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Branch Covidians to the rescue! Follow the Science!

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Now that everyone’s tired of talking about cancel culture, it seems about the right time for us academics to weigh in. I recently read with interest Eve Ng’s Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis, which isn’t really all that critical but does provide a useful history of the phenomenon. Unfortunately, it does not offer a clear definition or explanation of what has been going on, merely a profusion of examples. My goal here is to correct that deficiency, by providing a simple theory of cancel culture, based on an analysis of the underlying social dynamics.

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The new year has barely even started yet, and the American 2024 election cycle is already absurd. It is unlike any such cycle I have ever seen. Odd things are happening that would have been unthinkable just one or two elections ago.

Among the latest, most absurd ingredients in this increasingly bitter-tasting election soup, is a concerted effort to boot Donald Trump off the ballot in several states.

All these efforts will eventually fail, but the very fact that state officials are trying to ban a presidential candidate they don’t like paints a grim picture of desperation. It lays bare a political establishment whose only reason to get out of bed in the morning is to stop Trump from being elected president again.

Apparently “American democracy” doesn’t include any actual, you know, democracy.

The Other McCain.

So much high-spirited adolescent hijinks! So many mischievous young scamps! Stealing cars, stealing guns, shootings, beatings, armed robberies — typical fun for American teens! With few exceptions, the news media never identify these fun-loving youngsters by name, but when they do . . . Well, it’s ain’t Amish kids, OK?

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Republicans like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have effectively led sanctuary cities to regret their policies as southern border migrants flood their cities to the “breaking point.”

“New York City has begun to see another surge of migrants arriving, and we expect this to intensify over the coming days as a result of Texas Gov. Abbott’s cruel and inhumane politics,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said this week.

“For many months, we were able to keep the visualization of this crisis from hitting our streets, but we have reached a breaking point and can no longer do that.”

Read it.

Mayors of New York, Chicago, and Denver are responding to the mass influx of migrants from the southern border by enforcing regulations or imposing fines on bus operators transporting them from Texas, or other border states for that matter, CNN reported.

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The history of the CIA since its founding is intimately wrapped up in Operation Mockingbird, a concerted campaign continuously developed since the 1940s to control U.S. and global media, reporting (and “reporters”), and academia. Together with MI5/MI6 in the UK, this “Mighty Wurlitzer” has been used to shape a narrative—a series of carefully promoted U.S. Government lies—which have dominated the worldview of literally all Western nation citizens.

As Mattias explains in this lecture, the continuing advancement of these propaganda capabilities has been considered necessary to prop up, “legitimize,” and provide cover for a wide range of nefarious, self-serving actions on the part of a very small group of hereditary “Elites” who have sought to control the peoples, governments, and economies of the world—at the expense of the interests of humanity at large.

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Woke Democrats have caused an absurd amount of problems for law-abiding residents in Portland, including a surge in violent crime, out-of-control open-air drug markets, and widespread homelessness. Parts of the metro area have been transformed into a third-world-like state because of disastrous progressive policies. Now, the combination of failed policies has sparked what appears to be a public health crisis.

A highly contagious bacteria called “shigella” is spreading across Portland. This bacteria is common in countries found in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia regions.

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Time to leave.

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Once in place, it is nearly impossible to get rid of a public union. Florida governor Ron DeSantis found a clever way to make it possible…

In May, governor DeSantis signed a bill that requires at least 60% of workers in a bargaining unit to be dues-paying members. United Teachers of Dade (UTD) did not hit the threshold.

Also, unions also can no longer automatically deduct dues from paychecks, members have to opt in. Much of the dues are used for political purposes and resentment from many teachers has built up.

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Retired California public employees are flocking to Idaho with their pension funds and becoming the financial “lifeblood” of at least one Idaho town, ruffling feathers with some locals who are taking issue with the “liberal baggage” of the new residents.

The Los Angeles Times reported this month the town of Eagle, Idaho, has seen an influx of retired cops and firefighters moving to their town with many of them identifying as conservative but who “seem practically socialist to the old guard” with their large pensions.

Two California transplants squared off in the most recent mayoral race, and the key issue between the two former Golden State residents was “who was the least Californian.”

Times of Israel.

US helicopters sank three boats carrying Houthi gunmen who attacked a container ship that was transiting the Red Sea, the US military said Sunday.

A US warship also shot down two ballistic missiles fired from Yemen, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

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Last week I posted about “Breezy the Don El Jefe”, a “German” TikTok star and Islamic zealot of Turkish extraction who now lives in Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Mr. El Jefe is a sharia enthusiast, and vows to assist in the creation of an Islamic caliphate in Austria and Germany.

Below are two video clips excerpted from Breezy Don’s recent livestream with the user “Tesla Han”. Notice that mustard gas plays a prominent role in Mr. Breezy’s plans for establishing Islamic predominance.

The Other McCain.

Far be it from me to waste my time arguing with fools, a bad habit that anyone would be well advised to avoid, but the reality of the modern information system is such that it is dangerous to let folly go unrebuked. When people publish inflammatory and insulting claims, the absence of immediate pushback will lead many observers to think that the claim made is valid, and thus do bad ideas and harmful myths become commonplace. Are black people collectively victims of “inhumanity visited” upon them by white Americans collectively?

This is the implied meaning of Hannah-Jones’s rhetoric, seeking to make personal responsibility disappear by the use of racial collectivism to point the accusing finger at white people. The circumstances of history cannot be changed retroactively, and this guilt-tripping attitude — seeking to impugn white people based on what happened centuries before they were even born — also has the rhetorical effect of implying that no black person can expect success or happiness in America because white people are always inflicting “inhumanity” upon them.

Historically, people who incite this Us-vs.-Them way of thinking have not been viewed as philanthropic humanitarians. Unless you consider Pol Pot to be an advocate for “social justice,” you’d best avoid the kind of blame-game rhetoric that is the stock-in-trade of Nikole Hannah-Jones.

Rooting around in remote history in search of a pretext to hate other people is not just foolish, but wicked. It is un-Christian, to say the very least, and as the descendant of Confederate soldiers — including one who was captured at Gettysburg and spent two years as a prisoner of war at Fort Delaware — I know the importance of letting the past be the past. We should study history with an eye toward finding examples that can inspire us, as individuals, to strive for the best in ourselves and, as citizens, to benefit from what history can teach us about policy.

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Taylor Swift may regret 2023 ending.

Not only did it mark her most successful year to date, including a smash box office concert film, it meant she’ll be asked to do more than just sing in 2024.

She’ll be recruited to help President Joe Biden win a second term.

Sound farfetched? In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom predicted Swift could play an outsized role in the 2024 election season.

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“Undocumented” is Woke-Speak for “illegal”.

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A new ICE report released on Friday revealed a whopping 6.2 million migrants have been released from federal custody, but ABC’s Good Morning America on Saturday acted as if the true hardship was the few thousand migrants recently bused to New York City, twice conveying the Democratic spin that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was guilty of “cruel and inhumane politics.”

If New York City finds a few thousand people overwhelming, what about border states that have had to deal with multiple millions of migrants every year since Joe Biden became President?

ABC’s opening tease showed their focus was limited to the concerns of Democratic mayor now inconvenienced by the faraway border crisis. Fill-in co-host Stephanie Ramos: “Migrant crisis: The pleas for help from mayors in major cities overwhelmed by busloads of asylum seekers, turning to the federal government for support, with the Texas governor accused of cruel and inhumane politics; his response this morning.”

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Legal scholar Jonathan Turley is the latest “swatting” victim, with someone making a false emergency call claiming someone was shot at his Fairfax County, Virginia, home one day after he spoke out in an interview against the practice.

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Well, that’s what happens when you let hundreds of thousands of terrorists Muslims into your country.

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It always comes as a surprise to some people when Communists actually act like Communists.

OffGuardian.

I think many people believe that our society has gotten so complex, with so many people, and so much need for consumption of natural resources in order to be comfortable, that what the government is forcing on us now is required to survive.

