X22, Christian Patriot News, and more-Nov 11th

Happy Veteran's Day! Here's tonight's news:

 

How The Right Can Join Forces To Defeat The Woke Ruling Class

Today's challenges from our woke ruling elite demand that conservatives set aside disputes. We must recognize that we are in a cultural war for survival — and we must be on a war footing.

by Ben Weingarten for The Federalist

Conservative intellectuals recently gathered in the free state of Florida for three days of spirited debate about the challenges facing America and how to confront them.

Much has been written about the differences exposed by the wide spectrum of thinkers at the second National Conservatism Conference, where I moderated a panel and was thus reimbursed for my travel by the conference organizers. These differences between and among participants — from “nationalist conservatives” to “anti-Marxist liberals” — are and were very real and meaningful. But NatCon 2 also revealed commonalities in this nascent movement that transcend our division — indeed, that must transcend our division, given the stakes.

I observe three points of fundamental agreement. First, we see a common set of threats that we believe imperil the American way of life. Second, we believe that the way these threats have been combated — or not — has proven a failure, demanding change. Third, we are united by core beliefs deeper than our differences, understanding we will not have a society to hash out these differences without a vigorous defense of the most basic things.

The Adversaries and the Stakes

We are in a cold civil war at home, and facing a substantially greater Communist threat from abroad in Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-ruled China than we did during the actual Cold War from the Soviet Union.

The conflict at home pits a woke ruling elite against those who would dare dissent from its rule. These differences manifest in culture, taste, and aesthetics but also of course in politics. In the political realm, they concern the nature of our regime — who rules, how, for whom — and our conception of justice.

Our ruling regime is not just the administrative state, or the whole federal government, but every power center with which our state is partnered — from business to media and education. If you preach diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE), or environmental, social, and governance (ESG), you are just as much a part of the regime as the alphabet soup of federal bureaucracies.

With the ruling class controlling the commanding heights of society, and unable to tolerate dissent, it pursues increasingly tyrannical means in pursuit of increasingly tyrannical ends. In so doing, it threatens to unmake America — unmooring it from the values and principles on which it was founded and guaranteeing social chaos and disfunction, poverty, and misery.

Compounding this threat is Communist China. The ruling class has been invested in its rise for decades, and increasingly emulates it as it seeks a monopoly on power. Communist China desires to be the dominant world power, which necessarily means displacing the United States, which would be not only subordinate to, but subservient to it. These are existential, intolerable threats.

That national conservatism has drawn so many divergent thinkers reflects an understanding that times demand setting aside disputes and focusing on the main thing: That we are in an ideological, geopolitical, and cultural war for survival, and we must be on a war footing.

The Untenable Status Quo

That our woke ruling class and China are both bidding for hegemony can be attributed to a variety of causes — which do matter, although not as much as the fact that their power plays demonstrate our failure to counter them, and demand a new approach.

The left marched through the institutions unimpeded. Now, its indoctrinated helm our preeminent institutions. “Neutrality” and value-free liberalism proved no match for dogged illiberals, who exploited liberty and justice to erode them both — in our schools, in our workplaces, and beyond.

Some would argue we have failed morally or spiritually, which the decline of our institutions has contributed to, and reflects. Absent a moral and virtuous people, the families that produce and sustain it, and the communities that bind it, why would we expect anything different?

China’s rise with U.S. elite backing can be attributed to greed and naivete that trade with China would make it more liberal — rather than that it would pocket the gains and use them against their trading partners. “Engagement” with China was also rooted in a belief that economic efficiency and market access would outweigh the costs of the creative destruction inflicted on communities and of the CCP’s empowerment. Lastly, it reflected ignorance among our elites, who neither understood China nor the America they were supposed to be representing.

Agreed on the Need for Change

Regardless, we all seem to recognize the need for change — for confronting problems using different tactics and strategies than we have previously because the times, circumstances, and threats necessitate it. Ceding putatively private institutions to those who loathe the country and sneer at its Deplorables out of a belief said institutions ought to be apolitical, and worst case we can build our own, is a losing formula when the opposition politicizes everything.

Refusing to wield power because of fear of the precedent it might create — knowing one’s opponent will do anything to achieve its goals, among them crushing us — is suicidal.

We cannot abide a Big Tech that destroys the marketplace of ideas; a Big Business that indoctrinates employees in wokeism and demands their submission to it; an academy that teaches children their country is evil and they are too if born with the wrong skin color; we cannot abide these things any more than a tyrannical deep state or two-tier justice system.

We must employ every lawful means to end the public and private onslaught against us, and towards rebuilding America qua America. We must counter a China seeking economic, military, and technological dominance with just as ambitious an effort of our own.

We will differ on the means to achieve these ends. Friends Chris Rufo, Rachel Bovard, and Josh Hammer have provided much food for thought in this regard to right things on the domestic front — a prerequisite to grappling with problems on the foreign one. Most important is acknowledging we must creatively and courageously fight.

Fundamental Ties that Unite

Unlike during the Cold War, Americans do not believe in the same things, and just differ on policy. It is not clear an enemy — in this case a far more formidable one in China — can unite us, because we are so divided about what we are defending, and even about whether we should defend it.

We do not have the privilege of simply worrying about tax rates, or social welfare programs, or pork, because we disagree about the fundamental nature of our country, its history, and people. This is in part why there is a national conservatism movement — because two visions of America have emerged, they are incompatible, and one has lacked a clear voice.

Here is an effort to articulate what unites the tens of millions of the unheard, if not silenced, un-Woke:

• America is good.
• Judeo-Christian morality and virtue are the predicates for goodness, freedom, and justice.
• There are two sexes.
• Strong families are our essential building block.
• America requires borders; immigrants must assimilate.
• Law and order, and equal justice are imperative.
• Communities must be safe, orderly, and cohesive.
• Schools exist to teach children how to think, and to be patriotic and productive citizens.
• Society must cultivate excellence.
• The interests of the nation and its people must be put first.
• Culture trumps economics.

The ruling class from Washington, D.C., to Wall Street, to Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and across all of our institutions of politics, commerce, culture, and education, is at war with these ideals.

National conservatives seek “A normal country in an abnormal time,” to play on the words of Amb. Jeanne Kirkpatrick, who might unite them more than some might think based on her neoconservative branding. To restore and re-found a normal country in these abnormal times will require a counter-revolution; it will require courage and tenacity.

We owe our progeny nothing less.

Regime Change America: Use Your ‘Outside Voice’

Glenn Youngkin was never a white knight . . . until the people of Virginia trained him and built him into one. This is the power of a grassroots political movement.

by Max Morton for American Greatness

Americans are being victimized daily by an administration that flaunts the rule of law with unconstitutional vaccine mandates, shreds the constitutional rights of its citizens by declaring them terrorists for defending their children, and delivers one incompetent failure after another—from humiliation in Afghanistan to policy-driven supply chain breakdowns and rising inflation. What America needs right now is a strong opposition party to put the Biden Administration in check. Unfortunately, we don’t have one. 

This past week, we watched as 13 Republican House members provided the key votes to pass the Biden Administration’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill—a bill laden with progressive pork programs for the wealthy donor class. The Democrats couldn’t garner enough votes in their own party to pass the bill, even though they hold the majority (albeit a slim one) in the House of Representatives. Republicans, instead of taking advantage of this potential victory to force some level of sanity into the administration’s domestic policies, chose to deliver the necessary votes. Yep, this is your GOP—the junior varsity of the ruling class uniparty. 

On the MAGA front, we discovered that the worst of the Trump Administration—Brooke Rollins, Larry Kudlow, and Javanka—have managed to take full control of Trump’s America First Policy Institute. If you were happy with having every good part of Trump’s original agenda undermined from within his own White House, now you can watch it happen all over again. Just cut that check, and keep ’em coming . . . these people need to remodel their vacation homes.

Make Your Own White Knight

If you’re waiting for the GOP to rescue you from an authoritarian regime bent on restructuring the republic into a globalist oligarchy, good luck with that. You can’t expect to take your country back by sitting on your couch, sending money to wealthy politicians, and mailing in your ballot during what is now Election Week. 

