WELL SAID:

turns out when you select for cowardice you get an institution incapable of policing itself https://t.co/bUoLAJgDNU

— Razib Khan 🧬 ✍️ (@razibkhan) August 20, 2026

Cowardice, conformity, corruption…

METAPHOR ALERT: Prospective Vendors for Mamdani’s Low-Cost Grocery Get Tour of Vacant Lot. “The city is on the road to socialism at least for as long as Mamdani is in Gracie Mansion, and so on Wednesday, in a fitting display of what socialism actually gets you, representatives of outfits that may actually run Mamdani’s Santa Claus grocery store got a grand tour of its prospective location: a garbage-filled vacant lot.”

THIS IS A REAL PROBLEM:

They’re not standing for her three kids, whom she killed, but for her.
Some women are too online and it shows. https://t.co/lks6hEE1lx

— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 20, 2026

And:

Lindsay Clancy brutally strangled her 3 kids to death

Current scene outside the courthouse: pic.twitter.com/LC6do0LdzT

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) August 20, 2026

What’s that a scene from? Mao’s China? Stephen King’s “Women of the Corn?”

SAD: These 6 Artists Censored Their Own Work.

The only way to protect yourself from censored art? Buy the film or TV show on physical media. Except fans of the 1998 film “Pleasantville” will get a rude awakening if they do just that.

Shout! Factory’s new 4K Blu-ray edition of director Gary Ross’s drama snipped a line from the original film. The theatrical version finds Reese Witherspoon’s character saying, “I did the slut thing, David. It got kind of old,” to her brother, David (Tobey Maguire).

The “slut” line got the heave ho in the latest version. World of Reel says Ross himself approved of the censorship. Entertainment Weekly reached out to the director for comment, but the story has not been updated.

If Ross approved the censorship, he’s not alone. Here are five other examples of artists who have censored their own work.

More good stuff from Christian Toto at the link.

CYBERCRIME LAWS ARE BECOMING A CONVENIENT NEW HOME FOR OLD-FASHIONED CENSORSHIP. A UN treaty meant to fight online crime could make it easier for governments to help one another investigate and punish speech that authoritarian states simply redefine as “serious” crime.

THIS HAS TO BE A DEEPFAKE, RIGHT? RIGHT?

From a New York Times video about the suffering among sailors deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The caption, in case it's too small to read, says, "They didn't sign up to be on a ship in the middle of the ocean." pic.twitter.com/p28FmV1NqP

— Chris Bray (@a_chrisbray) August 20, 2026

AREN’T THOSE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO USED TO SAY “PUNCH A NAZI?”: Sadly, It’s Illegal to Punch Democrats Who Constantly Lie About Voter ID.

BE PREPARED: Prepared Hero Emergency Fire Blanket, Kitchen & Home. #CommissionEarned

GOOD: Military kids will learn Western civ and patriotism in DoD class.

Patriotic values will be taught in schools run by the military, says Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (That’s not a shocker.) He also wants the school system, which serves children of active-duty military members, to stress classical education.

A new online class on Western civilization will use a textbook on “the ancient world and Christendom,” report AP’s Annie Ma and Konstantin Toropin. The DoD class may use lesson plans created in partnership with Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school.

“While some classical educators have pushed to incorporate diverse scholars, critics have argued the movement focuses too heavily on foundational texts from Greek, Roman and other Western writers and gives short shrift to achievements in Asia, Africa and the Middle East,” they write.

It appears that learning the classics is now coded as conservative.

That’s because civics and the humanities got hijacked by anti-American Marxists.

SOME OF MY FRIENDS, INCLUDING DALE AMON AND JIM BENNETT, WHOSE WORK HAS OFTEN GRACED THIS PAGE, ARE IN THE SPACE DATA BUSINESS. Unlike Elon, they aren’t providing AI data centers but safe networked black box data storage in space industries. Their company is Immortal Data.

A SHOCKING SCANDAL! BREAKING: Presidential Aide Aids President.

COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: U. Florida course on black politics canceled due to low enrollment.

A FREE SOCIETY REQUIRES A THICKER SKIN: In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and I argued that treating offense as harm makes people more fragile, institutions more censorious, and free inquiry harder to sustain.

OLD AND BUSTED: Welcome Wagon kits proposed for Americans fleeing the parentheses states.

The New Hotness?

