RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.theepochtimes.com/show-trials-then-and-now_4528243.html?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=rcp

Power Line’s Scott Johnson quoted a TV Guide reporter who described the viewership of the first Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s prime-time television extravaganza as “decent.”In context, “decent” means “dismal” since, as Johnson notes, “the networks graciously handed their prime-time slots over to the committee’s motley crew in unison, Soviet style.”

A show trial is a mock, or make-believe, trial in which the guilt of the party is predetermined.The trial is just a form of theater.Lenin called them “model trials.”

Their aim isn’t to discover the truth—which was supposedly already known—but to stage a propagandist exhibition.

The Soviet Union specialized in the genre, as did communist China, Nazi Germany, and other totalitarian countries.

As the White Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” puts it, it’s always “sentence first—verdict afterwards.”

If you turned on the television on June 9 and you weren’t tuned in to Fox News, you were watching—or “watching”—a couple hours of Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney conducting a show trial.

They vilified Donald Trump while airing a few misleadingly edited clips from the events of that day.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, the Democrats went all out on this show.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/20/even-democrats-blame-biden-for-surging-inflation-ii-tipp-poll/

If there’s a topic uppermost on most people’s minds today, it is certainly the surge in inflation over the past year. Soaring prices have affected virtually every person in the country. And Americans say they know who’s responsible: President Biden. Surprisingly, that includes more than half of all Democrats, too.

May’s 8.6% annualized inflation rate, the highest in 40 years, shocked financial markets and alarmed consumers and workers alike. As we’ve been reminded over the years, inflation acts as a tax on everyone, lowering standards of living, raising costs across the board, and eroding the very foundations of a productive economy. And once entrenched, it’s very difficult to get rid of.

How did this happen? And does President Biden deserve the blame? June’s monthly online I&I/TIPP Poll sought to answer those questions, asking 1,310 adults across the country the following question: “In general, how responsible are President Biden’s policies for causing the current inflation?”

The answers to the poll, which was taken from June 8-10 and has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points, couldn’t be less comforting for Biden and the Democratic Party.

Of those responding, 64% said Biden was “responsible,” choosing either “very responsible” (38%) or “somewhat responsible” (26%). Just 25% answered “not responsible”, with 17% saying “not very responsible” but a far-smaller 8% saying “not at all responsible.” “Not sure” was 10%.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/fantasies-and-infant-formula-william-kilpatrick/

June is “Pride Month.”  It’s also the month in which many Americans woke up to the fact that the nation was running out of baby formula.  Distressed mothers couldn’t find any on the supermarket shelves or on Amazon’s site.

When you’re looking for a garden tool and all you can find is a sign that says “this product is currently unavailable,” it’s an inconvenience, but if you’re looking for baby formula and your own supply is about to run out, it’s an emergency.

A nationwide shortage of baby formula is a very big deal, yet the Biden administration which had known for months that a shortage was building, did nothing for the longest time.  It is difficult to avoid the impression that the administration didn’t really care that much.

“Pride Month,” on the other hand, is treated as a really big deal.  The Army, the Navy, and the Air Force celebrate it.  So do schools, sports teams, and major corporations.  Meanwhile, the Biden administration has initiated a National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality.  Why?  Because as President Biden has informed us, transgender rights are the “civil rights issue of our time.”

But what does Pride Month have to do with a baby formula shortage?  Quite a lot, actually.  During Pride Month we are asked to celebrate the LGBTQ+ movement, but implicitly we are being asked to celebrate the ideology that goes with it.  The LGBTQ+ movement is not simply about protecting certain personal choices, it’s also about promulgating a worldview in which babies and families do not figure prominently—at least, not in comparison to the needs and demands of what cultural historian Quentin Anderson called “the imperial self.”

The LGBT thought-world is part of a larger ideology that is widely shared in Washington.  For people who live in that thought-bubble, the subject of babies is not an interesting one. It’s not that they hate babies, but that they don’t think much at all about babies or their needs.  So, it’s no surprise that a shortage of infant formula should catch them flat-footed.  Compared to the really big issues such as world peace, racism, and climate change, the issue of formula shortage seems mundane to them.  On the other hand, if you could link the shortage to bias against trans youth, you might get a hearing.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/abigail-shrier-in-defense-of-political?utm_source=email

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis earned uncommon rebuke from conservative pundits last week, when he indicated he might sic Child Protective Services on parents who take their children to drag shows.

“I’m a very big fan of DeSantis and very not a fan of kids at drag shows,” writer Bethany Mandel wrote on Twitter. “But conservatives have to recognize the Pandora’s box we’re opening by involving CPS in judgment call parenting decisions. It’s not abuse.”

Mandel is right: Child Protective Services should not be sent after these families. Parents ought to be free to make all kinds of decisions regarding what ideas to expose their children to, how and when—especially with regard to matters that we typically consider private and deeply personal: Religion is one. Sexuality, another.

But here’s the hitch: as with so many of our institutions, CPS has already become thoroughly politicized and weaponized by the left. Dozens and dozens of loving parents have told me over the last two years that CPS showed up at their homes or threatened their custody or even testified against them in court, all for the sin of failing to “affirm” their minor child’s newly-announced gender identity or vetoing the kid’s immediate medical transition.

In California, matters head from bad to worse: a new bill aspires to transform California into a “sanctuary state” for gender-swapping youth, making it possible for even a non-custodial parent to run to California to transition her child against her ex-spouse’s wishes.

Here, then, is the question: If our ultimate goal is returning to a normalcy in which government agencies and corporations treat all Americans fairly regardless of viewpoint, how are we to achieve this? At a minimum, we must acknowledge that these institutions are already weaponized and their artillery points only in one direction: against the opponents of the left. Acknowledge further that an ever-increasing tyranny is ratcheted upon those who dare criticize the encroachment of gender ideology into all spheres of public life. The playing field is about as level as San Francisco’s Filbert Street.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/18/domestic-terrorism-ignored/

“Today is 6/14, a day that should live in infamy,” wrote Rabbi Jonathan Gross last Tuesday. June 14 marked five years since the attempt at “the largest-scale political assassination in our nation’s history,” when “a Democrat tried to murder dozens of Republican Congressmen as they innocently gathered to play baseball at a field just outside the nation’s capital.” 

The Democrat was James Hodgkinson, 66, a follower of Bernie Sanders. Hodgkinson “succeeded in seriously injuring Rep. Steve Scalise and three others, including two police officers before brave law enforcement officials stopped him and saved the rule of law.” 

According to Gross, who is also a civil rights attorney, this was “an actual domestic terror attack carried out by a Democrat.” That is not the only reason the establishment media and the federal government kept rather quiet on the five-year anniversary. 

Hodgkinson’s social media record bristled with hatred of President Trump and Republicans. He planned the attack for months, casing the Alexandria, Virginia baseball field where the representatives practiced. 

Hodgkinson deployed a Smith and Wesson 9mm pistol and an SKS automatic rifle, a precursor to the Soviet AK-47 that uses the same 7.62 cartridge. The SKS rifle had been legally purchased, but altered to accept a detachable magazine and folding stock. Before opening fire, Hodgkinson asked if the players on the field were Democrats or Republicans. 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/18/joe-incompetent/

When it comes to the Biden Administration, my advice is: forget the ideology, concentrate on the incompetence. 

Yes, the Biden Administration has gone all-in on the leisured Left agenda, throwing its hat in with the race-baiters, icky sexual exotics, climate fanatics, and other wardens of wokeness. 

All that is destructive, not to mention deeply unattractive.

But even worse than the preening, self-indulgent theatrics of these unhappy would-be censors and commandants is the mind-boggling ineptitude of this administration. 

Thanks to soon-to-be-former Representative Liz Cheney (RINO-Wyo.), we’ve been hearing a lot about January 6, 2021, lately. But not only was that the day that some of Donald Trump’s supporters traipsed around the Capitol building. It was also, as it turns out, a day that provided a nice contrast between the Trump and the Biden Administrations. I am not thinking about the differences in comportment between the two but energy costs under Donald Trump compared with those costs under Joe Biden. Since Biden seems bent on fulfilling his promise to destroy the coal industry and stop all drilling, it is not surprising that the cost of energy has skyrocketed over the last year. One wag sent around a “Never Forget January 6th” notice listing the prices of fuel on that day in 2021:

Regular gas was $1.99
Premium was $2.14 
Diesel was $2.21 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/06/42-young-male-dems-believe-transgender-movement-daniel-greenfield/

The numbers under the hood, especially among young male Dems, are seriously bad. And a reckoning is coming.

This is a Southern Poverty Law Center survey. And I wouldn’t be posting SPLC content if it wasn’t spectacular. And it is spectacular.

Overall, 49% of people said they believe gender ideology has corrupted American culture, including 34% of Democrats, 72% of Republicans, and 45% of Independents.

The magic happens when you break down the numbers by age and gender. Among younger Democrat men, a group that the SPLC survey defines as under 50, the numbers are dramatically different than among baby boomers.

Only 20% of Democrat men over 50 agree that “gender ideology has corrupted American culture”, but 47% of younger Democratic men agree.

Only 41% disagree.

The numbers are better among Democrat women, but there’s still a sharp age split.

Only 26% of older Democrat women agree, while 37% of younger Democrat women do.

The numbers get progressively worse for lefties on the question of transgender indoctrination of children and whether it’s a threat to children.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/celebrating-with-lee-edwards-as-communism-is-put-on-trial/?utm_source=

Last week’s opening of the Victims of Communism Museum resulted from a 35-year effort spearheaded by NR’s old and dear friend, Lee Edwards (fun fact: His first piece for this magazine, “The Way of All France,” was published in the February 1, 1958, issue). Yours Truly corresponded with Lee prior to the ribbon-cutting, asking a few questions, getting a few answers in return. It would be a shame to not share them, and so we do:

Jack Fowler: Why will the world be a better place for there being this museum?

Lee Edwards: Because the museum will serve as the cornerstone of our global educational campaign about the manifold victims and crimes of communism.

Fowler: The Nazis have been rightly denigrated, their leaders executed for crimes against humanity, the name made synonymous with evil — but there was no such justice for East Europe’s and Asia’s communist henchmen. They are not the stuff of vilification by Western media, by Western culture, at least in no way comparable to the Nazis. Is this a driving force in part behind the creation of the Victims of Communism Memorial and the museum, this sense of a lack of justice or righteous admission of just how dastardly communism is?

Edwards: Nazism was exposed and convicted at the Nuremburg trials. VOC intends to put communism on trial in Washington, D.C. We will feature witnesses from the nearly 40 nations that suffered under communism — some 1.5 billion still do so in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos.

Fowler: On the memorial, 100 million are recognized — are they the murdered? What is the greater number of true victims of communism?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/poll-young-democrats-are-souring-on-femini

Michelle Goldberg’s latest New York Times column notes a very interesting new poll regarding public opinion on feminism:

Recently the Southern Poverty Law Center and Tulchin Research commissioned a poll of 1,500 Americans to measure belief in various reactionary sentiments, including the “great replacement” conspiracy theory and the idea that trans people are a threat to children. Because misogyny is so ubiquitous in far-right spaces, Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the S.P.L.C., decided to add a question about feminism.

Predictably, most young Republicans agree with the statement, “Feminism has done more harm than good.” What was astonishing was how many young Democrats agreed as well. While only 4 percent of Democratic men over 50 thought feminism was harmful, 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 did. Nearly a quarter of Democratic women under 50 agreed, compared with only 10 percent of those 50 and older.

Goldberg, a progressive and a feminist herself, concludes that this shift is due to the fact “that feminism has been sapped of cultural vitality”: “After four years of Donald Trump, more than two years of a pandemic, and an unending right-wing onslaught, a lot of people with feminist sympathies are numb and exhausted.” I have a slightly different explanation. Feminism today is distinct from the feminism of past generations — far more radical and less tolerant, more concerned with quashing dissent than securing rights.