The Culture War Is Coming for Your Car As the green left’s hostility to the automobile grows, voters notice their own values are at stake. By Joseph C. Sternberg

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-culture-war-is-coming-for-your-car-climate-electric-vehicle-britain-5a4cc7aa?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Forget race. Forget sex. Forget immigration. The mother of all culture wars is breaking out, and its subject is the car.

The automobile has long been a policy flashpoint, with the paramount issue being where it should be able to roam. This was the heart of the brutal urban-planning battles of the mid-20th century, which were fought over the need for and placement of new highways.

Yet it’s hard to describe those earlier policy fights as a culture war. Liberal urban activists such as Jane Jacobs—who famously fought off Robert Moses’ plan to build a highway interchange over Washington Square Park in New York City—didn’t hate cars or the people who drove them. In her magisterial “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” Jacobs repeatedly observed that resorting to the personal car was an entirely rational response to the failures of government urban planners to encourage smarter development.

Such humane common sense seems quaint in the context of today’s car wars. For a growing portion of the left, the automobile has become a moral ill in its own right rather than the symptomatic inconvenience of Jacobs’s telling. Partly this has to do with pollution, which was barely emerging as an issue when Jacobs was at her peak in the early 1960s but has also improved dramatically since. Much more so it has to do with carbon emissions—which are distinct from the smoggy pollution of the 20th century, despite constant efforts to conflate the two.

When I say “carbon emissions,” note that I mean it in a general sense. The problem with the personal car isn’t its direct climate impact. Road transport, including trucking, accounts for 12% of global carbon emissions. Electric vehicles aren’t an obvious means of reducing overall emissions, especially once you factor in their dirty supply chains and the coal-fired power that often charges them.

Liz Peek: Trump’s the Republican To Solve the Crisis in the House, Which Would Bolster His Chances in 2024

https://www.nysun.com/article/trumps-the-republican-to-solve-the-crisis-in-the-house-which-would-bolster-his-chances-in-2024

It is time for President Trump to exert his authority as putative head of the Republican Party. He needs to step in and resolve the mess created by Congressman Matt Gaetz and his seven cohorts in the House of Representatives. 

How can he do that? By making sure that the selection of the next House speaker is done quickly and with minimal drama. Get Mr. Gaetz and his allies to support the most electable candidate, whether it is Congressman Jim Jordan or Congressman Steve Scalise or whomever else party leaders and Mr. Trump choose.

It’s time to tell the bomb-throwers, all Trump admirers, to stand down. Because it is widely believed that Mr. Gaetz’s drive to topple Speaker McCarthy stemmed from personal animus rather than any ideological high ground, that should not be impossible. The eight whose votes bounced Mr. McCarthy have no favored candidate, they have no plan. They just wanted him out.

Why would the 45th president wade into this particular swamp? Because nobody has more to lose politically from the ejection of Mr. McCarthy. When voters — even those of us who admire his policies — think of Mr. Trump’s presidency, they think of chaos, and the recent turmoil in the House furthers that narrative.

David Randall The Implicit-Bias House of Cards DEI trainings don’t work because one of the concepts on which they are based is junk science.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-implicit-bias-house-of-cards

In the Wall Street Journal, Mahzarin Banaji and Frank Dobbin recently published “Why DEI Training Doesn’t Work—and How to Fix It,” a defense of implicit-bias research in the guise of a critique of current corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion trainings. Banaji is one of the two inventors of the concept of implicit bias, and of the related implicit association test (IAT). She and Dobbin hope to acknowledge the flaws of DEI trainings while preserving implicit-bias research—and the associated program of political activism. The authors lament that DEI trainings elicit shame in their subjects, and that they are largely being used to bolster workforce-management policies against possible litigation. Their problem with DEI trainings is not that they are discriminatory, but that they do not strike the right tone:

Reminding managers that they can use these tools to suss out problems and nip them in the bud helps them to feel capable of managing biases and microaggressions. When managers use these skills, they retain women and people of color for long enough to come up for promotion. . . . training isn’t designed to blame people for their moral failings. Instead, it’s galvanizing them to support organizational change by arming them with knowledge.

The problems with DEI trainings are not in their tone, however, but in their substance. The implicit-bias theory (also called unconscious-bias theory) on which these trainings are based has no scientific basis, as years of examinations have consistently demonstrated. Lee Jussim puts it politely in his “12 Reasons to Be Skeptical of Common Claims About Implicit Bias,” but the Open Science Foundation’s archive of Articles Critical of the IAT and Implicit Bias renders a harsher verdict. In 2011, Etienne LeBel and Sampo Paunonen reviewed evidence that measures of implicit bias possess low reliability. In other words, when you test for implicit bias multiple times, you rarely get the same result. Their conclusion was that some part of “implicit bias” is really “random measurement error.” In 2017, Heather Mac Donald’s intensive examination of the theory and its empirical basis (or lack thereof) concluded that the “implicit-bias crusade is agenda-driven social science.” And Bertram Gawronski’s 2019 review of the scholarly literature on implicit-bias research also concludes that there’s no proof that people aren’t self-aware enough to know what’s causing their supposedly “implicit” or “unconscious” biases; and that you can’t prove that there’s any relationship between how people do on the test and how they behave in the real world.

