HEH, INDEED:

A great joke from Russia:
Putin, after 10 days of Kursk catastrophe, summons Stalin’s ghost :
Stalin: “What’s happened?”
Putin: “Nazis are at Kursk! My army is beaten! What should I do?”
Stalin: “Do like me 1943. Send best Ukrainian tropps to the front, and ask the US for arms!”

— Sergej Sumlenny, LL.M (@sumlenny) August 13, 2024

OUT ON A LIMB: WOODROW WILSON may be America’s WORST-EVER president on free speech.

Flashback: The Hater’s Guide to Woodrow Wilson. “I come now not to explain Wilson, but to hate him. A national consensus on hating Wilson is long overdue. It is the patriotic duty of every decent American. While conservatives have particular reasons to detest Wilson, and all his works, and all his empty promises, there is more than enough in his record for moderates, liberals, progressives, libertarians, and socialists to join us in this great and unifying cause.”

DAVID THOMPSON: Shush, Daddy’s Being Fabulous.

From the forthcoming film by Vaishnavi Sundar, Behind The Looking Glass, about women whose partners, or fathers, have ‘transitioned’:

You’ve got to pretend that it’s all okay… You have to realise that your dad has fallen in love with himself, and there’s no part for you in that where you are not just a prop.

It’s like this person came along and said, “You know how you had a dad? Well, that was all a lie. And all that time, your dad didn’t like being your dad.” And my dad was kind of replaced by this other person. This other person who didn’t love me like my dad loved me, wasn’t interested in me like my dad was.

And his love was conditional.

Emma Thomas, the woman recounting her somewhat unorthodox childhood, also appears in this longer interview. The subjects touched on include unmentionable erotic motives, ideological capture, and the experience of watching a man publicly enacting an approximation of breastfeeding. It’s a strange listen, necessarily, a little sad, and sometimes darkly funny.

The 21st century isn’t turning out as I had hoped. Though I doubt Michael Bailey, the author of The Man Who Would Be Queen, is very much surprised.

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP COMING FOR DISNEY:

As Newsweek warned in January: Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot on Collision Course.

Actor Rachel Zegler has called for a ceasefire in Gaza—and people are worried that this could make for an awkward Snow White press tour.

The live-action remake of the classic 1937 animated movie, which is set to be released by Disney in 2025, stars Zegler as the titular character and Israeli actor Gal Gadot as the Evil Queen. Both women are no strangers to sharing their opinions online and their social media posts have shown that they have very different thoughts on the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

Newsweek contacted Disney and representatives for Zegler and Gadot for comment via email Monday.

Gadot has been vocal in her support for Israel after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, which they said was retribution for worsening conditions for Palestinians. In response, Israel launched hundreds of airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, followed by extensive ground operations. At least 1,200 people have been killed in Israel, while more than 26,000 Palestinians have been killed, with many more injured and over 1.5 million internally displaced in Gaza, according to the Associated Press.

Zegler’s remarks are certainly on brand, or as a line from the 2009  “Road to the Multiverse” episode in Family Guy went, “Oh yeah, I forgot — this is a Disney universe:”

TIM WALZ: “Mind Your Own Damn Business!”

Also Tim Walz: ‘Light ‘em up!’ Police shoot paintballs at Minneapolis residents standing on their porch.

This was during the George Floyd riots. But the power to do this to their citizens was only extended to them because of the Covid lockdowns and executive orders. This way all may-june 2020

— Sam (@Samantha_SN1) August 13, 2024

Related: Minnesota grandma jailed for defying Walz COVID lockdown orders warns ‘you do not want tyranny at this level.’ Lisa Hanson warns Americans against electing Minnesota Gov Tim Walz as vice president: ‘He will take your rights away.’

MILE MARKERS ON THE ROAD TO DETROIT: One of America’s richest cities sinks in massive hotel debt — as tourists stop choosing it for their vacations. Harry Stein once wrote, “Someone’s going on about how fantastic San Francisco is, and it suddenly hits you that’s one place on earth you never want to live” — or vacation there.

CHANGE: A Consensus No Longer. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons becomes the first major medical association to challenge the consensus of medical groups over “gender-affirming care” for minors.

WHY IS MSNBC SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? MSNBC, Jemele Hill, Brian Stelter Silent on Joy Reid’s Racist Rant Calling White Sen. ‘Mayonnaise Sandwich.’

MSNBC is the self-appointed police force for racist comments in American society. Not a day goes by when at least one of the pundits at the network does not label someone a “racist” – even if they are not actually a racist.

Yet, last week, one of MSNBC’s own went on another overtly racist rant against white people. Primetime host Joy Reid thanked Kamala Harris for not picking Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly as her running mate because, unlike Tim Walz, Kelly is “super white.”

Err, not just “super white.

According to Reid, Sen. Kelly is “like a mayonnaise sandwich on Wonder bread white.”

OutKick asked MSNBC for comment. The network did not respond. MSNBC does not respond to inquiries regarding Reid’s bigotry. We’ve tried before.

Translation: a network that proclaims zero tolerance for racism, refuses to condemn one of its leading hosts for spewing racism for profit.

It’s fine — Kelly isn’t from Chicago, and isn’t known for playing golf, so therefore describing him as being “like a mayonnaise sandwich on Wonder bread white” can’t be racist. But I do wish Reid’s time traveling hackers would dial it back a bit.

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS:

Why would you expect anything different when the CINC's elevator doesn't go to the top floor and senior leaders are chosen by symbolic value and life story? The wonder is that only Corey Comperatore died in front of his family?

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) August 12, 2024

SPRINGTIME FOR HARRIS: Tim Walz called Hitler-promoting cleric a ‘master teacher’ at Islamic center event.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: A Cheat Sheet for the Da Vinci Code-ification of Mideast Reporting.

So what’s the updated number of casualties? Hamas says 40. After the strike, Israel released a detailed photo dossier of the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists killed in the strike—19 of them. That leaves 21 possible civilians and proves that, yes, it was a command center after all and without any doubt a legitimate military target. (Israel also used smaller, more targeted bombs for the strike so it could hit the command center directly.)

Then Israel released another dossier with an additional 12 Hamas officials identified among the deceased. That brings our total number of terrorists killed in the strike to 31. (There is another report claiming that number can be raised all the way to 38, but it’s unclear at the time of writing if the level of detail available can definitively back up that number.)

There are, at most, nine possible civilians among the dead.

So let’s review. We went from 93 killed (“all” of them civilians, according to a source quoted by CNN) in a school and shelter to 31 Hamas officials killed in a targeted strike on a confirmed command center, with anywhere from two to nine possible civilians killed.

Those civilians should be mourned. Any innocent life lost is a tragedy. And now that we know it was a command center, we also know Hamas is to blame for their deaths.

Obviously, it would be much better if the media would report accurate information. But once you understand how these pieces of propaganda are put together, you can disassemble them yourself and construct the reality.

Read the whole thing, it’s an excellent guide to the division of Pallywood that cranks out their equivalent of “based on the upcoming motion picture” novelizations to accompany their videos.

THE CRITICAL DRINKER: Hang In There, Kathy!

WAS IT OVER WHEN THE TALIBAN BOMBED PEARL HARBOR?! The Political Demise of Tim Walz Continues, New Document Reveals He Thought Bagram Was in Iraq.

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: The Atlantic: Golly, Why Are Kamala’s Politics So Hard to Pin Down?

First, let’s assess [David] Graham’s weak-tea attempt at a false equivalency in his parenthetical: “though Trump’s own platform is not exactly heavy on policy details either”. Trump actually has a platform page on his campaign website, unlike Harris, and a 16-page “white paper” explaining the details of his 20-point agenda. Maybe Graham’s too bored or too shattered by all of the GOP “seizing” to click onto the Trump website and check his facts. And, of course, we have four years of Trump’s presidency to assess his policies and positions.

What does Harris have? She’s been vice president for almost four years. Her party anointed her as the nominee three weeks ago. Kamala Harris ran on a progressive platform in California for the Senate and in 2019 for the presidential nomination, so she’s had years to develop her positions on all of the issues in play. Is she such an empty suit that she couldn’t put together a platform within the first couple of days of the campaign? If so, why did Democrats rush to anoint her?

Why aren’t reporters asking these questions, rather than just observing the “seizing”? Because the answer to why Harris is hard to pin down isn’t Republicans who pounce — it’s reporters and media outlets who refuse to do their jobs.

Such as asking about this incredible flip-flop: Before Kamala Harris Copied Trump’s Pledge To Scrap The Tip Tax, Biden-Harris Admin Moved To Enforce Tip Taxation.

THE GRAUNIAD DISCOVERS ALEX P. KEATON, THE NEXT GENERATION: My son was struggling – then he fell for Trump’s toxic brand of ‘masculinity’. I’m heartbroken.

I’m a 59-year-old progressive and a special education teacher, and I’m voting for Kamala Harris in November. Nick* is 21, and he would say that he holds traditional, conservative values – but he’s conflating those values with radical Maga ideas, which correlate the right with patriotism, manhood, intelligence, independence and honesty. I understand where my son’s vulnerabilities came from, and why this rightwing posturing was able to seep into him. I understand it, but I still regret it.

Nick’s mom and I wanted to teach our son that democracy is an active sport. You don’t just sit back and watch. We lived in Houston, in the belly of the petrochemical beast, and I remember going to a demonstration against Halliburton, the Iraq war, and Dick Cheney’s role in the company. Groups brought puppets – it was almost like street theater – and we rolled Nick along in his stroller. That was the community we were plugged into: artists, musicians, teachers, writers. That’s how Nick came up.

* * * * * * * * *

We had moved to the Bay Area in 2017, after Trump won the election. Nick was 15 or 16 when he said that he liked Trump. I can understand how Trump appealed to a childish sensibility: he’s this clownish figure who does whatever he wants.

I also know that when you come of age, you want to reject your parents’ beliefs. My father was a Reagan Republican who was really old school, values wise. A lot of my political development was a rejection of his values, so I wonder now how much of Nick’s fascination with Maga is a reaction against the way I brought him up.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here’s the Cliff’s Notes summary:

Somebody should do a TV show based on this story:

As Rob Long wrote at Commentary in 2020, “But by the time Family Ties made it to American living rooms, it had acquired the character of Alex P. Keaton, the blazer-wearing Young Republican teenage son of the loony-lefty parents, brought to unforgettable life by Michael J. Fox. We all know how this story ends: The parents are squeezed to the side, Michael J. Fox is on the lunch box, Alex P. Keaton is the heart of the show. In the end, Family Ties is about Alex raising his parents, shaking them awake from their 1960s brain fog, and teaching them what most Americans who do not live in Brentwood or who do not have tenure already know—which is that capitalism is terrific.”

WOEING: The Fall Of Boeing Is Complete: Imagine How Bad They Must Be To Be Called Out By NASA!

An honest appraisal of the many departments of the federal government would be hard-pressed to find an efficient and competent one in the sea of catastrophically wasteful and downright damaging divisions.

Okay…I can think of one. The United States Mint and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing does a pretty good job of producing our coins and bills. Far too many, but that’s a different issue. And they are probably pathetically inefficient, but at least the end result is of good quality.

But in the main, the federal government is a pathetic collection of career apparatchiks, layabouts, no-nothings, no-shows, thieves, and the flat-out laziest people in the country. So when they criticize one of their biggest contractors, you know something is up!

NASA Inspector General Report Criticizes Boeing’s Quality Control

What should the astronauts stuck on the ISS by Boeing’s incompetence do to pass the time? The solution is obvious!

JAMES LILEKS: Why is this column like deep-dish pizza? You can stick a fork in both.

For my last column at the [Minneapolis] Star Tribune, I am going to be as self-indulgent as the medium permits. Consider this the equivalent of a condemned man’s request for a last meal.

Speaking of which, what would you choose for yours?

Sometimes I think I’d go for deep-dish pizza, if only for the argument I could have with the prison official who walked me down the last mile. “That wasn’t pizza,” he’d say. “That’s more of a casserole.”

“No, it has the elements of pizza, just in an exaggerated form.” I’d turn to the priest walking alongside. “Father, back me up here.”

Read the whole thing.

NEW ELECTRIC LADY STUDIOS DOCUMENTARY HIGHLIGHTS JIMI HENDRIX’S BRILLIANT MANHATTAN RECORDING STUDIO: My latest, over at Ed Driscoll.com.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Oooof.

They have Karl red-handed here. https://t.co/T0kGexUknm

— Sunny (@sunnyright) August 12, 2024

Jim Geraghty writes, “The Media Have Forgotten Why They Exist,” that “Large swaths of the national media believe that their job, at this moment, is to tell you how awesome the presidential and vice-presidential candidates are, instead of pointing out their records and policies. (In the case of Kamala Harris, all we have are her policy stances from her 2020 campaign and the current Biden administration policies, even though her campaign staff insists those positions from 2019 are no longer operative.)”

To be fair, they’ve “forgotten why they exist” since 2008, and arguably, since 2004:

Vance knows this, and he deserves a lot of credit for going into the lion’s den and letting them expose themselves for what they are.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: The Working Woman’s Newest Life Hack: Magic Mushrooms. For a select group of moms in high-powered jobs, microdosing psilocybin has become the answer to a packed social and professional calendar with no time for hangovers

PARTY OF YOUTH UPDATE: Biden: Can’t Even Say How Old I Am.

To be fair to Joe Biden, he did follow up the remark about not being able to say how old he is by saying, “It’s hard for me to get it out of my mouth.” So what did he mean? Is he sometimes unable to remember his age? (He’s still 81, for the record. He’ll turn 82 a couple of weeks after the election.) I can relate to a certain extent. I’m getting ready to turn 65 and I sometimes have to pause and figure out my current age. This might also have been an admission that he realizes he trips over his words sometimes and he’s not sure if he would pronounce his age correctly. The most charitable interpretation would be that he knows how incredibly old he is and he finds it difficult to say it aloud. It’s left to the viewer to decide for themselves.

Also in the interview: Biden admits he was pushed out of presidential race, name-drops Pelosi in first interview since exit.

“A number of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought that I was going to hurt them in the races. And I was concerned if I stayed in the race, that would be the topic — you’d be interviewing me about why did Nancy Pelosi say [something] … and I thought it’d be a real distraction,” he told “CBS News Sunday Morning.”

“When I ran the first time, I thought of myself as being a transition president. I can’t even say how old I am — it’s hard for me to get out of my mouth,” he went on, adding that it was a combination of those factors and a key priority of “maintaining this democracy” that underpinned his decision.

But was it “his decision?” Pissed Off Top Biden Adviser Spills the Beans on What Really Happened and WHO Really Pushed Biden Out.

Bookending Greg’s view of Pelosi taking credit for pushing Biden out:
“They spent all this time accusing Trump of an insurrection…of a coup. But she’s actually saying they removed him. They put Kamala in place…she’s never been nominated. It just doesn’t seem like it’s legal.” pic.twitter.com/aEJRKQspuJ

— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) August 10, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: Tim Walz’s Stolen Valor.

The New Hotness? Kamala Harris’s Stolen Policy! Kamala Harris Laughably Steals Trump’s Idea to Not Tax Tips, but the Receipts Tell a Different Story.

Kamala Harris has made her first major policy announcement since being handed the nomination by a cabal of Democrat elites. During a rally in Las Vegas on Saturday night, Harris said that, as president, she would end the IRS collecting tax on tips.

If that sounds familiar, that’s because Donald Trump took the same policy position back in June. In true Kamala Harris fashion, after going almost a month with no policy platform, her first move was to steal a plank from her opponent’s platform. You can’t make this stuff up. That’s how absurd the 2024 election cycle is.

* * * * * * *

Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane because it’s going to be instructive.

Harris was for banning fracking before she was against it. She was for defunding the police before she was against it. She was for a federal gun buyback program before she was against it. She was for decriminalizing illegal immigration before she was against it. She was for eliminating private health insurance before she was against it.

Believe it or not, this “no tax on tips thing” is yet another flip-flop from Harris and perhaps her most egregious. While the positions listed above were rhetorical commitments, she was the deciding vote for the law on the expansion of the IRS that specifically targets people who don’t pay taxes on tips. Again, you can’t make this stuff up.

I eagerly await the press turning on her viciously for broadcasting such a “lame political stunt:”

UPDATE: “Harris bragged about casting the tie-breaking vote for the bill that allowed the IRS to crack down on service workers tips. Now she’s adopting Trump’s ‘no tax on tips’ proposal. Will she admit that her vote was a mistake and the IRA was bad for America?”

DISPATCHES FROM AIRSTRIP ONE: The UK descends into dystopian levels of censorship.

“Think before you post.”

That’s the chilling message that was just posted from social media accounts affiliated with the United Kingdom’s government. Amid the riots and civil unrest in the streets of Britain that were initially sparked by anti-immigration protesters, the posts warned citizens not directly involved in the uprisings that they too could face arrest even just for their speech.

“Content that incites violence or hatred isn’t just harmful — it can be illegal,” the Crown Prosecution Service tweeted. “The CPS takes online violence seriously and will prosecute when the legal test is met. Remind those close to you to share responsibly or face the consequences.”

These aren’t just idle threats, either.

Stephen Parkinson, the director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, warned that there are “dedicated police officers” tasked with “scouring social media” to “follow up with identification [and] arrests” when people “publish or distribute material which is insulting or abusive which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred.”

This censorious effort is coming from the top levels of government. In an interview with Sky News, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said social media is “not a law-free zone” and that he wanted to issue “a reminder to everyone that whether you’re directly involved or whether you’re remotely involved, you’re culpable, and you will be put before the courts if you’ve broken the law.”

The arrests have already begun.

George Orwell didn’t intend for 1984 to be a how-to guide.

UPDATE: America’s Newspaper of Record reports that the answer to England’s woes is actually quite simple: Elon Musk Buys The United Kingdom To Establish Free Speech There.

RIP:

Super Sky Point to Juan Antonio “Chi-Chi”Rodriguez, whose signature unsheathing of his putter sword elevated his birdies to a goddamn swashbuckling art form. There will never be another quite like him. #RIP

pic.twitter.com/DJfJBai9kF

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) August 9, 2024

Although there was some debate in the news media as to the pronunciation of his name:

GREAT MOMENTS IN ASTROTURF: Maine Gov’s Democrat Brother Admits ‘Republicans for Harris’ Organized by Harris Campaign.