September 16, 2024

WIRED TRIES TO TURN THINGS AROUND: Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk: Musk’s now-deleted post questioning why no one has attempted to assassinate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris renews concerns over his work for the US government—and potential to inspire extremist violence.

What he actually asked, I believe, is why nobody seems worried about Harris’ or Biden’s safety with all these assassination attempts aimed at Trump. It’s a legitimate question given the behavior of the Secret Service.

Posted at 7:11 pm by Glenn Reynolds

WE USED TO HEAR ABOUT THE SAVAGE BARBARITY OF THE BELGIAN CONGO. THE BELGIANS ARE LONG GONE, BUT THE SAVAGE BARBARITY CONTINUES: The Calamitous Rape Crisis Unfolding in Congo’s War: Around 80% of women in camps for the displaced have been raped in brutal attacks, as international attention wanes. ‘If the war ends, I won’t have to be raped anymore.’

Over a decade ago, political leaders and celebrities from around the globe made a high-publicity pledge to put an end the use of rape as a weapon of war. Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, met survivors in eastern Congo, which amid years of back-to-back and parallel conflicts, had become known as the “rape capital of the world.” The U.K.’s then-foreign secretary, William Hague, who visited Goma, the biggest city on Congo’s border with Rwanda, with actress Angelina Jolie, likened sexual violence in conflict zones, and the world’s quest to end it, to “the slave trade of our generation.”

But it gets worse: Congo’s Forgotten Curse: Epidemic of Female-on-Female Rape. “Rape in conflict zones has long been the subject of news reports and academic study and large amounts of donor funding is channeled to organizations that respond to it. But rape specifically perpetrated by women has received less attention. Recent studies suggest the problem is more widespread than many experts previously believed. In 2010, Harvard academic Lynn Lawry and a team of researchers conducted a survey of human-rights abuses in over 1,000 households in conflict-ridden eastern Congo. It was the same year that Margot Wallstrom, the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, dubbed Congo ‘the rape capital of the world.’ Lawry’s study asked victims of sexual violence to specify their assailant’s gender. It found that 40% of the women — and 10% of the men — who said they were subjected to sexual violence were assaulted by a woman.”

Also rape by U.N. “peacekeepers.”

And of course, there’s lots of rape of men in Congo too. “During his escape from the civil war in neighbouring Congo, he had been separated from his wife and taken by rebels. His captors raped him, three times a day, every day for three years. And he wasn’t the only one. He watched as man after man was taken and raped. The wounds of one were so grievous that he died in the cell in front of him.”

Posted at 6:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DON’T LET THE FEDS IN WITHOUT A WARRANT OR TALK TO THEM WITHOUT A LAWYER:

Cute, but I have to agree with Sal:

Tell them in a calm, polite voice that you will say nothing to them except on advice of your attorney and then slowly return inside your home to call your attorney. If you don’t have one ready to call, then get one. You don’t need one on retainer, but every adult should have a number to call.

It is worth every billable hour.

Indeed.

Posted at 6:16 pm by Stephen Green

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LOSES ITS HONOR: UVa ends disciplinary proceedings against pro-Palestine protesters. Arrested students will not be tried before the University Judiciary Committee after agreeing to meet personally with Student Affairs officials.

UVA was once extremely proud of its honor code, which dates back, I believe, hundreds of years. But the students in question, who violated both law and the student code of conduct, are woke Hamasniks, and woke ruins everything. Two questions: (1) On what basis does UVA haul *anyone* before the Judiciary Committee without inviting a deserved lawsuit for arbitrary enforcement? and (2) How will this play in the lawsuit pending against UVA for discriminating against Jewish students?

Posted at 5:44 pm by David Bernstein

ENOUGH:

Turn this back around on the Left.

They’ve had eight years — without accountability — of decrying Trump’s not-all-that-out-of-the-ordinary rhetoric while indulging and amplifying everything from “Russian stooge” to “Literally Hitler.”

There need to be consequences or this will continue until some assassin succeeds.

Related: FBI Expert Blames Anti-Trump Rhetoric for Assassination Attempt, Warns of More Attempts.

