Andrew Heaton: Eat the Rich...Then What?

Crowd Sings Country Roads After Win Over Australia

This is freakin awesom:

The reason this song resonates so much across the country is multi layered--part of it is a longing to come home; the other part is so many people from Appalachia/West Virginia were displaced by lack of opportunity and so they migrated away, but they never lost that sense of… https://t.co/I0p2H0wa2M

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) June 19, 2026

Spanberger's Worst Action Thus Far: Signing the "National Popular Vote Interstate Compact"

Utter bullshit.

Get this in front of SCOTUS and let them strike it down.

How can the Democrats be wrong about everything?

So much for the sacred counting of the electoral votes. The constitution says we decide presidential elections by electoral votes of each state. This has to be unconstitutional. https://t.co/Oeyy42Lnxh

— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) June 17, 2026

No Injunction Against VA "Assault Weapon" Ban

WSJ: Trump Explains Why He Cut A Deal With Iran

Again:

All sorts of things can happen...and we don't know how this will play out...

...but it doesn't sound good.

Rothman: The Humiliations Yet to Come from Trump's Iran Deal

Again, I'm not giving up hope.

But the deal sounds fucking terrible.

Noah Rothman: Trump Throws Vance and Rubio Under the Bus

link

Dude was elected for basically one reason... He had one job:  Don't be the Democrats.

Well, also a subsidiary one: Roll back what the Democrats have done over the past 10-15 years.

   I don't think it was stupid of him to take his shot at Iran. It also wasn't obviously smart... But it thrust him into exactly the role he cannot handle, and seems to have botched as bad as it could possibly be botched. When the going gets tough, he becomes just a random word generator. He says wildly, obviously false and inconsistent things. He's just a wreck.

   The TDS crowd refuses to acknowledge his strengths and accomplishments--of course, being generally on the left, they have legitimate grounds for seeing those accomplishments as...whatever the opposite of accomplishments is... Bad accomplishments, or whatever.

   The fawning Trumpistas (of which there are many fewer) refuse to acknowledge his glaring weaknesses. But there's no getting an accurate view of the guy without acknowledging both. 

   The Iran debacle--assuming that's what it actually is--has really brought out and highlighted his weaknesses. One of which: he seems utterly incapable of acknowledging defeat--or even his own errors.

WSJ: Is Iran Really a Normal Country?

Doesn't seem to be--but I know ridiculously little about the place.

My (pathetic) understanding is that it's basically composed of a group of people governed by a foreign Islamic apocalyptic cult...

   The Editors make a good point: all sorts of things can happen from here on out. Trump may be right (he often is). He may have some things up his sleeve (in fact, he almost certainly does). He became rich and powerful largely by reading people, exercising advantages, and making deals. For all I know, he's just using the "deal" as a cover story to give CENTCOM an opportunity to compile a list of new targets, get more anti-drone weapons in-theater, reload the VRSs, and clobber them next time Iran gives him and excuse (as they certainly will). A transformative leader might rise to power in Iran. The people might rise up again--with our help this time...all sorts of things might happen...

   People with my degree of understanding about the situation have basically no understanding of it.

   But, of course, it doesn't look good.

   Trump's wild, chaotic swings...he's loony pronouncements about unconditional surrender...his many claims that the war is already over...then that we're about to level the whole country...his multiple announcements that a deal is already done... It certainly sounds like he's in way over his head and just making it all up from day to day. He seems to think that his method of spontaneous tactical bullshitting--so successful at home--will work on the international stage...and on the Mullahs...just seems insane...

   I've always thought that foreign policy was his biggest weakness. Mostly, I worried about him accidentally starting WWIII...I didn't envision this...

   Kinda seems like the Mullahs know our playbook, and realize that all they have to do is not give up. We're not going to send in troops--ergo we can't just take over their country and make them comply...not that sending troops into Afghanistan worked, either...

   Well, I have no real point, I suppose.

VA Dems Agree to Start Retail Weed in January [July?] '27

The first good thing they've done.

But the plan is full of "equity" bullshit--which, let's face it, means: funneling even more money to blacks and other Democrat-favored races and special interest groups. It'll be interesting to see whether they can figure out a way to also get some to the alphabet people in on the action...

WA Gun Law: Spotsylvania Case Against VA Dems' "Assault Weapon" Ban (in Curtis v. Katz) is Brilliant and Airtight

I'm not a lawyer, but it is a pretty sweet argument.

Here's the relevant clause of the VA constitution:

Article I. Bill of Rights
Section 13. Militia; standing armies; military subordinate to civil power

That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

My argument (not that it matters) was less clever:

Even if the antecedent (or false antecedent) is taken as operant, and even if the right is conditional, and even though we have no militia (in the ordinary contemporary sense) anymore, that doesn't matter. In that case, the right is made conditional on the fact that the militia is the proper, right, natural and safe defense of a free state--not on the actual existence of a militia. The mere fact that we have no militia (in the ordinary sense) is irrelevant to whether a militia is proper, right, natural and/or safe. 

   

   But here's WAGL's short, interesting discussion of the much more important argument in Curtis v. Katz:

The British Rape Gang Report

Jesus Christ.

We knew all this.

But it's still appalling to see it all in one place.

The eight central points:

1) This was a nationwide, not merely local, phenomenon.

2) The scale was enormous, more than anyone dared to think.

3) As has been reported, the vast majority of perpetrators were Pakistani Muslims.

4) Vulnerable girls were targeted using a consistent method.

5) The police, and other institutions, knew what was happening and ignored it.

6) Those in these institutions did so because they were afraid of being called ‘racist’.

7) Parts of the foster and orphan care system became exploitation hotspots.

8) Multiple offenders explicitly linked their treatment of these girls with their own religious and cultural beliefs, and the girls’ white ethnicity.

Back in the day, before the left went completely insane, and I was more aligned with the blue team, an IRL friend and frequent commenter here--a very smart Brit--pushed back against my posts on this, arguing that this was most likely some kind of police scandal, and the cops were basically pleading fear of accusations of racism as some kind of way of covering up their own misdeeds... I never really understood the argument. The point was to deny that this debacle had anything to do with race/ethnicity--to deny that the perpetrators had any such commonality. I said, even at the time, that it certainly seemed that both the Pakistanis/South-Asians and the cops were to blame... I mention this because I've seen this so many times over the last decade: even smart, well-informed people like my friend...and even some (like him) who recognize the crapitude of Woketarianism...can just be blind to certain such things. 

   Quoth Orwell:

   To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

Also via Insty: 

Guess who they found was the threat to girls and women?

White Men. pic.twitter.com/gurSfktWWI

— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) June 15, 2026

Left-Wing Terrorist Plot Against the WH UFC Event Busted

This would have been really bad if they had pulled it off...though they'd have all ended up pummeled into paste by the crowd...

At least the left can't deny the aims of this one:

A suspect told investigators the goal of the attack was to target “capitalist elites,” “billionaires” and politicians who received money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), according to the outlet.

OK, The Alternative to WH UFC is Worse: David Burge: "I Think We've Failed to Educate Our Theater Kids About How Fucking Tired We are of Their Bullshit"

I'm not a fan of MMA on the White House lawn. But if this is the alternative, fuck it, let's have MMA, WWE and Monster Trucks in the Rose Garden every Tuesday https://t.co/IB7ZEwBg6e

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 15, 2026

Trump's UFC White House Birthday Bash

I couldn't watch it.

I didn't like what I did see.

I like MMA, and I like that people--including a lot of servicemen--had a good time.

But this kind of circus has no place on the WH lawn.*

The "Michelle Obama is a man" bullshit was way the fuck over the line. And fuck that guy for it.

I guess it basically comes down to the fact that I can't even.

Yeah, well, neither did Biden's "trans" extravaganza, with dudes in dresses pulling them down to bare their breast implants... Yeah, that was worse. But that doesn't mean that this wasn't bad. Granted, the UFC doesn't aim at the destruction of Western Civilization...but still... Sometimes being less bad just isn't good enough.

I Guess Jon Stewart Was Always a Hack

He knows nothing about Islam, of course, but his lefty presupposition is that Islam can't be any worse than Christianity. So he basically gives AHA a hard time. His derision is barely concealed at all. She grew up in the religion--but his liberal (" ") presuppositions are smarter than her actual, y'know, experience...

Edwards B-52 Crash: Eight Dead, No Survivors

.

B-52 Crashes at Edwards

No word on the crew yet.

It crashed "soon after takeoff."

The lower-deck crew on the Buff--the navigator and gunner--eject downward.

Obviously hoping everyone is ok.

2/3 of Colleges Require DEI Courses?

link

Frank Miele: Before We Forget: What Trump Did Right

Agreed.

Fixed the border, addressed waste/fraud/abuse in government programs, TrumpRx, at least tried to address Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, no tax on tips and reduced taxes on Social Security...

I'd add:

Stopped the Biden administration's attacks on free speech

Struck major blows agianst DEI

Struck major blows against transgender pseudoscience and its abuse of children

Reduced government regulation

Struck major blows against global warming hysteria and radically improved U.S. energy policy

Job creation: good

Stock market: good

SCOTUS: perhaps his greatest achievement.

His DoJ addressing state-level violations of the Second Amendment

...

and that's just for starters.

The guy drives me crazy, and I abhor his frequently-divisive demeanor. I don't think someone with his, er, uneven temperament should be President. I'm not sure what to think about the tariffs. I'm extremely opposed to his infringements of free speech--especially the flag-burning nonsense. I fear that Trump fatigue will give us a Democrat House--and perhaps President in '28.. And then the whole disaster of the Biden years may well be repeated.

   But, just looking at the good side of the ledger, I'd say: the best President of the 21st Century, by far.

   Well, I left out his post-election freakout and his role in the Capitol riot and fostering electoral skepticism on the right. That's a complicated subject...and I actually think he was at least right about the general point: the election of 2020 was sketchy, and the Democrats are undermining the security of our elections. I wish he'd just say that instead of insisting that his 2020 "landslide" was stolen...

Elliot Abrams: The Iranian People are Forgotten in the Iran Deal

Kinda seems that way.

Jonathan Alpert: Therapy is Looking More Like Re-Education. (Or: Everything Woke Turns to Shit...)

