Wednesday, October 31, 2018



Bomb threat to firm that organised Larysa Switlyk’s goat hunt



You wouldn't want to be married to her

The US company which helped broker the hunting trip during which a TV presenter shot goats and sheep on Islay claims it has received a bomb threat.

The Texas-based Detail Company has been overwhelmed with hate mail since Larysa Switlyk, a professional “huntress”, posted images of her Scottish shoot online.

Rick Blevins, a sales manager, told The Mail on Sunday that the company always adhered to the rules of the host country “but we have had death threats, and now bomb threats. [Our company] has been the victim of horrendous attacks from what appear to be fringe group fanatics. Those individuals have been as poor a representation of Scotland as I can imagine.”

Of the bomb threat, he said that it did not appear to be very credible but a report has been filed with the local police department. He added: “With so many acts of hate and terror being perpetuated throughout the world, one cannot be too cautious. It has been alarming and frightening to some of our staff.”

Ms Switlyk, who hosts the Larysa Unleashed programme on YouTube, was widely criticised after posting a picture of herself smiling behind a dead wild goat; more than 12,000 people commented on the image.

The Scottish government has said that it will review the law on animal culling after the response to the images.

Ms Switlyk has since disconnected from social media for two weeks while off on another “hunting adventure”.

SOURCE





Sinead O’Connor changes name and converts to Islam

She has had severe mental health problems so one hopes that no-one takes her example seriously

A POP legend has dramatically announced her conversion to Islam with a message to her fans: ‘Wear a hijab — just do it.’

SINEAD O’Connor has announced she has converted to Islam, and changed her name to the Arabic word for “martyr”.

The Nothing Compare 2 U singer, 51, tweeted a picture of herself wearing a hijab.

Mum-of-four Sinead was ordained a priest by a Catholic sect during the 1990s.

But the Irish singer has changed faiths and her name to Shuhada Davitt.

Sinead, who has struggled with mental health issues, told fans: “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. “This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. “All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant.

“I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada.”

Last Friday she posted a video of herself singing an Islamic call to prayer.

Sinead changed her name last year to Magda Davitt, saying in an interview that she wanted to be “free of parental curses”.

In the past, she has said in interviews that her Christian faith has helped her overcome personal turmoil.

But in 2011 she labelled the Vatican a “nest of vipers” over alleged child sex abuse.

Last year, Sinead O’Connor sent a sexually explicit message to Russell Brand after he offered her mental health support.

Brand sent a supportive message to the 50-year-old on YouTube, saying that following a public breakdown she needed “connection, meaning, purpose, love and a bit of time, really”.

She replied: “Could also do with a jolly good rogering, frankly. The last man who touched my body took out my reproductive system two years ago. “So if you really wanna be part of my healing journey, c’mon, horse it into me, boss.”


SOURCE





Holy Ireland is no more

But politically correct Ireland could be just as tyrannical

Ireland's blasphemy referendum is a small step towards creating a 21st century constitution, prime minister Leo Varadkar says.

The anticipated result, removing the term from the state's official statement of values, marks the latest sign of Ireland's decades-long social liberalisation from a deeply-Catholic and conservative society to an increasingly secular one.

Varadkar said the change was approved by around 70 per cent of the electorate during Friday's vote.

"It is very much part of an ongoing campaign in many ways to reform our constitution, to make it a 21st century constitution or a 21st century Republic."

He placed the public poll among a series of reforms beginning in the 1960's when the state removed the special place of the Catholic Church from the constitution and including enshrining marriage equality and giving women the right to choose abortion.

"This is the next small step in what is a very big deal, which is the reform of our constitution, so the next set of referenda are pencilled in for May."

Removing the reference to blasphemy was backed by a Catholic Church which has sustained severe reputational damage from decades of clerical sex abuse.

Nobody has been prosecuted for the offence in Ireland since 1855, in connection with an alleged case of Bible-burning.

Blasphemy was defined as publishing or uttering something "grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion".

Anybody found guilty could face a 25,000 euro ($A40,283) fine.

Ireland has also voted to re-elect its president, Michael D. Higgins, for a second term.

Higgins easily won re-election to the largely ceremonial role with 56 per cent of the vote, the electoral commission said on Saturday.

SOURCE






William Shakespeare is slammed by Australian black as a racist who helped spread 'white supremacy'

Sheer ignorance. Has she ever studied a Shakespeare play?

English playwright William Shakespeare has been described as a 'whitesplainer' and a product of 'white supremacy' on the ABC's Q&A program.

Audience member Katriona Robertson started the discussion by asking how The Bard, often described as the greatest English language writer of all time, could be relevant in the 21st century.

'What kind of influence can a 454-year-old dead white guy have on Australia's varied cultural landscape without whitesplaining things?' she said.

Indigenous actress Nakkiah Lui, 27, answered by suggesting there was a racist element to Shakespeare's writing. 'I'd like to be able to call Shakespeare 'white classics',' she said. 'We identify that the canon in which we draw so much of our culture is actually racialised.'

Lui, who has previously featured in an ABC indigenous comedy skit describing white people as 'c***s', disputed Q&A host Tony Jones's suggestion that Shakespeare's writing on the human condition was 'beyond race'.

'I don't think bringing up race is a bad thing. Let's talk about race when it comes to whiteness as well,' she said.

'One of the reasons Shakespeare is so prolific is because he was a white guy.

'Because white supremacy is something that has been very prevalent around the world. Part of that is bringing in culture and Shakespeare's part of that.'

The theatre-special panel show in Sydney was discussing how Shakespeare had written about a black general in Othello.

Elements of the arts community use the term 'cultural appropriation' to disparage the idea of Europeans writing about ethnic minorities.

Lui, a co-writer of the ABC series Black Comedy, suggested telling the modern stories of racial minorities.

'I would like to see the way that we all still continue to embrace Shakespeare is to start to embrace the stories of people who aren't Shakespeare: the people who are young, who are people of colour, gender,' she said.

'People who don't necessarily fit the role or who don't come from the culture Shakespeare came from.'

Shakespeare died at age 52 in 1616, 172 years before the British First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour.

The bard who penned masterpieces Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and the Merchant of Venice died 150 years before the Industrial Revolution began, leading to Great Britain embarking on imperial expansion.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

***************************


Tuesday, October 30, 2018



Thank you, Mr. President, for moving to make male and female great again

In the last few years, biological girls have seen their rights violated in school bathrooms and in sports. National confusion has ensued ever since the previous administration decided to reinterpret Title IX’s sex anti-discrimination clause to include self-proclaimed “gender identity.”

That may soon come to an end under the Trump administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services has drafted a memo that would reverse the Obama administration’s action and return the legal definition of “sex” under Title IX civil rights law to what its authors meant: sex rooted in unchanging biological reality. According to The New York Times, the memo was drafted last spring and has been circulating ever since.

Title IX bans sex discrimination in education programs that receive government financial assistance, meaning schools have to abide by the government’s interpretation of Title IX or risk losing federal funds.

When the Obama administration announced it was including “gender identity” under the word “sex,” many schools felt they had to treat gender identity as the standard for determining access to bathrooms, sports teams, etc. The result was headlines like “Transgender Athletes Dominate High School Women’s Sports.”

The memo spells out the proposed definition of “sex” as applied to federal statutes as “a person’s status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth.” The proposed definition won’t include a “select a gender” option, as was offered under the Obama administration.

This is simply a return to reality. Sex is an immutable biological reality, while gender identity is a social construct that can change over time. The two terms are not interchangeable. The authors of Title IX meant biological sex, not gender identity.

The Obama administration’s conflation of the two was not just legally problematic—it also pushed transgender ideology further into the mainstream. That’s regrettable, because transgender ideology has real and harmful effects on people who are suffering and need help.

When individuals try to live out life in an ideology that has no basis in biological fact, the consequences are stark.

I know, because I lived the trans life for eight years.

I have received hundreds of regret letters from trans people who now realize—too late—that gender-pretending is damaging. Regretters have called gender change “the biggest mistake of my life.” The late transgender movie actress Alexis Arquette called her gender transition “bulls***” because no one can really change their gender.

So many have written me personally about the unhappy consequences of imitating the opposite gender for so many years, telling of lives needlessly torn apart and thoughts of suicide. I put those emails into a book, “Trans Life Survivors,” which shows the human toll caused by encouraging distressed people to undergo permanent surgeries and take powerful hormones without considering other causes and treatments.

This past weekend, I opened my email as I do each morning and found another message from a person who had ignored biology and went head-first into trans ideology. Now, this person wants out:

I am now 40 years old, post op male to female transgender person. And to put it simply, very miserable in life now. I have followed you on YouTube … and totally agree with your theories! I am at my wits’ end with life and what I have done to myself. It’s an inspiration to see and read about what I would call “survivors!”

Many trans folks, after years of “living the life,” now want to detransition. Many report to me that they were sexually abused, raped, or molested at a young age—in one case, as a toddler.

Teenage girls are flocking to gender change as an escape. One 15-year-old girl, who the gender experts diagnosed with gender dysphoria, explained to her mother that she wanted to “erase my past” because she was sexually abused by her dad.

In another case, a young 14-year-old girl confessed that “I used being trans to try and escape being scared about being small and weak. I thought that if I presented myself as a man I’d be safer.”

Another girl’s mother wrote that her daughter was raped at age 19 and desperately “is trying to remove any connection to her being female visually or sexually.”

This is the kind of suffering that has driven many to change genders. As a society, we need to honestly consider: Is changing genders an effective long-term treatment for past sexual abuse and feelings of insecurity?

Obviously not.

Billy, another trans life survivor, had been sexually abused at age 11 during a summer swimming camp by his diving coach. Billy explained to me that after the abuse, he hated his genitalia and wanted to become a female. Abuse can do that.

Billy, like so many abused as children, was diagnosed by the “gender specialist” with gender dysphoria and given cross-sex hormones and reassignment surgery. He lived fully as a transgender female until regret set in.

Now he has detransitioned back to male and is married—a true trans life survivor who prefers to live a biologically authentic life.

Trans ideology ruined the life of another friend, born male and now living as a trans female. After being diagnosed with gender dysphoria, his excellent employment allowed him financially to transition from male to female. But sex change regret has set in, and now he wants to detransition.

This nice-looking, tall, slender, intelligent transgender person is another who had been sexually abused as a child.

Too many people tell me that even when they establish a history of sexual abuse and communicate that to the gender therapist, the therapist disregards it. If a client wants to change their gender, the therapist will affirm them without reservation and help them down that path.

As a former trans person, and as someone who daily receives stories of physical and emotional devastation wrought by trans ideology, I look forward to a federal definition of sex as being rooted in immutable biology, without the option of being self-selected.

The science is absolutely clear. Sex doesn’t change over time, even with hormones and surgery—and that’s a good thing.

SOURCE






“Fake news” doesn't even begin to describe it. British media maligning Tommy Robinson

On Friday, the British judiciary lifted reporting restrictions on the three trials of a total of twenty “Asian” men at Leeds County Court, allowing the media to inform the public that the men were sentenced to a total of 221 years in prison for the rapes of fifteen young girls in the West Yorkshire town of Huddersfield. It was the second of these trials that Tommy Robinson was reporting about online on May 25 when he was arrested outside the Leeds courthouse, rushed through a brief trial conducted by Judge Geoffrey Marson, sentenced to thirteen months behind bars, and immediately confined in Hull Prison.

On June 13, he was transferred to Onley Prison, which has a higher Muslim population than the institution in Leeds and was thus more dangerous; exactly who ordered this transfer, which seems utterly unjustified except as a malicious attempt to expose Robinson to harm, remains unknown. Through the summer, Tommy's supporters held rallies around Britain, accusing their nation's establishment of having illegitimately imprisoned Tommy in order to shut down a major critic of the official appeasement of Islam; meanwhile, the mainstream media and political and cultural elite insisted in unison that Tommy's trial had been completely on the up-and-up and that he'd gotten precisely what he deserved.

That line of argument, however, was completely discredited on August 1, when Lord Burnett, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, and two other judges issued a ruling that could scarcely have been more severe in its knockdown of Marson's treatment of Tommy. Writing that the whole thing had been a “muddle,” from the nature of the charges to the justification for the verdict, the judges reversed Tommy's conviction, freed him on bail, and ordered a new hearing. That hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, October 23.

Did Lord Burnett's decision chasten Tommy's critics? Not a chance. On Friday, once the reporting restrictions were lifted on those grooming trials, the major media in Britain dutifully provided accounts of the verdicts. There was certainly a lot to report: three trials, several months, fifteen victims, twenty defendants, a mountain of stomach-turning testimony.

But the focus of the British media wasn't on any of this – it was on Tommy. Since he'd played a leading role in drawing attention to the existence of Muslim rape gangs in Britain – a fact that local governments, police departments, social-services agencies, and the mainstream media had kept shamefully, pusillanimously silent about for decades – they might have taken the occasion to apologize for having hounded him so cruelly and to thank him for the courage he'd exhibited and they hadn't. Instead, they stayed true to form.

In the Guardian, Josh Halliday dwelt on the rulings of Judge Marson. “It was during the second trial in May when the case was jeopardised by the actions of Tommy Robinson, the founder of the English Defence League,” wrote Halliday. “Within five hours of recording the video, Robinson was summoned before the judge, Geoffrey Marson QC, and summarily sentenced to 13 months imprisonment for contempt of court.....

Jailing him after the Leeds video, Judge Marson told him his actions could have caused the trial to be re-run, costing 'hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds.'” Halliday accorded only the briefest and most elliptical of mentions to the sensational August 1 ruling by Lord Burnett and colleagues: “Robinson...was released from HMP Onley in Rugby on 1 August after successfully challenging the Leeds contempt of court ruling.” There was nothing whatsoever in Halliday's article to indicate that Marson's statements, which Halliday quoted as if they were gospel, had in fact been completely discredited by Lord Burnett's higher court.

In good British-media fashion, Halliday also took care to note that some of the supporters who showed up outside the Old Bailey at the time of Tommy's previous court appearance had carried flags of “the far-right group Generation Identity.” Anyone watching a video of that gathering could tell you that any Generation Identity flags were vastly outnumbered by Union Jacks.

In the Daily Mail, Tim Stickings read from the same song sheet as Halliday, citing at length, again as if it were gospel, the B.S. served up by Marson in defense of his kangaroo trial. Tommy, Stickings contended, had “jeopardiz[ed]” the rape trial “with an illegal Facebook video.” Stickings's reference to Tommy's August 1 release took this form: “He was jailed and later released on a technicality....The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, said the judge at Leeds Crown Court was wrong to deal with Robinson as quickly as he did.” One cannot easily conceive of a more outrageously dishonest way to refer to Lord Burnett's ruling, which, again, comprehensively shredded Marson's conduct of the May proceedings.

Stickings was also careful to remind readers that “Robinson is a convicted fraudster who has also served time for assault and drugs offences.” Tommy has written in his autobiography about the Orwellian way in which British authorities scoured his finances in search of something, anything, however minor, for which they could prosecute him. In addition, Stickings referred to Tommy's courageous public activities not as activism or journalism but, dismissively, as “antics.”

In the Independent, Lizzie Dearden toed the same line. She, too, quoted Marson as if his ruling hadn't been nullified. She, too, maintained that the grooming trials “were almost derailed by Tommy Robinson.” She also spent several paragraphs asserting that the rape gangs had had nothing to do with religion or cultural background.

Reports in other British media followed the same formula. It was as if they'd all been dictated, word for word, from on high. Rarely have the words “fake news” been more apropos.

“Is this a new low or what?” I wrote on Saturday in an e-mail to a British contact. “Yes,” she replied, “I do think this is a new low. They are all reporting on the Leeds trial even though it was thrown out, as if the findings there can be relied upon. All one needs to do is to repeat things often enough and people will believe them.”

My contact, who has carefully studied the May 25 broadcast that landed Tommy behind bars, also pointed out that, just over five minutes into that livestream, Tommy asks his camera operator “Should we stay live?” and then asks a nearby police officer where he can stand while broadcasting. Hence, contrary to the media's party line, “the police knew he was not only recording, but live recording, and let him carry on for another 70 minutes before arresting him. So, if he was jeopardising the trial, why didn’t they stop him earlier?” Good question. Indeed, or at least so it seems to me, dispositive.

In a Saturday YouTube video, Tommy commented on the reports by Halliday, Stickings, Dearden, and others, noting that while the British government's severe restrictions on courtroom reporting are supposedly meant to ensure a fair trial (even though such rules are virtually unheard of in the U.S. and most other Western countries), the real effect of these edicts is to reduce coverage of grooming-gang trials to a single news cycle – and the impact of that, in turn, is to minimize public awareness of and outrage over what cannot be described as anything other than an Islamic rape epidemic.

(Just imagine if there had been a news blackout on, say the O.J. Simpson murder trial, with news media prohibited from printing or speaking a word about it until the day the verdict came in.)

The mainstream British news media may sometimes chafe at these reporting restrictions, but they don't protest too much, because, their politics being what they are, they don't really want to dwell on the topic of Muslim rape. God forbid that these trials might serve as an educational tool, finally opening British eyes, all these years after 9/11, to the dark reality of Islam's teachings about the sexual rights of male believers, the punishment for female immodesty, and the proper social position of infidels.

Responding in his YouTube video to the universal charge that he had jeopardized the trial, Tommy quoted court documents that explicitly state the contrary. “What I said [in the May 25 online video report] was already in the public domain,” Tommy stated, making a point that's been well established ever since his arrest, but that the British media have brazenly chosen to lie about. Tommy also had a few choice words for Lizzie Dearden, the above-mentioned Independent hack who flatly denies the Islamic roots of the grooming gangs. “In the court transcripts for my trial,” he noted, “Lizzie Dearden...is named as breaching two reporting restrictions for the same case the same weekend.” But she got away with it, while he didn't – for reasons that need hardly be spelled out.

SOURCE






New York Moves to Silence Dissent

The political battle has now become a fight for the very freedom of speech for conservatives.    

Lost in the bustle of the midterm elections has been a very disturbing escalation of New York’s war against those who dissent from left-wing policies. We’ve covered Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his abuse of financial regulations to target the National Rifle Association in the wake of the Parkland shooting. Cuomo’s totalitarianism has drawn belated opposition from the long-silent ACLU, but Fox News reports that other states are starting to employ the Cuomo playbook.

Well, things in New York have gotten worse, not better. The state is suing ExxonMobil for “misleading investors” about the possible risks from climate change. At least that’s what New York’s attorney general is saying in legal documents. In reality, the suit was filed because ExxonMobil isn’t going along with the preferred environmental policies of the current powers-that-be in the Empire State.

This isn’t Cuomo’s first such rodeo involving the use of government to find a back-door restriction on our rights. The Patriot Post team has warned about the use of RICO as a political weapon in the debate over environmental policy in the past.

In the latter years of Bill Clinton’s administration, he supported using an avalanche of civil litigation to compel gun manufacturers to accept policies that had been rejected by lawmakers at the federal and state level — or face bankruptcy.

Back in 2016, we asked, “How do conservatives expect to mount a comeback when even making the argument becomes illegal?” Well, that question has changed — largely because candidate Donald Trump became President Donald Trump. But the fundamental question we posed back then not only remains, it has expanded into a host of such questions.

Can conservatism survive if even making the conservative argument is criminalized? For that matter, can conservative groups compete in the market in the face of Chokepoint 2.0, which could cut them off from financial services? What if conservatives are excluded from law school or medical school? Can conservatives hope to win elections if Silicon Valley muzzles their arguments?

As outlandish as they may seem, those questions are very real. And these actions by New York, which Andrew Cuomo has sought to export to other states, are an abuse of power on par with the Democrats’ “John Doe” investigations in Wisconsin and Barack Obama’s weaponization of the IRS and other federal agencies against the Tea Party.

In essence, the stakes have increased. This is not merely a fight about policy, such as an argument about marginal tax rates or health care. It is now nothing less than a fight for freedom of speech for conservatives.

SOURCE






Sydney Anglicans ban valorization of homosexuals

The Sydney Anglican clergy are just about the last of the real Anglicans.  Most of the rest are just dressup queens

The Sydney Anglican Diocese has provoked controversy by proposing a policy to ensure that all church property is used in ways consistent with Anglican church teaching.

The proposal vetoed activities such as same-sex marriage receptions, meditative yoga, and indigenous smoking ceremonies, and was intended to extend to some 900 church properties. Parts of the policy — those concerned with smoking ceremonies — were withdrawn following protests from indigenous leaders and school principals. But many were still angry at what the church had proposed.

Religious doctrines often seem bizarre to those who do not belong to the faith community. It can be hard, for example, to see what problem believers have with yoga or hosting wedding receptions.

The Sydney Anglican policy emerged from specific Christian beliefs about salvation, the human person, human sexuality, and freedom. To those who share these beliefs, the policy might well make sense. To those who don’t, the whole exercise can — and did — seem bizarre, and simply another example of the irrelevance of religion to mainstream everyday Australian life.

After a fortnight when religious schools have been accused of wanting to expel gay students and church landlords accused of wanting to do the same to gay tenants, religious freedom is still a hot topic. And the reason is that one of the features of being a citizen in an open and free society is having to figure out how to live with those whose worldviews and beliefs are far removed from our own.

Even if we think they are wrong and that their practices are offensive, we must be sure to allow religious people and communities the freedom to interpret the world and the universe as they see fit. And we must also afford them the freedom to order their affairs — including their property use — in ways that align with those beliefs, as long as they do nothing illegal or harmful to others.

Of course, if we don’t like it — and often there is a lot not to like — we are free to criticise it because we live in a society that tolerates freedom of speech and the frank exchange of opinions. But criticising a church for attempting to implement a policy that could have a substantial impact on non-church people is one thing; it is quite another to tell it how to deal with its own property.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Monday, October 29, 2018




FBI Investigating Molotov Cocktail Attack on Seattle Church as Possible Hate Crime

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating a Molotov cocktail attack on a Christian church in Seattle on Thursday, Oct. 18, as a potential hate crime, according to King 5 News.

“The FBI is now involved in the investigation and is working to determine if this was a hate crime,” said Michael Crowe with the news outlet.

On Thursday night, a suspect threw several Molotov cocktails at the Iglesia ni Cristo church in Rainier Valley, Seattle, starting a small fire outside the church. District Minister of the Pacific Northwest Barrington Thompson said “about 250 people” were inside the church during the attack, but no one was injured.

“It seemed like he was doing sloppy work, and thank God he was doing sloppy work,” Thompson said about the perpetrator.

According to a report by the Seattle Police Department, witnesses to the attack “stated a person had thrown lit bottles of an unknown liquid at the building” shortly after 8 p.m., causing “minor damage to the exterior of the church.”

A video from King 5 News shows scorch marks on the church doors and walls, as well as security camera footage of the explosions and ensuing fire.

SOURCE






Disintegrating Families, Disintegrating Culture

Arnold Ahlert

In recent columns, this writer has sought to address the root causes of the nation's increasing polarization. One of the foremost of those is an education system that turns out generations of weak-thinking Americans whose command of the nation's founding documents, civic structures, and historical foundations is virtually nonexistent — even as those same Americans are well-schooled in the nation's shortcomings.

If this effort is allowed to continue, our status as a constitutional republic and what is often referred to as the world's "last best hope for mankind" is seriously threatened. Nationally televised congressional hearings would be a great way to begin shedding light on a contemptible dynamic that can no longer be blamed on incompetence.

It is nothing less than a concerted and coordinated effort to "fundamentally transform" the nation, and it must be exposed.

Yet there can be no mistaking the reality that the devolution of our education system has root causes as well. The failure factories otherwise known as public schools created — and nurtured — by the Democrat Education Complex are far easier to maintain in a disintegrating culture. There is a level of legitimacy in the all-too-familiar teachers' lament that some children are "unteachable," and that assertion is almost invariably accompanied by the reason for it: Most of these children live in circumstances that could be charitably described as "chaotic" at best — and wholly removed from anything resembling civilized norms at worst.

How did we get to that place? Before the emergence of LBJ's Great Society, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was reserved for widows, as a means of funding once-married women who had lost the primary male supporter of the family. In the 1960s, Johnson and Congress changed the qualifications: Any household where there was no male family head present became eligible for taxpayer subsidies.

The late Patrick Moynihan predicted the calamity that would follow, especially among blacks, where the out-of-wedlock birth rate has now reached 77%, and single-parent families are mostly headed by women. Moynihan was criticized for being racist, and for assuming middle class values "are the correct values for everyone in America," as civil rights leader Floyd McKissick asserted at the time.

Middle class values? In 1963, more than 90% of all American babies had married parents. A UN report released last week reveals the overall number of American births occurring out of wedlock has now reached 40%. The numbers for the Millennial generation are even worse: A whopping 57% of parents ages 26 to 31 are having children without getting married. Bloomberg News characterized the UN report as a "cultural shift."

A cultural calamity is more like it.

Nonetheless, Americans are supposed to be encouraged by the fact that these births are occurring predominantly among unmarried couples living together, as opposed to single mothers. Moreover, the nation's fertility rate, which reached a 30-year low last year, "would be much steeper if women weren't having children outside marriage," states John Santelli, a professor in population, family health, and pediatrics at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. "The trend will continue, there's no doubt about it," he adds. "We can't go back to [the] '50s."

