course. But we aren't. So far, anyway...

   The administration and ICE are generally in the right. They're fighting a well-oiled anarchy-and-propaganda machine that wants to undermine the rule of law...but they're so obviously wrong that they're unlikely to win...unless the good guys help them out. Fatal mistakes by ICE and dumbass comments by the administration are exactly the help the crazies need.

Also see the story on the Chinese general at the bottom of the Geraghty piece.

Kenin M. Spivak: The Campaign Against ICE Is All About Open Borders

Correct.

Well, I still think that it is ultimately about open borders--that's what the academic/activist vanguard of the left wants. But it becomes about feelz when it is repackaged for consumption by shitlibs.

Also one might say: actually ultimately, it's about the destruction of the USA and the West. Open borders is really a means to an end... But I think that's a genuine dispute on the vanguard of the left. So you can go either way on that.

NR: The ICE/Pretti Minneapolis Shooting Deserves a Credible Investigation

I couldn't agree more.

I didn't realize any other option was on the table.

The Good shooting also deserves a credible investigation, in case that doesn't go without saying.

At any rate, here's something we learned from Derek Chauvin being railroaded by the corrupt MN AG: 

Credible means: don't let those people anywhere near it.

   But then that seems to leave the DoJ...which has long been politicized by the Dems...and now seems to have been thoroughly politicized by Trump. At least, in the Before Time, they tried to hide it at least a little bit...

   At any rate: a credible investigation doesn't mean: a foregone conviction.

  Unless Keith Ellison and that MN bunch get involved, of course. Then that's exactly what it means.

   I could pontificate about how I think we got here. But you've heard it all before.

   I suppose we might hope that, now that both sides have declared total lawfare and full politicization of the process, maybe voters will be disgusted enough to vote against such repulsive bullshit.

   I certainly didn't vote for this. I understand why Trump is doing it. Maybe I'm being naive, but I'm not on board with it. I'm ok with giving people tastes of their own medicine. But I don't think Trump had to go this far.

More From the New New Age Star Trek

Apparently, "diversity" is the Federation's strength, too...or something.

Also apparently: the Klingon's name is Jay-Den.

He has an eyebrow ring.

Not even making that up.

Minneapolis ICE Shooting (Pretti) and "Organizational Provocation"

Totally agree with these guys that:

[1] The left in Minneapolis is extremely well-organized and its goal is to provoke ICE.

[2] People on the left saying that you shouldn't carry around cops or at protests are wrong*

Yeah, I know I've said that I don't like people carrying at protests...but what I meant was: open-carrying, especially long guns. It's for show...and it's not a good look. Concealed-carry is different, I think.

Obvs, there are grounds for objection here.

The Spamburgler: The Left's Trojan Horse

Elections have consequences...often very bad ones...

I'd say it's going to be a rough four years...but, honestly, I think it's going to be a lot longer than that...

VA is probably gonna end up like CA, IL, MA, and other such dumbass states--permanently locked into leftist shitholery.

I briefly semi-bought the bullshit about Spanberger being a moderate...but not for long.

For one thing: centrist Democrats are a dying breed in general.

There just don't seem to be many of them left.

For another thing: it was clear from her stances on "trans" pseudoscience and abortion that she was no moderate.

Reason: 5th Column Podcast on Pretti Minneapolis ICE Shooting

I still don't have a settled position on this. It's like the Good shooting in that, prima facie, it doesn't look great. But it's also clear that there's a lot of chaos and things happen fast. The agents get his gun, then it looks like he reaches for it / for his empty holster, one or more agents shout 'weapon', a round is fired, then the agent fires a couple of times...then mag dumps the decedent... There's plenty of room for other judgments here.

Both Teams Absolutely Sure About the Second Minneapolis ICE Shooting, Too

Looks like both the reds and the blues are, again, absolutely certain about the second Minneapolis ICE shooting...but, of course, certain about opposite conclusions.

   Seems to me that the one thing that's obvious is that it isn't obvious--that is: it isn't obvious whether it was a justified shooting.

   I do think it's obvious that the blue team is, in general, to blame. They're action are quasi-insurrectionary. their overall goals are nuts, and they intentionally foment chaos and push the boundaries of the legal in harassing law enforcement.

   But, again: as for the legal and/or moral status of this particular shooting: I just don't know.

   Though I will add:  as I've been saying for almost ten years: IMO the right started this by mixing the First and Second Amendments in a dangerous way: that is, bringing firearms to demonstrations. (Well, maybe they didn't start it--but they started the most recent spasm of it.) Now we've got lefties--who tend to be even less stable than righties--routinely bringing guns to their protests--protests that are already right on the verge of chaos and violence.

BCP: Video Shows ICE Shooting Armed Minneapolis Protestor Was Justified

Again: I don't have a view about this--not yet, anyway:

WSJ: "Videos Contradict U.S. Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents"

I've heard conflicting accounts of this.

I've got no view about this, and may not deserve one.

I've got no inclination to defend illicit use of force by LEOs--but I'm not sure what counts as justified use of force here.

Yinka that Guy: More Crying, Ranting Moonbats

The most entertaining crazy probably starts at 20:45.

Blacks have fewer rights...it's in the Constitution!!!

Hundreds of Americans are Alive Today Because Trump Won the Election

Democrat policies cost lives.

There are literally hundreds of Americans who would be dead if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election. https://t.co/qsFSReDcV7

— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) January 22, 2026

Let's not think about the Iraq insanity right now...k?

Oh and: anybody tempted to make the tired correlation/causation point here needs to be slapped.

Judson Berger: The Cost of Trump's Greenland Grab

Agree.

WSJ Opinion: The Minneapolis Protests and the Dems' Nonprofit Problem

"A subtler and more effective attack on democracy than anything Mr. Trump has attempted."

Kahlenburg and Lin: American Studies Can't Stand Its Subject

80% of articles in the field's leading journal were negative, 0 were positive.

