I’ve never taken much interest in cars. I see them as a mode of transportation, and my concern is with drivability and safety features, with looks a distant third. Even as a child growing up in the 1950s I didn’t take much interest in how they looked, except for liking pink ones and turquoise-blue ones, which were not all that uncommon then.
Ditto car advertisements. I just didn’t pay attention – except for one ad campaign that I remember vividly.
The year was 1957 and the ad was for Plymouth, the make of car my mother drove. The musical pitch was “Suddenly, it’s 1960!” The reason this made such an impression on me had little to do with the car and everything to do with the slogan. After all, as far as I was concerned, it had been the 1950s forever. I didn’t recall any other decade. 1960 seemed impossibly futuristic, like a science fiction dream. The ad opened my eyes to the fact that the 60s were coming, although in the far-distant three-years-away future.
Last night it occurred to me that I could probably find some of these ads on YouTube. Sure enough, this came up:
Ontario’s top court has ruled the province must cover the cost of a penile-sparing vaginoplasty for a transgender resident who does not identify as exclusively female or male and who wishes to have both genitalia.
In a unanimous decision released this week, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal confirmed a lower court’s ruling that the novel phallus-preserving surgery qualifies as an insured service under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan. …
In a letter accompanying the request, her doctor said that because K.S. is “not completely on the ‘feminine’ end of the spectrum” it was important for her to have a vagina while maintaining her penis, adding that the Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin, Tx.,”has an excellent reputation” for gender-affirming surgery, “and especially with these more complicated procedures.”
I have heard of this sort of surgery before, as well as a trend for surgery that obliterates the genitalia entirely.
The internet is buzzing over the sad news that Virginia Giuffre, Epstein accuser and accuser of many others, has committed suicide at the age of 41. The talk I’ve seen, however, isn’t so much about the event itself as about the idea that it wasn’t a suicide at all but a murder in order to silence her.
I disagree, and I’ll explain why.
I see Giuffre as a victim of Epstein and Maxwell, and probably of various people before that, as well as a dysfunctional upbringing. She alleged having been sexually abused as a young child, then living for a while on the streets and being abused there, then falling in with one older man who sexually abused her and then Epstein, all while underage. I don’t doubt that this history is mostly or substantially true: she was damaged and vulnerable early on.
In court documents from a civil suit that were released from seal in 2019, Giuffre named several others that she claims Epstein and Maxwell instructed her to have sex with, including hedge fund manager Glenn Dubin, attorney Alan Dershowitz, politician Bill Richardson, the late MIT scientist Marvin Minsky, lawyer George J. Mitchell, and MC2 modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. Many of the men denied Giuffre’s allegations
Dershowitz ultimately got an admission from Giuffre, which I wrote about in this previous post:
… [O]ne of the main people on whom this perception of Epstein shopping young women around for other rich and/or famous men rests is a woman named Virginia Giuffre. You can read about her here and in particular about her accusations against Alan Dershowitz here. Read about her here also. Note that in the latter article she says, “When you are abused, you know your abuser. I might not have my dates right, I might not have my times right… but I know their faces and I know what they’ve done to me.” And yet later, regarding her allegations that she had sex with Dershowitz six times, she said maybe her accusations against him were a case of mistaken identity. Oopsies!
I have come to my own conclusions about her veracity, and you can come to yours.
As I said, I believe Giuffre was an extremely troubled person who’d been abused early in life and that made her vulnerable to all sorts of woe and upheaval later in life. It also made her vulnerable to suicide. It seems to me likely that the proximate cause of her suicide was related to the fact that her husband and she had separated and were involved in a custody battle that seems to have been quite bitter.
Another photo Virginia posted on Sunday, showing her lying on a hospital bed covered in bruises, along with her statement that she had “four days to live” caused the same amount of shock. It wasn’t long, though, until questions began to be raised. Police said there had been only a “minor crash” with no reports of serious injuries, while sources close to Virginia said her post had been a “mistake”. …
The troubling selfie – which Virginia later said she didn’t mean to be a public post – may have been a cry for help. The sex abuse survivor reportedly recently split from her husband of two decades, Robert Giuffre, and became estranged from their three teenage children – two sons and a daughter. Until recently the family had been living an idyllic and quiet life in a £1millions seaside six-bedroomed home in Ocean Reef, Perth. She was reportedly paid more than £12million by Prince Andrew to settled her case out of court.
