In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

There's general consensus across the spectrum that the planned Ukraine 2023 counteroffensive has "stalled", although that's probably a generous characterization -- it might be more accurate to say it never really got under way. Other than Tucker Carlson's Monday interview with retired Col Douglas MacGregor, which is over-the-top, there's been little other recent discussion. On the other hand, there's a good analysis on Seymour Hersh's Substack , which is mostly behind a paywall, but Gateway Pundit has a summary : Hersh cites an unnamed intel official who said that SecState Antony Blinken “has figured out that the United States” and Ukraine “will not win the war” against Russia. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported the U.S. intel community realizes the Ukrainian offensive will fail to achieve its key goal of taking the southeastern city of Melitopol, a strategic Russian logistics hub. “The word was getting to (Blinken) through the Agency t...

Joe's performance on his Maui visit wasn't good, especially the visual of him falling asleep at a luncheon meeting and the transcript of his remarks at Lahaina : Governor Josh Green, you’ve been incredible. From the day we’ve spoken on this, you’ve been way ahead of the curve. Lieutenant Governor Sylvia Luke; Brian Schantz [Schatz], our senator; Senator Mazie Hir- — by the way, Mazie, I told my granddaughter, whose name is Maisy as well — she said, “That’s why I like her.” (Laughter.) Anyway. But her name is Maisy as well. And — and Jill To- — Tokuda, Representative Ed Chase, and Mayor Rick Bassen [Bissen]. Rick, when we talked on the phone, I never — you look like you played in defensive tackle for — I don’t know who, but somebody good. But, anyway, I want to thank you for your leadership in this unimaginable — during this unimaginable travedy — tragedy. What puzzles me here is that his own staff has released the official transcript verbatim, with every mispronun...

Yesterday I linked to an August 19 story at Politico that referred to "more than 300 pages of previously unreported emails and documents exchanged between Hunter Biden’s legal team and prosecutors" that had somehow come to Politico's attention. Yesterday Red State reported , The New York Times was also shown the emails that Politico based its story on, and together, the two outlets offer a stunning look at various events that appear to show clear collusion between Hunter Biden and the DOJ. Red State concludes from the two document dumps: Hunter Biden's legal strategy was to pressure and coerce the DOJ into not prosecuting. That was accomplished through the aforementioned threat of calling Joe Biden to testify, but also through a series of moves to politicize the probe, including inserting Donald Trump into the discussion. You may recognize the name Lesley Wolf, as that's the same Assitant [sic -- this is Conserative Inc's standard of proof...

In yesterday's post, I linked to a Breitbart story on how Biden won't discuss the Hunter problem with his staff. This morning I saw a CNN story that says the same thing , but with a different spin: Long among the most sensitive subjects inside the West Wing, Hunter Biden’s legal saga now appears destined to play out amid his father’s bid for reelection, frustrating the president but so far causing little real concern among his advisers. The probe into Hunter Biden is now one of two special counsel investigations – the other being an inquiry into his father’s handling of classified documents after leaving the Senate and the vice president’s office – that both appear poised to extend for months to come. . . . [B]oth investigations take away the fundamental element of control for a White House heading into an election cycle. As multiple Biden advisers conceded privately this week, special counsels have a history of uncovering information they hadn’t set out initiall...

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, a Yale Law graduate and holder of an endowed chair at the University of Tennessee School of Law, is a libertarian, which means that he follows Ayn Rand as his guiding light. (Rand herself described libertarians as "a monstrous, disgusting bunch of people" who "plagiarize my ideas when that fits their purpose".) He is also a transhumanist who in the past has endorsed cryonics (freezing the heads of dead people in anticipation that future technology can resuscitate them) and the technological singularity, which among other things embraces the idea that people can be digitized and uploaded into a giant computer memory, which will ensure their immortality, at least until the next power failure. I wouldn't even ask Glenn Reynolds for advice on a traffic ticket, but before he rose to prominence, I'd already lost confidence in the ability of academic institutions to certify people whom we can trust to teach future generations. Never...

The news that the Comer Committee has asked the National Archives for "unrestricted special access" to unredacted Biden records where the names Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware, among others, appear is particularly delicious. I've got to say my first reaction is that use of aliases is a key indicator for sociopathic or psychopathic personality traits, or, without getting anywhere near a diagnosis, a sign that something is hinky. The most memorable recent use of an alias by a politician is former congressman Anthony Weiner's use of the name Carlos Danger in sexting various women, including at least one minor. That episode ended his marriage, on top of earlier on line indiscretions that had already ended his career, and other e-mails discovered on his laptop during subsequent investigation have been cited by Hillary Clinton as one reason she lost the 2016 election. He eventually served 18 months in federal prison and is a registered sex offender. Another r...

An editorial comment at MSNBC caught my eye this morning: A former president of the United States has now been criminally indicted for a fourth time. Less than a decade ago, we would have assumed a sentence like that would be found only in a work of fiction. Never in the history of our country has a former president faced one, let alone four, criminal indictments. It's indisputable that even Tom Clancy, the author of deep state-military thrillers like Clear and Present Danger who foresaw the 9/11 attacks, didn't remotely predict that one US president would be indicted four times as news broke of another allegedly collecting tens of millions in foreign bribes. The problem is that these headlines are playing out in a dreamlike context where they've begun to have the same effect as “I was Bigfoot’s Love Slave,” “Hillary Clinton Adopts Alien Baby,” or “Bat Child Found in Cave”. In other words, if a writer at MSNBC wonders if the Trump indictments sound like a bad To...