June is...

This was previously in the October 2024 post, "2024 Biology Textbooks / Trans Women Are / June Is...", but got deleted.

I've no idea what the issue was, so I'm reposting them one at a time and masking as might be helpful. Hopefully fewer keywords clustering together helps too:

"June is gr**mer awareness month *Pride flag*"

Links - 17th March 2026 (1 - Polarisation)

The polarization in today’s Congress has roots that go back decades - "The analysis of members’ ideological scores finds that the current standoff between Democrats and Republicans is the result of several overlapping trends that have been playing themselves out – and sometimes reinforcing each other – for decades.
   Both parties have grown more ideologically cohesive. There are now only about two dozen moderate Democrats and Republicans left on Capitol Hill, versus more than 160 in 1971-72.
   Both parties have moved further away from the ideological center since the early 1970s. Democrats on average have become somewhat more liberal, while Republicans on average have become much more conservative.
   The geographic and demographic makeup of both congressional parties has changed dramatically. Nearly half of House Republicans now come from Southern states, while nearly half of House Democrats are Black, Hispanic or Asian/Pacific Islander...
Five decades ago, 144 House Republicans were less conservative than the most conservative Democrat, and 52 House Democrats were less liberal than the most liberal Republican, according to the analysis. But that zone of ideological overlap began to shrink, as conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans – increasingly out of step with their caucuses and their constituents – either retired, lost reelection bids or, in a few cases, switched parties.  Since 2002, when Republican Rep. Constance Morella of Maryland was defeated for reelection and GOP Rep. Benjamin Gilman of New York retired, there’s been no overlap at all between the least liberal Democrats and the least conservative Republicans in the House. In the Senate, the end of overlap came in 2004, when Democrat Zell Miller of Georgia retired.   Ever since, the gaps between the least conservative Republicans and least liberal Democrats in both the House and Senate have widened – making it ever less likely that there’s any common ground to find.  The ideological shifts in the congressional parties have occurred alongside – and, perhaps to some extent, because of – geographic and demographic shifts in their composition."

Lies and Violence - "Hannah Arendt wrote extensively on the psychology of totalitarian regimes. One of her foundational ideas was, of course, the banality of evil. Nazi leaders like Adolf Eichmann, in Arendt’s view, were not obvious monsters but bureaucrats—bland, eager to support the cause, and ready to look away when instructed to do so. Many take this observation as a warning that we should be vigilant in pointing out injustices and rooting them out. We should, but that’s only half the answer. Too often, while we use morality as a bludgeon to chastise our enemies, we fail to hold our own tribe to the same standard.  If we have reached the point of mob violence in American streets, it is because we have turned our heads for too long in our eagerness to support a cause. My concern is that we do this because we have previously ignored unjust, audacious descriptions of people with whom we disagree as fascists, Hitlers, and people who “don’t deserve empathy.” Another anti-totalitarian philosopher, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, wrote that violence “demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies.” It would be fruitful for all of us to recognize that a lie of omission is a lie nonetheless."

We're not all going to get along - by Lakshya Jain - "Nobody in America takes politics more personally than young liberals.  In our inaugural survey for The Argument, we sought to measure just how integral politics were to people’s lives and identities. When we asked participants whether it was ever acceptable to cut off a family member over their political views, 75% said no. When it came to the same question, but for friends, 70% also said no.  But beneath the surface-level consensus that close relationships should transcend politics lurk deep divides by both ideology and age. Young people, and especially young people who lean left, were much more likely to say it was acceptable to freeze out friends or family members. Ideological segregation is a real problem for liberalism, and every indication is that it’s getting worse...
Liberals are more likely to cut people off over politics.  Percentage of respondents, by ideology and vote choice, who think it is ever acceptable to cut off family or friends over opposing political views
The patterns were even starker when we broke results down by age. Among liberals under 45, 74% thought it was OK to end a friendship over politics. When it came to all other ideological groups we looked at, fewer than half agreed. But notably, young moderates and conservatives were still much more likely than older ones to say they’d end relationships over politics."
At this stage, we have so much evidence that left wingers are more intolerant that it's like the Law of Gravity. Of course, left wingers cope was copious

How Democracy Faces a Rising Threat Splitting Republicans and Democrats - The New York Times - "This threat to democracy has a name: sectarianism. It’s not a term usually used in discussions about American politics. It’s better known in the context of religious sectarianism — like the hostility between Sunnis and Shia in Iraq. Yet a growing number of eminent political scientists contend that political sectarianism is onbrica...  the two parties have not only become more ideologically polarized — they have simultaneously sorted along racial, religious, educational, generational and geographic lines. Partisanship has become a “mega-identity,” in the words of the political scientist Lilliana Mason, representing both a division over policy and a broader clash between white, Christian conservatives and a liberal, multiracial, secular elite."
Naturally, they don't talk about the contempt that liberals have for conservatives, and what role that might play in polarisation, and the article was mostly about bashing Republicans

J.D. Tuccille: Politicians must shoulder much of the blame for America's political violence - "Reporting on the assassinations in Minnesota, the BBC turned for comment to Jenna Stocker, editor of Thinking Minnesota, a political publication in a state that’s known for its niceness . According to Stocker, “Some people even here in Minnesota have really let politics guide their thinking and how they feel about their neighbours, their friends and their relatives,” and this has fractured society and driven people into hostile camps... Stocker is right that political partisanship is dominating people’s identities and poisoning relationships. A study published in February in the journal Political Psychology reported that, in America, “Political identity outweighs all other social identities in informing citizens’ attitudes and projected behaviours towards others.” That is, being a Republican or a Democrat is more important to Americans than shared racial, religious or class identities. Interestingly, the researchers also found that hostility towards political opponents motivates people more strongly than loyalty to their own side. Anger drives political polarization, and Americans can see the results in the arson attacks, bombings, shootings and riots throughout the country... After the Minnesota killings, NPR reported that threats against federal lawmakers have soared in recent years. “Members from both parties have repeatedly called for Congress to allow lawmakers to spend more money on personal security,” noted NPR. Frankly, though, while no one should be targeted by violence, it’s difficult to care much about the security of government officials who have played a key role in spurring it on. Democrats unleashed the power of the state on political enemies with politicized prosecutions of then-candidate Donald Trump and pressured the banking industry to deny financial services to their opponents. As the American Civil Liberties Union warned in defence of the National Rifle Association, “The NRA has a right, like all other advocacy organizations, to pursue their mission free from reprisals by government officials who disagree with its political viewpoint.” Returned to office, Trump’s Republicans followed suit by targeting the opposition press and suspending the security clearances of law firms associated with the Democratic party. “Punishing firms for their choice of clients or the nature of their legal work cannot help but intimidate the legal community, discouraging attorneys from taking on cases that may be politically unpopular or present a challenge to those in power,” cautioned the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Meanwhile, American government has become so large, intrusive and punitive that many Americans believe they can’t afford to lose elections. We now must ask permission of officialdom to start businesses, take certain jobs and renovate our homes. Politicians raise the political stakes and abuse their authority to punish critics. They tell their followers that opponents are “ deplorables ” or “ enemies of the people ,” “ fascists ” or “ communists ,” and far too many take them seriously. The results, in a growing number of cases, have been violent , bloody and tragic... Turning down the political heat would be a welcome change. The best way to start would be to make the government less important and easier to ignore"

Kevin Bass PhD MS on X - "I was a lifelong Democrat. I thought most conservatives were ignorant or evil or lying. I believed almost everything written in the New York Times, The New Republic, and the Atlantic. I was horrified when conservatives criticized the authorities. Every criticism I saw: I thought all of it was motivated by animus, resentment, self-interest, or ignorance.  Whatever truth there might have been in the criticism, I saw as a mere "half-truth": an exploitation of this or that cherrypicked fact being weaponized. Why did I see it in terms of weaponization? Because I was biased: I saw liberal establishment institutions and figures as fundamentally good, so all criticism of them was automatically interpreted as being in bad faith.  Didn't the critics know that these institutions or figures were fundamentally good? If they didn't, they were ignorant. If they did, they were evil. It was that simple. This meant that any legitimate criticisms would just be dismissed, as if bouncing off of an impenetrable bulletproof shield.  This all changed once I started writing about the pandemic. Soon people started talking about me the way I once thought about conservatives. This led to a complete identity collapse as I came to understand that my old worldview was hateful and ignorant, that I hadn't understood what I had been judging.  I cannot forget the hearing that led to my dismissal from medical school a year after I started writing. During the hearing, people talked about me as if I wasn't human. My behavior was interpreted in the worst possible light. Complete fabrications were created. Nobody was concerned with the truth, only horrified at my apparent "unprofessional behavior", which was really a mirror of their unprofessional behavior directed at me. They structured the hearing to make it virtually impossible for me to speak and explain that what was being said was a lie. And nobody seemed to have any problem with this. Why? Because I was bad. If I am bad, then every mistreatment and every violation of the school's own policies became justified. A person who is bad does not deserve any rights. They only deserve punishment.  But the thing I remember most was the allusions to my social media activity. They said, "Kevin is driven by resentment from his childhood." I wasn't. I was on good terms with my parents. They alleged that I needed psychotherapy to deal with this trauma. It was a completely fake story that they had constructed about me, to demean me, to marginalize me, to try to explain the views I had expressed: that something terribly wrong had happened during the pandemic. They couldn't imagine that I might have legitimate points. So they reduced me to the same kinds of psychological caricatures that I once reduced conservatives to in my own mind.  When I was dismissed, I was broken. But I had help from friends who helped me understand what happened. And I came to realize that a hysteria had overtaken the left. I spent a lot of time reading about show trials, about witch trials, and so on. I also connected with people who had experienced similar things and came to realize that something similar had happened to hundreds of physicians around the country. My story wasn't unique. It was all the same story over and over again.  I cannot believe the person I once was. I cannot believe that I could exist like that. I still don't understand how I could be like that, or how millions of people in this country could continue being like that. It disturbs me greatly.  One thing I know is that whatever this thing is that is driving people crazy needs to be destroyed. It is hostile to civilization and to our humanity. It causes us to dehumanize each other and try to destroy each other. It is the very same monstrous thing that I once attributed to conservatives. But it had been inside me, and I could now see it inside others. This is something I still grapple with."

Meme - i/o @eyeslasho: "Why are politics and political discourse so heated and dysfunctional in the US? Partly because it's the true believers and hyperpartisan who are the most engaged online and in the voting booth."

Young Democrats more likely to despise the other party - "Nearly a quarter of college students wouldn't be friends with someone who voted for the other presidential candidate — with Democrats far more likely to dismiss people than Republicans... 5% of Republicans said they wouldn't be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to 37% of Democrats... Women are more likely than men to take a strong partisan stance in their personal choices."
So much for "empathy", as well as women being more "empathetic"

Almost half of Americans have stopped talking politics with someone - "Six-in-ten liberal Democrats (60%) say they have stopped talking politics with someone because of something they said. That number is substantially larger than the segment next likeliest to drop the subject with someone – conservative Republicans, at 45%. In another area of difference, half of white Americans have stopped talking politics with someone, compared with roughly one-third of black and Hispanic adults. And those who say they rely most on local TV for their political and election news are far less likely to have stopped talking with someone about politics than any other group, such as those who mostly get this news through news websites or cable TV... Examined by party, Democrats and independents who lean Democratic are more likely to have stopped conversing with someone about politics because of something they said than Republicans and independents who lean Republican: 50% vs. 41%, respectively. But an even more striking contrast emerges from ideological groups within each party. A high-water mark of 60% of liberal Democrats say they have stopped talking politics with someone, compared with 41% of Democrats who are moderate or conservative... These findings are in line with earlier research the Center conducted in 2014. That report found that those identified as “consistent liberals” were more likely than “consistent conservatives” to see political opinions on Facebook that were not in line with their own views. But they were also more likely than consistent conservatives, by a margin of 44% to 31%, to block or defriend someone because they disagreed with something that person posted about politics... The closer people follow political and election news, the more likely they are to say they have stopped talking to someone about it"
Related: Who Doesn’t Want to Hear the Other Side’s View? | by Noah Carl | Medium

America's polarization problem - "Only 29 per cent of Americans would be willing to help someone who “strongly disagreed with me or my point of view,” according to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer. Even fewer — 23 per cent — would be willing to live in the same neighbourhood with those who disagree and just 20 per cent would be willing to have them as co-workers. “Ideology becomes identity” is how Edelman summarizes the findings. That aversion to cross-partisan connections has real-world consequences. During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, according to Pew Research, roughly four-in-10 registered voters who supported either Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump said “they do not have a single close friend who supports the other major party candidate.” Two years later, one-in-five Americans polled by the New York Times and Siena College said that political disagreements had a negative impact on their friendships and family relationships. This makes it even harder to bridge political divides that are already deepening because of the odd correlation between partisan affiliation and lifestyle preferences. Pew Research finds that liberal Democrats tend to like urban, walkable communities, while conservative Republicans prefer larger homes in exurban and rural settings. Given the opportunities provided by a prosperous country and the growing acceptance of remote work, many people can move to places where they can live the way they want, inadvertently reinforcing political divisions in the process. “America is growing more geographically polarized — red ZIP codes are getting redder and blue ZIP codes are becoming bluer,” notes a 2022 National Public Radio story. “People appear to be sorting.”... “Americans have a deeply distorted understanding of each other. We call this America’s ‘perception gap,’ ” observes More in Common, which has conducted studies about political polarization in the U.S. “Overall, Democrats and Republicans imagine almost twice as many of their political opponents as reality hold views they consider ‘extreme.’ ” So, people are ill-informed, right? They need to follow the news more and open their minds to how the real world functions. Except that More in Common “found that the more news people consumed, the larger their perception gap.” Likewise, “the more educated a person is, the worse their perception gap” — though this only holds true for Democrats. More in Common speculates this is because educational credentialing contributes to the echo chamber effect for those on the left: “Highly educated Democrats are the most likely to say that ‘most of my friends’ share their political beliefs. The same is not true of Republicans.”... While family bonds tend to weather political disagreements pretty well, “a whopping 45 per cent of extreme liberal identifiers have ended a friendship over politics — twice the figure of their conservative counterparts,” wrote Samuel J. Abrams, a professor of politics at Sarah Lawrence College and a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). And while all Americans are likely to prefer socializing with like-minded people than with political opponents, the right tends to cross lines more often than the left. Fifty-three per cent of Republicans report having Democrat friends, compared to 32 per cent of Democrats claiming Republican friends, according to AEI’s Survey Center on American Life... As people move to be among those who share their lifestyle preferences, their cultural values and their political affiliations, they create an opportunity to reduce friction with Americans they view as enemies. If governance and policy are made more local, decided and implemented by those who overwhelmingly share similar preferences, they’re less likely to contribute to disputes with people who live elsewhere and govern themselves by different rules. Of course, that would require Americans to look for solutions rather than seek access to the government power to torment their opponents. That may be too big an ask for the U.S. in 2024."
This adds to the tons of evidence that liberals are more intolerant than conservatives

Sean Speer: The more radical the progressive left becomes, the more the right reacts - "too few commentators and columnists are prepared to recognize how much left-wing politics has been radicalized in the past decade or so. Understanding these recent ideological and political developments on the left strike me as a key part of making sense of what’s currently happening on the right. Most online critics seemed unwilling to consider the basic idea. Their argument seemed to be that the Republicans in the United States and conservatives elsewhere in the Anglosphere have merely gone bonkers in isolation. Any effort to try to understand these trends as part of a dialogue between the left and the right amounted to excusing conservative excesses.  Yet the idea that left-wing politics haven’t become more radical in recent years just belies the facts. Compare Justin Trudeau’s progressivism to Jean Chrétien’s relative centrism. Or compare the Biden administration to the Obama administration in which the current president served as the vice-president. Their differences are notable across a range of issues from to public spending and the role of government to deeper cultural questions about race, gender and sexuality. We’ve witnessed a marked ideological transformation on the left in a short period of time. There’s plenty of polling that points in this direction, but one doesn’t require data to observe these trends. You can see it in the political trajectory of individuals and even the use of language. That these seemingly radical ideas tend to concentrate in elite institutions — including corporations, news media and universities — only reinforces their pace, intensity and reach across the broader society. Take Barack Obama for example. Then-candidate Obama ran against Hillary Clinton’s broadly-centrist politics in the 2007-08 Democratic primary race as a left-wing insurgent. He distinguished himself on a number of progressive issues — most specifically, of course, the war in Iraq. But barely a decade later former president Obama has gone from being a figure on the left edge of Democratic politics to now being an increasing outlier on the other side of his own party. His 2007-08 positions on immigration, gay marriage and the importance of family stability and personal responsibility would now be viewed as microaggressions by those who occupy the new centre of gravity of left-wing politics. These trends are also evident in shifting language. As examples, Merriam Webster added the singular “they” to its online dictionary in September 2020 and the Biden administration recently replaced “mothers” with “birthing people” in various public health guidelines. These linguistic developments started on the fringe of academic and activist rhetoric and have since come to be represented in mainstream institutions including the National Institutes of Health and the New York State Department of Health in the United States and in high-profile research at Montreal’s McGill University or news reporting at the CBC.  We have almost imperceptibly experienced a marked shift in the centre of political debate in Canada and the United States on a number of key cultural and social questions. It’s almost as if the right had been mistakenly fighting rearguard intellectual battles about taxes and government spending while the left was advancing without much resistance to redefine a broad set of cultural norms and practices. The key point here is that the most underscrutinized political story of the past decade or so is the extraordinary shift in left-wing politics. These ideological trends — particularly with respect to race, gender and sexuality — have essentially crowded out the old, moderate voices in progressive politics and in so doing reshaped the overall political and cultural climate. Depending on one’s perspective, these developments may or may not represent progress. But it seems odd to think that they would have no effect on conservative politics."

Why Societies Need Dissent - "In his latest work, Why Societies Need Dissent, Professor Sunstein casts new light on the fundamental importance of freedom of speech and shows us that nations are far more likely to prosper if they allow their citizens the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and dare to challenge the unchallengeable... when like-minded people are sitting with one another, they end up thinking a more extreme version of what they thought before they started to talk...
 There seem to be three things occurring:  1) The argument pool. If you have a group who believes that corporate misconduct is pretty bad, in a case in which, say, babies’ pajamas caught on fire, there will be a large number of arguments to that effect and not many arguments the other way...
2) The link among confidence and extremism... Any law professor knows that if you’re dealing with first-year students and want a certain answer, you frame the preferred answer as the middle of two poles...
3) Reputation and people’s self-conception. It turns out that people don’t want to be different from everybody else or the same as everybody else. They want to have a relationship to others which goes in the right direction and to the right degree...
 The recent report about the Challenger disaster is about just this. The report says that NASA didn’t have any system of checks and balances, that there was a march toward consensus that was part of the culture, that safety issues were consistently downplayed, and that dissenters were effectively silenced, not through the law but through social norms, which made people feel embarrassed if they raised their doubts. There are two things that can make group polarization worse, in the sense that people move more.  One is if people have a high degree of solidarity with one another and identify themselves in group terms...   The other thing that helps aggravate the effect is if people are antecedently extreme...   In a study done of investors and investment clubs—informal associations of people—the worst-performing investment clubs are clubs in which people like each other, know each other, meet at restaurants, socialize, maybe spend a holiday or two together. They lose a lot of money and they have no dissent.  The best-performing investment clubs in the U.S., in the huge study done at Brown University, involved people who don’t know each other socially, don’t get together except for this purpose, meet in an office rather than at home, appear not to like each other terribly much, and exhibit interactions highly charged with dissent.   Studies of disability movements in the U.S. show that the most mobilized, effective and separatist of the many disability movements, is the hearing-impaired. They are the ones who have the strongest sense of a shared identity, who have the most political clout. The author’s speculation is that deaf people have geographical unity, they have spaces of their own, they often go to school together, so they interact. Like-minded people interact, they polarize, they end up being a unified force, which doesn’t happen for the visually-impaired or depressed people or those in wheelchairs, at least not nearly as much...   The public forum doctrine ensures that each of us, if the streets and parks are places we go, will have unchosen, unanticipated encounters with people who are not like us both in their lives and in their points of view. Even though this is sometimes irritating, or worse, it does something that is not dispensable in a democracy, which is to make it impossible for people to live in gated communities of their own design, something which may be a risk for contemporary Americans, just because of what technology and resources are making possible...
During World War II, Luther Gulick, a no-longer-famous advisor to Roosevelt, wrote a boring book, called Administrative Governance in the United States. He wrote an short concluding chapters in 1948, a conclusion about the war: “Our adversaries thought democracies couldn’t fight, but they had it wrong. Democracies fight better, and the reason they fight better is that they have not just law that tolerates dissent and disagreement but a culture that insists on it.” He attributes the success of the Allies to the fact that if we made any mistakes they could get corrected, whereas for Hitler and Mussolini it just didn’t happen. So for the blunders there were no mid-course corrections, and that was, he says, a great help to us.  I don’t worry in the United States about legal regulation, but in Canada even to some extent, and certainly here, there are norms of political correctness that are a problem."
From 2003. The Science is Settled! Deniers need to be exiled from polite society

Links - 16th March 2026 (2 - Migrants: US)

Nick Minock on X - "🚨WATCH: Parents are furious after they say a male student, who is in the country illegally, groped several girls in between their legs in the hallway at Fairfax High School in Virginia. The male student will be 19-years-old soon. ICE says he crossed the southern border in 2024.  He’s charged with nine counts of assault and battery, a misdemeanor.  But some parents I spoke to want him to be charged with sexual assault."
Greg Price on X - "> Crosses the border illegally
> Gets released into America
> Allowed to be a junior in high school despite being 19 years old
> Immediately starts sexually assaulting high school girls.
> Soros-funded prosecutor tries to release him from jail
> Democrat Sheriff refuses to turn him over to ICE"

