This document is part of an archive of postings on Political Correctness Watch, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written.
My Home Page. Email John Ray here. My other blogs: "Tongue Tied" , "Dissecting Leftism" , "Australian Politics" , "Education Watch International" , "Immigration Watch" , "Greenie Watch" , "The Psychologist" (A summary blog). Those blogs are also backed up. See here for details
With particular attention to religious, ethnic and sexual matters. By John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)
This page is a backup. The primary version of this blog is HERE
31 May, 2023
Revolutionary Leftists are narcissists and psychopathic but not soft-hearted
My heading above is a plain language version of what two very careful Swiss researchers found in a study of American attitudes. Their study is notable for its high degree of methodological care and caution so withstands most criticisms that might be aimed at it. It is high quality research.
As I have long argued that Leftism is in general psychopathic, I have no quarrel with their conclusion there. Their finding about narcissism is also one I agree with. I have in the past put forward that claim on behavioural grounds but not as a result of attitude surveys.
It has long been my contention that excess ego is at the root of a lot of social problems: Crime generally, for instance. The criminal thinks that what he wants transcends the rights of others.
When (on October 30, 2008) Obama spoke of his intention to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography. He was talking about transforming what he thought American people can and must do. He thought he knew better: Clearly egotistical.
So what I was talking about there is undoubedy a facet of narcissism
The definition of narcissism is however a matter of contention. Our Swiss authors took a very broad view of it but I think the findings of Paul Wink give us a much sharper view of it
He combined three existing measures of narcissism, including the MMPI and CPI, and factor analysed the responses of a heterogeneous sample to them.
The sample responses showed no such thing as as unitary trait of narcissism. Varimax rotated eigenvectors revealed two distinct and uncorrelated traits underlying the "narcissism" questions: Vulnerabiliy and grandiosity.
Freud's seminal article on narcisissm claimed that those two traits covaried but on Wink's results Freud's picture of the narcissist is fiction. The traits he describes do exist but they do not form the coherent syndrome described by him. So much talk of narcissism seems over generalized and confused. I would have been happier if our Swiss authors had used a good measure of grandiosity rather than a more widely dispersed account of narcissism. It would have given clearer results.
My other grumble is with their use of the absurd SDO measure. Its correlates are built into it. More on that here
But despite the limitations I have mentioned it is still a first class study of attitudes with highly defensible conclusions. It does convincingly show some thoroughly discreditable attitudes among extreme American Leftists.
Abstract of the Swiss study below:
Understanding left-wing authoritarianism: Relations to the dark personality traits, altruism, and social justice commitment
Ann Krispenz & Alex Bertrams
Abstract
In two pre-registered studies, we investigated the relationship of left-wing authoritarianism with the ego-focused trait of narcissism. Based on existing research, we expected individuals with higher levels of left-wing authoritarianism to also report higher levels of narcissism. Further, as individuals with leftist political attitudes can be assumed to be striving for social equality, we expected left-wing authoritarianism to also be positively related to prosocial traits, but narcissism to remain a significant predictor of left-wing authoritarianism above and beyond those prosocial dispositions. We investigated our hypotheses in two studies using cross-sectional correlational designs. Two nearly representative US samples (Study 1: N = 391; Study 2: N = 377) completed online measures of left-wing authoritarianism, the Dark Triad personality traits, and two variables with a prosocial focus (i.e., altruism and social justice commitment). In addition, we assessed relevant covariates (i.e., age, gender, socially desirable responding, and virtue signaling). The results of multiple regression analyses showed that a strong ideological view, according to which a violent revolution against existing societal structures is legitimate (i.e., anti-hierarchical aggression), was associated with antagonistic narcissism (Study 1) and psychopathy (Study 2). However, neither dispositional altruism nor social justice commitment was related to left-wing anti-hierarchical aggression. Considering these results, we assume that some leftist political activists do not actually strive for social justice and equality but rather use political activism to endorse or exercise violence against others to satisfy their own ego-focused needs. We discuss these results in relation to the dark-ego-vehicle principle
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-023-04463-x
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Biden’s Double-Talk on Antisemitism
The refusal of the Biden administration to back what is emerging as the gold standard definition of antisemitism is a shocking default. It throws into the mix a competing definition that allows antipathy to Jews to masquerade as criticism of Israel. Why is President Biden backsliding on this, save to accommodate the growing anti-Jewish flank of his party? He throws into doubt America’s resolve in fighting the world’s oldest hate.
The administration feints at moral clarity, acknowledging that the “most prominent” definition of antisemitism is the one adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which the United States has “embraced.” The government of Germany, for crying out loud, has endorsed it. For America, though, it is a grudging first among equals. It’s given hardly a ringing, or any, endorsement. That’s a dodge. The issue, of course, is Israel.
The IHRA labels as antisemitic “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination” by “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and “applying double standards” to the Jewish state by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” It recognizes that antisemitism is an inherent feature, not a bug, of anti-Zionism. The Jewish state and the state of the Jews are intertwined.
Next, the backtrack: “The Administration welcomes and appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.” Nexus, drafted at the University of Southern California, maintains that “paying disproportionate attention to Israel and treating Israel differently than other countries is not prima facie proof of antisemitism” because “there are numerous reasons for devoting special attention to Israel and treating Israel differently.”
What malarky. For if Nexus is true on its face then the IHRA definition can’t be true — and vice versa. So by letting Nexus through the door, President Biden negates the first endorsement and makes kosher a range of the attacks on Israel from the left. This is evident in an accompanying “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education trumpeting an “Antisemitism Awareness Campaign” that fails to mention the words “Israel” or “Zionism.”
It does mention kosher food. How nice. A catering plan would have done little to deter an address like, say, that offered at CUNY’s Law School this week, in which the speaker called — to applause — for “fuel for the fight against capitalism, racism, imperialism, and Zionism around the world” and claimed, to a room full of graduates and family, that “Israel continues to indiscriminately rain bullets and bombs on worshipers, murdering the old, the young.”
With friends of the Nexus approach numbering the Council on American-Islamic Relations — they are acknowledged by the administration in an accompanying “fact sheet” that lists those who contributed to its efforts — who needs enemies? In a statement, CAIR marks that the strategy “does not adopt the disputed IHRA definition” of antisemitism as “binding policy” and sees in it a green light to “engage in BDS.”
Ambassador Haley, running for president, offers a helpful dose of clarity. She tweets that antisemitism is “not hard to define if you’re serious about stopping it.” She would know, having spent time at the United Nations, where Zionism was once declared racism and where antipathy to Israel is the constant — and leading — drumbeat. She calls the strategy “shameful” and an act of “pandering to the radical Left and siding with Israel’s enemies.”
Our own view is that it was a mistake to try to codify antisemitism in American policy or law. A decade ago in Germany an attempt was made to defend an attack on a synagogue by suggesting that the attackers’ motive was not antisemitic but merely anti-Zionist. The IHRA definition of antisemitism would have blocked that defense. Nexus enshrines it. It would be better to avoid adopting any official statement than opening the door to such mockery.
One sage with whom we spoke, Ruth Wisse, makes the point that it’s not all that complicated. She calls the administration’s strategy an “attempt to misdirect antisemitism so that you are justified in not dealing with it” and an example of “fighting yesterday’s war” at a time when anti-Zionism is the “great unifier” among those hostile to Jews. “Iran intends to destroy the state of Israel,” she observes. “What are we talking about?”
https://www.nysun.com/article/bidens-double-talk-on-antisemitism
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Fat people now officially a protected group in NYC: Mayor Eric Adams signs discrimination law that puts obesity in same category as race and religion
Obese people are now officially a protected group in New York City after Mayor Eric Adams signed a controversial discrimination law.
A new bill signed last Friday makes it illegal for employers and landlords to discriminate against someone based on their weight or height when it comes to hiring them or securing housing.
The law - which comes into effect November 2 - means weight and height are now added to the list of protected categories that includes traits such as race, sex and religion.
Mr Adams said: 'We all deserve the same access to employment, housing and public accommodation, regardless of our appearance, and it shouldn’t matter how tall you are or how much you weigh.'
The law had already triggered outrage in some quarters, with Republican New York City council minority leader Joseph Borelli claiming it will empower people to 'sue anyone and everything'.
Mr Adams, who has published a book on how he reversed his diabetes with a plant-based diet, said the law would 'help level the playing field for all New Yorkers, create more inclusive workplaces and living environments, and protect against discrimination'.
Exceptions to the rule include cases where someone's height or weight might stop them from performing critical parts of the job.
But the legislation was met with fierce opposition.
Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, said that 'the extent of the impact and cost of this legislation' had not been 'fully considered'.
The bill had the support of charities and activists like self-styled 'Fat Fab Feminist' Victoria Abraham who testified to the city council in support of the legislation earlier this year.
Councilman Shaun Abreu, one of the bill's main sponsors, said he realized weight discrimination was a 'silent burden' after being treated differently when he gained more than 40lbs during lockdown.
The bill had the support of charities and activists like self-styled 'Fat Fab Feminist' Victoria Abraham who testified to the city council in support of the legislation earlier this year.
It is set to include a defense for employers where consideration of height or weight was 'reasonably necessary' for the 'normal operations' of a job.
Councilman Abreu said: 'They're being discriminated against with no recourse and society saying that's perfectly fine.'
Miss Abraham, who campaigns for civil rights for overweight people, testified to the city council to help inform policymaking.
She told ABC7NY: 'In most places in the United States, you can get fired for being fat and have no protection at all, which is crazy because this is a very fat country.'
A QUARTER of active duty US soldiers are obese after 10,000 got too fat during the pandemic
Nearly a quarter of active duty US soldiers are obese, a shocking study has revealed.
Councilman Borelli told the New York Times: 'I'm overweight but I'm not a victim. No-one should feel bad for me except my struggling shirt buttons.'
Michigan outlawed workplace discrimination based on weight in 1976 and other cities including San Francisco and Washington DC have similar legislation.
Other state-level bills have now been introduced in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Jersey.
New Jersey and Massachusetts have also introduced legislation to stop weight and height discrimination.
Tigress Osborn, the chair of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, said New York City's weight discrimination ban should serve as a model for the nation and the world.
Ms Osborn said the city's adoption of the new ordinance 'will ripple across the globe' and show that 'discrimination against people based on their body size is wrong and is something that we can change'.
It comes as US health officials said rates have soared to 'epidemic' proportions, with the obesity rate rocketing to 42 percent nationally.
Experts say the shift has been driven by people starting to eat more ultra-processed foods, which are high in fats, sugars and salts but low in vital nutrients.
Americans have also started to have more sedentary lifestyles and office-based jobs, while many in rural communities are now living in food deserts.
Being overweight puts you at a higher risk of a host of health problems, including high blood pressure and cholesterol - risk factors for heart disease - type 2 diabetes, and breathing problems.
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This ‘Pride’ Stuff Isn’t Healthy
Dennis Prager
Every left-wing movement is totalitarian. Therefore, it is not enough for people to tolerate or even show respect to LGBTQ individuals. Instead, we must all celebrate them.
I’ve never understood ethnic, race, gender, or sex pride. Even as a kid. For my bar mitzvah, someone gave me a book titled “Great Jews in Sports” or something like it.
Aside from the usual jokes—it was not a long book; the print and the photos were very large—what I remember best was that I had little interest in the book. I loved sports. And I strongly identified as a Jew—I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish home and attended yeshivas until the age of 19. So, my disinterest in the book didn’t emanate from either disinterest in sports or disinterest in Jews. I was keenly interested in both.
But even at the age of 13, the idea of ethnic pride meant little to me.
As far as I could tell, my friends—and, of course, the relative who gave me the book—considered the book quite meaningful. They were proud of Detroit Tigers Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, of the great Cleveland Indians third baseman Al Rosen, of the lightweight boxing champ Benny Leonard, and of the other Jews who were featured.
I apparently marched to the beat of a quirky drummer. It turned out, however, that my attitude at 13 wasn’t a quirk. Though I didn’t realize it then, it was actually the dawning of a conviction—that maybe group pride wasn’t a great idea.
The next time that view hit me was when I was in college and the slogan “black is beautiful” was becoming popular. This time, I did more than not relate to group pride; I objected to it. How could a race be beautiful? Isn’t the idea of a beautiful race itself racist?
When I raised these questions in my college and graduate school years, I was given one of two answers: After being put down for so many years, blacks needed to bolster their self-image. And since blacks—especially black women—had suffered greatly because white beauty was the normative standard of physical beauty, “black is beautiful” was a much-needed corrective.
These were entirely understandable explanations. But I still recoiled. Perhaps being a Jew born only a few years after the Holocaust rendered race-based pride scary.
It turned out my instinct was right: It is scary. “Black is beautiful” soon morphed into “black power,” a phrase that, often accompanied with a raised clenched fist, was meant to be scary. And then, in an echo of Aryan racism, terms like “race traitor” were thrown around to describe any black who wasn’t into “black power” or “black solidarity.”
Soon, feminist women joined the group solidarity bandwagon with “girl power;” “I am woman, hear me roar;” “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle;” “Any job a man can do, a woman can do better,” and other puerile celebrations of “sisterhood,” a term that applied only to women who shared feminist views. Women who didn’t share those views were not just gender traitors; they weren’t even women. Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem famously called conservative Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a “female impersonator.”
Group pride is a characteristic of all left-wing thought and activism.
The most recent incarnation of group pride is LGBTQ pride. Every company, every professional sports team, every Democratic politician, and even the armed forces and American embassies around the world are expected to celebrate Pride month, Pride night, and year-round LGBTQ Pride.
This is problematic for at least two reasons.
First, what exactly is one proud of? What accomplishment is involved in being gay, lesbian, or bisexual? Even “transgender” is allegedly built into one’s nature.
Isn’t the entire premise of the LGBTQ movement that one does not choose one’s sexual orientation or sexual identity? Wasn’t anyone who argued that homosexuality is a choice declared a hater and a science denier?
So, then, if no choice is involved, no effort on the part of the individual—let alone no moral accomplishment—what is there to be proud of? Maybe I couldn’t identify with Jewish pride over great Jewish athletes, but at least they all actually accomplished something.
The other problematic element has to do with why the LGBTQ movement does everything possible to bludgeon every institution into celebrating Pride nights, days, weeks, and months. The reason is the totalitarian nature of all left-wing movements.
Unlike liberal and conservative movements, every left-wing movement is totalitarian. Therefore, it is not enough for people to tolerate or even show respect to LGBTQ individuals. We must all celebrate lesbianism, male homosexuality, the transgendered, and queers. No left-wing movement is a movement for tolerance. They are movements that demand celebration.
For the first time in any of our lifetimes, the Left may have met an immovable obstacle. Americans are prepared to tolerate just about everything and everyone. But at least half of us will not celebrate girls who have their breasts removed—or the therapists and physicians who facilitate it. At least half of us will not celebrate men dressed as women, especially those who dance in front of 6-year-olds. And while some medical schools have been cowed into saying “birthing person” rather than “pregnant woman,” at least half of us will hold the cowards who run these medical schools in contempt.
I return to my opening point. I have devoted much of my life to helping my fellow Jews. It started when I was 21 years old and the Israeli foreign office sent me into the Soviet Union to smuggle in Jewish items and smuggle out names of Jews wanting to leave the Soviet Union. I have brought many disaffected Jews back to Judaism. And I have constantly fought for Israel’s security.
I am very happy to be a Jew. But I don’t quite relate to being proud of it—it was not my achievement; it was an accident of birth. That is equally true of your race, ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and orientation. You don’t get credit for, shouldn’t be proud of, and have no right to demand others celebrate something you had nothing to do with.
Finally, if you’re honest, group pride must be accompanied by group shame. Yes, a disproportionate number of Nobel Prize winners were Jews. But a disproportionate number of Western spies for Stalin were also Jews. If you’re not prepared to be ashamed of your group, don’t take pride in it. That rule applies to blacks, gays, women, Christians, and every other group in the world.
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30 May, 2023
I Dated an Andrew Tate Fan — and Loved Every Second of It
Derya Y.
There is a possibility that this is satire but it has the ring of truth. What it reports is consistent with Tate as a champion of traditional values. Certainly in his personal life he does appear to be respectful of women in at least some ways. He has women in his life who defend him. His public pronouncements may be little more than clickbait. So the story below may show that aggressively male attitudes may not be "toxic" at all
A small caution: "Derya" is a Turkish name and some of her attitudes seem to reflect that origin. What if Tate males and Westernized Turkish women are generally compatible? Tate is at present in Romania, which is quite close to Turkey. Although Turkey is a Muslim country, Kemalist traditions have made them quite Westernized in many ways
It’s no secret that Andrew Tate fans have a bad reputation. As one of the leading mascots of the manosphere — a curated corner of the internet dedicated to masculinity and, in most cases, misogyny — Andrew Tate popularized the “alpha male” phenomenon.
In short, alpha males focus on money, women, and muscles. For Testosterone Kings™, these are essential, encapsulating what manhood is all about. Anything beyond these (e.g., hobbies, relationships, a life) is a mere nice-to-have.
Needless to say, I’m not a fan.
At a party once, I’d overheard a known Tate fan (a proud student of Tate’s Hustlers University) criticize one of his friends for not “fuckin’ the bitch.”
Apparently, his friend had “wasted his fuckin’ time” by spending three hours conversing with a girl without sleeping with her. For a quick refresher, Tate views conversations with women as useless unless you sleep with them. Because, let’s be honest, what do women have to offer besides sex? Nothing, duh!
On top of that, this friend had made the grave mistake of heavily investing in this woman. He bought her a $10 drink! And he didn’t get sex in return! What a money-hungry gold digger!
As per Tate’s scripture, three hours of conversation and a $10 drink should grant men full access to a woman’s orifices. I say orifices because I’m not sure these men would know which hole to put it in if they, indeed, “fucked the bitch.”
After hearing that interaction, I sternly concluded all Tate fans to be depraved scoundrels that litter the world. And for the most part, I still believe that. Most self-proclaimed alpha males are the embodiment of pathetic. They may as well walk around with a neon “Do Not Engage” sign on their forehead.
One man, however, created a (previously unfathomable) grey area, proving that men can agree with some of Tate’s views while still being decent human beings — and spectacular dates, at that.
Let’s call him Jeff.
Jeff and I met on a dating app — yes, I know, the start of all great love stories.
He was extremely handsome in his pictures — so much so that I thought he was a catfish. But I didn’t overthink it. Worst case scenario, I could at least write an article about my catfishing experience.
One swipe and a couple of eloquent paragraph exchanges later, we decided to meet. Mind you, up until this point, neither his profile nor our conversation indicated any Tate-ist beliefs. So I took a leap of faith.
For our first date, he’d organized drinks and dinner at a restaurant on the nice side of town, sending an Uber to come and get me. A true gentleman, I thought.
Nudged by my little prayer beforehand, I got in the Uber and hoped for the best — just as most women do before meeting strangers off the internet.
When I got there, I saw him. He looked just like his picture: Attractive and built like Popeye after 12 spoonfuls of spinach.
He opened all my doors, took my coat off, and pulled my chair out for me — all unprompted!
With the increasingly anti-chivalrous dating sphere, this was a glimmer of hope. But I composed myself, silently noting the brownie points he had earned right off the bat.
Almost straight away, we started discussing male-female dynamics in relationships.
Him coming from Western Europe, and I from Eastern Europe, I was curious to see his thoughts on polarity in relationships. I prefer traditional relationship dynamics, so I needed to understand his thoughts beforehand, lest I’m bullied for my “backward thinking,” as an Englishman once called it.
As our conversation continued, we entered a flow state, continuously nodding in agreement with each other.
He believed in taking accountability as the man in the relationship, and I believed in reveling in the feminine.
As our trance of nods went on, and we discussed our mutual desire for a serious relationship, my ears perked up as I heard some manosphere jargon: “High-value woman,” “territorial,” “masculine energy,” and “protecting and providing.”
Was I…was I dating an Andrew Tate fan? Surely not. Surely I would’ve picked up on it earlier. Granted, his bald head and massive muscles were dead giveaways, but I chose to be oblivious. I gave him the benefit of the doubt.
Perhaps he picked up these beliefs during some spiritual retreat in Bali?
Maybe he was into Chinese philosophy — particularly the yin-yang model?
Or was this what he saw growing up, modeled by his parents?
As I picked these scenarios apart, trying to get him to disclose which one of these was the culprit, I eventually had to dismiss them all.
When he muttered the words “red pill,” I got my answer.
And there I was, having a wonderful, chemistry-fueled date with an Andrew Tate fan. Oh, God.
Did he expect sex on the first date? Following the other Tate fan’s rationale, not only did I have to sleep with Jeff right after, but I probably had to do three backflips, one somersault, and four cartwheels while I was at it. It was dinner and drinks, after all.
What had I gotten myself into? I had to shut down any expectations.
At the end of the date, I blurted out my truth bomb — a truth bomb I knew most men wouldn’t want to hear after a fantastic first date. Half expecting he’d never want to see me again after this, I told him I was celibate, abstaining until I met the one.
He looked at me. I looked at him. And he got upset — but not for the reasons I thought he would.
He was upset that I thought my celibacy would put him off.
He was disappointed I didn’t believe what he had said on our date: That he was dating intentionally and actually looking for ‘the one.’ And it was true — up until that point, I hadn’t. I thought they were sweet nothings, a pick-up artist method meant to lure me into bed.
But he was genuine — and completely supported my celibacy.
So I stood there like a fool; half in awe, half questioning whether I fell in love on a first date.
The next few months with Jeff were magical: I was treated like a princess from start to finish.
Not only did he plan the most thoughtful, swoon-worthy dates, but we had the same long-term goals, a compatible sense of humor, and fantastic chemistry. Our conversations were never-ending, exciting, and full of passion. I had fallen head over heels for him.
And despite some of his questionable beliefs, I never felt any “toxic masculinity” lingering in the air. He made me feel safe, protected, and cherished with his empathy, self-awareness, and devotion — three things I could never imagine in Andrew Tate.
Perhaps, it is possible to cherry-pick at Tate’s red-pill ideology, taking whatever serves relationship polarity while ditching (read: burning) the ‘loverboy’ methods he espouses.
Unfortunately, Jeff and I have since broken up; circumstances beyond our control took their toll on us. But I stand firm in my belief that if anything is meant to be, it will be. Even if that means ending up with a red-pilled Andrew Tate fan.
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How Black Lives Matter Got Police Violence Wrong
In the early 2000s the United States enjoyed comparative racial optimism. Majorities of both black and white citizens felt race relations were improving. Even left-leaning NPR highlighted “colorblindness” as an ideal. A generation later, race relations have nosedived. We hear regularly about “systemic racism” and “white supremacy.” Colorblindness now is considered racist. This whiplash may leave many people wondering what happened.
The collapse in race relations began in 2014. Exactly why this year was pivotal is unknown, though it coincides with the debunked "hands up, don't shoot" framing of the Michael Brown killing and a larger “great awokening” wherein extreme identitarian views became more influential on the political left. Since 2014, little data suggests race disparities have gotten worse. Racist attitudes in the United States are at historic lows. However, news media coverage worrying over racism soared.
I studied this issue empirically in 2021. I wanted to see whether actual police shootings of unarmed black men correlated with race relations or whether news media coverage highlighting police shootings of black men was a better predictor. It turns out race relations are unrelated to actual police shootings, but correlate with news media coverage, which tends to obsess over shootings of black Americans while ignoring shootings of other individuals.
The Moral Panic Over Race and Policing
After the 2020 murder of George Floyd, the United States experienced a “racial reckoning.” News media claimed police were systemically targeting black Americans for fatal violence. Defunding or even literally abolishing policing became serious policy proposals. The United States, we were told, was systemically racist.
Data on policing and race is complex and nuanced. Police killings of unarmed suspects are rare, according to the Washington Post, and they’ve been declining. Numbers peak at 95 for all races in 2015, declining to 32 for all races in 2021.
When it comes to police shootings of unarmed individuals, white suspects are shot more often than black suspects (by contrast, Asians are rarely shot by police compared to either group). Though more unarmed whites than blacks are killed by police, black suspects are indeed proportionally overrepresented. We can see the proportional differences in the following chart:
However, commission of violent crime is also ethnically disproportional. Black and Hispanic men commit violent crimes disproportionally more often than do white or Asian men. That police shootings and commission of violent crime so neatly track one another is not a coincidence.
One might conclude that, perhaps, over-representation of black Americans as perpetrators of violent crime might be due to overpolicing of black communities. However, when we look at victims of homicide, most of which are the same race as the killers, we see the same pattern of black victims being overrepresented. This means the overpolicing hypothesis does not fit the data.
It is also worth noting that most young men of any ethnicity do not commit violent crimes. Race itself is not a determinant of violent crime. In one recent study, although racial composition of neighborhoods predicted violent crime, race no longer predicted violent crime once other community factors such as insufficient food, housing issues, air pollution and proportion of single-parent homes are controlled..
Studies largely find the same thing when it comes to excessive use of police force. In another recent study, we found that class issues, particularly communities experiencing higher levels of mental health issues among residents -- not race -- predicted reports of excessive police force (except for Latinos, who reported less police force). To be fair, studies on this do vary in conclusion. However, in my view the weight of evidence suggests that class, not race, predicts excessive police force.
We found that higher levels of mental health problems among community residents predicted reports of excessive police force. This is probably because police are likely coming into contact with mentally ill residents who may escalate an encounter that began over something trivial. Other studies also suggest the chronically mentally ill more often experience physical force during police encounters. The mentally ill may struggle to respond to aggressive police commands. Thus, relatively minor encounters initially may intensify into dangerous situations. Better police training with mental illness may help.
Progressive “Fixes” Have Often Made Things Worse
Though often ostensibly speaking on behalf of minority groups, progressive theories on race have often made practical situations worse. The most obvious cost to low-income neighborhoods has been in delegitimizing or even defunding police and the predictable surge in crime that created. Evidence does suggests that the George Floyd protests and riots were associated with increased resignations of police officers as well as decreased policing in high-crime neighborhoods. These in turn, were associated with increased violent crime.
There are more subtle, harmful impacts as well. Informing people that they are at ever-present danger from police can be traumatizing. Research has long demonstrated that convincing people they are victims causes them to perceive injustice where it may not actually occur.
It doesn’t help the Black Lives Matter organization has undermined confidence in its mission through a lack of transparency on financial matters and spending millions on mansions for its leaders, with comparatively little to show for how they have helped ordinary Black poor or working-class people.
There is a wide space between thinking the United States is a racial utopia and that it’s an early 20th century apartheid state. But if we promote pessimistic narratives that are not well-grounded in data and focus on “solutions” that emphasize our differences and conflicts, we may actually risk the exact bad outcomes we hoped to alleviate.
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Why Do Leftists Get a Pass on Their Racism Toward Tim Scott, Other Black Republicans?
Whoever prevails, the 2024 Republican primary cycle is going to work out like all modern-day cycles. Inevitably, liberal Democrat reporters are going to end up loading buckets of slime and unloading them on every half-plausible candidate on the Republican side of the campaign.
Even then-Sen. John McCain learned the hard way that his media pals would turn on him when it counted.
On Tuesday, Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, announced he was running for president. The Left desperately wants to cartoon the Republican electorate as a pack of white supremacists, so Scott, of South Carolina, has to be mocked as the worst kind of African American.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, now the laziest host in cable news—she only works Mondays—mocked Scott’s vocal delivery. “That was a rough first three seconds of his presidential campaign,” said Maddow, laughing. “But who knows? Maybe it was just a rough first couple of seconds. Maybe in the end, he will do great. It worked out great for Peter Brady, in the end. He got through it. It was tough.”
Maddow compared a 57-year-old black man to a teenage white boy going through puberty. It’s not hard to guess how this would have been greeted if someone mocked the Almighty Barack Obama this way. It would be racist.
Then there are the pompous pundettes on ABC’s “The View,” lecturing Scott that he can’t possibly run for president based on optimism about America’s racial situation. Sunny Hostin waved him off: “I don’t know who his message is supposed to resonate with, actually. He’s talking about victimhood and personal responsibility as if people aren’t taking responsibility for their own actions.”
Whoopi Goldberg echoed, “He came out and did that dog whistle: victimhood.”
Hostin said being a successful black man is rare: “He is the exception, and not the rule. And until he is the rule, then he can stop talking about systemic racism.” You can either agree America’s a systemic racist cesspool, or you can shut up. Goldberg dropped the bomb: “He’s got Clarence Thomas Syndrome.”
Who is really demeaning black Americans in this debate? Apparently, racial pessimism is forever.
Journalists will also make routine fun of Scott’s Christianity. Washington Post political reporter Ben Terris tweeted on announcement day, “Tim Scott will be the first prez candidate I’ve ever asked about the status of his virginity.” A few years ago, lifelong bachelor Scott coyly answered Terris that the ship had sailed, but he insisted adultery was a sin. Why ask? Because Scott used to preach abstinence before marriage, which apparently opens the door to invasive personal questions.
So, if Vice President Kamala Harris is pro-abortion, has Terris asked her how many abortions she’s had? Or how many she’s funded, since she’s so pro-abortion?
So far, the GOP presidential field contains two black men and two Indian Americans, but Republicans are still hopelessly racist, because any Republican “of color” is cartooned as a self-loathing Clarence Thomas, a token desperate for white approval.
The Left thinks any pushback on their inaccurately described “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda is a politics of grievance. They’re never introspective enough to see their own sign as pushing division and racial hatred for political gain.
Scott’s optimistic and patriotic vision is a breath of fresh air—fresher than the “Joy [Behar], Whoopi, and Sunny” team will ever be.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/05/24/why-do-leftists-loathe-tim-scotts-racial-optimism
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Australia: Gender transition insurance cover cut for GPs
That would effectively bar them from assisting with gender transitions. They may be able to find another insurer but that may not continue.
One of the country’s biggest medical insurers will no longer cover private practitioners prescribing gender-affirming care to adolescents, in a move that could leave young people languishing on already-stretched public waiting lists.
MDA National, one of four major medical indemnity providers insuring GPs and other private practitioners against legal claims, updated its policy this month to exclude cover for claims “arising from aspects of gender transitioning treatment for under 18-year-old patients”.
Dr Michael Gannon, the organisation’s president, said young people experiencing gender dysphoria should be initially assessed by multidisciplinary teams in hospital – not by GPs.
“This is the same hospital system that is very, very comfortable placing greater demands on general practitioners,” he said. “It’s simply not fair to ask individual GPs in the suburbs or the bush to be making these complex decisions on their own.”
Gannon said the decision was made in response to legal cases overseas, including the high-profile inquiry into, and subsequent closure of, Britain’s only children’s gender clinic.
“We’re not taking a moral stance or an ethical stance – this is very much an insurance decision,” he said. “We don’t think we can accurately and fairly price the risk of regret.”
Dr Michelle Dutton, a GP in Fitzroy North in Melbourne, said she was leaving MDA National for a different provider before the change takes effect on July 1. “It’s disappointing ... I need to be covered for the work that I do as a GP, and if that work is no longer covered, I need to find a different provider,” she said. “I would have changed anyway because I fundamentally disagree with the decision.”
Dr Portia Predny, a GP at Sydney’s Rozelle Medical Centre and vice-president of the trans health advocacy body AusPATH, said she was concerned the change would further limit the options available to transgender adolescents by discouraging private practitioners from treating them.
“There are very few clinics who actually service this group of patients,” she said. “There’s already barriers to care for this age group – this is care that’s often life-saving, and that’s not an exaggeration.”
She said AusPATH had been reassured by two other major insurers, Avant and Medical Indemnity Protection Society (MIPs), that they would continue to cover GPs prescribing hormones to transgender patients under 18.
Predny said GPs were already working with other healthcare providers, such as psychiatrists and endocrinologists, to provide safe care to young patients.
“To state that the only way for people to access interdisciplinary care is through a multidisciplinary clinic [at a hospital] is misleading,” she said.
NSW has publicly funded gender clinics at Westmead Hospital and Maple Leaf House in Newcastle.
As of March 2023, there were 139 clients aged under 25 waiting for treatment at Maple Leaf House, though a spokesperson said not all those patients would be seeking medical-affirming care.
In Victoria, the Monash Health Gender Clinic is the only specialist public service available to transgender people between the ages of 16 and 18.
Associate Professor Ruth McNair, from the University of Melbourne’s department of general practice, said requiring every young person experiencing gender dysphoria to go through a public gender clinic first would place an even greater strain on waiting lists. “The system is overloaded,” she said. “Kids are left with nowhere to go.”
McNair said GPs who prescribe hormones to underage patients were already very cautious, and any patients with complex clinical histories, such as pre-existing mental health problems or past trauma, were urgently referred to public clinics for specialist treatment.
For young trans people, early support ‘could save a life’
“I consider the risk to be higher if I’m blocking a young person from care,” she said. “What’s the real risk? It’s to the health of the young person.
“It’s a bit short-sighted really. They’re trying to capture the [minority] of cases [where patients regret].”
MDA National will still cover GPs providing repeat prescriptions for gender-affirming hormones and general healthcare for patients with gender dysphoria.
The company said the decision would affect “well under a hundred” of its 40,000 members.
In 2021, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists released a position statement defining a “gender-affirmative approach” as one that accepts rather than questions a child’s statements about their gender identity.
In a rare local case, a Sydney woman is suing her psychiatrist for professional negligence relating to her gender transition, which she began at age 19.
However, the regret rate for people who medically transition in childhood or adolescence remains low.
Last year, a Dutch study published in The Lancet found 98 per cent of 720 transgender participants who started gender-affirming hormones in adolescence continued their treatment into adulthood.
A 2021 systematic review of 27 studies with a combined 7928 transgender patients found about 1 per cent expressed regret after undergoing gender-affirming surgeries.
Eloise Brook, the policy and communication manager at the Gender Centre in Annandale, said the decision jeopardised the “hard work” and investment that has been put into making gender-affirming care more accessible through family GPs.
“This is a moment where I’m fearful for families,” she said. “Insurance should not be the space in which medical decisions should be made.”
Dr Mitch Squire, a GP who provides gender-affirming care to adolescents at his clinic in Sydney’s inner west, said he would have no choice but to move providers if his insurer no longer covered him for the service.
“It would be a pretty straightforward decision for me,” he said. “There is a small but quantifiable regret rate, and given that changes can be permanent, that cover is absolutely essential.”
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29 May, 2023
Target Shares Fall Following ‘Pride’ Push
Shares of Target have recently declined after the company launched LGBTQ products, including items aimed at children, triggering a backlash from Americans against the retailer’s transgender push.
Target rolled out its Pride collection at the beginning of the month, offering over 2,000 products, including clothing, books, home furnishings, and calendars, among others. Some of the items were targeted at children. For example, books for kids aged 2–8 had titles like “Pride 1,2,3,” “Bye Bye, Binary,” and “I’m Not a Girl.” Target also suggested “The Pronoun Book” to kids aged 0–3. In home décor, Target offered mugs labeled “Gender Fluid.” It also offered transgender swimsuits for adults with a “tuck-friendly” feature.
The company’s actions attracted a lot of negative reactions online, with the hashtag “BoycottTarget” trending across social media.
Amid the backlash, Target’s shares have declined by 11 percent as of 11:00 a.m. EST on May 25. Between May 1 and May 24, the company’s market capitalization fell from $72.52 billion to $66.05 billion, a decline of $6.47 billion.
In a May 24 press release, the company announced removing some of the controversial items. “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense of safety and well-being while at work.
“Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.”
Liz Wheeler, who hosts “The Liz Wheeler Show” video podcast, called out Target for not apologizing for promoting “pride” agenda.
“Target executives are freaking out & moving ‘pride’ displays to the back of the store. But DO NOT CAVE. They’re not apologizing. They’re blaming YOU, claiming conservatives who oppose a Satanist designing queer merchandise for kids are a ‘threat,’” she said in a May 24 tweet.
Satanist Products
Some of the items in Target’s Pride collection were designed by UK-based designer Abprallen, who identifies as a transgender gay man and is a proclaimed Satanist.
There were two items from Abprallen in the Pride collection. However, the products are now not available in Target’s online store following the backlash, according to Breitbart.
An outspoken Satanist, Abprallen is known for pushing messages like “Satan respects pronouns” on apparel and “burn down the cis-tem.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) slammed Target for its ties with a Satanist. “Even by the standards of woke corporations, @Target’s partnership with a satanist to push the trans agenda on children is remarkable. The next time @Target comes begging for help, Republicans should respond, ‘best of luck,’” he said in a May 23 tweet.
Protecting Children
The Democrat governor of California, Gavin Newsom, hit out at Target for pulling out items from the Pride collection, calling the move “selling out the LGBTQ+ community to extremists.”
“This isn’t just a couple [of] stores in the South. There is a systematic attack on the gay community happening across the country. Wake up America. This doesn’t stop here. You’re black? You’re Asian? You’re Jewish? You’re a woman? You’re next,” he said in a May 24 tweet.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) countered Newsom by insisting that “no one is attacking the gay community.”
“They don’t want their children forcefully exposed to the radical side of pride with ‘tuck it’ and ‘binding’ children’s clothes and messaging while simply shopping at Target. We don’t support your California child genital mutilation industry. As a matter of fact, I want to end it,” she said in a tweet.
The backlash against Target is the latest in a series of customer reactions against companies pushing left-wing, progressive ideologies. Last month, Bud Light used transgender social media personality Dylan Mulvaney in a promotional campaign.
The decision triggered a massive boycott call of the beer brand. In less than two weeks after the promo campaign, Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of Bud Light, had lost at least $6.65 billion in market capitalization.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/target-shares-fall-following-pride-push_5291156.html
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160-Plus Retired Military Brass Urge Congress To Root Out DOD’s Poisonous ‘Diversity’ And ‘Equity’ Programs
More than 160 retired generals and admirals recently signed a letter calling on Congress to remove so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the Department of Defense and remove funding for such programs from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“As our Nation faces looming threats from ‘foreign’ adversaries/enemies, our military is under assault from a culture war stemming from ‘domestic’ ideologically inspired political policies and practices. … Our military must be laser focused on one mission — readiness, undiminished by the culture war engulfing our country,” Flag Officers 4 America wrote in the letter addressed to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Armed Services Subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers, and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert.
The signatories — which included former National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Gerald Boykin — expressed concern about how divisive and discriminatory DEI policies affect national security. So-called “equity,” they wrote, “sounds benign, but in practice it lowers standards. While equality provides equal opportunities, equity’s goal is equal outcomes.”
The officers argued that equal opportunity and meritocracy provide the greatest foundation for both equality and national defense, while the cultural Marxism promoted by DEI policies is a domestic threat to our national security.
“To achieve equal outcomes using identity group characteristics, standards must be lowered to accommodate the desired equity outcomes. Lower standards reduce performance where even slight differences in capability impact readiness and can determine war fighting mission success or failure,” they wrote. Furthermore, obsession with identity causes “friction and distrust in the ranks, damaging unit cohesion, teamwork and unity of effort, further degrading readiness.”
Instead of DEI, the signatories advocated for a return to longstanding meritocratic military recruitment standards, pointing to a long history of true inclusivity and diversity that accompanied those standards.
“Service Members (SMs) were judged not by the color of their skin but by their character, duty performance, and potential,” the officers explained. “Meritocracy, coupled with equal opportunity, created conditions for all to advance and excel, which stimulates healthy competition, thereby raising standards.”
According to the retired officers, meritocracy is “essential for winning,” and at a time when America faces looming foreign threats, the last thing our military needs is to be distracted by domestic social engineering and “wokeism.”
We have fought for our Nation and are sounding the alarm that DEI poses a grave danger to our military warfighting ethos and is degrading warfighting readiness. … China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are not distracted by DEI programs; no doubt they are watching us. Equal opportunity and merit-based performance have been battle tested for generations and proven essential for success. DEI policies and practices must be eliminated from the DoD to protect our critical warfighting readiness.
Flag Officers 4 America DEI letter May 20, 2023 by The Federalist on Scribd
The letter comes after the House recently introduced the 2024 NDAA, which as of May 23 does not yet include provisions to remove funding from DEI programs. While the DOD reportedly disbanded its education wing’s DEI initiative in March, the poisonous agenda has subsequently burrowed deeper into the system.
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The establishment's war on Trump
As one Twitter wag put it, virtually the only ones not involved in the Trump-Russia collusion scandal turned out to be Trump and Russia. The release of Special Prosecutor John Durham’s final report into the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation exposed Stasi-style plotting between the Clinton campaign, the FBI and the Obama regime to first prevent, then knobble, Donald Trump’s presidency. This amounted to an attempted palace coup.
Yet the fix is in. No one has been charged and the key players will be chuckling smugly into their whiskies as a wave of disgust passes over those privy to the report’s details, both conservatives largely aware of the truth years ago, and those newly awakened by the forensic detail of this damning, four-year, $6 million probe.
Include among the latter CNN’s Trump-despising anchor Jake Tapper, who said the report exonerated Trump and was devastating to the FBI; never-Trump conservative pundit Ben Shapiro, who wrote: ‘It was a nefarious plan, enacted at the highest levels of government, to corrupt an election and undermine a presidency’ and legal eminence Jonathan Turley, who lambasted ‘the alliance of political, government and media figures behind arguably the greatest hoax in US history’.
The rot goes right to the top, and those involved knew from the beginning the Russia-gate hoax was a Clinton dirty trick. Then-CIA director John Brennan writes in August 2016 of briefing Obama and others of the Clinton campaign’s plan ‘to vilify Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services’. After years of denials, it emerged that the Clinton campaign had paid for the fake, Trump-smearing Steele dossier, and then marketed it in the corridors of power. Then came the Mueller investigation, the Horowitz report, two Trump impeachments, a cascade of court cases, raids and process charges against Trump associates, forests of newsprint and years of smears. Where the FBI downplayed Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and shut down four other Clinton probes, they treated Trump differently, Durham says, eagerly going after him despite no verifiable evidence. And the penalty? Here Durham turns mild, urging greater fidelity to the law. The FBI agrees, yes, there were missteps but they’ve changed lots of rules. But if they didn’t follow the rules first time around, why would they next time?
Some examples. When Donald Trump won in 2016, he tweeted soon after that his wires were being tapped. Much mockery ensued. Of course, we weren’t spying on Trump Tower, laughed then-FBI boss James Comey. As years passed it turned out that yes, the FBI had indeed wiretapped the new president’s campaign in Trump Tower but that wasn’t spying! Good lord, no! Spying is unauthorised surveillance, said Comey. What he did was authorised surveillance, not spying. So that’s alright. Durham adds the cherry on top by revealing emails from Comey to his staff hassling them for court orders so spying – ‘surveillance’ – could begin. The shameless Comey went on to write a book on ethical leadership.
A second example: former House Intelligence Committee chairman, Adam Schiff, propelled the Russia hoax for years, maintaining he’d seen direct evidence of Trump collusion with Russia, he couldn’t reveal it yet, but it was there for sure, he’d seen it. That evidence never surfaced, and Durham finds there was none. A GOP congresswoman is now trying to get ‘Shifty Schiff’ tossed from Congress.
Alas, this dismal catalogue of evil-doers now feel they’ve got away with it. These are not people who ever wanted to do the right thing, they just wanted to stop Trump. Ex-FBI lynchpins such as Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok are now all over friendly media saying the lack of prosecutions means what they did was no big deal. These moral pygmies think that because they broke the law legally, so to speak, using lies of omission and commission, delaying tactics, process failures, semantics, loopholes and every other trick in the bureaucrats’ book, they have won. But these plotters have destroyed the legitimacy of the FBI, which now stands corrupted, trashed the US claim to lead the free world, and engendered profound distrust and polarisation across the nation. Worse, having been unchecked, the FBI continues to punch down, ignoring Hunter Biden’s laptop which they have possessed since 2019, and the many claims of bribery and pay-to-play around the Biden family, and instead targeting conservatives, with censorship campaigns on Twitter recently exposed, and the vicious persecution of January 6 protesters continuing, many of whom still rot in jail.
The FBI has not always been this bad. After the shock of 9/11, however, the Patriot Act vastly expanded US law enforcement’s tools and the agencies are now massive, drunk with power and politicised, dubbed by some a 35,000-strong Praetorian guard running protection for Democrats. The actions of this cabal provide a prism for understanding the continuing lawfare against Trump. If all the cases currently up against him fail, they will simply find new ones. The war goes on.
Where this becomes relevant for Australia is realising the conformist groupthink behind US policies. The Durham report shows a one-party state running the US, with divergent views expunged, not considered. Such closed-minded thinking is more typical of totalitarian states, where courts of yes-men deny reality until it overtakes them. Witness the recent unhappy catalogue of US foreign policy blunders – forever wars in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan and now the proxy war in Ukraine, the all-but-admitted bombing of the Nordstream pipeline – and the flawed decision-making becomes more understandable.
The persecution rolls on. In heartbreaking testimony last week, three FBI whistleblowers told Congress how their lives had been crushed by the bureau in revenge for revelations such as deliberate inflation of domestic terrorism figures. GOP Rep. Harriet Hageman likened the FBI to the baleful Eye of Sauron, from Lord of the Rings, turned on the citizenry. Here’s my literary image. In The Old Man of the Sea, Sinbad the Sailor tells of being tricked into carrying an old man on his shoulders.
The monster clamps down hard in a deadly grip; unable to be dislodged, he rides Sinbad long and hard. The sailor gradually weakens, escaping only by getting the old man drunk. In the same way, parasitic elites are fixed fast atop the US power structure, sucking the lifeblood from the body politic, and no one has yet found a way to dislodge them.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-dirty-war-on-trump/
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Bravo! Australian PM knows what a woman is
British broadcaster Piers Morgan asked the Prime Minister the question on his new show 'Piers Morgan Uncensored' on Sky News in early May.
Mr Albanese gave a very simple answer to the question, defining a woman as 'an adult female'.
'How difficult was that to answer?,' Morgan then asked.
'Not too hard. I was asked during the campaign actually, but I think that we need to respect people for whoever they are,' Mr Albanese said.
The 'what is a woman' question has become controversial in recent months, with many politicians struggling to answer in fear of upsetting critics or supporters of trans rights.
However Mr Albanese's answer continues to anger many in the transgender community, with some calling him a 'transphobe' and claiming he is using talking points echoed by TERF (Trans-exclusionary radical feminist).
The CEO of Equality Australia, Anna Brown, suggested that the prime minister shouldn't answer a question designed to 'attack' transgender people.
'But when any leader is asked a question designed to attack trans women, they should first call it out for what it is,' she told media.
'They can instead speak to trans people in Australia and directly let them know that they will not be part of the punching down.'
Greens MP Stephen Bates said the prime minister needed to 'get a spine and stop mumbling platitudes in an attempt to placate the transphobes'.
'You don't get to march with us in Mardi Gras and then ignore us when things get tricky for you,' he wrote.
During the interview, Albanese was also grilled by Morgan on the issue of transgender athletes in women's sport.
'That's an example in that the sporting organisations are dealing with that issue,' Mr Albanese said. 'My view is the sporting organisations should deal with that issue.'
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28 May, 2023
When There’s No White Supremacy, Just Make It Up
A graduating class from Howard University gathered to hear a speech of hope and encouragement as they prepared to take their milestone steps from education to practical application in a chosen career.
Usually talks such as this include a reflection of the years students have spent working hard on their academics and recognizing the positive results that come from the goal-setting that has led them to earn a college degree. The ability to focus and overcome challenges are valuable qualities that will serve them as they work to reach their lifelong goals.
However, it seems as though this year’s commencement speaker, President Joe Biden, didn’t get the memo when it came to putting together remarks that would send the graduates off into the real world with memorable statements to carry with them from their final moments in college throughout their lives as working professionals.
What they got instead was a speech focused on racism. They were told by the president of the United States: “The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy. And I’m not saying this because I’m at a black HBCU. I say it wherever I go.”
Of course, we know that’s exactly why he said it: to influence an entire class of hardworking future leaders of America whose ancestors and allies already sacrificed and survived the Civil War; endured slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the KKK; and fought with the Civil Rights movement. He wants them to continue to be held back by the past instead of using everything they’ve just achieved to create a better future for themselves and their descendants.
Of course, Joe Biden isn’t the only one spreading this misinformation.
While discussing the threats to the United States during an MSNBC interview, Alejandro Mayorkas parroted a similar message: “In the terrorism context, domestic violent extremism is our greatest threat right now. … Regrettably, we have seen a rise in white supremacy.”
In discussing these issues with the United States secretary of homeland security, the correct follow-up to the assertion that white supremacy is the greatest terrorist threat to America would have been to ask for examples of where these threats have been recorded and prosecuted. As the leader of the Department of Homeland Security, Mayorkas would personally oversee and be informed of all threats to our national leaders, our critical infrastructure, our ports, and our cybersecurity, just to name a few. If anyone would know about when and where these incidents of white supremacist terrorism are happening, it would be him.
However, the role of today’s journalists does not seem to be to gather evidence and provide a comprehensive view of an issue, but rather to create a narrative and then simply ask the person at the head of that narrative to agree.
And the role of the current administration is to create "evidence” to back up its claims when there is none.
This was demonstrated following the May 6 shooting at an outlet mall in Texas, where just hours after the horrific act had been carried out, the story was pushed that this had been done by a white supremacist who belonged to a gang with the beliefs of such and who displayed swastika tattoos on his body. However, it didn’t take long for the details to become public, and I’m sure we were all surprised (or not) to discover that the name and photo of the perpetrator was that of a man of Hispanic ethnicity.
Similarly, at around 10:00 p.m. this past Monday evening, someone was detained after crashing a U-Haul box truck into the security barriers on the north side of the White House. Once again, before any details of the individual could be released, the story pushed by the media was that this was yet another act of white supremacy. And again, when the identity of the driver came to light, the name and photo was that of an Indian man.
It looks as though it is possible to make the claim that white supremacy is the most dangerous terrorist threat our nation faces if the plan is to label everyone who commits a crime that fuels the narrative as “white” — even when it’s abundantly clear that they’re not.
As with almost everything promoted by the Left today, the procedure is to say the words and then create the evidence to back up what you’ve said.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97527-when-theres-no-white-supremacy-just-make-it-up-2023-05-24
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The Left Has Pushed the Envelope
The Left is waging a full-fledged cultural revolution against traditional America. And the Maoist results are often as absurd as they are terrifying.
Special-counsel John Durham just issued his final report on wrongdoing within the FBI, CIA, and the Department of Justice.
The summary confirms that our premier investigatory and intelligence agencies interfered in the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
Directors and high-ranking FBI officials lied under oath. They misled Congress. They altered court documents and deceived federal judges.
The FBI hired a foreign national to gather dirt on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign — while he was being paid by the rival Hillary Clinton campaign.
The FBI contracted Twitter to suppress news stories. It kept the Hunter Biden laptop under wraps, even as former intelligence officials flat out lied it was likely “Russian disinformation.” That was a blatant effort to aid the 2020 Biden campaign.
The IRS just conceded whistleblowers were correct and the agency fired its entire multi-year audit team responsible for investigating Hunter Biden’s purported tax irregularities.
The agency claimed it was ordered to do so by the Department of Justice, headed by Biden’s appointee Merrick Garland.
California is facing a crushing $32 billion deficit. Yet it flirts with an $800 billion-dollar “reparations” payout to the state’s Black residents.
No one has any idea where the money for that would come from. No one can define who would qualify. No one can explain why a state that never allowed slavery eight generations ago now owes selected Californians billions of dollars it does not have.
One of the reparations board leaders asserts Blacks might be willing to accept an “installment” plan of payments.
The NAACP just issued a “travel alert” advising Blacks not to visit Florida. The announcement was timed to draw negative attention to conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ announcement of a presidential bid.
Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and Indianapolis — all outside Florida — have the highest Black murder rates in the nation.
Florida by contrast, with a Black population of 3.3 million, has the second largest number of Black businesses in the nation. The chairman of the NAACP’s board of directors is himself a Florida resident!
Black Lives Matter has just announced it lost millions of dollars in investments and ran up huge deficits. The culprit was its former corrupt leadership.
Its extravagant spending, plush homes, and family hangers-on have nearly bankrupted the advocacy group. It cannot account for the millions of dollars in corporate guilt and protection money it leveraged following the George Floyd riots in 2020.
In New York, a threatening subway career criminal with 42 prior arrests was subdued by a bystander and died during the confrontation. The criminal is now deified. The would-be Samaritan is charged with felony manslaughter.
The deceased’s uncle is vocal about his late nephew’s confrontation. But he himself was just arrested with stolen property and armed with a knife. He was mysteriously still roaming the streets despite 70 prior arrests and current active arrest warrants.
In almost every American city and town, biological males, with enormous advantages in size and musculoskeletal mass, routinely win women’s sporting competitions.
They are systematically destroying decades of progress that sought to ensure parity between men and women’s sports.
Corporate America has joined this cultural revolution hysteria. Companies are apparently now hellbent on destroying their brands, profits, and net worth.
Under pressure from the LGBTQ activists, the Los Angeles Dodgers reinvited the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” to celebrate Pride night at Dodger Stadium.
Catholics and Christians had objected to the invitation because the group’s notoriety hinges on its sexualized and often pornographic mockery of Catholic ritual, the Holy Trinity, and Christian faith.
The supposedly courageous group would never dare extend its street-theater blasphemy to other religious groups such as Muslims or Hindus.
The Dodgers apparently do not care that Greater Los Angeles may be home to 6 million Mexican American citizens and resident Hispanic immigrants. Most are Catholic and many were avid Dodger fans.
Anheuser-Busch has nearly destroyed its best-selling Bud Light brand by hiring transgender performance-art activist Dylan Mulvaney to hawk the brand — and his own transitioning — to America’s working classes.
The Disney corporation, for decades, has enjoyed multibillion-dollar concessions and a veritable 40-square mile private fiefdom gifted from the taxpayers of Florida.
No matter. Disney has rebranded it films, amusement parks, and television offerings to reflect radical transgender, gay, and race advocacies.
The results so far are billion-dollar losses in Disney stock, subscribers, and viewers.
A woke CNN has all but destroyed its once-global audience. It now has fewer viewers than certain popular podcasts.
All these implosions are not just shocking but surreal. Why are our government, corporations, and popular culture colluding in mass suicide — to the delight of our enemies like Communist China?
https://patriotpost.us/opinion/97583-the-left-has-pushed-the-envelope-2023-05-25 ?
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Will the Fathers Please Stand Up?
Women’s and girls’ sports are under attack from men who pretend to be women to hide their inadequacies in their own sports leagues. The most vulnerable population, however, are those girls who are playing sports in grade school.
It has become common to see story after story about boys in girl locker rooms and boys overpowering the girls in the sport they are competing in. Although these young girls express their discomfort with boys in their locker rooms or boys in their bathrooms, concerns are swept under the rug. Often, the schools girls attend have policies in place that allow children to use the facilities aligned with the gender they identify with. Many girls have also reported being singled out and offered counseling to cope with their discomfort and to learn to be inclusive. These responses from school personnel leave the girls feeling unheard and hopeless. This is when parents step in.
Moms across the country have been at the forefront of the parental rights battle. Mothers have been doxed, assaulted, called names, and deemed domestic terrorists for protecting their children from the K-12 cartel. Mothers have taken the arrows happily and continue to do so because they are advocating for their children. One must wonder: Where are the fathers?
It is important to note that there are fathers who are fiercely advocating for their children, but it may not be enough. Fathers are the protectors of their household and are responsible for the safety of their wives and children. Fathers must be at the forefront of protecting female-only spaces. Fathers must be at school board meetings advocating for the removal of harmful policies that jeopardize their daughters’ safety. Mothers can do this too, but we cannot deny that when a father stands up for his daughter, the room listens.
The way our current culture treats fathers must be acknowledged. From Hollywood to mom groups, fathers are depicted as helpless and useless without the mother’s help. Movies portray fathers as parents who cannot function, and wives in mom groups often bash their husbands publicly to gain sympathy from other moms. The feminist movement has demasculinized men and in the process also taken their role as the protectors of their home.
If any fathers are reading this, your daughter needs you. Daughters must know that their father is ready to protect them from anything and anyone. Advocating for your daughters does not have to resemble what social media shows you. Advocating for your daughter can be sending an email to the school principal asking for policies regarding girls’ sports and girl-only spaces. Advocating for your daughter can be setting up a meeting with the school district’s superintendent or school board to discuss concerns.
Daughters never forget when their father stands up for her. It is a memory that she will keep for the rest of her life. Current culture and feminism have not been kind to fathers. However, it is time for fathers to stand up.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97554-will-the-fathers-please-stand-up-2023-05-25
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Big-City Mayors Blame Carmakers for Soaring Auto Thefts, Let Criminals Off the Hook
In some of America’s biggest cities, cars — Kias and Hyundais in particular — are being stolen by the thousands, yet rather than hold the thieves alone responsible for their actions, municipalities like Baltimore, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Seattle are suing automakers, charging their vehicles are too easy to heist.
The lawsuits claim that automobiles have insufficient anti-theft countermeasures, as if citizens can’t resist the urge to take property that doesn’t belong to them and it’s the fault of victims for leading them into temptation.
Baltimore, which filed suit this week, has seen almost twice as many automobiles stolen this year as last. Four-in-ten are Kias and Hyundais, meaning other models account for the remainder, indicating a crime problem, not just a design flaw like the Ford Pinto’s predisposition to explode in rear-end collisions.
A TikTok trend has exacerbated the crime spree, with videos demonstrating the ease with which automobiles — without what Baltimore’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Scott, calls “industry-standard vehicle immobilization technology” — can be started without a key.
Cities seem to be arguing that automakers are creating something akin to an “attractive nuisance” for homeowners, dangerous features such as swimming pools that might attract children, requiring them to eliminate them or provide a warning.
Drivers — carelessness aside — can’t be said to invite another person to heist their rides in this way, and while they may have a reasonable expectation that the engineers who design a Kia or Hyundai consider avoiding theft, cars cannot yet drive themselves away in search of the open road.
Mr. Scott, however, lays all blame on manufacturers, accusing them of pinching pennies. “These cost-cutting measures employed by Hyundai and Kia at the expense of public safety are unacceptable,” he said in a statement. “They have left our residents vulnerable to crime and are significantly burdening our police resources.”
Baltimore’s police commissioner, Michael Harrison, also put the onus on carmakers. “We must demand more from these manufacturers in addressing this increase in vehicle thefts,” he said, “which put victims and residents in harm’s way.” Neither made mention of punishing thieves.
In a letter to WBAL-TV, Kia called the lawsuits “without merit,” pointing out that they’re offering a “free, enhanced security software upgrade to restrict the unauthorized operation of vehicle ignition systems and we are also providing steering wheel locks for impacted owners at no cost to them.”
Kia is also “supplying more than 44,000 free steering wheel locks to over 330 law enforcement agencies across the country for distribution to impacted Kia owners,” akin to a Philadelphia program — discontinued over concerns about legal liability — that provided steering wheel locks to a few hundred drivers.
The passive security measures are prudent, but address only the supply while ignoring the demand, which has increased as cities go idle on the active pursuit of criminals. Last week at Baltimore, seven Republicans from Maryland’s House of Delegates sent a letter to Mr. Scott laying out how car thieves are “nearly guaranteed” to get away with it.
Of 2,473 cars stolen in Baltimore in 2022, the delegates said, only 397 — six percent — resulted in arrests and only seven in convictions.
Since penalties aren’t as harsh for minors, they’re taking advantage of both the law and the ease of pulling off a joyride, with a car being stolen every hour on average in June of last year, according to statistics published by Wisconsin’s MacIver Institute.
In Milwaukee, children as young as 12 are stealing cars, highlighted by the upcoming “Kia Boyz Trial” of Markell Hughes, 17. That city saw 10,476 car thefts in 2021, with 66 percent of them Kias and Hyundais, after the ignition flaw was exposed in a YouTube video viewed over six million times.
It’s clear from the scope of the car-theft pandemic that software updates and security upgrades aren’t the vaccines America needs. To ensure the security of life and property, cities will have to get rolling on efforts to deter thieves with the force of law and prosecute offenders, who have gotten the message that you can do the crime and not do the time.
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25 May, 2023
America's biggest children's hospital HALTS gender reassignment treatment for minors under new Texas law
It has been an energetic mutilator of children -- earning big bucks in the process
America's biggest children's hospital has announced plans to halt its gender reassignment treatment for children as the deadline to comply with a new Texas law looms and damaging claims from whistleblowers emerge.
Mark Wallace, CEO of Texas Children's Hospital (TCH), on Wednesday wrote in an internal hospital memo that it would stop prescribing hormones to minors and help them get gender-affirming care, as it is known, across state lines.
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the Houston-based facility, saying puberty blockers and other trans 'medical experiments' violated state rules.
A whistleblower claims the hospital was rushing transgender kids onto puberty blockers and hormones when they would have been better off with mental health support. They also alleged that parents were 'scared' into allowing their children to have treatment.
The move to end the transgender treatment program follows Texas Republicans passing a law banning gender reassignment treatments for most minors, which is set to take effect in September.
'Over the next few months, Texas Children's will modify the gender-affirming care we offer to comply with the new law,' Wallace wrote in an email that was shared by the Manhattan Institute, a think tank.
'We will work with patients and their families to manage the discontinuation of hormone therapies or source appropriate care outside of Texas.'
Wallace said ending care for transgender youth was 'painful' and 'immensely heart-wrenching.' His staff would instead offer 'psychosocial support and any form of care we can within the bounds of the law.'
'I understand that there are many viewpoints and opinions related to this matter, but I want to remind everyone that our mission is to create a healthier future for all children,' he added.
The massive hospital received nearly 5 million patient visits in 2022, but staffers declined to answer questions about how many trans minors obtained drugs or surgical procedures through its clinics.
Texas senators last week voted for a bill to block transgender minors from getting puberty blockers and hormone therapies, and Gov Gregg Abbot, a Republican, says he plans to sign it into law.
Christopher Rufo, the right-wing intellectual who led the Manhattan Institute's research into TCH, has in recent days published damaging testimonies from two whistleblowers about alleged transgender procedures at the hospital.
The first insider provided medical records showing TCH staff had been providing sex-change treatments to kids in recent months, even after officials said they had stopped doing so in March 2022.
The second whistleblower, whose allegations were also published on Wednesday, said TCH doctors were rushing trans kids onto puberty blockers and hormones when they would have been better off with mental health support.
'In our hospitals, they have completely gone full-blown woke and changed people's sex to whatever they identify as instead of their biological sex,' the latest whistleblower said, according to a transcript published on Wednesday.
The unnamed medical professional painted a bleak picture of care at TCH, with ideologically-driven doctors rushing children onto cocktails of sex reassignment drugs while racking up bills of tens of thousands of dollars.
'Transgender medicine is hugely lucrative,' said the hospital insider. 'It's like $70,000 to $80,000 dollars per kid if they go through with the whole thing — all the pharmacology drugs, all these companies that are making millions of dollars.'
The way the whistleblower tells it, children with depression, autism, other mental health issues and histories of anguished suicide bids latch onto the idea that they've been 'born in the wrong body'.
They're exposed to transgender ideology on Reddit.com and other sites, where they're 'coached on exactly what to say' to meet the trans medical criteria and let doctors greenlight sex-reassignments, it is claimed.
'They're looking for affirmation,' the whistleblower said. 'They're seeking the validation and approval of the adults in their lives. They're insecure.'
TCH doctors were among the pro-trans 'activists' who nowadays dominate the medical field, and who readily affirm any child that fits the criteria without properly weighing any other mental health problems, the insider claimed.
'I think they believe that they're making their mark on history, and they're wanting to play God,' the whistleblower said. 'Everyone's on their side: the media is on their side, big tech is on their side. And everyone is applauding these providers who do this.'
The whistleblower gave examples of parents of being 'shut down' by doctors if they did not immediately affirm a child's new gender identity. Some were told their child was at risk of killing themselves, it was claimed.
'They're scared of being reported to Child Protective Services,' the whistleblower said. 'They're intimidated by these doctors that are on the side of their kid and have a lot of power.'
The whistleblower said sex-reassignments leave adolescent patients appearing 'externally happy,' but questioned if pediatric health bodies were right to push an affirmation-on-demand model of care.
'They're going to wake up in 10 years and discover that they're infertile, that they can't have children, that their sexuality is completely dysfunctional,' said the insider.
Advocates of gender-affirming care say it is necessary treatment for suicide-prone minors. Critics say kids are too young to opt for irreversible sex change treatments, and often just need mental health counselling instead.
A TCH spokeswoman told DailyMail.com that doctors had provided 'high-quality care for all patients … within the bounds of the law.' The hospital did not immediately provide any details about Wallace's statement.
TCH last March said it had stopped gender-affirming therapies after Gov. Gregg Abbott, a Republican, ordered the state's child welfare agency to probe reports of gender-confirming care for kids as 'child abuse'.
Rufo says TCH 'secretly restarted its child sex-change program three days later.'
He published documents from a first unnamed whistleblower showing TCH doctors provided gender procedures to kids within days of the hospital's decision, and continued to do so throughout 2022 and into 2023.
They appear to be photos of a hospital computer screen showing TCH medical records. The images have been redacted to remove the names of the young patients, as medical records are confidential.
Texas Attorney General Paxton, a Republican, last week launched a probe into what he called transgender 'science experiments' at TCH over its alleged 'mutilative and irreversible gender transitioning procedures.'
The TCH scandal underscores how sex-reassignment treatments for children have become a frontline in America's culture wars, and how hospitals providing such care in red states increasingly operate in a gray area.
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Tough New Hate Crime Law Has Irish Fearful Their Luck's Running Out on Free Speech
Holy Ireland has gone to the Devil
Ireland is on the verge of passing the most aggressive hate crime law in the European Union, which includes the first legal protections in the EU for transgender individuals. Government officials say the bill offers necessary protections at a time when immigration is on the rise and traditional ideas about sex and gender are being challenged.
Critics counter that the bill’s vague language could be used to enforce the increasingly progressive Irish government’s increasingly woke agenda and forcibly muzzle critics of unpopular government policies.
The legislation, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act, underscores a divide between Ireland’s leaders and many of its people. The bill is making its way through Parliament, winning approval last month in the Dáil Éireann, Ireland’s lower chamber, by a vote of 110-14.
But Irish citizens, in a 2019 consultation phase, overwhelmingly expressed a worry that the proposal was an unnecessary expansion of the country’s existing hate crimes law. Seventy-three percent of respondents took issue with the bill’s potential for encroachment on free speech and questioned what qualifies as “hate speech,” particularly asking who crafts that definition. Less than 25% of those polled approved of the legislation.
Underscoring this divide, critics of the bill note that fewer than 50 cases have been brought since the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act was signed into law in 1989. A supporter of the proposed law, former Justice Minister Helen McEntee, has cited that same statistic as evidence of the existing law’s “ineffective” nature.
The ongoing controversy opens a window into how quickly Ireland, which only legalized abortion in 2018, is moving from its long religious traditions at a time when leaders in other European countries and the United States are seeking to create laws that punish not just deeds but thoughts.
Over the past 30 years or so, the Irish nation has become increasingly progressive. In 2015, the Emerald Isle legalized gay marriage, just two years after the progressive vanguard of France did the same. That same year, Ireland was ranked among the top 10 most LGBT-friendly nations in the world, and the present taoiseach (Ireland’s word for prime minister) Leo Varadkar is openly gay. The proposed law would expand the 1989 law’s purview by adding gender, sex, descent and disability to the list of protected categories, which already includes race, color, nationality, religion (including “the absence of a religious conviction or belief”), national or ethnic origin, descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, or disability.
The bill treats not just public presentation or dissemination of material deemed hateful, but also private preparation or even storing of material deemed hateful, such as memes on your phone or books on your shelf. Individuals convicted on such charges face fines of up to €5,000 (about $5,400) and anywhere from six months to two years in prison. Furthermore, as McEntee noted, a conviction “will allow for the ‘hate criminal’ label to follow an offender in court, in garda [police] vetting, and so on… ”
Paul Murphy, a member of the left-wing People Before Profit-Solidarity coalition, even warned the bill will legislate “the creation of a thought crime.” Conservative chairman of the Irish Freedom Party Michael Leahy told RealClearInvestigations that the bill “represents the most far-reaching and invasive attack against civil and religious liberty enacted in any Western democracy since the Second World War.”
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Uber's Diversity Chief Forced to Take Leave After Employee Outrage Over 'Don't Call Me Karen' Event
Must not defend any white woman
Because you can never be woke enough Bo Young Lee, Uber’s Chief of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, has been temporarily put on leave by the tech behemoth from Silicon Valley after facing internal backlash over an event she presided over, entitled “Don’t Call Me Karen“.
This discussion centered on the negative implications of the commonly invoked white woman stereotype.
A number of employees were distressed, believing the event diminished minority experiences, leading to the company’s acknowledgment, “We have heard that many of you are in pain and upset by yesterday’s Moving Forward session.”
As reported by The New York Times, Bo Young Lee, an Asian woman leading diversity, equity, and inclusion at Uber, has been asked to step back temporarily due to staff complaints regarding an event she led, perceived as neglectful towards minority sentiments.
Lee is the most recent executive to feel the heat from the socially conscious wave she helped nurture.
Some employees voiced worries that emphasizing the ‘Karen’ stereotype’s pejorative connotations shifted focus from what they believe are more pressing issues – systemic racism.
The event was meant to provide a platform for discussions around white women’s experiences and the ‘Karen‘ stereotype.
Nikki Krishnamurthy, Uber’s Chief People Officer, addressed the issue in an email to the staff, stating, “We have heard that many of you are in pain and upset by yesterday’s Moving Forward session. While it was meant to be a dialogue, it’s obvious that those who attended did not feel heard.”
The ‘Don’t Call Me Karen’ event, according to the invitation, was intended to foster “an open and honest conversation about race.”
However, employee responses suggested that instead of a broader dialogue on race, they felt subjected to a sermon on white women’s tribulations.
In current social lexicon, ‘Karen’ has become shorthand for a privileged, often entitled white woman, infamous for unnecessary complaints and creating discord.
Employees contended that the event’s focus on this term trivialized the presence and impact of racism on minority groups.
One employee, preferring anonymity, commented, “I think when people are called Karens it’s implied that this is someone that has little empathy to others or is bothered by minorities that don’t look like them. Why can’t bad behavior be called out?”
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, who has been shifting the company’s previously aggressive ethos towards greater diversity and inclusivity, is experiencing firsthand the challenges posed by progressive consciousness in Silicon Valley companies.
In the wake of the uproar, Uber spokesperson Noah Edwardsen confirmed in a statement, “I can confirm that Bo is currently on a leave of absence,” without providing additional details about the length or implications of the leave.
The workforce hailed this decision as a sign of Uber management’s responsiveness to their concerns.
An employee, expressing relief, noted that the executives “have heard us, they know we are hurting, and they want to understand what all happened too.”
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The myth of New World genocide
Shortly before the coronation of Charles III, a group of indigenous leaders from around the commonwealth released a statement. They called on the King ‘to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the indigenous and enslaved peoples,’ including ‘the oppression of our peoples, plundering of our resources, (and) denigration of our culture.’ Charles was told to ‘redistribute the wealth that underpins the crown back to the peoples from whom it was stolen.’ Yet the argument that Britain should pony up for its historical sins is based on a number of rickety assumptions.
One of these is that a substantial portion of the wealth of the UK, or the British Crown, derives from slavery or colonial exploitation. Famously, empire often cost more than it brought in. And, like the rest of northwest Europe, the UK was already wealthy before colonialism or the slave trade. Western Europe would have remained rich even in the absence of overseas adventurism. Germany, for example, was one of the world’s richest areas, long before it gained any colonies. It’s true that overseas resources were exploited; but this was not the sole source of Europe’s wealth. Far from it.
Even more questionable than the call for reparations are the claims of ‘genocide’ in the context of New World colonialism. Until a few years ago, only a tiny fringe of historians believed that European colonialism in the New World was ‘genocidal’. In the six-volume, 3,000+ page Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas (published 1996-2000) several dozen specialists saw fit to mention genocide precisely twice. In both of these instances, the scholars in question do so only to reiterate that it did not apply.
There are many reasons why historians long shied away from using the term ‘genocide’. There was a recognition that the word should be reserved only for extreme cases, such as the Nazis’ attempt to eliminate Europe’s Jews. Using the word to describe the activities of European colonisers and their respective governments surely falls short of this, because the elimination of native populations was seldom – if ever – a deliberate or sustained policy.
There are many reasons why historians long shied away from using the term ‘genocide’
The Spanish government, for example, went to great lengths to protect natives. In 1542, it passed the ‘New Laws of the Indies for the Good Treatment and Preservation of the Indians’. It also established self-governing Republicas de Indios, where Europeans were not allowed to own land. All of this was done with the purpose of increasing Indian population levels – and, by all accounts, it worked: native population levels began to recover soon after. Even when policies came closest to something we would recognise as ‘genocidal’, as during the American Trail of Tears debacle, context reveals a host of reasons why, even here, historians have been reluctant to use this term.
Native casualty rates across the New World were too low to justify calling what happened a ‘genocide.’ In the United States, where the native population might have approached 2,000,000 individuals prior to Christopher Columbus’ arrival, widely-accepted tallies show that the total number of natives massacred by whites prior to 1848 amounted to less than 8,000 individuals. Since populations renew themselves every generation, the total number of natives who were born, lived, and died in the territory of the United States between 1500 and 1900 was likely over 10,000,000.No matter how you do the maths, the number of natives who died by massacre was far less than one per cent of the population. Clearly any incidents like this were appalling, but such killings fall short of genocide.
In recent years, the study of history has become increasingly politicised. Claims of genocide across the New World have subsequently emerged – but these are riddled with demographic exaggerations. New Left darling Howard Zinn acknowledged that Hispaniola, the island where Columbus first landed in 1492, likely had about 250,000 people. However one academic dyad, named Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, infamously posited the absurd number of 8,000,000. This figure has since been taken up by those who wish to maximise the apparent damage done by Europeans to the New World. A historian named David Stannard, in his widely-cited book American Holocaust used this figure to suggest that what happened to the natives on Hispaniola was ‘the equivalent of fifty Hiroshimas’. Logic dictates, howvever, that the true population figure on Hispaniola in 1491 must have been far lower than one million, let alone seven or eight million. The island is only about 60 per cent the size of England and the population of England in 1491 was likely about two million. England in 1500 had one of the most advanced agricultural regimes on Earth. Hispaniola, by contrast, remained mostly forested; as a result, the land would have been able to sustain a much smaller number of people. Genetic studies have suggested that Hispaniola only had ‘a few tens of thousands’ of people in 1491. All evidence therefore suggests that Stannard’s ‘fifty Hiroshimas’ figure is a wild exaggeration.
Claims of ‘genocide’ are even harder to justify when you consider that the major population nuclei of Columbus’ day have survived and thrived into the present. In 1491, the New World held only about 10 per cent as many people as the Old World. Central Mexico and environs held roughly 50 per cent of the entire New World population, and greater Peru held another 25 per cent. By contrast, most of the future United States and Canada were thinly populated, and were home to only about 10 per cent of the New World population. In all of the modern-day countries corresponding to pre-Columbian population nuclei – including Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. – the population remains more than 80 per cent mixed-race or indigenous, and less than 20 per cent European.
Most of these people died hundreds of miles from any European
If Europeans set foot in the New World with the aim of replacing indigenous people with European stock via the doctrine of ‘settler colonialism,’ they appear to have failed rather miserably. Recent genetic studies have revealed Mexico to be one of the most genetically diverse countries in the world. The survival of over 60 indigenous languages in Mexico also makes it difficult to argue that Spanish attempts at cultural genocide were as devastating as some pundits suggest. In fact, historians recognise that much of the indigenous cultural suppression in Mexico occurred in the nineteenth century, after the country became independent.
It is universally acknowledged (even by Stannard) that the vast majority of natives who did die after contact died of disease, rather than massacre or abuse. Most of these people died hundreds of miles from any European, and so claims of smallpox-blanket-spreading have been circulated in a disingenuous effort to make Europeans look culpable for a natural biological process over which they had no control.
Such claims of biological warfare are widely believed but have almost no basis in fact. According to the historians Paul Kelton and Philip Ranlet, the single unambiguously recorded instance of an attempt to spread smallpox to Native Americans via contaminated blankets or clothing occurred in the vicinity of Fort Pitt in 1763. What’s more, the commanders in question (Jeffery Amherst and Henry Bouquet), are on record as saying that this might not be a great idea – not only because it was dishonourable, but because it might result in the spreading of smallpox to their own troops.
Rather than spreading smallpox on purpose, as soon as they did gain a modicum of control over this and other diseases, Europeans actually set about protecting native populations against them. The United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, and other New World governments spent the majority of the nineteenth century funding vaccination programmes – vaccination programmes which are seldom researched by modern historians, but which eventually reached hundreds of thousands of individuals. This saved far more native lives than Europeans are accused of massacring during the same century.
These programmes were inaugurated as soon as relevant medical advancements were made. Edward Jenner perfected a smallpox vaccine in 1796, improving on an earlier technique known as variolation. Jenner was personally moved by the plight of the indigenous Americans, and in 1807 corresponded with the Chief of the Five Nations in an effort to facilitate vaccination amongst his people. He received a letter of thanks from the chief for his assistance in ‘driving the fatal enemy of [our] tribes from the Earth.’
In the United States, Thomas Jefferson arranged to have the vaccine sent west with Louis and Clark, with the hope it could induce Indians to get themselves vaccinated in greater numbers in the future. Andrew Jackson, the same president accused of genocide for the Trail of Tears debacle, is also responsible for the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832. Not to be outdone, the Spanish government had, by 1803, sent Dr. D. Francisco Xavier de Balmis to oversee the vaccination of the native population of the Spanish New World. De Balmis later reported that he had vaccinated some 50,000 natives in Peru alone, and established vaccination programmes as far north as Sonora.
The myth of New World genocide is a novel take on European colonialism that almost no historian agreed with prior to 2010. Originally propagated by a handful of left-leaning academic radicals, it has recently moved into the mainstream, despite the fact that the evidence has barely changed. This crisis of historical understanding is, in turn, being taken advantage of by a handful of people, who stand to profit enormously from a sense of public shame based on these historical misconceptions.
In order to ground this debate in reality once more, we must stop imagining that ‘native leaders’ are somehow unimpeachable. We must further shed the illusion that native leaders all think the same thing, simply because they are ‘natives’. In reality, native leaders hold a wide spectrum of political beliefs, and they are just as fallible, and liable to political machinations, as anyone else. The group who signed the petition to Charles III represent a tiny minority of the most vocally antagonistic such leaders, yearning for a bit of publicity. It is a serious mistake to take theirs as a representative opinion.
Furthermore, those native leaders who insist on obviously political and potentially damaging courses of action – such as massive reparations payments, or the repatriation of artefacts that were only saved from oblivion by the stable institutions of certain Western countries – must expect to be held to account. Many of the artefacts held in British museums, for example, were sold by indigenous elites to British explorers. How, precisely, does this constitute ‘plunder’? In the present academic climate, genuine scrutiny is nearly impossible. Some are taking advantage of this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to draw untold riches from the public purse towards themselves and their allies, before the woke zeitgeist is finally put to rest.
Those who call for reparations often base their arguments on the writings of politically-motivated genocide scholars. These (mostly white, comfortably middle-class) individuals might imagine they are helping modern-day victims of ‘systemic racism’. But such stories of perpetual victimisation are likely to do more harm than good to modern native populations: they might well encourage native youth to drop out of mainstream society in despair, rather than participate in it with an aim to self-improvement. Generations of Native Americans, for example, have turned their peoples’ warrior traditions into a career in the US military – but will this proud tradition continue under the current social climate? As long as only one side is allowed to air their views of native history, then the real, potentially lifesaving data about the true causes of modern native social ills will be submerged – to the detriment of the very people those on the left claim to be defending.
Instead of helping the victims of past genocides, self-appointed genocide scholars are, in some cases, inadvertently facilitating real-world, real-time crackdowns. They do this, in part, by bolstering autocratic leaders’ confidence that the West’s moral posturing is hypocrisy of the highest order – which is music to their autocratic ears. Despots, in turn, broadcast the hyperbole churned out by genocide scholars because its veneer of academic rigour lends it credence as propaganda. This can be used to convince subject populations that democracy is a sham.
According to an article called ‘The American Genocide of the Indians – Historical Facts and Real Evidence,’ posted to the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China:
‘Peter Burnett, the first governor of California, proposed a war of extermination against Native Americans, triggering rising calls for the extermination of Indians in the state… From 1846 to 1873, the Indian population in California dropped to 30,000 from 150,000. Countless Indians died as a result of the atrocities.’
What happened to the California natives from the later 1840s was undoubtedly one of the most shameful incidents in US history. But the true death toll by massacre in California was less than a tenth of what is alleged here. One does not need to look far to deduce from whence the Chinese authorities plucked this idea: it is likely taken from Benjamin Madley’s 2016 book An American Genocide. This book makes unprecedented claims about genocide in California, but American award presenters have been falling over themselves to festoon it.
It is vital then that historians robustly challenge novel write-ups that claim ‘genocide’, where no historian saw them before. For this to happen, both the historical establishment at large, and the university administrators who appoint historians to their posts, must actively guarantee researchers full freedom to challenge these novel interpretations. One wonders how genocide scholars can feel proud of their accomplishments, when they know that no practising historian would dare to criticise their arguments in a robust manner. Without the possibility of valid criticism, science becomes impossible, and ‘proofs’ become nothing more than dogma dressed up in clever words.
If we manage to restore a modicum of balance to historical discussions of colonialism and European genocide, we will quickly realise that much of what is currently being claimed is exaggerated, and that the opinion of the majority of historians prior to 2010 or so is closer to the truth. Until then, we can expect to be bombarded with opportunist claims for artefact repatriation, reparations, and official apologies. And we can expect that many of our greatest institutions – institutions that have done an unprecedented amount of good for all of humanity, such as when the British monarchy repeatedly helped to end the scourge of global slavery – will continue to be pelted with rhetorical rubbish
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-myth-of-new-world-genocide/
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24 May, 2023
The cancellation of classical music
I am rather glad I have got all my favorite stuff on recordings
Until August 2020, Dona Vaughn had been the longtime artistic director of opera at the Manhattan School of Music. Her experience included singing, acting and directing on and off Broadway and on opera stages. The Manhattan School of Music’s 2019 production of Saverio Mercadante’s little-known opera buffa, I due Figaro, showed her influence in stunningly charismatic and witty student performances.
Vaughn was committed to championing minority musicians – so much so that she endowed a scholarship for them at her alma mater, Brevard College in North Carolina. ‘In all my years of teaching’, she said at the time, ‘I often have wished that more minority members were encouraged to pursue a music profession’. Besides the classics, she produced socially conscious contemporary works, giving the first professional staging, for example, at the Fort Worth Opera Festival of a feminist opera about a 17th-century nun.
The mob cares nothing for facts, though. On 17 June 2020, Vaughn was teaching a class via Zoom on musical theatre. An unidentified participant, whose name and image were blacked out, asked her, out of the blue, how she could justify having produced Franz Lehár’s allegedly racist operetta, Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles), several years earlier. (The racial sin, in this case, was allegedly against Asians.) Vaughn cut the questioner off for raising an issue irrelevant to the current discussion.
The fuse was lit. A Manhattan School of Music student petition was immediately forthcoming. Vaughn must be fired because she is a ‘danger to the arts community’, it thundered. The petition resurrected a meme from the time of the Lehár production: that Vaughn had cast a black singer as a butler, thus supposedly proving her racism. For good measure, the petition threw in unspecified ‘reports’ of ‘homophobic aggression and body shaming’. The petition quickly garnered 1,800 signatures. Phoney Instagram accounts under Vaughn’s name suddenly appeared on the web, containing fake inflammatory material
Vaughn’s colleagues, cowering from the mob, let her twist in the wind. Almost none came to her defence. Vaughn was fired and replaced by a black male.
The Manhattan School of Music administration apparently made no effort to speak with Vaughn’s former students, who would have rebutted the false charges against her. Howard Watkins is a black assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and a faculty member at Juilliard; he has accompanied world-famous singers and conducted at some of the most prestigious venues in the industry. In a heartfelt character reference after she had been fired, he chronicled his history with Vaughn. In 1988, he was enrolled in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Programme at the Metropolitan Opera. Vaughn was the programme’s stage director and acting coach. Watkins wrote that Vaughn was responsible for many of his greatest experiences there. ‘Her classes provided all of us with specific tools towards improving our artistic growth and understanding… It is tremendously sad that the students of Manhattan School have been deprived of the opportunity of learning from someone with vast knowledge, the passionate desire to see them succeed and the integrity to say what must be said for them to grow.’
Bass-baritone LaMarcus Miller – also black – worked in Vaughn’s Opera Workshop and Opera Lab at the Manhattan School of Music in the early 2010s. She was a ‘pillar of integrity’ and the ‘epitome of a mentor’, he said. ‘I’ve only seen her be tremendously inclusive, while holding students accountable for their actions.’
Days after the firing, the anonymous petition instigator posted a follow-up:
‘Victory! Dona D Vaughn has been removed from her position at MSM. Thank you to everyone who supported this petition. The work is never over and I hope you all feel strengthened by this victory.’
The ‘hope’ is well-founded; on to the next takedown. As for Vaughn, she was in shock. ‘I do not have words to describe it. It’s guilt by allegation’, she said at the time.
Musicology in the dock
In recent years, another academic has also been fighting back against a similarly false allegation of racism. Timothy Jackson is a music theory professor at the University of North Texas. He specialises in the work of 20th-century Austrian music theorist Heinrich Schenker, who developed an influential system of analysis that identifies the most important elements of a musical phrase in order to explain the phrase’s emotional impact and its role within a work’s thematic development. Jackson is also the former head of the Centre for Schenkerian Studies and the former editor of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies.
In November 2019, Hunter College musicologist Philip Ewell gave a keynote address at the annual meeting of the Society for Music Theory, titled ‘Music Theory’s White Racial Frame’. Ewell argued that Schenker’s ranking of notes and harmonies within a composition is merely a stand-in for a white supremacist ranking of the races. The ‘white racial frame’ of Schenkerian analysis has kept blacks from becoming music theorists, Ewell maintained.
Jackson responded by putting out a call to members of the Society for Music Theory (including to Ewell) to contribute to a symposium in the Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The majority of the essays, published in July 2020, were critical, although some were supportive. But few stated the obvious: that to equate Schenker’s ranking of notes and harmonies with racial hierarchies is lunacy.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/05/20/the-cancellation-of-classical-music/
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UK: Plot to drive out equality chief who's standing up for women: Whistleblowers at human rights commission say boss is facing 'witch hunt' from trans lobby
Staff at the equalities watchdog were tonight accused of trying to oust their chairman over her stance on trans issues.
Whistleblowers say Kishwer Falkner is the victim of a 'witch-hunt' driven by ideology.
Relations are said to have soured after she backed legal reforms guarding the rights of biological women in single-sex spaces such as hospital wards and toilets.
The employees at the Equality and Human Rights Commission are said to have compiled a dossier, setting out more than 40 complaints aimed at Baroness Falkner by a dozen current and former colleagues. A source said: 'People within the organisation are deeply concerned that this is a witch-hunt.
'The timing is extremely questionable. There is no doubt in my mind that this is ideologically motivated and is a way to take a scalp in revenge.
'She is the woman breaking woke and now they are trying to break her.'
Baroness Falkner is said to have been left 'heartbroken' by the allegations but those close to her said her 'conscience was clear'. They branded the move by EHRC staff a 'failed coup d'etat'.
Among the accusations facing Baroness Falkner is that she referred to a trans quiz show contestant as a 'bloke in lipstick' during a meeting.
However, a source last night insisted the comment had been taken out of context and that Baroness Falkner had simply been highlighting the level of abuse directed at trans women online.
Members of the commission's board, which is headed by Baroness Falkner, have called for an overhaul of the 2010 Equality Act, which refers to gender and sex interchangeably.
They argue it should be amended to explicitly define sex as 'biological sex' to bring legal clarity in areas including sport and ensure only 'biological women' can use single-sex spaces.
The whistleblower said: 'The EHRC exists to regulate the application of all rights, but sometimes rights compete and you have to balance them.
'But we see time and time again that there is a huge price to pay for the people who do speak up for women's rights and they are cancelled.'
The move has seen the baroness and the rest of the commission's oversight board vilified by trans activists online.
There have also been leaks to Left-leaning media outlets branding her a 'wolf in sheep's clothing' and 'transphobic'.
Staff from the executive team were said to having been pushing to allow for gender self-identification, allowing trans people to state their chosen gender without any medical diagnosis.
A second source said: 'The executive just refused to accept the board's decision. There were strenuous efforts to reject it and it was around this time allegations were starting to be made.
'There is a very progressive, activist-inclined staff who are influenced by organisations and groups like Stonewall.'
The source said senior executives had grown accustomed to calling the shots at the commission but this changed when Baroness Falkner took over to provide 'real leadership'.
They said the complaints felt like a move to 'get her', adding: 'This process of finding fault with Kishwer is clearly political.' The dossier is said to have made claims of discrimination, including transphobia, bullying and harassment.
There was also an allegation that the baroness employed 'discriminatory language' by using the words 'a bloke in lipstick' when discussing the online trolling of a trans quiz contestant who appeared on BBC Radio 4's Brain of Britain.
However a source said the comment had been taken out of context and she had simply been highlighting the level of abuse directed at trans women online.
Quango promotes 'fairness for all'
A quango set up by New Labour, the Equality and Human Rights Commission opened its doors in 2007. It was designed to provide 'fairness for all', providing a single discrimination watchdog to replace existing bodies that focused on race, disability and equal opportunities.
Founding chairman Trevor Phillips was dogged by complaints about his 'divisive leadership', which was said to have led to six commissioners quitting. And lawyer and former Stonewall chairman David Isaac, who was chairman of the EHRC from 2016, faced conflict of interest claims because his law firm Pinsent Masons carried out 'significant work for the Government'.
His successor Baroness Falkner was a Lib Dem peer for 15 years – yet has been accused of backing Conservative ministers in the trans debate. Early in her tenure she declared that women must have the right to question gender ideology.
Both sources the Mail has spoken to say the complainants failed to raise the issues via the correct channels at the time, instead choosing to compile the dossier, which has led to a costly independent KC-led investigation.
'All sort of errors have occurred. The board was never consulted when some complaints were eventually made,' one said.
'The whole thing was escalated and lots of external bodies have been brought in and we've ended up with this KC.
'The whole thing has mushroomed at enormous cost.'
The allegations against Baroness Falkner have been leaked to Channel 4 News, which is believed to be planning to run a report on the issue this week – something the sources say could 'jeopardise' the investigation.
The news programme, which has been accused of Left-wing bias in the past, is thought to have interviewed as many as 20 people.
The Channel 4 News special is expected to suggest staff fear the EHRC is no longer independent and has colluded with the Government to undermine trans rights.
Baroness Falkner last night refused to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
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America’s giving a big thumbs-down to the injustice of trans athletes - because finally, we’re not too scared to call it out for the madness it really is
The backlash is building. Women and girls are beginning to publicly agitate, to speak the unspeakable, to quit fearing the woke mob and say: ENOUGH.
Enough with trans athletes stealing hard-won victories and scholarships.
Enough with biological females reduced to ornaments on podiums, meant to happily stand alongside biological males who have unfairly won.
Enough with being forced to share once-safe spaces, be they locker rooms or sorority houses.
Enough with corporations turning womanhood into insulting pantomime, frippery, one big joke.
Enough.
We women need the iconography of defiance, because governing bodies — be they in sport, medicine, school boards or C-suites — aren’t listening. Yet.
But they will. After all, how much longer can they ignore the accretion of protests, anger and frustration that is starting to override the fear of being labeled a transphobe or a bigot or of being cancelled?
As the wise Kris Kristofferson once wrote, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’
Women and girls are realizing this. We really do have nothing left to lose, because so much has already been taken from us.
More iconography: The trans cyclist standing alone on the podium after beating two biological females in a 100-mile desert gravel race.
‘I have no idea why so many people bailed before the podiums,’ said Lesley Mumford, who transitioned in 2017 and raced in the all-female category. ‘But they did.’
The only thing more infuriating than biological males competing against females is their false wonderment upon wiping the floor with them: What could possibly be wrong? What could these women be so upset about? Why are they overreacting?
That latter sentiment, of course, weighted with centuries-old misogyny.
Mumford could have raced in a non-binary category but chose not to, beating the nearest female competitor by 17 minutes and the third-place finisher by half an hour. That's what we call a stolen victory.
Mumford should be ashamed. Instead, all we see is pride.
Inga Thompson, the three-time American Olympic cyclist, recently called for female athletes to take a knee.
Days later, Cynisca Cycling – who claim they are ‘committed to advancing women in the sport’ – announced that Thompson was no longer on its board of directors and had no role whatsoever within the pro team.
Something tells me Cynisca will regret that.
Think, too, of the brave sorority sisters at the University of Wyoming, suing because the national Kappa Kappa Gamma organization allowed a 6ft 2in, 220-pound trans student to join their group and has done nothing while they ‘live in constant fear.’
They claim the Artemis Langford, a biological male, has sat and watched the girls silently for hours, and even had visible erections around the sorority house.
What decent person gets off on making college girls feel unsafe?
‘Our house is our home,’ one sister told journalist Megyn Kelly on her podcast. ‘You go home at the end of the day to feel comfortable and relaxed in your own skin. And you can’t do that knowing that this individual has full access to your house.’
How is this considered a big ask? How is feeling free from threat in your own home not considered a basic human right?
How is it okay that parents aren’t notified that their child identifies as transgender — as, most recently, California ratified in April? Or that two children’s hospitals in Texas are under investigation for providing transition-related medical care, despite a state-wide ban on such practices expected to come into effect in September?
And how is it that corporations such as Adidas and Target haven’t learned from Budweiser’s Dylan Mulvaney disaster? Or Nike’s, for that matter?
Budweiser’s sales have tanked every week since the beginning of April, and despite leaning back into their original branding — see their latest ad complete with a Clydesdale, wheat farms and veterans raising the American flag, hand over heart, none too subtle — the hit may be permanent.
Nike lost $4 billion in the days after the breast-less Mulvaney posted a video ‘working out’ in a women’s sports bra, mincing about as if mocking female sport.
‘Literally a kick in the teeth,’ said retired UK Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies of the Nike-Mulvaney partnership. ‘Women are being treated with total disdain at the moment, particularly in the world of sport where physiology makes so much difference.’
Make no mistake: This is no mere culture war.
This is about the eradication of girls and women, of their financial and professional opportunities, of their rights to compete fairly, of their physical safety.
There is no other cohort on earth, as I’ve said before, that would ever be so dehumanized, let alone expected to sit back and take it happily.
To allow this to continue is to weep for the next generation of girls. We women fought long and hard so they could have every freedom they deserve.
Now is the time to raise a fist, take a knee, add your voice to the protest.
Inga Thompson, Riley Gaines, Martina Navratilova, Sharron Davies, the sorority sisters in Wyoming, the mothers, sisters and daughters who boycott and defy — we’re all are on the right side of history.
The movement is building. The snowball will become an avalanche. Who next among the famous and influential is brave enough to join?
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The supremacy of feelings
We now have various psychological contexts being determined under regulation in Australia. One example is the workplace, which has changed from being a place of respect, to being a fantasy land of feel-goodism.
As reported by Sky News Australia, a new national code of conduct describes mental safety in the workplace as being just as important as physical safety. Of course, we do not want anyone taking advantage of others at work, but the way this regulation is explained puts the responsibility on employers for the mental health of their workers. As often happens, ‘the devil is in the detail’, or in this case, the lack of coherent conceptual thought that makes managing the detail impossible.
Responsibility for others’ ‘mental health’? Really? Then answer me this – what is ‘mental health’, or even more basically, what is the ‘mind’? Whose responsibility is it to monitor how we think? Are emotions simply a matter of the mind? If we believe the mind is simply the outworking of our physical predispositions and capacities that are expressed through past and current social contexts, then we might assume we can plan perfect environments that will make all our people happy – for happiness is the standard of wellbeing these days. And if all factors for happiness and wellbeing can be known through personality tests and social engineering, then we can create near-perfect environments. We already have a good handle on that and we call those places ‘zoos’. Trouble is, people are not just animals.
An additional problem is that happiness and wellbeing are so utterly self-referential in our therapeutic age. What system can be used to decide whose feelings to validate? Oh wait, of course, we already have that. It is called Critical Race Theory, and all we need to do is to label people by race to determine who is oppressed, who are oppressors, and therefore, who to move on if someone or a group claim that is not being validated.
The implied assumption behind this kind of regulation is that if you have authority, because you are responsible for others, then you are the one with greater power. If your people feel offended, uncomfortable, or unhappy, it is always your fault as ‘the boss’. This is because, in our emotion-focused age, the one in authority is always the oppressor, and the worker is the oppressed. As one of my teachers said to me once when I was a school principal, ‘Your job is to keep me stress-free!’ So much for ‘no pain, no gain’, or ‘no challenge, no growth’.
This new requirement is not science-based regulation. It is a mixture of good ideas encased in Romanticists’ false notions of life, wrapped up in a therapeutised understanding of self that denies our world of wonder and pain. It is, at best, a move to help reinforce respect in the workplace. At its worst (which is my best guess), it is another way of destabilising the best of our law and mercy-based tradition while we move into a moral relativism that is impossible personally and socially. It is, put bluntly, an institutionalisation of a version of ‘the self’ that is incoherent, selfish, and clearly morally evasive.
Take this quote from Mental Health and Resilience Expert Graeme Cowan: ‘Every company has an obligation to have a psychologically safe and healthy workplace.’ This assumes companies (and the courts) will know what being psychologically safe means in the face of someone asserting: ‘But they made me uncomfortable so often!’
How will a court or commissioner make judgments about how someone reacted in their internal states to external events? Courts review evidence of fact – physical evidence of people in time and place. But his kind of regulation makes the regulator the arbiter of whose feelings are more valid. Such a situation leads to the weakening of understanding of what ‘proof’ looks like, and paves the way for an emotivist analysis of any conflict situation – one where if anyone can claim victimhood, it is expected that sympathy should automatically be with them.
Then there is this:
‘Psychological safety is where you feel you can be your authentic self, you feel that you can take risks and try new things and know that if it doesn’t work out you don’t get crucified – it’s really feeling connected with those around us, it’s having a sense of belonging.’
Note the language of ‘where you feel’. How can this be regulated? What if you are actually safe, but you feel as if you are not? Who will adjudicate that? A raft of psychologists? Psychiatrists? Lawyers? Magistrates? And who decides what ‘authentic self’ means for anyone at any point of time? The person on their testimony? How might that be checked, let alone supported? What if your ‘authentic self’ is at odds with the hope and goals of the group with which you are associating?
And what of these notions of being ‘connected’ and ‘belonging’? In matters of regulation, this is traditionally linked to checking that actions are not discriminatory according to certain individual characteristics in certain defined contexts. Traditionally, women were safe when they were connected to and belonged to a defined woman’s safe shelter. If a transgender woman was appointed to work in that woman’s shelter, whose feelings would be considered as more important? The women (female adult) workers, or the transgender person?
Or imagine a worker who declares that they are not feeling connected with those around them. Perhaps the reason is that they have low iron in their blood, causing a physical loss of focus and energy, which they interpret as ‘they are not allowing me to be me’. Can the workplace ask them to visit a physician, or would that be considered as being non-affirming of their interpretation of their emotions?
People cannot be reduced to their physical inheritances and capacity, not even in recognition of their social context, past and present. To understand each other, we need deeper, more human interaction. Legal regulation needs to stick to external evidence based on actions and responses. When law plays social-worker, justice becomes sentiment and complainants are assumed to be victims. The accused must therefore be bad, even if not proven. And worst still, the media is allowed to run commentary choosing their preferred narrative, and not chasing the facts of the matter.
But could that really happen? Oh wait, we have an investigation into something like this right now in our Capital – silly me, of course our capital will lead us in this incoherence.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-supremacy-of-feelings/
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23 May, 2023
What The Hell Is Wrong With These People?
When Leftism morphs into mental illness
Imagine literally being upset about your state government preventing you from physically removing the genitals from your minor child. It’s difficult to do, I know, because the very idea of butchering the body of a child is foreign to you, but there are a lot of people wildly upset by just that idea. Just as there is a slice of the public, small as it is, demanding Bud Light completely destroys itself in the name of “tolerance.” Then there are the wealthy white liberals who, as if it were a sexual fetish of theirs, demand they and their children, and by extension everyone’s children, be indoctrinated into the idea that they are responsible for things done by people who aren’t them that happened long before they were born. You really have to wonder what the hell is wrong with these people.
I get it, different strokes for different folks. But there are some things I will never understand. I know there are some adults who need to be humiliated sexually in order to enjoy themselves. I don’t really care what grown adults do in the privacy of their own homes, as long as who they do it with is of age and willing. I don’t have to explain their lives to God, they do.
But we aren’t dealing with people who want to keep their fetishes to themselves, we’re dealing with morons and narcissists who demand everyone participate in their manias, and that we be grateful for it. Absolutely not.
Chris Hayes, the MSNBC personality most likely to be mistaken for Rachel Maddow from behind (or front, for that matter), is wildly upset that parents will not be allowed to remove the penises from little boys in the state of Florida. Imagine being upset by that.
“The law DeSantis signed in Florida banning care for trans kids is despicable and a frontal assault on the vaunted ‘parental rights’ he and his ideological cohort have been screaming about for years,” the bowl-cut boob felt compelled to tweet at the world. “In Florida, you no longer get to make healthcare decisions for your own child: Ron DeSantis makes them. It doesn't matter what you think is best for your kids, Ron tells you.”
Chrissy is very upset that parents can’t turn an outie into an innie on a 5-year-old, which tells you something about him. Josef Mengele is looking up from Hell confused, wondering how his wildest dreams have been surpassed by people insisting they’re doing it for the child being mutilated own good.
You wouldn’t know it now, but not that long ago genital mutilation was condemned by both political parties, back when it was done in the Arab world. Then Democrats decided they could raise a little more money by supporting the idea for children in the United States and out came the scissors.
They’d already been supporting their white children being preached to about how their skin color made them guilty for something someone else with that skin color did centuries ago, while weirdly working tirelessly to keep actual guilty people out of prison in the name of “justice.” They empowered unstable “educators” with a sick compulsion to talk about their sex lives coupled with a desperate need for validation for their perverted life choices from children. Honestly, if you need your “throuple” to be cheered by kids or else you feel invalid, seek help or move to a deserted island somewhere, because you shouldn’t be allowed in the same zip code as kids.
Honestly, Jeffrey Epstein’s island is available, and it’s seen its share of sick things. It won’t judge you. Move there. But as long as you’re here, children will be protected from you making life altering decisions on their behalf before they understand the concept or while your Munchausen Syndrome remains undiagnosed.
Just imagine the world the left would love to construct – full of Target’s tucked-back bathing suits and binding tops (at least until they can be permanently disfigured through “gender affirming care”), white people flagellating themselves over what someone who may have looked like them did long ago (while ignoring the African tribes who ran the slave trade and supplied the captives), while black people are told they’ll never get ahead because of what happened centuries ago and taught to fear police (while nearly 10,000 of them are murdered by people who look like they do) and everyone drinks a Bud Light.
I don’t know what Hell is like, but that sure sounds like what would be in the box if they sold a kit to make it here on Earth, doesn’t it? The longer you think about it, the less you concern yourself with trying to figure out what is wrong with these people and the more you commit yourself to making sure they lose in any effort they make to impose their will on anyone.
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Police Arrest Teen for Handing Out Bibles
During the pandemic, we saw an unprecedented amount of tyranny against Christianity. In America, we have the right to gather together to worship God. This is enshrined in our Constitution. So when Democrats tried to shut down churches and tell them that they were no longer allowed to worship in the manner in which the bible prescribes, this caused a lot of controversy and opposition.
One of the most notable instances of this was in California at Grace Community Church where John MacArthur pastors. His church opposed the mandates and that ticked off Gavin Newsom to no end. He was so mad that he even stole their parking lot from them and allegedly had nails put in the parking lot to deter people from going there.
As bad as all of that was, things are a little worse in Canada, even at this very moment because they are arresting people up there.
On Wednesday in Calgary, Alberta, an altercation broke out between the Sava Canada group and pro-transgender counter-protestors during a demonstration. Reportedly, Canadian police arrested a teenager who was handing out bibles during the incident.
According to a report from Rebel News, 16-year-old Josh Alexander was reportedly handcuffed for causing a disturbance and inciting violence after approaching activists during an “International Walkout” event supported by the Liberty Coalition Canada.
“Today I was handcuffed and put in a paddy wagon for offering students bibles on a public sidewalk in Calgary,” Alexander said in a tweet. “I was released and told if I returned, I would be arrested and charged.”
“I continued handing out bibles,” he added. “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.”
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, condemned Canadian authorities in a tweet, accusing law enforcement of displaying a double standard of justice.
“If you burn a church in this country, the police won’t devote any resources to catching you,” Bernier said. “If you hand out bibles on the sidewalk however — or hold a rally to defend fundamental rights in a time of hysteria — you will be arrested and fined immediately. We’re a sick society.”
https://thedailymojo.com/police-arrest-teen-for-handing-out-bibles/
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Manliness in Modernity
Senator Josh Hawley recently released his book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs. In it, the Missouri Republican discusses the plight of modern men in finding their place in the world. His work is meant to encourage and strengthen men. Hawley puts forth a view of masculinity outlined in the Bible and highlights the virtues of masculine strength, sacrificial love, and courage.
Hawley’s stance has inspired backlash from the woke harpies, whose perspective is expressed in a nutshell by Jonathan Capehart of The Washington Post. Capehart wrote an excoriation of Senator Hawley back in August, when his book had yet to be published. According to Capehart, Hawley “is selling a vision of masculinity to White America that has much more to do with prejudice than manliness. It’s an old story — but a successful one, and one that’s poised to catch on. Stopping that from happening will require offering an alternative, with better examples of what being a man really means.”
Capehart describes Hawley’s brand of masculinity as men who are “victims [of] competition by women and non-White men in the labor market.”
The alternative that Capehart suggests? He quotes Jason Kander, a former Missouri legislator who wrote a book that touched on the same topic of masculinity but from a Democrat perspective. Kander wrote, “I knew that being a man meant being dependable, taking care of your people, and going where you’re needed.” But Kander’s perspective on that changed via his struggles with PTSD and suicidal thoughts after returning from Afghanistan. Ultimately, Kander’s favored manly virtue is that of vulnerability.
Hawley’s prescription is very similar: “The warrior loves something dearly and passionately more than himself. He loves his wife and children. He loves his nation. He loves God. And that love makes him strong.” But his ultimate virtues are bravery and sacrificial love.
What all of this has to do with whiteness is never explained by Capehart. Men are men regardless of skin color. Men living in the modern world are struggling, and Capehart dismisses that reality.
In our culture, men are called toxic, dangerous, unreliable, and bullies. Even the American Psychological Association essentially describes masculinity as a disease. Men are the sum of all evil. They commit the majority of the crimes, especially violent crimes. It is also generally men who start wars. The leftist worldview sees masculinity as the problem and seeks to feminize them. The feminization of men only leads to weak men. As political pundit Allie Beth Stuckey put it in a video for PragerU, “In a world of wickedness, weak men are nothing more than enablers of wicked men.”
Weak men are hooked on porn and video games, are self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, and are even working out to fight against their overwhelming anxiety or depression. Bad men are raping, killing, dominating, preying on children, stealing, and gaining as much political power as possible. Bad men are permitted to push forward with their evil in our culture because they have convinced weak men that it’s “compassionate” or “speaking for the oppressed.”
Masculinity isn’t the problem; the problem is the moral shaping and the output of aggression, violence, and ambition. The godly masculinity that Hawley promotes calls for aggression to be turned toward heroism, violence toward being a warrior, and ambition toward good leadership and being a society builder.
Hawley isn’t the only man trying to restore good masculinity to its rightful place. Republican Nicholas Freitas, who serves in the Virginia House of Delegates, has an entire Instagram dedicated to these ideas.
The website Art of Manliness is also full of practical male knowledge from fashion to getting a car unstuck from the mud. It’s men supporting men, and it’s particularly useful since many young men don’t have a father to pass on some of this manly knowledge.
We need men of all stripes, but mostly we need good men who can protect, defend, and build a thriving society. It’s just such a society that Hawley is envisioning for us with his book.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97406-manliness-in-modernity-2023-05-18 ?
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Greece election win for conservtives
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, whose party scored a thumping win at Sunday’s election, is a conservative political dynasty scion credited with putting the debt-ridden country back on the path of growth.
Mitsotakis has offered his country a rare respite from economic instability in the face of unprecedented global upheavals such as the coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine.
But a damaging wire-tapping scandal and public anger arising from a deadly train crash in February blighted the record of Mitsotakis, whose family has dominated Greek politics for decades.
The former Harvard graduate who worked at US financial consultancy McKinsey will be tasked by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou with forming a government. But he has signalled he will seek a new election, likely in a month’s time, in order to obtain an absolute majority to govern alone.
With just over 82 per cent of the ballot counted, his New Democracy party was credited with 40.8 per cent of the votes – a 20-point lead ahead of his nearest rival, leftist challenger Alexis Tsipras’ Syriza party, which garnered 20.1 per cent.
The result is a crushing blow to Tsipras, who has lost his fourth straight electoral battle to Mitsotakis after serving as premier in 2015 to 2019, during which he led rocky negotiations with creditors that nearly crashed Greece out of the euro.
Mitsotakis had been at the helm of his New Democracy party for three years before he took Greece’s top job in 2019.
The 55-year-old had then triumphed over Tsipras on a promise to fix Greece’s broken economy.
He insists he has no problem taking on the “dark state of anachronism” – as minister of administration reform from 2013 to 2015, he carried out rounds of painful layoffs in the public sector as part of the austerity deal.
Mitsotakis hails from a Greek political dynasty. His father Konstantinos Mitsotakis was prime minister from 1990 to 1993, his sister Dora Bakoyannis was Athens’ former mayor and an ex-minister, while her son is the capital’s current mayor.
Tall, slender and uptight, Mitsotakis, usually sports a white or light blue shirt, and courts selfies with teens in an effort to appear personable. But he is awkward around crowds, and has struggled to shake his elitist reputation.
An enduring image of Mitsotakis from his years as a technocrat has him seated at his office with an uppity look, gingerly holding an espresso cup while reading a newspaper.
But with nearly 440,000 youth votes at stake, the conservative leader has taken to posting behind-the-scenes clips from his campaign on TikTok.
He says he dreamt of becoming a basketball player, idolises his entrepreneur spouse, and watches the Netflix hit Emily in Paris to relax.
At the onset of the pandemic, Mitsotakis initially earned plaudits for keeping a lid on virus deaths. But he caused outrage at the height of a strict lockdown imposed by his government, when photos emerged showing him and his wife on mountain bikes in the company of other bikers on Mt Parnitha outside Athens.
But Greece’s remarkable economic recovery from the crippling impact of the pandemic is a valuable shot in the arm for Mitsotakis. Although the country lost out on its vital tourism revenues during the pandemic, Greece came back with growth hitting 8.3 per cent in 2021 and 5.9 per cent last year.
That was helped in part by a €57bn dished out by the government to cushion the impact of the pandemic and inflation.
With the vulnerabilities of the health sector cruelly exposed during the pandemic, Mitsotakis has promised to significantly invest in the national health service.
Also among his mantra are tax cuts for large properties, a smaller public sector and boosts in investment incentives for private enterprises.
But on social issues, he straddles liberalism with his backing for LGBTQ rights in a deeply religious country, while also seeking to win over the conservative base with a tough line on migration.
On the campaign trail at the border with Turkey, he vowed to extend a 37.5km, 5m-high steel fence to contain the migration flow.
The illegal wire-tapping scandal targeting journalists and political figures including socialist leader Nikos Androulakis had been a blow on his record.
Following anger over the deadly train crash of February 28, with critics slamming successive governments for under-investment in the railway, he has also vowed to correct the problem.
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22 May, 2023
What is 'Common Good Capitalism,' and Why Are Some Conservatives So Enamored?
Advocating for the common good has notable German precedents. Hitler shared with the German Left of his day the slogan: "Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz" (Common use before private use). And who preceded Hitler in that? Friedrich Engels at one stage ran a publication called "Gemeinnuetziges Wochenblatt" ("Common-use Weekly")
"Common-good capitalism" is all the rage these days with national conservatives. But what exactly is it, you may ask? That's a good question. As far as I can tell, it's a lovely sounding name for imposing one's preferred economic and social policies on Americans while pretending to be "improving" capitalism. If common-good capitalism's criticisms of the free-market and prescriptions for its improvement were ice cream, it would be identical in all but its serving container to what much of the Left has been dishing up for decades.
The wider adoption of the term Common-Good Capitalism (CGC) can be traced back to a speech given by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., at Catholic University in 2019. While there are different strains of common-good capitalism, they all have in common the goal of producing a more balanced and stable economy that better serves the nation and its people.
The common good is, of course, a vague and subjective concept, the details of which are hard to pin down. Its advocates claim it's an alternative form of conservative governance meant to promote things like tradition, workers' dignity, religion, order and families, rather than the singular free-market focus of personal liberties and economic freedom. How exactly government policies will be used to mold capitalism into achieving these goals -- many of which go further than economics -- is unclear. This haziness explains why those defending common-good capitalism usually do so only by listing what they see as wrong with the free market, rather than by giving their audiences specific details.
For instance, common-good advocates' complaints about no-prefix capitalism often include excessive income inequality caused by greedy, cosmopolitan capitalists who heartlessly offshore jobs to low-wage foreign countries, or gripes about corporations somehow simultaneously charging monopolistically high prices that hurt consumers and low prices that threaten small firms and damage local communities. I wouldn't blame you if you thought these complaints were coming from the likes of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
While I don't dismiss some of their complaints about the underperformance of the economy -- specifically the hardships suffered by some workers and families -- common-good capitalists make the same mistakes as their counterparts on the Left. They start by mistaking problems caused by government intervention for problems inherent in the free market. They end by offering up even more government interventions as supposed solutions.
It's striking to listen to CGC advocates act as if today's markets have been freed of all the fetters that I and other advocates of small government have warned about for decades. The size and scope of the government say otherwise. With $31 trillion in debt, more than $6 trillion in annual federal government spending and a future 30-year government shortfall of $114 trillion, it's ludicrous to assert that the dominant governing philosophy in Washington over the past 50 years has been Milton Friedman-style market theory. Also contradicting the common-good capitalists' mythmaking is the well-documented burden imposed by the regulatory state at all levels of government.
But rather than demanding fewer government-erected barriers to exchange, employment and housing affordability, the CGC crowd wants tariffs to obstruct consumers' access to inexpensive imports. They want to line the pockets of the firms they favor while punishing those they dislike. Further, these "capitalists" want to forbid the business practices that they think favor capital over labor, when in reality capital fuels innovation, hiring and higher wages. And they want to make families artificially dependent on government design with policies such as federal mandated paid leave and extended child tax credits. These policies, of course, are favored also by the Left.
In the end, CGC champions the same tired policies that big-government types predictably propose whenever they see something they don't like. Industrial policy, export bans and other forms of protectionism are, based on ample evidence, terrible for both economic resiliency and efficiency -- and thus for workers and families. What's more, research suggests that giving relatively large amounts of money to parents without any strings attached disincentivizes work and makes more child poverty likely.
At every turn, common-good capitalism implies a greater role for government in regulating and directing the market to achieve the fancies of common-good capitalists. Who truly believes that such interventions won't result in more inefficiency, corruption and political capture by special interests? I don't. I also worry that common-good capitalists won't be interested in balancing the rights and the freedoms of those persons who disagree with their economic and social designs.
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Hillary Clinton says Trump supporters are mentally ill
Hillary Clinton has suggested Donald Trump supporters are mentally unwell, complicating any longshot comeback by the former secretary of state amid questions surrounding Joe Biden’s ability to lead the Democrat ticket for president in 2024.
In comments reminiscent of her controversial “basket of deplorables” description of Republican voters during her unsuccessful campaign for president in 2016, the former secretary of state questioned the rationality of Mr Trump’s supporters.
“Any sensible person who looks at that former president and says, ‘oh, let’s do this again’, needs an intervention because he’s only gotten worse,” she said at a Financial Times conference in Washington overnight on Saturday.
Mr Trump, facing a series of potential and actual criminal and civil investigations, remains the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president, enjoying upwards of 50 per cent of support among Republicans according to most recent polls.
A national ABC/Washington Post poll published earlier this month put the former president’s support at 49 per cent, seven percentage points ahead of Joe Biden, 80, on the question of a hypothetical 2024 rematch, as the incumbent Democrat struggles to generate momentum.
Mrs Clinton, 74, who has said she wouldn’t put herself forward as a candidate again, dismissed concerns about Mr Biden’s age and declared US democracy would end if the former president won a second term.
“[A Trump victory] would be the end of democracy in the United States, and it would be the end of Ukraine in a week; he will pull us out of NATO if he wins again, just like he pulled us out of the Iran deal and out of the Paris accords,” she said.
The veteran Democrat powerbroker and wife of former president Bill Clinton also, confusingly, suggested Vladimir Putin – whom she described as a “complicated, Messianic, narcissistic, authoritarian” – would not have invaded Ukraine if Mr Trump had won re-election in 2020.
“[Putin] launched his invasion, his second invasion of Ukraine, in part because Trump lost, because he thought if Trump had won, Trump would have pulled us out of NATO, it would literally have been a cakewalk for him,” she said.
“And so when Trump didn’t win, [Putin] figured he had to go forward, he thought he had enough chips with the Germans and others to prevent a united front in support of Ukraine against his invasion. He turned out to have absolutely the wrong calculation.
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WHO says artificial sweeteners are no good for weight loss or health. Is sugar better?
Artificial sweeteners could make you FATTER
This week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) advised that “non-sugar sweeteners should not be used as a means of achieving weight control or reducing the risk of non-communicable diseases” such as diabetes and heart disease.
Artificial sweeteners are either natural compounds or synthesised compounds that taste sweet like sugar – and are up to 400 times sweeter by weight – but provide no or negligible energy.
As a comparison, sugar has 17 kilojoules (or four calories) per gram, so one teaspoon of sugar would have 85 kilojoules.
Several types of artificial sweeteners are used in Australia. Some are synthetic, others are extracted from foods such as monk fruit and the stevia plant.
So, what do the new WHO guidelines mean for people who have switched to artificial sweeteners for health reasons? Should they just go back to sugar?
Promoted for weight loss
As a practising clinical dietitian in the 1990s, I remember when artificial sweeteners began to appear in processed foods. They were promoted as a way of substituting sugar into food products that may lead to weight loss.
A can of sugar-sweetened soft drink contains on average about 500 kilojoules. Theoretically, the substitution of one sugar-sweetened can of soft drink with an artificially sweetened can of soft drink every day would reduce your weight by about 1 kilogram per month.
But research over the past few decades shows this doesn’t hold up.
What’s the new advice based on?
The WHO has based its recommendation on a systematic review it has conducted. Its objective was to provide evidence-based guidance on the use of artificial sweeteners in weight management and for disease prevention.
Weight management is important, given obesity increases the risk of diseases such as diabetes and certain types of cancer, which are the leading cause of death globally.
The WHO’s systematic review included data from different types of studies, which give us different information:
50 were randomised controlled trials (when scientists intervene and make changes – in this case to the diet – while keeping everything else constant, to see the impact of that change)
97 were prospective cohort studies (when scientists observe a risk factor in a large group of people over a period of time to see how it impacts an outcome – without intervening or make any changes)
47 were case-control studies (another type of observational study that follows and compares two groups of otherwise matched people, aside from the risk factor of interest).
Randomised controlled trials provide us with causal data, allowing us to say the intervention led to the change we saw.
Prospective cohort and case control only give us associations or links. We can’t prove the risk factors led to a change in the outcomes – in this case, weight – because other risk factors that scientists haven’t considered could be responsible.
But they give great clues about what might be happening, particularly if we can’t do a trial because it’s unethical or unsafe to give or withhold specific treatments.
The WHO’s systematic review looked at body fatness, non-communicable diseases and death.
For body fatness, the randomised controlled trials showed those consuming more artificial sweeteners had slightly lower weight – an average of 0.71 kilograms – than those consuming less or no artificial sweeteners.
But the cohort studies found higher intakes of artificial sweeteners were associated with a higher body mass index (BMI) or (0.14 kg/m2) and a 76 per cent increased likelihood of having obesity.
The prospective cohort studies showed for higher intakes of artificial sweetened beverages there was a 23 per cent increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes.
If artificial sweeteners were consumed as a tabletop item (that the consumer added to foods and drinks) there was a 34 per cent increase in the risk of diabetes.
In people with diabetes, artificial sweeteners did not improve or worsen any clinical indicators used to monitor their diabetes, such as fasting blood sugar or insulin levels.
Higher intakes of artificial sweeteners were associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and death in the long-term prospective observational studies that followed participants for an average of 13 years.
But artificial sweeteners were not associated with differences in overall cancer rates or premature death from cancer.
Overall, while the randomised controlled trials suggested slightly more weight loss in people who used artificial sweeteners, the observational studies found this group tended to have an increased risk of obesity and poorer health outcomes.
Does the review have any shortcomings?
The WHO’s advice has led to some criticism because the randomised controlled trials did show some weight-loss benefit to using artificial sweeteners, albeit small.
However, the WHO clearly states its advice is based on the multiple research designs, not just randomised controlled trials.
Additionally, the WHO assessed the quality of the studies in the review to be of “low or very low certainty”.
Are they unsafe?
This advice is not suggesting artificial sweeteners are unsafe or should be banned. The WHO’s scientific review was not about chemical or safety issues.
So are we better off having sugar instead? The answer is no.
In 2015, the WHO released guidelines on added sugar intake to reduce the risk of excess weight and obesity.
Added sugars are found in processed and ultra-processed foods and drinks such as soft drinks, fruit drinks, sports drinks, chocolate and confectionery, flavoured yoghurt and muesli bars.
It recommended people consume no more 10 per cent of total energy intake, which is about 50 grams (10 teaspoons), of sugar a day for an average adult who needs 8700 kilojoules a day.
The WHO’s recommendation is in line with Australian Dietary Guidelines, which recommends no more than three serves of discretionary foods per day, if you need the extra energy.
However, it’s best to get extra energy from the core food groups (grains, vegetable, fruit, dairy and protein group) rather than discretionary foods.
So what do I drink now?
So if artificial and sugar in drinks are not advised for weight loss, what can you drink?
Some options include water, kombucha with no added sugar, tea or coffee. Soda and mineral water flavoured with a small amount of your favourite fruit juice are good substitutes.
Milk is also a good option, particularly if you’re not currently meeting your calcium requirements.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/life/health/2023/05/18/sugar-artificial-sweeteners-health/
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Our Weaponized Legal System Misfires
The greatest threat to democracy today is not populism, as elite liberals claim. Nor is it the old-fashioned dictatorial coup d’etat. The greatest danger that multiparty democracy faces is “lawfare”—the weaponization of national judicial systems by political parties to delegitimize, harass, bankrupt, disqualify, and sometimes imprison politicians of other parties.
In Scotland, the husband of former Prime Minister Nikola Sturgeon has been arrested in a case involving Scottish National Party finances; soon she may be arrested herself. In India, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has been arrested and sentenced to two years in jail and expelled from parliament for joking about the name of India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. In Pakistan, former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been arrested, with Pakistan’s Supreme Court holding that his arrest by paramilitary forces was unconstitutional. In Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was recently elected president, after having been arrested and imprisoned on corruption charges, only to have the verdict thrown out by a judge. In 2018, half of all former living South Korean presidents were in prison.
Latin America, sharing separations-of-powers constitutions like the U.S., leads the world in impeachments of presidents by opposition parties carrying out “legislative coups.” Of 12 impeachments in Latin America since 1900, 10 have taken place in the last three decades and six in only three nations—Brazil, Ecuador, and Paraguay.
In the 235 years in which the U.S. has been governed under the federal Constitution, three of the four presidential impeachments have taken place in the last 25 years, and two in the last three years. In North America, as in Latin America, impeachment has gone from being the last resort in emergencies to being a frequently used weapon by one political party against another.
Has any U.S. president ever deserved impeachment? Yes, one: Richard Nixon.
Nixon’s Special Investigations Unit, known as the Plumbers, had originally been created to spy on opponents of the Vietnam War. On June 17, 1971, Nixon told his aide H.R. Haldeman he wanted the Plumbers to obtain files that might be in the safe of the Brookings Institution that could show that his predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, had ordered a bombing halt in Vietnam to help Nixon’s Democratic opponent in 1968, Hubert Humphrey. Nixon wanted to use the files to blackmail Johnson.
In contrast to the possible impeachment of Nixon, the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, and the two impeachments of Trump, were unjustified exercises of partisan power. Andrew Johnson was a terrible president, but the radical wing of his own Republican Party impeached him because they opposed his Reconstruction policies, not because he committed any “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and his perjury in concealing it; Trump’s clumsy attempt to get Ukrainian President Zelensky to supply him with incriminating evidence against Hunter Biden; the inflammatory effect of Trump’s claim that the election had been stolen in inciting the unforeseen January 6 riot (not “insurrection”)—all of these deserved the harsh penalty of censure by Congress, but not the nuclear weapon of impeachment and removal from office.
A more serious charge arises from Trump’s recorded phone call to fellow Republican Brad Raffensburger, Georgia’s secretary of state, asking him to “recalculate” to “find 11,780 votes.” Raffensburger refused, as the state had already done three separate ballot counts and two certifications of Biden’s victory.
Even with Georgia’s electoral votes, Trump still would have lost the electoral college to Biden. Trump failed to persuade officials in other states, as well as Vice President Pence and other leading Republicans, to take steps to delay or overturn the certification of Biden as president. From this distance in time, Trump looks less like the mastermind of a plausible scheme to overturn the election and establish a dictatorship than an incompetent, pathetic narcissist who genuinely believed that he had been cheated out of a second term and listened to cronies who fed his delusion.
Even after the riot on January 6, six Republican senators and 121 Republican House members objected to certifying the electoral outcome in Arizona, while seven Republican senators and 138 House Republicans objected to certifying the results in Pennsylvania.
This was a disgraceful stunt, but it was an escalation of what had become the normal practice of both parties for years. In January 2005, House Democrat Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio and California Sen. Barbara Boxer, also a Democrat, objected to the certification of Ohio’s electoral votes, claiming: “We believe there are ample grounds for challenging the electors from Ohio as being unlawfully appointed.” If their motion had succeeded, all 20 Electoral College votes of Ohio for George W. Bush would have been denied and with neither candidate having an Electoral College majority the election would have been decided by the House of Representatives. Although the effort failed, 32 members of Congress, all Democrats, voted for this attempt to overturn the presidential election of 2004.
On Jan. 6, 2017, the following seven Democrats in the House objected to the certification of the electoral count: Jamie Raskin, D-Md., (objecting to Florida’s votes); Jim McGovern, D-Mass., (objecting to Alabama’s votes); Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., (objecting to Georgia’s votes); Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., (objecting to North Carolina’s votes); Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, (objecting to votes from North Carolina, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Mississippi; Barbara Lee, D-Calif., (objecting to Michigan’s votes); and Maxine Waters, D-Calif., (objecting to Wyoming’s votes).
Several of these Democrats objected to congressional certification of the 2016 election on the basis of conspiracy theories. Barbara Lee alleged Russian manipulation of the election and malfunctioning voting machines. Sheila Jackson Lee claimed there had been “massive voter suppression” in Missisippi. All were overruled by then-Vice President Joe Biden in 2017, in the same way that Vice President Mike Pence overruled similar objections in 2021.
One of the Democrats in the House who tried to stop the certification of the election in 2016 on spurious grounds, Jamie Raskin, went on to be the lead impeachment manager in the second impeachment of Donald Trump.
Impeachment has gone from being the last resort in emergencies to being a frequently used weapon by one political party against another.
Having lost the election of 2020 and returned to private life, Donald Trump is now the most likely opponent of Joe Biden in the presidential election of 2024. Trump continues to be the victim of Democratic lawfare. Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized a theatrical ransacking of Donald Trump’s home by FBI agents to collect classified documents during a dispute over ownership—shortly before it was learned that President Joe Biden also had possessed classified documents, from his days as vice president.
Now Alvin Bragg, the elected district attorney of New York City, has had Trump arrested and indicted. Trump is charged with falsifying business records while legally paying hush money to Stormy Daniels, a porn star with whom he had an affair. By an extreme stretch of the imagination, Bragg claims this violated campaign finance laws. Even so, normally this would be a misdemeanor, punished by a fine. For example, in 2022, the Federal Election Commission fined the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign more than $100,000 for disguising payments to Fusion GPS, the opposition research group behind the pro-Clinton “Russiagate” hoax that claimed Trump was a witting or unwitting Russian asset, by claiming falsely that the money was for legal expenses incurred by the law firm Perkins Coie.
But Bragg, instead of seeking to fine Trump for similar campaign finance violations, has promoted 34 charges to felonies. If convicted on all 34 counts, Trump could face a maximum sentence of 136 years.
Cy Vance, Bragg’s predecessor as DA, refused to charge Trump on such flimsy grounds. His refusal infuriated many Democrats who welcome Bragg’s prosecution of Trump as revenge, pure and simple, for Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and the failure of the two unjustified impeachments of Trump by partisan Democrats in the House. Campaigning for election to the post of district attorney, Bragg boasted: “I have investigated Trump and his children and held them accountable for their misconduct with the Trump Foundation. I know how to follow the facts and hold people in power accountable.” This sounds very much like a campaign promise to voters in overwhelmingly Democratic New York City to find some excuse, any excuse, to use the power of the District Attorney’s Office to try to imprison a former president they despised.
“Whataboutism” is a perfectly valid argument, when it is proof of a double standard. For most Democrats, Bill Clinton’s perjury about his affair with Lewinsky was “just about sex” and blown out of proportion to the offense. And yet Trump’s hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, many Democrats tell us, threatened democracy itself by somehow subverting the 2016 presidential election.
In yet another case in overwhelmingly Democratic New York, a federal jury found Trump innocent of a charge of raping E. Jean Caroll, while finding him guilty in a civil trial of defamation and sexual abuse and ordering him to pay a fine of $5 million. Assuming that Trump was guilty on these lesser counts, perhaps Alvin Bragg or other Democrats can come up with a creative theory why this incident, like the Stormy Daniels incident, threatened American democracy.
For his part, Trump has often threatened to wage the kind of lawfare to which he has been subject by Bragg and other partisan Democrats abusing the powers of their office, like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats who thrilled their voters by impeaching him twice. In a presidential debate on Oct. 9, 2016, on live television, Trump told Clinton: “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your [missing email] situation, because there has never been so many lies, so much deception.” When Clinton replied, “It’s just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country,” Trump interjected: “Because you’d be in jail.”
During campaign rallies, Trump smiled as his followers chanted “Lock her up!” and at one point he told a crowd: “She has to go to jail!” All of this over Clinton’s use of a private email server during her service as U.S. secretary of state, a minor security breach and a misdemeanor of a kind which in most cases the government has chosen not to prosecute.
When I raise my concerns about the increasing resort by both parties to lawfare as a substitute for regular electoral politics in the U.S., I am sometimes told that nobody is above the law. But this is a facile answer, for two reasons.
The first has to do with legal complexity and ambiguity. Many of the politicians who have been attacked by their partisan rivals with the weapons of lawfare have been ensnared by charges of corruption in campaign spending. I do not claim to be an expert in U.S. campaign finance laws, much less those of Israel or South Korea. But the campaign laws in our country and many others are so complex and vague that any clever prosecutor might be able to indict any politician. Hush money payments to keep an extramarital affair out of the press constitutes election interference? Really, Mr. Bragg?
Moreover, some abuses of office in return for donations are perfectly legal in the United States. For example, all presidents appoint a number of rich campaign donors or bundlers, many of them utterly unqualified, to ambassadorships. Joe Biden has given around a third of ambassadorial appointments to donors. Isn’t this … selling offices? And if so, this routine practice is not so different from the corruption of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached by the Illinois legislature and sent to prison for, among other things, plotting to “obtain a personal benefit in exchange for his appointment to fill the vacant seat in the United States Senate [left by President-elect Obama].” If former President Obama is not in prison for appointing 31 campaign “bundlers” who each raised $50,000 or more and who together raised more than $20 million for Obama’s campaigns to cushy ambassadorial posts in Western Europe, Canada, and New Zealand, why was Blagojevich’s sale of Obama’s Senate seat—as distinct from his other misdeeds—a crime? (In 2020, President Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year sentence after eight years in prison.)
Another form of perfectly legal corruption in the United States involves ex-presidents being paid enormous sums for speeches by special interests that may have benefited from their policies while in office. In 1989, former President Ronald Reagan reportedly earned $2 million from a Japanese media conglomerate for a speech and tour of Japan.
Hollywood and Wall Street are major donors to the Democratic Party and they see to it that former Democratic presidents get rich quickly. After serving in the White House, for example, Barack Obama made $1.2 million for only three Wall Street speeches. He and former first lady Michelle Obama were given lucrative deals to produce TV shows and films with Netflix and podcasts with Spotify through their company Higher Ground Productions, hastily founded for that purpose in 2018. How is this any different from the former head of a congressional committee or a former executive branch regulator immediately being hired or otherwise paid off by the industry he or she regulated?
I am not arguing that Barack and Michelle Obama should be locked up, though they should be shamed for their blatant buck-raking. My point is that, just as it is hard to make sense of American campaign finance laws, there seems to be no logic to which certain kinds of pay-to-play deals and payoffs for services rendered are legal in this country and which can lead to jail time. It follows we should be skeptical about corruption charges along with alleged campaign finance violations, particularly when a partisan political motive is behind a prosecution.
The second reason that the phrase “nobody is above the law” is a trite answer that evades serious questions has to do with legitimacy. When I have taught courses on politics, I have asked students: What is the purpose of multiparty democracy? To achieve justice? No, I suggest, it is to avert civil war, by exchanging ballots for bullets. If elections are thought of as bloodless civil wars every few years, then the losers must be conciliated and made to feel that they remain valued members of the national community and that they have a chance to win next time. If each party portrays the other as an enemy to democracy and society, and the winners use the court system to bankrupt and jail opponents in attempts to prevent the losers from winning elections in the future, then the legitimacy of the democratic system will collapse.
