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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Elon Musk and the great fear of free speech Why even the hint of more liberty sends the woke set into meltdown. Brendan O’Neill

By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-and-the-great-fear-of-free-speech/

So he’s done it. The richest man in the world and self-styled ‘free-speech absolutist’ has taken over Twitter. The bête noire of illiberal liberals has got his hands on social media. Cue meltdown. Listening to the woke set you’d be forgiven for thinking that the gates of hell had been flung open and every manner of evil and blasphemy will now pour forth. Twitter could become a ‘soap box for hate speech’, fretted one media outlet yesterday. It really is extraordinary how much some people fear freedom.

Elon Musk hinted at his takeover of Twitter with a real-life pun. ‘Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!’, he tweeted on Wednesday, alongside a vid of him bringing a literal sink into the Twitter offices. But the Twitterati don’t need hammy rich-geek humour for Musk’s conquering of Twitter to ‘sink in’. The horrifying prospect of a Musk-run social media, of a tad more liberty online, of women being allowed to call men men, and of Trump being let loose once more to fire off spicy tweets, has been sinking into their minds since this was all first floated a few months ago. Twitter could become a ‘cesspool of hate speech and disinformation’, whimpered a writer for the New York Times in April. Cesspool! You say ‘freedom of speech’, they hear ‘cistern for the storage of human shit’.

‘The bird is freed’, Musk tweeted following his $44 billion takeover. He has reportedly started turfing out the old guard. Apparently the boss, Parag Agrawal, is gone, as are other chief execs. And even though he’s made it pretty clear that he’s not so absolutist on free speech after all – Twitter ‘obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape’, he said yesterday – still the freedomphobes are petrified. Musk’s ‘idea of “free speech”’ will help to ‘ruin America’, says a frantic writer at the New Republic this week. ‘The fascists will take over’, apparently. There you have it – freedom is fascism.

The most striking thing about Musk and Twitter is the demented reaction to it. Musk himself is not going to singlehandedly restore the hard fought-for liberty to utter. It will take more than online ventures by a contrarian billionaire to turn back the tide of censorship, cancellation and social shaming for wrongthink that have become such a key and horrid feature of Anglo-American political life. Musk’s plan for Twitter is sensible, not revolutionary. It is ‘important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence’, he said in his note of reassurance to advertisers yesterday. That town square should not be a ‘hellscape’, he said, where ‘anything can be said with no consequences’. A town square, you say? With people talking? Fetch my smelling salts.

Who could possibly be affronted by such a polite, classical-liberal vision? And yet affronted people are. Loads of them. Hysterically so. Their dread of Twitter without moderation is intense. ‘Twitter without content moderation… means lies and disinformation will overwhelm the truth’, says that New Republic piece. We’ve come a long way since John Milton’s 1644 cry against the censorship of the press: ‘Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter?’ Today’s woke set did. In their eyes truth will always be bettered by bullshit in an open clash. If only they knew how much this told us about the corrosion of their own faith in humankind, about the decay of their trust in ordinary people and our capacity for reason and goodness, I think they’d stop saying it.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

1.8 million more illegal immigrants living in the U.S. since the start of the Biden administration By Stephen Dinan

By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/27/18-million-more-illegal-immigrants-living-in-the-u/

New census numbers indicate that 1.8 million illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S. since President Biden took office, powering a surge in the ratio of foreign-born to native-born residents, according to a new report Thursday.

The Center for Immigration Studies says there are now 47.9 million immigrants — legal and illegal — now in the U.S.

That’s 14.6% of the total population, and if trends continue the country will set a record for the largest share of immigrants by the middle of next year. That will cross the previous high of 14.8% set around the turn of the 20th century.

All told, some 2.9 million more immigrants now live in the U.S. than did in January 2021, when Mr. Biden was sworn in. Among those are the 1,8 million illegal immigrants — a population larger than the size 12 states, including West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire and Maine.

“The new data reflects the ongoing crisis at the border created by the Biden administration policies that are encouraging so many illegal immigrants to come into the country,” said Steven A. Camarota, the lead researcher on the new study, which relies on numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau’s monthly Current Population Survey.

The numbers add depth to the ongoing chaos at the border.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Biden’s Border Crisis Is Much Worse Than You Think

By on October 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/28/bidens-border-crisis-is-far-worse-than-you-think/

“The fact that Biden is either too inept, too mentally incapacitated, or too ideologically driven to care should be reason enough to have him and his top lieutenants removed from office.”

In a clumsy effort to hide the latest and altogether shocking data on illegal border crossings, the Department of Homeland Security released its latest report in the dead of night last Friday. Not that it mattered, since the mainstream press wouldn’t have covered it no matter what. But in this case, the numbers are shocking. The reality is even more shocking.

DHS’s Customs and Border Protection agency finally, after basically being forced into it, reported that it had “encountered” almost 2.8 million illegal border crossers in the past fiscal year (which ended Sept. 30). That’s up from 1.9 million last fiscal year And it’s more than four times the number in President Trump’s last year in office.

The CPB also reports capturing 98 people on terrorist watch lists at the border this year (up from 3 in Trump’s last year) and nearly 30,000 with criminal records. Border Patrol agents also had to go on more than 22,000 search and rescue efforts, up from 6,000 in 2020.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is It Realistic To Ask Israel To Give/Sell Arms to Ukraine? Shoshana Bryen

By on October 29th, 2022

https://dailycaller.com/2022/10/28/opinion-is-it-realistic-to-ask-israel-to-meddle-in-the-ukraine-russia-war-bryen/

Israel is walking a fine line between the defense of its people and territory, and its support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia. Ukrainian demands coupled with a just-short-of-antisemitic trope are not going to change the situation for Israel – but may make it more difficult for Jerusalem to continue to be helpful.

Much is being made by Ukrainian officials of Israel’s refusal to supply offensive weapons or the Iron Dome air defense system to Kyiv. Much. The latest version has Israel causing the Russia-Iran military relationship. “This alliance of theirs would simply not have happened if [Israeli] politicians had made only one decision at the time — the decision we asked for,” said Volodymyr Zelensky in an interview to an Israeli outlet. The Israeli government’s decision “was seemingly adopted a long time ago — in 2014, when Russia began its aggression against Ukraine. The decision ‘not to annoy’ the Kremlin, not to help Ukraine for real.”

In an earlier interview Zelensky said he was “in shock” at Israel’s failure to give Kyiv anti-missile systems to help counter Russian attacks. And Ukrainian ambassador to Israel Yevgeny Korniychuk said, “I want the Israeli government to move away from its comfort zone and get back to reality.” (RELATED: BRYEN: Will A Key US Deal Make Lebanon’s Problems Even Worse?)

While Israel’s “comfort zone” is a matter of Israeli discretion, concrete threats to Israel’s security posed by Iran — and mitigated to some extent by deconfliction with Russia — are a matter of fact. As is the length, breadth and depth of Russia Iran military cooperation.

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

Are Republicans a threat to democracy? The Democrats’ last desperate gamble: Don Feder

By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/oct/28/are-republicans-a-threat-to-democracy/

In this election, Republicans have issues up the wazoo, including inflation, border security, crime, energy policy, COVID lockdowns and education.

Democrats have exactly three: abortion, climate change and their fanciful claim that democracy is under siege. The first two clearly aren’t working. So, the fallback position of an alleged Republican conspiracy against democracy is now front and center.

I doubt there’s a Democratic leader anywhere who hasn’t ominously warned that Republicans or MAGA Republicans or ultra-MAGA Republicans are a clear and present danger to democratic government.

“Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the foundations of our republic,” President Biden sputtered at his September 1st Independence Hall harangue.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre elaborated: “The president views the pro-Trump faction of the Republican Party as an extreme threat to our democracy, our freedom and our rights.”

“The urgency of saving our democracy is real,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Iranian Drones in Ukraine Project Tehran’s Power Beyond Mideast, Testing U.S., Europe:Dion Nissenbaum and Benoit Faucon

By on October 29th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-drones-in-ukraine-project-tehrans-power-beyond-mideast-testing-u-s-europe-11666880851

Wave of Russian attacks highlights how sanctions failed to stop Tehran from building a drone army that can arm proxies and friendly governments.

Russia’s expanding use of Iranian drones in Ukraine poses an increasing threat for the U.S. and its European allies as Tehran attempts to project military power beyond the Middle East.

In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials say, Russia has launched more than 300 Iranian drones that have targeted military units, power plants and civilian buildings in the capital, Kyiv. The Ukrainian military said it has shot down more than 70% of the drones, but Ukrainian officials are asking the U.S. and NATO allies for more help to counter the threat. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has vowed to rush hundreds of drone jammers to Ukraine as part of a deepening effort to shore up Ukraine’s air defenses.

The wave of attacks has made Iran Moscow’s most important military ally in its faltering campaign in Ukraine and highlighted how Tehran has created one of the world’s most successful drone fleets despite years of Western sanctions.

“Drones have become the spearhead of Iranian power projection globally,” said Dr. James Rogers, an associate professor of war studies at the University of Southern Denmark. “Iran has one of the oldest and, arguably, one of the most efficient drone programs in the world.”

While the international community focused for years on trying to constrain Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran methodically built an army of drones that reached across the Middle East. Iran and its proxies have been accused of carrying out attacks on everything from U.S. forces in Syria and commercial ships in the Arabian Sea to Israeli cities and Saudi Arabia’s oil industry.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Jews Don’t Count: A Times Book of the Year 2021 by David Baddiel

By on October 28th, 2022

Today the Jewish population of the world is about 14.8 million, 0.2% of the 7.95 billion worldwide population and yet in discussing hate crimes and diversity we seem to count for nothing. As a reviewer describes it below, this book is essential reading for those concerned about this concerning fact…..rsk

Jews Don’t Count is a book for people who consider themselves on the right side of history. People fighting the good fight against homophobia, disablism, transphobia and, particularly, racism. People, possibly, like you.

It is the comedian and writer David Baddiel’s contention that one type of racism has been left out of this fight. In his unique combination of close reasoning, polemic, personal experience and jokes, Baddiel argues that those who think of themselves as on the right side of history have often ignored the history of anti-Semitism. He outlines why and how, in a time of intensely heightened awareness of minorities, Jews don’t count as a real minority: and why they should.

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FOREIGN POLICY, HISTORY Comments turned off

In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud Biden, Putin, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Robin Ashenden

By on October 28th, 2022

https://quillette.com/2022/10/25/in-the-shadow-of-the-mushroom-cloud/

The threat of a nuclear war, absent from our headlines for decades, is in the news again. Putin threatens Ukraine with an atomic strike and Biden tells us we’re closer to Armageddon than any time in the last 60 years. Meanwhile, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace flies to the US to discuss the danger of Russia detonating a nuclear bomb over the Black Sea as a show of destructive strength. A bumper crop of articles have appeared in the world press announcing that this time the nuclear threat could be in earnest. British MP Robert Seely, a long-time Russia expert, reminds us of the country’s first-use policy and warns that “saying Putin is bluffing is no longer serious.”

In the Spectator, historian Mark Galeotti tries to calm nerves by walking us through all the complicated steps the Kremlin would have to take in order to release a nuclear device. But in April, Galeotti was writing about Putin’s RS-28 Sarmat missile—a new super-weapon with a range of 11,000 miles and a maximum load-capacity of 50 megatons (over 2,500 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb), which carries 15 nuclear warheads dispersible to multiple locations. Reportedly, it is due to be operational in December. Meanwhile, in the US, bunker sales are soaring, with one company reporting that, following the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine in February, enquiries regarding shelters had risen from less than 100 a month to over 3,000. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, indolently at grass since the end of the Cold War, are apparently cantering over the horizon towards us once again.

Biden’s reference point for nuclear danger was the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, and the comparison was apt. Go back exactly 60 years this week and we find a crisis with at least superficial similarities to the one we are experiencing today—two rival camps stonily contemplating one another, one of which had a smaller, less powerful country in its gunsights; a nation led by a charismatic leader in combat fatigues desperately calling for help from the other side. In 1962, however, the war was cold not hot, and the small country was Cuba, a Caribbean island just 90 miles from the United States.

That Cuba was menaced by the US is not in doubt. Since Fidel Castro’s communist revolution in 1958, it had been near the top of America’s “to do” list. The doomed and disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961—in which 1,400 anti-Castro Cubans were encouraged to storm the island, insufficiently supported by the White House, and duly captured and imprisoned by Castro—was only a temporary setback. It was followed by a US economic blockade and the infamous Operation Mongoose, a series of botched US assassination plots against Castro. A communist takeover on America’s doorstep was anathema to the White House. What if other Latin American nations followed suit?

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Fetterman Debate Disaster Reveals Both Democrat Hypocrisy and Media’s Shame Groupthink is a hell of a drug. By Josh Hammer

By on October 28th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/27/fetterman-debate-disaster-reveals-both-democrat-hypocrisy-and-medias-shame/

It is difficult to describe just how disastrous Tuesday evening’s Pennsylvania Senate debate performance was for Democratic candidate (and current Keystone State Lt. Gov.) John Fetterman. In the course of one incredibly revealing and frankly painful hourlong debate, Fetterman—the victim of a stroke from May 13, just four days before his primary win over U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.)—was exposed as still struggling mightily to regain his full cognitive abilities, and thus wholly unfit to serve Pennsylvanians in what was once considered “the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

It should go without saying that, like every decent American, I wish Fetterman the swiftest convalescence possible under his difficult circumstances. But it is also true that Fetterman’s stroke befell him before the primary—just a few days before, but before the primary date nonetheless. Fetterman’s inner circle, including his ambitious social activist wife, thus had a few days to consult trusted—that is, not Democratic Party donor—doctors to soberly gauge his continued candidate viability. While we should all feel bad for Fetterman, then, it must be said that a more altruistic and less cynical political candidate would have likely dropped out after a debilitating stroke such as that which Fetterman suffered. Democrats had a reasonable alternative ready to go, in  Lamb.

But now, the Pennsylvania Senate race, which was already a nail-biter, is Dr. Mehmet Oz’s race to lose. And in addition to Fetterman’s glaring cognitive deficiencies, two other things were also exposed for the whole nation to see in the course of that cringeworthy hour of television Tuesday night: the Democrats’ hypocrisy on how mental and cognitive fitness concerns ought to impact the viability of a U.S. Senate candidacy, and how shameful and loathsome the mainstream media’s monthslong cover-up of Fetterman’s health woes is. In fact, the two aspects of this scandalous story fit together quite neatly.

The Democrats’ stances on the Pennsylvania and Georgia Senate races are impossible to reconcile with each other. In Georgia, Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, a former football star who has a checkered personal past, has been very open about his past struggles with mental illness. In fact, Walker literally wrote a book about it over a decade ago, titled Breaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Walker’s past struggles, about which he has been fully transparent, have often come up during the course of his close race against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.). The Democrats’ basic stance on Walker—which, notably, runs entirely contrary to their general pro-“forgiveness” stance on “criminal justice reform”—is not to forgive, not to show grace and to tarnish him as an irredeemable candidate.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

A few ideas for ending racial discrimination in higher ed By Andrea Widburg

By on October 28th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/a_few_ideas_for_ending_racial_discrimination_in_higher_ed.html

The currently constituted Supreme Court has enough of a conservative majority that it does seem to be returning to an original list standard of review—that is, the justices are respecting what those who wrote the Constitution, and those who passed the amendments, meant when they acted. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson,* for all her chatter, cannot change this. For this reason, it looks as if the court may finally hold that affirmative action in higher education is unconstitutional. However, because we know that ruling will not stop institutions from engaging in affirmative action, one legal thinker has come up with innovative ideas to put the brakes on discrimination in higher education.

At Minding The Campus, Louis K. Bonham, an intellectual property litigator, is optimistic that a return to originalism at the Court will reverse past decisions that paved the way for anti-White and anti-Asian discrimination at America’s colleges and universities, all in the name of “remediating” racism in America. However, he argues (correctly, I believe), that Supreme Court rulings will not stop the academics, who view affirmative action as a religion.

Moreover, suing the institutions won’t help because damages never fall on the people who have made the bad decisions. Bonham, therefore, suggests that, if the Court does end the racist abomination of affirmative action, red states should enact laws very explicitly attacking not just the institutions but also the institutional actors.

The starting point would be laws explicitly making any preferences in academics (both paying jobs and student admissions), whether based on race or victimhood, illegal. Second, Bonham suggests an automatic and severe economic penalty for an institution found to have violated the state law: Students would be entitled to recover 50% of tuition and fees during the period in which the institution was violating the law.

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