Science Is Dead, Long Live Science

John Sexton at Hat Hair writes 29 scientists wrote a paper defending merit in science. Science journals rejected it.

NY Times columnist Pamela Paul writes today about disturbing evidence that science won’t be spared from the long march of identity politics through our institutions. A group of 29 scientists including two Nobel laureates collaborated on a paper titled “In Defense of Merit in Science,” but major science journals rejected it.

A paper published last week, “In Defense of Merit in Science,” documents the disquieting ways in which research is increasingly informed by a politicized agenda, one that often characterizes science as fundamentally racist and in need of “decolonizing.” The authors argue that science should instead be independent, evidence-based and focused on advancing knowledge…

Yet the paper was rejected by several prominent mainstream journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Another publication that passed on the paper, the authors report, described some of its conclusions as “downright hurtful.” The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences took issue with the word “merit” in the title, writing that “the problem is that this concept of merit, as the authors surely know, has been widely and legitimately attacked as hollow as currently implemented.”…

“What’s being advocated are philosophies that are explicitly anti-scientific,” Anna Krylov, a chemistry professor at the University of Southern California and one of the paper’s authors, told me. “They deny that objective truth exists.” Having grown up in the Soviet Union, where science was infused with Marxist-Leninist ideology, Krylov is particularly attuned to such threats. And while she has advocated on behalf of equal treatment for women in science, she prefers to be judged on the basis of her achievements, not on her sex. “The merit of scientific theories and findings do not depend on the identity of the scientist,” she said in a phone interview.

Why did they need 29 scientists? Safety in numbers? 

The paper itself expands on that last idea, i.e. that science and its conclusions stand apart from the identity of scientists:

Scientific truths are universal and independent of the personal attributes of the scientist. Science knows no ethnicity, gender, or religion. Of course, by itself, universalism does not prevent the personal views of scientists, which are influenced by culture and society, from affecting the practice of science. Indeed, scientists have not always lived up to the ideals of fairness and impartiality in evaluating merit. In the past, scientific culture contributed to the exclusion of various groups from the scientific enterprise. For example, sexism limited women’s entry into science, and those who helped raise awareness of such issues have done science a service. However, the shortcomings of individuals or the community should not be confused with the science itself. Whether sexism prevented Cecilia Payne­-Gaposchkin from receiving credit for her conclusion that the Sun was made mostly of hydrogen is irrelevant to the fact that the Sun is made mostly of hydrogen. Although there are feminist critiques of how glaciologists have conducted themselves, there is no such thing as “feminist glaciology,” just as there is no “queer chemistry,” “Jewish physics,” “white mathematics,” “indigenous science,” or “feminist astronomy.” Glacial, physical, genetic, or prehistoric phenomena are independent of the positionality of the scientist. By prioritizing the truth value of scientific research, personal influences of individual scientists are minimized.

The paper also discusses the danger of allowing science to be dictated by political dogma, using an example from the Soviet Union.

Treading on thin ice there. Pointing out the flaws of the communist USSR won't win you any friends with the Marxists, although you can criticize Putin (a long time communist KGB man) until the cows come home, assuming they don't get nationalized.

In the Soviet Union (USSR), the aberrations of Trofim Lysenko had catastrophic consequences for science and society. An agronomist and “people’s scientist” who came from the “superior” class of poor peasants, Lysenko rejected Mendelian genetics because of its supposed inconsistency with Marxist ideology. Dissent from Lysenko’s ideas was outlawed and his opponents were fired or prosecuted. Lysenko’s ideologically infused agricultural ideas were put into practice in the USSR and China, where, in both countries, they led to decreased crop yields and famine. Today, biology is again being subjugated to ideology—medical schools deny the biological basis of sex, biology courses avoid teaching the heritability of traits, and so on.

The paper goes on to offer some general criticisms of Critical Social Justice (CSJ) approaches to science.

CSJ-­driven pedagogy can be pernicious, even when proposed innovations appear benign. For example, the proposed curriculum decolonization in pharmacology involves teaching about drugs developed from folk remedies and focusing on the contributions of non-­Europeans. While such topics might be appropriate for a history of medicine course, centering the curriculum around them, as has been proposed, would be detrimental to training health professionals. The vast majority of today’s pharmacopeia is derived from the research and development efforts of the modern pharmaceutical industry; effective treatments derived from traditional medicine are rare, especially in the era of bio­ and immunotherapies. For example, of the over 150 anti­cancer drugs available today, only three are of natural origin (trabectedin, taxanes, and vinca-­alkaloids).

But that is probably the greatest thought crime, criticizing social justice theory. 

Maryland, My Maryland

Da Sun, Standardized exams keep Black social workers out, activists say. These Marylanders want to change that

When Emanuel Wilkerson sat for the exam to become a licensed master social worker, he had nine job offers lined up. All he had to do was pass.

Starting in May, Wilkerson, 24, took the exam three times in four months. He spent his summer studying. He sank at least $1,300 into test preparation and fees. He failed each time ― by 10 points, by six points, and then by a single point.

“This exam leaves you essentially, financially, like broke,” Wilkerson said. “It basically leaves you traumatized from even trying again, and it makes you want to basically leave the field altogether.”

Wilkerson, who is Black, was a standout during his undergraduate career and the first in his family to earn an undergraduate degree.

So, maybe he should be looking at how his college prepared him for the job? 

He’s not alone in his struggle. Data released last year by the Association of Social Work Boards, which administers the social work licensing exams that the state of Maryland requires, showed disparities along racial lines that some in the profession say demonstrate the tests’ bias against nonwhite graduates.

In response, Democratic state Sen. Mary Washington of Baltimore introduced legislation Feb. 6 to address the issue.

“We are in a crisis. We need social workers,” Washington said. “There is a national movement to address these disparities and Maryland has an opportunity to be the leader.”

One bill would authorize the State Board of Social Work Examiners to issue temporary licenses to practice social work to applicants who have met all licensure requirements except passing an exam. The second bill would establish a work group under the Maryland Department of Health to identify alternatives to the current tests and develop recommendations on replacing the exam requirement.

The Association of Social Work Boards warned in a statement against eliminating its exams, saying that could have “many real-world consequences that could negatively affect the profession.”

The state of Maryland issues four types of licenses and each requires passing at least one exam. For instance, the requirements to reach the top license — licensed certified social worker-clinical — include a master’s degree, 3,000 hours of supervised social work and two exams. On this path, a “master’s exam” must be passed to get a master social worker license and begin the roughly two years of supervised work. A “clinical exam” is taken after that period to obtain a license to practice without supervision.

Oregon, My Oregon

 At Reason, Oregon Health Officials Delayed a Meeting Because 'Urgency Is a White Supremacy Value'

In an email obtained by Reason, Regional Health Equity Coalition Program Manager Danielle Droppers informed the community that a scheduled conversation between OHA officials and relevant members of the public would not take place as planned.

"Thank you for your interest in attending the community conversation between Regional Health Equity Coalitions (RHECs) and Community Advisory Councils (CACs) to discuss the Community Investment Collaboratives (CICs)," wrote Droppers. "We recognize that urgency is a white supremacy value that can get in the way of more intentional and thoughtful work, and we want to attend to this dynamic. Therefore, we will reach out at a later date to reschedule."

Droppers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The email was sent from Droppers' state government email address, and drew sharp rebukes from many who received it. One such community member replied that "as a person of color, I am calling BS!" Another recipient, a health equity manager at a medical group, said she was "thrown" by the claim.

"Please, educate me on what the state means by urgency is a white supremacy value," she wrote. "Also, I would like to know how this gets in the way of the RHEC/CAC work. I have struggled all morning with how to communicate the reason for the postponement to our CAC."

Droppers did not follow up on her initial email with an explanation. A county health official, however, responded that "I too was taken by surprise on the statement and decided to investigate it for further comprehension and wanted to share a link that I found."

The link redirects to a website that purportedly identifies aspects of white supremacy culture. The website was "conceived and designed" by Tema Okun, a white antiracist educator who has popularized the idea that several benign and widespread traits are actually characteristic of white supremacy. Among these are preferring quantity over quality, wanting things to be written down, perfectionism, becoming defensive, and yes, possessing a sense of urgency.

Okun's work makes frequent appearances in educational equity workshops; similar work by Judith Katz, also an antiracism expert, was included on the website for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Droppers needs to be fired, and anyone who didn't object should have their salary reduced by 50%, because their job is clearly not important.

St. Greta's Masque Slips

From Stacy McCain, Young Climate Change Maniacs

A few weeks ago, Rod Dreher speculated that Maximilien Robespierre, the French radical who ruled during the infamous Reign of Terror, could have been autistic. The evidence Dreher offered was perhaps not conclusive, but I have little expertise in autism so am not qualified to judge. However, it’s been reported that the teenage Swedish climate-change fanatic Greta Thunberg is autistic, and she certainly has the totalitarian tendencies that would remind one of Robespierre:

. . .In an op-ed published in Project Syndicate, Thunberg and two other far-left climate activists attacked world leaders over their pro-capitalist policies, writing that “the politicians let the profiteers continue to exploit our planet’s resources and destroy its ecosystems in a quest for quick cash that threatens our very existence.” . . .
“My message is that we’ll be watching you. This is all wrong, I shouldn’t be up here, I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean,” Thunberg began. “Yet, you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you. You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words, and yet I’m one of the lucky ones. People are suffering; people are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth.”

A few excerpts of Miss Thunberg’s op-ed:

After all, the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all. Our political leaders can no longer shirk their responsibilities. . . .
As the science makes clear, we don’t have a single day to lose. . . .
Each and every one of us must participate in the climate resistance movement. We cannot just say we care; we must show it.

Notice the words “need” and “must” here? Notice also the word “crisis.” This is a rhetorical tactic beloved by totalitarians. The problem with which they are obsessed is always a crisis, which demands immediate action — “we don’t have a single day to lose” — and anyone who doesn’t share their sense of dire urgency is dismissed as morally inferior: “We cannot just say we care; we must show it.” In other words, you must either show that you care about this issue as much as young Greta does, by doing whatever it is she demands that you do, or else you are to be classified among the untermenschen, subhuman, without any merit or value. You either join her in the work of dismantling “systems of oppression” or you are Lebensunwertes Leben — “life unworthy of life,” as the Nazis described those whom they targeted for eradication.

I don't really want to focus on Greta's learning disability, the way Stacy does. That just makes it easier to for the folks controlling her to manipulate her.

I'd rather focus on the fact that these rants reveal the "watermelon environmentalism" (green on the outside, red on the inside) driving the movement. The  rants reveal that which most of us know. The climate juggernaut is not about saving the planet from warming (they might think of that as a side benefit, if they really believe in it at all), but rather to encourage the establishment of a socialist state, with complete control over the economy.

Which is really rather strange when you think about it, because socialist countries, China, Vietnam, Venezuela, the old Soviet Union, are notoriously bad environmentally. The people in charge may actually have the power to impose total regulation in such a way as to control greenhouse gas emissions, as well as other environmental nightmares, but they rarely, if ever, do so instead, focusing their efforts on controlling the populace and goosing their industries, which are routinely failing due to lack of incentives.

Scientific American Selling Fear

With the claim that Rising Seas Soaked Home Owners for $16 Billion over 12 Years

Sea-level rise has cost homeowners on the East and Gulf coasts nearly $16 billion in property value as floods and the threat of flooding drive some buyers away, according to a study released this week.

Analysts at the nonprofit First Street Foundation in Brooklyn studied millions of residential home sales in 17 states from Maine to Alabama and found that coastal property values were rising at a slower rate in flood-prone areas than in areas that did not flood.

“The market is already reacting,” First Street Executive Director Matthew Eby said. “There’s no longer a conversation of what sea-level rise will do in 2050 or 2100.”

So the First Street Foundation is a nice scientific, non-biased NGO right? Hardly; their motto is "Quantifying and communicating the impacts of sea level rise and flooding"

As always, in looking at sea level rise, let's see the actual data for the sea level rise experienced by real East Coast cities, as measured by real tide gauges.

So, actual sea level at various sites up and down the east coast show slow, mostly consistent rises in sea level, at rates between 1 and 3 mm per year (some variation due to land settling, faster in the south than in the north). There is, as of yet, no hint of acceleration in the rate of sea level rise due to any CO2 induce recent warming (which is an argument for some other post).

If the width of a nickel means the difference between your house flooding or not, you live too damn close to the water, and you should do something about it. Raise the house, fill the land, move to higher ground. People have been doing that as long as they've been living in fixed dwellings. If your politicians won't let you, you've elected the wrong politicians.

I had Scientific American subscriptions starting in junior high school, but about 15 years ago, the magazine became more about social justice and "ecology" than about science, and I dropped it.

When Science and Social Justice Collide

Science loses. Do social psychologists have an ideological aversion to evolutionary psychology? The short answer is yes.

A new survey of beliefs held by social psychologists (335 mostly US-based members of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology) has confirmed previous reports that the field is overwhelmingly populated by researchers of a left-wing, liberal bent. What’s more, David Buss and William von Hippel – the evolutionary social psychologists who conducted and analysed the survey – say their findings, published open-access in Archives of Scientific Psychology, suggest that some social psychologists may be opposed, for ideological reasons, to insights rooted in evolutionary psychology.

Buss and von Hippel add that compounding matters is an irony – the desire of some researchers to signal their ideological stance and commitment to others who share their political views, which is a manifestation of the evolved human adaptation to form coalitions. “Part of this virtue signalling entails rejecting a caricature of evolutionary psychology that no scientist actually holds,” they write.

In terms of the political bias among social psychologists, Buss and von Hippel found that 95 per cent were mostly liberal and left-wing in their views (also, among the US respondents, only 4 had voted Republican in the prior Presidential election while 305 had voted Democrat).

Only 95% ? How did 5% sneak through graduate school? Or did they come to realize the error of their ways subsequent to getting their degrees?

Quizzing the social psychologists on their views of evolutionary theory, Buss and von Hippel found that they overwhelmingly accepted the principles of Darwinian evolution and also that it applied to humans, but when it came to whether evolutionary theory applies to human psychology and behaviour, the sample was split, with many social psychologists rejecting this notion.

Digging deeper into the survey results, there was no evidence that the social psychologists were averse to evolutionary psychology for religious reasons, but many did reject the idea that humans might be inherently violent (in certain situations) or that some people are widely considered more physically attractive than others due to universal evolved standards of attractiveness – perhaps, Buss and von Hippel suggested, this is because “they dislike the implications regarding the dark side of human nature.”

Next, Buss and von Hippel asked the social psychologists about their views on the truth of five hot button statements related to the biological basis of average sex differences, such as whether such differences are primarily genetic rather than environmental, whether sex-differentiated hormones play a role, and whether it might be more difficult for men than women to stay faithful in long-term romantic relationships.

Answers to three of these five hot-button questions accounted for a small but statistically significant amount of the variance in the social psychologists’ position on whether evolutionary theory applies to human psychology and their self-reported political ideology. This pattern is consistent with the idea that, while the relation between political ideology and scientific beliefs is complex, some social psychologists are inclined to reject evolutionary psychology findings on ideological grounds (in keeping with this interpretation, a substantial portion of the sample said it would be bad if the hot-button findings were widely reported).

So, don't report findings that contradict the holdings of the progressive activists? There lies the future death of science, or at least this field. It won't be missed.

Is There Any Justice in "Social Justice"?

Stacy McCain explores The Rhetoric of ‘Social Justice’

When did “oppression” become a synonym for failure or unhappiness? How did “privilege” become a synonym for success? And why do so many people now conflate criticism or disagreement with “hate”?

During the past five years — since President Obama was re-elected in 2012, basically — the rhetoric of progressive “social justice” ideology has made its way from elite universities into the cultural mainstream:

The term “social justice warrior” (SJW) was coined nearly 10 years ago by Will Shetterly. The son of civil-rights activists who were threatened by the Klan during his childhood, Shetterly became an award-winning science-fiction writer. It was in the context of his writing career that he encountered the indignant Internet mobs of virtue-signallers and identity-politics activists who inspired the epithet. By the time the #GamerGate controversy arose in August 2014, “SJW” was a popular label for this increasingly familiar type, and Shetterly’s coinage was made famous by Vox Day in the title of a 2015 book, SJWs Always Lie.

That the SJW mentality — a fixated obsession with victimhood — emerged from academia can be demonstrated by examining, e.g., Gender Studies curricula and the identity-politics rhetoric of student activism. “Intersectionality” (a jargon term coined by a law professor and proponent of “critical race theory”) became a mantra among campus feminists at elite universities who were taught that their “oppression” was part of an interlocking system of social injustice. No matter how rich her parents may be, or whatever social and economic advantages she may obtain, “intersectionality” means that the feminist student always considers herself as a victim of an unjust society, and thus obligated to destroy the system that oppresses her. . . .

"Social" takes the "justice" out of "social justice". Justice, at least in America, is seen as equal treatment under the law towards each individual. "Social justice" modifies that by dividing the people into groups, and deciding that equal treatment to some individuals is not warranted due to history.

Justice: a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair questioned the justice of the their decision
b (1) : the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) : conformity to this principle or ideal : righteousness the justice of their cause c : the quality of conforming to law

Social justice: justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. "individuality gives way to the struggle for social justice"
Pretty much any time "social" is used to modify a subject it debases it, either weakening or even contradicting it. Try it. Justice or "social justice", studies or "social studies", security or "social security", responsibility or "social responsibility", media or "social media". OK, the last one doesn't hurt it too bad. There wasn't very far to fall with media.

Reason #5574-5577 That Trump Was Elected

North Korea: Otto Warmbier dies days after release from North Korean detention

Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea for nearly a year and a half, died Monday afternoon, days after he returned home in a coma, his parents announced.

Warmbier, 22, had been medically evacuated last week and was being treated at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. His parents, Fred and Cindy Warmbier, did not specify the cause of death.

But they made clear in a written statement that they blamed North Korea for what happened. Their son was arrested in January 2016 at the end of a brief tourist visit to the isolated country.

“Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” the Warmbiers said.

Kim Jong-un nervous about assassination: NIS

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seems to feel “extremely nervous” about the allies’ possible clandestine operation to eliminate him, South Korea’s intelligence agency told lawmakers Thursday.

Due to concerns over potential airstrikes and assassination attempts, the young tyrant prefers to move at dawn and uses his subordinates’ cars, such as a Lexus car, not his own Mercedes-Benz 600, the National Intelligence Services told a closed-door parliamentary session, according to Rep. Lee Cheol-woo of the main opposition Liberty Party of Korea, who attended the meeting.

As he should be.

Left-wingers were nothing if not predictable.Otto Warmbier, Moral Perversion, and the Social Justice Left.

Larry Wilmore:

“It’s just tough for me to have much sympathy for this guy and his crocodile tears,” said former Comedy Central host Larry Wilmore amid what was billed as a comedic monologue on his now-cancelled show in March 2016. He noted that, according to reporting, Warmbier had committed the “international crime” of poster stealing as part of an initiation into his UVA fraternity. “You’ve got to read the fine print on your American frat bro warranty,” Wilmore noted mockingly. “It says, ‘Frat Bro Privilege not valid in totalitarian dystopias.’”

Huffington Post blogger La Sha blamed his “white male privilege.”

In Sha’s estimation, the accidents of Warmbier’s birth afforded him a “shield” from justice in the United States. His heterosexuality, white skin color, and male genitalia rendered him functionally above the law. “That kind of reckless gall is an unfortunate side effect of being socialized first as a white boy, and then as a white man in this country,” she wrote.

Reason #5553 That Trump Was Elected

Gaining, I'm sure, the gratitude of everyone, who's had to sit through a diversity seminar the Trump administration plans to minimize civil rights efforts in agencies

The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.

As outlined in Labor’s fiscal 2018 plan, the move would fold the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, now home to 600 employees, into another government agency in the name of cost-cutting.

Please move them to Fargo, ND in the process.

The proposal to dismantle the compliance office comes at a time when the Trump administration is reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities by cutting budgets, dissolving programs and appointing officials unsympathetic to previous practices.

The new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has proposed eliminating its environmental justice program, which addresses pollution that poses health threats specifically concentrated in minority communities. The program, in part, offers money and technical help to residents who are confronted with local hazards such as leaking oil tanks or emissions from chemical plants.

Don't get me going on "environmental justice"

Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights — which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment — would also see significant staffing cuts. Administration officials acknowledge in budget documents that the civil rights office will have to scale back the number of investigations it conducts and limit travel to school districts to carry out its work.

Yes, the "civil rights" people in the Education Dept have been working hard to remove due process and the presumption of innocence for men in sexual harassment complaints.

Instapundit summed it up best: WELL, SINCE THEY’RE ACTUALLY JUST BULLPENS FOR LEFTY ACTIVISTS, THAT’S GOOD.

Three Strikes, She's Out

Freddie Gray case: Charges against three remaining officers dropped

Prosecutors dropped all remaining charges against three Baltimore police officers accused in the arrest and death of Freddie Gray in a downtown courtroom on Wednesday morning, concluding one of the most high-profile criminal cases in Baltimore history.

The startling move was an apparent acknowledgement of the unlikelihood of a conviction following the acquittals of three other officers on similar and more serious charges by Circuit Judge Barry G. Williams, who was expected to preside over the remaining trials as well.

It also means the office of Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby will secure no convictions in the case after more than a year of dogged fighting, against increasingly heavy odds, to hold someone criminally accountable in Gray's death.

Officer William Porter's trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial in December, before Williams acquitted Officers Edward Nero and Caesar Goodson and Lt. Brian Rice at bench trials in May, June, and July, respectively.

In a hearing Wednesday meant to start the trial of Officer Garrett Miller, Chief Deputy State's Attorney Michael Schatzow told Williams that the state was dropping all charges against Miller, Porter and Sgt. Alicia White.

I would venture to guess that this is the beginning of the end of Marilyn Mosby's political career, unless the Clinton administration moves her to the Justice Department to continue her war on the police.

I would also suggest that we'll never find out what really happened to Freddy Gray. There are just too many partial witness, all with agendas, so no coherent story will ever emerge.

So When Is It Fair to Judge the Judges?

We all know about the controversy with Donald Trump accusing the judge in his Trump University case of being biased because of the judge's Hispanic heritage, and his associations with pro-Hispanic groups like La Raza (literally translated at "The Race") Lawyers, because of Trump's outspoken opposition to illegal immigration. Sounds entirely plausible to me, and possibly grounds for the judge to recuse himself, but Trump faced rather heavy condemnation from liberal, and then even conservatives for daring to mention the judge's ethnicity in his rant.

But what about this one?  The Obama Admin Blocked An Iranian-American Judge From Hearing Iranian Immigration Cases

In 2015, immigration Judge A. Ashley Tabaddor sued the United States Department of Justice after it forced her to recuse herself from “all immigration cases involving Iranians.”

According to reporting from NPR, Obama’s DOJ first became “concerned with the appearance of impropriety” after Tabaddor — who is of Iranian descent — attended a 2012 White House meeting with other high-profile Iranian-Americans.

I don't remember a massive fuss about this. IN fact, I don't remember hearing about it at all. Is Loretta Lynch bigoted against Iranians, or was this just a sensible precaution against the appearance of bias?

And now about the case of Judge Aaron Persky, who handed down what appeared to many liberals as far too lenient a sentence in the case of of Brock Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexual assault. He was given a sentence of 6 months. NPR cites Michele Dauber, the Stanford law professor who's leading an effort to dismiss Persky.

It is my belief that sometimes one case can be so bad that it does require strong action and strong repudiation. Judge Persky is a criminal judge, one of the very few criminal judges, who has jurisdiction over Stanford. So that means that we would be waiting six more years in order to remove him according to the regular election process, and any sexual assaults that happen on the Stanford campus during that time would be highly unlikely to receive a prison sentence based on this precedent. So we think this is dangerous; we can't really let it go on for another six years. We need justice for women now.

Can they dismiss the judge's sentence based on the fact that he was male, and presumably biased in favor of the male defendant? We don't seem to suffer the any qualms about accusing him of bias.

EPA Releases Social Justice Agenda

EPA releases environmental justice action agenda

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the EJ 2020 Action Agenda (EJ 2020), a strategy to advance the agency’s environmental justice efforts. Over the next five years, EJ 2020 will serve as a framework to advance environmental justice—particularly in communities where a combination of environmental, health, social and economic factors disproportionally affect the community.

