DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

Ben Thompson at Stratechery.

I’ve long maintained that if the powers-that-be understood what the Internet’s impact would be, they would have never allowed it to be created. It’s hard to accuse said shadowy figures of negligence, however, given how clueless technologists were as well; look no further than an operating system like Windows.

Ben Thompson is one of the most respected voices in tech journalism.

UK Telegraph.

Two non-identical twin girls in the US were found to have a level of autism at 20 months old that required “very substantial support”.

A groundbreaking trial saw their parents and a team of medical experts create a bespoke two-year programme of interventions designed to help the children thrive and flourish as much as possible.

Scientists say the programme was successful, with both girls undergoing “dramatic improvements” in the severity of their symptoms.

Navy Matters.

‘Defeat in detail’ is a military tactic of destroying an enemy force by engaging its small, isolated units one by one with a larger force.

This is a great military theory – and proven successful – but it requires that the enemy present his forces in small, dispersed packets ready to be defeated. This generally only happens if one is fighting an utterly inept foe or if the enemy’s units are forced to disperse due to unrecoverable circumstances such as the rout of a main force or the end of a conflict when the enemy lacks the forces to mass and fight.

In other words, no sane military is going to willingly present its forces to the enemy in small, isolated units. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the Navy and Marines seem determined to do. They seem committed to a war doctrine of small, isolated, individually weak units that will, in some unexplained and unfathomable manner, not only survive and avoid defeat in detail but will go on to exert an effect greater than the woefully weak sum of its parts.

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Biden’s X account shared a letter that he supposedly signed on Sunday announcing that he’s dropping his re-election campaign in favor of endorsing Kamala, which led to everyone from the Soroses to Hillary throwing their support behind her, with the notable exception of Obama. The New York Times (NYT) cited people close to him though who advised “not to read too much into it” since he supposedly wants to “position himself as an impartial elder statesman above intraparty machinations”.

The circumstances surrounding Biden’s decision are super controversial since he’s supposedly isolating after falling ill with COVID for a third time despite his multiple vaccinations and had reportedly felt backstabbed by the Obama-Pelosi duopoly’s plot to turn the media and party elites against him. The NYT described Obama as the “puppet master” of this operation and Pelosi as the “main instigator”, yet that’s all now being memory-holed, as is talk about Biden’s cognitive faculties since he hasn’t (yet?) resigned.

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The bizarre resignation of President Joe Biden plunged the United States into a crisis unlike any it has known. This is what Biden and his party, those stalwart Defenders Of Democracy against the Trumpian menace, have done to the country, out of their arrogant self-righteousness.

The June 27 Atlanta debate with Donald Trump destroyed the lie told by the White House, the Democrats, and their lackeys in the news media: that aging, enfeebled Joe Biden was fit for office. The post-debate network interviews and the campaign speeches at worst reinforced the declinist narrative, and at best failed to reassure anybody not already blinded by ideology. That number includes donors, whose idealistic political zeal is tempered by the hard fact that they have to pay for it.

Donations dried up. More and more Democratic members of Congress began to say Joe must go. Over the past few days, the Democratic leadership played an extraordinary game of psychological pressure, leaking to the media stories that the president was on the verge of withdrawing from the race, forcing the White House to issue denials. Was this an attempt at some kind of soft coup, an attempt to gaslight Biden into quitting?

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Residents of Nantucket, Massachusetts, spoke out on Wednesday at a town hall against a wind power company for a “turbine blade failure incident” that resulted in debris washing up along the beach.

ZMan points out some inconvenient truth.

The term “conspiracy theory” has been a popular and effective slur against anyone skeptical of official narratives for a long time. The main reason it has been effective is it was always used against people with implausible theories. While the official narrative may not hold up, the alternatives ranged from unlikely to absurd. We have now reached a point where the poles have reversed. The “conspiracy theories” are often far more plausible and sober minded than official narratives.

Washington Free Beacon.

Vice President Kamala Harris said on Sunday that she will run to succeed her octogenarian boss after President Joe Biden bowed out of the presidential race.

And so, as she endeavors to unburden herself by what has been, a refresher on Vice President Kamala Harris: Here at the Free Beacon, we’ve been chronicling her “Veep Thoughts” since early 2022. Watch the latest volume here.

