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February 2021

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If The Media Had Investigated Cuomo’s COVID Response The Way They Did Cruz’s Cancun Trip, Thousands Of New Yorkers Could Still Be Alive By Cabot Phillips

By on February 20th, 2021

https://www.dailywire.com/news/if-the-media-had-investigated-cuomos-covid-response-the-way-they-did-cruzs-cancun-trip-thousands-of-new-yorkers-could-still-be-alive?itm_source=parsely-api&utm_source=cnemail&utm_medium=email

This week, with historic winter storms knocking out power for millions of Texans, Senator Ted Cruz traveled with his family to Cancun for a beach vacation. Shortly after photos of Cruz boarding a flight hit the internet, two things happened. 

First, social media went into a frenzy. The beach trip instantly became the number one trending topic on Twitter, with reporters, media personalities, commentators, and others lambasting Cruz for his ill-timed journey.

Second, the legacy media began digging for more details regarding the trip. Who else had gone? What hotel were they staying in? How long was the trip originally scheduled to last?

Soon, the full force of the American media apparatus was deployed. Hordes of photographers wandered the Cancun airport hoping to catch a glimpse of Cruz on his return voyage, while investigative reporters began reaching out to close friends and neighbors of the Senator’s wife, Heidi, in a quest for more information. 

Within 24 hours of the first photos emerging, reporters had obtained transcripts of text messages sent between Heidi Cruz and her closest friends, which shed light on the trip. 

Meanwhile, members of the legacy media breathlessly searched for answers from Cruz’s staff, demanding to know further details of the trip and posting hourly updates of their findings. 

As the specifics of the trip emerged, and the media firestorm intensified, Senator Cruz boarded a return flight for Houston, issuing a statement apologizing for his decision and the timing of his getaway, saying it was “obviously a mistake.” 

The saga served as an impressive reminder of the investigative capabilities of our news media, and the impact that dogged reporting can have on the decisions of policy makers. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

THE DEPTH OF THE SWAMP ONE YEAR LATER

By on February 20th, 2021

https://mailchi.mp/f7fdb4410258/35b-from-us-taxpayers-funded-world-health-organization-58082?e=0c8ccf8e98

On February 20, 2020, just weeks before our country’s economic shutdown, Adam Andrzejewski, OpenTheBooks’ CEO/Founder, presented to the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar in Naples, Florida — in a packed room of 900 guests.  

Since then, over 2.3 million people have watched the speech on YouTube…

WATCH HERE: The Depth of the Swamp — Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar

The American people want to know just how corrupt their government is, whether it’s at the local, state, or federal levels, or all of the above. 

What do you think – is it worse than you thought? 

In the presentation, Andrzejewski covered the following topics:

The federal bureaucracy
Improper payments
Federal waste and pork
The Ivy League
Rahm Emanuel
Andrew Cuomo
$300,000 LA lifeguards
Our San Fran poop map
New York City rats
Suing California and Wyoming

and so much more…

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Now even classical music is racist Frank Furedi A scandal involving an obscure music journal confirms that the crusade against whiteness is out of control.

By on February 20th, 2021

.https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/02/16/now-even-classical-music-is-racist/

In a world where, sooner or later, everything is racialised, it was only a matter of time before classical music became a target of the crusade against whiteness. So I wasn’t particularly shocked when I read this headline in the New York Times: ‘Obscure Musicology Journal Sparks Battles over Race and Free Speech.’

The obscure musicology journal in question is the tiny Journal of Schenkerian Studies. The journal’s editor, Timothy Jackson, a music-theory professor at the University of North Texas, is under fire for his hard-hitting response to the claim that the interwar Austrian-Jewish composer and theorist Heinrich Schenker personified the white racist attitudes that dominate classical music. Jackson’s university has launched an investigation into his behaviour, barred him from editing the journal, and suspended funding for the Schenker Center, which he runs.

Jackson has been vilified by the Twittermob and ostracised by his colleagues. Graduates who have previously worked with him are now worried that their association with this fallen professor could harm their career prospects. How did this all happen?

The story of the demise of the Journal of Schenkerian Studies began in the autumn of 2019, when Philip Ewell, a black music-theory professor, gave a talk at the Society for Music Theory in Columbus, Ohio. Ewell takes the view that classical music is compromised by its whiteness.

For Ewell, white supremacy is evident in the teaching, playing and interpretation of classical music. From this perspective, where everything is seen to involve white racism, all the values celebrated in classical music are expressions of whiteness; they are all coded in a ‘white racial frame’, says Ewell. So, the reason Beethoven enjoys such high esteem among lovers of classical music is not because of his genius but because, as Ewell explains, he ‘has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for 200 years’.

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It’s time to get real about freedom of speech Neither side in the culture war understands how crucial this liberty is to human flourishing. Brendan O’Neill

By on February 20th, 2021

https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/02/19/its-time-to-get-real-about-freedom-of-speech/

I’m glad sections of the left find the free-speech crisis so funny. Or ‘free-speech crisis’, as they always put it, those sarky quote marks signalling their scepticism towards the idea that there’s a censorship problem on campus and elsewhere in society. ‘Freeze peach!’, they cry at anyone who thinks it is a bad thing that people can be No Platformed, threatened with death or sacked from their jobs for expressing the ‘wrong’ opinion. Hilarious, isn’t it?

It’s hilarious when activists piss on the door of a feminist academic’s office because they don’t like her criticisms of gender self-ID. It’s hilarious when a disabled working-class grandfather is sacked from his job at Asda because he posted a Billy Connolly skit on social media that made fun of Islam. It’s hilarious when a Labour shadow minister loses her job because she dared to raise concerns about the grooming and rape of working-class girls in various parts of England. It’s hilarious when JK Rowling is bombarded with messages saying ‘fuck you bitch’, ‘bitch I’ll kill you’ and ‘choke on my cock’ because she wrote an entirely non-prejudiced essay on trans issues. It’s all so funny. ‘FREEZE PEACH’ lol.

Make no mistake: when the cultural and media elites mock the idea of a free-speech crisis, when they insist cancel culture doesn’t exist, this is the reality they are denying. This is the abuse, demonisation and, yes, censorship that they claim is not real. Actually, it’s worse than that. These censorship deniers do not merely question the reality of these grim assaults on people’s free expression – after all, we can all see the tweets calling JK Rowling a ‘cunt’ and a ‘whore’, and we all know what urine splashed on someone’s door looks and smells like, so we know this stuff is real. No, they also implicitly justify these chilling crusades against open discussion. By refusing to describe these attacks as attacks on freedom of speech, they normalise them, they green-light them.

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MY SAY: Comments turned off

MY SAY: DIVERSITY HAPPENS WITHOUT QUOTAS

By on February 20th, 2021

I went to the Bronx High School of Science, year of don’t ask, don’t tell. At that time the class was predominantly Jewish, immigrants as well as first generation Americans. The diversity was economic- wealthier kids from stately doormen buildings in Manhattan, and working class students from the Bronx, but all passed a highly competitive test to gain admission.

Formerly an all boys school, in 1946 under the guidance of Principal Morris Meister, the faculty and parents the school became co-ed without any local government mandates.

Over the ensuing years the demographics changed, and more blacks and Hispanics, as well as a significant number of Asians entered the school. No government or local intervention. Today, the majority of students are Asian, a fact that ruffles “progressive” feathers and local leaders lobby for a lowering of admission standards to achieve “diversity.”

That is really ridiculous! Great diversity exists in the Asian-American community. A Filipino has nothing in common with a Lebanese, who has nothing in common with  Korean or Chinese students, who have nothing in common with Saudis or Arab Israelis (Israel is an Asian nation).

Much of this mirrors higher education where universities and colleges opened admissions and abandoned formerly restrictive quotas without any legislative interference.

The obsession with diversity has had the pernicious effect of restoring the once reviled quotas…..rsk

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Biden Cannot Allow the Taliban to Destroy Trump’s Peace Legacy by Con Coughlin

By on February 20th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17080/biden-afghanistan-taliban

Under the terms of that agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to negotiate a peaceful resolution of this benighted country’s long-running civil war in return for Washington agreeing to withdraw all its remaining forces. In addition, they agreed to cut their ties with Islamist terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda.

