RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2022/06/06/justice-for-me-but-not-for-thee-why-sussmann-walked-but-navarro-was-shackled/

What do you do when your every institution has been weaponized against you? What do you do when there is a two-tier, no-justice system?

The split-screen of a smug and triumphant Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann walking free from D.C. federal court, and a harried and bewildered former Donald Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro being hauled before it, following his account of a harrowing arrest and detainment, ought to be ingrained indelibly in the American mind.

It sends an unmistakable message: We can get you anytime, anywhere, on any grounds we choose. You can’t touch even a single one of ours.

If by some strange occurrence one of ours is brought before a court, the judge and jury will be rigged against you. “I dare you to ask me to recuse with an acquaintance on the stand,” the judge will say. “What’s a lie to our FBI among friends,” the jury will say. Especially when the lie is a useful one.  

The institutions Democrats’ comrade colluded with will be absolved of blame by the putatively adversarial prosecutor representing you, the people. That prosecutor will be plodding, and hew to process crimes against bit players, while the statutes of limitations for the most serious crimes committed by the biggest fish lapse.

You won’t be able to discern whether he is building a masterful case to take us all down, or insulating the very institutions he has served for and with for years, and to which he ultimately answers. That’s the point.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/move-over-aclu-fire-is-the-new-champion?s=r

After years of planning, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, better known as FIRE, announced a major expansion Monday, moving “beyond college campuses to protect free speech — for all Americans.”

FIRE was the brainchild of University of Pennsylvania history professor Alan Charles Kors and Boston civil liberties lawyer Harvey A. Silverglate, who co-authored the 1999 book, The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses. To the modern reader the book reads like a collection of eccentric cases of students and teachers caught up in speech code issues, most (but not all) being conservative.

To take just one of countless nut-bar examples, Kors and Silverglate told the story of a professor in San Bernardino reprimanded for violating sexual harassment policies because, among other things, “he assigns provocative essays such as Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal,” as the court case later put it. This was apparently the “cannibalism” portion of the accusation that he delved into such subjects as “obscenity, cannibalism, and consensual sex with children.”

The book triggered such an overwhelming number of responses from other faculty members and students that the pair decided to set up an organization to defend people who found themselves in tricky speech controversies on campuses. They soon found they had plenty of work and, by 2022, enough of a mandate to expand beyond colleges and universities into America at large. According to FIRE CEO Greg Lukianoff, as quoted in a Politico story, the group has already raised over $28 million toward a $75 million “litigation, opinion research and public education campaign aimed at boosting and solidifying support for free-speech values.”

As noted in another story I put out today, FIRE will be doing a lot of stepping into a role semi-vacated by the American Civil Liberties Union. I spoke with Nico Perrino of FIRE, producer and co-director of the excellent documentary about former ACLU chief Ira Glasser (see review here), to ask what the expansion would entail:

https://www.city-journal.org/transgender-activists-in-their-own-words
A consortium of publicly funded nonprofits wants to “decolonize gender” and normalize male genitalia as a form of authentic womanhood.

Transgender activism has been making inroads into America’s public institutions. The Biden administration has recently promoted neo-pronouns and gender reassignment surgery for minors, government agencies have celebrated the expansion of identity categories such as “pansexual” and “non-binary,” and public schools across the country have adopted curricula teaching students about transitioning from one gender to another. Trans activists often present their ideological program through a series of euphemisms and tautologies, such as “gender diversity,” “LGBTQ inclusion,” “love is love,” “protect trans kids,” and “comprehensive sexual education.” But these slogans obscure more than they reveal. The deeper nature of trans ideology is much more radical and the public should have a clear-eyed understanding of what trans activists believe, beyond the protective layer of obfuscatory language.

The best way to do this is to listen to activists in their own words. Last year, a consortium of trans organizations in Washington State hosted a presentation series, titled “Decolonizing Gender,” that offers an honest, unfiltered look into the world of trans activism and ideology. The event was hosted by the most prominent gender identity nonprofits in the region—TRACTION, Lavender Rights Project, Black Trans Task Force, Gender Justice League, and UTOPIA Washington—all of which run programs for minors and receive taxpayer support. (TRACTION, the primary organizer of the event, did not return a request for comment.)

The panelists represented a wide range of idiosyncratic identities, expressed in a mixture of New Age and intersectional language—the more obscure and oppressed, the greater the status within the community. The main presenter, trans activist Malcolm Shanks, said he was a descendant of black slaves and Taíno tribesmen and “used to identify as gender fluid,” but has been “identifying more recently as a little bit more gaseous or plasma-like.” Randy Ford, a fundraiser for the Lavender Rights Project and black male-to-female “trans femme,” said she uses “‘she,’ ‘her,’ [and] ‘goddess’ as pronouns.” Mahkyra Gaines, a program coordinator for the Gender Justice League, said she uses “no pronouns” and identifies as “non-binary” and “kind of like a black hole.” Ganesha Gold Buffalo, a male-to-female trans prostitute and activist at the Black Trans Task Force, said she identifies as “Choctaw, Cherokee, and black” and with the “sacred lands.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/05/uvalde-cops-and-evil-in-action/

Last week we learned that a lady from Charleston had the male bits and the moral compass that upwards of 19 police officers, hunkered down at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas—all SWATTED-up and swaddled in Kevlar body armor—were without.