This includes all the control, restrictions, forced vaccines, lockdowns, censorship of free speech, 15-minute cities, and a myriad of other restrictions and mandates. This belief is inanely stupid, but stupid is as stupid does. What can ‘ya say?

Hey, I’m really tired of pussy footing around all this garbage. I’m now calling a spade a spade and forgetting about being polite or politically correct. These people who believe this charade are destroying our lives, as well as destroying humanity itself.

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Nobody in their right mind wants to be obliged to send their kid off to war in Eastern Europe if Romania and Moldova start bombing each other. Yet NATO membership requires just that.

And courtesy of the best congress money can buy, now power to withdraw from NATO has been removed from the U.S. president and enshrined in the well-greased palms of our legislators. More specifically, on December 16 congress approved a bill barring the president from unilaterally exiting NATO without legislative approval. This is a disaster. It’s aimed at Trump and one of the few decent things he might do if elected president, namely ditch that trouble-making albatross, NATO. Naturally president Joe Biden did not delay signing the National Defense Authorization Act, which includes this new NATO provision; so we’re stuck with it.

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The Sharia TipSheet sent questions about sharia supremacy and jihad to Adeel Mangi, the first Muslim to be nominated for a seat on the federal appellate bench. The questions asked about the nominee’s personal beliefs on these matters and other incompatibilities between the U.S. Constitution and sharia law.

The questions were made more urgent by recent revelations the nominee sits on the board of the Alliance of Families for Justice, a left-wing group founded by a domestic terrorist which has campaigned for the release from prison of a half-dozen black nationalists convicted of killing police officers. The nominee has thus given the appearance by virtue of his board membership of condoning violence, which begs the question: Does he also condone jihad violence as a means of achieving Muslim world domination?

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Yeah, that will win them a lot of friends.

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But I’m sure they’re trying as hard as they can….

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Hospitals in places across the United States have reimplemented mask mandates because of what officials say is an uptick in COVID-19 and other respiratory infections.

“Officials” are what’s wrong with the world.

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Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Trump would remain on the ballot until the U.S. Supreme Court decides on the case. The Colorado Supreme Court had ruled in favor of an effort to strike Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but the Colorado Republican Party appealed the decision to the nation’s highest court.

“With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” Griswold’s office announced in a news release. The 2024 Colorado Republican presidential primary is set for “Super Tuesday,” March 5.

Yet the secretary of state urged the Supreme Court to uphold the Colorado court’s decision, insisting that Trump had “engaged in insurrection”—even though the Justice Department has never brought a charge of insurrection against the former president and Trump has never been convicted of such a charge.

UPDATE: Maine Republicans: Impeach Secretary of State Over Trump

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Democracy? What’s that? Nothing that Democrats need bother about, surely!

“That whenever a government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it….”  — Declaration of Independence

Economic sanctions are not the magic wand that the bloviators in Washington seem to think.

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A few weeks ago, we looked at myths to do with ploughing over cities and salting the earth. Today we’re looking at a kind of companion myth. The basic idea is that Roman soldiers were paid in salt, or received an allowance of ‘salt money’.

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China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely scratched the surface.

I regard that as a feature, not a bug.

Most Turd World Food is poverty food, stuff people eat because they can’t afford better. Part of being W.E.I.R.D. is the we can live high on the hog, so to speak.

If I can go through life never having to eat, say, Mexican food, I will regard myself as a success. Go thou and do likewise.

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Since time immemorial, men have carried weapons. They have done so—if they were real men—not to pick fights or unnecessarily injure other men, but in response to the heavy burden of walking life’s path in this world as a protector. Only a few centuries ago, a gentleman would wear a smallsword or spadroon just in case the need arose to defend his good name, as well as all those who shared in that name. As the smallsword was increasingly regulated by the law of the land, and gentlemen relied more on the State or, if it came to that, the courts, to settle their affairs, gentlemen nonetheless carried canes—around which sprang the martial art made famous by Sherlock Holmes: Bartitsu.

I have always carried a pocketknife (well, these days, a multitool) and probably always will. Every American male I know does the same.

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New York City is moving forward with several climate policies which are likely to make everyday life even more costly for the middle class in one of the country’s most expensive cities.

