WHY LIBERALS DON’T UNDERSTAND MIDDLE AMERICA: Matt Taibbi gets Thomas Frank, who wrote: “Why shouldn’t our culture just get worse and worse, if making it worse will only cause the people who worsen it to grow wealthier and wealthier?” Put another way, progressives are [culture] war profiteers.

No wonder our culture continues its slide into alienation, division, and coarseness. Middle America is under attack, which makes the Trump ascension entirely understandable. If progressives keep it up, they will deservedly fail much like Operation Barbarossa, exhausted, over-extended and suffering unremitting counter-attacks.

I don’t agree with all of his analysis, but Taibbi’s review of Frank’s latest book — “The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism” — should be required reading for all journalists, political junkies, elected officials, bloggers Left and Right, etc. etc.

Taibbi begins to remind me of James Burnham, the former leftie whose 1964 book “Suicide of the West: An Essay on the Meaning and Destiny of Liberalism” remains as relevant today as it ever was.

HERE’S THE DARK MONEY TREASURE CHEST FUNDING BLM, DEFUND THE POLICE: Leave it the Capital Research Center’s Hayden Ludwig to turn over all the rocks and uncover the slimy progenitor of dark money, the Tides Foundation, plus George Soros, funding BLM and a host of related radical left groups.

WHAT IT’S UNFAIR OF US TO EXPECT SCIENCE TO DO IN THE PANDEMIC: Lots of good, old-fashioned common sense from Drew Covert, plus a dash of scriptural truth. Don’t miss the different reactions of Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy.

IS IMMUNITY A CASE OF ROTHBARD’S LOST KNOWLEDGE? As Jeffrey Tucker explains, that would be something that was generally known but which for unexplained reasons is lost and must be re-discovered. My thought is we aren’t re-discovering immunity to COVID-19 quickly enough.

And if you are of a mind to do a deep-dive on the data, Tucker did it and reached this conclusion: “The claim that lockdowns control viruses is pseudoscience or magical thinking of a deeply dangerous sort; it wrecks economies and lives.” 

NOW THEY’RE BURNING BIBLES IN PORTLAND: What does burning Bibles have to do with “protesting” in Portland? Nothing at all, but it does show everything we need to know about the rioters true intention. Not that there was ever any doubt about that.

MORE ABOUT THE WASHINGTON POST’S NEWSROOM APPARATCHIKS: Hans Bader sees a major step in the “debasement of journalism.”

THEY WERE CALLED ‘POLITICAL OFFICERS’ IN THE SOVIET UNION: At the Washington Post, the title is “Managing Editor for Diversity and Inclusion.” I wonder if she will have rewrite authority to ensure strict compliance with the party line in every story? Remember Ivan Putin in “Hunt for Red October”?

IS THIS THE SANEST MAN IN OREGON? Billy J. Williams is the U.S. Attorney for Oregon. How he responds to narrative-pushing journalists in a recent interview about the continuing violence in Portland is a model of straight talking, fact-based toughness.

WHAT DOES GOD SAY ABOUT RACE? There is a long-standing liberal stereotype about Southern Baptist preachers that became stale quite a while ago. So this Maryland pastor’s recent two-part sermon on God and race may shock some folks, but at least they’ll gain a more accurate understanding. I suspect that most Americans, regardless of their faith or lack thereof, hold similar views, that skin color is irrelevant. Just ignore the lame jokes.

COVID RELIEF FOR NASA? Yes, $1.5 billion, and Taxpayers for Common Sense are wondering why.

ART FOR VLADDI’S SAKE: A Senate investigations subcommittee found a couple of Russian oligarchs used the U.S. high value art market as part of their effort to launder more than $120 million to Russia while evading American sanctions in 2014 in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s theft of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine.

ANTIFA THUGS THREATEN STREET PREACHER WITH VIOLENCE: This is pretty mild stuff compared to the nightly violence seen in places like Portland. The point, however, is that we will all be “street preachers” (and worse) if the Antifas of the radical Left aren’t soon stopped.

BRIT SHOWS HOW TO STAND UP TO, DEFEAT CANCEL CULTURE: Wow, Nick Buckley refused to be cowed, threatened a lawsuit, and insisted the cowardly woke board that fired him for accurately describing BLM and its goals be gone.

CALIFORNIA CHURCH REBELLION STIRS AGAINST COVID RESTRICTIONS: It’s happening with multiple congregations across the country, but the growing heat in California seems to be the leading edge of an accelerating movement. Here’s why these people are standing up and saying no. And why more will be doing so in the days ahead.

HERE’S HOW THE MEDIA FANS THE COVID ‘SURGE’ MYTH: When they told you “173 deaths occurred” on a particular day, odds are they are not telling the truth. Issues & Insights explains the chronic misrepresentation at the heart of the “surge.”

KNOW YOUR OPPONENT: How White Educated Female Liberals Are Destroying the Culture.

MEET IGGY DANCHENKO, THE STEELE DOSSIER’S ‘PRIMARY SUBSOURCE:’ Paul Sperry of RealCearInvestigations has a stunningly detailed description of Danchenko, a Russian in the U.S. on a work visa, and his long connections to Christopher Steele, as well as the significant role played by the Brookings Institution’s Strobe Talbot, in funneling the Steele Dossier to the State Department.

Bottomline: The Democratic side of the Washington Establishment was up to its collective neck in the effort to discredit Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton as President. When that effort blew up on election day, the discrediting campaign became both an attempt to subvert Trump’s presidency and a defensive coverup of the whole rotten, subversive  conspiracy.

Sperry’s fine work should be read in conjunction with the Julie Kelly piece for American Greatness that Glenn linked late yesterday that comprehensively lays out the Brookings role in the conspiracy.

WERE INTELLIGENT DESIGN ADVOCATES CANARIES IN THE CANCEL CULTURE COALMINE? Evolution News’ David Klinghoffer points to the parallels between former New York Timesman Bari Weiss and what’s been known among ID scientists for a long time.

I HANG MY HEAD IN DESPAIR FOR MY PROFESSION: So I’m reading along in Roll Call reporter Jennifer Shutt’s story today on House passage of four spending bills that have little or no chance of passage in the Senate. It’s all the usual legislative blah-blah about billions in this bill, more billions in that one, amendments accepted, amendments defeated, growing concerns, etc. etc.

Then I read the last sentence: “There’s also broad frustration about the Trump administration’s decision to send federal officers, dressed in military-style uniforms, to Portland and Chicago to confront mostly peaceful protestors.” (Emphasis added).

How does such a falsehood make it into a news report presented as a credible, factual account of events on Capitol Hill? Perhaps (and it’s so faint a possibility as to be nearly invisible) Shutt has been too busy to watch any of the countless videos of sustained, organized and increasingly lethal Antifa/BLM violence directed against federal officers and property in Portland and Chicago.

But why didn’t one of her editors catch that glaring error? Has nobody on Roll Call’s copy desk seen the violence? It’s hard not to conclude that this is a disgusting illustration of left-wing narrative presented as credible news journalism. Worst of all, it’s likely the approach she learned in j-school.

I’m old enough to remember when writing a falsehood like that in a story draft more than once would get you canned because every news organization realized its most precious asset was its credibility with readers.

PORTLAND MAYOR CALLED OUT FOR FAKING TEAR-GAS INCIDENT: Uh-oh, the Rose City’s most righteous liberal may not be.

HOW REVERSE RACISM SPREADS OUTWARD FROM CAMPUS: Racial preferences launched in the 1970s for Black and Hispanic students seeking admission to elite schools like Harvard have put more minority kids in the classrooms, but that’s just the beginning of a destructive cycle for everybody involved.

Writing for RealClearPolitics, Linda Chavez points to the next step in the story:

“But blacks do not necessarily benefit, either, from the widespread adoption of racial preferences in admissions on their behalf. As Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr., pointed out in their comprehensive study of the effect of racial preferences in college admissions on black student performance, “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It,” schools using racial preferences end up admitting students who often place in the lower rankings of their class and struggle to finish college or pass professional exams.

“In turn, these students struggle more even after they graduate, failing to advance in their chosen careers if their college grades are subpar, which becomes proof for some not that preferences fail to achieve their goal, but that systemic racism follows blacks into the professional world, requiring yet more racial preferences in hiring and promotion.”

That in a nutshell is how legally sanctioned racial discrimination spreads from campus to government to corporate boardrooms. Once the official steps are taken away from the conviction that all men are equal to the fable that some are more equal than others, corruption spreads.

Or, to put it another way, if you begin with a fundamentally flawed understanding of the problem — think “systemic racism” or “Big Government” — your solutions won’t work, and you will be trapped in an endless cycle of failure that continually reinforces the original misconception.

GOP CONGRESSMAN SAYS IT’S TIME TO RE-OPEN THE CAPITOL TO PUBLIC: Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill) says Democrats aren’t planning to allow the public to resume visiting Capitol Hill before the November election. Davis says that ought to happen today. Also staff. And, most importantly, all representatives to be physically present in the House chamber when voting.

Davis is the ranking Republican on the House Administration Committee, which oversees the daily operations of the lower chamber and has oversight of federal elections.

AND ANOTHER MSM FABLE BITES THE DUST: Christopher Bedford, formerly of the Daily Caller News Foundation and more recently with The Federalist, finally gets The Atlantic to admit its recent piece, How I Became a Police Abolitionist, was based on, shall we say, its author’s creative skills rather than hard facts.

Again I ask, when do MSM outlets like The Atlantic (the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, et. al.) apologize to readers for repeatedly presenting lies as truth?

ON THE DEATH OF PORTLAND: There was a time when Portland, Oregon, was known as “The Rose City,” a civilized, pleasant and prosperous place to live in the American Northwest. In its heyday, Portland had an annual rose festival and it even had an annual Indy car race!

But no more. As the Issues & Insights gang points out today, the city has become Mecca for every bomb-throwing, liberty crushing, lunatic Left-wing group:

“This is part of a pattern of how the Left works: Destroy the rule of law, the backbone of our free republic. Intimidate ordinary citizens into silence. Then support and elevate rule by power of unelected street thugs in Antifa and BLM. The meek may inherit the earth, but they won’t get the big cities.

“None of what we’re seeing should be viewed as a surprise or some sort of accident. Far from it. The city’s mayor, Ted Wheeler, and Portland’s far-left city council, have not only permitted the violence, but enabled and encouraged it – just as mayors in Seattle, Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have done.”

Now, people and businesses are fleeing Portland. At least for now, they still have some place to go to escape the Hell the Left has brought into their lives. But, as Ronald Reagan so often warned, what happens when there is nowhere left to escape to?

IF IT’S THIS BAD IN OKLAHOMA: What would you do if you got the email Jenni White describes regarding your child’s enrollment in a tax-supported college?