The Strange Redefinition of Assimilation - "It increasingly seems to me that among the pro–illegal-immigration crowd, the word assimilation has been quietly redefined to mean almost the exact opposite of its dictionary definition.  Historically, assimilation meant that newcomers adopted the customs, language, and civic culture of the country they chose to join. The United States was famously described as a “melting pot,” where immigrants from dozens of nations gradually became Americans. They might keep elements of their heritage—food, holidays, family traditions—but the underlying expectation was unmistakable: if you came to America, you joined the American civic culture. You learned the language. You participated in the shared norms that allowed people from radically different backgrounds to function as one nation.  Today the expectation appears inverted. To many immigration activists and their political allies, assimilation is no longer the responsibility of the immigrant. Instead, it is increasingly framed as the obligation of the native population. Citizens are expected to modify—or sometimes abandon—customs, language, expectations, and social norms that might cause discomfort to newcomers. Meanwhile, the newcomers themselves are not merely permitted but often encouraged to maintain their original cultural, religious, and political frameworks intact. Under the fashionable language of “diversity” and “cultural enrichment,” immigrants are told that there is no need to adapt to the society they are entering. Instead, they are invited to recreate their own cultural ecosystems inside the United States. Neighborhoods become linguistic islands. Social norms from other parts of the world are transplanted wholesale. Political expectations imported from foreign societies begin to shape local institutions. In practice, this creates a peculiar arrangement: immigrants can construct small replicas of their home societies within American borders while simultaneously benefiting from the economic and institutional stability of the United States. They can live much as they did before while enjoying the advantages produced by a system built over centuries by people who did not live that way.  It becomes a kind of dual existence—one foot in the old country, the other planted firmly in the prosperity of the new... even from a libertarian perspective, I found the recent testimony of David Bier of the Cato Institute before a Senate hearing on sanctuary cities deeply unsettling... On the surface, this is presented as a tidy economic argument. Immigration becomes a fiscal strategy—an elegant solution to demographic decline and government debt.  Step back for a moment and listen carefully to the logic.  If the policy goal is to import large numbers of people specifically because they will pay taxes while being structurally excluded from receiving the full benefits of the system they support, that does not sound particularly libertarian. In fact, it sounds suspiciously like the deliberate creation of a permanent economic underclass... While policy analysts may treat immigration as a technocratic question of labor markets and fiscal balances, the political actors driving these policies rarely see it that way. For many Democratic strategists, mass immigration is not simply about economic efficiency. It is also about the long-term transformation of the country’s sociopolitical demographics.  That transformation is not theoretical, it is already visible.  Across large parts of Europe and the United Kingdom, governments spent decades pursuing immigration policies rooted in multiculturalism rather than assimilation. Large immigrant populations were encouraged to maintain distinct cultural identities rather than merge into the host society. The results have been mixed at best and destabilizing at worst. Parallel societies have formed in many cities, tensions have intensified, and native populations increasingly feel that the social contract they inherited is being quietly rewritten without their consent.  One does not even need to cross the Atlantic to see early signs of the same trajectory. States such as California, Minnesota, and Michigan are already experimenting with policies that extend taxpayer-funded benefits to illegal immigrants, including access to public healthcare programs and other forms of state assistance.  These developments quietly undermine the economic argument used to justify immigration in the first place. If immigrants are supposed to reduce deficits because they contribute taxes while receiving fewer benefits, what happens when political pressure inevitably expands those benefits?  The fiscal math collapses—and when the economic argument collapses, what remains is the political objective that was always lurking in the background. Immigration policy is not simply an accounting exercise. It is a decision about the cultural continuity, political stability, and national identity of the country itself. A nation that abandons assimilation while simultaneously importing millions of people from radically different cultural and political traditions is not practicing generosity.  It is conducting an enormous and irreversible social experiment... What you are left with is not a melting pot at all—but a country slowly dissolving into separate tribes that happen to occupy the same land."

GOP on X - "Good morning! If you find yourself waiting in an hours-long TSA line today, thank a Democrat."
Melanie D'Arrigo on X - "Good morning! Republicans control every branch of the government."
I want to say I'm surprised that a Democratic politician doesn't know about the filibuster, but I can't

Oren Kessler on X - "Aside from Rama Duwaji liking those October 7 posts, it's unfortunate that the first lady of New York City's social media bio is what's known in the literature as a lie Duwaji was born in Houston and grew up there, in Jersey and in Dubai. She's not "from damascus" by any stretch"
Rupa Subramanya on X - "I’m struck by the fact that @ZohranKMamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji who was born in the U.S. and spent her first nine formative years there often describes herself as Syrian rather than American. Why is it so hard for her to simply say she’s American?"
Sarah Haider 👾 on X - "She wants to stand out from her peers and this is a way for children of immigrants to do so with no effort or ability. Other young people choose “queer” identities for the same reason. Both provide clear evidence that western society is more tolerant than any seen before it."

Meme - Molly Ploofkins @Mollyploofkins: "No criminal charges filed against the Lake Zurich High School student who punched his pro-ICE classmate. He received a 2-day suspension."
Rebekah Jones @GeoRebekah: "Great job, kid! I hope the school suspended the mini psycho who was instigating and harassing everyone."
V&Brian Against the World @v_against: "Instigating? By holding a sign you don't agree with? So you silence the kid with violence? Sounds kind of facist since we like to throw that around"
Left wingers are so violent. But of course we'll still be told that it's the right that's the problem
If a left winger attacks you, you are to blame because you are a "psycho" and you are "instigating" and "harassing" left wingers who disagree with you

Meme - "OH, SO YOU SUPPORT ICE?"
Fat man holding dildos and in attack position: "... leave the illegal alien rapists alone"

Meme - "Leave the murders and rapists alonel"

Meme - Bunburyōdō (文武両道) (Bun) @bunburyoudoujp: "- Sees opinion he doesn’t like
- Physically lashes out
- Does zero damage
- Called “hero” and “gigachad” by the left
At least we have a new meme. 😂"

Meme - "THE SOMALiAN CULTURE AND iTS PEOPLE ARE GREAT! THEIR BELiEFS WiLL ONLY STRENGTHEN AMERICA."
"THEN CAN WE DEMAND VOTER ID LAWS LiKE THEY HAVE iN SOMALiA?"

Fascinating on X - "A McDonald's employee with Down syndrome retires after 32 years of serving smiles. More rare historical photos:"
Andrew Isker 🌳🪓 on X - "This KING has provided more economic value to American society than every Somali who has ever lived in Minnesota combined."

Terror on freeway after Minnesota granted truckers' license to Somali driver who couldn't read ROAD SIGNS - "A Somali truck driver with a Minnesota license who drove the wrong way down a highway could not read the road signs, authorities say.  Terrifying footage shared on social media showed the truck driving against traffic on US 61 near Troy, Missouri around 8am on Wednesday, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol.  The truck nearly collided with several other cars before finally crossing the median on to the correct side of the road, when it was stopped by police.  The driver, whose name has not been released, had obtained a commercial driver's license from Minnesota... Police said the driver showed no signs of impairment or medical issues and determined the trucker was going the wrong way because they could not read the road signs... 'We have learned that a truck driver with a Minnesota CDL who couldn't read basic road signs spent MILES driving the wrong way in an 80 TON truck,' Duffy wrote.  'Thanks to Missouri law enforcement, this dangerous trucker is now out of service.' Duffy noted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is investigating the truck carrier, Cargo Transportation LLC... In April last year, Trump signed an executive order requiring truck drivers to speak English and pass literacy tests amid his immigration crackdown.  Rules requiring English proficiency to drive a big rig have been on the books since 1937. Before Trump's order, truckers had been getting citations rather than being taken off the road.  The assessments focus on practical communication - a driver's ability to follow instructions, understand warnings, and interact with law enforcement - and administration officials have cast them as a long-overdue safety upgrade.  By December, thousands of truckers had their licenses revoked for failing English-language proficiency tests. 'We've now knocked 9,500 truck drivers out of service for failing to speak our national language — ENGLISH!' Duffy wrote on X in December... In August, a deadly crash on a Florida turnpike became a flashpoint after an immigrant truck driver from India attempted a U-turn.  The move sent his trailer across lanes and into the path of an oncoming minivan. Three people were killed.  The driver, identified as asylum seeker Harjinder Singh, pleaded not guilty to charges of manslaughter and vehicular homicide.  The administration quickly seized on the case, with federal officials saying the driver had entered the country illegally before later obtaining a California-issued commercial driver's license.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the crash as evidence of broader failures in oversight and enforcement."
ICE needs to get out of Minnesota and Trump needs to stop his racist dog whistles!

Brandon Tatum on X - "🚨 BREAKING: Somali community in MN demanding reparations over “ICE trauma”
Their demands:
- Free cash grants to immigrant businesses under $200k
- Stop all evictions + free rent
- Reparations for “ICE trauma”
- Government apology & “accountability”
- ICE banned from their neighborhoods
- “Justice” for the “martyrs”
Shameless Parasites"
Lauren Chen on X - "The community with 80% welfare enrollment and disproportionate criminality now has a list of further demands from the American taxpayer. I have never seen a more entitled group of people"
Auron MacIntyre on X - "The famous “cargo cult” example comes from uncontacted tribes discovering modern Western goods from planes flying overhead during WW2  The natives had no concept of mechanical flight or modern manufacturing so when they encountered the lavish riches in the crates they tried to recreate the conditions that summoned them  Rituals were performed but no matter how hard they tried the natives could not summon the metal bird gods or receive again the blessings of their favor  The Somalis have discovered a cargo cult strategy that actually works   They do not understand modern civilization, they could not create or maintain it, but if they perform a specific ritual all the magic and wonder of modern civilization is gifted to them   Honestly, who could blame them"

Meme - "From one of our guys in Minneapolis. Respectable normie liberals really believe that everyone is basically like them - but 99% of law enforcement interactions involve people who are not like them *at all*. Which is why they are so delusional about law enforcement in particular"
"Third kid this week abandoned by one or both of his parents we've had to take care of. Today was a Mom that abandoned her son. Media is full of shit with these stories about us arresting kids. Our guys stay with these kids until we can find a relative. Their parents put us in these positions and it never crosses anyone's mind here to just leave them."

Meme - Chad Felix Greene @chadfelixg: "'Fuck ICE;'is just 'Free Palestine,' and, 'Defund the Police,' and 'Hands Up, Don't Shoot,' and 'Believe All Women,' and 'I'm with Her,' and 'No Blood for Oil,' and 'We are the 99%...'"
Be Maffiolette: "Every few years, the slogan changes but the script stays the same: New cause. Same rage. Same people. Same result: nothing. It's not a movement, it's a subscription service for feeling righteous without ever having to build, fix, or lead anything real!!"