If this is at all surprising, it can only be because it's even more lopsided than one might have guessed.

Philip Pilkington: Greenland is Punishment for Europe's Role in Ukraine

Big if true.

Though I really don't see why this would be the right way to go about things even if Pilkington is right about everything.

Is diplomacy really so catty?

Anyway...eminently worth a read, says me.

Trump Rules Out Using Military Force to Steal Greenland

Idiot.

The real headline here is that he had to rule it out...

Democrats (and the Bulwark...but I Repeat Myself...) Desperate to Avoid Admitting that "Trans Women" are not Women

Lindsey tries all the tricks: this not our biggest problem! Why do conservatives care about such a small group of people? Let's not talk about kids, let's talk about adults! It's nobody else's business!...Let people say what they want about themselves...blah blah blah...

   And, contra Robbie: the most important problem here isn't about public policy.

The most important points: 

• [1] No male is a woman and no female is a man.
• [2] Truth matters.
• [3] The American left--which now includes the Democratic party--denies both [1] and [2].

   Political correctness...i.e. prope-Lysenkoism...i.e. the subordination of truth to (leftist) political dogma is...well...plausibly the most dangerous threat the USA has ever faced. If you give up on the very idea of truth, that is the end of everything. As bad as the left's mass sexual mutilation of children is, it is far less dangerous and destructive than the general leftist rejection of truth. A bad as Trump's habitual bullshitting is, it's nothing compared to the outright, in-principle rejection of the very ideas of truth and falsehood...

   And the fact that Gavin Newsom, the shitheads at the Bulwark, and all other not-quite-sufficiently-radical Democrats are spewing out every red herring they can think of to avoid answering the question tells you everything you need to know about them: they know their party has gone insane, but they're too afraid to admit it.

Horrific.

To repeat myself repeating myself:

Breakdown of contemporary Democrats:

• ~1/3 believe that men can become women just by saying so--or by putting on dresses or having plastic surgery.
• ~1/3 know that's insane but can't bear to admit it--either because they can't bring themselves to contradict the dogmas of their tribe, or because they're afraid of being dogpiled by the crazies.
• ~1/3 are either stuck in a superposition of the first two states...or are not smart or intellectually honest enough to understand the difference between them.

If a huge percentage of a major political faction is willing to say that up is down or left is right or dogs can fly or the sky is red...and to say such things because their political tribe tells them to...we're screwed. But even worse...many leftists don't just say such insane things...they actually believe them...

   People like Gavin Newsome are repulsive. He knows the truth, but refuses to say it. Worse are people like Lindsey Grager (who I actually think I would like personally if I knew her), who frantically prevents herself from even focusing on the question, knowing that, if she did, she'd likely have to admit the truth. But worse still are the people on the fringe who actually believe that up is down...

   Look, I think similar things can be said about religion--and those folks are mostly on the right. But I think they have excuses the left doesn't have. People are generally indoctrinated with religion from the time they're kids. The left knew the truth about men and women, but decided to forget it (or pretend to) when it became politically fashionable to do so. It's not like they were raised from childhood to believe. That'd at least be some kind of excuse. Rather, their vanguard just basically announced one day ca. 2014, that 2+2 would henceforth equal 5...and they all either jumped right on the crazy train...or looked away...or just decided to shut up and go along with it all...

Disgusting.

Bad Times Ahead for the OD

Whelp, the Democrats are now more-or-less completely in control of the government of the Commonwealth.

Strap in, boys 'n' girls...'n'...nondichotomous persons of indeterminate classification...

It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

Jim Geraghty: "Tearing Apart NATO Over A Trinket," or: A Different Kind of TDS

As Geraghty notes: in a saner world, Trump's cabinet would be at least discussing invoking the 25th Amendment.

In addition to doing lasting damage to the nation and its alliances, Trump is basically breathing life into a moribund Democrat party.

Nice work, dumbass.

Danes Stunned at Trump's/America's Betrayal

As well they should.

Fuck Trump, in case I haven't mentioned that recently.

I've defended him from unfair criticisms for 8 years.

And I'm still grateful for the good things he's done for the country.

But he can fuck right off on this one.

It needs to be made clear to Demark that this is a Trump thing, not an America thing.

Oh and: Vance.

He's being a fuckhead about this one, too.

Danish Lawmaker Tells Trump to "Fuck Off"--Greenland's Not For Sale

link

Let me second that fuck off.

The Contemporary Left In Yet Another Nutshell

It's amazing how much leftist discourse is just them pretending not to understand things, thus making discourse impossible.

— Millennial Woes (@MillennialWoes) February 22, 2025

Jeffrey Blehar: "Trump Versus the World;" So...Is Trump Insane...or What?

Yeah...I'm afraid the guy really might be insane. Either that, or a fucking idiot.

Or, of course, both...

This is a pretty fair summary of this dismal, embarrassing, and possibly disastrous Greenland business:

For those too embarrassed to keep up with current events, I recommend the work of my colleague Andrew Stuttaford, who has been covering the breakneck pace of weekend developments like a hawk. I will summarize: Donald Trump’s thuggish demands for Greenland, an island that we already have unlimited military basing rights with, are now at a fever pitch. In the wake of his big show of force in Venezuela, he cannot rest until he has added it to his trophy case: Its acquisition is “psychologically needed for success.” So now not only will Denmark be tariffed — at an opening rate of 10 percent, escalating to 25 percent until such time as they give Trump what he demands — so too will ten other countries who have responded to Denmark’s symbolic request for NATO allies to come to Greenland.
Who knows if Trump will actually go through with it; half of what he writes on Truth Social is bloviation, but the other half is deadly serious, and given this, the only safe thing to do is to take him at his word. But I have no time for those who blithely wave off this sort of wildly destructive behavior as “dealmaking.” It is no such thing; it is outright megalomania. There is no other way, no more “neutral” a term, to describe a president who now mutters about his personal right to “a sacred piece of Land” like Captain Queeg hunting for missing strawberries, or who now hints at war with NATO if he is not given what he will never be able to have. This language will have repercussions.
Because yes, that’s where Trump is at now rhetorically, and if you didn’t see the tie-in coming from a mile away, you need to update your Unified Theory of Trump. Just yesterday, the president wrote a missive to Norway’s leader that he had cc’d to every American embassy in Europe: “Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”
Please read that again. Let the implication sink in: Trump is now on the warpath against Denmark, and is threatening the forced dissolution of the American alliance, and as an excuse, he is citing to Norway their awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Machado. Maybe, you might say, he’s just lashing out blindly in his frustration, reaching for any weapon to hand. But what a commentary that is on the mindset of the president of the United States: We are asked to understand him either as a schoolyard bully or a child throwing a tantrum. Wresting the physical medal from Machado — by dangling the prospect of freedom for her people before her eyes — was clearly not enough: All of Europe must pay for its sin in not awarding it to him in the first place. (For those wondering what relationship the actions of a Norwegian Nobel committee have to the government of Denmark, just assume that Trump thinks all Scandinavians are the same.)
This is our president. Is he “on tilt?” No, I think he is operating as programmed. He is living a power fantasy. He has mastered the Republican Party through both showmanship and fear. Only external forces — the bond markets, perhaps the Supreme Court, and finally the ironclad laws of political gravity — will act as a check on him now. So all of his actions are of a piece: demands for the fulfillment of his ego, relentless escalation, and desperately cheap attempts to create a permanent “legacy” that will forever be denied to him. Trump may be the main character in his own story, but he will never be able to write history’s verdict of him; that work belongs to future generations, and his helplessness in the face of it lies at the hidden core of his narcissistic rage.
The clearer this becomes, the more I expect Trump to lash out against a world that has rejected him — and I fear with disastrous, irrevocable consequences. Defend Trump’s actions with respect to Greenland if you must — my job is to judge them. And I have a clear enough picture of the man at this point to predict the dire future to come: To paraphrase the verdict of Cormac McCarthy in Blood Meridian, what’s wrong with Donald Trump is wrong all the way through him. And this will not end here.

Trump has done a helluva lot to save the country. He's still, as of this moment, done a lot more good than harm. But he seems to be going over the edge now.

   Sure, maybe this is all trolling and negotiation...but it doesn't seem that way...and even if it is negotiation, it seems like the most retarded of all possible negotiation...

   WTF is wrong with this stupid jackass?

   And the Nobel Prize shit...it's just like the cherry on top of this batshit sundae...

   I legitimately can't believe how fucking stupid this all is. Nobody can reign him in? Nobody?

Peter Schweizer: How Radical Muslims Unite to "Fight America Everywhere and All the Time"

Establishing this conclusion would require a lot more evidence, of course.

My view here has a couple of components:

[1] Important parts of the left are open about their goal of destroying the U.S. and Western Civilization more generally. These views obviously trickle down from the radical vanguard to blue-team types who would not regard themselves as radical. But they trickle down in forms that are obscured--they have the effect of undermining the U.S., but this isn't open/obvious. Thus, e.g., the blue team's current views on immigration are, like so many destructive policies, marketed to progressives in terms of kindness...but their ulterior motive is destruction of the country.

[2] Every faction has its anti-American fringe. The right clearly has one. But an important question is: how extensive and influential is it? That's the question here. This fringe obviously exists on the left...and is actually pretty extensive and influential...but we need to know: how much so?

[3]  Perhaps the major problem here is: the left simply will not even consider such arguments. Show this Schweizer piece to a lefty and you know what the response will be: REEEEEE RACIST!!!111one!

I'd be happy for this thesis to be false. But it has significant prima facie plausibility. Mostly, I just demand that it be considered rather than rejected out of hand with the left's standard sophistry and name-calling. 

Rich Lowry: The Deportation Numbers Vindicate ICE (and Trump) and Rebut Its Critics

HMD: Trump: Rude, but Right About Crime

I Mac Donald articulates an important point here almost in passing: for all his bluster and bullshitting, and despite his occasional insistence that obvious falsehoods are true, Trump also often speaks important truths that others--particularly those on the left--refuse to acknowledge. One of Trump's great strengths is that he cannot be cowed into accepting and/or paying lip service to wacko aspects of, as the Critical Drinker would say, "The Narrative." I wish his commitment to the truth were more thoroughgoing...but, as is so often the case, I plead comparative choice. At least Trump, unlike the other side, does manage to stumble across the facts with fair frequency.

Moonbat Mobs Amok in Minneapolis

Boy, I feel like busting some heads after watching this.

These commies really need to be taught a lesson.

The Self-Parodying Moonbats: TRUMP CANCELING MIDTERMS Edition

These people are almost beyond self-parody at this point.

Trump, in essence:  I'm doing such a good job that we shouldn't even have a midterm election...but I can't say that or you people will say I'm going to cancel the midterms.

MSM: TRUMP SAYS HE WILL CANCEL MIDTERMS

Again I ask: If he's so awful, why does the left have to routinely lie about what he says?

Yinka that Guy: Anthology of Anti-ICE Moonbats

It's basically been sane people vs. crazy people for a decade now.

Sasha Stone: 100% Right, Yet Again

I feel like quoting this whole piece.

Mostly though:

Uh, no, NYT, there is no contradiction in Trump supporting the Iran protestors while condemning the anti-ICE protestors.

The Iran protestors, you see, are right, and the anti-ICE protestors are wrong.

The Iran protestors are demonstrating for democracy; the anti-ICE protestors are protesting against it.

The Iran protestors are speaking out peacefully and being killed and beaten for it.

The anti-ICE protestors are blocking streets, assaulting LEOs, and tacitly insisting that they get to veto laws they don't like.

It’s a sickness on the Left by now, a reality distortion that spilled out into real-world violence.

That's the contemporary left in a nutshell...

And it's why Trump is our least-terrible option.

As bullshit-prone as he is, he's less unhinged by far than the progressive left is. 

Dowd: Behold Donald of Deliria!

Well, we agree about Greenland, at least.

Oh, and that Trump is an "impresario of chaos"...

Why the Tech World Thinks the American Dream is Dying

I suppose, eventually, one of these prophecies of doom will end up coming true...

Carolina 78 - Cal 84

Things are not looking good for the Heels...nor for CHD.

Nobody really seems to know what's gone wrong. Of course one popular view is that Hubert just isn't a very good head coach. He was a good assistant...but that's a different thing.

Me, I don't know.

But I tend to think that things have been going downhill since Hubert stupidly fired coach Rob...and did so for bogus Carolina "family" reasons. Robinson wasn't a Carolina alum...but he was more a part of the "family" than the assistants CHD brought in. I mean, I love all those guys...but think about how much longer coach Rob had been here, and how much deeper his roots, than even, say, Marcus...

Now, instead of Robinson, Roy's trusted Lieutenant, with his own head coaching experience...we've got a bench full of greenhorns. (Except for Lebo.)

Another major theory: the era of the Carolina juggernaut is just over. It ended with the advent of NIL and the Portal. Hubert is still trying to sell the program on its traditional strengths--personal connections. Now it's all about $$$. Players come and go, often staying for just one year. School loyalty and personal connections are fading in importance.

Of course I don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but it's all depressing to see players we've come to be invested in go elsewhere...especially just as they're hitting their peak. Sorry to see Love go (and help turn AZ great, no less)...and Cadeau (off to UM...also great).

Oh and: we have no point guard. Our front court is great...but without a true PG...not good...

Trump's Idiotic, Potentially Catastrophic Greenland Whim/Obsession

What the hell is wrong with that guy?

Even supposing he's right about the importance of Greenland--as he might well be--he's gone about this in the most catastrophically stupid way.

When you're the baddest dude in town, you don't routinely push your buddies around and demand they give you their stuff.

We're the baddest guy, obviously...but not bad enough to take on the rest of the world...

We need allies, you dumb shit.

I'm to say the least no expert about geopolitics, nor about massive land deals...but this just seems like the very goddamn stupidest thing we could possibly do (with respect to Greenland, that is... There are, unfortunately, even stupider things we could do... And "we" just might...)

Acquiring Greenland and wrecking NATO puts us in a worse position, not a better one.

Again I ask: what the hell is wrong with that guy???

WSJ: Hawaii Should Not Be Able To Ban Firearms By Default

Agreed.

The Dems and the states they control just seem to be on a disastrous downward spiral.

Anti-ICE Riots, St. Paul, 1/15/26

Still not a full-on insurrection, I'd say...merely relying on my tenuous grasp of the ordinary concept. But, like the 1/21 Capitol riot, these are coming way too damn close for comfort...

   This is the second time in five years that the left has conducted large-scale riots across the country. In both cases, the point was to circumvent democracy and intimidate others into capitulating to their hard-left policy preferences. In the current case, they've basically just decided that laws they don't like must not be enforced...and they're trying to enforce that decision.

Snippets from WSJ: Leftist Lawlessness, Progressivism is Wrong about Everything, Yale's Faculty Monoculture, China's Temporary Rare Earths Monopoly

link

Perhaps most striking:  in 2025, Yale professors made 1,099 donations to federal political campaigns and partisan groups. Number made to Republicans: 0.00.

Nate the Lawyer Changes My Mind Back on the Minneapolis ICE Shooting

Shoulda gone to NtL first thing--but I didn't know he was making videos again after his brain surgery.

I didn't need to wait for his opinion--his commentary on / breakdown of the videos swung my mental needle back toward probably innocent. Still about a 70-30 case to my mind though.

Candice Owens Has Completely Lost It

Now she apparently thinks that Charlie Kirk was a time-traveler... 

Is Trump Chickening Out on Iran?

Kinda seems that way.

VA Democrats Pre-Filed "Assault Weapons" and Suppressor Bans, Many Other Repressive Anti-Firearm Bills

The Democrats just completely suck now.

Assholes.

SCOTUS: WV v. BPJ

link

I've listened to some of the arguments...many of which I can't understand, not being a lawyer. You've got to have a lot of concepts, distinctions, terminology and cases on the tip of your brain to follow them--and I don't. If you have to stop and look something up every other sentence, you're pretty much screwed. Even if you can understand the new concept right away, your attention has been diverted. This is a pretty common phenomenon, of course. To understand complicated ideas and arguments deep down in any subject, you have to have a lot of other ideas and arguments already at your mental fingertips.

   But I can say one general thing:

   It's downright painful to hear Supreme Court Justices speak the language of "transgender" pseudoscience. It unnecessarily complicates the arguments, and gives the impression that, e.g., 'transgender girl' is a real category--and a kind of girl.

   Look: you might play along with this nonsense if you had a delusional friend or colleague who you didn't want to embarrass or offend... But when it comes down to serious business like determining public policy, you've got to leave the circumlocutions of politeness behind...

   Also look: here's the question. Actually, I'll artificially break it into two parts:

[1] Is it permissible to have girls' sports teams--i.e. teams that girls can join but boys can't?

[2] Is this permissible even if the boys in question are pretending to be girls? (Or we might say: misrepresenting themselves (to others and perhaps even to themselves) as girls?)

   I'm perfectly fine with asking question [1]. For all I know, some legal arcanum actually makes this a no-no. Many decades ago, I thought it should be impermissible, basically because it discriminates on the basis of sex. I though you should have, basically, top-tier teams, second-tier teams, and so on. My gf during part of that time was a hot-shot local tennis player and a philosophy grad student. I'd never really played tennis--nor watched it--more than very casually, and I foolishly thought that it was a game women might compete in on a level equal to that of men. Gf laughed out loud at that, informing me that even many boys from the local HS team would beat her. (Note: when we tried to play a couple of times, her returns knocked the racket out of my hand more than once. She hit hard.) But somehow I even managed to convince her with my dumbass arguments.

   But anyway: [1] seems to me like a reasonable question.,

   Though now I think the answer is in the affirmative.

    And, as for [2]: there is no reason on Earth that it should be taken seriously. Someone lying about themselves--or being deluded--does nothing to change the answer to [1]. 

   Now:

   All you do is confuse things if you insist on discussing these questions in the arcane, laughably ridiculous, language of "transgender" pseudoscience. There are no "trans girls." "Trans girls" are not girls. They are boys. Thus the question at issue is just [1]. Since [2] doesn't matter, their lies/delusions about their own sex are irrelevant.

   However, instead of phrasing their arguments in the plain language of common sense, common experience, and science, we find the Justices asking about "trans girls" and "cis" girls. Instead of straightforwardly asking about males, they are often asking about people "assigned male at birth." Instead of asking about boys, they are often asking about "biological boys"...the only kind of boys there are...

   There is simply no reason to speak the language of the cult--especially when evaluating the cult's cultish doctrines...

   Of course even many conservatives and conservative outlets have been doing this for years...but you've heard those complaints before...

   Anyway.

   Perhaps...perhaps...it's impermissible, some violation of equal protection, to have boys' and girls' sports divisions. I think it would suck if it turned out that way. But here's what cannot be true: it's permissible to have girls' and boys' sports divisions...but a boy who is pretending to be a girl (or who is legitimately deluded) must be allowed to play in the girls' division...because he's actually a kind of girl...

   Look, if I'm fighting professionally, and I'm pretending to be a welterweight when I am, in fact, a middleweight...I'll be outed at the weigh-in. The scale detects the relevant fact...and my false beliefs (or lies) about my weight are entirely irrelevant. I'm not a "trans welterweight"...I'm a middleweight. The left might make up a whole panoply of dumbshit terminology...but the fact of the matter is: I didn't make weight. If it's permissible to have weight classes, it's permissible to hold someone to them, regardless of their false beliefs--or pretended beliefs.

   It's an embarrassment to the country that we've allowed this kind ideologically-motivated nonsense to take over so much of the public mind, and even impose itself on Supreme Court justices. Though, almost certainly, some of the more conservative Justices know better, and are just speaking with the vulgar for some practical reason.*

* Here's a kind of interesting thing: actually, the wrong thing in this case is to speak with the learned. The vulgar understandand all this stuff and get it right. It's the learned who are delusional, and who speak confusedly...

This is What I Voted For: Trump to Defund "Sanctuary" Cities

Excellent.

Of course some minor league leftist Obama-appointee judge somewhere in Bumfuck Illinois will claim the authority to rule against it...

Some Lefties Mad About "Say Her Name" Stuff for/about Renee Good

This shit is so idiotic that I'm not even going to hunt it up to link to it.

   Apparently some lefties are doing the "say her name" thing about Renee Good.

   Then other lefties (largely other Caucasian cat women), worried that they were being out-leftied, decided to regain superior leftiness by making up a rule that says that you can only say that for black women.

   Will the first group think of some different bullshit to make up to get their bullshit woke supremacy back...? Stay tuned!

   They just make this shit up as they go along.

Ok I changed my mind.

"Saying her name"

Getting mad about people saying her name.

These people are morons.

Lowry: The Anti-ICE Insurgency

Rather like the BLM/Antifa riots of 2020 or the Capitol riot of January 2021--not exactly an insurgency per se...but kinda insurgenc-y...

   A question that arises, I think--and maybe this is already established in law--is whether doing a bunch of things that would ordinarily be legal in a massed, organized, intimidating way is illegal. Blowing whistles, for example: legal. Honking your horn: ordinarily legal. Etc. Well, what happens when a large number of basically crazy people start doing these things en masse in order to prevent other people from going about their daily business? Let alone: enforcing some of our most crucially important laws...

   This is something that the left has raised to an art form: going right up to the limit of legality to intimidate and harass its opponents. Ordinary people with some non-zero degree of self-respect would never do nor say many of the things that lefties (especially Pantyfa) do and say on a routine basis. They're basically weaponizing self-debasement...it's embarrassing to watch...even though I hate them and want them all to die...

Did ICE Agent Jonathan Ross, Who Shot Renee Good in Minneapolis, Suffer Internal Bleeding From Being Hit By Her Car?

Seems a bit unlikely to be, given the footage I've seen...but I'm obviously not in much of a position to judge.

Pretty Good NYT Analysis of Available Minneapolis ICE Shooting Video

This is the most neutral summary I’ve seen of the Minnesota murder by ICE. It has ALL angles, it syncs them together, and shows the lead up and aftermath… if you watch this all and still think those shots were justified - you just might be a psychopath.

pic.twitter.com/BTQ30YFFbj

— Andy Signore (@andysignore) January 8, 2026

I'm back to where I was on this three days ago: probably not a justified shooting. (Note: layperson's valueless opinion).

But:

Recall that the officer who shot Ms. Good had recently been dragged 300' by a car driven by an illegal, and he was seriously injured (requiring 30 stitches). His arm had been caught between the seat and the door/interior side of the car.

Note that his partner is in a position ripe for just that kind of incident when Ms. Good hits the accelerator. He wasn't caught and dragged...but he was in a position to be.

I haven't heard anyone say this, but: that may have been a consideration. 

Josh Hawley vs. Moonbat Doctor: Can Men Get Pregnant?

Look, as much as I understand people who don't want to vote for Trump...and I really, really do...this video shows yet another The progressive left in a nutshell moment. They babble about their commitment to science...but they more-or-less shamelessly and more-or-less openly subordinate one of the clearest and most obvious scientific facts known to man to this patent, crackpot, bullshit, cooked up in the women's studies department like last Tuesday, that barely even rises to the level of pseudoscience...