According to the EPA, environmental justice is the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.” Under the strategy, the EPA will work to improve results for overburdened communities, incorporate environmental justice in decision-making, build partnerships with states and co-regulators, strengthen their ability to take action on environmental justice issues, and demonstrate progress on critical national environmental justice challenges. . . 

Basically, this is a promise to bring NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard) to the masses. If the poor, and racial minorities can't be bothered to protest that which the current EPA administration (or worse, may actually want the  offending activities, which bring jobs and economic activity), the EPA will be happy to find and pay activists to do it for them.

Judge Sends Justice to Ethics Training

Federal Judge Orders 'Deceptive' DOJ Lawyers to Take Ethics Classes

In a stunning rebuke to the Department of Justice Thursday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ordered annual ethics classes for the DOJ attorneys who were "intentionally deceptive" during the course of executive amnesty litigation. At issue was whether the DOJ intentionally misled the judge into believing that Obama's DACA amnesty program would be halted until he made a ruling on a lawsuit brought by 26 states.

From November of 2014 until February of 2015, while the judge was still deciding the case, the Department of Homeland Security gave more than 108,000 illegal immigrants three-year reprieves. They did this after DOJ lawyers led him to believe that they would halt the program during that period. The 26 states who filed a lawsuit were thus misled into "foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order," Hanen wrote in his blistering decision. "Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word 'Justice.'"

But it's the "Justice Department" not the "Ethics Department"!

Via the Washington Examiner:

The facts of the deception are not in doubt, Hanen emphasized. "[DOJ] has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts," he said in the May 19 opinion, first noted by the National Law Journal. "It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements ... This court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed."
As punishment, Justice Department attorneys who wish to appear in any state or federal court within the 26 states that brought the lawsuit have to undergo annual ethics training. "At a minimum, this course (or courses) shall total at least three hours of ethics training per year," he wrote.

Is there a Department that the Obama Administration has not corrupted?

SJWs Browbeat Pretty Girl into Submission

Previous Rule 5 subject Blake Lively Surrenders To Gawker, Agrees To Delete Her Lifestyle And Fashion Site

In an interview with Vogue published today, actress and model Blake Lively revealed that she will be deleting her lifestyle site Preserve on October 9. The site has been decried again and again for celebrating antebellum fashion and decor, and it seems like the criticism has pushed her to shuttering the site just a year after its launch.

Lively’s announcement has already spurred an article with this gleeful headline from Gawker (emphasis added): “Blake Lively Finally Deletes Her Antebellum-Obsessed Lifestyle Site Preserve.” Gawker‘s triumphant tone on the news of Preserve‘s demise follows a year-long string of stories skewering Lively for — gasp — praising Southern culture.

Man, you can't have that. You might start thinking southern folk are human or something, and you might have to grant them the right to think, speak, and maybe even vote. Who knows where that might lead?

Last fall, Lively’s site featured a fall fashion photo spread called “Allure of Antebellum.” Naturally, there was a social media firestorm, saying that the site glorified slavery and oppression.

Alongside photos of a woman dressed in clothes available for purchase on the site ran the following text:

“The term Southern Belle came to fruition during the Antebellum period (prior to the Civil War), acknowledging women with an inherent social distinction who set the standards for style and appearance. These women epitomized Southern hospitality with a cultivation of beauty and grace, but even more with a captivating and magnetic sensibility… While at times depicted as coy, these belles of the ball, in actuality could command attention with the ease of a hummingbird relishing a pastoral bloom.”

One of reasons that the SJWs are out after Lively is that she is an entrepreneur, a damned capitalist.

While glossing over the horrific aspects of the antebellum south (like slavery and the Civil War) isn’t the most intellectually honest thing in the world, keep in mind that the purpose of her site was to sell clothes and feature recipes, not to bring back the slave trade. Future generations aren’t dependent upon an actress’s lifestyle site to preserve a perfect picture of history. We can let Lively praise genteel femininity if she wants to without treating her like a pariah for failing to sufficiently decry slavery more than 150 years after its prohibition.

Lively isn’t the only target of this kind of hate. It seems that modern culture is terrified of the Southern belle. In March, the University of Georgia banned hoop skirts from all campus events after it had already banned Confederate uniforms. Ironically though, hoop skirts aren’t a symbol of white oppression or slaveowner sensibilities, rather they were a great equalizer of the time.

I covered the hoop skirt "debate" in a previous post.

As Denise McAllister explained:

The hoop skirt was worn by all social classes and all racial groups. That’s right… The hoop skirt is a symbol of inclusion, not exclusion! […] The white Southern woman “with her attire, manners, and demeanor” … has an identity that is beyond racism. It is an identity rooted in faith, family, individualism, quiet determination, social struggle, and freedom.

As McAllister writes, there’s nothing wrong with finding the good in the Southern belle. . . 

The reason that SJWs keep pushing such ridiculous shit is because it works. Each incremental attack on American culture as it exists is a win for them. We must resist at all costs.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Columbus Day Edition" ready at The Other McCain.

A Feature, Not a Bug

Via Stacy McCain: General: Military ‘Degraded’ by Obama

Barbara Hollingsworth at CNS News reports:

The military readiness of the United States is being “degraded by social experimentation,” Maj. Gen. Robert Dees (U.S. Army-Ret.) said Saturday at the Values Voter Summit in Washington.
Dees said that the Obama administration’s use of the military for “social engineering” on controversial gay and gender issues is detrimental to the nation’s ability to defend itself.
“Not only are we losing physical readiness to fight, we have to fix the problem of moral readiness,” he said on a panel chaired by Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin (US Army-Ret.).
“I think the moral readiness of our forces is even more important than the physical readiness, which is very low,” Dees later told CNSNews.com. “The moral readiness is degraded by social experimentation within our military.
“In fact, social experimentation is improperly named because it’s not an experiment at all. It’s a top-driven mandate for social agendas that occurs by this administration within the military, which is a captive audience.
“It is not enhancing our readiness; it declines our readiness. We’re spending more time on some of these social engineering projects than we are on developing and maintaining readiness in our force.”

Meanwhile, at People magazine, Susan Keating reports:

Way back in January, long before the first women attended the Army’s elite Ranger School – one of the most grueling military courses in the world — officials at the highest levels of the Army had already decided failure was not an option, sources tell PEOPLE.
“A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. “At least one will get through.”
That directive set the tone for what was to follow, sources say.
“It had a ripple effect” at Fort Benning, where Ranger School is based, says a source with knowledge of events at the sprawling Georgia Army post. “Even though this was supposed to be just an assessment, everyone knew. The results were planned in advance.”
On Tuesday, PEOPLE revealed that Oklahoma Republican Rep. Steve Russell had asked the Department of Defense for documents about the women who attended Ranger School after becoming concerned that “the women got special treatment and played by different rules,” sources say.

Read the whole thing. It will make your blood boil. These women were the beneficiaries of a deliberate and systematic unfairness intended to achieve a politically approved outcome. The waste of resources involved in this dishonest endeavor — including extra training that required personnel to be specially assigned to prepare the women trainees — was conducted at taxpayer expense. The demoralization of male troops involved in this fraud was not least among the detrimental effects.

The left has always had a bone to pick with the military. Either it was consuming too much of the money they wanted to spend on entitlements (I've heard that a billion time from my coworkers sucking the government teat), or it's a misogynistic threat to the nation's morals.

If you can't cut their budget, make them waste it on "social justice" goals. If it hurt their morale, so much the better. They weren't supposed to have any. Obama is just giving the left what it has long desired.

We All Hate Poverty, War and Social Injustice. . .

The problem is defining "Social Justice." It's one of those phrases, which when uttered by a sincere (or even sometimes an insincere) liberal, makes me feel around for my wallet, and hope the credit cards are all still there.  But I've never really articulated why.  Jonah Goldberg does it well:



Which reminds me of the famous song about "social injustice":

The Folk Song Army

(Tom Lehrer)

We are the Folk Song Army.

Everyone of us cares.

We all hate poverty, war, and injustice,

Unlike the rest of you squares.

You have to admire people who sing these songs. It takes a certain amount of courage to get up in a coffee-house or a college auditorium and come out in favor of the things that everybody else in the audience is against like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on. The nicest thing about a protest song is that it makes you feel so good.