Month: November 2024

By Remix News

After a 64-year-old pensioner retweeted a meme of Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, in which Habeck was described as an “idiot,” Bavarian police raided the man’s house and arrested him. The crime has even been recorded as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.”

The man is accused of distributing a photo of Habeck via retweet, where Habeck is described as an “idiot.” The Bamberg prosecutor’s office indicates that this constitutes a federal criminal offense of “hatred.”

“At a time that cannot currently be specified in more detail in the days or weeks before June 20, 2024, the accused published an image file using the account that shows a portrait of Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck with the title ‘Schwachkopf PROFESSIONAL’, based on the advertising campaign of the Schwarzkopf company, in order to generally defame Robert Habeck and to make it more difficult for him to work as a member of the federal government,” read the prosecutor’s statement.

Schwachkopf generally means “idiot,” in German.

The rival Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has reposted the meme on X, writing in a statement:

“While Habeck presents himself as a ‘people-friendly’ candidate for chancellor, his critics are being relentlessly pursued. They do not shy away from conducting house searches on sleeping families just because the father of the family shared this Schwachkopf graphic. This is what would happen to Germany under a Chancellor Habeck: the complete restriction of freedom of expression by a children’s book author who displayed maximum incompetence for three and a half years, but still feels called to greater things,” wrote the AfD.

The person who was arrested told the NIUS news outlet that he could never have imagined “that it would come to this.” This has “definitely GDR flavor,” he said, referring to communist East Germany and its Stasi police force.

Nius also reports that “criminal police officers were deployed across Germany on Tuesday for the day of action against hate postings, warning social media users their homes would be searched and electronic devices confiscated. In over 90 investigations, more than 50 homes were searched, and there were 127 police actions in total.”

“When the police are at the door, every perpetrator realizes that hate crimes have consequences,” Interior Minister Faeser wrote on X.

Fast 130 Polizei-Maßnahmen gegen Judenhass heute sind genau das harte Vorgehen, das wir brauchen. Wenn die Polizei vor der Tür steht, wird jedem Täter klar, dass Hasskriminalität Konsequenzen hat.#AktionstaggegenHasspostings https://t.co/zU6s2MFN7F

— Nancy Faeser (@NancyFaeser) November 12, 2024

Those who criticize the Green party in Bavaria have faced prosecution before. A businessman, Michael Much, put up posters mocking members of the federal government, including Habeck and then Green party leader Ricarda Lang. He also had his house searched and the posters confiscated. The prosecutor was defeated in court, which determined the posters were a legitimate form of freedom of expression.

Notably, last week, X owner Elon Musk called German Chancellor Olaf Scholz a “fool,” on his platform. In response, the federal government reacted that “on X, you have Narrenfreiheit.” The term refers to freedom to mock the king, typically reserved for a jester.

Scholz himself responded that it was “not very friendly,” saying that web companies are “not organs of state, so I did not even pay it any attention.”

Apparently, for those lower on the food chain, such insults result in a massive police raid. The man’s phones were seized and all his rooms were searched.

Users have been acting with incredulity on social media, with one writing: “First election campaign posters leaked,” which showed police breaking down a door.

Erste Wahlkampfplakate geleakt#Schwachkopf pic.twitter.com/JP4dTvnnzV

— Heinz van Eugen ♠️ (@heinzvaneugen) November 13, 2024

Authored by Thaddeus G. McCotter via American Greatness,

Donald Trump’s re-election as President of the United States, including an immense electoral college and popular vote victories, was the American people’s call for sanity and prosperity. For the incoming Trump administration, there is no time to waste in honoring the public’s mandate for change from the Obama and Biden administrations’ radical, dangerous, extreme, and disastrous policies.

The first step is to lower the country’s political temperature. It won’t be easy.

