Links - 17th October 2024 (2)

FCC approves controversial radio station deal involving Soros-backed group - "The Federal Communications Commission has approved a controversial deal: it gives control of more than 200 radio stations to a group funded by Democratic mega-donor George Soros.  Some of those stations are in Texas...  Carr says whenever foreign ownership is involved the process takes months so that national security agencies can do a review.  “It's very much out of the ordinary, we'll be creating a special shortcut just for this one entity that is backed ultimately by this George Soros group," Carr said. In a letter Friday, the House Oversight Committee accused FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and other commissioners of "bypassing an established process to do a favor for George Soros and facilitate his influence over hundreds of radio stations before the November election.""
Billionaires controlling the media are only bad when they don't push the left wing agenda

Archaeologists Discover World's Oldest Break-Up Letter at Neo-Babylonian Site - "King Nabonidus wasn’t a fan of being stood up, says a new finding by archeologists at Liberty University. Researchers have unveiled that the 6th-century BCE Neo-Babylonian king sent what is thought to be the first break-up letter ever discovered... “News has reached me via the Upper Euphrates that you were visiting with my childhood friend Nisaba. I am devastated by this betrayal, as you are one of my favorite concubines. You have until the end of the month to pick up your flax shawls and sandals or else I will donate them to the temple of the moon god.”"

Meme - *Nursing Director, Chief Medical Officer, Hospital Administrator, Healthcare IT Specialist. Pharmacy Manager. Health Policy Analyst, Health and Safety Officer, Medical Records Supervisor, Clinical Research Manager, Patient Care Coordinator sitting around looking at frontline staff dig hole*
Frontline staff: *digging hole alone*
"Due to budget constraints, we're going to have to let our frontline staff go."

How Where You’re Born Influences the Person You Become
This makes no attempt to correct for genetics, despite giving it a passing mention

In the 2024 Democratic Party Platform, the word Women appears 82 times, the word Men, 4 times. Why don't the Democrats pay more attention to male voters since they trail among them in the vote? : r/MensRights - "They don't care about our vote."
"They don't care about our issues or concerns. They do want our votes and expect to get them by guilting."
"This. I was pretty enthusiastic about Harris until I started trying to talk about improving the quality of life for men and they acted like I was crazy. I'm convinced their version of feminism means women get everything, not equality."
"They want our votes for now, but hope either way for them to become unnecessary; women make a slim majority at present and are more easily swayed by their rhetoric than men when removed from social support structures like family and religion. Their work for some time now has been tearing down every conceivable social support and replacing it with their politics."
"More bluntly, they don't care about men. If they have any feeling towards men and boys, its toleration at best, outright hate and resentment more frequently."

Meme - "MEN LOOK AT BOOBS FOR THE SAME REASON A LITTLE KID LOOKS AT PUPPIES IN A CAGE. WE JUST WANT TO SET THEM FREE AND PLAY WITH THEM."

Meme - "YOU'LL BE A BIG MOVIE STAR, BABY! I SEE OSCARS AND TONYS IN YOUR FUTURE!"
"WHERE DO I SIGN!?"
"OKAY OSCAR AND TONY, YOU'RE UP"
"SUPER BUM LOVE 7" *worried man on bed exposing ass*

Meme - "When you're at an airport security check and they pull out an Uno reverse card *Muslim woman in hijab screening white lady*"

Meme - "The fact Bill Clinton may have bombed a country so Hillary Clinton would resume missionary sex with the lights off has ruined my entire week."
"A biography of Hillary Clinton, written by Gail Sheehy and published in late 1999, stated that Mrs. Clinton had refused to talk to the president for eight months after the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke. She resumed talking to her husband only when she phoned him and urged him in the strongest terms to begin bombing Serbia; the president began bombing within 24 hours. Alexander Cockburn observed in the Los Angeles Times,"

In the 18th Century, Pineapples Were a Symbol of Wealth and Power - "Originally from South America, pineapples were discovered by Christopher Columbus on one of his voyages to the New World. When he brought them back to Spain, many Europeans — royalty in particular — were completely taken by the delicacy. It was a rare, beautiful fruit most people had never encountered before and artists began incorporating pineapples in their work — whether lavishly depicted in  a painting or elegantly carved into wooden furniture.  The pineapple made its way to England in the 17th century and by the 18th century, being seen with one was an instant indicator of wealth — a single pineapple could cost the equivalent of $8,000 today. In fact, the fruit was so desirable and rare that consumers often rented a pineapple for the night to show off to fellow party-goers."

Montreal bylaws: Man fined for tying dog to parking meter - "A Montreal man who tied his dog to a parking meter while he entered a bakery is now facing a hefty fine for breaking a law he had no idea existed.  He's warning other pet owners who may face similar fines.  "It's something that I've seen other people do, myself included," said Dimitar Beshkov, with his four-year-old mutt Indy.  On Thursday, Beshkov popped in for a croissant on Rachel Street and tied Indy to a meter outside.  When he came out, less than five minutes later, a Montreal police (SPVM) officer was waiting to give him a ticket for $664...  According to the City of Montreal's website, tying a dog to a tree or street furniture is prohibited under provincial law.  At all times, a dog must be under the control of a person capable of controlling it.  It is a law the SPCA supports.  "Though it may seem ridiculous, in these particular circumstances, very strictly regulating when dogs can be tied outside is actually sound policy in terms of animal welfare and public safety," said SPCA lawyer Sophie Gaillard."

I found the stupidest way to find a job and it’s given me more results than 300 online applications. : r/GenZ - "It’s so fricken simple, but it’s worked 3 times last month. If you work at a retail store or some job where you meet customers/clients on a regular basis. All you have to do is get everyone talking about the economy then wiggle into the conversation about “how no one wants to work”. Really get them talking and eventually you’ll run into someone complaining about how one of their employees or coworkers quit or doesn’t want to work. Just agree with their circumstances. Then let them know how you’re looking for a job.  I did this to everyone for a month and so far I got 3 job offers as an insurance sales associate, HR recruiter, and a factory worker all paying 25 dollars or more."

That Time William McKinley Gave Away His Lucky Flower—And Then Died - "Early in his political career, an opponent of William McKinley’s gave him a red carnation boutonniere to wear during a debate. McKinley went on to win that debate and then the congressional election in 1887 (he served in the Ohio House of Representatives for 14 years), and he saw this red carnation as his good luck charm. He began wearing one during all election cycles, including his two gubernatorial wins and his 1896 presidential campaign. After his first presidential win, McKinley started wearing a single carnation in his lapel at all times. He even kept a bouquet of them on his desk in the Oval Office and would gift them to visitors.  McKinley—who was born on January 29, 1843—was also known to give people the flower from his lapel, though he would replace it as quickly as possible. In 1901, months after his second term in office began, he was in Buffalo, New York for the Pan-American Exposition. While greeting the public, he met a 12-year-old girl named Myrtle Ledger who was there with her mother. Years later, Myrtle recalled that President McKinley said, “I must give this flower to another little flower,” and then he gave her his lucky carnation.  Minutes later, McKinley greeted another person in line—his assassin, Leon Czolgosz. The president was shot twice and died the following week from gangrene. Three years later, the Ohio General Assembly named the scarlet carnation the official state flower in his honor."

Meme - Benny Feldman @Feldfrog: "You know how people who used to torture animals as a kid are way more likely to be psycopaths as adults? I'm sort of the opposite, I actually used to catch girl rabbits and pleasure them effortlessly with my fingers until they came"

Family that walk on all fours have 'undone the last three million years of evolution' - "The Ulas family has been the subject of evolutionary fascination for years after they were discovered in a remote village in Turkey walking on all fours. Back in the early 2000s, a scientific paper was published on five of the Ulas siblings and their strange bear crawl-style of movement, with experts divided over the cause of the abnormality... The Ulas mother and father had a staggering 18 children, however, of these, only six were born with quadrupedalism (walking on all fours), which has never been seen before in modern adult humans... Humphrey pointed out that the affected siblings – five of whom are still alive and aged between 22 and 38 – all suffer from a particular form of brain damage. In the 60 Minutes documentary, he showed MRI scans which revealed that they each had a shrunken section of the brain called the cerebellar vermis. However, the professor also noted that this in itself “[doesn’t] account for their walking on four legs”. He explained: “Other children who have damaged cerebellum, even children who have no cerebellum, can still walk upright.” He also stressed that the Ulas’ form of quadrupedalism differs from that seen in our closest animal relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas – in one key way. Whilst these primates walk on their knuckles, the Turkish children’s use the palms of their hands – putting their weight on their wrists while lifting their fingers off the ground. "What's significant about that is that chimpanzees ruin their fingers walking like that"... "These kids have kept their fingers very agile, for example, the girls in the family can do crochet and embroidery," he added. Humphrey has hypothesised that this could indeed be the way our direct ancestors walked... The LSE researcher also suggested that there are more basic explanations for the Ulas children’s quadrupedalism: they were simply not encouraged to walk on two feet. In the Turkish village where they grew up, there was no local health service to help the disabled kids make the transition from crawling as babies (on hands and knees) to walking fully upright. Humphrey told 60 Minutes that he provided the Ulases with a walking frame and within a few hours “there was an astonishing transformation”. “The children who had never taken a step upright on two legs [used] this frame to walk across the room with such delight in their faces and a sense of achievement,” he recalled, adding that it was as if they had “suddenly made a breakthrough into the world they never imagined they could ever enter.”"

Labour’s authoritarian urges are worryingly obvious... and not just in outdoor smoking ban it intends to impose - "They’re there too in the Home Secretary’s extraordinary plan to embroil our police once again in recording “non-crime hate incidents”. Yvette Cooper seems to believe this will show zero tolerance for anti- Semitism and Islamophobia. Experience proves it will be a mandate for cops to probe anyone who simply hurts another’s feelings via even the most anodyne remark in person or online. That’s not police business. Besides, they’ll be busy enough chasing illegal smokers down the street on behalf of the Government’s public health fanatics. Or should we say “irregular” smokers, since “irregular” is how Labour intends now to rebrand the illegal migrants landing on our beaches in small boats? Meanwhile, in our universities, Tory measures painstakingly negotiated to preserve free speech are set to be axed. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson risibly claims they were a charter for “hate speech” against minorities. In fact they were merely a safeguard against aggressive left-wing radicals shutting down speakers voicing even mildly conservative views on campus. Some political balance is vital. Our students and lecturers are already overwhelmingly left-wing and our universities the wokest places in the land. At University College London a new edict says vulnerable people must not be called “vulnerable”. Even if your sole motive is their protection and needs, such supposedly unthinking and blunt language could “disempower them”. Will Labour ever rein in this insanity? As we say, the omens are not good."

Estonia offers to hold UK prisoners as our jails are full with record number of lags - "Estonia’s minister of justice Liisa Pakosta said the Baltic nation had cells it could rent out to Nato allies. She said the scheme could be worth £25million to Estonia and hinted the UK and Sweden are already in talks over sending prisoners there."

‘A whole economy issue’: Labour productivity declines for second straight quarter - "“This is not a problem confined to one region or sector — say manufacturing. It is a whole economy issue,” said Douglas Porter , chief economist at Bank of Montreal, in a note to clients. “And while it may seem like an esoteric topic for many, the reality is that unless it is properly addressed, Canada’s relative standard of living will continue to weaken.”... Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada, said it’s important to look at productivity before the pandemic, prior to disruptions that skew the data. Antunes says Canada’s productivity overall has declined 0.5 per cent compared to the average in 2019 and Canada has been a laggard for decades... This low productivity trend has also grabbed the attention of the Bank of Canada this past spring, when Bank of Canada senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers delivered a speech in Halifax, highlighting Canada’s productivity problem has reached an emergency level... GDP per-capita, another important measure to look at when discussing the standard of living of Canadians, posted its fifth consecutive quarterly decline during the second quarter of this year. Porter notes Canada continues to be outpaced by our American counterparts when it comes to productivity and our position among the OECD continues to decline. “U.S. productivity has thus outpaced Canada by 10 per cent in the past five years alone,” said Porter. “Looking at GDP per hours worked in U.S. dollar terms, the OECD finds that Canada has now slipped even below Italy and Spain and is losing sight of the U.S. and most Northern European economies.”"

Michael Higgins: Jagmeet Singh can still yank Liberals even further to the left - "To be fair to Jagmeet Singh he has parlayed two dozen NDP seats into a political wedge that has forced the Liberals to turn sharp left. That he gets no credit for it, even from NDP supporters, is probably because he is a tiresome, whining, sanctimonious hypocrite. Singh’s hypocrisy during his political marriage with the Liberals has been a defining feature of the last two years — attack Justin Trudeau on every occasion, but back him in the House of Commons to ensure the government doesn’t fall... Singh never seems to waste an opportunity to turn the political marital bed into a verbal pillow fight. Singh told delegates attending the British Columbia NDP convention last November, “I have seen Trudeau’s government up close. I shouldn’t be mean, but one of our MPs has described working with the Liberals like wrestling eels that are soaked in oil.” But he also noted, Trudeau “only acts when he is forced to, or when his political future is on the line.” It is this that Singh is gambling on. Certainly, Singh blindsided the Liberals on Wednesday with his announcement that he was dissolving their partnership — the one that in 2022 called for “no surprises” between the two parties. Just over a week ago, Government House Leader Karina Gould said she was “fairly confident” that the agreement would hold through to June 2025... Of course, Singh must also have his eye on the declining polling numbers for the NDP. According to an aggregate of polls for 338Canada , if an election were held now the NDP would see their number decline by a third — down to 16 seats from 24."

Is this Jagmeet Singh's swan song? - "The party’s gambit was simple: by working alongside the Liberals, the New Democrats could claim credit for such popular policies as national dental care and pharmacare. The idea was that once these programs started rolling out, Canadians would recognize the NDP’s hand in these initiatives and reward it with strong polling numbers. But, to the surprise of Singh and his team, the anticipated poll bounce never came. What was worse — the struggling Liberal government became more of an anchor than a lifeline to NDP fortunes. Rather than boosting support, Singh’s deal with the Liberals dragged both parties down. The Liberals tacked further left than expected and have seen public trust erode. Meanwhile, the NDP found itself on the wrong side of issues that alienated voters it desperately needs. Take, for instance, the NDP-backed motion on the Israel-Hamas war. Watered down from its original form, which sought recognition of a Palestinian state, it still signalled an uncomfortable departure from Canada’s long-standing foreign policy. This misstep may cost the Liberals key seats, such as the Toronto–St. Paul’s stronghold they lost in a June byelection. It’s a perfect storm of mistakes that make Singh’s latest declaration of independence seem less like a power move and more like a last-ditch effort to save face ahead of must-win byelections in Winnipeg and Montreal. Is this Singh’s swan song? It certainly feels like the beginning of the end for his leadership. Some within the NDP have already started asking tough questions. Singh has failed to consistently raise the party’s polling numbers above 20 per cent — a threshold the NDP hasn’t regularly crossed since he took the helm. Compared with the heights reached under Jack Layton or even Tom Mulcair when the NDP was a genuine contender for power, the party’s performance under Singh’s leadership has been underwhelming. It’s time to face the facts — today’s NDP has morphed from a vehicle for political and social change into a platform for Jagmeet Singh’s vanity. Yet his social media persona, though appealing to younger voters, hasn’t translated into the kind of widespread support the party needs... The NDP leadership review last October, while not damning enough to force Singh out, showed cracks in the foundation. It represented one of the worst reviews of any NDP leader since the 1970s."

Singh targets carbon tax in a flaccid attempt to imitate Poilievre - "In August 2021, pre-coalition deal, EKOS had the Conservatives polling 52 per cent higher than the NDP among working-class voters; by August 2024, that lead grew to 119 per cent... Singh, it seems, had to learn the hard way that punitively taxing people for existing in a modern (but cold) economy isn’t exactly the way into a working voter’s heart. The Liberals and NDP have forked on how to manage this mess: the NDP are denouncing the present iteration of carbon pricing (sort of), invoking the disproportionate suffering workers are supposed to experience in a changed climate without openly opposing it. The Liberals, meanwhile, are trying out another hopeless rebrand while giving carve-outs to strategic provinces (Atlantic Canada). Layered with other flaccid working-class pitches, it’s not hard to see why the Conservatives are in the lead. The NDP has largely veered from labour politics toward campus-style identity concerns, even supporting the Liberal government as it caved to the rail duopoly in its dispute with train engineers. The Liberals have performed miserably worse on worker appeal, touting rebates and welfare programs nobody wants to have to rely on. Sure, there’s a carbon tax rebate, but the scheme is still a net negative for all but the bottom quintile — most people know that money is best left in their pockets anyway. The free amenities don’t resonate all that much better. Liberal free school lunches, Liberal free birth control — all while Canada is getting collectively poorer respective to peer countries. Trudeau, confronted by a dissatisfied steelworker two weeks ago, even tried to play the free dental-care card. Didn’t this tradesman appreciate the latest expansion of the welfare state? No, of course not. “I pay for it myself…. Why? I have a good job,” responded the worker. The Liberals, and to a lesser degree, the NDP, struggle to understand the great insult of having welfare jigged in front of one’s face like a lure. No, a few hundred-dollar “Climate Action Incentive Payment” isn’t enough to buy someone’s vote, and it’s offensive to even suggest that it might be. No, another free service that everyone could afford in 2005 isn’t going to cut it, especially when many of us can’t reliably find a doctor. Climate justice was only fun when the rich were the ones paying, and handouts only felt great when most workers didn’t need them."
The working class is too stupid and ignorant to realise that the NDP is the party that really represents their interests. But they're too bigoted to swallow identity politics after all

Jack Karlson, who shot to fame after ‘succulent Chinese meal’ arrest, dies aged 82 - "The man who immortalised the phrase “this is democracy manifest” while starring in what has been described as the pre-eminent Australian meme, Jack Karlson, has died aged 82. Karlson – although there are debates as to whether this was his real name or one of many aliases – was a serial prison escaper and small-time crook who shot to fame in 2009 after a news clip of his arrest at a Chinese restaurant in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in 1991 was uploaded on to the internet. “What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?” Karlson theatrically boomed as his bear-like frame resisted a string of police officers."

Angry netizens call out Wells Fargo for not noticing a dead employee for 4 days - "Denise Prudhomme, a sixty-year-old, worked at the American financial services's corporate office in Tempe, Arizona. She clocked in at 7 am on August 16, Friday. On Tuesday, August 20, she was found in her cubicle at 4:55 pm by the police and was pronounced dead. The preliminary investigation did not indicate any foul play. According to a USA Today report, the company stated that since the employee’s desk was located in a very “underpopulated area,” she went unnoticed during the weekend... most of the people are the company work remotely"
It's a good bet that most bashing the company also demand remote work

Schools are competing with cellphones. Here's how they think they could win - "At Nguyen’s school, students lock their phones in neoprene pouches during classes or even all day. A teacher or principal’s magnetic key unlocks the pouches. It doesn’t matter how dynamic the lesson, said Nguyen, who teaches at Marina Valley High School and now markets the pouches to other schools. “There’s nothing that can compete with the cell phone.”... Some say other forces behind teen disengagement are only amplified by the cellphone. The divisive political climate often makes students unwilling to participate in class, when anything they say can rocket around the school in a messaging app. Taylor’s high school English students tell him they don’t talk in class because they don’t want to be “ canceled ” — a term applied to public figures who are silenced or boycotted after offensive opinions or speech. “I’m like, ‘Well, who’s canceling you? And why would you be canceled? We’re talking about `The Great Gatsby,’” not some controversial political topic, he said. Students “get very, very quiet” when topics such as sexuality, gender or politics come up in novels, said Higgins, the Massachusetts English teacher. “Eight years ago, you had hands shooting up all over the place. Nobody wants to be labeled a certain way anymore or to be ridiculed or to be called out for politics.” So Higgins uses websites such as Parlay that allow students to have online discussions anonymously. The services are expensive, but Higgins believes the class engagement is worth it. “I can see who they are when they’re responding to questions and things, but other students can’t see,” Higgins said. “That can be very, very powerful.”"

Meme - Japanese sign: "Please do not finger the peaches. As this fruit is easily damaged, would you mind not touching it by hand."

