Month: December 2020

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A brief summary of deranged lefties claiming to be somebody they are not. Is leftism a mental disorder? The evidence grows.

It’s not just her name, Hilaria Baldwin’s entire life is a fake

“…Hilaria Baldwin, the epically thirsty, self-identified Spanish wife of actor Alec, has been outed as a basic white woman from Massachusetts, real name Hillary Hayward-Thomas.

Escandalo!

The cringiest piece of evidence is a clip from the “Today” show, in which Hilaria, speaking in a Spanish accent while cosplaying as some kind of culinary expert, says, “We have very few ingredients. We have tomatoes, we have, um, how you say in Eng — cucumbers.”

We’ve had quite a run of these masquerades, haven’t we? There was, of course, Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who claimed to be black, going so far as becoming president of her local NAACP chapter in Washington state and reporting herself the victim of race-related hate crimes. Former Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren clung to a dubious Native American identity for decades before finally apologizing to the Cherokee Nation in August 2019.

Then there’s Jessica Krug, the author and academic who claimed to be, at different points, half-Algerian American, half-German American, and an “Afro-boricua” from the Bronx whose nickname was “La Bombalera.” This past September, Krug admitted that she was just a nice Jewish girl from the Midwest who had lied about “various assumed identities within a Blackness that I had no right to claim: first North African Blackness, then US rooted Blackness, then Caribbean rooted Bronx Blackness.”

And of course, Madonna, that hustler from Michigan who adopted a terrible English accent when she moved to England.

So much self-loathing. So many people thinking that adopting another identity will make them more interesting.

Hilaria, despite her aggressive silent H, isn’t nearly as powerful or consequential as these examples. But her grift is pretty freaking great, proving what we all know about the evils of social media: The more people shove an ostensible truth down your throat, the more likely it’s a total lie…”

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Satire? Hard to tell? Can government get worse?

Miracle: Government Feeds Five People With Just 2.3 Trillion Loaves And Fishes

“…WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a stunning miracle, congresspeople just emerged from negotiations over 2.3 trillion loaves and fishes, somehow turning the trillions of morsels of food into enough meals for just five people.

An exhausted Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held up the small basket so crowds of unemployed citizens could witness perhaps the most historic event in the history of mankind, in which countless loaves and fishes given by those same citizens were magically transformed into, like, four or five measly meals.

“This is significant,” noted a sweating Pelosi, surely weary after working nearly 40 hours per week for what must have felt like three weeks. “You won’t find anyone in history who could pull off such a biblical feat.” The representative from the utopian state of California then pulled from the basket a coupon for $5 off at Applebee’s and held it aloft before the jobless masses.

The legislators then negotiated with multiple government administrations to oversee the distribution of the basket through the crowd standing directly in front of them. Distribution of the food cost billions, according to official reports.

The lone recipients of the divine intervention—a family of five—tearfully praised their democratic representatives for taking a mere seven months to perform such a miracle. “I don’t know what to do with all of this food,” said the husband. “The government has provided my family with enough to last, I don’t know, maybe two days. Praise heavens!”

His wife, overcome with joy, added, “Wow, whichever economic theory advocating that the means of production, distribution, and exchange be owned or regulated by the community as a whole, which inevitably cedes all powers and freedoms to a bloated, inefficient, and corrupt centralized government, works way better than the dumb system in which a government allows for citizens to take control of their own lives through private ownership, personal responsibility, and providing honestly for their families.”

“Our work here is done,” said Senator McConnell as a soft glow surrounded his countenance. “Now we must go to our place of rest for a time until the needy of this country call for us again. Farewell!” The senator and other legislators were then taken up into the heavens by private jets to far off vacation destinations…”

Related:

Milton Friedman quote: If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in...

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Fauci lied to America. Why is he still employed by the federal government or commenting on public health?

Trust science? Fauci’s admission he misled public puts scrutiny on Biden alliance

Related:

Dr. Fauci Admits He Has Treated The American People Like Children

“…The American people need public officials to tell us the truth, not what they think we need to hear. That’s the exact opposite of what we’re getting…”

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A description of our corrupt media by one who experienced it while in the eye of a media-storm

‘They Were Relentless’: How I Learned Respect for Our Communist Media

MARK JUDGE:

“…Some of the best advice for dealing with the media can be found in He Leadeth Me, a 1973 book by American Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek. Father Ciszek was captured by the Russian army during World War II. They accused and convicted him of being a Vatican spy. He would spend 23 years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia.

