RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/03/19/pro-israel-performer-matisyahu-concerts-canceled/?

There is no one quite like Matisyahu. The international reggae-hip-hop-rock artist burst on the scene 20 years ago, rapping his hit single “King Without a Crown,” while sporting the beard, sidelocks and black coat of Hasidic Judaism. NBC picked “One Day,” his stirring antiwar anthem, as theme music for its 2010 Winter Olympics coverage.

Matisyahu left Hasidism, but his music still reflects his strong Jewish identity, religiosity and affinity for Israel. Since Hamas’s massacre in Israel on Oct. 7, the singer has spoken out against rising antisemitism and in support of Israel. He has draped himself in an Israeli flag at concerts and placed an empty chair onstage to represent Israeli hostages in Gaza. He has called for Hamas to be “destroyed.” He has visited Israeli troops and sent a supportive video message to their families.

For all of that, he is paying a price: When Matisyahu arrived in Chicago earlier this month, he learned his March 8 show at the 1,400-capacity House of Blues — owned by Live Nation — would be canceled. The reason: the potential for unruly protests against him outside the venue.

The U.S. Palestinian Community Network, one of several groups calling for demonstrations against Matisyahu, cried victory: “Through our relentless pressure on [the House of Blues and] Live Nation, the concert of the racist, zionist Matisyahu was canceled!” the group said in a statement on X. “Chicago has made it clear that it stands with Palestine and supporters of the #GazaGenocide are not welcome here!”

https://www.catholicleague.org/cant-erase-our-judeo-christian-past/

Militant secularists would like to erase our religious heritage, but they are clearly in over their heads. Our nation’s Capitol abounds with Judeo-Christian iconography, so much so that it overwhelms attempts to cancel it.

The dome of the U.S. Capitol was inspired by the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, as well as St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The Supreme Court building is modeled after a Roman temple.
St. Joseph’s church on Capitol Hill was built in 1868.
The Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress features The Court of Neptune Fountain; it resembles a grotto.
The west end of the Mall—from the U.S. Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial—has a statue of Lincoln surrounded by comments he made about his respect for God. At the far end of the Mall, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol building have inscriptions honoring our Judaic heritage.
Within the Capitol there are statues of Catholic priests and nuns and medallions of Pope Innocent III and Pope Gregory IX.
On the first floor of the Main Reading Room in the Library of Congress there is a statue of St. Paul.
In the Library there is a quote from the Book of Proverbs and a reference to God from Shakespeare.
There is a chapel in the U.S. Capitol. Moreover, prayer meetings for Senators and Congressmen are commonplace throughout.
Crucifixes abound in the Capitol.
On the front doors of the Capitol are pictures of Franciscans with rosaries, symbolizing the history of Columbus.
In the Rotunda, there is a painting of Hernando De Soto and his armies standing on the banks of the river rejoicing, as well as a depiction of priests planting a cross.

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

The final catalyst that led to our collective implosion was the election year 2020 and the accelerating Trump Derangement Syndrome. As the cities burned, unbelievable madness followed in efforts to ensure the incumbent president would not be reelected.

Suddenly, congressional officials, mayors, and governors all refused to keep the peace by requesting federal troops to stop the summer riots. The more the cities went up in flames, the more the blue states blamed Trump. It was almost as if they would fault Trump for the ongoing violence and blame him even more if he sent in the military to quell it.

Had they forgotten the Rodney King LA riots of 1992, when Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Colin Powell, called up President George H. W. Bush to encourage him to deploy the 5,000 Marines then ready to go into South Central and Watts to quell the violence? And so, Bush did just that and stopped the mass looting and rioting.

No matter. The nation was now a Luche Libre of open anti-Trump craziness. Mark Zuckerberg poured in a historic $419 million to absorb the work of the registrars in key election precincts. Social media suppressed news unfavorable to Biden.

Street riots and protests were modulated to aid the Biden campaign. Liberal Time essayist Molly Ball described the “conspiracy”:

There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain–inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests–in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

https://twitter.com/vdhanson/status/1770445530646421937?t=-_2GpG8wfUWSVFbOLEmVNQ

From Russian Collusion to “Bloodbath”—A Decade of Toxic Hysteria Ever since late June 2015—following Donald Trump’s announcement that he was running for president, and his voicing of controversial agendas (on tariffs, China, illegal immigration, foreign policy, NATO, etc.)—leftwing toxic hysteria has been the norm.

In the last ten years, we’ve witnessed the Russian collusion hoax, calls from military officers and analysts for extra-legal interventions and coups, the Alfa ping hoax, the drink bleach hoax, the “suckers” D-Day hoax, the celebrities’ contest about the best way to decapitate, stab, blow up, shoot, or incinerate Trump, the 2016 leftwing postelection effort to turn state electors into “faithless” apostates to elect Hillary, the nutty Mark Milley call to his Chinese counterpart, the Antifa/BLM riotous months of 2020 and effort to storm the White House grounds, the two first-term impeachments, the laptop “Russian disinformation” hoax, the pee accusation, the “51 intelligence authorities” ruse, the FBI hiring of Twitter censors to suppress unwanted news, the Senate trial of a private citizen, the January 6 “insurrection” where “five police officers were killed” lie, the farcical two Republican members of the Jan 6 committee, the attempt to remove Trump from state ballots, the insane E. Jean Carroll suit, the Letitia James “find me the man, and I’ll find you the crime” writ, the monstrous $355 million fine growing daily to $450, the Alvin Bragg bootstrapping of an inert federal suit, the Fani Willis/Nathan Wade circus, the Jack Smith antithesis to Robert Hur’s twin investigation, the effort to bankrupt the Republican nominee, and of course the constant calls to pack the court (when the Left lost the majority), to end the filibuster (when Democrats control the Senate), to add two new states and four new senators (provided they are DC and Puerto Rico) and to end the Electoral College (once the Left lost the surety of the reliable blue wall).

What is the effect of all this decade-long civil strife on the 2024 voter?

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?