Weird Florida throwback: Psychedelic mushrooms and alligators don't mix - "Amid the recent news of a face-biting slaying and an accused Chipotle-eating baby neglecter, it's easy to forget that Florida has always been a land of weird behavior. Here's an example from 2013, when five Florida men learned a valuable lesson: psychedelic mushrooms plus marijuana plus alligators does not equal a good time... a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer found four men and a teenager in Little Big Econ State Forest near Oviedo with a bag full of narcotics. Those arrested included Rick Myers, 30; Tyler Salzman, 20; Gregory Sansota, 22; and Jacob Russell, 20. The juvenile’s name was not released, and a woman with the group was not booked.  According to the wildlife commission, the group had psilocybin mushrooms in the bag while one of the men was holding a 2-foot alligator that was “tucked into a bandana.”... The incident inspired the viral photo that read: “Do Not Feed Hallucinogens To The Alligators”"

Mike Benz on X - "The US State Dept called in massive favors & leveraged personal connections to build voting machines for Lula-aligned Brazil officials and then the CIA warned Bolsonaro not to mess with or cast doubt on all the new US State Dept-secured voting machines determining his election"
Mike Benz on X - "What’s funny is both the 1964 military junta in Brazil and the 2022 judicial junta in Brazil received direct help from the CIA to rise to power."

Crémieux on X - "Have you seen these charts on parental time use from Our World in Data, Financial Times, and The Economist? These graphs are not good... In some cases, they fit an exponential increase to data with limited differences between just two timepoints!"

Meme - ">Playing DnD
>Wizard gets into a fight with an important NPC
>When the wizard realizes who the NPC is, he apologizes and asks "As a token of my goodwill, would you like me to make you a magical sword?"
>NPC agrees
>Wizard casts polymorph and turns them into a sword.
>Argues that the NPC shouldn't have a will save because they agreed to it."

“Genocide”? Canada’s Government Wanted to Close Every Indian Residential School in the 1940s

Ironically, left wingers are usually for compulsory schooling.

Canada’s Government Wanted to Close Every Indian Residential School

"In what might be considered an act of heroic optimism, in March 1942 Canada’s House of Commons convened a special committee to “study and report upon the general problems of reconstruction and re-establishment which may arise at the termination of the present war.” This was a particularly grim time for the Allies in the Second World War. Most of Europe was under Axis control, German general Erwin Rommel was rampaging across North Africa and the German army was near the outskirts of Leningrad and Moscow. In the Pacific theatre, Japan had recently captured Singapore and Burma, and the crucial Battle of Midway was still three months away. Nevertheless, a committee of Canadian politicians was tasked with imagining what the country would look like after the war.

By February 1944, the Reconstruction and Re-Establishment Committee turned its attention to Canada’s Indian Residential School system which, for the most part, educated native students from remote reserves in dormitory-style schools...

Appearing before the committee to discuss Canada’s now-demonized residential schools was Robert Hoey, superintendent of Welfare and Training at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Summarizing the attitude in Ottawa, Hoey said most of his fellow bureaucrats “can dismiss the matter just in a sentence – that the residential schools are no good. But,” he added, “they use language considerably more forceful than that.”

Hoey explained that his own opinion was not quite so pointed; he was in favour of offering an education to as many “Indians” as possible, regardless of the venue. He did admit, however, that his department was closing residential schools at the rate of about one per year. “I think we are outgrowing our Indian residential schools,” Hoey noted. Asked how he would direct future budgets, he replied, “Establish day schools.”

Committee member and Saskatchewan MP Dorise Nielsen strongly agreed with this sentiment...

Such rubbishing of residential schools was neither new nor novel. In 1942, deputy superintendent-general of Indian Affairs Harold McGill wrote to his deputy minister explaining that, “I hold, and have long held the opinion that the educational requirements of the great majority of Indians could be met by day schools to the decided benefit of the Indians and the financial benefit of the taxpayer.” The deputy minister replied in the margins of McGill’s memo, “As soon as war regulations regarding building materials permit, the building of day schools and the closing of residential schools should be proceeded with.”

An official dislike for segregating native students in remote residential schools was again evident in the 1948 report of a joint House of Commons and Senate committee reviewing the Indian Act. The report’s central recommendation was that “wherever and whenever possible Indian children should be educated in association with other children.” (See page 188 of document.) Some committee member expressed interest in “having Indian children sent to municipal or provincial day schools” rather than continuing with the existing federal system at all. (See page 47.) Following these recommendations, Ottawa essentially froze enrolment in residential schools in anticipation of eventually shutting them down.

It was thus the express desire of Canada’s federal government to rid itself of residential schools as early as the 1940s – five decades before the last school finally closed its doors in 1996. So why didn’t the federal government close them all in 1948? Not only would such a move have saved Ottawa considerable money and effort, it would also have avoided later accusations that the operation of these schools constituted a “genocide”, as a unanimous House of Commons motion claimed in 2022. The answer: because the government was not prepared to abandon vulnerable Indigenous children.

As painful as it may be to admit today, the vast majority of native children attending residential schools during the post-war period suffered from social ills, family hardships and health concerns that were far more serious than those faced by most other children in Canada. In particular, the devastating inter-generational effects of alcoholism and parental dysfunction on reserves had turned residential schools into a de facto native child welfare system. Had the government shut these schools down in the 1940s, as it very much wanted to, those children would have been left at grave risk of injury or death. There was, quite simply, no other place for them to go.

And so, regardless of the well-documented problems of ill-health and abuse at some residential schools, keeping them open long past their due date was a decision made with the best interests of Indigenous children at heart. Considering this, claims of genocide are not just wrong, but outrageously wrong.

In the late 1800s the new country of Canada was faced with the perplexing problem of how to help an estimated 120,000 Indigenous people habituated to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle cope with the sudden demands of a modern society based on agriculture, resource extraction, permanent towns and expanding industries. The populist reform movement sweeping across North America seemed to offer a ready answer: public education. Publicly-provided, compulsory schooling was widely hailed as the solution to poverty and social disharmony throughout Canada...

Indigenous leaders were well aware of the over-arching importance of education; church-run residential schools had been operating in Canada as charitable missionary endeavours as early as the 1600s. When Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minster, began signing treaties with the inhabitants of what had been Rupert’s Land (now most of western Canada) in the 1870s, the issue of education was a key area of negotiation. All of the “numbered” treaties signed between the federal government and the various tribes required Ottawa to build and run schools “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it,” as Treaty 6 states. Schools were thus a contractual obligation for the Government of Canada. For native parents, the schools were to be the means by which their children could enter a world they were struggling to comprehend...

In line with its treaty promises, the federal government began funding a church-run Indian Residential School system (as well as a day school system) shortly after Confederation so as to provide native children with basic language and other skills required to function in Canadian society. This was to be a voluntary acculturation process, at least during Macdonald’s time. As Indian Affairs’ annual report for 1898 stated, “The Department’s policy is as long as possible to refrain from compulsory measures and try the effect of moral suasion and an appeal to self-interest.”

Not until the 1920s did federal legislation extend compulsory education to native children, although this policy was rarely enforced. Most Indigenous children attended school for only a few years, with more than half of the attendees of both day and residential schools dropping out after Grade 1. Such schools were clearly not prison camps, as is often alleged...

The disastrous effects of alcohol on native communities shows itself very early in Canadian history...

Protecting native communities from alcoholism’s debilitating effects was also one of the driving forces behind creation of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) in 1873. The Mounties were tasked with stemming the illicit trade in whiskey flowing across the border from the United States. Their efforts were gratefully recognized by Chief Isapo-Muxika at the signing of Treaty 7 in 1877. “If the [NWMP] police had not come to this country, where would we all be now? Bad men and whiskey were killing us so fast that few of us would have been alive today. The Police have protected us as the feathers of the bird protect it from the frosts of winter.”...

The modern impact of alcohol on native Canadians has been dealt with by several noted Indigenous writers, including Calvin Helin and Harold Johnson. In his powerful 2016 book Firewater: How Alcohol is Killing my People (and Yours), Johnson, a former Saskatchewan Crown prosecutor who died in 2022, makes the provocative claim that half the Indigenous people known to him locally died, either directly or indirectly, from alcohol abuse.

“I can’t stay silent any longer. I cannot with good conscience bury another relative,” Johnson writes in Firewater. “I cannot watch any longer as a constant stream of our relatives come into the justice system because of the horrible things they have done to each other while they were drunk. The suffering caused by alcohol, the kids with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), the violence, the poverty, the abandoned children, the mental wards and the emergency rooms, the injuries and the illnesses and the loss of hope and the suicides have all piled up within me to the point that I must speak.”

FASD deserves special attention in any discussion of residential schools. It was only formally identified as a medical condition in the 1970s, but its impact likely goes back centuries. It is caused when a woman consumes alcohol while pregnant, damaging the developing fetus within her. FASD can impair the victim’s health in numerous ways including physical abnormalities as well as problems with memory, cognition, communication and abstract reasoning. Children with FASD typically have serious difficulties in school, both academically and in interacting with others. Tragically, these problems inevitably follow them into adult life, revealed by high rates of violence (including spousal and sexual abuse), suicide and addiction.

FASD can repeat in an endless cycle as women with FASD are prone to drinking during pregnancy, resulting in another generation of FASD children. And while this pathology can occur within any race or culture, it is particularly virulent on Canadian reserves. Scientific studies suggest FASD occurs among Indigenous children on and off reserves at rates between 10 and 100 times greater than in the rest of Canada. Nearly two-thirds of Inuit women in Arctic Quebec, for example, drink during pregnancy, putting their children at great risk of FASD. A recent academic study identified five key demographics in which FASD is most prevalent worldwide; Canadian Indigenous children under the care of welfare agencies lie at the intersection of several of these categories.

Despite the enormous shadow cast by FASD and alcoholism in native communities, the issue is rarely discussed in official circles. The 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), for example, barely mentions the topic. And just two of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action (#33 and #34) make any reference to FASD – one of which demands the court system treat those with FASD in a more lenient fashion, a proposal that can lead to further trauma on reserves. FASD is the unmentioned demon that haunts the native experience throughout Canada.

As Ottawa sought to extricate itself from the residential school system in the post-war period, it was confronted by a great surge in the number of Indigenous schoolkids, fuelled by a native baby boom every bit as profound as the post-war baby boom in the rest of Canada. Between 1943 and 1954, the number of Indigenous students doubled from 16,000 to 32,500. And within this boom was a rapidly growing share of students described as “neglected children”, “orphans and part-orphans” or children from “broken and problem homes”. This was almost certainly the result of alcoholism and undiagnosed FASD on reserves. Whatever the terminology, government officials felt they couldn’t just leave these children at home with their parents. And the only place they could send them was residential schools.

