RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/06/17/biden-uses-juneteenth-to-push-his-federal-takeover-of-elections-and-the-suburbs-n1455386

On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a law proclaiming Juneteenth, June 19, a federal holiday, commemorating the freeing of the very last slaves in the United States in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865. Yet the president used Juneteenth as an excuse to push his radical agenda, including his federal takeover of elections and housing. He demonized Republican voter integrity laws and hailed a federal program that will pull zoning decisions away from city councils.

“The truth is, it’s simply not enough to just commemorate Juneteenth. After all, emancipation of enslaved black Americans didn’t mark the end of America’s work to deliver on the promise of equality,” Biden said. “To honor the true meaning of Juneteenth, we have to continue toward that promise. We’ve not gotten there yet.”

The president said his administration is “committed to doing just that. That’s why we’ve launched an aggressive effort to combat racial discrimination in housing.”

Combatting racial discrimination in housing is a noble goal, but Biden was referring to a revamped version of the Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (AFFH), a rule that started removing zoning from the purview of state and local governments. The Trump administration eliminated the rule, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under Biden has already proposed two new rules. Part of Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan explicitly pushes for apartment buildings in neighborhoods that are currently restricted to single-family homes.

During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to go much further than AFFH. He embraced Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) strategy for ending single-family zoning in the suburbs and creating “little downtowns” there. Biden justifies his assault on local zoning control by claiming that current zoning laws that favor single-family homes disproportionately hurt low-income people who can’t afford to move to the suburbs. Yet this policy would take away Americans’ abilities to shape their own neighborhoods.

Biden’s pledge to increase black homeownership may be noble, but Donald Trump was right to warn that Biden’s policies represent a threat to the suburbs.

In terms of pushing racial equity on Juneteenth, the president also touted his administration’s goal to give black entrepreneurs more access to capital (a noble goal but a policy that singles people out based on the color of their skin) and his desire to “give each and every child, three and four years of age, not daycare but school.” Yet without vital measures to improve schools like school choice, decreasing the age of first entry may not make much of a positive difference.

Biden also called for more funding for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), pushing racial equity in the health care system, and ensuring clean air and water for all communities.

Yet Biden saved his most controversial talking point for last.

He said America’s promise of racial equality is “not going to be fulfilled so long as the sacred right to vote remains under attack.”

https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/you-are-not-a-racist-to-criticize?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Since a year ago, CRT-infused members of The Elect, traditionally overrepresented in the world of schools of education, have sought to take the opportunity furnished by our “racial reckoning” to turn American schools into academies of “antiracist” indoctrination.

And the backlash is on.  One by one parents, teachers and even students are speaking out against the idea that the soul of education must be to battle the power that whites have over others.

Yes, that’s the watchcry. It’s why The Elect can make so little sense to the rest of us: they actually believe that the heart of all intellectual, moral, and artistic endeavor must be battling power differentials. They get this from Critical Race Theory. And what most alarms The Elect is that state legislatures are proposing to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in schools, Florida being the latest example.

One response to this backlash is that anyone who questions the takeover of schools by CRT is against schoolkids learning about racism, and wants schoolkids to have the adulatory view of the American story typical of the 1950s and before. A sarcastic tweet by a certain famous black figure employed by the New York Times who won a Pulitzer recently encapsulates this kind of view:

“Our children must learn that we are the greatest and freest country in the history of the world, and we will demonstrate this by barring educators from teaching things we do not like, and in the name of liberty, mandating government control of what ideas can be exchanged.”

So, whenever a body of lawmakers (or anyone else) is against their kids being taught not how, but what, to think, and call this “Critical Race Theory” just as many of its teachers do, that body of lawmakers is a nest of racists.

Let’s break this down.

* * *

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/16/a-chinese-lab-virus-so-now-what/

For over a year, the American establishment and media borg have ostracized anyone who dared to connect the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Chinese military-sponsored, level-4 biosafety Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

Then, suddenly and without apologies for their past demagoguery, “journalists” and “experts” concede that the nearby Wuhan lab may well be the most likely genesis.

Why the abrupt change? 

Donald Trump is no longer president. 

There is now no need for progressives to declare everything Trump once asserted as truth a lie. And that paradox includes Trump’s spring 2020 insistence that the lab, not a wet market of sliced-up bats, was the source of the outbreak. 

The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s emails, along with the new information about Dr. Peter Daszak’s gain-of-function research, make it indisputable that both were knowingly channeling U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Chinese for coronavirus research in Wuhan.  

So now what? 

We are left with a number of lose-lose scenarios about China’s failed efforts to lie about the origins of COVID-19.

