August 12, 2026

ABE GREENWALD: Welcome to Woke 2.

It’s now clear that the fiercest elements have indeed come out on top. The revolution is no longer dominated by the ideas of featherweight academics such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. All that redemptive white fragility and anti-racism and intersectionality was sundered in a flash after October 7, 2023. A few bestselling authors didn’t stand a chance against the Marxist-jihadist alliance that swooped in with its genocidal chants and terrorist regalia. Woke 2, if we’re going to call it that, is in the hands of Communists and Islamists.

The word “crazy” is inadequate to the moment—when New York City’s mayor doxes thousands of innocent people; when someone who worked in a former al-Qaeda front group is a Democratic congressional nominee in New Jersey; when leading candidates around the country belong to a political party that wants to abolish national borders, the Senate, the presidency, and Israel; when CEOs are gunned down on the streets, and when elected Democrats stage run-ins with Jews in the West Bank.

Yes, that’s the other part of my warning that has also come to pass. The non-revolutionary Democratic establishment has thrown in with the leaders of Woke 2. They’ll flock to the revolution’s winners, whoever they may be. Having distanced themselves from defunding the police, pronoun enforcement, and “gender-affirming care,” they now rail against Jewish money, Jewish influence, and the Jewish state.

AOC is denouncing Woke 1 because crazy really is a political loser. But evil? Evil’s got legs.

Sadly, I think we may be forced to see them: Alert: The Brocialists Are Dandymaxxing.

 

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Google cofounder Sergey Brin has now spent $100 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses.

According to a filing from Friday, Brin donated an additional $20 million to Building a Better California, a PAC and political advocacy organization opposing the state’s billionaire tax and supporting other pro-business policies and housing and infrastructure affordability. He has now given a total of $102 million to the group.

Proposition 40, which will be on the ballot in November, would impose a one-time, 5% tax on California’s 200 billionaires, with 90% of the revenue from the proposed measure going toward the state’s health care program and 10% going toward education, food assistance, and administration. Brin, with a net worth of nearly $270 billion, could owe more than $13 billion as a result of the tax.

Previously: Gavin Newsom urges a national ‘billionaires’ tax’ while fighting one in California.

Democrats want a national billionaire tax (that will mysteriously end up applying to far lesser beings) on the national level in the hopes that there will be nowhere to hide from it.

Posted at 3:50 pm by Stephen Green

GO AWAY: New surveillance tech links your phone to your license plate.

Imagine that you share a ride to work with the same colleague most mornings. As it passes by a license plate reader, the camera records the car, which can be linked through vehicle records to its registered owner. Beside it, another sensor detects signals broadcast by devices traveling nearby, such as your phone and your colleague’s smartwatch.

After enough trips, software may treat some of those devices as a recurring electronic signature associated with the vehicle. Weeks later, one of the same device signals appears alongside a different car connected to an investigation. The signal itself may not contain its owner’s name, but its previous association with a known vehicle gives investigators another clue they can use to work out who was carrying the device.

SignalTrace, a system marketed by the security company Leonardo, is designed to work alongside automatic license plate readers. The company says it can recognize groups of consumer devices that regularly move together, then associate them with license plate records and time-stamped locations. The pattern can then be searched even when a police investigator does not know the plate number.

Wanted: A car-sized Faraday cage.

Posted at 2:48 pm by Stephen Green

WOKE 2.0 HAS SUCCESSFULLY DEFUNDED THE FASHION POLICE: Alert: The Brocialists Are Dandymaxxing.

 

 

Posted at 2:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Tax refunds gone for ‘foreseeable future’ under Prop NN.

A measure referred to Colorado’s November ballot by the legislature would allow the state to keep and spend over $850 million in just the first two budget cycles after passage, revenue that otherwise would be refunded back to taxpayers.

Majority Democrats passed Senate Bill 26-135 during the last legislative session, which placed Proposition NN on the ballot. The measure would allow the state to retain excess tax dollars collected over the current Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) revenue cap to spend on public education and cover homestead property tax exemption reimbursements.

According to a new report by the Common Sense Institute, Prop NN would increase state spending by $329.9 million in fiscal year (FY) 2027 and $521 million in FY 2028, totaling $850.9 million over the two years.

Those are funds that would otherwise be sent back to taxpayers under TABOR, the constitutional amendment that limits growth of a portion of the state budget to a formula of population growth plus inflation. TABOR also requires voter approval for tax increases, among other things.

If NN passes, Dems will pass along our tax refunds to their cronies in public education.

It’s For the Children™, of course, but as always, little or none of the additional monies will reach any classrooms.

Posted at 1:46 pm by Stephen Green

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Jason Arday is far from an aberration in higher learning:

 

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

KURT SCHLICHTER: Ignore the Poll Dancers.

If you look at the pollsters for this November, and if you believe them, things look fairly dire for the GOP and, therefore, America. But if you dig a little deeper, you see a lot of the big-picture polls show that blue areas are really, really, really running up the score for the Democrats, while red areas are much closer but are still red. And some of the results are just flat-out insane. The idea that James Talarico has the lead in Texas doesn’t work for me. I’m going to be in Texas soon in the run-up to the election, and it’s entirely possible that I’ve completely misjudged things, but it’s not likely. There are a lot of libs in Texas because there are a lot of Texans. Still, the idea that a majority of Texans are going to vote for the blasphemous sexually ambiguous creeper who wants to ban guns and hates meat and who looks like he shouldn’t be allowed within 1,000 feet of a kindergarten just doesn’t work.

Don’t get cocky. And as Kurt concludes, “Just don’t let the pollsters get you down. You can’t control what they tell you, but you can control one vital thing — your own actions and your own vote. Write checks to favored candidates. Go out and knock on doors for favored candidates. Vote for patriotic candidates who don’t want to eradicate America or ban Thanksgiving. And keep hanging up on those irritating pollsters.”

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE OCCUPIED ZONES: Mamdani and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week (and It’s Only Wednesday).

It started so innocently, as these things do, with New York City’s young socialist mayor demanding nonsensical NYPD coverage for his activist wife’s ego-trip to Syria and Lebanon later this month. By the time the week was over, Zohran Mamdani’s rent control scheme was a shambles, his signature pied-à-terre tax was on judicial hold, and Florida was mocking him as its “Economic Developer of the Year” on a Times Square digital billboard.

Oh, wait — it’s only Wednesday.

Much more at the link.

Posted at 1:15 pm by Stephen Green