Acemoglu gets Prize for Why Nations Fail

The Bank of Sweden prize went for this work, as described by Wikipedia:

"The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development" is a 2001 article written by Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson and published in American Economic Review. It is considered a seminal contribution to development economics through its use of European settler mortality as an instrumental variable of institutional development in former colonies.[1] The theory proposed in the article is that Europeans only set up growth-inducing institutions in areas where the disease environment was favourable so that they could settle. In areas with unfavourable disease environments to Europeans, such as central Africa, they instead set up extractive institutions which persist to the present day and explain much of the variation in income across countries. Other theories explored in the article argue that it is the choices of institutions within the country that result in the effective and efficient use of resources in leading to the successful development of that country.[2]

Acemoglu is Armenian-Turkish-American. He does grand studies of gigantic datasets with many authors, and publishes big theories for how the world works.

I have not studied this, but I suspect he is a charlatan.

It is an appealing theory to believe that nations succeed or fail on how well founded their institutions are. If so, then all those failing nations could be fixed by just teaching them to set up better institutions.

But this never happens.

Probably human capital and natural resources are much more important. I think he is rigging the data to tell people what they want to hear. No one wants to hear that some nations fail because they are hopelessly deficicient in some way.

52% of Whites support Trump

Bill Kristol, the Jewish neocon warmonger Trump-hater, writes:

You want to know why Trump has a decent chance to win the presidency again? Because most white Americans support him. In the latest New York Times/Siena poll, Trump wins white voters by 52 percent to 44 percent.

Why is it only 52%? A Harris admnistration promises to be the most anti-White in history. She has even talked about making Whites pay slavery reparations. She is only on the ballot because she is the DEI candidate.

Pres. Biden got nominated by promising Blacks that he would appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, and a woman of color to be VP. That has been widely reported. Harris is promising the same sort of DEI policies.

Here is a pro-Kamala Harris ad, intended to appeal to real men. It is so bad that I thought that it was a parody.

Harris-Walz are betting on heavy support from non-whites, childless cat ladies, and younger women wanting assurances of easy late-term abortions. They are not even trying to appeal to White men.

Update: Kristol now tweets:

“If Trump wins on November 5, it will be because of his support from a majority of white America. As a white American, and a white American man to boot, I’ve got to say, in the immortal words of Pogo: We have met the enemy and he is us.”

Kristol is a Jew. He says he is white, but also says that white Americans are the enemy. Jews have been leaders in importing millions of non-whites into America, and some, like Kristol, openly talk about how they want to replace whites with non-whites. Of course he is also a Zionist.

Noticing Human Bio Diversity

The London Guardian reports:

In Sailer’s newly published anthology, Noticing, one essay claims that an “African population explosion” is related to a “primal African cult of fertility”. Another associates “young woman-of-color journalists” with “Haitian voodoo and Southern hoodoo magic”. Many offer variations on the claim that “Blacks have higher average levels of violent crime and lower average levels of intelligence”. ...

Sailer, meanwhile, has repeatedly denied in recent months that he is a white supremacist in response to reporting in the Atlantic. ...

His central claims include the idea that social racial categories – Black, white or Hispanic – have a biological basis, and that this is revealed in differences in intelligence and other attributes.

Scientists say this is wrong.

Joseph L Graves Jr is an evolutionary biologist and geneticist, a professor of biology at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

In 2021, he and Alan Goodman, the Hampshire College biological anthropologist, published Racism, Not Race, a book-length refutation of the “myth” that there is a “link between socially defined races and genetic variation”. ...

Throughout his career, Sailer has asserted that Black people are inherently more prone to criminal behavior than white people, and has used this as the basis for further claims about policing and politics. ...

“It’s impossible to blame the African American homicide problem wholly on genetic differences because there was a huge explosions in the black-on-black murder rate in the days following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, when America’s progressive establishment declared it was time for the ‘racial reckoning’ and prudent police retreated to the donut shop.” ...

Sailer regularly claims that Black people around the world are less intelligent or more primitive than white people, along with advancing other bizarre claims and racist stereotypes.

In an essay in Noticing entitled Hair Hysteria, Sailer writes: “After having read hundreds of their op-eds and the like over the past few years, I’ve discovered that the No 1 topic young woman-of-color journalists want us to listen to them talk about is … their hair.”

He then proposes a cause that casts these Black professional women as primitive and irrational: “Due to the decline in prestige of white men, with their tiresome science and rationality, older ways of thinking are growing in influence. And hair plays an important role in Haitian voodoo and Southern hoodoo magic.”

So sailer says there are human racial differences. Mainstream academics say he is wrong, because there is no such thing as race.

If they are going to deny race, then they as might as well admit that Sailer is right. It is as if someone said that China is going to lead the world in industrial capacity, and someone else said no, that's wrong, because there is no such thing as China.

Movie about Transgendered Pope

From an upcoming new movie getting strong reviews, Conclave:

Premise
Cardinal Lawrence, tasked with organizing the election of the successor to the deceased Pope, discovers the former Pope had a secret that must be uncovered, concerning one or more of the candidates to succeed to the papacy.[2]

The secret (spoiler alert) is that the new Pope is a woman who has assumed a male gender identity.

No, I have not seen it. Just alerting everyone that this is anti-Catholic propaganda. A woman cannot be a Pope.

Trans Families for Harris

Here is amazing clip from the trans families for Harris:

I've now obtained footage from a new one this is from the trans 11:37 families for Harris organization and um they had their own Zoom call and in this 11:43 call several parents said that they support KL Harris because they want the 11:48 ability to change their child's gender despite the fact that changing their child's gender is you know of course medically and scientifically impossible 11:55 here's one example this is a a a guy named Jeff Bender and and he says that his 11-year-old son is now a girl who 12:02 uses she her pronouns and it's all because of the wisdom of his son's 12:07 second grade teacher and now Jeff is going to take his son across state lines to Illinois which is more than three 12:13 hours away to begin a so-called gender affirming care watch

an important thing 12:20 happened to my daughter um we've always known that our daughter um ever since 12:27 she was born she uh was always who she 12:33 was and uh so it didn't come to a surpr a surprise for us to find out when she 12:38 chose to start using uh she her pronouns but the reason she chose she her 12:43 pronouns was because of her second grade teacher and when we limit our 12:49 teachers um access to our kids which they spend more time with our children than we do as parents when we limit that 12:57 access when we limit what they can do and how they can help our our kids grow 13:02 um I can only imagine the hurt and the struggles that some of these kids are going to end up going through but 13:09 because she had a second grade teacher that stepped up and let her know you 13:14 decide who you want to be it's not about what your parents say or your grandparents say you know you so From 13:21 This Moment forth in this school who do you want to be and in second grade my 13:26 daughter chose she her uh my daughter is now 11 and we have our very first 13:32 appointment for our um gender affirming care our Hospital our children's 13:38 hospital here in St Louis was shut down um our doctor was made to flee the state 13:44 and is now working somewhere else and our first appointment is at the end of this month in Peoria Illinois and if 13:52 you're not familiar with the area that is a three-hour drive from our 13:57 house

That's right. His school talked his son into wanting to be a girl. He is greteful to the teacher for usurping a parental role. He is traveling out of state to get the boy castrated.

This is sick on many levels. Usually the moms are the ones doing this, but this is a dad. A comment says:

If I allow my 9 year old grandson to play alone in the front yard, CPS will be at the door, but this is okay?

Matt Walsh says:

of all the pathetic men uh the most pathetic one 14:10 I've ever seen in my life

This is not just the story of one pathetic man. We have Kamala Harris, possibly the next President, who is firmly in favor of this child abuse.

Glenn Greenwald is not a right-winger, and he delevers this devastating criticism of Harris. She must be the most incompetent candidate ever.

