Firing Line Friday: Firing Line Friday: Is the Anti-Terror Bill a Danger to Civil Liberties? Part I

Quick Takes – MAHA: Ghost Studies; Psychic Powers; $1000 Supernatural Blessings (For A Limited Time Only!)

Posted on October 9, 2025 by The Political Hat

Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.

The focus this time: These statements will not help you diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

First, a little mood music:

Carrying on…

Theodoric of York, NHS Health Specialist

HHS Secretary RFK, Jr. promised gold standard research that would inevitably beg the question regarding health policy. ‘Twould seem that this is a fools gold standard rife with phantom citations.

“Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Commission report harnesses ‘gold-standard’ science, citing more than 500 studies and other sources to back up its claims. Those citations, though, are rife with errors, from broken links to misstated conclusions.

“Seven of the cited sources don’t appear to exist at all.

“Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes is listed in the MAHA report as the first author of a study on anxiety in adolescents. When NOTUS reached out to her this week, she was surprised to hear of the citation. She does study mental health and substance use, she said. But she didn’t write the paper listed.

“‘The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,’ Keyes told NOTUS via email. ‘We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.’”

It’s not like he isn’t already convinced of some kooky ideas, right? Oh, wait…

“The guy with brain worms who dumps baby bear carcasses and decapitates whales always seemed like an odd fit at best at the Department of Health and Human Services and a potentially catastrophic one at worst. It was not reassuring when Kennedy strode into his confirmation hearing and made clear that he didn’t know which one was Medicaid and which one was Medicare. (Those programs make up 85 percent of the budget at HHS.) Nor was it comforting when Kennedy assured Dr. Phil McGraw and his audience that he thinks the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is behind the phenomenon of “contrails” and that ‘I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it.’”

At least they corrected the report when this was pointed out, right?

“The Trump administration’s clean up of the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ Commission’s hallmark and error-riddled report is opening new questions about how the report’s authors drew some of its sweeping conclusions about the state of Americans’ health.

“At least 18 of the original report’s citations have been edited or completely swapped out for new references since NOTUS first revealed the errors Thursday morning. While some of the original report’s inconsistencies have been changed, a few of the new updated citations continue to misinterpret scientific studies.”

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Posted in Healthcare | Tagged GOP, Leviathan, Mood Music, Quick Takes | 1 Comment

Implicit Bias Trainings & Racial Harassment

Posted on October 8, 2025 by The Political Hat

For the most part, people generally agree that racial harassment has no place in the workplace. While there are some libertarians who believe that, as deplorable as it may be, it ought not be a government matter, even they generally believe that that racial harassment itself is not morally acceptable. While there is valid concern of such rules going to far, as with stray comments taken out of context or a stray offensive joke or so, an actual hostile environment created with the blessing of the bosses running the show is odious to the vast majority of decent Americans.

Sadly, just such harassment, targeted against one racial group, has been not only pushed by “DEI” loving corporate managers, but even pushed by the Federal government itself: Implicit Bias Trainings, and other such similar training to convince people that Whites have a different way of knowing that was oppressive.

A recent court case, Chislett v. N.Y. City Dep’t of Ed., resulted a hostile work environment claim could go forward when it involved training that caste one race as problematic compared to others, in this case the race being “White”.

From the decision:

The test for a hostile work environment involves “both objective and subjective components: the conduct complained of must be severe or pervasive enough that a reasonable person would find it hostile or abusive, and the victim must subjectively perceive the work environment to be abusive.” … Drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, a rational juror could find that discriminatory conduct at the DOE was sufficiently severe and pervasive to have created a hostile work environment…. Chislett set forth sufficient evidence for a rational juror to find that she was repeatedly exposed to racial harassment at her workplace throughout 2018 and 2019.

First, Chislett presented evidence from which a rational jury could find that racist comments were expressed during bias trainings. For example, instructors mentioned several times that the “values of [w]hite culture are supremacist.” Similarly, during one training session, Ababio-Fernandez, Senior Executive Director of the OEA [DOE’s Office of Equity & Access], declared: “There is white toxicity in the air, and we all breathe it in.” In the sessions, there was persistent messaging to the effect that white culture is generally “[d]efensive[];” “[e]ntitle[d];” “[p]aternalis[tic];” “[p]ower [h]oard[ers];” and “[p]rivilege[d].”

Further, there was physical segregation of white employees and singling out of staff by race during one training session as participants were ordered as to racial privilege associated with whiteness and physically “lined up to reveal the dividing ‘color line of privileges that favored whites.'” Negative generalizations and stereotypes about white people were also targeted specifically at Chislett during the trainings. For instance, during a Q&A session, instructors told Chislett that her “interest in excellence was perfectionism and consistent with white supremacy.” On the question of the objectivity of considering the training environment hostile and abusive, it is pertinent that one of Chislett’s co-workers was similarly upset about the racial generalizations and that another regarded the DOE as “an extremely hostile environment for white individuals.” {[And t]he fact that the purpose of the sessions was to combat race discrimination does not excuse the alleged presence of race discrimination in the conduct of the sessions.}

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Posted in Progressives | Tagged Social Justice | 1 Comment

Government Is Not The Solution

Posted on October 7, 2025 by The Political Hat

Ronald Reagan famously said that government wasn’t the solution; it was the problem. And while the government is not the root of all of life’s problems, it is a more problematic “solution” than the purported problem itself. James Lindsay notes as much, which is quoted in full below due to the limitations of Twitter/X embeds.

Warren Buffett’s late investing partner, Charlie Munger, once said, “Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.” This is one of the most important sentences in English.

It also explains why government can’t solve most problems, why it can’t work for us either.

Anytime you have a problem, you have an incentive. The incentive is to fix it or otherwise get away from it. That’s what it means for it to be a problem, by definition.

Nobody has more incentive than you do to solve your problem. The government has almost zero incentive to solve your problem.

This isn’t because government is broken or corrupt or whatever. It’s much more deeply structural to government itself. It is because you are first person to your problem, and the government is third person to your problem — unless, of course, your problem is a problem for the government (and then, watch out).

You don’t just have an incentive to solve your problem, though.
You have an incentive to solve it well.
You have an incentive to solve it fast.
You have an incentive to solve it cheaply.
You have an incentive to solve it with what you already have if you can.
You also have an incentive to solve it in a way that can scale to other people who have the same problem who can then purchase your solution from you.

“Show me the incentive, and I’ll show you the outcome.”

The government has none of these incentives.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Leviathan | 1 Comment

Secret Digital Unpersoning In Canada

Posted on October 6, 2025 by The Political Hat

Under the purported guise of “cybersecurity” and “telecommunications infrastructure”, Canada would under Bill C8, be able to cut off all telecommunications to a person, force that person to hand over whatever information the government demands, and prohibit said person from saying a word about this to anyone. All it takes in reviewable “reasonableness”; perhaps that is Canada’s stereotypical way of adding “niceness” to its digital police state?

Under a “reasonable” threat, all telecommunications services can be severed:

15.2 (1) If there are reasonable grounds to believe that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation, the Minister may, by order and after consultation with the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and with the persons the Minister considers appropriate,

(a) prohibit a telecommunications service provider from providing any service to any specified person, including a telecommunications service provider; and

(b) direct a telecommunications service provider to suspend providing for a specified period any service to any specified person, including a telecommunications service provider.

Meanwhile… in Canada…

Oh, and the people ordered by the government to do this aren’t allowed to say anything, or indeed is a targeted person allowed to say anything about this:

(3) The order may also include a provision prohibiting the disclosure of its existence, or some or all of its con tents, by any person.

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Posted in Progressives, War & Terror | Tagged Leviathan | 1 Comment

News of the Week (October 5th, 2025)

Posted on October 5, 2025 by The Political Hat

News of the Week for October 5^th, 2025

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Posted in News of the Week | Tagged news | Comments Off

Firing Line Friday: Is the Anti-Terror Bill a Danger to Civil Liberties? Part I

Posted on October 3, 2025 by The Political Hat

In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.

The question of whether certain measures are necessary for safety to protect out liberties or an attack on the same, sparked by recent violence, is nothing new as this discussion on whether a then proposed anti-terror bill is a danger to civil liberties by William F. Buckley, Jr., Steven Emerson, Ira Glasser, Michael E. Kinsley, Victoria Toensing, James J. Zogby, and David Cole demonstrate.

