CLAWING BACK HEALTH CARE: Gov’t moves to go back on rule allowing Medicare to cover ‘breakthrough’ devices.

The federal agency that operates Medicare is officially going back on a rule change it finalized earlier this year under former President Donald Trump that would have allowed the health program to cover the costs of “breakthrough” medical devices.

In January, before President Joe Biden took office, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services moved to implement the rule change as a measure to give American seniors quicker access to “innovative” medical devices.

The rule was part of the agency’s “Unleashing Innovation and Patients Over Paperwork” initiative.

Now they’ve decided to reorient their priorities.

ALL HANDS ON DECK: Serial Groper Al Franken Eyes Political Comeback.

REMEMBER HOW THEY TOLD US WE HAD TO EMULATE CHINA’S LOCKDOWN TACTICS BECAUSE THEY HAD SO SUCCESSFULLY STOPPED THE DISEASE? China imposes local lockdowns as COVID-19 cases surge.

YES: Randall Kennedy: Is It Ever OK To Enunciate A Slur In The Classroom?

A LESSON PEOPLE WON’T LEARN: Should’ve Kept Those Jews: Troubling FBI statistics and recent anti-Semitic incidents should remind the U.S. that other countries have lost their Jewish populations—to their own detriment.

DON’T MESS WITH TEXAS: ‘National Magazine of Texas’ Marvels That Hispanic Texans Are Voting Republican.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: How Important is a Fast Draw for Personal Defense with a Handgun?

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Biden Vax Mandate In ‘Chaos’: OSHA ‘Underfunded’ And ‘Toothless,’ Employers Worried About ‘Millions Of Dollars’ In Testing Costs.

If the grownups really were in charge, they’d have asked themselves first if a smallish workplace agency was up to the massive task given to it.

PROBABLY, BUT WHO WILL HOLD HER TO ACCOUNT? Did AOC’s Met Gala Stunt Violate Federal Ethics Laws?

#1 IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY: A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life.

AN ATTACK PIECE ON SPACEX FROM THE LEFTY TEXAS OBSERVER. Was Bezos money behind it? I wouldn’t rule it out.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Ohio High School Book Prompts Kids to ‘Write a Sex Scene You Wouldn’t Show Your Mom’… Mayor Demands Resignations.

AFGHANISTAN HOSTAGE CRISIS: Family of Navy Vet Wants Biden Official Fired. “If Frerichs’ name doesn’t sound familiar despite months of captivity, maybe that’s because ‘Biden has mentioned Frerichs in public once before in a July speech, but stumbled over his name when doing so.'”

FASTER, PLEASE: Study shows protein that reverses aging of skeletal muscle.

UNEXPECTEDLY! 911 callers in Portland face lengthy hold times amid efforts to defund the police.

According to The Oregonian, starting in the late spring, the riot-gripped city has faced a sharp increase in 911 calls placed on hold for two minutes or longer.

The national standard for 911 hold times is 15 to 20 seconds, but according to data from the Portland Bureau of Emergency Communications obtained by The Oregonian, 574 of the 911 calls in the city had to wait on hold for more than five minutes in July. This number is more than double that of May, in which 221 calls waited that long, and is drastically more than the figure in March, when only eight 911 calls took more than five minutes to answer.

Bob Cozzie, director of Portland’s Bureau of Emergency Communications, said, “I think it’s horrible. There’s no other way to state it,” in regards to the dramatic jump in wait times. “We’re at a tipping point now. It’s become unmanageable,” he said, acknowledging the delay. “The system is broken.”

And not by accident.

SPACE: SpaceX’s Inspiration4 civilian crew hopes mission will inspire world.

NO ONE ELECTED MARK MILLEY:

The larger problem at hand is that no one elected Gen. Milley to anything. It is not the job of the military state, or the intelligence state (James Comey) to override the governing authority granted to the president of the United States. We the people make those choices. If we the people decide to elect a brash gameshow host with a short fuse and no governing experience, then that is the choice we make, yes, even should the republic fall. Unelected bureaucrats and generals holding secret meetings with hostile foreign nations are the things that lead to actual banana republics and military juntas, not mean tweets and yelling at journalists.

Even Trump antagonist and MSNBC regular Alexander Vindman admits as much and is calling for Milley’s immediate resignation. Vindman tweeted, ‘If this is true GEN Milley must resign. He usurped civilian authority, broke Chain of Command, and violated the sacrosanct principle of civilian control over the military. It’s an extremely dangerous precedent. You can’t simply walk away from that.’

