Category Archives: culture

YGTBSM

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Another in the annals of.

The Louisiana court system, all the way up to the State’s Supreme Court, has upheld police denial of a (black) defendant’s demand for a lawyer during a police interrogation.  At one point during the interrogation, the suspect said, quite clearly IMNSHO,

If y’all, this is how I feel, if y’all think I did it, I know that I didn’t do it so why don’t you just give me a lawyer dog ’cause this is not what’s up.

The Supreme Court said the suspect’s statement was too ambiguous to constitute a demand for a lawyer.  Justice Scott Chrichton, in concurring, actually wrote in all seriousness,

In my view, the defendant’s ambiguous and equivocal reference to a “lawyer dog” does not constitute an invocation of counsel that warrants termination of the interview….

Elie Mystal, in his article at the link, generously attributed the ruling to an inaccurate transcript—”lawyer dog” vice the defendant’s clearly stated “lawyer, dawg,” even as he, rightly, decried the blatant racism in denying the suspect his lawyer.  Over that “ambiguity.”

I’m not so inclined.  Even without the comma, “lawyer dog” is a pretty clear slang phrase identifying the object of the suspect’s call.

Dawg.

The Democratic National Committee

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Have I mentioned the racist bigotry of the Left and its Progressive-Democratic Party?  Here’s an example of the Progressive-Democratic Party’s openly direct sexist bigotry, via Power Line (click on the image to get a larger version).

The emphasized line (emphasis by Power Line)—the money line—says I personally would prefer that you not forward to cisgender straight white males, since they’re already in the majority.  The line gains yet more significance coming on the heels of the first paragraph of Madeleine Leader’s (DNC Data Services Manager) missive.  After saying the DNC needs to rebuild its Technology Team into a capability for “tackling all elections,” she emphasized [emphasis added]

What’s more important is that we are focused on hiring and maintaining a staff of diverse voices and life experiences….

The Progressive-Democratic Party’s sexism, masqueraded as virtue signaling, is more important than merit—except that they define merit on the basis of gender and racial diversity, not on actual capability.

This is the gang that would rule our nation.  What damage would they do in the name of a diversity that favors Party-chosen groups?

College Entrance Criteria

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In an op-ed nominally centered on the failure of affirmative action in college admissions, John Katzman (o Noodle CEO and Princeton Review and 2U founder) and Steve Cohen (co-author of Getting In! The Zinch Guide to College Admissions & Financial Aid in the Digital Age) wrote this.

But the work of admissions officers is more complicated than finding the highest test scores. …. They want to put together an incoming freshman class that has aspiring journalists for the school newspaper, great athletes for all the teams, debaters, musicians, actors, dancers, legacies, and development prospects.

No, the work of admissions officers isn’t more complicated than finding the highest test scores. The added “goals” are just artificial complexification for the purpose of justifying admissions officers’ jobs and high salaries. Even the the authors’ jibe of “finding the highest test scores” is a cynical distortion. The task for quality schools is to find the the most academically capable entering freshmen and the freshmen with the best academic fit for the school’s expertise.

The school’s admissions goals most assuredly are not to fill a quota for the school paper or marching band or the semi-pro sports team or whatever else makes the deans feel good.

The Bigotry of the Left’s Identity Politics

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…writ large.  Here’s Van Gosse, of Franklin & Marshall College (I hesitate to call him a professor, even though that’s what he’s pleased to profess to do at the school) in his op-ed in Newsweek:

Why has the ascent of a bunch of people who in an earlier period might have been called Micks drawn no notice at all?

Maybe because they’re all Americans, who happen to have Irish ethnicity, and not Irishmen and -women who happen to have American citizenship.  This is the bigotry of the identity politics of ex-President Barack Obama (D), of ex-Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (D), of Progressive-Democratic Party Chairman Tom Perez, the Party in general, and the Left exposed.

This is the bigotry of the folks who would run our government and remake our nation made plain.

The silence of the Left, of the Party’s rank and file—of its politicians in Congress—on this rank racism is deafening.

Mao is Dead

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Long live Mao.

People’s Republic of China’s newly crowned Emperor and President-for-Life Xi Jinping has mounted his throne and is starting to exercise his power.

Under Mr Xi’s orders, mandatory political-study sessions emphasizing his speeches and policies were revived for all party members.

And

So was the Mao-era practice of members criticizing others and themselves.

Can we look forward to reeducation camps, too?  Maybe.  Here’s Xi on necessary fervor and “right thinking:”

We must continue to rid ourselves of any virus that erodes the party’s fabric[.]

And

Many government agencies and state-owned businesses require party members to attend study sessions at least once a month. Some officials organize weekly discussions, ask members to spend an hour a day on political self-study or arrange field trips to revolutionary landmarks.

And here’s an indication of the level of Orwellian micromanaging control over individuals that Xi expects the party to exercise:

Rank-and-file Communist Party members must take notes in standard-issue journals and submit them for review, as well as spend spare time studying for regular political discussions and quizzes.

We’re going to live in interesting times.  And so are the Chinese people on the mainland.