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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Politicians Shutter Churches and Synagogues, Then Tolerate Riots Congregating in public is now a privilege extended to political activists but denied to the devout. By Abigail Shrier

https://www.wsj.com/articles/politicians-shutter-churches-and-synagogues-then-tolerate-riots-11591376851?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Ms. Shrier is author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” out June 30.

‘Are we in a pandemic or not?” a reporter from the Orthodox Jewish newspaper Hamodia asked New York Mayor Bill de Blasio Tuesday. “And do we have one set of rules for protesters and another for everyone else?”

Good questions. For nearly three months, the country founded to guarantee religious freedom has seen its houses of worship shut down. Following local and state executive orders, Catholic churches held no Mass. Communion wasn’t taken, confessions weren’t heard, and Catholics went to their final rest without the comfort of the sacraments. Jewish prayer services, which require a quorum, were broken up by city governments or banned by state executive orders. New York City police were dispatched to break up a Jewish funeral and close down a yeshiva where Jews teach their children Torah.

“My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple,” Mr. de Blasio thundered in an infamous tweet, after having dispatched police to break up a funeral: “The time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period.”

The Economy Rises From the Dead The job market heals faster than expected as the lockdowns ease.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-economy-rises-from-the-dead-11591400329?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Friday’s surprisingly upbeat jobs report for May was no doubt cheered by most Americans, but not by all. Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer seemed glum, as they ignored the progress and demanded still more federal money. What do they have against good economic news?

The resilient American economy surprised nearly everyone by creating 2.5 million new jobs in the month, while the jobless rate fell to 13.3% from 14.7% in April. The number of unemployed fell 2.1 million to a still awful 21 million, but many good economists had predicted a jobless rate of more than 20%. The numbers look even better given that the jobs survey was taken mid-month, which was before the economic lockdowns eased in much of the country.

The Left’s Normalization Of Collective Guilt Is Ripping America Apart by Joshua Lawson

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/05/how-lefts-normalization-collective-guilt-ripping-america-apart/

“Americans want to stand with those peacefully protesting injustice. But the radical Left offers either the choice of self-condemnation for evils Americans had no hand in, or to be silent and stay that way. If the second option is chosen, that very silence is viewed as an indictment of “complicity” often seen by the Left as akin to violence itself. Ultimately, that’s no choice at all.”

All decent Americans stand against racism. But if we’re to live as brothers, we must stop indicting all those who share a skin tone for the sins of others.

I was nowhere near the intersection of Chicago Avenue and 38th Street when George Floyd tragically lost his life. I wasn’t in Minnesota. I was more than 500 miles away. With the exception of the officers at that heartbreaking scene, there are more than 329 million additional Americans who had no part in that terrible evening.

So why are so many people acting as if it were their knee, not Derek Chauvin’s, that pressed down on George Floyd? The answer lies in the concerted effort of radical leftists and their unwitting accomplices to normalize the collectivization of guilt.

The Great Guilting

Trump Derangement Syndrome at The Lancet By Kyle Smith

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/trump-derangement-syndrome-at-the-lancet/?itm_campaign=headline-testing-trump-derangement-syndrome-at-the-lancet&itm_

A retracted study about hydroxychloroquine’s dangers is another sign of the publication’s political bias poisoning its medical reports.

Remember when we were told that the administration of Donald J. Trump posed a pernicious threat to science and medicine? In an attempt to sharpshoot Trump’s most famous scientific claim, one of the world’s leading medical journals just blew off its own foot.

What other possible explanation can there be for the catastrophic failure of The Lancet’s thunderously hyped anti-hydroxychloroquine article, which this week was retracted after it was revealed to be unsubstantiated, if not a full-on hoax?

On May 22, the hugely influential medical journal published an article on the most talked-about drug of the coronavirus pandemic. In the midst of a public-health crisis, when one particular treatment is receiving inordinate attention, it is critically important for The Lancet and other medical journals to guide us with facts rather than add to the political noise. Lives were, and are, on the line.

Doctors who had some anecdotal evidence, but no clinical proof, that hydroxychloroquine might be part of an effective treatment for COVID-19 sufferers were desperate to learn whether the drug works, doesn’t work, or is downright harmful to such patients. The Lancet in effect constructed a flashing red neon stop sign warning the medical profession that the drug was worse than useless. This matters.

The New York Times and virtually every other media outlet took the study at face value; the Times ran the alarming headline, “Malaria Drug Taken by Trump Is Tied to Increased Risk of Heart Problems and Death in New Study.” The Washington Post ran this headline: “Antimalarial drug touted by President Trump is linked to increased risk of death in coronavirus patients, study says.” The World Health Organization and several other health organizations halted clinical trials of HCQ and several national governments altered policy for the same reason.

The new face of anti-Semitism in America is increasingly black, liberal and famous. Nolan Finley

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2018/12/30/finley-new-face-anti-semitism-black/2413724002/

Last weekend, LeBron James, the biggest name in basketball, posted on Instagram the lyrics to a song by the rapper 21 Savage.

The line James typed out to his followers feeds off the ancient libel against Jews, that they control the world’s money supply: “We been getting that Jewish money, everything is Kosher.”

James quickly apologized, saying he didn’t understand the historical context of the slur, or even that it was offensive.

The NBA and James’ Los Angeles Lakers accepted that lame excuse, and now want to move on. No mandatory sensitivity training for James, no scrutiny of pro basketball for evidence of a broader problem. Starbucks should cry foul.

James is in good company. Alice Walker, African-American novelist (“The Color Purple”), is being called out for her embrace of the notorious British Jew hater David Ickes, and for a poem she penned condemning Israel.

Welcome to the Revolution You Paid For The one thing that is undeniably the fault of the rich By Edward N. Luttwak

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/luttwak-revolution?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=d5ac98588f

“That “socialism,” a phenomenon that was only ever empirically successful in the kibbutzim of Israel, and was an immiserating failure in every other country where it was ever attempted in any form, is now the de facto ideology of the Democratic Party, is the ultimate result of the porcine indifference to ideas of the rich and very rich who think that giving money to Harvard or Princeton is morally preferable to buying a yacht. But yachts do not corrupt youth with false religions or plunge nations into civil war.”

The American Revolution that started in 1776 has never ended. It just takes naps now and then.

The planters, merchants, and bankers who channeled the republican uprising against His Majesty King George III were exemplars of a commercial civilization entirely dependent on contract law, for whom the government’s first duty was to protect property rights and then, eventually, individual rights. If anyone can take and eat my corn crop, why would I grow it? But on June 26, 2019, in Miami, the mayor of New York City, one “Bill” de Blasio, rebelled against the fundamental axiom of American civilization when he said: “There is plenty of money in this world, and there’s plenty of money in this country, it’s just in the wrong hands. Democrats have to fix that.”

That is when the property holders of New York City should have submitted an application for the mayor’s removal from office to the local branch of the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court. Their failure to do so reflects the inherent aversion to conflict of merchants and bankers: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II might still be sovereign in these parts if Southern planters had not joined the uprising against her direct ancestor. However, planters are scarce in New York City.

De Blasio’s offer to be the Democratic Party’s candidate was declined but his proposal has been accepted by his party. Joe Biden—regardless of his personal beliefs—will have to promise to “fix” the problem by taking the money from the “wrong” hands to give it to the “right” hands. The “right hands” is variously definable but for one thing: They cannot be hands that earn money, or if they do, they must not earn more than a little, because otherwise they would be “wrong” hands. Of course, an organization of some kind will have to accomplish the transfer, thereby incidentally acquiring enormous power over all the “wrong” hands and also all the “right” hands.

Riots, Brought To You By District Attorneys Who Won’t Prosecute

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/05/soros-investments-in-far-left-district-attorneys-campaigns-yields-bitter-fruit/

Radicalized district attorneys in cities across America are putting violent rioters and looters back on the streets, and letting other hardened criminals walk. More than anyone, one man is responsible for this outrage: Billionaire socialist George Soros.

St. Louis is a case in point. There, prosecutor Kim Gardner let 36 people arrested for looting and rioting go scot-free, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Gardner’s office used the pathetic excuse that it needed “essential evidence” from the police, implying it had none.

One wonders how people caught in flagrante delicto could simply be released. The answer is, Gardner is a far-left acolyte of Soros, having been the recipient during her 2016 election of no fewer than three separate donations from a Soros-backed political-action committee.

It’s not the only example of Soros’ malign influence. Philadelphia District Attorney Lawrence Krasner, who was elected with Soros money, reportedly “has no interest” in prosecuting rioters in the city. As infuriating as this and other instances of prosecutorial misconduct are to many of us, it’s likely we’ll see more of it in the future.

Social Justice Cancels Social Distancing Being wrong is one thing, but demanding that everyone except a select few submit to draconian government rules is its own kind of injustice. Julie Kelly

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/04/social-justice-cancels-social-distancing/

And just like that, social distancing is canceled. At least for some.

After submitting to house arrest orders for the past three months in order to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, Americans may have noticed a slight change in the rules this past week. There are no duct-taped outlines on city streets telling unruly mobs protesting the death of George Floyd where to stand. Rioters are not instructed to loot stores in opposite directions on downtown streets in order to avoid contact. Face coverings are optional but certainly useful when attempting to avoid identification by local law enforcement.

Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci are not seizing the White House press podium to lecture lawless thugs about keeping grandma safe from COVID-19. Social media shamers, the same ones who just a few weeks ago were publicly denouncing fun seekers in the Ozarks, are in silent solidarity with social distancing rulebreakers in downtown Chicago, Minneapolis, and New York City. The Atlantic isn’t accusing Democratic leaders of unleashing “an experiment in human sacrifice” and CNN’s Chris Cuomo isn’t calling groups congregating to break windows at pricy boutiques and assault police officers “fools” for not staying six feet apart.

In fact, the rules have changed so much and so quickly that the very same “experts” who demanded we adhere to unproven (and possibly counterproductive) social distancing dogma now explain why these rules don’t equally apply. 

Joseph Klein :The Left’s Defense of Arson and Looting as Weapons Against ‘Institutionalized Racism’ Once again, progressives maliciously elevate nationwide violence and anarchy.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/defense-arson-and-looting-weapons-against-joseph-klein/

Massachusetts Democratic Attorney General Maura Healey hailed the acts of arson occurring across the country as some sort of symbol of regeneration. In a speech she delivered to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on June 2nd, Healy said, “Yes, America is burning, but that’s how forests grow.” She later tweeted that “we must seize the opportunity we have right now to build anew in ways that rid us of the institutionalized racism that’s led to America burning today.”

Healey’s first duty as attorney general is to uphold the laws of her state and prosecute criminal violations. Arson is a serious crime. Arsonists must be arrested and prosecuted, whether they are agitators of the left or right. There is no legal defense that excuses arson because the arsonists believe they are fighting “institutionalized racism.” What’s next – that looting is a legitimate form of wealth redistribution to combat what some social justice advocates have called “racial capitalism”? It’s time to send Healey packing for inciting violence and dereliction of duty.

Massachusetts Republican Party Chairman Jim Lyons struck the right chord with his response to Healey’s outrageous forest fire analogy:

“By choosing to highlight this insane analogy, it should be clear to Massachusetts residents that no matter what else Democrats like Attorney General Healey say, they will always condone mob tactics. The Radical Democrats, led by the likes of Attorney General Healey, sat back and watched as cities went up in flames over the weekend, and are now openly admitting that this is all part of their plan to fundamentally change America by any means possible. This is no way to honor the memory of George Floyd, or correct the problems that led to his unjustified killing.”

1,288 ‘Public Health Professionals’ Disgrace Their Profession By Jason Richwine

1,000 “public health professionals, infectious diseases professionals, and community stakeholders.” The letter argues that it’s okay if the current protests/riots spread COVID-19 because racism is itself a public-health issue that needs to be addressed.

Let’s take that argument seriously for a moment and ask a follow-up question: Why, then, was there so much criticism of the anti-lockdown protests? The premise of those protests was that continuing lockdowns caused far more economic damage than was necessary. If anything is a public-health issue, surely record unemployment, social isolation, and bans on people going to hospitals for non-urgent care should count.

Well, here is how the letter distinguishes between anti-racism protests and anti-lockdown protests:

. . . [W]e do not condemn these [anti-racism] gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States . . . . This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. Those actions not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives.

It’s difficult to understand how any reasonable person could have committed those words to print. Even just, “Yeah, we’re hypocrites, so what?” would have been a more satisfying response.