Tag Archives: culture

Holding Thoughts

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Congressman Adam Schiff (D, CA) is facing then-candidate and now President Donald Trump-Russia collusion transcript revelations—many of which show that Schiff knew that witnesses in closed-door/sworn testimony before House committee hearings to which he was party said unequivocally that they knew of no such collusion—that show how thoroughly and blatantly he lied in his public remarks about his hard evidence of Trump’s collusion with Russia.

Now Schiff is claiming that the revelations are just Republican efforts to distract us all from the Wuhan Virus situation and Trump’s supposed mishandling of it.

Schiff has begun claiming, instead, that us ordinary Americans are incapable of holding two thoughts in our minds at the same time, we’re incapable of concentrating on two problems simultaneously, we can’t do two things at once.

Schiff is projecting, again. Or, Schiff is lying, again.

The Ugliness of the Progressive-Democrat Patriarchy

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Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden has spoken. That’s the end of the story. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) has patted Tara Reade on her pretty little head, said “There, there,” and announced that

Now I’ve heard Joe Biden’s explanation. I think it’s sufficient[.]

The grande dame of the Progressive-Democratic Party, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, is on board, too.

I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She [Tara Reade] came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.

Biden was Vice President; therefore he could do no wrong. Where has Reade been all these years? Where had Christine Blasey Ford been all those years, before Feinstein dragged her out into the open and viciously went after Brett Kavanaugh? Oh, wait—that’s different: Kavanaugh was never Vice President. Or a Progressive-Democrat.

This is the true color of Progressive-Democrats and of their Party. Women aren’t human beings; they’re just tools to be slapped down on the work bench to produce talking points and votes whenever those tools become useful.

Believe women only when it’s convenient to the Left’s patriarchy.

It isn’t #MeToo; it’s #YouTooMaybe.

It’s disgusting.

Credibility

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As the journalism guild’s complicity in the General Michael Flynn travesty becomes steadily more apparent, some questions arise—again—about what an honest journalism industry (not guild—that’s beyond redemption) needs to do to have any credibility.

  1. identify at least some the sources, rather than hanging an article’s thesis exclusively on the claims of anonymous sources
  2. if an anonymous source refuses to be identified, show with concrete, measurable evidence the following:
    1. the source actually exists
    2. if the source exists, then
      1. why the source should be believed, given that by speaking publicly, even if anonymously, he’s likely violating his terms of employment if not his oath of office
      2. why the source should be believed, given that by hiding behind anonymity, he’s displaying his cowardice—and cowards will always and only say what they believe will be personally beneficial
  3. if representing the anonymous source as a whistleblower, provide concrete, measurable evidence that the source has used up all of his employer’s internal whistleblowing channels before he decided to leak

All of this is best done in the opening paragraph(s) of an article, ahead even of the Who, What, Where, When that used to form the lede of quality journalism. That unavoidably will make for a clumsy opening to what’s being represented as a factual news article (rather than an opinion piece), but that’s the cost incurred of a guild’s prolonged, insistent dishonesty.

Even more importantly, though, the press used to have a standard that required two on-the-record sources to corroborate the claims of a journalist’s anonymous sources. The industry’s Editors-in-Chief—every single one of them—must explain:

  1. why they have chosen to walk away from that standard of integrity
  2. what standard of integrity they’re using in its stead

It’s a Start

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But it can’t possibly be the final answer; it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has issued the final rule regarding college/university sexual harassment complaints and how colleges/universities must handle them. Along the way, DeVos revoked with finality the Obama DoEd rule that eliminated the rights of the accused.

It allows both the accused and accuser to submit evidence and participate in cross-examination in live proceedings, and both parties can also appeal a school’s ruling. Victims-rights advocates say the provision for cross-examinations could traumatize those alleging misconduct and potentially keep them from filing complaints at all.
It also allows institutions to choose one of two standards of evidence—”clear and convincing,” or the lower “preponderance of the evidence,” which just requires a greater than 50% likelihood of wrongdoing—as long as they apply the standard evenly for all cases

The victim’s rights advocates objections can be dismissed out of hand—they’ve never been interested in due process or the rights of the accused.

However.

There should be no ability for the accuser to keep appealing until she gets the ruling she wants. A ruling that the boy didn’t do what he was accused of doing should be final.

Too, there should be no choice in the standards of evidence. The accused too often is being charged with a crime or a near crime. The only legitimate standard of evidence should be clear and convincing, and any…guilty verdict…should be required to be arrived at “beyond reasonable doubt.”

Furthermore, there needs to be a better limit on the cases a college/university is permitted to investigate. An outside, unaffiliated party should determine whether the misbehavior being alleged would be a crime. If the determination is that a crime is being alleged, then the matter should be turned over to the police—not the campus police, but the local police or sheriff’s department—for investigation. If appropriate, the case then should be turned over to the local prosecutor. Colleges/universities are not qualified to investigate allegations of crimes.

This rule is far better than the travesty that Obama and his Education Department inflicted on our students. That was a very low bar, though.

Education Standards

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A St Paul, MN, public schools educator helping teachers decried insistence that consistent standards be applied to students and their school performance.

A child living in poverty with a single, working parent, little support, marginal technology, and a spotty Wi-Fi connection cannot be held to the same standard as a child of a well-educated family, whose parents are working from home, with ample technological devices, high-speed connectivity and support.

Of course, he can. The child either has mastered the material and is qualified to move on, or he has not. An honestly assigned grade is an index of the level of mastery.

The reason(s) for a failure to master are what is worthy of addressal. Inadequate teaching, immaturity of the child’s development relative to the material, incapacity of the child, unavailability of the needed materials and/or inadequate access to available material (perhaps due to the effects the “educator” listed) are a few such reasons.

It’s breathtaking that someone styling herself an educator is confused by this.