As far back as 2009, Hart Blanton and colleagues reexamined research data on implicit bias. They found that 70 percent of whites who supposedly displayed implicit bias against blacks actually discriminated in favor of blacks.

Our Establishment’s Alternate Realities After mid-terms, Biden resumed his attack on once bad, then good, and now bad again fossil fuels—at least until ’24 By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/05/our-establishments-alternate-realities/

One common denominator that explains why previously successful societies implode is their descent into fantasies. A collective denial prevents even discussion of existential threats and their solutions.

Something like that is happening in the United States. Eight million illegal immigrants have entered the United States by the deliberate erasure of the southern border.

Apparently, the Biden administration sees some unstated advantage in destroying U.S. immigration law and welcoming in would-be new constituents.

Yet, the more the millions arrive, the more Joe Biden and his Homeland Security director Alejandro Mayorkas flat out lie that “the border is secure.”

They both live in a world of make-believe, passed off to the American people as reality.

And the more the Americans are lied to that the border is secure, the more they poll—currently 77 percent—that it is not.

Biden apparently has reversed course and begun using the former pejorative “Bidenomics” as a term of pride.

He now praises this three-year effort to borrow $6-7 trillion, and spike interest rates threefold to 7% on home mortgages—even as prices on essentials like food and fuel have spiked 25-30% since he entered office.

The more that Biden brags about what he did to the economy, the more people poll—over 60%—dissatisfaction with his alternate reality of “Bidenomics.”

Do we remember the humiliation in August 2021 in Afghanistan?

The more Gen. Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and Joe Biden assured that the American military presence was stable, the more swiftly it crumbled and descended into the worst mass flight of an American army since Vietnam.

Ending Feudal Slavery…Again By J.B. Shurk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/ending_feudal_slaveryagain.html

The ruling class would have us believe that the most dangerous threats to our security and happiness are Russia, global warming, and unapproved speech.  In actuality, the lethal threat of our times and for the foreseeable future is the unconstrained power of the State.  State control versus individual liberty is the conflict that will eventually lead to war, social upheaval, and revolutionary change.  Everything else is either ancillary or a psychological distraction.

The Marxist globalists know this.  Everything they do is engineered to steal personal freedoms and expand government’s oppressive control over the living.  They seek a centralized power structure in which as few people as possible own everything, while everyone else lives as a serf.  To that end, the small cabal of globalist oligarchs continue to siphon wealth and power from ordinary people, strengthening themselves and making their enemies — us — weaker with every thieving pass.

Ordinary people increasingly understand what is happening.  However bad the government’s COVID tyranny has been, it has had the salubrious effect of pulling the wool from the eyes of a great many people.  A primary reason that COVID tyranny has backfired is that it relies on a premise that normal people can see is not true — that the danger from the Wuhan Flu is so great that it justifies lockdowns, censorship, and forced injections of experimental “vaccines.”  Had people been dying in the streets in horrific and ghastly ways, these monumental violations of human rights and personal liberties might have been understood, if not condoned. 

However, ordinary people armed with nothing more than an elementary-school-level comprehension of the Scientific Method and medical ethics know that such radical programs to fight disease are inexcusable unless absolutely necessary.  Once people learned — despite the government’s embargo over such essential information — that young and healthy people had almost no risk of dying or becoming seriously ill from COVID, they also knew that it was unethical to force any kind of experimental treatment upon the unwilling.  Once people learned that the government’s twofold promise — that the “vaccines” prevented both viral infection and transmission — was an easily proven lie, then they knew that there was nothing scientifically rational behind the government’s imperious commands.  Once the government chose to defend its actions — including forced masking and isolation — as critically necessary, despite mounting evidence that these policies did more harm than good, ordinary people began to realize that the whole exercise had nothing to do with public health and everything to do with State control.  Once government scientists started speaking in infantile gibberish — such as, “We’re working at the speed of science!” — the jig was up.  The propaganda had become just too obvious.

How Would Frederick Douglass Regard Today’s Left? Copy his statements into a document and ask any leftist what he/she thinks of them. by Dennis Prager

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-would-frederick-douglass-regard-todays-left/

Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest Americans who ever lived. This man began life as an illiterate slave — nearly all slave owners prevented slaves from learning to read — and rose from slavery to become, along with Abraham Lincoln, the greatest orator of his time, and one of the wisest and most eloquent writers in American history.

He became the great black leader of his day, honored by multiple American presidents who frequently sought his counsel. If you read his autobiography, “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” you will experience English language writing that has few peers in any nonfiction writing in American history.

Every American child and adult should read this book for many reasons. First, it should be read to appreciate the inhumanity of slavery. The physical abuse, and perhaps worst of all, the human degradation inherent to slavery are depicted in understated yet riveting language. Second, it should be read as a document of history. Third, it should be read for its wisdom about the human condition.

Frederick Douglass may be one of the few figures in American history revered by Left and Right, and by nearly all blacks and all whites.

In light of that, it is worth pondering the question: Are Frederick Douglass’ views more consonant with today’s Left or today’s conservatives? It is fair to say that nearly every leftist believes that Frederick Douglass is one of them. But if you read his “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” you will discover a man who, with regard to race, the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln and related matters has virtually nothing in common with today’s Left. In fact, leftists would identify every one of the following quotes from Douglass’s autobiography as “white supremacist” and/or “racist.”

Frederick Douglass: “When an unknown man is spoken of in their presence, the first question that arises in the average American mind concerning him and which must be answered is, Of what color is he? and he rises or falls in estimation by the answer given. It is not whether he is a good man or a bad man. That does not seem of primary importance.”

This Douglass quote runs completely counter to the virtually universal left-wing (not liberal, left-wing) claim that race is important and that to ignore it — to attempt to be color-blind — is racist.

The Atlantic, Sept. 13, 2013: From an article titled, “Color Blindness Is Counterproductive”: “How many times have you heard someone say that they ‘don’t see color,’ ‘are color-blind,’ or ‘don’t have a racist bone in their body’? Maybe you’ve even said this yourself. Many sociologists, though, are extremely critical of color blindness as an ideology.”

Elon Musk: Justin Trudeau is Trying to ‘Crush Free Speech in Canada’ Canada’s PM is actually already there – after years of insidious crackdowns. by Christine Williams

https://www.frontpagemag.com/elon-musk-justin-trudeau-is-trying-to-crush-free-speech-in-canada/

The biggest accomplishment of Justin Trudeau is that he managed to make Canada a focus of intense international media attention, but not for respectable reasons. Canada’s freedoms are being severely compromised, and it is drowning economically as well. The latest out of Canada: Elon Musk tweeted that Trudeau is “trying to crush free speech“ in Canada.

The proverbial ship has sailed. It has been a long, tough process for patriotic Canadians as they watch Trudeau strip away their freedoms. Musk was responding to a new law in Canada, Bill C-18, that requires social media and streaming services with revenues over $10 million to register with the government, starting in November 2023. Subscription television services which are available online, as well as Facebook, X, Netflix, and Disney, are also included, as are radio stations that livestream online, and podcast services. Individual podcasters need not worry, unless, of course, they make over $10 million in revenue.

The wing of the Canadian government overseeing Bill C-18 is the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). Details of the requirements can be found here.

Trudeau is beyond “trying to crush free speech” in Canada, as Musk observed. He has already largely succeeded, and has trampled not only the freedom of speech. Other examples of Trudeau’s infringement of the freedom of Canadians include:

his treatment of the truckers during the peaceful convoy protests; his Cabinet discussion about “crushing the Freedom Convoy with tanks“; and his freezing of the bank accounts of those who supported the trucker protest (and not just corporate accounts, either). Trudeau’s COVID overreach even prompted the Ohio State House to pass a resolution urging that Canada be added to the watch list of countries that restrict religious freedom. Trudeau made Amazon’s bestseller list, in a children’s book called How the Prime Minster Stole Freedom. Yet he got away with it all.
his gun ban.
his historic dealings with China.
his appointment of an “Islamophobia” czar.

Israel-bashers headline Jewish center’s speaker series at Temple University I wonder what historian Murray Friedman would think of what his center has become in the hands of his successors. Moshe Phillips

https://www.jns.org/israel-bashers-headline-jewish-centers-speaker-series-at-temple-university/

While attention has been focused on the anti-Israel literary festival at the University of Pennsylvania, harsh critics of Israel are also being featured just across town—at Temple University’s American Jewish Studies Center, also in Philadelphia.

The line-up of speakers during the 2023-24 academic year at Temple University’s Feinstein Center for American Jewish History features one critic of Israel after another. It seems that you have to be angry at the Jewish state in order to qualify to be part of the series.

One of the speakers who already delivered their talk was Eric Alterman, whose latest book, We Are Not One, depicts Israel as an oppressor and derides American Jews for supporting it.

