In The Mailbox: 09.02.21

The Emerald Robinson piece was linked at Instapundit, but since not everyone reads Instapundit* I figured I better link it here. She takes NO prisoners.

Silicon Valley delenda est.

DO IT.

OVER THE TRANSOM
Red Pilled Jew: A Curious Incuriosity
357 Magnum: The Police State Down Under
EBL: Ed Asner, RIP
Twitchy: “It’s A Defamatory Lie”, also, “Sit This One OUT, Sparky”
Louder With Crowder: Biden Offends Pregnant Widow Of Marine Killed In Kabul By Making It About His Son Beau
Vox Popoli: Rumors Of Invasion, Why Parler Failed, and Neoclown World Is Not Our Culture
Stoic Observations: An Appeal For Unity
Gab News: How To Survive In A Post-Truth World Of Chaos
Emerald Robinson: How The National Review Sold Its Soul To Google

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Philia Is Not Gay
American Conservative: Say No To Vaccine Passports, also, Unworthy Of The Sacrifice
American Greatness: Biden Officials At Kabul Airport Warned American Rescue Plane To Turn back or Be Shot Down, also, Afghanistan – The Big Con
American Power: It Wasn’t a Choice – Biden Just Abandoned Americans To The Barbarity Of Jihad
American Thinker: The Surprising Origins Of Critical Race Theory, also, We Could Have Dodged The COVID Delta Bullet In The U.S.
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday
Babalu Blog: Venezuelan Chavistas Flood Social Media To Defend Cuba’s Communist Regime, also, Another Cuban General Is Dead, The Ninth Since Massive Protests Began
BattleSwarm: One Day To Flatten The Curve, also, Taliban Blocks Dog Rescue
Behind The Black: Today’s Blacklisted American, also, SpaceX Successfully Launches Cargo Dragon To ISS
Cafe Hayek: The Risk Is That Civilization Will Be Destroyed Under The Pretense Of Protecting Public Health, also, Hidden Inflation?
CDR Salamander: The Navy’s Unmanned Programs On Midrats, also, Pentagon Leaders Need To Define Their Pronouns
Da Tech Guy: The Coming Extremist Tsunami In The Navy, The Incomplete List of People To Blame For The Biden Debacle, and Assert Your Freedom With The Handshake Challenge
Don Surber: To Survive, We Must Fire Them All, Biden Did Worse Than The Soviets, and No, Media, The War Is Far From Over
First Street Journal: Some Central Bucks Karens Want To Force Others Into Masks – Anonymously, also, Ignoring A Very, Very Large Elephant In The Room
The Geller Report: Trump Declares “Georgia Has Been Caught”, also, Seven Busloads Of American Women Seized By Taliban – NO COVERAGE By Corporate Media
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Everything Is Proceeding As I Have Foreseen
Hollywood In Toto: War Widow Gets To Bitter Truth Behind Husband’s Death, also, The One Amazing Thing About The Mediocre Vacation Friends
The Lid: Team Of Radical Feminists Rescues Thirty Afghani Feminists, also, Norks Move To Resuming Nuke Work
Legal Insurrection: St. Joseph’s U. Alumni Withholding Donations Over School’s Drift To Far Left, also, Jonathan Turley – Statements By Lt. Byrd Demolish The Two Official Reviews That Cleared Him Of Killing Ashli Babbitt
Michelle Malkin: Coward Cuomo’s Last Act Of Treachery
Nebraska Energy Observer: Old Testament Historical Content
Outkick: Jerry Jones Continues His Love Affair With Tony Romo, also, Even In Moments Of Crisis, Nobody Wants To Buy Anthony Davis’ Chips
Power Line: What We Left Behind, also, Loose Ends
Shark Tank: Three FL Dem Reps Become Apologists For Biden’s Disastrous Bugout
Shot In The Dark: Turnabout, also, The Drones Of August
The Political Hat: Scottish Rape Crisis Center Tells Rape Victims The Real Evil Is Their Transphobia
This Ain’t Hell: Unrest In Canuckistan, also, Active Duty & Retired ONI Members Being Told They Can’t “Disrespect” Leadership
Transterrestrial Musings: Automakers, also, Hey, Biden Voters!
Victory Girls: LTC Scheller Got Fired, But LTC Vindman Was Praised, also, Honor Them & Say Their Names
Volokh Conspiracy: Mother’s Contact With Child Restricted Because She’s Unvaccinated
Weasel Zippers: Biden Calls Black Senator “Boy”, also, Nearly 90 Retired Admirals & Generals Call On Austin & Milley To Resign
The Federalist: Pretending COVID Is An Emergency Is Killing America, also, Joe Biden’s Presidency Has Gone Off The Rails And The Democratic Party Will Pay
Mark Steyn: A Shine On Your Shoes, Trapped In A Corner, and A Great Voice Stilled
*I don’t know why, but they don’t.

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Biden Speech Signals Beginning of Media Effort to ‘Pivot’ Away Afghanistan

Posted on | August 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Biden Speech Signals Beginning of Media Effort to ‘Pivot’ Away Afghanistan

What comes next is predictable. The media will try to pretend that the catastrophe that just happened in Afghanistan was inevitable, that nothing Joe Biden did could have averted this disaster which (it will at least be heavily implied) was really Trump’s fault anyway. And anyone who says otherwise will be ignored, or treated as a disgruntled “partisan” who’s just trying to “play politics.” The main point, in the Democrat/Media Complex narrative, is that Afghanistan is over — it’s no longer a story worth mentioning — and anyone who does mention it will be accused of trying to “distract” from the really important thing, i.e., ramming the Left’s domestic agenda through Congress.

Will they get away with this “pivot”? I’d say that’s up to the Taliban. Because we’ve left behind at least 100 American civilians, and perhaps more than 500, all of whom are at risk of becoming hostages. So if the Taliban decides to play rough, this story won’t be over any time soon.

Anyway, here’s today’s news from Bonchie at Red State:

Joe Biden finally spoke today to mark the end of the war in Afghanistan. After showing up hours late for the originally scheduled event, something that has become a habit for this president, Biden took to the podium. What transpired was surprising and shocking at times.
He delivered a cold, blame-shifting speech in which he simultaneously claimed there was no disaster in Afghanistan while blaming others for the disaster in Afghanistan. Little of what he said made sense, and at the beginning of the speech, Biden yelled as he read the teleprompter in what can only be described as an incredibly odd scene.
The president also tried to claim victory, lauding his handling of the bungled withdrawal that ended up costing the lives of 13 US service members and countless Afghans (he also never mentioned the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice last Thursday). Yet, just minutes later, he changed his tune and blamed Donald Trump for supposedly tying his hands. The incoherence was both breathtaking and infuriating as he continued on, staring glassy-eyed at the teleprompter, desperately trying to insert emotion into his shrill, robotic voice.

Joe Biden: I take responsibility for Afghanistan withdrawal.

Also Joe Biden: It’s Trump’s fault! pic.twitter.com/UnO2s0a1PH

— MRCTV (@mrctv) August 31, 2021

It’s one thing to be angry and passionate about something (like @JesseKellyDC was on #Tucker last Thursday), but it’s another thing to be yelling like an old man at the clouds.

This, from Biden, was the latter. pic.twitter.com/usnrpTA5vJ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 31, 2021

Joe Biden is just yelling now for some reason. He thinks he comes off as tough when he does this. He doesn’t. It makes it more clear he has no clue what he’s doing.

He’s also hoping none of you have access to… any news source to know he’s being disingenuous.

— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) August 31, 2021

The fact that the speech was inherently self-contradictory, and that Biden’s delivery was . . . uh, idiosyncratic, will not prevent the media from hailing it as the finest oration since Churchill.

Prediction: The Media Will Lap Up
Biden’s Afghanistan ‘Victory’ Speech
Like Dogs Returning to Their Vomit

That line about dogs returning to their vomit is from Proverbs 26:11, and perhaps also an allusion to Kipling’s once-famous poem. Some things are predictable. Never bet against The Gods of the Copybook Headings.

