Archive for 2021

THIS IS NORMAL: FBI vetting Guard troops in DC amid fears of insider attack. “U.S. defense officials say they are worried about an insider attack or other threat from service members involved in securing President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration, prompting the FBI to vet all of the 25,000 National Guard troops coming into Washington for the event.”

This is what happens when you define half the population as enemies of the state.

And nothing says “normal, legitimate election” like a swearing-in behind 12 feet of razor wire and 25,000 troops that you’re not sure you can trust.

UPDATE: Related:

But is it all for show?

If so, I’m not sure this is sending the signal they think.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Blowback:

Plus, Steve Cohen brings the crazy:

Biden’s pitch was that he’d restore normalcy, but America has never looked more like a banana republic.

I’M WORKING ON THE “WELCOME WAGON” PROJECT AS FAST AS I CAN: The states Americans headed to the most in 2020, according to U-Haul. “In 2020, Tennessee claimed the top spot for the most one-way U-Haul arrivals versus departures for the first time ever. . . . California ranks last on 2020′s list, behind Illinois and New Jersey, as the states with the least one-way arrivals. California has been in the bottom three states since 2016 and Illinois has been in the bottom two since 2015, when U-Haul began ranking states.”

OPEN THREAD: Enjoy!

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Telling the ‘deplorables’ to shut up only feeds extremism. “If you tell a broad swath of society that its views are bigoted and ­unworthy of debate, you end up paradoxically empowering real haters, since they become the only tribunes of popular grievance.”

KURT SCHLICHTER: No Thanks, I’ll Be Skipping the Inauguration. “The Establishment converted Washington, DC, into a fortress guarded by troops strewn about on cold marble floors because that looked more compelling than showing them in cots and sleeping bags on sleeping mats that every one of them was issued. This is supposed to send a message of strength and resolution in response to a small riot that would barely have made the papers last summer but is now three of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse because it happened at the Establishment’s house instead of at Sen. Josh Hawley’s house, or your house. When it was your business on fire, it was a mostly peaceful protest, and you needed to get over it. When it happened to the people who let last summer fester, well, then it was an insurrection/coup/sedition for totally real.”

COCKBURN: The terrifying scourge of ‘multiracial whiteness.’ The Washington Post reveals why so many ‘white supremacists’ are in fact not white. It’s scary:

It’s hard being a pundit these days. Not only does steadily advancing groupthink and fear of cancellation increasingly force you to copy the same takes as everybody else, but frequently those views are very dumb.

Take the riot at the Capitol. Some minatory cabal of Twitter, Facebook, Google, the Bilderberg Group, FEMA and the Jesuits has issued its secret decree to all news outlets: the rampage through the halls of Congress was the work of dastardly white supremacists! And the outlets oblige.

AP: ‘Years of white supremacy threats culminated in Capitol riots.’

Vox: ‘The Capitol riot is a reminder of the links between police and white supremacy

New York Times: ‘America in 2021: Racial Progress in the South, a White Mob in the Capitol

CNN: ‘The Capitol insurrection could be a bigger racial reckoning than the George Floyd protests

New Yorker: ‘The Bitter Fruits of Trump’s White-Power Presidency’

OK, OK, we get the point.

But there’s a small problem. Somehow, on their way to launching a neo-fascist takeover of the United States, the white supremacists ran out of whites.

Read the whole thing, and then check out David Thompson, who frames the Post’s article thusly: Hush Now, Brown Person, I’ll Do The Talking.

Well, here’s a thing. It turns out that “white supremacy” is surprisingly diverse. Or, as the Washington Post’s headline puts it,

To Understand Trump’s support, we must think in terms of multiracial Whiteness.

The author of what follows, Ms Cristina Beltrán, is “an associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.” Her areas of expertise are needless to say sweeping and numerous, extending from “feminist theory” to “Latinx, and race & gender politic,” because “Latinx” and “politic” is how we do things now. Being a leftist academic, Ms Beltrán is of course mystified by the existence of non-white Trump supporters and, by extension, non-white people who dare to deviate from her own leftist assumptions. And so, inevitably, contortions ensue:

Including this one by Beltrán:

Multiracial whiteness promises Latino Trump supporters freedom from the politics of diversity and recognition. For voters who see the very act of acknowledging one’s racial identity as itself racist, the politics of multiracial whiteness reinforces their desired approach to color-blind individualism.

That’s…quite a sentence for the Post to publish on the weekend before Martin Luther King Day. And thus, another Babylon Bee prophecy comes true: Far-Right Extremist Suggests Treating People Of All Races Equally.

BOB ZUBRIN AND ELON MUSK SMILE: Exposed subsurface ice sheets in the Martian mid-latitudes. “The ice sheets extend from just below the surface to a depth of 100 meters or more and appear to contain distinct layers, which could preserve a record of Mars’ past climate. They might even be a useful source of water for future human exploration of the red planet.”

IN THIS USA TODAY NEWS STORY ON WHETHER BIDEN CAN MANAGE A “RETURN TO NORMALCY,” MY ADVICE:

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee Law School professor who runs the political blog Instapundit, said Biden’s efforts to promote unity won’t be helped if liberals continue to seek retribution after Trump leaves.

“If you want a return to normalcy, act normally,” he said. “That means ending the talk of making lists and prosecuting Trump supporters, and of prosecuting Trump. You can’t have a successful democracy if people feel that their lives and careers are in danger when they lose an election. That’s what destroyed the Roman Republic.”

I have some doubts as to whether this advice will be followed.