Read it.

This spring, public officials at all levels were thrown into a public-health crisis that made the first SARS, H1N1, Ebola, MERS, and Zika look like small potatoes. It is understandable that mistakes would be made, but officials assured us that their decisions were data-driven and that they were following science (or “SCIENCE!” as Gavin Newsom insists).

When cities and states enacted lockdowns, mostly in March and April, the U.S. had about a million diagnosed cases, concentrated in cities, particularly in the Northeast. Lots of counties in the rest of the country had few or no cases. Enacting a full lockdown in those places — shutting down all nonessential businesses, telling people to stay home, placing restrictions on interstate travel — was an excessive step that burned through a limited supply of public patience. Eight weeks of lockdowns limited the stress on hospitals and bought time, but at extreme economic cost, and that time was largely not put to good use. We would have been better off if restrictions were enacted on a local basis, depending on the prevalence of cases — although our assessment of how many cases were in an area was impeded by the limited number of tests and the difficulty of getting fast results. Some corners of the public will be highly resistant to any attempt to reinstate those restrictions, because they no longer have faith that they’re necessary.

We don’t mind ‘following the science’ so long as it is not JUNK SCIENCE, which a lot of the underlayment of these job-destroying restrictions is turning out to be.

Leaked Video Shows Democratic Rep Sean Casten Rapping About How Trump Supporters Are ‘Racist’ And ‘Loony’

Donald Trump accused of sexual assault by former model Amy Dorris  The Guardian.

First endorsement for president in publication’s 175-year history  CNN.

Trump’s nightmare is coming true: Two ‘blue wall’ states aren’t even close  Washington Post.

CNN Smears ‘Make America Great Again’ as Racist ‘Insult’

Is ANY Anti-Trump Idea Too Absurd for CNN? Check Out This Howler From Scaramucci

Dangerous Spin: ABC Helps Biden Spread Fear Trump ‘Compromised’ COVID Vaccine Safety

CNN Hypes Scientific American Magazine Endorsing Biden for ‘Science’ and ‘Health’

California Scheming? NY Times Tries to Use Wildfires to Burn Trump’s 2020 Chances

CBS: Trump ‘at War With Scientists, ‘Fighting the Science’

Tyranny Down Under: From Blue Shirts To Brown

Nearly Half NYC High Earners Considering Leaving

Barr calls coronavirus lockdowns the ‘greatest intrusion on civil liberties’ since slavery

Armed civilian roadblocks in Oregon town fuel fears over vigilantism  The Guardian. When police do their job, that’s not a problem.

Wife of South Dakota man dragged out of school board meeting for not wearing mask speaks out

California Wants Me to Vote, Even Though I Haven’t Lived There for Over 8 Years

Nashville Officials Allegedly Covered Up Data Showing Few Cases From Restaurants And Bars, Emails Show

Facebook Purges Ad Saying Pro-Trans Joe Biden ‘Would Destroy Girls’ Sports’

Watch: Australians Chant “Freedom!” As COVID Riot-Cops Shut-Down Food Market

Kroger Sued Over Alleged Religious Discrimination After Firing Employees Who Refused To Wear Rainbow LGBTQ Symbol

Newsom Vows to Fast Track Toward Germany’s Failed Climate Goals

Congress Investigates the Appointment of Legates to NOAA

It’s Not Climate Change, Stupid

Attenborough’s new attempt to scare people about polar bear extinction and walrus deaths

Pope Supports Classifying ‘Ecocide’ as an International Crime

The Planet’s Not Angry, But Stockman Warns The Pelosi/Newsom/Harris Climate-Howlers Are Truly Dangerous

Jemele Hill: ‘There’s ‘an Issue’ With Steelers Player Honoring War Hero Amidst Social Justice Protests

Accounting for the “racial gap” in D.C. marijuana arrests

Premier League Soccer Abandons BLM “Political Movement”  Wondered when they would get tired of it.

Two Campaign Staffers For Ilhan Omar’s GOP Challenger Shot In Minneapolis, Suspect Arrested

Chicago Logs 52 Percent Jump in Homicides From Last Year

95% Of Murder Victims In Chicago This Year Are People Of Color

Read it.

