Earlier this evening I saw recent video of former President Barack Obama commenting on the Kirk assassination phenomenon. His content was the usual partisan nonsense, but what really struck me was his sad appearance.
Echoing a Matt Damon line from one of the Jason Bourne films, "Get some rest, Barack, you look tired." Obama doesn't look well.
Having kids looking at him asking, "Didn't you used to be someone?" has got to be galling.
Writing at PJ Media, Scott Pinsker looks at the Kirk assassination plus the reactions to it, and draws some dramatic conclusions you may find interesting.
Not just Charlie Kirk died on Sept. 10, 2025. So did the old Democratic Party. Unfortunately, what’s coming in its place is even worse.
Today’s Democratic Party is in the process of transitioning to the Democratic Socialist Party. A new national poll from Jacobin makes it crystal clear:Democrats prefer democratic socialism to capitalism by a 58 point margin. Socialism wins overall with likely voters under forty-five years old.Prediction: The Democratic Party will rebrand itself as the Democratic Socialist Party, because that’s what their liberal base demands.
Candidates who identify as democratic socialists are viewed just as favorably (+69) among registered Democrats as candidates who identify only as Democrats (+67).
My analysis: Some Millennials and many Gen Z feel trapped economically and willing to try socialism. Everyone older is less negative.
Trump is trying to turn around our economy with his tariff moves to reindustrialize the US. The vital question is this, will Trump succeed in creating enough opportunity for all before those preferring socialism become a voting majority?
Whoever wins that race gets to call the tune the piper will play. Saying everything depends on the outcome is an understatement.
Public events often have unintended (and unexpected) consequences. I have been amazed at the extent to which the UVU shooter was on-camera everywhere he went. It’s clear he had no idea how pervasive it is.
To be sure, it takes something as earth-shaking as this assassination to bring the many independently done videos all together. Still, what I take away from this event is that in an era of doorbell, dashboard, traffic and other security cameras, plus people shooting video with their phones, many of us are on-camera more often than not whenever we leave our homes, and sometimes not even then.
The lesson in all this, live your life as you want others to notice it. Doing shabby things you’d be embarrassed to have on-view, in the believe no one can see, is increasingly a false hope. Imagine video of you picking your nose or scratching your crotch on national TV?
What is odd is that the surveillance was installed without any public debate on whether it should be encouraged, or even permitted. “The night has a thousand eyes” isn’t just a song anymore, and it is worse in daylight.
I’m reminded of a TV catch phrase from my youth. “Smile, you’re on candid camera!” I fear that’s most of us today, especially in urban and suburban areas. Another reason, if one is needed, to live in a rural setting.
George Orwell was a prophet.
Danny Kruger - an established Tory MP and no outlier - has left the Conservatives and joined Nigel Farage's Reform Party. Hat tip to RealClearWorld for the link.
Kruger isn’t some eccentric loner. He was appointed shadow work and pensions secretary under Kemi Badenoch and spearheaded the [Tory] party’s opposition to assisted dying. Prior to entering parliament he was David Cameron’s speechwriter and Boris Johnson’s political secretary.
He is the first solid Tory to make the switch, and doing so he announced, "The Conservatives are over." If you keep a weather eye on UK politics (as I do), you know this could be significant. The timing, coming soon after the "million man" Unite the Kingdom march in London, gives the move extra impact.
Aristotle was right, one swallow does not make a spring. But it can only be a favorable omen.
N.B., As I'm an Anglophile, the British struggle to regain control of their island is likely to be a story we'll follow for some weeks or months here at COTTonLINE.
If you hunger for more bits and pieces of the Tyler Robinson-as-sniper story, John Hinderaker has some further refinements of what went down. The Mauser rifle he used belonged to granddad. It was maybe a war trophy, with an expensive telescopic sight added.
Hinderaker also has some quotes, likely off emails or texts, from the perp to his partner, made after the shot was fired. Not much question remains about guilt.
Later ... I hear via TV news that Robinson's DNA was found on the Mauser rifle's trigger, per the local DA who was elaborating the charges and outlining the evidence supporting them.
Scanning a Byron York column in the Washington Examiner made me aware of something I hadn't quite realized. Namely, namely the juxtaposition of 9-11 perpetrated by Islamic terrorists, and 25 years later the leading candidate for New York City mayor - Mamdani - is Islamic.
Nu Yawkers can't manage to hold a grudge. I have neither forgiven nor forgotten, but it seems NYC has. Go figure.
On a lighter note, I could argue Mamdani and New York City deserve each other. Quoting H.L. Mencken,
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
NYC, don't forget the Preparation H.
While I’m writing about things that need fixing, how about the roughly half of the states with laws against “conversion therapy.” That is, counseling whose goal is reconciling unhappy young people with the biological sex into which they were born.
