SELECTIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT: Below is a picture that a friend forwarded to me from a Students for Justice in Palestine rally at my university’s Fairfax campus. The organizers advised students to wear face coverings to hide their identities.

Like many states, Virginia has a law, aimed at hate groups like the KKK (and, for that matter, SJP), prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public, except for theatrical or medical reasons or during a state of health emergency (which does not currently exist in Virginia): “It shall be unlawful for any person over 16 years of age to, with the intent to conceal his identity, wear any mask, hood or other device whereby a substantial portion of the face is hidden or covered so as to conceal the identity of the wearer, to be or appear in any public place, or upon any private property in this Commonwealth without first having obtained from the owner or tenant thereof consent to do so in writing.” Virginia statutes § 18.2-422.

Are such laws a good idea? Are they constitutional? I am ambivalent on both counts. There is significant value in allowing for anonymous protest, and also significant value in not allowing masked hate groups to intimidate others and potentially cover up criminal behavior by masking their identities in public.

Regardless of my views, however, the law is on the books, creates a felony, and the police should not get to pick and choose which laws they enforce and against whom. I know from my friend that several people called the George Mason University police in advance to inform them that a masked rally was scheduled to occur, that wearing a mask at such a rally is a felony, and that they want the police not to arrest the students or quash the rally, but only to require them comply with the law and not wear masks. Obviously, the police did nothing, apparently telling people that since the rally was peaceful, they weren’t going to interfere. Surely, however, if a KKK or neo-Nazi rally was taking place on campus, no matter how “peaceful,” the police would have enforced the law. That’s what’s known as selective enforcement, and it’s a real problem.

If you are interested, GMU has a form to complain about police misbehavior. And the phone number of the state AG’s office, run by a sound AG is 804-786-2071.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Eagerly awaiting the “Klansmen for Palestine” march on the GMU campus.

SOME PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THE NEW ADS. Sorry, the problem is that InstaPundit has been demonetized by Google, for unspecified “dangerous” content. Between the overall trend of ad revenue decline — which hits everyone — and the trend of cutting advertising to right-leaning sites, and now this, ad revenue is down about 90% from its high, I’d estimate, and it may get worse. (The Amazon revenue, which we’ve been phasing out anyway, is similar). At some point I’ll probably have to go to some sort of subscription model — maybe one that lets you buy out of the ads — or a purely donation-supported model.

In the meantime, if you’d like to support the blog you can donate via Stripe or subscribe (preferably paid!) to my Substack. It’s all much appreciated. (Bumped).

BREAKING: “Saint” Benitez Declares California “Assault Weapons” Ban Unconstitutional.

COLOR ME SKEPTICAL: New Research: The World May Have Crossed a Solar “Tipping Point.”

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*CK THINGS UP:

NEW: White House apologizes after Instagram post revealed the faces of Special Ops forces during Biden’s visit to Israel

“As soon as this was brought to our attention, we immediately deleted the photo. We regret the error and any issues this may have caused.” pic.twitter.com/RR2gHFl0DO

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) October 19, 2023

KURT SCHLICHTER: Academia Needs to Go Extinct. “Crises clarify what is true, and what is indisputably true during this crisis is that academia, as currently constituted, is a poisonous cancer infecting our society. Like many other institutions, academia has gone from respect to contempt in the eyes of normal people, if not our garbage ruling class. But its latest series of public disgraces may wake up even the most obstinate cheerleaders for pretending that nothing fundamental has changed.”

Plus:

But there was another aspect to this, one that is even more likely to change minds and hearts in the direction of reality. It is the realization by the people with an antiquated view of the universities that their kids are likely to never see the inside of a big name campus. Oh, the very richest kids’ spawn will. They will have no problem getting into the Harvards and Yales because daddy has $1 billion and just paid for the new wing of the Social Justice and Decolonization Department building. But regular folks, whose children aren’t able to check multiple boxes on the intersectionality form are out of luck. The big lie is that if you work hard enough and show merit, your kid can get in too. But your kid can’t. These are exclusive clubs, and your kid better stay outside the velvet rope because your kid is not on the VIP list.

