The Right Coast

Trans treatments are the new lobotomy – HotAir

Schizophrenia, depression, chronic headaches, and children with behavior problems are all real and obviously it’s important to address the problem. Scrambling people’s brains is not the correct way to do so. Yet tens of thousands of people went through the procedure because it had a stamp of approval from doctors and the establishment.

That’s a lot of preface to the point I now want to make: the current transing fad is due to a social contagion and the treatments being used are barbaric. Transitioning to something else is a “thing;” it allows people to gain attention and sympathy. It gives people an explanation for why things aren’t going as they like. It elevates social standing. It helps people create a community of people who share something with you.

And it’s incredibly destructive. People who are suffering are getting quack treatments. Sometimes they’re suffering something serious and real, in which case the treatment should be intense and appropriate to the condition; other times it is the result of a teenage phase and should be seen as a teen experimenting with Goth culture. Instead, we are medicalizing the problem and literally sterilizing children and surgically altering their bodies. For profit.

And the trans trend is not limited to gender anymore. People are building up support groups for such things as–I kid you not–transitioning into trans-abled conditions such as autism.

via hotair.com

Opinion | The Age of Predatory Nuclear-Weapon States Has Arrived - POLITICO

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine makes at least one thing clear: It’s time for us to update how we think about nuclear weapons. For the first time in the nuclear era, one country used loudly issued nuclear threats — repeated just last week — to deter other countries from intervening in a large-scale conventional war of aggression. We have entered the age of “predatory nuclear-weapon states.”

For political analysts and military officials, this is not an unexpected phenomenon. On the contrary, the concept falls under the so-called stability-instability paradox. Because the threat of nuclear war is so terrifying and the risk of annihilation so real, lower-level conflict actually becomes more feasible. One nuclear-armed country can undertake major conventional military action, expecting that its nuclear capability will prevent outside intervention. That is what’s happening in Ukraine.

via www.politico.com

Biden’s ‘woke’ green energy makes us dependent on China

Renewables make electricity more costly everywhere they are deployed at scale. Just look at California. It has the second most expensive electricity in the US after Hawaii, but it can barely keep the lights on. Why? Because the unreliable nature of weather-dependent energy sources requires more backup power plants, transmission lines and people who can make electricity reliable.

Consider what happened last month. On Aug. 25, California’s government announced that a ban on all gasoline-powered vehicles would go into effect on 2030. Five days later, on Aug. 30, California’s electric grid operator begged residents not to charge their electric cars and trucks between 4 and 9 p.m. for fear of overwhelming the grid and causing a catastrophic blackout.

via nypost.com

Viral secrets

via www.youtube.com

Virus mysteries.

Nancy Pelosi Argues Red States Should Let Illegal Immigrants Stay to ‘Pick the Crops’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday that Republican governors should welcome the influx of migrants coming across the southern border because they can “pick the crops,” in their states.

“We have a shortage of workers in our country, and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers are saying, ‘Why are you shipping these immigrants up north? We need them to pick the crops down here,'” she said at a press briefing.

Her comments came as a response the transportation of migrants to New York City, Washington D.C., and other localities that have touted themselves as sanctuaries for illegal immigrants by Republican governors such as Texas’s Greg Abbott, and Florida’s Ron DeSantis.

via news.yahoo.com

Problematic.

The left’s suicidal pact with Silicon Valley - spiked

Yes, in the 21st century it is ‘far right’ to believe in freedom and it is left-wing to insist that billionaires none of us ever elected should be the moral arbiters of public debate. We are well and truly through the looking glass.

Mr Dee’s fascistic offence was to take the side of the Free Speech Union when it was locked out of its accounts by PayPal on the utterly spurious grounds that it engaged in ‘misinformation’. The Daily Sceptic, the website set up by the FSU’s founder Toby Young, was similarly defunded by PayPal’s thoughtpolice. UsForThem, a campaign group that raises essential critical questions about Covid lockdowns and their impact on the young, was also frozen out by PayPal. All were physically prevented from accessing the thousands of pounds that citizens have donated to them. This was an extreme and authoritarian intervention into the democratic life of the United Kingdom by a multi-billion dollar corporation headquartered in San Jose. It is mindblowing that anyone, least of all those who call themselves left, could support such imperial interference by a section of the capitalist class into public discussion.

via www.spiked-online.com

Agree, except the Left has been authoritarian since the French Revolution at least, as I figured out in the early 1980s. Before then I was a lefty too.

Who was behind the Nord Stream attacks? - The Post

Ultimately, it’s unlikely we’ll ever know who the real culprit is. One thing is clear, though: the attack marks a dangerous escalation in the West’s proxy war with Russia.

via unherd.com

It is very odd. I'm a strong supporter of Ukraine not just because of my lovely daughter-in-law and her beautiful country, but also because I generally oppose Sauron, Mordor and all the orcs who swarm out of there to despoil their neighbors. That said, this sabotage looks a lot more like a CIA op than anything else. I don't see what Russia has to gain. Some people are even talking about mysterious "third parties." But who? There is undoubtedly much going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. So we really don't know. Probably never will, with certainty at least.

Breaking the public education system's chokehold

Horace Mann, the founder of what we know now as the public education system, was not shy about his goals: He viewed education as a means to force ideological uniformity and believed parents should be treated as obstacles to that goal. “We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education,” he said, “are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.”

Decades have passed, but Mann’s views continue to be the foundation of the education establishment. Public schools actively block parents from being involved in curricular choices and try to punish them when they push back. In Maryland, Oregon, and Michigan, for example, parents who have requested schools’ public records regarding the curriculum taught in classrooms (information to which they are legally entitled) have been forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars just to access the materials. One parent in Rochester, Michigan, said the school district tried to charge her a public records fee of $172,951.67 after she filed a FOIA request.

via www.washingtonexaminer.com

SERIES: What the media won't tell you about . . . hurricanes

In January, 1996 I was a post-doc at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research doing research on hurricanes and floods. One day that month my boss, the incredible Mickey Glantz, came into the office with a copy of Newsweek, with the cover announcing: “THE HOT ZONE Blizzards, Floods and Hurricanes: Blame Global Warming” (below). Mickey tossed me the magazine and said, “this is interesting, why don’t you have a look.” So I took a look, and over the 26 years since have been studying climate, hurricanes, and their impacts. In this short post, on the first day of the official Atlantic hurricane season 2022, I’ll share five points of consensus science on hurricanes that seem to be systematically ignored by the media, and especially by those on the climate beat.

via rogerpielkejr.substack.com

Interesting.

Outsourced censorship: Feds used private entity to target millions of social posts in 2020 | Just The News

A consortium of four private groups worked with the departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and State to censor massive numbers of social media posts they considered misinformation during the 2020 election, and its members then got rewarded with millions of federal dollars from the Biden administration afterwards, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News.

via justthenews.com

Goodness. This is big news.

Why the left keeps smearing its political rivals as Hitlers or Mussolinis

Want to be Hitler? You don’t have to hate Jews, invade Poland or grow a silly mustache. There’s only one thing you have to do: Win an election against the left, or even look like you might.

We’ve seen that for years, of course. Democrats have likened every GOP presidential candidate back to Tom Dewey to the Austrian corporal.

When the Tea Party movement — best known for leaving the sites of its protests cleaner than it found them, in stark contrast to lefty groups like Occupy or BLM — appeared on the scene, they were immediately likened to Hitler’s brownshirts.

To listen to the Democrats and the media (I repeat myself), the Trump administration was a Nazi reign of terror over America, though none of those critics wound up targeted by the Gestapo. (That fell to pro-life activists and Trump supporters under the Biden administration.)

It’s not just in America. In France, farmers angry about government policies that were putting them out of business who protested by wearing yellow vests were quickly vilified as Nazi-like. “Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes,” observed French geographer Christophe Guilluy. “The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist, but this is merely a way of defending their class interests.”

via nypost.com

Glenn Reynolds, law professor no less.

Federal Court: Critical Race Theory Is a ‘Resource’ To ‘Transform’ Judiciary

The Rhode Island district court—whose five judges are white—uses similar rhetoric in its description of the conference. The session on critical race theory, it says, "explores how the political, legislative, economic, and cultural system that has historically given white people significantly greater power and material resources has fundamentally shaped our courts and legal system." Other sessions include "Diversity in the Workplace Including Law Firms" and "The (Court) Room Where It Happens: Role of the Federal Judiciary as an Arena for Civil Rights and Racial Justice."

Each scholar on the critical race theory panel has defended the theory's core tenets at length.  Carbado participated in a 2011 symposium for the Connecticut Law Review, "Critical Race Theory: A Commemoration," and James delivered a presentation in 2020 on "the link between racist, anti-black policing and racist, anti-black education." Onwuachi-Willig, meanwhile, has written several academic articles on critical race theory, including "Celebrating Critical Race Theory at 20" in 2009 and "The CRT of Black Lives Matter" in 2022.

via freebeacon.com

Oh dear.

Federal Court: Critical Race Theory Is a ‘Resource’ To ‘Transform’ Judiciary

The Rhode Island district court—whose five judges are white—uses similar rhetoric in its description of the conference. The session on critical race theory, it says, "explores how the political, legislative, economic, and cultural system that has historically given white people significantly greater power and material resources has fundamentally shaped our courts and legal system." Other sessions include "Diversity in the Workplace Including Law Firms" and "The (Court) Room Where It Happens: Role of the Federal Judiciary as an Arena for Civil Rights and Racial Justice."

Each scholar on the critical race theory panel has defended the theory's core tenets at length.  Carbado participated in a 2011 symposium for the Connecticut Law Review, "Critical Race Theory: A Commemoration," and James delivered a presentation in 2020 on "the link between racist, anti-black policing and racist, anti-black education." Onwuachi-Willig, meanwhile, has written several academic articles on critical race theory, including "Celebrating Critical Race Theory at 20" in 2009 and "The CRT of Black Lives Matter" in 2022.

via freebeacon.com

Oh dear.

Conservatives build momentum in school board races ahead of midterm elections | Washington Examiner

Conservative candidates campaigning to flip dozens of school board seats across the country are hoping a trend that began last year continues through the November elections.

In the midst of an off-year election cycle last year that saw Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) defeat his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, on a campaign platform that heavily emphasized parental rights, Ryan Girdusky's 1776 Project PAC helped several dozen conservative school board candidates defeat liberal incumbents in multiple states.

via www.washingtonexaminer.com

I fought for my son. The school board told Biden's Justice Department to investigate me. | Fox News

That only made me fight even harder. But the school board wasn’t done – not by a long shot. Last October, the board president admitted to submitting a complaint about me to the Biden Department of Justice. It was filled with falsehoods and accused me of "threatening comments." 

I couldn’t believe it. It happened one day – one day! – after Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote his infamous memo about investigating parents who speak out at school boards. But the Department of Justice is supposed to go after criminals and terrorists, not parents who want their kids to learn. 

While all this happened, my son cratered. Before COVID-19, he had a 3.5 GPA and was about to be inducted into the junior national honor society. A year later, he had a 1.5 GPA. All I wanted was to help him learn and succeed in life. It got so bad, I moved my son to a school in another district. But I shouldn’t have had to. The school board should have looked out for him instead of attacking me. 

via www.foxnews.com

Shocking but not surprising.

Democrats' "Stolen" Election Claims | FLASHBACK

via www.youtube.com

This is just ICYMI.

YouTube Demonetizes Taibbi Video Showing Democrats Claiming Prior Elections Were Stolen – JONATHAN TURLEY

Demonetizing a video of what Democrats have previously declared is reminiscent of Twitter blocking of the site LiberalsofTicTok to stop the site from replaying the postings of liberals.

YouTube and other companies are now openly advancing a political agenda in blocking or demonetizing such postings. This is only likely to get worse as we approach the midterm and 2024 elections. The effort is to actively block resources or access to conservative, libertarian, or contrarians viewpoints.

The company is owned by Google, which has also faced such criticism of political bias. These are publicly traded companies like Twitter that have written off many potential users to advance a political agenda of company staff.  They are selling a censored product to consumers who want free speech forums. While these companies continue to dominate the market, they are fueling calls for Substack and other alternative sites committed to free speech.  Taibbi writes on Substack.

via jonathanturley.org

YouTube also routinely demonetizes China Uncensored for the crime of criticizing the Chinese Communist Party. (A topic I should add I know a bit about.) As far as I can tell, it does this just because the CCP really doesn't like the channel. YouTube was a busy CCP supporting bee long before the Covid outbreak (or perhaps I should say break out). So anything supporting freedom in Hong Kong, say, zap, demonetized.

And of course, anything Covid-approved-narrative critical gets demonetized or blocked outright by YouTube. It's doing its best to groom us intellectually and it's sinister as hell.

Twitter is just as bad. TicTok I'm less sure of, but then they're basically owned by the CCP and they're busy hoovering up our personal data.

Of course, if we don't like it, we can just start our own social media site. Just like the guys at Parler.

Gov. Newsom Signs Bill to Strip Children from Parents to Medically Transgender Them - California Family Council

Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill last night empowering state courts to remove out-of-state children from their parent’s custody if those children come to California because they can’t get sterilizing transgender drugs and mutilating surgeries in their home states or because their parents object to these experimental treatments for gender dysphoria. Bill author Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) is characterizing SB 107 as a bill to make California a safe haven for parents who want to transition their children medically, but are forbidden to by their home states. Yet Newsom, Wiener, and the mainstream media are ignoring the section of the bill that enables children to be kidnapped and enticed to the state against their parents’ wishes and against the court custody determinations and laws of other states.

“SB 107 endangers every young person in the nation who experiences gender dysphoria,” said California Family Council President Jonathan Keller.  “By signing this extreme bill, Gavin Newsom is telling all parents across the country that he knows what’s best for their children. Mothers and fathers in every state should demand their elected representatives push back against this unconstitutional assault on parental rights. Governors and legislators must defend their citizens from this out-of-control government in Sacramento.”

via www.californiafamily.org

"Yet Newsom, Wiener, and the mainstream media are ignoring the section of the bill that enables children to be kidnapped and enticed to the state against their parents’ wishes and against the court custody determinations and laws of other states."

Well, if this is true, it's outrageous.

Will California become a transgender care refuge?- CalMatters

When Kathie Moehlig’s 11-year-old son decided to transition in 2012, she says not one doctor in San Diego was willing to treat him. “When I called to make appointments, they kept telling me: ‘We don’t treat kids like that here,’” Moehlig said.

But she continued making calls, eventually breaking through at Rady Children’s Hospital. Her efforts drew attention from other families of transgender kids, many of whom began asking her for help. 

She decided she “couldn’t just be a family friend,” so eight years ago she started TransFamily Support Services, a nonprofit that offers a multitude of services to hundreds of families of transgender individuals across the country, including support groups, assistance navigating the medical system, and — most recently — political advocacy. 

Now, TransFamily Support Services is a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 107, designed to protect from prosecution patients who travel to California for what supporters call gender-affirming care and doctors who provide that care.

The Assembly gave its final approval to the bill in a 60-19 vote. The Senate went along on a 30-9 vote, sending the bill to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed it Sept. 29.

