30 YEARS OF JEREMY CLARKSON AT THE SUNDAY TIMES: Looking back on three decades of Clarkson’s motoring articles.

YES! (In Some Cases): Is There a Polite Way to Handle the Pronoun Madness?

Stand to Reason’s Amy K. Hall wrote, “I recently spoke to a Stand to Reason supporter who received a company-wide email saying leaders were expected to display their pronouns.” She went on to include the text of the man’s email reply to his employers.

I appreciate the goal of mutual respect and creating a welcoming environment for everyone. My desire is to be respectful of everyone. The expectation to display my pronouns asks me to accept a premise that I can’t accept—namely, that my pronouns could be different than he/him. It’s an ontological claim about the nature of reality, and I hold a different view. I’m not asking those that are transgender to accept my view of reality, but I’m being asked to accept theirs.

I can live and work with respect toward anyone with differing beliefs than my own, including my transgender coworkers. Can I be respected in my beliefs that differ on the nature of gender and identity while affirming the dignity of every person?

The man’s email resonated with his bosses, and they told him that “the pronouns were not mandatory.”

You’ll learn a lot about who you’re working for if you receive a different response.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

I feel like we all just need to add the phrase:

“Mr. Trump, who previously supported…”

To our auto-autocomplete.

Something tells me we’re going to have to use it a LOT. 😅

— Janine Curran (@janinereturns) May 28, 2023

GOODER AND HARDER, CALIFORNIA: State Farm halts new home insurance policies in California. “It sounds as if the company is too polite to bring it up, but don’t you suppose that home and business insurance is also no longer profitable because of rampant crime combined with homeless encampments driving down property values? Every time gangs of retail looters come in and empty out a store and destroy the windows and other structures, the store files insurance claims. When mobs loot people’s homes or set them on fire, more claims are filed. All of that adds up after a while.”

MICHAEL P. SENGER: Thread – The Great COVID Ventilator Death Cover-up. “Tens of thousands of Americans died after being placed on mechanical ventilators in spring 2020. It’s long past time we got real answers as to how many were killed this way.”

BLESS HER HEART: Jane Fonda Blames Men for Climate Change: ‘We Have to Arrest and Jail Those Men.’

Hollywood star Jane Fonda made the outrageous claim Friday that climate change is being caused exclusively by men, specifically white men, adding that “those men” must be arrested and jailed.

Speaking at a career retrospective at the Cannes Film Festival in France, Jane Fonda promoted her radical climate activism efforts, saying the world has “about seven, eight years” to cut fossil fuel consumption in half.

She also said “poor people of color” as well as populations in the southern hemisphere will be hit hardest by global warming.

“It is a tragedy that we have to absolutely stop. We have to arrest and jail those men — they’re all men,” she added, according to a Deadline report.

Later, Fonda continued her anti-male climate harangue.

“It’s good for us all to realize, there would be no climate crisis if there was no racism. There would be no climate crisis if there was no patriarchy,” she reportedly said. “A mindset that sees things in a hierarchical way. White men are the things that matter and then everything else [is] at the bottom.”

Fonda failed to mention that China — which isn’t run by white men — ranks as the world’s largest polluter, emitting more greenhouse gases than all developed nations combined.

To be fair though, Fonda only wants white men “arrested” for climate change. Don’t get her started on those who are anti-abortion: “Today on The View–my God, does someone actually watch that show?–she suggested that pro-lifers should be murdered.”

JEFF DUNETZ: On Memorial Day Remember Those Who Gave Their Lives To Protect America.

‘PEOPLE WITH FEMALE SEX ORGANS:’ Major Feminine Product Maker’s Latest Attack On Girls And Women. “What is a woman? It looks like the feminine hygiene products maker Always doesn’t even want to use that word anymore, let alone answer that question.”

ROGER KIMBALL: The Politics of Inertia.

Newton was thinking of the physical world. But we can observe something similar in the social world and the world of politics. Once a trend or tendency has been achieved, it continues on course until something intervenes to stop or alter its direction.

Consider the Biden Administration. Once achieved, it lumbered on. Joe Biden’s incontinent glossolalia didn’t matter, nor did his signal failure at the southern border, with energy policy, or with the economy. The communicable mind-virus of wokeness may have reached epidemic proportions in the corporate world, in government agencies, even in the U.S. military, but the blind trajectory set by Biden’s autopilot just barreled on through, unhindered.

Has something finally intervened to change things? Maybe. In substance, it is just the same thing we’ve seen many times before: allegations about Joe Biden’s involvement with his son Hunter’s shady business dealing. Tucker Carlson, among others, detailed these allegations in technicolor. Back in October 2020—note the date—Carlson interviewed Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski. It was an extraordinary, and extraordinarily damaging, interview.

Or so one would have thought. As I noted at the time, Bobulinski “laid out the entire bizarre story of his association with the Bidens, including two face-to-face meetings with Joe Biden in the company of his brother and son.”

Remember, Joe Biden has repeatedly denied ever talking to his son about his business dealings. He knew nothing about it, he said. That seemed highly improbable on its face. Bobulinski shows that it was an outright lie. Two communications stand out. In one, the equity stakes in the new company are broken out. The last item indicates that 10 percent will be held by ‘H’—that’s ‘H’ for Hunter—for ‘the big guy,’ which, along with ‘my Chairman,’ is Hunterese for Joe Biden.

The outcome or upshot? The press seized on the revelations and overnight it became the media sensation of the election season.

Just kidding! Some commentators attacked Bobulinski as a Russian agent. Mostly, however, the story was studiously ignored where it was not actively buried. A day or two after Tucker Carlson’s blockbuster interview, a search for “Bobulinski” on the CNN site produced a search-not-found result. It still does. How odd.

Nothing Tucker Carlson could do was potent enough to intrude upon the inertia of the Biden Express.

No Democrat politician has consistently treated reporters worse over the years than Joe Biden. When do his Democratic party operatives with bylines start to consistently return fire?

THAT’S NOT CREEPY AT ALL: The Strange Fans Who Want to Veto Taylor Swift’s New Boyfriend.

Taylor Swift, otherwise a member of the U.S. pop-culture royalty in good standing, doesn’t see any of her boyfriend’s past controversies as dealbreakers, and as far as we can tell, is as smitten as ever. “The heart wants what it wants,” which is romantic if you quote Emily Dickinson saying it or creepy if you quote Woody Allen saying it. The actions of Swift’s boyfriend are sorts of things are supposed to be career-killers and/or get you ejected from reflexively left-leaning American high society, carrying the cultural death penalty, and Swift is effectively declaring, “Nah.”

Flashback: Liberals Are Incensed That Taylor Swift Won’t Be Political or Miserable.

THE TODAY SHOW CORNERED KAMALA HARRIS…And Things Quickly Went Off the Rails:

What does Harris do right? Seriously? She’s failed at promoting COVID vaccinations. She’s certainly failed at the border. This is The Today Show. This is softball territory—and she couldn’t even manage that. This is the easy stuff—and she failed miserably.

It’s quick to see why her 2020 campaign failed, why she bleeds staff, and why her office environment is a toxic waste dump. She just lashes out when things don’t go her way.

Dan Quayle smiles.

THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: Biden Appoints Holocaust Museum Board Member From Org That Accused Israel of Apartheid.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Archeologists Uncover Target Store Ruins From Sodom And Gomorrah.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: New York Times critic says ‘The Little Mermaid’ is missing joy, fun, and … kink.

OUT ON A LIMB: Anti-Covid Policies Were a Disaster.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Target Store Bomb Threats Sent By Angry Pro-Pride Left-Winger!

TEXAS HOUSE IMPEACHES REPUBLICAN STATE AG KEN PAXTON:

The Texas house of representatives voted on Saturday to impeach state attorney general Ken Paxton, temporarily removing him from office days after a Republican-led investigative committee voted unanimously to recommend his impeachment for several alleged abuses of office. He now faces a trial in the state senate.

The Texas house voted 121–23 to impeach the Republican attorney general after the committee filed 20 articles of impeachment against Paxton.

Texas has previously had only two impeachments under the constitution of 1876, including a governor and a district judge.

As a result of Paxton’s impeachment, “by lumping all of Paxton’s sins together to pursue this course, [House Speaker Dade Phelan is] creating a divisive primary issue for every single Republican member. Their desire to dodge the Senate’s conservative priorities is real — but is it worth it to impeach a popular conservative with well-heeled backers? If they vote for impeachment, the conservative base will come after them, and those same west Texans will fund their primary challengers. If he’s overplayed his hand, Phelan may end up losing his speakership due to the resentment over forcing such a vote on his fellow Republicans.”

MCCARTHY GETS DEBT-CEILING DEAL — WITH WORK REQUIREMENTS: “Biden and Chuck Schumer lost this weeks ago, and now they just caved. It would not surprise me if the Democrats knew this was coming all along, and they merely waited for a holiday weekend to give them enough cover to pull the trigger.”

GOODER AND HARDER, SAN FRAN: Old Navy store in downtown San Francisco set to close, following other retailers.

GET WOKE, GO BROKE: Bud Light, Target Bleeding Money As Conservatives Boycott. The Dollar Amount Is Staggering.

THE POWER LINE WEEK IN PICTURES: Senile Liberalism Edition.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: The left is doing to CNN what the right is doing to Bud Light.

FEDS CHARGE CLIMATE PROTESTERS FOR ALLEGEDLY DEFACING EDGAR DEGAS EXHIBIT AT NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART: “If convicted, Martin and Smith face up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.”

THE MAN THE MYTH, THE LEGEND: Report: Fired Biden energy official Sam Brinton led D.C.’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Sam Brinton, according to a report Thursday on Fox News, had been the leader of the Washington D.C. chapter of the group of drag-queen “nuns” known for ribald and blasphemous humor.

Citing “tax filings reviewed by Fox News Digital,” the network reported that Brinton was the D.C. Sisters’ principal officer and went by the nuclear-punning name Sister Ray Dee O’Active.

Both Brinton and the San Francisco-based “nun” group have been in the headlines recently.

Brinton was arrested as a fugitive from justice in Maryland earlier this month in the third of three airport-luggage thefts after having entered pleas that avoided jail time in two other thefts in Minneapolis and Las Vegas.

The Sisters were invited, then uninvited, then reinvented by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the team’s June 16 Pride Night, the flip-flopping resulting from first pressure from Catholics and then pushback from LGBTQ advocacy groups. The “nuns” regularly mock Christianity and the church by, for example, pole-dancing around a cross.

As head of the D.C. Sisters, according to Fox News, Brinton regularly led group events including “bar ministry” gatherings, drag brunches, White House protests and at least one “high heel race.”

Blair’s Law in action: “Coined by Australian journalist, Tim Blair as ‘the ongoing process by which the world’s multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force.’”

NEO: Wherefore woke corporations?

The right has a saying: “Get woke, go broke.” It’s not always true, but it does seem as though it is sometimes the case that taking a woke leftist stance hurts the bottom line. Just ask Budweiser or Disney. And yet it’s seemingly done all the time.

It certainly didn’t used to be that way – that is, companies were far more rigorous in enforcing a “no-politics or alignment with causes” stance (see this). What changed? On the surface, it would seem to make no sense, but there are a host of reasons for it that probably would take a book to explain (and there may be a book someone has already written, and that someone isn’t me).

In 2015, Ashe Schow, then with the Washington Examiner wrote, “With all the attention being paid to college-aged social justice warriors and microagressions, one has to ask: What happens when all these delicate snowflakes enter the workforce?”

Target, Bud, Disney, and the L.A. Dodgers are finding out good and hard — just as the New York Times’ newsroom did in 2020.