In 1996 Trent University historian John S. Milloy produced a lengthy report on the history of Canada’s residential schools for the RCAP entitled Suffer the Little Children: The Aboriginal Residential School System 1830-1992 (later revised and republished as A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System 1879-1986). In his earlier RCAP report, Milloy examined why Ottawa failed to carry through with its stated intention to shut down the residential school system in the 1940s and concluded it was due to “the emergence of a new role for the schools, that of social welfare institutions.”...

During the aforementioned Reconstruction and Re-Establishment Committee hearings in 1944, superintendent Hoey candidly admitted that while his department was shutting down residential schools, they remained necessary for the care of “orphans and children from disrupted homes.” The same message can be found in the 1948 Indian Act joint committee recommendations, which said residential schools were required for children “who come from homes in which competent welfare workers decide that institutional care is needed.” What to do with child welfare cases on reserves was always a dilemma for federal officials, but in the post-war era it was growing much worse. And this created a major impediment to Ottawa’s planned exit from native education...

Typically, a child required an application form to attend a residential school. Where a child could otherwise reasonably attend a day school, the application had to be supported by an additional explanation for why residential school was necessary, chosen from one of six categories. Category 3 covered cases of “serious neglect.” By 1954, Milloy reported, Category 3 welfare cases were given “first priority in admission.” Milloy says he found “many thousands” of such applications...

In all cases, a residential school placement appeared to be the only recourse available to protect or help the child in question.

A federal census taken in 1953 found that 43 percent of the 10,112 Indigenous children in residential schools nationwide were listed as neglected or living in homes that were unfit because of parental indifference or over-crowding...

As the supply of such cases increased, Canada’s Indian Residential Schools were forced to transform themselves from mainly educational institutions to “a sort of foster home which endeavour[s] to cater to the social and emotional needs of the child,” as a 1966 departmental report cited by Milloy puts it. In that year, an astounding 75 percent of 9,778 residential students were welfare cases. At Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Residential School, federal regional director Francis B. McKinnon noted in 1967 that, “Practically all the children now in residence have been placed there mainly for reasons other than to facilitate school attendance.” A church official replied that his school had essentially become “a welfare institution.”

As time went on and Ottawa pushed its policy of opening day schools and closing residential schools, the share of difficult cases in the remaining residential schools went up even further. By 1975, children from “broken or immoral homes” constituted nearly the entire student population at three Saskatchewan residential schools: Gordon’s Residential School (83 percent), Muscowequan Residential School (64 percent) and Cowessess Residential School (80 percent)...

The near-complete takeover of these schools by high-needs children, many of them likely suffering from undiagnosed FASD or other health problems, would have made the experience for all students extremely difficult, especially the minority who were attending only because there was no day school near their home reserve. This may help explain why so many witnesses to the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission expressed such negative memories of their time at residential school which, in turn, led to accusations of genocide.

As the problems of forcing church-run residential schools to become child welfare institutions multiplied, Ottawa finally found a way out of its conundrum. In 1964 the Federal-Provincial Conference on Indian Affairs came to an agreement on “the terms under which Indian children may be accepted in provincial schools.” A separate series of federal-provincial agreements around the same time also transferred the care of native children in need to provincial child welfare agencies. But even with these agreements, the shutdown of residential schools still took decades. By the mid-1980s the transfer was largely complete, even if the last school – Gordon’s Indian Residential School in Punnichy, Saskatchewan – remained open until 1996...

Given the circumstances on reserves, having white families foster vulnerable native children was considered by many child welfare experts to be the best available option. The Sixties Scoop was driven by the same intractable conditions that turned residential schools into welfare institutions several decades earlier: in the absence of any other viable alternatives, it was considered the only way to help desperate children in need. Today, this policy is widely referred to as an “abduction of First Nations children” and yet another stain on Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people. It has also been duly apologized for and generous compensation has been paid. Amid all this breast-beating, however, one might also spare a sympathetic thought for the thousands of loving parents whose act of compassion in adopting impoverished and distressed native children is now regarded as yet another form of genocide.

Following the transfer of native child welfare to the provinces in the 1960s, responsibility was further devolved to Indigenous agencies. This process culminated in 2019 with federal legislation intended to completely “Indigenize” native child welfare by allowing every First Nation in the country to create and deliver its own care standards. The new law also makes it nearly impossible to apprehend native children from dysfunctional homes, as such cases will now be subject to a “cultural continuity” test.

This law was challenged and judged partially unconstitutional by Quebec courts in 2022 as an overstep into provincial jurisdiction. Earlier this month, however, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled it to be wholly constitutional, with Indigenous leaders hailing the decision as an “historic moment” in “advancing reconciliation”. Can this latest change in jurisdiction really make a difference in improving the lives of vulnerable Indigenous children? It seems unlikely.

Despite the closure of the entire residential school system, several decades of devolution and the rapidly ascendant role of Indigenous-controlled child welfare agencies, the foundational problems have never gone away. In Manitoba, 91 percent of children under the care of a family services agency are Indigenous. Nationwide, according to the 2021 Census, native children under 14 account for 53.8 percent of children in care, despite representing less than 8 percent of children that age in Canada. Meanwhile, Indigenous youth continue to struggle with alcohol and drug use, unemployment, low educational attainment and mental health problems at rates substantially above the rest of the country. The most obvious conclusion regarding the intractable persistence of these social issues is that jurisdiction is irrelevant. The residential school system was never the cause, but one of many attempted solutions.

Should Canada’s residential school system be characterized as a genocide? It has lately become impossible to discuss the history of residential schools without confronting this damning allegation. The 2022 House of Commons motion claims the answer is self-evident. So too the 2019 report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (Although the latter came with a “cultural genocide” qualifier.) More recently, some proponents have even demanded any opinions to the contrary be criminalized.

A careful review of the facts belies these hysterical allegations. While conditions in some schools were less than ideal – perhaps even abusive – due to budget shortfalls and poor staffing, the schools existed to fill a necessary and irreplaceable role. In the beginning, this role was to provide Indigenous children with the language skills and other Western knowledge essential for their successful participation in Canadian society. As time went on, however, the schools transformed to fill an even more vital role. They became a de facto child welfare system for vulnerable children from dysfunctional homes brought on by centuries of alcohol abuse within Indigenous communities.

By the 1940s, federal bureaucrats knew there were better options for educating native students, but as much as they would have preferred to shut down residential schools, they couldn’t. Doing so would have abandoned the many individual welfare cases these schools protected. Without acknowledging this difficult truth, it is impossible to comprehend the full story of Canada’s Indian Residential Schools.

To conclusively answer the question of whether the residential school system was a genocide, consider again the final Category 3 application form from the Mohawk Institute residential school listed above. “Since her father has remarried, the girl has been boarded out among relatives. The child is of a nervous disposition and has developed and (sic) impediment in her speech. It is considered the child will receive proper care and attention to overcome this condition at the School.”

What sort of genocide frets about a young girl’s speech impediment?"

 

Links - 17th October 2024 (1 - Palestine/Middle East Peace)

Ta-Nehisi Coates' vision of an Israel without Jews - "One sentence is all it takes to understand writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’ views on Israel. “On the last day of my trip to Palestine, I visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center,” Coates writes as the lead to the final section of his new book, “The Message.” Israel, Coates apparently believes, does not exist — and probably has no right to exist. How else to explain his situating a memorial to the destruction of European Jewry in some mythical place called “Palestine” — a country that has never existed, rather than in the very real state of Israel and its equally real capital, Jerusalem... In one notorious passage, heavy with manipulative guilt-making, Coates speaks of a visit to Paris’s Luxembourg Gardens — which he brands a “public garden.” Marveling in their splendor, Coates laments that he — supposedly victimized by American disenfranchisement — had “never sat in a public garden before, had not even known it to be something that I’d want to do. And all around me there were people who did this regularly.” Huh? We have “public gardens” in every city in America, brother Coates — have you never been to Central Park? With his new book, Coates has found limitless source material in the doom that has become the Palestinians. By his own admission, Coates had never been to Israel or Palestine before his 10-day journey last year that undergirds “The Message.” (Imagine a white writer parachuting into some African conflict to report on its past and present in the same manner; you can’t — because it would never happen). His unfamiliarity with the region would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous — both to the Israelis imperiled by Hamas and Hezbollah along with the Gazans and Lebanese held hostage by their Islamist overlords. And yet, like so many today and before him, Coates blames the Jews... Juiced up on arrogance and entitlement, Coates sets up a place, Palestine, and a people — the Palestinians — of whom he claims admiration, commonality and license to give voice solely because he’s black. Because they are both “conquered people.”... Backed by his trauma-tourism jaunt through the Holy Land, Coates is suddenly equipped to deliver the final word on a century of Zionist egregiousness. Amateurish and self-indulgent, “The Message” is the ultimate exercise in intersectional chutzpah coming from the wrong writer on the wrong topic at very much the wrong time... There are no winners in “The Message” beyond Coates’ own ego. Jews, for instance, are essentially erased, save for the Zionist pioneers he reduces to white supremacists — along with the wincey Kapos who accompany Coates through Jerusalem as they echo-chamber his foundational anti-Zionism. Despite his imprimatur of moral purity, Palestinians hardly fare better. Coates may believe his prose speaks for a people “erased from the argument and purged from the narrative,” but his fetishistic reverence for Palestine and Palestinians lacks any of the necessary nuance upon which nations (such as Israel) are actually founded. In Coates’ hands, everything Palestine-related — their food, their architecture, their stories of exile and rebirth – is worthy simply because it’s Palestinian, even though the exact same parallels can be found among Israeli Jews. “The group spoke about politics in a manner of communal intimacy — the way my people speak when no white people are around,” writes Coates of a Palestinian-American community he visits near Chicago upon his return from the Middle East. Take it from me, Ta-Nehisi — someone who’s both black and Jewish — we Jews speak exactly the same way when we’re among our own. Such silly setups — Coates’ cringy Pale-fabulism — confirm the hollowness of the DEI culture that gave voice to folks like Coates in the first place. Whether in Palestine or Philly, Coates’ veracity — like those of the Palestinians he obsesses over — rests in his color and identity, not in truth or facts. How else could a book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict come to market with no serious consideration of Hamas or intifada or the Oslo Accords — only “ethnic cleansing” and Gaza “reservations” and lots and lots of “whiteness.” Coates’ reliance upon the “Jews are White” trope is perhaps the most damning confirmation of his disdain for Jews and Judaism. As my own blackness attests, Jews — including a plurality of Israelis — aren’t exactly “white.” Indeed, the only motivation behind Coates’ “Jews are white” charade is to edify the claims of “genocide” and “zionist-colonialism” now parading through city squares and college campuses intended to legitimize Hamas barbarism and justify Jewish death. And this, ultimately, is the real message of “The Message.”... Horrified by the hotel guard who’d dared ask if he was a hotel guest, Coates declares, “I could only ask myself, what the f–k am I doing here” in Israel? A better question would have been, “What the f–k is Ta-Nehisi Coates doing writing a book like ‘The Message’?” "
Coates needs some education from French anti-racists about how terrible France is

Exclusive | CBS Interview on Israel Triggers Fight at Network; Shari Redstone Weighs In - WSJ - "A CBS morning-show interview about Israel with author Ta-Nehisi Coates has triggered turmoil inside the network, with executives saying it failed to meet their standards and some staffers saying management came down hard on an anchor who was doing his job.  In the interview, which aired on Sept. 30, anchor Tony Dokoupil opened by stating that the content in Coates’s new book “The Message,” which is critical of Israel, “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”"
You're not allowed to challenge left wing anti-Semitism. You're only allowed to ask difficult questions of Trump, Vance etc

Thread by @OrenKessler on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Just a book on a display table at Barnes & Noble, published by Stanford, with this on the back cover:  “Neither a democratic political party nor a terrorist group, Hamas is a multifaceted liberation organization, one rooted in the nationalist claims of the Palestinian people.” Just a book on a display table at Barnes & Noble, published by Stanford, with this on the back cover:  “Neither a democratic political party nor a terrorist group, Hamas is a multifaceted liberation organization, one rooted in the nationalist claims of the Palestinian people.”"

Thread by @OrenKessler on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "I’ve read the NY Review of Books for many years, but this is journalistic malpractice:  “Seventy-six years ago, Zionist militias drove more than 750,000 Palestinians from their homes.”  1948 was vastly more complex than this nonsense sentence.
The word “tendentious” doesn’t quite cut it:  “Between 1947 and 1949 armed Zionist militias roamed through Palestine, ethnically cleansing the inhabitants of more than five hundred villages, massacring many, and forcing out an estimated 750,000”
From this week’s issue:  “In 1948 Aziz became one of over 750,000 Palestinians expelled from their homeland by Zionist militias”
Naturally, this propaganda is published in the October 4, 2024 issue in order to coincide perfectly with the year anniversary of the October 7th attacks. All of these come from Tareq Baconi, author of “Hamas Contained”
There are many things in history that I wish were true, but just because something feels satisfying to write doesn’t make it so. Twitter isn’t really the place to relitigate 1948, but there are many, many good books on it (“libraries worth of books,” as I wrote in “Palestine 1936”). Morris’s seminal Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem (Revisited) is a good place to start. Were there expulsions during the war? Few serious historians deny that. It depended mostly on when and where, and the military situation in a given time and place. But despite Baqoni’s fantasies of Einsatzgruppen with Star of David armbands, it’s well-documented that Palestinians fled many, many villages, towns and cities without seeing a single member of “Zionist militias,” as he puts it. That tends to happen in wars. Civilians flee. Again, Twitter isn’t the place to relitigate this. There are these things called books. I wrote one, and it also covers 1948.  But this – this isn’t history. It’s an elite American publication publishing a deliberately timed defense of the indefensible...
For those actually interested in 1948, see eg the list in Morris ,2004:  A: Abandonment on Arab orders C: Influence of nearby town ‘s fall E: Expulsion by Jewish forces F: Fear of being caught in fighting M: Military assault W: Whispering campaign amazon.com/Palestinian-Re…
A quick glance at the list will show you that this history, like much history, is (brace yourselves) complex.  What you don’t see is the letter “E” for Expulsion all down the line, as Baconi tries to dupe readers into believing, with the avid encouragement of the NYRB."

Meme - Wilfred Reilly @wil_da_beast630: "This was, depending on your definitions, either the 6th or the 9th rejection of a fairly good peace deal by the Arab side.  Why do they keep doing this? Because they want a ONE state solution - the Palestinians in the state of Israel, and the Jews in the State of Grace."
Uri Kurlianchik @VerminusM: "In 2008, Israel offered the PA 100% of Gaza, 94% of the West Bank + compensation, half of Jerusalem, and a right of return for 1000 Arabs per year. The Americans called it amazing. The Palestinians rejected it "out of hand." After such an offer is rejected, what else is left?"
"PROJECTION OF ISRAELI PROPOSAL FOR TERRITORY"

The Curious Rise of 'Settler Colonialism' and 'Turtle Island' - The Atlantic - "Settler colonialism—academic jargon for the violent process by which colonial empires empower settlers to push out and oppress Indigenous inhabitants and form a dominant new society—is a term much in vogue among activists and academics on the left. To talk of settler states and oppressed Indigenous people, and claim an umbilical connection between Palestinian struggles and those of Native Americans, is to construct a morality tale stripped of subtleties—a matter not of politics, but of sin. Israel, in this view, is not a flawed and contentious democracy engaged in a war with an enemy that vows to destroy it. It is a settler-colonialist state built upon the oppression and exploitation of Indigenous Palestinians. A left-wing kibbutznik who lives a few miles from Gaza and drives sick Palestinians to Israeli hospitals is no less a colonialist than a right-wing theocratic settler who brandishes an automatic rifle and insists on the annexation of stolen lands on the West Bank... Settlers, the theory goes, are mere pawns of imperial patrons, and impermanence is implied. Settlers can be uprooted, sojourns violently terminated. What matters is that Indigenous people reclaim their rightful inheritance.  The Australian historian and anthropologist Patrick Wolfe, who died in 2016, is widely seen as one of the intellectual founders of settler-colonialism theory. This form of colonialism, he wrote, is premised on “the elimination of the native” through genocide and coercive policies that turn survivors into “white people.” This process, Wolfe explained in a 2012 interview at Stanford University, is a “‘winner take all,’ zero-sum game whereby outsiders come to a country and seek to take it away from the people who already live there, remove them, replace them.” Any reasonable measure of European colonial empires and the westward trail of American settlers can locate exploitation, racism, and bloody conquest. Wolfe’s theories resonate deeply in left-wing corners of academia. Prominent American universities from UCLA to Yale offer courses in settler colonialism; British universities have research centers devoted to it; papers in journals debate its finer points and expand the discussion to include the subjugation of native people as a laboring class. Many divine in settler-colonialism theory a global explanatory power, applying it not only to the U.S. and Wolfe’s native Australia—where Europeans dominated and marginalized the Aboriginal population—but to Indonesians in West Papua, Indians in Kashmir, and Moroccans in Western Sahara... The notion that Indigenous violence is inevitable, even liberatory, has gained chilling traction on the American left. “One could (and should) very well argue that in a settler colonial context, there are not such things as civilians,” the Palestine-issues committee of the Democratic Socialists of America wrote in June on X (formerly Twitter). “It’s total folly to compare settlers perpetrating pogroms to resistance groups deploying violence to liberate themselves.”  More assumptions flow from this conceptual fountainhead... Just by way of concentrating the mind, let’s remember the specific nature of the violent resistance practiced by Hamas, whose fighters began the morning of October 7 by breaking a cease-fire with Israel and ended by killing children, raping women, and slaughtering parents in front of their children. Decolonization turns out not to be metaphorical. I put the question of settler colonialism to Roger Berkowitz, the academic director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. He said he is taken aback both by the speed with which the ideological construct of settler colonialism has entered the global discourse and by how intently people who espouse the theory focus on Israel... In invocations of settler colonialism, Berkowitz hears progressives giving up on effecting change through political means. “The left has replaced its faith in proletarian subjects and utopian solutions with a view of the Indigenous as innocent and oppressed. It’s an ethics rather than a politics.” In the late 1960s and early ’70s, prominent radical American Indian activists saw in Israel a symbol of an Indigenous people regaining their land and reviving their language. Since then, however, many Native American activists came to strongly embrace the Palestinian cause alongside anticolonial struggles in Algeria, Ireland, and South Africa. If their “Indigenous cousins” can liberate Palestine, the underlying logic suggests, so Indigenous Americans might set free Turtle Island tomorrow.  “We want U.S. out of everywhere. We want U.S. out of Palestine. We want U.S. out of Turtle Island,” the University of Minnesota professor Melanie Yazzie, who is Navajo, said at “From Minnesota to Palestine,” a panel in December sponsored by Red Nation, whose politics run sharply left. “The goal is to dismantle the settler project that is the United States.” To talk of dismantling an American settler state of 330 million people is to take a rhetorical flight of fancy. It is less a program than a millenarian dream––a “prophecy,” as Nick Estes, a University of Minnesota historian who is a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe and a co-founder of Red Nation, has written. Unlike Hamas leaders who explicitly and repeatedly call for Israel’s violent elimination, Native activists and academics say they have in mind not a bloody Indigenous uprising but a socialist revolution against liberalism and capitalism, to demolish national borders and police forces, and upend a racist system that, in Estes’s words, seeks “to kill us off, confine us to sub-marginal plots of land, breed us white.” This might occur in concert with sympathetic descendants of settlers... Morality tales offer poor stand-ins for politics, and discourage an honest engagement with history, which is often messy and fractured. The question of who is Indigenous in Israel and Palestine involves layers of complication. One of the holiest sites in Islam, the venerable al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was built in the seventh and eighth century and sits atop the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. The first temple was completed there in the 10th century B.C.E. and predates the foundation of Islam by 1,500 years... Today the Mizrahi Jews, as the Indigenous Jewish residents of the Middle East are known, comprise slightly more than half of Israel’s population."

Thread by @JewishSpaceLazr on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "9/11 was my 2nd week as exec dir of @RutgersHillel, at @RutgersU, the State U of NJ. The next day flyers went up all over campus inviting people to a special meeting of the Muslim Students Assoc on 9/13. Of course I went. Here is what I saw and heard. It haunts me to this day. 🧵 I thought half the campus would be there. Who wouldn't want to hear what the MSA had to say 2 days after Al-Qaeda killed 3,000 Americans? We could smell the smoke from Ground Zero on campus. But I was the only visibly non-Muslim person in a crowd of 200+. Wearing my kipah. ✡️ The first 45 minutes a prof spoke on the atrocities of the recent Algerian civil war. At first I didn't understand why. But he was making a point to the doubting Muslim students. SEE? It is possible for Muslims to do violent terrible things. It's possible Muslims had done this. The fact that he had to drive that point home over and over was a wake up call for me that his audience had a very different understanding of themselves and the world than I did. To say the least. The next speaker was the imam from a nearby mosque. He spoke ad nauseum, quoting the Quran in Arabic, citing Hadiths, employing the kind of excessively poetic language that is foreign to the Western ear. Between all that and his accent, I confess I couldn't understand a thing. Then came Q&A, where the rubber hit the road. The very first question was from a foreign student who said simply "How do we explain to people that the Israelis did this?"  It felt like all eyes turned to me, standing in the middle of the crowd with my Jewishness on my head. I just stared straight ahead at the imam, waiting for his answer. How would he respond? Would he explain, as the prof did, that yes, Muslims could have done this? Would he condemn or support Al-Qaeda? His answer shocked me then, but in retrospect explains the next 2 decades. After a very long, thoughtful pause he replied "It is too soon to explain the political dimension." And with that, 200+ heads nodded up and down in approval and understanding. Yes, Israel had done this! This had nothing to do with Muslims. It was the Jews!! My head was spinning. I stayed until the end, listened to other questions, but tbh I heard none of them, remember nothing else. I am now used to the world's infinite capacity to deny reality by blaming Israel, but it was new then. For the next 20+ years on campus anti-Israel antisemitism was the #1 issue I dealt with on campus, as Palestinian Solidarity and then SJP rose to prominence, while faculty and administrators denied Jewish concerns and the world became...what it is today. But NONE of this is new. All of it was present in that one meeting after 9/11."

Matthew Nouriel on X - ""Zionism has created a reality in which Jews have forgotten they are dhimmis." - Mufti of Gaza, Haj Muhammad Said al-Husseini, 1948 It was never about land."

Meme - Eyal Yakoby @EYakoby: "Breaking: The University of Pennsylvania has changed its bookstore’s “history” section to exclusively propaganda books demonizing Israel.  It is no wonder the university breeds a student body that is radicalized, considering these are the books they push on them."

Conner Habib on X - "Susan Sontag, a few days after 9/11/01. She didn’t flinch. She was widely reviled for this and stood, resilient, anyway."
wanye on X - "This is yet another demonstration of the truism that all debates about tactics are really a debate about something else. Progressives are of course fine with civilian casualties. In fact they’re fine with the deliberate targeting of civilians as a primary objective. In fact, they think that Americans civilians actually *have it coming* and *deserve what they get*. Whenever you hear these people complaining about collateral damage in Palestine, in other words, you should understand that they are perfectly comfortable with the direct targeting of civilians, given that they support the cause in question.  So just understand that the debate is about which side you’re on, not ever about civilian casualties.  Debates about tactics are always a debate about something else."
Another example of "this is actually a perfect distillation of how lefties argue:
1. find two things that are different in nearly every possible way
2. find one superficial similarity between them (this proves they are actually identical)
3. "why are you against one but not the other 😏"

David Collier on X - "Remind me again why the Arabs did not declare a Palestinian state between 1949-1967? After all there was no 'occupation'. The Arabs held Gaza, Judea/Samaria + the holy places in Jerusalem. Yet no Palestinian state! Why? Because their real goal is all about destroying Israel!"

Thread by @ShaiDavidai on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The Infiltration of Terror Supporting and anti-American Ideology into North American Universities: A case study...
On September 26, 2001, (just fifteen days after 9/11), @SamiAlArian (a professor at @USouthFlorida) was a guest on the @BillOReilly show.  Prof. Al-Arian was asked about a statements he had made, saying that "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel. Revolution. Revolution until victory. Rolling to Jerusalem."  He could have taken his statement back. He could have denied having made it. Instead, he doubled down.  When asked about his call for the annihilation of Israel, Prof. Al-Arian's answer was, and I quote, "let me just put it into context." It doesn't end there.  Five years later, Prof. Sami Al-Arian pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to contribute services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Stop scrolling and think about that for a second:  A Professor at a major American University was arrested, pleaded guilty, and was deported for raising funds for the Islamic Jihad. In prison, Prof. Sami Al-Arian used the same tactic that the imprisoned terrorists use in Israel.  He went on a hunger strike.  Guess who came to the defense of the person who just pleaded guilty to a terrorist conspiracy?  @amnesty International.
As part of his plea deal, Prof. Sami-Al Arian was deported to Turkey, where he could presumably be more effective working with the Islamic Jihad. In Turkey, Sami Al-Arian founded The Center for Islam and Global Affairs (@cigaistanbul).  Here's an event in which they hosted Professor @JonathanACBrown from @Georgetown to talk about his book about Islam and Blackness.  (Remember this guy. He comes back later in the story)
Being a true gentleman, @SamiAlArian left his wife Nahla behind, so she could keep up the spirit of supporting terrorism in the U.S.  Here she is, last spring, in the illegal encampment at @Columbia University.  Columbia did not even issue a condemnation of her visit.   (as a side - Here's how @AP reported on her visit: They described Nahla as a "retired school teacher" and @SamiAlArian as someone "who had been prosecuted [...] on charges that he had given banned support [...] to a sanctioned Palestinian group",  They just omitted the fact that he had pleaded guilty and that the "sanctioned group" was a designated terrorist organization. ) Of course, @SamiAlArian also left his daughter @LailaAlarian behind.  Guess what she does for a living?  You guessed it: She's a journalist at no other than Qatari-funded @AlJazeera.  Guess where @LailaAlarian went to school?  You guessed it again: @Columbia School of Journalism (@columbiajourn). But here's the really crazy part:  @LailaAlarian is married to @JonathanACBrown, a Professor of Islamic Civilization at @Georgetown School of Foreign Service (@georgetownsfs)  Remember him? That's the guy giving talks for the center run by a convicted supporter of terrorism.
So what does the son-in-law of a convicted supporter or terrorism teach and research at @GeorgetownSFS, a school that trains the future leaders of American and international politics? In 2017, @JonathanACBrown gave a lecture at the International Institute of Islamic Thought (@IIITfriends) about Islam and slavery in which he stated that he doesn't think that “ it’s morally evil to own somebody".  He also justified rape as something that has been historically acceptable.  His response was, just like his terrorist supporting father-in-law's response, you need to look at the context. The obedient son-in-law that he is, @JonathanACBrown routinely shows his support for Hamas, the PFLP, and the Palestinian Islamic on his social media.  Here he is, denying the massacre of October 7 *while it was ongoing*. Again, stop scrolling and let that sink in for a moment:  The son-in-law of a convicted supporter of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad teaches at @Georgetown and openly supports the same terrorist organization.  In what world is that a morally acceptable thing?
So, what did we have here?
- A professor at @USouthFlorida who called for the annihaliation of Israel and who pleaded guilty to charges of terrorist conspiracy.
- A wife who openly supports @Columbia students who protest in favor of her husband's favorite terrorist organization.
- A @Columbia trained daughter who writes for the Qatari-funded @AlJazeera
- A @Georgetown professor son-in-law who openly supports terrorism, derides its victims, and finds ways to justify slavery and rape.  
This is just a case study.  There are hundreds of other professors like these all across the U.S.  Professors like Rashid Khalidi at @Columbia who is still battling accusations of being a spokesperson for the PLO, a Palestinian terrorist organizations from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Something needs to be done.
(side note: please share this with Jewish students and alumni of @Georgetown. They might want to know who their tuition and donation money is currently funding)"

Meme - Visegrad 24 @visegrad24: "This is what "globalise the intifada" looks like. *911 Twin Towers on fire*"

Dr. Eli David on X - "“We must declare that Palestine is an Islamic land, and that Spain 🇪🇸 – Andalusia – is also the land of islam. Islamic armies must also conquer Rome 🇮🇹. The decline of the West will give rise to islam from its ashes.” Their intentions cannot be clearer."

Meme - Drew Pavlou 🇦🇺🇨🇾🇺🇸🇺🇦🇹🇼 @DrewPavlou: "The “1,455,590” death toll figure comes from a Brown University study which counts every single conflict related death in the Middle East since 2001 as a death caused by America. ISIS carrying out genocide against Yazidis? America. Assad gassing neighbourhoods? America"
Jezebel Peliqueen.bsky.social @linbregar: "R.I.P. to the 2,996 Americans who died on 9/11. And R.I.P. to the 1,455,590 Innocent Muslims who died during the US invasion for something they didn't do."

Queers for Palestine? Group offers $1 million for LGBTQ advocacy org to hosts Pride parade in Gaza, West Bank - "A watchdog group that aims to expose hypocrisy announced Monday that it would donate $1 million to "Queers for Palestine" or any U.S. LGBTQ advocacy organization to host a gay pride parade in Gaza or the West Bank. Anti-Israel groups such as "Queers for Palestine" have surfaced across America since the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, but homosexuality remains deeply taboo in the Palestinian territories. Gay and transgender people in Gaza and the West Bank face a significant level of persecution and are often subjected to horrific acts. New Tolerance Campaign (NTC) President Gregory T. Angelo, who is gay and the former president of Log Cabin Republicans, said the campaign is a "wake-up call" to anyone who identifies as part of the "Queers for Palestine" or "Gays for Gaza" movements... "On the left in the United States, all oppression is the same oppression. And I think the left, quite to their disservice, lumps everything from racial discrimination to sexual orientation discrimination to gender discrimination to Islamophobia, all under the same umbrella. That’s certainly not the case," Angelo said. Angelo said that many anti-Israel protesters across the United States insist LGBTQ people aren’t treated particularly well in the United States when confronted with facts about how they would be treated in Gaza or the West Bank. "Well, that could not be further from the truth. Here in the United States, we have protection from job discrimination for gay and trans individuals that came through a Supreme Court ruling. We have same-sex marriage is the law of the land in all 50 states, and just more generally, aside from legislation, we have a country that welcomes people of all faiths and family types," Angelo said. "Contrast that with what you see over in the Palestinian territories where same-sex marriage isn't something that's even a possibility or discussed," he said. "There are no protections in terms of employment for sexual orientation or gender." Palestinian Authority police in 2019 barred gay and transgender rights group from holding events in the West Bank and threatened to arrest participants. Meanwhile, Israel frequently promotes its tolerance on issues of sexual orientation and Tel Aviv is proud of its reputation as a top destination for gay and lesbian travelers. Angelo said he was stunned in 2013 when he visited the West Bank during an immersion trip to Israel. "I got to see with my own eyes the disparity in, not just gay rights, but really human rights that are evident when you cross over between Israel and into the Palestinian territories," Angelo said. New Tolerance Campaign bills itself as a "watchdog organization mobilizing Americans to confront intolerance double-standards by establishment institutions, civil rights groups, universities, and socially-conscious brands," according to its website. "NTC action campaigns empower ordinary Americans to hold accountable self-proclaimed arbiters of tolerance when they betray their own stated values," the site says."

Uri Kurlianchik on X - ""Jews have no business living in the Middle East!" cries the Pakistani living in London."
Am HaNetzach on X - "Arabs in New York love screaming at us to go back to Poland."

Meme - Kid to mother in devastated landscape: "But mom you were so happy when we attacked Israel"

Richard Goldberg on X - "Qatar becomes second Muslim nation whose citizens can travel to the US without a visa Are you kidding me? You can host Hamas and the Taliban and come to the US without a visa???"

Links - 16th October 2024 (2 - Abortion)

Thread by @Indian_Bronson on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Abortion is the driver of the female electorate voting left. It boils down to:
Women keep having sex with guys who do not want to marry them—whose kids they themselves do not even want—and are terrified about being low-status single moms; so they want to be able to kill the kid. It’s not exactly a ‘men vs women’ thing — it’s all about unmarried, young (and youngish) women vs. everyone else;  Recent polling in Pennsylvania and other surveys show this.  Every other group besides unmarried women favors Republicans. Here’s the electoral graph for “men vs women” and then “single” vs “married”.  The issue is that young unmarried women have been completely deranged by living in a completely unnatural state of affairs which is medicalized and politicized, concerning intimate social relations.
On BC? The psychodrama of “situationships” and childlessness while kept in a hormonally pregnant state to stop ovulation torments them.  Off BC? They get monthly luteal phase blues with the lowest marriage and childbearing of the most socially isolated generation of all time. This is the national nightmare that may largely determine the future of the United States government.

Female voters in battleground states care about far more than abortion - "this election season, the prevailing narrative about women’s priorities could not be more wrong. Since July, I’ve been traveling the country on a battleground state bus tour. My team and I logged 10,000 miles across 12 states, speaking with women of all political stripes. If the punditry was correct, then all summer long I would have heard women bemoaning the Dobbs Supreme Court decision and their lack of abortion access. Women would have come out in droves to back Vice President Kamala Harris since her platform is so laser focused on abortion, and former President Donald Trump would be packing his bags. That’s not what I heard at all. First, there is no groundswell for Harris just because she is a female or because of her favorable stance on abortion rights. This is not a unifying issue for women. Likewise, women feel mixed about their standing in America today. A Suffolk University poll of likely Pennsylvania voters conducted earlier this month corroborates what I heard. According to the poll, 47% of women say they are better off than they were four years ago. But 50% of women say they are worse off or no different than they were four years ago. So as far as the female independent vote is concerned, it’s still a toss-up. Second, what I heard resoundingly from women along the bus tour is they resent that the government and those in political power do not honor their role as the COO in their households. Women fought for decades for the right to vote, for equal treatment in society and a place in the working world. But more than any other time in history, the government now represents “the new patriarchy.” What do I mean by that? Public schools are withholding information from parents — including mothers —about their children purportedly selecting new pronouns or gender identities. As of May of this year, a database maintained by Parents Defending Education lists 1,062 public school districts in 38 states and the District of Columbia with written policies that authorize or require withholding gender-related information from parents. What strips American women of their rights more than restricting their ability to raise and be involved in the lives of their own children? Third, women are resoundingly upset about the rampant inflation and the poor economic climate. Not a single bus stop wrapped up without women stressing about how they will put food on the table and help provide for their families. No one is more in tune with the everyday challenges of the Biden-Harris economy than women. Even in states that seem to be doing well, there is rampant economic uncertainty... Women also said to me that they’re worried about their communities — about safety, crime and that their neighborhoods and schools are places where kids can go without becoming victims to the next mass shooting or news headline. And they worry about illegal drugs, especially fentanyl."

Meme - Possum Reviews @ReviewsPossum: "Is there a long German word for when someone secretly supports a position but isn't willing to just come out and say it because they know they wouldn't be able to defend it?"
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "Harris: "nobody is aborting their babies in the ninth month or killing them after birth"
Trump: "okay, but would you support it if it were happening?"
Harris: "pshhhhh""
ClaireVoyant @BitterGirl2128: "No one is aborting babies after the ninth month. You people are INSANE."
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "What if they were
@BitterGirl2128: "They're not. Are you dim?"
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "But what if they were?"
ClaireVoyant @BitterGirl2128: "What if you went to school and came home with a secret lobotomy? Do your parents know?"
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "Do you support, as a theoretical matter, an abortion during the ninth month of a healthy pregnancy? Can you just answer that?"
ClaireVoyant @BitterGirl2128: "First of all, no one is aborting healthy babies in the 9th month. I don't support that imaginary scenario which exists only in your fevered brain. The only time anyone would have to abort in the later months is if the fetus is not viable & the mother's life is at risk. Get it?"
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "Okay, so you don't support abortions during the ninth month of a pregnancy, assuming no risk to the mother's health, etc.? What about the eighth month?"
ClaireVoyant @BitterGirl2128: "Jesus, you're dumb. Again - no one is aborting healthy babies in the month."
Eudaimonia @EudaimoniaEsq: "But what if they were?"
Dieuwert Wubbe Jr 2+2=4 @DieuwertWubbeJr: "Überzeugungsscham, to be ashamed of your own convictions."
When a left winger claims "no one" is doing something, it means people are doing it but they don't want to admit it

NAACP on X - "For the record: You cannot have an abortion in the 9th month. You cannot have an abortion after birth. If we didn’t keep banning books, maybe we wouldn’t have to clear that up. #Debate2024"
Emma Camp on X - "9 states and DC place no gestational limit on abortion. A quick Google search turns up clinics here in DC that provide abortions up to 36 and 32 weeks. @TheAtlantic interviewed a doctor who performs 32+ week abortions, and about half his patients have healthy babies."
Thread by @billybinion on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "When I found out that Colorado essentially permits abortions up until someone's water breaks, my reaction was: "That can't be correct." It's correct.  Whatever your views on abortion, I struggle to understand how anyone supports this. If a baby is viable, how is that OK? I know people get abortions for different reasons, including health issues. I want to be empathetic. But it is also true that some people are aborting healthy fetuses that would survive outside of the womb. I can't wrap my head around that not being a form of murder.
I don't want to pick on a rando, but this is the kind of gaslighting that's become common when this topic comes up. Some just insist you're crazy. The article @emmma_camp_ links to from The Atlantic talks to someone performing these very abortions. Posting the photo again & the article from The Atlantic, which profiles Colorado abortion doctor Warren Hern. He is honest about his practice. He estimates that half of people—or more—getting late-term abortions at his clinic are carrying healthy babies.
If you support late-term abortions, then make the argument. Be honest about it. The fact that so many people instead just call you crazy is an indication to me that even many people who support this know that it is wrong.
Well, I appear to have stepped on a landmine. I get that this is a painful & polarizing issue. But I actually see *this* part of the debate as something that can unite people. A baby has a near-100% chance of survival if born at 32 weeks. It’s too late for an elective abortion. One of my closest friends was born at 28 weeks (when 80-94% of babies survive). She’s thriving; can’t imagine my life without her. It’s easy to talk about these issues in the abstract & to mudsling at people who disagree, but there are very valid reasons why people oppose this."
Literally, "this is not happening, and it's good that it is"

Thread by @lymanstoneky on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Abortions after 32 weeks are a very small share of total abortions-- perhaps 0.5%. Let's say half of those are not due to unsurvivable conditions, so 0.25% of abortions are very late + could have survived if born.  Given ~1 million abortions, that's 2500 such abortions.  There were about 23,000 homicides in the US in 2023.  If that teeny tiny share of abortions covering very late abortions of totally viable kids without lethal health issues were counted, those extremely rare abortions would compose fully 1-in-10 homicides in the United States. In 2023, there were only 11,000 deaths of all external causes (accidents, homicides, etc) of people under age 18.  Abortions of health viable children make up 18% of all non-natural-causes deaths of children. Using the CDC's multiple mortality data, these extremely rare late-term abortions...  ... are nonetheless the second biggest cause of death among people under 18 (after congenital immaturity)
What I'm hearing from many liberals is, "These abortions of perfectly healthy late-term babies who are absolutely babies with thoughts and pain capability would be HORRIBLE if they happened, but it's a conservative conspiracy theory."  But that's not true! It IS true that these abortions are an EXTREMELY small share of overall abortions!  But the scale of abortions is so absolutely MASSIVE compared to child mortality that even a teeny tiny sliver of abortions would represent a huge share of child deaths. Assuming we are agreed that "children at 32+ weeks post-conception without any lethal congenital problems" really are equally persons as "children at 45 weeks post-conception without any lethal congenital problems," the scale of killing of the first group IS INSANELY HIGH.
You may wonder if 50% viability rates for late-term abortions is correct.  Well, there are multiple articles with quotes from abortion doctors who do these procedures saying their patients are about 50-50 severe abnormality vs. discretionary reasons. I take them at their word. But folks, even if only 20% of late-term abortions are discretionary: it would still be one of the single biggest causes of death for children! Especially when you realize the current #1 is congenital defects so should be dropped out of the baseline of "survivable cases" What I'm getting at here folks is that it barely matters at all what numbers you choose.  At any even vaguely plausible numbers, late-term abortions of otherwise viable pregnancies are in fact an extremely large killer of children compared to other causes of child death.
You can debate if late-term abortion of viable pregnancies is the #2 killer of American children or #11 or #25 or whatever, but folks we're talking about a top-25 killer from a list that includes 828 causes of child death with at least 10 kids killed in 2023. In any sane world, we would recognize that late-term abortions are about as likely to kill kids as guns or SIDS or car accidents. And most people think 1 or 2 or 3 of those are worth intervening on to protect child lives, whether through gun control, "back is best," carseats"

wanye on X - "These things can all be true:
1) these abortions are an exceedingly small share of all abortions
2) there are about 1 million abortions in the United States every year
3) a small percentage of a big number is a big number
4) if these abortions are unacceptable, as most Americans agree, then they should be banned, even if the number of them occurring is pretty small"

Meme - Sad woman looking at dead dog: "POOR INNOCENT CREATURE NEVER DESERVED TO DIE!"
*Happy woman looking at aborted fetus*

Meme - "THIS IS WHERE YOU SAY, "I DON'T WANT A BABY" *Bedroom*
NOT HERE *Surgery room*"

Meme - "Most important issue for suburban women in swing states
*Top* Abortion - 39%
Gender by Marital Status
Unmarried women 68% - Democrats
Young Women are Much More Liberal than Young Men
The modern female voter
>will vote for anyone or anything that allows them to murder their own babies
>needs celebrity approval for their choice of candidate
>thinks being "demure" is a necessary qualification for leadership
>"we need a woman in office, not only a woman, but a BRAT"
>wonders why she can't afford a home"
wanye on X - "No matter how many times I see this stat on the timeline, it's still totally wild that single women are the only group majority voting for Democrats"

Amanda Bynes on X - "If it was about babies, we'd have excellent and free universal maternal care. You wouldn't be charged a cent to give birth, no matter how complicated your delivery was. If it was about babies, we'd have months and months of parental leave, for everyone.
If it was about babies, we'd have free lactation consultants, free diapers, free formula. If it was about babies, we'd have free and excellent childcare from newborns on. If it was about babies, we'd have universal preschool and pre-k and guaranteed after school placements."
"If it was about gun rights, you'd have excellent and free universal ammo. You wouldn't be charged a cent to get ammo, no matter how fancy your ammo was. If it was about gun rights, you'd have weeks and weeks of time off to train, for everyone.
If it was about gun rights, you'd have free guns, free gun consultants, free gun cleaning equipment. If it was about gun rights, you'd have free and excellent gun training from childhood on. If it was about gun rights, you'd have universal gun shows and gun fairs and guaranteed guns."
Weird how left wingers always want free stuff

Meme - Merissa Hansen @merissahansen17: "It's fascinating to me how women would march us straight into communism solely for the reason of abortion. I mean it's truly amazing."
Jonathan Wong @WGThink: ""It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy." ~George Orwell"

Meme - *Bike Fall Meme*
Handmaid: "Engaging in consensual procreation activity. Gets pregnant. I have been enslaved"

Amy Lafayette on X - "I’m with my partner as he gets his vasectomy and I can’t help but notice: no protestors, no one trying to get him to change his mind, no unnecessary medical scans, no 48 hour waiting period. It’s like they TRUST him to make his own medical decisions?!"
Left wingers listen to their own rhetoric so much that they totally miss the point

Meme - "NOOOOOOO YOU CAN'T ABORT ME. I HAVE A WHOLE LIFE I WANT TO LIVE."
"haha abortion vacuum go brrrrr"
Haha abortion vacuum go brrrr | Facebook
Weird. We keep being told that no one is pro-abortion/celebrates abortion

Meme - Horribly offensive memes 2. Trevor Kiranski: "ABORTION is Fun & Cool. Do What You Want. God is Fake."

Abortion laws: Jewish faith teaches life does not start at conception
Left wingers like to go on about this. Turns out religion is not allowed to influence public policy only if doing so helps the left wing agenda

Meme - "My body my choice. But if I decide to have it you have to pay for it. And if I decide to abort it, you have to pay for that, too lol."
"(visible hatred)"

Bette Midler wants Viagra banned in wake of Roe v Wade overturning - "The actress, 76, said it was “God’s will” for men to have a “limp d***” so the tablets should be barred. Hitting out at the justices who ruled on Friday (24.06.22) to allow individual US states to decide whether to make abortion illegal, she said on Twitter: “Time to ban Viagra. Because if pregnancy is ‘God’s will’, then so is your limp d***’.”"
Clearly women have no say at all in whether they get pregnant

Abortion & Planned Parenthood: David Daleiden Legal Battles - "pro-life whistleblower David Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress in 2015 released video footage from an undercover investigation, revealing rampant wrongdoing among abortion providers who have profited from the body parts of aborted babies.  In Daleiden’s footage, abortion-industry workers, including executives at Planned Parenthood, admitted to selling organs and tissue from aborted babies for research — violating several federal and state laws in the process.  Even though subsequent congressional investigations turned up evidence confirming what Daleiden captured on video, he and his group have been the only ones to face any significant consequences. Since 2015, he has been embroiled in several costly lawsuits, including from the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, and the state of California, seeking to punish him and suppress his footage... Consider, in contrast to this injustice, the way our legal system tends to reward other sorts of whistleblowers, such as animal-rights activists who go undercover to film mistreatment of animals at factory farms. Those undercover investigators rarely face significant legal repercussions but instead typically succeed in bringing about consequences for those whose illegal activity they exposed. Had Daleiden gone undercover to expose any other kind of criminal wrongdoing, he would be celebrated as a national hero. Instead, because he dared to challenge the abortion industry, he has spent half a decade fighting to stay out of jail and avoid crushing legal fines for the crime of revealing to the public the evil of the abortion industry and the corruption of its political and media allies."

Meme - Shoe @samosaur: "An anti-terrorism brief was held on Fort Liberty (Bragg) today where they listed several Pro-Life organizations as “terrorist organizations.”  The slide you see here followed right after a slide about ISIS, a terror group in the Middle East.   The organizations labeled by the army as terror organizations include National Right to Life and Operation Rescue.  They also included a screenshot of a license plate with “IM4IT,” which is a plate many Pro-Life citizens put on their car which implies normal citizens are terrorists if they display this plate.  The slide goes on to mention activities which these organizations participate in which include being Pro-Life, opposing Row v Wade, demonstrating and protesting (a 1st Amendment protected right), “Truth Displays,” and picketing.   They also falsely attribute the bombing of abortion clinics to National Right to Life.  Keep in mind they’re not labeling them as extremist organizations (which would still be crazy), but as terrorist organizations.   The military and Dept of Defense are insanely out of control. Service-members are being indoctrinated to view Pro-Life groups as the enemy."
SonofMongo @RockRidge1974: "That should be an IG complaint and a bunch of congressionals.  That’s outrageous.  I bet they didn’t even mention Antifa."
Shoe @samosaur: "Those in attendance said they DID NOT mention Antifa. You’re correct."
Peaceful protest and activism are only basic human rights when they support the left wing agenda

Shoe on X - "An anti-terrorism brief was held on Fort Liberty (Bragg) today where they listed several Pro-Life organizations as “terrorist organizations.” The slide you see here followed right after a slide about ISIS, a terror group in the Middle East. The organizations labeled by the https://t.co/vlO6XjyGzE" / X

Booker G. Washington on X - "What Republicans have done and are doing in the South is genocidal."
Wilfred Reilly on X - "He's referring to restrictions on abortions - leading to MORE births - in a region containing two large racial groups. Always recall that words mean nothing to a leftist."

'Jane’s Revenge' Activist Pleads Guilty in Firebombing of Anti-Abortion Group 'Wisconsin Family Action' - "Hrindindu Sankar Roychowdhury pleaded guilty on November 20, 2023 to federal arson charges resulting from a 2022 attack claimed under the moniker ‘Jane’s Revenge’ against Wisconsin Family Action, an anti-abortion Christian fundamentalist group... The side of the building was also covered in graffiti, reading, “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either,” as well as a large circle-A and “1312” (the numeric value of the anti-cop slogan ACAB, or “All Cops are Bastards.”)"
The left will just keep going on about abortion clinic bombings and ignore all the deranged and violent pro-choice activists

Meme - PrettyGirl @mariibvby: "Look how they dead and still being annoying she did the right thing"
AlphaFox @Alphafox78: "This picture makes me so sad... *tattooed woman surrounded by 9 ghosts of dead, crying babies*"
We're still told no one is pro-abortion

Kate 🪬🤍🇺🇸 on X - "Why the fuck do men even have a seat at the table when the topic is abortion?"
Wilfred Reilly on X - "Because anyone can discuss anything. No one even argues that women should not have a position on war, or paternal child support policies, or draft reinstatement, or circumcision, or whatever."

Scott Adams on X - "Life is full of trade-offs.   For example, many Republicans want to stop abortion, and they have decided to inadvertently burn down all of civilization while losing that fight. Noble cause, say many, but strategically stupid at a world-ending scale.   The smart play would be to let Democrats kill their own unborn children at any rate they like and take the issue off the table so Republicans can get elected and curb the worst of the Democrats’ self-destructive policies."

Wisconsin medical student tells legislature FULL TERM abortions should be allowed and vows to leave her home state if proposed new 14-week limit is enacted - "A Medical College of Wisconsin student shocked many when she told a legislature that she would leave the state if she wasn't allowed to abort full-term fetuses.  Madalynn Welch, 23, made the comments during a Monday hearing at the state Capitol where legislators where discussing a bill that would ban abortion after 14 weeks except for when the mother's life is in danger.   Abortion is currently legal up to 20 weeks gestation in the state. 'I think abortion should be unrestrictive. And I think when somebody finds out in pregnancy... they should be able to get an abortion if they want to. And for some people, that is full term,' Welch said."
Weird. We keep being told that late term abortion is a myth
I guess most European countries have shortages of healthcare staff because they don't allow abortions at 40 weeks (most stop around 12)

Meme - Stonetoss Comics @stone_toss: Left winger to someone holding "free speech" sign: "BUT THAT WILL LEAD TO KILLING PEOPLE."
*Left winger holding "free abortions" sign*

A Cohort Study of Mental Health Services Utilization Following a First Pregnancy Abortion or Birth - "A first pregnancy abortion, compared to a birth, is associated with significantly higher subsequent mental health services utilization following the first pregnancy outcome. The risk attributable to abortion is notably higher for inpatient than outpatient mental health services. Higher mental health utilization before the first pregnancy outcome for birth cohort women challenges the explanation that pre-existing mental health history explains mental health problems following abortion, rather than the abortion itself."
Of course, this is due to shame, stigma and discrimination

Meme - "Feminist: Catholics are only pro-life until birth. They do nothing for the born
CATHOLIC HOSPITALS. CATHOLIC REHAB CENTERS. CATHOLIC ADOPTION AGENCIES. CATHOLIC FOOD DRIVES. CATHOLIC WOMEN'S SHELTERS"

Meme - "The plan: Move to Alabama where frozen IVF embryos are considered children. Freeze hundreds of IVF embryos. Claim them as dependant children on taxes every year forever."

Meme - Gemma 20: "I'm like a microwave, easy to turn on, warm inside and if you put baby in me, I'll kill it"