RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-respond-to-russias-ukraine-war

Charles Péguy, the Catholic poet and philosopher, once said that there was no moral complexity in a war. The bad guys were the ones doing the bombing and the good guys were the ones being bombed. That sentiment overlooks just wars in which innocent people tragically suffer and die in the course of lives being saved and humane values being preserved, but the war in Ukraine fits Péguy’s formulation. Russian president Vladimir Putin is visiting unimaginable evil upon an innocent population. The complexity lies in the American response.

Much of the analysis has been so focused on the rapidly changing news that it is often simplistic. It is true, as some proponents of a no-fly zone argue, that American and Soviet pilots engaged each other in the air during the Korean War without causing a nuclear conflict. But it is also true that only the United States possessed planes capable of long-range delivery of nuclear bombs; the Soviet Union did not develop that capacity until after the Korean War was over. It is true that a humiliating defeat or setback in Ukraine might lead to Putin’s overthrow, but few have raised the possibility that such a coup could install a more malign leader. In a situation that has launched a thousand speculations, it is vital to take the broadest possible historical and cultural view.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-jackson-hearings-so-far-are-a-rout-for-progressive-pieties/

I have no illusions about the fact that Democratic-appointed judges are almost invariably likely to all vote the same way, at least on big cases. So, my hopes for Ketanji Brown Jackson departing from the party line on the bench are slim. Even with that in mind, however, this hearing so far has been a thoroughgoing rout for progressive theories of law and politics. Jackson has repeatedly embraced interpreting the Constitution according to its original public meaning. More:

She affirmed that “the Supreme Court has established that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right” (although that doesn’t commit her to adhere to that view herself).
Asked by Chuck Grassley about Justice Stephen Breyer’s tendency to cite international law as a source for interpreting the Constitution, Jackson said that she respectfully disagreed with her former boss, and that international law should not be used to determine the meaning of the Constitution.
Asked to name a justice whose philosophy resembles her own, she could have named Breyer, but she didn’t, and declined to name one, instead pointing to her own record.
She has continued to speak movingly about the cops in her family and the role of, and need for, police.
She talked about how her experience growing up was “completely different” from her parents’ attendance of segregated schools, and she cited “how far we have come” as a sign of “the greatness of America.”
She agreed with Lindsey Graham that radical Islamist groups are still at war with us, and that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 (AUMF) is still in effect.
Asked by Dianne Feinstein about “super-precedent” status for Roe v. Wade, she simply discussed the normal standards for stare decisis and declined to apply any sort of elevated status for Roe. Asked by John Cornyn, she said that she had never heard of a judge describing a case as a “super-precedent.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnists/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-amy-coney-barrett/7113216001/

The lack of clarity around Ketanji Brown Jackson’s judicial philosophy will be a key question as her Supreme Court confirmation hearings unfold.

The famous “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” The confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is about to vividly show what Thompson meant. Less than two years after the abusive treatment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Senate is holding a hearing that is dramatically different in the treatment of the Supreme Court nominee and the issues considered relevant to her confirmation.

For those with memories going back to 2020, there have been striking differences in how the news media haved covered Jackson’s nomination in recent weeks. When Barrett was nominated, the media ran unrelenting attacks on her and her background. Nothing was viewed as out of bounds, from her religion to her personal life to fabricated theories of prior assurances on pending cases.

From the start of the Jackson hearing, this is clearly different in both optics and approaches. Barrett was surrounded by pictures of people relying on the Affordable Care Act, a framing to portray Barrett as threatening the very lives of sick people. It was all part of an absurd claim (fostered by liberal legal experts) that Barrett was appointed to kill the ACA.

I objected at the time that senators were radically misconstruing the pending case and that Barrett was more likely to vote to preserve the ACA. (Barrett ultimately voted to preserve the act, as expected.)

https://spectatorworld.com/life/lia-thomas-compassion-swimming-transgender-upenn/

Reka Gyorgy showed commendable courage this weekend for finally speaking out against the National College Athletic Association’s rules regarding trans competitors. The Virginia Tech swimmer and Olympian was bumped out of a finals spot in the 500 free due to transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation.

In a letter posted to her Instagram account, Gyorgy wrote, “It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete… [Thursday] is the result of the NCAA and their lack of interest in protecting their athletes.”

Gyorgy is one of the first NCAA female swimmers to speak publicly about the negative impact Thomas’s participation in the sport has on women. She deserves massive credit for putting her name to her views while others cower in fear of being called transphobic. But even Gyorgy couched her criticism of the NCAA’s rules with an entire paragraph expressing that she “respects” and “fully stands” with Thomas.

https://www.thepostemail.com/2022/03/22/joe-bidens-lust/

“ANTI-SEMITISM ON STEROIDS”

(March 22, 2022)—Let’s dispense with the Mt. Everest of words that have been written to rationalize Joe Biden & Company’s passion––indeed, lust––to put nuclear weapons in the hands of the fanatical mullahs in the terrorist-run state of Iran.

To be sure, the powers-in-power––more accurately those who are pulling their strings––have been busy creating distractions like Covid-19, the corrupt investigation into the January 6th so-called insurrection, and the strange “war” between Russia and Ukraine. But while Biden & Co. rally against Vladimir Putin, the U.S. continues to buy millions of dollars a day of Russian oil, in essence helping to finance the war against Ukraine, and Biden continues to count on ole Vlad to broker the new Iran deal with U.S. negotiators in Vienna.

Looking back, it is more than fishy that on his first day in office, according to Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, “Joe Biden killed off 42,100 jobs in America by ending construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” and not long after “waived sanctions on Russia’s gas pipeline to Germany.”

Clearly, this was to set the stage for the Biden regime to actualize their real goal, their mission, their obsession–––finally, finally, finally to get rid of the arch nemesis of all of them: Israel, with the bonus being half of all the Jews on earth.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2022/03/mugger-money-and-a-new-epidemic-of-crime/

Rob Long is a television writer and producer, author and journalist. He was writer and co-executive producer of the comedy series Cheers.

“Young people in this city,” a native New Yorker said to me last week, “don’t even know what mugger money is.”

He went on to explain. Mugger money was the small wad of bills most New Yorkers would carry around with them between the mayoral administrations of John V. Lindsay (1966–1973) and David N. Dinkins (1990–1993).

Mugger money was what you kept with you because you expected to be mugged eventually and you needed something to hand over to placate the attacker and persuade him not to kill you. It was kept separately from your actual money in your actual wallet—my friend told me that some more theatrical friends of his would keep their mugger money in a dressed-up fake wallet—and you’d toss it to the mugger and then make a run for it.

The criminal would get some cash and the victim would keep the bulk of his money, along with his identification—a bureaucratic nightmare to replace—and his credit cards. It was, as progressive social scientists might say, a win-win. It was the tax you paid for living in the crime-infested City That Never Sleeps.

Mugger money symbolised the thirty-year lopsided truce between the law-abiding citizens of New York and the criminals and marauders who threatened them. New York apartments in the 1970s and 1980s sported doors with multiple locks and steel bars wedged between the door and the floor. Windows were barred or bricked in. Central Park and Washington Square were drug bazaars during the day and off-limits at night. Trash-can fires blazed in the heart of Alphabet City—unattended, unnoticed and certainly ignored by police and firefighters. Times Square was a cesspool of porn and small-time gangsterism. And only fools rode the subway.