BOOKS Comments turned off

Beyond Woke In a new book, the “Deplorable Prof” dissects the Left’s new religion. Mark Tapson

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/beyond-woke-mark-tapson/

Like many other linguistic irritants the left has introduced into our cultural lexicon, “woke” has become a household term seemingly overnight. It is generally understood to refer to some kind of Progressive state of self-righteous enlightenment, but what is its origin? How and why does one become woke, and what, if anything, lies beyond this condition? What are the philosophical underpinnings of this social justice religion? If you want to truly understand it and not simply dismiss it with an eyeroll, you can hardly do better than to look to writer, philosopher, poet, and former New York University professor Michael Rectenwald. Few contemporary scholars have researched the left’s totalitarian mindset more deeply, and elucidated it so thoroughly, as he.

In January of 2018 I interviewed Michael Rectenwald for FrontPage Mag here about being outed as “the Deplorable Prof,” the man behind an anonymous Twitter account which he used to criticize the “anti-education and anti-intellectual” social justice ideology of his (at the time) fellow leftist academics. The subsequent shunning and harassment he endured from his colleagues and the NYU administration drove Rectenwald to declare himself officially done with the left. He later published a book about it titled Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and its Postmodern Parentage (which I reviewed for FrontPage Mag here) from the fine people at New English Review Press. The book is a must-read for understanding how identity politics has, as Rectenwald put it, eroded academic integrity and intellectual rigor in the American university.

Rectenwald quickly went on to publish another short but vital work, Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (I interviewed him about that one, which you can read here). In this book he argues successfully that the “Big Digital” technologies and their principals like Google represent a new form of corporate state power and leftist authoritarianism.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Did The CIA, FBI And Hillary Launch A Silent Coup Against Trump?

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/10/02/did-cia-fbi-and-hillary-launch-a-silent-coup-against-trump/

Former FBI Director James Comey plays dumb in testimony before Congress, while CIA Director Gina Haspel blocks further declassification of documents in the Russia scandal. That’s the obstructionist Deep State in action, hiding the truth about a major scandal from the American people.

Listening to Comey testify this week about the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation into supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials during the 2016 campaign has been revelatory.

“In the main, it (Crossfire Hurricane) was done by the book, it was appropriate, and it was essential that it be done,” Comey said. Later, under persistent questioning from South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Comey maintained that “Overall, I’m proud of the work.”

When he wasn’t being proud, Comey played as if he were ignorant of the things going on around him, including the fraudulent application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court to spy on the Trump campaign.

Actually, when this is all done, Comey might be lucky to avoid indictment. His stewardship of a corrupt, politically motivated investigation of a presidential candidate financed and pushed by that candidate’s opponent has all the markings of a planned crime.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The New York Times Publishes a Defense of the Hong Kong Crackdown By Jimmy Quinn

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-new-york-times-publishes-a-defense-of-the-hong-kong-crackdown/

The New York Times published an op-ed by Regina Ip, a pro-Beijing politician widely known for her ambition to become chief executive of Hong Kong. The piece is entitled “Hong Kong Is China, Like It or Not.” (She seems to like it.)

Ip, a longtime apologist for Chinese Communist Party control over the city, led the charge on anti-subversion legislation that spurred mass protests in 2003. What does she think of democracy? “Adolf Hitler was returned by universal suffrage, and he killed 7 million Jews,” she said at the time.

So naturally, the Times is publishing this esteemed figure, whose comments on an issue of international concern are apparently more reliable than what a sitting U.S. senator has to say. As far as the implications of Ip’s argument are concerned: The Chinese government’s crackdown in Hong Kong has obliterated the remaining freedoms that its residents once enjoyed, and provided it a thin veneer with which it targets free people everywhere, including U.S. citizens. But don’t expect much outrage from the NYT’s newsroom about this piece.

It’s a PR coup for the dictatorship that’s snuffed out the remaining elements of democratic governance in the city. The only reasonable argument for publishing it would have been to expose the CCP’s aims — but these are already widely known.

Still, Ip’s defense of Chinese power is startlingly blunt. The op-ed is an unabashed statement of China’s aims in Hong Kong. It’s helpful that Ip says the quiet parts out loud [emphasis mine]:

To some, the new national security law is especially chilling because it seems simultaneously vague and very severe. But many laws are vague, constructively so. And this one only seems severe precisely because it fills longstanding loopholes — about subversion, secession, local terrorism, collusion with external forces. One person’s “severe” is someone else’s intended effect.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Erdogan’s Plan to Take Over the Palestinian Authority by Khaled Abu Toameh

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16576/erdogan-abbas-palestinian-authority

What we are witnessing is an Arab autocrat (Abbas) seeking the help of a Muslim autocrat (Erdogan) in holding “free and fair” elections. Abbas, it seems, is confident that Erdogan’s observers would rubber-stamp the results of any Palestinian election to ensure that the PA president emerges victorious

Now he [Erdogan] has a chance to use the Palestinian elections to try to bring his Hamas friends to power after getting rid of Abbas.

“It is terrifying that Abbas speaks as if he lives in another world. Is there a Palestinian interest in attacking the US administration, even if this administration takes unfair positions against the Palestinians? Is there a Palestinian interest in referring negatively to the peace accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain? There is a Palestinian need to return to reality. There is a Palestinian need to come to terms with the truth.” — Khairallah Khairallah, Lebanese journalist and political commentator, al-Arabiya, September 29, 2020.

On September 21, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas phoned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and requested that Turkey send Turkish observers to monitor Palestinian elections, if and when they are held.

The phone call came as Turkey hosted a meeting between Abbas’s ruling Fatah faction and the Iran-backed Hamas movement. At the meeting, the Fatah and Hamas reportedly agreed to hold long overdue elections for the PA presidency and parliament, the Palestine Legislative Council (PLC).

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Big Tech’s Backing of the ‘Transition Integrity Project’ Lacks Integrity Simply put, the entirety of Silicon Valley is working against Donald Trump and Republicans this year. Julie Kelly

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/01/big-techs-backing-of-the-transition-integrity-project-lacks-integrity/

During Tuesday night’s debate, while fielding yet another softball from moderator Chris Wallace, Joe Biden promised to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. “I will accept it, and he will too,” Biden replied. “You know why? Once the winner is declared after all the votes are counted, that will be the end of it.”

But Biden, as usual, wasn’t telling the whole truth. The former vice president can publicly assure Americans he will abide by the voters’ decision this year because he knows his campaign team is part of a massive operation—cosigned by the most powerful media, business, and political interests in the country—performing Biden’s dirty work behind-the-scenes to make sure that he, not Donald Trump, takes the oath of office on January 20, 2021.

As I’ve reported for American Greatness, Democrats and NeverTrump Republicans earlier this year formed a group called the Transition Integrity Project, an outlandish misnomer, which has been “war gaming” a number of likely post-election scenarios. The same sore losers who, to this day, cannot accept the 2016 results fully intend to get their way this time around, the U.S. Constitution and boundaries of decency be damned.

According to its detailed battle plan, the Transition Integrity Project could extend Election Day all the way to Inauguration Day as it sows chaos across the country until Biden is installed in the White House, even if Trump is legitimately reelected. 

“The purpose of this report is not to frighten, but to spur all stakeholders to action,” TIP warned. “It is 2 [sic] incumbent upon elected officials, civil society leaders, and the press to challenge authoritarian actions in the courts, in the media, and in the streets through peaceful protest.”

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Hating Tucker What the Left’s vicious attacks on Fox News’ star host really symbolize. Jason D. Hill

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/why-establishment-media-hates-tucker-carlson-so-jason-d-hill/

The attacks on Fox News host Tucker Carlson as a racist, white nationalist, xenophobic, immigrant-hating troll have become coin of the realm in the establishment media. Last week, the Daily Beast hit an all-time low when one of its reporters accused Carlson of blaming George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake for their own deaths and injuries from police. The almost libelous article attributes claims that Carlson actually never made on his show. The Daily Beast reporter simply offers his own dubious interpretations of Carlson’s interpretation of news and facts as he receives them.

Carlson has been lambasted for criticizing Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D. IL), a former contender for vice-presidential running mate for Joe Biden, as a “deeply silly and unimpressive person” who “[hates] America.” Carlson made this comment because Duckworth showed sympathy on CNN for removing the monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson amid the ongoing conversations on race following the death of George Floyd.

So what? Carlson is a patriot who reveres the founders of our republic, and he does not take kindly to someone who thinks that removing monuments bearing their likeness is negotiable. He saw the implication of Duckworth’s attitude: down with Jefferson today and then down with every single monument—including, as we witnessed, even those of figures who were ardent opponents of slavery and who fought for its eradication. This is exactly what happened during the feral statue-toppling hysteria that gripped the country and even other parts of the world. In London, a statue of Abraham Lincoln was vandalized at a Black Lives Matter protest.

ELECTIONS, MEDIA Comments turned off

The downfall of Fox News’s Chris Wallace and John Roberts By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://proudpatriots.com/pages/trump-space-force-2-bills?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxam27cqV7AIVyuqzCh1ZtQweEAEYASAAEgKxfvD_BwE

Some men are alphas, like President Trump, and some men are betas, like Al Gore and the sneering, puffing Biden. And then there are men who aren’t even strong enough to be betas. They are, instead, weak, mewling creatures who lack either presence or power, and who then cry about it afterward. Chris Wallace and John Roberts, both employees at Fox News, have exhibited behavior that’s so craven and humiliated themselves so badly in the eyes of Fox News’s core audience that they should be retired immediately.

It all started with Chris Wallace’s stint as a debate moderator for the first presidential debate. Right out of the gate, he failed to stop Biden from interrupting Donald Trump:

I rewatched the start of the debate. The 1st Q went to Trump who gave an uninterrupted 2-min response. Then Biden gave an uninterrupted 2-min response. Then it went back to Trump, whose answer was interrupted 3 times by Biden. If you didn’t like it, blame Biden for starting it.

— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 30, 2020

Trump immediately realized that Wallace was either weak or biased and proceeded to ignore him. In both estimations, Trump was correct. For the next 90 minutes, Wallace proved himself to be both ineffectual, for he bleated like a lost lamb when he couldn’t regain control of events, and partisan. That partisanship was almost criminal when Wallace failed to force Biden to respond substantively to the question about whether Biden intends to pack the Supreme Court. Trump, a true alpha predator, rode roughshod over the inconsequential Wallace.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Trump is winning the voter registration battle against Biden in key states It may not be enough to erase the former VP’s polling lead but could boost the president if the race tightens.

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-winning-voter-registration-battle-against-biden-key-states-n1241674

In the last few weeks, Joe Biden has led President Donald Trump by a fairly consistent 8-point average in national polls and has maintained leads in more than enough battleground states to win the Electoral College, including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states Trump won in 2016.

But there are signs Trump’s ground operation is paying off when it comes to registering new voters in key states, an advantage that could become important if the race tightens before Nov. 3.

The Trump campaign has boasted that it knocks on more than a million doors a week, a claim that’s impossible to independently verify. In sharp contrast, the Biden campaign had ditched a ground game for virtual outreach, citing Covid-19 concerns — even though academic research has routinely concluded door-to-door canvassing is the “most consistently effective and efficient method of voter mobilization.” Only just now has the Biden campaign decided to restart its in-person voter contacts in some battleground states.

As deadlines approach, new data from the past few months shows Republicans have swamped Democrats in adding new voters to the rolls, a dramatic GOP improvement over 2016, even if new registrations have lagged 2016 rates across the board. It’s a sign that in a pandemic, Democrats are struggling to seize traditional opportunities to pad their margins, such as the return of students to college campuses.

Of the six states Trump won by less than 5 points in 2016, four — Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania — permit voters to register by party. In all four states, voter registration trends are more robust for the GOP than four years ago.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE FIRST LADY TEST POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS

Posted By on October 2nd, 2020

They are in quarantine….May they have a speedy and uneventful recovery. rsk

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Left’s Unfortunate Turn From Atticus Finch to Benjamin Crump Atticus leads with evidence. Crump leads with accusations of racism. by Jack Cashill

Posted By on October 1st, 2020

https://spectator.org/benjamin-crump-breonna-taylor/

With precious little comment from the mainstream media, American progressives have disavowed Atticus Finch and aligned themselves with the mob in front of the county jail — this summer, the mob calling for the head of whichever white cop Benjamin Crump has chosen to lynch.

This is no small transition. The Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird (not the buzzkill Atticus of the Harper Lee’s earlier effort, Go Set a Watchman) defies the racist mob and demands due process. Crump stirs up the racist mob and subverts due process. Atticus leads with evidence. Crump leads with accusations. Atticus sticks to the facts. Crump invents facts, occasionally invents witnesses, and consistently conjures up an America foreign to every black person under 70.

Historically, the Left, with occasional help from the Comintern, has made heroes out of defense attorneys. If fictional defense attorneys like Atticus defended the innocent, his real-life counterparts were not so particular. That these attorneys often defended the conspicuously guilty — from Sacco and Vanzetti to Mumia Abu-Jamal — did not much matter. The larger goal was not to free the accused but to indict America for its systemic racism and injustice.

Crump also indicts America for its systemic racism and injustice. As a trial lawyer, however, he does so to stir the mob and scare the cash out of the besieged party, a reported $12 million out of the City of Louisville in the shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. Last week found Crump back in Louisville inciting the crowd to disorder after the grand jury refused to indict any of the implicated three police offers for Taylor’s death. As is his custom — “Skittles and iced tea,” Hands up, don’t shoot,” “I can’t breathe” — Crump and his public relations team served up a mantra for the occasion: “Release the transcripts.”

The grand jury transcripts will prove nothing that is not already known. As with George Floyd, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin before her, Taylor’s consistently disastrous lifestyle choices put her in harm’s way. If Taylor had not been shot in the police raid, she might have ended up like Fernandez Bowman, the man found dead in her rental car in 2016. Or she might have ended up in prison like her boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, who made 26 of the 48 calls from that prison to Taylor.