August 13, 2025

YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT PAINFUL AND EXPENSIVE FOR THEM TO SCREW WITH YOU:

Posted at 10:58 pm by Glenn Reynolds 62

OPEN THREAD: Hump Day.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds 1199

80/20: Anderson Cooper explains the clever trap Trump has set for Democrats after announcing DC crime crackdown that has infuriated liberals.

Anderson Cooper thinks Donald Trump has taken over policing in Washington DC to dare Democrats into saying there’s no crime problem in US cities.

The CNN star told New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman that the Dems’ decision to highlight falling crime in DC will likely backfire – because so many locals of all political persuasions have recent personal experiences of lawlessness.

‘It’s so interesting,’ Cooper said on his show AC: 360 on Tuesday. ‘The conflict, you know, Democrats face when talking about the policing in the District of Columbia.’

‘Do you point out statistics of out of a 30-year low as they as the statistics show, and thereby sound like you’re saying, oh, there’s not a crime problem in Washington, DC? Where there’s crime problem everywhere.’

Haberman agreed, conceding: ‘There is a crime problem everywhere.’

Someone tell that to this devil-may-care DC-region master chef:

And the Mayor of Oakland, who apparently has never heard of a notoriously crime-ridden city called Oakland:

As America’s Newspaper of Record reported yesterday: Democrat Mayors Report Violent Crime Down 40% Since They Redefined ‘Violent’ And ‘Crime.’

 

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 86

THIS IS NO SURPRISE TO ANYONE WHO’S ACTUALLY TALKED TO PEOPLE:

Posted at 9:07 pm by Glenn Reynolds 50

ROGER KIMBALL: Trump is liberating the Smithsonian from ‘Woke.’

What is happening, and what is going to happen, at the Smithsonian museums may seem like a footnote to the larger Trump agenda of “Making America Great Again.” In fact, it stands at the center of that project. Donald Trump understands something that the left has grasped at least since the 1960s but that conservatives have grasped dimly if at all. If you want to restore society, you must commandeer the institutions that represent elite culture. Over the last several decades, those institutions have gradually become captive of a woke ideology that denigrates America while simultaneously celebrating the entire radical menu of racialist redress, sexual exoticism and political intransigence.

Back in January, I wrote an column claiming that Donald Trump was “a great man of history.” That occasioned a fair amount of ridicule. But as the months pass and Trump moves from one triumph to the next, doing beneficent things that no previous president would have thought possible, my description seems more and more apt. Trump is not only making Americans safer and more prosperous. He is also moving on several fronts to give them back their cultural and educational institutions. His actions at the Smithsonian are the tip of that liberating spear.

Exit question:

Yes, ever since the debacle of their uber-PC Enola Gay exhibition in 1994, their airbrushing of Clarence Thomas out of black history in 2016, and their 2020 chart on “Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture in the United States,”, it’s been clear that somebody needs to save the Smithsonian from their worst impulses.

Click to enlarge.
Posted at 8:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 113

THIS DAY IN HISTORY: Astronauts in Quarantine.

On this day in 1969, multiple parades are held in honor of the Apollo 11 astronauts. They’d just been released from quarantine. Many people remember Neil Armstrong’s historic first step on the moon. But how many remember the quarantine that followed?

The entire crew was isolated for almost three weeks after they’d returned from that historic trip.

After all, no one knew for sure what the astronauts would bring home from the moon. What if they were exposed to a deadly lunar pathogen? Everyone needed to be sure that the astronauts were healthy before they came into contact with the general public again.

In addition to concerns about possible side effects from a moon landing, an ongoing news story that year may have also strengthened the desire for a lengthy quarantine: Woodstock Occurred in the Middle of a Flu Pandemic.

Posted at 8:30 pm by Ed Driscoll 13

RUSSIAGATE WAS WORSE THAN WATERGATE:

Even if the main actors in Russiagate do not face legal consequences, the disclosures from Gabbard and others provide valuable public and political accountability. They help to set the historical record straight – and, hopefully, will begin to rebuild some trust in government.

Russiagate was a dark episode in American history. The US security services, which ought to be neutral, joined with Democrats to try to bring down a Republican president. There was no evidence pointing to Trump’s collusion with Russia – it truly was a hoax. Yet the schemers achieved their anti-democratic objective: to make Trump appear illegitimate in the eyes of many Americans.

The ‘-gate’ suffix in ‘Russiagate’ derives from Watergate. But of the two scandals, I believe Russiagate will, over time, be seen as the more damaging. For their shameful role in undermining the people’s trust, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s names should be as disgraced as Richard Nixon’s.

Read the whole thing.

Although regarding that last quoted sentence, to be fair, Nixon isn’t all that badly disgraced these days, considering the successful full-on blitzkrieg Democrats and their operatives with bylines waged against him back in the mid-‘70s. On the right, Christopher Rufo wrote in 2023 that, “With a presidential election looming, conservatives need to develop a national counterrevolutionary agenda. For some ideas for what that might look like, they can turn to a surprising guide: Richard Nixon.” And he’s become increasingly praised by the left in recent decades – but then every Republican president candidate, once seen as Hitler on this campaign trail (and if he wins, during his time in office), gets strange new respect to bash the newest potential Hitler.

As Glenn asked in May of 2017, “Was Obama administration illegal spying worse than Watergate?” “In 1972, some employees of President Nixon’s re-election committee were caught when they broke into the Democratic National Committee headquarters to plant a bug. This led to Nixon’s resignation and probably would have led to his felony prosecution had he not been pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford. But if a single bugging of the political opposition is enough to bring down a presidency — and maybe lead to an unprecedented criminal prosecution of a former president — then what are we to make of the recently unveiled Obama administration program of massively spying on political opponents in violation of clearly established law? Because that’s what was unveiled last week.”

Posted at 8:14 pm by Ed Driscoll 87

JESSICA TARLOV’S OKIE CITY FLUB: As President Ronald Reagan once said, the problem with liberals is they know so many things that just aren’t true. Check out my latest news analysis on The Washington Stand.

Posted at 8:03 pm by Mark Tapscott 45

WELL, IT’S THE THEATER KIDS ON THE LEFT:

Posted at 7:58 pm by Glenn Reynolds 19

MUST READ – HOW AID GROUPS FUND TERRORISTS: Richard Pollock digs into the latest report from the Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction — remember them? — who documents how Hamas in Gaza and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

This report provides the fact-based counterpoint to every left-wing objection to the DOGE-led fundamental re-evaluation and re-structuring of all U.S. foreign aid programs, especially those run by USAID.

“The report focused on the Taliban. But it also shows how Islamic terror groups and hostile governments throughout the Middle East and Africa have no intention of aiding their poor or their children. They use the aid system to finance their wars and repression,” Pollock writes.

Posted at 6:25 pm by Mark Tapscott 38

OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND:

UPDATE (from Steve): Gestures like this one might have started out as well-meaning, but if so, that’s no longer the case.

If “Let us celebrate you while you rape our little girls” isn’t an open invitation for more crimes against helpless Britons, then what is it?

Posted at 5:45 pm by Ed Driscoll 175

PREPARE TO HEAR THE LAMENTATIONS OF THEIR WOMEN:

Posted at 5:34 pm by Stephen Green 132

REMINDER:

Posted at 4:52 pm by Stephen Green 75