PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: The Chickens Come Home to Roost for Muriel Bowser and Her Pro-BLM Virtue Signaling. “DC’s mayor says nation’s capital is up to 400 cops short and ‘we have policies that make it difficult to recruit new officers.’”

Related: Democratic congressman suffers the consequences of his actions. “Cockburn probably need not mention the irony of members of the political party who have been sympathetic to defunding the police becoming the victims of crime. [Democrats Henry Cuellar and Angie Craig] have rhetorically opposed the Defund the Police movement, but also both voted for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a sweeping overhaul of policing in America that would have removed qualified immunity from police officers and ‘redirect funding to community-based policing programs,’ according to NPR. Local police departments that did not comply with the new policing standards laid out by the bill would ‘lose access to federal policing funding,’ said Vox. The bill ultimately did not become law, but on the local level, Democrats have installed progressive prosecutors and shrugged at rising crime.”

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, AFTER ALL: This gigantic mech suit can be yours for $3 million.

SOCIALISTS ARE MAD AT CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM FOR THE DUMBEST REASON IMAGINABLE:

California Governor Gavin Newsom just got an ugly reminder of how impossible it is to make everyone happy in politics. Left-wing union activists and socialists are furious with the solidly liberal governor for a truly absurd reason.

Newsom just vetoed controversial legislation, SB 799, which would’ve extended unemployment benefits to striking workers. He cited the existing unemployment system’s looming insolvency as his rationale against expanding the benefits, which would speed up the program’s spiral into the red.

Newsom’s left-wing critics freaked out.

California Labor Federation leader Lorena Gonzalez blasted Newsom in a statement, saying his veto “punishes workers” and is “out-of-step with American values.” The socialist magazine Jacobin similarly slammed Newsom, labeling him “anti-worker” and accusing him of “selling out workers.”

Why, it’s as if he’s seriously thinking of running for president in 2024, or something.

I TRY TO IGNORE ALL THE FORECASTS: Don’t Listen to Rosy Economic Forecasts: A Recession Is Coming.

SKYNET SLOUCHES TOWARD CYBERDYNE BOSTON DYNAMICS, WAITING TO BE BORN: Instant evolution: AI designs new robot from scratch in seconds. “To test the new AI, the researchers gave the system a simple prompt: Design a robot that can walk across a flat surface. While it took nature billions of years to evolve the first walking species, the new algorithm compressed evolution to lightning speed—designing a successfully walking robot in mere seconds. But the AI program is not just fast. It also runs on a lightweight personal computer and designs wholly novel structures from scratch.”

CIVIL RIGHTS UPDATE: Want to buy a gun in Colorado? You’ll have to wait 3 days.

GREAT MOMENTS IN GASLIGHTING: Politico: Fighting against the USSR didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi.

When the headline contradicts the body copy:

Everybody knows that a lie can make it halfway around the world before the truth has even got its boots on.

And the ongoing turmoil over Canada’s parliament recognizing former SS trooper Yaroslav Hunka highlights one of the most important reasons why.

Something that’s untrue but simple is far more persuasive than a complicated, nuanced truth — a major problem for Western democracies trying to fight disinformation and propaganda by countering it with the truth, and one reason why fact-checking and debunking are only of limited use for doing so.

In the case of Hunka, the mass outrage stems from his enlistment with one of the foreign legions of the Waffen-SS, fighting Soviet forces on Germany’s eastern front. And it’s a demonstration of how when history is complicated, it can be a gift to propagandists who exploit the appeal of simplicity.

This history is complicated because fighting against the USSR at the time didn’t necessarily make you a Nazi, just someone who had an excruciating choice over which of these two terror regimes to resist. However, the idea that foreign volunteers and conscripts were being allocated to the Waffen-SS rather than the Wehrmacht on administrative rather than ideological grounds is a hard sell for audiences conditioned to believe the SS’s primary task was genocide. And simple narratives like “everybody in the SS was guilty of war crimes” are more pervasive because they’re much simpler to grasp.

This may be out on a limb, but if you join the Nazi Party, you were — I know this is shocking, especially for the Politico — a Nazi during WWII.

21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: Lockheed Martin Nuclear Rocket Will Fly in Space in 2027. “The in-space flight demonstration of a nuclear thermal rocket engine vehicle will take place no later than 2027. The project is called Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO).”

REPUBLICANS POUNCE! It’s not that Jamaal Bowman pulled the fire alarm that’s the problem … it’s Republicans POUNCING.

Representative Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm. Republicans pounced. https://t.co/FtfW9oyS74

— The New Republic (@newrepublic) October 3, 2023

I know, it’s The New Republic but still. THEY ALWAYS DO THIS. A Democrat screws up, the Right/Republicans acknowledge the screw-up, and then the freakin’ story becomes the big mean Republicans POUNCING. SEIZING. STRIKING.

Even though Bowman is the actual story. Guess they want to deflect from how stupid or corrupt this guy really is.

As Jim Treacher says:

JUSTICE: Ex-Loudoun County Superintendent Convicted on Charges From Trans Rape Coverup.

CORRECTION: COULD BIDEN’S HANDLERS DECIDE FOR HIM NOT TO RUN? Could Biden Decide Not to Run?

Things must be pretty panicky in Washington when Jonathan Alter has written a fantasy conversation of big-name Democrats trying to talk Biden into stepping aside.

FLASHBACK: Higher Ed’s Prejudice Problem.

KRUISER: Left Media’s Bottomless Well of Squish Republican Scolds Is on Full Display for 2024. “This recent shutdown brouhaha provided an extra special opportunity for the Dems and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media, as it was filled with an added dose of Republican infighting and the GOP primary season is already heating up. This gives them more opportunity to trot out Republicans of yesteryear to shake a stern finger at those who won’t roll merrily along with their preferred agenda.”

READER FAVORITE: Legendary Whitetails Men’s Buck Camp Flannel Plaid Shirt. #CommissionEarned

NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG: Member of Iranian Influence Network Visited Biden White House Five Times.

Reminder: Iran Masterminded 1983 Beirut Attacks on Americans.

And from 2020: The Iran-al-Qa’ida Axis. “al-Qa’ida has a new home base: it is the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Last month: House Republican torches Biden admin ‘anti-American agenda’ after $6B Iran deal announced on 9/11.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: How to Disrupt a Black Conservative Event With This 1 Weird Trick. “Welcome once again, ladies and gentlemen, to Late-Roman/Mid-Weimar America, where you can’t be a black conservative without lefties literally losing their pants over it.”

MARKETING: A Conservative Company Put Trump’s Mugshot on Its Newest Beer. Sales Soared. “The limited edition six-pack, called ‘Conservative Dad’s Revenge,’ sells for $25. The company donates 10% of sales to Georgia’s GOP Defense Fund and the David Shafer Legal Defense Fund, an organization set up to support Shafer, a co-plaintiff in Trump’s Georgia election lawsuit, in what it says is an effort to defend ‘conservatives against the unconstitutional prosecution by the communist Fulton County district attorney.'”

NO SEX, PLEASE, WE’RE ANTHROPOLOGISTS: Dis-empaneled. Bowing to political pressure, two leading anthropological associations cancel a conference discussion on the centrality of biological sex. The American Anthropological Association now wants to pretend that there are not two biological sexes, which is even more appalling than the group’s earlier decision to pretend that there is no such thing as race (never mind the genomic evidence revealing five distinguishable races). The Left’s War on Science continues.

‘

CHRISTOPHER SKEET: 35,000 Morons: The Taylor Swift Problem.

There was a recent article from Newsweek that caught my eye. Entitled “Why Republicans’ War Against Taylor Swift Could Backfire,” it delves into an X (formerly Twitter) spat between The Federalist’s Sean Davis and left-wing activist Victor Shi. In response to an excellent piece by Mark Hemingway detailing the shallowness and vapidity, both technically and spiritually, of Swift’s music, Davis quipped, “Taylor Swift is dumb and her music sucks.” In response, Shi wrote, “Nothing says more about how little Republicans understand Gen Z than them now saying Taylor Swift is “dumb & her music sucks” after she registered more than 35,000 people to vote last week. If you attack Taylor Swift, you also attack Gen Z. Good luck, Republicans. You’re screwed.”

Sadly, they’re both right.

Taylor Swift is indeed dumb, and her music is beyond insufferable. As for her politics, they are a jumbled mess of tired cliches and contradictions. She remained amiably silent about her personal politics until 2018, when she succumbed to the woke mob and started parroting their platitudes. But she owes her astonishing success to the fact that she’s smarter than her dupable fan base. That’s not saying much, but that’s the point.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Swift isn’t at all dumb, and her music, while not really to my taste, is pretty good. And she has a lot of loyal fans. You won’t win by calling them, or her, names.

I JUST ORDERED A FRESH BATCH OF UNEXPECTEDLIES FOR WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Los Angeles’ controversial new zero-bail policy takes effect after judge ruled that cash bail discriminates against minorities and the poor. “The new law comes as officials in LA say organized crime and the pandemic-era zero cash bail is to blame for a recent spate of smash-and-grab raids, with robberies jumping 10 percent last year and nearly 580,000 larcenies reported to the police. “

DEAL OF THE DAY: CQR Men’s All Cotton Flannel Shirt. #CommissionEarned

ON THE ONE HAND THIS IS BAD, ON THE OTHER IT SHOWS MORE INTEREST IN ACTUAL FIGHTING THAN WE’RE SEEING ELSEWHERE AT THE PENTAGON THESE DAYS: Two Anne Arundel County men, including Pentagon official, charged with running illegal dog fighting ring.

A senior member of the Pentagon’s communications staff is among two Anne Arundel County men charged with promoting and furthering an illegal dog fighting operation, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Thursday.

Frederick Douglass Moorefield Jr., 62, of Arnold, and Mario Damon Flythe, 49, of Glen Burnie, and their associates used encrypted messaging “to discuss how to train the dogs for illegal dogfighting, exchanged videos about dogfighting, and arranged and coordinated dogfights,” Department of Justice officials said in a news release Monday. Moorefield operated under the name “Geehad Kennels,” and Flythe under the name “Razor Sharp Kennels” to describe their respective dogfighting operations, the complaint states.

Geehad?

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Jamaal Bowman Doesn’t Have the Greatest Defense or Defenders. “Honestly, I hadn’t planned on doing anything with this Rep. Jamaal Bowman fire extinguisher story when I first read about it, but he keeps getting more desperate and weirder about it so, hey, why not mock a Democrat who is essentially begging to be mocked?”

NO ONE WILL CARE, LAW IS FOR REPUBLICANS: Is Sen.-to-be Butler Eligible to Represent California? The residence question is closer than it might appear.

DARK MONEY, DARK GOALS: New Group Attacking iPhone Encryption Backed by U.S. Political Dark-Money Network.

The Heat Initiative, a nonprofit child safety advocacy group, was formed earlier this year to campaign against some of the strong privacy protections Apple provides customers. The group says these protections help enable child exploitation, objecting to the fact that pedophiles can encrypt their personal data just like everyone else.

When Apple launched its new iPhone this September, the Heat Initiative seized on the occasion, taking out a full-page New York Times ad, using digital billboard trucks, and even hiring a plane to fly over Apple headquarters with a banner message. The message on the banner appeared simple: “Dear Apple, Detect Child Sexual Abuse in iCloud” — Apple’s cloud storage system, which today employs a range of powerful encryption technologies aimed at preventing hackers, spies, and Tim Cook from knowing anything about your private files.

Something the Heat Initiative has not placed on giant airborne banners is who’s behind it: a controversial billionaire philanthropy network whose influence and tactics have drawn unfavorable comparisons to the right-wing Koch network. Though it does not publicize this fact, the Heat Initiative is a project of the Hopewell Fund, an organization that helps privately and often secretly direct the largesse — and political will — of billionaires. Hopewell is part of a giant, tightly connected web of largely anonymous, Democratic Party-aligned dark-money groups, in an ironic turn, campaigning to undermine the privacy of ordinary people.

Ironic? No. Expected.

Democrats have been opposed to digital privacy at least since Bill Clinton was pushing the Clipper Chip 30 years ago.