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February 2022

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Part Two: COVID, Politics and Psychology Phil Shannon

By on February 7th, 2022

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/public-health/2022/02/part-two-covid-politics-and-psychology/

Individual and social psychology offers valuable insights into hysterical personal and small group behaviour under COVID, but how can psychology explain the society-wide mass hysteria?  Enter the theory of ‘mass formation psychosis’.  Psychosis is a severe mental disorder which causes, in an individual, abnormal thought processes at odds with reality.  Psychosis at a mass population level, however, occurs when everyone, simultaneously, goes psychotic together. Think of it as the way a hive frenzy develops when each individual bee gets extremely angry because every other bee is getting angry.

Dr. Mattias Desmet, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Ghent in Belgium, has been Johnny-on-the-spot during COVID by rebranding mass hysteria as ‘mass formation psychosis’ (MFP).  Desmet’s theory has its antecedents in crowd psychology, especially the collective madness of crowds.  In his formulation, MFP arises from the dynamic of individuals acting as a crowd in projecting their own free-floating, generalised personal anxieties, frustration and aggression onto the social construct of a COVID ‘pandemic’ and providing a sense of renewed ‘social belonging’ to mitigate the anxiety.

In MFP, sacrifice (lockdown, for example) and heroism (such as self-quarantine) are called upon whilst opportunities for virtuous behaviour proliferate (‘I’m masking up, getting jabbed, self-isolating for your benefit’).  All participants in the COVID-driven MFP reinforce the mass psychosis by passing on their latest traumatic fears to each other in a closed-system, positive-feedback loop (‘Oh my God, now it’s Omicron!  It’s highly contagious!  Run for the hills!’) whilst thrashing around for scapegoats to make them feel subjectively safer because all their pet interventions have delivered nothing of any benefit.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

The Inevitable Cuomo Comeback Daniel Greenfield

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/02/inevitable-cuomo-comeback-daniel-greenfield/

There was no reckoning for the monster in Albany, not for the nursing home deaths or the blatant discrimination against religious Jews.

Instead, local Dems ousted him with some weak #MeToo allegations because they wanted to avoid political collateral damage. It should surprise no one, least of all them, that Dracula wants to make a comeback.

The track record for disgraced New York Dem comebacks hasn’t been that great, just ask Elliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner. But, on the other hand, both did manage to get a shot. If Weiner hadn’t re-disgraced himself, and if Spitzer managed to be a little bit likable, they might have made it.

Cuomo knows the history and he’s going to test the waters.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his aides are intensifying an effort to revive his public standing, including discussing how to make his first public appearance since resigning in August, according to people close to him.

Mr. Cuomo and his remaining aides have been calling former allies and political operatives to complain about New York Attorney General Letitia James, who oversaw an investigation that concluded Mr. Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women, including current and former state employees. The former Democratic governor has denied touching anybody inappropriately and said the investigation was politically motivated.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Debunking the ‘Race Crazy’ Left An interview with the author of a new book on the progressive racism movement. Jason D. Hill

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/debunking-race-crazy-left-jason-d-hill/

Charles Love, the Executive Director of Seeking Educational Excellence (SEE) and the host of The Charles Love Show, has written a beautiful and highly stylized book that can truly be described as death by impeccable logic and reason to Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the 1619 Project. Race Crazy: BLM, 1619, and the Progressive Racism Movement is a brilliant tour de force that identifies, and then destroys with surgical precision, the false claims made by both movements. More importantly, Love has exposed the egregious harm they inflict on the moral reputation of all black Americans, and the nefarious indictment they make against America as an evil country.

In Race Crazy he sets the record straight in debunking these shibboleths and, in the process, restores grandeur and honor to America, and reminds us of the promise of hope, redemption, and prosperity she delivers to those blessed to live up to her name.

I interviewed him recently about the success of his latest book.

Jason D. Hill: Charles, congratulations on your new bestseller. The extant literature on Black Lives Matter, the 1619 Movement and—yes, what we can call Progressive Racism as deployed through Critical Race Theory and woke ideology is gargantuan. What makes your book stand apart from all the other books and articles on the subjects, and why did you decide to write it?

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Rape of Britain Tommy Robinson delivers a stunning documentary on Muslim rape gangs. Bruce Bawer

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/02/rape-britain-bruce-bawer/

On May 25, 2018, Tommy Robinson was standing outside the courthouse in Leeds, England, microphone in hand, reporting live on the trial of several Muslims for child rape, when, without prior warning, he was arrested for breach of peace, hustled into a van, and, within the space of four hours, tried, convicted, and sentenced to thirteen months’ incarceration – not, curiously enough, for breach of peace but for contempt of court. Conveyed tout de suite to the prison in Kingston upon Hull, he spent much of the next year and a half in and out of lockup, undergoing physical and psychological torment while behind bars and the rankest of forensic malpractice while at the so-called bar of justice.

And why did all this happen? Here’s why. Islam teaches its adherents that (1) they’re in a state of constant war with the infidel and (2) sex with minors (as demonstrated by the fact the prophet Muhammed took his wife Aisha’s virginity when she was nine) is permissible; consequently, Muslim men have every right to molest the children of the infidel at will. As Islamic communities established themselves in major English cities, Muslim rape gangs, known as “grooming gangs,” took root. Eventually, thousands upon thousands of non-Muslim girls, almost all of them members of the working class, would be victimized by these gangs, not just once apiece but repeatedly, in most case over a period of years.

British police, social workers, and journalists are known to have been aware of this phenomenon for decades. But instead of addressing it fully and responsibly – which, they know, would have required mass arrests and prosecutions of prominent Muslims, and frank media coverage of these transgressions as well as of their roots in Islamic doctrine, all of which in turn would almost certainly have led to social tumult on a dangerous scale – these parties chose to do and say nothing. And when confronted with a single individual who refused to play along – a working-class bloke who insisted on shouting from the rooftops both about these offenses and the official policy of silence and subterfuge – they knew what they had to do: vilify him, smear him, find crimes to charge him with, lock him up and hope that Muslim fellow inmates would do the rest. Or, failing that, hope that after he’d endured a certain amount of persecution, he’d break down, or give up, and crawl away into a hole and keep his mouth shut.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Why Colleges Don’t Care About Free Speech It’s incentives more than ideology, and there’s a simple fix. By John Hasnas

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-dont-care-free-speech-ilya-shapiro-treanor-georgetown-cancel-pc-culture-censorship-campus-11644167414?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

Mr. Hasnas is a professor of business and law at Georgetown and executive director of the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Markets and Ethics.

“In the absence of damage awards, university administrators won’t act against their own interests merely to uphold an abstract commitment to free speech. The threat of such awards would make universities like Georgetown put their money where their mouths are.”

Georgetown University’s law school violated its own speech policy last week when it placed Ilya Shapiro, a newly hired administrator, on leave over a tweet that offended some students. Why do universities make grandiloquent commitments to freedom of speech, then fail to honor them? It isn’t so much an issue of ideology as a problem of incentives.

Georgetown’s policy states that speech “may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived.”

Yet that’s what happened when Mr. Shapiro tweeted that the candidate he viewed as “objectively” most qualified for the Supreme Court “alas doesn’t fit into latest intersectionality hierarchy so we’ll get lesser black woman.” The dean of Georgetown Law, William Treanor, announced that Mr. Shapiro’s comment was “at odds with everything we stand for at Georgetown Law” and ordered “an investigation into whether he violated our policies and expectations on professional conduct, non-discrimination, and anti-harassment.”

Regardless of Mr. Treanor’s political views, he has every reason to do this. University administrators get no reward for upholding abstract principles. Their incentive is to quell on-campus outrage and bad press as quickly as possible. Success is widely praised, but there is no punishment for failing to uphold the university’s commitment to free speech.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Rushing to a Weaker Iran Deal The U.S. makes another pre-emptive concession, as Tehran demands more.

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/rushing-to-a-weaker-iran-deal-nuclear-inspectors-concessions-sanctions-oil-exports-missiles-11644170016?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

The diplomatic signs point to the Biden Administration striking a revised nuclear deal with Iran, and the latest bad news is sanctions relief even before an accord is struck.

On Friday Secretary of State Antony Blinken restored sanctions waivers on Iranian civilian nuclear activity that the Trump Administration had rescinded in 2020. Foreign companies working on such projects will now be exempt from economic penalties. Iran’s foreign minister responded that the latest move was “good but not enough.” Pre-emptive concessions invite more demands.

“We did NOT provide sanctions relief for Iran and WILL NOT until/unless Tehran returns to its commitments under the JCPOA,” State Department spokesman Ned Price tweeted. This is semantic spin. Friday’s move was only the most recent concession.

Washington lifted sanctions on several Iranian officials and firms in June and ended the fight to restore “snap back” sanctions at the United Nations a year ago. Iran’s oil exports began recovering last year after falling from 2.5 million barrels a day in 2017 to less than half a million daily in 2020, as U.S. enforcement eased.

Western negotiators have been saying since December that there are only weeks left to restore the deal, yet the talks roll on. Members of the American team reportedly quit over chief negotiator’s Robert Malley’s soft stance.

The 2015 deal was weak enough, with nuclear restraints phased out by 2031. It didn’t address Iran’s missile program nor its malign regional activity. The nuclear knowledge Iran has gained from violating the deal can’t be unlearned. “The Biden administration expects a restored nuclear deal would leave Iran capable of amassing enough nuclear fuel for a bomb in significantly less than a year, a shorter time frame than the one that underpinned the 2015 agreement,” the Journal reported last week.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Who Gets to Join the Black Caucus in Virginia? By John Fund

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/02/who-gets-to-join-the-black-caucus-in-virginia/

If you’re not a liberal, you need not apply.A. C. Cordoza, a black Republican in the Virginia House of Delegates, is excluded from the legislature’s Black Caucus.

V irginia Democrats are certainly taking their defeat last November hard. Last week, they spitefully refused the application of the lone black Republican in the House of Delegates to join the Black Caucus — which in theory is open to non-Democrats.

A. C. Cordoza, who won a surprise election last November in a significantly minority district in Hampton, took to the House floor to say he had been excluded because he dared to have “diverse” ideas. “The questions for entry had little to do with being black and had more to do with being leftist,” said Cordoza. He said the questionnaire asked about his three top environmental-justice priorities, whether he favored charter schools, whether he would limit recalls of election officials to “end harassment,” and whether he would repeal laws limiting suits against police officers. He was also asked if he backed pro-union legislation, abortion rights, mask mandates, and gun control.

“These questions . . . spit in the face of our ancestors who fought to have all of our rights guaranteed,” Cordoza said. “I asked myself what any of those things mentioned have to do with being black. The answer is it has nothing to do with being black. . . . The caucus is not about being black, it’s about being leftist.”

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HUMOR AND SATIRE Comments turned off

CNN Employees Now Required To Wear Chastity Belts

By on February 7th, 2022

https://babylonbee.com/news/cnn-employees-now-required-to-wear-chastity-belts

NEW YORK—Following a slew of sexual misconduct allegations concerning staff,
CNN has been forced to take extreme action to repair its image. The interim president has announced that henceforth, all CNN employees must wear chastity belts at all times.

“I know everyone wants to sleep with me, Jim Acosta,” said Jim Acosta. “But this seems like overkill.”

“I have never done anything wrong, ever,” said Jake Tapper. “I’m not sure why this is necessary.” 

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Brian Stelter sporting his new metal chastity belt. “We take sexual misconduct seriously at CNN, that’s why we have all gladly locked ourselves away, lest we be tempted.”

“We considered a multitude of options, but none of them made as much sense as simply placing a giant cage and metal padlock over every employee’s genitals.” said new CNN interim President Michael Bass. “Some have called this measure overkill, and inconvenient—I call it necessary.”

The keys to the belts have all been given to their spouses for safekeeping. “I can’t tell what this move has done for our marriage,” said Brian Stelter’s wife. “Knowing that my Brian is not acting up in the office has given me tremendous peace of mind.”

At publishing time, CNN was forced to up their requirement to force all employees to wear straight jackets to prevent staff from getting ‘handsy’ in the breakroom.

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BOOKS, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Reading, Writing and Gender Bending . By Debra Saunders

By on February 7th, 2022

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/02/06/reading_writing_and_gender_bending_147132.html

The New York Times is concerned about censorship in American schools. “Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S.” reads Sunday’s headline.

“Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers around the country are challenging books at a pace not seen in decades,” the story reports.

The story generally focuses on parents, but methinks the uptick in outrage has more to do with the books than the parents.

Books in the crosshairs, the Times reports, include “Sex Is a Funny Word,” described on Barnes & Noble’s website as “an essential resource about bodies, gender, and sexuality for children ages 8 to 10 as well as their parents and caregivers.”

I get that my profession loves to portray parents who oppose approved textbooks as unsophisticated and wrong-headed, but I see parents who recall a period in their childhood when they were clueless about sex — and want the same timeout for their 8-year-olds.

And they might not welcome an early-grade textbook with a drawing of a smiling child in a bathtub with text that explains, “Grown-ups call this kind of touch masturbation.”

I understand that there are young children who question their sexual identity and might welcome such a book. Their parents are free to buy that book. Other parents have the right to set limits on what schools tell their children about sex.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN’s collapse is now complete By Joe Concha

By on February 7th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/592969-cnns-collapse-is-now-complete

It all began 42 years ago — Ted Turner’s creation of a 24/7 news network that would exist on something called cable TV. Few believed it could succeed. 

And, for its first decade, CNN largely chugged along but wasn’t seen as a game-changer or ​a true competitor to big broadcast news entities based in New York in the form of CBS, NBC and ABC. That all changed when war broke out between the United States and Iraq in 1991.  

On the night war exploded over Baghdad, CNN was the only news organization that was able to broadcast from the city under siege as the U.S. onslaught began, all courtesy of the CNN team’s ability to convince the Iraqi government to grant them a line out of the city to broadcast​, one that the competition could not secure.

“How CNN Won the War” was the glowing headline from The Washington Post on a story that perfectly chronicled the events that led to CNN officially becoming a major player. And off it went. 

Until 2002, CNN was ​No. 1 in the cable news race. But competition that hadn’t existed before ended its dominance forever, primarily in the form of Fox News and, to a lesser extent, MSNBC. Despite the ratings results, CNN continued to carry itself as a credible, facts-first network of integrity that leaned heavily on solid reporting with a sprinkling of opinion and infotainment mixed in via programs such as “Larry King Live” and “Crossfire.”  

In 2013, the network hired former NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to take the reins as ratings continued to be below average at best. This gave Zucker a mandate to radically change the network from its journalistic roots of more than three decades — the months-long wall-to-wall coverage of a missing Malaysian airliner being an early example.

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