While Mr Trump kept his side of the bargain, reducing US forces from around 13,000 at the time the deal was signed last February to just 2,500 when he left office, there has been little evidence of the Taliban fulfilling their commitments under the terms of the agreement.

Consequently, Afghanistan finds itself in the midst of a major security crisis, with militants concentrating their attacks on a broad cross-section of Afghan society, with judges, activists, journalists, moderate clerics, students and other professionals all being targeted.

Afghan officials believe the Taliban never had any intention of fulfilling their side of the deal, and just drew out the negotiations with the Trump administration so that they could secure the release of the estimated 5,000 militants being held by Afghan security forces, who were eventually released by the Afghan authorities last autumn.

“The only thing the Taliban have taken out of this agreement is to get their prisoners, then launch an offensive against the Afghan forces and government. That was, it seems, their plan from the beginning.” — Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s National Security Advisor, The Times, February 17, 2021.

Of major concern is the prospect that, if the Taliban are allowed to seize control of the country they governed prior to the September 11 attacks, they will once again allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which will then use the country as a base to launch devastating attacks against the West.

Thus, in making his decision about the future of American forces in Afghanistan, Mr Biden needs to take care that he is not responsible for causing a new wave of terror attacks against the US and its allies.

With former US President Donald J. Trump no longer able to dictate US policy on Afghanistan, the Taliban are exploiting the opportunity to increase their efforts to seize control of the country in spite of the peace accord they signed with the Trump administration last year.

Under the terms of that agreement with the US, the Taliban agreed to negotiate a peaceful resolution of this benighted country’s long-running civil war in return for Washington agreeing to withdraw all its remaining forces. In addition, they agreed to cut their ties with Islamist terrorist organisations such as Al-Qaeda.

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Formerly Happy Brits Now Sit Alone in their Cars Wondering about driving into a wall. Katie Hopkins

By on February 20th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/02/formerly-happy-brits-now-sit-alone-their-cars-katie-hopkins/

My mother looked a bit flustered as I walked through her front door.

Do you know, a lady my age just stabbed her husband to death in their kitchen? They were a lovely couple, according to the neighbors. Always together, always working in their garden, always on holidays. Well, she stabbed him to death. Four times! In the kitchen!

Ok I told her I did not know that. Though, I assumed she stabbed him four times and not that he died in quadruple. I was also caught off guard by my mother’s repeated insistence that this had all happened IN THE KITCHEN as if that was some sacred place in the home where these things never happen. Unlike the study or the bedroom, for example, where Cluedo has taught us all sorts of maleficence can occur.

My mother was not done yet.

Well, quite frankly, I quite understand how she must have been feeling. Your father is doing my head in.

My mother is not alone in how she feels. Not that every married wife of 50-year standing is poised in their kitchens, bread knife in hand, ready to end their beloved in a row over an iPad charger. But endless lockdown in the UK is making Brits who were perfectly happy before, question the point of going on.

“On my drive to work, I seriously thought about driving my car into a wall” comments one follower on my Instagram feed. “I sat alone in my car from 5-6.30pm yesterday, just to have some time on my own away from my family. This is not life.” This, shared openly, by another.

We just aren’t supposed to be trapped indoors with other people for this long. I know marriage is about sharing your life, but part of that is that you are sharing the most mundane bits of you that others don’t get to see — amongst all the noise and chaos of others.

Turned off from all external stimuli, the mundane stuff we are recycling at home feels terminal, like an air-conditioning unit returning polluted air. We are all set on repeat, scratching about for something interesting to think, or some different way to feel.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

No Proof January 6 Was an ‘Armed Insurrection’ Not one person has been charged with possessing or using a gun inside the Capitol. Further, no one even has been identified as carrying a gun inside the building. By Julie Kelly

By on February 20th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/19/no-proof-january-6-was-an-armed-insurrection/

Since the Justice Department launched its nationwide manhunt to track down and arrest anyone involved with the Capitol breach on January 6, hundreds of perpetrators have been arrested.

Most face misdemeanor charges for trespassing or disorderly conduct, but dozens are in jail and denied bond for the thoughtcrime of believing the 2020 presidential election wasn’t on the up-and-up. The acting U.S. attorney general overseeing the investigation promises to apprehend hundreds more, however, it’s been two weeks since authorities have arrested anyone in connection to the probe.

Almost as embarrassing as the bad behavior of a handful of Trump supporters that day is the conduct of the national news media and Washington lawmakers. The country has been subjected to a public group therapy session of sorts wherein grown adults—Republicans and Democrats alike, elected to defend the country at all costs—now recount their harrowing experiences on January 6, which include running away from no one in particular or insisting, without evidence, that they were on the verge of being “murdered.”

The media continue to promote any number of fabricated storylines intended to bolster the laughable narrative of an “insurrection” occurring at the Capitol. The concocted account of the death of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick recently fell apart; the New York Times, after pressure from outlets including American Greatness, effectively retracted its January 8 article claiming Sicknick was killed by a fire extinguisher at the hands of Trump “loyalists.”

So now it’s time to straighten out another twisted tale animating the folklore of January 6: The idea the random chaos amounted to an “armed insurrection.” Hundreds of crazed Trumpists carrying deadly weapons, the public believes, stormed the Capitol to injure or kill senators, representatives, and even Vice President Mike Pence in order to avenge a “stolen” election.

Most news outlets—as they did with the coverage of Sicknick’s death—unflinchingly repeat the “armed insurrection” trope, which can be traced back to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s January 7 press conference. “[Y[esterday, the President of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America, the gleeful desecration of the US Capitol…and the violence targeting Congress are horrors that will forever stay in our nation’s history,” Pelosi ranted.

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Black Sleep Matters By Eric Utter (huh???)

By on February 20th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/02/black_sleep_matters.html

Teen Vogue magazine recently published an article by two writers who are calling for “rest reparations” in addition to the regular, old, garden-variety reparations for African Americans, which advocates have been advocating for years. Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa contend that, on average, Black lives are shorter than white ones because Black people experience “generational fatigue” due solely to the fact that they are, in fact, Black.

The two allege that “the American dream is a sleepless one” for Black folks, and claim to have had an epiphany when they realized the reason they were always tired was because they were impacted by “hundreds of years of sleep deprivation” that was due to systemic racism. Their article, titled “Black Power Naps is Addressing Systemic Racism in Sleep,” reveals the Black Power Naps initiative, which purports to be an “artistic initiative with components including physical installations, zines, an opera, and more.” Huh?

Acosta told the magazine that black people and people of color inherited sleep deprivation through years of slavery and control, saying, “We’re dealing with an inheritance of sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation was a … deliberate tactic of slave owners to basically make the mind feeble. That same tactic has only evolved.” Huh?

Sosa insisted that generations of slavery have made it imperative for Black people and people of color to rest as much as they can in the following generations.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Hundreds of Illegal Immigrants, Dozens of Unaccompanied Children Apprehended at Border By Catherine Smith

By on February 20th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/19/hundreds-of-illegal-immigrants-dozens-of-unaccompanied-children-apprehended-at-border/

Approximately 200 illegal immigrants including at least 40 unaccompanied minors were apprehended in frigid temperatures in Mission, Texas after being smuggled into the U.S., according to border officials.

The illegal immigrants were accompanied across the border by “human smugglers,” according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Rio Grande Valley Chief Patrol Agent Brian Hastings. It was around Wednesday night at 8 p.m. CST when Hastings tweeted about the apprehensions.

“Nobody comes across that river without a smuggler. Nobody just walks up to the bridge and goes across. A smuggler put them in a raft and paddled them across, probably told them to go up to that road, take a left until you walk into an agent,” CBP Public Affairs Officer Rod Kise told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

According to the report, most of the illegal immigrants were likely transferred from CBP into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, though it is unknown whether the illegal immigrants were deported or released into the interior of the U.S. since that is determined on a case-by-case basis, Kise told the DCNF.

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