May 15, 2026

MAKING WAR ON THE NORMALS IS THE CORE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PLATFORM:

Posted at 12:24 pm by Glenn Reynolds

DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: A Texas Military Vet Dropped Out of Penn State Law School Rather Than Submit to Its Mandatory Anti-Racism Course.

David Blackman, a native of Plano, Texas, was thrilled to be starting law school at Penn State in the fall of 2025.

A former 911 call operator and a veteran of the Texas State Guard, Blackman, 26, loved the university’s football team and its location in the Appalachian Mountains.

“I’ve been a fan of Penn State since I was a teenager,” Blackman told the Washington Free Beacon. He arrived on campus in August 2025, a 50 percent merit scholarship in hand, excited for game nights in Beaver Stadium and a three-year reprieve from the Texas heat.

Then he sat through his first anti-racism class.

On the first day of “Race and the Equal Protection of the Laws,” a required course for all first-year law students, Blackman listened as a transgender faculty member, Emily Spottswood, explained why the course was mandatory.

“It’s not optional,” Spottswood said, because “being a lawyer is about recognizing and combating injustice.”

In audio of the session obtained by the Free Beacon, Spottswood said that this “institutional message” was “baked into” the law school’s “DNA,” adding that, as a “trans woman,” the course’s focus on “combatting oppression … is meaningful to me.”

Spottswood’s remarks followed a presentation by Jeffrey Dodge, the law school’s associate dean, and Shaakirrah Sanders, who was introduced as “the first associate Dean of anti-racism and critical pedagogy in the country.” The presentation made clear that Blackman wasn’t in Texas anymore; he and his classmates were now conscripts in a political “coalition” that, as Dodge put it in his talk, was dedicated to “building a more anti-racist” future.

“We are taking action to disrupt and dismantle systems that racialize, subordinate, and oppress,” Dodge said. “We … want to acknowledge the reality of systemic racism … as a foundation for this course.”

Thus began a series of struggle sessions in which professors demanded students affirm activist talking points and ultimately drove Blackman, whose first-choice law school had been Penn State, to withdraw from the school after just one semester. (The Free Beacon reviewed Blackman’s transcript.) Over the course of three 150-minute lectures, speakers described all white people as “privileged,” called to “eradicate patriarchy,” and asserted that the justice system is “about keeping black people in their place.” One assignment said students should “consider” framing their essays around “the reality of systemic racism,” implying that doing otherwise could affect a student’s grade.

PJM alum Tyler O’Neil adds, “This is an important reminder of how deep the woke rot runs in many professions — it’s not just that professionals are biased, it’s that they’re forced to marinade in leftist-saturated institutions to get the credentials to do their jobs. Even the sanest will get infected to some degree.”

Exit quote from Blackman:

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

CREDIT WHERE IT’S DUE: Gov. Polis helps axe bills rolling back business tax breaks.

To those who remember Polis’ 2018 campaign for Governor, eliminating tax loopholes and using the increased revenue to “buy down” the income tax rate was a popular campaign promise.

Colorado’s free-market think tank, Independence Institute, was initially optimistic about such a tax policy because it would increase the tax base while lowering individual Coloradans’ tax burden.

The think tank published multiple reports analyzing Governor Polis’ words versus actions on taxes.

Unfortunately, time has not been kind to Governor Polis’ tax policy promises.

Instead of lowering and eliminating tax breaks, they exploded under Governor Polis’ watch.

That said, Polis’ stated desire to lower the income tax while reducing special-interest loopholes was and remains a commendable idea; it would be better to eliminate both if possible.

However, not all tax breaks are created equal, and targeting those that help keep Colorado somewhat economically competitive is probably worse than targeting those that benefit people who generate the least economic activity (and thus the least revenue for the state).

Apparently, Governor Polis understands that tax breaks for things he likes become unaffordable if the economy isn’t doing well.

As Glenn likes to say on occasion, even a flatworm is smart enough to turn away from pain.

Posted at 11:44 am by Stephen Green

GOOD ADVICE:

Posted at 11:28 am by Stephen Green

VDH: The Newsom Nightmare: Why California’s Elites Refuse to Face Reality.

Every time Gov. Gavin Newsom is presented with a critique of his leadership, he said, “We’re the fifth-largest economy in the world.” He never says that I’ve driven out oil refineries. I prohibited pipeline construction. I drove out the timber industry, and that I, as a San Francisco County official, as a mayor of San Francisco, as a lieutenant governor of the state, and as governor, I’ve had over 32 years, and no one is more responsible for California as it is today than Gavin Newsom.

No, he won’t talk about any of these problems. He just talks about Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. He has these nasty sort of Truth Social people who use capital letters, foul language, and threaten people. I’m gonna hit Trump in the mouth, or people in Europe got on their knee pads, kind of foul imagery, thinks it’s really neat.

