U.S. Society

This Program Is So Stupid and Unethical, I Thought It Was Right-Wing Disinformation

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Tragically, I was wrong.

Perpetually confused New York Mayor Eric Adams has championed a potentially $53 million pilot program with Mobility Capital Finance to distribute debit cards to illegal immigrants (but it sounds so much better if you call them “migrants”) who are in his “sanctuary city.” The program, yet another zenith for The Great Stupid, kicked off yesterday with 10 families getting the cards; the program will soon expand to 115 families. Families of four will have $350 each week to spend using on their cards on groceries, diapers, drugs, baby formula and other essentials at local businesses. That comes out to roughly $1,440 per month. The cards will go to the families who have received a 28-day voucher to stay at a designated group of hotels. If the program is successful, it will expand to 500 families, with the program’s costs rising to as much as $53 million.

“There is no free money. These are not ATM cards. You can’t take cash out,” Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy said at the news conference.

Oh. Then the program makes perfect sense then.

Politico writes, “They’ve invited the condemnation by right-wing news media as simply another benefit for people who entered the country illegally.” Conservatives pounce. Tell me, PLEASE, what else would you call this but a benefit for people who entered the country illegally?

Someone? Anyone? “Buhler?“

Today the mayor was asked if the debit cards send a “mixed message” to illegals (the questioner said “migrants,” of course). What a stupid question! It’s the clearest of messages: come here illegally and you’ll get free stuff. Oh, though you better not kill or rape anyone…the Gringos don’t like that, for some reason.

The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have barely covered this story—three guesses why. The last Times mention was in this hilariously headlined piece: Why New York’s Plan to Give Migrants Debit Cards Came Under Fire.

Hmmm, I wonder why? It’s a mystery. Those crazy, cruel conservatives don’t like anything.

NBC’s Compulsive Democrat Liars Erupt in Indignation Over the Hiring of a Republican Liar

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

This is a pot calling the kettle black classic, and another one of those wonderful incidents that is valuable primarily to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt how partisan and biased most mainstream media reporters and pundits are. In fact, it is even better that that: it is smoking gun proof that bias not only makes you stupid, it makes you so hypocritical that you make a fool of yourself.

I could have easily called this “Stop Making Me Defend Ronna McDaniel!” The recently jettisoned Republican National Committee chair was a rank incompetent, which is why she was forced out. She speaks in nearly indecipherable Valley Girlese (or something), and I wouldn’t trust her “expert” analysis of a Road Runner cartoon. Nonetheless, NBC recently hired her as an election analyst for the same reason it has hired other incompetents with links to both parties: to give easily gulled viewers the illusion of “inside information.”

But the news of her hiring triggered one proven liar and incompetent after another on NBC and elsewhere to erupt that the hiring was a horrible breach of the journalism integrity and professionalism that none of the news divisions and networks have possessed in years, as if the hypocritical protesters were something other than what they are: biased, dishonest, untrustworthy partisan hacks (sorry, I’m trying to avoid that word, but sometimes it can’t be avoided.)

First Chuck Todd appeared on his old show “Meet the Press” (the reputation of which he managed to destroy during his tenure as host) to demand the NBC brass apologize to current host Kristen Welker for having to interview the new NBC commentator. Chuck was shocked—shocked!—that his network would hire someone who was biased and untrustworthy. Hilarious.

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Prestigious American Institutions Have Been Hiring Ideologically Crippled Academics For Decades, and We Are Seeing the Disastrous Results: Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Spotlight: Cornell

The Cornell Daily Sun has presented this head-exploding screed:

We, the undersigned Cornell faculty, staff and alumni, strongly support the student activists who have disrupted business as usual to protest the University’s conduct amid the horrifying, ongoing assault on Palestinian populations. The students who have mobilized under the banner of the Coalition for Mutual Liberation have fulfilled the best principles of global citizenship, engaged learning and social justice. We applaud their principled struggle.

Commending the students for opposing the wanton destruction of Palestinian lives and territories does not go far enough. These young people are, quite simply, the best of us. They have shown tremendous courage in a climate of fear and repression. We thank them for their commitment and integrity. We will do what we can to ensure that they are not unduly targeted.

The CML activists have made significant personal sacrifices to publicize the demand that Cornell divest from corporations that are linked to Israeli militarism, occupation and collective punishment. Their nonviolent demonstrations have provided a moral compass at a time of official hypocrisy.

In countless ways, the leaders of our society and our institution have signaled that silence is the only acceptable response to the profound suffering within and beyond Gaza. Cornell administrators have exacerbated campus anxiety by attempting to stifle student dissent with a draconian “Interim Expressive Activity Policy,” bypassing the faculty senate. In a moment of anguish for many members of our community, the University has chosen the path of intimidation and bureaucratic aggression.

