Bookworm Room

Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.

Rape Accusations, Leftists, Blurred Lines, and poor Brett Kavanaugh

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Once Orwellian Leftists got their hands on it, “rape” as traditionally understood became a malleable concept to be used to destroy political enemies.

Rape Pulp Magazine coversItem: Former Vice President Joe “Creepy Touch” Biden, when announcing that the Obama White House was creating a task force to address campus rape, stated “One in five of every one of those young women who is dropped off for that first day of school, before they finish school, will be assaulted in her college years.”

In fact, that statistic goes far beyond being a lie or a damn lie. It’s a complete fraud. This video soundly debunks that statistic:

Here’s the key takeaway:

[That “statistic”] comes from a study conducted over the internet at two large universities one in the Midwest and one in the South. The survey was anonymous no one’s claims were verified and terms were not clearly defined. In round numbers, a total of 5,000 women participated. Based on their responses, the authors, not the participants, determined that 1,000 had been victims of some type of non-consensual or unwanted sexual contact and — voila! — from one vaguely worded unscientific survey we suddenly arrived at a rape culture on college campuses. Tellingly, the study authors have since explicitly stated that it’s inappropriate to use their survey to make that claim. Much more comprehensive data from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics or “BJS” estimates that about one in 52.6 college women will be victims [sic] of rape or sexual assault over the course of four years. That’s far too many, but it’s a long way from one in five. The same BJS data also reveal that women in college are safer from rape than college aged women who are not enrolled in college — but the truth doesn’t serve the purposes of feminist activists or vote seeking politicians. Lies work much better and the one in five claim is tantamount to a lie.

Let me say it again: the notion of a campus “rape culture” is a grotesque lie, based on a manifestly flawed study, that the Left peddles because it allow them to control young women and destroy young men. As Glenn Reynolds likes to point out, no sentient adult actually believes this statistic because no loving parent would ever allow his or her child to go to a place that has a rate rape comparable to the rate in South Africa, one of the most sexually violent countries in the world. The only ones who believe these statistics are college administrators and the terrified female students brought to heel by these statistical lies.

For those unclear on why I added “Creepy Touch” to Biden’s name, this video helps explain:

[Read more…]

Something completely different: Why wasn’t Gene Nelson a huge star?

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Gene Nelson, a singer and dancer from Hollywood’s golden age, reminds us that talent isn’t always enough. You need an intangible extra to be a star.

Gene Nelson Miriam Nelson

Gene Nelson with his ex-wife Miriam Nelson, who was also a dancer and choreographer (and who died recently).

I need a break from politics, so I want to talk about something different, which is star power.

Star power is real, although some stars, like butterflies, have to grow up a bit before you see it. If you go back and watch 1939’s Stagecoach, which was John Wayne’s breakout role after he’d already been kicking around in Hollywood for almost a decade, you see star power. Apparently his good looks notwithstanding, that decade was necessary to bring his wattage to maturity.

Katherine Hepburn also had to grow into her star power. In her early movies, sometimes she was good (as in Little Women) and sometimes she overacted so badly it makes ones teeth hurt (as in Stage Door). No matter the role, though, and no matter the quality of Hepburn’s work, she draws you in. You can’t help but watch her.

Star power affected musical performers too. Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire had it. Both were superb dancers and okay singers. Gene was handsome; Fred dorky. In other words, they were like a thousand other talented Hollywood hopefuls but, when they’re in a scene, you watch them.

And then there’s Gene Nelson. If you’ve heard of him (and most of you probably haven’t), it’s because of his role as Will Parker in 1955’s Oklahoma. And if you do remember that movie, you probably remember Gene for this one song and dance (which is really more singing than dancing):

Even that limited number showcases Nelson’s virtues: Handsome; decent singing voice; elegant figure; and superb, athletic dancer. And when I say athletic, I mean it: [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 9/9/2018 — the disgusting Democrats edition

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The disgusting Democrats are waging a despicable battle. They are defaming a good man, and destroying decency and due process, all to preserve abortion. 

