Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
July 29, 2024
THIS IS EXACTLY RIGHT:
The legacy media engages in the mass synchronization of emotion for political purposes.
They are a de facto arm of the DNC.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
WHO IS RUNNING OUR COUNTRY? YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK THAT, PEASANT!
Is she our president now? Could someone let us know when and how that happened? https://t.co/zVdRdFxwVe
— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) July 29, 2024
All out war is coming to the Middle East, the American president is mostly gone, his vacuous VP (and who knows who else) is in charge, and we’re not supposed to notice. Very scary time for the world. But tell me more about Vance’s cat lady comments.
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) July 27, 2024
UPDATE: Quasi-President Reverses: On Second Thought, Let’s Revamp SCOTUS. “Wait a minute — which Quasi-President? We have two now, you know. We have the one who disappeared for a week and who became the first major-party nominee to withdraw from a presidential race. And then we have the one who spent most of her time as VP hiding from the media and talking in circles while out in public. This proposal to revamp the Supreme Court comes from the Quasi-President who opposed this plan before dropping out of the election. Or, at least that’s what we’re being told.”
Plus:
First off, this is nothing more than demagoguery. The “reforms” in this proposal would require a constitutional amendment. Such amendments require either two-thirds majorities in both chambers of Congress or an Article V convention to send it to the states. Thirty-eight state legislatures would then have to ratify the amendment, but it wouldn’t get past the thresholds; such a proposal won’t get that kind of a consensus in either chamber of Congress, and the Left lives in (unjustified) fear of an Article V convention. It’s an absurd attempt to undermine the Supreme Court by the Left and find shortcuts to taking it back over again more quickly than current prospects allow.
So who does this demagoguery serve? It doesn’t serve Biden, who’s not running for president any longer. It does serve Kamala Harris, however, and appears to align much closer to the views of her progressive allies than it does Biden’s previous positions on such changes.
And it is miiiiiighty curious that this reversal comes after Biden went incognito for a week while withdrawing from the race by tweet, and then waiting three days to appear before a camera and offer no real explanation. The White House insists that Biden is fully capable of handling the duties of his office, but so far we have seen no evidence of that, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. Perhaps Biden himself has decided to fully throw in with the progressives — his legislative agenda during this one term certainly suggests that, and his appointments to the courts and executive branch do as well. Biden plans to deliver a speech in Austin, TX this week to argue for this new plan, which goes beyond the recommendations of his own study commission — whose findings Biden buried in the end anyway.
Fake read meat for the more ignorant portions of his base. Which to be fair, is a lot of his base.
GOOD: Just Stop Oil Activists Who Threw Tomato Soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Get Prison Time.
They deserved a beating from bystanders, too.
HE’S NOT WRONG:
The legacy media NPC grovel fest https://t.co/lGcYoDas62
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
Related: The Tribe Coalesces.
SHOULDN’T BE HARD TO FIND WORK: Historian turned lawyer finds second career suing ‘ridiculous, clearly out of control universities.’
PERSONNEL IS POLICY: How Law School Got Woke.
IT’S TRUMP-APPROVED: Thomas Massie Gathers More Support For “Tax Free Tips Act.”
OF COURSE, THEY’RE JUST REDOUBLING THEIR EFFORTS NOW BUT THAT PHASE NEVER LASTS: The Fall of Gaslighting? Mass, Rapid, and Uncoordinated Online Response From the Audience is Making Gaslighting Less Effective.
WELL, THAT’S ON-BRAND: Jill Biden Calls Olympics Opening Ceremony, Which Mocked Christianity, ‘Spectacular.’
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN IS ON THE OLYMPIC “LAST SUPPER” DEBACLE: “But its biggest sin was not blasphemy. It was that it stunk on ice, as most such efforts do. . . . And – and this is the most important part – it was designed to stink. Lousy culture like this is a power statement (‘look what we can get away with!’).”
EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: More 1984 Than You Can Imagine. “Did you know that Donald Trump was almost assassinated in July 13th? Google autocomplete doesn’t, and neither does MetaAI (Facebook’s AI). For all they know, nothing at all happened on July 13th.”
Well, for all they’ll tell you, anyway.
IT GETS WORSE: New Text Messages Reveal Another Troubling Update on Trump Assassination Attempt. “Two words describe the security situation at the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13: hot mess. There are so many glaring flaws, and the ground is so inexcusable that it is fertile for conspiracy theorists. Can you blame them? The Secret Service is stonewalling and stacking sandbags amid intense scrutiny from lawmakers from both parties.”
And, honestly, their best candidate is no great shakes.
OH, IT’S PARODY. IT’S JUST NOT INTENTIONAL PARODY.
This isn't parody? 😲 https://t.co/VBOta64rrK
— Phineas Fahrquar (@irishspy) July 29, 2024
I MEAN, SHE’S NOT WRONG:
They tried to coup him, impeach him, remove him from the ballot, they ran show trials against him, tried to bankrupt him and his family, put him in prison, and assassinate him. They're OBVIOUSLY not done and it is reasonable to be worried about what their next step is. https://t.co/UCpiCqJ0w9
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 27, 2024
THE ENEMY WITHIN: Two men plead guilty to “acting as unregistered agents of the government of the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’) and bribing an Internal Revenue Service (‘IRS’) agent in connection with a plot to target U.S.-based practitioners of Falun Gong—a spiritual practice banned in the PRC.”
ICYMI: WAIT, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE WASN’T MEANT TO BE A HOW-TO GUIDE: Astronaut Mark Kelly, one of the favorites to be Kamala’s VP pick, literally owns a spy balloon company funded by a Chinese venture capitalist.
I did NOT have the Democrats’ darling politician and favorite to be Kamala’s VP, Astronaut Mark Kelly, as a Chinese spy balloon guy on my bingo card.
But, dudes, it’s real.
Another potential veep candidate is under the spotlight as well: Pennsylvania Dem accuses potential Harris VP pick Gov. Josh Shapiro of sexism, covering up sexual harassment.
July 28, 2024
SHARE AN OBVIOUS PARODY AS EVIDENCE OF WHAT A DEEPFAKE CAN DO TODAY, AND YOU GET THIS: Elon Musk Shares Edited Version of Kamala Harris Campaign Ad.
Elon Musk, a master of the memes, is planting his flag in deepfake territory—and risking backlash at a fraught political moment.
Musk, Tesla’s billionaire chief executive, on Friday shared on X an edited version of a campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris purporting to be a parody. By doing so, he potentially breached his own social-media platform’s policy against sharing synthetic and manipulated media.
The edited ad mimics Harris’s voice to have her say she became the new Democratic candidate for the November presidential election after President Biden “exposed his senility.” In the video, Harris’s altered voice also says she is the “ultimate diversity hire,” and says her work addressing the root causes of the border crisis was “catastrophic.” . . .
By reposting what appeared to be an AI-generated deepfake, Musk might run afoul of an X policy instituted after he took over the platform. The policy, instituted in April 2023, forbids sharing synthetic, manipulated or out-of-context media that might deceive or confuse people and lead to harm.
Among the criteria listed by X to determine whether content should be labeled or removed are whether the media is significantly and deceptively altered; whether it is shared in a deceptive manner or with false context; and whether the content is likely to result in widespread confusion on public issues.
The policy allows memes or satires, provided they don’t cause significant confusion about the authenticity of the media. Musk in resharing the video called it “amazing,” but didn’t say it was purporting to be a parody.
It was self-evidently a parody to anyone who isn’t brain-dead, which is to say to anyone who isn’t a “journalist” or a Democratic political operative. But I repeat myself.
OPEN THREAD: This is one of those, joints that never close.
YEP:
Sounds familiar https://t.co/tfHGzX5m7m
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) July 29, 2024
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Sierra Space conducts second full-scale burst test of inflatable module.
I WOULD EXPAND THAT TO PRETTY MUCH ANY NYT COLUMNIST, ACTUALLY:
In the entirety of human history nobody has ever asked David French’s opinion on how to be a man. https://t.co/G3NpfeDa2F
— Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) July 28, 2024
UPDATE: To people in the comments asking, yes, that is a real article by David French. Here it is. “Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.”
Judging by this column, French doesn’t even understand what he calls “Trumpist masculinity.”
UPDATE: From the NYT comments to French’s column:
Dyed-in-the-wool Democrats are resorting to irrelevant arguments because the facts are against them.
First, let’s dismiss the entire premise of the article. Hulk Hogan is a cartoonish entertainer. No one aspires to be him. They appreciate his entertainment.
Harris made an appearance on Ru Paul’s Drag Race. But, Republicans are honest enough not to claim that Democrats think Ru Paul is the only way to be a man.
Now the issues. Why don’t you talk about Afghanistan, the dead in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel Russia, inflation, the needless Biden Admin deficits, Biden admin’s poor performance relative to Trump as it pertains to real-stock-price-changes, Wage changes? Or why not talk about the record number of border crossings, medicine shortages? The strategic Petro reserve? Interest Rates?
Perhaps it is time to drop our “dyed-in-the-wool” way of thinking and realize that Democrats aren’t the only way to be a voter.
Plus:
Agree with your headline but the problem is the democrat party answer to it ie wokeness ie male generational shame, discrimination, cancellation female privilege, promotion, preference (instead of equality) is not the answer.
Which came first, Trump or wokeness?
Related: How David Brooks Created Donald Trump.
ANOTHER UPDATE: From the InstaPundit comments below: “Of course Hulk Hogan isn’t the only way. There’s also the Sean Connery way, the Clint Eastwood way, the Chuck Norris way, the Donald Trump way… There is no David French way.”
And: “Frenchie would also write this article about Teddy Roosevelt.”