Displaying posts published in

July 2020

BLM: rebels without a cause BLM activists claim they are fighting America’s systemic racism. It’s just a shame it doesn’t exist. Xin Du

https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/09/blm-rebels-without-a-cause/

Around the world, people understandably reacted in anger and disgust at the killing of George Floyd. But if the subsequent protests, which descended, at points, into riots, lootings and indiscriminate iconoclasm, are meant to increase racial harmony and deter police brutality, then they’ve failed spectacularly.

In a few short weeks, more black people have died from the chaotic and indiscriminate violence, excused by leftist media and politicians, than unarmed black people at the hands of the supposedly racist police in the whole of 2019.

But were the protests at least built on a solid foundation? Is there rampant racism in the police force, and systemic racism in the US as a whole? In short, no.

Are police killing black people more than whites?

Derek Chauvin, who killed Floyd, is now under arrest and awaiting trial. He is likely to spend the rest of his life in jail. In this instance the legal system is clearly not racist. Moreover, Minneapolis chief of police, Medaria Arradondo, is black – a fact that undercuts the charge that the Minneapolis police department is systemically racist.

Racists do exist, of course. And there will be racists in the 800,000-strong US police force. But to say that the US is systemically racist is a different claim. And too many people are unable to make this distinction, or worse, propagate a narrative that deliberately blurs it.

In an essay on the Black Lives Matter protests and riots of the mid-2010s, I referred to studies from Harvard, Washington State University and the City University of New York, which all suggested that police in the US do not shoot blacks more than whites. In fact, the evidence suggested they are less likely to shoot black suspects.

BLM Anti-Police Hate-Fest Comes To Small-Town America This is what a cultural revolution looks like. Dawn Perlmutter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/blm-anti-police-hate-fest-comes-small-town-america-dawn-perlmutter/
Yardley Borough is a small river town in Bucks County, Pennsylvania located on the Delaware river across from Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. The town has a total area of one square mile and according to the last census has a population of 2,434 of which 2,224 are white. It is known for its beautiful historical district that includes 18th and 19th century buildings that contain homes, shops, restaurants, and offices on Main Street. It is the site of the second oldest Quaker meeting house in Pennsylvania. Quakers were significantly active in the abolition movement against slavery and Yardley was an essential station for the Underground Railroad. In the past few weeks, it has become the unlikely scene of Black Lives Matter protests.

On June 19th in the guise of a Juneteenth celebration a Black Lives Matter anti-police hate fest descended upon Main Street surrounding people at outdoor restaurants and blocking traffic. Protesters were chanting “No Justice No Peace, No Racist Police” in front of local officers whom many have known their whole lives. The protesters were predominantly high school and college students and self-loathing affluent white middle-aged women attempting to show how woke they are. Many brought their children and grandchildren who held handmade signs with popular BLM and anti-police slogans.

A previous rally was held on June 4, 2020 and over a thousand people showed up. At that protest Black Lives Matter activists led a humiliation ritual in which the white townsfolk bowed down to BLM organizers in a solemn prayer like vigil. They somberly repeated the names of black men who were described as killed by the police. They also engaged in gestures and slogans such as “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” and “Say His Name”. Thoughts of Jonestown and other cults were running through my mind as I watched men and women willingly debase themselves. Many of the white women genuinely feel guilty about their privilege because they never worked a day in their life. Kneeling in submission while reverently repeating anti-police affirmations and apologizing for being white was a form of expiation, an atonement ritual. For these spoiled hypocritical women, the BLM protest was a method for them to assuage their guilt for having black women clean their toilets and take care of their elderly parents. The largest part of the crowd were high school and college students who have been taught to hate their country, schooled in revisionist history, made to feel shame for being white and conditioned to disrespect the police.

These men, women and students are the result of years of indoctrination by academia, the media, radical Marxist and black nationalist organizations whose primary strategy is to make white people, corporations and the entire next generation feel guilty for their ‘white privilege’. BLM’s goal is power, money and a totalitarian revolution. It may be one of the biggest shake downs in American history.

The BLM organizers stood in front of the small Yardley Borough Municipal Hall that houses the towns offices, post office, police department and public meeting room. Although the protests were along the entire length of Main Street, they chose to make their stand in front of the town Hall to symbolically challenge local government. It was there that BLM organizers led the humiliation ritual where white townsfolk kneeled before them. They seemed to take pleasure in degrading the white residents of Yardley. Who is oppressing whom? The submissive town folk bowing to them had the blissful look that all brainwashed useful idiots have right up until they realize they have been conned.

Although Yardley was a longtime Republican town it now has a largely Democrat town council with one independent. The new Council President is an activist with no roots in the community and ambitions to fundamentally transform the town that was founded in 1682. In his short time on council he introduced and passed a gun control resolution, an LGBT ordinance, took a moment of silence against police violence and recently made Juneteenth a recognized holiday. The Vice President of Council is a young millennial mom whose primary accomplishment is virtue signaling. She often publicly apologizes for her white privilege, but it is just a pretense for her political ambitions. She posted after the protest that “I weep with my black brothers and sisters for the systemic and institutional racism that has infiltrated and consumed our communities, our governments, our police forces and our very souls. Yesterday was a day of mourning in Yardley Boro for all the lives gone too soon because of racism. It was a day to reflect, as an elected official, how I can do better to be fair and compassionate, balanced and inclusive.”…… “To use the platform and privilege of our affluent town to elevate the voices of the oppressed.”

After the first BLM demonstration the town council complimented each other on how the peaceful protest went, they neglected to disclose that a 12 year old girl wearing a Trump t-shirt was harassed and a small group of counter protesters were spit on. While the town council sugarcoats the anti-police hatred and racist rhetoric that occurred at the protests, they have gone out of their way to cover up anti-Semitic hate crimes in Yardley even though the only school in the small town is a private Hebrew Academy.

While the council embraced the Black Lives Matter protests Covid-19 was used as an excuse to cancel the three biggest annual events in the small community. They canceled the Memorial Day Parade, a long tradition that honors local veterans where neighbors make floats, veterans are honored, and kids ride their bikes at the end of the procession. The same day they voted to make Juneteenth a recognized Yardley Holiday the annual longtime September tradition of Harvest Day was canceled. The October 2020 Yardley Beer and Wine Fest was also canceled. The symbolism was clear we are canceling your culture, your history and your traditions and replacing them with the holidays that Black Lives Matter dictate. If the message of BLM fascism wasn’t clear enough, in front of the Memorial Plaque on the Municipal Hall that lists the names of the towns fallen soldiers someone wrote in large letters BLM and Blacks killed by Cops then wrote names including George Floyd, Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin and many more. This was an obvious mockery of the memorial to the towns fallen heroes who died in WWI and WWII. Soon these plaques will either be vandalized or just removed by the town council who will declare them symbols of racism.

Knowing that residents were not happy after the first protest, the town council deliberately did not officially inform any of the businesses or residents of the second protest. However, the Chief of Police who understands how thin the blue line is that separates chaos and order, put into effect crowd control protocols. Almost every officer in town and over a dozen from nearby communities and a Major Incident Response Team (MIRT) were on duty for the “Juneteenth Peaceful Protest For Justice”. Fortunately, Yardley has a Chief of Police who understands how a protest can turn violent with just one brick. Unfortunately, when the Chief of Police was asked at a council meeting if any tickets were given when the BLM protesters blocked Main Street, a major State road, he said “No violations were issued, you cannot ticket a thousand people”. Not surprising since Yardley Borough Council votes on his contract which expires the end of next year.

Business owners who just reopened after the Covid 19 lock downs closed their shops and stood in front of their stores guarding them from potential looters. One restaurant owner had to cordon off his sidewalk tables with caution tape to protect his customers from the crowds. A long-time Yardley friendly couple that regularly sit on their front porch on Main Street were visibly armed as the protesters marched in front of their home. There are a lot of residents who are not happy about having an anti-police hate fest walking down Main Street blocking a state road and forcing businesses to close.

One of the saddest sights were the faces of the young people who are ashamed of their country and have been so thoroughly indoctrinated into believing that police are racist. Ironically, Washington’s Crossing is just four miles up the road from Yardley and although they were raised here, they have no concept of their own country’s history or how men younger than them fought and died for their freedom. Their teachers, parents and community leaders have failed them by filling their hearts with hatred and lies. BLM exploits the anger they inculcated and now have an army of deluded young white activists who they are using to destroy their own futures. The few bright students that see through the lies are bullied and ridiculed into silence.

