ELIMINATIONIST RHETORIC: Prof: ‘Nothing wrong with’ murder of Trump supporter from a ‘moral perspective.’
Archive for 2023
June 6, 2023
21ST CENTURY PROBLEMS: AI Clones Made From User Data Pose Uncanny Risks.
WELL, YES: Manchin is ‘dead man walking’ in West Virginia.
Former Obama White House senior political adviser David Axelrod says Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is “dead man walking” in West Virginia, where the senior senator finds himself far behind in the polls ahead of the 2024 election.
Axelrod on Monday said the dim outlook of Manchin’s reelection bid may lead him to instead run for president as a third-party candidate, which the senior Democratic strategist called “a graceful exit for him.”
“I don’t want to be unkind to Sen. Manchin, but he’s kind of dead man walking in West Virginia. There’s nowhere for him to go,” Axelrod said on CNN, referring to a new poll showing the three-term senator trailing West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) by 22 points.
“Slow-motion political suicide” might be more apt than “dead man walking.”
KRUISER: Pride Shouldn’t Be the Only Deadly Sin With Its Own Month. Rather than just write something every day in June about how wearisome Pride Month is (which I could easily do), I have decided to mock it a little during the first week, then get back to ignoring all things rainbow (except actual rainbows, of course).”
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT: No Loss of Second Amendment Rights for Welfare Fraud, since there’s no history and tradition of stripping the right to arms for such nonviolent regulatory crimes. “After Bruen, we must first decide whether the text of the Second Amendment applies to a person and his proposed conduct. 142 S. Ct. at 2134–35. If it does, the government now bears the burden of proof: it ‘must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms. . . .’ To preclude Range from possessing firearms, the Government must show that § 922(g)(1), as applied to him, ‘is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.'”
The concurrance by Judge Porter is interesting, too, where he points to Congress’s lack of any constitutional power to regulate gun ownership. “Until well into the twentieth century, it was settled that Congress lacked the power to abridge anyone’s right to keep and bear arms. The right declared in the Second Amendment was important, but cumulative. The people’s first line of defense was the reservation of a power from the national government. . . . Even without the Second Amendment, the combination. of enumerated powers and the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. ensured that Congress could not permanently disarm anyone.”
NEW FAUCI FOLLY: Anthony Fauci claimed in 2021 that scientists at the Wuhan Institute for Virology in China were “competent, trustworthy scientists.” On the other hand (a phrase that seems uniquely applicable whenever Fauci is in focus), Fauci’s National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was funding ethics training for Chinese scientists.
TEXAS: Abbott Signs Law Banning Child Genital Mutilation. “It sad that there even needs to be a law that bans child genital mutilation (AKA ‘gender affirming care,’ but really “sex-defying cosmetic surgery”), but this is the world we’re living in.”
Just like those right-wing radicals in Finland, Norway, Sweden, and the UK.
READER FAVORITE: Flat Plug Power Strip, Ultra Thin Flat Extension Cord. #CommissionEarned
PUBLIC HEALTH HAS ALWAYS INVOLVED A LOT OF GROUPTHINK: When Sterilization Was Dogma: Why the Eugenics Movement is Relevant Today.. “Eugenicists sought to ‘improve’ the human species in the same way that one would improve cattle or soybeans—and using basically the same techniques.”
UPDATE: A reader emails:
After giving birth to me in 1971, just months after turning 18, the rural community hospital staff convinced my mother to have a tubal ligation before she left.
Only decades later did I realize how improper this seemed for a healthy, married, drug-free young woman of 18. But she was in Appalachia, and poor. Was the hospital staff trying to avoid more of “her kind” being born?
https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/title-x-family-planning-program-1970-1977
Then I heard of the Family Planning Services Act and began to wonder if there was in 1971 a federally-funded bias toward sterilizing poor young women in Appalachia. Is this why I never had siblings and face being the sole caretaker and provider for my aging mother?
But I can only wonder because I can’t find any research or data or even articles inquiring about changes in birth and sterilization rates among women in Appalachia before/after the Family Planning Services Act took hold.
Maybe the Act didn’t make a difference at all. Or maybe it was a quiet Bluegrass Genocide.
No one seems to want to ask.
Well, I can imagine why.
APPLE VISION PRO: Who Is Supposed to Wear This Augmented Reality Headset? “I’m reminded a bit of the Apple Watch, which only turned out to be a huge success after Cupertino finally figured out what the Watch was supposed to be — thanks to input from early adopters.”
CRISIS BY DESIGN: Potential For Catastrophic US Electric Grid Failures This Summer A Reality. “Despite billions of federal dollars going into renewable energy, construction of wind and solar farms, as well as the needed transmission to support them, is moving at a glacial pace compared to the speed by which the Biden administration is taking coal plants offline. . . . NERC’s latest summer reliability assessment wasn’t the first to identify growing reliability issues.”
Related: Thank the green-energy cult for major blackouts this summer.
A BUNCH OF OBSERVATIONS ON the academic job market.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Feds spent over $1.3 billion in Russia, China on controversial projects. “The watchdog group, Open the Books, and U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, released the analysis, which detailed an array of examples they deemed troubling ‘including $770,466 to a state-run lab in Russia to put cats on treadmills’ and another project for nearly $100,000 for gender equality cartoons.”
SHOP ACCORDINGLY: Target backs org pushing US demilitarization, Mt. Rushmore shutdown for being a ‘symbol of White supremacy.’
Related:
COME SEE THE RACISM INHERENT IN THE LEFTISM: Washingtons State’s ‘Equity’ Director Pink-Slipped Over Allegations of Racism.
According to the country’s Finance Ministry, last month’s revenue from oil and gas taxes sank 36% from a year ago to 570.7 billion rubles, or about $7 billion.
Revenue from crude and petroleum products slid 31% to 425.8 billion rubles, while gas revenue plummeted 46% 145 billion rubles. That’s despite higher income from a mineral extraction tax on gas, which was not enough to cover export duty losses.
Proceeds from the two commodities make up around a third of Russia’s budget, which is already under pressure from spending for Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
Saudi Arabia’s just-announced production cuts won’t do much to lift prices on Russian export, which have their prices capped by sanctions.
EQUAL PROTECTION PROJECT: We are continuing to pursue Missouri State U discrimination: “It’s not enough, when caught, to say ‘oops, sorry.’” “In response to prior challenge by Equal Protection Project, Missouri State U promised to open its business boot camp to all, but its president also was quoted as saying ‘Frankly, I still don’t think we did anything wrong.’ So EPP now has filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the U.S. Dept. of Education.”
You don’t trifle with Prof. Jacobson.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: James Comey Unwittingly Makes the Case for Trump 2024. “Everything Comey said after that was pure lack of awareness gold. A president using the law enforcement he oversees in the Executive Branch for his own personal purposes? Why, wherever would we find examples of that?”
ANOTHER ATTEMPTED INSURRECTION: Capitol Police Interrupt Children’s Choir Singing National Anthem: ‘It Might Offend.’ “They can go sing outside.”