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The increase in the number of Islamic culture-enrichers in Sweden has reached a critical mass that allows the “youths” to mock, insult, verbally abuse, and ignore the police — especially female police officers.

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The city of Melilla is a Spanish enclave on the North African coast, bordered by Morocco. The following video reports on a recent counter-terrorist operation by Spain, in which nine culture-enriching mujahideen in Melilla were arrested before they were able to launch an attack.

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A shop owner in Germany was denounced as a racist for complaining about migrants mass looting his store, while a left-wing politician sided with the criminals, saying they were “entitled” to steal.

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Successful public health campaigns and medical advances have enabled the United States to conquer a range of disfiguring and damaging diseases. Polio, which paralyzed thousands of Americans annually, was wiped out by widespread vaccinations. In 1999 the nation’s last hospital for lepers closed its doors in Louisiana. A global campaign eradicated smallpox, while lethal tuberculosis, the “consumption” that stalked characters in decades of literature, seemed beaten by antibiotics. Measles outbreaks still occur from time to time, but they are small, local, and easily contained.

Recently, however, some of these forgotten but still formidable infectious diseases have begun to reappear in the U.S. For two years running, polio has been detected in some New York water samples, and this fall, leprosy re-emerged in Florida, where cases of malaria have also been recorded.

Health officials say they are not sure why these and other infectious diseases are resurfacing. One distinct possibility, which officials are loath to discuss, is that the millions of migrants who have crossed into the country in recent years could be bringing the scourges with them, since many are from countries where such rare diseases persist and vaccination programs are not robust.

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has threatened Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that it will sue the state if it implements legislation allowing police to remove people from the country who are suspected of crossing the border illegally.

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Proglodytes don’t think of Republicans or conservatives as actual people; they’re merely malign underpeople, towards whom any malicious activity is justified.

UPDATE: Calls for Death: The View’s 9 Most Heated Hateful Moments of 2023

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The real minimum wage is always zero… Restaurant workers in California are about to find that out the hard way.

Seattle Times.

I guess that particular political fad has aged out.

UPDATE: Seattle Supporters Watch Black Lives Matter Garden Leveled After It Was Overrun by Drug Users, Homeless

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Ever notice how Democrats can’t live with real democracy?

UPDATE: The BorderLine: Chicago Mayor Lashes Out as Illegal Aliens Flood His Sanctuary City

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Many on the Left have long attempted to reframe the Christmas story to push their political agenda. They urge lax enforcement of immigration law by insisting that Jesus was a refugee. Now, they claim Jesus would be Palestinian today to undermine support for Israel’s response to Hamas’ massacre of innocents on Oct. 7.

On Christmas Eve, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the latest in a line of leftists to declare that Jesus, if born today, would be Palestinian.

He’d still be a Jew, and hence not a ‘Palestinian’ at all. The ‘Palestinians’ are Arabs, self-consciously so, and no more native to ‘Palestine’ than the Irish are to Nebraska.

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With 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, most U.S. households could use a raise. But an arbitrary, one-size-fits-all increase in the minimum wage imposed by lawmakers in Washington would only exacerbate the struggles of these households.

According to a new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, proposed legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $17 per hour by 2029, a jump of 134%, would reduce employment and increase prices, interest rates, and federal deficits.

Any one of these consequences of the so-called Raise the Wage Act of 2023 would be bad news; all four together would add insult to injury for struggling workers and families.

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Households that are headed by illegal immigrants and have U.S.-born children are more likely to use welfare than are homes led by U.S.-born individuals, according to a recent report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

My, what a surprise….

The New Yorker.

Paying extra for service has inspired rebellions, swivelling iPads, and irritation from Trotsky and Larry David. Post-pandemic, the practice has entered a new stage.

ZMan looks behind the curtain.

Over Christmas, when people are not paying attention, the oligarchs have been busy updating their terms of services. These are “agreements” you must accept in order to use their service, which in most cases is a monopoly. In those rare cases when there is more than one supplier of the service, they work together in order to have identical terms of service agreements. The terms of service agreement is slowly becoming the constitutional order of the country.