Brazen Lying
Media’s Latest Escalation In Campaign Against Trump
As if orders went out from a central director, nearly every major media outlet flat-out lied about President Trump's speech.
Mollie Hemingway
The Federalist
When Sen. Bob Dole accepted the Republican nomination for president in 1996, his speech hit on the themes of “honor, decency and straight talk.” He proudly mentioned the great Republican Abraham Lincoln and explicitly denounced racism.
“The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view. But if there’s anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you — tonight this hall belongs to the party of Lincoln. And the exits, which are clearly marked, are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise,” Dole said.
The speech was held up in 2016 as an example of how wonderful Republican candidates for president used to be before Donald Trump. So it’s interesting to also look back at how this speech was received by its critics. For example, then-Senior White House Adviser George Stephanopoulos called it “partisan, negative and divisive.”
Fast-forward 24 years to the present. Once again a prominent Republican gives a speech with themes of honor and decency and straight talk. Once again the prominent Republican explicitly and repeatedly denounces racism. The Republican praises Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Douglass, the Wright Brothers, the Tuskegee Airmen, Harriet Tubman, Clara Barton, Jesse Owens, George Patton, Louie Armstrong, Alan Shepard, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Irving Berlin, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, and Bob Hope.
And once again critics claim that the speech is “dark and divisive.”
But this time the commentary and narrative-shaping pushback that used to be left to Democratic activists such as George Stephanopoulos are now handled by corporate media activists like, well, George Stephanopoulos. OK, maybe it’s not such a significant difference after all. But it’s still noteworthy that the corporate media activists are doing what used to be left to official party activists.
Friday, 17 July 2020
An Excerpt On "A Lesson From Robert E. Lee"
Those Vexatious Statues
Helen Andrews
The American Conservative
. . . I used to side with the people who wanted to tear down all Confederate monuments. If Southern gentility means anything, I thought, it means not causing gratuitous offense. It means being willing to accept that a statue might mean one thing to us but something different to our fellow citizens, to whom we have an obligation to be considerate. I took people at their word when they said, we don’t hate the South, we just want you to celebrate what’s best about it, not what’s worst.
That gave them too much credit. In truth, they don’t want to celebrate anything about the South, or America, or the past. Everything falls short of their Year Zero standards. Considering the absolutism of their ideology, perhaps I should have seen this coming. Others did. Either way, Confederates are in the rear-view mirror now and Washington and Jefferson are the ones up for condemnation.
The left argues that name changes and statue topplings are a way for people and institutions to demonstrate their commitment to real change. But at this point, it is not ordinary Americans who need to demonstrate their good faith to the left. It is the statue-topplers who need to convince us that they are genuinely committed to pluralism and not, as their actions would suggest, just sparing some statues temporarily while they bide their time to wait and see what they can get away with tomorrow.
So choose one. That is my proposal. The monument-destroying left should pick a statue they genuinely hate and say: leave it up.
Maybe it’s the Robert E. Lee equestrian statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond. That memorial was conceived in 1870 and not, as many other Confederate statues were, during the reassertion of white rule at the turn of the century. It really was intended to stand for reconciliation, not Southern intransigence. It’s also galling that Ralph Northam is the one who decided to get rid of it. The last person who has any business lecturing the rest of us in racial sensitivity is Governor Blackface.
But it doesn’t have to be Lee. It can be someone else. The point is for the left to demonstrate that they are capable of sharing a country with people they disagree with.If you can’t name a single statue you hate that you would leave standing, then you are a fanatic, and fanatics, even when their zeal is for a good cause, are impossible for the rest of us to coexist with.
Sometimes I wonder what Lee would think if he could see his Richmond statue now, covered in graffiti that the state won’t allow anyone to clean off, not even the obscenities. It would not touch his dignity. Lee had extensive experience with adolescent misbehavior, as a college president and before that as superintendent of West Point. He knew the virtue that young people most need to be taught, because it does not come naturally to them, is self-discipline. “You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey” was one of his favorite maxims. It would sadden him to see protesters who have apparently reached the age of thirty without ever acquiring sufficient self-mastery to wait for Governor Northam’s decision to take effect, or to express themselves without saying “Fuck.” But it would not wound him.
Self-discipline is precisely what we all need to rediscover right now. We need to relearn how to put our own emotions aside and live in peace with other people, even those whose deeply held beliefs offend us. If we don’t, the entire country will be in for a long, multi-year, possibly endless adolescent tantrum, and there won’t be a single remnant of our past left standing at the end of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Andrews is a senior editor at The American Conservative, and the author of a forthcoming book about the Baby Boomers to be published by Sentinel this fall. She has worked at the Washington Examiner and National Review, and as a think tank researcher at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Yale University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, First Things, The Claremont Review of Books, Hedgehog Review, and many others. You can follow her on Twitter at @herandrews.
Helen Andrews
The American Conservative
That gave them too much credit. In truth, they don’t want to celebrate anything about the South, or America, or the past. Everything falls short of their Year Zero standards. Considering the absolutism of their ideology, perhaps I should have seen this coming. Others did. Either way, Confederates are in the rear-view mirror now and Washington and Jefferson are the ones up for condemnation.
The left argues that name changes and statue topplings are a way for people and institutions to demonstrate their commitment to real change. But at this point, it is not ordinary Americans who need to demonstrate their good faith to the left. It is the statue-topplers who need to convince us that they are genuinely committed to pluralism and not, as their actions would suggest, just sparing some statues temporarily while they bide their time to wait and see what they can get away with tomorrow.
So choose one. That is my proposal. The monument-destroying left should pick a statue they genuinely hate and say: leave it up.
Maybe it’s the Robert E. Lee equestrian statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond. That memorial was conceived in 1870 and not, as many other Confederate statues were, during the reassertion of white rule at the turn of the century. It really was intended to stand for reconciliation, not Southern intransigence. It’s also galling that Ralph Northam is the one who decided to get rid of it. The last person who has any business lecturing the rest of us in racial sensitivity is Governor Blackface.
But it doesn’t have to be Lee. It can be someone else. The point is for the left to demonstrate that they are capable of sharing a country with people they disagree with.If you can’t name a single statue you hate that you would leave standing, then you are a fanatic, and fanatics, even when their zeal is for a good cause, are impossible for the rest of us to coexist with.
Sometimes I wonder what Lee would think if he could see his Richmond statue now, covered in graffiti that the state won’t allow anyone to clean off, not even the obscenities. It would not touch his dignity. Lee had extensive experience with adolescent misbehavior, as a college president and before that as superintendent of West Point. He knew the virtue that young people most need to be taught, because it does not come naturally to them, is self-discipline. “You cannot be a true man until you learn to obey” was one of his favorite maxims. It would sadden him to see protesters who have apparently reached the age of thirty without ever acquiring sufficient self-mastery to wait for Governor Northam’s decision to take effect, or to express themselves without saying “Fuck.” But it would not wound him.
Self-discipline is precisely what we all need to rediscover right now. We need to relearn how to put our own emotions aside and live in peace with other people, even those whose deeply held beliefs offend us. If we don’t, the entire country will be in for a long, multi-year, possibly endless adolescent tantrum, and there won’t be a single remnant of our past left standing at the end of it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Helen Andrews is a senior editor at The American Conservative, and the author of a forthcoming book about the Baby Boomers to be published by Sentinel this fall. She has worked at the Washington Examiner and National Review, and as a think tank researcher at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney, Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Yale University. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, First Things, The Claremont Review of Books, Hedgehog Review, and many others. You can follow her on Twitter at @herandrews.
Thursday, 16 July 2020
Will Justice Roll Down?
Andrew McCabe Admissions
Top NatSec Officials Plotted Coup Against Trump
After the James Comey firing, McCabe discussed removing Trump from office and began a counterintelligence investigation of Trump's alleged ties to Russia.
Madeline Osburn
The Federalist
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe publicly admitted that after the firing of James Comey, national security officials strategized on invoking the 25th amendment to remove President Trump from office.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Scott Pelley said he learned in his “60 Minutes” interview with McCabe.
Pelley described the top bureaucrats as “counting noses,” and speculating on where various cabinet members might stand on the question of the president’s removal. “These were the eight days from Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president,” Pelley said.
More than once, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire into the White House to attempt to record incriminating conversations with the president. McCabe said this was an idea he took seriously and discussed with FBI lawyers.
McCabe, who was fired last March, admitted to ensuring a counterintelligence investigation of President Trump and his alleged ties to Russia. “I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion,” McCabe said. “That were I removed quickly, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.”
In a statement to CBS, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that McCabe had “opened a completely baseless investigation into the president.”
Top NatSec Officials Plotted Coup Against Trump
After the James Comey firing, McCabe discussed removing Trump from office and began a counterintelligence investigation of Trump's alleged ties to Russia.
Madeline Osburn
The Federalist
Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe publicly admitted that after the firing of James Comey, national security officials strategized on invoking the 25th amendment to remove President Trump from office.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department at which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” Scott Pelley said he learned in his “60 Minutes” interview with McCabe.
Pelley described the top bureaucrats as “counting noses,” and speculating on where various cabinet members might stand on the question of the president’s removal. “These were the eight days from Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. And the highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president,” Pelley said.
More than once, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offered to wear a wire into the White House to attempt to record incriminating conversations with the president. McCabe said this was an idea he took seriously and discussed with FBI lawyers.
McCabe, who was fired last March, admitted to ensuring a counterintelligence investigation of President Trump and his alleged ties to Russia. “I was very concerned that I was able to put the Russia case on absolutely solid ground, in an indelible fashion,” McCabe said. “That were I removed quickly, or reassigned or fired, that the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace.”
In a statement to CBS, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that McCabe had “opened a completely baseless investigation into the president.”
The Recommencement of the Maori Wars
Once You Start . . .
There Is No End to the Madness
Rankin – Turangawaewae Marae ‘must come down’
By Jacob Taylor
RokzFast
Black Lives Matter-inspired demonstrations against symbols of history, in New Zealand and around the world, have focused on monuments to Europeans, but Ngāpuhi leader David Rankin has called on Tainui to take down Turangawaewae Marae, which he said his iwi had long regarded as a symbol of enslavement and oppression.
The marae, he said, represented a dark period in the iwi’s history, when Tainui slavers abused his people to build their marae and grow crops for them. “For us in the North, Turangawaewae Marae is a symbol of that slavery, murder and cannibalism, and so needs to be pulled down,” he said. “The wealth that Tainui generated was made on the backs of Ngāpuhi slaves.”
He had the support of his Te Matarahurahu hapū, whose ancestors were among those captured by Tainui, and used as slaves. Sometimes slaves had become part of the communities of their captors, but in this case they were eventually killed and eaten.
“Tainui famously acquired corn by disembowelling my ancestor and removing the kernels in his stomach for seed,” he said. “Tainui has a moral obligation to pull down that marae, which for us is a symbol of cultural hatred, and if they don’t pull it down, then we will come down and do the job for them.”
Several Ngāpuhi hapū were preparing a submission to the Hamilton City Council to request the marae be dismantled. “We hope that this submission will be completed by the end of the year,” he added, “but for many of our people, we can’t wait that long. Our anger is mounting. We demand that marae’s demolition immediately. For us, Ngāpuhi Lives Matter.”
There Is No End to the Madness
Rankin – Turangawaewae Marae ‘must come down’
By Jacob Taylor
RokzFast
Black Lives Matter-inspired demonstrations against symbols of history, in New Zealand and around the world, have focused on monuments to Europeans, but Ngāpuhi leader David Rankin has called on Tainui to take down Turangawaewae Marae, which he said his iwi had long regarded as a symbol of enslavement and oppression.
The marae, he said, represented a dark period in the iwi’s history, when Tainui slavers abused his people to build their marae and grow crops for them. “For us in the North, Turangawaewae Marae is a symbol of that slavery, murder and cannibalism, and so needs to be pulled down,” he said. “The wealth that Tainui generated was made on the backs of Ngāpuhi slaves.”
He had the support of his Te Matarahurahu hapū, whose ancestors were among those captured by Tainui, and used as slaves. Sometimes slaves had become part of the communities of their captors, but in this case they were eventually killed and eaten.
“Tainui famously acquired corn by disembowelling my ancestor and removing the kernels in his stomach for seed,” he said. “Tainui has a moral obligation to pull down that marae, which for us is a symbol of cultural hatred, and if they don’t pull it down, then we will come down and do the job for them.”
Several Ngāpuhi hapū were preparing a submission to the Hamilton City Council to request the marae be dismantled. “We hope that this submission will be completed by the end of the year,” he added, “but for many of our people, we can’t wait that long. Our anger is mounting. We demand that marae’s demolition immediately. For us, Ngāpuhi Lives Matter.”
Wednesday, 15 July 2020
Not a Bad Effort, But "Miles To Go Before We Sleep"
A Letter on Justice and Open Debate
Harpers Magazine
July 7, 2020
[An apt and timely piece, the slurs against Donald Trump and "right-wing demagogues" notwithstanding. It is a signal reality that most of the apt criticisms upon acts of genuine injustice and opposition to open debate are now coming from the Left and are aimed at the Left. The middle paragraph righteously confesses this reality. Welcome to our world! Ed.]
The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org
Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.
This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.
Harpers Magazine
July 7, 2020
[An apt and timely piece, the slurs against Donald Trump and "right-wing demagogues" notwithstanding. It is a signal reality that most of the apt criticisms upon acts of genuine injustice and opposition to open debate are now coming from the Left and are aimed at the Left. The middle paragraph righteously confesses this reality. Welcome to our world! Ed.]
The below letter will be appearing in the Letters section of the magazine’s October issue. We welcome responses at letters@harpers.org
Our cultural institutions are facing a moment of trial. Powerful protests for racial and social justice are leading to overdue demands for police reform, along with wider calls for greater equality and inclusion across our society, not least in higher education, journalism, philanthropy, and the arts. But this needed reckoning has also intensified a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity. As we applaud the first development, we also raise our voices against the second. The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters. But it is now all too common to hear calls for swift and severe retribution in response to perceived transgressions of speech and thought. More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes. Whatever the arguments around each particular incident, the result has been to steadily narrow the boundaries of what can be said without the threat of reprisal. We are already paying the price in greater risk aversion among writers, artists, and journalists who fear for their livelihoods if they depart from the consensus, or even lack sufficient zeal in agreement.
This stifling atmosphere will ultimately harm the most vital causes of our time. The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation. The way to defeat bad ideas is by exposure, argument, and persuasion, not by trying to silence or wish them away. We refuse any false choice between justice and freedom, which cannot exist without each other. As writers we need a culture that leaves us room for experimentation, risk taking, and even mistakes. We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.
Religious Liberty In the US Strengthened
US Supreme Court Sets Stage for Full-on Review of ObamaCare
Bob Adelmann
The New American
Two rulings by the Supreme Court on Wednesday not only affirm the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, they also hearten pro-life constitutional conservatives who hope the rulings set the stage for a full review of the constitutionality of ObamaCare (aka the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) by the high court in the fall.
The first ruling, in a 7-2 decision, concerned the Little Sisters of the Poor, and finally puts to rest the question whether the Trump administration, through an Executive Order to the Department of Health and Human Services, could expand the exemption under which faith-based ministries such as the Little Sisters could avoid having to provide contraceptive health services to their employees.
When ObamaCare was first foisted upon the American citizenry in 2010, it specifically exempted churches from providing contraceptive healthcare coverage but said nothing about faith-based ministries. So, under ObamaCare, the HHS ruled that religious non-profits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor had to comply, or suffer the consequences of huge fines.
During President Trump’s first year in office, he ordered the HHS to issue a new rule expanding the exemption. Several states sued, claiming that Trump had overreached. The opinion of the high court was penned by Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote, “Consistent with their Catholic faith, the Little Sisters hold the religious conviction ‘that deliberately avoiding reproduction through medical means is immoral.’”
Bob Adelmann
The New American
Two rulings by the Supreme Court on Wednesday not only affirm the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, they also hearten pro-life constitutional conservatives who hope the rulings set the stage for a full review of the constitutionality of ObamaCare (aka the Affordable Care Act, or ACA) by the high court in the fall.
The first ruling, in a 7-2 decision, concerned the Little Sisters of the Poor, and finally puts to rest the question whether the Trump administration, through an Executive Order to the Department of Health and Human Services, could expand the exemption under which faith-based ministries such as the Little Sisters could avoid having to provide contraceptive health services to their employees.
When ObamaCare was first foisted upon the American citizenry in 2010, it specifically exempted churches from providing contraceptive healthcare coverage but said nothing about faith-based ministries. So, under ObamaCare, the HHS ruled that religious non-profits such as the Little Sisters of the Poor had to comply, or suffer the consequences of huge fines.
During President Trump’s first year in office, he ordered the HHS to issue a new rule expanding the exemption. Several states sued, claiming that Trump had overreached. The opinion of the high court was penned by Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote, “Consistent with their Catholic faith, the Little Sisters hold the religious conviction ‘that deliberately avoiding reproduction through medical means is immoral.’”
Tuesday, 14 July 2020
Running Away Already?
Media Urge Biden To Limit Debates
Threaten To Boycott Them Entirely
Elle Reynolds
The Federalist
As the Trump campaign has requested the addition of another presidential debate, members of the media are urging former Vice President Joe Biden and his campaign to limit them.
Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty suggests “rethinking” the debates, urging organizers to limit their audiences “or even do away with them entirely.” Criticizing President Trump and the Republican party for their decision to attempt an in-person convention this summer, she also mocked Trump’s request to add a fourth debate, calling it “not a serious proposal.”
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has also called for Biden to skip the debates unless Trump releases his tax returns and agrees to a fact-checking team at the debates. “I worry about Joe Biden debating Donald Trump,” Friedman says, quickly clarifying that he fears Trump would have “unfair advantages” if he doesn’t meet these demands. Friedman acknowledges that the debates will be Biden’s “reintroduction to most Americans, who have neither seen nor heard from him for months if not years.” And apparently, Friedman finds that thought concerning.
Still, the Biden campaign has insisted they are committed to participating in all three debates, and Biden has said he “can hardly wait.” But conservatives on Twitter have speculated that the Biden campaign may consider Friedman’s suggestions or use his points as an excuse to keep Biden from the debate floor’s spotlight.
Threaten To Boycott Them Entirely
Elle Reynolds
The Federalist
As the Trump campaign has requested the addition of another presidential debate, members of the media are urging former Vice President Joe Biden and his campaign to limit them.
Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty suggests “rethinking” the debates, urging organizers to limit their audiences “or even do away with them entirely.” Criticizing President Trump and the Republican party for their decision to attempt an in-person convention this summer, she also mocked Trump’s request to add a fourth debate, calling it “not a serious proposal.”
Thomas Friedman of the New York Times has also called for Biden to skip the debates unless Trump releases his tax returns and agrees to a fact-checking team at the debates. “I worry about Joe Biden debating Donald Trump,” Friedman says, quickly clarifying that he fears Trump would have “unfair advantages” if he doesn’t meet these demands. Friedman acknowledges that the debates will be Biden’s “reintroduction to most Americans, who have neither seen nor heard from him for months if not years.” And apparently, Friedman finds that thought concerning.
