OLD AND BUSTED: Genetically engineered Frankenfood is a “gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong.”

THE NEW HOTNESS: Let’s make lettuce that gives you an mRNA vaccine when you eat it! “[We] have long-term goals of people growing it in their own gardens… Farmers could also eventually grow entire fields of it.”

Dr. Ian Malcom’s wisdom is needed now more than ever.

JUST OUT: THE LARGEST COLLEGE FREE SPEECH POLL IN HISTORY, PLUS CAMPUS-SPECIFIC RANKINGS. Where does your school rank in the 2021 College Free Speech Rankings? #1 or #154?

Some topline bad news: 61% of college students oppose allowing campus speakers who say COVID lockdowns infringed on our personal liberties. 1 in 4 might use violence to stop a speech. But individual campuses can be very different.

WELL, HE’S GOT US THERE. “Early this year, when Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. took down former U.S. President Donald Trump’s accounts, Mr. Xi saw yet another sign America’s economic system was flawed—it let big business dictate what a political leader should do or say—officials familiar with his views said.” (Sorry it’s from a paywalled Journal story.) I’d call that a flaw in our political system – nobody has yet explained to me how anyone will believe we had a free and fair election if one candidate were to end up locked out of social media during the campaign – but it’s definitely a flaw.

As for the economic policy described here – “‘Xi does think he’s moving to a new kind of system that doesn’t exist anywhere in the world,’ said Barry Naughton, a China economy expert at the University of California, San Diego. ‘I call it a government-steered economy'” – I am pretty sure it did exist, and it was called national socialism. As with all command economies, it will ultimately flop.

MATT TAIBBI, NADINE STROSSEN, AND AMNA KHALID RESPOND TO NPR’S SMARTY-PANTS ATTACK ON FREE SPEECH. On FIRE’s excellent podcast, So To Speak. (Or catch it on YouTube if you love Google.) Yes, I know, “government-owned station attacks rights of people opposed to government” is one of those dog-bites-man stories, but the level of smugness NPR brings to the table (“Harpsichord music will tell people something is old and therefore dumb, hyuk yuk yuk”) has to be some of the weirdest kind of propaganda known to man.

WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AMERICA’S TOP GENERAL AND A CHINESE SPY? “Milley went so far as to pledge he would alert his counterpart in the event of a U.S. attack, stressing the rapport they’d established through a backchannel. ‘General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years. If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.'”

If true, this explains a lot about the decisions our “leaders” have been making lately.

I DARE YOU TO IDENTIFY WHAT HARVARD THINKS IS OFFENSIVE IN THIS NICKI MINAJ POSTER. Seriously, we need to know. Harvard didn’t say.

RELAX ABOUT THE PUSH FOR VACCINE MANDATES. The Supreme Court said more than a hundred years ago in Jacobson v. Massachusetts that vaccine mandates are constitutional. Indeed, vaccine mandates might even improve your liberty. The idea that such rules could set a dangerous precedent is simply paranoid. As one of America’s most famous jurists once pointed out,

The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

Oh.

Well, crap.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): The Horrific Outcomes of the Jacobson Case You’re Using to Justify Biden’s Vaccine Mandates.

Plus: The Irrepressible Myth of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. “During the COVID-19 outbreak, Jacobson v. Massachusetts became the fountainhead for pandemic jurisprudence. Courts relied on this 1905 precedent to resolve disputes about religious freedom, abortion, gun rights, voting rights, the right to travel, and many other contexts. But Justice John Marshall Harlan’s decision was very narrow. It upheld the state’s power to impose a nominal fine on an unvaccinated person. No more, no less. Yet, judges now follow a variant of Jacobson that is far removed from the Lochner era decision.”

SNARK AND LIES ARE NOT A PLAN. It’s not just Rolling “Fact checking? Whatever, man” Stone participating in the “code red” on Ivermectin. The FDA itself contributed this professional and sober-sided tweet:

Who doesn’t want misleading Twitter snark from their supposedly serious government agencies? The FDA knows perfectly well that Ivermectin is not just horse or cow medicine – the agency itself approved it for human use, just not for COVID. (Take it from me, it’s a miracle when head lice is going around your kids’ school.) It being used for both humans and animals has zero to do with whether it works for COVID. If you wonder why nobody trusts the FDA on COVID issues, this is why – there’s no reason you should.

THE UNC ATHLETIC SCANDAL 10 YEARS IN – FROM A STUDENT WHO WAS THERE. Aside from the obvious fact that D1 revenue athletes are barely students, I think universities put so much effort into athletics in order to distract from their manifest failures to be universities. How can you attack the ole alma mater when you’re rooting for it on the gridiron or court? Colleges know this, and they’re counting on it.

HARD EVIDENCE THAT “CANCEL CULTURE” IN ACADEMIA IS, IN FACT, AS BAD AS YOU THINK. FIRE’s new report found that an alarming 74 percent(!) of the 426 campaigns found that targeted college faculty for their expression resulted in punishment.

Also, in extremely related news, FIRE has launched a Faculty Legal Defense Fund to provide lawyers, at no cost, to public college faculty members targeted for their expression. Know someone like that? Send them our way!

JAN. 6 COMMITTEE TO SEEK PHONE RECORDS OF LAWMAKERS. Norms are being restored so much that we’re gonna get sick and tired of all the norm restoring. (Hat tip to Ace of Spades this time – I had missed this insanity.)

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Call me cynical, but could this be an effort to trump up an excuse to expel some Republicans so as to protect Pelosi’s majority in the House?

THE ESTABLISHMENT: WE MUST DRIVE BADTHINK OFF BIG SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS. ALSO ESTABLISHMENT: ALTERNATE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS ARE FULL OF BADTHINK! Oh no. Who could have predicted this.

After the relentless efforts to destroy Gab for refusing to censor people, I can’t think of a single reason why Andrew Torba should care what the media or Silicon Valley thinks, except to predict their next attempt to kill the company.

POLICE CARS INTENDED TO ENCOURAGE BRITS TO “REPORT INCIDENTS SUCH AS SOCIAL MEDIA COMMENTS.” Welp.

Reached at his home in Market Snodsbury, Commissioner Cyril Fotheringay-Phipps had the following comment:

Update (from Ed): In accordance with the prophecy:

(Updated and bumped.)

NEW BOOK, ‘UNDOCTRINATE,’ FROM FIRE’S BONNIE SNYDER, COMING SEPTEMBER 14. Yes, you can push back when your kids get indoctrinated instead of educated. Snyder shows you how.

UPDATE: For those avoiding Amazon, some alternative sellers.

PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF CENSORSHIP. Glenn’s earlier post about Facebook censoring an Asimov quote about censorship – a decision that inexplicably survived Facebook’s appeal process – brings up a point opponents of censorship (including me) don’t make enough: It seems apparent that the “line workers” of the censorship apparatus are, in the aggregate, too stupid and/or ignorant to do the job. This makes sense, though. Who else would do it?

(It’s also possible the big companies have hired non-Americans to do this who don’t understand English or America very well. That’s actually worse, if true.)

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY. This simply can’t be the best the United States of America can do, even in defeat.

NAVY COULD RETURN TO USING PHOTOS FOR PROMOTIONS: “The Navy could include service photos in promotion packages again after data suggested minorities are less likely to be selected blindly in some situations by promotion review boards, the service’s chief of personnel said Tuesday… [Marine Brig. Gen. A.T. Williamson said,] ‘There are elements of the photo that are…very helpful for us. I think that we may find that we may have disadvantaged individuals by removing those photos from the boards.'”

I kept waiting for the twist that would tell me that this isn’t what it looks like, but it never came.

