In The Mailbox: 12.22.23

Posted on | December 23, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.22.23

Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.

Mash Kyrielight wishes you a Merry Christmas!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: How’s That Bail Reform Working Out?
EBL: Dostoyevsky Survives Firing Squad, also, Julie Christie
Twitchy: Author Claims Argentina Turning Fascist – Gets Slapped By People Who Know The Definition, Randi Weingarten Tries To Dunk On Prager U – Gets Buried Under Receipts, and Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud At U. Minnesota
Louder With Crowder: Below average high school male sprinter turns female, now SHE’S crushing records in college
Vox Popoli: The Shadow Mocks
According To Hoyt: Better Late Than Never Post, Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, and Blessed When The Masks Fell
Monster Hunter Nation:
Stoic Observations: Merry Christmas

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: Avoiding a Junk-Filled Christmas
American Greatness: A Glaring Sign of Rot Within the CIA
American Thinker: 2020 Election Fraud and the Courts, also, One Doctor’s Fight for COVID Justice
Animal Magnetism: First Day of Winter, also, Rule Five Climate Cult Friday
Babalu Blog: A black Christmas in Cuba for the family members of political prisoners, Cuba’s fake president says drastic economic reforms ‘will make more Revolution and more Socialism’, and Nicaraguan dictatorship arrests bishop for saying he prays for imprisoned bishop
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For December 22
Behind The Black: Red Chinese astronauts do spacewalk to repair Tiangong-3 solar panel, Firefly successfully launches for the second time in 2023, and Curiosity takes a close-up of distant cliffs
Cafe Hayek: By Itself?
CDR Salamander: Fullbore Friday
Chicago Boyz: Worth Pondering
Da Tech Guy: My Suggestion to St. Mary’s Fire the Board, Fire the President
Don Surber: Merry Christmas, Matt Drudge
First Street Journal: St Greta of Thunberg must be appalled!
Gates Of Vienna: Striking Their Necks, also, We Have Ways of Making You Give Up Your Christmas Goodies!
The Geller Report: “Irishman” Who Stabbed Three Young Children With 14 Inch Knife Finally Identified as Muslim Migrant (Algerian National)
Hollywood In Toto: Why Godzilla Minus One Is Best Film in Decades-Old Franchise, Thanksgiving Slices Up a New Holiday Classic, and Toto’s Worst Movies of 2023
The Lid: Senator Rand Paul’s 2022 Report’ Uncovers a Startling $9 BILLION in Government Waste
Legal Insurrection: People Have Noticed the COVID Boosters Aren’t Very Effective, “If you had a 17-year-old son or daughter, would you send your kids to an Ivy League school today?”, Temple University Police Reportedly Threatened With Sanctions for Pushing Clothing Drive for the Needy, NYC Mayor Eric Adams Slams City Council for Pushing ‘Far-Left’ Agenda Over Progressive Policing and Crime Bills, and U California Tables Anti-Israel Proposed Ethnic Studies Admissions Requirement After Pushback
Nebraska Energy Observer: Scattershot Friday
Outkick: Nick Saban Shares Ominous Warning For Future Of College Football, Florida State Files Lawsuit Against ACC In Fight To Leave Conference, Dodgers Have Built A Superteam, But Does It Matter In October? Patrick Mahomes Makes Taylor Swift Official Member Of Kansas City Chiefs: ‘She’s Part Of The Team’, Former Red Sox Pitcher Jonathan Papelbon Roasts Alex Verdugo After Manager Criticism, and Jets FB Nick Bawden’s Wife, Alexis, Gets The Internet’s Attention Via Yoga Pants Photo
Power Line: Interfering In Another Country’s Politics, also, Thoughts from the ammo line
Shark Tank: U.S. Sugar Makes Historic Donations This Holiday Season
Shot In The Dark: A Christmas Time Visit To The Ghost Of DFL Victory-Dancing Past, also, The Hallmark Movie I’d Like To See Over The Holidays
The Political Hat: 12 Post of Christmas, 2023 (Day 10)
This Ain’t Hell: Valor Friday, Retired Airman attempts to gain base entry by claiming to be Captain America, and Army veteran struck by eight different vehicles
Victory Girls: Adulting Is Hard, And You Know What They Say About Karma
Volokh Conspiracy: Clarence Thomas: The Best and Most Incorruptible Supreme Court Justice in U.S. History
Watts Up With That: Authorities Raid Berlin-Based Radical Leftist Group “Zora”… Leader Tied To “Fridays For Future”, VOX: Winter Has Disappeared Thanks to Climate Change, and SCOTUS Will Hear Challenge to One of EPA’s Most Stringent Proposed Climate Regs
The Federalist: The Pregnancy Center That Saved My Life Years Ago Still Supports Me And My Sons, Washington Post Shedding Hundreds Of Staff From Payroll After Trump Presidency And Covid Is The Reason For The Season, Defunding Child Sexualizers Like The Kinsey Institute Should Be A No-Brainer For Republicans, With Help From DOJ, Lesley Wolf Dodged GOP Questions About Her Obstruction Of Biden Probe, By Trying To Keep Trump Off The Ballot, Democrats Are Staging A Coup In Broad Daylight, and Kate Cox’s Baby Deserved A Name
Mark Steyn: You Make Me Feel So Jung

