RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/clarence-thomas-delivers-decisive-ruling-in-religious-free-speech-case/

The case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, centered on how to address violations of civil rights that cause no economic damage.

  W hat could be more American than a religious-free-speech lawsuit with the name Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski? At issue in the case is state-funded Georgia Gwinnett College’s “free speech zone” policy, which Stanley Kurtz has aptly summarized elsewhere on this site:

Georgia Gwinnett’s two tiny speech zones occupy less than 0.0015 percent of the campus, and are open only 18 hours a week. If you want to speak in public or leaflet about politics or religion anywhere on campus on a Friday, for example, it had better be in those tiny zones between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. or you’re out of luck — and even then you’ll have to get authorization three business days in advance.

Student Chike Uzuegbunam, an Evangelical Christian, was told that if he wanted to evangelize his faith to his fellow students, he would have to apply three days in advance for a permit, and then confine his activities to one of the two free-speech zones. After receiving the permit, he was told by campus cops that he could not share his faith even in one of the speech zones, because doing so violated a campus ban on “disturb[ing] the peace and/or comfort of person(s).” (Of course, these days, almost any opinion, especially on matters of faith, will make someone on campus uncomfortable.) So he sued, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and supported by Jeff Sessions and the Trump Justice Department. In response, the college changed the policy and tried to get the lawsuit dismissed as moot. Eventually, the issue reached the Supreme Court. And today, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a clear victory for the plaintiffs.

A bit of background: Courts of law do not exist to issue pronouncements in the abstract about constitutional rights and wrongs; federal courts are restricted to deciding “cases or controversies” in which some particular person, entity, or group has suffered a particular injury and that injury can be relieved by the judiciary. Standing to sue is commonly described as having three elements: (1) injury, (2) traceability, and (3) redressability. Injury means that the plaintiff has suffered a concrete, proven harm. Traceability means that the plaintiff’s injury can fairly be said to have been caused by the defendant’s acts. Redressability means that the kind of relief the plaintiff seeks — e.g. money, an injunction, a declaratory judgment — is within the court’s power to provide.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/07/hitting-woke-herd-immunity/

Two recent polls suggest wokism is beginning to recede on a variety of fronts, from less trust in Black Lives Matter and more confidence in the police, to suspicion that the Capitol “insurrection” account is being used to unfairly suppress political expression while Antifa, increasingly, is seen as a terrorist organization whose violence has been ignored improperly by authorities.

There are tens of millions of Americans who either have been stung, or turned off, by McCarthyite wokeness (and thus have anti-wokeness antibodies). More have been vaccinated from its latest virulent strains by their own values of judging people as individuals, not as racial or gender collectives. So lots of Americans have developed peremptory defenses against it. The result is that daily there are ever-fewer who are susceptible to the woke pandemic. And it will thus begin to fade out—even as the virus desperately seeks to mutate and go after more institutions.

Peak wokeness is nearing also because if it continued in its present incarnation, then the United States as we know would cease to exist—in the sense that 1692-93 Salem or 1793-94 Paris could not have continued apace without destroying society. Woke leftism exists to destroy and tear down, not to unite and build. It is not designed to play down and heal racial differences, but to accentuate and capitalize on them.

Scattershot Immunity

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/07/aocs-coven-of-spitting-mefirst-cobras/

The media scrum framed the Trump impeachment circus, round two, as an “emotional” affair.

Headlines homed in on the “emotion” surrounding the trial. “It Tears at Your Heart. Democrats Make an Emotional Case to Senators—and America—Against Trump,” blared one of many hackneyed screamers, this one from Time.

The case made by the managers “was both meticulous and emotional,” came the repetitive refrain.

Democrat Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland and a lead impeachment manager, sniffed “emotionally” as he related what to him was a heartbreaking tidbit: His (privileged) daughter expressed fear of visiting the Capitol again, presumably because of the January 6 fracas. That made Jamie cry. 

And when Jamie Raskin cries, normies outside Rome-on-the-Potomac laugh. Uproariously. 

Impeachment managers had warned all present in the Senate chamber that evidentiary footage would be upsetting. Their presentations were “intentionally emotional,” intoned CNN’s Dana Bash, who had paired up with one Abby Phillips for the “solemn” affair. Phillips’ “coverage” of all things Trump, in scratchy vocal fry, was a reminder that the Left’s “empaneled witches and their housebroken boys are guided more by the spirit of Madame Defarge than by lady justice.”

A lady in an armadillo outfit emoted a lot. She was impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.). Although not particularly fashionable or feminine, there was a ton of “emotional” praise on the internet for Plaskett’s attire. Armani’s armadillo apparel was certainly a preferred distraction to the decibels of weepy rage emitted over the Trump protest. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/03/despite-460-mil-budget-capitol-cops-pelosi-wants-daniel-greenfield/

This is a joke. Right?

The Capitol Police have over 2,000 sworn officers and they’re the 19th largest police force in America. If that’s not enough to protect a few buildings, then maybe it’s time to ask some serious questions about the competence and corruption of the key players in this mess.

The Capitol Police have over 2,000 sworn officers. A police force dedicated to protecting Capitol Hill has more personnel in its service than the police forces of most of the country.

Congress’ private cops are the 19th largest police force in the country. It’s a larger force than the police forces of Atlanta, Baltimore, Denver, or Milwaukee with a massive $460 million budget.

While Democrats advocated defunding the police, their private police force budget shot up from $375 million in 2016 to $460 million in 2020. After the Capitol Hill riot, expect it to go higher.

Much higher.

How much higher? Pelosi is clamoring for more cash.

Speaker Pelosi said they have “drafts” of security proposals, but protecting the Capitol properly will require more funding.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2021/03/07/climate-and-covid-the-erosion-of-common-intelligence-and-common-sense-n1430627

In a recent article for PJ Media, I discussed the decline in IQ scores across the West over the last decades, a phenomenon confirmed by many psychological studies and clinical reports. In the article I provided links and documentation as well as numerous episodes and examples in support of the survey’s conclusions. But I omitted for reasons of space what strikes me as a cardinal illustration of the contemporary erosion of common intelligence and common sense, namely, the popular belief in “climate change” and so-called renewable energy sources, and, more recently, mass compliance with government public health dogma and politically inspired COVID legislation.

With regard to climate: Untold millions credulously buy into long-exploded pseudo-scientific fables like anthropogenic global warming (AGW) and the utility of wind turbines and solar arrays, attesting to the ongoing debility of critical inquiry and independent reasoning, qualities associated with intelligent thinking. The unsightly despoiling of the environment, the distribution of these monstrosities in fields and pastures across the national landscape, and the hecatombs of bird and insect species caused by these lookalike Imperial Walkers should give us pause.  

Moreover, the toxic nature of industrial wind, involving hazards like ILFN (Infrasound and Low Frequency Noise), noxious REEs (rare earth elements), and the installation of Permanent Magnets whose components produce prodigious amounts of radioactive waste, cause serious health impacts and deformities. This has become a matter of criminal import, something people should be aware of. The data has been available for years. In this connection, a legal challenge has been launched in France against the government under articles of the Penal Code. 

The notorious Texas freeze, to take a recent instance, should have provided abundant evidence that wind and solar are not only weather-dependent and inadequate suppliers of electric power but potentially disastrous; yet many continue to believe that the answer to such emergencies is even more green technology. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, who introduced the Green New Deal in Congress, claims that the infrastructure failures in Texas “are quite literally what happens when you don’t pursue a Green New Deal.” The degree of stupefaction here is legendary. Renewables are not only ill-suited for, but wholly contra-indicated to serving as primary energy sources for industrial societies.

Climate delirium has been with us for a generation and more and has been discussed and analyzed in innumerable articles and books. The authentic literature on the subject has long been discoverable by any sentient person. What is comparatively new on the psychogenic scene is Covid Derangement Syndrome.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/03/01/23_billion_paid_to_chicag

20,927 full-time teachers in the Chicago Public School (CPS) system may be headed into Chicago classrooms for the first time since March 2020, after approximately 13,000 Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) members voted to go back.

In 2020, Chicago taxpayers spent $2.3 billion on teacher payroll, while 347,476 enrolled CPS school children logged on from home.

That’s an average annual teacher compensation package of $108,729 ($81,422 in salary, $27,307 in benefits), according to records obtained by OpenTheBooks.com through a FOIA request. CPS teachers also can accrue 244 days of sick leave (more than an entire 175-day school year) or apply it to their pensions.

We found Janice K. Jackson, CEO of CPS, made $322,839 – a $260,000 salary and $62,839 in benefits. The 522 Chicago principals averaged $194,000 in pay and benefits, with the highest earners making up to $219,000. Another 304 acting, interim, assistant, and resident principals averaged $171,315 in pay and perks. Even custodians had compensation packages as high as $101,177 in 2020, with 22 earning up to $75,066 in base pay.