Well, it's an irrationalist, totalitarian ideology that spreads itself by taking over social institutions and brainwashing people into accepting it as unquestionable orthodoxy. It's taken over all of our major institutions, including medicals schools and the AMA...and it's particularly bad in social sciences and/like psychology... So this comes as no surprise.

Transanity at Oxford: Transes do the Heckler's Veto Thing

Note that this bullshit was sanctioned by the university.

When this happens, members of the audience should get up and stand in front of the hecklers and talk over them. Fight fire with fire.

But the real outrage is that the university ok'd such madness.

If 15 years ago, we were told that men in dresses pretending to be women would be routinely attacking and threatening people and preventing people from speaking...and that not only a majority of the left, but a majority of the West's most prestigious institutions would be supporting them...no one would have believed it.

White Jurors Tend Toward Colorblindness; Black Jurors Do Not

If this were the other way around, the MSM would remind us of it at every opportunity...:

In a study on race and juror decision-making, participants evaluated an identical defendant whose name was either Bradley Schwartz or Jamal Gaines.

Black respondents were significantly more likely to convict and more harshly sentence the white-named defendant, while white… https://t.co/Nifej2uHeb pic.twitter.com/d7G9zJrK1y

— Dimitri (@thedimitri) June 12, 2026

NY Dems Want to Eliminate 'Mother' and 'Father' in Family Law in Favor of 'Gestating Parent' and 'Non-Gestating Parent'

Sheer bigotry!

How dare they assume that gestation is necessary for parenthood!

And that adults in a nuclear family with children are parents!

And that it's the older people who are the adults!

To be politically correct, we should speak only of Familial Component Persons...

MMA at the White House

facepalm

That is all.

Switzerland's Brexit Moment; or: Import the Third World, Become the Third World

Looks like Europe is finding it more and more difficult to deny the obvious facts American conservatives have been haranguing them about for at least a decade.

Especially: import the Third World, become the Third World.

Jürg Müller, director of Swiss think-tank Avenir Suisse, told CNN that the country was feeling the strain of recent population growth driven in part by its economic successes. “You see the tensions on housing markets, infrastructure… access to lakes… it feels for many people too crowded.” The SVP “have taken this feeling and transformed it into this initiative,” he said.
...
Müller contends that support for the referendum is motivated less by xenophobia than people’s concern that the population is growing at an uncontrolled rate.
However, the website of the pro-cap campaign appears to draw on anti-Muslim rhetoric to make its case.
“Problems with asylum seekers from Muslim countries. Studies show that certain migrant groups are many times more criminal than the rest of the population,” one section of the website reads.
Elsewhere on the website, a photo of a woman with her head covered holding up a Swiss passport appears under the subheading “Loss of culture and identity.” The same page describes “creeping Islamization” and concerns over harassment of women at a Swiss swimming pool carried out, it claims, by French nationals of North African origin.
The SVP declined to speak with CNN for this story.
“It is utterly xenophobic. Ultimately, it makes scapegoats out of foreigners, as if they’re the answer to all of society’s ills. It is dangerous because it is deceitful,” Delphine Klopfenstein, a Green member of parliament, told Reuters.

I don't know much at all about what's going on in Switzerland. But the Greens are reliably wrong--about everything. Let's take a look at Klepfenstein's claims:

[1] "It is utterly xenophobic"

[2] "Ultimately it makes scapegoats out of foreigners..."

[3] [It pretends] "...as if [foreigners are] the answer to all of society's ills"

[4] "It is dangerous..."

[5] ..."It is deceitful."

Typical leftist bullshit.

   Consider [1]: To cut to the chase, Klopfenstein is actually saying that any such policies are inherently "xenophobic." Which is obviously false. Such policies can be advanced purely on the basis of objective facts. Probably she's also trying to suggest that advocates of the measure are motivated by xenophobia. Which could be true--but if their claims are true, then there is no reason to think they are so motivated. This is, again, typical leftist bullshit. If Smith commits a crime, and so you want Smith in jail, and Smith is black, then you are a racist, racist. This is some idiotic mixture of the view that any, say, black person, say, going to jail for any reason is inherently racist...and the view that all whites are always motivated by racism. It's as confused as any such thing can possibly be.

   Now, klopfenstein's claim could be true...I don't know anything about Mr. Mueller and his group. But we know enough about the Greens to know that she's probably just full of shit. Mueller gives sound reasons in support of his view. When someone gives sound reasons in support of their view, then, barring some knowledge of hidden motives, we have no grounds on which to attribute such motives to them.

   General and important: the left is built largely on "the hermeneutics of suspicion"--as a result of being built so much on the foundation of Marx and Freud. Hence their propensity to poison the well and spew red herrings and ad hominems. They always go immediately for character assassination, because a deep and important part of their worldview tells them that people--but especially their enemies--are always lying, always motivated by the lust for power and domination. This is some of the pseudoscience at the heart of their worldview...

Anyway:

Mueller is right about both these things:

[a] "Certain migrant groups are many times more criminal than the rest of the population"

[b] Mass migration from alien and incompatible cultures threatens the home culture. Islam is notably incompatible with European liberalism and Western culture. And (though this really belongs in [a]), contributes to a massive increase in harassment of women. As does, especially, migration by North Africans.

