SHUT IT DOWN:

From the replies: “I have no idea why the Trump admin hasn’t nuked it from orbit, legally speaking.”

Or literally.

CDR SALAMANDER: The Next War Will Come Home. “The larger issue is that we are reaching the point that the concept of ‘the rear’ is rapidly decreasing.”

The Germans learned it by 1943; the Japanese by 1944. Having fought our major wars on the other sides of big oceans, the United States hasn’t really caught on. But we need to.

Kurt Schlichter’s The Attack gives a taste for this, but doesn’t really account for the swarms of inexpensive ship-launched drones that are likely to play a major role in the next war.

CALIFORNIA’S FINAL SOLUTION:  Urban Democrats in the California Legislature have figured out a way to get rid of some of the state’s rural Republican voters:  Reintroduce the grizzly bear into some of the state’s low population areas and allow the apex predator to snack on the locals.

THAT THING THAT NEVER HAPPENS…: New Jersey Dems Did Nothing For Years After Warnings About Noncitizens On Voter Rolls.

Local election officials and watchdogs have for years warned the Democrats who control New Jersey government that lax voting laws would lead to noncitizens popping up on the voter rolls. Still, the Associated Press carried water for a fellow Democrat traveler trying to hold on to a rapidly collapsing narrative.

“The revelation comes as President Donald Trump and other Republicans continue to assert that voting by noncitizens is rampant in U.S. elections, even though it’s rare and, when caught, can be punished as a felony that can lead to deportation,” useful idiot Geoff Mulvhill wrote in his coverage of the scandal.

When caught? Such crimes are rarely caught due to lack of interest by many election and law enforcement officers on the front and back ends of the system. Democrat policymakers have bent over backwards to be “inclusive” and “equitable” in voter rights legislation, at the expense of election security.

Former two-term Gov. Phil Murphy in 2018 signed into law a measure that automatically registers New Jerseyans to vote when they apply for an ID or a driver’s license. A year later, the Democrat signed into law a bill allowing illegal aliens to obtain a driver’s license. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything that went wrong was by design.

YES:

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Rally Trump Is Still My Favorite Trump. “Trust the process, that’s what athletes say. Trump’s process is all about winning. Sure, that’s a new focus for the GOP, but the president has been able to convert a lot of the party to the winning mindset.”

NAILED:

NO, SPACE COMMERCIALIZATION ISN’T TULIP MANIA: If the tulip mania reference escapes you, then you really need to read Issues & Insights’ (I&I) explanation for why the recent dips in stock value for VIP space commercialization ventures is NOT a sign of a bubble. And if the tulip reference is familiar to you, the I&I suggestion of the significance of space commercialization will make perfect sense to you.

I WENT LONG ON POPCORN YEARS AGO, WHEN BERNIE SANDERS WENT BIG:

DID CHINA BUY US JOURNOS? President Donald Trump made the allegation official, saying in his July 16 speech that China paid U.S. journalists who were writing negative stories about him during his first term. Trump didn’t, however, name names or specify how much was paid to any specific journalist.

Given the constitutionally protected nature of journalism, the American people have a right to know the facts on this allegation from Trump. If there were indeed payments made and accepted, then on what basis would/could there be prosecutions? Conversely, if there weren’t actually Chinese bribes to U.S. journalists, then he will have handed defenders of the Mainstream Media a huge gift that could cripple responsible critics of biased reporting.

THEY’RE DOING THE MEME:

VANCE OUT ON IRAN: Richard Pollock points to multiple signs Vice-President JD Vance is no longer President Donald Trump’s man on foreign affairs, and in particular on Iran. But that doesn’t mean Vance will never return to a foreign policy role, and if he does, that could be bad news for Israel.

IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: We Need to Talk About ‘The Odyssey.’

We need to talk about The Odyssey, which now looks like it’s going to be writer-director Christopher Nolan’s second billion-dollar picture in a row.

This isn’t really a movie review. It’s more of a look at how a celebrated writer-director, tasked with turning a 3,000-year-old epic poem into a modern Hollywood blockbuster, tried and partly failed to thread that needle.

I did not hate The Odyssey. I do not love it.

Mostly, I’m perplexed.

Much more at the link.

BETTERIDGE’S LAW OF HEADLINES REMAINS UNDEFEATED: Are the British the most evil people in history?

If you have not spent a great deal of time on the internet, you will probably know the British actress Jameela Jamil for her starring role in the popular comedy series The Good Place, or alternatively from her appearance in the Marvel miniseries She Hulk: Attorney at Law. 

However, for the terminally online, Jamil is either a savior who is unafraid to say controversial things that her peers would shy away from, or someone whose batshit crazy utterances are given far too much attention given her modest celebrity status.

The latest of her pronouncements is on Brexit, ten years on, along with sundry instances of racism and horror in her home country. Jamil declared that “Britain is fucked. It doesn’t feel as though I’m going back to some haven. There’s literally a race war happening now.. Brexit paved the way for American chaos.”

For good measure, she also declared in the Yestergays podcast with Justin Sylvester,“I had to make [her Good Place] character Tahani more of a bitch. Americans think British people are so sweet, which is crazy because British people are truly the most evil people in history.

Jamil went on to declare that Britain owed £43 trillion in reparations to India, as well as saying that “We colonized the world. Rich British people are not likable to anyone. They are horrible.”

Could be much worse through — back in 2005, Glenn quoted an Insta-reader who noted that “Harry Turtledove had an excellent short story, ‘The Last Article,’ about how Gandhi would have fared in a Nazi occupied India. It’s a short story. Both in context and content.” As Glenn replied, “Yes, I read that. Some of the Nazis feel slightly guilty about killing him and his followers.”

ALL FRAUD ALL THE TIME: