Links - 29th March 2025 (2 - Left Wing Economics: Labour in the UK)

Starmer faces backlash in the Commons over potential welfare cuts - "Sir Keir Starmer has faced a backlash over rumoured welfare cuts, with one Labour MP pleading with the Prime Minister to make the “moral” choice. Richard Burgon told the Commons disabled people are “frightened” as he urged Sir Keir to introduce a wealth tax instead of “making the poor and vulnerable pay”."
Clearly, everyone on benefits is a bona fide claimant. Once again, we see that the "solution" left wingers want is to tax the "rich"
It is interesting that left wingers claim the Tories are heartless, but Labour is blaming them for a too-big welfare bill

Mental ill-health is behind soaring disability benefits bill in England and Wales, report says - "More than half of the increase in disability benefits is due to more mental health claims, according to research. Since the pandemic, the number of working-age adults in England and Wales paid disability benefits has increased by nearly 1 million people to 2.9 million in 2024, with 7.5% of 16- to 64-year-olds claiming... Whereas in 2002, mental health or behavioural problems were the main condition for 25% of claimants, it had risen to 40% by 2019 and has accelerated further since Covid-19. In 2024, the proportion of those receiving disability benefits whose main condition was a mental or behavioural problem had reached 44% (3.3% of the working-age population)"
The downsides of "awareness"

One in four young people consider quitting workforce entirely - "A generation of young people risk is languishing on benefits after one in four said they considered quitting the workforce. Poor mental health was the most frequent reason given by under-25s for wanting to drop out of employment. A stark report lays bare the scale of Labour's challenge as it seeks to see off opposition from its own backbenchers to slash the ballooning welfare bill and encourage adults back to work. And the crisis looks set to deepen as one in ten workers is said to be actively considering leaving the workforce, equivalent to 4.4million Britons. This rises to a quarter of 18 to 24-year-olds, who are 40 per cent more likely than older generations to give poor mental health as a reason for quitting work. A third of those classed as 'economically inactive' are 'not interested' in returning to jobs – with 37 per cent saying low 'self-esteem and confidence' acts as a barrier, a report from accounting firm PwC reveals. It concludes that considering leaving work has 'gone mainstream'. Yesterday Health Secretary Wes Streeting warned there is an 'overdiagnosis' of mental health conditions leading to 'too many people being written off'... Last year the proportion of those receiving disability benefits whose main condition was mental or behavioural hit 44 per cent, up from 40 per cent in 2019 and just 25 per cent in 2002, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Among them are tens of thousands of youngsters who now go straight from studying to being economically inactive, raising concerns many could be consigned to a life on benefits. Meanwhile the cost of sickness and disability benefits for working age people is up £20billion since the pandemic. The report from PwC – which surveyed more than 300 businesses and 4,000 adults – found 63 per cent of firms have seen a rise in people leaving work and becoming inactive, with 70 per cent of businesses saying mental health has been the key driver... 31 per cent are not interested in returning to work, with 48 per cent citing a long-term mental health condition as the reason... It comes after a recent report from Policy Exchange found the current welfare system will cost every taxpayer up to £1,500 per year by 2028/29 and does not incentivise claimants to seek work."

Britain ‘no longer a rich country’ after living standards plunge - "Britain is no longer a rich country after 15 years of stagnation “caused UK living standards to plummet”, according to economists, leaving parts of the UK worse off than the poorest parts of nations including Slovenia and Lithuania.  Economic growth and productivity have lagged behind a host of other nations since the financial crisis, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said, as it called on the Government to raise the threshold at which workers start to pay income tax in an attempt to boost performance. The typical British worker would be £4,000 per year better off if productivity growth and wages in the UK had matched those of the US, said Max Mosley, economist at the Institute.  “Economic stagnation over the past decade is now threatening the UK’s position as a place for a high standard of living. A combination of weak productivity growth driving near zero growth in real wages and cuts to welfare has resulted in a situation where we are neither delivering prosperity through high wages nor security through welfare,” he said.  “That the poorest in our country now fare worse than those in nations once considered less affluent is a stark indictment of the UK’s economic social model.”  Mr Mosley asked whether Britain is still a rich country, declaring that “this question – which was easy to answer for centuries – is now less straightforward”.  Parts of Birmingham and the north east of England are worse off than even the poorest parts of Slovenia and Lithuania, Niesr found, as nations that once made up the Eastern Bloc become increasingly prosperous. The average Slovenian’s living standards are now almost on a par with the typical Briton’s, the think tank said, in a stark indication of the UK’s relative economic decline... “The Government’s mission to grow the economy is not just about aggregate numbers but about higher living standards in every part of the country. It is vitally important to raise public investment in ways that unlock business investment to generate productivity increases and sustained real wage growth.”... That should include tax cuts, Mr Pabst said, adding: “The Government should revisit its decision to delay the uprating of the personal income tax threshold until April 2028. After more than 15 years of real wage stagnation for millions, working families need to see a tangible improvement in their living standards over the duration of this parliament.”  Niesr also suggested ending the two-child limit on benefits as the most cost-effective way to reduce poverty, as well as boosting productivity by slashing barriers to building by reforming the planning system."
Time for more degrowth, net zero and taxing the "rich"

All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns - "Living standards for all UK families are set to fall by 2030, with those on the lowest incomes declining twice as fast as middle and high earners, according to data that raises serious questions about Keir Starmer’s pledge to make working people better off. The grim economic analysis, produced by the respected Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), comes before the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, makes her spring statement on Wednesday in which she will announce new cuts to public spending rather than increase borrowing or raise taxes, so as to keep within the government’s “iron clad” fiscal rules.  In December, the prime minister announced a series of “milestones” that he said would be passed before the next general election, which is likely to be held in 2029. The first of these was “putting more money in the pockets of working people”.  But with many Labour MPs already deeply concerned about Reeves’s plan to raise about £5bn by cutting benefits, including for disabled people, evidence that living standards are on course to fall markedly under a Labour government – and to decline most for the least well off – will add to the mood of growing disquiet in party’s ranks... The JRF also said that if living standards have not recovered by 2030, Starmer will not only have failed to pass his No 1 milestone but will also have presided over the first government since 1955 to have seen a fall in living standards across a full parliament... Alfie Stirling, director of insight and policy at JRF, said further cuts were not the way to reverse the trend of falling living standards. Instead, he argued, Reeves should consider raising tax for the wealthiest... a group of leading economists wrote to the Financial Times warning that it would be a “profound mistake” for ministers to cut spending or investment, adding that “the UK cannot cut its way to growth”.  Several areas of unprotected government spending such as prisons, justice and local government – the last of which has already seen real terms cuts of over 45% since 2010 – are likely to be in line for further cuts on Wednesday, casting doubt on Starmer’s claim that is not returning the country to austerity. In her budget last October, Reeves left herself with £9.9bn of “fiscal headroom” – in effect, spare money in reserve – to allow her to meet her fiscal rule that says day-to-day spending must be matched by revenue coming into the Treasury.  But higher-than-expected borrowing costs on global markets, leading to higher debt interest payments, and lower than expected growth have wiped away that leeway, leaving her needing to find ways to restore the finances through raising money or cutting expenditure or both. Local government leaders are among those most anxiously awaiting Wednesday’s statement, which they fear could reduce what they receive and tip more councils into bankruptcy, leaving them all straining more to fund key services for the most vulnerable such as social care... With ministers struggling to manage the economy, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows the damage being done to Labour’s reputation from its economic stewardship after eight months in power.  No single party leader is now trusted on the economy, Opinium found. However, Starmer (-32%) and Reeves (-38%) are the most distrusted, with the Reform leader, Nigel Farage, the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, and shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, all rated similarly on -22%, -23% and -24% respectively. While most voters say they do not trust any party on economic issues, the Tories are now marginally more favoured than Labour to run the economy and “improve your financial situation”."
Bernie on X - "LABOUR - Promised a better future for working people, instead he’s delivering a managed decline 🤡"
If you "tax the rich", the rich will have their living standards decline more, so those on low incomes will feel better and be relatively better off. It is "moral" for the rich to suffer more than the poor - it doesn't matter if everyone suffers as long as you screw the rich more

I went to the US and was shocked by how different the culture toward entrepreneurship was from the UK. Here are the main differences. - "Using data from a company that tracks migration patterns of the ultrawealthy, Henley & Partners projected that at least 9,500 millionaires would leave the UK in 2024, compared with a projected gain of about 3,800 for the US. We spoke at the mastermind about why so many British founders are looking to exit the UK. In my opinion, it's about the country's energy as much as tax changes. In those two weeks in the States, I felt a source of energy I'd never experienced."
Time to "tax the 'rich'" and demonise them more so the country becomes even poorer

Brit who boasted about claiming benefits abroad 'held in Thai jail' - "A British TikToker who boasted of living in Thailand while claiming UK benefits says she is on hunger strike after being arrested by Thai authorities. Mum-of-three Ellis Matthews, 32, is being held at a detention centre for mothers with children in Bangkok with one of her sons, four-year-old Cairo. She was detained earlier this month for allegedly overstaying her visa ten days after it was cancelled... Ms Matthews blamed ‘people in the UK [who have been] trolling me’ online following controversy around her lifestyle. Posting videos to 16,000 followers under an account titled ‘@mumontheruninasia’, she claimed she was receiving £2,300 in Disability Living Allowance ‘for the past four years of not living in the UK’. She said she qualified due to her ‘six mental disorders’ which required ‘ongoing treatment costs to be met by the NHS by the taxpayer’."

OPINION - I'm sorry, but ADHD has become a scam that is wildly overdiagnosed and an excuse for poor behaviour - "why is it that nationally, 25 people in every thousand were getting an ADHD prescription in 2020 and more than 44 are getting it now? And why is it that London is at the front of this particular trend? Is it that the pace of life has rocketed so dangerously over this time – cost of living, febrile world order, climate crisis, smartphone dependency … all that stuff?... there’s the continuing fallout from lockdown five years ago. Is it actually the case that the numbers of us who, say, procrastinate or show poor impulse control (both symptoms), has gone up by over 40 per cent in four years? Or has lockdown exacerbated our tendency to blame our problems on a mental health condition. In Sweden, which didn’t lockdown, the numbers of people alleging mental health problems fell rather than increased as it did here. You can see by the way I’ve put the question where my thought is going... But there’s another aspect to the condition. It would seem that more people, especially in the savvy capital, have worked out that this particular disorder can actually be rather useful. My own daughter, for instance, established with the diabolical ingenuity of urban youth that she could get an extra 15 minutes for each paper when she sits her A levels if she were diagnosed with ADHD. She urged me to remember how she flits from one subject to another; I told her that she had the attention span of a gnat and if she put her wretched phone away, she’d crack it. But the problem goes further. ADHD is, for instance, not only one of the most popular grounds for obtaining that useful state benefit, Personal Independence Payments – it’s number 14 of the 500 grounds for claiming – but for obtaining it at an enhanced level. In 2023, there were 52,989 people with people claiming PIP who gave ADHD as their main problem. Now PIP is rather a useful payment. You can get it even if you’re working, have savings or are getting other benefits. The amount you can be paid is dependent on the impact your health condition or disability has on your ability to do day-to-day tasks. So the more your ability is impaired – the more money you will receive. And of the people claiming it on ADHD grounds, almost half, or 43 per cent, obtain it at an enhanced rate. The standard rate is £73.10 a week from next month; the enhanced rate is £110.40. So for those who are keen to supplement their income from state benefits, ADHD is quite a handy route."

Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "There are currently 1.9 million people claiming enhanced mobility PIP eligible for a state funded car. One in 37 people. 639,000 are claiming for mental health. The most common causes are mixed anxiety and depressive disorders (118,000), autism (113,000) and ADHD (36,000)."

Mike Tapp MP on X - "Strength without decency is weakness. This is weakness. British values rejected, yet again."
Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "The British values of... giving people a state-funded car if they say they've got anxiety?"
Want a brand new BMW? Either pay £52k or tell the DWP about your mental health - "If you want a brand new BMW i4 M Sport, you have two choices. The first is to lay out the full £52,770. The second is to tell the DWP that your mental health makes it hard to leave the house, claim the enhanced mobility rate of the Personal Independence Payment (Pip), fork out a down payment of £7,999, and get the Government to lease it for you.  In exchange for the mobility component of your benefit, you’ll get a new BMW every three years, your insurance and accident breakdown paid for, your servicing and tyre replacements covered, and your choice of “conventional metallic paint option”... It’s true that the system could probably be tightened up. Dig into the data, and among those claiming Pip are 23 people with “factitious disorder”: a condition whereby otherwise healthy people fake illnesses. To put it another way, people who want to be sick, but aren’t sick, are categorised as sick and therefore receive sickness benefits. Some 14 of them paid the enhanced mobility award necessary to access a state-funded BMW. Another 16 people have managed to claim Pip for acne. Five were awarded the higher mobility rate. Some outcomes are less amusing: people attempting to claim for asbestosis are less likely to win an award than those claiming to have autism (around 59pc of whom are eligible for Motability). But the timing and scale of the rise might not be down to remote working or NHS dysfunction alone. Welfare claims are state-dependent: people who claim welfare at one point in time are more likely to do so again in the future than similar people who don’t.  Part of this is due to differences between individuals that are hard to identify in statistical datasets, but part of it seems to be a treatment effect: exposure to the welfare system has the effect of increasing future use.  What happened during the pandemic was a country-wide experiment with exposure to the benefits system... Since the pandemic, the relationship between people and the state has shifted. Public services have stalled out in productivity. The NHS waiting list has ballooned, teachers have gone on strike. And against this background, the rise in benefits claims might have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.  In a high-trust society, you might not claim every benefit you’re eligible for, reserving the money for the genuinely needy. If, however, you see people claiming who clearly shouldn’t, while state services are falling apart and the Government is using your taxes to house illegal migrants in hotels, you might see things in more transactional terms."

Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "A friend of mine earning six figures just commented that they have never owned a new car and between mortgage and childcare they don't expect to any time soon. Perhaps they should start claiming benefits?"
Families on benefits can be better off than those earning £70k
Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "If you earn £60,000 in London, you pay £17,000 in direct taxes, another £4,300 in indirect taxes, and your rent. Even living further out, you have a lower standard of living than a socially housed family of benefits claimants. And if they get PIP, you'll drive a worse car too."

Meme - Sam Ashworth-Hayes @SAshworthHayes: "121,000 people whose primary disability is "mixed anxiety and depressive disorder" currently receive the full enhanced PIP mobility award, and are thereby entitled to a state-funded car."
"Mobility Award Status and Disability by Month. Filters: Default Summation : PIP Cases with Entitlement from 2019
Mobility Award Status: Mobility Award - Enhanced. Anxiety and depressive disorders - mixed. 121,199"
Jemma Moore @JemHaydonMoore: "He’s sensationalising.  It would be extremely difficult to get full mobility allowance for anxiety."

Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "The American Dream is working hard and making it to the top. The British Dream is a London council flat, £50k Motability car and full PIP and UC awards."

Sam Ashworth-Hayes on X - "A brief summary of life in the UK: 27 million private sector workers support 9 million economically inactive people aged 16-64, 6 million public sector workers, and 13 million pensioners. If you suggest any part of this is unsustainable, people compare you to Hitler.
This does not include children (obviously) or the shadow public sector - private sector jobs that are state funded contracts.   The long term fiscal trajectory is not good."

Rachel Charlton-Dailey on X - "Labour are making a huge fuss of how many people are claiming pip (3.6 million). But there are 16.1 million disabled people in the UK. That means 12.5 million disabled people AREN'T getting PIP or any support."
Lara Brown on X - "I find it impossible to believe that 23% of the entire UK population are disabled. Any metric which identifies 1 in 4 people as disabled clearly isn't a useful metric, and risks preventing us from identifying the people who genuinely need state support."
1 in 4 people being disabled in the UK is proof that capitalism has failed!
If everyone is disabled, no one is disabled

Labour is spreading the biggest lie in British politics - "Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the Labour Party wins office and immediately sets about preparing the ground for higher taxes. If it sounds familiar, it should: no Labour chancellor since 1970 has left office with the country facing a lower tax burden than when they started.  Rachel Reeves appears to be in no mood to buck this trend... Now safely ensconced in the Treasury, Reeves is picking up where the campaign left off. In her first speech as chancellor, earlier this week she claimed to have inherited the “worst set of circumstances since the Second World War”, and warned that she had ordered “Treasury officials to provide an assessment of the state of our spending inheritance so that I can understand the scale of the challenge”.  This is obviously nonsense. As Institute for Fiscal Studies director Paul Johnson pointed out last month, the Government’s books are “wide open, fully transparent”. Everyone – you, me, and most certainly the bond markets – can see exactly what’s going on at any given point in time. It would be a very brave lender who chose to fund the UK’s debt if this weren’t the case. Equally nonsensical is the idea that this is the worst economic inheritance in 79 years and counting of British economic history. You don’t have to look back to the Second World War to find a more challenging set of circumstances for an incoming government. You don’t even have to look back to the last millennium.   The deficit today stands at around 4.5pc of GDP. In 2010, the coalition government took over a country running a deficit more than twice that ratio at a whopping 10.3pc. It took years of work to bring it back down under control.   In contrast, the deficit inherited by Labour is already due to fall substantially. By 2028-29, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that it will be around 1.2pc of GDP. Some of this fall is based on spending assumptions that are, charitably, challenging to meet.  But a good 1.5 percentage points is due to come from increases in revenue and falls in interest rates that are, in the absence of any further bad news, pretty much baked in. Many of the hard decisions in terms of tax rises and frozen thresholds have already been taken. It’s true that the debt burden is larger than it was in 2010, standing at a little under 100pc of GDP. But it’s worth remembering that a good deal of this rise was the result of pandemic measures enthusiastically supported by the Labour Party, which called for extensions to the furlough scheme and bigger pay rises for NHS “heroes”.   It is also true that the Labour Party had itself overseen a rise in debt to 65pc of GDP in 2010 from a starting point of 38pc, without the excuse of having put the economy into deep freeze for a year. If Reeves wants someone to blame for Britain’s precarious fiscal state, Gordon Brown would be a better target than Rishi Sunak.  As for interest rates, yes Labour will be paying out a higher rate on government debt than the Conservatives were in 2010. But what matters for the sustainability of government debt is the difference between this interest rate and the growth rate of the economy. And just as inflation has led to higher interest rates, it has also pumped up nominal GDP growth. Once this is taken into account, the difference between the two scenarios is substantially reduced... Even with the best will in the world, the party’s grand plans to improve public services will require money as well as reforms. Money, however, is scarce. Over the next half century, an older population means spending on health, social care, and the state pension are set to eat up another 10pc of GDP, while Labour’s plans for energy and defence are likely to require substantial spending increases of their own. Putting it all on the credit card isn’t an option. Our toxic combination of demography and state generosity led the OBR to comment that our fiscal trajectory is “unsustainable” in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 – the 2016 report was cancelled – 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 – 2021’s publication focused, understandably, on the pandemic – 2022, and 2023. The 2024 report was delayed by the election, but I think I can just about guess about what it will say, too. Reeves knows that abandoning the party’s fiscal rules – or trying to get too clever with definitions of “investment” – would spook the markets into a catastrophic backlash.   Going through with the cuts pencilled in to public services in the last Budget, meanwhile, is unthinkable for the party of state expansion. And while a burst of economic growth would do a great deal to resolve our problems, Liz Truss is an ever-present warning to those who spend the fruits of such expansions before setting out how they are to be achieved.  This leaves the party with only one palatable choice: break its promise, raise taxes, and try to pin the blame on the Tories."

Tom Harwood on X - "Where does it all go? Welfare, the NHS, and debt interest are the three largest slices of the state spending pie. Together, these three areas cover almost 50% of where your taxes go."

Why shouldn’t this white German woman ‘identify as black’? - "Where’s the ‘compassion’ for tax-payers?
All week long, Left-wing MPs have been demanding that Liz Kendall abandon her proposed cuts to benefits. Again and again, they’ve angrily told the Work and Pensions Secretary to show some compassion, and think about how their poor, horrified constituents feel.  These MPs are undoubtedly kind, caring people. I have just one small question for them.  Who do they think pays for all these benefits?  It’s not Ms Kendall. Nor is it Rachel Reeves. Nor is it Sir Keir Starmer. Ministers may be the ones who dole out the money. But I wouldn’t strictly call it theirs.  Possibly some MPs have lost sight of this fact, but in reality, the money comes from taxes extracted from people who actually work for a living. People who slog away for long hours in not terribly glamorous jobs that they don’t necessarily enjoy all that much. This week, Left-wing MPs have focused entirely on the feelings of people whose benefits could be reduced. But what about the feelings of the people who fund those benefits? How do those people feel, at the end of another gruelling day, when they read that money deducted from their earnings has been handed to claimants who say they need it because they feel “anxious”, or have eczema? How do they feel when they learn that claimants can watch TikTok videos full of clever tips on how to claim the maximum possible amount of money? How do they feel when they learn that, last year, this country spent significantly more on sickness benefits (almost £65 billion) than it did on defence (£53.9 billion)? And, last but not least, how do they feel when they realise that, after tax, they aren’t necessarily much better off than they would be if they didn’t work at all, and just claimed benefits instead?  Perhaps we should spare at least a little compassion for those people, too."

FORGIVENESS ASYMMETRY (Left Wing Terrorists vs Right Wing Infractions)

Allum Bokhari on X

FORGIVENESS ASYMMETRY 

Left-wing terrorism is back. Tesla dealerships and charging stations are the targets of a firebombing campaign, quietly supported by opponents of the current administration and their inability to accept political defeat. 

 

While the White House has declared this to be domestic terrorism, the opposition is in no rush to condemn the attacks. Indeed, Democrat congressman Seth Moulton even framed them as legitimate protest, with zero pushback from his CNN interviewer: 

 

We shouldn't be surprised. This sort of thing has happened many times before.

 

Luigi Mangione, facing life behind bars for the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is considered a folk hero by many on the left. Legacy media, Democrats, and even some Republicans declared their sympathy for the motivations of staggeringly violent Black Lives Matter riots in 2020,

which left at least 25 dead. A few months later, those same people would frame Jan 6th an an unforgiveable insurrection against democracy.

 

It's all a symptom of what I call forgiveness asymmetry.

 

On the right, many conservatives will enthusiastically purge people who are nominally on their own side, often over mere words – offensive jokes, remarks, and fringe viewpoints. 

 

Meanwhile, the old ruling class and its left-wing allies will forgive, rehabilitate, and even idolize perpetrators of the worst kinds of political violence. 

 

There’s no better example of this than the wave of left-wing terrorism that swept across America in the 1970s and 1980s. In those years, a variety of far-left organizations carried out thousands of bombings, armed robberies, prison breaks, and shootouts across the country. These include the killing of police officers, plane hijackings, and the bombing of government buildings.

 

Despite the widespread death and destruction, many Americans are completely unaware that it happened. Given the partisan slant of the education system, it’s unlikely you heard about it in a high school history class. You’re also unlikely to have heard about it in college, especially if you attended a campus where the former terrorists were awarded professorships.

 

Professorships. I’ll get to that later. First, the history.

"People have completely forgotten that in 1972 we had over nineteen hundred domestic bombings in the United States," notes a retired FBI agent, Max Noel. "People don't want to listen to that. They can't believe it. One bombing now and everyone gets excited. In 1972? It was every day. Buildings getting bombed, policemen getting killed. It was commonplace."

- Days of Rage (Penguin, 2016)

 

The violence emerged from the political froth of the 1960s student movement, when a radical faction of the far-left protesters decided that sit-ins and placards were not enough to achieve revolutionary change. New methods - violent methods - would be necessary. 

 

The most famous terrorist faction was the Weather Underground, which carried out a string of bombings in the 1970s. Its targets included the Pentagon, the State Department, and a Chicago memorial for fallen police officers. The Weathermen praised the Manson Family murders and debated the ethics of killing white babies to avoid bringing more "oppressors" into the world. 

 

The Weather Underground last rose to public attention in 2008 due to then-candidate Barack Obama’s

palling around with its leaders, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. It’s the only time I can remember leftist terrorism breaking into the national news cycle, and it only happened because Republicans forced the issue. It’s not as if legacy media wanted to talk about it.

 

There were many other groups that are now largely forgotten. There was the May 19th Communist Organization (M19CO), which bombed government buildings and conducted bank robberies in the 1980s. There was also the Black Liberation Army, which murdered numerous police officers and even hijacked a passenger aircraft in the 1970s. And there was the United Freedom Front, which bombed at least 20 corporate and government buildings in the same decade.

 

These disparate groups shared a common ideology, born from the radical left-wing politics of the 1960s. It was a potent cocktail of communism, “anti-imperialism” (though not necessarily anti-Soviet imperialism) black liberation, and women’s liberation – the forerunners of what we now call wokeness.

 

M19CO, for example, was so named because May 19th was the birthday of Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X. In its public statements, the Weather Underground promised to “lead white kids into armed revolution” on behalf of black people, against “capitalists” and “imperialism.” The UAF said its bombings were motivated by “racist imperialism in South Africa.”

 

When we think of wokeness today, we think of black Vikings on TV and transgender activists in Bud Light ads. In the 1970s, it would have conjured images of pipe bombs and police shootouts.

 

The terrorist wave set a trend of targeting high-profile targets. Leftist terrorists bombed the

U.S. capitol building – twice. They bombed the Pentagon. They bombed the State Department. They bombed police stations, prisons, and banks. The target was always the U.S. government and western corporations. Corporations, cops, and America itself were the enemy. As stated in a variety of public declarations, their goal was the violent destruction of the racist, capitalist, imperialist United States.

 

Isn’t it funny that the same people who brushed this decade-long insurgency under the historical rug want us to be mad about one day of trespassing on Jan 6th, 2021?

From Terrorists to Professors

What’s remarkable about the 1970s terrorism is how quickly its perpetrators were forgiven. Ayers and Dohrn, the pair who started it all, barely suffered any consequences. The FBI investigation of Ayers coincided with public revelations about the bureau's use of illegal wiretaps and warrantless property searches. When it emerged that these tactics were used against the Weather Underground, charges against Ayers were dropped. He never spent a day in jail. 

 

Over the following decades, Columbia University would accept Ayers into its grad school, the University of Illinois would award him a professorship, and the American Educational Research Association would appoint him its vice president for curriculum studies. School curricula. For your kids.

Dohrn received little more than a slap on the wrist. When she turned herself in to the authorities in 1980, she received a $1,5000 fine and three years probation. Had she not refused to testify against fellow terrorist Susan Rosenberg, she would have served zero days in jail. In the end, she was behind bars for a mere seven months.

 

A few years later, Dohrn was hired by the prestigious multinational law firm Sidley Austin, even though she had never practice law before. Asked about this hiring decision, the head of the firm (a friend of her father-in-law) casually remarked “we often hire friends.” Despite failing to obtain a license – over lack of contrition for her past actions – she remined at the company for years. The alumni of the FBI’s Most Wanted List, who never showed much contrition in later years, would also end up teaching America’s youth, as a law professor at Northwestern University.

 

And then there’s Susan Rosenberg.

 

A member of M19CO, Rosenberg was an accomplice in one of the most notorious act of the 70s-80s terrorist wave, the 1981 Brink’s robbery, in which members of M19CO and the Black Liberation Army stole $1.6 million in cash from an armored truck, killing one of its guards and wounding another. Tracked down by police, the robbers killed two officers and wounded another. 

 

Rosenberg did suffer consequences for the Brink’s murders, as well as her role in the 1981 U.S. Senate bombing. Arrested in 1984, she was sentenced to 58 years in prison but only served 16 of them behind bars – she was pardoned by Bill Clinton on his final day in office. Kathy Boudin, another participant in the robbery, was paroled soon after.

 

What did they do later, you ask? Susan Rosenberg - whose M19CO organization also broke serial cop-killer Assata Shakur out of prison in 1979 - joined the board of directors of the Thousand Currents Foundation.

 

The Thousand Currents Foundation would play a leading role in getting Black Lives Matter off the ground. The same Black Lives Matter that sparked a summer of rioting and violence in the summer of 2020. Those riots left 25 people dead and caused roughly $2 billion in property damage, proving that 1970s ideology is still more than capable of causing death and destruction.

 

As for Kathy Boudin, Columbia University granted her an adjunct professorship, because who's gonna stop them? Former left-wing terrorists get to be university professors and teach America’s kids. Those are the rules.

 

Speaking of Kathy Boudin, have you heard of her son, Chesa? Yes, the one Democrats elected to be San Francisco’s district attorney. The one letting convicted criminals out of jail all across the city. The scion of terrorists and bank robbers, in charge of the law.

 

Both of Chesa’s parents were incarcerated for their role in the deadly 1981 Brink’s robbery, but that didn’t spare him the fate of being raised by militants. The pair who stepped up to be his guardians were none other than Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Honestly – kind of a raw deal.

 

The radical upbringing went as expected. Chesa may not share the tactics of his parents and guardians, but boy does he share their radicalism – before he set his sights on freeing every felon in the Bay Area, Boudin worked for the socialist government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, translating its propaganda into English.

 

Should we even be talking about Chesa? It’s wrong to tie children to the crimes of their parents, isn’t it? Of course it is – unless their parents are right wing critics of Islam. Then, even if they’re completely apolitical themselves, they get doxed by Taylor Lorenz and run out of their jobs.

 

Ah yes, the asymmetry of it all.

 

This brings us to the final, most essential point.

Forgiveness Asymmetry

It’s all very well to point and sputter. Yes, the left shamelessly rehabilitated its terrorists and cop-killers. But what can we learn from it?

The first is a warning from history. The radical left has no problem with violence. They celebrated the murder of the United Healthcare CEO. They celebrated the riots of 2020, even though dozens were killed. They celebrated the terrorism of the 70s and 80s and worked tirelessly to rehabilitate its perpetrators.

As a recent Pirate Wires story demonstrated, many on the left have no problem with terrorism if it’s used for a “good” cause. There are no principled restrictions on tactics, only targets.

 

Don’t believe me – believe Bill Ayers:

"I’m no tactician, but I know that tactics are neutral in themselves—Nazi soldiers blowing up a bridge in occupied France to stop an Allied advance is despicable; partisans blowing up the bridge to prevent the Nazis from overwhelming a village and slaughtering its inhabitants is both defensible and righteous. So it is with insurrections: the goals and purposes matter. January 6, 2021 was a white supremacist insurrection against state power—part of a long American tradition that includes the secessionist insurrection of 1861, the uprising by the White League seeking to overthrow the biracial Reconstruction government of Louisiana in 1894, the violent toppling of the government in Wilmington North Carolina in 1898, and more. Each of these insurrections was in naked defense of white power. By contrast, the Haitian and Cuban revolutions, for example, were emancipatory insurrections designed to move human society forward."

 

The second thing to consider is, how do we respond to these attitudes, which are apparently widespread in politics, the legacy media, and elite academic institutions? 

 

As a bare minimum, we can stop playing their games.

 

Here’s a thought experiment: consider the worst kind of right-wing behavior that might be uncovered about someone. Maybe they dropped the N-word on a live stream. Maybe they were a member of the Proud Boys, or were arrested on Jan 6th, or dabbled in the 2016 alt-right. Maybe they said something like

“normalize Indian hate.”

 

Of course, it’s fine to disagree with all that. But before you jump behind a campaign to destroy their careers, consider the following: is it as bad as blowing up government buildings? Is it as bad as murdering cops? Is it as bad as trying to overthrow the United States and replace it with a “decolonized” communist dystopia?

 

No?

 

Then I hope you’ll join me in disavowing cancel culture as we’ve come to know it. As Elon Musk said when he rehired DOGE staffer Marko Elez despite his unequivocally racist posts, “to err is to human, to forgive divine.”

 

The thing about unequivocally racist posts is, they’re not bombs and they’re not bullets. And in a world where Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Kathy Boudin get to be college professors, Marko Elez absolutely gets to be a DOGE staffer. After that, who knows – maybe we can get him tenure somewhere?

Links - 29th March 2025 (1 [including AfD])

More than 100 German legislators back motion to ban far-right AfD : r/worldnews - "I wish people would try to understand it before criticizing this move.  The process would be resolved by the German Constitutional Court. It happened before, after the War several parties were banned, because they wanted to abolish parts of our constitution that are protected by the "Eternity Clause" and that is meant to ensure that we will have a democracy and human rights in the future.  Nowadays the AfD wants to abolish parts of our constitution.  Starting the process is not banning at will, and it is a perfectly reasonable rule of law process (EDIT: …and follows the principles of "Defensive Democracy")  It is based on a sound philosophical understanding of the concept of democracy that basically says that at the heart of it there is a paradox: you must not be tolerant towards parties that want to abolish tolerance. :
I like how this is good because the AfD wants to change the Constitution. Of course, when it comes to the US, left wingers want to toss out the whole thing. But the Constitution is sacrosanct and cannot be touched if that hurts the left wing agenda

Michael Shermer on X - "A man in Bavaria had his house raided by police after retweeting a meme mocking German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck, calling him a "professional moron." In other news, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) took 2nd in today's national election."
German police raid man’s home over tweet mocking Greens’ politician - "A man in Bavaria had hi\s house raided by police after retweeting a meme mocking German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens party.  On November 12, at 6 am, the 64-year-old poster was woken by two police officers with the Schweinfurt force in Bavaria after the local court in Bamberg had ordered his home and car be searched for mobile phones and other digital devices... According to the court document, the public prosecutor stated “public interest” in pressing criminal charges as the retweet was “punishable as an insult against people of political life”. It potentially constituted “incitement of the people”.  Publicly insulting a politician has been a criminal offence in Germany since 2021 when a set of laws “against hate and hate speech” were passed under then-chancellor Angela Merkel... Habeck, along with other Greens politicians, has made wide use of the regulation penalising insults against politicians.  In April 2023, he signed a criminal complaint against popular German journalist Rainer Meyer who had tweeted that Habeck’s appearance “would not stand out negatively in a group of train-station alcoholics”.  Chris Gattringer  Share  A man in Bavaria had his house raided by police after retweeting a meme mocking German Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck of the Greens party.  On November 12, at 6 am, the 64-year-old poster was woken by two police officers with the Schweinfurt force in Bavaria after the local court in Bamberg had ordered his home and car be searched for mobile phones and other digital devices.  Police confiscated the man’s tablet. His daughter, who reportedly has Down’s syndrome, was there at the time.  The court had decided that the man had published an image on X in June 2024 that showed an image of Habeck above a slogan reading: “Professional moron”.  The meme played on the German phrase “Schwachkopf Professional”, which closely resembled the well-known shampoo brand “Schwarzkopf Professional”.  The man allegedly shared the meme on his X account, which at the time had 901 followers.  According to the court document, the public prosecutor stated “public interest” in pressing criminal charges as the retweet was “punishable as an insult against people of political life”. It potentially constituted “incitement of the people”.  Publicly insulting a politician has been a criminal offence in Germany since 2021 when a set of laws “against hate and hate speech” were passed under then-chancellor Angela Merkel.  The Schweinfurt police confirmed the raid and said it was part of a nationwide “day of action against internet criminality”.  Also on November 12, Hamburg police raided the apartments of five people charged with denying the holocaust and posting Swastikas on social media.  Habeck, along with other Greens politicians, has made wide use of the regulation penalising insults against politicians.  In April 2023, he signed a criminal complaint against popular German journalist Rainer Meyer who had tweeted that Habeck’s appearance “would not stand out negatively in a group of train-station alcoholics”.  In May 2024, Meyer was acquitted by an appeal court that ruled his tweet constituted “an expression of opinion covered by freedom of speech”."
Clearly, to Save Democracy, the AfD needs to be banned

Christian Heiens 🏛 on X - "Germany’s “center-right” party is going to form a coalition government with literal socialists rather than allow AfD a seat at the table. Just watch. The Uniparty is real. It truly is the Right vs everyone else."

German gays back hard-right AfD, poll suggests - "The hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is the most popular among German users of gay dating app Romeo.com, according to the site’s survey.  In the poll conducted from January 24 to February 2, almost 28 per cent of more than 60,000 respondents on the dating app said they would vote for the AfD in the upcoming Bundestag election on February 23. All German users received an in-app message with a participation link to the survey on Romeo, one of the world’s largest gay dating apps... Among men above 60 years of age, AfD was less popular, scoring 19.8 per cent. The CDU was most popular, scoring 21.7 per cent, followed by SPD with 20.8 per cent.  For the youngest group, 18-24-year-olds, the AfD topped the poll at 34.7 per cent... The AfD has often been criticised as homophobic by its opponents, despite the fact that the party’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, is in a lesbian relationship with a woman of Sri Lankan descent.  Her party has also been highly vocal about the rise in homophobic violence in recent years, although linking it to rising mass migration to Germany."
Clearly, young German gays are too stupid to know that the "far right" will put them in concentration camps, so they shouldn't be allowed to vote

Tom Nuttall on X - "The German press reports that JD Vance met with AfD co-leader Alice Weidel after his speech in Munich today. (Vance refused to meet Olaf Scholz, Germany's chancellor.)"
Dr. Angela Rasmussen on X - "You guys the Vice President of the United States just blew off the Chancellor of Germany to meet with Nazis instead. Does it need to be more fucking clear to Americans what kind of people are running the country & what they are doing? Time to decide how you want to be remembered
Denying, excusing, but actually-ing, or simping for Nazis in the replies will be blocked on sight."
Alice Weidel - Wikipedia - "Since 2009, Weidel has been in a lesbian relationship with Sarah Bossard, a Sri Lankan-born film producer"
The "Nazis" are more welcoming and tolerant than the left nowadays
Left wingers love to block those who disagree with them, then proclaim they've never heard an explanation for why people disagree with them, or pretend they want people to explain something to them

Remix News & Views on X - "🚨🇩🇪German police have raided houses and arrested people accused of "insulting" politicians online.   In response to criticism, German Green Party MP Renate Künast says that "anyone who criticizes this is supporting right-wing extremism."  She is the same Green politician spearheading a gradual ban on the AfD in the German parliament.   Former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang called the AfD "Nazis" at a party event in 2023. The AfD party has suffered numerous attacks and brazen assaults in recent years, making them the most physically assaulted party in all of Germany, according to official data.  Recently, police conducted an early-morning raid of pensioner Stefan Niehoff and seized his electronic devices for a mocking tweet calling Green Economic Minister Robert Habeck an "idiot." His daughter with Down Syndrome was also present.  Habeck and the Greens have come under fire for the massive number of criminal complaints they have filed for "insults," with critics saying it's a threat to freedom of speech. Künast contends that politicians should not suffer such insults."
Clearly, if you criticise mainstream politicians and don't support banning the AfD you're a threat to democracy and a dangerous extremist who needs to be jailed

PeterSweden on X - "Unbelievable. Germany will be FIRING police officers that are member of the right-wing AfD party, despite being the second largest party in the country. Does this sound democratic to you?"

Protesters chanting ‘no to Nazis’ block access to AfD party congress
To make it easy to identify AfD members, they need to be required to wear yellow stars so everyone will be able to identity them. If their numbers don't dwindle, we need to ban the party, lock them up in camps to work and reeducate them, and even kill them if necessary, because the "Nazi" threat is so grave. Due process and Human Rights are Dangers to Democracy - Nazis don't deserve human rights.

Shaun Maguire on X - "The left claims they're anti-fascists but they try to ban free speech and ban political opponents..."
Russell on X - "When you lose on the battlefield of ideas you have nothing left but to use lawfare. Germany is nearing the precipice to which they will not be able to return if they successfully ban a very popular political party."

Eyal Yakoby on X - "WOW: The President of Turkey calls for the end of Western Civilization: “Western civilization will collapse, our divine and humane civilization will flourish.” How is Turkey still a NATO member?"
The limits of "mild Islamism"

Shane Claiborne on X - "Tonight the state of Missouri killed Christopher Collings. These are his final words. The death penalty is evil. It does not heal the wounds of violence… it just creates new wounds. It is time to stop killing to try to show that killing is wrong."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "Christopher Collins raped and killed a small child, and hid the corpse in a sink-hole. I understand some things about leftists, in a "know your enemy" sort of way, but am genuinely baffled by the desire to make martyrs/heroes out of the most useless and excreable people in society."

Crémieux on X - "In 2022, the mayor of Atlanta revealed that 0.2% of the population was responsible for 40% of the city's crime. In one week, Atlanta's police force arrested 20 super-repeaters who had 553 prior arrests and 114 felony convictions between them."
Clearly, they need to expand bail reform and put the onus on the state to justify why an accused criminal shouldn't get bail

Wolves and brown bears among wildlife making ‘exciting’ comeback in Europe (Sep 2022)
Ursula von der Leyen's horse lies dead in a pasture (Jan 2023) - "A picture of the body of Ursula von der Leyen's prized horse lying dead in a pasture has reemerged, as she is forced to deny ordering a wolf cull in revenge."
Wolf that killed von der Leyen’s pony to be shot (Dec 2022)
European Commission to relax rules for protecting the wolf (Dec 2024)

Baby Mop Onesie - "Teach your kid a strong work ethic at a young age with the baby mop onesie. Not only will your baby learn the importance of cleanliness, but he will also get an ab defining workout as he crawls across the floor picking up dirt and trash."

Thread by @cremieuxrecueil on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Thread of some surprising things that are older than other things
Notre Dame predates the Maori settlement of New Zealand
Oxford is older than the Aztecs
The Great Pyramid of Giza was completed before Woolly Mammoths went extinct
The University of Bologna is quite literally older than "Time Immemorial" (1189, the beginning of the reign of King Richard I)
A bridge still in use in Trier is nearly a thousand years older than the Inca Empire
Socrates is about as old as the oldest Nazca Lines...
Nintendo is older than sliced bread
The Taj Mahal is younger than Shakespeare
The Cherokee Alphabet postdates the U.S. Constitution
Alexander the Great got to India about 600 years before Bantu speakers got to South Africa
Cleopatra lived closer to the creation of the iPhone than to the construction of the Great Pyramid
Harvard is older than Hasidic Judaism
The fax machine predates the telephone
The start of the Great Wall of China predates Islam
The Sámi identity postdates Protestantism...
Göbekli Tepe was coextensive in time with the giant sloth
The grandson of the tenth U.S. president, John Tyler (born 1790), is still alive (born 1928).
The Last Samurai died twelve years after Abraham Lincoln
Order of these Supreme Court cases:
Katz 1967: electronic microphone placing outside a phonebooth needs a warrant
Kyllo 2001: thermograms of a residence need a warrant
Jardines 2013: dog sniffs on curtilage need a warrant
Ramos 2020: juries in criminal cases must be unanimous
The first vending machine might have been for holy water:
The Battle of Hastings occurred after the Viking settlement of Greenland and before the Inuit arrived there"

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry on X - "Recently, I casually mentioned to an educated American that the Vichy Regime was voted into power by a left-majority Assembly and most of its political personnel was left-wing, while the Free French were overwhelmingly right-wing reactionaries, and he was totally stunned. I thought I was stating the obvious.   Most educated Americans have an interest in France and French culture (this is almost a tautology) but I never know what they know or don’t know, what I can take for granted and what I have to explain. Always interesting."

Steam checkout banner clarifies you don’t own the game you buy — GOG takes a jab at Steam, saying it gives users offline installers that cannot be taken away

What Is the ‘Asian Squat’ and Why Can’t Everyone Do It? - The Atlantic - "the key factor seems to be ankle flexibility... Body shape also seems to play a role. Short limbs, big heads, and long torsos make it easier to balance. (Again why toddlers have it so easy.)... Believe it or not, no one appears to have actually studied innate ability in deep squatting across ethnic groups."

Japanese Realtor ‘Kidnaps’ Junior High School Girls and it turns out he just wanted to teach real estate to them. : r/Damnthatsinteresting - "The most plot-twisted kidnapping case happened in Japan in 2019.  The story started when Hiroaki Sakaue saw a social media post from the victims saying 'wanting to run away from home'  He offered the girls to stay in his apartment, but on one condition, they had to be willing to learn.  There, the girls were genuinely taught about the real estate business. They were also provided with food and decent facilities.  To the police, Hiroaki confessed that he only wanted to share his knowledge so that after graduation, they could work at his company  The two girls stayed in Hiroaki's apartment for 2 months without any signs of physical or psychological abuse.  Hiroaki guided the girls to prepare for the real estate agent license exam by regularly making quizzes.  Hiroaki did not deny the accusation of hiding the girls. The Urawa police arrested him for not asking the parents' permission."

Japanese Realtor ‘Kidnaps' Junior High School Girls and Encourages Them to Study - "He was first arrested on Oct. 29 at his rental apartment, where police found the girls reportedly studying. According to the police, the two high school girls were fed three times a day and stayed at a separate home. The girls were reportedly free to leave whenever they wanted and allowed to contact their parents through their phones"

Vietnam tycoon Truong My Lan told to repay US$11 billion to avoid death penalty | South China Morning Post - "Vietnamese prosecutors have told property tycoon Truong My Lan she must repay an estimated US$11 billion if she wants to avoid execution by lethal injection. Lan, 68, is appealing her death sentence after being convicted in April of embezzling US$12.3 billion from Saigon Commercial Bank. She was also found guilty of bribing government officials and violating bank lending rules."

Girl, 12, appears in court charged with manslaughter over death of 80-year-old man - "Bhim Kohli died from serious injuries he suffered while walking his dog in Franklin Park, near his home in Braunstone Town, Leicestershire, on 1 September.  He died at Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham the next day.  The girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared at Leicester Youth Court sitting at Leicester Magistrates' Court on Monday... A 15-year-old boy has already been charged with the murder of Mr Kohli."

The Canadian Naval Diving Academy celebrates graduation by taking their class picture underwater : r/Damnthatsinteresting

Sold-out Toronto concert cancelled after Air Canada refuses seat for musician’s cello - The Globe and Mail - "An Air Canada boarding agent refused a cello its seat, and no strings could be pulled to get the instrument in the air. As a result, a sold-out concert in Toronto on Wednesday was called off just hours before its scheduled start.  The night prior, at Memorial Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio, the British cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and his pianist sister Isata Kanneh-Mason had closed a concert with Gustav Holst’s carol In the Bleak Midwinter. Then things got very bleak indeed. The sibling musicians arrived at Cincinnati’s airport early Wednesday morning, only to find that their American Airlines flight to Toronto had been cancelled because of inclement weather. They then booked three seats – two for them, one for the cello – on an Air Canada afternoon flight that would get them here just in time for their concert at Koerner Hall. But when it came time to board, an Air Canada gate agent would not allow Kanneh-Mason’s cello on the plane... The instrument, made in 1700 by Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller, is worth millions of dollars, according to the cellist, and is on loan to him. Because of its value and fragility, stowing it in the baggage hold wasn’t an option... One couple had driven 20 hours from New Brunswick to attend the tour’s only Canadian stop."

Liberals throw $600M more at gun buyback scheme – still no guns collected - "Tucked away in the Liberal government’s fall economic statement is a commitment to throw an additional $597.9 million over three years in taxpayer funds to confiscate guns from law-abiding firearms owners.  The gun buyback scheme was already projected to surpass $100 million by 2025 despite the government not collecting a single gun since the plan’s announcement...   The fall economic statement reiterated that Canada intends to donate any confiscated firearms to Ukraine. Wilson criticized the idea of donating sporting rifles to Ukraine as “ridiculous” and “entirely performative.”  “I think it’s an attempt to reinforce the notion that these guns are ‘weapons of war.’ No military in the world uses semi-auto, 5-round plinkers in battle,” she said. “Not to mention you can’t export these guns without approval from the countries of origin, most of whom have weapons contracts with Ukraine.”   Most of the weapons used in crimes in Canada continue to be smuggled from the United States... The fall economic statement showcased a deficit of $61.9 billion for the 2023-24 fiscal year, which is over 50% higher than the limit Chrystia Freeland previously promised to abide by. “The Liberals continue to use legal firearms owners and businesses as a punching bag for political gain. They’ve learned absolutely nothing from their tanking polling despite the desperate channel changer of more gun control,” said Wilson."
Clearly, the problem was that they didn't spend enough money and with more money there would be results

Scott Adams on X - "I don't think Democrats disagree with Republicans on values. I think they disagree on base reality. For example, if women were really only earning 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, for the same work, Republicans would want that fixed too. Every political topic is like that."
Of course, left wingers just think that those who disagree with them are genuinely evil

Meme - "Grandfather Of Teen Killed During Burglary Says AR- 15 Made Fight 'Unfair'"
"Three Oklahoma teens were killed after breaking into a house and being greeted by the homeowner's son and an AR-15. After their untimely demise, one suspect's grandfather spoke out about the circumstances surrounding his grandson's death."

iamwrapoet on X - "If she supported you when you was broke and you got rich,leave her so that she can go help another brother."

Meme - "It always cracks me up how religious people will point to something amazing about the universe and act like that somehow proves that their specific version of mythology is true. Yes, Janet - the life cycle of a star is pretty amazing. Now explain to me how that proves your assertion that some guy once received divine laws from a burning bush."

Meme - "I asked this dude what his shirt said and he said "dope." I didn't have the heart to tell him *Pedo*"

Meme - *Facebook Marketplace ad*
*Emoji of woman holding penis*
"Give head for 20$"

Meme - Charles Fain Lehman @CharlesFLlehman: "From a cop in the DMs. Strategic policing works!"
"A sergeant I work with recent compiled some auto theft stats. I live in a county with a population of 225,000. In 2022 there were 4.9 auto thefts per day county wide. So we started a task force. We sorted reports with possible suspects identified and started distributing a Top 10 Auto Thieves bulleting to every cop in the county. The theory being cops often collect video evidence related to car thefts but then can't ID the person in the video. Simultaneously we set to work targeting the top 1 or 2 guys. In 2022 we charged a guy with 80 counts of auto theft. In 2023 we arrested 2 more guys and charged them each with 59 counts of auto theft Presently, there are 1.1 auto thefts per day in my county."

Most of charity’s donations don’t go to charitable activity - "Breast Cancer Canada is a rising star among Canadian charities. In just two years, its annual revenues skyrocketed from $1.2 million in 2019/2020 to $18.8 million in 2021/2022. Most of the money raised, the charity has said, goes toward funding medical research and raising awareness about a devastating disease. According to financial disclosures posted online, the charity spent more than 92 per cent of its nearly $16 million in expenditures in 2021/2022 on “charitable activities.”... However, the charity has another set of financial documents that are not publicly displayed. These audited financial statements show the charity spending money much differently. The charity’s audited financial statement for that same fiscal year shows that Breast Cancer Canada (BCC) only spent $1.4 million on its charitable mission. The charity spent $13.9 million — most of the money it raised — on bankrolling its own fundraising... The CRA says that charities spending a lot on fundraising in comparison to how much money they raise can be cause for concern, as it may be a sign of improper fundraising practices. Meanwhile, the techniques fundraisers used to solicit donations for BCC may have run afoul of the law and CRA guidance... BCC has publicly reported for years that it does not pay external fundraisers — or spend money on fundraising at all... The charity’s audited financial statements stopped showing the spike in fundraising costs when the charity hired different auditors for its 2022/2023 fiscal year... Across multiple fundraising companies, many front-line fundraisers said they engaged in other deceptive practices as they followed the instructions or example of senior company figures. Gunawardena and his coworkers would display whiteboards on which they wrote the names and donations of especially generous donors to encourage passersby to out-donate these “top donors,” he said. “But these are completely random names,” he said. “All made up.”"

Cadbury dropped from royal warrant list for first time in 170 years - "It famously once had a glass and a half of milk in every bar, but one thing that Cadbury no longer has is royal approval, after it has been dropped from King Charles’s list of warrants. The chocolatier was first given royal endorsement in 1854 by Queen Victoria, and was reportedly a favourite of Queen Elizabeth II until her death in 2022. However, it is among 100 brands and products that have had their warrants withdrawn under King Charles, with the latest list being published by Buckingham Palace’s Royal Warrant Holders Association."