Since Mueller's claims are all true, Klopfenstein's attribution of hidden motives to him and his group is gratuitous, ergo indefensible.

   What we have here should be familiar to Americans: conservatives stating unpleasant facts, and leftists responding with bullshit accusations of prejudice. The hard facts are incompatible with leftist ideology...so they must be false! Er...as if the left really believed in truth and falsehood... Well...they must be bad, anyway...

   Consider [2]: Again: could be true, but we're given no reason to think it is. And it probably isn't. We'd have to see the specifics of the campaign and the relevant measures, I suppose...but, again, given [a] and [b], this isn't scapegoating--it's stating facts.

   As for [3]: Obvious straw man. We don't even have to know the particulars. There is no way they're trying to make foreigners responsible for tooth decay and increased gas prices. I'm certain that no one is saying that excessive immigration from the Third World is causing all Switzerland's problems...in fact, Mueller et al. are making it pretty clear which problems they're causing...

   [4]/[5]: I separated the claims--which illicitly helps the Greens here. Yes, deceit is typically dangerous...but this isn't deceitful. Again, it's true. The deceivers are the Greens...and not only is their deceit dangerous, but their preferred policies are dangerous, too. Bringing in mass numbers of foreigners from incompatible cultures is dangerous. Leftists refuse to acknowledge this. They have a vision of the world according to which everyone is equal because everyone is a blank slate. Bring such foreigners in, and they will become Swiss. Poof! Magic... The left denies facts so commonly because its principles and beliefs are so obviously false and stupid.

   Look. Almost no one is against bringing good people into their country from anywhere on Earth. The point is, really: people from some countries and groups have to be vetted more carefully than those of others. If you pick a random Somali to bring into your country, you're probably bringing in trouble. You might not be. But you probably are. There's a much smaller chance of this if you bring in a random German or Estonian. These are just facts. Conservatives tend to face these facts. Leftists tend to deny them. That's what it really comes down to.

Hasta la Vista, Nino

Good.

"RPM"--the "Rapid Prompting Method" for Allegedly Communicating with the Autistic--is Basically Just "Facilitated Communication"

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

And easy-to-test bullshit at that.

But, of course, its advocates don't want to test it...

This GOP Congress Has Been a Disappointment

link

Of course, if the Dems win in November, we'll miss 'em.

The Congressional Pubs are merely feckless.

The Dems will be destructive.

The War is Over Again

No, wait

Stage 4 Retardation After the Karmelo Anthony Trial

Plane on a Conveyor Belt: My Guess

I didn't know about this controversy until a day or so ago.

I had a friend who used to like to get groups of people who didn't know much about the actual physics to try to figure out this kind of physics problem.

I'm with the faction who says that the Mythbusters screwed up.

In brief:

Seems to me that the question is equivalent to: Can an aircraft that is stationary relative to the ground take off? (And: not with a very substantial headwind.)

The Mythbusters think their experiment showed that it can.

But that plane wasn't stationary relative to the ground--as you can see in the video if you look at the cones.

So, as others have said: they probably weren't pulling the canvas (on which the plane was resting) fast enough to keep the plane stationary relative to the ground.

Anyway.

Can a plane that's stationary relative to the ground (and, again, without a significant headwind) take off?

My guess:

Maybe, but probably not given the kinds of planes they're actually interested in.

Many planes can take off like that, of course.

E.g. VSTOL aircraft like the AV-8B Harrier, the F-35B...and helicopters. These are tacitly ruled out. The Harrier and Fat Amy-B reorient their nozzles to direct thrust downward. So that's out of the spirit of the thing. As are helicopters.

More relevantly: Some bush-hoppers used e.g. in Alaska can take off and land almost vertically given a stiff headwind...and with very small runways otherwise. See e.g.:

Anyway, I say: the right kind of plane--e.g. with phenomenal power--could take off while stationary relative to the ground.

But there's no general answer to the problem.

If you want to know whether a plane can take off from a conveyor belt that's keeping it stationary relative to the ground, just have it try to take off with the brakes locked--or the wheels chocked. Most won't be able to. But some might. If you offered a billion dollar prize for making such a bird, I can semi-guarantee that you'd get one.

But the kinds of planes normally said to be at issue--747s, Piper Cubs--no.

CAP/NTP: Did Skid Row Help Skew the Election for LA Mayor?

link:

A Post investigation found nearly 1,200 people registered to vote at a homeless shelter with 132 beds, and another 185 at a drop-in center with zero beds.

I'm against low-commitment/low-information voters voting anyway. So I'm against GOTV campaigns of basically all kinds. If you don't know enough / care enough to vote, don't vote. (For years I was out there with the Dems doing GOTV. I regret that now for more than one reason.)

   Many people think that all voting is good and more voters is better.

   I understand, but disagree.

   I'm currently inclined to think that democracy is a necessary...well...not evil...but a necessary not-so-great. In addition to being a democracy, we're a liberal, constitutional republic...and I currently think all three of those components are more important than democracy. No, I don't think you can preserve the other things without the consent of the governed--and democracy is probably the best way to secure that. So this view doesn't amount to much, really.

Homeless on Skid Row Claim They Were Paid to Vote for Karen Bass / Nithya Raman

We already know CA Dems are paying homeless to vote. So no surprise:

Karmelo Anthony Verdict: Guilty

link

No surprise here.

There's been a lot of stuff on black social media lying about the crime and arguing that it was obviously self-defense...

...which is completely false.

That coverage was just full of completely made-up shit.

It was basically always obvious that he was guilty.

Noah Rothman: Trump's Revealing On-Air Meltdown

Agreed.

He shouldn't be President. He doesn't have the demeanor nor the temperament required by the office.

And his role with respect to the Capitol riot is just inexcusable (even though the left radically exaggerates the degree to which he provoked it).

I continue to wish that he'd have some moderate health crisis that would force him to resign and be replaced by Vance.

We're very lucky that the other guys lost...and Trump has done some really excellent things this time around...but damn...despite his strengths...he just does not have what it takes to be President of the United States.

So Much for Peak Woke: Woketarian Madness Keeps Winning in Blue Cities

The thing is — it keeps winning power in major American cities. It keeps cannibalizing the Democratic Party. It may not be popular in opinion polls, but it is unstoppable in intramural contests within institutions. https://t.co/iYlTEP7ALp

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) June 9, 2026

AJW: Mail-In Ballots Flip CA Election--But Reports of 25k Ballots With No Pratt Ballots Are False

Good. Because, as I said in an earlier post, that would be pretty clear evidence of shenanigans. Given that many ballots, even if there were zero Pratt supporters represented, you'd expect some Pratt votes merely as a result of errors. And remember: most of the people who return ballots don't really know anything about the race...

   Though, as Sean notes: CA election protocols are a complete freakin' joke. They're basically engineered to produce shit results shutting the Pubs even farther out of contention. And, of course, everybody who knows anything about elections knows that mail-in ballots are more susceptible to shenanigans. Basically the CA rules guarantee that the elections is dirty. And, of course: we've now actually caught Dems paying "Our Neighbors Temporarily Experiencing Houselessness" for their votes...

"Iran's Attack on Israel Reveals New and Aggressive Regional Ambitions"

Uh...not convincing.

Could absolutely be true...but, well, here's a comment I've tried to post four times under the story, and it's been rejected each time:

A more objective story might at least have mentioned the possibility that Iran's actions are a result of greater desperation.

That's it. At least once word-for-word. Given reason for rejection:  "Does not align with our community guidelines." I've posted many more critical and controversial comments at WSJ. It's an obvious point. There's nothing in it that could plausibly be construed as outside the bounds of reasonable debate. And, after I posted it, I found one other commenter making basically the same point.

   Yeah, I know it's just AI that's rejecting it. Still, somewhat irritating.

   Look, I'd rather the war be going better. I have little confidence in Trump on this score. And I'm willing to believe that the attack has made things worse. I just don't buy that claim at this point. And I really am just pointing out that a likely explanation--in fact, probably the more likely explanation--goes unmentioned.

   In fact, two different versions of a reply to the other commentor making the same argument have now been rejected...

   Funny.

Lefties Pushing the Idea that the U.S./San Francisco is/are Dangerous for Homosexual etc. World Cup Soccer Fans

Somehow they all survived the last World Cup...in Qatar...where the penalty for teh gay is like three years in jail or something...

...but the U.S...San Francisco even...is turrrrible dang'rous...

Also, as the now-quite-laughable ACLU says..."immigrants"...

How are "immigrants" in danger?

And do they mean, like, immigrants to Mongolia who fly here for the World Cup?

Or immigrants to the U.S.?

So...illegal aliens, then?

In danger of having the law enforced against them?

Moreso than if they stayed in some other state/city illegally?

JFC who can make any sense of this stupidity?

Batches of 25k Ballots for LA Mayor With Zero Votes for Spencer Pratt?

Uh...

Look.

If you took 25k ballots from 25k people, none of whom supported Smith, you still wouldn't get zero votes for Smith. You'd get at least some votes for him just from people making mistakes filling out their ballots.

Though, counterpoint: if you were going to steal an election, you probably wouldn't be stupid enough to fake tranches of 25k ballots with zero votes for your opponent...

I mean, we know that CA elections are dirty...there's really no doubt about that anymore. 

So this is hardly some gigantic surprise.

What's surprising is that it's this blatant.

[Update: turns out those numbers were bogus.

Which is good...b/c, as I argue above, they'd almost certainly mean tampering.]

Reason: America Doesn't Have an Inequality Problem, It Has a Measurement Problem

This accords with what I think I know:

Pantyfa Anti-ICE Protestor Who Bit Cop Busted for Child Pr0n

Absolutely no surprise whatsoever.

D-Day + 82 Years

Hard to believe.

John Daniel Davidson: Canada Needs a Real Reconning for the Mass Graves Hoax

Utter madness.

Reminds me of the Satanic Panic.

Unbelievable how the left is able to create such stories virtually ex nihilo, and keep them on life support long after it is clear that they are bullshit. The flip side is their ability to suppress true accounts on the other side, almost no matter how outrageous. I had a conversation with an extremely well-informed (well-informed about the left's takes on current events, that is) student who knew nothing about the Biden administration's censorship initiatives--not the collusion with social media, not the "disinformation" programs...nothing.

Juan David Rojas: My Time inside the Immigration-Industrial Complex

Seems reasonable and balanced.
Definitely worth a read:

What progressives fail to comprehend is that allowing millions of economic migrants to fraudulently claim asylum hurts those with credible claims. If economic migrants believe that they are certain to be deported for asylum fraud, they will be less likely to claim asylum in the first place. Consequently, the overall backlog would necessarily fall, benefiting actual asylees by reducing processing times. Voters, moreover, correctly view progressive immigration policy as facilitating a legal back door for what they regard as illegal immigrants.
None of this justifies the Trump administration’s gratuitous abuse of legal and illegal immigrants, not least migrant children. The administration has revived family separation and has attempted to strip over 26,000 unaccompanied minors of legal representation. Nonviolent deportees, including minors, have similarly been subjected to year-long detentions; since 2025, around fifty people have died under ICE custody. Violent and nonviolent deportees have likewise been sent to maximum security prisons in third countries such as Eswatini and El Salvador. [My emphasis]
Deportation should be neither pleasant nor a means for signaling performative sadism against migrants. Removals should be as swift as possible and prioritize violent criminals over children and daylaborers. Deterring the latter, moreover, would be far more efficient and cost effective by punishing employers of illegal labor. A now forgotten generation of labor leaders and conservative restrictionists such as former Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach argued in favor of a national regime of E-Verify, which would be both more humane and practical than an $85 billion Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Accordingly, corporate prosecutions of immigration-related crimes currently sit at record lows. [My emphasis]
A broader conversation must also be had about reforming asylum. At present asylum writ large has been more or less gutted, save for white South Africans. Trump 1.0 was correct that international law calls for refugees to apply for asylum in the first country they flee to. “Remain in Mexico”, asylum quotas, and Safe Third Country agreements in the Americas are more than reasonable as a means for controlling flows of irregular crossings.
Many restrictionists now advocate for revoking the right to asylum outright, including for unaccompanied minors. Something like that has already occurred in Poland; Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback has even called for banning minors without legal permanent status from attending public schools—a proposal which would necessarily increase human trafficking. Yet the fact of the matter is that a reformed asylum system could work under a status quo of managed flow through the border.
To that end, if Democrats are truly interested in protecting victims like Marlón and Xiomara, they must be willing to subject irregular immigration and asylum fraud to limits and penalties. As of this writing, little to no effort has been made left-of-center to reckon with past mistakes and offer an alternative palatable to the broader population. Instead, the prevailing view champions denialism and virtue signaling against ICE. Unsurprisingly, voters still prefer Republicans to Democrats on immigration and especially the border.
Progressives are correct when they point out that US policy has brought devastation to many countries migrants hail from, not least in countries like Cuba and Haiti. But they would do better to advocate for a more sensible foreign policy as opposed to a laxer immigration regime. Indeed, the irony is that migrants from countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua lean overwhelmingly to the right and are likely to lobby for further interventions in their home countries if or when they receive citizenship.
Republicans should note that Democratic policy towards immigration comes not from a conspiratorial effort to “import voters” but a naive and deeply misguided understanding of irregular migration. In the same vein, Democrats must grapple with the fact that lax border policies inevitably alienate workers and lead to even greater cruelty against migrants.

   I'm mostly interested in the criticisms of Trump/red-team policies.

   The failures of the blue team are obvious and well-known to people like me.

   I'm not all that interested in pleading with the left by emphasizing that these policies are bad for illegal aliens. I'm interested in forcing the left to recognize that our interests matter. X is bad for the U.S. is a reason against x. The left's refusal to recognize that seems to have on foot in its childish emotionalism and the other in its Marxist hatred of the USA. Suicidal empathy + a desire for the West (especially the U.S.) to pay--for its success and, to some extent, for its past misdeeds. Well, actually, I guess it has a third foot in its refusal to face facts--and its tendency to infer iss from its fantastical oughts. In happy candy lefty land, all immigrants are pure and virtuous, and every one makes us a better nation...because diversity is our strength or WTFever. 

   BUT: again, I'm really more concerned about the criticisms of Trump's policies. I have no sympathy for the left's unstated master argument here that enforcing laws they don't like is illegitimate. Nor for their presupposition that anyone who screams loud enough must not be arrested. But Rojas obviously doesn't accept such nonsense. His descriptions of Trump policies must be taken seriously, IMO.

Trump's Psychotic Jihad Against __________

Don't know how to fill in the blank, do ya?

Could be any number of different names, because Trump is a psycho about lots of different people who've crossed him.

In this case, like the WSJ, I'm thinking of John Bolton.

(Note: some people deserve to be harassed for their misdeeds--e.g. James Comey. But by Trump personally...not by the damn DoJ. That "86 47" nonsense was just about the goddamn stupidest thing I ever heard of.)

Bad as it would be for the country for the Dems to retake the House in November...more and more I think it's less bad than a rampant and unchecked Trump.

VA Judge Dismisses Charges Against "Transgender" Sexual Predator

Who are these women and girls to spurn Mr. Cox's attentions, anyway?

In Our Blue Future, it will be mandated by law that everyone must find everyone else sexually attractive regardless of sex, "gender," age, or degree of grotesqueness.

All these women and girls are doing is revealing their sexism, "trans"ism, "gender"ism, ageism and lookism. Mr. Cox can't help it that he...oh, sorry: she... is Old, male, gross and a perverted sexual predator...

Morgan Ortagus: America is Winning and Iran is Losing--Bigly

Seems plausible.

But, once again, I don't know enough to evaluate the author's claims.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre, 37 Years On

The Chinese government is still trying to erase its memory.

Tells relatives of murdered protestors not to visit their graves on the anniversary.

Illegal-Alien Attrition Through Enforcement

The NYT is outraged that the administration is cutting off illegals from jobs, banking, government assistance, etc.

Sadly, Trump's dragging his feet on anti-employment measures.

I say: nationwide e-Verify, and strict enforcement thereof.

Statues Being Returned to Their Places After the Mass Damnatio Memoriae of 2020-21

Good.

I say: put absolutely all of them back up.

If anyone has a case for taking them down, let him make it.

People knuckled under to the Orwellian loons...nothing will change that. But we can at least do as much as possible to undo it as we can now.

Put 'em up, and put a decade moratorium on taking them down. I'm certainly willing to hear arguments for removing statues of e.g. Confederates--but I think it's more important to defeat and demoralize the radical left--and to show them that there is nothing they can do that we cannot undo. Crazy fuckers.

Of course Charlottesville desecrated Lee's statue, vindictively having it melted down to be turned into lefty statues. That statue is actually a complicated case--exactly the kind of case that will take some serious thought. But step 1, I say, is: take the material back, re-cast it into a replica of the original, and put it back in place, with the decade moratorium on removal. Then we can talk.

Silent Sam on the UNC campus was battered, but survives.

That goes back up, too.

Condoleezza Rice: What the U.S. Has Accomplished in Iran

This all seems reasonable--though I'm not in a position to evaluate her claims.

Some red-team types seem to suggest that maybe regime change was never such a reasonable goal--so it's not really a failure that we didn't achieve it. I don't know whether Dr. Rice means to suggest that or not.

Anyway: if true, I wish we'd have been informed of that earlier.

Though we weren't really informed of anything...

Dunno which was worse: Bush's long, lie-filled lead-up to Iraq, or Trump's precipitous leap into the Iran conflict. No lies in the latter...because there was no lead-up... Of course afterward we got the long, ever-shifting string of false and unreasonable claims (We've already won and all the rest...can hardly even remember them now.)

I've always respected Rice for being pretty straight with us about Iraq. I still remember a major interview in which she laid out the case for invasion. The interviewer--can't remember who it was now, but good on him/her--said, roughly (IIRC): Well, that seems like an insufficiently strong case...but I guess you've got other evidence you can't tell us about? And Rice (again, IIRC) said, basically: No, that's our case. Really, I think you got to respect that.

Lowry: The UK's Dumb Exclusion of Left-Wing Influencers

Sort of agree?

I mean...probably mostly agree...

But I haven't through my way through the State Department's argument that coming into the U.S. is a privilege, not a right. And the state has a weighty interest in not allowing in those who plan to preach the gospel of anti-Americanism and sow division. If you're already an American citizen, then you have the right to do that--misguided though it may be. But foreigners who are here by the grace of the government--not to mention foreigners who aren't here yet...have no such rights? Or, perhaps: our compelling interest in keeping them out balances against those rights?

   Anyway... Seems to me that there's at least an interesting question here. 

   Certainly this is much less horrific than the UK's denial of free speech rights to its own citizens... There's no doubt about that.

   Forced to push a button that would set policy either [i] in accordance with the State Department's view or [ii] against it, I'd pick [ii]. When in doubt, favor free speech.

Trump, Celebrities, and the Semiquincentennial

[1] Look, how did Trump think that celebrity acts would perform at this? He knows that pop culture is eaten up with TDS, and that anybody who did perform would be cancelled. Why even give them the satisfaction of turning you down? How can this possibly be a surprise? It's 10000% predictable.

[2] I don't want to hear crap like...[insert names of whoever turned him down here...I don't remember...idk and idc*]...

[3] Get a bunch of acts that people want to hear on 7/4 anyway--get Lee Greenwood, some bluegrass and old time, some actual country (not bropop country tho I hate that shit). Dolly Parton. Some of the military bands and choirs. Some unknowns and local bands...look, it could be great. Much better than, e.g., the commodores...bleh

   Though Vanilla Ice--yes. Good. "Ice, Ice Baby" is the unofficial anti-open-borders balad.

*Except for Young MC...I'd see him.

A Brief History of the Left's COVID/G-Floyd Hypocrisy. In Memes.

This is the kind of ludicrous bullshit you get when you make your cultish political aims ends to which all else must be subordinated.

