DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

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The world is rapidly going downhill. Unfortunately, we can’t get off.

Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

10th May 2023

Bud Light’s sales drop is accelerating amid Dylan Mulvaney fiasco — and is now spilling into other Bud brands (N.Y. Post)

Bud Light sales down 12.5% since April, new report confirms (Fox) What a winning strategy….

Bud Light has managed to unite the left and right in anger (Washington Post)

Chicago Gay Bars Face Harassment After Ditching Bud Light Over Dylan Mulvaney Controversy (Block Club Chicago) Oh noes!

Senate tax chief says billionaire Crow ‘stonewalling’ over perks for Clarence Thomas (Politico) And he has every right to do so.

Senate Democrats ask Harlan Crow to list gifts to Thomas and any other judges (MSNBC) An attempt to spread the witch-hunt–there is no evidence of ‘gifts’ to ‘other judges’. Do you write down every favor you do a friend? I don’t.

GOP megadonor Harlan Crow rebuffs congressional request to disclose details about travel and real estate deals with Clarence Thomas (CNN) ‘GOP megadonor’ is one step above the shame of being a ‘MAGA megadonor’, on the way to being a ‘white supremacist with neo-Nazi ties’.

New Shocking Report EXPOSES Just How Dangerous TikTok Is

Chicago Police Advise Business Owners To Install Shatter-Resistant Glass Shields Amid String Of Break-Ins

George Soros Gives Left-Wing Candidate Big Campaign Boost

DeSantis takes steps to again send migrants to Democratic-led cities (CNN)

National Police Association Joins Others In Suing For Nashville Shooter’s Manifesto

Hochul issues emergency order for migrant crisis (Politico)

Germany Proposes Rules to Ease Legal Changes of Gender

Chicago’s Lori Lightfoot issues state of emergency over influx of illegal migrants sent by Texas Gov. Abbott BRAAAAAAAINS!

‘Trump was great at this’: How conservatives transformed a Colorado school district (NBC News)

Democrat Rep. Claims Climate Change is Root Cause of Illegal Immigration

More Delays, Less Delays, But Always More Costs

The Debt Ceiling Wasn’t Always So Politicized (The Atlantic) Translation: “In the Good Old Days, Republicans were overspending just like Democrats.”

T-Mobile Shutters “Flagship” San Fran Store As Mass Exodus Escalates

Tech Entrepreneur Unpacks Twitter Files, What ‘Weaponized’ Agencies Did to Americans

Half of Chicagoans Witnessed a Shooting by Age 40

Censorship-Obsessed Google Set to Funnel $100M to Leftist New York Times

McCarthy Blocks Rashida Tlaib’s Anti-Semitic Congressional Event

Progressive Staffer Carrying Gun Illegally Shot And Killed By Fellow Campaigner In Philadelphia

Soros-backed PAC Spends Heavily on Pa. Candidate

Biological Man Upset He Can’t Compete Against Women In The Olympics

NYC Mayor Who Slammed GOP Busing of Migrants Will Bus Migrants Out of His ‘Sanctuary City’

The View Refuses to Press AOC’s Dress Designer on Ethics Investigation

The Censorship-Industrial Complex: Top 50 Organizations To Know

US City To Roll Out Guaranteed Basic Income  Welcome to Taxachusetts. Time to leave.

Freak-A-Leak: Journalists Outraged After Politico Abortion Scoop Snubbed for Pulitzer

 

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Unrigging Our Elections

10th May 2023

The American Mind.

It might not matter whom Republicans run for president in 2024.

America’s propaganda press traffics in disinformation. Its Big Tech oligarchs censor news and information helpful to conservatives, while elevating biased news and information that helps the Left. And its election systems have been overrun by privately funded groups that run Democratic “get out the vote” campaigns to traffic ballots into ballot boxes. We catalogued this particularly complex problem in Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.

Instead of election day, we now have an “election season”—during which, over a period of months, we flood homes across the country with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, regardless of whether secretaries of state or local registrars have any idea if those ballots are being sent to the correct addresses. This in a country where 11% of residents move every year. We then wait for sophisticated partisan turnout operations funded by activist billionaires and run by ideological statisticians to round up those ballots in entirely selective ways.

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Gaslighting Ourselves

10th May 2023

Steve Sailer.

Why have alarming nuts been allowed to colonize New York’s mission-critical subway system? Why do we no longer have what we once did: adequate facilities in the countryside for agitated urbanites to decompress far from the madding crowd?

The massive deinstitutionalization of the 1960s–1980s is now widely considered a blunder, but why did it seem like a good idea at the time? We need to consider why progressive reformers in the English-speaking world turned as fervently against lunatic asylums in the 1970s as their forebears had become enthusiastic for them in the middle of the 19th century.

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The Truth About Generation Snowflake is Even Worse Than We Feared

10th May 2023

The Daily Skeptic.

I had a meeting arranged with one of my undergraduate students for 10am last Friday. At around 9.30 I received an email from her saying that since she was “struggling with [her] mental health” she wouldn’t be able to physically come to the building. It would be “too much”. So could we please have the meeting via Zoom instead?

This kind of thing has become completely normal. Vast swathes of students have diagnoses of ADHD or the ubiquitous ‘anxiety and depression’; the rest, who don’t, still feel no compunction in disclosing their ‘struggles’ at the drop of a hat. Working around these issues is now simply a fact of life for academics. We confront them literally on a daily basis.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

9th May 2023

Calvin and Hobbes Comic Strip for May 08, 2023

Canada extends copyright protection another 20 years to meet new trade obligation (Globre and Mail)

Exclusive: FBI Agents Accuse CIA of 9/11 Coverup (Spy Talk)

Trump on Bud Light controversy: ‘Money does talk — Anheuser-Busch now understands that’ (N.Y. Post)

Clay Travis’ free beer experiment shows people ‘don’t want to be seen’ with Bud Light (Fox)

California, other states with strong ‘Defund the Police’ movements ranked best to be a cop, new study claims (Fox) Hey, you get paid and you don’t have to do anything dangerous like enforce the law. What’s not to like?

Anheuser-Busch CEO Blames Bud Light Boycott On Social Media “Misinformation”

WashPost Poll: Most Americans Don’t Want Men in Women’s Sports

Scott Baio Leaving California Due to Homeless Crisis  Chachi loves freedom.

To Hold a Coronation, Britain Suppressed Free Speech. That’s Insane. (The New Republic) Unfortunately, TNR can’t distinguish between ‘free speech’ and ‘disrupting peaceful people’s lives’.

Ladies Boycott Anthropologie After Using a Male to Model Their Dresses

WaPo Poll Delivers Crushing Blow to Biden’s Argument for Reelection

Thanks, Biden: Average Price of New Car Hits $48K

Anthem Standoff Ends in Ejection, Fine for 2 MLB Pitchers

California Activists Reject Reparations Plan, Demand More Than $1.2M Per Person

Burning Down Barriers: Female Firefighter Conference Causes ‘Out of Control’ Forest Fire

‘Outraged’ Letter Carriers Demand Action to Stop Robberies

N.Y. County Poised to Block Relocation of Migrants

Rashida Tlaib Will Host Congressional Event To Mourn ‘Catastrophe’ of Israel’s Founding  Perhaps I ought to start a new regular summary post: Today in Democrat Hate.

Oklahoma Governor Stitt defends decision to ax PBS funding over ‘really problematic’ LGBTQ content (Fox)

Pandemic-era Eviction Bans Linger in California

Krugman Whines WashPost Isn’t Buying His Insane $1 Trillion Coin Idea

Jon Tester Swore He Wouldn’t Depend Upon Lobbyists as a Senator. Now Lobbyists Are Writing His Bills.

The Squad Shamefully Tries to Inflame Another Summer of Riots

North Dakota governor signs bill restricting transgender pronouns, bathroom use (The Hill)

America’s Largest Transit Systems Reeling As Revenues Continue To Crater

NIMBY New York Suburbs Panic After NYC Mayor Plans Migrant Relocation I guess there are limits on Democrat affection for democracy.

Transgenderism “Confusing People About The Nature Of Reality” And Victimizing Children: Authors

Axios Ignores True Threat of AI Involvement in 2024 elections

Did Harvard’s Larry Tribe Really Just Advise Biden to Ignore Law on Debt Ceiling? Yes.

EXCLUSIVE: Republicans Demand Answers From NIH on Transgender Youth ‘Experiments’ Study That Left 2 Dead, Others Sterilized

Smirnoff Drag Queen Partner Flashes Bystanders at Texas Capitol

Legal Victory Gives Boost to ‘After School Satan Clubs’

YouGov Poll: CNN Most Polarizing News Source

California’s Retail Electricity Price Highest in the Continental U.S. & More than Double the Western U.S. Average Price  Time to leave.

EU Parliament Deliberately Supports Anti-Christian Propaganda

Vietnam to require registration of social media, even on global platforms  Communists will be Communists. (Democrats would like to be Communists, too.)

New York Is Forcing Schools to Change How They Teach Children to Read

Federal Zoning Bill Would Preempt Local Parking Mandates  Hey! What happened to ‘our democracy’?

 

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Here Come the Bugs

9th May 2023

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

The Left’s campaign to replace meat with insects in our diet–more specifically, your diet, not theirs–continues apace.

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What you should know about the New York Destination Fee Scam

8th May 2023

Read it.

Have you ever come across the New York Destination fee? Or New York amenity fee? Or resort fee? No? Well, me neither. Until our recent NYC trip. Seems this kid has many names. And is common practice in quite a few US cities (Las Vegas being a really notorious one apparently). Until about two years ago, this wasn’t a big topic in New York. But things change. To save you the same nasty surprise we had checking in, let me tell all you need to know about the New York destination fee. What you get for it (or not), how much it is per night and if there is a way to avoid it.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

8th May 2023

The 3 likely ways Bud Light disaster might end – and only one is good news (Fox)

Chicago gay bars boycott Anheuser-Busch as brewer shuns Dylan Mulvaney (N.Y. Post)

AB InBev boss blames ‘misinformation’ after rightwing backlash against Bud Light (Financial Times)

Anheuser-Busch Cuts Ties With Marketing Firm Responsible For Dylan Mulvaney Disaster. (OutKick)

NYC building that once housed ‘Brooklyn’s hippest hotel’ turned into migrants shelter (N.Y. Post) Time to leave.

NYC migrant crisis (Fox 5 New York)

NYC has to stop putting migrants’ needs ahead of the general public (N.Y. Post)

NYPD training facility turns into makeshift shelter for asylum seekers (Spectrum News) NYC gets a taste of Texas.

What Are They Hiding? Pro-Transgender Groups Refuse to Hand Over Internal Documents Even as They Move to Oppose Florida’s Medicaid Rule

Fox Sends Cease-And-Desist Letter To Media Matters Over Leaked Tucker Tapes

Downtown San Francisco Becomes A Ghost Town As Major Retailers Flee

Mayhem Unfolds In Oakland As Soros-Backed DA Fails To Enforce Law And Order

California Approves Reparations Recommendations, Proposing $1.2 Million Checks For Black Residents

California Defaults On $18.6 Billion In Debt, Saddling Employers With The Expense

Liberal Utopia: Two-Mile-Long Vehicle Encampment Spotted In California

EXCLUSIVE: Colorado Would Force Her to Create LGBTQ Wedding Websites. She’s Fighting Back.

In NYC Subway, Leftist Governance Reaps What It Sows

The Risible Case For Reparations

Money for Nothing: Reparations and Riots

 

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

7th May 2023

Eric Adams blasts FEMA for limited asylum-seeker funds, will move migrants out of NYC (N.Y. Post)

NYC sending migrants to upstate county ‘not equipped to handle’ influx (Fox)

Suburbs pushback on mayor’s plans to bus asylum seekers north of NYC (CBS New York)

NYC to get $30.5M in federal migrant crisis funds, far less than $350M Adams admin requested (AMNY)

To protect democracy from machines, Congress must modernize our constitutional right to petition (The Hill)

Tennis Legend Martina Navratilova: “Women’s Sports Is Not The Place For Trans Athletes”

Science? Pro-Trans NPR Flunks Basic Biology, Decries Use of Terms ‘Gametes,’ ‘Ova’

Majority Of Germans Say Migrants Bring More Problems Than Benefits, Want Limit On Refugees Imagine that.

‘Just Brutal’: ABC Stunned by Biden Getting Clobbered by Trump in Poll

Will Democrats Die on the Trans Hill?