The bill will make California a refuge for minors seeking gender-affirming care, similar to how Assembly Bill 1666, which Newsom signed into law in June, made the state a refuge for those seeking abortions.

via calmatters.org

More San Diego in the news. I wanted a girl, not that I would trade any of my boys for a girl, at least most of the time. I mean a girl in addition. But with all this crazy stuff going on, I'm glad I don't have a girl.

Berkeley Develops Jewish-Free Zones

If it wasn’t so frightening, one might be able to recognize the irony in the sight of campus progressives trying so hard to signal progressive virtue that they fall victim to a deeper moral shame.

Nine different law student groups at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Law, my own alma mater, have begun this new academic year by amending bylaws to ensure that they will never invite any speakers that support Israel or Zionism. And these are not groups that represent only a small percentage of the student population. They include Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. Berkeley Law’s Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a progressive Zionist, has observed that he himself would be banned under this standard, as would 90% of his Jewish students.

It is now a century since Jewish-free zones first spread to the San Francisco Bay Area (“No Dogs. No Jews”). Nevertheless, this move seems frightening and unexpected, like a bang on the door in the night.

via jewishjournal.com

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky presumably opposes this -- I don't even know what to call it, but I'll say *UnAmerican* move. I wonder how many other law school deans would be willing to speak out against it? My bet is, very few. But here's hoping.

Time For Left To ADMIT Boys, Men Are In CRISIS | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

via www.youtube.com

On the Right, this has been known for a while.

Giorgia Meloni Speech REINSTATED On YouTube After CENSORSHIP Accusations: Brie & Robby

via www.youtube.com

The UK Just Broke

via www.youtube.com

What these UK pension funds were doing, funding their liabilities with leveraged derivatives, seems really stupid -- just assuming interest rates would stay low forever. I wonder what CALPERS is doing. I wouldn't be surprised if they were doing much the same. I'm reminded of the head of my Oxford college explaining to me the great deal he made financing some building project a few years back. He was borrowing at a low rate and figured he would get a much greater long rate in the stock market. I don't recall the details. I remember wondering if the borrowing rate was adjustable, but I decided not to ask. He was an English scholar, after all. I hope the debt is paid off by now but it probably is not.

BTW I like Joe Brown because he keeps things simple, which things are not always, but sometimes they are.

UNC Holds First Amendment “Celebration” With One-Sided Condemnations of Free Speech Values – JONATHAN TURLEY

A professor at the University of North Carolina recently sent me an article on a “free speech event” held at the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy as part of the University’s 13th First Amendment Day celebration. What was striking about the free speech panel was not just that it was decidedly opposed to core free speech principles but it lacked a single panelist who spoke primarily in favor of free speech and against censorship. The panel, “Weaponizing First Amendment Rhetoric,” was clearly designed to offer the opposing view to traditional free speech and First Amendment values, but the lack of a dissenting voices allowed these views to go unchallenged. The panel could have served a more valuable purpose if they had allowed a single panelist to voice opposing views.

Overall, the North Carolina “First Amendment Day” celebration seemed more like a condemnation event on the threat posed by free speech.  Indeed, it often seemed like a collection of vegans assembled to “celebrate” meat-based diets. One professor even chaffed at the very purpose of the event in celebrating the First Amendment: “what about a Reconstruction Amendment Day? … Why is it that this particular amendment is what takes on outsize concern, both in our imagination on our campuses and in our rhetoric?”

Notably, the other panels included one on “how best to regulate social media,” exploring new efforts to regulate speech in Europe and the United States. As shown by the recent call of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern for a global censorship system, many on the left have embraced private and state censorship to silence opposing voices on issues ranging from climate change to gender identification to election fraud.

In an article entitled “Whose freedom of speech deserves protecting,” The Well reported on the “panel of Carolina experts discussed how political extremists use the First Amendment to justify spreading misinformation.” All of the panelists were associated with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life and held forth on the abuse of free speech and “alternative ways of thinking about expression.” Not a single voice was heard on the other side in opposition to such censorship or in favor of social media as a forum for open and free speech.

I would welcome such opposing views in any celebration of the First Amendment if the panel also included just one professor who would allow for balance and even a real debate over such issues. Instead, the event was pile-on panel on how free speech can be harmful and the need to redefine the right to stop some from voicing harmful thoughts.

via jonathanturley.org

When you think about it, there aren't many of the first ten amendments that the Left likes anymore.

How Young Is Too Young for Sterilization?

To calm this strife, WPATH could have produced an evidence-based, apolitical document for physicians and others desperately seeking guidance. That’s not what happened. 

The new guidelines are “a weird amalgam of pseudo-medical speech, and political statements, and fetishistic practices,” said Julia Mason, a pediatrician in Oregon and a clinical advisor to the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Dr. Mason added that she was dismayed that WPATH rejected the chapter on ethics that had been in an earlier draft, but retained the chapter on eunuchs. (These guidelines see eunuchs not as a deeply tragic part of history but as a “gender identity” which health care professionals should support.)

The rollout of these new Standards of Care has been marred with confusion. Last December, WPATH released draft guidelines, which included minimum age recommendations for life-changing treatment, including age 14 for receiving estrogen or testosterone (the previous WPATH standards had been age 16), and allowing minors to have mastectomies (which the guidance often calls “chest-masculinization surgery”) beginning at age 15, and vaginoplasty and hysterectomy at 17. 

via www.commonsense.news

Prospects for Harmony among Libertarians and Conservatives Today | Daniel McCarthy

via www.youtube.com

Good talk.

Russia’s Mobilization, Plunging Oil Prices Weaken Putin’s Economic Hand - WSJ

A costly troop mobilization, plunging energy prices and a new round of Western sanctions threaten to bear down on Russia’s already embattled economy and undermine the financial underpinnings of President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

The economic storm clouds come as Mr. Putin orders more financial resources directed at the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin’s decision to call up more than 300,000 soldiers will require new funds to equip, train and pay the new reinforcements, analysts said. It has also spread disruption among Russia’s private businesses, which face a fresh challenge as workers report for duty or flee the country.

via www.wsj.com

Norway's oil rigs step up security after visits by mysterious drones after Nord Stream explosions | Daily Mail Online

Norway is beefing up security on its offshore North Sea oil rigs after mysterious drones came within 50m of its platforms.

close dialog

Play/Pause Video Mute/Unmute Video

via www.dailymail.co.uk

Yale Is Abandoning Its Own Free Speech Codes | RealClearEducation

Those watching recent events at Yale might be surprised to hear that the university has made any commitment to free speech. Earlier this year, protesters with no apparent sense of irony shouted down a panel on free speech at Yale Law School. In October of last year, Yale Law School administrators pressured a Native American student to apologize for using the term “trap house” in a party invitation. In January 2021, a group of psychiatry residents complained to the chair of the department that a lecture was “traumatizing” because the speaker had joked about being surprised to find an artisanal coffee shop in rural Ohio. 

Yale has continued to plummet in free-speech rankings. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recently ranked Yale 198th out of 203 schools for free speech. Yale was ranked 106th for student comfort in expressing ideas among peers and professors on campus; 150th for administrative support for free speech; and 184th for student acceptance of shouting down or even violently preventing speech with which they disagree (a high ranking on this measure would indicate student opposition to such behavior).

via www.realcleareducation.com

Professor MELTS DOWN LIVE Over Fed's Historic Mistake | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

via www.youtube.com

DC Insider Journalism Scandal Reveals How CORRUPT Media Is | Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar

via www.youtube.com

Saager tells like it is.

Shareholders Demand Pfizer Scrap Race-Conscious Policies in the Wake of Civil Rights Lawsuit

At least one legal challenge to Pfizer’s race-conscious governance is all but certain to succeed: The Breakthrough Fellowship, five civil rights experts told the Washington Free Beacon, is an unambiguous violation of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race discrimination in contracting, and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race discrimination in employment. The program includes multiple internships, a fully funded masters degree, and several years of guaranteed employment with the pharmaceutical giant.

Pfizer also appears to be discriminating in its rank-and-file internship programs. A company ESG report issued in 2021 states that Pfizer set out to award 50 percent of summer internships to non-Asian minorities—a group that makes up only 36.2 percent of the U.S. population. Pfizer ultimately exceeded that goal by massive margins, with 72 percent of summer interns coming from an "underrepresented group or disadvantaged background." By "doubling their ‘representation’ in the general population," the shareholders say, Pfizer prioritized non-Asian minorities "to the detriment of all other applicants."

Even if these policies don’t put the company’s bottom line at risk, Delaware, where Pfizer is incorporated, still holds corporate officers liable for "knowing violation[s] of the law." With the delivery of their letter, the shareholders say, Pfizer has been "put on notice."

via freebeacon.com

Is Italy’s Next Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, A 'Fascist'? Hardly

Who knows? Perhaps tomorrow Meloni will have the trains running on time and embrace a corporatist economic system like so many “liberal” Eurozone nations. I’m a minarchist at heart, so everyone looks like a fascist to me. More likely, though, the Italian right will be illiberal within the normal illiberal standards of modern Europe. It will be no more illiberal than “democratic” socialist parties, and no less authoritarian than the present German government, which regularly sends police to break down the doors and arrest citizens for saying stupid things on the internet. The difference is that like Orban, the Italian right promises to use state power to blunt the European left’s agendas on social policy and immigration, rather than use state power to enforce them. And that will be enough reason to call them “fascists.”

via thefederalist.com

Libertarian group sues to block student debt cancellation

A libertarian group in California filed a legal challenge to President Joe Biden’s plan for student debt cancellation on Tuesday, calling it an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven.

The lawsuit, believed to be the first targeting Biden’s plan, was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento legal advocacy group. It was filed in federal court in Indiana, one of several states that plan to tax any student debt canceled by Biden’s plan.

“Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt,” said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation. He said it’s illegal for the executive branch to create the policy “by press release, and without statutory authority.”

The suit’s plaintiff is Frank Garrison, described as a public interest attorney who lives in Indiana and is employed by the libertarian group.

via news.yahoo.com

Good.

What Trump Gets Right about Harvard - POLITICO

But that’s not the whole story. Another line of attack is about access. It’s about who gets to be part of the elite, and whether America has gotten a fair return on the massive investment that it has made in elite colleges. For, difficult as this might be for liberals to hear, almost everything Trump said to the crowd Bobby Knight had warmed up was true.

“I’ve gotten increasingly incensed at the inequality in American higher ed,” another critic of the private college tax exemption told NPR’s Scott Simon in 2015. “There’s a handful of schools that just have too much money. You just have to walk through the Yale campus to see what money will buy you, which is a country club, right?” Simon’s guest explained that endowments weren’t inherently bad — they could transform underfunded schools. “It’s one thing if a school has an endowment of $500 million that they are stretching a million different ways to meet the needs of its students, to say that as a society, we should allow them to escape taxes so they can spend their money on education,” he said. “But that logic does not hold when you’ve got $35 billion in the bank, as Harvard does.” (Today it’s $53 billion.) “I think they have to stand up and say, at the very least, ‘We do not deserve to have tax-exempt status for our endowments.’”

via www.politico.com

I wouldn't be so pissed off at my alma maters and other Ivies if they admitted kids based on merit, but they don't. There's affirmative action, of course, but beyond that, there's so many "legacy admits," basically rich kids, and athletic admits, that Harvard for example, admits only one out of three in its freshman class based merely on merit. This according to what I consider a reliable source. One out of three! If you get one those "Why not Harvard?" letters smarming to get you to pay their extravagant application fees, I would just ignore it, unless the fifty bucks or whatever it is these days means nothing to you. It would be different if it were based on merit. Then the 800/800/800 (or however they measure it these days) from Podunk, Iowa would have the same shot as the son of a Harvard alum at Exeter who gets grade-inflated A's and substantially lower SATs. But nah. That's not how they roll. Now the SAT is passe. It's hard to construct an aptitude test that does not measure aptitude, even a little bit. UC Berkeley seems to play it more straight relatively speaking. So that's what we did. It was far from perfect. But if you're rich enough, and you want to give your kids a shot at the bottom rung of the elite professional ladder, probably one of the Ivies is worth it, if you can live with yourself and if your kid can get in. When civilizations decay, as Francis Fukuyama explains, this is one of the things that happens -- Elites get chosen by connections rather than merit. We have advanced well down that path, which does not end well.

The UK used to handle this stuff with way more integrity. Dons got in trouble for the slightest breaches of the rules, things that over here were routine. But they seem to be decaying now as the US started to in the 80s and 90s.

Uganda reports 6 new cases of rare Ebola strain - BNO News

Six more people in central Uganda have tested positive for a rare strain of the deadly Ebola virus, according to the World Health Organization, just two days after the first case was reported. 17 suspected cases are also being investigated.

WHO said in an update on Thursday that 7 people have tested positive for Sudan ebolavirus, including a 24-year-old man who died earlier this week. The 6 new patients – along with 10 suspected cases – are being treated at a local hospital.

via bnonews.com

The Wuhan virus thing has completely destroyed the genre of apocalyptic disease outbreak for me.

Facebook ‘silencing’ activity related to FBI whistleblower Steve Friend

Mrs. Friend responded to Moms for Liberty using a private message on her personal Facebook account. 

In the message, she identified herself as “Steve Friend’s wife,” thanked them for their support, said her husband was in the process of obtaining permission from the FBI to speak publicly and asked them to encourage their members to share his whistleblower story on their personal social media accounts. 

About 30 minutes later, Mrs. Friend received a notification from Facebook that her account had been suspended because the “account, or activity on it, doesn’t follow our Community Standards.” 

At the Moms for Liberty end, Mrs. Friend’s Facebook message disappeared. In its place was a notification saying, “Message unavailable.” 

via nypost.com

Well that's creepy. This is equivalent to the Phone Company cutting you off after you call a supporter in some beef you have with the government. It is long past the time to reign in Facebook and the rest of them.

Beside a Golden Door - The American Conservative

But l’affaire de Martha’s Vineyard is indicative of another, more fundamental tension in America, one that goes beyond the catastrophic burden of illegal immigration. Rather, the responses it has prompted illustrate that while America remains divided right from left, it is also divided up from down—between those at the top who set policy, and those at the bottom who must live with it. 

via www.theamericanconservative.com

Rachel Bovard.

Why Lawyers Love Jackpot Talc Litigation - WSJ

The National Cancer Institute reviewed multiple studies of talc use among women and incidence of ovarian cancer and concluded: “The weight of evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.”

Yet the claims keep coming, and J&J has to deal with them. Bankruptcy law is meant to preserve some value for stakeholders in distressed companies. The lawyers may have to look elsewhere for their next payday, but this is another lesson about how the trial bar’s incentive is to spin the roulette wheel for a big jury award, even if that isn’t in the interest of the claimants.

via www.wsj.com

Will the hard Right sweep Europe? - The Post

The rise of the Christian, ultra-conservative candidate Giorgia Meloni in Italy marks a strange split in European politics. Post-Brexit Britain is now in the minority of countries that have not seen a recent Rightward populist uprising.

The French election was disrupted by Marine Le Pen, the Sweden Democrats have ousted the centre-Left from power and Right-wing Vox have gained ground in Spain.

With the cost of living crisis worsening, culture wars raging and sanctions against Russia biting, will more countries fall for what some call ‘neo-fascists’? Or will certain parts of the media prove to be exaggerating the threat of hard-Right figures like Giorgia Meloni?

To try and answer these questions, UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers sat down with Ralph Schoellhammer, Assistant Professor of Economics at Webster University, Vienna.

via unherd.com

FBI Caught in Another Major Corruption Scandal After Misleading a Judge – RedState

Another day, another example of the FBI’s vast corruption. A new report based on unsealed documents has revealed that the bureau misled a judge over a warrant in order to seize tens of millions of dollars in valuables without cause.

via redstate.com

This sounds like it ought to be illegal.

Was Overturning Roe a “Blessing”? Only if Democrats Can Avoid the Details of the Right to Abortion – JONATHAN TURLEY

Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler on Thursday swatted down questions about late-term abortions as being “disingenuous.” Instead, he insisted these are questions involving “painful, emotional and even moral decisions.” They are. But they also involve the very legal questions addressed in past Supreme Court cases, including Gonzales v. Carhart, upholding Congress’ right to ban late-term abortion techniques.

While Kessler focused on whether late-term abortions are “common,” the issue is whether a woman has a constitutional right to late-term abortions. The answer to that question can help understand the meaning of this right and any balancing of interests recognized in cases like Roe. (While states could adopt a more permissive approach under Roe, it stressed that the state had a powerful interest later in a pregnancy to protect the life of the baby.)

Late-term abortions are rare, but they do occur — for a variety of medical and personal reasons. Kessler admits that “in 2021, state records show, about 1.8 percent of 11,580 abortions in Colorado took place after 21 weeks, but just 60 took place at 25 weeks or later.” That is 268 late-term abortions in Colorado in one year, a small percentage but not inconsequential. More importantly, the question is whether a woman has an absolute right to demand such an abortion and, if not, why? Even if statistically rare, the answer is legally significant in understanding the meaning of this right.

The fact is that Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to a claimed right to late-term abortions. Indeed, a majority supports limits on abortion after 15 weeks.

Polls show most Americans reject extreme or absolute positions on either side of the abortion issue. Polls also show that 65 percent of Americans would make most abortions illegal in the second trimester, and 80 percent would make most abortions illegal in the third.

The United States is one of only 12 among the world’s 198 countries that allow abortions for any reason after 20 weeks; 47 out of 50 European countries ban abortions at around 15 weeks. Such bans are found in countries like France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Spain.

Rather than address the legal and policy questions of when a right to abortion is limited or extinguished, many politicians repeat the mantra that the decision rests entirely with the woman. There is a preference to discuss anything other than restrictions of the right.

via jonathanturley.org

More Trans Teens Are Choosing ‘Top Surgery’ - The New York Times

Michael, 17, arrived in the sleek white waiting room of his plastic surgeon’s office in Miami for a moment he had long anticipated: removing the bandages to see his newly flat chest.

After years of squeezing into compression undershirts to conceal his breasts, the teenager was overcome with relief that morning last December. Wearing an unbuttoned shirt, he posed for photos with his mother and the surgeon, Dr. Sidhbh Gallagher, happy to share his bare chest with the doctor’s large following on social media.

“It just felt right — like I’d never had breasts in the first place,” Michael said. “It was a ‘Yes, finally’ kind of moment.”

Michael is part of a very small but growing group of transgender adolescents who have had top surgery, or breast removal, to better align their bodies with their experience of gender. Most of these teenagers have also taken testosterone and changed their name, pronouns or clothing style.

via www.nytimes.com

When I was 17 I was going to be a fighter pilot, a psychiatrist, a novelist and several other improbable things.

Inside Russia’s Vast Surveillance State: ‘They Are Watching’ - The New York Times

Roskomnadzor’s activities have catapulted Russia, along with authoritarian countries like China and Iran, to the forefront of nations that aggressively use technology as a tool of repression. Since the agency was established in 2008, Mr. Putin has turned it into an essential lever to tighten his grip on power as he has transformed Russia into an even more authoritarian state.

The internet regulator is part of a larger tech apparatus that Mr. Putin has built over the years, which also includes a domestic spying system that intercepts phone calls and internet traffic, online disinformation campaigns and the hacking of other nations’ government systems.

The agency’s role in this digital dragnet is more extensive than previously known, according to the records. It has morphed over the years from a sleepy telecom regulator into a full-blown intelligence agency, closely monitoring websites, social media and news outlets, and labeling them as “pro-government,” “anti-government” or “apolitical.”

via www.nytimes.com

I didn't know much about Russia's surveillance state.

For Mormons, a perfect lawn is a godly act. But the drought is catching up with them | Environment | The Guardian

The Utah legislature passed at least a dozen water conservation measures last spring, signaling a bipartisan desire to finally address drought impacts. And while one new law requires the installation of meters to monitor secondary water use, it does not require placing limits on the amount of water being used by the state’s more than 200,000 secondary water customers.

Utah has yet to implement the most effective tool for conserving municipal water – raising the price – which remains low because it’s subsidized by water districts that levy property taxes based on home values. According to data from the Utah Rivers Council, residents in Utah cities pay half of what residents of Las Vegas or Denver do for 25,000 gallons of water. And people living in Seattle, San Diego or Tucson pay four times what Utahns spend for that amount of water.

via www.theguardian.com

Water is a big deal out here.

Factory Jobs Are Booming Like It’s the 1970s - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Ever since American manufacturing entered a long stretch of automation and outsourcing in the late 1970s, every recession has led to the loss of factory jobs that never returned. But the recovery from the pandemic recession has been different: American manufacturers have now added enough jobs to regain all that they shed — and then some.

The resurgence has not been driven by companies bringing back factory jobs that had moved overseas, nor by the brawny industrial sectors and regions often evoked by President Biden, former President Donald J. Trump and other champions of manufacturing.

Instead, the engines in this recovery include pharmaceutical plants, craft breweries and ice-cream makers. The newly created jobs are more likely to be located in the Mountain West and the Southeast than in the classic industrial strongholds of the Great Lakes.

via www.nytimes.com

Interesting.

Italians have dealt another blow to the establishment - spiked

Here I was thinking the populist revolt was over. After all, the neoliberal elites said it was. They pronounce populism dead every six months or so – seemingly convinced that one election result or external event has finally finished it off for good. Covid was supposed to kill populism, by reminding the supposedly ignorant oiks of the importance of experts. Then Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was supposed to kill populism, by reminding ‘nativist’ voters of the importance of international cooperation and the folly of authoritarian strongmen – something they are supposedly enamoured of. And yet those pesky voters just keep on electing the ‘wrong’ governments. If the triumph of the Sweden Democrats in supposedly sensible Sweden earlier this month wasn’t symbolic enough, Italy has just made the right-wing, anti-immigration Brothers of Italy the largest party, paving the way for what the media breathlessly call the ‘most right-wing government since Mussolini’.

via www.spiked-online.com

Disinformation Behind Censorship Demands

President Joe Biden, spokespersons for his administration, and Congressional Democrats say they are trying to get out the truth about energy and climate change against Republican and fossil fuel efforts to deny it. Over the summer, Biden denied he was “limiting oil production” and accused oil refiners of restricting production. In July, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, “natural disasters... are getting worse because of climate change," which, he said, had caused the war in Syria. And Rep. Ro Khanna, on September 15, 2022, said, “If there was a war on energy, how is Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell making over 200% profits? You can't have a war on an industry and then they're having record profits.”

But every one of their statements was false. Biden has leased far less federal land and off-shore waters for oil and gas production than any president since World War II, oil refiners are operating at maximum capacity, and Biden’s EPA shut down a major oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands in May. The number of weather-related natural disasters has been declining since this century, and the claim that climate change caused the war in Syria has been soundly and repeatedly debunked. And, as I explained to Rep. Khanna during the September 15 Congressional hearing, big oil and gas companies have big profits precisely because the Biden administration and others have been stifling production, thereby reducing supplies, and increasing prices and profits.

via michaelshellenberger.substack.com

It's as if the Dems have a line, a political narrative of what's going on, and they want to label the contrary of that as misinformation, whether it's true or not! But that doesn't seem right. Any government that could do that would just try to keep themselves in power indefinitely, right? And anybody could do this, Right or Left, correct?

Meloni Wins Big in Italy Election to Turn Page on Draghi Era

The next Italian government will face a series of overlapping crises as the energy shortages triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine fuel rampant inflation and undermine growth. The hit to Italy’s finances and the prospect of more interest-rate hikes from the European Central Bank have pushed the yield on Italy’s 10-year bonds to more than 4.3% compared with less than 1% in December.

“We haven’t arrived,” Meloni told supporters in the small hours of Monday in a sober speech at a hotel in downtown Rome. “This is a starting point. And tomorrow we will have to show what we are worth.”

via www.msn.com

Lots of hand-wringing and pearl-clutching on the Left. We'll see if it's justified. She doesn't like "financial speculators," which sounds ominous to me. She likes family, tradition, etc., which sounds good. We'll have to wait and see.

Mugged by reality? Dems pivot on law and order as soft-on-crime liberals assaulted, burglarized | Just The News

"Once again, while peacefully riding my bike early this Sunday morning in Balboa Park, I was threatened, chased, and assaulted by the homeless population, in our park," Walton wrote Aug. 28. "Once again, you've done, and continue to do, nothing."

Four days earlier, Walton wrote, "You speak of the rights of the [homeless], what about our rights, we follow the rules of a functioning society, why are others allowed to disregard those rules. your lack of action is unacceptable, as is the conduct of the homeless population [sic]."

While not being specific about what changes he wants to see, Walton, who's known as San Diego's biggest booster and unofficial spokesman, called for greater "enforcement," noting a recently passed measure in Los Angeles banning homeless encampments near schools.

"You have failed, us and yourself," he wrote Sept. 2.

via justthenews.com

San Diego! In the news!