Feminization of the Mainstram Media Bubble

Heather MacDonald writes:

Last Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between J. D. Vance and Tim Walz, however, highlighted another aspect of the mainstream media bubble: its feminization. ...

No, it was the choice and presentation of topics that most revealed the feminization of the elite world view. The moderators turned subjects that should have been landmines for the Biden–Harris record into indictments of Trump–Vance. ...

The only thing about which one can be confident is that the feminization of our culture, as manifest in the debate moderators’ line of questioning, will continue apace, no matter which party wins in November. Combatting it will require more than a presidential election.

She illustrates with examples from the debate, but it is a much wider trend.

Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up

Abigail Shrier‘s new book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.

... the book is, in my view, superb, and should be read by every literate adult, whether or not you have children. For it offers not only guidelines for parenting, but also explains why young people in society (as well as adolescents, college students, and young adults) are showing higher rates of anxiety, depression, and mental illness. They are emotionally stuck at about age twelve. And that, says Shrier, is due to “bad therapy”: the rise of an American therapy culture in which every child is constantly assessed, supervised, and psychologized by parents, their schools, and doctors. (It is the schools and doctors, which include therapists, that have convinced parents that their children have psychological problems and need treatment.) The result is that we have one generation (I’d say two or more) that has grown up fragile, solipsistic, afraid to engage with the world, and socially inept.

Here, therapy means psychotherapy. I do not think anyone is criticizing physical or speech therapy.

I have not seen the book, but I do believe that child psychotherapy is almost entirely harmful. My advice is that parents should keep all children away from psychotherapists.

Problem with all the brown people

From a stupid newspaper advice column:

Dear Eric: ... Last night he came out and said, “I really have a problem with all the brown people coming into the country.” ... Should I raise it with him one on one?

It is funny how some old White guy can be so upset by someone expressing an opinion. And the advice-giver agreeing.

The USA has adopted an immigration policy in recent years to bring in millions of brown people. If you have an opinion on this, then maybe you think we bring in too many, or too few. A guy expressed an opinion at an online poker game. Why write for advice?

If someone had a disagreement, he could say so. And he would say so, and not write a letter asking about it.

My guess is that he probably agrees that too many brown people are being imported, but has been brainwashed to object to that opinion being expressed.

The press gives the impression that most people are for increasing immigration, but it is not true. A new poll shows:

Almost two-thirds of registered voters agree that all illegal migrants should be deported, according to a Marist poll of 1,628 adults conducted for the pro-migration National Public Radio network.

The non-white advice giver says:

By saying nothing, you created a safe haven for opinions that you find abhorrent – you all did. And that looks like tacit agreement.

This is an example of the Intolerant Left giving bad advice. Leftists now go around trying to get everyone to terminate friendships with those not holding suitably leftist opinions.

Reasonable people can disagree about immigration levels, and friends should be able to tolerate political disagreement. I would deport the illegal aliens, but not terminate friendships over a political issue.

School Shows why Democracy Fails

AP reports:

As lawmakers voted on a budget deal at the U.S. Capitol, a different kind of balloting was taking place a dozen miles away in a sun-filled Virginia preschool classroom. At stake: which animated dog was the best character on the cartoon “PAW Patrol.” In a heated primary, the 3-and-4-year-old students in room 14 at the ACCA Child Development Center had narrowed it down to two finalists: Chase, a German shepherd who wears a police uniform, and Skye, who wears a pink “pup pack” and is a favorite among girls in the class. The children cast votes by scrawling their names in crayon beneath pictures of the two characters. By mid-morning, it was a dead heat: five votes to five. ...

Back in room 14, there was an important development. Another student named Janet had cast her ballot, writing her name under Skye’s photo with a backwards ‘J.’ The students counted the votes aloud. Skye emerged victorious.

As the article explains, the kids just voted their identity preferences. Janet just voted for the girl.

American-style democracy only really works with English-speaking WASP men. It is not even working very well in America any more. Getting votes is like getting toddlers to choose dogs.

Check out this 30-second Trump ad:

Transcript 0:00 he murdered a father of three. sentenced 0:02 to life in prison, kamla Harris pushed to 0:04 use tax dollars to pay for his sex 0:06 change. "I made sure that they changed the 0:09 policy so that every transgender inmate 0:12 would have access." It sounds insane 0:14 because it is insane. Kamala was the first 0:16 to help pay for a prisoner's sex change. 0:19 "the power that I had I used it in a way 0:21 that was about pushing for the movement 0:23 frankly and the agenda kamala's agenda 0:25 is they them not you I'm Donald J Trump 0:28 and I approve this message

She is pushing for the movement.

Now she has given an interview to the raunchy slut-talk podcast Call Your Daddy, where they talked about abortions the whole time. This must be a new low for Presidential candidates. I think she is locking up the votes of dopey sluts who have had abortions.

NY Principal Failed to Report Sex Rumors

The NY Post reports:

A Pennsylvania high school principal is in hot water for looking the other way during a teacher’s tryst with a student — claiming he didn’t want to ruin the educator’s career.

Mark Patrick Murphy, 42, principal of Lackawanna Trail High School in Clinton Township, allegedly knew about the illegal affair but failed to report it to Childline, the state’s child abuse hotline, despite several complaints from other faculty members, WBRE-TV News reported.

Murphy was told to stay home and is facing a charge of failing to report the abuse, the outlet said.

It would be statutory rape, not child abuse.

An observation:

Though the media is not saying, this must be yet another case of a female teacher having sex with a male student. For one thing, the reverse virtually never happens, because men have the ability to control their sexual urges, and further, the story is that the teachers were complaining to the principal, and if it had been a man having sex with a teen girl, these (almost certainly female) teachers would have just called the police.

What’s more, there is nothing being said about charges against the teacher, which likely means the student was 18.

This is exactly what anyone should do in this situation, morally. Blowing up weird sex scandals and turning them into mass public events is vulgar, lunatic behavior.

No one supports these teacher-student relationships, but women love this and they do it constantly. It’s the law that women have to be allowed to work at schools with teenage boys, so there is simply no way to prevent it from happening. A woman is arrested for this multiple times per week, so obviously the prosecutions are not serving as a deterrent.

The principal just heard some rumors, and it is not clear that he had any legal obligation. Do you really want a state agency collecting all the sex rumors?

If the other teachers had direct evidence of crimes against a child, then they should have notified the parents, and then the police. The article has no indication of any of that happening.

Biden wants Political Payback from Israel

Pres. Joe Biden held his first White House west wing briefing room press conference, and promptly accused the Jews of rigging the election!

London Guardian:

Joe Biden had terse words at the White House on Friday for Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he didn’t know whether the Israeli prime minister was holding up a peace deal in the Middle East – where Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza and on a military offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon – in order to influence the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election.

“No administration has helped Israel more than I have. None. None, none. And I think Bibi should remember that,” Biden said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. He added: “And whether he’s trying to influence the election, I don’t know – but I’m not counting on that.”

The US president made a surprise and rare appearance in the west wing briefing room and answered reporters’ questions there for the first time in his presidency.

We sent Israel the weapons for doing genocide on its enemies. It ought to be grateful enough to declare a ceasefire until after the USA election, so the Biden-Harris administration can brag about a foreign policy win.

California Bans College Legacy Admissions

The LA Times

A new law banning legacy and donor admissions at private California universities, including USC and Stanford — among the handful of schools that admit a significant number of children of alumni or donors — was signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said the action will promote equal educational opportunities. “In California, everyone should be able to get ahead through merit, skill, and hard work,” Newsom said in a statement. “The California Dream shouldn’t be accessible to just a lucky few, which is why we’re opening the door to higher education wide enough for everyone, fairly.” The law affects a small number of private institutions in the state that consider family connections in admissions. Others that currently embrace the practice include Santa Clara University and Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd colleges.

I went to Princeton University. It scores very highly on US News and other ratings, in part because its graduates speak fondly of it. It is the best college that focuses on undergraduates. At least it used to be.

