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Archive for 2022
September 12, 2022
“I’M RETIRING FROM THE PRACTICE OF LAW:” “I’ll have more to say later, but the bottom line is, after 26 years, & especially the last few, I have come to an inescapable conclusion: there is no justice to be had in our ‘justice’ system. I am no longer willing to participate in a system that I consider to be a total farce. . . . The state of our institutions – particularly the criminal ‘justice’ ones, but also the federal civil courts – is dire, & is unacceptable for a functioning republic. They must be radically overhauled & reformed, & a renewed emphasis on first principles restored.”
LAS VEGAS DEMOCRAT ACCUSED OF KILLING REPORTER WILL REMAIN IN OFFICE AND GET PAID:
An elected official who allegedly murdered an investigative reporter in Las Vegas will remain in office for months and still get paid while he sits in prison.
Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles was denied bail last week after he was charged in the stabbing death of Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal journalist who had been probing Telles’ alleged misconduct in office.
But as he waits behind bars, a county leader said, Telles will keep getting paid.
“For now, he’s still an elected officer and he’ll get paid while he’s in jail,” Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom told WSAV on Friday.
Segerblom said voters have the option to recall Telles, who lost a Democratic primary in June. But 100,000 signatures are required to put the ballot initiative forward.
There is also the possibility that Telles could resign.
“We can take the scope of work away from him, but as far as him having the title and getting the salary, it is that way, because the voters picked him,” Segerblom told the television station.
Telles is reportedly paid $130,000 annually.
Found via Jim Treacher, who writes, “There’s an old saying that goes, ‘Nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.’ But I’d like to propose a third certainty in this world: Members of the Democratic Party will always misspend those taxes.”
AND WASHINGTON STILL RAN A MULTITRILLION-DOLLAR DEFICIT: Americans Spent More on Taxes Last Year Than on Food, Health Care, Education, and Clothing Combined.
BATTLESWARM BLOG: Scenes From A Russian Rout. “Things in Ukraine are moving so fast that the only thing I can be sure of is that what I post here will probably be obsolete before I press the Publish button.”
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: Tinder Generation Can’t Find Love.
Suzy Weiss is a 27-year-old journalist who is bright, thoughtful, and very lonely. She’s also wondering why Tinder and other apps like it have failed members of her generation.
Tinder and other apps like it have failed members of her generation.
Writing at her older sister Bari’s Substack “Common Sense,” Suzy claims in an article called “Generation Swipe,” that “Tinder promised it would revolutionize romance.” So far, however, it appears to have failed not only her, but her peers as well. And she wonders why.
Part of the problem can be found in the first paragraph, however:
“Every generation thinks they have it the hardest when it comes to finding love, but it’s hard to look at mine and conclude that we don’t have a good case. Never before have young people been having so little sex …”
Perhaps it’s because she and her generation equate sex with love. They’ve bought into the lie that lots of sex means happiness, that women can enjoy carnal pleasures like men, and that this is how to find your soulmate.
My mother’s generation, however, believed that good girls don’t, and while bad girls seem to have all the fun, men want to marry good girls. Trouble is, however, that now lots of men don’t want to get married. And some, notes Weiss, don’t even want to have sex, believe it or not:
“By the time my parents were my age, so the meme goes, they had a house and two kids. A lot of men in my generation aren’t even having sex.”
Earlier: “The ’90s was the last of the great decades, because after that, computers killed the world.”
“CLIMATE CHANGE” ISN’T TURNING OUT AS ADVERTISED: This should be the absolute peak of hurricane season—but it’s dead quiet out there. “Everyone from the US agency devoted to studying weather, oceans, and the atmosphere—the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration—to the most highly regarded hurricane professionals predicted a season with above-normal to well above-normal activity. . . . Perhaps what is most striking about this season is that we are now at the absolute peak of hurricane season, and there is simply nothing happening.”
AMSTERDAM, CIRCA 2000:
Amsterdam, 2022: How Amsterdam ceased to be gay heaven. The city is becoming Islamicized and gay people are paying the price. “Full points to Bev for standing up to transgender ideology. It’s a real menace. But if we battle it hard enough, it’ll go away: it’s too irrational to last. And when it’s gone, we’ll still have a Western Europe that grows more Islamic by the day. And Bev Jackson will, I presume, stay silent on that topic — along with millions of others. Yes, it’s baffling that Western Europeans fail to vote for their own survival. But is this failure any wonder, when even a veteran gay activist won’t be honest about the biggest threat to gays in our time?”
HE’S SAYING WHAT WE KNEW ALL ALONG: The media elite and left-wing colleges desperately wanted to make the Gibson’s Brothers Inc. v. Oberlin Oberlin College case about “academic freedom.” Anybody who actually read the facts (brought to many of us through the incomparable work of Legal Insurrection‘s William Jacobson) knew that was utter horseshit.
Oberlin’s defenders tried — through the pages of The New York Times and other usual suspects — that the college was unfairly being punished for students’ speech. But those weren’t the facts: A jury learned that Oberlin administrators helped the defamatory fliers to be made with Oberlin-owned equipment; Oberlin staff participated in handing out the flyers; and worse yet, Oberlin officials attempted to prevent a local news photographer from recording the scene. The speech at issue was Oberlin’s as much as the students’.
Frederick Hess, American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy studies revisited the case in Forbes a few days ago, and the headline really says it all: “Oberlin Defamed A Bakery Rather Than Hold A Shoplifter Accountable. It’s Now $36 Million Poorer.”
Hess paints the background first:
“When the incident first occurred, because the shoplifters were black, the Oberlin community quickly accused Gibson’s of racism and discrimination in a series of high-profile attacks. Gibson’s and the college had a longstanding relationship, students regularly frequented the bakery, and there had been no prior suggestion that the owners or employees were racist. All of that context was conveniently ignored.”
And why did Oberlin avoid using common sense? Hess explains quite simply:
“Why did Oberlin defame a longtime partner rather than simply confront three students who’d engaged in misconduct? One former administrator wondered if Oberlin was simply fearful of angering students, musing, “A freshman from an East Coast big city might come to Oberlin and find there is little for a social justice warrior to do in a small town like this, so they get frustrated and make issues like this shoplifting thing bigger than it should be, and the school follows along.”
Truly, the inmates are running the asylum. Having followed the case closely, one legal sidenote of interest continues to bug me. Laughably, in motion practice, Oberlin’s defense lawyers tried to argue that being called a racist was not defamatory. This ought to blow any wokist’s mind. The president of the college even admitted under oath that “being called a racist was possibly the worst thing you can say about someone.” Odder yet, I can’t find any use by the defense of Ohio’s “innocent construction” rule. Ohio is one of the few states with a rule in civil law that if a statement can be interpreted in an innocuous way, then that is the meaning which must be ascribed to it. (I litigated the same issue with success in the First Circuit where a libel plaintiff insisted that calling his store “trashy” meant it was literally strewn with garbage. The court did not buy it).
Hess ends his Op/Ed with a cautionary note every educator ought to read:
“Oberlin’s grown-ups had an obligation to teach students there are consequences for misconduct and to help ensure that justice was done. Instead, they found it more expedient to defame a community business and ravage the owners’ lives. Well, Oberlin is finally paying for that mistake. Campus officials, there and elsewhere, should take note.”
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY, RUSSIA EDITION: Ukraine Strikes Multiple Targets INSIDE Russia, More Deputies Call for Putin’s Ouster.
HMM: Okanagan College launches trades exploratory program exclusively for women. This is in Canada, so I don’t know whether it’s a violation of anti-discrimination law, as it pretty clearly would be here.
QUESTION ASKED: Ukraine Invades Russia? “Panic by ones enemies is a thing to treasure and exploit and an invasion of Russia would definitely do that because there are even fewer trained armed units inside Russia than there are (were) in Kharkiv Oblast. So it seems highly likely that in the short term at least a marauding force could wreak havoc with little opposition.”
CHICAGO MAYOR BLUFFS; LOSES ROUND OF TEXAS HOLD ‘EM POKER: Lori Lightfoot Made Big Show of Accepting Texas-Bused Migrants, Then Immediately Ships Them Somewhere Else: Report.
When the first busload of illegal immigrants arrived, Lightfoot called the moment an important episode in Chicago’s history.
“This is such an important moment for Chicago as our city has been a sanctuary for thousands of newcomers. We are welcoming them and we will not turn our backs on those who need our help the most,” Lightfoot said in a statement, according to WMAQ-TV.
“We understand that many are fleeing violent, traumatic, or otherwise unstable environments,” the statement said. “We will respond with essential services while these individuals navigate the next steps of their journey and our community partners have been working diligently to provide a safety net.”
Lightfoot bashed Abbott for not working with her.
“We shouldn’t have to guess,” she said, according to WLS-TV.
“We shouldn’t have to have folks on the ground whispering to us about what’s happening. If you don’t want these folks to stay in Texas, then make sure that you collaborate with the cities before you put them on buses so that we can be here and make sure that our services are welcoming.”
But lo and behold, 64 of 175 illegal immigrants sent to Chicago were soon sent to a Hampton Inn in the suburb of Burr Ridge with no notice to local officials.
“I am concerned neither the village administrator nor I were told about this,” Burr Ridge Mayor Gary Grasso said, according to WGN-TV. “We want to know: Why Burr Ridge?”
“Neither village elected officials nor staff were consulted or contacted about this decision and we are now gathering information to keep our community updated,” he said to WMAQ.
Grasso also said it was hypocritical for Lightfoot to criticize Abbott for sending illegal immigrants up north and then ship them out to his community, according to Fox News.
Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.
The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.
It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.
Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.
These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.
Related: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.
More: Democrat mayors prepare to be next targets on Governor Abbott’s sanctuary city list.
WAIT, I THOUGHT THE SCIENCE WAS SETTLED: Added Dietary Sugar Poses No Prediabetes Risk. “Neither total nor percent-of-diet intake of added sugar was significantly linked with prevalent prediabetes in a nationally representative study of 5306 US adults ≥ 20 years old, with no significant differences in the relationship by race or ethnicity.”
IT’S NOT A TUMAH — Maybe: So we’ve finally seen Senate candidate John Fetterman’s neck since his stroke and the internet has questions … and a whole lotta memes.
Related: Fetterman’s 9/11 Abortion Rally Is His Most Disturbing Performance Yet. “You really have to press play on the clip and watch it to understand just how bad it is because it is that bad. This is not a man who is well enough to be a US Senator, and there are no signs that he’s getting any better. In fact, I would suggest that he’s in worse condition now than he was a month ago.”
Bob Torricelli, tanned, rested, and ready!
YIKES: Elizabeth Warren wants your credit card company to report you to the government.
While President Joe Biden is decrying “MAGA Republicans” as fascist, members of his own party are actively working to get your credit card company to start tracking you and reporting you to the government. Because that’s not fascist at all.
Democratic lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Dianne Feinstein just sent a letter to the CEO of American Express pressuring the company to start monitoring gun purchases. They essentially want the credit card company to create a special category for gun purchases — right now they’re categorized as “miscellaneous retail stores” — and use that information to report people to the police.
“Banks and credit card companies could help law enforcement preempt some mass shootings by identifying suspicious gun purchases through the implementation of a new MCC,” the lawmakers wrote. “MCCs are four-digit codes maintained by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) that classify merchants by their purpose of business.”
Earlier: Visa, Mastercard, AmEx to start categorizing gun shop sales. “A reader comments: ‘Have you seen this yet? It sure feels like there is a very coordinated effort throughout the woke financial sector to create ‘private’ gun control. I wonder if it is being driven by interaction with the ATF, etc like the censoring of private speech by coordination between government and social media. Also, wouldn’t this enable the card companies to create a gun registry? The credit card transactions include our names and what we bought and the card company knows our addresses, etc. Seems like another example of actual fascism where government coerces private companies to do their bidding.’”
DON’T GET COCKY: November Is Looking Even Brighter for Georgia Republicans.
FLASHBACK: The Climate Change Jet Set.
COME SEE THE ANTISEMITISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Teachers unions are helping anti-Semitism gain a foothold in K-12 public schools.
Efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state are now moving from higher education to K-12 public schools. Attempts to falsely label Israel an “apartheid state” and promote similar forms of defamation are being aided and abetted by teachers unions and normalized by mainstream Jewish groups.
Last year, California became the first state to pass a law mandating that public school students must complete an ethnic studies course before receiving a high school diploma. The Liberated Ethnic Studies Curriculum Consortium, which includes teachers unions, advocated on behalf of the new standards.
The Wall Street Journal reported that embedded in the Consortium’s materials are references to Israel as a “colonial settler state” founded “through genocide.” Responding to Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of the legislation, Jewish opponents of the requirement filed a federal lawsuit challenging the new educational guidelines.
But prominent teachers unions have overwhelmed parental opposition. These organizations include the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA).
Teachers’ unions serve their own interests, not the students’.
I wonder what interest of theirs antisemitism serves.
K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Seattle Public School Teachers on Strike, Since 6-Figure Pay Isn’t Good Enough. After a whole year of COVID-related learning loss, kids are now losing out on even more instructional time thanks to Seattle’s teachers union.
MATT MARGOLIS: Viral Photo Raises New Questions About John Fetterman’s Health.
You should hear him give a speech.
THE COURT ONLY HAS A “LEGITIMACY CRISIS” WHEN IT DOES THINGS THAT DEMOCRATS DON’T LIKE. Do the Supreme Court’s Low Approval Ratings Show it is Undergoing a “Legitimacy Crisis”? The Court’s popularity has indeed fallen. But its relatively low approval ratings are neither unprecedented, nor worse than those of the other branches of government.
If it’s unpopular for doing things that Democrats like, then the problem is with Republicans undermining “Our Democracy,” not with the Court.
Plus: “It is also worth recalling that the Court’s current relatively low polling numbers are far from unprecedented. It’s 43% approval rating today is very similar to the 42% rating (with 48% disapproving) it had in 2005, after the highly unpopular ruling in Kelo v. City of New London. But the Court’s ratings soon recovered. I literally wrote the book on why Kelo was an awful ruling. But even I can’t seriously claim that it did long-term damage to the Court’s standing. The Court also stood at 42% (with 52% disapproval) in the summer of 2016 (a result possibly influenced by the Court’s unpopular decision upholding racial preferences in college admissions that year). Again, it bounced back.”
And: “If the Supreme Court’s low ratings are enough to create a legitimacy crisis, Biden is in the same boat, and Congress is in far more dire straits than either.”
Maybe our whole government is illegitimate.
WHEN REALITY TAKES HOLD EVEN IN THE STUBBORNEST QUARTERS: Whitmer affirms that nuclear energy is clean energy.