Erik Erikson.

The American media tends to consist of highly educated individuals, many of whom went to elite academic institutions. They tend to congregate in large urban environments surrounded by like-minded people who have similar interests and worldviews. The result is a media that is urban, coastal, secular and progressive.

I.e. the Crust. (Or Cloud People, as ZMan likes to say.)

Good reporters tend to be mindful of their biases. Most reporters do not. In ways large and small, from what the press chooses to cover, chooses not to cover and chooses to use as narrative constructs for stories, the secular, urban, progressive worldview is pervasive. Many reporters are not well-traveled outside other urban enclaves. Much of America is more foreign to them than European cities. Too many political reporters only venture out into the heartland of flyover country during presidential campaign season.

Hence the Narrative, What All Good-Thinking People (Like Us) Believe.

The entire abortion discussion on television is designed to advocate for abortion. I know this firsthand. Over several years at CNN, whenever the issue arose, I was asked to be the man who would confront the pro-abortion rights anchor and the pro-abortion rights, expressly female guest opposite me. When I could, I would decline and suggest a long list of female anti-abortion advocates in Washington, D.C., who were readily available. Rarely were they asked. Almost to a network, television producers and anchors want the optics of a man advocating against abortion being challenged by a woman who can talk about her body and her choice. One would think female advocates against abortion did not exist despite virtually every anti-abortion organization in Washington being helmed by a woman.

And it’s all about the optics.

Read it.

In North Korea new border security measures have been given a priority previously only accorded to the nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Desperate to seal the 1,400-kilometer Chinese border, the government put more cash, and personnel, into building a wall and electrified fence along the rural portions of the border most frequently used by smugglers. This just drives up the cost of bribes to get across more vulnerable portions of the border.

Read it.

India, a country whose history, language, religion, and culture are synonymous with its caste system,?divides its?1.4 billion people?into rigid hierarchical groups. The Indian caste system assigns everyone a rung on a socially-constructed ladder. Today, more than?200 million Indians?find themselves on the bottom rung. These people, the Dalits, cruelly referred to as the “untouchables,” are regularly denied access to basic necessities like education and healthcare. Furthermore, social mobility is all but impossible. For the “untouchables,” ridiculed and persecuted, life is a miserable existence.

In the United States, a similar caste system has sprung up. Though it is only a few years rather than millennia old, the American caste system, like the Indian one, rewards some and demonizes others. The American caste system is the product of?intersectionality, a framework that uses race, class, and gender to classify individuals. At the bottom of this shaky ladder you will find whites. More specifically, white men. To be even more specific,?“cisgender” white men.

Freeberg nails it.

The President is senile. Electronic and print media are pretending he isn’t. His communications apparatus is presenting his embarrassing failures as successes. The media is doing little to nothing to correct this.

We have this new industry of “fact checking” that answers to no one and forms questionable conclusions in a bubble and as a monolith. They label things as “misinformation” that are not false, and in some cases, are provably or demonstrably true. We have become numb to this, after years of seeing persons in positions of authority add their signatures to things that are known lies, forced to conclude what people must say in totalitarian dictatorships: “Maybe it’s a lie, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so whatevs.” If any one resource is “caught spreading misinformation,” someone somewhere with power takes steps to disconnect them. There is usually no appeal and we almost never know who exactly is making the necessary judgment call. They cite “community standards” that do not exist in any written, open format that could be cited or referenced. They just suspend/disconnect and that’s that.

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Severian is delightfully dyspeptic today.

One of my usual terms for the Left is “the herd of independent minds.” Just as the Left have convinced themselves that “diversity” means “everyone has different skin tones and sexual fetishes, but is otherwise exactly the same,” so Leftists — the most rigidly conformist people on the planet — are deeply invested in the idea that they are freethinking rebels. Even though they and everyone they know agree 100% on everything, it is central to their identity that they are unique. (Hence all the tattoos and face piercings — sure, to the outside observer, it’s all the same, but look, my ironic hipster tattoo is a slice of pizza, while that Basic Bitch Becky’s is merely a dolphin).

One is tempted to merely write this off as another uninteresting manifestation of the Opposite Rule of Liberalism, and be done with it. If they say they want to “challenge convention,” of course what they really want is “total, lockstep conformity.” But it’s actually a useful chink in their armor.

Read it.

In the long run, the Democratic Party doesn’t need any more Democrats in California.

Like I’ve long said, the liberal NIMBYists of Malibu and Beverly Hills get to impose their sentimental immigration policies on the rest of America, while being immune to having volatile Omar Mateen-like Afghans live anywhere near them.

Gabriel Gipe, pro-Antifa California teacher: ‘I have 180 days to turn them into revolutionaries’

New Physics Experiment Indicates There’s No Objective Reality

Michael Mann: Carbon Shaming Celebrity Climate Hypocrites is a Big Oil Plot

Democrats Warn Millions Of Lives Could Be Saved If Texas Abortion Ban Goes Into Effect  Babylon Bee.

‘I Have 180 Days to Turn Them Into Revolutionaries’: Pro-Antifa Teacher Admits to Indoctrinating Students

CensorTrack With TR: Big Tech SILENCES Congressman, Mourning Mother

Ignoring The Babies, CNN Says Texas Abortion Ban Mainly ‘Affects Low-Income Women’

Tread it.

Watching the fiasco in Afghanistan unfold was the first time that it crossed my mind that Joe Biden might actually be in charge in the White House. I had presumed that he was a figurehead, and someone was behind the scenes, calling the shots. But the way Afghanistan was handled is classic Joe Biden – he took exactly the same approach back in Vietnam (ignoring our enemies and abandoning our friends), as the Cambodians will tell you. Well, the Cambodians who survived, at least. The Cambodians who survived probably strongly dislike Mr. Biden. Interestingly, those who didn’t survive probably voted for him. Nothing changes one’s perspective like dying, I suppose.

Freeberg nails it.

So, it’s “Please wear masks regardless of your vaccination status.” And apparently everywhere, multiple counties. China Virus stats are up, so our leaders are clamping down hard…on us. Good to know.

We’ve been through this before. A few times. Once again, it’s up to me to point out the obvious…to point out what everybody with a brain knows already, but people with better manners are going to leave unsaid.

What we’re seeing play out here, is a conflict between two ways to look at medicine. There are the very loud people, what I call the “Puppeteers and puppets” people, who perceive it’s the job of the medical authorities to tell us what to do…and our role is to do what they tell us. This seems reasonable, at first, until you ponder the most obvious question: Are they sure? And the clear and obvious answer is, no they’re not, and that’s okay. It’s science, which is supposed to constantly evolve as we learn more things. It’s science about what is still essentially a novel virus.

And then there are the people like me, who understand what’s wrong with that. The puppeteers are not sure, and that’s okay. But the central premise for everything we’re doing, is that they are sure. They’re scientists, after all! Are you a scientist? Am I a scientist? No and no. They outrank us, so let’s pretend they’re sure when they’re not.

So I guess you call us the “No Pretend” people.

Steve Sailer.

How seriously should whites take the ever-increasing levels of racial hate expressed toward them in outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post?

Perhaps the fad over the past eight years to express fear and loathing of “whiteness” (i.e., whites) will always be more bark than bite?

After all, most people find themselves angriest not at large-scale abstractions such as a race but with the individuals who get on their nerves.

And other people like to watch spats.

Starting Sept 1 China Will Require Foreign Vessels To Report In Its “Territorial Waters” “That China’s escalation to claim contested waters happens with US international credibility and reputation – even among allies – in tatters, is hardly a coincidence.”

No, Nordics Are Not ‘Big Government’, ‘Socialist’, ‘High Corporate Tax’ Nations

QAnon, Women, and the New Age

AOC, Tlaib, Pressley “Urge” Biden To Replace Fed Chair With Someone Focused On “Climate Change” And “Racial Justice”  How do these have anything to do with the Federal Reserve?

Toxic ‘forever chemicals’ contaminate indoor air at worrying levels (The Guardian) Looking for the next big panic to push.

New York AG Snooped on Pro-Life Activists

Virginia Supreme Court Backs Teacher Ousted for Rejecting Trans Policies “In its appeal, Loudoun County Public Schools claimed that Cross’s religious and speech protections are secondary to students’ rights to comfort.”

China tests new missiles in simulated Taiwan strike

Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

CDC Director To Restart Gun Research Amid Spate Of Mass Shootings

Read it.

Boy, did they.

Read it.

A heavily armed group of bank robbers wreaked havoc across a southeastern Brazilian city early Monday, striking several banks, setting fire to vehicles and tying hostages to their getaway cars, in an assault that left at least three people dead, officials say.

The group stormed Araçatuba, a city of 200,000 in São Paulo state, around midnight to rob several banks. Gunshots punctured the early-morning quiet. Authorities asked residents to stay inside.

Images on social media and local news reports showed at least 10 people clinging to getaway cars, apparently strapped there to deter fire from police.

Female journalist flees Afghanistan following groundbreaking TV interview with Taliban spokesman (CNN)  And of course she wore a hijab. Just once I’d like them to wear that getup from The Handmaid’s Tale, like what they accuse Republicans of wanting all women to wear. That would be entertaining.

Hochul breaks with new lieutenant governor over calls to ‘defund the police’

Liberals used the courts to block Trump’s agenda. Republicans are using the same playbook against Biden. (CNN) Amazing how that works.

California teacher boasts not having American flag, tells students to pledge allegiance to gay pride flag Time to leave.

Newsom Praised Chinese Foreign Agent for ‘Journalistic Integrity’

NY Times Reporter: ‘Imaginative Contrarians’ Needed for Crazy Christians on COVID

A new wave of Hacktivists is turning the surveillance state against itself  Well, no, they’re just hijacking it to their own benefit.

Leading Boston Mayoral Candidate Backs Paid Family Leave For Abortions

Stelter: Shouldn’t Press Cover Climate Change More Than Afghanistan?

Instagram to Require Users to Provide Their Date of Birth

Hollywood Dumps Tons of Cash Into Keeping Governor Newsom In Charge of California

FBI Allegedly Funded White Supremacist Publisher: Court Documents

Colonial Williamsburg to Showcase Gay and Transgender Reenactments  Gays and transgenders in colonial Williamsburg would have been jailed, if not hanged.

LA Teachers’ Union President: ‘There Is No Such Thing as Learning Loss’

Joel Kotkin.

California’s leaders might see themselves as a vanguard of progressive and eco-friendly values. But in reality, their draconian climate policies have created a racially segregated state more akin to the pre-Civil Rights era South. As Attorney Jennifer Hernandez puts in a startling new report for the environmentalist Breakthrough Institute, California has been plunged into “a new Green Jim Crow era”.

The “soaring environmental rhetoric of the state’s affluent, largely white technocratic leadership”, she concludes, is “deepening the state’s shameful legacy of racial injustice”. Certainly, the impact is stark. California now suffers the nation’s worst cost-adjusted poverty rate; and according to the United Way of California, more than 30% of California residents lack sufficient income to meet basic costs of living, even after accounting for public assistance programmes. Those struggling families include half of Latino and 40% of black residents.

Read it.

Over the past 18 months, a number of significant events have occurred that were interpreted through two entirely different worldviews: COVID–19 lockdowns; rise of the BLM movement; the riots and violence in major cities; the US election process and its aftermath; and vaccine safety. Many influential commentators believe that these divergent perspectives arise from an epistemic collapse: that we have ceased to value facts, science, and truth, partly because trust in the institutions that adjudicate knowledge claims (universities, media, science, government) has eroded.

Many researchers in my own discipline, psychology, have rushed to the front lines, hoping to provide a remedy. But is it even plausible that we could help? Psychology, and most social science disciplines, are currently contributing more to the problem than to the solution. While psychology has studied phenomena such as myside bias that drive these worrisome epistemic trends, when it attempts to tackle social issues itself, psychology is fraught with bias.

ZMan rips the mask off of a degenerate nation.

Inside the microwave oven there is a microwave generator, which takes electricity and converts it into high-powered radio waves. The magnetron blasts these waves into the food compartment. The microwaves bounce back and forth off the reflective metal walls of the box, just like light bounces off a mirror. As these waves travel through the food item, they make the molecules inside it vibrate more quickly, which generates heat and that is what causes the food to get hot.

It is not only a brilliant way to quickly heat food in the home, but it is also a good way to think about what is happening inside modern America. Instead of a magnetron generating microwaves, we have the mass media which generates lies, fabrications, and propaganda. These waves of false information bounce around within society causing people to act. Since these waves of data are at odds with reality, this causes friction within society and the people inside get increasingly agitated.

Read it.

It is now three years since James Stevens Curl’s Making Dystopia was first published. Professor Curl’s book revised the history of architecture in the 20th century, exposing the standard curriculum taught to students as a poorly-conceived fabrication. The truth, backed by the mountains of evidence he cited, was frightening.

Curl’s critique of the theory and practice of modernism demolished the economical-ethical-political arguments put forward for decades that justified forcing people to live in inhuman environments. It was all a power-play, to drive humane architecture and its practitioners into the ground so that a new group of not very competent architects and academics could take over.

John Derbyshire.

You’ve been hearing a lot recently about how Afghanistan has been America’s Longest War. No: Immigration has been our Longest War, ours and Britain’s. From the Hart-Celler Immigration Act to today: 56 years. From Enoch Powell’s famous speech urging immigration restriction to today: 53 years. There have been some small victories for common sense this month. But also bad news. The whole experience has been a complete, and possibly terminal, failure of Democracy.

Enoch Powell was the first guy ever Cancelled for ThoughtCrime.

“But in Stockholm, the average waiting time for a rent-controlled property is now nine years, says the city’s housing agency Bostadsförmedlingen, up from around five years a decade ago.”

COMICAL New York Magazine Hot Takes: ‘The Media Are Worse for Biden Than Trump’?

Donald Trump’s recounting of his 2020 conversation with a Taliban leader is something else (CNN) You can almost see the eyes roll. I guess that’s their idea of news coverage.

Matt Dowd on Afghanistan: GOP Spurns ‘The Principles of the Constitution’

NYT: Still Crazy About Trump

Severian is delightfully dyspeptic today.

Everyone has always hated the “fetch quests,” but everyone does them, because that’s how you level up. Leveling up becomes the point of the game, not winning the game. Extend the concept a bit further, and you’ve got social media, where people utterly abase themselves for nothing more than “likes” and “upvotes” and “retweets.” Yeah, what this mainly tells us is that people are idiots, but it also reveals something important about elite formation: So long as you get a critical mass of people doing it (for social proof purposes), you could get people engaging in cutthroat, take-no-prisoners competition over jellybean collections.

Give people a way to identify themselves as “elite,” in other words, and they’ll kill themselves and others to do it, no matter how silly the activity.

Read it.

A shocking new tracking admission from Google, one that hasn’t yet made headlines, should be a serious warning to Chrome’s 2.6 billion users. If you’re one of them, this nasty new surprise should be a genuine reason to quit.

Behind the slick marketing and feature updates, the reality is that Chrome is in a mess when it comes to privacy and security. It has fallen behind rivals in protecting users from tracking and data harvesting, its plan to ditch nasty third-party cookies has been awkwardly postponed, and the replacement technology it said would prevent users being profiled and tracked turns out to have just made everything worse.

“Ubiquitous surveillance… harms individuals and society,” Firefox developer Mozilla warns, and “Chrome is the only major browser that does not offer meaningful protection against cross-site tracking… and will continue to leave users unprotected.”

New York magazine’s shocking revelation: The liberal media are biased! (New York Post)

Nirvana baby Spencer Elden is poster child for our victim culture

Don’t Be Fooled: H.R. 4 Is Just Another Power Grab

Recalling the Last Recall and the Lib Media’s Last Minute Dirty Tricks

FB messenger silently censoring links, claims they were sent

At least 60 dead in bomb carnage at Kabul Airport – BBC News

Photo of Biden from Afghanistan news conference goes viral: ‘A defining image’

President Biden says he was ‘instructed’ to call on reporters from list at presser following Kabul attack

Kamala Harris has ‘unprecedented’ negative rating I’m surprised it’s that high.

Flight Carrying US Lawmakers Denied Permission to Land in Kabul, Says Repor

BIDEN LIED, AMERICANS DIED

Weekend at Biden’s: CBS Tries to Prop Up Pres as Tough on Terrorists

‘Kill List’: Nets Spike Biden Admin Giving Taliban Names of Americans, Allies

Taliban Says 28 Of Its Members Killed In Blasts, Blames US For “Chaotic Evacuation”

Taliban Buys Hunter Biden Painting For Presidential Palace  Babylon Bee.

Joe ‘Diplomacy Is Back’ Biden Takes Wrecking Ball to US-UK ‘Special Relationship’

Taliban Fighters Reportedly Seize Military Side Of Kabul Airport Using American Weapons

Marine Battalion Commander Fired After Blasting ‘Inept’ Military Leadership Over Afghanistan Withdrawal

WOW: NYT’s Shear Tears Apart Psaki’s Phony Options on Afghanistan

Pediatricians Sue Biden Administration for Requiring Doctors to Perform Trans Surgeries Against Beliefs

Cori Bush Says ‘Abolish Billionaires’ Whose Wealth Increased $1.8T During Pandemic

New Harvard chief chaplain is an atheist and ordained ‘humanist rabbi’

Company Headquarters Leaving California in Unprecedented Numbers

Facebook To Form Election Commission: Report  Can’t have the wrong people winning.

