Links - 17th January 2026 (2 - Zohran Mamdani)

Jim Walden on X - "Want some history? Here are past regimes that used offices or ministries of mass engagement after taking power:
Fascism Examples
• Nazi Germany (1933): Shortly after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in January 1933, his new administration established the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on March 13, 1933. Led by Joseph Goebbels, it controlled media, arts, and education to promote Nazi ideology and build mass support. This office centralized efforts to engage the public and suppress dissent.
• Fascist Italy (1937): Under Benito Mussolini’s regime, the Ministry of Popular Culture was created in 1937. It handled propaganda to foster acceptance of fascist ideals, including through film, radio, and press. Though the regime started slightly before 1926, this specific office falls within the timeframe.
Communism Examples
• People’s Republic of China (1949): Following Mao Zedong’s victory in the Chinese Civil War, the new communist administration formalized and expanded the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (originally founded in 1924 but restructured under the new regime). It focused on “mass line” campaigns and media control to promote communism and engage the populace in ideological education.
• Cuba (1959 onward): After Fidel Castro’s revolutionary government took power in 1959, it established bodies like the Institute of Ideology and the Department of Revolutionary Orientation (later integrated into the Central Committee’s Ideology Department). These promoted communist principles through mass media and public campaigns to build acceptance.
Socialism Examples
• Venezuela (1999 onward): Under Hugo Chávez’s new administration after his 1998 election, the government created entities like the Ministry of Popular Power for Communication and Information (2004) and emphasized “Bolivarian” socialism. These offices used media and community engagement programs (e.g., “missions” for social outreach) to promote socialist ideals and build public support, often framed as mass participation."

Thread by @rupasubramanya on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I’m originally from India, where Mamdani traces his roots. In many ways, he and his family remind me of India’s post Independence elite who embraced socialism and imposed Soviet style five year plans inside a democracy.  The elites were anglicized and well educated, and did very well for themselves. The rest of the country did not. The damage was profound, and in many cases unforgivable. That collectivist experiment is one reason India still trails China, which acknowledged the failure of that model more than a decade earlier.  I was born in socialist India. A foreign-exchange crisis forced the country to open its economy. My world changed almost overnight, and I discovered freedom, choice, and rugged individualism, things I’ll always choose over "warm collectivism," with its shortages, hunger, and poverty.  So imagine the unease of watching this destructive and failed ideology resurface in the heart of American, and global, capitalism: New York City. This will not end well. India turfed out the party that championed the kind of socialism Mamdani espouses. Rahul Gandhi (no relation to MKG), the half Indian, half Italian political dynast, son, grandson, and great grandson of three prime ministers is an out of touch elite who will never taste power. He makes Justin Trudeau look smart and accomplished.  His party hasn’t done well electorally since being voted out in 2014, despite having ruled the country for most of its post-Independence history, because Indians have moved on from this collectivist nonsense. Yet it seems many in the West whether on the left or the right are now eager to experiment with the same ideas. What an incredibly stupid time to be alive."

Zohran Mamdani is every bit as bad as many New Yorkers feared - "How on earth did a man, barely 34-years old, with an Ozempic-slim resume and practically zero managerial experience, rise to lead the cultural and economic heart of the United States, if not the entire planet? And how will his populist, socialist, anti-Zionist worldview translate into governing a city of nearly nine million residents and overseeing a workforce some 300,000 strong?... Some will have been reassured that he is retaining Jessica Tisch, New York’s popular police commissioner, a billionaire heiress and long-time public servant who, under Eric Adams, New York’s outgoing mayor, has helped usher in the largest drop in violent crime in New York City’s recent history. To most voters, keeping Tisch makes obvious sense, particularly given Mamdani’s own reputation for being soft on public safety.  Mamdani’s base, however, isn’t so happy. Last week, more than 3,500 public defenders and legal service attorneys released a statement demanding Mamdani send Tisch packing. Rather than laud ongoing NYPD successes, the Left-leaning group claims she has led a campaign against political protest – particularly when it comes to the violent pro-Palestinian demonstrations which have roiled New York City for the past two years.  So far, Mamdani insists that Tisch is here to stay. But few should be confident that he will stick to his word. The police commissioner’s fate – and the fate of New York safety – stands as the first test of Mamdani’s ability to face down New York’s increasingly fractious “progressive” voters for the good of the city. My guess? Tisch will be out by springtime. Mamdani’s other major challenge will be convincing New York City Jews – or at least the two-thirds who did not vote for him – that they need not be afraid. Again, the signs are not promising.  According to a late December Anti-Defamation League report, 20 per cent of Mamdani’s administrative appointees have ties to anti-Zionist groups. Some have gone on record as describing Hamas’s October 7 attack as “justified” and “resistance”; others backed pro-Palestinian campus encampments. The fact that Mamdani has also appointed celebrity anti-Zionists such as actor Cynthia Nixon and YouTuber Ms Rachel to his influential inauguration committee is adding to the community’s feelings of unease. Mamdani has insisted that he will prioritise combating anti-Semitism, boosting anti-hate violence programme funding by 800 per cent. But he also intends to dismantle the NYPD’s strategic response group, whose specially-trained officers responded to the waves of pro-Palestinian protests, as well as mass-casualty incidents such as July’s Midtown Manhattan office shooting. Backed by a promised $1bn (£745m) in funding, Mamdani says his new department of community safety – which will focus on prevention-based anti-crime strategies – will keep the city secure. He’s also repeatedly distanced himself from his paper trail of “defund the police” rhetoric. But he appointed Alex Vitale, a Brooklyn College professor, to his transition team, a sociologist and author whose best-known book is literally titled “The End of Policing”.  Perhaps Mamdani believes that none of this really matters. He remains a master at the charm offensives that won over his mostly young, white and affluent voters. Aided by his equally intriguing wife Rama Duwaji, he continues to beguile the mainstream New York media, which so uncritically enabled his election.  Like Trump, Mamdani understands that politics is theatre – and in New York he has a potential hit on his hands of truly historic proportions. For nervous Jews and ordinary families concerned about law and order, hope remains that New York’s new mayor will see value in preserving at least some of the status quo. But Mamdani rose as a protest candidate, a fighter – albeit a privileged and pampered one. You’d have to be very naive indeed to believe that power will mellow him."
"Qualifications" are only essential when they push the left wing agenda

Zohran Mamdani: I'll show world whether the Left can govern - "Zohran Mamdani said he would show whether “the Left can govern” in his inaugural address as New York mayor.  Mr Mamdani declared he was not scared of being seen as “too radical” and vowed to “audaciously” embark on “big government” plans that critics have warned will bankrupt small businesses and endanger the public... One former City Hall official previously told The Telegraph his plans would “put every bodega in New York City out of business”... The mayor went on to announce a return to “big government” policies and blamed the private sector for providing mediocre public services."
Get ready for the excuses when things come crashing down

Tiffany Fong on X - "Zohran Mamdani doing multiple Nazi salutes. We can’t let him get away with this!!! 😤"
It's only a Nazi salute if done by someone the left hates

Eric Daugherty on X - "🚨 HOLY CRAP! Zohran Mamdani just did the EXACT SAME gesture as Elon Musk When Elon does it, it's a "Nazi salute." When communist Zohran does it, the media is silent. The media is the enemy of the people."

Matt Van Swol on X - "Here’s a list of all the news networks who have not covered Zohran Mamdani’s salute:
- NYTimes
- CNN
- Washington Post
- MSNBC
- NPR
- USA Today
- Reuters
- Axios
- ABC News
Every single one of them wrote stories on Elon Musk’s “salute”… …do you get it yet?"

Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 on X - "“The individual is nothing; the collective is everything.” - Stalin
“The interests of the individual must be subordinated to the interests of the collective.” - Mao
“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” - Mussolini
“We’ll replace rugged individualism with collectivism.” - Mamdani
Don’t be afraid to call out objective evil when you hear it."

Dominic Pino on X - "A hilariously bad metaphor, if you know how collectivist heating worked in the USSR.  In Soviet Moscow, they had a centralized heating system for the whole city. Heat was centrally generated and then distributed through a network of pipes to houses and other buildings.  The service was very, very cheap to the end users. Hooray! Workers of the world, unite!  But people got what they paid for.  A thermostat in your house would be too individualist, so they didn't exist. The level of heat was set collectively by government administrators.  They had to base their decisions on weather forecasts because it would take about 12 hours for a temperature change to work its way through the system. So when the forecasts were wrong (which was often), the heat level was wrong too.  On top of that, every building is different. So no matter what heat level the government chose, some people would be too cold and others would be too warm (except for the times when the heat ran out due to shortages, then everyone was cold). People in buildings that were too hot would open the windows, even in the middle of winter, wasting heat that could have been used by others. And because there were no price signals, they hardly faced any costs when they did so.  The heating system didn't even have meters for individuals to measure their usage. Officials in post-Soviet Moscow estimated that the whole system used about as much natural gas per year as all of France.  The collectively owned underground pipes that carried the heat suffered from the classic problem: If everyone owns them, then nobody does.  The pipes fell into disrepair and would be replaced by above-ground temporary pipes (which could go anywhere since nobody owned the land either). And they would stay that way for years. That is, if you were one of the lucky ones who got temporary pipes in the first place. Others were just left out in the cold.  So yeah, if I was trying to promote collectivism, I probably wouldn't use a heat metaphor in winter. There are a lot of people who lived in collectivist countries who would dispute its association with warmth."

Chris Freiman on X - "On the “frigidity of rugged individualism” versus the “warmth of collectivism”: Capitalism involves far more cooperation than competition—think of the number of mutually beneficial transactions you’ve had this week compared to the number of competitions you’ve been in this week"
Jen Brick Murtazashvili on X - "Capitalism requires an extraordinary amount of cooperation. It depends on trust, shared norms, voluntary coordination, and people choosing to work together across firms, communities, and borders. Markets function because individuals are embedded in social relationships, not because they act alone. Collectivism, as it is implemented, relies on coercion. Coordination is enforced through centralized authority rather than secured through consent coercion. Community emerges from voluntary association, reciprocity, and mutual responsibility. It is a precondition for a functioning market economy."

Meme - Spike Cohen @RealSpikeCohen: "PICTURED: the warmth of collectivism *Dark North Korea from space vs bright South Korea*"

signüll on X - "let me get this straight… socialism is the belief that you can siphon resources from the most productive people, sell the masses a warm story about collectivism via redistribution & free shit, & then still expect everyone to remain productive & continue to generate real output. all while willfully & systematically erasing & misunderstanding incentive structures. ignoring almost all of human nature, indeed almost all of nature itself. & substituting vibes for any sense of economics. what a beautifully packaged crock of absolute shit. it’s beautiful because tons of humanity tends to prefer to learn lessons the hard way when history is totally forgotten. & this is being pitched to americans by someone who voluntarily left another system to come here. this is how you know america is different because these types of regarded ideas would never even be tolerated in many places."

Spike Cohen on X - ""We don't mean collectivism like North Korea, we mean collectivism like Norway!" Ok. Their corporate tax rate is lower than the US. They also heavily exploit all of their fossil fuel and natural resources. Is that what you and Mamdani are proposing? Or are you proposing much higher taxes and regulatory hurdles, which would bring us that much closer to North Korea?"

Alex Berenson on X - "Hey Minnesota? New York would like a word. NY now spends almost $120 billion on Medicaid, $6,000 PER RESIDENT, far more than any other state. About half of New York City is on Medicaid, and there's basically nothing it won't pay for, including trans surgeries that cost millions."
Charles Gasparino on X - "This is why Mamdani is so absurd; NYC, the epicenter of the affordability crisis, provides more free stuff to people than anywhere in the country from free health care to subsidized housing. Its tax rates reflect that largesse as does the lack of affordable housing for the middle class. Yet lefties like Mamdani want to double down on that formula. And college kids are dumb enough to believe hm"
Left wingers tout the higher GDP of blue states, but a lot of that is driven by government spending

Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "The ~$1B DeBlasio CARE NYC scam that everyone was scandalized by a few years ago is hilariously small potatoes compared to the routine nonprofit corruption of our city currently.  Like 20% of the city budget goes to nonprofits — around $20 billion dollars annually. How much of that do you think is pure graft at this point?  They don’t even try to hide it. Our comptroller Brad Lander — who is supposed to be managing this money — is married to one of the most prominent nonprofit barons in the city, who has been made tremendously wealthy by the public money her husband oversees.  And now Zohran is promising to open the door to tens of billions more for these nonprofits through ‘universal child care’ (sound familiar) and the new COPA law that will make these politically-connected nonprofits NYC’s new real estate barons by granting them right of first refusal on every land deal in the city from now on.   They will rapidly accumulate hundreds of billions in real estate, vastly enriching the allies of the administration, while locking out ordinary people from property ownership.  This is pure corruption from top to bottom and they just don’t care who knows it."

London is a warning to Zohran Mamdani - "The two cities were once so closely aligned that they even had a nickname. NYLon was shorthand for New York and London, two finance and media driven economies that at the start of this century were among the most prosperous and dynamic urban hubs anywhere in the world. From this week, however, they will be aligned in a much more unfortunate manner: with the self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani taking power in New York, both will be governed by the far-Left. New York may well be about to match London’s decline.   Mamdani comes to power with a far more radical agenda than Sadiq Khan. He is demanding higher taxes on the rich, although that has to be agreed by the state’s governor, tougher rent controls, transport subsidies, and even state-run grocery stores to help with the cost of living. And yet Khan’s record in London tells us that meddling from City Hall only makes a city harder to live in. On Khan’s watch, house building has collapsed, making rents even less affordable, while house prices have also started to fall. Petty crime has soared out of control while the police have concentrated on virtue-signalling instead of keeping the streets safe. Investment has declined as new building projects have been refused: it is a long time since London had any new skyscrapers to match The Shard or The Gherkin. Meanwhile, the super-rich have been hounded out of the city by Khan’s colleagues in the national government, and with them jobs and spending power have disappeared.   From this side of the Atlantic, we wish New York well under Mayor Mandami. But London’s bitter experience under Kahn suggests that it is going to prove a very tough four years, and New York will be a lot poorer after his term ends than it is now."

Zohran Mamdani: The private school beginnings of ‘communist’ mayoral candidate

Mamdani fans disappointed by disastrous 'block party' inauguration with no food, bathrooms

Meme - George Takei: "Think about it, MAGA. Take all the time you need."
Annie @AnnieForTruth: "If you care that Mamdani is Muslim. But not that Dr. Oz is. Your issue is not his religion"
Brian Goldberg: "There is a flip side to that argumenr. Maybe the objections to mamdani are based on actual policies and/or concerns about what his policies may be."
The "empathy" crowd are unable to understand how people who they disagree with think. If reality runs up against the straw men they have created in their heads, it shows how evil their opponents are, not how deluded left wingers themselves are. It's amazing how clueless they are

Meme - Armand Domalewski @ArmandDoma: "I don't think it's particularly "right wing" to criticize someone for calling a convicted Al-Qaeda financier a hero"
Omar El-Ayat @oelayat: "Amazing how far into right-wing reaction you can drift and still be accepted as "liberal" This kind of 20th-century-antisemitism-redux-to-punch-left routine used to be Fox News-crank material"
"l am not happy about the growth of Islamoleftism in America. We're following the UK down this path and it's not good."
Drew Pavlou: "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani just endorsed a candidate for New York State Assembly who described a convicted Al Qaeda financier as an "imprisoned hero" and an Algerian man convicted of plotting to bomb New York City synago..."
The left support most terrorists after all, so criticising terrorists is right wing

Meme - Common Sense Extremists: "Isn't it funny how I'm supposed to believe these people are what make America great when they couldn't even make the below mentioned countries great..."
End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "Zohran Mamdani thanks "Yemenis, Uzbeks, Mexicans, Senegaleses, Trinidadians, and Ethiopians""

Meme - Seth Rosenberg @SethGRosenberg: "My experience voting in NYC:
1. No ID required
2. Zohran on the ballot twice in the top row
3. Eric Adams, who dropped out to avoid splitting the vote, still on the ballot
4. Cuomo in the bottom right corner, 2nd row"

Matthew Schmitz on X - "In 2016, Zohran Mamdani’s director of appointments wrote, “It’s important that white people feel defeated.”"
Thread by @TimmyFacciola_ on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "NEW: Zohran Mamdani's Director of Appointments Catherine Almonte Da Costa has an archive full of anti-semitic posts.  "Far Rockaway train is the Jew train,” she wrote in 2012.  After I reached out to Mamdani's transition team for comment, she deleted her X account... Da Costa is out:"
Damn Zionist conspiracy to undermine Mamdani!

New York Post on X - "Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral transition team misspelled names of two controversial picks — including ex-con rapper tapped as criminal justice adviser"
Councilwoman Vickie Paladino on X - "These misspellings are deliberate. It’s a very old trick to thwart Google searches for/about controversial names."

Zohran Mamdani explains appointment of convicted armed robber to transition team - "New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani said Tuesday he appointed a convicted armed robber to advise him on the criminal justice system because he wants to take experience and analysis from all New Yorkers into account to "build a city for each and every person."... In 1999, a Bronx jury found him guilty in two armed robberies of taxi drivers... Linen’s defense argued he had no reason to commit the crimes because he was earning money writing songs for artists such as Lil’ Kim and Mase, and his music was slated to appear on an all-star album featuring LL Cool J, Busta Rhymes and Q-Tip.   He faced up to 25 years in prison and ultimately served seven years. Linen maintained at the time that he had been falsely accused, according to reports. "

Shaun Maguire on X - "Zohran living in a rent-controlled apartment, despite being rich Is exactly the same thing as lying about his ethnicity on his Columbia app. He has no problem taking from people that actually need help. He’s not a socialist, he’s a sociopath"

Searching for Charlemagne: What’s Really at Stake in Alberta’s Curriculum Controversy

From 2022. This goes back to how teaching kids is not the primary objective of modern North American education:

Searching for Charlemagne: What’s Really at Stake in Alberta’s Curriculum Controversy

"In March 2021, Premier Jason Kenney’s United Conservative Party (UCP) released a 550-page draft of its plan to remake the entire kindergarten to grade 6 curriculum all at once. This enormous undertaking was touted as a shift back to a more traditional “content rich” style of education that emphasizes “literacy, numeracy, citizenship and practical skills.” It was also seen as a deliberate reaction to the previous NDP government’s curriculum efforts, which had emphasized ideology over content. In 2016, for example, former NDP education minister David Eggen had declared of his party’s planned school changes: “Now more than ever we need to teach about inclusion, to teach about equality and social justice.” (Predictably, the NDP vows to scrap the UCP’s planned curriculum if it regains power in 2023.) 

A “content rich” curriculum entails a strong focus on facts and building cumulative knowledge through memorization and structured learning across all subjects. Alberta’s curriculum plan also concentrates heavily on Western history and thought, beginning with Ancient Greece and Rome and continuing to Europe and England in the Middle Ages, since these civilizations laid the intellectual foundation upon which Canada was formed. All this is in stark contrast to the prevailing educational orthodoxy that emphasizes the interests of the child over history and facts. 

As with any change to the educational status quo, there’s been plenty of opposition from teachers’ unions, education professors, school boards, politicians, parents and even religious groups. Political opponents have complained the first draft was racist and Eurocentric, inadequately covering topics such as race, colonization and Indigenous people. Some academics have claimed the move is too content-heavy for young children to handle, incorrectly favours passive rote-memorization over active hands-on learning and is “unsupported by current research.” An initial lack of consultation appears to be the most significant problem, a foregone opportunity to better pitch the curriculum’s merits, make adjustments as warranted and build support.

“The government tried to do the rewrite all at once, and insisted that it would implement all the components at the same time,” observes John Hilton-O’Brien, executive director of Parents for Choice in Education, an Alberta group that has been paying close attention to the changes. Further, he says, “The curriculum was not absolutely perfectly written – there were errors that allowed the teachers’ association to call it ‘amateur’.”

The result, Hilton-O’Brien says, was “pushback from all channels.” In particular, “There was a great deal of alarm among teachers who would have to adjust their content.” One big problem for educators, he notes, is a lack of detailed knowledge about Western civilization and history. “Many, for instance, apparently did not know who Charlemagne was, or that the name means ‘Charles the Great,’ and were terrified that they might have to teach about him.” (For those who don’t know, Charlemagne was an 8^th century Frankish king who united most of western Europe and is commonly considered the “father of Europe.” Two generations ago, virtually every child in Alberta learned about Charlemagne by age nine.)...

The debate over content versus skills actually gets to the very heart of what makes a society function. This is because schools produce more than just graduates: they also produce citizens. As the great Noah Webster (of dictionary fame) put it, “The Education of youth is, in all governments, an object of the first consequence. The impressions received in early life, usually form the characters of individuals; a union of which forms the general character of a nation.” So how can Alberta shape its school curriculum to produce citizens of good character? 

A child-centred “skills” education of the sort favoured by Alberta’s NDP and that is in vogue in most parts of North America today (and is also known as progressivist, constructivist, developmental, individualist or project-based learning) emphasizes the development of general skills such as reading comprehension and critical thinking. Specific facts and information form a small component of the overall mandated learning material. What content exists is “child-centred” – that is, chosen by the child or teacher as the means to develop the particular skill being acquired. Constructivist knowledge arises from the child’s individual inquiry and exploration, instead of through passive whole-class absorption via lectures and rote memorization handed down by the teacher from the front of the classroom. As the old cliché goes, a skills teacher is a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage.” 

A skills curriculum does not focus on subject matter or specific books but, as the term implies, on general skills. Literacy standards such as “compare formal and informal uses of English” or “choose words and phrases for effect” allow teachers to plug in their own content. Skills education has also changed the names of the subjects themselves. History and civics have been replaced by social studies. Literature became language arts. As a consequence, actual literature – books, usually listed as the required content or subject matter – has taken on a diminished presence.

Of particular significance, skills-based teaching virtually guarantees students in different classrooms will be exposed to different content, even within the same grade in the same school. When “students” (i.e., young schoolchildren) themselves direct their own educational inquiries, there is little opportunity for the accumulation of common knowledge across the entire student body. This approach is supposed to foster every child’s special individual potential, creativity and freedom. But it prevents consistency and commonality in what is learned.

In contrast, a knowledge-based curriculum, as Alberta’s UCP government is rolling out, focuses on a traditional understanding of the subject matter. This involves fact-based learning in math, science, reading and writing, literature, history, geography and civics. Such a teaching approach is carefully sequenced from kindergarten to grade 12 so that each grade builds on topics learned in the previous one, deepening the subject matter knowledge in a brick-by-brick way. What particular skills children learn arise from their mastery of the individual subjects themselves.

This process of building a cumulative knowledge base through memorization and repetition is how schooling used to be delivered across North America before it was supplanted by the progressive imaginings of university education faculties. Today, this traditionalist approach is perhaps best expressed by the work of the Core Knowledge Foundation, an American non-profit institution that has developed a “core knowledge” curriculum template being used in an estimated 15,000 public, charter and private schools across the U.S. The foundation’s learning plans list not only the subject areas but specific topics to be addressed week-by-week and grade-by-grade and the material to be covered. In English, for example, the plan includes the names of specific authors, poems or novels to be read, discussed and written about. Above all, the curriculum is described by advocates as “cumulative and coherent and specific.” It requires whole-class rather than individual teaching and learning. 

While Alberta’s new content-rich approach has been dismissed by critics as retrograde or unscientific, such complaints are factually inaccurate. Core knowledge schooling may trace its lineage to time-honoured education theories and practice, but it also boasts an impressive body of current evidentiary support. Much of this arises from the work of literary critic turned education reformer E.D. Hirsch, Jr. Hirsch is professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia and founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation; his 40 years of research in this area provides ample theoretical and practical support for Alberta’s content-rich initiatives. (Hilton-O’Brien pointedly refers to Alberta’s plan as “Hirschean reforms.”) 

The utility of core knowledge teaching can be demonstrated with a plethora of examples. The Lyles-Crouch Traditional Academy in Alexandria, Virginia transformed itself from an underachieving and de facto segregated black school into the highest-scoring school in its district after switching from a skills focus to core knowledge under a new principal in 2004. Student and staff morale similarly skyrocketed. As Hirsch explains in his 2020 book How to Educate a Citizen: The Power of Shared Knowledge to Unify a Nation, the implementation of common grade-by-grade content at Lyles-Crouch school meant that “every child was more or less on the same page, learning a great many interesting things, and feeling a sense of empowerment and fellowship…The atmosphere…became electric with enthusiasm.” By 2017, the school was outperforming other Alexandria City district public schools, with scores in the 90^th percentile and above. The school has won academic achievement awards putting it in the state’s top 5 percent.

Similar stories arise from schools in South Bronx, “the poorest, most disadvantaged borough in New York City, with the highest poverty rate,” as Hirsch describes it. A group of seven Icahn Charter Schools using the core knowledge sequence have come to dominate the surrounding districts in the key area of verbal competence. Icahn debate teams have won city-wide debating championships against students from more affluent school districts. In addition, every graduating eighth-grader in each of these seven schools was accepted into a top-tier selective high school.

Significantly, every parent of an Icahn student knows what their children will be learning, because they are provided with a monthly syllabus. According to Jeffrey Litt, superintendent of all seven schools, “When a child comes home, [and the parent] says ‘How was your day? Or ‘What’d you learn?’ The child says ‘Uh.’ In our schools, the parent knows specifically what to ask the child. ‘What did you learn about the solar system today? What did you learn about the Bill of Rights today? What did you learn about X?’ We know it’s critical for the parents to play a significant role…I want them to know what their child is being taught, what their child is responsible for learning, and having them demonstrate their knowledge. Every month, the first week.”

Core knowledge education significantly benefits minority and disadvantaged students. As Hirsch writes, “The only way the construct-it-for-yourself mode of teaching can work for a child is if she has the adequate prior background knowledge to deduce the right inferences. Disadvantaged children usually lack the background knowledge to be able to pull out the right inference from discovery-based methods. The discovery method will therefore tend to increase the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged children.” Advantaged children have parents who can supply them with books, travel, trips to museums and other experiences that provide the necessary facts and experiences omitted by child-centred, skills-based learning. Disadvantaged children do not. A core knowledge education narrows that gap.

