EDUCATION Comments turned off

Teachers Attend ‘LGGBDTTTIQQAAP’ Sensitivity Training By Megan Fox !!!!?????

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

Gather ’round children! The Canadian Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario has some super interesting new information for you! First, we’re going to learn a new acronym. Can you say, “LGGBDTTTIQQAAPP?” Let’s try it to the tune of “Old MacDonald!” Everyone sing along! Next, we’ll learn what these letters mean. Are you ready?

L — Lesbian (everyone knows what this is, right?)

G — Gay (and I’m sure I don’t need to explain this to you smarties!)

G — Genderqueer Now this one is new. So let’s make sure we all understand what this means. “Genderqueer; denoting or relating to a person who does not subscribe to conventional gender distinctions but identifies with neither, both, or a combination of male and female genders.” That’s easy, isn’t it, kids? Basically, this is a person who has no idea who or what xey are, okay?

B — Bisexual (That’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?)

D — Demisexual Oh boy! Another new one! Let’s get out the ever-expanding queer dictionary to figure it out! “A demisexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone.” This used to be known as monogamous love. But now we throw the word “sexual” on it to make it attractive to the kids. Got it?

T — Transgender (You all know all about this one! These are boys or girls who dress up like the opposite sex and want everyone to pretend not to notice!)

T — Transexual (You are familiar with these people too! Same as above, only they’ve gone through irreversible surgery to remove healthy body parts because feelings. Let them in your bathroom. Everything is fine.)

T — Two-Spirit Oh my goodness! How exciting! It’s another category no one on earth has ever heard of! This one is complicated, dear ones. For sure you have to be a Native American. And smoking a lot of peyotes could only help to understand what the heck a two-spirit is. It appears to be a third gender not yet discovered by science and only found in the Native American community by gender studies majors who take adventure vacations and hang out in sweat lodges.

I — Intersex (This is that very rare condition that we used to call hermaphrodite, where a child is born with both sex organs of male and female. It is very rare, as in, hardly ever happens. It is a birth defect.)

We are just motoring through all these new terms and if you need a snack to recharge, choose something high protein! We are going to need those brains functioning at peak capacity for this one!

Q — Queer Just when you thought you couldn’t use the word “queer” because it’s an insult, think again! It’s back! Queer is an umbrella term designed to describe all people who aren’t normies. I think. It’s hard to tell. These things do change on an almost daily basis.

Q — Questioning is a term used for people who are still deciding where they are going to fall on this list. It seems contradictory to the “born that way” theory—to have a bunch of people still questioning their sexuality—but the LGBTQWTF brigade says it’s fine, so rest assured, there’s nothing to question about questioning.

A — Asexual people have no interest in sex. This also used to be known as people who are married with kids. See the classic TV show “Married with Children” for an example.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Patents and Property at the Supremes The Justices will decide if Congress can let the executive revoke patents.

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

Can government bureaucrats vitiate private property rights without a jury trial and fair compensation? That’s the question the Supreme Court will consider on Monday in what could become a landmark patent case, Oil States Energy v. Greene’s Energy.

At issue is the inter partes review that Congress established with the 2011 America Invents Act to curb abusive patent litigation. Owners of low-quality patents—e.g., abstract ideas or processes with broad applicability—extort businesses with infringement lawsuits that are often cheaper to settle than fight. This can deter innovation. Inter partes review allows anyone to challenge a patent at any time. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board, composed of administrative judges appointed by the Commerce Secretary, then decides whether to grant a review and perhaps revoke a patent.

Oil States lost an inter partes review challenge after suing Greene Energy for infringement. The company then claimed that inter partes review violates the Constitution’s Article III and the Seventh Amendment because it allows an administrative agency to revoke patents without a jury trial. Article III sets the qualifications for the federal judiciary—that is, judges are appointed by the President with the consent of the Senate. They also have lifetime tenure. The Seventh Amendment guarantees a jury trial in suits involving common law such as private property, contracts and trademarks.

Congress has increasingly ceded authority to administrative bodies over disputes involving public rights—those between the government and individuals that don’t have a basis in common law. But private rights are strictly the domain of the federal judiciary. This distinction is crucial since Article III judges are intentionally insulated from politics and the two political branches.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Russia’s Dangerous Nuclear “Diplomacy” by Debalina Ghoshal

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

Russia’s state owned nuclear energy organization, Rosatom, of Uranium One celebrity, has been trying to develop nuclear cooperation with most of the Middle East countries.

Russia would undertake building and operating the nuclear power plants – then start influencing the foreign policy decisions of the country supposedly to “protect” the nuclear power plants from terrorists, and from there to project military influence in the region as it has done in Syria. Russia has already strengthened its defense and military cooperation with Iran and Turkey.

Middle Eastern countries seem as eager to partner with a great power such as Russia as Russia does to partner with them. That way, “everyone” in the region could enjoy greater influence, militarily and otherwise.

Russia has been trying to relieve itself of the economic slowdown it has faced ever since the West imposed sanctions on it for invading the Ukraine. To that end, Russia’s state owned nuclear energy organization, Rosatom, of Uranium One stardom, has been attempting to develop nuclear cooperation with most of the countries in the Middle East. Russia apparently considers the Middle East and North Africa two of the most lucrative markets; countries in the Middle East have already expressed interest in building 90 nuclear power plants at twenty-six sites across the region by 2030.

The Russian government has strongly supported the success of a company globally. Rosatom, for instance, already opened a regional office in Dubai, even though the United Arab Emirates does not have nuclear cooperation with Russia and cooperates with South Korea instead.

Russia, active during the “Iran deal” negotiations as a mediator between the E3 (Britain, Germany, France) with the United States on one side and Iran on the other, was one of the countries to gain from the Iranian nuclear deal – as was Rosatom. Russia, in 2015, signed nuclear cooperation agreements with both Iran and Jordan.

One the strategies Rosatom developed was the Build Own Operate (BOO) plan. Under it, Russia would undertake building and operating the nuclear power plants – then start influencing the foreign policy decisions of the country supposedly to “protect” the nuclear power plants from supposed terrorists, and from there to project military influence in the region as it has done in Syria, with its naval base at Tartus and its air base at Latakia.

Russia has already strengthened its defense and military cooperation with Iran and Turkey.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Hijab Barbie: Useful Idiots of Cultural Jihad by Judith Bergman

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

Far from reminding girls of a world of opportunities, the hijab reminds them of all the things they cannot do in many Muslim countries. These include decisions about their own lives and bodies, such as not having their genitals mutilated, and generally not leading the free lives that women in the West — including the ones working at Mattel — probably take for granted.

Far from being a symbol of empowerment, the new Hijab Barbie is an example of a cultural and civilizational jihad — and the submission of a Western company, Mattel, to that jihad. Cultural jihad is the attempt to change and subvert Western culture from within, or more simply put: to Islamize it.

“The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…” The document then goes on to list the Muslim Brotherhood organizations and the organizations of its friends: organizations such as CAIR, ISNA, ICNA among others. — Muslim Brotherhood, 1991.

A new Barbie doll has been launched as part of Mattel’s “sheroes” line. It is a doll in full hijab modeled after American-Muslim Olympic fencer, Ibtihaj Muhammad, the first American athlete to compete in the Olympics wearing a headscarf, which — apparently — Mattel felt was something for little girls worldwide to emulate. That and the possibility of selling millions of toys in the burgeoning Muslim market, of course.According to a statement from Mattel:

“Barbie is celebrating Ibtihaj not only for her accolades as an Olympian, but for embracing what makes her stand out,” said Sejal Shah Miller, Vice President of Global Marketing for Barbie. “Ibtihaj is an inspiration to countless girls who never saw themselves represented, and by honoring her story, we hope this doll reminds them that they can be and do anything.”

The attempt to paint the new Hijab Barbie as a symbol of empowerment for girls is, however, quite disturbing. Girls “being and doing anything they want” is considerably different from what this hijab-clad doll represents. Hijab Barbie represents, on the contrary, the often violent oppression that Muslim girls and women experience throughout the Muslim world. It also represents the gender-apartheid the Quran mandates, which limits the freedoms of Muslim girls and women in the extreme.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Exclusive: What Trump Really Told Kislyak After Comey Was Canned • Howard Blum see note please

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

Vanity Fair Magazine is not the arbiter of veracity, but if this is true….if…..it is quite a nasty tale….rsk
On a dark night at the tail end of last winter, just a month after the inauguration of the new American president, an evening when only a sickle moon hung in the Levantine sky, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters flew low across Jordan and then, staying under the radar, veered north toward the twisting ribbon of shadows that was the Euphrates River. On board, waiting with a professional stillness as they headed into the hostile heart of Syria, were Sayeret Matkal commandos, the Jewish state’s elite counterterrorism force, along with members of the technological unit of the Mossad, its foreign-espionage agency. Their target: an ISIS cell that was racing to get a deadly new weapon thought to have been devised by Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Saudi national who was al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker in Yemen.

