'He probably needs to step aside'

'Active locations with an evolving mission set'

The claim comes from a website that identifies itself as satirical.

"The Heads of Churches await the response of His Excellency the Prime Minister to their letter in this regard."

Foreigner’s Best Song on Each of Their Studio Albums presents a list of songs that, of course, is subjective but also represents our favorite track from every single Foreigner studio album. We all remember hearing “Feels Like the First Time” for the first time in the spring of 1977. It seemed back then in the 1970s there was a fabulous brand new band arriving on the scene every couple of months. Some faded away after one or two albums, while others, like Foreigner, became legends. Foreigner boasts an impressive discography featuring nine studio albums, seven live albums, twenty compilation albums, The post Foreigner’s Best Song On Each Of Their Studio Albums appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

Books Dissecting the Dark Descent The Status Quo Is Death: “Schalken the Painter” by J.S. Le Fanu Inspired by 17th-century artists, this is one of Le Fanu’s finest and most haunting works… By Sam Reader | Published on July 2, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Welcome back to Dissecting The Dark Descent, where we lovingly delve into the guts of David Hartwell’s seminal 1987 anthology story by story, and in the process, explore the underpinnings of a genre we all love. For an in-depth introduction, here’s the intro post. “Schalken the Painter” is perhaps one of Le Fanu’s best works. Inspired by the paintings of Gottfried Schalcken and Gerrit Dou, two Dutch masters known for their candlelight portraits and ability to capture the unnerving play of light and shadow, Le Fanu used their paintings’ dreamlike qualities and familiar gothic tropes, crafting a story of nightmare logic and intense visuals so striking that the BBC even adapted it into a TV movie with cinematography based on the actual painters’ work (even if I think Le Fanu’s description sounds more like King James from Atun-Shei’s Daemonologie.) While blending history, nightmare, and the grotesque is nothing new for Le Fanu, “Schalken the Painter” puts its own spin on the usual “damsel in distress” plot, crafting a twisted story of power and powerlessness wielded by a creature from beyond the grave. A painter named Godfrey Schalken is apprenticed to a Dutch master painter by the name of Gerard Douw. Schalken is a poor man, but good-hearted, happy to spend his company in Douw’s studio and in the company of Douw’s bewitching ward Rose. Rose and Schalken spend their days conversing and while he falls harder for her than she for him, they both find themselves enamored. Sadly for the pair, Vanderhausen, a rich man with a shadowy past and a monstrous appearance, arrives unannounced with a massive dowry and plans to provide for Rose for the rest of her life. Swayed by the outrageous fortune on offer, Douw eagerly agrees to Vanderhausen’s demands. When the pair vanishes without a trace (and all traces of Vanderhausen with them), only for Rose to reappear in the midst of a breakdown, it falls to Schalken and Douw to piece together what happened and save Rose before her monstrous husband comes to collect her. The problem in “Schalken the Painter” isn’t that no one in the story can stop Vanderhausen, it’s that they have no idea that they can. From the very start, Vanderhausen projects the image of immense wealth and power, enough to overwhelm Schalken and Douw when he first demands Rose’s hand in marriage. Douw manages to put up token resistance to Vanderhausen, only to be immediately rebuffed by the massive dowry. They know things are wrong with the situation, especially when they see Vanderhausen in full view for the first time, but their systems of class and prescribed behavior favors their mysterious guest. While Schalken and Douw are at least respectable, they respond the way they’re supposed to when confronted with one of their “betters,” despite their misgivings. While the point is blunt, especially considering an undead monster is literally buying an innocent woman, at the same time, it’s clear the structures of wealth and power are protecting the inhuman Vanderhausen. Wealth and power also play a role in why none of the protagonists (it would be a huge stretch to call anyone in this story a “hero”—Schalken is a “nice guy” and terminally passive; Douw sells his surrogate daughter for a truckload of cash) could have resisted even if they wanted to. A major way those with wealth and power maintain their grip on the rest of us is through two key methods. First, they simply act like the possibility someone would tell them “No” doesn’t exist.  The second and more insidious method is that they play on the possibility that saying “no” to them would come with negative—even horrifying—consequences. In the case of “Schalken the Painter,” the appearance of Vanderhausen is enough to spark the imagination of what would happen if anyone opposed him. Surely enough, when Vanderhausen is momentarily thwarted, it doesn’t end particularly well for anyone. If there’s anything to indict Schalken and Douw, it’s those moments immediately after Rose’s escape and return to Douw’s home. Even then, it’s already too late for anyone in the story. Despite Rose having escaped Vanderhausen’s clutches, it’s clear at this point (especially to the reader) that they’re dealing with something horrifying and inhuman. Once again, Rose is doomed by the status quo: when confronted with a woman terrified to the point of insensibility, Douw assumes she’s suffered a psychotic break and takes none of her warnings seriously. Treating the situation like any other mundane circumstance under the corrupt status quo, Douw acts rationally. The events of “Schalken the Painter” are not, however, mundane. In the same way Vanderhausen uses his power, privilege, and unspoken threats to secure his purchase of Rose, he also uses the men’s insistence on the familar mundane (and misogynist) system to kidnap her back and claim her as his own. Despite Rose’s insistence that she should not be left alone, Douw does exactly that…and in that moment, Vanderhausen strikes and carries her away. While Douw and Schalken are certainly culpable—their complete inability to do anything even remotely to stop Vanderhausen is enough to indict them—it’s also clear they have no conception of how they’d even try. From the reader’s standpoint, it seems so simple to imagine that if they’d said no at any point, they might have had a chance, but according to the corrupt system that governs their lives and behavior, both behaved rationally, and the combination of Vanderhausen’s understanding of the rules and unwillingness to play by them makes the two men his accomplices. The idea of standing in opposition to monsters like Vanderhausen is simply not something average people are usually able to see themselves doing. Even when Douw is displeased by the situation, he goes along with it anyway because he wants to believe that what’s going on is in some way normal, and if it wasn’t, something would be there to stop it. It never occurs to him—as it wouldn’t for many people living under oppressive circumstances—that the moral judge he’s waiting for is in fact himself. This makes “Schalken” similar to “Mr. Justice Harbottle,” our earlier exploration of J.S. Le Fanu. Both stories detail how corrupt men abuse the system for their own gain and reward, and where even the most well-intentioned abuses of power are still monstrous. The difference is that “Schalken” is outright grim and cynical. No one saves Rose from her betrothed. No one even resists, because (in a similar manner to other works in this volume) on some level they believe in things being “correct” even despite their compunctions. The horror in Le Fanu’s stories is the acceptance (or outright abuse) of a moral universe designed to profit the privileged and inhuman monsters willing to exploit it. “Harbottle” allows us the catharsis of a moral universe; “Schalken” denies that distance. This is the conceit of “Schalken the Painter,” that in depicting a universe where a dark and monstrous figure is allowed to profit from sin, privilege, and exploitation of systemic norms, the reader themselves must therefore indict and act as ultimate judge of the characters. The horror they feel at the protagonists’ compliance in Rose’s fate is both meant to terrify and act as a challenge, a way for Le Fanu to show them the horrors of the world they inhabit, guiding them to an understanding of how terrifying complicity in that world truly is. And now to turn it over to you. Is Le Fanu’s metaphor well-used, or is a monster buying a woman from her hapless father figure a trifle blunt? What’s your favorite painting-based horror story? And please join us next time as we tackle feminist horror icon Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s subversive take on “hysterical fiction” with “The Yellow Wallpaper.” [end-mark] The post The Status Quo Is Death: “Schalken the Painter” by J.S. Le Fanu appeared first on Reactor.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Most women in the U.S. oppose a recent proposal to include women in a potential military draft, a new poll finds.  A national survey by Scott Rasmussen, shared exclusively with The Daily Signal, found that 22% of female respondents “somewhat oppose” drafting women and 36% “strongly oppose” it as Congress weighs legislation on the issue.  About half of men polled said they disagree, with 27% “somewhat” supportive, 23% “strongly” supportive, and 9% unsure.  Most independents and “lean Democrat” voters surveyed said they disapproved of the proposal to draft women, as did a plurality of both standard Republican and Democrat voters. “Lean GOP” voters were the only ones showing majority support for conscripting women, according to the poll.  Overall, 50% of Americans said they oppose the proposal, while 41% said they support it and 9% were unsure.  The release of Rasmussen’s survey comes after the Senate Armed Services Committee last month passed an annual defense package that would make women eligible for a draft if Congress approves one.  Committee Chairman Jack Reid, D-R.I., has argued that the U.S. “would need all able-bodied citizens 18 and above” if it faced a “serious situation” during wartime.  But Elaine Donnelly, president and founder of the Center for Military Readiness, said “physiological differences between men and women” can’t be ignored.  “Women have always served honorably in times of national emergency, and it is an affront to suggest they would not do so again,” Donnelly told The Daily Signal in an email. “Physiological differences between men and women, confirmed in many scientific field tests, have not changed.  Donnelly added: “Very few women would qualify for combat replacement (infantry) positions during a catastrophic national emergency, so a 50-50 mixed-sex call-up would jam the Selective Service system at the worst possible time.”  “Involuntary conscription of women would make combat arms units less strong, less fast, more vulnerable to debilitating injuries, less ready for deployment on short notice, and less accurate with offensive weapons during combat operations in a time of war,” Donnelly said. “Some misguided members of the Senate pulled ‘Draft Our Daughters’ out of the dustbin of legislative history, but enactment in law would weaken military readiness, not strengthen it.”  Critics use the phrase “Draft Our Daughters” to describe repeated attempts to include such a provision in defense bills in the past few years.  Rasmussen’s survey “suggests that female respondents understand this issue better than others who are falsely framing this issue in terms of ‘equity,’” she said. Rasmussen surveyed 1,000 registered voters June 24 and 25. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The post EXCLUSIVE: Poll Reveals Gender Divide on Proposal to Include Women in Military Draft appeared first on The Daily Signal.

As we celebrate our independence on the Fourth of July, Americans would do well to reflect upon what’s necessary for a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, to long endure. A free people requires an education in the civic knowledge and virtues necessary to preserve liberty. In his 1838 Lyceum Address, a young Abraham Lincoln—then a state legislator in Illinois—reflected on “the perpetuation of our political institutions” in the wake of the killing of Elijah Lovejoy, an outspoken abolitionist who ran an anti-slavery newspaper, at the hands of a bloodthirsty mob. Lincoln warned that although no foreign power could conquer us, destruction could come from within if the rule of law were to be replaced by the rule of the mob. Lawlessness begets anarchy, he noted. If “the vicious portion of [the] population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure, and with impunity … this Government cannot last.” The solution, Lincoln argued, is a commitment to the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. Fostering that commitment would be the high duty of every citizen in a position to influence others, including parents, pedagogues, preachers, and politicians: Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. Unfortunately, America’s education system is currently failing in this duty. But there is hope. 1) Americans Are Failing Civics Public schools are supposed to prepare students for the responsibilities of democratic self-government. At minimum, that requires knowing how our system of government works and understanding the principles that animate it. Sadly, civic knowledge in America is abysmal. According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s annual survey, one-third of American adults cannot name the three branches of government—and 17% can’t name any branch at all. Likewise, only 5% of Americans could name all five freedoms guaranteed under the First Amendment. Twenty percent couldn’t name any. It gets worse. A survey earlier this year by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce found that more than 70% of Americans failed a basic test of civic literacy on “basic functions of our democracy.” Only half correctly identified the branch where bills become laws. A third didn’t even know that there are three branches of government. America’s schools bear much of the blame. On the most recent National Assessment for Educational Progress, American students’ history scores hit an all-time low. Only 13% scored at or above proficient in history, while two-fifths of eighth grade students performed below basic proficiency—meaning, they “likely cannot identify simple historical concepts in primary or secondary sources.” American students also fared poorly on the NAEP’s civics exam, with only 22% of American eighth graders scoring at or above the proficiency. Nearly a third “cannot describe the structure or function of government.” 2) Schools Aren’t Teaching Ideas of the Founding Students can’t learn what they’re not taught. Unfortunately, as Dan Currell and Elle Rogers detailed in National Affairs, the “ideas at the heart of the American founding—equality, natural rights, the consent of the governed—have gone missing from U.S. history textbooks.” “America’s History” ranks among the leading textbooks for Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH), a rite of passage taken by half a million young Americans each year. “America’s History” is 1,035 pages long, but its treatment of the Declaration of Independence runs to a total of 344 words. … Aside from a few scattered mentions, that ends the student’s encounter with our nation’s—and perhaps the world’s—most consequential political document until it appears in an appendix 858 pages later. “America’s History” is not unusual. The most widely adopted APUSH textbook is “The American Pageant”—another thousand-page doorstop co-authored by historians from Stanford and Harvard. It, too, subordinates ideas in favor of a story of identity groups and factions fighting for power and economic advantage. Its “Road to Revolution” chapter, to take one example, includes 16 review questions, nine of which concern trade, taxes, and budgets; five concern military jockeying; one addresses republican and Whig ideologies; and one asks about the material conditions that led to revolutionary ideas. The latter textbook also gives short shrift to the U.S. Constitution, which receives “just a bit more space than [“The American Pageant”] allocates to transcendentalism.” The textbook dedicates about twice as much space to Charles Beard’s 1913 “Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States,” a “discredited conspiracy theory about the Founders’ financial motivations for writing the Constitution,” than it does to the Federalist Papers, in which prominent Founders laid out their case for the Constitution. But if American students aren’t learning about the principles of the American Revolution, what are they learning? 3) Schools Are Indoctrinating Left-Wing Activists The vacuum left by the failure to teach the ideas and ideals of the American Founding is being filled with a push toward left-wing activism. Instead of traditional civics, which focuses on the knowledge and virtues necessary for self-government, too many American schools are now pushing “action civics.” What’s the difference? As David Randall of the National Association of Scholars explains: [I]n “action civics” history and government classes, students spend class time and receive class credit for work with “nongovernmental community organizations.” This substitution degrades teachers’ and students’ esteem for classroom instruction, which is deemed not to have sufficient civic purpose in itself. It reduces the scarce time available for students actually to learn about the history of their country and the nature of their republic. Most importantly, it introduces a pedagogy that facilitates teachers’ ability to impose their personal predilections on their students, by influencing the process by which students choose “community partners” with which to work. It also facilitates the ability of peer pressure to impose group predilections on individual, dissenting students. We may note that the advocates of “action civics” explicitly distinguish this activity from volunteering: action civics is meant to change the political system, not to support civil society. In other words, “action civics” focuses less on understanding how our system of government works or the principles upon which it is built, and more on training activists for left-wing causes. In action civics courses, students get class credit for attending protests or supporting progressive organizations. For example, the “Educator Resources” on the website for Educating for American Democracy, a group that promotes action civics, includes links to resources from left-wing organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, whose “Learning for Justice” curriculum provides lessons on the “concepts of intersectionality, privilege, and oppression.” It’s no wonder then that college campuses today are awash in anti-American protests, where students are more likely to desecrate the American flag than defend it. 4) Hope for Renewal: Classical Education Is on Rise But there is yet hope for the nation Lincoln called “the last best hope of earth.” American parents are in the midst of a great educational reawakening, in which they are rediscovering the form of education—classical education—so treasured by our Founding Fathers. A classical education focuses on cultivating the minds and hearts of students through the pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty. It takes seriously the formation of the human person morally, intellectually, and aesthetically. Schools in the classical model have children engage with the Great Books—the best that has been thought and said—in order to develop a deep appreciation of the foundations of our civilization. The classical approach to civics entails a heavy emphasis on primary sources, such as the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. Classical education emphasizes the importance of civic life, but before students are encouraged to act, they are taught to understand. Parents are flocking to classical schools. According to a recent analysis by Arcadia Education, more than 677,500 students attended 1,551 classical schools during the 2023-2024 school year. Classical schools are growing at about 5% annually. In the past four years alone, more than 260 new classical schools opened. Arcadia projects that by 2035, more than 1.4 million students will be enrolled in classical schools or receiving a classical education at home. “Classical education gives us the chance to rekindle the flame of the West before it goes out,” observed Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. “To have a future, we need to start learning from our past.” The post 4 Education Trends to Watch This 4th of July appeared first on The Daily Signal.

An FBI supervisory special assistant–and registered Democrat– filed a whistleblower complaint that notes the bureau was pushing politics as part of decisions on security clearances. He says that after he disclosed the FBI’s improper suspension and revocation of other employees’ security clearances, the FBI retaliated and suspended his security clearance.   On Tuesday, he sent a disclosure to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. On Friday, he filed a complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility about the FBI’s security division. “The client—a registered Democrat—witnessed firsthand as an SSA [supervisory special agent] how the FBI’s Security Division improperly suspended or revoked employees’ security clearances whose political views, medical views, or even ethnicity were questioned by Security Division leadership,” wrote Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, on behalf of the whistleblower to Congress. The supervisor in the security division, whose name is not being disclosed by his lawyers with Empower Oversight, a whistleblower advocacy group, filed the complaints. “Over the last few years, the FBI has used the clearance process as a means to force employees out of the FBI by inflicting severe financial distress: suspending their clearance, suspending them from duty without pay, requiring them to obtain permission to take any other job while stuck in this unpaid limbo, and delaying their final clearance adjudication indefinitely—even years,” Leavitt wrote.  The whistleblower disclosure describes that the FBI’s Security Division leadership revoked the security clearance of Marcus Allen, an FBI staff operations specialist who questioned the official narrative about Jan. 6. After a review, Allen’s security clearance was reinstated.  The disclosure also notes he questioned why the FBI also revoked the security clearance of FBI Special Agent Steve Friend’s clearances in advance of his May 18, 2023 testimony before the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. Friend, who was on the joint terrorism task force, said that he raised questions to supervisors about the focus on the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot.  Friend and other agents have said the FBI can circumvent whistleblower protections laws against dismissal by suspending a security clearance.  The FBI did not immediately respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal by publication time.  According to documents obtained by The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project, FBI agents worked about 16,000 more hours during the pay period after the Capitol riot of Jan. 6, 2021, than they did during the pay period of the 2020 riots in Washington, D.C. This is the latest in a string of problems for the bureau stamming from whistleblowers and former FBI agents have come forward with stories about the FBI focusing on pro-life protesters, developing a “threat tag” to monitor parents who spoke up at school board meetings, and relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center, a far-left organization that brands mainstream conservative and Christian organizations “hate groups,” putting them on a map with the Ku Klux Klan. The FBI’s Richmond office cited the SPLC in targeting “radical traditional Catholics” for surveillance in a memo last January, before the national office officially rescinded the memo. The Justice Department took a briefing with the SPLC when it released a “hate” report in 2023. The post FBI Whistleblower–a Democrat–Calls Out Politicized Targeting in Security Clearances appeared first on The Daily Signal.

If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The Supreme Court has today announced it would review a legal challenge against a Texas statute mandating digital ID verification of any websites and apps that could be deemed “harmful to minors.” The law is usually cited in relation to pornographic material but the broad term “harmful to minors” can be applicable across many websites, preventing people from interacting with a website without first uploading their ID. This legal battle revolves around Texas’ age verification bill, introduced in 2023. The law also compels these sites to present health warnings concerning the alleged psychological dangers associated with pornography consumption. Notably, this labeling requirement does not yet extend to search engines or social media platforms. Related: The 2024 Digital ID and Online Age Verification Agenda Websites that fail to comply with the law face steep fines, including daily civil penalties of up to $10,000 and, if a minor accesses restricted content, potential fines from the Texas attorney general up to $250,000 per instance. Texas is not alone in implementing such regulations; similar laws are currently active in seven other states and are set to be introduced in more states soon. The Free Speech Coalition, along with several adult website operators, filed a lawsuit against the bill. Their legal argument is that the law infringes on First Amendment rights. A federal district court initially halted the law’s enforcement just before its implementation on September 1, 2023. Mandatory digital ID requirements for website and social media use raise significant concerns about the chilling effect on free speech. These requirements can deter online participation due to privacy fears, and undermine anonymity vital for activists and whistleblowers. Such policies may also lead to self-censorship, as users might avoid sharing controversial opinions out of fear of being easily traced. Additionally, implementing digital IDs poses complex legal, technical, and logistical challenges that could result in bureaucratic errors and data breaches. The major Big Tech ID verification AU10TIX was recently reported to have suffered a data leak, though the company says it hasn’t seen evidence of any user data being exploited. The majority of the panel at the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit concluded that the Texas law is “rationally related to the government’s legitimate interest in preventing minors’ access to pornography,” using the least stringent rational-basis review standard, and thus did not violate the First Amendment. In contrast, Judge Patrick Higginbotham dissented, arguing that the law necessitates strict scrutiny due to its content-based restrictions on adult access to protected speech. As the 5th Circuit allowed its decision to stand, the Free Speech Coalition and the affected websites escalated the matter to the Supreme Court. Their appeal emphasized the contradiction between the 5th Circuit’s decision and established Supreme Court precedents regarding sexual content and expression. They argue that the law unduly burdens adults’ constitutional rights by requiring the disclosure of personal information, thus increasing the risk of data breaches and privacy violations. Texas officials defend the legislation, asserting it as a reasonable measure to protect minors from sexually explicit materials and not an undue burden on the porn industry. Related: Australian Finance Minister Pushes Digital ID System Despite Data Breach Concerns If you're tired of censorship and dystopian threats against civil liberties, subscribe to Reclaim The Net. The post Supreme Court To Hear Challenge To Texas’ Online Digital ID Mandate appeared first on Reclaim The Net.