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May 2021

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Those Dirty Electric Vehicles And A Bolt Of Green Hypocrisy

By on May 26th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/26/those-dirty-electric-vehicles-and-green-hypocrisy/

There is much more to the electric vehicle story than the “EVs good, gasoline- and diesel-powered automobiles bad” narrative we’ve been fed. Truth in advertising would require electric cars to be shown surrounded by the Pig Pen-esque dirty cloud that they kick up.

The birthplace of most electric cars is the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country where the diamond trade has helped finance civil war. There, reports the Deseret News, “slave labor” is feeding “big tech’s quest for cobalt,” an element used in the batteries that drive EVs.

“Our children are dying like dogs,” a Congolese mother whose son and cousin died while working in the Congo’s cobalt mines, says the Deseret News. She and others have filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court that “insists companies are simply turning a blind eye to the egregious abuses that include children killed in tunnel collapses or losing limbs or suffering from other horrific injuries caused by mining accidents.”

The United Nations says that “nearly 50% of world cobalt reserves” are found in the Congo. The Deseret News says the figure is more than 60%. But it’s not the only element needed to build “green” batteries. They require lithium, natural graphite, and manganese, raw materials that are “highly concentrated,” according to the U.N., “in a few countries.”

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BOOKS Comments turned off

Correcting 1619’s Falsehoods About the American Founding A new book published by Robert Woodson’s ‘1776 Unites’ debunks the project’s dubious claims. by Jason Riley

By on May 26th, 2021

https://www.wsj.com/articles/correcting-1619s-falsehoods-about-the-american-founding-11621981288?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Regular readers of these pages need no introduction to Robert Woodson. For the uninitiated, Mr. Woodson is a veteran community activist who broke with the traditional civil-rights leadership in the 1970s after realizing that the agenda of “racial grievance groups” like the NAACP was increasingly at odds with the actual wants and needs of the black underclass.

The Washington-based Woodson Center is a community-development organization dedicated to improving conditions in poor neighborhoods, where broken homes, violent crime and abysmal public schools are common. Unlike its liberal counterparts, the center encourages communities to look inward for solutions, as blacks often did with remarkable success before the 1960s, rather than to the government.

Yet Mr. Woodson also makes time to push back at the machinations of progressivism. After the New York Times published its “1619 Project”—which posits that America’s true founding was not 1776 but 1619, the year African slaves arrived in Virginia, and that the American Revolution was fought primarily to preserve slavery—he became incensed. Not only was it junk history, but it would be disseminated through school curriculums in the name of helping blacks. Mr. Woodson responded by initiating his own project, “1776 Unites,” which enlisted a group of black scholars, journalists and social activists “who uphold the true origins of our nation and the principles through which its founding promise can be fulfilled.”

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

America’s public enemy No. 1 — crime: Goodwin By Michael Goodwin *****

By on May 26th, 2021

https://nypost.com/2021/05/25/americas-public-enemy-no-1-crime-goodwin/

“Another part of the experiment has prosecutors, politicians and judges, their hearts bleeding with social justice demands, setting the accused free and emptying prisons. The results are in, and they are grim. It turns out that human nature, when it fears no consequences, is emboldened in savage ways. ”

On the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder, it is beyond dispute that the case sparked new appraisals of race relations and policing. It is also beyond dispute that the protests and unchecked riots that followed Floyd’s death sparked an epidemic of crime that continues to engulf American cities. 

The statistics are familiar, yet still shocking. The nearly 20,000 gun-related homicides last year were the most in decades, and one researcher found that 51 of the 57 largest cities saw increases. New York’s body count was up by nearly 40 percent. 

Violent crime soared by a reported 74 percent in Seattle, 55 percent in Chicago and 54 percent in Boston. This year is on pace to be far worse, signaling that 2020 wasn’t an outlier so much as the start of a deadly new trend. 

From sea to shining sea, America is witnessing the breakdown of public order and safety. Unfortunately, recent days brought a new dimension to that breakdown — the incidents of anti-Semitism roiling New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere. 

It is not a coincidence that the same places where violence and murder are soaring are the same places where it is not safe for Jews to display their religion in public. The ancient hatred has come out of hiding and piggy-backed on the collapse of public order to bare its fangs. 

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POLITICS Comments turned off

Of martyrs and manipulators: Liz Cheney’s pointless spectacle By Keith Naughton

By on May 26th, 2021

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/554951-of-martyrs-and-manipulators-liz-cheneys-pointless-spectacle

In American political life there is always a certain group of people who love the idea of martyrdom — not actual physical death (that might hurt), but electoral death: the “I’d rather be right than win” crowd. Rarely do these wannabe martyrs achieve real martyrdom, i.e., become heroes around whose memory millions rally. Instead, they mostly are forgotten, losers.

