OF COURSE THEY DID: Under Biden, Education Department quietly shut down Trump-era ‘free speech hotline.’
SPACE: Rocket Lab will self-fund a mission to search for life in the clouds of Venus.
Rocket Lab is like SpaceX’s little brother — and that’s a compliment.
SEE YOU LATER, TATER: Brian Stelter To Leave CNN As Network Drops Reliable Sources.
NOT EXACTLY CUTTING-EDGE HERE: Amazon is internally testing a TikTok-like feed in its app.
TRUST THE SCIENCE: National Academy of Sciences sanctions White House climate official for ethics violation. “The NAS took the punitive action because it said Lubchenco violated the code when she edited a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal that included her brother-in-law as an author. The academy said Lunchenco violated a rule that says members ‘shall avoid those detrimental research practices that are clear violations of the fundamental tenets of research.'”
STACY MCCAIN: R.I.P., Republican Establishment.
KRUISER: ‘The Worst of Times’ for the Week of Aug. 8-14, 2022. “Let’s see what the commie kids were on about last week.”
WILL ANYONE BE FIRED? (SPOILER: NO.) CDC announces overhaul after COVID-19 response failed ‘expectations’.
I ALMOST NEVER RUN ACROSS A BROKEN GAS PUMP: Electric vehicle owners are fed up with broken EV chargers and janky software.
THE WASHINGTON POST HAS A SAD: The man who shot Reagan wants to play concerts. It’s not going well.
If he were any other shooter — found not guilty by reason of insanity and later deemed not a danger to himself or others — Hinckley might have been free of the court system years ago, and blending in with his guitar at a New York City club. But his victims included a U.S. president, as well as a press secretary, a D.C. police officer and a Secret Service agent. Many people are not eager to see him enjoy the benefits of a life without court supervision.
The Reagan Foundation opposed lifting Hinckley’s restrictions and his attempt at a music career, saying in a statement that Hinckley “apparently seeks to make a profit from his infamy.” A 2021 op-ed in The Washington Post by Patti Davis, one of Reagan’s daughters, also protested his freedom.
“I don’t believe that John Hinckley feels remorse,” she wrote. “Narcissists rarely do.”
We’ve descended into some sort of bizarre hell-world in which Patti Davis is a voice of sanity.
Before Covid, a restaurant-goer would first encounter a host before being greeted at the table by a waiter. While restaurants are micro-economies unto themselves, the waiter serves as the primary representative. He interprets the menu, offers personal insight, captures the diners’ attention, and brings the experience to life. In today’s digital system, however, diners are directed to train their smartphone cameras on a link to a digital menu and make selections via the web.
This exacerbates our regrettable retreat from social life. Already battered by two years of masking, the practice of manners and of ordinary social interaction has been degraded further. For the shy child, the chance to interact maturely with an unknown adult is lost. For the laptop-class adult, a chance to interact with someone from outside of that bubble disappears. And the intercession of the smartphone itself into the dining ritual is destructive. Ordering each course requires the diner to redirect his attention to the mobile device. The QR service system all but guarantees that the phone will remain at a patron’s fingertips throughout the meal.
Read the whole thing.
HE OUGHT TO BE LAUGHED OUT: Florida Prosecutor Suspended by DeSantis Sues the Governor in Federal Court.
USING OPPRESSION TO JUSTIFY OPPRESSION: New York Uses Historic Gun Bans Against Native Americans, Catholics to Justify Current Restrictions in Court Filing.
VIA MARY KATHARINE HAM: A heroic Afghan ‘terp’ who kept Americans alive. She writes: “I indirectly know the Senate staffer/Reservist who helped get his family out of Afghanistan and they’re struggling in TX now. It’s legit!”
I donated.
READER FAVORITE: Built from Broken: A Science-Based Guide to Healing Painful Joints, Preventing Injuries, and Rebuilding Your Body. #CommissionEarned
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Inflation is Straining the Charitable Sector. “According to Feeding America, 53 million people turned to food banks, food pantries and meal programs in 2021, one-third more than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, when millions of Americans relied on food banks – some for the first time – as workers lost jobs or were temporarily unemployed. Today, many people are back to work, but real wages, or inflation-adjusted pay, keeps falling, as grocery prices rise. Again, food banks are seeing long lines for help and reporting spiking demand.”
SANCTUARY CITIES SEETHE AS ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ACTUALLY ARRIVE:
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.
It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.
Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.
It was easy for Bowser to tweet meaningless platitudes like this…
…When the Trump administration was actually securing the border.
UPDATE: Sanctuary cities not enjoying actually being used as sanctuaries.
