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"I came to be very fond of him." The post “That was a thrill”: Joni Mitchell on the best way to listen to Charles Mingus first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

MSNBC’s postelection viewership decline has surpassed its executives’ worst fears. Several top shows have lost more than half of their viewers since Nov. 5. This includes Rachel Maddow’s flagship show, as well as Joy Reid’s ReidOut, The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, All In with Chris Hayes, and Inside with Jen Psaki. Morning Joe has suffered a fate nearly as bad, with hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough losing over 400,000 viewers in the same period. In total, MSNBC averaged more than one million viewers during election week, but that number fell to just above half a million two weeks ago. This decline comes even as Fox News is scoring huge ratings, as viewership jumped 21 percent at the network following Trump’s win. (RELATED: MSNBC’s Attacks on Pete Hegseth Are Not About Trump — It’s About Fox News) The collapse in viewership alone would be enough to induce panic among MSNBC staffers, but tensions have escalated even more following Comcast’s Nov. 20 announcement that it will spin off MSNBC and other channels, including CNBC, USA, Oxygen, and E!, into a separate company. Staffers are fretting that this will decimate the network’s journalistic reputability given that MSNBC’s relationship with NBC News provides it with a significant proportion of its journalistic resources. For instance, MSNBC utilizes NBC’s news bureaus and foreign correspondents to supplement its more opinion-focused staff. Without these resources, MSNBC would be pared back to hosts reading from a teleprompter in New York City or moderating roundtable discussions. Staffers fear that the spinoff will result in layoffs, lower pay, and potentially even a sale. Under the current arrangement, NBCUniversal cable channels generate only 5.7 percent of Comcast’s current revenue, and the declining value of cable TV makes these channels even less appealing. By reorganizing the networks into a standalone company, Comcast may be positioning itself to offload this undesirable segment of its business. It also appears that MSNBC has overly high expenses. Most notably, Rachel Maddow just signed a contract to receive $25 million a year even though she only hosts her show once a week. Last week, the Washington Post interviewed a number of MSNBC staffers who voiced fears over the network’s future. “We’re going to become a guest-driven, fully opinion operation that doesn’t even have the appearance of being a news-driven operation,” worried one MSNBC staffer to the Post. What went unsaid in that staffer’s comment is that MSNBC has been steadily cementing its status as a progressive opinion outlet for years, with news programming slowly being replaced by opinion-driven shows. Earlier this year, it seemed that this shift had been successful, as MSNBC had consistently outperformed CNN to stand only behind Fox News in cable news ratings. But even as MSNBC’s focus on progressive opinion boosted its performance, concerns lingered at Comcast that this would taint the company’s news-oriented channels, particularly NBC affiliates. (READ MORE: Dems Click Off MSNBC and Discover There’s No Place Like Home) There was even a time when Comcast executives intervened when the ideology went too far. According to the New York Times, Comcast “took the rare step of conveying its concern” after MSNBC trotted out guests in the midst of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack to say that the attacks were the result of Israeli policies. Some on the network also refused to refer to the Hamas invaders as “terrorists.” The network subsequently removed three hosts, Ayman Mohyeldin, Mehdi Hasan, and Ali Velshi, from its lineup, but denied that their opinions were the reason for the removal. In recent days, MSNBC has been beset by two controversies that show the divisions tearing the already crumbling network apart. First, it emerged that Al Sharpton, who hosts his own show on MSNBC and appears on a number of its programs, had failed to disclose that his nonprofit, the National Action Network, had received $500,000 from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign before he interviewed her during the presidential campaign on MSNBC. The outlet has continued to feature Sharpton on its shows and has said that it was unaware of the donation. But this decision has riled up staffers who feel the lack of reaction to Sharpton’s breach of journalistic ethics damages the network’s credibility. According to Fox News, MSNBC colleagues are “buzzing about the ordeal.” One MSNBC staffer told Fox News, “There’s a sense of like, ‘Ugh, we don’t need this. This feels kind of grifty and gross.’” The staffer continued, “That kind of money should not be changing hands to people who are cosplaying being a journalist.” Second, Morning Joe hosts Joe Brzezinski and Mika Scarborough received backlash from viewers after they traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with Donald Trump in order to “restart communications.” Scarborough sought to assure viewers that their engagement with the president-elect did not mean they were condoning any of his actions. “Don’t be mistaken,” he said. “We are not here to defend or normalize Donald Trump. We are here to report on him and to hopefully provide you insights that are going to better equip all of us in understanding these deeply unsettling times.” But viewers protested the show after the visit, seeing it as a capitulation made out of fear after years of the pair portraying Trump as a fascist. Inside the network, the hosts’ discussion with the Republican president-elect reportedly set off a firestorm of angst. According to the U.S. Sun, one MSNBC journalist said that the “Trump visit had created a very tense situation,” with some at the network feeling that they had been “stabbed in the back.” The source went on to say that hosts Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Eri Melber were in particular inflamed about the situation. Meanwhile, MSNBC host Katie Phang publicly stated, “Normalizing Trump is a bad idea.” Even as MSNBC continues to struggle with plummeting viewership, internal discord, and questions about its journalistic integrity — or lack thereof — some executives remain hopeful that a second “Trump bump” will return when the former president retakes office come January. Yet there remains a scenario in which the network continues to fall further into irrelevance as its progressive elitism becomes increasingly detached from the common American experience and cable news is increasingly supplanted by independent media. In that case, Comcast could sell MSNBC off to a progressive billionaire who could cement the network’s role as a mouthpiece for the Left, abandoning any remaining efforts at journalism and neutrality, but possibly further decreasing its relevance. Or Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, could buy the network, as he has suggested, and transform it as he did Twitter. Whatever the case, MSNBC will remain in turmoil. READ MORE from Ellie Holmes: Is the Transgender Movement Really Backing Down? DEI Proponents at the University of Michigan Are Panicking but Refusing to Budge Newsom Trades Sacramento for $9 Million Luxury Living The post At MSNBC, Rising Tensions Fuel Fears of Collapse appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In July of 1863 at the battle of Gettysburg, Confederate forces reached their high-water mark during Pickett’s charge. While no one knew it as a high-water mark at the time, that point marked the beginning of the end for the Southern cause. While singular events are viewed in the context of the moment, a high-water mark is a mystery of timing. It can only be discovered retrospectively as subsequent events unfold. Given recent developments in corporate America, it is now apparent that woke corporate activism has had its high-water mark. In April 2023, at the start of the NCAA basketball March Madness, marketing executives from the Bud Light brand decided that the best way to communicate the attributes of their product to their target audience of mostly young, blue-collar males was to promote a sponsorship with transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney. By disregarding their target consumer and following the well-worn path of woke corporate activism, the Bud Light brand lost customers, market share, and revenue. While no one knew it at the time, Bud Light represented the high-water mark for woke corporate activism. The next 18 months marked the steady decline of woke corporate policies and practices culminating in the world’s largest retailer, Walmart, announcing a halt to its DEI practices. But how did we get to this point? At first, the backlash to the Bud Light and Mulvaney partnership was thought to be a knee-jerk reaction limited to conservative media. As the weeks unfolded, however, the reaction turned into a protest and the protest turned into a boycott. Before long, Bud Light lost its number one market position and was scrambling to regain its footing with new advertising, price promotions, and a 60-second commercial at the Super Bowl. (READ MORE: Bud Light’s Super Bowl Hail Mary) Nothing worked. The brand continued its steady decline. Hot on the heels of Bud Light came a controversy at Target, where the retailer faced significant backlash surrounding the promotion of its Pride Month clothing toward children. Target subsequently removed some of the offensive items from its stores and scaled back Pride Month displays in response to the controversy. Next came one of the biggest blows to woke corporate activism, a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions. The ruling has since been used against various diversity programs in corporate America. Additional dominoes fell across the corporate landscape as companies like Ford, Boeing, and Harley-Davidson abandoned their DEI initiatives in direct response to customer sentiment, a changing social landscape, and scrutiny by conservative activists. Lastly, Walmart recently announced that the company was abandoning its DEI policies, all but signaling the end of woke corporate activism. Walmart’s announcement cuts across multiple areas of the company. The term “DEI” has been eliminated from company documents and job titles. Quotas for collaborating with suppliers designated as “diversity partners” have been dropped. The company elected not to renew a multimillion-dollar commitment to the Center for Racial Equity. Walmart will even remove some LGBTQ merchandise from its shelves, will stop providing company data to the Human Rights Campaign, and will reevaluate the company’s participation in Pride Month events. Walmart’s move is particularly impactful for three reasons. First, as the world’s largest retailer and number one private-sector employer in the United States, Walmart sets an example for others to follow. It is likely that other firms will follow Walmart’s lead. Second, Walmart is aligning its policies with the expectations and values of its customers rather than dictating values to them, learning from the mistakes of Bud Light. Third, Walmart is clearly responding to the changes coming in the wake of the recent presidential election. Companies like Walmart desire to grow and are positioning themselves to take advantage of a freer free market. After being turned back from its high-water mark at Gettysburg, the Southern Army remained in the field but would never again be in the same position of strength. While woke corporate activism may remain a part of the business landscape in some corners, it will never be in the position of strength it was up until the moment Dylan Mulvaney held up that Bud Light can. READ MORE from Richard Kocur: China’s Potential for Pharmacological Warfare SEC Just Made Business Riskier With Woke Demands Bud Light’s Super Bowl Hail Mary The post The High-Water Mark of Woke Corporate Activism appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

“Today we must reckon with the harsh reality that authoritarianism has arrived in America, that it’s broadly popular, and that millions of our fellow citizens have given it their votes,” writes the LA Times. “This was a conquering of the nation not by force but with a permission slip. Now, America stands on the precipice of an authoritarian style of governance never before seen in its 248-year history,” according to the New York Times. “How Trump’s reelection signals a broader acceptance of authoritarian leadership,” cautions PBS News Hour. A common theme in response to Donald Trump’s resounding presidential victory is to declare that Americans have finally given their souls to the dark side and brazenly voted for authoritarianism. I study authoritarianism for a living, and I can confidently say that this narrative is patently ridiculous. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and countless others should be ashamed of themselves for such a childish, petty, and thoughtless interpretation of the Nov. 5 election. I’m not speculating. The idea that the majority of the American public purposefully voted for authoritarianism is demonstrably false. Indeed, even one-sided mischaracterizations of polling data attempting to smear Trump voters — such as this hit piece on Trump voters at The Bulwark by Will Saletan — show that the majority of Trump voters don’t support authoritarianism. A deeper look essentially smashes the Trump authoritarian voter narrative to pieces. Our lab collected several representative American surveys in the two weeks before the election. Is there evidence that Trump voters were especially authoritarian? Let’s look at just two facts. First, there has been a lot of talk of electing “Hitler.” We asked conservatives how much they supported Hitler and the Nazis, and very few of them scored above 1 on a 1-7 scale. The average score was less than 1.3. It is hard to overstate how low a score that is, but any methodologist would tell you that it is so small as to be almost zero. So, Trump voters weren’t voting for Hitler, because almost no one in the country supports Hitler. Yes, there are a few outliers who support Hitler. Yes, those people were more likely to vote for Trump than Harris. But to suggest Nazi support was driving the election is empirically farcical. In fact, a far better predictor in our dataset of Trump support was a false belief that liberals supported Hitler. Liberals do not support Hitler, but it is hard to accuse conservatives of voting for Hitler when they were literally voting against the people they (falsely) believed supported him. Second, did right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) predict support for Trump? Yes, of course. I’ve been studying authoritarianism predicting election outcomes since 2008, and authoritarianism almost always predicts voting for the preferred candidate — especially when the candidate’s party is not currently in power. But that’s the wrong question here. The right question is: Did authoritarianism predict voting for Trump in this election more than it predicted voting for preferred candidates in other elections? And the answer is: No. In no way was this election an outlier. Actually, with proper controls, the biggest effect we’ve found so far for authoritarianism predicting an election outcome (in a 2019 published paper on the subject) was for left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) predicting support for Barack Obama in 2008 — an effect bigger than RWA predicting Trump support in any of the elections we’ve tracked. And even in the current election, the difference between LWA-Harris support and RWA-Trump support was not very large — in spite of the fact that Trump was in the “candidate not in power” category that tends to produce more authoritarian votes. So, if you want to argue that right-wingers voted for authoritarianism in Trump, you have to argue that left-wingers voted for authoritarianism in Obama. It is also worth noting that across all these elections, the effect of authoritarianism predicting election outcomes — with proper controls — is not very large. People high in authoritarianism tend to vote for their party’s candidate at higher rates than other people, especially when they feel threatened. That is true. But looking at this from another angle is more instructive for our purposes: what percentage of the overall vote is affected by authoritarianism? In our data, it tends to be something between 1 percent and 4 percent. This is a meaningful percentage, and as an authoritarianism researcher, I am always concerned about signals revealing our populace contains a lot of authoritarians in raw numbers. And I do believe the nation has a potentially dangerous authoritarianism problem on both sides of the political aisle. Nonetheless, suggesting from this data that the majority of Americans purposefully voted for an authoritarian government is bordering on the absurd. At all times and in all places, authoritarian persons exist and are more likely to vote for their party’s candidate. But that doesn’t mean American voters are especially prone to this malady; in fact, they are probably among the least prone toward purposefully electing authoritarian leaders in the history of the world. Objective data comparing authoritarianism across nations shows that Americans are at a minimum lower than the average nation in authoritarian beliefs. Yes, Trump himself has done some questionable things. Some of those things are authoritarian and have been rightly criticized by other prominent Republicans such as Bill Barr and Mike Pence. It turns out that almost all leaders at all times and in all places, even in the world’s longest-running and most successful democracy (that is us, America, in case you were wondering), tend to overreach their own power. The acknowledgment of that fact by the Founding Fathers is precisely what makes our system so brilliant — we have a lot of checks and balances to stop individuals from succeeding in their overreach. Our system was meant to block the executive branch from becoming authoritarian. At this endeavor, it has worked and is still working. And I do believe we should be vigilant about Trump’s potential overreach in the same way I believe we should be vigilant about President Joe Biden’s very real overreach. No, this isn’t a defense of Trump, even though I voted for him and I’m not ashamed of that fact. Rather, this is a defense of the American voter. Americans did not vote for authoritarianism on Nov. 5. If anything, they voted against authoritarianism. But what is certain is that they voted for a stable economy, a reasonable border policy, a return to common sense, and (above all) equality and freedom over equity and woke bullying. They were tired of being gaslighted by progressive bullies, and they told Democrats so. Pretending Americans turned authoritarian may make Democrats feel better. But it sure won’t help them win more elections. I’d strongly suggest they try another and more constructive narrative. READ MORE from Lucian G. Conway: America’s Abortion Blind Spot: How Liberals Convinced Americans to Ignore the Fetus The Political Contamination of Climate Science Can We Please Give Philadelphia to New Jersey? The post No, America Did Not Just Vote for Authoritarianism: A Defense of the American Voter appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Muhammad: A Critical Biography By Robert Spencer (Bombardier Books, 352 pages, $35) As the usual pace of American life slowed with the approach of the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the headlines that went unnoticed involved a decapitation. The Daily Mail reported that in France on the Tuesday before the holiday, a Muslim schoolgirl broke down in tears in court over the Oct. 16, 2020, murder of a French schoolteacher. Eighteen-year-old Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen asylum-seeker, cut off Samuel Paty’s head. Anzorov was killed by police a short time later. Anzorov was inspired to commit the murder by the social media posts of the girl’s father, Brahim Chnina. The reason? The girl claimed Paty had ordered Muslim students out of the classroom while he showed satirical pictures of the Prophet Muhammad that had originally appeared in the magazine Charlie Hebdo. Paty had shown the pictures in class as part of an ethics discussion but told Muslim students they could turn away if they wished. The girl was not even in the class for the incident. She had been suspended from school for bad behavior and did not want to tell her parents the truth. Hence, the lie about Paty. On Tuesday, she told Paty’s family: I know it’s hard to hear, but I wanted to apologise… I wanted to apologise sincerely. I’m sorry for destroying your life. I apologise for my lie that brought us all back here. Without me, no one would be here. The girl made the statement during the trial of eight adults who are accused of being connected to Paty’s murder. A child lying to her parents about being suspended from school is not remarkable. The murder that resulted from it is — based on beliefs that are hundreds of years in the making. The same can be said of those who chanted “From the river to the sea,” in many cases completely unaware of the river and sea to which they were referring, and who often supported the brutal Oct. 7 attack that launched the latest war in the region. The attack itself was the product of radical Islamist theology. This past Monday, a report surfaced that thugs threw rocks at busses filled with kids from the Jews’ Free School in north London while spewing obscenity-laced anti-Semitic invective at the terrified students. Lest anyone forget, the same mindset that led to the murder of Samuel Paty fostered the 9/11 atrocities. At the same time, I am on nodding terms with the Muslims in my community, at least the men. I have had several pleasant conversations with Muslims in passing. In 2023, conservatives in the U.S. were pleasantly perplexed that many Muslims stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them over the issue of the LGBTQ agenda being inserted into schools. Whether or not one views Islam as a threat, it is definitely a puzzle and has been since the Prophet Muhammad received his first vision circa 610 AD. This puzzle of Islam can be traced directly back to the story of Muhammad himself. In his latest book, Muhammad: A Critical Biography, Robert Spencer attempts to find the man amid the legend. Spencer is well-versed in the study of Islam. He is the director of the website Jihad Watch and the author of 28 books. He has also led seminars on Islam and jihad for a veritable constellation of government agencies, including the FBI, U.S. Central Command, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, to name a few. In this latest book, Spencer takes on the herculean task of separating man from myth in the story of Muhammad. It is worth noting that the Koran itself only mentions the Prophet four times, but the amount of information available about his life is voluminous. Spencer notes that some apologists see a foreshadowing of the Prophet in the Song of Solomon, Proverbs, and the Psalms. Still, much of the material comes from the hadiths or reports about Muhammad’s life. Authentic hadiths are considered on par with Islamic law. Other reports are specifically biographical and referred to as the Sīrah. Spencer contends that many of the accounts of the Prophet’s life have traditionally been accepted as genuine. In his book, he takes issue with that view, pointing out that many of these hadiths contradict other accounts of Muhammad, and many come from dubious sources. The hadiths and Sīrah appear in the 9th century, but as Spencer notes, Muhammad died in the 7th century. Spencer explains that the explosion of material about the life of Muhammad came during the same era in which Arab warriors were starting their conquests, and according to Spencer, the Arab Empire created Islam as a unifying force. Muhammad was then created to provide a central figure for the new faith, one that bore similarities to Jesus and Moses, both of whom make appearances in Islamic theology, along with many other Old Testament notables. The message of the Koran, explains Spencer, is that the people of the Bible were all Muslims who taught Islam, but their teachings were corrupted by their followers, a heresy that Muhammad came to correct. There are also contradictions surrounding the narratives of Muhammad’s birth and that the city of Mecca, Muhammad’s birthplace, was not a bustling center of trade but rather a tiny, backwater town. Spencer also talks about the existence of three Jewish tribes in the area and a story of a Christian delegation that once came to speak with the Prophet, none of which have any basis in history. Spencer also notes that during the Arab conquest, there was no mention of Muhammad, the Koran, or Islam. In the book, Spencer theorizes that Muhammad was likely an amalgam of people whose tales were assembled and grew in the retelling. Muhammad becomes larger than life. When he goes to war, he is practically unstoppable. When he is gracious, he is the epitome of mercy and kindness. With his wives, he is a man’s man. Everything he does, he does better and bigger than anyone else. According to Spencer, some scholars claim that stories that cast Muhammad in a less-than-favorable light actually give credence to the idea that Muhammad existed. In an interview, Spencer cautions against reading these stories through 21st-century Western eyes. Those who wrote stories that were not necessarily flattering to the Prophet did not consider the incidents they were relating to be negative at all. It is only in our day and age that we may find some stories about Muhammad to reflect objectionable behavior or values. Apologists for Islam may also argue that perceived discrepancies arise from people taking the stories out of context. Many Christian apologists contend that the different accounts of the life of Christ found in the Synoptic Gospels and even in the Gospel of John are not conflicting but rather interlocking and thus create a comprehensive record. Might not the same argument be presented for the hadiths and the Sīrah? In that same interview, Spencer discounted this idea on the basis that often the hadiths are flatly contradictory making such an assertion very difficult to justify. Spencer suggests that the hadiths were created to fill in missing information from the Koran or to explain textual discrepancies. In some cases, he posits that some stories about Muhammad were created by different sects of Islam in order to bolster their own positions or beliefs. When Muhammad allegedly made a mistake in doctrine in the episode fictionalized in Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” regarding an incorrect revelation, he rescinded his pronouncement, proclaiming it to be the result of interference by Satan. Allah then canceled the revelation, thereby correcting the mistake. In one case, Muhammad’s forces did not succeed in the Battle of Uhud, circa 625. The defeat was not attributed to military strategy, leadership, or luck. Rather, it was a lack of faith, which, according to Spencer, stoked the fires of fanaticism. The more devout one is the better one’s chances of success in life and warfare. That idea has echoed down through the centuries and resonated on 9/11 and in Israel on Oct. 7. Was the Prophet Muhammad the product of warlords seeking to consolidate power? Did a man create a religion, or did a religion create a man? Spencer asserts that both could be equally true. Was Muhammad a military, social, and religious leader, or an amalgam of people whose stories were woven together to create a central figure around which the faithful could rally? The answer lies somewhere in between. It is no small thing to undertake a critical look at Islam and its prophet. There is no doubt that Spencer’s book will offend members of the Muslim community and even its non-Muslim sympathizers. As a student of religion, I have faced criticism for reading other versions of the Bible and not just the King James Version. I have been taken to the proverbial woodshed for suggesting that the message in the opening chapters of Genesis matters more than the issue of a six-day creation. But as Socrates is said to have remarked, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Can the same be said of faith? Muhammad: A Critical Biography is an excellent companion piece to Spencer’s previous outing, Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization. Taken together, they offer the reader a comprehensive look at eras and events that shaped the world. READ MORE from Lincoln Brown: God & Country: Deliver Us From Christian MAGA Distinctly American: Who Are RFK Jr.’s Supporters? The Allegations Against Tim Ballard Must Not Disrupt the Fight Against Human Trafficking The post A Review of Robert Spencer’s <i>Muhammad: A Critical Biography</i> appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.