RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-smug-safe-comedy-of-jimmy-kimmel/

I’m no fan of late night comedy or even comedians for that matter, although years ago I did find something in George Carlin’s act to admire.

Carlin, though born into an Irish Catholic family, mocked religious belief as a stand-up comedian and claimed that he didn’t believe in God.

Despite this personal failing, Carlin, who died in 2008 — way before woke comedians became afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome — was never predictable as a comedian.

He never had much to say about Donald Trump, either, aside from his 1998 comment that he thought the man was a “rat” (he compared him to hotel mogul Leona Helmsley), yet at the same time Carlin insisted that Trump made “his life more interesting.”

Hilarious and unpredictable comedians are now a rare breed, thanks mainly to the spread of wokeness in comedy.

In comedy clubs throughout the country, you can no longer make jokes about gay people, trans people, feminists, the Asian predilection for gambling and casinos, mentally retarded or developmentally disabled people, blacks or handicapped people without that coming across as hate speech — although a talented comedian should be able to find something funny in all the aforementioned groups (and their behaviors) without that coming across as an incitement to organize a lynch mob.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-right-take-audio-michael-shellenberger-on-living-dangerously/

In this short audio clip from a recent episode of the Freedom Center’s podcast The Right Take, host Mark Tapson asks independent journalist Michael Shellenberger about the personal danger of breaking stories that expose Big Tech censorship, CIA malfeasance, and transgender medical malpractice.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-civilizational-masochism-of-the-west/

Last week, Joe Biden issued a schoolmarmish warning to Israel, which he has been browbeating for months to placate his party’s anti-Israel left and Muslim American voters in Michigan, a critical swing state. Speaking to the press, he threatened, “There’s got to be a ceasefire because Ramadan – if we get into circumstances where this continues to Ramadan, Israel and Jerusalem could be very, very dangerous.”

This solicitude for Muslims’ sensitivity about their faith bespeaks the West’s long bad habit of caring more about Islam––the faith that conquered and occupied, and to this day still occupies, much of the Christian Roman and Byzantine empires––than they do about their own civilization’s foundational religion, whose adherents today are being persecuted and massacred in Islamic lands.

This cultural tic does not demonstrate, as many “citizen of the world” globalists believe, a superior morality based on both an uncritical tolerance for the exotic “other,” and a haughty disdain for alleged parochial American nationalism and jingoist patriotism. Rather, it signals to the world a civilizational failure of nerve so widespread and intense that it has become a form of geopolitical masochism, manifested in conspicuous displays of cringing apologetics and shameful guilt for the West’s alleged historical sins.

For example, Biden’s foreign policy crew, products of this ruling class sensibility, seem to think that Muslims view Ramadan the way Christians do Easter, and so will be deeply offended by Israel besmirching this sacred time by continuing to fight. Actually, as Bassam Tawil writes, “‘In the holy month of Ramadan,’ according to fatwa 1566/10013/L=1431, ‘the reward of virtues is increased.’” And martyrdom while waging jihad against infidels is a theological virtue par excellence.

http://swtotd.blogspot.com

American values, which have been denigrated, evolved over two hundred years. It has become common to debase history and belittle capitalism, Certainly, one can find faults in both. One thing that is often forgotten is how rare have been revolutions that produced positive change. The French Revolution of 1789 eliminated a king and produced an Emperor. The Haiti slave rebellion of 1791 got rid of the French and eliminated slavery, but the nation has never had an honest and fair government. The Russian Revolution of 1917 exchanged autocratic Tsars for totalitarian Communists. Other examples: China in 1949, Cuba in 1959, and Iran in 1979. But the American revolution produced a government that evolved into the world’s fairest representative democracy. Capitalism, which creates winners and losers, is antithetical to today’s devotees of DEI, with its focus on equal outcomes. Yet, it is capitalism that encourages competition and offers choices to consumers. Free market capitalism has done more to lift people out of poverty than any other economic system. It provides people opportunities, to strive to do their best in whatever field they choose.

