Posts Tagged ‘feminism’

LinkSwarm For January 12, 2024

Friday, January 12th, 2024

Superman gets tired of Iran’s catspaws tugging on his cape, the Biden Recession has both inflation and budget deficits soaring, another polar vortex barrels down on Texas, and the crazy-eyed girlfriend of a corrupt Democrat shows up on the Epstein list. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen just had to keep fucking around, so now they’ve found out.

    The U.S. and Britain launched air strikes in Yemen on Thursday in response to the Iran-backed Houthis’ recent attacks against vessels in the Red Sea.

    The strikes came hours after White House national-security spokesman John Kirby called on the Houthis to “stop these attacks” and warned that the group would “bear the consequences for any failure to do so.”

    The militants have launched 27 attacks on vessels in the Red Sea since November 19, the U.S. military said earlier on Thursday. The group says the attacks are in protest of the Israel–Hamas war.

    The retaliatory strikes targeted a source of the group’s attacks, Bloomberg News reported, noting that heavy explosions were seen in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Al Hudaydah. The attacks were carried out with support from Australia, the Netherlands, Bahrain, and Canada, while the U.K. contributed aircraft.

    President Biden confirmed the strikes in a statement on Thursday evening, explaining that the action was “in direct response to unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea — including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.”

    “These attacks have endangered U.S. personnel, civilian mariners, and our partners, jeopardized trade, and threatened freedom of navigation,” he said, noting that more than 50 countries had been impacted by the attacks on commercial shipping, while crews from more than 20 countries have been threatened or taken hostage in acts of piracy.

    “More than 2,000 ships have been forced to divert thousands of miles to avoid the Red Sea — which can cause weeks of delays in product shipping times. And on January 9, Houthis launched their largest attack to date — directly targeting American ships,” Biden said.

    Suchomimus has taken a break from his Ukraine war work to do a video on the strike:

    Plus another one on the locations hit:

    Is there a Habitual Linecrosser video for this strike? Yes, yes there is:

  • The Biden Recession bites even deeper, with higher inflation and record food prices. And those are just the official numbers. Food inflation seems a hell of a lot higher than official numbers are letting on…
  • Plus the U.S. budget deficit soared 50% in December.
  • Trump prosecutor Fani Willis hired the married man she was committing adultery with to help prosecute Trump.

    Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis appointed a former romantic partner to lead the prosecution against the former president and his associates, a former Trump campaign official and co-defendant alleged in a court filing late Monday.

    “The district attorney and the special prosecutor have been seen in private together in and about the Atlanta area and believed to have co-habited in some form or fashion at a location owned by neither of them,” the court document submitted by Michael Roman’s legal representatives argues. Roman served briefly as a special assistant and researcher to President Trump.

    The submission does not offer any explicit proof of the DA’s connection to special prosecutor Nathan Wade, but instead claims “sources close to both the special prosecutor and the district attorney have confirmed they had an ongoing, personal relationship.” Wade was paid over half a million dollars throughout his involvement in the Trump election-interference case, which Willis has overseen and authorized.

    How long until the radical left argues that it’s perfectly normal with elected black female Democrats like Fani Willis and Kamala Harris to commit adultery with other Democrats to further their career, and it’s just those right-wing troglodytes who are hung up over it?

  • “Ex-girlfriend of disgraced NJ Sen. Bob Menendez took part in orgies with Jeffrey Epstein and victim Virginia Giuffre.” Before dropping one of those “that’s hot” comments, you might want to look Bob’s dirty, dirty girlfriend with her crazy, crazy eyes. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • And speaking of hoes, has feminism and “hoeflation” destroyed the west?

    It’s a problem in the western world that is rarely discussed in the media beyond puff-piece articles and glancing polls that avoid connecting the dots. The precipitous decline of dating, committed relationships and marriage along with a flatline in population in the past couple decades in the US is treated as a novelty issue rather than the threat to the stability of civilization that it actually is. History shows that without the traditional family structure, numerous ugly societal consequences follow.

    One could argue, though, that the situation is far worse than that. We may be heading into a future where families become a novelty, and many argue that the root cause is feminism and the hyperinflated delusions of progressive women.

    In order to understand the problem we have to look at the stats.

    More than 50% of American women are still childless by age 30. By age 35 fertility goes into steep decline with women having a 15% chance of becoming pregnant, and a less than 5% chance of motherhood at age 40. Meaning, the best window of opportunity for women to find a compatible partner and build a family is in their 20s.

    Feminists argue, though, that this is the time in a woman’s life when they should be building a career and having fun. Family life, they say, is an artificial prison “created by the patriarchy” in order to oppress the fairer sex. Corporate media and Hollywood entertainment often reinforce this narrative and encourage unrealistic life goals.

    The propaganda has generated what many refer to as the “Female Happiness Paradox.” Surveys show that increased power, job access and responsibility for women in society since the 1970s has also led to a diametrically opposed decline in overall happiness for those same women. The correlation suggests the exact opposite of what feminism originally promised and that the ideology has been a net negative.

    Though some will argue that a general decline in economic conditions is the real cause, surveys show that women have suffered a far more pronounced drop in happiness compared to men. Meaning, men were already acclimated to the struggles of the workaday world and their roles as providers and protectors. Women were happy until they joined men in the trenches.

    For men, the reaction has been to back away from the dating scene and the double standards involved. Over 63% of men under the age of 30 are now single; that’s up from 51% in 2019. The majority of single men say this is by choice and that they are seeking to avoid relationships altogether. Why? The consensus appears to be that modern western women cost too much money and cause too much trouble.

    Fear of failed marriage is one aspect that has the younger generation of men on edge, with family courts still largely in favor of women in divorce settlements and child custody. This is one reason why marriage rates have declined by 60% since the 1970s. However, the obstacles go well beyond divorce and into a new culture of female entitlement.

    The word on the street is “Hoeflation”: The dramatic increase in cost for men today to maintain a relationship with a woman while the quality of women continues to go down. That is to say, it is an increase in female expectations vs what they bring to the table in a relationship.

    In other words, women of the past used to have something to offer beyond sexual companionship, from greater femininity, greater potential for motherhood, less combativeness and narcissism, as well as a superior ability to raise children and maintain a home. Such traits are highly attractive to men even after 60 years of widespread feminism, but are seen as non-existent among women under 30 in 2023.

    It should be noted that “Hoeflation” seems to be directly linked to progressive influences, and not all women fall into this category. Unfortunately, around 71% of young women identify with progressive beliefs, as opposed to young men who are only 53% progressive. It should also be noted that progressive today means something a lot different from what it meant in the 1990s (progressive now means woke, or extreme leftist cultism).

  • Taiwan is having a presidential election.
  • Speaking of “too damn much foreign news this week,” Ecuador has exploded in a drug war.

    Terrified journalists being forced to kneel in a TV studio by gunmen pointing high-powered weapons at their heads as the cameras rolled, police officers pleading for their lives after being kidnapped on duty.

    The scenes which have unfolded in Ecuador show the extent to which this once peaceful haven in Latin America has descended into violence.

    Snip.

    Ecuador’s president, Daniel Noboa, has ordered the armed forces to restore order in the country after days of unrest which saw two gang leaders escape from jail, prison guards held hostage, and explosive devices set off in a number of cities across the country.

