OLD AND BUSTED: “Safe, Legal, and Rare.”
The New Hotness? Stacey Abrams Floats Abortion as an Inflation Fix: ‘Having Children Is Why You’re Worried’ about Rising Prices.
Archive for 2022
October 19, 2022
HE STILL ISN’T READY AFTER TWO YEARS OF HOLDING THAT OFFICE: Raphael Warnock’s Answer to the Question of Why Voters Should Choose Him Doesn’t Inspire Confidence.
OUT: TRUST THE EXPERTS! In: Science destroys its credibility by embracing critical theory.
Related: The Suicide of Expertise.
NEWSWEEK: Canceling the Cancelers at Yale Law School.
The reasons for the law clerk hiring moratorium are fairly straightforward: “Cancel culture” and, more specifically, a hostility to religious and conservative viewpoints and a demonstrated willingness to “shout down” such speakers, are disproportionately pervasive at Yale Law; Yale Law consistently ranks as, and holds itself as, the single preeminent institution of legal education in America; because of that perceived perch, Yale Law is more capable of influencing other legal institutions to denounce “cancel culture” and make itself genuinely open to “dissident” speech from the “deplorable” half of the American citizenry.
Ho’s critics immediately swarmed from every possible direction. The Left was predictably apoplectic. On the Right, some, such as the purportedly right-of-center Dispatch podcaster Sarah Isgur, have complained that it is not clear what Yale could actually do to effectuate meaningful change. Such defeatism is unwarranted; one clear first step would be for Yale to embrace the Chicago Principles, a product of the University of Chicago, which would have the effect of protecting conservative students, conservative speech, and conservative programming.
Some—seemingly including fellow Fifth Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith, who took time away from defending corporate vaccine mandates in the Federal Reporter to condemn Ho’s stance as “regrettable”—suggest that a boycott of Yale Law is counterproductive and bad for Yale students. But the hard truth is that, right now, conservative law school matriculants should simply not go to Yale—period. Yale does not want them; their peers will do their best to stymie their careers, and they will be supported by the Yale Law School administration in those efforts. An investigation last year by The Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, covered by this column at the time, powerfully highlighted the point.
The reality is that, if Yale Law School were openly discriminatory against blacks and/or Hispanics, not a single person would object to a boycott; on the contrary, all decent people would join it. . . .
Nor is there any reason why future tactics in “canceling the cancelers” must be cabined solely to the realm of the judicial branch. As law professor Josh Blackman blogged shortly after Ho’s speech in Kentucky: “A future Republican administration can categorically label every [Yale Law] grad a squish. It is quite feasible for President [Ron] DeSantis (a [Harvard Law] grad) to simply boycott all Yale grads who matriculated after 2021. Good luck with explaining why you chose to stay at [Yale] for that shiny brass ring as some Chicago grad gets the nom[ination].”
More generally, conservatives must be willing to prudentially engage in escalatory tit-for-tat tactics across all areas of our republican life—to merely rebalance our wildly off-kilter status quo that favors progressives over conservatives across all of society, if nothing else. If the notion of “knowing what time it is” means anything, surely it means that. Now, with a small victory at Yale Law under our belts, let’s keep it up.
Tit for tat works. It’s science.. #CommissionEarned
THE FBI HAS ANNOUNCED INDICTMENTS OF 22 PRO-LIFE PROTESTERS AND ZERO PREGNANCY CENTER FIREBOMBERS:
A Federalist review of Justice Department press releases in 2022 revealed not a single announcement of the arrest or indictment of a pregnancy center arsonist. It took the FBI 44 days after the Dobbs opinion leaked to even acknowledge it was investigating incidents of violence against pro-life groups. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd concluded earlier this month, “the arrest of peaceful pro-lifers but not of violent pro-abortionists confirms Biden’s DOJ does not equally apply the law.”
Asked on Tuesday if “the FBI has made any arrests related to the vandalism, firebombing, etc. of dozens of pregnancy resource centers and churches around the country since the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision?” the FBI refused to comment. The FBI also declined to answer whether any individuals had been indicted, or if the FBI had conducted any raids on potential suspects such as those used to target pro-life activists Mark Houck and Chester Gallagher; the agency directed The Federalist to the DOJ for indictment inquiries. The DOJ did not respond.
Related: Majority see FBI as Biden’s ‘personal Gestapo’ after Trump raid.
THE CDC SQUANDERED TOO MUCH PUBLIC TRUST TO MAKE THIS STICK, EVEN IF THE VACCINES WERE NECESSARY FOR KIDS: CDC Vaccine Advisory Group To Vote on Adding mRNA Vaccines to the Childhood Schedule.
BE PREPARED: SABRE Pepper Spray Keychain with Quick Release. #CommissionEarned
NPR: You can run, but you can’t hide: Inflation is busting budgets, and killing joy too.
What was striking about the data was that a lot of the worst inflation is hitting us at home: rent was up 7.2%, electricity prices are up 15.5%, groceries are up 13%.
Seeing as how it’s spooky season, and the economy seems to be full of monsters, I thought it appropriate to invoke the classic horror film When a Stranger Calls (1979) –a terrifying tale of a woman babysitting a couple of kids, who keeps getting calls from a creepy stranger. She finally has the call traced (this was waaaay back in the days of landlines) and the operator calls back with the terrifying news: The calls are coming from inside the house!
Inflation, too, is coming from inside the house: lurking inside a carton of eggs (30.5% more expensive than last year), crouching in your closet (prices for women’s suits are up 10%, men’s suits are up 9.5%), or even hiding inside the walls (utility gas up 33.1%).
But unlike the killer in When a Stranger Calls, inflation doesn’t tend to get us with one deadly strike. Instead, it’s been hanging around for months, destroying our peace of mind and stealing some joy out of life. Because there’s no avoiding paying for shelter, food and health insurance (up 28.2%,the biggest jump on record) consumers have to find other places to cut back: everything from vacations to eating out to even giving up favorite activities or foods.
Did I mention this story was published by NPR? There’s zero traction for the Democrats trying to change the “national conversation” back to abortion, but Biden tried again on Tuesday, anyway, in a very weird speech.
PUSHING BACK AGAINST CAMPUS BIGOTRY: University rewrites segregated event promo after College Fix inquiry.
SHE FIGHTS: Kari Lake Goes Savage on Reporter for Dubbing Her an ‘Election Denier.’ “It’s actually amazing that the media hasn’t learned to stop asking that question. But alas, they still think they’ve found the ultimate gotcha question. They simply don’t count on Lake having the receipts to prove that, when it comes to denying election results, Republicans can’t hold a candle to Democrats, who routinely question election results when they lose.”
HIGHER EDUCATION NEWS: PROF. GIORDANO: Ben Sasse is the right man for the University of Florida.
A dark-money group affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, is funding the more than $3 million in TV ads attacking Republican U.S. Senate candidate Joe O’Dea for his stance on abortion, according to a new federal campaign finance filing.
Majority Forward is the sole funder of 53 Peaks, a newly formed Democratic super PAC that began airing the ads in late September. Majority Forward is a political nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, which is why The Colorado Sun refers to it as a dark-money group. It is the same group that funded ads in the 2020 Democratic U.S. Senate primary attacking former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, who lost to now-Sen. John Hickenlooper.
Majority Forward is also a primary backer of Senate Majority PAC, a political action committee aligned with Schumer that aired ads in this year’s Republican U.S. Senate primary backing O’Dea’s opponent, election denier state Rep. Ron Hanks.
The polls say Colorado is solidly blue again this year, but the money suggests otherwise.
Previously: Whispers That Colorado Senate Seat Could Go to GOP.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Kari Lake May Be the Greatest Thing to Happen to Republicans This Year. “Kari Lake showed up armed with insider information that she uses to lay traps that idiot reporters keep walking into.”
WELCOME TO RUSSIA. OBEY ORDERS: Putin declares martial law in annexed regions of Ukraine. “The upper house of Russia’s parliament was set to quickly seal Putin’s decision to impose martial law in the four regions. Draft legislation indicates it may involve restrictions on travel and public gatherings, tighter censorship and broader authority for law enforcement agencies.”
WELL, YES, THEY LIED: Democrats’ voter suppression myth exposed again as Georgians set a turnout record. That’s who they are, that’s what they do.
RUSSIA: The Baltic Nations are Subject Matter Experts Here, we Should Listen.
These are small nations from Estonia’s 1.3 million, Latvia’s 1.8 million, to Lithuania’s 2.8 million. These little ethnostates each have a unique language, culture, and have survived as a people since pre-history. They are survivors who have not had many years to be masters of their own fate.
The fall of the Soviet Union gave them their latest chance, and they’ve made a good run of it. They, more than most, know Russia – indeed, all three have significant Russian minorities in their nations who decided to throw their lot in with their Baltic neighbors after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Though they are small, when they speak about Russia, larger nations should listen. Their larger neighbor, Poland with 38 million souls, also has a long and brutal history with the Russians. All four nations will be the first to feel the results of making the wrong decisions towards their big neighbor to the east. A no kidding existential threat. They are also NATO allies, so their threat is in a very real way our threat.
They cannot afford vanity-filled feel-good theories.
Neither can we, but our leaders don’t care.
MULTIPLE HARD DRIVES CRASH IN 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Grassley requests FBI records in relation to Hunter Biden’s relationship with China.
CHANGE: BlackRock Gets Downgraded for the Increasing Political Risk of ESG Investing. “Larry Fink is having a bad year. Some estimates place investments withdrawn from BlackRock, the firm where he is CEO, at nearly $3 billion just from states pulling treasury funds due to Fink’s public political agenda. In the second quarter of 2022, BlackRock exceeded average market losses, with assets under management falling 22% to $8.5 trillion. Third-quarter assets under management fell another 15%, with adjusted earnings down 12.8% and revenue falling 15%.”
MAYBE THEY SHOULD STOP LYING: Gallup: New low in media ‘trust.’
FETTERMAN SAYS A LOT OF THINGS: Fetterman Flip-Flops on Fracking, Now Says He’s ‘Always Supported’ It.
New slogan: As mentally fit as the President of the United States!
DEAL OF THE DAY: LEVOIT Humidifier. #CommissionEarned
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY (RUSSIA EDITION): Putin’s War Escalation Is Hastening Demographic Crash for Russia.
Besides casualties in the thousands on the battlefield, the enlistment of 300,000 reservists to join the fight — and an even bigger flight of men abroad — is derailing Putin’s goals of starting to stabilize the population already this year.
Crippling disruptions from the war are converging with a population crisis rooted in the 1990s, a period of economic hardship after the Soviet breakup that sent fertility rates plunging. Independent demographer Alexei Raksha is calling it “a perfect storm.”
Plans by Putin’s government had set the goal of starting to reverse the decline in the population in 2022 before growth should resume in 2030. Yet weeks before the mobilization was announced in September, an internal report drafted for a closed-door meeting showed officials were already concluding those targets were unrealistic.
Citing the consequences of the coronavirus and migration outflows, the report instead proposed a revision that envisaged a decrease of 416,700 people in 2030.
Putin seems to have thought that he could quickly add 40 million ethnic Slavs to his empire, but things haven’t quite worked out that way.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Columbia’s endowment posts $1B loss while Harvard’s warns of ‘meaningful’ markdowns.
OKAY, NOW WHAT ON DURHAM PROBE? Just the News founder and editor John Solomon looks at the wreckage of the Danchenko trial and sees a path forward. Its success will depend, however, upon some folks who don’t exactly inspire confidence in the area of political backbone.