At the same time, the trapped children cried out to 911 as they were being mowed down. These babies screamed for grown men to quit cowering and pondering bureaucratic distinctions—active shooter or barricaded shooter—a distinction without a difference if the barricaded shooter is also holding the kids hostage and picking them off one by one. 

Do not rest in peace, Uvalde Angels. Rage from the heavens.

The Uvalde cops began milling about the school corridor at 11:35 a.m. on May 24, waiting on a key to open a door behind which little children had been dying since 11:33 a.m.

These cops waited for the key until 12:50 p.m., when “a Border Patrol Tactical Unit officer finally breached the room using a janitor’s keys.” And, no. Despite the gushing on Fox News, that Border Patrol Tactical Unit officer is no hero. Doing your job eventually—when that job is defined by the credo “time is of the essence”—is not heroism.

How overpowering is the instinct to worship! Lawrence Jones of Fox News looked to blame 911 for the Uvalde Police’s disgraceful failure to engage an active shooter. However, the protocol is clear. You go to the fight. Law enforcement is obliged to forthwith engage a known active shooter. An assault rifle was being fired feet away from the officers. Surely the sound would’ve hurt their eardrums. There was no communication breakdown; only a categorical refusal to respond to reality on the ground.

Cops had come a cropper, refusing to respond to reality on the ground, deaf to the cries and telephone calls of brave babies.

Absent keys, operating under the license of no-knock warrants—these state operators, whom we pay for protection, have no qualms about deftly deploying tactical entry equipment, such as battering rams, to kick in our doors on the slightest pretext, and without knowing what’s on the other side.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/05/the-sovietization-of-american-life/

One day historians will look back at the period beginning with the COVID lockdowns of spring 2020 through the midterm elections of 2022 to understand how America for over two years lost its collective mind and turned into something unrecognizable and antithetical to its founding principles.

“Sovietization” is perhaps the best diagnosis of the pathology. It refers to the subordination of policy, expression, popular culture, and even thought to ideological mandates. Ultimately such regimentation destroys a state since dogma wars with and defeats meritocracy, creativity, and freedom. 

The American Commissariat

Experts become sycophantic. They mortgage their experience and talent to ideology—to the point where society itself regresses. 

The law is no longer blind and disinterested, but adjudicates indictment, prosecution, verdict, and punishment on the ideology of the accused. Eric Holder is held in contempt of Congress and smiles; Peter Navarro is held in contempt of Congress and is hauled off in cuffs and leg-irons. James Clapper and John Brennan lied under oath to Congress—and were rewarded with television contracts; Roger Stone did the same and a SWAT team showed up at his home. Andrew McCabe made false statements to federal investigators and was exempt. A set-up George Papadopoulos went to prison for a similar charge. So goes the new American commissariat.

Examine California and ask a series of simple questions. 

Why does the state that formerly served as a model to the nation regarding transportation now suffer inferior freeways while its multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project remains an utter boondoggle and failure? 

Why was its safe and critically needed last-remaining nuclear power plant scheduled for shutdown (and only recently reversed) as the state faced summer brownouts? 

Why did its forests go up in smoke predictably each summer, as its timber industry and the century-old science of forest management all but disappeared from the state?

Why do the state’s criminals so often evade indictment, and if convicted are often not incarcerated—or are quickly paroled? 

Why are its schools’ test scores dismal, its gasoline the nation’s highest-priced, and the streets of its major cities fetid and dangerous—in a fashion not true 50 years ago or elsewhere today?

In a word, the one-party state is Sovietized. Public policy is no longer empirical but subservient to green, diversity, equity, and inclusion dogmas—and detached from the reality of daily middle-class existence. Decline is ensured once ideology governs problem-solving rather than time-tested and successful policymaking.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/will-america-remain-virtuous-enough-be-free-terrence-p-jeffrey/

“To pass the American tradition of freedom down to future generations we must also pass down the moral and religious foundations needed to sustain it.”

John Adams, who would soon surrender the presidency to Thomas Jefferson, ventured up to Capitol Hill on Nov. 22, 1800, to deliver the first-ever in-person presidential address in the not-yet-finished home of the United States Congress.

It was noon on a Saturday. What message did he deliver?

First, Adams congratulated the American people for building the Capitol itself.

“I congratulate the people of the United States on the assembling of Congress at the permanent seat of their government, and I congratulate you, gentlemen, on the prospect of a residence not to be changed,” he said. “Although there is cause to apprehend that accommodations are not now so complete as might be wished, yet there is great reason to believe that this inconvenience will cease with the present session.”

Then Adams pointed to morality, religion and God.

“It would be unbecoming the representatives of this nation to assemble for the first time in this solemn temple without looking up to the Supreme Ruler of the universe and imploring His blessing,” he said.

“May this territory be the residence of virtue and happiness!” said Adams. “In this city may that piety and virtue, that wisdom and magnanimity, that constancy and self-government, which adorned the great character whose name it bears be forever held in veneration! Here and throughout our country may simple manners, pure morals, and true religion flourish forever!”

This was not a new theme for the nation’s second president or for his contemporaries.

In 1778, while serving the newly independent United States as a commissioner to France, Adams passed by a mansion called Bellevue that King Louis XV had built as a residence for his mistress, Madame de Pompadour.

Adams came to view this estate as a symbol of the depravity of the French monarchy.