In one key passage, Ciszek describes how his dismissive contempt for his captors and the absurdity of the charge against him vanished. In a moment, they turned to cold realism when he realized what he was dealing with. The Russians were not about to stop asking him the same questions over and over again for days on end. They were not going to listen to facts or reason. “They were relentless, and they were thorough, and they were good at their trade,” Ciszek notes.

Respect Thy Enemy
This kind of appreciation for the skill of your enemy is essential to dealing with atheist materialists, whether in the old Soviet Union or in the modern media. Sure, the press is filled with people who are incompetent and make unbelievable mistakes. You and I might consider the MSM something of a joke. But don’t be fooled. In the midst of the mediocrities, you’ll also find experts and fanatics. You’ll meet people schooled in opposition research, psychological warfare and emotional manipulation.

You don’t have to like these facts. (In fact, you shouldn’t.) But you must respect reality. The reporter who has just called you with a list of personal questions might be a goofball — or a trained and skilled interrogator. Assume, to be on the safe side, that he is very likely a deeply damaged, ideologically obsessed and angry human being. One who cares nothing about you, fairness, or even your life. Just like the Russians who tortured Fr. Ciszek.

The Story Was Written Before They Even Contacted You
Every person who comes into the media’s crosshairs should understand this. Nothing you say or do is going to change the story they are going to write. Indeed, the story was written before they even contacted you. They will falsify quotes and leave out facts. They often have reams of opposition research (ugly tales about you) at the ready. If so, they will slowly dole it out to set up and trick a naïve subject.

To echo Fr. Ciszek: They are relentless, they are thorough, and they are good at their trade. Acknowledging this and not expecting fair or decent treatment will leave you more prepared than most. To become hysterical, or to even talk to them, is to play into their hands. Treat them the way surfers treat sharks — as a deadly adversary that should never be underestimated.

When Ronan Farrow Calls You, Hang Up!
On September 14, 2018, I was at home when I got a call from Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker. My high school friend Brett Kavanaugh had been nominated for the Supreme Court on July 9. Now, two months later, Farrow was calling me to tell me that Brett and I had been named in a letter claiming “sexual misconduct in the 1980s.” At the time of Farrow’s call the accuser had not been named. She turned out to be Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor in California. Ford’s charge would upend the Kavanaugh nomination and roil the nation.

I told Farrow I had no idea what he was talking about — and asked him if he could be more specific than “sexual misconduct in the 1980s.” He couldn’t. The only accurate description of what happened that night was by Allahpundit, a popular blogger at the site Hot Air:

Judge apparently found out he was named in the letter when Ronan Farrow called to ask about it. Farrow offered no details about when the incident supposedly happened or where, or even the name of the woman. Judge has been accused of participating in an attempted rape with a would-be Supreme Court justice, in other words, and can’t even get the basic facts of the allegation provided to him. It’s Kafkaesque. And it raises another question. If Democrats knew all along that Judge was the second man and they’re taking this seriously, why is he only hearing about it now, from Farrow? Why not in July from Feinstein’s office or Rep. Anna Eshoo’s office? She was the first person contacted about the charge, remember.

I have been a reporter for some many years myself, and I have done a lot of reading on communism from The Gulag Archipelago to China’s Cultural Revolution. So after I hung up with Farrow, I knew exactly what was happening. I had been set up, and it had been a long time in the making. I could, in sports vernacular, see the entire field. Media critic Ben Smith described Farrow as a writer who “delivers narratives that are irresistibly cinematic … and often omits the complicating facts and inconvenient details that may make them less dramatic.” Farrow also “suggests conspiracies that are tantalizing but he cannot prove.”

I Wouldn’t Play Along
Because I know that most reporters are no different from the old Soviets at Pravda, I knew that they were working from a large file of oppo research. It had been worked on for weeks, if not months or even years. There would be more stories that were all already written. Still, even I couldn’t believe it when the media and the members of the United States Senate began trying to decipher jargon from my high school yearbook. Their goal? To prove that Brett and I had, I don’t know, drunk some beers when we were teenagers. If I contradicted the media narrative, the press would simply edit whatever I said to fit the narrative.

There was only one problem: I wouldn’t play along. I gave one interview to The New York Times, lengthily pointing out that I simply had no recollection of what Ford was talking about. I told them that the Brett Kavanaugh I knew in high school was a good friend and decent guy. He was interested in sports. Even that one interview may not have been advisable, I know.

That 3 a.m. Knock on the Door
At one point during the most chaotic point of the Kavanaugh episode, I decamped from Washington. I spent a couple days at a friend’s beach house on the Eastern Shore to try and regain a little sanity. One night at about 3 a.m., there was a loud knock on the door. Here it was, the moment you always hear about in novels like Darkness At Noon, or memoirs like Ciszek’s. The totalitarians were pounding on my door in the middle of the night.

I didn’t answer, of course. Respecting that awesome power and diabolical ability of those lined up against me meant facing reality with a clarity that would help me survive. Like Fr. Ciszek, I understood that I was dealing with highly skilled sociopaths, men unencumbered by consciences…”

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Rethinking lockdowns, or correcting bad policy based on new and better information

Rethinking lockdowns: The risks and trade-offs of public health measures to prevent COVID-19 infections

Ari Joffe:

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, there was contagion of fear and lockdown policies across the world. Modeling in March (based on inaccurate disease estimates) suggested there could be 510,000 deaths in Great Britain and 2.2 million deaths in the US by mid-April, with cases surpassing intensive care demand by 30 times. Non-pharmaceutical interventions spread to around 80 percent of OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries within a two-week period in March 2020, mainly predicted by prior adoptions of a policy among spatially proximate countries.

Most countries in the world implemented lockdowns, restricting their population’s movements, work, education, gatherings, and general activities in attempt to reduce transmission and thus ‘flatten the curve’ of COVID-19 cases. Cognitive biases largely drove the response, and resulted in the triumph of groupthink (the desire for harmony and conformity prevailed, and we became less willing to alter our course of action). My own cognitive biases made me (like others) focus on controlling one disease, COVID-19, to the exclusion of important broader considerations discussed below; thus, I was an initial proponent of lockdowns (see Kumar et al. 2020)…

…What should we do?

We must take an ‘effortful pause’ from our cognitive biases and calibrate our response to the risks and trade-offs discussed above. To do otherwise risks only magnifying the many costs outlined above. A recalibrated response might involve the following:

    1. Educate the public and policy-makers on the risks and trade-offs involved. Alleviate unreasonable fear with accurate information.
    2. Focus on cost-benefit analysis. Repeated or prolonged lockdowns cannot be based on COVID-19 numbers alone.
    3. Focus on protecting people at high risk: people hospitalized or in nursing homes (e.g., universal masking in hospitals reduced transmission markedly), in crowded conditions (e.g., homeless shelters, prisons, large gatherings), and equal to and greater than 70 years old (especially with multiple severe comorbidities). Do not lock down everyone, regardless of their individual risk.
    4. Keep schools open: children have very low morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, and (especially those 10 years old and younger) are less likely to be infected by SARS-CoV-2 and have a low likelihood to be the source of transmission of SARS-CoV-2.
    5. Consider increasing health care surge capacity if forecasting, accurately calibrated repeatedly to real-time data (up to now, forecasting, even short-term, has repeatedly failed), suggests it is needed. With universal masking in hospitals, asymptomatic health care workers can continue to work…”
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Cuomo’s arbitrary religious restrictions struck down

U.S. appeals court blocks NY governor’s limits on religious gatherings

“…The federal appeals court in Manhattan on Monday blocked New York state restrictions on the size of religious gatherings put in place to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, the Orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel of America and two synagogues in enjoining New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Oct. 6 attendance caps at “houses of worship.”

The governor limited attendance to the lesser of 10 people or 25% capacity in “red” zones where the coronavirus risk was highest, and 25 people or 33% capacity in slightly less risky “orange” zones, even in buildings that seat hundreds.

Circuit Judge Michael Park said the plaintiffs established irreparable harm by showing the restrictions impaired their free exercise of religion.

He also said “no public interest is served by maintaining an unconstitutional policy when constitutional alternatives are available to achieve the same goal.”

Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Monday’s decision followed the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling on Nov. 25 against enforcing the caps…”

Doug Santo