Links - 24th March 201 (2) (Trans Mania: Tavistock)

UK teen girl wanted to be male; got breasts removed, took testosterone. Now 23, she says doctors should have 'challenged' her decision — and is suing. - ""Initially I felt very relieved and happy about things," Bell told the outlet. "But I think as the years go on you start to feel less and less enthusiastic or even happy about things."In the end, she decided to stop taking cross-sex hormones last year. Now at 23, Bell noted to the BBC that she accepts her sex as a female — but she's also angry about what happened to her... Bell is taking legal action against the National Health Service gender clinic, and a judge cleared the way for a full hearing of the case against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, the BBC said.Lawyers will argue that children cannot give informed consent to treatment delaying puberty or helping them to transition, the outlet added... Bell herself admitted to the BBC that when she went to clinic years ago, she would say "it was saving me from suicidal ideation and depression in general and at the time I felt it relieved all those mental health issues I was feeling, alongside gender dysphoria."In addition, Bell told the outlet that if she had felt more accepted by society as a teen, she might not have wanted to change her gender — though she added she wouldn't have wanted to listen to challengers of her transgender desires."I feel I could say anything to my 16-year-old self, and I might not necessarily listen at that time," Bell added to the BBC. "And that's the point of this case, when you are that young you don't really want to listen. So I think it's up to these institutions, like the Tavistock, to step in and make children reconsider what they are saying, because it is a life-altering path.""

Tavistock study highlights danger of transgender treatements - "The critics of Tavistock were right. Tavistock knew that the results of their study would hurt their case, and so delayed its release until after the High Court judgement. Trans treatments are hurting kids, full stop. The evidence is mounting. It is time for other courts to follow the UK’s example."

NHS Tavistock child gender clinic rated 'inadequate' - "A rating of inadequate is the lowest a healthcare provider can receive from the Care Quality Commission. It means that a service is "performing badly". Gids had been rated good at its last inspection in 2016, but since then a number of concerns have been raised about the service... it was not possible to clearly understand why clinical decisions had been made.After reviewing 35 care records, the CQC found there was "no clearly defined assessment process" and "many records did not demonstrate good practice".The records also appeared to be "insufficient" in considering the needs of young people with autism spectrum disorders."

Gender clinic bosses at controversial NHS facility are removed - "The management team of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) in London has been 'disbanded'... Stephanie Davies-Arai, of Transgender Trend, said: 'It's no surprise that the management team has been disbanded.'Referring to how the High Court heard about serious harms caused to youngsters, such as infertility, she said: 'Lessons must be learned so that this never happens to our children again.'The CQC later found that GIDS in many cases had no proper records justifying treatment decisions for vulnerable children"
Transphobia!

Tavistock puberty blocker study published after nine years - "All but one child treated for gender dysphoria with puberty-blocking drugs at a leading NHS clinic also received cross-sex hormones, a study has shown.The Tavistock and Portman Trust has argued the treatments are not linked.The High Court ruled last week that under-16s are unlikely to be able to give informed consent to be treated with puberty-blocking drugs.The trust said the study's findings were not accepted by a peer-reviewed journal until the day of the judgement... previous research suggested all young people who took blockers went on to take cross-sex hormones - the next stage towards transitioning to the opposite gender.The Tavistock's newly published findings appear to confirm this, with 43 out of 44 participants - or 98% - choosing to start treatment with cross-sex hormones... Lawyers representing the claimants said there was "a very high likelihood" children who start taking hormone blockers will later begin taking cross-sex hormones, leading potentially to infertility and impaired sexual function.The Tavistock argued puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones were entirely separate stages of treatment and one does not automatically lead to the other.The judges rejected that argument, saying "in our view this does not reflect the reality"... The published study showed that treatment with the blocker brought about no change in psychological function... after a year on blockers, there was a significant increase in those answering the statement: "I deliberately try to hurt or kill myself"... The study also measured the impact of puberty blocking drugs on children's height and bone density.The researchers found that suppressing puberty "reduced growth that was dependent on puberty hormones".Height growth continued, "but more slowly than for their peers"."

Tavistock gender clinic whistleblowers have been vindicated | The Spectator - "The Care Quality Commission has released its reports on the gender identity services offered by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. They make for grim reading.The CQC describes an NHS facility that — until last month — put vulnerable children on a pathway to the use of untested medicines and life-changing interventions, sometimes without keeping proper records proving consent for treatment or demonstrating the reasons for that treatment. An NHS service where staff were afraid to raise concerns about procedure and practice for fear of 'retribution' from their employers. An NHS service that failed to ask fundamental questions about the growing number of vulnerable children being presented for treatment... These CQC conclusions are a significant vindication of a small but important group of people who have been raising concerns and questions about the Tavistock and its Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) for several years. They include whistleblowers from the Trust such as Marcus Evans, a psychoanalyst and one of the governors of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust who in 2019 resigned over the management of the service. They include clinicians such as Kirsty Entwistle, who I wrote about here in 2019. And they include David Bell, another Tavistock clinician who first raised concerns about the GIDS in 2018.The accounts of these whistleblowers have not been welcomed by people who should have listened. In some cases, the Trust appears to have sought to penalise them: Dr Bell is currently raising money for legal advice over what he says are 'disciplinary proceedings which the Tavistock and Portman Trust has instituted against him in connection with his speaking and writing on the subject of Gender Dysphoria.' (The Trust has declined to comment on this.)... Beyond dealings with the Trust itself, people who raise concerns about the GIDS have sometimes faced accusations of being motivated by bigotry and regressive ideology (US media outlets are particularly guilty of this). Similar allegations have also often been levelled at journalists doing the basic job of journalism and asking questions about things in the public interest. Sadly, I am reliably informed that even senior officials at the Trust have privately impugned the motives of journalists analysing the work and management of the GIDS. The CQC report resoundingly vindicates the journalism of good reporters such as Hannah Barnes and Deborah Cohen at BBC Newsnight, who have investigated the GIDS in the face of resistance. It also shows that a 'shoot the messenger' culture around trans issues can do real harm. For several years, anyone raising doubts about the GIDS ran the risk of being accused of transphobic bigotry, something that undoubtedly meant it has taken longer than it should have done for the failings of the clinic to be brought to light and (hopefully) addressed... One of the most striking findings in the CQC report concern autism. The children seen by GIDS are more likely than the general population to show signs of autism. The relationship between autistic spectrum disorders and gender identity is very poorly understood and inadequately researched. But the GIDS does not appear to have assigned much importance to this issue"

Puberty blockers: Under-16s 'unlikely to be able to give informed consent' - "Paul Conrathe, the solicitor for both claimants, said the ruling was "an historic judgment that protects children who suffer from gender dysphoria".He said the judgment showed "that a culture of unreality has become embedded in the Tavistock"."This may have led to hundreds of children receiving this experimental treatment without their properly informed consent," he said."
Unlikely means still potentially possible. Yet trans activists are upset, because they want as many kids as possible on blockers

Puberty blockers are not the same as contraception - "Bell v Tavistock recognises that puberty blockers, which arrest the natural sexual developments that take place during adolescence, are not comparable to contraceptives or abortion treatments. It recognises that whether a young person can consent to treatment is not just dependent on age but also on the effect and complexity of the treatment prescribed... The crucial point of the Fraser ruling was the recognition that the bedrock of consent is a person’s ability to understand what the treatment is (including its risks and benefits) – and that this is not necessarily determined by age... ‘For many children, certainly younger children, and some as young as 10 and just entering puberty, it will not be possible to conceptualise what not being able to give birth to children (or conceive children with their own sperm) would mean in adult life. Similarly, the meaning of sexual fulfilment, and what the implications of treatment may be for this in the future, will be impossible for many children to comprehend.’"
Feminists claim that abortion is harmful, which is why you can't force people with uteruses to have them, but at the same time they claim that teens are able to consent to them. Not to mention how bodily autonomy doesn't matter when it comes to vaccination. This points to a bad faith strategy of profferring incomplete arguments to get the desired results
If a young person can understand the risks and benefits of contraception, why not the risks and benefits of sex (with someone of age)?

JK Rowling Is Right—Sex Is Real and It Is Not a “Spectrum”

JK Rowling Is Right—Sex Is Real and It Is Not a “Spectrum”

"Till now, even the most thematically ambitious feminist theorists have acknowledged that sex itself is a real biological phenomenon, and that sexual dimorphism is an important component of human existence as well as human rights. Yet increasingly, such common-sense propositions as JK Rowling’s are now cast as hate speech.

As more and more people refer to themselves as trans, nonbinary, two-spirited, and gender-non-conforming, there’s been a push to realign the objective reality of biological sex to match one’s subjectively experienced gender identity. In the emerging view, the very notion of males and females existing as real biological entities is now seen as obsolete. Instead, some argue, we have only varying degrees of “male-ness” and “female-ness.” And so the very idea of segregating sports (or anything, for that matter) using binary sex categories is seen as illegitimate, since, if no definitive line can be drawn, who’s to say a purported “male” athlete isn’t really female?

The view that sex is a spectrum is not confined to fringe critical theorists. It has made inroads into mainstream culture, thanks in part to a highly sympathetic media environment. Even prestigious scientific journals such as Nature have given space to authors who argue that “the idea of two sexes is simplistic” and that “biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that.” Another Nature editorial insisted that attempts to classify an individual’s sex using any combination of anatomy and genetics “has no basis in science.” A new book, The Spectrum of Sex: The Science of Male, Female, and Intersex, argues this position from cover to cover. Its publisher, a Canadian academic press, gushes that “this transformative guide completely breaks down our current understanding of biological sex.”

In February of this year I co-authored a Wall Street Journal op-ed on the subject, entitled The Dangerous Denial of Sex. Along with my co-author, developmental biologist Emma Hilton, I highlighted the harms that sex-spectrum pseudoscience can impose on vulnerable groups, including children, women, gay men, and lesbians...

 There are two main arguments typically offered in defense of the claim that sex is a non-binary attribute that exists on a “spectrum.” The first is based around the existence of intersex conditions—people with intermediate or indeterminate sex characteristics. This argument claims sex cannot be binary if some individuals have sexual anatomy that appears to fall somewhere between male and female...

The second argument typically offered in defense of the sex-spectrum model is based around secondary sex organs and characteristics...

This way of thinking about biological sex is now frequently presented to children in school using such cartoon illustrations as The Genderbread Person (shown below). In the purple box labeled “Biological Sex,” you’ll notice the terms “male” and “female” are not used. Instead, terms denoting the idea of sex as a continuous variable—“male-ness” and “female-ness”—are chosen. Many of the traits listed as defining one’s degree of male-ness and female-ness are secondary sex organs and characteristics: genital morphology, body shape, voice pitch, and body hair. Conspicuously absent from this chart is any mention of primary sex organs (gonads, i.e. ovaries and testes in the case of females and males, respectively) or the typical functions associated with sex, such as menstruation in females and ejaculation in males. There is also no mention of eggs or sperm (produced by ovaries and testes, respectively).

Both of these arguments—the argument from intersex conditions and the argument from secondary sex organs/characteristics—follow from fundamental misunderstandings about the nature of biological sex, which is connected to the distinct type of gametes (sex cells) that an organism produces. As a broad concept, males are the sex that produce small gametes (sperm) and females produce large gametes (ova). There are no intermediate gametes, which is why there is no spectrum of sex. Biological sex in humans is a binary system.

It is crucial to note, however, that the sex of individuals within a species isn’t based on whether an individual can actually produce certain gametes at any given moment. Pre-pubertal males don’t produce sperm, and some infertile adults of both sexes never produce gametes due to various infertility issues. Yet it would be incorrect to say that these individuals do not have a discernible sex, as an individual’s biological sex corresponds to one of two distinct types of evolved reproductive anatomy (i.e. ovaries or testes) that develop for the production of sperm or ova, regardless of their past, present, or future functionality. In humans, and transgender and so-called “non-binary” people are no exception, this reproductive anatomy is unambiguously male or female over 99.98 percent of the time.

The binary distinction between ovaries and testes as the criterion determining an individual’s sex is not arbitrary, nor unique to humans. The evolutionary function of ovaries and testes is to produce either eggs or sperm, respectively, which must be combined for sexual reproduction to take place. If that didn’t happen, there would be no humans. While this knowledge may have been cutting edge science in the 1660s, it’s odd that we should suddenly treat it as controversial in 2020.

That above-cited 99.98 percent figure falls short of 100 percent because of the roughly 0.02 percent who are intersex. (The actual figure is estimated to be about 0.018 percent.) But the claim that intersex conditions support the sex spectrum model conflates the statement “there are only two sexes” (true) with “every human can be unambiguously categorized as either male or female” (false). The existence of only two sexes does not mean sex is never ambiguous. But intersex individuals do not demonstrate that sex is a spectrum. Just because sex may be ambiguous for some does not mean it’s ambiguous (and, as some commentators would extrapolate, arbitrary) for all.

By way of analogy: We flip a coin to randomize a binary decision because a coin has only two faces: heads and tails. But a coin also has an edge, and about one in 6,000 (0.0166 percent) throws (with a nickel) will land on it. This is roughly the same likelihood of being born with an intersex condition. Almost every coin flip will be either heads or tails, and those heads and tails do not come in degrees or mixtures. That’s because heads and tails are qualitatively different and mutually exclusive outcomes. The existence of edge cases does not change this fact. Heads and tails, despite the existence of the edge, remain discrete outcomes...

The existence of intersex conditions is frequently brought up in an attempt to blur the line between male and female when arguing for the inclusion of trans women in female sports and other contexts. But transgenderism has absolutely nothing to do with being intersex. For the vast majority of individuals claiming either trans or non-binary identities, their sex is not in question. Primary sex organs, not identity, determines one’s sex.