STANDARDS: Incoming freshmen at over 1,800 colleges did not have to take the SAT or ACT, report claims. Not having objective tests makes racial discrimination easier.
KURT SCHLICHTER: Cheney’s Humiliating Defeat Is Another Sign That We Are Winning.
She is Republican monkeypox, you know. She is a walking, talking, warmongering, loathsome disease infecting the nether regions of the Republican Party, and her resounding rejection by the decent Americans of Wyoming demonstrates that we are curing the infection that is her kind. The Bill Kristols, the Jen Rubins, the Jeff Flakes, and the John McCains are gone, and we don’t miss them. Miracle Whip Mitt will be gone next time. He won’t be missed either, except by MSNBCNN and WaPo when they need a sitting senator to sell out the people who once had his yellow back.
We are the new Republican Party, one not dedicated to getting its leading lights invited to DC cocktail parties but one determined to drop a turd in the DC punchbowl.
And the new Republican Party has no place for Liz Cheney, her horrific father, or other insipid creatures like them. We’re tired of GOP poohbahs who never met a war they didn’t want your kids to fight. The Cheneys are absolutely perfect examples of what we are talking about. What have they ever done? I mean accomplished, as opposed to run their fool mouths about. What’s Dick Cheney’s big score? What’s in his win column? Nothing, and the same with his useless daughter.
Or as America’s Newspaper of Record reported yesterday: Producers Confirm Liz Cheney Will Not Be Back For Season 2 Of January 6 Hearings.
CHILD ABUSE: Libs of TikTok Pointed Out Boston Children’s Hospital’s Trans Surgery Policy. Then the Fact-Checkers Got Involved. “Well, funny thing about that. PolitiFact is correct about the ’18 and older’ language, but it’s quite possible the site did not include it when Libs of TikTok tweeted about it on August 11. The archives from the Wayback Machine website show that at some point between July 31 and August 14, that language was added to the site.”
DIVERSITY PROBLEM: Less than two percent of Harvard faculty is conservative: survey. “Less than two percent of Harvard professors are conservative – and most other faculty members are opposed to recruiting more right-leaning academics, according to a survey from the campus newspaper. . . . According to the survey, only 16 percent of Harvard faculty characterized their views as moderate and 1.5 percent identified as conservative.”
Why are such intensely politicized organizations receiving taxpayer funds and nonprofit tax exemptions?
NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Walmart cancels billions of dollars in orders to right-size inventory levels.
DEAL OF THE DAY: Kindle with a Built-in Front Light. #CommissionEarned
HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” FROM THE “RESPONSIBLE ADULTS” GOING? It sounds like India doesn’t want to be our ally anymore.
POLITICAL THUGGERY: Read Letter From NY Attorney General Letitia James Threatening Church Hosting Trump-Friendly Event: Pastor Paul Doyle: “It feels like she’s trying to intimidate me.” To be fair, that’s just because she is.
The Democrats now treat political opposition as a more-or-less criminal act.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Should the GOP Hit the Panic Button About November? “Even my hard heart has been softening in recent months about the party’s chances of winning back control of the House. I’ve evolved from agonizing about how the GOP might blow it all to thinking that we’re in rarefied political air this year because Biden is such a trainwreck and that even they couldn’t muck this one up.”
THE PRESS IS TRYING TO PRETEND IT NEVER HAPPENED: Biden is still climbing out of his Afghanistan-shaped hole.
OK, GROOMER: ‘Terror Campaign’: Trans Activists Push for Censorship of Discussions on Child Sex Changes.
Activists accused the accounts of “stochastic terrorism” and demanded Twitter take action to censor the conversation and take down their accounts.
“In the last 5 days, Libs of Tiktok has tweeted and retweeted 14 posts about Boston Children’s Hospital. As a result, BCH providers are being inundated in death threats and harassing calls and emails,” Alejandra Caraballo wrote. “It’s now affecting their services. This is stochastic terrorism, full stop.”
The post was retweeted by Ari Drennen, LGBTQ program director at the left-wing activist organization Media Matters, along with several other posts expressing concern about criticism of the hospital posing a potential safety threat.
The truth is only a threat to people hiding behind lies.
LEFTIST VIOLENCE IS ESTABLISHMENT-SANCTIONED: Catholics rip Biden as no JFK in post-Roe church attacks. “A top Catholic group revealed plans today for a $1 million campaign to urge President Joe Biden to be more like the last Catholic president, John F. Kennedy, and condemn attacks on churches sparked by the Supreme Court’s reversal of the abortion case Roe v. Wade. In a new ad, CatholicVote reminded viewers that during an outbreak of church burnings in the early 1960s, Kennedy said, ‘To burn churches, I consider both cowardly as well as outrageous.'”
Omar didn’t get to where she is by reconciling any of these contradictions but by making them work to her advantage. For most politicians, it would be a humiliating rebuke to have thousands of members of their ethnic and religious community rain boos upon them at a major public event held on their home turf. The smiles and laughter with which she greeted the opprobrium of young Somalis didn’t come from nervousness or surprise. This was the kind of confrontation that had helped turn her into a political star.
Omar’s instincts are rarely wrong, however polarizing a figure they’ve made her. In 2020, she ran 16 points behind Joe Biden, underperforming the president-elect by more than every one of the other 200-plus Democratic members of the House of Representatives up for reelection. But she still won 64% of the vote on the strength of a firm base of support that included far-left activists, college students, left-wing children of culturally conservative Somali immigrants, and the social-justice-minded bourgeois, newly activated by the protests and riots that broke out after the killing of George Floyd, which occurred in Omar’s congressional district. The Target Center incident might have looked like an ugly scene to people who knew little about her life and career, or like an opportunity for political opponents wrongly convinced that she’s beatable this year. Omar is up against former city council member Don Samuels in August’s Democratic primary, an unexciting alternative from an earlier political era who is likely headed for the same double-digit defeat that an earlier and even more promising challenger suffered in 2020. It’s unclear that any attack on Omar has ever landed particularly hard.
Being a lightning rod would have harmed Omar if she hadn’t proven to be such a skillful manager of her own story and her own image. That’s especially true when it comes to the more sensitive aspects of her dizzyingly complex life, which she has either ruthlessly neutralized, cleverly spun, or kept scrupulously out of view.
THEY’RE REALLY CLIMBING DOWN FROM ALL THE COVID BS BEFORE THE MIDTERMS: Biden admin quietly ends COVID-19 testing targeting unvaccinated fed workers.
IT’S FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS WHO HAVE BROUGHT THAT INTEGRITY INTO QUESTION: Yes, We Will Question the Integrity of Our Federal Law Enforcement Officials. “Strzok’s commentary is a microcosm of the mainstream media’s approach to coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid, about which we still know precious little— except, we are told, that the integrity of our law enforcement officials shall not be questioned!”
If you don’t want people to think of you as corrupt political thugs, don’t be corrupt political thugs.
CONSERVATIVE GROUP TAKES AIM AT DEMOCRATIC ‘WOKEISM’ WITH ADS TARGETING LATINO VOTERS:
According to Politico, which first reported on the group’s plans, Citizens for Sanity has been working with Republican operatives to place ad campaigns in contested congressional districts, beginning with those in Latino-heavy districts in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona.
A mission statement on its website says the group wants to “defeat ‘wokeism’ and anti-critical thinking ideologies that have permeated every sector of our country and threaten the very freedoms that are foundational to the American Dream.”
Beyond South Texas, Citizens for Sanity has been buying billboards in major markets that poke fun at progressive shibboleths such as criminal justice reform, transgender issues, and climate change.
A billboard that appeared alongside highways in Philadelphia and Detroit reads, “Violent criminals deserve our passion and respect. This fall, stand strong for progressive values.” Another, in Philadelphia and Chicago, reads, “Protect pregnant men from climate discrimination,” and one in Atlanta says, “Open the jails. Open the borders. Close the schools. Vote progressive this November.”
The Merry Pranksters smile.
BIDENFLATION: Sky-high inflation is here to stay — so brace for the Fed to stick to its guns on tightening, renowned economist says. “I don’t think a very soft touch of very mild increases in interest rates will put a stop to what is going to be an ongoing inflationary pressure.”
JULIETTE OCHIENG: A Conversation Becomes A Revelation.
If you like her work, consider subscribing or donating.
GOODER AND HARDER, MANHATTAN: New York’s 9/11 museum to close down permanently after COVID revenue loss.
PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.
Matt Margolis: Can We Talk About the ‘Good Republicans’ the Liberal Media ‘Loves’?
Kruiser: Dear MSM: Enough of the ‘Liz Cheney 2024’ Nonsense, Already.
Yours Truly: Putin Wants a Fleet of Aircraft Carriers and Has Also Maybe Eaten Shrooms.
THIS SEEMS UNWISE, TO SAY THE LEAST: Scientists Have Re-Created The Deadly 1918 Flu Virus. Why? “Insiders may recognize Kawaoka’s name: he and Dutch scientist Ron Fouchier are widely known for their gain-of-function research that aimed to give deadly bird flu the ability to infect mammals. I’ve called them out on this in the past, and I’ve openly asked why NIH was funding this work.”