He gives these interviews where he kind of wiggles his shoulders, but he doesn’t talk about his record. So how did we get here if they didn’t tell us? How did a state that was well-governed and had a natural paradise and was the envy of all 50 states in matters of energy production, defense, production, tripartite higher education system, a solid K-12 educational, system, great infrastructure—

Why would the American Trucking Association say, “I don’t want you driving on the 99 or north-south lateral”? Most dangerous highway in the nation per miles driven. What happened? Well, how did these people come to power? The first thing was that we had an explosion in technology in the 1970s and ’80s, and due to the location of Stanford University and UC Berkeley, in between was Silicon Valley.

And that boomed as the creators of everything from computers to iPhones to iPads to Adobe to everything. Now it’s AI, and that has now ballooned to $14 or $15 trillion in market capitalization, and it’s left-wing. At least it was until recently. The state has turned on them. We’ll see what happens.

The short version is that California’s elites refuse to face reality because it still remains profitable not to.

But as VDH said, we’ll see what happens.

Posted at 10:42 am by Stephen Green

ROBERT SPENCER: Waging War on the Time Clock. “The November election is coming, and Iran will be an issue. It could still be an issue in the 2028 presidential election. The Democrats are certain to claim, whatever is really happening, that Trump has gotten us mired in a needless ‘quagmire’ there.”

Posted at 10:11 am by Stephen Green

NO MORE FREE RIDES: Saudi warplanes struck Iran-backed militias in Iraq during war, sources say.

Saudi fighter jets bombed targets linked to powerful Tehran-backed Shi’ite militias in Iraq during the Iran war, while retaliatory strikes were also launched from Kuwait into Iraq, multiple sources familiar with the matter said.

The strikes are part of a broader pattern of military responses around the Gulf that remained largely hidden during a conflict that began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran and has spread to the wider Middle East.

For this report, Reuters spoke to three Iraqi security and military officials, a Western official, and two people briefed on the matter, one of them in the US.

The Saudi strikes were carried out by Saudi air force fighter jets on Iran-linked militia targets near the kingdom’s northern border with Iraq, one Western official and the person briefed on the matter said. The Western official said some strikes took place around the time of the April 8 US-Iran ceasefire.

They targeted sites from which drone and missile attacks were launched at Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, the sources said.

Plus: UAE secretly launched strikes on Iran during war, attacked oil refinery.

Posted at 9:40 am by Stephen Green

THAT’S HOW THEY KNEW HE WAS TALKING ABOUT THEM, DUH:

Posted at 9:22 am by Glenn Reynolds

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: We Never Want to Hear ‘House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.’ “One thing is fairly certain, however. If the Republicans don’t manage to pass the SAVE America Act, it won’t be long before the Democrats get their one-party rule fantasy and we’re all wearing Pride flag gulag jumpsuits.”

Posted at 9:09 am by Stephen Green

SKIN IN THE GAME: Trump, Bessent Say China May Help Reopen Strait of Hormuz.

Bessent, speaking to CNBC from Beijing, said reopening the waterway is “very much” in China’s interest and predicted Beijing would work “behind the scenes” to influence Iranian leaders. Reuters reported Bessent said, “I think they’re going to do what they can” to help reopen the strait.

Trump, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, said Chinese President Xi Jinping “would love to be a help” and wants to see the strategically vital shipping lane reopened.

But China itself has not publicly committed to any concrete intervention or mediation effort aimed specifically at forcing Iran to reopen the strait.

Instead, Beijing has issued broader diplomatic statements calling for stability, restraint and the preservation of commercial shipping routes.

Iran is a global pariah and China wants to be a global player.

Maybe Beijing can and will help promote freedom of navigation in an internationally responsible way.

Or maybe inviting PLAN in to help will turn out to be a big mistake.

Posted at 8:38 am by Stephen Green

IMPRESSIVE. MOST IMPRESSIVE:

The New Space Race really is SpaceX vs. the world.

Posted at 7:51 am by Stephen Green

SHARK SANDWICH:

Okay, but to be fair, given L.A.’s perilously high concentration of Democrats, Raman may simply trying to protect them from themselves:

Posted at 7:45 am by Ed Driscoll

WHCD ATTACK REVISITED: One Loser Got Far Too Close… So What Happens When Four Pros Show Up? “The mental lightweight amateur was stopped cold the first time around. But four trained professionals? You know America’s enemies are thinking about it after watching the near success of Mr. Call of Duty. Pros wouldn’t be livestreaming or hesitating. They’d roll up on that checkpoint locked and loaded with suppressed rifles, plate carriers, comms, and a plan honed from hard experience in real war zones.”

Posted at 7:36 am by Stephen Green