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The hijack of language The duty of conservatives is to reclaim the words that are driving the culture off the cliff Melanie Phillips

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-hijack-of-language?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The Conservative Party in Britain is in trouble. Many natural conservatives have written it off as rudderless, leaderless and useless. Tory MPs are forming silos of attitudes that they believe define conservatism but which cancel each other out in a welter of recrimination, panic and closed minds. 

As they miserably thrash around, we hear over and over again the irritated complaint: “Don’t go on about the culture wars. Ordinary people have no time for all that nonsense. What they want to hear from us is how to improve their standard of living. Oh, and stopping immigration, of course. Oh, and dealing with crime. All that culture war stuff is irrelevant to them. It’s a distraction from the real challenge: saving the Conservative Party”.

This is myopia on stilts. Culture — the attitudes that shape the zeitgeist and the national conversation — is not irrelevant to politics. It drives politics. Ordinary people may regard the battles of the culture war as taking place in a weird and distant galaxy called Intelligentsia.  But the issues involved have a direct bearing on their lives, their families, their communities and their nation.

If the nation and its culture finally slide off the edge of the cliff, the Tories will slide with it. The Conservative Party will only stand a chance of being saved if the nation and its culture are saved.

But how is the culture to be saved from falling off the edge of the cliff towards which it has been sliding for decades?

To have a chance of saving it, we must understand why it’s been pushed to the edge. Why conservatives, whose role in life is to defend what is valuable, didn’t recognise what was happening and fight to stop it.  

Partly, this is because conservatives tend not to think in theoretical terms. Busy with realities, they have no time for ivory-tower fantasies. So they don’t recognise ideology until it bites them in the face. 

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Pakistan’s Genocide by Uzay Bulut

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19755/pakistan-genocide

“The conflict resulted in the massacre of an estimated three million East Pakistani citizens, the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis who fled to India, and the rape of at least 200,000 women (some estimates put the number of rape victims at closer to 400,000).” — hinduamerican.org

“Hindus were the special targets of this violence, as documented by official government correspondence and documents from the United States, Pakistan, and India…. The Pakistan military’s conflation of Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities meant that all Bengalis (the majority of people in Bangladesh) were suspect…. In the eyes of the Pakistani military, Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities were one and the same.” — hinduamerican.org

“Bengali Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and other religious groups were also significantly affected. By the end of the first month in March 1971, 1.5 million Bengalis were displaced. By November 1971, 10 million Bengalis, the majority of whom were Hindu, had fled to India.” — hinduamerican.org

“II]in the eyes of Western Pakistanis and their fundamentalist Muslim collaborators ‘the Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that should best be exterminated.'” — Rudolph Joseph Rummel (1932–2014), leading American scholar of genocides, quoted by sociologist Massimo Introvigne, bitterwinter.org, November 2, 2021.

The genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Pakistani military against millions of people due to their ethnicity, religion, language and political views urgently need to be called out and the perpetrators held accountable.

The genocide committed by Pakistan needs immediate recognition.

“According to Bangladesh Government estimates 3 million people were killed, over two-hundred thousand women were sexually and physically violated, and 10 million people were forced to cross the border into India, leaving behind their ancestral homes and worldly possessions just to save their lives and dignity of their women,” wrote Stichting BASUG (Bangladesh Support Group), a non-governmental organization, together with other Bangladeshi diaspora organizations to the United Nations Secretary General on May 29.

“Over 20 million citizens were internally displaced in search of safety. Newspapers, magazines and publications which are available in libraries and archives all around the world bear testimony to the fact.”

EDUCATION, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Obamas say affirmative action allowed them to ‘prove we belonged’ in college The former first lady said her “heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds” after the end of affirmative action. By Madeleine Hubbard

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/obamas-say-affirmative-action-allowed-them-prove-we-belonged-college

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on Thursday criticized the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action by stating that they benefited from the policy themselves.

Michelle Obama, who went to Princeton for her bachelor’s degree and Harvard for her J.D., wrote in her statement, which was significantly longer than her husband’s, that she had wondered whether people thought she got into school because of affirmative action. 

“But the fact is this: I belonged,” she also wrote. “So often, we just accept that money, power, and privilege are perfectly justifiable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level.”

The former first lady also said her “heart breaks for any young person out there who’s wondering what their future holds” after the end of affirmative action. 

Barack Obama only wrote three sentences about the ruling: “Like any policy, affirmative action wasn’t perfect. But it allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged. Now it’s up to all of us to give young people the opportunities they deserve — and help students everywhere benefit from new perspectives.”

President Joe Biden also criticized the court’s decision. 

“Discrimination still exists in America,” he said multiple times. 

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump celebrated the ruling. 

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The 4 Big Lies (And 1 Terrible Truth) In Biden’s ‘Bidenomics Is Working’ Speech

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/30/the-4-big-lies-and-1-terrible-truth-in-bidens-bidenomics-is-working-speech/

“I’m happy to call it ‘Bidenomics.’  And guess what?  Bidenomics is working.”

In a 30-minute speech in Chicago this week, President Joe Biden declared that his economic policies — which can charitably be summed up as “borrow and spend, tax and regulate” — are doing wonders for the nation’s economy.

Never mind that just 38% of Americans approve of the job Biden has been doing on the economy.

No. The only risk we face, Biden argued, was a return of that bogeyman known as “trickle-down economics.”

“Folks, let me say this as clearly as I can,” Biden said. “The trickle-down approach failed the middle class. It failed America. It blew up the deficit. It increased inequity. And it weakened the in — our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride, and hope out of communities one after another, particularly through the Midwest, Western Pennsylvania, and heading west.”

Scary!

Or, it would be, if there was a shred of truth to it. The middle class made huge gains during the “trickle-down” Reagan boom and was making huge gains during the Trump boom until the Biden-backed COVID lockdowns gutted it.

Truth is, the only way Biden can make the case for “Bidenomics” is by lying. Examples:

“U.S. has had the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economies since the pandemic.”

Except it didn’t. The U.S. ranks 146th in real GDP growth in the world so far this year, came in 151st place last year, and was 66th in 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“We created 13.4 million new jobs.”

Also false. Because almost 10 million of those were simply refilled jobs lost during the pointless COVID lockdown. Under Biden, the number of net new jobs is less than 4 million — which is nothing to brag about, given that the working-age population has grown by 6.8 million since Biden took office.

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The End of Affirmative Action and the Long Road to Racial Equality Under the Law After going through slavery, Jim Crow and affirmative action, has the Supreme Court finally brought us there? By Ward Connerly

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-long-road-to-racial-equality-affirmative-action-supreme-court-discrimination-race-diversity-f45c3b8f?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

EXCERPT

I strongly believe that the future of our country demands that we reject our endless pursuit of diversity and equity and claw our way back to our values and the vision embraced by Lincoln and JFK. Ending race-based affirmative action is an important first step in that mission. Over the past 20 years, voters in Arizona, California, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington backed ballot measures to prohibit racial discrimination—including preferential treatment for minorities. Officials in Idaho, Florida and New Hampshire did the same via legislation or executive order.

As one who was born in Jim Crow as a “colored” person and who has lived through all 62 years of affirmative action, my fear has been that this departure from one of America’s most fundamental values—over which we have fought a civil war—was becoming accepted as the preferred policy, rather than the exception, to our constitutional obligation of equal treatment for every person.

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of equal rights and against race-based affirmative action in college admissions, it is realistic to anticipate some pushback. Change after 60 years rarely comes easy. For my part, and that of the majority who believe in the ideal that has guided America since its inception, this is a time to rejoice, as America will come closer to living in accordance with its creed.

On the day before the high court’s oral arguments in the Students for Fair Admissions cases, I addressed a rally sponsored by Asian Americans for Equal Education. As I sat chatting with Ed Blum, whose organization was the plaintiff, a college student of Asian descent approached. I asked why she considered this case to be important.

“Because it would give me a chance to prove my merit, and the content of my character,” she said. Martin Luther King Jr. would have nodded even more vigorously than I did.

Mr. Connerly is president of the American Civil Rights Institute.

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A Landmark for Racial Equality at the Supreme Court The Justices revive the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment in barring discrimination by race in admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

Posted By on June 30th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/harvard-unc-students-for-fair-admissions-supreme-court-affirmative-action-john-roberts-clarence-thomas-racial-preferences-f8c998f6?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The Supreme Court had one of its finest hours on Thursday as it reaffirmed, in logical but forceful fashion, the bedrock American principle of equality under the law. In barring the use of race in college admissions, a six-Justice majority took a giant step back from the racial Balkanization that risks becoming set in institutional stone.

The two cases at issue were brought against Harvard, a private institution, and the public University of North Carolina by Students for Fair Admissions. They each used race to favor some applicants at the expense of others—most often Asian-Americans. In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts unequivocally declares their admissions processes to be unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment.

“The Harvard and UNC admissions programs cannot be reconciled with the guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause,” he writes. “Both programs lack sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points. We have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way, and we will not do so today.”

It doesn’t get clearer than that, in what is the most significant opinion of the Chief’s career. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” he writes.

The Court’s opinion is especially bracing because it clears up a half-century of muddled Supreme Court rulings.

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Are the Walls Closing in on Ol’ Joe? You don’t have to choose between the allegations against Biden and Trump. Both could be true. Charles Lipson

Posted By on June 29th, 2023

https://thespectator.com/topic/walls-closing-joe-biden-corruption-hunter-irs-white-house-trump/

Confronted with devastating evidence of Biden family grifting, the president’s advocates are abandoning their old defenses and trying some new ones. 

Some are attempting to change the subject. Nancy Pelosi offers a sterling example. Asked about the latest evidence connecting Joe Biden with Hunter’s corrupt schemes, she replied that she was too busy defending women’s reproductive rights. Not exactly a full-throated defense of the president. Still others are repeating the familiar refrain, “But Trump is worse.” (More on that in a minute.) 

Finally, a shrinking band of Biden supporters are sticking with their old line: you may have caught everyone who shares Joe’s DNA, but you haven’t caught ol’ Joe himself. That’s true, but the evidence of the president’s involvement is mounting and the allegations are detailed. The charges are so obvious and the evidence so serious that even mainstream reporters are asking about them. The president’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, stands mute. So does her more competent stand-in, John Kirby. KJP not only told the press she knows nothing, she told them she would not privately ask the president about the charges so she could respond to press inquiries. 

What Joe’s defenders are increasingly reluctant to say is, “He had absolutely nothing to do with the vast sums raked in by his son, brother, daughter-in-law and minor grandchildren. He knew nothing. He had no knowledge of the intricate web of shell companies his family used to move money around and hide its sources and recipients. He doesn’t know any honest business people who have used these covert methods. He did nothing to help his son, Hunter, his brother, James, or other family members. The president is completely ignorant of anything they did and did nothing to help them.” That’s his story. 

Many of Joe’s defenders have backed away from a straightforward declaration that “he’s innocent,” and instead render the Scottish verdict, “Not proven.” So far, they are right — the case isn’t proven yet. But the walls are closing in, both on Joe himself and on his defenders at the Department of Justice, IRS and FBI. 

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San Francisco: Harbinger of Democratic Horrors to Come By Paul du Quenoy

Posted By on June 29th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/28/san-francisco-harbinger-of-democratic-horrors-to-come/

Earlier this month, President Biden held a reelection campaign rally in San Francisco. For a campaign that has already suffered numerous gaffes and scandals, and will likely suffer more, the choice of locale sent a powerful message. As a recent visit revealed to me, the City by the Bay is absolutely as bad as everyone says.

The downtown area, stretching down historic Market Street from the City Hall to bayside Embarcadero, is gutted, with 47% of businesses in the city having closed their doors since 2020. There and in the surrounding neighborhoods, commercial storefronts are almost all empty except for the occasional liquor store. After nightfall, the sidewalks are crowded by groups of homeless people living in makeshift encampments. Most looked like they were on drugs and/or severely mentally ill. The only people walking with purpose appeared to be selling drugs or women.

The ground was covered with all manner of filth. Being around it felt less safe than in any American city before urban governments adopted policies advocated by Black Lives Matter, which are now the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and anyone who aspires to leadership in it. Most notably, San Francisco gutted its police force’s budget and scaled back criminal prosecution of a wide range of crimes directly affecting quality of life.

A 26-year old tech executive friend who tolerates the city but, like many young people is looking to move, calls his fellow residents in this category “zombie people.” The number of people in his age group living in the city has fallen 21% since April 2020, while the number of San Franciscans in their thirties fell by 13% in the same period. Office attendance is hovering at about 45% of capacity. In the first quarter of 2023, the city’s murder rate was up a staggering 83% over the same period last year. This followed on an annual increase of 17 percent in 2021 and 20 percent in 2020.

This year’s victims included prominent tech CEO Bob Lee, who was stabbed to death in the once-posh Mission district. Entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose Twitter headquarters sits precariously on Market Street, has publicly stated that many people he personally knows have been violently assaulted. On the night I arrived, nine people were shot in a gang incident despite strict gun control laws that almost totally outlaw private gun ownership.

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China’s Saboteurs Are Coming to America by Gordon G. Chang

Posted By on June 29th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19757/china-saboteurs-us

There is now a Chinese invasion of the U.S. homeland.

Chinese migrants are entering the United States on foot at the southern border. Almost all are desperate, seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Some, however, are coming to commit acts of sabotage.

Many [Chinese], however, are short-circuiting the long waits at the consulates. At the southern border, Chinese migrants are entering the United States in unprecedented numbers.

Once here, the military fighters can link up with China’s agents already in place or Chinese diplomats.

How many of the PLA fighters have slipped into the United States this way? Some estimate 5,000, others 10,000. Those numbers sound high, but whatever the actual figure more are coming.

These are China’s shock troops. The concern is that, on the first day of war in Asia they will take down America’s power lines, poison reservoirs, assassinate officials, start wildfires, spread pathogens, and create terror by bombing shopping malls and supermarkets.

The saboteurs will almost certainly attack American military bases. China has already been probing sensitive installations. Chinese agents posing as tourists have, for instance, intruded into bases, including the Army’s Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska.

“When the Chinese Communist Party starts its war against Taiwan and the United States, Americans should expect that Chinese sleeper agents now in America will hit targets like gas stations and military-age Chinese now crossing our border will be mobilized for assassination attacks and assaults on U.S. military bases.” — Richard Fisher, International Assessment and Strategy Center, to Gatestone, June 17, 2023

[T]he next war in Asia will almost certainly be fought on U.S. soil, perhaps on its first day. Unsuspecting Americans will be in the fight.

Immigrants make countries strong, and almost all the Chinese migrants crossing the southern border will contribute to American society. Some, however, are coming to wage war on the United States.

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Biden Abroad: The Moral and Material Collapse of U.S. Foreign Policy By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on June 29th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/28/biden-abroad-the-moral-and-material-collapse-of-u-s-foreign-policy/

The American post-Cold War order from the Ronald Reagan through George W. Bush administration is over.

Barack Obama began its erosion with his tired lectures about the past sins of the United States.

Obama empowered radical Islamists. He invited Russia back into the Middle East after a forty-year hiatus. He snored while Vladimir Putin swallowed large areas of Ukraine. He nonchalantly allowed ISIS almost to take over Iraq. And he authored the Libyan misadventure.

Joe Biden has greatly amplified what Obama inaugurated. He accentuates the Obama-authored foreign policy disasters by his own family corruption.

If the U.S. had an honest media, a disinterested Department of Justice, and a professional FBI, the Biden family would likely be facing felony bribery charges and an impeachment vote for leveraging the interests of the U.S. for a few millions of Ukrainian and Chinese cash.

Biden has forfeited any moral credibility America once had in sermonizing to the world about the advantages of transparent democracy.

Instead, Washington under Biden went full Third-world. His family got rich from his offices, and Joe Biden warped government agencies in efforts to take out his next possible presidential rival.

Antony Blinken, Biden’s current Secretary of State, is known mostly for meekly accepting a dressing down from Chinese diplomats in 2021 and subsequent ritual humiliations.

Blinken was also the author of the 2020 election shenanigan of soliciting former intelligence authorities to publish a preposterous lie that Hunter Biden’s laptop had all the “hallmarks” of “Russian disinformation.” Blinken’s inspired farce was dreamed up to aid a then struggling candidate Biden in his last presidential debate.

The net result of the Obama-Biden continuum has been the moral and material collapse of U.S. foreign policy.

Americans are bewildered that China is now buzzing our jets. It plays chicken with American warships.

It mocks our homeland defenses by sending a spy balloon with impunity across the continental United States.

It is defiantly mum about its creation of a gain-of-function virus under the auspices of the People’s Liberation Army, despite the ensuing Covid epidemic that killed over 1 million Americans.

The weird reaction of the Biden administration to these affronts is either to contextualize Beijing’s aggression or to ignore them entirely.

Under the earlier Obama-Biden “reset” of Russia, we also paid little attention to the past aggressions of Vladimir Putin, appeased his provocations, and earned the 2014 Russian take-over of the Ukrainian border and Crimea.