RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-nation-of-islam-and-the-house-11546559607

Donald Trump has repeatedly faced calls to disavow anti-Semites, but Democrats have their own anti-Semitism problem. The new House majority leadership includes several lawmakers with ties to the nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan:

• James Clyburn of South Carolina. Mr. Clyburn, first elected in 1992, will hold the No. 3 post, majority whip, as he did in 2007-11. Mr. Clyburn is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, which in September 1993 entered what then-CBC Chairman Kweisi Mfumecalled a “sacred covenant” with the Nation of Islam. The pact was ostensibly dissolved in February 1994, after it emerged that Farrakhan aide Khalid Abdul Muhammad had given a speech in which he called Jews the “bloodsuckers of the black nation.” But in July 2000, Mr. Clyburn, then CBC chairman, formed a partnership with Mr. Farrakhan’s Million Family March.

In 2005 Mr. Clyburn became chairman of the Democratic Caucus. The same year, photojournalist Askia Muhammad reported that “practically all 43 CBC members” (including then-Sen. Barack Obama) met Mr. Farrakhan in preparation for the 10th anniversary of the Million Man March. In 2011 Mr. Clyburn again joined Mr. Farrakhan, for a town-hall gathering in Pittsburgh titled “The Disappearing Black Community.” Mr. Clyburn told the Final Call, the Nation of Islam’s newspaper, that he was “not bothered in the least bit” by criticism of the appearance.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/congresswoman-hopes-reparations-bill-is-path-to-repair-some-of-the-damage-caused-by-slavery/

Rep. Lee is famous for booting seating passengers off flights with insults and tantrums, and demanding their seats; she has stated that the US Constitution is 400 years old; asked if the Pathfinder had succeeded in taking a picture of the flag planted on Mars by Neil Armstrong in 1969; in 2010 she stated“Today, we have two Vietnams, side by side, North and South, exchanging and working.”not withstanding that there is no longer a South Vietnam. She graduated from Yale and the University of Virginia Law School….She should get reparations from those schools because she learned so little….rsk

WASHINGTON – Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) told PJM that the federal government should conduct a study of reparations for descendants of slaves to be able to determine the best way to “repair some of the damage” that slavery has caused to the African-American community.

Jackson Lee became the lead sponsor of H.R. 40, the Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, after Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) resigned from Congress.

The legislation seeks to “address the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of slavery in the United States and the 13 American colonies between 1619 and 1865 and to establish a commission to study and consider a national apology and proposal for reparations for the institution of slavery, its subsequent de jure and de facto racial and economic discrimination against African-Americans, and the impact of these forces on living African-Americans, to make recommendations to the Congress on appropriate remedies, and for other purposes.”

“It’s a commission to study the issue of what was the economic impact of the work of slaves and how does it translate in the 21st century. And what we want to do is to build a narrative, a story of the facts and out of that be able to access how we repair some of the damage,” Jackson Lee said during a recent interview after her speech at the annual Legislative and Policy Conference organized by Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/2018-successful-year-for-american-economy/

Aside from the Washington hysterias, 2018 was a most successful year for Americans.

The year 2018 will be deplored by pundits as a bad year of more unpredictable Donald Trump, headlined by wild stock-market gyrations, the melodramas of the Robert Mueller investigation, and the musical-chair tenures of officials in the Trump administration.

A quarter of the government is still shut down. Talk of impeachment by the newly Democratic-controlled House of Representatives is in the air. Seemingly every day there are sensational breakthroughs, scandals, and bombshells that race through social media and the Internet — only to be forgotten by the next day.

In truth, aside from the Washington hysterias, 2018 was a most successful year for Americans.

In December, the United States reached a staggering level of oil production, pumping some 11.6 million barrels per day. For the first time since 1973, America is now the world’s largest oil producer

Since Trump took office, the U.S. has increased its oil production by nearly 3 million barrels per day, largely as the result of fewer regulations, more federal leasing, and the continuing brilliance of American frackers and horizontal drillers. It appears that there is still far more oil beneath U.S. soil than has ever been taken out. American production could even soar higher in the months ahead.

In addition, the United States remains the largest producer of natural gas and the second-greatest producer of coal. The scary old energy-related phraseology of the last half-century — “energy crisis,” “peak oil,” “oil embargo” — no longer exists.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272440/romneys-betrayal-matthew-vadum

With a singularly impressive record of failure in public life under his belt, the always-predictable virtue-signaler Willard Mitt Romney has chosen to take the low road, beginning his freshman term in the United States Senate by stabbing President Trump and his fellow Republicans in the back.