Odd, letting people in your country who require that specific instruction.

Better tell them not to stab, too.

— Northern Barbarian (@xnoesbueno) August 20, 2026

Earlier: UK Home Office prints guide to teach migrants not to rape women and kids.

ATHENA THORNE: Data Centers and Flock Cameras and AI, Oh My! “Maybe you’re still recovering from the Great Societal Collapse of Y2K. Perhaps you’re still digging out from the rubble of the Cold War nuclear global apocalypse, or you’re busy smothering in the ozone-pollution-acid rain-cold-heat-weather-climate-greenhouse disaster. As for me, I’m just about done with all the panic and handwringing about the technological breakthroughs washing over us at an ever-increasing cadence.”

GET RID OF PESTS: Zevo Flying Insect Trap for Fruit Flies & Gnats. #CommissionEarned

COLLUSION: UC Irvine still promotes partnership with Chinese engineering school flagged by U.S. government.

HMM: Moderna Shares Double on Success of mRNA Cancer Vaccine.

An experimental mRNA-based vaccine succeeded in preventing cancer from coming back or spreading in a study of high-risk melanoma patients, Moderna and its partner Merck said Wednesday, paving the way for a potentially new life-extending treatment for the thousands of people diagnosed with the deadly skin cancer each year.
…
The study looked at people who had surgery to remove a melanoma—the point of the treatment was to reduce the risk of it coming back.

The companies said the late-stage study, which tested the personalized cancer vaccine intismeran in combination with Merck’s blockbuster cancer immunotherapy Keytruda, met its main goal of extending the time before cancer returns in high-risk patients. The study also met a secondary goal of preventing the disease from spreading to different organs.

“I have a feeling that this is just the beginning of a new field,” said Jane Healy, a vice president of oncology at Merck, adding the goal for patients is “to give them longer without having to worry about treatments for cancer.”

Developing…

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: Breaking: Ghent University’s trans rector suspends ‘race realist’ Nathan Cofnas over Jason Arday’s death.

USA: woke 1 was craaaazy

UK/Europe: let’s crank up the crazy to infinity https://t.co/bAdLDkJSH1

— Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) August 20, 2026

GOODER AND HARDER:

A disgrace. Republicans are the fiscally irresponsible party, Democrats are the fiscally insane party. Voters claim they want this addressed, but don’t really act accordingly. Meaningful solutions are demagogued to the hilt — so further toward the fiscal abyss we climb. 🤢 https://t.co/BzvCQ5ZbrZ

— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) August 20, 2026

“If something cannot go on forever, it will stop,” the wise man liked to say.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE:

This is the way to combat the false lure of socialism to young women. With real stories. Great campaign from @IWV pic.twitter.com/YTCBCU6faO

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) August 19, 2026

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: The Price of ‘Wait Them Out’ Keeps Going Up for Iran. “I’ve written on more than one occasion that there are two wars going on in the region: the actual war, and whatever the hell it is that The New York Times is writing about. There have been days when it seemed as if the Times were getting editorial directives from Tehran.”

DON SURBER: California regulates spare tires: It is just another bureaucratic power grab in the name of saving the planet.

HIS VICTORIES TEND NOT TO GET SUNG A LOT: The Most Unsung Victory of Trump’s Administration. “The Trump administration’s decision to end the political persecution of a South Dakota farming and ranching family didn’t receive major attention. So far, it isn’t a top story for news sites and shows amid a busy week of conversation around President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in his second term. It should be.”

SHUT UP, THEY EXPLAINED: Russian court jails Kremlin critic for 11 years for opposing the war in Ukraine.

A Russian court on Monday convicted a prominent opposition politician for speaking out against the war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 11 years and one month in prison in the latest crackdown leading up to next month’s parliamentary election.

The verdict against Lev Shlosberg, a senior member of the Yabloko party, was another step by the Kremlin to stifle dissent since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022. Yabloko is the only official political party overtly opposing the war.

In a separate ruling Monday, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld its earlier decision to bar Yabloko from the ballot in the Sept. 18-20 parliamentary vote, denying an appeal by the party.

The moves against Shlosberg and Yabloko highlight the Kremlin’s intolerance toward any criticism of the war, now in its fifth year.

Stalin required just 14 months to clear the Ukraine SSR of Nazi troops, and the Ukraine military in 2022 wasn’t exactly the Wehrmacht.