Society's ChildS


Attention

Why an immigrant, minority woman is going Republican over Democrat's vicious attacks on Kavanaugh

Democrats demonization Kavanaugh
All it took was Democrats’ treatment of Brett Kavanaugh over the last few weeks to turn me into that elusive creature: a minority, immigrant woman who supports Republicans.
I have become a unicorn. My metamorphosis didn't require a magic spell or potion, or even a trip to a well-reviewed plastic surgeon to add a horn to my head. All it took was Democrats' treatment of Brett Kavanaugh over the last few weeks to turn me into that elusive creature: a minority, immigrant woman who supports Republicans.

I moved to the United States from Trinidad and Tobago eight years ago when I married my husband, Christopher, former U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia's eighth (and, in my opinion, most lovable) child. Some people might read that and think, "Well, that's no surprise then; Justice Scalia's daughter-in-law is hardly likely to be anything but Republican!"

But they would be wrong. I've always considered myself politically moderate: I am unapologetically pro-life, but my views on affirmative action, Black Lives Matter, and gun control made me sympathize strongly with Democratic perspectives and occasionally led to arguments with my husband and father-in-law.

That sense of political homelessness was a big reason that I was never in a hurry to become an American citizen. I figured I'd do it eventually, but not having a strong connection to either party, feeling unsure of where I fit into America's strange political landscape, meant it was low on my list of priorities.

Fast-forward to 2018, and Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Protests and vows to block him by any means, "using every available tool," followed almost immediately. Anybody paying attention knew that things were about to get interesting. Unfortunately, things got less interesting than ugly and convinced me that Democrats are not who they claim to be.

Comment: Ms. Scalia's perspective is likely shared by a number of moderate voters who are fed up with what the Democratic party has become; there could be a well deserved backlash threatening the party's hoped for 'blue wave' in upcoming elections.


Arrow Down

'Mock cop-killing' halftime show at Mississippi high school leaves community and social media outraged

Band
© Octavio Jones/Global Look PressA high school band practices.
A grieving Mississippi community is outraged after a visiting high school team's halftime show portrayed students holding a SWAT team at gunpoint. It comes a week after two police officers in the town were killed while on duty.

The shockingly insensitive skit occurred when Forest Hill High School visited Brookhaven High School for a game on Friday night in the US state of Mississippi.

Images from the show surfacing on social media portray members of Forest Hill's band dressed up as doctors and nurses while several of them are armed with toy guns.

Document

'We want to fix the Left': Grievance studies hoax authors address criticisms

Lindsay, Pluckrose, Boghossian
Do you remember the article on dog rape culture by Helen Wilson that was published in a feminist geography journal earlier this year? What about the paper on challenging male homophobia through using anal sex toys? On October 2, the Wall Street Journal broke the news that the feminist academics behind these articles don't actually exist. They're pseudonyms adopted by three intellectuals in an elaborate hoax designed to expose alleged shoddy scholarship in activist disciplines they dub "grievance studies."

Mathematician James A. Lindsay, British writer Helen Pluckrose, and Portland State philosophy professor Peter Boghossian have become an overnight sensation. They've earned recognition from academics all around the world including high-profile figures like Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker. But their detractors have also stepped out in full force. Lindsay, Pluckrose, and Boghossian have agreed to an exclusive interview with Quillette to address the issues raised by their critics.

For the record, I know the three writers but had no prior knowledge of their year-long project before the story broke. The following text has been transcribed from an in-person interview. It has been edited for readability and flow.

Comment: Further reading:


Bullseye

Russian TV correctly portrays Brett Kavanaugh as a victim of "the plague of malignant feminism"

kiselyov show kavanaugh
© Vesti News, via YouTube
The Brett Kavanaugh hearings are being watched closely around the world, not least in Russia, where this week the host of a leading news show on state-run television defended the Supreme Court nominee as a victim of "the plague of malignant feminism," a global pandemic that has previously felled Harvey Weinstein, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Ian Buruma.

In a fact-challenged monologue helpfully subtitled on YouTube by Russia's state-owned news organization, Vladimir Putin's favorite pundit, Dmitry Kiselyov, dismissed the sexual assault accusation against Kavanaugh, by "physics professor Christine Blasey Ford," as "like a joke."

Kiselyov also warned Russian viewers to beware of what he termed an illness "spreading from America to Europe and toward Russia," in which "the infected ladies project their sexual fantasies onto men who have a successful life and career, accusing them of attempted rape."

Arrow Down

Most ludicrous apologies forced from those who didn't toe media line on Kavanaugh

Protest
© TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFPAre they ready to accept your apologies?
RT looks at those who have been caught in the cross-fire of the campaign against the Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and forced to pay a price.

Joe Kaplan, a Facebook executive who has been friends with Kavanaugh for decades, had the gall to attend his Senate hearing last week. Kaplan was forced to say sorry for the "deeply painful moment," while the social media network released a message saying its leadership had "made mistakes."

V

Tens of thousands of Scots turn out in capital demanding second independence vote

edinburgh protests
© Russell Cheyne/Reuters
Edinburgh's streets turned blue on Saturday as tens of thousands of Scots marched to demand independence. The high attendance is in defiance of London's insistence that there is no "appetite" for independence in Scotland.

Marching under the slogan of 'All Under One Banner,' the campaign hopes to unite Scots of different political stripes to advocate for a second referendum on independence, after a 2014 vote went narrowly in favor of remaining part of the United Kingdom.

Estimates from the campaign suggest that at least 100,000 people have turned out to voice their support for a second vote on Scottish independence.

The weather too seemingly turned out in support of the marchers, with blue skies overhead matching that of the sea of Scottish flags below. Others waved flags in solidarity with the Catalonian independence movement, a united Ireland, and the EU.

Star of David

The erasure of Palestine, one village at a time

palestinian woman arrested
© Reuters/Mohamad TorokmanIsraeli policemen detain a Palestinian girl in the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar near Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank on July 4, 2018
Israel wants the village of Khan al-Ahmar razed to the ground to cut off Jerusalem from the West Bank.

It was a bit ironic to see a small group of Israeli settlers enter the large solidarity tent stationed at the entrance of Khan al-Ahmar last Wednesday. They had come, they said, to show "solidarity" with the Palestinian Bedouins protesting a demolition order.

Since 2017, the whole Bedouin village has been threatened with demolition by the Israeli authorities. Earlier that day, Israeli soldiers attacked villagers and activists who had staged a protest, injuring 35.

Khan al-Ahmar, a village of 180 people, is about 15km northeast of Jerusalem and falls within what is known as Area C of the occupied West Bank, as defined by the Oslo Accords. The area has been inundated with more than 300,000 Israelis living in 125 illegal settlements and is under Israeli administrative control. Under the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authorities was supposed to take over administering the area, but, of course, Israel never let that happen.

Comment:


Briefcase

Antifa leader, Yvette Felarca, fails in her efforts to block the release of records documenting her terrorist activities

Yvette Felarca
Yvette Felarca
A California teacher's case to block Judicial Watch from obtaining public records about her violent Antifa activism is "entirely frivolous," a federal judge said during a hearing this week in San Francisco. The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) middle school teacher, Yvette Felarca, is a national organizer for a radical leftist group and last year Judicial Watch filed a California Public Records Act (CPRA) request to get information about her violent Antifa activism. Claiming to be the victim of a political witch hunt, Felarca sued the district in federal court to keep it from fulfilling its legal obligation to provide Judicial Watch with the records.

In Judicial Watch's 24-year history of submitting thousands of public records requests and litigating hundreds of public records lawsuits in state and federal courts nationwide, a third party has never sued to stop a government agency from responding to one of its requests. Additionally, Judicial Watch has never been required to litigate a state public records act lawsuit in a federal court. At this week's hearing Judge Vince Chhabria, an Obama appointee at the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, found the controversial teacher's argument to be "entirely frivolous" and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over her state law claims. A written order will follow, representing a huge victory for the public's right to information about government and the taxpayer-funded officials that operate it.

Comment: More on Felarca:


Attention

12yo Russian 'cannibal' & her 22yo lover kill, dismember landlord out of 'hunger and curiosity' - unconfirmed reports [Update]

russia cannibal crime scene
© Russia's Investigative Committee
A story that appears to come straight from a horror movie has unraveled in Russia's Leningrad region, where a 22-year-old man and his 12-year-old 'lover' reportedly killed, dismembered and partially ate their landlord.

While authorities have yet to confirm the grisliest details of the bone-chilling crime, what they've officially revealed so far is already frightening enough. On Wednesday, the dismembered body of a young man was found at his home in a small village near St. Petersburg. Two suspects were soon caught - a man in his early 20s and his 12-year-old companion, who "took part in the assault", according to the police statement.

The pair lived in the house with the owner's permission, but sometime on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning the tenants and the 21-year-old landlord got into a quarrel, which ended with him being stabbed to death, the police believe. The victim's body was later mutilated, with the investigators currently "checking information that fragments of the killed person's body had been used as food."

Comment: Another cannibal case was in the news last week: Russian cannibal serial killer couple wife faces 15 years for role in murder of final victim - confessed to killing and eating at least 30 victims

Update: More details released on the 12-year-old girl, referred to as Valeria by the media:
Valeria from russia
Valeria was reported missing after leaving Sochi for Leningrad region (photo from vk.com)

Conversations with people who knew Valeria seem to show a few troubling alarm bells - but nothing to predict the horrifying atrocity she would be complicit in.

Ruptly found the girl's distressed mother, Nadezhda, who refused to say much, only mentioning that Valeria liked anime. Indeed, her purported page on VKontake (the top Russian social network) has pictures in the Japanese cartoon style all over it, some of a lewd nature.

"In class, she behaved like a normal student," Yuliya Myakisheva, Valeria's teacher, recalls. Studying was "hard for her," especially math, she sometimes "misbehaved during breaks" and wasn't very keen on school overall. Myakisheva remembers talking to Valeria's mother, who said it was "hard to deal" with the would-be cannibal.

Valeria once triggered a police search when she went missing during school holidays, the teacher said. And according to the family's neighbor Georgy, she would sometimes "go out at night, come back home late at night, or not at all." The 12-year-old "went out with boys," he believes.



Chalkboard

US professor who wished 'death & castration' to Kavanaugh defenders is sent on paid working trip

Kavanaugh appointment protest
© Stephen Yang / ReutersProtest against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in New York, October 4, 2018
A Georgetown University professor, suspended from Twitter over calls to murder 'entitled white men' for supporting Judge Brett Kavanaugh and to 'castrate their corpses,' is being sent to travel internationally for research.

Dr. Carol Christine Fair made headlines this week when she tweeted that "entitled white men justifying a serial rapist's arrogated entitlement" deserve "miserable deaths" and that, as a bonus, their corpses should be castrated and fed to pigs.

Twitter suspended her account over that post on Tuesday, temporarily, as it turns out, because Fair was back on the social network within a day. Meanwhile, Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, where she teaches, has decided to "punish" her by sending her on a trip abroad.