IMPOSSIBLE, ALL THE BEST PEOPLE TOLD ME THIS NEVER HAPPENS: New Jersey Election Invalidated Because of Mail-In Voter Fraud.
PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:
—Instapundit, April 20th.
Chaser: Will online schooling increase child abuse risks? HLS Child Advocacy Program Director Elizabeth Bartholet ’65 and child welfare expert James Dwyer warn of dangers and call on officials to adopt new safeguards to protect children forced to learn at home.
—Harvard Magazine, August 14th.
Exit quote from the latter article via Corey DeAngelis: “Some parents have discovered that public schools are worse than they thought, and have been surprised at how little their kids have been learning.”
MORE SUMMER OF LOVE FUN IN PORTLAND: All Federal Buildings in Portland Evacuated Amid Car Bomb Threat.
BECAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO, OR BECAUSE THEY CAN’T. AND I THINK THEY PROBABLY WANT TO. Why Doesn’t China Deploy Fighter Jets to the Spratly Islands?
STACY MCCAIN: The War Against Judgment. “What is involved here is a combinary of hypocrisy and projection. The advocates of non-judgmentalism are hypocrites, in that they fail to live up to the standard they so ardently advocate, and at the same time, they project onto other their own particular failings. What they suffer from, really, is a lack of self-awareness that prevents them from being objective about their own attitudes, opinions, beliefs and preferences.”
PORTLAND HAVING ITS OWN SUMMER OF LOVE: Suspect in downtown Portland beating turns himself in, police say. “Marquise Love turned himself in and was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center, police said. He’s accused of felony assault, coercion and rioting and is being held on $260,000 bail.”
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Biden Exceeds All Expectations By Speaking Coherently For Over 20 Minutes.
WHY NOT TAKE A BREAK FROM THE SERIOUS NEWS FOR A FEW MINUTES? Florida Man Friday: You’ll Be in Your Bunk.
NOOO: Ammo Shortage May Last Until 2021. Luckily, I have stocks to fall back on. But I’ve upped my practice, which does go through ammo.
IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: Chicago Mayor Defends Policing Double Standard: ‘I Have a Right to Make Sure That My Home Is Secure.’
JOANNE JACOBS: Say it ain’t so, Joe. “The Democratic Party’s platform, based on a Biden-Sanders ‘unity’ task force’s recommendations, ‘steer Biden away from the coalition of Black and low-income voters who brought him the nomination,’ write Aldeman and Spurrier. ‘Maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise — given that two of the eight members of the task force are the heads of the two major teachers unions’.”
THERE HE GOES AGAIN: Reagan Speechwriter: Biden Just Plagiarized From Reagan.
And from America’s Newspaper of Record: Man Who Has Been In Government For Nearly 50 Years Promises To Fix Government.
I BLAME PREHISTORIC SUVS: Fossil leaves prove elevated CO2 triggered greening 23M years ago.
DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Full House actress Lori Loughlin’s husband Mossimo Giannulli has been sentenced to five months in jail for his role in bribing his daughters’ way into college.
THANKS BUT NO THANKS: Democrats Promise to Bring California-Style Blackouts to Everyone.
GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU: Viagra, Cialis may help boost colon cancer survival.
THEY CAN’T WIN IF THEY DON’T CHEAT: Dems get Green Party kicked off ballot after pressuring petition-signers; ‘voter suppression’ alleged.
OUR POLITICAL CLASS CONTAINS MANY, MANY UNSTABLE PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT FIT FOR A DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY: Emotional breakdowns after Trump ads appear on the Washington Post’s website.
JUST THINK OF THE MEDIA AS DEMOCRATIC PARTY OPERATIVES WITH CHYRONS, AND IT ALL MAKES SENSE: Richard Grenell points to media double standard after Dem Sen. Tom Carper’s profane mini-meltdown, CBS News journo tells him to ‘chill, man.’
Earlier: CBS’s Scott Pelley Loses a Fight Rigged In His Favor.
JULIE KELLY: The Democratic Party is Unwell.
The party’s ailments have been on full display this week. Look no further than the freakish music video that closed out the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Billy Porter, a gay black Broadway star, and geriatric Steven Stills of Crosby, Stills, and Nash teamed up to remake Stills’ 1966 classic, “For What It’s Worth.”
The video was a performative display of the party’s schizophrenia: A white ’60s counterculture icon and a Dracula-costumed POC LGBTQ activist offering an inharmonious version of a Vietnam-era tune as the official anthem for the candidacy of a feeble establishment codger and his unaccomplished cackling sidekick quickly shredding their faux moderate façade in fealty to the party’s lunatic fringe of America-hating nihilists.
Read the whole thing.
THE STEIFF TEDDY BEAR PRODUCTION OF THE ZAPRUDER FILM. Ouch! But He’s Able To Grin And Bear It: “You’ve probably seen some stuffed animals scattered around Major League ballparks, along with cardboard cutouts of fans, in this unprecedented and unusual season. In some cases, the stuffed animals are bears. Well, on Thursday night, an unlucky bear got hit right in the face with a line-drive foul ball off the bat of D-backs second baseman Ketel Marte in the eighth inning at the Oakland Coliseum. At least the bear was still smiling afterward. In fact, the bear seemed downright resilient.”
Video at link.
STACEY LENNOX: If Your School District Pulls What One Tennessee District Has, Know Your Rights. “A founding teacher at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia also took to Twitter to express concern over parent observation of virtual classes. His laments about parents, especially conservative parents, had been retweeted over 1,000 times before he locked his account. Retweeting means other people were sharing his concerns with their own followers.”
If they don’t want you to know what they’re doing, it’s because they’re up to no good.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Biden Will Move the Country Foerwad, Plus Your Duty to Get Robbed.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: If video killed the radio star, then who killed the sitcom star?
Answer: Progressive politics did, and it was premeditated.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
• It’s your bourgeois duty to get robbed, says a man with much more money than you have
• Biden got trumped in his home state
• Virus gonna virus, yo.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
PANDEMIC MISSILE LOADING IN THE PHILIPPINE SEA: Masked sailors aboard the amphibious assault ship USS America load rockets for a live-fire exercise.
STATE AND COMMERCE DECLARE WAR ON CHINA’S MALWARE AND MALGEAR:
This past week, the U.S. State Department and U.S. Department of Commerce launched new diplomatic, economic and legal initiatives designed to counter communist China’s global malware and malgear offensive.
Right — a malgear offensive.
Everyone with a smartphone understands malware, the cybersecurity portmanteau for “malicious software.” Invading malware code can sabotage, spy upon, seize control of or even destroy a digital information device.
Malgear is my portmanteau for malicious digital equipment, malicious gear (hardware) that has the built-in ability to surveil, sabotage and destroy when its manufacturer gives the command.
Think Huawei, think malgear.
My latest Creators Syndicate column.
GOOD AND HARD: Calif. Dems’ Taxes on Millionaires Could Spell Disaster in Golden State.
The two latest tax proposals, Assembly Bills 1253 and 2088, both explicitly target California’s ultra-wealthy. A.B. 1253, released in late July, imposes an additional 1, 3, and 3.5 percent tax on earnings over $1, $2, and $5 million, respectively, applied retroactively to the first day of 2020. A.B. 2088 would impose a 0.4 percent tax on all personal wealth in excess of $15 million ($30 million for couples), including assets outside of California.
Both bills would hit many of the state’s tech billionaires, such as Oracle CEO Larry Ellison (worth $59 billion), Mark Zuckerberg ($54.7 billion), and Democratic megadonor Laurene Powell Jobs ($16.4 billion). A.B. 2088 would be the first state wealth tax in the nation, mirroring the tax agendas of prominent progressives such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.).
Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D.), one of A.B. 2088’s main sponsors, argued that the bill was necessary to fill the $50 billion budget hole left by the coronavirus crisis.
Easy call: It won’t.
WHEN “ANTI-RACISM” MEANS RACISM (SPOILER — PRETTY MUCH ALWAYS): Twitter founder gives $10 million to university research center that promotes anti-white discrimination.
TYLER O’NEIL WATCHED THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO*: Five Things to Know About Night Four of the Democratic National Convention.
* And you probably didn’t: Americans Rightly Tune Out the Democratic National Convention. Compared to 2016, fewer people are watching on broadcast and cable TV because they know a dull infomercial when they see one.
POLYAMORY, THE NEXT STEP DOWN THE SLIPPERY SLOPE: Glenn Stanton says don’t confuse it with polygamy or polyandry. What polyamory is — basically, a sexual free-for-all among two or more individuals — is just fine with the New York Times.
Stanton thinks somebody at America’s former newspaper of record ought to do a little research on what the top scholars on children and family health almost unanimously say is the healthiest arrangement for kids and society. It ain’t polyamory.
SHAKEUP: Kim Jong Un Puts Sister In Charge Of US, South Korea Relations Amid Signs Of Crisis.
South Korean lawmakers later told reporters the country’s National Intelligence Service determined that Kim had delegated responsibility for relations with the United States and South Korea to his sister Kim Yo Jong, Bloomberg reported.
The supreme leader’s younger sister is considered a powerful ally and first gained international attention when she became the first member of the Kim family to visit South Korea during the 2018 Winter Olympics, according to BBC News. (RELATED: Remember When The Media Fell In Love With Kim Jong Un’s Sister?)
Intelligence committee member Ha Tae-keung told South Korean lawmakers that Kim still retained ultimate control and was not likely to adopt a “collective leadership” style found in other communist countries like China, Bloomberg reported. “The absolute power of Kim Jong Un is being shared under the current leadership style of North Korea,” Ha said.
The power shift and warnings of an economic crisis come amid the fallout from a combination of recent flooding in agricultural lands, international economic sanctions and the coronavirus outbreak, according to Reuters.
Reportedly, she’s both smart and vicious.
SO THEY’LL BASICALLY HAVE A WHOLE MINISTRY DEVOTED TO THIS? George Mason seeks to become ‘national beacon’ for ‘anti-racism’ with ‘Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation’ czar.
REMEMBER HOW BATTY RELATIVES USED TO BE KEPT IN THE ATTIC? The Issues & Insights crew sees one Democratic innovation – keeping batty Biden in the basement.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Biden Manages to Clear Low Bar, Media Weeps Tears of Joy. “It’s true, Biden didn’t make any major mistakes during his big moment at the DNC. Then again, the expectations for his speech have been lowered for months so all he really had to do was get through it without pausing to eat his foot and it was going to be judged a rousing success.”
PEOPLE WITHOUT JOBS DISTURBING THE SLEEP OF THOSE WHO HAVE TO GO TO WORK IN THE MORNING:
Or as I like to think of them, Trump’s 2020 get-out-the-vote movement.
WELL SURE, THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK…“If You’re Reading This, You Might Be A Conspiracy Theorist.”
THIS IS A GREAT IDEA, EXCEPT THAT IT WON’T MAKE ANY GIANT CONTRACTORS CONSIDERABLY RICHER: ‘Missile barges’ could be America’s secret weapon in the Pacific.
NOT ENOUGH: Goodyear Tire partly backs down, revises policy against “Blue Lives Matter.” “The revelation that Goodyear effectively lied about it’s own training sessions caused even more of an uproar. Now Goodyear has backtracked, partially.”
IF YOU WATCH SPORTS TO GET AWAY FROM POLITICS, YOU’RE OUT OF LUCK: California pro sports teams are falling all over themselves to endorse Prop 16, which would repeal Prop 209 from the California Constitution, thus allowing the state to grant preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, and national origin. Friends of mine with a sense of humor have answered back with a petition demanding that these teams to allocate 15% of their positions to Asian Americans. (Asian Americans are about 15% of the California population.) Go ahead, sign it. You know you want to.
WHAT MYSTERY? Denver doctors may have found the answer to a pandemic mystery: What happened to all the heart attacks? “Stauffer’s team found that cardiac arrests at home in Denver more than doubled in the two weeks after the statewide stay-at-home order was issued compared with historical averages. Even compared with more recent data, the weekly average of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests jumped to 46 during those two weeks, versus 26 or 27 in the three months prior.”
Seriously, what mystery?
Plus: “Stauffer and his colleagues found that the number of people in Denver who died of cardiac arrests at home in the two weeks following the statewide stay-at-home order was greater than the total number of people who died of COVID-19 in the city during that time.”
How many of them could have been saved had they made it to an ER?
DEMOCRATS TRY TO LOCK IN DOMESTIC LAWFARE: The Abuse of the Pardon Prevention Act Would Criminalize Politics.
YOU WILL BE MADE TO CARE: Jimmy Fallon’s Re-Education Wraps in Time for Election Day. “The once-genial host got bullied by the press (and peers?) into his current sad state.”
A couple days ago I referenced Tom Wolfe’s classic essay “The Great Relearning,” and it may be that we have to go through the Great Implosion in order to relearn things like common sense.
As you have heard, California is going through a series of rolling blackouts of the kind not seen since the botched electricity “restructuring” almost 20 years ago ultimately ended up costing Governor Gray Davis his job. Maybe Gov. Gavin Newsom had this fate in the back of his mind with this Babylon Bee-worthy (but in fact real) story from yesterday:
California governor demands probe of power blackouts
Here’s a thought for Gavin: Look in a mirror. Maybe we should start a grassroots effort to mail in thousands of pocket mirrors to aid in the probe.
Newsome used this exact same play last summer, when, as Jon Gabriel wrote, “Newsom finally noticed that his state has the highest gas prices in the nation, and he’s angry:”
So angry, in fact, he ordered his Attorney General to investigate the decades-long mystery.
“There is no identifiable evidence to justify these premium prices,” Newsom wrote in a letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. “If oil companies are engaging in false advertising or price fixing, then legal action should be taken to protect the public.”
Newsom correctly identified the symptom but remains clueless about the cause. He at least pretends to be.
Having used the same “demanding an industry probe” stunt at least twice, “Pretends” is the key word here.
THAT SOUNDS ABOUT RIGHT: Biden: A Diminished Trojan Horse With an Army of Marxist Transformers Inside.
I SUPPOSE I SHOULD THINK ABOUT DOING THE SAME: Volokh Conspiracy Now Readable on Parler.
I WILL BE A PRESENTER AT THE VIRTUAL: Prometheus Awards’ 40th Anniversary Ceremony.
AND I’LL ALSO BE IN A PANEL WITH F. PAUL WILSON. (Me, squee? You can’t say I squeed. Mature writers don’t fangirl. …. okay, fine. I totally fangirled there for a moment.)
OR WE COULD, YOU KNOW, JUST GET OFF THIS PLANET AND SETTLE ON OTHERS. NOTE: NOT ONE OF HIS “WAYS” IS IMMEDIATELY IMPLEMENTABLE; THEY ALL REQUIRE NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT MAY NOT BE ACHIEVABLE. OTHER THAN THAT THEY’RE TERRIFIC: MIT professor unveils 5 ways to save ourselves from total human extinction.
OTOH I suppose us settling other worlds would mean escaping our would-be Earth-encompassing would be Masters…. and of course no leftist can be having with that.
GOOD LORD. DON’T THESE PEOPLE READ SCIENCE FICTION? OR DO THEY ONLY READ THE NEW, “SOCIAL CRITIQUE” SCIENCE FICTION (ALSO KNOWN AS NAVEL GAZING?): Millions of genetically modified mosquitoes to be released in Florida.
AND HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN PEOPLE WHO HAVE CERVIXES: Emotional breakdowns after Trump ads appear on the Washington Post’s website.
THE GANG THAT COULDN’T PHOTOSHOP STRAIGHT: Underwhelming: Kamala Harris virtual cheering section included duplicates.
MAYOR LIGHTBRAIN IS SPECIAL: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Blames Mississippi for Chicago Gun Violence.
LET’S STOP WITH THE MAOIST STRUGGLE SESSIONS. JUST STOP IT: Energy Secretary Launches Review, Asks For Investigation After ‘White Privilege’ Training Draws Criticism.
WELL, IF THEY FRAUD HIM OVER THE FINISH LINE, HIS LIFE WILL BE THAT SHORT: Joe Biden Delivers His Own Eulogy.
A TALE OF TWO SYSTEMS: The challenge of Marxism: Part I.
THE LEFT BURNS ITS OWN NESTS: Dying Democratic Cities.
WHAT IS IN YOUR 2020 BINGO CARD: The Death Spasms of Marxism Are Making Its Adherents Crazier by the Day.
FORTUNATELY IN THE GREAT SPASM OF INSANITY OF 2020, THE LEFT IS DESTROYING EVERY INDUSTRY AND INSTITUTION IT CONTROLS. MAYBE SOMETHING BETTER COMES AFTER: Conformity to a Lie.
COMING AT YOU AT SPEED IF BIDEN AND HIS HANDLERS WIN THIS FALL: California Blackouts a Warning for States Ramping Up Green Power.
TYLER O’NEIL WATCHED THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO: Five Things to Know About Night Four of the Democratic National Convention.
GOOD INTENTIONS LIKE THIS ARE WHAT PUTS SPECIES AT RISK: Editorial: Elephant and lion heads belong on those animals, not on some trophy hunter’s wall.
DOESN’T THE LEFT EVER UNDERSTAND UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES? Nice going, Tofu Breath.
August 20, 2020
LIVE: Blogging the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
There are cocktails, but not enough.
UPDATE: “To my ears, this is a well-rehearsed speech — far better rehearsed than it was written — by a man with zero investment in the words he’s saying, other than what and where they might get him.”
It was the worst major political speech I’ve ever heard, and that includes Hillary Clinton.
(Bumped.)
SO I’D RATHER BE TEACHING IN A REAL CLASSROOM, but I taught my first online class today from the studio I set up out in the poolhouse (really, more of a he-shed) with a three-camera setup and an Atem Mini switcher. It seemed to work pretty well.
Some screengrabs:
I have a wide camera, a whiteboard camera, and a lectern camera. And for those who think the three-camera system was invented by Desi Arnaz, it was really Al Simon. But this worked pretty well.
NOT IF WE GIVE TAIWAN SOME NUKES, WE DON’T: Does The U.S. Need to Fear That China Might Invade Taiwan?
IS ANYONE SURPRISED BY THIS? ANYONE AT ALL? California Gov. Newsom failed to take promised pay cut, newspaper finds; Earlier this year, Newsom ordered state workers’ checks to be cut by 10%.
LIKE A WILE E. COYOTE SCHEME THAT ACTUALLY WORKS: Video: Watch SpaceX boat catch falling payload fairing in giant net.
INSECURITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Citing threats, Mayor Lori Lightfoot defends ban on protesters on her block: ‘I have a right to make sure that my home is secure.’
Mayor Lori Lightfoot defended the Chicago Police Department’s ban on protesters being able to demonstrate on the block where she lives, telling reporters Thursday that she and her family at times require heightened security because of threats she receives daily.
Lightfoot refused to elaborate on the specific threats, but said she receives them daily against herself, her wife and her home. Comparisons to how the Police Department has protected previous mayors’ homes, such as Rahm Emanuel’s Ravenswood residence, are unfair because “this is a different time like no other,” Lightfoot told reporters.
What makes this time like no other is that you’ve refused to protect other people’s homes from the rioters.
JIM TREACHER: National Susan B. Anthony Museum ‘Rejects’ Trump’s Pardon, Somehow.
It never occurred to me that somebody would actually reject a presidential pardon, no matter who the president was, but apparently it has happened. It was over 100 years ago, but it happened. I’m pretty sure, though, that this is the first time somebody has rejected a presidential pardon on behalf of somebody else. Posthumously.
How does that work, exactly? Did they send Bill & Ted to see if it was okay with her? Is she un-pardoned now? Should we dig her up and then #LockHerUp? This is uncharted territory.
In other news from the world of Jurassic feminism: Becket Adams offers a more fitting alternate headline for The Nation’s plea to Planned Parenthood not to ‘cancel’ Margaret Sanger:
That last tweet is certainly news to Nation staffers.
NETFLIX APOLOGIZES FOR “INAPPROPRIATE” CUTIES POSTER THAT WAS CRITICIZED FOR SEXUALIZING CHILDREN.
The online release follows its theatrical rollout in its native France via Bac Films, which began Wednesday. The Netflix poster contrasts considerably with the French theatrical poster, which strikes a somewhat different tone.
WELL, IT’S ABOUT BRAVERY AND THE DEFENSE OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION: Mark Judge: Why the Left Still Hates the Movie 300.
LEFTIST HYPOCRISY KNOWS NO BOUNDS:
● Pittsburgh Dem Mayor: No, you can’t protest outside my house.
● Black “Quiet Lives” Matter: No Protesting Allowed In Chicago Mayor’s Neighborhood.
And of course, they’re far from alone among elite leftists: Riots for thee, but not for me. “A funny thing happened on the way to the riots. Left-wing revolutionaries discovered ‘NIMBY!’ — Not In My Backyard.”
THEY’RE ALSO IRRESISTIBLE TO WOMEN, I’M TOLD: E-Bikes Are All the Rage. Should They Be?
Just the other day I sent one of my fitness-oriented colleagues — who hates E-Bikes — a link to one called “The Babymaker.” His reply: “Hahahahaha first of all that seat is the baby killer if you go by sperm count. Second there is little less sexy than an ebike.”
BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU IT IS: Younger red wine ‘more beneficial’ than aged wines, study finds. “Younger red wines are likely to be more beneficial than aged wines, a new study from Australia has found, due to the significant decrease in healthy antioxidants in wine over time.”
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