Welcome To Biden’s Police State, Part III

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/10/welcome-to-bidens-police-state-part-iii/

Try, if you can, to imagine the reaction if the Justice Department had, in President Donald Trump’s second year in office, orchestrated a raid of Hillary Clinton’s Chappaqua, N.Y., home, rummaging through rooms and cracking the Clintons’ safe looking for government documents she hadn’t turned over when she left the State Department.

You can bet, at the very least, that newspapers wouldn’t be carrying run-of-the-mill headlines such as “F.B.I. Searches Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Residence” or “FBI executes search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in document investigation.” The Washington Post thought the important story to tell was how “Top Republicans echo Trump’s evidence-free claims to discredit FBI search.” 

No, the press would be in a full meltdown. Democrats would be calling for Trump’s impeachment. Celebrities would be making videos in which they cry about the future of the country. Never Trumpers would be patting themselves on the back and shouting “I told you so.” Colleges would be canceling classes so students could comfort each other and draw in their school-issued coloring books. The gnashing and grinding of teeth could be heard from space.

Needless to say, it would have been the end of the Trump administration.

But this is the Biden administration we’re talking about. And when it acts dictatorial – which is more frequent with each passing month – it’s the ends that matter, not the means, because the ends are about delivering on a leftist agenda. Did Biden authorize this raid? How far up the chain of command did it go? Don’t expect the “watchdog” press to ask such questions.

Why Are Media Ignoring This Muslim Mayor’s Racism And Alleged Election Fraud In Michigan? By: Benjamin Baird

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/08/why-is-the-media-turning-a-blind-eye-to-this-muslim-mayors-racism-and-alleged-election-fraud/

The media blackout of this Michigan mayor’s racist and supremacist views is part of a larger societal trend.

The mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, Ameer Haiderah Ghalib, was recently exposed for mocking black political demonstrations and endorsing comments that referred to African Americans as “animal” and “inhuman.” He also accused Arab world leaders of being secret Jews and “liked” a Facebook post calling Jews “monkeys” who tax “the air we breathe.”

Ghalib, the first Muslim mayor in Hamtramck’s 100-year history, even admitted to committing a potential case of voter fraud by filling out absentee ballots for about 20 families during the 2020 presidential primary. Both the FBI and the Michigan secretary of state’s office have looked into the allegation.

Yet, in the era of “cancel culture,” when activist reporters have all but abandoned investigative reporting in favor of opinionated call-outs, not a column inch has been devoted to documenting the misdeeds of an internationally known public official. Black political activists have failed to march a single city block in opposition to Ghalib’s anti-black racism, and Jewish rights organizations are silent in the face of antisemitic dog whistles.

We Have No Reason To Trust The FBI By: David Harsanyi

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/09/we-have-no-reason-to-trust-the-fbi/

If Republicans were doing any of this, Democrats would be calling it authoritarian. And they’d be right.

The day before Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the presidential election of 2016, The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed that the FBI—along with “Russian intelligence”—had “rigged the election.” Election denialism is perfectly acceptable behavior on the left. Krugman blamed the “rigged election” on “people within the F.B.I.” who, he asserted, “clearly felt that under Mr. Comey they had a free hand to indulge their political preferences,” by which he meant the investigation into Clinton’s email server. One can imagine the tenor of Krugman’s rhetoric if the investigation had been launched by the administration of Mitt Romney or George W. Bush or signed off on by AG Robert Bork.

Is it still the case that investigating a candidate for wrongdoing is “rigging” an election? Yesterday, Merrick Garland’s DOJ raided the home of a former president, and likely future presidential candidate, in a case regarding “potential mishandling of classified documents,” according to The Washington Post. Is that really it? We have long been told that “mishandling of classified documents” isn’t a serious crime.

When the Clintons ransacked the White House: Donald Trump was right to point out the double standard after the Mar-a-Lago raid. Matt Purple

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/when-the-clintons-ransacked-the-white-house/?utm_source=

The year was 2001. George W. Bush had just defeated Al Gore in the infamous hanging-gigachad presidential election from hell. The policy differences between the candidates weren’t actually that substantial, at least compared to how they often are today; what had really distinguished the campaign was its de facto referendum on the personal character of the outgoing Bill Clinton.

And then, as though to drive the point home, Clinton went and ransacked the White House. As Donald Trump pointed out yesterday after Mar-a-Lago was raided, the departing Clintons were accused of stealing furniture, vandalizing federal buildings, and leaving a general mess for the Bush team to clean up.

The extent of the damage reported in the press was stunning. The Clintonistas allegedly left behind filthy carpets, slashed computer cords, and trash on the floor. Profane messages had been recorded on answering machines, graffiti had been painted on walls, and pornography had been left on computer screens. An extensive amount of stuff had been stolen, everything from furniture to silverware. In a jab at the new president, the “W” keys had been removed from computer keyboards.

Even Air Force One wasn’t safe. The columnist Tony Snow reported that the presidential plane “looked as if it had been stripped by a skilled band of thieves — or perhaps wrecked by a trailer-park twister.”

The Clintons acknowledged they had taken $190,000 in supposed “gifts,” including china, kitchenware, and TVs. They later offered to return $28,000 worth and pay for tens of thousands more after the donors clarified that they’d been, you know, giving to the White House and not the Clinton college fund. Still, the Clintons’ most pathetic bagmen were more than happy to run interference. They insisted once again, as they had for eight years, that nothing had been done wrong.

Taiwan’s reunification countdown has begun Live-fire exercises that began on August 5 were not a drill but the real thing, namely a blockade of Taiwan that China can prolong at will-By Uwe Parpart and David Goldman

https://asiatimes.com/2022/08/taiwans-reunification-countdown-has-begun/

China’s People’s Liberation Army Eastern Theater Command said in a statement on Monday (August 8) that joint drills in the sea and airspace around Taiwan were continuing.

The notice did not specify the precise location of the exercises or when they would end. Whether the six danger zones for the August 4-7 exercises remain in effect is unclear. The PLA never officially announced the end of the war games.

The announcement will likely leave US officialdom as clueless – or at any rate pretend-clueless – as was betrayed by their statements when Taiwanese officials said Chinese aircraft and warships had rehearsed an attack on the island on Saturday.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby complained that the Chinese “can go a long way to taking the tensions down simply by stopping these provocative military exercises and ending the rhetoric.” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said China’s actions over Taiwan showed a move from prioritizing peaceful resolution toward the use of force.

By comparison, the statement by the Japanese Ministry of Defense that as many as four missiles flew over Taiwan’s capital, which is unprecedented, and that five of nine missiles fired toward its territory landed in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), had the advantage of being factual and accurate.

What neither the White House nor Foggy Bottom appears to have grasped to date is that in the wake of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “reckless” visit to Taiwan (Tom Friedman’s terminology in his New York Times column) the Xi government took the irreversible decision to “cross the Rubicon” and systematically force the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.

Too willfully provocative was Pelosi’s action and too puny were the White House and National Security Council’s efforts to rein her in. Together they persuaded Beijing that this Washington or the next administration under Biden’s successor would continue to vitiate and ultimately aim to discard the One China policy.

Live-fire exercises that began on August 5 were not a drill but the real thing, namely a blockade of the island that China can prolong at will.

As latest round of fighting ends, Israel’s Gaza strategy comes under scrutiny Israel’s current policy cannot assure its long-term security, and particularly that of its southern residents. By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/as-latest-round-of-fighting-ends-israels-gaza-strategy-comes-under-scrutiny/

 “Operation Breaking Dawn” is being described as one of Israel’s most successful Gaza operations in recent years. “All goals have been achieved, whoever tries to harm us will pay with his life,” Prime Minister Yair Lapid said on Monday evening, addressing the nation. Yet some have questioned Israel’s current Gaza policy, which leads it into successive rounds of fighting with no end in sight. They say it’s time to develop a new strategy.

“How do we see the next 20 to 50 years? Are we really going to live with the reality where every six months to a year, half of Israeli society is always under fire?” asked Amir Avivi, CEO and founder of the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), an Israeli NGO comprising thousands of former security officers.

“The idea is we will hit the terrorists hard and then gain a few years of quiet, but we see it’s not working,” he told JNS. “They build themselves back very, very fast. And with each operation they’re able to shoot more rockets with more explosives and more accuracy, while developing other capabilities. We need to ask ourselves: Is this the reality that the people of Israel deserve?”

While the current operation focused exclusively on the smaller Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist group, it’s to Hamas and its growing strength that Avivi points as proof that Israel’s current strategy is a failure. “Hamas is projecting its power and ideology all over Israel and all over the region. It’s becoming the leading organization in the fight for Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. They are the heroes of the Palestinians and also of Arab Israelis in the north and the south. This has become a huge threat. It’s not just about Gaza anymore,” he said.

Avivi praised the latest operation on the tactical level, but not the strategic one.

“This is the paradox. When the army fights, there’s nothing like the IDF. It’s amazing. But when you look at the overall picture, the strategic picture, it’s terrible,” he said.

The Rise of Wokeness in the Military Lt. Gen. Thomas Spoehr, USA (ret.) – Director, Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-rise-of-wokeness-in-the-military/

Thomas Spoehr is director of the Center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. He served previously for over 36 years in the U.S. Army, attaining the rank of Lieutenant General. He earned a B.A. from William and Mary, an M.A. from Webster University, and an M.A. from the U.S. Army War College. While in the Army, he served in numerous leadership roles, including senior positions in the Pentagon and Commandant of the Army’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear School. His operational experiences include service with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 1st Armored Division. He participated in the 1983 invasion of Grenada, and in 2011 he served as Deputy Commanding General, U.S. Forces Iraq.

The following is adapted from a talk delivered on July 20, 2022, at the Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship on Hillsdale’s Washington, D.C. campus, as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series. 

Complaints by veteran soldiers about younger generations who lack discipline and traditional values are as old as war itself. Grizzled veterans in the Greek phalanx, Roman legions, and Napoleon’s elite corps all believed that the failings of the young would be the ruin of their armies. This is not the chief worry of grizzled American veterans today. The largest threat they see by far to our current military is the weakening of its fabric by radical progressive (or “woke”) policies being imposed, not by a rising generation of slackers, but by the very leaders charged with ensuring their readiness.

A New Iron Curtain Descends on Russia’s Jews Putin was supposed to be the Good Tsar. Instead he has closed the Jewish Agency. And now tens of thousands of Jews fear being trapped in Russia.

https://www.commonsense.news/p/a-new-iron-curtain-descends-on-russias?utm_source=email&triedSigningIn=true

Vladimir Putin was supposed to be The Good Tsar—the Russian president who, his KGB past notwithstanding, was a friend of the Jews. In Putin’s Russia, we could be billionaires and presidential advisers. We could go to shul. We could come and go as we pleased.

My in-laws, Chief Rabbi Pinchas and Rebbetzin Dara Goldschmidt, were evidence of that. From 1993 until this year, my father-in-law was the chief rabbi of Moscow; my mother-in-law founded a Jewish school there.

Since the Soviet collapse, in 1991, synagogues, schools, youth groups, and Jewish-owned businesses in Moscow had flourished. In 2007, Putin famously donated a month’s salary to the glitzy Moscow Museum of Tolerance, and the FSB (formerly the KGB) offered its support to the museum by providing documents from its archives. In recent years, a Jew wearing a yarmulke would have felt more comfortable walking in Moscow than in Paris.

Perhaps most importantly, young Jews had been able to do what Jews in pretty much every generation before would have found unimaginable: They could move to Israel. 

The symbol of this freedom of movement was a pale, yellow building on a little street called Bolshoy Spasoglinishchevskiy Pereulok, just across the street from Moscow’s famous Choral Synagogue. Inside was the Jewish Agency for Israel. 

The Soviets didn’t allow the Jewish Agency—which has outposts all over the world and is tasked with helping Jews immigrate to Israel—to open in Russia until 1989, just two years before the communist regime collapsed. Its opening in the very center of Moscow was a sign of a great and long awaited moment in Russian society. 

The Jewish Agency quickly became something of a magnet for young Russian Jews who would come to learn Hebrew, attend cultural events, and interview for a variety of programs that enabled them to go to Israel for high school or college.

The Limits of Radical Protest Those fighting for social change today would do well to heed Bayard Rustin’s advice about how to build sustainable and effective political movements. Matt Johnson

https://quillette.com/2022/08/05/the-limits-of-radical-protest/

Bayard Rustin was one of the towering figures in the American civil rights movement. A democratic socialist and a lead organizer of the March on Washington, Rustin was also among the most forceful and compelling advocates for a sweeping set of social and economic changes intended to bring about what he described as “full racial equality.”

In February 1965—a year and a half after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and just seven months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act—Rustin published an essay in Commentary titled “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement.” This title captured a theme of Rustin’s work in the years to follow—he was a radical pragmatist who believed the campaign for civil rights was the starting point for a much larger struggle: the fight to build a fairer and more just society for all.

Rustin had just witnessed tectonic legal and political changes in the United States when he urged his fellow Americans to embark on this project. As he put it at the beginning of his essay, the “elaborate legal structure of segregation and discrimination, particularly in relation to public accommodations, has virtually collapsed.” But he argued that this merely marked the transition from one phase of economic and social mobilization to the next: “What is the value of winning access to public accommodations for those who lack money to use them? The minute the movement faced this question, it was compelled to expand its vision beyond race relations to economic relations, including the role of education in modern society.”

Walkout at Milton Academy When high-school students can’t tolerate hearing the name of a book title, we know there’s a problem in education. Randall Kennedy and Harvey Silverglate Randall Kennedy and Harvey Silverglate

https://quillette.com/2022/08/08/walkout-at-milton-academy/

One of us, Harvey Silverglate, recently got “cancelled,” in a sense, for publicly mentioning a notorious term, often used as a slur. In one of those great ironies that characterize our historical moment, the impugned utterance was contained in a lecture on the importance of free speech in academia.

The situation unfolded on April 27th at Milton Academy, a prestigious private high school in Massachusetts. A student group, the Public Issues Board, had sponsored a multi-day series of panels and lectures on subjects of the students’ choosing. Silverglate was invited to give a talk on free speech and academic freedom, a subject in which he specializes.

Approximately two-thirds of the way into the lecture, Silverglate held up before the audience two books. One was entitled The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses, which Silverglate co-authored in 1998. The book focused largely on the struggles to protect free speech in higher education. The other book was authored by a Harvard Law School professor, Randall Kennedy (the co-author of this article). The title of that book is Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, published in 2002 and recently updated.