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Category: Linkagery

‘TNFlyGirl’ as a Metaphor

Posted on | December 22, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘TNFlyGirl’ as a Metaphor

Tragedies can be instructive, if you pay attention, and the death of Jenny Blalock, a/k/a “TNFlyGirl,” could be a useful lesson in many ways. Blalock was a 44-year-old University of Tennessee graduate and successful businesswoman, founder of Luxe Homes and Design.

A couple of years ago, Blalock bought a Beechcraft Debonair airplane, which costs about $100,000 and carries four people, including the pilot, and took lessons to become a pilot. She had about 15,000 followers on her YouTube channel, which featured videos about her flying excursions. She wanted to have the plane fly on autopilot, so she had a Century 2000 autopilot system installed and, apparently, this was her fatal mistake, ultimately resulting in a crash that killed both her and her father, Buck.

After the December 7 crash, but before the National Transportation Board (NTSB) had issued its report on the incident, veteran pilot Juan Browne examined the available evidence on his YouTube channel.

Browne zeroed in on Blalock’s misunderstanding of how to use the autopilot as the likely cause of the crash. She simply did not know how it worked, but kept trying to figure it out, without the instruction of anyone competent to explain it to her. On her fatal flight, she was on a planned 500-mile flight to Bryant, Arkansas, where she planned to have work done on the plane. About 30 minutes into the flight, the plane began a series of “oscillating” climbs and descents, going up and down, its airspeed varying rather drastically. What was going on? The autopilot has “up” and “down” buttons, but it doesn’t have control of the throttle or trim, requiring the pilot to adjust those accordingly. “You don’t know what you don’t know,” Browne says at one point in his analysis of Blalock’s crash — which includes clips from her YouTube videos — and it’s clear that her misunderstanding of the autopilot function was related to the “oscillating” trajectory of her fatal flight. Blalock was still trying to figure out how to make the autopilot work, going up and down as a result, and ultimately ending in an uncontrolled dive straight into the ground.

Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and one doesn’t wish to speak ill of the dead, but the element of hubris involved here cannot be ignored. People who are intelligent, competent and successful — which is certainly an apt description of Jenny Blalock — are not immune to the temptation of thinking that, because they know what they’re doing in their regular daily life, they will automatically be competent in whatever new endeavor they may undertake. A successful businesswoman becoming a flight student in her 40s may have had difficulty accepting the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing. Her business expertise did not translate to automatic competence in the cockpit. She expects to succeed, and is frustrated by any failure, e.g., “Why isn’t this autopilot working?”

What Jenny Blalock needed — what she didn’t get from her instructors — was a “tough love” approach that would include warnings like, “Hey, you need to stop f–king around with that or you’ll get yourself killed.”

My brother Kirby was for many years a long-haul trucker whose job sometimes required him to act as a trainer for new drivers. He used to tell them to forgot about everything they “knew” about driving because most people’s driving “skills” are just a collection of bad habits that will get you killed if you drive like that in a semi rig. When I told him about “TNFlyGirl” and some of the videos she’d posted with her flight instructors, Kirby said, “They took her money, though, didn’t they?”

Ouch. Hit the nail on the head there. It probably wouldn’t have taken more than a few hours for a competent instructor to fully explain the autopilot to Jenny Blalock, and to take her up on a couple of training flights to make sure she was able to operate the autopilot system properly. But that instruction obviously didn’t happen, and at no point did anyone give her the advice that would have saved her life: “If you can’t figure it out, turn the damn thing off and just fly the plane!”

The NTSB has issued its preliminary report on the crash which did not find “any obvious cause,” which is to say, there was nothing wrong with the airplane. It wasn’t a mechanical malfunction, the weather wasn’t a problem. This was pilot error, pure and simple. And it strikes me that this is a metaphor for a lot of what’s wrong in America.

