August 4, 2026

KURT SCHLICHTER: Democrats Want to Close the Prisons, Except Not for People Like You.

Socialism is not about making lives better or creating prosperity or security or any of those things. It’s about jerks living out their personal psychodramas while they get off on making you miserable.

Nothing demonstrates that more than the idea of defunding the police and getting rid of prisons. After all, you wicked normal people deserve to have thugs, junkies, murderers, rapists, and other Democrat constituencies turned on you to make you pay for the crime of being you. You need to understand the deep hate that lives within all these people, and that’s why, in every single leftist sector of society, you see the actual criminals not merely being ignored but being idolized. The DSA types would free these barbarians for the express purpose of allowing those barbarians to hurt you, because you deserve to be hurt. You deserve to be killed. You deserve to be raped. Why? Because these freaks don’t like you and it amuses them to see you in pain.

But there’s a practical side to it too. The old Soviet Union understood it. Regular criminals were victims of society, and you, being the foundation of society, need to be victimized in return. If you were a regular criminal, you were treated infinitely better than someone who committed a real crime, that is, a political crime. If you opposed the regime, then you were a real criminal.

Leftists still think that way.

Posted at 8:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

AARON HANSCOM: Nick Shirley’s New Video Dismantles the Left’s Narrative on Ceuta’s Migrant Crisis.

Intrepid investigative journalist Nick Shirley isn’t one to shrink from danger. He had to escape from Cuba when spies followed him during his trip to the communist island and was forced to hire 24/7 security after exposing Somali fraud in Minneapolis. In his latest video, Shirley once again finds himself in serious peril when a Muslim man chases him through the streets while wielding a knife and threatening to stab him.

The scene of the pursuit was the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta, which has made headlines in recent days after 60,000 illegal migrants poured in from Morocco. Shirley traveled to the autonomous city to report on the current state of the crisis, which has become more manageable after most of the migrants returned to Morocco.

While the knife chase — in which the enraged man yells, “I’m going to stab both of you,” at Shirley and Javier Mansilla, the Spanish vigilante who accompanies Shirley in the video, as they run down the street — will likely attract the most attention, there are several other revealing moments I want to highlight that go against the left’s preferred narrative of what is occurring in Spain right now.

Video at link.

Posted at 7:44 am by Ed Driscoll

DISPATCHES FROM THE RED ZONES: Florida’s DOGE Is Delivering.

Since its creation in 2025, the Florida DOGE team has identified nearly $1 billion in waste and abuse at the local government level and sent over $878 million back to the federal government. But the team’s work extends beyond fiscal savings and budgetary cuts—it also includes auditing university curriculum and state union programs and reining in rogue municipalities that had adopted woke-left policies.

Take Florida’s SB 1134, which banned counties and municipalities from using government funds for discriminatory DEI programs and activities. Florida DOGE found that local governments were forcing employees to undergo “Transgender Humility” training, which included the use of a “wheel of power/privilege” that singled out certain ethnic groups as being worse than others. In some extreme cases, the team found that local governments were directing taxpayer dollars to immigration lawyers who represented criminal illegal aliens. All of this was identified by Florida DOGE and prohibited by law.

This ideological audit was most prevalent in universities, where the team examined over 74,000 syllabi and 100,000 research articles for left-wing ideological content. Funding for these DEI-related activities was effectively halted through SB 266 and SB 7044. While the federal DOGE program failed to codify reform through legislation, Florida DOGE succeeded.

Florida DOGE has proven it is the model to emulate.

There are an awful lot of red states that ought to be doing just that.

Posted at 7:33 am by Stephen Green

IF THEY SUCCEED, THEY WILL BE JUDGED AND FOUND WANTING:

“Sinners in the hands of an angry AI” would be fun to write.

Posted at 7:30 am by Glenn Reynolds

JASON GUMP: Charity casts doubts on volunteering record of Cambridge professor.

A charity has cast doubt on claims about volunteering made by the Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row.

Prof Jason Arday has listed among his achievements “installing water points” in South America and West Africa with the charity WaterAid.

WaterAid, however, says it never sends volunteers abroad.

It is the latest blow to Prof Arday’s credibility following questions over alleged plagiarism and apparently bogus claims he has made about ultra-distance running and fundraising.

His memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, is set to be published at the end of this month, with a publicity tour of the UK and America to promote it.

His editors must having Biden-level aneurysms right now.

Posted at 7:14 am by Ed Driscoll

INTEGRITY IS ALL ACADEMIA HAS. AND YET.

Posted at 7:00 am by Glenn Reynolds

August 3, 2026

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds