News of the Week (August 13th, 2017)

Posted on August 13, 2017 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for Aug. 13th, 2017


 

Gun Rights

 

Campus Rape Survivor: I Wish I’d Had A Gun To Defend Myself
A campus rape survivor is speaking out about guns on college campuses, saying that she could have fended off her attacker had she been legally carrying a gun.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Federal court strikes down EPA rule key to Obama’s climate agenda
A federal court struck down a key piece of the Obama administration’s climate agenda on Tuesday by saying the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the authority to ban the use of certain chemicals used in air conditioners blamed for exacerbating global warming.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Baby Charlie Redux
As we noted regarding the tragic case of little Charlie Gard, government-run health “care” really isn’t about the care at all: it’s actually all about control.

 

War & Terror

 

Second Unit of Yazidi Women Fighters Moves Into Raqqa to Crush ISIS
A second unit of Yazidi women fighting under the Syrian Democratic Forces has been deployed into Raqqa, fighting not only to defeat the Islamic State in their declared capital but to avenge the genocide and abuse perpetrated on their people.

 

National

 

Bakers refused to make pro-Trump birthday cake for 9-year-old boy: Report
A boy whose letter to President Trump made national headlines last month reportedly wanted a pro-Trump cake for his birthday party, but his mother was unable to find a baker willing to fulfill the order.

Obama-Jarrett Pick For 2020: Former MA Gov. Deval Patrick
Valerie Jarrett: “my heart desires” a President Patrick

Loretta Lynch used alias “Elizabeth Carlisle” to email about Bill Clinton tarmac meeting
The cover-up is coming apart

Woman Sends Unsolicited Vagina Pics to Men in Most Predictable Experiment Ever
Since the dawn of the internet, women have complained about men sending unsolicited pics of their junk. Apparently, some men believe sending pictures of their penis can make a woman swoon and fall madly in lust with them. Because some men are, well, some men.

Trump Campaign Surrogate Secretly Warning Friends This Administration Could “End in Disaster”
Thiel’s not exactly denying any of the reports, either.

Antifa gets violent in downtown Portland, 2 arrested
Members of “Antifa” initially showed up [at] the peaceful rally, but quickly made their way to the Patriot Prayer “Freedom March” several blocks away. The two groups quickly clashed.

The illusion of diversity
Michael Smerconish interviews Vijay Jojo Chokalingam, a dark-skinned man of (Asian) Indian descent who got admitted to medical school by pretending to be black. Despite carrying what he calls a pitiful 3.1 grade point average (and that is quite low given today’s grade inflation), he made the waiting list at two of the five most highly rated med schools in the country and was admitted to a school where the average GPA is 3.7.

Living on campus means “diversity education” at Oregon State
Oregon State University will pay a new administrator up to $61,500 to push “diversity education for all student residents” in university housing.

PETA: Cheese Is Rape Or Something
In recent years, I’ve cut out a lot of dairy from my diet. Not for ethical reasons or anything dumb like that. I just prefer the taste of coconut and/or almond milk in my morning non-organic unfair-trade coffee. That’s my personal choice. But I still eat cheese, made with the milk of cows as God intended, because vegan “cheese” is a nauseating crime against humanity.

Why it may be illegal for Google to punish that engineer over his now viral anti-diversity memo
An unnamed male software engineer at Google sent an internal memo to co-workers on Friday challenging some of the tech giant’s diversity efforts. There have been a lot of calls for the man’s dismissal from both inside and outside the company. However, it could be illegal for Google to fire — or discipline — the employee.

Danny Tarkanian to run for US Senate seat held by Dean Heller
Frequent Republican candidate Danny Tarkanian said Tuesday he will run for the U.S. Senate seat held by GOP incumbent Dean Heller in 2018.

New Hampshire: Kasich 52, Trump 40
Alternate headline: “Kasich hopes to improve on 2016 performance by winning two primaries instead of one.”