The laws were passed because real abuses occurred. Some “boot camps” basically terrorized poor confused kids, often with parental approval.
Unfortunately the mental health professions have been prevented from trying to help these youngsters at all. The laws enable a zealot to swear out a complaint against counselors and ruin their livelihood or jail them. Laws preventing coercive programs but permitting counseling should be possible.
Surely there is a non-coercive middle ground where counselors can help kids see the world has plenty of room for “tom boy” girls and guys who aren’t Hulk Hogan. Famous examples abound. Will they, as adults, thereby receive universal approbation? Sorry, almost nobody gets that.
At least some evidence suggests many sex-confused kids, who can get through the peer harassment of adolescence without medical intervention, become well-adjusted gays and lesbians. As such, they are as comfortable in their own skins as most of us are, which is to say, mostly but not completely. Life is like that.
People are being fired for celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk. Others are claiming this violates their First Amendment rights.
I would like to see one of our attorney commentators do a layman’s guide to what speech and writing the amendment does and does not protect, and from whom. The answer is not a simple one.
For example is advocacy (incitement?) of clearly unlawful behavior - murder - unlawful? How about praise of felonious behavior done by others? This clarification would be helpful in the current setting.
Interesting column in the Washington Free Beacon describes various pieces of evidence suggesting transexual groups online may have had foreknowledge of the plot to assassinate Charlie Kirk. At least one message presaged the actual shooting by just over a month!
As I noted last week, certain parts of Tyler Robinson's plan appear to have needed one or more accomplices. Perhaps UVU students, which Robinson was not.
There has been no further notice taken of a song someone posted online a month before the shooting with this title. "Charlie Kirk, Dead at 31." That certainly is suspicious.
We are told the FBI is investigating the possibility of Kirk's death being the result of a murder plot by sexual exotics. There is the strong scent of Weimar decadence in this year's autumn air.
Later ... David Strom calls it a "Trantifa conspiracy," apparently the transexual 'movement' has taken over Antifa. And then there is the Armed Queers SLC group to consider.
Even later ... National Review reports FBI has found Tyler Robinson's DNA on the towel wrapped around the rifle used to kill Charlie Kirk, and on a screwdriver left on the rooftop from which the shot was fired.
If you read this blog with some regularity, it's a near certainty you are some flavor of political conservative, even if you reject the label of "far right." I'm recommending a column to you that you may not like the tone of, or the place where it was published, a pure progressive rag: Salon.
Executive Editor Andrew O'Hehir is woke as they come, but I think he's grasped something about the Charlie Kirk phenomenon others have missed. Hold your nose if you must, but read through to the end. To be fair to O'Hehir, he admits Kirk made a big difference.
His considerable talent lay in translating the knee-jerk reactionary views of Trumpism — everything the libs have done, from abortion rights to Black Lives Matter to proliferating pronouns to low-flow showerheads, is destroying America — into the distinctive cultural language of a younger generation.
Everything about his online presence, media appearances and in-person tours was designed to reach younger people who were acclimated to the language and culture of celebrity, but weren’t much interested in the remote, tedious and pointless machinery of politics.
His rhetoric was often extreme and his positions deliberately inflammatory — he claimed to be modeling a rebellion against established order, after all — but his demeanor was radically cool, relentlessly cheerful, and never openly hostile or unfriendly.
Had he lived, devout Christian Kirk might have become an evangelical minister who presided over a suburban megachurch. Or even this century's Billy Graham. Hat tip to RealClearPolicy for the link.
Via con Dios, Charlie.
I just finished reading a column I liked very much, I recommend it to you. John Tillman writes at USA Today about how purists in both parties don’t like Donald Trump because he is a practical guy, not overly hung up on ideology. Mostly he sees problems, chooses among the potentially available tools at his disposal, and tries to fix what’s wrong.
My insight, as a management prof, is that he treats the presidency as a CEO job, and his particular role is as a turn-around guy, ‘hired’ to cut the fat, and whip FedGov into shape, make it ‘profitable’ meaning working for us ‘shareholders.’ He’s proceeded to do exactly that, to the best of his ability. Hence the blizzard of Executive Orders, term limited Trump 47 is in a hurry.
As long as a CEO has the Board of Directors behind him he can pretty much do what seems right. In Trump’s case, “the Board” is public opinion. No wonder he comes down hard on the popular side of 80-20 issues. He’s working our agenda.
As the article referenced above notes, he’s been more successful with some problems than others, which is what you’d expect to happen. If he’s done anything against which the entrenched supporters of waste, fraud, and abuse have not filed suit, it has escaped my attention. Fortunately he has prevailed in the appellate courts more often than not, suggesting he gets good legal advice.
