Biden's Border Crisis (VIDEO)

Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino report, for Fox News:

And must-see television: Stephen Miller's appearance on Tucker's last night: WATCH: "Tucker Carlson &  Stephen Miller Blast the Biden Administration for America's Border Crisis."

Neighbors Step-Up Support of Asian American Family in Ladera Ranch (VIDEO)

Following-up from yesterday, "Neighbors Stand Guard as Gangs of 'Youth Thugs' Racially Harass and Threaten Chinese Immigrant Family."

Here's my local CBS/KCAL affiliate with an on-the-ground report:

And here's more, from KPIX CBS News San Francisco, the supposed "tolerant" leftist enclave, apparently full of racist haters, and thus, it's almost the entire "Left Coast" of California that's not too keen and friendly to our Asian-American sisters and brothers. It makes me sick. WATCH: "Bay Area Group Mounting Foot Patrols to Protect Asians After Rash of Attacks."

Let's just all be nice to one another. This state has enough problems as it is, especially with our loser "French Laundry" Governor, Gavin Newsom. *Eye-roll.*

At Least 13 Dead as SUV Crammed With 25 Illegal Aliens T-Boned by Peterbilt Big-Rig Near Mexican Border (VIDEO)

Well, Tucker had former Trump adviser Stephen Miller on last night, and Miller explained that human traffickers cut the seats out of vehicles, like this Ford SUV, to be able to cram 25 migrants inside, most likely stacked one on top of another, like ready-made corpes.

Most media reports aren't including that kind of detail in their reporting, and of course, most media reports, again, have avoided mentioning the Biden administration's reversal of the Trump administration's tough border policies as one of the main reasons for this utter disaster. 

It's a waste of precious human life, and frankly, Democrats do not care.

At the Los Angeles Times, "At least 13 killed in crash of SUV carrying more than 2 dozen near U.S.-Mexico border":

A collision between a big rig and an SUV carrying more than two dozen people near the U.S.-Mexico border Tuesday morning killed at least 13 and injured several others, authorities said.

About 6 a.m., the 2011 Peterbilt tractor-trailer was traveling north on Route 115 near El Centro when, for reasons that remained unclear, a Ford Expedition entered an intersection directly in front of the truck, according to a California Highway Patrol report. The truck plowed into the left side of the SUV.

The burgundy 1997 Ford, designed to hold no more than eight people, was carrying 25, said Arturo Platero, a spokesman for the CHP’s El Centro office. All but the driver’s and front passenger’s seats had been removed from the SUV.

Twelve people died at the scene, including the Expedition’s driver, whom the authorities identified only as a 28-year-old resident of Mexicali, Mexico. A 13th person died after being transferred to El Centro Regional Medical Center, Platero said. The truck driver, a 68-year-old resident of El Centro, suffered serious injuries and was taken to a hospital in Palm Springs, according to the CHP report.

An almost equal number of men and women were killed in the crash, said Omar Watson, chief of the CHP’s Border Division.

El Centro Regional Medical Center authorities reported earlier Tuesday that the SUV was carrying 28 people and 14 died at the scene, but CHP officials revised those numbers.

The SUV’s occupants, who ranged in age from 15 to 53, were all either injured or killed, Watson said. Authorities were still working Tuesday afternoon to identify all of the deceased victims and notify their families, he said. At least 10 of the dead were Mexican nationals, according to Roberto Velasco Álvarez, who heads the North America Department for the Mexican Foreign Ministry.

Four people were airlifted by helicopter to the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs. Two others hurt in the crash were in intensive care, including one in critical condition, said Todd Burke, a spokesman for the hospital.

Three people were transported to Pioneers Memorial Healthcare District in Brawley, about 20 miles away. One was treated for injuries that were not life-threatening, according to Karina Lopez, a hospital spokeswoman. The other two — a woman and teenage boy — were then airlifted to Scripps Mercy Hospital San Diego.

Six others are being treated at El Centro Regional, Platero said.

Watson described the crash scene as “chaotic.” Officers found people who had been ejected onto the pavement and others wandering around the site, he said. Some had been ejected, some were pulled from the wreckage, and some “walking wounded” got out on their own, he said. First responders had to cut the sole passenger seat out of the vehicle to reach some of the wounded.

Later in the afternoon, someone placed small, colorful crosses around the crash site. Inscriptions scrawled on two of them read “Justicia migrantes” and “No mas muerte.”

“It’s a very sad situation,” Watson said. “That vehicle is not meant for that many people. It’s unfortunate that number of people were put into that vehicle because there’s not enough safety restraints to safely keep those people within the vehicle.”

A spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said special agents from Homeland Security Investigations responded to the scene of the crash and had opened a human smuggling investigation.

Dr. Shavonne Borchardt at El Centro Regional Medical Center said injuries ranged from fractures to life-threatening head and chest injuries. The hospital is transferring patients to other treatment centers as soon as they are stable, she said.

“Our staff has done a tremendous job getting everything ready for these patients and being able to handle them and get them transferred out to the appropriate places as soon as possible, or if we can take care of them here, they’re being well taken care of as well,” Borchardt said...

 

Professor Danielle Allen on 'A More Resilient Union' (VIDEO)

I assigned Ms. Allen's piece in my introduction to American government classes just last week, and it's interesting to see her now interviewed with Judy Woodruff at the PBS News Hour.

Ms Allen's article is here, "A More Resilient Union: How Federalism Can Protect Democracy From Pandemics."

The main thing that struck me about the piece is that she doesn't rag on former President Trump, except to argue that he failed to educate the public on the full nature of the virus, not to mention his failure to better delineate the respective roles of the federal government vis-a-vis the states. 