   Hawley made two small mistakes:

  [1] Don't get mad, and don't try to force them to say that men can't get pregnant. You can't make them. You can't make them say words. Just keep asking the same question, in different ways if possible, and make them say the same insane nonsense over and over. Anyone with more than half a brain will be affected by that eventually. The others can't be reached no matter what you do.

  [2] Don't say 'biological men.' A biological man is the only kind of man there is. If you say 'biological men', you're basically playing into their hands. It's part of their crackpot ideology that there are two kinds of men--"trans" ones and...y'know, men men... Which, of course, is akin to saying that there are two kinds of dogs: dogs and cats. Or "trans dogs," if you like...

   If she weren't a complete ditz...

Narrator: But she was, in fact, a completely ditz...

...she would have said something like "OH, biological men...well, why didn't you say so? I thought you were just talking about men in the generic sense, to include trans men, and so...

   Also, Hawley should have said "Stop making up stories about why I'm asking the question--and just answer it." Or maybe: "In fact, I'm asking the question specifically to show that you and other leftist "doctors" are either unaware of basic biology, or willing to lie about it if it's politically incorrect/inconvenient. And I believe we've already all seen that... Unless you'd like to change your answer..."

   As I've said before: if you told, say, pre-2013 Democrats about this, they'd never believe it. They'd accuse you of straw-manning their future selves.

   

OMG. Doctor REFUSES To Admit Men Can’t Get Pregnant

Sen @HawleyMO: Do you think that men can get pregnant?

Dr. Nisha Verma: I hesitated there because I wasn't sure where the conversation was going or what the goal was…

Hawley: Let me just remind you, you testified a moment… pic.twitter.com/HKtXMzjfA4

— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) January 14, 2026

Sasha Stone: Confessions of a Recovering Liberal White Woman

This is worth reading even just for the collections of insane moonbat--or shebat--shrieking.

I was a Democrat, of course, but almost always (with a few slight deviations) of a very centrist sort.

Unlike Stone, I gave up on the Dems as soon as they capitulated to the Woketarian cult.

So, uh...two cheers for me, I guess...

Rothman: Iranian Civilians are Being Massacred; Progressives Silent

I don't know whether this is exactly right. It's true, I'm not seeing a lot of lefty chatter on Iran--it's all about ICE now. But, then, even Gaza seems to have taken a back seat to open-borders/anti-ICE hysteria...

Iran is Murdering Protesters, Including Via Kangaroo Courts and Executions

I'm seeing 2,500 civilian deaths as a common figure. CBS says possibly as high as 12,000 or even 20,000.

Fuck those guys.

I have no idea what our realistic options are, though.

But we're now looking at the possibility of two nation-building projects at the same time...when few of us even have the stomach for one...

But restoring the Shah seems like a plausible plan to me...based on my extensive ignorance of everything about Iran...

Jenkins: Now Lawfare Engulfs the Fed

Yes, the Democrats started it--or at least elevated it to all-out war...all-out lawfare, anyway.

   They're proud of it. (Not that important, but: one of their longstanding legal/political blogs is called Lawfare.)

   Has Trump made it worse?

   Well, he seems to have made it more blatant...which is one way of being worse...

   Anyway, to me, having only the superficial knowledge of a somewhat-more-than casual reader of the news, that he has made it worse. It used to at least be kind of on the DL. And the people doing it openly/blatantly were state-level figures like the loathsome Letitia James, and the also loathsome Alvin Bragg... But it seems to have gone federal* under Trump.

   There was a red-team talking-point recently...I think even repeated by Vance. Went like this: we shouldn't refrain from doing things because we fear the Dems might to them to use in the future...because they're going to do them to us anyway...

   Sadly, that point makes a lot of sense.

   The Pubs still probably haven't done anything that can hold a candle to Russiagate...yet, anyway...

   I'd prefer for the team I currently support to be at least slightly more on the side of reason and justice than the other guys...but Trump seems to think that's a losing strategy... And he's fairly likely to be right.

   So anyway...here we are...

* Yes, I, too, dislike this misuse of the 'federal.' I'm using it here anyway.

George J. Terwilliger III: ICE, Minneapolis and the Rule of Law

This seems right on the money:

Just as the federal agents’ lawful presence in the cities isn’t a justification for the use of unnecessary force, objection to their presence on policy grounds provides no justification for civilian interference in their operations, or for local officials to leave them bereft of local law-enforcement help when that occurs. The administration has a duty to protect its agents from violence. If state and local officials mean what they say about the rule of law, they will draw the line there and provide protective support—even if they disagree with national immigration policy. The failure to do so will encourage more interference and violence and necessitate stepped-up measures by the administration to protect federal personnel and property.

The left thinks it has some kind of moral authority to simply prevent the enforcement of laws it doesn't like.

And/or:

   It thinks that if it has the physical power to do so, that's good enough.

   For this reason--even if we didn't have plenty of other reasons--we have to keep insisting on enforcing these laws. Driving home to the left that it cannot control the country merely by acting crazy* and employing physical intimidation.

   I live in a college town--actually a medium-smallish(?) city (about 50k residents...the biggest city I've ever lived in...though Charlottesville is really bigger, even though technically smaller...) It was red when I got here. I worked with the Dems to turn it blue...was pleased when it went purple...then it turned full-on blue about the time the Dems went insane and I switched allegiances...nice work, dumbass...

   Anyway.

   My pretty average neighborhood is rife with lefty signs. BLM. In this house... ICE out of [cityname]. Families belong together. And the ...we're glad you're our neighbors signs that apparently originated here before metastasizing elsewhere. We had a candlelight vigil on Court Square for "victims of ICE" recently.

   I kinda wish there were some reasonable way to signify my opposition to the madness--e.g. my support for border enforcement... But I don't think there is. I think it'd be dumb to put up a sign or walk around in a t-shirt blatantly supporting the administration...I think we should always have a somewhat antagonistic attitude toward the government...even if just pro forma. Also, of course: my support for this administration is dicey at best...

