By Eric Utter

“One person, one vote” is no longer enough for progressives, apparently. Professor Brandon Hasbrouck, who teaches criminal law, race relations law and critical theory at Washington and Lee University, believes the votes of Black Americans should be counted twice in all U.S. elections as a form of “voter reparations.” Hasbrouck wrote a piece published in The Nation in which he stated that the core problem is the Electoral College. He posited that it is somehow unfair that the mostly white state of Wyoming gets three electors while Atlanta, which is 58% Black, gets none, and “can only occasionally overcome the mostly white and conservative votes from elsewhere in the state.”

Umm, professor, Electoral College votes are divvied up by state, and Atlanta is acity. And the large black population of Atlanta goes a long way towards determining who wins the state of Georgia, and therefore its Electoral College votes, whether small, rural, white towns and hamlets like it or not. The eminent purveyor of “race relations law” wrote: “Vote reparations would create possibilities to build what W.E.B. Du Bois called ‘abolition democracy,’ or the practice of achieving a racially just society. Abolition democracy invites us to engage with abolition not as a finite goal but as a radical process of challenging injustices wherever and in whatever form they might appear. Vote reparations would empower us to replace oppressive institutions with life-affirming structures of economic, social, and political equality. And if our elected representatives did not prioritize this transformational work, we could vote them out.” Twice.

He added, “Vote reparations would be a giant step toward remedying our nation’s long history of denying and devaluing Black votes. To address systemic racism, we must transform how we choose our government.” By denying and devaluingwhite votes, in a systematically racist manner! And we already have transformed how we choose our government. We now know leftists steal elections if they aren’t sure if they can win them fairly.

This reveals Professor Hasbrouck’s idea as not only absurdly racist, but entirely superfluous at this point.

But the nutty professor doesn’t stop there. He also thinks the votes of Native Americans should count twice. As should those of anyone who has “suffered similar disenfranchisement.” Really? Who is the judge of that? Professor Hasbrouck alone? Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Antifa? A panel of “experts?” The Biden administration?

In the interest of wokeness, perhaps we should henceforth tabulate all votes based solely on the intersectional identity of those who cast them. Allow me to illustrate. Let’s say that straight, white females are the baseline, and their ballots count as one vote. Those of straight, white, Christian males could be worth 3/5 of a vote. Those of white, lesbian, atheists could count as one and a half. Are you a garden-variety cis-Black agnostic? Your vote counts twice. Bisexual, Buddhist, Pacific-Islander? Your vote will be counted three times. Transgender, pangender, Jamaican mulatto transvestite Rastafarian? Congratulations, your vote will be counted no less than five times!

In all seriousness, this idea not only makes a mockery of a democratic republic, if implemented it would bring it down. For, as Lincoln said, “A house dividedagainst itself cannot stand.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/professor_asserts_black_votes_should_count_twice.html

The new variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in southern England has preceded Brexit with only days before Britain is set to leave the EU. At least 40 countries have since banned air traffic to and from Britain.

But it remains unclear how the more virulent strain of the virus will change the course of the pandemic since the new strain, B.1.1.7 shows 17 mutations all at once, something never seen before.

Andrew Rambaut, a molecular evolutionary biologist at the University of Edinburgh, said that among the 17 mutations are eight in the gene that encodes the spike protein on the viral surface, two of which are particularly worrisome. These mutations may have increased the virus’ transmissibility by 70 percent.

In a press conference on Saturday, Patrick Vallance, a British physician, scientist, and clinical pharmacologist who serves as the UK’s Chief Science Adviser, said B.1.1.7 first appeared in a virus isolated on 20 September, and already accounted for about 26 percent of cases in mid-November. “So, in London, over 60 percent of all the cases were the new variant.”

But Christian Drosten, German virologist did not share their concern. “There are too many unknowns to say something like that,” he responded. Drosten pointed out that the new mutant also carried a deletion in another viral gene, ORF8, that previous studies suggest could reduce the virus’ ability to spread.

Britain depends on imported EU food and fears about supply shortages have been expressed. One newspaper headlined the looming shortages of fresh produce, including lettuce.

“If nothing changes, we will will start to see gaps over the coming days on lettuce, salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli, citrus fruit — all of which are imported from EU at this time of year,” British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s said in a statement. “We hope UK and French [governments] can come to a solution that prioritizes immediate passage of produce and food,” CNN  reported.

The closing down of transport routes makes little sense as the horse has already bolted from the proverbial barn, suggesting that the new strain has certainly reached other countries already.

At the same time, the possibility of a hard no-deal Brexit on December 31 has increased. Without a deal, the normal transfer of goods from and to Britain will end abruptly since no new procedures have been put into place.

The last round of negotiations on Sunday about a deal that would allow Britain common market access, failed. Fishing rights for EU countries in British waters was the one contentious issue while Britain’s adherence to EU rules if it wants free market access, was the other more important question that still needs to be settled.

Many Brexiteers believe that EU intransigence on fishing has scuppered the deal, when the matter actually revolves more around Britain’s free access to EU markets with lower working, health or quality standards, also referred to as “non-regression”. Lower standards would obviously give British companies an unfair advantage, which the EU negotiators will not accept.

https://freewestmedia.com/2020/12/22/new-variant-of-sars-cov-2-lockdown-coincides-with-no-brexit-deal/

In a surprise verdict, the judges of the Court of Appeal in England stated that freedom of speech also means “the right to insult”. The court ruled in favor of a woman who called a transgender woman on Twitter a man and a “pig in a wig.” The court thus set a precedent that will influence further judgments in cases concerning freedom of speech.

“Freedom to speak just politely is not worth having,” said Appellate Court Judges David Bean and Mark Warby. According to them, freedom of speech also includes insults and even verbal abuse of others.

Kate Scottow was arrested for her statements in 2019 after Stephanie Hayden reported her to police for her social media comments, which Hayden said were insulting. Police took her out of her house in front of her two children. The case caused an uproar in Britain, and even Prime Minister Boris Johnson criticized the intervention of law enforcement officers, calling it an “abuse of power”.

Scottow was accused of violating the Communications Act. In February, she left the court with a two-year condition and a fine of a thousand pounds.

“Your comments have not added anything to the debate. We teach our children to be kind to each other and not to offend on the playground,” Judge Margaret Dodds told her then.

However, the relevant parts of the Communications Act “were not passed by parliament to criminalize forms of speech content of which is essentially only annoying or inappropriate,” Judge Warby now said.

The previous judgment was, therefore, canceled.

“It was necessary to enshrine one of the fundamental rights of every living creature in a democratic society — freedom of speech, which is repeatedly attacked today,” Scottow told the Daily Mail. Hayden, on the other hand, sees the court’s conclusion as a “kick to the teeth of the entire LGBT community.”

The court decision upholding free speech follows a similar case in Britain in which police arrested Harry Miller, a former police officer who made transphobic comments. Britain’s High Court has ruled that police were in the wrong for arresting him for the comments, which amounted to a violation of Miller’s free speech. 

Britain may be an exception to more restrictive speech controls being put in place across the West. Overall, The West has seen a rapid erosion of free speech in a number of countries in recent times. This year, Norway passed a law that allowed authorities to imprison individuals for insulting transgender people in public and perhaps more importantly, up to a year in prison for insulting people trans people in private. The law has been harshly criticized, with free speech advocates pointing out that it could create an environment in which people are afraid to voice their opinions among friends and family for fear of informers filing a police complaint. The law also does not clearly define what insulting speech might constitute and what the threshold for an arrest might be. 

This year, Europol, the European Union’s police force, was also involved in a massive anti-free speech raid across European countries. Police searched houses, seized electronic hardware, and arrested dozens of individuals for comments they made online in Germany, Italy, France and even the UK. 

Free speech victory after UK court allows ‘right to insult’

Three French municipal police officers were attacked and two were injured in Bollène, in southeastern France by a young immigrant of 20. Youssouf Hannouni is registered on the file for radicalization of a terrorist nature (FSPRT). He had been following a “de-radicalization programme”.

The attacker was trying to break into a house armed with two ceramic knives for reasons unknown. This information from two police sources, was confirmed by the weekly Journal du Dimanche (JDD) site.

The attacker, released from prison in May, had followed a deradicalization programme because of the arrest of his brother in the Iraqi-Syrian zone, regional broadcaster France 3 learned from a source close to the investigation.

The two municipal police officers arrived on the scene of the break-in and tried to stop the culprit on adjacent land. He then tried to stab the officers, injuring two of them. One of them was struck in the neck, one of these sources said.

During his assault, he had shouted “Allahu Akbar”, it was further specified from the same source. He was then arrested after the police officers used an electric tazer gun on him and was placed in police custody.

The investigation, opened by the Carpentras prosecutor’s office, was entrusted to the Montpellier judicial police. The national anti-terrorism prosecution has been notified but has not taken up the case at this stage.

https://freewestmedia.com/2020/12/21/attacker-who-stabbed-two-french-policemen-was-following-de-radicalization-programme/

Translation of the tweet:above:

Imagine that !
Islamist supporters of terrorists put pressure on @stadt_kiel to delete the official flag of #Syria and then the latter follows suit & publishes the terror flag without any research. You submit to those you’ve made come here.

But they have made the calculation without the honourable, secular Syrians, who have now also exerted pressure and have told the @stadt_kiel which is the official national flag that is accepted everywhere. Madness !

After all, the Chancellor also sails under the flag of the FSA, i.e. Hayat Tahrir al Sham and Al Qaeda Al Qaeda, which represent the FSA in Idlib.