Vindman is correct. The United States is ours to keep or lose. That decision is not up to Gen. Milley, no matter how much he squeals he is ‘needed on that wall’.

You have to wonder: if Milley was willing to overstep his authority in January, what’s stopping him from believing that an 80-year-old Joe Biden might be incapacitated to the point of not being able to make clear headed decisions regarding actions in, say, Afghanistan? Media pundits and Milley defenders aren’t looking at the long game. But they should. Milley does not become a patriot by suddenly aligning with the wild fantasies of #Resistance Twitter. If he’s willing to overstep his authority with imagined scenarios in the Trump era, how far would he be willing to go in the real world? How much authority was Milley granted on President Biden’s catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal? How much say did Milley have in a drone strike that reportedly targeted and killed a US-aligned aide worker and seven children in Kabul?

Read the whole thing.

MACKUBIN OWENS: U.S. military is more focused on ‘diversity’ than effectiveness.

ROBERT SPENCER: As Biden Says Islam is Peaceful, D.C. Imam Calls for Jihad.

A GOOD MOVE FROM KENT SYVERUD: A Good Statement on Faculty Speech from Syracuse. “I’m a believer in positive reinforcement, and when university leaders do the right thing they should get credit for doing so. Kent Syverud, the president of Syracuse University and a former law professor, did the right thing. Other university presidents should take notes.”

I note, though, that it takes criticism of leftist faculty to produce such statements. And so does Keith Whittington here:

Syverud was much less vocal when a professor was targeted by campus activists and denounced by members of his senior administration for calling COVID-19 the “Wuhan Flu or the Chinese Communist Party virus.” On that occasion, FIRE had to remind Syracuse about its obligations when professors say controversial things. Far from vocally defending that professor, Syracuse instead suspended him and launched an investigation over whether he should be further sanctioned and perhaps fired, contributing to FIRE awarding Syracuse a “Lifetime Censorship Award.” That professor’s case dragged on for months before Syracuse finally reinstated him.

One hopes that Syracuse has learned its lesson and will now aggressively defend free speech regardless of whether it is off-campus right-wing activists or on-campus left-wing campus activists attacking it.

If you want free speech on campus, it’s sadly probably necessary to attack leftist professors’ statements. The idea of academic freedom basically originated as a means of protecting leftist faculty from the angry bourgeoisie. For a while leftists thought they’d silenced the angry bourgeoisie and could do without academic freedom. I think it’s necessary to remind them that they’re not as safe as they thought. Hey, I don’t make these rules. They did.

21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: New guidelines urge chlamydia, gonorrhea screening for women 24 and younger.

CALIFORNIA, YOU BLEW IT, AGAIN: That’s the assessment of Issues & Insights, which predicts Gavin Newsom will now double down on his particular brand of progressive authoritarianism:

“It wouldn’t be loco to think that Newsom is now going to seek revenge on those who voted to remove him. A likely place to start is to put California back under a tight and unforgiving pandemic lockdown regime even though it had never fully escaped Newsom’s iron fist over the summer.

“If not for the heat he felt from the recall polls, the life-has-been-handed-to-him governor would have surely reinstated the freedom-robbing policies he had ordered in 2020 after the Delta variant arrived in June.”

My prediction is the Golden State will be losing even more residents in the months ahead as more and more folks throw their hands up in disgust and despair, say to Hades with it, and head to Texas.

ALEX J. POLLOCK: Seven Possible Causes of the Next Financial Crisis. “The great financial historian, Charles Kindleberger, pointed out in the 1970s that over several centuries, history showed there was a financial crisis about once every ten years. His observation still holds. In every decade since his classic Manias, Panics and Crashes of 1978, such crises have indeed continued to erupt in their turn, in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and again in 2020. What could cause the next crisis in this long, recurring series?”

WELL, GOOD: Charges Dropped Against NY Radio Talker Arrested for ‘Improper’ Masking at School Board Meeting.

NOW OUT FROM MY FRIEND ANNA DAVID: Party Girl.

CANCEL CULTURE IS ALL IN YOUR MIND: 74% of professors targeted for unpopular speech or research end up punished by administrators. “Attempts to sanction scholars for their speech, research or teaching practices has skyrocketed since 2015, with about three in four campaigns leading to some form of professional sanction — including termination — according to a new report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.”

LOCKDOWN CASUALTIES: Student test scores drop as predicted during pandemic year in Missouri. “Students who attended school in person last year significantly outperformed their peers who participated virtually, according to the first look at Missouri test scores during the pandemic. Overall, test scores from this spring dropped across all subjects and grade levels compared with previous years, most steeply in math.”

AJ KAUFMAN: Treason? Resignation Calls Follow Report of General Milley’s Secret Calls to China. “Normally I am not so rash, nor do I toss around words like treason, but as a historian, I realize civilian leadership is paramount.”

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE MR. BLINKEN?: Biden Administration Strategic Errors Led to Afghan Debacle.

Excerpt:

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Blinken that if he were just reading Blinken’s prepared testimony, then he would think the withdrawal “was a smashing success. But I do read the news, as most Americans do, and we realize this is a complete debacle … what concerns me the most … is the detachment from reality … ”

In the Biden administration, political “optics” overrule reality. Blinken repeats, with premeditation, the Biden administration’s most grievous strategic error: focusing on managing political perception instead of executing policy actions that address on-the-ground facts.

And there’s more:

The debacle’s principal component was a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation (NEO). By U.S. doctrine the State Department serves as the lead agency in a NEO. However, withdrawal from a combat zone requires military forces to maintain security, which means the State and Defense Departments must constantly coordinate with allies in planning the evacuation and in all phases of its execution. Moreover, in a complex situation like Afghanistan, the U.S. president must be willing to send military reinforcements to respond to surprises — like unanticipated enemy attacks.

An experienced planner can sketch a basic NEO plan in 10 minutes, one designed to set conditions favorable to a successful evacuation.

So the column includes one. It draws on a sketch plan I made in mid-July after a couple of friends asked me how I’d conduct a withdrawal from Afghanistan. No secret sauce at all. It’s common sense and standard NEO planning guidance. See Joint Publication 3-68 for very detailed guidance. Did Antony Blinken read it? I doubt it.

#1 IN FRUIT GARDENING: Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre.

MALAKAL PASSAGE, REPUBLIC OF PALAU: The littoral combat ship USS Jackson sails through the Malakal Passage with three Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ships. The task force includes the helicopter destroyer JS Kaga. Destroyer? It’s a jumpjet aircraft carrier. Photo taken September 2 — and it’s a good one, the sea, ships and sky. Here’s a 2017 StrategyPage Naval Air update about Japan’s carrier force. The post mentions the Kaga. The 2017 post is good background but it is a bit dated. Japan is now definitely buying F-35B vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.

COLORADO REDISTRICTING: New Maps Paint Colorado Blue. “More subtly, given the current trends, both Districts 4 and 5 are poised to swing to Democrats in the long run. District 4 will cross its inflection point in 2024 and District 5 will cross its inflection point in 2026. This means that come 2026 this map would most likely result in only one Republican holding Congressional office in Colorado, in CD-3.”

LET’S GO TO THE VIDEO: Blinken Firing Blanks, Day 2. Powerline’s Scott Johnson posts a video summary of Blinken’s very bad day before the Senate Armed Services Committee. I watched a lot of the hearing live on C-SPAN. Scott’s collection captures several of the more salient moments.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: White scholar apologizes for her ‘innate racism,’ asks white students to join her.

Race talk in modern America is mostly a way for one group of white people to assert superiority over other white people.

Related: States are cutting university budgets. Taxpayers aren’t interested in funding campus kooks.

BREAKING: Federal Judge Blocks Forced Vaccination for Medical Personnel in New York.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Profs blame 9/11 on US foreign policy, racism at event featuring speakers with ties to terrorists.

STICKER OF THE DAY: Mean Tweets 2024.

NO. ‘Consume and cover,’ ‘quick sip rule’: Harvard wants students to eat, drink with mask on.

WALL STREET JOURNAL: Where the Covid Origin Inquiry Goes Now:

After the intelligence community submitted its muddled report last month on the origins of Covid-19, President Biden said “the world deserves answers, and I will not rest until we get them.” He won’t get answers from China, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. can’t do more at home.

The more the world has learned, the more plausible the lab-leak theory has become.

The latest evidence is more than 900 pages of National Institutes of Health (NIH) documents outlining collaboration between the U.S. nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Obtained by the Intercept, a left-leaning web outlet, the documents show how American taxpayer dollars were spent on risky bat coronavirus research at the opaque Chinese institute. EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak sought to shut down debate about the lab-leak theory, and his organization understood the dangers of what was being done there.

A $3.1 million grant in May 2014 gave the WIV nearly $600,000 for “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The grant proposal warns about the “risk of exposure to pathogens or physical injury while handling bats” and other wildlife. The document says “fieldwork involves the highest risk of exposure to SARS or other CoVs.” It adds that in the lab “experimental work using infectious material will be conducted under appropriate biosafety standards.” Except American experts reported unsafe conditions after visiting the WIV in 2017 and 2018.

The documents show several examples of the U.S. supporting “gain of function” research, despite repeated denials from top NIH Director Francis Collins and Dr. Anthony Fauci. This controversial practice, which the U.S. banned from 2014-17, can give pathogens the ability to infect a different species. The State Department reported this year that WIV researchers became sick “with symptoms consistent with” Covid-19 in autumn of 2019. The Chinese organization also took virus databases offline and refused to provide critical data to the World Health Organization.

The 2014 grant states that “no funds are provided and no funds can be used to support gain-of-function research.” But Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright notes that other NIH documents “definitively” show otherwise.

I know what I think.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Hudson mayor: School board should resign over material suggesting kids write about sex, drinking. “The Hudson mayor is asking all five school board members to resign or face possible criminal charges over high school course material that he said a judge called ‘child pornography.’ . . . One speaker said he was ‘appalled’ by the content and requested that cameras be put into the classroom so parents could monitor what is being taught to their children. Another speaker said the material was ‘disgusting” and that it amounted to ‘grooming.'”

I’m not convinced that this material actually rises to the level of child pornography — nothing in this story actually suggests that — but it’s just another illustration of how out of touch with parents public schools have gotten. Best to send the money to parents and students, rather than to out-of-touch educrats who will use it to advance their own agendas.

WE’RE HAVING A VIP MEMBERSHIP DRIVE AT PJ MEDIA and would truly appreciate your support.

BLOWBACK: AOC slapped with ethics complaint for accepting free Met Gala tickets. “Although House rules allow members to accept free tickets to charity events directly from event organizers, Jones argues that the Met Gala doesn’t count because the guest list is curated by a private company, media giant Condé Nast.”

Anna Wintour, who’s a Met Trustee, works for Condé Nast, but if Condé Nast is paying for the tickets I don’t think her relationship matters. Sure, nothing will come of it, but it’s fun to watch.

If I were a member of Congress I’d introduce a bill capping deductibility of event tickets at $1000. Tax the rich!

NEWS FROM THE AMERICA THAT WORKS: SpaceX Inspiration4 all-civilian orbital mission ready to fly.

YEP: Nicki Minaj Blasphemes Against The Woke: The rapper encourages prayerful contemplation before getting vaccinated, calling down the wrath of the secular theocrats.

And she’s not backing down:

Plus: “The vaccine is such a useful foothold in the censorship effort. You can point to statements that are clearly wrong and get a lot of leverage for arguing that vast harm is occurring. These earnest assertions and stray musings are killing people! I’ll just earnestly muse that the idea is to soften up the general population to censorship.”

The argument for censoring “misinformation” is undermined by the miserable performance of the “experts” on this disease.

I MIGHT NOT MIND SO MUCH IF I GOT SOME VALUE FOR MY TAX DOLLAR: Americans Spent More on Taxes in 2020 Than on Food, Clothing, Healthcare and Entertainment Combined.

POLL: Half agree: Jan. 6 suspects are ‘political prisoners.’

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Racist CA Democrats Reject Chance to Elect Historic Black Governor. “It’s no use exhorting my friends there to get out, even though I really wish they would. I know they would love living in America. California mesmerizes people though, especially Southern California. The perfect weather and the beaches help you block out the politics and the fact that lunch always costs at least $100. It’s a sort of lifestyle-induced Stockholm Syndrome that makes conservatives stay. I did it for almost 25 years, all the time believing that I would eventually help bring about some change.”

BOMBSHELL: Blinken Just Told Us How Many Biden Really Left Behind in Afghanistan.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Lawmakers Silent on Biden Solicitor General Nom’s Financial Conflict.

JOE BIDEN WANTED TO LET EVERYONE KNOW HE’S NO FAN OF THE ‘F**K JOE BIDEN’ CHANT…ON 9/11:

For all the talk about Donald Trump having a thin skin, Joe Biden is probably worse. It was the 20^th anniversary of the heinous 9/11 attacks this weekend—and he decided to make it all about himself. He obviously knows about the “f**k Joe Biden” chants heard at college football across the country. He’s also obviously seen more than a sign or two from Trump supporters as he visited disaster-struck portions of the country after Hurricane Ida. Inflation is rising. Job creation is in the toilet. And we still have Americans trapped in Afghanistan. He also can’t get his protocols or his advice straight on COVID.

But Joe had previously signed off approvingly on politicizing sports — just last month, in fact: Biden Takes A Knee, Calls Megan Rapinoe, Seattle Storm SJWs America’s Finest. “At the close of remarks, the president wandered back and forth across the stage before taking a knee in front of the [Women’s National Basketball Association champion Seattle Storm], provoking laughter. It was certainly not the type of behavior befitting of a president.”

As Glenn wrote on September 11th, the “f**k Joe Biden” chants “seems to be happening all over. It’s amusing to see Democrats respond by demanding respect for the office, and the separation of politics and sport. Too late guys. Enjoy the new rules you made.”

TWO AMERICAS: Startup Will Provide Conservative Alternatives to Woke Corporations.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Massachusetts schools are short on bus drivers. The governor is sending the National Guard to get kids to class.

THE MASKED BALL OF COWARDICE: How fear of admitting error in trusting China’s coronavirus propaganda is driving Western societies into a doom spiral. “The world has been fighting a virus from China with a public health policy from China that transforms the world into China. But if the national security community has noticed this bizarre development, they haven’t said so. Instead, their preoccupation has remained largely unchanged since February 2020.”

Plus: “The truth is that even as scientists and politicians support lockdown mandates, few really believe in them. This can be said with certainty based on their own actions. It’s hard to find scientists and politicians who haven’t been caught breaking their own COVID rules.”

Also:

At the heart of the lockdown madness was the collective fantasy of controlling a common respiratory pathogen—a feat the epidemiology profession had agreed was impossible and self-destructive just months prior. When China’s fraudulent data was left out of the mix, it was abundantly clear that no country was ever able to “control” COVID-19. Instead, the virus appeared to resurge in “waves” despite the use of these socially and economically suicidal measures.

The truth is that the origin of lockdown “science” cannot be factually discussed without the Chinese government looking very bad—something media investors are reluctant to allow. It’s even harder to explain phenomena like the fake videos of residents dropping dead during Wuhan’s lockdown, which went viral all over global websites blocked in China, without implying some degree of foul play by the CCP. So instead, overcompensating for Beijing, media outlets portrayed China as not only a responsible international stakeholder, but an admirable one whose example should be followed.

Yeah, about that.

COMEDY LEGEND: Remembering Norm MacDonald.

SUBSIDIZED JOURNALISTS, JUST WHAT AMERICA NEEDS: Washington Free Beacon points to tax-credit provisions in Biden’s “Build Back Better” $3.5 trillion spending bonanza. How long before newsrooms are stuffed to the gills with ghost reporters? And public trust of the media goes from 21 percent to zero?

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: Breaking: Newsom Survives Recall By Attacking Trump Voters.

NO MATTER WHAT, HE LOOKS BAD: GEN. MILLEY: A TRAITOR, OR NOT?

COLLUSION: Several Pentagon officers present in Milley’s secret meeting are willing to testify against him under oath, per WH official.

Why is the White House leaking this?

LIVE UPDATE: The California Recall Election. “As the Globe reported, the Globe was told by many long time California voters showed up at the polls only to be told ‘you already voted.’ Some reports are saying this happened only in LA County. But voters in other counties contacted the Globe with similar experiences.”

THE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT’S WORST NIGHTMARE ALLIANCE:

Flashback: A black Tea Party? How Black Lives Matter echoes the right.

I can’t find it now, but I remember a heartwarming video where Black Lives Matter people showed up at a Tea Party rally — or maybe it was the other way around — and they found lots of common ground.

BLM as a movement is a scam — and the Tea Party wound up attracting a lot of grifters too — but the underlying core of both has something real.

UPDATE: From the comments: “While Left vs. Right is still a real dichotomy, increasingly the division is between the elites and the commoners. The division isn’t about just money and position, but also outlook. The elites want power and control, and they will do all they can to get and keep it. And as time goes on, they become more nakedly open about it. Very often, the mask doesn’t just slip, it’s tossed aside. This is why Trump got elected in the first place, and also why they worked so hard to destroy him.”

WHEN PEOPLE OVERVALUE THEMSELVES.

Related, this classic of the genre:

SUPPORT THE OLDER WHITE MALE, FOR DIVERSITY! Gavin Newsom: A Vote for Larry Elder is a Vote Against ‘Diversity’ and ‘Racial Justice.’

OPEN THREAD: Waiter, pour me some more Bacardi.

IT’S COME TO THIS: Fauci: Please, I beg you, pay no attention to Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls.

SPACE: Inspiration4 private crewed mission nears launch.