Posted at 5:10 pm by Stephen Green

TODAY’S MY 50TH BIRTHDAY: I’ve been at FIRE for almost half my life, and it’s been so incredible to see our little team grow to become the nation’s premier free speech defender! We’re fighting for free speech in the courtroom, the classroom, and in the culture.

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Posted at 4:29 pm by Greg Lukianoff

SOMETIMES THAT FEELS LIKE A DIFFERENCE WITHOUT DISTINCTION: It’s a school, not a mental-health clinic. “Students with real mental disorders, who need quality care, may be lost in the shuffle.”

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

PRESIDENT BIDEN SAYS ‘THANK GOD’ TRUMP IS OK AFTER ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT:

President Biden departing the White House commented on the second assassination attempt made on Donald Trump.

Before departing on Marine One, Biden said ‘thank god the president is ok.’

He also said the one thing he wants to make clear is ‘the Secret Service needs more help’ and he thinks ‘Congress should respond to their needs.’

The buck never stops with Sundown Joe, despite the fact, as Jeffrey Blehar writes at the Corner: Everybody Is Terrified of Where This Is Headed and Nobody Will Say It.

I won’t get into the vulgar politics of it all yet — though it would be patrician folly to pretend they’re irrelevant (hey, imagine how Volodymyr Zelensky feels this morning) — because I care far more about the bottom line: This is now the second time in the late stages of this campaign that someone has tried to murder Trump. Give him presidential level Secret Service coverage, now. Screw the regulations. Joe Biden loves giving unlawful executive orders to spend a ton of money — I know this because he forgave $20,000 of my student loans without me even wanting him to — so break the damn bank if you must. Change the rules on the fly, and let someone file a lawsuit if they have to.

But you don’t want a dead presidential candidate on your hands. And if what Richard Blumenthal recently said about the as-yet-unrevealed systemic collapse of the Secret Service is true? (“I think the American people are going to be shocked, astonished and appalled by what we will report to them about the failures by the Secret Service in this assassination attempt on the former President.”) Then you have no idea how deeply any subsequent attack is going to shake the foundation of our entire civil society if it comes to pass. It clearly can now. Get him more coverage, today.

The fact that Joe (or whoever is actually running the country at the moment) is slow-walking this, just as he (they?) slow-walked extra protection for RFK Jr. speaks volumes about what the administration actually thinks about Trump, despite all of the “thank God he’s ok” rhetoric:

Posted at 2:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

VILE: NBC, ABC Tie Second Trump Assassination Attempt to ‘Rhetoric’, and ‘Dogs and Cats.’

NBC’s Lester Holt goes a step further, directly tying the failed shooting attempt to Springfield:

LESTER HOLT: Today’s apparent assassination attempt comes amid increasingly fierce rhetoric on the campaign trail itself. Mr. Trump, his running mate JD Vance continue to make baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Ohio. This weekend, there were new bomb threats in that town. Our Maggie Vespa is in Columbus, Ohio with more.

MAGGIE VESPA: Lester, simply put: Springfield, Ohio has been inundated by threats. over the last several days, closing government buildings, schools, hospitals. Today, effectively closing a local university campus after administrators said someone threatened a mass shooting targeting Haitians. This in light of, officials say, a false online conspiracy theory alleging Haitian immigrants in that city are eating people’s pets.

NBC and the Regime Media waste no time in imputing the shooting to “rhetoric” and attempting to blame Trump for the latest, albeit failed, attempt on his life. Once the shooter’s motives become clear, how soon before the Regime Media retract? If they ever do at all?

I wouldn’t hold my breath. Incidentally, NBC cared so little about this latest assassination attempt on Trump that, as Scott Johnson writes, “I learned of the second attempt on Trump’s life yesterday afternoon while watching the 49ers/Vikings game on television and scrolling through X. We have apparently become so habituated to the Trump assassination scenarios that NBC did not see fit to interrupt the proceedings with a breaking news alert. Insofar as the possible murder of Trump is concerned, complacency seems to be the order of the day.”

One assumes that Holt would have been in full mock-Cronkite mode had Routh succeeded, albeit with plenty of references to Trump’s rhetoric. (But with none regarding Biden and Harris’s.)

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll