How is this possible?

Voters understand the Democrat court's deeply corrupt and partisan actions to prevent Joe Biden's leading political opponent from appearing on state's 2024 ballot.

Find out the truth behind these common Disney myths.

The nearly five-minute production is another well-produced and comprehensive year-end 'In Memoriam' video from Turner Classic Movies‚ celebrating and bidding farewell to notable creative talents who passed away in 2023.

More women are watching porn than ever before‚ according to a recent report from Pornhub Insights. Since 2015‚ the percentage of female viewers of Pornhub worldwide has increased 12 percent‚ rising from 24 percent to 36 percent in eight years. READ MORE: The Fighting Irish Fight for Freedom From Porn Depending on the country‚ women make up between 25 percent and 60 percent of Pornhub viewers. While the Philippines was the only country that saw a majority of female porn viewers‚ in Colombia‚ they made up exactly half of Pornhub visitors‚ and Argentina‚ Mexico‚ China‚ and Ukraine saw 47‚ 45‚ 41‚ and 40 percent‚ respectively. In the United States‚ women made up 29 percent of viewers. This increase is not just an anomaly; the percentage of women viewing porn has been consistently trending upward since Pornhub Insights began releasing its report. “Since Google Analytics began tracking demographics data in 2015‚ we have seen our proportion of female visitors steadily increase over time‚” reported the site. “Overall‚ there was a proportional growth of +1% female viewers in the year 2023‚ bringing the total proportion of female visitors worldwide to 36%.” Women viewed a number of LGBTQ categories at much higher percentages than men‚ with lesbian content being their “favorite‚” according to Pornhub Insights. Media Pushes Porn for Women In 2010‚ only 2 percent of women aged 18–39 surveyed by the Pew Research Center admitted to watching porn. By 2013‚ this number had already increased to 8 percent. This cultural shift has been pushed by the mainstream media and Hollywood‚ with sites like Glamour posting such stories like “Porn for Women: 21 Feminist Porn Sites You’ll Really‚ Really Enjoy.” In promoting this content‚ the media ignores the reality that pornography is a dire problem for both men and women‚ and it’s only getting worse. According to Psychology Today‚ the porn industry is thriving. “[In] April 2020‚ the world’s top 100 [porn] sites garnered 14.5 billion views from 3.3 billion unique visitors‚” the site reports. But as the industry booms‚ relationships suffer. Even if a woman herself doesn’t view pornography‚ there’s a high probability that a woman will have to deal with the consequences of pornography in her relationship. One in five couples report “conflict related to pornography‚” and‚ among married men‚ only a quarter claimed “no current pornography use‚” according to a 2021 report from Brigham Young University. In addition‚ pornography has been shown to have significant negative impacts on the mental and emotional wellbeing of those who view it‚ leading to an increase of suicidal thoughts‚ a lack of self-esteem‚ and issues with sexual function.The post More Women Are Watching Porn Than Ever Before first appeared on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.The post More Women Are Watching Porn Than Ever Before appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

As diversity equity and inclusion reaches its apotheosis‚ some erstwhile protected classes are chafing at their recent exclusion. Being diverse only matters if power and privilege are associated with the moniker. What happens when the loathed white majority views itself as excluded and as a persecuted class? America is about to find out. The problem with this gussied up tribalism is that people start identifying with their tribe‚ especially if their tribe is at the bottom rung of the power structure. White men are no longer being judged based on the content of their character or the merit of what they produce. They’re judged based on their skin color and gonads and they are de facto being deprived of college placement and job promotions. They’re being pushed out of polite society and have become the butt of every joke. (READ MORE from Melissa Mackenzie: On Becoming Catholic) Many say‚ “well‚ it’s about damn time” as they perceive white men as privileged people — people‚ who through no qualifications other than being white and male‚ sat at the top of the power structure. If white men endure a couple of generations of persecution‚ it’s no more than they deserve for all the colonization‚ destruction‚ and unearned benefits they’ve enjoyed. The younger generations … believe in protected classes and power and they view Jewish people as white and powerful. The only problem with this equation is that these people being shoved‚ forcefully‚ to the bottom rung still make up the majority. That is‚ if they choose to fight back‚ numbers are on their side. To this point‚ white men and white women haven’t viewed themselves through a critical theory lens. They’ve been inculcated with the idea of a color-blind society‚ a melting pot. Fairness meant seeing people as individuals and to not judge a whole group based on one person. That idea was called racism. It was considered racist to demonize a whole racial group. Racism was anathema to most white people‚ save a few racist stragglers. The worst epithet that could be hurled at a white person was “racist!” Further‚ in critical theory‚ “people of color” (not colored people‚ mind you) could not be considered racist because to be racist‚ one has to have power. The question now: Who has the power? Judging by the recent Congressional hearings interviewing the women heading the various ivory towers‚ it’s not white men. Racism against white people is now the norm. From government Christmas parties excluding white employees to “safe spaces” on campus‚ discrimination against white people isn’t just allowed‚ it’s encouraged. What happens when systemic suppression happens to the majority? America is about to find out. White kids have been drinking in the critical theory while simultaneously de-Christianizing‚ and since they‚ too‚ now view the world through this lens‚ they’re coming to the obvious conclusion: Being white is bad (some‚ mostly daft girls‚ think being bad is good) and white people are at the bottom. Being at the bottom is no fun especially when previously one didn’t believe in a top or bottom at all. (READ MORE: After Turning a Generation Into Illiterate Morons‚ Columbia Fires Teaching Hack) The woke didn’t reckon that a white majority might also seek victim status once the boot to the face jammed the whites down the ladder of status‚ simply for being white. They thought their racism would have no consequences; they still seem to think that. Left out of these leftist will to power calculations is that the white majority is increasingly secular. Previously‚ their Christianity served as a limit to behavior. Christians submit to God‚ have faith in Him‚ and God‚ in the Christian worldview‚ views each person as an individual‚ “Neither Jew nor Greek‚ male nor female‚ slave nor free.” God‚ in the Christian worldview‚ sees each soul and Christians are told to view people that way‚ too. Christians are told‚ “Judge not‚ lest you be judged.” Jesus is the ultimate judge and jury and so on an individual level‚ vengeance is God’s‚ not the Christian’s. Christianity isn’t tribal. It’s universal. It’s the whole body of Christ — each person has a role in the body and none of it has to do with one’s skin color or intersectional status. What is made clear is‚ “the last shall be made first.” The Bible is filled with warnings about persecuting the poor and abusing those deemed as lesser in society. Jesus was also clear about loving one’s enemies and blessing those who persecute you. America’s unifying themes were Christian. The Founders had this understanding as a foundation for the nation they were creating. As the United States secularizes‚ a reality that makes the woke rejoice‚ the majority‚ once governed by limiting principles in the use of power due to Christian ideals‚ will no longer be limited. Some historically marginalized groups‚ primarily Asians and Jews‚ are chafing at the label of “white.” The same leftist Jewish professors and university funders who taught or believed in this intersectional clap-trap are alarmed to see the virulent anti-semitism that sat beneath the surface‚ and worse‚ that no one is fighting against it because Jewish people have been lumped in with white people as “colonizers.” Jews‚ in this critical analysis‚ deserve abuse because they are white‚ have positions of power‚ and are oppressors against the brown people. It doesn’t matter that Hamas attacked Israel. It doesn’t matter what is just or right. What matters is that in the critical theory hierarchy‚ Jews are perceived as white. While some Jewish liberals such as Bill Ackman and Alan Dershowitz have recently spoken out against campus DEI efforts‚ it is interesting that Jewish leftists are not scrambling‚ as they should be‚ to dismantle the critical theory concepts that led to this evil place. Rather‚ they’re desirous of being viewed as a victimized class deserving of special considerations. Jewish leaders opposed California’s adoption of a new Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum‚ according to David Bernstein‚ author of Woke Antisemitism‚ because of “its implicit omission of Jews as an oppressed group.” Critical theory and intersectionality inevitably lead to a fractured society where all members identify with a group based on superficial characteristics so that they can have power. Or‚ when things go really badly‚ protection. Unfortunately‚ Jewish people in America and the world are a small group of people‚ proportionally. They’re always at the mercy of the majority. In this case‚ the majority is white and nominally Christian. Up to this point‚ Jewish people self-identified as a persecuted class. They’ve been overruled by other persecuted classes who have decided to label them white and privileged. White identitarianism may be the only recompense the hated majority have to achieve respect and fair-play. To the chagrin of many leftist Jewish people‚ America is standing alone as the major power defending Israel. Why is that? What is it about the older generations of American people that defends Israel and the Jewish people? Well‚ they remember the Holocaust‚ for one. For two‚ a Protestant nation believes that Jews are God’s blessed people and to receive blessings‚ Israel and the Jewish people should be blessed. The younger generations‚ the ones soaked in critical theory‚ do not believe this. They believe in protected classes and power and they view Jewish people as white and powerful. Marry this trend with white people secularizing and starting to see themselves not as Americans but as white Americans‚ well … This new belief system is catastrophic for social cohesion. It ends in violence. The solution to this cultural disaster is not placing the Jewish people back into a protected class. The solution is to demolish the pernicious ideas of critical theory completely. DEI needs to be obliterated from every institution. It’s an evil. What should replace this nonsense? Merit. Objective standards level the playing field and remove this garbage. In addition‚ America needs a Christian revival. Love‚ not revenge‚ is the solution to this bleak cultural nonsense. Tearing down statues‚ creating “safe spaces‚” and excluding people based on skin color will not right the wrongs of the past. It’s only more evil that foments more anger and that’s especially dangerous when those being made angry are the majority. (WATCH: The Spectacle Ep. 40: Victimhood‚ Religious Bigotry‚ and Max Miller)  In the critical theory calculation‚ one that is entirely tribal‚ might makes right. Have those pushing these ideas considered what that means for them? White identitarianism may be the only recompense the hated majority have to achieve respect and fair-play‚ but it will come at great cost. The woke haven’t considered the price they might pay. READ MORE from Melissa Mackenzie: Kari Lake’s Bid to Raise Arizona Stumbling Into World War III  The post When White People Start Believing Critical Race Theory first appeared on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.The post When White People Start Believing Critical Race Theory appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

This spring‚ when the Biden administration unveiled its long-delayed national strategy to counter anti-Semitism‚ there was — for a brief moment — cause for hope. Jewish leaders praised the plan. So‚ too‚ did prominent voices in the Black community. READ MORE from Paul Packer: I Was There on October 7 The affirmations of support seemed more than routine platitudes. They appeared to reflect a reinvigorated bond between the Black and Jewish communities‚ two groups that historically locked arms in the struggle for freedom and equality. But in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against Israel‚ a different picture has emerged — one of selective outrage and glaring double standards that does grave injustice to the cause of civil rights. In the last month‚ as synagogues and kosher shops have once again become targets of anti-Semitic vandalism and violent attacks‚ condemnation from our Black allies has been conspicuously absent. The same leaders who were so eager to stand with Jewish groups in May now respond to these acts with deafening silence. Michelle Obama refuses to use her massive platform to condemn Hamas’ rape and murder of Israeli women. And when asked if Hamas is a terrorist organization‚ the Southern Poverty Law Center responded with stony indifference: “It is outside of our purview and expertise to comment on international events.” This betrayal of solidarity is morally obtuse and strategically self-defeating. The struggle for civil rights has never been a zero-sum game. Its power derives from unity‚ not division. In 1963‚ five years before an assassin’s bullet stilled his mighty voice‚ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared‚ “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Those prophetic words have echoed through the decades as a clarion call against moral indifference. Yet‚ too often‚ the call to conscience that followed goes unquoted: “Injustice to any people is a threat to justice for all people‚” King insisted‚ “and even though I live in the United States‚ and even though I happen to be an American Negro‚ I cannot stand idly by and fail to be concerned about the fate of my brothers and sisters who happen to be Jews in Soviet Russia. What happens to them‚ happens to me and to you and we must all be concerned.” In that piercing elaboration‚ King underscored a basic truth now widely ignored: The struggle for human dignity recognizes no ethnic boundaries. From Sderot to Selma‚ bigotry stains the soul wherever it spills innocent blood. Civil rights leaders once grasped this. No longer‚ it seems. As anti-Semitism again surges‚ yesterday’s fiery allies respond with silence. Or‚ worse‚ tacit justification and contemptible equivocation. This moral abdication dishonors sacred memory. When Jewish students joined sit-ins at lunch counters in 1960‚ they did not pause first to scrutinize the NAACP’s policy platform. They acted on the basic conviction that denying service on the basis of identity is unconscionable. Likewise‚ when Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — both viciously murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1964 — traveled to Mississippi to register Black voters‚ they didn’t first demand that King endorse Israel or Zionism. Their solidarity derived from a shared quest to redeem America’s founding promise. And‚ for that‚ they paid the ultimate price. This principled solidarity has evaporated today‚ revealing a disheartening moral timidity. Faced with unambiguous attacks on Jewish people and Jewish institutions‚ too many remain silent or equivocate. Even prominent Black leaders trip over themselves to offer mealy-mouthed justifications that they would instantly repudiate if the targets were mosques or Black churches. It is blind tribalism masquerading as progressive politics. We have seen this movie before. Division and despair breed more darkness‚ fueling a downward spiral that ultimately consumes us all. If we abandon solidarity as a core civil rights principle‚ the forces of racism and anti-Semitism will be the sole winners. That is why partnerships that build trust across communities remain essential. Black and Jewish communities still have so much to gain from reviving the coalition of conscience. These efforts should focus not on stoking grievances but on affirming shared hopes. Anti-Semitism and racism are twin poisons‚ flowing from the same basic impulse to scapegoat vulnerable minorities. They must be fought collectively‚ not selectively. The work of reconciliation and healing starts with overcoming the current impasse. As a first step‚ prominent civil rights organizations — including and especially those who lent their support to the national strategy to combat antisemitism — should host joint viewings of video evidence recently recovered from Hamas terrorists in Gaza revealing the orchestrated campaign of violence against Israel. Seeing the facts firsthand and discussing them openly may begin easing tensions. From there‚ rebuilding broken bridges will be the harder but essential next phase. With anti-Semitism surging at home and abroad‚ the time for fair weather friends has passed. In moments of crisis‚ real allies are conspicuous in their support and solidarity. America’s Black and Jewish communities cannot afford the luxury of isolation and separation‚ which will only produce more fear and violence. Common struggle made America better once before — and common struggle can make it better once more. But only if we stand united.The post Silence That Can Kill: Where Are the Black Friends Jews Need? first appeared on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.The post Silence That Can Kill: Where Are the Black Friends Jews Need? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Former Secretary of State and White House national security administrator Henry Kissinger’s last service for his country was to warn his fellow Americans that substituting artificial intelligence for real human intelligence was “simply a mad race” toward “catastrophe.”  READ MORE: Henry Kissinger: Eight Decades of Service to American National Security Kissinger joined former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and MIT Dean Daniel Huttenlocher to write a formal critique of artificial intelligence by comparing it to the 1455 Gutenberg Bible. “Whereas the printing press caused a profusion of modern human thought‚” they argued‚ AI would frustrate it by “creat[ing] a gap between human knowledge and human understanding.” According to Kissinger‚ Schmidt‚ and Huttenlocher‚ the latest technology is called “generative pre-trained transformer” (GPT) artificial intelligence. OpenAI’s ChatGPT version “is now able to converse with humans“; its goal is to “redefine human knowledge‚ accelerate changes in the fabric of our reality‚ and reorganize politics and society.” What is that new reality? Here is how the Kissinger team explained AI’s “change”: Sophisticated AI methods produce results without explaining why or how their process works. The GPT computer is prompted by a query from a human. The learning machine answers in literate text within seconds. It is able to do so because it has pregenerated representations of the vast data on which it was trained. Because the process by which it created those representations was developed by machine learning that reflects patterns and connections across vast amounts of text‚ the precise sources and reasons for any one representation’s particular features remain unknown.  They reported that AI “complexity … doubl[es] every few months” with “capabilities that remain undisclosed even to their inventors.” Inventors proceed “without understanding their origin or destination.” As far as results: ChatGPT’s answers‚ statements and observations appear without an explanation of where they came from and without an identifiable author. On its face‚ ChatGPT has no discernible motive or bias. Its outputs are complex‚ but its work is astonishingly rapid: In a matter of seconds‚ it can produce answers that coherently explain a high-level topic. They are not simply copied from the text in the computer’s memory. They are generated anew by a process that humans are unable to replicate.  The team presented questions to the machine that were answered wrongly‚ distorted‚ or even changed over time. Yet‚ answers come in seconds and seem so authoritative. Students already use ChatGPT to cheat on exams. It can be used to distort advertising to look as though it is from friends. It can be used to distort material from public officials and candidates for political office. How about deciding whether to go to war based on such information? (RELATED: Biden Administration Meddles in Technology It Doesn’t Understand) Over the long run‚ the analysts cautioned: Leadership [of artificial intelligence] is likely to concentrate in the hands of the fewer people and institutions who control access to the limited number of machines capable of high-quality synthesis of reality. Because of the enormous cost of their processing power‚ the most effective machines within society may stay in the hands of a small subgroup domestically and in the control of a few superpowers internationally. But to this former director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management‚ this conclusion merely gets to the surface of the real problem‚ which is our own superpower government. Its increasingly bureaucratic dominance of American domestic social life is only exceeded by popular dissatisfaction with the results. With the natural bias of government data toward the past‚ AI would make national government more and more outdated even if it worked as intended‚ since AI itself looks to past data. Even if the direct defects of AI itself can be minimized‚ the fundamental problem comes from government itself‚ which is the only institution that can force the results to be implemented. Government bureaucracy developed historically by measuring crops as a way to bring the wealth of agricultural Mesopotamia under state control. That primitive version first created symbols to count grain‚ and similar but evolving information-like tools have been essential to its power ever since. And since such tools can only measure the past‚ the past has generally controlled the future. That is why it took so long to develop efficient markets‚ and why the rise of general prosperity did not take place until 10‚000 years later in decentralized Europe rather than in the bureaucratic empires. Artificial intelligence vastly exaggerates today’s more centralized‚ cumbersome‚ bureaucratic national governments’ dependence on the past. Modern AI is the past on steroids. But social progress comes from new knowledge challenging past solutions. The container ship-box was not a consequence of data or even of a theory but of a revolutionary change in thinking that dramatically increased world trade and wealth. Newton’s law of gravity was replaced by Einstein’s law of relativity‚ “not as a logically implied or predictable next step but as a shocking revolt against the most firmly established propositions of physics‚” as one analyst put it. (READ MORE: Elon Musk’s AI Bot Is Funny?) Future growth and progress require freedom from regressive rules. Growth could survive private development of AI since that still allows choice and competition from alternatives and probably some means to avoid or contain its effects. The private sector lacks real power to enforce the results produced by AI. But national government has the power and has proved easily tempted to force the results of its backward-looking solutions upon its dependent populations. So‚ my modest proposal would be a law to forbid the national government from using AI as a determinate for its own policies.  Indeed‚ the U.S. Governmental Accountability Office has just released a report finding that 20 national government agencies are proposing 1‚200 artificial intelligence use-cases‚ asking Congress to approve $1.8 billion to fund them. And those agency processes would be overseen by multiple government-wide management offices to spread AI to the rest of government. The GAO report is a wake-up call for the need to place at least a temporary congressional hold on adopting these and other government AI agency plans. Or it might even take another 10‚000 years to free society from this backward-looking AI bureaucracy trap.The post Confronting the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Backward-Looking Bureaucracy Trap first appeared on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.The post Confronting the ‘Artificial Intelligence’ Backward-Looking Bureaucracy Trap appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.