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Ruth King

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Tirades by Twits Closing in on half a century of political rants at the Oscars. Bruce Bawer

By on March 25th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/tirades-twits-bruce-bawer/

It all goes back to the 1970s, as do so many of the worst features of contemporary American society and culture. At the 1974 Oscar ceremony, Roger Moore and Liv Ullmann stepped onstage to present the Best Actor award. For some reason, Ullmann decided to quote her frequent collaborator Ingmar Bergman: “Often to be most eloquent is to be silent.” This aperçu didn’t seem particularly relevant at the moment, but about five minutes later it would seem the very deepest wisdom.

Anyway, Moore and Ullmann broke out the envelope. The winner: Marlon Brando for The Godfather. But the person who walked down the aisle to accept the award wasn’t Brando. It was a young woman in an American Indian getup straight out of Central Casting. When Moore held the statuette out to her, she held up her palm to refuse it. And then she spoke.

“Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather. I’m Apache and I am president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. I’m representing Marlon Brando this evening.” Brando, she explained, was turning down his Oscar in protest against “the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry…and on television in movie re-runs.” He was, she added, also displeased by the government’s aggressive response to the recent occupation of the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, by members of the Oglala Lakota tribe.

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BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Black Agenda is a Nihilistic and Socialist Agenda When the end goal is to crush the American Dream. Jason Hill

By on March 25th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/03/black-agenda-nihilistic-and-socialist-agenda-jason-hill/

The Black Agenda: Bold Solutions for A Broken System, edited by Anna Gifty Opoku-Ageyman, a twenty-four-year old graduate student of public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School, has as its stated goal that, no matter where you show up on the spectrum of blackness, that the United States owes you something. The contributors are a broad phalanx of scholars and administrators from a multiplicity of fields wrung from public policy, computer science, medical engineering, economics, epidemiology, the Department of Agriculture and environmentalism and climate justice. The book is not a work in scholarship but, rather, short three-to-four-page opinion pieces on a swath of issues that deal with the absence of equity in health between the races, the need to abolish the carceral system and, in the writers’ views, the necessity of examining the disproportionate number of murders of black citizens committed by white police officers  versus those against white citizens.

The book is predicated on the notion that the United States has violated its social contract with black Americans and kept their expertise outside the framing narratives that influence public opinion and shape public policy. The book is also a formal accusation against those blacks who are experts and are part of the infrastructure of public discourse. For such individuals who are not affirmatively putting black expertise as one of the valences of their institutions or organization, then they are de facto part of the white counter-response to blackness. Part of the black agenda is a call for black experts to align their economic behaviors with their social and cultural values.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The real Russiagate smoking gun All these years later, the walls are closing in on Hillary: Peter Van Buren

By on March 25th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/real-russiagate-smoking-gun/

Hard as the programmers try and tell us there is only one story at a time — Ukraine for now — or that a trite phrase like “but her emails” dismisses one of the most important political events of our time, something sinister happened in the United States which demands our attention. If we remain distracted, it will happen again in 2024.

We are looking for two smoking guns now in connection with Russiagate. Today’s Part I will show that Hillary Clinton herself sat atop a large-scale conspiracy to use the tools of modern espionage to create and disseminate false information about Donald Trump. Part II to follow will show that the FBI was an active participant in that conspiracy. In the mainstream media vernacular, we are bearing witness.

In summer of 2016, Hillary Clinton’s private email server and her improper handling of classified information was the political story. Consensus was that the election was Hillary’s to lose — that her opponents in general and the Trump clown show in particular could not stop her.

But despite the mainstream media’s heroic attempts to downplay the importance of the emails, the issue lingered in the public mind, often aided by Hillary’s own contradictory statements.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

COLLEGE OFFICIALS: THE MOST WITLESS PEOPLE ON EARTH

By on March 25th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/03/25/college-officials-the-most-witless-people-on-earth/

Day after day we read of cases in which a speaker was shut down on a college campus, a group was denied a forum or chased from the public square, or free inquiry was snuffed out because there might be words uttered or written that could “hurt” someone. Will the administrators and professors who refuse to punish this behavior, and even sometimes support it, ever understand that the invented grievances aren’t about offense but about having power over others?

Just this week, The College Fix reported that a University of Virginia student wrote in The Cavalier Daily that it was dangerous for former Vice President Mike Pence to speak on campus. In the mind of that student, ​​speech that bothers her is “not entitled to a platform.”

Earlier this month, The Fix covered the story of a black, female Christian scholar who won’t be returning to Christopher Newport University after spring semester because she tweeted an unapproved but entirely harmless opinion.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Silence of the Lambs Michael Walsh

By on March 24th, 2022

https://the-pipeline.org/the-silence-of-the-lambs/

It seems that a lad named Will Thomas, complete with God-given willie—his John Thomas if you will—is now a NCAA “women’s” swimming champion, having finished “first” in a women’s 500-yard freestyle event, beating off a bunch of real girls in the course of his famous victory. Not that he pretends to be a real woman, mind you; no, he’s “making history” as “the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title,” a dubious distinction given that he’s not “transgender” in any meaningful sense of the word, and thus his “first place” finish in a women’s event has exactly zero validity. As Abraham Lincoln once said: calling a dog’s tail a leg doesn’t make it so. If Thomas wants to be called “Lia” that’s his business—but let him compete in the men’s events.

Ah, but this is the lunatic world we currently live in, thanks in large part to the tolerance brigade, which demands that normal people (and yes, there are such things) tolerate and even encourage mental illness on a hitherto unimagined scale—as a glance at the mentally ill people who post their psychological problems on TikTok and Twitter for all the world to admire plainly indicates. Never mind the damage this does to impressionable and insecure young people, some of whom have killed themselves after being pressured into “transitioning.” Time was when demanding that humanity address you as Napoleon bought you a trip to the funny farm; today, psycho-sexual mini-emperors lord it over the rest of society and demand to be indulged and given prizes.

 What did Dr. Lecter say? “He’s making himself a girl suit out of real girls.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tulsi Gabbard Roasts Ketanji Jackson for her Inability to Define ‘Woman’ By Matt Margolis

By on March 24th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/24/tulsi-gabbard-roasts-ketanji-jacksons-inability-to-define-woman-n1583978

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been widely mocked by the right for saying she couldn’t define what a “woman” is because she isn’t a biologist, but she’s also getting mocked from the left.

On Thursday, former congresswoman and Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard blasted Jackson, saying that if she can’t define what a woman is, she can’t protect the rights of women.

“In order to have a Supreme Court committed to protecting the rights of all Americans, including women, every justice needs to understand there is such a thing as a woman, as distinct from a man,” Gabbard said on Twitter. “Yet when asked to define the word ‘woman,’ Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said, ‘I don’t know.’”

“The hypocrisy and absurdity of this is that she was nominated by President Biden in large part because she is a woman,” she added.

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FOREIGN POLICY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Before Going to War, Consider Who’s in Charge Let’s not go charging into the valley of death with our junto of fatuous fanatics in command.       By Stephen Balch

By on March 24th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/03/23/before-going-to-war-consider-whos-in-charge/

America is drifting toward war, wafted by a chorus of political and punditical sirens. A great many of them are conservatives, including popular media personalities with large audiences. They’ve been warned by other conservatives about the risks of confrontation with Russia that deeper intervention in Ukraine poses.

But since few want to abandon the Ukrainians altogether, the conservative camp faces a quandary. How much risk is too much risk? Is riskiness more a matter of the quantity or the quality of support we provide to Ukraine? Is it more a matter of optics or battlefield utility? Does it matter from exactly whence it immediately arrives? Is it important how much it steers the antagonists toward possible off-ramps? These would be difficult questions for even a consummate diplomatist to answer. Not an eager player of Russian roulette, for whatever it’s worth, I incline toward overall prudence. Keep the supplies flowing at pretty much their present rate and hope deadlock leads eventually to an agreement that neither side will like but that both can politically accept. Or so it seems to me.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

‘Diversity’ at Annapolis By Jim Tulley

By on March 24th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/diversity_at_annapolis.html

“The Naval Academy’s ODEI Mission web page states goals of making the Academy an “inclusive campus,” ensuring “equitable access'” and addressing the “challenges of underrepresented populations.”  This reads like political correctness at an institution where the real mission is to train combat leaders.  So, Admiral, please enlighten us.  How and why does your new diverse culture make our Navy a stronger fighting force?”

“Why” is a wonderful, troublesome, puzzling, and sometimes irritating word.  When asked by children, it often elicits a response of “because I said so.”  In other situations, it might cause us to think.  So when someone says, “Our diversity is our strength,” why does no one ask why?

If the statement means “diversity of thought,” who could disagree?  This country has practiced such for over 200 years.  It is central to the structure of our federal government, as 50 states govern in different ways that work best for their unique circumstances.  If it’s diversity of culture, there is no argument.  In an open society, it is almost a given.

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Russia not taking Gen. Mark Milley’s phone calls By Monica Showalter

By on March 24th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/03/russia_not_taking_gen_mark_milleys_phone_calls.html

Gen. Mark Milley, the Pentagon swamp creature who brought us the Afghanistan pullout and turned the U.S. military focus to “white rage,” doesn’t seem to be able to get Russia’s generals, now bombing Ukraine, to return his phone calls.

According to the Washington Post:

Repeated attempts by the United States’ top defense and military leaders to speak with their Russian counterparts have been rejected by Moscow for the last month, leaving the world’s two largest nuclear powers in the dark about explanations for military movements and raising fears of a major miscalculation or battlefield accident.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have tried to set up phone calls with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Valery Gerasimov but the Russians “have so far declined to engage,” said Pentagon spokesman John Kirby in a statement Wednesday.

The attempted calls by Austin and Milley, which have not previously been reported, come as Russia conducts operations near the borders of NATO members Poland and Romania while the United States and its European allies conduct air-policing operations over the Baltic Sea and pour weapons and equipment into Ukraine by ground transport.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

The Absurd Attempt to Defend Lia Thomas’s Competing as a Woman By Jenna Stocker

By on March 24th, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/the-absurd-attempt-to-defend-lia-thomass-competing-as-a-woman/?utm_source=recirc-

A Washington Post columnist ridiculously argues that we shouldn’t care about Lia Thomas competing as female because sports aren’t about competition anyway.

W riting in last Thursday’s Washington Post, Sally Jenkins poses several questions regarding the nature of college athletics, the purpose of the NCAA, and the role of competition in collegiate sports — all in the context of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. But what Jenkins is really doing is ignoring the essential element of sport: competition — specifically, fair competition. Removing fair competition from the debate and making it about “becomingness” obscures the inherent biological advantage of transgender women, because admitting to unfair competition means drawing the conclusion that transgender women are not women, and revealing that the whole progressive argument for gender identity being equal to immutable biological fact is a farce.

Thomas, up until the spring 2019, identified as a man and swam on the University of Pennsylvania’s men’s swimming team and just recently competed in the NCAA women’s swimming championships, where he placed in the prestigious top eight in all three of his individual events, including a first-place finish in the 500-yard freestyle.

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