Daily Archives: July 29, 2022

The woke Left has a talent for taking anything and everything and turning it into something by which they can be offended.

Take, for example, a recent online interaction following President Joe Bidens COVID diagnosis last week. After announcing that Biden had tested positive for the virus, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre clarified that Biden is still putting in 8-plus hours of work a day. To the average person, the most offensive part of this statement is the pretense that Biden puts in 8-plus hours of work on any typical day, whether he has COVID-19 or not. But to Yale Medical School professor Dr. Kimberly Sue, Jean-Pierres statement wasnt just unbelievable, it was racist.

In a now-deleted tweet, the professor wrote, POTUS working while having COVID infection epitomizes white supremacy urgency in the workplace. Sets a bad example for everyone that he cannot rest. COVID infection is serious, symptoms debilitating for many, and ppl should take time off without working through it.

Only in Sues warped, hyperpartisan imagination could Bidens COVID diagnosis be connected to white supremacy. But this is what the Left does: They twist and distort even benign statements like Jean-Pierres in order to make themselves out to be the victims. And its time conservatives stopped playing along.

We might learn a thing or two from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who shut down a reporter earlier this week with just two words, cutting off all future debate.

Speaking at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Florida last weekend, Gaetz made some admittedly distasteful comments about pro-abortion women. Why is it that the women with the least likelihood of getting pregnant are the ones most worried about having abortions? Nobody wants to impregnate you if you look like a thumb, he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.

Gaetz continued, These people are odious! Theyre like [5 feet, 2 inches tall], 350 pounds, and theyre like, Give me my abortion.'

No, it wasnt the most diplomatic comment for a public figure to make. Maybe Gaetz shouldnt have joked about the appearance of pro-abortion activists. But given the way the Left often characterizes Trump supporters, its not like his jokes were unprecedented or beyond the pale.

But what stood out about Gaetzs comments was his refusal to back down from them. Asked later whether he meant to suggest that women at these abortion rallies are ugly and overweight, Gaetz said yes.

What do you say to people who think those comments are offensive? the reporter asked.

Be offended, Gaetz replied.

The congressmans response shut down the conversation. Rather than apologizing for his remarks, he acknowledged them and refused to cave to political correctness. He may have been brash, but he didnt leave himself vulnerable.

The truth is that political mea culpas in general rarely end well. But apologies from conservatives, particularly for a perceived racial or gender-related slight, never end well. And thats because the Left doesnt want an admission of wrongdoing it wants complete capitulation.

Conservatives must stop bowing to the whims of the woke. We dont have to pretend men can get pregnant or that changing ones gender is courageous and something to be celebrated. We shouldn't go along with leftists' attempts to make everything about race. And we should call out and mock radical professors at Ivy League universities who think theres a link between working eight hours a day after a COVID diagnosis and white supremacy.

Gaetz showed us how its done, and wed be wise to take note. If the Left finds our remarks to be offensive, so what? They should be offended.

Elizabeth Stauffer is a contract writer at the Western Journal.Her articles have appeared on many conservative websites, including RedState, Newsmax, theFederalist,Bongino.com, HotAir, MSN, andRealClearPolitics. Follow Elizabeth onTwitter orLinkedIn.

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'Be offended': How to shut down the woke mob with two words - Washington Examiner

Youve probably noticed that Mr. Men and Little Miss characters are everywhere right now, as part of a viral trend thats taking over Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. Heres the reason why.

Far from the simple and cute characters of the original books, these 2022 reboots are being used to highlight darker, more toxic sides of peoples personalities and attitudes although always with humour.

On social networks, trauma has become one of the driving forces of online humor. Making fun of ones own toxic traits or about difficult situations from the past is an endless source of content for users of these platforms, especially when it comes to making memes. And all of this is reflected in a new viral social media trend involving the Mr. Men and Little Miss books and characters.

[Hero and featured image credit: @littlem1ssss/Instagram]

The Mr. Men and Little Miss series of books were launched in 1971 and 1981 respectively by the British author Roger Hargreaves, and were all themed on particular character traits, such as Mr. Nosy, Little Miss Brave, etc. But they were always politically correct traits. If the books have been a hit for decades, the trend for all things eighties riding high on social networks has helped turn them into a viral hit, 2022-style.

This time, the Mr. Men and Little Miss characters have veered away from political correctness. From toxic traits and insecurities to illness and emotional trauma, users have seized on this meme to share intimate aspects of their own lives and poke fun at their situation: Little Miss cries herself to sleep every night, Little Miss house is a mess because shes depressed, Little Miss stressed and sad thinking about her future every night. This kind of behaviour is often seen on social networks, where people can speak more freely and where showing oneself in a more authentic light complete with flaws is becoming increasingly common. And it works! On Twitter, some posts have scored over 60,000 Likes.

The origin of the first such meme is credited to @juulpuppy, who posted a first version of Little Miss Borderline Personality Disorder on April 19 on Instagram, but the trend only went viral in mid-July. This account is well known for creating original memes on the Meta-owned platform. On Instagram, the hashtags #LittleMissMemes and #LittleMiss have over 5,000 and over 404,000 posts respectively, while on TikTok, the hashtags #LittleMiss and #LittleMissTrend score 103.3 million views and 1.6 million views.

Since then, brands like Poosh, Kourtney Kardashians lifestyle site, have even posted their own takes on the Little Miss trend on Instagram. Then, the brand Sandro launched its Sandro x Mr Men Little Miss collection.

The trend has become such that TikTok now even has a filter allowing users to discover which Little Miss Rave Girl they are. Almost 5,000 videos have already been posted with this filter. Meanwhile, the user @littlem1ssss has launched a Twitter account and an Instagram account to collect and create new memes on this theme. More than 96,000 users follow the Twitter account and more than 24,000 follow on Instagram.

And, by happy coincidence, July 26 sees the movie Little Miss Sunshine celebrate the 16th anniversary since its US release, benefitting from a well-timed boost on social networks.

This article is published via AFP Relaxnews.

