WHEN THE GRIFT STOPS WORKING: Ibram Kendi ‘anti-racist’ center at Boston University in freefall.
One anonymous worker at Kendi’s center told The New York Times that Kendi “doesn’t trust anybody” and “doesn’t let anyone in.” Kendi also allegedly said it was “racist” for employees to open up about their concerns.
Sounds like something a grifter would say.
THAT’S OKAY, SXSW HASN’T BEEN COOL FOR 20 YEARS: South By Southwest festival bars Army, defense industry from ‘sponsoring’ 2025 event.
But if we get into a war — so long as it’s under a Democrat — they’ll be cheerleading, a la Ukraine, at least for the first year or two.
THE NEW YORK TIMES PLAYS CATCH-UP WITH THE NEW YORK POST, AGAIN: NY Times Op-Ed: American Jews Should Abandon Elite Universities.
Or perhaps I should say Bret Stephens catches up with me.
DON SURBER: Journalists Are Panicking. “On a lighter note, the Media Research Center, reported, ‘Snowflake? The View’s Whoopi Goldberg Spits After Saying Trump’s Name.’ Granny Goldberg must be unaware of the meaning of Hawk Tuah.”
Here is a rather simple fact: inside the procurement system we have – including kludge workarounds like DEPSECDEF Hicks’s “Replicator” – if you believe that the window of greatest vulnerability for war with the People’s Republic of China is 2027 to 2032, which after initial skepticism I have grown to think is correct, then we will go to war with what we have now.
As such, you need to look at what those charged with stewardship of our defense are doing NOW to maximize production of what is a known capability NOW. Not PPT thick, not aspirational, not “sounds sexy.” No. Is ready to go now. Yes, continue to develop and experiment, but that is not the primary effort.
We have consumed the last quarter-century of “time” daydreaming through transformationalism and peacocking our arrogance over previous generations to create “game-changing” offsets in the “out-years.” We have gone through so many “offsets” and “revolutions in military affairs” that I have lost count … none to any meaningful effect.
I am not alone in seeing the present from the perspective of standing on the dung-heap of the promises, spin, hype, and overpromising of the last quarter-century. The breathless hype doesn’t work anymore.
You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want.
AN APOLOGY IS NICE, BUT HAVE THOSE RESPONSIBLE BEEN SACKED? OR PROSECUTED? IRS ‘Sincerely Apologizes To Ken Griffin And Thousands Of Other Taxpayers Whose Personal Information Was Leaked To The Press.’
The story doesn’t say, but there’s this from January: Former IRS Contractor Sentenced for Disclosing Tax Return Information to News Organizations. “A former IRS contractor was sentenced today to five years in prison for disclosing thousands of tax returns without authorization.”
ADD THIS TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS SUIT: Harvard dean threatens faculty who protest school’s mistreatment of Jews.
JEFFREY SINGER: The Pernicious Expansion of “Public Health.”
In the 1980s, when Surgeon General C. Everett Koop embarked on an effort to make America a “smoke‐free society by the year 2000,” it marked the beginning of an expanded role for the Surgeon General. Since Koop, Surgeons General have seen themselves as “the nation’s doctor.” They have influenced Congress to pass legislation on ever‐expanding “health issues.” And because one can find a health angle for so many activities or substances that autonomous adults choose to engage in or consume, “public health policy” is bleeding into adults’ right to pursue happiness.
The latest example came yesterday when Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a “public health crisis.” Murthy released an advisory stating, “Overall, deaths caused by guns rose to a three‐decade high in 2021, driven by increases in homicides and suicides.” He called on Congress to enact new gun regulations. Of course, lockdowns and the associated emotional stress and anxiety that resulted from the public health establishment’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic made 2021 an atypical year.
But, surely, someone on Murthy’s staff must have updated him that there was a 7.7 percent decline in gun violence from 2022 to 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This is the largest annual decline since the Archive’s inception in 2014. And according to a report from the Center for American Progress, “preliminary data suggest that gun violence broadly trended down in 2023 across the United States, representing a historic decrease.” Did Murthy jump the gun when he declared gun violence a public health crisis by not putting the 2021 gun violence data in proper context?
More importantly, criminal justice professionals best address homicides and other forms of gun violence, not doctors. Doctors and mental health professionals should work on suicide prevention, not gun laws.
Murthy’s claim that gun violence is a public health crisis comes just a week after he called on Congress to require social media platforms to display labels warning parents that engaging on these platforms may endanger adolescents’ mental health. Aside from the fact that the science is far from clear, as I have written here, a social media public health panic can push Congress to infringe on free speech rights. It may also encourage frivolous lawsuits that cause platforms to impose speech restrictions.
Policymakers should oppose public health and medical professionals’ efforts to expand the definition of health to encompass more human activities. If this pernicious trend continues, we risk evolving into a society governed by a partnership between unelected bureaucrats and a medical ruling class exerting social control.
As always with our political class, the goal is to exercise power without accountability.
RON HART: I’m with Hur. “No matter what you think of either candidate, only one has been deemed mentally competent to stand trial, and that is Trump. And stand trial he has, facing the Dems’ lawfare offensive. Robert Hur, the DOJ Special Counsel looking into Biden’s handling of classified documents, concluded that our president is too old and incompetent to stand trial. So, what do we do in America when our DOJ tells us that someone is not clear-headed enough to withstand a trial for a crime he clearly committed? We run him for president. That would be elder abuse in most cases.”
MATT TAIBBI: The Supreme Court Punts on Censorship.
The Supreme Court, predictably, sides with the corporate-gentry class. It doesn’t always do that, but . . . it’s the way to bet.
Though Jonathan Adler thinks it’s more about conservative justices’ enthusiasm for narrow standing. I, cynically, view standing as mostly a way for courts to get rid of cases they don’t want without having to take a position on the merits. Not everyone agrees with me. But I’m basically right.
Related: Ilya Somin: The Supreme Court’s Dangerous Standing Ruling in Murthy v. Missouri.
OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China’s state-owned SAST performs reusable rocket test.
I DUNNO, I’VE NEVER FELT ANXIOUS AFTER A PLATE OF RIBS: Eating a High-Fat Diet May Increase Your Anxiety, Study Warns.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: Welcome to “S*x with the Universe.”
READER BOOK PLUG: From my former student turned Naval Intelligence officer and naval historian, Nathan Canestaro, The Mighty Moo: The USS Cowpens and Her Epic World War II Journey from Jinx Ship to the Navy’s First Carrier into Tokyo Bay.
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: I Was Content With Monogamy. I Shouldn’t Have Been.
WITH GOOD REASON: Survey: Most People Are Uncomfortable With Sharing Their Driving Data.
Related: Don’t Track Me, Bro.
THEY’RE NOT REAL GOOD AT THINKING THROUGH SECOND-ORDER EFFECTS:
The Biden Administration forcing Ukraine to build its own deep strike weapons is going to be seen is future histories to have been a horrible strategic blunder.⬇️
A blunder that will cause world wide deep strike missiles proliferation past the Missile Technology Control Regime. https://t.co/IA2uYrSYMH
— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) June 24, 2024
Upside for Ukraine: Ready export market in Taiwan. And Israel.
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