The Weaponization Of Medicine

Disgusting: After 13 U.S. Troops Dead, Reid and Guests ‘Proud’ of Biden’s ‘Courage’

Online disinformation is an industry that needs regulation, says boffin

Forensic Anthropology: Forensic Anthropologists Might Not be Accurately Determining the Pronouns of Skeletons Found in Shallow Grave

Virginia School Board Strikes $1.3M Bathroom Policy Settlement With Transgender Man

DC Officials Brace for 9/11 Anniversary, Event Supporting Jan. 6 Protesters

Party of the KKK Rigging Election Against Black Republican

Mom Sues TSA Over Request to Strip Search Her Transgender Teen

NBA To ‘Educate’ Incoming Rookies On How To Promote Woke Social Justice Causes

CDC To Restart Gun Violence Research

On Eve of Terror Attack, MSNBC Urged More Positive Press for Biden

CENSORED: YouTube Smothers Video Critical of CA Governor Gavin Newsom

Why San Francisco’s city government is so dysfunctional

Read it.

The long-term consequences of the collapse of Afghanistan will naturally take time to come into focus. But it seems unlikely that they will be associated with “success”. Already it seems inevitable that America’s enemies — in particular China — will have noted how easy it is to push around the world’s superpower. Meanwhile, America’s allies now face challenges of their own; the EU and UK now surely know that they need to be more operationally adept, capable of doing basic things like holding an airport without requiring the support of the US.

“Get The F*ck Out!”: Antifa Attacks Female Reporter In Portland

House vote on $3.5 trillion budget raises prospect of higher taxes on the rich (CNBC) Try ‘higher taxes on EVERYBODY’.

To save California, sacrifice single-family zoning  (L.A. Times)

Where Are America’s ‘Feminists’ Fighting for Afghan Women?

Soros’s D.A. in L.A. Won’t Oppose Release of Sirhan Sirhan

Rent control isn’t working in Sweden

Morning Joe: Afghanistan Headlines Will ‘Fade,’ Voters Will ‘Credit’ Biden

CNN Shocked to Discover Democrat Voters ‘Frustrated,’ Want to Recall Newsom Too

Bloomberg Bizweek: Looted Target Got What It Deserved

Misinfo, Astro-Turfing, & Media Bias Abound Early In Canada’s Election Cycle

Book For ‘3-6’ Year Olds Teaches Being Transgender Is Normal, Common

Watchdog Groups Voice Concern Over “Flaw” On Ballot Envelopes For Newsom Recall Election

‘#DealWithIt’; MSNBC’s Malcolm Nance Brushes Off Deadly Bombings at Afghan Airport  Proglodyte asshole.

Victor Davis Hanson.

For nearly two years, Americans have engaged in a great woke experiment of cannibalizing themselves. American civilization has invested massive labor, capital, and time in an effort to constantly flagellate itself for not being perfect.

Yet America’s resilience and its resources are not infinite. We are now beginning to see the consequences of what happens when premodern tribalism absorbs Americans.

There are repercussions when ideology governs policy or when we take for granted the basics of life to pursue its trappings.

Read it.

How long before this is what, say, California looks like? Or New York City?

(American solution: “Don Vincenzo, I have a stone in my shoe.”)

Joel Kotkin.

The very idea of a recall vote seemed absurd at first in California, this bluest of US states. Yet Californians’ surprisingly strong support for the removal of Democratic governor Gavin Newsom has resulted in precisely that, with the vote scheduled for 14 September. This reflects a stunning rejection of modern progressivism in a state thought to epitomise its promise.

Some, like the University of California’s Laura Tyson and former Newsom adviser Lenny Mendonca, may see California as creating ‘the way forward’ for a more enlightened ‘market capitalism’, but that reality is hard to see on the ground. Even before the pandemic, California already had the highest poverty rate and the widest gap between middle and upper-middle income earners of any state in the US. It now suffers from the second-highest unemployment rate in the US after Nevada.

Today, class drives Californian politics, and Newsom is peculiarly ill-suited to deal with it. He is financed by what the Los Angeles Times describes as ‘a coterie of San Francisco’s wealthiest families’. Newsom’s backers have aided his business ventures and helped him live in luxury – first in his native Marin, where he just sold his estate for over $6million, and now in Sacramento.

