PP NewsBrief: 2021-03-24

We need to begin to reclaim control over the institutions which have such oversized roles in our lives. As you read this people work tirelessly to see to it that you are dumb and docile. Let's stop them.

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Captain America – The Man with Two Brains

"Americans have been overwhelmed with utopian propaganda from infancy, an insidious New Testament heavily loaded with religion and emotion, indoctrinating them with a belief in their own moral superiority endowed upon them by their god, resulting in the Propaganda Mask where they can no longer recognise the vast discrepancy between their ideals and their actions (or the actions of their government). Their evangelical brand of Christianity endows them with the conviction that they are “good” and that all their actions, however evil, are also “good”. It then follows that they compare themselves not to the real world of their actions but only to their programmed utopian ideals. It is logical that Americans appear blind to this stark discrepancy due to the memory impairment when shifting personality states, the explanation lying with Bernays and the ‘on and off’ switch that controls the two brains. The issue is simply that both brains (or personality states) cannot be “ON” at the same time.

The condition and its states are easy to observe. In moments of unthreatening discourse, most any American brain can switch to its reality state and recognise democracy and capitalism for what they are, with all the open sores and unlanced boils readily apparent and heartily condemned. In these unguarded moments, many Americans will release a tide of criticism and moral condemnation of their capitalist system, with at least intuitive if not factual understanding of the criminal character of their corporations and banks, and the fundamentally unjust nature of their legal and judicial systems, as well as the failings of their vaunted multi-party democratic system. They know full well their Wall Street bankers are predatory vampires, that their courts are neither of law nor justice, that their democracy is corrupted beyond redemption, and that most of their politicians and corporate executives belong in prison. They are mostly quite aware of the devastating injustices of their capitalist system, and surprisingly aware of the futility of their great ‘democracy’. It can be startling to see their clarity of vision and harsh judgments of these failings.

But on occasions when these fundamentals are threatened, or when exposed to an emotionally-nourishing propaganda stimulus containing an opportunity to ‘feel good to be an American’, the reality brain switches off, the utopian brain switches on, and we are subjected to a sometimes frighteningly religious flood of nationalistic nonsense. I wrote earlier that much of what we attribute to American hypocrisy may in reality be due to a peculiarly American kind of mass insanity, which would appear to be precisely the case.

No other nation in the world has been exposed to political-religious brainwashing propaganda on such a massive scale. Patriotism in America is neither natural nor spontaneous; it has been planned, programmed and instilled in all Americans from birth, at least all white Americans. It is often so foolish as to be comical and open to ridicule, but simultaneously rather frightening....

...

This is what Lippman and Bernays (and their European masters) did to the American people – reprogrammed an entire nation in equally as brutal a fashion as did the US with the Philippines, and the UK with Hong Kong, in this case creating an entire society of deluded, hysterical, and profoundly sick killer-consumers with a totally fictional history. It is probably fair to say that these men had good and fertile material to work with, a composition of the worst features of Christianity, native ignorance, and insatiable greed, but still we need to give credit where credit is due...."

The author paints with too broad a brush in my opinion, especially in their closing remarks, but there are still some good points worth considering.

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Baker who declined service to gay couple sued for refusing to make ‘gender transition’ cake

"Jack Phillips made national headlines after winning a partial victory in the US Supreme Court in 2018, following a years-long legal battle over his decision to refuse service to the gay couple, who’d wanted a cake for their wedding reception. But now the baker has found himself at the center of another lawsuit, this one brought by Autumn Scardina, a transgender woman.

Scardina tried to order a birthday cake from Phillips in 2017, requesting that it be blue on the outside and pink on the inside to commemorate her gender transition. The order was made on the same day that the Supreme Court announced that it would hear Phillips’ appeal in the gay wedding cake case. She claimed during a virtual court hearing on Monday that she wanted to see if Phillips was being sincere when he argued that he opposed making the gay couple’s cake because it involved a religious ceremony, but that he was open to selling any other type of product.

She insisted that the order was not a “setup,” describing it more as “calling someone’s bluff.”"

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Biden urges ban on ‘assault weapons and high-capacity magazines’ after Boulder attack

"Biden’s remarks were a reference to the 'Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act,' a 10-year ban on “assault weapons” passed in 1994, during the presidency of Bill Clinton. The ban was part of the  Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the Biden Crime Law, that liberal Democrats have since blamed for the mass incarceration that disproportionately affected African-Americans.

While Democrats such as Biden and the ban’s author Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) have claimed that it reduced mass shootings and saved lives, multiple studies have shown it had “no significant effect” in that regard. A 2014 fact-check of Feinstein’s claim by the liberal-leaning Pro Publica concluded there was “no evidence” the 1994 ban actually saved lives.

Gun control advocates and Democrat lawmakers immediately called for another crackdown on firearms as the Boulder shooting unfolded on Monday. The Democrat-majority House of Representatives had already passed a bill to strengthen background checks on March 11, just five days before eight people were killed in a series of shootings in Atlanta, Georgia."

You disarm first.

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The Branch Covidians

"It’s the largest cult that’s ever existed.

One year ago, the entire non-thinking population of the planet—the people who walk through life without questioning much, viewing reality through a warped prism distorted by unimpressive cable news anchors of average intellect—banded together to do what they do best: take orders.

They’re called the Branch Covidians, and as with all other cultists, it doesn’t matter how many false prophecies are spewed by their leaders. In their own minds, they still manage to justify following the directions of the people in charge.

...

Last week, the Branch Covidians learned that the whole “six feet for social distancing” thing was fabricated out of thin air. You know, that guideline that every single business, school, place of worship, or other indoor structure in the entire country that managed to remain open during the pandemic annoyingly forced its occupants to uphold? Indeed, “six feet for social distancing” was one of the four pillars of the Branch Covidians, alongside lockdowns, mask mandates, and scrubbing your hands until your skin falls off.

Will the fact that there was zero scientific evidence for the implementation of that ubiquitous rule fuel some skepticism in the minds of the Branch Covidians? No. Will they abide by the new and equally-unscientific guidelines of “three feet for social distancing”? Undoubtedly....

...

The Branch Covidians, like most cults, allow their high-profile members to have special privileges, which is why John Kerry doesn’t have to wear his mask on an airplane like the rest of the cult. Ordinary Branch Covidians won’t question this obvious double standard. They will do what they do best. Comply.

...

The Branch Covidian cult only differs from typical cults in one way: its leaders are remarkably uncharismatic. Unlike most cults, whose leaders have magnetic personalities, the Branch Covidians are led by losers who are too mundane and uninspiring to lead a knitting club. Perhaps that’s a fortunate silver lining. If Dr. StrangeFlu had the personality of, say, Bono, the Branch Covidians would be begging for even more ritual humiliation.

...

The Branch Covidians can glue their plastic masks to their faces and weld themselves inside their own homes for the rest of their unnatural lives, for all I care. We’re probably better off without them anyway.  

But the next time one of these crazed lunatics gives you a hard time, let him know that you’re not required to participate in their cult rituals, and carry on about your day."

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How China Won the Middle East Without Firing a Single Bullet

"While much media coverage has focused on the US’ pivot to Asia, little has been said about China’s pivot to the Middle East, which has been far more successful as an economic and political endeavor than the American geostrategic shift.

The US’ seismic change in its foreign policy priorities stemmed from its failure to translate the Iraq war and invasion of 2003 into a decipherable geo-economic success as a result of seizing control of Iraq’s oil largesse – the world’s second-largest proven oil reserves. The US strategy proved to be a complete blunder.

In an article published in the Financial Times in September 2020, Jamil Anderlini raises a fascinating point. “If oil and influence were the prizes, then it seems China, not America, has ultimately won the Iraq war and its aftermath – without ever firing a shot,” he wrote.

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This paradigm becomes clearer and more convincing when understood on a global scale. By the end of 2019, China became the world’s leader in terms of diplomacy, as it then boasted 276 diplomatic posts, many of which are consulates. Unlike embassies, consulates play a more significant role in terms of trade and economic exchanges. According to 2019 figures which were published in ‘Foreign Affairs’ magazine, China has 96 consulates compared with the US’ 88. Till 2012, Beijing lagged significantly behind Washington’s diplomatic representation, precisely by 23 posts.

Wherever China is diplomatically present, economic development follows. Unlike the US’ disjointed global strategy, China’s global ambitions are articulated through a massive network, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, estimated at trillions of dollars. When completed, BRI is set to unify more than sixty countries around Chinese-led economic strategies and trade routes. For this to materialize, China quickly moved to establish closer physical proximity to the world’s most strategic waterways, heavily investing in some and, as in the case of Bab al-Mandab Strait, establishing its first-ever overseas military base in Djibouti, located in the Horn of Africa.

...

Some wrongly argue that China’s entire political strategy is predicated on its desire to merely ‘do business’. While economic dominance is historically the main drive of all superpowers, Beijing’s quest for global supremacy is hardly confined to finance. On many fronts, China has either already taken the lead or is approaching there. For example, on March 9, China and Russia signed an agreement to construct the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Considering Russia’s long legacy in space exploration and China’s recent achievements in the field – including the first-ever spacecraft landing on the South Pole-Aitken Basin area of the moon – both countries are set to take the lead in the resurrected space race."

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‘Anti-racism’ training at consulting giant Deloitte warns employees that ‘microaggressions’ are now punishable offenses – reports

"Employees of Deloitte, one of the world’s largest accounting and consulting firms, can reportedly be reprimanded and even fired for “microaggressions” in the workplace, according to new “anti-racism” training.

During the mandatory training, employees were told they must constantly promote an “anti-racist” culture by adhering to “equity” instead of “equality.”

The difference, according to slides from the PowerPoint obtained by the Daily Wire, is that “equity” takes into account the “historical and systemic barriers and privileges” of certain groups, such as white men.

...

Though they acknowledge that microaggressions can be unintentional, one still must be held accountable.

“Racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, intentional or not, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people because of their race,” one of the slides reads.

Examples of racial microaggressions, according to the company, include asking a black co-worker “to join the flag football or basketball team” or commenting that “a person of color was given a role due to their race rather than having earned their role.”"

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H.R. 1 is Nothing But a Massive Democrat Power Grab

"To put it mildly, it is a mind-blowing, brazen attempt by Pelosi and the Democrats to annihilate free and fair elections and place the Republican Party in permanent minority status. Republican attorneys recently echoed the fears of many when they said that, “It is difficult to imagine a legislative proposal more threatening to election integrity and voter confidence [than H.R. 1].”

That perfectly sums up what this bill entails. Photo IDs? Gone. Clean voter rolls? Don’t be ridiculous. Why would any good-hearted person want to take away people’s suffrage just because they happen to be dead?

Election Day? Nope, let’s make it Election Weeks, permanently. To be fair, those lefties need time to manipulate the vote totals to get the right results, and Election Day is such a tight timeframe to pull that off. Ballot harvesting? Let’s legalize that practice in all 50 states because what on earth could possibly go wrong besides voter intimidation and manipulation?

Universal mail-in ballots curated from dirty voter data rolls? Ballots for everyone! Because unlike the French, who banned universal mail-in ballots 45 years ago due to fraud and dead people voting, we’re “more better” and fraud could never, ever happen here.

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With H.R. 1, Democrats would put us outside the norm of most countries in the world. Most countries don’t allow non-citizens to vote in their elections, don’t use electronic voting machines, and don’t have universal mail-in ballots. In fact, 85 percent of European Union nations either require that if someone is in the country for Election Day they must vote in person or, if they are voting by mail, provide a valid photo ID to do it. All of the above things are what mature, advanced civilizations do when they don’t want to become Third World banana republics.

In all seriousness, we do have to acknowledge the fact that the Left used COVID-19 as the rationale to accomplish in 2020 a lot of what they’ve always wanted to do: destroy the American people’s right to self-governance. This is not a mystery. They proposed a lot of the same disastrous measures in the 2019 version of H.R. 1, but experienced little success without the public health scare. But they saw the opportunity in 2020 to use the pandemic as an excuse, made the play, and in reality, for all intents and purposes, enacted H.R. 1 outside of the legislative process."

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Becerra’s Confirmation Underscores the Senate GOP’s Uselessness

"Understandably, you’re probably scratching your head right about now, wondering how on Earth Becerra could be confirmed when the Senate is split 50-50, only 99 senators voted, and the GOP in the upper chamber is, by all accounts, staunchly committed to life, free speech, and religious liberty.

Surely a Republican didn’t put him over the 50-votes threshold?

...

But no! That was too much to ask of the Grand Old Party.

Instead, the Senate GOP let the ghoulish Becerra squeak by without a history-making, tie-breaking vote from Harris, leaving former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as the only cabinet-level nominee who has ever needed a tie-breaking vote from the vice president to be confirmed.

It’s infuriating, unbelievable, and depressing all at once."

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We Don't Need The Great Reset, We Need The Great Rebalancing

"The Great Reset is much in the news--the proposed top-down plan for combating climate change designed by the global elites, who then as now will be jetting around in private aircraft while dictating exactly how the rest of us will reduce our carbon footprints.

My CLIME proposal takes a much different approach: change the way money is created and people are paid to create a new incentive structure that lets people and communities decide how best to reduce energy consumption and waste and address scarcities....

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...money is the key incentive structure, as money is the means to access essential resources.

How you create money determines the outcome: if you create money at the top of the wealth-power pyramid and distribute it to those at the top, the outcome is a destabilizing asymmetry in the distribution of money and thus resources. There is no other possible outcome.

Secondly, how you reward people with money determines the outcome: in the present system, we reward people for creating monopolies and destroying the planet if that maximizes profits, we reward people for expanding the power of authoritarian states and we reward people for wasting resources, designing planned obsolescence into everything so the economy is nothing but a conveyor belt of stuff going through consumers to the landfill: the Landfill Economy.

With these incentives, rewards and process for creating money, the only possible result is a doomed, dysfunctional status quo, what we have now....

...

My proposed CLIME system instantiates the incentives and mechanisms needed to rewire the global economy.

CLIME is the Community Labor Integrated Money Economy. In CLIME, money is created solely to pay people for performing useful work in their community. The only way money can be created in CLIME is to pay people for work the community deems useful and that meets the CLIME standards...

...

It's difficult for many people to imagine a world in which the incentives are to consume as little energy and resources as possible and waste as little as possible, but money and the economy are human constructs: they can be changed at will.

Change the way money is created and people are paid, and you change the incentive structure and thus the outcome.

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...With current technologies, very modest amounts of energy could power a very rich lifestyle if we measure lifestyle not by wasteful consumption but by having enough food to eat, useful work to do, mobility and access to various entertainments.

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From a very basic point of view, the more decentralized options that are available, the better; just as monoculture crops lead to disease and crop failures, so mono-systems lead to extreme vulnerabilities.