Goodbye Climate Alarmism: The Age of AI Alarmism Has Begun

 

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

6th May 2023

New York City mayor announces plan to transport willing migrants to locations outside the city ahead of expected surge (CNN)

Suburbs pushback on mayor’s plans to bus asylum seekers north of NYC (CBS New York)

‘Gender-Fluid’ Students Win Prom King & Queen at Ohio HS

DeSantis Signs Bill Allowing Fla. Board to Cancel Disney Deals

Colombia Resumes Migrant Flights After Brief Pause

Elon Musk, Don Jr. Push Back Against Crazy New Anti-Free Speech Bill in Ireland

Soros To Help Save Vice News

Pennsylvania Amish Kept True To Their Traditions – Then The Government Came

Georgia Enacts Law Letting Panel Punish, Oust Prosecutors

Rounding Up the 500 Most Dangerous Psychos in NYC Could Make the Streets and Subways a Lot Less Chaotic

All Your Kids Are Belong to Us

GOP moderates privately panic over debt ceiling deal (Axios) RINOs gotta RINO.

Mainstream Media Doesn’t Care That the CIA May Have Helped Cause 9/11

Ga. Gov. Kemp Signs Law Allowing DA Removals  Soros prosecutors, be warned.

“AAAAAAAAAHHHH”: Trans Activist Unleashes Primal Scream At SF Board Meeting

California Insists on Wasting Its Scarce Water Supply

 

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Today in Witch-Hunt Culture

6th May 2023

Georgia’s GOP governor signs bill that could remove local prosecutors and DAs from their jobs (CNN) They only mind because it’s a Republican doing it.

On PBS, Amanpour Spreads Book-Ban Hysteria: ‘LGBTQ, Black…Indigenous Stories’ Silenced

The Next Fear on A.I.: Hollywood’s Killer Robots Become the Military’s Tools (N.Y. Times)

Race Hustler Al Sharpton Says He Told Alvin Bragg To Prosecute Subway ‘Vigilante’

PBS’s Amanpour Hails GOP Abortion-Rights Hero Vs. ‘Draconian’ South Carolina Ban

Sen. Tuberville Blasts Rapinoe’s Support for Trans Athletes

ABC Edits Kids’ Show After ‘Fat-Shaming’ Complaints

Top 10: MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace’s Worst GOP-Bashing Moments

GOP ‘Bringing Back the Lynching Vibe,’ Could Spark a ‘Secession’   Doubtful.

Reporters Rage as Free Speech Heroes Bill Maher, Elon Musk Meet

‘Another Attempt To Manufacture A Scandal’: Friend Of Clarence Thomas Hits Back At New Report Targeting The Justice

How Does Leonard Leo Hide All His Right-Wing Dark Money? Here’s One Way (Common Dreams) Let’s see … nope, no mention of George Soros.

It’s Time The Washington Post Comes Clean On Their Thomas Attacks

 

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Rich in Kitsch

6th May 2023

Theodore Dalrymple.

Hell, wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, is other people; in which case purgatory must be other people’s taste. Every time I feel my misanthropy flagging, I go down to the local bric-a-brac warehouse, grandly called an antiques center, and remind myself of just how dreadful taste can be. It is not merely the absence of taste that appalls me, it is the positive espousal of all that is cheap, garish, and positively hideous.

Concur.

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The Nothing Society

6th May 2023

Read it.

If we are going to judge a way of looking at the world solely by its worst adherents, then we should also remember that the only self-declared atheist nations in history have been the communist dictatorships. Lenin said that atheism was fundamental to communism. Stalin and others outlawed and persecuted the Russian Orthodox Church. The Chinese communists have persecuted Christians and other faiths.

So is atheism responsible for the live organ harvesting of China? Is atheism responsible for the 100 million murders by communist regimes? Should we remember that atheist nations starved, beat, whipped, suffocated, tortured and executed millions of people?

I used to be a fairly militant atheist. I’m still an atheist and find it impossible to believe in a benign Creator in a flawed universe. But I’ve grown up enough to see how much good we lost when we abandoned Christianity, and how many grim things have flourished since.

 

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The Ruling Class at Play

6th May 2023

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

In an amazing coincidence of scheduling, the annual White House Correspondence Dinner (WHCD) and the Met Gala occurred within 48 hours of each other. One of Trump’s best moves in office was giving the middle finger to the WHCD, and the less said about the Met Gala the better, except for noting that Alexandria Occasional-Cortex didn’t attend this year since she violated House ethics rules last year by accepting free tickets and sporting her very expensive “Tax the rich” dress.

 

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The Perfect Democratic President?

6th May 2023

Read it.

Daniel Henninger, writing in the Wall Street Journal on April 26, properly describes Joe Biden as “the perfect Democratic president.”

According to Henninger, Biden’s “non-compos” condition should give the “left wing of his party free rein” during his second presidential term, which is exactly what his party wants. A cognitively impaired, not particularly principled figurehead fits the needs of his handlers; and Biden obviously has no interest in doing anything to upset them. He will dutifully get behind his party’s latest woke project and ritualistically attack its Republican opponents as white nationalists, sexists, and homophobes.

Equally significant, Biden is the perfect front figure for an administrative state in which the chief executive provides little more than an ornament: “A beside-the-point president is the best thing that has ever happened to the progressive centralization project. That is why Washington’s Democrats would embrace a Kamala Harris succession.”

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Want To See What An Out-Of-Control City Looks Like?

6th May 2023

Read it. And watch the video.

A cellphone video (above) captured the moment when a stolen Kia slammed into the rear of a school bus parked outside a middle school in Milwaukee earlier this week.

Local media outlet WISN said two teenage girls had been arrested in connection with Monday’s stolen Kia. Both girls were passengers and injured while police said the driver was still on the loose.

Before the Kia plowed into the school bus, a 15-year-old passenger was hanging out of the car window. Police said that person was knocked unconscious. It is not yet clear what charges the two teenagers will be facing.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

5th May 2023

CEO distances Anheuser-Busch from Bud Light Dylan Mulvaney controversy: ‘Not a formal campaign’ (Fox)

Video Shows Red Sox Fans Ditching Bud Light Amid Dylan Mulvaney Backlash (Newsweek)

Anheuser-Busch CEO FINALLY disavows Dylan Mulvaney Bud Light partnership and says ‘it was not a campaign’ after firm sent letter to retailers blaming an outside ad agency for approving it ‘without management awareness’ as sales crash 26% (UK Daily Mail)

Big Three Ignore Dem Congresswoman’s Shady Stock Market Controversy

Timely Rebrand: European Socialists to Drop ‘Democrats’ from Party Name

ABC, NBC Rush to Lionize Career Criminal After Death on NYC Subway

Cash-Strapped Millennials Turn To Thrift Stores For Wedding Attire

No Jail for Dem Rep’s Child Who Assaulted Cop  The Crust take care of their own.