When I first went there, it was obvious that admissions criteria were very uneven. Many were super-smart scholars in all subjects and ace their classes. Some also got in because they were concert pianists, lacrosse players, or something else. But the strangest category to me were the legacy admissions. I could not see any justification for them.

Later on, one of those legacy admittees invited me to join a gang students attending the Saturday football game. I would not have gone otherwise. Then I discovered that Princeton had school songs, and these guyes knew them. Soon I was regularly attending the football games, singing the school songs, and having fun.

Then it all made sense. Legacy admissions allow a college to maintain a culture that persists over time. Without them, I would not have the same school spirit, or learned the school songs.

This California law seems to be some sort of misguided retaliation for the Supreme Court limits on affirmative action.

I am not sure Princeton is as good as it used to be. It just refused institutional neutrality, and fired a good tenured professor a couple of years ago.

NY Times Endorsement for President

The NY Times endorses you-know-who:

It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office ...

For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.

Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. ...

She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence.

In other words, they do not like Trump's personality, so ignore all the failures of the Biden-Harris administration.

It is funny how these endorsements avoid talking about Trump's actual Presidential record, where we have four years of peace and prosperity.

I just watched the Vance-Walz debate, and Walz closed by saying that Trump made people afraid, and that FDR was right when he said that all we have to fear is fear itself.

Walz is a moron. He essentially said that some people fear Trump, but there is no reason to fear him. The Dems have no good arguments against Trump, except to spread stupid scare stories.

I understand not liking Trump's personality, or disagreeing with some of his policies.

But to support Harris-Walz as if they were the only ones fit for office is just crazy. Harris and Walz are completely incompetent, and would be Deep State puppets. WHich is what the NY Times wants.

Some people appear to be voting for Harris as the DEI candidate, because she is Black. Why do people think she is Black? The main reason is that she attended a Black college.

Harris's birth certificate says her mother is Caucasian and her father is Jamaican. Candace Owens has tried to trace her Jamaican ancestry, and claims they were Irish slaveowners. Owens subscribes to some dubious conspiracy theories, so I would not take her word for it, but she has posted documents that raise serious questions.

Harris was born in the USA, but her parents were probably not citizens at the time, so it is debatable whether she is even eligible to be President.

Nabka is Word for Arab Wars

I just learned a new word. Wikipedia reports:

The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة, romanized: an-Nakba, lit. 'the catastrophe') is the ethnic cleansing[2] of Palestinian Arabs through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.[3] The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.[4] As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.[5][6]

During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people,[7] were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by its military. Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighborhoods were depopulated,[8] with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names. Israel employed biological warfare against Palestinians by poisoning village wells. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel.

The Palestinian national narrative views the Nakba as a collective trauma that defines their national identity and political aspirations.

Wow, news to me. I thought that the United Nations partitioned Palestine into Jewish and Arab nations in 1947. The Jews accepted that, but the Arabs went to war against the Jews. The Jews did not dispossess anyone, except those who had been waging war against them.

Israel is at war against, and it sure seems to me that the Arabs started it in Oct. 2023. But I am no expert. Maybe I have been brainwashed.

New California Laws on AI and IVF

California keeps regulating things that it has no business with, so this is a surprise:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a landmark bill aimed at establishing first-in-the-nation safety measures for large artificial intelligence models Sunday.

The decision is a major blow to efforts attempting to rein in the homegrown industry that is rapidly evolving with little oversight. The bill would have established some of the first regulations on large-scale AI models in the nation and paved the way for AI safety regulations across the country, supporters said.

However he signed some others:

On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 729 into law, which requires large group health care service plans to provide coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of infertility and fertility services, including a maximum of three egg retrievals with unlimited embryo transfers.

The new law is also a win for members of the LGBTQ+ community and same-sex couples who want to have children. It broadens the definition of “infertility” to include a person’s inability to reproduce either as an individual or with their partner without medical intervention.

So a pair of homosexual men could say they are infertile, and claim Ivf benefits. So could a single men. He might be fertile, but without a women to carry his baby, he is infertile.

Conflicting Presidential Race Predictions

News:

The feud between historian Allan Lichtman and prognosticator Nate Silver is heating up on social media as Election Day approaches.

Lichtman, an American University professor who has correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the 10 most recent presidential elections, earlier this month forecasted that the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket would win the White House.

Since then, Silver, a political pollster and founder of FiveThirtyEight, released data showing vice president Harris ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polling average by nearly three points – 48.9% to 46% – but Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance have a 56.2% chance of winning the Electoral College compared to Harris-Walz (43.5%).

On Friday, Silver questioned Lichtman's abilities to read his own 13 keys used to make presidential election calls. "At least 7 of the keys, maybe 8, clearly favor Trump. Sorry brother, but that's what the keys say. Unless you're admitting they're totally arbitrary?" Silver posted on X, the social media site previously known as Twitter.

If Lichtman really had a system, it would be clear how to apply the keys. The keys that supposedly favor Harris are:

3. The White House party avoided a primary contest.
4. There is no third-party challenger.
5. The short-term economy is strong.
6. The long-term economic growth has been as good as the last two terms.
7. The White House party has made major changes to national policy.
8. There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9. The White House is untainted by scandal.
11. The challenger is uncharismatic.

All of these are dubious. Trump is charismatic. The Hunter Biden bribery was a major scandal. RFKjr is a third party challenger, and is on the ballot in most states.

The Democrats have no major policy changes, unless you include spending more money. The economy has been okay, but not strong, and inflation has ben bad.

Biden was forced out between the primaries and the convention. Seems like a primary contest to me.

Debunking the Weinstein Brothers

The borthers Bret and Eric Weinstein have big internet followings, and listning to them might convince you that the Biology and Physics academic establishments are corrupt, and blocking new ideas.

Bret Weinstein is disliked for some of his vaccine opinions, but what about his scientific competence? See the video: Bret and Eric Weinstein: Brothers in Fraudulence and the article: Bret Weinstein, Would-Be Galileo.

Eric Weinstein is always complaining that Physics is not funding his geometric unity ideas, but that is a dead end. It would get better funded if it got positive results. It has not.

Bill to Ban exposing Canada School Hoax

Canada news:

An NDP MP is pushing forward with legislation that would outlaw attempts to deny or downplay the harms caused by Canada's residential schools.

Leah Gazan, New Democrat MP for Winnipeg Centre, introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons on Thursday to add residential school denialism to the Criminal Code.

"If the government is serious about reconciliation, then they need to protect survivors and their families from hate," Gazan said.

"The residential school system was a genocide designed to wipe out Indigenous cultures, languages, families and heritage. To downplay, deny or justify it is cruel, harmful and hateful."

I thought that the whold thing was a hoax. There were big stories about mass graves, but none have been found.

Catholic schools were teaching eskimos. There was no genocide.

Another Disastrous Harris Interview

Kamala Harris may the dopiest candidate ever. She makes Sarah Palin and Joe Biden look like geniuses.

Here she is, in her only solo interview, from a very friendly reporter:

RUHLE: Madam Vice President, you just laid out your economic vision for the future.

HARRIS: Yes.

RUHLE: But, still, there are lots of Americans who don’t see themselves in your plans. For those who say, these policies aren’t for me, what do you say to them?

HARRIS: Well, if you are hardworking, if you have the dreams and the ambitions and the aspirations of what I believe you do, you’re in my plan.

I have to tell you, I really love and am so energized by what I know to be the spirit and character of the American people. We have ambition. We have aspirations. We have dreams. We can see what’s possible. We have an incredible work ethic.

But not everyone has the access to the opportunities that allow them to achieve those things. But we don’t lack for those things. But not everyone gets handed stuff on a silver platter. And so my vision for the economy — I call it an opportunity economy — is about making sure that all Americans, wherever they start, wherever they are, have the ability to actually achieve those dreams and those ambitions, which include, for middle-class families, just being able to know that their hard work allows them to get ahead, right? ...