Last year Maurice Swinney, CPS’s “Chief Equity Officer,” made $214,000 managing a group of six employees. The pay vastly exceeded the $177,412 salary of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/enlightened-thinking-in-texas

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on Tuesday that the statewide mask mandate and all restrictions on business’ operating capacity would be lifted this coming week. The following day, President Biden called these decisions “Neanderthal thinking.”

In making his announcement, Abbott focused on the fact that Texans have mastered individual habits and practices to mitigate against the risks of contracting the coronavirus. In addition, the state has already protected a majority of its most vulnerable citizens. Any seniors not already vaccinated will have access to one by the end of March, and Texas now has therapeutic drugs that are mitigating the risk of pandemic deaths and hospitalization. At its core, this decision is about personal responsibility and the importance of letting residents weigh health risks against the other risks inherent to their lives. Biden’s response was sadly predictable.

While the state mandates are to be lifted on Wednesday, businesses and people in areas that have had higher case rates are retaining mask requirements and other sensible precautions. Within hours of the governor’s decision, we received notices from our Dallas school and local businesses letting us know there will be no immediate change to the way they operate. This is as it should be and what we anticipated given how hard our city has been hit by the virus.

But it also seems appropriate that small towns and counties in the largest state in the continental United States, some of which have not had a single virus fatality, should be able to return to normal. Simply put, Texas’s governor is treating us like adults, whereas others want us to act like sheep.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17147/storm-over-american-republic

The atmosphere in the United States remains poisonous. Critics claim that stoking in the public is being done on purpose — to create a false narrative that not only is Trump supposedly a “threat to democracy,” but that his more than 74 million supporters are, too. Others, however, claim that the real threat to democracy is actually these serial liars, violators of the Constitution and falsifiers of information.

The right to challenge and criticize, which is an integral part of the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment, appears seriously threatened. The right to defend oneself against charges also appears threatened, and the legal profession dangerous to practice.

Expressing doubts about the November 3 election is now a liability. Substantiated reports show that it was far from perfect. The American economist Peter Navarro, in his private capacity, drew up three meticulous analyses: “The Immaculate Deception,” “The Art of the Steal” and “The Navarro Report”. They have been zealously disparaged — many think unjustly.

Some authors describe what is happening as a slide towards authoritarianism. They note that many Americans and corporations, while behaving in an increasingly authoritarian manner, accuse their opponents of being authoritarian — in other words, blaming their opponents for what they themselves are doing.

For more than three years Trump was accused, without any evidence apart from a fake “dossier”, of being a Russian agent. The accusations eventually proved baseless, but not before $32 million of taxpayers’ money were spent in what the prosecutors knew from the start was a fraud. They also tried to frame, incriminate and send innocent people to prison. The exercise was, at bottom, nothing more than an attempted coup d’état.

Throughout his entire term, Trump was faced with threats, abuse of power and unremitting attacks. Even though Trump is no longer president, the war against him continues.

If H.R.1 becomes the law of the land, it will entrench those “very things that made the election of 2020 such a mess”. These include, among other things, the flooding of states with millions of unsolicited mail-in ballots, failure to verify signatures, no chain of custody of ballots, same-day voter registration, and ballot-harvesting — many of which are invitations to commit fraud. As a bipartisan report in 2005 from the Commission on Federal Election Reform, chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker III, concluded: mail-in ballots “remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” If H.R.1 is passed in the Senate, countless ways of demolishing election integrity will be set in cement.

January 20, 2021. President Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. The scene, however, is devoid of any human presence. The streets of Washington DC are empty. People had been urged to stay at home and Americans throughout the rest of the country asked not to come. The city is under the protection of 25,000 members of the National Guard, heavily armed. High barriers topped with razor wire surround the Capitol area. In the streets planned for the new president’s “parade”, barriers separate the sidewalks from the roadway. The only people visible are men in uniform carrying rifles. A day that is usually a day of celebration in the United States is, this year, strange and sad.

The explanation given by city officials and the FBI was that there was a risk of serious disruption. Other inaugurations had faced disruption, but had never placed the city under siege. On January 20, 2017, during President Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, hostile protesters had come to Washington DC, burned cars and smashed windows. The police had protected the ceremony without razor wire and soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of people had cheered the new president.