News of the Week for Aug. 15^th, 2021

• Riots & Revolution
• Corona Virus
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Riots & Revolution

 

Farrakhan Roots Feed Black Lives Matter Movement Anti-Semitism
A recent conference panel organized by the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism at Indiana University highlighted the influence of classic anti-Semitism in Black Lives Matter’s anti-Zionism.

Dem Official Says Burning Police Station Was “Act of Pure Righteousness”
Minneapolis party chairman says ‘decorum’ is ‘hallmark of white supremacy’

Fall of Kabul Imminent: Taliban Could Take Over Afghanistan Within Weeks
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. diplomat who negotiated a withdrawal deal with the Taliban last year, is back in Doha, Qatar, desperately trying to cobble together some kind of face-saving agreement for the Afghan government that would allow them to leave the country alive.

North Korea Defector Yeonmi Park Details Horrors of Life in Communist Dystopia
“Seeing bodies on the street is an every day thing”

After shooting in broad daylight, Oakland’s Chinatown asks Gov. Newsom to send in the CHP
There was a shooting in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood last weekend. A man attempted to intercede when two men got out of a car and attempted to steal purses from two women walking along the sidewalk. One of the robbers shot the man twice and then got back into his car and drove away. As you’ll see in this report, one local resident said of Oakland’s streets, “There’s no law and order. We’re going back to the wild, wild west.”

Indictments in Secoriea Turner case reveal Rayshard Brooks was a member of the Bloods gang
Last year an 8-year-old girl named Secoriea Turner was shot and killed by men who had set up roadblocks in the street near the Wendy’s restaurant where Rayshard Brooks was killed. When Ed first wrote about this case on July 6, 2020 he noticed that reports didn’t seem to identify exactly who was behind the shooting

 

Corona Virus

 

Federal judge: Cruise lines can require proof of vaccination — even in Florida
It’s an injunction and not a final ruling, but it’s still a loss for Ron DeSantis. In April, the Florida governor issued an executive order, later passed as a statute, that prohibited businesses from imposing requirements to show COVID-19 vaccination status as a condition of entry. That may have proven popular in some circles, but not among cruise line operators, who wanted to reassure passengers that they would be safe from COVID-19 — or at least as safe as possible.

US investigates latest case of a rare tropical disease
U.S. health officials are investigating the latest fatal case of a rare tropical disease typically found in South Asia.

California Becomes First State to Require Vaccine or Regular COVID Testing for Teachers
California will become the first state in the country to require all teachers and school staff to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo weekly testing, Governor Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday.

China Allegedly Faked “Swiss Biologist” Who Blamed the U.S. for WHO’s Wuhan Lab Investigation
The Swiss response to the situation shows they have clearly mastered the art of neutrality.

WHO scientist: China pressured us not to mention lab leak in the report and maybe there’s a reason for that
There are really two stories significant stories here both of which come from an interview which Peter Ben Embarek gave to Danish documentary makers. Embarek is the person who led the WHO investigation into the origin of the coronavirus, including a visit to Wuhan. He had some interesting things to say about the lab leak theory. The first bit of news is that the Chinese scientists involved in the investigation did their best not to have the theory mentioned at all in the final report.

White House considering vaccine mandates for … interstate travel?
There’s a minor freakout happening on social media about this passage in a new AP story, understandably so given how it’s phrased. Are the feds so consumed with limiting the spread of Delta that they’re considering requiring proof of vaccination for all interstate travel?

Biden Admin: Gender Identity More Valuable to Pandemic Response Than Economic Anxiety
Census replaces income loss inquiry to make room for gender identity in COVID questionnaire

 

Gun Rights

 

NC Democrats, Activists Defend Jim Crow-Era Gun Control Law
The fight over North Carolina’s pistol purchase permit laws is seeing new life, with Republicans in the state Senate picking up legislation that would repeal the Jim Crow-era gun control law that requires would-be handgun owners to first obtain the approval of their local sheriff before being legally allowed to buy a pistol. The North Carolina House of Representatives approved the measure earlier this year, and Tuesday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to follow suit, though the bill needs at least one more committee vote before being discharged to the Senate floor.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Get Ready for Peak Climate Porn Today
The new UN IPCC report on climate change dropped this morning, and guess what? The world is going to boil if we don’t end cheap energy right away. Bet you didn’t see that coming.

The next great climate threat? Ganja
In the end, everything will succumb to the Gaia emergency … even the bounties of Gaia. After having pushed for legalized marijuana for decades and promoting the industrialization of the industry, progressives have suddenly discovered that adding a massive cash crop to America’s ag sector has an impact on the environment.

Wild Rice Sues to Stop Repair of Oil Pipeline
This is the peril posed by the “nature rights” movement. Whenever any human activity interferes with what environmentalists believe should be done, such laws permit them to sue and stop the enterprise.