Here we can learn lessons from actual civil wars. Thanks to President Andrew Johnson’s 1868 proclamation “granting full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason against the United States during the late Civil War,” only two Confederate soldiers were executed for crimes committed during the war, Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Andersonville prisoner of war camp, and a Confederate guerrilla, Henry “Champ” Ferguson. Both Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army, and former Confederate President Jefferson Davis were pardoned as part of Johnson’s amnesty, even though the rebellion they led had caused the death of more than 600,000 Americans—more than died in the world wars, the Korean War, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, the War of 1812 and the War of Independence, combined.
Abraham Lincoln almost certainly would have approved of his successor’s amnesty. In Recollections of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln’s bodyguard Ward Hill Lamon related the following story:
General Grant asked for special instructions of Mr. Lincoln, whether he should try to capture Jefferson Davis, or let him escape from the country if he wanted to. Mr. Lincoln related the story of an Irishman who had taken the pledge of Father Matthew, and having become terribly thirsty applied to a bar-tender for a lemonade; and while it was being prepared he whispered to the bar-tender, ‘And couldn’t you put a little brandy in it all unbeknownst to myself?’ Mr. Lincoln told the general he would like to let Jeff Davis escape all unbeknown to himself; he had no use for him.
Partisan prosecutions need to be condemned by all civic-minded Americans now. Otherwise, Republican versions of Alvin Bragg all over the country may soon appear and start suing former Democratic officials now in private life. American democracy may die, not all at once in a coup d’etat, but slowly as the result of party-driven legislative impeachments and vengeful partisan lawsuits.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/our-weaponized-legal-system-misfires
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21 May, 2023
Robust One-Nation Conservatism Is What Woke Globalist Elites Fear Most, Heritage Foundation President Tells London Conference
Slightly surprising that Roberts did not mention Disraeli. Dizzy was a great advocate of One-Nation Conservatism and rode it to great electoral victories. The idea is that an ideal of the nation is put forward that everyone can be proud of. Trump had the same idea but his unattractive personal manner limited what he could achieve.
I note also that Roger Scruton saw a large overlap between conservatism and patriotism. So unashamed praise of the great assets of one's own country should be a large part of the conservative message. Leftists despise the society they live in so a patriotic message gives a clear and popular alternative to them
Cultural crises and crumbling Western institutions can only be remedied by a broader conservative movement that remains focused on the renewal of national identity and the ultimate ends of its policy means, the president of The Heritage Foundation told a London audience Tuesday.
Heritage President Kevin Roberts spoke at the National Conservatism Conference in London on what he called “one-nation Burkeanism,” a reference to famed 18th-century conservative British statesman Edmund Burke. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
Roberts laid out the case that conservatives in the West must not only stand athwart the increasingly totalitarian globalist Left, but must also promote a positive agenda that strengthens the building blocks of society—family, church, and communities.
That movement begins, but doesn’t end, with protecting the concept of nationhood itself.
“Like the election of Donald Trump in the United States that same year, Brexit lifted the hopes and expanded the horizons of a more nationalist conservatism across the West,” the Heritage Foundation chief said. Brexit (shorthand for “British exit”) was the June 2016 referendum in which the British voted to pull the United Kingdom out of the European Union.
Unfortunately, Roberts explained, despite the momentum created by Brexit and Trump’s election, center-right parties failed to translate those victories into a “reimagined governing agenda.” He said that the failure to come up with a comprehensive policy program is catastrophic for those parties, especially given the single-minded obsession of the Left to impose its ideas on societies.
The “greedy, woke, elitist, and globalist” New Left has forsworn many of the ideas espoused by their predecessors, such as “democracy, equality, diversity, justice,” Roberts said. “Their goal is not to win political contests, but to end them altogether, to sweep away dissent and any subversive institution.”
What most effectively impedes this wokeist nightmare is the kind of conservatism espoused by the likes of “Donald Trump and [Florida Gov.] Ron DeSantis, Brexit, [Hungarian Prime Minister] Viktor Orban, and this conference,” Roberts said, adding:
The institution of the nation is the source and reservoir of the power globalists need to achieve their goals, and one of the most resistant to elite capture.
Unlike corporations, governments, and even churches, nations have no C-suites to cajole or HR departments to bully. They have cultures, loyalties, and loves prior to mere policy—and [with] these, the power to defeat globalist ambitions.
It’s those traits that make national conservatism a more implacable bulwark than “establishment conservatism,” whose leaders “crave elite approbation” or “blinkered libertarianism,” which is susceptible to the material outlook common on the Left’s home turf, Roberts said.
He said that conservative parties since the Cold War have been adrift, having lost sight of the “permanent things” they were created to preserve.
“Somewhere along the way, conservative leaders forgot that markets, globalization, individualism, [gross domestic product] growth, and foreign alliances were means, not ends,” he said, and this made for ineffectual opposition to the Left, which has no such confusion and works relentlessly to do battle against those who defend “faith, family, flag.”
In that sense, national conservatism isn’t a departure from the ideas of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher, Roberts said, but an affirmation of what those leaders and the movements that championed them really stood for. And what they stood for were concepts such as “democracy, the rule of law, free speech, religious devotion, marriage and family, ordered liberty, property rights, and yes, the real free market,” he said.
The current ruling class ultimately stands in opposition to those things while despising even the idea of nationhood, he said, and “thus did yesterday’s fruitful one-nation conservatism beget today’s sterile, no-nation globalism.”
So, in the place of national institutions, the “woke industrial complex,” as he called it, creates a kind of elitist totalitarianism through the European Union and the United Nations. He said that the globalist elites seek to destroy the “little platoons” of society, as Burke called them, because they are rivals to that power.
“To the globalist elites, Burke’s ‘little platoons’ are terrorist sleeper cells,” Roberts said.
He returned to his message about how one-nation national conservatism stands athwart the globalist ethos and directly challenges its power.
“Leaving the European Union and formally detaching itself from the EU elites’ masquerade ball was precisely the right thing for the United Kingdom to do,” Roberts said, referring to Brexit. However, that triumph shouldn’t be seen as the ultimate victory, since “wars are not won by evacuations,” he said, referring to Winston Churchill’s famous speech about the Battle of Dunkirk.
The Heritage president then returned to the main theme of his remarks:
The question since 2016 has not been whether the British people have the power to navigate the 21st century as an independent nation-state. Clearly, they do.
Nor is the question whether global corporate, political, and cultural elites will let them, because in the real world, they have almost no say in the matter.
Rather, the question is whether the Conservative Party—like the Republican Party in the U.S.—can follow through on their 2016 victories and build a new, governing majority out of a new, one-nation conservatism.
That’s the kind of nationalism and populism the elites truly fear, Roberts said. Its principles, he said, boil down to the idea that the United Kingdom belongs to “her people” and that its “political, corporate, spiritual, and civic institutions should serve them and not the other way around.”
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The Left and Right Live in Two Different Worlds
The idea of a national divorce has been floating around a lot lately, and while it may be appealing as we watch Democrats go to the mattresses to protect the ability of adults to mutilate the genitals of children, it’s not particularly practical, at least not right now. It may end up being the best option soon, however, considering just how diametrically opposed the two parties are on fundamental issues and, honestly, just how morally repugnant the left has become. But before we get to the stage of actually dividing up the plates and glasses, we should take a look at how we got here. To do that honestly, we have to admit that we’ve been living in two different worlds for some time now.
Vice President Kamala Harris loves Venn diagrams, just loves them. Every chance she gets she rambles on about her love for them, likely to avoid talking about her deficiencies in every other area of her public life. For those of you who don’t know what a Venn diagram is, they highlight the overlap of two or more groups of things, usually people. For example: there are people who love The Beatles more and those who love Elvis more, but there are also people who love both equally. A circle representing both groups of people would have an overlap of, for the sake of argument, 10 percent who love them both equally. A Venn diagram exists to show that overlap.
There is very little “overlap” left between liberals and conservatives when it comes to how we view reality.
This didn’t happen overnight, we’ve been working our way towards it for some time. The 2016 election is seen as the breaking point for many, but there was a lot of years of bending before that snap.
Now, you can watch a night of Fox News or MSNBC and get the impression that you’re watching a television feed from different planets – what rates as the most important story of the day doesn’t even warrant mentioning on the other, and vice-versa. There are still Democrat viewers of MSNBC who would swear on the lives of the children they didn’t abort that Donald Trump was only elected because the Russian government hacked voting machines and changed votes from Hillary Clinton. Hell, there are TV personalities in the employ of NBC News who would do the same, though you’d have to imagine they actually know better and just choose to lie because their choir needs to be preached to for the sake of ratings (looking at you, Rachel Maddow).
Whatever the case, we learned yet again this week that the Russian collusion scam was created by the Hillary Clinton campaign in an attempt to smear Donald Trump and distract from her own email scandal. We learned again that Barack Obama and Joe Biden were well aware of this at the time and played along. We learned again that the FBI was weaponized by Democrats to protect Clinton, and made things up completely – no idea was too absurd to include. Then we learned the former Director of the FBI only briefed the then president-elect on those rumors and the document containing them so it would be leaked that the briefing took place, thereby giving it the thin veil of newsworthiness needed to get the bogus story rolling in the public. From there, not a single act of journalism was ever committed.
Every minor attempt to “verify” the story failed because you can’t prove a lie. But that didn’t stop the liars from reporting the lies as fact. Anonymous sources, many of whom now sit as paid employees of the media outlets they lied to, spur pile of BS after pile of BS, all of which were immediately and unquestioningly spit out on television and in newspapers. When reporters were burned by lies so obvious they could no longer be told, no “source” was ever outed for their fraud – you don’t tell on your teammate for cheating when the game is on the line.
There isn’t an aspect of the Russia hoax that hasn’t been exposed as a political lie, but when this latest retelling of the story came out, MSNBC didn’t miss a beat. Airhead Nicole Wallace dismissed the findings of the 300+ page report less than a half hour after it was released, even after admitting she’d read none of it.
There was no discipline for lying to her audience, it’s what NBC News has to do in order to keep them. On Fox, the Durham report was the biggest story of the day, maybe even ever. On the other alphabet networks it was a blip they moved past like a homeless man passed out on the sidewalk they step over on their way to work. Same is true for the report the previous week on the fortune Joe Biden’s family managed to amass from foreign entities and adversaries while possessing no skills and providing zero goods or services for their millions – it happened and was ignored.
If you watch MSNBC you would be justified in believing Joe Biden is the most righteous man ever to walk upright, and he’s also smart as a whip. If you watch conservative media you see evidence he and his family got rich selling access to his positions and watch clip after clip of a man clearly suffering mental decline.
Two different worlds.
How can those two worlds live together? The truth is they can’t, at least not indefinitely. The left is committed to their story and the audience is locked in, airtight, so any inconvenient facts won’t seep in.
That leaves those of us who live in reality with two options: fight or flight. I’d rather see the RNC (and every right of center group) run ads on television everywhere with 30 seconds of truth (not hyperbolic ads trying to raise money, but to inform people who’ve not been exposed to reality in a while) rather than fighting over who gets custody of the dogs.
The United States is worth fighting to save, but it’s not worth handcuffing ourselves to a suicide bomber over. If the left wants to destroy itself, eventually we have to let them and make sure we don’t go down with them. If the time does come for that national divorce, so be it. Just make sure we get the east so the left can’t further destroy our history, the Great Lakes for the water and a lot of farm land and oil country, they can have the rest. They’ve pretty much ruined it all already, and when they age themselves out of existence through sterilization and mutilation – when they rediscover how gender and biology work far too late to matter – we’ll just take it back anyway. So, think of it less as a divorce and more of a trial separation; irreconcilable differences between two worlds that simply can’t exist simultaneously.
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Conservative Senators Succed in getting noxious provisions out of Child Abuse Bill
In a rare show of bipartisanship last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill to combat child sexual abuse material online and establish reporting requirements for online platform providers. The bill also reactivated a decades-old provision obligating certain organizations and professions to report suspected child sexual abuse. But it wasn’t just the bipartisanship of the bill’s passage that made it notable. It was what it took to get to bipartisanship in the first place.
While it was originally littered with problematic language that opened loopholes for tracking and reporting religious entities and parents who might object to “gender transition” procedures or abortions for minor children, conservative senators worked hard across the aisle to make the bill one that both parties could support.
Sponsored by Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the Strengthening Transparency and Obligations to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act, or the “STOP CSAM” Act (S. 1199), creates a user-friendly system for reporting and removal of child sexual abuse material online.
It requires that all internet platform providers report occurrences of child sexual abuse material on their platforms to law enforcement’s cyber-crime tipline within 60 days of discovery. It also creates a civil cause of action against both the perpetrators who create the material and the online platforms that host it if they fail to report the material to the tipline.
STOP CSAM updates the 1990 Stop Child Sexual Abuse Act, which laid the foundation for child abuse reporting, but senators saw a need for certain updates to address new technologies being used to promulgate the prohibited material.
While the central goal of the bill is laudable, the original text contained certain noxious provisions, including the expansion of the definition of child abuse to include “psychological abuse” (including “coercion” or “intimidation”) without clearly defining those terms. As the parent of any teenager will tell you, minors feel “coerced” a lot. We can think of a few who feel coerced into taking out the trash or keeping curfew, for example.
The dangers associated with such an expanded definition of “abuse” aren’t theoretical. Medical journals have already called for parents to be held criminally liable if they refuse permission for their children to get what is euphemistically known as “gender-affirming care” (genital-mutilating surgeries, puberty blockers, and other harmful “transgender” procedures). State delegates in Virginia have introduced legislation to criminalize parents who don’t agree to such procedures.
Additionally, under the STOP CSAM’s original text, parents who choose to counsel teens away from having an abortion could potentially have been flagged for physical abuse under these expanded definitions.
Existing federal law establishes robust child abuse reporting requirements on federal lands and in federally funded or contracted facilities. It also establishes certain categories of professionals required to report suspected abuse—those who would naturally engage with children in the course of their work, such as medical personnel, mental health professionals, teachers, and law enforcement officials.
Beyond that, certain child abuse reporting requirements were narrowly extended only to individuals involved with youth athletics. As Durbin joked in the mark-up of the bill (the committee’s amendment process), existing child abuse reporting requirements applied to baseball teams but not the Cub Scouts. What he didn’t mention was that his original text tried to expand these requirements to many new entities, including religious schools, but not public ones.
The original text of S. 1199 would have expanded the child abuse reporting requirements set up in the 1990 law to any entity that received $10,000 or more in federal funding at any time in history. However, it specifically carved out formula grants to states, and that would have excluded public schools that receive federal grants from these reporting requirements. What’s more, “federal funding” in the original bill text included any grant, contract, subsidy, loan, or insurance received through the federal government by any entity, including faith-based entities.
Therefore, any religious school that received funding from, for example, a reduced-fee school lunch program could be required to report any employees who provide “religious guidance” regarding the harms of abortion or transgender treatments as committing child abuse. Or, for example, if parents take their child to a therapist who participates in the Affordable Care Act insurance program, the therapist might be forced to report those parents if they seek to prevent their minor child from undergoing a medically unnecessary, “gender-affirming” double mastectomy if the therapist considers it “coercive.”
Thankfully, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, realized the impact this language could have on well-meaning parents and organizations or employees who provide “religious guidance” and were able to secure a delay in the bill’s mark-up to discuss the problematic provisions.
After a few weeks of negotiations and drafting of various amendments, these senators were able to secure an agreement between Durbin and Sen. Lindsey Graham to apply an appropriate fix. Ultimately, the bill passed out of committee by a vote of 20-1, picking up co-sponsorships from Cruz and Sen. Josh Hawley along the way.
This type of scenario has played out many times before on Capitol Hill but with very different results. In an increasingly polarized Congress, seemingly bipartisan bills addressing commonsense issues like maternal mortality or youth mental health hide obscure textual provisions that have potential widespread, detrimental implications on issues like abortion, gender ideology, religion, and parental rights.
Generally, such provisions that are buried in the text go unnoticed until bills are signed into law. In this respect, getting things done quickly means sacrificing the hard work that ensures things get done “right.”
But the STOP CSAM Act is a perfect example of good political teamwork: Early and clear communication about problematic provisions can lead to truly bipartisan solutions—or at least it can slow the pace of movement of fast-tracked legislation to allow for more deliberation.
It takes members of Congress like Lee and Cruz, however—politicians who are willing to slow down so-called must-pass bills—in order to patiently and deliberately assess the legislation, identify concerns, draft appropriate fixes, and build a coalition for support among committee members.
While it may not be a regular occurrence in the Senate Judiciary Committee mark-up process, bipartisanship is possible.
It just takes determined leaders willing to do what’s right.
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Kevin McCarthy is right, ‘it’s not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem’ after more than $6 trillion printed, borrowed and spent for Covid
“[I]t’s not a revenue problem, it’s a spending problem.”
That was House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaking to reporters on May 17 following a meeting with President Joe Biden and Congressional leaders in both parties, attempting to reach an agreement on increasing the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling and budget spending levels, outlining the unsustainable trajectory of federal spending despite near-record-setting revenue levels.
“We have now borrowed more than a trillion dollars this year; that’s the fastest we’ve ever accumulated that much debt that quickly. How much is too much? When are you going to look at for the American public that we’re spending more than we’ve ever spent in history but on an average in more than 50 years? We’re much higher than we ever [have been]. At the same time we’re bringing more money into government than at any time in history,” McCarthy explained.
In addition, McCarthy noted the nation had “added six trillion dollars that created inflation.” And while he unsurprisingly blamed Democrats for the additional spending in 2021 as the severity of the Covid pandemic was waning, there was also plenty of spending in 2020 under former President Donald Trump, too, when the budget deficit hit an all-time high of $3.1 trillion as revenues stalled and spending ballooned amid the economic lockdowns.
It’s fair to say we got here on a bipartisan basis, and to navigate it will ultimately, barring either party gaining supermajorities in upcoming elections to overcome a Senate filibuster, also have to be done on a bipartisan basis.
But on the overall point, McCarthy is right. Since 1929, as a percentage of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, federal spending outlays are the highest they’ve been since World War II, when all of the nation’s resources were being marshalled in the war effort to defeat the Axis Powers and liberate Europe and Asia.
In 2022, at $6.27 trillion of spending, according to President Joe Biden’s White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), that is 24.6 percent of the $25.46 trillion economy. The only years it was higher was from 1943 to 1945, when it reached a high of 40.7 percent in 1944, and in 2020 and 2021 for Covid, when it reached 31.1 percent and 29.2 percent, respectively.
And while spending is down from its 2021 peak of $6.8 trillion to its current $6.27 trillion level, we are still spending much more as a percentage of the economy than we were prior to Covid. In 2019, spending was just $3.4 trillion, that was only 20.8 percent of the then $21.3 trillion economy.
As for revenue, 2022 was a record year, collecting nearly $4.9 trillion, an all-time high. And at 19.2 percent of the economy, that is the fourth all-time greatest tax collection in modern American history. The only years greater were 1944, 1945 and 2000, when revenues reached 19.5 percent, 19.8 percent and 19.76 percent, respectively.
Yet, despite record tax collections—which OMB projects will slow down dramatically in 2023 along with the economy, which slowed down to 1.1 percent annualized growth in the first quarter of 2023 — the budget deficit was still $1.37 trillion. In the meantime, spending will keep increasing, to $6.37 trillion 2023 and $6.88 trillion in 2024, as the budget deficit again increases to $1.55 trillion and $1.73 trillion, respectively, over the next two years alone.
Since Covid, the spending has proven to be inflationary, causing more than $6 trillion to be printed. During Covid in 2020 and 2021, the Federal Reserve set interest rates to near-zero, Congress spent and borrowed more than $5 trillion and the M2 money supply dramatically: it went from $15.3 trillion at the end of 2019 to the peak of $22.05 trillion, a 44 percent increase.
At the same time, the global economy was locking down, slowing down production and the government was paying people to stay home, literally too much money chasing too few goods, a perfect recipe for inflation, which peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022 and is now down to 4.9 percent over the past 12 months, according to the latest data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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18 May, 2023
And the Pulitzer for Fake News Goes To…
Somewhat lost amid the indignation over Monday’s devastating Durham report, which focused mostly on the corruption within the FBI, was the rotten role of the mainstream press in all this. And placed neatly atop this dung heap of deceit, this monument to media malfeasance, are the twin Pulitzer Prizes for National Reporting that were awarded to The Washington Post and The New York Times in 2018 for their complicity in the Crossfire Hurricane operation more accurately known as the Clinton-engineered, Obama-enabled, FBI-executed Trump/Russia collusion hoax.
So shabby was the reporting that earned these two Trump-hating “news” organizations their Pulitzers, it might just as well have been written by Baghdad Bob or Joe Isuzu.
And sadly, but not surprisingly, both the Post and the Times are unrepentant. We know this because they’ve yet to return those tarnished Pulitzers, and because their coverage of the release of the Durham report speaks volumes.
Where the Post is concerned, we don’t even have to read beyond the first paragraph penned by its editorial board:
John Durham has at long last released his report on the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe, which conservative conspiracy theorists once anticipated would expose a “deep state” scheme to undermine then-candidate Donald Trump. But, despite some commentators’ efforts to portray the actual result of the four-year investigation as damning, the reality is that the Justice Department special counsel uncovered next to nothing.
“Next to nothing,” that is, except that the FBI is corrupt, the Democrat Party is dirty, and Donald Trump and his staffers are innocent of the charges that they colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. “Next to nothing” other than the deep state interfered in the 2016 election and provided the template for doing so again in 2020. “Next to nothing” besides the fact that Trump’s early presidency was hamstrung by a partisan investigation begun on totally false pretenses.
Not to be outdone, the Times’s Charlie Savage, who seems to be a surrogate for the paper’s MIA editorial board, led with a nakedly false headline: “After Years of Political Hype, the Durham Inquiry Failed to Deliver.” He followed that with a subhead soup of non sequiturs: “A dysfunctional investigation led by a Trump-era special counsel illustrates a dilemma about prosecutorial independence and accountability in politically sensitive matters.”
Nothing to see here, say the well-paid liars at the Post and the Times. Kindly move along, you smelly Walmart Trumpers.
Last summer, as our Nate Jackson reported, Donald Trump asked the Pulitzer Prize Board to rescind these two awards. As Trump rightly pointed out, “The coverage was no more than a politically motivated farce which attempted to spin a false narrative that my campaign supposedly colluded with Russia despite a complete lack of evidence underpinning this allegation.”
No dice, said the Pulitzer board, writing, “No passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.”
In the face of Special Counsel John Durham’s indictment of the FBI, and the inescapable conclusion that the Post and the Times published false information throughout their respective bodies of work, will the board now reconsider its decision? Will the Post and the Times reconsider their decision to keep these awards?
No, and no.
The saddest thing of all, though, is that there are still people out there — millions of them, in fact — who think that the political reporting of the Post and the Times is believable.
Then again, there are also people out there who think the designated hitter is legit, the WNBA is watchable, and the Obama administration was scandal-free.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97397-and-the-pulitzer-for-fake-news-goes-to-dot-dot-dot-2023-05-17
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Biden Admin: Chocolate Milk Too Dangerous for Kids but Puberty Blockers Are Fine
As if President Joe Biden and his administration haven't already done enough to make life more difficult and usher in more hardship for the American people, his band of merry muck-ups are now setting their sights on school lunches and toying around with a ban on chocolate milk — as well as strawberry milk and other flavor alternatives — over concerns about added sugars.
Yes, the same administration that called it "outrageous" and "immoral" to prevent children from taking life-altering hormones to prevent puberty for the purpose of "transitioning" is worried that milk provided at school might have ill effects on their health.
This potentially devastating news for America's students came courtesy of a scoop in The Wall Street Journal this week on what the United States Department of Agriculture is weighing as it works on revamping federal standards for school-provided meals.
Via WSJ:
The issue has divided parents, child-nutrition specialists, school-meal officials and others. Supporters of restricting flavored milk say it has added sugars that contribute to childhood obesity and establish preferences for overly sweet drinks. But opponents, including the dairy industry and many school districts, say removing it will lead to children drinking less milk.
“We want to take a product that most kids like and that has nine essential nutrients in it and say, ‘You can’t drink this, you have to drink plain’?” asked Katie Wilson, executive director of the Urban School Food Alliance, which represents 18 of the largest school districts in the country. “What are we trying to prove?”
[...]
The USDA proposed guidelines for school meals earlier this year, but held off making a recommendation on flavored milk, most of which is chocolate.
The agency said it is considering excluding flavored milk from elementary and possibly middle schools, or continuing to serve it to all grade levels. Under either scenario, flavored milk would have to comply with a new limit on the amount of added sugars.
“Flavored milk is a challenging issue to figure out exactly the best path forward,” Cindy Long, administrator of USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, said, explaining why the agency is weighing two options. “We really do want to encourage children to consume milk and we also recognize the need to reduce added-sugar consumption.”
Oh, so the USDA chickened out on making a decision on chocolate milk already, and now they're still hemming and hawing trying to decide whether students should have the choice of chocolate milk with their lunch. And even if they do have chocolate milk available, they're going to restrict how much sugar is in it?
The federal government is clumsy and ineffective at handling pretty much every aspect of Americans' lives into which it intrudes, and once again Biden is ready to put the USDA in a position of dietary lunch monitor. Where was this concern from the Biden USDA — or any federal agency over the past three years — for the health of America's children who were more or less locked inside their homes due to COVID? Playgrounds were dismantled, Jen Psaki bragged about how her kids weren't allowed to play with their friends, and the federal government did lasting damage to the rising generation's mental health without any similar level of concern nor any apology.
What about the Biden administration's embrace of radical transgender ideology that states it's a human right for young people — with or without their parents' consent — to begin taking often irreversible hormone treatments or moving toward mutilative surgeries? If your kid wants to begin taking hormones that will prevent them from going through puberty, the Biden administration isn't worried about long term effects. But if your kid wants to decide to have chocolate milk at lunch, well that's a huge problem with lasting negative health consequences that must be stopped. It's beyond absurd.
And when it comes to schools, the Biden administration should have reopened them rather than letting Randi Weingarten and her AFT union bosses keep schools locked down. The years of learning loss created by big government "help" will likely prove more damaging to a young student's longterm health and success in life than that same child having eight ounces of chocolate milk a few times a week.
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Danny Kruger is right: marriage is the bedrock of society
It didn’t take long for Danny Kruger to get jumped on for stating the obvious. His observation yesterday that ‘The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society. Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to live for the sake of someone else’, would once have come into the class of things so obvious as to not need saying.
It tells you a lot about where we’re at now that this is daringly controversial, divisively edgy. But then once the social consensus was shared by all parts of the political spectrum – John Smith, Tony Blair’s predecessor as leader of the Labour party could have said every word without a qualm. Now it’s something probably Rishi Sunak wouldn’t say.
The normative family, the mother and father sticking together for the sake of the children, is the only basis for a safe and functioning society.
Marriage is not only about you, it’s a public act to live for the sake of someone else.
No surprises, really, about where the opposition is coming from. Alastair Campbell, wrote that ‘This is all very weird. Was on TV with Danny Kruger yesterday and he talked about a leftist agenda which meant absolutely nothing to me or Shami Chakrabarti who was also on the panel. It was like listening to a fantasy story…’
But then the real problem about mixing just with your own ideological kind is that you struggle to get your head round the idea that there’s a mass of people out there who don’t share your view of what’s normal. Campbell’s response tells you more about him than Danny Kruger.
Then there was the response of Sarah Owen, Labour MP for Luton and a party whip. ‘I do wonder if Danny Kruger has ever met anyone who has escaped an abusive marriage? Or the loved ones of victims who died in one? No one should have to “stick with” Domestic abuse.’
Look, there are hard cases that you can advance against any argument. There are people who abuse their spouses and it’s right to take this very seriously indeed. Kruger is surely not saying that people should ‘stick with domestic abuse’.
But, while there are clearly exceptions, this doesn’t undermine the truth that, on the whole, all things considered, marriage is a better environment for raising children than the alternative. There are any number of abusive parents at large who should by rights have their children taken into care, but it doesn’t undermine the notion that most parents have their children’s best interests at heart. Sarah Owen can express her concern for the victims of domestic abuse, but that doesn’t amount to an argument against Kruger’s point.
And then there’s the scientist and BBC host, Dr Adam Rutherford, who said this: ‘Big shout out to the single parents, gay parents, foster parents, people who adopt children, and people who separate for good and healthy reasons: you guys are not the basis of a safe society according to Kinder Küche Kirche Kruger.’
Of course there are any number of variants on the family norm but they don’t undermine the general case that married fathers and mothers make for a uniquely stable basis for raising their children. As it happens my own father was adopted at a day old – they didn’t go in for formalities back then in Ireland – and was, I’d say, better off with the mother and father who wanted him rather than the unmarried girl who didn’t, but that proves nothing.
Danny Kruger is right. In one respect I know he is; in another, I believe he is. His contention that ‘the father and mother sticking together for the sake of the children’ is an assertion that a child’s own father and mother are the best people to raise them. And I do think that having a mother and father is better than the alternative. You learn your cues about the opposite sex from your parents; if you grow up with two parents of one sex, you’re missing out on something crucial – an engagement with the other.
This isn’t to say that homosexual married parents aren’t loving: the figures available to date show that their children have equally good outcomes to those of heterosexual couples – see the exciting former Finnish PM, raised by lesbians. But the fundamentals matter too.
As for the contention that married couples are better for raising children than unmarried or single parents, the answer is borne out by all the research. See the very thorough report by Cristina Odone (which doesn’t distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual couples) for the Centre for Social Justice in 2020, here.
Or, if you just want the statistics on marriage as the best context for raising children, Cristina Odone provides those as well. I’d say it shows that Danny Kruger isn’t weird; just brave and unfashionable.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/danny-kruger-is-right-marriage-is-the-bedrock-of-society/
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Lazy British police charge the wrong man with murder
And tried to fit him up for it -- in the best police tradition
A police force has apologised to the man wrongly accused of murdering seven-year-old schoolgirl Nikki Allan in 1992.
Northumbria Police also said sorry to Nikki’s family for mistakes made in the original investigation and for the 31 years they had to wait before her real killer David Boyd was brought to justice.
The convicted sex offender, 55, was found guilty of murdering her in Hendon, Sunderland, on the evening of October 7, 1992 at Newcastle Crown Court on Friday.
His trial heard how he lured the girl to a derelict building where he smashed her skull with a brick before repeatedly stabbing her through the heart.
Today, the force released a letter it sent to George Heron apologising for how he was treated during the initial investigation.
Mr Heron wrongly stood trial for the offence in 1993, and was later cleared after a judge dismissed a false confession he made following days of “oppressive” questioning.
In the letter, Assistant Chief Constable Alastair Simpson wrote: “On behalf of Northumbria Police, I would like to apologise for the mistakes that were made in the investigation and I hope, as you express in your statement, that the conviction of Mr Boyd will finally bring closure on this matter for you and allow you to move on with your life.”
During the initial investigation Mr Heron was subject to “oppressive” questioning and denied having any involvement in the murder 120 times during three days of interviews, before he made some kind of confession.
After he was cleared, police said they were not looking for anyone else in connection with Nikki’s murder – despite the real killer remaining at large.
It is understood that Mr Heron had his face slashed while on remand in the 1990s. He then had to move away from Sunderland despite being cleared, and was taken in by a religious order.
Detective Superintendent Lisa Theaker led a complex re-investigation which began in 2017 and culminated in Boyd’s conviction.
She told reporters: “In terms of the earlier (1992) investigation, it’s been well publicised that the interviews that were conducted back in the day were oppressive and some of the evidence was misrepresented before George Heron ‘confessed’, and we know the judge excluded that confession.
“On a national scale, the way we interview people has changed massively.”
Ms Theaker said now the trial has finished, the team will be able to share information with Nikki’s mother Sharon Henderson and reassure her family that no-one else was involved with the murder.
Mr Simpson extended the apology to Nikki’s family, saying: “I am truly sorry for mistakes that were made in the 1992 investigation and I am sorry for the length of time it has taken to get justice for the family.
“I cannot imagine the impact on them over the course of the last 30 years, so I have offered to meet with Sharon and with other members of the family and I will be happy to say that to them when I meet them.”
During the decades that he evaded justice, Body indecently assaulted a nine-year-old in a park in 1999 and told his probation officer that he had a sexual interest in young girls when he was younger.
But Ms Henderson never gave up her fight to get her daughter justice and campaigned relentlessly. She met the then Chief Constable Steve Ashman in 2017 who agreed to a re-investigation.
The sex offender - who was 25 when he murdered Nikki - was later caught thanks to advances in DNA techniques which were able to extract new traces from the little girl’s clothes.
Outside court last week, Ms Henderson spoke of the “injustice” that “this evil man slipped through the net to murder Nikki when he was on their (police) files in the first place”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/nikki-allan-murder-police-apology-b2340651.html
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17 May, 2023
El Salvador’s Hardline President Manages to Do the Unthinkable: Wipe Out Country’s Rampant Gang Violence
NYC could learn from this
Initially criticized as inhumane, the hard-line crime-fighting policies enacted by the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, are now being applauded across Latin America and returning a semblance of law and order to a country once plagued by some of the worst gang violence in the world.
“We close May 10, 2023, with zero homicides nationwide,” Mr. Bukele wrote on his Twitter account last week. “With this, it’s 365 days without homicides, a whole year.”
His claim to have completely eradicated homicide nationwide is disputed by critics. Yet, even they acknowledge that after having some of the highest murder rates in the world, El Salvador now has one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America.
Salvadorans feel the change on the streets, a director of the University of Don Bosco’s prevention of youth violence program in Soyapango, El Salvador, Juan Carlos Torres, tells the Sun. People prefer to have policemen or officials intercept them in the street to ask for documentation than to have a gang member threatening them, Mr. Torres adds.
Gangs had a large presence and controlled vast territory in the country. Citizens were scared to even walk the streets in some places, Mr. Torres says. Mr. Bukele’s new strategies “brought relief to the people in El Salvador,” he says.
Yet, Mr. Torres adds, the information provided by the government regarding zero homicides is omitting all homicides that were not committed by gangs. “They declared war on the gangs,” Mr. Torres says. “So what is being counted in that figure is homicides of gang members” only.
On March 27, 2022, following two days in which nearly 100 people died in El Salvador from gang violence, Mr. Bukele announced a state of emergency and deployed thousands of soldiers throughout the country to arrest gang members.
A video Mr. Bukele shared in February depicts 2,000 gang members being transported to the prison built by the administration, the Terrorism Confinement Center. El Salvador’s government says it is the Americas’ largest prison. “This will be their new house, where they will live for decades, mixed up, unable to do any more harm to the population,” Mr. Bukele said.
El Salvador had one of the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere outside of war zones for years. The two gang groups taking over the country’s neighborhoods were Barrio 18, or Street 18, and MS-13. Barrio 18 was founded in Los Angeles, California and made its way down to Central America by recruiting immigrants.
Mr. Bukele’s approach to crime helped him maintain a national approval rate of over 75 percent since taking office in 2019. That support is higher than any recent Salvadoran president, according to local media. Now, according to the latest survey by LPG Datos, released in March 2023, Mr. Bukele’s approval rate has risen to 91 percent.
In addition, 88 percent of Salvadorans say gang crime has decreased since the measures were established, according to a survey released by the University Institute of Public Opinion. About 76 percent say they feel safe, as opposed to 11 percent who say they don’t.
About 68,000 gang members have been arrested since Mr. Bukele announced his campaign against crime, local media report. Videos of gang members in handcuffs, walking with their bodies bent over, flooded social media accounts worldwide. Images of inmates stacked closely together, sitting with their legs on each side of the man in front of them also sent shockwaves around the world.
Officials from other Latin American countries have voiced their intentions to imitate Mr. Bukele’s anti-crime measures. A candidate in Argentina’s upcoming presidential election, Santiago Cuneo, vowed to follow Mr. Bukele’s steps if elected. The mayor of Lima, Peru, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, sent a letter to his minister of defense in April, requesting the presence of the army on the streets, praising Mr. Bukele’s approach.
Mr. Bukele’s measures have their critics as well. Human rights groups claim he unlawfully detains people without complying with legal requirements. “Some of the arrests were based solely on individuals having tattoos, or a prior criminal record, or the fact that they were living in an area controlled by a gang,” a report by Amnesty International says.
The human rights group also condemns the conditions in which gang members are imprisoned. By the end of 2022, about 94,000 prisoners were detained even though El Salvador’s prisons are designed to hold no more than 30,864 inmates, according to Amnesty International. Food and basic hygiene supply shortages, prison guards mistreatment of inmates, and torture by gang members are some of the things Amnesty International has complained about.
In an interview with Le Monde, Vice President Ulloa of El Salvador said that abuse reports are being investigated and that innocent people arrested are being released. “It’s natural that there’s a margin of error, and this must be corrected,” he said.
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Liberal Racism and the Truth About ‘White Supremacy’
Look out, “extremist white supremacy” is coming to get you! It’s lurking behind every bush, under every bed, it will get you because it is everywhere. It is, in fact, the top domestic terrorist threat in the country...if you don’t count 10,000 murders of black people as terrorism and only focus on the killings of 25 people. That may sound odd or absurd, and it is (both). It’s also what Democrats argue because they don’t give a single damn about the slaughter of anyone they can’t monetize or use to mobilize.
President Joe Biden encouraged the 2023 graduating class at Howard University to “stand up against the poison of white supremacy as I did in my inaugural address, to single out as the most dangerous terrorist threat to homeland is white supremacy. And I’m not saying this because I’m a black HBCU, I say it wherever I go.” By the way, the “B” in “HBCU” stands for black; there are no non-black HBCUs.
What is the “threat” from white supremacy the lives of those graduates are facing? Nothing. Literally nothing. A rounding error in crime statistic, at best.
Almost 10,000 black people were murdered in 2020 (9,941, to be exact) compared to 7,043 white people. How many of those 10,000 were killed by “extremists”? Well, according to the left-wing Anti-Defamation League, a group with everything to gain by inflating those numbers, the total was 25.
Reuters reports, “White supremacists commit the highest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists.” So, the total is 21. That’s 21 out of 9,941 or .0021 percent. Is that the “biggest threat” black people face? They have higher odds of getting hit by a train while on an airplane flying over the Atlantic than to be a victim of “white supremacy extremism.” (Naturally, Reuters framed it in a way to scare and mislead people, headlining the story, “White supremacists behind over 80% of extremism-related U.S. murders in 2022.” If you don’t have the facts or numbers, highlight the percentages…)
Why don’t Democrats tell the truth – that the drug dealers Democrats refuse to prosecute are exponentially more likely to murder innocent black people than any other configuration of human being? Because, unlike that garbage like from Biden and his commencement address at Howard, telling the truth won’t get you applause from any leftists, let alone an educated black audience. And yes, they did applaud that absurd line (watch it here for yourself).
If you want to talk about indoctrination, look no further than what Democrats have done to the education system in predominately black cities, and especially HBCUs. How can anyone believe there are bands of white supremacists – a term, by the way, that Democrats have abused more than Democrat Jeffrey Epstein abused young girls while Democrats sucked up to him, to mean anything and anyone they don’t like – roaming the country looking for minorities to kill?
I wrote this in my book a few years ago, but it’s relevant today, the Southern Poverty Law Center estimated there are between 5,000 and 8,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States, or an average of 6,500. The average attendance of a WNBA game in 2016 was 7,655, a record for them at the time and something they celebrated. That meant there were more than 1,100 more people in attendance of the average game of one of the least popular professional sports in the world than in the most widely known “extremist white supremacist” organization in the country, possibly the world.
Yet, through some miracle known only to Democrats, white supremacists are the greatest terroristic threat the nation faces. Must be that “new math” we’ve been hearing about.
That old politicians looking to manipulate black people spew lies like this should surprise no one, Democrats have been doing that for hundreds of years. That anyone still buys it is a testament to just how engrained the real racism in this country, found exclusively on the left, is still riding strong.
The fact is about 90 percent of black murder victims are killed by black killers (it’s roughly the same for every race, but the numbers are about 10 percentage points less). By not acknowledging this reality, Joe Biden is lying in order to reinforce one of the most important narratives Democrats have going. They’re also lying to obscure the fact that unchecked progressive Democrat policies truly are the greatest threat to black lives in the country. But you’d only care about that if you honestly believed that “Black Lives Matter.” Clearly, Democrats and even BLM activists do not.
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President Trump Emerges Victorious Once Again
He may no longer be our president, but he's still stacking wins and owning his enemies.
The years-long investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia collusion investigation is over. Its conclusions were damning for the FBI, the Department of Justice, and their allies in the media. The game is over, and Donald Trump has won.
The FBI's long list of corruption and politically motivated actions has finally been exposed. Special Counsel John Durham's 300-page report reveals what we've known since the 2016 election: the FBI has become the political police force of the Democratic Party. Fueled by animus toward the now-former president, these agents engaged in overreach and malfeasance for which someone should be imprisoned. We can sift through the years of nonsense all week. The only headline liberal newspapers should have today can be summarized in three words: Trump was right.
He was right about these actions being part of the Deep State cabal, a loose confederation of intelligence and DOJ officials who intentionally engaged in operations aimed at hamstringing the Trump administration. The leaked cables between then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and ex-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak are a primary example—these are never known to the press unless someone in the IC delivers them gift-wrapped to the media. The FBI's hatred of Trump is detailed in the text messages between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok. Page was a bureau lawyer, while Strzok was a top counterintelligence agent; both were involved in an extramarital affair. The tens of thousands of messages embarrassed the FBI, which has long channeled professionalism and objectivity in its actions.
Strzok's message to Page, where he said the FBI would stop Trump, stood out the most. He tried to pass that off as him exhibiting his patriotism. Strzok signed off on the spy operation against the Trump campaign, which was started when he, then-FBI Director James Comey, and ex-deputy director Andrew McCabe decided to use the Steele Dossier to get this circus going. The dossier was a piece of political propaganda, an opposition research project funded by the Clinton campaign.
They knew this and that there was evidence that this could be riddled with Russian disinformation. This key detail was omitted because they wanted to keep the illegal spy warrants which targeted Trump officials alive. The core evidence behind this charade was deficient.
"The objective facts show that the FBI's handling of important aspects of the Crossfire Hurricane matter were seriously deficient," wrote Durham. "Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the (Justice) Department and FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report."
And here's the kill shot:
"Neither U.S. nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation."
Heads must roll at the FBI, a tall order since no one has been adequately punished for this attempted coup. It's treason. Punishment for treason should always be death, and if this tall order is met—all family members of the conspirators should have their citizenship revoked. But this will never happen, as the political class always protects its allies. For now, the FBI is and should be viewed as a joke and not afforded any deference it once commanded over this massive election interference scheme, which it thought would remain hidden. Remember, the agency was confident that Hillary would win the election. When she didn't, Obama officials scrambled, with Barack hosting a critical meeting in January 2017, where he and his cronies drafted a game plan to protect this hoax.
After years of knowing the truth, we've been mostly vindicated about Trump. For liberals aghast at the findings or still clinging onto hope that some smoking gun evidence exposing Trump as a Russian agent will be unearthed soon, I don't know what to tell you—you're mentally ill and should ask your doctor if Paxil is right for you.
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More insanity about women in Australia and elsewhere
Note that the Wong below is Rachael Wong, not Leftist apparatchik Penny Wong
In the guise of trying to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘tolerant’ and ‘accepting’, some folks are willing to do and say the most brainless things imaginable. This practice has been going on for some time. I offer just three examples, all concerning radical trans activism that is, in my opinion, destroying the West.
Who can forget what happened in March of last year regarding US Supreme Court Justice nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson? As I said back then:
The Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked a rather simple question on Tuesday night as part of her Senate Judiciary confirmation hearings. Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, asked Jackson a question that most five-year-olds could easily answer: ‘Can you provide a definition for the word “woman?”’ Her reply was this: ‘Can I provide a definition? No, I can’t. Not in this context, I’m not a biologist.’
Such is the madness that we live under when seemingly intelligent grown-ups cannot answer the most basic of questions. It reminds me of one meme making the rounds that shows two people standing in the pouring rain. The woman asks the guy: ‘Is it raining?’ He replies: ‘I don’t know, I’m not a meteorologist.’
A similar circumstance played out in New Zealand recently. That sad episode I also wrote up at the time, so let me share that here:
Recently the uber-woke New Zealand Prime Minister Ardern stepped down. That was great news, but many of us wondered if her replacement would be any better. Well, now we know.
When a journalist asked him [Chris Hipkins] what a woman is, he said: ‘Um… to be honest that question has come slightly out of left field for me.’ When asked again he said, ‘It is not something that I have a pre-formulated answer on.’ What utter madness.
You can watch the whole, embarrassing and appalling episode here.
With ‘leaders’ like this the West doesn’t have a chance. As one friend said on the social media: ‘I just asked our 8-year-old grandson, and he certainly knows women are different to boys and men and briefly explained to me why anatomically.’ To which I replied, ‘Well, he would do a better job of running NZ than this clown would!’
But not to be outdone by America and New Zealand, we have another case of this moral breakdown occurring in Australia. It involves – of all things – the Queensland Minister for Women. Rachael Wong of Women’s Forum Australia had this to say:
Things are looking dire for women in Queensland. This week, Queensland’s Minister for Women Shannon Fentiman (who is also the state’s Attorney-General and Minister for the Prevention of Domestic and Family Violence), took to social media to decry a sticker placed on a sign outside her office. The sticker included the word woman, and its definition: adult human female.
According to the Minister, ‘For some people in our community, these stickers represent much more – they represent a movement which discriminates against [transgender people] and denies their existence.’
‘I want to be very clear – I don’t stand for these sort of views, our community doesn’t stand for these views, and Queenslanders don’t stand for these views,’ added the Minister."
So, the Minister for Women ‘doesn’t stand for the definition of woman’, which, as the Minister for Women, she finds offensive? It’s like we’re living in an alternate universe.
Rachael Wong also tweeted the following:
QLD ‘Minister for Women’ @ShannonFentiman answers Q ‘What is a woman?’ ‘Let’s be inclusive. Anyone that identifies as a woman is a woman… It’s not one group advancing at the expense of another.’ Tell that to the actual women whose rights you are giving away under self-ID laws.
This caught the attention of Jordan Peterson. He tweeted in reply:
"I'm responsible for something with no definition" how convenient for you @ShannonFentiman"
In an email to supporters Rachel Wong said this:
My tweet has since been shared by none other than Canadian commentator Jordan Peterson, who in raising the issue with his 4 million + followers, has now done more for women in Queensland than the one person whose job it is to represent them.
How does the Minister know someone is identifying as a woman if she can’t define what a woman is? How can she represent women if she doesn’t know who they are?
And ‘one group advancing at the expense of another’ is exactly what Fentiman’s self-ID laws will achieve.
Well done Rachael and Jordan. The complete reality meltdown that we see in our Woke leaders is the most shocking thing I have witnessed in my long lifetime. And it looks to only get worse. Who is voting in these utter nincompoops? When will this insanity come to an end?
The level of stupidity here is mind-boggling, and the big losers are women and children. As Candace Owens put it recently: ‘Telling children they can pick their gender is as fundamentally stupid as telling children they can choose their species. If we did, we’d have classrooms filled with mermaids, aquamen, wizards, gnomes, fairies, and aliens.’
But adult activists do not give a rip about the harm and confusion they may be causing to children. Heaven help us all.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/there-are-nincompoops-among-us/
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16 May, 2023
The Leftist Personality: Left-Wing ideology as a biological phenomenon
I have been noting for many years that the twin studies show political orientation to be highly inheritable genetically but have made only desultory comments about what in detail is inherited. The article below remedies that deficit rather well -- with detailed support from the academic journals
1. Defining “Leftism”
‘Leftism’ is characterized by ideas like equality, fraternity, “progress,” societal reform, and globalism. This manifests politically as support for feminism, homosexuality, wealth redistribution, immigration, and racial egalitarianism, combined with opposition to the family, nationalism, and traditional culture.
The rejection or embrace of hierarchy (i.e. inequality) is the fundamental difference between Left- and Right-Wing worldviews. Right-Wingers believe that hierarchy is inherent to reality and part of the natural order, while Leftists claim to believe that all men are fundamentally “equal” [1] [2].
2. Leftism and Physical Biology
Countless studies have shown that physical characteristics closely align with political orientation. AI facial recognition can accurately predict a person’s political alignment 72% of the time, outperforming chance (50%) and human estimation (55%) [3].
Taller [4] and more attractive [5] people are more likely to identify as Right-Wing and more likely to actively support Right-Wing parties, policies, and politicians. In America, Australia, and Europe, Right-Wing politicians are more likely to be physically attractive than their Left-Wing counterparts [6].
Men who are physically stronger are more likely to oppose wealth redistribution [7] and other forms of sociopolitical egalitarianism, even if they are poor themselves, and opposition to egalitarianism grows as men spend more time in the gym [8]. Similarly, men with more masculine facial features are more likely to support explicitly prejudiced ideas [9], and men who are better fighters are more likely to support warfare and hold “self-favoring” (non-Leftist) political beliefs [10].
In summary: Leftists are shorter and uglier, and Leftist men are weaker, less masculine, and less capable of fighting — characteristics that are not conducive to success in any human civilization.
3. Leftist Psychology 101
Studies on Left- and Right-Wing psychology have consistently found that Leftists are more likely to exhibit manipulative, self-serving, and generally antisocial personality traits. For example, Leftists have abnormally low disgust sensitivity [11]. A person’s political alignment can be predicted with 95% accuracy by observing their brain’s response to one disgusting image [12].
Despite Leftist claims that their ideology is “just being a good person,” support for wealth redistribution is best predicted by the psychological traits of “communal fairness” (egalitarianism), malicious envy, spite, being self-interested, and willingness to inflict “instrumental harm” (hurting innocent people for “the greater good”) [13]. The stereotypically Left-Wing behavior of “victimhood signaling” correlates with personality traits such as narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism (amoral manipulation) [14]. Victimhood signaling is best described as an emotional manipulation technique used to obtain free resources.
On average, Right-Wingers are much happier than Leftists. This phenomenon has been attributed to a variety of factors, including the ideological rationalization of inequality (“inequality is natural” vs “inequality is unfair”) [15]. However, the most logical explanation is that Leftists are predisposed to mental illness [16]. Numerous studies have found that Leftists are far more neurotic than Right-Wingers [17] and that White Far-Leftists are four times more mentally ill than moderate Right-Wingers. It is currently unclear whether Leftism causes mental illness or whether mentally ill people are instinctively drawn to Leftism. Both may be true simultaneously.
The psychological differences between Left- and Right-Wing people can be partially attributed to physical differences in brain structure. For example, Right-Wing views are associated with a larger amygdala [18], which is associated with higher emotional intelligence (e.g. reading facial cues or personal space) [19] and the ability to maintain more complex social networks [20]. The amygdala also plays a causal role in threat detection [21]. This data contradicts studies by Far-Left sociologists, like Alain Van Hiel, which claim that Right-Wing beliefs are defined by low emotional intelligence.
4. Left- and Right-Wing Moral Foundations
The Moral Foundations Theory, originally coined by psychology professor Jonathan Haidt and colleagues, proposes that Left- and Right-Wing people build their worldviews on five major “Moral Foundations.” Leftists are disproportionately high in the individualizing traits of Harm Avoidance and Fairness, but disproportionately low in the group-orientated traits of In-Group Loyalty, Respect for Authority, and Purity/Sanctity. In contrast, Right-Wingers express all five traits equally [22] [23].
Countless studies support the Moral Foundations theory, but one statistic related to in-group preference is particularly significant: White Leftists, who are by far the most mentally ill demographic, have a negative in-group preference, meaning that they genuinely despise their own race and will always prioritize the group interests of foreign races above their own.
A 2019 study investigated the self-reported “moral circle” of Left- and Right-Wing people [24]. Participants were asked to assign 100 “moral units” to 16 categories, ranging from their “(1) immediate family” and “(2) closest friends” to “(15) all natural things in the universe” and “(16) all things in existence.” The categories did not overlap, so points attributed to ‘higher’ categories (e.g. the universe) were not shared with ‘lower’ categories (e.g. the family). Leftists claimed to care more about “all natural things in the universe including inert entities, such as rocks” than they do about their own family and friends.
Leftists may well disdain their family and friends, but the information listed in section 3 of this article casts severe doubt upon the sincerity of their “universal love.” It seems much more likely that an immoral, narcissistic, and manipulative psychopath would use performative virtue signaling to conceal their malevolent and self-serving intentions. This is supported by new data from a 2022 study, which found that self-reported “good moral character” actually predicts moral hypocrisy, rather than good moral character [25].
5. Conclusion: A profile of the average Leftist
Using the data compiled above, we can construct a basic psychological profile of the typical Leftist. This will not apply to every Left-Wing individual, but it can serve as a general framework for understanding and dealing with Leftists. So, generally speaking…
Leftists believe that life is fundamentally unfair, likely due to their undesirable physical characteristics (shortness, ugliness, weakness, etc.).
This causes neuroticism and leads to self-obsession and spiteful envy.
They lose all concern for group interests and focus exclusively on advancing their own standing in society.
As they cannot get ahead in fair competition, they resort to underhanded, manipulative, and psychopathic strategies.
This manifests as behaviors like victimhood/virtue signaling, gaslighting, and other forms of coercion and emotional abuse.
To disguise their nefarious and self-serving aims, they proclaim a universal love for humanity, nature, or the even entire material universe.
They collaborate with other outcasts and potentially dangerous out-groups to exact vengeance on their perceived “oppressors,” by which they mean normal people.
However, they will happily betray (“cancel”) their friends and allies, who they value as little as inert objects like rocks, for social gains.
Leftist ideology can thus be summarized as an attempt to climb the social ladder via underhanded tactics, such as eliminating the competition by promoting “equality,” i.e. dragging everyone down to their level: The gutter. Leftism is a strategy for losers to take power and resources from winners.
The key takeaway is this: When it comes to Leftists, we are not dealing with honest people who want what is best for society but are tragically mistaken about how this can be achieved. Such individuals certainly exist on the Left, but the average Leftist is spiteful, malicious, and vindictive. They cannot be reasoned with or rationally convinced of their “mistakes” because they are driven by deep-rooted biological and psychological issues that, in many cases, cannot be resolved. Use extreme caution when dealing with them. They would think nothing of using the system to destroy your life.
6. Addendum: On Leftist ideological hegemony
Some readers have correctly pointed out that many “Left-Wing” people are simply indoctrinated into Leftism by default because it is the hegemonic ideology of the current Globalist regime. Leftism (or “wokeness”) dominates every facet of Western society: Media, academia, governments, corporations, and so on. Westerners are born into Leftism like fish into water, and many are blissfully unaware that they are under an ideological spell.
Genuine “biological Leftists” (often described as “spiteful mutants”) should be distinguished from the indoctrinated masses who merely repeat and believe what society tells them is right and true. Without the corrosive influence of Leftist hegemony, such individuals would be normal, loyal, and valuable members of society. However, the “true Leftists” would probably be just as vicious, defective, and subversive as they are today.
https://biopolitics.substack.com/p/the-leftist-personality-left-wing
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Pushing Back Against the Cultists
The media have successfully convinced millions of Americans that protecting kids from being “gender-affirmed” is a threat to their health and well-being. Even worse, many states have enacted legislation to keep parents out of the discussion to media accolades.
That’s how we know conservatives have completely lost the narrative to the gender-confusion cultists.
Of course, as long as the Leftmedia control the flow of information, they’ll always have the upper hand. For example, a recent NBC article makes victims of kids whose parents try to shield them from being transitioned. The article claims that Missouri “restricts the rights of trans people,” that LGBTQ rights are being “targeted,” and that more than a dozen parents of trans children in the state say the climate is hostile, with one histrionic parent calling it “a dystopian nightmare.”
We don’t think that word means what that parent thinks it means.
One family mentioned in the article is thinking about moving from solidly red Missouri to Illinois, where Chicago Democrats ensure they can freely transition their child without meddling lawmakers who seem to have a problem with drugging and mutilating children.
Just this week, the Missouri legislature passed two bills that ban so-called gender-affirming care for minors, ban men claiming to be women from competing against women in sports, and forbid healthcare providers from performing gender-transition surgeries. Puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors would also be banned until 2027.
The state’s efforts to address these issues were in part sparked by whistleblower Jamie Reed, a former case worker at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital’s Transgender Center who, according to NBC News, “alleged the facility was harming children by not conducting thorough mental health assessments before providing patients puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy.”
One parent who sent her child to the center felt bullied into approving treatments that ultimately caused her son to experience significant mental and physical health problems, including thoughts of suicide.
Who could’ve imagined?
Reed, who describes herself as queer and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders, was appalled at the way children were pushed into transitioning by staff there. She wrote, “Many encounters with patients emphasized to me how little these young people understood the profound impacts changing gender would have on their bodies and minds.”
Furthermore, Reed described how giving estrogen, testosterone, or other drugs to children comes with a range of harmful side effects and that children simply aren’t able to comprehend the implications of these treatments. Reed added, “Another disturbing aspect of the center was its lack of regard for the rights of parents — and the extent to which doctors saw themselves as more informed decision-makers over the fate of these children.”
As the horror stories continue to pour out of transgender facilities across the country, it’s clear that conservatives aren’t the ones victimizing the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society. No matter what the so-called mainstream media have to say, those of us on the Right are these children’s defenders and protectors. We’re the ones telling them the truth.
Unfortunately, America is the world’s leader in pushing this mindless, baseless, and dangerous “gender-affirming” cult onto impressionable kids and their parents. In particular, the corporate media have locked arms and repeated the same phrases to convince us that “gender affirmation” is settled science and that anyone who opposes this view is a science denier or a transphobe.
What’s interesting, though, is that the rest of the world isn’t following America’s dystopian lead.
As columnist Wesley Smith writes: “It turns out that countries such as Great Britain, Sweden, France, and Finland — not exactly Bible Belt nations — have disembarked from the gender-affirming train. Why? According to these nations’ respective health authorities, the scientific data do not unequivocally support the gender-affirming approach, gender incongruence in youth is often transitory, and, further, medical interventions such as puberty-blocking and surgeries may cause more harm than good. Sweden’s national board of health just updated its guidelines to reject the kind of blanket gender-affirming approach advocated by the Biden administration.”
So much for “settled science.” This is more like mad science, and it’s time to stop it.
The good news is that more Americans finally seem to be waking up and taking a stand against these monsters. And not a moment too soon.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97243-pushing-back-against-the-cultists-2023-05-12
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Durham report: Russiagate wrongfully predicated, no real remedy offered
Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement in response to Special Counsel John Durham's final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland:
"The Durham Report outlines 316 pages of Obama administration Justice Department, intelligence agencies and State Department abuses during the Russia collusion hoax. The report vindicates President Trump, who was wrongfully targeted by an alphabet soup of agencies that resulted in nearly three years of unwarranted investigations. These included the flagrant abuse of the FISA court system, which allowed for electronic surveillance for almost a year of the Trump campaign, transition and administration predicated on nothing more than the wild lies of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.
"It is disappointing that Durham failed to provide Congress with a reasonable remedy to these abuses other than former Justice Department General Counsel and former Twitter general counsel Jim Baker's recommendation 'for an official to challenge both a politically sensitive FISA application and other stages of the investigation' during and after FISA's ex parte proceedings. Trusting the Justice Department to not lie again is not a solution to the destruction of individual liberty that the FISA warrant abuses have revealed. Abusers of this system must be held legally accountable. Either all those involved were dupes, and future penalties for federal officials should range from losing your job and pension if you're too stupid to ask any questions about spying on presidential campaigns and/or significant prison time if you're found to have been actively attempting to change election results or take down an elected president under false pretenses with spying."
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If I Forget Thee, O Jerusalem . . .
Goy though I am, That hymn always gets to me. I will never forget Jerusalem
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, and we wept when we remembered Zion.
We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.
For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; If I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.
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That psalm was the editorial in the Sun as Israel declared its statehood 75 years ago today. The declaration was the culmination of the revolt against the British mandatory power in the land of Israel. Today it’s being reported that King Charles III would like to make a trip to Israel — the first British monarch to do so — and that planning is underway. It would be a wonderful coda to the triumph of the Zionist idea.
We were put in mind of the question last week because Dominic Green, writing in the Wall Street Journal about Charles III, noted that no reigning British monarch has visited Israel, not even Elizabeth II, though her mother-in-law, Princess Alice, is buried at Jerusalem. Then a report in Times of Israel suggests that in respect of Israel a special feeling lurks in the breast of the new King, anointed with oil sanctified in Jerusalem and crowned with a hymn to Solomon.
The prospect of a visit by the House of Windsor to the House of Israel is one of those tricks of history that we tend to enjoy. It was the declaration by Lord Balfour in 1917 that conveyed Britain’s “sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations” and announced that “His Majesty’s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Thirty years later, David Ben-Gurion declared one.
England, though, had frustrated the return to Zion with its White Paper limiting immigration, even as Auschwitz churned with its charnel work and Churchill spoke of Europe’s “darkest hour.” The white paper was a death sentence for many, and Ben-Gurion promised to “fight the White Paper as if there were no Hitler and fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper.” The Irgun bombed the British military headquarters at the King David Hotel.
Yet the Irgun’s leader, Menachem Begin, and the future king eventually enjoyed warm relations. We glimpsed this in 1982, when we, then with the Wall Street Journal, interviewed Begin in Jerusalem. When the name of Prince Charles came up, Begin, by then a Nobel laureate in peace, told us that he had sent, on the birth of Prince William, a friendly note of congratulations to the new father and future king.
Suddenly, Begin turned to his famed secretary, Yechiel Kadashai, and asked him to fetch the letter that had come back. It turned out to be a very friendly note from Charles, and his wife, Princess Diana. When Kadashai returned with the letter, it was passed around with great pride by the premier who had once topped a wanted poster of the British Mandate. It was a short but warm note, signed “Charles” and “Diana.”
As a prince, Charles twice visited Israel, for the funerals of Prime Minister Rabin and President Peres. William, now Prince of Wales and heir, paid the first official royal visit to Israel, where the Jewish state’s then-president, Reuven Rivlin, greeted him as “prince and a pilgrim.” He prayed at the Western Wall, but feet from where Zadok, invoked in the coronation service, would have sauntered in his priestly vestments.
The words of the psalm above, among the most famous ever, were written by King David. When they were reprinted in the Sun, no headline was appended or needed. Two days later, the Sun issued its editorial declaring that the “civilized world must see to it that” the Jews of Palestine be given “every fair chance” to defend “the most glorious event in some 2,000 years of history.” It was, they did, and it is, among other things, a stage set for a king.
https://www.nysun.com/article/if-i-forget-thee-o-jerusalem ?
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15 May, 2023
Scholars Found a Bible with a Different ‘10 Commandments’: The story of the Shapira fragments
Jonathan Poletti is at it again: pushing the story that there are "alternative" Bibles or Bible fragments. He is right. There are, but which ones are canonical is the issue
His latest story below shows that he is no Bible student. He refers to fragments of a scroll that are probably ancient but which have a "different" version of the Ten Comandments (known to Anglicans as the "ten suggestions").
He seems to be unaware that there are actually three different versions of the commandments in the Torah. Ironically the version usually quoted -- in Exodus 20 -- appears to be a priestly interpolation. Though the version in Deuteronomy 5 is similar.
One wonders if Poletti has ever read Exodus 34. It reads quite similarly to the Shapira fragments and no-one has challenged its originality. The Shapira fragments could be an earlier reading of Exodus 34 and therefore need disturb no-one. I offer a more extensive discussion of the various commandment sets here
In1883, another version of the Bible’s book of Deuteronomy surfaced. A Jerusalem antiquities dealer named Moses Shapira found it, and brought it to London
This was quite an extraordinary item, and in presenting it to the British Museum he was open to getting a million pounds.
Months later, he would be broke, infamous, and dead.
In London, Shapira set up viewings of the manuscript.
A viewing on July 26, 1883, before a group of scholars, archaeologists, and journalists, is recalled in the memoir of Walter Besant, a novelist and historian. He writes of Shapira:
“He had with him, he said, a document which would simply make students of the Bible and Hebrew scholars reconsider their ways; it would throw a flood of light upon the Pentateuch; and so on. The man was a good actor; he was a man of handsome presence, tall, with fair hair and blue eyes; not the least like an ordinary Polish Jew, and with an air of modest honesty which carried one away.”
How had Shapira acquired this manuscript?
He told a strange tale. A Bedouin man had found it in a cave on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, among mummies. It was then stolen from him by another man, who’d sold it to Shapira, then disappeared.
A strange story—and a strange manuscript, these leather fragments on whose blackened surface they could just barely see letters in the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet.
There was a Moses story, but it was all different.
There were the Ten Commandments, but they were different too. One could only compare, in bewilderment, the differences between the ‘canonical’ Deuteronomy and this ‘Shapira Deuteronomy’.
The canonical Deuteronomy has: “You shall not murder.”
The Shapira scroll had: “You shall not slay the soul of your brother. I am Elohim, your god.”
The canonical Deuteronomy has: “You shall not steal.
The Shapira scroll had: “You shall not steal the wealth of your brother. I am Elohim, your god.”
And the Shapira scroll had, not Ten Commandments, but eleven. There was a ‘new’ one.
“You shall not hate your brother in your heart. I am Elohim, your god.”
While evaluating the Shapira fragments for purchase, the British Museum put them on exhibit.
It was a sensation. Crowds flocked to see this ‘different’ Deuteronomy.
The poet Robert Browning wrote to a friend: “You know about Mr Shapira’s pieces of leather with portions of Deuteronomy thereon?”
Browning thought they were real. “I hope!”
Many scholars were dismissive. The very idea of a manuscript surviving in Palestine was just unthinkable. Archibald H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology at Oxford, published a brief dismissal:
“It is really demanding too much of Western credulity to ask us to believe that in a damp climate like that of Palestine any sheepskins could have lasted for nearly 3,000 years…”
Plus, the idea of another Bible was shocking—for scholars as much as Christian laity. As the scholar Frederic G. Kenyon reflects in 1897:
“In these strips of leather there was enough to cast doubt upon the whole of the received text of the Old Testament and to discredit the whole science of textual criticism.”
https://medium.com/belover/scholars-found-a-bible-with-a-different-10-commandments-1490aa20049c
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Coors Shows Bud Light How It's Done with New Commercial, Brings in 'Yellowstone' Star to Help
I've always thought Coors is way better anyway -- JR
Anheuser-Busch might quickly become a case study in marketing courses in regard to how to both alienate a well-established client base and tank profits in record-breaking time.
The household American beer company has lost billions in the weeks following its sickening endorsement of the mentally and spiritually deranged transgender social media “influencer,” Dylan Mulvaney.
Mulvaney’s stomach-turning caricature was featured on a special release of Bud Light cans in a debauched attempt to celebrate Mulvaney’s first 365 days living as a “woman” back in early April.
The majority of beer-drinking Americans have reacted to the Anheuser-Busch campaign with such disgust that even Coors has now released an ad capitalizing on the colossal failure.
According to OutKick, “The beer company debuted a brand new commercial Wednesday featuring ‘Yellowstone’ star Cole Hauser — otherwise known as Rip Wheeler — as they celebrate 150 years on this earth.”
Hauser can be heard narrating the ad itself, which starkly contrasted itself from the Mulvaney ad in regard to masculinity.
Anheuser-Busch’s ad flaunted Bud Light as the favorite beer of a mentally ill man afflicted with gender dysphoria wearing a dress and woman’s makeup.
The Coors ad associated its beer with traditionally masculine archetypes throughout the history of the 150-year-old product.
The best part of the Coors ad stated, “Because when you’re a favorite beer of rockstars, smugglers, cowboys and presidents, you don’t compromise. That’s our legacy. What do you want to go down in history for?”
The Coors ad then ended with a bottle of Coors Banquet with the words, “Start Your Legacy,” prominently displayed next to the bottle.
This marketing is brilliant as it not only glorifies the masculinity of the past, but it also pours salt in the gaping wound of the once great Anheuser-Busch, which has declared war on it.
“What do you want to go down in history for?” is a very obvious jab at Anheuser-Busch, which will most certainly go down in history as being the first beer company to destroy its image and legacy in a sad attempt to virtue signal in support of the transgender movement.
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Biden slammed for calling white supremacy ‘most dangerous terrorist threat’ during Howard graduation speech
President Biden was slammed by critics Saturday after denouncing white supremacy as the “most dangerous terrorist threat” to the nation during a graduation address to students at Howard University
“Stand up against the poison. White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland,” Biden declared to a heavy round of applause.
“And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go.”
Biden said that the US is still embroiled in its long battle against racism, but said that the graduating class of 2023 would carry out the work to “redeem the soul of this nation.”
Conservative pundits quickly took to Twitter to push back against Biden’s statement, with some accusing him of pandering as a political tactic.
“The Democratic Party spent most of the 19th Century and much of the 20th using overt racism to win elections. They are doing again in the 21st century. The racism just looks a lot different than the 19th century version,” wrote Jon Miltimore, editor of the Foundation for Economic Education.
“No you’re saying it because you’re a pathological liar propped up by the media to help fuel dangerous racial division,” snapped American Greatness journalist Julie Kelly.
RNC Research’s Jake Schneider lambasted Biden as a “divider-in-chief.”
Biden also boasted that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was “brighter” than her colleagues on the high court.
“With your voices and votes, I was able to fulfill my commitment to put the first black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. And by the way, she is brighter than the rest. She is one bright woman,” he said to applause from students at the historically black university. “Because of you. You turned up. You showed up when the votes counted.”
Biden nominated Jackson to the high court in February 2022 — fulfilling a controversial promise to only consider black women for the job. Her confirmation was marred by accusations that she treated child porn and “baby sex torture” cases too leniently.
Despite being the allegedly most intelligent Supreme Court justice, Jackson was famously unable to define the word “woman” when asked by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) during Jackson’s confirmation hearing.
“I’m not a biologist,” she protested at the time.
Biden’s commencement remarks offered a glimpse of the looming 2024 presidential campaign — which polls indicate could offer the country a rematch of his 2020 fight with former President Trump.
The commander in chief regaled graduating students with his first-term accomplishments and implored them to stay active and politically engaged.
“We took the most significant law on gun violence in 30 years. I got the assault weapons ban passed 30 years ago, and we’re going to pass it again,” Biden said.
“I’m keeping my promise that no one should be in jail for using or possessing marijuana. Their records should be expunged,” he added to cheers.
The blue meat continued. Biden said his administration would fight “for transgender children to be free” and “for affordable health care and housing.”
He also warned about Republicans and the “sinister” forces holding back progress.
“Hate never goes away,” he declared. “It hides under the rocks, and when it’s given oxygen, it comes out from under that rock.”
“It is still a battle for a soul of a nation,” the president added, echoing his 2020 campaign theme. “Silence is complicity.”
The campaign accomplishments come as Biden tries to shore up support among black voters, who are critical to his reelection chances.
An ABC News / Washington Post poll this week found that Biden’s approval ratings with black people stood at just 52% — down from 82% at the time he took office. A full 27% of black voters said they would definitely or probably vote for Trump in 2024 — a significant potential improvement from the 12% of black voters he netted in 2020.
Trump went unnamed in Biden’s remarks, though he alluded to the then-president’s comments after the deadly neo-Nazi riots in Charlottesville in 2017, in which he said there were good people “on both sides.”
He also brought up the deadly Jan 6 Capitol riot after his election as president.
“A violent insurrection took place, a dagger at the throat of democracy. For the first time in our history an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in this country. They failed. Democracy held. Hope prevailed,” Biden said.
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In Zeal for Transgenderism, Washington State Muscles Parents Out, Gets Control of Their Kids
Once upon a time, it was a tragedy to become an orphan. Now, at least in two deep blue states, it’s in.
In Washington state, both the House and Senate have passed a bill that would allow the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families, not the parents, to be the contacts if a child who runs away is trying to get an abortion or transgender medical procedures. The bill is currently on Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee’s desk.
In California, a bill that would let 12-year-olds leave home if a mental health professional OKs it, no parental permission required, has passed in the state Assembly and is now winding its way through the state Senate.
Is this the future?
To be clear, both states currently have legal pathways to help children who have abusive parents. These bills aren’t about situations where it is genuinely dangerous for a child to stay with his parents. As Washington state Rep. Cyndy Jacobsen, a Republican, noted in a floor speech earlier this month, “We have procedures for [Department of Children, Youth, and Families] if children are abused or neglected or their parents kick them out.”
No, what’s going on here isn’t about protecting kids. It’s about making sure that any child who wants an abortion or transgender medical procedures isn’t prevented by their parents.
Leftists’ New Dream
For today’s leftists, the importance of gender ideology and abortion on demand apparently trumps the value of parents. As activist Kaley Triller tweets about the Washington bill, “SB 5599 basically gives the state the right to kidnap your kid if you don’t play along with the gender cult.”
Is this really where blue states want to go? Is there no longer bipartisan consensus that parents, not bureaucrats, should be in charge of children?
How quickly the leftist imagination has moved.
Back in 2012, the Obama campaign set off a firestorm with its “Life of Julia” slideshow, which showed a woman depending on government welfare from childhood to retirement.
“Julia’s entire life is defined by her interactions with the state. Government is everywhere and each step of her life is tied to a government program,” wrote former Education Secretary William Bennett for CNN.
“Notably absent in her story is any relationship with a husband, family, church or community, except a ‘community’ garden where she works post-retirement. Instead, the state has taken their place and is her primary relationship.”
But in a quaint touch—how different the U.S. was in 2012—Julia doesn’t ever seem to have about losing custody of her son because she has hesitations about allowing him to pursue medical treatment involving drugs with significant side effects and/or surgeries.
Back then, the leftist dream was merely financial support for all, even if the cost was a crumbling of our personal relationships (and the health of our economy).
Now the leftist dream includes children being free to have abortions and pursue experimental medicine, even at the cost of severing their ties with the people who likely love them most: their parents. It’s not just about an economic government parent; it’s about the government actually being the parent.
Not Following the ‘Science’
What is with this obsession about allowing minor children to make permanent, life-altering medical decisions?
While Democrats like to pretend they’re the party of “science,” this isn’t about some medical consensus on transgenderism. As Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author, told The Daily Signal in a podcast interview last year, much of today’s medical procedures for children who struggle with gender identity is based on a study out of the Netherlands that provided various gender transition “treatments” to children, including puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery.
Yet American activists pick and choose how they view that study. First of all, that study involved 55 children, all of whom had struggled with gender dysphoria for a significant time period. Secondly, those children had no other mental health issues.
Meanwhile, in Europe, instead of relentless pushing of “gender-affirming care”—a term that obfuscates the brutal realities of “treatment” that can sterilize you for life and involve the same drug cancer patients use—there is now caution.
“In the past few years, European health authorities conducted systematic reviews of evidence for the benefits and risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The findings from these reviews—that the certainty of benefits is very low—guided the hand of policymakers there to restrict access to hormones,” Leor Sapir writes in City Journal.
“Currently, minors in these countries can access puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones only if they meet strict eligibility requirements as set out in the Dutch protocol and only in the context of a tightly controlled research setting,” Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, adds.
So to recap: In Europe, they’re putting more guardrails on this medical treatment for kids, while in America, blue states are making it so that kids can run away from their parents and pursue these transgender treatments.
Which position is extreme again?
Some of these treatments are irreversible. They also have potentially horrific side effects. “From studies of adults we know that the risks of cross-sex hormones include, but are not limited to, cardiac disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, strokes, diabetes, and cancers,” wrote Dr. Michelle Cretella, then-executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, in a 2017 article for The Daily Signal.
Detransitioners Show Dangers of Transgender Treatment as Minor
There’s also a growing population of “detransitioners,” people who transitioned genders and then regretted it. Their stories are powerful—and they often speak about making decisions at a young age they now regret.
Consider Keira Bell, a British young woman, who wrote about her gender transition regrets in 2021 for Persuasion: “Before beginning on testosterone, I was asked if I wanted children, or if I wanted to consider freezing my eggs because of the possibility that transition would make me infertile. As a teenager, I couldn’t imagine having kids, and the procedure wouldn’t have been covered by the NHS [National Health Service]. I said I was fine if I couldn’t, and I didn’t need to freeze my eggs.”
But she felt differently later in life. “But now as a young adult, I see that I didn’t truly understand back then the implications of infertility. Having children is a basic right, and I don’t know if that has been taken from me,” she writes.
Who do you want advising kids like Keira as they consider these choices—their parents or government bureaucrats?
This is a whole new front from the Left in the war on the family—and it’s poised to wreck both parents’ and children’s lives.
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Conservative teenagers are generally happier than their liberal peers, study finds
Conservative teenagers are, in general, significantly happier than their liberal peers, according to a study conducted by Columbia University.
"The politics of depression: Diverging trends in internalizing symptoms among US adolescents by political beliefs," was published in the journal Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health in December and while its findings were striking, the reason behind the trend is unclear.
Epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and her coauthors compared depressive attitudes of 12th-graders from 2005 to 2018 between those aligned with conservatism, which was defined in the study as "support of individual liberty, right-wing social and religious values, and unregulated free markets" and liberalism, which was defined as "support of equal opportunity, free but semi-regulated markets, civil liberties, and social justice."
The research concluded that "conservatives reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups."
Between 2011 and 2018, female liberals had a steep increase in depressive affect, which was similar to their male liberal counterparts between 2005 and 2011, but in 2013, they started to fall behind girls.
Between 2005 and 2018, conservative males and females didn't compare to the levels of their liberal counterparts. During that time, conservative males had a slightly higher depressive affect than their female conservative who eventually took the lead in 2016. In addition, when looking at all categories surveyed, researchers found that the more educated families were, the more likely their child was to be depressed.
Researchers qualified their research, stating "conservative ideology may work as a psychological buffer by harmonizing an idealized worldview with the bleak external realities experienced by many" and that liberals faced "a series of significant political events," such as the election of a black president in 2008, the Great Recession, the student debt crisis, Republicans taking control of Congress and former President Donald Trump's 2016 victory that could be contributing to their mental state.
The study pointed to events like war, climate change, school shootings, structural racism, police violence against Black people, pervasive sexism, sexual assault and rampant socioeconomic inequality that "became unavoidable features of political discourse" that might have prompted youth movements to promote "direct action and political change emerged in the face of inaction by policymakers to address critical issues."
"This is particularly true for less privileged groups of liberals, including girls and low SES individuals, for whom both heightened awareness and experience of conservative actions to restrict their rights may have compounded emotional distress," they added.
But, Columbia University Sociologist Musa al-Gharbi reported in an article for American Affairs that conservatives don't just report higher levels of happiness, they also report having higher levels of meaning in their lives.
"Conservatives are more likely to be patriotic and religious," he wrote. "They are more likely to be (happily) married and less likely to divorce. Religiosity, in turn, correlates with greater subjective and objective well-being. So does patriotism. So does marriage."
Consequently, "conservatism itself would be largely incidental to the happiness gap," he added. So "A liberal who was similarly religious, or patriotic, or had a similarly happy marriage, would be expected to have similar levels of happiness as conservative peers."
Journalist Matthew Yglesias also pondered this question in his article "Why are young liberals so depressed," hypothesizing that people dealing with anxiety or depression aren’t usually "totally untethered from reality," but "instead of changing the things they can change and seeking the grace to accept the things they can’t, they’re dwelling unproductively as problems fester."
"Progressive institutional leaders have specifically taught young progressives that catastrophizing is a good way to get what they want," he added.
New York Times Opinion Columnist David Brooks argued that "many on the left began to suffer from what you might call maladaptive sadness," with its three main features being a "catastrophizing mentality," "extreme sensitivity to harm" and a "culture of denunciation."
"For many, America’s problems came to seem endemic: The American dream is a sham, climate change is so unstoppable, systemic racism is eternal," he wrote. "Making catastrophic pronouncements became a way to display that you were woke to the brutalities of American life."
https://www.foxnews.com/media/conservative-teenagers-generally-happier-liberal-peers-study-finds
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14 May, 2023
What was Hitler's personality like?
Just about everything we hear about Hitler casts him in a bad light. But is that all? Did he have a "good" side? Was he in any way likeable? We are unlikely to get a full and fair answer to that question, as anything favourable to him would most likely have long ago been censored out of existence. Political censorship is an evil, however, so I have looked for whatever accounts still exist. And my finding is that he did indeed have a pleasant personality on at least some occasions.
The person who knew Hitler best was undoubtedly Albert Speer, his architect.. So I read right through his "Inside the Third Reich" to see what I could find. And I did find an account of Hitler being friendly and comradely towards his building workers. But that was apparently in the 1930s. What becomes clear in the book is that Hitler's mood steadily deteriorated over time. He steadily became a more difficult companion due to the stresses he was under.
There is however another remaining nugget of information about what Hitler was like in his earlier days. Two short 1936 home movies of him have survived. One "reveals a remarkably "friendly" and "modest" side of Adolf Hitler at the Bayreuth Festival". It was taken when he was a welcome guest in the Wagner family. The scenes show Hitler in conversation with a "beaming" Winifred Wagner. The films show the Nazi leader in civilian clothing, "listening, smiling, an astonishingly modest and even submissive Hitler" We also read that . "One sees a completely different side of Hitler, not the statesman, but quite a relaxed and friendly person"
I submit that these accounts portray Hitler's basic personality. To have influence you have to get on with people and his influence was immense. He came across as a nice guy. There might be a warning in that. Famous grinners like Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden have done a lot of damage too
My source for the home movie contents:
https://www.dw.com/en/rediscovered-films-show-a-friendly-hitler-in-bayreuth/a-19434123
I have kept a copy of it and will post it in various places
It might also be of some interest that there is an article by an historian here which looks at the Nazi policies that would be well-regarded today
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Actor Richard Dreyfuss Slams Woke Hollywood Inclusion Standards: ‘They Make Me Vomit’
During an interview on PBS’s “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover,” veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss criticized Hollywood’s new inclusion standards, calling them “patronizing” and claiming they treat people like children.
Known for his roles in films such as “What About Bob?,” “American Graffiti,” “Jaws,” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” Dreyfuss discussed the decline of civics education in the U.S. before addressing Hollywood’s inclusion standards.
Hoover brought up the new standards, which will require films to meet specific inclusion criteria to be eligible for the Academy Award for Best Picture starting next year. She explained that a certain percentage of actors or crew members must be from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
When asked for his thoughts on the matter, Dreyfuss did not hold back, saying, “They make me vomit.”
Dreyfuss emphasized that film is an art form and a form of commerce, and no one should dictate the latest moral concepts to an artist.
He questioned whether the new standards were really about protecting people’s feelings and stressed that life should be allowed to take its course without legislating such matters.
The actor expressed his disapproval of catering to specific groups, pointing out that Laurence Olivier, the last white actor to play Othello, did so in 1965 in blackface and brilliantly portrayed the character.
Dreyfuss argued that he should not be told he can never play a black man, nor should a non-Jewish actor be told they cannot play the Merchant of Venice.
He emphasized the importance of recognizing that art is art and decried the new inclusion standards as “patronizing,” “thoughtless,” and treating people like children.
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The Left's War on Imaginary Nazis Blinds Them
Is the media trying to sell the white nationalist Hispanic line again? It appears they are in the aftermath of the tragic mass shooting in Texas.
Mauricio Garcia, 33, killed eight people at the Allen Premium Outlets. He was killed by a police officer responding to an unrelated emergency call. The images are heinous, but now that we’ve identified the shooter, we’ve learned more about his personal history, which included racist and antisemitic posts. He reportedly had neo-Nazi sympathies, so the media is trolling, hoping to hook the public into this pseudo-intellectual narrative about nonwhites being white supremacists.
The first vestiges of this nonsense stem back to the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. The shooter, George Zimmerman, was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter but was acquitted. The incident became a national spectacle, with then-President Obama weighing in, which only magnified the shooting. Zimmerman was described as a “white Hispanic,” coupled with multiple instances of journalistic malpractice, including MSNBC editing the 911 tapes to make Zimmerman appear racist.
The media hasn’t learned, as they’re now trying to frame Garcia as a neo-Nazi despite the obvious reasons why this is a fallacy. Nonwhites can’t be Nazis, nor can they ever be. Did Garcia post some awful social media posts? Sure, but is this because he’s a Nazi (in his mind), or is the mental illness shining through? Garcia confessed that no mental health professional could help him. In 2008, he was discharged from the US Army over mental health concerns.
What’s more commonly seen with mass shooters: mental illness or neo-Nazism? It’s not the latter, not even close. Most mass shooters, especially the ones that nabbed the headlines, exhibited severe mental health problems before their rampages. Others have the tragic happenstance of being preventable, as we saw in Highland Park, Illinois, Sutherland Springs, Texas, and Parkland, Florida.
Robert Eugene Crimo III, the Highland Park shooter in 2022, obtained his weapons after his father co-signed his firearm owner identification card (FOID), which was after multiple visits by police, including one where his knives were confiscated after he made threats against his family; he threatened to kill them. His parents didn’t press charges, so no red flags were raised during the FOID process.
Devin Patrick Kelley, who committed the Sutherland Spring shooting in 2017, obtained his AR-15 rifle because nothing came up during his background check. Kelley, a US Air Force veteran, who had served a year in jail for domestic abuse, would have been prohibited from purchasing the firearm if the military filed the proper paperwork. Instead, Kelley’s charges, court-martial, and jail sentence were omitted.
Nikolas Cruz, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooter in 2018, had red flags and mental health issues abound, but state, local, and federal agencies failed to reel him in. Of all the recent mass shootings, Parkland is probably the most glaring regarding preventability.
And what’s the left’s evidence for the rise of white nationalist Hispanics? Nothing other than the ramblings of a mentally ill man in Allen, Texas, and the founder of the Proud Boys, whose profile has been greatly assaulted by the liberal media who thinks they’re some fifth-column group capable of toppling the government — not even close.
Talking about the glaring deficiencies in our mental health system is hard, so the left doesn’t want to debate that. Pervasive hyperbole about Latino white nationalists is easier because the former topic is loaded with nuance and rewriting procedures, ensuring that rights aren’t trampled. It’s a long process, whereas firing the racism flares is a quick and easy rating bump. The left feigned supporting an overhaul but ran too quickly on red flag laws, which are ripe for abuse as written in most states.
Until half the country sees that addressing mental illness and bolstering the FBI’s Instant Criminal Background Check System to accommodate changes to incorporate one’s mental health history without trampling on a host of privacy laws, we’ll never get there.
There must be a better way to shore up this system vis-à-vis mental health; we owe the public to at least try. We’re at the table. We’ve been sitting here for years, but Democrats would instead use the NICS system to establish a national registry as the basis to execute confiscatory measures, and that’s a deal breaker.
What happened in Allen, Texas, remains a mental health issue, which is the real dilemma, not fake Hispanic Nazis, which are figments of academia’s imagination.
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Red revenge: the violence of intangible power in China
Simon Tonkin
China’s recent military exercises over Taiwan have inspired a volley of ‘cannonball counting’ articles by the Western media. Dare I say another round of them? But, what if their weapons were invisible? How could you quantify the unseen? Indeed, their most dangerous weapon remains hidden… It is China’s victim mentality. This is the notion that, because China has been oppressed by other nations for centuries, it may now avenge itself on the international stage – in whatever manner it may deem necessary for restoring justice and global position.
A victim mentality justifies the mercilessness and brutality of its adherents, because their evil oppressors cease to be human in their eyes. As sub-humans, these oppressors are no longer seen to have rights. Furthermore, as those who define themselves as harshly and unjustly oppressed, the victims cease to recognise a moral obligation to conduct themselves in a manner that is either humane or civil.
Yet, two wrongs cannot make a right. Self-defence is one thing, revenge is another.
Today, China harbours a potent and persuasive victim mentality. Since 1991, the Communist Party has mandated, from kindergarten onwards, the teaching of a questionable version of Chinese history that encourages an oppressed psychology and a desire for revenge, as payback for China’s humiliation at the hands of other nations over the 189 years prior to the Communist Party’s inception in 1949. This worldview encourages the Chinese nation to salve their shame by bullying other countries as their scapegoats. Add the fact that China is a military giant, an economic powerhouse, and an aggressor in international affairs, and you’ve got stiff liquor.
In his 2012 book No Enemies, No Hatred, the now-deceased 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo asserted that China’s supremacist ideology is built on an historical self-image of vanity arising from the conviction that China once ruled all under heaven, a concept known as Tianxia. Additionally, many Chinese people are driven by a hidden fear of their own inferiority – one that can only be quenched by the submission of the rest of the world. Xiaobo noted that feelings of inferiority and blame are producing pent-up hatred and the worship of violence in the service of autocratic goals. But, Westerners only talk about China’s tangible threats. We never talk about its most dangerous weapon – its intangible power, the dangerous ideas that it plants into the minds of its citizens.
Since 1994, the Chinese government has decreed that an understanding of its national victim mentality ideology becomes a requirement for passing school and university year levels. It was taught to every student. It still is. Additionally, it was declared that public servants, the military, and teachers, amongst other occupations, would be required to regularly attend refresher courses on this subject. They still are.
What’s the biggest problem with all of this?
The problem is that ideas residing in the minds of people are not completely controllable. Once they are ‘out’, the state loses a certain amount of influence over what people do with them. It is very difficult to manipulate directly and precisely what people ultimately decide to think, feel, and believe in the hidden and inaccessible vault of their hearts. For some, the unaccountable rage of a victim mentality may only grow to the size of a pot plant. For others, it will become a whole forest.
Where have we seen this dangerous mix of victim mentality and power in the recent past?
Napoleon and Hitler headed up the greatest expansionist threats witnessed in the modern era. Furthermore, the supporters of each were fuelled by a victim mentality. Napoleon’s supporters burned with a hatred of the conservatives of France, whom they regarded as the morally subhuman despots of the common man. Hitler’s were maddened by a fanatical suspicion of the Jews, whom they accused of doing everything from robbing the German economy blind to causing the nation’s defeat in the first world war.
Fast forward to 2050. China has not yet achieved its pledge of 2049 world dominance, to the degree that many of its people demand. Meanwhile, innumerable silent yet fertile victim mentality resentments have been growing in the minds of most of its citizens for over 25 years. Perhaps underground organisations are forming to discuss how to employ ‘swifter’ methods to attain China’s desperately desired position in the world: the one they’ve toiled and strained for during such a long struggle, the one they were repeatedly promised, the one they trained their children to sacrifice their working lives for. Perhaps there is a tinder box atmosphere in the country, as hundreds of millions secretly gnash their teeth at the chance to snatch up this proximate nirvana. Perhaps the Chinese skies are charged with the dry expectancy of an imminent lightning bolt of explosive impulsiveness, such that their famous ‘infinite supply of Chinese patience’ becomes finally ready to crack open.
All that it would take is just one extremist ‘pied piper’ who could unite these salivators into a tight mob; who could run just a step ahead of them as he lead them ever onwards and into a delusion that, by imperceptibly slight degrees, extended them further and further into brutality than they ever thought they would go; who could seem so controllable to his political puppet masters, yet turn on and overthrow them to put himself in charge. See Napoleon and Hitler.
Amongst a population that will approach two billion by 2050, is it utterly impossible that such a person could exist? Inconceivable? Dismissible?
Hardly.
Yet, despite all of this, we only talk of the tangible dangers. It may one day be too late to stop the powerful tide of revenge lust in the Middle Kingdom. Therefore, now is the time to attack, by written argument and political activism, the very idea of a morally unaccountable victim mentality, in all its forms and wherever it may exist, and to make sure that this message is ‘Voiced’ to as many as possible – even those in China.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/red-revenge-the-violence-of-intangible-power/
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11 May, 2023
More evidence for early civilization in the Balkans
7000 years ago puts it at least on a par with Mesopotamian civilization
When researchers started investigating a sunken settlement off the coast of Kor?ula Island near mainland Croatia, little did they know that they would soon unearth a surprise ancient stone road buried under a layer of sea mud.
Researchers from the University of Zadar in Croatia discovered the road—roughly 13 feet wide and made of stone plates—after scraping mud off the underwater find, according to a translated Facebook post from the university.
The team says the road once connected Kor?ula Island to an artificially made island settlement called Soline, which is now nearly 16 feet below the water’s level. Researchers believe this was all an active site roughly 7,000 years ago.
Using radiocarbon dating, the team tested wood preserved in the road, and were able to date the thoroughfare and connected settlement to 4,900 BC. Researchers describe the structure of the road as “carefully stacked stone plates” that run about 13 feet in width.
As a team—which includes researchers from local museums and diving centers—continues to investigate the area, members are unearthing evidence of more than just the one Neolithic settlement off the popular Kor?ula Island.
Along with the road, researchers have started noticing “strange structures” in the area, and have discovered another settlement nearly identical to Soline in Gradina Bay. Further digging unearthed various artifacts, including blades and a stone axe.
The Miami Herald reports that the Hvar people, one of the original groups of inhabitants of the island, were living in the area during the creation of earthenware, and showed additional ingenuity by crafting a stone road to an artificial island.
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The Left Is Chipping Away at American Ethos
When the calendar flipped from April to May just a few days ago, yet another piece of the American ethos was further eroded.
A new Biden administration rule, which inappropriately tinkers with the housing market, was implemented to punish good creditors on behalf of the financially irresponsible. The rule, which comes from the Federal Housing Finance Agency, forces individuals with good credit to pay higher fees and subsidize those with poor credit. In other words, the people who paid their bills on time are literally paying for those who do not.
"Homebuyers with good credit scores will soon be facing higher mortgage fees as the Biden administration seeks to close the racial homeownership gap and get more first-time and low-income buyers through the door," Newsweek reported. "Starting in May, a new federal rule will upend the current structure of the Loan-Level Price Adjustment (LLPA) matrix. Homebuyers with a good credit score could see their monthly mortgage payment rise by over $60 a month, while riskier borrowers will get more favorable mortgage terms because their fees were reduced."
This type of rule isn't simply about getting a mortgage, it's about the ethics of hard work and personal responsibility. Once upon a time in America, if you worked hard, paid your bills and strived to be financially independent, you were rewarded. These were basic tenets of the American ethos. Now, Americans are punished for doing things the right and responsible way in favor of the unethical and irresponsible.
This outrageous attack on personal responsibility comes nearly a year after President Joe Biden reallocated student loan debt from wealthy college degree holders to hardworking Americans without college degrees – most of whom couldn't afford to go to college. Non-degree holders didn't voluntarily take out millions in student loan debt they knew they could never repay, yet are paying for countless individuals who did. In "forgiving" this debt, Biden used the power of the federal government to commit grand theft of taxpayer dollars.
"Every dollar spent on student loan relief is a dollar that could have gone to support those who don't get the opportunity to go to college," former Obama economic advisor Larry Summer said about the move. "Student loan debt relief is spending that raises demand and increases inflation. It consumes resources that could be better used helping those who did not, for whatever reason, have the chance to attend college. It will also tend to be inflationary by raising tuitions."
There is no such thing as debt cancelation, only payment by others.
This type of compulsory reallocation, whether it's through the housing market or with student loans, is Marxism and part of the socialist dream Democrats continue to implement by government force.
"That's not the way you grow as a country, as an economy, by essentially saying, 'Hey, if you spent recklessly, you lived above your means and you stopped making your payments on time, have no fear. Someone who's done it the right way is going to pay for you.' That's not what capitalism is all about, and it puts us in a situation where there's no consequences when you make bad decisions," Strategic Wealth Partners CEO Mark Tepper recently told Fox Business.
Socialism has always been incompatible with American work ethic. Succeeding in America wasn't possible without hard work and personal responsibility. No longer. This is why the left has always been intent on tearing down the system and replacing it. President Joe Biden, who falsely portrayed himself as a moderate, has been greatly helpful to that cause.
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Would you like to be my Babefriend?
Just when you thought the Lone Star State was free from woke lunacy, think again. The University of Texas has created a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracy so radical that it has even surprised Christopher Rufo, the conversative activist who has seen it all.
Thanks to the equivalent of an FOI lodged by Rufo, it has come to light that every single administrative and academic unit of the university has been infiltrated by DEI insanity.
For example, in the Department of History, historical records are dismissed as a sign of ‘white supremacy,’ which must be ‘dismantled’ ie. burned. Over in the Multicultural Engagement Center, white students have to acknowledge their power and privilege and are taught that minorities endure a constant barrage of ‘microaggressions,’ ‘microinsults,’ ‘microassaults’ and ‘microinvalidations.’
Forget microinsults, what about macroinsults? At the Gender and Sexuality Centre, students are forced to sit through a ‘land acknowledgement to the Comanche, Coahuiltecan, Apache, Tonkawa, [and] Mexica tribal population’ before every seminar.
Staff at the centre teach that ‘polyamory’ and ‘polyfidelity’ are hip and cool and to be rewarded, while being monogamous is boring and must be punished. If a student decides that being polyamorous is a little dull, they can always try their hand at ‘pagan polyamory’, whatever that is.
In the meantime, the bureaucrats have come up with a handbook of accepted speech. If a student accidentally uses ‘he/him’ instead of ‘ze/zir’, they must prostrate themselves before ze and beg for forgiveness. ‘Women’ is out but ‘wimmin’ is in. It’s not ‘ladies,’ ‘gentlemen’, ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ thank you very much, it’s ‘babefriend’ and ‘datefriend.’
We can only hope that sanity will prevail and the Texas legislators currently looking to pass a bill which will eliminate the public university system’s entire DEI bureaucracy will be successful. Watch this space.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/would-you-like-to-be-my-babefriend/
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Investor Arrested After Criticizing Warren Buffett’s Funding for Bill Gates’ Woke Philanthropy and Ties to Jeffrey Epstein
The chairman of a corporate watchdog was removed from a shareholder meeting and arrested after questioning Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett’s support for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The ejected nonprofit leader’s criticism Saturday included Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ travel with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Pete Flaherty, chairman and CEO of the National Legal and Policy Center, was arrested and charged with criminal trespassing by police in Omaha, Nebraska, even though his name was on the list of attendees for the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting.
“I apparently touched the third rail of billionaire politics when I mentioned Jeffrey Epstein’s name,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal on Monday. “I’ve been involved in shareholder activism for 19 years, and I have never before had my mic cut and I was never before arrested.”
Epstein is a convicted sex offender whose 2019 death in a New York jail while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges was ruled a suicide. He had close ties to elites in politics, business, and entertainment.
Buffett, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is well known for taking political stances on the Left, often for higher taxes for the nation’s top earners.
Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational conglomerate holding company based in Omaha, did not immediately respond Monday to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal.
The National Legal and Policy Center, or NLPC, was the sponsor of Proposal No. 8 at Saturday’s shareholder meeting in Omaha, which would “require hereafter that two separate people hold the office of the chairman and the office of the CEO.” Buffett holds both jobs.
At the meeting, Flaherty said that under the proposed change, Berkshire “would be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s personal political activities,” and pointed to Buffett’s support for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among other factors.
Under the meeting rules, shareholders have three minutes to speak for a resolution. A Berkshire Hathaway employee interrupted Flaherty shortly after 1 minute, and then someone cut his microphone.
In his remarks, Flaherty talked about the Gates nonprofit’s funding of left-wing causes such as critical race theory, gender politics, and defunding the police. However, it was only when he brought up Epstein that several in the audience booed and hissed.
“The Gates Foundation bankrolls the teaching of critical race theory around the country, including that math is inherently racist,” Flaherty said at the shareholder meeting Saturday. “The Gates Foundation offers a Gender Identity Toolbox which asserts that gender is the result of “socially and culturally constructed ideas. This is a lie. Gender is not a cultural construct. It is a genetic and biological fact. … We know how much Bill Gates cares about children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.”
Two security officers then stood in front of Flaherty and told him that he would be arrested if he continued.
Flaherty recalled responding that he would leave after finishing his statement. He said he didn’t know at the time that his microphone’s audio had been cut.
Next, an Omaha police officer told Flaherty that he was under arrest and escorted him from the meeting at CHI Health Center Arena. Police transported him to the Douglas County Correctional Center in Omaha, where he was searched, handcuffed, and charged with criminal trespass.
Police detained Flaherty for about three hours, not waiting in a cell but on a bench with others who had been arrested. He paid a bond of $2,500 to be released.
Flaherty, a resident of Arlington, Virginia, is set to appear May 22 in Douglas County Court in Omaha.
Since 2004, Flaherty and other NLPC staffers have attended and spoken at annual shareholder meetings held by various corporations, including Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Home Depot, PepsiCo, Salesforce, Visa, Alphabet, Amazon, Boeing, Citigroup, Facebook, Procter & Gamble, and Walmart.
“I was treated like any other criminal, fingerprinted, handcuffed,” Flaherty told The Daily Signal. “I’ve always been courteous with decorum at the annual shareholder meetings. I didn’t raise my voice. I was not disruptive.”
Flaherty said he is asking for an apology from Berkshire Hathaway, and that the charges be dropped.
He was on the schedule to speak at theshareholder meeting, Flaherty noted. Both Securities and Exchange Commission regulations and Delaware state law require that publicly traded companies hold annual meetings to hear shareholder input. Although based in Nebraska, like many major corporations, for tax reasons Berkshire Hathaway was incorporated in Delaware
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12064979/Investor-arrested-linking-Bill-Gates-Jeffrey-Epstein-criticizing-Warren-Buffet.html
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10 May, 2023
Tulsi Gabbard Has A Lot To Say About The Transgender Craze
Former Democratic presidential candidate and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard went scorched earth on the transgender madness sweeping the nation during a Monday night Fox News appearance.
Responding to recent polling on the issue cited by fill-in host Kayleigh McEnany that showed a majority of Americans both believe gender is determined at birth and do not believe transgender individuals born male should be allowed to participate in female sports, Gabbard expressed hope that "there is still some sense of common sense and sanity in our society."
"We have leaders in the Democratic Party unfortunately and those in our society who are pushing this fantasy," she continued. "They are asking us to take something that is clearly not real and believe that it’s real. They're asking us to take something that is very clearly a mental illness that creates this delusion where you have people saying 'why, I’m a man in a woman’s body' and vice versa, and then doctors committing, in the case of children especially, this medical malpractice trying to turn this fantasy into reality and creating incredibly negative short and long-term consequences both physically and psychologically."
The former Democratic lawmaker, who in 2020 drew fire from her side of the aisle for introducing a bill that would have banned biological males from participating in female sports, went on to cite the issue as one of the reasons she left the Democratic Party.
"Are we going to live in a society of common sense and reality or are we going buy into this insanity and this fantasy?" she asked rhetorically. "This is one of the reasons why I left the Democratic Party, because we have the Democratic Party today selling this fantasy and catering to it and giving credibility to this fantasy, these mental delusions all because they think it’ll give them more political power, a party that is willing to do anything, especially things that are damaging to children, all for the sake of political power should be frightening to everybody."
Gabbard concluded with a call to action for sane Americans on one of the most important issues of our times: "This is a very real battle that each and every one of us has a role in fighting, to protect our kids and to protect our future."
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All This Failure Is Deliberate
Everything Biden has done has been a disaster. The economy is teetering. The border is non-existent. The banking system and the dollar are crumbling. Our enemies are taking advantage of the weakness they perceive in the White House. Crime is out of control in most of our once-great cities. Traditional morality and decency are in the toilet. Our children are being butchered and groomed for the hedonistic pleasure of a cadre of sexual deviants. Women athletes are losing hard-earned rights because of the “transgender” movement, something that almost no one had heard of five years ago. Government spending is without restraint and, as a result, inflation has soared, and America’s middle class is being squeezed into near oblivion. The education system continues to produce semi-literates who will do—what?—in the future. No patriot wants to join the military anymore. The list of Joe Biden’s cataclysms is endless, but my space in this column isn’t, so I mention only a few of the most egregious catastrophes this man and his ideology have foisted upon the nation. Why is he still President indeed?
Biden is President, but he is far from in control. The Marxist, Leftist global movement, whatever groups are ultimately behind it, are using Biden and the Democratic Party as pawns in the supreme game of human domination. Biden does everything he is told to do. He is nothing but a puppet, a “useful idiot” as I explained recently—totally unable to think for himself. The Far Left, the Marxist Left, manipulates him and his ideological band. Biden doesn’t realize it, but some Democrats do.
But this is why Biden—health permitting—will win the Democratic nomination next year. Why would the Leftist oligarchy want anyone else, since he is doing exactly what they want him to? When he has expanded his usefulness, he will be tossed “into the dustbin of history.” They will have no further need for him, and probably won’t even give him a gold watch.
What is critical to understand is that all the failures of the Biden administration are choreographed. They are deliberate, exactly what Soros, the WEF, the Deep State, i.e., the Marxist Left covet. They WANT failure. We must understand that. Some of them are intelligent enough to know that Leftist policies never succeed because they contradict basic human nature, economic laws, history, science, God, and every other reality. This is the horror we are witnessing in America and around the world today—designed, intended collapse. Those who are engineering this are aware of it and, again, need the failure. As societies crumble and dissipate into total chaos, someone, echoing Hitler, will have to step forth and restore order again. The Left certainly doesn’t intend for Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis to do it. The Marxist Left will be able to assume all power, and the people will gladly give it to them in order to restore some measure of peace and stability to their lives. The masses will obey whatever orders are given to them under the threat of terror, and out of fear of a resurrection of the madness that brought about the totalitarian state in the first place. Most Americans sense something is dreadfully wrong, but don’t know enough history to understand it. That is a supreme tragedy.
This societal chaos and ultimate takeover are what Leftists have been scheming, actually, since the French Revolution. It is the world Utopia, with them in charge, of course. The movement was provided greater emphasis and philosophic buttressing by Marx, and while it failed in the Soviet Union, it’s working in China. And it is about to conquer the United States, especially if Biden (or any Democrat) is given four more years in the White House.
What I’m basically describing is George Orwell’s novel, 1984. Orwell portrayed the end result; what we are witnessing today is the movement that will terminate in a 1984-type society. Again, it is deliberate, planned, and, so far, working almost to perfection. They will win unless our will is stronger than theirs. With Ronna McDaniel and Mitch McConnell in control of the (supposed) opposition party, one is not hopeful. The enemy and its goals must be comprehended in order to be defeated, and the Republican establishment in Washington is utterly clueless.
We bemoan the deterioration and destruction of our country. But do you think Barack Obama and George Soros are sorrowful about the current trends in America? Of course not. It is exactly what they desire and designed. Things are going according to blueprint. Oh, there are a few obstacles (traditional, conservative Americans), but they are mostly old geezers who will die off in the next decade or two. Then who will stand in the gap to defend traditional America? I tremble for our children and grandchildren. With the millions of illegals now in, and soon to enter, the country, there is a ready-made mass of humanity to organize into a revolution. There aren’t enough “crops” for them all to “pick.” What are they going to do? They will soon discover that America, because of Leftist policies, isn’t what they were promised it would be. Most of them can’t speak the language well enough to perform skilled labor. They will live on the streets, or in shantytowns, Venezuelan-retreads; huddled together, miserable, waiting for a Lenin or Mao to lead them. They will be a revolution waiting to be organized, waiting to happen.
Ten years ago, we would never have believed this could happen in America. Too many still don’t believe it. By the time they do, it will be too late.
https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2023/05/08/all-this-failure-is-deliberate-n2622942
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America’s ‘Atlas Shrugged’ Moment Arrived, New IRS Data Show
Last September, billionaire Ken Griffin announced he was pulling up stakes and moving Citadel—his gigantic hedge fund—from Chicago to Miami.
The Windy City was out of control, he told Bloomberg, something that dawned on him after a colleague made a coffee run and was robbed by a thief who put “a gun to his head.”
It’s no secret that Griffin’s exit is part of a much larger migration taking place across America.
Data show that several populous blue states—California, New York, and Illinois among them—have been losing population and companies for years. In 2021 Forbes wrote about “leftugees” fleeing blue states for red ones. A few years before that, a headline in The Hill touched on “the great exodus out of America’s blue cities.”
New IRS data, however, show the speed with which blue states are losing taxpayers—and their adjusted gross income (AGI)—is increasing. A recent Wall Street Journal analysis found that more than 100,000 people left Illinois in 2021, taking with them some $11 billion in AGI, nearly double its 2019 total. For New York it was $24.5 billion, an increase of more than 150 percent from 2019. California, meanwhile, saw its AGI loss ($29 billion) more than triple since 2019.
That people are migrating from these states is important. But who is migrating is equally important, and the data paint a bleak picture for these states. Taxpayers giving up on the Prairie State and the Empire State made about $35,000 more per year than new arrivals. For Florida, the data are even more stark. The average income for a new arrival to the Sunshine State was roughly $150,000—more than double those leaving.
“In other words, the geese with the golden eggs are flying away,” writes economist Daniel Mitchell, referring to the IRS data. Needless to say, these data do not bode well for the future of these states. But not everyone is concerned.
The Atlantic accepts the reality that a major migration is underway, one that undercuts the conventional wisdom that “Democratic states are the future,” but rejects the idea that they are “dying.”
“New York City isn’t some dystopian wasteland where no one can see their future,” writes Jerusalem Demsas.
Demsas may be right, but it’s hard to deny there is a dystopian character to what we’re witnessing in many major US cities—including surging crime, failing schools, and social unrest.
Yet there are reasons to believe these problems are going to get worse, not better. Losing wealth-creators and affluent workers doesn’t just affect the economic landscape. It also affects the political landscape.
In a recent WSJ op-ed, Allysia Finley pointed out this primarily works to the political benefit of public sector unions and welfare activists.
“Cities are losing the voters who keep their leaders from going off the rails,” Finley writes, noting that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot was defeated by mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, who ran to her left.
Johnson’s margin of victory was relatively thin, some 20,000 votes. That’s a fraction of the 175,000 people who left Cook County from 2020-2022, Finley points out, and it stands to reason that these are the very people the city needs to get back “on the rails.”
One can see the cyclical nature of this phenomenon. As cities and blue states become more confiscatory and hostile to property rights, they drive out wealthier people and wealth creators. And as prosperous people leave, the politics become more confiscatory and hostile to property rights. And the cycle continues.
There’s something very Randian in this phenomenon. After all, the basic plot of Atlas Shrugged involves a small group of industrialists living in a dystopian future in which they struggle to keep their businesses afloat while fighting against an oppressive government and mooching politicians. Eventually they say to hell with it and walk away, taking with them their wealth, creativity, and innovations.
This is very similar to what we’re witnessing, except that we’re not talking about just a few rich industrialists like Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden (two of the heroes of Atlas Shrugged). It’s not just the Ken Griffins who are leaving, but hundreds of thousands of wealth creators who are voting with their feet, and opting for greener pastures of opportunity.
This is a more realistic version of Atlas Shrugged. The novel was in many ways an epic mystery, Agatha Christie meets Cecil B. DeMille. People are disappearing, and we don’t know why. As Taggart and Rearden struggle (and eventually form a love affair), we keep hearing about some mysterious figure: John Galt.
Eventually we of course learn that Galt is a disgruntled visionary and entrepreneur, and he’s inviting the best and brightest in society to join him in abandoning the looters and leaving them to their own fate. He explains why in a long speech near the end of the novel, which touches on Rand’s philosophy of voluntaryism, individualism, and capitalism.
“All the men who have vanished, the men you hated, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation.”
It’s good story-telling, but it’s not exactly believable. What we’re witnessing, however, is: a mass movement of people who are tired of having the fruits of their labor seized to fund increasingly dysfunctional government systems.
We often forget that entrepreneurship is the lifeblood of an economy. Societies without it wither away. And many of these states and cities have become hostile to entrepreneurship and wealth creation.
“I don’t put companies here in New York anymore...or California,” Shark Tank entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary recently told CNN. “Those states are uninvestable. The policy here is insane. The taxes are too high.”
https://catalyst.independent.org/2023/05/08/atlas-shrugged-irs-data/?omhide=true
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Popular Women's Clothing Brand Faces Heat for Advertising Men Dancing In Dresses
Anthropologie, a famous women's clothing store, had customers so upset over their recent advertisement featuring male modeling dresses the brand had to turn off commenting on their social media posts.
Earlier this week, Anthropologie posted an Instagram reel of a man dancing around in women's dresses, causing outrage from its longtime consumers.
The brand was forced to delete the video and turn off all commenting following the significant backlash of the video.
In one of the videos, a muscular man with a shaved haircut twirled around in a dress, exposing his underwear.
Prominent figures reacted harshly to the posts, condemning the brand's progressive move to feature a man in women's clothes.
Other social media users also called out the clothing line, vowing to never shop at the store again.
"Pathetic to turn off comments. Way to silence the voices of the actual women who shop and wear your clothes. Hope that dude and his friends will come shop because I have a feeling you just lost more customers than you gained with this one," one commentator said.
Another said, "Seriously? I don't want to see a man's bulge as he's twirling in a dress. This is not the way to go, Anthropologie. It looks like my recent purchases are going back to the store."
A third commentator pointed out how it is always men dressing in women's clothing and not vice versa.
"At what point will companies figure out who their target audience is?? You guys obviously didn't see what happened with Bud Light. Does anyone ever ask why we always see men wanting to be women and dress as women??? Funny, I haven't seen one men's clothing company go after the trans men's market," they noted.
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9 May, 2023
The Dabbawalas of India will be celebrating Charles’ coronation
I like Indian people so I am very glad to hear this
Weaving through the throng on a hot May afternoon, Kiran Gavande had a determined look on his face, despite the sweat that trickled down from his head. This wasn’t a routine trip to the market in Mumbai’s Lal Baug neighbourhood for Mr Gavande. Instead of buying onions and tomatoes, he was searching for a silk turban and an intricate shawl to give as a gift to King Charles.
His gifts would soon be handed over to the British High Commission before being shipped over to the UK and presented, by hand, to Charles, following his coronation today.
‘When we heard of Charles’s ascension to the throne, I wrote to him personally to offer my congratulations, I held a party and distributed sweets among my neighbours,’ recalls Mr Gavande, wearing a linen shirt and white Gandhi cap, known as a topi.
Back in 2003, Mr Gavande and his colleague, Raghunath Medge, met King Charles III for the first time. The monarch, then the Prince of Wales, was visiting India and requested a meeting with Mumbai’s Dabbawala community at the city’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus – formerly known as Victoria Terminus.
Since the 19th century, the several thousand-strong Dabbawala community have run a lunchbox delivery service for workers in India’s financial capital. To this day, they still deliver 200,000 lunches by hand using an intricate colour-coding system that identifies every box’s destination and recipient. The meals are delivered by bicycle via the city’s local train network.
‘We told Charles that he could only meet us between 11.15 and 12.15 because the customer is our God and that is our break time,’ recalls Mr Medge.
‘Charles was very interested in our coding system and he was amazed at the work we do every day. He even showed concern for our health, asking about our necks and backs as the buckets that we load onto our bikes can weigh up to 40 or 45 kilograms.’
It was the start of an unlikely but incredible friendship. Charles requested that the Dabbawalas deliver him food every day while he was in Mumbai. Then, remarkably, the future monarch invited two Dabbawalas to attend his wedding to Camilla in 2005.
Mr Medge was one of the two Dabbawalas who travelled to London for the occasion. He was unsure why he was chosen but believes it might have been because his grandfather claimed to have delivered food to Queen Victoria many years before.
‘When we met, we gave him one of the topi caps that we wear and then we saw the same hat on display in Windsor Castle surrounded by diamonds and other jewels from India,’ he remembers, laughing.
It was quite the trip for the portly 67-year-old who grew up in a simple one-room home in the village of Raj Guru Nagar, on the outskirts of Mumbai, and who normally earns £170 per month. He has no photos of his trip to the UK but the memories remain fresh.
‘When we arrived we were taken out sightseeing in London but we had only arrived in our Indian wedding clothes and it was freezing cold for us,’ said Mr Megde.
‘Instead of drinking chai tea to keep warm we were given whiskey and wine. We met the late Queen, who was very warm hearted and gave us tea and biscuits. She gave us a lot of love and respect.’
Mr Megde and his colleague, Sopan Mare, attended the wedding ceremony and the reception afterward, where they mixed with celebrities and dignitaries from around the world. A princess from the royal family of the western Indian state of Rajasthan was on hand to help translate for the two men and help them order vegetarian food. In India, it is custom to scatter rice over the heads of newlyweds. But, in accordance with British tradition, they said they threw rose petals instead.
When Islamic terrorists attacked Mumbai in 2008, killing at least 166 people, the Queen sent her condolences to the Dabbawalas. In turn, the Dabbawalas led the mourning in Mumbai when the late Queen died last year. At Byculla Railway Station, in the south of Mumbai, a stand was set up outside the entrance and Dabbawalas lit candles and said prayers for Queen Elizabeth II.
While Mr Gavande may have looked like just another flustered Mumbaikar as he navigated the crowds at Lal Bagh on Tuesday, he was instead strengthening the historic relationship between the United Kingdom and India. The Puneri Pagadi turban, worn by royalty in the Indian city of Pune, and a Warkari shawl, associated with several great emperors from western India, were purchased by Mr Gavande with pride.
‘Charles recognised the Dabbawalas when no one else did and elevated us to global status. He came and met us and it wasn’t just a performance, he really took a keen interest,’ said Mr Gavande.
‘We wish him happiness and prosperity and we hope that his rule lasts forever.’
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-dabbawalas-of-india-will-be-celebrating-charles-coronation
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Montana Governor Signs Slew of Pro-Life Legislation
The Republican governor of Montana signed five pieces of pro-life legislation into law on Wednesday, stating, “Montanans sent us to Helena to boldly defend life, not send their tax dollars to abortion clinics.”
Gov. Greg Gianforte added: “Montanans’ hard-earned money should not be used by the government to fund elective abortions.”
“This package of pro-family, pro-child, pro-life bills will make a lasting difference in Montana. We couldn’t have done it alone, and I just want to thank the thousands of Montanans throughout the state who made their voices heard and made today possible,” the governor said.
The legislation strengthens Montana law to prevent taxpayer dollars from paying for elective abortions.
According to the governor’s office, “the package defends life, protecting babies born alive following a botched abortion, restricting dismemberment abortion of babies, and prohibiting the abortion of viable babies, unless necessary to protect the life of the mother.”
One of the bills signed into law on Wednesday, SB 154, sponsored by state Sen. Keith Regier, R-Kalispell, “clarifies the right to privacy in the Montana Constitution does not mean the right to an abortion.”
“Senator Regier’s Senate Bill 154 was one of the most important bills brought this session. For years in Montana, abortion activists have used the cloak of a shaky legal interpretation to advance their pro-abortion agenda. That stops today. No more,” Gianforte said.
There are five other pro-life bills awaiting action from Gianforte, according to the governor’s office.
Pro-life advocates applauded the move, praising the governor for standing up for life.
“We thank Gov. Gianforte and legislative leaders for establishing new protections for life and support for women that mirror the compassion of their constituents,” Adam Schwend, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s Western regional director, said in a statement.
“[Wednesday’s] advances in Montana are a part of an ongoing post-Dobbs trend to advance human rights in the states and provide mothers with more resources during pregnancy and after a child is born,” he added. “This progress led by bold state leaders is saving tens of thousands of lives across our nation.”
Dobbs is a reference to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court case decided last year that effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and gave states more say in crafting their own abortion laws.
Jessica Anderson, executive director of Heritage Action for America, the grassroots arm of The Heritage Foundation, applauded the governor’s actions. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“As the Left pushes for a radical pro-abortion, anti-child agenda across the nation, Gov. Greg Gianforte decided to push back, signing five bills aimed at defending unborn lives in Montana,” Anderson said. “Montana has continued the nationwide momentum of states championing pro-life and pro-family values in a time where they’re needed the most, including defending babies born alive after botched abortions and protecting the rights of medical providers who refuse to perform abortions.”
“These bills make clear the absolute truth that every life is worth saving, especially those of innocent unborn children,” Anderson said.
But pro-abortion groups accused Gianforte of putting women’s health at risk.
“These laws have the potential to harm thousands of Montanans and people across our region who have already been forced to travel to Montana for care,” claimed Martha Fuller, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Montana president and CEO. Fuller’s statement does not address specifics about the bills that would jeopardize women’s health.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/05/04/montana-governor-signs-slew-of-pro-life-legislation
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The New Ugly Americans
The old cultural imperialism was supposedly greedy corporatism like Disneyland, McDonald's, and Starbucks sprouting up worldwide to supplant local competitors.
But these businesses spread because they appealed to free-will consumer demand abroad. They were not imposed top down.
The U.S. presence in Afghanistan collapsed in August 2021 amid the greatest American military humiliation in modern history. A billion-dollar new embassy was abandoned. Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of new infrastructure at the huge Bagram Airbase was dumped.
We still do not know how many billions of dollars of sophisticated new weapons were left to the Taliban and now are making their way through global terrorists' marts.
Yet, in our skedaddle, the LGBTQ flag still flew high from our new Kabul embassy. A George Floyd mural was prominent on city streets.
And gender studies programs - to the tune of $787 million in American subsidies - were showcased at Kabul University, in one of the most conservative Islamic countries in the world.
Rainbow flags and Black Lives Matter banners have hung from our embassy in South Korea.
Such partisan cultural activism is a diplomatic first.
The woke Left has now weaponized the country's diplomatic missions abroad to advance highly partisan and controversial agendas that can offend their hosts, and do not represent the majority of American voters at home.
American foreign policy toward other nations seems now to hinge on their positions on transgender people, LGBTQ promotion, abortion, climate change, and an array of woke issues from using multiple pronouns on passports to showcasing transgender ambassadors.
The Biden Administration in January 2022 stopped the EastMed pipeline. That joint effort of our allies Cyprus, Greece, and Israel sought to bring much needed clean-burning Mediterranean natural gas to southern Europe.
Apparently, our diplomats felt it violated our own New Green Deal orthodoxies. So we imperialists interfered to destroy a vital project of our closest allies.
The White House manifesto called the "National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality" offers a blueprint for how to massage nations abroad to accept our values that are increasingly at odds with much of the world's.
Do Americans really believe that embracing drag-queen shows at military bases, abortion to the moment of birth, transgender men competing in women's sports, and the promised effort to ban the internal combustion engine are effective ways to ensure good relations with the United States?
No wonder the Biden Administration's new cultural imperialism is proving disastrous for a variety of reasons.
One, these imperialistic and chauvinistic agendas are pushed abroad at the very time the respect for the U.S. military is at an all-time low. It was humiliated in Afghanistan. It is now unable to recruit sufficient qualified soldiers. Its stocks of critical weapons are depleted.
The Pentagon leadership of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, along with Joe Biden, do not radiate competence.
But they do exude woke pieties.
While we offend Middle East oil exporters and Central Europeans, China allies with Russia and Iran. India and Turkey triangulate away from the United States. Sanctimonious hectoring while appearing weak is a bad combination.
Two, these warped standards are incoherent. Is an abortion-on-demand, totalitarian China therefore an ally? How could we damn supposedly non-woke Saudi Arabia as we begged it to pump more of its non-green oil before the 2022 midterms?
Some of our most loyal allies are in Eastern Europe - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania. These countries have experienced traumatic histories on the front lines against Islamic Ottoman expansionism, czarist and Soviet aggression, and German Nazi bullying and invasion.
They are democratic and pro-American. Yet they are now targeted by our woke imperialists because they remain steadfast as the most religious and traditional of our European allies.
Yet these nations would be more likely to dispatch credible forces for NATO's defense than many of our left-wing, woke, and militarily less capable Western European nations.
Three, most of the 7.9 billion people in the world are not woke. They are aspiring to obtain a modicum of the luxury and affluence taken for granted in America.
The rest of the planet worries whether it will have enough food, energy, security, and shelter to live one more day. For most, the incessant, woke virtue-signaling from affluent Americans comes across as the whiny bullying of pampered, self-righteous - and increasingly neurotic - imperialists.
Four, traditionally the party that controls the State Department does not politically weaponize its embassies with wedge issues that have not won majority support among Americans.
Such abject politicalization rattles and alienates foreign nations. They do not want to be drawn into the American Left's internal propaganda efforts that they know are bitterly controversial inside the United States.
How odd that those on the Left who in the past decried "American imperialism" are now proving the greatest imperialists of all.
https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2023/05/04/the-new-ugly-americans-n2622816
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Tedious Leftist propaganda from Australian public broadcaster
Just when Media Watch Dog readers may have thought that the recent “deep dive” session into “impartiality” awareness (the quotes are taken from an ABC staff email) might have an impact – along came last Saturday’s Coronation.
The coverage kicked off at 5pm on Saturday (AEST). Presented by Jeremy Fernandez and Julia Baird – guests included Stan Grant (ABC), Craig Foster (Australian Republic Movement), author Kathy Lette and indigenous lawyer Teela Reid. Republicans all, as far as MWD can work it out. There were also comments by Liberal MP Julian Leeser (a constitutional monarchist) and academic lawyer Dr Anne Twomey. Both Mr Leeser and Professor Twomey are mild mannered types and not of the ranting kind.
Not so Comrades Grant, Foster, Reid and Lette (although the last named does try to be funny). Needless to say, the first three used the occasion to rant against the monarchy, colonisation, contemporary Australia and all that. There’s nothing wrong with the Grant/Foster/Reid trio expressing their views on the taxpayer funded public broadcaster. It’s just that none of the trio was seriously challenged by the presenters or other panellists.
Stan Grant accused the Crown of conducting an exterminating war. Craig Foster declared that, due to the Crown, many of our beautiful multicultural communities suffered. And Reid declared that the Crown had perpetuated colonisation all around the world at the expense of First Nations peoples of colour. She also called for the abolition of the prison system – it’s not clear what relevance this had to the Coronation, but there you go.
MWD changed channels during all this ranting. Free-to-air channels Network 7 and National 9 – which outrated the ABC – were showing footage of guests entering Westminster Abbey. So was subscription channel Sky News. In short, 7, 9, 10 and Sky covered the news. Not so the ABC which seemed to be of the view that Australians need to be “educated”.
Gerard Henderson voted “Yes” in the referendum on the republic in 1999. But Australia remains a constitutional monarchy. And while the Coronation affects contemporary Australia, the taxpayer funded public broadcaster should give impartiality a go.
ABC management could have instructed staff to report the Coronation as an important news event. But the ABC is very much a staff collective – and the occasion was loaded with leftist commentary.
As Sophie Elsworth and James Madden report in today’s Australian, the ABC defended its Coronation coverage (Quelle surprise!) and declared that it reflected a diversity of views. Not so – this would have only been the case if the Grant/Forster/Reid opinion had been challenged by three articulate performers who held a contrary view.
By the way, ABC Chair Ita Buttrose (AC OBE) went into “no comment” mode and referred questions from The Australian to an ABC spokesman. Sure, the board does not run the ABC – but it is entitled to comment on the taxpayer funded broadcaster’s performance.
Currently ABC ratings are in free fall. This reflects, in part, the fact that the broadcaster has alienated so many of its traditional audiences. The coverage of the Coronation is an example of the problem – and the ABC’s no-problem-here response indicates that no solution is in sight while it remains a Conservative Free Zone.
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8 May, 2023
An impressive Conservative politician
Her military background served her well. She is a Royal Navy reservist
King Charles and Queen Camilla were the central focus of Saturday’s coronation, but viewers frequently found their eyes straying elsewhere: towards a potential future prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Penny Mordaunt, the Tory MP who is the Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Privy Council, has found herself at the centre of the nation’s interest thanks to a bold outfit, and impressive upper body strength at the Coronation of King Charles III.
Thanks to her role at the top of the Privy Council, Mordaunt played a central role in the Coronation of King Charles III, which began as she walked the 17th-century Sword of State down Westminster Abbey’s aisle at the opening of the ceremony. It marks the first time a woman has held the sword, which is also used for the State Opening of Parliament.
The towering, silver-gilt sword boasts the moulds of a lion and unicorn and features a crimson red velvet covering. During the service, it was blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury before Mordaunt presented it to the King.
“It’s drawing on all of my military drill experience,” she says of the weapon, which, measuring 4 feet and weighing 8 pounds, requires some considerable upper body strength.
Her feat of upper body strength earned admiration from viewers, some of her political opponents among them. So did her stylish appearance, which contrasted strikingly with the parade of older, largely robed men around her.
Ms Mordaunt wore a bespoke teal dress and cape from London-based label Safiyaa, and a matching hat designed by Jane Taylor.
The outfit was embroidered with gold ferns, a “feminised” reference to the traditional Privy Council uniform, and its colour was described as “Poseidon”, a nod to her constituency in the seaside city Portsmouth.
“Got to say it, Penny Mordaunt looks damn fine! The sword bearer steals the show,” said Emily Thornberry, a Labour MP, prompting her amused followers to ask whether her Twitter account had been “hacked”.
“The Penny is mightier than the sword,” said another Labour MP, Chris Bryant.
Ms Mordaunt also impressed the American singer Courtney Love, who said she was “obsessed” with the Tory politician.
“I’m now obsessed with Penny Mordaunt,” said Ms Love. “Obsessed! I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/celebrity-life/royals/pippa-of-the-coronation-world-swoons-over-penny-mordaunt/news-story/618131fdd44707382c9d23eafcb0db07
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Another racist black
https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/6a9dd59c96c089f0e42505bde6e81dd0
Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh has backed down from comments made on live TV as millions across the UK tuned in to watch the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.
Coverage of the event was broadcasted on numerous channels, with British free-to-air public broadcast television network ITV providing extensive coverage of the day’s events.
Starting from the early morning, the channel aired a special edition of Good Morning Britain, followed by a dedicated program that was anchored by presenters Tom Bradby and Julie Etchingham.
The duo was joined by a host of guests, including reporters on The Mall, where thousands of people gathered to witness the newly crowned monarchs.
However, the day’s proceedings were briefly marred by a comment made by Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh during the channel’s coverage.
After the royal family appeared on the balcony, ITV cut to their temporary studio for reactions.
When asked for her thoughts, Andoh remarked: “We have gone from the rich diversity of the Abbey to a terribly white balcony. I am very struck by that. I am also looking at those younger generations and thinking: ‘What are the nuances that they will inhabit when they grow?’”
The comment stunned the ITV presenters, and Myleene Klass was seen staring at the actor as she spoke.
The clip was later shared on Twitter, where it received a mixed response. Some people criticised Andoh for her words, while others applauded her for speaking out.
“They are a white family, for goodness sake! Does she think individual families should be subject to diversity quotas?” one person wrote on Twitter.
A second added: “I’m so confused by Adjoa Andoh. What did she expect to see? The royal family is a white family!”
“Can’t believe a white family would be … white. The audacity!” Sky News host Rita Panahi sarcastically tweeted.
Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, a high-profile lawyer and political activist who herself frequents ITV panels, defended Andoh’s comments, claiming she “told no lies”.
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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Chief Diversity Officer Won’t Roll Over for the Left
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is a widely experienced international correspondent, commentator, and editor who has reported from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He served in the George W. Bush administration, first at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then at the State Department, and is the author of the book "BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution." Read his research.
Virginia state official Martin Brown is the latest reminder that DEI—“diversity, equity, and inclusion”—is a sham, a strategy to force systemic change and not to encourage equality, participation by all, or ideological diversity.
“DEI is dead,” Brown said last week, and the keepers of the orthodoxy started calling for his head.
Brown, chief diversity, opportunity, and inclusion officer in the administration of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, is black.
His views, however, are the wrong hue. So he doesn’t add diversity and must be excluded.
“Let’s take a moment right now to kill that cow,” Brown said of the Left’s DEI agenda during a speech at Virginia Military Institute. “We’re not going to bring that cow up anymore. It’s dead. It was mandated by the General Assembly, but this governor has a different philosophy of civil discourse.”
Diversity, said Brown, is the “wrong mission.” Obsessing about equity means “you’re not pursuing merit or excellence or achievement.”
Judging from the outraged cry of the Left, one would think that photos revealing racist behavior were revealed—as happened with former Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, who created Virginia’s DEI office to make his photo scandal go away. (Youngkin, Northam’s successor, is a Republican.)
The Washington Post reported Brown’s speech in a contentious piece that clearly was intended to damage him. After that, the Virginia NAACP, the Virginia Black Caucus at the General Assembly, the Virginia Latino Caucus, the Virginia Asian-American Caucus, the head of the Virginia African American Advisory Board, and the former speaker of the House of Delegates, all called for Youngkin to fire Brown.
State Sen. Lamont Bagby, a Democrat, captured the mood when he said of Brown: “It was appalling. It’s evident that he doesn’t appreciate his role, and it’s time for him to make it official and offer his resignation.”
These kinds of testimonials should reassure Youngkin that Brown is flying over the target. The governor should send him on further sorties.
DEI, like its sister abbreviations critical race theory (CRT) and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), is a strategy concocted by leftists to achieve regime change. What they want to change is the American constitutional order: capitalism, representative democracy, and the American legal system.
Everyday Americans, however, have risen in opposition. This is why governors, legislatures, county boards, and city councils are passing a spate of measures defanging these strategies nationwide. Youngkin himself was a harbinger of this insurrection; he was elected in November 2021 on the back of parental opposition to critical race theory in Virginia schools.
Kimberle Crenshaw, an academic who helped design critical race theory in the 1980s, became the latest of the leading lights of the movement to decry this opposition. As she complained to Politico last week, “There’s been a three-year assault on anti-racism,” another term the Left often uses for their strategy.
In further admission that these approaches are unpopular, Crenshaw also groused that she had heard that President Joe Biden will walk away from them as he runs for reelection in 2024.
“We’ve already heard that the approach is not to claim the mantle of ‘wokeness.’ The approach is to focus on jobs, the approach is to focus on pocketbook issues,” she said of Biden’s strategy.
Regardless of whether this issue surfaces prominently in the 2024 campaigns, the Biden administration has spent its entire time in office enforcing these orthodoxies through policy.
Brown is right to take a stand against the Left’s attempted revolution. In the case of DEI in particular, all three terms (diversity, equity, and inclusion) have been corrupted, as Brown’s treatment makes clear.
Diversity is not at all about diversity. It is not about putting people of all racial, ethnic, and sexual categories in positions of authority so that their “lived experience” could guide their actions. Brown’s “lived experience” need not apply, according to the Left, because he refuses to fall in line with their ideologies.
Equity is the absolute worst corruption. It means that government should go back to treating Americans differently because of their race—and Vice President Kamala Harris has been crystal clear on this point.
Inclusion, meanwhile, means mall cops kicking out people shopping while wearing shirts that feature Jesus, or guards at the Smithsonian telling children to remove hats with pro-life messages. It also means excluding Brown because he ran afoul of the new language codes.
Northam appointed a head of DEI in September 2019, after college photos of him in blackface came out, and the Virginia General Assembly codified the move in April 2020.
Ideally, Youngkin and the General Assembly should change the law and abolish the office. In the meantime, it’s good to have courageous people such as Martin Brown speaking truth to power.
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Australia: Leftist governments defend gender ideology at the expense of children
Alan Jones
I have written before about the disgraceful treatment in Victoria of the Liberal MP, Moira Deeming, a teacher turned politician.
We need to hear more from this woman and nothing from the incompetent Liberal Opposition leader in Victoria who wanted her expelled from the Party.
As I have previously explained, Moira Deeming attended a rally on the steps of the Victorian Parliament, protesting, peacefully, the need for safe spaces for women.
In other words, there needs to be full debate on what rights transgender women (biological men who transition to women) – should they be allowed in spaces reserved for women?
Common sense would say no.
Moira Deeming attended a rally arguing for safe spaces.
It was infiltrated by a few Nazis and she was accused, virtually, of being a Nazi sympathiser.
I said previously that she should be the Opposition leader in Victoria and that bloke Pesutto should be provided with an undignified exit.
Interestingly, Moira Deeming said, at the time of going into Parliament, ‘I don’t think it is healthy to tell children that they can change sex; or that their feelings on what sex they are, are the thing that they should affirm, rather than their biology; because which thing is going to leave you healthier in the long run?’
She wants to see an inquiry in Victoria into youth gender medicine, arguing that the inquiry ‘has to be genuine, it has to be real, and it has to be open and it has to go for six months, a year, or whatever it takes’.
Victoria is home to Australia’s largest and most influential gender clinic at the Royal Childrens’ Hospital in Melbourne, where new patient referrals, this is a gender clinic, have multiplied 100-fold over the decade since 2011.
And the clinic gets moral and financial support from the Andrews Labor government.
Moira Deeming used her maiden speech recently as a Liberal Member of Victoria’s Upper House to call for ‘an open inquiry into gender affirmation practices’ involving minors.
She described hormonal and surgical interventions as ‘medically unjustifiable, irreversible and devastatingly harmful’, but argued ‘ideologues continue to vilify and incite hatred towards anyone sounding the alarm’.
We are talking here about gender ideology in schools, which prompted Moira Deeming to say she could no longer teach in Victoria in good conscience.
She said, ‘I didn’t want to be involved in telling a child that medicalised gender change was good. I didn’t want to be involved in confusing a child. I didn’t want to be involved in lying to parents… I felt like I was being used by the Government to push an ideology behind parents’ backs, which was not anywhere near close to being harmless.’
Well, that is Victoria.
Let’s go to Queensland where the Labor Government has legislation before the Parliament to help people in Queensland more easily change the sex indicated on their birth certificate by removing the requirement to have undergone sex reassignment surgery.
Under the legislation, parents would be able to opt not to record a gender on the birth certificate of their newborn. These are supposedly plans, as part of reforms, to promote transgender rights.
I spoke, off air, recently, to the Opposition leader in Queensland, David Crisafulli. He told me that the legislation hasn’t gone through the Parliament, but it will with the support of the Greens.
If the legislation is passed, children over the age of 16 will be able to legally identify as a different sex without parental consent. But they will need a supporting statement from an adult whom they have known for at least a year.
Those aged 12 to 15 will need parental permission to change the sex on their birth certificate; but they will be able to apply to the courts if they can’t get their parents’ support.
A medical statement from a doctor or a psychologist will not be required.
At what point is legislation of this kind completely out of step with community expectations and with parental rights, to say nothing of the safety of women.
But the Attorney General in Queensland, Shannon Fentiman, condemning those who questioned these moves, is saying that those who criticise ‘will try to cloak their transphobia in the guise of women’s safety – making claims about trans women accessing women’s spaces, including changerooms or even domestic violence shelters’.
So, you see, dare to criticise and you will be vilified as transphobic. But it appears that if you are an MP like the Attorney-General in Queensland, you can tell untruths as you blunder your way through.
Says Attorney-General Fentiman, ‘I want to be clear, there is no evidence, domestic or internationally, to support these outrageous claims.’
That is not the case. There was a 2020 incident in Britain where transgender prisoners sexually assaulted women in jail; and, yet, trans inmates were still allowed to be transferred to female prisons upon request.
The British Ministry of Justice said that, ‘Since 2010, out of the 124 sexual assaults that occurred in the female estate, a total of seven of those were sexual assaults against females, in custody, perpetrated by transgender individuals.’
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7 May, 2023
Did Christianity find a shocking Biblical text—and keep it quiet?
The article below is another "lost gospel" article. From time to time some document that circulated in the early church is proclaimed as a "gospel" that should be treated with the sort of reverence that is accorded to the accepted books of the New Testament.
I have looked at several of these "lost" gospels and have noted a common feature in them. They are all "mystical" in some way. They have obscure messages that are quite unlike the unvarnished history and plain teachings of the synoptic gospels and the epistles.
It might be objected that the work of St John is an exception to that. The allegorical nature of the introduction to his gospel is well known. But his message there is quite straightforward. He is saying that Christ transmits God's wisdom ("logos"). But most translations make the text more mystical than it originally was. The original text of verse 1 was:
?? ???? ?? ? ?????, ??? ? ????? ?? ???? ??? ????, ??? ???? ?? ? ?????.
Which is generally translated rather carelessly as "the word was God". But the second mention of "theos" is quite different from the first mention of "theos", in that it is anarthrous. A better and much less mystical translation would be "The Word was divine". Divine wisdom was being referred to.
And in chapter 14 of his gospel, John has Jesus talking in a rather mystical way about his relationship with the Father. But he goes on to erase any confusion by having Jesus then say plainly "My father is greater than I". No confusion there.
Then there is the book of Revelations. It certainly has a large allegorical element but it is presented as being a dream. It makes no pretence to being a mysterious description of reality. Christians often have interpretations of some passages in it but it is at all times clear that, like all dreams, it is interpretable as foreshadowing some reality rather than being a straightforward description of reality.
So I am satisfied that the debates in the early church over the amount of respect that should be given to the various available texts did end up zeroing in on quite plain teachings. There are no forgotten or missed parts of what is canonical
Jonathan Poletti
The “Luke” of the New Testament wrote two books: the gospel, and Acts of the Apostles. But early on, Luke was said to have written one more.
I didn’t learn this in church, but in a 2021 paper in the Harvard Theological Review. It discusses a text called The Dispute of Jason and Papiscus About Christ, said to be authored by Luke the Evangelist.
It was lost—until 2004, when a fragment was found in Egypt.
I look around for news of this incredible find. But I find nothing in Vatican News, or Christianity Today, or anywhere—in any religious outlet, or any popular outlet at all.
Only academic notices exist—and these are mostly in a non-Christian journal, the Harvard Theological Review.
I write to the author of the paper, Harry Tolley, asking if the discovery of what he calls the ‘Sinaiticus fragment’ should be bigger news.
He agrees. He replies: “Why is the Sinaiticus fragment not in National Geographic or mentioned in many other non-scholarly media? Maybe it is because not enough people know about it. Hopefully, you can help change this situation.”
Well, here are the facts.
The find took place at Saint Catherine’s Monastery.
An Eastern Orthodox monastery in Egypt, on the Sinai Peninsula, Saint Catherine’s sits in the shadow of what is often called the ‘Mount Sinai’ of the book of Exodus — where God met Moses. God and Moses have left, but the monastery has remained since 565 A.D.
The monastery library is an archive of the Christian past.
Many key Christian texts have been found here—like the Didache, and Codex Sinaiticus, the earliest copy of the New Testament.
John M. Duffy, a professor at Harvard University, did not imagine he had found anything like that. But visiting the monastery in 2004, he was tracking down the sermons of Sophronius of Jerusalem, a saint in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions, and made a nice find. A sermon delivered in 635 A.D. hadn’t been noticed before.
Sophronius’ subject that day was a difficult one: Why do Christians worship on Sunday?
The easy answer is that Sunday is the day that Jesus was resurrected. But some deeper theological issues are at work. For his text, Sophronius reached for a book outside of the usual ‘canon’.
He assures:
“Luke certainly and clearly initiates us into this illuminating and lovely knowledge…not in the divine Gospel, nor is it in what he wrote about the Acts of the Apostles, but it is recorded in another work of his…”
Then, Sophronius quoted from it.
In early Christianity there were many references to Jason and Papiscus. It was a conversation between two Jews, one a Christian convert. They spoke about whether the Old Testament had referred to Jesus.
The Papiscus character was traditionally Jewish. ‘Jason’ is probably the Jason of Acts 17. This was a Christian man who’d been close to Paul, and may have been a follower of Jesus.
The way he explained the Bible was remarkable. Jason saw the stories, not as ‘real’, but as figurative or symbolic—as theological ‘allegories’.
This was noted in the first surviving reference to Jason and Papiscus, around 170 A.D. The anti-Christian writer Celsus said he felt the author was “more reasonable” than most Christians, but he found the effort to “allegorize” the Hebrew Bible to be laughable.
Many Christians discussed “Jason and Papiscus.”
Origen, the 3rd century scholar, had a treatment that seemed to indicate the book was broadly read and accepted.
In the 4th century, Jerome mentioned it a few times—puzzled by the Bible quotations. He notes that Jason had quoted Genesis 1:1 saying:
“In the son, God made heaven and earth.”
Jerome found it mystifying, as Genesis 1:1 seemed to clearly say:
“In the beginning, God made heaven and earth.”
But this “In the son” verse had been quoted by several early Christian writers, from Tertullian to Ireneaeus.
A ‘church father’ identified Luke as the author.
Clement of Alexandria, who lived from about 150 to 215 A.D., is also a canonized saint in the Orthodox and Catholic traditions. He seems to have discussed Jason and Papiscus in a volume of his Hypotyposes series.
All seven books of the series are “lost,” which might mean “thrown away.” The last known reference to the Hypotyposes, in the 9th century, had seemed positively horrified:
“Although in some cases what he says appears orthodox, in others he indulges in impious and legendary fables. For he is of opinion that matter is eternal and that ideas are introduced by certain fixed conditions; he also reduces the Son to something created. He talks prodigious nonsense about the transmigration of souls and the existence of a number of worlds before Adam.”
An early 6th century writer named John of Scythopolis also mentioned Jason and Papiscus, which, he adds, “Clement of Alexandria in the sixth book of his Hypotyposes states St. Luke recorded.”
But John of Scythopolis adds that he supposed the actual author to have been Ariston of Pella.
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'Why are we only applauding masculinity in women and villainizing it in men?'
Ant-Man and The Wasp actress Evangeline Lilly has launched a scathing attack on the subversion of traditional gender roles and says manly men should be celebrated.
In a post shared to her Instagram, the actress spoke of her frustration over people who applauded masculinity in women, and villainized it in men.
The 43-year-old said: 'Why are we only applauding masculinity in women and villainizing it in men?
'And why are we only applauding femininity in men and debasing it in women? Why can't we just allow for all of it?
'Why do we feel the need to vilify a man wearing s***-kicker boots, driving a pick-up truck who's not afraid to punch someone in the face, but if they were a woman, they would be the epitome of cool?
'Why is a man who loves make-up, cries easily and stays at home to tend to the domestic responsibilities valiant, but a woman who does the same is pathetic?'
Lilly, who is Canadian, also urged members of the public to stop 'trying to juggle the minutia of judgement' and bring 'grace and charity' back into their lives.
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Wide Majorities of Americans See Their Nation in Decline
A new set of polls shows American citizens gazing toward the future with pessimism about everything from the economy and politics to wealth and their standing in the world.
Released by Pew Research Center, the polling asked more than 5,000 American adults about their opinion of the country and what they forecast for the next 25 years. Large margins see a weaker economy, a diminished nation, and political tribalism only becoming more entrenched.
Two out of three Americans see a weaker economy by 2050. By a margin of 71 percent to 27 percent, they said America will be “less important in the world.” When asked if they think the country will be more politically divided in 2050 than today, 77 percent answered in the affirmative. Of all respondents, 81 percent feel that the already wide chasm of wealth inequality will grow even larger.
Beyond their grim predictions for the future, Americans also hold some reverence for past prosperity. According to the poll, 58 percent said that life is better “for people like them” today than it was 50 years ago.
Pew has conducted research like this in the past that yielded pessimistic answers from respondents, but it has never been quite so extreme. When the firm conducted a similar poll in 2018, just 60 percent of Americans said their country would be less important in the world, 73 percent said wealth inequality would grow, and 65 percent said the country would be more divided by 2050. It is a marked rise in negative outlooks in five years.
In the 2018 survey, researchers found that white Americans were more pessimistic than Hispanic and Black respondents. Five years ago, just 51 percent of white Americans said they were somewhat or very optimistic about the country’s future, compared to 67 percent of Hispanics and 70 percent of Blacks.
The research shows that there is bipartisan agreement on the dim future for America. Just 10 percent of Republicans and 15 percent of Democrats say they have “quite a lot” of confidence about the country’s future. Just 12 percent of independent voters feel that way.
Overall, 66 percent of Democrats have at least some confidence, compared to 56 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of independents. In the last year, Americans of all political parties have lost some degree of confidence in the nation’s future, with Republican hopes for a better world by 2050 dropping by six points in the last year and Democrats’ hopes dropping by eight points.
Depending on when they were born, Democrats are starkly divided on their level of confidence in the United States. For registered Democrats over the age of 50, 80 percent have at least some confidence in the future, but just 53 percent of Democrats between the ages of 18 and 35 feel the same.
Education and wealth also play an important role in one’s level of confidence, with college graduates being much more optimistic than those with a high school degree or less. Three in four Americans from wealthier households feel at least somewhat confident, compared with 60 percent of those in the middle class and 53 percent of low-income respondents.
https://www.nysun.com/article/wide-majorities-of-americans-see-their-nation-in-decline-poll
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Who's really to Blame for the Death of Jordan Neely
On Monday afternoon, a 30-year-old mentally ill vagrant named Jordan Neely, who also happens to be black, boarded a subway train in New York City and began harassing the passengers. Witnesses described Neely as “hostile and erratic.” Witnesses say he was yelling and carrying on, screaming that he's “ready to die” and “doesn't mind going to jail.” This was not Neely's first foray into this territory. He was a man with 44 prior arrests, with charges ranging from assault to drug-related offenses. He also had an open warrant for felony assault dating back to 2021. Multiple people on social media have since reported their own alleged run-ins with Neely, who according to these reports, was known to harass and threaten passengers.
In other words, Neely was yet another violent repeat criminal who had been essentially granted free rein over the subway system, where crime has skyrocketed over the last few years, as commuters are frequently accosted, mugged, assaulted — even raped and killed. This is not just the case in the subway system, but in the city as a whole, and in major cities all across the country. But on the F train on Monday afternoon, some of the passengers decided that they had enough. Rather than sitting there and waiting for Neely to lash out violently — hoping that if he starts physically attacking people, they'll be able to intervene before anyone is seriously hurt or killed — instead a few passengers stepped up to do what was necessary. At least three good samaritans restrained Neely. One man — a white man and former Marine — had Neely in a chokehold. Another, a black man, was holding down his arms. They held him down for several minutes, because there was no law enforcement immediately on the scene. Eventually, Neely lost consciousness and died. Police took at least one of the passengers who restrained him, the white man, into custody for questioning. They released him sometime later without pressing charges. The medical examiner has since ruled the death a homicide.
There were over ten people killed on the New York City subway last year, along with many more accosted and assaulted. You do not know any of their names. Many more fell victim to violent crime all over the city. Over 400 were murdered just in 2022 alone. You do not know any of their names, either. The problem for those victims is that, in a great many of those cases, the perpetrators were black. But violence carried out by black people — no matter the race of the victim — is not at all useful to the media or the Democrat Party, which means that those victims must remain nameless and faceless. But in this case, the man who had Jordan Neely in a headlock was white, and that's the only detail the Left needs. Hundreds of black people are killed every year, year after year, a trail of violence and death and misery that is only getting worse over time. Victim after victim, day after day, and the Left says nothing, does not care, does not make martyrs or heroes out of any of them, does not demand that we “say their names.” They wait, and wait, and wait, until the extremely rare occurrence where a black man dies allegedly at the hands of a white man, and that is when they leap into action, taking full advantage. Which is what has happened here.
Protesters swarmed the subway, demanding justice for Jordan Neely. The media went into full George Floyd mode, blatantly racializing the incident, while, in real time, reshaping Jordan Neely into something other than the violent career criminal that he actually was. In this case, it appears that Neely sometimes dressed like Michael Jackson and performed unsolicited dance routines on the train. A fact that if anything makes him even less sympathetic as far as I'm concerned, but which the media is using to paint him as some sort of struggling artist and kind soul who wished only to bring people joy and happiness. Many headlines have been published claiming that a white man killed a black Michael Jackson impersonator, as if they tackled him to the ground and choked him out FOR being a Michael Jackson impersonator.
Democrat politicians have also been activated. AOC, Ayanna Presley, and the Squad have been leading the lynch mob as usual. AOC has been making frantic public statements, demanding an arrest and criminal charges, though she doesn't need to wait for any of those things, least of all a conviction, to pass down her own verdict. The mayor of New York City has been, to this point, slightly more cautious in his public response. But this isn't good enough for AOC, who demands that the mayor publicly accuse the Marine of murder. To be clear, this is an elected official demanding that a citizen who hasn't even been arrested be pronounced guilty of murder without trial or criminal charge. She, along with many others on the Left, are openly calling for a public lynching of a man who hasn't even been officially accused of committing any crime. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to fully repeat their George Floyd trick with Jordan Neely — riots, looting, another “racial awakening,” an unjust and politically motivated trial and conviction, etc — but that is clearly their goal, and they are on their way towards it right now.
But as these deeply evil forces set to work to make full use of this incident, and to make another white man into a sacrificial victim on the altar of “racial justice,” what is the actual truth? What is the correct response? Who is really at fault? Well the answer to the last question will give us the answer to the others. There are two parties responsible for the death of Jordan Neely. The first is Jordan Neely himself. He may have been mentally ill, but he is also the only person on the planet who can directly decide how he behaves. He is the one who harassed a train full of passengers who were just trying to get to or from work. He is the one who has lived a life of crime for at least the past decade. It is his actions that precipitated the events that led to his death. If he had not chosen to announce himself as a potential threat to those around him, he would still be alive today. He put the other passengers in a position of having to choose whether to gamble with their safety by allowing him to run around screaming, waiting for him to do something violent, or step in and subdue him. He put them in that position.
But it wasn't just him. The other party responsible is the Democrat Party, the political leadership of the city, the justice system, DAs like Alvin Bragg, who have made the conscious decision to keep men like Jordan Neely on the street, to continually release them back into the public no matter how many dozens of crimes they commit, until they are either killed or they kill someone else. And in the latter case, they might still stay on the streets even after that. Jordan Neely belonged in prison or a mental asylum. He had long ago made it clear that he had no interest in being a civil member of society. He was a danger to his community, and to himself, and this had been demonstrated time and time again. If the system had done what it is supposed to do, gotten him off the street and locked away somewhere, he would be alive today. The Left does not want to prosecute crime because crime is committed in a racially disproportionate way, which means that prosecutions and convictions and incarcerations will be naturally disproportionate. But the Left would rather let criminals terrorize you and your family than allow that.
In fact it's a win/win for them. If they refuse to prosecute criminals, they can enact their perverse idea of racial justice by keeping black criminals on the street. And at the same time they can put honest citizens in a position of having to make very difficult decisions, with their lives potentially on the line. Then they can exploit those situations, send the mob after another scapegoat, and use the chaos they've created to advance their racial narrative.
Which is why the one man I will not blame is the man who is getting all the blame right now. You can argue that it is not wise, from a self-preservation standpoint, for anyone — especially any white man — to intervene in these kinds of situations anymore. While the Left has engineered a win/win for themselves, for you it is a lose/lose. Either you get hurt in your attempt to protect yourself and others, or you prevail in the struggle and then find yourself pursued by a crazed leftist mob calling for your head. If you're arrested and charged, you'll find yourself standing before a New York City jury, where your conviction will have already been decided before the jury was even selected. This makes it extremely dicey, to say the least, to play the good samaritan role. But it also makes it all the more heroic. The marine — who, at this point but likely for not much longer, remains nameless — is not only NOT at fault, not only in the right, but is in fact a hero. He did what the leaders of his city would not do, what the system refuses to do, what the police are not allowed to do anymore. He was under no moral obligation — nor any legal obligation — to sit silently, obediently, while a psychotic criminal vagrant ran wild, threatening and harassing innocent people. This is an obligation that the Left wants to impose on us. They want us to believe that it is our responsibility to helplessly submit ourselves to the whims of every violent scumbag we come across. But it is not so. And so this man took action. He deserves a medal for his actions. Yet I'm afraid, in this depraved culture, that his reward will be quite different.
https://groups.google.com/g/alt.tv.pol-incorrect/c/dblPzz8aqNM?pli=1
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5 May, 2023
Defining "woke"
Laura Halls is a "gender-fluid" Leftist writer with a substantial following online. As a good academic I like to define my terms so I was pleased to see her define "woke". I never use the term myself but many do.
I first came across the term in commentary from South Africa -- where it was used to describe black dissatisfaction with the racial realities in SA. A woke black wanted to reduce the advantages that whites enjoy. He saw nothing inevitable or right about the current situation and wanted to change it
The term is now used worldwide but still seems to denote a belief in injustice and a desire to rectify it. And Laura Halls agrees. So let us look at her definition and note the problem with it:
Simply I would define woke to be aware of societal injustices and forms of oppression. These examples of oppression would obviously apply to things like racism, misogyny, transphobia, etc. Woke means that there is an acknowledgment of the ways our societies and institutions have worked and do still work the disadvantage certain groups and outright brutalize them in many cases.
Obviously, the implication of woke is thus that these institutions of oppression need to be dismantled and that these forms of oppression need to be addressed and corrected
She goes on to say how evil conservatives are for not wanting to "correct" the injustices.
But the fault in her thinking is something very characteristic of the Left. The fault lies in her word "Obviously".
She has clearly read little or nothing of conservstive writing. She fails to see that there is nothing obvious about social problems and their solutions. She rather arrogantly thinks that the only reason why conservtives obstruct the reforms she wants lies in a general conservative aversion to change. She is obvlivious that there might be more complex reasons to oppose a particular change. She accuses conservatives of simplistic thinking when that is in fact her problem
If she had read almost anything from conservative writers, she would know that consrvatives normally give REASONS for opposing Leftist policies. They do not just oppose Leftist policies reflexively. As Leibnitz said long ago, they consider that they might live in the best of all possible worlds. That is not a serious proposal but the reality behind it is that many good things have bad side effects and many bad things can have a desirable side. So in dismantling something bad you might destroy something good. And conservatives do consider that. Leftist proposals generally seem at first sight desirable but a conservative will look for downsides to it. He/she will ask where the balance lies. And often the bad consequences of a Leftist policy will tend to rule it out.
A very well-known example is communism. To many, communism seems OBVIOUSLY desirable: "From each according to their ability and to each according to their need". But the downside of implementing that is that it tends to generate murderous tyrannies. So anyone who is genuinely concerned for human welfare would rule it out. "Heartless" capitalism is surely better
So Laura's proposals sound reasonable at first but in reality are attractive only to shallow thinkers like her. She really should try to understand why problems exist before proposing solutions to them. And that applies to woke people generally. They are in fact in important ways asleep
https://aninjusticemag.com/defining-woke-and-right-wing-opposition-to-it-b0b1a5d26b07
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The kids are not OK
By many measures, Gen Z, born 1997-2012, and the first generation of digital natives, are different, and often not in a good way. Teen mental illness is surging across the West, especially among girls; we are a decade into what eminent US social researcher Jonathan Haidt calls the largest epidemic of teen mental illness on record. The latest CDC study shows one in three teenage girls seriously considered suicide in 2021.
Nearly 60 per cent of teen girls feel consistently sad and depressed. Antidepressant use is soaring; ‘it’s better than them cutting themselves, or worse,’ a friend with two Gen Z daughters explained. The trend reaches down: official data shows some 114,000 Aussie kids aged 5-11 were prescribed antidepressants in 2020-2021.
Gen Z are also less sexually active and more health conscious than previous generations, with lower levels of drinking, and more teetotallers. Workforce entry is proving problematic. Three in four US managers in a recent survey said Gen Z was the hardest to work with – unmotivated, easily offended, lacking in skills. They’re not desperate to get out of the house either, with only one in four US 16-year-olds having a driver’s licence in 2021 compared with nearly one in two in 1983. Teenage escape is online these days. James Dean-style risk-taking is no longer admired, with a ‘Monitoring the Future’ survey finding nearly half of teens in 1991 enjoyed taking risks, but by 2020 it was only one in three. The snowflake generation is deadly serious about staying safe.
Harvard youth pollster and author of a book on Gen Z, John Della Volpe, says protection of basic rights is the key to Gen Z’s mindset: ‘clean air, clean water, to feel safe in school, reproductive rights’. And they were specifically concerned about LGBTQ members, whom they saw as vulnerable.
To an older eye, the trans debate can seem marginal, risible even – by and large we are not in any doubt about what a woman is. But it would be a mistake to underestimate how important it is to a fragile generation struggling to fit in.
Gen Z empathy with the LGBTQ+ agenda is extraordinarily high. A CDC study last week found that one in four US high schoolers identified as LGBTQ+. UK research found 62 per cent of Gen Z agreed that ‘trans men are men, trans women are women’, compared with the average of 46 per cent. Nearly half of all Gen Z respondents said they knew someone transgender. Oddly enough, the trans community at large seem over-represented in the US military. UCLA research from 2014 estimates that transgender individuals are twice as likely as all US adults to have served in the armed forces. Around one-third of trans people assigned male at birth served in the military and some 6 per cent of those assigned female at birth.
This stew of forces has bred an extraordinary militancy in the transgender movement. Disagreement is seen as trans genocide. Aggression is framed, paradoxically, as protection of the vulnerable, as Posie Parker found out when confronted by an angry New Zealand mob. Gun-bedecked tee-shirts bear slogans such as ‘Trans Rights…Or Else’; a group called Rainbow Reload is arming LGBTQ+ folk, and an unfortunate number of serial killers such as the Nashville shooter Audrey Hale, whose writings have so far been suppressed, are young trans people. The notion that words are violence is of course ludicrous, but to a generation anchored by screens and devoid of much real-life experience, it can seem true. Even putting the research-based view that trans identity is a social contagion can now be denounced as hate speech. Gen Z are not keen to give others the rights and sensitivities they demand for themselves.
Hale is an extreme case, and plenty of Gen Z teens are growing up sane and happy and ready to live a productive life. But many Gen Z members themselves, when asked in multiple studies, don’t say they are OK. They say social media is harming their generation, specifically with loneliness, bullying, body image, sleep patterns, fear of missing out, and overall anxiety.
One clue to repairing this misery epidemic lies in the work of Haidt, who has incited a lively academic debate by blaming much of it on the arrival of social media, beginning in 2012. He also cites over-protective parenting and loss of free play, which robs kids of their resilience and sense of agency.
This lifelong Manhattan liberal also argues that flawed thinking patterns, which he says were embraced by leftists more than conservatives, were to blame. These include catastrophising (‘we’ll all be rooned’), black-and-white thinking (people are good or evil), emotional reasoning (facts are unnecessary, my feelings are truth), and the idea that youth were fragile and could be harmed by the ‘violence’ of words, books and ideas. ‘Thinking in these ways causes depression, as well as being a symptom of depression,’ says Haidt. The glass is always half empty if you’re already sad.
Given our schools’ emphasis on catastrophic climate change and the irredeemably oppressive, unequal, racist and bigoted character of our Judeo-Christian civilisation and history, our schools are arguably generating a depressogenic environment, making our kids confused, lost and fragile. The utopian fantasies of the left, that reality and biology itself are infinitely malleable and improvable, are taking a toll on kids too young and unformed to know any better. We know it’s not reality; they don’t. The latest pronoun nonsense is gender neutral ‘voidself’ pronouns, such as ‘I met void today’.
Obliterating any identity at all is one way to navigate the treacherous teen waters of today’s schoolrooms and chat groups, albeit highly defensive and passive. Haidt offers two solutions. He wants teens kept from social media until 18, and wants schools and colleges to abandon distorted ‘harmful, depressogenic cognitive distortions’ such as diversity training, and the idea that words are violence.
Life’s hard lessons may yet teach Gen Z reality and resilience, but if they cling to the safety of their bedrooms and seek to avoid challenges, a painful road ahead awaits.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/05/the-kids-are-not-alright-2/
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America's Stalin-style job statistics
New numbers from the government’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, released Tuesday, revealed that the number of job openings dropped to the lowest level since May 2021.
The drop in job openings from 9.9 million in February to 9.6 million in March have led many to conclude that the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes actually are balancing the labor markets. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell went so far as to say that the survey is a good sign that we will see a “better balance” in labor markets, according to Yahoo Finance.
Still, many economists, including Heritage Foundation economist Peter St. Onge, question whether the numbers really add up. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
In a recent Twitter video, St. Onge explains how “the magic of government statistics” has led to “fake job numbers” and a misleading narrative that interest rate hikes actually are strengthening the economy.
St. Onge says the drop in job openings is largely due to how the Labor Department is reclassifying many jobs and no longer including them in measuring the health of the economy. This change has made it appear as though employers are filling their open positions, when in reality they’re not, the economist says.
Even with the Biden Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, we have only half of a dire story, St. Onge adds. To better understand the state of our economy, he points to unemployment numbers from the department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics that also suffer from manipulation.
St. Onge explains that 3.6 million American workers have been removed from the unemployment count entirely as a result of being classified as individuals who are “out of the labor force.” This reclassification continues to hold down unemployment to 3.5% rather than 6%—the number seen at the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis.
This is just the Biden administration’s latest attempt to manipulate the monetary system and compensate for the negative impacts of its weak monetary policy, the economist says. Instead of reining in government spending, the Federal Reserve continues to hold American businesses, banks, and wallets hostage with excessive interest rate hikes and other job-crushing policies.
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Feminism Keeps the Patriarchy Alive
For decades, we have heard from the feminist movement that masculinity is toxic, and we must bring down the patriarchy to make women equal.
Feminists have continuously informed us that men are oppressors and it is hard to be a woman in modern-day society. We have been told that traditional gender roles must be shattered; that if women are to shatter glass ceilings, it must be done in a corporate office under the supervision of CEOs; and that if a woman chooses to stay home to raise her children while her husband works, she is wasting her potential.
What feminists don’t understand is that with their help, the patriarchy and toxic masculinity are thriving more than ever.
Men have begun to dominate spaces that were once women-only spaces. From the makeup industry to women’s sports, men pretending to be women are quickly showing women that men can do it better. What is most tragic is that the feminist movement cannot push back; feminists must be quiet, step aside, and celebrate the men erasing women.
Everyone is familiar with Dylan Mulvaney, the man pretending to be a woman under the guise of gender dysphoria. He has taken women’s spaces by storm and is profiting quite well from it. Mulvaney has demonstrated that he does not care if his toxic masculinity tramples over women by creating TikTok videos mocking what womanhood is. He has gotten sponsorships from Nike, KitchenAid, Tampax, Ulta, Maybelline, and Kate Spade, all brands that create products for women.
Boycotts against these companies have been underway, mostly from conservative consumers because the feminists must be quiet, step aside, and celebrate the men erasing women.
Lia Thomas, another man pretending to be a woman, erased the women on the swim team he joined under the guise of gender dysphoria. His biology and physique allowed him to become a champion, leaving his female competitors behind. In public schools across the country, girls are now required to share their bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams with boys pretending to be girls. If a girl is uncomfortable, she is offered counseling and sent to use the bathroom at the nurse’s office.
What is not often discussed is how feminists have given men the opportunity to abdicate their responsibility of fathering their children through abortion. Feminists have helped create fatherless homes through their “I don’t need no man” mentality and their ferocious advocacy of abortion. Men have become conditioned to think it is okay to let women and even encourage women to receive abortions if they believe the babies will be an inconvenience.
Truthfully, feminism has created a societal mess that is difficult to rein in. From mentally ill men taking over women’s spaces to teaching men they do not have to be responsible for the children they bear, feminists have made it easy for toxic men to thrive. The patriarchy is not dead. In fact, it is alive and thriving thanks to feminism.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/97015-feminism-keeps-the-patriarchy-alive-2023-05-04
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Mid-Day Digest: Navy recruiting is a drag, no sanctuary for Dems
Call it subtraction by addition.
The woke senior leaders of the U.S. Navy, faced with a stubborn recruiting shortfall and apparently having embraced their inner Village People, are now giving new life to that grotesque homoerotic stereotype. How? By enlisting the help of a drag queen "influencer" to help inspire new recruits to join up.
Yep, the branch whose storied history includes battles such as Lake Erie, Midway, Okinawa, and Samar, and whose heroes include the likes of John Paul Jones, Oliver Hazard Perry, Butch O'Hare, Ernest E. Evans, Tom Norris, and every last member of Torpedo Squadron 8, thinks there's a large and untapped pool of RuPaul wannabes just waiting to swear an oath and fight for their country. As the Daily Caller reports:
The Navy brought on an active-duty drag queen to participate in a pilot program aimed at reaching a wider audience through popular social media platforms as the military faces severe recruiting woes, a Navy spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, stage name Harpy Daniels, announced the Navy invited him to become the first "Navy Digital Ambassador" in a November 2022 social media post, highlighting his journey from performing on deck in 2018 to becoming a "leader" and "advocate" of people who "were oppressed for years in the service."
Who on earth thinks even our woefully woke military will attract more fighters than it repulses with idiotic stunts like this? For every Harpy Daniels maven who raises his right hand to enlist, we'll guarantee there are a hundredfold would-be warriors who are thinking, I'd rather change bedpans.
As the Daily Caller continues: "[Kelley] first started performing on ships after a sanctioned MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) lip syncing competition in 2017 while deployed on the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, Herzog wrote. Kelley 'continues to slay in performances that boost morale and show support for LGBTQ+ service members.'"
What must The Gipper be thinking?
On the other hand, we can practically hear Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin now: B-b-but, but, Harpy has more than 1,300,000 likes on TikTok!
Or perhaps that's Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley.
Sadly, this isn't the Navy's first such dalliance with wokeness. As The Federalist reports: "In May 2021, then-Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Harker released a memo outlining an action plan to promote DEI in the Navy. The document instructed the Navy's assistant secretary and chief diversity officer to 'lead and oversee all DEI efforts across the Department to synchronize key policies and initiatives ... and to develop a strategy to advance DEI across the enterprise.'"
Heavens to Betsy, let's be sure we have enough safe spaces. Let's be sure to use inclusive language and proper pronouns. Let's be sure to acknowledge the scientific falsehood that men can menstruate. And by all means, let's not deadname anyone.
As a retired Marine, we take no satisfaction in calling out a fellow service branch — especially the one that dutifully drops us off at every battlefront, the one that softens up the enemy with naval gunfire, and the one that trains, equips, and supplies us with our beloved Corpsmen — or corpse men, as Barack Obama would say.
Nope, no satisfaction whatsoever, not when we see what's become of our fighting forces and the innate urge of our young men to beat a path to the nearest recruiter's office.
We've repeatedly reported on these issues of readiness and recruitment since the earliest days of the Biden administration and its disgraceful military-wide "white supremacy" stand-down. And with only 23% of the age-group demographic being qualified for military service — because the remaining 77% are ineligible due to obesity and criminality and assorted other physical-fitness and mental-health limitations — the U.S. military can ill afford this continuing self-inflicted assault on its brand and its reputation.
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4 May, 2023
Bombshell study reveals why a controversial parenting practice should be banned
The "bombshell" study was a damp squib. The only evidence it marshalls for the claim that spanking is harmful comes from a 2016 meta-analysis. So hardly new.
A meta-analysis depends for its credibility on its inclusiveness but many studies were excluded from this analysis so its conclusions are on shaky grounds. I have seen from meta-analyses involving my own work how exclusions can give misleading results.
What to include and exclude is often a judgment call and it is too easy to exclude studies with awkward conclusions. There can be no doubt that the authors of this study had an attachment to a particular conclusion so that had to be a real problem in this case
Another problem is that a meta-analysis perforce had to define spanking rather broadly. But all spanking is not the same. It can range from a light tap to a damaging blow. And that difference has to be attended to if generalizable conclusions are to be drawn
I could go on to note further weaknesses in the study but I think I have said enough
Experts have renewed calls for the smacking of children to be outlawed in Australia, following dozens of other countries which have outlawed the controversial punishment.
A comprehensive new study published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health has found children who were smacked by their parents can go on to develop serious mental health disorders.
University of Melbourne professor of psychiatry Sophie Havighurst, lead author of the report Corporal Punishment of Children in Australia, said the findings made a case for the practice to be banned.
Prof. Havinghurst said the research reviewed 111 countries looking at the long-term effects of smacking and found negative effects present in children in 110 of those countries.
The study concluded that smacking had an impact of a child's developing brain and that Australia should not be lagging behind the rest of the world - where the disciplinary practice is not illegal unless excessive force is used.
Using physical force on children is currently banned in 65 countries including New Zealand, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands
Australian jurisdictions have varying laws when it comes to the divisive parental issue.
In NSW, physical punishment should not be painful for more than a brief moment, and children cannot be hit on their heads or necks.
In Victoria there is no legislation surrounding parents applying physical punishment to their kids while in various other states it must be considered 'reasonable under the circumstances'.
The latest paper reported that six in 10 people aged between 16 to 24 said they had experienced four or more incidents of corporal punishment.
Their findings also coincide with the Australian Child Maltreatment Study, which showed that 61 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds who were smacked as kids were nearly twice as likely to develop anxiety and depression later in life.
Professor Daryl Higgins, director of the Australian Catholic University's Institute of Child Protection Studies, said the older generation was more likely to believe smacking was effective.
38 per cent of those over 65 considered it necessary, compared with just 15 per cent of 16-24-year-olds agreeing it was appropriate.
The paper also found countries such as New Zealand that had changed laws and ran public education campaigns saw decreasing levels of corporal punishment
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Progressives Are Declaring War on Basic Economics
The United States is fighting wars on multiple fronts. Aside from our involvement in Ukraine and the Middle East, a hot war is being waged against economics. This war is being championed by the progressives in the Democrat Party, backed in large part by left-wing sociologists and political scientists. Progressives deny basic economic principles and theory. They deny that incentives matter, that markets work better than government dictates, that scarcity and opportunity costs exist, that the laws of supply and demand are operative, that benefit-cost analyses have merit, and that economic efficiency makes consumers and producers better off.
Incentives matter. Remove penalties for looting and carjacking and more looting and carjackings occur. Establish sanctuary cities and free college tuition for illegal immigrants and expect increased flows of illegals crossing the border. Increase compensation for the unemployed and more unemployment occurs. To deny that incentives matter is to deny inductive and deductive logic. Progressives admittedly march to the music of a different logic. What the tune is isn’t clear.
Scarcity means that resources are limited. Getting more of something requires having less of something else. Economists call the best alternative use of resources its “opportunity cost.” Larry Summers, the well-respected Democratic economist and former secretary of the treasury, wondered if the billions of dollars proposed to be given to individuals who have college debt might be better spent elsewhere (or perhaps not spent at all). His question was roundly ignored by progressives.
Understanding opportunity cost is essential for rational decision-making. Imagine a family operating without regard to opportunity cost. Little Sally might be given her heart’s desire while the rest of her family goes without food. No rational family would operate like this. Nor should any nation.
Government commands destroy the benefits from markets. Progressives despise markets. Markets privately allocate resources based on supply and demand through which the costs of production and consumer preferences interact to set prices and efficient levels of output. Progressives think markets produce the “wrong” things. The old Soviet Union and Chinese command economies announced “five-year plans” that dictated the production of nearly everything (including the number of nails). Shortages, inefficiency, and economic stagnation followed. Thinking that the geniuses in Washington know best how to allocate resources will set us on the same road.
Economic efficiency raises living standards. Progressives think “efficiency” is a dirty word. They either don’t understand the concept or choose to neglect it because it interferes with support for their public-policy whims. Economic efficiency incorporates a number of basic concepts, and an important one is to avoid producing something that costs more in resources than the value of the final product. Markets generally take care of this. If progressives want something, they don’t care how much it costs or how wasteful it is. Take the Green New Deal, for example.
If progressives deny economics, what criteria do they use for decision-making? They rely heavily on the vaguely defined concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-acknowledged socialist and progressive, was recently asked by Bill Maher to define equity. He was stumped. It is best not to define terms that will get you into obvious contradictions. Take the proposed forgiveness of college debt. How does this square with the diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria? It more than smacks of a crass giveaway to buy votes.
The University of Michigan sociologist Elizabeth Popp Berman acknowledges the war against economists and their way of thinking. In her book, Thinking Like an Economist: How Efficiency Replaced Equality in U.S. Public Policy, she claims that economists are the chief obstacles to achieving progressive policies. She hopes that the progressives in Congress will be joined by “a range of experts and activists including economists not committed to the economic style [of thinking].” However, is it reasonable to call someone who does not think like an economist an economist?
To be clear, economists can disagree on public policy. But the economic way of thinking allows for a rational debate. Professor Berman is correct that the economic way of thinking has been a chief obstacle to progressive policies. It has saved us from traveling down F. A. Hayek’s “road to serfdom.”
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14490&omhide=true&trk=title
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Non-Woke ‘Super Mario Bros. Movie’ Stuns Hollywood After Hitting Massive New Milestone
Defying expectations, the “Super Mario Bros. Movie” has become the first film of 2023 to cross the $1 billion mark at the global box office, four weeks after its release.
The adaptation of the renowned Nintendo video game is the first movie based on a video game to achieve such extraordinary success.
According to Variety, the Chris Pratt-led film has grossed $490 million in North America and $532 million internationally as of Sunday.
It is only the fifth film to reach this significant milestone since the pandemic, joining the likes of “Top Gun: Maverick,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and “Jurassic World Dominion.”
Released during the long Easter holiday on April 5th, the movie quickly surpassed Marvel’s highly anticipated “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.”
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State OKs Bans on Transgender Treatments for Minors, TikTok in Bid to Keep Kids Safe
Montana has passed a bill banning transgender treatments such as cross-sex hormones and gender-reassignment surgeries on minors and also banned the Chinese app TikTok. Both are intended to protect children. (Photo: Catherine Falls Commercial/Getty Images)
Montana recently passed a bill banning transgender treatments on minors.
“It’s very important that we protect our children, especially physically, from these treatments that are permanent,” Montana state Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe says.
“There’s not been a lot of studies done on the long-term effects of these [treatments],” the Republican lawmaker said, adding “but we also see a lot of detransitioners, or people who have regretted it because they were not given the adequate help that they needed and the treatment that they needed. They were just told to have surgery.”
The Montana legislation, banning treatments such as cross-sex hormones and gender-reassignment surgeries, passed late last month, was signed into law Friday. The bill gained national attention after it became the source of conflict between a transgender Montana state representative and lawmakers who backed the bill.
State Rep. Zooey Zephyr—a Democrat who is a man, but “identifies” as a woman—told his colleagues there would be “blood on your hands” if they voted in support of the transgender treatment ban. The remarks got Zephyr banned from the Montana House floor.
Montana state Rep. Braxton Mitchell, a Republican, told Fox News Digital, “Not only has my colleague violated decorum, but has broken the trust given by the other 99 representatives.”
In the interest of protecting children, the Montana House also recently passed a bill that requires schools to notify parents of human sexuality instruction in the classroom.
Now, parents are notified of human sexuality instruction 10 days to 48 hours in advance, giving them the opportunity to opt their child out of the instruction and to ask for detailed information on what is being taught, Seekins-Crowe told The Daily Signal.
In addition to passing legislation aimed at protecting kids from transgender treatments and explicit sexual information, Montana also recently became the first state to pass a bill banning the popular video app TikTok.
“I am glad that I voted for that legislation, especially because of how dangerous TikTok is, not just as a platform, but also as a national security issue,” Seekins-Crowe says.
TikTok is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, which is headquartered in Beijing and is subject to Chinese law requiring companies to make data available to the government. American citizens and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have voiced concerns over the ability of the Chinese government to collect and store data on Americans through TikTok.
Seekins-Crowe says she is looking forward to Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte signing the TikTok ban into law “very soon.”
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3 May, 2023
Heather Mac Donald Takes on Race vs. Merit
Author and researcher Heather Mac Donald has made a career of applying objective, statistics-based analyses to tell the most uncomfortable societal truths — truths, for example, about diversity and social engineering and the Left's war on cops. Her latest book, When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty, and Threatens Lives, is no exception.
