DISPATCHES FROM THE HOUSE OF STEPHANOPOULOS: ABC guest blames FBI raid anger on Neo-Nazis because Merrick Garland is Jewish.

JUST NOW: ABC guest blames FBI raid anger on Neo-Nazis because Merrick Garland is Jewish pic.twitter.com/VanMiArgmI

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 11, 2022

As Ace of Spades writes, “Which, by the way, I didn’t know. That name sounds so Waspy it could have been in Bonfire of the Vanities.”

TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE: Why Wait? Here’s Liz Cheney’s Concession Speech in Advance.

MATT TAIBBI: Welcome to the Third World. The FBI really better have something “pulverizing” on Trump, because otherwise we’ve just witnessed one of the dumbest moves in the history of politics.

We’ve reached the stage of American history where everything we see on the news must first be understood as political theater. In other words, the messaging layer of news now almost always dominates the factual narrative, with the latter often reported so unreliably as to be meaningless anyway. [Monday’s] sensational tale of the FBI raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of former president Donald Trump is no different.

As of now, it’s impossible to say if Trump’s alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid. If it backfires, if underlying this action there isn’t a very substantial there there, the Biden administration just took the world’s most reputable police force and turned it into the American version of the Tonton Macoute on national television. We may be looking at simultaneously the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country.

Read the whole thing.

BREAKING: Biden Gestapo Chief Merrick Garland says he personally authorized FBI raid on president’s rival Trump, says you can totally trust the government.

I’M PRETTY SURE THIS IS HOW PLANET OF THE APES BEGAN: WHO warns people not to attack monkeys amid monkeypox outbreak.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG? Twitter Announces New Fact Checking Policy Ahead of Midterms Including ‘Prebunks’ to Preemptively Tackle Misinformation.

VDH: FBI, R.I.P.?

The FBI is dissolving before our eyes into a rogue security service akin to those in Eastern Europe during the Cold War.

Take the FBI’s deliberately asymmetrical application of the law. This week the bureau surprise-raided the home of former President Donald Trump — an historical first.

A massive phalanx of FBI agents swooped into the Trump residence while he was not home, to confiscate his personal property, safe, and records. All of this was over an archival dispute of presidential papers common to many former presidents. Agents swarmed the entire house, including the wardrobe closet of the former first lady.

Note we are less than 90 days out from a midterm election, and this was not just a raid, but a political act.

The Democratic Party is anticipated to suffer historical losses. Trump was on the verge of announcing his 2024 presidential candidacy. In many polls, he remains the Republican front-runner for the nomination — and well ahead of incumbent President Joe Biden in a putative 2024 rematch.

In 2016 then FBI Director James Comey announced that candidate Hillary Clinton was guilty of destroying subpoenaed emails — a likely felony pertaining to her tenure as secretary of state. Yet he all but pledged that she would not be prosecuted given her status as a presidential candidate.

As far as targeting presidential candidates, Trump was impeached in 2020 ostensibly for delaying military aid to Ukraine by asking Ukrainian officials to investigate more fully the clearly corrupt Biden family — given Joe Biden at the time was a likely possible presidential opponent in 2020.

The FBI has devolved into a personal retrieval service for the incorrigible Biden family. It suppressed, for political purposes, information surrounding Hunter Biden’s missing laptop on the eve of the 2020 election.

Previously, the FBI never pursued Hunter’s fraudulently registered firearm, his mysterious foreign income, his felonious crack cocaine use, or his regular employment of foreign prostitutes.

Yet in a pre-dawn raid just before the 2020 election, the FBI targeted the home of journalist James O’Keefe on grounds that someone had passed to him the lost and lurid diary of Ashley Biden, Biden’s wayward daughter.

At the dawn of the Obama era, the Washington Post, via their then-sister magazine Newsweek, announced that “We Are All Socialists Now.”  Apparently the model they had in mind was the East German Stasi.

OCEANIA’S CHOCOLATE RATION JUST KEEPS GOING UP! Leftist Establishment Praises Biden For Gas Going Below $4, Forgets It Was $2.39 When He Took Office.

WHAT IS A WOMAN? Elite Nashville Girls School, Founded in 1865, Announces Transgender Girls Are Welcome.

Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school…. Harpeth Hall acknowledges the developmental journey of each student and recognizes that adolescence includes natural searching and questioning about many topics. For some students, this may include the question of gender identity and the desire to identify as nonbinary or use they/them pronouns.

Harpeth Hall approaches gender identity with understanding and open communication, rather than with shame or othering, and will provide a safe environment to partner with each student and family to consider the needs and requests of the student on an individual basis.

This will end well.

OUT ON A LIMB: Don’t blame Texas for New York’s immigration ‘crisis.’

To hear New York mayor Eric Adams tell it, you would think that a crisis has gripped the streets of our nation’s largest city as busloads of illegal immigrants arrive from Texas. Some of the new arrivals, courtesy of Texas Governor Greg Abbott — who wants to send a message about the very real crisis in his state — have been met in person by the mayor. He claims the city is now scrambling to take care of them. It’s a lie.

Thus far, Abbott has sent 75, maybe 100 illegal immigrants to New York, a city of 9 million people, a city which, in fact, already has a population of 500,000 illegal migrants. Are we really to believe that a few dozen more from Texas has our system at the breaking point? That’s about as many as come with the average church tourist group from Nebraska; it’s not exactly Exodus or the Mariel Boatlift. To put it in perspective, the maximum capacity of a single New York subway car is 198.

But listen to this ridiculous hyperbole from Adams: “This is horrific when you think about what the governor is doing.” He added, “We need help, and we’re reaching out to the federal government to tell them that we need help. We’re going to get through this.” Get through this? Get through what, exactly? More illegal immigrants pass through our airports every day. What help do we need from the federal government? Do we need them to rent us a church basement and buy some cots? What’s going on here?

This isn’t who we are. Adams clearly needs to reread the words on the Statue of Liberty — and his own promise that New York is a sanctuary city.

FURIOUS FURRY: Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke at rally: Stop laughing at me, “motherf****r.” “So Beto’s history is entirely laughable, but so are his political instincts here. He’s clearly talking to a small group of supporters in this incident. What politician calls his own supporters ‘motherf*****s’? Rather than ask what the criticism might be, O’Rourke’s first instinct is to attack and posture himself as supremely virtuous rather than defend his argument. That’s a bad look for any politician, but especially risible for a gun-control radical stumping for office in Texas, of all places.”

ANNALS OF (INADVERTENT) LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Claire McCaskill accidentally invalidates all those BLM protests with her take on how ‘accused criminal’ defendants operate.

CELEBRITIES EMBARK ON A UKRAINE SAFARI:

It’s almost as though there are two wars happening at once: one on social media, where guerrilla clips from the front lines show bodies, shelling, and damage to homes, and one playing out in the pages of Vogue magazine.

This week, it was revealed that Oscar-winning actress Jessica Chastain had visited with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The photo was posted to his official Telegram account and was taken from his presidential palace. There were also several shots of Chastain seated at a table with Zelensky having a discussion of some sort.

Chastain is only the latest celebrity du jour to hold court with Zelensky, who has taken on a celebrity status of his own in American media culture. He was asked to appear at the Oscars and did appear at the Grammys via video message. Last month, actor Sean Penn took a meeting with Zelensky. In June, actor Ben Stiller met with Zelensky in the presidential palace. In May, on Zelensky’s invitation, U2 gave a 40-minute performance in a Kyiv metro station. Angelina Jolie, a UN-designated humanitarian, visited as well. Last month, Zelensky and his wife Olena posed for a much heralded photo spread in Vogue for famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. The spread drew head scratches and some backlash on social media for what was deemed misguided priorities.

I don’t fault Zelensky for taking high-profile meetings with international celebrities. He’s doing what he can using a star-hungry media to keep the atrocities in his country at the forefront of people’s minds. I do, however, question what kind of military strategy and diplomatic expertise the guy from Zoolander and the chick from Zero Dark Thirty can offer.

Perhaps Sean Penn can grab his shotgun and commandeer a platoon. More and more these visits look like publicity safari photo-ops to be kept on mantles as keepsakes. The logistics and planning of flying a millionaire celebrity into a war zone for a photo-op can’t be easy, nor can it be cheap and accommodating. It’s not like booking an Airbnb. I don’t think Zelensky himself is arranging these high-profile meetings, but one can’t help but wonder what kind of attention is being pulled away from caring for Ukrainian refugees and keeping the Russians at bay.

Putin has decided to get into the act as well: Russia sent Steven Seagal to occupied Ukraine to spread propaganda, part of his role as a Kremlin spokesman.

FED UP WITH REPEATED BREAK-INS AND CRIME, BAY AREA LAUNDROMAT OWNERS MOVE OUT OF CA:

Fed up, and moving out. After dealing with repeated break-ins, theft, vandalism, and more, one family of longtime Bay Area business owners have had enough. They’ve decided to move their entire family picked up, and moved to Alabama.

What plays out at Derek Drake’s Lake Merritt laundromat these days is so outrageous and frequent it almost feels like a heist movie.

“Three out of past four nights people have tried to get into my laundromat. Out of four nights… that’s crazy!” exclaims Derek via Zoom.

Derek and his family, have owned laundromats in the East Bay for decades. Derek explained how his father, Raiders legend Art Thoms said to him “my teammates laughed at me when I started buying laundromats 45 years ago.”

But it wasn’t until this past year when the frequency of break-ins and crime seems to have exploded.

* * * * * * * *

Derek’s family isn’t alone. California’s population fell by more than 180,000 in 2020 and has declined two years in a row. While the numbers of people who left the state are still a tiny percentage of the total population, Derek says many of his friends have plans to leave too, citing similar difficulties.

2020, you say? Not a National Model — A National Warning. “As Gavin Newsom runs absurd ads inviting Floridians and Texans to come to California for its ‘freedom,’ his bravado is undermined by an inconvenient fact: For the first time in state history, California has begun to shrink. People have been fleeing Newsom’s business lockdowns, school closures, high taxes, and other policies.”

HOW NOT TO TALK TO THE PUBLIC ABOUT MONKEYPOX:

I would like to share a piece of a recent interview I heard on OPB (Our NPR affiliate). The guest is a senior adviser with the Oregon Health Authority, the state agency that was also in charge of most policy decisions for Covid-19. Here is the exchange between Jenn Chávez (OPB host) and Dr. Tim Menza (OHA adviser) that left me a bit puzzled.

* * * * * * * *

Menza did eventually get around to talking about gay men, sort of, when prompted by his interviewer (who, of course, went directly to the issue of “stigma” before anyone devoted any time to the question of whether gay men need any particular information about risk reduction):

Chávez: Right now my understanding is that many of the cases in Oregon have been found in cisgender men who have sex with men. And I’m wondering how you are approaching public health messaging around this — resisting stigmatization and shame and blame while also still targeting those most at risk right now with resources.

Menza: It’s quite the challenge. What we’ve been trying to do as best as we can is stick with what we know. In the United States, we know that people assigned male at birth who have sex with men and people assigned female at birth, including at least one pregnant person, have been affected by hMPXV in Oregon. We know that cisgender men and nonbinary people are affected by hMPXV. While most identify as gay or queer and report close contact with people assigned male at birth, we have cases that also identify as straight and bisexual and report close contact with people assigned female at birth. (emphasis added)

It is simple enough to say that monkeypox is spreading especially among men who have sex with men. If you also say that there is elevated risk for trans and nonbinary people who have sex with men, you’ve covered the whole universe of elevated sexual risk for monkeypox in a clear and understandable way. Instead, Menza starts by talking about, for some reason, “people assigned male at birth who have sex with men and people assigned female at birth” — that is, to a first approximation, gay men plus women, which is not anywhere close to an accurate description of the high-risk group.

It is unacceptable, if you have Dr. Menza’s job, to speak in woke word salads like this. Menza is speaking on a broadcast news program. It is his job to communicate in clear terms to the broad public. And few members of the public describe themselves as “assigned male at birth” or even think of their sex as something that was “assigned.” This is woke jargon, and it’s unsuitable for a news interview.

The Newspeak Dictionary has nothing on Dr. Menza!

FLORIDA BOARD OF MEDICINE MOVES TO BAN TRANSGENDER TREATMENTS FOR MINORS.

AND THE (MOB) HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING: FBI delivers subpoenas to several PA Republican lawmakers, sources say.

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Report: FBI Raided Mar-A-Lago After Tip That Parents Were Protesting A School Board Meeting There.

SOMEBODY SET UP US THE BOMB: New York Professor Claims Those Who Don’t Want to Mask in Her Class Are ‘Racist.’

The mask fanatics refuse to give up.

Even though nearly every jurisdiction in the United States has ended mandates, there are legions of people desperate to maintain the disproven fiction of universal masking.

Mountains of data have accumulated over the past several years showing that masks have been completely ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID.

Yet some are so committed to avoiding admitting that the leaders of their political ideology have been wrong that they’re willing to continue policies, seemingly forever.

One such recent example came from a SUNY New Paltz Professor Jessica Nydia Pabón-Colón who is described on LinkedIn as an “interdisciplinary Latina feminist performance studies scholar.”

Pabón announced on Twitter that she will be enforcing mask mandates in her classroom, even though the school she teaches at no longer requires them, and is even “building mask wearing” into her syllabus…She also claims in the (potential) syllabus that “Refusing to mask indoors is a manifestation of ableism and racism, an exercise of individual privilege that tells the most vulnerable that their health does not matter.”

Speaking of mask fanatics: Fauci: ‘Inexplicable’ That Americans See Forced Masking as Encroachment on Freedom.

PROUD LATINA IS CANCELLED BY HEARTLESS SOCIALISTS: Rosita gets Canceled! Sesame Place removes all traces of character from park after black family launched $25m lawsuit claiming ‘racist’ mascot ignored their kids.

NY GOV. KATHY HOCHUL GOES OFF SCRIPT WHILE ATTACKING FLORIDA GOV. RON DESANTIS AT HOLOCAUST EVENT: Hochul jokes about Jews fleeing to Florida during Holocaust event.

Gov. Kathy Hochul sounded like a bad Borscht Belt comedian at a bill signing tied to Holocaust education in schools Wednesday as she tried to land a joke at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expense.

“I just want to say to the 1.77 million Jews who call New York home: Thank you for calling New York home. Don’t go anywhere or to another state. Florida is overrated. I shouldn’t say this, but look at the governor. It starts at the top down,” Hochul cracked.

“Getting in trouble – gotta stay on script,” the governor quickly added before she was forced to abruptly segue to her introduction of Holocaust survivor Celia Kener at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan.

Related: Antisemitic Attacks in New York Are at Highest Level in Decades.

OUT ON A LIMB: DOJ source calls raid a ‘spectacular backfire,’ claims AG Garland didn’t approve it.

The story concludes with another big revelation. It claims that AG Merrick Garland was being updated on the National Archives investigation and knew about the grand jury but did not approve the search Monday. Newsweek’s source claims Garland had “no prior knowledge” of the time of the raid. Instead it was FBI Director Christopher Wray who approved the search. Finally, the source adds, “It really is a case of the Bureau misreading the impact.”

This is a lot of new information but I think the big take-aways are that this had nothing to do with Jan. 6 and that these DOJ sources are now feeling a lot of pressure, enough that they are a) trying to explain themselves and b) blaming the “spectacular backfire” on the FBI and the US Attorney while trying to insulate AG Garland from the blowback.

As Scott Johnson writes at Power Line, “We saw the FBI agents holding the fort down outside Mar-a-Lago with big weapons. It was sickening. Christopher Wray should be sent packing and the FBI should be dissolved and reconstituted. It has become an unaccountable and politically corrupt organization.”

Related: FBI Quest for Trump Documents Started With Breezy Chats, Tour of a Crowded Closet. “FBI officials showed up with instructions to keep the search as unobtrusive as possible, with agents dressed in plainclothes and told not to take any weapons, people familiar with the plan said. The Secret Service was notified and then Mr. Trump’s lawyers. On site, the FBI asked for several things, according to a person familiar, including a diagram of the sprawling building and that surveillance cameras be turned off, citing officer safety.”

More: Eric Trump tells DailyMail.com what REALLY happened in FBI raid: President’s son says 30 agents REFUSED to hand over warrant, kicked lawyer off property, rifled through clothes — and how Mar-a-Lago staff refused to turn off security cameras.

Earlier:

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Trump Thanks FBI For Kicking Off His 2024 Reelection Campaign.

‘DEEP’ THOUGHT FROM ADAMS: Send New Yorkers to campaign for Beto in Texas. “Just try to imagine the way Texans will receive door-knockers who deliver a message like: ‘Hello, I’m from New York City, and I’d like to tell you how Mayor Eric Adams thinks you should vote.’ It would come across as ‘Youse hicks betta vote for Beto, if you know what’s good for ya.’ A bless your heart might be the kindest reaction they get, followed by gales of laughter.”

WHOOPS: Biden and Harris Rush to Condemn ‘Hate Crime,’ but ‘Islamophobic’ Killer Is…A Muslim.