The Sunrise Movement’s Members Of Color Say The Group “Tokenized” And “Used” Them For Years
Internal memos show that activists of color within the Sunrise Movement have privately alleged mistreatment for years — as the climate group publicly fought for racial justice.

Peak Oil—Facts and Fictions
I decided to draft this possible guest post, based on my three ebooks, (all available very affordably on iBooks and Amazon Kindle) because newbie poster MI will not go away on WUWT, and keeps posting OT false peak oil stuff partly directed to his blog, all the while not responding to my several comments to him. I for sure cannot direct any one anywhere, even to my published eBooks. So, here is a simple WUWT “peak oil” fact summary gratis drawn from those. May Dave Middleton forgive my geological layman’s possible detail errors in the big picture portrayed here, for which he certainly has better SME knowledge than I. Plus, I know from previous comments that there are those reading here since years who think no such peak oil thingy exists. Sort of like no GHE, or no ECS. This post is mainly aimed at those who still don’t, in addition to MI.

The Disaster of Green Energy
I didn’t write anything yesterday because my day was taken up with two anti-Green Energy events here in Minnesota. The first was a lunch in Albert Lea, which anti-wind activists drove up to four hours to attend. The second was a cocktail hour program in a Minneapolis suburb attended by more than 250. The speakers were Isaac Orr of Center of the American Experiment and Robert Bryce, one of the country’s top energy experts. The title of the program was “The Environmental Catastrophe of Wind and Solar Power,” although the program’s content was somewhat broader than that. What follows are a few of the slides from yesterday’s presentation that illustrate the foolishness of trying to power our electric grid–let alone our whole economy!–with wind and solar energy.

Dutch Don’t Care Much for Climate Agenda
And that’s not tulips: It’s mainly meat, dairy, and eggs — which means a lot of

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Why Is the NHS — and the High Court — Determined for Alta Fixsler to Die?
Bill McGurn writes about the ongoing fight to get two-year-old Alta Fixsler out of her U.K.-NHS prison, explaining that this isn’t even a cost-saving measure (as bad as that would be), but something “more monstrous”

 

War & Terror

 

China Moves Its New Armored Tactical Vehicle to Mass Production
The new vehicle would need to be substantially fortified with new protections to rival the combat performance of an up-armored Humvees.

Three Tibetans Arrested in Qinghai For Sharing Photos Outside the Region
China has imposed communication clampdowns in Tibet and Tibetan areas of Chinese provinces to stop information from reaching Tibetans living in exile and other outside contacts.

Report: Biden had hoped for a “better behaved Taliban”
According to some White House sources speaking with the Associated Press this week, there’s a pressing question on the minds of many analysts observing the American bug-out from Afghanistan. Who could have foreseen how rapidly and brutally the Taliban would retake nearly the entire country? Apparently not President Biden or his military advisers. They had been banking on a “better behaved Taliban” that would conform more closely to international norms in the hopes of gaining international respect and aid. Looking at the reports coming out of the few news outlets still able to safely operate inside the country, those plans simply aren’t panning out at all. Given their behavior over the past twenty years, how could anyone not see this coming?

U.S. Intelligence: Kabul Could Fall to Taliban “Within 90 Days”
The AP: “Taliban could gain full control of the country within a few months.”

Biden admin asks Taliban to spare the embassy when they sack Kabul
Kandahar, Herat, Ghazni fall?

Kabul to Taliban: How about we share power?
Thus far, this seems to be more rumor than confirmed … and in more ways than one. The Taliban has conducted a psy-ops campaign to demoralize the Afghanistan military that includes suggestions that the central government has already cut a deal to cede large swaths of the country to the insurgents. Now, Al Jazeera and other outlets report that a “top government source” claims that Kabul has offered a power-sharing arrangement to end the civil war

Leverage Lost: U.S. Dangles Aid to Prevent Taliban Attack on Embassy in Kabul
The Biden administration is dangling the possibility of U.S. aid to a potential future Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan, in a last-ditch bid to prevent an assault on its embassy in Kabul.

Exodus from Afghanistan: Hundreds of thousands flee their homes as Taliban take over country with people smuggler revealing thousands are already crossing the border PER DAY on their way to Europe and the UK
400,000 Afghans have fled their homes since the start of the year, including almost 300,000 since May

Taliban going door to door for girls as young as 12 to make them “sex slaves”
Taliban fighters are “going to door to door” to round up young girls to be “sex slaves” for fighters in the terror group, reports claim.

Navy Refines and Integrates Weapons on Its New Frigate
The new seventy-four-thousand-pound ship will be armed with thirty-two missile-firing Vertical Launch Systems able to fire SM-3 missiles, SM-6 missiles and Tomahawk missiles.

