https://jamieglazov.com/2020/03/13/glazov-metoo-gets-chris-matthews/
In this new Jamie Glazov Moment, Jamie discusses #MeToo Gets Chris Matthews, unveiling how The cheerleader of the Avenatti-Stormy Daniels circus meets poetic justice.
[This video credits Lloyd Billingsly’s Frontpage article: #MeToo Gets Chris Matthews.]
Don’t miss it!
https://thefederalist.com/2020/03/11/why-social-justice-investing-is-a-load-of-politicized-hypocrisy/
As major corporations ditch their goal of maximizing shareholder value for maximizing societal value according to social justice, one wonders: Is woke capital really dedicated to its principles, or is it bowing at the altar of progressivism for PR and profits?
Recent news regarding BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, brings this question to mind. The behemoth firm, which manages almost $7 trillion in assets, recently committed to a slew of environmentalist initiatives that will affect its business, and the businesses in which its clients invest.
Its decisions matter because everyone from mom-and-pop investors to nation-states—representing hundreds of millions of people—through BlackRock collectively own stocks, bonds, and other instruments covering the entire global marketplace. Indeed, you may own shares of one or several of BlackRock’s iShares exchange-traded funds, or have exposure to the company through a retirement plan. If so, you are effectively voting for its political agenda.
BlackRock’s latest efforts include everything from substantially increasing the number of so-called “ESG” (Environmental, Social, and Governance) funds its clients can invest in, to removing investment offerings in companies big in the thermal coal production business, to pushing the companies BlackRock’s clients own to adhere to “UN Sustainable Development Goals, such as Gender Equality and Affordable and Clean Energy.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/woody-allens-life-story-canceled-11583645773?mod=opinion_lead_pos8
The Hachette Book Group announced last Monday that it would bring out “Apropos of Nothing,” a memoir by Woody Allen, in early April. CEO Michael Pietsch told an interviewer that the publisher “believes strongly that there’s a large audience that wants to hear the story of Woody Allen’s life as told by Woody Allen himself.”
There was also a noisy audience that didn’t—and that didn’t want anyone else to hear it either. Last Thursday Hachette employees staged a walkout to protest the book, and on Friday Hachette dropped it.
“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one,” said a spokesman for the publisher. “At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly. We have published and will continue to publish many challenging books.”
My own interest in Woody Allen is approximately zero. I used to find him funny, but the prospect of wading through “a comprehensive account of his life,” as Hachette put it, fills me with gloom. Hachette had nonetheless determined that many readers would be interested in Mr. Allen’s life story. They simply forgot to check with the feminist commissars to see if he passes muster in the age of #MeToo.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/its_all_in_the_stars.html
There is no material evidence to substantiate the case against Harvey Weinstein
As I have previously argued at some length, moral ignominy does not fall within the purview of legal jurisprudence, and personal allegations do not constitute evidentiary certitude. Because a man is a scoundrel with predatory inclinations does not mean we have license to clap him in irons. It means we avoid him like the plague. It means we do not succumb to his blandishments. It means we refuse to accept the gifts and advantages he offers in exchange for our surrender to his wiles and demands. It means, as the theological lore has it, that we do not sell our souls to the devil — or, in Harvey Weinstein’s case, our bodies as well.
It also means that in a court of blind justice deriving from Magna Carta and established over a long evolution, predicated on the concept of “beyond a reasonable doubt” and grounded on factual evidence, Weinstein could not have been found guilty. What we have is a narrative of the acts and machinations of an obviously despicable person; hearsay, revelation, memory, tearful indignation and sundry testimonials do not constitute tangible and objective evidence. Criminal guilt cannot be established on the basis of the statements of the plaintiffs.
In addition, when one reckons that those who claim to have been assaulted or raped by Weinstein did not go to the police immediately after their ordeal when forensic evidence was fresh and may still have been gathered, and that many of these plaintiffs continued to seek out Weinstein’s company with letters of affection and adulation years after the events in question, the issue begins to grow clouded.
As The Washington Free Beacon reports in considerable detail, these prodigies of adoration were legion and, for that matter, were not confined only to women. Men also liked to flaunt their brotherly admiration for their great friend and benefactor. They too have conveniently joined the chorus of denunciation against their former patron and promoter, or have tactfully remained silent.
But in a culture obsessed with sex and the myth of female guilelessness, it is the women who are regarded as oracles. Their charges resonate in the courtroom, yet these consist of circumstantial depositions that are seriously compromised. Moreover, multiple attestations and what is called similar fact evidence (or “criminal propensity” arguments) provided by corroborative witnesses who are not part of the actual criminal case are, at best, only differentially admissible and do not rise to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Indeed, “similar fact” (sometimes known as “similar act”) remains controversial and is highly problematic. Spencer v. Texas (1967) established that such evidence “would violate the Due Process Clause.”
https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/27/new-jersey-public-schools-to-teach-lgbt-ideology-in-every-subject/
A little more than a year ago, the New Jersey Legislature passed, and Gov. Phil Murphy signed, a law mandating the teaching of LGBT subject matter in public school curriculum, beginning in 2020-21.
In response to the law, the activist group Garden State Equality has prepared a curriculum, currently piloted in 12 New Jersey schools and planned to be employed statewide in the fall. This is consistent with Murphy’s vision. At Garden State Equality’s 2019 Ball, he said, “I applaud Garden State Equality for not only leading this effort, but for your continued work in helping to craft this curriculum.
Garden State Equality (GSE) is an LGBT advocacy organization devoted to instilling its vision of “justice” through an “LGBT lens” in society. Consistent with its vision, GSE’s self-described “LGBT-inclusive” curriculum spans all subjects — math, English, social studies, health, science, visual and performing arts, and world languages — beginning in fifth grade. Having New Jersey’s 1.4 million public school students see the world through a LGBT lens is the goal in every class and, thus, now the goal of public education. This is well in excess of the curriculum law’s vague requirements.
In the way it is being implemented, the law is simply an instrument empowering GSE to accomplish its mission and vision, embedding sexual and gender ideology throughout curriculum. GSE envisions its curriculum “as a model that we can bring to every other state in the nation.”
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-tyranny-of-the-marginalized/
By Arthur Milikh, associate director of, and research fellow in, The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics.
From the New Deal to Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), the Left’s fundamental transformation of America over the past century is astounding. A key to that achievement has been the discipline to hasten beyond recent victories and commence new battles. Today, leftists’ eyes are set on outlawing “hate speech.” In 2018, a New York Times article lamented conservatives’ success in “weaponizing the First Amendment.” “I have come to see,” said a regretful progressive law school professor, “that it’s a mistake to think of free speech as an effective means to accomplish a more just society.” Many conservatives, reluctant to believe what seems unbelievable, do not fully appreciate that the campaign to curtail speech in order to promote social justice is gathering strength and capturing powerful institutions. In the not very distant future, it could succeed.
Every Western European nation and the entire Anglosphere already criminalize hate speech. America is the only holdout. Nevertheless, California, always a leader in the field of misgovernance, has recently expressed interest in doing so. Many of our colleges and universities, of course, already administer Orwellian speech codes. Big Tech, with Twitter, Google, and Facebook leading the way, censors political content for violating stern but hazy standards based on the European model. And the United Nations relentlessly advocates criminalizing words that “dehumanize minority groups and other targeted people.” Without understanding where the desire to censor hate speech comes from, means, or would entail, many Americans are growing comfortable with the idea.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/worst-side-story-11582246801?mod=opinion_reviews_pos1
My sentiments exactly. If the P.C. crowd wants a P.C. musical, let them compose their own music and lyrics and not defile a classic….rsk
Pop quiz, boomers: What’s your favorite musical? If I had to guess, I’d go for “West Side Story.” Not only did the original 1957 production light up the hit parade four times in a row, with “Maria,” “One Hand, One Heart,” “Somewhere” and “Tonight,” but the 1961 film version was a box-office smash that won 10 Oscars and remains to this day a small-screen staple, while regional theater companies all over America continue to stage the show with remunerative regularity. As for Broadway, this fourth revival of “West Side Story” had been in previews since December and is selling out nightly. Nor is anyone buying tickets to see the big names in the cast, because there aren’t any: This is a starless production. No, they’re going to see “West Side Story” because it’s “West Side Story.”
Unfortunately, a suburban mom who goes to Ivo van Hove’s new Broadway revival without knowing anything about Mr. Van Hove’s work in general or this production in particular is in for a very big shock. This is not the “West Side Story” you know and love, and there are some—quite a few, actually—who’ll likely tell you that it’s not “West Side Story” at all. Jerome Robbins’s finger-popping choreography has been scrapped, and the rest of the show is heavily cut (it now runs for an intermission-free hour and 45 minutes, an hour shorter than the 2009 Broadway revival). “I Feel Pretty” and the “Somewhere” ballet are nowhere to be seen in Mr. Van Hove’s production, which takes place not on New York’s Upper West Side in the ’50s but—surprise, surprise—here and now. Oh, yes, there’s no balcony or fire escapes, just a huge empty stage. Instead, the upstage wall of the 1,761-seat Broadway Theatre has been replaced with a proscenium-size projection screen on which are alternately shown scenes of the mean streets of New York and giant live-TV images of the cast in action.
