ELECTIONS Comments turned off

“Bias” Of Debate Moderators In Their Own Words Francis Menton

Posted By on October 7th, 2024

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-10-5-bias-of-debate-moderators-in-their-own-words

Usually, I don’t waste much time watching the presidential or vice-presidential debates; but on Tuesday I watched most of the vice-presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz. I applaud Vance on a skilled performance. But I particularly want to comment today on the overt hostility that Vance faced from the moderators, which is unfortunately typical of the hostility of the corporate media toward all Republican candidates.

If you watched some or all of the debate, you probably came away with a general impression of the moderators attempting to help Walz; but without a transcript it is difficult to remember specifics. Fortunately, CBS has produced a transcript of the debate. So I thought it might be informative to go through the transcript and compile some of the more absurd efforts of the moderators to give a boost to Walz. The moderators in this instance were Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan of CBS. What becomes noticeable when you do this is the extent to which the moderators insert into their questions contested, or even clearly false, Democratic Party talking points as if they were uncontested facts.

The second topic of questioning in the debate, introduced by moderator O’Donnell, was stated to be “Hurricane Helene,” which she used as a proxy for supposed climate change. Here is the text of the introductory question:

Let’s turn now to Hurricane Helene. The storm could become one of the deadliest on record. More than 160 people are dead and hundreds more are missing. Scientists say climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger and more deadly because of the historic rainfall. Senator Vance, according to CBS News polling, seven in ten Americans and more than 60% of Republicans under the age of 45 favor the U.S. taking steps to try and reduce climate change. Senator, what responsibility would the Trump administration have to try and reduce the impact of climate change?

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

We Will Not Let Our Country and Continent Be Destroyed by Geert Wilders

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20992/country-continent-destroyed

We choose the power of reason.
And we will win.
Here in the Netherlands and in Israel.

Am Israel Chai. [Israel will live.]

The hatred of extreme left-wing agitators and parts of the left-liberal elite in politics and the media against our Jewish compatriots and the State of Israel since the barbaric massacre of innocent civilians on October 7, 2023, has directly fueled anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews.

It started immediately after October 7 with inflammatory demonstrations of millions of people with false flags and slogans in many European capitals, including many non-Western immigrants, who thereby demonstrated that they do not share any of our values ​​and do not belong here. Then followed the betrayal at universities and in parts of our media and politics. Both nationally and internationally, from the [Netherlands] House of Representatives to the EU and UN, as well as in newspapers and on TV. Every day again. There are now even police officers who refuse to protect Jewish objects and instead of being fired on the spot, their cowardly police chiefs show understanding.

We are as strong as our weakest link. And there are so many weak links. All of whom will be commemorating the massacres of a year ago on Monday with packs of butter on their heads [Dutch expression for hypocrites].

I will always continue to point out their cowardice. And stand up for our values, culture and traditions. That also distinguishes us from the hostile killing machines of Hamas cum suis and the defenders of all their evil. They love death but we love life. And we defend our way of life with everything we have. And so we resist with sincere and unprecedented strength against the unfortunately growing hatred of Jews and Israel.

Against giving away our country and continent to migrants who do not share our values. Against politicians, journalists and education administrators who shamelessly choose the side of evil and whose moral compass now lies in Gaza.

BOOKS Comments turned off

A review of On the Warpath: My Battles with Indians, Pretendians, and Woke Warriors by Elizabeth Weiss.By Glynn Custred

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/10/the-woke-war-on-the-past/

In 1996 a skull was found on the banks of the Columbia River near the town of Kennewick, Wash. Authorities were notified, and the coroner called in anthropologist James Chatters to examine the remains for further information. In nine visits to the site, Chatters found a number of bones that were parts of a nearly complete skeleton. He determined that the skeleton was decades old, or even older. He also found several artifacts from the 19th century scattered around the discovery site, as well as, embedded in the skeleton’s hip bone, a stone projectile point showing that the man had been wounded by a spear or an arrow.

All this, along with the Caucasoid features of the skull, led Chatters to conclude that the remains were those of a trapper or a pioneer of the 19th century. This meant that the remains were well beyond the time limit when they would be of interest to the authorities. To find out more, he sent a sample of one of the bones to a laboratory for radiocarbon dating. He was surprised to find that the skeleton was actually some 9,000 years old, one of the oldest human skeletons ever found in the Americas.