Consider my own profession of journalism. One of the basic problems in the news media is that reporters begin to think of themselves as possessing expertise about the topics they cover, so that you have the TV meteorologist presuming to lecture us about “climate change,” or the Pentagon reporter who imagines himself to be a military strategist. And don’t even get me started on sports writers — looking at you, Albert Breer — with their know-it-all attitudes about football. Two necessary traits for a journalist are curiosity and skepticism. A good reporter is driven by a need to know, a curiosity that keeps him asking questions until he’s satisfied that he’s gotten the right answers, and he is skeptical about everything: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

Curiosity and skepticism go hand-in-hand. A reporter must be able to question his own beliefs and opinions, to avoid jumping to conclusions based on whatever unexamined bias he may bring to the story. Yes, of course, you’ve got to be able to follow your gut hunches sometimes, but you’ve also got to be willing to realize when the facts contradict your gut-hunch first impressions. Be prepared to be proven wrong.

Now, think about politics, and think about Donald Trump. His basic problem, as I see it, was that he was used to being the boss, surrounded by people who got paid to do whatever he told them to do. His business success (or, at least, his reputation for success) was a validation of his methods, and he approached his presidential campaign with a similar attitude. But this caused problems. One of the criticisms heard from “sources” in the White House was simply that they couldn’t get Trump to read anything. His staff would supply him with written reports on various subjects, and this proved to be a complete waste of time. His basic attitude toward politics (and toward governance) was that of the guy sitting on his sofa watching TV news and yelling back at the TV.

Trump was (and still is) very popular with a lot of people because the things he yells at his TV are the same things we’d yell. But in terms of operating a presidential administration, this yelling-at-the-TV attitude is less than ideal, to put it mildly. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, though, and it appears that Trump won’t listen to any constructive criticism. People who would very much like to help Trump get elected, and then succeed as president, find themselves frozen out and accused of disloyalty for telling the boss what he doesn’t want to hear.

I voted for Trump and would vote for him again, but it’s frustrating to know that so many of his problems are self-inflicted wounds that could have been avoided, if he would have been amenable to good advice.

When your habit is to get rid of any advisor who’s not a sycophant — “You’re fired!” — your operations will falter due to the lack of dissenting opinions in your inner circle. Ronald Reagan’s advisors were not ideologically homogeneous; he had a bunch of neocons on his staff, but he also had Pat Buchanan as a counterweight to that neocon tendency. And it would help Trump if he had someone other than True Believers and yes-men in his circle of advisers. Even to point this out, however, is to incur the accusation of disloyalty, to be suspected as a faintheart or a sellout, so that no system-wide internal examination with the objective of reforming the Trump operation is possible. If the plane finally crashes (returning to the “TNFlyGirl” metaphor), the after-action report will identify these flaws, because hindsight is 20/20, but that will be of no consolation to those of us who wanted to see the flight land safely.

“You don’t know what you don’t know” — it would be tragic if this were to become the epitaph of the American republic.

Category: Politics

In The Mailbox: 12.21.23 (Evening Edition)

Posted on | December 22, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.21.23 (Evening Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

I don’t know if I’m not getting out enough, or the news is being more depressing than usual, but politics is starting to make me feel the way celebrity news did back when this was Live at Five: like I need to take a really hot shower after linkmongling to get the slime off. So after tomorrow, I’m going to take a break from this until after New Year’s. There will still be Rule 5 and the FMJRA, but f*** politics. Maybe I’ll post about books or hamburgers or something. Maybe not.
Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Merry Christmas from Shouko Komi (and some of her friends)!

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Last and First Men, also, Nordic Solstice
Twitchy: Conservatives Wishes Good Luck With “Their Civil War” When “We Have The Army”, George Takei Blames Anti-Trans Swimmer For Trans Teen Losing Volleyball Scholarship, and “Don’t You Have To Be Convicted Of The Crime First?”
Louder With Crowder: Popular Publisher Distributes Children’s Books For Drag Queen Story Time That Normalize Child Sex Changes, Teen Shot During Seattle’s CHAZ-BLM “Autonomous Zone” Is Now Suing The City, and Aaron Rodgers WRECKS Joe Biden with hilarious nickname inspired by classic 80s movie
Vox Popoli: They Know They Lost, Right? also, The World Has No Chance

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: The Mainstream Against Democracy
American Greatness: Will Partisan Lawfare Destroy Trump?
American Thinker: Blockbuster Poll Casts Doubt on Outcome of 2020 Election, The Globalist ‘Final Solution’, Do Not Apologize, and Fear Of Muslims Is Rational; “Islamophobia” Is A Myth
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Lardass News
Babalu Blog: Over 300 acts of repression in communist Cuba during the month of November, Cuban dictatorship does away with rationing and ration book in new economic ‘shock plan’, and That time of year when the pigs start hiding from the Cubans
BattleSwarm: Biggest Losers From Houthi Attacks? Not Israel And America, also, Biden’s Illegal Alien Flood Results in 7 Year Court Date Wait
Behind The Black: Starship prototype #28 completes full duration static fire test, Russia launches military satellite, ULA’s Vulcan rocket fully stacked for the first time, A movie of 14 years of gamma ray observations from space, A glacial lake on Mars? and White House issues “policy framework” to lobby for its space regulatory proposal
Cafe Hayek: The End Is Near! (Just Kidding)
CDR Salamander: Ukraine’s Summer Offensive – The Clear-Eyed POSTEX
Da Tech Guy: When it’s all Over I’d Put Israeli Arabs in Charge of Gaza, also, The war on the Holiday That Must Not Be Named has reached a truly ludicrous level this year
Don Surber: Hypocrisy alert
First Street Journal: Killadelphia: The City of Brotherly Love has been under one murder per day for the last three months, also, Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts
Gates Of Vienna: Silenced in Germany, Justice For Saman, and Cyprus Says: Send ’Em Back!
The Geller Report: Delta, American Airlines, etc Flying Whole Planes Full of Migrants All Over United States
Hollywood In Toto: AG Ellison Slams Fall of Minneapolis (But There’s a Catch), also, Lady Ballers Jake Crain: ‘We Used to Be Able to Make Fun of Things’
The Lid: Radical Democrats Look Like Stone Cold Tyrants Right Now—And Normal Democrats Can See It, Too
Legal Insurrection: Congress Investigation Into Harvard to Include Plagiarism Allegations Against President Claudine Gay, Power Outages Force Maine to Delay Vote for Electric Vehicle Mandate, Study Finds Fewer Men Are Enrolling in College, Especially 4-Year Programs, Bay Bridge Anti-Israel Protesters’ Supporters Demonstrate Against San Francisco DA’s Decision to Charge Them, UPenn Faculty Warn of ‘Hostile Takeover’ as Trustees and Donors Take Action Over Anti-Semitism on Campus, and Biden Border Crisis: Agents Have Already Encountered Over 200,000 Migrants in December
Nebraska Energy Observer: Trying to walk a line
Outkick: Mike McDaniel With A Downright Incredible Speech, Minor League Pitcher Robbed At Gunpoint, Asks Cops For Ride To Throw Bullpen Session An Hour Later, Florida State Expected To Start Process Of Leaving ACC Imminently, Alabama Player Reportedly Arrested For Allegedly Spreading STD, Dodgers Spending Spree Continues With Yoshinobu Yamamoto; Japanese Star Signs 12-Year, $325 Million Deal, Jaromir Jagr, Confirmed Hockey Guy, Laces Up His Skates For 36th Professional Season At Age 51, and Paige Spiranac Wishes Everyone A Merry Christmas In Nothing But Wrapping Paper
Power Line: Americans Vote Red With Their Feet
Shark Tank: Rick Scott Asks E-Retailers To Provide Country Of Origin For Foreign Products
Shot In The Dark: Life Imitates Pulp Art, also, Mirthy
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2023 (Day 9)
This Ain’t Hell: Red Sea updates, Navy Sailor brings large teddy bear to meet ’13-year-old’, Donald Trump removed from Colorado’s primary, and Extradited!
Transterrestrial Musings: The Democrats’ War On Elon Musk
Victory Girls: Groomers Latch Onto Little Free Library
Volokh Conspiracy: Jack Smith Lacks Standing to File in the Supreme Court Because He is Only a Private Citizen
Watts Up With That: Scottish battery factory goes bust in fresh blow to UK’s net zero industry, Emails Show Biden Admin Coordinating with Enviro Group That’s Suing Them, and Oregon’s Climate Program Overruled
The Federalist: Stopping Campus Antisemitism Requires Confronting The Marxism Behind It, 19 AGs File Brief Opposing Jack Smith’s ‘Partisan’ Bid To Fast-Track His Get-Trump Prosecution, ‘You Must Be 40’ To Be President, Whiffs California Lt. Gov. While Masquerading As Constitutional Expert, Here Are The Lessons The Obamas Don’t Want You Taking Away From ‘Leave The World Behind’, and Queens Resident Indicted For Submitting 118 Absentee Ballot Applications During New York’s 2022 Democrat Primaries
Mark Steyn: Digging the Demographics

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Category: Linkagery

In The Mailbox: 12.21.23 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | December 21, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.21.23 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Consort Yu wishes all you bloodbags a Merry Christmas.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Average Bubba: Wednesday Morning Liberal Love Edition
EBL: Epstein’s Associates List Dropping with New Year: Who is on it? Rocky Mountain MAGA Ballot Ban, and California Turning Sewage into Drinking Water
Twitchy: “Let Me Tell You Something, Brother!”, Newsweek Spots Republicans Pouncing On Story Of Arrested Trans Activist/Alleged Pedophile, and David Frum Sounding The Alarm On A Second Trump Presidency Goes Oh So Wrong
Louder With Crowder: Democrats Introduce Bill DEMANDING Chick-fil-A Open On Sundays, Celebrity chef goes into explicit detail why he’ll NEVER open another business in crime-ridden California, and School District Socially Transitioned Autistic Child And Hid It From Parents, Now They’re Suing
Vox Popoli: Leaving the Cloud, The Empire Enters the Doom Loop, and Paperbacks Unlimited

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Conservative: This Machine Makes Companies Woke
American Greatness: Federal Judge to Unseal Over 180 Previously Redacted Names of Jeffrey Epstein’s Powerful Associates, Netflix and the Erasure of History, and Jim Jordan Subpoenas Merrick Garland Over Surveillance of Congressional Staff
American Thinker: Biden’s Party is Over… and the Hangover Has Begun, Claudine Gay isn’t the First, or Worst, Example of Black Plagiarism Privilege, and How Black Americans Were Tamed to Vote Democrat for 200 Years
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
Babalu Blog: Reports from Cuba: ‘When I was at my peak, they gave me everything. Now what?’ says former Cuban boxer, Argentina’s President Milei will not appoint ambassadors to dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua, Cuba’s telecom monopoly rewards workers with bananas, Cuban dictatorship threatens to extradite, try, imprison, execute dissidents on their list of ‘diaspora terrorists’, and Argentina expecting Cuban ‘agitators’ sent to spark violence at left-wing anti-Milei march
BattleSwarm: Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw Files Bill To Ban DEI Statements At Universities
Behind The Black: Glacial layers in Mars’ glacier country, Launch of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander delayed until February, Ingenuity’s most recent flight, the 68th, a mystery, Congress passes short term extension of commercial space regulatory “learning period”, and The Biden war against Musk is a war against America
CDR Salamander: Deterrence Is In The Head As Much As The Spreadsheet
Da Tech Guy: Gee I Wonder What Binding Common Social Norm Might Have Been Abandoned over the Last 40 Years in Canada
Don Surber: Musk is winning
First Street Journal: What The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t tell us, tells us a lot
Gates Of Vienna: Giorgia Meloni: “There is a Process of Islamization of Europe”, also, The Windmills of Your Mind
The Geller Report: Migrants reject food served at NYC shelters: ‘Nothing healthy
Glenn Reynolds: Civilizational Jenga
Hollywood In Toto: The Best Movies of 2023, also, How the Sexual Revolution Killed the Rom-Com
The Lid: Christians Who Support Hamas Ignore Their Religious Canon
Legal Insurrection: Anti-Israel Protesters Seize Capitol Hill Rotunda, Including Linda Sarsour, Tennessee Suing BlackRock Over ‘Misleading’ ESG Strategy, Military Experts Blame Biden Admin’s DEI Agenda for Our Shrinking Armed Forces, Teacher Fired For Refusing to Use Male Pronouns For Female Student Can Sue School, VA High Court Rules, Teacher Union President Randi Weingarten: School Choice ‘is About Undermining Democracy’, and Biden’s Department of Interior Offers Most Restrictive Offshore Oil Drilling Plan in US history
Nebraska Energy Observer: Proportionality
Outkick: Eli Drinkwitiz Learned Something New 48 Hours Before Signing Day: Random Teams Will Offer ‘Crazy Numbers’ To Steal Recruit, MLB Player Blasts Relocation: ‘Nobody Wants The Las Vegas A’s’, Donovan McNabb Thinks Sean Payton Went Too Far By Chewing Out Russell Wilson: ‘I Wouldn’t Tolerate It’ , Coastal Carolina Deletes Photo Of Shirtless Coach With Bikini-Clad Dancers, But Screenshots Are Forever, Mack Brown Calls NC State’s Dave Doeren ‘Classless’ After Saying TarHeels Were ‘Pieces Of Sh-t’ Following November Rivalry Game, and Ben Verlander Says Shohei Ohtani Is Biggest Dodgers Signing, Ignores Jackie Robinson
Power Line: Colorado Bars Trump From the Ballot [Updated], Biden’s open borders, and Stop Moving the Goalposts!
Shark Tank: Florida Republicans Blast Biden’s Release Of Maduro Ally Alex Saab
Shot In The Dark: Massacre, Open Letter To Every GOP Candidate Everywhere, and Open Letter To The MNGOP
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2023 (Day 8)
This Ain’t Hell: SECDEF Announces Operation Prosperity Guardian, Mexican military captures 10 IEDs at US-Mexico border, Two More Accounted For, USAF to court martial another general for sex assault, and Fake Waffle House Employee Steals Cash
Transterrestrial Musings: Keeping Discrimination Illegal In California, Saving “Our Democracy”, and AIAA SciTech
Victory Girls: Joe Biden Losing Ground Among…Democrats? also, Colorado Decision Against Trump: A Grotesque Use Of Lawfare
Volokh Conspiracy: Colorado Supreme Court Rules Trump is Ineligible for the Presidency Under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Appointment Is Unconstitutional
Watts Up With That: Time to Bring Nuclear Energy Into the 21st Century, Reason is Right, There is No ‘Climate Cliff’, and U.S. Climate 2023 Year in Review – In one word: NORMAL
The Federalist: All I Want For Christmas Is Something That Won’t Break Immediately, Rhode Island Parents Score Major Legal Win Against The State’s School Mask Mandates, Wisconsin Professor Pushes Antisemitic Petition Under The Guise Of Anti-Zionism, Lawsuit: Wisconsin State Bar’s ‘Diversity Clerkship Program’ Discriminates Based On Skin Color, and Queer Activists Are Putting Pornographic Books In Little Free Libraries
Mark Steyn: Live Around the Planet: Constitutional Crisis Edition

