POLITICS Comments turned off

Everybody Hates Liz Cheney Pimped by Democrats, used by the news media, abandoned by Republicans, and disliked by the public, Cheney, like her father, might have managed to tick off almost everyone on her way out the door. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/28/everybody-hates-liz-cheney/

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

After successfully winning the affection and approval of political enemies who, not so long ago, considered her father a war criminal, Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) will leave Congress in about 30 days to much greener, so to speak, pastures. (Ironically—or not—Cheney’s effort to indict Trump related to the events of January 6 will continue under Special Counsel Jack Smith, fresh off the heels of prosecuting Kosovo government officials at The Hague, the very place many of Cheney’s new admirers wanted former Vice President Dick Cheney to face trial.)

Democrats, however, may not give the doyenne of NeverTrump Republicans the grateful send-off she undoubtedly believes she earned during her brief tenure in Congress. Cheney, according to news reports, is as popular with the staff of the January 6 select committee as she is with Republicans in Wyoming, who voted her out of office by a nearly 2-1 margin in August. 

Her obsessive fixation with Donald Trump—a personal vendetta in retaliation for Trump’s denunciation of the Iraq War and her father’s lies about weapons of mass destruction—is backfiring as the committee’s work concludes. And like all things Cheney, the end is fraught with internal drama, delusions of grandeur, personal score-settling, private bullying, and growing disaffection among those who trusted her to act in good faith.

The release of the official report has been delayed four times; it’s now scheduled for December 20, just two weeks before Republicans take control of the House with no time to pass any legislation to prevent a future “insurrection,” a major selling point to the public. Cheney, apparently, is to blame. “[Less] than six weeks before the conclusion of the committee’s work, Cheney’s influence over the committee’s final report has rankled many current and former committee staff,” the Washington Post reported last week. “They are angered and disillusioned by Cheney’s push to focus the report primarily on former president Donald Trump, and have bristled at the committee morphing into what they have come to view as the vehicle for the outgoing Wyoming lawmaker’s political future.”

More than a dozen former and current committee investigators spoke anonymously to the Post; some have quit in protest of Cheney’s focus on Trump. “[It’s] long been clear that Cheney deprioritized findings that didn’t fit a specific narrative about Trump’s efforts to foment the insurrection,” the Post revealed. One former staffer complained that the committee had morphed into a “Cheney 2024 campaign.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

‘Pup play,’ ‘genderfluid’ nuclear bureaucrat accused of felony luggage theft By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/pup_play_genderfluid_nuclear_bureaucrat_accused_of_felony_luggage_theft.html

It made the headlines when the Obama administration hired Sam Brinton as the deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the U.S. Department of Energy. In other words, a fairly high-level nuclear guy. On paper, Sam Brinton, an MIT-credentialed nuclear engineer, looked good. In real life, he’s a way out there “genderfluid” man who believes in pretending to be a puppy for sexual reasons. Now, he’s alleged to have stolen a woman’s suitcase at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport (“MSP airport”).

It’s hard to express just how strange Sam Brinton is. He shaves his head and swans around in women’s clothes:

He’s also a proud “pup handler,” an identity (because leftists always have “identities,” the more, the better) that sees him and his sex buddies dress up like puppies and their owners for fun. It’s unclear if real dogs are involved.  

Brinton is so passionate about his self-acknowledged “kink” that he’s lectured on the “Physics of Kink” at the University of Wisconsin. He’s also a member of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an old-time 501(c)3 drag group that mocks Catholicism, where he rejoices in the name of “Sister Ray Dee O’Active.”

Now, to that list of outré behaviors, we can add “accused luggage thief.” AlphaNews, a Minnesota-based online news outlet, reports that Brinton was charged with felony theft after he allegedly stole a woman’s luggage at the MSP airport.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

A Lament for a Nation, or Bye-Bye Miss Canadian Pie By David Solway

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2022/11/28/a-lament-for-a-nation-or-bye-bye-miss-canadian-pie-n1649327

It is very hard to maintain one’s composure when speaking to ordinary Canadians about the disaster in the making that is Canada today. I have engaged personally and via email over the last two years with literally hundreds of my fellow countrymen from all walks of life on the subjects of the national debt, the deficit, the sunsetting of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the draconian and illegal Covid and vaccine mandates and the turbo maladies that flow from them, the various repressive bills sieving through Parliament, the vicious and lying government and media campaign against the Trucker Freedom Convoy, and the unconscionable behavior of the most vindictive, incompetent and unpatriotic prime minister in the history of Confederation.

With precious few exceptions—“precious” is a key word here—I have come away in a state of profound depression. Some readers of my writings as well as everyday interlocutors have accused me of pessimism, which may be true. I recall a remark of Leonard Cohen’s: “A pessimist is somebody who is waiting for the rain. Me, I’m already wet.” Sometimes I feel completely drenched.

I’ve found the great majority of my correspondents do not know the difference between the debt and the deficit. They draw a blank when I mention the Charter or the Nuremberg Code, let alone Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum, and the Great Reset. None have researched the deception or willful ignorance among our politicians regarding the Covid mandates and not one has examined the harmful and even lethal nature of the vaccines and booster shots. None I’ve spoken to have even heard of SADS—Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, which emerged post-vaccine. Bills like C-4, C-11, C-12 and C-18, which are dictatorial measures designed to muzzle and censor the average citizen, are little more than arcana unworthy of consideration. Most people are indifferent to, or approving of, the push for legislated mask mandates, “a result of a compliant populace,” Cory Morgan writes, “willing to shrug their shoulders and give up personal liberties with little complaint.” The government and medical profession’s targeting of parents who resist the sickness of transgenderitis in order to provide a normal life for their children does not appear to move many Canadians.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Hysterical Spoof of a College English Course Description? Oh, Wait! By George Harbison

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/columns/george-harbison/2022/11/27/the-babylon-bee-publishes-a-hysterical-spoof-of-a-college-english-course-description-oh-wait-n1648938

The Babylon Bee is far and away the leading source of conservative satirical content on the internet.  Its writers brilliantly skewer the entire spectrum of woke and PC nonsense on a daily basis.  Its pieces are shared widely in social media by clear thinkers seeking comedic relief in the face of the avalanche of increasingly crazy and dangerous ideas, positions, and rhetoric emanating by the American left.

If the Babylon Bee’s most creative satirists conjured up a parody of a woke college course description, it would probably read something like this:

Reading and Writing Gender and Sexuality ENGL 214 CREDITS: 0.5

How do you read gender? How do you read sexuality? How and in what ways have gender and sexuality been written and rewritten? This course serves as an introduction to queer and transfeminist theories and practices in gender and sexuality studies. Conceptualized through its intersections with race, ethnicity, coloniality, class, and ability, the sex/gender system of oppression has long served as a taxonomizing apparatus. And yet, the literary, in league with anticolonial, civil rights, and LGBTQ social movements, not only sheds sharp light on how gender and sexuality are regulated and troubled, but also animates the liberatory potential of imagining embodied relations otherwise. At once world-building and world-shattering, representations of gender and sexuality can leverage critiques against normativity in the same gesture as they bow to reproducing it. Taking our transnational cue from subjugated knowledges and intersectional epistemologies, we’ll constellate the diverging genealogies and methodologies that have shaped the politics and aesthetics as well as the ethics and affects of gender and sexuality. Against the traffic of binary opposition, we’ll index the possibilities of intimacy and performativity that determine desiring subjects and their objects. As a class collective, our aim will be to read and reread as well as write and rewrite texts that interrogate and complicate how gender and sexuality, as contested sites of pleasure and pain, are embodied and experienced. The geographic and generic focus of this course may vary; for more information, students should contact the instructor. This counts toward the methods requirement for the major and an elective for the women’s and gender studies major. Open only to first-year and sophomore students. Prerequisite: ENGL 103 or 104.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Sophistry of Disinformation When you can’t handle the truth, call it disinformation. by Loyd Pettegrew

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-sophistry-of-disinformation/

Misinformation differs from disinformation only in regard to intent. The former is simply inaccurate information without the intent of being so. Disinformation is intentionally crafted by the sender and sent by him/her.

Those on the Left dismiss out of hand ideas they don’t like through name-calling. Information that goes against what the Left consider gospel, like the possible dangers of Covid vaccines or treatments such as Ivermectin, is dismissed out of hand as disinformation (or misinformation) depending on who is using the term. A Google search of the term disinformation yields 100 million results!