Plus: “The 1918 flu disappeared long ago, and there’s no way it could possibly re-appear naturally. There’s only one way that the 1918 flu becomes a threat to human health again: through a lab leak. Re-creating the virus in a lab makes that possible. We’re still trying to figure out if Covid-19 had a natural origin or whether it started as a lab leak. Even if it turns out to have a natural source, the intense discussions about the lab leak hypothesis have been useful, because they made it clear that lab leaks happen, and that they should be considered a genuine risk. In recognition of this risk, scientists and non-scientists alike have called for a worldwide ban on gain-of-function research.”
Gain-of-function research is just biowar research with a prettier name.
August 17, 2022
@wesaustincomedian Liz Cheney Loses Primary #greenscreen ♬ original sound – Wes Austin
Love the pic choice. . . .
THE BANNINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: I’m Just Going to Go Ahead and Say It: Twitter Is Objectively Pro-Groomer.
Pro-groomer social media platform Twitter has permanently suspended the Gays Against Groomers organization from their account.
Describing themselves as “a coalition of gays against the sexualization and indoctrination of children,” Gays Against Groomers was founded earlier this year by Jaimee Michell. A gay woman who describes herself as “based” and “strayed” from woke culture, Michell has compared “gender-affirming” surgery on minors to the works of Nazi butcher Dr. Josef Mengele.
That’s probably because Michell is unafraid to speak hard truths. She told OAN last month:
I created the coalition because, you know, there are many of us within the gay community that have been speaking out against what’s happening now to children in our name for a long time. But we never had a unified voice. We never had a unified front to really tackle this stuff head-on. So, I thought it would be a very powerful thing to do to band together and unite behind this message that we oppose it, that we don’t want anything to do with these people. And it’s very important.
I contacted Michell to find out how many followers her organization lost with the suspension, but haven’t heard back from her yet. Their backup account — however long it lasts — is here and after a few hours already has 6,400 followers. Growth of the suspended account had been described in one recent article as “viral.”
Related: Twitter Is Blocking Links to PJ Media Articles About the FBI Raid.
UPDATE (9:55 PM EDT): Facebook permanently cancels Libs of Tiktok and refuses to explain why.
UPDATE (10:17 PM): Facebook restores Libs of TikTok, and this highly objective NBC journalist is not happy:
(Updated and bumped.)
LIZ CHENEY GOT EXACTLY WHAT SHE DESERVED: Cheney’s downfall came as a result of her participation in the January 6th investigations, rather than as a result of her warmongering, but there’s cause to celebrate no matter what.
Ezra Miller is a terrible person, and Variety is very careful to make sure this garbage person isn’t offended by using the wrong pronouns. So much so, they shamed a woman who Ezra ATTACKED for using the wrong pronouns.
Ezra Miller identifies as non-binary. A family in North Dakota identifies him as a pedo grooming their daughter. The woman he choked in Iceland identifies as a woman who Ezra Miller CHOKED AND ATTACKED and was sharing her exclusive story with Variety. The magazine was very careful to make sure we knew the woman who was being choked by a dude wasn’t enlightened enough to know the dude looks like a non-binary.
“At the time of the interview, it was unclear whether the woman was aware Miller uses they/them pronouns.”
Riiiiight. Or, maybe, the woman who Ezra attacked didn’t give a shit as she was describing Ezra attacking her. That could be it, too. She wasn’t confused. A dude attacked her, and she identified him as a dude.
Related: The ongoing farce of Ezra Miller.
Yet it’s also tempting to wonder whether Miller’s showily non-binary status is also frightening an industry that has been bending over backwards not to offend an increasingly politicized and vocal section of society. While most LGBTQ people look at Miller’s actions in the same aghast way as everyone else, there are inevitably those who will defend Miller on the grounds that they are somehow being persecuted and that their extraordinary behavior is in fact nothing more than a manifestation of this complex.
This is plainly bogus; otherwise, the entire non-binary community would be doing their best impersonation of a gang of feral savages at all times. But Miller’s strange ability to cling onto their career and public reputation, with an indulgence unoffered to the likes of Depp and Armie Hammer, may suggest that there are different calculations at play than simple commercial expediency. In any case, we shall find out two things before long: whether The Flash is any good, and if Miller can somehow restrain themselves from actions that will land them in prison before their film is released.
I get why Variety is pronoun-obsessed — they wallow in the L.A. show business culture, and they have to keep their subscribers happy, or risk having the social media mob descend upon them. But why is Tory house organ the Spectator using they/them in their article on Miller?
AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Trump Voter Excited To See Whether He’ll Get Raided By FBI Or Gunned Down By IRS.
CHINA NEEDS CHIPMAKER TSMC MORE THAN TSMC NEEDS CHINA: “The truth is, no part of the world is in a position to do without the chips that TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] supplies. And that may be one thing that is actually protecting Taiwan from an invasion. Because the reality of an invasion would lead to a disruption to the supply of chips that would cause a global downturn in the economy.”
Related:
Here is Boston Children’s Hospital showing pride that they will cut off the breasts of 15-year-old girls, whereas other gender clinics might wait until 18. pic.twitter.com/5IMypBYUrI
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) August 17, 2022
WELCOME BACK, CARTER! ‘Last call:’ Dodge will discontinue its iconic muscle car, transitions to electric cars.
LEANING RIGHT IS THE SOLUTION TO IMPROVED PERFORMANCE: You’re Probably Taking Your Pills Wrong, New Study Finds. “That’s the finding of a new study from researchers at Johns Hopkins University who simulated how pills and tablets dissolve in the human stomach and are released into the upper intestine. They found that the ideal posture for fastest absorption wasn’t sitting upright, but leaning to your right.”
FASTER, PLEASE: Drug combo can produce stronger flu treatment, study finds.
HAHA: Producers Confirm Liz Cheney Will Not Be Back For Season 2 Of January 6 Hearings. “‘Liz was a standout in season 1 and we’re sad to see her go,’ said fellow actor and screenwriter for the show Adam Schiff. ‘We will carry on without her, however, as there are many more exciting storylines we have planned for next year!'”
READER FAVORITE: Rand McNally 2023 Large Scale Road Atlas. #CommissionEarned (Bumped)
IS THERE ANYTHING THEY CAN’T DO? How Large Breasts Changed Medicine Forever.
GREAT MOMENTS IN SMALL GOVERNMENT CONSERVATISM: Mike Pence: “Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police.”
The owners also explained they had catered to vegans before, but they decided to stop doing so because of many vegans’ “‘holier-than-thou’ attitude.”
“Please, vegans, It is not a given that we should adapt our menu to suit your preference,” the owners wrote. “If you want vegan food, go to a vegan restaurant…which incidentally if I went to one and asked for a steak I wouldn’t get one, nor would I expect to.
“You have chosen your lifestyle, it’s not a medical condition that you’ve been forced to endure through no fault of your own. Your choice does not fit with our style of cooking. We respect your choice, and expect that you respect ours.”
The restaurant said it was “unfair to tar everyone with the same brush,” but it said the decision to stop offering vegan options “was sadly brought about by the militant minority which has subsequently [spoiled] it for the majority.”
Based.
UNEXPECTEDLY! First Starbucks to unionize in California on strike in Santa Cruz.
Santa Cruz Starbucks employees from the store on Ocean Street went on strike Sunday.
They started their strike on Saturday morning at 5 a.m., and are going to strike until Monday evening, with the hopes of having their voices heard.
Employees unanimously voted to unionize in May 2022, making it the first Starbucks location to unionize in California. The employees say they haven’t seen any changes since they unionized, prompting them to strike.
What took them so long?
Meanwhile, in the other big parentheses state: ‘Woke’ NYC Starbucks now a haven for junkies, drunks and homeless. “‘Starbucks got too woke too fast,’ said java joint regular Constantine Dobryakov. ‘Now some customers are too scared to go in because you’ve got a bunch of homeless people sleeping in there. They got to be ready to kick people out and not give everyone a free cup of coffee. You give them a finger and they’ll take a hand.’”
HARSH BUT FAIR: Twitter Is Objectively Pro-Groomer.
THOUGHTS ON THE ARMY’S PERSONNEL CRISIS. “What does matter is that a large number of people in the country think ‘being woke’ in the Army is something tangible and perceivable, and when those parents, relatives, or friends say to a high school junior or senior that they shouldn’t join because they will experience all the wokeism they can handle, all the time, and that’s not good, well, there’s a big strike because the Army and DoD writ large have not developed a decent counter-narrative.”
Well, it’s hard to develop a counter-narrative. First, the charge is basically true. Second, wokeism makes it difficult, and possibly dangerous, to develop a narrative that in any way cuts against wokeism, as any successful counter-narrative must.
And it’s not just here: UK Air Force chief of recruitment quits over exclusion of white males.
If an adversary, say China, wanted to undermine the West, would it spread an ideology that looked rather like wokeism? I think that it would.
MADE IN THE USA: c2M Heavy Duty Floating Tool Shelf 2-Pack. #CommissionEarned
LIZ CHENEY’S NET WORTH BALLOONED AS MUCH AS 600 PERCENT DURING HER TIME IN OFFICE. From $7m to $44m. Of course, this is hardly confined to Cheney, but given the bipartisan nature of these suspicious wealth increases, you’d think the media would be more on top of it. I remember when Congressmen bouncing 4-figure checks was a big deal.