The skeleton, known as Kennewick Man, caused scientists to reconsider theories of the peopling of the Americas. It also became the subject of a legal dispute between scientists and a coalition of Native American tribes in the area. The tribes claimed possession of the remains under the provisions of a federal law, the Native American Graves Protection Act (NAGPRA), which states that any human remains with lineal descent from a living tribe must be turned over to that tribe. Another reason for the transfer of ownership is “shared cultural affinity,” which is broadly defined to include oral traditions and geographical location. Litigation in such cases, therefore, can drag on for years, as was the case with Kennewick Man. During that time further examinations revealed that over his lifetime Kennewick Man had suffered, besides the arrowhead lodged in his hip, multiple rib fractures, a broken arm, and a head injury, giving us a closer look of life in prehistoric times.

Eventually DNA analysis showed a resemblance of the bones to some South American indigenous populations, and the remains were given to the claimant tribe for burial in an undisclosed location. This ignored the fact that we are all in some degree related and that, without a broad database that includes many tribes, a living tribe cannot reasonably be determined to be related by lineal descent to remains this old. And in this case, cultural affiliation meant simply geographic location. The main thing, however, was to defer to the tribes, for Native Americans have become a favored group in today’s society.

All this coincided with the ever-rising tide of identity politics, whereby the interests of a preferred group are advanced at the cost of the common good. This approach, part of a Marxist-based ideology that has been spreading through the institutions, is known variously variously as “wokeism” and “cancel culture.” It is an ideology that reduces all social, cultural, and political differences to two categories, the suppressed and the suppressers. In the case of American history, the Native Americans are the victims and the majority-white population are the suppressors. Since this movement deals with the acquisition and the holding of power rather than with the advance of science, its advocates do not counter their opponents with rational arguments.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Harris Was Put in Charge of the $42.5 Billion ‘Internet For All’ Plan. Where is it? Rick Moran

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2024/10/05/three-years-ago-harris-was-put-in-charge-of-the-425-billion-internet-for-all-plan-where-is-it-n4933097

We should be used to the idea by now that the Biden administration does not exist in the same time frame of the universe as the rest of us. You might recall the $7.5 billion set aside in the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to build 500,000 EV charging stations across the country. As of June, exactly eight charging stations had been built.

Amazingly, in that same Act, Congress authorized the Commerce Department to create an “Internet For All” scheme, which was supposed to bring broadband internet to everyone in America at an affordable price by 2030.

“It is going to help our kids and our business to succeed in the 21st century,” Biden said in his address on April 29, 2021. “I’m asking the vice president to lead this effort because I know it will get done.”

How’s that “broadband for all” rollout working out for ya, Kamala?

Would it surprise you to discover that not a single customer has been hooked up to broadband internet under the program in three and a half years?

“The program has collapsed under the weight of red tape imposed by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration,” said Americans for Tax Reform in August. “NTIA required states to submit multiple rounds of dense paperwork to even qualify for the funds they were given by Congress and has only recently started approving state plans for how to spend the money.”

EDUCATION Comments turned off

What Happens to All the Unnecessary DEI Workers? By Robert Weissberg

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/10/what_happens_to_all_the_unnecessary_dei_workers.html

Recall the adage to be careful of what you wish for… you might just get it. This sage advice is currently being demonstrated in the decline of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) crusade. Scarcely a week passes without major corporations and universities ending their DEI programs but unfortunately, these cutbacks hardly mean the end of DEI; it may even get worse. The reality is that the thousands of newly unemployed functionaries plus countless would-be DEI commissars are not about to disappear.

Particularly worrying that DEI functionaries are disproportionately middle-class African Americans, and unlike politically voiceless Kentucky coal miners now unemployed due to the push for green energy, they will not quietly go out to pasture on government doles.

Now for the “you may get what you wish for” bad news: the federal government is likely to pick up the slack, and the armies of now unemployed DEI functionaries and future racial preference experts will undoubtedly find a home in the vast federal bureaucracy. In a sense, this recalls the Great Depression, when the federal government served as the employer of last resort. Now, however, rather than build the next Hoover dam, these new hires will push Washington to ensure that that the federal workforce “looks like America” while prioritizing diversity, equity and inclusion.

The federal government has already gone on a DEI hiring spree. On the first day of his administration (January 20th, 2021), Biden issued an Executive Order, to “…Advance Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

BOOKS Comments turned off

CHAPTER 38: BigBrain, BICAN, and “The Evil Twins of Technocracy and Transhumanism” Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is* by Linda Goudsmit

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/28101/chapter-38-bigbrain-bican-and-the-evil-twins

goudsmit.pundicity.com  and website: lindagoudsmit.com 

Globalism is a replacement ideology replete with a replacement religion—Scientism. Scientism is a political ideology that challenges the foundation of objective, factual science, replacing it with consensus, feeling “science.” Objective science is independently provable and reproducible. Consensus “science” is simply subjective opinion and neither provable nor reproducible.