Soon after the protests residents started taking down their American flags and putting up Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns. This is either the result of fear of being ostracized, a deterrence against looting or just virtue signaling in actual support. This is what a cultural revolution looks like, a small towns history is eradicated, town leaders sell out, useful idiots bow down, cowards acquiesce and the few patriots that are left load their weapons. In the spirit of Yardley’s original brave abolitionists local officers continue to protect our freedoms even when they are being called racists and killers.

After Turning Hagia Sophia into a Mosque, Turkey’s Islamist Tyrant Threatens Jerusalem Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2020/07/after-turning-hagia-sophia-mosque-turkeys-islamist-daniel-greenfield/

The outcome was inevitable.

The fake Reichstag coup that so many western nations fell for closed the door on any kind of independent authority in Turkey. All that remains is Erdogan, its insane Islamist tyrant, and his fantasies of rebuilding the Ottoman Empire. 

The reconquest of the Hagia Sophia was a crucial step in that direction. 

The process was meaningless because Erdogan now wholly controls the courts. Judicial decisions are Erdogan’s decisions. And Erdogan made it clear that the hijacking of the historic church is just one step in a larger plan for Islamist expansionism targeting other Islamic “holy” sites that had once been under Ottoman control.

Like Jerusalem.

“The revival of Hagia Sophia is the harbinger of freedom of Al-Aqsa and the footsteps of Muslims emerging from the era of interregnum,” the Turkish president said late Friday, referring to the mosque in Jerusalem that many Muslims consider under occupation.

Al-Aqsa is the Islamic occupation mosque in Jerusalem that had been planted as a symbol of the Islamic conquest over the holiest site in Judaism. The similarity to what Erdogan had just done was obvious.

Turkey’s New Mosque a Monument to Western Decline We may think we’re exhibiting high-minded principles, but our enemies know the score. Bruce Thornton

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/turkeys-new-mosque-monument-western-decline-bruce-thornton/

Last week Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that on July 24 Hagia Sophia, for a thousand years one of Christendom’s most storied and significant churches, will once again become a mosque. So far, the remnant of established Christianity has been silent. But this affront to the faith that is one of the pillars upon which the West was founded reveals how damaging has been the historical amnesia and appeasing double-standards that have compromised our response to the challenge of Islamic jihadism.

Until recently Turkey had been a poster-boy for the dubious globalist consensus that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism are the destiny of all humanity, including Muslims. In 1923 founder Kemal Atatürk created Turkey to be a modern Western nation-state, with religion separated from the secular government. He abolished the caliphate, closed Islamic courts, gave women equal rights in divorce and inheritance, allowed them to vote, restricted sharia to religion, and secularized education for females as well as males. In 1934 Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum, part of Atatürk’s program to recognize Turkey’s pre-Muslim history and strengthen Turkey’s modern global identity and prestige.

But over the years it took the military to maintain this modernizing, secular program in the face of the more traditional and conservative Muslim masses and their discontent. Starting as mayor of Istanbul in 1994, Erdoğan became their champion, and as president has abandoned Atatürk’s democratic, secular program: He has jailed more journalists than any other country, and built 17,000 new mosques. Nearly a century of efforts to reconcile Islam with liberal democracy are failing under Erdoğan’s incremental Islamization. Turning Hagia Sophia back into a mosque is an important sign of his success, and a gesture of defiance of the “rules-based international order.”

Hollywood is falling victim to its relentless virtue signaling By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/hollywood_is_falling_victim_to_its_relentless_virtue_signaling.html

During the 1930s and 1940s, there were many genuine communists, as well as fellow travelers, working in Hollywood. Once the Cold War began, Hollywood turned against those people and instituted its blacklist, which made it impossible for anyone with communist sympathies to work openly in Hollywood.

Of late, the further left you lean in Hollywood, the more you are to be applauded. That’s why it’s incredibly ironic to realize that Hollywood is once again blacklisting people – only this time, blacklisting means that the only people listed for employment have to be black.

That at least is the story that Caroline Graham tells in the Daily Mail. According to Graham, the message has gone out in Hollywood that, if you want to work, you had better not be white:

A revolution is under way. White actors are being fired. Edicts from studio bosses make it clear that only minorities – racial and sexual – can be given jobs.

A new wave of what has been termed by some as anti-white prejudice is causing writers, directors and producers to fear they will never work again. One described the current atmosphere as ‘more toxic than Chernobyl’, with leading actors afraid to speak out amid concern they will be labelled racist.

The first sign came with one of the most powerful black directors in Hollywood, Oscar-winning Jordan Peele – the man behind box office hits such as Get Out and Us – stated in public that he did not want to hire a leading man who was white. 

‘I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie,’ Peele said. ‘Not that I don’t like white dudes. But I’ve seen that movie before.’

As one studio executive responded privately: ‘If a white director said that about hiring a black actor, their career would be over in a heartbeat.’ Few doubt it.

No more pandemic panic, please By Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D. *******

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/no_more_pandemic_panic_please.html

As expected by most observers, the number of cases of Covid-19 continues to increase across the country. There are primarily three reason for the spike in cases:

More testing is being performed
People are moving about as the economy opens up
Massive protests and riots across the country

The next statistic that will be used to frighten the American people will be the increase in hospitalizations that will follow the expanded number of cases. Days or weeks after hospitalizations grow in number, even more deaths are likely to arise.

What will not be reported in the gloomy news roundups is the fact that we now have effective treatments for Covid-19. More appalling, many doctors and hospital systems are refusing to use these effective therapeutics.

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, a New York family medicine physician, has pioneered a treatment strategy that works well but is still shunned by most of the medical profession and ignored by the mainstream news media. Dr. Zelenko said this on The Dennis Prager radio show of July 10, 2020:

I don’t care what ‘they’ say anymore, I would rather speak directly to the American people and tell them I have some very good news for [them].  We have an answer to the terrible infection, we have a very effective way of treating it. In the high risk groups there is a 99.3% survival [rate] and a 84% reduction in hospitalizations. There is also a 100% survival rate in low risk patients when [our] treatment is started in the first 5 days [of the onset of] an infection.

Good Riddance to the World Health Organization by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16223/good-riddance-who

China was malicious, and there is plenty of evidence of planning.

“Whether WHO can reform effectively is directly tied to the accountability issue,” wrote Dr. Xiaoxu Sean Lin, former lab director of the viral disease branch of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, to Gatestone. The structure of the organization defeats accountability he argues, because its leaders report to many member states and therefore to no one. As a result, unacceptable conduct goes unpunished.

To make matters worse, the WHO is a UN body, and the UN is composed of some of the world’s most malign actors. Accountability in such an organization is extremely unlikely as long as China, for instance, is considered a legitimate participant in issues of global concern, such as public health.

America should have forced a review of the WHO years ago, but the religion of multilateralism dies hard. We can be sure that the forces of “one worldism” will be working with Director-General Tedros to keep the U.S. in his organization.

No, President Trump, abandoning a dangerous organization, is giving the world a chance to succeed and save lives.

A tearful Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Thursday pleaded for international cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus. “The COVID-19 pandemic is a test of global solidarity and global leadership,” said the director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO). “The virus thrives on division, but is thwarted when we unite.”

At the same time, Tedros publicly thanked Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former president Liberia, for agreeing to serve as co-chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

It is no surprise the embattled Tedros has been active in recent days. He has, after all, begun what is a long-term campaign to keep his organization going. The Trump administration gave formal notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday that the United States was withdrawing from the WHO. The withdrawal is scheduled to take effect July 6, 2021.

The withdrawal may never happen, however: Tedros is not the only party mobilizing to prevent the WHO’s biggest contributor from leaving. Joe Biden, sitting on a long lead in the polls, tweeted he will reverse the withdrawal “on my first day as President.”

Nonetheless, President Donald J. Trump’s decisive action was justified, furthering the interests of both America and the global community.

Why? The WHO was complicit with China in the spread of the coronavirus around the world and is not capable of meaningful reform.