Until next Friday.

Posted in War & Terror | Tagged Firing Line Friday, Leviathan | 1 Comment

Hate Speech & The Left

Posted on October 1, 2025 by The Political Hat

The funny thing about Federalism is that, to a large degree, individual states can play the same type of game as the Federal government or other states… regardless of who is in charge. California just such a case when it comes to free speech issues. The California Legislature Grand Soviet has decided to hold social media platforms liable for not stopping stochastic terrorism when they use content neutral algorithms that might lead to “hate crime” violence. SB 771 reads, as enrolled and in part:

3273.73. (a) A social media platform that violates Section 51.7, 51.9, 52, or 52.1 through its algorithms that relay content to users or aids, abets, acts in concert, or conspires in a violation of any of those sections, or is a joint tortfeasor in a violation of any of those sections, shall, in addition to any other remedy, be liable to a prevailing plaintiff for a civil penalty for each violation sufficient to deter future violations but not to exceed the following:

(1) For an intentional, knowing, or willful violation, a civil penalty of up to one million dollars ($1,000,000).

(2) For a reckless violation, a civil penalty of up to five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000).

(3) If the evidence demonstrates that the platform knew, or should have known, that the plaintiff was a minor, the court may award up to twice the penalties described in this subdivision.

(b) (1) For purposes of this section, deploying an algorithm that relays content to users may be considered to be an act of the platform independent from the message of the content relayed.

(2) A platform shall be deemed to have actual knowledge of the operations of its own algorithms, including how and under what circumstances its algorithms deliver content to some users but not to others.

Notice how they are treating “free speech” as not applying to businesses:

“In light of these trends, the Legislature affirms the urgent need to ensure that California’s civil rights protections apply with equal force in the digital sphere. The purpose of this act is not to regulate speech or viewpoint but to clarify that social media platforms, like all other businesses, may not knowingly use their systems to promote, facilitate, or contribute to conduct that violates state civil rights laws.”

The precedent this sets, if it is allowed to stand is a dangerous one for all involved. Thankfully it runs contrary to very recent prescient from the Supreme Court of the United States:

“Now the law of course already bans aiding and abetting criminal or tortious behavior. But, as the Supreme Court concluded with regard to federal law in Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh (2023), such liability generally requires some special steps on the defendant’s part to aid the illegal actions. In particular, the Court rejected an aiding and abetting claim based on Twitter’s knowingly hosting ISIS material and its algorithm supposedly promoting it, because Twitter didn’t give ISIS any special treatment

“…

“Say a platform’s algorithm delivers content to users that contains threats that are based on political affiliation, race, religion, sexual orientation, etc., just because users have shown an interest in the content (not because of any purposeful desire to promote such threatening content in general). The platform may be liable, on the theory that it is “deemed to have actual knowledge” of what its algorithms do. Likewise if the posts contain threats aimed at interfering with free speech, free exercise of religion, and other rights. And of course if platforms are required (on pain of liability) to take down illegal threats, they will likely also take down other material that they’re worried might be seen as threatening by a future plaintiff, judge, and jury.”

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Posted in Progressives | Tagged Democrats, Leviathan, Social Justice | 1 Comment

The Totalization Of People And State

Posted on September 30, 2025 by The Political Hat

America will be celebrating its quarter-millennial anniversary of its independence this coming year. The Revolutionary War fought to gain that independence was not fought to overturn the extant system, but prevent what had naturally and organically developed from being imposed upon by Europe. Unlike America’s war of independence, the French Revolution, with all its attendant ideas, was the beginning of the death of the Europe that begat the birth of a propositional way of governance that was prospective, only wearing what heritage remained as a skinsuit. Indeed, America may be the last bastion of Western Civilization. But even then, America embodied a tradition that had already began splitting off from continental Europe stemming back from the rejection of the Norman Yoke as evidenced by the Charter of the Forest and the Magna Carta. Yet today we see far too influential people declare that America is Blut und Boden with a shared “heritage” justifying control and power to tyrannically mutate America into something else. This is why America is denigrated as an idea: They want to gut America of its heritage and essence in order to replace it with a foreign idea from foreign people in a foreign land without substantive and ideologically relevant history.

