NYC cops are filing for retirement in droves.
Logical consequences.
Let’s see NY replace them with social workers – right, that’ll work. And if New Yorkers liked the bad old pre-Giuliani era, then they’ll love the roaring 2020s.
I wonder what New Yorkers thought would happen when they elected a Marxist as mayor – the ones who voted for him, or the majority who shrugged, stayed home from the polls, and let it happen.
Today there is good news in a situation that’s been going on for quite some time:
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the Trump administration acted within its authority when it expanded exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) requirement for employers to provide insurance coverage that includes contraception — in a victory for Little Sisters of the Poor, the Catholic group that has been at the center of the national debate over the mandate.
The court ruled 7-2 in favor of the Trump administration and the Catholic charity that cares for the elderly in two related disputes against Pennsylvania, which sued over the validity of a rule from the Trump administration that allowed religiously-affiliated groups and some for-profit companies to opt-out of providing contraception coverage to employees…
The Supreme Court also ruled in favor of religious organizations in an employment discrimination case Wednesday. And last week it came down with a ruling that states could not ban religious schools from receiving money from state-funded scholarship programs that are available to non-religious private schools.
Lower court rulings had gone against the administration, with a nationwide injunction putting the exemptions on hold. But the Supreme Court’s ruling Wednesday amounts to a huge win for religious conservatives who have been battling the ACA’s contraceptive mandate for years.
The vote was 7-2 in both of today’s religious liberty cases. This is a breakdown which means that not only Roberts, but two of the liberal justices voted with the majority. Interesting. The two were Kagan and Breyer, with Sotomayor and Ginsberg voting against.
One of the benefits of YouTube is that it enables us to hear reasonable people talking reasonably about a host of topics that are usually discussed in a manner so unreasonable as to conjure up associations with the world in which Lewis Caroll’s Alice found herself.
Some of these reasonable people on YouTube are even young, which to me is a cause for hope amidst the gloom.
Here’s one of them. The whole video is worth watching. But I’ve cued up a part that seems particularly insightful (the “they” reference here is to Richard Carranza, the NYC chancellor of education, and a vast group of SJWs in the NYC system; I wrote about them previously here):
So Asians are “white adjacent,” according to self-righteous anti-racist racists who, like a squad of Humpty Dumpties, declare that words mean only what they say they mean.
Here’s how “white adjacent” is generally used:
(n.) A person who is technically a minority, but has access to, utilizes and sometimes benefits from white privilege. This is usually accomplished by said person distancing themselves from the socio political problems their ethnic group commonly faces. Usually by considering considering themselves better than their minority counterparts sharing their same ethnic heritage. This can also be a person who thinks they are are better minorities possessing a darker complexion.
My guess is that soon – if it hasn’t happened already, which it probably has – the term will be lobbed at actual black people who might defend white people, or who might espouse some conservative positions or values.
It happened to Jews long ago. They were brownish or at least unwhite for certain purposes of discrimination. But for other purposes – accusing Jews themselves of racism, for example – they are white as the driven snow. Jews have a long and terrible history of being the victims of some of the most vicious discrimination on earth, as well as genocide. One would think that, in the objective sense, they would therefore stand high in the list of intersectional victimhood. And yet, because Jews on average tend to perform well both academically and career-wise, modern leftism considers them about as white or white-adjacent as you can get.
I would dismiss all of this racist hierarchy propaganda as horse manure, but the anti-racists are already very powerful in education and elsewhere, and their effect is very pernicious. I may be getting boring in that I carp on this and related issues a great deal, but the situation is bad and getting worse. If you’re not affected by it today you will be affected by it tomorrow. Best to be as aware as you can about what you’re dealing with, in order to combat it.
For example, you may be asked – as I have been, by several people – to join the anti-racism cult, admit your privilege as a response to the double-bind situation, and get with the program. Be prepared to answer with knowledge.
[NOTE: Speaking of which…]
Don’t ask Brittany “O’Brien” Marshall to design a bridge for you:
“Nope the idea of 2+2 equaling 4 is cultural and because of western imperialism/colonization, we think of it as the only way of knowing,” wrote Marshall…
Marshall goes by the pronouns “she/her” and describes herself on Twitter as a “teacher, scholar, social justice change agent, Chicagoan, PhD student, architecture enthusiast, wannabe math person, BLM always…”
As a “wannabe math person,” Brittany clearly has a long way to go. And of course, no one on earth is saying that 2 + 2 is the only way of knowing, so even that part of Marshall’s statement is wrong.
It’s easy to joke about this, but really it’s no joke. What’s actually happening among bona fide scientists and those who decide whether or not to publish their work and/or to hire them and fund them is that cancel culture has been coming for them for many years now. I’m not sure who the first target was, but I know that when it happened to Larry Summers in 2005 I took notice. Back then I wrote:
…[T]his entire [Summers] affair is extremely chilling. There seems to be a trend in academia to try to drag us into a new Dark Ages–this time one in which political correctness, rather than religion, triumphs over science. And some of its proponents are academics and scientists themselves.
And I also wrote in 2005, concerning the Summers flap:
…[T]his is a case where feelings seem to have triumphed over reason. That academics–and scientists, at that–would allow this to happen is not a good sign. Whatever happened to the Enlightment? If Galileo were to return at this point, he might be in grave danger again–at least, if he were to suggest that the earth didn’t revolve around women.
In my own experience in an academic environment during the ’90s, after decades of being away, I was shocked at how far the PC police had come in stifling academic freedom. It seemed the new criterion for censure was whether a remark had offended someone. However careful the professor might be to couch the remark with qualifications, however delicately it was stated, if it offended the tender sensibilities of anyone in the audience, the professor was in trouble.
What happened to the Enlightenment? It got woke.
[ADDENDUM: This news from Princeton is utterly horrendous.]
…[B]ased on the decision of the DC Court of Appeals, and the 21 day period under the Rules of Appellate Procedure before a “Mandate” issues from the Appeals Court to the District Court, Judge Sullivan has until July 14, 2020 to dismiss the case against Gen. Flynn himself. If Judge Sullivan does not act on or before July 14, then the case will be automatically dismissed by the District Court upon the Order of the Appeals Court. At any time during that 21 day period it could be announced that there has been a vote taken on a request for the case to be reheard en banc — which means by the whole court. As I understand the process, a request for such a vote to be taken, and the outcome of such a vote, would be announced at the same time. In other words, we won’t even know that such a vote was called for until we are told what the outcome of the vote might be. So the fact that we haven’t not heard about such a vote being called does not mean that no such request has been made. We have another seven days to wait.
The Appellate Rules require that a majority of the full time members of the Court — not Senior Status judges — must vote in favor of rehearing a case en banc for such a hearing to take place. There are currently seven judges on the Court appointed by Democrat Presidents, and four appointed by GOP Presidents. With 11 judges, it would take a vote from six of them to rehear the matter. But one of the Democrat appointed Judges is Chief Judge Sri Srinivasan, who wrote the opinion in the Fokker Services case that was relied upon by Judge Rao in ruling that the DOJ motion to dismiss Gen. Flynn’s case must be granted. In what was likely a tactical error, Judge Wilkins who dissented in the decision on Gen. Flynn’s case called the Fokker Services case “dicta” with regard to the key passages that Judge Rao relied upon. It must have stung Judge Srinivasan for another member of the Circuit to make such a belittling comment about Judge Srinivasan’s legal analysis as set forth Fokker Services. Since it would be Judge Srinivasan’s decision in Fokker Services that would be undermined by a decision reversing the panel, its quite likely that Judge Srinivasan is a vote against en banc review. In addition, the internal dynamics of a relatively small appeals court are such that other Democrat appointed judges might not want to put themselves in the position of potentially having to side against Judge Srinivasan by rehearing the Gen. Flynn case, when the ultimate outcome of the case is simply not that important “in the grand scheme of things.” If just one Democrat appointed judge feels that way, then there are not 6 votes to rehear the case en banc.
That’s complicated, but it seems to boil down to this: if nothing is announced by the end of the 14th, the case will probably be dismissed automatically. But it’s up in the air till then. And if the court does vote to hear it en banc, the decision could go against Flynn, if the Democrat-appointed judges follow strict political party lines (which they often do).
If the ruling went against Flynn, such a decision would be an especially egregious case of going against the settled law in order to effect a political end. But the temptation to do it would be great, in order to continue to stick it to Flynn, silence him, and continue the “narrative” that it’s Barr’s actions that have been politically motivated.
And, since most of America is unaware of the details of the case and how Flynn was mistreated and framed, it would probably work. I hope the judges show more integrity than that. But recent trends make it a very real question as to whether they will.
A double bind is a social science term for “heads I win, tails you lose.” It goes like this:
A double bind is a dilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, with one negating the other. In some circumstances (particularly families and relationships) this might be emotionally distressing. This creates a situation in which a successful response to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that the person will automatically be wrong regardless of response. The double bind occurs when the person cannot confront the inherent dilemma, and therefore can neither resolve it nor opt out of the situation.
Double bind theory was first described by Gregory Bateson and his colleagues in the 1950s.
Double binds are often utilized as a form of control without open coercion—the use of confusion makes them both difficult to respond to as well as to resist.
I learned about double binds back in college long ago, and they were one of the concepts that stuck with me and that I’ve found most useful. Even if a person understands the concept, it’s sometimes hard for the person to recognize a double bind when snared in one.
The anti-racism movement (discussed earlier today) specializes in placing its trainees in a classic double bind, often causing tremendous discomfort – a discomfort which is then labeled as just being part of the resistance to acknowledging one’s own inherent racism.
There also are many other situations in life in which a person can be presented with the double bind dilemma. (“Have you stopped beating your wife?”)
The only way out is through a process response rather than trying to deal with the content. In other words: name the game as a double bind, and explain what that is if the person doesn’t already know. That doesn’t mean that your reaction will be acceptable and the person will release you from the double bind situation. But that’s part of the double bind as well.
I’ve heard this sort of thing described as a kafkatrap in recent internet parlance. That’s clever, too, drawing on Franz Kafka’s fictional works such as The Trial, where a person is confronted with a judicial proceeding in which every move leads to a verdict of guilty. A Soviet show trial is similar, too.
There’s more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,’ said the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has just been picked up.’
`What’s in it?’ said the Queen.
`I haven’t opened it yet,’ said the White Rabbit, `but it seems to be a letter, written by the prisoner to–to somebody.’
`It must have been that,’ said the King, `unless it was written to nobody, which isn’t usual, you know.’
`Who is it directed to?’ said one of the jurymen.
`It isn’t directed at all,’ said the White Rabbit; `in fact, there’s nothing written on the outside.’ He unfolded the paper as he spoke, and added `It isn’t a letter, after all: it’s a set of verses.’
`Are they in the prisoner’s handwriting?’ asked another of they jurymen.
`No, they’re not,’ said the White Rabbit, `and that’s the queerest thing about it.’ (The jury all looked puzzled.)
`He must have imitated somebody else’s hand,’ said the King. (The jury all brightened up again.)
`Please your Majesty,’ said the Knave, `I didn’t write it, and they can’t prove I did: there’s no name signed at the end.’
`If you didn’t sign it,’ said the King, `that only makes the matter worse. You must have meant some mischief, or else you’d have signed your name like an honest man.’
There was a general clapping of hands at this: it was the first really clever thing the King had said that day.
`That proves his guilt,’ said the Queen.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s a good article on kafkatrapping.]
…by the values of the right. The rule of law, free speech (which the left also championed when they were a relatively small minority), polite discourse in the public arena, respect for private property.
But all that time, the left was working to undermine and even destroy the right. If they succeed – and they might – they may find they miss those things, which also protected them from each other.
That’s what the left always learns – too late, after the worst on the left have devoured the best.
If someone in your life is pressuring you to be schooled in the white privilege anti-racism (“it’s not enough to not be racist, you must be anti-racist”) cult, you might want to take a look at these.
Short and to the point:
This is long, but it’s excellent (alert for the language-sensitive: a few instances of the f-word):
Have you noticed that Judge Sullivan has neither acted nor spoken on the Flynn case since he was ordered to dismiss it? I don’t think the court gave him an explicit time limit for the dismissal, and it’s been nearly two weeks.
