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Stanford University thinks the American flag might offend you - because it definitely offends them

Sigma Chi
An administrator encouraged Sigma Chi to take down the American flag flown in front of its house in order to improve its image on campus.

Let me explain. We all know the fate of Sigma Chi: it no longer exists. As is the experience of many Stanford Greek organizations past, while on probation last year, Sigma Chi sought to improve its image with the university so as to ensure its survival and the eventual lifting of its probation. Obviously, this aim was not realized. Sigma Chi is gone. Nevertheless, some administrative advice extended to Sigma Chi during this effort is worth noting, even after the fact, for its anti-Americanism.

Pablo Lozano '18 is the primary source for the following account. Other individuals, who asked not to be named, have corroborated it.

Lozano told that while on probation, Sigma Chi sought to make itself "an ally of the university." An administrator assigned to serve as a liaison between Residential Education and Sigma Chi - let's call him Mr. Z - was, in Lozano's words, "supportive" in trying to help Sigma Chi outlast probation and "transparent" in explaining often obscure bureaucratic processes. The Sigma Chi brothers appreciated the candid and genuine guidance that Mr. Z offered them throughout their fight for survival.

Comment: See: The Real Problem with Nationalism, Without the Virtue Signaling


Red Flag

Apple CEO Tim Cook suggests it's 'a sin' not to ban certain people from social media

Apple CEO Tim Cook
© Brendan McDermid / Reuters
Apple CEO Tim Cook speaks at the Anti-Defamation League's "Never is Now" summit in New York City on Dec. 3, 2018.
Technology companies must take a moral stand against hate speech, said Apple CEO Tim Cook on Monday during a speech at the Anti-Defamation League.

"I sometimes say that I worry less about computers that think like people and more about people that think like computers, without values or compassion, without concern for consequences," Cook said, as he accepted the Anti-Defamation League's first-ever "Courage Against Hate" award on Monday night, an honor that will be given each year to a business leader who champions equality.

The Apple CEO had a message for anyone trying to push hate, division or violence: "You have no place on our platforms. You have no home," he said.

Comment: It's funny how the question of who has the right to determine what constitutes 'hate speech' never seems to occur to these tech giants. They assume their own 'solid moral compass' is enough to set the standard for policing the rest of us, free speech be damned.

See also:


Bell

Here's why identity politics threaten America

down with cistriarchy
© John Rudoff/Sipa USA/Newscom
Identity politics uniquely threaten America, said a group of panelists at The Heritage Foundation.
Is there an answer to the problem of identity politics in America? For some, the "solution" is direct.

"We need to take on the oppression narrative," conservative commentator Heather Mac Donald said at a Heritage Foundation gathering on Capitol Hill.

Americans need to "rebut" the idea "that every difference in American society today is the result by definition of discrimination," Mac Donald said during the event Monday, called "Identity Politics Is a Threat to Society. Is There Anything We Can Do About It at This Point?"

Without challenging this overarching narrative, the Manhattan Institute fellow said, "there is going to be no end to identity politics."

Comment: We're already seeing some push-back against the 'Oppression Olympics' in some instances, but the meteoric rise of identity politics seems to be climbing still, unabated. It's unclear whether Mac Donald is correct in her assessment, that fighting against it is going to make a difference. It's important to try, yet it seems more likely that the pressure will continue to grow until there an explosive confrontation, and the best advice at that point would be to stay out of the way.

See also:


Evil Rays

The psychological reasons for Russophobia in the US

Russophobia pattern
Russophobic propaganda is just psychological manipulation used on the American public

The main reason so many Americans buy into the anti-Russian craze is not only due to what people are told by the government and media, but by how they think and process information. For if Americans were taught how to analyze and think properly they would not fall for the blatant propaganda.

For example, we are told that the Nazis discovered the secret of repetition as a means of programming people into believing something to be true, but we are not taught why this practice is so effective.

The psychological reason behind this trick has to do with "pattern recognition". Human beings - through evolution - have learned to identify a phenomenon as real and true because it repeats again and again and again. After a while, the mind interprets this consistent pattern as proof of truth value. In psychological terms, "schemata" are created by a layering of memories similar in nature over time so that all events associated with the phenomenon are perceived through a prism of previous repetitions. In other words, even if a certain type of behavior is different from the norm it will still be identified as belonging to the typical pattern regardless. It is literally a trick of the mind.

Comment: If there was ever a time for Americans (and the Brits too!) to realize that their Russophobia has been manipulated into their thinking - it is right now. See:


Megaphone

192 schools in South Australia close as teachers protest against budget cuts and working conditions

australia teacher protest
© Brittany Evins
Teachers rally outside the Education Department building in Flinders Street.
The teachers - dressed in red - are protesting over a breakdown in negotiations with the South Australian Government over their new enterprise bargaining agreement.

Flinders Street has been blocked off to all traffic, with protesters making their way to the rally from all corners of the city.

Signs stating "Try Harder Gardner" and "More Funding For Our Kids" were being waved to loud music.

Police are monitoring traffic conditions and pedestrian movements.

School is set to resume at 12:15pm at the 192 schools that are closed.

Australian Education Union (AEU) SA president Howard Spreadbury said he was very happy with the number of teachers who joined the rally.

"I'm very pleased with the massive turnout of our members and community supports sending a very clear and definite message to the Marshall Government that they need to take us seriously and start listening to what we're putting [to] them in relation to our members' conditions and the learning environments of our students," Mr Spreadbury said.

Salisbury High School teacher Adrian Mann said the State Government was focused on putting money into school infrastructure rather than programs for vulnerable students.

Comment: It's the same story all over the Western world and people are beginning to get angry:


Sheriff

New Jersey had a system to detect and stop dangerous cops for 17 years but completely failed to do it

Police Brutality
© Humans are Free
Behind every baton blow and broken bone, every compliance hold and gunshot wound, there are piles and piles of paper.

Somebody had to be keeping tabs, right?

Almost two decades ago, the state Attorney General's Office ordered police officers in New Jersey to document every single time they used force against another person. The goal was to make sure nobody with a badge abused the greatest authority granted them.

The timing was no accident: The state was reeling from one embarrassing episode after another of racial profiling and controversial shootings. The public was losing faith.

In response, state authorities could show they were keeping watch, creating an encyclopedia of the most mundane and most violent arrests. The documents would be reviewed by superior officers, and annual reports would be sent to county prosecutors and the attorney general.

Red Flag

Wall Street rule for the #MeToo era: Avoid women at all cost

wall street
© Getty
No more dinners with female colleagues. Don't sit next to them on flights. Book hotel rooms on different floors. Avoid one-on-one meetings.

In fact, as a wealth adviser put it, just hiring a woman these days is "an unknown risk." What if she took something he said the wrong way?

Across Wall Street, men are adopting controversial strategies for the #MeToo era and, in the process, making life even harder for women.


Comment: This is a natural result of the feminist ideology that currently is spreading throughout Western culture. By making men into your enemy, they responded by protecting themselves. Feminism has turned women into a risk in the business world. If feminism wanted to increase equality at the workplace, it's going about it the wrong way.


Call it the Pence Effect, after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he avoids dining alone with any woman other than his wife. In finance, the overarching impact can be, in essence, gender segregation.

Sherlock

Australian gov't orders royal commission into police misconduct scandal

Graham Ashton
© AAP
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton
The Victorian government has called a royal commission into a police misconduct scandal that has potentially jeopardised at least 22 convictions including that of underworld figure Tony Mokbel.

Some of the most notorious criminals in Australia received letters on Monday telling them that their lawyer had acted as a police informant in what the high court has described as an "atrocious" case of police misconduct that undermined the integrity of the justice system.

Mokbel, who was jailed for 22 years in 2012 for drug trafficking, is among those who could be making a bid for freedom following revelations their lawyer was passing information on to Victoria police between 2005 and 2009, in breach of client confidentiality.

Victoria police and the lawyer involved have been trying for three years to prevent the disclosure of the informant's identity to their underworld clients, with police arguing in court that if the information were disclosed "the risk of death [to the lawyer] would become 'almost certain'".

Briefcase

Federal Gov't responds to The Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry - Takes steps to prosecute use of explosives to destroy WTCs

twin tower collapse
A team of lawyers has successfully petitioned the federal government, by presenting them with evidence indicating that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Centers.

In what can be described as a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11 truth, a United States Attorney has agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Centers.

The Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry successfully submitted a petition to the federal government demanding that the U.S. Attorney present to a Special Grand Jury extensive evidence of yet-to-be-prosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7).

After waiting months for the reply, the U.S. Attorney responded in a letter, noting that they will comply with the law.

USA

Miami: A case study of birthright citizenship abuse

woman boy flag
© Miami Herald
President Trump once again questioned the interpretation of the 14th Amendment, the constitutional amendment that established birthright citizenship. The amendment was written to protect the children of newly freed slaves so that their citizenship, personhood, and freedom could not be challenged. However, a loose interpretation over the years has allowed any person, including a child of illegal immigrants, to obtain citizenship if they are born in the United States.

While legal questions remain (as the Supreme Court has never ruled on birthright citizenship with regards to a child of illegal immigrants, which is central to Trump's challenge of its current interpretation), thousands of illegal immigrants have taken advantage of birthright citizenship by either traveling to the U.S. while pregnant or having a child while illegal. Both are attempts to abuse current law to create an entryway into the country for individuals who otherwise could not obtain permanent legal status. These new American citizen children can request green cards for their parents once they reach age of 21. Furthermore, these children open the door to a lifetime of U.S. government benefits for them and their parents, including Medicaid, subsidized housing, in-state tuition, federal scholarships, and food stamps.

The Center for Immigration Studies and Pew Research have estimated that there were between 275,000-297,000 births to illegal immigrant parents in 2014. Additionally, there are approximately 36,000 "birth tourists" who come to the U.S. each year. These births cost upwards of $2.4 billion for U.S. taxpayers.

Comment: See also: