Opinion
Success Of Canada’s Women Does Not Mean Men Failed
As usual, the Olympics delivered transcendent national moments for Canada.
It happens every Games. In 2010 the host city of Vancouver itself was the moment that provided a binding agent. In 1996 it was Donovan Bailey crushing the Americans on the track. In 1976 it was a lone high-jump silver medal by Greg Joy. This time in Tokyo it was Christine Sinclair & Co. (the women’s soccer team), a sprinter from Markham and a race walker from B.C. who remind Canadians of who they are, why they are, and how much reinforcement of a single nationality matters.
Except it rarely happens. Canada needs to win. Not all the time. Just enough to make the plucky challenger role thing work. Beating the U.S. in women’s soccer might be the ultimate underdog role that tells the 36 million chez nous that for all its horrific weather and language stress the Great White North is a good place to live.
Unfortunately the five percent who think they run modern Canada don’t count blessings they way they used to. A prime minister in a hurry to call an election during a pandemic— that he’s abetted— sees the roll of honour quite differently.
It’s now a diversity dance. In place of promoting unity while wearing the maple leaf the PM promotes separating Canadians by their Woke characteristics. Pitting segments of society to achieve peak tribal identity is his MO. In this Orwellian construct he’s fully backed by host broadcaster CBC, the rest of the bought media and labour leaders like Jerry Dias.
The laboured attempts to paint the Olympics as a political coming-out party was a hallmark of the CBC News Olympic features about Canada’s winners. When the Corp allowed its sports announcers like Steve Armitage, Mark Lee or Doug Dirks to call it straight you might be persuaded that it was your grandfather’s Olympics still.
Don’t be fooled. The PM who worships his brand of diversity (but practices otherwise) sees the Olympics as a blue-check exercise in drawing new lines between people who struggle at the best of times to find some unifying concept. (Just ask the CFL which adopted his “diversity” mantra but then was stiffed at its time of crisis by a government with loftier public goals to achieve alongside WE. )
According to Justin Trudeau Reality (taught by Gerry Butts) the final medal standings at the Tokyo Games should read something like this:
CDN. women athletes/ teams 19
Biopoc single athletes. 5
Muslim medal winners 1
LGBTQ (all nations) 182
Trans CDN athletes 1
Privileged white walkers 1
Gold medals for our Chinese friends 38
The loudest progressive braying will likely be about the preponderance of medals won by Canada’s (traditional) women athletes. Of the gold, silver and bronzes handed out to athletes (for them to put on themselves) women and teams of women garnered 19 medals.
It was a great show. From the first medal (Caileigh Filmer, Hillary Janssens for rowing) to the final gold (Kelsey Mitchell in cycling sprint) women did dominate the standings for Canadians. And beat the smug Americans in soccer. This led the usual suspects to gloat about how men couldn’t keep up/ were lacking moral fibre etc. Where would the nation be without the fruits of progressive feminism?
A few caveats here. In about half the nations in the world women are not allowed to compete at all or are severely hampered by religious doctrines or cannot get funding for the rigorous training needed to make an Olympic final. In short the talent pool that Canadian women swim in is clearly smaller by a large factor than that in which the male athletes compete.
So when you’re watching an Olympic final in rowing or cycling or wrestling the odds that a Canadian woman gets on the podium increase exponentially over what can be expected for a man. A good example is Kelsey Mitchell gold in pursuit. From RBC’s camps identifying her athletic talent to winning the gold was a stunning two years. It’s remarkable, but it’s also virtually impossible in a men’s competition.
It might also help the chances of Canadian men if so many elite athletes didn’t choose hockey as a sport. By the time many realize they won’t make the NHL it’s almost too late to get into a sport as late as Mithchell did.