   I did buy some 'Antifa = terrorists' stickers and I'm in some kind of stupid battle downtown with an unknown adversary. He/she/they/xe puts up lefty stickers and graffiti on out-of the way components of the infrastructure. I put my stickers over them... LOL stupid. One of my (far) former students was with me once when I did it and he cracked up and said "I hope you're hamming it up for my benefit and you don't actually go around doing this." Unfortunately, however...

   Well, I put my flag out on major flag-relevant days...that's--sadly--probably enough to make it clear where I stand..

* who's acting?

Dan McLaughlin: Investigating Good's Widow Another Self-Destructive Decision by Trump's DoJ

Prima facie, this is just pointlessly cruel and vindictive.

Special bonus stupid: it's brought the lead prosecutor (and several others) on the MN fraud investigation to resign.

I don't even know what Justice's rationale for this is...it just seems inhuman.

And on top of a not-obviously-justified killing, no less...

RIP Scott Adams

We weren't always on the same page, but he was a likable guy worthy of respect. He stood up to the woketaria mob when the cost of doing so was high.

RIP.

Iran Signals Plans for Swift Trials and Executions of Protestors

I really don't want us to be the world's policeman anymore...but...surely there's something we can do here.

We have both geopolitical and humanitarian reasons to want the regime of the mullahs to fall.

Needless to say, nobody else is going to do anything.

As is so often the case, it's the USA or nobody...

How'd We Get To This Point, Anyway? Some Dems Remind Us

TBF, the Pus, though less bad, aren't blameless. Recall the 1/6/21 Capitol riot...

Fund and Vedder: Are America's College Students Brilliantly Disabled?

No.

Though this article merely suggests that and doesn't demonstrate it.

"Disability" "accommodations" are mostly a scam.

Of course the blue elites now hold that all their favored groups are allowed to "self-identify"...so claims to disability (like claims about "gender") cannot be questioned. And, indeed, a university with which I am very familiar apparently does not even attempt to verify them...

Eric Levitz: Left and Right: The "Fiction" at the Heart of the American Political Divide

This was really irritating me until Levitz got around to stating his own view of the matter.

   The currently-fashionable middlebrow view that one encounters commonly in Reddit-level discussions: there's no such thing as "left" and "right".../...the distinction makes no sense.

   Well, bullshit.

   These views tend to be supported by starting with a straw man that Levitz called ideological "essentialism"...'essentialism' being one of the many philosophical terms "appropriated" by the left and vaguely Continental-style academicians outside philosophy...but that they don't understand.

   To cut to the chase, and put it in my own terms: as is often the case, concern with "essentialism" distracts from realism. Left and right are real tendencies--Levitz agrees. There's a certain amount of arbitrariness...but so what? That doesn't matter. It's to be expected. What matters is that there are some strong tendencies that cluster together. E.g. the left's greater love of equality and the right's greater respect for merit and earned advantage. I'd add: the left's affinity for rapid and frequent change and the right's more circumspect approach to it. Freedom...much as I'd like to say it's a more conservative value...tends, IMO, to wander around back and forth. For most of my life, free speech, for example, was something the American left / the Democratic party tended to be more committed to protecting. That all changed on campuses during the political correctness spasm of of the late '80s - early '90s. And it started noticeably changing in the country as a whole ca. 2013ish...until, by 2020, free speech was considered downright reactionary.

   Anyway, bottom line, as you already know: the left/right distinction is a messy one. Like most ordinary, practical distinctions, there's something to it...and it's handy...but not much more than that.

"Trump's Big Swing at Credit Card Interest Rates"

A surprisingly positive assessment at Business Insider...

Articles like this should automatically have a community note by economists telling us about the likely unintended consequences.

I mean, one seems obvious: credit cards will become more difficult to get, no? (I guess this is what's presupposed by the claim that this would drive people to worse kinds of credit.)

Anyway, I tend to automatically dismiss such schemes now because TANSTAAFL...

But I dunno, maybe this isn't as dumb as it sounds.

Hawley supports it...that's something...

Gerard Baker: Iran Cracks Down. Where Are The Western Protests?

It's like the contemporary left has a bizarro compulsion to be wrong about everything...

link

I guess the only thing we can really do is look for reliable organizations to donate to?

I don't know whether it really makes sense for Trump to launch strikes against the regime...but if it does, I hope he does it.

Fuck those guys.

Incidentally, Foucault supported the Iranian "Islamic Revolution" in '79...

Recent Continental philosophy also has a pretty solid record of getting shit wrong...

Chad Carlson: Men in Women's Sports is Unfair--And Dangerous

link

Before any more specialized discussions about this topic are taken up, one thing must be made clear: there are no male women and no female men. The leftist Newspeak term for men who misrepresent themselves as women is 'trans women'--a patently and absurdly misleading term. It's astonishing how much mileage the progressive left gets out of its Newspeak--but that's all it is. Making up a new term ("trans") and misusing the term 'woman' does nothing to change the facts. "Trans women" are, in fact, men.

Dr. Carlson does it right: to conduct this discussion rationally, we must refer to men as men and eschew progressive Newspeak terms like "trans woman."

To paraphrase Lincoln: calling a horse's tail a leg won't give it five legs... And calling it a "trans leg" won't change anything.

What Time Should You Get Up? Probably Not 5 a.m.

LOL if you get up at 5 a.m. willingly, you're nuts.

I generally wake up for the last time around 2:30, and then try to get back to sleep until 5 or 6. If I do everything right, that works a coupla times a week. I don't let myself get up for the day before 5--I don't want to accidentally establish another bad pattern. I'm not supposed to sleep past 6 because of The Sleep Protocol!!!111...but [looks around stealthily] if I can, I usually do.

Anyway, yeah, as a habitually sleep-deprived American, it's hard for me to fathom being able to sleep but not doing so. 

Brittany Bernstein: Mainstream Media Consumers Left Unprepared for Supreme Court Reality Check on Men in Women’s Sports

link

I hope Gorsuch doesn't Bostock us again...