Sort of a universal metaphor for government by Democrats.

Read it.

Time to leave.

Read it.

‘Environmental justice’?

The proposal had become one of the most fraught issues to come before the California Coastal Commission, which was set to vote Thursday. The decision would have been the first major test of the commission’s new power to review not only harm to the environment when making decisions but also harm to underrepresented communities.

Presumably this means that they’re no longer ‘unrepresented’, with white people taking up their cause, theoretically.

UPDATE: Monterey Bay desalination project promotes economic racism  Sacramento Bee.

Jorge Montoya.

Today I woke up feeling more enthusiastic than I usually do; I moved differently. I had a planter’s punch for breakfast before a Bloody Mary. I have come to learn that I am not white! That is at least what The New York Times is suggesting, regarding the natives of Spain and Portugal as nonwhite.

Although I have no idea what color they are referring to, I know that there are great genetic differences between the northern barbarian consumers of butter and the Mediterranean hedonists who believe in olive oil as an elixir; also between the great drinkers of beer or wine; and, of course, between tobacco smokers and those who prefer hashish. Those habits, throughout generations, must favor a different pigmentation, and the NYT has no idea how to catalog us, which causes me as much laughter as it does a certain vanity.

Read it.

I remember slide rules.

Check it out.

Harry Potter with guns. Quite well done, too.

Trump fumbles during tough encounter with undecided voters CNN.

Voter to President Trump: Let me finish, sir CNN.

Defending Woodward: Has exposing a Trump lie ever caused him to change course?  Washington Post.

Blitzer tells Kushner to relay message to Trump over ‘disgusting’ retweet  CNN.

Ivana Trump is sleepy eating spaghetti in NYC after being branded a ‘bigot’ for immigrants comment Daily Mail.

Pro-Trump youth group enlists teens in secretive campaign likened to a ‘troll farm,’ prompting rebuke by Facebook and Twitter  Washington Post.

Woodward Suggests Trump Suffers From Psychotic Disorder

Dem Hack Chuck Todd ‘Uncomfortable’ With Historic Middle East Peace Deal

Media Criticizes Trump For Ignoring Social Distancing Guidelines While Saving Baby From Oncoming Train  Babylon Bee.

Jon Karl Says Covering Indoor Trump Rally Like ‘Taking Your Family With You To Fallujah’

A rebuttal to the Washington Post’s smear of David Legates appointment to NOAA

Scientific American Goes Full Anti-Science

The “Escalator to Extinction” Myth

Bad Policies, Not Climate Change, Main Driver of California Fires

Read it.

The apogee of this phenomenon is Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, both of whom have blurted out this week that their prospective tenure in the White House will be a “Harris-Biden Administration” or, in Kamala’s more blunt formulation, a “Harris Administration.” What’s amusing about this obviously Freudian slip is that it describes what we all know is on the table if the Democrats win. Of course, that’s also what’s blood-curdlingly terrifying about it.

Biden is deteriorating. There’s just no kind or delicate way around this point, although of course we don’t relish the man’s decline or take the suffering of old age lightly. Had Biden been left at home to watch the twilight of his years descend with dignity, we would wish him only the best. As it is, however, the Democrats have forced us to state the obvious by running a campaign which looks like the climactic scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The man can’t hold a microphone steady at this point, let alone form a coherent sentence.

Read it.

Of course it does. It wasn’t brokered by a Democrat, preferably a Democrat Of Color.

Read it.

The defector escaped from China and traveled to Europe, where he is under the protection of a European government security service, according to the sources. The PLA defector believes that Chinese intelligence has penetrated the U.S. government and is therefore wary of cooperating with the CIA and other Western spy agencies.

Read it.

Somebody call the Biden campaign.

Check it out.

If, of course, that’s what you wan to do.

The resemblance isn’t all that close, but hey, it’s better than a toon-less life, innit?

Read it. 

For reference, lefties often put their pronouns in their social media bios so that other users can know whether they identify themselves as feminine, masculine, or non-binary, and address them as such, regardless of whether they’re biologically male or female. Some people even go by “they/them.” Putting pronouns in one’s bio is also seen as a show of solidarity for the trans community — not to mention a signal of woke virtue.

Carano tweeted that she hadn’t understood the meaning behind the pronouns included in woke people’s accounts until Pascal explained it to her. She wrote, “Yes, Pedro & I spoke & he helped me understand why people were putting them in their bios. I didn’t know before but I do now.” But to the chagrin of her activist fans, Carano explained that she wouldn’t include her pronouns in her bio, hence the subsequent “transphobe” condemnation.

…

Carano took it a step further however, by putting the words “beep/bop/boop” in her bio, a sarcastic play on the “he/him/his” or “they/theirs” pronouns in every woke bio that also functioned as an R2-D2 reference. That really set some people off, who accused her of and being “transphobic.”

I like it. It has texture, and scope.

Read it.

These are the wars of the future.

Read it.

If this means that we can get rid of that crapweasel F-35, it’s huge.

Read it.

An alleged Portland rioter was indicted Tuesday on charges that he pointed a “high-powered laser” at the eyes of a city police sergeant.

Bryan Kelley, 36, is accused of injuring the cop during a riot in late August, according to a press release from the Multnomah District Attorney’s Office. The 36-year-old faces second degree assault, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of unlawfully utilizing a laser pointer, the release detailed.

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) released a video of the laser allegedly used by Kelley, which shows the bright purple beam burning a hole in what appears to be a thin piece of cardboard.

ZMan pulls in some history.

Probably the only thing that everyone in modern America can agree upon is that we now live in a hyper-partisan age. The modifier is needed, as we used to lived in a mildly partisan age. Before that, American politics was about coalitions. The parties represented factions willing to compromise to some degree. Either this hyper-partisanship is a natural end point of liberal democracy, perhaps a prelude to civil war, or something happened in the last quarter century to get us here.

The first place to start is with Lenin, as he is the man credited with introducing both the term and concept into the West. The term was coined to counter objectivity in political economic analysis. Lenin rejected the idea that there is some objective good for all of society, because true objectivity is impossible when the interests of one class of society conflict with the interests of other classes. Therefore, the only rational politics is one in which you expressly advocate for the interests of your side.

Best laid plans….

Read it.

You may have heard that Joe Biden emerged from the basement to hold a staged event yesterday wooing six veterans — count ’em in the AP photo included with the FOX News story — in Tampa. The video below captures yet another of our Quotations from Dementia Joe: “Cause if you could take care, if you were a quartermaster, you can sure in hell take care runnin’ a, you know, a department store uh, thing, you know, where, in the second floor of the ladies department or whatever, you know what I mean?”

Steve Sailer runs the numbers.

Last week, The New York Times complained that whites now make up only three-fifths of the population but still hold four-fifths of the most powerful jobs in America.

…

Turnabout is fair play, so please note that the five staffers who undertook this race-counting project number one African-American and four Asian-Americans.

Read it.

It was quite the sad sight to behold during the Tuesday evening newscasts. The liberal broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) were so overcome with their visceral hatred for President Trump that they went out their way to decry the Trump administration-brokered Abraham Accords, the Middle East peace deal between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Welcome to the Ministry of Truth: Peace Is War.

Read it.

CNN host Jake Tapper has exposed himself as an operative for the Democratic Party in pushing influence in a Pennsylvania congressional race, according to former Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell on Newsmax TV.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Read it.

Time to leave.

Straight Outta Marxism: Seattle BLM Takes Over Grocery Store To Protest “Lack Of Access To Grocery Stores”  They’d have grocery stores if they didn’t loot them and burn them down. ODF.

Baltimore On Pace For Deadliest Year Ever: 46 Shot, 12 Killed Last Week

Black passenger taken away by police after racial rant on plane in Sacramento

LA Sheriff Alex Villanueva challenges Lebron James to match reward money for gunman who ambushed two deputies in Compton

Black Lives Matter Led to Record Number of Mass Shootings

University of Chicago declares that English is racist

Lancaster Peaceful After Night Of Unrest Following Officer-Related Shooting

BLM’s Hitlerian Heart David Cole.

