PARTY LIKE IT’S 1975: In desperation, U.S. scours for countries willing to house Afghan refugees.
I REMEMBER WHEN THEY CALLED HIM A SUPERLAWYER: Michael Avenatti’s Libel Lawsuit Against Fox Thrown Out by Judge.
READER BOOK PLUG: From Jonathan Fesmire, Bodacious Creed: a Steampunk Zombie Western.
OPEN THREAD: Hark the Critical Race Theory anthem.
BIDEN VOTERS POSTING THEIR L’S ONLINE:
● Yikes: Obama Flack on MSNBC Struggles to Defend Biden on Afghanistan.
● CNN: Boy, Biden sure is facing a lot of crises all of a sudden.
Although some at CNN still maintain their Baghdad Bob style: Biden forges ahead where Trump and Obama failed on infrastructure and Afghanistan.
IN THE PHOTO, THE ROCKET/CAPSULE COMBO LOOKS A LOT LIKE BLUE ORIGIN’S PENIS-ROCKET, BUT I HAVEN’T HEARD THE SAME JOKES: Stuck valves on Boeing’s Starliner keep critical space station test flight on hold.
Not even a “failure to launch” jape.
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? This Giant, Hazardous Asteroid Almost Certainly Won’t Hit Us, Probably, NASA Says.
Well, if the experts aren’t worried about it, then I’m . . . uh oh.
CONSERVATIVE MOVEMENT FAILED: Writing in the American Spectator, Scott McKay argues the conservative movement is dead, if it is defined as the Old/New Right Plus Bush Chamber of Commerce Republicanism:
“When you’ve gone from surrendering on gay marriage to failing to summon up convincing arguments for obvious things like ‘boys shouldn’t play on girls’ sports teams’ or that the least racist nation on planet Earth was founded to promote slavery, you aren’t really conserving much of anything anymore, are you?
“When you went from failing to reform government programs like Social Security and Medicare, when it was patently obvious they would eventually bankrupt the government, to signing off on a trillion-dollar bacchanal of ‘infrastructure’ spending only a quarter of which can reasonably fit in that definition, you’re not a fiscal conservative.
“When you progressed from creating a security state capable of spying on everyone in the world with marginal accountability to having little to say when that security state gets politicized and nearly effects a coup d’etat on a duly-elected American president, we can’t really say you’re conserving our liberty.”
McKay advocates a new “Revivalist” movement that sounds an awful lot like what I heard one night in October 1964 on television when a guy from “Death Valley Days” came on the screen and delivered what became known as “The Speech” that launched the Reagan Revolution.
He wasn’t perfect, but he won the Cold War and got Congress to pass the biggest tax cut in American history, rebuilt American military might and respect, and showed how presidential leadership can restore a large measure of the shared civic spirit that once was the norm.
I was one of the legions of idealistic young Americans he inspired to enlist in the movement to save America and who in some key respects were the “Wide Awakes” of our day. Reagan was the right man for the time. But that was 1980. This is not. A revival would be great but would it be enough?
ADDERALL FOR LIFE: Just 10% of kids with ADHD outgrow it, study finds.
THIS IS A BIGGER DANGER TO THEM THAN COVID: Study: Ultra-processed foods supply two-thirds of calories in U.S. child, teen diets.
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: ‘We Don’t Like Cuomo Now,’ Says Every Late-Night Host In Perfect Robotic Unison.
KURT SCHLICHTER: Liberals Look in the Mirror and Scream.
And here’s a pro tip for the fussy boys of Twitter: You already libel us as “Nazis” and “fascists” – which is weird because we aren’t socialists, national or otherwise – so it’s not like you doing it with even higher-pitched shrieks than usual is going to make it more compelling or get us to care. Nor is it a particularly persuasive flex to somehow assert that a bunch of proposals which a dozen years of my columns oppose are actually proposals that I really support, and that I could not possibly be mocking the pinkos, and that I somehow inadvertently let slip out some sort of inner Mussolini and only tacky blue checks are clever enough to detect the hidden truth. Again, we have the continuing liberal dilemma: Are they dumb, or do they merely think that the people listening to them are dumb?
But I did mix in some plausible initiatives among the outrageous ones. The lines about increasing our carbon footprint and deporting all illegal aliens – yeah, those are good ideas.
In the end, holding up the mirror to these saps had exactly the effect that I sought to achieve – these dorks are so easy to play. Utterly without even the self-awareness to hide their Stalinist aspirations, they demonstrated that they were fine with those authoritarian tactics, just not with those particular objectives. The thread’s modest proposals included banning Marxism, control of social media, and punishing dissenters. Their response was that I should be banned, that social media should toss me off, that I should lose my job, and that I should be reported to the cops. A bunch of freedom advocates reported me to Twitter, so I got a flurry of those “German law” notices. Basically, their view is that suppressing rights is not inherently bad. It’s only bad if done to them. When done to us, it’s a moral imperative.
Not surprisingly, the party whose organizing method is “the moral equivalent of war” happily views American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means, to flip von Clausewitz’s axiom on its head.
CHANGE: FDA OKs second Pfizer, Moderna booster shot in vulnerable Americans. I have a friend who has had two shots of Pfizer and also had Covid, and she shows no antibodies, probably due to the immuno suppressive drugs she takes for MS. She’d be a candidate, but if the two shots and the actual disease don’t do it, why should one more shot?
On the upside, she wasn’t especially sick when she actually had Covid.
WHY ARE TRUMP SUPPORTERS SO RELUCTANT TO GET VACCINATED? “They’re Experimenting On Us” — Why Black New Yorkers Don’t Trust The Vaccine.
Earlier: Why Don’t They Believe Us?
HOW AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FAILS: People are suspicious of favoritism! Maybe it’s not a favor at all.
WHEN THERAPISTS BECOME ACTIVISTS:
Until roughly five years ago, people seeking mental health care could expect their therapists to keep politics out of the office. But as counselor education programs and professional organizations across the country embrace a radical social justice agenda, that bedrock principle of neutrality is crumbling. Mental health professionals—mainly counselors and therapists—are increasingly replacing evidence-driven therapeutics with ideologically motivated practice and activism.
The Graduate Counseling Program at the University of Vermont, for example, intends to “structurally align” itself with the Black Lives Matter movement and begin “the work of undoing systemic white supremacy.” After George Floyd’s death, the Johns Hopkins University Counseling Center advised would-be students to “consider us one of many resources in the difficult but necessary work of engaging with internalized bias, recognizing privilege, and aligning values of anti-racism and allyship with embodied and sustained practice.”
Such sentiments are not limited to mission statements—they are playing out in the real world of clinical training. Some counseling programs encourage students to engage in social justice activism. Most troubling of all, trainees are being taught to see patients not as individuals with unique needs, but as avatars of their gender, race, and ethnic groups. Accordingly, more and more counselors encourage their patients to understand their problems as a consequence of an oppressive society. White patients, for instance, are told that their distress stems from their subjugation of others, while black and minority patients are told that their problems stem from being oppressed.
What could go wrong?
THE JUDICIARY CONTINUES TO DISAPPOINT: “This Is No Way to Rule a Country:” If an eviction moratorium is needed, why wouldn’t the legislature try to enact one?
It is precisely the way to rule a country, if the rulers fear accountability to the people.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Solar Power from Space? Caltech’s $100 Million Gambit.
MISTER, WE COULD USE A MAN LIKE FRANK RIZZO AGAIN: Not a Joke: Philadelphia Mayor Announces Double-Mask Mandate.
Yes, this mayor:
PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1975: Afghanistan Falling Just A Month After Biden Says It’s Unlikely Taliban Will Take Over (Video).
More here: “For the last seven months I’ve watched Generals engage in twitter fights with people, debate the merits of Critical Race Theory on Capital Hill. It seemed like our generals were more concerned with fighting Tucker Carlson than they were the Taliban.”
DISPATCHES FROM THE “IT’S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT” PARTY: CNNers Revel in Rand Paul’s YouTube Ban For….Saying What CNN Said a Week Ago? “Speaking of misinformation, [CNN Newsroom guest host Erica Hill] was not entirely fair in describing what Paul said that got him banned. What Paul said was, ‘Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.’ That is practically identical to what [former Biden advisor Dr. Michael Osterholm] told Hill’s colleague and Inside Politics host John King on August 2: ‘We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.’ So, if a CNN-approved guest says something, no problem. If you asked, they’d likely cite the fact that Osterholm is an author, college professor, former Biden Covid advisory board member, and frequent broadcast and cable network news guest. In fact, they get posted on YouTube. But the moment a Republican says it? Oh, they deserve whatever censorship comes their way.”