What I did appreciate is her discussion on the American public's widespread ignorance on how the U.S. governmental system operates. That was a key theme I wanted students to discuss, and she make a pretty shocking case to abolish school football programs, even though she apparently loves football: 

If the country’s constitutional democracy is to have a healthy future, Americans should finish this crisis intending not only to invest in health infrastructure but also to revive civics education. Schools need more time for history, civics, and social studies. What should go to make room? Sports, for one thing. Compared with other countries, the United States invests a disproportionate amount of time and money in sports. Americans appear to prefer football to democracy. It’s time to cut back—and I say this as someone whose first professional ambition in life was to be a running back. The United States has made such sacrifices before. World War II saw the suspension of football and soccer seasons the world over. Sporting events may be the last things Americans get back as they reopen their economy. They should use the extra time to double down on civics education.

This crisis has laid bare just how fragile and unsteady the United States’ constitutional democracy is. Now, the country must get its house in order and prioritize its farthest-reaching hopes and aspirations. Americans had all the tools needed to respond to this crisis, except for the very thing that would have given them reason to use them: a common purpose. Let the search for one begin.

Most students weren't thrilled with the idea, but some thought it not a bad notion. As a professor, I just like Ms. Allen's focus on improving civic education, especially for young people, which, as a professor of political science, and I can attest first hand, is dismal.

Watch:

 

Fergus M. Bordewich, Congress at War

At Amazon, Fergus M. Bordewich, Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America. 

Neighbors Stand Guard as Gangs of 'Youth Thugs' Racially Harass and Threaten Chinese Immigrant Family

Now this is an interesting story.

Keep in mind that I live in Irvine, well north of Ladera Ranch (in south O.C.), and I've long joked (in a kinda "racist" way, frankly), about how Irvine is actually "Beijing West," and for years, especially when my oldest son was getting his driver's license, I used to constantly rag about how "Chinese drivers" are the absolute worst, which isn't racist to me, because they are the worst. Back in the 1980s, "No Jap Drivers" bumper stickers were very popular (and racist, with slant eyes and buck teeth poking out over thin lips). But that's not something I'd ever put on my car, and of course, in Irvine, Chinese and Korean immigrant families are in fact model members of the community. 

One thing that always amazes me is the huge number of Asian-American churches, especially Korean-American. And while you see lots of recent immigrants, wearing big dark face shields to protect their skin, and, frankly, a lot of Chinese women --- fresh off the boat --- who wear Mao jackets and such, they never bother anybody. Both my sons attended Irvine High School, and the diversity there was between different Asian-American student groups, with some Hispanic, white, and not too many black kids. 

So, it's all good, and you get used to it, and some of my Asian neighbors are the kindest, nicest people you could ever meet.

Which brings me back to this story, at LAT, which is actually horrifying, despicable, and a f*cking shame. Some of this can be traced back to Trump and his moniker, the "China virus," etc. But most if is just plain old intolerance --- and if you know the history of the O.C., so called "far-right" groups did in fact often originate here, and there are K.K.K. types that abound. So, as someone who is "mixed-race," and I've taught "Black Politics" at the upper-division level, it's not lost on me, this resurgence of racist hatred. And it's bad. Just bad for everybody, especially the victims. 

See, "An Asian American family in O.C. was being harassed. Now their neighbors stand guard":

Every night, the neighbors converge on the Si family’s two-story home, which has large windows and an expansive porch adorned with columns.

The Sis moved to this upscale Ladera Ranch neighborhood a few months ago, with the country deep in the COVID-19 pandemic and hate crimes against Asian Americans on the rise.

Almost immediately, teenagers swooped in for nightly visits, repeatedly ringing the doorbell, yelling and pounding on the door.

“I did not understand the extent of the harassment and how often it was occurring, at first,” said Layla Parks, who organized the nightly neighborhood watch. “I was immediately outraged and wanted to help.”

Violence and hate incidents directed at Asian Americans have surged across California, including in Orange County, since the beginning of the pandemic, with some blaming Asians because of the coronavirus’ origins in Wuhan, China.

A recent spate of violent attacks in Oakland, San Francisco, New York City and elsewhere has attracted national attention and sparked fear among Asian Americans, though it is not clear whether some of the incidents were racially motivated.

In February in Koreatown, two men hurled anti-Asian slurs at a 27-year-old Korean American U.S. Air Force veteran, calling him “Chinese virus” and then swinging at him, he told KTLA.

“We’re seeing an epidemic of hate right now, and we have to stand together,” state Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who represents the district just west of Ladera Ranch, said last week at an event to show support for the Si family.

While officials in Orange County are still compiling information on reports made in 2020, preliminary statistics indicate a tenfold increase in hate incidents against Asian Americans, said Alison Edwards, chief executive of the nonprofit OC Human Relations.

It’s a troubling uptick that experts have blamed in part on Donald Trump’s rhetoric about the pandemic, including his use of terms such as “China virus” and “kung flu.”

Last year, California saw a consistent increase in hate incidents and crimes targeting Asian Americans, said Brian Levin, executive director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino.

Stereotyping and conspiracy theories identifying Asians as responsible for COVID-19 have been embraced by wide swaths of the country, Levin said, with a new Center for Public Integrity/Ipsos poll showing that nearly 1 in 4 Americans have concerns about being physically near Asian people.

“My kids are scared. I’m very annoyed,” said Si, 48. “At night, my wife and I could not sleep for more than three or four hours. Please, parents, tell your kids don’t do that again.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has been called to the home seven times between October 2020 and February. Deputies have ramped up patrols in the area, and the department has launched an investigation, said Sgt. Dennis Breckner.

Still, the doorbell kept ringing, Si said. Nothing helped until his neighbors stepped in, vowing to put an end to the harassment.

Parks, who takes daily walks around the neighborhood, had introduced herself to Si and his family when she noticed them moving in last year.

In early February, Si reached out to Parks for advice.

He had already told her about the constant doorbell ringing, and she had offered to help if needed.

At first, she figured it was a harmless childhood prank of “ding-dong ditch.”

But as the harassment continued, including racial slurs against the family, Parks realized this was something uglier...

Still more.

 

Tony Dokoupil Covers Government Housing Policies Discriminating Against Black Americans (VIDEO)

I was discussing previous my news watching habits, and one of the great recent stories, from CBS Evening News, it turns out, is the tale of the man who adopted a "rescue dog" who was apparently afraid of men, but the guy adopted the dog anyway, and it turns out the dog returned the favor, and saved his life by dragging the man over to the phone, so he could call 911 as he was suffering from a stroke. This was a really heartwarming, down to earth report. Here, "Rescue dog that nobody wanted saves life of new owner."

And a few weeks back, Tony Dokoupil, at CBS This Morning, did a really good personal-story-style report on racial segregation in the neighborhood where his grandparents bought a home, in Linwood, New Jersey. 

This report, which is interesting to me because this kind of "redlining" was (and to some extent still is) a real example of insidious racism against black Americans. And I also liked the way Dokoupil handled the story, and the interviews he conducted, as he doesn't make it all about himself, but puts it in the context of how folks at the time felt, and what can be done now. 

And I didn't know it until this morning, but Dokoupil is married to Katy Tur, who is the super left-wing news anchor at MSNBC, who's biggest claim to fame is that she was once called out by Donald Trump while covering his campaign back in the day, and she published a best-seller out of it. Well, she and Dokoupil have three kids (two from Dokoupil's previous relationships), and they're expecting another baby in April, in contrast to the "baby bust" that is happening of late, especially because of the lockdowns, and the terrible life chances for young people nowadays, who really do have it worse than their parents and grandparents generations. Now good for Dokoupil, because Ms. Tur is actually pretty hot, but I'm surprised he comes off nothing like her in his reporting, and is more of a "straight news man," which I like, a lot. 

In any case, here's the segment on housing discrimination against blacks in New Jersey. Very well done:

Poor F*king George Stephanopoulos

This fake "journalist" is the reason I quit watching ABC News, and that includes even "ABC World News Tonight," which previously was my favorite, back in the day, when Peter Jennings held down the nightly news chair --- and that guy was the real deal, and star broadcaster with incredible appeal and savoir faire out the wazoo. 

Nowadays, if I watch MSM news programming, I prefer CBS News, especially "CBS This Morning," which while leftist, is still aiming for a pretty "middle class / working class" demographic, and I enjoy a lot of their segments, although I'm too lazy to blog them.

So, just read the whole thing, at also uber-woke CNN, a network I still watch, except for Jake Tapper, who I just can't stand. (And while the whole story isn't out yet, it turns out the Brooke Baldwin is not leaving the network on her own accord --- the truth will come out sometime, of course, but I'm sure she's got some revelations of "power struggles" over there, and it's going to be interesting to hear more about them.) 

And one more thing about CNN, I still like Wolf Blitzer. I know he's under pressure from his producers to toe the "woke" line, but, jeez, he's 100s of times better that the dork Tapper, so at least in the early afternoons, if I'm watching CNN, it's not too bad. After that, I flip over to Fox News, and I definitely try to watch Tucker every night, and that's even after sometimes I think HE's a phony, given his elite pedigree (his dad married divorcée Patricia Caroline Swanson, of Swanson TV dinner fame). And if you recall, Tucker used to be a "golden boy" on daytime news shows, including a stint at --- you guessed it! --- CNN, when he was a co-host of "Crossfire" for a time, back when he wore a bow-tie. He's dropped that habit like a hot potato, and now looks more, well, normal, with his regular coat and tie on his evening shows. 

Anyway, being a political scientist, I literally have to watch some television news, but all these "woke" networks are making it a chore. 

So, RTWT yourself, at "woke" CNN (and featuring the network's resident potato-head, Brian Stelter), "David Muir's new role at ABC News leads to drama with George Stephanopoulos and a visit from Bob Iger."

Time's Up Golden Globes?

This is exactly why I didn't watch the stupid Golden Globes last night: all the overwrought and stupid hand-wringing about "not enough diversity."

And here I am, an actual diverse guy, with an actually diverse family, to boot. 

Interesting, though, I did watch "Nomadland" last night, starring the phenomenal Frances McDormand. And you know what? It's a freakin' conservative movie! Yep. The film is almost all platitudes to rugged individualism, with all kinds of settings in rustic, "small-town" America, and "Fern" (McDormand) gives a raw and compelling performance that is indeed deep, genuine, and award-worthy. And the kicker is that the director, Chloé Zhao, is freakin' Chinese! I mean, you can't make this up. Zhao is a woman and an ethnic minority, but oh! That's not enough --- it's never enough for the gouging nobodies who put on these idiotic awards shows. 

And these dolts with their stupid hashtags, like "#TimesUpGlobes," are whining about not enough blacks, waah! Well, if they wanted more blacks, why the f*ck did they have ultra-white babes Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler hosting? You'd think someone, somebody, anybody, might have asked, ahead of time, "Aren't there any beautiful black women on T.V. we could have host the program?" I'm dyin' over here. *Shrugs.* 

Again, I think it's just best to watch shows that might interest you, rather than pay attention to the stupid media people who rag endlessly at these showbiz [slash[ media orgs, like the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. These are stupid, un-self-aware elites, who don't deserve the attention they so desperately crave. 

