RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/the-multiple-faces-of-anti-semitism/

Several years ago, in an article for Commentary magazine, I offered a distinction between two kinds of anti-Semitic mindsets. I named the first one “bierkeller” anti-Semitism and the second one “bistro” anti-Semitism, as a way of illustrating the cultural gulf between these two forms.

Bierkellers, or “beer cellars,” were the drinking establishments in Germany that during the 1920s and ’30s were the domain of Nazi thugs. They also provided an arena for Adolf Hitler to refine his foaming gutter rhetoric targeting communism, liberalism, and most of all, the Jews. There was no attempt to camouflage or prettify any of this rhetoric, which loudly declared that the Jews were Germany’s misfortune. The thorough dehumanization of the Jews in Nazi propaganda prepared the ground for a decade of persecution that culminated in the Holocaust.

Bierkeller anti-Semitism, then, was unmistakable and instantly recognizable. But “bistro” anti-Semitism – named a bit mischievously in honor of the cozy restaurants and bars where metropolitan intellectuals tend to gather – was, I argued, harder to identify. That is because Jews as Jews are rarely the direct targets of these writings, speeches, parliamentary resolutions and so on. Instead, the bistro mindset relies upon qualifiers, codes and euphemisms that seek to separate “Jews” and “Judaism” from “Zionism,” “The State of Israel,” “The Jewish Establishment” and the other bugbears of progressives who advance anti-Semitic arguments while indignantly deflecting the charge of anti-Semitism as a reputational smear without foundation.

This contrast between the full-throated anti-Semitism that denies the Jews their humanity and the camouflaged anti-Semitism that denies the Jews their nationality isn’t the only difference. Arguably more important is the observation that the “bierkeller” form of anti-Semitism explicitly aims to visit physical violence upon Jews, whereas in its “bistro” form, protestations against Jewish power and privilege manifest in the main non-violently form: for example, boycott campaigns, demonstrations against pro-Israel and Zionist speakers on university campuses, the constant opprobrium poured upon the Jewish state in the halls of the United Nations, and by leading human-rights NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

DPS Note:

This was a terrific rally and enormously encouraging to see so many people get off their sofas on a Sunday and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge in cold weather to make their point.

But ……Some of it annoyed me – a lot.For example, as reported, Gov. Cuomo denounced “discrimination, racism and antisemitism” ….. 

But he didn’t denounce the new State Law which he proudly signed which puts violent anti-Semites back on the street the same day as they’re arrested, with no bail and no regard for their being a continuing danger to the community. 

He’s at a rally which is the result of an appalling number of attacks on Jews by Jew haters. The whole point of the outpouring of anger and emotion was to demonstrate against anti-Semitism. But the good Governor couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t just say that anti-Semitism is bad. He had to throw in discrimination and racism to cover all the required politically correct bases so no one can accuse him of favoring the Jews. READ IT ALL

We have ordnance that can kill enemies 200 feet underground. But the important part is to limit civilian casualties while causing the Iranian economy and regime to implode.

While the mullahs in Iran continue to threaten the United States with worldwide terrorist attacks against American individuals and groups, it might be time for them to reconsider their position.

The mullahs are attempting to run a formerly evolving modern state, utilizing the ideas of 12th-century Shia Islam; they remain in power through the repression of the well-paid Revolutionary Guard. Their most urgent strategic priority is a regeneration of Persian ascendancy not seen since Darius the Great. Their methodology for this new Persian Empire is to complete a nuclear bomb production industry now nascent among some 40 dispersed and hardened sites.

The mullahs are willing to force the Iranian people to absorb the effects of crushing economic sanctions imposed by the United States, the United Nations, and cooperating countries in order to build their bomb.

As a result, the mullahs in 2019 precipitously raised fuel prices 50 to 200 percent and immediately were inundated by waves of violent protests in most of Iran’s larger cities. An estimated 1,500 Iranian protesters died.

The Iranian economy remains dependent on oil production and export. Its most vulnerable points are the six oil production centers at Abadan, Esfahan, Bandar-e Abbas, Tehran, Arak, and Tabriz. If any one of those is reduced in capability, even for a short time, the economy will further weaken, and domestic instability will increase.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/2019s-adult-of-the-year-11578009044?emailToken=

Person-of-the-year awards are almost always bestowed on men and women who already meet with fawning praise. Let’s instead craft an award based on a person’s willingness to speak truth to power—whether to the press, the boss, or to partisan operators. Call it Adult of the Year. The winner: Attorney General William Barr.

President Trump nominated Mr. Barr in December 2018, and for a moment he received the respect he deserves. The press had grown accustomed to demeaning all Trump nominees, but was stymied by Mr. Barr’s impressive career and bipartisan legal support. A Justice Department and Central Intelligence Agency veteran, he served as attorney general from 1990-91 with distinction. Media outlets had to acknowledge his “pedigree,” and CNN even quoted an unnamed Justice Department lawyer who had been “nervous” about a Trump pick but pronounced Mr. Barr “a great choice” because “he’s tough he’s principled and he’s independent.”

Mr. Barr remains all those things. He has been vilified precisely because he has maintained an impartial view of the Justice Department and has kept his promises. The great hope—and demand—of the Russia-collusion crowd was that Mr. Barr—as a longtime man of the institution—would circle the department’s wagons. His refusal to do so has made him a threat.

And so commenced one of the more obvious, not to mention nasty, delegitimization campaigns in modern Beltway history. Journalists and Democrats accused him of manipulating the rollout of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report in March. They pounced on his decision in May to name U.S. Attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into the 2016 Trump campaign, accusing both of engaging in “conspiracy theories.” CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-12-31-2019-was-another-one-of-those-years-for-the-experts

“Anyway, I plan to continue in 2020 paying no attention whatsoever to the predictions of the so-called “experts,” most particularly on issues relating to the climate and the economy. Other, of course, than making fun of them from time to time. Happy New Year!”

Woodrow Wilson was the President who began the transformation of the U.S. federal government into a collection of huge bureaucracies staffed by supposedly neutral and apolitical “experts” who could run things so much better than we ordinary humans could. A hundred plus years into this, we now have dozens of massive bureaucracies staffed by these so-called “experts.”

President Trump appears to have a somewhat different view. The New York Times of December 28 has a piece by Brad Plumer and Coral Davenport that addresses how one particular group of these so-called “experts” — scientific ones — is faring under Trump. The headline is “Science Under Attack: How Trump Is Sidelining Researchers and Their Work.” Excerpt:

In just three years, the Trump administration has diminished the role of science in federal policymaking while halting or disrupting research projects nationwide, marking a transformation of the federal government whose effects, experts say, could reverberate for years. Political appointees have shut down government studies, reduced the influence of scientists over regulatory decisions and in some cases pressured researchers not to speak publicly. The administration has particularly challenged scientific findings related to the environment and public health opposed by industries such as oil drilling and coal mining. It has also impeded research around human-caused climate change, which President Trump has dismissed despite a global scientific consensus.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/01/moral-status-islam-united-states-jason-d-hill/

Several months ago, Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and Canada’s leading intellectual Jordan Peterson met to lambast illegal immigration and political correctness, which they believe make sensible public discussions impossible. Peterson also made a noteworthy claim worth thinking about. He said Islam is not compatible with democracy and that this issue has been barred from public discussion.

A chief spokesperson for the Nation of Islam, Ava Muhammad, has officially gone on record disparaging Jews by stating that Jews are “godless… blood-sucking parasites [that] sell us alcohol, drugs, depraved sex, and every other type of low-life thing.”

A statement like Ava Muhammad’s above is a grave reminder to us that Peterson is correct. Islam is not only incompatible with democracy — it is inimical to America’s fundamental values and principles.  More important, it is in violation of the United States Constitution. It is time for the United States to face the truth about a moral and political ideology whose stated goal is the abolition of our political system.

When we examine the application of Sharia law in the West, most particularly in Europe, where it is gaining ascendancy, people will come to see a few fundamental tenets about Islam. Its foundation and governing principle is that Sharia law regulates the personal and public behavior of all Muslims and non-Muslims under its governance. When we think of Islam mainly as a religion, we cannot disambiguate it from Sharia law, which, when examined, allows us to see that the legal, cultural and political aspects of the religion supersede the purely private religious aspects of it. World Islam has become, above all, a political ideology.

Sharia law is a weaponized political tool supervening the public sphere that violates every sacred tenet of American life.

The institution of slavery remains lawful under Sharia law. Those who repudiate their faith in Islam directly or indirectly are guilty of capital offenses. It therefore conflicts with our constitutional human right of freedom of conscience and religion. The Sharia law of apostasy restricts other human rights, such as freedom of expression and association. Sharia law does not guarantee equal rights for men and women.

This past April, the nation of Brunei, in a four-page document addressed to the European Parliament, defended its new sharia law implementation by insisting that stoning to death for adultery and extramarital sex, amputation for offenses such as sodomy and theft, and the death penalty for homosexuality be regarded as permissible because these come from Allah.

In 2011, a Muslim group in Denmark in a “Call to Islam” campaigned vigorously in parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would function as autonomous “enclaves” ruled by Islamic law. The agenda was to make parts of Copenhagen and other Danish cities into “Sharia Law Zones” that would function as autonomous “enclaves” ruled by Islamic law. Salafism, a sect within Islam, calls for the destruction of Western democracy and demands that it be replaced by a universal Islamic caliphate and worldwide Islamic theocracy ruled by Islamic law. So does the charter of Hamas. The statement referred to man-made laws and rules as obstacles to be destroyed by all Muslims and exhorted Muslims to rid the world of the great evil of democracy. Islamic courts are also operating in many of Germany’s big cities. In Britain, a Muslim group called “Muslims against the Crusades” has called for the application of Sharia and championed turning twelve cities, including a renamed London called “Londonistan,” into independent Islamic states. Ruled by Sharia law, the states within Britain would operate completely outside British jurisprudence.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/12/29/the-head-scratching-insanity-of-todays-left-wing-mob/

Far too many of us are dismissed, or even disdained, for having logical minds, rejecting junk science, and having a semblance of intellectual honesty because those things do not fit the dogma of the progressives and the pecuniary interests of their boosters.

As I listen to and observe various news stories (that I assume are accurate) lately, I wonder whether I have gone mad. My misfortune seems to be that I am rational, reasoning, reflective, and as much as possible intellectually honest, which seems to pass as a mental disorder—or, at least, a rare anomaly—these days.

I read that Jussie Smollett’s fairy godmother, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx, has declared that her office will not prosecute as a felony shoplifting valued at less than $1,000 in goods. Doesn’t that mean that shoplifters can just make multiple trips and wink at the store security staff on the way out? Since when did shoplifting become a lucrative job with minimal risk?

Where is the outrage? What am I missing?

Then I try to follow the entire impeachment exercise and really scratch my head. The only actual facts seem to be that lethal military aid to Ukraine, which was withheld completely during the Obama years, was delayed by a few weeks this summer; that President Trump mentioned a desire to see Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, investigated to determine if corruption was involved in Hunter’s inexplicable (other than influence peddling) job at Burisma; and that the aid flowed and the investigation never happened. Records of all the actual communications with Ukraine seem to be available.

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HksD7TBkU

Police in the town of Monsey, where the attack occurred, say they apprehended the suspected attacker; Jewish organization tweets images of large emergency response near a house of a Hasidic rabbi, next door to a synagogue.

A man attacked a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home north of New York City late Saturday, stabbing and wounding at least five people with a large knife or a machete before fleeing in a vehicle, police said.

Although police said the extent of the injuries was unclear, sources told The New York Post that at least one victim was in a critical condition. Between 50 and 100 people were reportedly inside the house when the attack occurred.
According to the report in the Post, the attacker slashed five people inside the rabbi’s house and attempted to enter a local temple, but failed to gain access. The rabbi’s home is next door to the synagogue.

https://www.ynetnews.com
From parliaments to campuses, verbal and physical assaults on Jews are increasing, showing that ‘The Longest Hatred,’ deemed taboo for much of the second half of the 20th century, is once again being mainstreamed and normalized
The Simon Wiesenthal Center this week released its annual list of Top Ten Worst Anti-Semitic & Anti-Israel Incidents at a press conference in New York.
The index comes amid an upsurge in violent anti-Semitic attacks throughout the globe, including in the United States, long considered the foremost safe haven for Jews.
When factoring in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, a trend seemingly emerges: “The Longest Hatred” that for much of the second half of the 20th century was deemed taboo and therefore suppressed, is once again in the process of being mainstreamed and normalized.
“The bottom line is that it was a terrible year, by virtue of the fact that Jewish houses of worship have been targeted with murderous actions,” says Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean, Director Global Social Action Agenda at the Wiesenthal Center.