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Ruth King

D.C. Circuit Rules against Michael Flynn, Sending Case Back to Judge Sullivan By Andrew C. McCarthy

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/michael-flynn-case-dc-circuit-rules-against-mandamus-case/

Judge Sullivan should dismiss the Flynn case.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who listened to the oral argument (or, ahem, read the coverage of it here at National Review) that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has denied Michael Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus against District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan. General Flynn, President Trump’s original national-security adviser, was seeking to persuade the appellate court to order Judge Sullivan to dismiss the case against him on the Justice Department’s motion.

The ruling by the en banc court (i.e., consideration by all ten active Circuit judges who were not recused from the case) was 8–2. As predicted here, a strong majority of the court — whose Democratic appointees easily outnumber their Republican counterparts — lined up against two dissenting Republican appointees. In May, those dissenters, Judges Neomi Rao and Karen L. Henderson, had formed the majority of a three-judge Circuit panel that initially ruled in Flynn’s favor. The panel ruling was vacated when the full Circuit decided to hear the case.

Flynn pled guilty in 2017 to a false-statements charge brought by the Mueller investigation. He subsequently hired new counsel and moved for dismissal of the case based on alleged misconduct by the FBI in the investigation, and by the prosecutors in the court proceedings. Attorney General Bill Barr appointed a Justice Department prosecutor (St. Louis U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen) to review the case, and the review turned up several investigative improprieties. The Justice Department determined that there had been no underlying basis to investigate Flynn (i.e., there was insufficient predicate to investigate him as a criminal suspect or as a clandestine agent of Russia). From this premise, DOJ reasoned that none of the allegedly false statements Flynn made to FBI agents were material to a matter under investigation — an essential element of a false-statements offense. Prosecutors thus moved to dismiss the case, under Rule 48(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

Viktor Orban’s Mandate By Michael Brendan Dougherty

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/09/07/viktor-orbans-mandate/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

The Hungarian prime minister has succeeded through democratic means

When Hungary declared a state of emergency in March to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, commentators in the West immediately spread the news that the European Union’s first dictatorship had arrived. Parliament was suspended. There would never be elections again. Hungary’s health-care system would collapse because its prime minister, Viktor Orban, had given the nation’s money away to cronies and squandered more of it in a doomed attempt to make soccer more popular. Criticism of the government was forbidden, forevermore. Political arrests would begin. A colleague of mine at the American Enterprise Institute, Dalibor Rohac, wrote in the Washington Post that, absent a major pushback from Brussels and Washington, D.C., Hungary would emerge “a full-fledged dictatorship.” The U.S. political analyst Liz Mair — no fool, I think — confidently predicted of Orban, “He’s going to wind up putting Gypsies in permanent detention.”

Of course all of this was wrong. There was no diplomatic pushback. Brussels gave a preliminary ruling that the emergency law contained no threat to democracy; it was passed constitutionally. Hungary experienced its relatively small surge of cases and deaths, but its hospital system survived, even if it’s not up to Western European standards, and did just fine. Orban’s rule by decree included scoring some opportunistic points: He rushed through a park renovation opposed by a mayor of the opposition party and made it so that state-issued ID cards carry the birth sex of the holder. If these are abuses, they are more mild than the attempt by California governor Gavin Newsom to make rent-control schemes permanent through emergency powers. Two Hungarians were detained by police departments for criticizing the government, suspected of breaking laws against spreading misinformation during the pandemic. In each case it was determined that they had committed no crime, and they were released. By comparison, a law against online disinformation in Angela Merkel’s Germany is so broad and censorious that Russia and the Philippines cite it as a model they would imitate.

‘It’s Almost as though They Don’t Want It to End’: Trump Contrasts Restoration of Order in Kenosha with Prolonged Rioting in Other Cities By Zachary Evans *****

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/its-almost-as-though-they-dont-want-it-to-end-trump-contrasts-restoration-of-order-in-kenosha-with-prolonged-rioting-in-other-cities/

President Trump on Tuesday contrasted the swift restoration of order in Kenosha, Wis. with the ongoing riots in Portland, and suggested that elected officials in Oregon have allowed the disturbances to continue for political reasons.

Trump spoke at a press conference in Kenosha, where he announced a package of $42 million in funds to state law enforcement. The conference was attended by local business owners whose property was destroyed in the riots, as well as local and federal government officials including Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) and Attorney General William Barr.

“I really came today to thank law enforcement. What you’ve done has been incredible. It’s really inspiring because you see [demonstrations] happening all over and it just never seems to end,” Trump said. “And it never seems to end because, it’s almost as though they don’t want it to end. Because you ended it really fast.”

The Kenosha riots were quelled by Thursday, after Trump and Wisconsin governor Tony Evers agreed to deploy over 1,000 National Guardsmen and 200 federal law enforcement officers to the city. Additionally, Senator Johnson said that sheriff’s departments from over 40 different counties in the state sent representatives to help maintain order.

The Democrats Are Whitewashing Leftist Violence By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/the-democrats-are-whitewashing-leftist-violence/

Once the hysteria devolved into violence, it caught up to Democrats in the polls. Now they’re just attempting to whitewash history.

I t took only one week for the legacy media to go from gaslighting the nation about leftist violence to begging Joe Biden to distance himself from it.

“Joe Biden condemns violence in Portland and challenges President Trump to do the same” reads a ridiculous CNN headline about the presidential nominee’s speech in Pennsylvania yesterday.The trouble with Biden’s contention, and the thrust of the CNN article, is that the former vice president blamed Donald Trump, “white nationalists” and “white supremacists,” not Antifa or Black Lives Matter, which have perpetrated most of the carnage we see in American cities. I’m sorry, it’s leftists who are chanting “death to America” in Oakland, not MAGA-hatted shock troops.

Moreover, Trump and Republicans have been condemning violence for months. They were pilloried for it. It wasn’t that long ago that Senator Tom Cotton wrote an op-ed in the New York Times suggesting Trump send National Guard troops to quell riots. The entire condemnation of Cotton was predicated on the notion that he wanted to deploy the military to crush peaceful “protesters.”

Perhaps the reality of the situation escaped the attention of many media figures who for months were diligently downplaying the existence of the looting, rioting, arson, statue-toppling, and murder. Perhaps these reporters and pundits fooled themselves into believing that Marxist Antifa “protesters” were really akin to the G.I.s landing in Normandy to stop the Nazis.

HANDS UP! EDWARD CLINE

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/08/hands-up.html

A group of young Black Lives Matters protesters (mostly white) harassed several white diners in Washington, DC, on Monday night for not raising their fists in “solidarity” with BLM. As you can see, here and here and here, several diners raised their hands. But one woman refuses to submit to the mob that surrounds her while yelling at her. There was another woman in a blue sweater, but the exchanges between them and the protestors are inaudible, as it is with the first woman.

Had I been there I would have given them an Italian salute, and shouted back, “BLM is evil. You want trouble? All you get from me is the finger. Come and get it, thugs!”

I see no difference between the raised hands and the disgusting sight of whites kneeling in collective guilt and deference to blacks in Houston (there are several videos of other pleadings from around the country of white shame and forgiveness on the Internet, too many to cite here).  Paying obedience or symbolic agreement and support to thugs who threaten your life is not a guarantee of one’s life. It is not a guarantee of anything. It is nihilism, and destruction for the sake of destruction.

At another restaurant, In another instance a black woman berates a couple having an outside dinner for not raising their hands in support of BLM.

BLM Mafia. Edward Cline

https://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2020/09/blm-mafia.html

One term the BLM has deserved is that it is in the extortion racket.

Definition of extortion

1: the act or practice of extorting especially money or other propertyespecially : the offense committed by an official engaging in such practice

2: something extorted especially : a gross overcharge

Extortion legal definition of extortion

Under the Common Law, “…extortion is a misdemeanor consisting of an unlawful taking of money by a government officer. It is an oppressive misuse of the power with which the law clothes a public officer. Most jurisdictions have statutes governing extortion that broaden the common-law definition.”

A better description is (for once) offered by Wkileaks:

Extortion – Wikipedia

“Extortion (also called shakedown, and, in a legal sense incorrectly, exaction) is obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offense; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest form of extortion.”

Why limit the practice of extortion to government? but exclude BLM? After all,   Extortion is the act of extorting —using violence, threats, intimidation, or pressure from one’s authority to force someone to hand over money (or something else of value) or do something they don’t want to do. There are instances of BLM demanding “protection” money from businesses and promising not to destroy or loot them them. The description here certainly fits the actions of BLM (working with Antififa),  and BLM’s extortion racket is nationwide (from Louisville to Seattle, to the Fortune 500.

Switching the code for social harmony Our shared culture is being divided by boiling resentment Melanie Phillips Sep 1

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/switching-the-code-for-social-harmony?

Last week, BBC Radio Four broadcast a programme about “code-switching”.

This term started life in linguistics, where it means alternating between two or more languages during a conversation. 

Now, though, it’s become a weapon on the identity politics battleground. Black culture warriors complain they feel under pressure to “code-switch” in order to conform to white society in language, tone, dress, body language and behaviour.

The BBC programme was presented by Lucrece Grehoua, who was born in Britain but whose parents came from Ivory Coast. She claimed that she and other black people were required to “code-switch” in order to be accepted into middle-class white culture with which, she claimed, they had little in common.

Really? Precisely which bit of this culture was alien to her? The middle-class bit, or the white bit?  Come to that, what exactly is “white culture”? Or is it just that white people are allegedly all middle-class, or all middle-class people are allegedly white? 

Anyway, poor Grehoua had been forced to undertake an “unending journey into poshness, pronouncing all my words in a different way” and adopting a “high-pitched voice” to sound more “accommodating”.  

It wasn’t possible, she said, to be “black and direct”. People like her had to shed their “Multicultural London English”, known as MLE, which featured neologisms such as “innit” instead of “isn’t it”. This effort was, apparently, exhausting.

I listened to all this astounded. Quite apart from the anti-white racism and risible equation of “white” and “middle-class”, she was racialising and anathematising something that just about everyone does at one time or another.

The Democrats’ Mental Problem: Joan Swirsky

https://canadafreepress.com/article/the-democrats-mental-problem

Leftists rationalize that they care more, have more empathy, sympathy, etc. Don’t be fooled. They suffer from an untreated mental condition that no amount of windmills, high taxes, open borders, third-term abortions, and street anarchy will ever cure

It’s not a recent observation on my part; it goes back decades, so I’ve had a long time to figure out the meaning of this peculiar phenomenon. Specifically, it’s that Conservatives like me seem to enjoy the lion’s share of being in a good mood, feeling optimistic, trusting that the many forms of rugged individualism can solve most problems, smiling easily and often, and generally seeing both the present and future as glasses half full. 

Not one of these things can be said of leftists, and nothing brought that truth more vividly alive than watching the Democrat and Republican conventions in August.

DEMOCRAT DOOM….

On the one hand was the virtual presentation of a pitifully diminished candidate, propped up by a long line of speakers who had only bitter, nasty, negative and of course pessimistic things to say about our country. Did I forget racist? Here, writer Thomas Gallatin discusses Michelle Obama’s unfortunate presentation and the irony of a “party that loves to claim for itself the mantle of ‘diversity’ and ‘anti-racism’ [being] the same party that promotes racist identity politics.”

Not a single smile in four days––only relentless negativity. And not one word––from candidate Biden, VP candidate Kalamity Harris, the speakers, or their leftwing media whores––about the nearly three-month, non-stop rampaging destruction by the communist group Black Lives Matter and the anarchists of Antifa in committing daily and nightly acts of:

Arson, 
Tearing down both black and white businesses, 
Destroying historical statuary
Widespread grand theft, 
Violent assaults, 
Murder.

Silence About the Violence By Victor Davis Hanson

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/silence-about-the-violence/

Biden and his enablers can’t decide whether the mayhem helps or hurts his candidacy.

 I t is not just conservatives at the recent Republican National Convention who wonder why the Democratic Party and its media appendages have not without qualification decried the looting, arson, violence, and occasional killing that have swept the nation’s cities.

Recently even left-wing CNN’s incendiary Don Lemon wondered out loud why Joe Biden and the Democratic powers have not at least tried to square the circle of deploring police overreach while at the same time going through the motions of condemning the utter lawlessness that often breaks out at dusk in Chicago, Portland, and Seattle, and now in smaller cities such as Kenosha, Wis. What Lemon praised in June, he now seems terrified about in August. But for that matter, most retired generals and media anchors who assured us in June that there were only a “small” number of violent protesters have long grown silent after the occupation of Seattle and the Alamo siege of the police precinct in Portland.

This fight of voter backlash about crime has infected the entire Democratic elite — glued to volatile internal polls that do not lie — whether it is Nancy Pelosi’s demanding no debates, Michelle Obama’s obsessing with “Vote! Vote! And Vote!” or Hillary Clinton’s urging Biden to never “under any circumstances” concede the election that apparently she now believes he could well lose.

There are lots of answers (and none are mutually exclusive) that explain the silence about the violence.

Vernon Jones accuses ‘liberal media’ of supporting ‘violent mob’ that attacked him and other Trump supporters by Carly Ortiz-Lytle,

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/vernon-jones-accuses-liberal-media-of-supporting-violent-mob-who-attacked-him-and-other-trump-supporters

Georgia state Rep. Vernon Jones accused the “liberal media” of ignoring the attacks on him and other guests while leaving President Trump’s Republican National Convention nomination acceptance speech.

“Where is the liberal media? Why haven’t they reached out to me and the others and allowed us to share our experiences of the threats that we experienced so the American people can see first hand what happened? But they won’t because they support, with the Democrats and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, destruction of our cities.” Jones said in a video posted to social media.

Sitting in front of a backdrop that read “Democrats Failed Blacks,” Jones said that he was met by a “violent mob” of Democrats, Black Lives Matter and antifa, and supporters of Biden and Harris.

“They want to see it demolished so they can blame it on Donald Trump. If this had been the other way around, and Biden supporters were attacked by Trump supporters, it would have been all over the network.”