At the height of the Cold War, it was Britain that appeared to be infested with Russian spies and moles. From the 1950s to the 1980s a series of security scandals, from the defections to Moscow of the Cambridge spies Burgess, Maclean and Philby, to the exposure of the Queen’s art advisor Anthony Blunt as a Soviet mole, made Britain in the eyes of her allies the weakest link in confronting Communist Russia.
To retain journalistic credibility, getting a story right is more important than pursuing a crusade.
That’s a fair takeaway from a report published this week by the Columbia Journalism Review dissecting the so-called Russiagate saga, during which former President Donald Trump was accused of colluding with Russian officials to win the 2016 election. While pursuing the story, many journalists went well beyond their traditional role of scrutinizing powerful officials and not only openly picked a side in America’s escalating political warfare but committed to proving a literal conspiracy theory true, no matter the evidence. It didn’t go well.
Whilst social media promises us unrestricted access to an individual’s innermost thoughts and whims, the culture in which it operates is diametrically opposed to freedom of expression. Despite rare victories, such as the Elon Musk exposé of Twitter censorship (“Elon Musk reveals motivation for Twitter Files, says ‘almost every conspiracy theory’ about the social network is true”), the range of ‘acceptable speech’ is only moving in one direction: less.
Note to trans activists: no amount of cosmetic surgery turns a man into a woman.
Just when you thought the trans ideology couldn’t get any crankier, here comes the face reveal. This is when a man who’s becoming a woman, or thinks he’s becoming a woman, takes to social media to unveil his surgically ‘feminised’ face to the world. Gone is his square jaw and big nose, fleshy giveaways of maleness, and in their place is a thinner, more dinky nose and pert cheekbones. Behold my womanly visage! It’s like a woke version of PT Barnum’s museum of freaks. Barnum pulled back the curtain to reveal women with beards – the face reveal invites us to roll up, roll up and gawk at the man who turned into a lady.
A local chapter of Moms for Liberty was nice enough to invite me to give a talk at its monthly meeting. I chose for my subject the way in which the left uses Critical Race Theory and gender theory to capture and indoctrinate American children.
I’d prepared a 35-minute talk but, because the whole event ran late, ended up giving a 20-minute talk. I was immensely gratified that people seemed to like it. Therefore, when I came home, I decided to record the entire talk I’d meant to give.
When it comes to race, “Woke” is the new Nazi.
On Jan. 30, 1933, Paul von Hindenburg, the beleaguered president of Germany’s Weimar Republic, reluctantly appointed a former corporal to be chancellor of his politically chaotic nation. Ten weeks later, Adolf Hitler and his Nazis began codifying a series of anti-Semitic laws that would culminate in the Holocaust. Yet few realize that the Nazis’ anti-Semitic ideas came primarily from two intellectuals from the 19th century.
Ninety years later, that fact should provide a sober warning for Americans.
In a recent addition to the “Twitter Files,” Matt Taibbi revealed to the public how Twitter — the preferred social media platform of politicians, academics, and journalists — co-opted the algorithmic blacklist of a bipartisan neoliberal propaganda outfit known as Hamilton 68.
Hamilton 68 was a digital dashboard that, as my colleague Emily Jashinsky recently discussed, was used to perpetuate and mainstream the myth of Russian interference in American politics through algorithmic censorship and suppression.
Could this spy balloon be enough for the Trudeau government to truly be alarmed over the threats posed by the Chinese Communist Party?
From hard drugs to euthanasia, progressive schemes have proved disastrous for us Canadians
Any time you care to glimpse our dystopian future, simply look across the pond to Canada, which, under the guidance of woke Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has become the test zone for some of the world’s most perversely “progressive” social policies. Latest in this series is the effective decriminalisation of hard drug possession: perhaps coming soon to a theatre near you.
In many Canadians cities, one noticeable consequence of the pandemic has been a rise in the number of homeless people living in encampments. Now three separate court rulings in British Columbia and Ontario have upheld the right of their residents to not be removed.
There is a widespread housing affordability crisis in Canada right now for all but the wealthy. But as the situation for people at the bottom continues to worsen, much of the political response has focused on people with stable incomes and jobs who want to buy a home.
Tory came through last year and dismantled the main “Homeless camps” so give him credit.
However this new ruling means Toronto could have a worse situation on its hands than before.
Given TO is a Liberal voting city I don’t much care what happens any longer.
“It’s over,” said the late Hebrew U. antisemitism expert Robert Wistrich. “It’s a slow death.” It is actually speeding up.
“With the number of Jews plummeting from 3,000 to 600 in just a few years, the Swedish city of Malmö is the barometer of the slow demise of European Jews after the Holocaust,” wrote the late great Holocaust historian Robert Wistrich.
He continued: “It is not for nothing that former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein advised the Jewish community of Holland to emigrate to avoid harassment by young Muslim fanatics. The prospects in Belgium and Norway are no better. The verdict is on the wall, for anyone with eyes to see. The reward for Europe’s regrettable and cowardly appeasement of Islamism will, however, be short-lived. Because bowing down and willful blindness come at a high cost in the long run. Muslims will eventually take their revenge on a European society that the most fanatical among them already loathe.”
Sometimes it’s funny how coming across an article will make you smile because of a memory triggered by some aspect of it. That happened yesterday, and again today, when I came across these pieces on the chaos in the wind turbine manufacturing sector.
Wikipedia has been blocked in Pakistan for hosting “blasphemous content”.
The move was announced on Saturday after the free online encyclopaedia was given a 48-hour deadline to remove some material.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) said Wikipedia failed to comply with its ultimatum.
Thanks to the Biden administration’s weak and vacillating leadership, Iran, Russia and China have been emboldened to levels never before seen.
First, the US sanctions against Russia are completely being smoothly violated by Iran’s mullahs and China. Despite the Biden administration’s sanctions, Iran’s oil exports have reached a new peak last month.
Perhaps you’ve seen it. (He says with tongue in cheek.)
“It” would be the meltdown from Democratic “Squad” House Members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota because House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had removed Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Removed her because of her blatant and repeated anti-Semitism.
