“SEEMS QUITE INCONSISTENT WITH BASIC ACADEMIC FREEDOM PRINCIPLES.” UMD Public Policy School Mandating Ideological Statements on Syllabus, Requiring That Class “Materials” and “Discussions” “Respect All Forms of Diversity.”
Archive for 2020
November 25, 2020
AS ALWAYS, LIFE IMITATES SEINFELD: Starbucks barista says she was fired for refusing to wear Pride shirt. In her wrongful termination suit, Betsy Fresse said wearing a shirt in support of the LGBTQ community would be a “contradiction to her religious beliefs.”
“But everyone wears the ribbon. You must wear the ribbon!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iV8X8ubGCc
TODAY’S NON-SHOCKING HEADLINE: Democrats Like One-Party Rule More Than Others.
D.C. FOR SALE: Biden’s ‘Return To Normalcy’ Is Going To Be Terrible. “After spending two years avoiding serious questions about his policy preferences, his team and his prospective presidency, we now know what Joe Biden intends to do should the Electoral College, as expected, vote for him in December: He’ll reopen the swamp for business.”
I THINK THERE ARE SOME HYPERBARIC OXYGEN CHAMBERS IN MY AREA. Human aging process biologically reversed in world first.
THIS SEEMS LIKE A NO-BRAINER: Americans Shouldn’t Fund Communist China’s Armed Forces. “Most of these firms are listed on Chinese stock exchanges, but at least two have subsidiaries trading on U.S. markets. Either way, investors are able to buy their shares through a variety of means. The amounts involved are stratospheric: One U.S. index fund, the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, is tracked by at least $2 trillion. The index contains shares in many of the companies affected by the President’s executive order. Anyone who invests in the index or tracks it becomes a part-owner of those companies and helps fund their work with China’s military.”
WELL, THAT’S ONE WAY TO SHOW THAT YOU TAKE ELECTIONS SERIOUSLY: On day five of election recounts in Milwaukee, all observers were given poop emoji wristbands from Wisconsin Center staff.
THEY SAID IT COULDN’T BE DONE, BUT IT WAS ANOTHER TRUMP TRIUMPH: 6.4 million COVID-19 vaccine doses expected to be shipped to states by mid-December.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: Delirious Robert De Niro Keeps Mistaking Himself for One of His Tough-Guy Roles.
Insanity Wrap needs to know: When is an actor who played a bunch of tough guys actually a tough guy?
Answer: When he’s leaving deranged and abusive voicemails to his ex-assistant, or yelling at his driver for getting lost, we suppose. And that’s about it.
Before we get to the sordid details, a quick preview of today’s Wrap.
- Crybullies go after Jordan Peterson (again).
- Seattle pulls the trigger and actually defunds the police.
- Please pass the gravy and the lecture on transgenderism.
And so much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
JAMES LILEKS’ WEDNESDAY REVIEW OF MODERN THOUGHT:
I’m pro-mask, inasmuch as i wear one because I figure it provides a certain amount of protection about worrying what would happen if I didn’t want one.
But this is just a bit much, no?
THIS IS MY FACE MASK, THIS IS MY GUN
ONE IS FOR SIGNALLING, ONE IS FOR FUN
Indeed. Although it’s an interesting choice of a paraphrase by Dr. Faust, considering how things worked out for one of the Marines who uttered that phrase in Full Metal Jacket. Several additional examples of “modern thought,” or the lack thereof, at the above link.
NEWT GINGRICH: The Thieves Who Stole Our Election Got Sloppy.
HIGHER EDUCATION IMPLOSION UPDATE: Skilled trades attract 4-year grads. “Nearly a million community college students already hold a bachelor’s degree. ‘More than 40 percent of recent graduates aged 22 to 27 are underemployed, meaning that they’re working in jobs that don’t require their degree’.”
U. OF MARYLAND PUBLIC POLICY SCHOOL REQUIRES “STOLEN LAND” ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ON SYLLABI: Aside from the obvious free speech and academic freedom problems with this and other provisions, if you are telling everyone you are in possession of stolen land (or stolen anything else), there’s only one moral option: give it back. Not doing so suggests that you’re either a sociopath or a liar. Which one is it, Maryland?
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Harvard dismisses Title IX complaint against prof who said trans student would have been murdered in China. But wait, there’s more:
More surprising is that Harvard University didn’t punish a professor for stating that truth, even when it riled up a student who ranks high on the subjective oppression scale – though it took a month to clear him.
The Ivy League school dismissed a Title IX complaint filed against Arthur Kleinman (above) by a transgender student who claimed the anthropology professor created a “hostile environment” by noting how Kai De Jesus would be treated in “rural China,” The Harvard Crimson reports.
Kleinman insisted he was trying to stop De Jesus, a man who identifies as a woman, from derailing the virtual class session on the tradeoffs in global public health by suggesting violence against whites was justified.
