Adventures in Headline Writing

The headline here is:

"Less than Half the Country Believes Biden Lacks 'Mental Soundness' To Be President: Poll."

The poll's actual finding: 48% believe he lacks the mental soundness, and 49% think he has it. 

So you could just as easily have headlined this:

"Less than Half the Country Believe Biden Has 'Mental Soundness' to be President." 

Or, since 3% said they weren't sure, giving you 51% who are sure he isn't fit or not sure he is:

"More than Half the Country Unsure of Biden's Mental Soundness as President." 

His speech today at the UN was pretty awful, but the UN itself is pretty awful. Anyone who commits to taking it seriously is already on the wrong track. 

#TraitorCawthorn

Some group called "Really American" is targeting my Congressman, Madison Cawthorn, with this ridiculous video. They are apparently trying to convince Pelosi and the House leadership to expel him from Congress over his rhetoric. 

The video intends to make him look like some kind of militant, but it is carefully edited to leave out the fact that he is in a wheelchair. It uses all the normal tricks of political ads -- slow motion, washed out colors, violent language and the like -- plus footage arising from Cawthorn's own choice to appear often with firearms in order to appeal to Second Amendment voters who are a big part of his constituency in Western North Carolina. 

This kind of thing is ridiculous and offensive. I have no brief for Cawthorn, who as far as I can tell from observing him is completely useless. Nevertheless he was chosen by our voters, and it is none of their business to deny us representation according to the choices our voters made. I'd rather see a better man in the office, but whichever representative occupies the space is our choice and not theirs. 

Meddling strangers are not welcome in these mountains.

Requiescant in Pace

Two men who were each significant thinkers have passed on in the last day, one from each side of the political spectrum.

Professor Emeritus Angelo Codevilla should be known to all of you. His most famous essay is here, and is as worth reading today as when he wrote it. Here is his final work, on the rescuing of America. In addition to being deeply insightful on the course and fate of the nation he loved, he was a scholar of and participant in intelligence operations. The nation loses one who was both a patriot and a serious thinker, either a sad loss and the combination a tragedy. 

Professor Charles Mills was a scholar from Trinidad who wrote chiefly about philosophy of race but also in Marxist thought. Unlike most people in that field, he was a man of extraordinary courtesy, one who undertook to discuss the issues of race in ways that were designed to illuminate the genuine problems and identify solutions that were acceptable. His death leaves the field much poorer intellectually at a time when it has grown in importance, and now affects major decisions at many institutions both government and corporate. Those decisions, already often terrible, will be worse because of the loss of his thoughtful and graceful participation. 

Losing the blue collars

 Oz gets feisty.

One Quarter to a Third of Navy SEALs Reject Vaccine

Hundreds of Special Operators will be disqualified from service over this, having a tremendous effect on the military's ability to carry out clandestine and covert operations. 

Younts said the Pentagon has put its threat in writing that unvaccinated SEALs, including those who get a religious exemption or already have natural immunity, will be forbidden from deploying with their teams, all but ending their special operator careers. Some were given a deadline of this week, he said....

Tim Parlatore, a lawyer who helped win the acquittal of Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher in the alleged death of an ISIS prisoner, said he has confirmed large numbers of SEALS are declining to get the vaccine right now.

"It's in the hundreds. And it's not the senior leadership. It's all the shooters and it is going to have a huge impact," Parlatore said. "If they continue to with this asinine police you are going to have the complete decimation if the SEAL teams," he said.

It's a bit more than a decimation if it eliminates a quarter to a third of the force. That's on the order of two or three Roman decimations in a row.

The article talks quite a lot about people seeking a religious exemption from the vaccine, but they never bother to explain what the religious objection happens to be. I assume it has something to do with fetal tissue from cell lines drawn from abortions being used in the testing process, but it is never spelled out. 

SEALs take a long time to train, and it is difficult to recruit extra people who can pass the selection course anyway, so replacements will not quickly be forthcoming. 

An Amazing Display

Tex left a comment on the border post below that establishes a source for these 15,000 Haitians who suddenly turned up in Del Rio. It was another diplomatic failure by the Biden administration. 

[I]n January, the Biden administration began to  pressure Mexico to maintain and use its National Guard and immigration bureaucracy to slow the flow of expected caravans and of tens of thousands of Haitians and other migrants coming in from all over the world. This was a fairly quiet diplomatic campaign, and it coincided with billions in promised U.S. aid and other benefits such as covid vaccines. 

Instead of transferring the cash and vaccines, the Biden administration delayed -- and openly plotted to use the vaccine stockpiles for boosters instead, which drew resignations in protest at the FDA and a rebuke vote last week. Mexico decided to remind the US Government that it can always open the flood gates. 

The migrant interviews comport with the arrivals of bus after bus here in Acuna, about every 15 minutes all day long every day for a week, local business owners said. At the main city station, CIS witnessed buses pull in and empty out passengers who all appeared to be migrants....

A casual move such as suspending deterring strategies under cover of a holiday, or perhaps for the express purpose of transferring a humanitarian burden to the United States, indicates a diplomatic failure by the Biden administration in choosing carrots rather than Trump’s stick in dealing with Mexico. The move hints at how Mexico’s leadership regards the Biden administration’s quid pro quo arrangements of aid for help with illegal immigration from Guatemala.

This has led to astonishing visuals for a Democratic administration of Border Patrol Agents removing black Haitians using horses and whips. 

How can they be so bad at everything? This all happened the same week as the French recalling their ambassador over the submarine fleet being snaked out from under them. In addition to disrupting a major alliance, D29 points out in the comments to that post that the SSN fleet won't be available until 2040 -- thirteen years after the French fleet would have been fully operational. That means that this fleet won't come into service until after China's demographic collapse; during the full time that China has the manpower to wage expansionistic wars, Team Biden has ensured we'll be on the sidelines. 

It is an amazing display. I've never seen its like. 

UPDATE: The Vice report notwithstanding, I've yet to see any photographs or video of the "whips" they claim are being used. There is a good chance that these are just split reins that are being mistaken for whips by journalists; but the White House spokeswoman didn't push back against the claim that they were whips when asked about it. Of course, she's probably never sat on a horse outfitted with Western tack in her life. 

Just a Coincidence, Of Course

The judge in the Sussman case is married to Lisa Page's attorney. How is it that in a nation of 300,000,000 people the same few names turn up? 

Low profiles

 

Arizona Upcoming

The Arizona Audit is nearly complete, and is planning to release findings in the coming days. In the meantime, Gateway Pundit claims to have data that Arizona has run hundreds of thousands of voter identities past the Social Security Administration in recent months -- with over half finding 'no match.' 

The Gateway Pundit post also notes that Maricopa County has its own voter registration system, different from and independent of the ones the rest of the state uses.

Down on the Border

A significant escalation in what was already a crisis prompts the deployment of Texas state police. The Federal police, whose job this actually happens to be, are not stopping the invasion.

Followup on Imperial Pints

Back in May, I had a post that several of you enjoyed on the subject of American versus Imperial pints. Today I learned that the UK government, post-Brexit, is bringing back Imperial pint glasses marked with a crown stamp as assurance of proper measurement. We shall have to keep an eye out to see if those can be ordered for shipment to the United States. 

Non-monoculture

 My septic drainfield:  what we do instead of a lawn.  This year's very wet summer made everything especially happy, but the extra moisture from the drainfield is welcome, too.

Jasmine Cain sings Bobby McGee

The song opens with a long bit about how she got from a girl folding t-shirts at biker events to playing them as a headlining rocker. In some ways it's a simple dream: but it's an honest one.

Keep Hauling

I would have posted a trailer for the movie Rat Race with John Cleese and every other living comedian, but they all have too many spoilers. Pretty funny movie.

Instead, here's a trailer for Harry Brown, a very good movie that says a lot of wrong thinks about society.