The Washington Post Wants to Censor Real News

Et Tu, Brute? Leftist Journalists Turn On Facebook

Victims’ Family Calls Cuomo’s Brink’s Heist Killer Clemency an ‘Atrocity’

Latino lawmakers push for renaming Fort Hood after first Hispanic four-star general

Inmates run wild on Rikers Island, answer phones, destroy equipment

“Puzzle Pieces All Laid Out” – How ATF Has Plan To Classify Semi-Automatic Rifles As “Machine Guns” 

Disney+ Tween Show Pushes Feminism, Attacks ‘Heteronormative Rituals’

Dowd: Biden Should Be ‘Congratulated’ for ‘Yeoman’s Work’ in Afghanistan

NY Times Hides Spike Lee’s 9-11 Trutherism in His New HBO Doc: Fire Didn’t Melt Steel

‘RIP Aztecs:’ Woke ‘Stargirl’ Mourns End of Human-Sacrificing Tribe at Hands of Europeans

Instagram Fuels 70% Rise In Online Grooming Of Children: UK Charity

Nike’s End of Men

Miranda Du, Hassan Kanu, Ahilan Arulanantham, Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien, and Kelly Lytle Hernandez Explain Why It’s Bad for American Citizens Named Smith and Jones to Have a Say in Immigration Policy

As Public Pushback Mounts, McAuliffe Buries ‘Equity’ Agenda

Billionaire Progressives Fund Weather Underground Terrorist’s Ivy League Think Tank

Canada’s Trudeau Is Proposing “Fixing” His Country’s Housing Bubble With Even More Government Intervention

Wisconsin Parents on a Mission To Recall Board Members Who Opposed Reopening

Judge freezes UC Berkeley’s student enrollment at 2020-21 levels

Read it.

“Never forget class struggle!” proclaimed Mao in Fall 1962 at the Chinese Communist Party’s annual retreat. This maxim quickly became the fevered chant of the day, paving the way for the Cultural Revolution, which began in 1966 and continued until Mao’s death in 1976. This slogan defied reality and logic: How could class struggle persist when there was no private ownership left in China? But the slogan appealed to sentiment, not logic, and thus persisted.

If modified into “Never forget race struggle,” the command has the same appeal in today’s woke America, and serves the same purposes, even though there is no evidence that race is a barrier impeding individual effort in America today, or that it is decisive in distributing outcomes.

Read it.

In the rarified atmosphere of Washington, the debacle unfolding in Afghanistan has led as much to questions of how China might exploit this as it has analysis and discussion of what is ongoing in Kabul.

One regularly asked question is whether Beijing will feel emboldened to invade Taiwan, either because the U.S. is preoccupied with evacuating Americans from Afghanistan or because the U.S. military’s vaunted reputation has taken a beating.

Sarah Hoyt.

This brings to mind what is creating this big movement — the so called elites who would plan our lives have no clue, by the way. They are actually trying to ignore all the moves because it confuses them — which is the fact that if you take control of even a state’s government by crooked means (Colorado, if the elections were fair, the asshats would be eager to have them examined, not try to hide them. Also, I’m sorry, there’s no way the elections are fair) you can control people’s lives with dictator-like powers and make the state unlivable, in pursuit of the little twinkling sounds in your brain, or something.

You can for instance decide that you’re resettling refugees, when you’re turning the state into a vast illegal camp; or you can decide that the expensive convention center in the capital is now a homeless shelter; or you can allow homeless to camp all over Denver after the people defeat that in the polls; or you can make it impossible to earn a living in a state; or–

The possibilities are endless.

Read it.

The probabilities are increasing that China will try and seize Taiwan by force amid America’s disorganized exit from Afghanistan has tarnished U.S. prestige. Allies of the West, such as Japan and Taiwan, are set to hold a meeting about an increasingly aggressive China.

The Financial Times spoke with Masahisa Sato, a parliamentarian who manages foreign affairs for Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), on Tuesday, said discussions are needed about the implications of a China invasion of Taiwan because it would have “a serious impact” on Japan’s security and economy.

Severian continues his nlysis.

Even those putatively dedicated to Good aren’t often able to even perceive The Good, much less act on it. Same thing with Evil. The true Hero, capital-H, can both see it and embrace Good, despite his flaws; the true Villain, capital-V, also sees it, but can’t overcome himself enough to choose it, which means he ends up embracing — and, crucially, loving — Evil. Most people, being mere people, only dimly perceive Good and Evil. They muddle through. They often end up serving one or the other unwittingly (Good as often as Evil, though being mere people ourselves, we tend to notice the latter almost exclusively).

Cuomo Commutes Sentence of Chesa Boudin’s Weather Underground Dad, Four Others (New York Magazine) The Crust takes care of its own.

California man found with over 300 stolen recall election ballots

Pelosi Rule Vote Gambit Could Make or Break Dem Agenda

That $56,000 Drug? Blame Medicare

HR 4 ‘Gives Federal Bureaucrats Control’ Over State Election Laws, Expert Says

STUDY: Actual News Is Hard to Find on Today’s Cable ‘News’

STUDY: The ‘News’ on ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS

CNN Horrified by ‘GOP Stunt’ Election in CA: ‘Doom’ for Democrats!  Republicans can be candidates in elections? What’s up with that?

Cuomo Commutes Sentences for Four Convicted Murderers

Leftist CBS Hosts Demand Felons Have Right to Vote

DCCC Chairman Partied Maskless at Billionaire’s Estate in France After State Dept. Issued ‘Do Not Travel’ Warning

Iowa Dem Scrubs Left-Wing Views From Campaign Site To Kick Off Moderate Congressional Campaign

YouTube Exec Brags His Platform Censors Wrongthink, Promotes ‘Authoritative’ Sources

Read it.

The U.S. Supreme Court said in 2008, when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, “that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election.” It seems we have a perfect example of this in Compton City, California, where felony voter fraud charges have been filed against six defendants, including a member of the Compton City Council, Isaac Galvan, by the Los Angeles County district attorney.

Talk about a close election! Galvan won his city council race in 2021 by only one vote, 855 to 854. Not only have all of the defendants been charged with conspiracy to commit election fraud, but Galvan is also accused of attempting to bribe an election official with concert tickets to “influence” the outcome of the election.

Read it.

Plans to build an innovative new nuclear power plant—and thus revitalize the struggling U.S. nuclear industry—have taken a hit as in recent weeks: Eight of the 36 public utilities that had signed on to help build the plant have backed out of the deal. The withdrawals come just months after the Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), which intends to buy the plant containing 12 small modular reactors from NuScale Power, announced that completion of the project would be delayed by 3 years to 2030. It also estimates the cost would climb from $4.2 billion to $6.1 billion.

Read it.

Days after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was initially sold as a necessary pre-emptive effort to secure deadly weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein planned to use against the American people, National Review ran an op-ed by former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum attacking everyone on the Right who opposed the war as “unpatriotic conservatives.”

In the nearly two decades since it was published, the column has become something of a Rosetta Stone for deciphering the underlying motivations and mindset of the most ardent proponents of the idea that stable democracies can be imposed by military force from the top down. Like an insect captured in amber, Frum’s essay is a near-perfect specimen of the neoconservative id, equal parts delusion and sanctimony.

NYT Worries Justice Roberts Will Stop Dems ‘Protecting’ Voting Rights  If only we could depend on that.

Schumer, Pelosi panned for dancing with Stephen Colbert, Napa fundraiser with Biden’s presidency under siege Sock puppets come, sock puppets go, but the Crust continues forever.

Is It Time to Break Up Big Ag? (New York Magazine) Proglodyte ‘journalists’ are always full of ideas for how government can be used to make other people’s lives worse.

‘A Beautiful Feeling’: Refugee Women In Germany Learn The Joy Of Riding Bikes (NPR) And, as we all know, riding a bike (instead of a *shudder* car) solves all of your problems.

Neither Huxley, Orwell, Nor Burgess Anticipated This Particular Dystopia

CRAZY: CBS Blames Climate Change for Strengthened Taliban, After Blaming Opium in 2015

WashPost’s Max Boot on Afghanistan: Trump and Pompeo ‘Need to Shut Up’  I think rather it’s Max Boot that needs to shut up, before he embarrasses himself further.

NBC Now BURIES Bad Poll Signaling ‘Forever Stain’ on Biden Presidency

Utah Teacher’s Anti-Parent Rant Exposes Broader, Disturbing Education Agenda

Facebook Report Undermines NY Times Attacks on Conservative Content

‘We Must Not Squander Our Majority’: Pelosi Assembles House Dems As Infighting Threatens To Derail Trillions In Spending  Get out there and spend! spend! spend!

Administrative Bloat at Universities Raises Costs Without Helping Students

Democrats Unveil ‘Tread On Me’ Flag  Babylon Bee.

Young Russians love Stalin

Democrats Want to Hate Their Way Out of the Pandemic

French Virus Health Pass in Full Use But Protests Continue

Unmasked Pelosi Gives Speech to Maskless Donors  Really, I liked her better with a mask.

COVID-19 Cases Rising Within The Homeless Population  My, what a surprise.

Australian Town Council Sparks Outrage After Killing Rescue Dogs To Prevent Covid Spread

Utah couple denied cruise ship boarding despite negative tests, vaccination

How to Choose the Right Face Mask for a Flight so You Aren’t Turned Away

Oregon, Oregon State Will Require Vaccine, Negative Test for Football Games

Covid-19 Vaccination-Associated Myocarditis in Adolescents  Yeah, gonna run right out and get that vaccine.

The Coronavirus Is Here Forever

Questions Raised After New York Judges Order Vaccinations for Defendants

NYC Mandates COVID Vaccine for Public School Teachers, Staff  What’s next? Pets and people just passing through?

NYC Orders 150,000 Teachers & School Staff To Either Get Vaccinated Or Find A New Job; NJ Orders Jabs For State Workers

Memo: Military Threatens to Revoke Benefits From Marines Who Decline COVID Vaccine

Landlords Ask 5th Circuit Court To Stay CDC Eviction Moratorium

Surgeon General to Big Tech: You’re Not Censoring American COVID Comments ‘Nearly Enough’

Pentagon To Mandate Covid Vaccine For All Service Members; One-Third Have Refused Jab

Read it.

In August 2020, more than 130 self-described Republican national security officials endorsed Joe Biden for president.

…

The statement of the anti-Trump gang was laughably false when issued. Today, in the wake of the Afghanistan debacle, it remains false, and grotesquely so, but no one is laughing.

Is it worth it to publish the names of the signatories? Maybe not, but I’ll do so anyway. See if you (1) find it as unimpressive, generally speaking, as I did and (2) can spot a few rogues.

Assange Described A Decade Ago How ‘Endless’ Afghan War Was Engineered By “Transnational Security Elite”

Wife of US Ambassador to Afghanistan: Europe’s Afghan Crime Wave Is Mind-Boggling

Read them all.

Why Legacy Wealth Is an Easy Target to Fund Infrastructure (TIME)

‘Inheritance is a problem’: parents on what they will leave to their children (The Guardian)

Trump’s conduct needs a federal investigation (CNN)

AP ‘Fact Check’ Defending CNN from Conservative Jokes Ruined by Taliban Behavior

The Other McCain is of two minds.

Winning an argument is good. Seeing your antagonists exposed as fools is also good. But is victory so sweet, if won at such cost? An absolute catastrophe is now unfolding in Afghanistan because the guy that all the Smart People™ told us would Restore Our Precious Norms has turned out to be a blundering dimwit. And as much as we enjoy this vindication — “We told you so, you damned fools!” — it does not alleviate the horror of watching America’s reputation go up in a cloud of smoke.

Read it.

The United States’ military mission in Afghanistan has collapsed in chaos and ignominy. The catastrophe has many parents. But surely “the experts” upon which our leader relied bear much blame.

They were the ones who often failed to comprehend the power of religious belief and the role pride in Islam played in the Taliban’s unyielding commitment to victory. They were the ones who thought we could remake Afghanistan into a western liberal image. They were the ones who failed to comprehend the intractable tribal nature of Afghan society.

To say the least, Afghanistan has vividly exposed the utter stupidity of our vaunted foreign policy and national security experts. Our hapless Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, for example, assured us that Kabul would not fall from “Friday to Monday.” He was right. It fell from Friday to Sunday.

Read it.

There’s not much to say that hasn’t already been said regarding Biden’s unconditional surrender to the Taliban, and it’s only the first week. Bookshelves will be filled with analyses of these events, and we won’t understand their full ramifications for decades. My two cents, for what they’re worth, are that the left doesn’t consider the fall of Kabul and the betrayal of our allies to be a tragedy. Rather, this is deliberate foreign policy strategy, and it’s right on track.

The pattern is clear for those who wish to see. Simply put, the left thinks America is not only evil but irredeemably so. Hence, any policy, be it foreign or domestic, that weakens our nation-state should be pursued, the goal being that the nation-state will eventually corrode to the point of collapse. They don’t care that the hollowed-out dystopia will be long past its desirability for subjugation, so long as they get to be in charge. As Lord Varys said of Littlefinger, “He would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes”.

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell;
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.