Good Intel

Have you noticed, as I have, that Israel has exceptional intelligence in their region? When they want to pinpoint the physical location of a Hezbollah military figure in Beirut they can, or the home of a Hamas leader in Tehran, it's done. Israel kills leaders of the opposition, or Irani nuclear scientists seemingly almost at will.

It seems clear to me they've got Israelis posing (and passing) as Arabs or Persians infiltrated into many of the jihadi groups in their region. My guess is these number in the hundreds-to-thousands and are scattered from Morocco to the -stans of Central Asia, and maybe from Bosnia to Somalia.

I wonder how many of these moles have multiple Muslim wives who have no idea their apparently devout husband is a secret Jew?

----------

Later ... Hat trick time. It is rumored that Israel has also assassinated Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Forces Aerospace Forces in Damascus. Power Line's Steve Hayward reports the rumor and notes this collection of attacks reminds him of the scene in The Godfather where Don Corleone "settled all family business" by killing his rivals.

A Different Jurisdiction

Mostly I don't like Jonah Goldberg's commentary as he's a never-Trumper, while I am not. He paradoxically has a good insight into Donald Trump's appeal to voters.

Trump is an entertainer-celebrity more than a conventional politician. As a result, he gets away with things no conventional politician could get away with. He may invite passionate opposition from his foes, but his fans simply shrug at his misstatements, malapropisms and mendacity. Those of us who predicted in 2016 that the "laws of political gravity" would catch up with Trump were proven wrong because Trump is subject to the laws of celebrity gravity - a very different jurisdiction.

This strikes me a reasonable explanation for the Trump phenomenon - he is judged by a different metric. It's why we take him seriously but not literally. 

I bet President Reagan had some of this "celebrity" slack working for him, too.

A Caution

Just a brief word in support of childless cat ladies. Let's don't be too quick to stereotype them. 

I've got a niece who is a childless cat lady. She is also a tough retired deputy sheriff who carries concealed and drives like a NASCAR veteran.

She's a good person, easily as politically conservative as I am. And she loves her moggies.

Acting Skills

PJ Media's Stephen Kruiser cracking wise about modern Democrats' actual views of Kamala Harris.

The Dems are quite adept at operating in a purely fictional environment, after all. These are the same people who just spent three-and-a-half years pretending that Joe Biden had a functioning brain. They've got mad acting skills.

That, and a total absence of scruples. 

Declining the Honor

Have you noticed that several top Democrats have taken their names out of contention to be Kamala Harris' vice presidential nominee? A quick web search finds the following three at one site dated nearly a week ago: Gov. Wes Moore (D-MD), Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV), and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI). A more recent dropout is Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC).

All have given noble, selfless reasons for "declining the honor." None should be automatically believed, successful politicians are ferociously self-centered people. If they don't want the "honor" of being on the 2024 Democrat ticket, it signals they are far from certain Harris can be elected and they don't need the L on their resume'.

If Harris should win, her VP gets to spend 4-8 years going to foreign dignitary's funerals and presiding over the Senate - not a terribly exciting prospect. The odds a youngish, healthy woman is going to drop dead in that period of time don't make the VP job a good bet. Vance has much better odds, and would only have to serve 4 years in the job in any case as Trump term limits out in 2028.

It’s Politics, Not Policy

Lame duck President Joe Biden announces a program to revamp the Supreme Court. To accomplish his program would require two constitutional amendments. Given the supermajorities required to pass these amendments, he has precisely zero chance of passing his program, and he knows this.

His purpose therefore is entirely political, to give Harris & Co. an anti-SCOTUS talking point camouflaged as a policy proposal. His futile gesture should receive all the disrespect it deserves. This blog post represents my disrespect for Biden, his gesture, and those pulling his puppet strings.

Tuesday Snark

Image courtesy of the July 30, 2024, Lucianne.com.

Blog Policy

Barring further cataclysmic occurrences, Kamala Harris will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2024. Granted, this is a year when "cataclysmic occurrences" seem almost routine, but let's assume for the purpose of discussion that they're over for this cycle.

It is important to establish that when any individual agrees to be a candidate for office, they volunteer to be the target of often unfair criticism. No one is forced to subject themself to this abuse, but those who make the choice can't legitimately complain when criticism happens.

Kamala is a person of color and a woman, two categories which intersectionality wrongly argues are beyond criticism because of past (and perhaps present) discrimination. However, political candidates are ipso facto legitimate targets of criticism, regardless of race or gender.

My purpose here is to make clear that criticism of candidate Kamala Harris and her VP running mate will happen in this blog. Allegations of racism and misogyny will be ignored as beneath contempt. 

Lying for Harris

Writing for the Washington Examiner, Salena Zito makes clear that Kamala Harris was the "border czar" in 2021 and cites sources which reported Harris receiving that responsibility from Joe Biden. The same sources today are writing Harris was never the border czar. Inescapably those sources were wrong one of those times, but haven't admitted it.

She adds that GovTrack has been ranking senators according to how liberal they are for years and in 2019 rated Kamala Harris the most liberal of the 100 senators. Now they've scrubbed that rating from their website.

GovTrack founder Joshua Tauberer told Fox News the page was removed because it was not “a reliable portrait of the activity of legislators.”

Journalistic ethics has become an oxymoron. Most journalists are in the tank for the Democrats, and do the party's bidding regardless. 

Zito concludes thusly:

The fact that Harris is the border czar is an inconvenient truth. No matter how much they try to get rid of the inconvenience, the truth, inviolable, remains.

The Biden-Harris administration's management of the border was a sick joke, arguably treasonous. 

Weird Chronotypical Science

BBC Science Focus Magazine reports a study which will be good news for night owls.

A huge new British study involving data from two cohorts featuring tens of thousands of people. Led by researchers at Imperial College in London, the results showed that people with a night owl chronotype had "superior" cognitive function compared with their early-rising counterparts.

As the researchers put it: "Morning types consistently showed the lowest cognitive scores in both cohorts, with scores improving for intermediate types and reaching higher levels for evening types".

I've been a night owl all my life, and reasonably intelligent as well. It is good to know the two go together. 

Sunday Snark

Images courtesy of RealClearPolitics Cartoons of the Week.

Weird Immunological Science

Instapundit links to a UPI report of a serendipitous finding that the newer shingles vaccine Shingrix may help prevent dementia. In a study comparing the effects of the newer vaccine vs. the older "live" virus vaccine, it turned out that fewer people receiving the new vaccine developed dementia.

Overall, the six-year study found that people who got so-called newer "recombinant" shingles vaccines, such as Shingrix, spent 17% more time living free of any diagnosis of dementia, compared to folks who had gotten the older "live" form of the vaccine, Zostavax.

If you read the article, those who got Zostavax also gained some protection against dementia, but the newer vaccine provides even more. It appears that the herpes zoster virus which causes shingles may be one of the causes of dementia. The study involved data for over 200,000 people.

Great Sort Continues

At Power Line, John Hinderaker does a nice column on the internal migration from blue states to red states. The five biggest population losers are all blue states and four of the five biggest winners are red states. 

Interestingly, the one winning blue state is Arizona, immediately adjacent to SoCal while CA is the biggest loser. Clearly AZ benefitted from many wanting to leave CA but not get too far away from relatives left behind in CA. Personal note: As CA emigres the DrsC still return there for holiday family gatherings.

Perhaps as important as the sheer loss of population from blue states is the amount of productive labor that migrants are taking with them. Blue states are losing precisely the wrong people.

Red States gained $191.93 billion in adjusted gross income (AGI), while the Blue States lost the same amount of taxable income.

An Amazing Month

Michael Brendan Dougherty writes something both amazing and completely true for National Review.

If you were a faithful believer in what the New York Times says and fell into a coma just one month ago, you went unconscious thinking that Joe Biden’s incapacity was a right-wing psyop inflicted on the gullible by unscrupulous conservatives using deceptively edited videos.

One of the reasons you knew you had to believe this is because Kamala Harris is a political joke who “has a public perception problem, a self-fulfilling spiral of bad press and bad polls” and “the lowest net-negative rating for a vice president” since such measures had been taken.

That was the party line: Biden’s just fine, Kamala’s terrible. Believing anything else is stupid. Less than four weeks later: Biden’s terrible. Kamala’s amazing! And if you say different, you’re a dummy.

Now liberal opinion marches around ostentatiously like a North Korean military parade, performing impossible-seeming about-faces and quick-time maneuvers while holding bayonets up, sharply fixed. Anyone who even accidentally goes against the routine is bound to be impaled.

For those of us who follow politics, it has been a month to make our heads spin. Something unbelievable happening nearly every day.  Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

Normies ... and Others

Gallup has been looking at marriage rates for Democrats, Republicans, and Indepoendents since 1940. The two parties began to diverge in the early 1980s. Now the differences are striking.

Two thirds of Republicans are married whereas half of Democrats are not. And in this regard Independents most nearly resemble Democrats. 

This finding makes sense in light of the relationship reported here that Republicans are happier than Democrats, and that married people are happier than the unmarried.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

Harris Was the Most Liberal Senator

The image I have here has been taken down by GovTrack since Harris again began running for president. Fortunately someone captured it. I would be remiss in failing to post it for your edification and enjoyment.

More liberal than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, just imagine. That is some kind of extreme.

Government Hires Odd Sods

I wrote below about odd people getting government jobs, people the private sector probably wouldn't hire.  Let me share with you an experience I had decades ago in the federal government. 

A temp employee on loan from the uni, I was located in headquarters of a modest sized agency of nearly 10k employees, housed in a branch with 5 professionals and 2 clericals. The clericals were normal, middle aged ladies with office skills. The professionals were less plain vanilla. 

One odd-looking-and-acting professional appeared to have birth defects, in addition to which he was germ-phobic. His office was a sticky mess because he sprayed everything, including I believe himself with spray can Listerine, and then rubbed hand lotion over himself, presumably to counteract the drying effect of the Listerine. 

He was the agency's human data base for the legality of personnel actions, adverse and otherwise. Challenge him to find an OPM reg that enabled, or prevented, some sketchy move and he normally could.

Another odd duck was a former Roman Catholic priest who'd married a United flight attendant. He'd gotten himself 'retreaded' as an Episcopal padre and was pastor of a small congregation in a DC suburb which could not afford a full-time minister. He spent half his workdays for the agency on the phone dealing with pastoral business. The agency was his "day job" but his heart was in pastoral work.

A third professional was also a former Catholic priest, now married to an ex-nun. What are the odds?

Two-and-a-half odd birds out of five should suggest why I view government employees with a jaundiced eye. Please forgive my occasional fondness for Brit slang.

The Power off Self-Interest

Spiked runs a column ruminating on the highly unusual fact of the Teamsters' President speaking at the Republican Convention. It wanders off into deep waters trying to explain the choice. I have a theory of my own, based entirely in Teamsters self-interest.

Much of America's goods move by truck, if not from the factory all the way to the retailer, at least from a regional warehouse to the retailer. Those trucks are driven by teamsters many of whom belong to the union.

The Democrats want to basically shut down transportation based on internal combustion engines, and do everything with electricity. If they succeed, they'll do away with most trucks because electric power isn't practical for trucks, or many cars for that matter. 

On the other hand, rail transport powered by electricity is highly practical and much rail traffic is already powered by volts, not diesel. To get to a mostly electrified world most freight will need to move almost to the retailer's dock by rail, as it once did. Electric trucks will be an almost entirely local short-hall proposition. 

When diesel trucks go away, so will many, perhaps most teamsters jobs. If any unions profit, they will be those representing railway workers, not the teamsters. 

Who opposes a nearly truck-free future? Republicans. Perhaps the Teamsters need us more than we need them, if they have the sense to see the future implications of the two parties' present policies.

Wednesday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's Mid-Week in Pictures Special Edition.

Why DEI Persists in Government

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds writes in the New York Post a column with this title.

The private sector is ditching DEI, but government can’t let go

The article adds that universities are also dumping the DEI units. But government agencies haven't followed suit, and you might wonder why this is.

The answer is the market test. The private sector and to a lesser extent the universities are subject to market forces.

Commercial firms take their goods or services to the marketplace and offer them for sale or hire. Universities depend on students continuing to select their campus after choosing attendance over other pursuits or employment to which they may have access.

In each case the purse strings are held by the customer or student, who can choose another seller or opt to do without. DEI made firms' offerings less attractive and the dollars went elsewhere. The reaction isn't instantaneous but also doesn't take years. Plus university enrollments are down.

Government doesn't suffer the same market forces. Typically government is a monopoly provider, so the hapless taxpayer pays for the government 'service' whether or not they utilize it. You pay for the public schools with your taxes even if you choose to send your children to a private school or homeschool them.

If you really dislike what government offers you may vote for the other of our major parties, but the next election can be as long as 5+ years away in the case of senators. This lag tends to insulate them from market forces. And what do you do if neither party offers a program to your liking?

"Insulated" from market forces, government units can continue to pursue DEI policies which are racist, socialist, and anti-merit. To convince the US Army, for instance that DEI is counterproductive, they'll have to lose a war. Nations don't always survive losing wars.

In my personal experience, government units tend to hire people who are odd enough they don't have much chance in the private sector. Odd people support DEI as it makes them feel wanted, at long last. 

Snide Aside: Do you remember the scene in Men in Black 2 set in the Truro post office? It's not as far fetched as you might hope.

Big Boy

The Union Pacific owns, maintains, and exhibits Big Boy, an example of the largest steam locomotive ever built. They house it in Cheyenne, WY, and send it out on good will tours which attract rail buffs like moths to a flame. 

You may remember we traveled to see it in Nebraska and followed it to Cheyenne one year, when it had gone east and was headed home. This year it went to the west coast and once again we went to see it as it headed home across southern WY on its way to Cheyenne. The drive was 250 miles round trip on blue line highways and took most of a day.

We saw Big Boy streaming along the highway in a couple of places and then when it stopped for less than an hour in Kemmerer, WY. As always, that locomotive is a WOW.

To create these monsters (20 were built) the firm in upstate NY basically cobbled together two regular steam engines on one frame. It has two sets of drive wheels, two boilers, etc. We were told it normally operates with an engineer and fireman for each of the two power plants, meaning four guys in the oversized cab.

These giants were designed to pull long trains over the Rockies, which are both continental divide and backbone of North America. Kemmerer, for example, is at almost 7000 ft. elevation, that's 1.3 miles above sea level. 

The big guys operated for 20 years, Big Boy's maker's plate give its inaugural year as 1941, so it worked until 1961, when it was replaced by the now-ubiquitous diesel-electric engines.

What impresses people today is that essentially no part of it is electronic, everything is hydraulic, mechanical, and analog. Engineers pull levers, turn knobs, and read gauges to keep it huffing and puffing. I suppose the lights in the cab are electric, as well as the headlight, and they probably have radio comms with the rest of the train crew, added later.

As I write this the other DrC hasn't yet posted her photos of the big guy in action and at rest. When she does, in the next day or so, they will be found here. Someone else's video here on YouTube.

Cheatle Resigns

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle has resigned, and it is none too soon. The agency she directs protects current and former presidents and Vice Presidents plus mainstream candidates for these positions, and also takes the lead on fighting counterfeit US currency.

In allowing an assassination attempt directed at former President and current candidate Trump, her agency failed spectacularly. That anyone could get into a position to take a relatively short sniper shot at him means USSS did not do their job.

The only thing that saved Trump's life was a last second head turn to look at a chart being projected above and behind him. Relying on luck is not how to protect someone at risk. Cheatle had to go, and should have done so the very next day. The agency needs new management.

Better late than never.

A Conspiracy?

If you want to think would-be assassin Thomas Crooks was a tool instead of merely a fool, go check out this story at The Gateway Pundit. They write:

Mobile ad data analysis reveals someone who regularly visited Crooks’ Pennsylvania home also visited a building in DC near an FBI office.

The Oversight Project identified nine devices linked to AD-IDs that were located at Crooks’ home and work within the last year.

Per the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project: “We found the assassin’s connections through our in-depth analysis of mobile ad data to track movements of Crooks and his associates”

I'm not enough of a tech nerd to know if what is reported means something, is some sort of weird coincidence or is a hoax.

To be honest, my own evaluation of Gateway Pundit stories is that their minimum standard of proof isn't as high as I'd like. That doesn't automatically mean something they report is wrong, merely that I will reserve judgment until it appears in places I trust more. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

Can We Indict The Liars?

Democrats whine and complain about Donald Trump's occasional overstatements and exaggerations. "He lies! He lies!" you can hear them cry.

For the last four years Democrats have lied to the nation about the physical and mental health of President Joe Biden. They swore he was fine, healthy, and on top of things while very clearly he was nothing of the sort. We saw the examples of his weakness and they claimed we were hallucinating, making things up.

The debate exposed their lies, the Potemkin false front fell flat and everyone saw their fabrication for what it was ... total bullish*t. The old guy was and is out of it. Now they've finally made dad give up the keys to the republic.

