IKE WAS RIGHT, BUT IT’S THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY I’M MORE CONCERNED ABOUT: Ike Was Right: The Military-Industrial Complex Has Become a Serious Problem.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Report: The faculty DEI statement is ‘The New Loyalty Oath.’

CHRISTIAN TOTO: How Hollywood Helped Create, and Destroy, ‘Time’s Up.’

Producer Harvey Weinstein’s fall from grace handed Hollywood a golden opportunity.

Stars who preferred virtue signaling to hard work could now do something powerful, and necessary, for the culture.

Bring other Harvey Weinsteins to justice. And, as we learned in the weeks following Weinstein’s downfall, Hollywood is chock full of unsavory types.

And, sadly, so is the culture at large.

That’s why Time’s Up, which officially shuttered days ago, began in the first place. The nonprofit, sparked by lurid accusations against Weinstein, vowed to prevent other predators from getting away with their crimes. And, hopefully, send a message to men eager to prey on the fairer sex.

You’re next.

Actresses like Kerry Washington, Ashley Judd and Reese Witherspoon rallied to a cause that spread far beyond Tinsel Town. They helped pour millions into the startup, but some went a step further.

Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Laura Dern, Alyssa Milano, Amy Schumer, Julianne Moore, Brie Larson, Jessica Chastain and Tessa Thompson joined its advisory board, eager to take a more hands-on approach to the group’s work.

Except those famous folks stood down when it mattered most.

Read the whole thing.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Good News — School Choice Is Back on the Agenda for Republicans. “My personal dream would be to do away with the Department of Education altogether, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. Expanding choice wherever and whenever possible is the first step in weakening the power of the public education indoctrination mills.”

WELL, SHE ISN’T: Journo tells KJP ‘you don’t seem a good fit for this job’ to her face during presser.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: ‘Incredibly Suspicious’: Detailed Hunter Biden Email Raises Questions Amid Classified Docs Scandal.

I’M NOT SURE I WANT TO KNOW WHAT GOES ON AT COMMENTARY’S COCKTAIL PARTIES: Free the Meat.

Okay, my cheap joke aside, Noah Rothman is spot-on:

In Western New Jersey, a population-dense state with an equally high concentration of whitetail deer, the problem is an increasingly urgent one. “Sustainable levels of deer should be 5 to 15 individuals per square mile,” one local arboretum fretted in 2021. “New Jersey averages 112 per square mile, with some areas as high as 270.” And yet, deer concentration levels, their acute and injurious effects on the environment, and the threat they pose to life and property exist alongside a bewildering phenomenon: They are positively delicious.

The “star” of the menu at Washington D.C.’s Café Berlin every autumn, an NPR profile of the restaurant’s fare read, is venison. Loin, ribs, chops, tartar—take your pick. “It’s food that takes your mind back to old European castles, where you can imagine eating like aristocracy,” the piece gushes. But you can’t buy deer meat at your local grocer or often even at upscale food purveyors. This NPR reporter found venison loin selling for a staggering $40 per pound. And about 85 percent of all deer meat sold in American restaurants is imported from New Zealand.

HMM: CNN Drops a Huge Bombshell in Biden Classified Documents Scandal. “According to a new report from CNN, of all places, Biden wasn’t originally willing to consent to have the Justice Department search his home and only agreed to it after Justice Department indicated it would seek a warrant if necessary.”

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Convenient Timing: Pelosi Sold $3 Million of Google Stock Weeks Before DOJ Launched Antitrust Probe.

Just another argument in favor of Stephen Green’s proposal to tax elected officials and their immediate families at 100% on returns over the 7% individual investors hope to earn.

FREE SPEECH UPDATE: California Judge Grants Injunction to NCLA Clients, Halts Implementation of Law Censoring Doctors.

Reminder: I’m on the NCLA’s advisory board. (Bumped).

JIM GERAGHTY: The Stray Voltage of George Santos.

Way, way back in the mid 2010s — a pre-Trump era that might as well be ancient history in U.S. politics — the Obama administration deployed the communications strategy of “stray voltage.” Major Garrett of CBS News laid out the approach in 2014:

This is the White House theory of “Stray Voltage.” It is the brainchild of former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe, whose methods loom large long after his departure. The theory goes like this: Controversy sparks attention, attention provokes conversation, and conversation embeds previously unknown or marginalized ideas in the public consciousness. This happens, Plouffe theorizes, even when–and sometimes especially when–the White House appears defensive, besieged, or off-guard. . . .

As a theory, “stray voltage” exists in a kind of strategic void. It can’t be dismissed or embraced as workable because creating controversy for the sake of controversy is, well, achievable. Like getting soup from the White House mess. It’s also self-reinforcing and internally didactic. Everyone looks around and says, “See. There’s controversy. It’s working.”

* * * * * * * *

But you can see why Kevin McCarthy might find it worthwhile to let the gears of the consequences for Santos turn slowly. A Washington press corps that is obsessed with Santos’s incessant lying and potentially shady connections isn’t spending as much time insisting that the House GOP is the root of all evil. Sooner or later, the consequences of Santos’s voluminous deceptions will catch up to him. But between now and then, he’s a glasses-wearing, nervous-looking lightning rod, and the more lightning that strikes him, the less there is to strike the rest of the GOP House majority.

Santos is also a daily reminder that he’s far from the only DC politician with plenty of lies on his CV:

LOS ANGELES IS A Predator’s Paradise.

While the last few decades have seen an increase in human trafficking, women at all three of the anti-trafficking groups I spoke with across California agreed: nothing compares with the stunning rise in trafficking they’ve witnessed in recent months. Powell, formerly a sergeant in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Vice Division, knows the city’s streets intimately. Over the last six months, the number of prostitutes has doubled, she says. “On Figueroa, between 68th and 75th, in an hour, you might see about 30 girls out there. Now, you can see 60 to 65 girls in an hour.”

What shifted? The answer, the anti-trafficking advocates told me, is Senate Bill 357. Signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in July, the measure decriminalized loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution. The bill did not officially take effect until January 1 of this year; but, from the moment it became law back in July, these women say, the on-the-ground reality changed. “The minute the governor signed it, you started seeing an uptick on the streets,” Powell said. “And on social media, the pimps were saying: ‘You better get out there and work because the streets are ours.’”

The pimps were right: police stopped making arrests for crimes that would no longer be charged. The anti-loitering statute had provided the grounds for officers to question women and children whom they suspected might be trapped in a prostitution ring. “As a police officer, you need probable cause to stop and investigate,” Powell explained. “So if I have a law that says you can’t loiter in this area, with pasties and a G-string, flagging down cars, I could stop you for that because you’re loitering. But if I just say I’m stopping you because you look kind of young, that’s a little weak. So, it takes away a tool.” Without the statute, police hands were suddenly tied. Henceforth, questioning the girls—and potentially provoking a violent confrontation with pimps—came to seem a Pyrrhic gamble, one that California’s police officers would now avoid.

By overwhelming majorities, women in California vote for this.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Cook Political Report: These three Democrat senate seats are rated as toss-ups in 2024. “The races are Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, (I-AZ)., Sen. Joe Manchin, (D-WVA), and Sen. Sherrod Brown,( D-OH).”

Get to work: President DeSantis will need a Republican Senate.

MAN, DON’T YOU BUG ME: Here come the bugs:

I have been writing lately about the war on agriculture–the Left’s attack on modern, scientific farming. The Left’s two main targets, so far, are fertilizers and animal husbandry. What is the end game? Leftists want us to eat a largely vegetarian diet, with insects as a protein source instead of cows, pigs and poultry.

This is no secret if you follow leftist writing, but many people find it hard to believe. To be fair, there is a great deal about modern liberalism that I find hard to believe. But the plan to convert us all to insect-eaters is real.

Indeed it is.

Related: Looming food shortages is the next ‘slow-moving disaster’ to hit world. Not by accident.

(Classical reference in headline.)

SOCIALISM: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL LEAVE. San Francisco Falls Into The Abyss. “No major American city has failed at the same level as Detroit, whose population dropped from 1.85 million people in 1950 to about 630,000 today. Move over Detroit, here comes San Francisco, which lost 6.3 percent of its population between 2019 and 2021, a rate of decline larger than any two year-period in Detroit’s history and unprecedented among any major US city.”

VICTORIA TAFT: Gavin Newsom’s ‘Suicide Pact’ With the Truth. “California Democrats pass more gun restrictions while at the same time passing easy-on-crime laws that favor people breaking the law.”

THOUGHTS ON WHAT MAKES A MAN.

FROM LARRY CORREIA:  In Defense of the Second Amendment.

#CommissionEarned

What Part of the Second Amendment Don’t You Understand?

That’s the question posed by award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, and professional firearms instructor, Larry Correia.
Bringing with him the practical experience that comes from having owned a high-end gun store—catering largely to law enforcement—and as a competitive shooter and self-defense trainer, Correia blasts apart the emotion-laden, logic-free rhetoric of the gun control fanatics who turn every “mass shooting” into a crazed call for violating your rights, abusing the Constitution—and doing absolutely nothing to really fight crime.
In his essential new book, In Defense of the Second Amendment, Correia reveals:

• Why “gun-free” zones are more dangerous for law-abiding citizens

• How the Second Amendment does indeed include your right to own an AR-15—and why that’s not an “outdated” concept

• Why “red flag” laws don’t work, can be easily abused, and ignore a much more commonsensical approach to keeping guns out of the wrong hands 

• The insanity of “criminal justice reform” that frees dangerous criminals and “gun reform” that penalizes your right to self-defense

• How we can return to a society that has a safe and healthy relationship with guns—as we had for most of our history

• Correia’s promise: “Believe me, I’ve heard every argument relating to gun control possible. I can show you how to defend your rights.”

MARXISM ALWAYS LEADS TO WIDESPREAD POVERTY. NEVER ANYTHING ELSE:  Wealth Tax: The Marxist Taxman Cometh.

IT’S BEEN OBVIOUS FOR A WHILE:  The Environmentalist Assault on Civilization.

WE’RE GOING TO SEE MORE OF THIS. THE WHOLE WORLD IS IN TROUBLE:  Pakistan can’t keep the lights on?!

OF COURSE THERE IS. FOR CHINA. BUT WE DON’T MIND:  Schiff Claims National Security At Risk If Left Off Intel Committee.

WAYS TO FIGHT BACK:  Do You Trust the Integrity of Our Elections? If Not, Here Are the Steps We Must Take.

ALSO: THEY’RE NOT OUR FRIENDS: Our Liberal Friends Have Learned Nothing.

WE DON’T LIKE BEING DISENFRANCHISED:  Removing Phantoms With Technology and ‘Gentle’ Persuasion.