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Wayne Dupree: Left is showing epic panic; they know a November loss is on their doorstep

Wayne Dupree
RT
Mon, 13 Jul 2020 16:14 UTC
Biden
© Getty Images/Joe Raedle
Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at Tipton High School on December 28, 2019 in Tipton, Iowa.
The Left's anger is intense because they were so close to success with their riots, and now they're terrified Joe Biden will lose his election showdown with Donald Trump. I understand the anger and the impulse to vent about it, but this is not the time. Venting may help you feel better, but it doesn't help the cause, it only encourages others to think it's a lost cause, so why bother?

It's time to put things in the proper perspective, which is that the re-election of President Trump takes priority over your anxiety. It's time to stand your ground, regardless of your fears. It's time to "man up."

The American Left has taken the hammer and sickle of Marxism and is using them to trample out the vintage where the fields of liberty were born. To them, anything in writing must be destroyed because that is history. That explains why they must topple statues and ban books, and even thought. To feel anger, one must have thought, and that's suddenly passé. You would be better off in a zoo according to the Left, whose candidate for office belongs in an assisted living facility.

Without thought, the great masses become sheep, all the more easily led and controlled. And what is control? As George Orwell said: "He who controls the past controls the future, and he who controls the present controls the past."
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Fire

Bari Weiss' resignation letter from the New York Times: Says Twitter is its ultimate editor

Bari Weiss
bariweiss.com
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 18:16 UTC
bari weiss
Dear A.G.,

It is with sadness that I write to tell you that I am resigning from The New York Times.

I joined the paper with gratitude and optimism three years ago. I was hired with the goal of bringing in voices that would not otherwise appear in your pages: first-time writers, centrists, conservatives and others who would not naturally think of The Times as their home. The reason for this effort was clear: The paper's failure to anticipate the outcome of the 2016 election meant that it didn't have a firm grasp of the country it covers. Dean Baquet and others have admitted as much on various occasions. The priority in Opinion was to help redress that critical shortcoming.

Comment: Another perspective: Bari Weiss resignation: Palestine advocates decry 'hypocrisy'

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NPC

Seattle business owner bullied into chopping dreadlocks following shrieks of 'cultural appropriation'


RT
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 18:14 UTC
dreadlocks cultural appropriatio
© Reuters / Carlos Barria; Reuters / Rodrigo Garrido
A small business owner in Seattle has been shamed into a makeover and a long public apology after an internet mob deemed her dreadlocks a form of 'cultural appropriation' - a charge some have dismissed as literal fashion policing.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Rachel Marshall, founder of Rachel's Ginger Beer in Seattle, penned a lengthy mea culpa apologizing for her "harmful" hairstyle, explaining she is now aware that African Americans are "discriminated against and mistreated for having dreadlocks" while vowing to lop off her own.

Comment: Only the latest installment of this particular symptom of SJW insanity:

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Star of David

'Cancel culture' tactics and the Israel lobby

Larry Haiven
Mondoweiss
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:11 UTC
Free speech tag mural
© Fukt/Flickr/wiredforlego
Free Speech * Conditions Apply
When Sportsnet fired Canadian hockey and media personality Don Cherry in November 2019 for his bigoted remarks on Coach's Corner, we heard the usual right-wing complaint chorus about the suppression of free speech by the liberal left.

A favored method of censorship nowadays is said to be "de-platforming," or denying those you disagree with a platform to speak. This is also called "cancel culture." Most recently, a group of around 150 prominent intellectuals signed a "Letter on Justice and Open Debate" in Harper's magazine, setting off a firestorm of debate about the limits of free speech on the left.

In reality, though, cancel culture is (at best) a marginal activity on the left. By and large, progressives still believe in reasoned debate.

This article refers to experience in Canada, but it has its counterpart in many other countries as well.

Comment:

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Pistol

Detroit residents protest after cops kill Hakim Littleton - who pulled gun and shot at officers

Darcie Moran
Detroit Free Press
Sun, 12 Jul 2020 17:20 UTC
hakim littleton
A crowd swelled along the line of police tape on Friday afternoon as rain fell near where a man was fatally shot by Detroit police.

"Say his name," the crowd yelled, before responding to their own demand: "Hakim Littleton."


Comment: "His name is Robert Paulson"? Reality is stranger than fiction.


Police Chief James Craig had already come to the scene to give the police account of what happened. He said the now-slain man had tried to shoot at officers about 12:30 p.m. near San Juan Drive and W. McNichols Road in the Bagley neighborhood of Detroit. Police returned the gunfire, fatally striking 20-year-old Littleton.

In the hours that followed, loved ones and protesters discounted Craig's statements. They began counting Littleton among the Black people disproportionately killed by police in the U.S., the names they've been chanting for over a month amid protests following the death of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis.

In Detroit on Friday, police in riot gear and protesters clashed, police arrested several organizers, and the remaining protesters marched.

With the crowd still on the move about 7:30 p.m., Craig held a news conference at Detroit Public Safety Headquarters downtown and played police footage of the shooting.

A still frame from an officer's body-worn camera appears to show Littleton with his armed raised and a blast of smoke — gunfire — aimed right at an officer's head.

Comment: Here's an analysis of the video:


And a take on the protests:




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Bullseye

Why are COVID-19 cases spiking, but fatality rates dropping?

Will Witt
PragerU
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 17:01 UTC
will witt Dr. Jeffrey Barke coronavirus covid
© PragerU/Youtube
PragerU's Will Witt interviews Dr. Jeffrey Barke on why Covid-19 cases are rising, but the fatality rate is dropping. The average age of new cases is 31 — fatality is so low for that age group that it's hard to even calculate. Dr. Barke also discusses the faulty reasoning of the 'flatten the curve' strategies and the reality of herd immunity.

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Bad Guys

The awesome PR recovery of atheist Lawrence Krauss

David Klinghoffer
Evolution News
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 16:32 UTC
Lawrence Krauss professer epstein
© Carolyn Caster/Associated Press
Lawrence Krauss, an Arizona State University physics professor was suspended from his job following allegations of groping, ogling and other sexual misconduct incidents."
Congrats to the PR team of Chutzpah, Cheek, and Insolence who scored big with the work they appear to have done for atheist Lawrence Krauss. The cosmologist has now emerged, earlier than anticipated, from under a major #MeToo cloud that resulted in his forced departure from his university and temporary disappearance from a role as a public figure. He "retired" from Arizona State in May of last year.

Time flies. Here he is today in the Wall Street Journal decrying, "The Ideological Corruption of Science."

Fascinating. According to the thesaurus, some antonyms of "corruption" include decency, goodness, honesty, honor, and purity. That's right, Lawrence Krauss of all people is now lecturing us about the importance of...decency, goodness, honesty, honor, and purity. This is the same Krauss who palled around with the late Jeffrey Epstein of blessed memory, opining that Epstein was innocent based on scientific considerations. He cited "empirical evidence" on the point:
As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I've never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.
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Eye 1

'The worst of the worst': Court rejects calls to revoke Israeli firm's 'Pegasus' spy software, used globally to track and trace dissidents


Middle East Eye
Mon, 13 Jul 2020 00:00 UTC
Human rights group say that several governments have used NSO's Pegasus software to monitor activists and journalists
NSO group - pegasus spy software

Activists claim that Pegasus software was used by Riyadh to spy on Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his death (MEE)
Activists claim that Pegasus software was used by Riyadh to spy on Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his death

A court in Tel Aviv has rejected a ruling to order Israel to revoke the export license of the NSO Group, the country's largest surveillance company, whose software has reportedly been used by governments to spy on dissidents and human rights activists.

Judge Rachel Lavi Barkai ruled that Amnesty International and 30 human rights activists, who had filed the petition against Israel's defence and foreign ministries, had failed to provide evidence that NSO's Pegasus software was used to spy on activists from the UK-based NGO.
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Megaphone

Pro-NYPD and Black Lives Matter protesters clash in Brooklyn

Ellen Moynihan and Thomas Tracy
The Daily News
Sat, 11 Jul 2020 16:07 UTC
NYPD BLM clash
Pro-NYPD marchers clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters as a "Back the Blue" rally took an ugly turn in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon.

Hundreds of pro-cop marchers screamed vile curses at around 50 BLM counter-protesters as the rally kicked off at Bay Ridge Parkway and 13th Ave. in Dyker Heights, a predominately white neighborhood.

As BLM protesters chanted "Black Lives Matter!" those in the pro-cop group screamed, "Go suck a big black d---!"

"Not in this neighborhood!" one pro-cop marcher yelled out.

"The problems are in your neighborhood! Go fix where you live!" another pro-cop marcher screamed at the racially-mixed group of BLM protesters.

"F--- blue lives! That s--- don't matter," a BLM protester fired back.

At one point, participants on both sides started throwing fists.

Comment: The intensity of the clashes may be seen in these Tweets and videos:






And many see New York's Mayor Bill de Blasio as responsible for abuse that cops are receiving at the hands of citizens:





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Light Sabers

The media's war on words

David Harsanyi
National Review
Tue, 14 Jul 2020 05:50 UTC


silenced
© Westend61/Getty Images
I recently ran across a piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer that lays out four racist words and phrases that should be banished from the English language. It begins like this:

Steel yourself, brave reader, here they are:
Peanut gallery
Eenie meenie miney moe
Gyp
No can do
The same grammarian who authored the piece had previously confronted the "deeply racist connotation" of the word "thug," noting that president Donald Trump "wasn't the least bit bashful" when calling Minneapolis rioters "thugs" in a tweet, despite the word's obvious bigoted history. In 2015, President Barack Obama referred to Baltimore rioters as "thugs" as well. He likely did so because "thug" — defined as a "violent person, especially a criminal" — is a good way to describe rioters. It's true that not everyone in a riot engages in wanton violent criminality. Some participants are merely "looters" — defined as "people who steal goods during a riot." That word is also allegedly imbued with racist conations, according to the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times and others.

Attempting to dictate what words we can use is another way to exert power over how we think. Few people, rightly, would have a problem with referring to the Charlottesville Nazis as "thugs." Only the "protester" who tears down a Ulysses S. Grant statue or participates in an Antifa riot is spared the indignity of being properly defined.

Comment: See also:

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