    In the most dramatic attack, a group of armed men forced their way into the studios of TC Television in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, and tried to force one of the presenters to read out a message live on air.

    The gunmen were eventually overpowered by soldiers and have been arrested but the live footage of the stand-off between the hooded men and the armed forces while TC staff cowered on the floor has terrified Ecuadoreans.

  • “Ohio House Votes to Override DeWine’s Veto of Bill Banning Child Gender Medicalization.” An Ohio senate vote on overriding the veto is scheduled for January 24. Second Amendment victory: ” In Stunning About-Face, 9th Circuit Prohibits California from Banning Concealed Carry in Public Places.”

    From the court’s Order Granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction:

    California will not allow concealed carry permitholders to effectively practice what the Second Amendment promises. [The new law’s] coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court. The law designates twenty-six categories of places, such as hospitals, public transportation, places that sell liquor for on-site consumption, playgrounds, parks, casinos, stadiums, libraries, amusement parks, zoos, places of worship, and banks, as “sensitive places” where concealed carry permitholders cannot carry their handguns. SB2 turns nearly every public place in California into a “sensitive place,” effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public.

    Slowly but surely, Bruen is stopping the gun grabbers dead in their tracks.

  • “Director of ‘Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence,’ Caught With Illegal Guns, Sentenced To Prison…Michael Rodriguez, 49, the now-former director of “Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence” was sentenced to ten years in state prison following his arrest last summer on drug and gun charges.”
  • Rand Paul declares himself Never Nikki.
  • Our government in action: “Big Gov’t Raids Small Amish Farmer Who Refuses To Participate In The Industrial Meat/Milk Complex.”
  • “‘A Significant Shift’: Blue Collar Democrats Switching To Republican In ‘Deep Purple’ Pennsylvania.”

    Nearly 59,000 registered Pennsylvania Democrats left the party in 2023; that makes more voters than fans needed to fill the capacity of the Franklin Field Football Stadium at the University of Pennsylvania.

    Of those nearly 59,000 who left the Democratic Party, 36,950 switched to the Republican party, and 21,644 switched their party affiliation to “other,” the category the Pennsylvania Department of State uses in its data to cover parties such as Green and Libertarian.

    “As the Democrat Party tilts further to the progressive left, more historically traditional, working-class families are moving to the Republican Party, both in terms of how they vote and how they’re registered,” conservative political strategist Charlie Gerow told the Epoch Times.

    Faster, please.

  • That’s one reason why Democrats want to put an abortion referendum on the ballot in November to drive Democrat turnout. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Scary traffic controller incompetence via Instapundit:

    DTO is the airport for Denton, Texas, a college town northwest of Fort Worth.

  • “Georgia Tech researchers claim they have created ‘the world’s first functional semiconductor made from graphene.’ Importantly, the research team’s epitaxial graphene is claimed to be compatible with conventional microelectronics processing methods and is thus a realistic silicon alternative. Moreover, this refined material achieves a desirable band gap for electronics applications and has latent potential for future quantum computing devices.” Higher band gap is necessary for switching a circuit from on to off; it’s what puts the “semi” in “semiconductors.”
  • The upper Midwest needs to get ready for the cicadapocalypse.

    Billions of insects are predicted to burst out of the ground in the United States during late spring, in an event which hasn’t happened for more than 200 years.

    The red-eyed, winged insects called periodical cicadas, emerge in 13 to 17-year cycles and are completely harmless.

    In 2024, two of these groups – called Brood XIII (meaning 13) and Brood XIX (19) – are predicted to burst from the ground together for the first time since 1803.

    The US states of Wisconsin and Illinois will be mainly affected as billions of the bugs making a loud clicking noise will fill the air, cover branches, sign posts and pavements for about a month later this year.

    Interesting how the BBC feels it has to explain what Roman numerals mean…

  • “Three Austin Police Department (APD) SWAT officers have been cleared by a Travis County grand jury following a deadly shooting last year.” As well they should be. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Another day, another machete wielding lunatic keeping Austin weird. Steve Adler may be out of office, but his legacy lives on…
  • “Scooter injuries nearly tripled across the U.S. from 2016 to 2020, with a concurrent increase in severe injuries requiring orthopedic and plastic surgery over the same period.”
  • The Texans host a playoff game tomorrow after winning three games each in the previous two seasons. But ESPN hates rookie quarterback phenom C. J. Stroud giving all the glory to God.
  • Darth Hoodie leaves the Patriots. Plus…
  • Nick Saban retires. That’s a lot of turnover among legendary winners in one week…
  • Echo: “When it comes to casting roles like this, you usually have to choose between fighters who can’t act, or actors who can’t fight. But unfortunately, Alaqua Cox can’t seem to do either…Because she can’t speak, she really needs to sell the performance with her body language and facial expressions. The problem is, she doesn’t seem to have any.”
  • “Alabama man strips buck naked, cannonballs into Bass Pro Shop aquarium, knocks himself unconscious.”
  • “History Made As United Airlines Reveals First All-Dachshund Flight Crew.” It really would be an adorable way to die…
  • Japanese Boobs 1, Feminists 0

    Saturday, June 18th, 2022

    From Japan comes the heartwarming story of radical feminists being defeated by the holy power of boobs:

    No country is too far from the grasp of social justice values to try to take hold, and sure enough, the country of Japan has been enduring its own attempts by the far left to infiltrate and take over the culture.

    Particularly, a feminist movement in Japan had been growing within it, but it would appear that the young women it was attempting to seduce are rejecting it thanks to several factors, but one of them is their breasts.

    Visual Aid

    No, I’m not kidding.

    According to Datosjam, feminists are losing ground in the land of the rising sun due to the fact that the movement is attacking women. Just like in the west, woke culture is attempting to eliminate femininity and make being a woman seem weak and problematic. It’s a narrative that has found a ton of success in the west thanks to decades of pushing it through mainstream culture, but in Japan, this narrative is failing.

    Another Visual Aid

    Apparently, Japanese women like their femininity. Specifically, their feminine bodies which the feminist movement over there is attempting to shame women for. Particularly their breasts.

    Yet Another Visual Aid

    An article by Japanese writer Raiden Bell described how feminists were attacking women with large breasts and telling them that in order to be less discriminatory with gender they would have to hide them.

    Hide large breasts? What happened to “My body, my choice?”

    Still another visual aid of what Japanese feminists evidently hate

    One of the controversies prompting an exodus occurred when an image posted by a business on social media using free advertisement images given to them by Japanese model Saya Akane caused an uproar. Feminists claimed that the image highlighted Akane’s breasts. The image actually shows no emphasis on her breasts. She is in modest office casual clothing and is speaking on a phone. Akane just happens to have a larger than normal breast size.

    The girl that evidently has feminists all hot and bothered.

    “Aren’t they crushing diversity in an attempt to embrace diversity?” asked Akane.

    Feminists went so far as to suggest that she reduce her breasts surgically and that not doing so is “selling your sex.” They hurled insults at her such as calling her a “typical penis-loving woman without honor” and “trying to take advantage of men’s sexual desires.”

    As woke culture has attempted to push on us here in the west, a woman attempting to appeal to the male gaze is the height of sin for a woman.

    Moreover, Japanese feminists have declared that larger breasts are “deformed” and “associated with mental disability.”

    I’m not seeing any deformity here.

