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Ruth King

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Class Homicide Joel Kotkin

By on September 11th, 2022

https://americanmind.org/salvo/class-homicide/

Massive inequality and the rise of a new feudal system have nearly destroyed the chances of social mobility.

There’s much talk today, from left and right, about threats to democracy, yet little focus on the social dynamic critical to its survival. In this respect, we may see the current, and troubling, escalation of violent political rhetoric, and even political violence, not so much as the cause of polarization but the result of changing class dynamics, most notably the increasingly perilous state of the yeoman middle class.

The United States, and much of the high-income world, is going through a revision of class relations resonant with gilded age, or even feudal models. A recent British parliamentary study projects that by 2030, the top one percent will expand their share to two thirds of the world’s wealth, with the biggest gains overwhelmingly concentrated at the top one percent of the top one percent—the top 0.01 percent.Similarly, in this country, since the mid-1980s, the share of national wealth held by those below the top 10 percent has fallen by 12 percentage points, the same proportion that the top 0.1 percent gained.As one conservative economist put it succinctly in 2018, “The economic legacy of the last decade is excessive corporate consolidation, a mas­sive transfer of wealth to the top 1 percent from the middle class.” 

Hierarchy triumphs over merit and even luck

In the process, the aspirational character long essential to American society is being transformed. According to one study, the chances of middle-class earners moving up to the top rungs of the income ladder has declined by approximately 20 percent since the early 1980s. Data from the Census Bureau show that the share of national income going to the middle 60 percent of households has fallen to a record low.

In the economy, hierarchy is rapidly replacing opportunity. Banking and finance, treated amiably by Washington during the Financial Crisis, have become increasingly concentrated while many smaller regional institutions have either been acquired or driven out of business.  Growing corporate concentration has now seeped into the once dynamic tech economy in both the U.S. and Europe. In Silicon Valley now, the renowned garage culture has morphed into a Gargantua of giant firms with market power unprecedented in modern times, controlling in some cases 80 to 90 percent of key tech markets.  

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Higher Ed’s New Woke Loyalty Oaths A ballooning number of hiring and tenure decisions require candidates to express written fealty to political doctrines John Sailer

By on September 11th, 2022

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/higher-ed-new-woke-loyalty-oaths-dei

In 2021, the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) School of Medicine—ranked fourth in the country for primary care—released a 24-page “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism Strategic Action Plan,” listing dozens of “tactics” for advancing “diversity and racial equity” over the ensuing half-decade. One of those tactics reads: “Include a section in promotion packages where faculty members report on the ways they are contributing to improving DEI, anti-racism and social justice.” The plan promises to “reinforce the importance of these efforts by establishing clear consequences and influences on promotion packages.”

OHSU’s policy represents the latest stage in the institutional entrenchment of DEI programming. Universities have long required diversity statements for faculty hiring—short essays outlining one’s contributions to DEI and future plans for advancing DEI. Since it began almost a decade ago, the policy has been criticized as a thinly veiled ideological litmus test. Whether you see it as one largely depends on whether you think DEI is simply a set of corporate “best practices” like any other, or constitutes a rigid set of political and social views. In any event, the diversity statements and criteria have only expanded, and are now commonly required for promotion, tenure, and faculty evaluation.

A quick search for academic jobs inevitably yields dozens or hundreds of positions that require diversity statements. In November 2021, the American Enterprise Institute conducted a survey of faculty jobs and found that 19% required them, a number that is likely to grow. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, applicants seeking positions in chemical and biomolecular engineering must submit a one-page “Statement describing candidate’s approach to and experience with diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education.” At the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, despite a new law that prohibits requiring job applicants “to endorse a specific ideology or political viewpoint,” applicants for a job in political science must submit a “statement concerning experience with and plans for contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Meanwhile, every open faculty position listed by Ohio State University’s College of Arts and Sciences, including roles in econometrics, freshwater biology, and astronomy, requires some variation of a statement “articulating the applicant’s demonstrated commitments and capacities to contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion through research, teaching, mentoring, and/or outreach and engagement.”

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

‘We Did That’: Afghanistan a Year after the US Surrender Afghanistan is a Terror State, Al Qaeda Is Thriving by Guy Millière

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18874/afghanistan-a-year

Other men… may prove even more harmful than Zawahiri. Before Zawahiri was chosen, for instance, Saif al-Adel, a former Egyptian Special Forces officer, was appointed its provisional “caretaker.” His name is often cited as that of the probable next leader of al-Qaeda.

In addition to al-Qaeda’s having a new base in Afghanistan, the terrorist group also appears to have had, for years, a significant base in Iran.

By lifting many of these sanctions, the Biden administration has re-empowered the mullahs to finance the Islamic groups they have funded in the recent past. Al-Qaeda is clearly one of them.