   Two crazy commitments...say, to China Virus hysteria and Saint George of Minneapolis? Just proclaim one of them to be so very, VERY important that the totalitarian diktats associated with the other can be bent a bit so's you can do both! Remember their gymnastics? The ANTI-RAZIZM is so HUMONGUOUSLY IMPORTANT--because TEH RAZIZM IS SO HUMONGUOUSLY BIG AND BAD--that lockdowns can be...etc etc.

!!!!

   Despite the obvious fact that the demonstrations did virtually nothing to change anyone's minds about anything...and, if they'd been right about how soooper-doooper deadly the coof was, people woulda died from them...

   But don't get the idea that COVID isn't the deadliest thing e-var! We're not giving up on that! It's still the deadliest! COVID hysteria can only be temporarily suspended to make space for a different and more hysterical hysteria...then it's back to your regularly-scheduled lockdowns...

Some People are Still "Masking"...Like Japanese Soldiers Stuck on Islands Still Fighting WWII...

From r/ChurchofCOVID:  link

Henry Nowak, Stabbed by a Sikh, was put in Handcuffs While He Died Because His Murderer (Falsely) Told Them Nowak Had Used a Racial Slur

Their two-tiered "justice" system is even more two-tiered than ours:

Imagine feeling the life leaving your body as you beg for help, your murderer standing over you chatting casually with the police as they handcuff you, at the whim of the murderer's lies. All whilst making sarcastic comments about your cries for help.

Our entire two tier… https://t.co/t3wPidPd0b

— Damien Slash (@damienslash) June 1, 2026

Sky News Talking Head: the Apollo Program was RAAAAZZZIIIIZZZZTTTT

I used to give these people the benefit of the doubt...but, no...that's what he's saying alright:

Anonymous: My 15-y-o Relative was Killed for Refusing to Marry Her Cousin; My Family Celebrated, Dancing in the Streets

Sickening.

Good thing we did the Iraqi Freedom thing, huh?

Also:

Behold, the religion of peace...

USAID's Long Record of Wasteful and Destructive Left-Wing Spending

link

   This seems to be one of the patterns that's been revealed recently.

   To me, anyway. Conservatives, of course, have been onto this for at least decades:

   Agencies are created, they are ideologically captured by left-leaning bureaucrats, and vast amounts of tax money is then wasted (at best) or put to destructive use funding loony left-wing causes. USAID misused our tax dollars to fund, for example: DEI-themed musicals in Ireland, "transgender" operas and comic books in Latin America...and the list goes on and on...and on...

   Billions of dollars poured from USAID into Gaza, despite it being clear to everyone that much of it would make its way into the hands of Hamas. The agency also funded Eco-Health alliance, and that money was apparently used to fund the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology that has killed more than seven million people worldwide...thus far...

   It would be easy for Democrats to preserve whatever good work is done by agencies like USAID: stop corrupting them. Which they will not do. Instead, they (in effect) hold people hostage in places like Africa. The progressive argument is basically: We're going to fund drag shows and CRT indoctrination in Laos...and if you defund us, innocent people in Africa will die because they won't get AIDS drugs...your choice. Thus it's hard to resist the conclusion that CRT-themed drag shows are more important to progressives than African AIDS meds.

   Besides: other nations and private organizations could take over USAID's legitimate functions if they really wanted to. Why does the U.S have to do everything? We've been put in a terrible situation such that our money is, seemingly, being used for both good and bad purposes--and the only people who could stop that...and stop it tomorrow if they wanted to...are progressive bureaucrats. Who refuse to do it.

   Don't blame Trump and Pubs for cutting funds to agencies like USAID--blame Dems for corrupting then and turning them to their destructive, ideological ends.

Mike Pence: A Republican Time for Choosing

This seems important to me.

I don't agree with everything Pence writes--for example, that Trump's populism comes as a surprise to him (Pence). But most of the points in the essay are important and worth getting out on the table.

   Of course, I'm not really a conservative--or not much of one anyway. So I'm a bit less dismayed by Trump's non-conservative actions. The tariffs, for example, bother me less than they bother some.

ATF Lied Repeatedly to Convict Patrick Tate Adamiak

I've read a couple of reports on this case--all of them report the same alleged facts...so all are beyond belief. ATF seems to have spent some time trying to entrap him by repeatedly hiring people to ask him to buy them machine guns. Adamiak always refused. Finally, they got a warrant by telling a judge that a (perfectly legal) barrel shroud for a PPSh-41 was a machine gun. Yeah, that's not a typo: they said that a barrel shroud...a barrel shroud that had itself been cut in two...and that Adamiak had purchased legally...was itself a machine gun. They then turned his residence upside down. They found a replica M-240--a replica--two replica grenade launchers, and two RPG launchers that had been rendered inoperable by, e.g., drilling holes into their chambers... On the basis of these items and some other innocuous, legal, firearms, Adamiak was convicted--and sent to prison for 21 years.

   And those aren't even all the (alleged) facts in this (apparently) outrageous case.

   Some evidence that Adamiak is telling the truth: he was a Petty Officer First Class in the Navy. Normally, if you're sent to prison, you're immediately and dishonorably discharged. The Navy, however, did not do this in Adamiak's case. It let him burn through his accumulated leave. When that ran out, they gave him an honorable discharge. So the Navy, at least, doesn't believe the ATF story.