It was through her husband that Virginia finally escaped paedophile Epstein after years of abuse. In 2002 aged 19, as part of her escape plan, she asked the billionaire to pay her training as a message therapist and he agreed, flying her to an international training school in Thailand – but only on the condition that she would meet a young Thai girl there and bring her back to the US. There she met Robert, an Australian martial arts trainer, and the pair married after ten days. She later credit having with having “rescued me from Epstein and Maxwell’s clutches”. …
However in recent months Virginia’s close bond with the family who supported and protected for so many years appears to have broken down. After her alleged split with Robert it is said that she has been unable to see her children, who were placed with him. It was also revealed this week that a restraining order had been placed on Virginia, which she had then allegedly broken and was charged by police on March 14 – 10 days before the crash on March 24. Virginia had entered no plea in a court appearance and was next due to appear in front of a magistrate on April 9.
And in the weeks before her crash, she appeared to be struggling to cope without her children. In a post on March 22, she wrote: “My beautiful babies have no clue how much I love them and they’re being poisoned with lies. I miss them so very much. I have been through hell & back in my 41 years but this is incredibly hurting me worse than anything else. Hurt me, abuse me but don’t take my babies. My heart is shattered and every day that passes my sadness only deepens.”
Her father Sky Roberts also told how Virgina had been “very depressed” recently, adding that he was “hoping she can hang on” amid her family life struggles and that her younger brother is “trying to get her spirits up”. He told the Daily Mail she is “in really bad shape. I feel like crying. I love my daughter more than life.’
As I said, that article appeared three weeks before her death. It indicates quite clearly, in my opinion, a person who was in deep emotional difficulty and at high risk for suicide. Her family doesn’t seem to be denying her suicide at this point, either – just the conspiracy-minded online contingent.
I’m not writing this to badmouth Giuffre, but just to say that her story is far more complex than the simplistic way it’s usually depicted. I’ll leave it at that and say RIP.
Our British visitor “David Clayton” is highly offended and downright outraged by Judge Dugan’s arrest:
The FBI arresting a judge.
I am not surprised but probably not for the same reasons as you Neo. Your country and its constitution is being dragged into the mire by a liar who frightens his supporters into tolerating anything.
And you cheer him on. Doesn’t any of this excessive executive power worry you? The endless EO’s, the thoroughly cowed Congress and the imperilled judiciary.
Your entire constitution was written to prevent one man rule but one man is ruling.
Is there anything Trump will do that you won’t tolerate?
And here I thought that, to the David Claytons of the world (because he is hardly alone in his sentiments), no one is above the law. Apparently, however, judges are above the law, and can make up their own law and/or defy the actual law in order to assist a criminal illegal alien if they happen to feel so disposed.
Good to know.
And the law involved in the case was not something esoteric. Unlike the bizarre lawfare cases the left brought against Trump during the Biden years, in which the law was tortured and twisted and turned inside out and used in completely novel and previously-unthought-of ways in order to “get” him, the case in which Dugan decided to help the defendant was a pretty straightforward matter.
It is actually the left which will tolerate nearly anything – including, apparently, a judge who protects an illegal alien who is charged with beating up two people in a domestic assault – protects him from being arrested by letting him out a back door in order to evade apprehension by ICE. Because that’s a summary of the facts of the case.
[FBI director Patel said] “We believe Judge Dugan intentionally misdirected federal agents away from the subject to be arrested in her courthouse, Eduardo Flores Ruiz, allowing the subject — an illegal alien — to evade arrest.”
Dugan was charged with two criminal counts of “obstructing and impeding a proceeding before a department or agency of the United States” and “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest,” according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday.
County court records show the undocumented immigrant in the Milwaukee case — Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — was set to appear in court on April 18 before Dugan for a pretrial conference in a case where he has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of battery/domestic abuse connected to an incident on March 12. The case is ongoing.
Federal prosecutors allege Flores-Ruiz illegally entered the U.S. from Mexico and was issued an Expedited Removal order in January 2013, according to a criminal complaint.
Bondi alleged that Flores-Ruiz beat his roommate and a woman so badly that they needed to be hospitalized and that he continued to be belligerent in the hospital before his arrest. …
“The courtroom deputy [later] saw Judge DUGAN get up and heard Judge DUGAN say something like ‘Wait, come with me,'” the complaint states. “Despite having been advised of the administrative warrant for the arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Judge DUGAN then escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom through the ‘jury door,’ which leads to a nonpublic area of the courthouse.”
“So she continues, continues with her docket, finishes her docket. Two victims sit in court all morning long waiting and at the end. The prosecutors say ‘What happened? Why didn’t the case get called?'” Bondi said.
Seems pretty lawless to me.
No one is above the law, including a judge. Judges are not saints. In the past, some of them have even been convicted of crimes (for a list, please take a look at this). The criminal complaint against Dugan can be found here, with the details of the allegations against the judge. In addition, the situation is not new:
The case is similar to one brought during the first Trump administration against a Massachusetts judge, who was accused of helping a man sneak out a back door of a courthouse to evade a waiting immigration enforcement agent.
Prosecutors dropped the case against Newton District Judge Shelley Joseph in 2022 under the Democratic Biden administration after she agreed to refer herself to a state agency that investigates allegations of misconduct by members of the bench.
The Justice Department had previously signaled that it was going to crack down on local officials who thwart federal immigration efforts.
The department in January ordered prosecutors to investigate for potential criminal charges any state and local officials who obstruct or impede federal functions. As potential avenues for prosecution, a memo cited a conspiracy offense as well as a law prohibiting the harboring of people in the country illegally.
As far as Clayton’s idea of Trump as displaying “excessive power” goes, Trump didn’t invent immigration law or the concept of illegal aliens; he has been enforcing laws passed by Congress governing immigration, in accord with his own presidential powers over immigration which are given to presidents by the US Constitution. But I guess rogue judges are just fine with the left as long as they are members of the Trump “resistance.”
One can read more about the Massachusetts case against Shelley Joseph here. The allegations were quite serious – although not as serious as the Dugan case. From the article:
Late last year, the [Massachusetts Commission on Judicial Conduct] filed formal charges against Joseph with the state’s highest court, a surprisingly forceful step for a body that has only gone so far five other times since 2000.
And that’s in ultra-liberal Massachusetts, so her offense was considered serious, even there. I can’t find any news of a ruling on Joseph so perhaps one hasn’t been made yet.
In an excerpt of an interview that is set to air in full on Sunday, Lavrov told CBS News that he agreed with President Donald Trump’s assertion that talks between Ukraine and Russia were “moving in the right direction.” …
However, Lavrov also told CBS News that there were “some specific points, elements of the deal, which need to be fine-tuned,” but did not explain what was being negotiated.
Lavrov also apparently made it clear to CBS News that Russia would not give up Crimea, which the country seized from Ukraine in 2014. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that his country would not recognize Russian control of Crimea, as it would go against Ukraine’s constitution. Trump slammed Zelenskyy over the “inflammatory” remark and said in a post on Truth Social that the comment was “very harmful” to peace efforts.
Note that Crimea was lost during the Obama administration – and of course the present Ukraine war began during the Biden administration.
I don’t see that there’s any way whatsover that Ukraine is getting Crimea back, and I don’t mean just through diplomacy. I mean that it wasn’t happening through war, either. And I believe any negotiated settlement will include an agreement that Ukraine will not become a NATO member. Zelensky talks tough on Crimea, but that may merely be his initial bargaining position.
Before the [June 2024 debate between Trump and Biden], no Democrat in public life – and damn few Republicans – EVER expressed the thought that maybe Biden wasn’t in charge – at least, none that I ever heard of; every single one went along with what anyone with eyes and ears could tell was a lie.
I agree about Democrats, and I’ll add that they also spent a lot of time and effort saying Joe was just fine and sharp as a tack and that any suggestion to the contrary was a terrible insult and a baldfaced lie. So-called reporters in the MSM said much the same, another example of their left/liberal bias and willingness to lie. At this point, those coverups should be talked about far more than they are – including the fact that the MSM is still pretending to have been shocked and surprised by Biden’s performance during that June debate.
But those things are not why I’m writing this post. This post is the result of my curiosity about Jamie’s contention that few Republicans were pointing out the problem with Biden’s mental capacities, which after all is the source of the suspicion that he wasn’t the one really in charge. But then when I looked it up I saw that many Republicans had tried to make it an issue – and were told to go pound sand.
To take just one example, Trump was certainly doing it during the 2020 campaign, as was Republican House member Greg Murphy (the article is from June of 2021 but that was an update; it was written during the 2020 presidential campaign):
Greg Murphy, who represents much of Eastern North Carolina in the U.S. House, has said repeatedly in the last few weeks that Biden, the 77-year-old former vice president, has dementia. …
Murphy is a medical doctor — a urologist. But experts at the UNC Department of Neurology said diagnosing dementia requires a comprehensive evaluation, including in-person tests. Still, Murphy has posted versions of the claim at least four times on Twitter, saying Biden “obviously is fighting the ravages of dementia.” …
Murphy said Biden is not “physically up or mentally up for the job.” He cited Biden’s speech patterns and said “I don’t think one has to be a rocket scientist” to see it.
Nor did you have to be a doctor; it was, as Murphy said, obvious. And although yes, a workup is required for a full diagnosis, if the obvious signs are there any layperson can see it.
Back then when I wrote about Biden’s mental decline I usually used the term “cognitively challenged,” rather than something like “senile.” I felt even during the 2020 campaign that Joe was in significant mental decline, but in the early years of his presidency it seemed to me as though he nevertheless retained at least some sort of control over his decision-making process (although much later I think his Obama-friendly aides took over more and more). For example, I thought (and still think) that the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan had Biden’s fingerprints all over it. The problem there was probably too much control by a cognitively-compromised Biden rather than too little.
CNN’s Chris Cillizza was an egregious and yet typical example of the way the press handled the Biden mental status story as well as how it reacted to the statements of Republicans pointing out that there was a problem. See this Cillizza piece from August of 2021:
During the course of the 2020 campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly tried to make Joe Biden’s mental state a major issue.
“Biden is shot,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Channel last fall. “I’m telling you he’s shot. There’s something going on.” …
Republicans continue to keep questions about Biden’s mental health front and center.
Earlier this week, Florida Sen. Rick Scott (R) suggested that Biden’s handling of the collapse of the Afghan government was grounds to consider removing him under the 25th Amendment. …
Then, on Thursday, Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty (R), in an interview with conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt, openly speculated about Biden’s mental capacity. …
This is the sort of gross, lowest-common-denominator politics that drive people away from public life. If Republicans have some sort of proof that Biden is declining, they should bring it forward. If they don’t, they should stop doing what they’re doing. Immediately.
This is a reporter? “Proof” wasn’t necessary; there was evidence on a near-daily basis. Were Cillizza and his colleagues willfully blind and in denial? Were they lying through their teeth? Was it some combination of both? Cillizza has helped us out at least a little bit by a recent (12/2024) and pathetically inadequate effort to explain:
“As a reporter, I have a confession to make,” Cillizza said in the video clip on Thursday.
“I should have pushed harder earlier for more information about Joe Biden’s mental and physical well-being and any signs of decline.”
According to Cillizza, Republicans would “regularly ping me” during his tenure at CNN to quiz him as to why he didn’t address obvious signs of the 82-year-old president’s deterioration.
Cillizza recalled how he would “brush them off” because he had not seen “evidence” that Biden was faltering — despite numerous verbal gaffes, physical stumbles and instances when the president appeared to lose his train of thought while speaking in public.
You should have pushed harder? No, you should have opened your eyes and unstopped your ears. But I can guarantee you would have done so had the subject under scrutiny been Donald Trump (or any Republican).
Cillizza did say one interesting thing:
The former CNN pundit, who read excerpts from the Journal report in his video, said he accepted the White House’s position that Biden was fine and that he was deterred from pursuing the matter due to the guilt he felt about “age-shaming” the president.
“The White House and the people around Joe Biden were absolutely adamant that suggesting anything — asking the question about whether he was in some physical, mental or both decline, was offensive,” Cillizza said on Thursday.
“‘How could you? It’s age-shaming.’ And I think that impacted me at some level,” he admitted.
Again, it wouldn’t have been a deterrent at all had the subject had an “R” next to his name. However, Biden’s aides also knew how to shame a friendly reporter by implying that delving into Biden’s decline would be insufficiently woke.
Cillizza said that “while I did ask the question from time to time … I didn’t really push on it, if I’m being honest.”
If you’re being honest …
Here’s another of the efforts by Republicans to call attention to the issue, from May of 2023:
Yesterday, Congressman Ronny Jackson (TX-13) led his colleagues in sending a letter to President Joe Biden and Physician to the President, calling on the President to take a cognitive test immediately, or renounce his bid for re-election in 2024. Jackson’s letter comes after the President’s recent announcement to seek re-election in 2024 despite the obvious showing of cognitive decline over the past two and a half years.
Jackson said: “The American people deserve to have absolute confidence in their President and trust that he or she can perform his or her duties. Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s mental health is sharply deteriorating while the whole world watches. This is not a political issue, even Democrats are losing faith in the man they put in the White House. Americans WANT a mentally fit leader and reassurance that the man they elected is a cognitively sound Commander in Chief. I administered a cognitive test to President Donald J. Trump, and it’s time that President Biden is held to the same standard. The American people deserve answers. If Biden can’t step up to the plate and take a cognitive test, then he shouldn’t run for President again.”
If Democrats had listened in May of 2023 and dumped Biden, they might even have won in 2024.
Jackson had sent similar letters calling for Biden to take a cognitive test back in June of 2021, February of 2022, and July of 2022. The one in May of 2023 was joined by the following:
GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (NY-21), Chief Deputy Whip Guy Reschenthaler (PA-14), RSC Chairman Kevin Hern (OK-01), GOP Conference Vice Chairman Mike Johnson (LA-04), and Representatives Jason Smith (MO-08), Jim Banks (IN-03), John Carter (TX-31), Andy Harris (MD-01), Mark Green (TN-07), Greg Murphy (NC-03), Brian Babin (TX-36), Jeff Van Drew (NJ-02), Buddy Carter (GA-01), Diana Harshbarger (TN-01), Joe Wilson (SC-02), Byron Donalds (FL-19), Andy Biggs (AZ-05), Roger Williams (TX-25), Jeff Duncan (SC-03), Ralph Norman (SC-05), Randy Weber (TX-14), Pat Fallon (TX-04), Bill Posey (FL-08), Rick Allen (GA-12), Russell Fry (SC-07), Warren Davidson (OH-08), Claudia Tenney (NY-24), Troy Nehls (TX-22), Tracey Mann (KS-01), Beth Van Duyne (TX-24), Tim Walberg (MI-05), Aaron Bean (FL-04), Eli Crane (AZ-02), Nathaniel Moran (TX-01), David Rouzer (NC-07), Lauren Boebert (CO-03), Tony Gonzales (TX-23), William Timmons (SC-04), Alex Mooney (WV-02), August Pfluger (TX-11), Max Miller (OH-07), Jim Baird (IN-04), Keith Self (TX-03), Mark Alford (MO-04), Mary Miller (IL-15), Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA-14), Tim Burchett (TN-02), Victoria Spartz (IN-05), Dan Crenshaw (TX-02), Harriet Hageman (WY-At Large), Cory Mills (FL-07), Matt Rosendale (MT-02), Monica De La Cruz (TX-15), Tom Tiffany (WI-07), Scott Fitzgerald (WI-05), Andrew Clyde (GA-09), Michael Cloud (TX-27), Clay Higgins (LA-03), and Bob Good (VA-05).
These attacks kept up during Biden’s presidency and last year a group of 54 Republican lawmakers wrote an open letter to “express concern” with the president’s “current cognitive state” and demand that Biden take a mental fitness test. The letter cited the Alzheimer’s Association’s signs of mental decline before listing a series of Biden gaffes and polling on his mental state. (Biden has a well-documented stutter which creates frequent verbal gaffes and repetitions, making it fairly easy to find videos of him stumbling over his words.)
