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The murder of University of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley shook the nation, and hammered home the real dangers to which the nation became exposed when the border was flung open on January 20th, 2021. The media has been reluctant to cover the story because it casts Democrats (generally) and President Joe Biden (specifically) in a very bad light. That reluctance continues to this day.

CBS Evening News was the only national network newscast to report on the indictment of the illegal alien that murdered Laken Riley.

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In solidarity with their student activists, professors at The New School in New York City on Wednesday erected the first faculty-led pro-Palestinian encampment in the United States.

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MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos has once again proven himself to be an independent thinker, someone who calls them as he sees them and doesn’t dutifully toe the liberal media line.

In the past, we’ve noted Cevallos saying that Roe was ripe to be overturned, because there was no constitutional basis for it. More recently, he called a Hunter Biden plea deal not merely a sweetheart deal, but a “gift from Heaven.”

Cevallos was back at his iconoclastic truth-telling on today’s Morning Joe. He repeatedly called Stormy Daniels’ testimony in Donald Trump’s hush money trial a “major issue” available to the defense for the appeal of any possible conviction, which could lead to it being overturned. The notion was that her testimony was excessively prejudicial to Trump. Cevallos analogized the situation to the recent overturning of one of Harvey Weinstein’s convictions on the grounds that overly prejudicial testimony had been admitted.

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Leah McGhee, the mother of a Central Davidson High School student, said her son’s English teacher assigned various vocabulary words in April, with one of them being “alien.” Her son had asked for clarification on the word, questioning whether it was referencing “space aliens or illegal aliens without green cards.” This prompted the school to suspend McGhee’s son for three days. McGhee has argued that the suspension caused her son to miss several important track meets, with the family choosing to remove their son from the school.

The lawsuit, filed by the Liberty Justice Center, came about a month later.

“We have asked the school to handle this privately for weeks,” McGhee said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “I’ve emailed the school board for four weeks. I’ve had no response from the school board. And since … we had no resolution, we had no other choice but to file a lawsuit and take this public.”

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Philadelphia’s new mayor Cherelle Parker may be succeeding with what seems like a relatively simple task that her predecessors were wholly incapable of performing: cleaning out the city’s open air drug markets in its Kensington section.

Pay attention, Democrats. There’s a chance it actually can be done.

During Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting, City Council members pressed Managing Director Adam Thiel and other officials for details on the planned “encampment resolution” in Kensington and budget concerns at the Office of Homeless Services.

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Years before the prosecution called the former porn star to testify Tuesday in Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial in Manhattan, Democrats viewed Stormy Daniels as an avenue for impeaching Trump when he was president.

My 2020 book “Abuse of Power” details the origins of Left’s lawfare against Trump, which began immediately after his 2016 election to the presidency.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, led the first criminal case against Trump, followed by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia and two federal prosecutions by special counsel Jack Smith.

The American Mind.

The knee-jerk anti-death penalty position of the woke elites is one of the more predictable aspects of their ideology. Just as predictable is the language they use to talk about it: “Racist, racist, racist.” Also “inhumane and torture,” but mostly “racist,” the coin of the realm in contemporary America.

The facts are otherwise, and voluminously so. There is no good evidence the death penalty is racist in application. Blacks are not disproportionately likely to receive the death penalty for no reason other than the anti-black biases of the system or its members. Blacks are disproportionately present on death row, but this certainly has to do with the fact that they commit a disproportionate number of murders.

Nevertheless, radical anti-death penalty activists seldom refrain from beating the tried-and-true old drum despite the evidence against them. Of late, though, they are taking up another tactic and arguing that racism is present not only in the processes that put blacks on death row but in the methods of execution themselves.

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A bill being considered in the House this week would add a citizenship question to future census counts could have big implications.

Basic Congressional districts on the number of people rather than the number of citizens has never made sense except to those who benefit by it politically. The southern states tried the same trick with their slaves during the crafting of the Constitution, which is the origin of the notorious ‘three-fifths’ rule.

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Clinical psychologist and podcast host Jordan B. Peterson and X owner Elon Musk were flabbergasted by Canada’s latest infringement on civil liberties, anti-hate speech bill C-63.

Bloomberg.

Translation: “Since the government intends to keep spending like drunken sailors, we need higher taxes to make things look better than they are. Trump’s tax cuts interfere with that, so we’ll blame him for what it basically our fault.”

Dennis Prager.

When one observes Jews who defend those whose raison d’etre is the annihilation of the one Jewish country on Earth, you have to ask: Why are there no others like them? Were there blacks who defended slavery? Were there Armenians who defended the Turkish mass murder of fellow Armenians during World War I?

It is true that every nation has produced people who work against their nation—particularly during time of war. Vidkun Quisling, the Norwegian leader who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of Norway, is perhaps the best known: The very name “Quisling” is widely used as a synonym for traitor. But even Quisling identified more with fellow Norwegians than Israel-hating Jews identify with fellow Jews.

It turns out that the Jews who side with those who wish to eradicate the one Jewish state and slaughter as many Jews as possible are truly unique.

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In my recently published book, Dissidently Speaking: Change the Words. Change the War: I use both logic and empiricism to prove (I do mean prove) that there is absolutely no such thing as “right wing-left wing” as we use the terms in this country. They are nothing more than non-defined terms used to characterize and label people with whom we don’t agree. I will go so far as to say that the terms are a socially acceptable form of hate speech.

When we say that “the left hates Donald Trump,” it isn’t just mistaken; it’s fallacious.

Since there is no such thing as “left-right,” as we use the terms, there is no possible way for the “left” to hate Trump.

But he is hated by many, and there are three reasons why.

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In an attempt dissuade voters from choosing Robert F. Kennedy in the upcoming presidential election, his cousin Jack Schlossberg has been mocking him by impersonating voters from different parts of the country in a series of videos posted to Instagram.

This would be Caroline’s kid. (So young, and already he lives Big Brother.)

Politico.

FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump.

“We’re dissolved,” said the group’s president, Adam Brandon. “It’s effective immediately.”

FreedomWorks’ board of directors voted unanimously on Tuesday to dissolve the organization, Brandon said. Wednesday will be the last workday for the group’s roughly 25 employees, though staffers will continue to receive paychecks and health care benefits for the next few months.

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New York City Mayor Eric Adams has contributed $5,000 of his own money to a reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for vandalizing a World War I memorial.

The 107th United States Infantry monument, situated in Central Park on the Upper East Side, was vandalized during a protest on Monday. Social media footage shows anti-Israel protesters spray-painting the word “Gaza” on the base of the statue and burning an American flag.

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The latest inflation numbers show 3.5% annual growth for consumer prices, still well above pre-pandemic levels. That means millions of families are struggling to get back to where they were in 2021.

This should come as no surprise, since excessive deficit spending from Washington remains much too high. In 2023, the federal government spent $6.1 trillion (roughly $47,000 per household) and ran a staggering $1.7 trillion deficit.

Yet the Biden administration seems determined to make this worse, consistently choosing policies that increase deficits in pursuit of its ideological agenda.

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According to a study from New Jersey Assemblyman Paul Kanitra, illegal immigration costs the state $7.3 billion per year.

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journalism, is that their Trump Derangement Syndrome drives them to say things that are easily debunkable or quickly proven wrong.

Take, for example, CBS’s Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes. During her report last week fretting the effect the pro-Hamas campus protests might have upon President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects, she threw in a 15-second non-sequitur accusing former President Donald Trump of making an “unfounded claim about campus demonstrators”- a fancier and more succinct “without evidence”. We flagged it the time, and memorialized it via X in anticipation of the inevitable:

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Video that emerged over the weekend from the pro-Palestinian occupation encampment at George Washington University shows some students gleefully cheering for their campus leaders to be executed on guillotines.

The footage was captured by a citizen journalist named “Stu” who recorded the group’s so-called “People’s Tribunal” livestreamed on Instagram.

“At the George Washington University Gaza Solidarity Encampment today, the protesters held a ‘People’s Tribunal’ where they put President Ellen Granberg, Provost Christopher Bracey, the Board of Trustees, @GWPolice, and many others on trial,” Stu posted on X on May 3.

Nature.

Every argument against limiting individual wealth boils down to ‘people get upset when some people have a lot more than other people’, i.e. envy. That’s all it is. Such envy is directly contrary to the Tenth Commandment that God delivered to the Jews, but nowadays most Jews (and most Christians), if they’ve even heard about the Ten Commandments, don’t give a shit.

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My, what a surprise.

As an alternative to a primary election, Illinois law allowed for a party to get its candidates on the ballot for General Assembly spots by party slating procedure, along with collection of a requisite number of public signatures on nominating positions. A number of Republican challengers have been proceeding accordingly.

But over the course of just 30 hours on the first days of this month, the Democratic supermajority changed the law to retroactively disallow that procedure, thereby barring challengers from the November ballot as Republican party candidates.

The new law almost certainly gives Democrats a win in races in which Republicans did not run a candidate in the primary and could result in dozens of unopposed races.

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The Hebrew word “hostages” can be translated into English as “children of surety,” and in many languages the word for “hostage” means both “security, pledge” and “people captured (held) in pledge.” The Greek for “hostage” (hóm?ros) will come as a surprise to many. Is this, we wonder, the meaning of Homer’s name? Why was the most famous Greek in history called this? Since nothing is known about Homer, we will avoid guesswork. In any case, the word does not go back to the poet’s name: the opposite is true. Moreover, this noun occurs in neither the Iliad nor the Odyssey. Though its etymology is far from clear, hóm?ros does not seem to have emerged from any root meaning “pledge” or “security.” May the poet sleep in peace, while those whose only connection with Homer is by way of Homer Simpson enjoy their hero’s deeds. Needless to say, Homer is a fully acceptable name in today’s English-speaking world.

“Conservative is just the long spelling of Retarded.” — ZMan

ZMan is not objecting to conservatism but rather the current incarnation of Conservatism, Inc.

ZMan looks ahead.

There is an old expression in politics that roughly says the most successful politicians are blessed with the right enemies. William Weld, a long time Massachusetts politician, was enormously gifted, until alcoholism got the better of him. He could have reshaped state politics and become a national figure, but he ran into the far wilier Billy Bulger at the local level and the more powerful duo of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy at the national level, so he never lived up to his promise.

We seem to be seeing the opposite with Donald Trump, who has better political instincts than most seasoned professionals, even though his only political experience was at the very top of the game eight years ago. Imagine a fighter stepping into the ring for the first time and the opponent is the reigning world champion. Then imagine that guy winning, and you see the enormity of 2016. Since then, the system has thrown everything at the man, and he is still going.

The main reason Trump continues to move toward the Republican nomination and a general election rematch is he is blessed with the best enemies. The two Federal court cases are now stalled indefinitely. In both cases, the reason for the delay is the chief inquisitor appointed by the Biden administration is proving to be an incompetent fanatic who cannot stop lying to the court. In the most recent example, he was forced to admit the FBI tampered with evidence and lied about it.

Wall Street Journal.

Surprise fees are widely hated, but they are still sneaking onto the bottom of bills for everything from concert tickets to dinners out.
More companies are unbundling the cost of their goods and services, retail analysts say, tacking on 3% for swiping a credit card or adding a little extra for gas. With Live Nation Entertainment facing scrutiny over its ticketing process, singer Maggie Rogers recently urged her fans to buy tickets to her next show at the box office “like it’s 1965” to avoid fees, even showing up at one herself. The Cure’s Robert Smith, meanwhile, convinced Live Nation Entertainment subsidiary Ticketmaster to offer some fee refunds.
The upshot is that prices we see, whether on a restaurant menu or flight-booking site, are rarely the ones we end up paying.

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First, a quick rehash. We identified evidence of fabricated data in four studies co-authored by Francesca Gino. We asked her employer, Harvard University, to look into it. They spent a year and a half doing that, and determined that we were right. So they contacted the relevant journals with requests for retractions and put Gino on unpaid administrative leave. Then we wrote some blog posts about it. Then Francesca Gino filed a $25M defamation lawsuit against us and Harvard. Legal wackiness ensued.

It is clearly not our particular bailiwick, but this post is about that wackiness.

The Spectator.

Much has been made in recent weeks, and especially in recent days, about the degrees of ignorance often displayed by those protesting for the people of Gaza and Palestine. To put it pithily, many don’t seem to know from which river and to which sea they chant about with such passion. Such ignorance has prompted some to conclude that these protests are less about showing solidarity with beleaguered Palestinians and more an excuse to vent incoherent anti-Western sentiment, or, more sinisterly, old-fashioned antisemitism.

Similarly, the cosplay in evidence at American college campuses has also cast doubt on the authenticity of these demonstrations. In their fondness for pretending to be starving refugees in a war zone, bedded down in tents right opposite cafes and restaurants, many of these cosseted, affluent students appear to be grotesquely detached from reality — less bothered about Gaza and more concerned with self-indulgently “feeling their pain” in these ostentatious, ersatz displays of solidarity.

Yet the recent emergence of copycat protests and “encampments” in the UK, first at red-brick universities and more recently at Oxbridge, indicates that there’s something stranger going on. Just as some critics of radical trans ideology regard the rapidity in which that fashion took hold as an example of social contagion, what we are witnessing here could be seen as something similar: an example of low-level, mass hysteria.

The Spectator.

“Record drops in teen math and reading scores.” “National Math, Reading Scores Hit Historic Lows.” “Test Scores Flashing Red!” The headlines roll in weekly, each more alarming than the last. In February, twenty-six schools in Baltimore failed to bring a single student up to the most basic math requirements. The same month, sixty-seven schools in Illinois couldn’t produce a single proficient reader. We’ve reached a national education crisis, and its roots run deeper than many are willing to admit.

The pressing question is: why can’t America produce proficient students? But perhaps a more crucial question is: why can’t America produce proficient teachers?

The teaching profession has all the trappings of expertise: degrees, journals, a specialized lexicon and conferences. Yet, peel back a layer or two — and it’s like walking into a North Korean grocery store: what appears real is just spray-painted foam and cardboard cutouts. There’s no substance to the study of education. Without it, charlatans peddling false promises feast off our tax dollars while our schools wither. It’s a broken system.

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What would a city be like if the teachers’ unions didn’t just run the educational system, but the entire place top to bottom? To find out just pay a visit to the streets of Chicago. If you dare.

When Mayor Brandon Johnson ran for office, the Chicago Teachers Union had made its pitch for its former “legislative coordinator” after putting millions into his campaign by promising that “if a teacher became mayor, we could build the city we all deserve.”

It’s only May and 800 people have already been shot. The violence is so ubiquitous that the Cinco de Mayo parade had to be canceled due to gang violence along its route.

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During the gradual Islamic conquest of an infidel territory, part of the process involves the Islamization of kuffar cemeteries. In the initial phase, infidel graves are vandalized and desecrated. Eventually the cemeteries become Muslim cemeteries, but that may take a century or more. Islam is nothing if not patient.

The Tourtoirac Cemetery, in the Dordogne in southwestern France, has entered the early stages of the Islamic conversion.

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For a while now the joke has been going around that Biden’s two-state solution for the Israel-Hamas conflict involves the two states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. The more time passes, the more this seems not a joke at all. Biden is apparently terrified not only of the campus left, but that he could lose Michigan’s substantial Arab voting block, and hence the election, if he doesn’t placate them.

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The Verden regional court in Lower Saxony has upheld a verdict against Rotenburg AfD leader Marie-Thérèse Kaiser for incitement to hatred. The 27-year-old was also found guilty in the appeal hearing on Monday of inciting hatred against Afghan local workers.

For this, the politician now has to pay 100 day fines (a type of fine related to daily income of the convicted) plus a fine of €60, a total of €6,000. In Germany, you are considered to have a criminal record if you are sentenced to pay more than 90 day fines.

The charge was based on a post that Kaiser had spread on her social media accounts in August 2021. In it, she wrote: “Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for ‘unbureaucratic’ acceptance; Welcoming culture for gang rape?”

Among other things, the politician linked to an article showing that Afghans in Germany are particularly heavily involved in gang rape.

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In yet another damning development for the ‘safe and effective’ crowd, AstraZeneca has announced the worldwide withdrawal of its Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, branded as Vaxzevria, due to a rare but serious side effect. This decision marks the end of the vaccine once hailed as a “triumph for British science” by Boris Johnson and credited with saving over six million lives, The Telegraph reports.

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Parks Canada has decided to offer a real break in 2024 for people looking to enjoy some of Canada’s glorious outdoors and backwoods.

But only people who are newcomers and new Canadian citizens. In a Parks Canada post, the federal government agency announced that there will be “Free admission for newcomers to Canada and new Canadian citizens” in 2024. That applies to any park in Canada, from B.C. to Newfound and Labrador and there is no indication that free access is limited.

Other Canadians will continue to pay $151.25 for a season’s pass for up to seven family members or $75.25 for an individual season’s pass that is good for any federally owned park. A day pass for what is perhaps the best-known national park in Canada – in Banff, AB – is $11 a day.

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The GM Purple Tomato was engineered by scientists at Norfolk Plant Sciences in the UK. Led by biochemist Cathie Martin and her team, the project aimed to harness the natural properties of anthocyanins, compounds found in blueberries and blackberries, to enhance the nutritional profile of tomatoes.

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That thumping sound you hear is Sir Robert Baden-Powell trying to escape from his tomb.

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Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., called for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and charge him with committing genocide during the Israel-Hamas war.

While we’re at it, we can arrest Congressperson Tlaib for treason and violating the Logan Act.

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The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression conducted the survey after federal Judge Kyle Duncan’s speech on campus was shouted down last year. The report evaluated students’ perspectives about free speech on campus and protests in the aftermath of the event.

FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens told The College Fix the research found “considerably higher” support for canceling a speaker among Stanford students when compared to their peers nationwide.

The survey found 54 percent of Stanford students believed Duncan’s speech to the law school’s Federalist Society chapter should have been canceled by the administration. Additionally, 75 percent said shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking was acceptable in some circumstances.

Meanwhile, 36 percent said the same about using physical violence to stop a speech, the report found.

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Republican-led states are suing the Biden administration and advising schools to ignore the new federal Title IX changes that expand sex discrimination protection to students who identify as the opposite sex, or transgender.

Don’t bother to change the law–just change the definition!

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The New York Times has released 10,000 pages of raw government data on unaccompanied alien children who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. More than 550,000 minors crossed the border illegally between 2015 and 2018.

The New York Times has released a trove of raw government data on the unaccompanied alien children who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in recent years. Among over 10,000 pages of information is data on the number of children who crossed the border into America without an adult and then were handed over to someone other than a family member.

From January 2015 through May 2023, the U.S. Department of Human Health and Services released tens of thousands of minors who crossed the border illegally to sponsors who weren’t an immediate or distant relative, raising concerns about human trafficking and forced labor.

Oh, ya think?

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The Picard principle is the adage that “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.” This principle denotes that even if you follow the best course of action available to you, you can sometimes still end up with a negative outcome, such as failure to achieve your goals.

The Picard principle is important in many areas of life, so it’s worth understanding it properly. As such, in the following article you will learn more about this principle, and see how you can use it in practice.

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concern in Japan, which has a rapidly aging population. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate how age-adjusted mortality rates (AMRs) for different types of cancer in Japan changed during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022). Official statistics from Japan were used to compare observed annual and monthly AMRs with predicted rates based on pre-pandemic (2010-2019) figures using logistic regression analysis. No significant excess mortality was observed during the first year of the pandemic (2020). However, some excess cancer mortalities were observed in 2021 after mass vaccination with the first and second vaccine doses, and significant excess mortalities were observed for all cancers and some specific types of cancer (including ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate cancer, lip/oral/pharyngeal cancer, pancreatic cancer, and breast cancer) after mass vaccination with the third dose in 2022. AMRs for the four cancers with the most deaths (lung, colorectal, stomach, and liver) showed a decreasing trend until the first year of the pandemic in 2020, but the rate of decrease slowed in 2021 and 2022. This study discusses possible explanations for these increases in age-adjusted cancer mortality rates.

Check it out.

I don’t eat wog food, so it’s of no use to me, but it must be good for somebody.

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From a complement to fries to a hint of acid on upscale dishes, balsamic vinegar is one of the world’s most recognisable condiments. And yet, many have never tasted the real thing.
From an accompaniment to French fries at the local burger joint to hint of acid added to Michelin-starred dishes, balsamic vinegar is one of the most recognisable condiments on the global table. And yet, many have never tasted the real “black gold” of Modena, Italy. It takes 12 years to make the best, aceto balsamico tradizionale (traditional balsamic vinegar), and at least 25 to make the finest, extra Vecchio.
Because of traditional balsamic vinegar’s painstaking artisanal production process, supplies are limited, and it tends to be rather pricey. And so, as the global demand for it has risen since the early 1980s, a market for imitation balsamic vinegar and cheaper products has exploded. In one instance in March 2019, a dramatic Interpol operation in northern Italy seized 9,000 tonnes of crushed grapes intended to be made into fake balsamic vinegar.

Babylon Bee.

A new wave of controversy erupted as 12 women came forward alleging they had been sexually assaulted by whoever Trump’s vice presidential pick would end up being.

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The Muslim Brotherhood has grown from 50,000 to 100,000 members in France since 2019. According to territorial intelligence, it has doubled its numbers in France in a few years.

France’s minister of the interior, Gérald Darmanin, has announced in the press that he wants to “fight back against the Muslim Brotherhood.” According to territorial intelligence, the Muslim Brotherhood, which aims to establish a global caliphate, has doubled its numbers in France in just a few years. At the Defence Council, the French president Emmanuel Macron asked for a report on the threat it poss—a welcome but late and inadequate recognition.

The interior minister speaks of a “race against time,” a “Gramscian” cultural/institutional battle against a “vicious” organisation, a “challenge.” Darmanin describes the mechanisms at work: “The Brotherist organisation does not use terrorism, it uses much softer methods, but it works effectively for the gradual tipping of all sections of society into the Islamic matrix.”

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The center-right Austrian People’s Party has lost nearly half of its supporters since the beginning of 2021. Chancellor Karl Nehammer announced that DNA tests and other measures would be used to better regulate against family reunification abuse. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner and Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg will implement the measures in the next few days.

The center-right Austrian People’s People (ÖVP), which has lost nearly half of its supporters since the beginning of 2021, largely on account of its failure to reduce mass migration, is looking for new ways to regain the trust of voters ahead of European elections in June and national elections in autumn.

To demonstrate to voters that the People’s Party is committed to limiting migration, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) earlier this week announced that DNA tests and other measures would be used to better regulate against family reunification abuse.

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Bipartisan members of Congress are seeking a refund on U.S. aid that was given to a controversial United Nations agency this year.