May 26, 2024

INTO THE LIONS’ DEN: Trump Was Booed Relentlessly at the Libertarian National Convention, Here’s Why That’s a Good Thing for Him.

TRUMP: “Only do that if you want to win. If you want to lose, don’t do that. Keep getting your three percent every four years.”

I sort of apologize to the more libertarian-leaning folks reading this, but only sort of. It’s all in good fun.

Long story short, showing up to face people who don’t like you is much more impressive than only speaking to adoring crowds. Trump isn’t going to lose a single vote because of the boos at the LNC, and by the end of his speech, he had drawn another important distinction with Biden. That’s a win.

In sharp contrast: Libertarian Chair Just Levels Biden Team After Their Hot Take About Rowdy Reaction to Trump Speech. “‘You didn’t even show up. You have zero credibility,’ she chastised them. Exactly. Trump made an effort, and you guys couldn’t even be bothered.”

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

THIS WILL END WELL: The Left’s war on merit comes for medical schools.

Most people don’t want diversity hires responsible for life-and-death matters. But new investigative reporting shows that the anti-meritocratic ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has even infiltrated some medical schools — to disastrous results.

These revelations come from the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, who just published a remarkable exposé on the University of California, Los Angeles, medical school. It alleges that the university has systemically violated laws prohibiting race-based admission and held applicants of different races to wildly different standards, all in an effort to boost diversity, while instead producing incompetent and unqualified doctors.

Based on conversations with many people inside the admissions office and the medical school, Sibarium recounts how things have gone drastically wrong ever since the appointment of DEI-obsessed Dean of Admissions Jennifer Lucero in June 2020.

“Faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed,” he reports.

One former member of the admissions team told the Washington Free Beacon that this approach has turned the institution into a “failed medical school,” concluding, “We want racial diversity so badly, we’re willing to cut corners to get it.”

If you think this is going to end well, I’ve got a bridge in Miami to sell you.

Posted at 12:36 pm by Ed Driscoll

GOODER AND HARDER: California Has Sacrificed its Energy Stability on the Altar of Green Energy ideology.

Governor Gavin Newsom and the legislature have not shied away from doubling down on their green energy crusade, enshrining in law mandates that 60% of the state’s electricity generation be renewable by 2030 and a staggering 90% by 2035. However, the glaring irony lies in the fact that many of these politicians will be long gone and termed out of office by the time these mandates become a reality, conveniently avoiding any accountability for the unattainable goals they set.

Meanwhile, nuclear energy, a proven and reliable zero-emission source, has been relegated to the back burner, shunned by the environmentalists who have the full attention of the majority party. Nuclear energy’s share of electricity generation has dwindled to a mere 8%. Even more frustrating, hydroelectric power, a historically dependable and cost-effective source, has been left to wither, with dams either languishing or being shuttered entirely.

In a desperate bid to try to please everyone, lawmakers thought it would be a good idea to propose a solution to base electricity bills on income. This quick fix is like putting a Band-Aid on a massive wound. It is not dealing with the problems causing our electricity bills to skyrocket: there’s not enough power to go around, and we are relying too much on expensive renewable energy sources. This half-baked solution might make things worse, creating even more shortages and higher prices, making people feel there is no point in trying to save energy if their costs are going to continue to rise.

While PG&E certainly bears culpability for its deferred maintenance and negligence in improving transmission lines, the lion’s share of the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the state itself, which has crafted a regulatory framework that prioritizes renewables at the expense of reliability. By neglecting nuclear, hydroelectric, and gas-powered plants, California has effectively sacrificed its energy stability on the altar of green energy ideology.

It is time for California’s leaders to wake up from their green energy fantasy and refocus their efforts on restoring reliable sources like dams, nuclear facilities, and gas plants. This reckless green energy experiment has only served to drive prices skyward, squander taxpayer dollars, and leave consumers in the dark —literally and figuratively. It is time to put pragmatism ahead of ideology and prioritize affordability and reliability in our energy policy for the betterment of all Californians.

Good luck turning the Titanic around. California has been pursuing its green fantasies ever since Jerry Brown replaced Gov. Reagan in 1975, and as a result imports 26% of the energy it needs. (And has for some time; City Journal ran the headline “California’s Potemkin Environmentalism” back in 2008.)

No wonder Steve Hayward recently dubbed the state “The North Korea of the USA.” As he wrote, “Never mind the social tyranny the state has attempted to impose, such as strict vaccine mandates, legal sanctions for anyone who dissents from transgender ideology or uses the wrong pronoun, and attempted legal penalties for any physicians who dissent from official Covid ideology. Stick with just economics.”

Posted at 12:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

JOHN NOLTE: ‘Mad Max with a Girl’ Faces Worst Memorial Day Weekend Debut in 41 Years.

Anyway, the sycophants at Deadline are in a tough spot with Furiosa. The prequel to Mad Max: Fury Road earned great reviews, opened on the perfect weekend for a blockbuster, and with no competition in its action lane. What’s more, it’s based on a successful franchise and Warner’s promoted the living hell out of it. So how does Deadline explain away this breathtaking failure? How does Deadline write around the truth of how stupid it is to make a girl the star of a movie called Mad Max?

In the Sycophancy Hall of Fame, this delicious piece of credibility-selling will earn a wing all its own:

Despite more movies in the marketplace, we’re still feeling the aftermath of the strikes. How is that? Many aren’t in the habit of moviegoing yet[.]

Many aren’t in the habit of moviegoing yet.

How far up Hollywood’s ass does one have to be to come up with a sentence like that?

Previously, these gerbils blamed the faltering box office on a lack of wide releases caused by the strike. That was easily proved a lie by comparing the number of pre- and post-strike wide releases. Turns out there is no lack of product. So now we’re being told the strike somehow took people out of the moviegoing habit.

What!?

Well, then, why were Barbie, Oppenheimer, and Dune 2 so successful? Why is Deadpool & Wolverine about to blow the doors off the box office?

Sorry, sycophants… The problem is not the three-years-gone pandemic, it is not the strike, it is not that people kicked their moviegoing habit, and it is not a lack of product. The problem is…

The product.

With very rare exceptions, the product sucks.  

And when you put a girl in a Mad Max movie, all the gushing reviews cease to matter because we can smell the affirmative action a mile away, and we know that movie reviewers, just like the corporate news media, cannot be trusted.

South Park’s “Panderverse” episode last year was only so-so as actual entertainment, but simply by making fun of the Kathleen Kennedy-style formula (“Put a chick in it! Make her gay! Make it lame!”), how much did that spell the death knell for this Hollywood cycle? (See also: the original Star Wars ending Hollywood’s 1970s obsession with dark European-inspired existentialism.) If Hollywood in 2024 does indeed wish its customers to return to “the habit of moviegoing,” then the industry has to decide if it wants to make product that entertains, or if it wishes to keep sermonizing. Because the latter formula, in the era of social media, when fans can quickly find out if the film is worth watching, or contains what Nolte once dubbed “the liberal sucker punch”), has run its course.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED:

The DNC-MSM crucified GOP vice presidential candidate Bob Dole in October of 1976 when he referred to the “Democrat Wars” of the 20th century:

“It is an appropriate topic, I guess, but it’s not a very good issue any more than the war in Vietnam would be or World 11 or World I or the war in Korea—all Democrat wars, all in this century. I figured up the other day, if we added up the killed and wounded in Democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit.”

Mr. Speakes was asked to inquire why the candidate would have denied using the phrase.

A few moments later, Mr. Speakes returned and said:

“He said you have to look in context at the whole thing. He did not recall this specific quote.”

He also quoted Mr. Dole as having repeated that “If it’s fair to blame Ford for Watergate, then it’s fair to blame the Democrats for the wars.”

Regarding Dole’s quote, in 2013, Michael Barone wrote: Not So Hawkish: Republicans after the Iraq War.

Only two Democrats (and no Republicans) voted against the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which Lyndon Johnson used as his license to send up to 550,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam. But by 1968, opposition to that war was welling up, primarily but not entirely within the Democratic party. LBJ was opposed for renomination by antiwar Eugene McCarthy and dropped out of the race. In 1972, Democrats nominated the dovish George McGovern. For nearly half a century, they have been the party less supportive of military intervention.

Not that Republicans have invariably supported it. Ronald Reagan aided the Nicaraguan Contras and intervened in Grenada but withdrew from Lebanon. He built up the military but didn’t find much occasion to use it. George H. W. Bush got approval from the United Nations before asking Congress to authorize the Gulf War. George W. Bush sought U.N. approval for Iraq, too.

Democrats remained obsessed with Vietnam. Their speeches opposing Contra aid and the Gulf and Iraq wars were full of arguments more relevant to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution than to the issue at hand. Some Democrats disagreed. Bill Clinton used force (without U.N. approval) in Serbia and Kosovo. Almost all Democrats supported intervention in Afghanistan after 9/11.

But almost all congressional Democrats tried to stop George W. Bush’s successful surge strategy in Iraq. Hillary Clinton found cause to question the veracity of General David Petraeus. The surge came too late to salvage the reputation of the Iraq War. Polls now show majorities think the war was a mistake. Most Republican politicians seem disinclined to suggest we should intervene anywhere else.

World problems loom: North Korea, Iran, Syria, North Africa. Barack Obama may choose to respond militarily. He has just beefed up missile defense in response to North Korea. If he follows up on his threat to attack Iran’s nuclear program, we could have a 2016 presidential race in which Republican Rand Paul criticizes military action and Democrat Hillary Clinton defends it.

That would be a political turnabout as stark as the one in the 1960s. Could it happen?

Over to you, Sean!

Posted at 10:44 am by Ed Driscoll

ROLLING STONE MAKES IN-KIND CONTRIBUTION TO TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: That Monster: Rolling Stone Calls Trump’s Promise of Cheap Gas, Energy Independence ‘Awful.’

 

In 2021, as Steve spotted, Rolling Stone “reported” that ‘Joe Manchin Just Cooked the Planet,’ which would mean that it’s far too late for Trump and the oil companies to do much more harm. Besides, how can we all still be here, after Dan Rather’s predictions for the hellscape that planet earth would become, presumably, by about, err, 1992:

But does Jann Wenner still own his private plane? I’m sure he’ll appreciate the fuel being much cheaper — as will everyone else outside of Biden’s handlers and other Green Nude Eel aficionados. Speaking of which, what’s all this talk about cheap gas? Didn’t AOC just spin this same news as Trump making gas much more expensive — something that she herself still wants, assuming she’s still onboard with her passion play of 2019?

Posted at 8:44 am by Ed Driscoll

HE WON’T BACK DOWN: Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker Breaks Silence, Says He Will Continue To Be ‘Unapologetic’ Catholic: Butker: ‘Never be afraid to speak out for truth, even when it goes against the loudest voices.’

UPDATE (From Ed):

Posted at 8:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

DON SURBER: Highlights of the News.

ITEM 1: NBC reported, “Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Thursday called a special session for the state’s Legislature to get President Joe Biden on the ballot this November, saying his patience has run out with his fellow Republicans who appear less than inclined to offer a legislative fix for a timing problem with the Democrat convention.”

Democrats refuse to obey the law but somehow Republicans are to blame.

DeWine is a reminder to pick up some shrimp at Captain D’s tonight.

ITEM 2: Biden sent condolences on the death of Iran’s president.

My thoughts and prayers are with the helicopter.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 8:14 am by Ed Driscoll

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW IS A SCAM: Did Tony Blinken Just Kill International Law? “Fans of international law may hail the ICC action as the next step toward establishing a legal regime to govern global affairs, but the warrant request is much more likely to be remembered as the Pickett’s Charge of their pet theories. Ironically, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the one to expose the highwater mark when he indicated to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday that the Biden administration would not oppose congressional sanctions against the ICC. If even liberal internationalists will not defend institutions like the criminal court, their influence will shrink considerably.”

A my International Law professor said, the World Court is a “fundamentally trivial body.” Now exposing itself as more trivial.

Related:

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH PHILADELPHIA IS SEEN AS A BEACON OF SANITY: While NYC descends into chaos, Philadelphia is a model of urban order.

How different a city looks without scaffolds! My eyes popped over main drags such as Market, Broad and  Walnut streets without the ground-level eyesores that make most every block at home appear shabby. Even Park Avenue, Broadway and Wall Street look as if bombs had fallen on them.

Philadelphia’s near-absence of bike lanes recalled the era when our own streets and sidewalks functioned as they were meant to: streets for motor vehicles, sidewalks for people on foot.

Philadelphia has about 20 miles of bike lanes; New York, its government in thrall to environmental zanies and cycle-advocacy bullies who shout down opponents, has more than 650 miles of them.

Philly motorists are spared the havoc wrought by the lanes in the form of congestion-breeding narrow streets and of cars forced to park in the middle of streets in order to create “protected” bike lanes.

But the greatest benefit is to people on foot. It took me three days to grasp that I could cross an intersection without a wrong-way cyclist bearing down on me, and to stroll sidewalks without fear of being sideswiped by heedless, law-breaking jerks on wheels — the norm from The Bronx to the Battery.

I was in Manhattan the week before last; my first trip there since 2019. With all of the bicyclists and e-scooters wreaking havoc at intersections, the city reminded me of Saigon as depicted in the 2008 Top Gear Vietnam special. But in communist Vietnam, cars are only now slowly arriving to displace the scooters. Over the last 20-30 years New Yorkers, led by the obsessions of former mayor Mike Bloomberg, have voluntarily ceded their city to what P.J. O’Rourke once dubbed “The Bicycle Menace,” aka “this dreadful peril on our roads.”

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

JONAH GOLDBERG: Flag-Gate and Other ‘Moral Panics.’

I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to make of the explosion of SOV sweeping through the chattering classes. In case you didn’t already know the term I just made up, that stands for Sudden Onset Vexillology. Vexillology, in case you’re not a Big Bang Theory fan, is the study of flags.

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the flag issue, per se, but a little context and scorekeeping seems necessary. Justice Samuel Alito—and his wife—are caught in a crossfire between vexillologists from all directions. This all started when the New York Times reported that shortly after January 6, the American flag outside the Alitos’ home was hung upside down. The upside-down Stars-and-Stripes is a long-recognized symbol of distress. If you have pirates on your ship or a hole in your hull, you should fly your flag upside down to signal you’re in very serious trouble. Apparently, some of the January 6 rioters and other MAGA radical types have adopted this as a kind of insignia of their movement: “The country is sinking!”

(According to reports, Mrs. Alito hung the American flag upside down as a middle finger to a really awful neighbor. More on that in a moment.)

The Times and many of Alito’s harshest critics are convinced that Justice Alito knew this and was telegraphing his solidarity with such people. But given that Justice Alito says it was his wife who displayed the flag upside down without his knowledge, some will concede the possibility that it is Mrs. Alito who has gone full MAGA. The controversy seemed poised to start dying down when the Times followed up with another report: The Alitos flew a “Pine Tree Flag” outside their vacation home. Despite being a venerable banner going back to George Washington (his secretary designed it) that was, until 1971, the official maritime flag of Massachusetts, we are told it too is a symbol of the MAGA-aligned Christian nationalist right. As a result, the controversy has gone back to 11.

I think most of Alito’s defenders concede, with varying degrees of reluctance or enthusiasm, that hanging the flag upside-down was a mistake, regardless of the motivations behind the decision. As for the Pine Tree Flag, the defenders concede nothing to the detractors. This, they argue, is little more than artificially ginned up and wholly unjustified outrage. “The Flag Furor Is an Appeal to Stupidity” read the headline of a piece written by my friend and former National Review colleague Charlie Cooke.

At the American Conservative, Jude Russo writes: The Alito Flag Furor Shows the Left’s Generational Change.

Perhaps the defining generational change in leftist rhetoric is its relation to the American project. Older leftist endeavors took their stand on firmly American principles and presented themselves as a continuation of the American project. The SDS itself grew out of the ad hoc free speech movement at the University of California, Berkeley. The entire Whole Earth Catalog–adjacent counterculture was suffused with a kind of Americanism, appealing particularly to the individualism of the frontier. Organs like the PBC had no qualms about decking themselves out with the symbols of the American experience, even the bad old Gadsden Flag. The modern left—you might call it the New New Left—prefers a disruptive hermeneutic hostile to the traditional symbols of American piety.

As a partisan, I should cheer this development. The American people, whatever their other preferences, still seem to like America. If the right seems to be the only shop in town that is offering a broadly pro-American stance, well, that seems good for the right’s political prospects. The Old New Left was successful in large part because it was able to integrate itself into the American mainstream, particularly at the universities and other commanding heights of American culture. But it seems bad for the nation that one of the major political tendencies is increasingly invested in attacking the nation itself, and its historical symbols.

Just to reiterate where things stand based on the headlines of the past few weeks:

Related: WaPo Passed on the Highly Controversial Alito Flag Incident at the Time.

I’d insert the usual “just think of the media as being Democratic Party operatives with bylines” reminder here, but as Jeff Jacoby recently noted, the WaPo has made it official: A cynical Washington Post tells Biden: Nothing matters more than beating Trump.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

May 25, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Saturday night’s all right for blogging. Get a little action in.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: ‘We mark this solemn day:’ Biden statement on anniversary of death of George Floyd.

Here is the official statement from U.S. President Joe Biden on the fourth anniversary of the death of George Floyd, Floyd died May 25, 2020 at age 46 while be detained by police in Minneapolis, His death sparked protests, calls for police and racial justice reforms and civil strife across the country.

The day before George Floyd’s funeral, his young daughter Gianna told me, “Daddy changed the world.” Four years after her father’s murder, there is no doubt that he has.

George Floyd should be alive today. His murder shook the conscience of our nation and reminded us that our country has never fully lived up to its highest ideal of fair and impartial justice for all under the law. What we witnessed as a result was one of the largest modern civil rights movements in our Nation’s history, with people from every background marching together against racism and systemic injustice.

Two years ago, alongside George Floyd’s family, civil rights leaders, and law enforcement officials, I signed an executive order to implement key aspects of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act with respect to federal law enforcement, including: restricting chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and establishing a database for police misconduct—all measures to advance effective, transparent and accountable policing.

My Administration has made significant progress in implementing this Executive Order, and will continue our work to build public trust and strengthen public safety. But real and lasting change at the state and local level will only come when Congress acts. That’s why I will continue to urge Congress to send the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which ensures law enforcement accountability, to my desk.

As we mark this solemn day tomorrow, we join George Floyd’s family in remembering his life and his legacy. We are vigilant of Black and brown communities who all too often have borne the brunt of injustice; and we recommit ourselves to honoring George Floyd’s legacy by ensuring our Nation lives up to its founding ideal that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives.

Or as the Onion noted on June 10th, 2020, just as that summer’s riot season began: Biden Flattered His 1994 Crime Bill Suddenly Starting To Receive So Much Attention.

Of course, as Jon Gabriel recently wrote: Welcome to protest season, where the cause changes but the tactics stay the same.

In 2017, the Women’s March was launched in reaction to the #MeToo revelations, while in 2018, the anti-gun March for Our Lives dominated headlines. Neither attracted much violence; you could find that at anti-Trump protests.

In 2019, Greta Thunberg grimaced at the United Nations over climate change, which apparently was solved by blocking traffic and throwing tomato soup on Van Gogh paintings. This Monday was Earth Day, but it didn’t get much coverage. Environmentalism is so five years ago.

The pandemic put the kibosh on public gatherings, which made mass protests a bit hypocritical. So, the anger went online. In 2021, it was COVID masks and vaccines, while in 2022, anyone skeptical of funding Ukraine was labeled a Putin devotee.

But those annoying COVID restrictions were put on hold back in 2020, just as the virus was at its peak. Black Lives Matter protests swamped cities from coast-to-coast, often peaceful during the day but turning ugly by night.

Downtown Seattle was turned into the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone while Portland burned for months.

Exit question:

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll