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Ruth King

Team Biden’s Witches’ Brew James Allan

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/02/team-bidens-witches-brew/

“Until differing opinions aren’t censored and their advocates de-platformed or fired; until law and order (including at the border) is highly prized; until jobs are a priority; and until education and hard work are widely esteemed, things look bleak for the US. And that means things look bleak here in Australia and throughout the West.”

Last week I was speaking on matters political with Larry Alexander, an American friend who also happens to be one of the world’s leading legal philosophers. Larry’s rather unusual in that he’s a US academic who holds right-of-centre political views in a US law school.  I thought it worth giving readers the gist of his views about our current situation, all of which are spot-on in my view.  You see Larry believes that we are living in what seem to be terribly fraught times, times that are even more worrisome than those at the height of Cold War tensions.  So what are these overweening concerns of his?

Many relate to US government policies. The Biden administration seems hell bent on reversing every Trump administration policy, even those that were quite successful. On illegal immigration, which the Trump team managed to reduce significantly, Team Biden seeks to make illegal entry easier and its legal consequences less of a deterrent. This will almost assuredly result in a significant influx of the unskilled, themselves infiltrated by gang members, cartel mules, and parentless children. Where the Trump administration managed to achieve energy independence, Team Biden has now halted drilling on federal lands and offshore and has killed the Keystone pipeline. With respect to the climate, which saw carbon emissions decrease during the Trump years, Team Biden has announced its intention to rejoin the Paris Accord, which will have no effect on the world’s major polluters but will impose needless costs on Americans, and other signatories, including Australians. (And why, if Team Biden is really concerned with greenhouse gases, does it not push for nuclear power?)

The Trump administration, pre-pandemic, engineered a very good economy with spectacularly low unemployment rates and widespread increases of incomes. It did so with a combination of deregulation and lower taxes. Team Biden appears to favor a large influx of foreign unskilled labor, a more than doubling of the minimum wage, the elimination of energy sector jobs, higher taxes, and more regulation. This is a witches’ brew of anti-employment, anti-growth policies.

As Germans freeze, leading newspaper calls green energy strategy ‘a dangerous miscalculation’ By Dennis Sevakis

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/as_germans_freeze_leading_newspaper_calls_green_energy_strategy_a_dangerous_miscalculation.html

The very green Germans have major concerns regarding their dependence on renewables:

‘Die Welt’ Commentary: “Europe Can’t Bail Out The German Power Supply”…Calls Strategy “A Dangerous Miscalculation”
Germany has seriously overestimated how much its neighboring countries are able to help out in the event wind and solar energy fail to deliver, thus putting its power supply at risk.
By P. Gosselin on 11 September 2018

Little attention is paid to the question of just how much “climate change” is a result of human activity — i.e., CO2 emissions into the atmosphere resulting from the burning of fossil fuels.  Does anyone have a handle on this?

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions

ABSTRACT:We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. 

Parliament in France Passes Anti-Islamist Bill By Rick Moran

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2021/02/17/parliament-in-france-passes-anti-islamist-bill-n1426249

The lower house of the French parliament passed a hotly debated law that would not only heavily scrutinized Muslim mosques, schools, and sports clubs for Islamist influences but also promote respect for French values like free speech.

The bill passed 347-151, with 65 abstentions. French President Macron is being accused of promoting the bill to attract far-right anti-immigrant voters in the lead-up to the presidential vote next year.

Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Rally Party finished second to Macron in the 2017 elections, failing to win a runoff. Immigration was a huge issue during the campaign and Macron appears to be trying to protect his right flank with this bill.

Associated Press:

The bill gained added urgency after a teacher was beheaded outside Paris in October and three people were killed during a knife attack at a Nice basilica the same month.

A section that makes it a crime to knowingly endanger the life of a person by providing details of their private life and location is known as the ’’Paty law.” It was named for Samuel Paty, the teacher who was killed outside his school after information about where he taught was posted online in a video.

The bill bolsters other French efforts to fight extremism, mainly security-based.

The argument of opponents is that it unfairly targets a single group and that most of the crimes are covered by other laws. Muslims fear the law will be used injudiciously and could be an instrument of oppression.

But France’s largest Muslim group, the French Council for Muslim Faith, gave its blessing to the bill as did other religious groups. The bill never mentions “Muslims” or “Islam” by name, which was criticized by National Rally as a “half-measure.”

Our Descent Into Collective Madness?By Victor Davis Hanson *****

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/17/our-descent-into-collective-madness/

An ungracious and neurotic elite whose judgment is bankrupt and whose privilege is paid for by those who don’t have it threatens to drag us to the depths of unreason.

These are crazy times. A pandemic led to national quarantine, to self-induced recession, to riot, arson, and looting, to a contested election, and to a riot at the Capitol. 

In response, are we focusing solely on upping the daily vaccination rate? 

Getting the country back to work? Opening the schools as the virus attenuates? Ensuring safety in the streets? 

Or are we descending into a sort of madness?  

It might have been understandable that trillions of dollars had to be borrowed to keep a suffocating economy breathing. 

But it makes little sense to keep borrowing $2 trillion a year to prime an economy now set to roar back with herd-like immunity on the horizon. 

Trillions of dollars in stimulus are already priming the economy. 

Cabin-feverish Americans are poised to get out of their homes to travel, eat out, and socialize as never before. 

Meanwhile, the United States will have to start paying down $30 trillion in debt. But we seem more fixated on raising rather than reducing that astronomical obligation. 

We are told man-made, worldwide climate change—as in the now discarded term “global warming”—can best be addressed by massive dislocations in the U.S. economy. 

The Malignant Tradition of UC Irvine’s Hate-Israel Activists Still crazy after all these years. Richard L. Cravatts

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/malignant-tradition-uc-irvines-hate-israel-richard-l-cravatts/

If any area of the United States can be identified as the epicenter of anti-Israelism on campus, California, the nation’s most populous state, can certainly be said to have earned that dubious distinction. In fact, observers of out of control anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic activity on campuses consider California’s universities to be the veritable ground zero of such vitriol, with particularly troubling and persistent problems of radical student groups, venom-spewing guest speakers, annual hate-fests targeting Israel and Jewish students, and a pervasive mood on campus in which Jewish students and other pro-Israel faculty and students experienced visceral and real “harassment, intimidation and discrimination,” as a Zionist Organization of America’s (ZOA) complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights described the situation on one campus, the University of California at Irvine.

In fact, UC-Irvine has for two decades been the epicenter of anti-Israel activism in California—and as a result, in the entire country—and this month, the university’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) continued that noxious tradition by successfully pushing a BDS resolution through the student government, a bill entitled “UC Divestment from Apartheid 2021,” which, in addition to once again leveling the mendacious charge of apartheid against Israel, suggested that “Israel has terrorized, displaced, and killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from its founding,” and that “Israel continues to follow the methods of terror from its founding until the present day.”

Oregon Promotes ‘Dismantling Racism’ in Math Instruction Is expecting the “right” answer a characteristic of “white supremacy”? Sara Dogan

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/oregon-promotes-dismantling-racism-math-sara-dogan/

In a February 2021 bulletin sent out by the Oregon Department of Education, just below a feature on Black History Month, is a notice announcing a “micro-course” for educators titled “A Pathway to Math Equity.” The course promises to provide educators with “key tools for engagement [and] strategies to improve equitable outcomes for Black, Latinx, and multilingual students” and knowledge on how to “dismantle racism in mathematics instruction.”

One might well ask, how can math—which more than any other subject deals in the realm of pure logic—possibly be racist? The “toolkit” provided as a resource for the first course session is happy to answer this question.

“We see white supremacy culture show up in the mathematics classroom even as we carry out our professional responsibilities” explains the guide. Educators must therefore take on the responsibility for “visibilizing the toxic characteristics of white supremacy culture with respect to math.”

These “toxic characteristics” include basic academic principles such as:

The focus is on getting the “right” answer.
Teachers are teachers and students are learners.
Independent practice is valued over teamwork or collaboration.
Students are required to “show their work.”
Grading practices are focused on lack of knowledge.
“Real-world math” is valued over math in the real world.
Students are tracked (into courses/pathways and within the classroom).
Participation structures reinforce dominant ways of being.

The New York Times’ Brazenly False ‘Fact Check’ About Trump’s Impeachment Trial James D. Agresti

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/18/the-new-york-times-brazenly-false-fact-check-about-trumps-impeachment-trial/

The New York Times has published a “fact check“ by Linda Qui declaring that Donald Trump’s lawyers “made a number of inaccurate or misleading claims” during the Senate impeachment trial. In reality, much of the article consists of flagrant falsehoods propagated by Qui and the Times.

‘Inciting Violence‘

With regard to Trump’s speech on the day of the Capitol Hill riot, Trump attorney Michael van der Veen said: “Far from promoting insurrection against the United States, the president’s remarks explicitly encouraged those in attendance to exercise their rights peacefully and patriotically.”

That statement is demonstrably true, as the transcript of the speech shows that Trump asked his supporters to go “to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Qui, however, alleges that his attorney’s statement “is exaggerated” because Trump “used the phrase ‘peacefully and patriotically’ once in his speech, compared with 20 uses of the word ‘fight’.”

Rush Limbaugh: Death Of A Giant

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/17/rush-limbaugh-death-of-a-giant/

Though widely anticipated, the death of Rush Limbaugh after a long battle with cancer is a major blow to conservatives. His witty, often acerbic commentary had been a daily anchor to reality for many Americans, tired of the mainstream media’s lies, bias and prevarications. But with his death, Limbaugh leaves a hole in the conservative movement that is impossible to fill.

The center-right media firmament has many bright stars. Unfortunately, none shine as brightly as Rush did. As the numerous accounts of his death and life point out, he was the most listened to radio show host in history.

He was a master of the medium, and used his three-hour daily radio platform both wisely and well. With 20 million listeners at his peak, Limbaugh singlehandedly turned more liberals and moderates into conservatives than perhaps anyone outside of Ronald Reagan. He was a cultural phenomenon.

That gave him unprecedented political clout for a radio personality. Frankly, we’re not sure who picks up the torch from here. Dennis Prager? Ben Shapiro? Mark Levin? Laura Ingraham? Dan Bongino? Sean Hannity? Andrew Klavan? John Batchelor? Michael Knowles? There are many possible candidates, each excellent and brilliant in his or her own way.

But none is likely to ever match Limbaugh’s raw muscle, reach and influence.

National Review’s description of Limbaugh’s media legacy is on target: “His lashing critiques of the Left, comic riffs, and combative ebullience spawned many imitators, but none of them came close to being his equal.”

False Hero of the Pandemic The disastrous results of Andrew Cuomo’s nursing-home policy are finally revealed. Joel Zinberg M.D.

https://www.city-journal.org/cuomo-under-fire-for-hiding-nursing-home-deaths

Something is rotten in the state of New York. And, as in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it starts at the top. For the past year, New York governor Andrew Cuomo, with the aid of a credulous and adoring media, has touted his performance in combating Covid-19 and chided other states for their comparative deficiencies. He was rewarded with a lucrative book contract and an Emmy for providing “reliable information” in his news conferences. The cover has finally been blown on a prolonged and concerted effort by Cuomo and his associates to hide his policy mistakes.

Between March 25 and May 10, 2020, an advisory from Cuomo’s Department of Health (DOH) compelled nursing homes to readmit hospitalized Covid-19 patients without checking if they still had active infection. Health experts cautioned that the policy could lead to additional deaths by introducing infected people into closed facilities where those most vulnerable to the disease—the elderly and infirm—live. Cuomo’s responses ranged from the devil—aka the Trump administration—made me do it; to we didn’t force anything—facilities had discretion to turn down admissions; to “nothing to see here”—the policy didn’t increase the number of deaths; to “who cares” where they died.

Cuomo repeatedly and falsely claimed that the policy was directed by federal guidance.

Emmanuel Macron and the Woke The French president challenges American campus and media leftism.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/emmanuel-macron-and-the-woke-11613604823?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Classical Western values such as free speech and tolerance need all the defenders they can find these days, so kudos to French President Emmanuel Macron for volunteering for the mission. It’s hardly an easy task, but it’s an important one. Mr. Macron is right to conclude it’s vital to France’s future—and we’d add, to America’s.

Mr. Macron and ministers in his government in recent months have been fighting illiberal and divisive philosophies they say emanate from American universities. Mr. Macron in October decried the influence of “certain social-science theories entirely imported from the United States.”

He means in particular the habit of viewing most matters in racial terms—a core tenet of “wokeness”—and his government wants educational institutions to eschew it. Minister for Higher Education Frédérique Vidal this week promised an investigation into academics “looking at everything through the prism of wanting to fracture and divide.”

This is part of a broader drive to reassert French values after many years of Islamist terror attacks. Mr. Macron also is pushing for a new crackdown on religious extremism, and his law to that end passed through one chamber of the National Assembly this week.

Mr. Macron’s political and philosophical insight is to tie together the fight against violent extremism from outside France and the defense of democratic values within. His October speech detailing his new plan for combating Islamism included a warning that a focus on “post-colonial or anti-colonial” discourse constitutes a form of “self-hatred” of France that allows Islamism to flourish. Officials such as Ms. Vidal also warn against “Islamo-leftism.”