After the death of Zawahiri, the Biden administration issued a press release blaming the Taliban for having allowed “Afghan territory to be used by terrorists to threaten the security of other countries”. Did members of the Biden administration actually expect anything else from the Taliban and the Haqqani network?

The Biden administration also blamed the Taliban for not respecting the Doha agreement , a peace deal between the US and the Taliban…. Did the Biden administration honestly expect ruthless terrorists to honor the agreement without the US showing at least a little determination to use force if necessary?

Over the past twelve months, the Biden administration has sent hundreds of millions of dollars to Afghanistan, supposedly for humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people. How, could one not know, however, that most of the funds were embezzled by the Taliban and used to finance the Taliban regime and its terrorist activities?

The Biden administration almost never talks about Iran’s financing Islamic terrorism and never mentions that the Biden administration’s lifting sanctions on the regime has contributed to financing the very terrorist organizations that the US claims to be fighting.

US Special Representative for Iran Robert Malley continues to negotiate with the Iranian regime. Worse: Malley is not even the one doing the negotiating. Negotiating with Iran on behalf of America is — Russia! The Americans are not even allowed in the room.

Moreover, all this is taking place while the US is half-heartedly helping Ukraine to defend itself against a ruthless Russian scorched earth onslaught. Malley nonetheless persists in separating the Biden administration’s desire to sign a new disastrous nuclear deal from the regime’s terrorist activities.

A year after the Biden administration abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban and the Haqqani network, Afghanistan is back to being a terrorist state. It hosts and supports al-Qaeda while giving it the opportunity to organize terrorist attacks from Afghan soil.

The US, for its part, not only ran from Afghanistan a year ago, it also ran from its last watchtower in Central-South Asia, and, by not even leaving a small residual force as strongly advised, abandoned countless people be slaughtered and enabled the country to be plunged into economic collapse, chaos and starvation.

Iran, on the other hand, has been significantly strengthened. It supports al-Qaeda and now serenely threatens the United States. On August 1, the mullahs sent a message saying that Iran is building nuclear warheads that could turn New York into “hellish ruins”.

July 31st 2022. Kabul, Afghanistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri is killed by an American drone strike. His death is described as a victory against Islamic terrorism and a success for the Biden administration. Zawahiri was an Islamic terrorist, head of al-Qaeda; his death was good news. America’s intelligence services showed they still could obtain precise intelligence in hostile countries and strike enemies of the United States wherever they are. Was the elimination of Zawahiri, however, really a victory against Islamic terrorism?

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Iran Deal – Reportedly “Off the Table” – Would Not Have Prevented a War by Majid Rafizadeh

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18875/iran-deal-war

In spite of the opposition from US allies in the Middle East as well as many US Congressman — both Democrats and Republicans — the Biden administration appeared determined to reward the ruling mullahs of Iran whose policies and ideology are anchored in “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.

The Biden administration seemed to hope that if they could just “contain” Iran with a “deal” — put Iran “in a box” even for a few years — it would “free up” the US to deal other problems, such as China, Russia, North Korea, Venezuela and the Indo-Pacific, with one less distraction. If only.

“If the regime in Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, has proven anything, it’s that it can’t be trusted. The IRGC has directly, or through its proxies, including Hezbollah, Hamas, Ansar Allah (Houthis), Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and scores of Shiite militias in Iraq, killed hundreds of Americans, and attacked our bases and our allies in the region.” — Congressional bipartisan letter to US President Joe Biden, September 1, 2022.

It is estimated that the Biden administration’s new nuclear deal would have provided $1 trillion to the Iranian regime over a decade, making the IRGC and its militia and terror groups vastly wealthier and a far more savage threat to the national security of the Iranian people, the US, its allies, and American people everywhere.

It is also mind-boggling that the Biden administration was trusting Russia to be the sole country to oversee the compliance of the nuclear deal and to keep Iran’s highly enriched uranium — and able to return it to Iran if the mullahs requested it.

Fifty bipartisan US lawmakers had asked the Biden administration “not to permit Russia to be the recipient of Iran’s enriched uranium nor to have the right to conduct nuclear work with the Islamic Republic, including a $10 billion contract to expand Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. We should not let war criminal Vladimir Putin be the guarantor of the deal or the keeper of massive amounts of Iran’s enriched uranium.”

If the Biden administration believed that a deal with the Iranians would “free up” America to focus on China, and that the Middle East would just have sat quietly while Iran kept enriching uranium, they were living in a dreamworld. The Americans would instead have found themselves with hot wars on three fronts: Ukraine, China and the Middle East.

If the report is true, kudos to the Biden administration for a most wise decision.