The "modern" (infinite growth, maximize profits) impulse is to "fix" the vulnerabilities created by mono-systems with more costly and complex "fixes." Then as these "fixes" trigger more unforeseen consequences, another round of ever-more complex and costly engineering is applied to "fix" the "fix."

This is how systems become so high-energy, high cost and complex that the returns of further investments become ever more marginal, and the system eventually collapses under its own weight."

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Using “Herd Immunity” Excuse for Gene Therapy Vaccine on Kids

"In children and young adults from age birth to 19, the survival rate of COVID-19 is 99.997%.1,2 In most cases, symptoms are mild or nonexistent. Among children who were hospitalized, 0.19% of children died from COVID-19, with researchers concluding in a 2021 study, “Hospitalization and in-hospital death are rare in children diagnosed with COVID-19.”3

Despite the fact that COVID-19 has had little impact, physically, to children, health officials are setting the stage for widespread vaccination of this population. The University of Oxford, which is collaborating on a COVID-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca, is already enrolling children between the ages of 6 years and 17 years and 8 months in their U.K. vaccine trial.4

A COVID vaccine for infants and children is every bit as unnecessary, dangerous and foolish as the hepatitis B vaccine is for infants that I have been railing against for the past two decades.

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The COVID-19 vaccine really isn’t a vaccine in the medical definition of a vaccine. It’s more accurately an experimental gene therapy, of which the effectiveness and safety are far from proven. During the first six weeks the vaccine was available, more than 500 post-vaccination deaths and nearly 11,000 other adverse events were reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).8

According to Children’s Health Defense (CHD), professor Dolores J. Cahill, Ph.D., a molecular biologist and immunologist, “expects to see successive waves of adverse reactions to the experimental messenger RNA (mRNA) injections ranging from anaphylaxis and other allergic responses to autoimmunity, sepsis and organ failure.”

...

Since children themselves have little reason to get a COVID-19 vaccine, health officials are spinning the notion that children must be vaccinated for the sake of herd immunity. Now, they want you to think that not only should you look at the people around you as vectors of disease, but also the children, who could be asymptomatic carriers, silently bringing a deadly disease to grandma’s house.

What’s being largely ignored, however, are the studies showing that children are not driving the COVID-19 pandemic and, in fact, appear less likely to transmit COVID-19 than adults.

...

Another point being largely ignored in the mainstream media is that it’s unknown if the COVID-19 vaccines prevent transmission, putting a major hole in the push for vaccine-driven herd immunity.

Unlike conventional vaccines, which use an antigen of the disease you’re trying to prevent, the COVID-19 injections contain synthetic RNA fragments encapsulated in a nanolipid carrier compound, the sole purpose of which is to lessen clinical symptoms associated with the S-1 spike protein, not the actual virus.

...

At a virtual press conference held by the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 28, 2020, WHO officials warned there is no guarantee that COVID-19 vaccines will prevent people from being infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and transmitting it to other people.

...

While it appears inevitable that the experimental COVID-19 gene therapy injections will soon be pushed on children, considering the many unanswered questions and conflicts in place, some may prefer to put off getting vaccinated against COVID-19 for as long as possible while waiting for the real truth to emerge."

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Credible Government Policy Could End Border Deaths

"When the conversation turns to promoting a more generous federal immigration policy, someone engaged in the discussion will argue that what’s at stake is maintaining the United States’ long history of humanitarianism. “Expansion advocates” are those who invariably argue that restricting immigration is “not who we are.” But the consequences of loose borders, weak interior enforcement, Capitol Hill’s amnesty enticements (and coyotes’ eagerness to profit from them), and D.C.’s limitless craving for more immigration too often lead to the tragic death of innocent migrants.

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The pull factors that motivate migrants to pay exorbitant fees—between $3,000 and $4,000 for Mexican nationals, between $7,000 and $10,000 for Central Americans, and up to $75,000 for Asians—are the high probability of successful entry, the low likelihood of removal, and the possibility that the administration in charge—Republican or Democrat—will reward illegal immigrants with amnesty that will include eventual U.S. citizenship, lifetime valid, legal work authorization, and affirmative benefits. In other words, the biggest, red-ribboned gift any nation has ever awarded for illegal behavior.

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The humane way to handle immigration, and avoid senseless, unnecessary border deaths, is to heed former Texas U.S. Rep. Barbara Jordan’s simple, but eloquent advice. Before the African-American Democrat and civil rights champion Jordan died in 1996, she chaired President Bill Clinton’s U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. When Jordan and her commission completed their years-long study of U.S. immigration, she endorsed a “credible” policy: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave.”

Jordan’s simple sentence should guide Biden away from the border mayhem he’s created, and toward immigration laws that benefit all."

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The Campaign of Lies Against Journalist Jesse Singal—And Why It Matters

"In some notable mobbings chronicled by Quillette, in fact, the targeted dissenter wasn’t even offering an opinion per se, but merely highlighting facts we’re all expected to ignore. James Damore wasn’t fired by Google because he gratuitously insulted women, but because he pointed out real differences between the sexes. In Canadian literary circles, Margaret Atwood became reviled among a progressive fringe when she argued (correctly, as it turns out) that falsely accused novelist Steven Galloway should have received due process before being tarred as a rapist. If you grovel enough, woke mobs might eventually forgive you for being wrong—but never for being right.

...

...a particularly interesting case study centres on Jesse Singal, a mild-mannered and amiable (I’ve met him) New York-based journalist, book author, and podcaster whom Quillette readers may remember from his 2019 appearance on our own show. As early as 2016, well before the culture war over trans rights reached its crescendo, Singal authored a ground-breaking New York magazine exposé on the cynical takedown of eminent Toronto psychologist Dr. Kenneth Zucker (who was subsequently paid more than half a million dollars by his former employer, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, as part of a legal settlement relating to its part in that smear campaign). Two years later, Singal wrote an impeccably researched cover story for the Atlantic titled “When Children Say They’re Trans”—one of the most widely discussed features in the magazine’s recent history. In these articles, and on social media, Singal has dealt with the issue of gender dysphoria with care and sensitivity, documenting the challenges faced by those experiencing the condition. And while he is the furthest thing from an actual transphobe, he acknowledges the plain fact that some children who present as trans later “desist” to an identity that accords with their biological sex.

As anyone who follows this issue closely can guess, Singal’s measured approach doesn’t always sit well with progressive activist and journalistic subcultures, wherein the approved view is that any child’s expression of trans identity must summarily be “affirmed” by parents, educators, and therapists. Within these circles, Singal himself has written, “desistance isn’t viewed as a phenomenon we’ve yet to fully understand and quantify but rather as a myth to be dispelled. Those who raise the subject of desistance are often believed to have nefarious motives—the liberal outlet ThinkProgress, for example, referred to desistance research as ‘the pernicious junk science stalking trans kids’… But the evidence that desistance occurs is overwhelming.”

We know from experienced psychotherapists in this area that children can present as trans for all sorts of reasons, sometimes related to trauma, sexual anxieties, or comorbid mental-health conditions. In some cases, the dysphoria is permanent, but in other cases, it isn’t (which is why the analogy with sexual orientation is misleading). Certainly, the idea that desistance is some kind of transphobic “myth” has now itself been shown to be a myth: In late 2020, British jurists upheld desister Keira Bell’s claim that the country’s Gender Identity Development Service had improperly rushed her through a medical reassignment process, at age 16, without proper safeguards. At the age of 23, Bell now is recovering from the after-effects of these treatments—including a needless double mastectomy—and confronts a lifetime of possible medical complications.

...

So desperate has this campaign of character assassination become that some critics now casually throw in flat-out lies about his personal behaviour. A trans writer and activist named Julia Serano, for instance, accused Singal of “slut-shaming” on the basis that he once linked to Serano’s own Daily Beast article about a trans woman’s frustrations trying to date lesbians. Following the publication of Singal’s Atlantic piece, an enraged Serano expanded the attack, suggesting vaguely that “I know several other trans women who’ve had similarly bad experiences with him.” Samantha Riedel, another trans writer, situated Singal’s work within the machinations of a conspiratorial “closed Google listserv,” in which a “pernicious and concerted” cabal of “elite cisgender media figures” seek to prevent authentic trans narratives from emerging. On no real evidence except the aforementioned accusations from Serano, Riedel then went on to claim that “Singal has a bizarre history of antagonism with trans women who attempt to correct his inaccurate statements.” (There was also a link to a since-deleted anonymous claim that, as Riedel quoted the defunct source, “any trans people considering being a source for Singal [should] proceed with your guard up, as he will likely treat you more like a science experiment.”)

...

When they receive pushback on their Twitter threads about Singal’s non-existent crimes, many of these activists will add self-pitying flourishes, describing themselves as oppressed truth-tellers, beaten down by pro-Singal trolls, and gutted by the fear that they will never get a fair hearing for their tales of perfidy. Some will make their accounts private, or even go dark altogether for a period. And yet for all their passive aggressive tactics, every single mob member listed above has their own prominent media or corporate platform from which to continue spouting misinformation. And none, to my knowledge, has suffered any substantial consequences for engaging in what those outside this cultish milieu will recognize as a malicious and willfully dishonest propaganda campaign.

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One reason I’ve highlighted the outsized influence of Singal’s critics is that their large social media followings serve to distort our understanding of views within the trans community—most of which, by my observation, is populated by perfectly reasonable and fair-minded people who would be just as disgusted by the onslaught of lies directed at Singal as anyone else. These include Quillette-published activists such as Scott Newgent, Buck Angel, and Debbie Hayton, all of whom understand that, in formulating policy, the rights of trans individuals to live in safety and dignity must be balanced against the rights of other groups. Too often, their voices are drowned out by those who view the issue of trans rights through the Manichean lens of blessed dogma and wicked heresy.

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As noted above, there is a certain ruthless logic to the way progressive mobs choose their targets. Singal attracts uniquely vicious lies because he is seen as a uniquely high-value target: His bylines have been featured in publications that mob members themselves grudgingly admit as influential and prestigious. He is not some Tucker Carlson type, speaking to conservatives within their own silos, but rather a liberal whose words are read by other liberals. Like all cults, this one despises the learned apostate far more than the ignorant unbeliever.

Yet Singal is also properly seen as a vulnerable target—because he is a freelancer whose most widely read work is commissioned at the pleasure of editors who have their own reputations to protect. And like most of these editors, Singal is sensitive to the lies that now pollute every Google search of his name—for he knows that at least some of his friends and colleagues will believe them."

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Health officials investigating 'white woman only' job posting by Canadian hospital

"Canadian health officials are investigating a Quebec hospital over a recent job posting asking for a candidate with “white skin” to help with a patient who refused service from people of color.

A handful of emails sent out by Saint-Eustache Hospital in Montreal in November, obtained by La Presse, describe the patient in question as “difficult” and ask that “white women only” apply to be their carer.

“This situation is totally unacceptable in our eyes. That is evident. We have immediately opened an internal investigation,” Rosemonde Landry, head of the Laurentians public health agency, told La Presse about the job posting, which was handled by four employees in the hospital’s human resources department.

Landry added that the patient has cognitive issues and becomes agitated in the presence of people of color, but this does not excuse the job posting."

The patient should come before virtue signalling.

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DOJ Official: Evidence to Charge Sedition in Storming of Capitol

"Federal investigators have found evidence that would likely allow the government to file sedition charges against some of those involved in the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, a Justice Department official told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday.

"I believe the facts do support those charges," said acting U.S. Attorney Michael Sherwin for the District of Columbia. "I think that, as we go forward, more facts will support that.""

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The Sovietization of the American Press

"The most Soviet of the recent efforts didn’t have a classically Soviet headline. “Comedians are struggling to parody Biden. Let’s hope this doesn’t last,” read the Washington Post opinion piece by Richard Zoglin, arguing that Biden is the first president in generations who might be “impervious to impressionists.” Zoglin contended Biden is “impregnable” to parody, his voice being too “devoid of obvious quirks,” his manner too “muted and self-effacing” to offer comedians much to work with....

...

Forget that the “impregnable to parody” pol spent the last campaign year jamming fingers in the sternums of voters, challenging them to pushup contests, calling them “lying dog-faced pony soldiers,” and forgetting what state he was in. Biden, on the day Zoglin ran his piece, couldn’t remember the name of his Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and referred to the Department of Defense as “that outfit over there”...

It doesn’t take much looking to find comedians like James Adomian and Anthony Atamaniuk ab-libbing riffs on Biden with ease. He checks almost every box as a comic subject, saying inappropriate things, engaging in wacky Inspector Clouseau-style physical stunts (like biting his wife’s finger), and switching back and forth between outbursts of splenetic certainty and total cluelessness. The parody doesn’t even have to be mean — you could make it endearing cluelessness. But to say nothing’s there to work with is bananas.

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When Biden decided not to punish Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the murder of Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi on the grounds that the “cost” of “breaching the relationship with one of America’s key Arab allies” was too high, the New York Times headline read: “Biden Won’t Penalize Saudi Crown Prince Over Khashoggi’s Killing, Fearing Relations Breach.” When Donald Trump made the same calculation, saying he couldn’t cut ties because “the world is a very dangerous place” and “our relationship is with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the paper joined most of the rest of the press corps in howling in outrage.

“In Extraordinary Statement, Trump Stands With Saudis Despite Khashoggi Killing.” was the Times headline, in a piece that said Trump’s decision was “a stark distillation of the Trump worldview: remorselessly transactional, heedless of the facts, determined to put America’s interests first, and founded on a theory of moral equivalence.” The paper noted, “Even Mr. Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill expressed revulsion.”

This week, in its “Crusader for the Poor” piece, the Times described Biden’s identical bin Salman decision as mere evidence that he remains “in the cautious middle” in his foreign policy. The paper previously had David Sanger dig up a quote from former Middle East negotiator Dennis Ross, who “applauded Mr. Biden for ‘trying to thread the needle here… This is the classic example of where you have to balance your values and your interests.’” It’s two opposite takes on exactly the same thing.

...

This format isn’t all that different from the one we had before, except in one respect: without the superficial requirement to tend to a two-party balance, the hagiography in big media organizations flies out of control. These companies already tend to wash out people who are too contentious or anti-establishment in their leanings. Promoted instead, as even Noam Chomsky described a generation ago, are people with the digestive systems of jackals or monitor lizards, who can swallow even the most toxic piles of official nonsense without blinking. Still, those reporters once had to at least pretend to be something other than courtiers, as it was considered unseemly to openly gush about a party or a politician.

...

We now know in advance that every Biden address will be reviewed as historic and exceptional. It was only a mild shock to see Chris Wallace say Biden’s was the "the best inaugural address I have ever heard.” More predictable was Politico saying of Thursday night’s address that “it is hard to imagine any other contemporary politician making the speech Biden did… channeling our collective sorrow and reminding us that there is life after grief.” (Really? Hard to imagine any contemporary politician doing that?).

This stuff is relatively harmless. Where it gets weird is that the move to turn the bulk of the corporate press in the “moral clarity” era into a single party organ has come accompanied by purges of the politically unfit. In the seemingly endless parade of in-house investigations of journalists, paper after paper has borrowed from the Soviet style of printing judgments and self-denunciations, without explaining the actual crimes."

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Here Are the Main Takeaways From Senate Hearing on Team-Left Equality Act

"In a Senate hearing Wednesday, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle had a debate over a bill that would make gender identity and sexual orientation protected under federal law.

The bill, titled the Equality Act, is one of Biden’s top priorities during his first 100 days in office: “no one should ever face discrimination or live in fear because of who they are or whom they love.”

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By expanding the definition of sex under federal law to include gender identity and sexual orientation, the Act eliminates women-only spaces like locker rooms, restrooms, sororities and athletic teams, Hyde-Smith noted. This would give a green light to men with violent intentions to victimize women.

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Supporters of the bill argued that the legislation would not have negative impacts on women, rather it would just provide everyone with the same protections.

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Team-right lawmakers argued that the future of women’s sports will go down the drain.

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“Biological sex matters in law, medicine and for many of us, in the practice of our faith,” Mary Rice Hasson, a Catholic studies fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center said. “The Equality Act goes where no federal law has gone before.”

Lawmakers argued the bill threatens religious organizations by removing protection provided by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993."

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The Art of Survival, Taoism and the Warring States

"A common thread within most discussions of surviving bad times--especially really bad times--runs more or less like this: stockpile a bunch of canned/dried food and other valuable accoutrements of civilized life (generators, tools, canned goods, firearms, etc.) in a remote area far from urban centers, and then wait out the bad times, all the while protecting your stash with an array of weaponry and technology (night vision binocs, etc.)

Now while I respect and admire the goal, I must respectfully disagree with just about every assumption behind this strategy. Once again, this isn't because I enjoy being ornery (please don't check on that with my wife) but because everything in this strategy runs counter to my own experience in rural, remote settings.

You see, when I was a young teen my family lived in the mountains. To the urban sophisticates who came up as tourists, we were "hicks" (or worse), and to us they were "flatlanders" (derisive snort).

Now the first thing you have to realize is that we know the flatlanders, but they don't know us. They come up to their cabin, and since we live here year round, we soon recognize their vehicles and know about how often they come up, what they look like, if they own a boat, how many in their family, and just about everything else which can be learned by simple observation.

...

Now if he doesn't know any better, then the flatlander reckons his stash is safe. But what he's not realizing if that we know about his stash and his vehicle and whatever else can be observed. If some locals want that stash, then they'll wait for the flatlander to leave and then they'll tow the RV off or break into the cabin, or if it's small enough, disassemble it and haul it clean off. There's plenty of time, and nobody's around. That's pretty much the ideal setting for leisurely thieving: a high-value stash of goodies in a remote area accessible by road is just about perfect.

Let's say things have gotten bad, and the flatlander is burrowed into his cabin. Eventually some locals will come up to visit; in a truck if there's gas, on foot if there isn't. We won't be armed; we're not interested in taking the flatlander's life or goodies. We just want to know what kind of person he is. So maybe we'll ask to borrow his generator for a town dance, or tell him about the church food drive, or maybe ask if he's seen so-and-so around.

Now what's the flatlander going to do when several unarmed men approach? Gun them down? Once he's faced with regular unarmed guys, he can't very well conclude they're a threat and warn them off. But if he does, then we'll know he's just another selfish flatlander. He won't get any help later when he needs it; or it will be minimal and grudging. He just counted himself out.

Suppose some bad guys hear about the flatlander's hideway and stash. All it takes to stalk any prey is patience and observation; and no matter how heavily armed the flatlander is, he'll become vulnerable at some point to a long-range shot. (Even body armor can't stop a headshot or a hit to the femoral artery in the thigh.) Maybe he stays indoors for 6 days, or even 60. But at some point the windmill breaks or the dog needs walking or what have you, and he emerges--and then he's vulnerable. The more visible and stringent the security, the more he's advertising the high value of his depot.

...

So creating a high-value horde in a remote setting is looking like just about the worst possible strategy in the sense that the flatlander has provided a huge incentive to theft/robbery and also provided a setting advantageous to the thief or hunter.

If someone were to ask this "hick" for a less risky survival strategy, I would suggest moving into town and start showing a little generosity rather than a lot of hoarding. If not in town, then on the edge of town, where you can be seen and heard.

I'd suggest attending church, if you've a mind to, even if your faith isn't as strong as others. Or join the Lions Club, Kiwanis or Rotary International, if you can get an invitation. I'd volunteer to help with the pancake breakfast fundraiser, and buy a couple tickets to other fundraisers in town. I'd mow the old lady's lawn next door for free, and pony up a dollar if the elderly gentleman in line ahead of me at the grocery store finds himself a dollar light on his purchase.

