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Its easy to mock Kanye West running for president.

An erratic late-entrance candidate running on the self-established Birthday Party ticket, West is only on the ballot in 12 states, eligible to win at most 84 of the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the West Wing.

Absent the prohibitive mathematical obstacles to his late campaign, West has not cast himself as a serious or stable candidate. His campaign kickoff this summer featured a public meltdown that raised concerns among his family. His online platform is merely 400 words, identifying policy goals with no specifics, citing scripture under each item. Campaign advertising has extended to a few ads released in the final weeks of the election calling on voters to write-in the 43-year-old rapper to pull off a November upset.

While President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden made their final case on CBSs 60 Minutes, Sunday night, West sat down with Joe Rogan for a three-hour podcast released Saturday.

I believe that my calling is to be the leader of the free world, West told Rogan at the start of the interview. It was something God put on my heart back in 2015.

What ensued was a 180-minute conversation that was difficult to follow. A rambling where West described his long tirades as symphonies and sounded at times like a contestant at a beauty pageant weaving in complex words to sound intelligent or a freshman college student who discovered marijuana for the first time pondering questions like How much is the Earth worth?

When asked what he would do as president, West simply said, Pretty much everything.

After a few pauses, West said he would solve the more than $27 trillion national debt.

When asked how he would handle a crisis episode of foreign aggression, West went silent. Then, sounding like Trump in 2016, he said he would be surrounded with smart people.

I would have the greatest professionals on the planet, West said.

As a presidential candidate, West sounded a lot like the current president did four years ago.

Once I see everything, I never make the wrong decision, West told Rogan at one point. Once Im given the right information, I apply my taste, and I have the best taste on the planet.

Within the erratic outbursts on Twitter, the self-righteous claims, and showcased ignorance of public policy lies a repentant sinner who illustrated a devout Christian faith with depth in the culture wars.

Present throughout the entire three-hour dialogue was a discussion on how Wests faith has shaped the billionaire pop-star today. He made clear, if nothing else, that his sole purpose in life was to live pleasing an audience of one.

When I made Sunday Service, I completely stopped rapping, because I dont know how to rap for God, West told Rogan. All my raps always had nasty jokes. When I went to the hospital in 2016, I wrote, Started church in Calabasas. As we left from 2018 going into 2019, I said, Im not going to let one Sunday go by without starting this church.'

At another intense moment, West said this:

When you remove like even in the schools you remove prayer, you remove God, you remove the fear of God, you create the possibility of the fear of everything else. But watch this, when you instill the fear of God, you eliminate the fear of anything else. And its not that I am fearless. I am definitely, literally definitely shaking and in so much fear of my father, I fear God, and I dont fear nothin else.

West remained most fixated, however, on the topic of abortion, referring to the procedure instead as the a-word when discussing the rappers summer episode breaking down on a South Carolina stage where he revealed his family had almost terminated his daughters pregnancy.

West condemned abortions racist roots as a weapon of eugenics that still takes a disproportionate toll on black lives.

People saw this clip of me crying. Some people didnt know what I was crying about. I was crying about that there is a possible chance that Kim and I didnt make the family that we have today. Thats my most family-friendly way to word that. The idea of it just tears me up inside, that I was part of a culture that promotes this kind of thing, West said. There were 210,000 deaths due to COVID in America. Everywhere you go, you see someone with a mask on. With A, the A word, a culture Ill say it one time, with abortion culture there are 1,000 black children aborted a day. Daily. We are in genocide.

West also mocked Democrats soft-bigotry of low expectations as feeding institutional racism, and derided subjects like Black History Month.

Were given Black History Month and we take that like its some gift to us, West said.

Its programming to us. Racism doesnt end until we get to a point where we stop having to put the word black in front of it, because its like were putting the rim a little bit lower for ourselves We shouldnt have to have a special box. A special month. What they show during Black History Month is us getting hosed down, reminding us that we were slaves. What if we had, Remember When I Cheated On You Month? How does that make you feel? It makes you feel depleted and defeated.

While West lacks the characteristics of a serious presidential contender, theres a place in contemporary American politics for the pop stars participation. An increasingly secular society has begun to mark individuals of deep faith with an aura of taboo. Look no further than the recent attacks on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, who was depicted as a judicial candidate taken out of a scene from the dystopian Handmaids Tale.

Wests entrance into the political arena as a faith adherent holds the potential to ignite a more positive change in American society than hundreds of political leaders have in decades by mainstreaming pro-life popularity. Even more than that, Wests message could save millions by bringing the gospel to those who otherwise tune out traditional politicians while destigmatizing the role of faith in politics.

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Kanye West Is An Unserious, But Necessary Presidential Candidate - The Federalist

(October 26, 2020 / JNS) To borrow a phrase from the great Yogi Berra, the upcoming U.S. presidential election is beginning to feel like dj vu all over again.

In 2016, then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was down by more than 5 percentage points in many national polls but managed to pull out a stunning electoral college victory by winning in battleground states.

As I wrote in 2015, in a piece titled Have Polls Lost It?: A poll has become the opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I provided many examples, including a Gallup poll according to which then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney would beat incumbent Democrat Barack Obama50 percent to 49 percent in 2012. Obama beat Romney 51 percent to 47 percent.

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Currently, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is ahead of Trump in various polls of key battleground states like Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. CNN has Biden leading Trump 50 percent to 46 percent in Florida. USA Today has Biden leading 49 percent to 42 percent in Pennsylvania. A Hill/Harris poll has Biden leading 54 percent to 43 percent in Michigan. Real Clear Politics has Biden leading 49.7 percent to 43.5 percent in Wisconsin. Fox News polls are similar, except that they show a 3 percent lead by Trump in Ohio.

In 2016, with two weeks to go before the election, the numbers were not that much different from those of today for these key battleground states. For example, Real Clear Politics had Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton besting Trump in Florida 47 percent to 44.6 percent; in Pennsylvania, 47.2 percent to 42 percent; in Michigan, 47.5 percent to 37.5 percent; and in Wisconsin, 45.3 percent to 39.3 percent.

Although so much is different about this election from that of 2016Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton; the coronavirus has killed more than 200,000 Americans; the cancel culture wars have begun in earnest; and the American people have had a chance to experience Trump as president for four yearsthey are not that much different.

Indeed, as much as things have changed, so much remains the same. And 56 percent of Americans say that they are better off today than they were in 2016.

As a rule, incumbents win a second term. There have been only 10 presidents since 1789 who did not: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland (though he lost, he won a second term eventually, as he served as both the 22nd and 24th president), Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush.

Interestingly, the president to whom Trump is most frequently comparedAndrew Jacksonwon a second term. Jackson won because of a fervently devoted and strong base of support. Trump has a similarly devoted and energized base.

Among Trumps most ardent supporters are Orthodox Jew. It is estimated that in 2016 he received approximately 25 percent of the overall Jewish vote, the vast majority of which came from the Orthodox community.

According to a recent Pew survey, he will receive 27 percent of the Jewish vote this time around. Ami Magazine recently predicted that 83 percent of Orthodox Jews will be voting for him.

Given the closeness of the race in key battleground states, every Orthodox vote becomes that much more significant for him. (See my 2017 article, The Orthodox Have Come of Age.)

Since, in 2016, he only won by 112,911 votes in Florida and only 44,241 in Pennsylvania, there is no doubt that the Orthodox vote was helpful, that the Orthodox voting bloc can indeed sway an election. This is even more evident in Michigan, where he only won by 10,700 votes, and in Wisconsin, where he only won by 22,748 votes.Although the Pew study of 2013 indicated that the Orthodox make up a mere 10 percent of the American-Jewish population, this can be very misleading, because the Orthodox community in a state like Florida is closer to 20 percent of the Jewish population there, which is 657,095.

This means that more than 100,000 votes in Florida will be cast for Trump from the Orthodox community alone, which could tip the scales in his favor. The same goes for Pennsylvania, which has a Jewish population of 434,165. Even assuming that only 10 percent of that states Jews are Orthodox, it would still translate into more than 35,000 votes. Meanwhile, Michigan has a Jewish population of 87,905 and Wisconsin of 33,455. Again, the Orthodox could make the difference between victory and defeat for the president in these states.