Instead of, say, waiting a brief time to get settled into his new office as Utah senator, the former Massachusetts governor, who to this day refuses to apologize for his Bay State government healthcare program that inspired Obamacare, took to the pages of the Washington Post two days before his swearing-in to attack the “character” of someone who as president has been generous, forgiving, and supportive of him.

In his Jeff Bezos-approved column, Romney embraced the leftist critique of Trump, hurling every leftist smear he could think of and bashing the president for his mastery of social media, a field Romney barely grasps.

As senator, Romney vowed to “support policies that I believe are in the best interest of the country and my state, and oppose those that are not. I do not intend to comment on every tweet or fault. But I will speak out against significant statements or actions that are divisive, racist, sexist, anti-immigrant, dishonest or destructive to democratic institutions.”

Joel B. Pollak of Breitbart News provided a helpful timeline of the flip-flopping unsuccessful 2012 presidential candidate’s love-hate relationship with Trump in recent years on Twitter:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-romney-revival-project-11546463147

Just before taking his seat as Utah’s newest U.S. Senator, former presidential candidate and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is condemning the character of President Donald Trump. But given Mr. Romney’s history, some members of the press corps are withholding the strange new respect customarily accorded to Republicans who criticize the President.

Mr. Romney states in an op-ed for the Washington Post that Mr. Trump “has not risen to the mantle of the office.” Mr. Romney presents himself as being moved by recent events to make his latest declaration of principle. Writes Mr. Romney:

The Trump presidency made a deep descent in December. The departures of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly, the appointment of senior persons of lesser experience, the abandonment of allies who fight beside us, and the president’s thoughtless claim that America has long been a “sucker” in world affairs all defined his presidency down.

Certainly a duly-elected President has the right to choose his subordinates. And if Mr. Romney was truly moved to condemn an “abandonment of allies,” wouldn’t he at least go to the trouble of naming them and spending at least a portion of the op-ed describing the details of their predicament? From the context it seems likely he was referring to the Kurds or others fighting against remaining ISIS forces in Syria, but the rest of the op-ed addresses various threats around the world and what Mr. Romney sees as a fraying of alliances with friends in Europe and Asia.

It’s also hard to believe that Mr. Romney is suddenly and deeply offended by Mr. Trump’s recent comment that Americans are no longer “suckers.” For better or worse, the idea that the U.S. government has been shouldering too much of the world’s defense burden has been a central part of the Trump message for years. It’s especially hard to believe that Utah’s newest senator thinks this insult is beyond the pale given that in 2016 Mr. Romney said that candidate Donald Trump was “playing the members of the American public for suckers.” Will Mr. Romney now apologize to the roughly 63 million Americans who voted for the Republican candidate in the last presidential election?

Aaron Blake of the Washington Post is among the media folk who aren’t sure they should take the latest Romney declaration at face value. Mr. Blake writes in the Post:

Romney criticized Trump in more severe terms than just about anybody in 2016, even after Trump was the de facto GOP nominee. But he’s also been happy to play ball and accept his help. As the GOP presidential nominee in 2012, he flew out to accept an endorsement from Trump, then in the throes of birtherism. After Trump was elected president, Romney interviewed to be Trump’s secretary of state.

When Romney decided to run for Senate, he accepted Trump’s endorsement again and backed off his previous criticisms of the leader. At a debate three months ago, Romney was asked three times whether he still thought Trump was a fraud and a phony. “I’m going to talk about the future,” he responded.

His op-ed seems, in part, to be an effort to explain his many about-faces. CONTINUE AT SITE

http://thefederalist.com/2019/01/02/new-documents-suggest-steele-dossier-deliberate-setup-trump/

A trove of recently released documents sheds further light on the scope and logistics of the information operation designed to sabotage an American election. Players include the press, political operatives from both parties, and law enforcement and intelligence officials. Their instrument was the Steele dossier, first introduced to the American public two years ago.

A collection of reports compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, the dossier is now engraved in contemporary U.S. history. First marketed as bedrock evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election, the dossier’s legitimacy took a hit after reports showed the Hillary Clinton campaign paid for the work.

The revelation that the dossier was used to secure a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page compromised the integrity of the investigation the FBI had opened on Page and three other Trump associates by the end of July 2016. Nonetheless, that same probe continues today as the special counsel investigation.

The dossier plays a central role in Robert Mueller’s probe. In the unredacted portions of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s memo outlining Mueller’s scope are allegations that Trump adviser Paul Manafort colluded with Russian government officials interfering in the 2016 race. That claim is found in no other known document but the dossier. It is unclear whether further dossier allegations are in the redacted portions of the scope memo.

Further, with Mueller in charge, the dossier-won warrant on Page was renewed a third, and final, time in June 2017. It expired in September, when confidential human source Stefan Halper reportedly broke off regular communications with Page.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/cleveland-doctor-ousted-after-anti-semitic-social-media-posts-reported/

A medical resident at the Cleveland Clinic was ousted from her position after an organization reported on her long history of making anti-Semitic statements on social media.

Among the comments made by Dr. Lara Kollab cited by watchdog group Canary Mission was a statement that she would give all Jews the wrong medicines.
Canary Mission @canarymission

#8: Recent @WeAreTouro med school grad Lara Kollab said this before enrolling: “ill purposely give all the yahood [Jews] the wrong meds…”https://canarymission.org/individual/Lara_Kollab …

The Canary Mission report records dozens of statements made by Kollab calling for violence against Jews, defending Hamas, and supporting terrorists. She also described her activities working with anti-Israel boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) groups.

Kollab was a supervised resident at the Cleveland Clinic, which is consistently ranked among America’s top hospitals. She graduated from medical school earlier this year and began working at the clinic in July.

Last night, the Cleveland Clinic posted a statement saying that she was no longer employed there:

Cleveland Clinic was recently made aware of comments posted to social media by a former employee.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/12/constitution-free-speech-clause-supreme-court-interpretation/

A too-broad interpretation of the Constitution’s free-speech clause protects things that have nothing to do with speech and makes other clauses superfluous.

Editor’s Note: The following is the seventh in a series of articles in which Mr. Yoo and Mr. Phillips lay out a course of constitutional restoration, pointing out areas where the Supreme Court has driven the Constitution off its rails and the ways the current Court can put it back on track. The first entry is available here, the second here, the third here, the fourth here, the fifth here, and the sixth here.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department limited the right of the transgendered to serve in the military. Three federal courts blocked the policy for infringing the constitutional rights of the transgender individuals. One of the judges relied on the same clause of the Constitution as the cake maker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay marriage. The Supreme Court has invoked that same clause to defend the right to burn the American flag, dance in the nude, and make unlimited campaign contributions.

What is this constitutional catch-all? The free-speech clause.

The Supreme Court’s current law of free speech will perplex the ordinary American. After all, changing sex, making a cake, burning the flag, dancing nude, and contributing money have little in common, least of all speech.

The imperialistic expansion of free speech would not just surprise most 21st-century Americans; it would also make little sense to the 18th-century Americans who ratified the First Amendment. They would find it astounding that the courts have not just read speech to include many forms of conduct, but also have failed to establish any objective test for what constitutes speech. The Supreme Court appears to apply the perpetually malleable standard that emerged when it has sought to identify obscenity: It knows it when it sees it.

When the Court agrees that something is speech, however, it gives it the highest of protections known to constitutional law. The Court allows government to restrict the time, place, and manner of speech, as long as the state does not discriminate based on its content or the speaker. But if government tries to regulate content or discriminate between speakers, it must demonstrate that the law is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest. Observers once thought that this “strict scrutiny” test was “strict in theory, fatal in fact” because no law could survive it.

The Original Meaning
The Court’s failure to apply a consistent test for conduct-as-speech is not really the problem. Rather, the problem is that its First Amendment standards are judicial inventions. The Court’s definition of speech is unmoored from the Constitution’s text and original understanding, which should set the only lodestar for the Roberts Court, now up to full conservative strength with the addition of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/california-coastal-elites-poor-immigrants-fleeing-middle-class/

Insulated coastal elites, impoverished immigrants, and a fleeing middle class

California ranks first among the states in the percentage of residents over 25 who have never finished the ninth grade— 9.7 percent of California residents, or about 4 million Californians. It also rates 49th in the number of state residents who never graduated from high school — or about 18 percent of the current population.

In other words, about 7 million Californians do not possess a high-school diploma, about equal to the size of the nine counties of California’s Bay Area, roughly from Napa to Silicon Valley. In some sense, inside California, there is a shadow state consisting of high-school dropouts that’s larger than 38 other U.S. states.

Yet California also is home to some of the most highly educated municipalities in the United States. In fact, Palo Alto claims that 40 percent of its city population has an M.A, degree or higher, making it No. 1 among American cities with a population above 50,000.

In the same ranking of wealthiest communities, two other California municipalities, nearby Cupertino and Mountain View, were also in the top ten. How can a single state be calibrated as both so educated and so uneducated?

In many global ratings of world research universities, California has four universities (Cal Tech, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCLA) in the top 20 — more than any other single nation except the United States itself. Yet the 23-campus California State University system — the largest university in the world — has a student body in which about 20 percent are not proficient in English. The remediation rate (unable to meet minimum college admittance standards in math and English) of incoming freshmen was about 35 percent — at least until such gradations, along with required remedial education, were recently considered archaic, offensive, or worse, and thus scrapped.