HENCE ITS IMMEDIATE REBRANDING AS THE “DEMOCRATS’ CLIMATE AND HEALTH BILL:” LOL: Even 52% of Democrats don’t believe ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ will actually reduce inflation, poll finds.
CAN THE UK SHOW US A BETTER WAY TO TEACH LAW? Maybe, though I strongly suspect that the only real way to deal with lawyers being so expensive and yet necessary is to have many fewer laws.
21st CENTURY HEADLINES: I Regret Being A Slut.
I know regretting most of my sexual encounters is not something a sex-positive feminist who used to write a column for Playboy is supposed to admit. And for years, I didn’t. Let me be clear, being a “slut” and sleeping with a lot of men is not the only behavior I regret. Even more damaging was what I told myself in order to justify the fact that I was disposable to these men: I told myself I didn’t care.
I didn’t care when a man ghosted me. I didn’t care when he left in the middle of the night or hinted that he wanted me to leave. The walks of shame. The blackouts. The anxiety.
The lie I told myself for decades was: I’m not in pain—I’m empowered.
Looking back, it isn’t a surprise that I lied to myself. Because from a young age, sex was something I was lied to about.
Long before I ever had sex, I felt ashamed of my natural sexual urges and awkward in my blossoming female body. Growing up Catholic, all I remember about sex was feeling bad about it before I even knew what “it” was. I only knew that sex before marriage was wrong. Even the thought of a sexual act or masturbation filled me with debilitating guilt. The first time I kissed a boy, I was convinced I’d be punished. Struck down by an angry, misogynistic God.
As I got older, I was told to guard my virginity. Well-meaning mothers and aunts were clear that I needed to withhold sex in order to get a man to love and respect me. Sex was a commodity, a priceless gem I had to hang on to that increased in value the longer I held it. It made me feel like property. And although I don’t think that was the intention of the wise women who had learned their own lessons the hard way, for me, sex became inextricably linked to my self-worth.
The shame and guilt I grew up with regarding sex felt oppressive. I resented the double standard that men could be promiscuous and it would raise their status and a woman would be slut-shamed for similar behavior. My burgeoning sexuality would unfold as a reaction to these repressive religious orthodoxies, old school notions of sexual status, and trauma.
I lost my virginity at 17 to my boss at a restaurant where I worked. And a year later, I experienced my first sexual trauma. I felt damaged and dirty and I blamed myself. Everyone responds differently to these situations—I dealt with the overwhelming shame by becoming hyper-sexual and promiscuous.
The Culture was right there to pick me up and dust me off. I doubled down on being a proud slut and internalized the biggest and most damaging lie: that loveless sex is empowering. I basked in the girl-power glow of that delusion for decades, weaponizing my sexuality while convincing myself I was full of the divine feminine.
I was full of shit.
Read the whole thing.
THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULDN’T GET COCKY: Don’t Look Now, but Democrats Are Gaining on Republicans Across the Board.
Don’t forget to donate to and/or volunteer for a local candidate.
FASTER, PLEASE? Another tantalizing step closer to a universal flu vaccine.
My only concern is that if we get a universal flu vaccine, and then get a strain that it doesn’t protect against, it’ll be a virgin-field epidemic with a population with no flu immunity. I don’t know how well-founded that is.
HEH, INDEED: The Best Historical Analog For Liz Cheney Isn’t Lincoln. It’s Colin Kaepernick.
While Cheney’s self-indulged fantasies about becoming the country’s next Lincoln is great comedy, there is one figure throughout American history that the Wyoming representative measures up to quite well: former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Much like Kaepernick, who made a Civil War era comparison of his own by relating the NFL draft process to a slave auction, Cheney has always been a washed-up nobody that was never good enough to make it in the pros. Rather than engaging in serious self-reflection as to why her popularity plummeted among the Wyomingites she swore to represent in Congress, Cheney decided to play the victim card and cast her work in the disgraceful Jan. 6 Committee as necessary for the future of the republic. From that point forward, anyone who refused to go along with her one-woman war against Trump became the enemy, while the bitter resentment intended to drive the rest of her political career completely divorced her from reality.
The same pattern of delusions can also be found in Kaepernick’s story. In the case of the disgraced former quarterback, Kaepernick has to believe that NFL teams’ refusal to hire him is all about racism because the reality — that he sucks and just isn’t good enough to make it in the pros — hurts his ego too much to be accepted.
When do the Raiders give her a tryout?
NOW WE NEED TO DROP THEM ON MARS: Scientists believe asteroids may have carried water to Earth.
ROGER SIMON: Movie Review: Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman? Is an Absolute Winner.