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Category: Linkagery

Do Bananas Grow in Colorado?

Posted on | December 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Do Bananas Grow in Colorado?

Is it a crime to vote Republican? Is it illegal to disagree with liberals? Will all opposition to the Biden regime be banned?

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a 4-3 opinion that the Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” prohibits former President Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot for the presidency in 2024.
“The court found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three” of the Fourteenth Amendment, the ruling reads.
The provocative ruling partially reverses a prior ruling from Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace, who ruled in November that Trump is not an officer of the United States as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment and that the Amendment therefore cannot be used to disqualify him from appearing on the Colorado primary ballot.
In his dissent, Chief Justice Boatright wrote, “Dismissal is particularly appropriate here because the Electors brought their challenge without a determination from a proceeding (e.g., a prosecution for an insurrection-related offense) with more rigorous procedures to ensure adequate due process.”
In partially reversing Wallace, the Court all but dared the U.S. Supreme Court to step in by January 4, 2024.
“If review is sought in the Supreme Court before the stay expires on January 4, 2024, then the stay shall remain in place, and the Secretary will continue to be required to include President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, until the receipt of any order or mandate from the Supreme Court,” the ruling says.\
The Court disagreed with Trump’s claims that his actions were protected free speech.
“We consider and reject President Trump’s argument that his speech on January 6 was protected by the First Amendment,” the ruling reads, seemingly ignoring Trump’s calls that day for protesters to conduct themselves “peacefully and patriotically.”

ThoughtCrimes! WrongSpeak! Trump is Emmanuel Goldstein!

Colorado Saves Democracy By Not Allowing People To Vote For Preferred Candidate https://t.co/N15XfiPRbK pic.twitter.com/K637JI4Rk6

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 20, 2023

'The U.S. Is Not A Banana Republic,' Says Biden While Showing Off Cool New Uniform https://t.co/j45I57YAN6 pic.twitter.com/JdAGd09ujk

— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) December 20, 2023

Category: Colorado, Constitution, Donald Trump

In The Mailbox: 12.20.23 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | December 20, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 12.20.23 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley et Hamas delenda sunt.

Shishou wishes her students a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: GOTHIX, also, What Empowering Women Really Looks Like
EBL: Håbet (The Hope), A Christmas Carol, and Iceland’s Grindavik Volcano Erupts
Twitchy: New Republic Editor Doesn’t Know What Socialism Is, NY Gov. Hochul Creates Commission On Reparations, and Minnesota’s New State Flag Looks A Little Familiar
Louder With Crowder: Dude uses a blowtorch to steal from what’s behind the plexiglass and…wait, a freakin’ blowtorch?! John Fetterman Swings Right Again, Pledges To Block Japan From Buying Crucial American Company, Grinch ‘prank’ goes horribly wrong when lil’ man starts throwing hands to save his presents, and Eric Adams asked to describe NYC in 2023 and you won’t be ready for his insane reference to 9/11
Vox Popoli: Adverse Effects in Switzerland, Clown World is ALWAYS Fake, and Gunning for the Dollar
Stoic Observations: What Americans Think Europeans Think