Happy Saturday, y'all!

Glad they're working on the important stuff

 

Scenes From the DC Entrapment Festival

Apparently there was a demonstration, by someone or other, allegedly in support of J6 detainees. I had to ask a left wing friend for details, because no one I know on the right told me anything about it. Apparently it got big play in the media, though, and the Capitol police put the Wall back up and came in riot gear. 

There are some amusing photos and memes, though. 

UPDATE: The only person arrested appears to have been an undercover cop. 

UPDATE: Another good meme.

UPDATE: And another. One commenter asks, "How out of touch is the FBI if they think this is how we dress?"

LTG(R) Kellogg: Milley Must Go

Retired officers' opinions are worth whatever they're worth, but for whatever it is worth, he served with Milley and respects most of Milley's career. Neverthless, pointing out that Milley has not denied the allegations against him: 

Any action on the part of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs that gives the impression that he has traveled outside his lane, however slight, should be met with swift and severe recourse. This is not political; this is about the preservation of our democracy....

Unauthorized military discussions with a growing adversary about potential action sends a negative signal to an enemy. It conveys confusion, weakness, and calls into question our ability to control our military forces. It also implies that the military, in fact, calls the shots — not the commander in chief. Any undermining of the civilian control of the military is problematic; this was dangerous.

There is more if you'd like to read it. 

Where'd I put my magic wand?

A Bloomberg analysis reports the startling fact that wage increases have been outpaced recently by inflation, rendering the new minimum wage an illusory benefit. Who'da thunk? The Bloomberg author bemoans the fact that "the U.S. economy has no system for making sure that wages keep up with inflation."

The fact is, though, that the U.S. economy has a fine way of making sure that wages keep up with inflation: keep increasing productivity and quit trying to control prices. The only way for the real value of wages to increase is for the real value of wage-earners' production to increase. Shutting down workplaces and printing money for stimulus checks isn't the same thing as production.

One Step Away from War... with France?

The French recalled their ambassador to the United States today. Traditionally, this was the step immediately preceding the commencement of hostilities to include acts of war such as blockades. I don't imagine the French intend to attack us, and are merely expressing their anger in the strongest peaceful terms; but it is an amazing place to find ourselves. 

You can tell they're angry and want to hurt the Biden administration, because their official public statement is that this reminds them of the sort of thing that Trump would have done. In truth, though, Trump never did anything that caused a major ally to recall its ambassador.

Killing Children

A long time ago, I wrote an infamous piece at BLACKFIVE called "On the Virtues of Killing Children." The virtue was, specifically, that if you allowed the enemy to use children as human shields they'd keep doing it; whereas if you struck them regardless of their use of children as shields, taking all care you could to avoid killing the children but not letting their presence prevent the strike, you would quickly convince militant groups not to use the children in this way. It would provide them no benefit, and all the difficulties that are entailed by having lots of children around when you're trying to work. That piece was referenced by my friend Marc Danzinger, known in the old days as "Armed Liberal" of the Winds of Change blog, at this discussion of a similar scene in the Iliad.

Today, the United States military announced that it recently killed a lot of children -- and none of its enemies -- in that drone strike following the ISIS-K attack on the airport in Kabul. No disciplinary action is expected, per CDRUSCENTCOM, and the US stands by its intelligence. 

General Milley says that this strike featured "the same level of rigor" as our other drone strikes. It is more terrifying to consider that he might be speaking the truth about that than otherwise. 

What has become of the fighting force in which I once reposed such faith, and whose cause I so gladly joined in my youth? What has become of the virtuous nation whom I thought, once, could be trusted even to strike under such perilous circumstances as when the enemy was willfully using human shields? Was I blind when I was young, as the young often are? Or is it true, as I would rather believe, that corruption has tainted and destroyed what was once a noble force of honor and purpose? 

The end of that infamous piece closes with a prayer for mercy and forgiveness for what we have done. That much, at least, remains right.