California Democrats Push Bill To Mandate ‘Gender Diversity’ Books In Schools

CBS Joins ABC & NBC in Mourning Violent Felon Who Died on NYC Subway

Politico Suggests Constitutional Amendment to Remove Feinstein From Senate

Hong Kong Police Seize Tiananmen Massacre Statue  Down the Memory Hole!

Soros And Fortress To Acquire Vice Media Out Of Bankruptcy

National Police Association And Other Groups Sue To Obtain Audrey Hale Manifesto

Scathing Report Shows Bing’s Leftist Bias Just as Awful as Google’s

Most Americans support anti-trans policies favored by GOP, poll shows (Washington Post)

University Slammed For Erasing The Word ‘Woman’ From Its Maternity And Menopause Policies

Fictionalizing M?ori History in the Name of Gender Ideology

Oakland Man Brutally Beaten by Mob

Doctors Behind Mifepristone Ban Called ‘Christians’ a Top Threat

Bernie Sanders Warns of ‘Political Consequences’ for Opponents of $17 Minimum Wage

 

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Sheldon Whitehouse plays Elmer Fudd

5th May 2023

Scott Johnson at Power Line.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is a fool. He nevertheless thinks extremely highly of himself. His vanity is only one component of his clown show. To borrow a line from Bob Dylan’s “Idiot Wind,” it’s a wonder he stills know how to breathe.

Heritage Foundation scholar Diana Furchtgott-Roth contributed the latest episode in Whitehouse’s long-running Looney Tunes saga when she testified on Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee on “the real price of fossil fuels” (hearing posted here). As Director of Heritage’s Energy and Climate Center, Furchtgott-Roth testified on the real cost of Biden’s energy agenda.

Whitehouse posed a line of questions that sought to discredit Furchtgott-Roth on an ad hominem (or ad feminam) basis. The ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy in the context of public policy arguments. However, Furchtgott-Roth came ready to ramble. In the event, Whitehouse played Elmer Fudd to Furchtgott-Roth’s wascally wabbit. She turned Whitehouse’s shotgun blasts back on Whitehouse himself.

 

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The Dog Whistle of ‘Christian Nationalism’

5th May 2023

The American Mind.

Since Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the 2016 election, a rash of articles, surveys, and books have claimed that many—maybe even most—Americans in flyover country are “Christian nationalists.” That’s supposed to sound scary. But the term is mostly used as a smear against conservative Christians who defend the role of religion in American public life.

Sociologists Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry give the perceived threat a scholarly gloss in their recent book from Oxford University Press, Taking America Back for God. They define Christian nationalism as “an ideology that idealizes and advocates a fusion of American civic life with a particular type of Christian identity and culture.” What’s more, it “includes assumptions of nativism, white supremacy, patriarchy and heteronormativity, along with divine sanction for authoritarian control and militarism.” That’s quite a parade of horribles.

How many such people are there? In a survey conducted between 2007 and 2017, the pair found a whopping 52% support some form of Christian nationalism.

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San Francisco’s Heart of Darkness

5th May 2023

The Foundry.

If you search “San Francisco crime spike” on the internet, you will find countless stories—going back years—about how the city’s problems are no big deal or are due to forces beyond the control of its policymakers.

The problem isn’t crime, it’s crime rhetoric, they say.

But rhetoric didn’t cause a cascade of businesses to close and flee the city.

…

It’s better to pay a few extra bucks for shipping than to wait around in a store for a clerk to open a case for shaving cream or to get sucker-punched by a deranged, drug-addled lunatic in Aisle 5.

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The New Ugly Americans

5th May 2023

Victor Davis Hanson.

How odd that those on the Left who in the past decried “American imperialism” are now proving the greatest imperialists of all.

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When You Don’t Police Crime, Civilians Will

4th May 2023

Ben Shapiro.

This week, the media found its latest iteration of its favorite narrative: white man harms black man.

That iteration featured a 24-year-old white Marine from Queens attempting to suppress a 30-year-old homeless, psychotic black man, Jordan Neely, via use of a suppression hold. Neely was apparently threatening people on the subway when the Marine took him down from behind, keeping him in the suppression hold for 15 minutes; Neely died shortly thereafter.

The extraordinarily inflammatory and insipid Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., immediately rushed to Twitter in order to gin up outrage: “Jordan Neely was murdered. But bc Jordan was houseless and crying for food in a time when the city is raising rents and stripping services to militarize itself while many in power demonize the poor, the murderer gets protected w/ passive headlines + no charges. It’s disgusting.”

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Unrigging Our Elections

4th May 2023

The American Mind.

It might not matter whom Republicans run for president in 2024.

America’s propaganda press traffics in disinformation. Its Big Tech oligarchs censor news and information helpful to conservatives, while elevating biased news and information that helps the Left. And its election systems have been overrun by privately funded groups that run Democratic “get out the vote” campaigns to traffic ballots into ballot boxes. We catalogued this particularly complex problem in Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.

Instead of election day, we now have an “election season”—during which, over a period of months, we flood homes across the country with tens of millions of mail-in ballots, regardless of whether secretaries of state or local registrars have any idea if those ballots are being sent to the correct addresses. This in a country where 11% of residents move every year. We then wait for sophisticated partisan turnout operations funded by activist billionaires and run by ideological statisticians to round up those ballots in entirely selective ways.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

3rd May 2023

Judge Rejects Zooey Zephyr Effort to Return to Montana House

House Democrats prepare long shot plan to try to force debt ceiling increase (ABC News)

California Bill Would Require Books on ‘All Gender Expressions’ in Every Elementary School

Congress Failed to Hold DOJ, FBI, ATF Accountable for 1993 Waco Disaster. Something Like It Could Happen Again.

Democrat Cities Have Highest Homicide Rates, Report Finds

Oregon ‘Gender-Affirming,’ Abortion Access Bill Advances to State Senate

Ireland Government’s Hate Speech Bill Promotes ‘Thought Crime Legislation’

Lina Khan: We Must Regulate A.I. Here’s How. (N.Y. Times) “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” — Benito Mussolini.

Switzerland Wants Children to Eat Less Chocolate, More Insects (Wall Street Journal)

Pro-Life? Leftists Accidentally Acknowledge Serena Williams Is Pregnant With a Baby, Not a Clump of Cells

‘They Worked Together,’ CNN Relitigates And Denies The 2000 Election

Nordstrom Closing 2 San Francisco Stores, Cites Crime

It’s Not Just Math and Reading: U.S. History Scores for 8th Graders Plunge

European Green War on Agriculture: Farmers Banned for Life if they Want Compensation

The View Denies Existence of Antifa, ‘Thought it Was a Kitty Cat’ Name

Germany: Trans Women Will Be Drafted as Men  Heh.

