April 2, 2025

WORTH READING FOR THE VULNERABILITY OF CARRIERS (OR LACK THEREOF):  “The problem is, we have exited the era of fortress battleships, and entered the era of cheap, plentiful drones and missiles. Which means that modern navies have precisely two types of craft: Submarines, and targets.” This is a common conclusion for entirely understandable reasons but it’s woefully incorrect, and since it substantially impacts your analysis it’s worth going into detail on why. (The fact you can 1. understand it and 2.

And for the x-less.

Posted at 1:34 am by Sarah Hoyt 6

April 1, 2025

BREAKING: Crucial Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Decided.

The Democrat candidate for a crucial state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin is projected to win Tuesday’s special election.

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, a former prosecutor and the Democrats’ pick, faced off against Waukesha County Judge and Republican pick Brad Schimel for the 10-year-term court seat. At publishing time, Crawford is ahead 57.8%-42.2% with 36% reporting. This is disturbing news for Wisconsin, a state Trump won by just 30,000 votes in 2024, as the future of the state could well depend on this state Supreme Court seat.

As PJ Media’s Paula Bolyard wrote, the Crawford-Schimel race could well “determine whether the state will become a liberal hell hole like Illinois or if common sense will prevail.” Former Gov. Scott Walker also emphasized the race’s importance, as Wisconsin had a leftist majority before the election, which is now solidified.

So much for common sense prevailing:

 

Posted at 9:57 pm by Ed Driscoll 170

A BIG WIN:

This, along with the wild record turnout, bodes well for the still-go-be-decided Supreme Court and legislative races.

UPDATE: Or not. The Democrat candidate for a crucial state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin is projected to win Tuesday’s special election. “Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, a former prosecutor and the Democrats’ pick, faced off against Waukesha County Judge and Republican pick Brad Schimel for the 10-year-term court seat. At publishing time, Crawford is ahead 57.8%-42.2% with 36% reporting. This is disturbing news for Wisconsin, a state Trump won by just 30,000 votes in 2024, as the future of the state could well depend on this state Supreme Court seat.”

Posted at 9:48 pm by Glenn Reynolds 88

OPEN THREAD: Tuesday’s groovy.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 1341

ELECTION NIGHT SO FAR: Two wins in Florida. Wisconsin looking like there may be shenanigans.

Posted at 8:37 pm by Glenn Reynolds 86

THIS JUST IN: Hunter Biden agrees to give up law license in Washington DC. Just the News is reporting that:

“Former first son Hunter Biden has agreed to give up his law license in Washington, D.C., according to an affidavit that was unsealed by the Board on Professional Responsibility on Tuesday.”

The DC Bar docs can be found here.

Posted at 6:38 pm by Charles Glasser 151

DOGE RAISED THREE QUESTIONS THAT MUST BE ANSWERED: In my latest Substack column, I ask the questions nobody else seems to be asking about why multiple Congresses, Inspectors-General and Chief Executives failed to expose the deep-rooted waste, fraud and corruption now being made public.

Posted at 6:34 pm by Mark Tapscott 112

WOOF! Scott Jennings Drops Leslie Stahl for Asking Jewish Hostage If He Thinks Hamas Meant to Starve Him:

60 Minutes prominently featured in Richard Landes 2005 Pallywood video about how the Palestinians run a propaganda factory to supply material for useful idiots in the western media, and Stahl’s question is a reminder that nothing has changed in the news division of the now badly tarnished “Tiffany Network:”

Posted at 5:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 52

“REMEMBER THE WHIGS!” IS AN UNUSUAL RALLYING CRY:

I dunno. The Occam’s Razor answer is probably that they are just that stupid.

Posted at 5:30 pm by Stephen Green 92

COVID, FIVE YEARS ON: How It Started: “15 Days to Slow the Spread.”

How it’s going: Make America Healthy Again:

The mass culling of the labor force of the Department of Health and Human Services began on Tuesday morning. And early indications are that it’s a bloodbath.

Multiple officials who work in the department told The Bulwark that entire offices were being eliminated. Much of the focus appeared to be on the administrative side of things. But not all of it. We were sent an email, for instance, that Vence Bonham, the acting deputy director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, told colleagues this morning that he had been “unexpectedly” placed on administrative leave. He had a 20-year career as a researcher and leader at NIH. Within a few moments, it was gone.

To get a fuller sense of the despair, head over to the NIH’s Reddit forum; or the HHS forum. It’s bleak. That’s what happens, we suppose, when a weeks-old administration decides that it will eliminate 10,000 full-time employees from one of its most critical departments.

Elsewhere in HHS, another email we were sent shows that people put on leave were told they would no longer have access to their buildings starting today. That today happened to be April Fools was treated as a nice little sadistic touch. Was this a ruse?

Of course not. In fact, quite the opposite. Colleagues said they were spending their mornings fielding distraught emails and calls from friends whose lives had been upended, while simultaneously checking their own inbox to see if the ax would drop on them.

This news may not be generating the same level of sympathy it’s receiving at Bill Kristol’s Bulkwark:

Or to put it another way:

Posted at 5:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 175

THE NEW SPACE RACE: GITAI finalizes robotic arm study for Japan’s crewed lunar rover. “The rover is being designed to support crewed exploration of the Moon’s polar regions as part of Japan’s contribution to NASA’s Artemis program, providing astronauts with a mobile, pressurized habitat that allows them to travel, live and work on the lunar surface for up to 30 days.”

Posted at 4:51 pm by Stephen Green 6

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Tesla Owners Not Connected to DOGE or Musk Are Acceptable Victims, According to 31% of Democrats.

A surprising number of Americans approve of the rash of violence against Teslas amid Elon Musk’s work helping President Donald Trump with the Department of Government Efficiency.

Self-identified atheists, Democrats, young people, and supporters of the policies of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt*., are the most likely to approve of the violence and the least likely to consider it “domestic terrorism.”

Arsonists have hurled Molotov cocktails into Teslas and Tesla dealerships—not just in the U.S. but also in European countries like France and Germany—as protesters hold banners reading, “Burn a Tesla: Save Democracy.” Activists have also published a map claiming to show the location of every Tesla owner across the U.S. The website with this map turns the user’s cursor into a Molotov cocktail icon.

“Earth Day” is April 22nd. The cognitive dissonance that will be on display from the same people who demand we “save the earth” while wanting to burn electric cars, and at a minimum make their ownership as toxic as possible, will be astonishing to watch.

Or as Charles Cooke writes: Burn the Planet to Spite Elon Musk. “From a purely chemical perspective, I have never been of the view that mankind can do literally anything to the earth and yield no consequences. But, equally, I have always considered the catastrophism to be uniformly silly, frequently pretextual, and, above all, unduly pessimistic about the prospect of human innovation. Watching the speed and fervor with which so many American progressives have subordinated their environmentalism to their dislike of Elon Musk has done nothing to change my mind. There is no such thing as an optional cataclysm.”

*Flashback: Bernie Bro James T. Hodgkinson, Attempted Assassin Of Steve Scalise, Already Being Erased From History. And additional examples of leftist violence and eliminationist rhetoric at the link.

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 74