Saturday Miscellany

First, an appetizer, by way of Glenn Greenwald. He had this to say about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. One remarks that certain Democrats consider her to be a viable presidential candidate for 2028:

Whenever AOC talks about foreign policy, she sounds like a 7th grader having to stand in front of the class while nervously summarizing an assigned article that she only read 20% of. A few phrases she recalls pop into her head and she recites them but with no cogency.

Second, another appetizer, this time from the also inimitable Louisiana Senator John Kennedy, regarding the Hollywood Trump haters:

Here’s what I think. I think these people are goofy. They have the right to their opinion, but they’re just goofy. They hate George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head. 

They think our kids ought to be able to change genders at recess. They carry around Ziploc bags of kale to give themselves energy. To me—to each his own. To me, kale tastes like I’d rather be fat. 

Now, these people are entitled to their opinion, but they have an unwarranted sense of moral and intellectual superiority. “They think they’re smarter and more virtuous than the American people. And they think we’re not real people. But we were, and we are real people. 

Third, from Don Surber, a note about the death of DEI and of wokeness. We have been following the story in these columns, so Surber’s remarks are a nice topping:

The second-biggest political story of the year was the death of woke in corporations. The lemmings in boardrooms across the nation embraced the racism, sexism and heterophobia of the left, falsely believing that straight white people will be dragged away by an army of RuPauls.

Democrats marketed their campaign well by creating a deity called DEI. Diversity is our strength, they said. Equity is better than equality, they said. Inclusion will make up for past discrimination, they said.

This was brainwashing, pure and simple. Coca Cola held a training seminar that instructed people to “try to be less white.”

Fourth, as soon as the Trump election victory was announced, Democrats across the nation had a hissy fit-- how dare he deport so many fine, abiding non-citizen criminals.

And besides, they intoned, it would cost too much. As though the question of cost ever crossed the mind of a Democrat.

Now, the Washington Examiner explains that the cost of illegal migrant crime largely surpasses the cost of mass deportation.

The cost of crime from 662,000 criminal illegal migrants sought for deportation has been pegged at three times the much-hyped price of President-elect Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” plan.

In an analysis from the Crime Prevention Research Center, the costs of crime from the top targets of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations was set at $166.5 billion. That number is based on the cost to victims, a price list developed by the National Institute of Justice.

Crime Prevention Research Center President John R. Lott Jr., who did the analysis for Real Clear Investigations, said the cost was based on just one of the crimes “each of the 662,566 ‘non-detained’ noncitizen offenders on ICE’s list” has been previously accused of.

“Murders account for almost $153.8 billion of the $166.5 billion in estimated criminal victimization costs. Another $6 billion involves sexual assaults/offenses, and an additional $5.2 billion comes from sexual assaults and sexual offenses,” he wrote.

Fifth, speaking of post-election fallout, nowhere has the impact been more damaging than in the world of leftist television networks, as in MSNBC and CNN. It began in the aftermath of the election. It is continuing.

Newsmax has the story:

MSNBC’s primetime audience has dropped off by 53% since the week before the presidential election, while CNN’s has plummeted by 47%, Fortune reports.

MSNBC had an average of 632,000 primetime viewers in the week ending Nov. 24, compared to 1.34 million in the week ending Nov. 3 ahead of the election. CNN’s audience plunged from 754,000 to 398,000 in that period.

You can’t say they did not earn it.

Sixth, if  you would like to keep a step ahead of the news cycle, as soon as Democrat officials tire of defending criminal migrants, the next phase will be the debate over whether or not Trump should pardon the imprisoned January 6th demonstrators.

Newsmax has the story:

Forty percent of registered voters say they think President-elect Donald Trump will "very likely" pardon Jan. 6 protesters when he takes office in January, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The survey, conducted by Morning Consult for Politico on Nov. 20-22 among 4,012 registered voters, found that:

• 32% of registered voters said those who were charged and convicted of crimes related to the attacks on the U.S. Capitol should receive pardons/clemency on their sentences compared with 57% who said no.

• 69% said it was "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that Trump will pardon Jan. 6 rioters, and 15% said it was either somewhat unlikely or very unlikely.

• 25% said they were either "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" that another event like Jan. 6 will happen again after the 2024 presidential election, while 55% said they were either "not too concerned" or "not at all concerned."

