Why The Texas Blackout Has The Greens So Scared Deflecting blame to a more exciting apocalypse. Rael Jean Isaac *****

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/why-texas-blackout-has-greens-so-scared-rael-jean-isaac/

Last month, President Biden signed a series of executive orders undermining fossil fuels, on the grounds the “climate crisis” forced his hand. “We can’t wait any longer.  We see with our own eyes.  We know it in our bones. It is time to act.”

Within days, most of the country was seeing “with our own eyes” and feeling “in our bones” a cold wave so severe that five million people lost electricity and, in a special irony, nearly half of the ballyhooed wind turbines in Texas, which had risen to supply 23% of her energy, were  left frozen (and inoperable). 

This constituted a double whammy to the huge global warming establishment. First was the cold, when the “science” had confidently predicted a steadily warming Texas.  Second was the failure of renewables, vastly exacerbating the problems for the energy grid. 

Within hours the mainstream media had risen to the challenge.  Journalists employed their familiar word games, quickly substituting “climate change” for global warming.  Readers might be a tad confused if they read “The brutal cold striking Texas is emblematic of a world facing more unpredictable weather due to the rising impact of global warming” but substitute “climate change” for the last two words and presto, the sentence works.  To be sure, that’s only because “climate change” is a meaningless term. 

While the belief in man-made global warming rests on a scientific theory (rising carbon dioxide levels from burning fossil fuels will produce a large increase in water vapor, a greenhouse gas, raising the earth’s temperature),  no scientific theory underpins “climate change.” The climate has shifted dramatically over time, clearly without benefit of human activity.  Twenty thousand years ago, a mere moment in geologic time, what is now Chicago was buried under ice a mile thick. To pontificate about “climate change” is to give fake profundity to a silly statement of the obvious.

Ivy League ‘Wokes’ are the Biggest Supporters of Political Violence D.C. doesn’t need the National Guard, but Columbia and Yale might. Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/ivy-league-wokes-are-biggest-supporters-political-daniel-greenfield/

The Democrats and their media have spent the past few months crying about political violence coming from conservatives, calling for gun control, and militarizing the nation’s capital. All of the agonizing about political violence came after a year in which ‘woke’ Black Lives Matter mobs killed, beat, and burned their way across the country in an orgy of ‘mostly peaceful’ violence.

Even the most modest estimates of political woke terror in 2020 place it at 8 dead, over 700 injured, and over $2 billion in damages. And the year could have ended even more bloodily with the Left prepping for mass protests with “bail funds that could be activated in response to mass arrests” and a fund “for the families of anyone killed in violence on or around Election Day.”

Months before the election, 41% of Democrats suggested that there would be at least a little justification for violence if President Trump won. Those are numbers the media won’t discuss.

While the media continues to promote a phantom conservative threat, it doesn’t want to look at where the violence is coming from in its own ranks. But it will not surprise anyone who remembers the seventies that Democrat support for violence is coming from the Ivy League.

Amazon quietly ends sales of books it labels ‘hate speech’ Retail giant made policy change sometime prior to purging from its store “When Harry Became Sally,” a book criticizing transgender ideology.By Daniel Payne

https://justthenews.com/nation/technology/prior-removing-transgender-critical-book-amazon-changed-policies-ban-books-hate

Sometime before this week, when it removed from its digital shelves a book critical of transgender ideology, Amazon altered its content policy to explicitly forbid books that promote “hate speech,” a major rule change that could be used to rationalize action against a broader range of books sold by the digital retail giant.

Amazon this week yanked “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement” from its main web store, its Kindle servers and its audiobook lineup with no explanation, even as the book had been available on the site for three years with no apparent controversy. 

In the 2018 book, author and political philosopher Ryan Anderson draws on years of scientific research and data to criticize the prevailing approach to transgender issues in modern medicine. The book “exposes the contrast between the media’s sunny depiction of gender fluidity and the often sad reality of living with gender dysphoria,” according to its sales blurb. 

Anderson told Just the News that he had received no explanation for the ban.

Reached for comment by Just the News, Amazon declined to provide any explanation, offering instead a link to its book content policy. 

A review of those policies suggests that sometime in the last few months Amazon made a major change to the ways in which it moderates book content on its servers, imposing a much stricter standard on books than it had previously done. 

THE GOVERNMENT CENSORS ARE HERE!

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/24/the-government-censors-are-here/

“But this is where we are in an America no previous generation would recognize. And the downward spiral is accelerating. Unless our decline is turned around hard and soon, it won’t be long before we’re burning books, because we’re already symbolically burning anyone who dares express a view that dissents from the Democrat-media narrative.”