I’d guess Trump doesn’t expect to win on every issue, nor does he need to. If he can win on a lot of the big ones, he’s done his job. He hands the country over to the next POTUS in better shape than he found it.
Reacting to the recent killings in Minnesota and Utah, Power Line's John Hinderaker writes a condemnation I would share with you.
Westman and Robinson are different cases. While no doubt disturbed, neither had a criminal history. Rather than being habitual criminals, they were activated by ideologies–ideologies peddled by the Democratic Party. Hatred of religion, hatred of America, hatred of conservatives, hatred of Republicans, hatred of normal people–these ideas are nurtured and encouraged by Democratic politicians, journalists, pundits and activists.The Democrats who peddle these messages of hate know that most people who respond to them positively will do little more than vote for Democrats. But they also know, and intend, that some damaged personalities will respond differently. People like James Hodgkinson, John Roske, Audrey Hale, Thomas Crooks, Ryan Routh, Luigi Mangione, Robin Westman and Tyler Robinson will respond to the Democrats’ dog whistles by killing, or trying to kill, Republicans, conservatives, or religious people. Normals, in other words.
Taking advantage of the mentally damaged to make kamikaze attacks on normals is brutally sick utilitarianism. It's the moral equivalent of marching prisoners across a minefield to clear the mines - at the cost of many deaths, about which you feel no remorse.
Earlier today I listed some questions about Tyler Robinson about which journalists should be finding answers. One of those answers has subsequently emerged.
After spending one term at Utah State University as a pre-engineering scholarship student, he dropped out. It's reported he has spent the last three years at Dixie Technical College in nearby St. George UT, learning to be an electrician, one of the building trades.
At a guess, he had an unfriendly encounter with calculus at USU. He wouldn't be the first aspiring engineer to be baffled thereby. Don't ask me how I know.
Washington, where his family lives, is a suburb of St. George and living there is an entirely logical money saving step. St. George is a boomtown, with lots of new construction. Apprentice programs often involve actual installation work on construction job sites alongside journeymen electricians, which earned him actual paychecks.
So maybe Robinson wasn't even a slacker, he could afford his newish car. That only makes his being a murderer more improbable.
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Later Correction ... Tyler Robinson was not living at home, he was sharing an apartment with Lance Twiggs, a person who may be transgender (photo) and who is said to aspire to be a professional gamer, presumably online. Twiggs ratted out Robinson's guilty-looking emails.
Inasmuch as Robinson didn't like his parents' Republican politics, this seems logical. I would guess the elder Robinsons would take an extremely dim view of a transexual flatmate for their son Tyler, perhaps he didn't share that datum with them.
Still Later ... A New York Post column alleges a possible homosexual relationship between Robinson and Twiggs. If accurate, that would go a long way to explaining Robinson's dislike of Kirk. Kirk didn't view trans as yet another category of "normal."
Being gay also accounts for Tyler girlfriends not surfacing. And could also explain his not doing an LDS "mission" before college. I doubt being both gay and LDS is any sort of easy or pleasant.
Twiggs and Robinson were part of an online group of gamers which included a number of grads from Robinson's high school. The FBI should look at the group for accomplices. Members may view Robinson's act with favor.
Otherwise conventional, even admirable, families have been spawning the occasional rebel since forever. Tyler Robinson appears to be one of these.
I’ve had a home in a predominantly LDS area for over 30 years and have friends in the faith. Glenn K. Beaton’s Aspen Beat paints a picture of the Robinsons as a typical Utah Mormon family - close, religious, very family oriented, achievers, conservative law-abiding Republicans.
And then there was Tyler, a better than average high school student who dropped out of college after less than a year, who at 22 was still living at home. He had a newish car but we haven’t heard if he had a job to go to. We do know he was an online gamer. And he was, according to friends, the only progressive in a conservative family.
He appears to have been an outlier in terms of politics, maybe religion, and not building a career and family of his own. We don’t hear he went on a “mission” for a year as nearly all young LDS men, and some women do. We don’t hear he had a girlfriend. Several of the things he would need to fit in with his family and his society weren’t working.
Assuming he was truly the shooter, his act was at once a repudiation of his family, his church, academia, and more or less everything within which he grew up. He seemingly leaves no “manifesto” and not much online footprint, but somehow picked up some Antifa ideology. It seems every square-hole generation spawns a handful of these round pegs who don’t fit.
Several questions about Tyler need answering, one hopes journalists will try to provide answers. The most recent 18% of his life is a nearly blank slate. We can infer he spent some time learning marksmanship and weapon skills. He has had money to spend.
Has he had employment for the 4 years since high school? Has he had romantic interests - girlfriends or boyfriends? Has he been sitting at home playing online games? Is he an incel? Has he done or sold drugs? Been a Uber driver? Been rioting in Portland with Antifa? Has he done anything at all?