And no surprise, the self-flagellating story is at the Los Angeles Times (FWIW, really!), "‘Nomadland’ and ‘Borat Subsequent Moviefilm’ win at Golden Globes, as HFPA tries to move past controversy."

'Seig Heil for Hyatt'? Despicable Twitter Leftists Attack American Conservative Union for Imaginary 'Nazi Rune' at CPAC

I can't even on this one. 

I mean, who even notices this stuff? You'd have to be deranged and sickly obsessed demons pointing to something like this --- which is obviously true --- and clearly just one more attempt to disparage, libel, and destroy the obviously ordinary folks chanting "We Love You" for Donald Trump, and presumable other conservatives speaking at the conference, like awesome South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.

And keep in mind, I haven't been to CPAC in over 10 years. It's a fun one-time experience, but it's not cheap. Besides, in the 2010s, lots of longstanding conservatives quit attending, because, for one thing, the place became more of a "meat-market" for teeny-boppers than a forum for serious political engagement. (And that's not to mention the awful treatment that Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer were subjected to, among others, basically being banned because they were, allegedly, "Islamophobic.")

So as you can see, I'm not a particularly big fan of the American Conservative Union, and particularly Matt Schlapp, who appears more like a glad-handing "good ole boy" than the leader of a vigorous grassroots movement. And while I like the mans's wife, Mercedes Schlapp, who was White House Director of Strategic Communications in Trump's administration, she's been back on Fox News quite a bit, and honestly, she also sounds like a puffed-up lobbyist for the G.O.P more than an oracle of movement conservatism. 

But all that said, I think the A.C.U. is absolutely right to hit back at the despicable Twitter trolls attacking Hyatt Hotels, and more importantly, repudiating Hyatt's own craven capitulation to ideological evil. See Forbes, for example, "How a Nazi Symbol at CPAC Turned Into a Massive Hyatt Public Relations Disaster."

F*cking leftist ghouls. These are people who actually deserve an American flagpole to the face. 

In any case, here's the response from David H. Safavian, General Counsel to the A.C.U, "A Response to Hyatt Hotels: We Will Not Be Canceled":

Mr. Thomas J. Pritzker 

Executive Chairman 

Hyatt Hotels 71 

South Wacker Drive 

Chicago, Illinois 60606

 

Dear Mr. Pritzker:

Contrary to Hyatt’s own mission statement of inclusivity, your company just attacked its own customer by caving into the pressures of the politically motivated social media agitators who seek to destroy CPAC, our attendees and speakers from across the country, and the millions of Americans who support our work. Hyatt made a decision to issue additional statements late last night after the conference ended that disparaged and defamed us. These statements appear to validate demonstrably false and malicious claims.

When we learned of the orchestrated assault on us, we immediately contacted your senior management to set the record straight. Together, we quickly responded to these slanderous accusations. Your hotel’s senior management was on notice and acknowledged that these claims were false and agreed to share any statement before its release. We agreed that coordination was critical so that the general public would know the truth and that you would treat your customer with honesty. Thus, we were shocked that the Hyatt waited until after the conference concluded to issue additional statements--ones that are irresponsible, untrue, and contribute to a climate of division and hatred.

For months we have collaborated with your team on logistics, including sharing, reviewing, and approving the stage design that was created by one of our subcontractors. The fact that no one on the Hyatt staff ever raised concerns during the process shows the ridiculous nature of your statements. Moreover, your statements falsely conceal your oversight role. In fact, the Hyatt Hotel, with our organization and subcontractors, approved and worked collaboratively to build this stage. Only after a coordinated far-left assault to destroy our conference arose did you succumb to lies and compound them with your own.

During this difficult time for our nation, we believe in Americans getting back to work and helping companies like yours to flourish. Indeed, you recruited us. We sought to work with you in good faith to help Hyatt workers and the Florida economy. In fact, countless employees expressed their immense gratitude for bringing CPAC to the Hyatt in Orlando, many stating that this very conference was the sole reason they had a job.

Our Jewish Board Members, staff, speakers, and attendees are appalled by the Hyatt leadership for not standing with us as we fight against antisemitism (a term that Hyatt fails to use in its statements). We would have hoped that our 10th annual Shabbat Dinner, daily Jewish prayer services, and speeches on the main stage from Jewish leaders, such as Ambassador David Friedman, Former Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, and Rabbi Yitz Tendler would be enough to put an end to these outrageous falsehoods.

The theme of CPAC 2021 was “America UnCanceled.” It is tragic and reckless that Hyatt would choose to abandon its own mission statement of inclusivity and play into the hands of those who are attempting to silence legitimate political views.

Sincerely,

David H. Safavian

General Counsel

 

Donald Trump at CPAC (VIDEO)

UPDATE: YouTube has banned and removed all videos of Donald Trump's speech at CPAC 2021. I noticed this happening in real time, as the ABC News video of Trump's speech I posted was taken down, and I replaced it with on from the Independent U.K., which was still available at the time. Now, as you can see, it's gone. 

*****

Clicking around the channels yesterday, CNN wasn't going live with Trump speech at CPAC (at least when I click over), while Fox News livestreamed it. CNN, of course, came out immediately after with "fact checks," and MSM newspaper coverage, at LAT, for example, is full of lies and distortions of what Trump actually said, here: "Trump blasts GOP lawmakers who voted to impeach: ‘Get rid of them all’."

I thought is was a great speech. Trump probably should have laid off on the election fraud claims to the extent that he did, because although there was rampant fraud, I never considered there to be enough fraudulent ballots to ultimately overturn the results of the election.

That said, Trump's attacks on "RINOs" and the radical left Dems was right on, and his speech was clearly electrifying for the CPAC hordes crammed into the hall in Orlando. I would have loved to have been there.

