ELECTIONS Comments turned off

How the Projectionist Game is Played. Part Two—Election Denialist! Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on November 4th, 2022

https://victorhanson.com/how-the-projectionist-game-is-played-part-two-election-denialist/

Think of any recent leftwing accusation against the Right. Then automatically assume that it is evidence of the accuser’s own culpability for the very charge he levels against others. In other words, the Left projects upon its opponents exactly what it fears is most incriminating among its own ranks. As a general rule, leftwing projectionism is a sign of culpability.

Donald Trump did deny the integrity of the 2020 election and does to this day. While he is probably wrong that the final and “real” popular vote count would have given him a popular vote victory, he is right to lodge legitimate objections to the way the balloting was conducted in some states on the following bases:

a) The Left funded a massive effort to change balloting laws in key pivotal states under the cloak of the Covid pandemic in spring 2020. The effect of liberal state court decisions or administrative edicts was often to nullify the state legislatures’ laws and rights to establish voting procedures. More practically, they changed state laws on the books that governed the rejection rate of non-Election-Day ballots. The result was the rejection rate dropped in many states even as they were flooded with historic numbers of non-Election Day ballots, most of them for Joe Biden.

A normal 3-5 percent rejection rate fell, depending on the state, to between 2.0 and 0.5 percent—despite more than 102 million ballots not cast on Election Day. Ballots that did not match registrars’ lists, that had incomplete or wrong names, that did not have full addresses, or that did not have signatures or signatures that matched the printed names, were often accepted. And there may have been many millions of such ballots that in prior elections would have been summarily rejected.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Some Thoughts On Affirmative Action Francis Menton

Posted By on November 4th, 2022

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-11-2-some-thoughts-on-affirmative-action

The Supreme Court arguments in the Harvard and University of North Carolina affirmative action cases took place on Monday. I listened to some substantial portion, although it was not possible for me to listen to the whole thing (some 5 hours in total). From what I heard, I agree with most commenters that affirmative action in the form currently practiced throughout academia is not likely to survive.

Affirmative action is one of those issues on which the opinions of our intellectual elites diverge almost completely from the opinions of normal people. In a piece on Tuesday (November 1) discussing the likely outcome of the Harvard/UNC case, the New York Times took note of the broad public opposition to affirmative action in college admissions, even extending to heavily Democratic constituencies:

[A] majority of Americans oppose the policy. Nearly three-quarters of U.S. adults said in March that race or ethnicity should not be a factor in college admissions, a Pew Research Center survey found. . . . Even in liberal states, most voters do not support affirmative action. In 2020, about 57 percent of Californians rejected an amendment to the state’s Constitution that would have let government and public institutions, including public universities, adopt affirmative-action policies.

According to the cited Pew survey, even majorities of blacks and Hispanics oppose affirmative action in college admissions:

A majority of Black, Hispanic and Asian respondents opposed the consideration of race or ethnicity.

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

Here’s All The Left Wing Political Violence The Corporate Media Seems To Have Forgotten About : Sarah Weaver

Posted By on November 4th, 2022

https://dailycaller.com/2022/11/02/left-wing-political-violence-corporate-media/

The media appears to have rediscovered political violence the morning of October 28 when news broke that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked by a hammer-wielding mad man in their California home.

The days of hysterical coverage that have since followed — certainly warranted to some degree for an alleged attempt on the life of a woman third in line for presidency — nonetheless represent a pattern of disproportionate opportunism that seems to strike whenever the corporate media and Democrats decide certain violence could serve a politically expedient end.

In case they’ve forgotten or would rather not discuss it, here is a small slice of left-wing political violence over the years that has either been excused, dismissed or under-covered.

Fire-bombings at Pro-Life Pregnancy Centers

Three pro-life pregnancy centers were firebombed in the course of one month following a leak of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Heath Center. Many of these attacks were carried out by the radical pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has openly endorsed violence against pro-life individuals and organizations. Multiple pro-life centers, in Colorado, Virginia, Oregon, and other states, were vandalized or firebombed in the week after the Dobbs decision came out.

Lee Zeldin Attacked

Republican New York gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin was attacked on stage during a July campaign rally. The suspect shouted “you’re done,” then rushed stage with a knife. While some on the left, such as President Biden and New York governor Kathy Hochul, condemned the attack, the media was relatively silent on what was effectively an assassination compared to their breathless coverage of the Pelosi attack.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Israel’s right to sideline the Left By Ruthie Blum

Posted By on November 4th, 2022

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-721418

The emerging landslide victory for the camp headed by Israeli opposition leader Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu is causing more than the average stir. Though there’s nothing unusual about a losing side feeling disappointed by an unwanted result at the ballot box, the outcome of Tuesday’s Knesset elections – the fifth round in three-and-a-half years – is generating a level of disgruntlement not seen in the country since 1977.

That was the year when Menachem Begin, founder of the Likud Party now chaired by Netanyahu, became premier. The upheaval ended three decades of Labor Party dominance.

Panic on the Left was palpable and shrill, with detractors calling him a terrorist, likening him to Mussolini and bemoaning Israel’s inevitable downfall at his hands. Not only was the frenzy unwarranted but in retrospect, it was laughable.

Today’s equally undue apoplexy surrounds two phenomena: Netanyahu’s smashing comeback, which his foes had been doing everything to quash, and the meteoric rise to mega-popularity of Otzma Yehudit MK Itamar Ben-Gvir.

At Netanyahu’s behest prior to the election, Ben-Gvir and Religious Zionist MK Bezalel Smotrich merged their factions so as to prevent the possibility of split and wasted ballots. The move turned out to be a brilliant one, as together they garnered a large number of seats.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

CNN Refers to ‘Palestine’ as if it Existed When an “error” is gravely serious. by Hugh Fitzgerald

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cnn-refers-to-palestine-as-if-it-existed/

CNN has a little nomenclatorial problem when it comes to “Palestine.” A report on its latest error, and how the network was shamed into making a correction, can be found here: “CNN Takes Down ‘Palestine’ Reference Following Watchdog Action,” by Akiva Van Koningsveld, Algemeiner, October 27, 2022:

While Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas might call himself the president of “Palestine,” most mainstream media outlets have rightfully refrained from recognizing Ramallah’s claim of independence. After all, the territory under Abbas’ control currently does not meet the formal criteria for statehood, as outlined in international law. formal criteria for statehood, as outlined in international law.

“Palestine” has no fixed, agreed-upon borders. The Palestinians answer to two separate Arab regimes – Hamas in Gaza and the Palestinian Authority in the P.A.-held parts of the West Bank, neither of which exerts full sovereignty. In the West Bank the Palestinians are not independent, but only exercise varying degrees of autonomy, based on whether they live in Areas A, B, or C, as defined by the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority has a police force, but no military. At the U.N., “Palestine” has only non-voting “observer” status.

Statehood requires, as set out in the 1933 Montevideo Convention: “a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a sovereign government; and d) the capacity to enter into relations with the other states.” These qualifications have been used as the basis for statehood by the international community. “Palestine” argues that it has met these requirements and therefore has achieved de facto statehood. However, to be considered a state an entity must function independently of any other authority.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Indoctrinating School Children to Hate Israel and Jews Getting them while they’re young. by Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/indoctrinating-school-children-to-hate-israel-and-jews/

The cognitive war against Israel, a campaign on college campuses for well over a decade, has helped in positioning the Jewish state as an alleged racist, colonial oppressor of an innocent indigenous people, an illegal regime that exists on land wrongly confiscated from Palestinians.

Zionism, it is alleged, is a corrosive political ideology that inspires both the creation of an apartheid nation and the undiminished lust for more Palestinian land for a Greater Israel.

In this narrative, the Palestinians are cast as perennial victims whose human and civil rights are deprived for them due to white supremacy, racism, and the predations of an Israeli military that brutally enforces this unjust, illegal state of affairs.

Activists, both on and off campus, have been successful in promoting this flawed and factually inaccurate narrative, but the perceived injustices being done to the ever-aggrieved Palestinians resonates with young liberal minds who have an understandable affinity for the underdog and victim—especially if that bias and hatred are characterized by racism and oppression—exactly how Israel is now mistakenly perceived by many of its ideological foes.

Now, the same slanders, lies, and contortions of history and facts about the Israeli/Palestinian debate are being introduced to younger audiences with impressionable minds: school children.

A recent example of this troubling trend was revealed when critics became aware that the Newark, New Jersey school board had included an anti-Israel book on its mandatory reading list. The book, A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird, found its way into the sixth-grade English curriculum for the 2022-23 school year, and, according to the description on Amazon, “explores the human cost of the occupation of Palestinian lands through the eyes of a young boy.”

Of course, the same premise that campus activists chant about when they scream, “Free, free Palestine,” the factually false assertion that the land allegedly occupied by Israel is or ever was Palestinian land, is taken as truth, so Israel is already guilty in this narrative of having stolen others’ land.

MEDICINE AND HEALTH Comments turned off

‘Nullectomy’: Physician-Assisted Mutilation By Wesley J. Smith

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/nullectomy-physician-assisted-mutilation/

I don’t know how much more of this our culture can take. “Gender-affirming” surgeries are growing increasingly extreme. A source sent me links to websites operated by doctors who perform “bottom surgeries” advertising “genital nullification” — a.k.a. “nullectomy” — procedures that remove genitalia in order to create a “smooth” appearance in the groin.

Here’s the first one (I am not linking, as I wouldn’t want to be even indirectly complicit in anyone’s voluntary butchery):

Your Smooth Bottom Line: Nullectomy, Nullification, Nullo:

Nullectomy is the removal of internal and external genital structures to create a smooth appearance from the abdomen to the groin. Glans (penile or clitoral) and nerve tissue can be “buried” in the mons to retain a focused nerve center for sensation while maintaining a smooth appearance, can remain present as an “outie,” or can be removed.

For someone starting with a penis and testicles, nullectomy can include:

penectomy (removal of the penis)
orchiectomy (removal of the scrotum)
scrotomectomy (removal of the testicles)
urethral shortening

For someone starting with a clitoris, vulva, vagina, and uterus (if not already removed,) nullectomy can include:

hysterectomy with or without oophorectomy
vaginectomy (if a vaginectomy is chosen, a hysterectomy is required)
vulvectomy (partial or radical)
clitorectomy
urethral modification

How filled with self-loathing must one be to subject one’s body to such extreme desecration?

EDUCATION Comments turned off

THE TAXPAYER-FUNDED CHILD ABUSE SYSTEM  Daniel Greenfield 

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2022/11/the-taxpayer-funded-child-abuse-system.html?utm_source=MadMimi&utm_medium=email&utm_

The National Education Association was caught spending 9% of its budget on member assistance and 50% on various political programs. Teachers’ unions have become enormously powerful by turning their membership and their resources into assets for the Democrats.

Democrats have generously returned the favor by negotiating favorable contracts and allowing teachers’ unions to dismantle the educational system, including shutting down schools for an extended period during the pandemic, eliminating standards in favor of promotion and turning a blind eye to sex abuse. While the shutdown of schools traumatized a generation, leading to increased suicide rates, loss of learning skills, social decline and even higher crime rates, school sex abuse is an ongoing crisis that targets a narrower population of abused students.

That doesn’t mean that the damage is any less.

A recent report reveals that nearly one school employee has been arrested a day on child-sex related charges.

In just the last week, a Utah elementary school teacher was arrested for inappropriate behavior with two female students, a middle school teacher in Pennsylvania was caught sexually abusing a 13-year-old, an Oregon high school basketball coach was arrested for sexually absuing a 17-year-old, a California elementary school employee was arrested on 19 counts of abusing minors going back a decade, and a Washington middle school employee was charged with 137 counts of taking videos in female bathrooms: an incredible school crime log for one week.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany Selling Critical Infrastructure to China by Judith Bergman

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19077/germany-infrastructure-china

On October 26, Germany’s government decided to let the Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO Shipping Ports, which has links to China’s People’s Liberation Army, buy a stake in the Port of Hamburg.

The port of Hamburg is Germany’s largest port and the second-largest port in Europe, making it part of Europe’s most critical infrastructure.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry had also reportedly warned that an investment by COSCO “disproportionately expands China’s strategic influence on German and European transport infrastructure as well as Germany’s dependence on China… while China itself does not allow Germany to participate in Chinese ports. In this respect, the acquisition of the container terminal does not only have an economic, but especially a geopolitical aspect.” — dw.com. October 26, 2022.

The Foreign Ministry clearly fears that in a time of crisis between the countries, China’s investment in the port would allow it “to possibly instrumentalize part of Germany’s – and therefore Europe’s – critical infrastructure.”

“Cosco already owns stakes in Europe’s two largest ports at Rotterdam and Antwerp….” — Politico, October 20, 2022.

“COSCO’s status as an important backbone SOE [state-owned enterprise] means that it’s uniquely beholden to the CCP in a way that other SOEs aren’t… COSCO’s organisational structure includes paramilitary capabilities that can be mobilised by the Chinese regime to defeat threats to the CCP’s interests. One such capability is the company’s in-house militia…” — Report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

“[S]ome naval analysts to refer to COSCO as the fifth arm of the PLAN [People Liberation Army Navy]” — Naval War College Review, Winter 2019.

“Against the advice of his ministers, the chancellor apparently wants to increase dependence on China. This sell-out of German infrastructure would be a mistake. German ports do not belong in Chinese hands, especially since Europeans can’t take a stake in ports in China.” — Jens Spahn, Christian Democratic Union party, Twitter, October 20, 2022.

Out of 95 ports, 22 are in Europe, 20 in the Middle East and North Africa, 18 in the Americas, 18 in South and Southeast Asia, and nine in sub-Saharan Africa. Just three Chinese companies, among them COSCO Shipping Ports, account for the operations of 81% of those ports.

In Greece, COSCO has completely taken over Piraeus, Greece’s largest port.

Scholz, regardless of the hard lessons that Germany has had to learn with regard to German dependence on Russian gas, has a state visit to China coming up in early November with a German business delegation; letting the COSCO deal fall through would not look good while trying to attract lucrative business deals. China is a key trading partner for Germany: In 2021, it was Germany’s top trading partner for the sixth consecutive year.

“It is in their [Communist Chinese Party’s] interest that we are divided. It’s in our interest that we are united.” — Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Axios, October 21, 2022.

“We’ve been naive because we considered… that Europe was an open supermarket.” The EU, needs to establish a framework on what it considers “sensitive points.” — French President Emmanuel Macron, The Telegraph, October 21, 2022.

ELECTIONS, FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

More Reasons Voters Might Catch the Red Wave Soon those Americans who cherish freedom and American exceptionalism will face a dire decision. by Bruce Thornton

Posted By on November 3rd, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/more-reasons-voters-might-catch-the-red-wave/

Last week I discussed the issues that concern voters the most and will likely decide their choices––inflation, rampant crime, and our porous southern border, as well as cultural-war issues such as transgenderism and school curricula. But there are other concerns with the policies and actions of the Democrats over the last two years that also might figure in voters’ calculations.

Foreign policy typically is not as urgent for voters as the economy, crime, or border security. Yet our actions and policies abroad necessarily impact our national security, though not as immediately as inflation hits our budgets or crime disrupts our lives. But we need to pay attention, for the current administration has weakened our national security and compromised our national interests by resorting to tired foreign-policy nostrums, feckless actions, and sheer neglect.

Most obvious is the shameful, hasty abandonment of our allies and assets in Afghanistan. We stranded hundreds of Americans, left behind thousands of Afghanistan allies, and squandered billions in military hardware and infrastructure. Worse, we returned to power the brutal Taliban, who nurtured and sheltered the perpetrators of the 9/11 atrocity. Now Iran, a genocidal theocrasy with 43 years of American blood on its hands, has filled the vacuum along with other jihadist outfits like ISIS and al Qaeda.

Speaking of Iran, the Biden administration is still pursuing a renewal of Obama’s flawed nuclear deal that transferred billions of dollars to the mullahs, lucre they have used to finance their terrorist adventurism in the Middle East. Meanwhile, their advanced centrifuges keep spinning enough enriched uranium to make nuclear bombs, at the same time they are developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them. Biden exacerbated this blunder by alienating Iran’s enemies such as our allies like Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations in the region.

Despite Biden’s cringing, his negotiators have been treated contemptuously on the world stage by the mullahs, who emboldened by Biden’s desperate deference, continue to make impossible demands, as they buy more time to reach their goals. Finally, since the start of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Iran has moved closer to Russia and China, forming a triumvirate of evil ambitions to challenge the U.S. and its allies as the guarantor of global order.