Seventh, taking a cue from dysfunctional Canada, the British parliament has voted for euthanasia. If you can’t heal them; kill them.

To which Daniel Greenfield responded:

The UK's NHS was practicing euthanasia for a long time.

Not only was killing the 'unfit' legal in the UK, but parents like those of Alfie Evans, were banned from trying to take them out of the UK to save their lives.

Euthanasia is a vital part of socialized medicine.

Eighth, as a final flash, President Joe Biden was walking around Nantucket holding a copy of a book by old Obama buddy, Rashid Khalidi. The thrust of the book: Israel does not have a right to exist.

From the New York Post:

Retiring President Biden hit the shops on Black Friday and surprised onlookers by picking up a copy of a book describing the establishment of Israel as “colonialism” that’s been met with Palestinian “resistance” — an acquisition its author bemoaned was “4 years too late.”

Biden, 82, left Nantucket Bookworks holding in full view of the press a copy of “The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017” by Columbia University professor emeritus Rashid Khalidi.

The book argues that “the modern history of Palestine can best be understood in these terms: as a colonial war waged against the indigenous population, by a variety of parties, to force them to relinquish their homeland to another people against their will.”

So, people in Israel will be finding that their understanding of the mind of the Biden administration was correct. Perhaps Joe had not had his mind infested by this form of anti-Semitism, but other members of his administration cannot plead ignorance.

Considering the extent of the administration foreign policy failure, it is good to have an indication of why it went so wrong.

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Policing Speech

Occasionally we take a look at life across the pond. The pond in question is the Atlantic Ocean, but cool people call it the pond. Go figure.

As often happens, our guide is the highly estimable Julie Burchill. At the least, her commentaries make you happy that you do not live in Great Britain. The reason, that nation is suffering labour pains, for having elected too many Labour Party members of Parliament. The new British government has chosen to get seriously into the business of policing speech.

It begins in the playground. British police have started to police children in the playground, for the horrific crime of name-calling. No kidding. 

… children as young as nine are being cautioned by the police for calling each other names in the playground.

Burchill thinks this is a very bad idea. She thinks that it is better to teach children how to deal with insults than to try to ban all insults. After all, you are never going to ban all insults. 

In order to be very clear, we are dealing here with schoolyard taunts. The rules that she offers do not, obviously, pertain to civil torts, like slander, libel and defamation.

The correct way to counter name-calling is either to hurl them back or ignore them. 

She continues:

I believe that people should be allowed to say anything they like about anyone, except for baseless accusations of criminal acts or threatening criminal acts against them. Our aim should not be ridding the internet of trolls – it can never be accomplished, and the police have far more important things to do – but to make young people utterly immune to name calling. Instead, we seem to place the emphasis on making bullies stop bullying rather than encouraging the bullied to toughen up.

As for a concrete example, Burchill confides in one of the insults that are routinely hurled at her. The subject is the fact that one of her sons committed suicide.

Given that she has spoken ill of Meghan Markle, one of the duchess’s fans threw this at her:

One of them asked me why my son committed suicide and I replied instantly, ‘Because he was mentally ill – like you’. 

The effort to censor all disparaging speech renders children weak. They never learn how to stand up for themselves, to defend themselves. They remain coddled:

‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’ is still a good credo to live by. Making children feel like victims is the best way to ensure that they never succeed but become ever more weakened. By taking and dealing out verbal abuse, we get to know what the boundaries are.

Burchill wants children to toughen up, and she remarks that in Keir Starmer’s Britain, language has been criminalized and offensive speech has often led to imprisonment. 

But this criminalisation of language is already being felt in other arenas, from the people jailed for posting on social media to the journalist Allison Pearson being accused of a hate crime over a Tweet. It starts in the playground – but it ends as a provision in the Employment Rights Bill that seeks to make employers liable for staff being offended by customers or members of the public. 

This is all about infantilizing people, not treating them like adults. It also involves a totalitarian wish to produce groupthink.

Their reaction is not that of an adult talking to another adult who holds different views from them, but of parents remonstrating a rude child who refuses to obey. Starmer’s resemblance to an exasperated supply teacher was often noted before he came to power; now he has the top job, he’s headmaster, and he can jolly well make us pipe down. So, in the interests of freedom – and of fun – let’s call the head all the nasty names we want: Sir Shifty, Captain Hindsight, Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest – and, especially, Two-Tier Keir.

Of late, the Labour leader has been flirting with a ban on blasphemous speech-- but only when directed against one specific religion.

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A Thanksgiving Message

Here’s one more thing to feel thankful for. You are not doing couples therapy. 

You would think they would have gotten over it by now. To the best of my knowledge, a consensus is forming around the notion that couples therapy is largely ineffective. It is a waste of your time and energy.

Nevertheless, Showtime has a series led by psychoanalyst and couples therapist Orna Guralnik, so perhaps some people have not gotten the message.

In the world of getting over things, most people by now have gotten over their childhood infatuation with the theories of one Melanie Klein. She belonged to the first generation of psychoanalytic thinkers.

Most people have gotten over Klein, except in South America. Before they latched on to the theories of Jacques Lacan, Argentinians, for example, were seriously infatuated with Klein’s musings about good and bad breasts, not to mention her notion that human development replays infantile attachments.

Now, Guralnik is trying to explain, in an especially lame fashion, that we need to understand America’s current divisions in Kleinian terms. She wrote it for the New York Times, which should also know better. 

As for whether or not that will cure what ails us, the example of Argentina is shining forth. For years that country seems to have led the world in psychoanalysis, whether Kleinian or Lacanian. The result, a largely dysfunctional natioin.

At least, until the arrival of the new Argentinian president, Javier Milei. You will have noticed that President Milei has turned his country around and has been producing unheard of levels of economic growth. Didn’t JP Morgan bank predict that the nation’s economy would grow at 8.5% next year? 

Milei is more libertarian than not, and one suspects that his role model is the Chilean revolution, led by followers of the Chicago School of Economics, i.e. Milton Friedman and Co. 

With a few strokes of his pen Milei put an end to the vast Nanny State that was mothering the people of his country. Good-bye Melanie Klein. Good-bye infantilizing the people. Welcome, prosperity.

As for Guralnik’s lame efforts to show how people who have differing political opinions can get along, you will not be surprised to learn that after all of the mewling over Melanie Klein she arrives at the conclusion: empathy.

That’s right. The buzzword that defines today’s therapy culture is trotted out to solve all problems. Everyone but Guralnik knows that this is girl talk, that women are far more likely to deploy empathy than are men. When you tell men to feel empathy they mostly do not know what you are talking about.

As for the question of how two members of a couple can learn to get along, to the point where a difference of opinion does not threaten their connection, the answer lies in a simple fact. If they are both members of the same team; if they have defined relationships within the team; then different opinions are not threatening to group cohesion.

Take a simple example. Today is Thanksgiving, where most people enact a social bonding ritual. You belong to a family, and being a member of a family comports with certain duties. As in, showing up for Thanksgiving dinner. 

If you think that you should not show up because your Aunt Sadie voted for the wrong candidate in the last election, you are faithless. You are saying that your role as a family member is less relevant than your deeply held ideological convictions. At that point, you deserve whatever you get-- as in, dinner with Joy Reid.

Therapy tends to think that we are defined by our childhood. That means you are just a big baby. If you define yourself as a unique autonomous individual, well then, you do not need to get along with other people. In fact, other people, not to mention the duties that define membership in a family, threaten your autonomy. 

You will end up being an ideologically driven fanatic. And we note, with regret, that the same rule applies to patriotism. If you want to know why the nation’s people are divided against themselves, the reason lies in the absence of patriotic loyalty, the refusal to see oneself as a member of a community and a nation. 

When you cannot bond over a ritual you will seek to produce an ersatz connection by fostering groupthink, by judging people by whether or not they agree with your jejune political opinions. It is a losing game, a game played by losers. Better to be a good member of your family and a patriotic citizen of your nation. At that point you will be able to accept differences of opinion without imagining that they threaten your autonomy.

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Wednesday Potpourri

First, you recall the Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Now, we have a postmodern Nero, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, bastard child of one Fiden Castro, who was attending a Taylor Swift concert while Montreal burned.

Fortunately, there is more to Canadian politics than the hapless Trudeau. Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre explained how the Trudeau policies had led to an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence. It reads like an indictment.

He addresses Trudeau:

You act surprised. We are reaping what you sowed. This is what happens when a Prime Minister spends 9 years pushing toxic woke identity politics, dividing and subdividing people by race, gender, vaccine status, religion, region, age, wealth, etc. 

On top of driving people apart, you systematically break what used to bring us together, saying Canada is a “post-national state” with “no core identity.” 

You erased our veterans and military, the Famous Five and even Terry Fox from our passport to replace them with meaningless squirrels, snowflakes and a drawing of yourself swimming as a boy. 

You opened the borders to terrorists and lawbreakers and called anyone who questioned it racist. 

You send out your MPs to say one thing in a mosque and the opposite in a synagogue, one thing in a mandir and the opposite in a gurdwara. 

You have made Canada a playground for foreign interference. You allowed Iran’s IRGC terrorists to legally operate here for four years after they murdered 55 of our citizens in a major unprovoked attack. 

You passed laws that release rampant offenders from prison within hours of their 80th arrest. 

And what is the result? Assassinations on Canadian soil, firebombings of synagogues, extremist violence against mandirs and gurdwaras, over 100 churches burned or vandalized (with barely any condemnation from you), all for a total 251% more hate crime.

And, while you were dancing, Montreal was burning. We won’t let you divide us anymore. Call an election now. We will fire you and reclaim our citizenship, our values, our lives, our freedom and, most of all, our country.

Second, meanwhile on the home front, Walmart is ditching its DEI programs. The Daily Mail reports:

In a jaw-dropping reversal Walmart is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies - joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists. 

Walmart, the world's largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.

The move, which marks a seismic shift in corporate strategy, will result in sweeping changes and include abandoning a $100 million racial equity center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent LGBTQ+ gay rights index. 

When it comes to race or gender, Walmart won't be giving priority treatment to suppliers that are 51 percent-owned by women, minorities, veterans or members of the LGBTQ community.

Third, studies on anti-racism training have concluded that such training produces more racism than it removes. Naturally, certain media outlets have been trying to suppress the studies.

Newsmax reports:

Some diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training methods may cause psychological harm, according to a new study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University.

The study's findings, released Monday, show significant increases in hostility and punitive attitudes among participants exposed to DEI pedagogy covering subjects including race, religion, and caste.

The NCRI study focused on diversity training interventions that emphasize awareness of and opposition to "systemic oppression," a trend fueled by the 2020 Black Lives Matter movement and popularized by texts such as Ibram X. Kendi's, "How to Be an Antiracist."

"Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, they engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice," researchers said in a release explaining the study's findings.

"These results highlight the complex and often counterproductive impacts of pedagogical elements and themes prevalent in mainstream DEI training."

The researchers said anti-Islamophobia training inspired by Institute for Social Policy and Understanding materials may cause individuals to assume unfair treatment of Muslim people, even when no evidence of bias or unfairness is present.

"This effect highlights a broader issue: DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicions of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events," researchers said.

"In the effort to improve sensitivity to genuine injustices against people from designated identities, such trainings may instead create a hostile attribution bias. This could, in turn, undermine trust in institutions, even in the absence of bias or unfair treatment (as in our scenarios). These findings are particularly concerning given that ISPU's educational efforts include training Federal Agents on Islamophobia sensitivity."

Fourth, meanwhile, over in Berlin, a surplus of migrant children in public schools is damaging said public schools. The more migrant children the less all children will learn.

Thomas Brooks at Remix News reports:

Teachers at the Friedrich Bergius School in Berlin’s Schöneberg district have issued a stark warning about escalating issues they say are exacerbated by the city’s approach to mass immigration and integration.

In a seven-page letter to the district council, the staff described an environment of increasing aggression, violence, and educational struggles that has left them overwhelmed and desperate for support.

The letter highlights a central issue: Many students entering the school lack not only proficiency in German but also basic academic skills, with some having never attended school before.

Around 80 percent of the students speak a language other than German at home, and over 70 percent of the seventh graders admitted in 2023 were unable to even read a clock.

These challenges, compounded by behavioral problems and a lack of resources, have created what teachers describe as “untenable” conditions.

The strained educational system is underscored by a dramatic rise in verbal abuse and physical threats toward teachers which educators say has now become routine, while serious incidents of bullying have further eroded the school environment.

Is it happening over here? Most assuredly it is. The question is how long people will tolerate it.

Fifth, she is making noises about continuing the fight, but Kamala Harris is finished as a force in politics. A mega-donor has explained the basic truth, via Newsmax:

Compiling a huge campaign debt disqualifies Vice President Kamala Harris from holding future public office, according to a Democrat megadonor.

Attorney John Morgan, founder of the Morgan & Morgan firm, said reports that Harris' losing presidential campaign is $20 million in debt after a lavish spending spree "disqualifies her forever."

 "If you can't run a campaign, you can't run America. The same thing is going to follow Harris for the rest of her career. She cannot be trusted with the money, and the donors are going to be, like, 'Where is this money?'"

A good question… one  that will not find a good answer.

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It's Not Just about Toilets

It’s not just about toilets. And it is not just about the sensitivity of one Congresswoman. The debate and discussion about transgenderism has produced some monstrosities, like a case that was just adjudicated in a California court.

The Gateway Pundit, aka Jim Hoft,  has the story (via Maggie’s Farm). A Texas father, named Jeffrey Younger, has been fighting with his ex-wife over her plans to biochemically poison and surgically  mutilate their twelve-year old son.

The mother in question, a pediatrician no less, by name of Anne Georgulas, moved from Texas to California because the latter prides itself on being a sanctuary state for parents who want to transition their children.

The father has refused to accede to her maniacal wishes and has fought her through the courts. Last week, he lost. A court granted Georgulas the right to approve a surgical and biochemical intervention on her son. 

Apparently, we are no longer a civilized country. We engage in barbaric practices, like child mutilation. 

How did the boy become transgendered? As Hoft reports, Georgulas had been grooming the boy since he was two and a half.

Younger, whose ex-wife, a pediatrician, began transitioning their son to a girl at just two and a half years old, has fought tooth and nail to protect his child. Despite video evidence supporting his concerns, courts in Texas and California have systematically stripped him of his parental rights.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that a video of James Younger when he was only 3 years old surfaced, revealing that his mother put dresses on him and painted his fingernails when the child was just an infant!

The abuse from the mother all started because James liked a toy from the movie ‘Frozen’ meant for little girls. It is totally normal for little boys to play with girls’ toys; it does not mean they want to be castrated and ‘transition’ into girls.

When asked if he was a boy or a girl, James, then only three years old, answered, “Girl.” He said his mom told him he was a girl.

Does this sound to you like child abuse? It sounds like it to me. The frightening part is that courts countenance this behavior. They affirm that a woman has the right to force a delusional belief on a very small child.

Considering how we are now acutely aware of the dangers of child abuse, one has great difficulty seeing why this does not count as such. Taking a very small child, a child who depends largely on his mother, and using her position to brainwash him strikes me as worthy of imprisonment.

According to the courts, the guilty party is the father who wants to save his son from irreversible mutilation:

Now, a California judge has permanently revoked parental rights from Jeffrey Younger due to his opposition to his 12-year-old son’s chemical and surgical castration, as requested by the boy’s mother, as reported by LifeSiteNews.

So, it’s not just the pediatricians. It’s the court system. 

Had they lived in Missouri, state law would have prohibited the practice. Yesterday, a court decided that the Missouri law was constitutional.

The New York Post reported:

A Missouri judge found that a state ban on transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for minors was constitutional Monday, just over a week before the US Supreme Court takes up a very similar case out of Tennessee.

Judge Robert Craig Carter highlighted the murky ethics behind the controversial treatments for gender dysphoria in his ruling on challenges from LGBTQ civil rights activists against the Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act, which was signed into law last year.

“The evidence from trial showed that the medical ethics of gender dysphoria treatment for children and adolescents are entirely unsettled,” Carter, who sits on the 44th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri, wrote in a lengthy 72-page ruling.

“Any person — including a minor — would be able to obtain anything from meth, to ecstasy to abortion so long as a single medical professional were willing to recommend it,” he later cautioned.

As the story notes, a similar case is now going to the Supreme Court. We will see if the esteemed jurists can clarify the situation and return us to sanity.

As you might have guessed, the ACLU was appalled at the ruling.

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