GOVERNMENT KILLS, PART ….: CDC Calls for Halt to J & J Vaccine Due to Blood Clot Risk. The risk appears to be less than one in a million overall, and so far zero for men. We should just inform people of this tiny to virtually non-existent risk and let them decide they think the risk is worth it compared to (a) only having to get one shot and/or (b) not being able to get a shot at all for some indefinite period. It’s extremely likely that more people will die and get ill because of the halt to the vaccine that would have died or become ill from the vaccine.

THE THREE TENORS? THE THREE CABELLAROS? NOPE, IT’S THE THREE DAVID BERNSTEINS: If you are on Clubhouse, join me, David Bernstein, and David Bernstein for a discussion of freedom of expression and wokeness Monday 4/12 at 8:00 pm. [BUMPED]

NOTICE OF NAME CHANGE: I am planning to legally change my name to Infrastructure McInfrastructure. I figure I can get a large check from President Biden, who can in turn claim it’s “an investment” in the future. You know, the way his infrastructure bill contains all sorts of other giveaways disguised as “infrastructure spending.”

A LIMITED BUT SIGNIFICANT VICTORY FOR CHILDREN THE GOVERNMENT DEEMS TO BE AMERICAN INDIANS: Tim Sandefur analyzes the Fifth Circuit’s long, divided opinion on the Indian Child Welfare Act.

I’ve spent the last couple of years researching the modern American law of racial classification, and if you asked me what is the most obviously unconstitutional (or for that matter, immmoral) law that depends on such classification, my answer would be the ICWA. Just for example, under ICWA a child could be zero percent Indian on his mother’s side, 1/256 Cherokee on his father’s side, and not a member of the Cherokee tribe, but eligible for tribal membership. His parents decide to give the child up for adoption to a loving white (or black, or Hispanic) family. Great, right? Wrong. The Cherokee Tribe can veto the adoption, and insist that he be adopted by a Cherokee.

But wait, there’s more. Before a court can allow the non-Indian couple to adopt, it would have to make sure that no other Indian tribe wants to claim the child. In other words, this child’s future is being determined solely based on what amounts to a one-drop rule of racial ancestry, allowing a child that’s never set foot on his ancestral reservation to be adopted against the parents’ judgment by a tribe with which he has no connections at all, other than “racial.” The Supreme Court needs to take this opportunity to get rid of this monstrous law.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE NARRATIVE: New York Times: Minority Entrepreneurs Struggled to Get Small-Business Relief Loans. Buried in the text: “The vast majority of lenders did not report demographic data on the 3.6 million loans they made this year, but of the 996,000 that included information on the borrower’s race, 71 percent of the dollars went to white-owned businesses.” But over eighty percent of U.S. businesses are owned by whites, and because many of the businesses owned by minorities are owned by immigrants, they tend to be less established. So all things equal, one might expect the baseline to be that more than eighty percent of “the dollars” would go to whites. So how the New York Times concludes that its “analysis of data from several sources” “show that Black- and other minority-owned businesses were disproportionately underserved by the relief effort” is a mystery not explained in the article.

BLEG–ACADEMIC LITERATURE EXPLAINING ASIAN SUCCESS: Several years ago, I posted something, I think on Facebook, asking how Critical Race Theorists and Intersectionalists who believe that white supremacy reigns supreme and largely dictates the fortunes of other groups explain the relative socioeconomic success of Asian Americans. One correspondent responded that some of them argue that whites “allow” Asians to succeed because that way they can justify their oppression of brown and black people by pointing to Asian success as refuting white supremacy. I expressed skepticism that anyone who was an actual academic would publish such an absurd conspiracy theory. My correspondent replied with links to two or three articles in academic journals promoting exactly that theory. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find that Facebook post in my archives, nor did a request on FB turn up anything. But I’m sure that this exchange occurred, and I read the articles arguing that Asians succeed because whites “let” them. So my bleg to Instapundit readers is that if any of you are familiar with any such articles, to please send me links, either in the comments or to my email.

IN THE LATEST EXAMPLE OF “THIS COUNTRY HAS GONE COMPLETELY INSANE”: There was a horrific mass shooting, with ten people murdered. Photos emerged of the shooter, who is obviously Caucasian/white.

Leftist identitarians on Twitter gleefully(!) proclaimed that the shooting was an example of at best white male toxicity, and likely white supremacy. Then in turned out that the shooter was a Muslim immigrant from Syria. The identitarians beat a hasty retreat, embarrassed for jumping to the conclusion he was white, because Muslims from Syria aren’t white. Even when they are.

Digging a bit deeper, note that the Trump Administration had two cabinet officials of Lebanese descent (Azar and Espy) and virtually none of the wokesters suggested that they were non-white members of the cabinet. Jews much swarthier than the shooter are, unlike white Muslims, deemed to have “white privilege” because reasons. And official (legal) racial classifications in the U.S. have deemed Arab-Americans to be white forever.

I wish I could say this insanity was limited to the U.S., but a few years back a white woman of Algerian heritage was deemed (and deemed herself) the “first black president” of the British student union.

It’s all about weaponizing identity for left-wing political ends, of course. But it’s still insane.

REVISITING THE VINCENT CHIN CASE: Most of you have probably heard of the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese man who was killed in Detroit in 1982. The way the killing was and still is reported in the media, it was several white auto workers who attacked him with a bat because they thought he was Japanese. In light of recent publicity surrounding anti-Asian violence, the Chin case has renceived renewed attention.

The reality, it turns out, is much more complicated than the received story, as I discovered accidentally while researching my forthcoming book on racial classifications. Chin was drinking at a bachelor party at a strip club. He got into a verbal dispute with some white patrons. An eyewitness testified that the whites, auto workers, made racial remarks related to the loss of auto jobs to the Japanese. However, the white men denied it, and the witness who so testified received a lighter sentence for another matter in exchange for her testimony, calling her credibility into doubt.

As for the violence, Chin threw the first punch. When they were all kicked out of the club, he yelled to the white men in the parking lot, “Come on you chickenshits, let’s fight some more.” Eventually, the white guys tracked him down at a McDonald’s and beat him, he became unconscious and died.

That’s enough for me for a second-degree murder charge, which is what they were charged with, though they pled guilty only to manslaughter, and, outrageously, received probation based on their lack of criminal history. In any event, I always find it disturbing when an incident that “I know” turns out to have been nothing like how it was consistently reported. In short, the killers were let off too easily, and that seems to have been a result of the judge giving them undue sympathy. But the altercation itself may have had no racial motivation, and the notion that Chin was set upon randomly by autoworkers, which is how I have seen it consistently reported, is false.

RIPPED-OFF BY SPRINT/T-MOBILE: So I’ve been a Sprint customer for 23 years. I upgraded my Iphone to a 12 last Fall. There were two offers at the time, one for a $200 credit from Apple, one for an additional $200 credit from Sprint for “loyal customers” (over five years) who traded in their old phone. Got the first, sent in my old phone for the second. Got a text that I wasn’t eligible for the credit because my phone wasn’t in working order. This was a lie. I called to complain and they agreed to give me the $200 credit. Never showed up. Contacted Sprint twice. Twice was assured credit would show on my next bill. It didn’t. Contact Sprint’s Twitter team. First they told me the phone I traded in wasn’t in working order. They then gave up on that and claimed there was only one promotion, not two. I managed to find an email showing the two promotions were simulatneous: “Because T-Mobile loves loyal customers like you, we are giving you an extra $200 off,” and an article from the same time stating “The carrier is also giving those who have been with T-Mobile or Sprint for five years or more an extra $200 off ‘any new iPhone’ when you ‘trade or turn in any active iPhone on an eligible plan.'” You would think that would be that. Nope. “Our managers reviewed your information and we would not be able to apply any further credits.” Not only did I not get the $200, I also don’t have my phone, which I could have given to my son who now needs one. And I wasted several hours on this, less for the $200 and more on principle… Caveat emptor. I likely would have kept the records showing exactly what the promised at the time, but I was recovering from Covid and was a bit out of it.

THE MORE A SUSPECT DENIES GUILT, THE MORE GUILTY HE IS: Wisdom from Ibram Kendi, an utter charlatan whose books are now required reading in schools across the country.

STRANGE MANIFESTATIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE: My county public library poobahs claim to care a lot about social justice.
Quiz for Instapundit readers: That has manifested itself in:
(1) Doing everything possible to open up the libraries, especially in poorer neighborhoods, and finding creative ways to bring books to poor kids whose schools have been closed, such as bookmobiles;
or
(2) Sending out an email with deep thoughts about Dr. Seuss and the need for the library and parents to ensure kids are reading diverse books.

I suspect you will not be surprised to learn that the answer is (2) (and our libraries remain almost entirely closed).

GETTING ABDUCTED BY ALIENS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO GET A MANDATORY ANAL PROBE: Passengers Arriving in Beijing And Shanghai Being Forced To Undergo Covid-19 Anal Swab Testing.

THE REVOLUTION DEMANDS YOUR ACQUIESCENCE: SUNY student suspended for Instagram post saying, “A Man Is A Man, A Woman Is A Woman.” The college’s rationale for suspending the student is that he is an education student, and his professed ideas would prevent him from treating all students appropriately. In cases like this, the question should not be what one’s personal ideology is, but whether one is willing to comply with whatever rules are established. For example, if a school district was to require this young man in the future to call a biologically male transgender boy “he,” and it’s lawful to require him to do so, would he do it? If so, then his personal ideology should matter no more than that of a Communist or libertarian teacher who agrees to use the prescribed textbook and curriculum even though they disagree with it. To suggest that only teachers who buy into the prevailing ideology are allowed to teach is worthy of the USSR, not the U.S.

A “WITCH HUNT” INVOLVING ACTUAL WITCHES: The New York Times and American Communism.

One can certainly debate whether, in the absence of criminal liability, being a Soviet stooge during Stalin’s reign merited blacklisting. One cannot argue, however, that Soviet stooges were not Soviet stooges, but that seems to have become the default assertion about blacklisted Hollywood writers among the cultural elite.

THE LEFT IS BUSILY CREATING A BIZARRO-WORLD NARRATIVE IN WHICH MOST OF THE VIOLENCE LAST SUMMER CAME FROM THE POLICE ATTACKING PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATORS: Gaslighting Last Summer’s Riots and the Law Enforcement Response.

IN THE WAKE OF LAST WEDNESDAY’S DISASTER, PRESIDENT-ELECT BIDEN FOCUSES ON WHAT UNITES US AS AMERICANS: Just kidding.

MOUNT ST. VINCENT UNIVERSITY IN CANADA WILL HIRE FACULTY CANDIDATES OF ANY COLOR–SO LONG AS THEY ARE BLACK: I’m a bit surprised that the Chronicle of Higher Education would publish this ad, give potential legal liability if nothing else.

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO ADMIT THAT TRUMP IS UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT?: I know this isn’t going to win me any popularity contests with most Instapundit readers, but I’m here to express my opinion, not to reflect readers’, so here goes.

There is no evidence of widespread fraud that could plausibly be said to have cost Trump the election, nor even a single state. It’s true the media and big tech were overtly pro-Biden, and while that’s not good for democracy it’s also not illegal or fraudulent, and thus has no bearing on whether Biden won the election or not. And all that is why Trump’s lawyers lost every single case they brought before judges of all parties and ideologies, including a dozen or so rulings by Trump-appointed federal judges who would undoubtedly have preferred that he won.

But it’s more serious than that. Even if you accept any of the not-completely-crazy theories I’ve seen of how the election was “stolen,” at best that gets Trump to a narrow victory in the Electoral College. Yet the president continues to insist not just that he won, not just that the election was stolen, but that he won in a “landslide.”

There is no excuse for political violence, and Trump, admittedly, did not ask anyone to engage in violence. However, if you tell people that their votes didn’t count, that the election was a sham, that the election you lost wasn’t even close but in fact a landslide in your favor, it’s only natural to expect that some people will be inclined to resort to violence, because the whole point of elections is to settle political matters without violence. If the election process is a total fraud, then violence is to be expected.

Even in the face of the violence yesterday, Trump, while telling the rioters to go home, also continued to insist that he really won in a landslide, thus continuing to foment violence. He is unfit to be president. And no, that doesn’t excuse all the examples of bad behavior on the left over the past 4 years, and that bad behavior undoubtedly created an atmosphere in which violence becomes more acceptable (not least by the tacit and sometimes explicit acceptance of the mass violence last Summer). But the basic moral principle of “two wrongs don’t make a right” still applies. Sometimes if you fight fire with fire, you burn down your house.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT LIVE: Webinar: The Future of the Second Amendment and the Right to Carry.

I MISSED THIS WHEN IT HAPPENED–DIVERSITY NONSENSE COST TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LIVES!: Moderna Slows Coronavirus Vaccine to Ensure Minority Representation.

This is particularly egregious because apparently Moderna felt the need to ensure sufficient representation of Hispanic Americans. Even if you buy the dubious notion that there is a significant chance that vaccines will have significantly different effects by “race,” what race are Hispanics supposed to be, exactly? The average American Hispanic is about 3/4 European by descent, based on DNA studies. Essentially, then, Moderna allowed tens of thousands of people to die to ensure that “enough” white people who happen to have Spanish-speaking ancestors were included.

Like many stupidities, the very unscientific focus in biomedical research on American racial categories is the product of government policy. Even if you believe in “race” as a biological concept likely to have significant medical salience, our American civil rights/affirmative action categories don’t make any sense in that regard, e.g., putting Caucasian people from India in the same “racial” category as East Asians such as Chinese and Austronesians such as Filipinos. A chapter of my in-progress book on American racial classification (preview here) will discuss this in detail, but a shorter version can be found here. [BTW, if we have any readers with relevant medical/scientific expertise who would be interested in “peer reviewing” my chapter, please let me know.]

Serious question: Why did I only hear about this today? Why wasn’t there mass outrage when this was reported in September?

SECOND AMENDMENT WEBINAR THIS WEDNESDAY AT 1PM EST (BUMPED–Happening Now!): Register here. The Future of the Second Amendment and the Right to Carry In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and again in McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Supreme Court established the individual right to possess a firearm in the home for self-defense. Since then, the Court has been urged to review whether laws imposing restrictions on carrying guns in public and prohibitions on assault weapons violate the Second Amendment. The Supreme Court had consistently declined to take on cases addressing these issues, leaving the scope of the Second Amendment uncertain. The confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett has raised hopes (and fears) that the Court may be poised to once again address the Second Amendment. To discuss what may lie ahead, the Liberty & Law Center will host a live webinar on Wednesday, December 16, 2020. Experts will include Professor Nelson Lund and Assistant Professor Robert Leider from the Antonin Scalia Law School. The discussion will be moderated by Liberty & Law Executive Director, Professor David E. Bernstein.

IT’S REALLY ABOUT RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL TRADITIONALISTS FIGHTING FOR THEIR FREEDOM TO BE JEWS AGAINST ENEMIES WITHIN AND WITHOUT: If you want to know what Hanukkah is NOT really about, watch this video from Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff explaining what they think Hanukkah is about. At least Harris knows how to pronounce the Hebrew “KH” that starts Hanukkah, unlike her Jewish husband. But really, the way American Jews have been dumbing down Hanukkah to make it universalistic is to emphasize the Maccabees fight for religious freedom, which is at least, unlike Harris/Emhoff talking about “tikkun olam,” not wildly inaccurate and anachronistic.

I’M CALLING BUBBLE, IT FEELS A LOT LIKE LATE 1999/early 2000: Airbnb skyrockets 115% in public market debut Airbnb skyrockets 115% in public market debut.

Airbnb, which has never made an annual profit, is now valued at over $100 billion. From Wikipedia: “On August 19, 2020, Airbnb announced that it had filed for an initial public offering. The company has been privately valued at $31 billion and is projected to be listed as a public company in mid-December 2020 at a targeted evaluation of between $30 and $33 billion.”

Door Dash, which has also never made a profit, and has lots of well-funded competitors (Grubub, Slice, Uber Eats, etc., plus various local delivery rivals), also soared in its IPO yesterday, closing yesterday at a valuation of over $70 billion.

Tesla, which CEO Elon Musk, no master of modesty, said was overvalued like 300% ago earlier this year, is hovering around $600 billion in valuation.

This is not normal.

IF UNIVERSITIES REALLY WANTED “DIVERSE” PERSPECTIVES, THEY WOULD HIRE MORE PROFESSORS WITH ATYPICAL BACKGROUNDS, RATHER THAN FOCUSING ON SKIN COLOR: BYU Professor Ryan Davis on Guns and the Rural Vote: “Growing up in my family, the calendar was marked not by the list of traditional holidays, but by the opening days of various hunting seasons and the associated family trips. Guns are a marker of shared identity.”

DEEP BLUE URBAN JURISDICTIONS SEEM INTENT ON SUICIDE:Los Angeles prosecutor plans to seek release of thousands of criminals. As a friend on Facebook noted in a related context, Americans under 40 or so think relatively orderly, low-crime cities are a natural phenomenon. Those of us who came of age in the 70s and 80s know better. Unfortunately, a lot of young urbanites are about to learn how easy it is for a hip, “edgy” neighborhood to turn into a hellhole of crime and disorder.