BIDEN SHOULD TAKE HIM UP ON THIS, BUT WON’T: Trump Offers Biden Administration His Services to Help Stave Off World War III.

DON’T GET COCKY: Poll: Oregon Could Elect Its First Republican Governor Since 1982.

Seriously, if you care about this election, you need to be out volunteering and donating. Commenting on the Internet doesn’t count.

AND THERE WAS FAMINE IN THE LAND:  On this day in 1898, Soviet agronomist Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was born in what is now Ukraine.  During his lifetime, he was the recipient of numerous accolades, including the Hero of Socialist Labor award, the Stalin prize (three times), and the Order of Lenin (eight times).  In this respect, he was rather like America’s Green Revolution agronomist, Norman Borlaug, who received more than a few prestigious awards too.

The crucial difference between Borlaug and Lysenko was that Borlaug’s methods increased agricultural production worldwide, saving the lives of hundreds of millions, if not a billion, people.  Lysenko, on the other hand, was a nut case whose crackpot theories contributed to the slow, agonizing death by starvation of many of his countrymen.

Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics, which he denounced as bourgeois.  British biologist S.C. Harland described him as “completely ignorant of the elementary principles of genetics and physiology.”  His pseudo-scientific theories included the belief that seeds should be planted as close together as possible because plants of like character will not compete with each other.

But Stalin liked him and that’s what counted.   Stalin really, really liked him, so farm workers were forced to do his bidding, no matter how much they realized it was folly.

Prior to Lysenko’s rise, the Soviet Union was home to some of the best geneticists in the world.  But if they criticized Lysenko, they were rounded up by the NKVD and imprisoned, sent to psychiatric hospitals, or (in several cases) executed as enemies of the state.  Hundreds, if not thousands, suffered this fate. It therefore took that much longer for his many errors to be corrected.

If you’re wondering why Stalin liked him so much, two things come to mind:  Lysenko was born to a peasant family and that sort of pedigree was important to getting ahead in the Soviet Union.  It was their version of affirmative action.  And he was a fervent communist, which was as necessary to getting ahead back then as being a fervent supporter of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is today.   I suppose you can make of that what you will.

WAR ON MAIN STREET: Main Street v. Wall Street on ‘ESG.’

Related: Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.

LIBSOFTIKTOK: Twitter has suspended me again for ‘hateful conduct.’ “Twitter claims I have violated their ‘hateful conduct policy,’ but like my last suspension, they have provided no explanation as to how I violated this policy. Was it hateful to expose an all-ages drag show where a stripper performed in front of children? Was it hateful to expose a drag queen who allowed a small child to repeatedly rub their crotch?”

FLASHBACK: “To understand events around the world today, one must think in terms of the class struggle.”

Much of the current tension in America and in many other democracies is in fact a product of a class struggle. It’s not the kind of class struggle that Karl Marx wrote about, with workers and peasants facing off against rapacious capitalists, but it is a case of today’s ruling class facing disaffection from its working class.

In the old Soviet Union, the Marxists assured us that once true communism was established under a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the state would wither away and everyone would be free. In fact, however, the dictatorship of the proletariat turned into a dictatorship of the party hacks, who had no interest whatsoever in seeing their positions or power wither.

Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas called these party hacks the “New Class,” noting that instead of workers and peasants against capitalists, it was now a case of workers and peasants being ruled by a managerial new class of technocrats who, while purporting to act for the benefit of the workers and peasants, somehow wound up with the lion’s share of the goodies. Workers and peasants stood in long lines for bread and shoddy household goods, while party leaders and government managers bought imported delicacies in special, secret stores. (In a famous Soviet joke, then-leader Leonid Brezhnev shows his mother his luxury apartment, his limousine, his fancy country house and his helicopter only to have her object: “But what if the communists come back?”) . . .

But the New Class isn’t limited to communist countries, really. Around the world in the postwar era, power was taken up by unelected professional and managerial elites. To understand what’s going on with President Donald Trump and his opposition, and in other countries as diverse as France, Hungary, Italy and Brazil, it’s important to realize that the post-World War II institutional arrangements of the Western democracies are being renegotiated, and that those democracies’ professional and managerial elites don’t like that very much, because they have done very well under those arrangements. And, like all elites who are doing very well, they don’t want that to change.

Their first response is always to call their critics bigots:

Talking about the yellow-vest movement, French geographer Christophe Guilluy observes: “Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist, but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.”

That’s right. It’s class war masquerading as something else, but people have seen through the mask.

Indeed. Just look at the Italian election and the global chattering class’s reaction thereto.

BIDEN’S GESTAPO: FBI targeting another pro-life activist?

Related: Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.

Remember, Biden’s own press secretary says that if you disagree with the majority, you’re an extremist!

Also, let’s publicize the names of those agents. There’s no privacy interest in these public acts.

OF COURSE HE DOES: Fetterman wipes BLM support from campaign website.

‘GEOPOLITICAL GASLIGHTING:’ That’s what the Founders gave us with the Constitution, at least according to a panel of academics at a recent Princeton University confab “celebrating” the miracle of 1787, according to Princeton sophomore Alexandra Orbuch, writing for the Washington Free Beacon.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Eveready LED Flashlight Multi-Pack. #CommissionEarned

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

Kevin Downey Jr: A Whole Generation of Kids Is Being Destroyed by the Left. “Turning a blind eye to crimes committed by young people is ‘woke AF’ and just as cruel. Yes, crime destabilizes society. The pinkos need chaos to successfully bring Marxism to our country, and these kids are perfect pawns.”

Rick Moran: No Matter What Happens in Iran, the Women Have Already Won. “More than 40 years of rule by the Islamists have failed to ‘de-westernize’ Iran.”

Yours Truly: Ukraine on the Verge of Another Massive Battlefield Victory. “The Russian army’s position in its ‘annexed’ region could come unglued as Ukrainian forces surround the lynchpin of Moscow’s defenses there.”

REPORT FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Women are rightly terrified of NYC subways — but our fears are ignored.

THE PERILS OF AMERICA’S WOKE MILITARY: The high – and destructive – cost of Marxism’s infusion into our Armed Forces.

I ALMOST FEEL SORRY FOR THE SPINMEISTERS: White House’s bizarre, dogged denial over Biden’s “Where’s Jackie?”

Almost.

Related: Report: White House in Disarray as They Eye a Major Shake-Up.

HE’S COMPETENT, FOR STARTERS: The Left Is Hoping DeSantis Botches Hurricane Response. Here’s What They Didn’t Count On.

YES.

This is the face of authoritarianism – even though it looks different than you were taught to expect. And it's the mindset of tyrants everywhere:

This is someone so inebriated by her sense of righteousness and superiority that she views dissent as an evil too dangerous to allow: https://t.co/kmG4zTgPwh

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 28, 2022

OPEN THREAD: Just do it.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Watch: Lizzo plays former President James Madison’s crystal flute and twerks in DC.

THAT’S NOT TRASH, IT’S A BUNCH OF PRICELESS HISTORICAL ARTIFACTS FROM THE AGE OF MACHINE EXPLORATION: Mars is littered with 15,694 pounds of human trash from 50 years of robotic exploration.

Also, they make that sound like a lot, but Mars is an entire freaking planet with roughly the same land area as Earth. This is the mass of two or three Ford Super Duty pickups.

RIP: Rapper Coolio Dead at 59.

THE BANNINGS WILL CONTINUE UNTIL MORALE IMPROVES: Twitter suspended Libs of TikTok again, for unspecified “hateful conduct.” “Most likely, yes, that’s what it is: Monopoly tech is pro-pedophilia. They are attempting to mainstream pedophilia, and hide it from the public until they feel the public is ready to tolerate pedophilia.”

GOVERNED BY FOOLS AND CRIMINALS:

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Pelosi Drafts Articles Of Impeachment Against New Prime Minister Of Italy.

UNEXPECTEDLY! The View’s New Token ‘Republican’ Says She May Vote Democrat.

She insisted, “The Donald Trump party is not a conservative party. It’s a populous, nationalist rightwing party that I have about as much in common with as I do Bernie Sanders.”

Nationalism, of course, is (per Merriam-Webster) a point of view which “[exalts] one nation above all others and [places] primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations.” That used to describe the professed bipartisan aim of American government. But evidently, times have changed.

Alyssa asserted the GOP is opposed to legal immigration:

“[I] want to get back to something where we’re pro-free trade, pro-globalization, for legal immigration into the country — securing the border but with legal immigration. And that’s just not what we are now.”

Given that, she’s entirely open to voting Democrat:

“As far as supporting Democrats, I’d be able to on a case-by-case basis. I’d have to look at their policies. And that’s kind of where I am.”

So goes the portrait of a reasonable Republican — in the vein of Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, and The View frequenter Ana Navarro.

You can make an excellent living as a talking head being presented as a Republican who never actually votes for Republicans.

PAUL MIRENGOFF: It’s not just the economy. Concern about crime is also driving the midterms. You can tell, because Dems are talking about Willie Horton.

Naturally, the Post sympathizes with the Democrats’ claim that the GOP’s focus on the crime issue is racist. It quotes a black pollster who worked for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. He calls the GOP’s ads “Willie Horton 2.0.”

This, of course, refers to a highly successful attack ad against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential campaign. Horton was an inmate at a Massachusetts corrections facility serving a life sentence for murdering a man when he received a weekend pass thanks to a prison furlough program maintained by then-governor Michael Dukakis over the objection of the state legislature. While out of prison, Horton twice raped a Maryland woman after pistol-whipping, knifing, binding, and gagging her fiancé.

Democrats howled “racism” and have been invoking the Horton spot for decades in order to ward off ads attacking them for being soft on crime. This amounts to an attempt by Democrats to escape the dire consequences of their lenient social engineering projects by shouting “racism.”

The stunt has succeeded in part because of Republican cowardice, but mostly because crime receded dramatically thanks to tough-on-crime policies adopted after Dukakis’ defeat.

Now that crime is again rampant — thanks in large part to the abandonment of tough-on-crime policies — invoking Willie Horton isn’t going to deter any sensible Republican candidate.

Nor should it. The Willie Horton was neither illegitimate nor racist. Dukakis’ decision to release Horton, in violation of the wishes of a liberal state legislature, directly led to multiple felonies and serious injuries.

He’s right, though it’s curious that CTRL-F “Al Gore” brings back zero results on the post.