That letter signed by 54 Republicans would have been in 2022. The Guardian mounts the tired old stutter defense. Now, Biden has discussed having had a stutter in his youth, and I see no reason to doubt that. But I have yet to see a video display of a stutter from earlier in his career – nor do his verbal “gaffes” as president resemble a stutter.
While I was doing a search for evidence of a stutter from politician Joe Biden in his earlier days, I came cross the following video which I decided to post, not because it demonstrates a stuttering Joe (it doesn’t), but because it shows his earlier demeanor and personality which you are welcome to compare to his later years. It’s an especially sad contrast and doesn’t even really seem like the same person:
“Do you see in Joe Biden a cognitive decline, and if so, is that a danger to the country?” Fox News host Sean Hannity asked the newly installed House speaker.
“I do. I think most of us do,” Johnson said. “This is not a personal slight to him. It has to do with age and acumen, and everyone’s different. Everyone ages differently.”
Every single reporter, every single news outlet, and every single Democrat who denied Biden’s decline and mocked and/or discounted and/or insulted those who pointed out that decline, should be made to explain it. They have removed any last lingering doubt (not that I had any doubt even prior to this) about their extreme partisanship and willingness to cover up anything that reflects poorly on the left.
Israel came to a standstill on Thursday morning as a two-minute siren sounded nationwide at 10 a.m., marking Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah). …
“We bow our heads in memory of the victims,” Netanyahu said during the ceremony. “Their legacy obligates us to defend our existence and ensure never again means never again.”
The words have taken on even more meaning since 10/7/2023.
I’ve written many many previous posts on the subject of the Holocaust, but for now I’ll direct you to this one as well as this one.
What could not be accomplished by armed conquest can be achieved by other means. And so we have this:
According to newly released data from the City Council of Vienna for the 2024–2025 academic year, Muslim students now represent 41.2% of the population across primary, secondary, and vocational schools—making them the largest single religious group. By comparison, just 34.5% of students identify as Christian (including 17.5% Catholic and 14.5% Orthodox), while 23% report no religious affiliation.
[In the previous academic year, 39.4% of students were Muslim.]
This significant demographic shift should serve as a wake-up call for Austrians. If current trends continue, the nation may face a profound cultural transformation, with serious implications for its identity and future.
I would say they already face it, as does much of western Europe. And the differential birth rate indicates the disparity will grow more extreme.
More:
Bettina Emmerling, Vienna’s City Councillor for Education and a member of NEOS (the New Austria and Liberal Forum, a liberal political party), offered what many may view as a tone-deaf response to these growing challenges.
She acknowledged that “no one in Vienna should live their life according to the fundamentalist interpretation of religious texts that are hostile to women, minorities, the state, or democracy.”
Nevertheless, Emmerling appears to believe that these deeply rooted issues can be resolved by the addition of a mandatory class to the curriculum. “In light of these developments,” she said, “there is a greater need than ever for a compulsory joint subject, ‘Living in a Democracy,’ for all children starting from primary school. Democracy, values, and ethics education must take place on a common foundation.”
That’s fascinating. It’s the age-old question of how to effect cultural assimilation in a portion of the population that’s newly-arrived and has extremely divergent views from the mainstream population. When I think about cultural assimilation in the US, which has a much longer history of absorbing large numbers of immigrants from other cultures, I wonder whether we ever had the task of assimilating such a sudden influx of such a large population with views so starkly divergent from the mainstream – and in particular, a population many of whose members don’t want to assimilate. I don’t think we ever faced that, in particular the lack of desire to become part of American culture – and in the past we used to force quicker assimilation by not having bilingual education, for example. We have faced the problem more in recent years although on a smaller scale than western Europe for the most part. And we will continue to face it.
NOTE: I notice that, although not planned, the subject matter of this post overlaps slightly with the subject matter of this earlier post from today.
Well worth watching, and it’s only about a minute long. Warren tries mightily but is defeated by the topic. Note her almost involuntary smile at 0:15, and the interviewer’s expression at 0:22:
If you watch a clip today, let it be this one of Elizabeth Warren stumbling all over herself as she’s repeatedly pressed on why she lied about Joe Biden’s senility. pic.twitter.com/pyMjQjAaUo