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MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

UK Announces it Will No Longer Offer COVID Jabs to Children Under 12 Amid New Data That Shows Risks Outweigh Benefits By Debra Heine

By on September 10th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/09/uk-announces-it-will-no-longer-offer-covid-jabs-to-children-under-12-amid-new-data-that-shows-risks-outweigh-benefits/

Children under 12-years-old in the United Kingdom will no longer be offered COVID injections, except for those in clinical risk groups, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) confirmed this week. The agency said the offer of COVID shots to healthy 5 to 11-year-olds was always meant to be temporary.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said children who had not turned five by the end of last month would not be offered a vaccination, in line with advice published by the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) in February 2022. UKHSA said the offer of Covid jabs to healthy five to 11-year-olds was always meant to be temporary.

The risks of the COVID “vaccines” have always outweighed the benefits, especially when it comes to children. According to the Guardian, the JCVI has acknowledged that young children are at very low risk of developing severe disease from COVID, and most will gain natural immunity from infections.

Adam Finn, professor of pediatrics at the University of Bristol, and a member of the JCVI, pointed out that in the UK, the number of parents who had chosen to have their young children immunized has been small, despite the offer being open.

“The main policy focus right now though … is to try to immunize those who are at highest risk of severe acute COVID as per the recent announcement on the autumn booster program,” said Finn.

In the United States, only seven percent of parents of 6 months to 4-year-olds have had their tots injected with a single dose or more.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) own VAERS data, 19 serious adverse events have been identified in vaccinated babies and toddlers. Those adverse events include “death, life-threatening illness, hospitalization or prolongation of hospitalization, permanent disability, congenital anomaly or birth defect.”

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

News flash: There is no climate change emergency! By Paul S. Gardiner

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/news_flash_there_is_no_climate_change_emergency.html

There is no climate change emergency, human-caused or otherwise, according to over 1,100 objective, truth-seeking scientists and professionals from over 35 countries.  Many of the scientists are climatologists, environmental scientists, pollution meteorologists, and climate researchers who fully support the findings of the Global Climate Emergency Group (GCEG) in its recently released report, entitled “World Climate Declaration: There Is No Climate Emergency.” 

The significance of this report cannot be overstated.  It directly refutes the climate emergency claims of many of the world’s so-called “elites,” the World Economic Forum, elements of the United Nations, America’s Democrat party, and other promoters of climate change catastrophe.  Further, the findings of the report strongly negate efforts to do away with fossil fuels and charge full steam ahead to deploy electric vehicles as quickly as possible and spend many billions of dollars on near-term green energy projects, etc.

Dr. Michael Rectenwald, noted author and former professor at New York University, recently reported that various Democrats are pressuring the Biden administration to declare a climate emergency.  These people believe (or knowingly falsely state ) that failure to do so will result in excess carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions killing every living creature on Earth in just a few years.  For example, Representative Alan Lowenthal, a California Democrat, is quoted as saying, “We have a few years left, and that’s it.  The planet is dying.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Computer experts urge Georgia to replace voting machines

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.aol.com/computer-experts-urge-georgia-replace-113517195-154148485.html

A group of computer and election security experts is urging Georgia election officials to replace the state’s touchscreen voting machines with hand-marked paper ballots [which were foolproof and what CA had] ahead of the November midterm elections, citing what they say are “serious threats” posed by an apparent breach of voting equipment in one county.

The 13 experts on Thursday sent a letter to the members of the State Election Board and to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who’s a non-voting member of the board. It urges them to immediately stop using the state’s [notorious, programmable] Dominion Voting Systems touchscreen voting machines. It also suggests they mandate a particular type of post-election audit on the outcome of all races on the ballot.

The experts who sent the letter include academics and former state election officials and are not associated with efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The midterm elections are just two months away. A switch to hand-marked paper ballots could easily be made by then [but will not] because state law already provides for them to be used as an emergency backup, the letter says.

State Election Board Chair William Duffey responded in an email to The Associated Press that the “security of our election equipment is of paramount interest to the State Election Board as is the integrity of the election process in Georgia.” He noted that the alleged breach in Coffee County is being investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and secretary of state’s office investigators and said the FBI [Hah!] has been asked to assist.

“The investigation is active and ongoing,” Duffey wrote. “Information developed will be considered to evaluate the impact of the Coffee County conduct.”

Raffensperger’s office has repeatedly said that Georgia’s elections remain secure because of varied security mechanisms in place. Spokesperson Mike Hassinger said in an email that the office will respond “in due time with due care” and that the response will be “addressed directly to the authors, rather than leaked to the media to obtain some sort of rhetorical advantage.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

How the Feds Coordinate With Facebook on Censorship Newly released emails show tech sites working with public officials, often solicitously.