Arguably, if you wanted to kill off Western Civilization at its root, massive transgenderism would be a good way to do it—just convince children that the developmental issues so many normally have are serious cases of gender dysphoria, and switching sexual identities is their road to salvation. More likely, it’s a road to suicide.
Cui bono? Big Pharma, of course. Once a child takes the first medical step into being transgendered, he or she (or whatever they want to call themselves) is on the way to spending millions on their health care over a lifetime. If you didn’t despise Big Pharma before seeing this film, you will afterward.
Walsh, with excellent support from Folk, takes us on a literal global adventure to demonstrate all this. Often it’s infuriating, as it should be, often heartbreaking, but sometimes mercifully funny, as when Walsh travels to Nairobi, Kenya, to ask the question “What is a woman?” of some Masai. More perceptive and intelligent than the so-called experts, the tribesmen seem nonplussed that anyone would ask something that obvious and silly.
Other notable stops along the way are with a pediatrician (in the infuriating category) who is so devoted to administering blockers to children that she appears to have a monomania in favor of gender switching. No one, to her, is born male or female, despite the apparent evidence in front of our eyes. Also infuriating, not surprisingly, is an academic in a gender studies department.
On the heartbreaking side is a woman who underwent seven operations to be a man, spent much of his/her life sick and depressed because of this, and now regrets ever having made the change. This noble person has now formed an organization to advise others against following his/her path.
Earlier: Don’t Overlook What Matt Walsh Has Done Here: “These African men laugh – they literally laugh – at the notion a woman might have a penis. They laugh because it is a laughable premise (again, to everyone outside the West and its fabricated gender enlightenment). So how can the American Left respond to this? Obviously what these men are saying and doing makes a mockery of the left’s gender ideology. If said by a white American male, it would be considered the height of bigotry. But these aren’t white American men. These are black men (and women) of a different culture. Progressives may worship the idol of gender, but they also worship the idol of diversity and multiculturalism. By their own rules, their dismissal of, or disagreement with the lived experiences of another people group – particularly black-skinned groups – is racist and Anglo-centric.”
NEWS YOU CAN USE: Costly high-tech blood pressure monitors no better than basic cuffs.
WE LIVE IN CRAZY TIMES: Major law firms counsel their clients to keep disparate impact liability in mind when they make decisions about how to handle layoffs (as they should given that the law … or maybe I should say “the law” … requires it). Meanwhile Minneapolis Schools adopt a policy of outright race discrimination against white teachers in layoffs.
(As always, if you haven’t done so already, I urge you to read Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Everything Presumptively Illegal, which is a primer on this pernicious policy.)
MALPRACTICE: California gender clinic treats patients as young as 2-years-old. “UCSF explicitly adheres to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) guidelines, which recommends that children as young as 8 could begin medical transition. WPATH is set to release its new 8th edition guidelines this year, which plans to lower the minimum age for teens to obtain hormones, as well as face, chest, and genital surgeries.”
Related: Biden’s Change to Title IX Shuts Parents Out of Kids’ Mental, Emotional Health.
FASTER, PLEASE: Michael Mann’s Ferrari Will Get Fall 2023 Release.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rutgers Seeks Dismissal Of Lawsuit Claiming Business School Created Fake Jobs For Graduates To Goose Ranking. “The amended complaint alleged that Rutgers inflated the school’s rankings in publications such as U.S. News & World Report by hiring graduating MBA students who were unemployed and placing them in “token permanent positions directly with the university.” The purported scheme duped prospective students about the potential employment opportunities that come with attending the school, according to the complaint.”
Get woke, go broke.
MATT MARGOLIS: Twitter Censored My Articles on the FBI Raid of Mar-a-Lago.
JEFFREY CARTER: The Retirement of Liz.
Liz Cheney went down in flames last night. Pundits are chalking it up to another win for Trump. He’s doing pretty good in his endorsements. It’s hard to say who he has actually put over the top vs who would have won anyway. Certainly, there are some like Blake Masters in Arizona who benefitted. But, Masters also had Peter Thiel money.
But, maybe Trump just has a good eye for people. All those years running a business might have made that skill sharp. No, the pundits missed it in 2016. They never understood why Trump came out of nowhere to win. They are missing it today.
Trump certainly is very good at articulating what people are thinking. He’s good at connecting with them.
But, I think it’s deeper than candidate Trump. These are votes against the Beltway Establishment. It’s a vote against the way things have always been done. Mr. Smith can’t go to Washington because they are living their lives outside the Beltway and want to be away from politicians. Most Americans agree the best government is the one that governs the least.
That’s where the “middle” is.
The mainstream media is of the Beltway Establishment. They don’t understand the real middle. Neither do the Twitter people or social media people. Remember when Mark Zuckerberg went to spend time with a Midwestern family and milked cows to try and get in touch with “regular people”?
What we all hate to see are career politicians that get rich simply because they are in Washington. They take no risk and make gigantic sums of money. They campaign on one thing and then do another.
Would the Cheney family have dynasty money if it weren’t for politics? What about the Dingells? What about the Chicago Daley Family? The Clintons? The Gores? Former and disgraced Speaker of the House Denny Hastert was a teacher, then a career politician. He was also a prescient and amazingly successful land speculator.
There are people like Senator John Thune too. When he first went to Washington, he didn’t seem like an establishment guy. But, once he got there and understood the system he became the establishment and enforced the establishment.
They usually do.
STEVE HAYWARD: Inside the Dishonest ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’
Environmentalist disappointment and subsequent outrage is destined to appear again regardless for two reasons. First, environmentalists can’t live without the frisson of apocalyptic doom, so they will have to resume the nonstop messaging of climate doom regardless of the results of the IRA. Second and more importantly, environmentalists are quietly lining up to make sure the implementation of the IRA’s climate provisions fail.
Yes, you heard that right. The adults in the room where climate policy is made have come to understand that the regulatory roadblocks environmentalists rely on to block pipelines, new oil refineries, and drilling on public land can also be used by grassroots groups in the states and localities to block the necessary infrastructure to enable wind and solar power to make any real impact on our electricity supply. The promise to reform environmental the permitting process, especially for a natural gas pipeline in West Virginia, was a large factor in getting Sen. Manchin back to the table. But as soon as the IRA passed, environmentalists vowed to stop any changes to environmental regulation, except for wind and solar power. It is unlikely that such narrowly tailored change can pass, and it wouldn’t reach the powers of state public utility regulators who guard their prerogatives jealously against federal encroachment.
And expect a fair amount of Obama-style trickle-down crony corporatism as well:
WELL, TO BE FAIR, THAT’S JUST BECAUSE THEY’RE AGAINST FREE SPEECH: Under Biden, Education Department quietly shut down Trump-era ‘free speech hotline.’
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (EURO EDITION): Germany Faces Power Grid Collapse as Demand for Electric Heaters Soar.
Germans are now panic buying electric heaters after firewood supplies and stoves sold out, a desperate backup option to survive the plummeting winter temperatures.
But according to the boss of the Stadtwerke Wiesbaden Netz utility company, Peter Lautz, the sheer amount of citizens using electric heaters would put enormous strain on the country’s electricity grid.
Electric heaters use between 1,000 and 3,000 watts of energy, so when all are plugged in simultaneously, it could cause a massive overload and cause the grid to collapse.
“If everyone switched on a fan heater at home, it would mean that we would have to almost double the existing network structure on every street,” said Lautz.
Germans have bought 600,000 electric heaters already in 2022, which is a 35 percent increase from usual numbers, and that figure is likely to rise as temperatures drop.
Meanwhile: In a Belated Outburst of Rationality, Germany Decides To Keep Three Nuclear Plants Open.
They’ve shuttered 14.
Before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 25 Democratic senators wrote to President Biden demanding “a whole-of-government response” to the prospect of state abortion bans. Two months later, there was an opportunity to enact such policies regardless of Republican opposition, but Democrats in Congress didn’t even bother bringing them up for a vote.
The narrow Democratic majorities and the Senate filibuster had seemed to preclude legislation to counteract the effect of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Senate failed to overcome a filibuster on abortion legislation in February, and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) oppose overturning the filibuster rule, meaning that abortion-related legislation would need 60 votes.
But the budget reconciliation bill that Congress just passed was different. It could—and did—pass the Senate with only Democratic votes, including Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaker. The bill also provided an opportunity to get around the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits most federal funding of abortions. The amendment applies only to appropriations through the annual spending bill that funds the Department of Health and Human Services.
Senate rules require all provisions of a reconciliation bill to have a primary nexus to the federal budget. Democrats couldn’t have used this bill to make policy changes like “codifying” Roe v. Wade or repealing the Hyde Amendment. But they could have allocated federal funds for abortion access in any number of ways, from creating grants to fund out-of-state travel to a tax credit reimbursing patients for the procedure itself.
Yet of the nearly 500 amendments that lawmakers filed on the budget reconciliation bill, the only ones touching on abortion came from Republicans. Not only did the issue not receive a vote on the Senate floor; it barely received a word of debate, belying the Democratic senators’ June push for “a whole-of-government response.” In the House, no Democrat attempted to offer an amendment to the bill—on abortion or anything else.
It’s as if all this “reproductive freedom” talk is just an empty slogan.
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