“EXCLUSIVE: Ontario high school student kicked out of Catholic school for saying there are only two sexes, staging same-sex bathroom protest
An Ontario student is excluded from his school for the rest of the year for saying there are only two sexes, with the school stating that his presence would be detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of transgender students.”
“An Ontario high school student is not allowed to attend his Catholic school for the remainder of the year because he expressed the belief that God created only two sexes, with the school arguing that his presence would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students.
Josh Alexander, 16, has not been permitted to attend St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario since last November when he organized a protest in support of the right of female students to have single-sex washrooms after two girls had confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing spaces with trans-identified male students.”
Alexander had also expressed his belief that there are only two immutable sexes during a law class discussion, saying that he felt that males belong in male washrooms and females belong in female washrooms because identity doesn’t change biology. This, he told The Post Millennial, was considered “offensive” and “bullying” because there was a transgender student in the class.
First, the Grade 11 student was suspended, but then following the end of his suspension, the principal made the decision to “exclude” him for the remainder of the year. The two amount to the same thing, but an exclusion is not technically disciplinary.
“They’re using it as a technicality to say that they’re not disciplining me and it’s just a form of exclusion to protect the other students,” Alexander explained. However, while he remains excluded, he cannot enroll in any other education programs.
“I am unable to do any other form of education because as long as I’m enrolled in the Catholic board, I’m not allowed to take an alternative route of education,” he said “So I’m enrolled, but I’m not allowed to attend school. So right now I actually have no form of education.”
Alexander told The Post Millennial he would like the opportunity to dispel some of the rumours being spread about him.
“There have been a lot of rumours about me, from some of the local Pride groups that ended up protesting at my school,” Alexander said. “Some of them say I had plans to be violent, or that it was an anti-trans rally, when none of that was really the case. I simply wanted the males removed from the female washrooms, regardless of their identity. This whole issue isn’t about identity. It’s about biology and morality.””
So what he’s saying is the media and Dems are lying to us again. Still.
Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of NORAD, takes questions on Chinese spy balloon. Was asked about previous balloons administration says crossed US in Trump years. Has very little to say. Then asked: If you didn't know about them then, how do you know now? Has even less to say. pic.twitter.com/fA4Ri2Q1Up
So the agency responsible for tracking/eliminating those threats didn’t know a damn thing? But some other agency who doesn’t work that domain *totally* knows now? Wonder if we can get a letter saying that signed by 51 intel officials?
So just more lies from our defense and intelligence agencies. You know like WMD'S in Iraq. 51 Intel officials say Hunter Biden's laptop was fake, Russia colludid with Trump, what's one more lie. 🤔 You know like Trump was selling nuclear secrets to the Russians! Right?
“The Washington Free Beacon‘s Chuck Ross revealed that the Pentagon wouldn’t name the official who provided misleading information about three supposed Chinese spy balloons during President Donald Trump’s administration.
The senior official said on Saturday:
PRC [People’s Republic of China] government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time. We spoke directly with Chinese officials through multiple channels, but rather than address their intrusion into our airspace, the PRC put out an explanation that lacked any credibility.
The media and Democrats ate it up. During his administration, Trump and his former officials, including John Bolton, denied knowledge of Chinese spy balloons.
Officials in the Pentagon changed their story on Sunday, but honestly, they made it worse. They told the media the balloons were discovered after Trump left office.
An official told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday:
“This information was discovered after the prior administration left,” one of the officials said. The official said that intelligence agencies are preparing to brief key figures in the previous Trump administration.”
““Booming Job Gains Could Fuel Fed Debate Over Whether More Is Needed to Corral Inflation,” screams a Wall Street Journal headline.
“Fresh signs of a hot U.S. labor market leave the Federal Reserve on course to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point at its meeting next month and to signal another increase is likely after that,” reads the story. “Employers added a robust 517,000 jobs last month and … Average hourly earnings grew 4.4% in January from a year earlier, down from a revised 4.8% in December… Fed officials could conclude that… still‐tight labor markets will boost workers’ bargaining power and their overall incomes, providing fuel for inflation to reaccelerate after slowing. That could lead officials to conclude they will have to do more to slow the economy by raising rates higher or holding them higher for longer—or both.”
All that excitement over a routine “seasonal adjustment” to make a couple of million lost jobs look like half a million new hires? Really?”
“The graph shows the number of private employees always falls quite dramatically every January, after holiday shopping, and 2023 was certainly no exception. This January’s job loss was slightly less than January 2007 or January 2020 (if such pre‐recession data provide any comfort), so it looks like a big gain in such relative terms. The fallacy that “employers added a robust 517,000 jobs last month” confounded a statistician’s seasonal adjustment with an actual increase in the number of people collecting paychecks. There were nearly 2.2 million fewer people on private payrolls in January than December, and that did not “boost their overall incomes.”
Note that I use only private employment and earnings because it seems unlikely the Fed thinks it can control federal, state, and local government hiring and pay policy. Investment in housing, durable goods and business investment are sensitive to interest rates, but not politicians.
Hourly earnings in the private sector slowed to a 3.6% annual rate (0.3% this January), down from 4.8% in December, 5.2% in November and 8% in January of 2022. There is no shred of evidence of accelerating private wage gains, without which Fed officials’ banal “tight labor market” mantra is pointless.”
“It’s a hopeful sign that a growing number of journalists are taking a hard look at the media’s coverage of former President Donald Trump’s administration, with many concluding that, yes, corporate media behaved terribly during those years.
It suggests there may be hope yet for this industry. After all, admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.
In January, the Columbia Journalism Review published a decisive four-part takedown of the press’s mishandling of the Trump White House, including their slipshod and oftentimes unethical promotion of the “Russian collusion” narrative, which posited the former president conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
“No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate,” said CJR Editor-in-Chief Kyle Pope. “The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes and embarrassing retractions and damaged careers.”
As we know now, this “Russian collusion” narrative imploded in 2019 when a special counsel’s investigation (which included 40 agents, 2,800 subpoenas, some 500 search warrants, and 500 witness interviews) concluded it could not “establish that the members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
So much for all those breathless reports, all those “bombshell” news “scoops” suggesting the former president worked hand-in-glove with the Kremlin to steal the election. And though it was clear at the time the media were behaving irresponsibly and sloppily, CJR’s 18-month investigation, spearheaded by freelance journalist Jeff Gerth, who spent 30 years at the New York Times, puts the full breadth and scope of the media’s mishandling of the Trump presidency into perspective.
For example, Gerth identifies the media’s overreliance on anonymous sources as one of the chief failings of their coverage of the Trump White House. As a reminder, in journalism, anonymous sources should be used only as a last resort, not the go-to for information. Major media outlets know this, but groups, including the New York Times, relaxed the usual standards for the Trump era.
Gerth writes [emphasis added]: “One frequent and vague catchphrase — ‘people (or person) familiar with’ — is widely used by many journalists: the [New York Times] used it over a thousand times in stories involving Trump and Russia between October 2016 and the end of his presidency, according to a Nexis search.”
“The last executive editor I worked for, Bill Keller, frowned on its use. He told the staff repeatedly the phrase was ‘so vague it could even mean the reporter,'” he added.
If you’re a journalist, this isn’t groundbreaking stuff. Journalists know, and generally follow, this guidance. But not for the Trump White House.
The Washington Post declined several of Gerth’s requests for comment. Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron declined to be interviewed. Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee and “other Washington Post” journalists likewise declined requests for an interview. The Washington Post was awarded a Pulitzer for its “Russian collusion” coverage. The Atlantic didn’t “respond to an email seeking comment.” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, who claimed during an appearance on MSNBC that the Steele dossier supposedly implicating Trump in a Moscow plot “was looking better and better every day, more and more credible,” declined Gerth’s request for comment. A spokesman for NBC declined to comment.
“Other outlets mentioned in this piece declined to discuss their anonymous-sourcing practices,” Gerth writes.
The broader press obviously must have a lot of work to do to address the industrywide dysfunction and corruption that allowed outlets to get so many Trump-era stories wrong. There’s even more work to be done to repair the trust that has been lost due to its sloppy and unethical “reporting.” But CJR’s unrelentingly thorough and unflinching four-part takedown is a good start.
Hamilton 68
Speaking of thin, unreliable sourcing, freelance journalist Matt Taibbi published a similarly damning report revealing that a go-to “source” for the legacy media’s coverage of online Russian disinformation is, in fact, an outright propaganda machine.
Hamilton 68, a neoliberal think-tank that claims to specialize in disinformation research, “spawned hundreds of fraudulent headlines and TV news segments” regarding the supposed pervasiveness of Russian agitprop on U.S. social media,” Taibbi writes.
“Virtually every major news organization in America is implicated, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the group’s ‘research,’” he adds. “Even fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as a source.”
Taibbi continues, writing:
“The problem is: Hamilton 68’s research methods, which were hidden from the public, including the newsrooms that so eagerly promoted the think-tank’s “data,” are not just sloppy. They’re intentionally deceiving, as internal Twitter documents reveal.”
Upon a closer examination, Twitter executives discovered that the “accounts Hamilton 68 claimed were linked to ‘Russian influence activities online’ were not only overwhelmingly English-language (86%), but mostly ‘legitimate people,’ largely in the U.S., Canada, and Britain,” Taibbi writes.
“The two founders of Hamilton 68, the blue-and-red team of former counselor to Marco Rubio Jamie Fly and Hillary for America Foreign Policy Advisor Laura Rosenberger, told Politico they couldn’t reveal the names of the accounts because ‘the Russians will simply shut them down,'” he adds.
Yeah, this is clearly a lie.
“One look at the list reveals the real reason they couldn’t make it public,” Taibbi rightly notes. “This was not faulty science. It was a scam. Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”
And the U.S. press, that supposed bulwark of truth and democracy, ate it up, not even pausing to question whether the “data” points were accurate or even truthful.
Nearly as bad as the initial scandal of newsrooms blindly repeating Hamilton 68’s garbage “research” is the fact there has been no transparency whatsoever from the media regarding this major muck-up.”
Twitter acct suspended:
@SteveDaines because his profile picture is of him and his wife hunting…What a disgrace!” said Donald Trump Jr. in a post on Twitter.
The news about the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Turkey (and Syria) mentioned on the prayer thread is worse and worse. Over 5,000 known dead and the toll expected to rise significantly. It would be good if our leaders were as enthusiastic about sending needed supplies of food , water, blankets, and medical aid as they are about exporting death.
Debra and NancyJill – I am rather dumbfounded that you don’t see how rude AJ can be to those who disagree with him. All I can figure is that it is because you are closer to his view on political issues, and so don’t “see” the offense. That is rather common, in that it is easier to recognize rude attitudes in those we already disagree with than in those we do agree with.
