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Kissimmee, Florida On Thursday morning as I boarded my plane at Reagan National Airport to fly to Orlando, I managed to drop an entire Dunkin iced coffee all over the floor near the cockpit. The unfortunate incident was a harbinger of things to come on my trip to a Young Americans for Liberty conference, the first since the start of the pandemic. I'm still not sure how, exactly, I was chosen to go to this conference, which was allegedly 'invitation-only'.  A 'deputy regional director' with the organization slid into my Instagram DMs offering to cover half of my travel expenses to attend. She assured me that the conference was not just for college students, and I am never one to pass up a cheap trip to the Free State of Florida.

California Republicans are not falling in line behind a single candidate in the recall against Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom. The California Republican party voted not to endorse any of the candidates running in the state's upcoming recall during a Saturday morning online convention. The decision comes as right-wing firebrand Larry Elder has surged in recent polling, overshadowing the establishment favorite, former San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer. The candidate who received the endorsement would have been given additional funding and campaign infrastructure. Instead, none of the candidates on the September 14 ballot will have the party's backing.

At first, the White House insisted it did not have legal authority to extend a national eviction moratorium. After all, the Supreme Court had ruled only Congress could do so. But then Rep. Cori Bush camped out on the steps of the US Capitol instead of heading home to Missouri, progressives raised a national uproar, and millions of Americans behind in their rent gained new hope. In a remarkable reversal Tuesday, less than 24 hours after White House adviser Gene Sperling stood in the briefing room repeatedly telling reporters exactly why the administration saw no way to legally extend the moratorium, the Centers for Disease Control announced a ban on evictions till early October.

After the country vanquished tweeter-in-chief Donald Trump last November, Jen Psaki, among others, promised that the days of unhinged 2 a.m. tweets from the executive branch were over. Instead, the Biden White House stacked its comms team with former Obama administration millennials more famous for their posturing on the ‘promise of hashtag’ and #UnitedForUkraine than for a cohesive message. Some things don’t change. Trump primarily used his Twitter feed to lash out at media critics and yell at athletes. But the Biden administration is also using Twitter, to guide its policy and messaging decisions by gleaning them from a willing media. Take White House chief of staff Ron Klain.

Are you now or have you ever been a supporter of Donald Trump? I am wondering when we are going to have Congressional Committees grilling people about such matters. I suppose they could, in homage to a certain senator from Wisconsin, be called the House and Senate American Activities Committee. Nancy and Chuck should preside. They could share some of that expensive chocolate ice cream that the always well-coifed Nancy likes as they root out people who say things they don’t like and vote for people with whom they disagree. I’m sure they would get a lot of academic support. Just a week or so back, one professor suggested that criticizing St Anthony Fauci or other government officials should be a federal hate crime. Why not?

What would you be prepared to do in pursuit of political power? Two women are accusing senior members of the College Republican national leadership of asking them to fabricate sexual assault allegations against a male member to sink his candidacy for a leadership position with the organization. The College Republican National Committee (CRNC) is the 129-year-old organization for Republican college and university students. Its significant past members include President Calvin Coolidge, Karl Rove, Paul Ryan and Roger Stone. Courtney Britt, the recently-elected chair of the CRNC, ran against Clay Smith for south regional vice chair in 2019. At the time, Britt was serving as chair of the Virginia Federation while Clay ran the Arkansas Federation.

What is it about Donald Trump that his closest associates seem to all go irredeemably insane? On Thursday, the CEO and chief priest of MyPillow Mike Lindell announced that he is suspending his advertising on Fox, 'immediately and indefinitely'. This is no minor boycott or tiff. MyPillow and Fox News are tethered together like no sponsor and sponsee since Michael Jordan spiritually merged his consciousness with Nike. Lindell claims his firm bought $50 million in ads on Fox in 2020, meaning he supplies almost two percent of Fox’s revenue. Fox doesn’t just market Lindell’s cushions, but also his life: the channel has aired the ad for his self-published memoir, What Are The Odds?

Campaign season for the 2022 midterms has just crowned — and with it comes the return of glossy over-the-top candidate videos. Teddy Daniels, a large Pennsylvanian, is running for a congressional seat in Scranton, Joe Biden’s backyard. He’s following in the footsteps of House candidates like Madison Cawthorn (who won), Kim Klacik and Alek Skarlatos (who didn’t) in getting the Arsenal Media Group treatment.

Underpaid and over-opinionated: Republican House staffers are not putting up with a new mask mandate. On Tuesday, the US House attending physician reinstated a draconian mask mandate amid the Delta variant's ‘rise’ — about 50 new cases per 100,000, scary stuff. The order follows the new CDC guidance which tells vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals to wear masks indoors and out. ‘For all House Office Buildings, the Hall of the House and House Committee Meetings, wearing of a well-fitted, medical grade, filtration face mask is required when an individual is in an interior space and other individuals are present,’ said Dr Brian Monahan in a memo released Tuesday. In order to enter the House chamber, lawmakers and their staff will be required to wear face coverings.

Following the Capitol Hill riot of January 6, a fair number of elected leaders — mostly Democrats — and law enforcement officials expressed their belief that an armed insurrection was in the works. Hostile forces were said to ready to attack Washington intent on overthrowing the government. To forestall this, fences topped with razor wire were installed and members of the National Guard were kept on active duty. March 4 was rumored to be the date set for this uprising. No army of insurrectionists appeared on March 4 or any other date. Nor as far as anyone can tell was there ever a prospect for such an attack. On March 1, the razor wire was removed from one of the tall fences, but reinstalled on a shorter fence across the street, closer to the Capitol.

Marjorie Taylor Greene held a press conference late last week. It took place inside, meaning the Jews with the space laser must have been at red alert once again. The raison d’être for Greene’s shindig was to announce that she’d been banned from Twitter. Which raises the question: what do I have to do to get arrested in this town? I recently reactivated my own Twitter account after a blessed hiatus and I would give anything to be banished from that cesspool. How do you get hoosegowed? Apparently all you have to do is what everyone else on Twitter is doing: Greene was banned for spreading ‘COVID misinformation’.

Listening to the testy exchange between Sen. Rand Paul and St — er, Dr Anthony Fauci the other day, I couldn’t help but think both of these famous lines from Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Marmion’: ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!’ ...and also this excellent ‘completion’ by J.R. Pope (‘A Word of Encouragement’): ‘But when we’ve practiced for a while, How vastly we improve our style!’ Sen. Paul began by reminding the ubiquitous doctor of Section 1001 of the US Criminal Code, which makes it a felony, carrying a prison term of up to five years, for lying to Congress.

For four years the mainstream media kept a tally of every lie President Trump ever told. Fact-checkers like the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler and CNN’s Daniel Dale centered their lives around Well Ackchyually-ing Trump at every opportunity. How times have changed! President Biden’s lies are constantly written off as either harmless gaffes or exaggerations. Even the most blatant falsehoods from Joe receive little or no criticism from the press. Instead, journalists speculate on what they think the 78-year-old probably meant to say. During the Trump administration, fact-checking hubs like Snopes and Reuters had no problem issuing black and white verdicts on the president’s statements. Suddenly there are 46 shades of gray.