THIS IS DIVERSITY? Here’s some things these four women — Dorothy Roberts, Kristin Henning, Sheryll Cashin, and Derecka Purnell — have in common: All are black, all have written books about ripping apart various American institutions, and all are webinar panelists for the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) convention, according to Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader.

“On August 17, AALS is hosting a webinar on new constitutional law books for its Constitutional Law section. But none of the books are about constitutional law.  Why is it hosting the panel, then? Because it provides an opportunity to showcase what the AALS views as racial diversity,” Bader explains. How quickly the Left becomes a caricature of itself.

And we wonder why so often “lawyer” is a synonym for “Left-wing activist.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Merrick Garland’s Mar-a-Lago Raid May Have Clinched Senate for the GOP. “If there were any undecided voters floating around somewhere in America I can’t imagine that the fence is very comfortable right now. It’s also probably a safe bet that Drooling Joe’s Stasi move guarantees that apathy won’t be a problem for the Republicans.”

HAND OVER YOUR WALLET, SUCKA! Elizabeth Troutman of the Washington Free Beacon reports that the ACLU and Human Rights Watch want the UN — not the American people —  to  demand that President Joe Biden move with “immediate, tangible measures” to dismantle “structural racism” in America, including the payment of reparations to every group that ever claimed to be oppressed.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: Why Are Gas Prices Falling? “I believe the outlets are right to pinpoint changing demand as the relevant factor for falling prices, and they’re right that higher prices are part of the story, but the explanation is missing the most important part.”

JOHN HINDERAKER: The FBI has openly become an arm of the Democratic Party. This will not serve the Bureau well in years to come. But what was the pretext for the raid?

Related: Mike Lee — lawyer, former federal prosecutor, and current member of the Senate Judiciary Committee — has a lot of questions about the Mar-a-Lago raid.

I’m not sure these questions originated with Mike Lee, but they’re good questions. For example: “Ninth, what should we make of the fact that this is occurring while FBI and DOJ have taken no discernible action regarding (for example) flagrant violations of the law by (a) Hunter Biden, or (b) pro-abortion extremists threatening Supreme Court justices at their homes?”

Plus: FBI Director Wray Leaves Senate Hearing Early to Fly on Government Plane to Vacation Spot.

I’LL BELIEVE SHE’S SERIOUS WHEN SHE GIVES UP HER AIR CONDITIONING AND LIVES IN LESS THAN 1000 SQUARE FEET: Liberal Media Scream: Jane Pauley hypes climate agenda to ‘human extinction’ level.

JEFFREY CARTER: Making Up Numbers. “I think you ought to toss out all economic numbers from 2020 and 2021. Ignore them. Go back to 2019. Covid and the government’s response makes them silly to use when forecasting or trying to make sense of the economy. Sort of like using stock market numbers from 1930-1935 to extrapolate long-term return on equity. Hopefully, it’s a one-time event. The tax receipt numbers on the abysmal bill that just passed the Senate are guaranteed to be wrong. Economic incentives will change, and the numbers will be far below the expected numbers. Joe Biden and the Democrats killed the bull market. Lots of numbers are totally made up.”

KRUISER: Narrative Destroyed: Majority of Voters Think Election Integrity Is Important.

FAR-LEFTIES DOMINATE NEW HILL AIDES’ UNION: The president of the Congressional Workers Union (CWU) works for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. But wait, there’s more! And it’s all from the Far-Left of the modern Democratic Party. What could go wrong?

WELL, SHE’S NOT WRONG: Haley: Biden’s Bungled Afghanistan Withdrawal a ‘Slap in the Face’ to All Combat Vets: ‘Afghanistan is once again a safe haven where terrorists operate freely,’ says former UN ambassador.

HEAD OF AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL’S UKRAINE ARM RESIGNS AFTER BACKLASH TO REPORT:

The leader of Amnesty International’s Ukraine arm resigned Friday amid fallout from a scathing report the human rights organization issued criticizing the Ukrainian military’s tactics amid the ongoing Russian invasion.

Driving the news: The report accused Ukraine of endangering its own civilians and allegedly violating international law. It prompted Oksana Pokalchuk, the leader of the watchdog organization’s Ukrainian arm, to resign, saying in a Facebook post the report had become “a tool of Russian propaganda.”

What she’s saying: “If you don’t live in a country invaded by occupiers who are tearing it to pieces, you probably don’t understand what it’s like to condemn an army of defenders,” Pokalchuk said.

This is what lit the spark:

Not surprisingly, in between Annie Leibovitz photo shoots and posing with actress Jessica Chastain, Zelensky went apoplectic:

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the report Thursday. Amnesty International, he said, was attempting “to grant amnesty to the terrorist state and to shift blame from the aggressor to the victim of the aggression,” Politico reported.

There’s further fallout as well: Will Amnesty condemn Islamic Jihad’s tactics as it did Ukraine?

Amnesty International’s contentious Thursday report, claiming that the Ukrainian military endangered civilians with its tactics, saw the organization lambasted for promoting Russian propaganda. But it is the fighting that began a day later, between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, that threatens the human rights group’s global credibility.

Islamic Jihad is clearly using the exact same tactics that Amnesty International accused Ukraine of. If the NGO does not condemn the terrorist group for these actions, it will show the world not just its political bias, but a staggering display of hypocrisy as well.

To be fair, Amnesty already accomplished that years ago.

VIDEO: Ukraine Export Deal: Too Little, Too Late. “The likely end result here is that this is the last year that Ukraine participates in international grain markets. They simply don’t have the capacity to get stuff up at a scale.”

If you don’t have the time or inclination to watch a video, Lawrence Person has done his usual excellent job of breaking out the bullet points for you to read.

ILYA SHAPIRO ON MOVING FROM CATO TO GEORGETOWN LAW TO THE MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: “What’s really different is that my organization’s leadership encourages my professional endeavors and isn’t trying to get me to toe a rigid ideological line.”

DEAL OF THE DAY: Digital Meat Thermometer with Probe. #CommissionEarned

LIFE IN THE 21ST CENTURY: I apologize for my white baby: How can I extol the virtues of anti-racism while birthing another white person? “During my pregnancy, I caught myself fantasizing about the child coming out Black. My husband and I talked about adopting, but after watching that fascist Amy Coney Barrett parade her Black children in front of America at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing to prove she’s not just a racist bootlicker for the Patriarchy, we reconsidered. After all, does a Black child in a white family not perpetuate the cycle of white supremacy?”

Plus: “We tried desperately to find a Black nanny but had to settle for a Latinx.”

It’s satire, but I was only 100% sure of that because I know the author. We live in the instantiation of Poe’s Law.

HOW MANY CARS QUALIFY FOR THE SENATE DEMS’ NEW SUBSIDIES? “Today’s trick answer, via Reason: none. Thanks to the convoluted path that the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ took, what started off as an expansion of an existing tax credit for electric-vehicle models on the market developed into subsidies for vehicles that only exist in the imagination.”

THE TYRANNY OF THE ‘CURRENT THING:’

For a while, the Current Thing was #MeToo. From 2016 until 2018, the Current Thing was Russian collusion. After that scheme unraveled, we moved through a series of Current Things, each of which was said to compound the grave threat Trump supposedly posed to Our Democracy: in March 2020, it was Covid-19; for a few months that summer, it was systemic racism; then, it was the Delta variant; finally, for a stretch of early 2021, it was the January 6^th “insurrection.” And when Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine became the Current Thing. You knew it was the new Current Thing because all the smart people suddenly changed how they spelled and pronounced “Kiev.”

So, you know what the Current Thing is. What, then, is “Current Thingism”? Current Thingism is the default mindset of a certain segment of the American population: typically, the professional, liberal, educated, urban caste of society. Current Thingism is an enduring assumption that whatever the Current Thing happens to be, it should, in fact, be the Current Thing—the issue among issues.

Current Thingism also enables some judgment on the part of the Current Thingist. Because the Current Thing deserves our total attention and deference, anyone who disputes the existence or the urgency of the Current Thing is a problem. The person who does not concede the urgency of the Current Thing is dumb, dangerous, or both. Remember the treatment of those who doubted the efficacy of masks? Those who were reluctant about mRNA vaccines? Those who doubted the wisdom of sending billions of dollars to fund Ukraine’s defense? Such is the fate of those who don’t get in line with the Current Thing.

Read the whole thing, which seems remarkably timely given the DNC-MSM’s reaction to last night’s events (the O-face on Nicolle Wallace’s face on the screen grab says it all).

ON SUNDAYS I DO A BOOK PROMO THING MOSTLY FOR INDIE AUTHORS. I FORGOT TO LINK YESTERDAY:  Writer update Book Promo And Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

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

Kevin Downey Jr: Dems Won’t Lift a Finger to Stop Crime in Black Communities, Yet Republicans Are the Racists? “I still can’t figure out what WWII atrocities have to do with BLM, but hell hath no fury like a white social-justice warrior with a diploma from MIT.”

Stacey Lennox: Charles Payne Brings the Hammer Down on Electric Vehicle Lies. ““This is what the world is going to need just to meet 2030 goals. We’re going to need, the world, 50 more lithium mines, 60 more nickel mines, and 17 more cobalt mines.”

Yours Truly: Hey, Kids! Trans Activist Eli Erlick Will Help You Chemically Alter Your Body Through the Mail. “This is the moral equivalent of taking a troubled teen who’s into cutting and handing them an X-ACTO knife and fresh blades.”

CHICANERY: Democratic ads boosted extremists in Republican primaries. Was that wise?

HE SCREWED UP SO MANY OTHER THINGS SINCE THEN:  Biden’s Afghanistan Debacle One Year Later.

ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER:  Wrought.

THEY HAVE SINCE OBAMA WEAPONIZED IT:  The left now loves the IRS…

BAD NEWS: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL WERE ALWAYS CORRUPT FOOLS. THEY RARELY SUPPORTED VICTIMS OF COMMUNISTS:  Amnesia [sic] International “report” on Ukraine: flush it down where AI itself belongs.

THEY WANT US ALL IMPOVERISHED OR DEAD:  Samizdata quote of the day.