Kavanaugh Disgusting DemocratsDisgusting Democrats will blow our republic apart to kill babies. Without any credible evidence and without any credible corroboration, the disgusting Democrats are smearing as a rapist a man who has led an irreproachable life. In today’s climate, people will more readily forgive murder than they will rape, and yet that’s the label they are appending to him in an effort to block a Supreme Court nomination.

This is what happens when you have a “living Constitution.” If the Constitution as written is your guide, it doesn’t much matter what the justices’ personal feelings are. Once you use the Supreme Court as a non-elected Leftist legislature, though, suddenly Supreme Court nominations have the same weight and viciousness as a gladiatorial death match. And if you cannot actually kill someone who owes fealty to the Constitution, you kill his reputation.

Anyone who would use this tactic is disgusting. Dianne Feinstein is disgusting for sitting on these hazy, almost fact-free charges for two months instead of passing them on to investigators or arranging for Ford to testify in private session. The only explanation was that she knew this was a lie, a set-up, a delusional fantasy, or something other than the truth, and held it in reserve in case polling hinted that Democrats might retake the Senate. Disgusting.

Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii is disgusting because she will do anything to prevent Ford from having to back up her vague, contradictory, antique, unprovable allegations:

You know, for any of us to have dealt at all with the experience of sexual trauma knows that this is a very particularly damaging kind of experience. And you do not treat a person who has gone through this like, ‘Oh, well, hey, how about this?’ You know, I think it’s appalling.

Not only is Hirono disgusting, she’s stupid. She gave the game away when she said that the seat should be vacant for another two years:

Hawaii Sen. Mazie Hirono (D.) said Democrats could keep the open seat on the Supreme Court vacant until after the 2020 election if Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination collapses and Democrats regain control of the Senate in November.

Hirono pointed to the long vacancy of Antonin Scalia’s former seat as a justification for holding off on confirming any nominee from President Donald Trump. When Barack Obama was president and Republicans held the Senate, Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did not hold a vote on Obama’s nominee Merrick Garland, and Hirono said Democrats could do the same if they had the Senate.

“I think we’ve had those kinds of vacancies before, and we certainly had over a one-year vacancy with Merrick Garland,” Hirono told Politico Magazine. “So the world does not come to an end because we don’t fill all of the nominees.”

This is not the Biden Rule, which holds that a lame duck president doesn’t get to nominate a Supreme Court justice when he’s already got one foot out the door of the White House during an election year. This is an entirely new Disgusting Democrat Rule: Only Democrat presidents may nominate candidates for the Supreme Court, provided that they have a majority Democrat Congress. Under this rule, the Constitutional structure of our American democracy is dead.

Completing her democracy-destroying role, Hirono also jettisoned the idea that all people are created equal and are entitled to equal protection under the law. Instead, she tells men they’re second class citizens:

I expect the men in this country and the men in this committee because we all signed on to this letter to demand an FBI investigation. But really guess who is perpetuating all of these kinds of actions? It’s the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country: just shut up and step up, do the right thing for a change.

Feinstein’s shenanigans still earn her first place as a disgusting Democrat, but Hirono is running a very close second. Both of course, are also horrible human beings, bereft of decency.

These two women are scarcely alone. The entire Democrat body, whether in Congress or in the Democrat-owned media, is throwing itself into this intentional mockery and destruction of our democratic process. I already wrote yesterday about the ridiculous things they’re saying about due process, about integrity, and about equality under the law.

There is little difference between the way Democrats are treating Kavanaugh and the Supreme Court from the way Democrats treated blacks and the Supreme Court in the 1850s — and we know how that disgusting Democrat travesty ended.

On the infinitesimally small chance that Ford isn’t delusional or an out-and-out hard Left liar, her allegations should still be dismissed. As Chad Felix Greene movingly writes, rape can only be proven within a short time of its happening. After that, if you, the victim, choose to remain quiet, you the victim, have to live with the consequences of that decision. (I highly recommend his article.)

What makes this all truly horrible is that, when you think about it, this whole disgraceful kabuki theater is happening for one reason and one reason alone: To ensure that abortion continues to be legal in America up until the end of the third trimester. That’s what this is all about — dead babies. Think of that.

Okay. I’ve finished on that subject. Now to a few other interesting things, and then I’m retiring for the evening to watch something light and silly. [Read more…]

Fat models on magazine covers — we’re being prepared for the “hungering.”

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A tongue-in-cheek look at what it means that Leftists want low production farming (no pesticides, no GMO, etc.) and have a new reverence for fat models.

Fat Models Tess HolidayThe elite always casts itself in opposition to the hoi polloi. It has done so since time immemorial.

In prehistoric times, back about 25,000 years ago, when starvation was the norm, the most revered female figures were fat, really, really fat, as you can see from these pictures of several Paleolithic Venuses. Similar ones can be found all over Europe and most ancient cultures have little fat feminine figures that were obviously meant for worship or luck:

(Is that a pussy hat this golden lady is wearing?)

These women were special — they were well-fed, healthy, and obviously fecund — unlike the scrawny, unhealthy ordinary people who worshiped avoirdupois from afar and with envy.

The Middle Ages were famous for (among other things), their sumptuary laws, the sole purpose of which was to use the power of the state to ensure that peasants didn’t look like aristocrats. The illustrations in Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (circa 1416) illustrate nicely the divide between laborer and aristocrat (although the peasants were cleaned up for this exquisite book): [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 9/18/2018 — the Kavanaugh fraud edition and open thread

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Leftist responses to Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh indicate pretty strongly that they know they’re fraudulent, plus much more on current topics.

KavanaughOn the Kavanaugh accusations, the Left’s line is “don’t ask so we won’t have to tell.” Actually, that’s not quite what Clown News Network reporter Chris Cillizza said. When reminded that Republicans would like to investigate the huge holes and inconsistencies in Christine Ford’s narrative, this is what he said:

Remember, in the Left’s America, the standard is the due process rights do not extend to Republicans. This is because they know that, in the face of fraudulent accusations, due process would expose the fraud. The only way to prevail on stale, uncorroborated, vague accusations is to use a new standard, one that applies only to conservatives, never Leftists:

Ford has nothing to gain? Really? Except for the fact that, as a hard Left person, she may effectively knock out a conservative Supreme Court nominee. Or even if he gets appointed, she will have tainted him in the eyes of half of America, not to mention his own children’s eyes.

And she has everything to lose? Really? When we know she’ll be endless feted on the Left, with invitations to A-List Leftie parties, huge book deals, etc.? I mean, look at the traction a sleazy porn star gained from smearing Trump.

And women never lie? Really?

Apparently a simulacrum of due process is passé for our media solons when they can profit off smears against conservatives.

Debra Katz, Ford’s lawyer, adds a new wrinkle to how due process plays out in Leftist America (emphasis added):

During the interview, Katz revealed that there was another girl present at the party, which allegedly took place in 1982 while Kavanaugh was attending Georgetown Prep. Ford previously told the Washington Post that there were four boys at the party but never indicated if there were other girls beside herself.

“While we have you, perhaps you can help us fill in the blanks on some of her story. She says that she was at a party in probably 1982 in Montgomery County, Maryland. She says that there were four guys there, these are high school students, as was she. There were four guys there. Were there any girls there that day?” anchor Alisyn Camerota asked.

“Yes, there was another girl at this party, yes,” Katz said.

Camerota asked if Ford has tried to talk to any of the other partygoers to see if they will corroborate her story, but Katz declined to place the burden of proof on her client.

“That’s not her job to do that. If this is going to be investigated, it should be done by investigators,” Katz asserted.

Having put out a vague, uncorroborated, confusing narrative, Ford’s job here is done. It’s up to Kavanaugh to prove a negative attached to a gossamer allegation that can be rejiggered to fit any time line and location in the early 1980s.

But in the race to the bottom, Ana Marie Cox may still beat out both Katz and Dowd:

We need to judge Brett Kavanaugh, not just by what he may or may not have done, but how he treats a woman’s pain. And that is something I’m going to be paying attention to on Monday. How does he respond to what’s happening. Whether or not he agrees that this happened with her, does he take her pain seriously? Do the people interrogating her pain take her pain seriously? Now, I’ll give you a spoiler alert, I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh takes women’s pain very seriously, and I know that because of the decisions he’s made as a judge.

Ben Shapiro has the correct take on that outrageous statement:

This is a morally abhorrent statement. So if a woman falsely accuses a man of rape, we don’t judge him based on whether he actually raped her – we judge him based on whether he feels the pain of a person falsely accusing him of rape. The real question of the Duke lacrosse case, by this standard, wasn’t whether a stripper was actually raped – the question is whether the members of the Duke lacrosse team were sensitive to her feelings while she was falsely accusing them of rape.

That would be an insane statement enough. But Cox goes even further: she already knows that Kavanaugh won’t meet her standard of sympathy because he hasn’t decided cases how she likes on key “feminist” issues, presumably like abortion. Now, never mind that Kavanaugh hasn’t actually signaled that he’d be willing to overturn Roe v. Wade. Think about the underlying contention: we can tell whether you are a bad person by your level of sympathy for a rape accuser whom you believe is lying about you, and we can judge your level of sympathy by looking at your political decisions. The logic is simple: if you’re a person who disagrees with Ana Marie Cox, you can be slandered as a rapist, and any attempt to rebut such accusations will amount to a lack of sympathy.

And do remember that, despite all the shrieks of outrage from the left about a hazy 35(ish) year old uncorroborated story with holes large enough to drive a freight train through, the Left has been utterly silent about recent, credible, corroborated claims against DNC apparatchik (and AG candidate in Minnesota) Keith Ellison:

Moreover, not only haven’t they believed the woman, they’ve set out to destroy her. [Read more…]

Sunlight is the best disinfectant: Trump’s order declassifying documents

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Trump’s order declassifying documents related to the “Russia Collusion” narrative is the best way to destroy Deep State bullies and reveal government rot.

Illustrated edition Trump not a sexual predator Congress Mueller declassifying documentsI am delighted that Donald Trump issued a sweeping order declassifying a huge bolus of documents related to the Russia probe:

The documents ordered declassified are a handful of pages of the June 2017 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to continue surveillance of Trump campaign aide Carter Page, which originally began in 2016. Trump also ordered all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all surveillance applications of Page be declassified and released.

Trump also ordered that all FBI reports of interviews prepared in connection with all Page surveillance applications be released.

Trump also ordered the declassification of all FBI reports of interviews DOJ official Bruce Ohr prepared in connection with the Russia investigation. Ohr had a close relationship with former British spy Christopher Steele, the author of the dossier connection Trump to Russia. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS, the same opposition research firm that Bruce Ohr’s wife, Nellie Ohr, was contracted by.

Trump also directed the Justice Department and FBI “to publicly release all text messages relating to the Russia investigation, without redaction,” of Comey and Ohr, as well as former FBI Deputy Director Andre McCabe.

The text messages of Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were also ordered to be released without redaction. Strzok and Page were both part of the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, as well as the Russia investigation.

Sadly, the DOJ and FBI can still drag their feet on this (which I guess explains why he issued the order now. making it a September surprise, and not closer to the election): [Read more…]

Is the accusation against Kavanaugh the culmination of a set-up from 2012? *UPDATED*

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A 2012 New Yorker piece naming Kavanaugh as a potential Romney pick for the Supremes may provide the genesis for Christine Ford’s questionable accusation.

Brett KavanaughBy now you’ve all heard that Christine Blasey Ford is the woman accusing Kavanaugh of attacking her 35 years ago, a claim he strenuously and absolutely denies. Her story is a bizarre pastiche of precise details and huge memory holes. It’s also got a big lie planted right in the middle, which is Ford’s claim that she always meant to be private and only went public now because she couldn’t hide anymore.

That’s bull crap. The moment Ford sent a letter to a Democrat pol, she knew with absolute certainty that this would be a big deal, that her name would emerge, and that she’d become the Democrats’ new darling.

But this post is going to focus on one of the more weird things about Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh, which is the fact her therapist’s notes date from 2012:

Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room. (Emphasis mine.)

Put aside for now the fact that the notes don’t jive with the accusations Ford is making. Focus, instead, on that date: 2012.

It’s a weird date. Keep in mind that Ford, aside from being a Bernie supporting academic, is a psychologist. Part of getting a degree in psychology is going through analysis. One would think that, even if, as a shy 15-year-old, Ford was too afraid to go public with her charge against Kavanaugh, when she went through psychoanalysis on her way to her degree, she would have spoken about this alleged assault, especially because she says it traumatized her for years. But she didn’t. Instead, suddenly, in 2012, she’s bathed in flop sweat from an incident decades before.

So what happened in 2012? Coincidentally (or not), 2012 was another election year.

In 2012, Romney ran against Obama. Up until his 47% gaffe, Romney was doing well. He actually had a shot of winning.

For the Democrats, as has been the case since Bork, having a Republican in the White House, especially with the ever-aging but never retiring Ruth Bader Ginsburg a perpetual risk, raised the specter of a conservative judge getting appointed to the Supreme Court. With that in mind, one Twitter user, who must have an amazing memory, remembered something interesting he’d read back in 2012: [Read more…]

Pat Condell on the UK elite’s disgraceful response to Brexit

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Pat Condell has an exceptionally clear view of the British elite’s shenanigans when it comes to circumventing Brexit — and what Brits are losing.

Pat Condell on BrexitI’ve had four people send me this Pat Condell video, and it really is worth watching. British people ought to be up in arms about what’s going on. It’s one thing to elect politicians who make and break promises. It’s another thing for the majority to vote for a specific policy and then to have the political elite refuse to enforce it.

Now, of course, these elites are demanding a new vote so that the “stupid, racist, hate-filled British mob” that believes in self-governance and individual liberty can go back to the voting booths and get it right — which means, going Left and handing British sovereignty over to Leftist bureaucratic hacks in Belgium forever. (In other words, the typical Leftist tactic that sees them losing in the voting booth and then demanding recounts forever until they win, at which point the recounts end.)

I seem to remember someone wise writing

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Condell thinks the average Brit is mad and willing to act, but I have my doubts. I think that, if someone took an x-ray of the average Britisher’s backbone it would be indistinguishable from a photo of a limp strand of spaghetti.

So, with that intro, here’s the video: [Read more…]

When arguing with Leftists, conservatives must keep their eyes on the ball

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Leftists have a habit of distracting conservatives with irrelevant arguments that obscure the fact that, on the important issues, conservatives should win.

Leftists conservatives keep your eyes on the ballIt’s happened to all of us. We approach someone with a legitimate grievance — say, for example, reminding someone that he promised not to drink directly from the milk cartoon anymore — and suddenly we find ourselves arguing about whether human mouths or dogs mouths have more bacteria. The latter debate becomes all-encompassing and effectively distracts from the fact that the other person broke a promise not to do something that spreads bacteria, whether from a human or a dog mouth. Too often, we conservatives find ourselves suckered into the same type of meaningless, vaguely related arguments, without realizing that we hold the high ground on the main issue.

Take for example the endless debate about whether illegal aliens are more likely to commit crimes than legal aliens or actual citizens. It’s a very hot debate now, with data from various states pouring in to prove things one way or another. John Lott is at the center of a battle over which numbers to use. (I side with Lott, who follows the numbers where they lead, whether then doing the Leftist thing of leading the numbers where he wants them to go.)

But whether I side with John Lott is irrelevant, because we’re all missing the fundamental point: Illegal aliens are not supposed to be here. Every single crime they commit is one crime too many.

We all know that there is going to be a criminal element within any society, but we accept it because it comes from within the society. But illegal aliens were never meant to be here. If life were a Star Trek episode, their presence is messing with the time-space continuum. So the only acceptable number for crimes committed by illegal aliens is zero. Kick ’em out and keep ’em out and the time-space-crime continuum returns to normal.

Another example of this argument about things that don’t matter is the whole push, whether from Bob “the Gossip” Woodward or the whiny, cowardly Anonymous, to claim that Trump runs a chaotic White House and is rude to his employees, making him unfit to be president. Therefore we have a battle about what constitutes good management style or whether Trump is a nice boss.

Again, I say “so what?” I don’t care if Trump thrives in chaos, yells at people, or even spends his days watching the Gorilla Channel. (Joke, people. Joke.) The only thing that matters — and the only thing we should be paying attention to as we go into November and decide whether to give him a Congress that will work with him versus one trying to destroy him — is the results flowing from that White House.

According to the media, No-Drama Obama ran a White House that was a sea of tranquility and graciousness. Okay. Fine. I’ll accept that narrative. But what came out of that White House? [Read more…]

Transgenderism is the latest mental health fad, by guest blogger Lulu *UPDATED*

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For many people, transgenderism is a fad — but today’s mental health professionals shamefully ignore the emotional disorders that are pushing this fad.

transgenderism(By guest blogger Lulu)

I am a mental health professional with over thirty years experience, so I have seen a lot of mental health treatment and diagnostic fads come and go. Time after time a new diagnosis catches clinical fancy. Suddenly everyone has ADHD. Now suddenly Bipolar Disorder is disproportionately diagnosed. And also Autism Spectrum Disorder. Once autism was a 1 in 10,000 disorder, then a 1 in 5,000, then 1,000, then 700, then 500, then 100, then 75. The latest I’ve seen is 1 in 39.

See where I’m going here? Broaden the diagnosis, generalize vastly, and everyone can have a label. To me it’s a bit frightening. Does anyone know what they are talking about? New labels, new diagnoses are bandied around like oracles, unquestioning professionals nodding their heads and accepting, never wondering, never challenging.

When I began practicing professionally, recovered memory was all the rage. Mostly young women in treatment supposedly suddenly recovered memory of traumatic incestuous sexual abuse or satanic rituals that had been repressed, suppressed and not remembered because of disassociation. Thousands of women abruptly cut parents out of their lives, sometimes accusing them of heinous crimes in court or denouncing them to family, friends and in media. Their recovered memories were recovered in hypnotherapy or in suggestive, leading therapies, and while there is no doubt that heinous sexual abuse occurs, there is also no doubt this became a trend, flames fanned by the media. Recent books have been written by women apologizing for the harm they did throwing around false accusations they really believed at the time when under the spell.

I recall being absolutely told that children never lie about abuse. Never. Their testimony is always accurate. Children cannot make these things up. Specialists declared the same. This culminated in the infamous McMartin Pre-School tragedy in which the innocent owners of a pre-school were convicted and sent to prison for the alleged satanic abuse of children, including sexual abuse, torturing animals, etc.

But it never happened. Suggestible children were led and cajoled by child abuse investigators, frightened parents and poor clinicians looking for confirmation. For heavens sake, they were preschoolers! When I was that age, I got a woman fired by lying as I remember guiltily now. I recall lying to my mother and telling her that a housekeeper hit me (children never lie about abuse…) all because my sister told me that she picked her nose and then cooked our food. When my mother fired her she cried and denied the offense. I didn’t speak up. I didn’t lie much as a child, but I lied terribly then, and viciously, and all I needed was a little pressure from my big sister to do so. Professionals must be wary. People, especially children and teenagers, are suggestible.

In my mental health work for a large school district we all knew about contagion. Teenagers and pre-teens desperately want to fit in. Many want to feel dramatic and to be noticed. If a popular cheerleader began cutting, her entire group of cohorts began cutting too. When a well-liked student died unexpectedly, in an accident, for example, it wasn’t just his or her friends grieving. Some kids wanted to be part of the grieving group despite only a passing connection to the deceased student, sometimes cynically to get out of class, but often to fit in, to feel like a deep, sensitive feeler responding to the emotions of those around them. Yes, again, some were stirred by their own traumatic memories, but not all.

Teens copy each other. They like to be noticed. Yet evidence that the transgender movement among youth fits this typical teenage pattern has been intentionally squelched and shut out.

So forgive me if I tell you that this transgender thing is the latest bandwagon, and professionals, pretending to be tolerant, pretending science validates this, are deeply harming the most confused and vulnerable of youth. Transgenderism is exceedingly rare. Now it’s a trend. It’s a way for kids who never fit in for a whole host of reasons, to claim that this is the reason, and to receive widespread public affirmation in the media and in certain circles for their fashionable struggle. It’s power. Everyone has to affirm the switch or be denounced as a hater. [Read more…]

Bookworm Beat 9/12/2018 — the Benghazi tragedy and an illustrated edition

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Today is the 6th anniversary of four American deaths in Benghazi. This round-up remembers that day and looks at some current news too — plus pictures!

Bookworm Beat BenghaziRemembering the men who died at Benghazi. Today is the six-year anniversary of the attack on the consulate in Benghazi. Four Americans died: Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone S. Woods, and Glen Doherty. While we still don’t know precisely what the goings-on at the consulate were in the months leading up to the attack, we know that:

Oh, and we know one more thing: Despite the above, Obama last week referred to those facts — all of which point to administrative malfeasance of the worst kind — as a “wild conspiracy theory.”

Now that you’ve been reminded who and what Obama and his administration were, if you don’t vote in November to help keep the Trump juggernaut going . . . well, shame on you!

Please, please, Mr. President, declassify the documents. It’s trite but accurate to say that, in matters of corporate and government secrecy, sunlight is the best disinfectant. It’s impossible to imagine that there is anything worse in the still-classified documents involving Spygate than we’ve heard to date from leaks and partisan summations.

Fortunately, though, it appears that Trump, with showmanlike timing, is planning on declassifying the Carter Page and Bruce Ohr documents. If they’re ugly for the president, they’re no worse than the stories already out there and we need to deal with truth, not innuendo; and if they’re ugly for the Deep State, then that’s something very important for the American people to know.

Hillary promotes debunked lie about Kavanaugh. Did you already know that Kamala Harris, working with Planned Parenthood, promoted a complete lie about Brett Kavanaugh? I first became aware of the lie because of a “most read” article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the headline of which claimed that Kavanaugh conflated birth control with abortifacients. I thought, “No way is he that dumb” and I was right. It turns out that the headline was a total lie, as even the Chron article (to which I will not link), concedes deep in the text:

Critics were already skeptical of U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s track record on women’s reproductive rights, and the conservative judge only fanned the flames with his comments during Thursday’s confirmation hearing.

While responding to a question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) about his dissent in the Priests for Life v. HHS case, Kavanaugh referred to contraception as “abortion-inducing drugs.” Kavanaugh sided with the religious organization, which did not want to provide employees with insurance coverage for birth control.

[snipping numerous paragraphs]

Critics may argue that Kavanaugh, in his Thursday statements, was simply borrowing the language of the religious organization. “Either way,” explains the Cut, “the use of the phrase was telling, bringing into the mainstream the slippery conflation of birth control and abortion.”

In other words, the first two paragraphs opening the article were a complete lie, but loony Leftists heard a dog whistle and they’re not going to let go of it.

And who is the looniest Leftist of all? Why Hillary, of course. Just today, despite the truth emerging from under the pillow the MSM was using to smother it, Hillary did what she always does — she doubled down on a substantive lie:

(For those looking for dog whistles here, my phrase “substantive lie” was a deliberate word choice. Lefties love to point out that Trump lies and they’re right. Like P.T. Barnum, he huffs and puffs all the time, but it’s always about things that are non-substantive to American politics and life. In the world of law, his lies are called puffery. In that same legal world, Obama’s and Hillary’s lies are called fraud.) [Read more…]

For those who doubt my past Democrat bona fides….

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Bill Clinton inaugurationI often make the point that I see things from both sides because I was once a Democrat myself. It was only after decades of thought, plus seeing how the real world works, rather than how the theoretical Leftist world works, that I abandoned my Democrat world view.

My closet cleaning led me to three documents that reminded me where I come from politically. Two documents were cancelled checks, which I shredded, along with the rest of the antique financial data I’d been hoarding. One check was to Planned Parenthood. The other was to the Brady Campaign. And then there was this, in all its gilt and engraved glory:

In case you’re wondering, I didn’t go. Nor at this point do I remember why I got this gorgeous invitation. I assume that I did volunteer work or wrote a very nice check during the campaign.

Certainly, when I look back, I’ve come a very long way.

Remembering Rick Rescorla, the hero who died on 9/11

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Rick Rescorla spent his entire life fighting evil and 17 years ago today, that fight culminated with his saving thousands of lives, but losing his own.

Rick RescorlaThis is the final entry in my annual commemoration of three victims of 9/11, each of whom died a hero, facing down evil, facing down fear, and changing the world.

Rick Rescorla

The murderous frenzy unleashed on 9/11 is an awkward size.  As the Left at home and abroad demonstrates relentlessly, it if had been a smaller attack — along the lines of Fort Hood or San Bernardino — we would have been told that it was simply the act of a crazy person whose psychosis led him to misunderstand the “Religion of Peace.” Had it been monumentally bigger — say, the size of Hitler’s Poland invasion — we all would have easily recognized it as “a war,” and would have treated it accordingly, both strategically and emotionally.

Since 9/11, however, Americans have grappled with the best way in which to handle things when nineteen Muslim men, acting according to the strict dictates powered by money from Saudis, Iranians, and Iraqis, hijack four planes and kill 2,996 people. Actual events have proved that, in the post-modern world, our nation had no template to define our emotional response following 9/11.  We had a vacuum.

The one thing you can say with certainty about America today is that, when there is a vacuum, politics will fill it.  Following a short frenzy of national mourning, the nation divided itself into two oppositional viewpoints with regard to what 9/11 means.  The Left (of course) took refuge in a Walt Kelly worldview:  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

During his presidency, Obama made sure we understood that Western values are uniquely undeserving. One year, he told us that 9/11 wasn’t just our tragedy, which means that our efforts to mourn prove that we’re not only bullies we’re also self-centered bullies.  The message from the Left is always clear:  We Americans don’t deserve to mourn.  Not only was it not about us, it was our fault!

The Obama view — that is, the Leftist view — sees just two narrow categories of victims on that fateful day:  those who died and those who killed.  The rest of us were guilty, and we have to work hard to expiate that stain from our collective conscience.

For 17 years now, and with increasing frenzy now that Trump is in the White House, the schism that set in soon after 9/11 has dominated American political discourse. The details may vary, but from the Left, especially on America’s college campuses, the tone is unchanging.  Americans are bullies.  We’ve bullied the Muslims so much over the past few decades, it was inevitable that they, prodded beyond bearing, turned on us.  And while it’s sad that 2,996 non-combatants (mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters) had to die, that’s what happens when you give your allegiance to — and, worse, make your money from — a system that is inherently parasitical.

That’s the Leftist view.  There are, thankfully, other voices in America.  Those of us who reject the Leftist paradigm see ourselves neither as evil-doers nor as victims (although we were victimized by evil).  We are warriors.  George Bush understood that when he addressed the Emergency Rescue Workers the site of the World Trade Center:

That’s also what George Bush understood when he took America to war in Afghanistan, which had sheltered the killers and their brothers-in-arms.  When we are attacked, we fight back.  And when we are attacked by a shadowy organization that takes succor from various Islamic tyrannies around the world, we challenge those tyrannies.  It’s not pretty, it’s not surgically neat, it’s not politically correct, but it is necessary.  We mourn our dead and then we hunt down their killers.  We have met the warrior and he is us.

All of which brings me to Rick Rescorla, a warrior among warriors, not just on 9/11, but throughout his entire life, a life devoted to racing towards the battlefield to fight against those who would deny people their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Although born and raised in England, Rick was and is the essence of America.

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