In regard to the argument from secondary sex organs/characteristics, the primary flaw is that it confuses cause and effect... these secondary sex characteristics—while plain to the eye, and inseparable from the way most laypeople think about men and women—do not actually define one’s biological sex. Rather, these traits typically develop as a consequence of one’s sex, via differences in the hormonal milieu produced during puberty by either testes or ovaries...

A person riding a motorcycle wearing a spandex suit and lighter helmet doesn’t become a cyclist (or less of a biker) because they share these secondary traits more commonly associated with cyclists. And a person riding a bicycle wearing jeans and a leather jacket doesn’t become a biker (or less of a cyclist) by sharing secondary traits more typical of bikers. Just as these secondary traits do not define bikers and cyclists, secondary sex characteristics do not define males and females.

Because biology is complex, people can be easily swayed with graphs and drawings, especially if they purport to prove something we want to believe anyway—such as the supposedly liberating notion that sex is a spectrum instead of a binary. But a spectrum implies a quantitative axis and, when this is taken seriously, leads to troubling conclusions...

The indicia of male-ness and female-ness invoked by sex-spectrum enthusiasts will always be based on sexist ideals and stereotypes that our grandparents would have recognized.

In the modified figure below, is male A “more” male than male B? Is female D “more” female than female C? For decades, we’ve properly taught our children that this kind of logic is insulting and toxic—that a girl with more masculine features is just as much a girl as her friend with a more stereotypically feminine physique. Whether the figure’s x-axis is quantifying genital morphology or an amalgam of secondary sex traits or behaviors, the implication is that tall, aggressive males with thick beards, deep voices, large penises, and higher testosterone are “more” male than short males with meeker personalities who answer to the opposite description. Likewise, females with larger breasts, a more “feminine” waist-to-hip ratio, and less body hair would be considered “more” female than small-breasted, less curvy, hairier females.

If this sex-spectrum logic strikes you as awfully similar to playground bully logic, you’re right. Imagine the following scenario: James, 16, is a very effeminate boy. He gets relentlessly bullied in high school for his feminine appearance and mannerisms. His classmates tease, “What, are you a girl?” His teacher, upon overhearing this, consults his sex-spectrum chart and tells the class: “maybe.”

Another worrying corollary of this notion is that surgical intervention on intersex infants (sometimes called intersex genital mutilation) can change an individual’s actual location along a pseudo-scientific sex spectrum. A parent may then feel more justified in opting for other “corrective” surgeries, sometimes at odds with an infant’s true (gonadal) biological sex, in order to make their child “ideally” (in their minds) more male or more female...

 The promise of sex-spectrum pseudoscience—that one’s sex is impossible to definitively determine—has a natural appeal to those who already find themselves wrestling with issues connected to their identity. It’s empowering to imagine that we may have control over something so basic as sex...

Dr. Eric Vilain, a clinician and the director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles, claims that since biological sex cannot be reduced to “one biological parameter” (not true), we should therefore abandon sex classifications altogether in favor of one’s entirely subjective gender identity. This is a baffling conclusion since, even if the sex spectrum model were correct, it in no way follows that one can choose where along the spectrum they reside. Furthermore, in Ainsworth’s interpretation of Vilain’s words, we see a not-so-subtle shift from the claim that sex is a spectrum to the much more extreme claim that sex is arbitrary and meaningless. According to this understanding, a person may literally reimagine their biology, as if by alchemy, by merely stating so. What an astounding power for humans to claim. If only it actually existed.

Some trans–rights activists have asked why it should be that people like me are so fixated on an issue where the stakes seem so small. But the stakes aren’t small: If the idea of biological sex can be overturned in the domain of athletic competition, where differences between male and female are abundantly obvious, then the battle to push back sex-spectrum pseudoscience in every other area will be lost—from the admission of males into female prisons and rape-crisis centers, to the facilitation of sex-change surgery for schoolchildren. As Thomas Sowell succinctly stated in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice, “there is only so much divergence between prevailing theories and intractable reality that a society can survive. Yet theories of equality are unlikely to be re-examined—or examined the first time—when they provide a foundation for the heady feeling of being morally superior to a benighted ‘society.’”

Advocates of the sex-spectrum model no doubt meant well when these theories originally were developed. After all, who wouldn’t be partial to an explanation of human biology that validated all of our shifting forms of self-conception and understanding? But over time, it’s become clear that they created a false theory of biology that distorts human nature and harms vulnerable individuals. When one attempts to achieve equality and justice by distorting reality, inequality and injustice are never eliminated, just relocated."

Links - 24th March 2021 (1) (Trans Mania)

Owen Jones on Twitter - "The conspiracy theory that gender transitioning is a new form of gay conversion therapy relies on believing there is a cohort of parents who are a) horrified by their children being gay and b) would prefer them to be trans instead. If you believe that, you are high."
The gay people pushed to change their gender - BBC News - "Iran is one of a handful of countries where homosexual acts are punishable by death. Clerics do, however accept the idea that a person may be trapped in a body of the wrong sex. So homosexuals can be pushed into having gender reassignment surgery - and to avoid it many flee the country."

AITA for not butchering my native language to please my nonbinary friend? : AmItheAsshole - "In one of my group of friends, in which we are mainly gay guys, one of us recently identified themselves as non-binary. I have no problem with this, and I use their preferred pronouns and suffix (In Spanish it is made adding an E instead of A or O: Ele, amigue, hije, compañere)What is the problem? Since "coming out”, they are trying to force us to use inclusive language for EVERYTHING. For you to get a better idea, in Spanish most nouns are gendered and we don’t have a "neutral" article.The chair = La silla (Female), The shoe = El zapato (Male), Cat = Gato (Male) or Gata (Female)Their idea of inclusive language means butchering the words and using the article "ele" for all that has no specified gender... It has gotten to the point we can't no longer say "Hola chicos" (Hi guys) or "Hola amigos" (Hi friends) in our group chat without them jumping because we are excluding them. (In Spanish, the male forms are used for mixed groups and generalizations) Hearing them speak or reading their messages has become a torture because it barely sounds like Spanish anymore, and they are always mad that I refuse to speak in this weird jargon"
Trans mania is racist!

Gad Saad on Twitter - "A Blackpool woman who amassed 81,000 images of child sex abuse has been jailed for 9 months. Julie Marshall (54) was caught as she accessed such material from her hospital bed via public wi-fi as she recovered from a heart attack. 677 of the images were of the most serious kind."
"See, some of you bigots thought that women couldn’t be dangerous child predators. This woman is just as bad as any male child predator. Slowly we inch..."

Satiria - Posts - "Period cravings. Hormones. Oh yes, I need my cake. Give this girl chocolate and I’ll love you forever."
"You don't menstruate. You're biologically male. Most likely, your craving is due to being a clinically obese male."

I,Hypocrite - Posts - "Are there people within the trans community who regret changing their sex and realised it was just a phase that they grew out of? If so, what was that like and did you change anything permanently that you now regret?"
"It has been very insightful reading all of these answers. Why can't I upvote the question? Mods?"

University of Alberta fires anthropology professor for saying biological sex is real - "Kathleen Lowery, an academic at the University of Alberta, has been fired from her role as associate chair of undergraduate programs in the Department of Anthropology for expressing gender-critical feminist ideas... The University of Alberta justified its decision on the basis that a student, or students, informally complained to its Office of Safe Disclosure and Human Rights that Lowery made the learning environment feel "unsafe" for them by voicing gender critical feminist ideas. As a teacher of young people with curious minds, Lowery said her method is to summarize her views on the first day of any course about sex or gender, along with a declaration that students are not required to agree with her. She took this approach to her 2020 course on the "Anthropology of Women." It is difficult to imagine how a teacher could communicate knowledge on that topic without reference to biological sex, as opposed to the relatively recent academic trend of gender identity. However, Lowery's employers felt that her reference to the importance of biological sex broke with orthodoxy to such an unacceptable degree that she had to go... Academic freedom is under threat under the guise of "protecting" minorities, particularly young people steeped in the belief system of gender ideology. For them, even to speak of the reality of sex is a form of "harm."Of course, crying because you've been exposed to an idea which doesn't sit neatly with your current world view is a way to shut down debate, discussion and dissent. When deployed against heterodox academics—and it should not be considered heterodox to know that sex is real—it is cry-bullying, and it is now endemic within academia in the West."

Karine Covfefe - "How they went from, "Men cannot even have an opinion on abortion, let alone make laws on abortion, because they cannot get pregnant," to getting you fired for saying men cannot get pregnant is one of the most peak clown world things of the modern era. 🤡"

TransgenderTrend on Twitter - "7 out of 9 teenage girls at this school have detransitioned since lockdown and one is considering it. This is, happily, as we predicted. An identity that depends on outside validation loses its point when the peer group isn't there. Schools must take note."

The Yaboiposting - Posts - "homophobia is understable, transphobia is not. there’s so many reasons to hate gay people, most specifically white gays.. but there’s never a reason to be a transphobe"

/pol/ - Politically Incorrect » Thread #266416316 - "I've been commenting on women's pictures congratulating them on how their transition is going. It usually hits quite a nerve when you 'mistake' them for a tranny. Best part of it is when they get too offended over it I call them out as transphobic.How am i supposed to know the difference between biological females and MtF females if trans women are women too? Them telling me it should be obvious is clearly just bigoted hate speech."

Tony Blair is right about the culture war - "he said that the Labour Party has become mired in the ‘cul-de-sac of identity politics’... Noting that most of the Labour leadership candidates have signed up to a 12-point trans pledge, promising to expel members who do not believe ‘trans women are women’, Blair said making transgender rights ‘our big thing’ would stoke a culture war Labour cannot win.He also made a key distinction – that ditching identity politics is not about abandoning egalitarian causes. ‘You have got to distinguish between the advocacy of things that are right – gay rights, transgender rights, whatever it is – and launching yourself politically into a culture war with the right’... the problem with many people on the left is not that they support LGBT rights. These days, people across the political spectrum do. The problem is they have imbibed a strange and often extreme orthodoxy on identity issues – so much so that a deputy leadership candidate will happily go on national TV and say ‘a child is born without sex’, as Dawn Butler did... Meanwhile, despite holding views that are frankly batty to most voters, not least the working-class voters Labour is supposed to represent, these MPs show little to no interest in actually winning people over to their position. Instead, they shame and castigate those who disagree with them. ‘If you’re going out there and trying to advocate things in a finger-jabbing, sectarian way’, as Blair put it, ‘you’re not going to win that battle’. Identity politics has poisoned the left. It has been a colossal distraction and has driven a wedge between Labour and its traditional base. This is not because working-class people are unreconstructed bigots, but because they happen to think other issues are more important than identity. They would rather talk about living standards than trans lavatories."

Lynn P 󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♀️ on Twitter - "Friend on FB had apologised for having Silence of the Lambs in their top 10 films, as they have since found out its ‘transphobic’.Its problematic not cos it depicts the kidnap, imprisonment, murder, & mutilation of women.Nope, its cos Buffalo Bill was denied a ‘sex change’"
"You should show your friend this from the actor that played him."
"I met with female impersonators. I went to some very interesting bars looking and talking to people about a side of life that I’m not familiar with. And I came to the conclusion that none of that had anything really to do with this. If the guy was gay, he’d be killing and maiming boys and men and he was killing women."

EleanorOliphant 🟥 on Twitter: "Separation of brain and body is one of the most dangerous aspects of gender identity.  Regarding the body as a "meat suit" is now prevalent among young people.  Once it becomes a mere receptacle, it's just flesh to be molded according to identity."
"It’s very Silence of the Lambs. You’d think there’d be a huge attempt to steer clear of that correlation"

Rhona Hotchkiss on Twitter - "the majority of those id-ing as transwomen in prison, never did so prior to being jailed & even then, some choose not to go to the women’s estate because they don’t feel unsafe in men’s prisons."
""the majority" – according to who, exactly?"
"Me. Ex-prison Governor."

