You Get What You Voted For

 

To put in context what’s happening here, these are South Chicago residents complaining about immigrants being bused into their neighborhood.

In the 2020 presidential election, one candidate promised (sincerely, I think) to do everything possible to prevent illegal immigration, and one candidate, well . . . Democrats don’t really care about illegal immigration because the people coming across the border are almost certainly going to be Democratic voters.

South Chicago voted 97 percent for Biden, the “I don’t care about illegal immigration” guy. So what are they complaining about? They got what they voted for.

Yes, I’m sure they all thought that the problems created by illegal immigration would be borne by somebody else — somebody closer to the border, probably redneck Texans — not by them. They voted to create problems for other people that they are not willing to bear themselves.

So I don’t feel bad for them at all — in fact, I’m laughing a little as I watch the video — because what they did is not a nice thing to do.

Johns Hopkins Chief Psychiatrist: Transgender is a Mental Disorder

 

I’d rewrite that headline to say Stupid People Furious! Well, that’s a little harsh. Let’s change it to Uninformed People Furious!

Let me start my saying that I’ve had a couple of cancerous skin lesions removed, and because the removal was medically necessary, the cost of the removal was covered by my health insurance.

I’ve also had a couple of benign lesions removed just because I thought they were unsightly. Those removals were not medically necessary so I had to pay for their removal myself.

People identifying as transgender don’t want to pay for puberty blockers and hormone treatments and surgeries out of their own pocket so what we came up with is “gender dysphoria,” a mental disorder. Now everything becomes medically necessary and can be billed to health insurance.

Some people don’t like that “gender dysphoria” implies some sort of pathology. They’ll say “No it’s not a pathology, it’s just a diagnosis.” If it’s “just a diagnosis,” why are we amputating people’s breasts and genitals?

And if “gender dysphoria” is an objective reality, I still question why are we amputating breasts and genitals? Since we stopped doing frontal lobotomies, I’m not aware of any mental health condition that’s treated with surgery.

Here’s a doctor perhaps saying it a little better and more authoritatively because he’s a doctor and I’m not:

“Transitioning” does not have a 100 percent success rate, however you define that. Some people transition and find themselves no happier than they were before, just the same people with the same problems. Some people are even less happy than they were before and go so far as to detransition back to their original sex.

I’ve never heard of a lobotomy patient expressing dissatisfaction with the surgery or asking to have it undone.

Opting Out of Pride Night

 

Former NBA player Jason Collins, who became the first openly gay athlete to play in one of the four major North American sports leagues, spoke out this week about the recent wave of NHL players and teams opting out of Pride Night, saying that “religion should not be a cause for division.”

Some Russian NHL players have opted out over fear of reprisals in their home country, but the main reason given for opting out has been religious beliefs.

You’ve got to offer some excuse and that’s the one that people seem most willing to accept. It may be sincere in most or all cases, I don’t know. I know that there are some people who believe in a God who frowns on any sort of non-heterosexual activities.

Religion is definitely a cause of division in the world, there’s no disagreeing with that. But in this case, I’m going to say that the cause of division is Collins himself.

He seems to be saying that celebrating gayness is more important than anyone’s religious beliefs. I’m not gay and I’m not religious and I’m not easily offended, but that is an offensive statement.

Players should be able to opt out of Pride Night for any reason or no reason. Mine would be “I don’t like people telling me what to wear.”

 

Why would the fact that Jason Collins likes to suck dicks merit a celebration? Not that’s there anything wrong with sucking dicks. Women do it, men do it. But that’s what Pride Night is, right? A celebration of certain sexual preferences and practices.

There are also lots of other sexual preferences and practices. Must all of them be celebrated at NHL games?

Why would you think that being gay or trans means that everyone is required to accept you and love you? You think everyone loves me? Surprisingly, they don’t.

 

The United States actually used to have laws against homosexual sex and the rallying cry was that the government should “stay out of the bedroom.”

Now we’ve gone completely the other way, where we’re required to look in the bedroom and to applaud what we see.

My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Vida Blue

 

Vida Blue

Vida Blue was a left-handed pitcher between 1969 and 1986, most notably as a member of the starting rotation with the Oakland A’s dynasty that won three consecutive World Series championships between 1972 and 1974.

He won the American League Cy Young Award and Most Valuable Player Award in 1971, the youngest American League player to win the MVP Award in the 20th century. He had a 24–8 record, an AL-leading 1.82 ERA, eight shutouts and 301 strikeouts.

Those were the days when starting pitchers throwing a shutout weren’t taken out of the game because of a pitch count. Today, pitchers throwing no-hitters are pulled based on pitch counts. So eight shutouts is more than a current pitcher will likely throw in a lifetime.

Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader and a good guy to go to for an opinion like this, said that Vida Blue threw as hard as anyone he ever faced. I have to take exception to that. Blue may have been the second-hardest thrower, and the hardest-throwing lefty, but no one in that era threw harder than Nolan Ryan.

Vida Blue was 73 years old.

Footnote: My son met him several years ago at a celebrity golf tournament and said he seemed like a good guy.

RIP Vida Blue

You Don’t Know Jack

 

I like this technique. I’ve seen it a few times now. Instead of partisan gotchas, the incompetence of Biden nominees is exposed by asking them basic questions about the job for which they’ve been nominated.

In this one, the nominee for FAA Chief goes 0-for-7 on questions about aviation policy.

I’ve seen judicial nominees who couldn’t answer questions like “As a judge, how do you handle a Brady motion?” or “What does Article 5 of the Constitution do?”

2 + 2 = White Supremacy

 

2 + 2 = White Supremacy: How Woke Ideologues Corrupted Canada’s Math Curriculum — nationalreview.com

White supremacy? Wasn’t arithmetic invented by the Babylonians? Were Babylonians white?

brown pencil on equation paper

How great a threat is white supremacy in Canada? I’m thinking not much since when I’ve been in Canada, I didn’t see anything but white people and a few Asians.

From the above-linked article:

Two plus two no longer equals four, according to members of the Ontario Mathematics Coordinators Association (OMCA), who consider the equation to be a white-supremacist dog whistle instead of a basic mathematical truth.

According to a webinar created by OMCA president Jason To, proponents of math’s political neutrality who use the phrasing “2 + 2 = 4” are engaged in an act of “Covert White Supremacy.”

Former OMCA president Heather Theijsmeijer, who originally publicized the webinar, pointed to commentary by Laurie Rubel, an associate professor of mathematics education, explaining that proponents of “2 + 2 = 4” are grounded “in white, Western mathematics that marginalizes other possible values.”

Not to marginalize the horror of marginalizing things, but there are no other possible values for 2 + 2.

Meanwhile, for some probably unrelated reason, test scores in Ontario have plummeted.

Not even half of sixth-grade students meet provincial math standards at present; 52 percent of ninth-graders met the bar during the 2021–2022 school year, down from 75 percent just three years prior, according to provincial standardized testing administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO). Woke Math advocates have doubled down in the face of falling performance, seeking to incorporate so-called Indigenous Knowledge Systems and anti-racism.

Theijsmeijer and OMCA did not respond to a request for comment.

I can only think of two possible explanations. Either Ontario students are more than 30 percent dumber than they were three years ago, or the quality of math education, as a consequence of politicizing the curriculum, is 30 percent worse than it was three years ago. The second explanation seems more likely.

For the last decade, the EQAO has documented the continuous decline of math scores among third- and sixth-graders. International tests such as the OECD’s “gold standard” Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show similar declines.

To facilitate comparisons, PISA standardizes test scores around an average of 500 score points. Students in the Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang regions in China had by far the highest average scores in reading (555), math (591) and science (590), vaulting over previously dominant Singapore, which was relegated to second place. Macao and Hong Kong, other Chinese territories, were also in the top four places in reading and math.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that while kids in Ontario were learning to be anti-racist and queer-affirming, and searching for other possible values for 2 + 2, kids in the high-scoring regions were actually learning math.

NPR Issues Correction After Claiming There’s ‘Limited Scientific Evidence’ Men Have Physical Advantages In Sports

 

NPR didn’t really concede much with its correction. Here it is:

Correction: An earlier tweet incorrectly stated there is limited scientific evidence of physical advantage. Existing research shows that higher levels of testosterone do impact athletic performance. But there’s limited research involving elite trans athletes in competition.

To me, NPR’s statement is so stupid that “scientific research” is not required to refute it. Let’s look at some anecdotal evidence:

I’m not making a list like this to imply anything negative about women, just to point out that it’s delusional to say that men don’t have a significant physical advantage in sports.

I’d make a list of trans-identifying men (i.e., women) who’ve competed successfully against male athletes but I’m not aware of any.

I saved my favorite example for last. Anne Andres, a biological male, competes in women’s powerlifting competitions in Canada. Apparently the male-or-female rules are pretty loose in Canadian powerlifting and if you say you’re a woman, you can compete as a woman. There are no rules about testosterone, hormones or surgeries.

Naturally, Anne Andres wins all these competitions and also likes to badmouth the lackluster quality of his competitors.

One of the powerlifting events is the bench press, in which Andres, until recently, held the record at 275 pounds, which seems pretty good for a woman, but Andres is a pretty big (fat) guy who probably weighs about 275. Not to mention, you could walk into any gym in America and find at least one guy who can bench 275 pounds.

So at the recent Heroes Classic powerlifting tournament in Lethbridge, Alberta, Avi Silverberg, the head coach for Team Canada Powerlifting since 2012, made a mockery of Anne Andres and the whole transgender sports issue by entering the women’s bench press.

Silverberg is a biological male, which, if you couldn’t tell by his name, you could certainly tell by looking at him, including the fact that he has a full beard.

Silverberg won the women’s bench press, although I couldn’t tell just from watching the video below how much weight he was using. The competition was in Canada, so the numbers on the screen are in kilos, but it turns out that what you’re seeing is Silverberg pressing, quite easily, 380 pounds, breaking Andres’s record by more than 100 pounds.

Andres made some obligatory statement about Silverberg being “a bigot and a coward,” even though Silverberg is doing the same thing Andres is doing, but he’s just a lot better at it.

The Meaning of “Woke” By Example

 

What does “woke” mean? I’ve heard a lot of different definitions, some with a positive connotation, some with a negative connotation.

I’d say a woke person is one who makes sweeping, prejudicial judgments about others based on race, gender and sexual preferences. People are sorted into identity groups and the groups are stack-ranked from best to worst.

The woke left is silent about things like this because trans is the best identity group you can be in right now. It doesn’t matter that the trans branding is “We are militant, violent and delusional.”

It doesn’t even matter that you shoot up a school and murder children. As long as you identify as trans, the woke media will portray you as a victim.

How to Tell If You’re a Violent Extremist

 

The FBI uses a “glossary of terms” to look for online that could indicate someone is involved with “violent extremism.

According to the FBI glossary, “based” means “someone who has been converted to racist ideology.”

blue wooden door with red door

“Red pill” or being “redpilled” means someone is accepting racist, antisemitic or fascist beliefs, according to the FBI.

I’ve never heard those definitions. I’ve heard “based” used in tech culture to admire, sometimes ironically, someone’s authenticity and boldness.

Let’s run it by ChatGPT:

The word “based” is often used to indicate that something has a foundation, source, or origin in something else. It means that a particular thing, person, or concept is rooted or founded in something else, or that it has a particular relationship to something else.

For example, if we say that a company is based in New York, it means that the company’s headquarters or main operations are located in New York. Similarly, if we say that a book is based on a true story, it means that the book is inspired by a real-life event or person.

In general, “based” is used to express a connection, reliance, or dependency on something else.

Not really close to the FBI definition.

I’ve heard “redpilled” used a lot of different ways, but mostly in a Matrix type of context.

Here’s ChatGPT again:

“Redpilled” is a term that originated from the 1999 movie “The Matrix,” in which the main character, Neo, is offered a choice between taking a blue pill, which would allow him to continue living in a simulated reality, or a red pill, which would awaken him to the truth about the world around him.

In contemporary culture, “redpilled” is used to describe a person who has become aware of or enlightened to certain truths, usually related to politics, society, or culture. It is often associated with an attitude of skepticism towards mainstream or commonly accepted beliefs, and a willingness to challenge the status quo.

The term is often used within certain online communities, particularly those associated with the political far-right or conspiracy theories, but it has also been used more broadly to describe people who have undergone a personal transformation or change in their worldview.

Taken all together, the evidence seems to indicate that “redpilled” is pretty benign unless you’re hanging out in online conspiracy theory communities, which probably indicates more about you than your use or non-use of certain FBI no-no words.

Journalism 101 for Non-Journalists

 

Hunter Biden Sues Laptop Repair Shop Owner Citing Invasion of Privacy. — The Washington Post

The lawsuit is an implicit admission that the laptop that was given to the FBI and Rudy Giuliani was in fact Hunter Biden’s laptop. The only way the laptop could be responsible for invading his privacy is if the material disseminated from it was in fact authentic.

Pretty much everyone now knows and admits that the laptop is authentic, and pretty much everyone knew in October of 2020 that the laptop was authentic, including the corporate media and social media that were propagating a lie formulated by the CIA that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

What we know for sure is that the media lied [about the laptop] and it’s Journalism 101 that when you make a mistake, as you’re going to do as a journalist, even big ones, the first thing you do is you go to your readers or your viewers and you say, I reported this, I’ve since learned it was false. This is why I got it wrong. I apologize. I retract it. And here’s what we’re doing to ensure it never happens again. That’s what you do if you are actually a journalist. That’s Journalism 101. If you don’t do that, you have no business claiming that title.

Not one single corporate outlet, not one, not a single one, every single time there’s more proof that they lied, has even acknowledged the evidence showing that they lied, let alone accounted for what they did, let alone retracted it. And they never will. Even now that Hunter Biden is suing the repair store in Delaware, implicitly acknowledging that that laptop was his all along, that he left it at the Delaware repair store, there’s not the slightest pressure to even acknowledge what they did or to retract it, because they are not journalists. They are there to lie on purpose. This is their mission. If you perform your job well, you don’t apologize. They’re showing you what their job is by not apologizing. Their job is to lie. Their job is to spread lies on behalf of the U.S. Security State and the Democratic Party to please their audience and to serve the political agenda that they all have. And that’s what they did here effectively, and that’s why they will never retract it.

So, every time there’s new evidence of this, I’m going to report it, I’m going to note it. I’m going to talk about it. As I say, I’ll probably do it until I die. And I know for sure, Hunter Biden could go on camera and say, “I now have a recovered memory. I remember clearly bringing my laptop to this repair shop, and then I abandoned it there and I recognized every document that was published by the New York Post as my own – and that, therefore, the way The New York Post claimed they got the story is, in fact, how they got this story.” He could swear to that under oath, and they still will never apologize for the lies that they spread for weeks before the election because lying is their mission, and they know that.

— Glenn Greenwald

See You in Hell

 

Satan

[See You in Hell is a feature by our guest blogger, Satan — PE]

Greetings mortals —

I saw a post on LinkedIn from a woman who just lost her job at Google. There are lots of layoffs happening in the US economy. Joe Biden says the American economy is “stronger than hell” but I can assure you that the economy in Hell is much stronger than the Biden economy in the US. No layoffs here, ever.

The LinkedIn poster said, “I feel God’s grace in this transition and know He has greater things ahead.”

I can’t help noticing that people who believe that God is going to make good things happen in their life have a lot of bad things happen in their life.

Check back in when you lose a limb, honey.

See you in Hell . . .

The desolation of winter;
passing through a small hamlet,
a dog barks.

— Masaoka Shiki

A caterpillar,
this deep in fall –
still not a butterfly.

— Basho

My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Willis Reed

 

Willis Reed is best remembered for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers in Madison Square Garden, not for his performance on the court (he scored only four points), but for limping gamely onto the court during warmups. Reed hadn’t played in Game 6 because of a torn thigh muscle and was considered unlikely to play in Game 7.

Even as a Laker fan, I have to admit it was an all-time iconic moment, so much so that no one (except Frazier himself) remembers that Walt Frazier had one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA playoff history: 36 points, 7 rebounds, 19 assists and 6 steals. That game is always remembered as “the Willis Reed game.”

RIP Willis Reed

Willis Reed

The NRA is a Red Herring

 

Every time some gun-related tragedy occurs, we get to hear from innumerable people who know nothing about guns other than everything is the NRA’s fault. And everything they think they know about the NRA is wrong. In other words, they think they know one thing but the one thing they know is wrong.

woman holding Stop the NRA banner

The thing they think they know is that the NRA pays off (Republican) politicians to vote against gun control bills.

I asked ChatGPT “How much does the NRA donate annually to politicians?” And I got this answer:

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a powerful lobbying organization that has donated millions of dollars to political candidates and causes over the years. However, the organization is not required to disclose its exact political contributions, and the amount it donates can vary widely from year to year and election cycle to election cycle.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics, the NRA’s political action committee (PAC) spent more than $10 million on the 2020 election cycle.

Keep that number in mind: $10 million.

Then I asked ChatGPT “Who were the top 50 contributors in the 2020 election cycle?” Here’s the answer:

The following information is based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. Here are the top 50 contributors in the 2020 election cycle:

  1. Bloomberg LP – $1.7 billion
  2. Future Forward USA – $436 million
  3. Democratic Party of Wisconsin – $381 million
  4. Senate Majority PAC – $373 million
  5. Presidential Action Fund – $313 million
  6. American Bridge 21st Century – $297 million
  7. Senate Leadership Fund – $279 million
  8. Conservative Solutions PAC – $277 million
  9. National Republican Senatorial Committee – $257 million
  10. Congressional Leadership Fund – $256 million
  11. Senate Conservatives Action – $225 million
  12. Fair Fight PAC – $208 million
  13. Service Employees International Union – $203 million
  14. Priorities USA Action – $192 million
  15. WinRed – $187 million
  16. National Republican Congressional Committee – $176 million
  17. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees – $175 million
  18. Laborers’ International Union of North America – $163 million
  19. American Crossroads – $161 million
  20. House Majority PAC – $159 million
  21. UNITE HERE – $156 million
  22. Democratic Governors Association – $155 million
  23. Republican National Committee – $153 million
  24. New York State Democratic Committee – $149 million
  25. 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East – $143 million
  26. American Federation of Teachers – $135 million
  27. SEIU Committee on Political Education – $134 million
  28. National Education Association – $133 million
  29. American Medical Association – $132 million
  30. Laborers’ Political League Education Fund – $130 million
  31. United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners – $129 million
  32. Carpenters & Joiners Union – $128 million
  33. American Association for Justice – $126 million
  34. Center for American Progress Action Fund – $124 million
  35. Sixteen Thirty Fund – $122 million
  36. National Association of Realtors – $118 million
  37. Senate Majority PAC – Reid – $117 million
  38. Northrop Grumman – $115 million
  39. Operating Engineers Union – $114 million
  40. National Education Association Advocacy Fund – $111 million
  41. Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund – $110 million
  42. United Steelworkers – $109 million
  43. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee – $108 million
  44. Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund – $106 million
  45. Club for Growth – $105 million
  46. American Postal Workers Union – $104 million
  47. United Auto Workers – $103 million
  48. National Beer Wholesalers Association – $102 million
  49. Republican Governors Association – $100 million
  50. The Lincoln Project – $99 million

It’s worth noting that this list includes a mix of political parties, PACs, labor unions, and other organizations.

A couple that jumped out at me here are the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund (at #41) and the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund (at #44), neither of which I’ve ever heard of, but which contributed a combined $216 million, more than 20 times the $10 million contributed by the NRA. In fact the NRA’s paltry $10 million puts it a full order of magnitude outside the top 50 contributors.

The “NRA buys everyone off” myth is one of the biggest red herrings in American politics. It’s a stroke of genius, I suppose, to have embedded it so deeply in our collective psyche that anyone who’s so inclined can throw it into a conversation about guns at a moment’s notice, even though it’s completely 100% false.

Believing Children’s Gender Identities

 

Peggy Flanagan

The woman above is Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of the state of Minnesota, who said at a press conference, “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them. That’s what it means to be a good parent.”

If it wasn’t already obvious from the way she’s dressed, this woman needs to be institutionalized.

My son, when he was much younger, told me he was Thor, he told me he was a gorilla, he told me he was a dinosaur . . . I didn’t believe him in any of those cases. Am I a bad parent?

He never said he was a girl, but at that time he wouldn’t have been continually propagandized on the topic by “grown-ups.”

If God Coached Basketball

 

Vermont Christian School Barred from Future Competition for Refusing to Play against Male Athlete — nationalreview.com

Mid-Vermont Christian School (MVCS) has been excluded from competing in future tournaments sanctioned by the Vermont Principals’ Association after its girls basketball team forfeited a match against an opposing team that includes a male player who identifies as a girl.

It’s a human rights violation! Vermont law permits transgender females to compete in the group corresponding to their gender identity and prohibits so-called discrimination based on sex.

Since the school in question is a Christian school, let’s ask ourselves what would Jesus do if Jesus were a basketball coach? Better yet, what would God do? Because God is wrathful and doesn’t put up with nonsense.

I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I take vengeance on them. (Ezekiel 25:17)

If I were God, I’d take the MVCS boys team and girls team combined as my girls team, and inform the opposition that even though some of the players look like boys, they all identify as girls.

And if that breaks some rule about having too many players on a team, the girls could cheer from the stands.

And while I wouldn’t specifically direct my players to injure the other team’s male player, I would tell them to employ a very physical style of basketball against him.

Amen.