ROGER KIMBALL: Is this the beginning of the end of the Biden administration?

I wonder if Attorney General Merrick Garland has just supplied the proverbial straw that will send the camel that is the Biden administration crashing to the ground.

Garland was supposed to be a moderate. The Washington Compost assured its readers that there was a ‘98 percent probability that Merrick Garland is “in between” Ginsburg and Scalia. In other words, that he is comparatively moderate’. One of my friends even wrote that he was a ‘superb’ choice to be attorney general.

I wonder what he thinks now? Garland has been a willing collaborator with all the most egregious actions of the Biden administration. But on Monday October 4, he wrote a memo that will will go down infamy. I think it was Chris Rufo who first reported that Garland has instructed the FBI to mobilize against parents who oppose critical race theory in public schools, citing (completely unnamed) ‘threats’. The National School Boards Association had complained to the Biden administration, describing the protests as a ‘form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes’. In response, Garland outlined a ‘Partnership among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement to address threats against school administrators, board members, teachers and staff.’ A ‘partnership among federal, state, local, tribal and territorial law enforcement’: think about that.

Again, no specific threats were adduced. What’s really at issue here, as Mary Chastain notes at Legal Insurrection, is criminalizing dissent. ‘Actually,’ she writes, ‘they want to figure out how to deal with parents who have the nerve to be involved in their child’s education.’ Like Biden facing resistance to his vaccine mandate, Garland finds his ‘patience wearing thin’ and orders the coercive apparatus of the state, including the FBI’s Criminal Division and National Security Division, to bear down on parents who have the temerity to question the racist indoctrination of their children.

Let’s go, Brandon! Not surprisingly, the party whose organizing method is “the moral equivalent of war” views American politics as the continuation of warfare by other means, to flip von Clausewitz’s axiom on its head. And as the past couple of months have illustrated, they’re far more focused on fighting against American people and industries, rather than Middle Eastern terrorists.

To coin a phrase, would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?

HMM: Study suggests statins may worsen Type 2 diabetes symptoms.

BUT THE PEOPLE WHO PAY FOR IT WON’T: Coloradans receiving SNAP benefits to purchase food will see significant increase a month starting Friday.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Democrats Will Cut $3.5T Spending Bill by Not Cutting It.

Plus:

• Getting rear-ended is white privilege and we have the video to prove it
• The very latest in getting self-owned, courtesy of Kamala Harris
• Twitter is sharing your data with the Pentagon — what could go wrong?

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

JOHN PODHORETZ REVIEWS VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE. “Venom: Let There Be Carnage is like the second-season premiere of a Neil Simon buddy-clash TV sitcom in the guise of a comic-book-superhero-monster movie. You can hear the intro to the show in your head: Can two beings, one an intergalactic sociopath with magical powers and the other a hangdog Internet journalist, share a body without driving each other crazy?”

Read the whole thing.

POSTMODERN FEMINISM IS ALL ABOUT FORCING WOMEN TO THINK AND ACT IN THE APPROVED MANNER: Feminist Rag Jezebel Says It’s Okay to Bully Kyrsten Sinema in a Bathroom Stall.

HMM: Massachusetts coronavirus breakthrough deaths: 71% had underlying conditions, median age was 82. There have been 254 breakthrough case deaths in the state. At this point it’s’ basically a niche disease of the elderly and infirm. It makes more sense to isolate them than to isolate the rest of us.

HOW ABOUT A “LOSER PAYS” RULE FOR CRIMINAL CHARGES? The Collapsing Federal Prostitution Case Against Backpage.com.

In April 2018, the founders of the online classifieds website Backpage.com, Michael Lacey and James Larkin, and five people who worked for them, were indicted. One of the employees has already pleaded guilty. Lacey and Larkin were accused of facilitating prostitution in violation of the Travel Act, money laundering, and conspiracy.

The irony was that Backpage had been working with the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help police investigate instances of sex trafficking, and the police had come to rely on its cooperation.

In September 2021, federal Judge Susan Brnovich was forced to declare a mistrial in the case. Lacey and Larkin’s determination to fight all the way to the end is laying bare what Reason has been reporting for years: The government’s case against Backpage is a house of cards.

I’ve written about this before.

PRIORITIES:

Parents trying to raise their kids are criminals. Illegal immigrants breaking even more laws are just exercising their rights as Americans.

#MINTTHECOIN: Economist Explains Problem With Just Minting $1 Trillion Coin to Pay the Government’s Bills.

Really? What could go wrong?

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: Move Over, Blackface… Here Comes ‘Jewface.’ “Actress Sarah Silverman thinks Hollywood has a problem of repeatedly casting non-Jewish actors to play Jewish roles, coining the term “Jewface” in the process.”

Megan Fox: Don’t Be Distracted by the Facebook ‘Whistleblower.’ “The glaring thing that’s missing from this interview is any major bombshell about how Big Tech is actively censoring one side of the political spectrum in America.”

Yours Truly: Employee Exodus, Toxic Culture: Blue Origin Space Troubles Leaked in Insider Docs. “They chased the wrong market with the wrong product, yet somehow still haven’t managed to produce the product. They believe the way to get ahead is to push its employees harder at a time when attrition is already double the private sector average — employees who must feel like they’re working for a company without a mission.”

#1 IN SECURITY HOW-TO AND HOME IMPROVEMENT: When the Grid Goes Down: Disaster Preparations and Survival Gear For Making Your Home Self-Reliant.

HMM: Taiwan asks for Australia’s support in possible war with China. “Over the weekend, I looked at the recent air incursions into Taiwan’s controlled airspace by Chinese warplanes and the chances that this situation could escalate into open warfare. While that still seems unlikely, at least in the short term, it’s clear that Taiwan is taking the matter seriously. They’ve been scrambling their own jets multiple times per day in response, heightening tensions above the Taiwan Strait. Yesterday, the country’s Foreign Minister tossed another log on the diplomatic fire by publicly calling on Australia to deepen its alliance with the island nation, sharing intelligence and other resources in preparation for a possible war. And if China wants a war, Taiwan is promising to give them one.”

Australia would be smart to draw their own defensive line at the Taiwan Strait rather than the Solomon Sea.

IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE IN SCIENCE: MIT cancels science lecture by professor, a DEI critic, after cancel culture campaign.

If your politics aren’t acceptable, your science doesn’t matter.

GOODER AND HARDER: New York’s Straw Law Will Fine Business for Giving Out Unsolicited Straws, and Also for Not Having Enough Straws.

HORRENDOUS: U.S. General Allegedly Abandoned Allies in Afghanistan for Souvenirs.

SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! ‘White allies/accomplices’ participate separately from BIPOC staff in CU Boulder diversity program.

HIGHER ED NO LONGER DELIVERS WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO DELIVER. WHY KEEP SUPPORTING IT? MIT Abandons Its Mission. And Me.

Related: To Reduce Inequality, Abolish the Ivy League.

SAY ANYTHING: Biden Blames ‘Reckless’ Trump Policies for Ballooning Debt.

GOOD. NOW FIRE FAUCI. Francis Collins to step down as NIH director by year’s end.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Furious’ Pelosi Phone Call Goes Viral Online.

BALLSY MOVE: Pennsylvania Democrat Wants ‘Inseminators’ to Undergo Mandatory Vasectomies After Three Kids. “Rep. Chris Rabb, a Democrat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, has introduced a bill that ‘will require all inseminators to undergo vasectomies within 6 weeks from having their third child or 40th birthday, whichever comes first.'”

On a long enough timeline, every lefty program boils down to who gets to live or reproduce.

JOE BIDEN’S RETURN TO DECENCY: Biden Calls Disgusting Harassment of Sinema and Manchin ‘Part of the Process.’

Biden is basically inviting continued harassment of senators of his own party but, hey, no mean tweets.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Seems like this gives Sinema and Manchin an excuse to switch parties and blame the Dems’ activist wing. Sure they’ll get grief from that, but when you’re already being chased into the bathroom. . . .

DEMOCRATS AND REDISTRICTING: It’s Not Partisan When We Do It: With strong majorities in both legislative chambers, Albany Democrats pursue a gerrymandering strategy.

PUSHING BACK ON BEIJING: Britain and America demonstrate naval airpower in the Pacific.