PARTYING LIKE IT’S 2020: Just Like COVID-19, The Murder Hornets Are Back, Too.
IT DOES SEEM THAT WAY:
The Democrats seem to be operating with a haste and an openness that isn’t normal for a party with a razor-thin majority. It reminds me a bit of how Chinese companies were doing business in 2019 — as if it’s some kind of final period.
CRISES BY DESIGN: Mask Nazis Remain Silent About the Biden Border Super-Spreader Event.
UPDATE: Mayorkas says ‘we’re going to lose’ the border crisis: Leaked audio. “Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed the administration is ‘going to lose’ the border crisis as ‘unsustainable’ numbers of migrants continue to pour into the United States.”
(Updated and bumped.)
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Teaching assistant docks point on conservative student’s Black Panther essay: ‘White people cannot experience racism.’
IT’S COME TO THIS: Greenies Against Grass: Climate Change Believers Now Attacking Legal Marijuana.
When the climate change hypothesis followers start attacking an industry for their carbon footprint, they never consider the loss of jobs resulting from their attacks. Their pot pugnacity is no different.
Despite the huge climate impact of the nation’s fastest-growing new industry—legal sales jumped 50 percent last year, topping $20 billion, while the industry added almost 80,000 jobs—Biden, most lawmakers and many environmental groups, even those supportive of cannabis legalization, have largely ignored the issue.
And that doesn’t even count the loss of jobs from the lower consumption of Cheetos, chips, and other munchies, or the secession of people ordering delivery from Domino’s pizza at 3am. Or the people who manufacture rolling papers, pipes, and/or bongs.
Heh, indeed.
NEWSWEEK: The Diversity Problem on Campus.
The words “diversity, equity and inclusion” sound just, and are often supported by well-intentioned people, but their effects are the opposite of noble sentiments. Most importantly, “equity” does not mean fair and equal treatment. DEI seeks to increase the representation of some groups through discrimination against members of other groups. The underlying premise of DEI is that any statistical difference between group representation on campus and national averages reflects systemic injustice and discrimination by the university itself. The magnitude of the distortions is significant: for some job searches discrimination rises to the level of implicitly or explicitly excluding applicants from certain groups.
DEI violates the ethical and legal principle of equal treatment. It entails treating people as members of a group rather than as individuals, repeating the mistake that made possible the atrocities of the 20th century. It requires being willing to tell an applicant “I will ignore your merits and qualifications and deny you admission because you belong to the wrong group, and I have defined a more important social objective that justifies doing so.” It treats persons as merely means to an end, giving primacy to a statistic over the individuality of a human being.
Yes. Plus: “DEI compromises the university’s mission. The core business of the university is the search for truth.”
ARE YOU EVEN ALLOWED TO SAY THIS ANYMORE? Wanting to Preserve Your Culture is Not a Bad Thing.
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW, we’re hiring a new dean, and two new faculty members.
Position descriptions and application info at the links.
TIME FOR REPARATIONS: A Racial Reckoning for the Democrats:
Vermont Democrat Party chair Bruce Olsson published a commentary recently proclaiming yet again that Republicans are “racist.” This is particularly rich since the Democrat party is the oldest and most enduring racist political party in history, and its racism continues to this day. Here are the facts:
The Democrat Party was founded in 1828. Its first national party platform, ratified during the 1840 Presidential election, stated: “ that all efforts by abolitionists or others, made to induce congress to interfere with questions of slavery… are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences, and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people… and ought not to be countenanced by any friend to our political institutions.”
The message was clear: the Democrat Party did not consider Black Americans to be “people” deserving of “happiness.”
That same language was in every national Democrat party platform for the next 16 years.
Democrat party leaders acted on their racist principles, committing high treason against their country and their fellow Americans between 1861-1865 in order to preserve the system of Black human bondage.
