RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/now-progressives-are-whitewashing-anti-semitic-attacks/

Ilhan Omar had some interesting things to say about “Benjamin”-grubbing rootless cosmopolitans back in 2019. Though her words precipitated something of a mini-backlash, even then, most Democrats not only refused to denounce her words — the resolution mentioned Alfred Dreyfus and Leo Frank, not the Minnesotan — but they also refused to specifically condemn anti-Semitism. Instead, Democrats passed a watered-down, platitudinous laundry list of all censurable hatreds. “We all have a responsibility to speak out against anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, racism, and all forms of hatred and bigotry, especially as we see a spike in hate crimes in America,” explained then-senator Kamala Harris.

Resolutions are a waste of time, of course, but the inability of progressives to simply condemn left-wing anti-Semitism, the most consequential and normalized variant, to placate their Israel-haters is telling.

This week, Jews were targeted around the nation, and again the problem was soon conflated with “Islamophobia” — even though many of the attacks were perpetrated by Palestinian Americans and their allies. It is difficult to believe the gaslighting wasn’t a concerted effort. “I strongly condemn the rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia,” wrote Ayanna Pressley. Julian Castro wrote, “we must forcefully condemn anti-Semitic and Islamophobic attacks.” Other House members followed. Even outlets such as Axios reported that there had been “vandalism and harassment fueled by anti-Semitism and Islamophobia” but offered only a bunch of anti-Semitic incidents. “We’ve seen an increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate, in NYC and nationwide — hateful words, hate crimes, and other forms of violence,” explains Bernie Sanders, a man who believes in an even-handed approach between Israel and Hamas.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/25/welcome-to-joe-bidens-police-state/

he Biden administration is using the Jan. 6 incursion into the Capitol building as a pretext for a domestic spying campaign that will supposedly target “violent extremists” but is more accurately described as the beginnings of a Biden police state.

Last week, we learned that the Defense Department plans to monitor service members’ social media posts for “concerning behaviors.” According to The Intercept, which broke this story, the plan is to enlist a private firm to do the spying, so as to avoid nasty entanglements with the First Amendment. The Intercept reports that:

An extremism steering committee led by Bishop Garrison, a senior adviser to the secretary of defense, is currently designing the social media screening pilot program, which will ‘continuously’ monitor military personnel for ‘concerning behaviors.’

This isn’t the only such incident.

Earlier this month, CNN reported that the Biden administration “is considering using outside firms to track extremist chatter by Americans online, an effort that would expand the government’s ability to gather intelligence but could draw criticism over surveillance of US citizens.”

And last month, Yahoo News broke the story that the U.S. Postal Service has been covertly monitoring Americans’ social media posts.

“The work involves having analysts trawl through social media sites to look for what the document describes as ‘inflammatory’ postings and then sharing that information across government agencies,” Yahoo said.

That story notes that “such data collection has also sparked concerns about the government surveilling peaceful protesters or those engaged in protected First Amendment activities.”

Ya think?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-year-after-george-floyds-murder-its-open-season-in-minneapolis-11621893383?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Al Sharpton and civil-rights attorney Benjamin Crump led a march in downtown Minneapolis Sunday in advance of the first anniversary of George Floyd’s death on May 25. Former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder last month.

Messrs. Sharpton and Crump didn’t visit North Memorial Health Hospital, where two recent victims of a yearlong explosion of violence in Minneapolis are on life support. On April 30 Ladavionne Garrett Jr. , 10, was riding in a car with his parents when a gunman opened fire. A bullet pierced Ladavionne’s head; doctors put him in a medically induced coma and removed part of his skull to relieve swelling on the brain. On May 15, 9-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith was jumping on a trampoline at a friend’s house when bullets fired from a passing car struck her in the head. She is also in critical condition at North Memorial, in the room next to Ladavionne’s.

Nineteen children in Minneapolis have been shot this year, an increase of 171% over the same period in 2020. Their relatives wonder where the protesters are. “Why ain’t nobody mad about a 10-year-old, my grandson, fighting for his life?” asked Sharrie Jennings, Ladavionne’s grandmother, at a May 17 mayoral event. “Because a cop didn’t shoot him, is that why?” Ms. Jennings warned of “a deadly summer” for kids if the mayor and police chief don’t “step up.” Later that day, Aniya Allen, 6, was caught in a shootout between rival gangs while in her mother’s car. Aniya died on May 19.

