RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.commentary.org/articles/matthew-continetti/lawless-left-riots-liberal-followers/

You’ve seen the image: A shirtless young man, wearing a mask and gloves, waves a Mexican flag while standing on the roof of a defaced car. He’s ringed by flames from a nearby burning vehicle. The smoke obscures a traffic light hanging in the distance. It’s a desolate, anarchic landscape—more fitting for science fiction than a spring evening in America’s second-largest city.

This was Los Angeles in early June, when street protests over federal immigration raids turned violent. For four days, masked men battled local police. They hurled stones and shot fireworks. They obstructed highways, torched taxis, and looted shops. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said his officers were “overwhelmed.”

Liberals shrugged.

Mayor Karen Bass, Governor Gavin Newsom, Representative Maxine Waters, and the unemployed Kamala Harris were all preoccupied with someone 3,000 miles away: President Trump. They downplayed the chaos while blaming him for it. They demanded Trump relinquish control of the California National Guard and remove the 700 Marines he deployed to Los Angeles. They called for ICE to leave town.

Above all, they preened. They issued statements oozing with moral superiority. “Demonstrations in defense of our immigrant neighbors have been overwhelmingly peaceful,” wrote Kamala Harris with characteristic vagueness. “The Founding Fathers didn’t live and die to see this kind of moment,” Newsom said in a televised speech.

He’s right, but not in the way he thinks. The Founders didn’t live and die to see anarchists flout the law in defense of illegal immigrants. They wrote a Constitution establishing federal supremacy over the states. They quashed rebellion and were, shall we say, tough on crime. The Founders would have had no problem recognizing anarchy and declaring it impermissible. Why does Newsom?

https://www.commentary.org/seth-mandel/tyrannical-regimes-and-the-westerners-who-love-them/

Iranian actress and activist Nazanin Boniadi has issued a heartfelt plea to the Western protest class that I fear will fall on deaf ears. Just as the Palestinians who have made it out of Gaza and can speak freely tried, in vain, to convince the anti-Zionist demonstrators to not lionize Hamas, so are Iranian democracy activists learning about the Western fascination and identification with tyrannical regimes.

The Iranian regime “unleashes its fury, first and foremost, on its own people,” Boniadi told PBS’s Newshour. The regime has shut down Internet access across Iran and has been arresting dissidents to ensure that those who want freedom cannot organize against the government while it is weak. Therefore “we have to separate the Islamic Republic from Iran because most of the Iranian people believe [the regime] is an occupying force.”

She closed with a plea: “I urge Westerners, please, if you want to stand for Iran and the Iranian people and their sovereignty, please don’t conflate that with the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty, they are two different things. Do not raise the Islamic Republic’s flag in your rallies. That is a slap in the face to every dissident, every Iranian who has risked everything for freedom.”

Yet of course this weekend there were those very Islamic Republic of Iran flags on the streets of New York City. The flags of Hamas and Hezbollah—which are also, by the way, Islamic Republic of Iran flags, technically—were replaced by the logo of a tyrannical regime in Tehran. In London, where Boniadi grew up, Islamic Republic flags intermingled with large signs displaying the face of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the words “choose the right side of history.”

https://pjmedia.com/sarah-anderson/2025/06/23/operation-dragon-eye-60-missing-kids-found-in-florida-during-largest-rescue-in-us-history-n4941103

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and the United States Marshal for the Central District of Florida William Berger announced at a press conference on Monday that a two-week operation known as Operation Dragon Eye — one of, if not the largest child rescue mission in United States history — was a success. 

The two-week operation saved the lives of at least 60 children and saw eight adults arrested on charges including human trafficking, child endangerment, drug possession, and drug trafficking. Operation Dragon Eye involved over 20 agencies and 100 people. 

Most of the children, who were ages nine to seventeen years old, were found in the Tampa Bay area. Their stories are heartbreaking. 

Berger said the children have been “debriefed and provided with physical and psychological care,” but some of them required additional assistance: maternal care. According to Natasha Nascimento of Redefining Refuge, many of the young girls were pregnant. She says the operation didn’t just recover children; it recovered generations. 

https://www.city-journal.org/article/los-angeles-riots-california-governor-gavin-newsom-wine

As riots engulfed Los Angeles and mobs vandalized public buildings, incinerated vehicles, and assaulted law enforcement officers, California governor Gavin Newsom was enjoying a swanky wine-tasting party in Napa Valley.

The wine-tasting was held on the afternoon of June 7, 2025, at the Odette Estate Winery, which Newsom co-founded in 2011. Dubbed “Vineyard Vibes,” the event was a fundraiser for the PlumpJack Foundation, founded by Newsom’s sister, and featured “contemporary yet sophisticated” wines, live jazz music, and locally made pizza and smash burgers. “It’s the perfect kick-off to summer fun,” read promotional language. “The fete will take place on the Winery Crushpad, where we’ll gather for music, food, conversation, and delicious wine!”

A source who photographed Newsom at the event expressed shock that the governor was in attendance, given that riots had broken out in Los Angeles the day before. “I couldn’t believe it,” the source said. “He was just walking around like this was an everyday occurrence.” Newsom was at the wine party for at least 90 minutes, according to the source, who said that when the governor finally left, he appeared to retreat to the inner rooms of his winery.

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/06/20/breaking-court-lets-trump-keep-natl-guard-in-la-n4940982

An appeals court has once more ruled that the president of the United States does have the authority to keep the National Guard deployed in Los Angeles to put down the dangerous, and even deadly, anti-ICE riots.

A federal appeals court issued the decision in favor of Donald Trump late Thursday, blocking District Judge Charles Breyer’s order to put California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has largely sided with the anti-immigration crazies, back in control of the National Guard in LA. Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney shared screenshots of the decision and noted that it was unanimous, with a Joe Biden appointee joining in with two Trump appointees on the decision.

The decision stated, “We also conclude that the other stay factors — irreparable harm to Defendants, injury to Plaintiffs, and the public interest — weigh in Defendants’ favor. Thus, we grant the motion for a stay pending appeal.”

The judicial panel found Newsom’s claims of the National Guard escalating the situation and interfering with law enforcement were “too speculative.” The lack of proof for the complaints against Trump led the judges to rule in Trump’s favor.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-big-lie-stolen-land/

Mob violence recently took place in L.A. and hundreds of other cities over Donald Trump’s efforts to obey the Constitution and “faithfully execute” the duties of the president, and carry out the laws by deporting illegal aliens. At the same time, Israel began a massive attack on Iran’s weapons and leaders in order to prevent that regime from acquiring nuclear weapons––which Iran now has a “zero- breakout-time” for achieving–– and fulfill the jihadists’ genocidal oath to “wipe Israel off the map,” as Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in 2003.

What links these events is the “big lie” of “stolen land,” indulged by the leftist Democrats in L.A., and Israel’s enemies everywhere. Leftists and jihadists both adhere to the precept “any means necessary,” which validates violence. But as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has said, the “big lie” is codependent with violence, “since it can conceal itself with nothing except the lie, and the lie has nothing to uphold it save violence.” Marxism is famous for both.

From the beginning, Karl Marx boasted of Marxists’ embrace of violence. In 1843 he threatened the Prussian government, “We are ruthless and ask no quarter from you. When our turn comes, we shall not disguise our terrorism.” The next year he publicized his “plan of action,” and stated, “Far from opposing the so-called excesses, those examples of popular vengeance against hated individuals and buildings which have acquired hateful memories, we must not only condone these examples but lend them a helping hand.” This, of course, foreshadows today’s leftist Dem politicians who support violent protests and riots, and those governors and congressmen who encourage and support the rioters.

True to Solzhenitsyn’s observation, Marxists have employed propaganda and “big lies” to legitimize their violence. This affinity for lying, which George Orwell’s phrase from 1984, “2+2= 5,” epitomized, was endemic among the Bolsheviks and their propaganda that penetrated every dimension of society and politics. Pierre Pascal, an apostate from Soviet communism, in 1924 wrote in his journal, No regime has ever been a regime of lies to this extent.”

Another repentant true believer, Boris Souvarine––anticipating Orwell––wrote of the Bolshevik’s public discourse, “Not one fact, not one quotation, not one idea, not one argument: only impudent affirmations with a half-dozen interchangeable words come from the ‘heights.’” We who have witnessed during the last decade the regime media repeating endlessly the same preposterous talking points, often word for word, know what Souvarine is talking about.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/06/20/no-kings-except-in-california/

Last weekend’s No Kings rallies were yet another real-time illustration of psychological projection by the political left. Meanwhile, a West Coast governor who wants to be president so badly that his hair hurts continues to act as if he’s a sovereign accountable to no one.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is a pen-and-phone chief executive. In 2020, while Californians were suffocating under his cruel COVID restrictions, the politician groomed by the San Francisco political syndicate issued an executive order outlawing internal-combustion engine automobiles in the state. Beginning in 2035, all new cars sold in California will have to be of the zero emission variety, which means battery-powered electrics since there are no realistic alternatives.

Newsom caught a bit of flak from legislators who felt that his “law” should have gone through the legitmate policymaking process. But the complaints soon faded because, after all, his order was perfectly in line with the Democrats’ eco-militant agenda. A one-man diktat is no vice in the pursuit of progressive rule.

Two years after Newsom single-handedly enshrined his EV mandate, the California Air Resources Board tried to provide him cover. It voted unanimously to approve his executive order, regarding the mandate “codified” by its endorsement. That’s a cheeky claim from a board that is not elected but appointed – chiefly by the governor.

Newsom’s excess was recently restrained by Congress and President Donald Trump through the proper lawmaking process. Trump signed a bill that he said “will kill, totally kill” California’s EV mandate “forever.”

Newsom’s response was not only to sue, which is certainly within the scope of his position, but to also behave as if, again, he is accountable to no one. He defiantly shot back on June 12 with an order that “reaffirms” the state’s “commitment to accelerate the deployment of zero-emission technologies, including passenger, medium and heavy-duty vehicles.” He recognizes no one’s authority but his own.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21691/rule-by-judges

Under Article 3 of the United States Constitution, judges are supposed to play a critical role in checking and balancing the excesses of the other branches. Their central responsibility is to enforce the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights, most particularly those assuring due process, equal protection and the right of dissent. They have no legitimate business interfering with the substantive policies of the executive or legislative branches.

Judges look harder to find procedural objections to policies and actions of which they disapprove.

[Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis] consistently voted to uphold laws and practices with which he had strong substantive disagreements, so long as they did not clearly violate express provisions of the Constitution. That is the proper role of unelected judges in a democracy.

The people — not the judges — should rule the land.

The Book of Ruth begins with an ominous warning: “In the days when the judges ruled, there was famine in the land.”

History shows that judges make poor leaders. Thomas Jefferson understood this when he tried to limit the influence of the “midnight judges” appointed by John Adams. Andrew Jackson refused to implement a Supreme Court decision that he believed undercut his policy toward Native American tribes. Abraham Lincoln responded to what he regarded as the overreaching of judges by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court when the justices tried to dismantle his congressionally-enacted New Deal.

Now, many district court judges are determined to thwart the policies of President Donald Trump. Judicial efforts to thwart executive and legislative actions have occurred frequently in our history, as have executive and legislative responses to such judicial activism.

Under Article 3 of the United States Constitution, judges are supposed to play a critical role in checking and balancing the excesses of the other branches. Their central responsibility is to enforce the procedural safeguards of the Bill of Rights, most particularly those assuring due process, equal protection and the right of dissent. They have no legitimate business interfering with the substantive policies of the executive or legislative branches.

“In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our hands lies the power to choose – what we want to be, we are.”

                                                                                                                Robert Lewis Stevenson (1850-1894)

                                                                                                                The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, 1886

Just like good, evil lurks in all of us. It is our responsibility – to the extent possible – to contain it, to smother it, to let goodness overwhelm it. “Wisdom,” wrote John Cheever in his Journals, “is the knowledge of good and evil…” In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us…But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.” This is a subject that has been on my mind, with Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and as I have been reading Jonathan Horn’s new book, The Fate of the Generals. It is difficult to reconcile the vile treatment of American and Filipino prisoners by the Japanese, with the Japanese I knew in business and socially. Two generations ago, German Nazis were gassing Jews. Today, they are an ally of Israel. In his 1860 novel The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins wrote: “The best men are not consistent in good – why should the worst men be consistent in evil?”

Today, evil is manifested in the anti-Semitism that has infested much of the West. Do college students, born sixty years after the genocide of Jews in Europe and who now accuse Israel of practicing genocide on Palestinians, have any knowledge of history? Battles between forces of good and evil, are as old as mankind. The Bible tells us that Jesus, as the son of God, is inherently good, while man is flawed, so must avoid temptations. Most of my generation have read Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story, The Devil and Daniel Webster, of Webster’s defense of Jabez Stone who sold his soul to the devil in return for seven years of good luck. The message: In moments of weakness, good people can make bad decisions.

This battle between good and evil is not limited to people. On March 8, 1983, President Reagan correctly referred to the Soviet Union as an “evil empire.” Evil manifests itself in nation’s where authoritarian leaders control their populations. In the past century, one can think of Mussolini, Franco, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Zedong. Today Ali Hosseini Khamenei Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un serve that role, as their governments deny citizens their natural rights – “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”