(1) Football Fans boo as players take the knee; they know they're being targeted for woke correction(2) Feminism now actively harms women(3) Smugglers Openly Advertise Illegal Border Crossings on Facebook - price about $9k(4) Black activist John Sullivan charged for his role in Capitol Riot(5) US seizes funds John Sullivan received from media for his video of Capital riot(6) FBI used Sullivan's video to identify & arrest other rioters(7) Black Panther, BLM leaders pro-Mao(8) Progressive politics is facing extinction - Tony Blair(9) Labour conspired against Working Class, promoting Immigration to make UK more Multicultural(10) French voters are abandoning the Left, and also the mainstream right. Marine Le Pen might benefit(11) Gender ideology is distorting the teaching of medicine - not disclosing birth sex risks improper treatment(12) A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities - Economist(1) Football Fans boo as players take the knee; they know they're being targeted for woke correctionhttps://www.spiked-online.com/2021/06/03/three-cheers-for-the-booing-england-fans/Three cheers for the booing England fansThey're right to boo the taking of the knee – it has become a ridiculous, sanctimonious spectacle.Brendan O'NeillEDITOR3rd June 2021Once again football fans have scandalised the chattering classes. This time it wasn't their rude chanting, naked torsos or St George's tattoos that caused the clipped-tones set to spill their infused tea. It was the fact that they said 'boo'. More specifically that they said boo as football players took the knee. And as we all know, blaspheming against BLM is one of the greatest sins you can commit in the woke epoch (it's right up there with referring to people with penises as men).The plebs committed their crime against decency at the England-Austria game at the Riverside Stadium in Middlesbrough last night. Before kick-off, the players of both teams performed the borderline religious ritual of bowing down to the politics of identity. That's what taking the knee really represents – subjugation to the BLM outlook, to the deathly precepts of critical race theory, to the idea that the Western world is so awash with racism that sporting superstars must talk about it constantly in order to shake the scales from the eyes of their dim, probably prejudiced fans.As has happened at other games since lockdown restrictions were eased and fans were allowed back into the stands, some people booed. And it was pointed booing. They really meant it. They were making a statement, presumably about how pissed off they are that the beautiful game has come to be colonised by the sanctimonious signalling and paternalistic awareness-raising of the woke elites. You just know that NuFootball bores rue the day the pandemic became so unthreatening that football could be thrown open to the throng once more. Bring back the virus!Fingers have been wagged all over the place. The booing was 'sickening', said Labour's John McDonnell. 'It was racism and should be called out', he said. How does he know it was racist? Can he see into football fans' minds? Or does he always presume that large gatherings of noisy working-class blokes are racist mobs in waiting, likely to turn violent at the first whiff of a Sun editorial saying there are too many immigrants? And these snobs masquerading as Marxists wonder why their Red Wall has collapsed.Gareth Southgate also condemned the booing. It confirms that 'some people aren't quite understanding the message', he said. I think the booing shows people are getting the message, loud and clear. They're getting the message that the football authorities and its big-business and big-media backers think they're all a bunch of social Neanderthals who must be subjected to 'anti-racist' rituals and signalling at every game in order to reshape their brains in a woker mould. That's why they boo – not because they're racist (football fans cheer black players all the time), but because they're sick of being looked down upon, of being patronised by a new priestly elite that thinks it has a special responsibility to raise up the little people from their non-woke stupor.None of the fan-bashers has bothered to ask the most basic questions about the taking-the-knee nonsense. Why are English footballers still performing this ritual in relation to a man who was murdered more than a year ago and 4,000 miles away? Why is taking the knee so seemingly essential in football – every bloody weekend – but isn't happening at other big gatherings? Unless I'm wrong and when theatres and opera houses reopen the actors and singers will take the knee every night. Hmm. I doubt it.Fans are asking these questions. Contrary to the belief of Guardianistas who love football but hate its fanbase, football fans aren't actually stupid. They know they're being targeted for woke correction more than any other constituency in the country. They know that their sport has been more BLMed than any other sport or cultural pastime in the land. And they know why – it's because there is a long-standing hateful prejudice towards football fans that views them as backward, dumb and possessed of prejudices that the rest of us jettisoned long ago. They're booing that. They're booing you, the patronising pricks who think the working classes require urgent re-education and that it is 'sickening' when they dare to push back against it.So, let's have more booing please. A working-class revolt against wokeness is exactly what this country needs. Let's now take it beyond the stadiums and make it clear that we reject the paternalism, censoriousness and hyper-racialism of the regressive elites who pretend to be progressive.Brendan O'Neill is editor of spiked and host of the spiked podcast, The Brendan O'Neill Show. Subscribe to the podcast here. And find Brendan on Instagram: @burntoakboy(2) Feminism now actively harms womenhttps://amgreatness.com/2021/06/02/alpha-males-are-the-new-feminists/Alpha Males Are the New FeministsAmerican feminism has moved beyond merely missing the point to actively harming women.By Anna DanversJune 2, 2021Two years ago, I sat bewildered as my husband—sports watcher, gun owner, burger griller—defended his fervent belief that women's sports should exclude biological men against my most rabid feminist friend, who replied with some variation of transwomen are women over and over. My friend took my confused silence for a betrayal of what she believed were our shared feminist values—but so did my husband. "I'm more of a feminist than you are," he remarked to me before bed that evening, not without some smugness.I had to wonder: was he right?Until that night, I had done what was required of me as a good feminist. I volunteered for the National Organization for Women. I condemned Donald Trump's lewdness. I read The Feminine Mystique. Yet the debate I witnessed that evening between Normal American Man and Prototypical Lib-Feminist sparked some serious and critical self-reflection. I did the work, as a progressive would say, and it catapulted me towards the conclusion I tried to deny but no longer can: liberal feminism is a Trojan horse for misogyny.Feminism is in this pathetic state because it became a proxy for liberal politics rather than a movement for women's rights. At its inception, feminism used politics as a tool for change; now, politics uses feminism as a tool for power.Even as a teenage immigrant fresh off the plane from my liberal European motherland, it puzzled me that American feminists defined the sum total of the issues facing women as access to abortion and a pay gap based on shaky data. But two-and-a-half decades later, American feminism has moved beyond merely missing the point to actively harming women. The ways in which it does this are too numerous to contain in a single article but the most egregious is feminism's recent embrace of gender identity ideology. This is because embracing that also requires embracing misogyny, sexism, and the victimization of women, no matter how many times the lib-feminists insist transwomen are women.Gender Identity Requires Gender StereotypingIn the prehistoric 1990s, my parents taught me that there was no wrong way to be a girl. Today, if a girl dislikes the color pink and prefers trucks to dolls, she's told that womanhood is not for her but that we can fix wrong girls at the gender clinic. In just three decades, the vision of womanhood in which girls can be anything has been replaced by a medical protocol to fix girls who are not girly enough. We block their puberty with cancer drugs, flood them with testosterone, and give them hysterectomies and double mastectomies. We give them Frankenstein surgeries in which we slice the skin off their forearms to create an appendage intended to resemble a penis. Then, presumably, these girls are finally acceptable to liberal feminists: when they're men.Gender Identity Ignores ConsentAs the Twitter feminists would have it, consent must be enthusiastically provided and renewed at every stage of a sexual encounter, yet female inmates cannot object to being locked into cells with convicted rapists. In other words, feminism now defines consent in a way that allows its adherents in state legislatures to negotiate away the boundaries of women they've never even met.The doctrine also teaches teenagers that saying no to sex based on someone's genitalia is "transphobic," so girls are no longer allowed to say no to sex for any reason they please, or no reason at all. Gone are the days of that old-fashioned no means no tripe.Sexual and personal boundaries are up for shaming and questioning, and a woman's "no" is not the end of the discussion but the beginning of an appeals process adjudicated by men. Male judges, male politicians, even the pope himself, all receive appeals from men who cannot hear the word no. When liberal feminists post Smash the patriarchy! on Twitter, terms and conditions apply.Gender Identity Centers the Feelings of Men Über AllesMore and more western countries allow so-called "self-ID," which permits any man to access women's spaces based only upon his claim that he "feels" female. This poses obvious risks to the safety of women but according to American liberal feminists, denying men access to women invalidates the men's feelings, which is apparently the one cardinal sin a feminist must never commit.The pro-gender ladies dismiss examples of predators abusing self-identify as anomalies, but that raises a question: how many rapes are acceptable to liberal feminists? Asking for a friend, one of those old-fashioned losers who thinks one is too many. Of course, if validation of transwomen's feelings is paramount, then the number of physically victimized women is endless. We wouldn't want to hurt men's feelings by saying no, after all; nice girls don't do that.Gender Identity Takes Away Women's Opportunities for AdvancementIn Virginia, a woman was stripped of her powerlifting title when post-competition drug testing caught the fact that she was in fact a he. In women's track cycling, a man won the gold at the 2018 Masters Track Cycling World Championships. In Connecticut, two male sprinters compete on the girls' high school track team, resulting in girls missing out on all but one state championship from 2017 to 2019. At the Tokyo Olympics, a 43-year-old weightlifter who lived as a man for 35 years and never lifted weights during that time will compete against women. (He's suddenly really good, you see.) And who could forget the biologically male MMA fighter who fractured the skull of a female opponent and was named "bravest athlete in history"? (Several NFL players would like to speak to a manager.)The examples are endless now, but liberal feminists happily ignore them. Perhaps this is their stealthy way of finally fixing that pay gap they're always blabbering about: just allow men to become us.Who benefits here? Men, of course. It is men who benefit from modern feminism's embrace of gender identity—but a certain kind of man. "Not all men" is a phrase liberal feminists scoff at in the context of sexual violence against women, but it works well here.Not all men want to badger their way into women's dressing rooms and reduce women to spectators at our own sports. Not all men want to perform a hypersexualized caricature of "woman" or refer to us by degrading terms like "frontholes," "cervix owners," or "birthing persons," a new vocabulary invented by people who think pronouns are violence but erasing women from the dictionary is progress.I hope that we have not managed to #killallmen, as the so-called feminists screech on Twitter, because we desperately need the real ones to stand up for us now. Women welcomed this Trojan horse with open arms and now the enemy is streaming out while we're asleep. And make no mistake: this enemy will not stop until women are erased from all meaningful participation in public life. Why liberal feminism is doing this should confound us all—but it is an irrelevant question for now, when our priority should be to wake up, first and foremost.We need men to fight with us against the gender jihadists. The good news is that the average man recognizes gender identity disguised as feminism for the misogyny it is. For over a decade, I got nowhere blabbing about women's rights at my house. Yet now, in the upside-down world of 2021, my husband is suddenly a feminist for the same reason that Tucker Carlson is: they acknowledge that womanhood is real, and they're man enough to say it.(3) Smugglers Openly Advertise Illegal Border Crossings on Facebook - price about $9khttps://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/smugglers-openly-advertise-illegal-border-crossings-on-facebook_3844888.htmlSmugglers Openly Advertise Illegal Border Crossings on FacebookBY PETR SVAB June 4, 2021 Updated: June 5, 2021Human smugglers along the southern border are openly advertising their services on Facebook and the social media company has fallen short on removing such content.A plethora of user accounts have posted offers to facilitate illegal border crossings on the platform. Some even directly advertise how much they charge for the service. Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), who took office in January, repeatedly alerted Facebook to the issue in general and to a number of specific posts of this kind, but most of them haven’t been removed, she said.Facebook has so far failed to accommodate Cammack’s request for an in-person meeting to discuss the issue, she told The Epoch Times.Given that some of the posts in question were paid advertisements, it raises the question of whether Facebook has been taking money, at least indirectly, from criminal cartels, which are known to control the human smuggling operations, Cammack said.The Epoch Times alerted Facebook to about dozen posts and groups that appeared connected with the issue. Most, but not all of them, were subsequently removed."We prohibit content that offers or assists with human smuggling and remove it from our platform whenever we find it," a Facebook spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.Illegal border crossings skyrocketed this year, after dying down during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic last year.Information from Border Patrol and illegal immigrants themselves indicates that smugglers are tuned in to the American immigration policy climate and have used the Biden administration’s softer approach and rhetoric as an advertising tool. Specifically, the administration’s move to no longer turn back minors caught crossing illegally has been linked to a surge of unaccompanied minors taking the dangerous track to and across the border, often with disastrous consequences."I have witnessed some of the most horrific horrors, really, crimes against humanity that you can imagine," Cammack said. "It is not just a national security crisis. This is a humanitarian crisis."Drug cartels control the Mexican side of the border so tightly that nobody gets illegally across without paying them, she learned from Border Patrol agents during her two trips to the border this year, she said."This is not in any shape, way, or form a humanitarian mission that the cartels are undertaking. This is about dollars and they don’t care about the value of a human life. They care about making money and they do it through the most brutal, authoritarian means possible," she said.While the posts on Facebook present human smuggling operations as trustworthy and safe, the reality is just the opposite."I have personally spoken to a 9-year-old girl who could barely tell me her name because her vocal cords had given out while screaming while being gang-raped by cartel members," Cammack said, noting that the majority of girls are sexually assaulted or abused on their way to the border.Most of the Facebook groups that appear connected with the human smuggling activity are private, but there’s plenty of posts that offer the illicit service publicly."Good morning, my people. I offer safe crossing to the U.S. Send [me a message to] my inbox for more information," said one post translated by The Epoch Times."We have crossings through Lomas de Arena, Chihuahua. We offer camouflage, backpack with food. I’m currently in Chihuahua. Send me [a message to my] inbox or call me at [redacted by The Epoch Times]," another post said.One video post said, "Ready for the adventure? In name of God," showing footage from the border."I offer my foot crossing through Tamaulipas and through the [border] line. Only people truly interested, send me [a message to my] inbox. Foot crossing with 3 shots at crossing and crossing through the [border] line, but it’s 100% safe," yet another post said."People, don’t miss your chance to travel to the U.S. through asylum applications guarantee, adults with minors. For more information, [send a message to my] inbox or call [redacted]," one offer said."The American Dream. Cross the border 100% safe by city–don’t waste your time through foot crossing overnight–I’ll get you directly to your destination. For more information send a WhatsApp to [redacted]," one user advertised."We are still offering border crossing to the U.S. from any country. If you’re from another country, you can pay first upon arrival to Mexico. We also offer services to fix your arrival with or without a migration alert," another post said."I have 5 spots for Oxnard, California. The paperwork is not free as you cross through the [border] line. Send me a message to [redacted] for more information. Only people truly interested," another said."Travel safely to the U.S. guided by God. We have the best people–responsible and righteous. Schedule your travel date. Click this WhatsApp link [redacted]. Our cars are new and drivers with years of experience, full comfort, and friendly behavior," yet another said, claiming, "We cover all routes inside the U.S."Cammack acknowledged that it’s not easy to completely get rid of such posts, given the ability of the smugglers to keep adding more.But that doesn’t absolve Facebook of its responsibilities in her view. ...(4) Black activist John Sullivan charged for his role in Capitol Riothttps://www.newsweek.com/john-sullivan-capitol-attack-leftwing-antifa-1561898Who is John Sullivan? Left-wing Activist Charged in Capitol RiotBY EWAN PALMER ON 1/15/21 AT 8:02 AM ESTA left-wing activist who openly documented and discussed his involvement in the pro-Donald Trump rally which turned into an insurrection at the Capitol is now facing criminal charges.John Sullivan, 26, founder of protest group Insurgence USA, recorded himself entering through a Capitol window that had been broken out by the rioters before roaming the halls of Congress during the January 6 attack.Sullivan, of Utah, told authorities that he was in Washington D.C. that day as an activist and journalist who was recording the events, but admitted he did not have any press credentials.Prior to entering the Capitol building, Sullivan can be seen using a microphone to address the crowd outside and yelling "we about to burn this s**t down" before leading the crowd in a chant of "it's time for a revolution," FBI Special Agent Matthew Foulger said in an affidavit.As the mob pushed through barricades towards the Capitol, Sullivan was heard shouting: "We accomplished this s**t. We did this together. F**k yeah! We are all a part of this history," and "Let's burn this s**t down."Sullivan also filmed himself assisting those who were climbing up walls to get to the plaza just outside the Capitol Building entrance, telling them "You guys are f*****g savage. Let's go!"Once inside, Sullivan recorded the moment that 35-year-old Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by police during the attempt to overthrow the government.Sullivan also films himself speaking to law enforcement officers inside the Capitol, telling one: "the people have spoken," and "there are too many people, you gotta stand down, the people out there that tried to do that shit, they got hurt."Sullivan voluntarily provided the FBI with copies of the video footage he shot that day.Following the attack, Sullivan gave a number of media interviews including to CNN and ABC's Good Morning America where he discussed being inside the Capitol during the attempted siege.Speaking to Rolling Stone, Sullivan said: "I was worried about people recognizing me and thinking that I was Antifa or, like, BLM or whatever."The entire time they're yelling, 'F**k Antifa! F**k, BLM.' I'm not saying I'm Antifa, by any means. But I definitely believe Black Lives Matter."Speaking to Desert News, Sullivan again claimed that he chanted and appeared to join in with the violence at the Capitol because "when you're in a massive crowd like that, you have to blend in."(5) US seizes funds John Sullivan received from media for his video of Capital riothttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/22/us-seizes-funds-capitol-riot-john-earle-sullivan/U.S. seizes funds of Capitol riot suspect who sold Jan. 6 footage to media outletsBy Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Saturday, May 22, 2021The U.S. has seized thousands of dollars in media proceeds from accused rioter John Earle Sullivan, who sold the rights to his Jan. 6 narrated video inside the Capitol to NBC News, CNN and four other outlets.The seizure was disclosed in a court filing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by a prosecutor opposing Mr. Sullivan's motion to release the money.Assistant U.S. Attorney Candice C. Wong said that Mr. Sullivan received $90,875 for rights to his widely posted self-narrated video.It included the stark scene of Ashli Babbitt being fatally shot by an unidentified Capitol Police officer as protesters tried to smash their way into the House Speaker's Lobby. Of that sum, the government has seized $62,813, the court filing said. The seizure was authorized by two sealed warrants signed in April by a judge magistrate.Mr. Sullivan, a Utah resident active on social media under the name "Jayden X" as a Black Lives Matter supporter and leader of Insurgence USA, bragged afterward that filming the Babbitt killing would earn him "millions of dollars" in video rights.Mr. Sullivan, 26, is the lone left-wing activist identified to date amid a sea of some 800 Trump supporters who invaded after President Trump delivered his "Stop the Steal" rally speech. Protesters were trying to stop a joint session of Congress from certifying President Biden's electoral college win.Mr. Sullivan has a history of attending BLM demonstrations and encouraging violence.In Provo, Utah, police charged him with threatening a woman driver and damaging her car during a June 29 George Floyd protest. He came to Washington in August and at a BLM rally urged protesters to drag Mr. Trump out of the White House, according to court filings.Ms. Wong argued that Jan. 6 film proceeds were the direct result of illegal activity — invading the Capitol building through a broken window and encouraging Trump supporters to burn it down.She included quotes from Mr. Sullivan's video as he first urged protesters to invade, then roamed the Capitol's hallways and catacombs wielding his camera and a knife."There are so many people. Let's go," he says at one point. "This sh-t is ours! F—k yeah," and "We accomplished this sh-it. We did this together. F—k yeah! We are all a part of this history," and "Let's burn this sh-t down."And, "I brought my megaphone to instigate sh-t. I was like, guys we're going inside, we're f—king sh-t up…. I'm gonna make these Trump supporters f—all this s-it up."Ms. Wong argued in her filing the video is the product of Mr. Sullivan's crimes. He posed as a journalist as a license to incite violence."There is evidence that the defendant came to the U.S. Capitol prepared to both film and instigate mayhem [and] that he exploited his posture of recording to cajole and resist officers inside the Capitol and to make his way to the front lines of confrontation," her filing says."Shortly after leaving, he boasted of his intent to make 'millions of dollars' from his footage of the 'revolution' he had just witnessed and participated in," the filing says. "There is strong evidence that the defendant was no mere bystander but rather an active participant––wielding a gimbal and recording device alongside his tactical gear."Steven R. Kiersh, Mr. Sullivan's attorney, asked the judge to release the seized funds. He said the seizure violates Mr. Sullivan's constitutional rights since he has not been convicted."Defendant notes that he needs the funds in the seized bank account in order to pay his rent and household necessities," Mr. Kiersh said. "Additionally, the proceeds of the seized bank account are not the product of criminal activity alleged in the indictment."On Wednesday, the Justice Department filed a new eight-count indictment against Mr. Sullivan with two new charges. They include that he lied to the FBI when he denied he carried any weapon inside the Capitol when in fact he had a knife.Mr. Sullivan is free pending trial but his social media activities are restricted.