Look – I’m all for women.  My mom was one.  So are my sister, daughter and daughter in law.   Go, women!

But the trifle that is modern feminism has gone a little overboard with claiming “firsts for women”.  One of my more glaring recent examples was the Saint Paul City Council, who are indeed seven women (or were until one left, and was tentatively replaced by a man), but aren’t really running the city because they aren’t much of a council. 

But this week’s “Blue Horizon” flight seven prominent female space tourists had moved into a solid first place. 

Among the tourists was pop start Katy Perry, who imbued the event with, er, immense gravitas:

Community notes for the win.

I imagine going into space is something of a “high”, so I won’t make the inevitable “someone snuck some THC gummies onto the flight” joke, pinky swear…:

So, like David Strom, I don’t really care if people with cash and connections wants to pay for a trip across the Karman Line.  The revenue will help advance private sector space flight.  Yay free enterprise. 

But…Astronaut?

Perry’s only real training for the event was getting measured for her designer jumpsuit, before being shot to the edge of space as a passenger. 

Unlike Valentina Tereshkova, who went into space 62 years ago, after at least qualifying as a cosmonaut and pilot. 

Or Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

Or even Christa MacAuliffe, the teacher killed aboard Challenger, who at least went through some version of astronaut training, among the many other American women who’d qualified and been into space by that point.

Sorry to say, Perry was about as much an “astronaut” as Laika the Space Dog – although Perry at least survived her trip.

Glad we could settle that. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Scott Johnson from Powerline has a column explaining why Trump’s tariffs are calculated incorrectly and are therefore too high.  He gives a formula from some academics showing that the inelasticity of trade was improperly factored into setting our new rates.

Missing the point, Scott.  The point is foreign governments have been taking advantage of our generosity for years and it’s time to fix that. Yes, we’re a party to GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) but renegotiations have been stalled for decades – too many rice bowls at stake – so Trump’s unilateral new tariffs are a way to break the stalemate.

 

The specifics of Trump’s tariffs don’t matter, 10% on penguins or 90% on Vietnam, these numbers are just the opening round of negotiation.  It’s like the guy selling sombreros on the beach in Mazatlan, or the guy selling rugs in the souk in Marrakech.  His opening offer is ridiculous because you are expected to bargain with him. That’s the accepted practice in that culture.  So, too, in every real estate deal, which is where Trump learned his lessons.  You always set the listing price high to give yourself room to negotiate down.  And now we’re seeing it’s also true in setting foreign trade policy, as more than four dozen countries have already lined up to renegotiate their trade policy with us.

 

Scott’s column is so typical for RINOs. The other side can state any lie and it’s accepted at face value while our facts are scrutinized and debated endlessly, with the result that the opposition’s policies get enacted but ours get nibbled to death by ducks quacking around our ankles.  With friends like that . . . . . . .

 

Joe Doakes

Joe Doakes, once of Como Park, emails:

I get lots of spam emails but never see them.  My spam filter works fine for real spam.  It’s spam-ish emails that get through.  “Legitimate” spam, so to speak.

 

Marketing people will tell you that the best source of business is your existing customer list.  They already know the way to your door. They paid you money in the past. The trick is to get them back in the door again to spend more money in the future.  How to do that?

 

Keep your name in front of them.  Email a quarterly newsletter.  Email monthly specials.  Email “Happy Birthday!” greetings.  That way, when the customer thinks “I should buy . . . ” they already know who to buy it from.

 

Except I HATE SPAM.  Pelting me with spam emails is far more likely to annoy me than to make me grateful.  Do businesses gain more repeat business from spam than they drive away?  I wonder.

 

And it’s everywhere.  The grocery store wants my email before I can get the BOGO on green grapes but that means receiving weekly coupon emails.  The oil change place wants to send me a three-month reminder in addition to holiday greetings. The dentist, health care provider, insurance agent, Congresscritter, drugstore, discount warehouse . . . STOP SENDING ME THIS CRAP!

 

But I can’t tell them that, or they will take my name off the list, and the next time I shop there, they will say my account has been closed at my request.  