(Ehhh...actually I'm not sure Gorsuch's argument in Bostock was wrong. I'd identified it ahead of time as the strongest argument "on the other side"...which is a bad way to think. We ought to just follow the arguments and not think in terms of sides... But I can't shake the conviction that that argument is bad...and that if I find myself agreeing with the moonbats I must have gone wrong...)

Actual Justice Warrior on the Minneapolis ICE Shooting

I've seen about thirty lefty posts (mostly Reddit so...) shrieking that it's obvious that the ICE agent flat-out murdered Ms. Love.

I've seen about ten or fifteen things from people on the right insisting that the shooting was obviously justified.

The left, as per usual these days, is being crazier than the right. Some are even trying to deny that there was any effort to impede ICE, some deny that she was blocking the road.

Robby Soave on Rising had the correct take, IMO--basically the same as mine: we need to wait until police use-of-force experts have gone over the evidence carefully. The rest of us understand next to nothing about this business.

As for hunches and inclinations...gotta say, I kinda don't see this shooting being reasonable.

Anyway, AJW disagrees:

Jeffrey Blehar: The Trump Administration's Lawfare Will Destroy More Than Just Itself

More on the Trumpian thuggery against Powell.

As crucial as it is to keep Democrats out of power--unless/until they come to their senses--Trump is doing his best to make it a close call.

I'm starting to root harder for some kind of health problem that will put the Presidency in Vance's hands.

Hey, Remember How Antifa Didn't Exist?

Well, we've apparently transitioned to the It exists and that's a good thing part of the cycle...

Haley Strack: Renee Good Belonged to "ICE Watch" Group That Trained Activists to Interfere with Agents, Block Vehicles

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   If you've watched much footage of the "activists"/rioters that swarm ICE and CBP, you know that their strategy is to do everything they can to impede agents--up to and sometimes beyond what is legal. They track them online, follow them, demonstrate loudly all night outside their hotels, block roads, blow whistles and honk horns, scream the vilest insults, throw chunks of ice and whatever else they think they can get away with, stick cameras in their faces, grab and shove and jostle them, etc. One point of this is to minimize the effectiveness of the raids--thus, with luck, saving the murderers, ped0s, rapists, and other miscreants and illegals targeted for arrest. A sub-goal is to put so much psychological pressure on the agents, and create such chaos, that they will make a mistake or lash out and do something stupid/illegal/violent...which will inevitably be caught by at least some of the dozens of rioters/"activists" recording the action--or one of their "green hat" "legal observers."

   The shooting of Ms. Good is exactly the kind of thing they were hoping for. I usually wouldn't make that sort of accusation...and this movement would be insane and repulsive even if this weren't true. But it's true.

   These people outright lie about everything--and they're lying about the shooting of Ms. Good, too. But, unfortunately, this is one of the few cases in which their overall conclusion might be right: the shooting may well have been unjustified. In fact, I'm now inclined to think it probably was...

   ...however: given the intentional creation of chaos by the rioters/"activists," their strategy of testing and repeatedly transgressing the boundaries of the law just shy of what they're likely to be arrested for...and the large number of vehicular assaults against agents...I think one can reasonably argue that the leftists have created an environment in which errors by agents are inevitably more common...and therefore are more excusable than they would ordinarily be.

   But, as I keep saying: this is really something we need to hear from use-of-force experts on.

   Laypeople like me are just bullshitting about something we barely understand at all.

Radical Islam Such a Problem in the UK that the UAE is Now Hesitant to Send Its Students There

You can't make this shit up.

Trump's Weaponizing DoJ Against Powell

I'm no lawyer and could easily be wrong...but: this seems like madness, doesn't it?

Brianna Wu on Mamdani's Commie Housing Czar: "They All Talk Like This Behind the Scenes"

Mr. Wu, as you may recall--a man who represents himself as a woman--was one of the main lefties in the Gamergate dispute. Gamergate, as you might recall, was an early battle between the forces of progressive-left wokefied media and the liberal/conservative rebellion against it. That is: against the ideological capture of videogames "journalism" by the illiberal, Orwellian left.

   Even Wu--who is still pretty far to the left--has gotten fed up with the lunacy of the politically correct left. He's been openly criticizing them for some time now.

   At any rate: though he's still stuck in the leftist worldview in many ways, there's reason to believe he's trustworthy with respect to points like this one:

I spent a decade working in progressive politics. They all talk like this behind the scenes.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion they were morally unfit to hold any power whatsoever. https://t.co/UR1bZYnfki

— Brianna Wu (@BriannaWu) January 5, 2026

Coulter: Venezuela: We're Nation-Building...the USA; Things Were Better When We Called the Shots in Latin America

This is the kind of post that would have sent me through the roof ten years ago.

   And, in fact, it was the GOP's support for Latin American strongmen like Pinochet that helped drive me to the Dems early in my political life. I agreed with fighting socialism and communism there (and I still believed in "democratic socialism")...but I thought that Republicans like Jesse Helms were way too eager to support people like Pinochet.

   I still think that attitudes like Coulter's are of a kind that you have to keep firmly under control, lest they wreck you.

   But...God help me...I'm pretty sympathetic to them now.

   I no longer think we can save the Third World. And we can't leave it alone in our own hemisphere...largely because the Democrats have decided to let all the criminals and refugees from all those failed states in here. And that will destroy the country. First by putting more Democrats in office...and, partially thereby, turning us into a less-than-First-World nation. Mostly, though, just by importing the kinds of people who constitute such countries.

   Import the Third World, become the Third World...

   And: giving them money now seems to me to be of dubious value.

   And we can no longer afford it.

   Anyway.

   I'm not happy about thinking this way. I used to be one of those chirpy Democrats that blithely insisted that everybody in the whole world was an American waiting to be liberated. Also, that's one of the many false beliefs that make you a good person, of course. According to our cultural betters.

    My problem is that I have a hard time making myself believe obvious falsehoods.

   Which is why I'm such a bad person.