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Why are Mr. Men and Little Miss memes all over social media right now? - Lifestyle Asia Bangkok

As we fight to tackle the climate crisis and the inequality crisis, we should be campaigning side by side with socialistssays Adam Bandt, the poster boy for all things Woke down under.

The Liberal Party must fight the latest Australian infection of the Western ideological virus misleadingly termed the Culture Wars but is more accurately described as an assault on the values of Western civilisation by the deep green progressive Left.

With the Greens keen to wage a Culture War, the Liberal Party simply cannot afford to ignore it. Many Australians may not personally be interested in the Culture War, but the Culture Warriors of the Intersectional Left are very much interested in them (as well as the books they read, the television shows they watch, the food they eat, the video games they play, and the curriculum which is taught to their children).

The Liberal Party should start rearming itself along classical liberal lines to fight the war on three fronts: Immigration, national guilt, and political correctness in schools all of which are core business of the Woke Intersectional Left Internationale.

In this war, the Liberal Party must avoid the kind of tactics which define American politics, where the influential US Christian Right denies evolutionary biology, was complicit in the Iraq debacle, and its right to liferdom that undermines female autonomy and pushes women toward the Left. Thankfully, such an agenda has no substantial support in Australia.

Nevertheless, something must be brought to bear against the cultish doctrines of the Woke Intersectional Left. What we need is a return to classical liberal values.

Immigration and refugee policy in Australia is typically framed in extreme terms: 100 per cent pro-open borders, or complete bans on immigration (often highlighting particular races and religions).

From a classically liberal perspective, the critical issue for migration is ensuring that potential new Australians share a love of civil liberties and established freedoms while having a set of beliefs compatible with Australias existing culture. This is the difference between accepting migrants from diverse cultures while excluding those who harbour extreme or radicalised views on politics, religion, and other social issues at odds with society. Liberals have a no tolerance policy for troublemakers and radicalised violence, while the Left fail to distinguish dangerous behaviours in prospective arrivals.

In theory, the Left should agree with Liberals on this point, given they would no doubt raise an objection if the ruling party began importing new migrants from an overwhelmingly hard-line Christian-right region whose influx would endanger progressive activism, such as the overturning of same-sex marriage. Yet, due to the Lefts fixation on intersectional victim politics, it is considered racist to worry about fundamentalist behaviour even if it contradicts directly with progressive ideology. Some call this, competing victimhood identities where one category in Woke supersedes the needs of another.

This brings us to the second issue the Liberals must address: national guilt. In the words of the poet Justin Bieber: Is it too late now to say sorry?

Australia is a country of immigrants and, of course, its original inhabitants. This messy melting pot is what made this country great. The illiberal response to this natural evolution of ethnicities is that we should feel guilty about creating a multicultural and prosperous first-world country. Guilty because of British colonialism (they forget and dont ever consider what it would be like under the Dutch or the French God forbid the Chinese or Belgium conquest).

Instead of celebrating what has been achieved, our institutions focus on Indigenous victimhood. Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the Senator for the Northern Territory and the former deputy mayor of Alice Springs, has pointed this out numerous times and suffered for it. Indigenous communities need groundwork, not symbolic gestures. National guilt is a self-indulgent farce that has created a profitable activist industry and very little else. The Liberals must address this.

How? It must begin with education. Liberal-led education can have no place for Woke, Intersectional Social Justice, or Marxist-derived national guilt ideology. Its most toxic variation, Critical Race Theory, is a manifestation profoundly culturally and politically divisive. Its aim is to turn innocent children into victors and oppressors based on skin colour. The Liberal Party needs to reject CRT (or any pedagogy derived from it), and for two core reasons: firstly, it is unscientific, and secondly, because it is profoundly illiberal not only in its divisive conclusions but in its racist premises.

Let us be clear it is a matter of historical record that atrocities did occur during the colonial period. These are parts of Australian history and should be taught denial of reality is setting oneself up for failure. But Critical Race Theory is, as the name suggests, atheorynot historical fact. As the liberal philosopher Karl Popper showed a scientific theory is necessarily falsifiable. CRT is not only unfalsifiable; it rejects demands for data or evidence. It dismisses science itself as a manifestation of white male hegemony. Liberalism demands individual freedom, but CRT brings even the existence of the individual into doubt.

It is impossible for a major political party to not have a position on CRT and its woke aficionados. We now have a Labor government in bed with deep Green wokery. The Liberals must make their stand to safeguard the future of Western Civilisation by making sure there is an acceptance of secular civic values, a rejection of national original sin also known as collective guilt, and to bring an end to totalitarian-like ideology in the education system that is pushing us toward an era dominated by social pseudoscience.

Article co-authored by Lana Starkey PhD candidate in seventeenth-century literature at the University of Queensland and a freelance writer and Dr. Andrew Russell.

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Wokus Pocus and the Culture War - The Spectator Australia

In a move that surprised political watchers, Liberal leader Peter Dutton says the school curriculum and education reform will be some of his key priorities in opposition.

Despite the Morrison government signing off on the latest version of the curriculum just before the election, Dutton argues a broader discussion is needed.

As he told The Australian earlier this month, there is a lot of non-core curriculum that is being driven by unions and by other activists that parents are concerned about.

NSW Liberal senator Hollie Hughes has also blamed her partys election loss on Marxist teachers filling students heads with left-wing rubbish.

This may seem like an strange issue to prioritise after an election loss, with issues like climate change and cost-of-living front of mind for many voters. But there is a long tradition of curriculum wars in Australia, going back decades.

Parents concerned about this debate and what their kids may be picking up in the classroom should also understand this history.

Duttons attempt to reignite the culture wars harks back to former Prime Minister John Howard, who railed against a black armband view of history, political correctness and the divisive, phoney debate about national identity. Howard argued:

The time has also come for root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history in our schools [] it has succumbed to a postmodern culture of relativism where any objective record of achievement is questioned or repudiated.

Following suit, as opposition leader in 2013, Tony Abbott claimed the national curriculum had become politicised by left-wing teachers with history underselling the contributions and heritage of Western civilisation. He said there was a

Lack of references to our heritage, other than an Indigenous heritage, too great a focus on issues which are the predominant concern of one side of politics.