(6) FBI used Sullivan's video to identify & arrest other riotershttps://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/3/john-earle-sullivan-leftist-activist-jaydenx-video/Leftist's video proves critical to U.S. Capitol riot probeJohn Earle Sullivan backed antifa, egged on 'Stop the Steal'By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times - Monday, May 3, 2021The sole left-wing activist arrested to date in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riots is the same man who created an on-scene video that has helped the FBI identify and arrest Trump-aligned participants.John Earle Sullivan, a Black Lives Matter supporter known on social media as JaydenX, filmed a Donald Trump protester using a pole to smash a glass-panel door to the Speaker's Lobby close to the floor of the House of Representatives, where fellow protester Ashli Babbitt was shot and killed by a police officer moments later. The FBI has also used video stills, attributed to "JaydenX," to identify others rioters, one of whom was arrested last week.For his efforts, Mr. Sullivan has become something of a celebrity rioter. He appeared as an eyewitness that day on CNN, which bought rights to his video for $35,000 as did NBC News. He portrayed himself as a videographer/journalist.But the FBI viewed him differently, and he was indicted on seven counts. His odd path to the heart of the Trump protest on Jan. 6 — he closed one harshly anti-Trump social media post days before the riot with the hashtag "#Antifa" — is one of the primary mysteries of the day.He has a history of promoting violence, according to court filings. On his Capitol video, he can be heard urging invaders to burn the Capitol. At an August Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, he urged the crowd to pull President Trump from the White House. And at a George Floyd protest near his Provo, Utah, home in June, he threatened to assault a woman driver while blocking traffic and associating with a gunman, according to a police affidavit reviewed by The Washington Times.In the Speaker's Lobby/Babbitt shooting scene, an aggressive crowd gathered to try to bust through the door. Mr. Trump had pumped up protesters in a "Stop the Steal"  speech by making unproven claims about thousands of votes being stolen from him and given to now-President Biden.(7) Black Panther, BLM leaders pro-Maohttps://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/blm-founders-video-from-10-years-ago-reveals-her-love-of-Maos-red-book_3815297.htmlBLM Founder's Video From 10 Years Ago Reveals Her Fondness of Mao's Red BookBY HANNAH CAI May 17, 2021 Updated: May 17, 2021A recently resurfaced video from 10 years ago shows Black Lives Matter (BLM) co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who has described herself as a "trained Marxist," is an apparent fan of communist dictator Mao Zedong, who is responsible for the largest number of deaths in recorded history.In a speech at a gathering of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a communist think tank in Los Angeles, circa 2010, Cullors said that the leftist think tank's founder, Eric Mann, had written a book comparable to "Mao's Red Book," an apparent compliment.Mao's Red Book, also known as "Quotations from Chairman Mao Zedong," is a collection of what Chinese Communist Party (CCP) dictator Mao had said and written. During the Cultural Revolution, it was distributed to the CCP's army and the general public across the country. The cover was in red, hence the name. Chinese people were forced to memorize, recite, and quote his words in work and life during that period of time. A very small size version was made to make it easy for people to carry with them all the time, and so followed the name "the little red book."Epoch Times PhotoThe Cultural Revolution was a time period in which "the Sun is the most red" while "the world is the darkest." Everybody had to study Mao's works. (Getty Images)Cullors said in her speech, "I was speaking to this young person from Arizona who is trying to fight S.B. 1070, and he grabbed a book [written by Mann] and he said, 'It's like Mao's Red Book.'""And I was like, 'Man, that's what I was thinking.' And it was just really cool to hear him make that connection," she says in the video.She suggested buying "10-15 of these books," organizing a youth group "where you talk about it and you really try to engage this.""I think I have a really important role speaking to youth, maybe it's because I came to the movement at 17 1/2, so I have just a knack for knowing how to organize young people," she said in the video.Cullors was one of three founders of BLM. She was recently revealed by the New York Post to own four properties and a mansion in a white neighborhood in Los Angeles, and was described by Chinese netizens as the "American version of Sima Nan."(8) Progressive politics is facing extinction - Tony Blairhttps://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/05/tony-blair-without-total-change-labour-will-dieLABOUR IN CRISIS11 MAY 2021Tony Blair: Without total change Labour will dieThe Labour Party needs complete deconstruction and reconstruction. Nothing less will do.BY TONY BLAIRThe challenge facing Britain's Labour and Liberal Democrat parties cannot be overstated. Political parties have no divine right to exist and progressive parties of the centre and centre left are facing marginalisation, even extinction, across the Western world. Where is the French Socialist Party of François Mitterrand or the German SPD of Willy Brandt? And dominant national parties can very quickly become small fringe parties under the hammer blows of poor leadership and social and economic change. Look at the Liberal Party of Asquith and Lloyd George, reduced from 397 to 43 seats in just 18 years in the early 20th century.Joe Biden's victory in the United States apart, progressive politics across the globe is badly placed: four election defeats for the UK Labour Party and no one betting against a fifth; the German SPD placed behind a moderate Green Party; the French Socialists, who won the presidency in 2012, now polling at 11 per cent; the Italian left imploded and divided; the Spanish and Swedish socialists hanging on to power, but way below their earlier levels of support. [...]The progressive problem is that, in an era where people want change in a changing world, and a fairer, better and more prosperous future, the radical progressives aren't sensible and the sensible aren't radical. The choice is therefore between those who fail to inspire hope and those who inspire as much fear as hope. So, the running is made by the new radical left, with the "moderates" dragged along behind, uncomfortably mouthing a watered-down version of the left's policies while occasionally trying to dig in their heels to stop further sliding towards the alienation of the centre. [...]Keeping your head down isn't a strategy. There is a big culture battle going on. Progressive folk tend to wince at terms such as "woke" and "political correctness", but the normal public knows exactly what they mean. And the battle is being fought on ground defined by the right because sensible progressives don't want to be on the field at all. The consequence of this is that the "radical" progressives, who are quite happy to fight on that ground, carry the progressive standard. The fact that it ensures continued right-wing victory doesn't deter them at all. On the contrary, it gives them a heightened sense of righteousness, like political kamikaze.  [...](9) Labour conspired against Working Class, promoting Immigration to make UK more Multicultural & Cosmopolitanhttps://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/6418456/Labour-wanted-mass-immigration-to-make-UK-more-multicultural-says-former-adviser.htmlLabour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviserLabour threw open Britain's borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a "truly multicultural" country, a former Government adviser has revealed.By Tom Whitehead and Tomwhitehead23 October 2009 o 6:42pmThe huge increases in migrants over the last decade were partly due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity", according to Andrew Neather, a former adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.He said Labour's relaxation of controls was a deliberate plan to "open up the UK to mass migration" but that ministers were nervous and reluctant to discuss such a move publicly for fear it would alienate its "core working class vote".As a result, the public argument for immigration concentrated instead on the economic benefits and need for more migrants.Critics said the revelations showed a "conspiracy" within Government to impose mass immigration for "cynical" political reasons.Mr Neather was a speech writer who worked in Downing Street for Tony Blair and in the Home Office for Jack Straw and David Blunkett, in the early 2000s.Writing in the Evening Standard, he revealed the "major shift" in immigration policy came after the publication of a policy paper from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a Downing Street think tank based in the Cabinet Office, in 2001.He wrote a major speech for Barbara Roche, the then immigration minister, in 2000, which was largely based on drafts of the report.He said the final published version of the report promoted the labour market case for immigration but unpublished versions contained additional reasons, he said.He wrote: "Earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural."I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."The "deliberate policy", from late 2000 until "at least February last year", when the new points based system was introduced, was to open up the UK to mass migration, he said.Some 2.3 million migrants have been added to the population since then, according to Whitehall estimates quietly slipped out last month.On Question Time on Thursday, Mr Straw was repeatedly quizzed about whether Labour's immigration policies had left the door open for the BNP.In his column, Mr Neather said that as well as bringing in hundreds of thousands more migrants to plug labour market gaps, there was also a "driving political purpose" behind immigration policy.He defended the policy, saying mass immigration has "enriched" Britain, and made London a more attractive and cosmopolitan place.But he acknowledged that "nervous" ministers made no mention of the policy at the time for fear of alienating Labour voters."Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom."But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland."Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think tank, said: "Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite."Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right."This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage." ...(10) French voters are abandoning the Left, and also the mainstream right. Marine Le Pen might benefithttps://www.economist.com/europe/2021/05/09/four-decades-after-francois-mitterrand-became-president-frances-left-is-in-troubleThe rematchFour decades after François Mitterrand became president, France’s left is in troubleSo is the mainstream right. Marine Le Pen, as well as Emmanuel Macron, stands to benefitEuropeMay 9th 2021PARISFORTY YEARS ago on May 10th, François Mitterrand made history, becoming France’s first Socialist president since before the second world war. At next year’s presidential election, the party the wily leader carried triumphantly to power in 1981 could make history again, but for rather a different reason. The Socialist Party runs the risk of failing to make it to the final run-off vote twice in a row.A year ahead of any election, polls need to be treated with caution. French history is littered with early favourites—Alain Juppé, Dominique Strauss-Kahn—who never made it to the Elysée. A year before the presidential vote in 2017, the name Emmanuel Macron had not been tested in a single poll. An average of polls this year, which assume that Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, will be the Socialists’ candidate, suggests that the party would get just 8% in the first round. This would not be enough to get her through to the run-off. Worse, were she in fact to make it through and face Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far-right National Rally (RN), polls say Ms Le Pen would win.Four years after Mr Macron upended French politics, the country’s formerly dominant forces—on both the left and the right—have never looked so weak or unstable. The left remains divided. The greens (Europe Écologie Les Verts) captured some big cities at municipal elections last year. But nationally they struggle, and disagree among themselves. Polls say that Yannick Jadot, who is widely predicted to be the greens’ presidential candidate, would also lose to Ms Le Pen in a run-off. Last month he organised a meeting in Paris with other parties of the left to try to chart a way to a common candidate. The effort failed, not least because Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing Unsubmissive France, was absent, defying lockdown with a jaunt to Latin America to check on Bolivian socialism.Matters look little better on the right. The Republicans are again bleeding talent. Mr Macron poached many of their moderates to serve in his government, including two prime ministers (Edouard Philippe and now Jean Castex) and a finance minister, Bruno Le Maire. Last week, amid high local drama, Christian Estrosi, the mayor of Nice and a former minister, quit the Republicans too. Ahead of regional elections next month, he was furious that the party had refused an electoral deal with Mr Macron’s La République en Marche (LREM) in the Provence region, in order to thwart Ms Le Pen’s candidate there.As it is, neither of the two strongest candidates for the presidency on the right is even a card-carrying member of the Republicans any more. Xavier Bertrand, head of the Hauts-de-France region in the north, and Valérie Pécresse, head of the Paris region, have both quit the party. At the heart of the Republicans’ bitter internal row is how, and whether, to fight the far right. When he walked out, Mr Estrosi declared that a right-wing faction with an ambiguous attitude to the RN had "taken the party hostage". The Republicans, he said, needed to state publicly that their priority is to keep the RN out of power, at all times.What to make of this volatility? First, parties in France, which lack the tribal loyalty once enjoyed by those in Britain, say, or Germany, are no longer a determining factor in electoral politics. Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s former Brexit negotiator, may be hoping to stage a bid for the presidency from within the Republicans. But, "over the past five years," says Emmanuel Rivière, of Kantar, a polling group, "the party that most of the French feel the closest to is ‘no party’." Mr Macron exploited the tools offered by the Fifth Republic’s constitution, including the two-round election, to run for president without one. Mr Bertrand, who has declared his candidacy, is trying to do the same in 2022. If a candidate emerges who consistently polls better than Mr Macron against Ms Le Pen, this—rather than party backing—could be the basis of a serious presidential bid.Second, there has been a "droitisation", or shift to the right, among the French electorate. Since 2017, the share of voters describing themselves as being on the right has risen by five points, to 38%, according to the Fondation pour l’Innovation Politique, a think-tank; that on the left has dropped by a point, to 24%. This too has blurred traditional voting patterns. In his time, Mitterrand could count on the votes of the Communist Party, then deeply rooted in industrial and mining areas, to help him win in the run-off. Today, the main beneficiary of the working-class vote is Ms Le Pen’s RN. Fully 48% of blue-collar workers told a poll they would back her next year in the first round; just 2% would vote for Ms Hidalgo and 4% for Mr Jadot.Third, this shift has been accompanied by a growing convergence of views on cultural values between Republican and RN supporters. According to a study by the Fondation Jean Jaurès, a think-tank, there is now almost no gap between the two electorates on security, law and order, and attitudes to Islam. When a group of (mostly) retired military officers, many linked to the far right, signed a petition last month in favour of the army stepping in to restore order, an astonishing 71% of Republican voters approved. This convergence is exactly what Ms Le Pen hopes to exploit, and use to split the Republican party.The collapse of traditional parties, which he himself engineered, could help Mr Macron. Polls suggest that in 2022 he is again likely to face Ms Le Pen in a run-off. Yet where the candidate in 2017 embodied a balance of left- and right-leaning views, the president has in office followed the electorate’s rightwards shift, appointing not only two prime ministers from the centre-right but Gérald Darmanin, his hard-line interior minister.This carries a risk: that disillusioned voters on the left refuse to back Mr Macron in the second round, even against Ms Le Pen. For exactly this reason, polls currently give Mr Macron a far slimmer victory over her than he managed in 2017. "He’s really got to reach out to the left," says one LREM deputy. For all the other parties’ disarray, Mr Macron remains on uncertain ground. And, as France remembers Mitterrand’s first election, one feature in particular will doubtless be in Ms Le Pen’s mind. She is on her third election campaign—just as Mitterrand was when he triumphed in 1981.(11) Gender ideology is distorting the teaching of medicine - not disclosing birth sex risks improper medical treatmenthttps://www.plebity.org/conversations/gender-ideology-is-wreaking-carnage-in-our-medical-schools-an-eye-witness-report/Gender Ideology is Wreaking Carnage in Our Medical Schools – An Eye Witness ReportMAY 9, 2021[...] I have been told multiple times in several classes that biological sex is a social construct – not just gender. Granted, I can speak only for my institution, but this change has been frustrating and disturbing to witness.Robert Woolley @RandomlyBob asks: "Do any of the required textbooks also avoid using those words? If not, might you ask those professors if they think the books are either inaccurate or offensive?" Our curriculum is constantly subject to revision. Around two-thirds of our written materials have been updated with this new language. For the one-third that has remained out-of-date, our class has received multiple apologetic, itemized emails from course instructors in which they provide corrections, beg for forgiveness and patience, and avow to "do better". In class, we have been given multiple histories in which the patient's sex has been deleted, even for cases involving disorders which can manifest differently between the sexes. The words "female" and "male" are being erased and replaced.Born a space baby @ggynoid asks: "What's the dynamic like for class participation? Do people start with pronouns? Do people tend to agree, disagree? What's the female-male ratio in the class typically on these sort[s] of classes?"When school first began, we were heavily encouraged to include pronouns in our Zoom names and email signatures; around 70-80% of the class did so. Most students and professors would start off verbal introductions with their name and pronouns, though that has subsided since we all have grown to know each other.A vocal minority of students are loudly in favor of the most extreme aspects of gender ideology, while the majority seem to be vaguely supportive in a nonspecific way. I think that this comes from a mixture of naive goodwill and fear – they are trying to be good allies, and this is the only way they know how. Additionally, it is heavily implied that to ask critical questions, even in a way which is ultimately patient-centered and supportive, is perpetuating bigotry, so they just nod along. A silent minority seems to be secretly skeptical. I have met four or five students who have disclosed to me in private conversation that they disagree with one or more aspects of this dogma but they are hesitant to come forward in group settings. I am sure that more exist, but they are hard to find. None of these people have been transphobic.The female-male ratio is approximately equal, with slightly more females than males in my class.David Poole @MrDPoole asks: "Do you think the people telling you these things actually believe it or are they being forced to do it?"I think that a very small minority of our professors actually believe that male and female bodies are interchangeable with the exception of genitalia and gonads. There are definitely more woke students than woke professors, and the most radical of students are far more radical than the wokest professor. Most of these professors are very fearful of saying the wrong thing, so they delicately couch their language by referring to "XX and XY people" or other such euphemisms, even though that can lead to inaccuracies. [...]Clinical practice: Transgender patients who do not disclose their birth sex might be at risk for improper medical treatment. (I have seen a natal female person who identified as a nonbinary man, be suspected of having testicular torsion; this person did not disclose their sex to the physician, which resulted in a delay in their care). Out of fear of being branded transphobic, physicians may not accurately and completely inform trans patients about their sex-specific risk for certain medical conditions. And for all patients, if a poorly-educated doctor is unaware as to how disorders manifest differently between the sexes, then patients can be harmed through the failure to rapidly and accurately diagnose and treat their medical conditions. [...]However, the most pernicious of possible harms is not the denial of sex; rather, the denial of sex is just one manifestation of a greater problem, which is the corrosion of critical thinking itself. Whatever you call it – this postmodern poison, the triumph of dogma over data – it is fundamentally incompatible with critical thinking, the most powerful all-purpose tool a physician has at his or her disposal. Starting with a conclusion and working backwards, all while twisting the data to fit a narrative, strikes me as more religious than scientific.(12) A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities - Economisthttps://www.economist.com/international/2021/06/05/a-backlash-against-gender-ideology-is-starting-in-universitiesA backlash against gender ideology is starting in universitiesAcademics are speaking up against the stifling of debateJun 5th 2021WASHINGTON, DCHours before Jo Phoenix, a professor of criminology at Britain's Open University, was due to give a talk at Essex University about placing transgender women in women's prisons, students threatened to barricade the hall. They complained that Ms Phoenix was a "transphobe" likely to engage in "hate speech". A flyer with an image of a gun and text reading "shut the fuck up, terf" (trans-exclusionary radical feminist, a slur) was circulating. The university told Ms Phoenix it was postponing the event. Then the sociology department asked her for a copy of her talk. Days later it told her it had voted to rescind its invitation, and would issue no more. Ms Phoenix says she was "absolutely furious and deeply upset" about both the damage to her reputation and to academic freedom.Essex University's vice-chancellor asked Akua Reindorf, a lawyer who specialises in employment and discrimination law, to investigate. Eighteen months later, in mid-May, the university published Ms Reindorf's report on its website. It said Essex had infringed Ms Phoenix's right to freedom of expression and that its decision to "exclude and blacklist" her was also unlawful. It advised the university to apologise to Ms Phoenix and to Rosa Freedman, a professor of law at Reading University whom it had excluded from an event during Holocaust Memorial Week "because of her views on gender identity". (Essex in the end allowed Ms Freedman to attend.)Ms Reindorf's report marks a challenge to the transgender dogma that originated on American campuses and has spread to universities around the English-speaking world. Its proponents hold that gender identity—the feeling that one is a man or a woman—is as important as biological sex and that trans people should in all circumstances be regarded as the gender with which they identify. This has increasingly influenced policy-makers: several places allow trans women into spaces that were once reserved for females, from sports teams to prisons and shelters for victims of domestic violence. [...]Yet the most worrying effect is likely to be invisible. An unknown number of university employees avoid expressing their opinion for fear it will damage their career or turn them into pariahs. The report about Essex says witnesses described a "culture of fear" among those with gender-critical views. This is unlikely to be limited to one university. The report also argues that expressing the view that trans women are not women is not hate speech and is not illegal under British law, whatever university policies might suggest.The fight backThe report is likely to embolden gender-critical academics in Britain, at least, where they are already more outspoken. There are signs that a backlash to gender ideology is building elsewhere, too. In February, when Donna Hughes, a professor of women's studies at Rhode Island University, published an article critical of gender ideology, petitions sprouted calling for her to be fired. Her university denounced her and warned that the right to free speech was "not boundless". Ms Hughes, who is a co-founder of the Academic Freedom Alliance (afa), which was launched in March, says her university encouraged students to file complaints. She hired an "aggressive" lawyer. In May the afa announced the university had dropped its investigations into Ms Hughes and affirmed her right to speak.Ms Hughes's example is striking because in America, where concerns about free speech in universities tend to focus on racial sensitivities, gender-critical views are rarely expressed publicly. This is partly because there is no federal legislation that specifically protects trans (or gay) people from discrimination, which lends a particular urgency to lgbt activism. Jami Taylor, a professor of political science at the University of Toledo and a trans woman, says she has experienced "transgender-related bias" throughout her career, from being called "it" by students and a colleague to being guided to the men's bathroom.America's political polarisation makes it harder yet to debate such topics. Trans activists often portray gender criticism as a far-right cause. Though it is becoming that, too, it is a topic on which leftist feminists and social conservatives find agreement. In Britain most outspoken gender-critical academics are left-leaning, atheist feminists. Some in America are, too.Their chief concern is the preservation of female-only spaces. [...]The influence of pressure groups exemplifies the other big reason trans ideology has gained a foothold in academia: its elision with the rights of gay people. Many organisations established to defend gay rights have morphed into trans-rights groups.  [...]