Ain't funny, McGee

 

Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said the U.S. would offer “millions” to a de facto international climate reparations fund, Bloomberg News reported Monday.

***

Russia has lost 302,000 soldiers killed and wounded in Ukraine and tens of thousands more have deserted, according to new UK figures.

***

The life expectancy of men in the U.S. is nearly six years shorter than that of women, according to new research published on Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. 

? De facto discrimination. Evidence of systemic racism?

***

Ain't funny, McGee

The Washington Post ran a cartoon by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez satirizing Hamas’s claims that Israel targets Gazan children, showing the terrorist group’s spokesman, Ghazi Hamadi, using kids as human shields. By Wednesday, after what executive editor Sally Buzbee called “deep concern” from staffers and letters written by subscribers, the Post pulled the cartoon, which many readers and employees reportedly saw as racist.

Ramirez told NR he believes the accusations of racism on his part stem from an inability to reckon with the tactics Hamas uses, like employing children as human shields, as he depicted in his drawing.

“When the intellectually indolent cannot defend the indefensible, they pull the race card,” he said.

The backlash to the cartoon stemmed partly from allegations that Hamadi’s facial features had been exaggerated in a racially stereotypical manner. Ramirez explained to NR — and provided examples of other cartoons of his demonstrating as much — that he does so for all his subjects regardless of ethnicity.

The ability of what he called a “faction of juveniles” to dictate editorial decisions is a problem not just for the Post but for journalism as an industry and the country as a whole.

“The free exchange of ideas is the foundation of our democracy, and the purpose of an editorial cartoon is to be the catalyst for thought,” he said. “By promoting the thoughtful exchange of ideas, we forge a consensus through the fiery heat of debate. I think political correctness and the woke movement are bad for democracy.”

Ramirez said it is the responsibility of people in positions of power to protect those values.

“It is sad that people who oppose a political viewpoint have to invent diversions to quell the debate; we should be better than that,” he told NR. “America should be better than that. We need some adults in the room. If it scares you — a cartoon — maybe you need to grow up.”--from NR