In any case, Trump teased the notion of his own run for the presidency in 2024, and that's the left's biggest fear, especially all the lamestream media hacks at CNN, and no doubt elsewhere. (I haven't checked NYT's coverage yet, but I'm sure it's pathetic.)

Goveror Kristi Noem at CPAC (VIDEO)

She brought down the house. 

And Trump's supposed to be speaking any minute there at CPAC, so check it out, if you can. I might have to catch it later, 'cause I'm heading out with da family for some lunch.

I'll be back later.

Enjoy: 

Anti-C.R.T. Activist Christopher Rufo Challenges N.Y.T.'s Michelle Goldberg to Debate

Actually, Rufo's challenging the entire leftist cadre of "woke journalists" and lefty columnists, like Ms. Goldberg, to debate, and that's not a bad idea. 

He writes on Twitter:

Today, the New York Times claimed that I want to ban critical race theory because I am afraid to debate it. This is false. In fact, I will debate any prominent critical race theorist on the floor of the New York Times. I will give them home field advantage—and dismantle them.

I give the New York Times and the professors of critical race theory—including those quotes in the article—five calendar days to accept this challenge. If they do not, we'll know who is afraid to debate, and who uses it as an excuse to shelter their ideas from public criticism.

Actually, though, when it comes to critical race theory (C.R.T.), Ms. Goldberg, may have a point. (And I note this with the full understanding that, Ms. Goldberg, who is Jewish, and perhaps has faced some anti-Semitism in her life, is nevertheless about as "privileged" as anyone could be today, with a "journalistic" perch at the "exalted" New York Times, which ain't nothing to sniff at, considering the sheer power of that institution). 

Here's her column, "The Campaign to Cancel Wokeness."

You can RTWT (besides the screenshot below), but what I've noticed is that Rufo, indeed, is somewhat "totalitarian" in his approach. I've seen him interviewed a least a couple of times on cable news, and he claims to be assembling a "high-powered" network of attorneys not just to challenge C.R.T, but to get it banned altogether from U.S. schools. 

Now, I'm obviously no big defender of C.R.T. --- and especially the "antiracism" corollary --- but if conservatives say they're truly for free speech --- the point Ms. Goldberg hammers --- hers is not an idle critique. I mean, if one is really conservative, the point of greatest impact should be at the local level, empowering, with conservative pro bono lawyers and lawsuits, the parents of kids who're being indoctrinated by such crap. Further, Rufo's approach, ideologically, mimics what so-called "right-wing" critics of leftist education doctrine always say --- that it's all "top down," especially driven by genuinely powerful teachers' unions, particularly the N.E.A. and A.F.T., both loathsome citadels of educational hatred, not to mention despicable indifference to the lives and welfare of the students they're supposed to represent. 

So, while I'm probably overthinking this too much, I'm looking forward to local conservative and traditional parent-activists to take it right to the authoritative bodies that are reaming their kids, and robbing them of the true "critical" thinking that youngins today so obviously need --- their local school boards. 

And to add, I personally favor Professor William Jacobson's approach, with his "Critical Race Training" initiative, which is a place where parents can find facts and be educated about what the situation is, so they can then make choices for themselves. So then, if some of those families indeed pursue litigation, at least it will be from a position of "choice," or in fact of "choice" denied, as many families aren't privileged, like Ms. Goldberg, who attended U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, with Berkeley being generally regarded as the top public university in the country.  

So I guess with that, you be the judge. *Shrug.* A lot of the ideological battles we're having these days are, in fact, dumb. 

Naomi Wolf Interview with Tucker Carlson (VIDEO)

Naomi Wolf is the author of, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. 

I honestly never even considered picking up the book (or putting my hands on it), much less purchasing it. She's a very-far leftist, who, according to one report, is "a life-long Democrat and liberal, not to mention a well-known feminist author who was a leader of the so-called third-wave of the feminist movement, and a former advisor to Bill Clinton and Al Gore."

In her book, she lays out "ten-steps" on the road to "totalitarianism," and at the interview, she asserts that with the current "Covid fascism" encroaching the land, America is now at "step 10":

Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy. 

Create secret prisons where torture takes place. 

Develop a thug caste or paramilitary force not answerable to citizens. 

Set up an internal surveillance system. 

Infiltrate and harass citizens' groups. 

Engage in arbitrary detention and release. 

Target key individuals. 

Control the press. 

Cast criticism as espionage and dissent as treason. 

Subvert the rule of law.

The book was published in 2007, during the G.W. Bush years (when it was popular on the left to call President Bush, "BusHitler").

So, frankly, she's not the kind of person you'd expect to see interviewed on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." But one of the reasons I rarely miss Tucker's show is that he's literally "fair and balanced," which I can't say about Sean Hannity, who, I think I mentioned previously, recently gave Texas Governor Abbott one of the most softball interviews earlier I've ever seen --- which was an abomination (like, c'mon, you know Texas screwed up, and even a so-called "conservative" governors may from time to time unwittingly [or not] enable the forces of leftist destruction right at home (or, that is, right at home, in Texas).

In any case, Tucker is most kind and gracious when speaking to Ms. Wolf, and she returns the kindness, which is really remarkable, because Tucker, towards the end of the interview, indicates, it's almost like the far-left media outlets (looking at you CNN) are deliberately "trying to divide us."

It's excellent:

Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College (VIDEO)

Following-up from the other day, "Whistleblower Jodi Shaw Out at Smith College (VIDEO)."

It turns out that the New York Times, of all place, has published a long and detailed "investigative"-style report on Smith College, and it's a real humdinger. 

Christina Hoff Sommers reacted on Twitter, "Why I can’t yet give up on @NYTimes. Such excellent reporting by Michael Powell."

And Lee Fung, a former far-left "reporter" at Media Matters, wrote, "This story is a must-read, just incredible. Not unique at all to Smith College, though. This kind of cowardice and character destruction is permeating almost every institution dominated by highly educated liberals."

And Batya Ungar-Sargon, the not-very conservative opinion editor of the (Jewish Daily) Forward, also wrote, "A student at Smith got a janitor put on leave and a security officer tarred as racist, both of whom make less than her $78,000 yearly tuition, because she insisted on eating in a deserted dorm she wasn't meant to be in. Wokeness is a smokescreen for class."

It's a long article (link here), so I'll just copy a little, and hopefully the subscription "wall" won't prevent readers from accessing the whole thing: 

NORTHAMPTON, Mass. — In midsummer of 2018, Oumou Kanoute, a Black student at Smith College, recounted a distressing American tale: She was eating lunch in a dorm lounge when a janitor and a campus police officer walked over and asked her what she was doing there.

The officer, who could have been carrying a “lethal weapon,” left her near “meltdown,” Ms. Kanoute wrote on Facebook, saying that this encounter continued a yearlong pattern of harassment at Smith.

“All I did was be Black,” Ms. Kanoute wrote. “It’s outrageous that some people question my being at Smith College, and my existence overall as a woman of color.”

The college’s president, Kathleen McCartney, offered profuse apologies and put the janitor on paid leave. “This painful incident reminds us of the ongoing legacy of racism and bias,” the president wrote, “in which people of color are targeted while simply going about the business of their ordinary lives.”

The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN picked up the story of a young female student harassed by white workers. The American Civil Liberties Union, which took the student’s case, said she was profiled for “eating while Black.”

Less attention was paid three months later when a law firm hired by Smith College to investigate the episode found no persuasive evidence of bias. Ms. Kanoute was determined to have eaten in a deserted dorm that had been closed for the summer; the janitor had been encouraged to notify security if he saw unauthorized people there. The officer, like all campus police, was unarmed.

Smith College officials emphasized “reconciliation and healing” after the incident. In the months to come they announced a raft of anti-bias training for all staff, a revamped and more sensitive campus police force and the creation of dormitories — as demanded by Ms. Kanoute and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.

But they did not offer any public apology or amends to the workers whose lives were gravely disrupted by the student’s accusation.

This is a tale of how race, class and power collided at the elite 145-year-old liberal arts college, where tuition, room and board top $78,000 a year and where the employees who keep the school running often come from working-class enclaves beyond the school’s elegant wrought iron gates. The story highlights the tensions between a student’s deeply felt sense of personal truth and facts that are at odds with it.

Those tensions come at a time when few in the Smith community feel comfortable publicly questioning liberal orthodoxy on race and identity, and some professors worry the administration is too deferential to its increasingly emboldened students.

“My perception is that if you’re on the wrong side of issues of identity politics, you’re not just mistaken, you’re evil,” said James Miller, an economics professor at Smith College and a conservative.

In an interview, Ms. McCartney said that Ms. Kanoute’s encounter with the campus staff was part of a spate of cases of “living while Black” harassment across the nation. There was, she noted, great pressure to act. “We always try to show compassion for everyone involved,” she said.

President McCartney, like all the workers Ms. Kanoute interacted with on that day, is white.

Faculty members, however, pointed to a pattern that they say reflects the college’s growing timidity in the face of allegations from students, especially around the issue of race and ethnicity. In 2016, students denounced faculty at Smith’s social work program as racist after some professors questioned whether admissions standards for the program had been lowered and this was affecting the quality of the field work. Dennis Miehls, one of the professors they decried, left the school not long after.

Then in the autumn of 2019, the religious studies department proposed a class on Native American religion and spirituality. A full complement of students registered but well before classes began, a small contingent of Native American students and allies pasted bright red posters on buildings on campus reviling the course as harmful, intrusive and disrespectful and attacking the instructor, who was young, white and not on a tenure track. He had an academic background in this field and had modeled his course on that of his mentor, who was a well-known professor and a member of the Choctaw Nation.

The administration declined to challenge the student protesters and had the instructor submit to sessions of “radical listening” with the protesters. In the end, the religious studies department dropped the class...

Still more.

Friday Babe Roundup

Check it out, on Twitter.

Also, a bikini Tic-Tocker here.

And some big babes, here and here.

Effort to Recall Gavin Newsom Taps Into Pandemic Anger

I've haven't been keeping track of the recall signature drive, but it's definitely gaining steam. 

And I have no idea if Newsom's in threat of removal by the voters, although his public approval ratings have been tanking. See, "Newsom approval plummeting with a third of voters support recall amid COVID-19 criticism, poll finds."

But now we've got the New York Times weighing in, so California's pandemic politics, and the crashed economy in our once-"Golden State," has become major national news. 

See, "A Recall for Newsom in California? Talk Grows as Governors Come Under Attack." Also, un-gated article here:  

SACRAMENTO — Long before Orrin Heatlie filed papers to recall Gavin Newsom, he knew the odds were against unseating the suave ex-mayor of San Francisco who ascended to become California’s governor.

“Democrats have a supermajority here — it’s one-party rule,” said Mr. Heatlie, a Republican and retired Yolo County sheriff’s sergeant. Voters had elected Mr. Newsom in 2018 by a record 24-point margin. As recently as April, 70 percent still approved of his performance. Plus, just to trigger a recall election, Mr. Heatlie’s petition would require about 1.5 million valid voter signatures.

Lately, however, Mr. Heatlie has been feeling lucky.

California has been upended by the coronavirus. Most of the state is waiting — impatiently — for vaccinations. Schools in big cities have yet to reopen their classrooms. Prison inmates and international fraud rings may have looted as much as $30 billion from the state’s pandemic unemployment insurance program.

And then there was that dinner at the French Laundry restaurant that the governor attended, barefaced, after telling Californians to stay in and wear masks to avoid spreading the virus.

“This is an easy sell,” reported Mr. Heatlie last week, speaking by phone from rural San Joaquin County, where he was delivering petitions that he said pushed his haul over the 1.7 million-signature mark with three weeks to go before the deadline.

“I like to say we have nobody to thank but him,” he said, “and he has nobody to blame but himself.”

A year into the coronavirus crisis, Mr. Newsom is not the only governor who has hit a political rough patch. Across the country, pandemic-weary Americans are taking their rage and grief out on chief executives.

In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine, whose voter approval soared at the start of the pandemic, has been assailed for his strict enforcement of health precautions. Gov. Greg Abbott was under fire for runaway infection rates in Texas border cities even before winter storms collapsed the power grid. Crashes of the vaccine appointment system in Massachusetts have eaten away at the once unassailable popularity of Gov. Charlie Baker. “For the first time, he has a true political opponent — and it’s Covid-19,” said Mary Anne Marsh, a Boston political strategist.

And in New York, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s national image as a leader during the pandemic has suffered amid questions around New York’s incomplete count of coronavirus-related deaths of nursing home residents.

Dane Strother, a Democratic media consultant in California whose clients include governors and mayors across the country, said governors “are in an untenable position.” “The Trump administration gave them no guidance for the most part, but then threw them the responsibility,” he said. “I think it’s fair to say there’s not a governor in this country right now whose approval ratings are not taking a dip.”

Nor will the struggle fade soon: In the next two years, 38 states will hold regular elections for governor. Even if California’s recall attempt fails, Mr. Newsom is up for re-election next year.

As California works the kinks out of its vaccine rollout and starts to reopen classrooms, it is tough to determine whether Mr. Heatlie’s effort will pan out. A recent poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, showed Mr. Newsom’s approval rates plunging, but only to 46 percent.

For the recall to move forward, proponents must gather 1,495,809 valid signatures from registered voters by March 17 — enough to equal 12 percent of the votes cast in the most recent election for governor. Counties must then verify them by April 29.

About 1.1 million signatures have been filed so far, and of the nearly 800,000 that have been vetted, nearly 670,000 have been deemed valid. If the measure qualifies, the campaign figures that the election would be in August or September; independent political analysts say November or December...

Actually, I think California is the worst state, right up there with New York. And when even NYT is starting to drill down to the horrendous governance and hypocrisy here and elsewhere, especially in Democrat-run states, it's actually pretty significant.

So, while it's still early, if this recall qualifies, and there's an election later this year, I'm going to be giddy --- at least for the intense heat that Newsom's going face. 

Until then, I'll be keeping my eyes open and I'll be posting updates. It's gonna be good!

The Equality Act Makes Women Unequal

It's Inez Feltscher Stepman, who's a very classy babe, at WSJ, "H.R. 5 Erases ‘Sex’ as a Legal Category, with Dire Consequences":

All people are created equal, but Congress is considering a bill that would make some people more equal than others.

H.R. 5, styled the Equality Act, would redefine “sex” under federal civil-rights laws to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” overriding basic biology along with millennia of tradition.

This isn’t only a question of semantics. Nor is it merely an attempt to prohibit employment discrimination against sexual minorities. A 2020 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court already does that.

The Equality Act would go much further by making it illegal to distinguish “identity” from biology and thereby prioritize transgender people over women. By erasing sex as a distinct legal category, the measure threatens to open up female-only spaces and opportunities designed to increase representation for girls to biological men, which can endanger the safety of women and girls.

The Equality Act would threaten the existence of women’s prisons, public-school girls’ locker rooms, and women’s and girls’ sports teams. It would limit freedom of speech, freedom of association, accurate data collection, and scientific inquiry. It would threaten the rights of physicians who doubt the wisdom of performing life-changing, reproduction-limiting procedures, and parents who seek to protect their minor children from such treatment...

The thing is, of course, none of this is a surprise. China Joe's minions, and his far-left Democrat congressional enablers, don't care about the rights of women. They care about power, and they care about ramming unpopular policies down the throats of Americans, all the while pushing massive distractions, like the bogus threat of "white supremacist domestic terrorism," which in turn, justifies the continued deployment of thousands of National Guard troops in D.C., hunkered down behind barricades and barbed wire.

It's really sickening, in fact. But if it's not this piece of legislation, it'll be one of the literally dozens of "executive orders" that will come back to bite Biden in the butt. The border crisis, to take yet another example, just can't be swept away now as "all Trump's fault." The far-left radicals in power, again, have no clue about how devastating their policies are, and they frankly do not care.

The 2022 midterms will be a real reckoning, I'd put money on it. Former President Trump is expected to speak at CPAC this weekend and it's gonna be hella lit. The left is doing everything they can to damage Trump, and that's to say nothing of the 74 million patriots who voted for him, including the larger (and getting larger) number of ethnic minorities (especially in Florida and Texas) who pulled the lever for the red ticket.

I'm not enjoying politics much right now, and I teach this stuff for a living. But it's gonna be pure schadenfreude when the voters' hammer comes down on the heads of idiot Dems in less than two years from now. 

There's more from the beautiful Ms. Stepman, at the link.

James Oakes, The Crooked Path to Abolition

 At Amazon, James Oakes, The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution.

Not All 'Anti-Racist' Ideas Are Good Ones

You don't say? 