HMMM: Richard Grenell Calls Report About Milley Helping the Chinese ‘Gossip and Innuendo:’ “Bob Woodward has become the Michael Wolff of Washington, DC. It’s hard to believe anything the two of them write. Trump isn’t a war starter and I don’t believe Milley thought he was.”

Flashback: Bob Woodward Has A Trail Of Accuracy Issues That Nobody Is Talking About.

UPDATE: This quote by Woodward is accurate, however: “To say that the press brought down Nixon, that’s horseshit.”

(Updated and bumped.)

HONG KONG UPDATE: Problems With Political Prisoners: “A juxtaposition of SCMP headlines shows how, in just 11 short months, Hong Kong’s prison service has changed. What had been a confident and manly institution embracing rapid-fire guns and expanding shields has become a panic-stricken wreck, petrified of chocolate and hairpins. The city’s justice and penal system is still learning how to handle prisoners of conscience.”

THE ARGUMENT THAT YOU CAN’T WIN AGAINST PREDATOR DRONES SEEMS UNSUPPORTED BY HISTORY.

J.D. VANCE IS NOW OFFICIALLY RUNNING FOR SENATE. I just donated. I’ve known him for years, I think he’d do a lot of good, and while he was initially anti-Trump, he showed himself capable of learning, which puts him ahead of most politicians.

SHOCKING NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF SCIENCE: Study offers more evidence that stress can drive blood pressure higher. One of my lawyer friends who hated practicing law quit it to become a studio drummer and his BP has dropped from the 160/90 range to the 120/80 range. Of course, he’s also getting some excercise now, but that too is a byproduct of quitting the law biz.

YEP: Texas Discovers How To Purge Progressives.

SICK: 14 fully vaccinated residents in French nursing home develop COVID-19.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Nevada Dems Violated State’s Mask Mandate at 9/11 Costume Party Honoring Casino Billionaire.

Two senior Nevada Democrats violated the state’s indoor mask mandate by attending a costume party on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Photos obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) and Rep. Susie Lee (D., Nev.) decked out in boxing gear while attending a benefit gala honoring billionaire Elaine Wynn, ex-wife of casino magnate Steve Wynn. Neither politician was wearing a mask, even though Steve Sisolak, Nevada’s Democratic governor, had imposed an indoor mask mandate that went into effect the previous day.

The Democratic lawmakers were wearing personalized boxing robes—Rosen’s, for example, reads “Jolting Jacky”—while schmoozing at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, an “urban chic” venue that mandates “all guests … wear masks while indoors on property.”

I’ll take mask mandates seriously when the people telling me to take mask mandates seriously start taking mask mandates seriously.

GOOD FOR HIM: ‘SNL’ Alum Jim Breuer Cancels Gigs With Proof-of-Vaccine Requirements.

RIP: Norm Macdonald, Iconic Comedian and Saturday Night Live Alum, Dead at 61.

TAMARA KEEL: Review: Smith & Wesson Shield Plus. “It’s bigger, it’s badder, but it’s not too much to handle.”

WHAT COULD GO WRONG — OTHER THAN EVERYTHING THAT ALREADY HAS? Retreat From Afghanistan Makes Taliban Best Armed Islamist Group on Earth.

OLD AND BUSTED: Establishment leftists fear a Seven Days in May moment:

The New Hotness? Coup: Milley Secretly Took Control of the Military, Despite Not Being Elected to Any Office; Totalitarian Press Cheers.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Conservatives Are Now Counter-Culture: True Liberalism Is Dead and Antifa Is Pure Establishment.

THE WATER NEARS THE BOILING POINT: Did you see that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) demanded that Amazon revise its algorithm to stop promoting books and other products with messages that contradict the official Covid narrative? Next, Fox, Newsmax, OAN required to pre-clear program transcripts with CDC?

JUST OUT: ‎ The Great Covid Panic: What Happened, Why, and What To Do Next.

WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR FREEDOM TO SURVIVE IN AMERICA: Bradley Prize winner Mollie Hemingway provides a bracing meditation on what must be done if we are to preserve this great Republic.

EMILY JASHINSKY: The Revolution Will Be Bureaucratized.

Why, wondered Chris, should we spend a second worrying about deficits while the culture is crumbling around us? Why should we waste precious time fretting over the growth of the state when children are being mutilated in the name of social justice, with the full support of our institutions?

Chris came around. President Biden’s new federal vaccine requirements show the dangers of treating these issues as mutually exclusive. Indeed, many on the right are increasingly tempted to treat them as such, exhausted by the useless Republican establishment and animated by the swift radicalization of our institutions.

