China – When The Abuser Goes To Work…

Outrage About China’s Treatment of Peng Shuai

There is more than a little bit of hypocrisy with respect to the outrage in the U.S. about China’s treatment of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s following her sexual assault complaint against Chinese ex premier Zhang Gaoli.

Things are not going so great in the United States for victims of sexual assault.

MONEY AND JUSTICE

I had to twice check the date on a story published this week by The New York Times because it seemed like a relic from the 1970s.

Christopher Belter, then 16 and a student at an elite private boys school, pleaded guilty to the sexually attacking four teens (including the rape of at least one victim). He faced up to eight years in prison but instead was sentenced to probation.

County Court Judge Matthew J. Murphy III of Niagara, N.Y., claims he “prayed over” the appropriate sentence in the case and concluded that “incarceration or partial incarceration isn’t appropriate” for Belter.

The Buffalo News reported that Peter M. Wydysh, an assistant district attorney, did not make a sentencing recommendation to the court. This is unusual, especially since Belter pled guilty to four counts of sexual attacks on teenage girls.

Is it purely coincidental that Belter comes from an extremely wealthy family?

Kyle Rittenhouse and Violent Video Games

What possessed Kyle Rittenhouse, a baby-faced 17-year-old, to pick up an AR-15 style rifle and head to Kenosha, Wisconsin in the first place?

There has been a lot of discussion about the harm caused by social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms to American youth but very little discussion about the role of violent videogames, where teens arm themselves with massive weaponry to maim and kill.

Rittenhouse claims he and a friend volunteered to go to Kenosha to protect a car dealership that was set upon by rioters the night before. Rittenhouse, who is now a nursing student, wore a medical kit and said he intended to provide medical care. At one point he also carried a fire extinguisher.

It all seems hopelessly naïve, but not altogether implausible for a 17-year-old teenager, especially one who testified Wednesday to playing violent video games.

Rittenhouse ended up killing two men and grievously wounding a third. He’s claiming self-defense. Cell phone videos of the action that evening in Kenosha show Rittenhouse lying on the pavement, while protesters/rioters attacked him and attempted to wrestle the gun away from him. The only reason they didn’t succeed is because it was strapped on his shoulder.

A few decades years ago, a teenager like Rittenhouse might be working to become an Eagle Scout.

Healthline reports that more than 90 percent of kids play video games and more than 90 percent of popular games portray violence.

When Married Women Bully Single Women

When I read a letter to the editor signed “Mrs. John Doe” or “J’s wife”, I feel irritation.

This is a mild form of “women-to -women” violence that often is overlooked and underappreciated.

As a woman from the generation that fought for civil rights for women, I recognize the patriarchal symbolism of “Mrs.” as opposed to the gender neutral “Ms.”

Women who identify publicly as an appendage of a spouse, knowingly or not, display an historic form of gender superiority. They tell the world they have worth because they are not a “spinster” or “old maid.” Their message subtly stigmatizes single women.

A recent study in China found “extensive evidence” of women-to-women violence, primarily psychological, targeting urban unmarried women over the age of 30.

“Notably, most of the direct perpetrators of violent acts against single women are married women, who are seen to accept and defend the patriarchal society and value system to viilfy the existence of single women,” writes author Shaoefen Tang.

Did China Hack The 2020 Election?

There is “no question” said House Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, that former President Donald J. Trump is responsible for the so-called “insurrection” at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6.

That would be a tidy ending to a period of messy national unrest but there may be more blame to go around.

A report by the Center for Internet Security last week concluded that election systems are vulnerable to the same risks exposed by the SolarWinds hack, an extensive espionage operation that was discovered a few week after the 2020 Presidential election.

The U.S. government learned on Dec. 13 that foreign hackers had infiltrated the computer networks of federal agencies, including top secret agencies like the National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Dept. of State, U.S. Dept. of Treasury, etc. As long as a year ago, hackers surreptitiously entered government email servers through vulnerabilities in a widely-used computer software program sold by the Texas-based firm SolarWinds.

The hackers gained access to info about the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. It would not be a challenge to enter state election websites.

Perceived Media Bias Has Skyrocketed

Many Americans will check the media today to see who “won” the Presidential debate.

And they will wonder if they watched the same debate as everyone else.

The Presidential election has exposed a rapidly growing fault line in American democracy – media bias.

A biennial report recently released by the Knight Foundation and Gallup Poll found that 73% of Americans consider media bias to be a “major problem,” a whopping increase of 65% in just two years.

The report found that 86% of Americans think news coverage is distorted by political bias. Of these, 49% see a “great deal” of political bias in news coverage, an increase of 45% since 2017, and 37% see a “fair amount” of political bias in news coverage.

Eight in ten Americans think news organizations are no longer reporting the news but trying to persuade the public to adopt a particular viewpoint.

Three quarters of Americans are worried that media owners are willfully influencing their companies’ coverage.

Hunter Biden Laptop

The bias is evident with respect to ongoing campaign coverage and especially with how the media is covering the scandal involving Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contains emails indicating Biden took a cut of payments from his son for business deals in Ukraine and China while he was vice president.

Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, confirmed Thursday that VP Biden was the “big guy” who Hunter Biden planned to give 10% of proceeds from a business deal in China.

The Bobulinski development was not reported in some of America’s top newspapers, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.