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Ruth King

Deplatforming the Platformers: Why Antitrust Legislation Is the Way to Go By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/deplatforming-the-platformers-why-antitrust-legislation-is-the-way-to-go/

Having failed to impeach President Trump on grounds of collusion with the Russians, the Democratic left and its allies have turned to other weapons in their arsenal to obstruct his re-election. Their instruments can be very potent: a media blitzkrieg, the raising of the dead (the cemetery vote), multiple vote counting, newly franchised illegal voters, massive vote harvesting, and social media censorship—all of which constitute a campaign of monstrous voter fraud.

Evicting dissident voices from social media platforms may be the most effective device of the left. How can such high-tech despotism be challenged or negated? Citizen journalists, who can be seen as liberal democracy’s samizdat warriors, are to be applauded and supported for trying to counter a significant bias, but far more is required to thwart what amounts to an organized campaign to commit doxa violence—a modus operandi perhaps even more effective than the practice of totalitarian terror.

There are many ways to eliminate opposing voices, from police oppression to mass slaughter to the stifling of the means to acquire salient information. The coercive method eventually engenders resentment, revolt and ultimately political collapse. Data suppression works better, not only muzzling people from expressing their views and convictions but preventing many common folk from even knowing they have been erased from the public conversation. Big Tech, in collaboration with the Democratic left, may well be President Trump’s most powerful enemy—and, indeed, the gravest threat to freedom and the life of a viable democracy.

A Trump Poser: Just Who Lurks Above the Law?

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/just-who-is-or-isnt-above-the-law/90680/

“So who is seeking to be positioned above the law? It’s hard to read the precedent as suggesting Mr. Trump is doing that. Nor is the Justice Department, which is on the side of the president; nor has the Justice Department’s special prosecutor moved against the president. No, it’s starting to look like the party seeking to maneuver itself above the law is — wait for it — the United States Congress.”

Is — or is not — the President above the law? It looks like we are going to be quarreling over that question as the Congress moves to confront President Trump for the Mueller report. We are going to be popped this poser, too, in respect of Mr. Trump’s aides, Attorney General Barr and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who are, among others, rebuffing subpoenas from the Representatives House.

Our sense of it — after reading up — is that both sides will want to avoid assumptions. That’s the gist, too, of an opinion just issued from the chambers of the New Yorker magazine’s constitutional maven, Jeffrey Toobin. He reckons that Mr. Trump is creating a “new constitutional norm” in which the only likely remedy for an executive defying the legislature would be the next election.

Reconsidering The Head And The Body Of The Snake… by Gerald A. Honigman

http://q4j-middle-east.com
Besides hundreds of Arab incendiary terror kites and balloons, rocket and mortar launchings, sniper attacks, and so forth Israel has previously been subjected to, the weekend of May 4th, 2019 saw about 700 rockets launched from Gaza against Israeli civilians causing death, injury, and destruction. Israel’s response, while probably materially costly to Hamas, was still far too predictable–certainly nothing to convince Hamas and Islamic Jihad to cease and desist http://www.mideasttruth.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=139. Allegedly important buildings, training facilities, and such were taken out.

What makes matters worse, is that an Israel, that can enter Iran and walk out with huge quantities of top secret information, can surely also catch wind of when Hamas & Co. are scheduled to strut their stuff for the locals and arrange a proper greeting for them as well https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2873608/Hamas-parades-2-000-armed-fighters-drones-vehicle-mounted-rockets-biggest-strength-end-summer-war-Israel.html.

This has been going on for far too long–which means that, for whatever reasons, it’s probably a deliberate decision on Israel’s part. Regardless, here’s some of my own thoughts about this untenable situation…

I heard a presentation years ago by one of those Israeli security experts that many are listening to these days.

Mark Latham’s Outstanding Speech to a Legislative Council in Australia

https://quadrant.org.au/

From Mark Latham’s maiden speech to the NSW Legislative Council.

…they preach diversity but practice a suffocating cultural conformity, wanting everyone to be just like them.

They argue for inclusion but as soon as a Christian, a conservative, a libertarian, a nationalist, a working class larrikin, an outsider from the vast suburbs and regions of our nation disagrees with them, they crank up their PC-outrage machine to exclude them from society.

They are tolerant of everything except dissenting values and opinions – meaning, of course, they are tolerant of nothing that matters, only themselves.