If I had a parcel outside town that was suitable for an orchard or other crop, I'd plant it, and spend plenty of time in the local hardware store and farm supply, asking questions and spreading a little money around the local merchants. I'd invite my neighbors into my little plain house so they could see I don't own diddly-squat except some second-hand furniture and a crappy old TV. And I'd leave my door open so anyone could see for themselves I've got very little worth taking.

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My valuable things, like the water filter, are kept hidden amidst all the low-value junk I keep around to send the message there's nothing worth looking at. The safest things to own are those which are visibly low-value, surrounded by lots of other mostly worthless stuff.

I'd claim a spot in the community garden, or hire a neighbor to till up my back yard, and I'd plant chard and beans and whatever else my neighbors suggested grew well locally. I'd give away most of what I grew, or barter it, or maybe sell some at the farmer's market. It wouldn't matter how little I had to sell, or how much I sold; what mattered was meeting other like-minded souls and swapping tips and edibles.

...

Because the best protection isn't owning 30 guns; it's having 30 people who care about you. Since those 30 have other people who care about them, you actually have 300 people who are looking out for each other, including you. The second best protection isn't a big stash of stuff others want to steal; it's sharing what you have and owning little of value. That's being flexible, and common, the very opposite of creating a big fat highly visible, high-value target and trying to defend it yourself in a remote setting.

I know this runs counter to just about everything that's being recommended by others, but if you're a "hick" like me, then you know it rings true. The flatlanders are scared because they're alone and isolated; we're not scared. We've endured bad times before, and we don't need much to get by. We're not saints, but we will reciprocate to those who extend their good spirit and generosity to the community in which they live and in which they produce something of value."

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‘Vaccine Secrets’: What Parents Should Know Before They Vaccinate Their Kids

"When it comes to vaccines, the prevailing narrative is that they are a modern miracle.

But what if that isn’t true? What if vaccines are potentially more dangerous to some people than the diseases they were designed to prevent?

“Vaccine Secrets,” an animated video, explores these questions and more. The video was created by parents who followed the rules. They vaccinated their children according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s schedule.

These parents thought they were doing the right thing, that they were protecting their children. Sadly, they learned they had done just the opposite."

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A Year into Pandemic, Veterans Halls 'Barely Hanging' On

"Paul Guilbeault knew the writing was on the wall for the last Veterans of Foreign Wars post in this city south of Boston when businesses across Massachusetts were ordered to close as the coronavirus pandemic took hold last March.

Within six months, the 90-year-old Korean War vet was proven right. VFW Post 3260 in New Bedford, a chapter of the national fraternity of war vets established in 1935, had surrendered its charter and sold the hall to a church.

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Local bars and halls run by VFW and American Legion posts — those community staples where vets commiserate over beers and people celebrate weddings and other milestones — were already struggling when the pandemic hit. After years of declining membership, restrictions meant to slow the spread of COVID-19 became a death blow for many.

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In many states, veterans posts were ordered to close like other bars and event halls last spring. Their supporters argued that the spaces serve a greater community purpose than their for-profit counterparts and should have been allowed to reopen sooner.

They say many posts quickly pivoted their community service efforts to respond to the pandemic. In Lakeview, Michigan, VFW Post 3701 made hundreds of masks for workers and operated blood drives with the Red Cross. In Queens, New York, American Legion Post 483 ran a food pantry that fed thousands. And posts from Connecticut to North Carolina have been hosting vaccine registration drives and clinics.

The closure of some halls and bars also means vets dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and other wartime trauma have lost a critical safe space amid an isolating pandemic, leaders say.

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How many vets halls and bars have permanently shuttered or risk closure because of the pandemic is hard to quantify.

The national VFW and American Legion organizations say the number of posts that dissolved completely last year was at or lower than prior years. But the organizations say they do not track bars and halls because they are locally controlled.

Many posts, they say, do not run halls or bars. Still, both organizations launched emergency grant programs last fall, doling out thousands of dollars to hundreds of posts to help cover facility costs and other expenses.

...

...like VFW posts nationwide, the New Bedford hall struggled to draw new members. In the '60s, it had more than 1,000 paying members; by last year, it had roughly 100, the majority in their 70s and 80s.

“The stigma of just being a bar is hard to overcome,” said Delfino Garcia, the post’s last commander. “Younger vets want something different. You’ve got to be more family-oriented. You’ve got to make it more hospitable. VFWs are struggling to adapt to that new reality.”"

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COVID Restrictions to Remain in Place For Years, Says Public Health Official

"Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said the measures would remain in place while other countries complete their vaccination programs, a process likely to take years.

“People have got used to those lower-level restrictions now, and people can live with them, and the economy can still go on with those less severe restrictions in place,” said Ramsay.

“So I think certainly for a few years, at least until other parts of the world are as well vaccinated as we are, and the numbers have come down everywhere, that is when we may be able to go very gradually back to a more normal situation,” she added.

The doctor said that so long as people continue to be infected, the rules won’t be abolished."