Tag: hypocrisy

Criticizing Public Figures, Including Influential Journalists, is Not Harassment or Abuse

During Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign, one of the most common tactics used by her political and media supporters was to cast criticisms of her (largely from supporters of Bernie Sanders) not as ideological or political but as misogynistic, thus converting one of the world’s richest and most powerful political figures into some kind of a victim, exactly when she was seeking to obtain for herself the planet’s most powerful political office. There was no way to criticize Hillary Clinton — there still is not — without being branded a misogynist.

A very similar tactic was used four years later to vilify anyone criticizing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — also one of the world’s richest and most powerful figures — as she sought the power of the Oval Office. A major media theme was that she was being brutally assaulted by Sanders supporters who were using snake emojis to express dissatisfaction with what they believed was her less-than-scrupulous campaign, such as relying on millions of dollars in dark money from an anonymous Silicon Valley billionaire to stay in the race long after the immense failure of her campaign was manifest, and attempting to depict Sanders as a woman-hating cretin. When Warren finally withdrew from the race after having placed no better than third in any state including her own, Rachel Maddow devoted a good chunk of her interview with the Senator and best-selling author to exploring the deep trauma she experienced from the snake emojis.

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Biden AG Nominee Merrick Garland Wrote in 70s That Song About ‘Military Rape’ Was ‘Hilarious’

President Joe Biden’s attorney general nominee Merrick Garland as a college student at Harvard University wrote in a review of a musical that a song about rape was one of the play’s “hilarious group numbers.”

In a Harvard Crimson article published January 22, 1976, he wrote in a critique of the play (emphasis added):

A combination of factors, however, keep the vocal problems from becoming disastrous. Most important are the Jones-Schmidt songs themselves, simple and engaging melodies with a few tender ballads like “Try to Remember” and some hilarious group numbers like “it Depends on what You Pay,” which provides a shopping list of rapes for sale (e.g. “the military rape–it’s done with drums and a great brass band.”)

The play was “The Fantasticks,” performed by an all-freshmen cast. It is about a nearly 20-year-old college student and a 16-year-old girl, who are young lovers.

The article was submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 26, 2020, as part of a questionnaire Garland filled out for consideration by the committee next week. Question 12 asks the nominee to list published writings — books, articles, reports, letters to the editor, etc. — and public statements.

The song about rape has come under public scrutiny in the past for its lyrics, which include:

We’ve the obvious open schoolboy rape,
With little mandolins and perhaps a cape.
The rape by coach; it’s little in request.
The rape by day, but the rape by night is best.

Just try to see it.
And you will soon agree, señors,
Why
Invite regret,
When you can get the sort of rape
You’ll never ever forget.

You can get the rape emphatic.
You can get the rape polite.
You can get the rape with Indians:
A very charming sight.
You can get the rape on horseback;
They’ll all say it’s new and gay.
So you see the sort of rape
Depends on what you pay.
It depends on what you
Pay.

The song’s lyricist, Tom Jones, made changes to the song in 2006 when the play was revived in 2006.

“For years I didn’t think and then gradually it began to seep into my consciousness. My consciousness was raised. I really began to think, you know, rape isn’t funny,” Jones told NPR in 2006. The word “rape” was later changed to “abduction.”

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China declares homosexuality a mental illness? Where’s LeBron? Where’s Disney?

This puts China’s defenders, nearly all leftists, in an increasingly untenable position.

Where’s LeBron James, whose claim to fame beyond basketball is defending China?  He’s got business interests there, and he’s said nothing.

Where’s Disney, whose family fare these days is more than a little gay-friendly?  They too have got business interests in China, and worse still, they made a movie on a Chinese theme complete with Xinjiang’s laogai forced labor camps accidentally appearing in the background.  They may be indifferent to the laogai, but let’s hear their reaction to this news from China.

Hollywood in general is co-opted by China; China has bought up major shares in nearly every major studio.  And Hollywood is also quick to jump for causes that can be called gay.  Weren’t West Hollywood’s denizens responsible for blacklisting people who opposed a gay “marriage” initiative?  Didn’t this bunch boycott the Beverly Wilshire over the Sultan of Brunei’s purchase of a share of it, the Sultan instituting anti-gay policies back in his satrapy?  Suddenly, we don’t hear much from Hollywood about this classification of gayness as a mental illness.

There’s also the Chamber of Commerce, the charmers who engaged in the “conspiracy” to “save the 2020 election,” as Time magazine reported.  They’re big China-boosters. 

And where’s Michael Bloomberg?  Bloomberg has famously refused to call China’s leader a “dictator,” giving a Clintonian dodge of “it’s a question of what is a dictator” to a town hall audience during his ill fated 2020 presidential run.  More disgusting still, he’s tried to ruin people who’ve spoken out about the hellhole.  Remember this, from The Intercept?

I AM ONE of the many women Mike Bloomberg’s company tried to silence through nondisclosure agreements. The funny thing is, I never even worked for Bloomberg.

But my story shows the lengths that the Bloomberg machine will go to in order to avoid offending Beijing. Bloomberg’s company, Bloomberg LP, is so dependent on the vast China market for its business that its lawyers threatened to devastate my family financially if I didn’t sign an NDA silencing me about how Bloomberg News killed a story critical of Chinese Communist Party leaders. It was only when I hired Edward Snowden’s lawyers in Hong Kong that Bloomberg LP eventually called off their hounds after many attempts to intimidate me.

What about Nike, which touts every disrespect-America cause under the sun, which scotched its Betsy Ross flag shoe, but which continues to stand by China, even as it finds itself in court over its alleged use of slave labor?  Thus far, crickets.  Don’t hear a thing.

What about Apple, whose CEO is gay, and which just donated $1 million in iPads and other products to LGBT youths?  Apple just registered a blowout quarter in China, with 20% of its sales coming from the communist dictatorship.  Kind of odd to be making big bucks from a regime that now declares homosexuality a mental illness.  We won’t hold our breath waiting for their condemnation.

Where’s Tom Friedman?  The man who wished America could be just like China?  Thus far, no word.

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Fashion Brand That Vehemently Supported Black Lives Matter Faces Slave Labor Scandal

Fashion brand Boohoo, which vehemently expressed its support for Black Lives Matter in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, is now embroiled in a slave labor scandal.

US Customs and Border Protection has seen enough enough to launch an investigation into the company after campaign group Liberty Shared exposed how the company “is not doing enough to stop forced labour in the Leicester factories which make many of its clothes,” reports Sky News.

“The evidence of Boohoo and forced labour is quite compelling. I think it will be a wake-up call for British institutions about how they’re handling modern slavery enforced labour, particularly in a community like Leicester East,” said Duncan Jepson.

A report last year by lawyer Alison Levitt QC found that the allegations against the company, which centered around illegally low wages and poor working conditions, were “substantially true.” Employees were also made to work through lockdown, potentially exposing them to COVID-19.

Any potential US ban would cost the company more than a fifth of the company’s total revenue.

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