This is the Leftist curse through the ages: the recurring history of those who so badly crave control over others, they lose control over themselves.

In their lust for authority, they lose their respect for the rights of others.

Like a scene from Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Green-Labor-Left has become the thing it originally opposed: elitist, would-be dictators taking away from working class communities the things these battlers value:

The right to speak their mind.

To say they love their country and want Australia Day to stay.

To practice their Christianity, openly and freely.

To send their children to school without the garbage of Safe Schools, Wear-It-Purple days, ‘HeadRest’ indoctrination and the other crackpot theories making some NSW classrooms more like a Hare Krishna meeting than actual education.

And when they go to work, the chance to do their job without being bombarded by employment quotas, ‘unconscious bias’ training and a long list of unspeakable, taboo words – scary, scary stuff, like ‘guys’ and ‘mums and dads’.

The New Left are the new primitives of our time: junking the importance of evidence, of recorded history, of biological science, to pretend that all parts of our lives (especially race, gender and sexuality) can be fluid, that everything we know and feel around us is, in fact, ‘socially constructed’….

Nadler’s Contempt By Adam Mill

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/10/nadlers-contempt/

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday held a press conference responding to the effort by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for his testimony last week. McCarthy was relaxed and jovial as he approached the entrails of the self-destructing anti-Trump movement with a voracious appetite.

For too long the media and their client Democrats in Congress have operated in an environment in which the rule of law meant only one law: “Get Trump.” That “law” made everything done in service to that goal “legal” and everything in opposition to the goal “illegal.” Cries of a “constitutional crisis” are simply rehashing the received wisdom that there is a new, unwritten amendment to the Constitution called the “Get Trump” provision.

Thus, an exercise of delegated power by an elected president over the unelected subordinate branches could be called (without intended irony) an attack on democracy. The Obama era ushered in a convergence of power among the powerful federal agencies, the media, and the Democrats. In the early part of the Trump Administration, it even appeared strong enough to overcome the inconvenient election of a candidate who ran in opposition to the cabal.

But, as they say, something that cannot go on forever must eventually stop. With Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge of the Department of Justice and all “Get Trump” operations, there appeared to be no exception to the new law. Rosenstein dutifully used the Department of Justice against Trump’s allies while seeming to grant immunity to Trump’s enemies.

‘Pinkwashing’ and Israel: How to Work against Your Own Best Interests by Denis MacEoin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14194/israel-pinkwashing

A secular government that uses religious law to suppress human rights is a sign of how deeply ingrained homophobia is in Muslim countries, most of them much more conservative than Tunisia.

How is it, then, that LGBT people who claim to love the Palestinians and care about their lives, pinning all blame for whatever suffering they undergo on the state of Israel, never say a word about the excesses against gays – and other extreme abuses — by of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority?

More perversely, why is nothing said about Aguda and the work it does to save and protect gay Palestinians?

Why are no gay rights activists boycotting any of those lowest-ranking countries or protesting outside their embassies? Why do they choose instead to condemn and act against one of the world’s most genuinely progressive and liberal states?

Early in April, the British gay newspaper Pink News ran a headline: “LGBT performers to boycott Eurovision in Israel with online broadcast”. The broadcast, known as Globalvision, will be part of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which tries hard to delegitimize Israel economically and politically.

Referring to a letter which activists had written to the pop star Madonna, Pink News reported:

“We feel we must write to you to express our deep concern at the political use of the Eurovision that is being made by Israel this year, and to highlight in particular the issue of ‘Pinkwashing,'” the letter said.

The letter said that ‘pinkwashing’ is a “PR tactic used by Israel which cynically exploits support for LGBTQIA people to whitewash its oppression of the Palestinian people.”

Valerie Plame, Who Worried About ‘America’s Jews,’ Is Running for Congress By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/valerie-plame-congressional-campaign-new-mexico/
Valerie Plame, the former CIA employee and wife of Joe Wilson who was the center of controversy in George W. Bush’s second term, is running for Congress as a Democrat in New Mexico’s 3rd district. If Plame wins the primary, she’ll have a good chance of winning the seat, as the 3rd district is pretty heavily Democrat-leaning, scoring a D+8 in the Cook Partisan Voting Index.

Then again, Plame would bring unique baggage to the race. You may recall in September 2017, Plame got herself in hot water for tweeting out a link to an article headlined, “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars.” The article’s sub-headline asked, “Shouldn’t they recuse themselves when dealing with the Middle East?” (As I noted at the time, it’s a little odd to hear the contention that those of a certain faith should not deal with Middle East policy at all, because their religion will automatically skew their judgment. Good thing Christianity and Islam don’t have any ties to the Middle East, right? I guess the author would prefer that U.S. foreign policy in the region was managed by Scientologists.)

In the face of objections, Plame doubled down, declaring the article, “very provocative, but thoughtful. Many neocon hawks ARE Jewish . . . Read the entire article and try, just for a moment, to put aside your biases and think clearly.”

How Virginia’s Top Democrats Survived a Storm of Scandal The media lost interest in the Northam blackface brouhaha when it realized the GOP could benefit. By Mark Hemingway

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-virginias-top-democrats-survived-a-storm-of-scandal-11557529444

Drive around Northern Virginia, and you’ll see no sign that only three months ago, the state was the epicenter of one of the most embarrassing and horrifying political scandals in recent memory. In the populous suburbs west of Washington, plenty of cars still sport bumper stickers proclaiming support for Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring—Democrats all.

It’s hard to believe that a scandal involving abortion, multiple instances of politicians wearing blackface, and sexual assault allegations hasn’t resulted in a single resignation. The question on many minds now is: What, if anything, is the state GOP going to do about it?

Gov. Northam, a pediatrician, was asked during a Jan. 30 radio interview to defend state Democrats’ proposed legislation loosening restrictions on late-term abortion. In response, he appeared to endorse infanticide as an option when a child is born during a botched abortion. On Feb. 1, medical-school classmates offended by Mr. Northam’s comment released a photo from the governor’s 1984 yearbook page, showing a young man in blackface next to someone in a KKK outfit. Mr. Northam first acknowledged then denied being one of the men in the photo.

Ben Weingarten :’Most of China’s 1.4 billion people have no religious affiliation. Is there any reason to believe that China is a less moral place than the United States?’ asks Max Boot.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/05/10/no-isnt-moral-equivalence-communist-china-u

No, There Isn’t Moral Equivalence Between Communist China And The U.S.

Just as trade negotiations between China and the United States may be reaching their crescendo, an outspoken ex-conservative has made an assertion about the People’s Republic of China (PRC) likely to warm the hearts of the leaders of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Writing in the Washington Post on his desire for an “unapologetic atheist” to someday ascend to the White House, Max Boot says:

There are too many examples of evil committed in the name of God to assume that people act morally because they are afraid of divine punishment. More likely, people are social animals who develop moral codes so they can live at peace with their neighbors. That’s why almost all societies, whether religious or not, have similar taboos against murder, robbery, rape and other sins.

Most of China’s 1.4 billion people have no religious affiliation, and fewer than 7 percent are monotheists. Is there any reason to believe that China is a less moral place than the United States, where 70.6 percent profess to be Christians? [Emphasis mine]

Boot’s apparent attempt to draw moral equivalence between China and the United States would be news to the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens living in the world’s leading surveillance state—to the extent they are able to read his article behind the Great Firewall, and not one of the 1 to 2 million Uighurs currently imprisoned in “re-education camps” or countless others held captive for challenging the Party line.

It would be news to members of the dissenting Chinese diaspora being tracked down and targeted by the Communist regime at every corner of the Earth. And it would be news to those peoples whose sovereignty is threatened by the CCP and the People’s Liberation Army that serves it—“it” being the Party, not the country.

Congress’ Central Planners Want To Block Access To Credit J. Frank Bullitt

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/05/10/congress-central-
Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want to use the police power of the federal government to ban a legitimate business activity because the socialist senator from Vermont finds “it is really disgusting.” To the callow representative from New York, it’s “economic brutality.”

This is the deep thinking that goes into the Democrats’ legislating process. Outlaw something because some subjectively find it repulsive. Or something seems scary. Or appears to be unfair. Or because someone decides for the rest of us “this isn’t who we are.” It’s the sort of lawmaking that should frighten us all.

The menacing scourge that Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez want to save the country from? Credit card interest rates that exceed 15 percent.

“Every major religion on Earth,” says Sanders, “has condemned usury.”

Usury is defined by Investopedia as “the act of lending money at an interest rate that is considered unreasonably high or that is higher than the rate permitted by law.” Merriam-Webster says it is “the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates” or “an unconscionable or exorbitant rate or amount of interest.”