Category: Joe Biden

Bill Belichick Bets Big on Mac Jones; Patriots Release Veteran QB Newton

Posted on | August 31, 2021 | Comments Off on Bill Belichick Bets Big on Mac Jones; Patriots Release Veteran QB Newton

Forget about Afghanistan and Hurricane Ida, this is the big news:

In a stunning move, the New England Patriots released veteran quarterback Cam Newton on Tuesday, turning things over to rookie Mac Jones as the starter, ESPN has confirmed.
Coach Bill Belichick had said repeatedly that Newton was the team’s starting quarterback but that he had to reestablish that position, or someone would have to play better than him. Jones has done that, in Belichick’s view.
Jones finished the preseason 36-of-52 for 389 yards, with one touchdown and no interceptions, playing 107 snaps, easily the highest total among Patriots quarterbacks.
Newton had started every preseason game but didn’t play as much overall (39 snaps). He finished the preseason 14-of-21 for 162 yards, with one touchdown and one interception.
In releasing Newton, who was a team captain, it clears a path for Jones to grow into more of a leadership role without having the presence of the former NFL Most Valuable Player behind him. . . .
Belichick had previously said he was looking for consistency and production over a period of time when evaluating quarterbacks — which naturally included practice and games. One breakthrough for Jones came when Newton missed three practices because of a COVID-19 protocol “misunderstanding” last week, and Jones took over the team.
Jones was particularly impressive in one joint session with the New York Giants, continuing a theme of him running the traditional Patriots offense that includes empty formations, setting the offensive line protection at the line of scrimmage and checking out of plays when the situation called for it. Jones had said he felt like he was in a “game flow” that day.
On Sunday night, after the preseason finale, Jones said he was preparing as the starter but was ready for all possibilities. “I’m here to play any role I can play, help in any way I can, and I’m going to be ready whenever my time comes,” he said.
Jones has quickly earned respect from teammates, with veteran offensive tackle Trent Brown previously saying, “I think he can be special. To be so young, I think he makes some throws that not a lot of young guys can make.”

Everybody has praised Jones’s maturity, but starting as a rookie for a team with such a Super Bowl tradition? High pressure, man. Personally I had hoped that Jones would at least begin the season as Cam’s backup, then take a wait-and-see approach — if the team was winning with Cam, let him keep the job, but if it went the other way, give Mac a shot. I guess what Belichick saw during pre-season convinced him Mac was ready, and certainly it’s difficult to second-guess a coach with Belichick’s record, but still it’s a high-stakes gamble, and tremendous pressure on Jones.

New England won six Super Bowls with Tom Brady at QB, and last season was the first time in 20 years they didn’t make it to the playoffs. Patriots fans will expect that at the very least, Jones will take the team to the playoffs. The AFC East isn’t a powerhouse conference, and New England won seven games last season with Newton at QB, so if Jones can make enough of a difference to get the team to 10 or 11 wins, they’ve got a shot. Of course, Jones comes from Alabama, where anything less than an undefeated season and a national championship is considered failure, so it’s not like he hasn’t faced high expectations before.

The little kid talking to Cam Newton in this Play 60 commercial can now be officially identified as Mac Jones: pic.twitter.com/UskOThV3LA

— Evan Marinofsky (@EvanMarinofsky) August 31, 2021

Mac Jones' jersey sells out within two hours of Cam Newton's release https://t.co/JHWSV4RTpQ

— The Patriots Wire (@Patriots_Wire) August 31, 2021

The Patriots open the season Sept. 12 against Miami, where Jones’s former Alabama teammate Tua Tagovailoa is the quarterback. That will be a shootout worth watching, especially for ’Bama fans. #RollTide!

Category: Football

All ‘Male Feminists’ Are Creeps, and This Guy Is Exhibit A for the Prosecution

Posted on | August 31, 2021 | Comments Off on All ‘Male Feminists’ Are Creeps, and This Guy Is Exhibit A for the Prosecution

You may have forgotten who Noah Berlatsky is, or perhaps you never heard of him, but he first came to my attention in 2015, when radical feminist Meghan Murphy called him out for posing as a “male feminist” while Berlatsky was writing articles for Playboy. “Noah Berlatsky perseveres in his quest to become America’s Next Top Feminist” was the headline on Murphy’s article about this obnoxious creep.

