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March 2021

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Joe Biden’s part-time presidency By Andrea Widburg

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/joe_bidens_parttime_presidency.html

Barack Obama never seemed very enamored of the work that went along with being president. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it, it was that he didn’t want to do it. By contrast, the much older Donald Trump was a whirlwind workaholic. Joe Biden is a different creature entirely: he is not a dynamo like Trump, nor a slacker like Obama. One gets the impression, instead, that he is incapable of putting in a full day of work. The best evidence yet comes from his schedule for this week.

Steve Herman, a White House reporter, posted on Twitter what Joe Biden’s schedule is over the next five days. On Monday, he will deliver remarks; on Tuesday, he will travel to Pennsylvania; on Wednesday, he will have a telephone meeting with the President of Ireland; and on Friday, he will travel to Georgia. In case you are thinking I skipped over Thursday, I did not. He has nothing on his calendar for Thursday (hat tip: The Gateway Pundit):

If reporters were to ask about this relaxing schedule (not that they ever would), one can be assured that the White House would insist that Biden is very busy taking care of business for America. You see, the president is traveling to highlight to people across America how the $1.9 trillion spending binge that the Democrat-run Congress passed, and that Biden signed, will benefit ordinary Americans.

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The Tyranny of Woke Capital By Janet Levy

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/03/the_tyranny_of_woke_capital.html

Traditional American values have long been under attack by social justice warriors, cultural Marxists advancing the insidious tenets of critical theory. Their “long march through the institutions” has infiltrated schools, universities, entertainment, the mass media, the courts, politics, and beyond. One might assume that business, adhering to the Milton Friedman doctrine of maximizing returns for shareholders, would be insulated from their malign agenda. But that assumption is no longer valid, according to Stephen Soukup’s recent book The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business. He illuminates how ‘progressive’ forces have insinuated themselves into regulatory agencies, the finance industry, and corporate America, jeopardizing capital markets and the free-market system itself.

The book traces the genesis of American progressivism to Richard Ely (1854-1943) of Johns Hopkins University. Believing in a confused amalgam of religion, socialism, white superiority, and a paternalistic state, Ely advocated that the state should be harnessed to fix social problems like poverty, alcoholism, racial tension, and child labor in G-d’s name. He never presented himself as a socialist, but believed G-d works through the state, which should heal the ills of capitalism through labor reform and compulsory education. With little faith in the canaille to vote in society’s and their own best interests, he favored a “third way”: employing professional administrators to manage society rationally, guard against laissez-faire economics, and make socialism unnecessary. This new progressivism looked at the American state as the natural, necessary “administrator” of civic life.

Political scientist Dwight Waldo, the defining figure of modern public administration, refined Ely’s ideas and propounded that public servants should be “value advocates,” “agent of change,” and stewards of “social equity, democratic administration, and proactive, non-neutral public administration.” Voters and their elected representatives were to be superseded by unelected, unaccountable experts — with ostensibly better values than the people. Though it was seen as being in violation of the Constitution, Waldo wanted a central bank with an administrative elite controlling monetary policy to maintain stability.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Anti-Semite-in-Chief ZOA writes a letter to the publisher of Obama’s “A Promised Land”. *****

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/anti-semite-chief-frontpage-magazine/

Editors’ note: Below is a letter from the leaders of ZOA to the publishers of Obama’s new book, “A Promised Land.” They point out all the falsehoods, lies and omissions about Israel in the book, and make a request for their correction.

Re: Falsehoods, Misleading Statements and Material Omissions in “A Promised Land,” by Barack Obama

Dear Mr. Dohle and Ms. McIntosh:           

We write on behalf of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest and one of the largest pro-Israel organizations in the U.S.  The ZOA is a leader in fighting against antisemitism and anti-Israel bias wherever these problems arise.

Having received complaints from our supporters and conducting our own review, we are deeply concerned about the factual inaccuracies, material omissions and outright falsehoods contained in one of your recent publications – “A Promised Land” by former U.S. President Barack Obama.  The many errors are serious and damaging.  The book has already reached and influenced millions of readers and will impact many more.  We expect that this book will be assigned reading in schools and at colleges and universities, affecting how young people and future leaders perceive Israel.  Obama’s many factual errors and misleading statements will likely be repeated and quoted in articles and other books.  As a result, millions of people will be misled into drawing false and negative conclusions about Jews and Israel. 

To paraphrase Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, President Obama is entitled to his own opinions about Israel, which he expresses in Chapter 25 of his book.  But he is not entitled to his own facts.

We believe that you value the accuracy of your nonfiction books and support appropriate vetting because reportedly, you provide a stipend for your nonfiction authors to hire fact-checkers.  Given the many factual errors that we have identified and outlined below, the fact-checking of “A Promised Land” was sloppily done, if it was done at all.  Knowing that this book, written by a former U.S. president, would have enormous reach and influence, it was a mistake not to subject this book to the most scrupulous fact-checking possible.

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COVID-19 Hysteria and Panic A reflection on popular delusions and the madness of crowds. Bruce Hendry

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/03/coronavirus-bruce-hendry/

In 1841, Charles Mackay wrote a 702-page book titled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds. The book details investment hysteria and panic, but it’s really about human nature, something that doesn’t change throughout recorded history. I will show the reader, in this essay, how we are experiencing popular delusions and the madness of crowds, right now, with the current corona virus, COVID-19 hysteria and panic.

Today’s social psychologists use the term “groupthink” to describe the modern versions of crowd madness. “Groupthink” represents the prevailing beliefs and rationalizations that influence the decisions of the general public as well as the experts. Their groupthink beliefs are shaped by the opinions of others (think CNN, New York Times and Twitter) and not by the rigor of their own personal and independent analysis. The current hysteria and panic over the COVID crisis is a modern example of groupthink. This essay will examine that claim.

My career history, in distressed investments, was predicated upon an independent analysis and sometimes a rejection of the accepted investment community beliefs. My rule is that when everybody accepts a belief or story, it’s time to critically examine the assumptions. Community-held investment views are often correct, but many times they are wrong too. Challenging accepted community views is not a way to win a popularity contest, but it’s important for someone to state the truth and I intend to do that here. I will use my skill in questioning popularly-held assumptions and share my thoughts with you on the COVID crisis.

Diversity of opinion is the lifeblood of a democracy. My opinion on the COVID crisis will differ from the accepted community view — and probably from your own view too. This essay was removed from Facebook — just like the Nazis’ burning of books that differed from proscribed ways of thinking. I hope that you will read this essay carefully and with an open mind.

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Party of Groupthink W. James Antle III

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/party-of-groupthink/ar-BB1evm67

When President Biden finally signed into law a $1.9 trillion spending package, passed without a single Republican vote in either house of Congress, the White House celebrated it as “the most progressive piece of legislation in history.”

“So, I would say we feel pretty good about that,” press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a daily briefing. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont socialist Biden beat to win the Democratic presidential nomination, sang from the same songbook on CNN. Asked about the spending cut from the package to win the votes of a dwindling band of Democratic centrists, Sanders replied, “In my view, this is the most significant legislation for working people that has been passed in decades.” The network’s website later published a piece titled “The US is about to start a massive experiment in progressive government.”

The messaging illustrates the contradiction at the core of Biden’s successful campaign for the White House: He simultaneously pledged to fulfill Sanders’s wishes for the “most progressive president since FDR” and be a nonthreatening, bipartisan deal-maker who would deserve the votes of college-educated, white suburbanites who typically cast their ballots for Republicans.

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IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

The Biden Border Mess Migrants rush to enter the U.S., creating a humanitarian crisis.

By on March 15th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-biden-border-mess-11615756253?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The White House on Saturday dispatched the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the southern border, tacitly acknowledging the growing humanitarian crisis as migrants surge to enter the U.S. Stephen Miller, the restrictionist adviser to Donald Trump, could not have devised a better way to undermine the prospects for immigration reform.

FEMA typically addresses unpredictable calamities like hurricanes, but this border mess is man-made. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported nearly 397,000 encounters with migrants on the southwestern border in the first five months of fiscal 2021, which began in October. That’s about 25% more than in the same period in 2019.

In 2019 the surge of migrants led to “dangerous overcrowding” at border control stations and detention facilities, in the words of the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general. Covid and social-distancing requirements have further reduced capacity at government facilities and nonprofit shelters.

Unaccompanied children are arriving in droves, with CBP reporting nearly 9,500 encounters in February, a 61% increase over January. The Washington Post reports that more than 8,500 migrant children are at facilities run by the Department of Health and Human Services, while another 3,500—“the highest figure ever”—are stuck at CBP stations waiting for a spot to open at the shelters.

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Woke Books Have No Place in U.S. Navy Training By Roger J. Maxwell *****

By on March 14th, 2021

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/woke-books-have-no-place-in-u-s-navy-training/

How will reading Ibram X. Kendi help us fight our enemies better?

From soft-drink companies instructing their employees to be less white, to the cancellation of children’s books that, until two minutes ago, were completely benign fixtures in the libraries of many, a powerful segment of the American public seems intent on sending every inch of public life careening over a cliff’s edge in the ill-begotten quest to please the most extreme elements of the Left. Over the past several weeks, it has become quite apparent that the United States Navy is no exception to the relentless onslaught of “woke” politicking.

On February 23, the chief of naval operations Admiral Michael Gilday released an updated version of the Navy’s Professional Reading Program. The program, a long-standing tradition that curates suggested readings for all members of the Navy, has a stated aim of educating and training the sailors that compose this branch of the Armed Forces. According to the Navy’s official website on this program, Admiral Gilday believes that in order to “outthink our competitors, we must study and apply lessons we’ve learned from the past.” He further holds that “one of the very best ways to do that is to foster an environment where every Sailor deepens their level of understanding and learning.” Many of the 48 books listed in the newly released reading checklist cover topics relevant to the Navy’s overall mission of becoming a more lethal fighting force: naval strategy, deep-dives into future world superpowers, leadership development, technology changes in the domain of warfighting, etc.

However, the checklist also included several books that are overtly political in nature, threatening what should be the apolitical nature of our nation’s fighting forces. As just one example, Ibram X. Kendi’s overly wrought screed How to Be an Antiracist somehow landed on the admiral’s book list. Writings in a similar vein appear on the list as well, including Jason Pierceson’s Sexual Minorities and Politics, as well as Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. The inclusion of these books, especially given the hot-button topics they cover (and the controversial takes they provide) seems to place the Navy squarely into the realm of politics, which it has stridently attempted to avoid in the 200-plus years of its existence.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

Activists for Online Censorship Are Corporate Journalists A hearing of the House Subcommittee focused on anti-trust and monopoly abuses examines the role of the corporate media in these growing pathologies. Glenn Greenwald

By on March 14th, 2021

There are not many Congressional committees regularly engaged in substantive and serious work — most are performative — but the House Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law is an exception. Chaired by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), it is, with a few exceptions, composed of lawmakers whose knowledge of tech monopolies and anti-trust law is impressive.

In October, the Committee, after a sixteen-month investigation, produced one of those most comprehensive and informative reports by any government body anywhere in the world about the multi-pronged threats to democracy raised by four Silicon Valley monopolies: Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple. The 450-page report also proposed sweeping solutions, including ways to break up these companies and/or constrain them from controlling our political discourse and political life. That report merits much greater attention and consideration than it has thus far received.

The Subcommittee held a hearing on Friday and I was invited to testify along with Microsoft President Brad Smith; President of the News Guild-Communications Workers of America Jonathan Schleuss, the Outkick’s Clay Travis, CEO of the Graham Media Group Emily Barr, and CEO of the News Media Alliance David Chavern. The ostensible purpose the hearing was a narrow one: to consider a bill that would vest media outlets with an exemption from anti-trust laws to collectively bargain with tech companies such as Facebook and Google so that they can obtain a greater share of the ad revenue. The representatives of the news industry and Microsoft who testified were naturally in favor because this bill (they have been heavily lobbying for it) because it would benefit them commercially in numerous way (the Microsoft President maintained the conceit that the Bill-Gates-founded company was engaging in self-sacrifice for the good of Democracy by supporting the bill but the reality is the Bing search engine owners are in favor of anything that weakens Google).

While I share the ostensible motive behind the bill — to stem the serious crisis of bankruptcies and closings of local news outlets — I do not believe that this bill will end up doing that, particularly because it empowers the largest media outlets such as The New York Times and MSNBC to dominate the process and because it does not even acknowledge, let alone address, the broader problems plaguing the news industry, including collapsing trust by the public (a bill that limited this anti-trust exemption to small local news outlets so as to allow them to bargain collectively with tech companies in their own interest would seem to me to serve the claimed purpose much better than one which empowers media giants to form a negotiating cartel).

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P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Conflating Criticism and Cancellation By Peter Berkowitz –

By on March 14th, 2021

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/03/14/conflating_criticism_and_cancellation_145396.html

Liberal democracy — grounded in the “inalienable” rights all human beings share — protects, and is protected by, free speech. Good laws alone, though, cannot keep speech free. Also necessary is a public culture that promotes an accurate understanding of free speech and fosters the virtues that undergird it. The breakdown in the United States of that public culture — particularly among the nation’s progressive elites — is of pressing concern.

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” The Supreme Court interprets this provision to require a broad though not absolute prohibition on government regulation of expression. Even among liberal democracies, Americans enjoy an unusually extended sphere in which they can speak their minds. Expression is subject to a few specified legal limitations: these include incitement to imminent lawless action, true threats, classified information, and slander and libel. This, however, leaves abundant room in which citizens can readily encounter unorthodox, dissenting, and, yes, deeply disagreeable opinions.

While government always poses a major threat to free speech, it never represents the sole danger. Today, apprehensions about Big Tech regulation – subtle and surreptitious as well as brazen and heavy-handed — of social network and consumer platforms command center stage. Meanwhile, old nemeses of free speech — inherited authority, social pressure, and public opinion — show little sign of abating.

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Amazon’s book bullying is just the latest act of woke intolerance The world’s biggest bookstore has sided firmly with the bullies: Roger Kimball

By on March 14th, 2021

https://spectator.us/book-and-art/amazon-book-bullying-just-latest-act-woke-intolerance/

The house of the Lord, we are told, has many mansions. So does the house of wokeness. If you are Coca-Cola, you address flagging sales by embarking on an ad campaign (and internal training regimen for employees) urging those drinking its sugar water to ‘try to be less white’, i.e.,  ‘less arrogant, less certain, less defensive, less ignorant and more humble’.

If you are Disney, you scour your cartoons for images, situations, or language that worried white bureaucrats imagine might cause offense to anyone on this week’s list of designated victim groups.

If you are Dr Seuss Enterprises, you cashier six of your books because they ‘portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong’.

And if you are Amazon, ‘the world’s largest bookstore‘, you slip quietly into the censorship business by suddenly delisting When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, a three-year-old scholarly book by Ryan T. Anderson about the psychological costs of blithely embracing the vogue of transgenderism.

I was proud to publish When Harry Became Sally at Encounter Books back in 2018 and was pleased when, over the course of the next couple of years, it sold some 26,000 copies in various formats.

Now, thanks to Amazon’s decision to cashier the book, it is well on its way to selling another 26,000. (Although the book has vanished without trace from Amazon and its subsidiaries, you can still get it at Barnes & Noble, various independent bookshops, and direct from Encounter.)

So should I be pleased that Amazon, in its latest act of woke intolerance, is doing so much to spread the news about this important book?

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