Assorted

     The Scary Medical Procedure is, ah, behind me, and I’m feeling reasonably good for the first time in some weeks, so I plan to put the day to fiction, assorted chores, and fun stuff to “fill up the corners.” So have a few miscellaneous observations of the world we live in...er, make that the world we endure.

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     1. Does This Come As A Surprise?

     I certainly hope not:

     Bernie Sanders supporters are very enthusiastic, but seem a little short on political philosophy. A reporter from CNN recently asked attendees at a Sanders town hall event to describe socialism.

     Josh Feldman reported at Mediaite:

     CNN’s Baldwin Asks Sanders Supporters to Define the Word ‘Socialist’

     At a recent Bernie Sanders rally, CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin asked some of his supporters to define the word socialism. And, well, some of them didn’t exactly know…

     Baldwin showed her video of the very enthusiastic Sanders supporters she spoke with on CNN earlier today. A few of them contrasted Sanders with Hillary Clinton.

     Considering the pitiable state of American education, particularly in the critical subject of history, I’d have been shocked if the reverse had been found.

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     2. An Eye For The Ironic.

     David Thompson has it:

     Meanwhile, on feminist Tumblr…

     Someone wants to buy a shirt that bears the immensely radical slogan “you cannot weigh beauty” and is promptly horrified to discover that said shirt is available in different sizes.

     Apparently, sizing clothes is triggering and oppressive.

     Remember, friends: feminism is lunacy. It consists of:

• The denial of reality;
• The hatred of men;
• A quest for power.

     There is absolutely nothing good about it.

     While we’re on this subject, be sure to enjoy Dystopic’s latest.

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     3. The International Assault On Christianity.

     There’s a lot of it going around:

     Xi Jinping’s crackdown on civil society appears to be moving onto sacred ground. The Chinese government has just arrested the pastor of China’s largest official Protestant church, as Time reports:

     Pastor Gu Yuese, also known as Joseph Gu, was placed under “residential surveillance in a designated location” — the official term for facilities known more commonly as “black jails” — in the city of Hangzhou last Thursday, according to U.S.-based Christian rights group China Aid.

     Gu, who headed Hangzhou’s prominent Chongyi Church, was reportedly removed from his post by China’s Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM), the Chinese Communist Party–sanctioned authority that regulates churches, 10 days prior to his detention. He had been vocal in his opposition to the government’s destruction of crosses atop church buildings in China’s Christian-dominated eastern province of Zhejiang, a campaign that began in 2014.

     “His arrest marks a major escalation in the crackdown against those who oppose the forced demolition of crosses,” Bob Fu, president and founder of China Aid, said in a statement. “He will be the highest-ranking national church leader arrested since the Cultural Revolution.”

     While we express our horror and anger over still worse atrocities, such as ISIS’s routine beheadings of Christians who fall into their hands, let’s not forget the oppressions being committed by “legitimate” governments...including some with which “our” government holds regular intercourse.

     (Speculate on the nature of that “intercourse” as you please.)

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     4. Words Fail Me Dept.

     Seriously, sometimes there are no words:

     After visiting the United States, three members of the “UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent” led by Mireille Fanon Mendes-France (previously seen cheerleading a lawsuit by Caribbean nations against Great Britain for the slave trade) has suggested not only that the United States pay reparations for slavery, but that it also establish a National Human Rights Commission. The statement, based on a preliminary visit interviewing a limited number black activists, immediately became fodder for the anti-American propaganda machine.

     It doesn’t suffice that we spilled the blood of 800,000 Americans to end slavery. It doesn’t suffice that we’ve spent multi-trillions upon welfare for the remote descendants of slaves. It doesn’t suffice that Negroes get preferential treatment under the law for everything from hiring to lending. For as long as white Americans’ consciences remain prickable over this 150-year-dead practice that virtually every other country in history condoned at some point, America’s enemies will use it as a stick to flog us with.

     If I were to set down in pixels what I’m thinking right now, I’d have a “protest march” outside my front door by noon. But then, I’ve already done that, haven’t I?

     Get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US. Now!

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     5. Still Believe There’s Such A Thing As An Honest Democrat?

     Time to lay that shit down, boyo:

     As a senator, Secretary of State John Kerry sent at least one email to Hillary Clinton from his personal account that has now been classified as secret, the State Department confirmed on Tuesday.

     The largely redacted May 19, 2011, email from Kerry — then the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee — “was sent from a non-official account,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Tuesday.

     That account, Kirby added “is no longer active.”

     Kerry, of course, was a key figure in the calumnious “Winter Soldier” hearings about our troops’ conduct in Vietnam. He’s also the miscreant who threw someone else’s medals over the White House fence, claiming at the time that they were his. He’s also heavily associated with “Hanoi Jane” Fonda. Yet the Democrats felt he would be a suitable presidential nominee in 2004.

     Irving Kristol’s categorization of the Democrats as the Evil Party (“There are two parties in America: the Stupid Party and the Evil Party, and I'm proud to be a member of the Stupid Party.”) has never before seemed so accurate nor so on-point.

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     6. Government-Controlled Journalism.

     Germany has it:

     A retired media boss at a major German state broadcaster has admitted his network and others take orders from the government on what — and what not — to report.

     National public service broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), which was recently forced into a humiliating apology for their silence on migrant violence and sex assault is being drawn into a fresh scandal after one of their former bureau chiefs admitted the company takes orders from the government on what it reports. He said journalists received instructions to write news that would be “to Ms. Merkel’s liking.”

     Former head of ZDF Bonn Dr. Wolfgang Herles made the remarks during a radio event (from minute 27) in Berlin where journalists discussed the media landscape. Moving on to the freedom of the press, the panel chair asked Dr. Herles whether things in Germany had got “seriously out of whack.” With an honesty perhaps unusual in Germany, Dr. Herles replied that ordinary Germans were totally losing faith in the media, something he called a “scandal.”

     No, Dr. Herles. It’s not a scandal. It’s the inevitable consequence of being caught lying to you audience. Someone who festoons his name with his academic attainments should be intelligent enough to grasp a simple matter of cause and effect.

     “A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers...and its greatest strength is a free press when ‘free’ is defined as ‘responsible’ and the managers define what is ‘irresponsible.’” – Professor Bernardo de la Paz, in Robert A. Heinlein’s The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

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     That’s about all the badly depleted lining of my stomach can take for now, Gentle Reader. Have a nice day.