Now the army of overgrown babies who say everyone must think like them are invading our bedrooms Douglas Murray

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8513779/DOUG

Do you believe in thought crime? In picking people off, one by one, till everybody agrees with just a single point of view? Each week, we see this world come a little closer.

Many of the victims are famous. But people who are not remotely well known are writing to me every week to say that they, too, now fear for their livelihoods.

Still more are keeping their heads down, fearing what will happen if they dare to speak out against the dogmas of the time and the new totalitarians who promote them.

Killing Eve actress Jodie Comer is pictured with new boyfriend James Burke. Mr Burke is alleged to be a registered Republican and a Donald Trump supporter. Cue an internet meltdown and a demand by activists that Comer be prevented from working again. It’s ludicrous 

There’s been a steadily rising tide of conformity in recent years. Increasingly, we have been told what we are allowed to say, hear, see and know.

Swarming over the internet, the Left-wing mob is waging a campaign to silence dissenting voices and get free-thinking people removed from their jobs. And they have succeeded. Now the wokerati want to enter the bedroom and say who we may sleep with, too.

Take last week’s attempt to ‘cancel’ the Killing Eve actress Jodie Comer. Her crime? Nothing she has said or thought. 

Instead, the online trolls had been enraged to discovered who she is dating. The supposed culprit is an American lacrosse player called James Burke. 

Trump Needs to Scale the Real Wall of 2020 By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/12/trump-needs-to-scale-the-real-wall-of-2020/

The president should emphasize not just the efficacy of his administration but its effects on real people. Focus on “Restoration 2021.”

Donald Trump is trying to break through a 2020 wall. 

By January 2019, after over three years of failed efforts to impeach him, sue him, indict him, impoverish him, and destroy him, the Left had failed. The economy was booming. Trump’s tweets were mostly bragging about his accomplishments. And the Left was dumbfounded that both impeachment and Mueller, in Nietzschean fashion, had only made Trump stronger.

Then came an unexpected trifecta catastrophe—plague, a quarantine-induced recession, and a leftist cultural revolution in the streets. Suddenly, the Left saw all of that as a gift that might succeed where its own self-constructed melodramas had failed.

By late May, Trump’s polls had dived. 

His enemies declared this time he was really, actually, truly finished. NeverTrumpers hit the media to boast they were finally redeemed. 

The discredited pollsters of 2016 reemerged, this time even convincing once-burned, never-again Las Vegas bookies that Trump was toast. Leftists, depressed over the progressive implosion in the Democratic primaries, now rebranded Joe Biden as a useful septuagenarian. He could carry them to victory before being pushed aside. 

Biden was put on ice, a virtual prisoner of the Democratic establishment, who gave him teleprompted messages and pre-canned interviews to stumble through on Skype. “Keep silent, keep hidden,” was the motto of Biden’s keepers.

Trump railed. He fumed. As a furious Achilles, he tweeted about the unfairness of it all—how he had defeated concocted attacks, but suddenly a virus from his nemesis China had unleashed sheer madness, with him as its target.

To get back on track, Trump almost alone became the defender of tradition under assault, of security, and safety. He deplored the statue toppling, the madness of cancel culture, the racial obsessions of the Black Lives Matter/Antifa cultural revolution. He praised America’s goodness and reminded the country it was good without having to be perfect. And still, the Left hobbled him. 

Iran blames Ukrainian jetliner shootdown on miscommunication, misaligned missile battery The plane, en route to Kyiv, was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members from several countries. Bradford Betz

https://www.foxnews.com/world/iran-ukrainian-jetliner-shootdown-miscommunication-alignment

A report released Saturday by Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization blames the shootdown of a Ukrainian jetliner on a misaligned missile battery and miscommunication between troops and their commanders.

The report comes months after the Jan. 8 crash near Tehran that killed all 176 people on board. Authorities had initially denied responsibility but changed course days later after Western nations presented extensive evidence that Iran had shot down the plane.

The report signals a new phase in the investigation into the crash, as the aircraft’s black box flight recorder is due to be sent to Paris, where international investigators will finally be able to examine it. It also comes as public opinion remains low over Iran’s government as it faces both crushing U.S. sanctions and vast domestic economic problems.

The shootdown happened the same night Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq, its response to the American drone strike that killed Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3.