Meme - "A Picture That Destroys Racism
Anti-LGBT Hate Crime Relative Per-Capita Offending Rates by Race"

How common is intersex? a response to Anne Fausto-Sterling - "Anne Fausto-Sterling s suggestion that the prevalence of intersex might be as high as 1.7% has attracted wide attention in both the scholarly press and the popular media. Many reviewers are not aware that this figure includes conditions which most clinicians do not recognize as intersex, such as Klinefelter syndrome, Turner syndrome, and late-onset adrenal hyperplasia. If the term intersex is to retain any meaning, the term should be restricted to those conditions in which chromosomal sex is inconsistent with phenotypic sex, or in which the phenotype is not classifiable as either male or female. Applying this more precise definition, the true prevalence of intersex is seen to be about 0.018%, almost 100 times lower than Fausto-Sterling s estimate of 1.7%."
Also, trans activists try to do a bait and switch and conflate intersexed people with trans people

In Humans, Sex is Binary and Immutable - "This article says nothing novel. It discusses a fact as well-established as the billions of years of evolution that shaped our species. We live in a world,however, that increasingly ignores such truths, and in which the combination of awareness and courage to set the record straight appears rare... More than 2,600 scientists signed astatement claiming that“[t]here are no genetic tests that can unambiguouslydetermine gender, or even sex.” Nature, the world’s premier science journal,ran an editorial stating that“the research and medical community now sees sex as more complex than male and female”'and“the idea that science can make definitive conclusions about a person's sex or gender is fundamentally flawed.” These are remarkable statements as they are equivalent to outright denial of humans’ biological nature. Numerous publications promoted such positions.Nature had previously published an editorial titled “Sex Redefined,” boldly stating that“[t]he idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that.” Popular science magazines such as Scientific American and National Geographic told readers that“the science is clear andconclusive: sex is not binary,” a view even more aggressively pushed inmainstream media, where we regularly read that“ biologists now think the idea of two sexes is inaccurate.” Much has been written by feminist authors about the non-binary nature of “gender,” where“gender ”is defined as something“socially constructed,”distinct from sex. But biological sex itself is also under attack. Feminist philosophers such as Judith Butler and Anne Fausto-Sterling initially advanced the view that both gender and sex are “socially constructed,” denying theobjective reality of binary biological sex, and academic writings promoting this view continue to be produced... this has become mainstream, and an unquestionable dogma too, even within the hard sciences. This is disastrous, as the objective truth is that sex inhumans is strictly binary and immutable, for fundamental reasons that are common knowledge to all biologists taking the findings of their discipline seriously. Denying that sex in humans is binary attacks the very foundations of the biological sciences... what about “intersex” individuals? Unfortunately, confusion and misunderstanding reign when it comes to their existence. Humans are indeed born with a variety of “intersex”conditions at low frequency, but that does not mean that these conditions are part of normal healthy variation. Humans are also born with agreat variety of devastating congenital deformities and diseases, and if alien exozoologists were to write a description of Homo sapiens based on extensive observations of the population, such a description would never feature, for example, anencephaly, and neither would it include anything else but binary sex. Extremely deleterious phenotypes, especially when their fitness is invariant with respect to environmental conditions, cannot be part of that description, as they are by definition actively eliminated from the population. The mathematics of natural selection is remorseless... All “intersex” conditions, when examined, clearly arise from single-gene mutations or chromosomal aberrations on a genetic background that would have indisputably been producing male or female gametes had these mutations not occurred, and, rarely, due to chimerism (i.e. individuals made up of both male and female cells). True hermaphrodites possessing both sets of functional gonads and genitalia have never been observed in Homo sapiens. Therefore the “intersex” argument against the sex binary is simply not valid...
The type of gametes produced is a very objective criterion for classifying the sex of an individual, and is its fundamental defining feature. In metazoans, there are only two types of gametes, although they do exhibit enormous diversity in the relationship between the individual and gamete production and fertilization. Numerous species practice parthenogenesis,many are predominantly hermaphroditic (e.g. earthworms and snails), while individuals of some species can change their sex (e.g. clownfish). However, no such examples have ever been observed in mammals, in which binary sexual reproduction appears to be extremely strongly enforced...
Certain parallels can perhaps be made with battles over the teaching of evolution, but there is one critical difference—the ideas in question here are coming directly from within the highest ranks of academia, where they appear to have significant institutional support, and, as recent years have demonstrated,their proponents are more than willing to use aggressive tactics outside the scholarly realm to silence their critics. There is also little understanding of the seriousness of the situation within the scientific community, which, whether for political reasons or due to lack of awareness, has been willingly supporting outright “bio-denialism.”"
Some people claim that no biologists (or even scientists) are claiming that sex isn't binary. Notably, Anne Fausto-Sterling is a biology profesor
Others claim that "actual biologist, sex researchers [and] neuroscientists" say "no it's not, here's a mile long reading list"

Project Nettie – Scientists supporting biological sex - "Project Nettie is an online and regularly updated record of scientists, medics and those in related disciplines who, by signing their support for the Project Nettie statement (below), assert the material reality of biological sex and reject attempts to reframe it as a malleable social construct."
I am old enough to remember when it was Creationists attacking science and scientists fighting back by finding those who refuted their magical claims

Only ‘limited’ evidence for trans kids’ medicine but inquiry too ‘dangerous’ - "The evidence for life-altering medical intervention in youth gender clinics suffers from “gaps” and “limitations” but a national inquiry would be “dangerous”, federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has been told. The inquiry urged by more than 200 doctors and clinicians “would further harm vulnerable patients and their families through increased media and public attention,” the Royal Australasian College of Physicians said... the college had lobbied with paediatrician Michelle Telfer — whose Royal Children’s Hospital gender clinic in Melbourne spearheads the pro-trans “affirmative” treatment model in Australia — for easier and quicker underage access to hormones and less oversight by the Family Court... the former British minister for mental health and suicide prevention, Jackie Doyle-Price, called for “more control over gender treatment for children”, citing litigation involving a regretful “detransitioner”, Keira Bell, 23, who said the NHS Tavistock gender clinic in London “should have challenged me more” over medical transition.“Puberty is not the time for anyone to consent to life-changing treatment,” Ms Doyle-Price said in a tweet. This week brought the launch of a new global body, the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine, which argues that the low quality of the evidence for the affirmative model has been obscured by dramatic but unsupported claims that young people are likely to kill themselves if denied hormones and surgery. “Given the lack of evidence of benefits of these treatments on long-term mental health, and the evidence of alarmingly high rates of post-treatment suicide, the use of affirmative care outside of rigorously designed clinical trial settings is inconsistent with ethical medical practice”... Before the rise of the affirmative model and teenage-onset dysphoria, the condition typically occurred in a small, stable percentage of pre-school boys, with the vast majority coming to accept their bodies as they matured and many emerging as gay or bisexual.Philip Morris, president of the National Association of Practising Psychiatrists, which supports a national inquiry, said he found it “very surprising” for a medical college to claim it would be “dangerous” to hold “a balanced, comprehensive inquiry into the most effective and safe treatments for gender dysphoria”... Treatment side-effects include infertility, loss of sexual desire, cardiovascular problems, and possible cognitive impairment... RACP president Mark Lane said young people with gender dysphoria suffered “extremely high” rates of self-harm and attempted suicide. The college did not supply any evidence when asked. Canadian psychologist Ken Zucker, a world authority on gender dysphoria and editor of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior, has dismissed as “pure dogma” the affirmative model line to parents hesitating on the brink of treatment for their child, “Do you want a live son or a dead daughter?”.“If you are depressed, your suicidality risk is going to be elevated, but you see that in kids who are depressed but don’t have gender dysphoria,” Dr Zucker told The Australian last year.“The idea that adolescents with gender dysphoria are at a higher risk of suicide per se is dogma — and I think it’s wrong.”... Sydney clinical psychologist Dianna Kenny, a critic of the affirmative model, said the college’s statement was “so politically correct as to lack any scientific merit or moral courage”.Professor of paediatrics John Whitehall, another critic, said it was odd for the college to not want “public attention” for the issue of medical transition of under-18s.“I would have thought there is already a great deal of attention, though all one way (in favour of the affirmative model),” he said.“The RACP boasts of interest in public health and that usually involves full and frank discussion of all side-effects as part of preventing harm. Here, it is essentially (saying), ‘Be quiet and accept the experimentation’.” In a 2018 submission to the National Children’s Commissioner, which was reporting on progress under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, the college said taxpayers should subsidise puberty blocker drugs (which cost $5000 a year for each trans youth) as well as trans surgery, while “gender identity” should be taught in schools and medical courses at university... “Gender dysphoria is not a fatal disease: no single, quality study has demonstrated that gender dysphoria causes suicides in young people,” he said.“Treatment with hormones and surgeries to halt puberty deny young people a chance for natural resolution of gender dysphoria.”"
If your claims can't withstand scrutiny, just label dissenters heretics

Links - 23rd March 2021 (2)

Fanboys movie review & film summary (2009) - "A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies.Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to."

Companies Start to Think Remote Work Isn’t So Great After All - WSJ - "Projects take longer. Training is tougher. Hiring and integrating new employees, more complicated. Some employers say their workers appear less connected and bosses fear that younger professionals aren’t developing at the same rate as they would in offices, sitting next to colleagues and absorbing how they do their jobs... No CEO should be surprised that the early productivity gains companies witnessed as remote work took hold have peaked and leveled off, he adds, because workers left offices in March armed with laptops and a sense of doom. “It was people being terrified of losing their jobs, and that fear-driven productivity is not sustainable”... “You can tell people are getting fatigued”... The nature of what some companies do makes it tough, if not impossible, to function remotely. In San Francisco, startup Chef Robotics recently missed a key product deadline by a month, hampered by the challenges of integrating and testing software and hardware with its engineers scattered across the Bay Area. Pre-pandemic, they all collaborated in one space.Problems that took an hour to solve in the office stretched out for a day when workers were remote... OpenExchange is renting a house in the English countryside, with about 15 bedrooms, so many of its employees can live and work together, while still distancing. In some cases, family members are coming along.It’s important to have people in a room and see body language and read signals that don’t come through a screen... One benefit of working together in person, many executives said, is the potential for spontaneous interactions... In a recent company survey, less than a third of Discover employees said they want to work from home permanently, though many said they would like the flexibility to do it sometimes, which the company plans to offer. Without the interactions that define office life, Mr. Eichfeld worries that Discover’s culture will gradually fray, which is why he’s eager to get workers back together once it is safe"

The Work-From-Home Shift Shocked Companies—Now They’re Learning Its Lessons - WSJ - "Lesson 4: To attract talent, you might need some new perks
Some companies are spending big to equip workers stuck at home, especially knowledge workers. Firstbase is a startup that charges companies a flat monthly fee—on average, about $120—per employee to equip newly homebound workers with an ergonomic chair and desk, microphone, laptop and second monitor. Before March, there were 600 companies on Firstbase’s waiting list, now there are more than 4,000, says company founder and chief executive Chris Herd. Firstbase’s clients range from early-stage startups to publicly traded companies, some with particular (and at times extreme) requests intended to retain employees and keep them as productive as possible. Some clients opt for sending each employee their own coffee machine and coffee-bean subscription, but one client asked about the possibility of providing employees with Peloton bicycles. Another, an exchange-listed tech company, “supplies a specific item to all their employees that was strange to us,” says Mr. Herd. He declined to elaborate.

The Honey Badger Radio official Facebook group - "Pretty interesting how every woman calling herself "autistic" ha a fine-tuned social understanding of how to act cute and dress well, as well as a standard female's desire to put pictures and videos of herself on social media"
Supposedly women with autism have very good coping strategies and can mimic normal people. This is like the zombie problem in philosophy - how do you know if the person you see is really a real person or just a mindless zombie acting human? Also I interpret this as a critique of supposedly autistic women on social media trying to get attention by claiming they're autistic. Not a denial that autistic women exist

S'pore responsible for 5 out of 9 shows Netflix took down in total - "In 23 years of operation, Netflix has taken down just nine TV shows and movies from its streaming service at the behest of governments, the company has disclosed in a report. Five of those takedown requests were made by Singapore alone... Netflix took down content in specific countries only on the request of their respective governments. For example, in Saudi Arabia, it removed an episode of Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj titled “Saudi Arabia” after a written demand from the Saudi Communication and Information Technology Commission. The episode had implicated the Saudi Arabian government in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix was criticised for seemingly caving in to pressure from Saudi Arabia for removing the episode... The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) asked Netflix to remove five pieces of content in Singapore relating to drug use and religion that it deemed sensitive. These five titles were The Last Hangover, The Last Temptation Of Christ, Cooking On High, The Legend Of 420 and Disjointed... Other takedown requests came from Germany (Night Of The Living Dead), New Zealand (The Bridge) and Vietnam (Full Metal Jacket)... Netflix has challenged some attempts to force it to remove content. In January this year, a Brazilian judge ordered the company to take down The First Temptation Of Christ, a Portuguese-language religious satire in which Jesus is depicted as a gay man. Netflix appealed the judgment and managed to keep the comedy on its platform in the country after Brazil’s Supreme Court overturned the ban."

Wall Street Journal Staff Members Push for Big Changes in News Coverage - The New York Times - "Staff members of The Wall Street Journal have been pressing newsroom leaders to make fundamental changes in how the newspaper covers race, policing, and its primary focus, the business world, along with other matters.
Nowhere is safe

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Apparently even Asians can be white supremacists.
Step 1: Memes use Pepe the Frog.
Step 2: White supremacists use Pepe the Frog in memes.
Step 3: Declare Pepe the Frog to be a white supremacist symbol.
Step 4: Asians use Pepe the Frog symbols.
Step 5: Asians must be white supremacists.
Han may want to go back and check his work."

Meme - "Women Are Fickle Minded
At 18 They Want Handsome Men
At 25 They Want Successful Men
At 30 They Want Sensible Men
At 40 They Want Mature Men
Men Are Very Simple
At 18 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 25 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 30 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 40 They Want Pretty Young Girls
At 50 They Still Want Pretty Young Girls
See Men Are So Simple Minded "

Alexandra DeSanctis on Twitter - "progressives: you’re a fake pro-lifer because you never do anything to help the poor also progressives: stop donating to charities that help the poor because they are run by icky Christians"

Why are so many American cities banning fast-food drive-thrus? - "Proponents claim decreasing drive-thru windows will help combat obesity, improve walkability and push back on pollution... many consumers are worried about one of their favorite conveniences being taken away. Some have pointed out how important drive-thrus are for customers who are disabled, the elderly and parents who may not easily be able to get their kids out of the car for a quick bite... ne of the first municipalities to prohibit new and expanded drive-thrus was South Los Angeles in 2008. They also banned the construction of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants. In 2015, a non-profit research organization called RAND published a study examining the ban's impact on diet and obesity in L.A. County from 2007 to 2012. Its researchers found obesity actually increased among residents in the area."The South Los Angeles fast-food ban may have symbolic value, but it has had no measurable impact in improving diets or reducing obesity," said Roland Sturm, the lead author of the study... However, America's neighbors to the north saw different results when a similar ban was enacted in several provinces."
The Canada study doesn't actually say there were good effects

mirax on Twitter - "This whiteass woke warrior is calling out muslims who are against antisemitism. They are not the right kind of muslims of course. There's a word for you @TomGara : racist."

Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump backfire - "Donald Trump wasn’t the only presidential candidate whose campaign was boosted by officials of a former Soviet bloc country.Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers"

ANALYSIS: What if Trump was right about Ukraine? - "Republicans insist Ukraine did, in fact, try to interfere in the American political process in 2016, and they point to five examples"

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "an officer pulled over a bicycle rider for riding on the wrong side of the road. The rider refused to identify herself. Twenty minutes into the stop, and after repeated warnings, the officer announces that she is under arrest. At this point she resists the arrest by locking her arms and pulling against the officers. She is eventually cuffed and held until two female officers arrive to frisk the still unidentified woman.A couple of days later the college where the woman attended announced they were going to reconsider their contract with police department due to the arrest. In response the police department chose to end their agreement with the college.The police body cam, linked in the article, clearly shows the officer patient and professional. Everything was by the book.The college president offered counseling for his students and made this statement:“We will continue to emphasize the need for law enforcement authorities to de-escalate situations involving OSU students,” Ray said. “Let me be clear, this matter is sufficiently troublesome that unless its resolution is satisfactory to OSU, we will reassess the value of continuing a campus law enforcement service agreement with Oregon State Police.”"
Guess if something is wrong they'll need to call the Ghostbusters

Emory University, concerned with the N-word, brings N-word-spewing rapper to campus - "Emory University, which has gotten its collective panties in a bunch over several professors’ use of the N-word — in academic context, mind you — will be bringing a rapper to campus for homecoming who uses the term quite liberally.The school actually is trying to terminate one of those professors, Paul Zwier, for appealing a suspension after he used the term. Emory refuses to discuss any specifics about his case.Another victim is a Native-American professor who noted in his class that whites once used the epithets “sand ni**er” and “red ni**er” against his people. Even though Prof. Robert Saunooke had apologized to the one student who said she was offended by his remarks, and despite his taking proactive steps to report what he said to the proper university officials himself, the president of the Black Law Student Association told him his use of the terms “was unnecessary and disruptive to the learning experience.”Indeed, Emory is soooo sensitive to the racial epithet that it has invited rapper Rico Nasty to perform October 25 for the school’s homecoming. As noted by The Wheel, Nasty’s mixtapes include The Rico Story and Sugar Trap, the lyrics of which just might offend a sizable number of people, one would think... Emory has been so … politically correctly pure of late that in addition to the sanctions against the N-word uttering professors it terminated an Italian teacher for her “anti-Islam and anti-immigration views”; its students demanded a “Latinx” (“lah-TEE-nex,” the gender-neutral term for “Latino/a”) studies department; students and school officials held a confab over the school tennis coach’s “inappropriate” Halloween costume; and, perhaps “best” of all, protesters upset at pro-Trump chalkings screamed at Emory administrators to “speak to them” because they were “in pain.”"

Emory U. coach tries to raise awareness about Puerto Rico on Halloween; backfires badly - "The women’s tennis coach at Emory University thought she had a great idea for Halloween: raise awareness about the greed of companies helping Puerto Rico to recover from Hurricane Maria.Amy Bryant and her husband dressed as employees of the company Whitefish Energy Holdings, while their two sons were made up as a pair of Puerto Rican boys. The former were “in suits carrying sacks of money” while the latter “carried matches, fishing rods, a net and empty jugs of water labeled ‘agua,’” according to The Emory Wheel.Bryant said the whole notion was to highlight the “greed in government and politics.” She had posted a picture of her family on her Facebook page.There was just one little thing Bryant forgot to take into account, however: the prevailing politically correct atmosphere at the institution for which she works."
When liberal activism backfires

Escape The Echo Chamber - Posts - "Last week, it seemed that every pundit that criticized Trump for coarsening public discourse was dancing on the grave of David Koch.Koch, and his brother, was a civil libertarian who believed that people should live their lives with minimal government interference. He was consistent in this belief. This ‘evil conservative’ supported abortion rights, drug legalization, and criminal justice reform. He also supported lower taxes, less regulation, and school choice. Koch wrote large checks to support the arts, museums, and medical research. His donations exceeded well over $1 billion.The man did a lot of good with the time he had on this earth. Cheering his death does no good."

David Koch’s Philanthropic Legacy - "Jones explains, for example, that the Kochs have opposed unions because “unions cut into a corporation’s bottom line; they make it slightly more difficult for lowly businessmen to purchase Park Avenue penthouses worth millions.” It does not occur to her to ask an obvious question: “When you’re worth $50 billion, is it really worth your time to push right-to-work laws just because you want a bigger apartment?”In fact, one easy way for the uber-wealthy to improve their bottom line is simply to keep the money they already have. David Koch, however, was extremely generous to cultural institutions in New York City that few libertarians or Tea Party advocates would care to patronize... His critics, such as The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, struggle to square Koch’s generosity with the claim that he was mainly interested in protecting his wealth. Mayer even suggests, absurdly, that his donations to the National Museum of Natural History have something to do with debunking climate change. She does not try to explain how his gifts in support of opera and ballet are likely to increase his wealth or the influence of Koch Industries.What Mayer never entertains is the possibility that maybe—just maybe—David Koch was motivated by something besides greed... the enemies of the Kochs can never acknowledge the possibility that these men wanted not only to enrich themselves but also to spread, as widely as possible, the free-market system to improve the standard of living of millions of people who deserve better chances."

Losing the Education Lottery - "Much like a lottery, education is by definition a competitive system that sorts winners from losers. As long as we accept its role as a key determinant of social outcomes, the result will necessarily be inequality, and it will merely be a question of how this inequality is distributed by group. Those who insist that education is “the great equalizer,” deBoer argues, are either being dishonest or are suffering from the Lake Wobegon delusion that all children can be above average. As he writes: “not everyone can be a good student if the term ‘good’ has any meaning.” One proof of this is that as soon as some educational sorting mechanism ceases to effectively separate “good” from “bad” students, its much-vaunted benefits evaporate. For instance, high school diplomas lost much of their labor market advantage as graduation rates increased, a fact ignored by policymakers who cite the higher average earnings of college graduates to support the idea that increasing access to higher education is a way to flatten the economic playing field. As deBoer notes, “sending everyone to college is a recipe for eroding the very advantage that college now confers.” This is because “educated labor is like other goods: its value is subject to supply and demand. The more people that possess educational credentials, the easier it is for employers to hire educated labor, and the more competition there is within the educated class.” The “great equalizer” view of education, when applied to labor market competition, leads to a perverse outcome: a workforce with weaker bargaining power overall. This is a desirable outcome for employers but not for employees, which is surely part of why expanding educational access is such a popular cause among the CEO class... The reality of the “genetic lottery,” he argues, exposes “equality of opportunity” as a fraudulent goal... By refusing to acknowledge innate ability, progressives who may be nominally critical of meritocracy leave its ideological underpinnings unchallenged. To question universal capacity to succeed in school, they believe, is to deny the equal worth of all people. But this is only true if we accept the false premise of the Cult of Smart: “the notion that academic value is the only value, and intelligence the only true measure of human worth.” If we reject this premise, conversely, we must also reject a system that adjudicates economic outcomes based on it. After all, deBoer asks, “[w]ho would endorse meritocracy if ‘merit’ depends so heavily on chance?”"
This confuses moral dessert with rewarding performance (necessary to set up the right incentives so the system works well

After blast, Tel Aviv city hall lights up as Lebanese flag in solidarity - "The municipality’s tribute to Egypt’s flag after an attack on Christian Copts in May 2017 was the first time the gesture was made toward an Arab country, although unlike Lebanon, Egypt has a peace accord and ties with Israel. Israel announced Tuesday night that it had reached out to offer humanitarian help to Lebanon after a massive blast rocked Beirut, killing at least 100 and leaving large parts of the capital in ruins"
Just what you'd expect from a settler, colonialist, Zionist state!

JukeMaster on Twitter Lindsay Love (Arizona): "Hey Guys! Politness is white supremacy. Every time you prioritize politeness and civility over everything in a conversation, you are complicit in upholding white supremacy. All that to say, DISRUPT."
"Politness is white supremacy yet if you aren't polite it's racism? Black fragility knows no limits."
Besides their anti-white racism, anti-racists sure have many racist beliefs about "minorities"

Why Success Won't Make You Happy - The Atlantic - "Though it isn’t a conventional medical addiction, for many people success has addictive properties. To a certain extent, I mean that literally—praise stimulates the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is implicated in all addictive behaviors. (This is basically how social media keeps people hooked: Users get a dopamine hit from the “likes” generated by a post, keeping them coming back again and again, hour after miserable hour.) But success also resembles addiction in its effect on human relationships. People sacrifice their links with others for their true love, success. They travel for business on anniversaries; they miss Little League games and recitals while working long hours. Some forgo marriage for their careers—earning the appellation of being “married to their work”—even though a good relationship is more satisfying than any job. Many scholars, such as the psychologist Barbara Killinger, have shown that people willingly sacrifice their own well-being through overwork to keep getting hits of success. I know a thing or two about this: As I once found myself confessing to a close friend, “I would prefer to be special than happy.” He asked why. “Anyone can do the things it takes to be happy—going on vacation with family, relaxing with friends … but not everyone can accomplish great things.”... Apart from some reality-TV stars and other accidental celebrities, success is brutal work, and it requires sacrifices. In the 1980s, the physician Robert Goldman famously found that more than half of aspiring athletes would be willing to take a drug that would kill them in five years in exchange for winning every competition they entered today, “from the Olympic decathlon to the Mr. Universe.” Later research found that up to 14 percent of elite performers would accept a fatal cardiovascular condition in exchange for an Olympic gold medal—still a shockingly high number, in my estimation... Unfortunately, success is Sisyphean (to mix my Greek myths). The goal can’t be satisfied; most people never feel “successful enough.” The high only lasts a day or two, and then it’s on to the next goal. Psychologists call this the hedonic treadmill, in which satisfaction wears off almost immediately and we must run on to the next reward to avoid the feeling of falling behind. This is why so many studies show that successful people are almost invariably jealous of people who are more successful... Success addicts giving up their habit experience a kind of withdrawal as well. Research finds that depression and anxiety are common among elite athletes after their careers end; Olympic athletes, in particular, suffer from the “post-Olympic blues.”... Social comparison is a big part of how people measure worldly success, but the research is clear that it strips us of life satisfaction."

Chinese soccer commentators fired for thanking Covid-19 for infecting rival Super League player - "Guo Yifei, a sports commentator working for Dalian TV, the main network in the northeastern city, uploaded a now-deleted video on the video platform Douyin in which he previewed the game with former Chinese international Wang Peng.Guo noted that Henan’s star striker, Cameroonian forward Christian Bassogog, was not playing because he was receiving treatment in a hospital in the southern city of Guangzhou after testing positive for Covid-19."

On why IQ being heritable in individuals doesn't mean group differences are due to genetics

From 2018 (with some spelling corrections):

"You can observe that IQ is heritable in groups, i.e. calculate a heritability percentage that expresses how much of the differences of IQ in the group you studied are due to genetic differences. 

So you could say that in a sample from Sweden of say 1000 people, the heritability of IQ was say 75%.

You can do that for different groups and get similar but not the same numbers.

That tells you that IQ differences have a strong genetic component.

Let's say you know (made up numbers) that group A has an average IQ of 100 and a heritability of 70% and group B has an average IQ of 85 and a heritability of 67%.

There is no way to determine how much of the difference in the phenotypic IQ is due to genetic factors without knowing what causal genetic variants are.

It appears plausible to some people that you could just calculate the that from the group numbers (IQ, heritability) but in fact you can't.

It could be that in group B all of the lower IQ is due to uniformly poor environmental conditions for that group, which is why it wouldn't show up in heritability, because that only measures the differences between individual within that group not across other groups.

Bottom line: once we have reliable genomic estimates of IQ, we can make statements about genetic IQ differences across groups. Until then, we should not claim that we can.

I estimate that this capability will be there within the next 5 to 10 years.

Basing demands for political equality on the assumption that there are no genetic group differences is foolish, because if science finds out that there are substantial differences (a very plausible but not guaranteed result), racists will say: "see you said everyone is equal genetically and should be treated equally, but now we know that there are genetic differences between groups and therefore we should treat them differently."

If you base your ethics on individual rights rather than claims about group equality you will not run into this problem."

Links - 23rd March 2021 (1) (George Floyd Protests: Defunding/Abolishing the Police)

Jesse Singal on Twitter - "Me: KICK PUPPIES! Everyone: That's a horrible slogan! Why would you say that?
Me: Nononononono, the point isn't to 'kick' 'puppies' -- it's far more subtle than that. Read these 10 links explaining what the phrase REALLY means. This will get you on my side, I'm sure"

An0maly on Twitter - "When celebrities come to the shitty parts of Los Angeles where we have to live to do their award shows, they shut down the streets & get dozens of police officers to protect them. They also build walls around the area. Isn’t that amazing?"

Nicole Arbour on Twitter - "Don't lie to yourselves today. Don't post up heartfelt pictures and quotes while you have defund the police in your bio. The same officers who ran in to save everyone of any color, you're shooting in the streets and throwing bottles at at "protests." You forgot. #September11"

Sarah Haider on Twitter - "Abolish the police = privatize the police. Just so you know."

Steven Universe and She-Ra Suggest We Should Abolish the Police
Using children's shows to make arguments about the real world. Right...

'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano sparks massive police presence after calling 911 - "Actress and 'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano was quick to call cops when she believed an armed gunman was on her Bell Canyon property on Sunday morning... 'It turned out it was a neighborhood teen with an air gun shooting at squirrels'... In July, the left leaning activist Alyssa tweeted out to her 3.7 million followers a link, urging them to sign the 'People's Budget L.A.' that demands a 90 percent reduction in police funding... One neighbor says, 'She can tweet those things because at the end of the day she lives behind gates in a gated community. She knows the police will come to save her. But what about all those people who don't have that luxury and live in unsafe neighborhoods? She obviously doesn't care.'She uses her platform in hypocritical ways. Why not send your husband into the yard to find out what is actually going on before you call the police? I would guesstimate the response today from law enforcement cost tax payers thousands of dollars.'This isn't the first time she has been called out for being a hypocrite.In August, ex-Charmed castmate Rose McGowan went on a twitter rant accusing her of stealing the #metoo movement.Milano enraged McGowan when she defended presidential candidate Joe Biden after sexual assault allegations against him by a former staffer went public.The feud prompted the hashtag #AlyssaMilanoIsALie to trend on Twitter."

AOC's new 'Squad' members want to defund police, much more - "Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., was one of just a handful of radical left-wing lawmakers elected to Congress in 2018, and who banded together to form the “Squad” to push once-fringe policies like the Green New Deal and "Medicare-for-all" -- but in 2020, that small group's numbers are expanding.Last week’s congressional elections led to victory for a number of progressive candidates who share the New York congresswoman’s outlook, and with the defeat of a number of moderates elsewhere, policies like the Green New Deal, free college, "Medicare-for-all" and defunding the police will be getting more attention in 2021."

Seattle hires convicted ex-pimp as 'street czar' to work on police reform - "The city of Seattle has hired an ex-pimp who has been convicted of running a prostitution operation, including pimping underage girls, at a $150,000 a year salary who now holds the title of “Street Czar.”... Andre Taylor, has been contracted by the city to provide “expertise and support services” in de-escalation, community engagement, and alternatives to policing.”... “I was born from the streets. I come out of the deep darkness.”He then bragged about how he had children with some of the women who were there with him when he was a pimp... Taylor was also one of the organizers of the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” (CHOP) zone and said protesters should demand $2 million from the city to give up the occupation... This is not the first time Seattle has paid Taylor with taxpayer funds. According to reports, his organization, Not This Time was paid $100,000 last year to sponsor a speaker series called “Conversations with the Streets.”... Taylor was also featured in the 1999 documentary American Pimp which examined the pimping “subculture” and is known to have bragged about impregnating the young girls he pimped. However, Seattle officials the the local media call Taylor a “civic activist” in large part because his brother, Che Taylor was killed in an officer-involved shooting back in 2016.The shooting was justified and rule lawful when a gun was found at the scene. Che Taylor had a previous criminal record where he had been convicted of rape and robbery. He also had outstanding warrants. Even so, Taylor and other activists in Seattle continue to demand justice."
Who better than a criminal to destroy the police under the guise of reforming it? This plotline could be ripped off from a comic book

CiCi Adams on Twitter - "I cringe whenever I see the word “crime.” It’s no longer part of my vocab “Crime” is a historical &political construction. The sooner we acknowledge “crime” as a madeup thing used to justify targeted criminalization/policing, the sooner we can talk meaningfully about actual harm Remember when some Black folks were on here talking about “high crime rates” to justify the Crime Bill the other day? I was like, “crime?” You mean the socially constructed set of racialized, gendered arbitrary rules created solely to limit your freedom and movement? That thing?"
Replies: "You're going to keep that same energy when a hate crime occurs or a celebrity gets MeToo'ed?"
"So my rapist who decapitated my cat, bled him out elsewhere, and returned him to my lawn in pieces minus his head to try to keep me from testifying, what shall we call that man’s actions if not crime? Recreation? Self-expression? Shenanigans? Hijinx?"
"I cringe whenever i see the word "racism". its no longer part of my vocab. "racism" is a historical & political construction. the sooner we acknowledge "racism" as a madeup thing used to justify targeted vandalism/theft, the sooner we can talk meaningfully about actual harm."

Protestors Surround Asian Mayor’s House and Demand Police Defunding - "“Twilight Lockdown,” was the name of the campaign where pro-Black Lives Matter groups surrounded Fremont Mayor Lily Mei’s house... The protesters drew chalk messages on the street in front of Mei’s home reading “Asian Silence is Violence,” and “Defund the FPD.” They also displayed “Black Lives Matter” signs as well as “Care not Cops”... Let’s not mention the fact Fremont has seen some very violent robberies and home invasions in the last few years. Mainly African-American gangs targeting Asian-Americans have become an epidemic. Defunding police would further the violence toward Asian-Americans."
Asians complaining about violent robberies and home invasions is "anti-blackness", of course

Law of the Jungle – StoneToss - "Abolish the police!"
"Well then, racist ex-cop, I guess you're free to go"

Opinion | Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police - The New York Times - "I’ve been advocating the abolition of the police for years. Regardless of your view on police power — whether you want to get rid of the police or simply to make them less violent — here’s an immediate demand we can all make: Cut the number of police in half and cut their budget in half. Fewer police officers equals fewer opportunities for them to brutalize and kill people. The idea is gaining traction in Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and other cities... We are not abandoning our communities to violence. We don’t want to just close police departments. We want to make them obsolete.We should redirect the billions that now go to police departments toward providing health care, housing, education and good jobs. If we did this, there would be less need for the police in the first place.We can build other ways of responding to harms in our society. Trained “community care workers” could do mental-health checks if someone needs help. Towns could use restorative-justice models instead of throwing people in prison.What about rape? The current approach hasn’t ended it... People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation"
Of course, this won't stop the liberal gaslighting that no one wants to defund or even abolish the police
Presumably since modern medicine hasn't resulted in people living forever, it is useless and we should abandon it

Mey Rude on Twitter - "isn’t this whole “they don’t *really* mean defund when they say defund” like wild 1984 doublespeak gaslighting? yes we mean defund. yes we mean abolish."

Herschel Walker Suggests Airlines Fly 'Defund the Police' Activists to Countries with No Police - " it might be easier to send these liberals to the Democrat-controlled cities in America that have already neutered their police forces to see how an end to the police might look to residents.The City of Chicago has practically muzzled its police since the Laquan McDonald shooting in 2014, and for the last few years, the murder rate has soared. During the recent riots in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd, riots that Chicago’s mayor did little to stop, the city suffered its bloodiest day in 60 years with 18 murders in a single day.In Baltimore, another city where police have been put on a leash, the murder rate has also soared... with the police practically cowed in the wake of the police-involved death of Freddie Gray in 2015, the sad fact is that 68 percent of the city’s murders went without arrests."

Underpoliced and Overprisoned, revisited - "“The United States today is the only country I know of that spends more on prisons than police”... the United States employs many more prison guards per-capita than does the rest of the world. Given our prison population that isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that on a per-capita basis we employ 35% fewer police than the world average. That’s crazy... a 10% increase in policing would reduce crime by 3 to 5%... in recent years large majorities of blacks, hispanics and whites have said that they support hiring more police... lower crime has been one of the greatest benefits to African American men over the past 30 years... Chicago just had a horrendous day with 18 innocent people murdered in mostly random drive-by shootings, in part because the police were occupied with protests and riots."
Not having enough police is one reason people buy a gun to protect themselves - quite apart from the issue of a lack of political will to do proper policing

What Was Gary Becker's Biggest Mistake? - "Beginning in the 1980s we dramatically increased the punishment for crime in the United States but we did so more by increasing sentence length than by increasing the probability of being punished. In theory, this should have reduced crime, reduced the costs of crime control and led to fewer people in prison. In practice, crime rose and then fell mostly for reasons other than imprisonment. Most spectacularly, the experiment with greater punishment led to more spending on crime control and many more people in prison. Why did the experiment fail? Longer sentences didn’t reduce crime as much as expected because criminals aren’t good at thinking about the future; criminal types have problems forecasting and they have difficulty regulating their emotions and controlling their impulses. In the heat of the moment, the threat of future punishment vanishes from the calculus of decision. Thus, rather than deterring (much) crime, longer sentences simply filled the prisons. As if that weren’t bad enough, by exposing more people to criminal peers and by making it increasingly difficult for felons to reintegrate into civil society, longer sentences increased recidivism...
When Becker first wrote many criminologists were flat out denying that punishment deterred. As late as 1994, for example, the noted criminologist David Bayley could write:
    The police do not prevent crime. This is one of the best kept secrets of modern life. Experts know it, the police know it, but the public does not know it. Yet the police pretend that they are society’s best defense against crime. This is a myth Inspired by Becker, a large, credible, empirical literature–including my own work on police (and prisons)–has demonstrated that this is no myth, the police deter"

Minneapolis City Council President: If You Call the Cops When Your Garage is Broken Into, You're a White Supremacist - "The Minneapolis experiment in recreating Escape From New York in real life is off to a great start."If you are a comfortable white person asking to dismantle the police I invite you to reflect: are you willing to stick with it? Will you be calling in three months to ask about garage break-ins? Are you willing to dismantle white supremacy in all systems, including a new system?" Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender tweeted."

For Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, a Stinging Rebuke - The New York Times - "Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis retreated on Saturday through a sea of protesters yelling, “Go home, Jacob, go home!” and “Shame! Shame!” after he refused to commit to defunding the Police Department... Mr. Frey, a 38-year-old civil rights lawyer, swept into office in 2018 on promises to fix the broken relationship between the community and the police. Across the country, calls to defund, downsize or abolish police departments have gained new traction... Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles announced that he would cut as much as $150 million from a planned increase in the Police Department’s budget. And in New York, Corey Johnson, the City Council speaker, and Daniel Dromm, a council member from Queens, vowed even before the latest protests to cut the Police Department’s $6 billion budget. In Minneapolis, at least four members of the City Council have called for dismantling the Police Department... Mr. Frey was pressed to state his position on the issue by protesters who had massed outside his house.Looming above the mayor on a stage, a woman with a microphone asked him if he would commit on the spot to defunding the Minneapolis Police Department.“It is a yes or no,” she said, instructing the crowd to be quiet and reminding them that the mayor is up for re-election next year. “And if he says no, guess what we’re going to do next year,” she said, adding an expletive for emphasis."
Police in the US are brutal partly because of insufficient training. Solution: cut the budget. Brilliant!

Carjacking up 537% amid Minneapolis city council plans to further defund police force - "Violent carjackings are up an astronomical 537% in the city of Minneapolis this November compared to November of 2019, while the City Council announced plans to cut another $8 million from the police budget."

They actually did it. Minneapolis just voted to defund their police of $8 million even as shootings have doubled and carjackings were up 537% last month. - "If you're gonna reform the police, why not actually, you know, do some reforming? A cut like this does NOTHING for anyone. It doesn't placate the radicals who want to literally defund the police, it doesn't produce meaningful reforms, and it certainly doesn't help the police to be able to actually do their job of stopping crime as crime continues to go UP not DOWN.It's also been revealed that about 160 officers in Minneapolis have either resigned or gone on leave since the beginning of this year. Some have even claimed post-traumatic stress disorder from the chaos they faced this summer!Probably safe to say morale is pretty low. And I'm certain these latest cuts and the flurry of verbal abuse the police received at the public portion of the meeting is not going to help.Here's a recipe for you: If you want police to make bad decisions, underfund them, spread them way too thin so they are stressed out, teach the public to disrespect their authority, and then call them all terrible people."

Minneapolis lawmakers vow to disband police department in historic move - "The Minneapolis city council has pledged to disband the city’s police department and replace it with a new system of public safety... a veto-proof majority of council members declared their intent to “dismantle” and “abolish” the embattled police agency responsible for George Floyd’s death – and build an alternative model of community-led safety... President Donald Trump tweeted his apparent opposition to the Minneapolis move on Monday morning: “LAW & ORDER, NOT DEFUND AND ABOLISH THE POLICE. The Radical Left Democrats have gone Crazy!”... Minneapolis is also home to a powerful union leader who has aggressively resisted any reforms to the department despite the agency’s history of racial abuse... Supporters are pushing for the council to start with taking money away from the police budget and investing in other government departments, social services and programs, while launching a community process for creating alternative systems.An alternative safety model, advocates say, can start with finding “non-police solutions to the problems poor people face”, such as counselors responding to mental health calls and addiction experts responding to drug abuse."

Top Dems put the kibosh on ‘defund the police’

Bernie Sanders pushes back on idea of abolishing police departments - "Sanders received criticism from some progressives for proposing better resources to ensure police officers are paid attractive wages."

1969: Montreal’s ‘night of terror’ - "Montreal is in a state of shock. A police officer is dead and 108 people have been arrested following 16 hours of chaos during which police and firefighters refused to work. At first, the strike's impact was limited to more bank robberies than normal. But as night fell, a taxi drivers' union seized upon the police absence to violently protest a competitor's exclusive right to airport pickups. The result, according to this CBC Television special, was a "night of terror." Shattered shop windows and a trail of broken glass are evidence of looting that erupted in the downtown core. With no one to stop them, students and separatists joined the rampage. Shop owners, some of them armed, struggled to fend off looters. Restaurants and hotels were also targeted. A corporal with the Quebec provincial police was shot and killed at the garage of the Murray Hill limousine company as taxi drivers tried to burn it down."
When the police stop working, it's paradise!

Michael Berry - Posts - "1. Defund and eliminate the police so that the peaceful protesters can riot and loot.
2. Open our borders and allow anyone to come in who wants to.
3. Close the businesses, and prohibit weddings, graduations, and funerals, while allowing riots.
4. Implement the Green New Deal, which would, among other things, eliminate airline travel.
These are actual Democrat plans. We should never lose to this, even despite them far more aggressive and owning the schools, the media and Hollywood."