Still, the Biden campaign has insisted they are committed to participating in all three debates, and Biden has said he “can hardly wait.” But conservatives on Twitter have speculated that the Biden campaign may consider Friedman’s suggestions or use his points as an excuse to keep Biden from the debate floor’s spotlight.
Religious Freedom Upheld
Big SCOTUS Win For Religious Liberty
Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
Finally, some good news!:
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Wednesday in favor of two religious schools that argued they should not have to face employment discrimination lawsuits brought by former teachers.
The case concerned the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws that protects religious employers from certain lawsuits brought by employees. It was brought by two Catholic schools in California that were hit with discrimination lawsuits by teachers whose employment was terminated.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
“Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate,” he wrote.
Alito’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.
The buzz I’m hearing from some of my religious liberty lawyer friends is that today’s ruling is a big boost for David French’s theory that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch are trying to carve out a judicially imposed via media between gay rights and religious liberty.
I was delighted to see that in the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito cited The Benedict Option as grounds for stating how important religious schools are to people of faith:
It’s humbling to discover that one’s work has been cited by a Supreme Court majority in an important religious liberty defense case. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to do my part to protect religious liberty and religious schools. If you haven’t yet read The Benedict Option, I hope you will re-consider. All the bad faith jibes that it’s nothing but “head for the hills” propaganda were implicitly knocked down by Justice Alito today. The arguments put forth in that book made a difference in the way SCOTUS ruled in an important case building a wall of protection around the communities of religious schools. If Justice Alito takes the book seriously, maybe you should too.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rod Dreher is a senior editor at The American Conservative. He has written and edited for the New York Post, The Dallas Morning News, National Review, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Washington Times, and the Baton Rouge Advocate. Rod’s commentary has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, Beliefnet, and Real Simple, among other publications, and he has appeared on NPR, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the BBC. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife Julie and their three children. He has also written four books, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Crunchy Cons, How Dante Can Save Your Life, and The Benedict Option.
Rod Dreher
The American Conservative
Finally, some good news!:
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Wednesday in favor of two religious schools that argued they should not have to face employment discrimination lawsuits brought by former teachers.
The case concerned the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws that protects religious employers from certain lawsuits brought by employees. It was brought by two Catholic schools in California that were hit with discrimination lawsuits by teachers whose employment was terminated.
“The religious education and formation of students is the very reason for the existence of most private religious schools, and therefore the selection and supervision of the teachers upon whom the schools rely to do this work lie at the core of their mission,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court.
“Judicial review of the way in which religious schools discharge those responsibilities would undermine the independence of religious institutions in a way that the First Amendment does not tolerate,” he wrote.
Alito’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented.
The buzz I’m hearing from some of my religious liberty lawyer friends is that today’s ruling is a big boost for David French’s theory that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch are trying to carve out a judicially imposed via media between gay rights and religious liberty.
I was delighted to see that in the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito cited The Benedict Option as grounds for stating how important religious schools are to people of faith:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rod Dreher is a senior editor at The American Conservative. He has written and edited for the New York Post, The Dallas Morning News, National Review, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Washington Times, and the Baton Rouge Advocate. Rod’s commentary has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, Beliefnet, and Real Simple, among other publications, and he has appeared on NPR, ABC News, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and the BBC. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his wife Julie and their three children. He has also written four books, The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, Crunchy Cons, How Dante Can Save Your Life, and The Benedict Option.
Monday, 13 July 2020
Self-Righteousness On Steroids
‘You Won’t Be Missed’
Rugby Fan Gets Life Ban for Criticising ‘Marxist’ BLM
Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London
A rugby fan has been banned from his club’s stadium for life for praising a girl who refused to “take the knee” and criticising “Marxist extremism and intimidation”.
Sharing a now-viral image of a player on a girl’s football (soccer) team declining to kneel for Black Lives Matter ahead of a game shared by actor Laurence Fox, Twitter user GJPowell had commented: “More moral fibre than the rest of her teammates combined and more balls than the entirety of the [English Premier League] player pool in the face of Marxist extremism and intimidation…?”
While the girl’s stand has been praised by thousands of social media users who are not fully on board with the organisations leading the Black Lives Matter movement, GJPowell’s support for it incensed Ben Jeffreys, the CEO of Pontypool Rugby Football Club in Wales, prompting an astonishing and highly personal attack.
“Find another club to support. You’re no longer welcome at @PontypoolRFC and Pontypool Park,” Jeffreys raged. “I’ll personally ensure we never sell you a ticket ever again,” he vowed. “When I said I would make positive change moving forward, I meant it. Good riddance. You won’t be missed.”
This remarkable personal intervention by Jeffreys, who recently shared a blog post about his personal revelation that “because of my white privilege, I’d never considered just how much inequality and discrimination truly exists within our communities” until the death of George Floyd, received heavy criticism from some commentators.
“What a woke ass Ben is,” remarked James Wells, a former Brexit Party MEP. “[Black Lives Matter UK] is a Marxist political movement — even the [English Premier League] is distancing itself now!” he added. Andrew Allison of The Freedom Association, meanwhile, said he “imagine[d] that many supporters of [Pontypool RFC] will think that Ben Jeffreys wouldn’t be missed if the club decided to fire him.”
“[GJPowell] didn’t say anything remotely racist in his tweet. He expressed the views of many of us. I am not going to genuflect for anyone. I am not about to take on the sins of people who died 200 or more years ago,” Allison insisted. “Nor am I going to apologise for not supporting a Marxist movement which seeks to end the nuclear family, bring down capitalism, and abolish police forces across the country. Why would I?”
Rugby Fan Gets Life Ban for Criticising ‘Marxist’ BLM
Jack Montgomery
Breitbart London
A rugby fan has been banned from his club’s stadium for life for praising a girl who refused to “take the knee” and criticising “Marxist extremism and intimidation”.
Sharing a now-viral image of a player on a girl’s football (soccer) team declining to kneel for Black Lives Matter ahead of a game shared by actor Laurence Fox, Twitter user GJPowell had commented: “More moral fibre than the rest of her teammates combined and more balls than the entirety of the [English Premier League] player pool in the face of Marxist extremism and intimidation…?”
While the girl’s stand has been praised by thousands of social media users who are not fully on board with the organisations leading the Black Lives Matter movement, GJPowell’s support for it incensed Ben Jeffreys, the CEO of Pontypool Rugby Football Club in Wales, prompting an astonishing and highly personal attack.
“Find another club to support. You’re no longer welcome at @PontypoolRFC and Pontypool Park,” Jeffreys raged. “I’ll personally ensure we never sell you a ticket ever again,” he vowed. “When I said I would make positive change moving forward, I meant it. Good riddance. You won’t be missed.”
This remarkable personal intervention by Jeffreys, who recently shared a blog post about his personal revelation that “because of my white privilege, I’d never considered just how much inequality and discrimination truly exists within our communities” until the death of George Floyd, received heavy criticism from some commentators.
“What a woke ass Ben is,” remarked James Wells, a former Brexit Party MEP. “[Black Lives Matter UK] is a Marxist political movement — even the [English Premier League] is distancing itself now!” he added. Andrew Allison of The Freedom Association, meanwhile, said he “imagine[d] that many supporters of [Pontypool RFC] will think that Ben Jeffreys wouldn’t be missed if the club decided to fire him.”
“[GJPowell] didn’t say anything remotely racist in his tweet. He expressed the views of many of us. I am not going to genuflect for anyone. I am not about to take on the sins of people who died 200 or more years ago,” Allison insisted. “Nor am I going to apologise for not supporting a Marxist movement which seeks to end the nuclear family, bring down capitalism, and abolish police forces across the country. Why would I?”
Bonfire of the Inanities
A Randomly Exploding Bus
When "Truth" Is Stranger Than Fiction
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
When four Muslim suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London Underground and on buses during the infamous 7/7 atrocities of 2005, 52 people died and more than 700 were injured.
Here is how the BBC chose to commemorate one of those deaths yesterday on Twitter.
When "Truth" Is Stranger Than Fiction
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
When four Muslim suicide bombers blew themselves up on the London Underground and on buses during the infamous 7/7 atrocities of 2005, 52 people died and more than 700 were injured.
Here is how the BBC chose to commemorate one of those deaths yesterday on Twitter.
Philip Russell, 28, was killed while en route to work on 7 July 2005, when the bus he was on exploded. (BBC Southeast)A self-exploding bus, eh? Why has nobody warned us before about this terrible threat? We’ve all heard of cases of spontaneous combustion where humans are concerned: Dickens, for example, was obsessed with it, and included someone dying of it in Bleak House. But spontaneously combustible buses? That’s a new one.
Saturday, 11 July 2020
Maintaining The Integrity of Elections
States Can Punish ‘Faithless Electors’
Supreme Court Unanimous Decision
Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart News
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states may punish “faithless electors” — those members of the Electoral College who refuse to cast their ballots for the candidate whom the majority of voters in the state have chosen.
As Breitbart News recounted in May, the issue arose in earnest after the 2016 election, when opponents of President-elect Donald Trump attempted to convince enough electors to change sides or cast their ballots for other candidates to prevent Trump from actually taking office:
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Supreme Court Unanimous Decision
Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart News
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states may punish “faithless electors” — those members of the Electoral College who refuse to cast their ballots for the candidate whom the majority of voters in the state have chosen.
As Breitbart News recounted in May, the issue arose in earnest after the 2016 election, when opponents of President-elect Donald Trump attempted to convince enough electors to change sides or cast their ballots for other candidates to prevent Trump from actually taking office:
Chiafalo v. Washington … [is] a case involving three presidential electors in the State of Washington who were fined $1,000 after casting their Electoral College votes for Colin Powell rather than Hillary Clinton.
The electors challenged their fine and were represented by Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig — who ran for president himself in 2016, and tried to recruit electors to defect rather than voting for Donald Trump after the 2016 vote.Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the Court, concluded:
…
Lessig agreed that the states can ask electors to pledge to vote for a certain candidate, but cannot fine them for doing so, arguing that presidential elections are a federal function.
The arguments on both sides took an originalist form, as the two sides argued about the original intent of the Framers in setting up the Electoral College.
Article II and the Twelfth Amendment give States broad power over electors, and give electors themselves no rights. Early in our history, States decided to tie electors to the presidential choices of others, whether legislatures or citizens. Except that legislatures no longer play a role, that practice has continued for more than 200 years. Among the devices States have long used to achieve their object are pledge laws, designed to impress on electors their role as agents of others. A State follows in the same tradition if, like Washington, it chooses to sanction an elec- tor for breaching his promise. Then too, the State instructs its electors that they have no ground for reversing the vote of millions of its citizens. That direction accords with the Constitution—as well as with the trust of a Nation that here, We the People rule.Justice Clarence Thomas issued a concurring opinion in which he said the basis of the Court’s decision should not have been Article II, but the Tenth Amendment, which reserves all powers and right to the states not expressly given to the federal government — including the power to patrol electors.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
An Apology
Forbes Scrubs Climate Activist’s Apology Essay from Website
Written by Steve Byas
The New American
Forbes published an apology essay on Sunday by Michael Shellenberger, a former environmental activist, but for whatever reason — perhaps bowing to pressure from left-wingers on staff, or something else — the magazine has since removed it.
In the op-ed, Shellenberger explained, “I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.” Shellenberger added in a tweet on Monday, “On behalf of environmentalists, I apologize for the climate scare. Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It’s not even our most important environmental problem.”
Fortunately, Shellenberger was able to publish his censored article — intended to promote his new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All — on his own on the Internet. Shellenberger has been a self-proclaimed climate activist for the past 20 years, and has testified before Congress on the subject. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has selected him to serve as an expert reviewer on its next Assessment Report.
“Some people will when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not.” To illustrate his liberal credentials, Shellenberger lists living in Nicaragua at age 17 to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialists, and the fact that he exposed “poor conditions” at Nike factories in Asia. At 16, he was a fundraiser for the Rainforest Action Network, fighting to save the ancient redwoods in California. He urged the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into renewables.
Over the years, Shellenberger has sounded the alarm over “climate change,” calling it an “existential threat” to human civilization. But he began to change his mind over the severity of what he had once called a crisis — because, as he said, “I was scared.” Shellenberger’s fear was a result of being “afraid of losing friends and funding.” So, for some time, he “mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.”
Written by Steve Byas
The New American
Forbes published an apology essay on Sunday by Michael Shellenberger, a former environmental activist, but for whatever reason — perhaps bowing to pressure from left-wingers on staff, or something else — the magazine has since removed it.
In the op-ed, Shellenberger explained, “I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.” Shellenberger added in a tweet on Monday, “On behalf of environmentalists, I apologize for the climate scare. Climate change is real but it’s not the end of the world. It’s not even our most important environmental problem.”
Fortunately, Shellenberger was able to publish his censored article — intended to promote his new book Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All — on his own on the Internet. Shellenberger has been a self-proclaimed climate activist for the past 20 years, and has testified before Congress on the subject. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has selected him to serve as an expert reviewer on its next Assessment Report.
“Some people will when they read this imagine that I’m some right-wing anti-environmentalist. I’m not.” To illustrate his liberal credentials, Shellenberger lists living in Nicaragua at age 17 to show solidarity with the Sandinista socialists, and the fact that he exposed “poor conditions” at Nike factories in Asia. At 16, he was a fundraiser for the Rainforest Action Network, fighting to save the ancient redwoods in California. He urged the Obama administration to invest $90 billion into renewables.
Over the years, Shellenberger has sounded the alarm over “climate change,” calling it an “existential threat” to human civilization. But he began to change his mind over the severity of what he had once called a crisis — because, as he said, “I was scared.” Shellenberger’s fear was a result of being “afraid of losing friends and funding.” So, for some time, he “mostly stood by and did next to nothing as my fellow environmentalists terrified the public.”
Friday, 10 July 2020
"Maybe?"
Tucker for President?
GOP Insiders Say Carlson Could Be 2024 Frontrunner
Luis Miguel
The New American
Tucker for President? GOP Insiders Say Carlson Could Be 2024 Frontrunner. Has the Trump faction of the Republican Party found its successor?
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is setting historic ratings records for the network, is being eyed by insiders within GOP circles as a strong contender for the party’s nomination in 2024 should he choose to run.
Last month, a group of Republican donors talked about trying to recruit the outspoken news personality for a future White House bid, as reported by Business Insider. Since then, a number of GOP strategists have touted Carlson as having the clout to propel himself to the forefront when the party looks for a new leader after President Donald Trump leaves office.
“He’s a talented communicator with a massive platform. I think if he runs, he’d be formidable,” Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016, explained to Politico.
GOP Insiders Say Carlson Could Be 2024 Frontrunner
Luis Miguel
The New American
Tucker for President? GOP Insiders Say Carlson Could Be 2024 Frontrunner. Has the Trump faction of the Republican Party found its successor?
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who is setting historic ratings records for the network, is being eyed by insiders within GOP circles as a strong contender for the party’s nomination in 2024 should he choose to run.
Last month, a group of Republican donors talked about trying to recruit the outspoken news personality for a future White House bid, as reported by Business Insider. Since then, a number of GOP strategists have touted Carlson as having the clout to propel himself to the forefront when the party looks for a new leader after President Donald Trump leaves office.
“He’s a talented communicator with a massive platform. I think if he runs, he’d be formidable,” Luke Thompson, a Republican strategist who worked for Jeb Bush’s super PAC in 2016, explained to Politico.
Double Jeopardy in Los Angeles
LAPD Morale Collapses to ‘Record Low’
‘It’s Simply Not Worth It Any Longer’
Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart News
Morale within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is currently at a “record low,” thanks to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and the vilification of police by local politicians. Robert Harris, the director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told CBS Los Angeles that officers feel “beaten” and “bruised” by the ongoing protests.
That was corroborated by a Breitbart News source within the LAPD, who said: “Morale across the rank-and-file is at a record low. Especially out on the street in patrol. We have been vilified and abandoned by the mayor, all but three of the city council members, as well as many business owners and residents of the city of Los Angeles.”
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced at the height of the riots in early June — with the National Guard on the streets — that he would be cutting the LAPD budget by up to $150 million, answering calls from activists to “defund the police.” The following week, police officers learned they would not be paid overtime for the additional hours they spent on the streets calming the protests and riots.
The result: many police have effectively given up fighting crime.
‘It’s Simply Not Worth It Any Longer’
Joel B. Pollak
Breitbart News
Morale within the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is currently at a “record low,” thanks to the ongoing Black Lives Matter protests and the vilification of police by local politicians. Robert Harris, the director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, told CBS Los Angeles that officers feel “beaten” and “bruised” by the ongoing protests.
That was corroborated by a Breitbart News source within the LAPD, who said: “Morale across the rank-and-file is at a record low. Especially out on the street in patrol. We have been vilified and abandoned by the mayor, all but three of the city council members, as well as many business owners and residents of the city of Los Angeles.”
Mayor Eric Garcetti announced at the height of the riots in early June — with the National Guard on the streets — that he would be cutting the LAPD budget by up to $150 million, answering calls from activists to “defund the police.” The following week, police officers learned they would not be paid overtime for the additional hours they spent on the streets calming the protests and riots.
The result: many police have effectively given up fighting crime.
Thursday, 9 July 2020
Self-Destroying Universities
Universities Sowing the Seeds of Their Own Obsolescence
By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
The media blitz during these last several weeks revealed a generation that is poorly educated and yet petulant and self-assured without justification. When mobs tore down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant and defaced a monument to African-American veterans of the Civil War, many people wondered whether the protesters had ever learned anything in high school or college.
Did any of these iconoclasts know the difference between Grant and Robert E. Lee? Could they recognize the name “Gettysburg”? Could they even identify the decade in which the Civil War was fought?
Universities are certainly teaching our youth to be confident, loud, and self-righteous. But the media blitz during these last several weeks of protests, riots, and looting also revealed a generation that is poorly educated and yet petulant and self-assured without justification.
Many of the young people on the televised front lines of the protests are in their 20s. But most appear juvenile, at least in comparison to their grandparents — survivors of the Great Depression and World War II. How can so many so sheltered and prolonged adolescents claim to be all-knowing?
Ask questions like these, and the answers ultimately lead back to the university.
Millions of those who graduate from college or drop out do so in arrears. There is some $1.5 trillion in aggregate student debt in the U.S. Such burdens sometimes delay marriage. They discourage child-rearing. They make home ownership hard — along with all the other experiences we associate with the transition to adulthood.
The universities, some with multibillion-dollar endowments, will accept no moral responsibility.
By Victor Davis Hanson
National Review
The media blitz during these last several weeks revealed a generation that is poorly educated and yet petulant and self-assured without justification. When mobs tore down a statue of Ulysses S. Grant and defaced a monument to African-American veterans of the Civil War, many people wondered whether the protesters had ever learned anything in high school or college.
Did any of these iconoclasts know the difference between Grant and Robert E. Lee? Could they recognize the name “Gettysburg”? Could they even identify the decade in which the Civil War was fought?
Universities are certainly teaching our youth to be confident, loud, and self-righteous. But the media blitz during these last several weeks of protests, riots, and looting also revealed a generation that is poorly educated and yet petulant and self-assured without justification.
Many of the young people on the televised front lines of the protests are in their 20s. But most appear juvenile, at least in comparison to their grandparents — survivors of the Great Depression and World War II. How can so many so sheltered and prolonged adolescents claim to be all-knowing?
Ask questions like these, and the answers ultimately lead back to the university.
Millions of those who graduate from college or drop out do so in arrears. There is some $1.5 trillion in aggregate student debt in the U.S. Such burdens sometimes delay marriage. They discourage child-rearing. They make home ownership hard — along with all the other experiences we associate with the transition to adulthood.
The universities, some with multibillion-dollar endowments, will accept no moral responsibility.
The Heart of the Matter
Why the Humanities Must Be Saved
The Soul of Western Civilization Is At Stake
Lushington D Brady
There’s no denying that the Humanities are in crisis at our universities. The question is: what to do about it.
There’s one argument that might be called “Technological Philistinism”, which urges the junking of Humanities altogether. Like H. G. Wells’s Artilleryman, with his visceral disdain for “novels and poetry swipes”, they argue that “science books” are all the books we need. The (Australian) Morrison government seems to be toeing a soft version of this line – trying to starve the Humanities of funding and apparently hoping they’ll wither on the vine.
This would be a mistake, though – because the Humanities are the unique soul of Western civilisation.
What was once the jewel in the crown of scholarship in Western Civilization has become a pedagogical sheltered workshop in our universities, totally dedicated to promulgating anti-Western, anti-Liberal, anti-Democratic, and (literally) anti-Human ideologies[…]
Unfortunately, the intensity of the reaction to this appalling situation has obscured the true nature of the Humanities and their once illustrious history as the scholarly arm of Humanism, stretching back seven centuries as a field of study, and over 2000 years as a project to lay claim “to the glory that was Greece / And the grandeur that was Rome”.
The Soul of Western Civilization Is At Stake
Lushington D Brady
There’s no denying that the Humanities are in crisis at our universities. The question is: what to do about it.
There’s one argument that might be called “Technological Philistinism”, which urges the junking of Humanities altogether. Like H. G. Wells’s Artilleryman, with his visceral disdain for “novels and poetry swipes”, they argue that “science books” are all the books we need. The (Australian) Morrison government seems to be toeing a soft version of this line – trying to starve the Humanities of funding and apparently hoping they’ll wither on the vine.
This would be a mistake, though – because the Humanities are the unique soul of Western civilisation.
What was once the jewel in the crown of scholarship in Western Civilization has become a pedagogical sheltered workshop in our universities, totally dedicated to promulgating anti-Western, anti-Liberal, anti-Democratic, and (literally) anti-Human ideologies[…]
Unfortunately, the intensity of the reaction to this appalling situation has obscured the true nature of the Humanities and their once illustrious history as the scholarly arm of Humanism, stretching back seven centuries as a field of study, and over 2000 years as a project to lay claim “to the glory that was Greece / And the grandeur that was Rome”.
Wednesday, 8 July 2020
Hopefully the PM Will Hold The Line
Boris Hangs Tough Against Europe
Will Not Be Ruled by EU Courts and Laws
‘Australia-Style’ Relationship an Option
Victoria Friedman
Breitbart London
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that he will not allow Britain to be ruled by EU courts and laws after Brussels negotiator Michel Barnier implied that the British do not “respect” the bloc’s position.
The latest round of talks between the United Kingdom and EU ended a day early in Brussels on Thursday, with Britain’s lead negotiator David Frost saying that “significant differences” remained between the two parties.
His EU counterpart Michel Barnier released a statement saying that “The EU expects… its positions to be better understood and respected in order to reach an agreement. We need an equivalent engagement by the United Kingdom.”
LBC host Nick Ferrari asked the prime minister if Mr Barnier is correct in his implied criticism that the British government does not respect the EU. Mr Johnson disagreed, both on a government level and a personal one.
“I’m not remotely disrespectful of Michel [Barnier] or the EU system which I know well and understand deeply,” Prime Minister Johnson said on Friday. “I just don’t think that it’s right for us to proceed on the basis of the European Court of Justice continuing to arbitrate in the UK, or us continuing to have to obey EU laws even when we’re out of the EU, or us having to hand over our amazing fish stock. So we’re not going to do those things.
Will Not Be Ruled by EU Courts and Laws
‘Australia-Style’ Relationship an Option
Victoria Friedman
Breitbart London
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that he will not allow Britain to be ruled by EU courts and laws after Brussels negotiator Michel Barnier implied that the British do not “respect” the bloc’s position.
The latest round of talks between the United Kingdom and EU ended a day early in Brussels on Thursday, with Britain’s lead negotiator David Frost saying that “significant differences” remained between the two parties.
His EU counterpart Michel Barnier released a statement saying that “The EU expects… its positions to be better understood and respected in order to reach an agreement. We need an equivalent engagement by the United Kingdom.”
LBC host Nick Ferrari asked the prime minister if Mr Barnier is correct in his implied criticism that the British government does not respect the EU. Mr Johnson disagreed, both on a government level and a personal one.
“I’m not remotely disrespectful of Michel [Barnier] or the EU system which I know well and understand deeply,” Prime Minister Johnson said on Friday. “I just don’t think that it’s right for us to proceed on the basis of the European Court of Justice continuing to arbitrate in the UK, or us continuing to have to obey EU laws even when we’re out of the EU, or us having to hand over our amazing fish stock. So we’re not going to do those things.
Students Under Chinese Government Threats
Red Guards in Britain
Chinese Students Under The Command of Communist Government
"We are Watching You: Serve The Motherland!"
Kurt Zindalka
Breitbart London
Harkening back to the rhetoric of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution, China’s ambassador in London has called on Chinese university students studying in the United Kingdom to “serve your motherland”, amid growing concern about the influence of Beijing on Western campuses.
In recently unearthed comments made to the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming said: “I hope you will carry on the glorious tradition of patriotism. I hope you will always live your personal dreams in the greater cause of striving for the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.”
“I hope with what you have learned here and now, you could serve your motherland and people in the future. And I hope your youthful vigour will drive you on as you work harder to realize your dream,” Liu added.
In response to the comments, Professor Christopher Hughes of the London School of Economics told The Times: “The idea of patriotism, in the Chinese context, means supporting the Communist Party. It means wanting unification with Taiwan. It means completely crushing Tibetan aspirations for autonomy. It means crushing Hong Kong. It challenges a lot of our principles of academic freedom.
“The more Chinese students there are, the more they are controlled and used by the Chinese embassy. There are various groups that are set up to monitor their behaviour. So they don’t feel secure. That means you get creeping self-censorship.”
Currently, there are an estimated 120,000 Chinese students in the United Kingdom.
Chinese Students Under The Command of Communist Government
"We are Watching You: Serve The Motherland!"
Kurt Zindalka
Breitbart London
Harkening back to the rhetoric of Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution, China’s ambassador in London has called on Chinese university students studying in the United Kingdom to “serve your motherland”, amid growing concern about the influence of Beijing on Western campuses.
In recently unearthed comments made to the Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming said: “I hope you will carry on the glorious tradition of patriotism. I hope you will always live your personal dreams in the greater cause of striving for the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.”
“I hope with what you have learned here and now, you could serve your motherland and people in the future. And I hope your youthful vigour will drive you on as you work harder to realize your dream,” Liu added.
In response to the comments, Professor Christopher Hughes of the London School of Economics told The Times: “The idea of patriotism, in the Chinese context, means supporting the Communist Party. It means wanting unification with Taiwan. It means completely crushing Tibetan aspirations for autonomy. It means crushing Hong Kong. It challenges a lot of our principles of academic freedom.
“The more Chinese students there are, the more they are controlled and used by the Chinese embassy. There are various groups that are set up to monitor their behaviour. So they don’t feel secure. That means you get creeping self-censorship.”
Currently, there are an estimated 120,000 Chinese students in the United Kingdom.
Tuesday, 7 July 2020
Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest
Black Lives Matter – Or Do They?
The Backlash Begins…
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
In the UK, at least, the worm has turned on Black Lives Matter.
A month ago, you could scarcely move for politicians, academics, sportsmen, showbiz luvvies and other members of the wankerati flaunting their allegiance to this apparently noble cause. But today, as quickly as they embraced it, it now seems that they can’t dissociate themselves from it fast enough.
The BBC, formerly one of BLM’s champions (obvs.), has now forbidden its presenters and guests from wearing Black Lives Matter badges. (Quite a turnaround given that only last month, the BBC was busy pretending that the violent BLM riots which resulted in the injuries of 27 police officers were ‘largely peaceful’).
Sky News — arguably even more woke than the BBC — has made the BLM badges optional, where before they were compulsory (!) for its sports pundits.
According to the Mail:
Meanwhile, Britain’s increasingly woke Armed Forces have shown a rare bit of moral courage by banning soldiers from taking the knee.
The Backlash Begins…
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
In the UK, at least, the worm has turned on Black Lives Matter.
A month ago, you could scarcely move for politicians, academics, sportsmen, showbiz luvvies and other members of the wankerati flaunting their allegiance to this apparently noble cause. But today, as quickly as they embraced it, it now seems that they can’t dissociate themselves from it fast enough.
The BBC, formerly one of BLM’s champions (obvs.), has now forbidden its presenters and guests from wearing Black Lives Matter badges. (Quite a turnaround given that only last month, the BBC was busy pretending that the violent BLM riots which resulted in the injuries of 27 police officers were ‘largely peaceful’).
Sky News — arguably even more woke than the BBC — has made the BLM badges optional, where before they were compulsory (!) for its sports pundits.
According to the Mail:
Sky Sports allowed their pundits to decide whether to wear Black Lives Matter badges before going on air last night – with Patrice Evra ditching his first, before Jamie Redknapp followed suit, MailOnline can reveal today.Among other people and institutions to backtrack, as Victoria Friedman has reported for Breitbart, are Northumberland County Council, Hertfordshire Police, and, of course, Labour opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer (who, less than a month ago, was famously pictured ‘taking a knee’ to BLM).
Redknapp and Evra along with host Kelly Cates and commentator Gary Neville were not wearing the badges during Sky’s coverage of Brighton and Hove Albion v Manchester United in the Premier League last night.
It came after the Premier League distanced itself from the movement, but players in yesterday’s match still ‘took the knee’ before kick-off and had ‘Black Lives Matter’ on their sleeves after George Floyd’s death in the US in May.
Meanwhile, Britain’s increasingly woke Armed Forces have shown a rare bit of moral courage by banning soldiers from taking the knee.
Electric Cars Are a Crock
U.N. Warns of Devastating Environmental Destruction
Side Effects of Electric Car Boom
Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News
The United Nations (U.N.) announced Sunday the electric car boom will result in a number of devastating ecological side effects for the planet.
While the shift to electric cars reflects ongoing efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, the UN warns that the raw materials used to produce electric car batteries are highly concentrated in a small number of countries and their extraction and refinement pose a serious threat to the environment.
The U.N. trade body, UNCTAD, has issued a new report breaking down some of the unintended negative consequences of the shift, which include ecological degradation as well as human rights abuses. The report notes that metals such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, and minerals like graphite “play a significant role in energy-related technologies such as rechargeable batteries that are used in a variety of applications ranging from electronics to electric vehicles as well as in renewable energies such as nuclear, wind, and solar power.”
Several of these raw materials are quite rare and have few or no substitutes and they come from specific areas of the globe. More than half the world’s supply of lithium, for example, a key component of lithium-ion batteries, comes from beneath the salt flats in the Andean region of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.
The production of these raw materials “is often associated with undesirable environmental footprints, poor human rights and worker protection,” the report asserts.
Side Effects of Electric Car Boom
Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News
The United Nations (U.N.) announced Sunday the electric car boom will result in a number of devastating ecological side effects for the planet.
While the shift to electric cars reflects ongoing efforts to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, the UN warns that the raw materials used to produce electric car batteries are highly concentrated in a small number of countries and their extraction and refinement pose a serious threat to the environment.
The U.N. trade body, UNCTAD, has issued a new report breaking down some of the unintended negative consequences of the shift, which include ecological degradation as well as human rights abuses. The report notes that metals such as cobalt, lithium, manganese, copper, and minerals like graphite “play a significant role in energy-related technologies such as rechargeable batteries that are used in a variety of applications ranging from electronics to electric vehicles as well as in renewable energies such as nuclear, wind, and solar power.”
Several of these raw materials are quite rare and have few or no substitutes and they come from specific areas of the globe. More than half the world’s supply of lithium, for example, a key component of lithium-ion batteries, comes from beneath the salt flats in the Andean region of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina.
The production of these raw materials “is often associated with undesirable environmental footprints, poor human rights and worker protection,” the report asserts.
Monday, 6 July 2020
Expose of Extremist Deception and Lies
Apologies For "Climate Scare"
Prominent Environmental Activist Michael Shellenberger Speaks Out
Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News
Well-known climate activist Michael Shellenberger has issued a public apology for the unfounded panic caused by environmentalists over the fabricated horrors of global warming.
Writing for Forbes Monday, Mr. Shellenberger — a Time magazine Hero of the Environment and winner of the 2008 Green Book Award — said that on behalf of environmentalists everywhere, “I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.”
“Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem,” Shellenberger declares. As an Expert Reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public,” he states.
Mr. Shellenberger proceeds to deny 12 climate myths that have been drummed into the modern psyche, but which have no basis in scientific fact. “Humans are not causing a ‘sixth mass extinction,’” he begins, the Amazon “is not ‘the lungs of the world,’ and climate change “is not making natural disasters worse.”
Moreover, he continues, a few key facts help put global warming and its supposed effects into perspective. “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003,” he states, and the amount of land we currently use for meat “has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska.”
Prominent Environmental Activist Michael Shellenberger Speaks Out
Thomas D. Williams
Breitbart News
Well-known climate activist Michael Shellenberger has issued a public apology for the unfounded panic caused by environmentalists over the fabricated horrors of global warming.
Writing for Forbes Monday, Mr. Shellenberger — a Time magazine Hero of the Environment and winner of the 2008 Green Book Award — said that on behalf of environmentalists everywhere, “I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years.”
“Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem,” Shellenberger declares. As an Expert Reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public,” he states.
Mr. Shellenberger proceeds to deny 12 climate myths that have been drummed into the modern psyche, but which have no basis in scientific fact. “Humans are not causing a ‘sixth mass extinction,’” he begins, the Amazon “is not ‘the lungs of the world,’ and climate change “is not making natural disasters worse.”
Moreover, he continues, a few key facts help put global warming and its supposed effects into perspective. “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003,” he states, and the amount of land we currently use for meat “has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska.”
The Radical, Extremist Nature of the "Opposition" Exposed
Poll Finds Majority Proud of British History
Left and BLM Activists Out of Touch
Victoria Friedman
Breitbart London
Black Lives Matter UK activists have been revealed as out of touch with the British people after a Policy Exchange poll revealed that the public is concerned at the prospect of far-left activism re-writing British history.
The tearing down of the statue of Edward Colston — the Bristolian tradesman, MP, and philanthropist who had ties to the slave trade — by far-left Black Lives Matter activists sparked a wave of calls to remove memorials of other historical figures who contributed to the building of Britain, including war-time prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.
In research conducted by the centre-right Policy Exchange and published on Sunday, pollsters found that the acts are largely out of step with the view of Britons. More than two-thirds, 69 per cent, said that British history was something to be proud of, compared to just 17 per cent who said they were ashamed of it.
Almost as many, 65 per cent, said that it was “unfair to make judgments about people in the past based on today’s values” and agreed that “statues of people who were once celebrated should be allowed to stand”.
Left and BLM Activists Out of Touch
Victoria Friedman
Breitbart London
Black Lives Matter UK activists have been revealed as out of touch with the British people after a Policy Exchange poll revealed that the public is concerned at the prospect of far-left activism re-writing British history.
The tearing down of the statue of Edward Colston — the Bristolian tradesman, MP, and philanthropist who had ties to the slave trade — by far-left Black Lives Matter activists sparked a wave of calls to remove memorials of other historical figures who contributed to the building of Britain, including war-time prime minister Sir Winston Churchill.
In research conducted by the centre-right Policy Exchange and published on Sunday, pollsters found that the acts are largely out of step with the view of Britons. More than two-thirds, 69 per cent, said that British history was something to be proud of, compared to just 17 per cent who said they were ashamed of it.
Almost as many, 65 per cent, said that it was “unfair to make judgments about people in the past based on today’s values” and agreed that “statues of people who were once celebrated should be allowed to stand”.
Saturday, 4 July 2020
AP Investigation of Chinese Government Abuse
China Forcing Contraception and Abortion on ‘Hundreds of Thousands’ of Uyghurs
John Hayward
Breitbart News
The Associated Press (AP) on Monday reported China has forced “hundreds of thousands” of Uyghur women, and women from other minorities in Xinjiang province, to use abortion and birth control over the past four years in a program of deliberate “demographic genocide.”
The AP investigation was based on “government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor.” The investigation was conducted after numerous individual women from Xinjiang claimed they had been forced to use birth control.
“The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang,” the AP reported.
Failure to comply with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) birth control orders can get Xinjiang women sent to the concentration camps China euphemistically refers to as “vocational training centers.”
John Hayward
Breitbart News
The Associated Press (AP) on Monday reported China has forced “hundreds of thousands” of Uyghur women, and women from other minorities in Xinjiang province, to use abortion and birth control over the past four years in a program of deliberate “demographic genocide.”
The AP investigation was based on “government statistics, state documents and interviews with 30 ex-detainees, family members and a former detention camp instructor.” The investigation was conducted after numerous individual women from Xinjiang claimed they had been forced to use birth control.
“The state regularly subjects minority women to pregnancy checks, and forces intrauterine devices, sterilization and even abortion on hundreds of thousands, the interviews and data show. Even while the use of IUDs and sterilization has fallen nationwide, it is rising sharply in Xinjiang,” the AP reported.
Failure to comply with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) birth control orders can get Xinjiang women sent to the concentration camps China euphemistically refers to as “vocational training centers.”
Horror, Dishonesty and Hope
‘Wuhan Diary’ Documents Anger, Despair, And Hope
From A City In Lockdown
A Chinese woman's online diary of the struggle to survive in the epicenter of a global pandemic reveals the horror and dishonesty of communist Chinese authorities.
Helen Raleigh
The Federalist
A writer friend of mine once told me “writing is therapeutic.” As one of the more than 11 million residents locked down in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese writer Fang Fang probably felt the same way when she decided to record her experiences online daily during the lockdown.
She started posting entries on Jan. 25, two days after the Chinese government quarantined Wuhan and several nearby cities with a total population of 60 million. She entered her last entry on April 8, when the lockdown was formally lifted. These entries have now become a new book, titled Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City, translated into English by Michael Berry.
When reading this book, it’s important to keep in mind its original form and purpose. Fang Fang wrote her entries on Wechat, a popular messaging app in China. She usually wrote at the end of the day to summarize her anecdotal experiences, as well as information she learned from others online, in text messaging, and from phone calls.
Her writing style is very conversational and, as any diary, it was full of quotidian details, such as about the weather, food, and her dog. Because she didn’t plan to write a book initially, many entries give readers a sense of spontaneity: she simply wrote how she felt, whatever came to her mind that she deemed to be worth sharing, as well as things she needed to get off her chest.
Therefore, you won’t find well-crafted, sophisticated passages in this book. Some parts of the diary almost felt repetitive. At the same time, these shortcomings also made Fang Fang’s story endearing, and her experiences real to readers. When I read the book, I felt like I was in the same room with Fang Fang, who is about the same age as my mother, listening to her chat about her day.
From A City In Lockdown
A Chinese woman's online diary of the struggle to survive in the epicenter of a global pandemic reveals the horror and dishonesty of communist Chinese authorities.
Helen Raleigh
The Federalist
A writer friend of mine once told me “writing is therapeutic.” As one of the more than 11 million residents locked down in Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, Chinese writer Fang Fang probably felt the same way when she decided to record her experiences online daily during the lockdown.
She started posting entries on Jan. 25, two days after the Chinese government quarantined Wuhan and several nearby cities with a total population of 60 million. She entered her last entry on April 8, when the lockdown was formally lifted. These entries have now become a new book, titled Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City, translated into English by Michael Berry.
When reading this book, it’s important to keep in mind its original form and purpose. Fang Fang wrote her entries on Wechat, a popular messaging app in China. She usually wrote at the end of the day to summarize her anecdotal experiences, as well as information she learned from others online, in text messaging, and from phone calls.
Her writing style is very conversational and, as any diary, it was full of quotidian details, such as about the weather, food, and her dog. Because she didn’t plan to write a book initially, many entries give readers a sense of spontaneity: she simply wrote how she felt, whatever came to her mind that she deemed to be worth sharing, as well as things she needed to get off her chest.
Therefore, you won’t find well-crafted, sophisticated passages in this book. Some parts of the diary almost felt repetitive. At the same time, these shortcomings also made Fang Fang’s story endearing, and her experiences real to readers. When I read the book, I felt like I was in the same room with Fang Fang, who is about the same age as my mother, listening to her chat about her day.
Friday, 3 July 2020
UK Gone Burger?
One Law for Black Lives Matter, Another for the Rest
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
Here is a message which should send a shudder down the spine of anyone who believes in the concept of equality before the law: a British police department openly admitting that it intends to give special, favourable treatment to Black Lives Matter.
It’s a lie and an insulting lie at that. Vigils are what angels keep. Vigils are what servicemen keep over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Vigils are honourable, solemn, ancient — and have nothing whatsoever to do with a bunch of mostly white, middle-class “uni” graduates and Marxist agitators causing mayhem on the public streets under the pretence that they fighting against “structural racism”.
Note also that Northumbria Police are effectively declaring a two-tier policing system. Protest gatherings — even ones pretending to be “vigils” — are illegal under the draconian legislation which was rushed through by the British parliament in response to coronavirus. Yet here is Northumbria Police explicitly — and unilaterally — announcing to the world that they consider Black Lives Matter are exempt.
Why?
James Delingpole
Breitbart London
Here is a message which should send a shudder down the spine of anyone who believes in the concept of equality before the law: a British police department openly admitting that it intends to give special, favourable treatment to Black Lives Matter.
Northumbria PoliceNote the use of that weasel word “vigil”. Presumably this comes from the same dictionary of politically correct excuse-making that led the BBC describe a violent Black Lives Matter violent demo in London — in which 27 police officers were injured — as ‘largely peaceful.’
✔
@northumbriapol
We'll be in attendance to facilitate a planned Black Lives Matter vigil at Keel Square in #Sunderland tonight.
A Section 14 order is in place forbidding any other public assembly, including counter-protests, to ensure the public's safety. Anyone with concerns should ring 101.
It’s a lie and an insulting lie at that. Vigils are what angels keep. Vigils are what servicemen keep over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Vigils are honourable, solemn, ancient — and have nothing whatsoever to do with a bunch of mostly white, middle-class “uni” graduates and Marxist agitators causing mayhem on the public streets under the pretence that they fighting against “structural racism”.
Note also that Northumbria Police are effectively declaring a two-tier policing system. Protest gatherings — even ones pretending to be “vigils” — are illegal under the draconian legislation which was rushed through by the British parliament in response to coronavirus. Yet here is Northumbria Police explicitly — and unilaterally — announcing to the world that they consider Black Lives Matter are exempt.
Why?
The Evils of Marijuana
Evil terrorists?
No, they're just solitary drug-crazed losers
Peter Hitchens
Mail on Sunday
If I ever feel the need to have several nice cold buckets of slime tipped over my head, I point out that most of the supposed terrorist attacks in this country are, in fact, the work of solitary drug-crazed losers.
The drug involved is most often marijuana, though steroids are also increasingly implicated, as are some prescription medications. But it is mainly marijuana, which is just now the subject of a huge billionaire-backed campaign to allow it to be advertised on TV and sold in supermarkets. Yes, that is what legalisation means.
Within seconds one choir of morons will be yelling that I am ‘an apologist for Islamic terror’. No, I am not. I hate terrorism of all kinds and wish we did not give into it so often.
As I turn to deal with them, a second choir of morons will begin to howl that marijuana has no links with mental illness or crime, is a valuable medicine, and how dare I damage its chances of being legalised?
They have half a point. It should not be legalised, and I will do all in my power to prevent that happening. But that is because there are mountains of evidence of its connections with mental illness and with violence. This danger is getting harder to contest every day.
So here comes the slime, the dimwit screeches and the self-interested squawks. Because the official claim that the dreadful slayings in a Reading park last weekend were ‘terrorism’ is so absurd that it simply has to be countered. This belief actually leaves us in more danger, not less, because it means we look in the wrong direction and take precautions against the wrong menace.
No, they're just solitary drug-crazed losers
Peter Hitchens
Mail on Sunday
If I ever feel the need to have several nice cold buckets of slime tipped over my head, I point out that most of the supposed terrorist attacks in this country are, in fact, the work of solitary drug-crazed losers.
The drug involved is most often marijuana, though steroids are also increasingly implicated, as are some prescription medications. But it is mainly marijuana, which is just now the subject of a huge billionaire-backed campaign to allow it to be advertised on TV and sold in supermarkets. Yes, that is what legalisation means.
Within seconds one choir of morons will be yelling that I am ‘an apologist for Islamic terror’. No, I am not. I hate terrorism of all kinds and wish we did not give into it so often.
As I turn to deal with them, a second choir of morons will begin to howl that marijuana has no links with mental illness or crime, is a valuable medicine, and how dare I damage its chances of being legalised?
They have half a point. It should not be legalised, and I will do all in my power to prevent that happening. But that is because there are mountains of evidence of its connections with mental illness and with violence. This danger is getting harder to contest every day.
So here comes the slime, the dimwit screeches and the self-interested squawks. Because the official claim that the dreadful slayings in a Reading park last weekend were ‘terrorism’ is so absurd that it simply has to be countered. This belief actually leaves us in more danger, not less, because it means we look in the wrong direction and take precautions against the wrong menace.
Thursday, 2 July 2020
No Surprises There
Jacinda Ardern's Big Promises Have Failed Spectacularly
Duncan Garner
OPINION: Transformational. Do you remember the Prime Minister promising voters of a transformational Government?
It was a bold, ambitious, but ultimately, hugely risky claim.
Be careful with your words - voters remember.
Jacinda Ardern's big promises sounded great - but they have failed spectacularly.
So revered internationally - if only those disciples applied some rigour to what's been achieved. This Government can barely deliver a letter.
Certainly all its cornerstone, showpiece, flagship promises - call them what you like - have failed, the latest being the so-called transformational billion dollar light rail project from the Auckland CBD to the Airport.
Phil Twyford the builder - could he build it - No, he couldn't.
What can this lot do? Why are Aucklanders paying the extra 10 cents a litre petrol tax - remind me of the transport projects we're paying for again?
What a massive fail. And add it to the list of shame.
Kiwibuild - fail.
Capital Gains Tax - fail.
Reducing Child Poverty - fail - the Children's Commissioner says benefit levels need to rise for that to happen.
Climate Change? Fail - sure the zero-carbon law is here, but farmers and truckies have an out - years of consultation is hardly transformational.
In short, their greatest success has been the PM's ability to communicate in a crisis. But even that now is under question with these latest revelations that thousands of passengers left quarantine untested.
For that they threw Dr Ashley Bloomfield under the bus. How generous of David Clark.
If you're asking why has Labour failed, it's complex. The promises were too big to succeed in such a short time - add in Winston Peters - and there you have it.
They have had one success though - on Wednesday night - a law passed allowing prisoners who have served less than three years to vote at this election.
Transformational - only if you believe in fairy dust.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
Duncan Garner
OPINION: Transformational. Do you remember the Prime Minister promising voters of a transformational Government?
It was a bold, ambitious, but ultimately, hugely risky claim.
Be careful with your words - voters remember.
Jacinda Ardern's big promises sounded great - but they have failed spectacularly.
So revered internationally - if only those disciples applied some rigour to what's been achieved. This Government can barely deliver a letter.
Certainly all its cornerstone, showpiece, flagship promises - call them what you like - have failed, the latest being the so-called transformational billion dollar light rail project from the Auckland CBD to the Airport.
Phil Twyford the builder - could he build it - No, he couldn't.
What can this lot do? Why are Aucklanders paying the extra 10 cents a litre petrol tax - remind me of the transport projects we're paying for again?
What a massive fail. And add it to the list of shame.
Kiwibuild - fail.
Capital Gains Tax - fail.
Reducing Child Poverty - fail - the Children's Commissioner says benefit levels need to rise for that to happen.
Climate Change? Fail - sure the zero-carbon law is here, but farmers and truckies have an out - years of consultation is hardly transformational.
In short, their greatest success has been the PM's ability to communicate in a crisis. But even that now is under question with these latest revelations that thousands of passengers left quarantine untested.
For that they threw Dr Ashley Bloomfield under the bus. How generous of David Clark.
If you're asking why has Labour failed, it's complex. The promises were too big to succeed in such a short time - add in Winston Peters - and there you have it.
They have had one success though - on Wednesday night - a law passed allowing prisoners who have served less than three years to vote at this election.
Transformational - only if you believe in fairy dust.
Duncan Garner hosts The AM Show.
The Contest Now Has A Changed Form
2020 Election Will Be a Contest of the Angry
It is no longer really about Biden and Trump
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
The old 2020 election was supposed to be about many familiar issues. It is not anymore.
Up until now, the candidates themselves would supposedly be the story in November. The Left had cited Trump’s tweets and erratic firings as windows into his dark soul.
The Right had replied that an addled and befuddled Joe Biden was not really a candidate at all. Instead, he was a mere facsimile who would have to be carried to the Election Day on the shoulders of the Democratic Party, only shortly to fade away. Then a radical vice president soon could implement a hard-left agenda by succession what she could not through election.
Issues themselves are no longer likely to decide the election either. Not long ago progressives argued that the miracle Trump economy was in shambles, done in by plague, quarantine, and riot. They thundered that it was what you would expect from Trump’s innate chaos — a mess that would have to be invented if it had not existed.
The Right had countered that deregulation, energy development, tax reform, and reindustrialization that made America Great would make American Great Again.
For all of 2019 and 2020, Democrats had claimed that a calm abroad would return with a Biden win. They talked of reestablishing the influence of post-war American-led diplomacy, soft power, traditional alliances, transnational organizations, and the United Nations.
Trump Republicans believed all that was more the problem, not the solution. They argued that America’s relationships with NATO, China, and the European Union were now at least founded on reality, not dangerous fantasies and stale bromides.
Trump opponents saw the November election as a return to Washington normality: no more fights with the press, no more paranoia of a deep state, no more dissident generals, canned FBI leaders, or exasperated CIA officials.
Trump’s base instead had seen the November election as the last chance to drain the federal swamp of careerists, apparatchiks, corporate flunkies, and various grifters. These unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, lobbyists, and revolving-door functionaries over the prior decades had hacked at the Bill of Rights, stagnated the economy, mired the nation in endless winless wars, and mortgaged the country to China.
But that conundrum is ancient history now.
It is no longer really about Biden and Trump
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
The old 2020 election was supposed to be about many familiar issues. It is not anymore.
Up until now, the candidates themselves would supposedly be the story in November. The Left had cited Trump’s tweets and erratic firings as windows into his dark soul.
The Right had replied that an addled and befuddled Joe Biden was not really a candidate at all. Instead, he was a mere facsimile who would have to be carried to the Election Day on the shoulders of the Democratic Party, only shortly to fade away. Then a radical vice president soon could implement a hard-left agenda by succession what she could not through election.
Issues themselves are no longer likely to decide the election either. Not long ago progressives argued that the miracle Trump economy was in shambles, done in by plague, quarantine, and riot. They thundered that it was what you would expect from Trump’s innate chaos — a mess that would have to be invented if it had not existed.
The Right had countered that deregulation, energy development, tax reform, and reindustrialization that made America Great would make American Great Again.
For all of 2019 and 2020, Democrats had claimed that a calm abroad would return with a Biden win. They talked of reestablishing the influence of post-war American-led diplomacy, soft power, traditional alliances, transnational organizations, and the United Nations.
Trump Republicans believed all that was more the problem, not the solution. They argued that America’s relationships with NATO, China, and the European Union were now at least founded on reality, not dangerous fantasies and stale bromides.
Trump opponents saw the November election as a return to Washington normality: no more fights with the press, no more paranoia of a deep state, no more dissident generals, canned FBI leaders, or exasperated CIA officials.
Trump’s base instead had seen the November election as the last chance to drain the federal swamp of careerists, apparatchiks, corporate flunkies, and various grifters. These unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, lobbyists, and revolving-door functionaries over the prior decades had hacked at the Bill of Rights, stagnated the economy, mired the nation in endless winless wars, and mortgaged the country to China.
But that conundrum is ancient history now.
Wednesday, 1 July 2020
Google's Duplicitous Self-Deceit
YouTube’s Transgender Problem
The tech platform excludes even personal experience that challenges transgender orthodoxy.
Kristen Waggoner
National Review Online
In our information age, companies such as Google and YouTube allow ideas to spread more quickly and farther than our ancestors would have thought possible. But there is a dark side to the information age. A small but significant minority — those who own social-media sites that all of us rely on — can dictate what viewpoints, ideas, and even facts to hide from the public.
That is exactly what happened last week, when YouTube pulled down a Heritage Foundation video that featured Walt Heyer, who used to identify as a transgender woman, sharing his personal experience. Heyer underwent hormone treatments and surgeries in his quest to become female. He eventually realized that even the most extreme medical interventions could not address his gender dysphoria. He de-transitioned and now encourages gender-confused individuals to make peace with their biology rather than undergo irreversible surgeries.
In the video, Heyer told an audience about the heartbreaking regret he continues to experience from his decisions.
The tech platform excludes even personal experience that challenges transgender orthodoxy.
Kristen Waggoner
National Review Online
In our information age, companies such as Google and YouTube allow ideas to spread more quickly and farther than our ancestors would have thought possible. But there is a dark side to the information age. A small but significant minority — those who own social-media sites that all of us rely on — can dictate what viewpoints, ideas, and even facts to hide from the public.
That is exactly what happened last week, when YouTube pulled down a Heritage Foundation video that featured Walt Heyer, who used to identify as a transgender woman, sharing his personal experience. Heyer underwent hormone treatments and surgeries in his quest to become female. He eventually realized that even the most extreme medical interventions could not address his gender dysphoria. He de-transitioned and now encourages gender-confused individuals to make peace with their biology rather than undergo irreversible surgeries.
In the video, Heyer told an audience about the heartbreaking regret he continues to experience from his decisions.
Careful Use of Deadly Force A Significant Step Ahead of the Hawks
The Two Sides of Trump
Bolton’s foreign-policy revelations show a president crass in pursuit of electoral gain, but admirably circumspect about making war.
By Michael Brendan Dougherty
National Review Online
The leaked extracts of former national-security adviser John Bolton’s book have put into relief two sides of Donald Trump.
The first is the charlatan. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a president’s thinking about his electoral chances while conducting foreign policy. In fact, American presidents are in an enviable position of doing so almost all the time. The preeminent global position of America on the world stage has a way of aligning America’s national interests with the electoral interests of the president. Win the war, win the election. Strike a deal that’s a boon for the country, and it’s a boon for you too.
And yet there are still ways of committing a kind of fraud in this enterprise. And if we believe the accounts Bolton has given of the president’s dealing with China, Donald J. Trump has done so. In Bolton’s account, Trump simply and slaveringly asked for Chairman Xi’s intervention to help him win in 2020. Bolton says Trump “turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win.” The specific request was increased agricultural purchases in key states for Trump.
This request is, of course, a total betrayal of those who trusted Trump to rewrite our “bad deals” with China on trade. Trump promised to lower trade deficits, repatriate military-critical industry, and win back the kind of industry that would re-skill the American population and halt the downward mobility of our former industrial working class. It’s also a wasted opportunity, as even Trump’s phony trade war with China came at a very propitious time for American interests, and a difficult one for Chinese financial institutions. If Trump had patience and follow-through, he could have won lasting concessions.
Bolton’s foreign-policy revelations show a president crass in pursuit of electoral gain, but admirably circumspect about making war.
By Michael Brendan Dougherty
National Review Online
The leaked extracts of former national-security adviser John Bolton’s book have put into relief two sides of Donald Trump.
The first is the charlatan. There’s nothing inherently wrong with a president’s thinking about his electoral chances while conducting foreign policy. In fact, American presidents are in an enviable position of doing so almost all the time. The preeminent global position of America on the world stage has a way of aligning America’s national interests with the electoral interests of the president. Win the war, win the election. Strike a deal that’s a boon for the country, and it’s a boon for you too.
And yet there are still ways of committing a kind of fraud in this enterprise. And if we believe the accounts Bolton has given of the president’s dealing with China, Donald J. Trump has done so. In Bolton’s account, Trump simply and slaveringly asked for Chairman Xi’s intervention to help him win in 2020. Bolton says Trump “turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win.” The specific request was increased agricultural purchases in key states for Trump.
This request is, of course, a total betrayal of those who trusted Trump to rewrite our “bad deals” with China on trade. Trump promised to lower trade deficits, repatriate military-critical industry, and win back the kind of industry that would re-skill the American population and halt the downward mobility of our former industrial working class. It’s also a wasted opportunity, as even Trump’s phony trade war with China came at a very propitious time for American interests, and a difficult one for Chinese financial institutions. If Trump had patience and follow-through, he could have won lasting concessions.
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