Robert Malone (the physician censored for presenting information counter to the CDC’s Covid gospel) and Whitney Webb argue that journalism is in existential crisis through their war on dissent: “Whereas journalism continues to be defined as ’writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation’—in practice, it has become a battlefield where the most powerful social media outlets (Facebook, Instagram, TIKTOK, Snapchat, Twitter, Whatsapp, etc.)—that is, those closest to the centers of power—deliberately manipulate or omit facts to craft narratives that expressly benefit the powerful while also colluding to censor their more truthful competition.”

Dominick Sansone terms this America’s “information war” with political power and financial fortunes at stake. In the underbelly of this war is the promulgation of disinformation—the Left’s coin of the realm against anything expressed by the Right, no matter how valid.

Although the term “disinformation” reemerged as the popular parlance of federal bureaucrats during the Trump presidency, the term traces back to an 1876 newspaper article published in the Newport Mercury (Newport, RI). Disinformation is a literal translation of the Russian word dezinformatsiya, which means “misinformation,” a term the KGB used in the 1950s to signify a department created to dispense Communist propaganda.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China: Anti-Lockdown Protests Explode A revolution or hiccup? Christine Williams

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/china-covid-protests-explode/

Less than a week after World Economic Forum leader Klaus Schwab was brazen and immoral enough to declare China a “role model for many nations” despite its authoritarian rule and human rights abuses (in words that were similar to those of Canada’s Justin Trudeau, who once expressed his admiration for China’s “basic dictatorship”), China has now exploded in unexpected protests over imposed COVID lockdowns. According to the Express:

Protests against strict lockdown orders are growing in China, amid signs that the Chinese Communist Party is losing its grip over the Chinese people. Protesters demanded Xi Jinping step down in a country where any direct criticism of its leaders is rare and often results in harsh punishment.

The protests are already having an adverse effect upon the Chinese economy. According to Bloomberg, “optimism had re-emerged in Chinese markets after Beijing cut quarantine periods and dialed back testing, triggering a rally that’s added almost $370 billion to the MSCI China Index.” Now those gains are suddenly “unraveling due to the protests.”

Caution is setting in despite a growing chorus of bullish China calls on Wall Street that cite cheap valuations and friendlier policies. On Monday, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index slumped more than 4%.

This rapid hit to China’s economy obviously does not bode well for the country’s larger ambition, as it will play an as yet undetermined role in its future plans and quest for global hegemony and prestige.

What is unfolding in China demonstrates the basic and intrinsic human need for freedom, as well as the lust to enslave humans that is prevalent among the darkest elements of society. The word “revolution” is already being used to describe what has just began in China, more precisely, a white paper revolution. Keep in mind that over in Iran, the people’s revolution is expanding as well.

BOOKS Comments turned off

Stand A Little Less Between Me And The Sun Gary M. Galles

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/28/stand-a-little-less-between-me-and-the-sun/

“Henry Hazlitt recognized liberty as the only moral system and economic liberty, or capitalism, as the only means of organizing society that can benefit all. And he defended that position powerfully against many attacks. As Ludwig von Mises described him, “in this age of great struggle in favor of freedom and the social system in which men can live as free men, you … are the economic conscience of our country.” During his life, Hazlitt saw America taking the opposite course, with ever more resources forcibly taken from some for whatever and whoever the government decides. Now, much farther down that path, his understanding is even more important.”

Today marks the 1894 birth of one of American history’s most prolific public intellectuals – Henry Hazlitt. According to Lew Rockwell, he “was familiar with the work of every important thinker in nearly every field,” and “wrote in every important public forum of his day.” His published work as a journalist, literary critic, philosopher and economist ran to roughly 10 million words before his death in 1993, including perhaps the most popular economics book ever written – “Economics in One Lesson” (though looking back on that book later, he concluded that “So far as the politicians are concerned … the lesson … does not seem to have been learned anywhere”). 

BOOKS Comments turned off

American Injustice’ — Buy It, Read It, Give It As A Christmas Gift Armando Simón

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/29/american-injustice-the-shockingly-true-story-of-the-hunter-laptop-coverup/

The other day, I received the newly published “American Injustice” by J. P. MacIsaac. He is the computer repairman who received a laptop from an intoxicated crackhead scumbag that turned out to be Hunter Biden and who later neglected to pick it up. The book details what transpired after that.