Similar results can be observed around the world. As Hirsch explains in How to Educate a Citizen, international test results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) plummeted in Germany, Sweden and France following child-centred education reforms in the 1980s and later. In Sweden, such curriculum changes in 2000 led to a 30 percentile point drop in literacy results, the biggest drop ever recorded in PISA tests. Sweden was able to reverse this disastrous outcome through a move back to greater emphasis on core knowledge pedagogy in 2012. Perennial PISA top performer Singapore is fully invested in the core knowledge concept, Hirsch explains, with a single set of textbooks used throughout the entire school system ensuring consistency and commonality. Core knowledge education gets results. 

As for the skills or inquiry-based education that is so popular with the educational establishment (in spite of the PISA evidence), a large and growing body of academic literature points to its many failures, particularly in the early grades. Concerned by a recent drop in Australia’s PISA scores that seemed to track curriculum changes emphasizing skills or inquiry-based learning, last year eminent University of New South Wales educational psychologist John Sweller reported on “a causal relation between the emphasis on inquiry learning and reduced academic performance.” University of Virginia at Arlington cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham has similarly observed that, “Data from the last 30 years lead to a conclusion that is not scientifically challengeable: thinking well requires knowing facts.” Knowledge and skill, in other words, fit hand in glove. 

Cognitive psychology and research in brain plasticity further suggest reading comprehension is a “domain-specific” activity that cannot be abstracted from specific knowledge. Poor readers, for example, do better at comprehending a text about baseball if they already know something about baseball than “good” readers without that prior knowledge. Consequently, asserts Willingham flatly, “A reading comprehension test is a knowledge test in disguise.” 

Decades of work in education results and cognitive psychology thus support the case for a content-rich, fact-filled curriculum such as Alberta is developing. Building in stages upon a core knowledge base also reflects how long and short-term memory work. Sequenced, grade-by-grade learning in well-defined subjects builds cumulatively, deepening and enriching the student’s grasp of the subject matter. This is far more than the “rote memorization” that critics so often allege. And, when applied consistently across classrooms, schools and entire jurisdictions, this effect extends beyond the individual to form a common body of knowledge generating a completely different kind of memory – a collective national memory. 

In his decades-long crusade to promote better education through adherence to core knowledge, Hirsch has focused on the essential role of “prior, tacit, unspoken knowledge” in communication and interpretation. Understanding what someone else means when they speak naturally depends on the listener sharing the same set of facts and understandings as the speaker. In his two most recent books, How to Educate a Citizen and American Ethnicity: A Sense of Commonality (2022), Hirsch broadens this view to cover the requirements of national citizenship as well as interpersonal communications.

What we call culture, says Hirsch, is a unifying, shared knowledge of language and other traditions that embraces our national values, ethics and patriotic sentiments in addition to the other accoutrements we normally associate with culture. All this is crucial to the formation of any properly functioning public sphere. A country can work well, he observes, “only if its members agreed to its universal founding principles, obeyed its laws, and spoke the same language.” (Or perhaps, one of two official languages.) The customs, habits, opinions, tastes, civic institutions, laws as they have evolved through our history thus form the foundation of a nation itself. This is what 18^th century thinkers and writers such as Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and even Jane Austen called manners or mores – the tacit, unwritten constitution of the nation that together constitute its national character and coherence.  

And how is this national character built and shared? Schools are the most obvious and important point of contact for all young citizens... unless students receive the same content regardless of where they are situated, and can thus agree on what their culture and ethnicity mean, this independently derived sense of commonality becomes impossible to achieve...

Accepting the myriad benefits of a core knowledge curriculum, however, brings with it a complication. How do we decide what common content should be taught and shared through the school system?...

Some politicians will seek to impose their own ideologically motivated facts upon a core knowledge curriculum. The shoehorning of critical race theory and equity, diversity and inclusion mandates into the Ontario school system sounds a warning on this front. This, however, is not actual content. Rather it’s bias masquerading as fact, and prejudice as critical thinking."

Links - 17th January 2026 (1 - Trans Mania)

Academics appeal against judge’s ruling that gender-critical film could be ‘transphobic’ - "Filmmakers will launch a legal battle after a judge ruled their feature called Adult Human Female could be considered transphobic."
Dictionaries need to be banned

‘I grew up in a cult that said gay men were evil. After escaping, I found trans ideology was worse’ - "Until he was 12, Ben Appel was raised in the conservative-Christian Lamb of God cult, which his parents joined in 1976.  Now 42, Appel is tall and handsome with thick, dark hair and a radiant smile. He says that, as a child, he presented as very “girly”, although there’s little sign of that now. “The elders really drilled it into my head from a very early age how evil homosexuality was,” he says.  Then, in his mid-30s, having recovered from drug and alcohol abuse, and severe mental illness, Appel found himself in an even more rigid cult obsessed with gender ideology, anti-racist orthodoxy and identity politics.  Appel’s new book, Cis White Gay, outlines his journey from Christian cult childhood to “ultra hardcore” activist “on fire for social justice”. Nowadays, he describes himself as a “free-thinking gender heretic”... he became embedded within the so-called liberationist movement that includes LGBT rights.  In the three-and-a-half years he spent there, Appel saw fellow students becoming indoctrinated with pseudoscientific, anti-Western dogma sold to them as progressiveness. He began to see that what was happening was cult-like and “in many ways worse than Lamb of God”.  Any slight digression from the “trans women are women”, “death to the West” type politics was severely punished, he says. “Intelligent young people bent over backwards to be anti-racist, against imperialism and even embracing Islamic jihadists in the process.” Social justice warriordom morphed into the cult of queer, and punishments meted out for failure to adhere to the creed were severe, involving bullying and ostracisation.  He had been indoctrinated in the view that sees white cis men (gays included) as the enemy. For these new puritans, the airing of grievances was the preferred blood sport, and there was an obsession with identifying the oppressor, rather than the victim... At Midwestern, Appel found himself constantly self-questioning the progressive take he was supposed to sign up to. It wasn’t until he read an article in the British press about the resignation of five gender specialists from the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock clinic that he was finally able to make sense of his growing concern that labelling gender-nonconforming children as “trans” was a form of gay conversion therapy.  It inspired Appel to write a piece on his Substack, which had fewer than a dozen subscribers. Nevertheless, someone from his course saw it, took screenshots of the parts they considered problematic, and passed it around. This resulted in the cancellation of the writing class and workshop, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) involvement and an investigation. When that happened, Appel knew he “had to get the hell out of there”.  “That was really scary, because I was so afraid of rejection and being officially pushed out from this new ‘social justice’ cult,” he says. “But it was the best decision I made because now I could think and speak for myself.” Now a full-time writer, and non-aligned politically, Appel says: “You have to keep in mind that arguing with these people is like trying to argue with a biblical literalist, in that they believe that holding certain views makes them a good person and protects them from going to hell.  “Now I can say, there’s no third gamete, men should not be in women’s prisons, children are never in the wrong body, and not all white people are racist. I will be saying this even if they bring back the guillotine, right before the blade falls.”"

Meme - EvieGoesHard @TransGirl: "I have no idea how the bigots managed to find my place of employment but cool. Thanks for destroying my livelihood over a god damn joke. I'm sure that's gotta feel great."
"Termination of employment. Dear Evie, We are writing to inform you that your employment with *** is terminated, effective immediately. Your dismissal is due to violations of our social media and sexual conduct policy. Specifically, we were made aware of recent social media posts that could be seen as representative of *** brand or opinions. Your final paycheck will be available for pickup"
EvieGoesHard @TransGirl: "POV the transgender HR lady is about to ruin your life"
Jay: "POV the transgender HR lady ruined his own life"
Sólionath on X - "“I’m trans and I’m going to fire you if you disagree with me, I can’t wait to ruin your li-
NOOOOOOO YOU AREN’T ALLOWED TO TELL MY EMPLOYER I’M SAYING THIS. I WOULD FIRE YOU OVER NOTHING BUT YOU CAN’T TELL MY EMPLOYER ABOUT THE WAY I REPRESENT THEM!!! THAT’S BASICALLY FASCISM!!”"
Of course, if you make a "transphobic" joke, you deserve to be fired

Meme - "They are removing the trans flags... it's a LITERAL GENOCIDE!!!"
"More than 400 trans flags removed from Boston Common; advocates call for hate crime investigation"
"This too is part of the trans genocide"
"Yeah, trans people are being dragged into trains headed towards death camps as we speak. Jesus Christ, reddit"
"Read the ten stages of genocide. It doesn't start with mass extermination.  But yes, actually. ICE has been disappearing brown LGBTQ people at a much higher rate than other population groups and shipping them off to god knows where."
"Of course that abrasive sarcasm was ban worthy. I'm basically an Holocaust denier in the eyes of the mod."
Once again, when left wingers complain about Nazism, fascism, genocide etc, you can't take them seriously

bender871 on X - "It is educational to look at 1990s sources where queer and trans activists accuse the gay rights movement of not being trans inclusive, not "queer", and insufficiently supportive of their more ambitious, culturally Marxist agenda. It puts the lie to claims that the TQ+ was always part of the gay rights movement.   The two fragments here are from trans activist Riki Anne Wilchins. The first is from "Read My Lips: Sexual Subversion and the End of Gender", 1997, the second is from a 1996 interview titled "Who did you say you are?"  The interview speaks of "redefining their mission" and confirms that gay rights groups at the time were exclusively fighting for gay rights."

The End of 'Boys' and 'Girls' at Interlochen Arts Camp, and Other Big Issues | National Review - "The Interlochen Arts Camp is in northwestern Michigan. It began life as the National Music Camp, in 1928. It is a wonderful place.  An alumna of the camp sent me a notice from Crescendo, the Interlochen publication. It begins, “This summer, Interlochen Arts Camp will change its division names to reflect the full diversity of its students’ gender identities.” In the past, there has been “Junior Boys” and “Junior Girls”; “Intermediate Boys” and “Intermediate Girls”; “High School Boys” and “High School Girls.” But no longer.  “Junior Boys” will become “Junior Pines.” “Junior Girls” will become “Junior Lakeside.” Etc. The words “boys” and “girls” will not figure in division names.   It’s not so much that I object to this change as that I’m bewildered by it. I suppose that many people reach the point where they realize that the world, to some degree or another, has become a foreign country to them. After all these millennia, are we no longer to have boys and girls?  I am all for the accommodation of special cases, and I believe that people who are different should be treated with extra sensitivity and love. God knows they need it. But must this entail the erasure of such basic categories as boys and girls?  Those of a certain age — or those who like re-runs — will remember the All in the Family theme song: “Those Were the Days.” One lyric goes, “And you knew who you were then. / Girls were girls and men were men.” It seemed like kind of a joke."

Nurse suspended for calling trans paedophile ‘Mr’ left in limbo by guidance delay - "An NHS nurse who was suspended after addressing a transgender paedophile as “Mr” has been left in legal limbo as the Government delays publishing equalities guidance.  Jennifer Melle, 40, a nurse at St Helier Hospital in Carshalton, Surrey, was discussing using a catheter for the patient – a paedophile who was a serving inmate from a high-security men’s prison – in May last year when the patient took issue with her using the male pronoun and title.  The nurse replied that she was “sorry I cannot refer to you as ‘her’ or ‘she’, as it’s against my faith and Christian values but I can call you by your name”. The patient then subjected her to a racially and religiously aggravated assault, lunging at her and calling her a “n-----” three times.  Ms Melle was investigated and disciplined by the hospital in October 2024. She was given a final warning and a referral to the Nursing and Midwifery Council to assess her ability to practise in accordance with its code of conduct. The code states that nurses should not express their personal beliefs.  She has since filed a legal claim against the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals Trust for harassment, discrimination and human rights breaches."
Intersectionality: is a black Christian woman more oppressed than a transwoman pedophile?

Glenna Goldis on X - "Today's NYT story on the trans surgery patient obfuscates something. He's not just saying his sex is female. He's claiming his "sex assigned at birth" is female. Not because anyone literally called him a girl when he was a baby, but because he got his birth certificate changed to say he's female.  This is beyond the usual sophistry about what "sex" is. It's forthrightly demanding that the hospital and the judge pretend something happened that did not happen.  @JoeKGoldstein  @nytimes   From the lawsuit:"

Shellac 🟦 🟥 🟨 ⬜ on X - "How can someone be born with a "gender" if gender is a social construct? If women and men can be whatever they want to be, what even is "gender" in our society? Why does any of it require cosmetic surgery? All of it is nonsense."

The Liberal Misinformation Bubble About Youth Gender Medicine - The Atlantic - "Allow children to transition, or they will kill themselves. For more than a decade, this has been the strongest argument in favor of youth gender medicine—a scenario so awful that it stifled any doubts or questions about puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones... But there is a huge problem with this emotive formulation: It isn’t true. When Justice Samuel Alito challenged the ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio on such claims during oral arguments, Strangio made a startling admission. He conceded that there is no evidence to support the idea that medical transition reduces adolescent suicide rates. At first, Strangio dodged the question, saying that research shows that blockers and hormones reduce “depression, anxiety, and suicidality”—that is, suicidal thoughts. (Even that is debatable, according to reviews of the research literature.) But when Alito referenced a systematic review conducted for the Cass report in England, Strangio conceded the point... Here was the trans-rights movement’s greatest legal brain, speaking in front of the nation’s highest court. And what he was saying was that the strongest argument for a hotly debated treatment was, in fact, not supported by the evidence. Even then, his admission did not register with the liberal justices... Advocates of the open-science movement often talk about “zombie facts”—popular sound bites that persist in public debate, even when they have been repeatedly discredited. Many common political claims made in defense of puberty blockers and hormones for gender-dysphoric minors meet this definition. These zombie facts have been flatly contradicted not just by conservatives but also by prominent advocates and practitioners of the treatment—at least when they’re speaking candidly. Many liberals are unaware of this, however, because they are stuck in media bubbles in which well-meaning commentators make confident assertions for youth gender medicine—claims from which its elite advocates have long since retreated. Perhaps the existence of this bubble shouldn’t be surprising. Many of the most fervent advocates of youth transition are also on record disparaging the idea that it should be debated at all. Strangio—who works for the country’s best-known free-speech organization—once tweeted that he would like to scuttle Abigail Shrier’s book Irreversible Damage, a skeptical treatment of youth gender medicine. Strangio declared, “Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a hill I will die on.” Marci Bowers, the former head of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the most prominent organization for gender-medicine providers, has likened skepticism of child gender medicine to Holocaust denial. “There are not two sides to this issue,” she once said, according to a recent episode of The Protocol, a New York Times podcast. Boasting about your unwillingness to listen to your opponents probably plays well in some crowds. But it left Strangio badly exposed in front of the Supreme Court, where it became clear that the conservative justices had read the most convincing critiques of hormones and blockers—and had some questions as a result. Trans-rights activists like to accuse skeptics of youth gender medicine—and publications that dare to report their views—of fomenting a “moral panic.” But the movement has spent the past decade telling gender-nonconforming children that anyone who tries to restrict access to puberty blockers and hormones is, effectively, trying to kill them. This was false, as Strangio’s answer tacitly conceded. It was also irresponsible. After England restricted the use of puberty blockers in 2020, the government asked an expert psychologist, Louis Appleby, to investigate whether the suicide rate for patients at the country’s youth gender clinic rose dramatically as a result. It did not: In fact, he did not find any increase in suicides at all, despite the lurid claims made online. “The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide,” Appleby reported. “One risk is that young people and their families will be terrified by predictions of suicide as inevitable without puberty blockers.” When red-state bans are discussed, you will also hear liberals say that conservative fears about the medical-transition pathway are overwrought—because all children get extensive, personalized assessments before being prescribed blockers or hormones. This, too, is untrue. Although the official standards of care recommend thorough assessment over several months, many American clinics say they will prescribe blockers on a first visit. This isn’t just a matter of U.S. health providers skimping on talk therapy to keep costs down; some practitioners view long evaluations as unnecessary and even patronizing. “I don’t send someone to a therapist when I’m going to start them on insulin,” Olson-Kennedy told The Atlantic in 2018. Her published research shows that she has referred girls as young as 13 for double mastectomies. And what if these children later regret their decision? “Adolescents actually have the capacity to make a reasoned logical decision,” she once told an industry seminar, adding: “If you want breasts at a later point in your life, you can go and get them.” Perhaps the greatest piece of misinformation believed by liberals, however, is that the American standards of care in this area are strongly evidence-based. In fact, at this point, the fairest thing to say about the evidence surrounding medical transition for adolescents—the so-called Dutch protocol, as opposed to talk therapy and other support—is that it is weak and inconclusive. (A further complication is that American child gender medicine has deviated significantly from this original protocol, in terms of length of assessments and the number and demographics of minors being treated.) Yes, as activists are keen to point out, most major American medical associations support the Dutch protocol. But consensus is not the same as evidence. And that consensus is politically influenced.
Elite advocates push misinformation on trans issues too - just not when they are at risk of being punished for perjury

pagliacci the grinch 🎄🎁 on X - "The way shitlibs lie is incredible.   For those unaware… what has been happening is that troons in prison have been crying “rape” to secure transfers to women’s facilities under a law called PREA.   Trump wants to end this practice, because it’s absurd that a PREA claim (most of which have no way of being substantiated btw) can result in a man with an actual rape conviction being shuttled to a women’s prison where he has access to new victims.  50% of MtFs in federal prison have a history of sex offences. And there have been COUNTLESS stories of women in prison being raped or assaulted by troons moved in to female facilities using these “smol bean is scared in a men’s prison 🥺” claims.  But now the same people who were fine with female inmates being raped by troons want to pretend they care about rape victims?   lol. lmao, even."

HeCheated.org on X - "The fact that there are states that bar male athletes from girls' sports while there are states that do not is actually helpful in illustrating many of the fallacies that trans activists perpetuate.   None of the trans activist claims in regards to keeping boys out of girls' sports have come to fruition in states where boys are not allowed:
- "trans" people won't be able to participate in sports ("trans" identified females continue to participate on girls' teams and males have been participating on the boys' teams)
- suicide rates in "trans" identified youth will go up (it hasn't)
- real girls will be subject to "genital inspections" (they aren't)
Meanwhile, all of the claims that women and girls make regarding boys participating in girls sports are easily observable in states where boys are allowed on girls' teams
- boys have been harassing girls in locker rooms and even on the court (see "Becky" Pepper Jackson, "Lazuli" Clark, Derek Cannuscio, etc.)
- girls have been injured by male athletes (see Payton McNabb, the Collegiate Charter of Lowell girls' basketball team, the female athlete who had her season ended by Aaron Lester, etc.)
- boys have stolen awards and opportunities (over 200 high school awards meant for girls have gone to boys)
- boys have won over 740 high school girls' competitions, including 57 state championship titles.
- where boys are given unrestricted access to girls' sports, they push girls off the podium entirely
For example, in Massachusetts, there has not been a female state champion in the vault in gymnastics since 2017.  Boys have won the past 7 "girls'" state vault titles. (There was no true state championship in 2020-2021 due to COVID. Many schools did not have winter spots that year)  How have we let this continue for so long?"
Weird. We're told that there're so few trans MTF athletes that they don't affect anything, and that girls who complain are spoilt and losers who should just try harder

Greg Price on X - "The former deputy director of Joe Biden's "Office of Gun Violence Prevention" gets very confused when Josh Hawley reads from his own report which says we should defund the police and invest in "safe-space initiatives led by two-spirit, trans people.""
Rachel Bovard on X - "The Ezra Kleins and the Ta-Nehisi Coates of the world want you to believe that the left is intellectually superior to the right. Yet this is the left: denies writing "two spirit" (in a report he wrote), can't answer what it means, when pressed, and then calls the senator  "two-faced" for asking him about his own words.  These people are not smart."

Girlguiding ‘forced’ to ban transgirls from joining the Rainbows and Brownies - "Girlguiding in the UK will no longer admit transgender girls into their groups in a move dubbed as a ‘horrible act of violence’. Around 300,000 young people are members of the Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Rangers groups, but now only those recorded female at birth will be able to join. The organisation said they made the ‘difficult decision’ after ‘detailed considerations, expert legal advice and input from senior members, young members’.  And it comes after a former Girlguiding leader said she was expelled due to her ‘gender-critical’ beliefs. Ex-unit leader Katie Alcock, a psychology lecturer at Lancaster University, initiated legal proceedings against Girlguiding when she was ‘kicked out’ of the organisation in 2018... Trans rights campaigners have claimed Girlguiding was ‘being forced to exclude young trans girls by adults with bigotries and institutional power’ Campaign group TransActual described the policy change as ‘yet another horrible act of violence against the most vulnerable trans people’. They said: ‘It’s awful that an organisation, which would happily be inclusive and has been for many years, is being forced to exclude young trans girls by adults with bigotries and institutional power. ‘There is no problem being solved here, only harm being done. ‘This is yet another horrible act of violence against the most vulnerable trans people for which the government is ultimately responsible. ‘Another trauma that will leave a generation of young LGBTQ+ people scarred for life.’"
Violence against males is good, of course. And following the law is only good when it pushes the left wing agenda

Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 on X - "Two Christian students and one Muslim student complained about a girl in the boys locker room.  The Muslim boy wasn’t punished. The Christian boys were.  “Loudoun County determined that these Christian, male students’ religious practice violated school policy, recasting constitutionally protected activity as ‘sex-based discrimination’ and ‘sexual harassment.’ As punishment, Loudoun County suspended the boys for ten days and ordered them to submit to a ‘Comprehensive Student Support Plan’ that further violates the boys’ right to free exercise of religion at school.”"

Brandi Kruse on X - "I almost can't believe I'm typing this. A 5th grade gender-nonbinary teacher in Tumwater, WA, did not want to teach the 10-year-old son of a conservative school board member, citing safety concerns. Mx. TJ Thornton requested the school craft a policy to "help mitigate the placement of students in their class who come from families that do not support LGBTQIA+ identities.""
When left wingers talk about "safety" they don't mean safety: they want their views safe from challenge. Just like fascism, Nazism etc, left wing vocabulary is totally different from normal vocabulary

Lesbian, gay and bisexual groups break from LGBTQIA+ establishment - "A coalition of lesbian, gay and bisexual organizations across 18 countries has split from the broader LGBTQIA+ movement, declaring independence and forming a new umbrella group called LGB International.  The group, launched on Saturday, says traditional gay rights organizations have abandoned LGB issues in favour of transgender activism.  Leaders argue that same-sex rights are being undermined by gender identity ideology, including the push for heterosexual men who identify as lesbians and heterosexual women who identify as gay men to enter same-sex spaces.  LGB International says its focus will be on defending LGB rights in countries where homosexuality remains illegal, in jurisdictions where same-sex partnerships lack legal recognition, and in societies where the redefinition of sex-based categories is eroding the rights of same-sex attracted people.  The initiative was inspired by the UK’s LGB Alliance, created in 2019, and now has affiliates spanning Taiwan, Australia, Bulgaria and the United States.  LGB Alliance Canada announced its relaunch alongside the international organization, saying Canadian 2SLGBTQIA+ groups such as EGALE have prioritized transgender politics at the expense of lesbian, gay and bisexual people.  “Canadian organizations have pushed unproven gender-affirming care that disproportionately affects same-sex attracted youth,” LGB Alliance Canada said in a statement.  “They’ve also eroded sex-based rights and stoked hostility toward lesbians and gays who want to maintain same-sex spaces.”  Frederick Schminke, Chair of LGB International, said the movement was necessary because “all the organisations that once represented gay people are now entirely devoted to gender identity ideology.” He accused legacy groups of abandoning reason and shutting down dissenting voices.  Bev Jackson, co-founder of the UK’s LGB Alliance, said the launch represents a growing global movement:  “Many young LGB people are being encouraged to think they must be ‘trans’ and need drugs and surgeries, instead of accepting that they are simply same-sex attracted.”  Support also came from Renato Sabbadini, former head of ILGA, and Kurt Krickler, former co-chair of ILGA-Europe, who both said the creation of LGB International restores space for LGB people to organize independently.

Allie Beth Stuckey on X - "There was a man who’d wear a dress while riding his bike in my husband’s small town growing up. Everyone knew he was unstable for the simple reason that he was a man wearing a dress. The last thing they would’ve done is let him around kids. Consider: what we call unfair stigma & shame today likely protected countless children & other vulnerable people in generations past. Our unconditional empathy has hurt far more than it’s helped"
Dan Gainor on X - "The left uses empathy to get us to ignore our instincts. No rational parent would let some of these weirdos near their kids."

Links - 16th January 2026 (3 - China's 'Peaceful' Rise [including Hong Kong Fire])

Hong Kong’s iconic bamboo scaffolding is being phased out - "There are plenty of things that make people think of Hong Kong: dim sum, red taxis, triad movies, and towering buildings clad in bamboo frames. The list goes on, but unfortunately, it looks like the last item might be going the way of the dodo, as the Hong Kong government announced plans to replace the ancient practice of bamboo scaffolding with metal.  Citing safety concerns, the Development Bureau announced on Monday, March 17, that they will “drive a wider adoption of metal scaffolds in public building works”, replacing bamboo with a sturdier material. A bureau official further laid out in a memo that bamboo is liable to deteriorate over time and is combustible. According to quoted official figures, 23 people have died from bamboo scaffold-related accidents since 2018.   However, bamboo has long been the favoured material for framing constructions and building repairs, dating as far back as the Great Wall of China. In our city, this particular wood is preferred for being lightweight, easy to transport and store, as well as faster to set up and take down, even in tight spaces. It is estimated that almost 80 percent of building scaffolds in Hong Kong are made of bamboo. Officials have now decided that at least half of the city’s new government constructions will utilise metal scaffolds instead. The Development Bureau’s memo further stated that using metal is already the industry norm in mainland China and other advanced economies. On Tuesday, March 18, the Association for the Rights of Industrial Accident Victims announced their support of this government decision, urging private projects to follow suit in decreasing the use of bamboo scaffolding.  As one of the most iconic sights in Hong Kong, the art of bamboo scaffolding has already been listed as part of the city’s intangible cultural heritage. There is almost nowhere else in the world – apart from our neighbouring Macau – that still utilises this craft. Much of our world-famous cityline owes its construction to this pliable, fast-growing wood."

Chung Ching Kwong 鄺頌晴 on X - "I don’t quite understand where does this “bamboo scaffolding led to the fire” come from. The bamboos scaffolding after the fire is still mainly intact. It’s the netting that’s flammable, not the bamboo scaffolding. It started with the netting, as multiple videos show."
Luke de Pulford on X - "Note to western journalists: don’t suck up PRC propaganda. Bamboo scaffolding is widely regarded as safe - a craft in Hong Kong of which they’re rightly proud. Early indications are that the netting was the cause of this tragedy."
Kevin Yam 任建峰 on X - "If anyone is wondering why the PRC is interested in pushing anti-bamboo scaffolding propaganda (which the Hong Kong Government is now also pushing - for those who can read Chinese, see graphic): scaffolding works is one of the last bastions of construction work in which Chinese State-Owned construction companies/ property developers and their preferred building contractors have not yet managed to get a foothold in Hong Kong, because bamboo scaffolding is not the standard in the PRC."

Hong Kong fire: Arrest over petition stirs public debate - "When university student Miles Kwan launched a petition demanding answers from Hong Kong authorities after one of the city's deadliest fires last week, he was arrested. The ferocious blaze had ravaged a densely populated housing estate in the northern Tai Po district, killing at least 159 people and displacing thousands. As public anger grew, the pro-Beijing authorities warned, repeatedly, against attempts to "exploit" the fire to "endanger national security". Kwan was reportedly arrested by Hong Kong national security police on suspicion of sedition. He is now on bail... There was also a strong public reaction to the arrest. To some, the decision to arrest him was "baffling". To others, it was simply Beijing's playbook, replicated... "It's baffling how Miles was [arrested] for asking basic questions on behalf of many residents, which the government went on to address anyway," said Samuel Chu, a pro-democracy activist who reposted Kwan's petition on a separate platform. "This is not a political campaign. It's a human response to the tragedy," he said... China's national security office in Hong Kong swung into action swiftly after last week's disaster, warning that it would take action against anyone trying to instigate "black terror" - a phrase Beijing had used to describe the 2019 protests. In a more strongly-worded statement this week, it vowed to punish "hostile foreign forces... no matter how far away" they may be. Lee, Hong Kong's chief executive, said he would "ensure justice is [served]" to anyone who tries to "sabotage" relief efforts. Former district councillor Kenneth Cheung, who was among those arrested reportedly by national security police, says authorities took issue with content he re-shared on Facebook following the fire. "The Tai Po fire is a tragedy that concerns everyone in Hong Kong. Many, regardless of their political loyalties, want the culprits to be held accountable," says the 50-year-old, who is out on bail but has had his passport impounded. "Not everything is about politics," Cheung says. Hong Kong authorities are dealing with this disaster using Beijing's playbook, which focuses on social control and regime security, alleges Kenneth Chan, a politics professor at the Hong Kong Baptist University. He notes how authorities have over the weekend displaced community-led relief initiatives with groups backed by the government. "Officials will not embrace the spontaneity of these grassroots efforts because they want control," he alleges. He notes how authorities have over the weekend displaced community-led relief initiatives with groups backed by the government. "Officials will not embrace the spontaneity of these grassroots efforts because they want control," he alleges. Asked at a news conference earlier this week why he deserves to keep his job following the fire, John Lee sidestepped the question and instead pledged to take to task "anybody who dares to sabotage" relief efforts... Some residents have also criticised the decision to proceed with a Legislative Council election, at a time when the city is in mourning. Only pro-Beijing "patriots" are allowed to contest in the poll which will be held on Sunday... Some Legislative Council members made a request for an emergency debate to discuss the fire and post disaster relief work, but this was refused, with the government saying it would keep its focus on the issue of the fire itself."

How Hong Kong Is Stamping Out Discontent Over Fire - "Volunteers providing aid to survivors have also been reportedly asked to leave sites near the fire. Secretary for Home and Youth Affairs Alice Mak said on Nov. 29 that “we understand everyone's good intentions to help” but advised that volunteers and aid groups coordinate with the city government.  A volunteer told Sky News that “past incidents” have made authorities anxious about crowds forming: “They may liken this to previous events—the essence looks similar.”  The Hong Kong government appears to be wary of fomenting discontent that could snowball into mass demonstrations like in 2019, when widespread anti-establishment protests consumed the city. With reports of official negligence possibly contributing to the fire, Eric Lai, a senior fellow with the Georgetown Center for Asian Law, tells TIME that the government has since “abused” national security legislation in a bid to try and put things under control—“to escalate this domestic crisis management to a matter of regime security.”"

Did China Break an ASML Lithography Machine While Trying to Reverse-Engineer It? - "Interestingly, a source reports that in recent months, the Chinese have been caught trying to reverse-engineer the ASML DUV lithography machine. That’s not because the Chinese want to know how to mass produce these older machines. It’s because Chinese technicians are trying to learn the intricacies of the machines in order to indigenously replicate them—and then, more importantly, to develop more advanced indigenous lithography devices that the Chinese can then use to produce the newer, more advanced chips that the Americans have denied them access to.  But in the process of disassembling one of their older ASML systems, the Chinese apparently damaged it, prompting them to call ASML to send assistance to repair the broken device. Once ASML technicians arrived in China, they soon discovered that the machine had not simply broken down, but had broken because the Chinese attempted to disassemble and reassemble it.   This is an indicator of just how damaging the US chip bans have been for China. But it also shows that the Americans cannot simply rest on the chip bans to keep the Chinese behind the United States."

Dutch prepare to back down in Nexperia row with China - "the Dutch were prepared to reverse a previous decision to seize control of Nexperia as soon as next week, according to Bloomberg.  Vincent Karremans, the Dutch minister for economic affairs, said he expected the impasse to be resolved shortly.  The two sides have been locked in talks since last month when the Netherlands government used Cold War-era powers to essentially take control of Chinese-owned, but Dutch-headquartered, Nexperia.  The company is a major producer of chips that are ubiquitous in everything from cars to medical devices and defence platforms.  Dutch officials said they intervened for security reasons amid local media reports that Chinese executives were preparing to shut down the company’s European operations.  In response to the move, Beijing imposed strict export controls that stopped chips made by the Chinese division of Nexperia – which finishes and packages the products – being sent to the rest of the world.  It created a major crisis that prompted manufacturers to warn they were running down stockpiles and were days away from production line stoppages.  However, the Dutch government appeared to capitulate late on Thursday, as it was reported that officials were willing to walk back the seizure of Nexperia."

Why Western executives who visit China are coming back terrified - "“It’s the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” said Ford’s chief executive about his recent trip to China.  After visiting a string of factories, Jim Farley was left astonished by the technical innovations being packed into Chinese cars – from self-driving software to facial recognition.  “Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” Farley warned in July.  “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”  The car industry boss is not the only Western executive to have returned shaken following a visit to the Far East.  Andrew Forrest, the Australian billionaire behind mining giant Fortescue – which is investing massively in green energy – says his trips to China convinced him to abandon his company’s attempts to manufacture electric vehicle powertrains in-house... Other executives describe vast, “dark factories” where robots do so much of the work alone that there is no need to even leave the lights on for humans... It now boasts 567 robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers, compared to 449 for Germany, 307 for the US and 104 in the UK.  More automation is seen by many as good for productivity, the all-important measure of how much an economy gets out of what it puts in.  Many analysts also note that China’s growing share of worldwide manufacturing gives it increasing leverage over global supply chains – and would make it a formidable opponent in a war.  But alongside Beijing’s stated desire to dominate industries of the future, Rian Whitton, an expert at Bismarck Analysis, says increased automation is also an attempt to mitigate the impact of the country’s ageing population... unlike the “tragic” cars once mocked by Jeremy Clarkson and his colleagues on Top Gear, BYD’s recent efforts have been praised for both their low prices and their well-appointed interiors.  “The most striking thing about their automotive industry is the pace and the speed with which it operates,” says Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).  “They can develop and execute models in probably half of the time most European car makers can.”... The risk, however, is that “we don’t create the new, or we trap workers in the old instead of trying to leap forward,” Tordoir warns, pointing to the tendency of politicians to prevent ageing steel and car factories from closing instead of encouraging the creation of newer, high-tech jobs for workers to move to... “But I see the Government throwing billions of pounds each year at completely speculative rubbish like green hydrogen or to fulfil renewable [energy] obligations contracts and I just think, ‘Well, why not five billion a year in grants for capital equipment?  “That would arguably get a bigger bang for our buck than a lot of the energy-related industrial policies we pursue.” Counter-intuitively, Whitton says countries which had more automation during the first “China shock” of the 2000s – which flooded the world with cheap goods – managed to hold on to a greater share of industrial jobs.  “People talk a lot about how automation will lead to job losses,” he adds. “But actually, the job losses are going to be disproportionately in the countries that don’t automate.”  In other words, failing to modernise will almost certainly lead to more dark factories in the West. But the kind where no work at all is happening."
Time to 'tax the 'rich'' and pursue net zero

US seizes items thought to be made from hair of Muslims in Chinese labor camps - "US federal authorities have seized a shipment of products made from human hair believed to have been taken from Muslims in labor camps in China’s western Xinjiang province."

Jesse Peltan on X - "China's electricity is now 30% more than Europe's — PER CAPITA. More than double in total."
Time for Europe to double down on renewables

Meme - "China's double standard"
Appropriate
"Know the work rules"
Mao: *Kills 50+ million Chinese*
China: "Aww, you're sweet"
Inappropriate
Japan: *Kills 50+ million Chinese*
China: "HELLO, HUMAN RESOURCES?"

The West can still win the electric car war with China - "The danger for China is that it is sinking eye-watering sums into technologies that are no longer cutting-edge and is wasting resources on vast overcapacity that will never find a market... Communist Party planners seemed to have learned little from their conquest of the global ship-building market, a strategy backed by subsidies, give-away energy, and opaque help of all kinds that has ended in a revenue bloodbath for loss-making behemoths.  China’s share of global ship sales is currently in freefall. The momentary dominance is slipping through their fingers.  George Magnus from Oxford University’s China Centre said this industrial policy has been gobbling up some 7 to 8pc of GDP. The market discipline of Schumpeterian clearance has been blocked, allowing industrial deformation to fester.  China’s leaders may also find that their ruthless, state-driven, decade-long drive to control global supplies of the minerals and materials needed for EV production is less useful than they thought, and in some cases completely useless. These metals are not all so critical after all.  China’s weaponisation of rare earths and its curbs on battery technology – not just in retaliation against Trump, but against the whole democratic world – has alerted everybody to its wolf warrior intentions.  You cannot replace the mask once you have ripped it off. American and European companies will guard their technological secrets more closely this time."

Zeba Zoariah on X - "I’m from the Northeast - so when I say this, I mean it with heart and history. Prema Thongdok (originally from Rupa, West Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh) was en route from London to Japan, transiting via Shanghai, when she was held 18 hours by Chinese authorities simply because her Indian passport listed Arunachal Pradesh as her birthplace.  They told her: “Arunachal Pradesh is part of China -  your passport is invalid.” They even mocked her: “You should get a Chinese passport.”  Here’s the deal:
•Arunachal Pradesh is undeniably Indian territory and Indian citizens born there have full right to Indian passports
•And it undermines the very “normalcy” Beijing claims to want at LAC.
•Chinese interference in civilian transit and identity is not diplomacy - it’s intimidation.
•India lodged a strong demarche in Beijing & Delhi - reminding China that this detention was baseless and breached the Chicago Convention & Montreal Convention on civil aviation.
When a citizen from our Northeast is singled out just for their birthplace - that’s not foreign policy. That’s erasure. Northeast Indians are not bargaining chips, transit tokens or second-class travellers. We are India - in identity, in territory, in dignity."

The Great Translation Movement 大翻译运动 on X - "Today in history: On November 25th, 1950, Mao Zedong's son Mao Anying was killed in action by an air strike during Korean war. His position was revealed due to the smoke from cooking egg fried rice. Posting egg fried rice on 25th Nov becomes a popular anti-CCP meme on Chinese social media."

日深( 히미 )🇯🇵🇳🇫 on X - "It turns out that most of the accounts calling for Ryukyu (Okinawa) independence in Japanese are actually run by Chinese spies."

Ambassador YAMAGAMI Shingo on X - "Many thanks for your heart-warming message. Indeed, Japan is earnetsly waiting for tourists with good manner and genuine interest as its renowned cleanness and refined serenity increase due to the recent measure by our continental neighbor 👍"
Melissa Chen on X - "This 🇯🇵 Ambassador is taking a lot of heat for implying that Chinese tourists lack good manners but it’s weird because Chinese officials actually agree with him The CCP established a Civilization Office (part of the Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress) and part of their mandate is to deal with problematic tourists.   They draw up rules, blacklist individuals, and also provide classes to educate tourists on how to behave abroad.  All of the outrage is nothing more than kabuki theater."

Melissa Chen on X - "It isn’t just Japan:   There’s a growing wave of anti-Chinese sentiment and protests in South Korea 🇰🇷, which has intensified since it first began over a visa exemption for Chinese tourists in September.   Demonstrations have grown in Seoul, featuring calls for expulsion and unverified claims of election interference by China. Similar tropes about poor tourist behavior and infiltration into Korean politics and institutions abound.   In October, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung (a leftist) proposed a bill that imposes up to five years in prison for defaming China with the intended purpose of suppressing anti-Chinese rallies and “hate speech,” framing them as harmful to national interests and signaling a domestic push to foster a more welcoming environment for Beijing's influence.  This is very much like the UK government expanding hate speech laws to include anti-immigrant rhetoric and Islamophobia.  Hate speech laws prevent legitimate criticism. The goal in South Korea is to make it illegal to express valid concerns about Beijing's influence on Korean sovereignty and politics. In the UK it functions as a way to chill debate about mass immigration and social problems due to lack of integration among some cultures.  By the way, Charlie Kirk actually spoke out about this when he visited South Korea back in September, just weeks before he was killed."

China’s defence industry is in trouble - "Last year, China’s defence industry shrank by 10 per cent according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).  Over the last 10 years, dozens of individuals have been purged as part of the Chinese leader’s far-reaching anti-corruption campaign, including those in his inner circle."

South China Sea crash underscores China’s unprofessional military culture - "Nations across the globe have urged China to respect international law to prevent collisions at sea, but Beijing has repeatedly ignored such warnings, disregarding laws and norms and fostering an unprofessional culture of aggression among its mariners.  In August 2025, a China Coast Guard (CCG) ship chased a Philippine patrol vessel in the South China Sea before crossing paths with a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer. The resulting crash crumpled the CCG ship’s bow and left the vessel unseaworthy, according to Philippine Coast Guard Commodore Jay Tarriela.   Beijing did not immediately acknowledge the collision, although a CCG spokesperson claimed China’s actions were “professional and legitimate,” according to The New York Times newspaper.  Meanwhile, observers questioned why China sent a destroyer to the area, escalating  tensions and violating a 2012 agreement not to deploy naval vessels to a disputed atoll...   The crash is the latest in a yearslong series of South China Sea confrontations between Beijing and Manila. China claims almost all of the sea, its rich fisheries and key global shipping lanes, including waters in the Philippines’ internationally recognized exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Disregarding an international tribunal that invalidated Beijing’s claims in 2016, China continues deploying coast guard, naval and maritime militia ships to block, ram and harass Philippine civilian, law enforcement and military vessels operating lawfully in Manila’s EEZ."

Jonathon P Sine on X - "Working paper. Runs ~500k Chinese graduate dissertations through plagiarism-detection software, then links them to 60k successful civil-service recruits (and controls). Individuals with high plagiarism scores substantially more likely to enter government + advance faster."

Canada is climbing out of Trump’s frying pan and into Xi’s fire - "The final report of the Hogue Inquiry stated plainly in January of this year that “the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the most active perpetrator of foreign interference targeting Canada’s democratic institutions.” And it “poses the most sophisticated and active cyber threat to Canada …increasingly using social media and the Internet for disinformation campaigns involving elections.” One such disinformation campaign, against former MP Kenny Chiu, was documented extensively by The New York Times in an article entitled Canadian Politicians Who Criticize China Become Its Targets. For those keeping score, this means our newest so-called partner has recently undermined our democracy and kidnapped our citizens. What of China’s human rights record? In the midst of Canada’s announcements that the flame was rekindled, The Economist detailed how China is rounding up Christian leaders, using late-night arrest tactics that sound a great deal like scenes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago... Stephen Harper’s former deputy chief of staff, Howard Anglin, offered a 2021 assessment that bears repeating: “When we engage with the Chinese government, we deal with an outlaw regime that holds us in even lower contempt than the rule of law. And when we do business under their laws, we should do so with the expectation that those laws mean nothing, or rather will mean whatever the regime says they mean in its sole interest.” As the formerly detained Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig said in a recent interview, “If you create dependency on China, it will weaponize it for political purposes and to silence Canada and constrain our foreign policy.”"
Blindly hating Trump means denouncing him as authoritarian and fascist, then going all in on a country with real concentration camps

Singaporean journalist expelled from China after writing report about Xi Jinping's cousin - "A Singaporean journalist working for the Wall Street Journal in China has been effectively expelled from the mainland a month after he co-wrote a report that detailed how a close relative of President Xi Jinping's was involved in a money laundering probe and high-stakes gambling in Australia. Mr Wong Chun Han's press credentials expired on Friday (Aug 30) and would not be renewed... The WSJ story had pointed out that there were no signs Mr Xi was personally implicated or that he had known about his cousin's activities in Australia. The Chinese Foreign Ministry rubbished the report, calling it "groundless accusations based on some rumours". Mr Philip Wen, the other Beijing-based WSJ reporter and an Australian, had recently received a three-month visa, which is far shorter than the one year permit typically granted to foreign journalists operating in China. The private wealth of the families of China's political elite is one of the most sensitive topics in the country, and exposes have resulted in visa bans or delays for news outlets and reporters."
Clearly, Xi Jinping cares deeply about corruption and we know that he lost his visa because he was reporting fake news designed to undermine China and discredit Xi Dada's anti-corruption drive and anyone who disagrees is just biased against China and not worth engaging with