Calling A Bluff: Florida Man Shows Fallacies Of Inclusivity By Winning Women’s Poker Event

Dem Rep Katie Porter’s Hand-Picked Replacement Just Got a DUI

Nashville Police Block Release of Transgender Shooter’s Manifesto  Every public employee every day: “We can’t tell people that!”

Caught Off Base: Illinois Lobbyists’ Bribery Convictions Stop Political Softball Game Put on by Lobbyists

Footage Found Of Gas Stove Participating In Jan 6 Riot  (Babylon Bee)

 

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We Must Become Barbarians

3rd May 2023

UnHerd.

The loss of faith across the West in our institutions, leaders and representatives in recent years has been radical. When, I wonder, did that contract expire? Maybe in 2003, when the lies with which the Iraq war was launched were so blatant that even those telling them seemed unconvinced. Or maybe later, in 2016, when Brexit happened and Donald Trump happened and European “populism” happened, and suddenly any opposition to liberal globalism became fascism or bigotry or the work of Russian bots.

But it was the pandemic — or rather, the response to it — that changed everything for me. I hadn’t been prepared see, in my allegedly free and democratic country, a merger of corporate power, state power and media power in the service of constructing a favoured narrative, of the kind which had previously only characterised totalitarian regimes. What the Covid regime brought home to me was that I had not, despite what I believed, really understood the real nature of power until I saw it exercised in its raw form over my life. Specifically, I had not understood the power of the state.

Nothing has the power or reach of a modern state. Its sheer scale and strength gives it the ability to corral, organise, define, measure and control its population in a manner that is unmatched in human history, and that power only grows and deepens. The momentum of a state is always towards the centre, always towards the agglomeration of more power. A state is like a black hole: at a certain point, it begins to suck in everything around it. As it grows, it will tell stories that justify its existence. Democracy, liberty and progress are some of the more recent banners beneath which state power has gathered, but there have been others: racial or ethnic homogeneity, human equality, religious purity. All of these stories have the potential to unite a people around a state core.

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Who Needs Facts?

3rd May 2023

Steve Sailer.

A central conundrum of the 2020s is why respectable opinion has gotten so out of touch with reality on questions touching race, such as crime. Are mainstream pundits lying, intimidated, deluded, hate-filled, or just stupid?

It’s an important and difficult question.

I ponder this because I’ve developed a reputation as the go-to guy on Twitter when celebrities say something smugly stupid about crime statistics. Most every day I see a tweet summoning me by showing Batman staring up at the Bat-Signal of my avatar, the 18th hole at Cypress Point Golf Club. (Yeah, it’s pretty cool.)

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Moochers and Looters

3rd May 2023

John Stossel.

Why don’t people in Latin America learn from the mistakes of the past? Gloria Alvarez, a social media star from Guatemala, is running for president of her country to try to educate people about the damage socialism does.

People do need educating.

“It’s like Stockholm syndrome,” says Alvarez in my new video. “When you ask people, ‘Who should take care of health, education, football, arts, whatever?’ They always answer, ‘government.’ How are you going to not have corruption if you leave everything in the hands of the government?”

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Dishonest New York Times’ Series Does Not Deserve a Pulitzer

3rd May 2023

The Foundry.

Following an 18-part investigative series in The New York Times alleging various forms of maleducation and malfeasance in New York City yeshivas, the city began implementing regulations targeting these Hasidic Jewish day schools.

These included requiring certain classes (currently not taught at yeshivas) to be taught for a specified length, allowing the New York City Public School System to declare yeshivas “non-compliant” and send parents to jail for truancy for sending children there, and allowing New York to investigate any private school after a complaint from any individual (not just from parents, teachers, or students of yeshivas).

Last month, a New York district court struck down these regulations, but the state has filed a notice that it is appealing the decision.

Hasidic community leaders have complained that the Times reporters, who are now under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize, presented a profoundly biased and inaccurate portrait of their schools.

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Today’s Peak Academic Asininity

3rd May 2023

Steven Hayward at Power Line.

Keeping up with the insane manifestations of wokery could be a full time job, and it is becoming repetitious and boring, like climate change. But wokesters, in apparent competition for peak clownery, keep saying, “Hold my Bud Light—watch this!”

So behold the Essex Wexford School District in Vermont, which will cease referring to fifth graders as boys or girls:

Glenn Reynolds has been saying for years now that sending your kids to public school is child abuse. And no wonder home schooling is soaring.

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Rahm Emanuel Blasted for LGBT Push in Japan

2nd May 2023

NewsMax.

Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Ambassador to Japan, is “destroying” Japan’s culture by pushing pro-LGBTQ+ legislation, a journalist from Okinawa said.

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Private Jet Sales Likely to Reach Highest Ever Level This Year, Report Says

1st May 2023

The Guardian.

Sales of private jets are likely to reach their highest ever level this year, placing an increasing burden on the planet, while many of the owners escape aviation taxes, and there are few curbs on the greenhouse gases emitted, according to a report.

The report is by the Institute for Policy Studies, a hard-left think tank in D.C.

Note that the objections focus on plane owners escaping the government-imposed burdens of taxation and environmental regulation that the statists at The Guardian can’t tolerate.

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Labour Day: On Work and Rebellion

1st May 2023

Read it.

The bones of the modern global economy might still be labor—albeit off-shored to people willing to do it under ruinous conditions—but the lifeblood of that economy is the massive population of workers demoralized by the uselessness of their day-to-day tasks and incentivised to defend (at least passively) existing economic arrangements: the flunkies and goons, duct-tapers, box-tickers, task-masters, and their wannabes.

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A Party in Turmoil

1st May 2023

Read it.

What will the 40 percent (and falling) of Scots separatists do now that their vehicle for independence is spluttering to a halt? Like a clapped-out old car, rust is creeping up its innards, parts of it are falling off, and an incompetent driver is at the wheel who seems to have neither a map nor a clear sense of direction.

For a short time, the Scottish National Party (SNP) led the most vibrant movement of its kind in the modern world, secure in its moral and civic purpose and outperforming all other campaigns for secession. Catalonian separatists are disheartened and disunited while the campaign for the Bavarian independence in Germany was only able to muster 1.7 percent of the vote in the last general election. The SNP’s authoritarian leadership, on the other hand, has managed to keep splits and factionalism to a minimum—until recently, at least.

The case for the independence of what was a sovereign state until the 18th century was pressed with unwearying fervour, larded with flattery of the Scots’ genius and contempt for the (English-dominated) Westminster government. For nearly two decades, the UK-wide parties—Conservative, Labour, and Liberal Democrat—had been consigned to the futile sidelines of political power. Two-thirds of Scots voted to remain in the European Union during the 2016 Brexit referendum, and the SNP’s pledge to rejoin upon winning independence was seen as a way of righting a terrible wrong.

I find it impossible to take seriously a ‘Scottish National Party’ whose leader is named Humza Yousaf. Sorry. Just can’t do it, any more than I can pretend that Dylan Mulvaney is a woman.

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A Looming Threat to Our Democracy

1st May 2023

Read it.

Liberals love to talk about threats to “our democracy,” which just means threats to Democrats winning elections. Voting is a threat to “our democracy” when it doesn’t go their way.

But there is a very real threat to our democracy making its way through state legislatures. It is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. I wrote about it as far back as 2019. The “compact” is legislation, adopted state by state, that outsources voting in presidential elections.

States that subscribe to the compact agree that their presidential electoral votes will be cast, not for the candidate who won their state, but rather for the candidate who got the most votes nationwide. So if you live in a small or medium-sized state, you are essentially outsourcing your presidential votes to California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois.

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Eat Meat!

1st May 2023

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

The Left has launched a comprehensive war on modern agriculture. One aspect of that war consists of attacks on animal husbandry, which to some degree ties in with longstanding crank theories espoused by vegans and others. However, contemporary attacks on meat are mostly climate-based. As such, they are dangerous to your family’s health.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

30th April 2023

Anheuser-Busch hires ex-GOP aides to lobby as Bud Light’s Dylan Mulvaney controversy drags on (Fox) Ka-ching!

‘You can’t undo what’s happened’: Bud Light trying to repair damage after Mulvaney ad (Sky News Australia)

No, NYC gov’t doesn’t need more money — it already has too much! (N.Y. Post)

NYC Public Advocate Jumaane Williams pushes back on Mayor Adams’ remarks on NYPD overtime (N.Y. Daily News)

Federal judge blocks Illinois assault weapons ban (The Hill)

Senator Patty Murray says it’s impossible to keep the economy growing without affordable, well-paid childcare (Insider) She’s not going to pay for it, of course; YOU are.

Marijuana Job Lands Oregon Secretary of State in Trouble

Democrats reconstruct blue wall in lead-up to 2024 (The Hill)

North Carolina’s SCOTUS reverses previous rulings on redistricting and restores some voting safeguards

California Teachers Sue School District Over Transgender Policy Allegedly Forcing Them To Lie To Parents

Democrat Cities Have Biggest Homicide Rate Problem, Study Finds

NBC’s Todd Claims Scientific Research Proves There’s More Than Two Genders

The Great American Opt-Out: A Matter Of Willingness, Willfulness, And Will

 

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Party of the Rich

30th April 2023

John Hinderaker at Power Line.

My organization’s polling consistently shows that there are many more Minnesotans who describe themselves as conservative than who say they are liberal. But rich, out-of-state leftists and public sector unions have figured out that they can buy Minnesota on the cheap. My understanding is that they invest only around $50 million per cycle–a derisory figure. But it is enough to out-spend what Republicans can muster by at least three to one.

So, if you wonder how seemingly normal people like most of Minnesota’s voters can elect officials who drive the state into a far-left ditch, the answer is simple: the far Left buys Minnesota, at a bargain price. I think the same holds true for a number of other states, where left-wing money simply swamps the resources that much-poorer conservatives can muster. This is a basic fact of life in 21st century America: the Democrats are the party of the rich, and that is working well for them.

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

29th April 2023

ABC News cuts Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vaccine remarks out of interview (N.Y. Post)

ABC News admits to cutting down RFK Jr.’s vaccine claims: ‘Used our editorial judgement’ (Fox) In other words, censorship, straight up.

ABC News edits RFK Jr. interview to exclude ‘false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines’ (The Hill)

Justice Alito says he has a ‘pretty good idea’ who leaked the draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade but doesn’t have the proof to name them publicly (Insider)

Moms Aren’t Waiting — We’re Taking Action on Assault Weapons In States Across the Country (Katie Couric Media)

Nationwide Support For Assault Weapons Ban Slides, New Poll Finds 

Trans Mascot Dylan Mulvaney Says It Should Be Illegal To Misgender People

New ‘Ultra Right’ Beer Expected To See $1 Million In Sales As Backlash Against Bud Light Trans Partnership Continues

Montana latest to ban gender-affirming care for trans minors (Associated Press)

Montana Lawmaker Suggests She’d Rather Her Daughter Die by Suicide Than Transition (Daily Beast) A fate worse than death.

‘Harm Reduction’: California Democrats Kill Legislation to Crack Down on Fentanyl Dealers

Colorado governor signs four gun bills into law in a historic change to the state’s firearm regulations (Colorado Sun) Colorado’s transition to a blue state is complete.

LGBTQ Group Pushes Bud Light to Stand With Trans Community

Federal Judge Blocks Illinois Gun Control Law

How America’s Middle Class Is Shrinking

Chicago’s Criminal Irresponsibility

NPR Touts Correspondents Dinner Comedian Roy Wood: He Wants Laughs AND Reparations

 

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

28th April 2023

Eric Adams wants FEMA to ban cities from busing migrants to NYC — as 1,300 arrive this week alone (N.Y. Post)

Bar loses customers after warning patrons it will ‘not tolerate intolerance’ among guests about Bud Light (Fox)

1 in 4 high school students identifies as LGBTQ (The Hill) According to the CDC–and who believes them any more?

Vice Undergoes Layoffs, Ends Key Show

INDOMITABLE: Trans legislator stands strong as GOP colleagues try to push her out (Washington Press)

Montana Legislature Votes To Remove Trans Lawmaker From House Floor For Rest Of 2023

WATCH: WFB Reporter Explains How Walmart Pushed Schools To Go Woke

4 Takeaways as House Looks to Restore Confidence in Elections

Networks Yawn At Anemic 1st Quarter GDP Report, Obsess Over Weather

Florida’s book-ban frenzy targets Nora Roberts, and she’s not happy (Washington Post) Let’s be clear–these books aren’t ‘banned’, they’re merely removed from SCHOOL libraries. Any kid who wants to read it can take a library card down to the local public library and check it out. (My local library has all of Nora Ephron’s stuff.)

Unreleased Report Finds Faults in Amnesty International’s Criticism of Ukraine (N.Y. Times)

Planned Parenthood Slaughtered 374,000 Babies While Raking in Record Public Funding in FY2022

‘Gender-Affirming’ Doctor Killed in Trans-Pushing ‘Law & Order’ Episode

CNN Asks If Debating Transgenderism Is Like Debating Murder

Taibbi: America, The Single-Opinion Cult

Kids under 13 would be barred from social media under bipartisan Senate bill (NPR) How on earth do they expect to be able to enforce this? I’m astonished that any Republicans would sign on to this; do they have the proglodyte “pass a law, change the world” delusion?

TikTok Users Whine After Auto-Filter ‘Misgenders’ Them

The View: A Braindead ‘Drooling’ Biden Better ‘Than Any Republican’

Eleven Minutes Of Media Falsehoods, Just On One Subject, Just On One Station

New IRS Migration Data: NY, CA, & IL Are The Big Losers Of People And Wealth; FL & TX The Big Winners

 

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Gynocracy Rising

28th April 2023

The American Mind.

There was a time, not that long ago, when First Amendment rights were relatively stable and well-understood in America. Those days are long gone. Consider our country’s college campuses, where free speech is dying the most brutal of deaths.

Why is this occurring? Who is to blame? From looking at recent data on this question, it seems that women are the main culprits.

According to a recent report by researchers at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), as the number of women entering higher education continues to climb, levels of free speech on college campuses experience an apparently commensurate decline. On the issue of balancing free speech and hate speech, striking demographic differences emerge, with significantly more female than male faculty favoring protections against hate speech, “even if this restricts speech not intended to be hateful (19 percent of females, 8 percent of males), as well as restricting speech only where words are intended to be hateful (38 percent of females, 29 percent of males).” It is interesting to note that “significantly more male than female faculty supported restricting speech only where words are certain to incite violence (62 percent of males, 42 percent of females).”

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

27th April 2023

NeverTrumper Jennifer Rubin Exposes Her Own Hypocrisy in Anti-GOP Spending Cut Rant

Randi Weingarten ruined kids’ lives — but she refuses to apologize for not following the science (N.Y. Post)

House Republicans grill teachers union chief on pandemic school closures (The Hill)

Biden’s staff asked teacher’s union for school reopening advice before even taking office: Weingarten (N.Y. Post)

Bud Light sales are falling, but distributors say they’re sticking by the brand (CNN)

How Bud Light made its true feelings about Dylan Mulvaney depressingly clear (MSNBC)

Ultra Right Beer Sales Soar as Bud Light Plummets (NewsMax)

Florida Republicans Pass Bill To Weaken Public-Sector Unions, Send It To DeSantis (Huffington Post)

San Francisco Target Places Entire Aisles Behind Security Glass Amid Shoplifting Crisis 

Vermont School District To Remove Terms “Male” And “Female” From Sex Ed Curriculum

Undercover Investigation Reveals Pro-Trans Doctors ‘Cashing In’ On Lifelong Patients

D.C. police chief Robert Contee is retiring, mayor says (Washington Post)

Democrats Float Bill To Allow LGBTQ Migrants To Walk Into US Unrestricted

NPR Uses Sob Stories, ‘Slash’ Fiction to Keep $31 Trillion Debt Train Rolling

Elizabeth Warren Wants The Police At Your Door In 2024 If You Have A Crypto-Wallet

Whoopi: ‘God Was Really Clear’ Transitioning Kids Is OKAY With Him

EXCLUSIVE: Villanova Students Required to Read Graphic Trans Sex Scene Between Minors, Student Says

 

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Today in Global Warming Hysteria

27th April 2023

Record ocean temperatures put Earth in ‘uncharted territory’, say scientists (The Guardian)

Senate votes to revoke tougher EPA emissions regulation for trucks (CNN)

Environmental ‘Bootleggers And Baptists’ Fleeced Pennsylvania Consumers

Green Fuels To Become Mandatory in 2025

Climate protesters paint case housing Degas ballerina sculpture in D.C.  All they’re doing is pissing people off; they’re not helping their cause one bit. (Of course, it’s not about actually accomplishing anything, but about the warm & fuzzy virtue-signaling feelz….)

WATCH: Climate Activist Who Shut Down Highway Admits She Wants To Ruin Your Life

Dr Richard Lindzen exposes climate change as a politicised power play motivated by malice and profit

 

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For the Children

27th April 2023

Read it.

For the children is an expression frequently invoked in the past by a number of Democrat politicians, but based on their actions, it seems a very empty proposition. Then there are those who have no clue at all what a commitment to children and family means, such as in the case of Keith Olbermann. Here again, I will quote Megyn Kelly for illustration of my point:

Even Keith Olbermann was saying similar things, comparing Tucker to a nazi. He also, for good measure, decided to tweet about me because I said Tucker is going to be better off without Fox, and he said something to the effect of “You got fired from Fox and NBC, what would you know about it?”

So first of all, you mistake the circumstances of my departure from NBC, sir. That’s all I’m allowed to say about it. And as for Fox, there were widely reported facts that I was offered $100 million to stay there, but the record is very clear that I left voluntarily because I wanted to raise my family.

Something you don’t know anything about because no one would marry you, and you have no children. You have a cold, lonely life in which you’ve become a bitter, bitter man. Something I wouldn’t know anything about because my life is joyful and I’ve managed to raise my own children, and someday, I hope you have that pleasure, but I don’t have high hopes of that happening.

Yeah, I can’t see anybody willing to marry Keith Olbermann either.

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Blood and Water

26th April 2023

American Mind.

The poet Allen Ginsberg’s sexual proclivity for little boys is well known, not least of all his membership in NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association. His most famous remark about children, however, was not in any sense erotic. “We’ll get you through your children!” he screamed at Norman Podhoretz in 1958, at the end of a heated argument that saw the two men part ways as friends for good. This wasn’t a specific threat to Podhoretz, neither of whose children had been born yet. Instead, Ginsberg was issuing a prophecy about the fate of American, indeed Western, society as a whole. The revolution may leave you—the squares and the sticks-in-the-mud—untouched, but it will touch your children and your grandchildren—and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

Just how fateful a prophecy this was was revealed in the past week, when one Klint Ludwig appeared on CNN with erstwhile host Don Lemon. Ludwig is the grandson of Andrew Lester, the 84-year-old man accused of the attempted murder of Ralph Yarl. Lester is alleged to have shot Yarl, an African-American teen, after Yarl rang his doorbell late at night. Despite his injuries, Yarl was able to escape on foot. He and his supporters maintain he had simply rung Lester’s doorbell “by mistake” when he was going to pick up his siblings.

