Tuesday roundup

Erick Erickson at The Resurgent says that Squirrel-Hair, Ivanka and Jared all wanted Priebus gone, but none of them had the stones to do it, which is why Mooch was brought in. They knew he was a wild man who would flame out quickly, but he'd make a great short-term henchman. Yo, Mooch, any regrets about changing your tune re: S-H from your 2013 pronouncements? Convinced now that it's ill-advised to suck up to a viper's den that will make a sacrificial lamb out of anybody?

John Sexton at Hot Air on the grim modifications of estimates of North Korea's nuclear capabilities:

To put this in some perspective, at the beginning of July, the U.S. assessment was that North Korea could have a nuclear ICBM capable of reaching some parts of the U.S. before the end of Trump’s first term. Then, exactly one week ago, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) had shaved a full two years off that estimate. The DIA was now convinced North Korea would have a nuclear ICBM by next year. One week later and we’re now hearing that North Korea already has an ICBM capable of reaching most of the U.S.

An avocational activity of Dennis Prager's for many years has been conducting symphony orchestras, and then taking a microphone around the stage to talk to musicians in various sections. It's a form of educational outreach he's engaged in to share his passion for classical music. Because he's conservative, he is - are you surprised? - running into attempts by identity-politics jackboots to stop him .

Squirrel-Hair needs a full-time babysitter:

Just as the dust had begun to settle on the Russian meeting scandal – where Donald Trump Jr. was forced to admit he did meet with a Russian lawyer during the campaign – the Washington Post has a new story out this evening that does not look good for President Donald Trump.

One of the more controversial aspects of the original story was that Trump Jr. claimed the meeting was about a Russian child adoption program. Later news reports proved that Jr.’s statement was misleading at best. The Post’s story now puts blame of the misleading statement squarely on the shoulders of the President himself.

The strategy, the advisers agreed, should be for Donald Trump Jr. to release a statement to get ahead of the story. They wanted to be truthful, so their account couldn’t be repudiated later if the full details emerged.

But within hours, at the president’s direction, the plan changed.

Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One, Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said he and the Russian lawyer had “primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children” when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations. The statement, issued to the New York Times as it prepared a story, emphasized that the subject of the meeting was “not a campaign issue at the time.”

For a story which was actually much more a story of unethical practices than law-breaking ones, the President seems to have weighed the two options – tell the truth or lie – and come to the conclusion that another lie wouldn’t hurt. This is especially vexing, given that the administration leaks like an old boat with termite damage.

Planned Parenthood isn't too keen on fetal people surviving gestation, but if they do, the organizations wants them turned into gender-fluid freaks:

Planned Parenthood thinks your child needs to know about transgenderism and masturbation at the tender age of three. The Daily Wire reports:

In new guidelines  issued on the official Planned Parenthood website, the  federally subsidized corporation explains how parents should talk to their pre-schoolers about gender roles, sexuality, masturbation, and transgenderism, even offering tips on how to tell if your toddler "is transgender or gender nonconforming."

Advice from the guidelines includes:

Be mindful of how you talk around your kid, too. Talking to (or in front of) your daughter about growing up and having boyfriends or marrying a man (and vice versa) sends the message that girls are supposed to like boys, and boys are supposed to like girls, and that anything else is wrong or not normal. While kids this young don’t know their sexual orientation yet, assuming they’re straight could make them scared to come to you or feel bad about themselves later. This can lead to mental health issues, unhealthy relationships, and taking more health risks when they reach their teenage years.

So, along with freaking parents out over potentially triggering a mental illness in their child, Planned Parenthood provides the litmus test for determining whether or not your child is transgender. According to the organization that spends more time killing babies than birthing them, if your child is “Consistent, Insistent and Persistent” with the idea that he or she was born the wrong gender, you have no choice but to run with it.

And from the identity-politics-jackboots-dig-self-flagellation file, the Swarthmore Anti-Capitalist Collective has declared that it failed in its mission and disbanded because it was nearly all-white.