The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

In The Mailbox: 10.06.23 (Afternoon Edition)

Posted on | October 6, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.06.23 (Afternoon Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

So much for getting caught up this week.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

It’s his dream. It’s his nightmare. (@DaminToell on X)

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Cops Don’t Believe The Law Applies To Them, 
EBL: Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s Very Bad Tuesday, Everybody Shimmies Now, Your phone will make your head explode if you don’t turn it off in time, Is Saudi Arabia the most “doomed country”?  and Men, Best To Avoid Women Journalists Like Molly Knight or crappy rag she writes for the Athletic
Twitchy: Murdered Lefty Activist Ryan Carson Had A Nasty Habit Of Celebrating Dead Conservatives, Scott Smith Files Title IX Lawsuit Against Loudoun County, and About That “Spectacular” September Jobs Report – The Numbers & Data Don’t Add  Up
Louder With Crowder: Aaron Rodgers hits Travis Kelce where it hurts, calls Taylor Swift’s boyfriend “Mr. Pfizer”, “Plus-Size” Influencer Calls For Hotels To Widen Hallways, Lifts And Bathrooms, “Way to cheat, bro:” Dude ranked 172nd in high school track. Then he became a girl. Now she’s ranked 4th! After Patriotic Student Walkout, School District Votes That Male Students Can’t Use The Girls’ Bathroom Anymore, and Watch: Dude walks around Costco showing the REAL cost of inflation Biden and the media won’t
Vox Popoli: The Decisive Turn, The Baen Brigade Keeps Biting Ankles, India Knew Russia Would Win, Norman Rockwell Paints Clown World, He Used to Vote Republican Too, and Never Back Down
Stoic Observations: The Nationalization Of The American Psyche, 
Flappr: The Big TDs Football Blog – NFC Review. 

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Francis is not the not-pope that you think he is, A Church Divided, and Smart is the New Stupid
American Conservative: Orcs Are Roaming Freely, Egalitarian Conservatism? Yes, We Can, and Base American Policy in Ukraine on American Interests 
American Greatness: Greenpeace Canada Co-Founder: ‘We are not in a climate crisis’, Josh Hawley Introduces Legislation to Allow Border States to Deport Illegal Immigrants, and After Allowing 8 Million Illegal Aliens to Enter Country, the Biden Regime Decides to Revive Border Wall Construction in Texas
American Thinker: Donald J. Trump, the Hero Who Stands Alone, Biden Selling out the U.S., 2024: The Trump Boom vs. the Biden Bust, The Real Motive for Jan. 6, and Never Forget the Jan. 6 Defendants
Animal Magnetism: Goodbye, Blue Monday, Animal’s Daily Bleached Cows News, Animal’s Hump Day News, and Animal’s Daily Near Future News
Babalu Blog: Parents of very young Cuban soldiers in Ukraine fear sons have been killed in battle, Over 300 acts of oppression in Cuba during the month of September, Another building collapse in Havana traps residents and first responders under debris, Cuba has received $200 million in oil from Mexico this year, and Where the money goes in communist Cuba
BattleSwarm: Texas Speed Trap City Dissolves Police Force, Scenes From San Francisco’s Decline, Our Incompetent Media: A Snapshot, BREAKING: McCarthy Ousted From Speaker’s Chair, and Third Special Session: School Choice and Colony Ridge
Behind The Black: Distorted Martian craters, Satellite data shows this year’s ozone hole one of the biggest on record, Northrop Grumman abandons its own proposed space station; partners with Voyager’s Starlab, Japan’s space agency JAXA studying new reusuable rocket concepts, SLIM leaves Earth orbit and is on its way to the Moon, and Today’s blacklisted American: Man’s life ruined because a black man slandered him for profit
Cafe Hayek: The Ultimate Knowledge Problem, Reality Doesn’t Change Simply By Being Repeatedly Misrepresented, A Conversation With John J. Miller About Adam Smith, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Some facts about income inequality”, and Follow the Rules
CDR Salamander: LCS’ Long, Sad, & Early Goodbye, also, The Saga of the Ticos
Chicago Boyz: Stories and Society, also, Sputnik + 66
Da Tech Guy: The Navy…always ready with misinformation! Kennedy Running as an Independent Will Make Things Interesting, Six months that shook the marketing world, Matt Patrica is Laughing his Ass off Right Now, What the Democrat Left is by Kirk, and Philadelphia: A city on the brink of chaos
Don Surber: McCarthy Gets Liz Cheneyed, also, Popcorn or toasted marshmallows?
First Street Journal: World War III Watch: The British might send ‘advisors’ and ‘training’ troops to Ukraine, Killadelphia: The city’s white, liberal elite were appalled at Josh Kruger’s murder, but didn’t even notice the killings of four ‘nobodies’, and Bill Kristol and the Neocons sure love them some war
Gates Of Vienna: The Ugly Minority Freakshow, Rough Justice in the Forest, Geert Wilders: “Imported Violence in Almost All Our Cities”, Emmanuel “Unvaxed” Macron, Invasion of the Country Snatchers, and Thousands of New Gendarmes… Why?
The Geller Report: In Case You Forgot: The Accomplishments of President Trump, HORROR FOOTAGE: EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE OF FEDERAL CONTRACTORS DELIVERING CHILDREN ACROSS THE UNITED STATES, Acting Speaker Patrick McHenry Orders Pelosi to Vacate Her Capitol Secret Hideaway Office by Wednesday, Newsweek: FBI Created New Category to Go After Trump Followers as 2024 Election Nears, and Fifth Circuit Court Rules President Biden Cannot Censor Speech on Social Media Platforms
Hogewash: Uranus, Then Why Order the Razor Wire Cut? Good News, But Does This Headline Confuse Progressives, What’s Up for October, 2023, Double Quasars, and Team Kimberlin Post of the Day
Hollywood In Toto: Bill Burr Predicts a ‘Revolt’ Against Cancel Culture, Are Cops Allowed to Be the Good Guys Yet? Muzzle Gives K9 Cops Their Due, Free to Choose Mini-Doc Captures Chilling Attacks on Comedy, and The Morning Show Goes All-in on Abortion, Jan. 6 ‘Insurrection’
The Lid: Trump & Lawyers Speak Out At New York Fraud Case… Taking Defiant Stand, Gang of Biden Illegals Kidnap 3 Minnesota Girls – Hold Them in Rape House for Days, and Horrible Crime: Man Sent To Jail For Calling A Journalist A Fat Lesbian
Legal Insurrection: ‘Literally Empty’: CVS Pharmacy in Washington, DC, is Routinely Ransacked by Large Group of Kids, Oberlin College Finally To Return Drawing Stolen By Nazis To Heirs Of Jewish Holocaust Victim, After 17-Year Refusal, Army Corps of Engineers to Solve “Nation’s Toughest Engineering Challenges” Through “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”, IRS Consultant Charged With Leaking Tax Information on Trump and Others to the Media, Groundbreaking Win For Parents: WI State Court Rules Against School’s Secret Gender Transitioning Policy, Investigation Finds Biden Administration Has Awarded Over $100 Million in Transgender Research Grants, and German Government ‘Rebukes’ Elon Musk for Criticizing State-Funded NGOs Helping Illegal Migrant Cross Mediterranean
Nebraska Energy Observer: Recessional, More information, October! and Zombies
Outkick: LeBron James Publicly Begs To Be Guest On Kelce Brothers’ Podcast And Rightfully Gets Called Out, Hotel Rooms Booked By Army-Navy Fans And Service Members Reportedly Being Taken By Massachusetts To House Migrants, Trevor Bauer Accuser Lindsey Hill Gives Lewd Interview With Alex Stein, Baker Mayfield Caught On Mic Making Vulgar Comment, Urban Meyer To Interview For Michigan State Job? According To One Report, Yes It’s Happening, and Media Smeared Trevor Bauer. And Now Has Little To Say
Power Line: What Keeps the Lights On? If Wind and Solar Get Any Cheaper, We’ll All Go Broke, Suicide of the House, The Pangloss-Pétain Presidency, and Who Loves the Intelligence Community?
Shark Tank: Conservative Senators Push For Ban On Gender Transition Surgery Funding
Shot In The Dark: Where Credit Is Due – Grandma Bea, Where Credit Is Due – Oskar Berg, Soundtrack Part 2, Soundtrack Part 1, and Where Credit Is Due Part 1
STUMP:
The Political Hat: The Punishment For Knocking Up Your Disabled Daughter In Canada? House Arrest… If you Are Black, also, Everyone Is Invited To This Playdate Social… Except For White Kids
This Ain’t Hell: An Air Force squadron banned alcohol consumption outside of living quarters, Majority of Retired 4-Stars Employed by Defense Industry, Army Recruiting – again, Air Force lowers standards, still misses recruiting goal, Pentagon official charged with running dog fighting ring, executing losers, and Alaska Training Fatalities
Transterrestrial Musings: “Building A Deeply Inclusive Culture”, Twenty Years Of Blogging, College Kids, and Starliner
Victory Girls: Commander Leaves White House, Biden Can’t Have Dogs Anymore, Grifter Meghan Markle Wanted Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Seat, and Sage Steele “Saddest Thing” Interview With Biden
Volokh Conspiracy: Is Sen.-to-be Butler Eligible to Represent California?, also, The Demand for Political Misinformation is a Bigger Problem than the Supply—Even in the Age of AI
Watts Up With That: The Irony of “Green” Charging Stations: The Harris Ranch Tesla Supercharger Station, Is Much of Washington State Experiencing Severe and Extreme Drought?, and The Energy Transition is Social Vandalism
The Federalist: Authoritarian Thugs Continue Their Persecution Of Jack Phillips, 10 Ways Democrats Are Already Rigging The 2024 Election, WaPo’s Philip Bump Shills For The Chinese Communist Party By Calling Its Name ‘Pejorative’, After Ignoring Violent BLM Riots, FBI Targets Trump Supporters For Breaking Anti-Riot Laws, This Activist Wife Schmoozes The Get-Trump White House While Her Prosecutor Husband Jails J6ers, Senate Republicans Urge Pentagon To Yank Security Clearance Of Official With Reported Ties To Iran, and Promoting Porn In School Libraries Is The Real Problem, Not ‘Banned Books’
Mark Steyn: Shagged Out, Buried Truth: Richard III and Toxic Males in The Lost King, Cowardice and Cancellation, The Cosplay Candidates, and Comply with Me, Comply, Comply Away

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Category: Linkagery

‘Chiseling Sociopathic Whore’

Posted on | October 6, 2023 | Comments Off on ‘Chiseling Sociopathic Whore’

The title phrase is Ace’s characterization of Lindsey Hill, so if she wants to sue somebody, I ain’t the defendant, but at least I spelled her name right. She reminds me of a Johnny Rivers lyric:

Beware of pretty faces that you find.
A pretty face can hide an evil mind.

Unfortunately, guys are always judging the book by its cover, and what healthy young man would look at a sweet-looking cutie like Lindsey Hill and have the foresight to think, “This woman is going to ruin my life”?

Obviously, not Trevor Bauer:

Watch that whole video. It’s less than four minutes long, but it’s utterly devastating, and Bauer never saw it coming. This guy won the Cy Young Award in 2020 and signed a three-year, $102 million contract with the L.A. Dodgers in 2021. Five months later, he was suspended because of Lindsey Hill’s accusation of sexual assault which, I think we can all now agree, was entirely fabricated — a scam, a hoax, a fraud perpetrated for the sole purpose of getting a big payout from Bauer.

Y’know, I wish Sam Kinison were still alive. Just imagine Sam starting his routine about this situation:

“Hey, baseball boy, why don’t you sit down here at the bar and let’s have ourselves a little chat. Let’s talk about genital herpes. Did you know herpes is incurable? And it’s also kind of common. There are more than a half-a-million new cases of herpes diagnosed every year in the United States. According to the CDC, about 12% of people in America under 50 have it. So what are the odds, huh? Twelve percent — that’s like one-in-eight, you see what I’m saying? So basically if you’ve screwed eight people, your chances of getting herpes are pretty close to 100% and, well, you’re a pretty popular guy, aren’t you? Six-foot-one, professional athlete, big money — the girls are just crazy about you, right? Like that sweet-looking little thing over there, what’s her name? Lindsey? Dimples, pretty smile, nice body. Tell me, Trevor, how much do you know about Lindsey? Like, what’s her background?
“She’s 27 years old, OK? Now, what do you think her body count is? How many guys has she slept with? If I offered you a hundred-dollar bet with over/under at eight, would you bet over or under?
“Over. Yeah, of course she’s way past eight by now. She might have done eight just in the past year. Did you know that Lindsey has already screwed at least two members of the San Diego Padres? Bet she didn’t mention that, did she, Trevor? And do you know why she didn’t mention it?
“BECAUSE SHE’S A GODDAMNED LYING WHORE! ARE YOU HEARING ME, TREVOR? STAY AWAY FROM THAT WHORE OR SHE’S GOING TO RUIN YOUR LIFE SO BAD YOU’LL BE PLAYING BASEBALL IN JAPAN, YOU IDIOT!”

That’s what these young fellows need — some brutal truth about women.

There seems to be a widespread belief among young men that if a woman seems nice, she must actually be nice — as if women were incapable of deception, as if a “nice” exterior can’t be faked. It never seems to occur to these men to ask the most obvious question in such cases. For example, if a woman is very attractive, why is she still single at age 27? Why is she still in the dating market? What’s wrong with her?

No, guys are just stupid and superficial and underestimate the risk of getting involved with A LYING WHORE LIKE LINDSEY HILL!

Sorry, channeling Sam Kinison again. Don’t sue me.



 

Category: Sports

In The Mailbox: 10.05.23 (Early Morning Edition)

Posted on | October 5, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.05.23 (Early Morning Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Silicon Valley delenda est.

“Populism calls for aid – and Rohan shall answer!”

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Democrats In Chicago Waking Up To The Reality Of Democrat Policies, also, Democrats Versus The Open Border
Director Blue: Who Killed America?
EBL: Did Democrat Congressman Henry Cuellar Just Get Mugged By Reality?
Twitchy: Philly DA Larry Krasner Checking To See If Rioters Are “Fundamentally Law-Abiding”, “Authoritarian Watch”, and Facts Are Transphobic
Louder With Crowder: Dolphins QB shocks reporters by professing his Christian Faith, Princeton, The Ivy League One, Launches “Drag University” So Your Son Can Major In Being A Drag Queen, and “Being an absolute WHORE to get in on his 51 million”
Vox Popoli: Vibrancy in the UK, The 4Chan Guide to Rhetoric, A Sad Puppy Testifies, and Germany Declares War on Russia
Flappr: Picking DiFi’s Replacement, also, The Big TDs Football Blog – Quarter Season Review (AFC)

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: The Endgame In Ukraine?
Dana Loesch: Kevin McCarthy Out As Speaker – Now What?
Don Surber: Trump Is Taking One For The Team

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Category: Linkagery

Update From the Dept. of Ironic Crime

Posted on | October 5, 2023 | 1 Comment

Saturday we shared the tale of a young woman who made the fatal choice of Baltimore as an ideal place for “building a deeply inclusive culture.”

Since then, there seems to have been a rash of such ironic crimes. Irony is not to be confused with comedy, of course, and we would not want people to laugh at death, which is not funny. Except sometimes . . .

A left-wing Philadelphia journalist who mocked concern over rising crime in Democrat-run cities was shot to death in his home.
Josh Kruger was shot seven times after someone entered his home, shot him at the base of his stairs, and then fled. Kruger ran outside seeking help from his neighbors and collapsed, where police found them after responding to call just before 1:30 a.m. on the 2300 block of Watkins Street.
Kruger, 39, was rushed to the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he died just before 2:15 a.m.
No arrests have been made, and there was no sign of forced entry into the home, according to Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.
“Either the door was open, or the offender knew how to get the door open,” he said. “We just don’t know yet.”

It would be wrong to yield to the temptation of schadenfreude in such a case, but having spent some time delving through Josh Kruger’s social media, I’ve got to say that he seemed utterly obsessed with challenging what he often called “myths” about the danger of urban violence.

Permit me here to share two basic rules for a happy life:

1. Never argue with fools;

and

2. Stay the hell out of Philadelphia.

So far, so good — at least for me, but Josh Kruger had other ideas, e.g., that he was living in a “white supremacist police state.” There is a word for people who believe such things, and that word is crazy.

And speaking of crazy people . . .

Social justice activist fatally stabbed
in front of girlfriend in Brooklyn

Ryan Carson “dedicated his life to fighting for social justice,” and worked at a left-wing non-profit founded by Ralph Nader. Irony alert:

The 32-year-old was waiting for a bus with his girlfriend when police said he was brutally attacked. Surveillance video obtained by PIX11 News showed an unidentified man, who police described as emotionally disturbed, stabbing Carson several times.
The attack happened early Monday morning at the intersection of Malcolm X Boulevard and Lafayette Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, police said. Carson and his girlfriend were on their way home from a wedding.
Carson was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries. His roommates said it could have happened to anyone at any time.
The New York Public Interest Research Group, where Carson had worked, released a statement on Tuesday: “Ryan was a beloved staffer, colleague and friend, and a creative, talented, relentless and upbeat advocate for students and the environment.”

More ironic details:

The apparently unprovoked attack occurred shortly before 4 a.m. Monday. The incident was captured on surveillance footage.
The suspect walked past the couple while they were seated on a bench at a bus stop, police said. As the two then walked toward the suspect, he started to damage scooters and said to Carson, “What are you looking at?” according to [NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph] Kenny.
As Carson tried to de-escalate the situation, the suspect swung a knife at him, Kenny said. Carson backed up and tripped, falling to the ground. The suspect then stabbed him three times, with the knife piercing his heart, Kenny said.

Despite the assertion by Carson’s roommates that this “could have happened to anyone at any time,” I’d say the fact that it happened at 4 a.m. in Bedford-Stuyvesant is probably kind of relevant.

“Excuse me, sir, can you give me directions?”

“Sure, where you headed?”

“Well, I’m looking for someplace to get stabbed to death.”

“Oh, Bedford-Stuyvesant is the place you’re looking for.”

“Any particular area in Bedford-Stuyvesant? Because I’m really in a hurry to get stabbed as soon as possible.”

“Yeah, anywhere along Malcolm X Boulevard, I’d say.”

“Thanks for the help.”

“Sure. And, oh, one more thing . . .”

“What’s that?”

“Probably try to get there about four in the morning.”

“Four in the morning?”

“Yeah, that’s prime time for getting stabbed to death in Beford-Stuyvesant.”

What the heck was this Carson guy thinking, hanging out in Bedford-Stuyvesant at 4 a.m.? Waiting for a bus? He couldn’t call a cab? He couldn’t get a ride from a friend? Oh, and check this out:

(Hat-tip: John Sexton at Hot Air.) Let me be clear: Murder is bad. I am anti-murder, and no one should think that I am happy to see left-wingers getting murdered like this. Also, I am anti-carjacking, and thus cannot be accused of celebrating when a Democratic congressmen gets carjacked at gunpoint in D.C. My point in calling attention to these cases is not to advocate in favor of violence against liberals, but rather to say that, when Democrats support soft-on-crime policies, they seldom expect that they personally will suffer as a consequence of the ill-considered policies they embrace. When the boomerang comes whirling around to smack them in the back of the skull? Some might say it serves them right.

I’m just saying it’s ironic.



 

Category: Crime

In The Mailbox: 10.04.23 (Punditocracy Edition)

Posted on | October 4, 2023 | Comments Off on In The Mailbox: 10.04.23 (Punditocracy Edition)

— compiled by Wombat-socho

This has been a rough week so far, and the next couple of weeks aren’t looking too good either.
Silicon Valley delenda est.

Get in the robot, Shinji. God wills it!

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: Democrat Jamaal Bowman Pulls A Fire Alarm at the Capitol, Gavin Newsom apppoints Marylander Laphonza Butler to fill Dianne Feinstein’s California Senate Seat, and Kevin McCarthy’s Bad Weekend
Twitchy: Sadly, Scott Adams Gets The Last Laugh, “Do Not Trust The Press”, and DA Explains How Zero Bail Policy Will Make The Country Safer
Louder With Crowder: Addicts Are Not Too Happy Over San Francisco Mayor’s Proposal To Enforce Drug Tests, Treatment For Welfare Recipients, Liberal audience roars as Ron DeSantis reminds Bill Maher about his election-denying “Hollywood friends” in 2016, and What’s more cringe: Biden forgetting where he is, or supporters singing a pro-Biden Backstreet Boys parody song to him?
Vox Popoli: The Kids are All Right, The Material Side of the Spiritual War, China Signs On, Immigration of Color = Bankruptcy, and The Saga of the Baen Exemplar
Stoic Observations: The Public Speaker
Gab News: An Amazon Alternative For The Parallel Economy

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
CDR Salamander: Fall Maritime Free For All – On Midrats, also, What If Everyone Wanted A Maritime Strategy But…
Dana Loesch: Jamaal Bowman Didn’t Mean To Call You Nazis Or Pull That Fire Alarm, Either
Don Surber: Donald Trump Was Right, 

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Category: Linkagery

A Self-Inflicted Disaster as Republicans Vote to Boot Kevin McCarthy as Speaker

Posted on | October 4, 2023 | 1 Comment

Perhaps some of my readers are not sad to see Kevin McCarthy voted out as Speaker of the House. And I’m here to tell you, you’re wrong.

Perhaps you recall the scene from Gone With the Wind in which Rhett is helping Scarlett and Melanie escape Atlanta before the Yankee invaders arrive. At one point, the road is blocked by a passing column of Confederate troops. Scarlett frets: “Oh, dear, I wish they’d hurry,” to which Rhett replies, “I wouldn’t be in such a hurry to see them go if I were you. With them goes the last semblance of law and order.”

So it is with ex-Speaker McCarthy. Some conservatives may have loathed McCarthy as a compromised, unprincipled sellout, and I have no interest in debating anyone about McCarthy’s faults. The problem is that, having created this vacancy, the GOP insurgents offer no candidate capable of filling the void. Critics may say that anyone would be better than McCarthy, but which “anyone” do they have in mind?

Some people are simply incapable of teamwork. They are so monstrously selfish that they would rather rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven. It is unfortunate that such egomaniacs are often elected to public office, where their own vanity and ambition makes them dangerous and untrustworthy. Such is the character, I suspect, of Kevin McCarthy’s enemies, whose appetite for destruction is unlikely to coincide with similar talent for creating anything to replace what they’ve destroyed.



 

Category: Congress

Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile In The Kitchen

Posted on | October 2, 2023 | Comments Off on Rule 5 Sunday: Meanwhile In The Kitchen

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Things are getting a little cold to be frolicking outside in bikinis (especially here in Tonopah, where it’s getting down to the 30s at night) but there’s always fun to be had in the kitchen, right? This week’s appetizer courtesy of kbdabear’s Saturday Night Sideboob tweets.
Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley esse delendam.

Banana for scale

ANIMAL MAGNETISM: Rule Five Flying Illegals Friday, and the Saturday Gingermageddon. 

EBL: Saturday Night Girls With Guns, Anti-MAGA Dirty Whore Judge, Is Spider Venom The New Viagra? La Dolce Vita, Miss Zimbabwe, If No-one Watched The GOP Debate…, Belarus Recruiting Women? How To Resist Pumpkin Spice Season, The Most Wunderbar Time Of The Year, Drops Of God, The Covenant, The Continental, and Silo. 

A VIEW FROM THE BEACH: Emily Elizabeth, Fish Pic Friday – Allie Beth Tolliver, Rose, A Dolphin Storm Chaser Visits Baltimore, The Wednesday Wetness, RIP: Illya Kuryakin, Hunter Sues Rudy, Tuesday Tanlines, Dutch Cutie Warns of War on Hamburgers, The Monday Morning Stimulus, Flotsam and Jetsam in the Wake of Ophelia, Sunday Sunrise and Fall is Fell

FLAPPR: T.I.T.S. For September 29

Thanks to everyone for all the luscious links!

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Category: Rule 5

Let’s Play, ‘Find the Hidden Racism’!

Posted on | October 1, 2023 | 1 Comment

Appalling is a word we don’t use often enough, but it’s perhaps the best word for what is going on in America’s public schools in the name of “social justice.” You may not be able to read the text in that screen-cap, but apparently academics have invented a term, “evaded racism.” Here’s a brief summary from a journal article:

Evaded Racism
Prominent race scholar, Richard Valencia (2012) argues that while in the past intellectual inferiority and cultural deprivation were prominent theories used to uphold racial inequity in schooling, today, individualized analysis of underachievement are tools that maintain the status quo. K. D. Brown & Brown (2012) contend that dominant rhetoric blames students of Color and their families for a lack of academic success, promoting a shift in their behavior as the solution (e.g., reminding parents to read more to their children; advocating for a growth mind-set), rather than suggesting shifts to structures or policies that systematically fail students of Color (e.g., limited resources, racial profiling; Malagon & Alvarez, 2010). Blaming communities of Color for educational inequality at the individual level invisiblizes institutional responsibility, thus providing a rationale to study race yet evade concrete analyses of racism (Bonilla Silva, 2006).