As for whether “passion” is right or wrong, I think it is one of those things that can be either. Self-control is part of the fruit of the Spirit. Proverbs has a lot to say about the danger of the tongue, which I dare say applies to the keyboard, too.
We are not looking for offense, believe me. We are used to how “passionate” AJ is. But sometimes he crosses the line into rudeness. DJ and I are not the only ones who see this, as others have merely completely left the blog over it or don’t bother commenting.
So anyway, before I go, I will leave this prayer that popped up in a post that I saw this morning.
~ “Lord God, when controversies occasion division among your people, may I look first to the interest of the common good and to the exercise of charity.
May I not become a passionate contender for any party or censure the peaceable.
May I not overreach my understanding or try to win esteem for my orthodoxy or zeal.
May I suspect my own unripe evaluation and silence my opinions until I am clear and certain.
May I join the moderates and the peacemakers rather than the contenders and dividers.
For division leads to the ruin of the church, the hindrance of the gospel and injury to the interests of true religion.
Keep me, I pray, from being misguided; from being carried away by passion or discontent; from worldly interests; from thinking too highly of my own opinion.
May my zeal be more for faith, charity and unity than for my opinions.” ~
Kizzie I cannot speak for Debra but for me I can tell you I am not “blind” due to agreement on the political issues. I think we can all say we are dumbfounded at times with posts on not only this blog but others. What I see is deception from those who stand on the side of darkness. It is clear to me and perhaps not so clear to others. I give it to Him keep us upon the path He has set before us. We are not all going to be the same in manner or speech. Like was said before, iron sharpening iron. I find myself challenged not only here but with other friends who happen to not hold my same views. I try my darnedest to not be offended.
Inasmuch as the “others” leaving this blog due to rudeness or insensitivity. There have been some participators who have had no qualms about smacking others over the head with their “intellectual or spiritual insights” and attempting to make others feel as though they were of dull mind. It has happened to me and I rarely saw comment from some when it happened. Just being honest here.
I rarely come on the newsthread anymore but that is due to time constraints. Thought I would check in today to see if there was anything on the earthquake. What to my surprise….
Then I thought of the Catholic priest defrocked for being too pro life. (yes, I know there were other contributing factors)
Nancy Jill, you say, “There have been some participators who have had no qualms about smacking others over the head with their ‘intellectual or spiritual insights’ and attempting to make others feel as though they were of dull mind.”
That must have been hard to see. I’m not sure I’ve seen that on here (anyone trying to make others feel like they’re stupid dealing with spiritual topics), but this news thread has long been a spot of people doing that on political subjects. Personally I was flabbergasted at the posts of people defending AJ’s “passion” when that passion had just been used to very rudely smack down a sister for posting a harmless article explaining why balloons might still be useful in this technical age. There are reasons some of us have left this blog and others don’t post much anymore, and this is a big one.
This should be a place where Christians can disagree–and even disagree fervently–but with respect and civility always in the mix. Agree or disagree with the subject, but don’t attack the person (whether or not that person is reading the blog).
I personally left the blog because of a very weird mixture on here: (1) mere disagreement with others’ positions being seen as rudeness and (2) actual rudeness being tolerated and sometimes even applauded.
Back to kick that dead horse again are ya’ Cheryl?
You ladies wanna yell at me that’s fine, but leave the rest out please. Because what you just did there Kizzie is the same thing you accuse me of, being rude because you disagree. While I know I’m guilty as charged at times, sometimes folks are just too sensitive.
Again, save it for me when it’s directed at me, don’t take it out on folks who might disagree with your opinion on the matter.
If you are referring to my first paragraph about feeling dumbfounded, I can see where that could seem rude. I did not mean to be rude, but was expressing my surprise that certain others haven’t seen what seems obvious to others of us.
NancyJill and Debra, if my comment seemed rude or offensive to you, I apologize. I love you ladies, and did not mean to offend either of you.
It’s not that we feel “hurt” or even offended by the banter aimed at us, we kind of don’t; we’re pretty much way past that here, right? As much as you try … lol
Now we’re sometimes taken aback by the audacity of it all, and from a fellow believer at that, but I guess all’s fair in some random universal moral code somewhere.
So I guess the answer to my question was, no, other views are simply not welcome or even tolerated anymore (seems like they used to be) on this particular thread.
Those days of discussing different viewpoints are over. Good we know that was a “thing” up front, finally.
And the problem isn’t that people get hurt (we usually don’t anymore, right?); it’s that the snarky retorts are fully INTENDED to cause offense. And that’s a spiritual issue that can’t be solved on our end.
We’ll be fine, thanks for asking.
It’s the offender’s issue. Deal with it how you will — or don’t if that’s your choice. It’s your spiritual call to make.
We’re always open to any sincere move toward reconciliation, as the Scriptures make clear we should be.
“The Associated Press added an entry to its style guide directing journalists to put the term “crisis pregnancy center” in scare-quotes, and to use “anti-abortion center” instead, to convey that “the centers’ general aim is to prevent abortions.”
The AP added this entry between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, 2022, according to The Daily Signal’s search of the Wayback Machine. The guide describes the centers as “set up to divert or discourage women from having abortions” and warns writers against “potentially misleading terms” like “pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers.”
“If using the term anti-abortion center, explain later that these often are known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ (with quotation marks) and that their aim is to dissuade people from getting an abortion,” the style guide entry states. ”
Well Kizzie one could have read your response as implying if one didn’t see something the way you viewed it that the one to whom you were referring just might not be critical thinker. You know….the kind of person going along with the crowd because “we all think alike” 😜
I assure you I form my own opinions and hopefully those opinions are weighed carefully as I speak them. Husband and I always joke with one another when having an opinion on something saying “do you ALWAYS have to have an opinion?”!!
Aj needs no one to defend him. He is a brother in the Lord and I having no biological brothers kind of see him as a little brother ( he is way younger than me but I don’t think I am old enough to be his Mom!) I appreciate someone who is passionate about truth (I think ya’ll don’t really like that word but that’s all I got!) I was once told by my SIL that my daughter was too much like her Dad. Too passionate over issues. He went on to tell me he was raised kind of “loosie goosie”. I simply told him being passionate about things that matter is a good thing….and I stand by my conviction.
PS This isn’t Twitter. It’s a blog that ideally should be governed by Christian principles — that we all espouse, correct? — and ways of speaking to and treating one another.
Imagine being this triggered by the document that ensures you the freedom to be triggered by the document that ensures you the freedom to be triggered.
Chinese donations to University of Pennsylvania totaled $61 million from 2017-19, an increase from $19 million during the previous four years. The managing director of the Penn Biden Center from 2017-2019 was Antony Blinken, current Sec of State. https://t.co/XAWoDonbrc
NancyJill – I assure you that I did not mean to disparage the intelligence or thinking ability of anyone, certainly not you. I was referring to our perspectives.
Nightingale is whip-smart, highly intelligent, but sometimes I am “dumbfounded” by how differently we see a matter. But I certainly don’t think that she is unintelligent or lacking critical thinking skills.
I love you too Kizzie–all of you, and I’m rarely offended. And if I am, I just remind myself of how gracious God is to me every single day, and I use the emotional experience as an opportunity to grow. Some of you guys seem overly sensitive to me almost to the point of being petty—and I’m not trying to be insulting. I don’t see any reason for anyone to be dumbfounded or flabbergasted at our conversations. We’re adults, not hot house flowers. And we have great value both to God and to each other if we can set aside our pride and offenses to allow it. (And I include my own petty pride in that assessment.)
I have had co-workers and even one manager stick their finger in my face and scream insults. I’ve gone to work with my stomach in knots over the thought of what relatively insignificant problem or misunderstanding might trigger a maelstrom in one or two high strung people. Some of these people have been Christians and some not. At least one situation was beautifully resolved with a miraculous [to me] reconciliation. With some conflicts I have never seen the resolution, but I still pray God’s mercy and blessing on those people too.
My point is I have had many opportunities to be offended if I wanted to waste my life carrying an offense. I don’t. It makes even less sense to imagine rudeness and offenses where none is clearly intended. That is the essence of graciousness.
Debra – I agree with much of what you wrote, and I assure you that I try not to be offended. In fact, all of this started the other day because I was defending someone else, not myself.
As Christians, we have to walk a line between letting some things go (with choosing not to take offense) and sometimes speaking up when a fellow believer has a pattern of certain behavior. As I said, others have seen the same behavior and left the blog or do not read the news thread anymore. This is not a matter of DJ and I merely being “too sensitive” or imagining rudeness. Others see it, too, and have chosen to not say anything because they have seen that their concerns will be dismissed.
Graciousness also involves listening to the concerns of people who express displeasure with one’s behavior or attitude, seriously considering if they may have a point, and apologizing even if we think they may not, but knowing we have possibly hurt their feelings anyway.
Kizzie, this is not really just to you. I appreciate your point of view but I think AJ has met the burden of graciousness by providing us a good, safe place to share and pray together. This doesn’t happen without personal cost. If people don’t like the news thread they shouldn’t come here or post here. There are other threads. As I’ve said, there are times when I don’t check the news thread myself, either because I don’t have time or because I don’t want to be (more) depressed by what’s going on in the world. But I do appreciate AJ’s passion for this subject.
Wandering Views 
Canada is lost too.
“EXCLUSIVE: Ontario high school student kicked out of Catholic school for saying there are only two sexes, staging same-sex bathroom protest
An Ontario student is excluded from his school for the rest of the year for saying there are only two sexes, with the school stating that his presence would be detrimental to the physical and mental well-being of transgender students.”
https://thepostmillennial.com/ontario-high-school-student-kicked-out-of-catholic-school-for-saying-there-are-only-two-sexes-staging-same-sex-bathroom-protest?cfp
“An Ontario high school student is not allowed to attend his Catholic school for the remainder of the year because he expressed the belief that God created only two sexes, with the school arguing that his presence would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students.
Josh Alexander, 16, has not been permitted to attend St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario since last November when he organized a protest in support of the right of female students to have single-sex washrooms after two girls had confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing spaces with trans-identified male students.”
Alexander had also expressed his belief that there are only two immutable sexes during a law class discussion, saying that he felt that males belong in male washrooms and females belong in female washrooms because identity doesn’t change biology. This, he told The Post Millennial, was considered “offensive” and “bullying” because there was a transgender student in the class.
First, the Grade 11 student was suspended, but then following the end of his suspension, the principal made the decision to “exclude” him for the remainder of the year. The two amount to the same thing, but an exclusion is not technically disciplinary.
“They’re using it as a technicality to say that they’re not disciplining me and it’s just a form of exclusion to protect the other students,” Alexander explained. However, while he remains excluded, he cannot enroll in any other education programs.
“I am unable to do any other form of education because as long as I’m enrolled in the Catholic board, I’m not allowed to take an alternative route of education,” he said “So I’m enrolled, but I’m not allowed to attend school. So right now I actually have no form of education.”
Alexander told The Post Millennial he would like the opportunity to dispel some of the rumours being spread about him.
“There have been a lot of rumours about me, from some of the local Pride groups that ended up protesting at my school,” Alexander said. “Some of them say I had plans to be violent, or that it was an anti-trans rally, when none of that was really the case. I simply wanted the males removed from the female washrooms, regardless of their identity. This whole issue isn’t about identity. It’s about biology and morality.””
——
Common sense and biology are offensive now too.
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This looks insurrectiony by the Democrats standards.
When will the arrests and trials begin?
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Tucker dissects the latest Dem and media hoax.
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So what he’s saying is the media and Dems are lying to us again. Still.
Yeah, me too….
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But he’s really good at tracking Santa Claus!!!! @NORADTRACKING…
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Well that’s something, right?
Lol. 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Hey maybe that’s what they say are the 2 incidents during Trump’s time, it’s actually Santa. 🙂
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That’s because no such person actually exists.
“Pentagon Won’t Name Official Who Divulged Misleading Info About Chinese Spy Balloons During Trump Admin
This is unbelievable. Transparency, you guys.”
https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/02/pentagon-wont-name-official-who-divulged-misleading-info-about-chinese-spy-balloons-during-trump-admin/
“The Washington Free Beacon‘s Chuck Ross revealed that the Pentagon wouldn’t name the official who provided misleading information about three supposed Chinese spy balloons during President Donald Trump’s administration.
The senior official said on Saturday:
PRC [People’s Republic of China] government surveillance balloons transited the continental United States briefly at least three times during the prior administration and once that we know of at the beginning of this administration, but never for this duration of time. We spoke directly with Chinese officials through multiple channels, but rather than address their intrusion into our airspace, the PRC put out an explanation that lacked any credibility.
The media and Democrats ate it up. During his administration, Trump and his former officials, including John Bolton, denied knowledge of Chinese spy balloons.
Officials in the Pentagon changed their story on Sunday, but honestly, they made it worse. They told the media the balloons were discovered after Trump left office.
An official told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday:
“This information was discovered after the prior administration left,” one of the officials said. The official said that intelligence agencies are preparing to brief key figures in the previous Trump administration.”
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When Biden tells this lie later tonight, you’ll see it for what it is, despite the media spin.
https://www.cato.org/blog/can-seasonal-adjustment-lost-jobs-justify-tighter-fed-3
““Booming Job Gains Could Fuel Fed Debate Over Whether More Is Needed to Corral Inflation,” screams a Wall Street Journal headline.
“Fresh signs of a hot U.S. labor market leave the Federal Reserve on course to raise interest rates by a quarter percentage point at its meeting next month and to signal another increase is likely after that,” reads the story. “Employers added a robust 517,000 jobs last month and … Average hourly earnings grew 4.4% in January from a year earlier, down from a revised 4.8% in December… Fed officials could conclude that… still‐tight labor markets will boost workers’ bargaining power and their overall incomes, providing fuel for inflation to reaccelerate after slowing. That could lead officials to conclude they will have to do more to slow the economy by raising rates higher or holding them higher for longer—or both.”
All that excitement over a routine “seasonal adjustment” to make a couple of million lost jobs look like half a million new hires? Really?”
https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/2023-02/January%20Monthly%20Change%20in%20Private%20Employment.png?itok=kj47G5MP
“The graph shows the number of private employees always falls quite dramatically every January, after holiday shopping, and 2023 was certainly no exception. This January’s job loss was slightly less than January 2007 or January 2020 (if such pre‐recession data provide any comfort), so it looks like a big gain in such relative terms. The fallacy that “employers added a robust 517,000 jobs last month” confounded a statistician’s seasonal adjustment with an actual increase in the number of people collecting paychecks. There were nearly 2.2 million fewer people on private payrolls in January than December, and that did not “boost their overall incomes.”
Note that I use only private employment and earnings because it seems unlikely the Fed thinks it can control federal, state, and local government hiring and pay policy. Investment in housing, durable goods and business investment are sensitive to interest rates, but not politicians.
Hourly earnings in the private sector slowed to a 3.6% annual rate (0.3% this January), down from 4.8% in December, 5.2% in November and 8% in January of 2022. There is no shred of evidence of accelerating private wage gains, without which Fed officials’ banal “tight labor market” mantra is pointless.”
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“Vindication edition”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/vindication-edition/ar-AA173pkx
“It’s a hopeful sign that a growing number of journalists are taking a hard look at the media’s coverage of former President Donald Trump’s administration, with many concluding that, yes, corporate media behaved terribly during those years.
It suggests there may be hope yet for this industry. After all, admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery.
In January, the Columbia Journalism Review published a decisive four-part takedown of the press’s mishandling of the Trump White House, including their slipshod and oftentimes unethical promotion of the “Russian collusion” narrative, which posited the former president conspired with Russia to steal the 2016 election.
“No narrative did more to shape Trump’s relations with the press than Russiagate,” said CJR Editor-in-Chief Kyle Pope. “The story, which included the Steele dossier and the Mueller report among other totemic moments, resulted in Pulitzer Prizes and embarrassing retractions and damaged careers.”
As we know now, this “Russian collusion” narrative imploded in 2019 when a special counsel’s investigation (which included 40 agents, 2,800 subpoenas, some 500 search warrants, and 500 witness interviews) concluded it could not “establish that the members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”
So much for all those breathless reports, all those “bombshell” news “scoops” suggesting the former president worked hand-in-glove with the Kremlin to steal the election. And though it was clear at the time the media were behaving irresponsibly and sloppily, CJR’s 18-month investigation, spearheaded by freelance journalist Jeff Gerth, who spent 30 years at the New York Times, puts the full breadth and scope of the media’s mishandling of the Trump presidency into perspective.
For example, Gerth identifies the media’s overreliance on anonymous sources as one of the chief failings of their coverage of the Trump White House. As a reminder, in journalism, anonymous sources should be used only as a last resort, not the go-to for information. Major media outlets know this, but groups, including the New York Times, relaxed the usual standards for the Trump era.
Gerth writes [emphasis added]: “One frequent and vague catchphrase — ‘people (or person) familiar with’ — is widely used by many journalists: the [New York Times] used it over a thousand times in stories involving Trump and Russia between October 2016 and the end of his presidency, according to a Nexis search.”
“The last executive editor I worked for, Bill Keller, frowned on its use. He told the staff repeatedly the phrase was ‘so vague it could even mean the reporter,'” he added.
If you’re a journalist, this isn’t groundbreaking stuff. Journalists know, and generally follow, this guidance. But not for the Trump White House.
The Washington Post declined several of Gerth’s requests for comment. Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron declined to be interviewed. Washington Post editor Sally Buzbee and “other Washington Post” journalists likewise declined requests for an interview. The Washington Post was awarded a Pulitzer for its “Russian collusion” coverage. The Atlantic didn’t “respond to an email seeking comment.” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, who claimed during an appearance on MSNBC that the Steele dossier supposedly implicating Trump in a Moscow plot “was looking better and better every day, more and more credible,” declined Gerth’s request for comment. A spokesman for NBC declined to comment.
“Other outlets mentioned in this piece declined to discuss their anonymous-sourcing practices,” Gerth writes.
The broader press obviously must have a lot of work to do to address the industrywide dysfunction and corruption that allowed outlets to get so many Trump-era stories wrong. There’s even more work to be done to repair the trust that has been lost due to its sloppy and unethical “reporting.” But CJR’s unrelentingly thorough and unflinching four-part takedown is a good start.
Hamilton 68
Speaking of thin, unreliable sourcing, freelance journalist Matt Taibbi published a similarly damning report revealing that a go-to “source” for the legacy media’s coverage of online Russian disinformation is, in fact, an outright propaganda machine.
Hamilton 68, a neoliberal think-tank that claims to specialize in disinformation research, “spawned hundreds of fraudulent headlines and TV news segments” regarding the supposed pervasiveness of Russian agitprop on U.S. social media,” Taibbi writes.
“Virtually every major news organization in America is implicated, including NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Mother Jones alone did at least 14 stories pegged to the group’s ‘research,’” he adds. “Even fact-checking sites like Politifact and Snopes cited Hamilton 68 as a source.”
Taibbi continues, writing:
“The problem is: Hamilton 68’s research methods, which were hidden from the public, including the newsrooms that so eagerly promoted the think-tank’s “data,” are not just sloppy. They’re intentionally deceiving, as internal Twitter documents reveal.”
Upon a closer examination, Twitter executives discovered that the “accounts Hamilton 68 claimed were linked to ‘Russian influence activities online’ were not only overwhelmingly English-language (86%), but mostly ‘legitimate people,’ largely in the U.S., Canada, and Britain,” Taibbi writes.
“The two founders of Hamilton 68, the blue-and-red team of former counselor to Marco Rubio Jamie Fly and Hillary for America Foreign Policy Advisor Laura Rosenberger, told Politico they couldn’t reveal the names of the accounts because ‘the Russians will simply shut them down,'” he adds.
Yeah, this is clearly a lie.
“One look at the list reveals the real reason they couldn’t make it public,” Taibbi rightly notes. “This was not faulty science. It was a scam. Instead of tracking how ‘Russia’ influenced American attitudes, Hamilton 68 simply collected a handful of mostly real, mostly American accounts, and described their organic conversations as Russian scheming.”
And the U.S. press, that supposed bulwark of truth and democracy, ate it up, not even pausing to question whether the “data” points were accurate or even truthful.
Nearly as bad as the initial scandal of newsrooms blindly repeating Hamilton 68’s garbage “research” is the fact there has been no transparency whatsoever from the media regarding this major muck-up.”
——
They don’t deserve anyone’s trust.
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Uh oh…Musk not a hunter or something? 🦌 💥
Twitter acct suspended:
@SteveDaines because his profile picture is of him and his wife hunting…What a disgrace!” said Donald Trump Jr. in a post on Twitter.
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How dumb, NJ.
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I wonder if they will allow meat grinders and other items used for meat production and sourcing? All the same.
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The news about the 7.9 magnitude earthquake in Turkey (and Syria) mentioned on the prayer thread is worse and worse. Over 5,000 known dead and the toll expected to rise significantly. It would be good if our leaders were as enthusiastic about sending needed supplies of food , water, blankets, and medical aid as they are about exporting death.
May God have mercy on them and on us all.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/live-blog/earthquake-turkey-syria-live-updates-rcna69449
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Can you imagine? Not only surviving a 7.9 earthquake, but going into labor and delivering a baby in the rubble?
http://www.facebook.com/jo.mckay.355/videos/879092583303213
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wow. Words fail, Michelle.
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Debra and NancyJill – I am rather dumbfounded that you don’t see how rude AJ can be to those who disagree with him. All I can figure is that it is because you are closer to his view on political issues, and so don’t “see” the offense. That is rather common, in that it is easier to recognize rude attitudes in those we already disagree with than in those we do agree with.
As for whether “passion” is right or wrong, I think it is one of those things that can be either. Self-control is part of the fruit of the Spirit. Proverbs has a lot to say about the danger of the tongue, which I dare say applies to the keyboard, too.
We are not looking for offense, believe me. We are used to how “passionate” AJ is. But sometimes he crosses the line into rudeness. DJ and I are not the only ones who see this, as others have merely completely left the blog over it or don’t bother commenting.
So anyway, before I go, I will leave this prayer that popped up in a post that I saw this morning.
~ “Lord God, when controversies occasion division among your people, may I look first to the interest of the common good and to the exercise of charity.
May I not become a passionate contender for any party or censure the peaceable.
May I not overreach my understanding or try to win esteem for my orthodoxy or zeal.
May I suspect my own unripe evaluation and silence my opinions until I am clear and certain.
May I join the moderates and the peacemakers rather than the contenders and dividers.
For division leads to the ruin of the church, the hindrance of the gospel and injury to the interests of true religion.
Keep me, I pray, from being misguided; from being carried away by passion or discontent; from worldly interests; from thinking too highly of my own opinion.
May my zeal be more for faith, charity and unity than for my opinions.” ~
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That prayer was written by Richard Baxter in the 1600s, but is still appropriate for us here in the 21st century.
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Kizzie I cannot speak for Debra but for me I can tell you I am not “blind” due to agreement on the political issues. I think we can all say we are dumbfounded at times with posts on not only this blog but others. What I see is deception from those who stand on the side of darkness. It is clear to me and perhaps not so clear to others. I give it to Him keep us upon the path He has set before us. We are not all going to be the same in manner or speech. Like was said before, iron sharpening iron. I find myself challenged not only here but with other friends who happen to not hold my same views. I try my darnedest to not be offended.
Inasmuch as the “others” leaving this blog due to rudeness or insensitivity. There have been some participators who have had no qualms about smacking others over the head with their “intellectual or spiritual insights” and attempting to make others feel as though they were of dull mind. It has happened to me and I rarely saw comment from some when it happened. Just being honest here.
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I rarely come on the newsthread anymore but that is due to time constraints. Thought I would check in today to see if there was anything on the earthquake. What to my surprise….
Then I thought of the Catholic priest defrocked for being too pro life. (yes, I know there were other contributing factors)
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Nancy Jill, you say, “There have been some participators who have had no qualms about smacking others over the head with their ‘intellectual or spiritual insights’ and attempting to make others feel as though they were of dull mind.”
That must have been hard to see. I’m not sure I’ve seen that on here (anyone trying to make others feel like they’re stupid dealing with spiritual topics), but this news thread has long been a spot of people doing that on political subjects. Personally I was flabbergasted at the posts of people defending AJ’s “passion” when that passion had just been used to very rudely smack down a sister for posting a harmless article explaining why balloons might still be useful in this technical age. There are reasons some of us have left this blog and others don’t post much anymore, and this is a big one.
This should be a place where Christians can disagree–and even disagree fervently–but with respect and civility always in the mix. Agree or disagree with the subject, but don’t attack the person (whether or not that person is reading the blog).
I personally left the blog because of a very weird mixture on here: (1) mere disagreement with others’ positions being seen as rudeness and (2) actual rudeness being tolerated and sometimes even applauded.
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Back to kick that dead horse again are ya’ Cheryl?
You ladies wanna yell at me that’s fine, but leave the rest out please. Because what you just did there Kizzie is the same thing you accuse me of, being rude because you disagree. While I know I’m guilty as charged at times, sometimes folks are just too sensitive.
Again, save it for me when it’s directed at me, don’t take it out on folks who might disagree with your opinion on the matter.
Thank you in advance.
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AJ – Please let me know what I wrote that was rude. I certainly did not intend any rudeness.
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If you are referring to my first paragraph about feeling dumbfounded, I can see where that could seem rude. I did not mean to be rude, but was expressing my surprise that certain others haven’t seen what seems obvious to others of us.
NancyJill and Debra, if my comment seemed rude or offensive to you, I apologize. I love you ladies, and did not mean to offend either of you.
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It’s not that we feel “hurt” or even offended by the banter aimed at us, we kind of don’t; we’re pretty much way past that here, right? As much as you try … lol
Now we’re sometimes taken aback by the audacity of it all, and from a fellow believer at that, but I guess all’s fair in some random universal moral code somewhere.
So I guess the answer to my question was, no, other views are simply not welcome or even tolerated anymore (seems like they used to be) on this particular thread.
Those days of discussing different viewpoints are over. Good we know that was a “thing” up front, finally.
And the problem isn’t that people get hurt (we usually don’t anymore, right?); it’s that the snarky retorts are fully INTENDED to cause offense. And that’s a spiritual issue that can’t be solved on our end.
We’ll be fine, thanks for asking.
It’s the offender’s issue. Deal with it how you will — or don’t if that’s your choice. It’s your spiritual call to make.
We’re always open to any sincere move toward reconciliation, as the Scriptures make clear we should be.
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Of course…..
“AP Bans ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centers,’ Directs Journalists to Use Negative Term Instead”
https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/02/03/disgraceful-associated-press-directs-journalists-use-crisis-pregnancy-center-new-abortion-guidance/
“The Associated Press added an entry to its style guide directing journalists to put the term “crisis pregnancy center” in scare-quotes, and to use “anti-abortion center” instead, to convey that “the centers’ general aim is to prevent abortions.”
The AP added this entry between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27, 2022, according to The Daily Signal’s search of the Wayback Machine. The guide describes the centers as “set up to divert or discourage women from having abortions” and warns writers against “potentially misleading terms” like “pregnancy resource centers or pregnancy counseling centers.”
“If using the term anti-abortion center, explain later that these often are known as ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ (with quotation marks) and that their aim is to dissuade people from getting an abortion,” the style guide entry states. ”
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Well Kizzie one could have read your response as implying if one didn’t see something the way you viewed it that the one to whom you were referring just might not be critical thinker. You know….the kind of person going along with the crowd because “we all think alike” 😜
I assure you I form my own opinions and hopefully those opinions are weighed carefully as I speak them. Husband and I always joke with one another when having an opinion on something saying “do you ALWAYS have to have an opinion?”!!
Aj needs no one to defend him. He is a brother in the Lord and I having no biological brothers kind of see him as a little brother ( he is way younger than me but I don’t think I am old enough to be his Mom!) I appreciate someone who is passionate about truth (I think ya’ll don’t really like that word but that’s all I got!) I was once told by my SIL that my daughter was too much like her Dad. Too passionate over issues. He went on to tell me he was raised kind of “loosie goosie”. I simply told him being passionate about things that matter is a good thing….and I stand by my conviction.
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PS This isn’t Twitter. It’s a blog that ideally should be governed by Christian principles — that we all espouse, correct? — and ways of speaking to and treating one another.
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The WaPo’s finest ladies and gentlemen….
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Well I’m offended now too.
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Dirty, from the top down.
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Unless it’s the transgendered in the west, then it’s totally cool, right?
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So what’s changed Justin, other than having to actually deal with it now yourselves?
Different story when it’s your ox getting gored, huh?
—-
“Canada complains that New York is using a legal loophole to send migrants its way, buying them bus tickets to the border”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/canada-complains-that-new-york-is-using-a-legal-loophole-to-send-migrants-its-way-buying-them-bus-tickets-to-the-border/ar-AA17cCYJ?ocid=mailsignout&pc=U591&cvid=0232ed0290c2409e9e2e333b98a28459
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NancyJill – I assure you that I did not mean to disparage the intelligence or thinking ability of anyone, certainly not you. I was referring to our perspectives.
Nightingale is whip-smart, highly intelligent, but sometimes I am “dumbfounded” by how differently we see a matter. But I certainly don’t think that she is unintelligent or lacking critical thinking skills.
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I love you too Kizzie–all of you, and I’m rarely offended. And if I am, I just remind myself of how gracious God is to me every single day, and I use the emotional experience as an opportunity to grow. Some of you guys seem overly sensitive to me almost to the point of being petty—and I’m not trying to be insulting. I don’t see any reason for anyone to be dumbfounded or flabbergasted at our conversations. We’re adults, not hot house flowers. And we have great value both to God and to each other if we can set aside our pride and offenses to allow it. (And I include my own petty pride in that assessment.)
I have had co-workers and even one manager stick their finger in my face and scream insults. I’ve gone to work with my stomach in knots over the thought of what relatively insignificant problem or misunderstanding might trigger a maelstrom in one or two high strung people. Some of these people have been Christians and some not. At least one situation was beautifully resolved with a miraculous [to me] reconciliation. With some conflicts I have never seen the resolution, but I still pray God’s mercy and blessing on those people too.
My point is I have had many opportunities to be offended if I wanted to waste my life carrying an offense. I don’t. It makes even less sense to imagine rudeness and offenses where none is clearly intended. That is the essence of graciousness.
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Debra – I agree with much of what you wrote, and I assure you that I try not to be offended. In fact, all of this started the other day because I was defending someone else, not myself.
As Christians, we have to walk a line between letting some things go (with choosing not to take offense) and sometimes speaking up when a fellow believer has a pattern of certain behavior. As I said, others have seen the same behavior and left the blog or do not read the news thread anymore. This is not a matter of DJ and I merely being “too sensitive” or imagining rudeness. Others see it, too, and have chosen to not say anything because they have seen that their concerns will be dismissed.
Graciousness also involves listening to the concerns of people who express displeasure with one’s behavior or attitude, seriously considering if they may have a point, and apologizing even if we think they may not, but knowing we have possibly hurt their feelings anyway.
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Kizzie, this is not really just to you. I appreciate your point of view but I think AJ has met the burden of graciousness by providing us a good, safe place to share and pray together. This doesn’t happen without personal cost. If people don’t like the news thread they shouldn’t come here or post here. There are other threads. As I’ve said, there are times when I don’t check the news thread myself, either because I don’t have time or because I don’t want to be (more) depressed by what’s going on in the world. But I do appreciate AJ’s passion for this subject.
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