"Over the years," as City Journal Editor Brian Anderson writes, "Heather's scrupulous and groundbreaking work has shed light on important trends in American life. Her new book brings relentless reporting to perhaps the most dangerous one yet, which is the equity craze that is threatening our scientific, cultural, and public institutions. In this new book ... she details the rise of disparate impact ideology and its potential to do enormous harm to our society. Her book also represents a powerful defense of our civilizational inheritance."
And what is disparate impact? It's the idea, Mac Donald says, "that any standard, meritocratic in terms of academic skills, that has a negative impact on certain minority groups, and above all on blacks, is by definition racist, unless, in the legal context, it can be justified at a very high standard of business necessity."
Mac Donald has witnessed the impact that disparate impact has inflicted on the building blocks of American society, and in a podcast with psychologist Jordan Peterson, she describes this assault as the inspiration for her latest volume:
This was a book written out of a combination of sorrow and rage: sorrow at the fact that the institutions that I love — classical music, art, philosophy, literature — were being torn down by a false narrative, saying that if a tradition has a demographic history that is predominantly white, that is, the European tradition, it is per se a racist tradition. So classical music, because the great Western composers ... were all white, therefore we should look upon that tradition with contempt and suspicion; and rage because the arguments that are being made are so completely false.
At the center of the arguments Mac Donald mentions is a single word: equity. It's a word that we began more earnestly paying attention to two years ago, when we noted, first and foremost, that equity and equality are two entirely different things. While the latter has its roots in some of the great and ennobling struggles of Western civilization, the former has its roots in Marxist theory and racial hucksterism.
Why is the equity doctrine so catastrophic? Peterson put that question to Mac Donald, and this was her answer:
Well, here's what the Left is doing today. It looks around, and it chooses institutions almost at random, and if it finds that there is not a proportional representation of blacks in that institution — whether this is Google's computer science force or Harvard's Medical School faculty, or a classical music orchestra, or the Western art collections of a museum, or the partners at an elite law firm — if there is not 13% blacks in that institution, that institution is per se racist. ... The only allowable explanation is racism. And with that rule, it means that any kind of standard that has a disparate impact on blacks — such as an expectation of mathematical skill or an expectation of a grasp of fundamental medical principles — it must be discarded. ... There is not a single institution in our world that is not vulnerable and that will not be torn down.
But if racism isn't the cause of these disparities, then what might it be? Mac Donald suggests the real reason: The academic skills gap:
It is mathematically impossible ... to maintain meritocratic standards and to engineer diversity as the diversity-mongers define it, which is basically racial proportionality. ... Sixty-six percent of black eighth graders do not possess even partial mastery of the most basic 12th-grade math skills. ... The number of black 12th-graders who are merely competent in those simple 12th-grade math skills is 6%, and the number who are advanced is too small in the United States to even show up statistically. The reading picture is not much better. The American College Testing organization, the ACT, says that only 6% of black 12th-graders are college ready when you look at their combine math, reading and science scores. ... So, given that, there is simply not enough competitively qualified blacks in the hiring pipeline.
Mac Donald noted that these meritocratic standards were originally developed to overcome racism and classism. They were objective, color-blind, and class-blind, and they allowed, for example, Jews and Asians to achieve entry into the elite Ivy League institutions based on objective standards, when they had traditionally been denied entry due to rank prejudice.
Mac Donald also stresses that the "Bourgeois values" that have defined the American experiment — "habits of self-control, of conscientiousness, of respect for authority that used to be middle-class values" — are disappearing from our country.
The disappearance of these values seems to us more like an eradication. Why? Because it removes our focus from some uncomfortable truths that are plaguing the black community. For example, Peterson made this observation about cognitive ability: "At the age of 5 or so, the difference between Caucasians and Blacks, for example, is something more approximating five points than the, say, 10 to 12 points that seems more standard by adulthood. And no one really knows why that is — why that gap expands across time. ... I suspect phenomena like fatherlessness play a role."
He suspects? Mac Donald thinks he's underplaying how bad it is for blacks, and we think she's right. She notes: "When Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote his astoundingly prescient report in the 1960s ['The Negro Family: The Case for National Action'] warning that the country was about to screech to a dead halt with regards to civil rights progress, his reason was not a resurgence of white racism or changing ... opportunities in the country, his reason was what he saw at the time as a catastrophic breakdown in the black family. ... When Moynihan wrote this report, the out-of-wedlock birthrate for blacks was 23%. And Moynihan said that with that number of young black males growing up in single-family homes without fathers to socialize them, to civilize them ... this population is doomed. ... Well, what are we at today? We're at 71%." (Of course, the effects of fatherlessness aren't limited to a disparity in cognitive ability. As our Mark Alexander points out, fatherless homes also tend to seed violence and other criminal behavior.)
Two years ago, we quoted neurosurgeon and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson on the topic of equity and the effect it's had on American society: "In fact, race relationships have deteriorated," he said. "Why have they deteriorated? Because of the great emphasis, trying to create white guilt and black victimhood. Those are two very bad things and when you put them together, it results in some policies that absolutely make no sense. So the real conflict here is between common sense and idiocy."
Common sense versus idiocy? That sounds like a pretty good summing up of Mac Donald's latest book — and of the civilizational contest between racial proportionality and merit.
https://patriotpost.us/articles/96892-heather-mac-donald-takes-on-race-vs-merit-2023-05-01
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Conservatives Wrongly Demonized As “Hate Groups” May Get Justice at Last
Most of the time, courts do not grant conservatives the time of day to defend their good names after the SPLC defames them.
Documents revealing the SPLC's process for determining what is and is not a “hate group” may finally see the light of day.
The SPLC engages in routine defamation of character through its “hate group” accusation, and it is high time this leftist smear factory faces the music.
The Left has a long and ignoble history of grasping at straws to demonize conservatives, but one organization arguably encapsulates this strategy more than any other. That group may finally have to face accountability for its defamation.
The Southern Poverty Law Center publishes a “hate map” plotting “hate groups” across the United States. Of course, the map features chapters of the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups like the National Socialist Movement, but it also includes a broad swath of conservative organizations whose major crimes amount to disagreeing with the SPLC's policy positions.
Take the Dustin Inman Society, for example. This small Georgia-based nonprofit essentially consists of one man, D.A. King, who was moved to advocate against illegal immigration by the story of a Georgia boy who lost his life at the hands of an illegal immigrant in a 2000 car crash.
King advocates for enforcing immigration laws, something the SPLC once apparently found unobjectionable. In 2011, Heidi Beirich, then-director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project—which publishes the “hate map”—told the Associated Press that the society was not a hate group, although she did brand it "nativist.”
Yet the SPLC turned on a dime in 2018. Suddenly, the Dustin Inman Society found itself on the “hate map.” King hadn't changed his positions, and the SPLC hadn't altered its definition of a "hate group." What changed? An SPLC staffer registered as a lobbyist opposing legislation the Dustin Inman Society supported.
To make matters worse, most of the evidence the SPLC cited in branding the society a “hate group” traced back to before the 2011 Associated Press interview in which Beirich specifically stated it was not a “hate group.” The SPLC made many basic factual errors in attacking King's organization, as well, such as misstating King's own history and when the society was founded.
King sent a letter to the SPLC, demanding a retraction. When the SPLC did not respond, he filed a defamation lawsuit.
Most of the time, courts do not grant conservatives the time of day to defend their good names after the SPLC defames them. The SPLC repeatedly urges Big Tech, government, and others to take action against conservatives unlucky enough to end up on the “hate group” list, then hides behind the First Amendment in court, minimizing its accusations as “mere opinion” rather than a statement of facts.
That strategy failed in this case, and a judge denied the SPLC's motion to dismiss King's claim.
This represents a monumental victory, not just for King but for conservatives across the country who had their names dragged through the mud because they don't support the SPLC's radical agenda. The judge's move allows the case to proceed to the discovery phase, where the Dustin Inman Society can request SPLC documents to prove its case.
This means documents revealing the SPLC's process for determining what is and is not a “hate group” may finally see the light of day, and that will further expose just how unreliable this organization's smears truly are.
As I wrote in my book, Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the SPLC took the project it used to monitor the Ku Klux Klan and expanded it to target conservative and Christian organizations. Organizations dedicated to religious freedom, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, appear on the map as “anti-LGBT hate groups,” while nonprofits dedicated to enforcing immigration law, like the Center for Immigration Studies, appear as “anti-immigrant hate groups.”
In 2019, amid a racial discrimination and sexual harassment scandal that led the SPLC to fire its cofounder, a former employee said the “hate” accusations are a "highly profitable scam.” The SPLC has an endowment of over $730 million. It uses a mix of quotes taken out of context and guilt by association to suggest its ideological opponents are fomenting hate, and then presents reports of “hate on the rise” to urge donors to empty their pockets.
Meanwhile, the SPLC's targets face growing opposition and mistrust. Media outlets that had previously interviewed D.A. King suddenly gave him the cold shoulder, and his small organization suffered financially from the smear campaign. King says he had to take out a second mortgage to keep his organization running.
In one terrifying instance, an SPLC accusation inspired a terrorist attack. A gunman targeted The Family Research Council in Washington, D.C., in 2012, planning to kill everyone in the building. He told the FBI he targeted the council because he found it on the SPLC's “hate map.” He's now serving 25 years in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism. While the SPLC condemned the attack, it has kept the council on its “hate map.”
The SPLC engages in routine defamation of character through its “hate group” accusation, and it is high time this leftist smear factory faces the music. While the Dustin Inman Society has cleared a major legal hurdle, D.A. King is raising money to make sure he can keep the legal effort going. His small organization needs help to combat the multi-million-dollar outfit seemingly intent on destroying his good name. If he wins, it may save many others from having to face a similar fate.
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Kansas Becomes 1st State to Pass Law Defining Gender as a Person’s Sex at Birth
Kansas has become the first state to adopt a definition of gender with the passage of legislation that keeps men, no matter what gender they identify as, out of women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and other intimate spaces.
It also separates inmates and restricts participation in sports according to one’s sex at birth.
The move came late in the afternoon of April 27, when the state Legislature voted to override Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of S.B. 180, which became known as the “Women’s Bill of Rights.”
Under it, a female is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to produce ova.” A male is defined as “an individual whose biological reproductive system is developed to fertilize the ova of a female.”
It also defines gender words calling for “woman” and “girl” to be used to refer to human females and “man” and “boy” to refer to human males. It defines “mother” as a parent of the female sex and “father” as a parent of the male sex.
The override comes a little more than a week after Kelly vetoed the bill on April 20, after it was passed by a two-to-one margin between Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate.
Kelly said she vetoed the legislation because she was concerned it would open the state up to costly discrimination lawsuits, cause a loss of federal funding, and hurt the Sunflower State’s economy.
The bill garnered support from a range of groups, including one staunchly pro-choice women’s rights group.
“Victory!” wrote the Women’s Liberation Front (WOLF) on Twitter, upon news of the veto override.
The national women’s rights organization, which helped craft the legislation, wrote on its website, “This bill takes procedural steps to write into law common sense definitions that ensure the meaning of words like ‘woman’ and ‘mother’ aren’t corrupted by unelected bureaucrats intent on pushing gender ideology.”
The group stated that members sent more than 600 messages to Kansas lawmakers in support of the bill.
Opposition Forces
The legislation also had plenty of opposition, with critics calling it anti-trans and reminiscent of racial segregation in the 1960s.
“It’s the same sayings,” state Rep. John Alcala (D-Topeka) said at a public hearing on the bill. “I don’t want you in my bathroom. I don’t want you drinking out of my water fountain. I don’t want you over at my house. I don’t want my kid hanging out with you.”
Beth Oller, a physician who testified against the bill, said the title was inappropriate and violated women’s rights. “This is [in] no way a women’s bill of rights. The bill does the opposite of protecting women; it causes harm.”
Oller said that medical doctors “for decades have agreed that there is no sufficient way to define what makes a woman.”
“Gender is not binary but is a spectrum of biological, mental, and emotional traits that exist along a continuum,” she said. “Intersex people exist.”
The bill does include a provision that recognizes intersexual individuals. “Individuals born with a medically verifiable diagnosis of disorder/differences in sex development are to be provided available federal and state legal protections,” the legislation states.
Opposition to SB 180 also came from the Kansas School Superintendents’ Association, the United School Administrators of Kansas, and Kansas Legal Services.
The Kansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence also opposed the Women’s Bill of Rights, which specifically cites women’s shelters, rape crisis centers, domestic violence safe havens, and women’s prisons as protected places where men identifying as female should be restricted.
Female Spaces in Danger
Following public testimony against the bill by Rev. Carolene Dean, an associate pastor with the Plymouth Congregational Church, an attorney for WOLF asked whether Dean, a female, “had ever been unfortunate enough to find herself in a domestic violence shelter, rape crisis counseling, or a women’s prison.”
Attorney Lauren Bone said that with many states now opening such places up to men, women are at “increased risk of further violence and harassment.”
When asked by a Republican lawmaker how many genders there are, Dean replied, “There are as many genders as there are beautiful creations in the world.”
Similar gender-defining bills to the one passed in Kansas are pending in other states, including Oklahoma and Montana.
Nationwide, there have been a number of reports of assaults on women by men identifying as women.
Earlier this month, The Windsor Star reported that a man who identified as a transgender woman was arrested in Ontario on allegations that he climbed into bed with a woman at a women’s shelter and sexually assaulted her.
There are also several pending civil rights lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of female inmates who have reported being raped by men they were incarcerated with because the men claimed to be females. One of the alleged assaults happened at the Logan Correctional Center, Illinois’s largest women’s prison.
Last year, as part of a plea deal, transgender prisoner Ramel Blount pled guilty to raping a female prisoner while she was taking a shower. Blount, a male who goes by the first name “Diamond,” was housed with women at New York’s Rikers Island prison.
The then-33-year-old admitted to grabbing the female inmate by the neck and holding her down against her will while raping her, according to released statements from the Bronx County District Attorney’s Office.
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The Supreme Court might finally end the rule of bureaucrats with ‘tragic’ Chevron case
In the 1984 case of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, it ruled federal judges must defer to a regulatory agency’s interpretations of federal laws, so long as Congress has not addressed the issue in question and the agency’s view can be construed as “reasonable.”
Since then, the power of the unelected administrative state has ballooned so that it now dictates much of our economy and daily lives.
The court announced Monday it will revisit that precedent, raising hopes that this enormous federal power might be reined in.
The Constitution set up a system of separated powers in which Congress would pass the laws, the president would administer them and the courts would interpret them.
Since the New Deal, Congress has shirked its accountability by increasingly giving unelected agencies the power to make decisions of vast economic and political significance.
The Chevron decision turbocharged that process.
Politico says liberal activists love Chevron because in hundreds of court decisions it has been invoked to hand agency experts the power “to respond to problems that Congress might not anticipate or fully understand.”
That may be expedient, but it is a dangerous trampling of our constitutional framework.
The job of Congress is to pass laws that are detailed and limiting to the executive. The executive’s job is to execute laws, not write them.
And there was a time when some liberals worried the Chevron doctrine encouraged unchecked executive authority.
In 1986, Stephen Breyer, a future Supreme Court justice then serving on a federal appeals court, called Chevron an “abdication of judicial responsibility” because the Constitution gives judges, not agency bureaucrats, the power to interpret federal law.
The Supreme Court last year took a first step in backing away from its Chevron decision.
In West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, a 6 to 3 court majority ruled that from now on Congress must explicitly grant regulatory agencies the power they wield.
That infuriated the activist left.
Since the spectacular collapse of President Barack Obama’s cap-and-trade scheme to rein in carbon emissions, which failed to even get a Senate floor vote in 2010, environmentalists have become experts at twisting and distorting old laws to accomplish by the back door what they could never do using legitimate constitutional approaches.
From regulations aimed at climate change to the overriding of local zoning laws in New York, activists have used that approach to lobby federal agencies to implement an agenda Congress would never approve on its own.
One former federal regulator, appalled at left-wing efforts to ban gas stoves, told me: “They go through federal agencies like burglars who try every door in a neighborhood in the belief one of them will be unlocked.”
The court may not overturn the case in full, but the fact that at least four justices have agreed to reexamine the decision indicates Chevron deference is likely to be curbed.
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2 May, 2023
The pathology of anti-Semitism
Douglas Murray makes some good points below but I think he oversimplifies a complex historical, sociological and psychological phenomenon.
Although all types of antisemitism are overgeneralizations, it is important to note that there is more than one type and source of antisemitism and that the types matter. It is the extreme examples of antisemitism that are dangerous and they are most safely seen as sui generis. Contrary to the popular impression, extreme antisemitism has been in recent centuries mostly Leftist. I try to be more comprehensive in my coverage of the matter
One of the best ways to work out that somebody has not thought deeply about anti-Semitism is if they say that they wish to destroy it once and for all. When in a corner, even Jeremy Corbyn could be found saying that we must end anti-Semitism for good. Though he was of course unable to resist forever adding ‘and all other forms of prejudice’. As though such a day could ever come.
Demonstrating that it will not, last week Corbyn’s old ally and motorcycling companion Diane Abbott could be found complaining that black people have always had it worse than other groups, and that while Jews, like gingers and gypsies, might be subject to ‘prejudice’, only black people can be subjected to ‘racism’. In the ensuing storm, and while removing the whip, Keir Starmer reiterated his claim that he would ‘tear out anti-Semitism by its roots’.
Whenever I read such a sentiment, I always wonder how people can know so little. Have they read nothing? I ask because I am afraid that it is the nature of anti-Semitism that it is ineradicable. It can be subdued, and it can be called out, but it cannot be ended ‘once and for all’. The reasons lie deeper than our age is able to consider.
Take the masterful work of Gregor von Rezzori with the slightly lurid title Memoirs of an Anti-Semite. In it, Rezzori draws a subtle but devastating portrait of attitudes towards Jews in pre-war Romania and other parts of the now long-dead Habsburg world. Perhaps the keenest insight in the book, as well as the most dramatic, is the moment when a young Romanian nobleman who has fallen for an older Jewish woman takes her out on a date and not only feels shame when his friends see them, but comes to loathe his date because she has tried to make herself look and act like everybody else. Tell me how you can eradicate a hatred that complex and deep.
Another writer, more celebrated today, addressed the same question. Vasily Grossman’s Life and Fate is now recognised as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Its 900 or so pages take us through the midnight of the century, from the camp at Auschwitz to the Gulag. But one of the things that has always impressed me on a technical level about the book is that at the midpoint of the action, Grossman suddenly takes a step back. For three pages he meditates on the nature of anti-Semitism. What a thing to do in the middle of describing Stalingrad and much more.
But the more you think on it, the more this halt in the action makes sense. He says at one point in this short passage almost all that need be said about the pathology in question. Grossman writes: ‘Anti-Semitism can take many forms, from a mocking contemptuous ill-will to murderous pogroms. It can be met with in the marketplace and in the Academy of Sciences, in the soul of an old man and in the games children play in the yard. Anti-Semitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and state systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of, I’ll tell you what you are guilty of.’
It has always been like this. So tell me exactly how you propose to ‘root out’ or ‘end for good’ a pathology which blames Jews for being poor and for being rich, for integrating and for not integrating, for being stateless and for having a state.
People who have thought about this at a facile level can be relied upon to back schemes such as Holocaust education centres and memorials almost everywhere on Earth. One reason why so many MPs back an ugly Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens is because they imagine troops of schoolchildren being ‘educated’ about how not to hate Jews. They say that it is important to ‘learn the lessons’ of the Holocaust, as though these lessons are straightforward; as though it was almost generous of Herr Hitler to provide such a massive historical reference point for our own moral betterment.
Such people should read the most recent work of Dara Horn (author of People Love Dead Jews), who recently showed in the Atlantic how the proliferation of Holocaust education centres in America might actually be increasing anti-Semitism among the schoolchildren who are taken there. Well-meaning (generally non-Jewish) curators and guides have no time to analyse the centuries of Jew-hatred that led up to the Holocaust. Instead, the visitor is simply left with the knowledge that in the 1930s and 1940s something terrible happened. A surprising number come away with the belief that the Jews must have done something to provoke such an outrage – that they were, perhaps, disproportionately rich, for instance. What all these displays have in common is that they finish with a sort of facile generalised lesson. Don’t be mean to people. Or the question ‘Who are the Jews of today? What forms of prejudice exist in our own day that should be tackled in order not to end up with Auschwitz again?’
As Horn notes, the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington does not finish by generalising the black American experience. It does not ask whom we treat today in the fashion that American blacks were once treated. It is recognised to be an evil of its own, worthy of its own respect and historical treatment.
Not so with dead Jews. They must forever be used to improve us, available to be used by anyone wishing to make a point about – say – border security in the 21st century.
What Abbott and others consistently demonstrate is precisely what Grossman said: anti-Semitism is a mirror. We use the Jews as victims in our society because we live in a society which celebrates victimhood: victimhood without much serious suffering, of course. And we become so high on that search for victimhood that we can even forget the peoples more victimised than any other.
Tear that out.
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/anti-semitism-will-never-go-away/
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Leftist racism again
The Guardian thinks of itself as Britain’s fearless liberal conscience, trigger-sensitive to racist ‘dog whistles’ in the language and editorial judgements of everyone except itself. It takes a special interest in cartoons published by right-of-centre newspapers which are accused of bigotry.
When the Murdoch-owned Herald Sun ran a cartoon depicting Serena Williams throwing a tantrum, the Guardian reported that News Corp had ‘come under global condemnation for publishing a racist, sexist cartoon’, supplementing multiple news stories with several condemnatory op-eds. Other newspapers who have found their cartoons scrutinised for racial undertones by the Guardian include the Times, the New York Post, the Australian, the Boston Herald, and Charlie Hebdo.
So how exactly did Martin Rowson’s latest cartoon manage to slip past editors? Ostensibly a comment on how Richard Sharp’s resignation proves that everything Boris Johnson touches turns to shit, the illustration quickly attracted attention this morning for its depiction of the outgoing BBC chairman.
Sharp is drawn in a grotesque caricature that looks nothing like him, complete with sunken, drooping eyes, jowly cheeks, a sinister-looking grin and a noticeably prominent nose. He is carrying a box marked Goldman Sachs which contains a vampire squid. Behind him, a large pig is vomiting into a trough.
Individually, these elements are benign enough, the usual knockabout stuff of editorial cartoons. In toto, however, they take on a more insidious flavour. Antisemitic propaganda has typically depicted its targets as hideously ugly, with dark or unusual eyes, a menacing smile and a protruding nose. Such fare would also caricature the Jewish people as a giant squid leeching onto the planet. Swine, because they are considered unclean in Jewish religious law, have been used to taunt and abuse Jews. Richard Sharp is Jewish.
The depiction of Richard Sharp in today’s @guardian cartoon falls squarely into an antisemitic tradition of depicting Jews with outsized, grotesque features, often in conjunction with money and power. It’s appalling. Here’s why ? pic.twitter.com/RI46VmL6z8
— Dave Rich (@daverich1) April 29, 2023
Now, you might say this is a case of over-sensitivity, that it’s an unfortunate coincidence that several elements of Rowson’s drawing overlap with classic antisemitic imagery. You might note that Sharp previously worked at Goldman Sachs and that the bank was famously described by a left-wing journalist as ‘a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money’. You might argue that pigs in the trough is a commonplace image when political corruption is being imputed.
And it’s not impossible to imagine that a political cartoonist could create this illustration without its undertones ever occurring to him. It’s even possible to image the cartoon going through the entire editorial process, from commissioning to publication, without anyone spotting any problems. The problem is that this is Martin Rowson and this is the Guardian and they both have form.
In 2013, Rowson drew Henry Kissinger with blood-soaked hands. This on its own seems fair enough, given Kissinger’s role in shaping deadly and disastrous US policies in Indochina. Why, though, he did he depict the Jewish Kissinger with a hook nose and walking into a Bilderberg meeting no less? In 2006, the Guardian published Rowson’s take on the second Israel-Lebanon war, his Jewish knuckleduster cartoon. This involved a giant fist studded with blood-smeared Stars of David bloodying the face of a young Arab boy. The cartoon is not of an Israeli knuckleduster, with the Stars of David between two horizontal bars, as is seen in the Israeli flag. Nor are the stars blue, as they are in the flag. These are plain, simple Stars of David — the universal symbol of the Jewish people and the Jewish religion.
If you’re still not convinced, here is what Rowson told the left-wing magazine Red Pepper in 2011, an interview dug up by the pro-Israel media watchdog Camera UK:
‘The Israel lobby is particularly masterful in using this to silence criticism of their brutally oppressive colonialism… You can’t win – it’s the ultimate trump card. No matter how many innocent people the Israeli state kills, any criticism is automatically proof of anti-semitism. No wonder idiots like Ahmadinejad want to deny the holocaust. They are jealous. They’d love to silence their critics like that.’
Bear in mind, this is the same interview in which Rowson said of the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed:
‘You have to question the motives behind this commission, and to bear in mind the context of years of anti-immigrant propaganda in Denmark. There was no real point behind publishing this stuff other than to feed this victimisation of a minority.’
So Martin Rowson understands that satire can have questionable motives, that the political and social context is important, and that cartoons can contribute to hatred of a minority religious or ethnic group. The question, then, is why this understanding seems to fail him when it comes to Jews.
When judging a satirist, the test is whether they are as willing to lampoon the powerful without fear or favour. Which takes us back to the Richard Sharp cartoon. Were the outgoing BBC chairman a black man with left-wing politics, appointed under dubious circumstances by a socialist government, would Rowson depict him in a comparable light, with exaggerated features and imagery familiar from racist illustrations of black people? I could be wrong but I don’t believe he would, given his comments on the Danish cartoons and the ideological worldview his cartoons articulate.
Moreover, I don’t think the Guardian would publish such a cartoon. It did publish Rowson’s this morning but this afternoon the content was removed from the paper’s website. Readers were instead met with the statement: ‘The cartoon that was posted here today did not meet our editorial standards, and we have decided to remove it from our website.’ Maybe we should take encouragement from the fact they eventually deleted it, or from Rowson’s statement, issued this afternoon, which reads in part:
‘Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. To work effectively, cartoons almost more than any other part of journalism require eternal vigilance, against unconscious bias as well as things that should be obvious and in this case, unforgivably, I didn’t even think about. There are sensitivities it is our obligation to respect in order to achieve our satirical purposes.’
The question remains: why are some progressives who are woke to racism in most circumstances unable to see it when it comes to certain minorities whose politics they disapprove of?
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/04/the-guardians-shameful-double-standards/
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Woke ASPCA Allocates Mere 2% to Animal Shelters, Millions Funneled to Execs and Idle Accounts
A new report has revealed that one of the country’s most well-known animal welfare groups, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), has been sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars, including millions in offshore Caribbean accounts, while giving just 2% of its budget to pet shelters.
The report has been released by the Center for the Environment and Welfare (CEW), a recently established think tank that has launched a paid media campaign to expose the ASPCA’s alleged duplicity.
The ASPCA, known for it’s heart-string pulling commercials with images of abused cats and dogs while listening to Sarah McLachlan singing “Arms of an Angel” which helped raise millions of dollars from viewers believing their money would go to help these animals.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, CEW Executive Director Jack Hubbard stated that the ASPCA is more focused on enriching itself and pushing a radical political agenda than helping pets in need.
“We’re concerned about misinformation and a lack of information about the true agenda of the ASPCA,” Hubbard said. “We’re trying to educate the public about who this group is and who it’s not.”
The report cites the ASPCA’s most recent tax filings as the source of its figures, indicating that only 2% of the organization’s budget is given as grants to community pet shelters.
Meanwhile, the ASPCA had $390 million in revenue and $575 million in assets in 2021, including $310 million in investments and $105 million in savings.
Even more concerning is the ASPCA has $11 million in offshore accounts in the Caribbean, not to mention the absurd salaries employees receive.
The organization’s CEO, Matt Berkshadker, receives nearly $1 million a year, with 259 of his employees earning six-figure salaries.
Hubbard has called for Berkshadker to cut his salary in half and for the ASPCA to distribute its roughly $300 million in investments to local shelters.
CEW’s findings appear to be in line with a 2021 investigation by CBS News.
The investigation reported that while the ASPCA had raised more than $2 billion for animal welfare since 2008, it spent just $146 million, or about 7% of the total money raised, in grants to local animal welfare groups. In contrast, the organization spent at least $421 million on fundraising.
“When you start sharing this information with people, especially animal lovers, they’re outraged,” said Hubbard. “There’s a euthanasia crisis in this country, with more than a million animals killed, euthanized in the US each year, and you’ve got this group sitting on $300 million in investments.”
The ASPCA is not affiliated with local SPCAs. It only runs one adoption center in New York City.
“Most people believe they’re associated with all the local shelters, but they’re not,” said Hubbard. “The ASPCA should change name its name to the Midtown Manhattan ASPCA.”
The ASPCA has also been criticized for its lobbying efforts to influence the 2023 Farm Bill.
The organization is leading a coalition of 40 animal rights groups in this push, advocating for a national moratorium on new and expanded large livestock feeding operations, a complete ban by 2040, and the creation of new animal welfare standards for the transport of livestock and poultry.
The coalition also supports a proposal for a $100 billion program to transition animal feeding operations to raising pasture-based livestock or growing specialty crops and organic commodity production.
CEW claims that the ASPCA’s goal is to incentivize livestock farmers to stop raising animals and focus instead on crops and plants. Hubbard has called the group’s lobbying campaign “radical,” suggesting that it is pushing an “anti-farmer” agenda.
He argues that the changes sought by the ASPCA would harm both low-income Americans and national security by making the country’s supply chain more vulnerable and raising food prices.
“I’m really concerned about animal rights groups trying to change the country’s food policy,” Hubbard said. “We have the safest and most abundant and affordable food supply in the world. It’s good for people at all income levels.”
“If the ASPCA is successful, the food crisis will increase, and we’re already in a hyperinflationary tailspin,” Hubbard continued. “Talking about measures to raise prices of healthy animal protein is beyond irresponsible and poorly timed.”
The ASPCA has defended itself by stating that all its efforts are meant to ensure the welfare of animals.
A spokesperson told Fox News Digital, “For more than 155 years, the ASPCA has been actively pursuing our mission ‘to provide effective means for the prevention of cruelty to animals throughout the United States.’ All of our lifesaving work is dedicated to rescuing, protecting, and caring for animals in need.”
https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/woke-aspca-allocates-mere-2-animal-shelters-millions-funneled-execs-idle-accounts-report ?
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Can Trump win?
When it comes to contemporary politics, Americans don't see eye-to-eye on much. But they agree by large majorities that Joe Biden and Donald Trump should not be seeking another term as president. An NBC News poll released last Sunday found that 70 percent of respondents, including 51 percent of Democrats, believe Biden shouldn't run for reelection. Similarly, 60 percent of Americans — including 1 out of 3 Republicans — think Trump shouldn't be trying to return to White House.
Of course, both men are running for president in 2024. Biden made it official last week, which means that his renomination at the Democratic convention in Chicago next summer is a virtual certainty. He has no serious primary opponent, and if he did it, likely wouldn't matter: The last time a sitting president was denied his party's nod for another term was 1884.
Trump does face credible primary opponents, both announced and likely to announce, including former South Carolina governor and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and former vice president Mike Pence. Thus far, though, Trump leads nearly every survey of Republican primary voters, and he has been endorsed by dozens of incumbent GOP governors and members of Congress.
So here we are: The election rematch America doesn't want is shaping up to be the one it gets. In 2016, Trump and Hillary Clinton were repeatedly described as the two most disliked presidential nominees in living memory. Eight years later, the same scenario is unfolding again. Only 38 percent of Americans view Biden in a positive light. Only 34 percent have a positive view of Trump.
Is there no way out?
At this point, only death or disability will keep Biden off the 2024 ballot, so Americans can avoid another Biden vs. Trump contest only if Republicans say no to the former president.
There are excellent reasons for them to do so, beginning with the fact that nominating Trump is the best way to ensure Biden's reelection.
If Biden and Trump are next year's nominees, they can count on the votes of their respective parties' most loyal voters. But the key to winning will be swing voters — and most of them recoil from Trump. It isn't just that Trump is viewed favorably by even less of the electorate than Biden. Rather, as Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio noted in The Wall Street Journal, when voters who dislike both Trump and Biden are asked whom they would cast a ballot for if they had to choose one or the other, Biden is the overpowering favorite, 54 percent to 15 percent. That's why Democrats hope and pray that Trump is the GOP nominee.
Make no mistake: There are strong arguments against reelecting Biden. His spending has fueled the worst inflation in 40 years, his handling of Afghanistan was a fiasco, he has presided over an alarming spike in violent crime, and, contrary to the moderate image he cultivates, he has gone along with many of the most radical priorities of his party's left wing. Above all, there is his advanced age — Biden is the oldest man to assume the presidency, he would be 82 at the start of a second term, and Vice President Kamala Harris is painfully unready for prime time.
But however strong the case against Biden, the case against Trump — the only president who ever tried to overturn an election, the only one to be twice impeached, the only one to call for suspending the Constitution, the only one to be indicted on criminal charges — is far stronger. If Trump is on the ballot next year, Republicans up and down the ballot will be forced to campaign with the shackles of Trump fatigue clanking around them. If Trump isn't on the ballot — if the GOP instead picks a standard-bearer who is more appealing and less bizarre — everything changes. Biden will still have the advantages of incumbency, but Republicans will have a much clearer path to recapturing the White House.
Nothing unites Democratic voters like their loathing of Trump. Democrats nominated Biden for president in 2020 because they concluded — correctly — that he had the best chance of ousting Trump. They suffered minimal damage in last fall's midterms because numerous Republican candidates endorsed by the former president went down in defeat. After three consecutive election cycles — 2018, 2020, 2022 — in which Trump proved to be an electoral liability for Republicans, will the party really be so foolhardy as to hitch the GOP wagon to his falling star again?
https://jeffjacoby.com/26938/republicans-can-spare-the-country-a-rematch-it
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1 May, 2023
Aging and the brain
A reader has just drawn my attention to the 2011 article below. It suggests that while certain brain capacities wane as we get older, we compemsate by using more of the brain's resources -- explaining why high level intellectual activity is often found among the elderly. I am in my 80th year so I find that encouraging.
My impression of my own writing is that I marshall arguments as well as ever. I was rather pleased that I was able to show the hole in an argument by a prominent Leftist economist recently
Changes in Regional and Temporal Patterns of Activity Associated with Aging during the Performance of a Lexical Set-Shifting Task
Authors: Ruben Martins et al.
Abstract
Some older individuals seem to use compensatory mechanisms to maintain high-level performance when submitted to cognitive tasks. However, whether and how these mechanisms affect fronto-striatal activity has never been explored. The purpose of this study was to investigate how aging affects brain patterns during the performance of a lexical analog of the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, which has been shown to strongly depend on fronto-striatal activity. In the present study, both younger and older individuals revealed significant fronto-striatal loop activity associated with planning and execution of set-shifts, though age-related striatal activity reduction was observed. Most importantly, while the younger group showed the involvement of a "cognitive loop" during the receiving negative feedback period (which indicates that a set-shift will be required to perform the following trial) and the involvement of a "motor loop" during the matching after negative feedback period (when the set-shift must be performed), older participants showed significant activation of both loops during the matching after negative feedback period only. These findings are in agreement with the "load-shift" model postulated by Velanova et al. (Velanova K, Lustig C, Jacoby LL, Buckner RL. 2007. Evidence for frontally mediated controlled processing differences in older adults. Cereb Cortex. 17:1033-1046.) and indicate that the model is not limited to memory retrieval but also applies to executive processes relying on fronto-striatal regions.
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Jan. 6 Defendant Jacob Chansley Files Motion to Vacate His Sentence Over Newly Revealed Footage
The conviction of the Shaman was a bum rap
The man known as QAnon Shaman has asked a judge to vacate the sentence he received over his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, pointing to surveillance footage made public for the first time on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Jacob Chansley, through lawyer William Shipley, filed a motion on April 27 to vacate his sentence, noting the footage showed him being escorted by U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) officers throughout the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. It also showed one officer opening a door to the Senate Chamber and following Chansley inside when he entered.
The government violated Chansley’s rights by not handing over the potentially exculpatory footage, the new filing states.
“Because this material was favorable to Mr. Chansley for purposes of sentencing, and it was suppressed by the Government, Mr. Chansley’s due process rights were clearly violated by the failure to produce the CCTV camera video from inside the Capitol,” Shipley wrote.
The motion asks to vacate Chansley’s sentence and permit additional discovery to figure out why the footage was not produced.
Conflicting Dates
Albert Watkins, Chansley’s former lawyer, has said he has never seen the videos aired by Carlson and that they were not produced by the government during discovery.
Prosecutors challenged the latter claim. In a filing in a different case, they said the videos had been given to Watkins by Sept. 24, 2021.
Prosecutors offered a different story, though, in correspondence with Shipley. They said they produced the videos on Oct. 21, 2021.
“Both representations cannot be correct—and it is quite likely that both are false,” Shipley said. He pointed to prior letters from prosecutors, including one sent Oct. 21, 2021, that said footage from Capitol grounds had been produced but with no specific mention of any video from the interior of the Capitol.
In another letter dated Oct. 25, 2021, authorities said they expected future productions to primarily be from the interior of the Capitol, including footage that had been deemed “highly sensitive.”
“Mr. Chansley and his counsel did not have the CCTV video from cameras inside the Capitol for use at before his change of plea or at sentencing,” Shipley said. “But the Government did.”
Motion to Vacate
Chansley pleaded guilty to obstructing an official proceeding. in 2021. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison. He was released on March 28.
Under federal law, a motion to vacate may be approved if a sentence was imposed “in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States” or the sentence given was “in excess of the maximum authorized by law.”
Because prosecutors failed to meet their Brady obligations, or their need to produce potentially exculpatory material, Chansley’s sentence should be vacated or corrected, Shipley said.
“The discovery/Brady material was not provided in a manner that meets the standard in this Circuit for disclosure of exculpatory material,” he wrote. To figure out exactly what happened, further discovery should be permitted, the lawyer said.
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85% of Anglican Leaders Reject the leadership of Canterbury
How should Christians respond when LGBT activists demand they compromise the truth of Scripture by endorsing same-sex marriage and transgender identity?
A global gathering of Anglicans just provided an excellent example.
In February, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England and the “first among equals” in the global Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination, defended blessings for same-sex couples while insisting that the move did not violate the church’s doctrine that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.
“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church,” Welby said in a joint statement with Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell at the time.
Leaders at the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) wouldn’t stand for this. On Friday, they signed the Kigali Commitment, condemning Welby’s move as “blasphemy” and declaring that he and the Church of England had abdicated their leadership of the Anglican Communion.
“It grieves the Holy Spirit and us that the leadership of the Church of England is determined to bless sin,” GAFCON leaders wrote in the Kigali Commitment. “Since the Lord does not bless same-sex unions, it is pastorally deceptive and blasphemous to craft prayers that invoke blessing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
GAFCON, which met last week in Kigali, Rwanda, declared Welby’s leadership “entirely indefensible.” The Kigali Commitment declares that the Church of England has “failed to maintain true communion based on the Word of God and shared faith in Christ,” therefore noting that GAFCON’s “communion with them remains broken.” That represents a kind of revolution and excommunication from below, in which the top leaders of Anglican churches—referred to as primates—brush away the historic head of the denomination.
“We consider that those who refuse to repent have abdicated their right to leadership within the Anglican Communion, and we commit ourselves to working with orthodox primates and other leaders to reset the Communion on its biblical foundations,” the commitment reads. The statement notes that GAFCON and the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (which has also effectively excommunicated the Church of England) represent 85% of the primates in the Global Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination after the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
It remains unclear what will happen next for GAFCON and its ally, the Global South Fellowship. “The GAFCON primates are still finalizing the practicalities of the statement,” a spokeswoman for the conference told The Daily Signal on Tuesday.
Welby responded to the commitment in a statement Friday, noting that the structures of the Anglican Communion “are always able to change with the times,” but arguing that “no changes to the formal structures of the Anglican Communion can be made unless they are agreed upon by the Instruments of Communion.”
Yet the Kigali Commitment declares that GAFCON has “no confidence” that the archbishop of Canterbury, nor the other Instruments of Communion he leads (the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates’ Meetings), “are able to provide a godly way forward that will be acceptable to those who are committed to the truthfulness, clarity, sufficiency, and authority of Scripture.”
Welby’s statement did not address the Kigali Commitment’s central concern about blessings for same-sex couples, but merely urges GAFCON “to walk together as Anglicans” with the Church of England.
GAFCON leaders are no so easily cowed. Their statement cites Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:4-6, and 1 Corinthians 6:9 in reaffirming the biblical teaching that “the only appropriate context for sexual activity is the exclusive lifelong union of a man and a woman in marriage.”
“Public statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury and other leaders of the Church of England in support of same-sex blessings are a betrayal of their ordination and consecration vows to banish error and to uphold and defend the truth taught in Scripture,” the statement explains.
GAFCON also argues that Welby and others repudiated Resolution I.10 of the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which declared that “homosexual practice is incompatible with Scripture” and advised against the “legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions.”
Welby and the Church of England have tried to weasel out of their repudiation of Resolution I.10 with promises not to change the definition of marriage, but GAFCON isn’t having it.
The Kigali Commitment also cites other Church of England departures from Christian orthodoxy, such as “the uniqueness and divinity of Christ, his bodily Resurrection, his promised return, the summons to faith and repentance, and the final judgment.”
Many Christian leaders have shied away from these central Christian doctrines to declare a more nebulous gospel of love and acceptance unmoored from the clear teaching of the Bible that if Jesus was not bodily raised from the dead, “our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Christianity can only offer hope of ultimate joy, reconciliation with God, and salvation from sin in the context of doctrines such as the need for repentance, the historical truth of the Gospels, and the promised resurrection of the church.
The rush to embrace modern sexual morality often coincides with a wishy-washy Christianity that does not take the Gospel’s central truth claims seriously. This “Christianity-lite” cannot offer salvation because it does not first condemn sin. It cannot offer assurance of salvation because it downplays the importance of faith. It cannot offer the ultimate hope of resurrection because it rejects the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
A Christianity that does not preach the Resurrection is not Christianity, and a Christianity that rejects the clear witness of Scripture about sexual morality is also not Christianity.
Christians must love and sympathize with those who struggle with same-sex attraction and gender confusion, and a keen awareness of our own sin must restrain us from thinking ourselves superior to them. However, sympathy and Christlike charity do not excuse those who bless sin in the name of God.
The Kigali Commitment upholds biblical sexual morality while affirming that “every person is loved by God” and opposing “the vilification or demeaning of any person, including those who do not follow God’s ways.” As the commitment states, it is “unloving” to “mislead people by pretending that God blesses sexually active relationships between two people of the same sex.”
Thank God for church leaders who are not afraid to speak these truths. I am honored to count my own church’s head pastor, Sam Ferguson, among those who attended the conference. May GAFCON’s leadership here shame the Church of England into repentance.
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Customers hit back at new dining trend taking over Aussie restaurants
I find mobile phones very tedious so use them or anything like them only to a minimum. So I object to ordering food by using one. Unless I can order from a person, I walk out. That usually makes the place back down. But if not there are thousands of other places to eat. Quality of life matters
They were an ubiquitous presence at cafes, restaurants and bars during the pandemic, but love them or loathe them, industry insiders say QR ordering is here to stay.
While some expected it to fade away as the pandemic dissolved and check-ins were no longer relevant, the opposite has actually been true.
Not everyone is a fan. In fact many people appear downright hostile to QR ordering and restaurants and cafe’s not providing physical menus.
Social media is filled with people raging against it.
One person wrote on an angst-ridden Reddit stream that they just “hate it”.
“I hate paying for dinner on my phone,’ the person complained. “I hate navigating through menus to find food.”
Another said they disliked being forced to “give every-f***ing-detail about myself or sign up”, while another observed “having phones out was a terrible way to start dinner together”.
While one person claimed they often go to the counter and refuse to do it or threaten to go elsewhere: “I haven’t had anyone let me leave yet”.
Others pointed out it isn’t practical for some.
“My grandparents never really got onto the smart phones (and with dementia it’s not the time to start) and I have a friend who has fine motor skill issues so he struggles to control the scrolling function that’s required,” one person explained.
“It’s embarrassing for them to have the menu read to them or to have others decide what they have because they can’t use a menu in that format.”
Another noted it was difficult for families with kids with “everyone is fighting over mums phone to see what they can order”.
Despite not all Aussies being a fan of the new system, Square, which provides a range of technology for restaurants and other industries, says QR codes are here to stay saying sellers were increasingly turning to tech to run their business.
“QR code ordering has definitely become mainstream for restaurants,” said Colin Birney, head of business development at Square in Australia.
“As cost-of-doing-business pressures remain and staff shortages continue, restaurants are seeing technology as a non-negotiable and a way to find efficiency gains and unlock new ways to sell.”
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