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2020/02/19/boys_will_be_girls__and_feminists_will_be_furious_122456.html
In January, the august New York Public Library withdrew as host of a forum organized by a self-described radical feminist group called the Women’s Liberation Front, or WoLF. The irony was palpable: The planned meeting was titled “An Evening With Canceled Women,” since the five speakers from WoLF all claim to have been “deplatformed” – i.e., shouted down by hecklers or kicked off speakers lists – because they questioned claims made by transgender advocates regarding sexuality and identity.
In other words, as some conservative news outlets gleefully reported, the New York Public Library canceled the “canceled women”! Why?
The library had no comment, but it likely feared that it too would become a target of activists who have demonstrated and even threatened violence during other programs sponsored by the group.
“It’s very common for people to say we deserve to die,” Kara Dansky, a board member of WoLF, said in a phone interview.
Actual death threats seem rare, but there are plenty of signs of an angry front opening up in the culture wars. Although religious figures and people on the right have challenged the transgender movement, the conflict with WoLF involves feminist stalwarts of the social justice left who support their fundamental rights but reject the idea that a man can truly become a woman, or vice versa.
Specifically, the ire of trans activists and their supporters has been aroused by some basic positions taken by WoLF and others, namely: 1) that a person’s sex is biologically determined and can’t be changed, even by surgery; and 2) that the pieces of legislation passed or pending in several countries and American states to extend civil rights protections to transgender people, usually called Equality Acts, are wrongheaded and harmful to women and children.
The number of liberals making those arguments publicly is still small. But it is growing. And it has already given rise to a strange reshuffling of the political deck, as some feminists of otherwise impeccable leftist credentials have formed alliances with conservative and evangelical groups that would fervently disagree with them over just about everything else – abortion and gay marriage most conspicuously. In January, the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., hosted a panel called “The Inequality of the Equality Act: Concerns From the Left,” during which several speakers from WoLF, including two lesbians, explained their point of view to a supportive Heritage audience.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/george-washingtons-birthday-and-the-battle-for-history-11581718686?mod=opinion_lead_pos7
George Washington’s birthday is celebrated on Monday, so consider this thought experiment: It is 2026 and Washington and close military advisers like Alexander Hamilton return for a 250th-anniversary ride on the eight decisive battlefields where American independence was won.
At first, they might be pleasantly surprised to see the battlefields still intact. But suppose the visiting heroes lean down from their saddles to listen to the park rangers leading tours in green-and-gray uniforms. Expecting to hear a recounting of battles that formed the republic, they instead hear stories about identity politics and climate change. Hamilton, upon returning to his only home, in New York—a site that attracts thousands of visitors annually—would be taken aback to hear, as I did on a visit, park rangers editorialize that he stashed his wife there so he could carry on with his mistress in his Wall Street home.
This casual, official reinterpretation of history has alarmed many modern historians and Americans, including those like me with relatives who served at Valley Forge. In 2016, a park ranger reportedly telling tourists at Independence Hall in Philadelphia that “the Founders knew that when they left this room, what they had written wouldn’t matter very much” resulted in news articles and calls for her resignation. Rangers, however, aren’t required to stick to any script when interpreting the Revolution. Washington and Hamilton might ride on to privately owned Mount Vernon for a more authentic experience.
Traditionally, great powers trust their military forces with protecting and interpreting the sacred battlefields of their founding fathers. After the Revolutionary War, the U.S. military protected the battlefields, conducted “staff rides” to review decisions and scenarios, and encouraged private donors such as the Ladies of Mount Vernon to restore other historical places tied to Washington.
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/science-says-there-are-only-two-genders-no-gender-spectrum/
In the increasingly brainwashed world we live in, it is incredibly refreshing when experts are willing to speak the politically incorrect truth. In Thursday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal, biologists Colin M. Wright and Emma N. Hilton provide extensive commentary on the transgender fad and the notion of gender fluidity. What does the science say? In short, it says that are only two genders: male and female.
Sadly, such an obvious conclusion can get you branded as a bigot these days
And what about the gender “spectrum” and gender being a social construct? Wright and Hilton completely destroy the basis of these concepts. “If male and female are merely arbitrary groupings, it follows that everyone, regardless of genetics or anatomy should be free to choose to identify as male or female, or to reject sex entirely in favor of a new bespoke ‘gender identity,'” they write. “To characterize this line of reasoning as having no basis in reality would be an egregious understatement. It is false at every conceivable scale of resolution.”
They explain that “In humans, reproductive anatomy is unambiguously male or female at birth more than 99.98% of the time.” Humans, just like most animals and plants, have two distinct biological sexes with the corresponding anatomy for reproduction. “No third type of sex cell exists in humans, and therefore there is no sex ‘spectrum’ or additional sexes beyond male and female. Sex is binary.”
According to Wright and Hilton, denying the “reality of biological sex” in favor of subjective “gender identity” raises “serious human-rights concerns for vulnerable groups including women, homosexuals and children.”
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