Which brings us to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).

In years past, the third-ranking member of minority party leadership would be a barely noticed presence at the periphery of national politics. But, in a time where Donald Trump is the litmus test for everything, any Republican who will publicly criticize Trump is an instant folk-hero — even pro-life, anti-tax, anti-regulation, pro-interventionist politicians. If you hate Trump, anything is possible.

Cheney’s martyrdom was well-planned. She purposefully agitated her colleagues. There are no reports she actually worked the GOP caucus, canvassing and counting heads. Cheney didn’t fight back, she planned to lose.

The reality is that Liz Cheney should not be in Republican leadership — and not because only Trump acolytes belong. The neocon politics of Cheney (and her father) is not just in eclipse, it’s practically dead. There is hardly any constituency in Republican politics for it.

The truly principled move for Cheney would have been to resign from leadership and not put her colleagues through the public relations meat grinder. After all, being in leadership means you have to at least generally represent the rest of the caucus. Cheney can still serve the voters of Wyoming as a rank-and-file member, retain her seniority and serve as a ranking member of committees (and be in line for a chairmanship if partisan control flips in 2022). She can even complain about Trump anytime and anywhere she wants.

But staging her own ersatz crucifixion opened the door to her own martyrdom and the avalanche of fawning publicity she craves. Too bad her time in the sun probably won’t last nor have much — if any — effect on Trump. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Cult of Personality v. Suppression of Voices” Sydney Williams

By on May 26th, 2021

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Olawale Daniel, founder of TechAtLast International, once said: “The most dangerous and powerful people in the world do not carry guns or shoot missiles; they write code to surveil and suppress opposing views.” There is no question that a commanding personality can become demagogic, especially when emotion supplants reason, and the goal is nefarious. But a demagogue only becomes dangerous when accompanied by a willing state, a compliant media and a culture of conformity that does not permit dissenting voices. So long as people are free to exercise their natural rights to speak, write, assemble and pray, people will remain the master and politicians the servants.

For four years the Left ranted about the risk to democracy, with a “demagogic” Donald Trump in the White House. They spoke of his coarseness, exaggerations, and his non-PC speech. Ignored were the facts he diminished government’s impact on individuals through deregulation and reduced government’s resources through lower taxes. A charismatic personality can camouflage a bad leader, as the world learned in the last century, with Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao, but it can also magnify a good leader, like Churchill, FDR or Ronald Reagan. 

It is the suppression of voices that should concern lovers of freedom. In 1950, when the United States was experiencing a “Red Scare” and Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-WI) was starting his infamous hearings, President Truman sent a special message to Congress on August 8: “…we must be eternally vigilant against those who would undermine freedom in the name of security.” Three years later, in the March 1953 issue of the Vassar Alumnae Magazine, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote: “Restrictions of free thought is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one Un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” Over the years, free expression allowed man to grow and expand his horizons. Freedom, progress and wealth are its progeny. It is a never-ending process, which will continue so long as man is able to think, speak and act freely.

In his concurrence in Whitney v. California (1927), Justice Louis Brandies wrote: “Man feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears.” When universities ban books for fear of hurtful language, they do damage to those they purport to protect. When politicians repress opposing views with threats of investigations and inquiries, they do irreparable harm to our Constitution. When tech companies shut down social media accounts for those they dislike, they set precedents that affect all mankind. When mainstream media reports only the news that fit their narrative, they promote ignorance rather than knowledge. During the Trump years, the response of the Left was far more dangerous than anything Mr. Trump said or did, for they blocked dissent and suppressed speech. It is not just Mr. Trump who was treated in this manner, but those who supported him. This was done under a hypocritical flag of moral righteousness, abetted by mainstream media and a cultural environment that celebrated wokeness, and which canceled history and opinions when they did not conform to a predetermined narrative. 

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

VICTIMISM: ANOTHER BAD IDEOLOGY by Howard Rotberg

By on May 26th, 2021

“Victimism uses the ideology of concern for victimes to gain political or economic or spiritual power.”
–René Girard, Christian philosopher

Girard sees victimism as a somewhat intentional method of gaining power.

But victimism can also refer to the ideology of blaming, consciously or unconsciously, one’s misfortunes on somebody else’s misdeeds. In that sense, it is an ideology that more or less intentionally interprets facts through a lens of values and culture.

Victimism is an ideology. The New World Encyclopedia states that “an ideology is a set of ideas, beliefs, or stances that determines a perspective with which to interpret social and political realities.” It gives a more detailed definition of a “political ideology” in social studies:

“A political ideology is a certain ethical set of ideals, principles, doctrines, myths or symbols of a social movement, institution, class, or large group that explains how society should work, and offers some political and cultural blueprint for a certain social order. A political ideology largely concerns itself with how to allocate power and to what ends it should be used. Some parties follow a certain ideology very closely, while others may take broad inspiration from a group of related ideologies without specifically embracing any one of them.”

The ideology of victimism is often associated with concepts like victim mentality, victimhood and/or victimization.

“Victims” therefore might have similarities as a group relating to skin colour, gender, ethnicity, economic class, religion, indigeneity,, or cultural/ political values.

Those within the culture of victimism blames their victim status on those who they perceive have wrongly usurped the privilege and power that they crave. Therefore, one sees victimism among groups who in fact have more power than they ever have had. The best example is that of American blacks. Nowhere in the world do black people have a higher standard of living and cultural prominence than in America. But extremely rich America athletes, entertainers, religious leaders, and other cultural icons conduct themselves as victims, due to historical wrongs against them. Is it from a sense of guilt that they think that they might have benefited unduly? Is it utilized as an evasion of personal responsibility to do good by blaming others, by scapegoating others?

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CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB, MEDIA Comments turned off

The Liberal Media’s Impotent Rage Robert Stacy McCain

By on May 26th, 2021

https://spectator.org/joe-scarborough-arizona-election-audit-liberal-media/

Because MSNBC’s ratings are so low, you probably didn’t see Joe Scarborough’s televised meltdown last week. The panel on Friday’s Morning Joe program was discussing the Arizona election audit when Scarborough suddenly began ranting incoherently about flag desecration, quoting Bible verses and insisting that anyone harboring doubts about the accuracy of last year’s election results is a threat to American democracy and should leave the country.

Video clips of Scarborough’s manic episode got more views on Twitter and YouTube than the total audience for the MSNBC morning show. The popular website Twitchy commented, “This certainly doesn’t seem like the behavior of someone who is confident in the results of the election being audited. Almost like he’s worried they’ll find something wrong? Or maybe he’s just had too much coffee … ”

The startling vehemence of Scarborough’s response — yelling about people who allegedly “don’t respect Madisonian checks and balances” — was completely disproportionate to the provocation. Does Scarborough, who was elected to Congress in the 1994 “Republican Revolution” landslide, really believe that the GOP state senators in Arizona conducting the election audit are undermining the Constitution itself? Or was there some other explanation for the MSNBC host’s angry rant?

Did I mention MSNBC’s ratings are in the toilet lately? During the presidency of Donald Trump, the left-wing cable network was in high cotton, its top programs regularly challenging and even surpassing those of Fox News. If you were part of the deranged anti-Trump “resistance” — weeping uncontrollably on Election Night 2016 in despondent disbelief that Hillary Clinton had lost, then marching in the streets to protest against Orange Man Bad — MSNBC was like a televised group therapy session for you the past four years. Hour after hour, day after day, MSNBC assured its grieving audience that Trump didn’t really beat Hillary, rather that the Republican villain, an authoritarian henchman controlled by Vladimir Putin, had conspired with Russians to steal the election.

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MEDIA Comments turned off

This Article Is “Partly False” Supposedly engaged in a struggle against misinformation, Facebook and its fact-checking partner spread their own. John Tierney

By on May 26th, 2021

https://www.city-journal.org/facebook-and-its-fact-checkers-spread-misinformati

At the end of a recent 800-meter race in Oregon, a high school runner named Maggie Williams got dizzy, passed out, and landed face-first just beyond the finish line. She and her coach blamed her collapse on a deficit of oxygen due to the mask she’d been forced to wear, and state officials responded to the public outcry by easing their requirements for masks during athletic events. But long before the pandemic began, scientists had repeatedly found that wearing a mask could lead to oxygen deprivation. Why had this risk been ignored?

One reason is that a new breed of censors has been stifling scientific debate about masks on social media platforms. When Scott Atlas, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force, questioned the efficacy of masks last year, Twitter removed his tweet. When eminent scientists from Stanford and Harvard recently told Florida governor Ron DeSantis that children should not be forced to wear masks, YouTube removed their video discussion from its platform. These acts of censorship were widely denounced, but the social media science police remain undeterred, as I discovered when I recently wrote about the harms to children from wearing masks.

Facebook promptly slapped a label on the article: “Partly False Information. Checked by independent fact-checkers.” City Journal appealed the ruling, a process that turned out to be both futile and revealing. Facebook refused to remove the label, which still appears whenever the article is shared, but at least we got an inside look at the tactics that social media companies and progressive groups use to distort science and public policy.

The “independent fact-checkers” of my article are affiliated with a nonprofit group called Science Feedback, which has partnered with Facebook in what it calls a “fight against misinformation.” The group describes itself as “nonpartisan,” a claim that I would label “Mostly False” after studying dozens of its fact-checks enforcing progressive orthodoxy on climate change and public health. I didn’t see anything that would have displeased the journalists and officials promoting lockdowns and mask mandates. Nor did I see anything that would have displeased a Democrat, particularly during the last presidential campaign. In October, when Donald Trump was predicting that a vaccine was imminent, the group labeled that prediction “Inaccurate” and proclaimed that “widespread Covid-19 vaccination is not expected before mid-2021.” (Fact check: The vaccine rollout began in December.)

My article was flagged because it cited a study by a team of researchers in Germany who established an online registry for thousands of parents to report on the impact of masks on their children. More than half of those who responded said that masks were giving their children headaches and making it difficult for them to concentrate. More than a third cited other problems, including malaise, impaired learning, drowsiness, and fatigue.

The study passed peer review at a medical journal, Monthly Pediatrics, but it didn’t satisfy Facebook’s fact-checkers. Science Feedback labeled the study “Unsupported” on the grounds that it “cannot demonstrate a causal relationship between mask-wearing and these effects in children, due to limitations in its design.” The critique listed various limitations: the parents who responded to the registry were a self-selected sample; the parents couldn’t be sure if their children’s problems were due to masks or to something else; there was no control group of children who didn’t wear masks.

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FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

Rebuild What With Whom? Shoshana Bryen

By on May 26th, 2021

https://www.newsweek.com/rebuild-what-whom-opinion-1594375?utm_term=Autofe

Video has emerged of Palestinians fighting on the grounds of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, also known as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The AP reported that only hours after the ceasefire with Israel took effect, thousands of Hamas supporters demonstrated against the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the rule of Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank, chanting, “Dogs of the Palestinian Authority, out, out. The people want the president to leave.” Violence quickly ensued.

This is a glimpse of Palestinian politics that President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken should take seriously as they discuss reconstruction in Gaza. The Hamas rocket war on Israel owed much to the Hamas-Fatah civil war that began in 2007 and has simmered since then, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Each is a dictatorship. In the run-up to a planned 2021 Palestinian election, Abbas stoked violence against Israel, claiming that Al-Aqsa was under siege and Israel was committing “ethnic cleaning.” Abbas, apparently, feared he might lose the election to Hamas—so he canceled it and blamed Israel.

PA television was full of speeches and music videos promising glory for those who killed Jews. A music video was repeatedly broadcast in which Palestinians declared, “I fired my shots, I threw my bomb, I detonated, detonated, detonated my [explosive] belts. …My brother, throw my blood on the enemy like bullets.” Abbas’ religious affairs advisor told viewers, “Islam does not want you to be submissive to others,” and “if you die fighting, you go to paradise; if you kill the enemies, they go to hell.”

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Arab states are ‘washing their hands’ of Palestinians Practical governments are seeking mutually beneficial relations with Israel. Andrew Harrod

By on May 26th, 2021

https://www.jns.org/opinion/analysts-arab-states-are-washing-their-hands-of-palest

In what proved to be a snapshot of professional views of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the eve of war, Georgetown University adjunct professor and Middle East Institute (MEI) senior fellow Khaled Elgindy concluded that the “Arab world is sort of washing their hands” of the Palestinian cause during a May 3 MEI webinar. He agreed with his fellow panelists addressing “Arab-Israeli Normalization: A Viable Avenue Towards Peace?” that America and Arab states are prioritizing practical self-interests over an increasingly failed, violent Palestinian state project.

The panelists examined the implications of Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates establishing normal diplomatic relations with Israel during former President Donald Trump’s final months in office. These agreements initiated by Bahrain and UAE’s Abraham Accords have become only more remarkable in the days following the panel. The Iranian-supported Hamas terror group in Gaza renewed rocket attacks against Israel on May 10, firing thousands of rockets at Tel Aviv and other Israeli civilian population centers. Israel retaliated with airstrikes and artillery. UAE officials warned Hamas of sanctions if its campaign persists.

These Arab state recognitions of Israel “robbed the Palestinians of one of the very few points of leverage that they had vis-à-vis Israel,” noted Elgindy. Palestinians suffer “already pretty stark power asymmetry” with Israel. Given this “existential threat to the Palestinian national project,” he added, the “Palestinian response across the political spectrum was extremely negative.”

Richardson Center for Global Engagement vice president and executive director Mickey Bergman, Elgindy’s fellow Georgetown adjunct, argued that these Arab states had been “very opportunistic” in making deals with Israel. The panelists noted that Trump recognized Morocco’s claim to the disputed Western Sahara and delisted Sudan as a state sponsor of terror. Meanwhile, Bahrain and the UAE wanted closer ties with Israel and the United States, particularly given growing Iranian threats.

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