Last week, I wrote about how to start organizing a grassroots political movement. Getting your voice heard is one of the most important things you can do as a citizen—especially as a traditional American. Look at the recent statewide election in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe, a long-time Clinton fixer and political insider, had a four-point lead on challenger Glenn Youngkin in June 2021. In July, McAuliffe out-fundraised Youngkin by $4 million. In August, McAuliffe had a solid nine-point lead on Youngkin. By November, that lead had disappeared, and on election night, Youngkin pulled out an upset two-point victory. What happened? The people happened. 

Throughout 2021, Virginia residents were battling rogue school boards and public education systems hell-bent on indoctrinating their children into extreme Marxist, racist, and sexual identity ideologies. When parents finally realized that no amount of principled Republican-style debate would correct this problem, they organized and rose up against a corrupt system. They used their “outside voices” to demand how they wanted their children educated in their public school system. 

Youngkin, a wealthy, retired CEO of the Carlyle Group, who up until this point had not been a serious contender in the governor’s race, heard these outside voices. He could see and feel what the people of Virginia wanted, and he set aside the consensus advice of his political consultants and went where the people wanted him to go. Youngkin was never a white knight . . . until the people of Virginia trained him and built him into one. This is the power of a grassroots political movement! 

Heading Out To the Community

Once you’ve built the structure of your political movement, use it to engage and influence decision-makers. Initially, these people will be your state and local politicians, followed by your national-level congressional representatives. Focus on the local first to gain momentum in friendly or familiar territory—then move outward to connect with other local movements in your state.

Not every mayor, sheriff, or county supervisor will make themselves available to your new movement right away. You need to make your ideas and organization politically attractive. In other words, the movement must have something your politicians need—something you can provide or withhold depending on how the relationship with that politician addresses your agenda. When your movement captures the voice of the people—their voters—you hold the key to the currency for managing that relationship. 

To help gain this currency, in the early stages of a grassroots political movement you need to get out there and hear all the voices and needs of your fellow citizens. Don’t get distracted by social media—it is a communications medium manipulated, cultivated, and controlled by your political adversaries. Remember, the outrage of people not from your local area is not your problem. 

Get into your community by going where the people are. Local grocery stores are great places for this. Everyone goes food shopping, so set up a table branded with your movement’s logo and talk with people. Be friendly, ask questions, and inquire about their personal situations. Make them feel that your movement is concerned with their well-being, not like you’re trying to sell them a used car. Don’t ask for donations at this point, instead work for fellowship and to get people nodding in agreement. If people want to give to your cause, provide them with the opportunity, but don’t “WinRed” your movement into the ground before it gets started. You can use this same model outside the local hardware store, public libraries, the courthouse, etc. 

Another way to engage with the community is through “shadow services.” No government can provide all the services and support networks that people need. There will always be gaps, and the size of these gaps can be especially large in rural areas where there is little centralized assistance. Your movement can set up volunteer services to fill these gaps. Transportation, yardwork, meals for the elderly, childcare collectives, homeschool pod instruction, and tutoring are just a few. 

When you provide these shadow services, you’re also canvassing areas of your local community to visually see and understand people’s needs; to hear what they think are the most important issues in their lives . . . and you’re doing something extremely noble and good for the very people you’re wanting to represent. That’s a win-win. Just interacting with people and providing them something they need can give you an unexpected window into your community, and thus, a better idea of what your agenda should reflect.

Vetting New Members 

As you start making your movement known, you’ll be recruiting new members and advocates for the cause. Most people you meet will be good Americans, interested in improving their community and country. That said, you will likely be approached by individuals with hidden agendas. Some of these people will want to leverage your access to politicians and community leaders for their own financial benefit. Some will be federal government informants attempting to spot and assess potential targets for domestic violent extremism programs. Both of these types of individuals will present themselves as flag-waving patriots. You, and the members of your political movement, should endeavor to steer well clear of them. In fact, it is a good idea to hold regular training on dealing with these types of people in order to protect the integrity of your movement. 

When you are vetting new members, carefully examine a person’s background, motivations, and personality—once you bring them into the movement they will be representing it in everything they do. Do not accept anonymous members. Ask potential new members where they live in your local area and how long they have been there. New arrivals, those with addresses outside the local area, or in temporary lodging in your local area should be scrutinized closely. 

