HOT! HOT! HOT!: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is releasing its report on bail reform today–two months after its originally scheduled release date.  Don’t ask me why, because I don’t know.  My Dissenting Statement, which was written several months ago, is here.

I have some sympathy for the notion that we could improve our current pretrial detention practices. But, alas, nothing good will come from attempting to negotiate reform with “defund the police” advocates (or similar loons). Improvements to the system, if they are possible, will have to wait until more of our political leaders start taking crime seriously again.

GOOD:  Marines Granted First Military Religious Exemptions from Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate.

NO. BUT AT THIS POINT RESUMING PAYMENTS WILL CAUSE ISSUES:  Elizabeth Warren Thinks Biden Can Save His Presidency With Executive Order Canceling Student Loan Debt.

So, they’re stuck.

MOST OF IT NOT FROM TEXAS:  Beto Raises $7.2 Million in First 6 Weeks of Texas Gubernatorial Campaign.

AND THE DEMOCRATS ARE WORKING HARD TO MAKE IT SO:  Biden Says 2022 Election “Could Easily Be Illegitimate”.

FLORIDA DEMOCRATS ARE HAVING A BAD DECADE: Nikki Fried is so, so bad at this.

ON THE ONE HAND, YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO SHOOT PEOPLE IN DEFENSE OF PROPERTY. ON THE OTHER HAND, WE’D HAVE LESS CRIME IF THE RULE WERE OTHERWISE: Philadelphia gun owner fatally shoots one of three men trying to steal his car. “The fatal shooting came just days after a 60-year-old grandfather allegedly shot a 16-year-old boy who pulled a gun on him and fired several shots during an attempted carjacking in the city.”

Given the crime situation in Philly, we might see jury nullification on this, I don’t know. But I’m guessing that the Soros DA will consider this a rare case worthy of full-bore prosecution, lest other people start shooting criminals.

Reminder: The justice system isn’t really there to protect citizens from criminals. It’s there to protect criminals from citizens. And within limits that’s a good thing, but when you create a state of nature, you get a state of nature. And in the state of nature people absolutely do kill to protect their property from marauders.

WELL, TO BE FAIR, IT HAD JOE BIDEN IN IT: Biden’s press conference was an utter disaster.

If President Joe Biden’s press conference Wednesday was supposed to inspire confidence, it failed — horribly.

Even though he spent most of it clearly calling on reporters from a list of “safe” questioners provided by his staff, he stumbled and bumbled and all too often made no sense at all. Plus, he repeated his bizarre “whisper shout” gimmick to emphasize certain points — when what it actually emphasizes is his age.

On that note, he kept walking down memory lane, reminiscing about how “in my day” cable news was like that; the Republican Party was like this, and so on. He’s fighting old wars in his head, or maybe just confused about the modern world.

Yet he couldn’t remember what he said last week, insisting he hadn’t compared opponents of end-running the Senate filibuster rules to pass the nationalize-election-law bill to Bull Connor and Jefferson Davis. Yet minutes later he warned those same (Democratic!) senators that their supposedly infamous position will stick with them all the rest of their days.

And that’s before we got to the part where he green-lighted a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

YEP: Why Science™ Authorities Flip-Flopped to COVID Positions That Got People Banned Five Minutes Ago. “‘Trust the Science’ has long meant ‘submit to our politics of total control.'”

QUESTION ASKED: Why is the FBI at the home of Rep. Cuellar? “Rep. Henry Cuellar is a moderate Texas Democrat who is sometimes at odds with his own party on issues like border control. Today, a reporter named Valerie Gonzalez is reporting that the FBI has shown up at Rep. Cuellar’s home and is currently investigating something.“

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): From the comments: “It is sad that the default assumption is that the FBI is targeting Cuellar at the request of their Democrat party masters, and no one doubts it.”

And as someone else notes, that’s the pattern.

OPEN THREAD: When I get low, I get high.

STRAIGHT FIRE: “This is gonna be the end of your cushy government bureaucratic careers”: Bethany Mandel went full Tombstone on her county council over proposed vax passports.

[Warning: Looking directly at these words for too long may cause blindness because they’re more nuclear than the core of the sun]

So everyone here is going to tell you why this is bad for businesses and for residents. I’m here to tell you why this is bad for you as politicians. This is gonna be the end of your cushy government bureaucratic careers.

Here’s the thing. The seats for this council are up for a primary vote in June. That’s the deciding election in this county. An election the only truly motivated people bother to vote in during off-election years. Unfortunately for you, you’ve made us care. And we’ve filled these speaking slots within three minutes of them opening.

For those of you who are facing term limits, we’re coming for your seats. For those of you who plan to run again, we’re coming for yours. This resolution is the final straw for a number of businesses, groups and individuals in this county who have seen you come close to destroying everything they’ve built.

Read the whole thing; as Greg Gutfeld said last month:

GUTFELD: So it’s up to the people to tell them that it’s over. Right now, if you’re at home, you’re not in office like this, you have no idea what it’s like in this building. You have no idea. I just sent home what, four — four employees? Stress is peaking. It’s a combination of holiday stress, a combination of hassles that you have to deal with when you’re traveling. And they are adding this on top.

So there is an environment of panic gushing through the city, going through our offices that is 100 times worse than omicron. Its nuts. And it’s creating psychosomatic symptoms. I’m very suggestible. One minute I feel great. The next, I think I’m dying. This is insane.

This is — the point I’m making is, this is a panic from the top down. It’s not from above. It’s not a typical hysteria that you would get about some kind of strange phenomenon. This is a reverse hysteria. It’s coming from government bureaucracy, right? So the problem here is that you have a mild but highly contagious strain that almost everybody is getting. You get tested, it’s going to come positive. That’s what is happening with everyone I know.

But the only tool that we have is a sledgehammer. So we have the testing and then what we do is we send everybody home.

PERINO: Right.

GUTFELD: It is a shutdown in reverse. Originally we were saying okay, we’re going to shut down everything and maybe it will stop. But now we’re doing it in reverse. We’re testing. Now we’re doing it. And it turns out if you get this thing, it’s as tolerable as a cold. Most of the people that I know that have it had sniffles and that’s it. But we have a government bureaucracy that is terrified of losing an election and terrified of litigation.

So what now is not a death panic, it’s a hassle panic because we all want to go home and be with our families and they’re screwing us over. But, what this intense panic tells you, the government is not an appropriate vehicle anymore for telling us what to do. They are done because the vehicle only has one speed and its panic.

It’s driven by one incentive, re-election. It’s not driven, it’s not skewered towards risk management. Adults understand risk management. You saw that with Biden. He doesn’t understand it. He believes that there should be zero risk. That is a child mentality. So it is up to us to pick the date. I’ve been having a conversation with Scott Adams. We decided that the date for this is February 1st.

We are the hostage negotiators on behalf of America to discuss with the government about what to do since no one else has volunteered. We have to talk to the government about a return to normalcy because they are not going to do it. They are too cowardly. So it’s up to us to actually say this is what we want. February 1st, we are done.

Related:

That’s what happens when your Website is an offshoot of America’s Newspaper of Record.

SPACE: NASA safety panel recommends agency review how it manages human spaceflight programs.

PUTIN’S PUPPET: Biden admits Russia ‘will be able to prevail over time’ if it invades Ukraine.

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH PIERS MORGAN IS A VOICE OF SANITY: Piers Morgan Obliterates Joe Biden’s First Year In Office: ‘You’ve Been A Disaster.’

NEO: Kamala’s Nightmare.

Thomas Lifson, the author of the article I linked, thinks Harris is stupid. I disagree, although I acknowledge that she’s not the brightest bulb. What I think she is, is scared. Really really scared.

Based on watching her facial expressions, speech patterns, and body language, my gut feeling is that Harris is under so much pressure that she’s cracking somewhat. I don’t mean it’s nervous breakdown time; I just mean major jitters. I think Kamala senses how badly things are going. She knows she has to defend the indefensible and lacks the nimble snarkiness of Jen Psaki, the ability to lie without showing a “tell.”

I believe that Harris suspects – or fears – that, having fulfilled her ambitions and become VP, it’s an example of the Peter Principle and she’s unqualified or at least unready. Her day-to-day existence has become a bit like the actor’s dream or the student anxiety dream come to life, in which everyone is watching you and you’ve forgotten your lines or forgotten to study the subject.

For Harris, it may be some of both. I think it generally takes an extraordinary person to prepare for the job of president or vice-president. Some people are quick studies and have nerves of steel, or they’ve been major politicos for so long that they’re functioning more or less on automatic. I don’t see that with Harris, who looks and sounds frightened to me.

She remains personally ambitious, power-hungry, dedicated to whatever leftist beliefs animate her. But she’s winging it and she knows it. And it’s not turning out anything like she expected.

Earlier: Another Kamala Harris aide quits as claims of turmoil, ‘bullying’ mount.

ADVICE FROM MICHAEL YON: Stock Up.

JOE BIDEN ‘MAKES NO APOLOGIES FOR’ BOTCHED AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL:

Joe Biden’s approval ratings have been underwater since his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in millions of dollars of military equipment being left behind, a frantic effort to evacuate Afghan refugees and American citizens from the country, and a bombing that took the lives of 13 U.S. service members.

Yet when Afghanistan came up during his press conference on Wednesday, he doubled down on his actions.

“There was no way to get out of Afghanistan after twenty years easily. Not possible,” Biden insisted. “And I make no apologies for what I did.”

He continued, “I have a great concern for the women and men who were blown up on the line at the airport by [the] terrorist attack against them.”

That’s cold comfort to the Americans still trapped there: Wall Street Journal editorial calls for more attention to Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.

According to a source cited by the board, the State Department is currently tracking 126 Americans still in Afghanistan with only five ready to depart with the necessary travel documents. The information provided by the source followed the State Department claiming earlier in December that it “is currently in touch with fewer than a dozen U.S. citizens who want to leave Afghanistan, are prepared to depart, and have the necessary travel documents.”

Earlier: Joe Biden Comes Full Circle:

During a 2012 eulogy for George McGovern, Joe Biden recalled a confrontation he had with President Gerald Ford over pulling troops out of Vietnam. Ford had agreed to meet with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which included then-freshman Joe Biden, to discuss the administration’s military funding requests during the fall of South Vietnam on April 14, 1975.

According to Biden’s account: “I said, ‘Begging the president’s pardon, but I’m sure if the president were in my position, the president would ask the president the following question.’ I swear to God, it’s in the transcript. And Ford looked at me very graciously, and he said, ‘Yeah?’ I said, ‘With all due respect, Mr. President, you haven’t told us anything.’ They were talking about Sector 1, Sector 2, Sector 3, and with that the president turned and said, ‘Henry, tell them.’ And that was the first time it was decided that we were not going to try to sustain our presence [in Vietnam],” said Biden.

But Biden’s alleged statement, and the response from Ford, do not appear in the classified minutes of the meeting, which have been released by the Ford Library Museum. According to the transcript, Biden did speak up at the meeting to oppose military aid to help evacuate South Vietnamese allies alongside the U.S. troops. “I am not sure I can vote for an amount to put American troops in for one to six months to get the Vietnamese out. I will vote for any amount for getting the Americans out. I don’t want it mixed with getting the Vietnamese out,” said Biden, according to the transcript.

Found via Fred Bauer, who notes, “Biden has never made any secret of his tremendous admiration for McGovern, whom he views as a transformational and inspirational figure.”

“TOO MANY ASIANS”: University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Amy Wax is being threatened with sanction by her school for expressing opposition to immigration to the US from Asia. Wax did not suggest she has anything against Asians as such; she just does not want any more Democratic voters, and Asian Americans mostly vote for Democrats. I have a variety of objections to her argument, but that’s neither here nor there.

As Glenn pointed out, the irony here is that progressives are so up in arms about Wax’s remarks, which have no actual effect on public policy, but are silent or even supportive as top universities impose implicit quotas on Asians. The universities try to disguise this bias, but progressives have been explicit about their hostility to Asian American success for a long time. Consider this interview with Bill Clinton from 1995:

“Our diversity is our great strength,” [President Clinton] declared. “If a university says, ‘Look, we’re only going to let in qualified people, but we think that the life of the university will be strengthened if we had different kinds of people,’ then I think that’s a legitimate thing.” Otherwise, he added, “there are universities in California that could fill their entire freshman classes with nothing but Asian Americans.”

There is a right answer to that, and it’s “so what?” People don’t come stamped as “Asians” or “whites” or “Hispanics.” These are labels we impose on them. In the case of “Asians” we impose on people with ancestry in places as varied as India, Mongolia, and Indonesia. If people from these backgrounds excel academically, and collectively take up even the whole freshman class at Berkeley, *so what*?

But we know, “so what?” It’s a way of trying to rally whites to be for racial preferences by suggesting that otherwise their children will be displaced by “Asians.” (I can’t find a link, but I remember a Congresswoman making this argument explicitly back in the 90s.) In other words, “diversity” concerns become an excuse for quotas against Asians. It’s gross and it’s racist, and unlike what Wax said, it does suggest hostility to Asians, as such. And it’s high time someone called progressives on this sort of thing.

MOTES AND BEAMS: Something in Your Eyes May Reveal if You’re at Risk of Early Death, Study Shows. “For instance, if the algorithm predicted a person’s retina was a year older than their actual age, their risk of death from any cause in the next 11 years went up by 2 percent. At the same time, their risk of death from a cause other than cardiovascular disease or cancer went up by 3 percent. The findings are purely observational, which means we still don’t know what is driving this relationship at a biological level.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (CONT’D): Jen Psaki’s already put out a statement cleaning up President Biden giving Putin the green light to invade Ukraine.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Morning Consult: Biden’s below Trump in voters’ first-year report card. Notably, Trump had almost the entire news media, along with pretty much every other institution in America from the FBI to the FDA, working against him. For Biden’ it’s the reverse and yet he’s still tanking compared to Trump.

IT’S THE OBAMACARE ROLLOUT ALL OVER AGAIN: Incompetent Biden Administration’s COVID Test Website Faceplants on First Day.

K12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: This story about Seattle Public Schools’ director of ethnic studies is pretty remarkable. “Remember Rachel Dolezal, that lady a few years ago who pretended to be black? That’s exactly what this is.”

COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: Survey Claims People Happier With Modern Car Buying Experience.