Author: Keith Preston

All Posts by Keith Preston

The Crushing Reality of Zoom School Reply

Education

Oh, please. What about all the kids who are homeschooled for their entire K-12 education and then go straight to college?

By Dan Sinker

Esquire

“Are you muted?”

The first thing my five-year-old learned in kindergarten, set up at a tiny desk in the corner of our dining room, is to always stay muted. It’s probably the wrong thing to teach a child, but not everyone remembers, and then life bleeds in. Zoom school becomes a portal into worlds you never see as a parent making awkward smalltalk at pickup.

You can hear a mom working a job doing collections for medical billing. Call after call.

A dad who calls his sister on speakerphone. They fight most days.

Grandparents asking how long it’s going to take. There are babies wailing.

TVs, so many TVs, an endless buzz of TVs. The weather. The news. Game shows and talk shows.

Are you muted?

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Why Biden May Win 1

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Electoralism/Democratism

By Paul Gottfried

Intellectual Takeout

Last week the Cotto-Gottfried podcast interviewed New York financier and widely read blogger Adam Townsend. He strongly believes Biden will win the presidential race.

Townsend did not seem to relish his analysis and kept returning to this desperate defense of the president: “For all his faults, only Trump will take on the mega-corporations.” Nonetheless, he presented the following reason for why Biden’s side would triumph on election day.

For starters, attempts by the Trump campaign to stress the personal and moral weaknesses of the Democratic presidential candidate will not get them a win. That’s because Biden’s political fortunes do not depend on what he says or doesn’t say, but on the reach of those who have spent the last three-and-a-half years working to drive Trump from office.

It makes no difference in terms of Biden’s electability, according to Townsend, whether the Democratic candidate stays in his basement bunker or ventures into the political arena. So far it hasn’t hurt Biden that he makes one verbal gaffe after the other in carefully orchestrated non-interviews, or that he makes up his “facts” about any subject he addresses in his limited public appearances.

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The Ruling Class Strikes Back Reply

American Decline, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Fourth Generation Warfare, Left and Right

I disagree with aspects of the ideological flavor reflected in this article. But its core thesis seems to be cogent enough. A multi-dimensional insurrection (consisting of distinct but overlapping sectors such as the lumpenproletariat, middle-class radicals, ordinary hooligans, the far left, and sectors of the far right) is being co-opted by the state and the ruling class, which fears an insurgency by the nationalist right and the authentically anti-capitalist left to an even greater degree.

By Pedro Gonzalez

American Greatness

There is no proletarian,” wrote Oswald Spengler, “not even a Communist movement, that has not operated in the interests of money, and for the time being permitted by money―and that without the idealists among its leaders having the slightest suspicion of the fact.” What the German prophet of pessimism meant was that revolutions generally boil down to the whip passing from one hand to another equally or even more eager to exercise the lash.

The idealists tend to be blind to this and serve their new masters just as well as the ones they endeavor to throw off.

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dead at 87 Reply

Law/Justice

Another battle royale is coming.

CBS News

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died at the age of 87 from complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer. According to a statement from the court, Ginsburg died surrounded by her family at her home in Washington, D.C. Norah O’Donnell anchors a CBS News Special Report from Washington with CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford.

WATCH HERE

Study provides first estimate of total US population with felony convictions Reply

Law/Justice

Eight percent of the US population are convicted felons.

Science Daily

New research led by a University of Georgia sociologist on the growth in the scope and scale of felony convictions finds that, as of 2010, 3 percent of the total U.S. population and 15 percent of the African-American male population have served time in prison. People with felony convictions more broadly account for 8 percent of the overall population and 33 percent of the African-American male population.

The study includes the first estimates of the felony conviction population and maps their distribution in the states, documenting the dramatic growth since 1980.

“There’s been a great deal of scholarly and policy attention toward incarceration, and rightfully so, as it has very distinct consequences for people that have that experience, as well as their communities and families,” said Sarah Shannon, assistant professor of sociology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and first author on the study.

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As Many Americans Have Criminal Records as College Diplomas Reply

Law/Justice

There are more Americans who have a criminal record than Americans who have a dog. Awesome.

By Matthew Friedman

Brennan Center

The number of Americans with a criminal history has risen sharply over the past three decades. Today, nearly one-third of the adult working age population has a criminal record. In fact, so many Americans have a criminal record that counting them all is nearly impossible.

According to a 2012 Department of Justice survey, state criminal history repositories contain more than 100 million records. These are popularly referred to as “rap sheets” or “criminal records” although most people who have them have never been convicted of a serious crime. These repositories chronicle nearly every arrest, regardless of whether or not it leads to an indictment or conviction. And while 100 million records do exist, this figure almost certainly overstates the true number of individuals who have been arrested at any point in their lives, since one person can have an arrest record in multiple states.

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Why Are More Americans Than Ever Getting Busted? Reply

Law/Justice

The ever-expanding police state.

By J.D. Tuccille

Reason

With the crime rate continuing its decades-long slide, why are arrests way up? The answer matters, because arrest records—and subsequent convictions—tend to cast a shadow, limiting people’s options and reducing their income for the rest of their lives. That is, if they still have lives; interactions with the police can be dangerous and even lethal, which is another reason to worry about the growing frequency with which cops slap on the cuffs.

You and your kids are a lot more likely to get busted than your grandparents ever were.

“Americans are experiencing higher rates of arrests and convictions by age 26 than did members of the generations before them,” according to a recent RAND Corporation research brief that draws from a full study published in Crime & Delinquency. “Americans ages 26–35 were 3.6 times more likely to have been arrested by 26 when compared with those who were age 66 and older.”

As a result, about 6.4 percent of Americans born before 1949 have been arrested, compared to about 23 percent of those born between 1979 and 1988.

That might be acceptable if we were talking about dangerous criminals whose arrests contributed to the decline of the violent crime rate by another 3.3 percent from 2017 to 2018 (and of the property crime rate by even more), according to the latest FBI figures. That welcome decline is in addition to the reduction of violent crime by roughly half since 1993. And some of those sorts of criminals are in the mix.

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How Many Americans Have a Police Record? Probably More Than You Think Reply

Law/Justice

Criminals are the largest and most oppressed of all minorities. Crime Power Forever!

Jo Craven McGinty

Wall Street Journal

Pop quiz: How many American adults have a criminal history?

a) 5% b) 15% c) 30%

It’s often reported that nearly 1 in 3 American adults, or about 30%, has a police record.

To some, that figure sounds surprisingly high. In fact, it may be low—but there are some caveats.

First, there is no way to pinpoint the exact number because a complete data set of arrests and prosecutions doesn’t exist. And second, the statistic depends on how you define “criminal history.”

“The juvenile who got arrested when he was 15 and now is 32 and applying for a job as truck driver—does he have a criminal history?” asked Robert Brame, a criminologist at the University of South Carolina who has tried to answer the question. “I think reasonable people might disagree about that.”

Researchers who study the issue typically include anyone who has been arrested or taken into custody by police, regardless of whether the charges were ultimately dropped. By that definition, many people who have never been convicted of a crime have a criminal history.

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An ICE Nurse Revealed That A Georgia Detention Center Is Performing Mass Hysterectomies Reply

Police State/Civil Liberties

By Izzie Ramirez

Refinery 29

On Monday, a nurse at a private immigration detention center in Georgia came forward about a range of dangerous medical practices at a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. According to her, the center has not only ignored COVID-19 protocols, but is actively performing mass hysterectomies on detained people.
The whistleblower, Dawn Wooten, worked at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) — which is operated by LaSalle Corrections — where she allegedly witnessed the company’s refusal to test detainees for COVID-19 as well as spoke to several people who each had their uterus removed as part of an unwarranted hysterectomy procedure. According to the official complaint lodged with the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, Wooten said that the facility was performing hysterectomies on people who reported having heavy menstrual cycles or other more serious pain, but that “everybody’s uterus cannot be that bad.”

Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism 3

Culture Wars/Current Controversies

An ex-skinhead discusses how to combat “hate.” While most if not all “far-right” groups would fail to create a better society than the one we have now, a problem with the “anti-hate” outlook is that it is only focused on illiberal forms of “hate.” Left-wing extremism, no matter how malevolent, is typically not considered to be “hate” by the anti-haters. Even worse, supporting the establishment is not considered “hate.” Notice that this book even receives the endorsement of Iraq War fraudster and surveillance state apologist James Clapper.

Breaking Hate: Confronting the New Culture of Extremism - Kindle edition by Picciolini, Christian. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

From a onetime white-supremacist leader now working to disengage people from extremist movements, Breaking Hate is a “riveting” (James Clapper), “groundbreaking” (Malcolm Nance), “horrifying [but] hopeful” (S.E. Cupp) exploration of how to heal a nation reeling from hate and violence.

Available here.

The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%—And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure Reply

Economics/Class Relations

Maverick capitalist Nick Hanauer explains how the economy really works.

By Nick Hanauer and David M. Rolf

ike many of the virus’s hardest hit victims, the United States went into the COVID-19 pandemic wracked by preexisting conditions. A fraying public health infrastructure, inadequate medical supplies, an employer-based health insurance system perversely unsuited to the moment—these and other afflictions are surely contributing to the death toll. But in addressing the causes and consequences of this pandemic—and its cruelly uneven impact—the elephant in the room is extreme income inequality.

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What comes after the left / right paradigm, if anything? Reply

Science and Technology

This is what our “antifascists” need to be focused on, not the shenanigans of some carnival barker like Trump.

Wrench in the Gears

I asked this question on social media today and got quite a few very thoughtful replies.
One person asked me what led me to ask the question, and this was my response:

I believe we’re teetering on the brink of worldwide techo-fascism.
Well, it’s pretty much blowing out in certain quarters already.

The program has been wrapped in progressive language.
As a result, many have unknowingly been led to embrace the creation of a global digital jail.
We’ll soon see the roll out of Internet of Things social credit scoring and human capital bonds.
The rules of the game will be the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

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On foreign policy, Biden is worse than Trump Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

The money quote:

Because most Americans are self-centered and unconcerned about brown people in other nations, it’s ridiculous yet necessary to remind you that the Afghans we bomb are real people like you and me, that Iraqis are scarred for life when their children are hobbled by American bullets, that Yemenis cry for their dead blown to bits by American missiles, that our insane decision to turn Libya from the most prosperous country in Africa into a failed state with 21st century slave auctions is an atrocity, that we have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent people in the last couple of decades for no reason that can be justified under common sense or international law.

By Ted Rall

Japan Times

New York – U.S. President Donald Trump is terrible. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is just as bad. In some ways he is worse. You shouldn’t vote for either one.

Trump is erratic and unpredictable, which is dangerous. Even so, Biden is worse than Trump on international relations.

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The Persistent Myth That Trump Opposes War Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

By Caitlin Johnstone

Medium

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Expect More Military “Liberal Interventionism” Under a Joe Biden Presidency Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Electoralism/Democratism, Military

By Derek Davison and Alex Thurston

The Jacobin

The liberal establishment is desperate to return a centrist to the White House in November and reestablish the country’s more stable military dominance of the world order, disrupted only briefly by Donald Trump. Joe Biden’s terrible track record on foreign policy — including his championing of war in Iraq — suggests a return to Obama-style strong military interventions abroad.

To the consternation of many on the Left, Joe Biden formally secured the Democratic Party’s nomination yesterday. And if polling both nationally and in several key battleground states is accurate, he stands a reasonable chance of defeating Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States. As voters consider their options this fall, and as leftists prepare to navigate the next four years, it is reasonable to fast forward a bit to examine what a potential Biden administration might look like.

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Let’s Be Real: President Biden Would Probably Be More Hawkish Than Trump Reply

Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Electoralism/Democratism, Military

By Caitlin Johnstone

People who dislike Trump are often reluctant to talk about this, but it looks likely that a Biden administration would be more warlike than its predecessor.

In a recent interview with US Department of Defense newspaper Stars and Stripes, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said it’s important to keep troops in the Middle East to fight terrorism, and that it’s likely that America’s bloated military budget will not only remain at its current size but may actually increase under his presidency due to the need to focus on “near peer” threats like China and Russia.

This is not a deviation in messaging from Biden and his crack team of beltway string-pullers, but a continuation of already established patterns. His campaign has been consistently out-hawking Trump on foreign policy by attacking him for insufficient aggression toward Venezuela, China, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and of course Russia, as well as criticizing Trump for not acting like a “wartime president“.

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University of Wisconsin graduate student resigns from teaching role, admits she falsely claimed Black identity Reply

Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Education, Race and Ethnicity

Transracialism is apparently becoming a thing. So be it.

By Kaelan Deese

The Hill

A University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) graduate student resigned from a teaching position after they admitted on social media to falsely claiming to be a person of color.

CV Vitolo-Haddad apologized for the claims in two posts on the writer platform Medium last week and and said that they were leaving their post as co-president of the university’s Teaching Assistants’ Association (TAA), according to CNN.

“So deeply sorry for the ways you are hurting right now because of me,” Vitolo-Haddad said in a post Sept. 6. “I have let guesses about my ancestry become answers I wanted but couldn’t prove. I have let people make assumptions when I should have corrected them.”

Vitolo-Haddad published a second post on Sept. 11, stating they were of southern Italian/Sicilian heritage.

“It was my choice and error to identify any differently,” they wrote.

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