IT’S NEVER ENOUGH: DC has never gotten this much in taxes — but Dems say it’s still not enough. “Washington has almost never been so awash in taxes. Since 1960, federal tax revenues have remained generally close to the average level of 17.4% of the economy. Yet after jumping last year, revenues this year are scheduled to surge again to 19.6% of the economy — the second-highest level since World War II.”

One minor distinction: World War II had an end, but there’s no limit to Washington’s appetite for taxes, spending, borrowing, and control.

CHANGE? It’s happening: “LGB drop the T” keeps trending on Twitter as gay activists turn on transgender activists.

AS A FRIEND SAYS, THEIR RELIGION IS DETESTING YOURS:

Related: Ed Morrissey: Father, forgive The Atlantic, for they know not about what they write.

UPDATE: From the comments: “There is a new trend, and it is battlespace prep. In both the US and Canada there is now a coordinated effort by the political/MSM class to portray every kind of dissent from secular progressive authoritarianism as nothing less than violent insurrection and terrorism. In the Canadian media, people who object to vaccine mandates have been promoted from Nazis to a vast network of violent insurrectionists. In the US, we are told that people angry about the Mar-A-Lago raid are about to commence terrorist actions against civilians, even using dirty bombs.”

VIDEO: Is Kamala Harris Talking About Space Or From There? “Alleged Vice President Kamala Harris has a way with words like a mugger has with a victim whose wallet is empty: Abusive but ultimately pointless.”

JEFFREY TUCKER: A DEEPER DIVE INTO THE CDC’S REVERSAL.

It would have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall in the brainstorming sessions that led to this little treatise. The wording was chosen very carefully, not to say anything false outright, much less admit any errors of the past, but to imply that it was only possible to say these things now.

In English: everyone can pretty much go back to normal. Focus on illness that is medically significant. Stop worrying about positive cases because nothing is going to stop them. Think about the bigger picture of overall social health. End the compulsion. Thank you. It’s only two and a half years late.

What about mass testing?

Forget it: “All persons should seek testing for active infection when they are symptomatic or if they have a known or suspected exposure to someone with COVID-19.”

Oh.

What about the magic of track and trace?

“CDC now recommends case investigation and contact tracing only in health care settings and certain high-risk congregate settings.”

Oh.

What about the unvaccinated who were so demonized throughout the last year?

“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection.”

Remember when 40% of the members of the black community in New York City who refused the jab were not allowed into restaurants, bars, libraries, museums, or theaters? Now, no one wants to talk about that.

Also, universities, colleges, the military, and so on – which still have mandates in place – do you hear this? Everything you have done to hate on people, dehumanize people, segregate people, humiliate others as unclean, fire people and destroy lives, now stands in disrepute.

Meanwhile, as of this writing, the blasted US government still will not allow unvaccinated travelers across its borders!

Not one word of the CDC’s turgid treatise was untrue back in the Spring of 2020. There was always “infection-induced immunity,” though Fauci and Co. constantly pretended otherwise. It was always a terrible idea to introduce “barriers to social, educational, and economic activity.” The vaccines never promised in their authorization to stop infection and spread, even though all official statements of the CDC claimed otherwise, repeatedly and often. . . .

The problem from the beginning was that there never was an exit strategy from the crazy lockdown/mandate idea. It was never the case that they would magically cause the bug to go away. The excuse that we would lock down in wait for a vaccine never made any sense.

People surely knew early on of the social, economic, and cultural devastation that would ensue.

They knew, they just didn’t mind.

UPDATE: From the comments: “In my quick glance through, it reads like the Great Barrington Declaration!”

GET IN SHAPE: Bigger Leaner Stronger: The Simple Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body. #CommissionEarned

ALL IS PROCEEDING AS ANY IDIOT COULD HAVE FORESEEN.

1. Canada socializes healthcare.
2. Canada legalizes euthanasia.
3. The Canadian government-controlled health care establishment realizes, “Hey, wait a minute, it’s cheaper if these people die, let’s pressure them into it.”
4. “Euthanasia” is now Canada’s sixth-leading cause of death.

At no point does it seem to have occurred to anyone that giving the government strong financial incentive to want you dead was a bad idea.

HE’S SUSPECTED OF TWO ADDITIONAL MURDERS: Muhammad Syed’s public safety assessment recommends he be released before trial.

The Public Safety Assessment is used to assess people charged with crimes in New Mexico.

“It’s basically a checklist that the pretrial services department goes down. They add up all the scores. At the end of the checklist, they can tell the judge if a person ought to be released or the person ought to be kept in jail,” said KOAT legal expert, John Day.

Recently, the assessment came down for Muhammad Syed, the man who is accused of killing two Muslim men.

“It shows that he has no convictions for any criminal offense, which is accurate. He’s of an age where the courts believe he will likely appear,” Day said.

Syed’s assessment shows his criminal activity score is a 2 out of a possible 6, and his failure to appear is a 3.

“The recommendation is that he be released,” Day said.

The assessment recommends he be released, despite his two first-degree murder charges.

“‘Why do they hate us?’ was never the right question. ‘Why do they despise us?’ is a better one.”

THERE WAS AN EARTH-SHATTERING KABOOM: Oops: Ukraine destroys Wagner Group HQ after Russian “reporter” accidentally gives away location.

LGB-DROP-THE-T: Is the Transgender Cult in Trouble Now?

GREENS WANT YOU TO BE COLD, MISERABLE, AND FEW IN NUMBER: Google Searches For ‘Firewood’ In Germany Have Exploded. “Bloomberg’s Javier Blas shows in his “chart of the day”, that google searches for firewood (‘Brennholz’) have exploded in the past couple of months now that electricity is no longer a staple, but a luxury few can afford.”

DO TELL: ‘Students who identify as conservative face distinctive challenges’: report.

THE STREISAND EFFECT IS ALIVE AND WELL: Attack on Rushdie Sends Novel ‘The Satanic Verses’ Up the Charts.

DO TELL: Raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate questioned by some law professors.

YOU’LL NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP AGAIN: Why the Afghanistan Withdrawal Was the Perfect Storm of Bureaucratic Incompetence.

President Biden wants you to forget about what happened in Afghanistan. He wants you to forget about the bureaucratic incompetence and incompetent decision-making by nearly every senior leader. To this day, no one has been held accountable. Accountability, even verbally, would mean admitting failure and taking ownership, something the Biden administration refuses to accept.

The botched withdrawal wasn’t a mistake or a one-time bad call. The catastrophe occurred due to consistent and specific inept leadership failures at the Department of Defense, Department of State, the White House, and the Intelligence Community. Failure to plan. Failure to be realistic about the strength and capabilities of the Taliban. Failure to adequately prepare and vet people to get them out of the country before the U.S. military departed. The Biden administration failed to connect the dots and keep agencies in sync. Pentagon leadership downplayed the truth about the shell the Afghanistan government and military was, as well as the reality that without the U.S. dollar and military propping them up, they would all come crashing down. Washington was hoping for an Afghanistan that they wanted – that should have been after 20 years of war and $2 trillion – but wasn’t. The withdrawal wasn’t a mistake – it was a catastrophic failure of epic proportions.

Read the whole thing.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Shower Head with Extension Arm. #CommissionEarned

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Biden’s Revenge-Fest Isn’t Going to Work Out Well for the Dems. “The Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media will continue to lie about what they are up to. They can’t admit that the thought of Trump on the ballot in 2024 is the thing that most terrifies them. Honesty is never the best policy with them anyway, but that’s the case even more when it comes to all things Trump-related.”

WELL, FOR MOST OF THEIR LIVES THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN RUN BY JEFFREY EPSTEIN’S CLIENTS: Generation Z doesn’t remember when America worked.

THAT MAKES SENSE, IF YOU WANT AMERICANS TO SUFFER: Bureau of Land Management suspends most oil/gas leases in Colorado.

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

Also: Elitist environmentalists hate the working class.

CRISIS BY DESIGN: New Outbreak Of Violence on U.S./Mexican Border. “An administration interested in protecting the lives of Americans might clamp down on border security to prevent more cartel members from entering the country. That is not this administration.”

TO BE FAIR, LEARNING ISN’T THEIR STRONG SUIT: Democrats are not learning from their defund-the-police failures.

THAT’S A LOW LIMBO BAR TO GET UNDER: Biden Finally Makes Statement on Rushdie Stabbing, and It’s Even Worse Than You’d Expect.

THIS IS THE FUTURE THEY HAVE PLANNED FOR US: PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE PERSONAL TRANSPORTATION, UNRELIABLE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION. Boston to Orange Line riders — Ride a bike!

Free Bluebikes?

You’ve got to be kidding.

With just a week left before the Orange Line and a section of the new Green Line shuts down for a month, the MBTA and city of Boston finally revealed how they intend to get more than 100,000 riders a day around the city and northern suburbs.

While the T’s main alternative is shuttle buses and cutting down trees to create new lanes, the ultra-woke Wu administration put out a breathtaking release suggesting people take those ubiquitous, ungainly Bluebikes during the shutdown — which will be free of charge for 45-minute trips.

“Biking can be a great alternative for some people during the shutdown,” said Boston’s “chief of streets” Jascha Franklin-Hodge. “Opening up and enhancing Bluebikes service is just one of the ways we’re helping residents access good alternatives to their normal transit routes.”

Great alternative for who? Disabled or physically impaired riders? People who don’t want to get mowed down by an SUV while pedaling their little bike?

Just what Boston needs — thousands of novice bike riders wheeling around the city trying to figure out how to get where they want to go. A great alternative for those who want to arrive at work exhausted, stressed out and drenched with sweat.

Taking a bike around the city is already difficult enough for brave and experienced riders, let alone newcomers who haven’t set foot on the pedals for years.

In a 4 p.m. Friday news dump, the T also put out their “diversion” plan for the month-long Orange Line shutdown scheduled to start Aug. 19, but no T officials were available to explain it.

Well, that’s because the explanation is “we suck.”

Plus: “The plan was short on details and extremely optimistic. The city and T are trying to steer people away from taking their cars to work, which is exactly what most people will try to do, and providing free shuttle buses and free commuter rail service to replace the Orange Line. . . . The question of how thousands of Boston Public School students are going to get to class on time while the Orange Line is closed was dealt with in a few short paragraphs on the city’s website, and there is no specific plan yet.”

JIM MEIGS: The Green War on Clean Energy: radical environmentalists fight against the very technologies that would cut carbon emissions.

To be fair, they don’t actually want to cut carbon emissions, they just want to make your life worse.

CAM EDWARDS SPEAKS WITH FASTER COLORADO’S LAURA CARNO ABOUT Colorado teachers arming up to protect students.