Other questions need answers. How did Tyler know where Kirk would speak, early enough to scout out a sniper “nest” with a clear view of his intended victim? Normally doors to building roofs are kept locked, how did he get access? Even if that was a standard speaker rostrum, since he was not a student there, who fed him info? Had he been hanging around the campus, hooking up with other progressives? It feels like he must have had help, co-conspirators.
Progressives keep comparing Trump to Hitler. On most subjects these comparisons are laughably wrong as the policies of the two men differ, diametrically. Examples: Try to imagine Hitler with Jewish grandchildren, you simply cannot. Hitler started wars, Trump labors to end them.
On the other hand, there are two or three skills or traits Trump and Hitler share. Nationalism, superior public speaking skills, and activism in office. FDR and Churchill also exhibited these three characteristics. They are why Trump terrifies progressives.
None of their speakers can hold a candle to Don. Progressives prefer globalism to nationalism, and every time they turn around he has cancelled another aspect of the administrative state they laboriously built over the last several decades.
In short, he is an energetic, talented politician who speaks for Americans. The current batch of progressives do not. If you were in their shoes, you'd hate him for making you look bad, and lose elections.
At American Thinker, Anthony Matoria notes "five facts too scary to talk about." He then proceeds to list and write about them. Here's the list, see what you think. I believe he's right about several of them.
1. The government is really bad at spending money.
2. People with untreated thought disorders generally cannot function unsupervised in society.
3. Emotions are bad counselors in matters of policy.
4. Not all cultures are compatible.
5. The models that “experts” use to guide policy decisions are often not very good.
I agree that numbers 2, 3, and 4 are scary issues to base policy upon. Likely to trigger violent outbursts.
On the other hand, I take numbers 1 and 5 as givens. Don't most of us believe them?
Writing for The Guardian, Nathalie Tocci complains of the lost "relationship" between America and Europe, and opines that there is no getting it back on track. She guesses Biden was the last US president to be a true Atlanticist.
By convincing herself the former relationship was one between equals, which it never was, she mourns the loss of that friendship. The truth about the last 80 years is quite unlike what she imagines it to have been
Before World War II several European nations were big-deal colonial powers with outposts around the globe. This was true of Britain, of course, but also of France, Belgium, Portugal, Italy, the Netherlands. Even little Denmark had some island colonies. As such, they expected to be treated as players in the world game.
During and after the war colonialism died and the former colonial powers had adjust to being minor players. Plus unlike the US, many had been destroyed to varying extents by the fighting. Since World War II ended, the US and Europe relationship has been much more similar to that of parent and children.
The US pampered the Europeans, protected them, bought their exports while they limited our ability to sell them goods and services, and generally acted like their indulgent parents. Like dependent children they had a free ride on our defense dollar and could spend their "tax earnings" on foolishly lavish welfare programs.
Like the 30 year old 'child' who still lives in his parents' basement, European societies never "grew up" to accept adult responsibilities. Along comes Trump 47 and metaphorically kicks them out of the house. Time to grow up and take on "adulting."
Forming the European Union was sort of the equivalent of a large family of children forming a union to balance the power of the 'parent' US. An alliance of weaklings ≠ strength; it didn't, doesn't, and probably can't work.
Adult relationships (other than marriage) between people or nations, are mostly transactional. We cooperate when it makes sense to do so, compete what that is better, and much of the time act in our own interests without paying overmuch attention to the welfare of others. We expect them to do likewise, pull up their socks and cope.
Perhaps if the European nations can accept full national responsibility for their outcomes, we may again be adult friends, without the dependency and the resentments that breeds.
Heed the words of Lord Palmerston, PM of Britain in the mid-1800a.
It is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England. We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.
Substitute the US for England and that is a fair description of the Trump foreign policy, which he obviously didn't invent, but must admire.
The Daily Mail says the Charlie Kirk shooter is named Tyler Robinson, he is the 22 year old son of a deputy sheriff who turned him in. The DM says the Robinsons in a northern suburb of St. George, UT.
Meanwhile President Trump says the suspected shooter has been arrested but didn’t name him.
The shooter’s MO was similar to that in Butler, PA - rooftop sniper nest.
Not much is certain at this point - 7:55 am, MDT. Developing ….
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Later - 11:00 am, MDT ... Matt Margolis of PJ Media reports Utah Governor Spencer Cox seems sure Tyler Robinson is the real deal, the Kirk shooter. Some reports indicate he has confessed, if not to police, to family members.
Now we get to learn if Robinson will be lionized by people who didn't like Kirk's politics. Luigi Mangione certainly has been and by roughly the same, sick crowd.
Assassination chic is something we need to eradicate.