Speaking at Tel Aviv University last year, Alterman announced his personal break with Israel. “I’m sorry; I’m abandoning you and your colleagues,” he declared. “I’m going to devote my attention to rejuvenating American Judaism. Those are my people. I used to have in my will Israeli peace groups, I’m changing my will and I’m funding American Jewish scholarly and charitable institutions.”

In a recent issue of the Jewish Review of Books, a prominent Jewish scholar questioned some of the distortions in Alterman’s book. Alterman responded by denouncing the reviewer as “chief of [the magazine’s] pro-Israel thought police.” That kind of slur gives you a sense of his temperament.

To discuss the current judicial reform debate in Israel, the Feinstein Center chose Gilat Bachar. She’s one of the leaders of a legal initiative to reclassify Israeli anti-terror actions as “policing” (rather than combat) so that more Palestinian Arabs can sue the Israeli government.

It’s interesting to note that nine years ago, Bachar chose to serve as an intern at the extremist HaMoked center, which defends Palestinian Arab terrorists. Does that disqualify her from speaking about Israeli affairs at the Feinstein Center? No. But it does give you a sense of her orientation when she talks about Israeli legal controversies.

Another Feinstein speaker is Talia Lavin. She was forced to resign from the staff of The New Yorker after she falsely accused an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent of having a Nazi tattoo. It was actually the symbol of his platoon in Afghanistan, where he risked his life to keep terrorists from coming to the United States to maim and kill innocent people like Lavin.

Support For Both Biden And Trump Fell In Oct. — A Blip, Or Opening For Challengers? I&I/TIPP Poll Terry Jones

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/05/support-for-both-biden-and-trump-fell-in-oct-just-a-blip-or-an-opening-for-others-ii-tipp-poll/

The 2024 election has seemed to be a preordained outcome, with current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump holding substantial leads in their respective parties. But in October’s I&I/TIPP Poll, both major candidates’ support slipped a bit against their challengers. A one-off fluke, or the start of a trend?

The most recent online I&I/TIPP Poll, taken Sept. 27-29 from 1,262 registered voters, saw slippage for both candidates, though neither will yet be pushing the panic button. The overall poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

After several months of steady support among Democrats for the party’s presidential nomination, Biden saw his support fall to 34% in October after edging higher from 36% in July and 37% in August to 38% in September.

Since the margin of error for the 560 Democrats surveyed for the poll was +/-4.2 percentage points, Biden’s October support remains within the margin of error when compared to the previous month’s 34% reading.

That said, Biden’s support fell in October. Meanwhile, backing for several of his possible opponents (or, perhaps, replacements if Biden bows out), gained a bit during the month. Biden’s No. 2 rival, former First Lady Michelle Obama, got 11% of Democrats’ support, up from 9% in September, and support for current Vice President Kamala Harris, rose to 8% from 7%. Socialist gadfly and sometime-Democrat candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders took 7% of support in October, also up a percent from September.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has made news recently by vetoing several laws from the state’s far-left Legislature, saw his support rise from 4% in September to 5% in October.

But perhaps of greater concern to Biden’s political advisers is that he runs very weak among some large constituencies: Women (31% support) vs. men (36%), blacks and Hispanics (29% support) vs. whites (38%), and independents (29%) vs. registered Democrats (36%).

The International Day of Persecuting Palestinian Journalists by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20019/persecuting-palestinian-journalists

The Palestinian Authority’s crackdown on journalists and political activists is part of an ongoing effort to silence and intimidate its critics.

Palestinian leaders have repeatedly shown that they reject any form of criticism directed against them. The only criticism they accept is that which is directed against Israel. Palestinian leaders are not different than most of the Arab heads of state whose governments control the media, which serves as a mouthpiece for the Arab regimes.

The latest victim of the Palestinian Authority crackdown is Palestinian journalist Tariq al-Sarkaji, a resident of the West Bank city of Nablus.

In recent weeks, several other journalists were also arrested. They include Sami al-Sa’i, Mohammed Shawasha, Jarrah Khalaf, Hatem Hamdan, Akeel Awawdeh, Ahmed al-Bitawi, and Muath Washha.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms condemned the arrest of freelance journalist Jarrah Khalaf by the Palestinian Military Intelligence Service on September 4. The group said that Khalaf, 23, was summoned for an interview at the Military Intelligence headquarters in the city of Jenin. The next day, he was brought before the Jenin Prosecution Office and charged with “possession of weapons.” This is a charge that the Palestinian Authority often uses to justify the arrest of journalists and political activists.

It is a sad truth that, three decades after the inception of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians still do not have a free and independent media.

An even sadder truth is that most international human rights organizations care nothing about the abuse perpetrated against Palestinian journalists by their own leaders.