And what types of ideas are being imported? Why, the ideas of one of 20^th Century Europe’s most infamous jurists: Carl Schmitt.

The people embracing Schmitt’s ideas know very well that Schmitt wasn’t so much attacking the enemies of the state (e.g. Commies), but the wickedness of the structure of the state itself. He wanted a new state that was designed to implement his vision; similarly, the people pantomiming his thinking wish to do the same.

“What is one of Schmitt’s primary targets?

“Spoiler alert:

“It’s not Marxists or Communists.

“It’s ‘Constitutional norms’, ‘Democratic Liberalism’, and, ‘checks and balances’.

“For the bulk of the body of the essay is Schmitt attacking the underlying governing system of Germany, rather than the Communists.”

And in so doing, they at least try to be subtle enough for most people not not catch on. They seek not the Rule of Law. In fact, the Rule of Law is anathema to them, for it impedes the law of the “rightful” rulers. Take, for example, the Motte & Bailey use of the term “civil magistrate”. For most this just means “a judge, governor, or government official who keeps law and order”; but their real meaning is “he divinely ordained authority who defines virtue, maintains order for the ethnos, and can override liberal limits when necessary.”

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Posted in Progressives | Tagged Communism, DOOM, Europe, GOP, Leviathan | Comments Off

Digital Big Brother Proposed In Michigan

Posted on September 29, 2025 by The Political Hat

The 1^st Amendment, as a principle, isn’t in the highest fashion these days, and “it’s for the children” excuses are often cover for overreach intended for other targets. Such censorious powers rarefy confine themselves to their original purported goals. The United Kingdom, for example, passed the “Online Safety Act” to allegedly stop minors from viewing naughty things on the internet; it is now being used to censor anything those in charge wish to censor. The U.K. has gone so far as to unveil plans for a “digital ID” that would enable government to track and record all your online activity, this time under the guise of fighting illegal aliens. Such a surveillance state has no limiting principles and will be misused. Sadly, this is not unique to the U.K.

A bill has been proposed in Michigan that goes so far as to not only ban naught pictures and videos, but also transgenders (outside of a narrow category of medical, instruction, or academic/peer-reviewed). This is par of the course, ‘twould seem these days, but this bill goes much, much farther: It establishes a “special internet content enforcement division to audit, investigate, and enforce compliance” against to any website or platform that is viewable within the state as well as ISPs! It even bans the the tools to evade this such as… VPNs!

“The legislation also demands that all websites, platforms, and ISPs operating in Michigan implement 24/7 automated surveillance and censorship systems to detect and remove flagged content immediately.

“Companies would be forced to revise their terms of service to explicitly ban the covered content and comply with real-time enforcement protocols.

“One of the most invasive aspects of the bill is its attack on VPN usage.

“House Bill 4938 would make it illegal to sell or use virtual private networks within Michigan and would require internet providers to block any VPN activity. Fines for violations related to VPN use could reach $500,000.

“VPNs are commonly used to secure online activity, prevent data collection, and protect users on public Wi-Fi. Criminalizing this technology would have widespread consequences for both individuals and businesses.

“While, technologically speaking, banning VPNs would be an almost impossible task, the sentiment is still troubling for free speech supporters.

“The bill makes no distinction between adults and minors when it comes to access. It applies to everyone in the state, regardless of age or consent, giving the government sweeping authority to regulate personal viewing habits, artistic expression, and the content people are allowed to publish or access online.”

With Britain sliding down that slippery slope of digital Big Brother at an exponential pace, we should take care to not make the same mistake.

Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Democrats, GOP, Leviathan, Social Justice, WTF | 1 Comment

The Political Hat

Quick Takes – MAHA: Ghost Studies; Psychic Powers; $1000 Supernatural Blessings (For A Limited Time Only!)

Government Is Not The Solution

Secret Digital Unpersoning In Canada

News of the Week (October 5th, 2025)

Firing Line Friday: Is the Anti-Terror Bill a Danger to Civil Liberties? Part I

The Totalization Of People And State

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