However, apparently there is a time limit of 14 days on when Sullivan or another judge could ask the DC Circuit Court to hear the case en banc. The information in that link, however, applies to civil cases of the more ordinary sort and doesn’t mention mandamus cases, so I don’t know if the same rule applies and I don’t know how the 14 days are counted. But it seems as though such a request would have to be made within the next couple of days, if there is indeed a 14-day limit.
Or I suppose Sullivan could petition SCOTUS to hear the case. He’d have more time to do that – I think. I can’t seem to find much discussion of this right now, and these sorts of rules and procedures are not something I know anything about.
Could Sullivan just stonewall it indefinitely? Perhaps. The only information I’ve been able to find about a time frame for how long Sullivan is given to act to dismiss is in this thread, and I don’t know whether it’s correct. Some people there cite three weeks, meaning if Sullivan does nothing, the case is dismissed on July 15.
Anyone have any official information on this?
Now, you might say that Biden the man is the issue, and that’s true. Corrupt, unintelligent and quirky even when he was at his best, and now most definitely not at his best, he would most likely be a mere figurehead if elected. He would be incompetent, but the main powers would be the same crew as Obama had – or people even more leftist, and bolder in their leftism.
If the Republicans are to have a chance of winning in November, even those things probably won’t be enough to do it – although they should be. Biden’s (and other Democrats’) plans, as announced, are also very alarming. Voters need to be made aware of them.
Recently, Biden or his ghostwriters have said this:
Joe Biden tweeted Sunday night that if he gets elected, his administration “won’t just rebuild this nation — we’ll transform it,” raising speculation online about what exactly in the country will be transformed.
No one who voted for Obama would be fooled into thinking – as Biden et al clearly seem to want them to think – that Biden and Obama are alike in their force of personality or grasp on reality. But this tweet is obviously an attempt to play on two things: Biden’s association with Obama and his disassociation with the hated Trump. Whether it will be Biden doing the transforming (something I doubt anyone believes) or his handlers who will be in charge, or even Obama himself behind the scenes, a lot of people are perfectly fine with that.
But as with Obama’s “hope and change” and “fundamental transformation,” the meaning of the term “transform” is left purposely vague so the reader can fill in the blanks with whatever he or she hopes it will be. The right needs to fill in some blanks for them.
For example, are people aware of Biden’s tax proposals?:
In his third run for the White House, Biden is proposing tax increases of nearly $4 trillion over the next 10 years. If he wins in November and these increases were to pass, they’d be the highest in American history — indeed, in world history…
Are Biden’s proposed tax increases what America needs while our economy is still mired in the coronavirus downturn, and now beset by anti-police protests? What will happen to jobs under that farsighted “leadership”? How long until America’s economy could return to where it was at the beginning of 2020?
Biden proposes an outright repeal of Trump’s tax reform package, raising taxes on the middle class, blue-collar families and American corporations, large and small. Such tax increases would return America’s corporate tax rate to close to 40 percent, the highest in the world.
At the start of the Great Depression in 1929, President Hoover’s tax increases to balance the budget in a collapsing economy caused America to suffer 25 percent unemployment for more than 10 years. Is that what Americans want again?
And Biden also proposes to raise the capital gains tax to 40 percent, doubling it from today’s rate. We know from experience that would dramatically reduce tax revenues from that source and slash investment returns for all Americans.
And then there’s Biden’s plan to continue Obama’s course for the suburbs:
Biden and his party have embraced yet another dream of the radical Left: a federal takeover, transformation, and de facto urbanization of America’s suburbs. What’s more, Biden just might be able to pull off this “fundamental transformation.”
If suburban voters knew what the Democrats had in store for them, they’d run screaming in the other direction. Unfortunately, Republicans have been too clueless or timid to make an issue of the Democrats’ anti-suburban plans. It’s time to tell voters the truth.
I’ve been studying Joe Biden’s housing plans, and what I’ve seen is both surprising and frightening.
Please read the whole thing. And you might want to spread the word.
These are just two topics. There are plenty more.
Nearly impossible to do – except in the wrong direction.
