RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/trump-battles-progressive-fear-society-bruce-thornton/

“Fear Society” is Natan Sharansky’s term for a socio-political order that flunks the “town square” test: People are too frightened to speak their mind in public spaces because they fear retribution. A victim of Soviet tyranny before emigrating to Israel, for Sharansky the consequences of free expression could be arrest, imprisonment, torture, and death. For us, the regime of political correctness, “cancel culture,” “microaggressions,” and “woke” commissars reinforces a similar repression, a “softer” one, as Tocqueville called it, but effective nonetheless in silencing dissent and promoting an illiberal progressive ideology.

Sharansky goes on to describe the consequences of living in a fear society, which typically comprises three groups: “true believers,” those who sincerely believe in the regime’s ideology; “dissidents,” those who oppose the regime and speak out against it; and “doublethinkers,” the majority who oppose the regime yet do not publicly express their opposition, particularly to outsiders.

Donald Trump’s political success has emboldened the conservative and Republican “doublethinkers” to express their opinions in the “town square” and challenge the domination that for several decades the progressives have enjoyed over political speech.

In Europe, hate speech laws and the absence of the legally recognized natural right to free speech that we enjoy allow the state to legally sanction or punish speech the EU doesn’t like. In contrast, here in the U.S. indirect methods of enforcement are more typically used. One method is to discredit and ostracize any alternative to progressive doctrine: “The most successful tyranny,” Harold Bloom wrote, “is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities, that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/the-roger-stone-sentencing-fiasco/

Some Justice Department personnel handled it questionably, but Trump’s reaction was worse.

The first thing to grasp about the Roger Stone sentencing fiasco is that Stone, even accepting the worst plausible gloss on his crimes, is a 67-year-old nonviolent first offender. If the criminal-justice “reform” fad were authentic, and not a stratagem of social-justice warriors who have taken Washington’s surfeit of useful idiots for a ride, then we could all agree that the original seven-to-nine-year sentence advocated by prosecutors was too draconian — even if it was, as we shall see, a faithful application of the federal sentencing guidelines as written.

But no. Like criminal-justice “reform,” the Stone prosecution is more politics than law enforcement. It was the Mueller probe’s last gasp at pretending there might be something to the Russia-collusion narrative – notwithstanding that, when the “gee, it sure feels like there could be some collusion here” indictment was filed, over a year and a half after special counsel Robert Mueller was appointed, it had long been manifest that there was no Trump–Russia conspiracy.

So, the Left has a quandary here: Do they hate Trump more than they love sentencing “reform”? We could have predicted the decision to go with hating Trump, and thus fomenting outrage over DOJ’s retraction of its original sentencing recommendation of about nine years’ imprisonment, now slashed to a far more reasonable range of four years or less. To be fair, though, Trump critics could not have been expected to resist the combination of DOJ missteps and Trump Twitter taunts that mark Stone’s sentencing, the combination that has managed to turn Mueller’s maulers into media martyrs.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/02/12/ruth-bader-ginsburg-goes-from-leftist-hero-to-has-been-in-one-interview/

Vox senior correspondent Ian Millhiser proclaimed that ‘Justice Ginsburg’s feminist legacy teeters on a knife’s edge’ because for once she adhered to the text of the law.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is about to lose her feminist card. Ironically, it’s for departing from her usual legal schtick to reinforce that what the law says matters, instead of giving authorities license to do whatever the heck they want.

On Monday, Ginsburg reinforced previous assertions that the legal deadline for passing a 1970s and 1980s constitutional amendment to ignore sex distinctions has passed.

“I would like to see a new beginning. I’d like it to start over,” Ginsburg said about the so-called Equal Rights Amendment Monday.” There’s too much controvery about latecomers — Virginia long after the deadline passed — plus a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, ‘We’ve changed our minds’?”

When Congress went through its part of the amendment authorizing process for the ERA, its authorization included a deadline for ratification by the states. Supreme Court precedent says such deadlines for ratification are legally valid. Still, today’s left chooses to ignore the parts of the law they don’t like while using the parts of it they currently find to their liking, or making things up if they don’t like the law at all.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/here-they-go-again-pelosi-to-launch-new-investigation-into-trump/

Just when you thought America’s long impeachment drama was over and behind us, the Democrats have begun the process to do it again. While most of us believed they would try to repeat impeachment, we thought it would start in the second term and not a mere week after Trump was acquitted the first time.

But Nancy Pelosi is hot under the collar about Trump tweeting about the absurdly long sentence that Deep State prosecutors suggested for Roger Stone. The president tweeted out a storm of criticism when the news broke that prosecutors were recommending nine years in prison.

Keep in mind that child rapists get an average of three to seven years in prison. Calling the recommendation for the sentence, which was certainly politically motivated, “horrible and very unfair” (and it may not even a crime based on the way these prosecutors do business), the president then went on to question the prosecutors. These same prosecutors, who had ruined the lives of many people surrounding the president, were connected to the Mueller witch-hunt. None of the charges were related to the president or anything his administration had done but were a conglomeration of tax offenses from years ago and “lying to the FBI,” which was a crime created after the investigation began.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-gave-in-to-radicals-and-gave-up-on-common-sense-11581444825?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

George Orwell noted the nervousness of people on the left when confronted by those even further to the left. This nervousness stems from leftists’ fear that they will be taken for impure in their own leftism, that their thought and actions don’t go far enough, that they are, finally, not really on the bus. In America during the 1930s, Communists mocked liberals for their weakness, and liberals worried about not measuring up. Hence the phenomenon of the “fellow traveler,” someone who sympathized with the Communist Party but couldn’t bring himself to join it.

