KEEP IT UP, GLENN:

Well, as Chuck Schumer said, if you go against the intelligence agencies, they’ve got half a dozen ways to get back at you.

MSNBC’S AUDIENCE HAS BECOME VERY SELECTIVE:

WAPO on CORPORAL PUNISHMENT:  Progressives hate any kind of school discipline.  They complain bitterly that school suspensions (even brief in-school suspensions) make things worse by keeping students out of the classroom and hence causing them to fall behind in their education.  But when they are reminded that’s precisely why our grandparents thought a quick swat on the buttocks was the better way to deal with misbehaving younger children, they freak out.

I am not here to advocate for corporal punishment.  I teach law students (most of whom could best me in a fair fights), so I have no special insight into how to maintain an orderly classroom of young children.  But here is the thing I cannot abide:  WAPO tells us that “disabled” students are subjected to more corporal punishment than non-disabled students. Quelle surprise!  We define “disabled” to include students with behavioral disorders.  How do you identify students with behavioral disorders?  They are the ones who have misbehaved a lot in the past, of course!  So what has WAPO told us?  Student who misbehave a lot get punished a lot!  Brilliant.

One way or another, teachers have to maintain order in the classroom.  Otherwise, learning won’t take place.  Maybe it shouldn’t be corporal punishment.  Maybe it shouldn’t be suspensions.  But what’s it going to be?

STACY MCCAIN: The J6 Committee Tantrum. “Listening to that, I was struck by how easily these hyperbolic phrases tumbled out of Raskin’s mouth, as evidence of how insulated inside the echo chamber Democrats have become and, of course, the “journalist” Willie Geist is part of that echo chamber. He is as objective about the J6 Committee as my teenage daughter is objective about Harry Styles. . . . Furthermore, and this is equally crucial, Democrats and the media absolutely refuse to recognize that the outbreak of violence at the Capitol in January 2021 was clearly inspired by the months of “Black Lives Matter” riots that broke out in May 2020 — riots that the Democrats enthusiastically applauded. Many millions of dollars of damage were inflicted, and many people killed or injured, during the weeks of arson, vandalism and looting which CNN reporter Omar Jimenez infamously described as ‘fiery but most peaceful’ protests.”

Plus: “At no time in the operations of this committee has there been any fair consideration of the views of 74 million Americans who voted to reelect President Trump, 77% of whom think cheating affected the 2020 election. . . . Well, this will all be fading in our rearview mirror soon enough. Anyone who looks at the poll numbers can see that Democrats are going to get wiped out in the midterms, and the proceedings of the J6 Committee will be remembered as symptomatic of Orange Man Bad Syndrome. All we have to do is Keep Calm and Vote Republican.”

DIVORCED FROM REALITY AND IN NEED OF A COMEUPPANCE: Joel Kotkin: Our Mad Aristos.

In the past, ruling classes sought to protect the system that secured their coveted positions. But sometimes, as in the era before the French or Russian Revolutions, some in the ruling circles stopped believing in their religion, their traditions, and their state, only to be exiled, executed, or turned into what the Soviets called “former persons.”

Like our current elites, many French aristocrats lived dissolute lives but also supported revolutionary ideas which threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Alexis de Tocqueville noted. Today a large, even dominant portion of the wealthiest and most privileged parts of our society—including the heirs of nasty capitalist titans such as Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller—are key funders of an increasingly anti-capitalist left. Others are still young tech billionaires and—increasingly—their discarded or former spouses.

This elite has arisen at a time when, as in France before 1789, inheritance is becoming ever more important as a vehicle for upward mobility, which is otherwise increasingly remote for most of the population. Home ownership among middle income Americans, for example, the primary means for asset accumulation for the non-rich, has dropped by over 8 percent in the past decade, while the wealthy have garnered the greatest gain from increased housing prices. American millennials are three times as likely as boomers to count on inheritance for their retirement. Among the youngest cohort, those ages 18 to 22, over 60 percent see inheritance as their primary source of sustenance as they age. . . .

The tech elite is increasingly more an object of fear than admiration. The Democrats, the party they fund, is shifting away from capitalism, a position particularly popular among younger party members. Already, more Democrats, the party they finance, favor socialism than capitalism. There’s even a growing socialist movement among woke—indoctrinated employees in Silicon Valley.

So in their endless search to prove their virtue, our masters fund a basic agenda opposed to both classical liberalism and capitalist enterprise.This is much what happened in the runup to the French Revolution, when many French aristocrats embraced polemics that threatened “their own rights and even their existence,” as Tocqueville noted. Watching Howard Schultz, a self-defined progressive capitalist, fight off a unionization drive recalls French aristocrats who supported radical ideas before losing their heads.

The next phase of class war may soon be upon us.

Indeed.

OH, YEAH, THE VOTE IS SECURE. SURE:  Bombshell Dominion ‘Error Code’ Uncovered in 97% of Georgia Counties.

I’d like to remind everyone these machines are EVERYWHERE.

Paper ballots. Purple fingers.

REMINDER: Kurt Schlichter’s new Kelly Turnbull novel, Inferno, is out. #CommissionEarned

DON’T BE SILLY, NEW TAXES ALWAYS GET ADDED ON TOP OF EXISTING ONES: Australians want fuel excise scrapped if new road charges are introduced for electric cars. “Less than one-fifth of Australians believe the fuel excise should remain under an overhaul to road charges, and almost half want it replaced with new distance-based charges that include electric vehicles. The federal government is set to lose billions of dollars over the coming years with the increasing take-up of electric cars and is looking at a new way of charging motorists to use the roads.”

First governments bully people into driving electric cars. Then, noticing that they’re losing tax money from the change, they want new taxes.

DID THAT USED TO BE A CRIME? I DON’T REMEMBER HEARING IT IN ANY OTHER CONTEXT. Wyoming J6 man gets 30 days for “parading.”

OPEN THREAD: Shower us with your wisdom.

HMM: Amazon to link Kuiper satellites to DoD’s mesh network in space. Both Starlink and Kuiper are basically U.S. military assets as things develop.

HER AUDITION FOR THE PART OF MRS. CEAUCESCU IS GOING WELL: John Fetterman’s wife demands ‘consequences’ against journalist who interviewed her husband.

How dare you commit journalism against a Democrat!

CONGRATS TO THE U.T. VOLUNTEERS, WHO PUT ALABAMA AWAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 15 YEARS. Tennessee dominated the first half, but the second was a real nail-biter. A friend comments, “I’m on oxygen!”

HMM: Will Elon Musk’s Warning About the Future Hold True for Medicine? Confronting the reality of AI’s role in healthcare.

COMPETENCE: How a Microsoft blunder opened millions of PCs to potent malware attacks.

THE EXODUS IS HERE: Mark Wahlberg leaves California to give kids ‘a better life.’

IF IT WERE PRIESTS THIS WOULD GET SATURATION COVERAGE: At least 269 K-12 educators arrested on child sex crimes since January.

UPDATE: Eugene Volokh comments: “I appreciate your point in this post, but wouldn’t the denominator matter? There are apparently 3.1M public school teachers in the U.S. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185012/number-of-teachers-in-elementary-and-secondary-schools-since-1955/), and about 35K priests (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priest_shortage_in_the_Catholic_Church). Indeed, if 269 priests were arrested on child sex crimes charges, that would be nearly 1% of all priests in the country, and would be a huge story. But wouldn’t the right comparator be if 3 priests were arrested on child sex crimes charges, which is a percentage of priests close to 0.01% (269/3.1M)?”

Well, that’s a good statistical point.

IT WOULD BE NICE IF THIS YEAR’S FLU SHOT ACTUALLY WORKED, THEN: CDC warns about potentially severe flu season. In recent years they’ve missed the strain pretty consistently.

IRAN: Huge fire sweeps through notorious Evin prison in Iran as ‘gunfire rings out.’ Prison houses Tehran’s political prisoners as videos shared on social media show black smoke billowing from the facility.

IT’S NOT A GRUMP-O-METER, IT’S A GRUMPOMETER:

@larrylexicon Just my annual repost of the Grumpometer! #larrylexicon #doyourbuckingvocab #grumpometer #satire #comedy #funny #highschool #teacherlife #teachersoftiktok2021 ♬ original sound – Larry Lexicon

REPORT: Jim Acosta’s next to go at CNN — but he won’t be the last.

DON’T GET COCKY: Pour Yourself a Drink, Patriot—the Democrat Party Is Crumbling.

OLD AND BUSTED: The Torricelli Gambit.

The New Hotness? Rolling Stone: Gisele Fetterman became the “de facto candidate” after husband’s stroke.

As Michael Graham wrote in 2004 after Frank Lautenberg was swapped in to replace Bob Torricelli on the Democrats’ Senate ticket in NJ, “Don’t assume you know who’s on the Democratic ticket until Election Day.”

PLUS, YOU’RE SAFE FROM GEN-Z CARJACKERS: Tested: 2023 Toyota GR Supra 3.0 Manual Answers Our Prayers: The long-rumored stick-shift option has a transformative effect on the latest Supra’s fun factor.

TWITTER THREAD:

Read the whole thing.