Got it? Now watch this short video clip:

This person — and anyone who thinks like her — should never be allowed anywhere near a classroom. But that’s obvious enough. What perhaps requires more explanation is why liberals think this way. Once again, I must recommend Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy as the single best description of the psychology of modern liberalism, which I think is highly relevant to this kind of “woke” nonsense that’s infesting American education.

Liberals are unwitting guilty, as I recently remarked, of being “childishly simple-minded . . . Whatever they like is good, and whatever they dislike is evil.” Although they consider themselves sophisticated and intellectually superior to others, liberals exhibit a tendency to think in a sort of Manichean dualism, where every controversy is seen as a struggle between the forces of good (i.e., themselves) and the forces of darkness (i.e., anyone who disagrees with them). Often, as a practical matter, it is impossible to distinguish between the liberal’s professed ideals — in this case, “equity” in education — and the narrow political interests of the Democratic Party. In this specific example, why are liberals so obsessed with the belief that “structures or policies” in public schools “systematically fail students of Color”? (Resist the temptation to ask why the authors felt the need to capitalize “Color.” Time is too precious.)

The reason why liberals are obsessed with racial “equity” in public schools is because the Democratic Party relies on votes from black and Hispanic people to win elections, period. Viewing these groups as their natural constituents, whose interests the Democratic Party exists to serve, liberals therefore must believe that (a) black and Hispanic people are extraordinarily virtuous, and therefore (b) anything bad that happens to black and Hispanic people is not their fault. So if it is demonstrably true that black and Hispanic students are, on average, lagging behind white and Asian students — the data on this point is abundant — the liberal must find some way to blame this problem on racism.

Let me tell you something about “equity” in education as the father of six children: No two children are identical, not even twins. Our children, two of whom are twin boys, have had quite varied education outcomes. Our oldest daughter got her university degree summa cum laude, a feat that none of her brothers have matched. The baby sister (now studying abroad for her junior year in university) also aspires to be summa cum laude, but we’ll have to wait and see for that. My point is that, if we cannot produce educational “equity” even among siblings who share the same genetic background and grew up in the same home, what are the chances of achieving “equity” in inner city Baltimore or Philadelphia?

“Equity” is a fool’s errand, a snipe hunt, and once you acknowledge the impossibility of such a goal, only politics can explain why anyone would waste time in pursuit of this ridiculous will-o’-the-wisp.

Something else: You can’t make chicken salad from chicken manure.

By the time children show up for their first day of school, at age 4 or 5, their basic educational aptitude is already pretty much established, and whatever the budget, policy or personnel of the school, educators do not possess a magic formula that can turn a stupid or lazy child into a future summa cum laude graduate. You don’t need any fancy theory or academic jargon to understand this basic truth. The need for theory and jargon arises from a desire to obscure the truth.

Actually, liberals turn the facts upside down, preferring to live in a weird inverted universe that is diametrically opposed to reality: The student didn’t fail school — the school failed the student! This pretzel-logic is required, as I say, by the political interests of the Democratic Party. Because the schools where “students of Color” are experiencing a “lack of academic success” are generally in deep-blue districts (Biden got 87% of the vote in Baltimore, 81% of the vote in Philadelphia, etc.), and the parents of these students are Democratic voters, the common-sense explanation of the problem is politically taboo. No one in an urban school system is going to tell the parents of their students: “Hey, you dumbass Biden voters, your kids have inherited your stupidity.”

The stupid apple seldom falls far from the stupid tree.

The need to avoid this obvious truth, you see, explains why liberals have put on their Magic X-Ray Spex, which enable them to see the invisible ultra-racism hidden in the “structural inequality” of education.

By the way — and it shouldn’t be necessary to point this out, but I will — is it not a fact that the vast majority of public school employees are Democrats? Isn’t it also a fact that most professors of education in our universities are loyal Democratic voters? And what about school boards in cities like Philadelphia and Baltimore? Aren’t these people all Democrats? So if there is “racial inequity in schooling,” whose fault is that? How could anyone blame Republicans for this?

It’s kind of like Jussie Smollett, claiming he got attacked by two racist homophobic Trump supporters in downtown Chicago at 2 a.m.

The story that liberals are telling about what’s wrong with our education system simply doesn’t add up. It’s not an explanation, it’s an excuse.



 

Category: Education, Racism
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