 

Marketing majors take note: it’s people like you what cause civil unrest.  My next “mostly peaceful” protest may be at your office.  And not a soul would blame me.

 

Joe Doakes

Point taken – although I’m going after the people (or “people”) that design phone trees first. 

(Title reference):

When “Satanists” – actually a sophomoric cheetoh-dusty club of militant atheists – erected a “Satanic” holiday display in the Capitol rotunda, Christians angrily dissented, and occasionally fulminated – but let the “Satanists” enjoy their free speech and one of their few trips outside their parents’ basements. 

When an Easter display got excluded from the Capitol, Christians – including former Senator Dan Hall – took it outdoors:

You didn’t need to be a playwrite to foreshadow this one:

No cigar for guessing this one:

Norby allegedly has an arrest record involving “Antifa-Like” activities in 2020. 

Of course, the real precedent is that Minnesota leftists feel entitled to destroy speech they disagree with.  

And this being John Choi’s Ramsey County, I’m going to go out on a short, sturdy limb and predict Norby gets “sentenced” to teaching elementary school kids about the separation of church and state, using precedent.  

Democrats lately have had a lot of fun hopping up and down on the fact that there are no 300 year-old people giving Social Security checks; it’s just a database problem.

As if learning that the fact that our government data is that sloppy is all that much more reassuring.

All of that, notwithstanding, I fully expect the Democrats to keep trying to focus on that, to deflect away from this

I’ve had a long-standing suspicion that Minnesota under Democrat rule has been a national prototype, not only for how progressive politics is done, but for how progressive loot the public treasury.I’ve had a long-standing suspicion that Minnesota under Democrat rule has been a national prototype, not only for how progressive politics is done, but for how progressive loot the public treasury.Is Minnesota the disease, or the symptom?

Not sure. Either way, he’s hoping the chemotherapy does something useful.

As we pointed out yesterday, governor Klink is apparently getting things set up to try to run for president

he must be serious; he wants to hold a “Townhall meeting”, which is something he hasn’t done in Minnesota since Jensen humiliated him far fast

At any rate, this is the tack he wants to take

Minnesota’s educational achievement rates have, of course, fallen behind Mississippi. 

Which confirms my thesis; even more than most Democrats, Walz counts on “his” voters being even dumber and less well-informed than most Democrats do.

The Boston Glob, which led the way in demanding absolute mindless compliance during the Covid regime, is – five years later – asking the tough questions, doncha know:

The costs of the shutdowns were enormous: trillions of dollars in deficit spending to stave off economic ruin; massive learning loss, concentrated among the least advantaged children; the special pain of leaving loved ones to die alone in dreary nursing homes and emergency rooms; a further cleaving of our already divided society.

And despite all the sacrifice, the United States still had a much higher death rate than other wealthy nations.

At a critical moment, American science abandoned its most fundamental tenets. It forsook inquiry, it muzzled debate.

And American democracy did no better. Reasonable skepticism was cast as tinfoil-hat conspiracy mongering. Twitter and Facebook and YouTube were purged of heresy.

For Macedo and Lee, the story is clear: The pandemic was a monumental test of the American system — and the system failed

 

You could say “better late than never”.   That may be true.  

But as one of the unwashed, unfavored masses who still managed to figure the eventual truth out bright and early, and paid a price for it, I’m still not ready to make nice. There’s gotta be a “truth and reconciliation” commission of some sort.

Even if it’s only here. 

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

I’ve been saying the American government should put Americans first and only after all of our problems are solved, consider taking care of people in other nations.  After watching the Zelensky blow-up in the Oval Office, I’ve concluded I was wrong.  The American government should take care of Americans. Period.

The American government should never give war guarantees to other nations.  That promotes “moral hazard” by making Europeans think they can act irresponsibly because America will step in to defend them.  It’s the classic little brother picking a fight knowing big brother is right around the corner. Zelensky demanded war guarantees in the form of American troops to fight Russian troops on Ukrainian soil.  Trump – to his credit – was smart enough not to give in.  Hell, the only reason there was a White House ceremony at all, was so Trump could claim he wasn’t “giving” Ukraine aid for free, he was getting mineral rights in return, similar to our deals in the Middle East (we have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia to defend the royal family from enemies in Iran and uprising by their own people; in exchange, we get access to their oil, literally a blood-for-oil deal-with-the-devil made 100 years ago).

Now that the minerals deal has blown up, Trump has the perfect opportunity to walk away from defending Ukraine in specific and Europe in general.  Withdraw from NATO, let Europe sort out its own problems, we have enough of our own.   And not just Europe.  About that Saudi deal – do we still need it?  Are the terms still fair to us?  I’d like DOGE to take a look at all similar arrangements, worldwide.

More than military aid, the American government should never give financial aid to other nations.  Money is “fungible,” meaning the funds the foreign government would have spent taking care of its own people can now be shifted to buying a new Rolls Royce for the dictator.   That’s not fair to Americans. Other nations’ own governments should take care of them.   If their governments are unable to take care of their people, that’s what charity is for.  Americans are the most generous, most giving people in the world, but we want to know that our charity is doing good, not simply lining pockets.

Getting government out of the war guarantee and charity businesses would not only save a ton of money, it is the first step in restoring constitutional government.  Zelensky handed Trump the perfect opportunity and Elon Musk’s team is the perfect tool.  Now is our chance.

Joe Doakes

 

I see value to alliances…

…that act with integrity, themselves, and are first and foremost in America’s best interests.

I think a NATO that acts with integrity – like, maintaining its capability to defend itself – is in America’s interest. 

The NATO we have today?  Not so much.

An alliance with Poland, Finland and the Baltic states?  Places that care about upholding Western civilization against enemies military and social, and back it up not only with spending and hardware but national attitude?  Logistics notwithstanding, that would, or could,  work.

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, snuck one in after the putative (ahem) finale yesterday:

When I claim Trump must shut down the government to force Congress to slash spending because the United States is bankrupt, I get angry push-back.  

We can’t be bankrupt! That’s ridiculous.  This is the greatest nation in history.  How can we be bankrupt?  

How can you tell if someone is bankrupt?  One classic test is being unable to meet obligations they come due. That certainly is the USA.  We have to borrow more every minute to keep paying the bills. The hole never stops getting deeper.  Look at The National Debt Clock website.  Another class test is whether the person’s debts exceed their assets.  Ours certainly do. 

But we have all the gold in Fort Knox and all the national parks and stuff!   That’s worth a ton of money!  

Yes. But we owe a ton and whole lot more.  Look, 147 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox at the current price of $3,000 per ounce gives us $450 Billion worth of gold (billion with a B).  But the national debt is $37 Trillion (trillion with a T).  All the gold in Fort Knox won’t cover two percent of our national debt.  And that’s if the gold is all there at stated purity (what, you never heard of debasement, clipping or plugging? Look them up. Wouldn’t be the first time United States money was debased by our own government. Silver dollars began as pure silver but were reduced to half in the 1830s and after 1964, contain no silver at all.  The fact Trump was concerned enough to ask for a look at the gold reserve concerns me, but the fact nobody was allowed to weigh a bar or melt one one down to assay its purity sends my paranoia into overdrive.  You think Biden wouldn’t countenance stealing from it so long as he got 10% for the Big Guy?)

Yes, but Fort Knox isn’t the only gold!  We have other gold, and gold rights, and gold leases and options, none of which has been audited but Biden assured us it was there.  8,000 METRIC TONS of gold.  That’s $775 Billion worth of gold! And we have other assets, too, like Yellowstone and the White House!

If all that gold is there, sure, that’ll cover nearly 3% of the national debt.  As for all the land the federal government owns and mineral rights and navy bases, how do you determine the market value of the White House and who are you going to sell it to?  China?  Do you really want to go there?

That’s why Trump sicced Elon on finding fraud and waste, so they could drum up public support to slash the budget, so they could force Congress to stop digging the hole deeper and maybe, if we get really, really lucky, force Congress to start paying down the debt before the creditors come knocking and the United States is compelled to publicly admit we are bankrupt.  Because when that happens, nobody has money in the bank, nobody gets paid, nobody’s 401k is worth a damn, nobody gets Social Security, nobody gets welfare, nobody can fix it. 

It’s not too late.  Demand that your Congress-critter get with Trump’s program.  Before it IS too late. 

Joe Doakes

 

Passing the “big beautiful bill” earlier this week was a start. 

Joe Doakes formerly of Como Park emails:

We know there’s a battle coming.  Congress’s funding resolution runs out March 14.  If Trump and Congress don’t reach a deal on a new budget, the government shuts down with all the angst and drama we recall from earlier battles, with all the political risks that have made some Republicans unwilling to fight the battle again.  So in the upcoming fight over the budget, what’s our view, the Conservative view?

Personally, I’d like to see something akin to Constitutional government. Article I, Section 8 enumerates the powers given to Congress.  Go read it. It’s worth remembering that those are the ONLY powers the Founders wanted Congress to have.  To get back to that, we’d have to cut about 80% of the federal government.  I concede that’s not realistic in today’s political climate. 

What is realistic?  How about living within our means?  How about balancing income and outgo, revenue and expenditures, same as every family and small business must do?  What would it take to get there? 

We would have to cut about 2 Trillion dollars of annual spending. Is that possible?

First, let’s remember the last budget was 2019 when Trump was in office.  Starting in 2020, Congress ramped up spending to cover the extraordinary costs of fighting a world-ending epidemic of Covid.  Leaving aside the possibility  that Covid was merely an excuse to promote absentee ballots to steal the election, the spending never stopped.  Every year since 2020, Congress passed a continuing resolution which keeps spending the same amount of money as before, plus a little extra for inflation, including the emergency money for Covid and lately, money for Ukraine to the tune of a third-of-a-trillion dollars.  Surely some of that can go.

Second, let’s remember that Congress gives money to agencies to promote vague policy objectives like “safe food” or “transportation.”  What, specifically, the agency does with that money is up to the bureaucrats.  That’s why we get drag queen shows on military bases. Surely some of that can go. 

Third, let’s remember that every bureaucrat knows the first rule of budgeting is “spend it or lose it.”  They will hide behind a “hostage puppy” to protect the rest of their funding (so named for the famous National Lampoon cover). They will insist that if we cut the funding for drag queens, the puppy will die, the child in Ethiopia will starve, the meat will not be inspected, the Washington Monument will be closed, and Grandma will have to eat dog food to survive. We have heard it all before, surely they can’t expect us to fall for it again?

So what do we do?  First, we don’t fall for the  hostage puppy, we stand firm. If bureaucrats would rather let the Ethiopian kid starve than give up their drag queen shows, on their heads be it.  Second, we empower someone to look through agency budgets to cut out silliness to focus on core functions.  Musk’s team is doing that now but it ought to be a full time job for somebody. Third, we insist on real cuts now, not gimmicks like “out year” reductions 10 years down the road.  And most importantly, we get tough – we harden our hearts – so we can ride out the wailing and gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments, the accusations of every -ism imaginable. 

Why this fight?  Why now?  Because we’re nearly at the end of the road. We’re short about $2 Trillion a year which we borrowed to get by, but that’s been going on for so long we now owe $36 Trillion dollars which is more than the entire Gross Domestic Product of $26 Trillion. Do you realize what that means?  It means we owe more on the national debt than the value of all the goods and services produced in the entire nation.  

We pay more for interest on the national debt than the entire defense budget.  

By every reasonable measure, the United States is bankrupt.

It comes down to surgical cuts now or default on our debts later and then everything collapses into complete anarchy.  Choose wisely.  And demand that your elected representatives do the same. 

Joe Doakes

 

One of the upshots of Americans (induced) economic illiteracy is that if they’ve gotten any education in economics at all, it’s been in Keynesianism. As such, they think the natural, effective response to an economic downturn is to pour taxpayer money into the situation.

Which merely stretches out the natural recovery, as it did in 1933, and in 2008. 

In an economy with healthy fundamentals, a sharp downturn in a free market serves to kill off a whole lot of bad ideas – unsustainable dotcoms in 2001, subprime mortgages in 2008, and probably a whole lot of bubble-like irrational exuberance over AI today.   

Now – are we as a society smart enough to know this?   The fact that the Obama regime went back to subsidizing subprime mortgages after the ’08 recession (which their policies dragged out for years) indicates “probably not”. 

Go to it!

Conservatives – and humans with any sense of history or moral conscience – have been blasting CBS’s Margaret Brennan for blaming the Holocause on “free speech”.

Seems pretty indefensible.

Now, some do indeed try to defend Brennan. One such argument points to the fact that the Nazis did co-opt free speech. In an editorial in 1928, Joseph Göbbels, Hitler’s social media director, wrote, “We are an anti-parliamentarian party that for good reasons rejects the Weimar constitution and its republican institutions . . . We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons. If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us.”

So yes. The Nazis co-opted free speech. to gain power. .

They also co-opted many of the other institutions of German society – the Lutheran and Catholic churches, the school system, academia (Hitler’s inner circle was disproportionately artists, writers and intelledtuals, not thugs), the bureaucracy (in effect a fourth branch of government), and eventually the military, as well the quirks of the structure of German government under the Bismarck constitution (which the Weimar constitution didn’t change much, other than replacing the Kaiser with an elected President).

So it’s not a very good defense of Brennan.

So let’s make sure we’re clear on *why* this exchange happened.

• VP Vance loudly and rightly castigated Europe for curtailing free speech – arresting people for social media posts, confiscating computers, etc.
• Brennan tried to press Rubio, “You’re standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to commit a genocide”. Brennan was saying because the Weimar version of “free speech” was one of the *many* factors the Nazis (as you cite with Göbbels) were able to use to gain power, the Germans and Brits are *right* to curtail free speech [1].

In some ways, it’s the “why was your skirt too short?” argument.

In others, it’s much more sinister than that.

Remember – Big Left’s house PR firms have been strongly hinting that free speech is just too complicated and dangerous for us proles. Harris and Walz *ran on* curtailing free speech, including reinforcing the (very Göbbelsian) alliance between the DOJ and Big Tech. Governor Walz, who is in many ways the exposed “id” of today’s center-left, established a database to track “badthink” in Minnesota.

The system of which Brennan is a privileged part isn’t even being coy about it. They think free speech (for the rabble) is a bad thing, and they act on that belief.

Rubio pointed out, absolutely correctly, that it wasn’t peoples’ right to speak freely, but *a government with too much power*, that committed genocide. No need for an apology – it’s true.

Brennan is literally everything that’s wrong with today’s news media. I will be standing on Fifth Avenue pelting her with (rhetorical) rocks and garbage as security escorts her out of Black Rock when she’s eventually laid off, on her way to her inevitable job at NPR or “The View”.

[1 Well, *some* peoples’ free speech, anyway.

So – Tina Smith is retiring from politics.

The rumor mill has it that the Walz camp is pressuring Smith to resign early, so he can appoint himself – setting himself up as an incumbent in the Senate race (and Flanagan in a hypothetical governor race), and giving him and Gwen that “inside the beltway” view they clearly lust for.  Flanagan entering the race changes that equation, maybe.

But let’s put a pin in the rumor, and talk about what we do know:  there are five DFL candidates so far saying they’re running, or thinking strongly about it:

• Gov. Walz
• Lt. Gov. Flanagan
• Rep. Ilhan Omar
• Rep. Angie Craig
• State Rep. Leigh Finké.

Who’s gonna get the nod in the end?

We’ll come back to that.

SOP – One thing Ken Martin has always been good at is concealing the metro DFL’s insanity to the state at large.  He’s sought, I think it’s fair to say, to convey the image that the DFL isn’t thst different from the Humphrey/Mondale DFL that everyone’s grandparents voted for while listening to WCCO and talking about Bud Grant over a Hamms and some walleye.  

See also 2018 – when the DFL convention was well on its way to endorsing Erin Murphy and Erin Maye Quade for the top of the gubernatorial ticket, as well as radical Matt Pelikan for Attorney General.  Martin stepped in, marshalled the party’s resources, attached Walz to Peggy Flanagan to keep the progressive base happy(er), and dragged him across the. primary finish line with barely a 40% plurality. 

With Ken Martin in charge, one might presume the machinations would end up something like…

• • State Rep. Leigh Finké – kryptonite outside CD4-5.   Ultra-progs might rally around Finké at the convention – especially now that Flanagan looks like a relative moderate – but the ultra-progressivr DSA vote would still get split with… 

• • Rep. Ilhan Omar, who would also be poison statewide, but who can raise money like…well, a Democrat with connections in Hollywood.  

• • Lt. Gov. Flanagan – She used to be considered borderline radical – she had the most “progressive” voting record in the MN House in 2018.   Is she progressive enough to keep the loony vote from moving to Omar and maybe Finké?  And while she was in literally every Walz ad, news release and selfie from 2018 to five minutes after he got off the national campaign trail, she hasn’t actually done anything.   What does she run on – being Tim Walz’s insurance policy? 

• • Rep. Angie Craig – On the one hand, she could climb into her jeep and make some more ads cavorting around Le Seuer county with some central-casting Good Ol’ Boys to make herself more appealing to Greater Minnesota than the three above.   Which leaves…

• • Gov. Walz, the incumbent.  On the one hand, polling shows he’s still got general approval – which is inexplicable to me.  He’s got a national profile.  He’s got fundraising chops like Omar – likely similar to those Crag draws from.  

If Ken Martin were in charge, I’d guess he’d throw the state DFL behind Walz, offer to get behind Flanagan for Governor, promise resources to soften and broaden Omar’s image for a future Senate run whenever A-Klo leaves office. 

But that was Ken Martin.   

Swerve: Persistent rumor has it that Ken Martin will be replaced by Richard Carlbom – former head (however briefly) of “Protect” Minnesota (remember them?) and before that the architect of the Same Sex Marriage amendment push.

On the one hand, he’s more openly allied with the “progressive” wing than Martin. 

On the other, he’s smart enough to have sold same sex marriage as a “moderate-enough” issue to win a statewide vote. 

If I had to predict…

Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, emails:

Mistakes were made.  Nobody could have known.  Can’t we just move on?

Written for Canada but the same lesson applies to Minnesota.  

Joe Doakes

Open the tweet to read the whole thing. 

And pass it around. Forgiveness without atonement is a litlte hollow.

I wasn’t surprised to see Ken Martin get elected as chair of the DNC.

And since David “Boss” Hogg threw his lot in with the Piglet last summer, I figured if Martin won, Hogg was on his way to, er, “bigger better” things at the DNC.

I was…er, right, sort of.

So the Democrats have decided to cling to the worst of their coalition, and to forefront it. Friedrich Hayek once pointed out that the problem with all large, powerful, nondemocratic institutions — particularly those with left-wing underpinnings — is that empirically, the worst inevitably tend to get on top. It is the nature of the machine, a product of its operation and existing incentive structures. Which is why I re-emphasize how unsurprising David Hogg’s political ascent to internally elected power has been: Given the party’s sclerotically hidebound decision-making apparatus, of course the DNC would find itself turning to someone like Hogg in a desperate attempt to connect with the “youth vote.” David Hogg is an old person’s idea of a young person.

He wrote it so I don’t have to.

So the GOP apparently had a pretty full agenda for hearings on corruption in Minnesota, before the Supreme Court unexpectedly re-edited the quorum provisions in the Minnesota Constitution. 

In the meantime, the DFL had protesters outside the committees press conference…

…apparently protesting for fraud.

Here’s the Scandal Tracker, produced by Bill Glahn, that Rep. Robbins referred to.

 Rep. Robbins reports over two dozen whistleblower reports, and already some tampering and intimidation of whistleblowers,

And, amazingly enough, House hearings on a whisteblower protection bill were canceled as well. 

Who’da thunk it?

…we’ve seen no governnent-sanctioned display quite as bizarre at this address to the New York State Drag Queen Regulation Board.

Just kidding.  It’s…

…well, the tweet explains it:

On the other hand, had the DFL held the majority in the House this session, this would likely have been not only the State of the State, but how Senate votes were tabulated .

Brad’s off on assignment today.  

Here’s the music list:

Today’s music list:

Daniel Penny acquitted on the last of his charges:

Penny was cleared of criminally negligent homicide in Neely’s death. A more serious manslaughter charge was dismissed earlier in deliberations because the jury deadlocked on that count.

I suspect there’s a critical mass of New Yorkers of all races who’ve had enough of the crime wave engulfing the city – much as they seemed to be during the Bernhard Goetz episode, 40 years ago, the last time NYC was mired in Democrat-coddled criminality

Of course, this time not everyone agrees who the good guys and bad guys are:

Barack Obama’s legacy is a gift that will keep on giving for a generation, at best.

Social media has helped create a generation of amoral monsters:

And a special note to Millennials and Zs who yap about the crimes of “Boomers”: You are well on your way to being worse, and more hated, than they ever were.

“But Mitch”, you may ask, ” how can you tell the writer is a Millie or Zoomer?”

Please. It’s a Millie or Zoomer.

It’s time for your periodic reminder: free markets solve pretty much everything:

Even the picayune exception you’re about to throw into the conversation?

Yes.  If the market is free enough, and you give it enough time and the fundamentals of the economy are strong enough (we’re talking Argentina, here – a nation that’s been enervated by almost 20 years of near collapse)? 

Yes. That too. 

Carry on.

“Expert on Misinformation” , in a case on “deep fakes”, uses a source that doesn’t exist…

…and might be AI generated:

At the behest of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Hancock recently submitted an affidavit supporting new legislation that bans the use of so-called “deep fake” technology to influence an election. The law is being challenged in federal court by a conservative YouTuber and Republican state Rep. Mary Franson of Alexandria for violating First Amendment free speech protections.

Hancock’s expert declaration in support of the deep fake law cites numerous academic works. But several of those sources do not appear to exist, and the lawyers challenging the law say they appear to have been made up by artificial intelligence software like ChatGPT.

For instance, the declaration cites a study titled “The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior,” and says that it was published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics in 2023. But no study by that name appears in that journal; academic databases don’t have any record of it existing; and the specific journal pages referenced contain two entirely different articles.

“The citation bears the hallmarks of being an artificial intelligence (AI) ‘hallucination,’ suggesting that at least the citation was generated by a large language model like ChatGPT,” attorneys for the plaintiffs write. “Plaintiffs do not know how this hallucination wound up in Hancock’s declaration, but it calls the entire document into question.”

And that’s not all

Separately, libertarian law professor Eugene Volokh found that another citation in Hancock’s declaration, to a study allegedly titled “Deepfakes and the Illusion of Authenticity: Cognitive Processes Behind Misinformation Acceptance,” does not appear to exist.

If the citations were generated by artificial intelligence software, it’s possible that other parts of Hancock’s 12-page declaration were as well. It’s unclear whether the non-existent citations were inserted by Hancock, an assistant, or some other party. Neither Hancock nor the Stanford Social Media Lab replied to repeated requests for comment. Nor did Ellison’s office.

“Bad AI Deep Fake” would explain a lot of Kamala Harris speeches, on the other hand.

Minnesota’s Department of Veterans Affairs sends its regards to all of Minnesota’s veterans…

…of, uh, Soviet-bloc service.

(If you know, you know.  If you don’t, someone will fill you in in the comments).

Two stories emblematic of what tomorrow’s election means:

In New York City, a Marine veteran is on trial for murder for defending innocent bystanders against a man who was very blatantly threatening them:

The city has actively abjured enforcing public order; if you want to crap in public, mug or bully or terrrorize or attack people, close streets, run roughshod over the rights of others, the city could scarcely care less.

Misgender someone?  Exercise “bodily autonony” against Big Pharma? Own an unconventional pet?

Or try to protect innocent bystanders from the breakdown in order?

Suddenly they’re interested. Very, very interested.

There are many things at stake tomorrow. This is a big one.