#RESIST: Though Disbanded by Biden, 1776 Commission to Reconvene, Oppose Teaching of Critical Race Theory.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: White People Even Walk Racist.

Insanity Wrap needs to know: Is it true that Northwestern Uniservisty students can’t even use the sidewalks without being shoved off by white supremacists?

Answer: No. Was there anything else?

Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.

• Save the Earth! Shoot yourself in the foot!
• Doxxing the doxxers
• Impressive video of what happens when a shoddy Hamas missile hits a well-built Israeli highrise

Bonus Sanity: A call for Congress to spend… less? A plan so crazy it might just be sane.

And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

HOW THE AP SLANTED BORDER COVERAGE TO HIDE THE CRISIS:

Typically, news organizations rush to cover crises, real or perceived. The Associated Press has taken a different tack, using its influential style guide to play down the human drama unfolding at the southern border.

While internal Customs and Border Protection documents repeatedly refer to an immigration “surge” at the border, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the AP recommends journalists no longer use such descriptions to avoid offense and maintain supposed “neutrality.” Other documents, circulated internally throughout Customs and Border Protection in May, instruct officials on processing “the surge of undocumented individuals as efficiently as possible.”

The move by AP, a response to left-wing activists who demanded gentler language from reporters when covering immigration, fundamentally changed how newsrooms across the country covered the Biden administration’s response to a historical influx of migrants in the president’s first 100 days in office. A range of outlets, from local newspapers to national publications like the Washington Post, look to the AP for language guidance.

The AP pressed news outlets in March to “avoid imagery conjuring war or natural disaster, which could portray migrants as a negative, harmful influence. Avoid emotive words like onslaught, tidal wave, flood, inundation, surge, invasion, army, march, sneak, and stealth.” But Customs and Border Protection officials told the Free Beacon that they hold weekly meetings they call “surge meetings” to discuss ways to process the thousands of migrants flooding into the country.

The use of the word “surge” in immigration-related stories was commonplace across a multitude of publications, including the AP itself, in the early days of the border crisis but drew criticism from activists as the Biden administration sought to dispel the idea that it is grappling with a full-blown crisis. America’s largest wire service—and the standard-bearer for journalistic style through the AP Stylebook—bowed to the pressure campaign.

Unexpectedly:

OLD SCHOOL: There’s a New Beast on Wall Street: Carnivore. “They are a group of experienced traders who had long careers on Wall Street, and some of them are still there, secretly and silently sharing information on trades with an anonymous personality who goes by the name of Dutch. It’s a clandestine, secretive group of Wall Street traders who have all known each other for years, worked together side-by-side trading at hedge funds and some of the largest Wall Street firms. A very private group that shuns the limelight and has no desire for fame, they are exposing the lies that Wall Street has told investors for decades, according to Dutch.”

JOEL KOTKIN: The Rise of Corporate-State Tyranny.

A convergence between the world’s two superpowers is taking place. In the United States, as property and power further consolidate, the “diffusion of power,” so critical to democracy, erodes and autocracy develops naturally. Only players at the highest level possess the heft and the motivation to influence policy.[1] This powerful front consists of a new alliance between large corporate powers, Wall Street, and the progressive clerisy in government and media.

Its agenda consists of several goals. On the corporate front we have the emergence of “stakeholder” capitalism, which embraces the state’s priorities implicitly and those of the progressives generally, as a way to please regulators, the woke among their employers, and, to some extent, their own consciences. In this they resemble companies in authoritarian states—like Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, and today’s China—where private capital accumulation is permitted but dissent from the agreed norms of the media-government-academy, once the privilege of individuals and corporations, is now largely verboten.

Yet complicity in the West differs from fascist or corporate socialist standards in one important way. In wealthy societies, a large part of the corporate elite does not see widespread economic growth or rising living standards as a goal but as an impediment to meeting the demands of the “stakeholders,” who are largely defined by the clerisy, their orbit of nonprofits, cowed media, and their academic mentors. Profits are fine in this arrangement but only if they do not increase the material consumption of the populace while allowing new advantages to select racial or lifestyle minorities. The new corporatism is not bad for established capitalists but offers little to the middle or working classes, or, for that matter, to smaller independent businesses.

Well, to be fair, those are the corporate class enemies.

Then, of course, there’s the increasing cooperation between the military and corporations as part of what Newsweek calls secret undercover armies.

UPDATE: Elevators aboard USS Gerald R. Ford to be fixed after shock trials. “The trials are a specific combat preparation exercise in which a range of weapons is fired at or near the ship, to indicate whether vibration can cause problems. It is unusual for a ship to enter the trials without essential working components such as elevators.”

That’s because it’s a bad idea that ruins the point of the shock trials.

LEFTISM IN ACTION: BLM Crashes Wisconsin Memorial for Fallen Officers, Shouts Obscenities.

ONLY THREE? Three False Narratives Being Used in the IRS Funding Push. “The more government promises increased benefits to a broader segment of the population, the more desperate it becomes to collect money. And as the demand for revenue grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to break thumbs to get it. This attitude is abundantly clear in the messages sent to the public regarding the president’s proposed appropriation. What is not abundantly clear, however, is that the push to provide the IRS with more enforcement resources is driven by at least three false narratives. Let’s evaluate each in turn. . . . The single most important thing Congress can do to have a positive effect on compliance is to radically simplify the tax code.”

Once you realize that this is about power, not revenue, the contradictions vanish.

ROGER SIMON: Freshman Senator Ossoff ‘Virtue Signals’ on Israel.

The main trait that makes a “virtue signaler” a “virtue signaler” is what they say has everything to do with the self-image they seek to project (or convince themselves of) and little or nothing to do with the results of their self-alleged “virtue.”

I called the people who do this “moral narcissists” in a book. “Virtue signaling” is what “moral narcissists” do (among other things).

The more people “virtue signal” the more the facts become obscured or irrelevant. Common sense is abandoned in favor of self-righteousness. Often the ramifications are significant.

One example right now is Georgia freshman Senator Jon Ossoff who has led the way for twenty-seven other fellow Senate Democrats on the signing of a statement calling for an “immediate ceasefire” to avoid further loss of life in what he calls the “conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories.”

Israel? The Palestinian territories? Where’s Hamas in all this? A curious omission, no, since they (with their cohorts in Islamic Jihad) are the ones currently attacking Israel? Why wouldn’t Ossoff be addressing them as well in calling for a ceasefire, since those do the most, or all of the firing from the Palestinian end—and random at that, hoping to hit civilians.

Because it would call attention to something embarrassing about his solemn declaration.

Hamas is a terrorist organization, has been labeled as such for years, that swears, according to its very own hyper-Islamist charter, rivaling ISIS, to kill all Jews everywhere—I’m assuming Ossoff, raised as a Jew himself, knows that— and, as the night follows the proverbial day, completely destroy the state of Israel.

This is a group for whom the vaunted “two-state solution” so embraced by the Western world is complete anathema. (This is also sadly true of the Palestinian Authority in the end. When offered practically everything he asked for by Ehud Olmert, their then leader Mahmoud Abbas walked away, just as Yasser Arafat did years before with Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton.)

To mention Hamas’ name in particular might “slightly” undermine Ossoff’s “virtuous” argument. But then who will cease the firing they are asking for, speaking of common sense?

The Corbynization of the Democratic Party continues apace.

SHE HAS A LITTLE LIST: Kamala Harris Keeps Enemies List of Journalists Who Don’t ‘Appreciate Her Life Experience’

Some aides have been “surprised at how much work there is to be done” when it comes to educating Harris on policy issues. Even journalists have grown tired of the VP’s tendency to “retreat behind talking points and platitudes in public.” Dovere writes that, at times, Harris “comes off as so uninteresting that television producers have started to wonder whether spending thousands of dollars to send people on trips with her is worthwhile, given how little usable material they get out of it.”

In many ways, Harris is merely a non-white version of Hillary Clinton. Both women are possessed by ruthless ambition, yet lack the necessary skills to succeed in politics at the national level. They are most comfortable when regurgitating talking points and platitudes. Objectively speaking, they share a knack for unsettling laughter and launched their political careers by dating powerful men.

Harsh, but fair.

WHEN “INSURRECTION” IS VALORIZED: Image of Minneapolis police station burning wins college magazine’s art award.

MOVE ALONG, NOTHING TO SEE HERE: Apple’s Security Compromises in China Outlined in New Report.

Apple has been making concessions on privacy and security in order to continue building and selling its devices in China, according to an in-depth report from The New York Times.

The focal point of the report is Apple’s decision to comply with a 2016 law that requires all personal information and data collected in China to be kept in China, which has led Apple to build a China data center and relocate Chinese customers’ iCloud data to China, managed by a Chinese company.

Apple fought against China’s efforts to gain more control over customer data, but given China’s leverage over Apple, Apple had no choice but to comply. There were initially disagreements over the digital keys that can unlock iCloud encryption. Apple wanted to keep them in the United States, while Chinese officials wanted them in China.

Ultimately, the encryption keys ended up in China, a decision that “surprised” two unnamed Apple executives who worked on the negotiations and who said that the decision could potentially endanger customer data. There is no evidence that the Chinese government has access to the data, but security experts have said that China could demand data or simply take it without asking Apple, especially given compromises in encryption key storage and the fact that a third-party company manages customer data on Apple’s behalf.

“The Chinese are serial iPhone breakers,” said Ross J. Anderson, a University of Cambridge cybersecurity researcher who reviewed the documents. “I’m convinced that they will have the ability to break into the servers.”

Xi’s gotta have it.

ABOUT TIME: The FBI FINALLY Calls Attempted Assassination of GOP Reps by Maddow-Loving, Bernie-Voting Leftist What It Really Is.

STANDING UP TO RACIST LIES: Students at Christian university call on school to turn away from ‘falsehood’ that is Critical Race Theory.

LOGISTICS: Here’s Why It’s Taking So Long To Get Cars Shipped Across The Ocean.

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Supreme Court Unanimously Rebuffs Biden Administration on Warrantless Searches for Handguns.

THAT’S CERTAINLY TRUE IN MY CASE: Contrary To Academic Lore, Senior Scholars Publish As Much As Their Junior Colleagues.

HEINLEIN’S CRAZY YEARS (CONT’D): Twitter Suspends Spanish Politician for Tweeting ‘A Man Cannot Get Pregnant.’

I’M GLAD TO SEE SO MANY PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THAT SCIENCE IS REAL: Mask Mandates Slipping Away Swiftly Throughout the US.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Cuomo Received $5.1 Million for COVID Book Despite Nursing Home Deaths. “Cuomo raked in the millions as elderly people died and his aides fudged the death numbers to make him look good. Oh, he only sold 50,000 copies, too.”

DANEGELD: Hacker group behind Colonial Pipeline attack claims it has three new victims.

Over the past 24 hours, the group posted the names of three new companies on its site on the dark web, called DarkSide Leaks. The information posted to the site includes summaries of what the hackers appear to have stolen but do not appear to contain raw data. DarkSide is a criminal gang, and its claims should be treated as potentially misleading.

The posting indicates that the hacker collective is not backing down in the face of an FBI investigation and denunciations of the attack from the Biden administration.

That last part comes as no shock, given Biden’s fecklessness in responding to Russian cyberattacks — despite a stern warning in March that the US would reply in kind.

NOT AN INSURRECTION: Video Shows U.S. Capitol Police Gave Protesters OK to Enter.

The video directly contradicts what government prosecutors allege in a complaint filed January 8 against Chansley: “Robishaw and other officers calmed the protestors somewhat and directed them to leave the area from the same way they had entered. Chansley approached Officer Robishaw and screamed, among other things, that this was their house, and that they were there to take the Capitol, and to get Congressional leaders.”

Chansley later is seen entering the Senate chambers with a police officer behind him; he led several protesters in prayer and sat in Vice President Mike Pence’s chair. (The man in the yellow sweatshirt is William Watson, who was out on bond for allegedly trafficking marijuana and LSD. He was arrested in January.)

Chansley is not charged with assaulting an officer; he faces several counts for trespassing and disorderly conduct. He has been incarcerated since January, denied bail awaiting trial. He has no criminal record.

Developing…

HIGH-STAKES LAWFARE: Signs grow of Trump subpoenas and indictments in New York and Georgia.

BORROW FROM A NICE LOAN SHARK INSTEAD:  Paternalistic Liberals Want to End Online Lending.