"The '50s" is a term currently used by progressives to belittle the nation's cultural values, and no one demonstrated that better than students responding to two law professors who took Americans to task for abandoning them, including the idea that one should get "married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake." The students asserted those values "stem from the very same malignant logic of hetero-patriarchal, class-based, white supremacy that plagues our country today," and are "steeped in anti-blackness and white hetero-patriarchal respectability, i.e. two-hetero-parent homes."

In other words, getting married and staying married is racist, homophobic, and elitist.

Columnist Joseph Misulonas is also on board with the current trend. "So don't feel bad if you get pregnant out of wedlock," he writes. "You simply are representing our modern times."

How are our modern times working out? According to a Brookings Institution report, two-thirds of unmarried parents split up before their child reaches the age of 12. And according to the latest study in a series of them conducted by agencies within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services approximately once each decade, children living with their biological but unmarried parents are four times as likely to be physically, sexually, or emotionally abused than children living with married parents.

It doesn't get more "modern" than that. And while it's easy to paper over this worrisome trend with the angry jargon of social justice warriors, or simply embrace it as the latest fad, there is no avoiding what's really going on: More and more Americans reject the idea of being wholly committed to a marriage and their children.

It's not surprising. While marriage is a legal commitment, it is also a spiritual one, and religion has been in decline for decades. We also live in an age where technology abets increasing levels of social dysfunction in a nation where millions of Americans now prefer social-media connections to physical interaction. Add identity politics to the mix, and it gets pretty tough for "toxic," "privileged," or "unnecessary" males to interact with women who are alternately "survivors" or "empowered" — all while the specter of violating the ever-expanding demands of political correctness hang heavy in the air.

Furthermore, if one can remain noncommittal with regard to two of life's most important decisions, that casual indifference will not be quarantined from other aspects of one's life. Perhaps that's why it's been so easy to convince millions of Americans that nonjudgmentalism, which posits that believing one value is superior to another is the equivalent of bigotry, is a superior way of thinking. Perhaps it's why record numbers of Millennials remain living at home, or why 60 million abortions have been performed since 1973.

In short, the "easy way out" has never been easier.

Even more troubling (and indicative), when the important is trivialized, the trivial becomes important. Thus, we have a nation where Hollywood celebrities wax indignant about Disney cartoon princesses, college students demand "safe spaces" and courses free from "micro aggressions," white milk is called a symbol of white supremacy, and a semipermanent state of hate and hysteria becomes a lifestyle choice.

A choice that allows one to completely dismiss millions of one's fellow Americans as "deplorables" who "cling" to guns, God, and religion.

What millions of Americans are clinging to are the values that made this nation exceptional, and nothing forms the bedrock of that exceptionalism better than an intact nuclear family. A nation that dismisses it as just another "lifestyle choice" does so at its peril. There is nothing remotely "modern" about abandoning marriage, or "allowing a village" to raise one's children. That such a proposition can be even be considered indicates we are a society besieged by toxic levels of self-centeredness and irresponsibility.

When children and marriage are essentially disposable, so is everything else.

SOURCE






Study: Online attacks on Jews ramp up before Election Day

Far-right extremists have ramped up an intimidating wave of anti-Semitic harassment against Jewish journalists, political candidates, and others ahead of next month’s US midterm elections, according to a report released Friday by a Jewish civil rights group.

The Anti-Defamation League’s report says its researchers analyzed more than 7.5 million Twitter messages from Aug. 31 to Sept. 17 and found nearly 30 percent of the accounts repeatedly tweeting derogatory terms about Jews appeared to be automated "bots."

But accounts controlled by real-life humans often mount the most "worrisome and harmful" anti-Semitic attacks, sometimes orchestrated by leaders of neo-Nazi or white nationalist groups, the researchers said.

"Both anonymity and automation have been used in online propaganda offensives against the Jewish community during the 2018 midterms," they wrote.

Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s national director and CEO, said the midterm elections have been a "rallying point" for far-right extremists to organize efforts to spread hate online.

"It’s a place where extremists really have felt emboldened," Greenblatt said of social media platforms.

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros was a leading subject of harassing tweets. Soros, a Hungarian-born Jew demonized by right-wing conspiracy theorists, is one of the prominent Democrats who had pipe bombs sent to them this week.

The ADL’s study concludes that online disinformation and abuse is disproportionately targeting Jews in the United States "during this crucial political moment."

"Prior to the election of President Donald Trump, anti-Semitic harassment and attacks were rare and unexpected, even for Jewish Americans who were prominently situated in the public eye. Following his election, anti-Semitism has become normalized and harassment is a daily occurrence," the report says.

The New York City-based ADL has commissioned other studies of online hate, including a report in May that estimated about 3 million Twitter users posted or reposted at least 4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets in English over a 12-month period ending Jan. 28. An earlier report said anti-Semitic incidents in the United States the previous year had reached the highest tally it has counted in more than two decades.

For the latest report, researchers interviewed five Jewish people, including two recent political candidates, who had faced "human-based attacks" against them on social media this year. Their experiences demonstrated that anti-Semitic harassment "has a chilling effect on Jewish Americans’ involvement in the public sphere," their report says.

"While each interview subject spoke of not wanting to let threats of the trolls affect their online activity, political campaigns, academic research or news reporting, they all admitted the threats of violence and deluges of anti-Semitism had become part of their internal equations," researchers wrote.

The most popular term used in tweets containing the #TrumpTrain hashtag was "Soros." The study also found a "surprising" abundance of tweets referencing "QAnon," a right-wing conspiracy theory that started on an online message board and has been spread by Trump supporters.

"There are strong anti-Semitic undertones, as followers decry George Soros and the Rothschild family as puppeteers," researchers wrote.

SOURCE






From a safe distance we’ll watch Tasmania’s gender folly fail

When it comes to Tasmania’s plan to become the first state to erase a baby’s gender from a birth certificate, please doff your cap to our federalist forefathers. They deserve more credit than we often give them. The federal system set down in our Constitution means one state can conduct a social experiment while the rest of the country looks on and learns.

The federal structure has the other added bonus of offering a shorter distance between the rulers and the ruled, at least on matters reserved to the states. That won’t save a state from foolish politicians, but as a matter of democratic will we cannot fault the gender-bender politics of Tasmania’s parliament. If most voters cannot agree on who should govern their state, instead opting for a motley crew of politicians more interested in social experiments than economic policy, well then, that’s democracy.

People get the politicians they deserve. And in Tasmania, the Liberal Hodgman government relies on the casting vote of a Speaker elected to the position with Greens and Labor support. The original bill is sensibly aimed at ending the need for transgender people to divorce before they can change their gender on official documents. The Greens and Labor then went further, pushing for amendments to remove gender from birth certificates, with Speaker Sue Hickey’s support.

If the bill passes, watch that other magnificent part of democracy: blowback from voters when politicians overstep the mark. And people in mainland states have the luxury of watching this social experiment unfold and the chance to harness sensible arguments so we do not follow Tasmania’s folly.

Where do you start when it comes to talking about sex and gender? I tried delving into the academic world for some clues. That was a mistake. I discovered a morass of ivory tower posturing, confusion and weird new words meant to uncover some old and apparently persistent evil. Calls to erase sex and gender as a way to topple the white/cis/hetero/patriarchal supremacy and normativity sound better suited to a horror movie than reasoned argument.

I bumped into feminists who think that transgender people who alter their gender reinforce sexist gender roles. And others who say that transgender people challenge oppressive gender norms. I found some academics who think that if you were a man, you experienced male privilege, so it is impossible for you to be a real woman. I found mind-numbing academic references to phallocractic technology and “the transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist”.

I discovered intra-feminist conflicts between women, including lesbians who feel threatened by trans activism. And I was struck by the many, many accusations of transphobia by those who brook no disagreement with their activism and their agenda.

After that entanglement with feminist theories and trans activism, I was still interested in trying to work through Tasmania’s dalliance with sex and gender politics. So, I headed closer to the ground. I read hundreds of comments from readers of this newspaper that followed the report that Tasmania may expunge gender from birth certificates. Most of the readers expressed tolerance, respect for human dignity, thoughtful ideas, a real distaste for discrimination and a great deal of common sense.

Their sentiments exposed a glaring chasm with the unintelligible tosh and intolerance common to many academics. So allow me to mention what Edmund Burke night call the gritty wisdom of unlettered men and women.

One reader, Pamela, said this is another step to take away identity — and notice it is by those people who routinely sup at the table of identity politics. She said she struggled to understand people who wish to dominate others. “If some wish to omit gender of their child (from a birth certificate), OK, but others should be allowed to do what they wish.” Many many readers echoed Pamela’s belief in freedom of choice for parents of newborns.

Many recognised the difference between sex as a biological reality and gender as a social identity that for some will differ from their chromosomal mix. One writer suggested that we keep sex on birth certificates but discard gender. That was echoed by Sandra, who suggested we “send ‘gender’ back to the grammarians and the ‘gender studies’ departments in the ivory towers”.

Gizelle saw the bright side to expunging gender from birth certificates: “this could be the end of the virtue-signalling for female quotas”. Dream on. More likely the same people who want gender banned are likely “the same people, in a different forum, calling for gender-related targets for business and politicians as well”, said another reader.

Here we go again, said Howard. “A vocal minority not satisfied with their win on same-sex marriage.” Barbara agreed, asking: why must we strip the majority of people of an important part of their identity to accommodate the agenda of a tiny minority? They both have a point.

The plan by the Greens and Labor to erase gender from birth certificate is part of a broader plan to erase gender identity altogether, or at least make it mighty difficult to include mention of gender if you are just a woman or a man.

The proposed amendments will prohibit the registrar of births, deaths and marriages from including information about the gender of a child, unless required by a court or an applicable federal law. A person over 16 may record their gender by statutory declaration. A child under 16 years of age would need a declaration by at least one parent and the child’s own express wish, with a magistrate deciding any disputes.

The public reasons from LGBTI activists for these changes do not match their private agenda. What LGBTI advocate Rodney Croome fails to explain is how it is discriminatory to offer parents a choice to record the sex of their newborn on a birth certificate.

Banning gender on a birth certificate does not encourage tolerance and inclusion, but stripping people of their gender at birth cements a social experiment aimed at encouraging gender fluidity.

Tasmanian Greens leader Cassy O’Connor said the current laws require that transgender people undergo invasive reproductive surgery if they want to change their birth certificate to reflect their identity.

If that is the case, have a debate about that rather than using a legal sledgehammer to remove gender from all birth certificates.

Transgender activist Martine Delaney says removing gender from birth certificates won’t harm anyone.

How can she know that? If a man is able to pass himself off as woman using a genderless birth certificate to gain entry to women’s spaces, or ends up in a women’s prison, how can Delaney know there are no risks to women’s safety?

In the debate over sex, gender and the law, women’s groups are increasingly arguing for caution and consideration of all groups, not just a transgender minority.

Delaney’s intervention is a neat reminder of her illiberal approach to open debate about same-sex marriage when she raced off to Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination Commissioner because she was offended by a pamphlet from the Catholic Church that set out its teaching on marriage.

Expect the same intolerance with more confected claims of hurt feelings, hate speech and transphobia. That is the experience from Britain where far-reaching changes allow for self-identification, possibly with no time periods or medical advice needed. If John wakes up one morning and decides he is Jane, he can self-identify as a woman for legal purposes before the sun sets. None of this is to mock the vast majority of transgender people who endure excruciating mental and physical anguish about their sex and their gender. But to suggest there are no dangers in a radical social shift is like believing in pixies.

To shut down those who wish to raise questions, now a routine tactic among some trans activists in Britain, is worse than ignorance. It is intolerance. Writing in The Spectator earlier this year, Judith Green from Woman’s Place UK outlined physical threats, social media harassment and hate-based vilification aimed at her group and any venue where they meet to discuss the consequences of new gender laws on women, children and society as a whole.

Last week, the Speaker of Tasmania’s lower house, who will decide whether gender is erased from birth certificates in that state, said the world is changing. Hickey said we need to be open to considering things that might discriminate or harm someone. It works both ways. As one reader of this newspaper wrote last week in response, “in the not too distant future I can imagine a world where it will be almost impossible to get through a day without offending someone, or some group”.

Note again the contrast between the live-and-let-live sentiments of many readers of this newspaper and the freedom-loathing agendas of academics, bureaucracies and politicians.

Language police in Victoria ­expect public servants to use gender-neutral pronouns. Language police in the ACT Labor caucus want to remove all references to Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms in parliament. In some Australian primary and secondary schools, social media activists funded by Facebook are instructing students that gender identity exists on a ­spectrum.

And now social engineers in Tasmania want to erase gender altogether from birth certificates: no choice, no freedom to differ, just one-size-fits-all genderless babies.

These days, the political divide is less about Right and Left and more about those who believe in greater freedom and those who don’t. History reminds us that human dignity rests on people having more, not less, freedom.

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Sunday, October 28, 2018



Big free speech case in Britain


Sir Philip Green above.

He is said to have become a billionaire much faster than anyone else in British history. He is Jewish.  He seems a most unpleasant man to me.  He has certainly abused a lot of people.  But for all I know he may be kind to his dog.  Nonetheless I am totally on his side in this matter.

From the confirmation furore over Judge Kavanaugh we now know that half of American politics no longer believes in the presumption of innocence -- but to find the British parliament in a somewhat similar state is a shock.  Britain is the mother of most of our traditional legal safeguards.

Yet Phil seems to have evoked that meltdown in at least the more Leftist quarters of the parliament. His being a big businessman undoubtedly prejudices the hate-filled British Left against him.

Like many prominent men he has been the object of untested allegations and those allegations are being treated by some as if they were convictions. I have enough residual faith in the British system to believe that no action will be taken against him until the allegations are fully tested in a properly constituted court of law but that faith has been rather shaken

Nonetheless, the accusations ARE apparently before the courts so that should finalize the matter one way or the other

And I heartily defend Phil in his attempts to have the accusations against him silenced before they are tested. The very proceedings described below show the wisdom of that.  When allegations are treated as fact, an exoneration in a court of law may do little to restore a man's reputation and peace of mind.  False allegations against Christian singer Cliff Richard left him severely shaken even after £210,000 in compensatory damages was paid to him by the BBC and £400,000 from the South Yorkshire Police

But there is undoubtedly some tension between free speech and non-disclosure.  False allegations are however a type of libel or  defamation and those offences have never been deemed to deserve free speech protection.  When the allegations have been shown to be true is the time to mention them publicly -- with full free speech protections



Sir Philip Green has been named in Parliament as the businessman at the centre of Britain’s #MeToo scandal.

The Topshop owner was identified by Lord Hain, the former Leader of the House of Commons, after two days of speculation over the name of the man behind the injunction.

The former Labour cabinet minister said that he had been contacted by someone “intimately involved in the case” and felt a “duty” to reveal the name using parliamentary privilege.

Following Lord Hain’s comments there were calls for the billionaire to be stripped of his Knighthood and for a crackdown on the use of non-disclosure agreements by “serial offenders”.

Vince Cable, the former Business Secretary and Leader of the Lib Dems, said: “I find it very difficult to see how he could credibly hold on to an honour in these circumstances.

“I think Parliament’s proving its worth. The use of Parliament in this way is healthy and it shows democracy at work.”

Frank Field, the MP for Birkenhead who previously led condemnation of Sir Philip over the treatment of BHS pensioners, said: "The charge sheet against the knighthood is growing. Parliament and the country have made their views clear on this matter. Ultimately it's a decision for the honours forfeiture committee."

He added that he is planning to raise with ministers the need for a mechanism for abuse victims' voices to be heard in Parliament.

Mr Field said: "I have been talking this evening with somebody who witnessed grotesque bullying at work. They would like for what they witnessed to be shared, through the House of Commons, with the nation. I am seeking to raise urgently with the Government the importance of having a mechanism in Parliament through which the voices of victims of abuse can be heard. This would develop the role of the House of Commons in a way which stands up for people who have little money, against those who have much."

Number 10 said that it could not comment on cases which were ongoing.

Sir Philip Green last night refused to comment on “anything that has happened in court or was said in Parliament today” but denied any “unlawful sexual or racist behaviour”.

The Telegraph has spent the past eight months investigating allegations of bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment made against the businessman, and the lengths he has gone to to cover up the claims. However, on Tuesday this newspaper was prevented from revealing details of the non-disclosure deals by Sir Terence Etherton, the Master of the Rolls, the second most senior judge in England and Wales.

The intervention makes it illegal, outside Parliament or in reports of Parliamentary proceedings, to reveal the businessman’s identity or to identify the companies, as well as what he is accused of doing or how much he paid his alleged victims.

It was the latest twist in a legal fight which began in July, which saw the appeal court rule that the confidentiality of contracts was more important than freedom of speech.

It overturned a previous High Court ruling which found that publication of the allegations would be overwhelmingly in the public interest and would significantly contribute to debate in a democratic society.

As well as re-igniting the #MeToo debate, the gagging of The Telegraph has renewed controversy about the use of injunctions to limit British press freedom.

Lord Hain, the former Northern Ireland Secretary [and a former radical protester] , yesterday told a hushed House of Lords: “My Lords, having been contacted by someone intimately involved in the case of a powerful businessman using non-disclosure agreements and substantial payments to conceal the truth about serious and repeated sexual harassment, racist abuse and bullying, which is compulsively continuing, I feel it’s my duty under parliamentary privilege to name Philip Green as the individual in question given that the media have been subject to an injunction preventing publication of the full details of this story which is clearly in the public interest.”

After his statement Jess Phillips, the Labour MP who sits of the Women and Equalities Committee, said: “I think that today we have proven that wealth and power and arrogance will not always provide you with cover. Whilst people can be silenced with money, as is often the case, I am pleased that actually that has its limits and that we respect the spirit of the law when people like this are revealed.”

Maria Miller, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, added: “I think that given the huge influence that Philip Green has in the business world and the thousands of people that work for him it is surprising that the Court of Appeal decided that it wasn’t in the public interest to make this more public.

“I think that we now have to answer another question when it comes to NDAs which is how we stop them being used to cover up serial offenders. That has to be a point that is answered by the Government proposals.”

James Cleverly MP, deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, said Lord Hain's action had shown "people must now realise that injunctions and super-injunctions are nothing more than a good way to part with large sums of money and a bad way to keep things secret".     

The business world also reacted to the claims. Carolyn Fairbairn, CBI Director-General, said: “Sexual harassment and racial abuse is illegal and has absolutely no place in modern Britain. Accusations this serious must be thoroughly and quickly investigated.”  

There has been days of speculation about the identity of the individual, with several prominent businessmen including Lord Sugar and Duncan Bannatyne taking to social media to state that it was not them.

In light of the scandal, the Judicial Office was forced to issued a rare statement emphasising that this was a “TEMPORARY injunction preventing publication only until there can be a trial.”

There has been growing condemnation over the use of NDAs in this way from both  campaigners and senior legal figures, including three former Home Secretaries, a former Director of Public Prosecutions and a former solicitor general.

Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary, said: “My concern is that these are being used to intimidate people who would otherwise speak up about illegal activity, by that I mean sexual harassment. We need to stop it.”

Lord Falconer, former Justice Secretary, added: “Sexual harassment and bullying should not be covered by NDAs at all. It should not be possible for an employer to use an NDA to suppress any allegation which might be in the public interest. It's a terrible iniquity, it is a very, very clear abuse of power.

The Prime Minister has vowed to bring forward a consultation on reform of the use of NDAs.

Sir Philip bills himself as a rags-to-riches businessman and is renowned for his expletive-ridden outbursts.

A guest at the now notorious President’s Club Dinner, he has previously questioned the MeToo movement, reportedly asking: “Where’s this all going to end? There’s no stag parties, no hen parties, no more girls parading in the ring at the boxing – so they’re all banned?”

Sir Philip said in a statement last night: "I am not commenting on anything that has happened in court or was said in Parliament today. "To the extent that it is suggested that I have been guilty of unlawful sexual or racist behaviour, I categorically and wholly deny these allegations.

"Arcadia and I take accusations and grievances from employees very seriously and in the event that one is raised, it is thoroughly investigated. "Arcadia employs more than 20,000 people and in common with many large businesses sometimes receives formal complaints from employees. "In some cases these are settled with the agreement of all parties and their legal advisers. These settlements are confidential so I cannot comment further on them."

SOURCE






Hate Crime Law Is Both Unwise and Unconstitutional
    
After showing off his swastika tattoo, Randy Metcalf became involved in a barroom brawl. One of his opponents was an African American, who he and his friends knocked unconscious. Metcalf repeatedly kicked him in the head and, according to a witness, said, “Die, [N-word], die.” Metcalf was sentenced to 10 years in prison under the federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act that was enacted six years earlier, in 2009.

Soon, perhaps at its conference this Friday, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to hear Metcalf’s argument that the provision of the HCPA that he was convicted under is unconstitutional because none of the Constitution’s enumerated powers authorized Congress to enact it. The court should hear and endorse this argument, lest the nation’s dangerously attenuated commitment to limited government become even more so.

The HCPA creates criminal penalties for, among other things, crimes committed “because of the actual or perceived race … of any person.” Actual hatred is not required. It is enough that the defendant acted “because of” somebody’s race.

Congress, always eager to slip what little remains of the Constitution’s leash that limits Congress’ powers by enumerating them, frequently justifies doing whatever it wants by saying that the behavior it wants to proscribe or prescribe affects interstate commerce and therefore comes under Congress’ enumerated power to regulate this. But although the Commerce Clause has been construed to be so elastic that it is almost entirely permissive, Congress, perhaps manifesting a vestigial capacity for embarrassment, looked elsewhere for the power to prohibit racially motivated crimes.

Embarrassingly, it pretended to act under the 13th Amendment. Ratified in 1865, it says:

“Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

"Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

To justify enacting the HCPA, Congress cited the power granted to it 144 years earlier to effectuate the end of slavery, which shows no sign of returning. Congress, surely with more audacity than sincerity, said that the 13th Amendment, written to erase slavery, authorizes Congress to pursue any goal that it asserts is in some way, however attenuated, a response to a “relic” or “incident” or lingering reverberation of slavery.

This, says an amicus brief on Metcalf’s behalf, reflects “a growing movement in both academia and Congress to use the 13th Amendment to address a variety of social ills thought to be in some way traceable to, or aggravated by, slavery.” Yet the amendment’s legal significance is unusually clear and limited: It bans slavery, period. So, in 1883, the Supreme Court held that the amendment did not empower Congress to prohibit race discrimination in public accommodations. Congress did that 81 years later, properly acting under the Commerce Clause. If now the court allows Congress to construe — to flagrantly misconstrue, to its advantage — a notably unambiguous constitutional provision, the damage done by this misguided judicial deference will go beyond injuries to federalism. This dereliction of judicial duty will devalue the written Constitution itself.

Hate crimes (usually vandalism, e.g., graffiti, or intimidation, e.g., verbal abuse) are a tiny fraction of 1 percent of all reported crimes. Almost all states have such laws, and a federal law duplicating them merely serves two disreputable purposes. It allows Congress to express theatrical indignation about hate. And it exposes to double jeopardy, under a federal law, defendants who are acquitted in politically charged state trials, especially ones involving race or religion.

Even though states, unlike the federal government, have police powers, states’ hate crime laws also are problematic on policy grounds. They mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed as a result of, or at least when accompanied by, particular states of mind that the government disapproves. The law holds us responsible for controlling our minds, which should control our conduct. The law always has had, and should have, the expressive function of stigmatizing particular kinds of conduct. But hate crime laws treat certain actions as especially reprehensible because the persons committing them had odious (although not illegal) frames of mind. Such laws burden juries with the task of detecting an expanding number of impermissible motives for acts already criminalized. And juries must distinguish causation (a particular frame of mind causing an act) from correlation (the person who committed the act happened to have this or that mentality). So, even if the HCPA were not unconstitutional, it would be unwise.

SOURCE






News: Gender Isn't Neutral
    
This isn’t exactly the age of responsible journalism — so this weekend’s New York Times probably doesn’t surprise anyone. But for every American sick of fake news (and according to polls, that’s everyone), Sunday’s headline was one for the record books. “‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined out of Existence under Trump Administration,” the banner read, triggering mass hysteria in liberal quarters across the country. There’s just one problem: not one bit of it is true.

No one is “defining transgenders out of existence.” What President Trump is doing is following the law — which, after eight years of Barack Obama’s overreach, is suddenly a shocking concept. Under the last administration, liberals were so used to the president twisting the rules to suit the Left’s agenda that it’s news when Donald Trump decides to operate within the plain text of law. As far as the New York Times is concerned, the most “drastic” thing any president could do is bring America back in line with legal statutes. And this non-story that’s setting the far-Left’s hair on fire is nothing more than that.

In Sunday’s piece, a trio of reporters argues that the Trump administration is disenfranchising people by defining gender as it always has been: a “biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” No one is quite sure how that’s radical, since it’s how the law has been understood both before and since 1964. Not a single president questioned it until Obama, who decided that he didn’t care what the Civil Rights Act said. He was going to “reinterpret” the 54-year-old law on “sex” discrimination to mean “sexual orientation” and gender identity too.