Once in government, Abbott ordered a review of the national curriculum in 2014, claiming that schools needed to go back to the basics.

Abbotts handpicked reviewers argued for greater emphasis on Western literature and Judeo-Christian heritage. The revised curriculum (version 8.0) was released in 2015 and has been in place until recently.

Australias curriculum wars can also be linked to education debates in the United States.

For example, critical race theory has become a key battleground for conservative culture wars against public schooling, teacher autonomy and curriculum. These debates are designed to create moral panic for parents, who worry that they send their kids to school to learn the facts, but are instead indoctrinated by cultural Marxists dressed as teachers.

The rise of homeschooling and school choice in Australia and the US are driven in large part by concerns about curriculum.

It is important for parents to know that the curriculum what gets taught in our schools is not developed by unions nor activists.

While teachers have a say in how their lessons are taught, the curriculum is developed and monitored by state and territory education authorities.

Read more: The Senate has voted to reject critical race theory from the national curriculum. What is it, and why does it matter?

Following their 2007 election, Labor promised an education revolution. This was the start of greater involvement by the federal government in curriculum development and assessment.

The newly created Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority released the first version of the Australian curriculum in 2010. This is the body that is also responsible for implementing the MySchool website and the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests.

Government schools are required to follow state and territory mandated curriculum guidelines, while Catholic, independent and other non-government schools have more curriculum flexibility. This includes offering alternative curriculum options such as Steiner, Montessori or International Baccalaureate programs.

The latest review of the curriculum (version 9.0) was undertaken with the aim to refine, realign and declutter the curriculum content within its existing structure.

There was an extensive consultation period during 20202021, with more than 6,000 surveys, 900 emails and 360 teachers and curriculum specialists involved in the review.

Even so, acting education minister Stuart Robert wrote to the chair of the Australian curriculum authority in February requesting extra changes to portray a more balanced view of Australian history. He specifically wanted to ensure

that key aspects of Australian history, namely 17501914 and Australias post World War II migrant history, are appropriately prioritised.

Following this, 55% of history curriculum content between Years 7 and 10 was removed.

Version 9.0 of the Australian Curriculum was then endorsed by federal and state education ministers in April, shortly before the federal election was called.

New education minister Jason Clare has been quick to dismiss Duttons attempts to fire up the curriculum wars, telling The Sydney Morning Herald, Im not interested in picking fights.

So, as the updated curriculum begins to roll out across Australian schools from 2023, it will be interesting to see how much momentum Dutton generates.

Granted, a proposed move to continuous curriculum updates instead of every five or six years will potentially make it easier to politically interfere with the curriculum.

But it is important to remember that education authorities determine the curriculum not unions, not activists and ideally not the minister of the day.

Read more: Australia is only one front in the history curriculum wars

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Why is Peter Dutton trying to start another political fight over the school curriculum? - The Conversation Indonesia

Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke yesterday at a conference of conservative college students in Washington, D.C., two blocks from the White House. And he got this question from a student named Andrew.

My question is, President Trump and yourself are both speaking this week in D.C., and there seems to be a divide between the two of you on your outlook on what the future of the conservative movement might be, Andrew asked. So do you think that this divide extends to the rest of the conservative movement, like the general public, and what do you think we can do to alleviate it?

Pence began his answer by saying that he couldnt be more proud of the accomplishments of the Trump-Pence administration.

To promote a growing economy, to secure our border, Pence said. We appointed more than 300 conservatives to our federal courts at every level, including three Supreme Court justices. And Ill always be grateful for the opportunity to serve as Vice President. So I dont know that our movement is that divided.

But if the conservative movement is not that divided, why did he and Trump support different candidates in the primary for Georgia governor last May, and now the Arizona governors primary? Heres how he explained that.

I dont know that the President and I differ on issues, but we may differ on focus, Pence said. I truly do believe that elections are about the future, and that is absolutely essential at a time when so many Americans are hurting that we dont give way to the temptation to look back. But I think the time has come for us to offer a bold, positive agenda to bring America back. And Ill continue to carry that message all across this nation.

He even had a little smile on his face as he spoke.

Ross: The long time refusal to recognize right wing extremism led to Jan. 6

Now, Democrats might dismiss that answer as totally evasive or simply the conservative version of political correctness, but what I kept thinking was, heres a rare example of magnanimity.

Heres a man who came close to witnessing a shootout between his secret service detail and an avenging mob mobilized by his former boss now saying the main difference between them is focus. He even calls Trump president.

So since I was talking the other day about Christian nationalism and the hypocrisy of some of the politicians who are selling it, its only fair to point out that what I saw in Mike Pence was the very embodiment of turning the other cheek.

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Ross: Pence turns the other cheek when asked about Trump and the future of the GOP - MyNorthwest

Commentary

The vote is all an American conservative has got. Thats the painful reality that faces anyone resistant to the woke revolution that has overcome nearly all major institutions in American life.

The facts are simple. Liberals control the schools and universities. They control Hollywood and Silicon Valley, most of the media and publishers, the art world and culture sphere (museums, libraries, etc.), and most government civil service posts. Theyve even captured human resources in corporate America, while the NGOs they run outnumber those run by conservatives by a long sight. The only broad-based exertion of control left to conservatives is the ballot booth.

It sounds depressing, and many conservative intellectuals hate the idea. They write op-eds and magazine articles, push hard truths and debate policy. They assemble conferences and panels, issue newsletters and host podcasts, all in the service of spreading conservative belief and discrediting progressive belief. Its noble work, and it should continue.

But in an Age of Woke, debate is no more. The woke temper assumes that intolerance is a virtue and pluralism a weakness. Look at the faces of woke protesters and you see a fiery, punitive, absolute, and illiberal personality in action. The left went on an all-out and open wartime footing in November 2016 (theyd been on a guerilla footing before that), and they recruited, intimidated, guilt-tripped, and bullied moderate liberals of the old Bill Clinton-Democrat profile into becoming compliant followers and functionaries of the movement. The actual numbers of hard wokesters may have been small, but they got liberals to join marches, sign petitions, and applaud and support the four-year effort to Resist! to the point that it looked like a majority of Americans hated Trump and Trumpsters with a passion.

The tactics werent subtle or brilliant, just effective. While conservative thinkers and intellectuals out-argued The View and the professors over and over, Stacey Abrams ran circles around Georgia Republicans, and Soros-backed leftists took office under the radar and did shocking things. Right-wing minds beat them at the ideas game, while left-wing operatives grabbed political posts. Which side would triumph?

Margaret Thatcher spoke of how important it was to win the debate, but that was another time. Having secured the schools and the media and the entertainment industry decades ago, leftists managed to produce a population of young Americans, Millennials, and older Gen-Zers with hardened beliefs and easily offended temperaments. The kids heard leftist opinion so firmly and repeatedly over their adolescence and early-20s, in classrooms and on TV, that they identified it with Truth. That makes non-progressive opinion into automatic falsehood, and evil, too. We now have two generations that perceive the other side as demonic, and why should demons get a place at the table, a voice in the discussion?

Millennials don wanna hear it and don wanna talk about it. The old way of hearing multiple opinions and letting the people decide doesnt impress them. A clever libertarian kid in college, natty and bow-tied with Ayn Rand in hand, who points out their ignorance and inconsistency doesnt shake their faith one bit. He just annoys themget him out. The columnist who highlights the hypocrisy and ingratitude of The Squad has accomplished nothing. They dont care. The marketplace of ideas is closed; the forensic climate has ended; the battle is all political.

Its a political battle that is personal, a simple matter summed up in a curt question: Who rules? In other words, everything depends on the vote. Leftists understand that. Mark Zuckerberg knew it well in Summer 2020. The Jan. 6 committee members understand it, too. Their deliberations are aimed at November 2022 and 2024, not January 2021. And the point for the left is not to win the upcoming elections. They want to win every election, and they believe that they should win every election. No modesty on their part, no expectation that sometimes you lose, and sometimes you deserve to lose. They have the conviction of the righteous, the certitude of the fit, while the other side is unfit, forever so.

Ive seen them at work. They possess a ruthlessness that conservatives dont. Prudence is a conservative trait, not a progressive one. Progressives think big; they dare to dream. They envision a Green New Deal thats downright fantastical, and the very un-realism of it thrills them. A conservative or two in the room rains on their parade, a sole dissent killing the enthusiasm. Only unanimous endorsement will satisfy our progressive dreamer.

Thats why its not enough for progressives to outnumber conservatives within an academic department, a business unit, or a government office. The bare presence of a single right-wing voice irks them. They ask, Why do such people still exist when we have History and Justice on our side? They must be removed, all of them, not a single conservative rogue or gadfly or outsider allowed.They dont see it as a political process, certainly not a democratic one. It appears more as a cleansing operation, a purification. Get those malodorous characters out of here.

Now that more and more institutions have been sterilized in this way, nothing remains for the exiles but the vote, as I said. The left abhors Donald Trump for this very reason. He didnt open up any of the institutions to conservative representation, didnt make them return to the pluralism of the past. Hollywood didnt recognize Trumps popularity and set about producing Trumpist movies and shows. Academia didnt create centers and hire teachers with a non-progressive outlook. On the contrary, political correctness in those spaces got worse.

But he did win the vote and move to the White House. It surprised and shocked the liberal/left elite, proving to them that dominance of media, education, and government doesnt ensure an obedient populace. Hence the ballot harvesting, mail-in voting, multiplying drop boxes, and partisan get-out-the-vote efforts passing themselves off as neutral. The left is tireless and vigilant on this. If Republicans do not understand that the vote is Issue #1, that election fairness must be a core concern of every campaign, they will find themselves outfoxed every two years, and roughly half of the American electorate will become ever more despondent, suspicious, and disaffected.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Mark Bauerlein is an emeritus professor of English at Emory University. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Washington Post, the TLS, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

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This Is It - The Epoch Times

With Any Given Tuesday, Lis Smith delivers 300 pages of smack, snark and vulnerability. A veteran Democratic campaign hand, she shares up-close takes of those who appear in the news and dishes autobiographical vignettes. The book, her first, is a political memoir and coming-of-age tale. It is breezy and informative.

For two decades, Smith worked in the trenches. She witnessed plenty and bears the resulting scars. Most recently, she was a senior media adviser to Pete Buttigieg, now transportation secretary in the Biden administration, and counseled Andrew Cuomo, now a disgraced ex-governor of New York.

According to Smith, Buttigieg made politics ennobling and fun. More important, he offered a road to redemption.

He saw me for who I actually was and, for the first time in my adult life, I did too, Smith writes. According to exit polls in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Buttigieg brought meaning to middle-aged white college graduates. These days, he is seen by Democrats as a possible alternative to Joe Biden in 2024.

Smith dated Eliot Spitzer, another governor of New York who fell from grace.

We were like a lit match and dynamite, she writes. Smith also gushes about Spitzers deep set, cerulean blue eyes, the most gorgeous such pair she had ever seen. A 24-year age gap provided additional fuel but Spitzer, once known as the Sheriff of Wall Street, spent less than 15 months in office. His administration ended abruptly in 2009, over his trysts with prostitutes.

Smith can be blunt and brutal. She savages Cuomo and flattens Bill de Blasio, the former mayor of New York City, like a pancake.

Smith recounts in detail Cuomos mishandling of Covid, the allegations of sexual harassment and his obfuscation. He died as he lived, she writes, damningly, with zero regard for the people around him and the impact his actions would have on them.

As for De Blasio: This guy cant handle a 9/11. He also came up short, we are told, in the personal hygiene department: a gross unshowered guy. De Blasio retracted an employment offer to Smith, after her relationship with Spitzer became tabloid fodder. He also coveted an endorsement from Spitzer that never materialized.

Both of us had tried to get in bed with Eliot but only one of us had been successful, Smith brags.

On Tuesday, De Blasio dropped out of a congressional primary after gaining a bare 3% support in a recent poll.

Smith is very much a New Yorker. She grew up in a leafy Westchester suburb, north of the city. Her parents were loving and politically conscious. Her father led a major white-shoe law firm. He introduced his daughter to football and the star-crossed New York Jets.

Smith went to Dartmouth. Not surprisingly, her politics are establishment liberal. She worked on campaigns for Jon Corzine, for New Jersey governor; Terry McAuliffe, for governor of Virginia; and Claire McCaskill, for senator in Missouri. In 2012 she earned a credit from Barack Obamas re-election campaign.

Smith has kind words for McAuliffe and McCaskill but portrays Corzine, a former Goldman Sachs chief executive, as aloof, never warming to the reality that elections are about retail politics and people. Despite this, Smith omits mention of the markets-moving failure of MF Global, a Corzine-run commodities brokerage that left a wake of ruin.

I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date, Corzine testified before a congressional committee. I do not know which accounts are unreconciled or whether the unreconciled accounts were or were not subject to the segregation rules.

Corzine holds an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Smith is candid about the corrosive effects of the Democrats lurch left.

If someone doesnt support every policy on their progressive wish list theyre branded an enemy or a Republican in disguise. If these ideological purists think a West Virginia Democrat is bad, wait till they get a load of the Republican alternative.

But Smith also falls victim to ideological myopia. Discussing the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and its considerable political consequences, she appears to solely blame the Ferguson police for the death of the African American teen, who she says was shot to death in broad daylight. Like Hillary Clinton, Smith neglects to mention that police fired after Brown lunged for an officers gun. She also does not mention that Brown tussled with a convenience store owner before his confrontation with the law.

Inadvertently, Smith highlights the volatility of the Democrats multicultural, upstairs-downstairs coalition. Worship at the twin altars of identity politics and political correctness exacts a steep price in votes and can negatively impact human life. See New York Citys current crime wave for proof.

Smith reserves some of her sharpest digs for Roger Stone, convicted and then-pardoned confidante of Donald Trump, pen-pal of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. She calls him a stone-cold sociopath. But she skates over animus that existed between Stone and Spitzer, her ex. In 2007, Stone allegedly left a threatening telephone message for Spitzers father, a real estate magnate. Months later, Stone told the FBI Spitzer used the service of high-priced call girls while staying in Florida.

In the end, Smith is an idealist.

I believe in the power of politics to improve peoples lives, she writes. I still believe there is hope for the future.

Continued here:

Any Given Tuesday: Lis Smith on Cuomo, Spitzer and a political life - The Guardian

Evangelicals are the New Zealots, and that spells danger for democracy and for the planet.

The danger lies in the fantastical world created by evangelicals. The danger becomes personal in the symbol of guns and precarious in their climate denial. They are Zealots in the truest sense because they are on a suicide mission marching us all to a new Masada.

Evangelicals in America have spent more than a century at war with secular America. With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, evangelicals long frustrated, alienated, angry and belligerent believe they are on the cusp of total victory. With the fervor of the ancient Zealots of Jerusalem in the first century A.D., evangelicals have gathered the Christian army for what they hope will be their final victory. Failure to see evangelicals as Zealot warriors reflects misunderstanding the lengths to which they will go to win.

At first, I thought the Zealots were the best possible metaphor for evangelicals, but metaphor doesnt do justice to this group. Evangelicals are the New Zealots.

The original Zealot movement took root in Jerusalem in the first century. What would it have been liketo grow up in a Zealot family in Jerusalem in 55 A.D.? Home would have been an incendiary mixture of Jewish patriotism and sheer hatred of the Romans. There would have been a fiery zeal for acts of violence. Were they the Proud Boys of Jerusalem? The Patriot Front?

TheZealotswere apolitical movementin first centuryJudaismthat sought to incite the people ofJudea to rebel against theRoman Empireand expel it from theHoly Landby force of arms.The Zealots, captured by a holy zeal rooted in the fantastical notion that a minority religious/political group in Palestine could defeat the Roman legions, incited the Roman army to invade Palestine in A.D. 66.

After Rome reduced Jerusalem to rubble and the Temple to ash, the Zealots retreated to the mountain fortress of Masada to make a last stand, which ended in mass suicide to avoid being captured by the Romans.

The image sticks: People fomenting insurrection, communicating violence and using emotions to spur people to rebellion against an unbeatable foe. A capital city reduced to dust and ashes. A people destroyed by religious zeal the desire to control everything. The metaphor cries out, signaling Jan. 6, 2021, was only the beginning for the New Zealots.

Here we encounter the New Zealot party a combination of passionate religion and right-wing politics first predicting, then promoting, apocalyptic violence. Evangelicals have raged against the liberal hordes, the supposed demonic enemies of the American way of life, for more than a century.

Something has gone terribly wrong among this once deeply committed tribe of people. They have turned from bearing witness to waging war.

Something has gone terribly wrong among this once deeply committed tribe of people. They have turned from bearing witness to waging war. They have changed the truth-speaking boldness of the gospel into the conspiracy-theory-laced alternative truth of secular politics. The New Zealots churn out religious emotion like Fox News spins out political emotion 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Conservative evangelicals always have inhabited a fantastical world different from the world occupied by the rest of humanity. In this fantastical land, a charismatic, powerful preacher with no theological education will be granted more authority on global warming, COVID, immigration and abortion than a room full of Ph.D.s, scientists, historians and philosophers.

This notion of the fantastic originated in my fascination with the genre of fantasy in cinema and television. Prime-time fantasy violent movies garner huge ratings because they encourage identification with violent antiheroes. As I watched Season 1 of The Old Man, I gasped at the protagonists proficiency in killing people. Yet I found myself pulling for the ex-CIA killing machine, played by Jeff Bridges.

Similarly, but in the real world, New Zealots support violent antiheroes in order to win at any cost. The only principle that matters is might makes right. Evangelicals have morphed into an army of Platos Callicles the definition of pure evil masquerading as a good person.

New Zealots support violent antiheroes in order to win at any cost. The only principle that matters is might makes right.

When we encounter an extraordinary event, in the moment we cannot decide whether we are hallucinating or witnessing a miracle, we participate in the fantastic. The fantastic allows a Trump supporter to watch the Jan. 6 investigation hearings and conclude this is a witch hunt.

In fantasy, truth has no role to play. Beliefs about truth and reality are arbitrary. The fantastical world of conservative evangelicals is an imaginary world they believe they once inhabited, and they believe it is being taken away from them. In their fantastical world, they war against fellow Christians who accept abortion, gay rights, feminism and climate change.

Evangelicals have produced a fantastical world for so long, they no longer recognize fact from fantasy. They believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump and conspiracy theories promoted by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green. Not since the cinematic pair Thelma and Louise have two women created as much chaos as Green and Rep. Lauren Boebert.

The fantastical claims of evangelicals about the Bible mix seamlessly with the fantastical claims of right-wing politics. Disneyworld is an example of a fantastical world. In American politics, the place the New Zealots go to have their dreams fulfilled is the Supreme Court. The court has become fantasy land Disneyworld for the New Zealots. Main characters in Disneyworld: Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and Mary Poppins. Main characters in the fantastical world that dominates the Supreme Court: John, Clarence, Samuel, Neil, Brett and Amy.

In its recent term, the Supreme Court, demolished portions of the wall of separation between church and state, declared abortion illegal on the federal level, rolled back Native American rights in Oklahoma and restricted the right of the EPA to reduce the carbon output of existing power plants.

The most dangerous issue facing the future of the planet has been decided in fantasy land.

Along with the court already ruling to destroy parts of the Voting Rights Act, it sided with a part of America that is as white as tennis outfits at Wimbledon. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the courts conservatives, admitted the transition away from coal to reduce carbon output may be a sensible solution to the crisis of the day. This didnt stop him from joining the 6-3 vote to do just that. The most dangerous issue facing the future of the planet has been decided in fantasy land.

Rhetorical scholars suggest holding common fantasies transforms collections of individuals into cohesive groups. Through symbolic convergence theory, individuals can build a group consciousness that grows stronger as they share a cluster of fantasy themes.

For New Zealots, the cluster of fantasy themes includes precarious white male existence, exhibited as melancholy and victimization; notions of freedom based on libertarianism; commitment to gun culture; climate-change denial; history denial, including attacks on wokeness, political correctness and Critical Race Theory; and an insistence America was founded as a Christian nation. These issues bounce around our culture like pinballs, creating noise and flashing lights, but no substance.

The unifying trope of this cluster: Fantasy.

In the process of creating this fantastic world, an ethos ultimately overshadowed and conquered its creators. I believe it because it is unbelievable the church father Tertullian allegedly said. When a version of the Christian faith that depends upon believing 12 or more unbelievable ideas before breakfast dominates our politics, we live in a fantasy world. The same people who brought us a literal Bible, a real Adam and Eve, an actual flood, rocks that float, a sun made to stand still by the word of a prophet, and a preacher swallowed by a large fish and then spat out now bring their fantastical, nave, enchanted world to politics.

In the fantasy world of the New Zealots, the fictional becomes real, truth becomes fake, facts become irrelevant. Fantasy land proffers a different set of truths: The 2020 election was stolen. Black Lives Matter is a socialist terrorist group. Democrats are devils and mortal enemies.

Americans susceptible to the fantastical are not looking for an evangelist to tell them they are sinners responsible for our current state, but for a preacher who will paint pictures of supernatural, horrible enemies. The New Zealots world is dark; things are not always what they seem to be, and evil forces work behind a veil of secrecy.

The New Zealots world is dark; things are not always what they seem to be, and evil forces work behind a veil of secrecy.

Whispers from the camp of the New Zealots have grown into a crescendo of angry shouts: How can we account for our present situation unless we believe men high in this government are concerting to deliver us to disaster? And This must be the product of a great conspiracy, a conspiracy on a scale so immense as to dwarf any previous such venture in the history of man. A conspiracy of infamy so black that, when it is finally exposed, its principals shall be forever deserving of the maledictions of all honest men.

Reflecting hyperbolic tendencies of the fantastic, New Zealots conspiracies acquire superhuman, supernatural proportions. They would have us believe American historians have not told us the truth about our nations past. In place of history, they recite a revisionist version of a white, Christian and godly America. They would have us believe science is a vast conspiracy designed to destroy faith, starting with evolution and continuing with requirements to be vaccinated and wear masks for COVID.

Like a church full of Joe McCarthys, the New Zealots live in a fantastical world populated by evil geniuses and sinister cabalists in unholy alliance. Their foes parade as journalists, honored generals, secretaries of state and presidents, all meeting in richly paneled but outwardly innocent-looking barns. They pore over secret documents, engaged in secret plots involving spies, espionage and infiltration, ultimately bent on destroying Christian civilization. Scenes from Spider Man and Thor would be a match for the fantastical world of the New Zealots.

This world turns out to be a response to fear. Only when we recognize the fantastic as a form of spiritual impoverishment can we evaluate what the New Zealots have wrought. They are false prophets. In an age increasingly suspicious of the bases of belief, they provide sustained doubt. The fantastic offers the sound and fury of political activity while, in fact, signifying nothing.

Only when we recognize the fantastic as a form of spiritual impoverishment can we evaluate what the New Zealots have wrought.

The fantastical seems to act as human compensation for a failure of the transcendent. The evangelical insistence on a literal reading of the Bible falls under the same category of being unable to accept other ways of reading and being in the world. Fantasy and literalism are imagined principles attempting to make up for loss of faith.

Now, the fantastical world of evangelicals has invaded national politics. This is no longer about Eve and dinosaurs; this is about the survival of democracy. Now, the politics of the nation come layered with multiple fantasies constructed around nativist, heteronormative, sexist, ablest, racist, classist power dynamics.

