Friday, June 12, 2026
Thursday, June 11, 2026
Daunting Numbers
An article at Revolver cites stunning statistics, quoted here.
People with felony convictions account for 8 % of all adults and 33 % of the African American adult male population.
Share of black males who will murder someone during their lifetime: 1 in 22.
The article cites this report as their source. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.
Two Analogies
Finally someone has written what I’ve been thinking about the regime in Iran. Namely, that it is less a nation than the headquarters of a movement which, of necessity, operates a nation about which it isn’t especially sentimental.
In this it resembles the Soviet Union when it was the headquarters of the would-be ‘worldwide’ Communist movement. For now, the reach of the theocratic gang in Iran is less global.
If the US has been talking to the folks who run the country of Iran, trying to reach a deal, the effort has been pointless. An approximate bureaucratic analogy would be talking to the building manager when trying to cut a deal committing the entire corporation.
The real power lies elsewhere, in the mission-driven ideological side of the house. No wonder the supposed president of Iran offered his resignation to the top Ayatollah, he is just a flunky with no power to make decisions or deals for the ideologues in charge.
Many of the IRGC ideologues would, if necessary, offer up Iran as a martyr for the cause. In their minds the cause is so much bigger than simply Iran. The cause encompasses the whole Middle East, for starters, with the world to follow.
The appropriate biological analogy would be cancer. You can’t reason with metastatic cancer. It will not become healthy tissue. Your four choices: ignore it and die, or fight it off until you (a) die of some other cause, (b) kill it or (c) it kills you. Right now the Rx for Iran is more kinetic ‘chemotherapy.’
I fully expect any treaty signed with Iran will be worthless, and I'd like to be proven wrong.
It's About Time
Trump has resumed bombing Iran. Better late than never.
Whichever party to a negotiation wants a deal more is the weaker party. It has seemed Trump wanted a deal more than the Iranians.
The way to reverse that is to increase Iran's discomfort level. Destroying the power generation system for Tehran would be a good start.
Wednesday, June 10, 2026
Getting the Voter Lists
The US Postal Service is proposing a new regulation requiring states to turn over to them the lists of people asking for absentee ballots and all voters in states (e.g. CA) which mail ballots to all voters. States which refuse to do so would find the USPS will not deliver ballots in them.
I like it, and I have skin in the game. The DrsC need absentee ballots for the November election, though not for the August primary when we vote in person.
Democrats will go crazy ... again ... as usual. SCOTUS will have to decide its legality.
The second Trump administration has been particularly adept at finding ways to act w/o Congressional approval. That is, turning the "administrative state" against itself.
Support for Deporting Illegals Up
The Center for Immigration Studies is out with the results of the latest Harvard/Harris Poll regarding attitudes toward illegal immigration. Some upbeat findings:
Some 80 percent of voters polled support “deporting immigrants who are here illegally and have committed crimes”, up five points from April.
The rise compared to April crosses party lines.
Then there’s “deporting all immigrants who are here illegally.”(snip) A solid majority, 56 percent, of the voters polled by Harvard/Harris in late May support such a “mass deportation” plan, including 77 percent of GOP voters, 53 percent of Independents, and well more than a third (37 percent) of Democrats.
What do you guess the politicians' reactions to these numbers will be? Is there a snowflake's chance in hell Democrat pols will listen? The odds are zero, zip, nada.
Tuesday, June 9, 2026
A Guilty Verdict
In Collin County, TX, a jury has found Karmelo Anthony guilty of fatally stabbing unarmed Austin Metcalf at a high school track meet. A Fox News story has details.
Anthony is black, Metcalf was white, both were students. Anthony admitted the stabbing, claiming self-defense. Several black witnesses spoke for the prosecution. I hope this verdict will not stir civil unrest.
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Collin County is adjacent to Dallas County, to the northeast. Post-retirement, the DrsC lived there for a year, before either Anthony or Metcalf were born. We were visiting on the faculty of what is now East Texas A&M University. It was a pleasant year.
Monday, June 8, 2026
City of Angels? No Longer
Author Walter Kirn posts the following on X.
