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Best of the Web: Oddly enough, study says the US has become LESS racist under Trump - Anti-black, anti-Hispanic prejudice declining

Ross Clark
Spectator
Thu, 16 May 2019 01:08 UTC
Mission Imposs
© YouTubePresident Donald Trump
The election of Donald Trump has, of course, unleashed the latent racist which lurks within millions of Americans. We know this because enlightened opinion keeps telling us so. The New Yorker, for example, ran a piece in November 2016 declaring 'Hate on rise since Trump's election', and quoting a list of incidents collected by the Southern Poverty Law Center - including the experience of a girl in Colorado who was allegedly told by a white man: 'Now that Trump is president I am going to shoot you and all the blacks I can find'. TIME magazine, too, ran a story in the same month announcing 'Racist incidents are up since Donald Trump's election'. In March 2017 the Nation asserted 'Donald Trump's rise has coincided with an explosion in hate groups', claiming that 100 racist organizations had been founded since Trump began his presidential campaign.

And so it goes on. Just as with Britain's vote for Brexit, Trump's strident language and his concentration on issues such as migration is supposed to have coarsened political discourse - legitimizing racist and xenophobic opinions in people who might otherwise have been shamed into silence. By this narrative, even slightly immoderate speeches, posters and campaigns by politicians become magnified through the lens of public opinion into something much more sinister. A speech on migration, goes the theory, can all too easily erupt into bar room arguments and end with a Muslim or a black man having his head kicked in.

It sounds vaguely plausible, but is it true?

Comment: Or maybe Obama was just a sh*t president who was a vacuous yes-man for the deep state, whereas Trump has integrity and is popular.

See also:

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Red Flag

Middle schoolers allegedly feed bodily fluids to teachers during gourmet cooking competition

Chris Perez
New York Post
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:32 UTC
crepe making
© Shutterstock
Worst class ever?

A group of middle school students in Ohio allegedly served urine-and-semen-filled crepes to their teachers during a "gourmet" cooking competition - and are now being investigated by the local authorities, a report says.

The stomach-churning meal went down Thursday at Hyatts Middle School in Powell, according to WBNS.

The teachers involved were reportedly judges for the cooking contest, which happened during a "Global Gourmet" class and was captured on video. Several students allegedly put urine and/or semen onto the crepes and fed them to faculty members, the local sheriff's office reports.

Investigators were probing the incident on Monday and weighing felony assault charges.
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Brain

Study reveals many Dems, claiming mental distress after Trump won the election, were faking it

Matt Margolis
PJ Media
Fri, 17 May 2019 00:00 UTC
Anne Devlin
© AP/Tamir KalifaAnne Devlin, from Plano, Texas, cries in the gallery of the House of Representatives after the Electoral College voted at the state Capitol in Austin, Texas, Monday, Dec. 19, 2016.
In the wake of the 2016 election, liberals nationwide were claiming significant mental/emotional distress. Last month so-called comedian Chelsea Handler claimed Trump's election drove her to drugs and to seek psychiatrist help for anxiety relief, yada, yada, yada.

But, according to a new study published in SAGE Open (an open-access, peer-reviewed, academic journal), many registered Democrats were embellishing their mental anguish "as a means to back their party."
"Our research suggests that for many Democrats, expressing mental distress after the election was a form of partisan cheerleading," write researchers Masha Krupenkin, David Rothschild, Shawndra Hill and Elad Yom-Tov in their findings. "Clearly, many Democrats were, and are, upset about the Republican victory in 2016; these findings do not invalidate those feelings but put their depth and related actions into perspective."
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Cell Phone

Private contact information of millions of Instagram influencers found in a Mumbai database

Zack Whittaker
Tech Crunch
Mon, 20 May 2019 18:22 UTC
Instagram
© Dado Ruvic / Reuters
A massive database containing contact information of millions of Instagram influencers, celebrities and brand accounts has been found online.

The database, hosted by Amazon Web Services, was left exposed and without a password allowing anyone to look inside. At the time of writing, the database had over 49 million records - but was growing by the hour.

From a brief review of the data, each record contained public data scraped from influencer Instagram accounts, including their bio, profile picture, the number of followers they have, if they're verified and their location by city and country, but also contained their private contact information, such as the Instagram account owner's email address and phone number.

Security researcher Anurag Sen discovered the database and alerted TechCrunch in an effort to find the owner and get the database secured. We traced the database back to Mumbai-based social media marketing firm Chtrbox, which pays influencers to post sponsored content on their accounts. Each record in the database contained a record that calculated the worth of each account, based off the number of followers, engagement, reach, likes and shares they had. This was used as a metric to determine how much the company could pay an Instagram celebrity or influencer to post an ad.
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Arrow Up

Alabama public television won't air same-sex marriage episode of PBS children's show Arthur

Abbey Crain
Al.com
Mon, 20 May 2019 03:22 UTC
PBS series Arthur
A file image from WGBH in Boston and Cinar Corp. of the public television character "Arthur." Alabama Public Television opted to not show an episode of the animated series which featured a gay wedding.
Alabama Public Television chose not to air PBS's Arthur episode that included a same-sex marriage.

In the episode, which aired nationwide May 13, Arthur and his friends attend their beloved teacher Mr. Ratburn's nuptials to his partner.

APT preempted the episode by showing a re-run of Arthur.

Mike Mckenzie, director of programming at APT, said APT was notified by WGBH and PBS in mid-April about the episode titled "Mr. Ratburn and the Special Someone" and decided to show a re-run. Mckenzie said APT has no plans to air the episode at a later date.

"Parents have trusted Alabama Public Television for more than 50 years to provide children's programs that entertain, educate and inspire," Mckenzie said in an email. "More importantly - although we strongly encourage parents to watch television with their children and talk about what they have learned afterwards - parents trust that their children can watch APT without their supervision. We also know that children who are younger than the 'target' audience for Arthur also watch the program."

Comment: Seems a reasonable stance to take, i.e. let parents decide what their children will be exposed to and when!

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Star of David

Eurovision organisers threaten Icelandic band with 'consequences' for displaying support for Palestine at Israeli event

Emma Kelly
Metro
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:35 UTC
Eurovision hatari palestine flag
© Screenshot dalla diretta EBU/emma BeswickIcelandic group Hatari makes a statement at Eurovision
Iceland protested against Israeli occupation of Palestine

The European Broadcasting Union has hinted at punishment for the Icelandic delegation following Hatari's protest at the Eurovision Song Contest final.

Tensions have been high this year at Eurovision due to the host country Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories, with calls for artists and viewers to boycott the contest.

And during the voting, Iceland's act Hatari showed their support for Palestine by holding up flags and banners reading 'Palestine' when the camera cut to them in the green room.

The EBU, which runs Eurovision, said of the protest:
'In the live broadcast of the Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final, Hatari, the Icelandic act, briefly displayed small Palestinian banners whilst sat in the Green Room. The Eurovision Song Contest is a non-political event and this directly contradicts the contest's rules.

Comment: Pretty cynical rules, as Israel has played up hosting Eurovision in every way possible for the last year, in an attempt to portray "that sh*tty little country" as cultured and civilized. Try as they might, Israel cannot keep the reality of their oppression of Palestine from creeping into even the most tightly controlled events. The more they clamp down, the more the truth will spread..

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Briefcase

China Eastern Airlines demanding compensation from Boeing for grounding and delay of 737 Max


UPI
Tue, 21 May 2019 10:24 UTC
China Eastern Airlines, Boeing grounding
© John Angelillo/UPI | License PhotoChina Eastern Airlines is demanding compensation from Boeing for the grounding of its troubled 737 Max airplanes, the country's state-run news agency said Tuesday.
A Chinese airline Tuesday demanded compensation from Boeing for the grounding and delivery delay of the 737 Max aircraft.

China Eastern Airlines claimed that it has sustained losses because of the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 8 airplanes, state-run Chinese media Xinhua reported. The airline did not disclose details in its letter of claim to Boeing.

China Eastern, based in Shanghai, has not flown its 14 Max airplanes since March after China became one of the first countries to stop its commercial operations after crashes of an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March and an Indonesia Lion Air crash in October, killing hundreds.

Boeing has been working on a software fix to the current safety system that forced the plane into a steep dive that the pilots could not override to prevent a stall. The system was believed to be involved in both crashes.

Comment:

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Dollar

Germany spent record €23 BILLION on refugees and migrants in 2018 - report

Michael Nienaber
Reuters
Tue, 21 May 2019 18:09 UTC
Afghan refugee
© Reuters / Wolfgang Rattay
Germany spent a record 23 billion euros ($25.65 billion) last year on helping to integrate more than one million refugees and fighting the root causes of migration abroad, a government document seen by Reuters showed on Monday.

That marks an increase of nearly 11 percent on the 20.8 billion euros that Germany spent in the previous year, the document prepared by the Finance Ministry showed.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her ministers will discuss the government's annual report on refugee and integration costs during their regular cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Merkel has repeatedly defended her 2015 decision to leave German borders open to hundreds of thousands of war refugees, mainly from Muslim countries, as a humanitarian necessity, but has since vowed to prevent a repeat of such mass migration by tackling its causes.

Comment: Wow, over 20 billion euros each year.

That is obviously not done out of the goodness of their heart.

It's an investment.

It's population transfer.

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Handcuffs

Suspect in Christchurch mosque shootings charged with terrorism

Phil Helsel
NBC News
Tue, 21 May 2019 17:49 UTC
Brenton Tarrant
© Mark Mitchell / Pool via Getty ImagesBrenton Tarrant
Police in New Zealand filed a terrorism charge against a man accused of opening fire on two mosques in Christchurch, killing 51 people in an attack that led to changes to the country's gun laws.

New Zealand Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a statement Tuesday that Brenton Tarrant has been charged with engaging in a terrorist act in the March 15 attack on the two mosques.

An additional murder charge and two additional attempted murder charges have also been filed against Tarrant, bringing the total murder counts to 51 and the attempted murder counts to 40, Bush said.
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Boat

The floating homeless: California housing crisis forces hundreds to live on makeshift boats

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 19 May 2019 00:00 UTC
houseboat california
Beth Pollard, executive director of the Richardson's Bay Regional Agency, said many of these floating homeless communities started showing up in the waters between the Marin County cities of Sausalito and Belvedere in the last several years.

California's housing affordability crisis is getting worse. Affordability in San Francisco is now at 10-year lows, and only one in five households can afford to purchase a median-priced single-family home in the Bay Area. The crisis has driven many people onto the water, living on makeshift boats, outside marinas, and wealthy communities.

The floating homeless population in wealthy Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Strait from San Francisco, has doubled in the last five years to over 100. The community of 200 barges, sailboats, and other vessels comprise of people who are employed but can't afford to live on land, jobless folks, the homeless, and some people who are mentally ill. Boat life for them isn't easy:

"It's not a free ride. It's a lot of effort to be out here," said Kristina Weber, who moved onto a 54-foot vessel she purchased for $15,000 because she couldn't afford to rent in Sausalito.

Comment: While those who cannot leave make do as best they can - others are leaving the state as fast as possible. High housing costs are merely one factor driving the exodus:

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