Poll Shows Nevada’s Dean Heller Vulnerable In GOP Primary
Nevada Republican Sen. Dean Heller is in a politically vulnerable position should he face a primary challenger in 2018, according to a new poll obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller News Foundation (TheDCNF).

Homeschooled students still face bias in college admissions, even when they meet requirements
“Afraid of losing their accreditation” if they let in qualified student

Group Sues Vermont AG for Withholding Emails About Climate Crusade Against Oil Groups
Vermont is refusing to comply with a court order forcing officials to release communications about the state’s supposed involvement in a climate inquisition against fossil fuel groups, a conservative legal group said Monday.

The fired Google engineer wrote his memo after he went to a “shaming,” “secretive” diversity programme
Fired Google engineer James Damore is standing by the controversial memo which lost him his job.

The Google Gulag
The internet cannot remain in the hands of a corporation that hates free speech.

Off to the Races: ‘F–ck Zuck 2020’ Signs Popping Up In California
“The thought of the King of Startups might one day run this country is more than I want to nightmare over.”

School: AP and Honors classes will be decided by skin color, not intelligence
A Virginia high school sent a disturbing letter to parents and students announcing they would be selecting students for Advanced Placement and honors classes at least partly based on skin color, a concerned parent told Fox News.

Democrats Rigging Election in Broad Daylight
Revelations about state “ethics” commission undermines its credibility.

Conservative Students Fear Intense Backlash for Talking Politics, Study Finds
Conservative students fear the most backlash for sharing their political views, according to a new study conducted by Heterodox Academy, a group of professors working to support viewpoint diversity in academia. “Our preliminary results suggest that students fear discussing racial issues the most and that their greatest concern is criticism from their peers,” writes Sean Stevens, the group’s research director.

ACLU Lawyer Refuses To Defend The First Amendment Because Milo Is “Reprehensible”
Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who defended Chelsea Manning, distanced himself from the organization’s defense of Milo Yiannopoulos Wednesday.

Vassar teaches freshmen to :appreciate social justice”
Incoming freshmen at Vassar College will be required to complete a series of diversity-themed workshops as part of their new-student orientation.

GOP Lawmakers Ask Jeff Sessions to End Operation Choke Point
Five high-ranking House Republicans have asked formally that the Trump administration end Operation Choke Point, an Obama administration program that critics say unfairly targets politically unpopular industries such as firearms sellers and payday lenders.

To reverse snowflake syndrome, young people must be taught to “embrace work pain,” senator argues
College president turned U.S. Senator Ben Sasse weighs in with his new book “The Vanishing American Adult”

1 Dead, 9 Injured as Car Slams Into Pedestrians at White Nationalist Rally
One person is dead and nine are injured after a vehicle plowed through a group of people Saturday near a demonstration by self-proclaimed white nationalists who were met by counterprotesters.

Powerful Venezuelan lawmaker may have issued death order against Rubio
One of Venezuela’s most powerful leaders may have put out an order to kill Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a fervent critic of the South American country’s government, according to intelligence obtained by the U.S. last month.

California Hospital Sued for Refusing to Assist Suicide
This lawsuit is a little before its time.

Rich Lowry on Charlottesville: “There was violence on both sides”
Takes on Joy Reid Over “Anti-fascist” Violence, “White Nationalist” in White House

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Not one departing CA company leaves because of their new state’s enticement subsidies
Progressives are quite defensive about businesses fleeing California, and understandably so. One lame excuse that they pull out of their “We’re all right, Jack” playbook is to blame the departures on the taxpayer subsidies provided by states courting these California businesses.

 

International

 

Venezuelans watch the military for signs of fraying loyalty
As Venezuela’s political crisis spins further out of control, many are looking to the military to see if its once-unflinching loyalty to the socialist revolution might be fraying.