    That was a bit too much for Japanese women who began rejecting the feminist movement and began stating that the constant criticisms are enough to move away from the movement. Funny enough, it didn’t stop there, and further rejection of feminism came from its criticism of an unlikely source.

    Manga artists tend to draw women with tiny waists and larger breasts, or at the very least, they tend to draw women in ways that make them more sexually appealing than normal. Feminists in Japan are naturally angry about this, but interestingly, data shows that around 70 percent of manga artists are women according to the article. Moreover, the majority of these artists are in their 20s and 30s.

    Warrior against wokeness

    To be anti-breast is to not only be anti-woman, but anti-human.

    Hey! You! Feminists! Leave those breasts alone!

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

    LinkSwarm for 11/26/21

    Friday, November 26th, 2021

    I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Enjoy a Black Friday LinkSwarm!

    

  • Kurt Schlichter says that the Kyle Rittenhouse case has redpilled a whole lot of normies:

    ou know, a few more rampages by inept alleged “white supremacists” like Kyle Rittenhouse – he only managed to shoot white criminals! – and everybody is going to be thoroughly awakened to the reality of the leftist scam. The trial that followed the Kenosha Kid’s act of social hygiene constituted only one tab in the big bottle of scarlet pills America’s been force-fed lately. Others include being confronted at work with mandates for vaxes that don’t act as advertised, as well as being inundated with racist CRT garbage, and having one’s kids come home from school with creepy porno crap that makes you wonder if they hit up the Lincoln Project lending library.

    There are more pills going on than in Hunter’s medicine cabinet.

    Why the festival of figurative pharmaceuticals? Because the left got out over its skis. It went too far, too fast, and now normal folks who just want to live their lives and usually show no interest in political/cultural controversies are showing up at school board meetings asking why the hell their kids are accusing them of slavery. Combined with a crusty old pervert in the White House who is causing economic inflation and international humiliation, and the left is in trouble. Deep trouble. See, the truth is getting out despite the media’s lies. Its pet political party is looking at being demolished next November. But instead of slowing down and taking stock, the Marxists are doubling down on failure knowing they only have their micro-majorities for a year. This genius strategy got them Glenn Youngkin and will get them many more based pols who are many times more hardcore.

    It is only going to get worse for them, which means it is only going to get better for America.

    Remember, leftism only succeeds when surrounded by a fog of lies. When the fog lifts, people reject it. And the media pumped out all the fog it could. There were people who literally did not know the collection of criminals and/or perverts Kyle exorcised were as white as Mitt Romney at a Cure concert. Really. That was the media’s doing, lying that the only reason Kyle didn’t want to have his brains bashed in by these scumbags was his pallor and reporting that nonsense accordingly. But when people watched the trial, they saw something entirely different from what they had been fed by the Enemy of the People, and it stuck. People were shocked – not people like us who are fully woke to the fact the media is nothing more than a collection of semi-literate, poorly-paid hack transcriptionists for the liberal elite – to see that they were being lied to, and hard. Not little lies. Not careless errors. No, these were calculated, intentional lies designed to push the party line. And their lies were revealed to all in that Kenosha courtroom.

    The liberal champions were Binger and Lunchbox, the Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumbass of assistant DAs who were incompetent when they weren’t straight-up lying. And people saw it all. Normal people, the kind who used to have some faith in the people in charge of the system.

    Now they are like us. They got woke.

  • Everyone pushing the Russian Collusion hoax should be fired:

    As the Democratic National Convention descended into chaos in July 2016, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, co-founders of Fusion GPS, high-tailed it from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia to stanch the political bleeding following the release of damning internal emails that showed party honchos had rigged the process in favor of Hillary Clinton.

    Simpson and Fritsch, serving multiple paymasters at the time including Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, had a plan to divert media attention away from the crisis: spin a dark tale of collusion between the Kremlin and Donald Trump to stop Hillary Clinton from winning the White House.

    Russian hackers were already blamed, without evidence, for infiltrating the DNC email system and giving the correspondence to WikiLeaks. Expanding on that accusation by revealing the secretive work of Christopher Steele, portrayed as a “former Western intelligence officer,” to friendly journalists successfully changed the subject.

    “They wanted to have some discreet conversations with a few reporters to let them know they might be able to help with stories about Trump, particularly on Russia,” Simpson and Fritsch wrote about themselves.

    Snip.

    This unfolding scandal is not only about how inaccurately the media covered Sergei Millian or the bogus Steele dossier. There was no collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and the Russians. Period.

    And everyone knew it at the time. Tom Hamburger knew it, Rosalind Helderman, everyone at MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and more knew it was fabricated garbage peddled by a well-known paid smear merchant who was disguising another paid political operative as a “western intelligence officer.”

    It was intentional, not “one of the most egregious journalistic errors in modern history,” as Axios’ Sara Fischer described it in a roundup of other news organizations that still refuse to acknowledge misleading reporting and editorializing on the Steele dossier—again, a red herring since coverage of phony election collusion exceeded beyond allegations contained in the dossier.

    “CNN and MSNBC did not respond to requests for comment about whether they planned to revisit or correct any of their coverage around the dossier,” Fischer reported. “The Wall Street Journal told Axios, ‘We’re aware of the serious questions raised by the allegations and continue to report and to follow the investigation closely.’” Mark Maremont, a Journal reporter, first disclosed Millian’s name in a January 2017 article, suggesting he was responsible for a “compromising video” on Donald Trump.

    David Corn, author of an October 31, 2016 article for Mother Jones titled, “A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump,” that was sourced directly by Steele and Simpson right before the election, told Erik Wemple, the Post’s media critic who commendably called out high-profile dossier propagandists in a lengthy series last year, that he has no plans to retract his previous reporting. “My priority has been to deal with the much larger topic of Russia’s undisputed attack and Trump’s undisputed collaboration with Moscow’s cover-up.”

    Fischer claims a “reckoning” is hitting newsrooms across the country. With the exception of a cowardly response by the Post’s editor, that’s about as accurate as the dossier itself. A true reckoning would involve more than a few editor’s notes or burying collusion coverage down the media’s deep memory hole.

    In any other honorable profession, one that still takes itself seriously and is capable of self-policing to preserve the tattered shreds of integrity and accountability that remain, mass firings, not faux “reckonings,” would empty newsrooms. Reporters, columnists, cable news hosts, and paid contributors would be shown walking papers. Editors would step down in humiliation. Public apologies, not mealymouthed caveats and explainers buried in the entertainment guide, would be plastered on the front page of every newspaper and website; talking heads would make amends to the victims—including Donald Trump—for this reckless, destructive hoax and also to their audience for intentionally misleading them for years and then announce their early retirement.

    Collusion between Donald Trump and the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 election never happened—but every news organization, big and small, contributed to spreading this lie. It’s breathtaking malfeasance on a scale unrivaled in American history. The media should not be permitted to proceed with business as usual.

    Fire them all.

  • Remember: The reason why accused Waukesha Christmas Parade Murderer Darrell Brooks Jr. was out on the streets to kill was because Soros-backed DA John Chisholm wanted him there.

  • Slow Joe and the Democrats: Not so popular.

  • A list of all 26 times Bill Clinton flew on the Lolita Expresss.
  • Poland’s Presidnet comes out against Flu Manchu vaccinations.
  • In depth meta-analysis of the use of Ivermectin to treat Flu Manchu. Maybe it only really helps in countries that have notable body parasites? (Hat tip: Maybe Borepatch? After so much turkey, everything blur together in the mind…)
  • “Jordan Peterson says he spoke to a senior government adviser who told him Canada’s COVID restriction policies are completely driven by opinion polls and not science.”
  • The Rittenhouse verdict showed the leftists aren’t wild about Constitutional rights:

    Despite whatever anger President Joe Biden might express about the jury’s verdict, the 12 jurors in this trial focused on the facts and the law, and chose justice, even after threats were made against them, against the city, and corrupt media narratives continued to circulate with the aid of social media giants which were still banning accounts who spoke in Rittenhouse’s defense. Together, these 12 jurors bravely chose justice over the mob.

    In doing so, these 12 displayed more courage than nearly all of our politicians and every single one of our media elite. Once again, we are reminded that the best of America resides not in our coastal power centers, our ivory towers, or even here in our nation’s capital. The best of America resides in the inherent fairness, righteousness, and bravery of her citizens.

    But it’s worth focusing on where the left goes next. Because they don’t intend to let this jury verdict be the last word. Hours after the verdict was handed down, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) was calling it “a miscarriage of justice” and calling for federal review of the verdict by Merrick Garland’s heavily politicized Department of Justice.

    The media narrative, meanwhile, has turned toward decrying “gun laws” and the ability of a 17-year-old to carry an “assault rifle,” and is openly conflating the right to self-defense with “vigilantism.” In other words, they’re saying it out loud: they’re coming for your guns, for your right to defend your family, and ultimately, for your sovereignty.

    In early November, the Supreme Court heard arguments in New York Rifle & Pistol Association Inc v. Bruen. The question before the court is whether New York’s concealed carry permit regime, which requires the petitioner to show a “genuine, specific need” to concealed carry a firearm for self-defense and vests the ability to judge that need in a state bureaucrat, violates the Second Amendment.

    During the argument, it became abundantly clear how the left views the Second Amendment — that is, a constitutional entitlement that grants each of us an unambiguous right to carry by virtue of our citizenship.

  • “Illinois Pension Shortfall Surpasses $500 Billion, Average Debt Burden Now $110,000 Per Household.”
  • The radical left is trying to live down to the worst paranoid fantasies of the Moral Majority crica 1985:

    A leaked audio recording revealed California teachers mocking parents over concerns about homosexual and transgender indoctrination at school, said a source who attended a recent teachers union conference in Palm Springs.

    The recording, obtained by The Epoch Times, captured two seventh-grade teachers, Kelly Baraki and Lori Caldeira from Buena Vista Middle School in Salinas, Calif., telling other teachers how to recruit students into LGBTQ clubs, also known as “Gay-Straight Alliance” (GSA) clubs, at school.

    “It was horrifying to listen to not just one teacher but really all of the teachers in all of these seminars, excoriating parents,” said the source, who goes by the pseudonym Rebecca Murphy.

    Murphy attended the California Teachers Association (CTA) conference in late October. She told The Epoch Times the teachers “mocked” parents for their concerns, and suggested they know better than parents about what’s best for their children.

    “They laughed at the parents,” Murphy said.

  • Every. Knee. Must. Bend.

  • Times Up for Time’s Up. “The vast majority of Time’s Up’s remaining staffers were laid off Friday.” #MeToo was never meant to take out powerful Democrats like Andrew Cuomo.
  • Sweden names it’s first female Prime Minister…and she resigned the same day.

  • Can the Supreme Court be trusted on the Second Amendment? It’s a very mixed bag. (Hat tip: KR Training.)
  • Republicans sue Harris County to stop the Democrats’ redistricting plan.
  • The Social Justice Warrior behind the effort to cancel Dave Chapelle resigns. “You come at the king, you best not miss.”
  • Things that make you go “Hmmm”:

  • The World War II armaments factory built in a tube line.
  • “Tonight on Most Shocking!

  • “Clever Business Owners Ward Off Looters With Kyle Rittenhouse Scarecrows.”
  • “Black, White Americans Join Hands Around Common Cause Of Launching Journalists Into The Sun.”
  • LinkSwarm for June 4, 2021

    Friday, June 4th, 2021

    The pandemic may almost be over, but Mao Tze Lung is still in the news!

  • Katherine Eban at Vanity Fair is shocked, shocked to discover that the Wuhan Coronavirus may have come from a lab!

    On February 19, 2020, The Lancet, among the most respected and influential medical journals in the world, published a statement that roundly rejected the lab-leak hypothesis, effectively casting it as a xenophobic cousin to climate change denialism and anti-vaxxism. Signed by 27 scientists, the statement expressed “solidarity with all scientists and health professionals in China” and asserted: “We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.”

    The Lancet statement effectively ended the debate over COVID-19’s origins before it began. To Gilles Demaneuf [a data scientist with the Bank of New Zealand in Auckland], following along from the sidelines, it was as if it had been “nailed to the church doors,” establishing the natural origin theory as orthodoxy. “Everyone had to follow it. Everyone was intimidated. That set the tone.”

    The statement struck Demaneuf as “totally nonscientific.” To him, it seemed to contain no evidence or information. And so he decided to begin his own inquiry in a “proper” way, with no idea of what he would find.

    Demaneuf began searching for patterns in the available data, and it wasn’t long before he spotted one. China’s laboratories were said to be airtight, with safety practices equivalent to those in the U.S. and other developed countries. But Demaneuf soon discovered that there had been four incidents of SARS-related lab breaches since 2004, two occuring at a top laboratory in Beijing. Due to overcrowding there, a live SARS virus that had been improperly deactivated, had been moved to a refrigerator in a corridor. A graduate student then examined it in the electron microscope room and sparked an outbreak.

    Demaneuf published his findings in a Medium post, titled “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: a review of SARS Lab Escapes.” By then, he had begun working with another armchair investigator, Rodolphe de Maistre. A laboratory project director based in Paris who had previously studied and worked in China, de Maistre was busy debunking the notion that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was a “laboratory” at all. In fact, the WIV housed numerous laboratories that worked on coronaviruses. Only one of them has the highest biosafety protocol: BSL-4, in which researchers must wear full-body pressurized suits with independent oxygen. Others are designated BSL-3 and even BSL-2, roughly as secure as an American dentist’s office.

    Read on to see mostly what those of you reading this blog knew last year, albeit with some new details. Such as…

  • It seems that even The State Department tried to block investigation of the lab leak hypothesis:

    A report in Vanity Fair details actions by some members of the U.S. State Department to block efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus because the inquiry could open “a can of worms.” An internal memo sent to department heads by Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, warned “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.”

    The “can of worms” in question was the extensive funding by the U.S. government into the Wuhan Virology Lab’s “gain-of-function” virus research. It’s unclear whether DiNanno was concerned that an investigation would uncover evidence of a lab leak or the extent to which the U.S. was funding dangerous research.

    Indeed, there’s a lot more going on with this gain-of-function research than has ever been revealed. There appears to be a powerful lobby within the U.S. government that is heavily invested in the dangerous research and is serious about keeping it quiet. Former CDC chairman Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab.

    Just whose interests does the federal bureaucracy actually serve? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of which, Dr. Anthony Fauci emails obtained via FOIA show him flip-flopping on a number of topics, including whether Flu Manchu came from a Chinese lab or not.
  • Ron Paul: How Texas killed Flu Manchu:

    The pro-lockdown “experts” were shocked. If a state as big as Texas joined Florida and succeeded in thumbing its nose at “the science” – which told us that for the first time in history healthy people should be forced to stay in their houses and wear oxygen-restricting face masks – then the lockdown narrative would begin falling apart.

    President Biden famously attacked the decision as “Neanderthal thinking.” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa warned that, with this order, Abbott would “kill Texans.” Incoming CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tearfully told us about her feelings of “impending doom.”

    When the poster child for Covid lockdowns Dr. Fauci was asked several weeks later why cases and deaths continued to evaporate in Texas, he answered simply, “I’m not sure.” That moment may have been a look at the man behind the proverbial curtain, who projected his power so confidently until confronted with reality.

    Now a new study appearing as a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, highlighted recently in Reason Magazine, has found “no evidence that the reopening affected the rate of new COVID-19 cases in the five-week period following the reopening. …State-level COVID-19 mortality rates were unaffected by the March 10 reopening.”

  • Hunter Biden said he couldn’t remember his baby mama. Turns out she worked for him. And he fired her.
  • Every time Hunter is in the news, the MSM asks Joe Biden about…ice cream. “The record is now rife with individuals associated with foreign governments and intelligence organizations giving millions to Hunter and his uncle as well as luxurious expenses and gifts.”
  • A meme for all seasons:

    

  • Rashard Turner, founder of St. Paul chapter of #BlackLivesMatter learns better:

    That was made clear when they publicly denounced charter schools alongside the teachers union. I was an insider in Black Lives Matter. And I learned the ugly truth. The moratorium on charter schools does not support rebuilding the black family. But it does create barriers to a better education for black children. I resigned from Black Lives Matter after a year and a half. But I didn’t quit working to improve black lives and access to a great education.

  • Congressional Democrats just hit a snag in trying to cram through lots of budget busting bills using reconciliation.

    While the Democrats have high, if not delusional hopes of fundamentally changing every aspect of American life, from federal voting dictates to essentially outlawing sub-contracting, the actual rules of the Senate have stood in their way. The filibuster, which Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (among others who are laying low) have pledged to not touch, means that Chuck Schumer and his merry band can’t force through things on a simple 50-50 vote.

    The Democrats were given a shot of life a few months ago, though, in the form of a parliamentarian ruling that Schumer claimed greenlit most of his agenda. I expressed skepticism at the time in an article discussing the infrastructure package.

    Chuck Schumer recently claimed the Senate parliamentarian gave him free rein, yet that decision has not been made public, and there’s probably a reason for that.

    Well, it appears my skepticism was warranted. In what is claimed as a “new ruling,” the parliamentarian effectively rips the heart out of the Democrat agenda.

    Reconciliation is a very narrow process, and the Byrd Rule requires that anything included in a reconciliation bill must deal with taxes and budgetary issues. You also have stipulations about deficit offsets that must be taken into account. You can not pass regularly legislative items under the guise of reconciliation.

    Given that, this ruling essentially defeats HR1, the ProAct, and much of what is included in the current “infrastructure” bill. Of course, none of those bills were likely getting support from Manchin anyway, but with reconciliation off the table to get this stuff passed, Schumer is now officially out of options.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Red states continue crushing blue states economically.
  • Inflation is back.

    Corn, soybeans, and wheat have been trading at multiyear highs, with corn having risen from around $3.80 per bushel in January 2020 to approximately $6.75 now. Chicken wings are at all-time record highs. It is getting more expensive to eat.

    Copper prices have risen to an all-time high. Steel, too, recently traded at prices 35 percent above the previous all-time high set in 2008. Perhaps most famously, the price of lumber has nearly quadrupled since the beginning of 2020 and has nearly doubled just since January.

    Naturally, with raw materials prices soaring, prices of manufactured goods are jumping, too. That is especially noticeable in the housing market, where the median price of existing homes rose to $329,100 in March—a whopping 17.2 percent increase from a year earlier.

    The cost of driving is soaring, too. According to J.D. Power, cited in the Wall Street Journal, the average used car price has risen 16.7 percent and new car prices have risen 9.6 percent since January.

  • What I Like About Being White“:

    My answer would’ve been blunt – What I like about being white is I’m free to think anything I like; believe anything politically and not be prejudged by liberals for it. I don’t have people assuming I vote a specific way, for a particular party, simply because of my skin color. That no matter what I believe, I won’t be called a traitor to my race, a sell-out, or some racial slur like “Uncle Tom,” or “Uncle Tim.”

    What I like about being white is I don’t have to suffer the bigotry of leftists demanding I conform to how they insist I must think.

    Hill and pretty much every left-wing pundit, TV personality, reporter, academic, actor, etc., do not extend that same courtesy to, say, any black conservative. Ever.

    In that answer, it would have exposed Hill for what he was trying to do to Rufo, and it shows what the left is now: you are your skin color. If you refuse to conform, if you won’t be what they demand you must be, you are their enemy.

  • Polls show that under Biden, Americans think America is weaker and race relations worse.
  • “BLM activist steps down from school board after allegations he molested up to 62 children.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis does what Texas couldn’t: sign into law a bill preventing men from competing in women’s sports.
  • Gun buybacks increase gun crimes. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • Iran’s largest warship mysteriously catches fire and sinks.

  • A new government in Israel?

    Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid announced that he is able to form a new government, in another step towards ousting longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Lapid’s coalition is made up of parties from the left and right wings of the political spectrum, many of whom would not normally sit together in the same government. For the first time in Israel’s history, an Arab political party—the Islamic conservative United Arab List—signed on as part of the prospective governing coalition.

    The new government must survive a vote of confidence in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, but the Knesset will not be in session for another twelve days. This means that members of Lapid’s coalition may defect in the meantime, potentially sending Israel to another round of elections.

    Before Democrats start celebrating the fall of their designated bogeyman, the man likely to replace Netanyahu in the new government is Naftali Bennett, who is even harder right than Bibi:

    Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett have reached an agreement to rotate the prime minister’s position between them as they race to meet a Wednesday midnight deadline to finalize a coalition government to end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year rule.

    Under the agreement, Bennett will take the premiership first, but the two are still working on finalizing their ruling coalition, which would include parties from across the political spectrum. The Associated Press reported that as of 6 p.m. Wednesday in Israel, there was still no sign of progress.

  • “New York Times Publishes Photo of Girl Killed by Israelis Who Was Also Killed by Israelis in 2017.”
  • Hollywood types are pouring money into the New York City mayor’s race:

    A-listers including actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Steven Spielberg have raised the stakes with their backing of candidates. Spielberg and his wife have finally supported activist Maya Wiley, while Paltrow has supported Ray McGuire, a former Citigroup executive, Bloomberg reports.

    The majority of those identified as actors or part of the entertainment industry have opted to join Paltrow in backing McGuire, who has vowed to boost film tax credits, Bloomberg reports. Figures who have donated to McGuire include “Despicable Me” producer Chris Meledandri, filmmaker Spike Lee and comedic actor Steve Martin. McGuire is also the only candidate not accepting public matching funds, Bloomberg notes.

    Other candidates getting attention from Tinseltown include Scott Stringer and former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Actress Scarlett Johansson has donated to Stringer, while Yang has reportedly received financial backing from actor Michael Douglas.

    Also: “Recent polls, however, show Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams in the lead.”

  • Two-time loser Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke may want to lose running for governor as well.
  • Nice profile of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The triumph of Thomas Sowell. Review of Jason L. Riley’s new book Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell.
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
  • Speaking of which: Houston homeowner kills would-be burglar. (Hat tip: 357 Magnum.)
  • Florida woman previously rescued naked from a storm drain is rescued from another storm drain in Texas. It’s time to admit you have a D&D LARPing problem… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Allen West steps down as Texas Republican Party Chairman in July.
  • Amazon is trying to steal your bandwidth.
  • “Google’s Diversity Chief Removed for Decrying Jews’ ‘Insatiable Appetite for War and Killing.’ No doubt they’ve moved him to their Republican Deplatforming division…
  • Carbonated Jägermeister.
  • “CIA Replaces Waterboarding With 12-Hour Lectures On Intersectional Feminism.”
  • “Bars On Migrant Kids’ Cages To Be Painted Rainbow Colors For Pride Month.”
  • Bilingual:

  • Terry Gilliam Is Tired Of Social Justice Warrior Bullshit

    Sunday, January 5th, 2020

    A leftwing female reporter for The Independent is shocked, shocked that director Terry Gilliam (of Monty Python and Brazil fame) makes fun of Social Justice Warriors:

    “In the age of #MeToo, here’s a girl who takes responsibility for her state,” says Gilliam. “Whatever happened in this character’s life, she’s not accusing anybody. We’re living in a time where there’s always somebody responsible for your failures, and I don’t like this. I want people to take responsibility and not just constantly point a finger at somebody else, saying, ‘You’ve ruined my life.’”

    The day we meet, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein – who’s been accused by dozens of women of rape, assault and sexual harassment, allegations that kickstarted the entire #MeToo movement – broke his silence, to lament the fact that his work “has been forgotten”, and to boast that he is a “pioneer” of female-led films. Isn’t it a bigger problem that men are refusing to take responsibility for abusing women, and abusing their power? “No. When you have power, you don’t take responsibility for abusing others. You enjoy the power. That’s the way it works in reality.”

    And then that phrase comes up. Witch hunt. “Yeah, I said #MeToo is a witch hunt,” he says. There’s a silence. “I really feel there were a lot of people, decent people, or mildly irritating people, who were getting hammered. That’s wrong. I don’t like mob mentality. These were ambitious adults.”

    “There are many victims in Harvey’s life,” he adds, “and I feel sympathy for them, but then, Hollywood is full of very ambitious people who are adults and they make choices. We all make choices, and I could tell you who did make the choice and who didn’t. I hate Harvey. I had to work with him and I know the abuse, but I don’t want people saying that all men… Because on [the 1991 film] Fisher King, two producers were women. One was a really good producer, and the other was a neurotic bitch. It wasn’t about their sex. It was about the position of power and how people use it.”

    Suggesting that women are not helpless victims, and might have moral agency of their own, is pretty close to heresy in feminist circles these days.

    Gilliam mentions a famous actor he was speaking to recently. “She has got her story of being in the room and talking her way out. She says, ‘I can tell you all the girls who didn’t, and I know who they are and I know the bumps in their careers.’ The point is, you make choices. I can tell you about a very well-known actress coming up to me and saying, ‘What do I have to do to get in your film, Terry?’ I don’t understand why people behave as if this hasn’t been going on as long as there’ve been powerful people. I understand that men have had more power longer, but I’m tired, as a white male, of being blamed for everything that is wrong with the world.” He holds up his hands. “I didn’t do it!”

    It is deeply frustrating to argue with Gilliam. He is both the devil and his advocate. I try to say that it’s not that white men are to blame for everything, but that they are born with certain privileges that, too often, they exploit. He interrupts.

    “It’s been so simplified is what I don’t like. When I announce that I’m a black lesbian in transition, people take offence at that. Why?”

    Because you’re not.

    “Why am I not? How are you saying that I’m not?”

    Are you?

    “You’ve judged me and decided that I was making a joke.”

    You can’t identify as black, though.

    “OK, here it is. Go on Google. Type in the name Gilliam. Watch what comes up.”

    What’s going to come up?

    “The majority are black people. So maybe I’m half black. I just don’t look it.”

    But earlier, he described himself as a white male.

    “I don’t like the term black or white. I’m now referring to myself as a melanin-light male. I can’t stand the simplistic, tribalistic behaviour that we’re going through at the moment.” He smiles. “I’m getting myself in deeper water, so I have to trust you.” I’m not sure what he’s trusting me to do.

    Maybe to think and take a joke rather than sic the kneejerk SJW cancel culture brigades on him? Obviously his trust was misplaced.

    I’m talking about being a man accused of all the wrong in the world because I’m white-skinned. So I better not be a man. I better not be white. OK, since I don’t find men sexually attractive, I’ve got to be a lesbian. What else can I be? I like girls. These are just logical steps.” They don’t seem logical. “I’m just trying to make you start thinking. You see, this is the world I grew up in, and with Python, we could do this stuff, and we weren’t offending people. We were giving people a lot of laughter.”

    If a man can magically “transition” to a woman just by declaring he’s a woman, why can’t Gilliam become a black lesbian by the same process? The fact that neither can, and that SJW sorts can’t admit this obvious truth due to how sacred “trans” has become to their intersectional ideology matrix, is what makes the joke funny.

    The writer complains: “Python was silly and whimsical, its more pointed satirical moments punching up, not down.” But as Social Justice Warriors have abrogated to themselves the roles of cultural gatekeepers, attacking social justice absurdity is punching up.

    Remember how Christian fundamentalists destroyed Gilliam’s career over Life of Brian? Me neither. Given how they openly espouse destroying people’s careers over refusing to toe the Social Justice Warrior line on race, sex, etc., today’s SJW woke scolds are obviously far more intolerant of opposing views than the Moral Majority ever was.

    And I’ll take Monty Python and Brazil over every artistic work every Social Justice Warrior ever created.

    Diana Fleischman and Jonathan Pie on the Gender Pay Gap Myth

    Sunday, December 30th, 2018

    Diana Fleischman is an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Portsmouth. (Also, when she was going to graduate school at UT Austin many years ago, we dated very briefly.) Here she is debunking the gender pay gap myth.

    She’s only in the first three minutes or so, the rest of the discussion features other people, including Andrew Doyle, the producer for Tom Walker’s “Jonathan Pie” fake British telejournalist videos. Here’s the Pie sex gap video they reference above:

    They also interview Kate Andrews from the Institute for Economic Affairs and Joanna Williams, a Senior Lecturer at University of Kent.

    Bill Burr and Joe Rogan on Outrage Culture

    Sunday, December 23rd, 2018

    Bill Burr and Joe Rogan discuss social justice warriors, outrage culture and the death of comedy.

    Also a look at the feminist trying to to get an adjust professor fired.

    The Women’s March Racket

    Tuesday, December 11th, 2018

    The safest assumption about any spontaneous left-wing protest movement is that there’s nothing spontaneous about it. Be it Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter or any of the Brady Bunch hydra heads, you’ll always find a small cadre of activists, backed by some of the same left-left funding network, involved.

    So it is with the Women’s March, with a nice side helping of antisemitism, as shown in this Leah McSweeney and Jacob Siegel piece in Tablet:

    According to several sources, it was there—in the first hours of the first meeting for what would become the Women’s March—that something happened that was so shameful to many of those who witnessed it, they chose to bury it like a family secret. Almost two years would pass before anyone present would speak about it.

    It was there that, as the women were opening up about their backgrounds and personal investments in creating a resistance movement to Trump, [Carmen Perez] and [Tamika] Mallory allegedly first asserted that Jewish people bore a special collective responsibility as exploiters of black and brown people—and even, according to a close secondhand source, claimed that Jews were proven to have been leaders of the American slave trade. These are canards popularized by The Secret Relationship Between Blacks and Jews, a book published by Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam—“the bible of the new anti-Semitism,” according to Henry Louis Gates Jr., who noted in 1992: “Among significant sectors of the black community, this brief has become a credo of a new philosophy of black self-affirmation.”

    Snip.

    As its fame grew, so did the questions about the Women’s March’s origin story—including, at first privately within the inner circles of the organizations, questions pertaining to the possible anti-Jewish statement made at that very first meeting. And that wasn’t the only incident from the initial encounter that would have far-reaching consequences. Within a few months of the original marches, key figures who came from outside or stood apart from the inner circle of the Justice League, an initiative of The Gathering for Justice, left the organization. And many of those involved began questioning why it was that, among the many women of various backgrounds interested in being involved in the March’s earliest days, power had consolidated in the hands of leadership who all had previous ties to one another; who were all roughly the same age; who would praise a man who has argued that it’s women’s responsibility to dress modestly so as to avoid tempting men; and, at least in one case, who defended Bill Cosby as the victim of a conspiracy.

    The questions started to be more practical, as well. At some point during that very first meeting in Chelsea, Perez suggested that the Justice League’s parent entity, The Gathering for Justice—where she, Mallory, and Skolnik all had roles—set up a “fiscal sponsorship” over the Women’s March to handle its finances. A fiscal sponsorship is a common arrangement in the nonprofit sector that allows more established organizations to finance newer ventures as they get off the ground and find their own funding. In this case, though, the standard logic didn’t apply since the Women’s March would, from its inception, raise vastly more money than its sponsor ever had. Over time, new details of the Women’s March’s organizational structure have been dragged into public view that reveals complicated financial arrangements, confusing even to experts.

    Yet within no time, the March leaders would be named 2017 Women of the Year by Glamour magazine. There was a glossy book published with Condé Nast, a lucrative merchandise business selling branded Women’s March gear, and millions of dollars raised through individual donations and institutional funding from major organizations like Planned Parenthood and the powerful hospital workers union, 1199SEIU. Fortune magazine named Mallory, Linda Sarsour, Perez, and Bland to its list of the World’s Greatest Leaders, and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand—in explaining why these four were on Time magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People—wrote: “The Women’s March was the most inspiring and transformational moment I’ve ever witnessed in politics … and it happened because four extraordinary women—Tamika Mallory, Bob Bland, Carmen Perez and Linda Sarsour—had the courage to take on something big, important and urgent, and never gave up.” In conclusion, the senator declared, “these women are the suffragists of our time.”

    But in fact, according to many involved in the January 2017 marches, Gillibrand’s description wasn’t just over the top; it undermined and erased the very people actually doing the work to create female-centric voting blocs throughout the country. “To be fair, the Women’s March on Washington—the one I was involved with at the time—had no real connection to the many marches that took place across the country and globally that month,” said Wruble, in an interview with Tablet. “Local leaders, often first-time organizers, spearheaded marches in their own communities. Many used the branding we put out as open source and helped to make the marches look unified—which was certainly advantageous in creating the sense of a singular, massive movement—but they were the ones who did the real work.”

    It’s a long, detailed article about how some of the original Women’s March organizers were quickly pushed out by people who “have been in bed with the Nation of Islam since day one.”

    Eric Hoffer once said “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” The Women’s March was born as a racket…

    Williamson Man Cleared of False Accusation

    Sunday, November 18th, 2018

    Remember how Democrats were shouting “Believe all women!” during the Kavanaugh hearing? Turns out, not all women should be believed:

    The morning of September 22, 2017, Cristopher Precopia went to work at a lumber yard in Georgetown.

    By the end of the day, he was in jail facing 99 years in prison.

    But he didn’t know why.

    Why had police come to his work and arrested him? Why was he being accused of these horrible crimes? Who was accusing him?

    She said he broke into her home in Temple.

    She said he sliced an “X” into her chest with a box cutter.

    She said it happened on Sept. 20, 2017 around 7:20 p.m.

    She was his high school girlfriend. The two dated several years earlier, but he couldn’t remember the last time the two had contact.

    Now Precopia was facing a felony charge: burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit other crimes.

    “I had no idea why everything was happening, and I was lost,” he said.

    Precopia was taken to the Williamson County Jail, where his parents posted a $150,000 bond. Then they began fighting to prove his innocence.

    Precopia knew he didn’t do it. He knew he couldn’t have done it.

    On the night of the alleged attack, he was with his mother, Erin, at a Northwest Austin hotel about 65 miles from the accuser’s home.

    “I’m thinking, ‘this is awesome. By the grace of God, she said it happened on the day when I can say totally, 100 percent, where he was at,” Erin Precopia said.

    There were sworn affidavits from several people who were with him that evening.

    There were pictures to prove it, and they were posted on Facebook. Timestamped. Geo-located.

    An alibi.

    “Most of the time, we deal with gray matters,” attorney Rick Flores said. “It’s not normally black or white. But this is one of those cases where I could definitely prove he did not commit this offense.”

    Snip.

    “Nine months after Precopia’s arrest, Flores said he took the evidence of an alibi to Bell County prosecutors, who dropped the charge ‘in the interest of justice.'”

    Yet, as far as I can tell, the woman who tried to destroy his life by falsely accusing him of rape, has not only not been charged, but newspapers refuse to print her name because “she hasn’t been charged with a crime.” The only reason her criminal scheme was thwarted was that hard evidence to the contrary was available, and we still have due process in America. If the feminist inspired kangaroo court “guilty until proven innocent” standard that prevails on too many college campuses had been used, Precopia would have already been convicted.

    LinkSwarm for August 17, 2018

    Friday, August 17th, 2018

    Themes for today’s LinkSwarm: Jihad, rape and China. Not necessarily in that order…

  • So let me see if I have this story straight: New Mexico jihadis, one related to a New York City imam who might have been involved in 9/11, murdered three children, abused and starved 11 other children while teaching them to be school shooters, and the judge let them out on bail?

    A New Mexico state judge ruled Monday that five alleged Muslim extremists accused of training children to conduct school shootings do not have to remain in jail while they await trial for child abuse.

    Judge Sarah Backus released the five defendants, Siraj Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, Subhannah Wahhaj, Jany Leveille, and Lucas Morten, on a $20,000 “signature bond,” according to the Albuquerque Journal. That means that the defendants will not have to pay money unless they violate the conditions of their release

    It’s a good thing there’s not a huge foreign nation immediately to the south with a porous border they can flee to…

    And authorities just bulldozed the compound?

  • The great illusion of China’s economic growth.

    If China really had a savings rate of 46%, the economy would look quite different. There would be very little debt in the system; the banks would have a very low loans to deposits ratio and low leverage, like banks in nineteenth century Britain. Consumer debt would be almost non-existent, while the Chinese market would have an enormous variety of saving and investment schemes, to take care of all the accumulated wealth. New company formation would be very high, but “venture capital” would be very scarce, because new companies would be capitalized from the savings of the founders’ relatives and friends. Overall, China might well have a rapid growth rate, but it would be a very contented, stable economy.

    A recent Financial Times examination of China’s economy illustrates the problem; it shows consumer debt almost doubling as a share of GDP, from roughly 20% to 40% in the last five years and tells pathetic stories of young, highly educated Chinese who max out their credit cards, desperately hoping to boost their earnings sufficiently to pay that debt back. But Chinese elite youths brought up in a society with a 46% savings rate would have neither the desire nor the need for heavy credit card usage. First, they would have been brought up in families with a fanatical devotion to deferring consumption, so would regard the over-indebted Western Millennial lifestyle with undiluted horror. Second, because of their families’ savings habits, such elite youths would be beneficiaries of very substantial trust funds from their relatives, and so would have no need of credit cards.

    If the savings rate is fiction, then so are all China’s economic statistics. GDP is at least one third lower than claimed, to account for the missing savings, and growth rates over the last decades correspondingly lower, On the other hand, China’s foreign debt is all too real, and most of the domestic debt also appears to be solid, so China’ s gross debt, already alarmingly high at 299% of GDP according to the Institute for International Finance, is in reality about 450% of true GDP, substantially higher than that of any other country. With such a level of debt, China is not about to overtake the West, it is in imminent danger of collapse. Indeed, it is at first sight something of a mystery why it has not collapsed already under the weight of its excesses.

    (Hat tip: Iain Murray at Instapundit.)

  • Speaking of China, they got all pissy about the latest defense bill.
  • Also: “China Buckles, Sends Trade Delegation to Washington to Seek End of Trade War.” Maybe, just maybe, President Donald Trump knows a thing or two about negotiating strategy…
  • Today’s @realDonaldTrump approval ratings among black voters: 36%.” That’s up from 29% two weeks ago.
  • “Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own.” That quote comes from an American bicycling across several foreign countries, including one where Islamic State followers killed him, his wife, and two fellow-travelers thanks to their “different perspectives.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Google has released a report on the paid ads they’ve run on political campaigns. It’s not completely useless, but then you drill down to congressional district, it only shows you total spending, not how much was spent by each campaign, much less links to the relevant ads.
  • Borepatch brings up an old and (to our media) deeply uncomfortable truth about the Catholic child rape scandal:

    A theme that keeps recurring in histories of the worst abusers is that they were trained in seminaries that were run by homosexual men and saturated with gay-liberationist subculture. Reading accounts of students at one notorious California seminary making a Friday-night ritual of cruising gay bars, it becomes hard not to wonder if gay culture itself has not been an important enabler of priestly abuse.

    Along those lines, the book Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption into the Catholic Church made this argument shortly after the original Catholic Church pedophilia scandal broke, and was promptly ignored by the media for not fitting the narrative.

  • Speaking of child rape, 30 Muslim men and one woman have been charged with multiple counts of rape and sex trafficking of women as young as 12 in West Yorkshire, UK. (“Luxury! We used to be raped 25 hours a day…”)
  • Ace of Spades is surprised to find Disney holding firm on it’s firing of James “I Make Pedophile Jokes” Gunn. Also, in the course of slamming (perhaps a littler too strenuously) Trump-skeptical establishment conservatives on their hypocrisy on the issue (RE: Roseanne), he does nicely articulate the logic of taking’s the Guardians of the Galaxy director’s scalp, even if Gunn was only joking:

    I will not be subject to one of your rules and yet permit you to be free of your own rule. If it’s your rule, you shall suffer under it just the same as me.

    We do not (yet) have a formal caste system in America, despite the obvious longing from the left and the NeverTrump rump to establish over-castes and under-castes.

    And it’s MUH #SacredPrinciple that we shall not have a tiered system of citizenship that the leftwing establishment as well as the “right”-leaning establishment so clearly crave.

    And I’ll sacrifice anyone to make sure that they do not put me in their designated under-caste.​

  • “Poll: Majority of Millennial Women Do Not Identify as Feminist.” Take a bow, Shoe0nHead! (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Newspaper editorial says that the MSM is falling into Prsident Trump’s trap:

    Trump may be both more relentless and obnoxious than his predecessors, but cries of “Fake News!” from the Oval Office are old hat. Presidents always blame the messenger. Even Barack Obama, the object of so much media fawning, groused about distorted coverage.

    This time, though, we are taking it personally. Striking at the bait Trump dangles. Joining the war he’s declared. Allowing him to goad us into abandoning the fundamental principles of our profession.

    Donald Trump is not responsible for the eroding trust in the media. He lacks the credibility to pull that off. The damage to our standing is self-inflicted.

    The independent press was built on a foundation of objectivity. Through a tradition of conscientious commitment to telling all sides of a story we convinced our readers, listeners, viewers that we were the source of fair and balanced coverage. We were equal opportunity scourges of scoundrels on both sides of the political aisle.

    Now, too many of us are following the websites, cable networks and blogosphere into point-of-view journalism that presents the news with equal parts fact and opinion. We’ve infused our reports with commentary and call it context.

    Journalists once kept their personal views personal, lest anyone challenge the motives behind their reporting. Now reporters post their opinions on Facebook and Twitter. They sob in newsrooms over the results of an election. News meetings and editorial boards are often indistinguishable.

    Respected journalists openly question whether remaining objective in the Donald Trump era is a sell-out rather than a virtue. Some have joined the resistance movement, blending journalism with activism.

    No one in our profession can say with a straight face that we cover Donald Trump the same way we have past presidents. We are not only giving him more scrutiny — rightly so — but we are making more mistakes in our haste to discredit him. Our accuracy ratings have fallen as we turn to poorly vetted anonymous sources and repeat every rumor that fits the narrative that Trump is a disaster.

    Yes, Trump is an extraordinary case. Chaos is the hallmark of his governing style. His personal conduct falls well short of presidential. But his administration has had successes, and the press is not as eager to cover those as it is his failures.

    Journalism seems to have turned a corner in search of some higher purpose beyond simply digging out the truth, presenting it to our readers and letting them decide what to do with it.

    Nothing about Donald Trump justifies tossing aside the standards that have allowed journalists to remain the trusted eyes and ears of the people.

  • “Patreon and Mastercard ban Robert Spencer without explanation.” That’s Robert Spencer of JihadWatch, not Richard Spencer the LARP Nazi.
  • By the way, Robert Spencer has a new book out: The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.
  • MoviePass is getting ready to bite the moose. I can imagine a way you could make this thing work out: Make deals with large theater chains, exclude the first week of all movies, and the first few weeks for blockbusters, and make a deal to buy tickets at a steep discount to put butts in seats so theater owners can make more money off concessions. All things that MoviePass evidently never attempted…
  • The great plastic gun panic…of 1986. I think we can all remember how the widespread availability of the Glock resulted in the downfall of America…
  • The remote Australian town where people live underground and hunt opals.
  • Unlikely teamups:

  • Are you ready to take your cosplay to Flavortown? (Hat tip: Dwight.)