STEVE BANNON CHARGED WITH MONEY LAUNDERING IN WALL-BUILDING SCHEME: “Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, not state offenses. Last year, the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, with cyberstalking months after Trump pardoned him in a similar federal case. Like Bannon, Kurson was pardoned early in his federal case, before acquittal or conviction, negating any double jeopardy argument.”

TWITTER BREAKS OUT THE AIRBRUSHES: Twitter pulls vile tweet by Carnegie Mellon’s critical race theory professor who said she hoped Queen died ‘an excruciating death’ — after Jeff Bezos led avalanche of condemnation.

Twitter later removed the posts for violating their rules.

Her Majesty died today at the age of 96. She passed away surrounded by members of the Royal Family at Balmoral Castle, Scotland.

Anya’s vile words about the Queen were slammed by thousands online, including billionaire Bezos.

Jeff Bezos said: ‘This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.’

Journalist Piers Morgan also added: ‘You vile disgusting moron.’

One horrified user said: ‘Don’t expect that of you but do expect common decency, respect for such a loss. If you cannot give that at this time, you are a disgraceful of a human being.’

Another added: ‘You are just so uncouth and manner-less. You speak of someone who just passed with such a vile and disdaining comment.

Carnegie Mellon University has distanced itself from Anya, telling DailyMail.com that it does ‘not condone the offensive and objectionable messages’.

‘Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster,’ a spokesperson said.

As Melissa Chen of the Spectator tweets, “Disrespectful speech by [Anya] should not be deleted by Twitter out of principle, and out of preserving as much as possible, the norms of free speech. It should also be preserved as an intellectual monument & psychological window into the fad gripping our intelligentsia.”

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot:

Ward 1 is the most diverse ward in DC with the largest immigrant population. I support all of our residents. My priority is keeping our residents safe and making sure they know their rights when ICE comes. Learn more about my work to protect and serve our immigrant residents here.

The District is a sanctuary city, which means our law enforcement does not cooperate with ICE. The Metropolitan Police Department’s policy is that it will not enforce civil immigration laws, which only create a strong divide between the police and community members. MPD officers are also prohibited from asking about residency and immigration status.

—“Statement on Recent ICE Actions in Ward 1,” Office of DC Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, June 25th, 2019.

Chaser:

“The governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis,” Nadeau claimed. She said that they weren’t getting any help from the federal government. She said that they’d “learned from border towns.” “In many ways, the governors of Texas and Arizona have turned us into a border town.”

First, no, the governors of Texas and Arizona didn’t “create” this crisis — Joe Biden did by his horrible border policies that are just allowing people to flood across the border. Texas and Arizona are just trying to make Democrats finally acknowledge it is a crisis. Now, people like Nadeau are doing exactly that when they only get several thousand people in their city, as opposed to the hundreds of thousands that have flooded small border towns that don’t even begin tdso have the capacity or facilities that D.C. does. If that is a “public emergency” for D.C. what is it for the border towns? She’s acknowledging by her very comment how bad it is in border towns and she’s upset that it’s happening to D.C. Why weren’t they upset when it was happening to the border towns? Because it didn’t impact them. Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his team aren’t helping them, just like he hasn’t helped the border towns. Just to be clear, D.C. isn’t even approaching anywhere near how bad it’s been for border towns.

—“D.C. City Council Member Delivers Hilarious Take on ‘Emergency’ in D.C. From Busing Illegal Aliens,” Nick Arama, Red State, today.

Earlier: Sanctuary Cities Seethe as Illegal Immigrants Actually Arrive.

The surest sign that public policies are simply virtue signals is when the messages don’t cost anything. The easiest way to tell when that signal starts to fail is to watch politicians flounder as the costs start to rise and voters demand relief.

It was free—and meaningless—for progressive churches to post banners calling themselves “nuclear free zones” during the Reagan era. Their dwindling congregations loved it. It was free, after George Floyd‘s murder, to post woke catechism signs on your front lawn, proclaiming “In this house, we believe: Black Lives Matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal” and so on. Maybe the neighbors gave you high-fives. And for years it has been free for deep-blue cities to proclaim themselves “sanctuaries” for illegal immigrants. That’s changing now that voters want some sanctuary for themselves.

Changes like this happen when voters realize the old virtue signals actually entail serious costs—and that they will have to pay them. That is exactly what’s happening in New York City and Washington D.C. now that Texas governor Greg Abbott is sending those cities a few busloads of illegal immigrants from his state.

These progressive bastions were silent when the Biden administration flew planeloads of illegal immigrants to suburban airports in the middle of the night. TV coverage was prohibited, and the arrivals were secretly dispersed. Abbott’s buses, by contrast, arrive downtown greeted by local TV crews. Now you can hear the politicians screech.

Related: Democrats Discover Only The Federal Government Can Solve The Border Crisis.

UPDATE: Democrat mayors prepare to be next targets on Governor Abbott’s sanctuary city list.

DISPATCHES FROM GROUND ZERO OF THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Oberlin College “has initiated payment in full of the $36.59 million judgment in the Gibson’s Bakery case.” “Notice what is not in the statement: An apology. Oberlin College still appears not to understand or accept what it did wrong. It considers itself the victim.”

ROGER KIMBALL: An American remembrance of the Queen.

I write as an American patriot who is also a confirmed Anglophile. So when I got the sad news this morning that the Queen’s health had taken so dangerous a turn that the palace had summoned her family to Balmoral, I steeled myself for bad news.

Alas, the bad news has now been confirmed. Queen Elizabeth II has died.

It says a lot that when I say “the Queen” even American readers know I can mean only one person. The 96-year-old had just celebrated her platinum anniversary this summer — seventy years on the throne, the longest of any English monarch.

Elizabeth was far and away the most admired head of state in the world. Her good sense, her generosity of spirit, her thoughtful but active reticence have made her one of the most successful monarchs in history. Her long tenure — she was on the throne beginning in the administration of Harry Truman — made her a symbol and a cynosure of stability.

In contrast: “There is reason to worry about the fate of the British monarchy after Elizabeth. Prince Charles is no Commodus to Elizabeth’s Marcus Aurelius. But he is a weak reed with which to support a venerable but also fragile institution.”

Read the whole thing.

REMY: 1 BECOME 2 (Spice Girls Inflation Parody). New video from Reason TV:

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Which is faster, a golfer, or a car? Richard Hammond races a pro golfer around an old F1 track (video):

JACK DUNPHY: Do MAGA Republicans Cause Street Crime?

Such a curious speech it was, with the words inspired by Vladimir Lenin and the cinematography by Leni Riefenstahl. The president mentioned MAGA Republicans 13 times before he finished, with the references growing more and more ominous as he proceeded. “MAGA Republicans,” he darkly intoned, “look at America and see carnage and darkness and despair. They spread fear and lies – lies told for profit and power.”

And the viewer was left to think: “Sinister bunch, those MAGA people. I must secure the doors and windows and be on the lookout for them.”

But if you were to go out on the streets of America today in search of actual acts of violence committed by this group, which the president came just short of labeling as Enemies of the People, would you find any? And when you did encounter genuine carnage and despair, when you witnessed actual affronts to the rule of law, which in most cities wouldn’t take long at all, do you think you could attribute any of it to MAGA Republicans?

Of course not.

If your senses can bear it, take a few minutes to peruse the Twitter feed from Street People of Los Angeles, one of several feeds where you can find videos, photos, and news stories illustrating the lawless, dystopian depths to which large swaths of Southern California have descended. As you watch the videos, ask yourself how many of the people shown committing the various acts of depravity are MAGA Republicans, and how many would be more inclined to vote for Democrats?

Read the whole thing.

21st CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Blind bisexual goose named Thomas who spent six years in a love triangle with two swans and helped raise 68 babies dies at the ripe old age of 40.

(Found via Steve Hayward, who writes, “This headline may finally top the classic NY Post ‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’ headline.”)

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

Shot: Does Your Name Determine Your Destiny?

—Live Science, March 30, 2011.

Chaser: Florida woman named Tupac Shakur charged with beating man with baseball bat.

—The New York Post, today.

RIP: Former CNN anchor Bernard Shaw dead at 82. “Shaw was CNN’s first chief anchor when it launched its 24-hour cable news network in June 1980. He retired from CNN in February 2001 after more than 20 years.”

To give but one example of how journalism has changed over the decades, it’s hard to imagine most legacy journalists today asking a question this hard-hitting to a Democrat during a presidential debate:

Massachusetts Governor Mike Dukakis didn’t exactly charm his way into voters’ hearts during the 1988 debates with his response about whether he would support the death penalty should his wife, Kitty, be raped and murdered. A longtime opponent of the death penalty, Dukakis responded to the startling question from CNN’s Bernard Shaw, “No, I don’t, Bernard, and I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life. I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.” While some criticized the fairness of the question, to viewers the answer seemed both dispassionate and dismissive. Years later, Dukakis would recall his response, saying, “I have to tell you, and maybe I’m just still missing it … I didn’t think it was that bad.”

When Shaw left CNN in 2001, John McCain quipped, “I cannot tell you whether Bernie is a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or vegetarian,” and while the same could be said of the nominally Republican McCain, 21^st century television journalists make it far more obvious where there allegiance lies.

ELECTED OFFICIAL WHO WAS SUBJECT OF LAS VEGAS REPORTER’S STORIES ARRESTED IN JOURNALIST’S DEATH: Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff German was found stabbed to death outside his home Saturday.

It takes NBC 11 paragraphs into the story to bury the accused politician’s party: “[Robert] Telles lost a narrow race for his job in June, when he was ousted in the Democratic primary. He captured 35,279 votes, or 32.4%, finishing just behind one of his top deputies, Rita Reid, who had 37,401 votes, or 34.3%.”

SANDY’S WAR: AOC Eviscerates America.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) used to believe that “anybody can grow up to be president” of the United States. Not anymore, she told GQ magazine, which features the hard-left Democrat on the cover of its October 2022 issue.

After serving in Congress for three and a half years, Ocasio-Cortez is increasingly skeptical that a woman will ever be elected president of the United States because the American people are a bunch of raving misogynists. “My experience here has given me a front-row seat to how deeply and unconsciously, as well as consciously, so many people in this country hate women. And they hate women of color,” she told celebrity journalist Wesley Lowery. “I admit to sometimes believing that I live in a country that would never let that happen.”

Lowery described how the congresswoman known as “AOC” started to cry while explaining her reluctance to tell little girls her honest opinion about whether America is too sexist to elect a female president. “I never want to tell a little girl what she can’t do,” she said. “And I don’t want to tell young people what is not possible.” Ocasio-Cortez went on to say she also dislikes questions “about the future” because she can’t say for certain whether she’ll even “be alive” a month from now.

“The American people are a bunch of raving misogynists.” To be fair, many of them are in the same party as AOC, such as Obama’s “peace in our time” speechwriter, Jon Favreau:

And this prominent Democratic Party supporter:

And this fellow, who’s currently (p)resident:

During the pre-Covid antebellum of 2019, much ink was spent on AOC’s crazed first draft of the Green Nude Eel with its references to “farting cows and airplanes,” and her quote that we only have 12 years left if we don’t ban pretty much everything. So why is AOC accelerating our demise by increasing the strain on GQ’s air conditioned server farms? Why data centers are the new frontier in the fight against climate change.

(Classical reference in headline.)

GOODER AND HARDER: Welcome To The Green New Deal, California.

Of course, I kid when I say that California is already experiencing the effects of the Green New Deal. A state that still derives more than 66 percent of its energy from non-renewable sources, has tens of trillions of dollars to go before it meets Joe Biden’s promise of reducing 65 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. The flooding of an already rickety grid with undependable renewables offers only a small taste of the “transition” to “clean energy.”

Because you can scaremonger about climate change all day long and ratchet it up to insane levels, but no one escapes the laws of physics or economics. California has been forced to extend the life of its last nuclear power plant at Diablo Canyon and gas-fired power plants to save the state from being plunged into darkness rather than the occasional blackout. As it turns out, most people are only theoretically fans of deindustrialization.

California is following in the footsteps of Germany, which over the past ten years closed down most of its nuclear power plants and engaged in a national decarbonization of the economy — energiewende. When reality hit, Germany, and thus the rest of the EU, was compelled to start relying heavily on Russian natural gas as it struggled to transition. Then Russia attacked Ukraine. Rather than falling back on its world-class, environmentally friendly, forward-looking nuclear-energy program, the Germans must now contemplate rationing and historically high prices. If they can avoid this fate, it will only be because the industry has turned back to coal.

Exit Quote: “Democrats are rigging the market to force you to buy a car that has a 200-mile reach and uses erratic and expensive energy when you already have increasingly efficient models in your driveway and tens of billions of easily accessible barrels of offshore fossil fuels here at home — and much more around the world. We have centuries’ worth of the stuff waiting in the ground. Which gives us enough time to come up with some better ideas. Because, sorry, transitioning away from modernity and into windmills, choo-choo trains, folding fans, and candles isn’t progress, it’s regression. And California is leading the way.”

HOW IT STARTED: LA can be entirely powered by renewable energy in 25 years, study says.

—ABC7, March 25th, 2021.

How it’s going:

That’s gonna leave a mark.

Fortunately though, America’s Newspaper of Record reports that help will soon be at hand! Newsom Promises There Will Be Enough Electricity For All Californians After Everyone Moves To Florida. “‘Everyone, I understand your frustration, but by the end of the year with everyone leaving California, we’re gonna cut our energy usage in half!’ explained Governor Newsom. ‘In fact, so many are headed for Florida that the few of us who remain will be able to do cool stuff like use air conditioning and charge iPhones!’”

LAS VEGAS DEMOCRAT OFFICIAL INVESTIGATED OVER MURDER OF JOURNALIST: “On Wednesday, Las Vegas Police officials confirmed that a search warrant had been carried out that morning at the home of Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles in connection with the recent stabbing death of journalist Jeff German. According to 8 News Now, a large police presence was seen outside Telles’ home located near Charleston Boulevard and Hualapai Way.”

UPDATE: “Las Vegas police arrest county official Robert Telles in the murder of Jeff German, a journalist who wrote about him before he lost re-election,” Breaking News Online reports.

More details here: Police arrest Clark County official in reporter murder. Local NBC affiliate KSNV waits nine paragraphs to reference Telles’ party affiliation, not surprisingly.

(Updated and bumped.)

LIVE UPDATES: Man on shooting spree in Memphis, police say.

UPDATE: “The shelter-in-place order for the city of Memphis has been lifted now that 19-year-old Ezekiel Kelly has been caught, according to Memphis Police…Kelly is in custody, according to the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office. He was arrested after wrecking near Ivan Road and Hodges Road.”

But how long will he remain there? “Memphis Republicans lost major races in Shelby County Thursday, with Democrat District Attorney candidate Steve Mulroy defeating DA Amy Weirich and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris (D) defeating Republican challenger Worth Morgan…Weirich spoke to supporters in a somber tone before the race was called for the George Soros-backed candidate Mulroy was declared the winner,” local talk station KWAM reported on August 4th in a post headlined, “CATASTROPHIC! Republicans Pummeled in Shelby County Election.”

The previous day, Weirich was asked by talk radio host Todd Starnes, “What does Memphis, Tennessee, look like if Steve Mulroy gets elected district attorney?” She replied, “Memphis, Tennessee, looks like San Francisco.”

It only took a month for that prediction to come true; as Tom Cotton wrote in December: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.

(Updated and bumped.)

DECLINE IS A CHOICE: Adult Man Snags Ball Intended For Young Girl.

There are many, many examples of adults stealing baseballs from kids, but this one that happened at a recent Washington Nationals game is one of the more egregious.

A group of young girls was on hand to watch the Nats and were about to get the thrill of catching a ball from a Big Leaguer. Nationals first baseman and outfielder Joey Meneses lobbed a ball to the girls. One of them reached for the throw, but… she wasn’t quite quick enough.

Grown man steals baseball from little girl. @Nationals can you get Joey Meneses to sign a baseball and send it to my daughter? ⚾️ pic.twitter.com/itcQFseOQO

— Gina Hilliard (@GinaHilliard33) September 2, 2022

“Fortunately, the Nationals reached out to make things right. So, everything worked out (for the most part). It’s always a bad look to hop in front of a kid and take a ball, especially when a player threw it to them. Now, a foul ball? Then it’s every man, woman, and child for themselves.”

GEORGIA DEMOCRATS PESSIMISTIC ABOUT STACEY ABRAMS’ CHANCES.

Don’t get cocky; she is the incumbent after all, and the president of United Earth.

Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record: Stacey Abrams Claims The 2022 Midterms Have Already Been Stolen.

COMING SOON TO MSNBC: Jen Psaki, Fact-Checker.

Because Jen Psaki will soon be on MSNBC, “debunking things, calling out BS.”

“First of all, my business is not rage,” Psaki said at Vox Media’s Code Conference in Los Angeles. “What I hope to do is bring that passion for explaining things, debunking things, calling out BS when you see it to my next job.”

That’s right, we’re about to enter the era of Jen Psaki, fact-checker. I expect this means we’ll get more declarations that the CDC director offers separate personal assessments of health policies, that President Biden meant to say the opposite of what he actually said, that the White House doesn’t have a view on whether it’s wrong to leak drafts of Supreme Court decisions, that it is “unfair and absurd” for companies to increase costs on consumers in response to higher tax rates, that anyone who criticizes a Biden speech is proving that the president struck a nerve, or that the supply-chain crisis is mostly a matter of treadmill deliveries being delayed.

Hunter and the Big Guy smile:

PORTLAND, RIP:

There must be a reason why some people still live in Portland, but I don’t know what it is. The city has become a hellhole, devastated by crime and overrun by homeless drug addicts. Antifa is rampant, and the city’s political leaders are–if this is possible–even more ineffectual than the leaders of San Francisco, Chicago and Minneapolis.

The Daily Mail takes note, in a story titled “‘I’m done with Portland’: Homeless people are forcing ‘terrified’ residents to sell their homes.” Sometimes you have to go to the U.K. press to get the straight story on events in the U.S. The Mail article is profusely illustrated with photographs and deserves to be read in its entirety. Here are some excerpts:

The Democratic city has one of the most deserted downtowns in the United States as soaring crime rates and homelessness are scaring away both locals and tourists. But now the crisis has spread beyond the downtown area and into the quiet suburbs, forcing many to leave.

These homeless camps are now becoming a permanent fixture in the suburbs, with the city being forced to conduct sweeps on a regular basis.

Exit quote: “So far, there doesn’t seem to be any sign that Portland’s municipal government has the will to address the crisis that is making the city unlivable. The Daily Mail notes that crime is up this year by 21.7% over 2021’s record-smashing pace.”

As Steve asked in February, “Have You Tried Voting for Anything Other Than a Democrat?”

WHY IS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SUCH A CESSPIT OF RACISM? Exposed: Krystle Matthews, South Carolina Democrat candidate for Senator expresses disdain for whites in undercover exposé. ‘And let me tell you one thing, you ought to know who you’re dealing with, like, you gotta treat them like sh*t. Like, I mean, that’s the only way they’ll respect you,’ she added.

CHANGE: Liz Truss ditches fracking ban; vows ‘never again’ on exorbitant energy bills. Prime Minister pledges to ‘revolutionize’ supply as she takes action to ease household fuel crisis.

Britons must never again be forced to pay exorbitant energy bills, Liz Truss will declare on Thursday as she promises more North Sea drilling and ditches the fracking ban.

Annual energy bills will be frozen at around £2,500 for the average household both this winter and next, and green levies will be scrapped.

Businesses will get protection from energy price rises in a pandemic-style government intervention that could end up costing more than £150 billion.

But on Wednesday, the pound plummeted to its weakest level since 1985 on the new Prime Minister’s first full day in office as markets appeared to baulk at the scale of the move to tackle bills, underscoring the financial challenges ahead.

Ms Truss will say: “I know families and businesses across the country are worried about how they are going to make ends meet this autumn and winter.

“Putin’s war in Ukraine and weaponisation of gas supply in Europe is causing global prices to rise – and this has only made clearer that we must boost our long-term energy security and supply.

“We will take action immediately to help people and businesses with bills but also take decisive action to tackle the root cause of these problems so that we are not in this position again.”

That’s a massive change from Boris Johnson, her predecessor, who earlier in his career wrote car reviews for the British edition of GQ, and made several appearances on Top Gear, but last year, “spelt out the revolt against modernity that lies at the heart of climate-change alarmism when he used his speech at COP to complain about the invention of the steam engine. That contraption, which gave rise to the Industrial Revolution itself, was a ‘doomsday device’ that started the clock ticking on the eco-calamity we currently face, he madly said. And this is a PM who claims to stand up for British history and British greatness.”

RACHEL MADDOW IS ALEX JONES WITH AN INSIDE VOICE:

Nothing was really the same for Maddow after she had her Geraldo moment. Back in 2017, she claimed she had obtained Trump’s tax returns. It was a huge story that trended to the top of Twitter and had almost the entirety of the national media tuning in. How did she get these documents when the left had been obsessing over them for years like they were the lost ark? As it turned out, she hadn’t. She obtained only two pages from the president’s 2005 1040 form. Golden Donny T had slipped through her fingers once again!

From that point on, Maddow seemed to fade into the background. The Resistance is not a forgiving bunch.

Flashback: Judge Rules Rachel Maddow’s ‘Statements Cannot Reasonably Be Interpreted As Allegations Of Fact.’

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS…IS SOMETIMES PERMANENT: Speeding woman on cocaine kills drunk driver high on meth in North Las Vegas, police say.