Another student in the class, Shah Faesal, agreed that the transgender student’s question, in retrospect, appeared to justify the “extermination of the white race to bring an end to the race problem.”
It’s nice to know that our allegedly top universities are incubating “final solution” talk.
ROGER SIMON: The Smartmatic Story: From Venezuela with No Love.
Many have debated, and Rudy Giuliani only vaguely explained on Lou Dobbs’ show by saying they had “different theories” of the case, why the Trump legal team separated from Sidney Powell.
Occam’s Razor has a simpler explanation: What Powell is investigating—complicated trans-national computer fraud, involving multiple countries, not just the United States, with immense implications for the democratic system worldwide—takes considerably longer to explicate and prove than the time available to question a presidential election before votes are certified and the Electoral College meets.
This was corroborated by discussions I held with two men in a position to understand a great deal of this fraud that they say originated in and still emanates to a great degree from Venezuela (with a little help from Cuban, Iranian and Hezbollah friends, possibly others).
These men wish to remain anonymous because they fear for their safety operating in foreign territory as they frequently do.
One of them is a former CIA officer who served in the Directorate of Operations and as chief of station in several countries. The other is of Venezuelan birth and lives in the United States.
In recent years, in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and others, they have worked to “flip” leaders and military personnel inside the Venezuelan and Cuban establishments, many of whom were involved with or had information about the extensive narcotics trade undertaken by those two countries as well as Iran and Hezbollah.
This billion-dollar criminal enterprise, particularly regarding Hezbollah in this instance, was on the brink of an exposure and prosecution that was ultimately ignored, as Politico reported, by the Obama administration on the urgings of the mullahs in order to protect the then-incipient Iran Deal.
Some of what these men told me can be authenticated, some not for reasons beyond anyone’s control at the moment. I leave it to readers to decide for themselves.
Nevertheless, for the record, and to understand what we are dealing with, the following members of the Venezuelan leadership are currently indicted in the United States for narcotics trafficking: President Nicolas Maduro, National Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello, petroleum minister Tareck El Aissami, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, and Venezuelan Army Chief of Staff Vladimir Padrino.
To give an idea of the extent of the crime, notorious Mexican “narcotrafficante” El Chapo was said to be worth $1.2 billion. Diosdado Cabello, I was told by one of my informants, is worth in excess of $20 billion! That puts him up there among the richest people in the world. Mix petrodollars—Venezuela, in whatever condition, has one of the richest oil fields on the planet—with drug dollars and you have a lucrative cocktail.
Smartmatic
The two men spoke with me about the origins of the Smartmatic system, which they analogized in some respects to 9/11, mentioning that it was another example of how we tend to underestimate our adversaries, in this case their computer capabilities.
With China and Russia to worry about, Venezuela has been more or less off our radar, but, given the figures above, it shouldn’t be. Their ruling class—not their people, clearly—has enough working capital to do as much damage as anyone.
More than a mere Banana Republic, they are a growing criminal state with tentacles reaching into Colombia and across the Atlantic into one of the major parties of our NATO ally Spain, I was told.
But back to Smartmatic.
In 1998, socialist Hugo Chavez, on his way to being maximum leader for life, changed the constitution of his country, allowing him to serve a six-year term instead of five—with the caveat that if 20 percent of Venezuelans were to sign a petition demanding a recall, an election would be held.
To the surprise of Chavez, such a petition was forthcoming and his attempt to invalidate the signatures failed.
A system had to be invented to guarantee the caudillo’s victory in the forthcoming presidential recall referendum.
Enter Smartmatic, a company founded in Delaware in April 2000 by three young Venezuelan engineers.
January 2004, a Venezuelan government agency, the New York Times reported, invested $200,000 in a technology company owned by those same three.
Related: Big Tech Expert Says Google’s ‘Manipulations’ Shifted ‘at Least Six Million Votes’ to Joe Biden.
THEY NEVER EVEN SEND A THANKYOU NOTE FOR ALL THOSE TAXES I PAY: Government doesn’t know best how we should give thanks.
CHINA’S TOOLS IN ACADEME: Indiana University students enraged after Hong Kong protestor is invited to speak.
It’s easy to tell who’s on the payroll, or at least on the team.
We’re entering the Sustainable Age of space activity.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Idiot Democrats Think There’s Some Kumbaya on the Way. “The drooling sack of empty that they are calling President-Elect Biden has undergone an image makeover that’s most unbelievable. We’re now being told that he’s our kindly best pal and that he is going to put a big band-aid on all of the ORANGE MAN BAD hurt that our beloved country has suffered through.”
EVEN LEFTISTS CAN’T TRUST LEFTISTS: “The Obama staffers are now cutting out the people who got Biden elected. None of these people found the courage to help the VP when he was running and now they are elevating their friends over the Biden people.”
Watch out: The most dangerous thing for a socialist is to be ruled by socialists who are not his friends.