From Mark Bauerlein, at Politico:
Heh. This Is What It's Like to Be the Only #Trump Fan at Thanksgiving Dinner. https://t.co/iBBTsZ9Sxu pic.twitter.com/yw3i483L5D
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 23, 2017
Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education - from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!
Heh. This Is What It's Like to Be the Only #Trump Fan at Thanksgiving Dinner. https://t.co/iBBTsZ9Sxu pic.twitter.com/yw3i483L5D
— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) November 23, 2017
"My father left behind his parents, friends, and neighbors in the hope of finding freedom. I know his story because it is my heritage; you now know his story because I have a voice. One hundred million other people were silenced." https://t.co/qgSm47yOMZ @lauramnic pic.twitter.com/AhAhPEvgQf
— Victims of Communism (@VoCommunism) November 21, 2017
In 1988, my twenty-six-year-old father jumped off a train in the middle of Hungary with nothing but the clothes on his back. For the next two years, he fled an oppressive Romanian Communist regime that would kill him if they ever laid hands on him again.Keep reading.
My father ran from a government that beat, tortured, and brainwashed its citizens. His childhood friend disappeared after scrawling an insult about the dictator on the school bathroom wall. His neighbors starved to death from food rations designed to combat “obesity.” As the population dwindled, women were sent to the hospital every month to make sure they were getting pregnant.
My father’s escape journey eventually led him to the United States. He moved to the Midwest and married a Romanian woman who had left for America the minute the regime collapsed. Today, my parents are doctors in quiet, suburban Kansas. Both of their daughters go to Harvard. They are the lucky ones.
Roughly 100 million people died at the hands of the ideology my parents escaped. They cannot tell their story. We owe it to them to recognize that this ideology is not a fad, and their deaths are not a joke.
Last month marked 100 years since the Bolshevik Revolution, though college culture would give you precisely the opposite impression. Depictions of communism on campus paint the ideology as revolutionary or idealistic, overlooking its authoritarian violence. Instead of deepening our understanding of the world, the college experience teaches us to reduce one of the most destructive ideologies in human history to a one-dimensional, sanitized narrative.
Walk around campus, and you’re likely to spot Ché Guevara on a few shirts and button pins. A sophomore jokes that he’s declared a secondary in “communist ideology and implementation.” The new Leftist Club on campus seeks “a modern perspective” on Marx and Lenin to “alleviate the stigma around the concept of Leftism.” An author laments in these pages that it’s too difficult to meet communists here. For many students, casually endorsing communism is a cool, edgy way to gripe about the world.
After spending four years on a campus saturated with Marxist memes and jokes about communist revolutions, my classmates will graduate with the impression that communism represents a light-hearted critique of the status quo, rather than an empirically violent philosophy that destroyed millions of lives.
Statistics show that young Americans are indeed oblivious to communism’s harrowing past. According to a YouGov poll, only half of millennials believe that communism was a problem, and about a third believe that President George W. Bush killed more people than Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, who killed 20 million. If you ask millennials how many people communism killed, 75 percent will undershoot.
Perhaps before joking about communist revolutions, we should remember that Stalin’s secret police tortured “traitors” in secret prisons by sticking needles under their fingernails or beating them until their bones were broken. Lenin seized food from the poor, causing a famine in the Soviet Union that induced desperate mothers to eat their own children and peasants to dig up corpses for food. In every country that communism was tried, it resulted in massacres, starvation, and terror.
Communism cannot be separated from oppression; in fact, it depends upon it. In the communist society, the collective is supreme. Personal autonomy is nonexistent. Human beings are simply cogs in a machine tasked with producing utopia; they have no value of their own.
Many in my generation have blurred the reality of communism with the illusion of utopia. I never had that luxury...
CBS & Its Stations Go Dark On Dish Network As Deal Deadline Passes https://t.co/48ad1RKEEF pic.twitter.com/O1PXuu6i7m— Deadline Hollywood (@DEADLINE) November 21, 2017
LaVar Ball has not stayed in his lane; he's become shameless huckster running a con on the backs of his children https://t.co/aw8GMQx7At
— Bill Plaschke (@BillPlaschke) November 22, 2017
Just in time for the holidays, LaVar Ball has been good enough to advise us on one way to obtain a pair of his company's odd $495 sneakers.More.
The father of UCLA freshman basketball player LiAngelo Ball has spent the last week telling the world his son and fellow Bruins Cody Riley and Jalen Hill didn't really do too much wrong when they were caught shoplifting in three stores during the team's recent trip to China.
They were detained, confined to the country beyond their scheduled departure, released with the help of two presidents, publicly admitted their wrongdoing and are serving an indefinite team suspension.
But according to the family patriarch, a man whose publicity-seeking craziness has been excused because he is a good father, theft isn't that big of a deal.
To ESPN recently, Ball actually said, "It ain't that big of a deal.''
On CNN Monday night, he doubled down on the ignorance, saying, "The way I look at it, OK, [LiAngelo] was shoplifting. He wasn't physical. He returned it. He fessed up to it. … Nobody got hurt.''
Nobody got hurt? Nobody except the three shops from which the kids stole the items, his son's now-depleted team and, most of all, his son's shamed university.
When LaVar Ball said nobody got hurt, he meant LaVar Ball didn't get hurt. While his son was confined by the school to his Hangzhou hotel during the investigation, his father was out hawking shoes in cities as far as two hours away. While his son was watching his team's first game against Georgia Tech while sitting in that hotel, his father was actually in the stands, because who needs the kid on the court when you can peddle a branded T-shirt on TV?
LaVar Ball once seemed like a genius salesman worthy of examination, but in recent months the curtain has been drawn to reveal a shallow and shameless huckster. He once enhanced the Los Angeles sports landscape, but now he only infects it by continuing to bleat messages filled with delusion and disrespect. For someone who once epitomized sexism by telling a female sports-talk show announcer to "Stay in your lane,'' Ball has veered far from his original lane...
Those who consider themselves my enemies have been posting these all around my home neighbourhood. pic.twitter.com/zF3Mc7Imsy
— Jordan B Peterson (@jordanbpeterson) October 26, 2017
BREAKING: Two more women accuse Al Franken of inappropriate touching https://t.co/TdTJijO8LV pic.twitter.com/BIuhhadviG
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 23, 2017
There are some extremely depressing quotes in this story. https://t.co/S3xoM8aMAB pic.twitter.com/abGtO4OWng
— Nick Baumann (@NickBaumann) November 23, 2017
Piers Morgan chews out dating guru: "You are a repulsive individual" https://t.co/t2eRoVb5a8 pic.twitter.com/OVH6eOjtps
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 23, 2017
This seduction expert thinks British women are 'overweight' and 'entitled'
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) November 22, 2017
Watch the full debate: https://t.co/vuw078VG5o @piersmorgan pic.twitter.com/Xfc21gRb6C
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton has apologized for a graphic nude photo of him that circulated online. https://t.co/6JuABqgUEA pic.twitter.com/mWIOYQJ7S6
— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) November 22, 2017
Rep. Joe Barton said he would report his lover to the Capitol Police if she exposed his secret sex life, w/ @mikedebonis: https://t.co/e4hcofGnA6
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
Here's what @RepJoeBarton told his lover when she learned he was involved with other women. He doesn't leave much out. pic.twitter.com/xOyS5BI5qd
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
Worth noting that the woman says she and Barton would text for hours, including when he was in committee meetings and on the House floor: pic.twitter.com/J359oRdzZY
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
For those wondering about the revenge porn issue: good question. We listened to the tape. Barton brought up the Capitol Police because he was mad the woman learned about and was making contact with his other lovers. She was mad; he brought up the idea of an investigation.
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
Here's what Barton had to say about it: pic.twitter.com/4UtoZ4OABt
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
Finally, to sign off: if you were inappropriately propositioned by Rep. Barton or another member of Congress, we'd like to hear your story. Email us at mike.debonis@washpost.com and elise.viebeck@washpost.com.
— Elise Viebeck (@eliseviebeck) November 23, 2017
We can all be thankful for this new @SamanthaHoopes video! https://t.co/V8woksEWM6 pic.twitter.com/4kmeb1Xfvx
— SI Swimsuit (@SI_Swimsuit) November 21, 2017
Simon Whitehead, a former teacher, gives his take on why not all forms of #school #discipline reform are working: https://t.co/Kw24DiPpih
— Fordham Institute (@educationgadfly) November 22, 2017
I am here today because I am very worried about the direction some of our urban and suburban schools are taking.He's right. This is the main problem with our schools. I deal with these things all the time. I'm lucky I'm not white. Seriously. I hate to do it, but I can turn the race card around on anyone who makes any issue about race. It's too easy for progressives to scream "racism." But I'll throw it back in their faces. Ideology has taken over public education. I'm fighting a tough battle, and sometimes I find myself going too easy on my students, because I get tired of playing campus cop all the time, 24/7. But unless you keep up a unified front, things happen, and it takes a cascade of disruptive behavior to remind you you've got to maintain high standards. You have no idea sometimes. (I'd like to retire, in fact, but it's just not happening any time soon, and it's for precisely these reasons).
Over the past four to five years, there have been strong expectations to discipline students differently depending on their race. We were told that too many students of color were being suspended and this looked bad, especially in the case of African American boys. This was definitely the case in Minneapolis.
However well-intended, this policy actually disrespects a whole class of students by lowering the expectations for their behavior, their work ethic, and inevitably their academic progress. When students walk though my classroom door, I have high expectations for them—no matter what they look like.
Another great area of concern is that students are now increasingly emboldened to get together and collaborate to “get teachers in trouble.” Those teachers can lose their jobs and their entire careers. The teachers who tend to be targets are those who have a more traditional way of teaching. By this I mean holding all students to high expectations—such as punctuality, respectful behavior, teamwork, good work ethic, following school rules, politeness, meeting deadlines—and providing consequences for not reaching those high standards.
This has led, in my opinion, to a generation of teachers who are “walking on eggshells,” trying very hard to not say anything or do anything that might remotely get them reported. I believe that many teachers now turn a blind eye to school policies not popular with students: they inflate grades, ignore dress codes violations, don’t give deadlines for handing work in, and put up with bad behavior that would previously had prompted disciplinary action. It is a culmination of these “little expectations” that has led to an erosion of the overall school climate of academic rigor, as well as an erosion of student and staff safety. In addition, if there’s a student exhibiting significantly bad behavior, many teachers feel helpless because they know that a behavior referral will be fruitless; assistant principals will return that student to the same classroom that day or the next day. Order in the classroom deteriorates, and learning suffers.
When you have given twenty-five years to teaching city kids, it hurts to be called a racist, as I have been many times. It’s upsetting to be verbally abused on a daily or even hourly basis, and in some cases even physically abused.
What other profession has to tolerate this?
This is a key reason why we are losing great teachers.
I like to think I ran a pretty tight ship. I like to think that we got a lot of learning done in fifty minutes. I would teach up to two hundred students a day. I was the head varsity coach of two sports in my school. I was in the hallways every day, passing time, keeping order and greeting students. But under the current conditions, I cannot and will not teach any longer in Minneapolis.
African American students will never reach their full potential when they are getting conflicting messages from radical activists who tell them they are, and will be, victims of discrimination, who promote the ideology of white privilege (code for “you have no chance”), and who get them all riled up and angry in school so that they’re protesting at every opportunity. It is tough to learn when you are angry.
These students need to hear the same strong, uplifting, and positive message from teachers, parents, counselors, principals, and district administrators that they can achieve success with hard work, dedication, and determination...
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) October 18, 2017
#MeToo" is the social media meme of the moment. In a 24-hour period, the phrase was tweeted nearly a half million times and posted on Facebook 12 million times. Spearheaded by actress Alyssa Milano in the wake of Hollyweird's Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, women have flooded social media with their own long-buried accounts of being pestered, groped or assaulted by rapacious male predators in the workplace.Keep reading.
Count me out.
It's one thing to break down cultural stigmas constructively, but the #MeToo movement is collectivist virtue signaling of a very perilous sort. The New York Times heralded the phenomenon with multiple articles "to show how commonplace sexual assault and harassment are." The Washington Post credited #MeToo with making "the scale of sexual abuse go viral." And actress Emily Ratajkowski declared at a Marie Claire magazine's women's conference on Monday:
"The most important response to #metoo is 'I believe you.'"
No. I do not believe every woman who is now standing up to "share her story" or "tell her truth." I owe no blind allegiance to any other woman simply because we share the same pronoun. Assertions are not truths until they are established as facts and corroborated with evidence. Timing, context, motives and manner all matter.
Because I reserve the right to vet the claims of individual sexual assault complainants instead of championing them all knee-jerk and wholesale as "victims," I've been scolded as insensitive and inhumane.
"TIMING DOES NOT MATTER," a Twitter user named Meg Yarbrough fumed. "What matters is what is best for EACH INDIVIDUAL victim. You should be ashamed of yourself."
CNN anchor Jake Tapper informed me, "People coming forward should be applauded." But applauding people for "coming forward" is not a journalistic tenet. It's an advocacy tenet. Tapper responded that he was expressing the sentiment as a "human being not as a journalist." Last time I checked, humans have brains. The Weinstein scandal is not an excuse to turn them off and abdicate a basic responsibility to assess the credibility of accusers. It's an incontrovertible fact that not all accusers' claims are equal.
Some number of harrowing encounters described by Weinstein's accusers and the #MeToo hashtag activists no doubt occurred. But experience and scientific literature show us that a significant portion of these allegations will turn out to be half-truths, exaggerations or outright fabrications. That's not victim-blaming. It's reality-checking.
It is irresponsible for news outlets to extrapolate how “commonplace” sexual abuse is based on hashtag trends spread by celebrities, anonymous claimants and bots. The role of the press should be verification, not validation. Instead of interviewing activist actresses, reporters should be interviewing bona fide experts...
“The most important response to #metoo is ‘I believe you’ 🙏” @emrata @marieclaire #powertrip pic.twitter.com/ftP7yLIF1Z— meika hollender (@missmeiks) October 17, 2017
In which the journalists took part in the awfulness. The Degrading Ritual of Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s Pre-Thanksgiving Press Briefing https://t.co/Z7E9xwuJlB— masha gessen (@mashagessen) November 22, 2017
🕵🏻👄🖤 pic.twitter.com/7ZkTN34dhL
— Kelly Brook (@IAMKELLYBROOK) November 3, 2017
"Genie in a Bottle"
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View From the Beach, "‘Hail To Thee, My Alma Mater ..."