At Gateway Pundit there is an "interesting" column about a transgender individual in Utah using the name Skye Valadez who, a month before the fatal shot was fired, posted at SoundCloud a song entitled "Charlie Kirk Dead at 31". Hat tip to Lucianne.com for this link, and the one below.
This is a hoax, a clue, or the biggest coincidence in modern history, take your pick. The column has photos (above) of both 'Ms' Skye and the FBI's person of interest. Presuming the latter's aviator sunglasses are prescription, they could be the same person, having somewhat similar face shapes.
Let's see how this plays out, it is still early days. Other leads have proven to be false trails.
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For more video and stills of the FBI's person of interest, see this Red State column. He wears a backpack, does anyone know if the found Mauser 30-06 could be quickly disassembled? It seems unlikely.
The Charlie Kirk shooter may have been caught on video found by the FBI who call him(?) "a person of interest." The individual pictured presents as a slender college-age white male, dressed in black.
Presuming both of the above are accurate (it's uncertain), the individual may only be posing as male, youth would be harder to fake.
I wish someone could recognize the logo on his sweatshirt. It appears to be a US flag with something or someone standing in front of it. The standing 'whatever' resembles a person with an outstretched arm. It appears mass produced, not one of a kind; perhaps someone will recognize and identify the source so its meaning (if any) can be clarified. There is also a small white logo on his dark bill cap, not identifiable.
I find the following confusing (and unexplained). The rifle was found "in the woods," the person pictured is carrying no rifle. Regular hunting rifles don't knock down into small concealable packages and can't be concealed under anything smaller than a topcoat.
Do we know if the video is from before or after the shooting? If before, it could be the shooter en route to join up with a rooftop prepositioned rifle.
If this is the shooter fleeing the campus, how did the rifle get to the woods since the pictured person isn't carrying it? An accomplice? I am almost ready to conclude at least one of these two finds has nothing to do with the shooting.
I find hard to imagine someone who hated Charlie Kirk would wear a US flag logo on their sweats. Those who hate MAGA are more likely to burn our flag than wear it.
The rifle with spent cartridge and trans messages looks more certain than a kid wearing dark clothes that would attract no attention on campus. Especially if ballistics can show the bullet that killed Kirk was from that rifle.
Afterthought: The trans messages could relate the Kirk shooting to the Annuciantion shooting in Minneapolis. Or it might be a deliberate red herring to confuse law enforcement.
Second Afterthought: An assault rifle ban could not have prevented this targeted killing.
Street artist Banksy painted this in London, the government almost immediately covered it up. If the image is unclear, it shows a wig-wearing British judge using his gavel to beat a person with a sign protesting illegal immigration. I'd guess you can't post this in the Youkay.
A quote relevant to the assassination of Turning Point's Charlie Kirk today, thanks to William Wolfe for posting it and to Instapundit for reposting it.
The tyrant dies, and his rule is over. The martyr dies, and his rule begins.
—Soren Kierkegaard
Charlie Kirk ... remember his name, and his message.
Charlie Kirk, 31, founder of conservative campus organization Turning Point USA, was shot and killed today while speaking to students at Utah Valley University. This much has been widely reported.
Kirk was making the first stop on a multi-campus speaking tour he called "American Comeback." He was a staunch supporter of MAGA and President Trump who at Truth Social wrote this of Kirk's death.
The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.
For those who don't know his work, Charlie was a "movement guy," not a candidate but popular with most Republicans. His life work was helping conservative college students thrive and have a voice in hostile campus environments which begrudge them seats at the table.
As I write this, the shooter has been apprehended but not identified publicly by the FBI. Until proven otherwise, the default presumption is Kirk was killed for his beliefs and his work organizing conservative collegians. Sadly, he didn't have DJT's fabulous luck, but was felled by a single rifle shot from roughly 200 yards.
Charismatic figures attract assassins: JFK, RFK, Reagan, ML King, John Lennon, and Trump. Now add Charlie Kirk to that list. Kirk is survived by his wife Erika and two preschool children.
I blame Democrats' harsh rhetoric toward MAGA figures for this murder and the two attempts on Trump's life. Despite their phony piety following violence, you and I know Democrats are secretly glad when it happens and wish they could celebrate it openly. Theirs is a psychopathic ideology ... of, by, and for sick, damaged people.
Later ... two suspects have been arrested, interrogated, and released. As of eleven p.m. mountain time, the manhunt continues.
FBI Director Kash Patel hasn't said why he was so positive about the second arrestee, who now walks free. Methinks Patel has egg on his face ... again. Appointees at his level don't get unlimited do-overs.
An excellent quote from PJ Media's Stephen Kruiser who sums up the Joe Biden presidency thusly.
He'd always been one of the most divisive people in American politics, a real nasty piece of work. The MSM hacks turned him into a kindly grandpa who was going to read the electorate bedtime stories after he got Orange Man Bad out of the White House.
Before the civil war Sen. Biden's Delaware was a slave state. As a young senator, Joe was pals with the Senate's out of the closet racists like Strom Thurmond.
What I hope will be my last post on the Cracker Barrel story is the following from Breitbart. The CB firm announces that if your local Cracker Barrel hasn't remodeled to eliminate the antique Americana hanging from the ceiling and walls, it is safe! It won't be remodeled. That's a relief.
We mostly eat at the CB in St. George UT which, when we left that area in May, hadn't been remodeled. Maybe we dodged the bullet, we'll find out when we go south in mid-October. I actually like the old stuff and know what a lot of it was used for, even if I never used most of it myself. Hat tip to NewsAmmo for the link.
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Yep, I'm old and grew up in a then-rural part of SoCal. I drove my uncle's Ford tractor before I was old enough to drive a car, and earned the money for my first car trapping pocket gophers out of commercial orange groves.
Gophers are a pest, they kill orange trees by gnawing on the bark of the roots, so orchardists need to eradicate them from the groves. I got paid a whole dollar for each dead gopher and cleared 3-4 dollars a week in return for walking a trapline carrying a shovel every afternoon after school.
I don't remember seeing a gopher trap on a CB wall, they are strange wire and spring contraptions, not at all humane. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of leg traps for above-ground critters displayed and they aren't humane either.
Looking back I would have loved to have a quadrunner to check my traps, but they hadn't been invented yet so I hoofed it. Good times.
The world has an inexhaustible supply of young, military-aged young men anxious to better themselves by emigrating to a first-world country without permission. Meanwhile the young men of those first world countries seem to have things they'd rather do than be soldiers and sailors.
This suggests the confluence of a problem with a solution. As an alternative to deportation, how about offering the healthy illegal aliens enlistment in a foreign legion with a US officer corps? What follows is very much a back-of-the-envelope first draft.
The offer: room and board, uniforms, medical/dental care, ESL, a modest monthly stipend to cover incidentals at the PX (insufficient for drugs/booze/whores/cars), and a deferred salary held hostage for their continued good behavior, forfeited if they screw up.
Promotions available up to senior sergeant ranks, based on performance and good behavior. Enlisted personnel must live on base - unmarried - for their first four year hitch. At the end of which they can take their accumulated pay and go home. That lump of pay should go a long way to establishing a life in a third world home country.
Or they may reenlist and marry if they choose, live on or off base, and draw their pay like any enlistee. Enlistees retain citizenship in their home country prior to retirement from the legion. At the end of 20 years of honorable service, retire with US citizenship (if desired) and live where they choose, full veterans benefits only available in the US.
Prior to retirement, all legionnaires are subject to military discipline. Gross misbehavior anywhere along the line means demobilization and deportation, with forfeiture of benefits.
Obviously there would be hundreds of details to be worked out concerning travel documents, legal status of home country wives, etc. This outline is the result of maybe an hour's cogitation.
An article at PJ Media notes Sen. Rand Paul whinging at Vice President J.D. Vance about sinking that drug-runner boat in the Caribbean. He seems to think the drug boat, with four big outboard motors running flat out, may have carried innocent fishermen. That’s preposterous.
The Pauls, pere et fil, historically are a mixed blessing. Both Ron and Rand sometimes have good ideas and often are weirder than a voodoo jamboree. This column chronicles a Rand strangeness.
Neither man has gathered more than a tiny following. Because their semi-libertarian world view is so garbled, few can share it. I have to wonder, is the Rands' problem genetic?
The US is sending illegals home, and has found some countries refuse to accept back their people who are in the US unlawfully. Our current response is to send them elsewhere, mostly some godawful place in Africa.
I read somewhere the British are hoping to start sending illegal immigrants and visa overstayers home. And they are considering a particular twist on that process.
The Brits are thinking, if country A won’t take its citizens back, to respond by refusing to issue visas to country A’s citizens who would like to travel legally to the YouKay for business or pleasure. Not clear if that rule would include country A’s diplomats, probably not.
The basic idea is this. If you won’t take back your citizens who are here illegally, that is a hostile act. We don’t want people from hostile countries here.
President Trump should consider refusing visas to citizens of nations refusing repatriation of its citizens who are here without our permission. We should also revoke visas of those nation’s citizens already here, making them eligible for arrest and involuntary deportation after a reasonable period, say two weeks. This should most definitely include student visas.
In the Wall Street Journal, a column by Harvard Econ prof Roland Fryer argues his and others' research shows five things can make a K-6 public school excellent. The column is not behind the WSJ paywall.
1. More instruction time
2. High expectations
3. Frequent teacher feedback
4. Data-driven instruction
5. High-dosage tutoring
He argues the blame for why these things are not employed everywhere lies on the shoulders of school administrators, a group that continues to grow and eat resources without becoming more effective. Plus, all those hours of tutoring will cost a lot.
A young Ukrainian woman, a refugee from the war riding on light rail in Charlotte, was recently stabbed to death by an apparently insane black career criminal with whom she had no interaction. The whole hideous thing is on video, creating a scandal the legacy media are trying mightily to ignore.
The perp should have been locked up, but wasn't. The local DA said he wasn't sane enough to be held responsible for his earlier crimes, so he was released!
Presumably as an accused murderer NC will finally lock him up. It shouldn't have required a woman to die horribly to make that happen.
Charlotte's disgusting mayor babbled the usual progressive bull crap about not being able to arrest our way to less crime. Arresting isn't the problem, he'd been arrested repeatedly. The problem is unwillingness to physically separate criminal predators, including those mentally ill, from sane, law-abiding society./
I start to think El Salvador has the right idea. Rehabilitation rarely works, quarantining those who either cannot or choose not to behave does work.
Afterthought ... I don't know why this murder isn't a hate crime.
Later … for another “take” on this story, see Sasha Stone’s Substack column “The Girl on the Train” for a personal, emotional view of what happened and, perhaps why.
Tyler Durden, at his Zero Hedge website, reports one of two conservatives will win the presidency runoff in Bolivia. This comes after 20 years of leftist rule.
Durden decribes why this change is happening. He goes on to note other places in Latin America where similar changes either have occurred or are expected to do so within the next year.
This is good news from a region where such news hasn't been the norm. Hat tip to News Ammo for the link.
The New York Post links to a study summarized by MDPI from the original published in the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering. The subject is a data based study of sea level changes, done by a Dutch engineer. Climate alarmists have falsely alleged the sea is rising at an accelerating rate; it is not.
Statistical tests were run on all selected datasets, taking acceleration of sea level rise as a hypothesis. In both datasets, approximately 95% of the suitable locations show no statistically significant acceleration of the rate of sea level rise. The investigation suggests that local, non-climatic phenomena are a plausible cause of the accelerated sea level rise observed at the remaining 5% of the suitable locations.
Local phenomena are often a plausible explanation for the locally observed pattern of sea level rise. The majority of the local causes of rapid sea level rise (or drop) appear to be geologic.
On average, the rate of rise projected by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] is biased upward with approximately 2 mm per year in comparison with the observed rate. (emphases added)
Alarmists gotta alarm, apparently. Trust an engineer from the Netherlands to care about actual, measured sea levels; the Dutch have skin in the sea level game.
We aren't all that far north, roughly the same latitude as Boston. An interesting thing happens each year around Labor Day, in our part of western Wyoming.
The nature of the sunlight changes, becomes less white and more of a cream on the color spectrum. Sure enough, there is the tiniest touch of cool in the still-pleasant air.
Not many leaves have turned yet, but their green is looking tired, almost ready to turn. All of the billions of 50 cent sized aspen leaves in our forest will soon become a pure, pale yellow and a week or so later begin to drift down. A bit later the mountain maple leaves will turn a pomegranate red. It's quite a show.
We haven't had a frost yet, I believe, but that will come probably before the month is out. De jure autumn comes in two weeks but this far, both north and above sea level, autumn has de facto arrived.
I like autumn, but I also associate its coming with melancholy, go figure. I'm not sure how liking and melancholy go together, but that's autumn for me. Perhaps I'm mourning the death of the Rocky Mountain summer, my favorite of the four seasons.
By no means am I the first to note Trump comes down on the same side of policy issues as most of the electorate. A popular way of labeling this is to call it “80/20” meaning something like 80% of us agree with him. He “gets” normal Americans; think of it as him “reading the room,” on a continental scale.
Hating Trump, Democrats have to take the 20 side because he is energetically on the 80 side. Democrats can't agree with Trump, thus their platform isn’t especially popular except with sexual exotics, AWFLs, and Ivy League grads.
Polls show quite a few Trump-hating Democrats actually hold Trump-like views on various issues. Of course, the poll questions must be posed without a reminder of Trump’s support to elicit positive responses.
The 80/20 issues include hiring and promotion on merit, excluding woman-identifying men from women’s sports, border enforcement, deportation of illegal aliens, tough-on-crime bail and sentencing, involuntary treatment for mental illness and addiction, policing vagrancy, requiring nations which wish to sell us goods to also buy from us, putting patriotism back in K-12 education, support for Israel, military preparedness, and so many more.
Another insightful label for Trump 47 is the “common sense presidency.” I am finding it refreshing.
