HERE’S HOW IT MIGHT HAVE LOOKED IF TODAY’S ‘FACT CHECKERS’ HAD BEEN ABLE TO CENSOR SPEECH THROUGHOUT U.S. HISTORY:

Imagine some hippy in 1968 speaking out against the escalating U.S. war in Vietnam on his Facebook, only to have “Missing Context” pop up to warn his followers:

‘End the War! Bring our troops home! Screw Johnson!’

Facebook Warning: *Independent fact-checkers* have found that this and similar posts are missing context. The Pentagon and statements by White House officials have suggested that U.S. efforts in this conflict have been productive.

* * * * * * * *

[I]magine a conservative sharing on Facebook in 2009:

‘I don’t trust this president, I want to keep my doctor and this government is only to make health prices go up!’

Facebook Warning: *Independent fact-checkers* have found that this and similar posts are missing context. Obama Administration officials have assured Americans that they will be able to keep their health plans and their doctors. 

Heh, indeed. Read the whole thing.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: Evangelical Christian furries are worried they’ll be targeted for their faith.

Beto O’Rourke could not be reached for comment.

UKRAINE WAR: Everything Is Blowing up Roses, Vital Antonovsky Bridge Cut. “Antonovsky Bridge, one of the Russian Army’s lifelines into occupied Kherson, was effectively knocked out of action in a perfectly timed missile strike — just one of many developments on an explosive day in the Ukraine War.”

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Randi Weingarten admits to sharing fake list of ‘banned’ books: ‘My bad.’

American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten admitted to sharing a false tweet claiming that certain books were banned in Florida on Sunday.

“I should have double checked before I retweeted this list. My bad. Looks like some of the books weren’t banned. Book bans are very real & dangerous,” she said on Sunday. Weingarten included a screenshot of her original tweet, which said, “Books we have taught for generations!!!!!”

The list, posted by an account called “Freesus Patriot,” claimed that Florida has banned books such as, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and “A Wrinkle in Time.” The account also tweeted that they would not reveal the source of the list.

“I’m not going to say where this list came from due to protecting sources but if this list is wrong then I invite @RonDeSantisFL to publicly state the books on this list will not be banned in Florida schools & he intends to protect student’s rights. I will take it down if he does,” the account tweeted.

Social media users responded to Weingarten’s walk-back and original tweet, which has since been deleted.

Including:

BECAUSE I NEED ANOTHER CALIBER OF AMMO TO KEEP TRACK OF: New For 2022: Smith & Wesson Model 350 Revolver.

READER FAVORITE: Kindle – Now with a Built-in Front Light – White. #CommissionEarned

MILBLOGGER LAUGHING WOLF PRESENTS Nuclear 201: Some History.

MICHAEL WALSH: ‘Our Democracy’ Needs a Great Reset.

You know the American Republic is on its last legs when those trying to destroy it consistently refer to it as “our democracy,” which is exactly what it is not and what it was never intended to be. Historically, democracies don’t last long, because they quickly turn into tyrannies after passing through the parasitical stage. Democracy in ancient Greece was hardly what we might call “democracy” today, as voting was restricted males with a stake in the system. No votes for women, slaves, or helots. The young male hoplites of Athens had to complete military training as ephebes to earn their right to vote, and not simply achieve their majority, which was effectively 20; additionally they had to buy their own armor and weapons and be prepared to go to war on practically an annual basis. (Any resemblance between this society and the world of Starship Troopers is entirely intentional.) 

Read the whole thing.

BLOOD WILL TELL, APPARENTLY: Mystery crater potentially caused by relative of dinosaur-killing asteroid.

ROGER SIMON: #DemCast Takes Democrats War on Truth to a Much More Dangerous Level.

“DemCast is a non-profit organization utilizing social media to push left-wing narratives online through tens of thousands of accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

“Garnering an estimation of over 50 billion impressions since just 2019 — DemCast aims at manipulating public opinion surrounding the topics of COVID, war with Russia, January 6, and even swaying local elections throughout all of the 50 states. …

“[A]n unlisted YouTube video posted to DemCast’s YouTube channel … details a major function of DemCast’s strategy — using thousands of private chatrooms to artificially amplify messaging on the platform, garnering millions of impressions, artificially amplifying content to sway public opinion.”

To do this, they utilize something called the Speechifai platform wherein (obviously left-wing) organizations are provided with “an accompanying hashtag, ensuring that when thousands of individuals post to social media, they appear as though they are authentic to the normal user — rather than auto-generated” (from a specifically left-wing bot).

I repeat: over 50 billion impressions so far, undoubtedly growing exponentially even as we read this. Not even Orwell dreamed of this for his Ministry of Truth. Who needs the imprimatur of the New York Times—controversial to some of us diehards—when you have millions of people unwittingly repeating the received mantras without a hint of bias acknowledged? It’s from folks just like you, folks. No pundits, no media, nada, not even celebrities.

I can already see the gleam in Klaus Schwab’s eyes as some putatively harmless and logical version of “You will own nothing and you will be happy” makes its way through the chat rooms and then invades half the computers of the world to be tweeted and retweeted until our heads explode.

Exit quote: “So I reiterate my call to get off what we could call social media’s axis of evil and thereby destroy their business models. We have the numbers to do that if, for once, we hang together.”

SHE UNDERWENT GEPHARDTIZATION: Stacey Abrams Was Against Abortion Until She Decided to Run for Office.

IT’S JANUARY 6 ALL OVER THE WORLD: “Sri Lanka’s new government came under international censure Monday over the use of tough anti-terror laws to detain protesters who forced Gotabaya Rajapaksa to step down from the presidency last month. Irony:

The PTA allows suspects to be detained for 90 days without judicial review.

“Using laws that don’t conform with international human rights standards – like the PTA – erodes democracy in Sri Lanka,” said US ambassador to Sri Lanka Julie Chung.

“We encourage the government to uphold the rights of the people to express their views,” she tweeted.

I encourage all governments to do that.

Related: Sri Lanka Faces International Censure Over Arrests.

CHANGE: Ending a 4-Year Partnership, Doordash Will Stop Delivering Walmart Groceries Next Month. Walmart is working on its own delivery plan.

ALL THE INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED: WSJ: The Trump Warrant Had No Legal Basis: A former president’s rights under the Presidential Records Act trump the statutes the FBI cited to justify the Mar-a-Lago raid.

The warrant authorized the FBI to seize “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§793, 2071, or 1519” (emphasis added). These three criminal statutes all address the possession and handling of materials that contain national-security information, public records or material relevant to an investigation or other matters properly before a federal agency or the courts.

The materials to be seized included “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021”—i.e., during Mr. Trump’s term of office. Virtually all the materials at Mar-a-Lago are likely to fall within this category. Federal law gives Mr. Trump a right of access to them. His possession of them is entirely consistent with that right, and therefore lawful, regardless of the statutes the FBI cites in its warrant.

Those statutes are general in their text and application. But Mr. Trump’s documents are covered by a specific statute, the Presidential Records Act of 1978. It has long been the Supreme Court position, as stated in Morton v. Mancari (1974), that “where there is no clear intention otherwise, a specific statute will not be controlled or nullified by a general one, regardless of the priority of enactment.” The former president’s rights under the PRA trump any application of the laws the FBI warrant cites. . . .

Nothing in the PRA suggests that the former president’s physical custody of his records can be considered unlawful under the statutes on which the Mar-a-Lago warrant is based. Yet the statute’s text makes clear that Congress considered how certain criminal-law provisions would interact with the PRA: It provides that the archivist is not to make materials available to the former president’s designated representative “if that individual has been convicted of a crime relating to the review, retention, removal, or destruction of records of the Archives.”

Nothing is said about the former president himself, but applying these general criminal statutes to him based on his mere possession of records would vitiate the entire carefully balanced PRA statutory scheme. Thus if the Justice Department’s sole complaint is that Mr. Trump had in his possession presidential records he took with him from the White House, he should be in the clear, even if some of those records are classified.

In making a former president’s records available to him, the PRA doesn’t distinguish between materials that are and aren’t classified. That was a deliberate choice by Congress.

So much for all the “rule of law” talk justifying this lawless raid by a lawless agency.

Related, from a friend:

OUCH: Elon Musk Says Price of Tesla’s FSD Driver Assistance Software Is Rising. “After wide release of FSD Beta 10.69.2, price of FSD will rise to $15k in North America on September 5th. Current price will be honored for orders made before Sept 5th, but delivered later.”

That’s up from $12,000.

BIDEN HASN’T BEEN ABLE TO FREE BRITTNEY GRINER: Maybe Dennis Rodman Can? “Of course, when you read between the lines, it sounds like the administration is afraid that Rodman might show them up and accomplish something they couldn’t: Griner’s release. Honestly, I have more confidence in Dennis Rodman securing that ungrateful American’s release than in the Biden administration doing so. Rodman credits himself with securing the release of American prisoner Kenneth Bae from North Korea back in 2014. So, I guess Rodman has experience being better at diplomatic negotiations than Democrat administrations.”

SHOCKER: Websites selling unapproved abortion pills are booming. I’m sure the government will be able to stop this just like it’s stopped sales of illegal steroids and painkillers.

AXIOS: Golly, NYC and the Beltway are feeling “overwhelmed” by…”Texas migrants?” “Again, we have ‘migrants’ with no explanation of origin. It sounds as though Abbott is sending Texans off to live among the big-city folk. (Those wouldn’t be ‘happy to leave,’ trust me.) In this entire report, the word ‘border’ never appears, let alone ‘border crisis.’ For that matter, neither do the words ‘Mexico,’ ‘immigration,’ ‘asylum,’ or ‘Biden.’ Axios treats this as though Abbott created a crisis out of thin air, rather than an 18-month catastrophe on the border that Joe Biden has steadfastly refused to address honestly.”

MATT MARGOLIS: Judge Who Approved Mar-a-Lago Raid Makes HUGE Admission.

THIS IS ONLY IN OCCASIONAL POWER EMERGENCIES: Those with Tesla Solar Power and Tesla Powerwalls who have opted into Tesla’s Virtual Power Plant program get $2 per kwh when their power utility uses the Tesla Virtual Power plant. Plus, an experience:

About 25 kwh was used from my home during this event. This was about $50 generated from the event.

Powerwalls and solar have reduced my monthly energy bills from $200-400 down to about $30-50 mainly from natural gas for water heating and a gas stove. This VPP event offset the charge for one to two months of power bills.

Not bad. I have two concerns. First, is this going to be scalable? And second, as power becomes less reliable over the coming decade, which seems likely, will people want to participate in this program, or would they rather hold on to their reserves?

THE DEMOCRATS’ NEW NARRATIVE: All Republicans are now terrorists: Democrats and the mainstream media have gone full Orwellian.

This sort of rhetoric is monstrous and enormously destructive to society, but they don’t care.

I WONDER HOW THIS WILL TURN OUT: Court Rules Man Who Identifies as Woman Must Be Allowed in Women’s Jail. “In a split decision on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that ‘gender dysphoria’ is a protected class under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The court ruled that a male identifying as a female, named Williams, who was imprisoned in Fairfax County, Virginia should be housed with the female inmates, even though he retains male body parts.”

Related: Dr. Colin Wright suspended from Twitter for cartoon criticizing trans activism.

Here’s the cartoon that got him banned, appropriate to the 4th Circuit Court story.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND ABORTION: Parsing the contradictions.

RIP: Leon Vitali, Stanley Kubrick’s right-hand man, dies at 74. “Before meeting Kubrick, Vitali was a rising actor in England, appearing in several British television shows including ‘Softly, Softly,’ ‘Follyfoot,’ ‘Z Cars’ and ‘Notorious Woman.’ Then in 1974 he got his biggest break yet, when he was cast in ‘Barry Lyndon’ as Lord Bullingdon, the son-in-law of Ryan O’Neal’s title character. Vitali was so fascinated by Kubrick and his processes that he made an unusual decision: He gave up on acting and devoted himself entirely to the famously demanding director for over two decades. His next Kubrick credit was as ‘personal assistant to the director’ on ‘The Shining,’ though that’s only part of the story — Vitali famously helped cast 4-year-old Danny Lloyd to play Danny Torrance and Louise and Lisa Burns as the creepy Grady twins (citing Diane Arbus as inspiration).”

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: That Insane Obama-Biden Iran Deal Is Getting Worse All the Time. “The Administration has dropped one crucial demand after another in pursuit of a deal, any deal with Iran, no matter how crazy or dangerous. Two of the most egregious retreats occurred in the last few days.”