OKAY, GROOMERS: Leaked documents show how teachers recruit students, form gay and transgender clubs in schools.

Via Ace of Spades, who writes, “The left went hard after the Catholic Church while being nearly silent about the massive levels of child sexual abuse committed by teachers because the Catholic Church is a political enemy whereas government school teachers are political allies — they’re the very core of the Democrat army, in fact. But in fact: Teachers abuse far more children that Catholic priests ever had.”

LATERAL MOVE: Bye Bye: Jen Psaki Set to Leave White House in May, Bring Real Psaki Show to MSNBC.

ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Andrew Sullivan Says He Was ‘Ambushed’ by ‘Unprofessional’ Jon Stewart in Interview: ‘Foul Race Essentialism.’

The show went predictably sideways after Sullivan made the obvious point that he is not responsible for bad stuff other White people do, especially those who were alive before he was born:

BOND: You know, because quite honestly if White men were going to do something about racism, you had 400 years. You coulda done it.

SULLIVAN: I am 58 years old.

BOND: I’m shutting you down right now.

SULLIVAN: I am not responsible for anyone before me.

BOND: The point is I am so tired of just engaging in this conversation and this deep hurt that Andrew has about talking about racism…. All of us White people do this.

Bond also said she wasn’t there to “argue with another White man.”

Stewart sided with Bond and said Sullivan was “doing a pretty good job” of at least appearing to be racist.

In a Substack post published Friday, Sullivan said he’d been “ambushed” because a booker for The Problem with Jon Stewart told him he’d be the only person on the show. He also reiterated his position on show’s subject matter.

Sullivan stated a booker called him to ask if he wanted to appear on the show to talk about race:

“Why would I go on a show just to be called a racist?” “No, no, no,” she replied. “Nothing like that would happen. This is not a debate. It’s just you talking one-on-one with Jon, and he’d never do that.” I said I’d think about it — especially since they seemed desperate with just 24 hours till taping — and later I called to say sure, if it’s just Jon. “I trust him to be fair.” I hadn’t had time to read the email invites, so I trusted the booker’s word.

Why on earth would anyone do that, given Stewart’s long track record of manipulating guests? Particularly conservative guests — which Sullivan still purports to be. In 2020, Deadline reported that “Jon Stewart Says His Biggest ‘Daily Show’ Regret Is Legacy Of ‘Evisceration Expectation.’” And yet here he is, back in full-on “Jon Stewart destroys Andrew Sullivan!!” mode.

Incidentally, Sullivan’s Substack briefly linked to above by Mediaite, is well worth a read in its entirety: The Problem With Jon Stewart. How painfully, cringingly super-woke must a comedian get to stay relevant?

When I tried to explain that I immigrated in 1984, and that a white man in 2022 cannot possibly be held responsible for something that happened four centuries ago, [Bond] replied: “I’m going to shut you down.” Stewart was enthralled. Then she spelled out exactly what she meant:

All white people do this. I don’t care if we say we’re Abolitionists, I don’t care if we say we’re Progressive, I don’t care if we are literally members of the KKK. Every single white person upholds these systems and structures of white supremacy, and we have got to talk about it.

This is the poisonous heart of CRT: that white people, by virtue of merely existing, are all morally problematic and always will be. Even if all the systems have been repealed. Even if you’d never racially discriminate yourself. Even if you spent your life fighting racism. That is why Bond called the Abolitionist movement indistinguishable in terms of its racism from the KKK! Why? Because whites are only ever whites.

Absorb that for a moment. This foul race essentialism, this view of white Americans as a single, undifferentiated blob of hate existing through the centuries as a force for the oppression of non-whites is simply the inverse of the old racism. It’s replacing hatred of blacks with hatred of whites; it’s replacing discrimination against blacks with discrimination against whites and Asians and others. It’s being used to make even more money for rich white people, to provide some elite whites with a weapon to destroy their career rivals, and to help build a new racial spoils system that leaves any notion of colorblindness or individual rights behind. (And the bigotry is palpable. When I spoke of the need to help a generation hobbled by absent fathers, high crime, and deep poverty, Lisa Bond responded: “Like you care about black kids.” There is no ad hominem these fanatics won’t stoop to.)

Is that a way out of where we are? Or is it, in fact, a fast way back to where we started?

One more thing: the trope of a malign racial force existing through history across time and space is one Jon Stewart might have once recognized before he joined the woke cult. I wonder what he would have said if someone had come on his old show and said, “I did not come on this show to argue with a Jew,” or “every single Jew upholds these systems,” or it doesn’t matter what a Jew’s politics are, he’s still a Jew, and therefore a racist. What if she had bragged that her organization wouldn’t even engage with Jews because they were so toxic. And what if that person had looked straight at a Jewish guest of Stewart’s when she said it? What would he have said?

Somehow I don’t think it would be: “If I could finger snap, I would finger snap right now.”

It’s been quite a ride for a man who was telling his Daily Show viewers in 2010 that their “race card was maxed out.” Or as Sullivan asked his fellow leftists last year: What Happened To You?

WILL SMITH RESIGNS FROM ACADEMY OVER CHRIS ROCK OSCARS SLAP BACKLASH.

MEETING THE CHALLENGES: BIDEN AND HARRIS.

At today’s press conference, President Biden discussed the uneasy situation in Ukraine and issued a challenge to President Putin:

You know, Putin’s been in charge of Russia one way or the other since 1999. That’s almost as long as I’ve been around.

And he’s not so young, either. His days of riding around on a horse without his shirt on are over. I could still do it, you know. I’m mighty fit, and I used to be a jockey and once sat on Secretariat back in my prime. But I knew enough to keep my shirt on.

Now that coward, that bully, that wimp Vladimir Putin is attacking a country much smaller than Russia. I say to him, why don’t you pick on someone your own size, huh? Oh, I know, I know – you’re the biggest country in the world. You must think Russia’s a big f***ing deal.

Neo’s post is strictly in the spirit of April Fools. But this tweet by Rob Reiner is apparently not satirical, given his far left world view: Rob Reiner tweeting rave reviews of Biden’s presidency doesn’t appear to be an April Fools joke.

It’s good to see the old comic actor still delivering belly laughs, albeit unintentionally.

US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTES TO DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA, BUT MOVE FACES UPHILL BATTLE IN SENATE.

UPDATE: “Unable to pass laws dealing with real problems, House passes bill decriminalizing marijuana,” Not the Bee correctly notes.

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: History Should Be Our Guide in Ukraine.

That Ukraine is morally in the right and certainly deserves Western help does not mean that all Russians should be demonized or an often-corrupt Ukrainian government that just suspended its opposition parties should be deified.

Fifth, the Russian military abroad. The Russian army is historically unbeatable on its home soil. Charles XII of Sweden, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler all wrecked their once indomitable militaries once they crossed into Russia.

But the expeditionary armies of a multiethnic, disparate Russia have never done well abroad in major foreign invasions against determined enemies.

Moscow faced a series of embarrassing and utter defeats in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

The czar’s 1914 invasion of German East Prussia ended in catastrophe. Russia invaded Poland and lost the Polish war of 1919-1921.

Stalin’s attack on tiny Finland in 1939 soon turned into a bloody quagmire. The decade-long invasion and occupation of Afghanistan ended in defeat.

It’s VDH, so needless to say, read the whole thing. Incidentally, Stalin’s Finnish quagmire was the topic of a recent video by historian Mark Felton:

REPORT: ‘We’ve been thrown into the s**t! Our rifles don’t f***ing fire!’ Young Russian conscripts complain they have been given 1940s guns and are suffering heavy losses against Ukraine.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA, PART ZWEI: Ratio on US Air Force’s tweet marking ‘Trans Day of Visibility’ soars to new heights.

An initial tweet was apparently deleted due to a grammatical error, so the above is the second attempt. The ratio that started on the first tweet picked up where it left off after the second offering.

There’s no way this message could be received badly by our enemies!

Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth: Russians once again threatening nuclear war.

I GOTTA FEVAH, AND I NEED MORE COWBELL! Rick Beato Breaks Down the Greatest Classic Rock Song with Buck Dharma (video.)

DON’T GET COCKY: Omens of Doom: Democrats Should Embrace Their Inevitable Defeat and Party Like It’s 1999.

DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: White House: ‘Early’ Trans Surgeries, Hormones Are ‘Crucial’ For Kids, Teens Who Identify As Trans.

STRIKE A POSE, THERE’S NOTHING TO IT:

● Shot:

● Chaser: Cesar Chavez, whose bust is in Biden Oval Office, has history of anti-immigration comments and positions. “Chavez, born in Arizona in 1927, stridently opposed illegal immigration during his career as a community organizer and activist battling for the rights of farm laborers and low-wage workers.”

● Hangover: The Jonestown-like madness of Chavez’s final days.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: I’m quitting Disney after seeing it boast about pushing ‘gender theory.’

On Tuesday, Christopher Rufo, known for his exposés on schools and corporations under the critical-race-theory spell, released internal Disney videos in which those in charge discuss how they insert the “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” into children’s programming.

Those were the words used by Disney Television Animation executive producer Latoya Raveneau, who said she is “adding queerness” wherever she can — with Disney’s blessing, as the company is “going hard” to be supportive.

The shocking footage also featured Disney Parks’ diversity and inclusion manager, Vivian Ware, saying the company has “removed all of the gendered greetings” at its theme parks. No more “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.” No longer will a little girl in a gown be greeted with a “Hello, princess!” as my daughter had been so many times on our Disney World trips. Disney has been pushed to toe the leftist gender line, and it is doing just that.

The executives made the remarks in a company-wide virtual meeting Monday about Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, signed that day by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Disney had made headlines for denouncing the relatively staid legislation, which states, “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”

Offer void outside the United States:

UPDATE: From America’s Newspaper of Record: Corrupting Our Youth: Popular Disney Mascot Roaming Park Without Any Pants.

(Updated and bumped.)

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Democrat Rep. Waters tells homeless people to ‘go home,’ warns journalist during testy exchange.

Rep. Maxine Waters reportedly warned a journalist not to report on a story regarding an event she attended near a homeless encampment in Los Angeles where tensions boiled over amid confusion over Section 8 housing vouchers.

According to a report from the New York Post, Waters was present at a chaotic event where hundreds of homeless people showed up due to inaccurate social media reports that Section 8 housing vouchers were being distributed.

At one point, when it was clear that staff at the event were being overwhelmed, Waters reportedly said to the crowd, “I want everybody to go home.”

That comment reportedly triggered an angry response from the crowd, many of whom were homeless.

“We don’t got no home, that’s why we’re here!” one member of the crowd reportedly said back. “What home we gonna go to?”

Waters then grew frustrated and said, “Excuse me, there’s nobody in Washington who works for their people any f— harder than I do. I don’t want to hear this. No, no, no.”

When a Los Angeles Times reporter contact Waters about the event, the congresswoman reportedly tried to dissuade the paper from reporting the story.

“You’ll hurt yourself and the community trying to put this together without background,” she told reporter Connor Sheets, according to the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t want you to start trying to write it, you won’t understand it.”

When Waters threatens you, remember that she means business:

● Rep. Maxine Waters Jokes About Threatening Trump Supporters ‘All The Time.’

● Maxine Waters: ‘Americans should be out in the streets screaming’ for Trump’s head.

● Democrat Maxine Waters Makes Public Call For Harassment & Violence Against Members of Trump Administration.

THOSE WHO CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDEMNED TO QUOTE SANTAYANA: Progressive Dem candidates: Please don’t call us “progressive.”

Left-wing candidates from Pennsylvania to North Carolina to Missouri are shying away from the P-word on the campaign trail, in messaging and online fundraising, and even in media blitzes, signaling an attempt to rebrand their wing of the party as Democrats debate how to win the midterm elections…

While some high-profile contenders still use the moniker, others want to be thought of in different terms. Pennsylvania’s Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who’s seeking the party’s nomination for a coveted Senate seat, prefers a different word: populist…

A source close to another self-styled Midwestern populist described “two lanes of populism” taking hold as contenders look for more accurate ways to portray what’s unfolding in their regions. Voters in these areas, this person said, aren’t consumed with the detailed policy proposals that excite many national progressives in Washington, D.C., and prefer an anti-establishment, against-the-system sentiment…

“It is a reaction to progressivism somehow being attached to socialism or communism,” said [Dwight] Bullard. “You have a lot of apprehension, regression, people who just are scared.”

As Fred Siegel wrote in his 2014 history of the American left, The Revolt Against the Masses:

Liberals were those Progressives who had renamed themselves so as to repudiate Wilson. “The word liberalism,” wrote Walter Lippmann in 1919, “was introduced into the jargon of American politics by that group who were Progressives in 1912 and Wilson Democrats from 1916 to 1918.” The new liberalism was a decisive cultural break with Wilson and Progressivism. While the Progressives had been inspired by a faith in democratic reforms as a salve for the wounds of both industrial civilization and power politics, liberals saw the American democratic ethos as a danger to freedom at home and abroad.

* * * * * * * *

The best short credo of liberalism came from the pen of the once canonical left-wing literary historian Vernon Parrington in the late 1920s. “Rid society of the dictatorship of the middle class,” Parrington insisted, referring to both democracy and capitalism, “and the artist and the scientist will erect in America a civilization that may become, what civilization was in earlier days, a thing to be respected.” Alienated from middle-class American life, liberalism drew on an idealized image of “organic” pre-modern folkways and rhapsodized about a future harmony that would reestablish the proper hierarchy of virtue in a post-bourgeois, post-democratic world.

Well, it is the twenties once again, so I’m not at all surprised to see the P-word retired being retired for a second time, to memory hole the excesses of the previous decade.

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Audience Applauds as Colbert Says Fox News’ Peter Doocy Should Be Slapped.

Colbert played a clip of Doocy asking Biden to clarify his gaffes on his recent trip to Europe, when he suggested that the United States might use chemical weapons if Russia were to use chemical weapons in Ukraine.

Rather than applaud the fact that a member of the White House press corps challenged the country’s most senior elected official on an urgent question, Colbert suggested violence would be justified (transcript via NewsBusters, original emphasis):

COLBERT: Yesterday, President Biden held a press conference, and he was asked a ridiculous question by a ridiculous man: Fox News reporter and that one kid in high school who wears a suit to gym class, Peter Doocy. Jimmy, drop the deuce.

PETER DOOCY: When you said a chemical weapon used by Russia would trigger a response in kind?

BIDEN: It will trigger a significant response.

DOOCY: What does that mean?

BIDEN: I’m not going to tell you. Why would I tell you? You have got to be silly. (Laughter ) ( Applause )

COLBERT: Remember– ( applause ) Yes. Remember how on last night’s show I said that slapping is never, ever the answer? I’d like to file a one-time exception on behalf of the president of the United States. (Applause)

Smith apologized Monday for slapping Rock onstage after Rock told a joke about Smith’s wife’s hair, an altercation that shocked viewers around the world and for which the actor could still face serious legal and professional consequences.

For Colbert, clapter is the best medicine — the hard left bias of the network late night TV hosts are what the networks consider the best way to keep what’s left of a inexorably shrinking audience.

SELF-OWN: California Gov. Gavin Newsom Poses with To Kill a Mockingbird, Banned by District in Own State.

Aside from mockery online by those who were incredulous that he had not read most of the books already, since several are common in school curricula, some pointed out that Newsom was mocking other states despite California’s own examples of censorship.

To Kill a Mockingbird was recently banned, at least temporarily, by schools in Burbank, California, among other classic books, over concerns about “racism” and the use of racial slurs in the text. As Newsweek reported at the time:

Middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received the news during a virtual meeting on September 9.

Until further notice, teachers in the area will not be able to include on their curriculum Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Theodore Taylor’s The Cay and Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

Four parents, three of whom are Black, challenged the classic novels for alleged potential harm to the district’s roughly 400 Black students.

Flashback: Atticus Finch: American literature’s most celebrated rape apologist.

IMAGINE IF A REPUBLICAN DID THIS:

The title of this article was the first thing that came to mind when I learned of a new measure in Boston that was passed by the City Council this week and supported by Mayor Michelle Wu. Like many other Democratic mayors, Wu has imposed harsh vaccine restrictions and mask mandates lasting considerably longer than those in many red states. These decisions have led to sustained protests by mandate opponents, with gatherings regularly taking place right outside of Wu’s home in the upscale Roslindale neighborhood of Boston. Apparently, Mayor Wu felt either “threatened” or “harassed” by the protests so she worked with the City Council to pass new restrictions on when and where such protests could take place. While she is expected to sign it promptly and succeed in getting the measure put on the books, it turned out to be very controversial, even among some members of her own party who said that set a dangerous precedent of infringing on free speech. But at least she’ll get a peaceful night’s sleep, right?

Yet another leftist shocked when Saul Alinsky’s playbook gets run against a fellow leftist.

DID YOU GET A TEXT FROM YOURSELF PROMISING A ‘GIFT?’ DON’T CLICK ON IT, VERIZON WARNS: “The main reaction on Twitter is confusion and ‘how?!’ Again, this is all spoofing and technological impersonation. It’s trivially easy for spammers to camouflage as any number they choose. My Verizon account is secure, and my number hasn’t been hijacked. If you’ve gotten the same message, there’s no cause for panic. I’d advise against clicking the link included with the message, though I did exactly that for investigative purposes. The link I received forwarded me to the website of Channel One Russia, a state TV network. Others have reported similar results and say they’re redirected to Russian websites when they click the link. I’ve asked Verizon for comment, as many companies are currently on high alert for cyber attacks amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

ALEX EPSTEIN: The Washington Post’s plan to “cancel” Fossil Future—and me.

Tomorrow The Washington Post plans to “cancel” me and my new book Fossil Future by publishing a 100% slanderous hit-piece labeling me as “racist.” Please join me in calling for the Post to spike the piece, fire the “journalist,” and publicly apologize. Video

• The @washingtonpost‘s smear campaign against me has 4 main steps:
  1. Refuse to engage my arguments.
  2. Hunt down things I wrote at 18 that seem controversial.
  3. Falsely portray those *individualist* writings as “racist.”
  4. Use “racism” to discredit my work.

  Despicable.

Read the whole thing.

BRUCE ARIANS RESIGNS, REPLACED BY TODD BOWLES AS BUCCANEERS COACH IN NFL BOMBSHELL.

QUESTION ASKED: Do House Democrats want cities to die?

It also seems to suggest that Democrats have no idea how cities work — which might be surprising considering how they control most cities in this country. Urban businesses have been shuttering and struggling for survival as a result of pandemic restrictions and employees forgoing the commute to work from home. Financial districts and the areas around government buildings have turned into ghost neighborhoods — now occupied primarily by the homeless and the mentally deranged. Downtown Washington will be one of the slowest to kick back into gear as Covid wanes; Pelosi’s move will see it remain in a comatose state for several more weeks.

The party in control of both legislative and executive branches faces a Red Wedding heading into November. While House members tweet about their gratitude for Will Smith striking Chris Rock at the Oscars, or impeaching a Supreme Court Justice, it appears any interest in moving the country forward have stalled.

Americans have, for the most part, returned to work, if not fully in-office, then in the booming hybrid model that combines in-person work with teleconferencing. Working parents are finally returning their kids to school, and yet the Democrats have remained shuttered and tied to their own Covid fatalism, even as the Biden White House sees the writing on the wall. It’s something for which they are going to pay dearly in these midterms; perhaps then Democratic members of Congress will begin picking up their phones again.

Related: Dem Offices on Cap Hill Remain Closed After Biden’s Call for Return to Normalcy.

WITH RECALL APPROACHING, DA CHESA BOUDIN’S MEDIA HITS MULTIPLY:

Earlier this month we learned there was a real chance progressive DA Chesa Boudin would be recalled. A poll commissioned by the recall organizers but conducted by a reputable San Francisco polling agency found 2:1 support for the recall and further found that 74% of respondents had a negative view of Boudin.

Since then, Boudin has clearly been making the round and doing his best to turn things around. Yesterday Puck published an interview with Boudin in which he simultaneously admitted some people in San Francisco don’t feel safe and also blamed his predicament on the media and the pandemic.

* * * * * * * *

San Francisco voters’ verdict on Boudin will reverberate far beyond the city’s 47 square miles, including in Los Angeles, where Dist. Atty. George Gascón faces a potential recall. Because if you can’t make radical change in San Francisco, what future does the progressive prosecutor movement have?…

Boudin had won election by being the outsider who criticized a failed system; now he owned the system. To redefine public safety, to demonstrate that communities can be safe locking up fewer people, to build a consensus for programs that might break cycles of recidivism, would take years.

As Tom Cotton wrote in December: Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor.

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Inflation has lessons for a ‘very entitled generation,’ says BlackRock co-founder.

An “entitled generation” is about to face some life lessons from soaring consumer prices.

That’s according to BlackRock President Rob Kapito, who made the remarks at a Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association conference in Austin, as reported by Bloomberg.