In 1868, the Democrat Party platform urged amnesty for the traitors who, during the Civil War, killed hundreds of thousands of Americans for the purpose of preserving slavery. The platform also called for “the abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau; and all political instrumentalities designed to secure negro supremacy”:
In 1904, seventy-six years after its founding, the Democrat party’s platform complained about the Republican platform:
“The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more.
To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed. We therefore deprecate and condemn the Bourbon-like selfish, and narrow spirit of the recent Republican Convention at Chicago which sought to kindle anew the embers of racial and sectional strife, and we appeal from it to the sober common sense and patriotic spirit of the American people.” . . .
Throughout most of the 20th century, Democrats condoned or excused policies of apartheid and disenfranchisement of Black Americans. Senate Democrats successfully filibustered a Republican led anti-lynching bill in 1934, and a Republican-led effort to ban the poll tax in 1940. At the time, the poll tax was so effective in the American South that only 3% of Black Americans were registered to vote there. Elected Democrats fought tooth and nail against anti-racist legislation, filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and engaging in so-called “massive resistance” against school integration into the early 1970s. A century and half of racist policies vigorously supported by Democrat party leaders — no other political party in history comes close.
Reparations now!
QUESTIONS NOBODY IS ASKING: Is PAW Patrol authoritarian propaganda in disguise?
MARK JUDGE: Kavanaugh in the Suburbs.
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE COLLEGE OF LAW, we’re hiring a new dean, and two new faculty members.
Position descriptions and application info at the links.
BYRON YORK: Why 2020 Was Unique.
In most years, a majority of respondents told pollsters the message they would send to the federal government was “leave me alone.” In 2014, 59 percent said “leave me alone.” In 2016, it was 54 percent. In 2012, it was 53 percent. At the same time, during those years, much smaller numbers of respondents, 32 percent, 39 percent, and 37 percent, respectively, said the message they would send the government would be “lend me a hand.”
In other words, majorities did not feel the need for an especially activist federal government. No, they were not saying they did not want existing government programs like Social Security or clean air standards. But they were saying they did not want broad new expansions of the government into everyday life.
That changed dramatically in August 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic. At that time, a solid majority, 57 percent, said their message to the government was “lend me a hand.” Just 36 percent said “leave me alone.”
The reasons were obvious. The public wanted a vaccine. Those who were unemployed through no fault of their own needed money. The same for small business owners trying to survive. Of course they wanted the government to lend a hand.
But by the time of the new poll, this week, with the nation — even with the Delta variant — pulling out of the worst effects of the pandemic, the “lend me a hand” number had fallen to 44 percent. That, by the way, is precisely what it was in 2011, when the nation was pulling out of the Great Recession. Barring some unexpected calamity, the “lend me a hand” number will likely fall further.
The increased “lend me a hand” sentiment was engineered, of course, by policies backed by the Democrats, and by media coverage. But I repeat myself.
OUT: LEVERAGED BUYOUT. IN: LEVERAGED SELLOUT. Woke Capital’s Deathly China Addiction.
BOOK RECOMMENDATION: Steven Pressfield’s The Lion’s Gate: On the Front Lines of the Six Day War. (Bumped)
Why is Joe Biden supporting conflict oil instead of ethical oil?
HOW THE VACCINATED VIEW THE UNVACCINATED:
Relatively few of the vaccinated expressed anger at the unvaccinated (although a handful wished the unvaccinated would die). Instead of anger, there are many condescending comments about the perceived stupidity of the unvaccinated. Also, many comments about the unvaccinated being selfish, careless, or reckless.
Many also express a desire that the unvaccinated get vaccinated. Most such comments are fairly neutral. There were very few mentions of mandates.
Other recent survey data helps explain the lack of anger in the comments offered by vaccinated voters. Most (57%) are comfortable attending indoor social events without wearing a mask. Also, if they tested positive for COVID, 67% of voters think it’s they would recover quickly with only minor symptoms. Just 5% say such a recovery is Not at All Likely.
Sounds as if the general public is less exercised about Covid than the laptop classes.
GOODER AND HARDER: 79% Blame Government Policy for Devastating Inflation Surge.
I KNEW IT. WELL, I DID ONCE. Science Confirms That Forgetting Things is a Sign of High Intelligence.
