The Democrats’ January 6 observances were like a bad Academy Awards show By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/the_democrats_january_6_observances_were_like_a_bad_academy_awards_show.html

Yesterday, Democrats in D.C. and the mainstream media, gave themselves over completely to a look back at January 2021 and the extraordinary horrors of a riot that lasted a few hours, involved rioters people weapons, had no looting, fires, community destruction, or police deaths, and saw only one death (at police hands). The whole event was like the Academy Awards. Not the long-distant Academy Awards of beautiful people celebrating movies America loved, of course. Instead, it was the modern Academy Awards, with hate-filled people ranting against Americans, making boring, stupid speeches, and getting interrupted by badly staged musical numbers.

When the Academy Awards began in 1927, it was a private dinner party for a small Hollywood crowd. Eventually, of course, because our entertainment infrastructure is now and always has been ultimately about self-promotion to sell its products, the brains in Hollywood figured out that Americans would like to watch stars dress up and get awards for the movies that Americans had enjoyed the previous year. The system functioned very well for a long time, with families gathering to watch glamor, hear the emcee’s jokes, and lively musical acts.

Slowly, though, as Hollywood went woke, the Awards became boring as the Academy celebrated preachy, anti-American movies that no Americans wanted to see. And then Trump became president and the Academy Awards developed into a Trump hate-fest. The clothes got uglier, the people weirder and angrier, and the whole thing was a parody of Hollywood’s once exuberant celebration of self.

One could say that the zeitgeist of the modern Academy Awards culminated in today’s January 6 observations. It was all there: The angry people, the ugly clothes, the hatred for ordinary Americans, the boring, bizarre speeches, and the weird musical entertainment.

The Award for Most Ridiculous Speech went to Kamala Harris for comparing events on January 6 to Pearl Harbor and 9/11:

What The Climate Scare And Pandemic Fearmongering Have In Common

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/07/what-the-climate-scare-and-pandemic-fearmongering-have-in-common/

Climate alarmists have said it’s necessary to ratchet up the fear about global warming to get the public’s attention. It’s the same story with the coronavirus outbreak. Authorities wanted to strike fear in the people, so they exaggerated the lethality of a virus deadly to only a narrow demographic segment.

Compare and contrast:

Global warming, 1988. “​​We have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have,” about global warming, said Stanford climatologist Stephen Schneider. (In the interest of full disclosure, the entire quotation ends with Schneider saying “each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.” We’re leaving it up to readers to decide if he was advocating dishonesty to further the narrative or telling researchers and activists to cool it with the deceptive rhetoric. Either way, someone was pushing the agitprop.)

Pandemic, 2020. Britain’s ​​Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behavior warned “that ministers needed to increase ‘the perceived level of personal threat’ from Covid-19 because ‘a substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened,’” the London Telegraph reported last year in its coverage of “A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponized fear during the Covid-19 pandemic,” by Laura Dodsworth.

Global warming, 2014. The academics who wrote a paper published in ​​the American Journal of Agricultural Economics said their article “provides a rationale for” the tendency of “news media and some pro-environmental organizations” to ​​accentuate or even exaggerate “the damage caused by climate change.”

“​​We find,” they wrote, “that the information manipulation has an instrumental value.”

Pandemic, 2020. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behavior recommends the perception of fear regarding the coronavirus needed to “be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.”

THE CAMPAIGN OF THE CENTURY: BY IRWIN GELLMAN

Based on massive new research, a compelling and surprising account of the twentieth century’s closest election

“A brilliant work. . . the research is absolutely phenomenal. . . This book should receive every accolade the publishing industry can give it, including the Pulitzer Prize.”—John Rothmann, KGO’s “The John Rothmann Show”

The 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is one of the most frequently described political events of the twentieth century, yet the accounts to date have been remarkably unbalanced. Far more attention is given to Kennedy’s side than to Nixon’s. The imbalance began with the first book on that election, Theodore White’s The Making of the President 1960—in which (as he later admitted) White deliberately cast Kennedy as the hero and Nixon as the villain—and it has been perpetuated in almost every book since then. Few historians have attempted an unbiased account of the election, and none have done the archival research that Irwin F. Gellman has done. Based on previously unused sources such as the FBI’s surveillance of JFK and the papers of Leon Jaworski, vice-presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge, and many others, this book presents the first even-handed history of both the primary campaigns and the general election. The result is a fresh, engaging chronicle that shatters long‑held myths and reveals the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates.

SYDNEY WILLIAMS: FREEDOM IS NOT FREE

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Many believe democracy is threatened. Those on the left cite the narcissistic and dreaded Donald Trump as the instigator of the January 6 protest that devolved into a disgraceful, though unarmed, attack on the Capitol. Those on the right, like me, bring up cancelled conservative speakers on college campuses, property-destroying riots and rising murder rates in cities across the nation, lockdowns and mandates relative to COVID, and a “wokeness,” which redacts speech, expurgates books, and removes art that is not grounded in race-and-gender consciousness. But perhaps both sides are mistaken? Perhaps democracy is stronger than we believe? Perhaps it can withstand these assaults? But both sides owe the public apologies.

The one-year anniversary of the January 6 riot has filled the media with reports on the “insurrection” that failed. Of course, it did. The protesters were unorganized and unarmed. They had no acknowledged leader on their march to the Capitol. In fact, members of ANTIFA accompanied the Trump supporters. The Capitol police, oddly, were unprepared, even though the march was widely publicized. The protesters did not have the military behind them, nor did they have media support. One person was shot, and that was a female, a veteran, who was shot by an unnamed member of the Capitol police. In fact, the cynic in me whispers that the episode has been welcomed by progressives, as it manifested proof (in their minds) of their claimed autocracy of Donald Trump and his supporters.

Iran’s Ayatollahs threaten the US in Latin America Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

https://bit.ly/3t1cSv1

US’ underlying assumptions on Iran

Driven by a genuine desire to rid the Middle East and the globe of terrorism and wars – and reflecting a long track record and ingrained worldview – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Special Emissary Rob Malley and CIA Director William Burns are determined to reach a credible agreement with Iran’s Ayatollahs. They are resolute to induce the Iranian leopard to change spots, not merely tactics.

Convinced that Iran’s rogue conduct is not driven by an inherent, fanatic, megalomaniacal vision, Secretary Blinken is bent on limiting US policy toward Iran to diplomacy, while ruling out the military option and regime-change.

Adhering to multilateral foreign and national security policy – rather than a unilateral, independent US policy – Blinken shapes his policy toward Iran by according a significant role to vacillating Europe and the pro-Iran UN, as well as greater alignment with Russia and China.

Confident that a generous diplomatic and economic package will make the Ayatollahs regime amenable to credible negotiation, peaceful coexistence and departure from their 1,400-year-old religiously fanatic, imperialistic vision, the Biden team is resolved to take lightly the rogue track record of Iran’s Ayatollahs since the 1978/79 revolution, which overthrew the pro-US Shah, catapulted the rogue Ayatollahs to power, and transformed Iran into “The Islamic Republic,” which considers the US “The Great Satan.”

Consumed by his view of the Ayatollahs as credible partners in negotiation, Blinken has decided to accord his assessment of the Ayatollahs’ future conduct more weight than the Ayatollahs’ past conduct.

Trusting that Iran’s Ayatollahs prefer to be preoccupied with “butter” rather than “guns,” Blinken’s policy on Iran is focused on diplomatic negotiation, not military confrontation

Iran threatening the US from Latin America

Meet Mansour Abbas’s radical Jewish adviser  By RUTHIE BLUM,

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-691784

It’s sad to have to give credit to a member of the Knesset and governing coalition for declaring, in Arabic, that Israel “was born and will remain a Jewish state.”

But the country’s peculiar political reality, in which members of parliament are hostile to that state, requires stretching logic to its limits.

It is thus that I have praised Ra’am (United Arab List) Party leader Mansour Abbas for breaking with the tradition of his Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated peers and former less religious yet equally radical colleagues to place the needs of his constituents above the pernicious aspirations of the anti-Zionist, antisemitic, corrupt Palestinian Authority.

The risk he took by splitting from the Joint (Arab) List bloc and adopting a pragmatic approach has paid off big-time. First, he managed to garner for Ra’am the necessary four mandates to cross the electoral threshold. This led to his being crowned “kingmaker” – the head of the party that ended up tipping the scales to enable the formation of a government after four rounds of inconclusive elections.

Since then, he’s been on a steady roll. No longer a backbencher, he was appointed chairman of the newly created Special Knesset Committee on Arab Affairs. Meanwhile, fellow Ra’am MK Waleed Taha became chairman of the Knesset’s Internal Affairs and Environment Committee on which Ra’am MK Saeed Alharomi had a seat before his death in August.

Abbas has also been successful in his push to increase funding for the Arab sector, plagued by rampant crime and other woes, with a $10 billion allocation included in the recently passed state budget.

ALL OF the above might have been cause for optimism, albeit cautious, if the Ra’am chief hadn’t just picked a virulently anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli academic to serve as his adviser on unrecognized villages in the Negev. Indeed, if anything casts a shadow on Abbas’s intentions, it’s his selection of Dr. Yeela Raanan for the role.

Democrats Cling To J6 Mania Because They Can’t Appeal to Facts or Their Failed Policies Our betters use January 6 to cast half the country as domestic terrorists as a pretext to crack down on dissent and run roughshod over democracy to “save” it–because that’s the only card it has left Benjamin Weingarten

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/democrats-cling-to-j6-mania-because?token=

If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

From President Joe Biden’s pretentious speeches to schizophrenic media coverage to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sham committee, the left has used Jan. 6 as the shaky scaffolding on which to railroad the rest of the country, in part because it serves as the singular manifestation of its fever dreams – that there is a coup around every corner and a frothing-mad MAGA monster under every bed.

The problem is that Jan. 6, as shameful, pathetic, and unacceptable as were the actions of its worst offenders, was not comparable to 9/11, or Pearl Harbor, or the worst of the Civil War. By scope, violence, and destruction, it pales in comparison to the summer riots of 2020.

The hyperbolic comparisons are a charade – and not just because the facts belie the claims of a murderous insurrection of armed terrorists, as the federal judges most perturbed by Jan. 6 have lamented. (That is, judges are upset prosecutors can’t make legal cases to match the ruling regime’s political one.)

If the Narrative Were True, Why All the Trickery?

We also know it is a charade because of the dishonesty and obfuscation around it. If the truth supported the narrative, why not charge the accused with insurrection, sedition, and/or terrorism?

The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes As Kamala Harris compares 1/6 to 9/11 and Nancy Pelosi introduces the cast of Hamilton to sing about democracy, today’s inanity should not obscure its dangers. Glenn Greenwald

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-histrionics-and-melodrama-around?token=

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. That is the same number as the total of Americans who — after a full year of a Democrat-led DOJ conducting what is heralded as “the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in US history” — have been charged with inciting insurrection, sedition, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government as a result of that riot one year ago. Coincidentally, it is the same number as Americans who ended up being criminally charged by the Mueller probe of conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, and the number of wounds — grave or light — which AOC, who finally emerged at night to assure an on-edge nation that she was “okay” while waiting in an office building away from the riot at the rotunda, sustained on that solemn day.

That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post’s White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily.

The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected — and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic. “House Democrats [waited] their turn on the House floor to talk to Dick Cheney as a beacon for American democracy,” reported CNN’s Edward-Isaac Dovere; “One by one, Democrats are coming over to introduce themselves to former VP Dick Cheney and shake his hand,” added ABC News’ Ben Siegel. Nancy Pelosi gravely introduced Lin-Manuel Miranda and the cast of Hamilton to sermonize and sing about the importance of American democracy. The Huffington Post’s senior politics reporter Igor Bobic unironically expressed gratitude for “the four legged emotional support professionals roaming the Capitol this week, helping officers, staffers, and reporters alike.” Yesterday, CNN’s Kaise Hunt announced: “Tomorrow is going to be a tough one for those of us who were there or had loved ones in the building. Thinking of all of you and finding strength knowing I’m not alone in this.” Unsurprisingly but still repellently: Kamala Harris today compared 1/6 to 9/11.

VP Kamala Harris: The Date Of January 6 Will Be Remembered Like September 11, December 7 By Tim Hains

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/01/06/vp_kamala_harris_the_date_of_january_6_will_be_remembered_like_september_11_december_7.html

Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them — where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault. Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, but a place in our collective memory. December 7th, 1941. September 11th, 2001. And January 6th, 2021.

On that day, I was not only Vice President-elect, I was also a United States senator. And I was here at the Capitol that morning, at a classified hearing with fellow members of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Hours later, the gates of the Capitol were breached.

I had left. But my thoughts immediately turned not only to my colleagues, but to my staff, who had been forced to seek refuge in our office, converting filing cabinets into barricades.

What the extremists who roamed these halls targeted was not only the lives of elected leaders. What they sought to degrade and destroy was not only a building, hallowed as it is. What they were assaulting were the institutions, the values, the ideals that generations of Americans have marched, picketed, and shed blood to establish and defend.

On January 6th, we all saw what our nation would look like if the forces who seek to dismantle our democracy are successful. The lawlessness, the violence, the chaos.
What was at stake then, and now, is the right to have our future decided the way the Constitution prescribes it: by we, the people — all the people.

Federal authorities won’t say why armed Capitol rioters disappeared from FBI’s most wanted list by Andrew Kerr

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/federal-authorities-wont-say-why-armed-capitol-rioters-disappeared-from-fbis-most-wanted-list

Federal authorities won’t explain why three men who participated in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, have mysteriously disappeared from the FBI’s Capitol Violence Most Wanted list.

One unidentified man wore an earpiece during the riot and was filmed carrying what appeared to be a concealed handgun on his left hip. The man was pictured on the FBI’s most wanted list for over five months until he was removed without explanation on the same day the New York Times reported an FBI informant was at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

A second unidentified man was filmed beating police officers with a baton during the riot. The FBI said the man was wanted for assaulting a federal law enforcement officer, but the agency removed the man from its most wanted list without explanation in late February, just weeks after his debut

The third man, Ray Epps of Arizona, was filmed in the hours leading up to the riot urging Trump supporters to enter the Capitol to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Epps has not been arrested or charged for his actions. His unexplained removal from the FBI’s most wanted list on July 1 has fueled speculation from a member of the House Judiciary Committee that Epps may have agitated people to storm the Capitol at the behest of the FBI.

Video footage shows Epps, a former president of the Arizona Oath Keepers militia group, urging a crowd of Trump supporters on the evening of Jan. 5, 2021, to “go into the Capitol” the next day, provoking allegations from the crowd that he was working for the federal authorities.