The names of more than 300 faculty signatories to the letter can be seen here.

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“Didn’t Earn It”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I hadn’t seen or heard the derisive (but accurate!) nickname for DEI, as in “diversity, equity and inclusion” until I saw the Scott Adams “X” post above. I think he’s right. When a quick, pointed and accurate characterization makes people slap their foreheads and think, “Wait, why have I been willing to accept this nonsense?,” it can move metaphorical mountains.

The DEI fad has already been destructive to the economy, the workforce, society and its institutions beyond all imagining, making it one of the more damaging outgrowths of “The Great Stupid,” which really got rolling when its Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse equivalent (the fourth horse was a scratch, thank goodness) began galloping together in 2020. They were the George Floyd Freakout, the Black Lives Matter Scam, and the Wuhan Virus Panic, and together they brought virtue-signaling overdrive, progressive preening and an attack on core American and ethical values, not to mention civilization.

DEI , like the slogan “black lives matter,” was another ingenious manipulation of language to trap the slow of thought and the weak of character into going along with a movement that was intrinsically dishonest and unfair. Who could be against such benign concepts as diversity, equity and inclusion? But the objective was and is obliterating the cultural acceptance of merit as the aspirational basis of the American ideal. Along the way, the DEI industry itself emerged as an engine of waste and carnage with mostly underwhelming and undeserving drivers at the controls, as Harvard University demonstrated for us spectacularly.

Oh, we know how this will go: “Didn’t Earn It” will be roundly attacked a racist slur. Long screeds will be published to dispute “the lie”: the beneficiaries of DEI did earn it, the public will be told, just as anyone with ancestors on distant branches of the family tree who were victims of slavery at least a century and a half ago “earned” million of dollars in reparations today. (That response will anchor DEI to an absolutely indefensible policy goal: perfect.) Eventually, because this is what the dishonest and relentless far Left does, it will come up with another moniker, because DEI will finally have the aura of stench about it that it should—you know, just as “illegal aliens” became “undocumented workers” and are now “migrants” (or “visitors”), “performing major surgery on minors because they have been encouraged to believe they are the ‘wrong’ sex” became “gender-affirming care,” and the classic, “aborting the innocent unborn” was recast as “a woman’s choice.”

Never mind. “Didn’t Earn It” is an ethical tool to combat an unethical practice and ideology that is wasting financial and human resources.

I recommend using it.

__________________

Pointer: Instapundit

Fixing This Problem Requires Leaping Onto a Slippery Slope: Should We?

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Nicholas Kristof has sounded the alarm on the growing problem of artificial intelligence deepfakes on line. I must admit, I was unaware of the extent of the phenomenon, which is atrocious. He writes in part,

[D]eepfake nude videos and photos …humiliate celebrities and unknown children alike. One recent study found that 98 percent of deepfake videos online were pornographic and that 99 percent of those targeted were women or girls…Companies make money by selling advertising and premium subscriptions for websites hosting fake sex videos of famous female actresses, singers, influencers, princesses and politicians. Google directs traffic to these graphic videos, and victims have little recourse.

Sometimes the victims are underage girls….While there have always been doctored images, artificial intelligence makes the process much easier. With just a single good image of a person’s face, it is now possible in just half an hour to make a 60-second sex video of that person. Those videos can then be posted on general pornographic websites for anyone to see, or on specialized sites for deepfakes.

The videos there are graphic and sometimes sadistic, depicting women tied up as they are raped or urinated on, for example. One site offers categories including “rape” (472 items), “crying” (655) and “degradation” (822)….In addition, there are the “nudify” or “undressing” websites and apps …“Undress on a click!” one urges. These overwhelmingly target women and girls; some are not even capable of generating a naked male. A British study of child sexual images produced by artificial intelligence reported that 99.6 percent were of girls, most commonly between 7 and 13 years old.

Yikes. These images don’t qualify as child porn, because the laws against that are based on the actual abuse of the children in the photos. With the deepfakes, no children have been physically harmed. Right now, there are no laws directed at what Kristof is describing. He also links to two websites on the topic started by young women victimized with altered photos and deepfaked videos of them being spread on line: My image My choice, and AI Heeelp!

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Dishonesty, Cowardice, Fantasy and Hypocrisy in the Democrats’ Response to the Hamas-Israel War

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Could there be a more disingenuous statement than Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer insisting that Republicans are “politicizing” the Gazan conflict and support for Israel? While the Republican Party, and especially Donald Trump as President, have been absolutely steadfast in their support for Israel, Democratic Party support has been equivocal at best, the equivocation highlighted by President Barack Obama’s disastrous deal with Iran returning millions in Iranian assets in exchange for a promise (from one of the most duplicitous regimes on earth) to delay its development of a nuclear bomb. (The most likely recipient of said bomb would be, naturally, Israel.) Iran, as was widely predicted by critics of Obama’s sell-out, used the assets it has to seed terrorist groups in the Middle East, including Hamas.

Although the Biden Administration has dutifully gone through the motions of sending financial and weapons support to the only democracy in the Middle East, it has also been smarting from the clear signs that a large segment of its base sympathizes with the Palestinians, even to the extent of excusing Hamas terror. One of the so-called “battleground” states in the upcoming election, Michigan, has a potentially decisive Muslim population that would be pleased to see a Palestine state extend from the river to the sea. If one would be an eager purchaser of the London Bridge, perhaps one would see no connection between that problem and the ridiculous, self-contradicting decision by Biden (or his puppeteer), announced in the State of the Union message, to go to elaborate lengths to deliver “humanitarian aid” to Gaza. You know: pay for Israeli military attacks on Gaza, pay to help Gaza suffer from those attacks as little as possible. Brilliant! But of course that insane decision has nothing to do with politics—just a desire to undermine Israel’s interests just enough to keep the White House.

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Another Example of Why the Death Penalty Is Necessary

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

My go-to case for defending the death penalty is the Cheshire home invasion, though the surviving Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an equally strong, indeed I would say irrefutable case. I now have another one.

Read with care.

Kristel Candelario left on a summer vacation in Puerto Rico with a male friend, leaving her 16 month daughter Jailyn alone in a playpen with a few bottles of milk. The neighbor’s doorbell camera recorded the baby’s anguished screams as she suffered from abandonment and separation, hunger and dehydration. After a few days at the beach and another stopover in Detroit, Jailyn’s mother returned tp her Cleveland home to find her daughter dead, though she had the gall to call 911 in a panic. She’d been gone for about 10 days. I wonder what she expected to find.

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Ethics Dunce: Don Surber

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Don Surber is a former journalist and current conservative pundit whose blog and substack I occasionally peruse, usually without too much alarm. However, he has issued a substack essay that, if I had to summarize in three words my objections to it and any culture wars guerilla who cited him as authority would be, “This doesn’t help.” A longer version follows.

Surber’s piece is called “In praise of ties” and carries the subheading, “They helped build a society that we are destroying.” If Glenn Reynolds had not endorsed the link, I would have stopped reading right there. I know ties are going to be used as a metaphor for the decline of elegance, respect, adulthood, civility, dignity, elan and eclat, blattity-blah, but still. Don’t insult my intelligence. This is the equivalent of “In praise of stovepipe hats,” “In praise of spats,” “In praise of derbies” or “In praise of bustles.” These are all fashions, and fashions rise and fall like steam and autumn leaves. We get used to them, if they hang around long enough, and yes, sometimes their demise are linked to cultural factors that have little to do with fashion. Nonetheless, longing for a time when men wore ties as a matter of societal conformity makes one seem like Grandpa Simpson, screaming at clouds. Worse, in fact.

Surber writes, “Chuck Berry always wore a tie. Gas station attendants wore them. You could trust your car to the man who wore the star because he had a tie on. Men wore ties to ballgames because men were civilized. Ties were important because they gave a sense of authority but ties also showed that a man wants to belong in society. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.”

Sure, Don. I always thought those pictures of men wearing ties at baseball games were ridiculous. Ted Williams, one of my father’s heroes whom he passed on to me, famously refused to wear a tie: he had a very long neck and didn’t think ties looked good on him. Ben was right, but when the tie as a symbol of wanting to appear formal and serious wane—it hasn’t waned completely —then people will adopt other ways of “dressing to please.” It is the way of the world, and there is nothing about these transitions to lament.

But Surber was just getting started. Here he is at full speed:

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Speaking of Defamation, Ethics Villain Christine Blasey Ford Has Resurfaced. Yecchh.

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

After embarrassing herself, a distinguished Supreme Court nominee and Senate Democrats with her despicable late-hit testimony impugning the character of now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford was good enough to disappear for five years. Unfortunately, that time was apparently occupied with the process of cashing in. Her “memoir”—if collected dubious re-discovered memories can be fairly that, “One Way Back,” is out on Amazon and book stores.

Like Anita Hill before her,Ford was dredged up by unethical Democrats to try to derail the Supreme Court nomination of a conservative jurist by a Republican President by an accusation of sexual misconduct that was decades old and never reported at the time. Compared to Ford, however, Hill was the epitome of rectitude. Ford’s tale, conveniently “recovered” in therapy, was more than thirty years old and involved an alleged attack by Kavanaugh when he and she were both teenagers, at a party nobody could place in locale and time (besides the year, 1983). Not one witness claimed by Ford has confirmed her allegations. Kavanaugh denied them.

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