CNN: Afghanistan’s Fall Is a Neville Chamberlain-esque Failure and It’s Joe Biden’s Fault
CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen greeted Joe Biden’s vacation with a harsh but factual assessment of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan: It is Biden’s fault.

2,500 + 3,000 = 0
Just 2,500 troops. That’s all we have had the past few years in Afghanistan. You would not know that from press coverage. The Biden Administration, with the announcement of its withdrawal, has now had to send in 3,000 troops to help evacuate people. In other words, to reduce to zero, we have increased by 3,000.

That 70s Show, Getting Darker
Say this much for Jimmy Carter: it took him more than three years for his presidency to implode completely. By the end of 1979, we had high inflation, an energy crisis, American hostages in Iran, a geopolitical rival that held us in contempt and thought it has the wind of history at its back, prompting dangerous adventurism (including, ironically, in Afghanistan).

Taliban capture key northern city, approach Afghan capital
The Taliban have captured a large, heavily defended city in northern Afghanistan in a major setback for the government, and the insurgents are approaching the capital less than three weeks before the U.S. hopes to complete its troop withdrawal.

Seeking Change, Anti-Lukashenka Hackers Seize Senior Belarusian Officials’ Personal Data
They describe themselves as “apolitical” hackers who want to end Belarus’ “terrorist” regime and ensure equal rights for all. But the actions of Cyberpartisans, a group of Belarusian hackers who claim to have secured access to the passport data of millions of Belarusians, raise questions about how Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s opponents interpret the right to privacy.

Biden’s folly
Now comes word that Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country. The Taliban might have awaited the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 to take the capital city and make the humiliation of the United States even deeper. Maybe they have something special saved for that day. Even so, as of this morning, the humiliation appears to be complete and total. I yield the floor to News Items proprietor John Ellis in his post “Biden’s folly.”

Afghan president flees the country as Taliban move on Kabul
Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country Sunday, joining his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking Afghanistan.

Afghan president flees country as U.S. rushes to exit with Taliban on brink of power
U.S. forces were evacuating all staff from the American embassy via Kabul’s airport after Biden authorized the deployment of 5,000 troops to the country.

Afghanistan and Chicago
“I don’t know what everybody thought would happen. It’s literally history repeating itself. . . . No foresight in what enemy was being fought. Conventional war doesn’t beat an insurgency, period.”

Biden Looks a Lot Like Jimmy Carter
The utterly nauseating and unnecessary abandonment of Afghanistan to its fate recalls a similar humiliation at the hands of Islamist radicals in the Jimmy Carter administration. President Biden’s profligate spending policies are unleashing inflation that is sparking voter distrust so noticeable that even NPR is sounding the alarm. He is begging OPEC to come up with more oil while interfering with U.S. production. He announced barely a month ago, with great confidence, “The Taliban is not the south — the North Vietnamese army. They’re not — they’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of a embassy in the — of the United States from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.”

Biden’s Betrayal of Afghans Will Live in Infamy
Our abandonment of the Afghans who helped us, counted on us, and staked their lives on us is a final, gratuitous shame that we could have avoided.

 

National

 

A Census Mystery
Headline of the week: “Census Bureau statisticians and outside experts are trying to unravel a mystery: Why were so many questions about households in the 2020 census left unanswered?”

Time’s Up Chairwoman Resigns Due to Cuomo Ties, Allegedly Tried to Discredit Accuser
Kaplan’s firm represented a top Cuomo aide named in the AG’s report as the one who led the effort against the accuser.

Memo reveals UNC plan to sideline ‘diversity of thought’ ahead of Nikole Hannah-Jones appointment
In a memo to the chancellor, Dean King wrote that the school should ‘revisit ‘diversity of viewpoint’ in [its] definition of diversity.’

Mass Murder in Texas: Can You Guess Why National Media Have Ignored This?
Jeffrey Jack “Jeff” Gerla was a 47-year-old psychologist who had taught at Kilgore College and more recently worked as a mental health specialist at Rusk State Hospital, which is about 15 miles from where Jeff lived in a trailer behind his mother’s house in New Summerfield

The Wild, Wacky, Wonderful California Recall Election
Where would the United States be without California? There would be 40 million fewer people, that’s for sure. In fact, emptying the state of people might be a great idea. The natural beauty of the state — its majestic mountains, picturesque lakes, and raging rivers — is the envy of the lower 48. Only Alaska outdoes California in scenic wonders.

Oregon Proposal Would Redefine Breeding as a “Sexual Assault” on Animals
People wrongly think of the animal-rights movement as a more energetic form of animal-welfare advocacy. It is not. Rather, animal-rights activists intend to eventually outlaw all ownership of animals, a project they recognize as multi-generational.

