SO NOW IT’S THE 22D ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11: One thing I guess I didn’t believe 22 years ago is that America would elect such a feckless President in 2008, and stand idly by while he flushed our global position, and security, down a left-wing toilet. But we did — and then we did it again in 2020 — and we’ll be paying the price for a long time.

We said “never forget.” Well, we haven’t forgotten the heroism of people like Rick Rescorla, the Flight 93 passengers, the firefighters who charged up the WTC stairs, or the volunteers who set up the American Dunkirk evacuation of lower Manhattan by boat.

But we have forgotten the criminal negligence of our political leaders and intelligence services that got us to that point. We should have purged the incompetents then. Instead, they’re still running the show. The country is still sound, but the people in charge of it have only gotten worse.

God bless America. We need it.

I don’t mean this to sound gloomy. But Americans consistently shrink from the realities of both international and domestic politics and that’s not good. I think the coming decade will be a dose of reality, for better and for worse.

Related: Salena Zito: We Should Remember What They Left Behind.

Plus: That Day, As I Saw It.

ABOUT LIKE YOU’D EXPECT AFTER A SERIES OF BETRAYALS: Kurt Schlichter: How the Hell Do You Think Us Veterans Feel Right Now?

I REMEMBER BEING TOLD TO VOTE FOR BIDEN BECAUSE OF HIS DIPLOMATIC PROWESS: Biden finds himself on the defensive after G20 leaders fail to rally around Ukraine. “Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the New Delhi gathering for leaders of the world’s most powerful economies, but even in their absence, Russia and China notched a win against the U.S. when it came to rallying the international community against the war that began more than a year and a half ago.”

Biden’s the kind of guy who can lose to people who didn’t even show up.

WE CAN HOPE: Zogby: ‘Catastrophic’ disaster brewing for Biden reelection. “While they highlighted CNN’s finding that Biden and former President Donald Trump are about dead even in a 2024 head-to-head, John Zogby noted that minorities, especially blacks and Hispanics, are abandoning Biden and that that is a red warning flag.”

The trans stuff and police-defunding doesn’t really sell except with the neurotic well-off whites who run the Democratic Party. Voters not so much.

WOW:

“There is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution.”

Mark this as the first time we’ve ever quoted David Hogg without a rebuttal. https://t.co/aib8IdKo50

— Not the Bee (@Not_the_Bee) September 9, 2023

THANK YOU, FIRE:  My cute little university won’t let Matt Walsh of “What is a Woman?” fame speak on campus.  According to FIRE’s letter to University of San Diego president James Harris, USD’s College Republicans sought to bring in Walsh as a speaker, but were told by the Director of Student Activities and Involvement that Walsh’s views are “transphobic,” “offensive,” and would make USD students feel “unsafe,” “not comfortable,” and “offended and hurt.”  Later, the Vice President for Student Life confirmed that USD would not allow Walsh to speak on campus, stating that “all guest speakers … [must] engage in perspectives in a manner consistent with USD’s mission and core values” and that Walsh was “very disrespectful” and “grossly offensive.”

FIRE points out that USD claims to be a school that protects free speech. But this is hardly USD’s first offense against free expression.  Over the last three or four years, there have been quite a few.  This isn’t even the first one this summer.  It’s a shame.  This used to be a university.

TWO-TIERED JUSTICE: Leftist Who Ran Over and Killed ‘Republican Extremist’ Teen Gets Just Five Years in Prison.

ROBIN HANSON: Will Nations Fund Fertility? “Some hope that the world’s fertility fall might be reversed by governments subsidizing fertility. But on reflection, that seems unlikely to me. Let me explain why.”

Related: The Global Fertility Collapse.

Flashback: The Parent Trap.

Related: Montesquieu’s Warning About Our Childlessness.

Also: car seats as contraception: “Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.”

Also: How China’s baby bust can help birth a second American Century.

SEA STORY: A Deep Dive Into US Navy’s Epic Shipbuilding Failure.

In July 2016, warships from more than two dozen nations gathered off the coasts of Hawaii and Southern California to join the United States in the world’s largest naval exercise. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and others sent hundreds of destroyers, aircraft carriers and warplanes. They streamed in long lines across the ocean, symbols of power and prestige.

The USS Freedom had its own special place within the armada. It was one of a new class of vessels known as littoral combat ships. The U.S. Navy had billed them as technical marvels — small, fast and light, able to combat enemies at sea, hunt mines and sink submarines.

In reality, the LCS was well on the way to becoming one of the worst boondoggles in the military’s long history of buying overpriced and underperforming weapons systems. Two of the $500 million ships had suffered embarrassing breakdowns in previous months. The Freedom’s performance during the exercise, showing off its ability to destroy underwater mines, was meant to rejuvenate the ships’ record on the world stage. The ship was historically important too; it was the first LCS built, the first in the water, commissioned just eight years prior.

But like the LCS program’s reputation, the Freedom was in bad shape. Dozens of pieces of equipment on board were undergoing repairs. Training crews for the new class of ships had proven more difficult than anticipated. The sailors aboard the Freedom had not passed an exam demonstrating their ability to operate some of the ship’s most important systems.

As the day to launch approached, the pressure mounted. Top officers visited the ship repeatedly. The Freedom’s sailors understood that theirs was a “no fail mission” with “‘no appetite’ to remain in port,” according to Navy documents obtained by ProPublica.

The Freedom’s Capt. Michael Wohnhaas consulted with his officers. Despite crippling problems that had left one of the ship’s engines inoperable, he and his superiors decided the vessel could rely on its three others for the exercise.

The Freedom completed its mission, but the accomplishment proved hollow. Five days after the ship returned to port, a maintenance check revealed that the faltering engine had suffered “galloping corrosion” from saltwater during the exercise.

“Galloping corrosion” doesn’t just afflict one LCS — it’s an apt descriptor for al our institutions.

NEWT GINGRICH: American Despotism: We are faced with a totalitarian cancer that will have to be confronted and defeated at every level. “America is now in the deepest, most dangerous constitutional crisis since the hostility in the 1850s that led to secession and civil war.”

PROMINENT SON OF NATIONAL POLITICAL FIGURE: Michael Howard — now known as Lord Howard of Lympne — led Britain’s Conservative Party, unsuccessfully it turned out, at the beginning of the Tony Blair era.

His son, Nick, talks this morning on HillFaith of his journey to faith, a journey made doubly interesting by the fact he is scion of one of Britain’s most prominent Jewish families.

HAM SANDWICH NATION: Jonathan Turley: The ‘Why Not?’ grand jury: The Georgia final report should worry us all.

A major point of this prosecution is to make clear that no one is safe from the Establishment if it wants to go after you.

ON SUNDAYS I RUN A PROMO POST FOR (MOSTLY INDIE) WRITERS:  Book Promo and Vignettes by Luke, Mary Catelli and ‘Nother Mike.

JOE BIDEN DID THAT: New York City to Cut Up to 15% of Its Budget to Pay for Migrant Influx.

CHINA HAD BETTER HURRY AND BRIBE SOME GREEN ACTIVISTS TO BE SURE WE CAN’T EXPLOIT IT: Lithium discovery in US volcano could be biggest deposit ever found.

IF YOU’RE IN A CLASS THE LEFT LOVES, REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO WHALES:  The Wind Industry Is Killing Whales.

If big brother decides something is more important, anything is on the table to be destroyed and thrown under the bus.

WELL, OUR IDIOTS HAVE BEEN STEALTH-DOING-THIS FOR A WHILE:  New Law in China Bans Online Content That ‘Hurts Chinese Feelings’.

BIDEN IS WORKING FOR THE HIGHEST BIDDER. AND YOU, GENTLE READER, AREN’T IT:  “Who Is Biden Working For?” Admin Under Fire For ‘Illegal, Reckless’ Cancellation Of Alaska Oil Leases.

TRUMPISH? WELL, OFF WITH THEIR HEADS:  Today in Insanity: O’Keefe exposes New Jersey school board that called cops on citizens who looked ‘Trumpish’…

GOOD ON THEM:  Florida Embraces ‘Classic Learning Test’ in Higher Education Admissions.

THIS OUGHT BE PAID FROM THE COUNTY ELECTION OFFICIALS’ POCKETS, NOT THE TAXPAYERS, POCKETS:  Judge Orders Michigan County to Pay $10,000 to Election Integrity Group Over FOIA Practices.

THEY’RE NOT MIA. THEY’RE MAKING IT WORSE:  Schumer battles back against claims he and Jeffries are MIA on migrant crisis.

ALL THE ILLEGALS WITH SCHOOL AGE KIDS SHOULD BE TOLD ABOUT THIS:  CA Lawmakers Pass Bill Punishing Parents Who Do Not ‘Affirm’ Trans Children in Custody Battles.

UH. HOW INTERESTING. TELL US HOW THE REST OF THE COUNTRY IS SUPPOSED TO COPE:  Mayor Adams doubles down on controversial claim migrant crisis will ‘destroy’ NYC: ‘Financial tsunami’.

I HAVE BEEN RELIABLY INFORMED THE SCIENCE IS QUITE SETTLED ON THIS:  Secret Service agent who was with JFK raises new questions about assassination.