One, will China continually deny what is appearing to be undeniable? Perhaps, if we remember it is a country with a Communist Party hierarchy that once killed 60 million under Mao, and whose present apparat has put over 1 million Muslim Uyghurs into camps. 

A stonewalling Beijing likely will conclude that the risk of appearing guilty for causing one of the greatest “natural” global disasters in a century is not nearly as destructive to its interests as admitting it. 

Will China then wait us out, in O.J. Simpson fashion, denying the obvious facts—until wearied Americans move onto another of their media frenzies?

Or, two, could China confess that its SARS-CoV-2 virus was birthed in the Wuhan lab, but claim its appearance was a “joint” effort with the United States? They would then point to Fauci himself, who approved funds for Wuhan coronavirus enhancement to be channeled by Daszak. The Chinese would further insist their combined efforts were aimed at finding a “cure” for coronavirus epidemics. And thus Beijing should not be blamed—or at least not solely blamed. 

Beijing could retort that it, too, was misled by its own sloppy researchers. Or the communist government might even preposterously answer that its prior code of silence was meant to shield the role of U.S. funders of the pandemic disaster. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/the_fbis_role_in_the_jan_6_capitol_fracas_is_absolutely_disgusting.html

Do you remember how conservatives went out of their way to separate rank-and-file FBI agents from the corrupt actions of Jim Comey, Andrew McCabe, Bill Priestap, James Baker, James Rybicki, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and others as more evidence came to light revealing that the top brass at the bureau had worked to create an “insurance policy” that could be used to overthrow President Trump from office?  Writers and television pundits would always couch any criticism of the bureau in some respectful language like “we’re only talking about high-ranking officials here, not the FBI, itself, which is filled with the best agents in the world who are always looking out for America.”

I think we can dispense with the overly protective pleasantries at this point.  The FBI is a goon squad of un-American thugs who have taken the worst elements of East Germany’s Stasi police state and Cosa Nostra’s organized crime and turned them into a blueprint for exercising and keeping illegitimate power over their enemies.  They aren’t a law enforcement organization, and they certainly don’t give a rat’s rear end about justice.  They’re regime enforcers with badges.

If the stated reason for the FBI’s inception was to pursue federal crimes that might otherwise be unenforced or overlooked in the interstate wilderness separating local jurisdictions, J. Edgar Hoover wasted no time turning the bureau into a personal domestic intelligence force capable of intimidating political enemies and insulating himself from potential removal through the use of blackmail.  Before Jim Comey was secretly leaking to the press and using Hillary Clinton’s “Russia collusion” dossier in an operation to take down President Trump, Mark Felt, the FBI’s second-in-command at the time of the Watergate scandal and the anonymous “Deep Throat” who made Woodward and Bernstein famous, actually succeeded in secretly bringing down President Nixon.  In this way, the FBI has at least as much experience overthrowing American governments as it does any enemy state.

You’d think it was sufficiently clear, as evidence mounted over the last five years, that Comey and Co. had undertaken a mission (with John Brennan at CIA, Bruce Ohr at Main Justice, Nellie Ohr and Glenn Simpson at Fusion GPS, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, James Clapper, and Christopher Steele, the Russia hoax dossier author and former Russia desk head at Britain’s MI6) to frame the sitting president of the United States as a Russian asset by repeatedly filing fraudulent FISA affidavits with America’s secret surveillance court, among other unprosecuted crimes, to spy on Donald Trump and his associates.  But there were also the efforts of Rod Rosenstein, Andrew Weissmann, Robert Mueller, and their army of fifty FBI agents who spent two years trying to entrap President Trump on phony “obstruction of justice” charges during a bogus special counsel witch hunt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/an-antitrust-bait-and-switch-11623883196?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

The Senate on Tuesday voted 69-28 to confirm progressive Columbia University law professor Lina Khan as a Federal Trade Commissioner. But some Republicans who voted for her may have regrets after President Biden broke political norms and quickly named her as the new chair.

Ms. Khan is a leader in the “hipster” or neo-Brandeis school of antitrust. These progressives want to scrap the consumer-welfare standard that Robert Bork helped develop in the 1970s. They believe antitrust law should focus on business size rather than how its conduct or acquisitions affect consumers.

In a 2017 Yale Law Journal article, “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” Ms. Khan argued that the “consumer welfare” standard is “unequipped to capture the architecture of market power in the modern economy.” Amazon, she said, increased its dominance by charging lower prices and growing its business, thereby undercutting competitors.

Amazon and other tech giants deserve antitrust scrutiny for some of their business practices, such as Amazon’s dominance in e-books. But that e-book dominance was abetted by a Justice antitrust suit that undermined competition from Apple. Killing the consumer-welfare standard would punish companies for reducing prices and innovating.

Some Republicans, frustrated by how companies have silenced conservatives, voted to confirm Ms. Khan to send a message. Yet they may not have done so had they known Ms. Khan would lead the agency. It’s de rigueur for a President when nominating members to independent agencies to announce at the same time if someone will serve as chair.

Mr. Biden didn’t, probably because he was worried it would jeopardize Ms. Khan’s confirmation.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/17/bidens-creeping-police-state/

Most Americans believe in law and order. But they don’t believe that the federal government should suppress their entirely legitimate political beliefs. Which is exactly what the Biden administration’s now doing.

We all count on robust public safety. Every one of us. Unfortunately, taking a page from Critical Race Theory, President Joe Biden seems to think – or, his far-left aides do, anyway – that the only people who need to be watched are non-Democrats and those on the right.

How else to explain his recently released “strategy” for fighting domestic terrorism? In March, Biden’s National Security Council determined “that domestic violent extremism posed a ‘heightened threat’ in 2021.”

“Today’s domestic terrorists espouse a range of violent ideological motivations, including racial or ethnic bigotry and hatred as well as anti-government or anti-authority sentiment,” the document said.

Go through it and you’ll see all of the examples are so-called right-wing militias and even the misguided Jan. 6 demonstrators at our nation’s Capitol.

There are no mentions or even allusions in Biden’s “National Strategy” to the literally hundreds of riots and dozens of killings that accompanied the far-left uprisings in more than 140 cities across our nation over the the last year, perpetrated by Black Lives Matter and Antifa and heartily supported by leftist Democrats.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2021/06/16/critical-race-theory-will-destroy-our-military/

Dakota Wood, senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense and the editor of Heritage’s “Index of U.S. Military Strength. Previously, he served for two decades in the U.S. Marine Corp.

As a young Marine Corps first lieutenant assigned to an infantry battalion in the late 1980s, I had charge of the unit transport section of operators, mechanics, and supervisors tasked with taking care of our fleet of combat vehicles.

This group of Marines, like all with whom I served over a 20-year military career, was a wonderful cross section of America representing all walks of life.

My maintenance and operations chiefs were American Samoan and an African American, respectively. Our collection of more junior Marines included blacks, whites, and Latinos, young men from Texas, New Jersey, California, and West Virginia, among others.

They came from the city and the country, from poor and middle-class families. Some were Catholic, others Protestant, and some had no strong affiliation with any organized religion.

In the maintenance bay, on the equipment lot, or in the field we would hear a musical mix of country, rock and roll, heavy metal, and rap.

Everyone pitched in to accomplish the mission during unit fitness runs, shop clean-up, preparing for inspections, embarking equipment for deployments to Japan and South Korea, and supporting battalion operations during training and exercise events.

Everything just worked and worked well. Why?

Because they were all Marines, wearing the same uniform, supporting the same combat organization, serving the same country. They all had been through the same training. They had to measure up to the same standards. They had to make the same cutoff scores for promotion.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-6-15-distinguishing-respect-from-patronizing-condescension-in-matters-of-race

In our current national moment, distinguishing respectful conduct or language toward others from patronizing condescension in matters of race is of great importance. You might think that making this distinction would be easy, but I suggest that in many circumstances it is not easy at all.

Recently, many things that have become the latest fashion in what practitioners think is heightened respect appear to me to be exactly the opposite — condescension. That can be the case even where the respect-that-is-really-condescension is demanded by the recipient. And I am not the only one noticing this phenomenon.

Let’s consider a few examples.

Several weeks ago Princeton University announced that an intermediate knowledge of Greek or Latin would no longer be required for a major in Classics. John McWhorter discusses that decision in a June 10 essay at Substack with the title “Revisiting Classics at Princeton: Exempting Black Kids From Challenge Is Lousy Antiracism.”

McWhorter opens by quoting Princeton’s own statement about the change to show that “of especial interest to black students . . . today’s racial reckoning, . . . the department openly acknowledges, was the primary spur for this change.” It seems that, with the Greek and Latin language requirement, the Princeton Classics Department had difficulty attracting black students to the major. McWhorter comments:

The tacit idea is people guilty about their white privilege saying over a Zoom meeting “If we want to have more black students, we can’t be making people learn Greek and Latin anymore.” Ugh – see how that reads when exposed to the sunlight? . . . Anything but that patronizing condescension. . . . [A]ny public discussion that both reviles the idea that black people are less intelligent than others while also lustily demanding that it’s “racist” to submit black people to cognitive challenges is hopelessly incoherent. . . . [T]his exemption culture is premised on a basic assumption that it’s unsavory to require serious challenge of black students Because Racism. No. You don’t get past racism by creating new forms of it. Scrapping traditional challenges should only be on the table after black kids have mastered the challenge anyway.