News of the Week (March 21st, 2021)

Posted on March 21, 2021 by The Political Hat

 

News of the Week for Mar. 21st, 2021


 

Riots & Revolution

 

Chauvin Pre-trial Day 6 Midday: Civil Settlement Becomes An Issue, As Ninth Juror Seated
Three Jurors Profess Cannot be Fair & Impartial, Excused

Portland’s Antifa Insurrection Continues: US Courthouse Under Siege, Media Nearly Silent
Some Insurrections are more equal than others.

Chauvin Defense: Minneapolis Settlement With Floyd Family Could “Taint Jury Pool,” Demands Change Of Venue
What a disaster, once again brought to the Twin Cities by Minneapolis’ deeply unserious city government. Rather than wait until the end of the trials this spring and summer, the city council announced a massive $27 million settlement in the wrongful-death lawsuit brought by the family of George Floyd. That landed right in the middle of jury selection in the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin, and now the defense wants a delay — and may move for a mistrial

Chauvin trial day 6
At the end of the motion hearing yesterday morning, defense counsel Eric Nelson expressed his grave concern over the effect of the city’s world-beating $27 million wrongful death settlement in the civil litigation resulting from the death of George Floyd. Nelson cited prejudicial comments made by Mayor Frey and the members of the city clowncil in support of the settlement. With seven jurors selected and released until the beginning of the trial proper on March 29, he complained of the settlement’s “suspicious timing” and “unavoidable headlines.”

Minneapolis Business Owners in George Floyd Square Beg the Cops For Help
“George Floyd Square” is a small quadrangle of city streets in Minneapolis that was renamed following the controversial death of Floyd while in police custody. Since then, a memorial for Floyd has gone up opposite Cup Foods on 38th Street. The city placed barricades on some streets surrounding the memorial to prevent cars from hitting demonstrators. Naturally, this has made it next-to-impossible for local businesses to operate.

George Floyd Autonomous Zone Residents: HELP!
Quite the plaintive plea coming from the shining example of abolish-the-police populism in Minneapolis. Surprisingly, the Star Tribune published this cry for help and prayers by George Floyd autonomous zone resident Monica Nilsson prominently on its pages today. They explain that Nilsson represents “a collection of neighbors adjacent to ‘George Floyd Square,’ neighbors who apparently prefer to remain anonymous … for good reason.”

Chauvin trial day 7
In the time reserved for motion hearings yesterday morning Judge Cahill heard defense counsel Eric Nelson’s offer of proof on George Floyd’s May 2019 encounter with the Minneapolis police. Floyd was high at the time and in medical distress. Previously ruled inadmissible, Judge Cahill indicated he would revisit the issue and took it under advisement. He indicated he would announce his ruling on Thursday, as I understood his comments. My assessment is that the evidence may be admissible in part insofar as it bears on the cause of death, but it is otherwise not coming in.

Chauvin Pre-trial Day 7: Defense Burns Two More Strikes
Defense Asks Court to Presume Bias of Jurors, Return a Strike

Chauvin Pre-trial Day 8 – Breaking: Two Seated Jurors Excused for Cause Based On Civil Settlement Disclosure
#20 & #36 No Longer Fair & Impartial After Settlement News

Notorious Farrakhan Fan Tamika Mallory Promoted At Grammys — Issues “Demand” for “Equity”
The music industry’s biggest event of the year hosted and normalized an unrepentant bigot. Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, condemned Mallory and her Grammy’s spectacle as the work of a “clout chaser”.

Gulp: Judge Bounces Two Jurors From George Floyd Homicide Trial After City’s Settlement Announcement
The jury changes today in the trial of Derek Chauvin do not bode well for the city of Minneapolis, or the state of Minnesota. Two previously seated jurors have told Judge Peter Cahill that the city council’s announcement of a $27 million settlement with the family of George Floyd predisposes them to think Chauvin is guilty.

Chauvin trial day 8
Under the court-ordered arrangements for coverage of the trial, two seats are reserved for pool reporters inside the courtroom. The courtroom itself has been reconfigured to accommodate Covid-related public health recommendations. Participating media outlets rotate two reporters per day into the courtroom. These reporters provide on the spot coverage to members of the pool.

Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 9: Argument On Admissibility of Floyd’s Prior Drug Ingestion, As 10th Juror Seated
State and defense joist re: expert testimony and Floyd’s prior drug ingestion

Chauvin Pre-trial Day 8: Judge Scolds Media for Trying to View Documents on Lawyers’ Tables
Judge also angry about media disclosing court security arrangements, as two more jurors seated.

Minneapolis PD: We’ll Get Control Of The George Floyd Autonomous Zone … Soon. Maybe.
The return of law enforcement won’t come a moment too soon for those stuck in and around the so-called George Floyd autonomous zone. For months, the city of Minneapolis has allowed the area around the spot where Floyd died in police custody to fester, supposedly as a monument to Floyd. Instead, radical activists and criminals have taken over in and around the city-erected traffic barricades, and they’re finally fed up with the city’s dereliction of duty.

Will Derek Chauvin Receive Due Process in Floyd Case?
As NR’s Zachary Evans reported last week, the City of Minneapolis announced that it will pay $27 million to the family of George Floyd to settle a federal civil-rights suit arising out of his detention and death last May 25. The announcement was patently timed to prejudice the difficult, resource-intensive jury-selection process in the trial of Derek Chauvin, who is accused of murdering Floyd.

Chauvin trial day 9
If the day didn’t exactly begin with a whimper, it ended with a cathartic bang of a sort. Stick with me here. In between the whimper and the bang three more jurors were seated, bringing the total to 12 so far. We should have 14 soon and adjourn until opening statements on March 29.

Media peddles unsupported racial narrative on Atlanta “spa” shootings
Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post has written a column with the unwieldy title “‘Not racially motivated’?: The Atlanta spa shootings show why the media should be wary of initial police statements.” Actually, the shootings demonstrate, for the millionth time, that the public should be wary of mainstream media statements.

Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 10 Motion Rulings: Portion of 2019 Prior Floyd Arrest Video Can Be Played At Trial
Prosecution also cannot call expert on Floyd’s state of mind or PTSD during 2020 incident, denies defense request for change of venue or trial delay.

Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 9: Judge Lashes Out At Prosecutors, “let’s just stop right there”
Juror #90, who characterized police as “systematically racist” dismissed for cause, as to other jurors seated bringing the total to 12.

Judge Denies Change-Of-Venue Motion In Floyd Homicide Trial, But Allows Defense Evidence On Cause Of Death
The defense won one and lost one today in the trial of Derek Chauvin. Despite an idiotic decision by the city council to announce a $27 million settlement admitting liability in the death of George Floyd, the trial will remain in Minneapolis, Judge Peter Cahill ruled a few minutes ago. That demand from the defense had been made once before, but after the publicity from the settlement disqualified two jurors, Chauvin’s team hoped Cahill would reconsider

Chauvin trial day 10
KTLK’s Jon Justice and Drew Lee have deputized me to act as their Chauvin case correspondent with regular appearances at the top of the show’s third hour at 8:00 a.m. (Central). We had a lot to talk about yesterday, including my preview of Judge Cahill’s rulings at 8:15. I thought some readers might find it of interest.

Chauvin Pre-Trial Day 10: Thirteenth Juror Seated, 1 More Needed
Each Side Uses One Strike, Leaving State with 3 and Defense with 5

 

Corona Virus

 

Major European nations suspend use of AstraZeneca vaccine
Germany, France, Italy and Spain became the latest countries Monday to suspend use of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine over reports of dangerous blood clots in some recipients, though the company and European regulators have said there is no evidence the shot is to blame.

Behind the EU’s vaccine debacle
The New York Times acknowledges that, whereas the U.S., the UK, and Israel are getting their populations vaccinated and seeing sharp declines in Wuhan coronavirus cases, the EU is a “mess” in this regard.

EU Drug Regulator: AstraZeneca’s Vaccine Is Safe, but We’re Putting a Warning Label on It Anyway
Somehow, I don’t think the European Medicines Agency helped matters much with their decision today. In fact, they may very well have just enabled the worst of both worlds.

Justice Department, FBI Moving on Cuomo Nursing-Home Investigation
The New York Times reports that FBI agents have fanned out to conduct interviews of state and nursing-home officials in New York. At issue, as I’ve previously outlined, is an investigation of whether the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo misled the federal government when it provided data on COVID-19-related deaths of nursing-home residents.

China Declares a Vaccine War on the World
China will allow foreigners to enter the country, but it has directed embassies around the world to only issue a visa if the traveler has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine that was made in China.

The EU is behaving like a psychopath
Its incompetence, its vicious smear campaign and its lashing out are going to get people killed.

 

Gun Rights

 

Tennessee Senate advances ‘permitless carry’
The Tennessee Senate on Thursday advanced legislation that would allow most adults 21 and older to carry firearms — concealed or openly — without a license that now requires a background check and training.

New Zealand Crime Rates Spike Despite “Assault Weapon” Ban
Gun-related crime is spiking in New Zealand a full two years after the country instituted a nationwide ban on most semi-automatic firearms. The Parliament rammed through the ban and buyback (confiscation) program in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch attack, but the laws have had no positive effect on gun-related crime.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Montana, Texas, 19 Other States Sue Biden for Canceling the Keystone XL Pipeline
Legal Insurrection reports that 21 states are suing to block Joe Biden’s executive order that halted the Keystone XL pipeline.

21 States Sue Over Biden Executive Order Halting Keystone Pipeline
“The power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce belongs to Congress – not the President. This is another example of Joe Biden overstepping his constitutional role …

Toyota Warns (Again) About Electrifying All Autos. Is Anyone Listening?
Depending on how and when you count, Japan’s Toyota is the world’s largest automaker. According to Wheels, Toyota and Volkswagen vie for the title of the world’s largest, with each taking the crown from the other as the market moves. That’s including Volkswagen’s inherent advantage of sporting 12 brands versus Toyota’s four. Audi, Lamborghini, Porsche, Bugatti, and Bentley are included in the Volkswagen brand family.

How stalling growth hurts the planet
Some environmentalists and economists are pushing for “degrowth” — stabilizing or even shrinking the economy — to avert environmental catastrophe.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Portugal Court Nixes Euthanasia, New Mexico Legislature Passes Assisted Suicide
Euthanasia is always in the news these days, alas.

National Review Prevails against Michael Mann
The D.C. superior court granted National Review’s motion to dismiss climate scientist Michael Mann’s long-running defamation suit.

Judge Dismisses Michael Mann’s Lawsuit Against National Review
It took nearly a decade but Michael Mann’s lawsuit against National Review has finally been dismissed.

 

War & Terror

 

US Army may nix gender-neutral fitness tests as women overwhelmingly fail, says biological differences matter
The Pentagon may reverse the U.S. Army’s new “gender-neutral” physical fitness test for its male and female soldiers because more than half of female soldiers are failing the test.

How China is building nightmarish surveillance state with cameras checking emotions and tracking “social credit” with AI
BIG Brother-like mass state surveillance is being developed by China with streets full of cameras that can monitor citizens’ emotions and track their “social credit” scores.

China Hikes Defense Budget Again as US Weighs Flatlining Pentagon Spending
Trying to preserve a veneer of democratic legitimacy, the Chinese government goes through the political theater of a meeting of its rubber-stamp Congress every March.

China Has Its Sites Set On Taiwan, Stopping It May Be Up To The Biden Administration
China’s takeover of Hong Kong has been a success as far as the CCP is concerned. The crackdown on protesters has put an end to protests and the demand that local elected officials be “patriotic” means there will be no real elections in the future. Considering how little price the CCP has paid for all of this, they are certainly thinking about the next island on their target list: Taiwan. Last week, a U.S. admiral warned that Taiwan was clearly on the agenda for China and that it could make a move much sooner than expected.

Defiant X: The U.S. Army’s New Stealth Helicopter?
The Army is looking for a new helicopter and there is much talk about making it smoother and with a lower heat signature.

Jet packs are on their way to a battlefield near you
It’s 2021, and although I thought by now there would be flying cars, cities on the moon and the ability to teleport from my bed to my couch instead of walking, I guess I’ll settle for a jet pack, or as DARPA is calling it, a “Portable Personal Air Mobility System.”

US Air Force says it will test bizarre ‘hypersonic’ weapon this month
The test has already been delayed, and there are real questions about the technology’s purpose.

China Has Its Sites Set On Taiwan, Stopping It May Be Up To The Biden Administration
China’s takeover of Hong Kong has been a success as far as the CCP is concerned. The crackdown on protesters has put an end to protests and the demand that local elected officials be “patriotic” means there will be no real elections in the future. Considering how little price the CCP has paid for all of this, they are certainly thinking about the next island on their target list: Taiwan. Last week, a U.S. admiral warned that Taiwan was clearly on the agenda for China and that it could make a move much sooner than expected.

The Fight against Chinese Military-Linked Companies Enters New Arena
The battle against tech companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party picked up in the final days of the Trump administration. Much of the focus was on TikTok, but the White House also made use of an obscure and previously unused section of the 1999 National Defense Authorization Act, allowing the Pentagon to designate Chinese Communist military companies to be sanctioned (I wrote about the sanctions here).

FBI Releases Conclusions On Nashville Christmas Day Bombing
It’s been a couple of months since we heard anything new about Anthony Warner, the maniac who blew himself up on Christmas morning in downtown Nashville. The FBI has been using this time to conduct a thorough investigation, sifting through tons of physical evidence from the blast site and interviewing hundreds of witnesses and people familiar with Warner. They also had to track down more than 2,500 tips that were received on a hotline they set up for that purpose. Last night they released their preliminary findings, describing their progress as representing “a significant portion” of the investigation.

Biden on His Afghanistan Policy: “It’s Gonna be, Like, Sanskrit to People Listening Here, But . . .”
The Biden campaign’s promise on Afghanistan: “Biden will end the forever wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East, which have cost us untold blood and treasure. As he has long argued, Biden will bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan and narrowly focus our mission on Al-Qaeda and ISIS.”

The Fury of a Former Iran Hostage
At The Atlantic, Graeme Wood has an extraordinary interview with Xiyue Wang, the American academic who was held hostage by the Iranian regime for 40 months. Wang had been doing archival research in Tehran when he was taken into custody for allegedly spying on behalf of the U.S. government.

Top NATO Scientist With Security Clearance Busted Spying for China
Chinese military intelligence recruited an Estonian national working at a NATO research institution focused on maritime and submarine research, The Daily Beast has learned.

China to Restrict Tesla Use by Military and State Employees
People familiar with the effort cite concerns Tesla cars could be source of national security leaks

After North Korea’s Taunt, Biden Defense Secretary Says U.S. Forces Ready to “Fight Tonight”
Move follows North Korea rejecting Biden’s diplomatic offer for talks.

China Taunts Biden Admin at Alaska Summit: U.S. Does Not “Speak to China From Position of Strength”
The Biden team called the car crash summit “substantive, serious and direct.”

Wow. Previous Intelligence Chief Basically Tells Fox News That UFOs Are Real (Video)
Something of a bombshell dropped last night in the world of the United States military and its relationship with unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP or UFOs) on Fox News. Maria Bartiromo had John Ratcliffe, the former Trump administration Director of National Intelligence on to talk about the upcoming report from the Pentagon’s UAP Task Force, but she wound up getting more she bargained for. In the middle of the discussion, Ratcliffe, in an almost casual fashion, calmly announced that there are “quite a few more” military encounters with these unexplained craft than have been made public. He then went on to confess that we don’t understand the technology behind them. He also gave the impression that he was dismissing the idea that the Russians or the Chinese could be responsible. In short, he didn’t say the words “non-human intelligence” but he might as well have.

GOP Hawks Warn against Repealing Iraq War Resolution ahead of Vote
In a little-noticed development on Friday, a House panel scheduled a vote to repeal the Congressional resolution that authorized the Iraq war.

Why China may be the last bipartisan issue left in Washington
The issue brings together every wing of American politics, from progressive populists to “America First” nationalists to traditional security hawks.

 

National

 

Super PAC supporting potential Senate candidate J.D. Vance gets $10 million donation from PayPal cofounder
PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel donated $10 million to a super PAC supporting Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, a show of support for the possible Ohio Senate contender.

Glenn Close Receives Oscar and Razzie Nominations for the Same Role
‘Hillbilly Elegy’ was largely panned by critics.

NC high court backs judge who made blogger write essay and delete negative comments
A judge in Western North Carolina didn’t go too far when he charged and convicted a blogger of a crime for recording a court hearing, then forced the blogger to write a lengthy essay about respect, post it online and delete any negative comments people might write, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled Friday.

NYS Dem Chair: Since Cuomo’s Not Resigning, How About We All Just Get Back To Work?
You realize that if he survives this and gets reelected next year, no American politician will ever again resign due to scandal, right? Certainly no one will ever resign over non-criminal misconduct. Only a fool would watch how Trump, then Ralph Northam, and finally Cuomo were able to weather their storms simply by turning a deaf ear to leaders in their own parties who demanded that they withdraw.

Increasingly, Facts Are Considered Racist
Cancellation has become so frequent that there’s a tendency to note the latest example perfunctorily and move on, hoping you’re not the next victim.

On the Other Hand, Maybe It’s Wiser Not to Reopen California’s Government Schools
California’s state Board of Education is set to make a decision this Wednesday on a new semester-long “ethnic studies” course that will be required for high-school graduation.

Cancel Culture Stalks Adam Smith, an Ardent Foe of Slavery
For the sake of our culture and of ourselves, we shouldn’t let leftists lie about history.

Princeton department conducts racially segregated mandatory racial bias training: report
The Princeton Theological Seminary segregated participants in its mandatory racial bias training by race, according to video materials obtained by Young America’s Foundation.

Google’s Nest Adds Sleep Tracking in New Health Tech Foray
Google’s Nest unit is expanding into health technology with a feature that tracks sleep patterns, offering a potential new revenue stream but also raising privacy concerns.

Biden Being Pressured To Scrap Trump-Era Title IX Changes Because Of “Insane” Results
The incoming Biden administration may have chased Betsy DeVos out of the Department of Education, but they haven’t managed to wipe out all the progress she made. At least… not yet. But one liberal activist group named “Know Your IX” is trying to change that. They issued a report this week designed to apply more pressure to the President and get him to wipe out changes DeVos made to the Education Department in how schools handle the investigation of sexual assault allegations on campus. One advocate described the results of a fair hearing abiding by due process rules as “an insane result.” The irony of a group calling for more “justice” for female students working to deprive individuals accused of serious crimes access to due process is apparently completely lost on them. It would almost be funny if it weren’t such a serious matter.

Don Lemon: Traditional Marriage ‘Is Not What God Is About’
On Monday, CNN host Don Lemon lectured the Roman Catholic Church and all other Christian denominations on The View, declaring — as if he had been given direct inspiration from God — that the traditional definition of marriage is “not what God is about.” He suggested that racial segregation and other forms of segregation are ultimately responsible for Christians’ supposedly backward definition of marriage.

Twitter Purged Over 150,000 Accounts Associated With QAnon
So Twitter is cool with your violence, hatred, and conspiracy theories if it belongs to an ideology and not an organization.

McConnell: If Democrats End Filibuster, GOP Will Use Stalling Tactics to Make Americans’ Voices Heard
Editor’s note: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell defended the filibuster Tuesday in a floor speech transcribed below. McConnell’s remarks came a day after Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin spoke out against the filibuster, tweeting: “The filibuster has a death grip on American democracy. It’s time we end its power to hold the Senate hostage.”

Professor Criticized Critical Race Theory At University Of Vermont, Now Students Want Him Fired
Last week a professor at the University of Vermont uploaded a video criticizing what he dubbed the “secular religion” of race at the school. Professor Aaron Kindsvatter said he was afraid to make his comments because he doesn’t want his current or former students to think he is dismissing genuine complaints of discrimination they might have faced. But he said that on campus there is now a new form of discrimination taking place.

Sen. Boof Truther To Garland: I Think The FBI Faked Its Kavanaugh Background Check
Why does Sheldon Whitehouse want to relive his infamous “boof” moment from 2018? The Senate Democrat may have more in mind than just a walk down Memory Lane. In a letter to newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland, Whitehouse accused the FBI of conducting a “fake” investigation into now-Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. He wants Garland to order a review of the FBI’s actions at the time — and perhaps for a specific goal

McConnell Warns Dems: If You End The Filibuster, We’ll Go Scorched Earth And Eventually Pass Our Conservative Dream Agenda
Reading this tweet about McConnell’s speech this morning and then watching the clip below, all I could think of was Trump begging him sporadically in 2017 and 2018 to nuke the filibuster and clear the way for the GOP to pass any bill it wanted, and Cocaine Mitch dismissing him at every turn

New poll shows Cuban-American voters align with GOP
A new poll of Cuban-American voters in Florida shows that an overwhelming majority is solidly opposed to the Biden administration reengaging with the island dictatorship — and their brief drift toward Democrats has been totally reversed.

Fairfax County Schools Sued for Anti-Asian Admissions Policy
The Fairfax County Public Schools — which I’ve beaten up in this space from time to time for ruining my eldest child’s kindergarten year — can’t seem to catch a break. Now they’re getting sued for anti-Asian discrimination over the way they’re trying to racially balance the admissions process at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a nationally prominent magnet school. You can read the complaint here.

China, Iran Building Massive Underground Missile Facilities
“China is building more underground silos from where its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles could be launched.”

Porn could be BLOCKED on phones and tablets under new law in US
PORN would automatically be blocked on phones and tablets in Utah under a new law being pushed by conservative lawmakers.