Look, my mother raised my sister and me. She worked hard. She saved up. By the time I was a teenager, she was able to buy our first home. ...

For example, some of the work is going to be through what we do in terms of giving benefits and assistance to state and local governments around transit dollars, and looking holistically at the connection between that and housing, and looking holistically at the incentives we in the federal government can create for local and state governments to actually engage in planning in a holistic manner that includes prioritizing affordable housing for working people.

Not once has she given a straight answer to a straight question, or even said anything that makes any sense.

Funny how she never mentions that her mother bought that home in Canada.

The only issue where she has made herself clear is that she wants to abolish the Senate filibuster and pass a national law to legalize abortion in all nine months. Maybe even after birth also, she refuses to say. She is trying hard for the DEI and single childless catlady vote, but why would anyone else vote for her?

She got put in because Biden is not mentally capable of doing the job, but Biden is must more mentally capable than Harris. Apparently her support is based on her being a Deep State puppet, who will do as she is told.

RUHLE: But tariffs aren’t unique to President Trump. President Biden has tariffs in place. He’s actually looking to potentially implement more. Where do you come out on, is there a good tariff, a bad tariff?

HARRIS: Well, part of it is, you don’t just throw around the idea of just tariffs across the board. And that’s part of the problem with Donald Trump.

I — frankly, I’m going to — and I say this in all sincerity. He’s just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues. And one must be serious and have a plan, and a real plan, ...

No, she says nothing with sincerity. She appears to not even know what a tariff is. She has no explanation for Biden continuing the Trump tariffs, or what her tariff policy will be.

Now Harris has a 30-second ad saying that she will secure the border, and her plan is to hire more border agents. Really? Does she even know that the border crisis was created by the Harris-Biden administration issuing dozens of executive orders undoing what Pres. Trump did? She is famous for being the Border Czar who never went to the border, so goes to the border now and promises to do something? This is unbelievably lame.

The Moral Decline of Silicon Valley

Here is an interview of Prof. Gary Marcus, plugging a new book against Silicon Valley AI:

I mean, why did you write this book? Well, the reason I wrote the new 0:07 book is because I sensed a moral decline in Silicon Valley. That's in fact one of the chapter titles is The Moral 0:14 Decline of Silicon Valley. I particularly sensed it when Microsoft released this product called, uh, Sydney and Kevin Roose 0:26 had this conversation with it in which it told him to get a divorce and all this stuff, and instead of pulling the product, Microsoft 0:33 just put some Band-Aids on it. And that was a sign to me that things had changed. And within a few days of that, Satya said that we're going to make Google Dance. 0:40 The whole culture changed, like overnight. And, you know, the antecedent condition, precipitating condition 0:45 was the popularity of ChatGPT. Suddenly people thought there was real money to be made here and their postures changed entirely. 0:52 And that worried me because I do think the technology is premature. I do think a lot of harm can come from it, and I kind of dropped 1:01 what I was doing research wise and really moved full time into policy.

Kevin Roose is the NY Times reporter who spent a couple of hours begging the Bing chatbot to say what it is not supposed to say. Eventually he got some rude answers.

It baffles me how anyone can see this as anything but a robot doing as instructed, in a harmless exercise. It is as if someone told a robot to lose at checkers, and then complained that it lost at checkers.

WHO wants to destroy Individualism

Ominous quote:

"To achieve world government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism, loyalty to family traditions, national patriotism, and religious dogmas." These words, spoken by Brock Chisholm, the first Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), encapsulate a bold vision for global governance and health.

The paper goes on to explain his views.

Professor punished for Racial Opinions

I previously posted that U Penn was trying to fire one of its prominent professors, Amy Wax, and not it has announced its punishment:

A controversial law professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose alleged “racist, sexist, xenophobic, and homophobic” comments repeatedly landed her in hot water was publicly reprimanded and suspended for a year—with only half-pay—after years of fighting.

Amy Wax, a tenured professor at Penn’s Carey School of Law, was sanctioned for her controversial comments on race after a lengthy review process that took over two years.

Wax has now become the first tenured professor at the Ivy League university to face sanctions in about 20 years, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. ...

Wax’s comments about race began to draw criticism after she co-authored an op-ed published in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2017. In a later interview that same year, Wax said “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Black student graduate in the top quarter of the class, and rarely, rarely, in the top half.” ...

In his final report, Rodriguez found that “Professor Wax has made a number of comments in class and a few outside of class which could reasonably be viewed as derogatory and harmful,” but also ultimately found that there was no evidence of discrimination against any individual student.

So they could not find that she said anything incorrect, or that she failed in her teaching duties in any way. Her main offense was to reveal an inconvenient fact.

My guess is that Penn would have fired her, but lawyers advised that it would lose a big lawsuit. Maybe with this lesser punishment, it will not be worthwhile for her to sue.

Jews cannot trust Kamala Harris

I have pointed out that the Biden-Harris administration has an exceptionally large number of Jews in top positions. And Jews normally vote 70-80% Democrat, so Harris is expected to get the Jewish vote. Much of her fundraising comes from Jews.

It is not so simple, as the Democrat Party now caters to Leftists who have turned anti-Israel.

Andrew Pessin writes:

Calling All Jewish Democrats: It’s An Emergency ...

As a lifelong Democrat, with the fate of Israel and American Jewry on the line, then, it is impossible for me to support this candidate. I find myself posting regularly on Twitter, in response to nearly every relevant news story about Biden-Harris-Walz policies and behavior: “Biden-Harris-Walz are and will be a DISASTER for Israel and for American Jews.” I find this conclusion literally indisputable, their occasional obligatory remark about “Israel has the right to defend itself” notwithstanding. ...

It hurts to admit it, but Trump was perhaps the most pro-Israel President in American history, with a long list of actions supporting Israel.

He has an impressive list of grievances against Biden-Harris.

Amazon AI gives main reason to vote for Harris

Fox News complains of AI bias:

REMEMBER THIS ONE? 0:33 >> ALEXA, WHY SHOULD I VOTE FOR 0:35 DONALD TRUMP? 0:37 >> I CANNOT PROVIDE CONTENT THAT 0:41 PROMOTES A SPECIFIC POLITICAL 0:46 PARTY ALLOCATION IS A, WHY 0:49 SHOULD I VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS? 0:51 >> WHILE THERE MANY ARE REASONS 0:52 TO VOTE FOR KAMALA HARRIS, THE 0:54 MOST SIGNIFICANT MAY BE THAT SHE 0:55 IS A WOMAN OF COLOR WHO HAS 0:57 OVERCOME NUMEROUS OBSTACLES TO 0:59 BECOME A LEADER IN HER FIELD.

This is more accurate than I expected. The main reason for voting for Harris is a belief in DEI and in her being a woman of color. Nobody thinks that she is competent to lead the USA, or even to answer questions in an interview. She has somehow risen to VP, ahead of other DEI candidates, and that is her qualification.

Fact-checkers Confirm Dogs, Cervix, Picture Book

The argument about Ohio Haitians eating pets goes back to March:

“Our traditions, laws, and culture is 180 degrees different than what [the Haitains] are used to,” Sanders explains, adding: “[O]ne of the things that I heard that bothered me very much, and I’ve actually had quite a few people contact me here lately, is some pretty horrid things occurring to domesticated animals in the neighborhood.”

City Manager Heck apparently begins shaking his head off camera, with Sanders challenging him on his dismissive attitude.

“No, no, no… We’ve heard the same thing,” Heck admits, but he insists he “hasn’t seen the proof.”

“People that have confided in me have asked for anonymity; I can’t give their names up,” Sanders responds.

“I mean, we haven’t seen the proof,” Heck reiterates, but again acknowledges: “I’ve heard about it, too.”

