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Corona

Booze ban South Africa: rule by diktat

scotch
© Shutterstock
With a wave of his presidential hand, the command was given: alcohol sales will once again be banned, with immediate effect. Minutes later, the new regulations were gazetted and came into force. South Africans now live in a dictatorship.

'Dictatorship is a form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations,' says the Encyclopædia Britannica. 'The term dictatorship comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crises.'

This perfectly describes President Cyril Ramaphosa and the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC), chaired by minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

Family

In search of new citizens: In bid to reverse population decline, Putin signs law simplifying process to obtain Russian passport

russian passport
© Sputnik / Sergey Averin
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a long-awaited law streamlining the process for foreigners to obtain Russian citizenship. The world's largest country hopes to attract up to 10 million migrants by 2025.

According to the new rules, it is now much more straightforward for certain types of foreigners to become Russian.

Foreign citizens who have a Russian parent, are married to a Russian, or have a child with a Russian citizen, can now quickly obtain a passport themselves. The acquisition of Russian nationality has also been streamlined for foreigners who reside permanently in the country.

Shoe

NBA blasted after viral video shows ban on custom 'FREE HONG KONG' jerseys but no ban on other contentious messages

LeBron James and Anthony Davis
© Reuters / Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports
LeBron James and Anthony Davis during game against the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center.
The NBA is once again being accused of bowing to China, after a viral video revealed its website does not allow custom jerseys with the phrase "Free Hong Kong," but has no problem with plenty of other disruptive messages.

"The NBA bans you, the fan, from putting #freehongkong on customized league jerseys even as they allow players to wear customized jerseys," journalist Clay Travis tweeted on Sunday.

Travis Included a video actually showing the merchandising section of the website rejecting the phrase. Numerous people took to social media to give other firsthand accounts of the site not allowing the message.

Comment: See also:


Question

Kanye Derangement Syndrome: Chance The Rapper asks why Biden would be better than Yeezy. The left goes crazy!

Kanye West/Chance the Rapper
© Reuters/Kevin Lamarque/Mario Anzuoni
Kanye West • Chance the Rapper
Chance the Rapper triggered liberals by asking: Why would Biden make a better president than Kanye West? It's a legitimate question, but the vitriolic response suggests honest debate has fallen victim to cancel culture, too.

Since Kanye West announced his intention to run for president, numerous theories have been thrown out by talking heads in an effort to make sense of just one more crazy headline in the insanity that is 2020.

Is he running to split the vote and help President Donald Trump against Biden, the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party? Or is he simply trolling and building his brand?

Nobody really knows, but considering the fact that West has gone from a MAGA-hat wearing Trump supporter to wanting his own political party called the Birthday Party, there is little chance we will be seeing a serious three-way race between the rapper, the president, and Biden.

Comment: And...Chance got scorched! The bulk of the comments came from the never-Trump #Resistance, reminding West he hadn't even filed FEC papers yet:






See also: 'Done with Trump', Kanye West talks White House bid, damaging Biden...and much, much more


Attention

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

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."

Fire

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

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'


NPC

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

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:


Star of David

'Cancel culture' tactics and the Israel lobby

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:


Pistol

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

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:





Bullseye

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

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.