DISPATCHES FROM THE INTERSECTION OF THE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARY AND THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: “Womynx History Month” is off to a rocky start.

Black History Month seemed to go fairly well in February, with plenty of educational events being sponsored and various television specials being dedicated to the topic. But now February has drawn to a close and we’re moving on to Women’s History Month. Well… most of us are, anyway. That apparently doesn’t apply to the folks at Northwest Missouri State University. They recently sent out a (now deleted) tweet announcing their planned schedule of events for “Womynx History Month.” The hilarious backlash to this new, absurd mutation of the English language was immediate and richly deserved. But hey… they were just trying to “promote inclusivity.”

I assume the number of women who approve of “Womynx” is even lower than the number of Latino people who approve of “Latinx.” I’m sorry Helen Reddy passed away in 2020, though. Her version of “I am Womynx, Hear Me Roar” would no doubt have made for compelling listening.

BREAKING: First Major Ukraine City Falls to the Russian Invaders. “The surrender of Kherson has to be seen as expected. It will be disheartening to some Ukrainians. Kherson has a population of about 300,000, and it is 70 percent Ukrainian. If an insurgency spawns there, the Russians will not be able to hold the city. Its loss, however, is more critical to what happens at the cease-fire negotiations than it is to what is happening outside Kiev.”

NOT THE BABYLON BEE: Rep. Van Taylor apologizes for affair with ‘ISIS bride,’ abruptly drops reelection bid. Two-term Plano Republican concedes runoff to Keith Self after admitting ‘horrible mistake.’

Rep. Van Taylor apologized Wednesday for an affair with an ex-jihadist dubbed the “ISIS bride” by British tabloids and abruptly dropped his bid for a third term, conceding the GOP runoff to rival Keith Self, a former Collin County judge.

“About a year ago, I made a horrible mistake that has caused deep hurt and pain among those I love most in this world. I had an affair, it was wrong, and it was the greatest failure of my life,” he said in an email to supporters.

The infidelity surfaced just before Tuesday’s primary with help from a third candidate, Suzanne Harp.

A Plano resident named Tania Joya – widow of the most infamous American to join the Islamic State – contacted Harp last Thursday, hoping she would confront Taylor privately and persuade him to drop out and resign from Congress.

Instead, Harp sent a supporter to interview Joya, who along with her husband has been profiled in the The Atlantic and tabloid fodder for years in her native Britain.

On Sunday afternoon, two days before the primary, a rightwing website, National File, posted audio of that 35-minute interview full of salacious details about the nine-month affair. The next day, the conservative site Breitbart posted a similar story that it labeled “exclusive.”

Conservatives gleefully spread the stories on social media.

Does “gleefully spread” count as a pounce or a seize?

Flashback to 2017: ‘First Lady of ISIS’ Claims ‘Racism’ in UK Drove Her to Join Islamic State.

FORMER ILLINOIS SPEAKER/ CHAIRMAN OF THE ILLINOIS DEMOCRATIC PARTY MIKE MADIGAN INDICTED ON RACKETEERING CHARGES.

‘THIS IS RIDICULOUS:’ DeSantis scolds* students for wearing face masks during University of South Florida visit.

Gov. Ron DeSantis made his frustration with face masks known when he visited Tampa for a press conference Wednesday morning.

DeSantis was at the University of South Florida to announce funding for cybersecurity education. Before taking the podium to address the audience, the governor scolded a group of students behind him who were wearing face masks.

“You do not have to wear those masks,” Gov. DeSantis said. “I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”

As Not the Bee notes, “The original reporter on this story characterized this as DeSantis being ‘annoyed’ with the students. However, it’s clear that he’s just frustrated that the kids were told by their school they needed to mask up and he let them know that it is absolutely ridiculous. He’s the only governor in America with enough backbone to tell people that wearing a mask is theater and ridiculous at this point. There is nothing not to love about this clip. And, oh, the hate that DeSantis is receiving is off the charts, as expected.”

* Giving kids personal choice (“if you want to wear it, fine”) doesn’t sound like DeSantis is “scolding” them, but moving forward after Biden’s “we’re going back to normal” State of the Union Speech, the DNC-MSM faces quite a dilemma:

Related:

And speaking of Georgia’s governor: Stacey Abrams Becomes an Albatross for Democrats. “The funny thing here is that it’s obvious Abrams thinks she’s making a solid case for toning down the allegations against her (and Democrats) that she and they are hypocrites. Except she’s not, and as the Georgia gubernatorial election gets closer, expect more in the ‘Big Lie’-driven media to do the major lifting for Abrams in order to try and extricate her and her party from the tangled ‘Big Lie’ web of their own making. Should be fun to watch the pretzel logic involved. We’ll make sure to keep you posted.”

PUTIN’S PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1939: Russian bombs damage Kyiv’s Babi Yar Holocaust memorial site.

SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! Video: Seattle-Area School Board Defends Segregating Meetings by Skin Color.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Biden’s ‘fund the police’ comment draws backlash from some BLM activists, support from others.

—USA Today, err, today.

Chaser: Biden says some funding should ‘absolutely’ be redirected from police.

—Fox News, July 8^th, 2020.

THE GRIFTERS: Report: Biden Admin Cut Line from SOTU Speech Endorsing Ban on Congress Trading Stocks.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: D.C. Schools: Screw the CDC. The masks stay on in schools.

ONLY A SITH DEALS IN ABSOLUTES: For Trudeau, There Are Only Canadians Who Agree With Him—and Nazis.

AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES MONTY PYTHON:

Shot: An army of snowflakes. The British Army wants to recruit snowflakes to its ranks. What is it thinking?

Its new PR campaign features posters and TV ads calling on ‘snowflakes’, ‘selfie addicts’, ‘class clowns’, ‘phone zombies’ and ‘me me me millennials’ to sign up. One poster says: ‘Snowflakes – your army needs YOU and your compassion.’

—Spiked, January 3rd, 2019.

Chaser: British soldiers demand that the armed forces introduce vegan uniforms. A newly-formed group in the British Army called The Ministry of Defence Vegan and Vegetarian Network has launched a campaign to empower vegans and vegetarians who enlisted in the armed forces.

—Rebel News, yesterday.

Wait until the Vegan Brigade discovers that “If you’re in the army, and there’s a war you have to go and fight!”

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: Three Big Falsehoods in President Biden’s State of the Union Address.

“UKRAINE IS CANCELLED:” CBS blasted on Twitter for including transgender rights in Ukrainian war coverage.

SALENA ZITO: The hypocrisy of Coca-Cola.

In March of last year, days after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed new voting reform legislation, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said, “This legislation is unacceptable. It is a step backwards … and needs to be remedied, and we will continue to advocate for it both in private and now even more in public.”

The massive soft drink company wasn’t alone — it brought a wave of corporate backlash aimed at Kemp, Georgia Republicans, and Republicans in general. Within days, Major League Baseball had pulled the All Star Game out of the state. Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Porsche Cars, and the Atlanta Falcons — all Georgia-based companies — also slammed the law based on false Democratic Party talking points about what it said and did.

And, of course, Coca-Cola also tweeted its displeasure with the law.

One year later, Coca-Cola is eerily silent on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia is one of the company’s most profitable markets, as the soda giant operates out of the country as Swiss-based bottler Coca-Cola HBC. It announced last Tuesday they had contingency plans to cope with the crisis, which included stockpiling ingredients to limit any disruption in their massive Russian market.

Coca-Cola HBC gets approximately 21% of its volume from Russia and Ukraine, where it also has operations. The workers in Ukraine were sent home last week.

Earlier: Disney and Apple Admonish Russia, But What About China?

GREG ABBOTT AND ROBERT “BETO” O’ROURKE WIN TEXAS GUBERNATORIAL PRIMARIES.

WAS IT OVER WHEN THE IRANIAN PEOPLE BOMBED PEARL HARBOR? Joe Biden flubs speech appearing to call Ukrainians ‘Iranian people’ during State of the Union.

Related: “Go Get Him!” Final 3 words of Biden’s State of the Union speech have people guessing.

JOHN PODHORETZ: According to Joe Biden, everything is going great.

The crisis in Ukraine changed that somewhat, because it has given his presidency a new purpose and direction. But you could see the outlines of the effort to change gears in the surprising passage about policing, in which he made a slight feint toward a Sister Souljah moment in taking on his own radicals.

He spoke movingly about the two young NYPD officers shot in cold blood in January and then insisted that “we should all agree: the answer is not to ‘defund the police.’ The answer is to FUND the police with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.”

Even so, you can tell that Joe Biden thinks his presidency is going swimmingly. His words weren’t defensive. They were triumphalist. He even seemed to promise he would bring the opioid epidemic to an end and, for good measure, would also end cancer “as we know it.”

The immodesty of these ambitions, as we stumble out of the COVID era into an uncertain future in which the dollars in our pocket are worth less every week while Europe faces a continental war and a potential refugee flood of colossal size, had a somewhat delusional aspect.

We’re in an unprecedented crisis abroad, following our unprecedented health crisis over the past two years and an inflationary spiral we haven’t seen the like of in four decades.

Maybe we should, you know, focus on those things.

As someone Steve linked to last night in his drunkblog noted, “This speech sounds like it was written by pollsters — politically terrified pollsters.“

ABBOTT WINS TEXAS GOP GOVERNOR NOMINATION.

DISNEY ADMONISHES RUSSIA, BUT WHAT ABOUT CHINA?

Disney is the corporate embodiment of hypocrisy and double standards. I mean, what company with integrity lectures conservatives on their violations of “women’s reproductive rights” but shoots its films in regions of China that also enslave and sterilize Uighur Muslims? That’s why some critics are not falling in love with the company pulling its movies out of Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine. Why not pull its movies from China?

Sure, Disney cares about talking trash to Putin, but the company’s still doing business with Commie China. It’s hard not to see why people see this pro-Ukraine stance as yet another empty virtue signal.

Conservative nerd culture outlet BoundingIntoComics reported on people complaining about this new Disney double standard. They first reminded us of Disney’s recent declaration that they would pull their films from distribution in Russia because of the country’s military invasion of Ukraine.

On Monday, Disney put out a statement on its planned strategy for hurting Russia. That statement declared, “Given the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the tragic humanitarian crisis, we are pausing the release of theatrical films in Russia, including the upcoming Turning Red from Pixar.”

Daaaaang. Move over Churchill, Disney now sets the gold standard for dealing with power hungry dictators. No Finding Nemo 3 for you, Vladdy.

* * * * * * * *

Not elated with Disney’s move, author and investor Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted, “Disney was criticized for filming Mulan in the Xinjiang province of China where over 1 million Uighurs are enslaved and abused in concentration camps. Its response? Stop releasing movies in Russia where it makes almost no money.”

The same can be said of Apple. “Apple pauses sales in Russia, adding to Big Tech moves to support Ukraine,” MarketWatch reports, but no word yet when they’ll actually cease production of their products in their Chinese sweatshops.

H.D. MILLER: Anton Ego and the Critical Sense.

Not everyone agreed with my heartfelt belief that Yelp Must Die. There was a very spirited discussion over at Instapundit, where my friend Ed Driscoll had graciously posted a link. Currently, that discussion is over 250 comments long, several of which express sentiments similar to this one.

The guy sounds like an elitist ass to me. Apparently only certain people that he approves of should be allowed voice there opinions on a restaurant.

Oddly, while I may be an ass, I’m not an elitist ass. Nor do I, as some suggested, look down upon people who eat at Red Lobster. Nor am I, as others suggested, a professional restaurant critic.

What I am is a history professor who likes to eat, enjoys good writing, and is exasperated at Yelp.

As for restaurant criticism, let me remind you of what I said.

Writing good criticism, even restaurant criticism, isn’t something anyone can do. Not many people can write well, and most who do, don’t have the critical sense or sufficient taste to be good at criticism.

As much as I might enjoy having someone else pay for dinner, I have never thought I’d make a very good restaurant critic. While I am a very good writer, I am also an indiscriminate eater. My critical sense about food is deficient. I like to eat food, sometimes even bad food.

As for what IS proper restaurant criticism, I’m a giant fan of the Pixar movie Ratatouille, not because of the story of a sewer rat who becomes a chef, but because of the character of Anton Ego, the greatest critic in cinema history.

Read the whole thing.

LIVE: TEXAS PRIMARY RESULTS.

GREAT MOMENTS IN LIVE TV:

https://twitter.com/MAGAJew2/status/1498801093307944963

FROM THE WOMAN WHO FAMOUSLY SAID, “WE HAVE TO PASS THE BILL SO YOU CAN FIND OUT WHAT IS IN IT:” Pelosi Claims People Don’t Appreciate Biden Because They Don’t Know What He Has Done.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Woke Professor: U.S. Went To War With Japan In WWII Because Of White Supremacy.