On the prevailing side, Mr. Trump’s supporters were elated by his victory and felt a palpable sense of relief at the reprieve it provided from the left’s ideological assault upon everything these God-fearing, patriotic Americans cherish. Yet, even as the election night celebrations continued, the calls began in earnest for the incoming administration to implement the most sweeping policies anyone to the right-of-center could conceive; and, yes, for “accountability” of bad actors, be it through political firings and impeachments, social ostracisms and “cancellations,” and criminal investigations that were expected to lead to indictments and prison sentences.

This is not unique in the annals of victorious presidential campaigns. Indeed, though one would be loath to acknowledge the irony, such demands were made by Democrats when Mr. Biden captured the White House in 2020. While Mr. Biden and his handlers and Congressional abettors indulged their leftist base with radical legislation, executive orders, and partisan political persecutions, it would behoove Mr. Trump and his supporters to recognize precisely how the American people viewed such unexpected surprises from “Lunch Bucket Joe from Scranton.” And, should they forget, all they need do is look at Vice President Kamala Harris’s electoral map.

This is not as easy as it sounds, for looking across the political aisle is an embittered and embarrassed Democrat Party. Lashing out at everyone but themselves for the abject failure of their fetid ideologies in matters of peace and prosperity, the left is not in a kumbaya mood—any more than are Mr. Trump’s supporters, who bear the scars of the Democrats’ systematic sedition against the first Trump administration; their despicable lawfare against him personally; and their pervasive slanders, smears, and attacks against his voters.

Already, under the guise of “offering olive branches,” the Democrats have sought to buy time to regroup, craft a narrative that they are the peacemakers, and wait for the first opportunity to rebrand Mr. Trump as an unstable, wannabe dictator who must be “resisted” by any means because it is justified by his being an existential threat to “our democracy.” It is a repeat of 2016, except in this instance, the size of Mr. Trump’s win has stunned and staggered the left, which necessitates their crafting breathing room to coordinate their counterattack.

Those blind to the Democrats’ stratagem will foolishly implore Mr. Trump to water down his rhetoric and goals to court the Democrats’ goodwill.

The GOP and, yes, Mr. Trump have gone down this dead end before and have learned a hard, valuable lesson not to repeat this mistake.

But this is not about enfeebling, but rather enabling the Republican-Populist agenda and movement.

Instead, as is his wont, Mr. Trump must grab the bulls**tters by the horns and offer the terms of political comity that will lower the country’s political temperature for the Democrats’ consideration.

The first and defining measure?

Announce that upon assuming office you will pardon Hunter, Jim, and Joe Biden for any crime they committed or may have committed.

Saying it and doing it will cement in the public’s mind that Mr. Trump is not only refraining from doing unto his political enemies what was done unto him but showing the magnanimity in victory of which his Democrat opponents have proven incapable. Armed with the moral high ground and the political insulation this beneficent act would provide, Mr. Trump will have significantly increased his already immense political capital that will be required to pursue and implement the significant policy reforms that he articulated throughout the campaign.

Of course, there will be pushback within his base by those who don’t accept that.

If Republicans do unto the Democrats what the latter did unto them, the public will view the GOP as hypocrites, declare a pox on both houses, and recoup the political capital Mr. Trump needs to achieve his agenda. Nothing would more hearten despondent Democrats.

Mr. Trump well understands this, and, nothing if not a leader, has the abundance of courage to empathize with his defeated opponents, for he has experienced the same feeling—in fact, exponentially more so, as he was the defeated candidate—and an incumbent president to boot. Equipped with this personal experience and acumen, he has the insight to recognize this singular chance to advance his agenda—one containing the very policies that, when implemented, will provide the very sanity and prosperity the voters emphatically demanded when returning him to the Oval Office.

One of Tesla’s competitors in robotics is the Chinese company Unitree, which is already selling its humanoid G1 robot for $40,000. The company also sells robo-dogs on the Amazon marketplace. Another Chinese robotics company, Deep Robotics, released a new video featuring one of its robo-dogs equipped with wheels, showcasing its ability to scale hillsides and navigate off-road terrain. 

Deep Robotics describes itself as a “leader in embodied AI technology innovation and application,” adding it’s “the first in China to achieve fully autonomous inspection of substations with quadruped robots.” 

Earlier this week, Deep Robotics posted a short video on YouTube featuring one of its quadruped robots with wheels. The robot’s mobility is absolutely terrifying. 

Public trade data compiled by counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence firm Sayari shows that Hangzhou Yunshenchu Technology Co., Ltd owns Deep Robotics.

The company said its core team members originate from “well-known universities,” including Zhejiang University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Beijing Institute of Technology, Wuhan University, the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, New York University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Georgia Institute of Technology. 

Just wait until the Ukrainians see this robot. They might want to strap a machine gun atop this Skynet-like creature. 

Authored by Timothy S. Goeglein via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Several years ago, after a particularly violent weekend in Chicago, then-Mayor Rahm Emmanuel, said: “This may not be politically correct, but I know the power of what faith and family can do. … Our kids need that structure. … I am asking … that we don’t shy away from a full discussion about the importance of faith and family to develop and nurture character, self-respect, a value system, and a moral compass that allows kids to know good from bad and right from wrong.”

Emmanuel’s plea for a broader discussion indicates that something must be truly amiss. And it is, as a new study directed by Nicholas Zill for the Institute for Family Studies indicates.

Looking at cities in Ohio, Zill found that there was a much crime rate in cities where two-parent families were in the minority. For instance, only 44 percent of mothers in Springfield, Ohio, were married during the period of 2018–2022. The percentage was even worse in Cleveland with only 33 percent being married, and in Youngstown, which reported only 32 percent were married. Cincinnati fared marginally better at 46 percent.

In contrast, in Cleveland Heights, 63 percent of mothers were married and in New Albany, Ohio, 91 percent were.

And the differences between these cities and their rates of violent crime are startling. Zill found that in Springfield, there were 1,298 incidents of violent crime reported per 100,000 residents, 1,895 incidents in Cleveland, 800 in Cincinnati, and 699 in Youngstown. Meanwhile, Cleveland Heights only reported 267 incidents and New Albany had 99.

This is not surprising. It has been well documented how the rise of fatherless homes has led to a concurrent rise in incarceration rates. Twenty years ago, Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University found that young men who grow up in fatherless homes are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families.

The numbers of single-parent homes have only gotten worse since.

Out-of-wedlock births are now rampant among all groups. In 2022, 39.8 percent of children were born to single mothers. In Louisiana, Mississippi, and New Mexico, the percentage is even higher: over 48 percent.

The issue of missing fathers is particularly acute in our cities but has serious consequences for our society as a whole. Single mothers can be great mothers, but in a single-parent home, as Emmanuel noted, something is lacking—something necessary for children’s emotional and mental development.

What is lacking is the unique role a father plays in a child’s life.

For instance, fatherless girls often become severely depressed, self-destructive, or sexually promiscuous as they seek to fill the emotional vacuum left by an absent father.

Boys, on the other hand, as this study about the link between the lack of two-parent homes and violent crime documents, tend to deal with that void with anger and rage. Thus, many of the tragic shootings or horrible abuses of women we have seen over the past several years have been instigated by boys from broken homes.

Finally, numerous studies have shown that children in single-parent homes are more likely to engage in substance abuse than those in stable, two-parent (mother and father) homes. These children eventually grow up into adults and bring their drug dependency with them, creating another generation of children trapped in the cycle of family dysfunction, drug abuse, and single parenthood. It is a triple whammy resulting in a downward spiral of despair with each succeeding generation.

Thus, a society is formed where the dividing line between the haves and have-nots is determined at the very beginning of life. If children are born into a stable, two-parent family they are more likely to be successful in life and avoid bad choices such as engaging in violence and substance abuse. If they are born into the instability of a continued cycle of a broken family, they will likely fall prey to the resulting pathologies.

That is why, if we are to truly deal with the current violence in our inner cities, we need to focus first on the behaviors that have led to that violence—which means a dedicated effort to restore two-parent families rather than continuing to ignore the issue by enacting policies that encourage broken families. That is my hope—and the result of such an effort will not only be healthier children, but a safer and healthier society as well.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Very belatedly, Axios has issued a report which claims Israel’s airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed an active nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin. Three US officials and a pair of Israeli officials were cited for the Friday report.

“The strike — which targeted a site previously reported to be inactive — significantly damaged Iran’s effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research, Israeli and U.S. officials said,” the report says. The site has been identified, also in satellite images, as the Parchin Military Complex.

This included the destruction of “sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it,” according to the sources.

Iran has of course never acknowledged or confirmed this, and it rejects the accusation that it possesses an active nuclear weapons program. Instead, Tehran insists it only has a peaceful nuclear weapons program.

Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have for years insisted that the Islamic Republic is bent on acquiring a nuke, and Netanyahu in particular has expressed readiness to do anything to stop it.

Israel’s Oct. 26 attack, which ostensibly was in retaliation for Iran’s Oct.1st ballistic missile attack on Israel, was conducted by airstrikes – and Israeli officials informed the US ahead of time that neither oil nor nuclear sites were being targeted.

If Israel actually destroyed the facility at Parchin, this would mean Israel deceived its number one external back and ally the US (which certainly wouldn’t be a first).

However, this might also be propaganda and PR-signaling for other purposes. For starters, the author of the Axios report, Barak Ravid, has long been known to quickly convey Israeli government talking points to the public. If Netanyahu government officials want something ‘leaked’ to the West, they often go through him.

As for timing of the report, the Times of Israel (TOI) highlights the following imminent UN action:

The report came as the UN nuclear watchdog prepares to vote on censuring Iran for refusing to cooperate with its inspectors, and amid a report that the Islamic Republic told the Biden administration last month it would not seek to assassinate US president-elect Donald Trump.

There is legitimate fear that after the Gaza war kicked off, and as Iran and Israel have traded tit-for-tat direct strikes for the first time, Tehran may be indeed pursuing a nuke.

Israeli attack on Parchin “nuclear site”: Fact or Fiction?

As a reminder, the Taleghan 2 complex (which Axios references) was clearly hit in the strike – but assumed to be unused. Either it was in fact being used, or something else in Parchin was hit https://t.co/EMU11toEj1 pic.twitter.com/JwtfLQRl4Q

— Michael A. Horowitz (@michaelh992) November 15, 2024

If so, the world can expect more Israeli anti-Iran action, including the potential resumption of a sabotage and cyberwarfare campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear sites and infrastructure. In the past, Mossad has even assassinated top Iranian nuclear scientists.

Authored by Marina Zhang via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Research led by scientists at Emory University in Atlanta found that while tetanus and influenza vaccines prompt the body to produce long-lived plasma cells that generate antibodies, COVID-19 vaccines do not.

The study may explain why antibody protection from COVID-19 mRNA vaccines wanes so rapidly.

The mRNA vaccines cause the body to produce short-lived plasma cells that can only generate antibodies for a period of time before dying off.

Vaccines like tetanus give long-lasting immunity, with antibodies persisting in the body for up to 10 years. COVID-19 antibodies rapidly wane three to six months after vaccination, often resulting in breakthrough infections.

The study’s senior author, Dr. Frances Eun-Hyung Lee, professor of medicine and director of Emory University’s Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology program, told The Epoch Times that it is still unclear why COVID-19 vaccines do not confer durable antibody immunity, though there are several possibilities.

According to the researcher, one reason could be that the body cannot form long-term immunity to COVID-19. The COVID-19 mRNA vaccine induces the body to produce COVID-19 spike proteins to stimulate the immune response. This spike protein may not be stimulating enough to cause the formation of lifelong plasma cells.

Another reason could be that the mRNA vaccine platform, which delivers the vaccine to the body, does not induce durable antibody immunity.

Currently, mRNA vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are in development. Whether these vaccines confer durable immunity to the viruses they are intended to protect against may help explain the body’s response to COVID-19 vaccines.

“We will have to wait and see if the reason … is unique to the spike protein or if it’s something unique to the mRNA platform,” Lee told The Epoch Times.

Not All Immunity Is Lifelong

It was generally assumed that when people get infected with or vaccinated against viruses or bacteria, the immunity formed would be life-long, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a professor in the Microbiology & Immunology Department at the University of Iowa, told The Epoch Times.

However, the current study and other research on RSV, which infects people every year despite everyone having antibodies to the virus by age 3, suggests that whether a person is immune to a virus or bacteria can vary depending on the pathogen, Lee said.

The study, published in Nature Medicine in September, followed 19 healthy volunteers who had taken influenza, tetanus, and several COVID-19 vaccines and boosters. Researchers extracted immune cells from their bone marrow and followed them for up to three years.

They found that these participants had durable plasma cells—a type of cell that provides lifelong immunity—that generate antibodies to influenza and tetanus but no or few durable plasma cells working against COVID-19 spike proteins.

When our B-cells (immune cells) encounter a pathogen, they divide into plasma cells and produce antibodies. Most of these cells will die, but a few will migrate into specific niches in the bone marrow and mature into long-lived plasma cells.

“Even if some of these cells want to die, they can’t,” Lee said. “They undergo changes in their RNA and changes in their DNA so that they can become resistant to apoptosis (cell death).”

“There’re many other factors and mechanisms and programs, and we’re trying to study those and unravel those steps so that we can figure out how to make the SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine better.”

Having long-term immunity also does not “guarantee complete protection against future infections,” Dr. Joseph Varon, professor of medicine at the University of Houston and chief medical officer of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care (FLCCC) Alliance, told The Epoch Times. “Viruses can evolve to escape immune responses, and waning immunity or other factors like age and health status can influence vulnerability.”

This is why new influenza vaccines are made every year as the virus evolves and changes, Lee said.

Infections Did Not Enhance Immunity

Some participants likely contracted COVID-19 throughout the study period, indicated by a sudden spike in COVID-19 antibody levels despite a lack of immunization. However, the authors found this was also not linked to the formation of long-lasting plasma cells.

This finding concurs with prior research by the University of Maryland, which found that COVID-19 infections did not induce long-term antibody protection.

In some cases, infections may result in stronger immunity than vaccines can provide. Life-long immunity to influenza, for example, is likely driven by natural immunity rather than vaccination.

Antibodies formed from only the influenza vaccine may last a few months. However, since many vaccinated people will also become infected, this cross-reactivity is likely what drives plasma cells to mature into durable cells, Lee said.

Boosting Did Not Increase Durable Antibodies

Some study participants took several doses of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines during the study period.

The authors found that having more doses of mRNA vaccines did “not necessarily promote more” long-lived plasma cell responses in the study’s small cohort.

“These findings reinforce the fact that boosters are not really working at this point,“ Varon said. ”Boosters can temporarily restore protection by increasing circulating antibodies and memory immune cells.”

Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, said that people who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19 should still follow the schedule from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recommends vaccinating every six months.

Lee agreed, adding that while her study found that antibody protection is short-lived, there are other cells in the body, like T-cells, by which vaccinations confer long-lived immunity and could, therefore, still be helpful for people at a higher risk of infection.

Housing market data from Redfin shows that US asking rents were flat in October, rising marginally by .2% year-over-year to $1,619. For two years, rents have remained flat nationwide following a massive boom during Covid, sparked by low interest rates and domestic migration trends. Now, in cities like Austin, Texas, rents are sliding due to a surge in new supply and reduced demand. 

Drilling down into Austin’s rental data, Nick Gerli, CEO and founder of the real estate analytics firm Reventure Consulting, shared on X a concerning breakdown of the local rental market downturn that could have landlords in the metro area deeply spooked. 

Let’s begin with Gerli’s tweet… 

The Austin, TX rental market is collapsing before our eyes.

With the median apartment rent dropping 15% over the last 2+ years.

The vacancies have skyrocketed. Rental concessions are everywhere.

Rents are now only 9.8% higher than pre-pandemic. Meaning that many Austin landlords are losing money, as property taxes, insurance, and interest costs are way higher.

(This is a harsh lesson on the boom/bust cycle in real estate for many developers and investors who bought into Austin during the boom. Read more below to see how this happened.)

The Austin, TX rental market is collapsing before our eyes.

With the median apartment rent dropping 15% over the last 2+ years.

The vacancies have skyrocketed. Rental concessions are everywhere.

Rents are now only 9.8% higher than pre-pandemic. Meaning that many Austin… pic.twitter.com/dNFsoAqJ8a

— Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) November 14, 2024

Austin’s rental vacancy rate has exploded to a seven-year high: 

You can see this reality expressed in vacancy rate statistics from Apartment list.

At the height of the pandemic in Sept 2021, Austin’s rental vacancy rate was only 3.9%. Now it’s 9.5% The highest level going back 7 years.

Gerli pointed out landlords in Austin are under severe pressure: 

With so many vacant apartments, and rents that are still overpriced, landlords have no choice but to cut the rent to put heads in beds. Especially on lease-up projects. Which often deliver 200-400 units vacant all at once. This is exerting massive downward pressure on the rental market.

This is very good news for renters. He said:

4) Which is of course good for renters. Incomes on Austin have grown quite a bit the last five years, and now rents are dropping, so locals are beginning to feel as apartments are affordable-ish again.

However, they will likely continue to get more affordable, as there is still…

— Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) November 14, 2024

Gerli explained that in 2025, Austin will continue to have an apartment supply issue, which means lower rents. 

Gerli speculates…

9) If you squint, you can begin to see a bottom forming in Austin’s housing market sometime in 2025.

Rents and values will need to drop a bit further. But once they both go down another 5-10%, the market will be fairly valued.

And could have some growth opportunities once the…

— Nick Gerli (@nickgerli1) November 14, 2024

He cited Reventure App data showing that home prices in Austin were once 50% overvalued. That figure now stands at around 12%.

Gerli concludes by forecasting a possible bottom forming in Austin’s housing market sometime in 2025. 

Authored by Stephen Soukup via American Greatness,

Not long before Tuesday’s election, Ruy Teixeira, a Democratic political scientist and commentator, predicted that, regardless of the outcome of the election, the contemporary progressive movement was dead. Harris, he intimated, could still win the election, but the dominant force in Democratic politics for the last two decades was done. Voters had clearly and unambiguously voiced their distaste for the four pillars of contemporary progressivism: open borders/mass immigration, lax law enforcement/social disorder, identity politics, and the war on fossil fuels. As Teixeira astutely noted, the electorate simply isn’t buying what the progressives are selling.

Teixeira, it should be noted, is not alone in his concerns about and disapproval of the contemporary progressive agenda and its alienating effect on average voters. In the few days since Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, a handful of prominent Democrats have condemned their party’s polarizing platform and have echoed Teixeira’s denunciation of the progressives’ stubbornness. For example, Matt Yglesias, a longtime left-wing journalist and political commentator, posted a short “common sense” Democratic platform to restore the party’s following, overtly rejecting the entirety of the progressive plan. Like Teixeira, Yglesias slammed the progressives’ obsessions with climate, race, and anti-social behavior in particular.

Based on what we all saw the other night—the most improbable political comeback in American history and a realignment of the electorate—it is clear that both Teixeira and Yglesias are right. The progressive movement has enfeebled the Democratic Party and made it unappealing to a majority of voters. In order to stave off long-term minority-party status, Democrats must move on from contemporary progressivism and must realign themselves with the needs and wants of their traditional voters. The party must change.

There’s only one problem—and it reminds me of the old joke:

Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?

A: Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

Teixeira, Yglesias, James Carville, and a host of other Democrats are inarguably correct about the state of their party, the malign influences on it, and the necessity of change.

The problem is that the party has to want to change first, which is not as easy as it sounds.

Indeed, there are several very important reasons why the Democratic Party will not change—why it cannot change.

The most obvious and overpowering of these is the capture of the institutions.

For decades, conservatives have noted that the far-left controls all of the institutions of cultural transmission in this country (and in the West more generally). We have noted as well that this is hardly an accident, a fateful coincidence. It is by design and the result of a century-long effort by Marxist revisionists, executed with dedication and determination.

In my book, The Dictatorship of Woke Capital, I spend an entire chapter discussing that which the infamous East German Marxist student-leader Rudi Dutschke later called “the long march through the institutions.”  In brief, after World War I, the Marxists of Europe realized that the workers of the world were never going to unite and throw off their chains, meaning that the long-anticipated revolution was never going to occur—or at least it was never going to occur on its own.  The revolution and the triumph of Communism were not, as Marx had declared, historically inevitable.  They would have to be incited.

Antonio Gramsci, György Lukács, and the scholars at the Frankfurt School (helmed by Max Horkheimer) collectively decided that the only way to accomplish this incitement was to alter the consciousness of the workers, to strip them of their institutionally created false consciousness and liberate them “from the circumstances that enslave them.”  And the way to do that, in turn, was, as Horkheimer put it, to mount a “historical effort to create a world which satisfies the needs and powers of men.”  In short, they would have to change society by changing its institutions of consciousness and cultural transmission.  Hence, the “long march.”

Near the end of that chapter, I note how shockingly successful the long march has been, especially in the United States.  Whereas Marx was a crackpot who knew almost nothing about economics, history, or the conditions of the working class, his post-war successors turned out to be quite brilliant and attuned to the nature of the relationship between man and society.  In less than half a century, the critical theorists “managed to do precisely what Gramsci and Lukács had suggested needed doing a half-century earlier”:

They stripped away the veneer of false consciousness—or, more accurately, they stripped away the consciousness that had existed previously, replacing it with their own consciousness, one rooted in skepticism and alienation, which would become the overarching themes in higher education and every single endeavor subsequently undertaken by those who passed through the American system of higher education from the 1970s on.

Conservatives have dealt with the repercussions of the Long March and the takeover of the institutions for a long time. And they’ve adapted to it as best they can. They’ve created their own intellectual organizations (think tanks), their own media environment, and a host of other competing institutions designed to blunt the impact of the Long March. While this effort has been impressive and important in resisting the far-left’s takeover of the culture, it has also been a strictly rearguard undertaking. Conservatives are constantly having to defend themselves and what’s left of the traditional culture from the advancing institutions. With the left firmly in charge of the educational, religious, news, and entertainment establishments, the best conservatives can do is to “hang on” to whatever scraps are still up for grabs.

The catch here is that this is an existential challenge not just for conservatives but for “common-sense” non-progressive liberals as well. These institutions were not taken over by “liberals” or moderate Democrats. They were taken over by leftists, by radicals, by the very progressives whom Teixeira and Yglesias have identified as the cause of the Democrats’ disconnect with the electorate. In other words, changing the Democratic Party and restoring it to its former common-sense, working-class roots is an undertaking that will run into the very same ivy-covered wall that has stymied conservatives for decades.

It is no mere coincidence that Ruy Teixeira works for the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative-ish think tank) and, before that, worked for the Brookings Institution (a center-left think tank). There really is no home for a guy like him in traditional academia. Likewise, it’s no coincidence that Matt Yglesias left traditional news media to start his own outlet (Vox.com) and now does most of his work on Substack, an “alternative” media platform. He too is out of place in the contemporary institutional arena. Such is the nature of the game.

The difference between conservatives and the center-left is that conservatives have invested heavily in building their own institutions, while the denizens of the center-left have not really understood until now (if they do, indeed, understand at all) that the takeover of the institutions was meant to undermine their worldview as much as conservatives.’ For the most part, they do not have their own alternative institutions and therefore do not have their own means for fighting the far-left’s cultural takeover.

It is largely inarguable that the nation would be far better off with a Democratic Party dominated by non-progressives, but that’s not especially likely, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.

Younger generations of women are less religious than their male counterparts in the United States, according to data from a Statista Consumer Insights survey.

As Statista’s Anna Fleck reports, this marks a shift, as historically, U.S. women have been the more religious group.

As this chart shows, for both genders, religion is becoming less widespread overall.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Christianity is the dominant religion in the U.S., by a long shot.

Statista data shows that 51 percent of Gen Z males self-identify as Christian, with the next biggest religious groups Islam (six percent), Buddhism (two percent).

Only six percent of Gen Z men are atheists and 17 percent non-religious.

For Gen Z women, 48 percent said their religion is Christianity, while only two percent said Islam and two percent Buddhism.

Six percent of Gen Z women are atheists and 22 percent identify as non-religious.

Authored by George Citroner via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

High blood pressure often affects older and obese people; vitamin D supplements may help lower it.

A new study has found that taking 600 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day—the amount typically recommended for adults—lowers blood pressure in older adults, especially those who are obese.

Experts caution that exceeding the recommended intake, even below the safe upper limit (UL), does not necessarily translate to additional benefits.

Supplementation Reduced Blood Pressure

The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, involved 221 older obese adults who received vitamin D supplements at either 600 IU per day or 3,750 IU per day over one year. Currently, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends a daily intake of 600 IU.

Partcipants’ overall systolic blood pressure decreased by 3.5 mm Hg after one year, and diastolic blood pressure decreased by 2.5 mm Hg after one year.

Those who took higher doses of 3,750 IU daily had a slightly higher decrease of 4.2 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure. In comparison, those who took the lower 600 IU per day generally reported a reduction of 2.8 mm Hg after one year.

The authors concluded that the differences between the high- and low-dose vitamin D groups were not statistically significant.

People with a higher body mass index (BMI) of over 30 saw more significant reductions in blood pressure, especially in the high-dose group. People who took blood pressure medication with their vitamin D also observed substantial decreases in their overall blood pressure.

All participants also received daily supplements that included 1,000 milligrams of calcium.

No Significant Benefits From Higher Doses

The study’s findings showed that regular supplementation resulted in a decrease in blood pressure among participants. However, a comparison of the two dosage groups found that higher dosages of vitamin D did not provide further health benefits.

“More vitamin D is not better in terms of blood pressure,” study author Dr. Ghada El-Hajj Fuleihan from the American University of Beirut Medical Center told The Epoch Times in an email. “Indeed, 3,750 IU/day does not lower blood pressure more than 600 IU/day, which is the Institute of Medicine recommended dose.”

These results “need to be validated in a trial with blood pressure as the primary outcome,” she added.

The research team considered the UL for vitamin D intake established by the IOM (4,000 IU daily) when selecting doses for participants. “3,750 IU/day is below the IOM UL, and was specifically selected to be so,” Fuleihan wrote.

The higher dose is unlikely to cause harmful health effects, she added. “None of our patients had signs or symptoms of vitamin D intoxication,” she noted. Symptoms of vitamin D intoxication include nausea, vomiting, and kidney stones.

Fuleihan emphasized that the decision to supplement vitamin D should ultimately be made in consultation with a patient’s primary health care provider.