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Will the media ever be honest about Joe Biden? The president is polling worse than ever…by Grace Curley

Posted By on January 15th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/media-president-joe-biden-honest-appraisal-polling/

Joe Biden usually likes being compared to Donald Trump. During the 2020 presidential campaign the media often contrasted the two figures in order to highlight how much more decent and compassionate and normal Biden is, as opposed to Orange Man. However, the empathizer-in-chief might not be as crazy about the latest parallels emerging thanks to his poll numbers.

A headline in Newsweek, not exactly a right-wing rag, reads, “Joe Biden’s Approval Lower Than Donald Trump’s at Same Stage of Presidency: Poll.” The president’s current approval rating according to the Quinnipiac poll is a dismal 33 percent. Considering how slanted these polls can be, the real number might be even worse.

Imagine how dreadful Biden’s approval rating would be if the mainstream media were even remotely honest about his administration’s myriad of failures. But will journalists eventually tire of trying to polish a t-…a terrible president? Spinning Biden’s barrage of bad news grows harder by the day.

This week Joe couldn’t even get Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams to show up for his tirade on voting rights in Atlanta. His rant, which Al Sharpton described as a “you’re going to Hell” speech, failed to strike the right tone with…well, anyone.

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Time for the CDC to get a clue And cool it with the Covid hysteria by Peter Wood

Posted By on January 15th, 2022

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/time-cdc-get-clue-rochelle-walensky-comorbidities/

“I’d also advise Dr. Walensky to steer clear of the library. She has the quadruple comorbidity of knowing too much, lying too often, panicking too many and reassuring too faintly.”

“The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities. So really these are people who were unwell to begin with.”

That declaration by the director of the Centers for Disease Control, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, is one of those fall-out-of-your-chair moments. You’re tempted to repeat it several times just to be sure every syllable is in the right place.

Did she mean the deaths of all the people who died of Covid? Seventy-five percent. Or did she mean the people who died with Covid? The preposition, we have learned, matters muchly. “Of” means Covid is the murder weapon. “With” means Colonel Mustard did it with a poker in the library, and Covid was just standing in the corner. Listen carefully to the tape of Walensky on Good Morning America and it sounds like she means “with.” How many people actually died of Covid has been a dark CDC secret from early on.

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China: Buying Up Europe by Judith Bergman

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18082/china-buying-up-europe

A staggering 40% out of 650 Chinese investments in Europe in the years 2010-2020, according to Datenna [a Dutch company that monitors Chinese investments in Europe], had “high or moderate involvement by state-owned or state-controlled companies.”

When the Chairman of the UK parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Tugendhat, wrote that Chinese ownership of the British microchip plant, Newport Wafer Fab, “represents a significant economic and national security concern”, UK Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng responded that the deal had been “considered thoroughly”. Only after considerable pressure did British Prime Minister Boris Johnson agree to a national security review of the sale.

The European Court of Auditors, an EU institution that oversees EU finances, has found that gaining an overview of Chinese investments in the EU is difficult because of the lack of comprehensive data; it seems no one is recording it.

Efficient systems for blocking foreign investments based on national security concerns also appear either to be lacking or simply not used sufficiently.

The “strictest screening frameworks” clearly are not stopping China.

What appears to be urgently needed in Europe now is a deeper understanding of the threat that China poses, as well as the political will to act on it. Action is urgently needed to block investments that serve up Europe’s strategic assets on a silver platter to China’s state-owned companies, which the Chinese Communist Party then use to advance its expansionist ends.

For more than a decade, China has been stealthily buying up European companies in strategic sectors, particularly in technology and energy. China appears to be using these European assets to help fulfil the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) ambitions of becoming a global force, technologically independent of the West and ultimately supplanting the US as the world’s economic, political and military superpower.

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The Idiocy of ‘Shared Oppression’ by Wilfred Reilly

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/idiocy-shared-oppression

“I have no dog in this unfortunate fight, other than to point out that women’s rights and transgender inclusivity clearly are not the same cause, any more than racial equality will be advanced by eliminating carbon emissions. All of which is a good argument for old-school, incremental, single-issue activism, and for leaving the old LGBT pride flag alone.”