An Anti-ICE Movement Increasingly Run by Revolutionaries - "  Two leading anti-ICE groups are Centro Community Service Organization (Centro CSO) and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). Both have been subjected to federal scrutiny, including raids by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Working variously through local chapters and affiliate networks, both groups have pushed militancy into protests that were once nonviolent. Even organizations in the progressive mainstream, including the Sunrise Movement and 50501, have become entangled in this ecosystem through coalition alignment and tactical approaches that involve acknowledged legal violations or heightened legal exposure.  What began as criticism of federal immigration policy is now tied up with illegal, targeted agitation campaigns. Anti-ICE Democrats and centrists need to take responsibility for policing their movements, or they risk being seen as willing participants in escalating radicalism. Much of this radical momentum is channeled through FRSO, which plays a central role in “big tent” coalitions. These coalitions often coalesce around popular causes, such as opposition to President Donald Trump, and offer logistical infrastructure for protests, ranging from social media promotion to on-the-ground leadership, along with established networks of allies prepared to mobilize in the streets on a moment’s notice.  FRSO chapters are listed as a member and steering committee member, respectively, of the People’s Action Coalition Against Trump in Minnesota and the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda in Chicago.  While mainstream progressives are often attracted to these groups, FRSO does not necessarily consider the normal Left its allies. Mira Altobell-Resendez, an organizer with the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and FRSO member, made that clear on a podcast earlier this month: “All of our movements that have been active here [in Minneapolis] have an enemy with Jacob Frey and with Tim Walz.”   In the same podcast interview, Altobell-Resendez mocked what she described as Governor Tim Walz’s threat to deploy the National Guard to “keep down riots,” arguing that politicians use the word “riots” to describe “people who are rightfully expressing their anger at this system.”  Despite criticizing some elected Democrats, Altobell-Resendez has collaborated publicly with others, including at a protest with Representative Ilhan Omar. This demonstrates how easily FRSO affiliates move between mainstream Democratic and radical activist spaces.   But Altobell-Resendez is a committed radical and has supported illegal actions. On a recent FRSO webinar, she stated, “Just because, like, something is illegal doesn’t mean that we won’t do it,” before adding a caveat about not wanting “to put us in hot water.”  She is just one cog in a broader network that includes more mainstream organizations, such as Black Lives Matter and the anti-Trump organization 50501—both of whose Minnesota chapters are part of a coalition with FRSO Twin Cities—and the eco-activist Sunrise Movement.  Sunrise partnered with Altobell-Resendez’s organization, MIRAC, to target hotels hosting ICE agents, banging pots and pans and pressing car horns in a “wake-up” operation. Leaders within the Sunrise Movement have openly acknowledgedtheir awareness that these actions can violate the law.   Some of the most fervent—and sometimes violent—anti-ICE activity has happened in California.  One of the leading anti-ICE organizers in the region is Centro CSO. The group emerged in the 1990s by reviving and repurposing the historic CSO name associated with its predecessor, the “Community Service Organization,” which trained Cesar Chavez.  Carlos Montes has led Centro CSO since the 1990s. During this period, he “self-recruited” into the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). He reportedly believed a revolutionary organization such as FRSO would better aid him in the “fight for Chicano liberation and socialism.” He is not the only Centro CSO member also to be in FRSO.  Centro CSO is alsolisted as a “supporting organization” for the national Legalization For All network, a large coalition of activists and groups advocating for the legalization of all illegal immigrants.   Leaders of Centro CSO are clear about the tactics they endorse. At a major conference in Chicago this past fall, one member described confronting ICE vehicles in Los Angeles.  “You should have seen how f*cking scared they were when a couple dozen Chicanos surrounded their unmarked black tinted truck,” Gabriel Quiroz Jr., a Centro CSO member, said. He mentioned that a number of WayMo cars caught fire “by accident,” prompting laughter from the audience...   FRSO and Centro CSO have faced federal scrutiny in recent years. Last summer, the FBI seized electronics from a Centro CSO member and raided another’s home. That second member was arrested and charged, though the Department of Justice later dropped the charges.  Federal focus on these groups is not restricted to the Trump administration. During President Barack Obama’s first term, Montes and other FRSO leaders faced raids of their own. The Department of Justice also investigated the organization for material support of terrorism; it remains unclear why the DOJ did not pursue charges.  Popular animus toward ICE has created an opening for the FRSO and Centro CSO. These groups’ goal is not merely reform. The goal, as FRSO member Chrisley Carpio put it, is to “lead ever larger numbers of people into confrontations with the enemy.”  In spite of this radicalism, groups like FRSO and Centro CSO are increasingly welcomed into the anti-ICE tent. Progressives can police their movements to drive out such radicals—or risk giving in to their most dangerous ideas."
Riding the Communist Tiger is still dangerous
Insurrection is only bad when it threatens the left wing agenda
We're still told that AOC is centre-right by European standards

Arizona restaurant offers free meals to ICE agents amid controversy - "An Arizona restaurant is making waves online for saying that it is giving free meals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and other federal law enforcement personnel.   In a recent video shared on social media by the outlet Pulso, Sammy’s Mexican Grill is highlighted as a restaurant that respects federal immigration enforcement agents, and even offers them free meals.   In the video of a Spanish interview translated to English, Jorge Rivas, who owns the restaurant, says, "Everyone who works for ICE, all federal agents can come to Sammy's Mexican Grill. Here, they will be treated with respect and as they deserve... Rivas further explained that the restaurant has long displayed a sign welcoming law enforcement and offering them free meals.  "We here at Sammy, which is the name of our restaurant, Sammy's Mexican Grill. We have a sign if you come into the door into the restaurant, it just says, ‘Welcome to Sammy's, where law enforcement always eats free,'" Rivas said.   "And we have this sign for about five, probably five years or more," Rivas added. "And that's because we personally feel that it is important to recognize the sacrifice that law enforcement does every day protecting every single citizen, putting their life on the line, even though they don't know personally who are they protecting. But, you know, you and I know that once we're in trouble, we call 911, and we expect someone to show up as soon as possible."... San Diego Red reported that the restaurant has faced fierce criticism online, and has been "inundated with a renewed wave of threatening phone calls, hateful messages on social media, and calls for a boycott.""
You're only allowed to ban ICE, not treat them.
One cope I saw was that this was to suck up to the government so they wouldn't be targeted. But of course, places supporting anti-ICE "protesters" are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts and being decent human beings

Robert A. J. Gagnon on X - "CBS News reports that "less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in President Trump's first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses." What they don't tell you is that "non violent crimes" beyond the 14% include: drug trafficking, distribution of child pornography, burglary, fraud, DUI, embezzlement, solicitation of a minor, and human smuggling," all serious offenses."

Warhol on X - "Headline: Taxpaying citizens should fund all living expenses for illegal immigrants
Normal People: shouldn’t our taxpayer dollars prioritize citizens?
Liberals: THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT FASCISM IS"

Matt’s Idea Shop on X - "Can’t believe people are being arrested for simply breaking the law. I can barely recognize our country."

Meme - Alexander Augustine: "leftism really is just naive childish thought without any deeper understanding
>the government should give everyone free money
>borders are mean, everyone should be allowed to move here
>everyone is equal, we should all try to be friends
>spiderman would agree with me"
Reddit Lies: ""The cartoon character would agree with me!""
"Peter and Miles fighting Ice Police agents (from Kamiink)"

How Hispanics see themselves varies by number of generations in US - "About half of Hispanic adults say they most often describe themselves by their family’s country of origin or heritage, using terms such as Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican or Salvadoran, while another 39% most often describe themselves as “Hispanic” or “Latino,” the pan-ethnic terms used most often to describe this group in the U.S. Meanwhile, 14% say they most often call themselves American... the share who say they most often use the term “American” to describe themselves rises from 4% among immigrant Latinos to 22% among the second generation and 33% among third- or higher-generation Latinos."
Proof that immigrants integrate and there should be open borders

Labour hates Britain. So it is abolishing what makes us who we are

Labour hates Britain. So it is abolishing what makes us who we are
Removing Churchill from banknotes, curbing jury trials and unseating hereditary peers are all acts that chip away at our national identity  

Britain is governed by people who dislike it. There is no other explanation for the way they trash our constitution, surrender our independence, shrink our territory and traduce our past. Obviously they would not verbalise it like that, even to themselves.

No doubt, in their own minds, our intellectual and political elites see their work as modernising the country, sweeping away its anachronisms, making its minorities feel welcome.

It amounts, though, to much the same thing. A nation is not an amalgam of feel-good intentions. It is a product of its institutions, its structures, its history – all the things that our present rulers disdain.

The removal of Churchill and other historical figures from our banknotes, and their replacement by images of wildlife, is presented by its advocates as the kind of trivial change that only racists get worked up about. It is an old trick: you take away something that people like, and then accuse them of starting a culture war when they complain.

In fact, what our money looks like is far from a trivial issue. When Jesus drew the border between spiritual and temporal authority, he did so by pointing to Caesar’s face on a coin and asking the Pharisees: “Whose is this image and superscription?” There was no more resounding symbol of state power than the coinage.

Many of us have experienced the pain of watching friends or family lose their memories and, as they do so, their full sense of who they are. Countries are no different. A people who lack a common past are simply a random collection of individuals who happen to share a space. Unmoored from their predecessors, they become disconnected from each other and, in the end, indifferent to their posterity.

Half a century ago, Britain had a clear sense of who its heroes were: Shakespeare, Wellington, Isaac Newton, Christopher Wren and (rather splendidly) Adam Smith. Our banknotes celebrated the best of us, allowing a smidgen of patriotic pride to rub off on our fingers whenever we paid for milk or stamps.

The idea that the people depicted on tenners should in some way be demographically representative is very new. No one saw the inclusion of Florence Nightingale in the 1975 banknote series, or of Elizabeth Fry in 2002, in feminist terms. Jane Austen in 2017 was the first historical figure to be included in the name of diversity – rather to the annoyance of Janeites, who wanted their heroine recognised as a writer rather than as a woman.

Since then, diversity has become the ruling doctrine of our standing apparat, however cold it leaves the country at large. Victoria Cleland, chief cashier at the Bank of England, explained that “gender, ethnicity and disability could be taken into account when planning the designs” because “banknotes serve as a symbolic representation of our collective national identity”.

The trouble is that the dictates of diversity, at least in its Labour/Guardian/BBC sense of “people who look different but think the same”, are incompatible with a shared national story. British heroes until around 60 years ago were disproportionately male and almost exclusively white, an inescapable consequence of our social structures, educational system and demographics.

The essence of a successful nation is that all its citizens, wherever their grandparents were born, should celebrate its past heroes as their fellow countrymen. Few of us were born in palaces or interned as prisoners of war, and few of us begin each day with a glass of sherry, but these things don’t stop us admiring Churchill. We are proud of him, not because he was white or male, but because he won a great victory for our country.