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New Koch

26th April 2023

American Mind.

After the founder of a large foundation dies, his heirs often transform it. Compare industrial tycoon Henry Ford to the Ford Foundation, which rejects “the model of capitalism we have today.” But it is uniquely odd that Charles Koch’s enterprises have moved so far left while the donor remains alive. Billions of dollars are at stake.

Many current and former donor partners, grantees, and staff agree: “Old Koch” was about economic freedom and the core values that sustain a free society, but “New Koch” downplays or hides those values in order to appeal to the contemporary Left. Old Koch focused on getting government out of the way so that civil society could flourish. New Koch has largely skipped that step and moved on to “social entrepreneurship.”

Those outside the ideological network in which Koch is a major player (known as the “liberty movement”) should understand a few things. First, “Koch” means not just the Charles Koch Foundation (CKF) but the large family of organizations and projects that are run by or strongly influenced by Stand Together, the umbrella Koch organization. These include core programs such as the Koch Associate Program (KAP), organizations launched by Koch with varying degrees of independence like Americans for Prosperity (AFP), and well-funded Koch-adjacent organizations like the Institute for Humane Studies. Koch Industries’ annual revenue easily tops $100 billion.

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Marxian Education

26th April 2023

John Stossel.

Some schools are ditching traditional grading.

Instead, they use “labor-based grading,” an idea promoted by Arizona State University professor Asao Inoue.

Labor-based grading means basing grades more on effort than the quality of work.

In addition, Inoue lectured a conference of rhetoric professors “stop saying that we have to teach this dominant English. … If you use a single standard to grade your students’ languaging, you engage in racism!”

Really, you can’t make this shit up.

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‘BLASPHEMY’: Anglican Church Leaders Speak Truth, Even if It Splits 3rd-Largest Christian Denomination

26th April 2023

The Foundry.

How should Christians respond when LGBT activists demand they compromise the truth of Scripture by endorsing same-sex marriage and transgender identity?

A global gathering of Anglicans just provided an excellent example.

In February, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England and the “first among equals” in the global Anglican Communion, the third-largest Christian denomination, defended blessings for same-sex couples while insisting that the move did not violate the church’s doctrine that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.

“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church,” Welby said in a joint statement with Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell at the time.

Leaders at the Global Anglican Futures Conference (GAFCON) wouldn’t stand for this. On Friday, they signed the Kigali Commitment, condemning Welby’s move as “blasphemy” and declaring that he and the Church of England had abdicated their leadership of the Anglican Communion.

“It grieves the Holy Spirit and us that the leadership of the Church of England is determined to bless sin,” GAFCON leaders wrote in the Kigali Commitment. “Since the Lord does not bless same-sex unions, it is pastorally deceptive and blasphemous to craft prayers that invoke blessing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

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Today in BIPOC Privilege

26th April 2023

College Board To Revise African American Studies Course Under Pressure From Critical Race Theorists (Washington Free Beacon)

 

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Today in Progressive Totalitarianism

25th April 2023

Lawyers suggest a way around abortion pill restrictions but doctors may be afraid to try it (Politico)

Abortion pill ruling offers a breather, but new threats are already on the way (Boston Globe) New threats to unborn children are certainly ‘on the way’.

Bud Light suffers ‘staggering’ 17% sales plunge amid Dylan Mulvaney controversy (N.Y. Post)

Bud Light Sales Drop Leaves Conservatives Rejoicing: ‘Devastating Boycott’ (Newsweek) Apparently men-in-dresses aren’t actually their target demographic after all.

New Report Exposes Growing, Billion Dollar Budget Fiasco In Illinois’ Free Medicaid Program For Undocumented Immigrants

Office Buildings Are Emptying In Major U.S. Cities Like Houston, Dallas, New York And San Francisco  Who wants to work in a Democrat shit-hole city?

Transgender Teacher Spoke About Wanting To Shoot Students, Parents Accuse District Of ‘Cover-Up’

CBS Throws ‘Conservative’ Label At Fox, Refuses CNN ‘Liberal’ Label

Second Amendment Still About Armed Self-Defense, as These 11 Examples of Defensive Gun Use Show

HUH? MSNBC Guest Falsely Claims Abortion is Safer Than Pregnancy

A BBC Instruction Manual For Kids To Propagandize Their Parents

Kim Foxx Won’t Run For Reelection — And Fires Back At Those Blaming Her For Crime Spike

Maybelline Gets Burned by the Latest Round of Dylan Mulvaney Boycotts

Daily Show Defends Bud Light ‘Having A Vagina Does Not Make You A Woman’

Bloomberg LP Insanely Boasts About Its Latest Anti-American ESG Push on Companies

Boring is Good: The Moral Case for Joe Biden (Rolling Stone) There’s a difference between ‘boring’ and ‘drooling’.

Public School Critics’ New Book Details 40 Examples of Educational ‘Mediocrity’

Canadian Government Report Unveils Anti-Capitalist Agenda  My, what a surprise.

Soros Quietly Resumes Lobbying With $1.6 Million to Boost Biden Bills

 

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Transit and the Collapse of Downtowns

25th April 2023

The Antiplanner.

Transit advocates cheered when, in 2018, a census of downtown Portland found that 42 percent of the 102,000 people who worked downtown took transit to work. What they didn’t want to hear is that less than 10 percent of workers in the Portland area worked downtown, and transit only carried 3.4 percent of non-downtown employees to work. As demographer Wendell Cox says, “transit is about downtown.”

…

The migration of jobs out of downtowns joins telecommuting as major existential threats to urban transit. The problem is that transit agencies get so much of their money from taxpayers that they have had no incentive to redesign their transit systems for modern cities. Instead, many bus routes today still follow streetcar lines from a hundred years ago. Rather than fix this, most big-city agencies focused on building expensive rail lines into downtowns that were declining in importance long before the pandemics. Downtown property owners lobbied hard for these policies, but the result was that transit service to anyone going anywhere but to or from downtowns was lousy.

Indeed it is. Public transit is most successful where (as in NYC) everybody lives outside of DownTown and needs to get there for work or cultural amenities or whatever.

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