It was a covert mission whose details were reconstructed for Vanity Fair by two experts on Israeli intelligence operations. It would lead to the unnerving discovery that ISIS terrorists were working on transforming laptop computers into bombs that could pass undetected through airport security. U.S. Homeland Security officials—quickly followed by British authorities—banned passengers traveling from an accusatory list of Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptops and other portable electronic devices larger than a cell phone on arriving planes. It would not be until four tense months later, as foreign airports began to comply with new, stringent American security directives, that the ban would be lifted on an airport-by-airport basis.

In the secretive corridors of the American espionage community, the Israeli mission was praised by knowledgeable officials as a casebook example of a valued ally’s hard-won field intelligence being put to good, arguably even lifesaving, use.

Yet this triumph would be overshadowed by an astonishing conversation in the Oval Office in May, when an intemperate President Trump revealed details about the classified mission to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Sergey I. Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Along with the tempest of far-reaching geopolitical consequences that raged as a result of the president’s disclosure, fresh blood was spilled in his long-running combative relationship with the nation’s clandestine services. Israel—as well as America’s other allies—would rethink its willingness to share raw intelligence, and pretty much the entire Free World was left shaking its collective head in bewilderment as it wondered, not for the first time, what was going on with Trump and Russia. (In fact, Trump’s disturbing choice to hand over highly sensitive intelligence to the Russians is now a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia, both before and after the election.) In the hand-wringing aftermath, the entire event became, as is so often the case with spy stories, a tale about trust and betrayal.

And yet, the Israelis cannot say they weren’t warned.

In the American-Israeli intelligence relationship, it is customary for the Mossad station chief and his operatives working under diplomatic cover out of the embassy in Washington to go to the C.I.A.’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters when a meeting is scheduled. This deferential protocol is based on a realistic appraisal of the situation: America is a superpower, and Israel, as one of the country’s senior intelligence officials recently conceded with self-effacing candor, is “a speck of dust in the wind.”

MEDIA Comments turned off

Sex abuse allegations expose the media’s hypocrisy on Trump By Sharyl Attkisson

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

“Not every horny narcissist with bad judgment is named Donald Trump.”

That was the actual “reportage” of New York Times reporter Glenn Thrush last year, in an article referring to the online sexual exploits of former congressman Anthony Weiner.

It appears, in retrospect, that Thrush might well have been describing himself.

Now, as long-silent accusations of sexual harassment surface like so many whack-a-moles, Thrush is one of the latest casualties.

News reports about his behavior, allegedly inflicting unwanted advances on a series of young women, describe the fedora-wearing Thrush as a successful and influential reporter who once worked for Politico and was then plucked away by the New York Times — once, perhaps, the most prestigious news publication in the world.

Some of his accusers say they feared his industry connections and felt smeared by him after they rebuffed his advances — all of which Thrush has denied.

But there’s a question as to how he was allowed to become an influential force in newsrooms and in political journalism, as described by offended female colleagues.

“Thrush, just by his stature, put women in a position of feeling they had to suck up and move on from an uncomfortable encounter,” wrote his former Politico colleague Laura McGann on Vox.com. She added, “Thrush is a talker — or, as many put it, ‘a bullshi–er.’ He likes to hear gossip, and he likes to spread it.”

McGann goes on to claim that Thrush manufactured gossip about female colleagues to deflect from his misbehavior, and that it was sometimes damaging to their careers.

As far as his professional work, we know from emails published by WikiLeaks that Thrush engaged in ethically questionable behavior there, too. As I wrote in my article Newsgate 2016:

Chief Politico political correspondent Glenn Thrush sent part of an article to [Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John] Podesta for approval before it was published. ‘Please don’t share or tell anyone I did this,’ Thrush writes in the April 2015 exchange. ‘Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u … Tell me if I f—-d up anything.’ Podesta signs off and the article is published. An email on April 17, 2015 shows Thrush also sent eight paragraphs from a pre-published article to Clinton Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri with the title ‘please read asap…don’t share.’ Palmieri writes colleagues, ‘Glenn Thrush is doing a story about how well launch went and some part of it will be about me — which I hate. He did me the courtesy of sending what he is going to say about me. Seems fine.’

Let me be clear: This sort of behavior violates basic journalism tenets — at least as far as I was taught. Double-checking facts is always a good idea; but the idea of sending, pre-publication, sections of articles to the subjects of the articles is verboten. Can you imagine Woodward and Bernstein sending their Watergate articles to Nixon for pre-approval? Do you think Thrush offered the same benefit to Donald Trump campaign officials?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Wild Blue Yonder A general’s overwrought response to a race hoax at the Air Force Academy was off-base. Bob McManus

Posted By on November 27th, 2017

American politics has been largely free of military influence since George Washington defused an incipient army mutiny at Newburgh, New York, in 1783. There have been relapses, including George McClellan’s presidential maneuverings before the 1864 election, and the insubordination of the politically ambitious Douglas MacArthur in 1951. But military deference to America’s elected civilian leadership has been so consistent for so long that even faint political activism by high-ranking officers stands out. Recently, a three-star Air Force general nudged up to, if not across, that thin line—taking to YouTube to accuse the institution, its cadets, and its staff of racism.

Academy Superintendent Lieutenant General Jay Silveria stirred the Internet in September when—not to mix military metaphors—he ordered the institution’s 4,900 cadets and staff to shape up or ship out following the discovery on campus of racist graffiti. “If you demean someone in any way, you need to get out,” Silveria said in a speech that quickly scored more than 1 million YouTube hits. “If you can’t treat someone from another race, or different color skin, with dignity and respect, then you need to get out.”

It was a textbook social-justice-movement moment—judgment first, facts afterward—insofar as Silveria had no clue who had scrawled the slur, no apparent interest in finding out, and no hesitation in spreading responsibility for it as widely as possible. And when the “hate crime” turned out to have been a hoax—the perp was a black student enrolled in an academy-preparatory program and one of five alleged “targets” of the slur—that didn’t slow down the academy’s virtue-signaling. “By embracing our differences, we help create a culture of respect and dignity,” said the academy’s director of culture, climate and diversity, Yvonne Roland. “As an institution of higher education and a military installation, we prepare our cadets to meet the challenges of an ever-changing global environment and to value ethics and human dignity.” Whatever that means.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Safe-space school cults and the rise of the crybabies By Alex Grubish

Posted By on November 26th, 2017

On June 6, 1944, American soldiers risked their lives to storm the beaches of Normandy in what is known as D-Day. Fast-forward 74 years later, and you will find ungrateful students confused about their genders hiding in their safe spaces on the politically correct grounds of a college campus.

Yes, the cult-based schools in which you were once encouraged to express new ideas has now become a place to go and get brainwashed into conforming to leftist beliefs, all while leaving in crippling debt. Students and faculty can now prevent conservative speakers from appearing on the campuses by violently protesting without permits, and they are encouraged to do so. If any of the students hears something he does not like, he declares himself triggered and runs to a safe space.

This booming wave of crybabies are known as the Millennials, “a generation raised not to believe in freedom of speech, but rather that they should have freedom from speech.” According to FIRE, 54% of public and 59% of private universities impose politically correct speech codes. An example of the anti-First Amendment speech codes happened at a university in California on Constitution Day (September 17), 2013. A student was told he could not protest NSA surveillance outside the free speech zone, which made up only approximately 1.37% of the campus. My roommate had a personal story up at University of Minnesota, Duluth where his boss told him he must not refer to females as wo-men when designing school posters, as the inconvenient root may offend feminist activists on the campus. So there you have it: college campuses in today’s society are breeding grounds for fascism, while the students shroud themselves under the veil known as the safe space.

So how can we stop this nonsense? First, we eliminate safe spaces and promote the expression of new ideas instead of filtering out ones you do not like by aggressively coloring your anger out in a room filled with puppies (yes, these places do exist). Second, we allow students to assemble peacefully on campuses to express their ideas and beliefs without being shut down by protesting students who think they are right because they talk louder than their opposition. Third, we stop implementing political correctness in school handouts, posters, and newsletters. Fourth, we hire professors fit for the job, regardless of their ideological beliefs. They are there to teach, not to use their appeal to authority fallacy to push their biased political agendas. Lastly, we eliminate useless majors and subjects and departments that just waste money and are there only to persuade students into adopting their political agendas. There are too many students enrolling in majors that do not prepare them for a real job, and there are too many departments that segregate everyone on the basis of identity politics.

We need more students to rise up and start fighting back. We are stronger in number, and there are plenty of students from both sides of the political spectrum who agree that the political correctness and safe space culture on campuses is a violation of the First Amendment.

HOMELAND SECURITY Comments turned off

West Side Highway Jihadist Indicted for Murder in Aid of Racketeering The killer has been indicted on terrorism-related charges that would support a death sentence. By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on November 26th, 2017

The jihadist who killed eight New Yorkers and wounded twelve others in a truck attack along the West Side Highway’s pedestrian path has been indicted on potential death-penalty charges by a federal grand jury in lower Manhattan.

Highlighting the 22 charges announced by the Justice Department on Tuesday are eight counts of murder in aid of racketeering, each of which carries a potential death sentence. There are, in addition, twelve counts of attempted murder in aid of racketeering, each having a ten-year maximum prison term. The indictment further alleges that Saipov provided material support to the Islamic State (ISIS), a designated terrorist organization under federal law. That charge carries a potential sentence of life imprisonment because Saipov’s material support resulted in murders. Finally, there is also a charge of violently damaging an automobile with reckless disregard for human life.

The indictment, as expected, is a marked improvement on the complaint that supported Saipov’s federal arrest three weeks ago. The complaint did not charge the racketeering offenses and relied heavily on the problematic vehicle-damage charge. As I explained at the time:

The criminal complaint is only the first step in the case, really just a means of keeping Saipov detained without bail, not the formal indictment on which he will ultimately be tried. When that indictment is filed, I am hopeful it will include charges of murder in aid of racketeering. This offense (section 1959) is a capital crime, prohibiting murder (as well as other violent crimes) committed “for the purpose of gaining entrance to” a racketeering enterprise. ISIS clearly qualifies as such an enterprise under federal law (under section 1961, it is a group of individuals associated in fact — even though not a legal entity — and it engages in acts of murder, among other depravities). Further, even if Saipov was not a member of ISIS before his killing spree, he was patently seeking entry into the network . . . and he succeeded in getting it. ISIS branded him “one of the caliphate soldiers” in its claim of responsibility.

Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York (SDNY) are now relying on this potentially capital offense. It is important to note, however, that they have not yet filed a notice of intent to seek the death penalty.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Power, Sex, and Politics By Angelo Codevilla

Posted By on November 26th, 2017

Power,” Henry Kissinger observed, “is the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Men, but mostly women, have been trading erotic services for access to power since time began.https://amgreatness.com/2017/11/24/power-sex-and-politics/

The ruling class’s recent carrying on over a supposed epidemic of powerful grabbers and gropers runs counter to common sense and experience. If Henry, who resembled less a prince than a frog even in his youth found his connections with power and wealth sufficient to satisfy his longings, so can anyone similarly placed.

Nor is there any evidence of a sudden increase in morality or restraint having cut into the supply of the willing. There is even less reason to believe that the very same arbiters of public behavior who, increasingly, penalize advocacy of restricting sex to men and women married to one another have become defenders of female modesty.

What, then, is the fuss about? It seems as the ruling class’s leadership experiences a major turnover, it is making a minor shift in tactics and in its list of enemies. Herewith, I try to explain.

Washington’s Trade-Offs
First, the basics. During my eight years on the Senate staff, sex was a currency for renting rungs on ladders to power. Uninvolved and with a hygroscopic shoulder, I listened to accounts of the trade, in which some one-third of senators, male senior staff, and corresponding numbers of females seemed to be involved. I write “trade,” because not once did I hear of anyone forcing his attention. Given what seemed an endless supply of the willing, anyone who might feel compelled to do that would have been a loser otherwise unfit for survival in that demanding environment.

This, I wager, is not so different from others’ experiences in Washington. Senior female staffers were far more open than secretaries in describing their conquests of places up the ladder, especially of senators. There was some reticence only in talking about “relationships” with such as John Tower (R-Texas) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) because they were the easiest, and had so many. The prize, of course, was Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.)—rooster over a veritable hen house that was, almost literally, a “chick magnet.” Access to power, or status, or the appearance thereof was on one side, sex on the other. Innocence was the one quality entirely absent on all sides.

In the basic bargain, the female proposes. The power holder has the prerogative to say “no,” or just to do nothing. By a lesser token, wealthy men need not offer cash to have female attention showered on them. Money is silver currency. Power is gold. A few, occasionally, get impatient and grab. But taking egregious behavior as the norm of the relationship between power and sex willfully disregards reality. Banish the grabbing, and the fundamental reality remains unchanged.

The Sins of Others
What, then, are our powerful rulers’ claims of zero tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual commerce about? First, they do not involve the ruling class giving up any of their privileges, never mind what are effectively their harems. They are confessions—not of their own sins, but of the sins of others. The others whose sins they confess are not the friends of those doing the confessing—at least, not their current friends. Yet again, they implicitly validate their own behavior by signaling their own virtue vis à vis others.