Another factor aiding Canadian women continues to be the Title IX regulations governing American collegiate sport. U.S. schools have to offer an equal number of sports scholarships to women as to men. Often they cannot find enough elite athletes in some sports to fill out their quotas. (See the Felicity Huffman/ Lori Loughlin scandal )
And so Canadian women have flooded into the NCAA to receive elite training and competition. From swimming (Maggie MacNeil, Michigan) to basketball (Kia Nurse, Connecticut) to soccer (Christine Sinclair) many of Canada’s Olympians are honed outside the country thanks to evening the scholarships. Which solves the age-old dilemma of how to get Canadian sponsors to pony up for future Olympians.
The great question now as Trudeau tries to lock-in his concept of diversity is will the Canadian public finally accept the sporting version of his propaganda? Outside the plum events such as Olympics and world championships, the public has been reluctant to give up its traditional NHL and other team sports to root for women?
And how will it accept the new reality of trans athletes and gender fluidity? People tuning in for a sports event don’t react well when they find they’ve signed up for a BLM, CRT or Liberal Party lecture.
For now, enjoy. And don’t let any politician steal the glory of Canada’s Olympians.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Personal Account with Tony Comper is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Censorship Industrial Complex
Tucker Carlson: Longtime source says porn sites controlled by intelligence agencies for blackmail
From LifeSiteNews
Journalist Glenn Greenwald replied with a story about how U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson changed his tune on a dime about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to spy on American communications without a warrant. The journalist made the caveat that he is not assuming blackmail was responsible for Johnson’s behavior.
Tucker Carlson shared during an interview released Wednesday that a “longtime intel official” told him that intelligence agencies control the “big pornography sites” for blackmail purposes.
Carlson added that he thinks dating websites are controlled as well, presumably referring at least to casual “hook-up” sites like Tinder, where conversations are often explicitly sexual.
“Once you realize that, once you realize that the most embarrassing details of your personal life are known by people who want to control you, then you’re controlled,” Carlson said.
He went on to suggest that this type of blackmail may explain some of the strange, inconsistent behavior of well-known figures, “particularly” members of Congress.
“We all imagine that it’s just donors” influencing their behavior, Carlson said. “I think it’s more than donors. I’ve seen politicians turn down donors before.”
Journalist Glenn Greenwald replied with a story about how U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson changed his tune on a dime about the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which allows the government to spy on American communications without a warrant. The journalist made the caveat that he is not assuming blackmail was responsible for Johnson’s behavior.
Greenwald told how he had seen Johnson grill FBI Director Christopher Wray about his agency’s spying and “could just tell that he felt passionately about (this),” prompting Greenwald to invite Johnson on his show, before anyone had any idea he might become Speaker of the House.
“One of the things we spent the most time on was (the need for) FISA reform,” Greenwald told Carlson, noting that the expiration of the current iteration of the FISA law was soon approaching. He added that Johnson was “determined” to help reform FISA and that it was in fact “his big issue,” the very reason he was on Greenwald’s show to begin with.
Johnson said regarding FISA, “We cannot allow this to be renewed; it’s a great threat to American democracy; at the very least, we need massive, fundamental reform” according to Greenwald.
Johnson became House Speaker about two months to three months later, and Greenwald was excited about the FISA reform he thought Johnson would surely help bring about.
“Not only did Mike Johnson say, ‘I’m going to allow the FISA renewal to come to the floor with no reforms.’ He himself said, ‘It is urgent that we renew FISA without reforms. This is a crucial tool for our intelligence agencies,’” Greenwald reounted.
He noted that Johnson was already getting access to classified information while in Congress, wondering at Johnson’s explanation for his behavior at the time, which was that he was made aware of highly classified information that illuminated the importance of renewing FISA and the spying capabilities it grants, as is.
Greenwald doesn’t believe one meeting is enough to change the mind of someone who is as invested in a position as Johnson was on FISA reform.
“I can see someone really dumb being affected by that … he’s a very smart guy. I don’t believe he changed his mind. So the question is, why did he?” Greenwald asked.
“I don’t know. I really don’t. But I know that the person that was on my show two months ago no longer exists.”
Theoretically, there are many ways an intelligence agency could coerce a politician or other person of influence into certain behaviors, including personal threats, threats to family, and committing outright acts of aggression against a person.
A former CIA agent has testified during an interview with Candace Owens that his former employer used the latter tactic against him and his family, indirectly through chemicals that made them sick, when he blew the whistle on certain unethical actions the CIA had committed.
“This is why you never hear about CIA whistleblowers. They have a perfected system of career destruction if you talk about anything you see that is criminal or illegal,” former CIA officer Kevin Shipp said.
As a form of coercion, sexual blackmail in particular is nothing new, although porn sites make the possibility much easier. In her book “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” investigative journalist Whitney Webb discusses not only how the intelligence community uses sexual blackmail through people like Jeffrey Epstein but how it was used by organized crime before U.S. intelligence even existed.
conflict
The West Is Playing With Fire In Ukraine
National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
As wars tend to do, the battle over Ukraine continues to escalate.
It was reported this week that North Korean soldiers in the conflict total 10,000 thus far and that Russia has rewarded Pyongyang by sending its excellent air defense systems to the Korean Peninsula in exchange.
Last month, the National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, warned that any North Korean troops fighting in the conflict would be, “fair game and fair targets.”
His green light delivered this week when “a high-ranking North Korean military officer [became] a casualty” according to a Wall Street Journal story on Thursday. That strike was allegedly conducted with British Storm Shadow missiles.
Just these recent events further entangle the U.S., U.K., North Korea, South Korea, and China within the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
But the week’s biggest Ukraine news rattled many Americans — the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to strike targets within Russia with the American-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
“The missiles will speak for themselves,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy boasted.
They sure will. First of all, the U.S. doesn’t have many of the $1.3 million missiles to lob around. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo warned an audience at the Brookings Institute this week that the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine are “now eating into stocks … and to say otherwise would be dishonest.”
I’ve met and been briefed by Admiral Paparo, who is one of the most positive and straight-talking flag officers in our military. If he is publicly ringing the warning bell, U.S. policy leaders should take heed.
Putin did not take the news of the ATACMS well. In response, he announced the use of a hypersonic ballistic missile on Thursday, carefully noting that it didn’t carry a nuclear warhead. The unspoken part: next time, it might.
What’s the goal in Biden’s escalation? It seems the White House is trying to prevent the inevitable or blame Trump for Ukraine’s upcoming defeat.
What they won’t admit is that the metrics of the war are not in Ukraine’s favor, and frankly never have been. No supersonic missile will change the immutable: Russia boasts a population five times Ukraine’s and when it comes to war materiel, Russia is winning. Despite Biden’s attempt to hobble the Russian economy, Putin’s war industry is outproducing the West by three times in the basic munitions needed to prosecute a land battle.
But aren’t Russians dying en mass on the battlefield?
Western leaders keep touting Russia’s high death toll, which estimates now place at 600,000. To military strategists here in the United States, such a human cost is unimaginable. Add up every American combat death going back 160 years through the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, World War II, World War I, and even the Union combat deaths in the Civil War, and the number does’t reach what Russia has lost in the past 1,000 days.
American and NATO leaders are foolish to underestimate Russian resolve.
Since its initial blundering and poorly-executed invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia has recovered from its mistakes, Russian public support for the war remains high, and the Russian economy hasn’t fallen apart. Putin may have lost the virtue-signaling battle of Ukrainian flag lapel pins, but make no mistake: he’s on a path to win the war.
Biden’s deputy Pentagon press secretary, Sabrina Singh, says don’t worry. On Thursday she told reporters the administration was sending as much American weapons and support to Ukraine as it can muster, “in the weeks and months ahead left of this administration. So, that’s what we’re really focused on.”
What did she make of Putin’s nuclear threat? “I mean, you know, we’ve seen this type of, you know, dangerous, reckless rhetoric before from President Putin,” Singh said.
“I mean, you know?” No, we don’t know. The world hasn’t seen nuclear threats like this since Harry S. Truman demanded Japan surrender.
For anyone worried about the state of our national security, January 20th can’t come quickly enough.
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