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Attacking the Germans
American Greatness: New Texas Law Allows Police to Bust Illegals and Judges to Send Them Back to Mexico, Progressivism Forces Americans to Forget Their History, and Trump Faces Backlash After Calling Conservative Rep. Chip Roy a ‘RINO’ Who Should Be Primaried
American Thinker: Is the Bubble You Live In Making You Dumb? also, The Real Claudine Gay Scandal
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Oldest Profession News
Babalu Blog: Cuban dictatorship tried to influence 2022 midterm elections, says U.S. intelligence, Cuban dictatorship to increase tariffs and taxes, tighten controls over ‘private’ businesses, and Video of the Day: Hungry Cubans desperately chase truck carrying food
Behind The Black: Red China’s X-37B copy deploys six independent satellites, Laser communication tests with Psyche have now included a cat video, Firefly schedules second launch in 2023, Spain’s new space agency, and Pushback? Deal between Republicans and Wisconsin University to shift away from DEI
CDR Salamander: A Gathering Of Burkes Sails East
Da Tech Guy: Muncy’s Christmas story
Don Surber: In praise of Congress
First Street Journal: “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.”, also, Crazy People Are Dangerous
Gates Of Vienna: The Enormity of the Corona Scam, also, So-Called ‘Women’s Groups’ Abandon Women to Islam — Silence is Complicity
The Geller Report: Minnesota Adopts New State Flag – From Somalia, also, NEVER BEFORE SEEN: Tens of Thousands of Migrants Amass at Border
Hollywood In Toto: Why The Iron Claw Gets Pinned by Its Potential, also, Word of Mouth Still Matters. Wonka Is Proving It
Legal Insurrection: The Underappreciated Radicalism of Claudine Gay, Hamas Using Female Suicide Bombers As IDF Closes In On Gaza’s Terrorist Leadership, The Woke Mob in Academia is Coming for Music Too, More Plagiarism Allegations Unveiled Against Harvard President Claudine Gay, and Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw Takes Aim at DEI Statements With New Bill
Nebraska Energy Observer: Feel good!
Outkick: Drew Lock Caught Trolling Jalen Hurts After Eagles QB Skips Postgame Handshake, Kirk Ferentz Throws Serious Shade At USC And Lincoln Riley While Reminding Everyone He’s The Ultimate Football Guy, Michael Irvin Rips Into Sean Payton For Yelling At Russell Wilson In One Of The Most Weak-Minded Rants Ever, Taylor Swift Didn’t Drop F-bomb During Chiefs Game But May Have Come Close, Expert Lip Reader Says, Aaron Rodgers Won’t Play In 2023 But Eyes Two More Seasons As Jets QB And Much More, and Bernie Kosar Reveals Taylor Swift Baked Cinnamon Rolls For Travis Kelce, Swifties Lose Their Minds
Power Line: Richard Kemp reports, The Biden family business: Deep are the roots, and The Tale of the Tape
Shark Tank: New Florida Law Would Permit Adoption Of Chaplains In Public Schools
Shot In The Dark: I’ve Noticed, also, Inconvenient
The Political Hat: 12 Posts of Christmas, 2023 (Day 7)
This Ain’t Hell: What’s Israel doing right?, also, The public has respect for military veterans, but slightly reluctant to recommend enlistment
Transterrestrial Musings: Claudine Gay
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Volokh Conspiracy: You Might Want to Read More Sentences of Arizona v. United States
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The Federalist: Report: Government Covid Handouts Screwed Over Low-Income Households By Spiking Inflation, Did San Francisco’s Crap And Crime Dissuade Shohei Ohtani From Signing With The Giants? How A Left-Wing Appeals Panel Is Rigging Trump’s J6 Case Through Bogus Fast-Track Process, The Drive-By Smears Of Clarence Thomas Never End, Die Hard Is An Anti-Christmas Movie, and Corrupt Media Rush To Downplay Disgraced Democrat Senate Staffer’s Lewd Video Scandal
Mark Steyn: Goldmine Meets Landfill

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Category: Linkagery

Why Are Democrats Such Bad People?

Posted on | December 20, 2023 | Comments Off on Why Are Democrats Such Bad People?

Everybody has already commented on the bizarre case of Aidan Maese-Czeropski, the staffer for Maryland Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin who was fired after posting a video of himself being sodomized in a hearing room at the Hart Senate Office Building, and then claimed victimhood:

Aidan Maese-Czeropski, the Senate staffer who filmed himself having anal sex in a Senate hearing room, cried homophobia after the video leaked online.
As Breitbart News reported on Friday, leaked video footage showed the staffer having anal sex on a table in the Senate hearing room where lawmakers sit to ask questions during important proceedings like Supreme Court nominations. The sex appeared unprotected. Another photo showed the staffer on all fours on top of a desk while salaciously staring back at the camera.
The staffer was later identified as Aidan Maese-Czeropski of Sen. Ben Cardin’s (D-MD) office and was fired as a result. . . .
After his identity went viral, Aidan Maese-Czeropski released a statement on his LinkedIn that appeared to blame the fallout from the whole incident on homophobia.
“This has been a difficult time for me, as I have been attacked for who I love to pursue a political agenda,” he said. “While some of my actions in the past have shown poor judgement, I love my job and would never disrespect my workplace.”
“Any attempts to characterize my actions otherwise are fabricated and I will be exploring what legal options are available to me in these matters,” he added.

To quote George Costanza, “Was that wrong?”

Since the sex-video scandal made headlines, we have learned that Maese-Czeropski was also involved in another incident last week, when he shouted “Free Palestine” at Ohio Rep. Max Miller, who is Jewish.

And it’s not as if his bosses in Sen. Cardin’s office were unaware that Maese-Czeropski’s behavior was problematic:

A junior-level legislative aide who was fired after a video surfaced showing him and another person having sex in a Congressional office building had been warned at least once about his risqué social media postings, The Desk has learned.
In November, Senator Ben Cardin’s Chief of Staff Chris Lynch promoted U.C. Berkeley graduate Aidan Maese-Czeropski from his entry-level aide job while simultaneously warning the 23-year-old to stop posting nude and seminude photographs to his public Instagram page, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Maese-Czeropski affirmed the warning in a now-deleted story posted to his Instagram page, in which he said the “chief of staff just promoted me and in the same breath suggested I tone down my social media.”
For about two weeks, Maese-Czeropski relegated most of his revealing posts to a “Close Friends” feed, where he posted nude photographs of himself while working from home and while traveling to Las Vegas and other places, according to a source within Senator Cardin’s office who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with reporters without permission. He began posting publicly again earlier this month, where his unclothed photographs were available to more than 1,000 followers, including some who worked with Maese-Czeropski in the U.S. Senate, the source said.
Maese-Czeropski’s Instagram page was “something of an open secret” within Senator Cardin’s office, the source affirmed, adding that it was “generally known” that some of Maese-Czeropski’s posts connected him to his Senate job. One month before his promotion, Maese-Czeropski posted that he was “waiting for Lindsey Graham in the work showers,” referencing the Republican U.S. Senator from South Carolina. In another, Maese-Czeropski wrote that he was “trying to resist the urge to suck on Representative [Eric] Sorensen’s gorgeous fingers” while seated near to the openly-gay Congressman at a luncheon.
Despite the questionable posts, few within Senator Cardin’s office felt there was much they could do about Maese-Czeropski’s social media activity, with Lynch telling one staffer that the posts were “made on a personal account” and that the office “didn’t want to come across as impeding on the personal expression of an openly-gay staffer,” the source said.

Just flip the story around: Instead of a gay male Democrat, suppose that it was a straight female Republican, working as a Senate aide, and filling her social-media stream with “nude and seminude photographs,” as well as sexual innuendo about congress members. Does anyone think such a person would have been promoted? That anyone would hesitate to criticize her for fear of infringing her “personal expression”?

The basic problem, however, is that Democrats are bad people. As I’ve often said, “Bad causes attract bad people” and, because no good person would support the Democratic Party’s policy agenda, therefore the only people who get hired as Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill are . . . people like Aidan Maese-Czeropski. Generally speaking.

Did I forget to mention that Aidan Maese-Czeropski is from Palo Alto, California, where the media household income is $214,188? That he attended the University of California at Berkeley? That he had a fellowship at Friends of the Earth, an environmental group? And that he was actively involved in Joe Biden’s election campaign?

After graduating from Berkeley in 2020, Maese-Czeropski served as a field organizer for the Democratic Party of Virginia, campaigning for President Biden in Loudoun County.
He also worked on the statewide Latino outreach program, “Todos con Biden,” to help register thousands of Spanish-speaking voters.
During his time as a field organizer, Maese-Czeropski also appeared in a 2020 campaign video with then-candidate Joe Biden.

Look, I can’t say that everybody who worked on Joe Biden’s campaign habitually engages in what used to be known as “crimes against nature,” but on the other hand, I can’t rule it out. They’re just bad people. The activity that Aidan Maese-Czeropski recorded on video is a metaphor for what they’re doing to America, and they expect us to enjoy it.