IF THIS IS TRUE, “DEMOCRACY” DESERVES IT: Actual Atlantic headline. I read it so you don’t have to. Basically, Lindell thinks the Chicoms stole the election by hacking it in Biden’s favor and is spending millions trying to prove it using experts, holding a conference, etc., after which the Supreme Court will vote to put Trump back in office. Article author Anne Applebaum doesn’t think he will be able to prove it, but assuming he did somehow, he would apparently be destroying democracy by… putting the actual winner of the election back in office.

Exit question: We have been hearing a whole lot since January 6 about how our “democracy” is threatened, but is there any substantial number of evil terrorist seditious insurrectionist Q-anon folks out there who don’t think Trump was, in fact, the actual winner of the election?

IS SUBSTACK THE “LAST, BEST HOPE FOR FREE SPEECH?” I think it’s proved that people will actually pay for journalism when it’s interesting and useful (as opposed to solely click-driven) but Substack is still a single point of failure – and the pressure to censor that will be brought on its management once enough powerful people get angry is immense. It would be wise for them, or someone who’d want to compete with them, to come up with a monetized, distributed model to flee to when the time comes.

TURNING CARBON CREDITS AND GREEN GIVEAWAYS INTO BITCOIN: Is it crazy, or are you crazy not to do it? (You also get all-you-can-eat beef.) A rare plan to help normies benefit from these absurd subsidies.

HUBBLE BACK UP AND RUNNING AFTER SWITCHING TO BACKUP #2 OF 3. Backup #1 didn’t work. The James Webb Space Telescope is on the way, but it’s mostly infrared, not visual light, and was originally scheduled for launch in 2007.

“STUDENTS WORE ‘WHITE LIVES MATTER’ SHIRTS. THEIR SCHOOL WON’T TALK ABOUT IT.” Vice News tries whipping up a cancel culture mob against some random teens in rural Pennsylvania. “[T]he school allegedly hasn’t addressed the students’ behavior in any meaningful way.” It sent them home, which is already unlawful under Tinker unless the shirts caused a disturbance, and they have graduated. Who knows what actually happened here (not Vice, that’s for sure), but we can’t have a society where simply wearing a Black Lives Matter t-shirt is legally fine but a White Lives Matter t-shirt is not.

THE ‘ELITES’ ARE DETERMINED TO CRASH THIS COUNTRY WITH NO SURVIVORS. From Politico:

Democrats for years have pushed the agency responsible for Fannie and Freddie to expand homeownership and narrow the racial wealth gap….

[President and CEO of the National Housing Conference David] Dworkin, and other housing advocates want FHFA to allow Fannie and Freddie to take on more financial risk — meaning more government intervention backed by taxpayers — in the name of expanding access to mortgages.

Among their ideas: Giving Fannie and Freddie free rein to purchase mortgages with lower credit scores, allowing private lenders to make more of those loans…

Dworkin said the companies today have “almost no measurable risk in their book of business,” which includes borrowers who hold “extraordinarily high” credit scores and very few first-time homebuyers with low down payments.

So, 2008 all over again, but this time after we already printed $4 trillion in a single year. Folly of this magnitude simply cannot be chalked up to stupidity. Better grab your original Hunter Bidens if you want to ride out the storm, as they are one asset we know will be made to hold their value.

VIRGINIA GOP DEMANDS UVA INVESTIGATE LARRY SABATO OVER POLITICAL TWEETS. Would everyone please stop doing this? It’s unconstitutional, plus, does anyone think this is convincing people? I get it, it’s an arms race and both sides do it, but someone has to be the first to walk away.

LINCOLN PROJECT’S STEVE SCHMIDT: JAN. 6 CAPITOL RIOT LEGACY WILL KILL MORE AMERICANS THAN 9/11. Setting aside my instinctual revulsion at this comparison, I don’t think you can separate the two events. You don’t get a “1/6” (sigh) without the massive unleashing and growth of the security state that is the legacy of 9/11. I don’t think you even get a Trump presidency.