As is my usual habit with the unending line of books I order, I read a few pages just to get a taste of it, intending to put it down and read it days, weeks, months, or years later.

You’ve heard the hackneyed phrase, “I couldn’t put it down.” I’m sorry, but I couldn’t put it down, even though I had a long list of chores to do that weekend.

Well, actually, I did put it down. That is, for five minutes to start one of the tasks only to go back and pick up reading where I left off.

I had seen the awful movie “My Son Hunter” (why can’t conservatives make decent movies?) and although the movie had a bad screenplay, on viewing it I learned a few things regarding Hunter’s crimes.

Anyway, MacIsaac relates how, on repairing the laptop he uncovered a tremendous amount of selfie videos of pornography, using drugs and, more importantly, a treasure trove of illegal activities that Biden’s son took part in. the latter included documents of multimillion dollar embezzlements and bribes received by the Bidens, as well as evidence of collusion with Ukrainian and Chinese thuggish oligarchs.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden’s Man in Venezuela The U.S. eases sanctions on Maduro in return for political promises.

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-man-in-venezuela-nicolas-maduro-sanctions-11669674747?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

In negotiating with oil-producing dictators, the Biden Administration has a consistent strategy: Make concessions in hope the other side will return the favor. It hasn’t worked with Iran, and now the White House is trying with the thugs who run Venezuela. What could go wrong?

The U.S. lifted Trump-era sanctions on Caracas over the weekend, renewing a license for Chevron to pump oil again in its joint ventures with the state-owned oil company PdVSA. The U.S. will also unfreeze $3 billion in Venezuelan assets for what it says will be “humanitarian” needs. In exchange, dictator Nicolás Maduro is promising to negotiate free and fair elections in talks with the opposition in Mexico City.

Venezuela once produced 3.4 million barrels of oil a day and was the richest nation in Latin America. But two decades of socialism have degraded petroleum infrastructure and exiled human capital. PdVSA now pumps fewer than 700,000 barrels a day, and Mr. Maduro relies on narcotics trafficking to pay his military.

Mr. Maduro wants to produce more oil, and the Biden Administration also wants more oil to replace Russian supplies reduced by the Ukraine war. Easing permitting rules on U.S. federal land offends the Democratic Party’s climate donors. So the Administration has gone hat in hand to OPEC and the Saudis and now Venezuela. It’s mind-boggling to see the U.S. go begging to dictators when the U.S. has huge untapped reserves.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Innocence of Jimmy Lai By pleading not guilty, he is forcing Hong Kong officials to own their lies. By William McGurn

Posted By on November 29th, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-innocence-of-jimmy-lai-china-censorship-free-speech-jail-prison-hong-kong-conviction-liberty-guilty-arrested-truth-11669673581?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Jimmy Lai’s whole life—as a refugee, as an entrepreneur, as a champion of Chinese liberty—has been one long exercise in boldness. Now comes his boldest move of all: insisting on his innocence in a Hong Kong court where he doesn’t have a prayer of winning.

On Thursday, Jimmy, 73, is scheduled to go to trial on three charges related to collusion with foreign forces and another involving conspiracy to publish and distribute seditious material. Others arrested for national security offenses have pleaded guilty with the aim of securing a lighter sentence. Not Jimmy.

This trial is the culmination of two years of prosecution on lesser charges, including a conviction for business fraud. There is a logic here, because prosecutors want more than a conviction and prison sentence. They want to paint Jimmy as a corrupt businessman who worked with foreigners to undermine China.

Under the new national security law, Jimmy faces the possibility of life in prison. There is not a man, woman or child in Hong Kong who doesn’t believe the verdict is already in. The authorities are taking no chances either, having Jimmy tried before three national security judges rather than a jury.

To what possible purpose, then, is his plea of not guilty? Certainly it isn’t for a better deal for himself. If that’s what he was looking for, Jimmy would have left Hong Kong and lived abroad in comfort when it became clear he was going to be arrested.

Simply put, Jimmy is making what may be his last stand for truth. The larger prosecution narrative is that Jimmy is selling out China to the West. But Jimmy has never, for example, advocated independence for Hong Kong or Taiwan and has always insisted protests must be peaceful.