It’s boring and sounds tired, I know, but ballooning state power is not a silly fear of “Zombie Reaganites” and insufferable libertarians. It’s a vehicle of cultural tyranny as much as economic. It’s a tool for the political establishment to bulldoze our culture from their sad office buildings here in Washington.

Read the whole thing.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICA’S TOP GENERAL AND A CHINESE SPY? “Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. ‘General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.'”

If true, this explains a lot about the decisions our “leaders” have been making lately.

TWITTER WAS LIT LAST NIGHT: Nicki Minaj Calls MSNBC’s Joy Reid A ‘Lying C**n,’ Tells Meghan McCain To ‘Eat Sh*t’ In Vaccine Rant.

Rapper Nicki Minaj called MSNBC host Joy Reid a racial slur Monday night and told Meghan McCain to “eat shit” Tuesday after Minaj expressed hesitancy to get the coronavirus vaccine.

Minaj first accused Reid of racism Monday after the political analyst criticized the songwriter for her thoughts on the coronavirus vaccine.

“To people like Nicki Minaj, I have to say this,” Reid said. “You have a platform, sister, that is 22 million followers, okay. I have two million followers. You have 22 million followers on Twitter. For you to use your platform to encourage our community to not protect themselves and save their lives, my God, sister, you could do better than that.”

Reid then accused Minaj of putting people in death’s way.

Minaj shot back in a tweet.

“This is what happens when you’re so thirsty to down another black woman (by the request of the white man), that you didn’t bother to read all my tweets. ‘My God SISTER do better’ imagine getting ur [sic] dumb ass on tv a min after a tweet to spread a false narrative about a black woman.”

Related:

As Jim Treacher responds: “I was told that only Trump voters and other rednecks1 are vaccine-hesitant, but here’s a famous rapper saying things that will shock the liberal intelligentsia. Much like Busta Rhymes rejecting all this masking hysteria. I actually got suspended from Twitter for a week just for quoting him. It’s only ‘misinformation’ when us lowly proles say it, right?”

LITHIUM IS A BOTTLENECK: Is This the End for Lithium-ion Batteries? “Layer cake” anode could help sodium-ion batteries displace lithium-ion.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: ‘New York Times’ Quietly Removes Claim That Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was ‘Unsubstantiated.’

DOMESTIC TERRORISM UPDATE: Two far-left activists convicted of interfering with track control systems in Washington.

Last year I wrote about two far-left activists who had been caught tampering with train tracks near Bellingham, Washington. Samantha Frances Brooks, 24, and Ellen Brennan Reiche, 28, were caught placing what is called a shunt on the tracks. A shunt is basically just a piece of wire which is connected from one side of the track to the other. That action mimics the electrical signal that is generated when a train passes over the tracks and confuses the automatic control system which is designed to prevent trains from crashing into one another.

As I noted when the pair were caught, there had been more than 40 such shunts were placed on tracks nearly Bellingham last year. In one case a train carrying hazardous materials was fooled into automatically braking (thinking there was another train up ahead). The breaking was so sudden that one of the couplings came apart and the train was separated into two parts. Authorities noted that this could have led to a derailment in a residential area. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

I wrote several blog posts in the mid-naughts linking to articles with concerns that middle-eastern terrorists would begin to attack America’s rail system. Even I didn’t think America’s left would beat them to the punch.

WELL: Reducing carbs, not eating less, boosts weight loss, researchers say.

LOCKDOWN FALLOUT: Farmers hit with most disruptive price hikes, supply shortages in decades as pandemic slowdowns catch up to Colorado. “International markets were upended by pandemic-related disruptions to supply chains, that in recent decades have become increasingly global and responsive. Boats stuck waiting to be unloaded at California ports have ripple effects that blow back to plants in Asia, on to suppliers in the U.S., and eventually hit small business owners, grocery stores and customers. A winter storm that crippled Texas’ infrastructure in February and a shift to more online shopping have further disrupted supply chains.”

WASN’T THERE A LIMBAUGH SKIT ABOUT AL GORE DOING SOMETHING LIKE THIS? Researchers potty-train cows to reduce ammonia emissions.

“F*** JOE BIDEN”: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Idahoans Welcome Biden With Large Protests. “Chants of ‘traitor’ and ‘Joe Biden sucks’ greeted the president, with people irate over his unconstitutional new vaccine mandates for tens of millions of Americans announced late last week.”

2019’s SOCIALIST “IT GIRL” CONTINUES TO PAY DIVIDENDS: AOC Mocked, Criticized After Wearing ‘Tax The Rich’ Dress To Elitist Met Gala, Branded A ‘Fraud.’