It is clear that Orthodox Jews will have a profound effect on the outcome of the election on Nov. 3.

Dr. Joseph Frager is first vice president of the National Council of Young Israel.

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The impact of Orthodox Jews on the US presidential election - JNS.org

Patrick W. ONeil| The Fayetteville Observer

The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has reignited the debate over womens ability to balance motherhood and career. The Christian right quickly made Barrett an icon, praising her for raising seven children while still achieving her professional goals. Meanwhile, commentators on the left argued that Barretts work-life equilibrium was out of reach for single mothers, poor mothers, and people facing chronic illnesses.

The debate Barrett evokes goes back at least to the famous 1978 cover of Ms. Magazine, which depicted a woman torn between a briefcase in one hand and a child clinging to her other hand, asking, Can Women Really Have It All? The question seems somehow both a relic of the early Womens Movement and an albatross hanging around our collective necks: Today we might well update it to ask, Can Women Really Have It All, and Have We Seriously Not Answered This Question Yet?

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But what is surprising is how little effort America has put into ensuring that women could have it all and how close we came, 50 years ago, to doing so.

In its 1966 Statement of Purpose, the National Organization for Women (NOW) defined the feminist agenda as bringing women into the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life. Since then, Americans have indeed forged a national consensus that women should, like Barrett, be able to attain the highest levels of American social and political life.

But no matter how far women climb, motherhood remains a problem: It forces women out of the workforce in their 20s and 30s, just as their careers are getting going just as they would be joining law firms, putting together tenure packets or clerking for Supreme Court Justices. Some studies suggest, indeed, that motherhood accounts for much, albeit not all, of the gender pay gap. There are women who have the resources to withstand this setback Barrett seems to have relied on her aunt for childcare but many do not.

The founders of NOW proposed a simple, obvious solution: Have the government provide child care. True equality, they knew, was impossible until women could get back to work after having children. To that end, they proposed a (free) nationwide network of child-care centers, which, they said, would make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown.

It almost happened. In 1971, Congress passed the Comprehensive Child Development Act with overwhelming bipartisan support: it cleared the Senate 63 to 17. The law would have offered childcare from infancy, with costs allocated according to need and income to all American parents. After initially backing the bill, President Richard Nixon vetoed it, in terms designed to draw right-wing culture warriors to his side in the 1972 election: He would not, he said, commit the vast moral authority of the national government to the side of communal approaches to child rearing over against the family-centered approach.

Nixons answer to whether women could have it all was an unambiguous No. Rather than letting the federal government provide child-care, Nixons family-centered approach left childcare where it had always been. Women who could afford it would pay others to look after their children; working women with helpful family members would remain dependent on them; and the majority of women would have to perform the same calculation many families do today, weighing the expense of day-care costs against their own career ambitions.

What did the Womens Movement accomplish? In cultural terms, it was gangbusters: My students at Methodist University universally agree that women should have every opportunity to do whatever they want; and theres no way that would have been true 50 years ago. It also did important work removing political and social barriers to equality, inspiring government actions to allow married women to have credit cards and access to abortion, and mandating their inclusion in educational ventures. But it failed to get government to put its money where its mouth was: it failed to give women material opportunities to achieve equality.

Amy Coney Barrett is a product of the same culture wars that kept Nixon in office and elected Donald Trump, and conservatives would be proud to say that she exemplifies a family-centered approach to childcare. But the keystone to real gender equality the kind of equality that would let women have children without paying a price at work was not family-centered; it could only be government-provided. Barrett is proof of what Americans decided almost 50years ago, when they reelected Nixon after he vetoed free, accessible childcare for all Americans.

Can women have it all? Amy Coney Barrett is Americas answer: Some can.

Patrick W. ONeil is associate professor of history at Methodist University and chairman of the universitys History Department.

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Judge Barrett, and why non-Supreme Court nominees can't have it all - The Fayetteville Observer

KARL PoppersThe Open Society and Enemies,published in 1945, should be compulsory reading for those concerned about the existential dangers faced by democracy represented by the cultural-Lefts long march through the institutions.

As a result of cancel culture, the imposition of politically correct language and mind control and the destructive influence of the Marxist-inspired Black Lives Matter movement, the liberties and freedomstoo easily taken for granted are constantly under attack and, if not already lost, are in danger of being eroded even further.

While theres no doubt the culture wars beginning with the emergence of critical theory associated with Germanys Frankfurt School in the 1930s and the rise of postmodernism during the 1970s are of immediate concern, Popper makes the point the conflict between tyranny and freedom is just as old or just as young as our civilisation itself.

After differentiating between a tribal or closed society characterised by a submission to magical forces and an open society based on rationality and reason, Popper warns that the danger to liberty and freedom represented by totalitarianism is ever present.

He also argues, in opposition to those describing Western societies as riven with structural racism, white supremacism and class and gender inequality, that ours is the best society which has come into existence during the course of human history.

While acknowledging its flaws and injustices, Popper describes Western civilisation as one aiming at humanness and reasonableness, at equality and freedom and one in danger of being betrayed by many of the intellectual leaders of mankind. Otherwise known as Lenins useful idiots.

One has only to compare the Wests record of promoting liberty and freedom with Stalins Russia, where millions were starved and imprisoned, and Maos reign of terror plus Pol Pots killing fields to realise the truth of Poppers thesis.

It was the West that led the campaign to abolish slavery, that enacted a political system based on the sovereignty of the people and a legal system that protects citizens against unwarranted and unjustified government intervention and control.

Quite rightly, Popper concludes Marxist-inspired regimes while promising paradise on earth never produced anything but hell.He justifies his preference for liberalism by arguingthat freedom is more important than equality; that the attempt to realise equality endangers freedom; and that, if freedom is lost, there will not even be equality among the unfree.

Central to Poppers dismissal of utopian social engineering associated with totalitarian ideologies is his critique of historicism, described as the doctrine that history is controlled by specific historical or evolutionary laws whose discovery would enable us to prophesy the destiny of man.

History tells us the Marxist belief in the inevitable collapse of capitalism and the arrival of a workers paradise epitomised by the slogan from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs has no basis in reality.

Similarly, the belief that all society needs to progress is centralised planning, where the state dominates the market and there is no room for private ownership and entrepreneurship, has proved a dismal failure.

One of the most dangerous aspects of cultural-Left ideologies, including the deep green movement and radical gender, sexuality and post-colonial theories, is the unflinching conviction that their beliefs are beyond doubt and beyond criticism.

The causal link between carbon fuels and global warming as well as Greta Thunbergs belief that the world will soon end if governments dont immediately ban fossil fuels and embrace renewable, carbon-free energy, notwithstanding the science, is accepted as true and beyond reproach.

Notwithstanding the biological evidence that the overwhelming majority of babies are born asgirls or boys, hospitals now assign gender at birth on the basis that sexuality is a social construct and gender is fluid and dynamic based on ones preference.

Those committed to critical race theory and decolonising the curriculum are convinced that Western civilisation offers nothing beneficial and even that Western science is merely one approach that has no right to be considered superior.

Ignored is the fact that Western science, based on rationality and reason as opposed to superstition and witchcraft, represents a far more credible and effective way of analysing and evaluating truth claims and more closely approximating what constitutes the nature of things.

As noted by Popper, the conviction that history can be manipulated and controlled by those convinced of their own infallibility inevitably leads to a doctrine of power, of subordination and submission.Equally, if reason and rationality are rejected in favour of ideology and cant, liberty is lost.

Such is the poisonous impact of totalitarianism that Popper warns if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

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Why the destroyers of freedom should read Karl Popper - The Conservative Woman

Oh dear, Boris Johnson, not another massive public spanking from 22-year-old Manchester United footballer Marcus Rashford? Last time, as part of his food poverty activism alongside the charity network FareShare, Rashford, the child of a single mother, forced the government into a climbdown over feeding vulnerable children during the summer holiday and he was made an MBE. This time, the Labour parliamentary motion that he inspired, which proposed feeding disadvantaged children in England during the half-term/Christmas breaks, was defeated by a shameful 322 to 261 votes.

However, huge numbers of restaurants, cafes and businesses, most probably having a tough time themselves, backed Rashfords #EndChildFoodPoverty campaign, offering food and aid, and councils even some Tory ones said they would be helping. Rashfords Twitter feed became a national information centre-cum-mass outpouring of community spirit. The Tories shouldnt be ignoring Rashford, they should be hiring him.

It was all so avoidable. Along with the rest of the UK, England could have acknowledged the special circumstances of the pandemic and continued helping disadvantaged children. The cost would have been negligible compared with the vast sums grotesquely squandered elsewhere. Now, as I write, the Tories are grappling with a globally shaming PR disaster. The choice is another humiliating U-turn or a half-term/Christmas of stories about ordinary people stepping in where the government failed.

Not only is this appalling conduct by the Tories, it is painfully incompetent politics.

They were probably cynically banking on compassion fatigue, that theyd just have to huff and puff a bit about virtue signallers and the culture wars would do the rest. Big mistake, when hungry kids are involved, and with increasing numbers of desperate families applying for free school meals.

This fiasco also flagged up that many kids were already going hungry. Not only did our country have food banks, some of our schools had food banks, while many teachers routinely have to help feed and clothe vulnerable pupils.

However, the governments biggest error was dismissing the Rashford factor, which is genius in its simplicity. Instead of engaging in ugly divisive manipulation, Rashford reminded ordinary people of the compassion and decency that refuses to be thrashed out of them. If the government wont feed vulnerable kids, then theyll do it. If a young footballer is showing more heart and vision than the government, then theyll back him to the hilt. Its the second time the Tories have dangerously underestimated Marcus Rashford, but have they also underestimated the public? It would appear that, after all, there is a last straw.

I cant help but feel a bit sorry for the tennis great Boris Becker. The six-time grand slam winner, now sports pundit, who was declared bankrupt in 2017, is accused of trying to hide Wimbledon trophies, Olympic gold medals and other prizes from his bankruptcy trustees.

The sympathy sharply declines when you see that Becker is also accused of trying to hide many other things, including large sums of money, shares in companies and property assets. Next September, Becker will face 28 charges relating to not complying with legal obligations to disclose information, all of which he denies.

It will be up to the courts to decide whether Becker is guilty of hiding assets. Still, the cups, the medals you can imagine any sportspersons devastation at letting those go. I doubt that such trophies are all about money. Theyd be more about memories, pride and validation, markers of past glories in your professional sporting life. As the years go by, they would be a way of retaining a sense of who you are, at least who and what you used to be, in Beckers case, an undisputed global champion.

Then again, arguably, prizes could be the one area where ex-sports stars shouldnt fret quite so much. Trophies can be taken away, achievements never can.

Female politicians are too often damned every which way for their looks and clothing, so bravo to Sanna Marin for shaking things up. The Finnish PM sparked a sexism debate by posing for the magazine Trendi wearing a blazer with nothing beneath.

Before anyone combusts, this is a classic look often seen at film premieres. Its not indecent, as the breasts are taped to the inside of the garment. Marins version isnt cut that low and is a modest take on the look. Still, shes been slammed as attention-seeking and inappropriate, while women pledged support by posting images of themselves in similar attire.

Marin, 34, centre-left, of working-class origin, was already an intriguing political character, but now shes even more interesting. Why shouldnt a young, stylish woman wear such a look for a photo spread to accompany an interview in a fashion magazine? Vladimir Putin gets his torso out to ride horseback when hes in peak-strongman mode and where is his tit-tape?

Of course, Marins outfit could be the excuse her enemies need to claim shes not worth listening to, but why do they get to decide? This isnt just about Marin anyway, its about the Gilead-level policing of whatever female politicians wear. Too sexy. Too frumpy. Too young. Too old you get the drift. This is why one tends to see female MPs in the UK adhering to a sober dress code. They know that if they dare express themselves sartorially, even to the tune of half an inch of kitten heel (Im looking at you, Theresa May), they will never hear the last of it.

If Marin has decided shes not going to be intimidated by the chauvinist political fashion police, that can only be a good thing.

Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist

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After Marcus Rashford, cafes step in where Tories refuse to tread - The Guardian