RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://jinsa.org/open-letter-from-retired-us-military-leaders-in-support-of-israel/

Given our experience as retired American military leaders, we are very concerned about the security impacts of increasingly strained U.S.-Israel ties as Israel becomes a growing source of domestic division. We therefore feel compelled to declare that a strong Israel is vital to the United States national security, and it is imperative that America
unequivocally stand by this indispensable ally.

Amid surging antisemitism in America and the world, following the largest one-day loss of innocent Jewish life since the Holocaust, U.S. support for the only Jewish state should be clear, unwavering, and not conditioned. The benefits of this partnership for the American people and this important region are many, and too valuable, to forsake.

America must support Israel as it restores its security, shattered on October 7, against Iran and its terrorist proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen that all seek to destroy the Jewish state. These forces are also enemies of the United States and everything we stand for. This Iranian-backed axis of terror, as well as other adversaries and
allies around the world, are watching closely to see whether the United States will stand by one of its closest allies fighting in self-defense, even when the going gets tough.

Against these barbaric enemies, Israel stands on the front lines of the fight for civilization, the lone stable, democratic American ally in a critical, yet tumultuous, region. Israel is a visceral part of the West with its liberal democracy, ethnically diverse population, and support for individual rights. Even in facing adversaries who respect neither the laws
of war nor human life, we believe Israel has fought in accordance with the laws of armed conflict.

Outside the United States, Israel arguably has the most innovative economy in the world. It is a leader in nearly all the key technologies that will determine whether the global balance of power in the 21st-century continues to favor U.S.-led forces of freedom and democracy.

Israel also has one of the most capable militaries and intelligence services in the world, to America’s benefit. Our militaries work hand in glove, sharing intelligence and military lessons, and co-developing cutting-edge defense technologies. More than any other American ally, Israel has always sought to defend itself by itself. Still,
U.S. forces recently helped defend Israel against an Iranian onslaught. Israel’s military and intelligence services have also often protected U.S. soldiers and citizens and provided critical intelligence.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/in-2021-they-tried-to-destroy-me

I haven’t forgotten. Or forgiven.

Last week, a Congressional committee released a massive report detailing how the Biden Administration stampeded the First Amendment in 2021 during its doomed quest to force mRNA vaccines on every American adult.

By July, with the mRNAs failing and Covid deaths rising, the White House privately and publicly attacked Facebook, trying to make the world’s biggest social media company censor jab critics. Facebook executives were furious – and worried about the Constitutional implications of the pressure they faced.

Yes, a private company proved far more concerned about the First Amendment than the government officials sworn to uphold it.

At the heart of the pressure campaign: Andrew M. Slavitt, a Democratic operative and healthcare investor. Slavitt pushed Facebook for censorship both during his official stint as senior advisor to the Biden Covid response team, which ended in June 2021, and afterwards – when the documents show he secretly represented the White House in conversations with Nick Clegg, a senior Facebook executive.

As you know, I have sued Slavitt, along with other government officials and two Pfizer board members, in federal court in New York for their conspiracy to force Twitter to ban me in 2021.

The new documents may play a crucial role in my case, Berenson v Biden, because they show Slavitt was acting on behalf of the federal government, not merely as a private citizen, in July, even as he continued his campaign against me.

The Biden Administration began pressing social media companies for censorship soon after it took office.

But the campaign accelerated in July, as the White House realized the mRNAs were failing and it would quickly need to push a third “booster” shot, as well as vaccine mandates, which it had previously ruled out.

On July 16, 2021, President Biden said Facebook and other social media companies were “killing people” by allowing vaccine criticism. In response, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s then-second-highest-ranking executive, complained in a text chain with founder Mark Zuckerberg that the White House was blaming the company because of “a virus they can’t get control of.”

https://amgreatness.com/2024/05/12/beyond-reason-how-shame-and-disgust-shape-law-and-society/

Some time ago, I participated in a conference about “policing in an age of terror.” One big topic was the place of informed hunches in the armory of the police.  Was it okay, or was it culpably racist, for the police to act on educated hunches when going about their jobs? Should they “profile” certain groups of people and, in some circumstances and in some neighborhoods, “stop and frisk” people they thought looked suspicious? Well, the heart, as Pascal famously assured us, has its reasons that reason does not know. About this, as about most things, Pascal was right. But what does it tell us about “rational hunches” or “policing in the age of terror?”

Before I endeavor to answer those impossible questions, I should acquaint you with my qualifications for intervening on this large topic. My short-form disclosure is: I have none. I am not a lawyer, judge, or police officer. I am not even an academic. In terms of qualifications, I am like the man on the Manhattan omnibus or subway—a chap I shall revert to later. That is, I bring no specialized or professional knowledge to the table, merely the advantages—if they are advantages—of commonplace sentiment.

Let me begin by acknowledging the air of paradox that surrounds the topic of the conference. “Rational Hunches.” Doesn’t that phrase express a paradox, not to say an oxymoron? The relevant sense of “hunch,” the Oxford English Dictionary informs us, refers to “a premonition or intuitive feeling.” Curiously, that sense of “hunch” is of relatively recent vintage. It isn’t listed in the main part of my edition of the OED; you have to look in the supplement to find it. But what business does a “premonition” or an “intuitive feeling” have consorting with the adjective “rational”: that which is based on reason, argument, and logic? Do we not usually, and rightly, oppose what is rational to what is intuitive, silently supplying the adverb “merely” before so cognitively challenged a mental operation? And do we not always, and rightly, do so when dealing with subjects as serious as law enforcement?

The honest answer is, not really. “Life,” as Samuel Butler ob­served, “is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.”

We do not like to admit that. In many ways, modern Western culture is also a Cartesian culture. We are rationalists and empiricists. Like the state of Missouri, we negotiate our way through the traffic of life with the challenge “Show me” announcing our progress.