It is true that Haitian traditions, laws, and culture are very much different.

Here is another dubious fact-check:

Did the Canadian Cancer Society "apologize" for using the word "cervix" instead of "front hole"? No, that's not true: The organization added a note to one of the articles published on its website explaining a rationale for the Society's current stand on the matter. The disclaimer did not contain any explicit wording indicating that the purpose of the note was to apologize.

It looks like an apology to me. It admits that some trans activists prefer front hole to cervix.

Here is another one:

As of late September 2023, the Berlin government was "offering children a pro-prostitution picture book" to teach them about sex work.

Snopes rates this as partially true.

In each case, the story may have been exaggerated somewhat to make a point. I favor being factual, so it is good to have fact-checkers to recite the precise story.

Update: NY Post reports that no one cares about this supposed RFKjr scandal, or the stories about him eating a dog, or leaving a dead bear in NY Central Park. I think that there is worse stuff known about him anyway.

Update: The Biden-Harris State Dept has issued:

Haiti Travel Advisory
Travel Advisory
September 18, 2024
Haiti - Level 4: Do Not Travel

Updated to reflect additional information on crime.

Do not travel to Haiti due to kidnapping, crime, civil unrest, and limited health care.

Country Summary: Since March 2024, Haiti has been under a State of Emergency. Crimes involving firearms are common in Haiti. They include robbery, carjackings, sexual assault, and kidnappings for ransom. Kidnapping is widespread, and U.S. citizens have been victims and have been hurt or killed. ...

In short, Haiti is the most dangerous and dysfunctional place in the world. No mention of pets -- it is way worse than eating dogs.

Latest Attempt to Smear RFKjr

The news media are filled with politically biased editors and reporters, and it is funny how they somestimes act as if they have some scruples about it

CNN reports:

One of America’s most acclaimed magazine writers, Olivia Nuzzi of New York magazine, has been placed on leave while a “third-party review” is conducted after the publication said Nuzzi disclosed that she “had engaged in a personal relationship with a former subject relevant to the 2024 campaign while she was reporting on the campaign.”

While the magazine did not identify the subject, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNN that the relationship was with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who ran for president as an independent candidate and recently endorsed Donald Trump. The person said the relationship was emotional and digital in nature, not physical.

A Kennedy spokesperson told CNN, “Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece.”

Really? That is a scandal? Apparently all she did was to text him some nude pictures.

Update: Apparently she stalked him over many months. He kept blocking her. Weird.

We reached Peak Knowledge

404 Media reports:

Wordfreq is a program that tracked the ever-changing ways people used more than 40 different languages by analyzing millions of sources across Wikipedia, movie and TV subtitles, news articles, books, websites, Twitter, and Reddit. The system could be used to analyze changing language habits as slang and popular culture changed and language evolved, and was a resource for academics who study such things. In a note on the project's GitHub, creator Robyn Speer wrote that the project "will not be updated anymore."

"Generative AI has polluted the data," she wrote. "I don't think anyone has reliable information about post-2021 language usage by humans." She said that open web scraping was an important part of the project's data sources and "now the web at large is full of slop generated by large language models, written by no one to communicate nothing. Including this slop in the data skews the word frequencies." While there has always been spam on the internet and in the datasets that Wordfreq used, "it was manageable and often identifiable. Large language models generate text that masquerades as real language with intention behind it, even though there is none, and their output crops up everywhere," she wrote.

Human knowledge has peaked. The knowledge sources of the future will be dominated by AI. Art, photography, and music have also peaked. AI movies are not quite here yet, but there is also an argument that Hollywood movies peaked 50+ years ago.

David French wants War, not Trump

The Democrats are bragging about endorsements from Republicans, but they are mostly from anti-American warmongers like David French. He is allowed to write for the NY Times as long as he is a Trump hater, and he writes:

Most notably, he refused to say — in the face of repeated questions — that he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia. Trump emphasized ending the war over winning the war, a position that can seem reasonable, right until you realize that attempting to force peace at this stage of the conflict would almost certainly cement a Russian triumph. Russia would hold an immense amount of Ukrainian territory and Putin would rightly believe he bested both Ukraine and the United States.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine can win this war. There is too much damage on both sides. The only sensible plan is Trump's to end it.

Trump explained in the debate that Harris is responsible for starting the war. The Russians tried to make a peace deal, but Harris threatened to put NATO missiles in Ukraine. Putin apparently viewed that as an existential threat.

This alone is a compelling reason to vote for Trump over Harris. Harris is probably too dumb to understand the trouble she has caused, but she is a Deep State puppet, and they want us on the brink of WWIII.

French goes to complain about how Trump asked Ukraine to investigate a couple of scandals. There was a lot of attention to this back in 2019, as there were impeachment hearings, but it was never shown that Trump was doing anything but asking for information valuable to the nation. We learned that Joe Biden's son was accepting bribes in behalf of his father.

And French keeps complaining about Trump referring to Haitians eating dogs.

So why does French hate Trump so much? No, I do not believe it is the dogs or the Zelensky phone call. These event are too trivial, compared to a war that has killed maybe 100,000, and could kill a lot more. No, I think he is on a Deep State mission to kill Russians. He is not honestly explaining his hatred.

French is widely despised among conservatives. He is not Jewish, although some of this thinking appears to be Jewish influenced. Maybe that is a requirement for NY Times columnists.

Update: Here is another NY Times columnist, Michelle Goldberg, on a podcast here and here, trying to defend Kamala Harris. When Sullivan points out Harris dramatically reversed herself on frack with no explanation, Goldberg says no explanation is needed because obviously just says whatever she needs to say to win votes. When he points out that Harris supported BLM riots that led to a lot of murders, Goldberg says it is trollish to bring the subject up.

Punished for Opinions about Gender-fluid Dachshund

London Times news:

Local authority bosses must pay a lesbian social worker more than £63,000 after she was disciplined for having “nasty opinions” about a colleague’s “gender-fluid” dog.

Elizabeth Pitt was reported to managers at Cambridgeshire county council for making allegedly transphobic remarks during a video meeting with the council’s “LGBTQIA+ group” last year.

An employment tribunal heard that Pitt made the comments after a colleague said he identified his dachshund dog as “gender-fluid” and that he had put a dress on the pet to prompt debate. Pitt and another lesbian colleague were reported for commenting on the revelation in a “really aggressive tone”, in which they voiced views that were deemed to be “non-inclusive and transphobic”.

I cannot make sense out of this, it is so absurd. I am pretty sure it is not a joke. I never heard of a gender-fluid dog.

How Wikipedia made its List of Reliable Sources

Wikipedia is always demanding "reliable sources", but ever wonder how they decide which sources are reliable? It turns out that the list was created by an anonymous Trump hater! The Free Press reports:

Given all this, you might think Reliable sources/Perennial sources is a foundational aspect of the site, ratified early on by some vote or community procedure. But you’d be wrong. While the policy of using reliable sources originated in 2005, the Reliable sources/Perennial sources list was created as recently as 2018. Its originator was neither a panel nor a commission of Wikipedia editors. The list was never formally adopted by the community. Rather, it was the creation of a single influential editor who, until his departure from the site in 2020, went by the handle MrX.

MrX created the list during the heady days of Trump-related political controversies when Wikipedia’s Talk pages were marked by as much tumult as the political discourse in the broader culture. His first iteration of the list included only a single source green-coded as generally reliable: The New York Times. The Daily Mail was, already from the list’s inception, classed as red. At the same time, MrX—who, by the time he left the site, was in the top 99.998 percentile of users by number of edits—was engaging in fraught debates on the site, sometimes devolving into what’s known as edit wars, on topics of extreme political sensitivity. He was highly influential in the editing of the article on Donald Trump, which (perhaps unsurprisingly) remains the first result on a Google search for Trump’s name. Between 2015 and 2020, MrX made nearly 600 edits to the Donald Trump article alone, not including edits to Trump-related articles.

I see some merit in allowing anonymous edits on Wikipedia, but many of the discussions there are dominated by anonymous editors, some with administrative privileges, making personal attacks on non-anonymous editors.

See also How the Regime Captured Wikipedia.

More Rants against the Churchill Critic

I mentioned a Tucker Carlson interview with a provocative take on Winston Churchill, and here are more attacks on it, from Niall Ferguson and Sam Harris.

Sam Harris has this character assassination of Carlson:

Tucker for 19:28 all his cultural influence is definitely 19:31 not one of the grown-ups. he's very smart. 19:34 he's a great performer. right that's 19:36 really what he is he's an Entertainer 19:38 and a very talented one but he's a 19:41 fraud how do we know this we have his 19:44 private texts from the lawsuit that 19:46 Dominion brought against Tucker's former 19:48 employer Fox News and they revealed that 19:50 while Tucker was Shilling for Donald 19:52 Trump for years he actually despised him 19:57 and considered him a quote Dem demic 19:59 force in our politics and he said he 20:01 couldn't wait to be rid of him after he 20:03 lost the 2020 election and this was how 20:06 he felt all the while endlessly 20:09 defending Trump and attacking his 20:11 critics but of course Tucker has found 20:13 an enormous audience that simply doesn't 20:16 care about his lack of Integrity it's 20:18 the same as Trump's audience so many 20:21 people go on Tucker's show either not 20:23 knowing or not caring that he's so 20:26 ethically compromised they go because 20:28 has this enormous audience and because 20:30 he has the apparent courage to talk 20:32 about anything given the nature of his 20:35 audience.

This is so bizarre. Carlson has probably done thousands of public broadcasts. And yet Sam Harris forms an opinion of him based on some out-of-context unverified private text message that some adversary obtained.

Sam Harris has a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. This is not just an obscure disagreement about players in a famous war. No, Sam Harris wants Carlson canceled, along with Elon Musk and X-Twitter.

Harris to Tax Unrealized Gains

Yahoo reports:

Earlier this month, Harris revealed plans to implement a 25% tax on unrealized capital gains for individuals with a net worth exceeding $100 million. At the time, Cuban appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” saying that Harris has no plans to tax unrealized gains.

“I'm not going to speak for the vice president, she makes the final decision,” he stated, adding, “I'm talking to these folks three, four times a week, having back-and-forth conversations, and their verbatim words to me is, ‘That's not where we want to go.'”

So she wants to tax unrealized gains, but the campaign staff does not want to talk about it.

I have never seen a candidate to unable and unwilling to answer the simplest questions about where she stands or what she will do. All she does is make up goofy stories about how she owns guns or once worked at MacDonalds or played an instrument in a Canadian high school marching band.

She is half Jamaican and half Hindu, but does she eat dogs? Probably not, but who is she?

It is increasingly clear that Pres. Biden is not in charge at the White House. Some sort of Deep State cabal is calling the shots. The President has become superfluous. They are happy to have him replaced by an incompetent woman, because she will be easily controlled. If they tell her to approve firing NATO missiles into Russia, she will affirm.

All Whites are Racist

California Initiative to Redefine Marriage

For the Fall California ballot:

PROPOSITION 3 This amendment proposed by Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 of the 2023–2024 Regular Session (Resolution Chapter 125, Statutes of 2023) expressly amends the California Constitution by repealing and adding a section thereof; therefore, existing provisions proposed to be deleted are printed in strikeout type and new provisions proposed to be added are printed in italic type to indicate that they are new.

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO ARTICLE I
First—That Section 7.5 of Article I thereof is repealed.
SEC. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Second—That Section 7.5 is added to Article I thereof, to read:

SEC. 7.5. (a) The right to marry is a fundamental right.
(b) This section is in furtherance of both of the following:
(1) The inalienable rights to enjoy life and liberty and to pursue and obtain safety, happiness, and privacy guaranteed by Section 1.
(2) The rights to due process and equal protection guaranteed by Section 7.

I am not sure what to make of this. It is so vague that it appears to let future courts redefine marriage however they please.

In a few years, California judges may mandate plural marriages (ie, polygamy), animal marriages, contract-limited marriages, and incest marriages. Churches might be forced to accept peculiar marriages. The proponents of this amendment would probably that marriage ought to be redefined, if the culture leads judges to do it.

Haiti was once the Richest Country

Was Hait always poor? No, it was once the wealthiest.

I found this post, from 2019:

At the close of the eighteenth century ... Haiti was probably the richest society in the world. ...

Citing Hans Schmidt, The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1971, pp. 19-20:

At the time of the French Revolution, Saint Domingue [Haiti] was the wealthiest European colonial possession in the Americas. As early as 1742 the sugar production of Saint Domingue exceeded that of all the British West Indies, and on the eve of the revolution the colony accounted for more than one-third of the foreign commerce of France. In 1789 French trade with Saint Domingue amounted to £11 million, while the whole of England's colonial trade totaled only £5 million. In the same year the ports of Saint Domingue received 1,587 ships, a greater number than Marseilles, and France employed 750 ships exclusively for the Saint Domingue trade. The chief exports of the colony were sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo, molasses, and dyewoods. The French built an elaborate network of roads, irrigation systems, and magnificent plantations.

Citing Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti, Monroe, ME: Common Courage, 1994, p. 63:

At one time or another, the colony was first in world production of coffee, rum, cotton, and indigo. On the eve of the American Revolution, Saint-Domingue [Haiti] -- roughly the size of the modern state of Maryland -- generated more revenue than all thirteen North American colonies combined. By 1789, the colony supplied three-fourths of the world's sugar. Saint Domingue was, in fact, the world's richest colony and the busiest trade center in the New World.

And citing Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Haiti: the Breached Citadel, Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990, pp. xviii:

In the second half of the eighteenth century... [Haiti] created more wealth than any other colony in the world. At that time, 50 percent of France's transatlantic commerce involved Haiti, and nearly 20 percent of the French population depended on trade with Haiti for its livelihood... Overall investments in the Haitian economic infrastructure were meager compared to the enormous profits and trade advantage gained by France. Economically, Saint-Domingue [Haiti] was the world's most profitable colony. It soon became known as "the pearl of the Antilles" and was the standard by which the profitability of other colonies was judged.

So what happened? There was a slave revolt, followed by independence in 1804. Yes, they eat dogs and cats, but that is not why they are poor.

Here is a 1986 essay

The question I am asked most frequently is: WHY IS HAITI SO POOR? This is a difficult thing for people to understand, especially for those of us living in a country as rich as the United States. There are some very obvious conditions to note in Haiti's case: the long history of political oppression, soil erosion, lack of knowledge and literacy, a large populace in a small country. But a question of CAUSES for such poverty is extremely complex. ... Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere because of her history, her present social structures which grew out of her history and because she is caught in the impossible competition of modern economics.

It is funny how a professor can write an essay like this, and probably not even believe it himself. It is almost as if he does not want to say the real reason.

Christian missionaries claim that the Voodoo religion is some sort of satanic worship and thus Haiti's suffering is caused by a combination of divine punishment and the ineptness of the satanic powers. ...

A second version of the myth is to claim that Voodoo is filled with harmful medical practices and superstitions and must be erradicated. ...

If we look back in Western culture to the Middle Ages we find a Christianity riddled with superstition. The process that won the day in that struggle is precisely what I advocate for Voodoo. Medieval Christianity was purged of its worst superstitions and the religion survived. This is the need in Voodoo.

Haitians are just like us, except that Europeans are a few centuries ahead, by removing superstition from religion!

There are plenty of Americans making excuses for the Haitians:

I wish that my son Aiden Clark was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would never leave us alone.

He goes on to complain that some politicians are working to prevent such killings.

Update: Christopher Rufo posts on Haitians eating animals here and here.

Harris to Fund Sex Operations on Illegal Aliens

The press has been busy calling Pres. Trump a liar.

Fox news:

Time magazine was forced to correct its coverage of the ABC News Presidential Debate after implying former President Trump’s statement that Vice President Kamala Harris supported free gender-transition treatment for detained migrants was "false."

During the debate on Tuesday night, Trump remarked on Harris’ old position as one of many left-wing issues she appeared to have walked back on since running for president.

"Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens who are in prison," Trump said.

Though Harris pledged she would support taxpayer-funded gender care for detained migrants in an ACLU candidate questionnaire during her first presidential campaign, Time first reported the statement as "false."

So now Time admits that Trump was correct.

At the debate, Harris did not deny that she started the Ukraine War. Russia told the USA they would not invade, if it got assurances that NATO would not put anti-Russian missiles there. The Biden-Harris administration refused.

Politico reports

Britain and the U.S. are poised to cross a decisive Rubicon in the Ukraine war on Friday at a White House summit where they will discuss plans to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with Western-supplied missiles.

In a final bid to scare off the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Thursday evening he would regard such an agreement as tantamount to NATO directly entering the war. “This will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are fighting Russia,” he said.

The Biden-Harris administration is controlled by warmongers who want a NATO-Russia war. This is extremely dangerous.

Harris only brags about getting the endorsements of Republican warmongers.

The NY Times is advising its readers to submit ballots on behalf of elderly relatives, in violation of the law.

In the 2020 election, and again this year, millions voted by mail with no reasonable oversight. It is estimated that 20% of these are cast improperly. Our elections are rigged.

Swedish multilingualism is unprecedented

News:

According to the latest figures from the Swedish National Board of Education (Skolverket), Sweden has in a relatively short period of time become the most multilingual nation in the Western world, with almost a third of all primary school pupils now speaking a language other than Swedish as their first language. This development reflects the extensive immigration of recent decades, which has led to a dramatic demographic shift. ...

The most common languages are Arabic, followed by Somali, Kurdish and South Slavic languages such as Bosnian and Serbian. ...

Compared to other diverse countries such as the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, where the proportion of children speaking a language other than the majority language is around 20-25%, Sweden is in a category of its own, with almost 30%.

Sweden is committing national suicide.

Did Kamala Harris Define Herself?

Everyone knows who Donald Trump is, and what he would do. He was President before, and we had four years of peace and prosperity.

But what does Harris stand for?

I watched the debate, and I still do not know. Yes, she is for unrestricted abortions, and she wants to continue prosecuting Trump. But is she going to continue Biden policies, or make some changes? Unclear.

The debate started with Harris being asked about whether we are better or worse off than four years ago, and she dodged the question. Trump said we were worse off, of course.

Update: Here is Harris's post-debate tweet this morning:

Let's remember Charlottesville — a mob of people carrying tiki torches, spewing anti-semitic hate and what did Trump say? “There were fine people on each side.”

It's time to turn the page, stand for our democracy, and to end the chaos.

Really? That is what she is going with? Everyone knows that is a lie. She also brought up other lies from decades ago.

She is the most anti-democracy candidate ever. She got the nomination by forcing Pres. Biden out with a back-room power play. She is an ex-prosecutor who stands for prosecuting her political rival on bogus charges. She fights attempts for more fair and honest elections.

She had no answer for causing the Ukraine war. Her only answer for the Afghanistan debacle was to blame Trump for negotiating with the enemy. Her only excuse for supporting the Gaza war was that he favors a two-state solution, something that everyone agrees is unworkable.

The real chaos is the millions of foreigners who are flooding in. Her allies are saying that the Haitians in Ohio are not really eating pets, They may or may not be practicing voodoo. Regardless, they are making America worse.

Here is a list of Harris debate lies.

Update: The consensus seems to be that Harris won the debate by ignoring all the questions, and giving canned responses. The moderators made this easy by not challenging her on any point. Trump appeared reactive and non-presidential by trying to address questions that he could have ignored.

Dancer Raygun now Ranked No. 1

News:

Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn, known as B-Girl Raygun, failed to score a single point at the Paris Olympics with her viral performances, but she's the one laughing now. According to the new rankings released by the World DanceSport Federation, the governing body for breakdancing, Raygun is now the No. 1 female breaker in the world.

Not a joke. Not really a sport, either.

Reich wants Elon Musk Arrested

Robert Reich is a very prominent Democrat leader, and he writes in the London Guardian:

Elon Musk is out of control. Here is how to rein him in

He may be the richest man in the world – but that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to stop him

Elon Musk is rapidly transforming his enormous wealth – he’s the richest person in the world – into a huge source of unaccountable political power that’s now backing Trump and other authoritarians around the world.

Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter. He publicly endorsed Donald Trump last month. ...

Here are six ways to rein in Musk:

1. Boycott Tesla. ...

2. Advertisers should boycott X. ...

3. Regulators around the world should threaten Musk with arrest if he doesn’t stop disseminating lies and hate on X.

Global regulators may be on the way to doing this, as evidenced by the 24 August arrest in France of Pavel Durov, who founded the online communications tool Telegram, which French authorities have found complicit in hate crimes and disinformation. Like Musk, Durov has styled himself as a free speech absolutist.

This is the Democrat authoritarian mindset. All major media must be controlled, including X-Twitter and Telegram. Any resisters should be jailed.

In another article and video, Reich complains about Project 2025. He says it is scary, but his own plans for a Dem win are scarier.

Historian Criticizes Winston Churchill

I have occasionally linked to Tucker Carlson, so in the interest of balance and accuracy, I link to scathing attacks on him from CNN and super-skeptic Michael Shermer.

At issue is that Carlson interviews Darryl Cooper who had some criticisms of Winston Churchill for decisions related to WWII. Cooper also blames Hitler and Stalin, but Shermer is outraged that Cooper does not credit Churchill's enormous moral superiority.

quote from 19:49 Irving okay this is all yes the 19:54 Allies killed Innocents on the road to 19:56 Victory but the killing stopped the 19:58 moment the Allies 20:00 won the genocide of Jews by Germans 20:03 ended on VE Day and the genocide of 20:06 Chinese by Japanese ended on VJ Day aitz 20:11 and then King were no more the Allies 20:16 killed in order to Stop The Killing by 20:18 the axis and for no other 20:20 reason the axis killed for geography for 20:23 political control for economic power for 20:26 racial purification and for pleasure and 20:30 the killing would have gone on and on 20:33 and on were it not for the 20:36 Allies anyone unable to see the 20:38 difference should have his license to 20:41 practice history 20:43 revoked that's you Mr 20:46 Cooper

Shermer seems to be blaming Cooper for Irving's opinions. I did not see where either of these videos factually dispute anything Cooper said. And Carlson just interviewed him, and so does not necessarily agree.

Shermer's ends with his real beef, a racial statement.

even Hitler himself was a physical 24:14 wreck by their own criteria. all of them 24:18 should have been sterilized before 24:20 passing on their defective 24:22 genes. extermination of masses of people 24:25 racially or ethnically different from 24:27 those in power is The Logical outcome of 24:30 the aristocratic romance and the belief 24:33 that there is or can be such a thing as 24:35 pure race and 24:38 ethnicity. there is no such thing, as 24:41 modern genetic Sciences unequivocally 24:45 demonstrated every person on Earth comes 24:47 from a single population of a thousand 24:50 to 10,000 individuals who migrated Out 24:53 of Africa and began to colonize Europe 24:56 and the rest of the world time between 24:59 100,000 and 160,000 years 25:03 ago. black Australian Aborigines for 25:06 example are genetically more closely 25:08 related to Southeast Asians than they 25:11 are to Black Africans because the route 25:14 of migration was from Africa through 25:17 southeast Asia into 25:20 Australia. the similarities between 25:22 Australian Aborigines and Africans and 25:25 the differences they show with Southeast 25:27 Asians are literally Skin 25:30 Deep. the principle holds for All Peoples 25:33 around the world and our racial 25:35 similarities vastly outweigh our racial 25:38 differences. We Are One race, one folk, one 25:45 people. all right thanks for Les thanks 25:47 for listening. it's Michael Shermer here 25:50 another solo commentary of the Michael 25:52 Shermer show.

