RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/democrats_have_completely_abandoned_civility.html

On July 20, Nancy Pelosi said that if President Trump refuses to accept the results of the November election, he will have to be “fumigated” out of the White House.  Fumigation is a technique used against insects, and the idea that human beings are insects has a long history in totalitarian discourse.  Hitler described Jews as “vermin” and “parasites,” a form of dehumanization that is always just one step away from physical violence.  Speaker Pelosi should apologize immediately, and profusely, for her use of this inappropriate rhetoric.

Most thoughtful persons would agree that labeling another an “insect” is uncivil.  A cultured individual who practices civility is tolerant of the opinions and beliefs of others, and indeed, toleration is the best measure of civility.  One may be a Catholic, but he practices tolerance toward other Christian and non-Christian forms of belief, even including atheism and agnosticism.  He may be a liberal, but he values the opinions of conservatives and treats conservatives with respect.

By this measure, Joe Biden and the radicals who now support him have not been civil.  Biden now expresses contempt for conservative policies before even considering their potential value.  So it was with President Trump’s pledge to buy American-made goods.  That pledge of “America First” drew harsh criticism from Biden and his party — until Biden stole the idea and made it part of his own platform.  Biden could not bring himself to admit that Trump was right.  That sort of contempt for another is the essence of incivility. 

Like most liberals, Biden’s contempt is all-encompassing.  In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., ultimately decided in Hobby Lobby’s favor by the Supreme Court, Biden sided with those who would force persons of traditional Christian faith to pay for employees’ contraceptives.  Indeed, it was Biden’s Affordable Care Act that forced Hobby Lobby to provide all twenty FDA-approved contraceptives to employees.  The Obama administration was intolerant of traditionalists when it wrote the contraceptive mandate into the Affordable Care Act, and Biden would only double down on this intolerance if he sought to restore the mandate to his “expanded” version of Obamacare.

Hobby Lobby was not an isolated case of liberal intolerance.  In every free speech case that arose during the Obama years, Biden seemed more than willing to force his opinions on others.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2020/07/24/the-frankfurt-school-and-excellent-foolishness-how-the-left-infects-impressionable-minds-n696846

It has long struck me how the Frankfurt School, a collection of Leftist émigrés from Nazi Germany, could have been so successful in dominating the curriculum of the American university and wielding so massive an influence over following generations of students. Its major figures, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, were the main authors of the political revolution of the 1960s which gradually filtered into the culture to produce the revisionist “narrative” and physical violence we observe all around us today.

The most publically significant spokesperson was Herbert Marcuse, whose One Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization and his influential, totalitarian-inspired essay “Repressive Tolerance” planted the seeds of political and epistemic subversion in the fertile soil of American academia and, ultimately, in the marl of the cultural and institutional life. Marcuse argued in the essay that we must be “intolerant toward the protagonists of the repressive status quo.” By “status quo,” he meant classical liberal thought with its emphasis on tradition, individual autonomy, civic responsibility, and limited government, which he thought were responsible for deep-rooted social injustice. The narrative he developed was irresistible to his legion of acolytes.

The Frankfurters were the red brigades of the university Left, striving to fill their students’ minds with the doctrine of human and social perfectibility according to the egalitarian principles of their Marxist forbears, in particular the theories and ruminations of the Italian revolutionary thinker Antonio Gramsci and Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukács. The Woke generation now rioting in the streets of Portland, Seattle, and other cities are their unwitting progeny, the shock troops of Antifa and BLM who never read Marcuse, let alone Horkheimer, Adorno, Gramsci or Lukács—and surely would be incapable of doing so with any comprehension. They have succumbed to a political virus of which they are unaware, fallen prey to a toxic narrative developed by the luminaries of the intellectual Left. This is what I would dub trickle-down intellectonomics, how complex thought (however specious) gradually leaks away into howls, bellows, and yawps.

There is no doubt that the crucial figures of the “Western Marxist” movement were brilliant men and erudite scholars, eloquent to a fault. They were right about some things, in particular about the rise of anti-Semitism as a function of a world sinking into barbarism. But how could they have been so wrong about America, working to transform the American Dream into the American Nightmare?

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/protests-chicago-portland-andrew-mccarthy

Demagogues aligning themselves with subversives against federal agents are wrong

“Unidentified stormtroopers” is what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called the law enforcement agents of the Department of Homeland Security struggling to protect the federal courthouse that Portland, Ore., rioters have been firebombing.

“The president’s personal militia,” chimed in Tom Ridge, the nation’s first Homeland Security secretary.

It’s shameful.

Never is it more critical for the nation’s senior officials and elder statesmen to present a united American front than in times of insurrection. No matter how we may feel about the underlying political grievances, when peaceful protest descends into violent subversion, or — more accurately — when essentially violent subversion is allowed to masquerade as peaceful protest, there needs to be ringing condemnation and support for law enforcement.

Yet, Democrats and Trump-abhorring Republicans cannot get past their petty political score-settling, even for the purpose of supporting law enforcement against violent anti-American radicals.

This is not one of those times for “But Trump …” bleating. Yes, the president is abrasive and prone to say inexcusable things. On this one, though, there is only one right and one wrong side. The demagogues aligning themselves with subversives against federal agents are wrong. Say what you will about the president, he’s made it very clear he’s with our agents.

Pelosi is a professional political partisan, among the most powerful members of a party that, like Middle Eastern governments, thinks it can make common cause with violent radicals, even use them as political attack dogs, and not get bitten in the end. Sadly, then, her slander against law enforcement comes as no surprise.

Ridge’s remarks, on the other hand, are worth pausing over. First, there was the revisionist history: DHS, he says, “was established to protect America from the ever-present threat of global terrorism.”

https://www.city-journal.org/science-of-covid-19-policy-choices

When doctors meet a patient for a new complaint, we make a list of different possible explanations for the problem—a differential diagnosis—and try to determine the correct diagnosis, while starting treatment for the most likely one. After this initial assessment, as test and imaging results come in, we may alter the differential diagnosis and treatments.

Public-health officials dealing with a new pathogen, like the coronavirus that causes Covid-19, go through a similar process. They must recommend policies with incomplete information and adjust them over time. But unlike physicians, they do so in public, and sometimes under intense scrutiny.

Dr. Anthony Fauci—and this is not meant as criticism—has epitomized the public-health diagnostic process with multiple, incorrect, early pronouncements: In January and February, he downplayed the risk of person-to-person spread; he expressed doubt that asymptomatic people could transmit the virus; in late February, he reassured the public that, “at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis”; and in March, like many other public-health officials here and abroad, he said that, outside of health-care personnel, ordinary people should not wear masks. In fact, both Fauci and Surgeon General Jerome Adams suggested that mask-wearing could increase a person’s risk of being infected. All these assertions proved wrong.

We know a lot more about the virus—how it’s transmitted and how to treat it—than we did a few months ago. For instance, the coronavirus can spread person-to-person from both symptomatic and asymptomatic people. Dr. Fauci now espouses the opposite of each of his earlier statements, but there is nothing wrong with that. As economist John Maynard Keynes purportedly said, “When the facts change, I change my mind—what do you do, sir?”

https://www.wnd.com/2020/07/yale-epidemiologist-trump-drug-save-100000-lives/

The highly politicized anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine could save up to 100,000 lives, according to a Yale epidemiologist, yet access to it continues to be restricted.

“If a drug could save 100,000 lives, then government agencies that block its use are responsible for 100,000 needless deaths,” charges Dr. Jane Orient, executive director of the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons.

AAPS has filed for an injunction to force the Food and Drug Administration to stop obstructing use of the drug, she pointed out, “while it hoards and wastes the millions of doses that manufacturers donated to the Strategic National Stockpile.”

Hydroxychloroquine was approved by the FDA in 1955 and has been taken safely by hundreds of millions of people, noted Orient.

“High government officials who are determining federal policy insist in private that doctors have the legal authority to prescribe HCQ or other FDA-approved drugs for ‘off-label’ uses,” she said. “However, the FDA has refused to reverse statements that state and local authorities cite to threaten doctors or pharmacists who provide you with this cheap remedy.”

She pointed to studies showing poor countries that allow free use of hydroxychloroquine have far lower death rates than rich countries that hinder itA summary of the evidence for the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 is here.

The Yale epidemiologist, Harvey Risch, said Tuesday in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham he thinks hydroxychloroquine could save 75,000 to 100,000 lives if the drug was widely used to treat coronavirus.

“There are many doctors that I’ve gotten hostile remarks about saying that all the evidence is bad for it and, in fact, that is not true at all,” he said.

He believes the drug can be used as a “prophylactic,” or preventative, for front-line workers, as other countries such as India have done.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/23/brookings-institution-a-key-collusion-collaborator/

In December 2018, a well-regarded left-leaning think tank published a 4,500-word defense of the Steele dossier, the document central to the government’s charge that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

Lawfare, a project of the Brookings Institution, defended the dossier as “a collection of raw intelligence” that was similar to forms used by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to transcribe information obtained by witnesses. 

“The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven,” wrote Chuck Rosenberg and Sarah Grant in a judgement that did not hold up well over time. “The Mueller investigation has clearly produced public records that confirm pieces of the dossier. And even where the details are not exact, the general thrust of Steele’s reporting seems credible in light of what we now know about extensive contacts between numerous individuals associated with the Trump campaign and Russian government officials.”

That column was just one of hundreds of collusion propaganda articles disguised as think pieces from a respectable Washington, D.C. public policy center. With the distinguished imprimatur of the Brookings Institution, articles would quickly permeate the media—both social and traditional—to legitimize the concocted Russian collusion storyline. 

For example, prior to the April 2019 release of the Mueller report, Lawfare published a lengthy primer advising the press on how to handle the long-awaited document. The column, authored by Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare’s editor-in-chief, implored the media “not to screw up” its coverage.

Wittes also is a BFF of James Comey, the disgraced former FBI director and chief architect of the collusion hoax. (Comey is a contributor to Lawfare.) Wittes was the anonymous source for a May 2017 New York Times article that disclosed details of Comey’s private dinners with the president prior to his firing. It was part of the Beltway spin to buttress Mueller’s appointment and subsequent two-year persecution of Team Trump; Mueller’s gang of partisan prosecutors, however, could not find evidence of collusion despite Lawfare’s nonstop assurances that such proof existed.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/24/dont-let-lefts-cancel-culture-steal-our-right-to-free-speech/

A new survey shows that most Americans fear expressing their opinions these days. No doubt, they worry about being “canceled” by raving young socialists, losing their jobs or being harassed for their beliefs. It’s time for Americans to take back their First Amendment right to free speech.

The findings of the poll, taken by YouGov and the Cato Institute, are, to put it mildly, disturbing. Some 62% of those queried said they routinely self-censor because “the political climate these days prevents them from saying things they believe because others might find them offensive.”

Republicans were most likely to self-censor, at 77%, followed by independents, at 59%. But even 52% of Democrats said they watch their mouths around others.

Not surprisingly, those in one group felt they didn’t feel they had to mind their tongues in public: self-described “strong liberals,” with just 42% saying they have to self-censor. But even that number is up 12 percentage points since 2017, the last time YouGov/Cato took their survey.

It’s not difficult to see why the fear is growing. Newspapers are filled with people and even historical figures being canceled or harassed by braying mobs of far-left activists, who use boycotts, verbal intimidation, official political re-education, doxxing and even threats of violence to silence their opponents.

In such an environment of stifled speech, people give up their precious right to speak openly to avoid being shouted down, intimidated, shunned, harassed and even fired.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/who-exactly-karen-jason-d-hill/

Last Thursday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany “Karen” after the press secretary referred to the mayor as a “derelict mayor” at a White House briefing.

Lightfoot shot back with a tweet on Twitter: “Hey, Karen, Watch your mouth.”

The term “Karen” has been used routinely and reported in the press by various individuals capturing the often — it is true — obnoxious behavior of certain women who happen to be white. These behaviors have been recorded on cell phone cameras, and, in many cases, they have gone viral.

As an academic philosopher who regularly teaches theories of concepts and philosophy of language, let me say something about the conceptually improper and actually racist use of this term.

“Karen” is a slang and pejorative term used to describe a rude white woman who is exploiting her privilege as a white woman.

Proper names are not concepts like, say, chairs, tables, birds, furniture, democracy, justice, brave, kind, evil and so on. Such terms possess a set of distinguishing characteristics that define them, and hearing those terms will automatically conjure in one’s mind that shared set of characteristics. Any person who is evil or brave or kind, regardless of background, will share a set of attributes (and their attendant behavioral traits) in common with any other person in the world who is evil or brave or kind. These terms are designators that denote specific characteristics tied to a referent (an individuals or individuals) which holds them. That is why we don’t confuse evil people with kind people, and thieves and liars with honest and truthful people. The concepts mark out the defining behaviors of the persons who bear such attributes.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/nancy_pelosis_vile_use_of_stormtroopers.html

Nancy Pelosi’s deliberate use of the term “stormtroopers” to describe America’s Homeland Security officers quelling riots and protecting people in Portland and Chicago is a vile accusation against our good officers and offensive to Jews across the world.

Speaker Pelosi must know that the Stormtroopers (SturmAbteilung, SA) were the Nazi Party’s strongarm squad, which attacked, brutalized, and murdered Hitler’s opponents, including countless German Jews, by this means setting the pattern for the Holocaust. In her unending despicable treatment of our President, she continues to propagandize against him through abhorrent language depicting anything done by the President as Hitlerian and actions by the administration as Nazi-like. This is a severe affront to our country and to those Jews who were the genuine victims of real stormtroopers.

Our Homeland Security officers in Portland and Chicago are responsible people sent in behalf of a very worthwhile and necessary mission, namely, protecting the lives of innocent people being threatened by Antifa and certain elements within Black Lives Matter, as well as protecting private property, homes and businesses, and federal buildings. They, unlike the Stormtroopers, are not engaged in genocide.

One would think that all Jewish organizations would cry foul at Pelosi’s use of the term “stormtroopers,” given that so many of our ancestors in Europe were the victims of actual stormtroopers and their evil designs. Many of our ancestors would have cheered President Trump who has been outstanding in his goodwill towards Israel and the Jewish people.  However, most American Jewish organizations have redefined Jewishness as leftist politics with the Democrat Party being its vehicle and their identification, ignoring and minimizing any unsavory pronouncement from a Democrat leader.  The success of the Democrat Party and its leftist agenda has become the most important priority of most American Jewish organizations.