That’s been my observation as well.
And no – lo-carb or Taubes or Atkins doesn’t work for me nor for a lot of other people. I’m happy for you if your experience has been more positive. Mine has been that I don’t lose weight on such programs and they make me feel ill.
At this point, I try to eat healthful things most of the time, exercise regularly (weight-lifting is highly limited, though, because of my chronic arm injuries), and not obsess too much about losing that 10-15 pounds, particularly at my age. And yes, it’s generally easier for you guys.
I’ve known people who regularly eat many times what I eat and have been slender all their lives. I know people who eat less and are fatter. I’ve known people who started out as the first type for several decades of their lives and then slowly morphed into the latter.
It’s complicated.
Even though political speeches are not my thing, I watched Trump’s speech at Mount Rushmore last night (you can find a video and transcript at American Digest).
It was a well-crafted story of America’s past and a pledge about America’s future. As I watched and listened, I felt split. A small part of me – a part that represents the child I was in the 50s and early 60s, growing up and being educated in an America which still taught its children patriotism and a heroic vision of American exceptionalism, and where both parties agreed on that history and even on the basic outlines of a desirable future – listened and felt that almost no one could disagree with the sentiments Trump expressed, they were so noncontroversial.
But a larger part of me – more cerebral, aware, and older – knew that the speech would be excoriated with almost one voice by the press and the Democrats. I even knew what the approach would be, because we’ve heard it before about Trump’s speeches: “dark,” divisive, jingoistic, combative.
And so it went. What was a soaring vision of American accomplishment and aspiration is now seen as an angry lie – that is, to the angry liars that now abound in our press, the Democratic Party, and so many other American institutions.
I wish it weren’t so. But that’s the way it is. And they lie with impunity because they know that they hold a lot of sway, and that the bulk of their followers and listeners will never watch or read the actual speech, but will instead take their word for it, and talk within their personal circles about how awful the speech was, reinforcing the opinion.
I was particularly struck by the parts of the speech describing each of the men whose faces are carved into Mount Rushmore. I also took special note of Trump’s recitation of the things Americans stand for (go to 27:17 in the transcript).
These words resonated as well:
We will raise the next generation of American patriots. We will write the next thrilling chapter of the American adventure. And we will teach our children to know that they live in a land of legends, that nothing can stop them, and that no one can hold them down. They will know that, in America, you can do anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.
And note these words in particular, in which Trump directly addressed the issue of slavery:
By tearing down Washington and Jefferson, these radicals would tear down the very heritage for which men gave their lives to win the Civil War, they would erase the memory that inspired those soldiers to go to their deaths, singing these words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, “As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, while God is marching on.” They would tear down the principles that propelled the abolition of slavery and ultimately around the world ending an evil institution that had plagued humanity for thousands and thousands of years. Our opponents would tear apart the very documents that Martin Luther King used to express his dream and the ideas that were the foundation of the righteous movement for Civil Rights. They would tear down the beliefs, culture and identity, that have made America the most vibrant and tolerant society in the history of the earth. My fellow Americans, it is time to speak up loudly and strongly and powerfully and defend the integrity of our country.
In that paragraph, Trump makes several points that I and others have been making lately. No, I don’t think that Trump or his researchers read my blog (although hey, it’s always possible). But he fastened on exactly the quote from the Battle Hymn of the Republic that I highlighted and discussed about a week ago in this post, and for the same reason: it proves that one of the main reasons the North fought the Civil War was to free the slaves, and the men who did so were fully willing to die for that cause if necessary. It is a deep insult to their names and to their lives to say otherwise.
A second point Trump made, that I and others have talked about recently, is that the present radical movements are antithetical to the goals and words of Martin Luther King. And still another is the fact that slavery was not some unique American institution; it had been part and parcel of the world for thousands of years and was not some unique activity of the white race.
The following part of Trump’s speech struck me as especially important. Would that all of America could hear it and understand it:
We must demand that our children are taught once again to see America as did Reverend Martin Luther King when he said that the founders had signed a promissory note to every future generation. Dr. King saw that the mission of justice required us to fully embrace our founding ideals.
Happy Fourth of July, Independence Day!