A few other thoughts:

Democracy – a form of government close to the center of a spectrum that stretches from anarchy to autocracy. It is not perfect, as Churchill said in a speech before the House of Commons on November 11, 1947: “…the worse form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Our democracy is, as Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg on November 19, 1863, a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” It is rare. Despite its visible success, according to ourworldindata.org, twice as many people live in “closed autocracies” as live in “liberal democracies.” Yet, we cannot forget that while our government is beneficent, dependency on government, unless it is absolutely necessary, leads to a loss of freedom.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-thin-veneer-of-civilization/

The Left is turning us into a “sh*thole country.”

During a White House meeting with Senators in January, 2018, then-President Donald Trump reportedly questioned the reasoning for allowing immigration from “shithole countries” such as Haiti. This triggered the pearl-clutching mainstream media, and charges of racism flew fast and furious, including from Haiti Ambassador to the U.S. Paul Altidor, who said Trump’s language was based on “clichés and stereotypes rather than actual fact.”

Today Haiti is a shithole country, and that is not a racist cliché or stereotype but actual fact. It is a failed nation in a state of emergency, becoming a dangerous power vacuum in the Caribbean. Awash in violence and chaos, the country is run by a heavily armed gang whose messianic leader Jimmy Cherizier is grotesquely and justifiably nicknamed “Barbeque.”

Even reports of cannibalism have surfaced amid the current chaos, including videos on social media showing at least one gang member gnawing on a human leg from a burning corpse. An anonymous journalist on the ground told The Daily Express, “We have seen images of gang leaders eating people they have killed. We have seen images of people being tortured when they are kidnapped.”

As Horowitz Freedom Center Shillman Fellow Daniel Greenfield notes, Haiti is a failed state because it lacks “a legitimate government or a functional society,” and its police force is barely distinguishable from the murderous gangs it is supposed to control. The police there actually spawned “Barbeque” Cherizier, a warlord now the most powerful man in Haiti, who has orchestrated or been involved in a number of massacres of the Haitian people.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/18/guilty-but-not-really-guilty/

In 2011, then Homeland Security Advisor to President Obama, John Brennan, swore before Congress that drone-targeted assassination missions near the Pakistani border had not led to “a single collateral death.”

That was an obvious lie with grave consequences, given that Brennan was sworn under oath and was one of the top officials in the US national security community. Yet there were no subsequent repercussions.

In fact, the opposite occurred. Brennan was subsequently rewarded with a 2013 appointment as CIA Director.

But the next year, once again, Brennan lied to Congress, assuring the Senate Intelligence Committee that his CIA had not secretly accessed senate staffers’ computers. Again, there were no consequences for his repeated lies. Instead, Brennan, upon retirement, went on to be an MSNBC/NBC analyst who helped to promulgate the Russian collusion/laptop disinformation hoaxes.

In 2013, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also lied under oath to Congress when he laughably stated that the National Security Agency did not spy on American citizens. Later, when called out by senators, Clapper fudged in a televised interview. “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying no.” Try that contortion with the IRS.

Some members of Congress referred a criminal complaint of perjury against Brennan to then Attorney General Eric Holder. Nothing happened. Again, one of the chiefs of the American national security community was exempted after lying to members of Congress.

Clapper went on to a lucrative position as a CNN national security analyst, and at one point he claimed that Trump was a Putin “asset.”

As far as Eric Holder, he had earlier defied a congressional subpoena and was held in contempt by the House. The Department of Justice, however, chose not to pursue the complaint. Later in the Trump administration, Trump adviser Peter Navarro would be sentenced to four months in jail for similarly resisting a congressional subpoena. Was it a crime or not to resist a congressional subpoena?

https://wokecapital.org/scapegoating-netanyahu-then-and-now/

Benjamin Netanyahu is not fit to be the Prime Minister of Israel.

You don’t have to take my word for this, of course.  No less a luminary than the Senate Majority Leader said as much the other day.  That’s right.  The Majority Leader.  Of the Senate.  Of the United States of America.  Not the Knesset, mind you, but the U.S. Senate.  Moreover, he said that the United States should do everything it can to ensure that Netanyahu is pushed out of power.  Seriously (emphasis added):

In a landmark speech, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way,” urged new elections in Israel, called for a two-state solution and said the United States should use its “leverage” to push for its goals in the region if Netanyahu remains in power….

[S]aying he spoke for a “silent majority” of American Jews, Schumer said many were “horrified” that Israel was falling short of upholding Jewish values due to its far-right coalition members and the way it is prosecuting the war in Gaza. And he castigated Netanyahu for actively opposing a two-state solution.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see the crosstabs of the survey showing that the “silent majority” of American Jews agree with Schumer on this.  I have a long and notorious history of underestimating American Jews’ loyalty to the Democratic Party, but I still think Schumer is mistaken here.  In fact, I think that he is full of male cattle excrement.

Schumer’s rant – which would be classified as “election interference” if it came from anyone other than a Democrat and were directed at anyone other than Netanyahu – was less about finding a solution to the current problems plaguing Israel and more about finding a scapegoat for the failure of the Democrats’ decades-long delusions about Middle East “peace.”

My American Greatness column tomorrow is about the millennia-old tradition in the West of scapegoating Jews for all the world’s problems when those problems get especially burdensome.  This is a familiar topic in these pages.  As it turns out, scapegoating Netanyahu is the Democrats’ version of this medieval antisemitism.  It allows them to blame “the Jews” without actually having to blame the Jews.  It gives them a handy, ready-made explanation for the failure of the two-state solution that enables them at least to try to play both sides of the issue.  In public, they say things like “of course I support Israel and its right to defend itself,” even as they nod and wink at their agitated Arab and identitarian supporters, whispering, “We know, we know.  It’s really the Jew’s fault.”

https://www.racket.news/p/why-the-tiktok-ban-is-so-dangerous

It’s funny how things work.

Last year at this time, Americans overwhelmingly supported a ban on TikTok. Polls showed a 50-22% overall margin in support of a ban and 70-14% among conservatives. But Congress couldn’t get the RESTRICT Act passed.

As the public learned more about provisions in the bill, and particularly since the outbreak of hostilities in Gaza, the legislative plan grew less popular. Polls dropped to 38-27% in favor by December, and they’re at 35-31% against now.

Yet the House just passed the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” by a ridiculous 352-64 margin, with an even more absurd 50-0 unanimous push from the House Energy and Commerce Committee. What gives?

As discussed on the new America This Week, passage of the TikTok ban represents a perfect storm of unpleasant political developments, putting congress back fully in line with the national security establishment on speech. After years of public championing of the First Amendment, congressional Republicans have suddenly and dramatically been brought back into the fold. Meanwhile Democrats, who stand to lose a lot from the bill politically — it’s opposed by 73% of TikTok users, precisely the young voters whose defections since October put Joe Biden’s campaign into a tailspin — are spinning passage of the legislation to its base by suggesting it’s not really happening.

“This is not an attempt to ban TikTok, it’s an attempt to make TikTok better,” is how Nancy Pelosi put it. Congress, the theory goes, will force TikTok to divest, some kindly Wall Street consortium will gobble it up (“It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok,” Steve Mnuchin told CNBC), and life will go on. All good, right?

https://victorhanson.com/when-and-how-did-we-get-here-gradually-then-suddenly-part-two/

Our nation’s change into something unrecognizable just four years ago had a few precursors and catalysts.

The first was the Obama administration’s redefining of American norms. Before Obama, “racial relations” were largely defined as the historical 12 percent black/88 percent “non-black” dichotomy, in the context of dealing with the sins of southern slavery and Jim Crow and widespread discrimination—and the quest to make race incidental not essential to us all.

Sixty years of serial Civil Rights acts, affirmative action, increased integration and assimilation, interaction, and intermarriage, and “content of your character, not the color of your skin” mentalities were all working toward an ecumenical society, in which soon we would not consider race relevant to who were are and instead focus on the individual not the collective.

“Climate change” took over from “global warming” as Al Gore/John Kerry were unleashed. Suddenly clean burning natural gas was a culprit, a fossil fuel supposedly wrongly disguised as a valuable transition fuel.

Abroad, Iran was redefined as the oppressed Persian, Shiite counterweight to the overdog Gulf monarchies and Zionist Israel. We then would green-light a “Shiite Crescent”—Teheran to Damascus to Beirut to Gaza—that would balance our former pro-Western allies, Israel in particular. We then from time to time, as the rivalry heated up, would adjudicate the ensuing creative tension. America would be the honest broker with no real preference for a democratic Western Israel or pro-American autocratic governments in the Gulf, Jordan, or Egypt.