The lethal consequences of going “woke”

 

The editorial board at Issues and Insights examines some of the lethal consequences of going “woke”:

The Wages Of Woke Are Death

Going woke means more than, as the saying says, going broke. It also means the ultimate loss of life. The grip of wokeness on our society will eventually kill Americans.

Let’s begin with health care. Medical school students, whose learning should be focused on the healing arts, are being taught social justice ideology. Apparently, white supremacy, oppression, and structural racism must be addressed by America’s doctors-to-be, as well as the sin of being white.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion studies are being required at some schools, which of course crowds out time used in the past to acquire the knowledge and develop the skills needed to be a good doctor. Politics have no place in medical schools, but there they are.

At the same time, some schools, as many as 40, are dropping standardized testing for diversity’s sake, reports the Daily Caller. The Medical College Admission Test, which “determines an individual’s ability to problem solve, think critically, and understand concepts about medical study,” does not serve the purposes of the social justice mafia. Now there are other legitimate academic avenues to medical school outside the MCAT. But as we’ve seen in other institutions of higher learning, standards designed to demonstrate and ensure competence are being killed off.

Given these facts, it’s a certainty that many of this country’s doctors of tomorrow and beyond will not have the competence needed to keep patients alive and well. Americans will die or suffer unnecessarily because wokeness demanded that the medical community marginalize them.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a former University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine professor and associate dean who wrote “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns,” says the ​​”quiet woke revolution” that had been capturing medicine “erupted in spring 2020 into a full-blown revolution.” 

One win for the woke insurgency is the American Medical Association’s “Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity.” Goldfarb says that “unlike other social justice programs, this program is lethal” and “will tangibly reduce the quality of medical care, and almost every American will suffer its side effects.” If medical schools “cut training time in biochemistry and pharmacology for future doctors” to make room for studies that are political in nature, someone is bound to die.

Then the editors put the field of engineering under the same microscope.  Next they look at the military.  And here are their conclusions:

Wokeness is winning because our institutions have become cowardly and complicit; businesses are afraid they will fall behind if they don’t score well on the Corporate Equality Index, which is a Maoist extortion racket that demands prescribed behavior from companies; and the average American is scared of being ostracized and canceled for not just uttering but even holding opinions the mob doesn’t like.

Unless and until we overcome our fears, the malicious and depraved will continue their booted march through our culture and our economy. No one should be frightened to say that a system based on race, ethnicity, or gender over competence, intellect, and ability is dangerous. It is in fact mortally dangerous. 

The full editorial is here.

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Remembering Martin Luther King Jr

 

The Editorial Board at Issues and Insights observed that today marks

the 55th anniversary of the day the murderous James Earl Ray took the life of Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights leader should be allowed to rest in peace, but he is being slain yet again, this time by a mob of mediocre minds with rock-bottom character that seeks to overturn his life’s works.

In what is widely acknowledged as his greatest speech, King dreamed that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” that “one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.”

. . .

He couldn’t have been clearer about his vision for a color-blind society. And in the 40 years that followed his death, our country moved in that direction, year by year, heart by heart.

But much has changed. The woke mob, critical race theory, and the DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) movement have reopened a once-gaping, raw wound that had almost closed. Consider just a few of the many instances in which our “leaders” and institutional luminaries not only reject King’s teaching but actively try to return this country to an era of segregation and ugly, unapologetic bigotry. . . .

The editorial concludes:

Locally, teachers, administrators, and school boards are wrecking the MLK legacy. If they’re not telling white students that they are racist, should be ashamed of themselves, and indulging radical speakers who believe schools are “spirit murdering” black children, then they’re lowering standards to aid minorities, fully consistent with the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And then there are the DEI shysters such as Robin DiAngelo, a white woman who has grown fabulously wealthy making progressive rich whites feel guilty for sins they haven’t committed (while simultaneously being disappointed by them), and telling “people of color” they “need to get away from white people and have some community with each other.”

None of this is what Martin Luther King Jr. lived or died for. But it’s a pot of gold for grifters, race hustlers, status seekers, political hacks, and just plain mean people. At least we know who they are.

Full editorial is here.

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More deliberate destruction: food shortages

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The editorial at Issues & Insights pretty much answers its own questions:

. . . Most by now have seen reports that Dutch officials are closing as many as 3,000 farms in the Netherlands, the world’s second-largest exporter of agricultural products by value even though it’s only slightly larger than Maryland, to comply with crackpot European Union carbon dioxide emissions rules. It’s possible that eventually more than 11,000 farms will be shut down, and 17,600 forced to sharply cut their livestock numbers.

On our side of the Atlantic, the malefactors are also busy. Just the News is reporting that the Environmental Protection Agency is quietly quadrupling the regulatory cost of carbon emissions in a new war on fossil fuels, which is, of course, also a war on the food supply.

“If you think about the fact that they would impose this damage factor, let’s say on farmers, because it applies to fertilizer,” Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murill said on the John Solomon Reports podcast. “Fertilizer emits nitrous oxide. So fertilizer is a big contributor. If every family farmer now is going to have to pay more to obtain fertilizer to fertilize crops that feed us, well, what’s that going to do to the price of food?”

Are these mere coincidences, entirely unrelated, isolated events?

Could be. But …

• U.S. farmers are convinced that “government meddling threatens their livelihoods and the nation’s food security.”
• “Unrealistic green-energy policies in Europe – and the Biden administration’s hostility to U.S. energy production – are worsening energy shortages,” writes James Meigs in City Journal “With energy prices soaring, food production and distribution will suffer.”
• Global skunks are promoting bugs as an alternative to the foods we enjoy, which is an implicit way of saying “you can eat insects, as unpalatable as they are, or you can go hungry – it’s almost time to choose.”
• The White House has added agricultural land to the federal Conservation Reserve Program, encouraging farmers to leave their land fallow. It’s part, says essayist John Mac Ghlionn, writing in the Washington Times, “of a broader, government-wide push to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Interestingly, the Biden administration’s goal is very similar to the Dutch government’s goal.”
• Canadian boy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has proposed rules that will “decimate Canadian farming.” 
• “Even as food shortages intensify, governments, including the Biden administration, are cracking down harder on agricultural production,” the Epoch Times reports. “While the attacks on agriculture and related industries look different in different nations, many experts say it’s a coordinated global policy being promoted by the U.N., the World Economic Forum (WEF), the European Union, and other international forces determined to transform civilization.”
• “The Biden administration has engaged in an omni-directional assault on our food production system,” says the Heartland Institute.

As it turns out, all this is happening at the same time “the number of people affected by hunger has more than doubled in the past three years”, according to the United Nations, as “almost a million people are living in famine conditions, with starvation and death a daily reality.”

. . .

If only the WEF [World Economic Forum] were some fringe group that had no influence. But it’s not – it’s a well-funded syndicate with an axis of powerful followers.

Read the full editorial here. 

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Biden To the Unvaccinated: Drop Dead

 

image credit:  Babylon Bee 

The editors of Issues and Insights offer an editorial of Christmas cheer: “Biden To the Unvaccinated: Drop Dead”:

Last week the White House warned the unvaccinated that “you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families.” President Joe Biden followed up in today’s news conference with a similar though less-shrill message, even adding that Americans could “safely celebrate the holidays with” family and friends only if vaccinated. Apparently, the administration has been consulting with the ghost of Jack Kevorkian.

Just in time for Christmas, the ghoulish Biden executive branch has cranked up a climate of fear that in the blue regions has been overheating for months. This is no way to encourage the unvaccinated to get the shot. Stoking anxiety and “othering” people, treating them as lepers, is mean, cheap, not in any way American – and quite clearly part of the Democrats’ agenda.

Make no mistake. Democrats, who want voters to believe theirs is the party of diversity, want to divide America. They want Americans charging for each others’ throats so they can play the role of savior: “We’re the only ones who can bring America together, so give us more money and power and we’ll fix this broken country.”

. . .

Read the rest here.  

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Now they are coming for your kids

 

The federal government just won’t stop.  Here’s an update from Issues and Insights on the move to force a COVID “vaccine” (read: experimental gene therapy) on children:

It goes without saying that parents almost always know what’s best for their kids. But the FDA and woke officials in the White House and Congress don’t agree. They intend to force COVID vaccines on your kids, whether you like it or not. Don’t let them. It’s politics, not science.

In a desperate bid to find more COVID victims to save with experimental vaccines, the Federal Drug Administration just gave the Pfizer anti-COVID vaccine “emergency use” authorization for children aged 5-11. Get ready for a big propaganda push.

. . .

The truth is, COVID isn’t a serious threat to kids up to 18. And no, we’re not against vaccines. They’ve been shown to work well at preventing hospitalizations and deaths for those in the highest-risk groups. If you’re at extreme risk, you’d be wise to get a shot.

But as the Daily Mail reported, “Parents have been split 50-50 over vaccinating children because kids . . . make up less than 0.1% of all COVID deaths in the U.S.” Not to mention that the effects of experimental drugs on kids are still unknown.

As with lockdowns, vaccine mandates are not really about health at all. They’re about control. In this case, government control of your children.

Read the entire report here.

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Left Behind

 Michael P. Ramirez at Issues and Insights:

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The Tyrants Among Us

The Editorial Board at Issues and Insights gives us fair warning on returning to normalcy:

 Of course they’re not going to let a crisis go to waste.

   . . . 

There’s a natural progression from the pandemic lockdowns to restrictions on freedom in the name of saving the sky from global warming. But the tyrants among us won’t stop there. We find it useful here to quote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s international affairs analyst, who realized more than six months ago that “the virus of tyranny has already found itself in the bloodstream of liberal democracies.”

For instance:

• President Joe Biden and his party hope to saddle Americans, through undisciplined spending, with debt and a de facto tax (inflation) that can be repaid only by mortgaging the future and bondage to the federal monster.
• There is a core on the left, not even the hard left, that is resisting a return to normal. It wants liberty-shackling rules in place in perpetuity.
• Our freedom to speak will continue to be abridged.
• Our ability to make independent and individual health care decisions will be curtailed further.
• Second Amendment rights will be in danger of being rolled back because of “public health” needs.
• Expect to be forced out of our fossil-fuel-burning automobiles and herded into mass transit.
• Protests and rallies will be put down as insurrections – unless they are in service of the “right” groups, such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

Once lost, freedom is difficult to regain. “Be warned,” says author Michael Walsh. “If you think the petty tyrants currently making your lives miserable are going to willingly relinquish their illicit powers, think again. They’ve got a taste for it now.”

So intoxicated from their deep swig of power are they that they no longer see boundaries, just opportunities to subjugate. Fight back, or lose in a few years what has made America unique and great for more than two centuries

The entire editorial is here.

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Mail-in ballots and voter fraud

Frank Bullitt’s Editorial today at Issues & Insights makes the case against mail-in ballots:

Democrats and their media scribes have spent more than three years glued to the narrative that President Donald Trump stole the 2016 election from Hillary Clinton by colluding with Russia to rig the outcome. But they don’t care about the legitimacy of elections. If they did, they wouldn’t be agitating for voting by mail this fall.

“House Democrats have sought to drastically overhaul the American electoral system in light of the pandemic, arguing dramatic change is needed to allow Americans to vote safely,” Politico reported last week.

It seems they have the public on their side. A recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll found nearly 60% of voters “either strongly or somewhat support a federal law that would mandate that states ‘provide mail-in ballots to all voters for elections occurring during the coronavirus pandemic.’”

What they don’t have, though, is a good argument to defend their proposal for turning an entire election, or nearly all of one, into a contest of absentee ballots. 

Few elections, even in the U.S., are ever perfectly clean. But the potential for a dirty election sharply increases when ballots are scattered in the wind.

“Absentee ballots are the tools of choice of election fraudsters because they are voted outside the supervision of election officials, making it easier to steal, forge, or alter them, as well as to intimidate voters,” says Hans A. von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation.

The full editorial is here. And the integrity of Ohio’s elections is now at risk. See prior CTP blogs here and here.

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Sen. John Kennedy: open the US economy soon or it will collapse.

Sen. John Kennedy made such good sense on Tucker Carlson last night. Via FoxNews:

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Wednesday that deciding when to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic is like choosing between "cancer and a heart attack."

"The American people are not morons. They understand what I'm about to say," Kennedy said Wednesday. "We've got to open this economy. If we don't, it's gonna collapse. And if the U.S. economy collapses, the world economy collapses. And trying to burn down the village to save it is foolish. That's our cold, hard truth."

Kennedy went on to say that most Americans know the virus is still spreading and understand it will spread faster whenever states and cities loosen their restrictions. As a result, he said, officials will have to be smart about the situation.

"Don't open up in the middle of a hot spot," Kennedy said. "Encourage your elderly and those with preexisting conditions to stay quarantined and provide them financial support. Wear masks, try to socially distance.

"Use technology without violating privacy to try to track the hot spots and track people who have been exposed," Kennedy said. "Test as much as we can. Make sure that we got health care capacity."

Kennedy also reacted to reports that Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is eyeing July as the target for an economic opening.

"He's talking about leaving the economy closed until July. Do you really believe the American people are going to stand for that? They're not," Kennedy said. "This economy is going to collapse."

It was important for Sen. Kennedy to point out that when the economy re-opens for business, new cases of the virus will increase. The supposed purpose of the shut-down was to postpone some of the infections so as to not overwhelm the healthcare system. Plenty of debate going on as to whether that was ever a viable strategy, or even whether that purpose is behind all this.  (Sundance has a good analysis of the ideological aspects in his coverage of the New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's interview on Tucker Carlson here.  UPDATE: Here's another at Issues and Insights.)

And if you or someone you know contracts COVID-19 / Wuhan virus, you know to ask your doctor if you are a candidate for a hydroxychloroquine cocktail.  Here's a quick look at the risks of taking hydroxychloroquine. 

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Who Will Get Blamed?

image credit: poynter.org

Who Will Get Blamed 

If Coronavirus Shutdown Turns Out To Be 

A Massive Overreaction?

The editorial at Issues and Insights asks the big questions:

As the Trump administration tries to figure out when to reopen the economy, and Democrats try to blame President Donald Trump for every coronavirus death, there’s another question lurking in the background. What if we learn that trillions of dollars in economic costs from the coronavirus shutdown bought us little or nothing in terms of public health?

As the disease progresses and our understanding of it increases, that possibility grows.

The editorial then expands on the following topics:

• Death projections were wildly exaggerated. 
• Reports of overwhelmed health care were exaggerated. 
• Death counts are likely inflated.
• The death rate is magnitudes lower than it appears.
• There are clear at-risk groups. 
• It’s not entirely clear how well isolation works.
• Ventilators might be causing deaths.

The editorial concludes:

We are the first to admit that, because this coronavirus is new and early signs about its lethality were worrisome, extra precaution was warranted as coronavirus spread. But not everyone was hitting the panic button, it’s just that voices of calm were ignored. If it turns out that the risks were far less dire, and the disease far more manageable without draconian restrictions, how will the public react? Who will they blame for needlessly crashing the economy?

We know who Democrats will blame, of course. But if the evidence shows that massive shutdowns weren’t needed, there must be a reckoning. And it should start with the public health “experts” who brought them about.

The full editorial is here.

RELATED:  At PJ Media, Dennis Prager came to the same conclusion (“Has The Lockdown Worked?).

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Ramirez: Rosie the Registered Nurse

Michael P. Ramirez, political cartoonist extraordinaire, published this one at Issues and Insights:

Following up on Mr. Ramirez’s theme: One of our neighborhood bistros, Lago East Bank, just announced a community support program to show appreciation for those on the front lines: e.g., healthcare providers & support medical personnel, law enforcement and safety personnel, sanitation workers, and so on.  The restaurant seeks contributions from its patrons, and then directs those contributions to underwrite meals for “essential employees” on the front lines.  So the employees receive free meals and our thanks, and the restaurant gets some much-needed business during the shut-down.  If there’s a favorite restaurant in your neighborhood that is offering take-away and carry-out during the Wuhan Virus crisis, consider sharing this idea with them.

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State of the Union preview

photo credit: Issues and Insights

The Editorial Board at Issues and Insights previews tonight’s State of the Union address:

State of the Union addresses are tedious, pointless, and quite often irksome. But this year’s promises to be none of that. President Donald Trump is going to do what no U.S. president has ever had to do before: He will denounce socialism in America.

. . .

Will Trump use strong words rather than watered-down political language to remind America of socialism’s gulags, inherent violence, and forced conformity; of planned economies’ abuse of liberty, smothering bureaucratic traps, and the oppression of the many through the power of a few?

It’s not his style to go soft. So it’s likely the country is going to hear what it needs to.

Full editorial is here.

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Claws of the Red Dragon

“Claws of the Red Dragon” will air on One America News Network this Friday Oct. 25 at 8PM (runs 1 hour). Thomas McArdle and the Editorial Board at Issues and Insights report:

To twist Lenin’s quip, it will be a communist who sells capitalists the cheap advanced telecommunications technology with which China hangs them.

A new and exciting movie was just released illustrating through semi-fictional dramatization how the Chinese government-controlled telecom company Huawei is a primary economic weapon in an arsenal through which Beijing seeks global domination.

The names of the people and the company are all changed, but “Claws of the Red Dragon” dramatizes Canada’s arrest at U.S. request last year of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s financial chief and daughter of its founder, for violations of sanctions on terrorist Iran and other offenses. In retaliation, Beijing detained two Canadians, an ex-diplomat and a businessman, for spying, and retried a 36-year-old tourist serving a 15-year drug offense, sentencing him to the death penalty.

It depicts a real life-based Chinese-Canadian reporter reluctantly taking on the story and risking her life to connect the dots between the company and the Communist Party and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. And the film goes behind closed doors to show the scheming of party operatives whose sights are set on global dominance in our lifetimes.

Having premiered over the weekend on the One America News Network, which will show it again Friday evening, the film is the work of New York-based Chinese-American New Tang Dynasty Television. The production values and acting, particularly Dorren Lee as journalist Jane Li, are top notch. Ex-Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who’s an executive producer, hosted a press screening in New York City last week, where he brandished a well-worn copy of “Unrestricted Warfare,” a 1999 book by two senior Chinese air force colonels. They argue that economic warfare, attacks on digital infrastructure, and terrorism can enable a lesser power to win a war against the U.S., especially as part of a “grand warfare method” pairing military and non-military tactics. Beijing hasn’t veered far off that strategy in the two decades since.

. . .

Full report is here. I have not seen this program and am giving it the benefit of the doubt -- in spite of Steve Bannon’s involvement.

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Cleveland makes the list

image credit: imgbin.com

Issues and Insights is the editorial blog for Investor’s Business Daily. Here’s part of John Merline’s column (h/t Instapundit):

On Friday, Trump attacked Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings, who had been complaining about conditions at the border, by saying “his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous.” Trump called it “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.”

He’s right about the rats. Last year, the pest-control service Orkin rated Baltimore as one of the “rattiest cities,“ behind Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

. . .

Indeed, if you want to see what liberal Democratic policies tend to produce, go to any one of those cities, or other Democratic strongholds. Democrats promise to help the poor and downtrodden, grow the middle class, make life more fair. But their policies consistently produce the opposite.

. . .

Washington, San Francisco, New York, Detroit, and Cleveland are also among the 10 worst-run cities, according to WalletHub. Three other Democratic strongholds — Oakland, Flint, Hartford — make WalletHub’s worst-run list. 

Yet, whenever the desperate conditions of these cities get discussed, they’re treated either as if these problems simply fell out of the sky, that somehow Republicans are to blame, or that more taxpayer money will solve everything. The connection to liberal policies never gets made.

. . .

Read the rest here.

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One Small Step For A Couple Of Privileged White Males

photo credit: Popular Mechanics 

On the 50^th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, everyone has seen photographs, cartoons, Buzz Aldrin’s thoughtful piece at the 25^th anniversary mark, online at Popular Mechanics here (h/t Instapundit), and other commemorative articles. I thought I would link to a PC satire at Issues and Insights. It starts off:

This is the golden anniversary of possibly the greatest physical and scientific achievement in the history of mankind, when two Americans walked the surface of a heavenly body and returned to Earth safely with specimens from its landscape. Those moon rocks were then shared by America with the other nations of the world.

But had Apollo 11 happened today, 50 years after it actually did, it would be viewed by our political, media and academic elites as a bigoted outrage.

“One small step” for whom, exactly? A man? What about women? What about non-white men? What right did some white U.S. naval officer from western Ohio such as Neil Armstrong have to speak for all of humanity?

For that matter, what about non-humanity? Has the space program ever atoned for all the sufferings of the various species of animals non-consensually sent into orbit to make sure space was safe for the white men? Were any of our feathered co-inhabitants in this world of ours consulted when the decision was made to name the lunar lander “Eagle”?

Good satire, or, as Instapundit would say, is it? Full editorial is here.

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Healthcare update – and it’s good

image credit: powerlineblog.com

Headline: Trump Just Revolutionized Health Care — And Nobody Noticed

The editorial at Issues and Insights reports:

Under the plan, employers will be able to fund tax-free Health Reimbursement Accounts for their workers, who can then use the money to buy an individual insurance plan — thereby taking another step toward fixing the 77-year-old tax distortion. The rule also lets employers fund a different account to buy cheaper “short-term” plans.

“This subtle, technical tweak has the potential to revolutionize the private health insurance market,” wrote Avik Roy, one of the smartest health care experts around, in the Washington Post.

The administration figures that 800,000 employers will eventually move to HRA plans, and 11 million workers will get their benefits this way.

At the same time, Trump also loosened the federal rules that had needlessly impeded “association health plans.” These are plans that let members of various groups band together to buy insurance. The result will be more competition, and more affordable choices for millions of people.

The Democrats’ response? Attack these changes as another attempt by Trump to “sabotage” Obamacare. What they really fear, however, is that the two new rules will destroy their case for socialized medicine.

The full report is here. Even as Congress continues to drag its feet, and the RINO’s who campaigned on repealing Obamacare reneged on their promises, the Trump administration is finding ways to improve healthcare for Americans.

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