RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2023/01/11/the_new_jew_874920.html

It was early December when The Chosen Comedy Festival came to Miami. It had been a tough few weeks for Jews.

Kanye was on his “I love Hitler” tour and it seemed like too many people wanted to hear what he had to say. The New York Times was running regular pieces about problems they saw in the Haredi communities of Brooklyn, and absolutely nowhere else, and even the secular Jews who nodded approvingly at the first write-up were starting to notice the obsession.

A rabbi friend once told me that Jews are the only people that when someone says “I hate you” say “let’s hear him out.” But at the end of 2022, Jews were finally unwilling to hear anyone out. The hatred at us had gotten old. We were collectively tired of being the target and we were craving being together in an actually safe space.

It had been 4 years since the Tree of Life shooting, 3 years since the Monsey stabbing. We weren’t over those attacks, at least in part because less deadlier attacks on Jews in places like Brooklyn were happening regularly both before and after those killings. We weren’t raw anymore. We were something else. Inside the community, something was shifting.

The easy explanation is political. Jews are moving rightward. Slowly. An Associated Press survey found that President Donald Trump’s share of the Jewish vote went from 24% in 2016 to 30% in 2020. Exit polls had 33% of Jews voting Republican in the midterm elections and exit polls require someone to tell the truth to a pollster, something a lifelong Democrat switching sides for the first time might not be ready to do. Some people credit the Jewish vote with swinging several close House seats in New York and ultimately netting Republicans the House of Representatives.

https://victorhanson.com/the-january-6th-insurrection/

Here is what we do not understand about the January 6th Committee—if it truly was intended to appear as a disinterested investigatory body.

1. Why for the first time in memory did Speaker Pelosi forbid the House Minority Leader’s pro forma nominees to a special House committee? Fairly or not, the result was that the only two Republicans who did serve shared two embarrassing requisites: they would likely be out office, and not by their own volition, in January 2023; and two, they despised Donald Trump and voted for the second Trump impeachment.

So, what were the Democrats afraid of to make them break all precedents with past hearings? Pelosi, in other words, ensured that there would be no cross-examinations of any witnesses, no disagreements about witness lists, no contrasting interviews to the media about the work of the committee, and no diversity in staff interrogatories.

2. Why did not the Committee investigate whether the FBI had numerous agents and informants present on January 6th? Michael Rosenberg, the New York Times assigned reporter to the demonstration, claimed they were ubiquitous. Were they?

3. Why did not the Committee review the circumstances in detail of the deaths of Officer Brian Sicknick and the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt. These were the two most high-profile and controversial deaths on January 6th, and Babbitt’s perhaps was the only violent death at the direct hand of a known other?

4. Why did not the Committee investigate and release all the communications between the House leadership and the Capitol police to learn why the Capitol was virtually open and unsecured on a day that everyone knew would be the scene of mass protests there?

5. Why did not the Committee investigate all incendiary speech by major elected officials at iconic Washington buildings, deemed inflammatory and allegedly resulting in violence at a subsequent time? For example, in 2020 then Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer screamed to a large demonstration massed at the doors of the Supreme Court:

I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh—you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19316/george-santos

Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

No congressman has ever been removed for defrauding voters, but if there were ever a case for doing so, this would be it. The House would be reluctant to use that nuclear option because it would subject many incumbents to scrutiny for their electoral lies.

The dangers of punishing general falsehoods is demonstrated by the laws of other countries. In Poland it is a crime to state that the Polish people participated in the Holocaust, although that statement is absolutely true as a matter of history. Polish people not only collaborated with Nazis, some continued to kill Jews even after the Nazis left. The Polish parliament has declared the historic truth to be a punishable lie.

In Turkey, it is a crime to say that the Armenian genocide occurred. In France it is a crime to say that this very same event did not occur.

The alternative to freedom of speech is necessarily some form of censorship. Throughout history censorship by governments, churches and other powerful institutions has been the rule. It has not worked. Nor has untrammeled free speech worked perfectly. But history has clearly demonstrated that censorship is far more dangerous to liberty than is free speech.

“[W]e have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasoning of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors…” – Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1801.

[A]s long as truth tellers are able to respond to liars, we have far more to fear from censorship than from free speech.

Congressman George Santos has lived a life of lies. He has lied about his early life, his academic record, his business experience, his wealth, his heritage, his personal life and his criminal record. He is fortunate that the vast majority of these lies have not been under oath. Nor have they defamed specific individuals. Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/12/what-the-january-6-videos-will-show/

The jury trial of Richard Barnett, the man famously photographed with his feet on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6, 2021, is underway in Washington, D.C. Nearly two years to the date of his arrest, Barnett finally had a chance to defend himself in court on multiple charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.

But it was not the fiery, outspoken Barnett who provided the most jaw-dropping testimony in the trial so far. To the contrary, one of the government’s own witnesses confirmed under defense cross-examination that “agents provocateur” were heavily involved in instigating the events of January 6. 

Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a tactical commander for U.S. Capitol Police at the time, testified Wednesday how a group of agitators destroyed security barriers and lured people to Capitol grounds that afternoon:

Defense Counsel Brad Geyer: Isn’t it true that you had a lot of people, a large quantity of people walking down two streets that dead-ended at the Capitol?

Mendoza: Yes, sir.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/davidhasanyi/2023/01/13/on-classified-documents-joe-biden-is-out-of-excuses-n1661357

Every president probably stashes away classified documents. The chances of any president being successfully prosecuted for pilfering them are infinitesimal. Nevertheless, Joe Biden has engaged in the same behavior as Donald Trump — perhaps worse, since vice presidents are unable to declassify documents — and precedent and transparency, our very democracy, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland name a special counsel to investigate. 

Right now, none of the rationalizations offered by the media for Biden’s actions over the past few days work anymore. When the story first broke, outlets stressed that one of the vital “distinctions” between the two incidents was that Biden was in possession of fewer documents than Trump. Biden aides, we learned, had been utterly shocked to discover only a “small number” of classified documents “locked” in the personal offices of the president’s “think tank” — as if the location or the number of documents, or the alleged lock, rather than the contents, were the most newsworthy aspect of the story.

Soon we learned that a second “batch” of classified documents was uncovered at an “undisclosed” location. Biden aides, we are told, began diligently rummaging through boxes to ensure they were in complete compliance with the law. NBC News reported that “the search was described as exhaustive, with the goal of getting a full accounting of all classified documents that may have inadvertently been packed in boxes when Biden cleared out of the vice president’s office space in January 2017.” It’s heartening to know that the Bidens are such diligent, law-abiding folk.

Yesterday, we were told that classified documents that are found in a serious office setting, rather than just “lying around” in a home, was an important difference between the two cases. Today, Biden’s lawyer says that “small number” of classified documents was also found “locked” in Biden’s garage and an “adjacent” room of his Wilmington, Delaware, home. (Don’t worry, the president assures us it was safely stored next to his beloved Corvette.) You know, if we find another “small number” of documents, we might just have ourselves a full cache.