Venezuela’s new assembly grabs even more power
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could be described using any number of adjectives, but “subtle” isn’t one of them. Now that the new “constitutional assembly” (composed of candidates all selected by Maduro’s party) has been seated they’re getting down to the business of creating new rules. And one of the first to be revealed was that the ruling body had preemptively declared itself to be “superior” to all other government institutions. In other words, whatever they decide to do is the law of the land. Sounds nice and democratic, doesn’t it?

Thousands of North Koreans Escape Using Underground Christian Network Spanning Across China
North Koreans undertake 3000-mile perilous journey into freedom

Not Too Late to Prevent “Death of Europe,” British Author Says
Europe’s migration crisis is a lesson in historical and philosophical degeneration, a best-selling British author argues.

India heightens alert level after increased tensions with China
India’s armed forces are “fully prepared” in the event of conflict with China.

 

Opinion

 

As LGBT activism grows on campus, critical questions about transgenderism remain unanswered
Campus activist organizations across the country cannot agree on the basic tenets of transgender ideology

Google Engineer Writes Common-Sense Memo About Workplace Diversity, PC Mob Erupts
The histrionics over the memo not only misrepresent what it says but also its purpose.

How to “Rape-Proof” Your College-Aged Son
It seems that nary a day goes by without Lena Dunham being proven either a liar or a fool. Today’s example is this stupid tweet.

Diversity is Conformity at Google
It’s Monday, so it’s time for another diversity kerfuffle. This time, Gizmodo acquired a long, thoughtful piece on Google’s diversity policies. Here’s the TL;DR (“too long, didn’t read” — if you’re not familiar with the term, that’s an “executive summary” in the Geek.)

Fat Feminists, Google Engineers and Why Didn’t Eric Bolling Listen to Me?
Things have gotten busy on the feminism front lately, while I was busy elsewhere, so let’s do a bit of catch-up, starting with . . .

If the web’s gatekeeper doesn’t believe in its own employees’ right to free speech, how can we trust it with ours?
The silencing of legitimate opinion continues.

Desperate Patients Shouldn’t Need Permission to Try to Save Their Own Lives
The anguish experienced by Connie Yates and Chris Gard—parents of Charlie Gard-has sparked outrage and sympathy across the globe.

Niall Ferguson: “The real tyrants…will be for diversity (except of opinion)”
Monday the Boston Globe published an opinion piece by history professor Niall Ferguson titled “The biggest threat to free speech? It’s the left.” Ferguson makes the case that left wing concerns about a Trump-inspired tyranny are overblown. The real worry, he says, is the populism of the far left.

Contra Grant On Exaggerated Differences
An article by Adam Grant called Differences Between Men And Women Are Vastly Exaggerated is going viral, thanks in part to a share by Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg. It’s a response to an email by a Google employee saying that he thought Google’s low female representation wasn’t a result of sexism, but a result of men and women having different interests long before either gender thinks about joining Google. Grant says that gender differences are small and irrelevant to the current issue. I disagree.

Fake News: The Media Are Lying About James Damore’s Google “Manifesto”
Bre Payton at the Federalist has an excellent compilation of biased media reports about fired Google engineer James Damore’s viral memo, and the blatant dishonesty is enough to shock even those of us who have spent decades fighting liberal bias in journalism. Repeatedly, headlines mischaracterize Damore’s views as “anti-diversity” (despite his clearly stated support for diversity) and news articles falsely assert that Damore argued women were “genetically unsuited” (Washington Post) or “biologically unfit” (CNN) to work in high tech.

Sargon of Akkad: What can we do?

Google Diversity Memo – Weaponizing giant social media companies to silence dissent
Silencing of dissenting voices on campus has moved to social media giants, with profound implications

SJWs Attacking Lesbian @ArielleScarcell for . . . Well, Being a Lesbian, Really
The totalitarian insanity of Third Wave “Queer feminism” has now escalated to hitherto unprecedented levels. Popular lesbian YouTube personality Arielle Scarcelli (@ArielleScarcell on Twitter) committed the ThoughtCrime of saying that the way she knew she was gay was that she liked . . . uh, female anatomy.

Is the Conservative-Libertarian Alliance Worth Preserving?
That conservatives and libertarians could set aside their profound philosophical differences to join forces is a testimony to the seriousness of the communist threat in the post-war era.

No One Expects The Google Inquisition, But It’s Coming
The Google memo controversy could tear up the implicit social contract we’ve all accepted with the big technology companies to whom we entrust our data.

McConnell vs. Trump
Mitch McConnell provoked Donald Trump by complaining that the president had created unrealistic expectations for fast action on Obamacare. This criticism of Trump is misplaced. It was congressional Republicans, not Trump, who created the expectation that they would pass legislation undoing Obamacare.

On the eighth day, God created Smalt
The goal of technology is to make people’s lives simpler and more productive, unless you’re a well-to-do gadgethead with a below-average IQ.

Tiki Torches And Chaos: Senator Orrin Hatch Perfectly Calls Out Alt-Right Hate
The University of Virginia in Charlottesville was the scene of a gathering of alt-righters and white nationalists, who were marching to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Dadsplaining for @cynthiablee: Women, Victimhood and the #Google Memo
Dear Professor Lee: Your article (“I’m a woman in computer science. Let me ladysplain the Google memo to you”) is very interesting and well-argued, and far be it from me to question your professional qualifications or your experiential authority

Evil losers on parade
What a sickening display of racism, anti-Semitism and all the rest the “white nationalists” served up in their demonstration over the decision to remove the statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville. According to the New York Times, the planned rally was promoted as “Unite the Right,” attracting groups like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis and movement leaders like David Duke and Richard Spencer. NBC News has a good summary of events in Charlottesville yesterday here, as does the New York Times here.

Shocker: Charlottesville Driver Was Obsessed with Nazism
The first hint of James Fields’s ideology has emerged, from a former teacher of his. Surprising precisely nobody, he turns out to have been a Nazi sympathizer.

Is Charlottesville What’s Really Going On in the USA?
Being a Jewish fella, I don’t hold much brief for white supremacists and neo-Nazis. But until this Saturday, I hadn’t seen a lot of them around lately. And I’ve been going about the country quite a bit for the last couple of years, hitting roughly half the states, including some like Mississippi where the Klan was once riding high.

Silent Cal: A Genuine Conservative
Calvin Coolidge or simply Silent Cal served as the thirtieth president of the United States. He served from August 3rd of 1923 to March the 4th of 1929. Born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont in 1872, he is the only president in American history to be born on July 4th. At the same time, he also presided during the decade of the Roaring Twenties, in which the American economy experienced enormous economic growth. Inventions such as the radio and the washing machine emerged at this time, which helped to ease the lives of Americans. At the same time, Coolidge tends to be one of those prominent leaders which Americans tend to forget. Unfortunately, historians tend to forget the significant role that Silent Cal and his administration played that contributed to ushering the boom.

#Charlottesville: The Left Unexpectedly Falls in Love With the Word “Terrorism”
When Micah Johnson assassinated five police officers in Dallas last year, the Left was eager to evade the most obvious explanation: This was a terrorist act inspired by a hate movement called Black Lives Matter.

Bend over, here come my thoughts about #GoogleManifesto
OMG, OMG, OMG – Did you hear about this one…????

Being Free
I am almost fifty five years old. In my entire life, in two countries, I’ve never come across a book so dangerous it couldn’t be read. I’ve never come across an idea so dangerous it couldn’t be debated. And I’ve never come across a book that while being read went out and hurt other people.

All the Trouble in the World
All the Trouble in the World is a great PJ O’Rourke book, which I highly recommend, but that’s not important right now.

Sargon of Akkad on racial collectivists
The alt right and social justice warriors are racial collectivists who are opposed to the basic values of the Enlightenment.

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