Minneapolis homicides between Jan. 1 and last week were up 108% compared with the same period in 2020; shootings were up 153%, and carjackings 222%. The crime increase began after Floyd’s death and has never let up. Nor has the assault on law enforcement that began with the arson destruction of the Third Precinct building on May 28, 2020. Officers are routinely punched, kicked and hit with projectiles. There was a near-riot in downtown Minneapolis in the early hours of May 22 following a shootout among club patrons. Two people were killed in that shootout and eight wounded. Responding officers called for backup across the Twin Cities at what the department called an “exceptionally chaotic scene.” The previous weekend, officers were maced, and pelted with rocks and debris while trying to disperse disorderly crowds.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justices-please-take-the-harvard-case-11621894691?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Nearly every day we learn of another case of governments or others setting policy based on the color of one’s skin. This is contrary to the equal rights fought for and won in the Civil War and civil-rights movement, and the Supreme Court has a rare and valuable chance to reaffirm that principle if it decides to hear the appeal in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

The particulars concern whether Harvard discriminates against Asian-Americans in its admissions decisions. Harvard won in the lower courts but the Asian-American plaintiffs have appealed to the High Court. The larger stakes are whether the Supreme Court will wink as America divides in ways that have proved so destructive in the past.

The temptation will be for the Justices to give Harvard a pass given its contentious subject. The High Court has already taken cases on gun rights and abortion for the next term starting in the autumn. And you can imagine the reluctance to add the combustible issue of race to the docket.

This would be a mistake, and not only on the merits of this case. As Justice Clarence Thomas pointed out in 2018 when the Court passed on Kansas and Louisiana laws involving Medicaid funds for Planned Parenthood clinics, Supreme Court Justices are given lifetime tenure precisely so that a “politically fraught issue” will not prevent them from applying the law neutrally.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/street-violence-as-a-political-tool

The new Democratic Party of oligarchs and technocrats enforces its orthodoxies upon blue state clients through broken windows and beatings, administered by party militias like antifa and BLM.

The Democratic Party has had a problem. It’s a small, incoherent, and privileged clique funded by billionaire oligarchs to push policies that even mainstream Democratic voters oppose. How to bridge the gap? The solution they chose, which party officials made clear this week, was simple: the way third-world elites always do—by using street violence to keep their clients in line.

This week, pro-Palestinian demonstrators auditioned for the chance to join already established Democratic Party militias antifa and Black Lives Matter by attacking Jews in New York and Los Angeles. Apologists for the violence reason that the demonstrators are angry about the deaths of innocent Palestinian babies under Israeli fire in Gaza so they’re taking their frustrations—admittedly misplaced!—out on American Jews.

That is not what’s happening.

Who knows how many of the activists waving the Palestinian flag as they beat Jews and detonate fireworks in front of Jewish-owned businesses are genuinely Palestinian Americans? Maybe some aren’t even Arab or Muslim, but that’s irrelevant—they are staking their claim to recruit, promote, and represent Arabs and Muslims as an interest group. And so the flag they’re really flying isn’t for the Palestinians but rather for the Democratic Party.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-capitol-riot-narrative-is-collapsing-but-its-political-exploitation-persists_3826065.html

Virtually the entire American ruling class has invested in a narrative that is collapsing—that what transpired at the Capitol on the afternoon of Jan. 6 represented a murderous, armed insurrection, posing a dire threat to the republic.

Yet, the exploitation of that single event to marginalize and malign up to half the country, in a slew of efforts that pose a threat to the liberty and justice of all, continues apace.

If the foundation of these efforts is crumbling, shouldn’t these efforts be called into question, too?

The events at the Capitol on Jan. 6 were inexcusable and disgraceful, and those who committed crimes ought to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We settle differences in America by persuasion and reason, and abjure force and coercion—something many of those hyping Jan. 6 as a “domestic terrorist attack” only seem to believe when it suits their political interests.

But this isn’t the whole story of that day. While congressional demagogues and social media speech police claim otherwise, the sole person killed in the riot was an unarmed protester, shot by a Capitol cop. Not one of the more than 400 people charged in connection with the events stormed the building with a firearm. Most of those detained face glorified trespassing offenses.

Video footage indicates that some percentage of the protesters was allowed to waltz into the Capitol, and others, once inside, were permitted to remain there by police, seemingly in contradiction of what prosecutors have argued. Authorities are concealing more than 14,000 hours of additional footage concerning Jan. 6, breathtakingly using the same argument that Spygate participants used to conceal the whole truth about their machinations, that of national security.

The Capitol riot wasn’t on the level of the Civil War, as President Joe Biden has argued, 9/11 as he implied, nor Pearl Harbor, as then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer asserted.