Sunday, November 28, 2021

"Allahu akbar!" in SanFran: berserk Afghan terminated by cops

Last Wednessday, in beautiful downtown San Francisco, a man screaming "Allahu akbar!" charged at police with a large kitchen knife and was shot multiple times with a handgun and beanbag projectiles. 


According to AP, Ajmal Amani had previously threatened to kill a man in his residential hotel with the same large knife, and later died of his wounds. He was "a former Afghan interpreter for U.S. special forces who had been shot several times during more than five years of service and struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder."

PJ Media's Robert Spencer, who authored this report, sez: That is a tragedy, but it's also a warning: how many of the tens of thousands of unvetted Afghans who have been brought to the U.S. by Old Joe Biden’s handlers are a similar threat?

Where are they now?

Yesterday we devoted this space to an article written 36 years ago by Nat Hentoff, decrying the hypocrisy of the liberal elites. Mr Hentoff accused the gliberals of trying to silence all views that did not reflect the politically correct orthodoxy of the day. I promised I'd give you an update on what became of the organizations mentioned in his rant, so here it is.

According to Wikipedia, the National Organization for Women is one of the main liberal feminist organizations in the USA, and primarily lobbies for gender equality within the existing political system. One supposes they are still awaiting the election of the first female president. Who do they support now? Karmala Harris? Hellery Clinton (again)? Or the one the DNC insiders are plotting to nominate? [Who do you mean? Ed.]

The Progressive, which Wikipedia calls "an American magazine and website of politics, culture and progressivism with a left-leaning perspective", is still publishing. "It supports civil rights and civil liberties, gender equality, immigrant rights, labor rights, environmentalism, criminal justice reform, and democratic reform." You still can't buy an ad to promote the pro-life cause. 

Eagle Forum is still a voice for conservatives. It is the parent organization of the Eagle Forum Education and Legal Defense Fund and the Eagle Forum PAC. The Eagle Forum focuses on social issues and describes itself as pro-family. Wikipedia, on the other hand, calls it "socially conservative and anti-feminist." No bias there, of course. 


Feminists for Life of America is still out there, fighting the pro-life battle. The organization describes itself as "shaped by the core feminist values of justice, non-discrimination, and non-violence". It publishes a biannual magazine, The American Feminist, and aims to reach young women, particularly college students. Wikipedia can't resist pointing out that FFL's anti-abortion positions have been criticized by feminists. 

According to its website, the Funding Exchange, "a pioneer in social justics philanthrophy", was a national network of social justice foundations created in 1979 by "young activists with inherited wealth who had a 'change, not charity' vision of how they felt their money could make a difference."

The founding members sowed the wind by "involving community activists in grantmaking decisions", and reaped the whirlwind. The Funding Exchange was legally dissolved effective November 21, 2018, because of (among other things), "challenging conversations about race,"

A quick read of the organization's official history, p. 46 ff, reveals that it fell apart because of... wait for it... divisions over race! How American is that?! Seems the white gliberals couldn't get along with the BLM types, and vice-versa. Here's a quote from the history, which I'm including because I love seeing the liberals eat their own.

[One of the foundations] would bring a large contingent to board meetings, basically packing the room. Board meetings...were taken up with contentious anti-racism sessions, separate white and people of color caucuses, and political discussions that never seemed to resolve anything. There was a sense that a lot of time was wasted on infighting and spinning of wheels. As a result, several member funds began to opt in and out of participating in board meetings.

So the Funding Exchange is gone, but the SJWs, BLMers and other looney leftists still have plenty of money, quite apart from the grant money and other "reparations" they get from the Brandon maladministration. (Does the name George Soros mean anything to you?) 

But our side has money too, and the fight goes on. The voices of conservatism and common sense have not been silenced. On the issue of abortion, those who advocate women's "rights" to kill their babies, without regard to the rights of the unborn babies, are running scared now. Roe v. Wade could be overturned even before President Trump is re-elected in 2024. Keep fighting ladies (and gentlemen!) and God bless you!

Saturday, November 27, 2021

Nat Hentoff: Why I'm mad at liberal hypocrites

Nat Hentoff? Isn't he dead? Well yes. Since 2017. Before that, Mr Hentoff was an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media. He was a staff writer for the New Yorker, and columnist for The Village Voice from 1958 to 2009. He wrote some fine books, including The First Freedom: The Tumultuous History of Free Speech in America. This article -- even more relevant now than 36 years ago -- appeared in the November 1985 "Mad as Hell Issue" of National Lampoon, on sale here.

Nothing gets me madder than liberals who condemn those right-wingers who attempt to suppress contrary opinions, while those very same liberals do the same thing. 

Item: The National Organization for Women (NOW) passed a resolution two years ago that prevents anyone from being invited to address the annual NOW convention if that person has any point of view that disagrees with any of NOW's policies. If Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum had passed such a resolution, every member of NOW would chortle at those right-wingers showing again how rigid and narrow they were. 

Item: The Progressive, a monthly out of Madison, Wisconsin, is one of the most exuberantly independent of all American political journals. It never caves in to anyone, least of all the government.... Like most irreverent political journals, The Progressive is in chronic need of money. It's been helped, now and then, by the Funding Exchange, a consortium of foundations created by the "rich kids" -- the scions of families with huge, rapaciously acquired fortunes who want to do good in penance.

On the question of abortion, the editors of The Progressive, like the staff, are pro-choice. But the editor believes that anybody who wants to talk to the readers in the advertising columns is entitled to, providing that what he's advocating is legal.

A small radical pro-life group in Kansas City, Missouri, Feminists for Life of America, put a tiny ad in the magazine for three issues running. The ad showed an eight-week foetus and advised pregnant women to think twice or maybe three times before killing him or her. That's all she wrote. The president of Feminists for Life of America, by the way, has been busted both for protesting abortion and for protesting nuclear power plants. And she runs a magazine that is far more to the economic left than those rich kids with their foundations.

Well, the executive director of the Funding Exchange (the rich kids' consortium) cancelled their subscription to The Progressive and also said she and her staff would not help raise any more money for the magazine. To be "progressive" enough for the liberal rich kids, The Progressive would have to keep its pages utterly clean of anything deviating from the pro-abortion orthodoxy.

Liberals -- especially if they're rich -- want to stifle ideas they find offensive, yet go on pretending they're the ones who are truly open to dialogue.

Then there are those librarians who, while they defend the books in their libraries from outside censors, do a pretty mean-spirited censoring job of their own. Some will not order "controversial" books -- a foolproof way of ensuring they won't get into trouble with pressure groups in the community. Others create their own system of banning books that have somehow gotten into the library. 

Consider a library center in upstate New York that provides books to school libraries in Albany, Schenectady, etc. This is the advice the hip, liberal librarians in upstate New York give to their colleagues in the schools. "Place a warning label on biased material: WARNING: IT HAS BEEN DETERMINED THAT THESE MATERIALS ARE SEX-STEREOTYPED AND MAY LIMIT YOUR SENSE OF FREEDOM AND CHOICE."

That's a hell of a turn for librarians to take -- labelling books as "bad" for readers. And who determined that those materials are "sex-stereotyped"? By what criteria?" Which novels by Faulkner, Dostoyevsky, and Mark Twain will have to be burned in the schoolyard? And what is this about limiting my sense of freedom and choice? Just who is doing that? Could it be these liberal librarians? 

But let me show you what gets me maddest of all in this ceaseless abundance of liberal hypocrisy. A political science professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz invites to his class one of South Africa's representatives to the United Nations. The professor wants his students to hear and to test the real thing -- a true believer in apartheid. The professor figures they'd learn more from an exchange with someone in the racist South African government than from simply reading about that government.

The South African was never able to say a word to the class. An integrated mob of fifty students made it impossible for the rest of the 150 students in the auditorium to hear the visitor. They so yelled and screamed that the South African had no choice but to leave. The students who had been waiting to ask him some very sharp questions about his government had been silenced just as effectively as had the South African. As the South African left the campus, a student yelled, "Let the story go out that students would not allow a racist to speak on this campus!"

That's the only part of the story that got out. The rest of it was that some American students, like the government of South Africa, do not permit views to be heard that are contrary to their own. But I'm sure the students who prevented the South African from speaking consider themselves to be authentic liberals.

There's a term -- "liberal" -- that used to have some integrity to it. Increasingly, though, liberals lust to censor just as fervently as reactionaries. And just like reactionaries, liberals deny that's what they're doing.

Mr Hentoff was never anyone's idea of a conservative, let alone a right-winger. His rant shows that the hypocrisy of the liberal elites was known, even if not admitted, within their own ranks. Well said, sir! In my next post, I'll let you know what happened to NOW, the Eagle Forum, The Progressive, and Feminists for Life of America. Stay tuned.

Funniest cartoon I've seen in ages

I confess that in the days when I subscribed to the New Yorker, I didn't read all of the articles, but always look at all of the "drawings", as they called cartoons by, among others, Tom Cheney, who a contributing artist for 42 years. 

Mr Cheney's work has also appeared in over 500 other reputable (and disreputable) publications in the US and other countries, including Esquire, National Lampoon, The Harvard Business Review, Mad Magazine, Penthouse, The Wall Street Journal, Punch, Barron's Magazine, Hustler Magazine, and the "Commies From Mars" comic book series.

He was the 1985 winner of the Charles M. Schulz Outstanding Cartoonist Award for his work in magazine cartooning. His cartoons have been spotlighted on ABC Nightline, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, and NBC News. Originals of his work are on permanent display at the Museum of Cartoon Art, the New-York Historical Society, the headquarters of the United Nations, and the Empire State Building, as well as in numerous private collections.

I just stumbled on this one, in the December 1985 issue of National Lampoon, on sale here. Since Mr Cheney has already won loads of awards, he has no need of our Wally award, but we award it anyway!


Caption (for those who have trouble reading it): Oh Cecil, Cecil, Cecil... if only you'd read the instructions that came with your chain saw!"

Hope that brightened up your dull November day. Be careful with that chain saw, eh!

Friday, November 26, 2021

Too many snowflakes to make a snowman, nowadays

Ed. here. We are pleased to welcome a new agent -- hereafter Agent 19 -- who contributed this recent diary entry.

Received about 2 inches of snow yesterday and at 8:00 am: I made a snowman. 

8:10 - A feminist passed by and asked me why I didn't make a snow woman. 
8:15 - So, I made a snow woman. 
8:17 - My feminist neighbor complained about the snow woman's voluptuous chest saying it objectified women everywhere. 
8:20 - The gay couple living nearby threw a hissy fit and moaned it could have been two snowmen instead. 
8:22 - The transgender man.. woman...person asked why I didn't just make one snow person with detachable parts. 

8:25 - The vegans at the end of the lane complained about the carrot nose, as veggies are food and are not used to decorate snow figures. 
8:28 - I was being called a racist because the snow couple is white. 
8:30 - I used food coloring to make one of the snow couple a different color and be more racially inclusive. 
8:37 - Then accused of using a black face on the snowperson.
8:39 - The Muslim gent across the road demanded the snow woman be completely covered. 

8:40 - The police arrived saying someone had been offended. 
8:42 - The feminist neighbor complained again that the broomstick of the snow woman needed to be removed because it depicted women in a domestic role. 
8:43 - The "council on equality" officer arrived and threatened me with eviction.
8:45 - TV news crew from ABC showed up. I was asked if I know the difference between snowmen and snow-women? I replied "Snowballs" and am now a sexist. 

9:00 - I was on the news as a suspected terrorist, racist, homophobe, and sensibility offender, bent on stirring up trouble during difficult weather.
9:10 - I was asked if I have any accomplices. My children were taken by social services.

9:29 - Far left protesters offended by everything marched down the street demanding that I be arrested. 9:45 - The boss called and fired me because of the negative association with work that had been all over social media.
10:00 - I cry into my drink because all I wanted to do was build a snowman. 

Moral: There's no moral to this story. It just showswhat this world has become because of a bunch of snowflakes.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

Walt explains Canadian politics: 50 shades of red

One thing Americans can be thankful for today is the two-party system which has been the norm in US politics for most of the country's 240 (give or take) years. With only two parties to choose from, you have a clear choice. You know where they stand. You know where you stand. Do what you think is right.

The downside of having just two parties -- right (ish) and left (ish) -- is that those two parties have to accommodate a wide range of right(ish) and left(ish) opinions and policies with their "big tents". The Republicans have to deal with the raving right, including (some say), the alt-right. The Democrats have to pander to the growing numbers of looney lefties, including the likes of the Squad.

The result is a lot of division, or divisiveness, or, dare we say it, polarization. There's a lot of rancor in the air these days. You can even see it. The way things are now, even the colour of your hat makes a political statement. It's no longer white hats vs black hats, like in the old westerns, but Red Hats vs Blue Hats. 

How the Republicans wound up being officially Red, and the Democrats Blue, is a mystery. In the rest of the world, blue is the colour of the right -- Britain's Conservatives, for example -- and red is the colour of the left, from Britain's Labour Party to (of course) the Communists, everywhere. 

It's the same in Canada. Blue is the official colour of the so-called Conservative Party of Canada, and red is that of the Natural Governing Party, which is what Canada's Liberals call themselves. But there are other parties -- four others, unless you work for the CBC (Canadian Propaganda Corporation), in which case you recognize only three.

The only truly conservative party in Canada is Maxime Bernier's People's Party of Canada. That's the one the CBC wouldn't recognize until they started to poll  higher than the Greens. Their official colour is purple, which is the colour of PPC members' faces whenever Liberal Prime Minister Just In Trudeau is mentioned.

The other five parties -- counting only those with over 2% of the popular vote in Canada's last federal election -- are all liberal. Their official colous don't disguise the fact that their policies range in hue from pale red to deep red.

Just slightly in the red (policy-wise) are the aforementioned Conservatives, who, under leader Erin O'Tool, moved well to the left of centre to attract "progressive" voters who don't care for Mr Socks. All they managed to do was alienate their conservative base, which is why they lost the election. 

All Blackie McBlackface had to do to win was to remind people he that he's the liberal Liberal. Colour him Red.

Farther to the left are Canada's "New" Democrats, founded 60 years ago, hence the quote marks around "New". Their colour is orange, to match one of their leader's turbans. Their whole campaign pitch was that their social democratic (or democratic socialist) policies would ruin the country even faster than the Trudeau Liberals. Didn't work, and having a Sikh at the helm didn't help them much outside of the "little Khalistans" of Toronto and Vancouver.

The official colour of the Bloc Québécois is powder blue. The colour of their policies is pink, but not quite as pink as those of the NDP. Most Canadians don't know what the BQ stands for, since they only field candidates in Québec, and explain themselves only in French. 

That brings us the sixth and last party, the darling of the controlled media but dead last in the hearts and minds of Canadians -- the Green Party. Their official colour is... well, you already figured that out. But their policies are the reddest of red, so much so that their last leader upset the party members who chose her by not being sufficiently anti-Israel.

The last Green leader was Enemy [Annamie, shurely! Ed.] Paul, a black Jewish woman -- ticking three boxes right there -- who finished a distant fourth in her own riding. The party managed to elect just two Members of Parliament, the same as in the last House. One of those won by default after the Liberal candidate in his riding got MeTooed.

Ms Paul resigned before she could be fired, but not without trying for a green parachute and blaming her troubles on racism and sexism... and maybe anti-Semitism too. No surprises there. Anyway, she's gone, and the Greens have now chosen an interim leader, in the person of  Amita Kuttner -- pictured at left. [Geddit? Ed.] Kuttner describes herself as a "nonbinary astrophysicist" and "an expert in black holes". Seriously. You can look it up on the CBC website.

At the tender age of 30, Kuttner will be the youngest person as well as the first trans person to lead a federal political party. In a statement, Kuttner said they were "honoured to have been selected ... during this time of transition and renewal."

What? "Kuttner said they were honoured..."? Referring to whom? Ah... pronoun problems. Since Kuttner is "trans", no-one, including the CBC knows whether to say "xim", "xe", "xer","xis" or... whatever. 

Similarly, we don't know which honorific to use. [Maybe "Mr/s" or "Ms/r"? Ed.] All the same, Kuttner, like her predecessor-but-one, the tired and over-refreshed Elizabeth May, will be the darling of the lamestream media, as if "they" were head of a real party. And "they" will be the butt of the same old joke, "Kuttner? Party of one?"

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Happy Thanksgiving Day

Ed. here. It would have been very, very easy for us to use this space to make a political statment, but we will take the high road....

Walt Whiteman, Poor Len Canayen
[and Ed.! Ed.]
wish all our American friends and readers