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People 2

Best of the Web: Class dismissed: Identity politics without the identity - The white American working class

famous people Trump emperor Obama collage painting
"The goal of mainstream politicians of both parties should be to drive a wedge between the viciousness of white supremacy and people who are basically decent but tired of what they see as 'political correctness' that ignores the very considerable challenges faced by working-class whites while directing them to feel sorry for a whole range of other groups."

-Joan C. Williams, White Working Class - Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America

"We're voting with our middle finger."

-South Carolina Trump supporter

"There was no reason why the Left had to abandon its old blue collar base."

-Milo Yiannopoulos
My apologies to Ta Nehisi Coates and the "it's all about race" school of politics, but by now it should be clear to just about everyone that attempting to achieve a democratic majority by multiplying victim minorities is doomed to failure.

For the four decades we have seen neo-liberal economics at work, white working class fortunes have gone steadily down the drain while diversity enthusiasts aggressively demanded universal sympathy for a growing list of victim groups: the poor, blacks, Latinos, "native" Americans, Asians, the disabled, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, the transgendered, queers, non-binary people, the asexual, along with every possible "intersection" of these identities. Meanwhile, legitimate anger at the economic squeeze imposed on working people from outsourcing and mass immigration from the Third World has been written off as racism, sexism, nativism, and xenophobia. By 2016, the longstanding depression visible throughout rural America was a key factor in elevating Donald Trump to the presidency.

Comment: The left lost its way by betraying the genuine needs of the working class, and it is now chasing phantoms into fruitless and even dangerous territories. See also: Fascism came to America wrapped in a rainbow flag and wearing a pussyhat


Oscar

Best of the Web: (Not satire) And the winner of TIME's 2017 'Person of the Year' award goes to... Hollywood celebrity supporters of #MeToo!

NBC show time metoo
© NBC
'This is the fastest moving social change we have seen in decades,' says Time editor-in-chief

The Hollywood abuse "silence breakers" have been named as Time magazine's 2017 Person of the Year.

The decision to grant people who have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct with the accolade was announced on NBC's Today show on Wednesday morning.

The award is decided by Time's editors and goes to the person or group who has had the most influence on the year's news for better or worse.

"This is the fastest moving social change we have seen in decades," Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal told the programme.

"It began with individual acts of courage by hundreds of women - and some men, too - who came forward to tell their own stories".

Dollar

Best of the Web: US Military invests $100m in 'genetic extinction' technologies, should Russia be concerned?

mosquito bite
© dr_relling/Flickr, CC BY-SACutting-edge gene editing tools could be used to distort the sex-ratio of mosquitoes to effectively wipe out malarial populations.
A US military agency is investing $100m in genetic extinction technologies that could wipe out malarial mosquitoes, invasive rodents or other species, emails released under freedom of information rules show.

The documents suggest that the US's secretive Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) has become the world's largest funder of "gene drive" research and will raise tensions ahead of a UN expert committee meeting in Montreal beginning on Tuesday.

The UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is debating whether to impose a moratorium on the gene research next year and several southern countries fear a possible military application.

UN diplomats confirmed that the new email release would worsen the "bad name" of gene drives in some circles. "Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from Darpa, a US military science agency," one said.

The technology is capable of splicing DNA strands in order to insert, alter, or remove targeted traits, and "drive" them through a population by ensuring all the offspring of the targeted organism inherit the alteration. Proponents of the gene-editing technology say it can be used to wipe out malaria-spreading mosquitoes, for example. Critics point out that the method could have unforeseen environmental consequences.


Comment: Many countries should have concerns about this news, particularly Russia. DARPA has a history of involving itself in some really creepy stuff. It is highly unlikely that the US military, in particular its DARPA branch, is interested in using this technology to deal with mosquitoes or other 'environmental' problems. DARPA has always been about improving the US military's fighting capability and its ability to defeat its perceived enemies. As such, it is likely that this research is linked to the report from July this year that the US Air force has requested samples of Russian RNA and synovial fluid.
'Weaponizing viruses'? U.S. Air Force places ad for biological samples from Russians

The US Air Force is looking to acquire samples of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and synovial fluid from Russians, according to a government website used to place tenders. The reason behind the order hasn't been specified.