Orwell’s observation remains in play. In the mid-1960s, Stokely Carmichael and other young black militants pushed the American civil-rights movement leftward, and away from its goal of integration. Liberals, unable to face down this left-wing pull toward Black Power, knuckled under. A gloriously successful campaign for equal rights based on conscience and dignity devolved into an angry, incoherent movement based on guilt and victimhood. The last thing allowed was the concession of progress of any sort in racial matters. Impressive civil-rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, and A. Philip Randolph were replaced by such dubious figures as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The movement never recovered.

The same phenomenon appeared in American universities. In faculty meetings everywhere, small groups of the most radical professors were able to get their way through political pressure. Liberals, generally in the majority, were worried (if not terrified) of seeming to be on the wrong side. When they didn’t give in completely, they sought compromises that invariably favored the radicals. Standards and intellectual authority in universities have given way to political correctness and identity politics.

https://jamieglazov.com/2020/02/11/glazov-gang-how-jew-hatred-infected-the-dem

https://pjmedia.com/trending/suspect-who-drove-van-into-trump-campaign-volunteers-admits-political-motive/

On Saturday, 27-year-old Gregory William Loel Timm intentionally crashed his van into a tent where Trump campaign volunteers were registering voters Saturday afternoon in Jacksonville, Fla., in a Walmart parking lot.

After plowing through the tent with his van, Timm stopped, got out of the van, then took a video of the scene before flipping off the victims and fleeing. No one was injured during the incident.

The Republican Party of Duval County posted pictures of the scene on Twitter:

Within hours of the incident, William Loel Timm was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office on two counts of aggravated assault, criminal mischief, and driving without a license.

While Timm’s motive was obvious, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) refused to say whether the assault was politically motivated.

“We’re obviously going to follow that up and we take that very seriously,” said JSO Lieutenant Larry Gayle. “Anybody who interrupts a political process in this country needs to be taken very seriously.”

https://spectator.us/trump-steals-dems-spotlight-new-hampshire-rally/

President Donald Trump successfully trolled Democrats once again Monday — hosting a packed rally the night before their New Hampshire primary election and successfully directing attention and energy away from Democratic campaigners desperate to interest voters.

The near-overflowing arena at Southern New Hampshire University stood in stark contrast to the sparsely attended campaign trail events put on just around the corner by Joe Biden, Amy Klobuchar, and the rest of the Democratic field.

Bernie Sanders may have a rabid online fan base, but how many would camp out all night and day in the frigid February snow for a chance to see their political hero? Warren couldn’t even get hungry diners to glance up from their meals long enough to ask for their vote.

‘I LOVE Trump,’ a concession stand worker said enthusiastically as she doled out chicken tenders and fries to the hundreds of people lined up for food and drink. Attendees danced and sang along to classic rock anthems by Billy Joel and Elton John for hours before the president’s speech, putting Mayor Pete Buttigieg team’s ‘High Hopes’ dance to shame.

‘We have never had an empty seat from the day your future first lady and I came down the escalator,’ Trump said at the start of his speech, poking fun at the Democratic candidates relatively small crowds throughout the state. ‘We have so much more enthusiasm it’s not even close’.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/10/nevertrump-burns-leftist-cash-on-failed-impeachment-crusade/

It’s only a matter of time before more left-wing largess flows Bill Kristol’s way and he’s running ads on Fox News trying—unsuccessfully—to convince Republicans to vote for Bernie Sanders. It will be NeverTrump’s inevitable, and humiliating, endgame.

The gathering featured a whos-who of Trump haters.

According to a weekend blurb in Politico, a launch party Friday night to celebrate the release of yet another screed about Donald Trump attracted journalists and lawmakers as well as NeverTrumpers such as Bill Kristol and David Frum. Unmasking the Presidency, a new book authored by Lawfare’s Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes, went on sale a few weeks ago and is already available on Amazon for a deep discount.

The book party was sponsored by Democracy Fund, a nonprofit backed by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. Since 2016, Omidyar, a self-proclaimed Trump foe, has dumped tens of millions of dollars into projects to sabotage the president. (Lawfare, a wellspring of Russian collusion propaganda, received $600,000 from Democracy Fund between 2017 and 2019.)

So, of course, Kristol was in attendance at the soiree. Alleged “conservatives” in the NeverTrump cabal that Kristol commands have prostituted themselves by accepting money from the leftist tech billionaire with a grudge against the president and a record of hostility to conservatism.

“Omidyar has given $213 million to various causes, many of which are active in left-wing politics,” according to a report in InfluenceWatch, which tracks the activities of political interest groups. His name often is mentioned alongside other tycoons on the Left such as Tom Steyer, George Soros, and Michael Bloomberg.