Congressional Democrats are demanding to know what communications giants such as Comcast and AT&T are going to do about “the spread of dangerous misinformation.” How quickly this country is descending into an authoritarian regime where the government controls speech and the flow of information.

Ahead of a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday, California Democratic Reps. Anna G. Eshoo and Jerry McNerney wrote a letter to Comcast, AT&T, Spectrum, Dish, Verizon, Cox, Altice, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Hulu. According to the New York Times, which says it has reviewed the correspondence, the pair is not pleased that “the cable, satellite and over-the-top companies that disseminate these media outlets” – likely referring to Fox News, One America News Network, and Newsmax – “have done nothing in response to the misinformation aired by these outlets.”

The hearing was called to focus on “disinformation and extremism in the media.” In practice it’s a stage for peacock strutting, spin, and projection (a diversionary tactic Democrats are well-practiced in) with the ultimate goal of gaining full control of the flow of information.

The ‘Experts’ Cited by the New Censors A leftist professor helps Democrats attack non-leftist media. By James Freeman

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-experts-cited-by-the-new-censors-11614128309?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Two House Democrats from California, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, launched a frontal assault on the First Amendment this week with a letter to the CEOs of communications companies demanding to know what they are doing to police unwelcome speech.

A Journal editorial notes that “the letter is a demand for more ideological censorship.” The two legislators write: “Our country’s public discourse is plagued by misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and lies.”

But it’s clear that they only want to discipline one side. The Democrats claim, “Experts have noted that the right-wing media ecosystem is “much more susceptible…to disinformation, lies, and half-truths.”

The “experts” quoted are three Harvard academics, and the lead author is law professor Yochai Benkler. His take on “right-wing” media is perhaps not surprising given that according to the OpenSecrets website he donates exclusively to left-wing politicians, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.).

In any case, Mr. Benkler has assembled an interdisciplinary team at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and purports to have discovered data showing that conservative media is bad.

No Speech Coddling in Chicago A new journal from students who refuse to be cancelled

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-speech-coddling-in-chicago-11614125023?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Most college administrators are no doubt exhausted by constant student demands that range from the type of cereal served in the dining hall to the latest intersectional fad. So those running the University of Chicago must be pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Chicago Thinker on their campus this school year. It’s an online journal by conservative and libertarian students who refuse to be canceled.

Their mission statement makes the point: “We demand not to be coddled. Embracing the experience of unfettered inquiry and free expression is precisely the point of these years of intense study: to rigorously confront and challenge our most deeply-held beliefs—and to emerge from the experience as more thoughtful, informed human beings.”

They build on a firm foundation. In 2015 the university released a statement reaffirming its commitment to “free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation.” In 2016 the university’s incoming freshman received a letter informing them that “we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial and we do not condone the creation of intellectual safe spaces where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own.”

The Chicago Thinker’s latest posts include stories on the “insane COVID rules and snitch culture” at today’s universities, a definition of conservatism offered “in defiance of egregious caricatures,” and a piece on “how leftism ruined ‘Stargirl,’” a superhero TV series based on the character from DC Comics. Good for the Chicago Thinker—and even more for the university that promises never to coddle the students running the publication.

China’s Reckless Labs Put the World at Risk Beijing is obsessed with viruses, but not biosafety. We are paying a high price for its lapses. By Mike Pompeo and Miles Yu

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-reckless-labs-put-the-world-at-risk-11614102828?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

The Chinese Communist Party is obsessed with viruses. Its army of scientists claim to have discovered almost 2,000 new viruses in a little over a decade. It took the past 200 years for the rest of the world to discover that many. More troubling is the party’s negligence on biosafety. The costs and the risk to world health are enormous, as evidenced by a novel coronavirus that escaped Wuhan. This situation can’t continue. The world must hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable and punish Beijing if it fails to uphold global biosafety standards, including basic transparency requirements.

The most recent example of this malfeasance is playing out around us. The evidence that the virus came from Wuhan is enormous, though largely circumstantial, and most signs point to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, or WIV, as the source of Covid-19. In America, concern about the site is now broad and bipartisan. The Biden administration stated that it has “deep concerns” about the World Health Organization’s investigation into the early days of the pandemic, particularly Beijing’s interference with the investigators’ work.

The world has known for a long time that WIV poses a huge risk to global health. Two 2018 State Department cables warned of its biosafety problems. They even predicted that SARS-CoV-2’s ACE2 receptor, identified by WIV scientists, would enable human-to-human transmission. Yuan Zhiming, then director of WIV’s biosafety level 4 lab, warned, “The biosafety laboratory is a double-edge sword: It can be used for the benefit of humanity, but can also lead to a disaster.” He listed the shortfalls prevalent among China’s biology labs, including a lack of “operational technical support, professional instructions” and “feasible standards for the safety requirements of different protection zones and for the inoculation of microbiological animals and equipment.”