The fantastical world has given us dangerous political fantasies that depict white males as victims, history as misguided, science as fake and climate change as a hoax. This fantastical world should seem bizarre. But to New Zealots, it now sounds like common sense, even as it threatens to block actions that would prevent existential threats to our survival as a species.

The New Zealots are just getting started, and they have no concern for how many millions of people they will put in harms way. Their lack of empathy for humanity and overwhelming zeal for ultra-conservative values endangers us all.

Their lack of empathy for humanity and overwhelming zeal for ultra-conservative values endangers us all.

After all, Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and the Creation Museum, cavalierly insisted that God drowned close to 4 billion people. Pastor Robert Jeffress believes that after the rapture, billions of people who refuse to accept Jesus as Savior will be destroyed.

The expansion of authoritarian rule, supported in America by evangelicals, has had negative effects on human life and security. Even more alarming than the threat to democracy is thethreat to human life.

Pushing gun control and climate denial, the New Zealots lurch toward an apocalypse of their own making, but there will be no Jesus at the end to save them with a rapture. There will be only the mass suicide of the planet. Zealots indeed!

Rodney W. Kennedy serves as interim pastor of Emmanuel Freiden Federated Church in Schenectady, N.Y. He is the author of nine books, including the newly releasedThe Immaculate Mistake,about how evangelical Christians gave birth to Donald Trump.

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The fantastical world of the New (evangelical) Zealots - Baptist News Global

By Vic Medina| Published 3 days ago

Feel free to put this in the why hasnt this happened already category: Star Trek fans are petitioning to have actor/director Seth MacFarlane take over the franchise. In a petition posted on Change.org, fans of the iconic sci-fi franchise want the Family Guy creator to take the creative helm for the Star Trek universe, which they say has lost its way under the leadership of Alex Kurtzman. In the petition, fans argue that Kurtzman has little respect for the brand Gene Roddenberry created well over 50 years ago, and want MacFarlane, a devoted, life-long fan of Star Trek, to correct the franchises current course.

The current turmoil among Star Trek fandom is based mostly in the decision by CBS to use Star Trek as its signature brand to build up the Paramount+ streaming service. In addition to the classic Star Trek shows and films available on the platform, CBS has created four more series, Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds, exclusively for the service. Those series are below the standards of Star Trek that Gene Roddenberry created, many fans say, who point to The Orville, the Seth McFarlane sci-fi series on Hulu, as a show that truly captures the spirit of what the current Star Trek should be.

Alex Kurtzman has little respect for the wealth of information and progress that the Star Trek universe has built up over more than 50 years, the petition argues. They take issue with the darker, grittier direction of the franchise, different from the brighter, optimistic direction Roddenberry created. The petition also states that, with Seth MacFarlane in charge, Star Trek will be able to achieve its full potential, realize Gene Roddenberrys vision, and add to its already robust fan base. The petition was started months ago by John Johnson of Mesa, Arizona, who claims that he is just a Trekker who wants the best for the franchise. Like so many petitions on Change, however, it didnt get much attention. That changed after this past weekends San Diego Comic Con, where fans felt underwhelmed by the announcements at the Star Trek panel, which included announcements for yet two more Star Trek shows for Paramount+. Kurtzman was vague about details on those shows, only suggesting that they will likely have female leads. The petition was noticed by some fans, and began to gain traction.

Therein lies the point of contention between Star Trek fans and Kurtzman himself, who fans say approaches creating new Trek content by filling multicultural checkboxes, with an eye on political correctness, rather than crafting a great premise and compelling stories, which are then brought to life with a cast reflective of our times. Seth MacFarlane on the other hand is a lifelong Trekker who has shown that he can create a compelling story, that respectfully and meaningfully looks at some of the problems ailing our modern world, the petition states. While the term woke is often overused and misapplied, it has been used by most disaffected Star Trek fans as the best description for the flawed approach Kurtzman and CBS seem to be taking with the franchise.

CBS, and Kurtzman himself, seem to realize things arent going well, as they have attempted to make come corrections by embracing the past. After two seasons of Picard that have been largely underwhelming (it scores a mere 40% from the audience on Rotten Tomatoes), Kurtzman announced that the third and final season would finally reunite the original crew of the Enterprise for a final adventure. There was also a heavy hint that the Lower Decks series would crossover to Deep Space Nine, providing the opportunity for that series actors to return to the franchise to voice their characters. Lower Decks, an animated comedy set on the starship Cerritos, has been criticized by fans as a Family Guy ripoff, and more proof that Seth MacFarlane would bring a more faithful and respectful approach to new Star Trek content. His work on The Orville is a testament to his creative genius and respect for fans, the petition states.

Bringing in a high-profile creator isnt always the answer to reviving a wayward franchise. JJ Abrams is proof of that: his handling of the Star Trek franchise, beginning with the 2009 movie reboot, only angered fans who felt it abandoned the best aspects of Roddenberry Trek for a Star Wars-like approach. In all fairness, Abrams was handicapped by the limitations of not having the rights to classic Star Trek concepts and designs available to him. Its a complicated matter, best described here if you are unfamiliar with what happened. Rumors of Quentin Tarantino taking over the Star Trek franchise never materialized, although the Oscar-winner admits he has developed an idea for an R-rated adventure. Seth MacFarlane may not be the answer Star Trek fans are hoping for, but based on his loving homage to Star Trek seen in The Orville, it is a risk fans are willing to boldly take.

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Fans Want Seth MacFarlane To Take Over Star Trek, Here's The Petition - Giant Freakin Robot

Matt Damon thought it was all very clear three or four months ago. For the actor from Massachusetts, the world was divided into cryptocurrency users and crypto-skeptics. The former were bold people ready to follow the tides of progress. The latter were stubborn losers, ignorant plebes, poor devils who couldnt recognize a promising investment opportunity if it danced naked on their lap.

That, at least, was the message behind Fortune Favors the Brave, this springs marketing campaign for the digital investment platform Crypto.com, starring Matt Damon.

The strategists behind the ad campaign spared no expense. It launched with a Super Bowl commercial. Today, the minute-long clip is laughable: the Mars (2015) protagonist compares cryptocurrency investors with space travel pioneers like Galileo and Neil Armstrong.

The commercials pompous tone inspired mockery on social media. South Park went on to parody it. But few explicitly questioned its message. An approachable celebrity was inviting us to invest in financial assets at the vanguard of technology. What was the problem?

Months later, successive collapses have brought some cryptocurrencies values to record lows. Matt Damons participation in Crypto.coms advertising ploy no longer seems so innocent. Since the end of May, the actor has faced relentless attacks in the same arenas where he was once adored. Months later, after the successive crashes that have brought the price of some of the most popular cryptocurrencies to historical lows, Matt Damons participation in the Crypto.com publicity masquerade no longer seems so innocent. Since the end of May, the actor has been mercilessly buffeted on the very forums that seemed to adore him.

On Twitter, the worlds most bustling water cooler, he has been called a grifter and scam artist. Hundreds of more-or-less anonymous users accuse him of causing them to lose their life savings by investing in volatile or fraudulent assets.

If Damon were a company, wed say he was suffering a reputational crisis. After decades slowly building an image of a normal guy, unchanged by fame and fortune, he ended up linked to a financial disaster, the object of public scorn. And the now-viral marketing campaign only adds to the humiliation.

He has opted for a tactical retreat. He has not spoken about the topic. He is limiting his public appearances until the storm quiets.

For Damon, a baby boomer born in 1970, keeping a low profile may not be an issue. He has never had much of a social media presence. This is a man after all, who boasts about his disdain for political correctness. Until recently, he thought Facebook and maybe Instagram were the only social networks necessary to use. And he only stopped using the word faggot when his daughter Stella convinced him that it was offensive for homosexuals below 40.

The strange thing, really, is that someone like him would end up involved in a promotional campaign for digital assets. But Damon took his role as Crypto.com ambassador very seriously. With the enthusiasm of a convert, in close collaboration with the cryptocurrency platform, he launched an NGO dedicated to delivering potable water to regions of the planet that lack it. The initiative raised money by, of course, selling digital artthe famous NFTs, virtual images that have sold for fortunes.

At the end of 2021, the cryptocurrency markets had begun to erupt into the mainstream. The challenge was to get normal peopleeven poor peopleon board. And who better than someone with the street cred of Matt Damon? Jemima Kelly, technology markets expert at the Financial Times, points out, ironically, that Matt was paid down to the last cent in solid US dollars, as simple and practical as it would have been to pay him in Bitcoin.

The Massachusetts actor isnt the only celebrity whose reputation has suffered after the crypto apocalypse. The VIP crypto outcasts are legion. The British model Cara Delevingne has been scorned for participating in a charity campaign in which an NFT of her vagina was auctioned. Snoop Dog and Ellen Degeneres recently began toting their investments both in cryptocurrency and NFTs, and today theyre paying the price. Even Flea, the bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, actively promoted the sale of crypto art on social media, only to end up recognizing that he didnt really know what he was selling.

Cameroonian NBA player Joel Embiid starred in another Crypto.com spot, Bravery is a Process. The campaign was launched on May 6, and it was the first attempt to counteract the negative impact of the plunge in Bitcoins value.

In it, Bill Self, the man who discovered Embiid when he was a teenager who barely knew how to toss a ball, utters a phrase that now seems more unfortunate than ever: Even when our path didnt make sense to everyone else, we kept going. In other words, buy Bitcoin right now, when everyone is selling to try to salvage the remains of the shipwreck.

Reese Witherspoon also associated herself with the image of that now-infamous world. The actress authored the viral phrase Crypto is here to stay. Now, she says she may have spoken out of ignorance. What she hasnt explained, though, is how much money she made by becoming a lobbyist for a product she never believed in.

But few have been quite as embarrassed as Gwyneth Paltrow, who posted a tweet affirming that cryptocurrency is feminist because it allows women to invest under the same conditions as men. That is, as Jemima Kelly says, that feminism, as Paltrow understands it, is about giving women the opportunity to participate in pyramid schemes.

The list goes on. Elon Musk has invested in almost everything imaginable, including in digital assets. In 2021 the magnate boasted that every time he tweeted, the value of crypto assets climbed 10 points. Today, those words follow him. Paris Hilton, meanwhile, doesnt seem to care about the negative repercussions of her ad campaigns, receiving constant insults on social media for baptizing her last two dogs Crypto and Ether, after the cryptocurrency Ethereal. She continues attending to her community of 17 million Twitter followers.

The actress Mila Kunis, football player Tom Brady and tennis player Naomi Osaka are among the other celebrities who now refuse to talk about their previous associations with the cryptoverse. Its a part of their pasts that theyd rather forget, a lucrative skeleton in their closets.

Larry David also got burned. In November, the comedian appeared in a viral ad in which he complained about newfangled inventions like electricity and the wheel, going on to insist that hed never invest in anything that started with crypto. The campaigns tagline was dont be like Larry. Today, Jeff Schaffer, the clips director, says, Neither Larry nor I have the slightest idea how these financial products work. We havent bought them and we dont follow their evolution, so we cant say much about them.

If any celebrity is now gaining unconditional fans for their attitude towards Bitcoin, it is Keanu Reeves. In a conversation with The Verge, Reeves laughed when asked if he had thought about investing in digital assets like NFTs, allegedly unique pieces of art that are, in his words, easily reproduced.

For Dani Di Placido of Forbes magazine, Keanu once again represents the wisdom of the common man: if you dont understand why someone would pay millions to own a .jpg that anyone could copy, maybe its because it doesnt make any sense. Di Placido adds, I cant wait to explain to my grandchildren that, in the middle of the climate apocalypse, we accelerated the consumption of fossil fuels in order to invent new coins and sell each other a handful of images of bored monkeys. Maybe Matt Damon should have talked to Keanu Reeves before he filmed that Super Bowl ad.

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From Matt Damon to Gwyneth Paltrow: Celebrities who pushed crypto now paying for it in popularity - EL PAS USA