OF COURSE HE DID: As undergrad, Abdul El-Sayed protested conservative students’ event condemning radical Islamic terrorism.

THE LEFT IS ALL HATE: Carnegie Mellon cracks down on Fence vandalism following anti-Israel messages.

KAROL MARKOWICZ: Lefties like AOC need to answer some questions before we move on from ‘Woke 1.’

Related: Far-left wants you to forget their ‘hot takes’ burned cities to the ground.

ME OVER AT LAW & LIBERTY: Sullivan Revisited: The outcome of the famous libel case rests on fabricated legal foundations.

TAKE A LESSON:

Remember this when someone says voting doesn’t matter. https://t.co/EHcx485l2h

— Owen Gregorian (@OwenGregorian) August 10, 2026

Flashback: Too-close Tennessee election warns GOP: Damning the left isn’t enough.

FLASHBACK:

THE COMEDY CONTINUES:

You’re going to have to explain the difference between a man saying he’s a woman and a man saying he’s a woman. https://t.co/UINQf27BEV

— Lola (@thefempire50) August 9, 2026

This is where the entire trans cult falls apart. We are told three of these men are women, we must accept, welcome and treat them as women without exception, including giving them full access to women's sport.

The forth man is apparently only pretending pic.twitter.com/nEaTgbRRPK

— RS Archer (@archer_rs) August 9, 2026

YET. AI Cannot Give Writers Something to Say.

I MEAN, HE’S NOT WRONG: Henry Rollins: ‘Communist Countries Suck.’

MAN BITES DOG: AN EXCELLENT, NON-PC ARTICLE IN THE ATLANTIC. Confessions of a Token Black Professor. Why I Quit the Tenure Track: The insufferable hypocrisy of elite academia. (Link was free to me, but here’s an archive link just in case.)

I attended an informal orientation event for early-career Black faculty, where I assumed we would talk about our research interests or simply get to know one another. Instead, the gathering felt more like a combined therapy session and HR seminar. At one point, someone casually rattled off a series of local establishments to steer clear of, vaguely implying that they were filled with bigots. Alarmed by the notion that race relations were so bad in Lewiston that there were places I should avoid eating, I asked why one restaurant in particular had earned a reputation for intolerance. My colleague said that a student of color had worked there and not liked it very much.

The source of the most intense racial monomania on campus, I came to realize, was senior leadership. . . .

In retrospect, it is no coincidence that wokeness blossomed at prestigious American colleges at the very moment when those schools were facing rising discontent over student debt and tuition costs. For the academic aristocracy, touting fealty to Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, trans rights, and other progressive movements served as a convenient distraction from the intractable economic and social issues that the colleges themselves were perpetuating. This allowed higher education to reclaim the moral high ground after Occupy Wall Street and the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign—to say nothing of the anti-elite fury that gave rise to Donald Trump—had kicked mud all over academia’s ivy-twined walls. Even better, embracing social-justice rhetoric and adopting schemes to boost faculty diversity were cheap. Cheaper, anyway, than lowering tuition or hiring more tenure-track professors.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.

Plus, this sequel on X:

I applied at Bates College during this time and my research is on Edward Abbey and American environmentalism @Tyler_A_Harper. Unless there was another similar candidate, I think this is me. Surreal! pic.twitter.com/jiPYs2vLrc

— Eytan (@EytanPol) August 10, 2026

STOPPING FRACKING WOULD HAVE WEAKENED AMERICA, AND THAT WAS THE GOAL:

It is the hydraulic fracturing scare all over again, often with the same protestors I saw in 2010.

Almost everything we do in our everyday lives is facilitated by a data power center just in the same way that almost everything we use every day requires natural gas.

So we need… https://t.co/zTR5FKmZ4p

— ZitoSalena (@ZitoSalena) August 10, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

A WORKING SPACE PROBE THAT’S OLDER THAN MOST PEOPLE ALIVE: NASA figured out how to keep its 48-year-old Voyager 2 probe running for yet another year.

AS ARTHUR C. CLARKE SAID, so far all consciousness is found in close proximity to a functioning brain. What if The Brain Doesn’t Create Consciousness? Scientist Proposes It Might Be The Fabric of Reality Itself.

STARLINK ADVANCES SCIENCE: Starlink Satellites Reveal a Hidden Atmosphere 300 Miles Above Earth.

ICYMI: WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN: Thoughts on the 25th Anniversary of InstaPundit.

And if you enjoy these essays, or classic InstaPundit, please either take out a paid Substack subscription, or make a one-time donation here. I appreciate your support.

UPDATE: A reader sends: “I would like to send you a check. Do you have an address I can use?”

Yes, please send to 118 N. Peters Rd. #12-230, Knoxville, TN 37923. Please make any checks out to me, not to “InstaPundit,” which the bank doesn’t like.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Which Cars Cost Us the Most and the Least to Maintain, and Why?

I LIKE MUSCLE: Jeep’s Wildest Ever Grand Cherokee Is Set to Return With SRT Supercharged V-8 Muscle. After a long hiatus, Jeep’s quickest SUV is expected to return with Hellcat power and a modernized platform.

YEAH, PRETTY MUCH:

My take on the Arday debacle. Elevator pitch version: 1) Arday is typical of a thriving alternate-universe academia elevating performance art over curiosity; 2) the "anti-racist" people who supported him are either bigots or caught up in recreational tribalism.…

— John McWhorter (@JohnHMcWhorter) August 10, 2026

STILL NOT TIRED OF WINNING:

1897 Winchester Trench Guns Coming from the CMP?? YES! Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) CEO Gerald O'Keefe states in addition to the M14 rifles, they are also receiving a quantity of original Winchester M1897 Trench Guns for sale!! What do YOU think, interested in one? pic.twitter.com/rpvmBoqZ8v

— Firearms News Magazine (@FirearmsNewsMag) August 8, 2026

NO. GO AWAY. Idaho’s second Aedes aegypti mosquito sparks a search for signs the invasive species has spread.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS VS. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: A Tale of Two Chiefs. “There is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by not deciding more than is necessary to decide. Then there is Chief Justice Roberts, the institutionalist, who strategically guides the Supreme Court by deciding more than is necessary to decide. Which Roberts do we get in each case?”

ALEX BERENSON: URGENT: Tony Fauci appears to have misled Congress in 2024 about his efforts to avoid federal records laws: Joe Biden’s final-day presidential pardon of Fauci will protect him from any potential criminal jeopardy for the episode, but it shows why he may be so reluctant to testify now.

THEY’RE ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Fishermen find 2,100-year-old Roman shipwreck near Sicily.

WHAT A LONG, STRANGE TRIP IT’S BEEN: Thoughts on the 25th Anniversary of InstaPundit.

And if you enjoy these essays, or classic InstaPundit, please either take out a paid Substack subscription, or make a one-time donation here. I appreciate your support.