Monday, September 25, 2017



'Handmaid's Tale' Lunacy
   
Donald Trump, much to his chagrin, never won an Emmy for “The Apprentice,” but he can now take indirect credit for a clutch of the awards.

The Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale” won eight Emmys on Sunday night, a sweep fueled, in part, by the widely accepted belief in liberal America that the show tells us something about the Trump era.

Based on the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, the series depicts a misogynist dystopia. Christian fundamentalists have established a theocracy that — after an environmental debacle craters the birth rate — forces fertile women, called handmaids, into sexual slavery.

Set in contemporary America, the show combines the atmosphere of “The Scarlet Letter” with “1984.” It is bleak, plodding, heavy-handed and occasionally gripping. What has given it extra oomph is the trope that it is relevant to Trump’s America. This is a staple of the commentary, and everyone involved in the show’s production pushes the notion.

According to Atwood, people woke up after Trump’s election “and said we’re no longer in a fantasy fiction.” The series is indeed highly relevant — as a statement on the fevered mind of progressives.

The president doesn’t want to impose his traditional sexual morality because, for starters, he doesn’t have any to impose. His critics are mistaking a thrice-married real estate mogul who has done cameos in Playboy videos and extensive interviews on “The Howard Stern Show” with Cotton Mather. He isn’t censorious; he’s boorish.

“I thought this could be a great cautionary tale,” director Reed Morano says of the show. “We don’t think about how women are treated in other countries as much as we should, and I guess I thought this would raise awareness.” Fair enough. “The Handmaid’s Tale” does have something to tell us about, say, Saudi Arabia. But, in an uncomfortable fact for Christian-fearing feminists, none of the world’s women-hating theocracies are Christian.

Elisabeth Moss, who won an Emmy for her portrayal of handmaid Offred, warns of “things happening with women’s reproductive rights in our own country that make me feel like this book is bleeding over into reality.”

What this means is that Republicans want to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, and roll back Obamacare’s contraception mandate. If they succeed, this would mean less government intervention in matters of sexual morality, rather than more.

The progressive mind is unable to process that it has won the culture war in a rout (except for abortion, where conservatives are trying to chip away at our extremely liberal laws at the margins). We live in a country where Christian bakers get harried by government for politely declining to bake cakes for gay weddings, yet progressives still believe we are a few steps away from enslaving women.

For sheer obtuseness, it’s hard to beat executive producer Bruce Miller’s comment about a protest scene from the show that has been compared to the anti-Trump Women’s March. “You’re seeing exactly the same signs,” he told Vanity Fair, “exactly the same images, and you’re also seeing Capitol police with guns, not firing them, thank God, but it’s the same image.”

Actually, it’s the opposite image. There’s a vast difference between the forces of a totalitarian state crushing a protest, as happens in the show, and police maintaining the peace during a demonstration in a robustly free country, as occurred right here in Donald Trump’s USA.

According to Atwood: “If you’re going to get women back into the home, which some people still firmly believe is where they belong, how would you do that? All you have to do is remove the rights and freedoms that [women] have fought for and accumulated over the [past] 200 years.”

Yeah, that’s all you have to do. Atwood doesn’t explain who, straw men aside, actually wants to do this, or how they’d go about it. She wrote a book that, despite her intentions, has become a cautionary tale about how sophisticated people lose their minds.

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I’m a Descendant of Holocaust Survivors. Why I’m Appalled at the Comparison of Christian Bakers to Nazis

It’s November 1938, and the Nazis have confiscated a silk factory owned by the same Jewish family for over a decade, arresting the owner.

Fast forward to 2014, and a state official has compared a Colorado Christian baker to the same group that took away what belonged to the Jewish silk factory owner—the father of my grandmother’s cousin, Godofredo.

This in a country founded by people who fled religious persecution.

While America, the country that mostly turned away Jews fleeing Adolf Hitler, is thankfully not on a course to repeat the Holocaust’s atrocities, some of its citizens have taken to comparing matters of individual freedom—such as a baker refusing to make a same-sex wedding cake—to the actions that led to the deaths of 11 million people, including 6 million Jews and 1.5 million children.

Colorado Civil Rights Commissioner Diann Rice said, “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust.”

Especially as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, my message for Rice and for those who make religious liberty comparisons to the Shoah is simple: Stop it.

The late Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who survived the Holocaust, warned against comparisons like this. He said: "Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz. I went to Yugoslavia when reporters said that there was a Holocaust starting there. There was genocide, but not an Auschwitz. When you make a comparison to the Holocaust it works both ways, and soon people will say what happened in Auschwitz was “only what happened in Bosnia.”

Apply that logic to the case of Colorado baker Jack Phillips: Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz.

I went to Colorado where a baker refused to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding. I personally think it’s a shame, but it’s a private business refusing to bake a cake for a purpose of which the owner doesn’t agree.

It was a denial, not an Auschwitz. To cheapen the Holocaust by making such comparisons is to convolute and deny its atrocities.

The Holocaust, which only started with the discriminatory Nuremberg Laws only to end up in genocide, didn’t happen so much because of a hatred of a religion, but rather an explicit hatred for a people. This hatred extended to people who helped those the Nazis targeted, like the family who hid my only living grandmother when she was a child in France.

In fact, once Hitler took power, he sought to reduce Christianity’s influence on German society.

Rice’s comment was nothing but perverted and bigoted. I dare her to tell my living grandmother that what the Colorado baker did compares to the atrocities at Dachau, of which her late husband survived (his father perished there), and about which Phillips’ father wrote notes regarding the atrocities there and other places like Buchenwald, which he helped liberate.

Hypocritically, those on the left, like Rice, cite the plight of Jewish refugees during World War II as a reason for why the U.S. should take in refugees from war-torn places like Syria. Apparently they failed to learn about the Holocaust, which consisted of Jewish bakeries and other businesses being looted on Kristallnacht, or “Night of the Broken Glass,” let alone being sent to concentration camps.

(Important side note: Where is the outrage from the left over the atrocities in Rohingya, Darfur, Tibet, in Iraq against the Yazidis, and other persecuted groups in the Middle East? Those conflicts are severe compared to a bakery refusing to bake a same-sex wedding cake.)

Intolerance was part of the Holocaust. Blatant discrimination was part of the Holocaust. Concentration camps and gas chambers were part of the Holocaust. Death marches were part of the Holocaust. Indifference was part of the Holocaust.

Bakers refusing to bake same-sex wedding cakes were not part of the Holocaust. Rice seems indifferent to the magnitude of the Holocaust’s barbaric and sadistic acts, and instead chose to relate them to a baker who simply followed his conscience in declining to make a same-sex wedding cake.

Would Rice equate Phillips refusing to make a “divorce” cake to the Holocaust? Would Rice compare Phillips refusing to make Halloween-themed cakes to that of the Holocaust?

The famous psychologist Rollo May said, “The opposite of courage in our society isn’t cowardice. It’s conformity.”

It’s astonishing that America, which eventually admitted my surviving grandparents, is in 2017 a place where some are trying to coerce others to conform to an ideology, even if it conflicts with their personal beliefs.

In Nazi Germany, if you weren’t an Aryan as Hitler prescribed in “Mein Kampf,” you would perish. Is it somehow acceptable to compare this baker or anyone coerced by those with differing ideologies to the Nazis?

If we’re going to say “Never again,” let’s also say “No more.” No more false equivalences. No more hate. Conversing, not ostracizing, is the solution to bridge divisions between people.

Let’s judge people personally—not by their background, but rather by their character.

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Likely Next Solicitor General Fought for Nuns, Against Disputed Obama Appointees

After racking up victories against the Obama administration before the Supreme Court, Noel Francisco is expected to be confirmed by the Senate to manage the Trump administration’s cases there.

President Donald Trump nominated Francisco, who clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia and was a lawyer in the George W. Bush administration, to be his solicitor general.

A Senate committee approved the nomination four months ago. Democrats have stalled a final vote, but an end looks in sight.

While working in private practice for the Jones Day law firm, Francisco, 48, successfully argued before the Supreme Court against the constitutionality of President Barack Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, winning a 9-0 decision.

He also gained a 4-4 tie at the high court after arguing for the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic order of nuns, against Obamacare’s mandate requiring employers to cover contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in employee health plans.

In another widely publicized case that made its way to the high court, Francisco helped overturn the conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, on charges of public corruption.

The Supreme Court is set to begin hearing new cases Oct. 2. Some of the more high-profile cases concern the separation of powers, Trump’s “extreme vetting” order blocking immigration from certain failed states, and religious freedom.

“There are a number of very significant cases before the court and he is equal to the task for any cases before the Supreme Court,” John Malcolm, who heads the Institute for Constitutional Government at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “Noel Francisco is exceptionally bright and has impeccable character, and the nation will be well served to have him as solicitor general.”

Francisco, approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on a party line, 11-9 vote in June, is one of many Trump nominees whom Senate Democrats have managed to prevent from coming to a final floor vote.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network, a conservative legal group, watched Francisco argue the NLRB v. Noel Canning case before the Supreme Court. The justices unanimously ruled the president could not make recess appointments—installing appointees without Senate confirmation—while the Senate was not officially in recess.

Severino said Francisco’s impressive record was on display in his actions as a litigator.

“This has been another shameful holdup by the Senate Democrats who dragged this nomination out much longer than necessary,” Severino told The Daily Signal. “Noel Francisco is very well-known attorney and a very skilled litigator.”

“I’m glad he’s on board,” she added, “but we are still moving at a pace of confirmation that it would take three terms to confirm all of this administration’s nominees.”

The U.S. solicitor general works in the Justice Department, charged with managing the defense of the federal government’s cases in front of the Supreme Court. In many cases, the solicitor general argues the case.

Francisco briefly served as acting solicitor general until Trump nominated him for the position in March. Jeffrey Wall, who has served as acting solicitor general, is set to take the office’s No. 2 slot upon Francisco’s confirmation.

Francisco grew up in Oswego, New York. Francisco received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1996. He clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit before clerking for Scalia at the Supreme Court.

“If you asked any conservative attorney in this town, they would put Noel in the top five legal minds,” said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice and a legal affairs fellow with FreedomWorks, both conservative organizations.

“Given the resistance to Trump in the federal courts, almost everything could be dealt a blow by a district court somewhere, it’s important to have someone with executive branch experience, and it’s more important than ever for not only the country but for this administration,” Levey told The Daily Signal.

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Gov. Seeks to Normalize Transgenderism Via Science  

When science and social politics collide, science is often co-opted to promote political ideology rather than genuine science instructing public policy. The former seems to be the case (again) regarding the National Science Foundation’s spending of over $100,000 to create “safe zones” for LGBTQ students. Some $114,116 was given to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for the purpose of studying ways to “increase the inclusion of LGBTQ students and professionals in engineering.” According to the grant, the field of engineering can be an “unfriendly or a chilly” climate for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals.”

The grant also states that “the research will be the basis of systematic development and formative refinement of an online SafeZone course to provide inclusion training to engineering students and professionals nationwide.” Is this science or politically motivated social engineering?

The federal government’s use of “science” to further push the normalization of homosexuality and transgenderism onto the American public doesn’t stop there. The National Institutes of Health will be spending $200,000 on “exploratory or developmental research on the health of transgender and gender nonconforming people.” The NIH announcement further stated, “Transgender and gender nonconforming people encompass individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex on their original birth certificate, including individuals who are making or who have made a transition from being identified as one gender to the other, as well as individuals who are questioning their gender identity, who identify with more than one gender, or whose gender expression varies significantly from what is traditionally associated with or typical for that sex.”

It’s important to note that studying the problems of gender dysphoria and the impact it has on individuals is not unwarranted or unscientific research. But in today’s politically correct environment — where transgenderism is being celebrated as normal, and anyone questioning its normality or morality is labeled a bigot and a hater — it’s pretty clear this is an attempt to use “science” as a tool to further justify forcing the American public to accept transgenderism as normal. Even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is drinking the Rainbow Mafia’s Kool-Aid. He is co-sponsoring a bill that would prevent the military from banning transgenders from serving.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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