Reacting to an article reporting few people use salt substitutes, even when they have high blood pressure, Instapundit wisecracks thusly, "That's because they taste terrible."
I happen to be one of those users of salt substitutes. These products swap potassium chloride for sodium chloride. The taste is similar but not identical.
In my experience his reaction is correct as an initial impression. I found I became accustomed to salt substitute relatively quickly, now I use it on meat, potatoes, etc. when the flavor needs a boost.
Some people never get used to the taste of sugar substitutes in colas. I did quickly and for years drank a couple of liters of diet soda daily.
My point is if you can adjust to diet soda - as many have with pleasure - you can probably get used to salt substitute. I certainly have, after fearing I couldn't. It beats eating bland food by a country mile, in my experience.
Ed Driscoll at Instapundit links to a video, posted by the White House, describing Donald Trump's eleven life lessons. You could do much worse than follow them. I've listed them below if you don't need the video of Trump at various ages from his 20s up till now, which I enjoyed.
1. You're never too young to do something great.
2. You have to love what you do.
3. Think big.
4. Work hard.
5. Don't lose your momentum.
6. To change the world, dare to be an outsider.
7. Trust your instincts.
8. Believe in the American dream.
9. Think of yourself as a winner.
10. Be an original.
11. Never give up.
We can't all be Trump, we can't all be unique twenty-something prodigies or change agent outsiders. If all of us tried the result would be chaos.
Think of these as a shopping list, pick the ones that resonate with you. In my long, mostly successful life, numbers 2, 7, 8, and 9 have been particularly important. Your results may vary.
J. K. Rowling, the Harry Potter author, is well known for her advocacy of keeping men, including those who "identify" as women, out of real, biological women's spaces and sports. In general I agree with her views.
Here she takes to X to excoriate Gladwell who moderated a panel where some people called such advocacy hateful and bigoted. He thought those on the pro-trans side were extreme but said nothing at the time, and has said so now. She dumps on him big time, maybe too much.
I think she is right to point he was engaging in butt-covering when he said nothing in order to protect his job. He readily admits as much.
Just maybe we should conclude he merely decided the issue being discussed wasn't the proverbial "bridge he chose to die on." There are fights we choose to join, and many more that we may think have some merit but are sufficiently peripheral to our lives that we don't get into the fight.
I liked being a professor enough to refrain from flaunting my conservative views before colleagues and students. The culture of the university held otherwise, and I didn't argue.
However, I wasn't teaching politics or sociology, I taught business management. I don't apologize for keeping unpopular views to myself, since they were mostly peripheral to my subject matter.
There are certainly things I oppose about which I've not bothered to write in this blog I've posted for the last 18+ years. Either I think there is nothing to be done, or I can't influence the outcome or even I have no skin in that particular game.
Let the person who has never done this "issue triage" cast the first stone.
A major criticism of President Trump activating National Guard troops to support his anti-crime actions is that they aren't trained as police. Fair enough.
The National Guard must include units that are trained and equipped as military police (MPs or SPs). Why doesn't he activate those for law enforcement support?
MP equipment includes restraints (cuffs or ties), night sticks, and non-lethal weaponry (stunners, mace). They train to deal with unruly, even violent individuals in uniform, training equally relevant to civilian miscreants.
I haven't seen this question raised elsewhere.
A quote from a Politico article about Democrats' difficulties that I really like It's not behind their paywall so check it out.
“We’re failing across the board because fundamentally the Democratic Party is a machine that is built by a bunch of Ivy League grads to talk to a bunch of Ivy League grads,” said a Democratic consultant to whom I granted anonymity “because I don’t know how to say this in a way that won’t ruin my career.”
The delicious irony is that many Democrats recognize this fatal error but cannot imagine an electoral way to change it that doesn't involve seppuku.
A PJ Media column summarizes studies published in various sources showing transexual individuals are more likely to be school shooters and otherwise violent, as follows.
The Western Journal analyzed numbers and states that data indicates 40% of school shooters since 2020 have either been transgender or “trans-suspected.”
Matt Margolis analyzed the statistics and determined that transgender individuals are between twice as likely and five times as likely to be mass shooters as the general population.
Gays Against Groomers (GAG), which focuses on protecting kids from woke sexual grooming, picked up the story on transgender school shooters. “Despite making up less than 1% of the population, trans individuals account for roughly 40% of successful and would-be school shooters since 2020, data shows,”
There is no question individuals who are LGBTQ have a rough time as preteens and teens. There were 2-3 such individuals in my exurban high school class who were semi-outcasts.
Young people are very mean to each other. It's no surprise some lash out suicidally, and that schools are a favored target.
I was another kind of semi-outcast, too bookish and smart to fit in. I harbor no resentment, I've been more successful than all but one or two in my class of 100. Plus I've outlived most of them.