Biden Voter Enacts Democrat Agenda

Police: Three Protesters Charged After Harassing Diners In Viral Video

New York Times: NFL’s Return Keeps U.S. in ‘Fog of Denial’ Over Virus, Racism

Sorority Sister Turned BLM Radical? Kappa Delta Arrested in Lancaster Riot

FBI Investigating Star of Netflix Hit ‘Cheer’ in Underage Sex Scandal

Columbia University’s Band ‘Enthusiastically’ Dissolves Due To Realization It Was Founded On ‘Racism’ And ‘Oppression’

Leaders Of Southern Baptist Convention Are Dropping ‘Southern’ From Churches’ Names

Deadspin’s Rob Parker: Fans Are All Racists So Just Shut Up And Cheer

St. Louis Homicides Match Total For 2019 Amid Crime Surge

Republican Campaign Aide Murdered In Minneapolis

Oregon residents are illegally stopping drivers at gunpoint during wildfire evacuations, sheriff says  In a state where looters wander undisturbed, what does he expect?

Face mask refuseniks in Indonesia forced to dig graves of coronavirus victims

Morning Joe Economist: Unlike U.S., Commie China Has ‘Good Government’

More Than 1,600 Uncounted Ballots From New Jersey Primary Found In Bin

Armed Groups Stopping Oregon Drivers At Gunpoint To Prevent Looting

Indian girl starves to death as lockdown meant family could not afford to buy food

High School Football Players Suspended For Flying Flags To Honor 9/11 Cops & Firefighters

Twitter Suspends Account Of Chinese Scientist Who Published Paper Alleging Covid Was Created In Wuhan Lab

Joe Biden And Kamala Harris Both Refer To ‘Harris Administration’ During Public Speeches

54 Shot, 12 Dead In Another Violent Chicago Weekend

ICE: Sanctuary Cities Freed Suspects Who Killed Girl, 16

Connecticut To Impose $100 Dollar Fine For Going Maskless In Public  Time to leave.

Oregon Sheriff Pleads for Halt to Armed Checkpoints  Do your job, and it won’t happen.

YouTube Censors Hoover Institute Doc for Contradicting COVID Narrative

CDC Defies Trump Ban on Critical Race Theory Training

Charleston SC Junk Climate Lawsuit

Ice shelves propping up two major Antarctic glaciers are breaking up and it could have major consequences for sea level rise  Which is always promised but never actually arrives.

Smoke Has Caused Temperature Forecasts to Go Crazy

The Surface Energy Budget

Cooling The Hothouse

He’ll ‘GET US ALL KILLED.’ Mark Hamill, Bill Nye Demand Trump Panic Over Climate

No “Swamp” to See Here — EPA Quietly Hires ‘Climate RICO’ Ringleader

Two Hospitalized During Sacramento Anti-Trump Protest

CNN’s Cabrera Sits by as Deranged Dr. Reiner Accuses Trump of ‘Negligent Homicide’

Trump baselessly questions climate science during California wildfire briefing CNN.

Liz Peek: Anti-Trump attacks grow uglier but president gains in these critical states

CBS Host Goads Woodward: Just Say It! ‘Graver Than Watergate?’ Right?

MSNBC RIPS Trump on Wildfires, But Repeats Biden Talking Points on Climate Change

Scientific American Wades into the Presidential Election

CNN Echoes Biden’s Violent Climate Hysteria: Trump ‘Assaults Science!’

He’ll ‘GET US ALL KILLED.’ Mark Hamill, Bill Nye Demand Trump Panic Over Climate

Read it.

President Donald Trump hosted leaders from Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to sign the Abraham Accords peace agreement Tuesday, marking what the administration hopes will lead to real peace in the Middle East.

Read it.

In Sacramento, several police cruisers apparently were responding to an emergency with their sirens blaring. A group of Black Lives Matter activists apparently thought that their inalienable rights include the right to prevent police officers from doing their jobs. A group of BLMers surrounded one of the police cars in an effort to immobilize it, while one of them jumped onto the hood. It didn’t end well.

Severian goes Confucian.

One of my personal preoccupations is what Confucius called “the rectification of names.” There was a whole neo-Confucian movement in China as the Celestial Empire was being dragged into the community of nations in the early 18th century. One of their maxims, taken from the Master himself, was that imprecise or outright incorrect nomenclature was at the root of almost every problem. Get the words right, they argued, and the rest will follow.

Note that this is not an early iteration of Our Betters, the Liberals’, magic words. Whereas today’s half-assed Postmodernists seem to believe in the talismanic power of mere words — loudly proclaiming, with tears and suicide threats, that you’re really a woman means you are a woman, dangling whanger be damned — the neo-Confucians had a legit point. An example we’re all familiar with is the endless debate (on our side) over the meanings of the political terms “Left” and “Right.” If those were ever truly useful (except as cheers at pep rallies), they became useless once the collectivists started getting actual power.

ZMan draws a parallel.

A popular topic among those less optimistic about the American Experiment is to compare America to Rome, either the republic or empire. The former camp looks for the Sulla in the past and the Caesar in the future. The latter camp looks for evidence that the American Empire is in its final days, like fifth century Rome. The trouble with comparing America to Rome is it is not a republic. It has not been since Gettysburg and is now something closer to a radical democracy.

The more accurate historical analogy for modern America is ancient Athens. While America is not quite yet a radical democracy, that is the current path. Soon the electoral college will be circumvented, so that presidents are elected directly. The Senate was democratized a century ago. The franchise is universal and will soon extend to anyone currently standing on American soil. The last ragged bits of republic will soon be gone and America will be a radical democracy.

Emphasis on the ‘radical’.

Victor Davis Hanson.

Nothing then is new to the media’s fusion and collusion with the “progressive party.”

Yet never in American history have mainstream journalists not merely promoted a candidate but actively fused with his political candidacy to the point of warping, fabricating, and Trotskyizing the news and indeed history itself.

The trope of a vast charade to create an illusionary powerful figure out of nothing is an old one in fiction, Hollywood and television. We remember “The Great and Powerful” Wizard of Oz fakery, a formidable screen image created backstage by gears and levers operated by a tiny man “behind the curtain.” Similar is the famous scene in an episode of the old Star Trek series, depicting a near comatose on-air John Gill used as a televised prop by his puppeteers, in a utopian federation project gone haywire.

But reality has outdone art with the Biden campaign. The concoction is holistic, from the mundane construction of a fantasy, on-the-go candidate to the supposed middle-of-the road old Joe Biden from Scranton radiating an aura of kindness and moderation in times of plague, panic, and protest.

Read it.

As protesters across the U.S. rage against policies and practices that target African Americans, Latinos and other minorities, some of the nation’s most prestigious universities are fighting a raft of legal challenges accusing them of unfairly weighting the admissions process against Asian-American and White applicants.

Yale and Harvard are set to respond this week to two of those challenges as two more make their way through the courts. The multiple efforts to defeat race-conscious admissions, including by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, could spur an increasingly conservative Supreme Court to revisit the process, even as the U.S. is embroiled in its fiercest struggle over race and privilege since the 1960s.

Read it.

A US academic has revealed the existence of 2.4-million-person database he says is compiled by a Chinese company known to supply intelligence, military, and security agencies. The academic alleges the purpose of the database is enabling overseas influence operations to be conducted against prominent or influential people outside China.

Read it.

The Yan report.

Read it.

Whatcha think? Republican or Democrat?

Read it.

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz (who once considered running for president as an independent), has decided to support (surprise!) Joe Biden in the upcoming election. That an extremely wealthy white man would vote Democrat is not terribly shocking. But the reasoning he gave was incredible: “What is at risk is democracy itself: Checks and balances. Rigorous debate. A free press. An acceptance of facts, not ‘alternate facts.’ Belief in science. Trust in the rule of law. A strong judicial system. Unity in preserving all of our rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Wow. Let’s go through those one at a time, shall we?

Read it.

Edina, Minnesota, is an elite suburb that formerly had one of the most outstanding public school districts in the country. That was before Edina’s school system went “woke” and began prioritizing indoctrination over education. In recent years, Edina’s schools have slipped badly in objective test measurements.

This coincides with the city’s transformation from a Republican bastion, as recently as 25 years ago, to a deep-blue outpost of progressivism. How is that working out for Edina? In addition to the decline of the town’s schools, crime has arrived. As law enforcement has collapsed following the George Floyd riots–a development that was applauded by many, likely most, Edina residents–the chickens are coming home to roost. So we see news of carjackings.

Read it.

The molecule, which is a component of an antibody, is the smallest one known to date that “completely and specifically” targets the virus that causes a coronavirus infection, a report published in the journal Cell said according to KDKA News. A full-sized antibody is 10 times bigger than the isolated molecule, according to the report.

Which would mean we wouldn’t have politicians running around with their hair on fire trying to lock everybody down wearing hazmat suits.

Candace Owens tells LeBron James: ‘If you’re suffering through racism, please give me some of that’

‘Dear White People’ actor Jeremy Tardy exits show, cites ‘racial discrimination’

NAACP chapter president Talbert Swan: ‘No such thing as blue lives’

The Death of ‘Quono’

A City In Decline

Protesters March Through New York City, Six Arrested In Scuffle With NYPD

Which NFL Players Will Put Althea Bernstein’s Name on Their Helmets?

CNN Hates You: Wilson Says Trump Voters Would Willfully Get ‘The Black Plague’

Haitians Call Out ‘Lack of Respect’ After Sen. Harris Visit

A Tale Of Two Mass Gatherings: Sturgis “Super Spreader” Bike Rally Vs Black Lives Matter “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful” Protests

Cuomo, De Blasio Go After Jewish Weddings, Cheer Black Lives Matter Riots

Cop Shoots Knife-Wielding Maniac, Lancaster Riots After BLM Lies

Glimpse Of Toy Gun In Student’s Home Prompts School Officials To Call Police

New York Teacher’s Assignment Compares Police To KKK Members, Slave Owners

Gassy Jane Fonda Says Climate Change is a Race Issue

University Of Chicago’s English Department Says It Will Only Accept Applicants Who Will Work In Black Studies

UN Human Rights Chief Urges US To Tackle Systemic Racism  Leaving the UN would be a good start.

Audience Boos As Football Game Breaks Out At Political Rally  Babylon Bee.

After Officers Ambushed, ‘View’ Defends BLM: Violence Is ‘Manufactured’ by Trump!

Atlantic: Vote for Biden or the Riots Will Get Worse!, by Steve Sailer

Southwest Plane Returns To Gate After 2-Year-Old Removes Mask  Can it get any more ridiculous?

Armed Oregon Residents Set Up Roadblocks After A Fire Was Ignited Intentionally, Police Say

WashPost Becomes Haven for Antifa Sympathizer to Refute So-Called ‘Myths’

Dems Open Probe Into Tampering With COVID Reports

Democrats Reveal They Have Planted Dynamite All Around Nation And Will Blow It Up If Biden Isn’t Elected  Babylon Bee.

UK government plans to remove key human rights protections

Judge Rules Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf’s Coronavirus Restrictions Unconstitutional

Pushback: Canadians Protest Against Masks

PA Governor’s COVID-19 Restrictions Ruled Unconstitutional By Federal Judge

US Freezes Imports On Goods Made By Uighur Forced Labor In Chinese ‘Re-Education’ Camps In Xinjiang

Rochester Mayor Ousts Police Chief, Suspends Other Officials

“Murphy’s Law”: New York May Follow New Jersey With Trading Tax Of Its Own Time to leave.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #424

Climate change: Warmth shatters section of Greenland ice shelf  BBC.

How climate change is fueling record-breaking California wildfires, heat and smog  LA Times.

Joe Biden on the West Coast Fires: “climate change poses an imminent, existential threat to our way of life”

Countering the Left’s Climate Power Grab With Facts

Gavin Newsom’s Exceedingly Ignorant Climate Claim

Governor Newsom Orders All Trees To Wear Masks To Prevent Spread Of Wildfires  Babylon Bee.

Climate Grief Is Burning Across the American West  Wired ‘Science’.

Antarctic Glaciers Are Growing Unstable Above and Below Water  Shipping all the psychotherapists in New York City to Antarctica would solve more problems than I could count.

42-Square-Mile Ice Chunk Breaks Off From Greenland Ice Cap