Notes on the Way
Stacey gets sandbagged, Putin apologist watch, Russia on the ropes, transgender insanity, midterm vibes
Last week, Rightful Governor of Georgia and media-anointed Hero of the Resistance Stacey Abrams got slapped upside the head—figuratively speaking!— by a federal court. Federal district judge Steve Jones—an Obama appointee—kicked a lawsuit by her election trutherism group, Fair Fight Action. The lawsuit charged the state of Georgia with all kinds of heinous, racist, anti-democracy schemes to suppress the votes of BIPOCs—charges closely tracking those made by Abrams herself after losing the 2018 gubernatorial election. The court’s 288-page ruling rejected FFA’s arguments—and, by extension, Abrams’ claim that she was robbed—in toto. Also, it makes her and those who parroted her charges, e.g. Joe Biden, look like the mendacious fools they are. No downside on this one…
Oh, and here’s someone else who deserves a rhetorical step upside the head: conservative activist and pundit Charlie Kirk. After last week’s sabotage attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, Kirk jumped aboard Twitter to pose the rhetorical question: “Is this a potential midterm-election operation?” He was implying that Joe Biden and the Democrats were behind the attack. Later, on his podcast, Kirk doubled down: “They’re guilty until proven innocent in this situation. They’re going to have to prove to us it wasn’t them,” he said—referring to the CIA. Honestly, who needs the Squad and the rest of the hate-Amerikka Left when we have thePutin-hugging natcon Right?
Coincidentally, while Kirk was spinning his lame-brained conspiracy theories, the Russian Army was in the process of losing another battle in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces have liberated the city of Lyman in the Donbas region—on the very day that V. Putin proclaimed that territory’s annexation to Russia. Reports indicate that the Russian forces defending the city, a key logistical hub, melted away in the face of the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Ukrainian troops are also pressing forward in the area around the important southeastern city of Kherson, captured by Russia earlier in the war. Meanwhile, Putin’s “partial mobilization” of reservists is shaping up to be a fiasco. All in all, this is a disappointing moment for Putin’s Western apologists and cheerleaders. Well, people—I told you so.
On the culture war front, California’s boy governor, Gavin Newsom, seems to think he’s hit upon a strategy that will pave his path to the White House: making the Golden State a haven for partial-birth abortion and, worse still, for the surgical mutilation of children. A new state law, just signed by Newsom, makes California a “sanctuary state” for transgender minor children—a place where they can obtain drug and surgical “transition therapies” even without parental consent or parental knowledge. And in a particularly brazen example of doublethink, this atrocity is marketed as a family-friendly policy. Coming as it does at a time when evidence of the great harm done to children by the transgender craze is piling up, the California law stands as a prize example of the illiberal, anti-human, indeed barbaric, impulses of the postmodern Left.
Finally, here’s Nick Catoggio at The Dispatch, asking himself why it is that the summer’s much-hyped Democratic resurgence seems to have petered out as Election Day 2022 looms. He takes his time answering the question, with much chin-pulling over this poll and that one, the difference between polls and “the vibe,” appeals to various election wonks, etc. And in the end, he concludes that, ahem, political fundamentals just favor the GOP this time around. Well, thank you, Mr. Know-It-All! For crying out loud, Nick, I could have told you that!