A nation that cannot agree on who its heroes are is no nation at all. The euro banknotes show imaginary bridges in non-specific landscapes, because the EU lacks a demos. Northern Ireland, which for different reasons has a limited sense of shared national identity, tends also to depict bridges and landscapes on its banknotes, though one series did honour the province’s industrial pioneers.

Is this Britain’s future? To be a collection of separate tribes whose ranges happen to overlap? A multi-culti state that buys loyalty with public money, compelling obedience in the name of law because it cannot ask in the name of patriotism?

If it were only the banknotes, you might reasonably argue that I was over-reacting. But the reason that the reaction has been as it has is that the announcement comes after a series of reforms from Labour, all of which suggest a fundamental discomfort with our national identity.

Consider the other changes that the Starmer government is pushing through. Ministers are restricting jury trials, discarding not just a great part of our heritage but a gift that we gave the world. Juries are a guarantee that the criminal justice system will remain the property of the people and not become an instrument of state control.

Labour is also turning out the last hereditary peers, coldly breaking the deal that it made with them in 1998, and thereby snapping the 800-year-old thread that connects us to Magna Carta.

And it is subordinating our country before the EU, seeking to join policies and initiatives which we rejected even when we were members. Again, this is sold as pragmatic, but it is really about distaste for Brexit and the people who voted for it, a collective institutional shudder at the flag-waving that accompanied Vote Leave.

For example, when Britain signed up to the Erasmus deal, a scheme whereby member states fund EU students who come to their universities, it was junking the obviously better Turing scheme, which paid for British students to study all over the world. We are joining a one-sided arrangement where Britain will put in billions more than it gets out. There was nothing practical about the decision; it was entirely vibes-driven, a kind of governmental apology to Brussels for the outrage of 2016.

That penitent attitude goes well beyond Erasmus. The Growth Commission calculates that Britain will be £15bn worse off as a result of Labour’s determination to sign up to Brussels rules, even in areas where we are big net importers or where our trade with the rest of the world is worth more than that with the EU. Again, the policy is not informed by any cost-benefit analysis; the starting point, rather, is that British sovereignty, resting on patriotic attachment, is discreditable.

We glimpse the same attitude in the determination to hand away the British Indian Ocean Territory, and to sweeten the deal by raising taxes here so that Mauritius can cut taxes with the proceeds. This is not about British interests, still less about the interests of the indigenous Chagossians, who know that Mauritian sovereignty would mean the end of their dream of returning. No, this is about a masochistic elevation of foreign tribunals over British interests. It is the same spirit, in fact, that drives our obsessive decarbonisation at a time when the non-participation of most other countries has removed its chief rationale.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Most British people see our national identity as being bound up in our institutions, from county cricket teams to army regiments. But the Government regards these things as somehow racist or, at the very least, “insufficiently reflective of modern Britain”. It does not want immigrants – who, after all, admired this country enough to choose to come here – to assimilate, to adopt old traditions, enjoy old buildings, sing old songs. It prefers to use their presence as an argument against what should be our shared patrimony.

Result? We have become perhaps the only country where flying the national flag is seen as a subversive act: Union flags and St George’s crosses have been going up around the country, prompting councils to rush to remove them. Flying the national flag in a spirit of defiance is usually a sign of a country under occupation. That, to some, is how it is starting to feel.

If you complain about Churchill being removed from banknotes, you're wasting time that should be spent on more important issues and should be ashamed of yourself and are dishonestly trying to turn this into a wedge issue. But of course, those who remove Churchill from banknotes are brave and stunning.

We're still told that left wingers don't hate their countries.

Links - 16th March 2026 (1 - Iran War)

Meme - Jordan Schachtel @JordanSchachtel: "WaPo "intelligence" correspondent says China is winning the Iran war, sharing Chinese propaganda that claims to show satellite video of US, attacks on Iran, when it's really showing video of Atlanta airport. Hey @JeffBezos, this is a really bad look."
Josh Rogin: "China is the big winner of the iran war."
China pulse: "JUST IN AND UNUSUAL. CHINA is recording the US war live! The US attacks on Iran have become a veritable military intelligence laboratory for China"
"The video is misleading. The footage shows the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, in the U.S.A"

Jim Chimirie 🇬🇧 on X - "The BBC Doesn't Make Mistakes. It Makes Choices
The BBC has made another error. A live translation of Pete Hegseth's Pentagon address rendered the word "regime" as "mardom," the Persian word for "people." So when the Defence Secretary told the world that the regime that chanted death to America had been gifted death in return, BBC Persian told its audience inside Iran that the American government was threatening the Iranian people. The BBC issued a correction. It called the mistranslation "human error." That is also what it called Panorama.  When the BBC edited Trump's January 6th speech, it did not accidentally make him sound more peaceful. It cut the line where he called for his supporters to march "peacefully and patriotically," spliced in footage from elsewhere, and broadcast the result a week before the American presidential election. The BBC's own standards adviser called it deliberate distortion. The Chairman Samir Shah eventually called it an "error of judgment." The Director-General Tim Davie said nothing of substance. Two senior executives resigned. Trump sued for ten billion dollars. And throughout, the Corporation's position was consistent: mistake, not malice. Human error. Regrettable. Corrected.  Now examine the Hegseth translation. A single word, "regime," becomes "people." Not a complex clause. Not an ambiguous idiom. One word, with one meaning, translated into its opposite. And the effect was not neutral. BBC Persian broadcasts inside Iran, to people for whom the distinction between the regime and the people is not semantic. It is the difference between those who imprison and those who are imprisoned. When that audience heard America threatening the Iranian people, they did not hear a translation error. They heard confirmation of what the Islamic Republic has told them for forty years. The BBC handed the regime its propaganda line, live, with the American Defence Secretary's voice attached.  Thamar Eilam-Gindin, a Persian linguist and Iran expert at Haifa University, said the mistranslation fundamentally altered the meaning of the address. She added that among diaspora Iranians she works with regularly, the incident confirmed what they already believed: that BBC Persian runs a long-standing pro-regime editorial line. That charge does not come from Republican media monitors or Trump's legal team. It comes from Iranian exiles. The people with the most direct experience of both the regime and the BBC's coverage of it have reached their verdict.  The BBC will say the two incidents are not comparable. Panorama was edited; this was live. One was deliberate craft; the other was a translator under pressure. But this defence only holds if you believe the errors are random. Random errors scatter. They make subjects sound better and worse, more threatening and less, more guilty and more innocent, in rough proportion. The BBC's errors do not scatter. They cluster. Trump is made more dangerous. America is made more threatening. Iran's regime is made less culpable. Israel's actions are made less justified. The mistakes, every time, travel in the same direction as the ideology. That is not a coincidence. That is a culture.  An institution whose errors always serve its prejudices has not made errors. It has made choices. The method changes. The outcome never does. And the people who pay the price are not politicians with lawyers. They are Iranians inside Iran, who tuned into a service their licence fee helps fund, and were told that America wants them dead.
"The BBC's errors do not scatter. They cluster. Trump is made more dangerous. America is made more threatening. Iran's regime is made less culpable. Israel's actions are made less justified. The mistakes, every time, travel in the same direction as the ideology.""

Meme - Eyal Yakoby: "They literally are admitting it's State propaganda."
CNN @CNN: "CNN's Frederik Pleitgen spoke to shopkeepers and customers in Iran's capital who say not only have sales drastically decreased, but they're also worried for their lives. CNN is able to report in Iran only with the lranian government's permission"
Naturally left wingers are going on about "propaganda", as if it wasn't all in the opposite direction they claim

Meme - David Reaboi, Late Republic Nonsense: "Amazing. They can't get the story they wanted, but this is close enough for CNN."
Erin Burnett OutFront @OutFrontCNN: "CNN investigation uncovers just how close U.S.- Israeli strikes have come to hitting civilian sites like schools and hospitals inside Iran. @katie_polglase reports.
CNN INVESTIGATION: U.S.-ISRAELI STRIKES HIT NEAR CIVILIAN SITES"

בר שם-אור Bar Shem-Ur on X - "CNN is sounding more and more like Al Jazeera every day. It’s a bizarre double standard: the IDF and the U.S. military employ precision strikes specifically to minimize collateral damage and spare civilian infrastructure, yet CNN consistently spins these tactical efforts into a negative narrative.    Meanwhile, the reality on the ground tells a much different story regarding the Iranian regime. They aren't using precision. they are intentionally targeting residential neighborhoods with cluster bombs. Two civilians were killed today in a deliberate strike on a residential area. Another civilian is currently in critical condition. It’s time CNN started distinguishing between those trying to prevent a tragedy and those actively causing one."

Iran war's targets widen into civilian infrastructure as Saudi Arabia reports 2 deaths - "The Iran war’s targets widened dangerously into civilian infrastructure Sunday as Bahrain accused Iran of striking one of the desalination plants that are crucial for Gulf nations’ drinking water."
Iran Claims US Struck Qeshm Desalination Plant - Why This Is A Dangerous 'Precedent' Risking Millions of Lives - "Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Saturday said it launched missile strikes on the US naval base in Juffair, Bahrain, home to the Fifth Fleet, after accusing America of targeting a freshwater treatment plant on the Qeshm Island"
Of course, left wingers are blaming Israel and the US for forcing Iran to attack a desalination plant, while at the same time condemning the US as monsters for striking an Iranian desalination plant. Only the West ever has agency, which is why they're responsible for everything wrong with the world today

Legal Insurrection on X - "The same people who backed endless billions for Ukraine now want outrage over Trump spending big to hit Iran. via @MikeLaChance33"
Democrats and Media Drop New Talking Point About the Cost of Trump’s Iran Operation - "Democrats and their friends in the media have settled on a new talking point to go after Trump, with regard to the ongoing operations in Iran. They are emphasizing the cost.  The same people who wanted to send unlimited amounts of cash to Ukraine, forever, now want you to be outraged that Trump is spending a lot of money taking out Iran...   Maybe if we ended the massive fraud and grift in Massachusetts and Minnesota, we would have an easier time paying for what’s happening in Iran.  It’s amazing how Trump can turn Democrats into fiscal conservatives overnight."

Jessica Costescu on X - "The Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at UC Berkeley is now posting propaganda videos accusing the Iranian diaspora of being “traitors” & “agents” “The real patriots are those who come out into the streets on cold nights for the Iranian Republic.”"

WUTHERING HEIGHTS UPDATES on X - "Really the only way to win against an opponent with the latest western weaponry is to tell the press that every strike hit a girls school and a hospital, so that’s the meta."

James Lindsay, anti-Communist on X - "Can someone please explain to me why pro women, pro LGBTQ Leftists are supporting the Ayatollah of Iran?"
"Yes, I can. In fact, I'm telling you all yet again that the answer to this question is right there on the last page of the Communist Manifesto and is not actually hard to answer.  The Left has adopted the logic of totalitarianism, called the friend-enemy distinction. There's a declared enemy (the West, "the existing social and political order of things"), and anyone who fights that declared enemy is a friend.  The radical Right also holds this criterion in politics and is therefore also siding with Iran. (In fact, the term "friend-enemy distinction" was the explicit logic of the Nazi regime thanks to Carl Schmitt.)  The radical Islamists also hold to this logic under their radical and hardlining interpretation of the Islamic doctrine called al-walâ' wal-bara', which means "loyalty and disavowal." The radical Left calls this doctrine "solidarity." The radical Right calls it "NETTR (No Enemies To The Right).""
"In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things."
This is a good encapsulation of "The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the Revolution"

Mehdi Hasan on X - "You’re not ‘under attack’ in a vacuum. Your country launched an attack, an illegal war of aggression, and the country you attacked is retaliating. It’s called cause and effect."
Will Chamberlain on X - "Also remarkable to see Mehdi finally come to the defense of the IDF’s action in Gaza"

Mehdi Hasan on X - "Israel is bombarding, literally bombarding, two Middle East capitals, Beirut and Tehran, killing 100s of civilians, and yet the US and UK media continue to portray Iran as the threat to the region. Israel has nukes, but Iran is the nuclear threat. We live in Orwellian times."
Casey Babb on X - "One of the most disturbing things I’ve experienced since October 7th, is seeing people like @mehdirhasan argue that groups like the Islamic Republic and Hamas are, in fact, the good guys. This level of delusion and brain rot will be studied a thousand years from now."
Barbara Kay on X - "There are nine countries who have official nukes plus Israel, and not a single one of them ever said they wanted them in order to take out a country they hate. Iran did, right from the get-go. Israel was a "one-bomb" country, they said. They never pretended otherwise. Israel's nukes - if they have them - will never ever be used offensively, only in the direst self-defensive situation. But the Iranians always made their *offensive* intentions clear. @mehdirhasan , you don't see a distinction here?"

Samuel Fitoussi on X - "In 1979, Michel Foucault described the progressive policy he believed the new Iranian regime would pursue:  "By 'Islamic government,' no one in Iran means a political regime in which the clergy would play a leading or supervisory role. [...] One can find in the Quran general guidelines: Islam values work; no one can be deprived of the fruits of their labour; what must belong to all (water, the subsoil) shall not be appropriated by anyone. Freedoms will be respected insofar as their exercise does not harm others; minorities will be protected and free to live as they please on condition that they do not injure the majority; between man and woman, there will be no inequality of rights, but difference, since there is a difference in nature. In politics, decisions will be taken by majority rule; leaders will be accountable to the people; and everyone, as provided for in the Quran, will be able to stand up and demand an account of those who govern.""

Zack Polanski on X - "Over 1000 civilians dead, and we're letting Trump use UK bases to further his war. Britain should stand firm against Trump's illegal warmongering, and stop these bombers landing on UK soil."
Aɴᴛ on X - "Here's what this odious, wonky-toothed drip of an excuse for a man isn't telling you.  The casualties being reported come directly from the IRGC itself, and there is currently no way to confirm that any of their figures are true.  Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have been killed by the IRGC since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, with some estimates as high as a million.  More recently, the IRGC is responsible for the murder of 40,000 Iranians in the last few months simply because they stood up against the regime.  Zack has made absolutely ZERO mention of those 40,000 murdered. He doesn't care, never has and never will, because it doesn't align with the narrative he and his Islamist friends have aligned themselves with.   He is a threat to national security, not just my opinion but that of a former British intelligence chief. The only logical course of action is for Zack to be investigated under terrorism laws, along with the Islamists he is closely associated with."

Iran's ‘ties’ to Muslim charities ignored for fear of racism, new report claims - "Fears of racism have prevented around 30 charities and community centres from being investigated amid alleged links to the Iranian regime, a new report has detailed.  Lord Walney alleges Iran uses the network of organisations to maintain its "influence and interests" in the UK while separately plotting attacks against critical Iranian media and the Jewish community.  Former government extremism advisor and Labour MP Lord Walney noted a network of over 30 religious institutions, including 10 charities – eight of which are currently being investigated by the Charity Commission, although this has been plagued by "systemic delays", he says.  The Islamic Centre of England (ICE) is described as a "central node" in the network. Its recent director and secretary was appointed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself and killed in an Israeli airstrike, it is claimed. Iran's Deputy Minister of Culture between 2000 and 2003, Aliasghar Ramezanpour, was interviewed by Lord Walney in the report and described ICE as a "kind of a headquarters that supervises all the network ([of charities in the UK)".  Kast year, the Intelligence and Security Committee said ICE could provide Iranian intelligence agents "with a useful base from which to act".  ICE also received a warning from the Charity Commission in 2020 after hosting a vigil for Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC commander who was killed by the US in 2020. They have been subject to a statutory inquiry since November 2022.  Sir William Shawcross, who chaired the Charity Commission between 2012 and 2018, said he encountered a "real nervousness about talking about suspicions of Muslim organisations," adding: "There’s a widespread fear amongst police, amongst schools, the headmasters and others of being accused of being racist". The commission has "never had the resources it needs for any investigations, and certainly not for counter-terrorism or counter-extremism investigations", the peer stated.  "(In 2018, upon leaving the commission) it was already clear that the Iranians were very, very active in Britain, both in charitable and non-charitable organisations," Sir William noted.  Kasra Aarabi, Director of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Research at United Against Nuclear Iran, mirrored this view, saying: "I think this goes back to political will, and also unfortunately the fear of being labelled Islamophobic. The first thing that these people (Iranian charities) will allege is Islamophobia."  ICE denied suggestions it acted as a headquarters for a supposed network and claimed the publication of what it described as inaccurate and inflammatory claims risks promoting religious hatred and causing harm. A second charity, Dar Alhekma Trust, is also being looked at by the commission. Trustee Saeed Shehabi praised a commander of the IRGC and also claimed, after the October 7 attacks, that Palestinians "rose up and became the master of the situation".  Mr Shehabi was a "long-standing peaceful campaigner", the charity said."
leekern on X - "Just as mosques are used by Hamas and Iran to store weapons and fight from, mosques are used in the UK for the purposes of plotting Islamist takeover and jihad against Brits.  Do not allow emotional blackmail or bad faith arguments to intimidate you from calling out reality - not all religions are benign seekers of peace and love.   The Church of England doesn’t preach jihad from its pulpits.   When a mosque is used as a headquarter for war it loses its status as a place of worship"

George Galloway on X - "What is with these demons and bombing schools and killing kids…?"
Wilfred Reilly on X - ""What is up" is that you guys publicize every Western mistake, while simply ignoring things like on-video Hamas rapes and/or murders of 1200 people (look up "Thai gardener beheaded alive") and Iran illegally sending suicide drones to attack 19 countries.  That's what's up. You clearly hate, and exclusively criticize, your own society. Our far more brutal/evil enemies - including literal Somali and Houthi pirates, child rape "grooming" gangs, etc - are oppressed pets who can do no wrong."
DOGE-Breath on X - "Glad we didn't suffer these kinds of critics when Marines were fighting on Iwo Jima."

Financial Times on X - "Donald Trump’s decision not to refill the stockpile drained by his predecessor Joe Biden has left consumers exposed to an oil price shock following the US-Israeli attacks on Iran, analysts have warned."
US Oil & Gas Association on X - "Classic DC.  Those who break something (in the case the Biden guy quoted here ) blame someone else for not fixing the thing they broke.  We warned the Biden people 4 years ago that an overly-rapid drawdown of the SPR would compromise the integrity of the SPR itself   They ignored us because of the midterms.  And it happened.  So this Administration has to first fix the structural problems created by the very people blaming them for not rapidly fill the SPR."

zerohedge on X - "*SCHUMER: I DEMAND TRUMP RELEASE OIL FROM SPR the one Biden drained?"
P.T. Ward on X - "Reminder that Schumer killed a provision in the CARES Act that would’ve refilled the SPR at a historically low cost of $24 dollars a barrel. He called it a “bailout for Big Oil.”"

Richard Hanania on X - "The Economist on how strikes in the war have changed:   Our results show that around halfway through the first week of the conflict the fighting entered a new phase. One change is that Iran’s counter-punches have become less effective: both fewer in number and reliant on drones, rather than missiles. Another is that America and Israel appear to be changing their focus from military targets to “civilian” buildings such as defence-industry facilities and the Iranian regime’s infrastructure of oppression—hence the strike in Javanrud.  Attacks on Gulf Arab states have almost all been intercepted and have fizzled out. Meanwhile, Iran keeps getting hit hard.   And then there are drones...In the first days of the conflict it launched roughly one for every missile. Now the ratio is ten to one.  Militarily, this is a complete route. It's insane to watch analysts say that the US and Israel are the ones who can't keep this up."

Cynical Publius on X - "Typical anti-war protest right here, right? "Stop War on Iran." I took this picture on the National Mall in Washington DC. IN 2007. I repeat: I took this picture in 2007. Think about it."
Cynical Publius on X - "Here's the point of the below post/picture.  In 2007, Iranian-led Shia militia and Iranian-supplied EFPs were killing American servicemen and women by the bushel.  Yet there were protests in DC that were funded by literal Communist organizations (as documented by Data Republican's response post to my original post; see below), even though at the time there was not even a hint of any war with Iran being on the horizon.  Now those same groups are doing the same things today.  Do you think literal Communists have the best interests of the USA at heart?  If you are one of those "We should not be fighting for Israel" subtards, consider who the people are that planted that fake idea in your brain."

Jewish Currents on X - "Tehran has merely challenged Israel’s dominance in the region, not its survival. Yet the claim that Iran existentially threatens the Jewish state is rarely disputed in mainstream American debate, even by politicians who oppose war, @PeterBeinart writes. https://jewishcurrents.org/iran-is-not-an"
Samuel J. Hyde סמואל ג'י הייד on X - "Our criticism of antizionist writers today is often too charitable. Error alone does not explain what we are witnessing. For years, @PeterBeinart  wrote that Hamas posed no real threat to Israel. When the massacre of October 7 shattered that illusion, he did not retract the claim or confront the reality that had disproved it. Instead, the same reasoning now reappears in his treatment of a far more powerful regime pursuing nuclear weapons. Who are clear in their intent, “when we posses the missiles, we will erase Israel” - Ali Ahmad Khomeini   There comes a point when persistent blindness is no longer merely error but psychopathy."
Danny Rosenstein 🇺🇸🇮🇱🤟🏻 on X - "I guess the doomsday clock in Tehran counting down the days until the destruction of Israel didn’t threaten the Jewish state. I guess 47 years of mullahs chanting “death to Israel” didn’t threaten the Jewish state. I guess the funding of Hamas and Hezbollah to create a ring of fire around Israel didn’t threaten the Jewish state. There is a special place in hell for Jews who demonize Israel with lies and falsehoods."
Weird. I thought all Jews were unconditionally pro-Israel and even left wing Jews supported the right wing Israeli government and its policies

Aizenberg on X - "Absolutely inane piece by @PeterBeinart sitting in safe apartment in Manhattan who claims Iran "doesn't post a significant threat to Israel." To him "death to Israel" is not relevant. Evidence: FORTY years ago Israeli didn't think it was a big deal. Forget Hamas & Hezbollah."
David Bernstein on X - "Iran was organizing Hezbollah, Hamas, and itself for a joint mass attack on Israel. Hamas jumped the gun on 10/7, fearing that if shared the date with Hezbollah, Israeli intelligence would find out. But things could have gone very, very differently, and for @peterbeinart  to suggest that being attacked on three (plus potentially additional) fronts simultaneously by powers armed with tens of thousands of missiles, sufficient to overcome Israel's defenses, wasn't a threat, it just shows that he has no idea what  he is talking about, that he is a dishonest propagandist, or, most likely, both. Oh, and the missiles were supposed to be accompanied by a simultaneous invasion of Israel from Hezbollah in the North and Hamas in the South. We saw what Hamas did and know it could have been much worse, but Hezbollah was a much bigger, better-trained, and better armed force."

Briahna Joy Gray on X - "There was no mass rape on October 7th. This isn’t even controversial."
Aɴᴛ on X - "Aside from the fact that rape did occur on October 7th, and that an abundance of evidence for it was verified by various high-profile non-Israeli (and, to drive the point home further, non-Jewish) experts on warfare-related crimes like rape, there is another significant point that a soulless cunt like @briebriejoy  completely omits, due to her inability to think critically and barely function like a normal human being.  EVERY SINGLE Islamic terrorist organisation has been shown and proven to use rape as a tactic of dominance, instilling fear, and subjugation. This is not limited to recognised terror groups of recent decades but has also been a key feature of Islamic conquests throughout history.  So the claim that rape did not take place on October 7th implies that, despite slaughtering people in the most horrific ways, including entire families, women, and children, Hamas and the Gazans who joined them somehow magically restrained themselves from something that is an integral part of being Islamic terrorists.  Now ask yourself, what is the likelihood of that?"

Briahna Joy Gray on X - "Unlike the mass rape hoax, the 160 children the US of Israel murdered in a double tap strike are very real."
Eve Barlow on X - "Using rape denial to fake concern for children is a new level of depravity.  Briahna, the Islamic regime has been shooting its own children in the head for five decades, including in the last two months as documented in the New York Times. But you don't care about those children because they don't help your case against the Jews.  https://nytimes.com/interactive/20"

Links - 15th March 2026 (2 - Iran War)

Bushra Shaikh on X - "Many diaspora Iranians living in the West are suffering with a deep rooted self hate. It's so severe that they're prepared to see their homeland destroyed in order to gain validation. Unbelievably sad."
If you don't support a brutal dictatorship which massacres its own people, you're self hating

Meme - ho_grammer: "Historically, when Americans suddenly care about women's rights in a Middle Eastern country, those women are about to get bombed."
Jon Burrows: "Do you condemn Iran's treatment of women ?"
So many possible takeaways here. Empathy is bad, empathy can only be insincere when it threatens the left wing agenda, there was no real empathy for European Jews in World War II...

Meme - "IRANIAN DIASPORA IN VANCOUVER"
smohyeddin: "A Nuremberg rally held in Vancouver today. Iran's diaspora community is going through a level of psychotic fascism and dangerous nationalism. They are engaging in full on group speak and group think. It's scary to behold. As their country is being scorched, they are thanking the people killing Iranians and destroying their country."
Terrorism supporters are really deranged. Presumably anti-Hitler and/or anti-genocide Germans during World War II who wanted their country invaded were evil

Meme - Samira Mohyeddin @SMohyeddin: "Vancouver's Iranian diaspora community. Seig Heil."
@13virginiawoolf: "That one doesn't resemble the Nazi salute. But if you're looking for something like it, yesterday it was spotted at the anti-war rally by supporters of the Islamic Republic."
Meme - Howard Baskerville @howardbaskerv: "They're putting their cell phones in the air (notice everyone has one in the raised hand, notice the flashlights) This is symbolic berate protestors did it in Iran when the power was cut and streetlights were off. You're being dishonest on purpose. Shame on you."
Eli Kowaz - איליי קואז on X - "You know that's not what they’re saying but interesting way to cope with the loss of your beloved Ayatollah."
Thanking Trump and Netanyahu makes you a "Nazi"

Meme - "A poster from yesterday's Nuremberg rally in Toronto"
"*white garland* President Trump, you are the best President of the United States- NOT Biden, NOT Obama
*white garland* Senator Lindsey Graham. Uncle, you are an honorary Iranian"
smohyeddin: "📍 The political illiterate. They will tell you this is the will of the majority. Does it make it right if a majority want it? The majority of Germans loved H8tler. Believed in the rise of the Third Reich and making Germany great again. H8tler too harkened back to an imagined time of history where the fatherland was prosperous.
📍 What is happening in our diaspora is directly impacting what is happening TO people on the ground in Iran."
Thanking Trump and Graham makes it a Nuremberg rally. Left wingers love comparing everything to the Nazis

Woman killed in Bahrain as Gulf states intercept more Iranian missiles - "A 29-year-old woman was killed and eight people injured when a residential building in Bahrain’s capital Manama was hit... Iran has been attacking energy infrastructure, which, combined with its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, has sent oil prices soaring."
A US hater was claiming that Iran didn't attack oil refineries and was attacking hotels because US soldiers were staying there and Iran had excellent intelligence because the Gulf states were full of people who hated Israel and wanted to help Iran. Another claimed Iran was attacking US military targets and that was justified and others claimed it was self defence.

Meme - Ailin O'Cochlain @Ailinocochlain: "It's not a war crime when its carried out on people you don't like apparently. Not only that, but its cheered on with glee and enthusiasm."
Ed Fidgeon-Kavanagh @Clearpreso: "You know, I'm starting to think these people who previously told us the very concept of urban bombing being a war crime, might not have actually believed that?"
Tehran Tadhg @TadhgHickey: "I want this video playing at my wedding"
Al Jazeera English: "Footage showed cluster munitions crossing the skies over West Jerusalem during a new wave of Iranian strikes on Israel."

Kamala Harris Says U.S. Must Bear Higher Gas Prices to Punish Russia - The New York Times
As Iran War Spikes Gas Prices, Americans Struggle With the Rising Cost of Living - The New York Times

War with Iran: Lebanon calls for direct talks with Israel, accuses Hezbollah of betraying country - "In a remarkable statement Monday afternoon, Lebanon called for direct talks with Israel on “permanent arrangements for security and stability on our borders,” while accusing the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah of betraying the country... Calling the Shiite Muslim group “an armed faction … that places no value on Lebanon’s interest nor on the life of its people,” Aoun said Hezbollah “wanted to achieve the fall of the State of Lebanon, under aggression and chaos.” He accused the group of working “for the sake of the calculations of the Iranian regime.”  “After Hezbollah’s decision to enter the regional fight around Iran — a decision that put the Lebanese government in deep embarrassment — the main worry of Beirut’s authorities has become to clearly delink themselves from Hezbollah’s actions, mainly in order to spare the entire country the deadly costs of an all-out Israeli reprisal,” said Joseph Bahout, director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut... Last week, Lebanon’s government declared Hezbollah’s military activities illegal, but it does not have the force required to effectively disarm Hezbollah on its own"
Clearly, they're controlled by "Zionists"

Meme - "Unprovoked aggression?
1979: Death to America!
1980: Death to America!
1981: Death to America!
1982: Death to America!
1983: Death to America!
1984: Death to America!
1985: Death to America!
1986: Death to America!
1987: Death to America!
1988: Death to America!
1989: Death to America!
1990: Death to America!
1991: Death to America!
1992: Death to America!
1993: Death to America!
1994: Death to America!
1995: Death to America!
1996: Death to America!
1997: Death to America!
1998: Death to America!
1999: Death to America!
2000: Death to America!
2001: Death to America!
2002: Death to America!
2003: Death to America!
2004: Death to America!
2005: Death to America!
2006: Death to America!
2007: Death to America!
2008: Death to America!
2009: Death to America!
2010: Death to America!
2011: Death to America!
2012: Death to America!
2013: Death to America!
2014: Death to America!
2015: Death to America!
2016: Death to America!
2017: Death to America!
2018: Death to America!
2019: Death to America!
2020: Death to America!
2021: Death to America!
2022: Death to America!
2023: Death to America!
2024: Death to America!
2025: Death to America!
2026: Help! This is an unprovoked attack by the USA!"
Of course, George W Bush uses the word "crusade" once and it's proof that he's a Christian fundamentalist who invaded Iraq because he had religious delusions. But if you think Muslims talking about "jihad" are a cause for concern, you're Islamophobic and ignorant because you don't know that "jihad" doesn't mean holy war, unlike crusade which can only mean a Christian Holy War

Met Police 'has not ruled out' asking Home Secretary for ban on Al Quds Day march - "The annual “Al Quds Day” march is set to take place this weekend in central London. It is organised by the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’, a group described in the 2023 Shawcross Review of Prevent as “an Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime”...   Al-Quds day was an initiative created by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, shortly after the Iranian revolution. Fixed towards the end of the month of Ramadan, it was intended to be a day when Muslims worldwide would unite against Israel.  Since the proscription of Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation in the UK, Al Quds Day marchers have generally preferred to hold pictures of the now-deceased Iranian regime supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, sometimes with the wording: “be on the right side of history”.  In the past, speakers at the Al Quds Day Parade have made highly inflammatory statements. Perhaps the most notorious was in 2017, when the Al Quds Day March took place a week after the Grenfell Tower fire. Nazim Ali, then the director of the ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’, gave a speech in which he railed against “Zionists who give money to the Tory Party, to kill people in high rise blocks”. A policewoman observing the speech at the time and asked about the lack of action in response to the comment said “it’s just an opinion.”  Ali also told the crowd: “We are fed up of the Zionists. We are fed up of their rabbis. We are fed up of their synagogues. We are fed up of their supporters.”  In December 2017, the CPS said that it was not ready to prosecute Mr Ali for offences of inciting racial or religious hatred, or a public order offence. Campaign Against Antisemitism subsequently brought a private prosecution against Ali. However, in July 2018, a week before the court case was due to begin, the CPS announced that it was taking over the prosecution – which it had a legal right to do – before promptly announcing that it was dropping the case entirely.   In a recent statement, Campaign Against Antisemitism described the annual Al Quds Day march as “notoriously sympathetic to the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.  “The Al Quds Day marches have been banned in some European countries”, a spokesperson for CAA said.  “There is no excuse for them still being permitted in the UK. Enough of being a soft touch on extremism.”"

Andy Lee on X - "“The head of Canada’s refugee tribunal told committee that she does not know the name of a suspected senior Iranian regime official whose identity her own board concealed from the public in a deportation hearing - and that the concealment was granted at the man’s own request.”"
'That's Crazy': Conservative MPs Confront Canada's Refugee Chief Over Iranian Regime Suspect Shielded From Public View - "Menegakis demanded to know why the board was “prioritizing the privacy of an alleged member of a terrorist organization over the safety of Iranian Canadians.” Asked whether the IRB grants the same anonymity to suspects linked to other terrorist organizations — naming the Islamic State and al-Qaeda — Brassard said the board applies the law as written.  Menegakis then asked how many of the hundreds of thousands of pending asylum claims belong to individuals with alleged ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Brassard said she had no number to provide. Asked how many are in the queue for deportation, she referred him to the Canada Border Services Agency.  A CBSA official at the hearing said he also lacked the specific data. “Could one of you answer why there’s only been one deportation in almost four years?” Menegakis asked.  Neither witness answered directly... Menegakis raised the case of Afshin Pirnoon, a civil engineer who served as director general of Iran’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization for 22 years before arriving in Canada on a tourist visa in 2022 and working as an Uber driver. The CBSA alleged he was a longtime senior functionary and political asset of the Islamic Republic and sought his removal.  The IRB declined, ruling in August 2025 that despite two decades of service Pirnoon did not qualify as a “senior official” and had not exerted significant influence over government policy. The board member found that “meeting with representatives of the Supreme Leader does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that Mr. Pirnoon influenced government policies and decisions.” The minister of roads under whom Pirnoon served was Mohammad Eslami — now on sanctions lists in Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom for his alleged role in the development of nuclear weapons, and currently the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization... Canada’s asylum acceptance rate reached 79.8 percent in 2024 — among the highest in the world. Ireland accepted 30 percent of claims that year, Sweden 40 percent, Germany 59 percent. The claims backlog, which stood at 17,000 in 2016, has grown to nearly 300,000."

Mustapha Ezzarghani | Facebook - "For days now, I have been watching a strange narrative spreading across Western media and social networks: the claim that the confrontation with the Iranian regime is somehow “Israel’s war” and that the United States was dragged into it. As a Moroccan Muslim and an Arab who has spent years studying the politics of our region, I can say clearly: this argument is not only false—it is intellectually dishonest. Let us start with a simple fact. The Islamic Republic of Iran has not spent the last four decades declaring war only on Israel. Its leaders openly speak of fighting the “Great Satan” — the United States — and the “Little Satan” — Israel. For 47 years, their ideology has been built around exporting revolution, destabilizing the Middle East, and spreading militant networks across the region. This is not an Israeli fantasy. It is Iran’s own declared doctrine. Iran finances militias, trains terrorist organizations, and builds missile and nuclear capabilities while threatening not only Israel but also Arab countries, American forces, and global stability. From Lebanon to Iraq, from Yemen to Syria, the fingerprints of Tehran are everywhere. So when the United States acts against that regime, it is not acting on behalf of Israel. It is acting to defend its own strategic interests and the stability of the international system. The idea that Washington needs to be “manipulated” by Jerusalem into recognizing this threat is absurd. Every American administration of the 21st century—Republican or Democrat—has stated clearly that preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is a fundamental national security priority. The debate in Washington has never been about whether Iran is dangerous. The debate has only been about how to stop it. Some believed diplomacy and concessions would change the behavior of the clerical regime. Others believe that a regime driven by revolutionary ideology and apocalyptic theology will never voluntarily abandon its ambitions. But pretending that the Iranian threat exists only in Israel’s imagination is a dangerous illusion. There is also another uncomfortable truth: Iran today is not an isolated regional actor. It is deeply connected to the broader geopolitical challenge facing the West. Tehran has become a strategic partner of Russia and an economic partner of China. Chinese purchases of Iranian oil have helped keep the regime alive despite international sanctions, while Iranian drones have played a central role in Russia’s war in Ukraine. This is not a local Israeli issue. It is part of a global strategic confrontation. Those who repeat the slogan “this is Israel’s war” are ignoring the obvious: a nuclear-armed Iran would not threaten only Tel Aviv. It would threaten the entire Middle East, including Arab countries, and it would destabilize global security for decades. And yet, instead of confronting this reality, many prefer to blame Israel. They claim that the Jewish state somehow controls American policy, pushes Washington into wars, or manipulates global politics behind the scenes. These accusations are not serious geopolitical analysis. They are recycled conspiracy theories that have circulated for generations. Criticizing governments is legitimate. Debating military decisions is legitimate. But reducing complex strategic decisions to the idea that “Israel controls America” is not criticism—it is propaganda. Israel does not need to invent the Iranian threat. Iranian leaders themselves have repeatedly called for the destruction of the Jewish state. They openly describe Israel as a country that could be erased with a single nuclear weapon. No responsible nation would ignore such threats. Standing against the Iranian regime is not about serving Israel. It is about preventing a radical theocracy from acquiring the most dangerous weapons on earth and using them to reshape the Middle East through intimidation, violence, and nuclear blackmail. If that threat disappears, Israel will be safer. But so will Arab nations, Europe, and the United States. Recognizing that reality does not require being Jewish or Israeli. Sometimes it simply requires honesty. And as an Arab Muslim who believes in stability, sovereignty, and the future of our region, I refuse to repeat narratives that protect the most dangerous regime in the Middle East while blaming the only democracy in the region for defending itself."

Dr. Brian L. Cox on X - "Just when you think media coverage of int'l law in armed conflict couldn't possibly get any more misleading, this story @huffpost  by @svdate  comes along and...well, blows all expectations right out of the water.  Let's not focus on the fact that GC II requires vessels to take all POSSIBLE measures to search for/collect shipwrecked after each engagement (art. 18, pic 1) - yet it is typically not possible due to REASONS COVERED IN THE STORY for a submarine to take such measures. Or that the article reads much more like an oped than news coverage. Or that Daté's current pinned tweet is about a book he wrote that reveals he suffers from a chronic case of #TDS.  All of those issues, and more, could & definitely should be addressed by an in-depth critical analysis of this prime specimen of misleading "journalism" covering int'l law involving armed conflict in the applied context.  But for present purposes, let's focus on just one point: the delta between the headline designed to catch your attention (so you stop scrolling & click on the story) and what the article actually says.  Ok. Here's the headline:
U.S. May Have Committed War Crime In Sinking Of Iranian Ship
Now here's the only relevant use of the term "war crime" in the entire story:  “The basic idea is that any ship, including a submarine, should do its best to rescue shipwrecked enemy sailors. Attacking them would be a war crime,” said Marko Milanovic, a professor of international law at the University of Reading in England.  Pay close attention to what Marko's quote tells us since it's divided into 2 parts. First is his view of the "basic idea" behind the requirement to take all possible measures. THEN we get a completely separate, and accurate, observation: ATTACKING shipwrecked personnel "would be a war crime."  Ok, now go back & read the headline. Supposedly 🇺🇸 may have committed a war crime in SINKING the Iranian frigate.  See the disconnect yet? That's right!  "Sinking" an enemy vessel under these circumstances isn't a war crime, regardless of one's own personal views about the advisability of doing so (and the "journalist's" personal views are quite clear in how he structures the story). Failing to take all POSSIBLE measures to search/collect also is NOT a war crime.  As Marko said, attacking shipwrecked personnel WOULD be a war crime. Specifically, it would violate GC II, art. 12 (pic 2) & would qualify as a grave breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions (pic 3).  (Notice this war crime involves attacking personnel who are ACTUALLY shipwrecked, as here. You may recall a similar discussion after similarly misleading media coverage of the initial suspected narcotrafficker boat strike by 🇺🇸. The reason for that "double tap" strike was to destroy the military objective - cocaine assessed to be keeping the damaged hull afloat - and not the shipwrecked personnel. Regardless of one's personal opinions regarding that justification, attacking a military objective on the high seas is distinguishable from attacking shipwrecked personnel.)  So we know the potential WAR CRIME is attacking shipwrecked personnel. That's what Marko told us in the story. Yet there is absolutely no indication whatsoever in the story that the 🇺🇸 submarine did so.  And yet this is the sensational claim designed to get a potential reader to click on the story: U.S. May Have Committed War Crime In Sinking Of Iranian Ship
Of course, most folks are aware that the journalist suggests a headline but doesn't necessarily choose it. And the headline is a fundamentally misleading part of the article.  Don't get me wrong. The rest of the story is a steaming pile of 🐕💩 that fully crosses the line into #journalisticmalpractice.  But picking a headline with a defamatory claim that isn't actually supported by the article is next level unethical.  Just when you think you can't trust media coverage of int'l law involving armed conflict, remember this: you actually can't distrust us enough when covering this subject."
Time to ban Fox News and the Daily Mail for misinformation

Duopoly Destroyer on X - "Never forget that the US wants democracy in Iran so badly that they overthrew Iran’s first democratically elected president and helped install a dictator after."
Pouria Hadjibagheri MBE on X - "This is an incredibly important and troublesome myth, often blindly referenced by Western analysts in error. So here's what actually happened:  The "first democratically elected leader overthrown by the US" line about Mossadegh collapses the actual constitutional reality of Iran in the 1950s.  Iran did not elect prime ministers. Under the 1906 constitution, the Shah appointed and dismissed the prime minister from among members of the elected Parliament (Majlis). Mossadegh was appointed under that system.  In August 1953 the Shah issued a royal decree dismissing him, an authority explicitly granted to the monarch. Mossadegh refused to comply, barricaded himself in office, and attempted to dissolve the Majles through a referendum that bypassed the constitutional order entirely. By that point the country was already in a constitutional crisis.  Just as important is why the Shah moved against him. The dispute was not simply "Britain vs. Iranian nationalism."  Iran at the time had no independent infrastructure to produce, refine, transport, insure, or sell its oil internationally. Full and immediate nationalisation without an operational framework effectively shut down the industry overnight. Mossadegh was sympathetic to the Soviet, and would likely have granted them the privilege to handle things.   The Shah couldn't allow that. His strategy was to increase Iran's share of oil revenues while maintaining production and access to global markets, using that income to gradually build the domestic infrastructure Iran lacked. The plan was long-term: secure a larger revenue share now, develop capacity over time, and transition to full control once Iran could actually operate the industry.  In other words, the dispute was partly about timing and state capacity, not simply sovereignty. Though the latter was important if the keys were to be given to the Soviets.   And if you're wondering when that long-term horizon would have matured, well, it was a 25-year plan.  That brings us to 1979."

Eyal Yakoby on X - "The grandson of Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini, Ali Ahmad Khomeini, last month: “The Israelis know damn well: The day the Islamic nation gets the chance, we’ll erase Israel – just like Hamas tried!” You can’t make a deal with these people."
Damn unprovoked Israeli aggression!