It’s not true, and betrays the reality of historical suffering

Has anyone else noticed that the rainbow flag of sexual diversity keeps expanding to include the full possible spectrum of visible colors? I recently saw that something called the Intersex Inclusion Campaign introduced a new “intersex inclusive pride progress flag,” which is the old LGBT pride flag altered from six bars to 12, with the bonus introduction of triangles and a circle. I learned that these fresh shapes and colors symbolize not only the transgender community and the intersex people once crudely called hermaphrodites, but also Black people, Hispanics, and other “brown” folx. In an unforgettable piece of symbolism, the new identity markers now take up more than half the old pride flag, swooping into it (from the left, naturally) in a wedge shaped vaguely like a boar’s head. “A bit invasive,” I thought.

Tablet columnist Wesley Yang has referred to this kind of thing as the “unity of oppression thesis,” “the astroturfed credo of the activist class” which insists, for example, that “LGBTQ parades have to call for freeing Palestine and White House plans for gender equity have to call for the elimination of cash bail.” Kristine Hadeed, a left-leaning writer and apparent member of that class, made a good-faith attempt to explain the phenomenon to Yang on Twitter: “It’s because they recognize that the roots of oppression are intertwined. None of us are truly liberated unless all of us are liberated. Oppressed people uniting for collective liberation is the only way liberation will ever happen.”

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DEEP IMPACT: CNN Ratings Crater Nearly 90%, Jeff Zucker Needs to Go By Stephen Green

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2022/01/13/deep-impact-cnn-ratings-crater-nearly-90-jeff-zucker-needs-to-go-n1549107

Pedophilia scandals, Trump Derangement Syndrome, and poor programming choices take their toll as CNN ratings crash to Earth like a massive asteroid in a doomsday movie.

Remember when CNN let anchor Chris Cuomo spend a year fluffing his own older brother, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, live on the air, even as Andrew’s COVID-19 policies needlessly killed thousands?

Remember when that same governor was forced to resign over sexual harassment allgations?

Remember when Chris was finally forced out of CNN when the infotainment network was publicly humiliated by the younger Cuomo’s misdeeds?

Remember when it turned out that Chris Cuomo had serious sexual misconduct allegations against him, too?

Remember when, just a few days later, a CNN producer quit over accusations of “luring girls for ‘sexual subservience’ training?”

Remember how that was just the first CNN producer who left in December over “improper conduct with a minor” allegations?

That’s just the juicy stuff. CNN ratings have been in a tailspin since Presidentish Joe Biden took office (and I do mean took office) last year. The Trump-obsessed infotainment service has been floundering for months — but that was nothing compared to its latest ratings woes.

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458 Police Officers Died in the Line of Duty in 2021, the Deadliest Year on Record By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/13/458-police-officers-died-in-the-line-of-duty-in-2021-the-deadliest-year-on-record/

The year 2021 saw the highest number of police officers killed in the line of duty in modern history, with 458 officers dying over the course of the year.

As reported by Fox News, the number is the highest since record-keeping first began, surpassing the previous high of 1930, which saw 312 officers killed on the job. The report was released on Tuesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), pointing out that the numbers reflected an increase of 55 percent over the 2020 total of 295 deaths. The comprehensive report includes officers at every level, including municipal, county, state, and federal, as well as military, territorial, campus, and tribal law enforcement.

The report claims that COVID-19 was the leading cause of law enforcement deaths, with NLEOMF executive director Troy Anderson remarking that “this number appears to be increasing almost daily.” The second-highest cause of death was firearms-related incidents, with traffic fatalities coming in third.

“The magnitude of this type of loss is everlasting in the hearts and minds of those left behind to continue the work of public safety,” Anderson said in a video statement. “While much of this report is delivered through numbers and statistics, it is paramount that we keep in mind that every number here represents someone’s loved one – a life, a son or daughter, a mother or father. A law enforcement officer who made the ultimate sacrifice for a profession that they believed in and died for.”

Although the group mentioned that the numbers in the report were preliminary and not complete, it claimed that 301 officers, roughly 66 percent of the overall total, died of the coronavirus. Sixty-two officers were killed by firearms, with October being the deadliest month for these types of incidents, seeing eight officers killed in the line of duty. Another fifty-eight officers died in traffic-related incidents.

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Another Resignation: Read Tara Henley on Why She’s Leaving Legacy Media A distinguished journalist rejects the blinkered ideology of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation—and strikes out on her own. Tara Henley

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/another-resignation-read-tara-henley?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxND

The story of Tara Henley is the story of countless liberals. Until recently, they were the ones pushing everyone else to be more tolerant, more understanding, more open-minded, more compassionate. Then, something happened — call it ideological succession or institutional capture or the new illiberalism — and, all of a sudden (or so it felt to them), they found themselves to the right of their friends and colleagues. Their crime? Refusing to abandon their principles in the service of some radical, anti-liberal dogma. Bari Weiss

For months now, I’ve been getting complaints about the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, where I’ve worked as a TV and radio producer, and occasional on-air columnist, for much of the past decade.

People want to know why, for example, non-binary Filipinos concerned about a lack of LGBT terms in Tagalog is an editorial priority for the CBC, when local issues of broad concern go unreported. Or why our pop culture radio show’s coverage of the Dave Chappelle Netflix special failed to include any of the legions of fans, or comics, that did not find it offensive. Or why, exactly, taxpayers should be funding articles that scold Canadians for using words such as “brainstorm” and “lame.”

Everyone asks the same thing: What is going on at the CBC?

When I started at the national public broadcaster in 2013, the network produced some of the best journalism in the country. By the time I resigned last month, it embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media. In a short period of time, the CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

Those of us on the inside know just how swiftly — and how dramatically — the politics of the public broadcaster have shifted.

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We Are All Domestic Terrorists Now Whether it’s Paul Hodgkins or Mitch McConnell, Democrats like Joe Biden consider all detractors an enemy of the country.  By Julie Kelly

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/13/we-are-all-domestic-terrorists-now/

Paul Hodgkins, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is a domestic terrorist.

A working-class man from Tampa, Hodgkins committed what Democrats and the media consider a murderous crime comparable to flying a packed jetliner into a skyscraper or detonating a truck filled with explosives under a crowded federal building. 

Paul Hodgkins entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

What exactly did Hodgkins do on that day of infamy? He followed a group of like-minded Donald Trump supporters into the hallowed halls and chambers of the U.S. Senate. In that sacred space, where people far more important and educated than poor Hodgkins, according to those very important and very educated senators, make speeches and whatnot. Hodgkins, a crane operator, traveled alone by bus from central Florida to Washington—he was not chauffeured into the nation’s capital in a black SUV and detail team in the way that very important senators roll into town.

When he entered the sacred Senate chambers, Hodgkins carried with him a weapon so offensive that the mere sight of the device prompted the judge in his case to question Hodgkin’s loyalty to his own country. That weapon was a flag bearing the words “Trump 2020.”

Although Hodgkins did not commit a single violent act on January 6, federal prosecutors nonetheless consider him a domestic terrorist and want him punished accordingly. 

“The need to deter others is especially strong in cases involving domestic terrorism, which the breach of the Capitol certainly was,” a prosecutor wrote in a July sentencing motion, asking a judge to send Hodgkins to prison for 18 months after he pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction. “Moreover, with respect to specific deterrence, courts have recognized that ‘terrorists[,] [even those] with no prior criminal behavior, are unique among criminals in the likelihood of recidivism, the difficulty of rehabilitation, and the need for incapacitation.’”

Judge Randolph Moss agreed with the Justice Department’s assessment. The Obama appointee claimed the four-hour disturbance at the Capitol on January 6 caused political and personal damage that “will persist in this country for decades.” Moss was outraged at the sight of Hodgkins hoisting a Trump flag. “The symbolism of that act is unmistakable. He was staking a claim on the Senate floor, declaring his loyalty to a single individual over a nation,” Moss ranted before sentencing Hodgkins to serve 15 months in jail.

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Jews Don’t Count When talking about diversity and inclusion, Jews are not part of the discussion, Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/jews-dont-count-richard-l-cravatts/

In 1978, the significant Regents of the University of California v. Bakke case brought the term “diversity” into the lexicon of higher education. Although the Court found that the medical school at the University of California at Davis had used an unconstitutional quota system in denying Alan Bakke admission, Justice Lewis Powell made his now-famous observation that, notwithstanding the inherent defect of such a quota system, universities could likely enhance the quality of their enrollments by striving to create a “diverse student body” engaging in “a robust exchange of ideas,” and that there was “a compelling state interest” in trying to achieve such a goal and in promoting the inclusion of historically underrepresented groups on campus.

Rather than helping students adapt to the real diversity of society outside the campus walls, however, the campaign to increase diversity has served to create balkanized campuses where victims of the moment segregate themselves into distinct and inward-looking racial and cultural groups—exactly the opposite intention of the university diversocrats and their bloated fiefdoms with which they promote this theology of victimization, racial justice, and inclusion.

It seems, though, that not all ethnic groups warrant the concern of woke campus social justice warriors. Jews, a tiny but highly visible and influential minority group, are regularly ignored when victim groups compete for recognition on the sensitivity scale. More than that, the very individuals whose role it is to ensure that all people are recognized and all groups protected have been shown to harbor a particular animus towards Jews and the Jewish state, Israel.

In the rarified atmosphere of racial equity and discussion about oppression and victimhood, Jews are now considered to be white and enjoy “white privilege,” that even though they have long been a maligned and hated minority, Jews are now excluded from victim classification and have themselves become targets for condemnation, criticism, and censure—even from those diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) professionals whose primary role it is to create campus environments free from bigotry, hatred, and bias.

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Woke Racism John H. McWhorter reveals how a new religion has betrayed Black America. Danusha V. Goska

Posted By on January 14th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/woke-racism-danusha-v-goska/

John McWhorter is a professor of linguistics, American studies, and music history at Columbia University. He has also published in numerous prestigious outlets, and he is currently an op-ed columnist at the New York Times. McWhorter is the son of a college administrator father and a professor mother. He attended Friends Select School, a private, a 189-year-old college-preparatory institution. In short, McWhorter is a highly accomplished member of the American elite. He is black. A man should never be reduced to a skin color. But we live in, as the apocryphal Chinese curse is alleged to say, “interesting times,” and, so, yes, every mention of McWhorter’s new book Woke Racism may skip his many accomplishments, and focus on his color.

“I know quite well,” he writes, “that white readers will be more likely to hear out views like this when they’re written by a black person, and I consider it nothing less than my duty as a black person to write this book … A version of this book written by a white writer would be blithely dismissed as racist.” As McWhorter notes, he is accused of being “not really black.”

McWhorter responds by reminding our Woke overlords, whom he calls “The Elect,” that their very ideology insists that every black man in America is living under the oppressive boot of white supremacy. The New York Times published at least one op-ed by a black professor who insisted that being a professor is no escape from America’s pervasive racism. Chris Lebron’s June 16, 2020 op-ed was entitled, “White America Wants Me to Conform. I Won’t Do It. Even at Elite Universities, I Was Exposed to the Disease that Has Endangered Black Lives for So Long.” So, yes, as McWhorter points out, by the Elect’s own value system, he is indeed “black enough.”

McWhorter has been producing necessary prose for decades; he should be required reading for American students. His essay entitled “Explaining the Black Education Gap” in Wilson Quarterly’s summer, 2000 issue, is one of the boldest pieces about education I’ve ever read. I wish I could require every one of our Woke overlords to read McWhorter’s June 11, 2020 piece in Quillette “Racist Police Violence Reconsidered.”