“Individual tickets are reportedly priced at $30,000 a piece, a far cry from when [Vogue editor-in-chief Anna] Wintour first took over the running of the event in 1995 when they were just $1,000,” Newsweek reported. “Then there are the tables, typically bought by brands and fashion houses. These reportedly start at $275,000.”

AOC was widely mocked and criticized online, including by her supporters, for the stunt, including:

• Ej Dickson, senior writer at Rolling Stone, tweeted: “Am I the only one who thinks this is really f***ing stupid[?] 1) The dress is ugly, 2) She’s at a $35k per person event and this isn’t nearly the own she thinks it is. 3) The dress is ugly. I mean I love her but come on this is so dumb. Peak girl boss s**t.”

• Glenn Greenwald, a progressive blogger, tweeted: “Lots of people commenting snidely on the lack of masks and social distancing in this opulent indoor event in the middle of a pandemic but — as was true of Obama’s indoor bash — COVID wasn’t invited to the #MetGala and these are the sophisticated people who aren’t in danger.”

• Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) tweeted: “I’m not even mad at the lack of self awareness or hypocrisy anymore. At this point it’s just hilarious. These people are a giant joke.”

• Donald Trump Jr. tweeted: “What makes @AOC a bigger fraud: The “tax the rich” dress while she’s hanging out with a bunch of wealthy leftwing elites or the lack of masks after spending the past 18 months as one of the biggest authoritarian mask Karens in the country?”

• Stephen Taylor, political commentator, tweeted: “This is such a political miscalculation. It’s quite amazing to be watching it in realtime.”

America’s Newspaper of Record explores the brand-extension possibilities: AOC Now Selling ‘Tax The Rich’ Caviar For Just $10,000 A Can.

Meanwhile, NRO’s Charles Cooke reminds everyone that the Democrats remain the party of the working man. Exit question: Why Did the Staff at the Met Wear Masks, While the Celebrities Went Without?

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Half of Americans Call Jan. 6 Suspects ‘Political Prisoners.’

Plus:

• Introducing “genderfae” and “generfloret” because we’re cruel like that
• “Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wore a ‘tax the rich’ dress *to a tax shelter*”
• See the truly dark side of white supremacy

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

RULING CLASS PRIVILEGE: COVID rules are for serfs, not celebrities: None of the passes given to the elite apply to us plebs.

I think this is the most evocative photo from the Met Gala:

Note Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) festooned with “Equal Rights” as she stands maskless in front of identically-dressed underlings who, unlike the celebrity guests, are all wearing masks. And the underlngs are all in black, down to the masks. At least the Handmaids get to wear red.

Flashback: When rulers despise the ruled: It’s like The Hunger Games: the Capital City, and its hangers-on, flourish, while the provinces starve.

Also: The Smug Self-Satisfaction of the Met Gala: The powerful hypocritically signal their virtue while everyone else laughs.

YOU WANT TAR AND FEATHERS AND GUILLOTINES? THIS IS HOW YOU GET TAR AND FEATHERS AND GUILLOTINES: Fed-up Sarasota County school board bans criticism of members. “At a meeting last week, Vice Chairwoman Jane Goodwin — standing in for Chairwoman Shirley Brown, who lost control of the meeting — directed police to remove citizens who criticized specific elected officials during the public comment period, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports.”

They can be reached here. Their group photo seems rather Karenish. There’s only one man.

Our political class increasingly seems to think it shouldn’t have to care what voters think. That’s how you turn voters into protesters, rioters, and revolutionaries.

FASTER, PLEASE: A fountain of youth for ageing stem cells in bone marrow.

ANOTHER STICKER FOR YOUR COLLECTION: 3inch Joe Biden Funny Sticker, That’s All Me I Did That Decal. I love that people are applying these at gas pumps across the country as gas prices rise.

TO BE FAIR, HE MAKES A LOT OF THOSE: Joe Biden Just Weakened His Cyber Redline With Russia. That’s A Mistake. “Since cyberspace attack on all US targets was already illegal, the list moves US redlines higher, to allow for more criminal activity, since the list implies *other than these targets,* the United States won’t even consider inflicting unacceptable costs for illegal Russian attack on US territory. Toothless indictments – yes; counter cyberspace attack — no. By not defending them, President Biden and his national security advisors are erasing these international norms and redlines. Under international law, you defend norms and sovereignty by *physically defending them,* not by abandoning them.”

AIRBRUSH ALERT: New York Times stealth-edits report on Hunter Biden laptop story, scrubs ‘unsubstantiated’ following backlash.

Including: