LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: This Powerful California General Was Credibly Accused of Anti-Semitism. Gavin Newsom Gave Him a Promotion. Major General Matthew Beevers allegedly raved against ‘kike lawyers,’ according to inspector general report.

I’M INCREASINGLY CONCERNED ABOUT THE STATE OF OUR NAVY: There is Dysfunction, and then there’s USS Manchester (LCS 14) Gold Crews in 2023. “You know those stories that the more you read it and the more you ponder it, the worse it looks? And then, when you see the reaction of the Navy to it, it just makes less sense? Well, this is one of those stories. . . . At the bottom of the post, look at the CV of Marrero. She knew the danger she was putting the ship in, not to mention the outright insubordination floating around in a stew of ethical, legal, and yes moral failures. This isn’t just a bunch of junior Sailors being Sailors. Not by a long shot. I can understand an individual failure, but an entire Chiefs’ Mess? . . . Unauthorized Wi-Fi systems like the one Marrero set up are a massive no-no for a deployed Navy ship, and Marrero’s crime occurred as the ship was deploying to the West Pacific, where such security concerns become even more paramount among heightened tensions with the Chinese. . . . Here is a funny side-note, as of the evening of September 3rd, Senior Chief Marrero’s bio showing her as still the Command Senior Chief is still on SURFPAC’s website. In case they take it down soon or overnight, here’s the screenshot.”

Still up as of the morning of 9/5. The Chiefs used to be the solidest part of the Navy. The new Pentagon management seems to have put an end to that.

UPDATE: Related: The Future of War Is Electronic: An audacious Ukrainian incursion into Russia shows why. Is the Pentagon paying enough attention? “Think of electronic warfare as casting spells on an invisible battlefield. Combatants strive to preserve their own signals, while disrupting those of the enemy. In Kursk, the Ukrainians took advantage of their technical knowledge to achieve a leap in battlefield tactics. Using a variety of electronic sensing systems, they managed to figure out the key Russian radio frequencies along the invasion route. They jammed these frequencies, creating a series of electronic bubbles that kept enemy drones away from Ukrainian forces, allowing reconnaissance units, tanks and mechanized infantry to breach the Russian border mostly undetected. This is the chaotic way of modern combat: a choreography of lightweight, unmanned systems driven by a spiderweb of electronic signals. . . . America has a reputation as a global innovator, yet it trails in the dark arts of electronic warfare. Improvised jamming systems and dozens of counter-drone systems have created a spectral environment that the U.S. military isn’t yet prepared to navigate. American drones and munitions frequently can’t overcome the jamming of their guidance systems. Yet we send them to Ukraine, where the Russians often scramble them before they reach their targets.”

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: “On campus today, students who agree with administrators and professors, still get to play the role of “dissident.” You can be the teacher’s pet, and still embrace radical chic. You can break the rules that govern protests, and know that administrators won’t deliver meaningful punishment. You can shout down speakers you disagree with, and still claim to be the free speech victim.”

Related: Harvard University Not Cooperating With DA’s Investigation Into Students Charged With Assault of Jewish Classmate.

TRUTH:

Nothing in U.S. history comes close to the interference caused by the letter engineered by Antony Blinken (working for Biden’s 2020 campaign) signed by 51 intel officials falsely claiming Hunter’s laptop had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” https://t.co/T4eL8qOzrr

— Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) September 4, 2024

LIFE IN THE BLUE ZONES: Jewish CUNY students berated by masked anti-Israel protesters who blocked entrance of kosher deli, hurled racist remarks at them.

OPEN THREAD: Your special time, your special place.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Should we regulate the moon? Scientists call for international plan to share lunar water and resources. That’s not really what the rather interesting article is about, though. Bad headline.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS MORE OR LESS ADMITTED THEY EXIST: Surging Belief in Alien Visitors Is Becoming a Serious Problem For Our Society.

GOOD: MIT Makes Titanium Alloys Tougher and More Flexible Than Ever.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Embattled Georgia DA Fani Willis showed up to site of daughter’s arrest with prosecutor lover long after pair claimed affair ended, bodycam footage shows.

PROFILE: Yale Law School’s Keith Whittington: ‘A Conservative Free-Speech Rock Star.’

MY SISTER JUST BOUGHT A USED ARMADA. IT’S VERY LARGE. Does the New 2025 Nissan Armada Make the Infiniti QX80 Irrelevant?

Well, here’s one selling point: “But the Armada’s interior has one irrefutable advantage. Instead of using a touchscreen for climate and vehicle settings as in the Infiniti, the Nissan uses straightforward, foolproof physical switches to change temperature, fan speed, or drive mode—too uncommon in new cars these days.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Global stocks tumble after Wall Street drops on worries about the economy.

EXCEPT MACHETES IN THE HANDS OF IMMIGRANT MUSLIM TERRORISTS, IT WOULD BE RACIST TO GO AFTER THOSE: Knives Out: After Virtually Outlawing Guns, U.K. Officials Now Coming After Knives.

ANSWERING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do aphrodisiacs work? What the science says.

SHELDON COOPER HARDEST HIT: String Theory Has Failed for 40 Years.

PROGRESS: New $100M computer will apply AI to boost NOAA’s weather forecasting capabilities.

AS HIS BRAIN DAMAGE RECEDES, HE GROWS STEADILY MORE SENSIBLE Not sure what’s going on with the other Democrats. . . .

Good on @SenFettermanPA https://t.co/gGE7oH61EQ

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) September 4, 2024

WELL, GOOD: Study: Using Ozempic, Wegovy won’t increase risk of depression, suicide.

HE’S RUINED HIS LAST THANKSGIVING WITH WOKE POLITICS, I GUESS:

🚨 BREAKING: The *entire* family of Kamala Harris running mate Tim Walz just endorsed TRUMP. This is the greatest troll of the 2024 election 🤣 pic.twitter.com/579a7iPLBp

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) September 4, 2024

I HOPE WE’RE NOT TOO MESSIANIC, OR A TRIFLE TOO SATANIC: Yale divinity students forced to read from witch’s ‘spell’ at orientation.

One of these small group periods was the first activity of orientation. Participating as an incoming student in one of these circles, I saw how the discussion opened with a set of “Restorative Circle Rules.” These rules boiled down to a warning to be open minded: all viewpoints were expected to be heard, that you only have to take what you want from the circle and participate as wanted – at least nominally.

After this show of inclusion, we as students were led to read aloud, line by line and one by one, from Adrienne Brown’s “Radical Gratitude Spell.”

Brown (pictured) has been described by Meeting of Minds as a “mixed-race Black queer American writer, community organizer, facilitator, witch and- may I say- goddess.”

Brown herself ascribes to witchcraft, and it informs her public work. Her website describes her as someone who “grows healing ideas in public” through “her writing, which includes short- and long-form fiction, nonfiction, spells, tarot” and “her music, which includes songwriting, singing and immersive musical rituals.”

This context of Brown, her work, and her particular spiritual inclinations was not given to students before participating in the reading. As such, the group reading of the spell took on an undeniable coven-like feeling, with students unable to fully consent to the pseudo-ritual knowingly, despite the Circle Rules.

A second-year student, who requested to remain anonymous, expressed to me a deep concern over this act by the orientation staff. The student called the provided spell “bizarre,” and “gross,” especially for students to not be told of the author or intentions behind the spell before being led to participate.

Consent is the most important thing in the world, except when it’s not.

MINNESOTA NICE: University of Minnesota rejects anti-Israel divestment proposal after extensive debate, activists respond by saying ‘we don’t want to make the regents’ lives comfortable.’

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents rejected a proposal to divest from companies that have connections to Israel after demands by campus anti-Israel groups.

The decision was announced on Tuesday following a Board of Regents meeting. In a press release, the university announced that a “position of neutrality” will be applied to investments in its Consolidated Endowment Fund.

”After careful consideration of all this input, we believe today’s action honors our fiduciary duty and the long-term needs of the University,” said UMN’s Board of Regents Chair Janie Mayeron. . . .

Anti-Israel students at the university held a news conference after the Board of Regents announced its decision not to divest from companies connected to Israel, saying that they would continue to protest in support of their cause, according to CBS News.

“[We’ll] continue to do a lot of the same disruptive actions that we had over the past year,” said UMN student Faye Hodges. “And I think that, again, we don’t want to make the regents’ lives comfortable and our university functioning as usual while our tuition dollars are being spent on something that over 70% of the student body voted against.”

Campus Reform reported in July about UMN Interim President Jeff Ettinger’s admission that he signed a document that contained a reference to “Hamas’ foundational mission to exterminate Jews in Israel.”

“That was a mistake by our administration. The way things transpired that day, we ended up finalizing that document at 5 a.m.,” Ettinger explained at the time. “Those topics were characterized by the students as their demands. We looked at them as topics, but clearly, I didn’t even know what that word meant.”

If the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy set out to destroy the position of higher education in American society, it couldn’t do a better job than the left is doing on its own.

AUDIENCES LOVE THE REAGAN MOVIE, CRITICS NOT SO MUCH:

Is anyone surprised at this gap?

BYRON YORK: What Kamala Harris means by ‘freedom.’ “A shorter version of that might be that ‘freedom’ tested well.”

It’s what people want, not what she plans to deliver.

WELL, BUT THE DOJ HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY CORRUPTED: Here’s Where FBI Officials Realized What Could Be the DOJ’s Goal in Raiding Mar-a-Lago.

What would the government do about the classified materials still stored at Mar-a-Lago? It’s a meeting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice didn’t want to have, but they were mulling options over how to obtain the rest of the files. NBC News penned a lengthy article about this heated meeting, where the FBI was concerned about the optics of raiding a former president’s home while top DOJ officials couldn’t care less. The bureau was also concerned about the political donations made by Jay Bratt, a top DOJ prosecutor, who supposedly was apolitical to his core, a consummate professional who harbored no anti-Trump bias: He just donated to the political rival party. Bratt wasn’t giving money like the late Sheldon Adelson, but it’s the principle of the matter—the officials in this room, at this rank, shouldn’t be making such contributions.

Steven D’Antuono, now retired, was then chief of the Washington bureau office for the FBI, and he wanted a conciliatory and less-than-hostile approach to repossessing the files at Mar-a-Lago. The funny part about this meeting was that the main narrative used by the DOJ to storm Trump’s Florida residence was over national security concerns. The house was guarded by the Secret Service. The files were in a secure location.

In D’Antuono’s mind, there was no need to execute a storm-the-Bastille-like operation. Everyone at this meeting knew their careers were on the line, along with the severe political ramifications if things went sideways. It’s also where the FBI stumbled upon the DOJ’s main aim against the former president regarding the files, the raid, and how to catalog the legal documentation for a judge to sign off on the search. Trump would need to be accused of committing a crime, one that could bar him from political office.

Whenever they tell you somebody’s an apolitical straight-shooter, an institutionalist, they always turn out to be the worst of political hacks. See, e.g., Merrick Garland.