Which of these is the worse offense? Trump's exaggerations or their outright fabrication to mislead the American public? Their's is the worse offense, by a country mile, and Harris was a co-conspirator.

We live in a dangerous world, our president needs to be alert and in command. Democrats intentionally put us all at risk for their selfish reasons. If this con game isn't some kind of criminal offense, it should be.

Whole Lotta Guessing Going On

I just took a quick scan down the topics and headlines on Lucianne.com and RealClearPolitics.com. The commentariat are all over the place, and most of their topics look like "lets throw this against the wall and see if it sticks."

The political pundit class, of which I include myself as a very minor member, base their weighty thoughts about what will occur on knowing a lot of political history and observing parallels in current politics to what did occur in the past.

We are now in the political version of terra incognita, we have no maps for this terrain. We are like an odds maker trying to predict the performance of a horse on its first race, with no track record.

Most assume Harris will be the new nominee, but there are Democrat heavy hitters including Barack Obama who have made it clear they prefer someone with more gravitas. Taking no chances Trump forces pivoted immediately to attacking Harris, all the while wondering if they're wasting money doing so if her party dumps her.

Hat tip to Jerry Lee Lewis for my title.

Hyperbole Becoming Reality

Proposed revisions to the Dictionary of Official Democratic Party Terminology.

Democracy = governmental units headed by member(s) in good standing of the Democratic Party.

Fascism = all other governmental units.

Argument in favor of this change: In English, definitions tend to evolve to keep pace with common usage.

Odds and Ends

Concerning the Biden decision to suspend his campaign for the Democrat nomination, conspiracy theories are already flying thick and fast. One of my favorites is that he didn't do it at all, but that it was done for him, in spite of his wishes. Ludicrous, of course, imagine him being unwilling to disavow something done without his approval.

I'm fully prepared to believe he was coerced into dropping out by Pelosi and Obama, among others. The donor cash dried up and the chorus of those telling him he was damaging the party to which he'd given his life got overwhelming. 

Expect him to issue blanket pardons to all members of his family, likely including himself, after the election and before leaving office. I would, in his shoes, just for spite.

Middle Class Income ... and Behavior

Yahoo Finance reprints a SmartAsset article entitled "The Surprisingly High Cost of Being a Middle-Class American." Hat tip to the other DrC for the link. Here is a key passage.

The Pew Research Center describes the middle class as an individual who generates between two-thirds and doubles the median U.S. household income, which was $65,000 in 2021, according to the most recent numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. Using those numbers, a middle-class income would be any household that makes approximately $43,350 to $130,000.

I'd add to that financial yardstick another measure. To a substantial degree being middle class in the U.S. means accepting a middle class set of values, attitudes, and behaviors. I haven't seen an up-to-date set of these listed, but at one time whether or not one swore and casually shared racist humor or stereotypes could distinguish lower from middle class membership. 

I'll  give you a humorous example from a long ago sociology class. I can still remember the prof smirking as he said it.

If two married couples go out for an evening and take one car, you can tell their social class by their seating pattern. If the men sit in front and the women in back they are lower class. If each couple sits together, one in front, the other in rear, they are middle class. If each man sits with other's wife they are upper class. 

All of this a result of the middle class being historically the most moral and concerned with appearances of the three classes.

Sunday Snark

Hey, there, irony fans. President Joe Biden, a man notoriously fond of ice cream, suspended his campaign for the Democratic Party 2024 presidential nomination today.

Today is also National Ice Cream Day. What a lovely coincidence. It almost feels like a sick sort of karma, doesn't it?

Obama Unimpressed by Harris

Obama writes a generous and thankful letter to President Joe Biden praising his selfless decision to take himself out of the presidential nomination race, CBS News has the text of that letter.

What is fascinating is that the letter pointedly does not mention Vice President Kamala Harris. This fact is the letter's most notable quality. CBS observes:

Obama did not name or endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to be the nominee, even though Mr. Biden said she had his "full support and endorsement."

As a black former president, Obama is very nearly the only prominent Democrat who can diss Kamala Harris without being accused of racism. And he definitely has dissed her, by his omission. Obama writes:

We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.

If you know any Democrats, give them your sympathy. Theirs is a party in disarray. 

The Maddow Dysfunction

Rachel Maddow told an interviewer a month or so ago that, should Trump be elected, she feared being put in an internment camp. Given the current state of play she should be negotiating with her network to do her show from an overseas location for a few months. 

You know she's done no such thing, don't you? Crying wolf again, or perhaps the right modifier is "without interruption."

Let Him Finish

 A variety of political pundits and players (here, here) have made the argument that, if Joe Biden is not strong enough to be President for four more years, he isn't strong enough to be President from now until Jan. 20 of next year - 6 months. This is obvious nonsense, even if Kamala Harris now wishes it were true.

Had he continued to run for the nomination Biden would have spent the next 3+ months both running for office and serving as president. simultaneously. That is tough for anyone, and particularly tough for an octogenarian.

Do we have any sign that Joe Biden will do a worse job during his final 6 months than he did during the prior 6 months? Not really. 

Without the added burden of travel and campaigning Joe should be able to finish out his elected term. In doing so he will fulfill a campaign promise of being a (one-term) "bridge" between the old Democratic Party and the younger generation of Democrats.

The argument for Biden resigning now is to shackle Harris with the unaccustomed presidential duties, making it harder for her to campaign. Advantage - Trump.

Beginning Answers, and Further Questions

• Biden endorses Harris to be this year's nominee, intends to serve out balance of his term until Jan. 20. Will speak later in week explaining his decision rationale. 
• Unclear if party will support Harris or declare an open process in which she is one of several (?) possibles.  Also unclear if money pledged to Biden-Harris is under his control, or ???
• It turns out the source Scott Johnson cited who predicted a Sunday Biden exit was absolutely on target. Those who debunked that source, obviously were not.
• Peggy Noonan's "big history" continues to be made. We are in the proverbial "uncharted territory" now, we have no precedents for what has occurred and is occurring. 
• In his latest Silver Bulletin post, Nate Silver said as much, and that was before today's bombshell announcement. The various predictive models based on past commonalities among presidential elections are at least suspect, and perhaps inapplicable to this year's path-breaking race.
• One thing we've learned this year is that badly blowing a debate can have catastrophic effects on a campaign. The conventional wisdom on debates has suffered a sudden shock, nobody expected anyone to perform as poorly as Biden did.

Breaking: Biden Drops Out of Race

President Joe Biden announced today he is “suspending” his campaign for the presidency. Fox News has the story. 

His action raises as many questions as it answers. First among these is how the Democrat Party will pick their 2024 nominee? The pundit class will be on adrenaline-fueled overdrive for the next couple of days. 

Big History

The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan has been on my don't-read list for awhile. As a native New Yorker she viscerally dislikes Donald Trump for reasons that likely predate his political career and may only make sense to a native of NYC. So be it.

On the other hand, she is a crackerjack essayist who does a better job of conveying, not so much how things are, but how things feel than most who practice the craft. I was interested in her reaction to the debate, the attempted assassination and the RNC just ended. Her most recent column ends this way.

We have, many of us, for some time—months, certainly the past few weeks—felt various degrees and kinds of horror. But oh these are exciting times. Things are moving, shifting. Again, this is big history. Hold on to your hat.

She captures the way I've been feeling about recent events, and expresses that feeling better than I ever could. These are indeed exciting times, it is big history, maybe even a major inflection point. And we're lucky to be living through it. An indication of this, I may have set a new record with 7 posts on Friday.

Maybe I need to start reading Noonan again.

Saturday Snark

Images courtesy of Power Line's The Week in Pictures

and its Comments section.

A Biden Retrospective

At Instapundit, Ed Driscoll posts a riff about the real Joe Biden, written by Jim Treacher who turns a droll phrase. Whether Treacher's prediction is accurate is another matter entirely.

He’s been in Washington since before Twitter. Before CNN. Hell, before Watergate! He was lying to reporters when Obama was still popping his zits in Honolulu.

The old man is a damn barnacle. They’re gonna have to scrape him off, and it might just put a hole in the hull.

Joe Biden doesn’t know much anymore, but he still knows how power works. My money’s on the old bastard giving everybody two middle fingers till they close the casket.

As Donald Trump is fond of saying, "We'll see what happens." 

The Summer Meal

Once upon a time the only good sweet corn was fresh picked, within the last few hours before eating. I remember driving across this great land in our RV keeping an eye open for stands or trucks with a pile of corn ears for sale. If we found some that was fresh we'd have it for supper that very night, after cutting off the end with the worm.

The good folks at the Ag. Research Service modified sweet corn so it stays sweet for some days after picking. Now supermarket sweet corn is sweetly edible, the roadside search is ended, and the worm is mostly a memory. 

The supper hour approaches and it will be time for me to go do a couple of chores that are a part of our favorite summer meal. Shucking the corn and rubbing some seasoning on the ribeye after lighting the gas-fired grill. 

Grilled steak and microwaved sweet corn is our go-to summer supper, as long as the market corn stays tasty. It dirties very few dishes, keeps the heat of cooking outdoors, tastes great, and includes significant fiber and nutrients. 

We eat it on our screened back porch, which looks into our dense-in-summer aspen forest. We enjoy the view, sometimes see animals and swat no flying insects while enjoying the clean mountain air and the news on TV.

Russians Hint at Truce

Newsweek reports a Russian military correspondent and propagandist named Maxim Kalashnikov, who hasn't been jailed yet, has written the following as a response to Putin's comments about a possible truce.

I feel in my soul that the [war] might end somewhere in the vicinity of the North Caucasus. We don't have enough troops... we even throw the wounded who haven't been completely healed to the front.

It's a scary problem. It's clear that, right now, there is a struggle to freeze the conflict. It's clear that Moscow sees that it can't win. Now everyone is talking about a truce, yes?

And yet Russia hasn't reinstituted a draft, they are still trying (and sort of succeeding) to "buy" volunteers mostly from very poor regions of their vast and mostly underdeveloped country. Enlistment bonuses may exceed a year's wages and dead soldiers' families are being richly rewarded.

The settlement I've predicted Trump will propose - current boundaries which Putin likes and immediate NATO membership for the remainder of Ukraine with title 5 protection which Zelensky would love - is looking good.

Ukraine's David has fought the Russian Goliath to a draw. No mean feat, but 'twas done at fearful cost, especially to Ukraine.

Zuckerberg: Trump a Badass

Nick Drama writing at Red State has a Mark Zuckerberg quote about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in PA. Hat tip to Lucianne.com for the link.

"Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most bada-- things I’ve ever seen in my life," Zuckerberg said Thursday during an interview at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, according to Bloomberg.

"On some level as an American, it’s like hard to not get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight, and I think that that’s why a lot of people like the guy."

The Meta CEO spoke exclusively to @emilychangtv on The Circuit https://trib.al/E2cHEr9

For a billionaire whose funding for vote harvesting efforts may have thrown the last presidential election to Biden, that is an amazing admission. Do you suppose Mark has achieved adulthood?

More on the Shooter

CBS News is reporting Trump shooter Thomas Crooks had a second cell phone, and several overseas encrypted accounts. Mounting evidence suggests what happened on the 13th was very much premeditated and no spur of the moment thing.

Crooks may have been an online gamer, and the sites may have related to that. Somebody in Federal law enforcement must have (or know) a gamer kid they could ask about those sites.

There is also evidence he searched for info about a "major depressive disorder" which, if he suspected he had it, could lead to suspicion of a "suicide by cop" scenario.

Among the evidence that law enforcement found on and near the gunman's body was an AR-style rifle, a remote transmitter and a primary cellphone. Sources said investigators found two explosive devices, a drone, a tactical vest and four magazines of the same ammunition used in the attack inside Crooks' car.

In his house he shared with his parents and sister, investigators seized over a dozen weapons, an explosive device, a secondary cellphone, a laptop, a hard drive and three USB flash drives.

We don't know if he had a "gaming laptop" as those are more costly. If not, maybe he wasn't much of a gamer. 

There are features about Crooks-as-assassin which point to an "Incel loser" scenario and other features suggesting something more sinister. No self-justifying manifesto has been reported, one wonders if we'll ever know his motives.

Friday Snark

Images courtesy of Politico's Nation's Cartoonists on the Week in Politics.

The Right Question

When automation first became a real thing I was a much younger business school prof. I asked my students what would society do with all of our factory workers, then beginning to be replaced with digitally controlled machines? 

It appears I asked the right question, even though I misdiagnosed the threat. Automation proved to be much less of a threat than foreign workers who work much more cheaply than U.S. workers. 

The real threat to our factory jobs occurred when companies sent the work abroad to poor countries, and then imported the resultant products which they could sell more cheaply and still make good profits. This left whole swaths of our workforce without meaningful (i.e., family supporting) employment.

Sending our manufacturing abroad was like beginning to abuse alcohol or drugs. The cheap goods reward was immediate whereas the idle worker downside became obvious in time. The deaths of despair came later with suicides, addiction, overdoses, homelessness, plus family disintegration and formation failure.

Another downside to doing manufacturing overseas is that it leaves our nation unable to rapidly gear up for war. If the factories no longer exist here, they cannot be converted to military production when control over lines of transport and communication literally becomes a life and death matter, as it did following Pearl Harbor.

Now much of our manufacturing is being done in a nation - China - with which even optimists believe we could end up being at war. For both job creation and military preparedness reasons we must repatriate our manufacturing plants, bring them home and staff them with our citizens. If this message is populist, so be it. I see it as win-win-win with the third win being self-reliance. 

Time was our working class could support a family and buy a modest home on a factory salary. We need to recapture that dynamic which worked much better than the current arrangement. Perhaps we could even get our birth rate back up?

Make American Great Again

Biden's Implicit Message

Ed Driscoll who blogs at Instapundit quotes "veteran GOP consultant Liz Mair" as saying this.

By not resigning, Biden is saying "Harris isn’t fit to be President."

He's had Harris underfoot for over 3 years. It would be well nigh impossible for him not to reach Mair's conclusion.

Trump Accepts the Nomination

I just listened to President Trump's very long acceptance speech. His description of how it felt living through being the target of an assassination attempt was truly moving. 

My favorite passage, and I'm paraphrasing here as I didn't record it, had to do with our expectations. Trump said we've been told to lower our expectations, that we can't have it all. I'm here, he said, to give you the opposite message. You've set your expectations too low, set your sights higher, expect more, we can have lots of prosperity. and good times.

It was also interesting to see that his brush with death last Saturday has had an effect on him. He did more talking about God and being blessed than we've come to expect from a Trump speech. 

Something I hadn't been aware of was his eventually successful effort to pass the so-called "Try" law. This permits patients with a terminal diagnosis to "try" drugs still in development, with no risk to the manufacturer if they don't work. Anyone of us might some day find ourselves in this fix, and be willing to roll the dice in hopes of a miracle cure.

As everyone else has observed the speech was undisciplined and much too long. I stuck it out to the end, but was relieved when the end arrived.

Biden Dropping Out?

Scott Johnson at Power Line has info he trusts that Joe Biden will announce this weekend that (a) he is dropping out of the race for the nomination, (b) he supports Kamala Harris to replace him, and (c)  his delegates are free to choose whomever they wish. Scott's informant claims Joe's speech announcing this is being written now.

As Scott's colleague John Hinderaker comments, Biden dropping out and Harris taking over won't necessarily help Trump. Harris can blame the failures of the past three plus years on old Joe and his minders, while taking credit for any pluses they can claim responsibility for.

There are probably few who will switch their votes just because Harris is what we once knew was a woman. Those who feel strongly about that issue are already Biden voters. She may get more BIPOC votes than Biden would have, but again that isn't certain.

Later ... Instapundit runs a repudiation of the Johnson-reported leak. Be cautious about all the supposed "inside scoop" being peddled. That's the second one I've had to issue a caution on.

A Bullet vs. a Virus

A quote to cherish, and chuckle at, both at the same time, from CNN's Van Jones.

A bullet couldn't stop Trump. A virus just stopped Biden…

Five No-Shows

The Daily Caller reports five once-notable Republicans from the pre-Trump era are not in attendance at the on-going Republican National Convention. The five are former President George W. Bush, former Rep. Liz Cheney, former Speaker Paul Ryan, former Vice President Mike Pence, and former presidential candidate and current Sen. Mitt Romney.

One supposes they didn't want to be reminded they are no longer important. Under Trump's leadership, the Republican Party has moved on, leaving them behind.

As notable as their absence is the fact that literally nobody in Milwaukee misses them. They typify an anti-populist GOP which did NOT represent the working men and women of our great land. They are now RINOs who will probably vote for Democrats in November.

Imagining a Conspiracy

Richard Fernandez blogs as Wretchardthecat, and Instapundit has posted his latest X (formerly Tweet). He writes:

A fiction story would go like this. Find a bright kid with a chip on his shoulder. Give him a secret life and training that makes him feel like Jason Bourne. He's psychologically yours. Send him on a mission with a BS exit plan that isn't meant to work.

Translating that last sentence: Plan for Secret Service snipers to clean up your ‘loose ends,’ as in fact they did. 

All of the above is much easier in fiction than in inconvenient “real life.” The “secret life and training” specified above would leave a substantial gap in Crooks’ hometown life which cursory investigation would reveal. 

Or would do so if anyone chooses to undertake an investigation. If you assume the entire government plus media is in on the plot, that’s too many to keep a secret.

Later ... Fox News has biographical details of the apparent shooter Thomas Crooks. Since high school he has graduated from a junior college in Pittsburg, some 40 miles away, and was scheduled to attend a nearby university in the fall. It appears he has lived at home the whole time. If true, it puts paid to the "secret life" scenario. 

Late info indicates Crooks was a gamer, and he left a message hinting at his big July 13 plans on a gamer message board. Bourne never did this, his style was to call those hunting him, "Get some rest, Pam, you look tired."

Did Xi Have a Stroke?

It is rumored Chinese President Xi Jinping has suffered a massive stroke while at the Third Plenary Session of the Chinese Communist Party. He is said to be in hospital in critical condition. Hat tip to Sarah Hoyt blogging at Instapundit for the link.

I'd wait for confirmation before opening the champagne, the source cited seems to be dubious. No major news gatherer is yet reporting this.

Later: Exactly nobody is reporting this ‘story,’ it’s likely either a hoax or wishful thinking.

Local Option

RealClearPolicy links to an article asking the question "Is the Republican Party Becoming Pro-Choice?" Its author concludes the answer is "yes" and he blames Trump. 

Opinion polling on the issue has for decades shown a majority of Americans are pro-choice. The Republican Party needs to be accessible to a majority of Americans. I suspect the answer is that the Party is becoming Pro-State Choice. 

If a majority of people in a state want to ban abortion, they can. If they want to make it available halfway through a pregnancy, they can do that. I believe our new GOP policy is "local option." 

Local option works. I am old enough to remember when for decades the only legal gambling in the U.S. was in the libertarian state of Nevada. People who wished to gamble came there and did what was unlawful everywhere else. Ditto for quickie divorces.

Not widely talked about is that brothels are still lawful in a majority of NV counties, and some are so labeled in their signage. Seeing one of these signs is a bit of a shock to outsiders. To my knowledge this is unique to NV and no nationwide ban on sex work has been proposed or enforced.

Happy Normies

The Nation is normally so far to the left they're out past Sen. Bernie Sanders who reps the Soviet Oblast of Vermont. So how did it headline a column about the Republican National Convention thusly: "Revenge of the Normies"?

Their correspondent, D.D. Guttenplan, actually submitted an upbeat column about the nice, happy people he met at the convention, the almost complete lack of anger. His conclusion will leave you shaking your head.

For tonight, at least, this felt like a party at peace with itself and with its leaders. Which might be the most frightening thing of all.

The Democrat Party has chosen as its constituency everyone who does NOT consider themself "normal."  The sight of united joyful normals could loosen the D’s bowels. 

I guess the Ds foresee a stampede back to the 1950s when us normies controlled everything. I'll admit to a touch of nostalgia.

Allowing DEI to DIE

Major firms are dropping DEI departments and activities, today's Lucianne.com has two examples here and here. This is certainly good news. 

John Deere and Microsoft are both very major players in their respective industries. Competence and performance should be the only criteria firms use to staff and promote. 

Perhaps this is a preliminary omen of changes implicit in the impending election and its expected shift from Biden to Trump administrations. As recently demonstrated, the Secret Service needs new management.

Power Line's Steve Hayward comments as follows.

When progressive Microsoft throws DEI under the bus, you know that a preference cascade is building in corporate America to get rid of this insidious nonsense. More and more corporations are going to decide that they don’t want to be outliers facing the wrath of customers and shareholders for coddling this divisive and expensive elite luxury belief.

A Known Wolf?

A story at Fox News quotes a classmate of Thomas Crooks - the Trump shooter - as saying there was a prior threat by Crooks’ friends “to shoot up our school.” Following that threat Crooks “didn’t return to school for a few days.”

Sounds like another “known wolf” troubled youngster. Unfortunately there is probably a kid or two like this in most schools, adolescence is no walk in the park. 

Most such don’t go beyond fantasizing. Now and then one acts out as Crooks did. We aren’t very good at predicting which will act out.

Knee High

Elon Musk announced he is moving X and SpaceX from CA to TX. He called a new CA law banning school districts from notifying parents their child was being transgender at school “the last straw.” 

This announcement triggered an “exchange of views” between Musk and CA Governor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom on Tuesday wrote on the social media platform: 'You bent the knee', along with a screenshot of a 2022 Tweet by Donald Trump criticizing Musk.

Musk retaliated on Wednesday by commenting on Newsom's X post: 'You never get off your knees'.

Was that a Kamala Harris-inspired reposte?

Vance on the Record

A Jewish author with an unusual name - Antonio Garcia Martinez - writing for a Jewish publication - Tablet - quotes recently named vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance speaking three years ago at a late-night bar session following a day of the National Conservatism Conference (aka NatCon). Vance said this.

The instincts of the middle-class Black voter, the middle-class white voter, the middle-class Latino voter, are the same. We love our country, but we don’t want to live in a shithole.

To the deplorable state of which '-hole' Joe Biden has contributed mightily. Do you hear echos of J.D.'s salty grandma in this quote?

About Vance

Sean Trende, who analyzes politics for RealClearPolitics, is a favorite of COTTonLINE. Today he writes that Sen. J.D. Vance will not help Donald Trump get elected. The reasons Trende gives are relatively persuasive, but not entirely so.

In response I'd make three points. First, Vance is a Marine. Notoriously there are no ex-Marines. Like me you've met many grizzled old guys who are still, in their hearts and minds, Marines. Maybe Trump was going to get the votes of most active and former Marines anyway, but this cinches it.

Second, in the wake of the shooting it looks like Trump would win going away regardless. What Vance provides is a young, smart acolyte who can take the populist MAGA movement forward when Trump term limits out in 2028.

And third, Vance's Asian wife and mixed-race kids provide a ready counter-argument to Democrat claims of Republican racism. That is a big plus when your opponent and his party are obsessed with identity issues.

A Suggestion

I'm no Democrat and there is no particular reason they'd take advice from me. That said, I just had a tactical insight they could use.

Given recent events, maybe they should accept that whoever they run against Trump is going to lose. Our system more or less requires they run a ticket regardless.

They might as well leave poor foggy old Joe Biden and the cackling floozy Kamala Harris in place as sacrificial place holders. Trump/Vance will roll over them like Sherman taking Georgia, and then the Dims can start fresh in 2028, with no lingering commitment to the hapless Harris.

Iconic

Image courtesy of this site.

Trump Chooses J. D. Vance

On the opening day of the Republican National Convention, it was announced today that former President Donald Trump has chosen Sen. J. D. Vance (R-OH) as his running mate to be Vice President. Fox News has a brief Vance biography.

Trump has been (I think) deliberately ambiguous about military aid to Ukraine, Vance has been unambiguously opposed. 

Opposition was an option for a Senator, it will be interesting to see if Vance modifies it at all as a VP candidate. If he doesn't, it may give us a clearer view of Trump's policy vis-a-vis that conflict.

On Trump's other stated objectives and policies, I don't see much daylight between him and Vance. Their agreement is necessary, of course.

----------

My own view is that supporting Ukraine is NATO's logical way forward. It ties down the Russian army so it isn't attacking a NATO member. It is unclear Trump shares that view. 

I suspect Trump's believes the two combatants should settle for the status quo border and make it permanent. This is a deal Ukraine doesn't like but might accept in return for full NATO membership including Article 5 protections against further incursions. 

Whether Putin would sign onto a deal with that sweetener attached is a whole other question. It's very possible he would not as it would put NATO on another Russian border, some 340 miles from Moscow. Napoleon and Hitler made them nervous about neighbors they believe to be hostile.

Video of Shooter on Roof

Go to this Red State story to view amateur video of the actual Trump shooter flat crawling up into position on that warehouse roof. The Secret Service has a lot to answer for.

Malice or Massive Incompetence

Erik Prince knows weaponry, and tactics. He has posted his preliminary assessment of the Secret Service' flawed protection of Trump on X (formerly Twitter). Some of his key ideas follow.

Donald J Trump is alive today solely due to a bad wind estimate by an evil would be assassin. As the graphics show the full value wind of just 5mph was enough to displace the unconfirmed but likely light 55 grain bullet two inches from DJT's intended forehead to his ear.

DJT was not saved by USSS brilliance. The fact that USSS allowed a rifle armed shooter within 150yds to a preplanned event is either malice or massive incompetence.

Will there be accountability? That's not the Washington way. Unserious and unworthy people in positions of authority got us to this near disaster.

Merit and execution must be the only deciding factors in hiring and leadership, not the social engineering priority of the day. Sadly nothing in Washington reflects that any longer.

It is time for Director Cheatle of the USSS to fall on her sword.

A Comparison

Twitchy has a comparison of the front pages of the New York Times and New York Post, both of which deal with the assassination attempt. NYT uses the same photo as NYP but crops it to remove the US flag flying behind Trump. 

The Times certainly won't associate Trump with the United States in any way; the Post is proud to do so. The Times is pretentious trash and acts like a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC, the Post is flashy but basically sound. 

That photo, most certainly including the flag, will be famous and likely featured in Trump's campaign ads. I will risk a prediction, yesterday's would-be assassin has just about guaranteed Trump's election to a second term. If Trump has coattails, maybe a clean sweep too?

Democrats Did This

The New York Post’s Michael Goodwin cites history and fixes blame in the Trump assassination attempt.

They have his blood on their hands.

This, by the way, is their rule. For years, when there was an attempted or successful shooting of a Democrat, The New York Times and other leftist outlets instantly concluded that Republican rhetoric loaded the gun and pulled the trigger, no matter the facts.

So by the same standard, Democrats did this.

Verdict: Harsh but accurate. 

Bearing Witness

Selena Zito is one of the best journalists of our current era. She captures the voices of non-urban, rust-belt Americans - most of them Trump supporters - like no one else. 

Zito lives not far from where Donald Trump was shot at a fairground rally in Pennsylvania. She spoke to him in the press tent just before he went on-stage. He asked about her grandkids.

The Free Press has her first-hand account of what it was like to hear the shots and drop on the ground in fear for her life, and that of her daughter and son-in-law on the ground beside her. This is real journalism.

An Iconic Image

There stands former President Donald J. Trump with blood trickling down from his shot ear, and smeared on his face. He raises his fist in defiance and, if my lip reading is on target, says "fight ... fight ... fight." 

Expect that picture to be archived alongside the one showing marines raising Old Glory on Iwo Jima. It is iconic in every sense of that word.

Can you imagine a greater contrast with frail Joe Biden than robust Trump being shot at and hit, wisely ducking down, and almost immediately bouncing back up waving a fist? 

I'm afraid the Secret Service has some serious 'splainin' to do. Image courtesy of the Daily Beast.

Combat reveals character. Imagine you are a Democrat trying to figure out how to run against that macho, indomitable image. You've no clue, I’d bet.