The last time Harris sought the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination things didn’t go quite as she had planned. Politico characterized the campaign as one with “no discipline, no plan, no strategy.” Harris launched her campaign in January 2019 and dropped out by the end of the year, before her home state of California voted in the primary. She suffered a number of self-inflicted setbacks along the way.

I do not believe that Jambalaya Harris will be the Democrat Presidential nominee. Harris is a terrible candidate, as she demonstrated in front of God and everybody in the primaries. She’s Joe Biden without even the excuse of Alzheimer’s.

My money is on Gavin Newsom. He’s the only other viable candidate. And the most likely candidate for his Vice-Presidential nominee would be Gretchen Whitmer.

But we shall see.

Fact check: Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech (CNN)

The old Trump opened the door for Democrats to defeat the new Trump (Washington Poop)

After calling for unity, Trump voices familiar grievances (NBC News)

Carnegie Mellon University Prof Says Trump Assassination Attempt Was “Staged” Like “Stupid Tubi Movie Set”

Ready for Round 2: Why we Need Hillary more than ever (Pablo O’Hana/The Hill)

Secret Service said to have denied requests for more security at Trump events (Washington Post)

Tech broligarchs are lining up to court Trump. And Vance is one more link in the chain (Carole Cadwalladr/The Guardian)  ‘Broligarchs’?

David Lammy has a Trump problem

Inside the ‘Gangster’ Image of Donald Trump (Jennifer Medina/New York Times)

A Shooting Changed Reagan’s Presidency. Will It Change Trump? (Jonathon L. Earle/Politico)

Some Black startup founders feel betrayed by Ben Horowitz’s support for Trump (Dominic-Madori Davis/TechCrunch)  I guess skin color doesn’t trump economic self-interest.

J.D. Vance Pounded Beers and Told Me Trump Threatens America: Comedian (The Daily Beast)  Sure, I believe that.

Secret Service Tried to Deny Security at Barron’s Graduation

Is Left-Wing ‘Trump-As-Hitler Iconography’ In The Mainstream Media Responsible For The Attempt To Assassinate The 45th President?

The GOP’s one-man show, starring Donald Trump (CBS News)

Election Countdown, 108 Days to Go: Trump’s Disastrous Speech Follows Biden’s Disastrous Debate. (James Fallows/Breaking the News)

Pulitzer-winning author Anne Applebaum: ‘Often, for autocrats, the second time in power is worse’ (Tim Adams/The Guardian)

Election Live Updates: Trump, Leaving Unity Behind, Insults Biden, Who Remains Sidelined With Covid (Michael D. Shear/New York Times)  I’ll be happy to insult him for you.

ABC Huffs Biden’s Drop Out Will ‘Be Used By Republicans’ Against Dems  Oh, ya think?

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I guess that means she glows in the dark. Draw your own conclusions.

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Saw that comin’.

The Other McCain.

The parents of the baby apparently owed $100 for “narcotics,” a debt which Billips apparently intended to collect. Also, the parents had outstanding warrants, while Billips had been the victim of a shooting two years ago. Probably in your neighborhood, such incidents are rare, but in the Holmesburg neighborhood of Philadelphia?

You don’t want to be anywhere near that neighborhood. Did I mention that Joe Biden got 81% of the vote in Philadelphia?

Obviously we need to ban firearms from Women of Color. You know how oppressed they are; who can blame them for just snapping?

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An 89-year-old comedian is recovering after being randomly punched and knocked to the ground while waiting to cross a street in New York earlier this month.

She was, how shall I say it, not a Person of Color.

Police on Saturday said the female suspect in the July 10 incident had a medium complexion and cornrow braids and was last seen wearing a tank top and shorts with a Jurassic Park logo.

Gee, I wonder how she ‘identifies’….

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With more than half of German welfare payments going to foreign migrants, the state of Saxony-Anhalt has cut the benefits of asylum seekers who refused to pick up debris following heavy flooding in east Germany.

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Hundreds of Kenyan soldiers deployed to Haiti have begun patrolling the streets around key government installations. Gunfire was heard during the operation and an American armored vehicle broke down.

This week, Kenyan soldiers in American MRAP vehicles patrolled the streets of Port au Prince near the National Palace. The troops are in Haiti on a UN Security Council-endorsed mission to take control of the capital city from armed groups.

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Major Democratic donors who joined a conference call starring Vice President Kamala Harris say the event’s sloppy organization and scolding tone left them feeling unimpressed and insulted, NBC News has reported.

“It was a total failure. It was damaging. It was poor planning,” said one. Another called it “ludicrous.” It was also described as “mismanaged and rushed.”

The Friday call with about 300 heavy-hitter donors kicked off with reports from field organizers, who used their time to vent anger over the intra-party battle over whether Biden should be replaced atop the ticket, owing to plunging confidence in his mental health.

One participant described how organizers stalled to buy time while everyone waited for Harris to join the call 20 minutes after it started. During that stretch, the donors were “admonished” against agitating to replace Biden, and were instructed to “lock in and get behind” the faltering and frail 81-year-old.

Steve Graham.

I keep saying evil spirits are loose on the earth, corrupting people’s minds. They fill us with delusions. That’s why people keep saying so many nutty things these days. It explains a lot of the Democratic Party’s platform. It explains the flat Earth insanity. It explains the people who think the pandemic, not just the virus, was created deliberately. It explains the folks who insist men are women.

Today it occurred to me that there may be a person we can use as our barometer/coal mine canary. Keith Olbermann.

Olbermann is, without exaggeration, deranged. He has both feet planted firmly in police welfare-check territory, not far at all from the threshold of involuntary commitment. He says things so kooky they would embarrass Whoopi Goldberg.

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“The strength of our organization,” Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle argued in the 2023 report, lay in, among other things, “seeking out the boundless benefits of diversity.”

The Secret Service offers “leadership training on how best to support LGBTQ+ employees” and “training on unconscious bias” which is the idea that all white people are innately racist, and tries to guide more “more inclusive decisions” while “increasing empathy” for minorities.

Special Agents in Charge are tasked with DEI which distracts from their core duties, but diversity and its boundless benefits was not why the Secret Service existed. The Left was.

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The Olympic Games will be starting shortly in Paris, and it looks like the next few weeks will be a busy time for the Parisian police.

The following report concerns a Senegalese culture-enricher in Paris who was shot dead after attacking a policeman with a knife.

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Pandemic social distancing is linked to higher rates of preterm births and newborn deaths within one to two months, according to a new study.

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Thank you, Joe Biden.

‘Cognitively diminished, old vaudeville performer’: Joy on Trump’s rambling RNC speech (MSNBC) This was the most un-Trump-like speech he’s ever made. I wish these people would make up their minds.

Trump Struggles to Turn the Page on ‘American Carnage’ (New York Times)

Trump the Lion, or Trump the Lyin’? (Maureen Dowd/New York Times)

Project 2025 Plan for Trump Presidency Has Far-Reaching Threats to Science (scientificamerican.com)

The RNC clarified Trump’s 2024 persona: Moderate authoritarian weirdo (Eric Levitz/Vox)

The totalitarian tell in Trump’s “unity” speech (Jamison Foser/Finding Gravity)

Trump’s RNC speech was divisive, but front pages of mainstream media claimed it was “unifying” and “healing” (Courtney Hagle/Media Matters for America)

MSNBC’s Sanders was ‘Sickened’ by Tribute to Corey Comperatore Jacket ‘Prop’

Leftists Prove They Are Zealots In The Wake Of Trump Shooting

Whoopi Goldberg Slammed for Attack on Trump Granddaughter

NPR Bashes RNC: ‘Violent Rhetoric and Attacks on Undocumented Immigrants’

Vexed By Her Unifying Endorsement Of Trump, Morning Joe Attacked Nikki Haley

A Searing Reminder That Trump Is Unwell (Tom Nichols/The Atlantic)

JD Vance’s wife faces racist online backlash from far-right social media posts (Kiara Alfonseca/ABC News) As opposed to the racist online backlash from the Left against her husband for being a white male. Pot, meet kettle.

Trump is poised to bypass his legal woes thanks to judges he appointed (Kyle Cheney/Politico) Like the way Obama and Biden did. Quelle surprise.

‘Anti-Psychopath PAC’ Set up Against Donald Trump (Alia Shoaib/Newsweek)

Trump’s GOP is no country for MAGA women (Amanda Marcotte/Salon)  Certainly no country for Amanda Marcotte.

Tossing Trump’s case was risky for Judge Cannon – at least for now (Ann E. Marimow/Washington Post)

PBS: Trump Is ‘Uglier And Darker,’ More ‘Dangerous’ Than 2016 On Immigration

Gov. Pritzker’s Role In The Extreme Rhetoric Surrounding Donald Trump

How Project 2025 would change American life (Jacob Knutson/Axios)

“Many Educators Portrayed Trump As An Existential Threat. Moving Forward, A Narrative Shift Is Essential”

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The study done by the university’s Center for American Institutions argued that there is a emphasis on training new soldiers about social issues like “unconscious bias” and “intersectionality” in a way the center says runs contrary to typical American ideals. The study examined DEI plan’s in different sector of the military, including DEI office staffing and education at academies like West Point.

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Freeman’s academic interests were framed by her activist experiences. She was deeply involved in the seventies attempts to get feminist planks onto the Democratic and Republican party platforms. Up to that juncture the Republican Party had far stronger feminist credentials than the Democrats did; had the feminist of 1960 been forced to predict which party would champion her cause thirty years later, she would have guessed the GOP.

This is not what happened. That is the mystery that drives much of Freeman’s late ‘80s work: why did the feminist movement succeed so brilliantly with the Democrats, but fail so miserably with the Republicans? Freeman argues that this had less to do with demographics or deep ideological alignment than with the structures and operational culture of each party. Although both parties have changed in the days since Freeman stalked the convention floors, many of the differences she observed between the two parties still hold true today.

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Amid on the ongoing Israel war on Hamas, the terrorist-run Gaza health officials’ narrative has permeated Reuters and The Associated Press, and now The Washington Post has been called out for taking the terrorists’ side over a wistful hope of a family of a hostage still held.

The Other McCain.

Having written thousands of words on this subject — there’s a whole chapter in Donkey Cons about the damage that Democrats have inflicted on urban America — perhaps I mistakenly take it for granted that other people understand this problem as well as I do. But then I look at current trends and realize that white liberals continue to vote for Democrats who pursue the same path of destruction that made Coleman Young infamous.

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A patented experimental propellantless propulsion drive is finally ready to go to space, according to its inventor, a veteran NASA scientist with decades of expertise in electrostatics.

Dr. Charles Buhler, the technology’s creator, says the propulsion system may represent a working version of Quantized Inertia, a theory first proposed by University of Plymouth professor Mike McCulloch. The proposition has been subjected to criticism from mainstream scientists in the past because it seemingly violates Newton’s third law of motion.

The controversial technology, which The Debrief covered in April, is privately owned by Exodus Propulsion Technologies and is not affiliated with NASA.

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It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feed fine — because Costco has an emergency dinner kit, dubbed “the apocalypse bucket” online, that lasts 25 years.

The Readywise Emergency Food Bucket, which boasts 150 freeze-dried and dehydrated meal servings, has caused a stir on social media. With an online price tag of $79.99, the bucket boasts that it’s more than just food in its product description — it says it provides “readiness in the face of uncertainty.”

The bucket features 80 entrees and sides, 30 breakfast servings and 40 drink servings that just need water to prepare, for a total of 25,280 calories. The meal options range from teriyaki rice, tomato basil soup and pasta Alfredo to cheesy macaroni and apple cinnamon cereal.

And, crucially for those preparing for an apocalypse, the bucket lasts up to 25 years on the shelf.

Just in case Biden gets re-elected. In my town, you get 132 servings for $70. That’s a little over five weeks. Where else can you get five weeks of food for $70?

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We have the technology.

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More than seventeen years ago I wrote about the Zones Urbaines Sensibles, or Sensitive Urban Zones (ZUS), in France. They are dangerous culturally enriched neighborhoods that firemen and ambulance drivers won’t enter without a police escort, and which the police themselves avoid unless they absolutely have to go there. In English they are commonly referred to as “no-go zones”.

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An International Man lives and does business wherever he finds conditions most advantageous, regardless of arbitrary borders. He’s diversified globally, with passports from multiple countries, assets in several jurisdictions, and his residence in yet another. He doesn’t depend absolutely on any country and regards all of them as competitors for his capital and expertise.

Living as an international man has always been an interesting possibility. But few Americans opted for it, since the U.S. used to reward those who settled in and put down roots. In fact, it rewarded them better than any other country in the world, so there was no pressing reason to become an international man.

Things change, however, and being rooted like a plant – at least if you have a choice – is a suboptimal strategy if you wish to not only survive, but prosper. Throughout history, almost every place has at some point become dangerous for those who were stuck there. It may be America’s turn.

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In the bad old days, before G-Men took down the mob, were urbanites getting a better deal? Does the betting man receive worse odds from state run lotteries than Vinny gave on the corner running numbers? Did businesses shaken down for “protection” have higher hopes of survival in mob clutches than in municipal ones? Was there more or less anxiety about making rent or the mortgage in 1974 than in 2024? Which is the greater fiscal peril, organized crime or uber-societal-organization? It has become a valid question.

Sometimes the major difference between the government and the mob is the quality of their suits. Certainly the mob offers better protection from random street crime than, say, Gavin Newsom.

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Big tech’s crackdown on “gunfluencers” is nothing new, but policies at social media companies are becoming increasingly restrictive (read: here), leading to the demonetization of numerous channels. The latest victim of this aggressive censorship isn’t even the typical gun YouTuber but instead a competitive rifle shooter on Team USA for the Paralympics.

Just The News reports that McKenna Geer, a competitive rifle shooter, had her Instagram account censored before she heads to Paris for the Paralympic Games in late August. Next week, the Olympic Games are set to begin.

Victor Davis Hanson.

When Donald Trump seemed to have a lock on the 2016 Republican primary, the Democratic Party concluded that the people could not be counted on to do the “right thing” of electing the Democratic candidate in waiting Hillary Clinton.

What followed were eight long years of extralegal efforts to neuter candidate, then president, then ex-president, and then candidate again, Donald Trump.

The nonstop efforts were all justified as “saving democracy”—albeit by nearly destroying it.

In 2015-2016, the Hillary Clinton campaign fueled the lie that discredited ex-British spy Christopher Steele had discovered Trump to be a veritable Russian agent.

Hillary did not disclose that she had paid Steele—with checks hidden through three paywalls. The FBI, under Director James Comey, also hired the fraudster.

Yet almost nothing in his “Steele dossier” was true.

Reuters.

While new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer settles into No. 10 Downing St, Haidar is searching for homes in Greece and Monaco, because a proposed inheritance tax revamp will make Britain a ‘no go’ zone for the rich, he says.

Starmer says the overhaul will make Britain’s tax system fairer and raise funds for stretched public services.

Labour never saw a deep pocket that they didn’t want to stick their hand in. Politicians everywhere are firmly convinced that they can spend your money better than you can.

Undecided voters grade Trump’s performance at RNC. See if he passed (CNN) It’s CNN, so what do you think they say, not even having read it?

Anti-party in a ghost town: Trump’s undead GOP holds an un-convention (Andrew O’Hehir/Salon)

A rash of tech billionaires are pivoting to Trump – but not because they’re MAGA bros (Allison Morrow/CNN)

White Men Can Vote: The Logic Behind J.D. Vance for VP (Marc A. Caputo/The Bulwark)

Days After Trump Assassination Attempt, Scripps News Contributor Steve Schmidt Pens RNC Analysis Rife With Nazi Comparisons

BlueAnon Rears Its Head: One-Third of Dems Believe Conspiracy Theory That Trump Staged Assassination Attempt

Digging In: Rep. Mondaire Jones Says He Won’t Be ‘Gaslit’ Away From Decrying Trump as a ‘Threat to Democracy’

Whistleblowers Reveal Security Failures at Trump Rally (House Committee on the Judiciary)

Whoopi Attacks Trump’s Grandkids: ‘They’re Trying to Humanize Him!’  How dare they!

Secret Service Whistleblowers Emerge Following Trump Assassination Attempt

PBS, David Frum Condemn Trump for Using Shooting ‘In an Improper Way’  Uh-oh … David Frum … step back….

PBS Hurls Bad Fact Checks: GOP Voting Concerns Could Mean ‘Political Violence’

Tucker Carlson, Ousted by Fox, Roars Into Milwaukee as a Top Trump Ally (New York Times)

Globalist “Guru” Claims Trump’s Re-Election Will Mean ‘The Death Of Global Order’

Nicolle Wallace: Republicans ‘Totally Codependent on Disinformation’

CBS’s Margaret Brennan: ‘The Strongman Has a Family, Too’

Bulwark Never-Trumper Accuses Republicans of ‘Losing the Plot,’ Confusing Presidents

Excruciating! Trump’s Endlessly Long, Wildly Dishonest RNC Speech (S.V. Date/HuffPost)

EU Parliament Refuses To Condemn Trump Assassination Attempt

Joy Reid Insists Trump’s Speech Proves His Brain Is as Bad as Biden’s

Joy Reid Thinks Masculinity is ‘White-Adjacent’  Well, yeah.

Are Trump Scandals Just Endless Hours of Noise?

Fact check: Trump makes more than 20 false claims in RNC acceptance speech (CNN)

Trump tramples unity theme in two-act convention speech (Zachary Basu/Axios)

Morning Joe Warning To MSM: Do NOT Praise Trump’s New Tone!

The RNC Is Calling This Billionaire Trump Donor an ‘Everyday American’ (Rolling Stone)

Republicans Say They Want to Tone Down Political Rhetoric – But They Keep Calling Immigration an ‘Invasion’ (Casey Murray/NOTUS)  Because that’s what it is. Truth is not ‘political rhetoric’.

Trump shooter used Android phone from Samsung; cracked by Cellebrite in 40 minutes

Post-Speech Roundup: Trump’s a Narcissist Full of Lies and ‘Unity’ Bunk!

Donald Trump Can (and Must) Be Defeated (Dan Pfeiffer/The Message Box)

Colbert Attacks ‘Deeply, Psychotically Weird’ RNC  Like being called ugly by a frog.

Donald Trump Cannot Even Pretend to Change Who He Is (Jonathan Chait/New York Magazine)

TEMP NOT LOWERED: MSNBC ‘Historian’ Claims Trump Win Will Lead to ‘Dictatorship’

This Crew Is Totally Beatable (David Frum/The Atlantic)  But not by that crew.

Comedy Shows Smear Republicans As Racist Cultists During RNC

ABC Melts Down Over Trump’s ‘Dark,’ ‘Anti-Immigrant’ Speech, SLAM Biden for Staying in

What Happens When a Felon Throws a ‘Law-and-Order’ Convention (Will Saletan/The Bulwark)

Maddow Sees ‘Alt-Right’ In Vance’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ Fandom  Maddow sees ‘Alt-Right’ in cloud formations.

PBS’s Capehart: Trump ‘Deified,’ I Am ‘Terrified’ of ‘We Love Trump’ Chant

Charlottesville tiki torch rioter endorses Donald Trump at his Jan. 6 sentencing (Ryan J. Reilly/NBC News)  Trump is his only hope of receiving justice.

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A Paris police officer was attacked and stabbed by a 27-year-old foreigner on Champs-Elysées on Thursday, mere days before the start of the Paris Olympics. The attacker was shot by another officer, and died from the injuries from that gunshot wound. This knife attack comes just days after a man stabbed and wounded a French soldier patrolling Paris on Monday outside the Gare de l’Est train station in eastern Paris.

Paris police were responding to a call from security personnel at the flagship Louis Vuitton store on one of the city’s most famous promenades, according to a post on X by French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin. The security officers had noticed a man exhibiting “suspicious behavior” outside the store and called the police, according to a police official. The man then attacked one of the officers with a knife.

Paris police chief Laurent Nuñez said the attack did not appear linked to the Olympics and no terrorist motive was suspected. Nevertheless, it comes just days before the world’s premier sporting event starts in the French capital—and hot on the heels of another attack on police.

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Yesterday, smoke rose from a city of just over 500,000 inhabitants in West Yorkshire, namely the city of Leeds, around 10% of which is now Muslim. A very large number of the Muslim minority took to the streets to riot. A bus was set on fire; buildings and cars were smashed apart; and police personnel were attacked, with many of their vehicles being damaged, including at least one police car being overturned. Police were forced to flee the area in which the violence was erupting, and thereafter, the rioters were seemingly left in peace to continue their rampage.

