NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The left’s suicidal pact with Silicon Valley Supporting corporate censorship is a folly of historic proportions. Brendan O’Neill

Posted By on October 1st, 2022

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/30/the-lefts-suicidal-pact-with-silicon-valley/

The British comedian Jack Dee was the target of last week’s Two Minute Hate. The online left pointed its bony finger of judgement at the famously dour funnyman and accused him of the sin of bigotry. He’s far right, they screeched. He sides with fascists. Yet another cis white hetero dude spraying his prejudice everywhere. What offence did Mr Dee commit to attract such florid denunciations? He defended freedom of speech against the arbitrary power of unaccountable corporations.

Yes, in the 21st century it is ‘far right’ to believe in freedom and it is left-wing to insist that billionaires none of us ever elected should be the moral arbiters of public debate. We are well and truly through the looking glass.

Mr Dee’s fascistic offence was to take the side of the Free Speech Union when it was locked out of its accounts by PayPal on the utterly spurious grounds that it engaged in ‘misinformation’. The Daily Sceptic, the website set up by the FSU’s founder Toby Young, was similarly defunded by PayPal’s thoughtpolice. UsForThem, a campaign group that raises essential critical questions about Covid lockdowns and their impact on the young, was also frozen out by PayPal. All were physically prevented from accessing the thousands of pounds that citizens have donated to them. This was an extreme and authoritarian intervention into the democratic life of the United Kingdom by a multi-billion dollar corporation headquartered in San Jose. It is mindblowing that anyone, least of all those who call themselves left, could support such imperial interference by a section of the capitalist class into public discussion.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Time to Investigate the FBI’s Sketchy CHS Program Confidential human sources serve an important purpose in the modern-day FBI: to advance a political narrative beneficial to the Democratic Party and Biden regime. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/29/time-to-investigate-the-fbis-sketchy-chs-program/

To the surprise of no one paying attention, the Department of Justice recently acknowledged the use of several FBI informants in its investigation of the Oath Keepers, an alleged militia group tied to the events of January 6. 

Prosecutors last week asked for a protective order to conceal from jurors information about confidential human sources (CHS) expected to testify during the seditious conspiracy trial of five members of the Oath Keepers; jury selection is now underway. Not only does the government want to prevent defense attorneys from asking personal questions that could reveal the informants’ identities but prosecutors don’t want the sources to publicly disclose any involvement in past or pending criminal investigations or details of “the FBI’s CHS program and the training and methods used by the FBI as part of their undercover operations.”

That request, of course, is to protect the bureau, not informants, in what appears to be just another corrupt, political, and unaccountable section of the FBI. 

For example, court filings in Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into Russiagate just revealed that Igor Danchenko, a subsource for the infamous Steele dossier now facing perjury charges, was hired by the FBI in March 2017 as an informant to shield the agency from questions about the dossier’s credibility in the early stages of the scandal. “[The] bureau put him on its payroll as a confidential human source, or CHS, making him part of the bureau’s untouchable ‘sources and methods’ sanctum and thereby protecting him and any documents referencing him from congressional and other outside scrutiny,” investigative reporter Paul Sperry wrote this week.

The FBI-hatched plot to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer involved numerous informants working out of multiple FBI field offices. At trial, informants and agents confessed the rules were broken in the process of engineering the caper; violations included sharing a bed with a target, suggesting “overt acts” to produce incriminating evidence, and initiating the lead informant into a fake militia to advance the plot. Another longtime informant—a convicted felon many times over—committed at least two crimes while working the Whitmer fednapping ruse and was accused by the government of acting as a “double agent.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

California to ban natural gas appliances By Eric Utter

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/california_to_ban_natural_gas_appliances.html

“Leftists may not like natural gas.  They may not like gas lighting.  But they sure love gaslighting…the rest of us.”

The hits just keep on coming for residents of the formerly Golden State.  Already besieged by high inflation and severe energy shortages, citizens of the erstwhile Land of Milk and Honey will soon face a ban on natural gas (except for Eric Swalwell’s).  The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, is planning to rid the state of natural gas heaters, stoves, and furnaces.  The Hill recently reported that the CARB passed a proposal that will lay the groundwork for phasing out gas-powered space and water heaters, and other such appliances, by 2030.  (I guess CARBs really are bad for you.)

But that’s not all.  If certain leftists get their way, and they often do, entire kitchens may be outlawed in the future.  If this is the case, the first state in the Union to ban them will undoubtedly be California.

Families may be abolished as well.  Erin Maglaque recently penned a positively glowing review of Sophie Lewis’s new communist manifesto screed, Abolish the Family, in which she pleaded, “Let us begin by abolishing our kitchens.”  She added, “If we begin by abolishing our kitchens, what else might we get a taste for destroying, and for creating?”  Let’s not find out.

Lewis, a “feminist thinker,” has stated that “[f]amily is a terrible way to satisfy our desire for love and care.”  Yes, it’s much better to be “loved” and cared for by the government.  Lewis doesn’t much care for heterosexual culture.  She believes that there can be no feminist future until the family — particularly the nuclear family — is abolished.  And she says, “It is a wonder we let fetuses inside us.”  (Memo to “feminists” like Lewis: If you don’t want a fetus inside you, you shouldn’t let a phallus inside you.)

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Banned Books Bunkum What the anti-book banning fetish in our schools is really about. by Larry Sand

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/banned-books-bunkum/

Mercifully, Banned Books Week, celebrated Sept. 18-24 this year, is over, and we can take a deep breath for the next 51 or so weeks till it once again rears its ugly, hysterical, manipulative, leftwing head.

Whatever righteousness this week may have once held, it has been taken over by progressive sex obsessives and groomers who are trying to legitimize the field once known quaintly as “obscenity.”

Started in 1982, Banned Books Week is proudly promoted by the American Library Association, whose incoming president, Emily Drabinski, is euphoric at the prospect of leading the organization. In a tweet, she gushed, “I just cannot believe that a Marxist lesbian who believes that collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world is the president-elect of @ALALibrary. I am so excited for what we will do together. Solidarity!”

In a similar pathetic vein, she added on LinkedIn that she’s proud “to have the support of Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers for our campaign for president of the American Library Association. Solidarity!”

Then there is PEN America, an organization that purports to stand at the “intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.” Like ALA, the organization has a far-left agenda, and has no problem with the fact that porn can wind up in the hands of a six-year-old.

MEDIA Comments turned off

The Flood of Political Violence the Press Refuses to Cover An impressive list. by Brad Slager

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-flood-of-political-violence-the-press-refuses-to-cover/

If we were to listen to the lectures from the media, we are on the cusp of an outbreak of violence set to explode from the right side of the political spectrum. President Biden has enthusiastically pushed this agenda, positioning MAGA Nation as a violent faction orchestrating an uprising of democracy-threatening actions any day now. At Biden’s direction, “fascist” has become the left’s new knee-jerk accusation since “racist” has become a played-out charge.

There is one disqualifier; the actual acts that we have recently seen that fall under this heading are emanating from the left. There have been numerous incidents of leftist political violence over the past year, yet – despite typifying the very promised outbreak of outrage – these are somehow not classified as dangerous, get explained away, or are outright ignored by the press.

The following examples perfectly display the very promised violence they say will arrive any day now from the conservative right, and their willingness to not address these incidents exposes the effort to demonize and criminalize only one side of the political arena.

North Dakota Political Killing

Last week, Shannon Brandt was arrested for using his car to run over and kill an 18-year-old who he declared was a “Republican extremist.” There has been a notable lack of enthusiasm in reporting on this on a national level, and we have been spared numerous news panel discussions, editorials, and think pieces decrying the political divide in this country. Some are even going so far as to say there is no evidence that this was a politically-motivated attack – despite the fact that the suspect, Shannon Brandt, repeatedly stated he did this as a result of the political stance of his victim.

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski A poignant play distorts WWII history to serve a false narrative. Danushka Goska

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/remember-this-the-lesson-of-jan-karski/
“Remember This is now a film. No doubt this film will be used in classrooms throughout the world to educate students about the Holocaust. Students will be encouraged to ask what they might have done in Karski’s shoes, and how his example has encouraged them to work to make the world a better place.”

The Theater for a New Audience is staging Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski. Playwright Derek Goldman is Georgetown University Professor of Theater and Performance Studies “with a joint appointment in the School of Foreign Service as Professor of Global Performance, Culture and Politics.” His “mission” is “to harness the power of performance to humanize global politics.” Playwright Clark Young was a Georgetown student of Goldman. Young went on to teach high school. Goldman requested Young’s help in crafting a play about Jan Karski, who had taught at Georgetown. Previously, Young had known nothing about Karski.

Remember This reflects its origin as a play written by an American who didn’t know much about Poland and a professor with a political agenda. An ad for the play features Nancy Pelosi and Jamie Raskin, both of whom participated in the impeachments of Donald Trump. Other featured respondents include Aminatta Forna, a writer of African and Scottish descent; Azar Nafisi, an Iranian-American writer; other, unnamed black men and women; and a smattering of unnamed, young white people, perhaps students.

The Theater for a New Audience “was founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz with the mission of creating contemporary productions of Shakespeare and other works considered classics … that would appeal to more diverse audiences … Black Lives Matter. We … are committed to identifying, uprooting and dismantling white supremacy.”

David Strathairn stars as Jan Karski. Strathairn was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in Good Night and Good Luck. In that 2005 film, Strathairn played journalist Edward R. Murrow during his 1953 conflict with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Strathairn has supported Democratic candidates, including Kirsten Gillibrand and Barack Obama.

Remember This is a biographical sketch of Jan Karski, with most attention devoted to his work as a Polish underground operative during World War II. Karski met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Oval Office on July 28, 1943. Karski’s report is said to be the first eyewitness account of the Holocaust received by Roosevelt.

Karski’s mission and subsequent events are often summarized thus: Karski was “one man who tried to stop the Holocaust;” he failed because Winston Churchill and Roosevelt didn’t care; the Allies did nothing to save Europe’s Jews.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Berkeley “No Free Speech for Jews” Movement by Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-berkeley-no-free-speech-for-jews-movement/

Kenneth Marcus, who under Trump all too briefly served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Ed, calls the move by nine student affinity groups and organizations at Berkeley’s School of Law to ban Jewish speakers to be “Jewish-Free Zones”.

Nine different law student groups at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, my own alma mater, have begun this new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism. And these are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a progressive Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned under this standard, as would 90% of his Jewish students.

Tellingly, the rationale for this was the familiar one of safe spaces.

“In the interest of protecting the safety and welfare of Palestinian students on campus,” allies of the anti-Israel accepting its antisemitic rationale, “will not invite speakers that have expressed and continued to hold views or host/sponsor/promote events in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Anti-Trump Legal Expert Reveals Real Motives in Mar-a-Lago Case: It’s a Dynamite Story Conrad Black

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/anti-trump-legal-expert-reveals-real-motives-in-mar-a-lago-case-its-a-dynamite-story_4754384.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

It’s with regret and some trepidation that I take issue on a legal matter with someone whom I like and respect as much as I do Andy McCarthy, the prominent legal affairs commentator and contributor to many publications, websites, and television programs. But like many other intelligent and otherwise convivial people I know, he’s unfortunately incapable of speaking or writing rationally about Donald Trump.

McCarthy has a particularly baneful influence on the discussion of Trump-related issues because he naturally brings to it the gravitas of his legal expertise and apparently authoritative articulation. But this is the same McCarthy who wrote to me five years ago that he had taken a “deep dive” into a lot of confidential material and concluded that Trump was guilty of serious misdeeds in his relations with the Russians.

And, as with other intelligent and otherwise likable people partly propelled through each day by an almost pathological hatred of the former president, when the Russian argument evaporated without a trace, not a word of remorse, embarrassment, or even inferable acknowledgment of a mistake followed. It was briskly on to the next conjuration of Trumpian outrages and delicts.

On the National Review website on Sept. 24, McCarthy fired the most unrigorous and imprecisely directed broadside that I have seen from him on this subject. He wrote that Trump was obviously guilty of an indictable offense in the document controversy that led to the FBI’s ransacking of his Palm Beach home.

It wasn’t precisely stated what offense he committed, but it seemed to be willful noncompliance with a subpoena requiring the production of certain documents that had been wrongfully removed and about which the former president was allegedly trying to clear himself from such a charge by a defense imputed to him by McCarthy of determining in his own mind that the relevant material was declassified because he wished it so and in accordance with a doctrine of automatic declassification of certain matters that he had promulgated among his staff but of which staff members were, according to McCarthy, unaware.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Judge Orders FBI to Produce Information From Seth Rich’s Laptop Zachary Stieber

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-orders-fbi-to-produce-information-from-seth-richs-laptop_4763994.html?utm_source=

The FBI must produce information from Seth Rich’s laptop computer to a Texas man, a federal judge ruled on Sept. 29.

The bureau improperly withheld the information from Brian Huddleston, the Texas man, according to a 53-page ruling from U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant.

Rich was a Democratic National Committee staffer who was murdered around 4:20 a.m. in July 2016 in Washington. Officials have claimed the killing was done as part of a botched robbery.

The FBI has acknowledged it has files from Rich’s computer but tried withholding them from Huddleston, citing a portion of federal law that enables agencies to withhold information that would be a clear invasion of privacy interests when the interests are not outweighed by the public interest.

The bureau said that Rich’s family members have a privacy interest in preventing the release of the information that outweighs the public interest, but Mazzant, an Obama appointee, rejected the argument.

“The Court is not persuaded by the FBI’s argument that Seth Rich’s survivors have a privacy interest in withholding the entirety of the information contained on Seth Rich’s laptop,” he said.

“Pointedly, the FBI cites to no case law for the proposition that survivors of the deceased have a privacy interest in information related to the deceased’s favorite music or relationship history,” he added.

Previous rulings in other cases have found that loved ones of dead people have a substantial privacy interest in preventing the disclosure of autopsies, death scene photographs, and other materials from a person’s final moments. Those rulings don’t apply to this case, Mazzant said.

He ordered the FBI to produce the information to Huddleston within 14 days.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The ONLY Issue in the 2022 Election is Voter Fraud By Joan Swirsky ******

Posted By on September 30th, 2022

https://cnav.news/2022/09/29/editorial/guest/voter-fraud-only-issue-2022-election/

Voter fraud happened in 2020 and could happen this time

A friend recently reminded me of an article I had written on October 5, 2020, just before the presidential election that found all TV networks reporting that President Donald Trump was crushing Joe Biden across the board—including in the all-important battleground states—and then that coverage mysteriously stopped cold, disappeared for over three hours, and reappeared to report that the exact opposite was true, that Joe Biden had magically become the Crusher in Chief, ultimately “winning” the 2020 election.

“Remember the title of your article?” my friend asked me. In fact, I did, since it was the only time in decades of writing that I had capitalized a word in the title. It read like this:

The ONLY Issue in the 2020 Election is Voter Fraud.

Well, it’s election time again, and sure enough the same thing is true. And after viewing Dinesh D’Souza’s jaw-dropping “2000 Mules,” which documents the massive fraud that indeed took place in 2020, and after reading dozens of reports about audits that were done in the battleground states and others which uncovered overwhelming voter fraud, including thousands of dead voters, it appears that voter fraud is once again the ONLY issue of concern. Great concern.

The reality factor

When you peel back all the layers of the onion of a human being’s psychology, our species is really not that complicated. Whether man or woman, black or white, rich or poor, from whatever background, religion, or culture, we all have similar if not identical needs.