Everyone recently saw that story of the A+ graduate with near perfect SATs who actually started his own company, and yet couldn’t get admitted into any of the top universities. He made the mistake of being Asian, which is a mistake on par with being some white kid from the suburbs. The colleges have decreed, and the awful wine women inhabiting their admissions departments concur, that if you were those things you don’t get a shot. Merit is dead for the designated undiverse. And when people realize that their kids are out of luck if they don’t have some bizarre gender identity or something else that makes them thrill the hearts of the Chardonnay-swillers who pick and choose the Ivy student bodies, these voters are going to say “Oh, hell no!” next time they are asked to subsidize academia both with tax money and respect.

We need a higher education sector that Looks Like America.

HOW MANY WAYS CAN US FUND ITS ENEMIES? House subcommittee hears all about the many ways foreign criminal and terrorists hackers, many linked to China and other U.S. adversaries, fraudulently obtain billions of dollars in federal benefit programs intended to provide COVID relief.

ANOTHER REASON WHY ALL BOND VILLAINS ARE EUROPEANS:

You know, besides the obvious one. That Ian Fleming was British and every supervillain of the 21st Century had a vaguely German accent.

But there’s another. It’s that these guys are really maniacal control freaks and creepy AF in real life. Fleming wouldn’t have to imagine a Le Chiffre or an Auric Goldfinger.

They get off private jets at every Davos meeting and congratulate each other for surviving another year, while being surrounded by people determined to stymie all their best intentions. Like, say, for instance, the middle class.

Yes.

USS CARNEY SHOOTS DOWN MISSILES, DRONES FIRED FROM YEMEN.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG? The US Government Hired a Pro-Hamas-Terrorism Ideologue to… “Vet” Arab Refugees for Terrorist Sympathies.

NEO: I think that if we had to fight WWII today we would not win.

I believe that, were we to fight a war like WWII today, we would not be able to win. I don’t say that because we lack the weapons or the skills. I say it because I believe that we would fight with our hands voluntarily tied behind our backs. I base that on a few things.

One is the chart that can be found here. I can’t seem to copy it, so you’ll have to follow the link to see it, but it shows the results of a poll that demonstrates enormous generational differences in the answers to the question of whether Israel’s military response to the Hamas attack is fully justified. It goes from 81% agreement from those 65+ to 27% agreement from those who are 18-34 years old.

And then of course there is the woke agenda of so much of today’s military.

Ed Morrissey adds, “All of these are good points, but there’s another more fundamental reason — we can no longer produce war materiel like we did in the 1940s. Our status as the Arsenal of Democracy has been destroyed by the sharp decline in our manufacturing capacity and the lack of a skilled workforce to man it.”

The recent British War Factories series made that abundantly clear – in WWII, America had a massive amount of manufacturing capability, and its assembly lines were too far away from the Axis to attack. Our lesser output today, combined with a president whose brain is guacamole and a cabinet with no one in charge, and its no wonder our enemies are licking their chops.

ANALYSIS: TRUE. Self-Checkout is a Failed Experiment.

READER FAVORITE: When the Grid Goes Down: Disaster Preparations and Survival Gear For Making Your Home Self-Reliant. #CommissionEarned

REMEMBER THAT SECRET CHINESE BIOLAB IN CALIFORNIA? You won’t find a more in-depth reporting on what was really going on there and who was behind it than this report from the Epoch Times.

YOU SHOULD HAVE AN INSURANCE PLAN WITH LAWYERS ON CALL, OR YOUR OWN LAWYER TO CALL: Personal Defense Tip: Don’t Just Ask For An Attorney In the Aftermath of a Defensive Gun Use.

“THEY” SEEM LIKE A DANGER TO OTHERS AND PERHAPS “THEMSELVES”:UC DAVIS professor threatens “Zionist” journalists and their kids. This is crazy and serious enough to warrant a police investigation. Meanwhile, how did someone get a tenure-track job at a prestigious state university who says that “their” scholarly focus is “on the interplay between sound, race, gender, and embodiment.” They must’ve written a heckuva DEI statement.

BRAD THOMPSON: Order From Chaos.

NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO BUY, NOBODY CAN AFFORD TO SELL: September home sales drop to the lowest level since the foreclosure crisis.

HISTORY: Why societies experience cycles of violence and peace.

WHOA: Sidney Powell Flips, Cuts a Deal in Georgia.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: The Holocaust 2.0 Is on the Horizon, and a Lot of Americans Are Okay With It.

MY LATEST CREATORS SYNDICATE COLUMN: Like Mark Twain’s death, the demise of the tank has been “greatly exaggerated.” Yes, Israeli tank firepower is an antidote for fanaticism.

…An Army buddy told me about a could-be political appointee he escorted through Department of Defense briefings in the late 1970s. The pipe-smoking pontificator kept saying, “The tank’s dead.” My infantry pal finally turned to him and said: “Yes sir, the tank’s a dinosaur, but it’s the baddest dinosaur on the battlefield. You face one.”

It’s 2023. The tank, in the form of Main Battle Tanks (MBT) like the U.S. Army’s M1A2 Abrams or Israeli Merkava 5, is far from dead. Despite media obituaries referencing Russia’s disastrous 2022 tank operations in Ukraine, the 2023 MBT as built by NATO nations and allies like South Korea and Israel remains potent on the battlefield.

That is, if the 2023 tank crews manning the MBTs, and their accompanying infantry in armored infantry vehicles (mechanized infantry), and their operational commanders know how to fight a combined arms war.

Check it out.

RELATED: These are photos of vehicles mentioned in the column. 1- Recent Merkava 5 photo. 2- A Merkava in the field, 2018. 3- A 1st Cavalry Division M1A2 SEPV3, 2020. 4- A U.S M1A2 and two German Leopard 2A6s, Poland 2023. 5- German Leopard 2s in Norway, Exercise Trident Juncture 2018. Very fine photo. And finally 6- An M1A2 with TUSK — Tank Urban Survival Kit. Photo taken in 2010. But all of the equipment is still useful in urban combat. Note the Explosive Reactive Armor tile. TUSK entered service in 2007 with reactive armor panels for the side and rear of the tank, to provide added protection from RPGs. This June 2023 ARMOR update explains.

DEAL OF THE DAY: Calphalon 10-Piece Pots and Pans Set. #CommissionEarned

EAT YOUR WHEAT GERM: Spermidine found to rejuvenate oocyte quality by improving mitophagy during female reproductive aging.

PERSONNEL IS POLICY: Before Joining Biden Administration, White House Staff Attacked ‘Apartheid’ Israel.

The U.S. Secret Service arrested dozens of protestors outside the White House this week on charges of unlawful entry. The immediate aim of the demonstration, organized by the progressive Jewish group IfNotNow, was to “shut down the White House.” Their ultimate goal: pressuring President Biden into supporting an Israeli ceasefire. The White House has repeatedly rejected those calls.

“How dare he send offensive weaponry to that government right now,” Eva Borgwardt, the group’s political director, said of President Biden’s decision to provide military aid to Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration in the wake of a Hamas attack that killed more than 1,300 Israelis and at least 30 Americans.

She told the crowd that Netanyahu’s administration was “fascist.” She yelled into a microphone that resupplying Israel “to carry out what they’ve explicitly stated is genocidal intent, is unfathomably unacceptable.” Borgwardt also served as a field organizer for the Arizona Democratic Party to elect Biden in 2020.

The demonstration was ultimately unsuccessful, and the president traveled to Tel Aviv Wednesday where he embraced Netanyahu on the tarmac in a show of continued solidarity.

Yes, but was it a show or for show?