Ilhan Omar and #BLM Are Wrong, African Americans Want Same or More Police, Not Less - "Polls reveal that the African American community does not want their local police department to be “defunded” or “abolished” as is being demanded by Black Lives Matter, but instead want the police to maintain or grow their numbers instead, and the same sentiment is shared by all Americans... According to the Gallup poll, released on August 6, 2015, even though the African American community was split on whether police treat them fairly, a total of 92 per cent of poll respondents indicated they are either comfortable with the current number of police or would prefer additional police.33 per cent of African Americans want a higher police presence in their community, and interestingly, of those African Americans who specifically believe that they are treated unfairly by police, 44 per cent want a larger police presence in their community. 59 per cent of African Americans want the current number of police to be maintained, leaving only 8 per cent calling for less police... despite the constant haranguing of Black Lives Matter protesters across the country, only 16 per cent of Americans want the police to be defunded... As was indicated in 2015, there is, however, bipartisan support for expanding police education and resources when it comes to deescalating conflicts, identifying potential bad police officers, and increasing to use of body cameras to record the behavior of police and the public they interact with.""
It looks like most blacks are white supremacists
Gallup poll: Blacks Divided on Whether Police Treat Minorities Fairly

Ajax on Twitter - "Wait, wouldn’t abolishing the police create peak inequality in terms of security? Rich families paying for private security whilst poor families have “community” security?"
"Abolishing the Police is a great idea... if you want people like this patrolling your town instead"

Simu Liu on Twitter - ""WhAt WiLl We RePlAcE ThE pOLiCe WiTh?!?!" Social Workers. Crisis staff trained in de-escalation. Womens' shelters. Counsellors. Planned Parenthood. Therapists. Safe injection sites. Rehab. Community outreach. Night classes. Affordable health care. #ImagineSomethingDifferent"
Good luck getting night classes when you're being raped"
Someone: "I'm a forensic psychiatrist and deal with violent psychotic people all the time. The idea that we are going to replace - not augment - the police and have only mental health staff deal with violent outbursts is completely insane."

DoorKickers Inc - "Hey Everyone,
Me and my team of door kickers are ready to jump in on the action. If your community or business needs protecting please reach out to me. We can deploy anywhere for the right price."

Meme - "Socialists defund the police
rich people hire private security
Socialists advocate private security for all
socialists invent the police"

Hugh Jackman criticised for posting police photo after anti-racism Instagram message - "Hugh Jackman has spoken out about systemic racism, following widespread global protests over the death of Minneapolis man George Floyd.However, many have criticised the Australian actor for subsequently sharing a photo of a black protester embracing a police officer."
Apparently love and understanding are a bad thing, and racist

Biden Walks a Cautious Line as He Opposes Defunding the Police - The New York Times

Police groups break with Biden - "Biden’s call for more national policing reforms and oversight in the wake of the death of George Floyd — and the perception that he hasn’t shown enough solidarity with law enforcement amid the ensuing nationwide protests and unrest — have created a fissure with law enforcement groups, leaving many who once supported him frustrated by what they regard as political posturing by their one-time ally... "On law-and-order issues, Biden was right of center: the ‘94 crime bill, the Brady law and enhanced penalties"... An assault-weapons ban was included in the ’94 crime bill along with other legislation that gave the federal government more power to investigate a “pattern or practice” of local law enforcement abuses.But the 1994 crime bill also serves as the poster child for the mass-incarceration movement that swept states, and Biden has struggled to win support with progressives and young voters of color as a result... “Biden hasn't said a single word on one of the most horrific aspects of the bloodshed: attacks by rioters and looters, sometimes fatal, on police officers in the line of duty protecting innocent Americans""

Baltimore Residents Blame Record-High Murder Rate On Lower Police Presence - "On whether the community wanted police to back off after the death of Freddie Gray
No. That represented our progressives, our activists, our liberal journalists, our politicians, but it did not represent the overall community. Because we know for a fact that around the time Freddie Gray was killed, we start to see homicides increase. We had five homicides in that neighborhood while we were protesting."
When you abolish the police!

What police reform does America support? - "Despite calls by activists and protesters to defund police departments, most Americans do not support reducing law enforcement budgets. Close to two-thirds (65%) oppose cutting police force funding. Just 16 percent of Democrats and 15 percent of Republicans support that idea."

unfriendly black hottie ♓ on Twitter - "IF YOU ARE BLACK IN CHICAGO STAY AWAY FROM 26th AND CICERO/ CERMAK AND CICERO. THE MEXICANS IN THE AREA ARE TARGETING ALL BLACK PEOPLE. THEY’RE SITTING OUTSIDE WITH WEAPONS PULLING PEOPLE FROM THEIR CARS AND BEATING THEM. CICERO PD IS DOING NOTHING TO STOP IT"
When you abolish the police...

NYPD limits retirement applications amid 411% surge this week - "New York’s Finest are putting in for retirement faster than the NYPD can handle — while citing a lack of respect and the loss of overtime pay... 179 cops filed for retirement between June 29 and Monday, an astounding 411 percent increase over the 35 who filed during the same period in 2019. The astonishing rush for the door came as 503 cops filed for retirement between May 25 — the day George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, sparking anti-cop protests around the country — and July 3, the NYPD said.That number represents a 75 percent increase over the 287 who filed for retirement during the same time last year... Sources blamed the situation — which comes amid an alarming spike in shootings — on growing anti-cop sentiment, coupled with a pending city law that would make it a crime for cops to use chokeholds while trying to subdue violent suspects.“There’s just droves and droves of people retiring. But there’s no surprise here, who the hell wants to stay on this job?” one cop said.“Why would you want to stay on this job when people don’t appreciate what you do?”... the expected loss of overtime due to the recent $1 billion cut to the NYPD’s budget were also factors... “You have to be crazy to stay on a job where you are losing money, abused by the people you are trying to protect and not appreciated by the politicians,” the source said.A Manhattan detective also noted the impact of controversial criminal justice and bail reform laws.“It is frustrating — you work on a case and then the suspect is let go,” the 25-year veteran said.“Why put your job on the line, when no one appreciates you or has your back?” In a prepared statement, the head of the Police Benevolent Association blamed lawmakers for having “completely dismantled our justice system” and called the rash of retirement applications “one answer to the question on every police officer’s mind: How are we supposed to do our job in this environment?”“And now that crime is out of control, they want to blame us for that, too,” PBA president Pat Lynch said... Lieutenants Benevolent Association president Lou Turco said cops feel “demoralized and abandoned” by politicians.“Overtime plays a part, it happened in 2008 and 2009 and after 9/11, but this is not about overtime now,” he claimed. “They feel abandoned by the silent majority and they are leaving. They don’t feel appreciated.”"

NYC shootings surge after NYPD's anti-crime unit disbanded - "“This is what the politicians wanted — no bail, nobody in Rikers, cops not arresting anyone,” one angry law enforcement source said Friday.“All those things equal people walking around on the street with guns, shooting each other.”"

Shootings soar 205 percent after NYPD disbands anti-crime unit - "Gun violence exploded across the city after the NYPD disbanded its anti-crime unit of plainclothes cops on June 15, with three times as many shootings in the last two weeks of the month over the same period in 2019, police stats show.And the shocking rise in gunfire — to 116 incidents from 38 between June 15 and July 2, a 205 percent increase — meant scores more victims were hurt or killed by bullets this year over last year.Gunshot injuries skyrocketed to 157 from 47 in 2019, a 238 percent increase.With a total of 205 shootings during the month, it was the bloodiest June in 24 years — going back to 1996, when the NYPD logged 236 incidents... “I feel like we are giving the streets back to the criminals,” Glasgow’s mom, Hazel Thomas, told The Post.“They shouldn’t have disbanded it,” she said of the anti-crime unit. “Whatever the problem they have, address it. But don’t disband the unit. Many lives would have been saved. Not just my son.”... “Without having this tool, it will be much harder to tackle rising felony crimes, ‘shots fired’ jobs and the growing number of illegal guns pouring into the neighborhoods,” said NYPD Sgt. Joseph Imperatrice, a former anti-crime unit supervisor and founder of Blue Lives Matter.He said members were “disheartened” by the announcement.The NYPD has blamed the shooting spike on everything but the disbanding of the anti-crime unit.“It’s bail reform,” Shea said on PIX11 this week. “It’s COVID. It’s emptying out prisons. One of the most frustrating pieces right now is a criminal justice system that just is not working and I’m calling on Albany to fix it. Fix it now. People are dying on the streets of New York City.” De Blasio — who as recently as 2015 described the anti-crime unit as “elite” — has remained silent on it being dissolved. But when shootings started to climb last month,  he vowed that “we are not going to allow gun violence to continue to grow in this city.”“We’re not going to go back to the days when there was so much violence pervading our communities,” Hizzoner told CBS 2 on June 22, following a week of 53 shootings. But the next week there were 63 more shootings."

Protesters Chain Doors Of Police Station, Locking Officers Inside For 7 Hours - "Aurora police officers were trapped inside the District 1 station house for hours July 3 night after protesters chained the doors shut and plotted to storm the building... Angry protesters barricaded the streets and vandalized the exterior of the police station, KDVR reported.Police didn’t move in to clear out the protesters locking their fellow officers in the station until about 3:30 a.m. on July 4 when rioters began shooting fireworks at officers in the area... “They were starting to take the big mortar style type fireworks while they were trying to untie the gates so officers could come and go, they started throwing fireworks at them. Not only that, someone had a fire extinguisher, they were spraying our officers with a fire extinguisher. We didn’t use any force until they started doing it to us, that’s when we used 40-millimeter foam rounds, no pepper spray or tear gas or smoke,” Officer Longshore explained.He said that the decision to let the protesters keep the officers locked in was made intentionally... “The officers were safe inside. We wanted to give the people the ability to express their First Amendment right, to protest, peacefully assemble and make their voices heard, so we didn’t have an immediate rush to go in and clear people out. Waiting a little bit longer, the crowd size became smaller, so we had an advantage.”Afterward, police found full gas cans and other homemade weapons hidden in the area around the police station... “We found gas cans, full of gasoline that were staged in that immediate area,” Officer Longshore said.Officers were unable to respond to 911 calls in the area for the seven hours protesters surrounded District 1... Protesters had threatened to continue their occupation of the area around the police station until the police chief fired and charged all of the officers involved in McClain’s arrest.However, the officers have a right to due process under their collective bargaining agreement and cannot be summarily fired to satisfy protesters’ demands."
If the police don't even dare to save themselves, how can they save citizens from criminals?

De Blasio unveils plan to combat NYC's surge in gun violence - "Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday finally outlined a plan to try to stem the city’s surge in shootings that will rely in part on unarmed civilians who will hit the streets to help “break the cycle of violence.”... Criminology experts immediately took aim at the plan, with one saying that “the chances of this working are remote.”“I think he deserves to tell the city that it’s his policy that is getting people killed,” said former NYPD cop Eugene O’Donnell who’s now a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.“He stood down anti-crime [efforts] and doesn’t want people arrested. ‘Fess up…There’s an acceptable level of death on his watch and he should admit that.”Another John Jay professor, Maria Haberfeld, said, “The only way that is effective in curbing violent behavior is saturation patrol, not using community members.”“I would not recommend sending inexperienced members of the community to areas where they can become victims of shootings or other violent exchanges”... “Community members might be willing, but they do not have the experience. What you are doing is exposing community members to random violence.”"

Veto-Proof City Council Majority Vows To Cut Seattle PD Budget By 50 Percent - "The 50 percent budget-reduction plan was presented by King County Equity Now and Black Lives Matter-inspired Decriminalize Seattle during a Seattle City Council budget committee meeting"

Cuomo Shreds AOC’s Claim That Crime Surge Due To Trouble Paying Rent: ‘You Cannot Be Evicted Right Now’ - "Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shredded Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) claim this week that the surge in crime around the city was due to people being “scared to pay their rent.”... “it is factually impossible that somebody committed a crime so they could pay their rent. If you can’t pay your rent, you cannot be evicted right now.”"

AOC Claims Rioters Are Just Burning Down Neighborhoods To Keep Themselves Warm | The Babylon Bee - ""Thanks to capitalism, they could not afford their heating bills and had to warm up at night," she said. "This is the byproduct of poverty, which only happens in capitalistic systems. In socialist societies, there are no concepts like 'hunger' or 'inequality' or 'poverty,' because there is no 'food' or 'equality' or 'money.'"... "Being too hot is just another flaw in the capitalist system," she said. "Look at utopian societies like the U.S.S.R -- you don't see people in Siberian gulags complaining about the heat.""

Police Drop Out Of Democratic National Convention Security After Milwaukee Bans Pepper Spray - "More than 100 Wisconsin police departments have pulled out of agreements to help provide security for the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in August. The mass withdrawal occurred after the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission ordered Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales to discontinue the use of tear gas and pepper spray for crowd control"

Seattle City Council move to abolish police department with new bill - "Under the bill, cops would be replaced by “community-led activities” and organizations focused on “housing, food security, and other basic needs” along with “culturally-relevant expertise rooted in community connections”... To gain police department funding, groups must show they are “well-versed in de-escalation skills” along with “trauma-informed, gender-affirming, anti-racist praxis” and are “committed to hiring staff from the communities they serve,” according to the proposal."

If You Thought 'Defund the Police' Was Insane You'll Love 'Abolish Prisons' in Seattle - "You would think after the insanity that was CHAZ/CHOP, Seattle might have taken a hard look at their relationship with law and order. You would be wrong.Seattle is in King County, and the County Executive’s Office is moving ahead with plans to “abolish prisons.”... The ideas In the document are based on the same horrible ideas as the City of Seattle’s new employee training. The systemic racism, white supremacy, and critical race theory that permeated training, given only to white employees, scream through these plans as well. The premise of the entire presentation is that white people need to oppress and confine those who do not share their white culture... It is always stunning to note that woke anti-racists speak in a language that white identitarians like Richard Spencer would nod in agreement with... The presentation used the old analogy about the forest and trees to assert that criminal justice needs to be governed by feelings and not data. All that quantitative data is the forest covering profound individual suffering rooted solely in white oppression of minorities. All of this will lead to suffering and collapse. However, folks in positions of power around Seattle see this as a way to force accountability by ensuring “internal discrimination and racism come to the surface.” They should be very wary of those feelings coming to the surface in extremely dangerous ways. They might want to take an early 20th-century history class. Scapegoating based on immutable characteristics has resulted in genocide more than once. They also may want to listen to the mayor of San Francisco. In an interview with Vogue, Mayor London Breed bluntly said woke progressive policies don’t work for minority communities... Perhaps they failed to note, but in the Seattle CHAZ/CHOP, only black men died. Likewise, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta have piled up black bodies, the result of senseless violence. All because their mayors cave to the woke mob screaming “black lives matter.” Some historians will write eloquently on the irony of the entire cultural moment."

When Black America Was Pro-Police - The Atlantic - "as crime rose from the late 1960s to the ’90s, the city’s African American residents responded by supporting an array of tough-on-crime measures. A 1975 measure decriminalizing marijuana died in the majority-black city council, which went on to implement one of the nation’s most stringent gun-control laws. Black residents endorsed a ballot initiative that called for imposing harsh sentences on drug dealers and violent offenders. Replicated on a national level over the same period, these policies led to mass incarceration and aggressive policing strategies like stop-and-frisk, developments that are now looked upon as affronts to racial justice. Much of what Forman reports would not surprise anyone who has spent time at a black church or a black barbershop—or in the company of my mother. In the ’60s, she marched with Malcolm X, and during the ’80s, after the public school where she taught was vandalized, she said, “Those niggers should be put under the jail.” My mom’s ideas about criminal-justice policy are informed by getting held up at gunpoint in front of our house on Chicago’s South Side, seeing family members suffer from addiction, and watching the cops treat my stepfather like a criminal after he got into a fender bender with a white man... The absence of equal protection has been, historically, the most vexing problem in the lives of African Americans. The NAACP was founded in 1909 partly in response to the federal and state governments’ turning a blind eye to white violence against blacks. More than half a century later, as open-air drug markets flourished in inner-city neighborhoods, black activists perceived a related form of racist neglect by the state. The police, they believed, would have shut down those markets had they existed in white communities. In fact, as Forman notes, many activists thought that those in power actually condoned the availability of drugs in the hood, as a means to keep the black man down... In Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy argues that African Americans suffer more harm from underenforcement of the law than from overenforcement. He also notes that “racist” can be, from the perspective of African Americans, an inaccurate way to describe criminal-justice policies that burden primarily black criminals... Gone are the days when some black activists and politicians aimed to equip cops with more-powerful guns, as then–D.C. Mayor Marion Barry wanted to do during the crack wave that began in the late ’80s."
Given that even now, an overwhelming majority of blacks want the same amount of policing or even more policing, this is not just of historical interest

Mayor Proposes Defunding NYPD By $1 Billion Amid Spike In Violent Crime

Bill De Blasio Halts NYPD Reform Bill As Violence, Murders Skyrocket - "New York Police Department commissioner, Dermot Shea, connected the spike in crime directly to de Blasio’s efforts to weaken the police department... “Police officers should not have to worry more about getting arrested than the person with the gun that they’re rolling around on the street with”"

City Council Members Spend $63k Of Taxpayer Money On Private Security After Calling To Abolish PD - "Three Minneapolis City Council members who have demanded the city’s police force be dismantled have been using taxpayer dollars to pay for their own private security details.Over the course of the past three weeks, the city has doled out $63,000 to pay for the private security for councilmembers Alondra Cano, Phillipe Cunningham, and Andrea Jenkins... Many Minneapolis residents and business owners do not support abolishing the police department.Don Blyly, whose bookstores were destroyed in the Floyd riots, said he won’t re-open in Minneapolis if local leaders do something “sufficiently stupid” like getting rid of police, WIFR reported.“There are legitimate problems with the Minneapolis police, but the way the politicians are going about it is just ridiculous,” Blyly said. “They are pandering to a certain segment of the electorate.”"
Doubtless, Blyly is just racist for not wanting his bookstores to be destroyed by "mostly peaceful protests" again

Security for Minneapolis Council totaled $152K - "The final bill is in for taxpayer funded private security for three Minneapolis City Council members: $152,400"

Minneapolis City Council, which voted to dismantle police, unsettled by rise of crime and demand action from law enforcement - "Minneapolis City Council members, who recently voted to defund the police department, demanded answers from the city’s police chief for the recent uptick in crime."

House Democrats Propose 'BREATHE Act' To Defund Police, Pay Reparations - "The other part of the reparations included a separate program named for Michael Brown, a robbery suspect killed after beating a police officer and trying to take his gun, and called for reparations for numerous demographic groups"
When you valorise Michael Brown, a proven thug...

Harvard professor’s research: ‘Defunding the police could cost thousands of black lives’ - "Amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, riots, looting, and calls to defund the police, a Harvard economist has found that proactive policing saves black lives... The youngest African-American professor to receive tenure in Harvard history, Fryer uses a data-driven approach on fraught social issues.He made waves four years ago with his research on use-of-force incidents by race. It found that black suspects were less likely to be shot by police than white suspects... He encountered an “absolute refusal to grapple with the data” from the media and “insistence” that he should not publicize it... His “rigorous” use of data aims to increase opportunity within “historically disadvantaged” groups, he said in the interview. It is now a matter of “whether we have courage to do something real about it.”... “Pattern-or-Practice” investigations are used by federal and state governments to mitigate unconstitutional police activity including, but not limited to, excessive force and racial bias.According to the Harvard scholars’ working paper on the impact of these investigations into police activity on homicide and crime rates, published in early June, the investigations resulted in “almost 900 excess homicides and almost 34,000 excess felonies.”This spike in the crime rate occurred over the course of two years in the five cities where those deaths and viral incidents occurred: Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Timothy Thomas in Cincinnati, Tyisha Miller in Riverside, California, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.While the underlying cause of this dramatic spike is unknown, Fryer and Devi hypothesize that it is caused by a substantial decrease in proactive police activity... the drop in police activity is the “proactive” type of policing where police look out for suspicious behavior... The new study also looked at 22 cities where investigations into police did not pertain to viral incidents, “mostly conducted after complaints from civilians or lawsuits from organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union.” With crime rates that were already trending downward, the cities experienced “benign” or “marginally” reduced crime rates following these investigations.Examining viral incidents that did not garner pattern-or-practice investigations, the study found that they did not affect crime rates... the combination of virality and a pattern-or-practice investigation caused significant jumps in homicides and crime rates... Fryer notes evidence that police have motivation to avoid viral infamy: video of a female police officer in Chicago refusing to fire as she is beaten. Officers have told him “‘I’m not going to be the next YouTube sensation,’” Fryer told Riley.“If the price of policing increases, officers are rational to retreat,” the research paper concludes. “And, retreating disproportionately costs black lives.” Fryer does not claim to have a solution to this issue, but he shared five suggestions with The Fix which he thinks would be a helpful start.Federal funds for police departments should be tied to their collection of data on lower-level uses of force. Community policing should increase because officers can make more accurate distinctions between people when they have more frequent, non-confrontational interactions with the same population over time, he says.To ensure the appropriate amount of force is used in every interaction, police departments should focus on culture, training and correct incentives. Investments should be made “in new technologies for police officers that allow them to do their jobs, safely, without lethal force against anyone,” Fryer says.Finally, departments need to discern how to identify ineffective police officers without altering the behavior of effective ones."

Lucas Lynch - “'I think we need more police. We need police with better standards,' Fulton said, adding that she wants to 'bridge the gap' between law enforcement and their communities.'" appears a formidable and warranted backlash to Defund has begun"
"So are white progressives going to accuse Trayvon Martin's mother of not caring about black lives?She does *not* want to defund the police. She wants better police. Please spare us all a lecture that this is what 'defund the police' somehow 'always meant'.She knows better that when you rely on 'community policing', you get George Zimmerman."

Mob Torches Home Rumored To Be Linked To Missing Girls, Attack Police Who Respond - The Police Tribune - "Chaos erupted outside a Milwaukee home on Tuesday as anti-police protesters hurled bricks at officers who were trying to investigate the disappearance of two teenage girls.At one point, the unruly mob tried to handle the matter themselves by barging into residences to search for the teens... Hundreds of people had converged in the area by the time the group set a nearby home and vehicle ablaze. As firefighters battled the flames, two 14-year-olds were shot in altercations that didn’t involve police... the mob took it upon themselves to break into the home to look for evidence to support rumors that the missing girls were possibly victims of a sex trafficking ring... Meanwhile, other members of the group fanned out to search for the teens in nearby homes... The mob ultimately torched a home, a couch, and a vehicle"
"Responding to rumors, a mob of hundreds of people broke into a home, burned it down, shot 2 teens and 1 adult, wounded 7 cops and a firefighter, and now we have our first look at "community solutions" to crime"

Zaid Jilani on Twitter - abolish police: "l was just assaulted by this man on sunrise and gold centre. He tried to break my car window, grabbed me out of the car, hit me, and spit on me. He followed me to my work and threatened to kill me. Pls help me identify him so I can press charges and file a restraining order."
"Who's going to enforce the restraining order?"

Black Woman Destroys BLM Mural. Here's What Her Motivation Was. - "Bevelyn Beatty, a black pro-life woman from At The Well Ministries, on Saturday defaced the Black Lives Matter mural in front of the Trump Tower in New York City. According to Beatty, the Black Lives Matter movement doesn't care about African Americans."They do it for black people, right? Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter but you want to defund the police for black people," she said as she dumped a bucket of black paint on the street. "No. They're lying. We're not standing with Black Lives Matter. We want our police. Refund our police! Refund our police!""

'They're Liars!' Screams a Woman as She defaces BLM Mural - "A black man and two companions defaced the same mural with blue paint earlier in the day... technically the city painted the mural and paid for it, so defacing it is vandalism. But as an act of civil disobedience, it’s far more peaceful and intelligent than the screaming, incoherent, frothing protesters pushing at police hoping to provoke a violent response. Morgan and the “Jesus matters” lady will not have their story told on any national news broadcast. It’s too jarring and interrupts the flow of the narrative. It does not play well into liberal storytelling that all blacks are united in their efforts to defund and defang the police."

Finally: Vandalism de Blasio actually cares about - "Just four days after Mayor Bill de Blasio had a Black Lives Matter mural painted on the street in front of Trump Tower, someone defaced it with their own bit of graffiti... Why’d he do it? Not clear.Maybe he got caught up in the fervor of the moment, in which anything goes: destroying statues, taking over public property like City Hall Park, looting, whatever... Perhaps the vandal opposed the BLM group itself, which calls its members “comrades,” seeks to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure,” has links to anti-Semitic movements like Boycott, Divest and Sanction and pushes to “defund the police.” Not everyone’s on board with that agenda, even those eager to fight racism.Clearly de Blasio thought nothing of how divisive the sign might be. After workers repaired it, Hizzoner taunted the culprit: “To whoever vandalized our mural . . . nice try. @NYC_DOT has already fixed it.”One thing is certain: The NYPD is mobilized, de Blasio is truly concerned and he’ll do whatever it takes to find the person who did it. There’s only one kind of vandalism he cares about."

Joe Concha on Twitter - "64 people were shot in New York City this weekend, most of whom are or were minorities. And this is what the mayor chooses to do with his time..."

Minneapolis police say to obey criminals and 'be prepared' to be robbed - "The Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) told residents they should “be prepared” to hand over their phones, wallets, and purses to robbers.The MPD has reported a 46 percent increase in carjackings and a 36 percent increase in robberies compared to this same time last year... Officials are now telling residents to be ready and willing to comply with the demands of criminals in an email sent to Third Precinct residents.“Be prepared to give up your cell phone and purse/wallet,” the police said in their email, a copy of which was obtained by Alpha News. The email said citizens should listen to criminals and “do as they say.”The message warned that “some victims have been maced, dragged, assaulted, and some threatened with a gun.”"
Presumably it's victim blaming and silencing the unheard to blame the oppressed from robbing the rich(er)

Unbiased America - Posts - "JUNE SAW THE MOST GUN SALE BACKGROUND CHECKS IN HISTORY, AS RECORD NUMBERS OF PEOPLE BECOME NEW GUN OWNERS...  The “just call 911” argument against buying guns for self defense has been silenced by recordings of people barricaded in their businesses and homes frantically calling 911 to beg unresponsive police departments for help.And the old media narrative that says firearms are largely the tool of white conservatives “clinging to guns and religion” is being supplanted by a new reality, seen in front page photos of Blacks and Hispanics guarding their homes and businesses during the riots with long rifles, and viral videos of wealthy Democrats brandishing their personal firearms in the face of hundreds of protesters breaking into their gated community... 40% of sales through April came from first-time gun buyers, far more than normal. That equates to about 2.5 million new gun owners in just four months. And that’s before the record surge in June.And 40% of those first-time gun buyers were women, also much higher than normal.What’s more, a rise in first-time gun buyers in left-leaning states like California is helping to drive the surge... a shift is occurring in the country, as the desire for self defense has begun to outweigh politics in the debate over firearm ownership in America. And with demands to remove police from the streets growing, we are even starting to see firearms being portrayed in the media as a tool of self-empowerment.When all is said and done, it may very well be that one of the legacies of 2020 will be a marked expansion of the gun rights movement outside of the traditional left/right paradigm."

Woman Shot Dead After Following Community Leader’s Advice To Settle Disputes With Rioters Without Police - "A Brooklyn woman was killed after attempting to reason with several people illegally setting off fireworks in the neighborhood of East New York.The victim, 33-year-old Shatavia Walls, was just following the advice of Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to try resolving non-violent disputes through “community policing,” which does not involve calling actual police officers... Adams did not back off his advice when addressing Walls’ death in a statement, instead calling for more action to be taken against “illegal guns.”"

Trucking company not going to cities pushing to defund police: 'We have to keep drivers safe' - "Kucharski said that defunding the police is a bad idea because drivers carry valuable cargo on the road for weeks.“Everybody wants to steal this”... A soon-to-be-released survey of 258 police departments nationwide shows almost half have had their budgets cut amid calls for police to be defunded despite increases in gun violence and otherwise violent crime in some parts of the country... Kucharski said that his company is also avoiding states pushing to defund the police because his insurance coverage is prone to dissolve."
When these cities run out of food, liberal can blame "racism"

81 Percent of Black Americans Want the Same Level, or More, of Police Presence: Gallup - "Ironically, the new survey on feelings toward law enforcement presence, part of the Gallup Center on Black Voices, suggests that if Black Lives Matters and other police abolitionists get their way, they will be thwarting the views of very group in whose name they are acting."

Bill Melugin on Twitter - "A public records request reveals that LA city councilman Mike Bonin, who voted to defund LAPD by $150 million, has called LAPD to his home 8 times since 4/4/20, including to provide extra patrols and protection from peaceful protesters at his house."

Lucas Lynch - "It could almost be an article by Steven Pinker, until it gets to a question I too did not pay enough attention to until recently. If crime is going down, why do black Americans tend to overwhelmingly support either maintaining or expanding the police presence in their areas?... The statement about "internalized negative stereotypes" lead to a link to a paper by Hakeen Jefferson. What we see is the gaslighting of black opinion on crime... black voters, who he does acknowledge are most likely to actually experience crime and live in the highest crime neighborhoods, are simply giving in to respectability politics. They aren't scared for their own lives or fed up with how crime affects their own neighborhoods, and they aren't thinking for themselves on these issues - they are simply playing into the hands of their white masters, and maintaining their system of social control.He then goes on to criticize people like Barack Obama, who dared speak of individual actions people should take to make their community better, and how such speeches were met with thundrous applause...  The game is really laid bare here. A handful of elite academics and activists try so desperately to take advantage of real grievances of African Americans to press forward a political agenda that the vast majority of African Americans don't even want. They keep trying to mobilize these grievances most especially in the cause of anti-capitalism, which is an overwhelmingly all white club. Meanwhile, black voters on the ground keep voting for Joe Biden.Don't be fooled by this tiny elite cadre of intellectuals and activists that overwhelmingly are white, and if not are overwhelmingly performing for an overwhelmingly white audience. These are not the opinions or desires of black America."
"Lived experience" is only valid when it isn't "false conciousness"

Who Opposes Defunding the N.Y.P.D.? These Black Lawmakers - The New York Times - "Laurie Cumbo, a Black councilwoman from Brooklyn who is majority leader, compared calls to defund the police to “colonization” pushed by white progressives. Robert Cornegy Jr., a Black councilman also from Brooklyn, called the movement “political gentrification.”... Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, N.J., called defunding the police a “bourgeois liberal” solution for addressing systemic racism."
Listen to minorities - when they support the liberal agenda du jour

Seattle police chief to resign following department cuts - "Seattle’s police chief says she is stepping down, a move made public the same day the city council approved reducing the department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.Carmen Best, the city’s first black police chief, said in a letter to the department that her retirement will be effective Sept. 2... 'the vast majority of people in Seattle support you and appreciate you. … I look forward to seeing how this department moves forward through the process of re-envisioning public safety'"
BLM: putting black people out of their jobs (to say nothing of the rioting and destruction which ruin even more people's jobs)

Black community blaming ‘racism’ for police chief’s departure - "Some members of the African American community say racism prompted Seattle's first Black female police chief to retire."
This is some top level gaslighting

Record wave of deadly shootings hits US cities. More police aren't the answer, activists say - "Gamaldi, 37, argues that "activist" prosecutors and judges are being too lenient on people caught committing violent crimes. These aren't children making a first mistake, he says, but repeat offenders who know some cities or counties will go easy on them despite what the community actually wants.Compounding the problem, he says: Many police officers who know they'll be second-guessed for every split-second decision they make are dialing back their efforts so they won't get in trouble. "You have politicians and police chiefs telling them to back off," he adds. "This increase in crime that we are seeing, you know who are most impacted by this? Black and brown communities. These numbers are people. These are murders. There are thousands and thousands more people who have been killed. And we need to be talking about that. People at some point are going to have to decide what kind of police officers and policing they want." In an acknowledgment of the racial disparities in policing and prosecution, the Trump administration had taken steps to reduce harsh punishments for federal convicts, and in July 2019released 2,200 inmates under the First Step Act, a 2018 law aimed at softening the longstanding punishments for mostly Black non-violent drug offenders swept up in aggressive prosecutions during the crack epidemic of the 1980s and early 1990s."
Living in activistland means not having to grapple with the consequences of your bullshit
What a white supremacist administration

Errol Webber For Congress (CA-37) on Twitter - "The same people who want to #DefundThePolice, just a few years ago, told you that you don’t need guns, because you have the police."

Bob Dugan on Twitter - "Democrats are so insulated in their DC bubbles that they really believe #BlackLivesMatter destruction and savagery resonates with normal hardworking Americans."
"Austin City Council voted to defund police by 34%, while crime rates are climbing. More than 80% of taxpayers disagree. They did it anyway."

Are U.S. Cities Underpoliced? Theory and Evidence - "We document the extent of measurement errors in the basic data set on police used in the literature on the effect of police on crime. Analyzing medium to large U.S. cities over 1960 to 2010, we obtain measurement error-corrected estimates of the police elasticity. The magnitudes of our estimates are similar to those obtained in the quasi-experimental literature, but our approach yields much greater parameter certainty for the most costly crimes, the key parameters for welfare analysis. Our analysis suggests that U.S. cities are substantially underpoliced."
"for each additional dollar spent on police produces $1.63 in benefits (in the form of reductions in violent crime and property crime.)"

Dank Detective Memes - Posts - "Cop threatens that if qualified immunity goes away they'll stop bothering people who aren't in any danger"
"Don't try to threaten me with exactly what I wanted."

Meme - Antifa: "DEFUND THE POLICE SO WE CAN TERRORISE ANYONE WE WANT WITHOUT PREVENTION!"
"Gun-owners no longer prevented from using lethal force by the police"

Adam Carolla on Twitter - "We're now saying teachers are heroes while cops are villains. We live in a world where the people who are actually brave enough to go do their job are the bad guys."
"The people who talk about how evil police unions are, but simultaneously praise teacher unions are a special type of confused.... #DefundEverything #AllUnionsAreTrash"

Abolishing the police: a cruel denial of justice - "what exactly the policy will be replaced with is less than clear. Minneapolis City Council president Lisa Bender appeared on CNN to explain, but could only offer word salad. Alarmingly, when she was asked who would respond to a call about a burglary, Bender insisted that such fears ‘come from a place of privilege’. It is impossible to overlook just how insane this response is. It is, of course, Bender’s and her supporters’ privilege which has allowed them to take leave of their senses in this way... In the real world, crime blights the lives of the poorest and most marginalised far more than it does the privileged... police do not patrol certain areas for no reason at all. It is high levels of crime that create demand for a greater police presence... Last year, police in the US shot nine unarmed black men – nine too many. But this is just half of the people who were fatally shot in a single city on a single day by mob violence. As Heather Mac Donald has pointed out, police shootings represented just 0.01 per cent of all African-Americans who were killed last year. In fact, a police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer. The calls to abolish the police neglect these dangers. They come from the identitarian middle classes who generally don’t have to deal with much crime at all. There is a reason why many black communities were historically in favour of ‘law and order’ policies, including the notorious crime bills that led to mass incarceration. The lawyer Randall Kennedy made the now controversial point in Race, Crime and the Law that black people were suffering enormous harm from police failure to protect them from crime – that is, underenforcement of the law rather than overenforcement was the greater denial of justice"
The author doesn't make the point that unarmed doesn't mean harmless

Facebook - "If you think the state monopoly on violence isn’t one of the best institutions civilization has come up with, I don’t think you’ve been paying attention to Portland, Seattle, or Kenosha Wisconsin recently.This is the future under “defund the police“... If Biden loses this election, this will be on the bourgeoisie, overwhelmingly white “Defund the police” faction, the rioters, and their supporters."

Google Employees Demand Company 'Defang and Defund' Law Enforcement Agencies - "Employees at tech giant Google are reportedly demanding that the company stop selling software to law enforcement agencies. Employees believe the company should be ” joining the millions who want to defang and defund these institutions.”Recode reports that more than 1,600 Google employees have signed an internal petition calling for the firm to stop selling its software to police"
The perils of hiring the woke

Virginia Democrats Propose Reducing Charge For Assaulting Police Officers

The Tragedy of Baltimore - The New York Times - "In Baltimore, you can tell a lot about the politics of the person you’re talking with by the word he or she uses to describe the events of April 27, 2015. Some people, and most media outlets, call them the “riots”; some the “unrest.” Guy was among those who always referred to them as the “uprising,” a word that connoted something justifiable and positive: the first step, however tumultuous, toward a freer and fairer city. Policing in Baltimore, Guy and many other residents believed, was broken, with officers serving as an occupying army in enemy territory — harassing African-American residents without cause, breeding distrust and hostility. In 2016, the United States Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division concurred, releasing a report accusing the city’s Police Department of racial discrimination and excessive force. The city agreed to a “consent decree” with the federal government, a set of policing reforms that would be enforced by a federal judge. When an independent monitoring team was selected to oversee the decree, Guy was hired as its community liaison. This was where she wanted to be: at the forefront of the effort to make her city a better place. But in the years that followed, Baltimore, by most standards, became a worse place. In 2017, it recorded 342 murders — its highest per-capita rate ever, more than double Chicago’s, far higher than any other city of 500,000 or more residents and, astonishingly, a larger absolute number of killings than in New York, a city 14 times as populous. Other elected officials, from the governor to the mayor to the state’s attorney, struggled to respond to the rise in disorder, leaving residents with the unsettling feeling that there was no one in charge. With every passing year, it was getting harder to see what gains, exactly, were delivered by the uprising... The violence and disorder have fed broader setbacks. Gov. Larry Hogan canceled a $2.9 billion rail transit line for West Baltimore, defending the disinvestment in the troubled neighborhood partly by noting that the state had spent $14 million responding to the riots. Target closed its store in West Baltimore, a blow to a part of town short of retail options. The civic compact has so frayed that one acquaintance admitted to me recently that he had stopped waiting at red lights when driving late at night. Why should he, he argued, when he saw young men on dirt bikes flying through intersections while police officers sat in cruisers doing nothing?... On the left... Baltimore’s recent woes have been largely overlooked, partly because they present a challenge to those who start from the assumption that policing is inherently suspect. The national progressive story of Baltimore during this era of criminal-justice reform has been the story of the police excesses that led to Gray’s death and the uprising, not the surge of violence that has overtaken the city ever since. As a result, Baltimore has been left mostly on its own to contend with what has been happening, which has amounted to nothing less than a failure of order and governance the likes of which few American cities have seen in years."

James Clyburn: ‘defund the police’ slogan may have hurt Democrats at polls - "James Clyburn, the House majority whip and Democratic “kingmaker” who played an outsized role in Joe Biden’s successful presidential run, has said the “sloganeering” of the Black Lives Matter protests and other social justice efforts this summer might have hampered them at the polls... “John Lewis and I were founders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. John and I sat on the House floor and talked about that defund the police slogan, and both of us concluded that it had the possibilities of doing to the Black Lives Matter movement and current movements across the country what Burn, Baby, Burn did to us back in the 1960s,” Clyburn said. Burn, Baby, Burn became a street slogan during the Watts civil unrest of 1965 in Los Angeles, at the time the largest and costliest uprising of the civil rights era. “We lost that movement over that slogan”... Clyburn also attacked the Democratic party’s “progressive” left wing, members of which have already broken ranks and fired the first shots in a looming battle for the future political direction of the party.“Sometimes I have real problems trying to figure out what progressive means”"

Al Sharpton says 'latte liberals' want to defund the police

Charles Barkley mocks calls to defund police: 'Who are black people supposed to call? Ghostbusters?' - "Barkley also cautioned not to “lump” Breonna Taylor’s death with other high-profile police killings involving African Americans this year including George Floyd, with Barkley noting Taylor's boyfriend shot at police first... Fellow Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal, officially a deputy at a sheriff's office in Florida, agreed with Barkley’s perspective... Protests broke out in Louisville, Ky., following the news earlier in the week that the police involved in the Taylor shooting would not face murder charges.Two Louisville police officers were shot amid the protests on Wednesday night"

Seattle Sees Dozens Of Cops Leave Force As Council ‘Defunds Police’ - "the force hemorrhages officers at a historic rate"

'Defund the Police Hamilton' leaves coffin outside mayor’s home

Defunding police will lead to Republican victory this year - "most Americans do not really want to cut funding for the police. A recent poll on race and justice found less than a fifth of Americans favor a reduction of police departments and more than half of them are opposed. However, a strong majority of Americans support police reform measures to reduce deadly force encounters, including training for police on how to lower conflict and avoid using force, outfitting officers with body cameras, and using an early warning system to identify any problem officers."

Mayor Ted Wheeler seeks $2 million to bring back uniformed police team to address spike in shootings - "Days after Portland recorded its 20th homicide, Mayor Ted Wheeler said Thursday he’ll seek $2 million in one-time funding to allow more proactive policing on city streets with greater civilian oversight to try to stem a growing wave of gun violence. The mayor made the announcement alongside religious and community leaders, who urged city officials to take immediate action to prevent more people from dying in shootings, particularly young Black and brown people who have been disproportionately affected by the violence."
Oops