August 12, 2021
“HOW DO YOU MAKE A MISTAKE LIKE THAT?” “An earlier version of this article incorrectly reported the rate of decline of the non-Hispanic white population since 2010. It was 2.6 percent, not 8.6 percent.” Wishful thinking?
Plus: “What’s the fastest growing group? Mixed race. That group doubled. Anyone who goes into the group takes away from one of the other groups.”
EXPERTS, EXPLAINED:
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1975: ROGERS: WE ARE WATCHING PRESIDENT BIDEN’S SAIGON MOMENT UNFOLD BEFORE US.
OPEN THREAD: We’re gonna rock it.
WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY: Joe Biden Thanks ‘Heroes’ Forcing Mask Mandates on Children.
THE SUICIDE OF EXPERTISE: CDC Took Mistaken Data on Delta Variant Transmissibility From a New York Times Infographic.
(Classical reference in headline.)
HOW’S THAT SPACE PROGRAM COMING ALONG? Scientists fine-tune odds of asteroid Bennu hitting Earth through 2300 with NASA probe’s help.
CAPITALISM: THE UNKNOWN IDEAL. Biden’s eviction moratorium isn’t just illegal and bad for landlords — it hurts renters, too.
WHERE’S HUNTER, FAT? Video Shows Naked Hunter Biden Telling Hooker The Russians Stole His Laptop.
(Bumped.)
THE BAT IS MY ATTORNEY, CARL LASZLO: How to escort a bat out of your home.
UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY: Not satire: The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine just one-upped the term “birthing person” with “human milk-feeding individual.”
IT WAS MY UNDERSTANDING THAT THERE WOULD BE NO MATH:
UPDATE: “This correction is still wrong. It doesn’t correct a 7-day period mistake with a 7-day period figure, instead opting for period of more than a month, which would obviously produce a larger number. This does not look like an attempt to inform, in either version,” Mary Katharine Ham tweets.
MIGHT AS WELL JUST GIVE UP AND LET IT SPREAD THEN: AstraZeneca Scientist Says Delta Variant Makes Herd Immunity Impossible. Here’s Why.
Also, this is likely bullshit.
WHY IS THE LEFT SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Black ATF Agent Says Biden Nominee Falsely Accused Him of Cheating on Promotion Assessment.
RIOTS IN THE AGE OF MORAL NARCISSISM: ‘Let’s start a riot:’ Illinois man sentenced to nearly 9 years in prison for setting Minneapolis store on fire after posting his crimes on Facebook.
(Classical reference in headline.)
YOU’RE STRUGGLING TO UNDERSTAND WHERE ALL THIS VACCINE HESITANCY COMES FROM. LET ME HELP YOU:
The same people who told you Brexit would never happen, that Trump would never win, that when he did win it was because of Russian collusion but also because of racism, that you must follow lockdowns while they don’t, that masks don’t work, that masks do work, that social justice protests during pandemic lockdowns are a form of “health intervention,” that ransacking African American communities in the name of fighting racism is a “mostly peaceful” form of protest, that poor and underserved children locked out of shuttered schools are “still learning,” that Jussie Smollett was a victim of a hate crime, that men are toxic, that there is an infinite number of genders, that COVID couldn’t have come from a lab until maybe it did, that closing borders is racist until maybe it isn’t, that you shouldn’t take Trump’s vaccine, that you must take the vaccine developed during the Trump administration, that Andrew Cuomo is a great leader, that Andrew Cuomo is a granny killer, that the number of COVID deaths is one thing and then another … are the same people telling you now that the vaccine is safe, that you must take it, and that if you don’t, you will be a second-class citizen.
Understand vaccine hesitancy now?
Read the whole thing.
HONESTLY I’M STILL LUKEWARM ON THE RED DOT FOR HANDGUNS: Red Dots vs. Iron Sights: Which is Better for Handguns? I still feel like target acquisition for me is faster with the iron sights, which is mostly because that’s how I’ve done it for decades, though I’ve practiced regularly with the red dot. On the other hand, the red dot lets you keep both eyes open.
I don’t find the same acquisition issue with red dot optics on a rifle for some reason.
As allegations of sexual abuse have occupied the headlines, far less has been said of the ex-governor’s aesthetic abuse of New York. And Cuomo was a serial abuser, wantonly so and without remorse. From Albany, he dreamed of the glories of Rome. Regrettably, he was only looking as far as the City of Rome in Oneida County, just over a hundred miles from Troy, New York. And yet, from his state house by Empire State Plaza, Andrew was our latter day Aeneas. If only Mario, his Anchises, had lived to see those Hesperian shores.
Just consider Dandy Andy’s many design ambitions: in 2018, the New York Post reported that Cuomo wasted $30 million on a change order to replace the tiles of the Midtown Tunnel. Why? Because he wanted his stripes, that’s why. Cuomo drew his particular blue-and-gold color scheme on everything. In doing so, he ensured that his state, from Buffalo to Plattsburgh to Montauk, would one day look like the same office of the DMV.
* * * * * * * *
With the expiration of Madison Square Garden’s lease — which sits atop our transit pipes like a toilet bowl — the governor had a chance to right a historic wrong by rebuilding Old Penn. To do so would have followed a widely popular and feasible plan that has been independently studied (that’s because the old tracks are all still in the same place).
But why fix a broken neighborhood when you can break even more? Instead, Cuomo threatened to level the existing historic buildings that still surround the station in a master-builder plan he called the ‘Empire Station Complex’. This complex might even — you know, I don’t know — contain a ‘Cuomo Station’. The governor already did much to scrub the name of Daniel Patrick Moynihan from the new station that the late senator ingeniously envisioned carving out of the old Central Post Office building across the street.
Cuomo also played a role in another architectural debacle: Cuomo is Guilty of the Subprime Mortgage Crisis Too.
It was Cuomo’s role in the subprime mortgage crisis, which he still has not been held fully accountable for. That malfeasance merits revisiting as the 13-year anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers fast approaches.
Politics is, apparently, a vocation where it does not matter if you were a complete failure in a previous role—the chances of getting promoted are still high. Cuomo’s part in the worst financial disaster since 1929 proves that.
Of course, Cuomo’s contribution does not excuse the other culprits in the 2008 recession, such as Alan Greenspan and his loose monetary policy, former Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, who blocked the Bush administration’s efforts to reform mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or President Bill Clinton. But Cuomo’s role in this event must be explored because it shows that he should never have been allowed to become New York’s governor in the first place.
In the late 1990s, Cuomo was appointed Clinton’s secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Under his watch, HUD oversaw the easing of lending standards on Federal Housing Administration home loans, with the maximum size of FHA-approved loans for single-family homes in low-cost areas increasing from $86,317 to $121,296, while minimum down payments fell from 7 percent of the asking price to 3 percent.
At the time, the then housing secretary wanted to reduce redlining, a term describing home-lending practices that discriminate against ethnic minorities. Here he is in a YouTube clip admitting that by asking the banks to take on more risky loans, their portfolios were at a greater risk of defaulting. He also bragged that he sued a bank in Texas for redlining.
Susan Wachter, who served as assistant secretary for policy development and research at HUD under Cuomo, told Institutional Investor that easing lending standards was probably not a good idea.
That’s a bit of an understatement:
PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1975: Marines Prepare to Evacuate Kabul Embassy ahead of Possible Taliban Assault.
READER RECOMMENDATION: Kim Harrison’s The Turn: The Hollows Begins with Death.
THE FIRST ONE HAS WORKED PRETTY WELL: JPL’s Plan For The Next Mars Helicopter.
TEXAS FLEEBAGGER UPDATE: Texas Senate Passes Republican Voting Bill, Overcoming Dem Obstruction.
JIM TREACHER: Arnold Schwarzenegger Actually Said: “Screw Your Freedom.” “An Austrian loudmouth who scoffs at freedom and demands compliance with the government’s dictates… Why do I feel like I’ve heard this story before?”
SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Diet key to better health for people with diabetes, study shows.
NEWS YOU CAN USE: The Boys Are In Fact, Okay. “It is fashionable to attribute to the ‘cage of toxic masculinity’ what might be just as easily explained by some of the enduring differences between men and women.”
TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE! Biden calls Michigan governor ‘Jennifer’ in latest slip.
WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Bidenomics: A “That 70s Show” Rerun.
Question: how much is the typical oil company profit from each gallon of gas sold at the pump? I believe it is still around 20 cents (or less). How much do state and federal governments make from each gallon of gas sold at the pump from gasoline taxes? Around 45 cents. (Incidentally, every time the government investigates gasoline price markets, as they have since the 1970s, they find . . . nothing. It’s like markets actually work or something. No one ever seems to remember any of this.)
Jimmy Carter was unavailable for comment.
Read the whole thing.
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Pope Francis Is Tearing the Catholic Church Apart.
WHAT ABOUT BOB DYLAN? Which one, you might ask. If you’ve ever liked any of the various Dylans seen over the years, you will certainly enjoy my appreciation of Barry Lenser’s excellent assessment of the role of faith in the aging singer’s career. You might even like it if you’ve hated Dylan since the answer was blowin’ in the wind.
ROGER SIMON: “It’s About the Kids!”–Mask Rebellion Breaks Out in Tennessee.
“All politics is local,” then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill told us back in 1982 but contemporary events remind us how true that was.
Part of the reason—given the plethora of useless Republicans in the U.S. Senate made yet more obvious by the infrastructure vote—is Washington, D.C. veers to the hopeless, but it is also because all politics really should be local.
It’s where We the People can most affect matters—or try. And citizens across the country are beginning to realize this.
That was very much in play Tuesday night in Franklin, Tennessee.
Readers may recall I wrote of a rebellion stirring in Franklin—seat of Williamson County and basically part of metro Nashville—via the “Moms for Liberty” over the issue of Critical Race Theory pervading the curriculum of their supposedly perfect schools.
Tuesday night that rebellion was redoubled at the school board meeting where the question of whether those same children should be forced to wear masks to class this year.
What happened? All politics is indeed local and, we might add, “it’s about the kids.”
I wasn’t there—although my text messages were, to borrow an old phrase, “ringing off the hook”—so I’ll let local news in the form of Channel 5 Nashville describe:
“The Williamson County School Board voted to require students, staff and visitors at elementary schools to wear face masks while indoors and on buses beginning Aug. 12 and to end Tues. Sept. 21 at 11:59 p.m.
“The decision was made Tuesday night after a lengthy and heated special-called board meeting that dozens of parents attended.”
“Lengthy and heated” was a bit of an understatement by the channel. The place was steaming with lawsuits threatened by angry parents as they engaged in shouting duels with recalcitrant school board members. And well more than “dozens” were really in attendance because hundreds more parents were apparently outside, unable to get into the venue.
Able to get in and also a parent with three children in the system—he had promised on radio to get there early—was Clay Travis of Outkick and The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show, who made an impassioned speech:
“We teach our kids that facts matter. That is why they go to school. The facts are these. Masks don’t work. There isn’t a single scientific data that has ever proven that masks work. Also, let’s talk about risk analysis. I feel bad for all of these people walking around in masks and engaging in cosmetic theater thinking that they are making a difference against COVID. They aren’t.”
“Cosmetic theater.” Great phrase and almost too accurate. There’s a lot of that going around, including, alas, some “vaccine theater.”
What are we to do now? Take more vaccine, a booster with yet another booster undoubtedly to come until… who knows?
“Follow the science” has become the clarion call of the “know-nothing.” Which science is never quite clear. And when it is, it’s ever-changing.
The parents see this too and have a right to be furious, especially because it is now being brought down to their children, both in the form of masks and vaccinations with unknown consequences.
Earlier: Rand Paul is right: It’s time to stop listening and start resisting.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I recommend passing out masks to the kids that say “Shh: Republicans wouldn’t make you wear these” on the inside. All you need is a big box from Costco and a rubber stamp. When they issued the mask mandate in Nashville schools, some worried that many kids wouldn’t be able to get masks. Help the schools out here, and watch to see if they start demanding that kids take their masks off so they can be inspected for unwelcome political sentiments . . .
WHATEVER HAPPENS, YOU’LL ALWAYS BE TAPPAN ZEE TO ME: Following Cuomo Resignation, New Yorkers Want To Rename ‘Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.’
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