You can use the acronym C.R.I.M.E. as a vetting tool. C.R.I.M.E. stands for Compromise, Revenge, Ideology, Money, Ego. Informants, provocateurs, and those with nefarious intentions normally have one or several of these vulnerabilities. 

Compromise equates to an exploitable vulnerability. An example is someone who may have been arrested for a minor offense and given the opportunity to “work off” their mistake by acting as an informant or provocateur. Individuals with animosity toward traditional America fall into the Revenge and Ideology spectrum—enterprising Antifa members, for example. They will voluntarily infiltrate organizations like yours and attempt to find derogatory material or purposely damage its reputation. Money is the motivation of grifters, embezzlers and paid informants. Some people need to be in the limelight. Their ego drives them to always be in front of the camera or the crowd. These people are the most unreliable and least productive personality types.

Always steer clear of those who talk about violence or revolution. There may indeed be periods of civil unrest in America’s future, but that is not the purview or purpose of your grassroots movement. As we saw with the FBI’s contrived Whitmer kidnapping plot, the American militia movement is so heavily infiltrated by government informants that membership in an organized militia should immediately be cause for suspicion.

Lastly, do not authenticate people by association. Authenticating someone by their claimed association with familiar groups, organizations, or people is an old-school conman and informant technique to gain access to a target. Authenticate only by observed facts and the actions of the individual.

Our Time

Nearly 250 years ago, America’s founders committed their all to a conceptual form of government built by the people and in service to the people. They fought bravely to gain our independence, worked tirelessly to refine the Constitution and implemented our Bill of Rights. Over the years, many Americans have similarly fought for the cause of liberty and justice; in the Civil War and two World Wars that threatened the existence of our nation.

We have been riding on those sacrifices for years, enjoying the freedom purchased by our forefathers. Now, once more, liberty and justice for all are again threatened. We will not be able to ride this threat out on the backs of the effort made by those who have gone before us. 

Now is the time for all good Americans to organize and take back their country from those who would sell our liberty for their social, political, and financial benefit. Will we be up to the task? We know what we need to do, now let’s get to it.

About Max Morton

Max Morton is a retired U.S. Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, former CIA paramilitary operations officer, and a veteran of multiple armed conflicts, revolutions, and contingency operations.

Joe Biden Said It….

Joe Biden Said It: 

He ‘Should Not Remain As President’

Editorial Board of Issues & Insights November 10, 2021

“220,000 Americans dead. You hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this. Anyone who … is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”

That was Joe Biden at his last debate on Oct. 22, 2020, with then-President Donald Trump.

At that debate, Biden went on to proclaim that the only reason all those people died was that Trump had failed to do things such as test people and issue mask mandates.

“What I would do,” he said, “is make sure we have everyone encouraged to wear a mask all the time. I would make sure we move into the direction of rapid testing, investing in rapid testing. I would make sure that we set up national standards as to how to open up schools and open up businesses so they can be safe and give them the wherewithal, the financial resources to be able to do that.”

Then he declared:

“And so, folks, I will take care of this. I will end this.”

If you hear nothing else Biden said that night, hear this: “I will end this.”

That promise, more than anything else, got Biden into the White House.

Fast forward to today. Biden has been in office nearly 10 months, and how has he done at “ending this”?

Over those months, more than 21 million people have contracted COVID-19. More than 332,000 of them died from the disease. Recently Biden’s own (fully vaxxed) press secretary tested positive for COVID, as did an aide who’d been traveling abroad with the president.

What’s more, after declining over the past two months, COVID cases look poised for another spike in the winter.

All of these COVID cases and deaths happened even though Biden had put his entire “plan” into action. He got nearly $2 trillion in COVID-fighting funds approved in March. Mask use has been widespread. A record number of people are getting tested under Biden — more than 333.3 million since he took office. Plus, Biden had three vaccines available to him, none of which he was counting on when he promised to “end this.”

So it stands to reason that if Biden’s “plan” would have prevented the 220,000 deaths that had happened before the November 2020 election, it should have prevented the 341,000+ who’ve died since he got the keys to the White House. Right?

And if — as Biden kept insisting — Trump was responsible for 220,000 COVID deaths that had occurred by Oct. 22, 2020, doesn’t that make Biden responsible for the 341,000+ who’ve died from COVID on hiswatch? Doesn’t that also mean that Biden, by his own standard, “should not remain as president”?

The other option, of course, is that Biden knew all along that his plan wouldn’t “end this.” He and his advisers almost certainly knew that nothing Trump did or didn’t do would have stopped COVID from spreading in the U.S.

But if Biden did know that, then he was brazenly lying to the public to win the election.

So, doesn’t that mean that Biden is either a bald-faced liar or a mass murderer? Either way, again, using his own standards, he has forfeited the right to remain as president, and both he and his equally inept vice president, Kamala Harris, should step down. 

That’s going to happen of course. But so long as people insist that Trump was responsible for every COVID death that occurred on his watch, we will insist that Biden heed his own counsel and resign from the presidency.

Merit, Not Race, Was Pivotal Factor in VA Elections

Merit, Not Race, Was Pivotal Factor in VA Elections

Jack White COMMENTARY - Real Clear Politics

Last week, Virginia voters elected three Republican servant leaders to statewide office. One happens to be a white male who has worked as a businessman in his native commonwealth. One is a black woman who immigrated to the United States from Jamaica, later becoming a U.S. Marine. One is a first-generation American of Cuban descent who has spent the majority of his professional life in public service.

Of course, if you follow certain media outlets, you may not know that Winsome Sears (pictured) is Virginia’s lieutenant governor-elect, or that Jason Miyares is Virginia’s attorney general-elect. One MSNBC host saidin response to the results that “a good chunk of voters … are okay with white supremacy,” while Spotify host and Atlantic contributing writer Jemele Hill tweeted, “This country loves white supremacy.” That perspective misguidedly ignores the full scope of Old Dominion voters’ decisions last week.

As a black Virginian who sought the Republican nomination for attorney general earlier this year, I see the world differently from these pundits. I see a state where the white male, black immigrant female, and first-generation Hispanic male received almost exactly the same percentage and number of votes. I see a state where white voters who backed white Democrat Joe Biden last year swung to vote for diverse, highly qualified, principled Republican leadership.

I see in the Commonwealth of Virginia a state that represents our nation’s continuing maturation about race. A series of Gallup polls dug up by Just Facts found that the portion of white Southerners willing to vote for a black president rose from just 8% in 1958 to 95% in 1999. As explained by Gallup, 95% is “essentially universal willingness to state to an interviewer that the race of a candidate for president would make no difference.” 

It is very easy and dangerously wrong to point to race alone in voters’ decision-making. The more nuanced and factually correct observation is that Virginia voters chose statewide candidates who emphasized policies focused on opportunity, safety, and education, through principled lenses, in their respective campaigns.

Virginians voted on serious issues last week, involving individual determinations, economic implications, and matters that directly impact their families and communities. In that vein, voters considered candidates with very different approaches to addressing those issues.  Virginia, a Southern state, just proved to be a powerful case study in voters prioritizing policies, families, and our commonwealth’s future above identity politics, hatred and bigotry. Contrary to making decisions based on race, Virginians made decisions based on issues.

Some may choose to point to the 2017 white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville, where a woman tragically died, as evidence of pervasive and persistent racism in our state and nation. However, a few hundred people gathered for that rally, which the Associated Press described at the time as the largest of its kind in the nation in a decade. Out of a nation of 330 million people, a few hundred gathered at the last gasp of white supremacy, which was roundly rejected by leaders and laypeople of both major parties, and which clearly played no role in electing a Republican black immigrant female and a first-generation Republican Hispanic man to statewide office last week.

As the son of two black parents who were raised and educated in the segregated South — parents who transcended impediments to realizing the American dream — I am unwilling to ignore the role that race and racism have played in the narrative of our nation in general and Virginia in particular. We cannot turn a blind eye to history. But, as a U.S. Army veteran committed to the furtherance of American values, I also know how far we have come. Time spent looking through the windshield instead of the rearview mirror helps all of us get to our destination of a commonwealth that is more in line with the principles upon which this nation was founded.

Indeed, the racism that I see is that which declares Americans must identify by race — not as Americans, as Virginians, or as common members of the human race. This is the position of those who falsely declare that white people are inherently evil, and that we should vote based on race — not on the merits of those running for office. Virginians wisely chose merit last week, not race.

Jack White is a U.S. Army veteran, a West Point graduate, and a former Supreme Court clerk to Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. who practices law in Northern Virginia.

How Biden Is Laying The Foundation For A ‘Great Reset’ Of America

Climate envoy John Kerry promised that under the Biden administration, the Great Reset ‘will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine.’

by Justin Haskins for The Federalist

Despite the corporate press framing Joe Biden as an ideological “moderate,” the president has repeatedly called for dramatic policy changes affecting the U.S. economy, many of which are totally out of step with the views of most Americans.

The most important of these changes stem from Biden’s deep ties to the globalist “Great Reset” campaign, a movement started in mid-2020 by the World Economic Forum to “push the reset button” on society and to “reimagine capitalism.” The Great Reset has received the support of numerous world leaders, including Prince Charles, Al Gore, and the heads of the United Nations, International Monetary Fund, and countless multinational corporations and banks.

Although there are several large components to the Great Reset, the three primary ways its supporters plan to change the global economy is through (1) large government programs like the Green New Deal; (2) requirements from national governments that companies adopt environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards; and (3) by coercing corporations and other institutions to willingly adopt ESG metrics using massive amounts of “printed” cash from governments, banks, and investors.

What Is ESG?

ESG is an alternative system for evaluating businesses. Instead of looking solely at revenues, profit, customer satisfaction, debt, the quality of goods and services, and other traditional economic metrics, ESG systems score companies based on how “woke” they are.

For example, a company that uses “too much” plastic, emits “too many” carbon-dioxide emissions, or doesn’t have the “right” ratio of Asian to Hispanic workers—all of which are real examples from ESG frameworks—would be ranked lower than another company whose profits might be smaller and products of a lower quality but who scores better in the metrics that elites value.

There is a good deal of evidence proving that Biden backs the Great Reset. The clearest is that a member of his own cabinet, special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry, openly acknowledged in late 2020 that both he and Biden support the Reset. Kerry also promised that under the Biden administration, the Great Reset “will happen with greater speed and with greater intensity than a lot of people might imagine.”

Since becoming president, the Biden administration has promoted various Great Reset initiatives, including the expansive climate and energy programs proposed as part of the “infrastructure” bills still limping their way through Congress.

Yet the actions taken by the White House that have the greatest potential for truly “resetting” the U.S. economy in the long run are Biden’s decision to nominate several controversial figures for key regulatory roles in his administration. Together, these individuals could ensure the Great Reset occurs, and quickly. Let’s look at them a bit closer.

Saule Omarova

The most radical figure nominated by Biden is Saule Omarova, a Soviet-educated law professor at Cornell University. Biden tapped Omarova to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an important regulatory agency that aims to “ensure that national banks and federal savings associations operate in a safe and sound manner, provide fair access to financial services, treat customers fairly, and comply with applicable laws and regulations.”

Omarova, a strong advocate of centralizing economic decision-making, has called for putting much of the consumer banking industry in the hands of the Federal Reserve. She has also said she supports the creation of a “permanent federal institution” called the National Investment Authority (NIA). The NIA’s mission would be to “devise and implement the coherent national strategy of economic development” for the entire country.

Additionally, Omarova has proposed Congress give the federal government a “golden share,” which she defines as “a wide range of legal arrangements giving the government special, exclusive, and nontransferable corporate-governance rights in privately owned enterprises.”

If Omarova were to be granted control over the OCC, she would be situated perfectly to help the White House push or even mandate ESG standards throughout the country by putting pressure on banks to require ESG scores or other, similar metrics that could be required for a business to receive access to financial services.

Gary Gensler

Biden’s choice to run the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Gary Gensler, could prove to be Biden’s most important tool for imposing the Great Reset. Gensler, a former high-ranking member of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, is a huge advocate of ESG scores. As head of the SEC, he has directed the agency to develop mandatory ESG disclosure rules for publicly traded companies in the United States, perhaps by the end of the year.

Exactly what will be in those disclosure rules remains unclear, but numerous reports and statements from Gensler indicate that, at the very least, it will include requirements about climate change.

Rohit Chopra

The OCC and SEC aren’t the only agencies being used by Biden to advance the Great Reset. In September, the Senate confirmed Rohit Chopra as the next head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a powerful regulatory agency that has substantial authority over the banking industry.

Chopra has a reputation for being extremely tough on banks and became well-known on Capitol Hill for his important role in the CFPB during its first years in existence. Far-left wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who was brought in by the Obama administration before being elected to the Senate to help form the CFPB, initially brought Chopra into the CFPB and remains one of his biggest supporters, recently calling him “a fearless champion for consumers.”

According to Quyen Truong, a former assistant director at the CFPB, Chopra has “a commitment to regulatory activism,” and industry analysts appear to be in total agreement that under his leadership, the CFPB will be considerably more aggressive with banks. This is exactly the sort of person Biden would want running the CFPB if he were serious about using banks to push left-wing causes, a key component of the Great Reset.

Perhaps even more importantly, the CFPB under Chopra has pushed the false narrative that lending practices and credit scoring have been infected with “racist and discriminatory policies” that justify radical changes in the financial industry. Although there are many ways this view could be used to advance Biden’s reset, one of the most sweeping is the Biden’s administration’s plan to reduce racial disparities by mandating “inclusive credit scoring” and creating a “public credit reporting agency.”

The new credit scoring agency would be housed within Chopra’s CFPB and put government in charge of formulating and altering credit scores. It’s not hard to imagine how such a system could be abused and eventually transformed into a government-controlled personal ESG scoring system, one that would provide some groups with financial advantages over others, all in the name of battling climate change or fixing racial disparities.

Reversing the Reset

The Biden administration is building the infrastructure needed to ensure the vision promoted by the supporters of the Great Reset becomes a reality in the United States. And by the time Biden’s first term in office is over, the only way to reverse the damage might be for Congress to tear down some of the most important offices and regulatory bodies now being infected with ESG frameworks and staffed by ESG proponents.

Unscientific Method

Unscientific Method

An astronomer’s peer-reviewed work is passed under the “equity” lens and found wanting.

Heather Mac Donald for City Journal 

Another day, another retraction of a scientific paper for violating the code of diversity. On November 1, astronomer John Kormendy withdrew an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), after a preprint version that he had just posted on the web drew sharp criticism for threatening the conduct of “inclusive” science. Three days later, the preprint version was scrubbed as well (though a PDF can still be found here.) The paper had passed the journal’s three-person peer-review system and was awaiting publication. Kormendy’s forthcoming book on the same topic had also passed peer review and had been printed for distribution. Now distribution of the book has been put on hold, likely permanently.

Kormendy, an expert on supermassive black holes and professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin, acknowledges no errors in his research. “I didn’t do anything [methodologically] wrong,” he told me. “I trust my techniques; I trust the results. I checked for bias in great detail.” Nevertheless, he issued an apology on November 1: “I now see that my work has hurt people. I apologize to you all for the stress and the pain that I have caused. Nothing could be further from my hopes. I fully support all efforts to promote fairness, inclusivity, and a nurturing environment for all.”

What was so hurtful in his article? Kormendy had aimed to reduce the role of individual subjectivity in scientific hiring and tenure decisions. He created a model that predicted a scientist’s long-term research impact from the citation history of his early publications. He tested the results of his model against a panel of 22 prestigious astronomers, many of whom had advised the federal government on scientific research priorities and had served as jurors on high-profile astronomy prizes. That panel rated the research impact of the 512 astronomers whom Kormendy had run through his model; the panel’s conclusions closely matched the model’s results. Kormendy’s paper stressed that hiring decisions should be made “holistically.” Scientific influence was only one factor to consider; achieving gender and racial balance in a department was also a legitimate concern, he wrote.

Formulas for quantifying scientific influence on the basis of a citation record are hardly new. PNAS itself published the proposal for one such well-known measure, known as the “h-index.” But that was in 2005. In 2021, a different standard for evaluating ideas applies: Do they help or hinder females and underrepresented minorities in STEM? Kormendy’s model, tweeted an astrophysicist at the City University of New York, “JUST TOOK ANY TINY STEPS WE ARE MAKING TOWARDS EQUITY AND THREW THEM OUT OF THE WINDOW” (capitalization in the original). An astronomer in Budapest objected that Kormendy had failed to consult with “relevant humanities experts” about cumulative bias against females and minorities. Equally damningly, Kormendy had suggested that the profession should overcome its underrepresentation problem by hiring female and minority scientists, who, in the words of the Budapest astronomer, “match the success rate of the majority (i.e., men).”

After Kormendy withdrew the paper, a University of Texas colleague tweeted of her hopes that the work of doing “science inclusively” could now continue. Others directed pot shots at the panel of 22 raters for being a “bunch of old people” from Western universities who were not representative of the “astronomy community.” But that non-representation was exactly the point—scientific expertise is not democratic. These were scientists at the top of their field, whose accomplishments would in earlier times have been a source of authority.

Naturally, the fact that 19 of the panelists were men was a red flag. But Kormendy had tried to get more female raters; they turned down his offer to join the project in higher proportion than the males he solicited. (The three female panelists rated female astronomers higher than the male panelists did. Kormendy’s attribution of this discrepancy to bias on the part of the males won him no credit.)

None of the paper’s critics spelled out how publication metrics (known as “bibliometrics”) conflict with equity. Many have rebuffed or ignored attempts to seek clarification. Presumably, the critics intuit (correctly) that quantitative measures of scientific influence will show that white males have had the greatest impact on science to date. That finding would not be inequitable on its face, however, unless we define equity as equality of outcome.

The paper’s methodology came under desultory challenge as well. Bryan Gaensler, an astronomy professor at the University of Toronto, told Inside Higher Ed: “I don’t think the premise that motivated this work is correct, and I don’t think the actual work done should have passed peer review.” The work did pass peer review, however, and no one has claimed that the oversight process was manipulated. The solution to disagreements over premises or method is to publish a rebuttal, not to disappear the allegedly incorrect paper, absent a showing of fraud or belatedly discovered errors so great as to undercut the entire enterprise.

Even some of Kormendy’s rating panelists issued apologies after the fact for their participation. Brian Schmidt, chancellor of the Australian National University and a Nobel prize-winner, wrote on Twitter: “As an unintended consequence Of this article, I hope our field can be more Reflective of our hiring practices, and the inequitable gatekeeping that occurs into astronomy to this day. I am sorry for my involvement” [capitalization in the original].

The Kormendy retraction is now the fifth in recent years cancelling a scientific paper deemed to bear negatively on equity in STEM. Previous cancellations include a mathematical model to explain why evolution would select for greater variability in inherited traits among males of a species and an empirical study comparing the benefits of male and female mentorship in STEM (male mentorship proved more advantageous). The authors of the latter retracted article expressed “deep regret” for having “caused pain.”

And now, in addition to the inhibitions on publishing, the cancellation machine is explicitly wiping out judgments of scientific merit if they fail to meet a diversity quota. In October, a few days before the Kormendy retraction, a committee that awards fellowships for the American Geophysical Union cancelled the slate of finalists that peer scientists had forwarded to it because the three finalists were all white men. Better not to award a fellowship at all than to give it to a white male. The leader in the cancellation effort admitted that the finalists, who specialize in the study of snow and ice, were “truly, amazingly deserving.” But the cancellation would result in a “fairer process,” she told E & E News.

The cancelling committee presented no evidence of unfairness in the nomination process, apart from the unacceptable result. Indeed, the entire American Geophysical Union fellowship process was decidedly pro-female: female finalists overall had a nearly 50 percent greater chance of being selected for a fellowship than male finalists. That disparity is not regarded as unfair, just as the higher ratings given to female scientists by female raters in the Kormendy study were not regarded as biased.

From here on, no STEM job or honor awarded to a female or an underrepresented minority will be free from the justified suspicion that the selection was the result of “equity” concerns. The pressure on STEM laboratories and academic faculties to hire by quota rather than by scientific merit grows by the day. And the judgment of scientific research now hinges not on its validity but on whether it allegedly causes “hurt” or impedes the achievement of proportional representation in STEM studies.

The “only thing on anyone’s mind now is redressing inequities,” Kormendy told me, adding that he supports that “honorable” aim. But science is not about social justice. It’s about the advancement of knowledge via the free exchange of ideas and the careful testing of results. Step by step, we are shutting down the very processes of open inquiry and the cultivation of excellence that have freed humanity from so much unnecessary suffering.