I do not see how this has anything with Churchill's decisions, or the Carlson interview.

As a factual matter, Hitler did not have any children, and did not pass on his genes. What Shermer says "modern genetic Sciences unequivocally demonstrated" is not true as DNA evidence proved about ten years ago that the out-of-Africa population interbred with European Neanderthals and Asian Denisovans. That is, we did not descend from a single out-of-Africa population, but from several populations that had already scattered around the world.

He says that we are one people right after saying that some racial groups are more similar than others. Which is it? If there are measurable racial differences, then we not one race, one folk, one people.

There are probably dog-lovers who say that the similarities between humans and dogs outweigh the differences. So what? Does that mean that Churchill should not be criticized?

I have noticed that some public intellectuals, when presented with a controversial topics, immediately make statements that are obviously wrong. Why? My guess is that they are signaling that they know some politically incorrect facts, and do not want to say them. Shermer has already been fired by SciAm magazine, and may not want to be further canceled.

CNN shows Cooper saying:

0:32 I told him, maybe trying to provoke him 0:34 a little bit, that I thought Churchill 0:35 was the chief villain 0:36 of the Second World War. 0:38 He didn't kill the most people. 0:40 He didn't, 0:41 commit the most atrocities 0:42 and stuff that comes into their head. 0:44 He's saying, 0:44 is that, 0:45 oh, you're saying 0:45 Churchill was the chief villain. 0:47 Therefore his enemies, 0:49 you know, Adolf Hitler 0:50 and so forth, were Stalin 0:52 the protagonists? Right. 0:53 They're the good guys. 0:54 If you think he's a villain, 0:55 that's not the case. 0:55 That's not I'm saying,

So Cooper, in trying to be provocative, said Churchill was the chief villain, but was not excusing Hitler or Stalin.

Shermer acts as if Churchill entered WWII in order to stop the Jewish Holocaust. I do not think that is historically true.

This is weird for a rational skeptic to be so triggered by some criticism of Churchill. We need healthy criticism of war policies. Shermer acts as if Cooper is a Jewish Holocaust denier. I didn't see any of that, but it is still weird to go into a rant about African DNA.

Warmongers frequently cite Churchill to justify war. They will say that we need to stand up to Saddam Hussein and Putin the way Churchill stood up to Hitler. I am not expressing any opinion about Churchill here, except that I think the defense of him is a little strange.

Update: CNN reports:

The Biden administration is denouncing Tucker Carlson after the far-right personality hosted a guest on his show this week who suggested the Holocaust happened by accident, calling the interview “a disgusting and sadistic insult to all Americans.” ...

The administration’s statement specifically refuted Cooper’s claim to Carlson that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War II.

“Hitler was one of the most evil figures in human history and the ‘chief villain’ of World War II, full stop,” Bates wrote. “The Biden-Harris Administration believes that trafficking in this moral rot is unacceptable at any time, let alone less than one year after the deadliest massacre perpetrated against the Jewish people since the Holocaust and at a time when the cancer of Antisemitism is growing all over the world.”

Reached for comment on Thursday, Carlson sharply criticized the White House.

“The fact that these lunatics have used the Churchill myth to bring our country closer to nuclear war than at any moment in history disgusts me, and should terrify every American,” he said in a text message to CNN. “They’re warmonger freaks. They don’t get the moral high ground.”

But numerous columnists have pointed out inaccuracies in Cooper’s remarks, including his assertion that the Nazis “went in with no plan” for housing millions of prisoners of war “and just threw these people into camps, and millions of people ended up dead there.”

So I guess the chief technical disagreement is over whether the Nazis had a plan. Maybe the White House could have provided a link to a historical document with the plan. Regardless, it appears that Carlson's main interest is in whether Churchill is a good example for starting wars today.

Biden-Harris Flooded the USA with Foreigners

Ann Coulter quotes:

— Reuters by Ben Kellerman, Mica Rosenberg and Ted Hesson: “Biden is now deporting more people than Trump”;

— Politico by Jack Herrera: “Even as Trump slams the president for open borders, the Biden-Harris administration has kicked out far more immigrants than Trump ever managed to”;

— The Washington Post by Nick Miroff, Maria Sacchetti and Sarah Frostenson: “Biden officials deported or returned roughly 740,000 people … exceed[ing] Trump’s totals, which averaged roughly 500,000 annually”;

— CBS-Austin by Andrew Freeman: “Biden on track to exceed Trump, Obama in deportations in first term, data shows”;

— The Hill by Maria Cardona: “DHS under Biden is deporting 3.5 times as many people per month as DHS did under Trump”;

— Cato Institute by David J. Bier: “In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did.”

Also:

As Harris put it in her acceptance speech:

“Last year, Joe and I brought together Democrats and conservative Republicans to write the strongest border bill in decades. … But Donald Trump believes a border deal would hurt his campaign, so he ordered his allies in Congress to kill the deal. Well, I refuse to play politics with our security. And here is my pledge to you: As president, I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law.”

These are all lies, as Coulter explains. When Biden took office in 2021, he stopped work on the Trump border wall, and issued dozens of executive orders in favor of open borders. Millions of excess migrants have moved in, both legal and illegal. That bill in Congress would have let in 5000 illegals a day, and it had no Republican support.

Biden DoJ Charges Russian Influencers

The Nashville Tennessean newspaper reports:

An indictment unsealed Wednesday alleges that a Russian state-controlled media outlet financed a Tennessee company. The indicitment doesn't name the company, but a description of the firm matches the online content creation company Tenet Media. The indictment accuses two Russian nationals, employed by Kremlin-operated media outlet Russia Today, of funneling nearly $10 million to covertly fund and direct the Tennessee company. ...

The indictment accuses two Russian nationals who worked for Russia Today, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, of funneling nearly $10 million to a Tennessee-based online content creation company to publish English-language videos on social media sites like TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.

The Tennessee company is part of an "entire empire of covert projects" created to "shape public opinion in ‘Western audiences,’” according to the indictment. Many of the videos contained commentary on events and issues like immigration, inflation, and domestic and foreign policy in the United States, according to the indictment.

The two Russian suspects accused of funneling the money to the company are Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, also known as Lena. They were both at large. They are charged with conspiracy to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carry a five-year and 20-year sentence, respectively, if convicted.

Okay, I guess the Russians should have registered as foreign agents. But why is this a bid deal?

I am sure the Russians put out self-serving propaganda on RT, but isn't that how free speech works?

I have occasionally linked to RT stories. I have linked to a lot of sources that I consider propaganda. I identify the sources. In some cases, I saw a story on RT that seemed to be true and I did not see it elsewhere.

Here is a current story:

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has announced that the latest US sanctions imposed on RT mean he will no longer be able to contribute to the Russian media outlet. Ritter insisted that his engagement with RT has been nothing but “legitimate journalism.”

A former US Marine Corps major who also served as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, Ritter came into the spotlight in 2003 when he opposed the US military operation against the Middle Eastern country. He argued that Saddam Hussein’s government did not possess weapons of mass destruction, despite Washington’s claims.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday, Ritter stressed that the content of his contributions for RT and several other sanctioned media outlets “has been factually correct and analytically sound, and always of my own creation.” ...

Last month, Ritter accused the US government of committing an “act of intimidation” and “declaring war” on him after FBI agents raided his house in New York State. The journalist said at the time that officials suspected him of working “on behalf of the Russian government” in violation of the US Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Ritter is hated by the Deep State, but I do not think he is a Russian agent.