And this is Matthew Yglesias, someone who blocked me on Twitter back in the day. I obviously don't care for the guy, but, as it's happening a lot these days, he's been on the wrong end of leftist "cancel culture." See Fox News's report, "Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias quits, cites 'inherent tension' and desire to be 'independent' voice: Yglesias follows Glenn Greenwald, Bari Weiss, and Andrew Sullivan in exodus of journalists from prominent news outlets."

Yglesias is up at WaPo with an op-ed, here, "Not all ‘anti-racist’ ideas are good ones. The left isn’t being honest about this: On some topics, progressives prefer pointing out right-wing hypocrisy to debating substance":

The same Republicans championing free speech and deploring “cancel culture” are trying to pass laws criminalizing protests, bar classroom discussions of the New York Times’ 1619 Project on slavery and penalize people who advocate boycotts to oppose Israeli settlements. Combine that with the idea that we’ve got more important issues to deal with, from the pandemic to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and many progressives think they don’t have to engage with the argument that the left is too conformist and dogmatic on certain topics involving race. They don’t want to hear about the San Francisco Board of Education stripping Abraham Lincoln’s name from a high school, or Oregon teacher-training materials claiming that asking math students to “show their work” reinforces white supremacy.

“One of America’s major parties has turned against democracy,” Vox’s Zack Beauchamp tweeted Feb. 9, after a Times a reporter who had used the n-word in a discussion with students about racism was compelled to resign, “and we’re talking about . . . the Times’ staffing decisions?”

But it would be a significant mistake for mainstream progressives to duck the substance of these controversies. After all, it is progressives who in recent years have attempted to increase the stigma attached to racist speech while also expanding the scope of what’s “racist.” That double move introduces complications into discussions of racism that should invite more argumentation, not less.

In educated liberal circles these days, everyone knows that racism is not just a question of individual prejudice or hatred. The conversations are about “structural” or “systemic” racism — impersonal properties of systems, embedded in processes. Certainly it’s true that race and racism have shaped many legal, political and social institutions, since America’s earliest days. But when you make the scope of racism so expansive, that necessarily means pushing the conversations into contestable terrain.

The shift from dismantling monuments to the Confederacy to erasing homages to Lincoln, for example, raises important questions about how to balance the praiseworthy and lamentable aspects of political figures. (The school board noted that during Lincoln’s presidency, the military hanged 38 rebellious Native Americans in Minnesota.) But whether to cancel Lincoln is — for most people — a fairly easy case. Consider a more challenging one, involving land use restrictions in American cities. Having studied the issue, I believe that excessively strict regulations embody structural racism in housing: Such rules price low-income people, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, out of many areas. To me, it’s clear that the sensible (and progressive) course of action is to allow denser construction in the most expensive neighborhoods; increasing housing supply will have ripple effects that reduce housing prices for everyone. But I’m also aware that many people sincerely believe that allowing real estate development fuels gentrification and displacement — and that the key to racial justice is even more stringent regulations.

Nothing is gained if the different parties in this debate call each other racists or invoke the specter of “white supremacy” to discredit their opponents. The affordable-housing question requires dispassionate analysis, not the censoriousness and scolding that might be appropriate for combating expressions of traditional prejudice, such as redlining.

Yet many commentators urge a more fiery approach. Ibram Kendi, author of the bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist,” argues for an extremely expansive concept of racism that pushes the boundaries of structural analysis to the limits. According to Kendi, any racial gap simply is racist by definition; any policy that maintains such a gap is a racist policy; and — most debatably — any intellectual explanation of its existence (sociological, cultural, and so on) is also racist. He has famously argued that anything that is not anti-racist is perforce racist.

This reaches its most radical form in Kendi’s conflation of measurements of problems with the problems themselves. In his book — ubiquitous in educational circles — he denounces not the existence of a large Black-White gap in school performance but any discussion of such a gap. Kendi writes that “we degrade Black minds every time we speak of an ‘academic-achievement gap’ ” based on standardized test scores and grades. Instead, he asks: “What if the intellect of a low-testing Black child in a poor Black school is different from — and not inferior to — the intellect of a high-testing White child in a rich White school? What if we measured intelligence by how knowledgeable individuals are about their own environments?”

We certainly could do that. But the fact remains that if African American children continue to be less likely to learn to read and write and do math than White children, and less likely to graduate from high school, then this will contribute to other unequal outcomes down the road. Education is not a cure-all for labor market discrimination, and educational disparities don’t fully account for the Black-White earnings gap. But they partially account for that gap while also leaving people less able to organize politically, protect themselves from financial scams and otherwise navigate the modern world. Stigmatizing the use of test scores and grades to measure learning undermines policymakers’ ability to make the case for reforms to promote equity — from providing air conditioning in schools to combating racially biased low expectations among teachers...

I disagree with most of this piece (Yglesias is much too soft on his fellow leftists), but he's got a point about the toxicity of Ibram X. Kendi, which is something I'm dealing with at my college, and which Tucker Carlson has been hammering in recent segments as "the most destructive ideology" of our lifetimes. 

It's bad. Very bad. And as hard as it is, I sure hope more and more parents yank their kids out of public schools. That will help, but then there's the universities families have to consider. Professor William Jacobson created a new website to track racial indoctrination on campuses all across the country, and with luck, the word will get out, and spread farther, and more and more families will vote with their dollars, and they'll ultimately abandon all the "woke" education B.S., turning instead, one hopes, to decent, family-values oriented educational institutions. 

Again, this is not easy to do, especially for families who're not wealthy, but if enough families indeed choose alternative educational paths for their kids, sooner or later the "woke" totalitarians will get what's coming to them --- ultimate repudiation and banishment from polite society.