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-feds-coordinate-with-facebook-twitter-white-house-social-media-emails-covid-instagram-11662761613?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

One nagging question in the social-media age is how online platforms like Facebook and Twitter choose to “moderate” speech—and why, and whether the government is leaning on them to step it up. Hundreds of pages of emails between federal officials and the big social sites were recently dropped in court, and they make for instructive, if not definitive, reading.

The civil case was brought by the Attorneys General of Missouri and Louisiana, who allege that misinformation crackdowns by the tech giants are legally “government action,” since they involve “open collusion” with public officials. In a court filing last week, the AGs posted some of what they have already obtained, which they call “a tantalizing snapshot into a massive, sprawling federal ‘Censorship Enterprise.’”

Well, maybe. Many of the email chains read like good-faith interactions between public officials and internet companies worried about clearly false information. What raises eyebrows in some communications, though, is an oozing solicitousness toward top White House advisers. This week the judge granted additional discovery, meaning more emails soon.

***

The trouble with seeing all of the correspondence, some of which dates to the Trump Administration, as inherently illegitimate is that much of it seems to involve actual misinformation. The White House flags the Instagram user anthonyfauciofficial, apparently someone posing as Dr. Anthony Fauci, and asks: “Any way we can get this pulled down? It is not actually one of ours.” The answer from Facebook (most of the names are redacted): “Yep, on it!”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Lessons of 9/11 Are Still Unlearned Our credentialed mavens can’t break free of their institutional orthodoxy and narratives.Bruce Thornton

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-lessons-of-9-11-are-still-unlearned/

Twenty-one years have passed since the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil, and our foreign policy establishment and ruling elite still have not learned the lessons of that horrendous carnage. The Romans thought even fools could learn from experience, but our credentialed mavens can’t break free of their institutional orthodoxy and narratives. As a consequence, our foreign policy and international relations continue to put our national security at risk.

This misinterpretation of modern Islam’s traditional resistance to infidel hegemony began with the Iranian Revolution, the first of subsequent jihadist attacks on the U.S. that culminated on 9/11. The West filtered that religious revolution through the old ideas of anticolonialism and national self-determination encoded in the Versailles settlement. Barack Obama, in his cringing flattery of Islam during his 2009 Cairo speech, recycled this stale received wisdom, blaming “tensions” between Islam and the West on “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations.”

This ahistorical orthodoxy had been explicitly rejected 30 years earlier by the Ayatollah Khomeini, who proclaimed the traditional Islamic universalist goals of the Iranian Revolution: “We shall export our revolution to the world. Until the cry ‘There is no god but Allah’ resounds throughout the world, there will be jihad.” Nor was Khomeini an outlier among Muslims. Hassan al Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, similarly said that his designs for transforming Egypt into an Islamic state ruled by sharia law would be a “springboard for universal expansion ‘until the entire world will chant the name of the Prophet.’”

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MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

The Laptop From Hell Explodes Onscreen in ‘My Son Hunter’ The movie conservatives have been waiting for is here. by Mark Tapson

By on September 10th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-movie-conservatives-have-been-waiting-for-is-here/

The movie that conservative audiences have been waiting for is here. And by that I don’t just mean that yesterday was the eagerly-anticipated premiere of My Son Hunter, the Robert Davi-directed dark comedy about Joe Biden’s wayward son and his laptop from hell. I mean that this is the political film that finally sets a new bar for conservative filmmaking, far above the heavy-handed messaging and awkward acting that right-leaning audiences have generally had to settle for in the recent past.

You have never seen a conservative film quite like this. Produced by Phelim McAleer and Anne McIlhenny (FrackNation, Gosnell, The Obamagate Movie) and written by screenwriter/novelist Brian Godawa (To End All Wars, The Obamagate Movie), My Son Hunter careens – like a drunken Hunter himself – from comedy to tragedy, from family drama to high-level political corruption, from moral brokenness to moral courage. Surprising stylistic quirks abound, including word balloons onscreen and characters breaking the “fourth wall” to address the audience directly. And yes, just like Hunter’s life, there is an almost nonstop parade of hookers, drugs, and shady deals – hence the R rating that sadly may discourage some conservative moviegoers (Movieguide gives My Son Hunter an “Excellent” rating but advises “extreme caution” due to “immoral carnal behavior, images of women in skimpy outfits, and strong foul language”). The Daily Mail reported overhearing one viewer at a private screening describing the film as “Not your mother’s conservative movie.”

The plot centers on Teflon Addict Hunter Biden, played by British actor Laurence Fox (Gosford Park, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Frankenstein Chronicles), and his terrified realization that the personal laptop he carelessly forgot to pick up from a repair shop could derail his father’s presidential campaign. A hooker who has captured Hunter’s heart offers to help him spin the publicity, but in order to do that, she needs to know all the potentially damaging material on that computer. As the sordid contents reveal the depth and breadth of Biden family corruption, the hooker comes to a slow political revelation.

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