The proximate reason for this explosion of violence remains as yet unclear, though the media have been reporting that it began with some sort of “family incident.” The general reason for this riot, however, is certainly known to the whole country. For decades, the ordinary English inhabitants of England have witnessed their country being transformed by the colonisation and repopulation of their towns and cities by arrivals from abroad. They have looked to the media and the political class for some critical consideration of what has been taking place, and they have heard nothing but the sound of crickets. If anyone was unwise enough to speak out about what was happening, he was subjected to accusations of ‘racism’ and ‘xenophobia’ and his career was put at risk. This culture of censorship, that soon gave rise to a culture of self-censorship, has been extremely effective.

The Other McCain.

I must confess that sometimes, when I hear about a road-rage incident escalating into deadly violence, I think to myself, “Maybe this isn’t really a bad thing.” Let’s admit that the victim of a fatal road-rage incident is perhaps not an entirely innocentvictim. You probably have to be a very bad driver to cause a traffic situation so bad that another driver decides he needs to kill you. So, a bad driver gets killed, and another driver with serious anger-management issues gets sent to prison for murder. Isn’t it possible to see that as a win-win? The bottom line is, you’re subtracting two drivers from the morning-commute traffic jam, and that’s a net benefit to society.

Good point.

Nature.

You can’t make this shit up.

I’ve always thought the pituitary was the spitting gland.

Roger Kimball.

Human beings are animals that often operate by proxy. Here’s a familiar example from the world of — well, I was going to say “the law,” but what I have in mind is not the law but its perversion, so let’s say “the legal bureaucracy.” Everyone has heard the phrase “the process is the punishment.” It covers a multitude of sins. In its core signification, the phrase describes an increasingly common situation in which the machinery of the law is deployed to harass, enervate, stymie and otherwise hobble someone the regime does not like but whom, for the time being anyway, it chooses not to incarcerate. Sometimes it is easier to bankrupt and demoralize an opponent into submission.

Relevant here is a conversation I had more than a decade ago with a couple of worldly friends who can fairly be described as experts in the operation of the law. A prominent businessman had just been indicted and one of my friends observed that the indictment meant that he was sure to be cashiered, and soon. But what about being presumed innocent until proven guilty? I asked. My friends did not actually laugh, but they did smile as they explained that in our system the actual dispensation was “innocent until indicted.” Once indicted you are a marked man, as your banker will explain.

The political landscape is littered with victims of our extralegal legal process, as such names as Mike Flynn, Peter Navarro, John Eastman and of course Donald Trump will remind you. Their fates help to explain why you hear more and more people talking about our “two-tier” justice system, which is just periphrasis for “injustice,” and our “Stalinist” courts and judges, which is just an illuminating historical parallel to what is actually happening.

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Elon Musk is parting from his home state, publicly endorsing Trump minutes after the former president was almost assassinated at his rally in Pennsylvania. Musk also announced he will be donating $45 million to a pro-Trump political action committee and that he will be moving the headquarters of SpaceX and X from California to Austin, Texas.

He is among many other Silicon Valley billionaires who are announcing their support for Trump following the attack, including Bill Ackman, the Pershing Square Capital Management CEO.

Musk cited California governor Gavin Newsom’s new law that bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change as the “final straw,” as the law was “attacking both families and companies.”

California state senator Scott Wiener, a former chair of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus, called Musk “a textbook example of why kids shouldn’t be forced to come out to their parents.” Musk said he made “it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”

Well, yeah. This is a surprise?

Keith Richards has outlived Richard Simmons.

Think about it.

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Fresh from her re-election campaign, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined plans for a new EU Housing Commissioner at a plenary session in Strasbourg on Thursday.

In a classic example of EU overreach, von der Leyen described how Brussels would develop a “European Affordable Housing Plan, to look at all the drivers of the crisis and to help unlock the private and public investment needed,” and that bureaucrats would create a new Housing Commissioner to administer the task.

While von der Leyen was short on details, pundits believe that the EU will direct additional funding to so-called ‘cohesion funds’ originally meant for underdeveloped member states. This funding will support the housing project, and the European Investment Bank will launch a new tool to attract more public and private funding for building projects.