The Air Force's Air Education and Training Command has placed a listing on the Federal Business Opportunities website asking for at least 12 RNA samples from Russian people of a European ancestry, as well as 27 samples of synovial fluid.
Russian RNA request US Air Force
The original US Air Force tender for Russian RNA and synovial fluid
In the request, the US Air Force stated that "information on donors must be provided with the samples, including their sex, age, ethnicity, smoking history, medical history, height, weight and Body Mass Index (BMI)."

Russian president Putin may have hinted at this report while presiding over a meeting of Russia's Human Rights Council in late October 2017.
"Images are one thing, but do you know that biological material is being collected all over the country, from different ethnic groups and people living in different geographical regions of the Russian Federation? The question is - why is it being done? It's being done purposefully and professionally. We are a kind of object of great interest", Putin said.
After the initial request was released by the US Air Force, member of the UN Commission on Biological Weaponry, Igor Nikulin told reporters:
"New types of biological weapons are being developed. There's nothing else that could possibly interest the military department. Most likely, they are weaponized viruses. The US is trying to develop various types of biological weapons specifically for specific carriers of this gene pool, and Caucasoids are needed since they constitute the majority of the population of our country. This is the same focus group for which they are trying to find the samples. It's necessary for the viruses to act selectively on one or another ethnic group."

Comment: So on the one hand the idea that the research could be used for bioweapons is dismissed as fantasy, while another report assessed the "potential threats the technology might pose in the hands of an adversary".


Blackbox

Best of the Web: MI5 Foils 'Islamist Terror Plot' to 'blow up and assassinate' Theresa May

Theresa May 10 downing street
Easy target? Unlikely.
British intelligence has allegedly foiled a terrorist plot to assassinate Prime Minister Theresa May, one of nine terrorist schemes thwarted so far by UK spies in 2017, local media report.

Two men were arrested last week for plotting terrorist atrocities in the UK, British news outlets reported Tuesday. Naa'imur Zakariyah Rahman, 20, from north London, and Mohammed Aqib Imran, 21, from Birmingham, were apprehended during security raids and charged with preparing and assisting in acts of terrorism. They are due to appear before the Westminster Magistrates court Wednesday.

Comment: Indeed, the timing of this announcement about the 'plot to kill May' is very interesting. Yesterday, the independent assessment highlighted many problems with British intelligence handling of suspects who went on to carry out attacks, and that some of those attacks COULD have been prevented, but were not. As noted, there is likely a conflict of interest here where British intelligence is reluctant to prevent terror attacks when their own budget depends on those terror attacks being carried out. So this alleged 'plot' against May would appear to be damage control, as if to say 'look, you still need us!'.


Magic Hat

Best of the Web: Mueller's investigation is about obstruction, which means it's about impeachment

Trump airforce one
The smoke is clearing from an explosive Mueller investigation weekend of charges, chattering, and tweets. Before the next aftershock, it might be helpful to make three points about where things stand.

In ascending order of importance, they are:

1.) There is a great deal of misinformation in the commentariat about how prosecutors build cases.

2.) For all practical purposes, the collusion probe is over. While the "counterintelligence" cover will continue to be exploited so that no jurisdictional limits are placed on Special Counsel Robert Mueller, this is now an obstruction investigation.

3.) That means it is, as it has always been, an impeachment investigation.

Comment: So you see the point here. These investigations and indictments by Mueller may be a fishing expedition to try and find enough small yet not prosecutable 'crimes' against Trump to justify the launching of impeachment proceedings, or at least to have that threat hanging over this head so he is more amenable to being 'influenced' by certain agents of the US 'deep state'.


Cow

Best of the Web: Why Flynn's plea exposes the nonsense that is the 'Russiagate' conspiracy

Flynn plea deal
President Donald Trump's short-lived national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Most US media jumped on the plea as proof of Trump's collusion with Russia. Actual documents, however, tell a different story.

A court document signed by special counsel Robert Mueller, dated Thursday, specifies two instances of Flynn telling FBI investigators things that were not true. They relate to two conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in December 2016.

In the Statement of Offense signed by Flynn at his court appearance on Friday, he admitted to acting on instructions from a senior "Presidential Transition Team" (PTT) official, prompting breathless speculation if that was Trump himself, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, or someone else altogether. The one question nobody seems to be asking is, "So what?"

It is intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer that Flynn's "crime" is a procedural one: he told FBI investigators he hadn't done a thing that he actually did. But was the thing he did - namely, speak with the Russian ambassador to the US - against the law? Not really.

USA

Best of the Web: Mueller Investigation: Politics, Not Law Enforcement or Counterintelligence

Michael Flynn

The end game is the removal of Trump, either by impeachment or by publicly discrediting him and making his reelection politically impossible.


Here's what I'd be tempted to do if I were President Trump: I'd direct the Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, including any Obama-administration collusion in that enterprise.

I would make sure to call it a "counterintelligence investigation," putting no limitations on the special counsel - just as with the investigation that Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been unleashed to conduct into Trump "collusion" with Russia. That is, I would not restrict the prosecutor and investigators to digging for specified criminal violations. Or, indeed, any criminal violations. I'd just tell the special counsel, "Have at it" - with unbound authority to scrutinize the negotiations surrounding the eventual Iran nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action).

Books

Best of the Web: SJWs need to stop trying to protect everyone's feelings

burning book
Like every kid, I was forced to read Fahrenheit 451 in high school.

If you'd asked me what it was about before last week, I would have told you: "Firemen who burn books."

And if you'd asked me why on earth they did that, I would have answered just as confidently: "Because a tyrannical government wanted them to."

There is a trend afoot to conveniently remember the works of authors like Ray Bradbury and Aldous Huxley as warnings against distant totalitarianism and control. But this only scratches the surface of what these books are about.

USA

Best of the Web: Michael Flynn 'Guilty' Plea and the Entire 'Russia Collusion' Investigation is a Farce

Michael Flynn arrives at a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 1, 2017.
Michael Flynn arrives at a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., December 1, 2017.
Former Trump-administration national-security adviser Michael Flynn, who is reportedly cooperating with the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, is pleading guilty in federal district court in Washington, D.C., to a one-count criminal information (which is filed by a prosecutor in cases when a defendant waives his right to be indicted by a grand jury).

Stop

Best of the Web: Ridiculous! YouTube censors Christian videos because content describes and supports values of Russian Faith

Really YouTube?
Really YouTube?
Two weeks ago, I was summarily informed in a brief email from YouTube that our Russian Faith channel-on which we had spent hundreds of hours of hard work and which complements the Russian Faith website, which I own, had been 'terminated.' No reason was given other than a very general one which could mean anything.

Russian Faith is a new media project I started in September: a website, YouTube channel (now banned), Facebook, and Twitter - to cover Christian issues in general, and the huge story of the renaissance of Christianity in Russia.

This dramatic turn by both government and society in Russia is very important not just for Christians, but for the whole world, regardless of their religious views, because it has so many ramifications important to us Americans.

It should affect our foreign policy, and it contrasts with the hostility to Christian values in our own Western societies. It is a fact that Russia has emerged as the leading defender of world Christianity, and it is a disgrace that liberal forces in the US elites and the government are among Christianity's most hostile foes - both at home and abroad.

Comment: How symbolic that a website named Russian Faith has been so needlessly and egregiously attacked in this way. But it also fits the 'Big Picture'. And that 'Big Picture' is to drag down, demonize and undermine anything and anyone who would seek to have Russia succeed as a nation and as a people - on nearly every level - and in whatever way it can.

But here's the thing: Every time we see one of these attacks, more and more people get to see and know for themselves just how biased, irrational and pathological this impetus towards Russia's destabilization actually is.

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