The Chinese public took note, with several bloggers alleging that WIV’s virus-carrying animals are sold as pets. They may even show up at local wet markets. After the Wuhan outbreak, one since-disappeared blogger asked a WIV researcher to debate the lab’s biosafety practices in public. The offer was ignored.

Fauci’s mixed messages, inconsistencies about COVID-19 masks, vaccines and reopenings come under scrutiny A look at Fauci’s mixed messages on masks, vaccines and reopenings By Tyler Olson |

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/faucis-mixed-messages-inconsistencies-about-covid-19-masks-vaccines-and-reopenings-come-under-scrutiny

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci’s often inconsistent comments and mixed messages on the coronavirus pandemic are prompting renewed scrutiny as debate rages over reopening schools and businesses nearly a year after the lockdowns started.

“Dr. Fauci is a very good public-health official. His job is to advise policy makers and inform the public,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on Tuesday. “But his job is NOT to decide what we can do, where we can go or which places can open or close And his job is NOT to mislead or scare us into doing the ‘right things.'”

“Why should we trust Fauci with a national plan? Back in March, Fauci famously told Americans, ‘There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,'” wrote David Harsanyi in the National Review. “(Fauci now says we should wear two masks. No thanks, Dad.)”

Masks

Fauci in an interview on “60 Minutes” in early March of last year warned of “unintended consequences” of masks, saying “people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” 

On masks, Fauci and former Surgeon General Jerome Adams – who also warned against buying and wearing masks in spring 2020 – said officials recommended against wearing masks early in the pandemic because at the time there was a massive shortage of PPE for medical workers who needed it most. Further, more evidence of asymptomatic spread of the virus later came out. 

Fauci later enthusiatically embraced wearing masks.

On Free Speech at Stanford:Scott Atlas, Niall Ferguson, and Victor Davis Hanson *****

https://stanfordreview.org/atlas-ferguson-hanson-stanford-free-speech/

What is the purpose of academic freedom?

Is it to allow all kinds of ideas to be expressed and explored, protecting even speech that people in the past considered heretical—protecting free expression that some people today would like to “cancel”? Or is it to allow co-workers in the ideological minority to be personally and selectively disparaged with impunity?

The answer for some faculty at Stanford University would appear to be the latter.

In a recent meeting of the Stanford Faculty Senate, four professors (Joshua Landy, Stephen Monismith, David Palumbo-Liu and David Spiegel) presented and then subsequently published a farrago of falsehoods directed against various fellows of the Hoover Institution. Their complaint was, first, that the Hoover fellows’ views were unapologetically conservative and, second, that they appeared antithetical to the majority of those of the Stanford community—and were therefore properly subject to some sort of institutional and personal censure.

Our faculty accusers failed to achieve both their overt and their implicit goals—creating a faculty-controlled committee to investigate Hoover and intimidating us into silence. Some respected faculty members, including the President, the Provost, and the former Provost all forcefully spoke up for academic freedom in general and defended Hoover in particular. They should be congratulated for doing so in these ideologically polarized times.

Nevertheless, our faculty accusers still succeeded in maligning us as individuals. The impression was left even by the President that we might have “behaved inappropriately” or “spoken untruths.” Unfortunately, this is not the first time such use has been made of the Senate. Indeed, it has happened repeatedly in recent years, for example in February 2019.

Purim Guide for the Perplexed 2021 Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger,

1. Purim’s historical background.  The 586 BCE destruction of the 1st Jewish Temple and the expulsion of Jews from Judea and Samaria – by the Babylonian Emperor, Nebuchadnezzar – triggered a wave of Jewish emigration to Babylon and Persia.  The latter replaced Babylon as the leading regional power.  In 538 BCE, Xerxes the Great, Persia’s King Ahasuerus, the successor of Darius the Great, proclaimed his support for the reconstruction of the Jewish Temple and the resurrection of national Jewish life in the Land of Israel, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish Homeland.  In 499-449 BCE, Ahasuerus established a coalition of countries – from India to Ethiopia – which launched the Greco-Persian Wars, attempting to expand the Persian Empire westward. However, Persia was resoundingly defeated (e.g., the 490 BCE and 480 BCE battles of Marathon and Salamis), and Ahasuerus’ authority in Persia was gravely eroded.

2. Purim is a Jewish national liberation holiday – just like Passover and Chanukah – which commemorates the transformation of the Jewish people from subjugation to liberty. It is celebrated seven days following the birth and death date of Moses, who is the role model of liberty, leadership and humility.

Purim is celebrated, annually, at a time when the relatively cold and stormy winter shifts into the relatively warm and pleasant spring.