MEDIA Comments turned off

Where Are All the Retractions of the Brian Sicknick Story? By Julie Kelly

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

ttps://amgreatness.com/2021/02/27/where-are-all-the-retractions-of-the-brian-sicknick-story/
The Capitol Police officer did not die after being attacked by Trump supporters with a fire extinguisher on January 6. Yet news organizations and lawmakers refuse to correct the Big Lie.

Law enforcement officials, according to several news reports, now are searching for someone who allegedly released bear spray into a crowd of police officers January 6 outside the Capitol building. The suspect might have sprayed the chemical at Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police officer who died January 7 reportedly from injuries sustained in the chaos. 

“In a significant breakthrough in the case, investigators have now pinpointed a person seen on video of the riot who attacked several officers with bear spray, including Officer Sicknick,” the New York Times reported Friday night.

With that one sentence, the Times buried for good its own original account of what happened to Sicknick—the now-debunked claim Trump “loyalists” beat him to death with a fire extinguisher. The Times seeded the fabricated story in a January 8 article; the paper “updated” the article—in reality, a retraction—on February 12 after pressure from a few outlets, including American Greatness.

The “bear spray” assault is just the latest change in the slowly unraveling mystery surrounding Sicknick’s untimely death. (He was 42.) His grieving mother told the Daily Mail last week she believes her son died of a stroke and isn’t sure if any sort of repellent spray caused it. The D.C. Medical Examiner’s office, in what can only be interpreted as a cover-up, refuses to release any autopsy or toxicology report, even though Sicknick was cremated weeks ago.

The public, and his family, may never know exactly how he died.

BOOKS, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘World’s Largest Bookstore’ Gets Into the Censorship Business Roger Kimball

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/02/27/the-worlds-largest-bookstore-gets-into-the-censorship-business/

Amazon’s decision to remove Ryan Anderson’s When Harry Became Sally isn’t about a P.C. company removing one book—it is a challenge to the fundamental principles underlying American democracy.

Just a week ago, I received an email from Ryan Anderson, who was recently tapped to lead the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and who wrote When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment for me at Encounter Books back in 2018. A reader who had tried to order his book from Amazon reported he was unable to find the book listed on the site. I looked myself and, yes, that reader was correct. Other books by Anderson are listed, as are various books on the “transgender” phenomenon, including a now out-of-print title that purports to rebut When Harry Became Sally. But the book itself is nowhere to be found. 

How odd. The book was controversial when it was first published—the New York Times devoted not one but two columns to abusing it. But it sold well and, outside the precincts of wokedom, it was regarded as what it is: a thoughtful, compassionate, and well-researched discussion of the devastating psychological costs of embracing the latest fad of sexual exoticism. 

What happened? Was it an accident? A little digging showed that, like the Earl of Strafford, Amazon’s motto was “Thorough.” It was not just that a book that had been listed and sold by Amazon for the last three years was “out of stock” or “unavailable.” It had disappeared without a trace, more or less like Nikolai Yezhov standing next to Josef Stalin in that notorious photo by the Moscow Canal. One day he is seen smiling next to the great leader. The next day he is gone, airbrushed from history.

So it was with When Harry Became Sally. Amazon had pushed it into the oubliette; the book was gone, “canceled” by the wardens of wokeness at Amazon. Further inquiries show that it was also gone from the Kindle store and from Audible, the audiobooks emporium that is owned by Amazon. As of this writing, the book is still available at Barnes and Noble and other emporia, including at the Encounter Books website.

MEDIA Comments turned off

A culture of lies By Eric Utter

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

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

Almost everything you are being told to believe by the mainstream media is a lie.

The legacy media has long since chosen sides and will brazenly cover up anything that could reflect poorly on Democrats, yet will assiduously traffic in any and all innuendo, hearsay, and slander that they feel will harm Republicans/conservatives/Trump supporters. They gleefully promulgate prevarication in their unending quest to damage Democrats’ political opponents.

Hatred-addled late night television hosts compete to see who can spout the most ignorant inanities. Colleges and universities no longer care about providing their students a well-rounded, classical education. They care only of indoctrinating them into the anti-West, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian ideology of multiculturalism and Critical Race Theory, or CRT.

Big, multinational corporations now reflexively parrot the false rot emanating from Big Academia. And Big Tech now silences, stifles and cancels anyone who believes in the founding principles of the United States, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Together they have become the Father of Lies. Don’t believe them.

And what are they lying about, you ask? Virtually everything. They claim that if a White person eats, makes or sells a taco, for instance, that it is a form of “cultural appropriation.” No, it means they like tacos. It is a compliment to the culture that originally produced them. It is the same for White people who are fond of blues music. Is it likewise “appropriation” if a Black person wears Levi’s jeans or anyone outside of China utilizes a printing press? Should Johannes Gutenberg be reviled for making improvements on same?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

IS BIDEN’S $1.9 TRILLION COVID “RELIEF” PACKAGE TOO MUCH? Critics call it Biden-Bucks.

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://us20.campaign-archive.com/?u=2cf2a73e6220e59e3c1c4a60c&id=7845deb81f

It’s a legalized money laundering scheme.

It’s all legal and that’s the scandal.

Our report, Federal Funding of Fortune 100 Companies, drags this scheme into the sunshine.

It shows conclusive evidence that, over a four year period, Fortune 100 companies spent $2 billion lobbying Congress and received over $400 billion in federal grants and contracts — funded by the American taxpayer.

It’s no wonder that when new members show-up in Congress,  they quickly stop representing their constituents’ values. 

Their vote has been won by a higher bidder.

Our reporting on this critical subject has raised heads in the media, with features in the Washington Times, the Associated Press, C-SPAN, One America News, Newsweek, and The Daily Caller. 

The time is ripe for a bipartisan policy change. Remember, it’s YOUR money. 

EDUCATION Comments turned off

You’ll never believe what made Bill Maher’s audience clap By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

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

The headlines were about the fact that, when Megyn Kelly appeared on Bill Maher’s HBO show on Friday, she complained about the way her children’s pricey private schools in New York were indoctrinating them with pro-transgender values and anti-white animus. Bill Maher to his credit, agreed with Kelly that matters are getting seriously out of hand, at least when it comes to the anti-white hatred that’s becoming the norm in education. Maher’s always been a bit of maverick, though. The real surprise was the enthusiasm his audience showed for that sentiment.

For conservatives, nothing that Kelly said about her children’s experiences in New York’s toniest private elementary schools came as a surprise. Kelly said that, while she and her husband identify as “center-right,” she was okay with the fact that the schools were on the left side of the political aisle. That changed, though, when “they went hard left, and then they started to take a really hard turn toward social justice stuff.”

One of the hot-button issues was the schools’ efforts to normalize transgenderism, a form of body dysphoria that’s recognized as a mental illness when the subject is anorexia, not sex. Kelly told Maher that, when one of her sons was in third grade – that is, 8 years old, the school “unleashed a three-week experimental trans-education program.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

So Much Winning: Trump Outscored Obama On Five Key Metrics — Pollster

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/02/27/so-much-winning-trump-outscores-obama-on-five-key-metrics-pollster/

Given all the predictions that President Donald Trump would lead the ruination of the U.S., and despite the 24/7 attacks hurled at him from all quarters, Trump got stronger marks than Barack Obama on all but two of seven key metrics that IBD/TIPP has been following for 20 years.

Raghavan Mayur, the president of TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, which runs the IBD/TIPP poll, explains it all on his new site: TippInsights.com.

Although often ignored by the mainstream press, the Investor’s Business Daily-sponsored IBD/TIPP poll has proven to be the most accurate in the past five presidential elections. And since 2001, IBD/TIPP has been taking the public’s pulse seven topics to gauge the state of the nation: direction of the country; economic optimism; presidential leadership; standing in the world; quality of life; morals and ethics; and national outlook.

The indexes provide a unique view into how the nation judges each president, and after two decades IBD/TIPP now has a wealth of data.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Cinderella Province in a Rebellious Mood by Amir Taheri

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17121/iran-rebellious-baluchistan

The mullahs had another reason to neglect the Baluch, a majority of whom are Sunni Muslims and deeply suspicious of a regime based on a militant Imamist ideology. During the past four decades, an accumulation of grievances has pushed the Baluch into a rebellious mood.

According to a study by the Ministry of the Interior, almost 30% of the death sentences that make the Islamic Republic the second nation with the highest number of executions in the world, after China, are passed on the Baluch, who account for 1.8% of Iran’s population.

Tehran faces a cash flow problem that has also led to cuts in stipends for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Bashar al-Assad.

Arrogance, ignorance, and repression are the main features of Tehran’s approach to what is a complex socio-politico-economic problem that requires understanding, compassion, and pragmatism, concepts that have no place in the mullahs’ lexicon. Their ineptitude has turned Baluchistan into a powder-keg.

“Like a battlefield!” This is how eye-witnesses describe the scene in Saravan after two days of violence on Monday and Tuesday during which an undetermined number of people lost their lives while local authorities briefly lost control of the city.

Tehran says two people died and five others were wounded. Local reports put the number of dead at 37 with dozens more injured. Because of the credibility gap associated with the regime and its opponents, and in the absence of normal journalistic coverage, it is hard to be sure about the figures. It is equally hard to know how the violence started.

EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China Buys Western Academics by Giulio Meotti

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17122/china-buys-western-academics

“The inaugural conference assured [everyone] that Tibet was never annexed, [and] that the Chinese intervention of 1950 had been requested by the Tibetans,” Nicolas Nord, a law professor, recalled.

[T]he proposed new head of the CIA, William J. Burns, said that if it were up to him, he would close Confucius Institutes in Western universities.

Seventeen schools in the UK are already owned by Chinese companies, and that number is destined to skyrocket. In additon, The Times revealed that the University of Cambridge received a “generous gift” from Tencent Holdings, one of the largest technology companies in China involved in state censorship.

Today, we know a lot about the Chinese cruelty, including the mass murder by the Wuham virus that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forced upon the world….resulting in the murder of more than 2.5 million .

We also know about the number of people locked up in the laogai, the Chinese “administrative prisons” (estimate, 50 million)….

“Places inhabited by ethnic minorities, such as Xinjiang and Tibet, have stood out as shining examples of China’s human rights progress”, Wang said hours before addressing the…United Nations Human Rights Council. Probably even the Soviet Union could not have thought that one up.

A shocking investigation was just published by the French weekly Le Point on how Beijing is buying the favor of Western universities. An Italian associate professor, for example, Fabio Massimo Parenti, at the Lorenzo de Medici International Institute in Florence,

P.C.-CULTURE Comments turned off

Beware the linguistic Trojan horse: Lionel Shriver

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://spectator.us/topic/beware-linguistic-trojan-horse-dictionaries/

Print dictionaries used to act as drags on popular misunderstandings (no, ‘notorious’ does not mean ‘famous’)

It’s the bane of many an author these days: those newspaper-filler Q&As. One I recently filled out included the question: ‘What’s the book you’re never without?’ Of course, there’s no book I lug about with me everywhere, but inanity comes with this territory. I responded: ‘A tattered, duct-taped blue hardcover of my Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (based on Webster’s Third) published in 1969.’

Lame? Actually, no. Access to older analogue dictionaries has become politically invaluable.

Pre-internet, august dictionaries such as Webster’s and the OED functioned as linguistic anchors. Beneficially slow to adapt and resistant to vernacular fashion, print editions that were expensive to reissue acted as drags on popular misunderstandings (no, ‘notorious’ does not mean ‘famous’). By calling us to shared agreement on what words did and didn’t mean, hard-copy dictionaries helped facilitate clear, precise communication. But online dictionaries have jettisoned this conservative purpose. Capable of being updated daily, digital definitions change with the wind, and are eternally playing catch-up with galloping popular ignorance. The hoi polloi, not the fuddy-duddies, are in charge.

This leaves English susceptible to witlessness, yet also to deliberate manipulation. We’re not talking merely about rapidly evolving slang, but about the meaning of staple, commonplace vocabulary, revised definitions of which can slyly import partisan ideological baggage to everyday discourse.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The political effort to limit free speech attacks our own values By Jonathan Turley

Posted By on February 28th, 2021

https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/540235-the-political-effort-to-limit-free-speech-attacks-our-own-values

English essayist Samuel Johnson wrote that “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” I thought of Johnson’s words in preparing to appear before a House committee exploring limitations on free speech, including a campaign by some Democratic members and activists to remove networks like Fox News from cable carriers. As someone who just came over to Fox News as a legal analyst from CBS and the BBC, the hearing concentrated my mind “wonderfully” on the future of free speech and the free press.

Increasingly, free speech in the United States is described as a danger that needs to be controlled, as opposed to the very value that defines us as a people. While I am viewed as a “free speech purist” by many, I maintain what once was a mainstream view of free speech. I believe free speech is the greatest protection against bad speech. That view is, admittedly, under fire and may even be a minority view today. But history has shown that public or private censorship does not produce better speech. It only produces more censorship and more controlled speech.

There is no disagreement that we face a torrent of false, hateful, extremist speech on social media and in other public forums. This speech is not without cost: It fuels those filled with rage, victimizes the gullible, and alienates the marginal in our society. It is a scourge, but not a new one.

The Constitution was written not only for times like these — it was written during times like these. Politics has always been something of a blood sport, literally. At the start of our Republic, the Republicans and Federalists were not trying to “cancel” one another in the contemporary sense; they were trying to kill each other in the actual sense, through measures like the Alien and Sedition Acts. There also were rampant false conspiracy theories about alliances with Great Britain, France, Spain, and other foreign powers. Newspapers and pamphleteers were highly biased and partisan.

Members of Congress are now pushing for public and private censorship on the internet and in other forums. They are being joined by an unprecedented alliance of academics, writers and activists calling for everything from censorship to incarceration to blacklists. For example, an article published in The Atlantic by Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith and University of Arizona law professor Andrew Keane Woods called for Chinese-style censorship of the internet, stating that “in the great debate of the past two decades about freedom versus control of the network, China was largely right and the United States was largely wrong.”