As signature collection ends, California heads toward recall
A plodding, months-long review kicks off Wednesday to confirm what appears inevitable: California Gov. Gavin Newsom will face a recall election that could oust the Democrat before his first term ends.

‘The endpoint of critical race theory’: Columbia University faces backlash for segregated graduations
Columbia University in New York City will host six segregated commencement ceremonies in addition to its main graduation ceremony for all students.

New Documentary Series Pins 8Chan Server Admin Ron Watkins as Kingpin of “Q” Lie
A new documentary series airing on HBO will identify the so-called “Q” behind the QAnon conspiracy theorist as Ronald Watkins, the son of Jim Watkins, who owns the 8chan forum where Q has regularly posted information.

The History Behind the “Woke” Invasion of Big Business
Why is corporate America increasingly stepping in to support “woke” social justice causes?

Atlanta Police: Spa Shootings “Not Racially Motivated,” Suspect Blames “Sex Addiction”
Stop politicizing deaths! It is not hard to wait for the facts.

The Blood-in-the-Water Effect
The NY Post’s Libby Emmons asks why one politician can get away with acts that would sink another. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been accused of unwanted touching and sexual harassment. President Joe Biden has been accused of everything from creepily sniffing women’s hair to sexual assault. Yet Biden is the one who gets the folksy treatment, perceived as merely touchy-feely, while Cuomo, despite his status as prince of the pandemic press conference, could be facing the end of his career.”

California Seeks To Make Some Robberies Misdemeanors
Those who fail to learn from their own history are clearly destined to repeat it. That’s what seems to be happening in the California legislature this month as SB82 is being debated and is expected to come up for a vote. The bill would reclassify some robberies as misdemeanors, leading to much lighter sentences, potentially not even resulting in any jail time for the offenders. We should keep in mind that there is a critical difference between a robbery and a theft. If you steal some money that someone left on the dashboard of their parked car, that’s theft. If you stick a gun in someone’s face or otherwise intimidate them and demand that they give you their wallet, that’s a robbery. Robbery is currently a felony in the Golden State, but that may be about to change if SB82 passes.

Sasse To Sen. Boof Truther: We’ve Had Enough Of Your “Sinister …Paranoid Obsession” With Kavanaugh
A notable reaction, in large part because this appears to be just about the only reaction to Sheldon Whitehouse’s nonsense letter to Merrick Garland. Ben Sasse (R-NE), who isn’t exactly a Trumpian voice on the Senate floor, blasted the Rhode Island Democrat’s “paranoid obsession” with Brett Kavanaugh. The demand for a new review of the FBI’s background checks is “sinister,” Sasse wrote to the National Review, and suggested Whitehouse join a “conspiracy theory book club” and get fitted for a tinfoil hat instead

Is Biden Mulling Ambassadorial Appointment For Feinstein’s Husband As A Favor To … Gavin Newsom?
Say what you want about the ethical swamp of ambassadorial appointments, but this actually looks like an elegant way to take out two birds with one stone. Could Joe Biden help Gavin Newsom survive a recall election by nominating Richard Blum to a high-profile posting … and hope he takes his wife with him? Blum, a major Democrat donor and Biden backer, is also married to Senator Dianne Feinstein.

This Mother Fights against a School That Indoctrinates Her Son
William Clark is a mixed-race student in a charter school in Las Vegas. That school, like so many others across America, has succumbed to leftist pressures and pushes “progressive” propaganda down students’ throats. In a class entitled Sociology for Change, he was told that he had to denounce his supposed privilege and admit that he was “an oppressor.”

Abigail Shrier, Star Witness at the Equality Act Hearing
Abigail Shrier, author of Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is an incredibly kind and courageous woman. She is also brilliant. I genuinely do not understand how anyone could listen to her testimony during the Senate Judiciary hearing on the Equality Act and not be persuaded by it — though, of course, most Democrats won’t budge an inch.

Neo-Segregation and Racist Rot in Education
Columbia University is offering six separate graduations for students who identify as follows: Black, Asian, “Latinx,” FLI (“first generation/low income), Lavender (LGBT), and Native American. (The university claims these ceremonies exist “in addition to, not instead of, University-wide commencement . . .”)

Uh Oh, Senator Hirono
Senator Mazie Hirono had a hypothesis. It took a bit of a hit today.

California Curriculum Accuses Christians of “Theocide,” Encourages Chanting to Pagan Gods
This is but a foretaste of the kind of “learning” that could dominate schools nationwide if conservatives don’t organize against it immediately.

Ohio AG sues Biden administration over pandemic bill
Ohio’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration on Wednesday over a provision of the recently signed pandemic relief bill.

Three lifeforms “unknown to science” discovered INSIDE the ISS by astronauts
THREE entirely new lifeforms have been discovered at different locations onboard the International Space Station.

QAnon’s ‘collateral damage’: Families struggle to pull loved ones back from the brink
Jenny Beltran was always close to her half-sister — until her sibling moved to Florida with an alt-right boyfriend and started posting conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and pedophilia.

Senate Confirms Anti-Religious Bigot Becerra to Lead HHS
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate narrowly confirmed Xavier Becerra as secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS), 50 to 49. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) joined the Democrats in voting for Becerra. Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), who would almost certainly have voted for Becerra, was absent.

“Graygender, Maverick, Feminine of Center”: NYU lists TWO DOZEN gender options
A New York University form offered over two dozen options for gender.

Subversive Education
North Carolina’s largest school district launches a campaign against “whiteness in educational spaces.”

Breaking: Ohio Challenges Constitutionality of American Rescue Plan Act
“The Tax Mandate thus gives the States a choice: they can have either the badly needed federal funds or their sovereign authority to set state tax policy. But they cannot have both. In our current economic crisis, that is no choice at all. It is a metaphorical ‘gun to the head.'”

“This Case Is a Great Example of Why Our Deputies Wear Body Cameras”
Say hello to Raymond Glass, the kind of criminal who makes you wish there were more police brutality in America. In 2015, a Florida man named Larkland Harris Jr. “with a long history of violence and who spent six years in state prison” was charged with stabbing Glass outside a Pizza Hut in Flagler County. The report of that crime noted that Glass himself had “an arrest record that includes charges for burglary, grand theft, drug charges, criminal mischief and probation violation.”

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Plans to Countersue Dominion Voting Systems
“…what Dominion did was violate the First Amendment rights of everyone in this country by using bullying lawsuits and RICO law.”

Critical race theory, “whiteness” reach new absurd and inane heights
“What is most arresting about critical race theory is that…it turns its back on the Western tradition of rational inquiry, forswearing analysis for narrative. Rather than marshal logical arguments and empirical data, critical race theorists tell stories — fictional, science-fictional, quasi-fictional, autobiographical, anecdotal—designed to expose the pervasive and debilitating racism of America today. By repudiating reasoned argumentation, the storytellers reinforce stereotypes about the intellectual capacities of nonwhites.” — Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner

College’s “white terrorism” talk criticizes “narrative of white woundedness”
Berea College hosted an online webinar Wednesday to discuss the concept of white citizenship as terrorism. It was led by Professor Amy Brandzel, author of “Against Citizenship: The Violence of the Normative.”

Student government vows to increase purchases from LGBTQ, racial minority-owned businesses
Takes aim at Amazon, too

Pa. drops appeal over attorney conduct rule that drew free speech activists’ ire
Pennsylvania attorney disciplinary officials have dropped their appeal of an injunction that bars them from implementing an anti-discrimination rule governing lawyers’ conduct in the state.

Why Some Democratic Senators Are Still Hesitant to Abolish the Filibuster
Over on Twitter, Avi Woolf noted that Democrats are acting like this is the mid-1930s and they have locked in large majorities, as they pursue changes such as abolishing the filibuster. That isn’t entirely true of Democratic senators as a group. And it isn’t just cagey moderates like Sinema and Manchin. Even a blue-state senator like Diane Feinstein is leery about abolishing the filibuster.

Robot doctors take over hospital to reduce COVID spread
The digi-doctor is in. Dr. Spot, a dog-like mobile robot programmed to triage hospital patients, is the newest front-line health-care worker to join the fight against COVID-19.

Milwaukee Judge and President of Drag Queen Story Hour Group Arrested, Charged With Child Pornography
A Milwaukee judge who serves as the President of an LGBTQ+ foundation in Wisconsin was arrested and charged with seven counts of possessing child pornography on Tuesday. Brett Blomme, an elected judge for Branch 5 of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, is also the President and CEO of the Cream City Foundation.

California Police Reform Bill May Ban Christians From Law Enforcement
Police officers have a duty to protect all citizens, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or any other identity. Governments have an interest in preventing violent criminals and members of the Ku Klux Klan from joining police forces. Yet a new bill supposedly aimed at preventing gang members from joining law enforcement could prevent conservative Christians from taking the blue or result in their firing.

How This School Board Is Violating Basic Voting Rights, Creating Clear Conflict of Interest in Maryland
While leftists like Rep. Stacey Abrams, D-Ga., and Vanita Gupta make false claims about nonexistent “voter suppression” over state efforts to fix vulnerabilities in state election laws, the Public Interest Legal Foundation has filed a lawsuit over a real voter suppression in Maryland.

“Cornell may become an example of how a desire to address racism can go horribly wrong:
My column at Real Clear Politics: “Higher Ed Approaches the Antiracism Training Abyss:

House Dems Move to Expel Marjorie Taylor Greene as Twitter Locks Her Account
The bill needs a two-third supermajority to pass the House.

House Democrats Inch Closer to Overturning Iowa House Race and Unseating Republican Who Won
“Republicans are fighting for Miller-Meeks. Even Mitch McConnell addressed the situation from the Senate floor.”

Biden Calls Kamala “President Harris” During Media Appearance
This isn’t the first time.

“No Room” for Critical Race Theory in Florida Schools, Gov. Ron DeSantis Says
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vows that critical race theory won’t be part of the state’s education curriculum.

Chemical cocktail creates new avenues for generating muscle stem cells
A UCLA-led research team has identified a chemical cocktail that enables the production of large numbers of muscle stem cells, which can self-renew and give rise to all types of skeletal muscle cells.

San Francisco School Board Member: Many Asians Use “White Supremacist Thinking” To “Get Ahead”
You may remember the Vice President of the San Francisco school board, Alison Collins. In addition to being firmly committed to the board’s school renaming nonsense, Collins is the person who last October said, “When we talk about merit, meritocracy and especially meritocracy based on standardized testing. I’m just going to say it, in this day and age we cannot mince words. Those are racist systems.” Around the same time she also wrote on her blog, “Being a ‘model-minority’ is not something to covet or celebrate.”

NYT: Remember When Cuomo Denied Threatening Pols With Comparisons To “Child Rapists”? Well, We Have Receipts
Indeed they do, and with Andrew Cuomo’s unmistakable voice clear in the New York Times’ latest podcast. The paper first reported on these remarks a month ago, part of a large and long-belated exposé of the Love Gov’s bullying and intimidation. One such episode came during negotiations with the progressive Working Families Party after the primary, in which WFP had the temerity to endorse Cynthia Nixon against Cuomo. The WFP had told its membership that Cuomo was better than the Republicans as a way to explain their endorsement, an explanation to which Cuomo took great offense … even though it was part of an endorsement

SC Dem Authors Bill Banning Trans Surgery For Children
Some of you are probably assuming there was a typo in the title of this article because when was the last time you saw a Democrat being critical of the current debate over “transgender kids?” But it’s true. A Democratic state legislator from South Caroline, Representative Cezar McKnight, has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for doctors to perform irreversible transgender surgery on children or to administer dangerous puberty-blocking drugs to them. The bill immediately drew significant support from Republican legislators. This long-overdue measure may end up being challenged, setting the stage for the courts to finally address these questions.

One Toke IS Over The Line: Biden WH Reneges On Prior Pot Use, Dozens Of Staffers Out
Looks like Brewer & Shipley were right after all. Three weeks ago, NBC News reported that the Biden White House had issued guidelines on staffing dismissing prior use of marijuana as a hurdle for employment. This was described as a case-by-case basis, but the administration clearly anticipated significant issues finding staffers — and candidates responded by telling the truth, hoping to avoid later issues with clearances.

Now, It’s the “Rights of the Moon”
The “nature rights” movement has launched into outer space with a Declaration of the Rights of the Moon. From the Declaration:

Feinstein Still Supports the Filibuster
California senator Dianne Feinstein infuriated progressive activists last fall when she spoke up in defense of the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for more legislation. “I think the filibuster serves a purpose. It is not often used, it’s often less used now than when I first came, and I think it’s part of the Senate that differentiates itself,” Feinstein said at the time.

The Media Got It Wrong: Police Captain Didn’t Say the Atlanta Spa Killer Was Having a ‘Bad Day’
The full video shows that Jay Baker was paraphrasing what Robert Aaron Long told investigators about his motivations.

Fiasco In Anchorage
On Thursday, delegations headed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi met at the Captain Cook Hotel in Anchorage. It was the first such meeting of the Biden administration. There were both public and private sessions. The parties agreed that the public session would begin with a two-minute statement by each. Blinken spoke for two minutes, after which Yang contemptuously ignored the agreed-upon protocol and delivered a 20-minute attack on the United States. From there, things went from bad to worse.

Gov. Noem won’t sign bill protecting female athletes
The South Dakota legislature passed a bill banning individuals who were male at birth from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, both at the high school and the college levels. However, Governor Kristi Noem has refused to sign the legislation as passed.

Project Veritas vs. New York Times
Last September, Project Veritas released a video that suggested there has been substantial voter fraud in Minnesota elections, particularly in the Somali community, and linked that fraud to Ilhan Omar’s machine. The New York Times then published a series of articles that smeared Veritas and its video as a “coordinated disinformation campaign,” alleging that the video was “deceptive” and “false.” Project Veritas sued the Times in state court in New York, and the Times moved to dismiss the lawsuit for failure to state a claim.

Incredible AI sex robot skeleton unveiled in step towards dolls walking ‘unaided’
A RealDoll representative promised that the company is getting ever closer to developing a sex robot that can walk unaided as well as conducting conversations with their owner

University of Florida suspends MULTIPLE conservative groups in one fell swoop
The University of Florida suspended at least three conservative clubs on campus, Campus Reform has learned.

The Return of the One-room School
And not only might it be in your own living room, but it could become an excellent pathway toward taking back our beloved Republic from the insidious forces which have lurched us to the left for decades.

Kentucky Cops Shoot a White Guy
The Police Activity YouTube channel has put out a lot of content in the past week, including bodycam footage from the Feb. 20 incident in which police in Kentucky shot 57-year-old Randall Lockaby

GOP Senate Leaders Criticize Biden Team for Prioritizing Social Justice Over Working Americans
Three top Senate Republicans have voiced concern to the Biden administration’s Labor Department that it is prioritizing social justice above the interests of American workers.

Recall Newsom organizers officially turn in over 2.1 million signatures
The second phase of the recall effort now begins.

NC School District’s Campaign Against “Whiteness in Educational Spaces” Told Teachers to Ignore Parental Concerns
“Parents, according to the teachers, should be considered an impediment to social justice.”

Critical Race-Based California Ethnic Studies Curriculum Passes State Board of Education Vote
Critical Race Theory, together with far leftist ideological hostility, is being injected deep into public education in the largest state.

Dianne Feinsteins Overnight Filibuster Flip-Flop
On Thursday, as reported by John McCormack, California Senator Dianne Feinstein was holding firm in her support for the filibuster:

When Democrats in Congress Tried to Ban Interracial Marriage
In 1891, the Federal Elections Bill – spearheaded by Rep. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-MA) – died in the Senate. This bill would have provided the federal government with new power to enforce African American voting rights in the South. Its demise was a devastating blow to the Republican Party, and also signaled the GOP’s last meaningful effort to promote Black civil rights until the early 1920s. For the next three decades, civil rights policy largely disappeared from the congressional agenda. African-American historian Rayford W. Logan has famously referred to these years as the nadir of Black experience in America.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Football prayers, foreign agents, and a fraternity of judges.

Biden Approval Ratings Diverge by Gender, Education, Race
President Joe Biden has averaged 56% job approval across three Gallup polls since taking office, including 54% in the latest survey from March 1-15. In addition to a yawning party gap, Biden’s job ratings also differ significantly by gender, education, race and place of residence.

Republican AGs take blowtorch to Biden agenda
On everything from climate change to immigration and abortion rights, GOP attorneys general are leading the charge to dismantle White House policies.

Atlanta: The Backstory Emerges
The bottom line is that anti-Asian racial prejudice was not the motive for the shooting rampage at three Atlanta-area massage parlors.

Leftist Mob Targets Law Professor — Guess What the Dean Does
ByOn his personal blog, Professor Thomas Smith of the University of San Diego Law School wrote a post that was sharply critical of Chinese government policies. Shortly thereafter, the academic mob accused him of ethnic bias against Chinese people.

DC Statehood Is The Next Unicorn The Democrats Are Chasing
The Washington Post is doing an admirable job of cheerleading for the next unicorn that congressional Democrats are set to pursue, that being DC statehood. The obvious nature of the power grab that the Democrats are trying to pull off doesn’t seem to sway their media enablers in the slightest. Nor do the historical reasons as to why the District of Columbia wasn’t created as a state to begin with. All that really matters is the opportunity to summon up two more senators from a reliably blue neighborhood, that is smaller in both physical size and population than your average county. The job for the GOP at this moment, as Yahoo News reports, is to educate the public about what the Democrats are trying to do and why this scheme shouldn’t be allowed to come to pass.

Louisiana sends Julia Letlow to Congress after husband Luke Letlow dies from COVID
Republican Julia Letlow won Louisiana’s 5th Congressional District election Saturday in a landslide less than three months after her late husband Congressman-elect Luke Letlow died from COVID complications before he could take office.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Yellen proposing global minimum tax on multinationals
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is working with other countries on an agreement to update corporate tax rules to establish a global minimum tax as the Biden administration considers raising taxes on businesses in order to finance spending priorities.

Biden Eyes First Major Tax Hike Since 1993 in Next Economic Plan
President Joe Biden is planning the first major federal tax hike since 1993 to help pay for the long-term economic program designed as a follow-up to his pandemic-relief bill, according to people familiar with the matter.

Something Has Gone Disastrously Wrong With the Criminal Justice System in Ohio
Say hello to Cortez Turray Larkin, Ohio’s one-man crime wave.

Authorities Charge Two Men With Assault of Officer Brian Sicknick During Capitol Hill Riot
They allege the men assaulted him with bear spray, but “have not determined whether the exposure caused his death.”

New York Prepares To Pass Its Own “Wealth Tax”
For a moment there I thought that Elizabeth Warren had suddenly replaced Andrew Cuomo as the Governor of New York. The state legislature today announced that they will be introducing legislation to implement a series of massive tax increases primarily targeting the wealthiest New Yorkers. As the New York Post points out today, the legislature is doing this despite the fact that the state just received a fresh injection of $100 billion in federal aid. They apparently think they’re going to need the extra $7 billion these taxes will generate, however, because the government’s current budget plan calls for them to actually increase spending next year by 22.6%, just as their revenue calls for some belt-tightening. Let’s see if you can guess what’s going to happen next.

Rep. Ilhan Omar Introduces Rent And Mortgage Cancellation Act
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) introduced the Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, a bill that would institute a nationwide cancellation of rent and home mortgage payments through the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a press release.

Dollarization Advances in Venezuela with Debit Cards for Foreign Currency Accounts
Maduro’s regime begins to give the green light to private banks to allow their clients to use funds in dollars to make transactions in bolivars.

Biden’s Proposed Tax Increases Would Be Largest Since LBJ’s in 1968
Faithful to his campaign promises, President Joe Biden is eyeing steep tax hikes, but despite the claim that the tax increases will hit only the wealthy, they have the potential to slow the pandemic recovery for every American and make workers less competitive.

Democrats Ready to Railroad Huge Infrastructure Boondoggle
Now that the bloated, debt-financed “stimulus” package has been signed into law, Congress has begun working on its next spending-spree target, infrastructure.

UAW Slams Ford Over Decision to Move New Car Production From Ohio to Mexico
Weird this happens after Trump left office. UAW endorsed Biden. Will Biden step in?

It Sure Looks As If Joe Biden Lied About His Tax Plan
Did Joe Biden mislead the country about his tax plans during his campaign for president? Unless Jen Psaki misspoke this afternoon, it sure looks as if he did. Here’s what she said

A Bill To Eliminate Union “Official Time”
One of the significant accomplishments of the Trump administration was a series of reforms that clamped down on abusive union practices inside the federal government. Some of those changes were obviously needed, such as removing the barriers to firing workers over incompetence or even criminal activity. But another wasteful topic that Trump addressed was the issue of “official time.” Under the old rules, government employees who were also union officials were allowed to spend some of their time on the clock – in some cases, all of their time – conducting “union business.” They were also allowed to use office space and all of the resources such spaces consume as union offices. All of this was done on the taxpayer’s dime, while not getting any actual government work out of the arrangement.

The Not-So-Stimulative $1.9 Trillion Package
As George mentioned this morning, the idea that large spending legislation can lead to prosperity is problematic, to say the least.

Dems Will Use Reconciliation to Pass a ‘Kitchen Sink’ Stimulus Bill
It’s been less than 2 weeks since President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion mis-named pandemic relief bill, but Democrats on the Hill are already licking their chops at the prospect of spending even more.

Biden Stimulus Bill Provision Targeting State Tax Cuts Might be Struck Down by Courts for Same Reasons as Trump Efforts to Pull Federal Grants From Sanctuary Cities
In both situations, the grant conditions in question were not clearly and unambiguously authorized by Congress.

 

International

 

India’s digital media regulation sparks fears of curbs on press freedom
India’s new oversight of digital news platforms is drawing protest from the media industry and activists who fear the rules will curb press freedom in the world’s largest democracy.

Erin O’Toole says he needs 1 million more votes in the next election. Where will he find them?
Federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says his party needs 1 million more votes to win the next election.

London mayor savaged for plan to cut numbers of “white men” in science and engineering
Mayor Sadiq Khan says he wants fewer white men working in science and engineering. His plan to “fix” the situation has sparked a furious backlash online.

Merkel’s Party Suffers Record Setbacks Over Pandemic Handling
Germany held its state elections in two regions yesterday and to say the least, outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party did not fare well. Voters in Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate went to the polls with plenty of complaints about the CDU’s handling of the pandemic response, along with some recent scandals that have tarnished the party’s image. Less than a year ago, Merkel and her party were receiving high marks from the public during the early stages of the pandemic, but now voters seem to be done with them. The Green Party trounced the CDU in one region while the far-left Social Democrats defeated them in the other. Both races delivered 8% margins of victory in places where Merkel had done quite well in previous years. Angela Merkel is not seeking reelection, so whoever takes her place at the top of the ticket just inherited a considerably steeper hill to climb.

Human tear glands grown in a lab actually cry
Scientists have an ambitious vision for their organoid.

2,000-year-old biblical texts found in Israel, 1st since Dead Sea Scrolls
6,000-year-old child skeleton also found in Judean Desert cave.

Scientists stunned to discover plants beneath mile-deep Greenland ice
Long-lost ice core provides direct evidence that giant ice sheet melted off within the last million years and is highly vulnerable to a warming climate

Scientists Succeed in Creating Mouse Artificial Wombs
Scientists in Israel have gestated mouse embryos about halfway to term outside a uterus. From the New York Times story

Peru’s Bolsonaro? The Opus Dei ultra-conservative who would kick out Odebrecht
Peru’s Rafael López Aliaga, an ultra-conservative member of Opus Dei who practices celibacy and says he wears a sackcloth to keep his physical desires in check, has a serious shot at becoming the Andean country’s next president.

Why bands are disappearing: ‘Young people aren’t excited by them’
Maroon 5’s Adam Levine was scoffed at for suggesting there “aren’t any bands any more” – but if you look at the numbers, he’s right. Wolf Alice, Maximo Park and industry insiders ask why

How to Exact a High Price on Hong Kong’s Complicit Banks
Hong Kong’s banks have played a significant role in facilitating the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement. I wrote about this trend — Beijing’s efforts to flood the city with “red capital” — and how it is a CCP political-influence strategy, in an article this morning.

What the Chinese Party-State Wants . . .
. . . from its meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national-security adviser. The two top Biden officials are meeting Yang Jiechi, the CCP’s foreign-affairs chief, and foreign minister Wang Yi tomorrow in Anchorage.

French conservative politicians propose using France’s anti-racist hate speech laws against critical race theorists.
Meetings prohibited for whites: Ciotti asks question of UNEF dissolution, Retailleau wants conviction for “incitement to racial hatred”

Canadian Father JAILED for Violating a Court Order to Use His Trans Child’s Preferred Pronouns
Dr. Jordan Peterson rose to international prominence for opposing Bill C-16 in Canada in 2016. This legislation required Canadians to use an individual’s preferred pronouns amid the ever-growing list of gender identities. Dr. Peterson did not object out of “transphobia,” as many accused him of doing. Instead, he objected to the state passing a law that compelled speech, which was evident in his testimony and in every interview on the subject. He warned C-16 would be a slippery slope and result in punishment for speaking. Proponents of the bill told him that would never happen.

“Harry Potter” Actor Defends J.K. Rowling, Knocks Cancel Culture: “Level Of Hatred” Is “Disturbing”
Actor Ralph Fiennes, who played the villain Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter movie series, defended author J.K. Rowling against accusations of transphobia and slammed cancel culture in the arts on Tuesday.

B.C. father arrested, held in jail for repeatedly violating court orders over child’s gender transition therapy
A B.C. father who objects to his teenage child’s gender transition therapy was arrested on Tuesday and put in jail until at least Friday for repeatedly speaking publicly about aspects of the case.

Canadian Father Jailed for Calling his Transitioned Daughter by her Birth name, Birth Pronouns
A father who has spent years fighting for a say in whether or not his daughter undergoes gender-transitions procedures has been jailed for contempt of court after making his name public and showing his face, along with calling his biological daughter “she” and “her” and refusing to use masculine personal pronounces, against the express wishes of a court order.

‘You can’t escape the smell’: mouse plague grows to biblical proportions across eastern Australia
Locals who have endured months of mice and rats getting into their houses, stores and cars are praying heavy rain will help wipe them out

Social Media Service Line Exposed Data of Japanese Users to China
It seems even Japanese companies can’t resist exposing the data of their users to China as it is said that a Chinese company was given the personal information of users of the popular Japanese chat app known as Line.

Police warn students to avoid science website
Police have warned students in the UK against using a website that they say lets users “illegally access” millions of scientific research papers.

Polls Show Netanyahu Holding Slim Majority Ahead of Tuesday’s Vote
After serving as Israel’s PM for 15 years, Netanyahu faces the 4th campaign in two years.

The fall of Chile is a warning to America
Back in the 1970s, the nation of Chile embarked on one of the boldest sets of free market economic reforms in history. The government called in the Chicago Boys, as they were called, led by Milton Friedman and other University of Chicago free market economists.

 

Opinion

 

Is America doomed? Part One
Maybe not. Peter King reports that 10.5 percent of all NFL regular-season games last season enjoyed a bigger television audience than Oprah Winfrey’s interview of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry. Mike Florio adds that “most if not all of the 13 January postseason games generated dramatically larger numbers” than that interview.

Is America doomed? Part Two
We are doomed, I think, if Americans come to believe that ours is an ignoble country, and has been since its founding. I don’t think any nation has ever thrived when it (or its ruling class) lost faith to that degree.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion — Manipulating Words for Political Goals
The “progressive” project of controlling society works more easily if people’s thoughts can be shaped by the use of language. Orwell understood that and so do our contemporary authoritarians of all shades.

The Greatest Education Battle of Our Lifetimes
With last week’s introduction in Congress of the misleadingly named Civics Secures Democracy Act, we are headed toward an epic clash over the spread of uber-controversial pedagogies — Critical Race Theory and Action Civics — to America’s classrooms. I don’t know whether the country will wake up to the danger of this legislation before or after it passes. Sooner or later, however, the truth will out. When it does, the culture war will have merged with K–12 education-policy disputes to a degree never before seen.

Here’s Why Those Stubborn Christians Won’t Just Redefine Marriage
On Monday, legacy media outlets expressed confusion and outrage when the Vatican refused to recommend official Roman Catholic blessings for same-sex unions. It seems a growing coalition of LGBT activists and their allies in Hollywood, academia, the media, and elsewhere cannot fathom the idea that Christians are committed to defining marriage as one man and one woman, for life. Many of them attribute this to “hate” or bigotry, but there are very good theological reasons behind this stubbornness.

