Society's ChildS


NPC

Second thoughts: Minneapolis plan to defund police collapses, city council members 'regret' making pledge

rioters police station minneapolis
© REUTERS/Carlos BarriaProtesters set fire to a police station in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US May 28, 2020.
Minneapolis, Minnesota's plan to defund and then disband their local police force has "collapsed" according to a New York Times report from over the weekend. Some of the Minneapolis City Council members who pledged to abolish the city's law enforcement — including the City Council president — now say they regret making that promise.

The Times headline blares that the "pledge to dismantle the police department has collapsed," and notes that "a majority of City Council members promised to 'end policing as we know it'" after George Floyd died while in the custody of the Minneapolis police department. Instead, though "they became a case study in how idealistic calls for structural change can falter."

Mr. Potato

USA Today really did fact-check Babylon Bee's "claim" that Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death was overturned by 9th circuit court

robocop ginsberg
© The Babylon Bee
USA Today embarrassed themselves earlier when they fact-checked a ridiculous, over-the-top Babylon Bee story that nobody — not a single person — believed to be true. Here is the satirical story from The Bee that so-called journalists at a real news outlet somehow felt the need to debunk:


Comment: To quote Not the Bee's masthead: "What a time to be alive!"


Bizarro Earth

Ohio University gives students 'support spaces' to get a grip after the presidential debate

Ohio University
© WikipediaOhio University, West Green Quadrangle
Is the prospect of a presidential debate too triggering? Well, the Ohio University hosting the showdown between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has offered "presidential debate support spaces" for students traumatized by the face-off.

President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden face off against each other on Tuesday night, in the first of three debates before November's election. The political slugfest takes place at Ohio's Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), and will be moderated by Fox News's Chris Wallace.

It'll be watched by a studio audience of around 75 people, and by millions of Americans at home.

NPC

Devouring their own: Left turns on poster boy of gun control David Hogg for daring to denounce political violence

David Hogg
© GettyActivists including Parkland Shooting survivor and activist David Hogg gather before the final mile of the 50 Miles More walk against gun violence which ends with a rally at the Smith and Wesson Firearms factory on August 26, 2018 in Springfield, Massachusetts
Revered anti-weapons protester David Hogg got a taste of woke Twitter in the worst way, after setting out his belief that violent revolution would only lead to a violent government. Now he's been forced to repent.

Of all the political activists in the United States, I can't think of many that are as divisive as David Hogg. One of the group known as the Parkland kids (the students who survived the 2018 mass shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 dead), David is known for his anti-NRA and anti-gun diatribes. He seemed to become one of the political left's darlings. He is the poster child for gun control in the eyes of many. That in and of itself makes him one of the most divisive figures in politics of the last five years.

Given what he went through and how much he's beloved by the political left and those who describe themselves as woke, you wouldn't expect the young man to be called out for an anti-violence stance. I mean, the entire platform that he stands on is based on this and he went to a school where there was a mass shooting. Despite my substantial disagreements with him, an opinion that comes across like a pacifist doesn't exactly surprise me. I don't believe it should surprise anyone. But when he decried political violence, the "Church of Woke" decided that was a sin, and he had to be punished until his mind was changed and he showed contrition.

Comment: See also:


MIB

Meet Blythe Masters - The mastermind behind JPMorgan's gold and silver manipulation "crime ring"

Blythe Masters
There was a time when the merest mention of gold manipulation in "reputable" media was enough to have one branded a perpetual conspiracy theorist with a tinfoil farm out back. That was roughly coincident with a time when Libor, FX, mortgage, and bond market manipulation was also considered unthinkable, when High Frequency Traders were believed to "provide liquidity", when the stock market was said to not be manipulated by the Fed, and when the ever-confused media, always eager to take "complicated" financial concepts at the face value set by a self-serving establishment, never dared to question anything.

All that changed in November 2018 when a former JPMorgan precious-metals trader admitted he engaged in a six-year spoofing scheme that defrauded investors in gold, silver, platinum, and palladium futures contracts. John Edmonds, then 36, pled guilty under seal in the District of Connecticut to commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, commodities price manipulation, and spoofing, a trading technique whereby traders flood the market with "fake" bids or asks to push the price of a given futures contract up or down toward a more advantageous price, and to confuse other traders or HFTs which respond to trader intentions by launching momentum in the other direction. As FBI Assistant Director in Charge Sweeney explained at the time, "with his guilty plea, Edmonds admitted he intended to introduce materially false and misleading information into the commodities markets."

Newspaper

40 editors at NYU's student newspaper quit over 'racist' advisor

NYU newspaper editor
The editorial staff at New York University's student newspaper is resigning after their university-appointed editorial advisor accused of "racism" was hired.
The editorial staff at New York University's student newspaper is resigning after their university-appointed editorial advisor accused of "racism" was hired.

The Washington Square News (WSN) wrote an open letter from the 40 staffed editors "publicizing the grievances" that led to their decision.

"[W]e understand that continuing to work at WSN in our current circumstance would do more harm than good, and we refuse to condone what we have seen over the past three weeks," the address prefaced the widely-felt undermining of their authority as student journalists.

Comment: Sounds like a bunch of snowflakes couldn't take working in a real life journalism environment. They should be happy they still have time to change their majors.

See also:


Megaphone

The war on critical race theory indoctrination is worth winning

Christopher Rufo
Christopher Rufo


This shining victory, whether brief or long term in its tenure, should be savoured to the full by Rufo and Peterson.


One of the more repulsive domestic aspects of the First World War in England was the "White Feather Campaign." Though physically near-weightless, in its symbolism — male cowardice — the white feather was heavier than Tungsten. Women motivated by a hysterical form of patriotism would hand them to any able-bodied man they saw on the streets as a goad to enlisting (or re-enlisting). It was such a shaming experience that it often worked. But in the end, the campaign backfired, because it weaponized an essentially noble feeling and cruelly stigmatized many good and honourable men.

The white-feather campaign went dormant for 100 years, but it is back for deployment in a new kind of battle — a civilizational war in which patriotism has been replaced by oikophobia — cultural self-loathing induced by critical race theory (CRT), which has rewritten the origin story of western civilization in general and the US in particular.

Comment: See also:


Clipboard

This is why Facebook should be regulated

facebook key
The creation of Facebook opened an avenue for a class of entrepreneurial spirits to build entire industries around advertising on the social media platform. But it has since become a monopolistic juggernaut with the ability to censor information and radically affect countless American small businesses at a whim.

I work for one of those small businesses. Nativ3 is a full-service web development and digital marketing agency based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I run our office in Washington, DC and all of our business development. Our gritty team of 11 works long hours to ensure our clients feel at home in the digital space and are well-equipped to operate within it.

There are tens of thousands of small businesses like ours - yet none of us have the expansive representation Facebook retains (both formally and informally) in Washington. Facebook spent $16.7 million on direct lobbying in 2019, and countless millions more on direct donations to conservative policy shops like AEI, CEI, Cato, Heritage and the State Policy Network.

Facebook leverages these massive donations and sponsorships to "free-market" policy shops that will push policies that improve Facebook's bottom line, like leaving content moderation unregulated and allowing Facebook to determine what is and isn't in the public interest to have on their platform.

Comment: See also:


Megaphone

London high school teacher calls face masks an 'egregious and unforgivable form of child abuse'

high school 1
© Kate Dubinski/CBC NewsLarry Farquharson, who wrote a letter to city council, calling mandatory face coverings 'child abuse' works at H. B. Beal Secondary School in London, Ont., the first high school in the city to have a case of COVID-19.
A London public high school teacher has written an email to a city hall committee asking politicians and health authorities to quash the city's controversial pandemic face-covering bylaw, calling masks an "egregious and unforgivable form of child abuse and physical assault."

Larry Farquharson said he always wears a mask while interacting with students as a teacher-librarian at H.B. Beal Secondary School, the first public school in the city to have a confirmed case of COVID-19. He wrote the email dated Sept. 21 to the city's strategic priorities and policy committee as a private citizen. The email was included in a packet of public documents for committee members to consider.

The wearing of masks in indoor public places is recommended by federal, provincial and local health authorities and, in some cases, legislated by some municipal governments, including the City of London.

There is a lot of confusion and misinformation about the science behind non-medical face coverings and they remain the subject of vigorous debate.

Some studies suggest non-medical face coverings, such as a reusable cloth mask, can reduce transmission of the virus from the wearer to others. However, such masks do not protect the wearer from potentially acquiring an infection from other people.

Eye 1

If you can't beat them, ban them: Twitter no longer showing search results from well-known Russian state news agency RIA Novosti

twitter
© REUTERS/Regis Duvignau
Twitter has shadow-banned well-known Russian news agency RIA Novosti. In practice, the move means users will no longer see the agency's tweets in the website's search results, unless they follow the media organization's account.

The removal of RIA Novosti's tweets from the search function has been called "media censorship," as the social network continues to restrict news outlets it considers to be "Russian state-affiliated." Last month, both RT and Sputnik also faced the same suppression.

"We consider such restrictions on the part of Twitter to be an act of media censorship, which is expressly prohibited by the Russian Constitution," the press service of Rossiya Segodnya, the parent company of RIA Novosti, said on Monday. "The social network does not react to our requests and does not explain its decisions."