A lot of people don't want to confront the implications of what they just saw happen in LA, even those who are appalled by it. They want an out, just so they can go on, not be terrified, feel a tiny tiny bit in control still. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Indeed it will. Hat tip to Stephen Green posting at Instapundit for the link.
Sunday, June 7, 2026
Dangerous Ideologies
SecWar Pete Hegseth, in Normandy honoring the D Day landings, takes a shot at European leaders' weakness. NBC News has his words.
Sadly, today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies. Beaches in Spain, in Italy, in Greece and Bulgaria. Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion?
A good question, Europe is committing cultural suicide. Breath-holding while awaiting a sensible answer is not wise.
Looks Not Deceiving
Here are two headlines listed together in one Instapundit post, links in original:
Bill Maher says artists quitting America 250 concert makes it look like Dems ‘don’t love America.'
Only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll.
Presuming Gallup is correct, the looks are not deceiving. Most Democrats don't love America. Similarly, we who love America don't think much of Democrats.
Light Bulb
I posted this with Saturday Snark and, reading back over it, had an insight to share with you. The notion that no one much cares about "liberal white women" may explain why they are so angry and troubled. Human affection is what's missing in their lives, cats are poor substitutes.
Saturday, June 6, 2026
Shazam
Trump hired a pool company to fix the reflecting pool, it cost $3 million. He didn't ask permission either.
When was the last time the government did something so nice so cheaply? Maybe not in the last century.
Democrats are furious, of course. Furious is their default setting.
Beyond Brussels and the EU
Frank Christian Hansel, a German AfD legislator, writes for American Greatness that the EU is a doomed enterprise. He believes it is based on premises that ignore human nature and cultural differences, is a relic of the Cold War, and should be replaced with regional groupings that make sense to their inhabitants.
He makes a reasonable argument that the EU, as now constituted, is not representative government in any true sense. It is rather of, by, and for bureaucrats responsible only to each other, not answering to any electorate. He concludes.
The time of the Union as we know it is running out. The only question is whether Europe will shape this transition itself—or whether it will be torn apart by the contradictions of its own artificial construction and have its place in the world decided by others.
The alternative is clearer than many care to admit: Either Europe becomes political again—or it remains an apparatus until other powers decide its place in the world.
That sounds prophetic. My one quibble with his column it that he views Russia as a natural part of Europe while ignoring its hegemonic behavior vis-a-vis Ukraine and the Baltic republics. I find AfD is too weak on the role of Russia.
D Day Remembered ... and a Recommendation
On this date in 1944, the largest armada ever assembled on this planet gathered off the shores of the Normandy region of Nazi-occupied France. Warships and freighters, landing craft and amphibians, they deposited American, British, and Canadian troops onshore and supported them with naval artillery fire and materiel.
Overhead the skies swarmed with warplanes, their wings wearing the "invasion stripes" of alternating black and white (see photos and explanation). Some dropped bombs, some dropped parachutists, and smaller planes shot up German vehicles and armor.
The landing was a success in spite of iffy weather, and the invasion continued eastward until the war in Europe ended some 11 months later. While all this was going on Soviet troops were attacking westward and the two attacks met in Germany in April, 1945, near the Elbe River.
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About WW II, the DrsC recommend two TV mini-series originally broadcast on ABC TV, based on books by Herman Wouk and entitled, like the books, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. The first covers the period before the US entered the ongoing World War II, and the second covers the war period. The first has 7 episodes and the second has 12.
Both series star Robert Mitchum playing naval officer Pug Henry, Polly Bergen as his wife Rhoda, and Victoria Tennant as Pamela Tudsbury. The continuing story follows a Navy family, the Henrys, a Polish-American Jewish family, the Jastrows, and a British family, the Tudsburys.
They includes portrayals of FDR and Eleanor, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, Hitler, Mussolini, Goering, many German generals, Pearl Harbor, D Day, El Alamein, extermination camps, the war in the Pacific, in Europe, and at home. In its 19 hours it literally has a cast of thousands.
We own the two series on CD, they also appear to be available on YouTube for streaming. A longtime DrsC family mid-winter ritual is to watch the two series in sequence over 10 or more nights. We recommend them, your experience may vary.
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