The Marxification of education (Chapter 29) has yielded a generation of woke young people who have rejected their parents’ Judeo-Christian religion and replaced it with Scientism. The Glossary of Leftist Doublespeak (Chapter 28) defines Scientism as “an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities). It has replaced traditional religion as the moral and ethical authority for woke members of society.”

Joshua Mercer, cofounder of the CatholicVote.org website, describes the conversion in an article posted by Daily Caller News Foundation, April 8, 2023, “Gen Z Traded Church for ‘A New Religion,’ Faith Leaders Say”:[i]

It’s not that Gen Z isn’t religious, it’s that they picked a new religion. They have fervent beliefs and rituals, they have their symbols and sacraments, and they definitely purge their ranks of “blasphemers” or anyone insufficiently dedicated to their faith. Look at how every corporation rushes to embrace the rainbow flag every June, and look at how people adorn their social media platforms with symbols to show solidarity with Black Lives Matter, Covid vaccination, Ukraine, or climate change. They are definitely evangelizing, it’s just not Christianity.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why the slow collapse of Harris-Walz won’t stop before Election Day Opinion by Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/why-the-slow-collapse-of-harris-walz-wont-stop-before-election-day/ar-AA1rK1tZ

Ohio Sen. JD Vance, as anticipated, easily won the vice-presidential debate Tuesday, October 1, on demeanor, facts, and analysis. But in fairness to a sometimes herky-jerky and nervous Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, he had the harder task of defending the temporary pseudo-conservative make-over of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. 

His additional burdens were her co-culpability for the last three-and-a-half-years of the Biden disaster, and her unwillingness to implement her supposedly “change” agenda in the last months of her vice-presidential tenure. 

The CBS News moderators, Nora O’Donnell, and, especially, Margaret Brennan, also as expected, ganged up on Vance. They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing from the last disastrous, and biased debate moderators.  

The two moderators shamelessly broke their own rules by fact-checking (wrongly and solely) Vance. They ignored questions of the administration’s tardy responses to Hurricane Helene, the Ukraine war, the recent Trump assassination attempts, or crime, while only briefly touching on Iran and a Middle East on the brink of total war. Instead, they concentrated, as also expected, on climate change, abortion, healthcare and childcare.  

All were issues they thought might more easily embarrass Vance. And, of course, as also expected, the two ended the debate pressing Vance on January 6. And yet Vance again parried easily and won decisively. In doing so, he dispelled the smear that he was somehow “mean,” when, in fact, he proved calm and magnanimous as he methodically dissected Walz.

The nation perhaps learned that a confident Trump selected him to articulate his MAGA positions, and perhaps in a manner superior to Trump’s own.

ANTI-SEMITISM, ELECTIONS, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Calling All Jewish Democrats: It’s An Emergency Dire times require dire measures Andrew Pessin

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://andrewpessin.substack.com/p/calling-all-jewish-democrats-its?utm_medium=email

The following piece appeared by an anonymous author at the Elder of Ziyon blog. It’s the most detailed and documented case against Kamala Harris I have seen, arguing that her presidency poses an existential threat not only to Israel but to American Jewry. I think it should at least be read by every Jewish Democrat, so if you know any, please forward it.

Why I have requested anonymity for this piece:

In my place of work there is intense hostility to Israel. If I openly argued what I am about to argue, that anyone who cares about Israel and American Jewry cannot support the Democratic candidate for President, my professional status would be seriously compromised. To borrow the point made by another recent essay, that is why this essay both needs to be published, and to be anonymous. The situation is that dire.

I am a lifelong Democrat.

But I also support Israel and American Jewry.

After October 7 the two are no longer compatible.

There are many issues I care about, for which the Democratic Party has traditionally been the better vehicle; but the current existential emergency for Israel and American-Jewry means that that issue must now take priority. Though it hurts to say it, this lifelong Democrat cannot vote for the current Democratic candidate for President. I am not the first to reach this conclusion. There’s even now a whole organization called “Jexit,” for Jews exiting the Democratic Party. With great regret I realize I must now join them, for the following now strikes me as indisputable:

Harris-Walz will be a disaster for Israel and for American Jewry.

There have been some positive moments. Biden-Harris said the right things immediately after October 7, and allowed the U.S. Navy to be present in the region at a couple of important times, for which an Israel-advocate rightly feels gratitude. But aside from these and their occasional banal remark about believing in Israel’s right to defend itself—doesn’t every country have the right to defend itself?—heaps and mounds of evidence point unambiguously toward that dire conclusion. The mound begins from the fact that every single time Biden-Harris say Israel may defend itself, the next word is invariably a “but”— “how it does so matters,” “too many civilians have died,” etc. Since, as Michael Oren explains so clearly, no one can explain “how an enemy that hides behind and beneath millions of civilians can be fought without causing collateral damage,” then Biden-Harris’s allowing Israel to defend itself only if it doesn’t cause civilian casualties amounts to their not actually giving Israel the right to defend itself. As I write, in September of 2024, it’s hardly surprising that Hamas leader Khaled Meshal is praising Biden-Harris for helping Hamas to remain in power, for always waiting patiently for and listening to Hamas’s demands in negotiations and for pressuring Israel to submit, and for elevating Hamas to the status of a legitimate diplomatic partner. What Meshal is gushing over is not the behavior of an ally of Israel, but of an administration that has largely taken the side of Israel’s enemies.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Jordan Peterson: my message to the Jews

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/blog/jordan-peterson-my-message-to-the-jews/

Beware your liberal values — those you see as allies are the vultures waiting for your demise, says author Jordan Peterson.

I have been watching the rising tide of antisemitism for about five years. It first appeared online, manifesting itself in the form of the ethno-nationalist trolling that allowed those who claimed to love their country to find a target for their resentment and rage in the name of patriotism. Then it crept into the so-called real world (although the virtual world is plenty real, folks) in the form of the hypocritical leftist virtue that poses a foundational threat to all that is good, true, meritorious and beautiful.

I have been in a unique position to observe all of this, for someone outside the Jewish community, because of my practical and entrepreneurial alliance with The Daily Wire, the conservative news and entertainment American communication network. The Daily Wire was co-founded by one Ben Shapiro, perhaps the world’s bestknown Orthodox Jew, and a good friend of mine.

Because of this, the antisemitic online trolls, particularly on the right, had plenty to say to me — about my subordination to the dictates of Israel, and about the hypothetical impossibility of me ever saying anything negative about the Jewish enterprise; in short, about my capture by the forces of international Jewry. This was of course accompanied with the meme-images of the positively hook-nosed shared by the scumrat cowards, always anonymous, often equipped with genuinely satanic noms de plume and monikers; always derisive, psychopathic to the core, hiding their alliance with evil behind the secrecy that enables the worst of them to spring forth and pollute the landscape of public discourse to the detriment of all. This attack has become much worse in the aftermath of October 7 — particularly when I call them out, as I have been doing on X, where the outright Nazis have been flourishing to an alarmingly increasing degree over the past few months.

I have spent much of my life studying the evils of antisemitism, obsessed as I have been by the events that unfolded in Germany in the decades prior to the Second World War, where the proclivity of the majority to turn against the eternally successful minority realised itself with the dreadful efficiency and industry that only the most advanced European state could manage. I learned plenty from such study, which was simultaneously exposure to the worst excesses of the worst part of the human psyche — mine included. What did I come to understand and realise, over those many years? First and foremost that there is plenty of the resentful and murderous spirit of Cain in each of us, friends — you included. And if you are one of those butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth moral paragons who happen not to think so, then it is even more likely to be true of you.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

UNRWA, refugees and terrorists by Asaf Romirowsky and Alex Joffe

Posted By on October 6th, 2024

https://romirowsky.com/28105/unrwa-refugees-terrorists

There are few constants in American foreign policy. One of them is deference to UNRWA, the internationally funded welfare agency for Palestinians.

This organization is implicated in terrorism. The news that Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin, head of UNRWA’s teachers union in Lebanon and Hamas liaison to Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, is just the latest example.

As we approach the anniversary of Hamas’ horrific Oct. 7 massacre, things have gone from bad to worse. In an official document filed in a U.S. court, the UN — with support from the Department of Justice — has argued that UNRWA employees involved in 10/7 enjoy absolute immunity from prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed.”

The U.S. has long followed the international community in placing UNRWA in a different and higher category, with untouchable funding, unvettable employees, and senior managers who illegally lobby in the U.S. for support. Now it argues that actual murderers should be immune from prosecution.

The U.S. has defined Hamas as a Foreign Terrorist Organization since Oct. 8, 1997. The Department of Justice’s new assertion that UNRWA employees have “absolute immunity” violates common sense and elevates international organizations above American law.

Since the 1960s American lawmakers have focused on UNRWA’s relationship with terrorism. Section 301(c) of the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act stated “No contributions by the United States shall be made to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East except on the condition that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency take all possible measures to assure that no part of the United States contribution shall be used to furnish assistance to any refugee who is receiving military training as a member of the so-called Palestine Liberation Army or any other guerrilla type organization or who has engaged in any act of terrorism.”