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February 2023

MOVIES AND TELEVISION Comments turned off

Tàr-ed and Feathered By Leonard Bakker

By on February 22nd, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/emtremed_and_feathered.html

The announcement of the Academy Award nominees is usually a day of mourning for conservatives, mindful as we are of the dictum that ‘politics is downstream from culture’ and American culture has taken a decidedly leftist, ever more frightening turn in recent years, with Hollywood leading the charge. Yet this year we have something to cheer about from one of the odds-on favorites for the night’s biggest awards: Best Actress and Best Picture.

The movie I speak of is Tàr. And no, Tàr is not the latest cinematic installment of the Jurassic Park theme ride, but a serious movie about a paragon of traditional western culture — the conductor of one of the world’s leading orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic — played to pitch perfect perfection by Kate Blanchett as the fictional but biographically realistic Lydia Tàr.

Right from the movie’s outset, we see some solid jabs landed by the redoubtable Blanchett cum Tàr. Interviewed by the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, she blithely refuses to take the proffered bait of feminist victimhood, telling him that she had no complaints about the trajectory of her career and that the ‘Pauline’ awakening toward the acceptance of female conductors proceeded apace. And this was just the warmup for the real fireworks that follows when Blanchett leads a class for aspiring conductors at the fabled Julliard School of Music.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Biden Is Still After Your Gas Stoves

By on February 22nd, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/02/22/biden-is-still-after-your-gas-stoves/

Shortly after a Biden administration official boasted about how the federal government might ban gas stoves for being “unsafe,” the White House reassured the public that no such ban was in the works.

We warned readers at the time not to believe such reassurances because “once this sort of train starts moving there is often no stopping it.”

That was in early January. It took less than a month for the Biden administration to prove us right.

Earlier this month, the Department of Energy released a proposed rule that, if implemented, would essentially regulate gas stoves out of existence.

The new proposed rule comes despite the fact that the same federal department had decided in the past that – aside from an existing ban on always-lit pilot lights – efficiency mandates on gas stoves didn’t make much sense, since all they do is burn natural gas.

But Biden’s regulators decided to ditch common sense, insisting that appliance makers could squeeze out more heat through new designs.

The industry, which knows a thing or two about building appliances that customers want and can afford, recognizes BS when it sees it.

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FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Stand Up to China’s Bullying and Defend Taiwan The island nation is a candle against the darkness of the Communist Party. By Mike Gallagher

By on February 22nd, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/stand-up-to-bullies-and-defend-taiwan-select-committee-ip-theft-human-rights-uyghurs-hard-power-jinping-aa34bd85?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

“Mr. Gallagher, a Republican, represents Wisconsin’s Eighth Congressional District and is chairman of the House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party.”

I’ve just returned from Taiwan, where I had the privilege to meet with President Tsai Ing-wen. Her message: “Today, saying ‘I am Taiwanese’ is an expression of honor.” The Taiwanese have thrived and built a democracy in defiance of the dark shadow of Chinese Communist Party aggression.

My grandmother told me that “every bully is deep down a coward.” When President Dwight Eisenhower arrived in Taipei in 1960, the Chinese Communist Party, in a fit of rage, spent a week pounding the Taiwanese island of Kinmen with more than 85,000 rounds of artillery. When Speaker Nancy Pelosi touched down in Taipei last August, the party threw another tantrum. For days after her visit, sortie after sortie of fighter jets violated Taiwan’s airspace, warships cruised into Taiwan’s territorial waters, and bombs exploded around the island.

Every day we read about the party harassing dissidents in the U.S., disappearing tech executives such as Jack Ma, coercing American companies into ideological complicity. The party locks ethnic minority populations in concentration camps for possessing religious books or the wrong smartphone app. It welds its own citizens into their apartments for “public health.” Confident nations don’t act like this. The party’s rulers are defined by a fear of their own people and operate from a place of almost crippling paranoia.

I’m chairing the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party this Congress, and when we think about how to deter the Chinese Communist Party, it’s useful to think about how you deal with a bully—by getting your friends together and standing up.

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