GOP megadonors flock to Tim Scott, building 2024 buzz
Oracle’s Larry Ellison is the biggest name in a group of major Republican donors sending big money to South Carolina’s Scott.

Alleged Epstein victim sues Prince Andrew for sexual abuse
The lawsuit comes almost two years to the day that Epstein died in jail.

Sue the B******s!
The Upper Midwest Law Center, on whose board I serve, got national and even international publicity when it announced a week ago that it was pursuing four cases that generally relate to Critical Race Theory, in both the public and private sectors. On Friday, UMLC filed a complaint against Independent School District 194, which covers Lakeville, Minnesota, and that district’s Superintendent of Schools.

Frontiers in linguistic sensitivity
The death of St. George Floyd has been the occasion of deep thoughts of all kinds. On the assumption that he is taking a typical cut of the action, I note that attorney Ben Crump has come to Minnesota and found his stays lucrative beyond the dreams of avarice. Now he turns his attention to new frontiers in linguistic sensitivity as he salutes abolition — abolition of references to the master bedroom in Minnesota real estate listings.

Breaking: Cuomo Resigns
Apparently the walls have closed in sufficiently that even a mega-narcissist like Andrew Cuomo couldn’t escape.

Cuomo Resigning: “The Best Way I Can Help is if I Step Aside”
Cuomo still thinks he did nothing wrong: “In my mind I’ve never crossed the line with anyone.”

Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math. She doesn’t want to talk about it.
For the next five years, an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level.

The Colorado Rockies Dinger Affair and the Racism Deficit
We just got through yet another moral panic about a racist incident that didn’t actually happen. Sports media were ablaze with claims that a fan in Denver was loudly yelling the n-word at Lewis Brinson of the Marlins as he batted; the leather-lunged fan’s voice was picked up on the national TV broadcast. (An ironic location to be held up as an icon of racism, given that MLB had chosen Denver to replace Atlanta as the host of this year’s All-Star Game in a different lie-based moral panic about voting laws in Georgia.) Unfortunately for the people who jumped all over the story with gleeful eagerness, it turned out that (1) the fan was yelling “Dinger,” the name of the Colorado Rockies mascot, and, for good measure, (2) Brinson actually never heard him anyway.

Court Victory for Medical Conscience Because of RFRA
The secular Left wants to coerce doctors into performing abortions and transgender-transition interventions — even when doing so violates the doctors’ own religious beliefs. Toward that end, HHS passed a rule under Obamacare that punished refusal to perform abortions and transgender-transition interventions with fines and other penalties for “discrimination.”

Shock: Cuomo resigns
One of the weirdest people to ever hold high office in the United States. Probably one of the worst too, although that competition is stiff. But weirdest? No question.

Academia’s hostility to intellectual diversity suffers a courtroom setback
It is not surprising when a compound of moral arrogance and political authoritarianism — e.g., the culture of today’s academia — produces intolerance of intellectual diversity and disdain for the law. Nevertheless, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit was startled by the behavior of the University of Iowa: “We are hard-pressed to find a clearer example of viewpoint discrimination.”

Gavin Newsom allows parole of Clovis killer who buried developmentally disabled man alive
Gov. Gavin Newsom will not block the release of a killer who served four decades in prison for the murder of a developmentally disabled Clovis man he buried alive, officials said Monday.

Glenn Youngkin’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad July
Hope. It’s not a word that young Virginia Republicans have gotten to use for most of their lives. In fact, for my good friends in the College Republican branches, its a word we’ve never really gotten to use. Most of us started to be involved, at earliest, in 2017 – the year Ralph Northam blew out Ed Gillespie and the party lost nearly all of it’s Northern Virginia-area delegate seats. In 2018, the party nominated Cory Stewart for the Senate election. Stewart, who ran on keeping Confederate monuments up, lost by 17 points. 2019 saw the party lose another six delegate seats and two in the state senate – that lost us the majority in both bodies.

Party of the Century
What Barack Obama’s birthday gala shares with a bash from the past

Robin Comes Out as Bisexual!!!
Holy LGBTQ, Caped Crusader!!! Robin’s dropping big personal news in the latest installment of “Batman: Urban Legends” … he’s bisexual.

A Far-Fetched Scenario
Here’s the path that the scriptwriters would choose if we were living in a movie. First, New York trashes its hero governor after he turns out not to be a hero after all. Next comes California, which recalls Gavin Newsom and replaces him with a Republican. Soon after the recall, the 88-year-old Senator Dianne Feinstein leaves office and a Republican is appointed in her place. This flips the balance of the Senate to 49 Democrats and 51 Republicans, thereby killing the Democrats’ absurd $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, stalling the Biden presidency completely until at least the midterms, and prompting a besieged Justice Breyer to relax into another four years on the Supreme Court.

One Governor Down…
Looks like the walls really were closing in on Andrew Cuomo. Score one for Andy McCarthy.

Gavin Newsom Goes Captain Queeg
Gavin Newsom must have gotten some really bad recall election poll numbers today (or he was shaken by Andrew Cuomo’s rapid fall to political disgrace), because he completely lost it in an interview with editorial board members of the McClatchy newspapers. Keep in mind as you take this in that McClatchy is a liberal newspaper chain, and yet Newsom still lashes out at their totally legitimate questions, and has the body language of a certain Navy ship captain obsessed with some missing strawberries. The only thing missing are some large-gauge ball bearings for him to roll around in one hand.

Henry Kissinger & Eric Schmidt’s Big Treatise on Artificial Intelligence Panned in Early, Important Book Review
Henry Kissinger, age 97, has written a new book. One of his two co-authors is former Google chief Eric Schmidt.

Loudoun County Teacher Resigns: “I Quit Being a Cog in a Machine” That Pushes “Highly Politicized Agendas”
“Clearly, you’ve made your point. You no longer value me or many other teachers you’ve employed in this county.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom Facing “Wall of Apathy” in Recall Voting
Live by the ballot harvesting, die by the ballot harvesting: Democrats will mail ballots to the “unsophisticated” voters who most want Newsom gone.

July Consumer Prices Jumped 5.4% While Core Inflation Remained High
“The kind of inflation now is driven by the fact that there aren’t enough used cars, that the oil markets are rocking and rolling, that housing construction demand is high and there’s been trouble getting sawmills up and running.”

Citing diversity, BYU denies vaccine exemption for student with rare syndrome
One incoming student at BYU-Hawaii was denied a COVID vaccine exemption even though she has a rare condition caused by a previous vaccine.

Spacesuits and Lawsuits Put 2024 Moon Landing in Jeopardy
Two lunar-exploration spacesuits won’t be ready, a new report says, while bid protests have held up work on the lander.

Cuomo resigns. Brother and 2 LGBTQ+ leaders next?
9 months after the media awarded him an Emmy for his covid briefings, Democrat Andy Cuomo announced today he will resign in two weeks as governor of New York because he sexually harassed 11 women. Democrat Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul will take over. She will be the first woman governor of New York, blah, blah, blah.

The coming crab cake crisis
Restaurant owners in Baltimore (and around much of the nation) are increasingly facing difficulties in operating their eateries in the same way they did before the pandemic. Some are still having trouble finding enough workers, but a potentially more damaging factor they’re running into is what’s being described as a broken supply chain. Purchasing both the food and normal cleaning materials required to operate is getting so expensive that many have been forced to raise their prices, leading to unhappy customers and poor reviews. The owner of Max’s Taphouse, during a recent meeting with elected officials, described how she recently had to remove crab cakes from her menu, despite that being one of their most popular items. The reason is that the cost of crab has risen so much that she would need to charge $50 per serving, and people simply won’t pay that much.

Law Schools Are Succumbing to “Progressivism”
“Progressives” want to use education at every level to dictate how people will think. Teaching skills and knowledge is a secondary concern. It should surprise no one that law schools are a prime target; leftists want as many lawyers and judges as possible to be steeped in their belief system.

Cryptocurrency Regulations, Space Taxes, and Innovation
Federal judge Sarah Evans Barker has issued a permanent injunction against several pro-life laws in Indiana, including a provision that required women to consult with a physician in person prior to obtaining chemical-abortion drugs.

A Bifocal Look at BIPOC
As everyone knows, the obsession with identity politics and pronoun correctness attempts to impose a lot of terminological exactitude on everyone, none more so that than use of “Latinx” for people of Hispanic descent. There have been some polls showing that actual hispanics dislike the term or are at best indifferent to it.

William Barr and the DOJ’s investigation of voter fraud in the presidential race
Politico has a report today about how then-attorney general William Barr upset career Justice Department employees by ordering the Justice Department to investigate claims of voter fraud and how the investigation he ordered “debunked” one such claim relating to Georgia. Ed Morrissey speculates about Barr’s motives in this affair.

How Critical Race Theory Infests Public Schools
Sartell, Minnesota is a small town near the larger city of St. Cloud in central Minnesota. It seems an unlikely place for an ideological controversy, but one has erupted over the application of Critical Race Theory in the Sartell-St. Stephen Independent School District. The District’s administrators hired an outfit called Equity Alliance MN to conduct an equity audit of the school system’s 3rd through 5th grade students.

Documentary Pulls Back Curtain on Transgender “Mission”
Children with gender dysphoria not only are being offered puberty blockers but surgery to remove or alter their body parts.

Investigation: Medical Education And Research Crumbling Under Racial Identity Politics
Real Clear Investigations: “The national racial reckoning over reparations and critical race theory is taking over the world of medicine and health care.”

Students Are SO PROUD Of Kamala Harris For… Well… They Don’t Know
A recent poll came out that shows that 48% of Americans disapprove of the job Vice President Kamala Harris is doing in office. Campus Reform reporter Ophelie Jacobson talked with students in Georgetown to see if they approved of the job she was doing.

University to create equity-based honors program for students of color
San Jose State University scholars developing “(un) Honors College”

California GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Larry Elder: Yes, I think Biden won the election fair and square
Are MAGA fans actually going to sink this guy, knowing he’s their best shot at stealing Gavin Newsom’s seat next month, because he gave the politically astute (and correct) answer to a question about the election?

Berkeley law professors claim Newsom recall election is unconstitutional
Wednesday the NY Times published an opinion piece by two law professors from Berkeley. According to them, the upcoming recall election of Gov. Newsom is unconstitutional because Newsom’s replacement could (in fact almost certainly would) get fewer votes than those who oppose the recall.

“You’re kidding yourself”: Voter fraud isn’t the reason Trump lost the election, says Dan Crenshaw
Good for him for telling the truth. But between this and the Larry Elder clip last night, every elected Republican in the country must be shivering at the prospect of having to confront this question at public events between now and their next primary. Claim that Trump was cheated and you’ll be attacked as a crank in the general election. Claim that Biden won fair and square and you’ll be attacked as a traitor in your primary, possibly by Trump himself.

Warning Signs for Eric Greitens Making a Comeback in Missouri
The race to replace the retiring Roy Blunt in the Senate should not be one that causes Republicans to lose a lot of sleep. Missouri, a competitive state at the presidential level in 2000 and 2008, has been a blowout in recent years; Mitt Romney carried it by a nine-point margin in 2012, and Donald Trump’s margins were 18.5 points in 2016, 15.4 points in 2020. After two terms of Democrat Jay Nixon, the state turned to Republican Eric Greitens by a 51-46 margin in the 2016 gubernatorial race, and his GOP successor Mike Parsons won 57-41 in 2020. Democrat Claire McCaskill, reelected to the Senate by double digits against the unfortunate Todd Akin in 2012, lost 51-46 to Josh Hawley in 2018 in a Democratic-wave year.

Acid-shooting “land lobsters” live in Texas and are being spotted more after recent rains
Vinegaroons pinch with “heavy mouthparts”

American Express Training Employees That Capitalism Is “Racist”
“Workers are also ­directed toward a series of articles that … demonstrate that white children become racist before they can speak and persuade employees that Congress should pass legislation for race-based reparations.”

It’s Bernie’s Party Now: Majority of Registered Dems Now Favor Socialism Over Capitalism
“The poll comes as the House has become imbued with a vocal contingent of socialists and those who support socialist priorities.”

Unanimous, bipartisan vote in Senate approves internet access for Cuba
The U.S. Senate has approved a plan to provide internet access for the Cuban people that bypasses the regime’s censors. The days of the communist Castro dictatorship silencing the voice of the Cuban people so the world can go on pretending they’re unaware of the atrocities committed on the island may be numbered.

UP AGAINST THE WALL: California Congressional Candidate Says Anti-Vaxxers Should Be Shot
Steve Cox is a candidate for Congress in California’s 39th Congressional District, and is running as an independent despite sounding like just another far-Left aspiring member of the Squad: He decries the power of lobbyists over politicians from both parties and has made breaking their power the focus of his campaign, while agreeing that there are other issues that “must be fixed, like healthcare, climate change, immigration reform, ending these endless wars, etc.” The “ending the endless wars” bit is not bad, actually, but it’s clear that Cox is another far-Left candidate in a state that is full of them, and as he is a white male with no obvious minority background, his campaign isn’t exactly catching fire: He has as of this writing raised just $2,056 toward his $10,000 goal on a CrowdPac page. But on Monday, Cox gave his campaign a shot in the arm, so to speak, with a novel idea of how to treat opponents of the covid vaccine: shoot them.

Federal judge orders Biden administration to reinstate Remain-in-Mexico policy
A federal District Court Judge ruled that the Biden administration must reinstate the Trump-era Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program Friday. This is seen as a huge win for border security if the decision stands. The order does not go into effect for seven days so that the federal government has time to file an emergency appeal.

Five Senators remain undecided on re-election plans
The clock is ticking and there are still five hold-outs in the Senate who are mum on their re-election plans. Four Republicans and one Democrat have yet to announce if they will seek re-election. This comes at a time that Republicans are hopeful of flipping the Senate back to Republican control and Democrats are hopeful of flipping some GOP-held seats.

Look Who’s Calling Xi Jinping “the Most Dangerous Enemy of Open Societies in the World”!
Readers of today’s Wall Street Journal might at first yawn when they see another long op-ed denouncing Xi Jinping, the ruler of China

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
No pants in school, no women’s ice hockey in school, and racial quotas in schools.

GOP letting it ride on Adam Laxalt as they target Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada Senate race
Nevada Republicans looking to reverse years of disappointment at the top of the ticket are betting on Adam Laxalt, who is poised this month to announce his bid to challenge Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in 2022.

Gender Neutral “Chestfeeding” and “Parent’s Milk” recommended by Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine
“language has power”

Amazon Bans Transgender Critics but Sells Suicide-by-Starvation Book
We live in decadent times, led by Big Tech, which not only promotes woke agendas but stifles heterodox opinions. Thus, Amazon, infamously, refuses to sell Ryan T. Anderson’s book When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment and Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing our Daughters by Abigail Shrier, both of which offer a dissenting perspective on the transgender moral panic.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

North Carolina Bill Would “Protect” College Borrowers
Politicians are forever looking to pass bills that purport to solve problems, even though those problems are over-hyped.

Democrats’ $3.5 Trillion Budget Proposes Biggest Health-Care Expansion Since Obamacare
After Republicans greased the wheels by advancing President Biden’s infrastructure agenda, emboldened Democrats led by Budget Committee chairman Bernie Sanders on Monday went full speed ahead by unveiling a sweeping $3.5 trillion resolution that will require only 51 votes to pass. Among other things, it would mean the largest expansion of government in the health-care arena since Obamacare.

Six City Council Members Served with Recall Notice as Cali Residents Hit Breaking Point: ‘We Love This City…We Are Not Inclined to Let You Destroy It Without a Fight’
Declaring that the liberalism they have already had to endure is already way too much, a group of conservative residents of Huntington Beach, California, want to recall the extremists they say are ruining their town.

Democrats scramble for cash to cover Biden’s $3.5T plan
Their list of funding source options include raising the corporate tax rate, lowering prescription drug costs and hitting super-sized retirement savings.

Bidenomics: A “That 70s Show” Rerun
President Biden has said openly that one of his main objects is to turn back Ronald Reagan’s famous line from his first inaugural address that “Government is the problem.” Of course, everyone omits the qualifying preface of the entire Reagan quote: “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem.” (Emphasis added.)

Senate advances reconciliation “blueprint” but Manchin balks at price tag
By a count of 50-49, the Senate has voted to proceed with formulating a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package. Joe Manchin provided the vote that enabled this.

“Price growth is winning the race”: Inflation is devouring wage gains
New data shows inflation jumped again in July, as price hikes overshadow the benefits of wage gains.

Prices Continue to Rise as Inflation Becomes More Than a ‘Temporary’ Problem
Inflation continued to rise in July, hitting 5.4 percent compared to a year ago, but Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief because the numbers weren’t as bad as expected. Stocks were up sharply following the release of inflation numbers as investors took the increase in prices in stride.

Once burned: SCOTUS overturns part of New York’s eviction moratorium
It doesn’t exactly set a precedent, but it might demonstrate that the Supreme Court learned a lesson. In June, the court allowed an eviction moratorium to remain in place even though the CDC had no authority to impose it, reasoning that it would expire in 32 days anyway. That argument didn’t fly last night with New York’s eviction moratorium, as the court struck down a state rule that would have expired at the end of the month.

It Was 50 Years Ago Today. . .
That Richard Nixon announced that the United States was abandoning the Bretton Woods monetary system that anchored the dollar to gold at $35 an ounce, and added on a helping of wage and price controls to boot.

 

International

 

Slow Learners on the Left
It appears even Venezuelan socialists can figure it out sooner or later

Now the word CURRY is racist: Food blogger says it’s time to cancel the “British colonial” term for south-Asian food
South Asian American Chaheti Bansal, 27, shares home cooking recipes online

Priest “beaten to death by refugee he welcomed into his community despite being on bail for torching Cathedral”
A PRIEST was beaten to death by refugee he welcomed into his community despite being on bail for torching a Cathedral, say investigators.

In a sudden bout of racial killings, a South African suburb sees a dark history repeating itself
Thirty-six years separated the infamous race riots of 1949 and 1985 in this area, when people of African and South Asian descent — pitted against one another at the bottom rungs of the apartheid system — killed each other in a bubbling over of resentment.

Communist Castro dictatorship continues its political show trials in Cuba
With more than 800 Cubans arrested for peacefully protesting and demanding freedom, the communist Castro dictatorship is working to subject them all to summary trials and eventual imprisonment.

Silenced in Cuba
Are they still protesting in Cuba? I don’t know. The Cuban government has shut off the Cuban people’s internet.

Nicaragua paper says it can no longer do print editions, blames government
La Prensa, Nicaragua’s only print newspaper, said on Thursday that it would no longer issue a print edition, complaining that the administration of President Daniel Ortega was withholding the paper it uses for publishing.

Canadian Universities Promote Anti-Anglophone Critical Race Theory
Originating in the mid-1970s, Critical Race Theory is liberal academic ideology which espouses that white supremacy “exists and maintains power through law.”

Infrastructure bill mandates new cars to have unproven drunk driving detection systems
The infrastructure bill that recently passed in the Senate came in at just short of 3,000 pages. As we should have all learned by now, that means that there are countless individual items tucked in there, most of which were never read by the vast majority of the Senators who voted on it. Fortunately, we have some diligent journalists out there who tackle the thankless job of reading the entire thing to locate the poison pills that slipped through the cracks. One of those people is Christian Britschgi of Reason, who located a change in Department of Transportation regulations that should be raising some eyebrows. In the future, new vehicles sold in the United States will be required to have drunk driving detection technology installed in them.

Newspaper goes online only as Nicaragua withholds newsprint
Nicaragua’s storied La Prensa newspaper said Thursday it will suspend its print edition after the government once again withheld newsprint paper at customs.

Mexico City marks fall of Aztec capital 500 years ago
Walking for hours through the gritty streets in the center of Mexico City, you can hear the daily urban soundtrack: Car engines, the call of the man who buys scrap metal and the handbells that announce the passing of a garbage truck.

Scottish Schools Will Allow Kids as Young as Four to Change Gender Without Asking Parents
Keeping a parent in the dark about anything is not cool.

Cuba’s black communities bear the brunt of regime’s crackdown
A very perceptive and informative piece of REAL journalism written by José de Córdoba and Santiago Pérez for El Guolstriyurnal (Wall Street Journal). Compare this with the heavy-handed pro-dictatorship propaganda published by El Niuyortain yesterday.

 

Opinion

 

“The fight over Critical Race Theory in education is a fight in many ways for our national survival”
My address on Critical Race Theory in education to state legislators: “I want to talk about how you can save the nation…. If you wanted to think of a way to tear this country apart, it’s hard to think of a way better than what they are doing.”

Presidents Cannot Engage in Official “Acts of Civil Disobedience”
The Nation’s Elie Mystal explains that he won’t be applying the same legal standards to President Biden as he did to President Trump because he likes what President Biden is doing

Fading rule of law in California
By now, only the truly delusional deny that California has an acute exodus problem. The number of people and businesses leaving the state is not just significant, it’s quantifiable.

I Stand By My Tweet
Caitlyn Jenner is a man. Caitlyn Jenner did not run as an Olympian, Bruce Jenner did. He ran, set records, won awards, and only late in life decided he was a she. But he is not, even as he has altered his appearance, changed his name, and the world has retconned Caitlyn into Bruce’s life as the first woman to win all sorts of Olympic prizes in men’s events.

Learning is Now Optional in Oregon
I want to read you from the Oregonian. “For the next five years an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write, or do math at a high school level. Governor Kate Brown had demurred earlier this summer regarding whether she supported the plan passed by the legislature to drop the requirement that students demonstrate they have achieved those essential skills, but she has signed the legislation. Brown’s decision was not public until recently, because her office did not hold a signing ceremony or issue a press release. And, the fact that governor signed the bill was not entered into the legislative database until July 29th. A departure from normal practice. Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, Charles Boyle said in an email that suspending the reading, writing, and math proficiency requirements, while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit Oregon’s black, Latino, Latina, Latinex, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color. Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards. Along with expanded learning opportunities and supports.”

Who Guards the Guardians?
A host of organizations portray themselves as reliable “fact-checkers” that help readers discern content that is “reliable” from that which is not. The problem is, how do we know if those “fact-checkers” are themselves reliable? What if they exist mostly to color people’s impressions of controversies rather than to objectively report on false claims?

What Did San Francisco Expect When It Elected the Progeny of Militant Marxist Terrorists?
America’s cities are under siege from violent crime. And despite the horrifying news out of Chicago and other urban hotspots each week, crime is up everywhere over the past year.

Fixing Academic Peer Review
Like so much of the academic world, the peer-review process has become corrupt, ineffective, and dysfunctional. Fortunately, there is a solution. In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Adam Ellwanger interviews two statistics professors, Ryan Martin of NC State and Harry Crane of Rutgers, about Researchers.One, which, Ellwanger writes, “invites scholars of all disciplines to use its platform to publish their scholarship without the middleman.”

Wanting to Preserve Your Culture Is Not a Bad Thing
The nation and its culture (or cultures) can be defended without our devolving into warring camps of tribes.

Why the Left can’t meme
‘Woke comedy’ will never compete with the despair of the online Right