That’s how the Obama administration justified its gender-confused school bathroom and shower mandate. They argued that people who identify as transgender were somehow part of the broad umbrella of “sex” outlined in the law in 1964. But, as FRC and others argued, sexual orientation wasn’t on the minds of legislators 54 years ago when it was trying to weed out prejudice — and more importantly, it wasn’t in the text of the law it passed! Even the courts, where liberals turn when the public isn’t on board with its extremism, called it a bridge too far. A half-century ago, Judge Reed O'Connor ruled, “Congress did not understand ‘sex’ to include ‘gender identity.’”

The Obama White House’s agenda was so unpopular by 2016 that some experts even blamed Hillary Clinton’s loss on her defense of it. Through it all, Donald Trump’s position was clear: “I believe it should be states’ rights, and I think the states should make the decision, they’re more capable of making the decision.” More than that, he understood what his predecessor did not: the White House never had the authority to rewrite the law in the first place! After his election, Trump set to work rolling back the lawless gender policies of the Obama administration — first in schools, then in homeless shelters, prisons, and now in Health and Human Services contracts.

Now, almost two years later, the New York Times still thinks it’s breaking news that this administration is systematically returning America to the status quo. Insisting it found some sort of smoking gun in a leaked HHS memo, the Times implies that President Trump is doing something nefarious by rolling back his predecessor’s orders. “For the last year,” its reporters write, “the Department of Health and Human Services has privately argued that the term ‘sex’ was never meant to include gender identity or even homosexuality, and that the lack of clarity allowed the Obama administration to wrongfully extend civil rights protections to people who should not have them.”

This “new” definition of sex, the Times insists, “would essentially eradicate federal recognition of the estimated 1.4 million Americans who have opted to recognize themselves — surgically or otherwise — as a gender other than the one they were born into.” First of all, this “new” definition of “sex” is 54 years old. Secondly, who are these 1.4 million Americans? The Times didn’t bother citing the statistic, and it certainly seems higher than most credible national surveys. Lastly — and perhaps most instructively — people who identify as transgender don’t enjoy special federal recognition under the law, because the American people have never passed any legislation granting it. Liberal activists have had to rely on a handful of courts or lawless administrations like Obama’s to short-circuit the democratic process and force their agenda on America.

The Times’ agenda is obvious — painting Trump as the extremist, when the real radicalism was ignoring the law in the first place. Well, reporters may be out of practice with the truth these days, but it’s time they came to grips with one important reality. The president is not a legislator, no matter how much Obama acted like one. If they want America to change the way it defines discrimination, they need to start by asking the right branch of government.

SOURCE





Vice co-founder and leader of 'new right' men's group Proud Boys to bring his 'western chauvinist' views Down Under

I have been watching McInnes since even before he wore a beard.  He is primarily a talented comedian but he turns his comedic gift on Leftist pomposity and stupidity.  And they give him a wealth of material for that

The founder of far-right conservative men's activist group 'Proud Boys' is set to tour Australia next month.

Comedian and co-founder of VICE magazine turned right wing commentator Gavin McInnes, 48, will tour the nation from November 2 to 11.

Mr McInnes, who describes himself as a 'western chauvinist libertarian' has been labelled by critics as sexist, racist and as a white supremacist.

He is the latest far-righter to be promoted by pornographer Damien Costas and will travel to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide for speaking events.    

Mr Costas was responsible for the tours of US right-winger Milo Yiannopoulos last year and former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage earlier this year.

According to the promoters, Mr McInnes is 'known for his raucous and irreverent take on the world and controversial, no-holds-barred opinions'.

The 48-year-old shot to fame in the early nineties as a co-founder of VICE, but after leaving the magazine, he became more well-known for his political commentary.

He frequently appeared on Fox News and TheBlaze - an American conservative news network - and is a former contributor to Canadian right-wing channel Rebel Media.

'Funny as he is controversial, he's famous for his use of humour and satire to lampoon the excesses of political correctness,' the promoter's website states.

Mr McInnes has referred to himself as a 'western chauvinist' and started the men's club 'Proud Boys' who swear their allegiance to this cause, news.com.au reported.

According to their website, The Proud Boys' values centre on minimal government, maximum freedom, anti-political correctness, anti-drug war, closed borders, ant-racial guilt, anti-racism, pro-free speech, and pro-gun rights to name a few. 

The Proud Boys' passionate views have even seen some of its members get caught up in street violent brawls with left-wing Antifa activists, news.com.au reported.

In August, Mr McInnes and his club were banned from Twitter for being 'violent extremists' ahead of the 'Unite the Right' neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville in the US.

While McInnes has denied support of the rally and its organiser Jason Kessler, he previously said Mr Kessler was thrown out of the Proud Boys for his 'racist views'.

Mr Costas said any allegations that Mr Mcinnes was a 'white supremacist' were 'nonsense', news.com.au previously reported.

'These people are not white supremacists, they're western supremacists, they believe in the great values that built the western world,' Mr Costas said.

'Free speech is the cornerstone of western civilisation.'

Mr Costas said words such as 'Nazi' and 'fascist' were often misappropriated and reappropriated by some members of the public to shut down debate.

He said while it's far easier to shut down debate than argue it out, free speech is a minority group's 'greatest ally' against oppression.

'Handing over free speech to the state to determine what's offensive and what's not, or to the left in general, is the biggest slippery slope we could ever hope to go down,' Mr Costas said.

Mr Costas is currently dealing with the financial fallout from his previous tours with Sydney publicist Max Markson, The Australian Reported. 

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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Friday, October 26, 2018



Muslim-majority Algeria bans Islamic face veils for its public sector workers to improve 'security and communication'

One for the Left to ponderr

Algerian authorities has banned banned female public sector employees from wearing full-face veils, or niqabs, at work.

Prime Minister Ahmed Ouayhia publicized the decision in a letter to ministers and regional governors in the Muslim-majority country last Thursday.

Civil servants, he wrote, need to 'observe the rules and requirements of security and communication within their department'.

He said public sector workers needed to be able to be 'physically identifiable' while in the workplace.

The ban has been met with both positive and negative reactions on social media, with some hailing it as progressive while others called it an attempt to control women and what they choose to wear.

According to Arabic newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, the ban was blasted by an Islamist MP as a 'declared war on Islam'.

However, another MP named Adda Fellahi declared his support for the new law, saying the niqab is 'a social and jurisprudence issue and has nothing to do with decency and chastity,' according to Asharq Al-Awsat.

Algeria has been split between moderate and more radical forms of Islam since it was plunged into years of civil war in 1992, when a military-backed government cancelled elections that an Islamist party was poised to win.

Most Algerian women do not wear the niqab, a custom imported from more traditionally conservative Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, but the decision is likely to be criticized by Algeria's Salafists minority.

The Salafists endorse Saudi's strict Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam and oppose the more mainstream Sufi Islam that dominates Algeria and other North African countries.

Violence has dramatically diminished since the war petered out around the turn of the millennium, but a hardcore of armed jihadist groups continue to launch attacks, mainly in remote areas.

SOURCE





Bakers Fined $135K Over Wedding Cake Appeal to Supreme Court

The former owners of an Oregon bakery, ordered to pay $135,000 in damages for declining to make a cake for a same-sex wedding, are appealing their case to the Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Aaron and Melissa Klein filed a petition Monday asking the Supreme Court to reverse an earlier decision handed down by the state that forced them to shut down their family bakery.

“Freedom of speech has always included the freedom not to speak the government’s message,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty, a nonprofit legal organization representing the Kleins. “This case can clarify whether speech is truly free if it is government mandated.”

An administrative judge for the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries ruled in July 2015 that the Kleins had discriminated against a lesbian couple, Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer, on the basis of their sexual orientation. The judge ordered the Kleins to pay the $135,000 for physical, emotional, and mental damages.

The Kleins appealed that ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals in April 2016, and that court upheld the state agency’s decision.

Under Oregon law, it is illegal for businesses to refuse service based on a customer’s sexual orientation, as well as race, gender, and other characteristics.

The Kleins maintained that they did not discriminate, but only declined to make the cake because of their religious beliefs about marriage. Designing and baking a custom cake for a same-sex wedding, they said, would violate their Christian faith.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled on a similar case in favor of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop outside Denver, Colorado.

In that case, Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the court ruled that government officials cannot be hostile to the free exercise of religious beliefs. But the high court did not rule specifically on the underlying question of the case: Whether government may compel citizens to create messages that violate their deeply held religious beliefs.

The Kleins’ petition asks the Supreme Court to address the unanswered question left over from the Masterpiece Cakeshop case.

In June, the Kleins wrote a piece for The Daily Signal explaining what the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling means for their case. They wrote that they were “thrilled for our friend,” because like Phillips, “we know what it is like to be treated unfairly by a state agency and mocked, threatened, and abused by critics.”

The couple added:

At the same time we wonder what the future holds for our case, our lost business, and our family. Ours may be, as Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, the case that allows ‘further elaboration in the courts.’ And we are encouraged to know that seven justices of the Supreme Court agree that a state’s hostility to the religious beliefs of its citizens will not be tolerated under the First Amendment.

Kennedy was known on the Supreme Court for being a crucial swing vote. Since the court’s ruling on the Masterpiece case, Kennedy has retired and this month was succeeded by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative. Kavanaugh’s addition to the court has led some to theorize that if the court were to take the Kleins’ case or a similar one, the decision could fall in their favor.

The $135,000 the Kleins were ordered to pay sits in escrow pending the final outcome of the case. The couple’s attorneys say they are are hopeful the high court will respond to their petition within the next three months.

SOURCE






Our Modern World’s Inability to Understand Fairy Tales

"It’s not fair"

This refrain—so quick to be invoked by young children, who seem to develop a thirst for justice very young indeed—may seem like a curious place to begin in defense of fairy tales. But let me explain.

But to backtrack a little further first—well, the latest salvo against fairy tales comes from two Hollywood actresses, Kristen Bell (“Frozen,” “The Good Place”) and Keira Knightley (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” roughly 10,000 period dramas).

Bell told Parents magazine that when she watches fairy tale movies with her young daughters, she make remarks such as, “”Don’t you think that it’s weird that the prince kisses Snow White without her permission? Because you cannot kiss someone if they’re sleeping!”

Knightley takes it one step further, telling talk show host Ellen DeGeneres she has banned her toddler daughter from watching films like “Little Mermaid” and “Cinderella.”

Why? Well, on “Cinderella”: “Because, you know, she waits around for a rich guy to rescue her. Don’t! Rescue yourself, obviously.” And on “Little Mermaid”: “The songs are great, but do not give your voice up for a man. Hello?!”

I’m reminded of journalist Salena Zito’s invocation to take President Donald Trump’s more colorful remarks seriously—but not literally.

Searching my own childhood memories, I’m hard-pressed to recall any sense of thinking that kissing sleeping people was great, waiting for a man to rescue me wise, or giving up my voice a valid life choice—despite my repeat viewings of these Disney films.

Just like I knew “Aladdin” wasn’t proof that I could hop on a carpet and fly or “101 Dalmations” a realistic take on the interior intellectual life of the high-strung Dalmation next door, I seem to recall that the worlds of Snow White and Ariel and Cinderella—worlds complete with half-people living underwater, dwarves in forests, and pumpkins molded into carriages—were hardly the stuff that provided practical rules of living for my gravity-bound, sadly unmagical world.

And yet these tales did provide valuable lessons.

It is tough to be a little child. Everything is new; you have no experience to fall back on. You are learning, being stretched constantly, and you are encountering—for the first time!—the bitter realities of the world.

You don’t have to possess an evil stepmother or wicked stepsisters—any selfish child on the playground who grabs your toy and isn’t caught will suffice—to understand that not everyone plays by the rules, or that the good are not always rewarded.

You don’t need to prick a spinning wheel or eat an apple to begin to awaken to the knowledge that you can be hurt by evil, and even engage in it. You don’t need to lose your voice to realize that forays into bigger, wider worlds beyond your parents’ arms and the comforting nooks of your home can shake you into a quiet stupor as you struggle to comprehend.

But maybe, as you toddle into preschool and watch Brittany tell the teacher she had the doll first and realize that the second serving of the candy your mom told you not to eat any more of gave you a stomachache—maybe you might need something else.

You might need to remember when all seemed lost, a fairy godmother whisked in and helped Cinderella. You might need to recall that Snow White was saved because she was loved, was rescued because someone else cared. And maybe as you eye Brittany, triumphantly playing with the doll you had grabbed right at the beginning of recess, you will remember how under the warmth and kindness of Belle, the Beast was able to become an OK guy.

As my mom told us: Life isn’t fair.

That’s one of those tough realities fairy tales grapple with, along with death and suffering. And then, too, there are beautiful realities whose mysteries they gently probe: the fact that love can change a person, that sometimes we’re helped unexpectedly, that our thirst for justice will be rewarded in the end.

These are not concepts that lend themselves to being told of, or probed, outside fiction. They must be experienced, not defined or explained.

After all, how does a child really learn what love is—by learning the dictionary definition or seeing the look on his mom’s face when he comes in the bedroom, terrified by a nightmare? But fairy tales, like the best stories, enlarge our world, take us to places and sentiments where perhaps our own relationships cannot yet bring us.

“It is the business of fiction to embody mystery through manners,” wrote American novelist Flannery O’Connor, and while that’s quite a burden to place on movies known for chattering mice and singing teapots, they manage to do so.

The world of fiction, particularly children’s fiction, is jammed with make-believe—Peter Pan flying; Harry Potter casting magic spells; Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan entering a world through a wardrobe; and yes, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty being rescued with a kiss.

Often those flights of fancy—absurd when taken literally—enlarge our imagination so we can grasp something we could not comprehend, highlight to us a truth hidden among the humdrum of our own world.

At the end of the day, you can face down evil without a single spell; you can encounter the vividness of your life’s calling without creeping amid the discarded coats festering in a wardrobe.

And plus, as any toddler who’s tearfully presented a boo-boo to Mom knows, sometimes a kiss can save.

In our world—so focused on science and data, on math and the measurable—it’s easy to look only at the literal in fairy tales. But depriving our children of the beautiful mysteries they introduce would only ultimately impoverish us, and make us less human.

SOURCE





Tasmania on verge of removing gender from birth certificates

Tasmania is set to become the first state to remove the sex of a child from birth certificates, in a major win for transgender people that has been attacked by critics as “abolishing gender”.

A vote is expected in Tasmania’s lower house next month, as amendments to a bill ending the need for trans people to divorce before they can change their gender on official documents.

While the bill’s central aim has tripartite support, the Liberal government, Christian groups and feminists fear it has been “hijacked” by the transgender lobby via a series of Labor and Greens amendments.

The Hodgman government relies on the casting vote of Liberal Speaker Sue Hickey, who was elected to the position with Greens and Labor support and votes as an independent.

Labor and the Greens both plan amendments to remove gender from birth certificates, while also backing changes to remove the need for trans people to have sex change surgery before switching gender on official documents.

Ms Hickey, a Liberal moderate, said as a matter of policy she did not declare her voting intentions until debate concluded.

She said she was broadly supportive of measures to end discrimination against trans people. “I’ll be listening to every word possible,’’ Ms Hickey said.

“I do think the world is changing and we need to be open to considering things that might discriminate or harm somebody. I’m very open.”

Transgender activist Martine Delaney said removing gender from birth certificates would be a significant win that would harm no one. “It would be the first in this country, although not the first in the world, and an excellent statement by Tasmania to say ‘We have the need to do this and we will not wait for other states to lead’,” Ms Delaney said.

“It is not doing away with gender. That information would still be recorded by the registrar and medical records in the hospital. It just simply wouldn’t be displayed on the birth certificate.”

She said removing sex from birth certificates would negate the need for transgender people to “out themselves” every time they applied for work or sought to prove their identity.

The Australian Christian Lobby said the reforms essentially abolished gender, further “homogenised humanity” and “greatly diminished” the significance of birth certificates.

ACL state director Mark Brown said the changes threatened to destroy the sanctity of women’s “safe places”, from refuges to sports teams. “If you are ­legally a transgender woman, even if you have a penis you can go wherever you want in terms of women’s safe spaces,” he said.

This concern is shared by feminist group Women Speak Tasmania. “If you have birth certificates issued with no sex marker on them, how then are ­female-only services and spaces — like girls’ schools, or the girl guides, women’s domestic violence shelters — able to maintain the female-only integrity of their service?” spokeswoman Bronwyn Williams said.

“It puts female-only organisations and services at risk of breaching anti-discrimination law if they say ‘No, you can’t become a member’.”

Greens leader Cassy O’Connor, whose child, born as a girl called Mara Lees, is now a 20-year-old man, Jasper, said the changes would end discrimin­ation and make a real difference to lives.

“The flow-on effects of being able to have your birth certificate either gender neutral or changed to your correct gender are profoundly life-changing,” Ms O’Connor said.

“At the moment in Tasmania, if Jasper wants to have his birth certificate changed he will need to have a hysterectomy, and that is cruel and unnecessary.”

SOURCE 

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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