Scientists Believe in No Limits on Embryo Research
I could have predicted this. In fact, I did. Repeatedly.

Free Speech in the Classroom
I probably agree with Samantha Harris 90 percent of the way when it comes to Critical Race Theory, the need for open debate, and the difference between teaching and indoctrination. It sounds like her firm is going to do good work in holding abusive college administrations to account. But I still don’t see why it should be considered censorship when a state legislature tries to block harmful fads from making their way into government-funded classrooms.

Democrats’ filibuster gamble will backfire
You’ll be sorry. The warning was delivered in the measured, diplomatic cadences of the Senate rather than the taunting ones of the schoolyard. But there was no mistaking Mitch McConnell’s message.

American Education: Child Indoctrination, Struggle Sessions and Debt Slavery
American Education: Child Indoctrination, Struggle Sessions and Debt SlaverySeemingly overnight, a large segment of America has gone insane. We’re not talking about the culture of paranoia and safety that has metastasized in the wake of COVID-19 hysteria. We’re talking about the ideological shift, particularly on cultural issues, that has occurred since the start of the Obama Administration.

The long history between Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Pacific Legal Foundation
In politics, ambition is like water: You need some to survive, but too much and you’ll drown.

Small-Government Conservatism and the Golden Turkey
At the federal level, traditional small-government conservatism is on life support. Even before the “Biden administration’s” $1.9 trillion money-printing spree, the forces of limited government hadn’t been heard from in Washington for quite a while. Things are different at the state level, however. State governments can’t print borrow money from the Fed, and most have constitutional balanced budget requirements. So if you want to control state taxes, you also have to control state spending.

Declining Fertility Rate May Deliver Us To Oblivion
For much of the last half-century we have been living, even cowering, under the threat posed by what Paul Ehrlich in 1968 called the “population bomb.” In Ehrlich’s scenario, widely adopted by the environmental movement and its corporate supporters, ever-increasing numbers would overwhelm the resource base and the food supply and would cause dystopian mayhem across the planet.

Campus Conservatism and Persuasion
Yesterday, I provided a game plan for campus conservatives. If you haven’t yet, check it out.

To Preserve the Filibuster, Republicans Need Scarier Policy Threats
Senator Mitch McConnell warned yesterday that if Democrats abolish the filibuster, Republicans would take advantage when they regain the majority. He listed right-to-work legislation, defunding of Planned Parenthood, and concealed-carry reciprocity as some items that a majority-Republican Senate would pass.

The ERA Is Still a Zombie
Whatever else one thinks about the Equal Rights Amendment, the campaign for it began in a constitutionally proper way: In 1972, the House and the Senate voted by a two-thirds margin to submit it to the states for ratification. That’s one of the methods Article V of the Constitution sanctions for an amendment.

Against California’s Ethnic-Studies Curriculum
To graduate from high school in the state of California, students have to take just three years of English and two years of math. Democrats in the state are now trying to add another subject to these paltry requirements, which are among the most lax and lenient in the nation. Chemistry, biology, physics, history, geography, civics, and foreign languages have all been passed over. As it turns out, the subject that California’s political machine wants taught to all children in the state without exception is ethnic studies. Today, the state’s Board of Education will vote on whether or not to approve a model curriculum for this subject to be used in each and every Californian public school. The state legislature has signaled its intention to make the curriculum mandatory if the Board of Education gives its approval. If such a bill is signed into law, ethnic studies will be the only subject in California with the same pedagogical priority in K–12 classrooms as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Is the Left in Trouble?
There are some interesting signs that the Biden victory and the Democratic Party’s current lunge to the far left may be an outlier among Western democracies, where leftist parties continue to lose ground. Progressive writers Ruy Teixeira and Brian Kaltis (both with the lefty Center for American Progress) note the unhappy (for them) results of elections earlier this week in the Netherlands

The Progressives’ Fatal Conceit
In the 2016 presidential election, the FBI under President Barack Obama spied on the Donald Trump campaign based on Clinton campaign propaganda that Trump was a Russian asset. Throughout his presidency, Trump warned about a “deep state” that worked in the federal bureaucracy to undermine his political agenda. This week, a former Border Patrol agent declared that there is “a planned, coordinated attempt to sabotage the Biden administration” from within.

Social Conservatives Hate to Say We Told You So, But the Record Speaks for Itself
This week, the former president of an LGBT group that sponsored Drag Queen Story Hour events was arrested on child pornography charges. A Canadian attorney general ordered the arrest of a father who called his gender-confused daughter a girl. Last week, a prison employee reported that the very day the Washington State women’s prison admitted biological males who claimed to be transgender, one of the “trans women” raped a female inmate.

Better Than Whose Originalism?
Four conservative legal thinkers have written a jurisprudential manifesto in favor of “A Better Originalism,” by which they mean an originalism that accepts that the proper enterprise of judging includes taking account of moral truths. They set themselves against what they call the “morally neutered, overtly positivist approach to reading legal texts” that Justice Neil Gorsuch showed in Bostock, in which he wrote the majority opinion holding that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or transgender status.

The EU Failure Is Personal
The vaccine disaster in Europe is really something to behold. And for me, it’s personal. I haven’t seen members of my family for more than a year. Ireland has had a long and rather strict lockdown — one where you’re not allowed to move five kilometers (3.11 miles) from your own home — with little relief for the past six months. Currently there are 336 hospitalized cases reported in Ireland, and 83 in the ICU. Nearly three quarters of the cases are for people under 45.

Media Won’t Care That Joe Biden Fell Down the Stairs Because He Isn’t Donald Trump
For the love of God, someone please help Joe Biden up the stairs. It would be, and I say this in all sincerity, a national disaster if Biden seriously hurt himself after needlessly walking up a giant flight of stairs alone to get on Air Force One. Would you let your septuagenarian grandfather or father walk up those stairs? Help the man.

Why we should hate “hate crime” laws
Consider two hypothetical criminal law defendants. Defendant A, a White, is accused of murdering six Asian sex workers. Defendant B, also White, is accused of murdering six White sex workers. Both sets of murders occurred in the same jurisdiction and were carried out in exactly the same manner.

Attacked Artist Provides Japanese Artists Advice on Avoiding Cancel Culture
A string of ever-increasing examples of “cancellation” attempts against Japanese artists on Twitter has encouraged one of these targeted users to create an infographic warning about the most likely individuals that would participate in such behavior and how best to contend with such bullying.

Kill the filibuster — and reap what you sow
Fast forward to January 2025. Donald Trump has been elected to a second term. The House and Senate are in Republican hands. In the Senate, the filibuster is gone, having been abolished by frustrated Democrats in 2021. Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, back for a final term as majority leader at age 82, declares that he will not move to restore it.

Our Right to Criticize Governments and Countries,
whether the U.S., China, Israel, or anyone else.

How “Owning the Libs” Became the GOP’s Core Belief
The weird journey of a tongue-in-cheek catchphrase from conservative-mocking putdown to the defining tenet of the Republican Party’s way of life.

Conrad Black: The truth about truth and reconciliation
It is shocking and dangerous that the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been so widely accepted

No, We Don’t Need a Department of Education
Today, Kevin Williamson has written a column arguing that we actually could use a Department of Education — among other reasons, to combat the rising threat from China.

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