Nevertheless, he persisted, and went from bad to worse, so that by January 2020, I was prompted to ask this question:

Is Noah Berlatsky a Pedophile?

You see, Berlatsky had wandered off in a predictable direction:

Such expressions raise the question of motive. It is possible, of course, to believe that concerns about pedophilia are disproportionate, and one might wish to discuss policy about related issues in a disinterested way. For example, many people have noted how travesties of justice like the McMartin Preschool Case were fueled by exaggerated fears, fueled by nonsense theories of “suppressed memory,” etc. But it is a completely different thing when, as in the case of Noah Berlatsky, someone starts arguing that the real problem is not pedophilia, but rather the “stigma” attached to pedophilia. Really? You want to destigmatize pedophilia?

We’ve seen this before, when Salon-dot-com published a series of articles in this vein, and we know that it never leads anywhere good. Now comes this bit of sadly predictable news:

NBC contributor Noah Berlatsky is now the Communications Director for Prostasia, a not-for-profit group that is reportedly attempting to legitimize pedophilia under the guise of helping children. As part of his work with the group, he has written about legitimizing “trans children,” conducted interviews about the positive impact of pornography on children, and how the best way to help children who are trafficked into the sex trade is to “decriminalize the sex industry.”
Prostasia offers pedophiles a MAP Support Club, which “is a peer support chat for minor attracted people who are fundamentally against child sexual abuse and committed to never harm children, and is a safe space to have peer support in times of trouble.” This group is for people who are aged 13 and up.
Prostasia bills itself as “a new kind of child protection organization” that has a different approach to protecting children than the current methods of social work and law enforcement, saying that these approaches “are less effective than they should be, because they are driven by emotion rather than evidence.”
That is one that involves embracing those that are self-identified pedophiles. The idea is that with support, these “minor attracted persons” can be “committed to never offending.” . . .
Berlatsky promotes the work of UC Berkeley lecturer Alexandra Lutnick, writing “Most young people who trade sex don’t see themselves as victims, Lutnick emphasizes. They often see themselves as resourceful individuals who are doing what they need to survive in difficult circumstances.” . . .
Berlatsky writes for Prostasia that there’s an issue with the term “trafficking” itself, saying that it “conflates underage people trading sex, consensual sex work, immigration, and all kinds of labor exploitation in all industries.” He claims that to use the word trafficking for child sex trafficking is a “deliberately obfuscating term which is basically designed to target sex workers rather than labor exploitation.”

Again, we must make an important distinction. On the one hand, there may be legitimate concerns about some of the issues Berlatsky is addressing; on the other hand, who in their right mind would go to work for an organization as creepy as the Prostasia Foundation?

Feminist Anna Slatz writes:

Prostasia sees the threat pedophiles pose to children as a bogeyman dreamed up by the alt-right, while condemning anti-pedophile sentiment as harmful “Nazi-like” rhetoric which requires mass censorship across social media.
The organization’s efforts have dedicated themselves to crusades against child pornography bans, letter-writing campaigns to state representatives demanding child-likeness sex dolls be kept legal, and funding research into “fantasy sexual outlets” for pedophiles.
Once these threads quickly unravel, Prostasia’s goals and underlying purpose becomes increasingly clear. Despite its attempts to role play as a mere progressive activist organization, all of Prostasia’s goals and campaigns lead to the exact same conclusion: The total normalization and acceptance of pedophilia in wider society.

Creepy is as creepy does, and Prostasia is trying to leverage “progressive” sentiment in support of a creepy agenda. The fact that “male feminist” Noah Berlatsky is involved is the least surprising part of it.

Category: Progressivism

Rule 5 Sunday: Rebecca de Mornay

Posted on | August 30, 2021 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Rebecca de Mornay

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Most people remember Rebecca de Mornay from Risky Business, but to me, she’ll always be the treacherous Lady de Winter from The Three Musketeers. Here she is discussing something with her eeeevil boss, Cardinal Richelieu, played to the hilt by Tim Curry.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.