RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/24/will-the-guardians-of-the-narrative-win/

Much that is happening in the spectacle of America’s legal-political  life today reminds me of some pages in Johan Huizinga’s great book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (1938). In a chapter on “Play and Law,” Huizinga distinguishes the unfolding of legal proceedings in advanced cultures, where strict adherence to process and abstract notions of right and wrong prevail, from the situation in more primitive cultures, where the ultimate criterion is victory. “Turning our eyes from the administration of justice and highly developed civilizations,” Huizinga writes, “to that which obtains in less advanced phases of culture, we see that the idea of right and wrong, the ethical-juridical conception, comes to be overshadowed by the idea of winning and losing, that is, the purely agonistic conception. It is not so much the abstract question of right and wrong that occupies the archaic mind as the very concrete question of winning or losing.”

In this sense, I submit, Special Counsel Jack Smith, District Judge Tanya Chutkan, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and the rest of the anti-Trump legal confraternity perfectly epitomize the atavistic persistence of archaic impulses in the law. People like me are always going on about “the rebarbarization of civilization.” The peculiar legal assault against Donald Trump is one instance (among many) of that phenomenon.

It’s been going on for quite a while. The 2020 election, for example, took place during the period of eagerly embraced Covid hysteria. That hysteria provided a justification or, more accurately, an alibi for the numerous violations of the law in the conduct of the election. The Constitution of the United States stipulates that state legislatures are in charge of determining voting procedures. But various governors and secretaries of state, from blue states mostly, swept that Constitutional provision aside in their eagerness to assure the appearance of a Biden victory. Such anomalies were noted and commented on at the time but somehow never got traction. Why? Because the media, that great tool of The Narrative, determined that it oughtn’t to get traction.

In subsequent months, the public has been treated to an efflorescence of similar and even more extreme anomalies as Donald Trump can barely turn his head without being indicted for something or other. I do not think that the public at large grasps how bizarre the quartet of indictments, proceeding in tandem in four separate jurisdictions, really is. It is unprecedented, yes, but it is also surreal. It is also a travesty of the legal process. The aim is not justice but the grubby partisan goal of removing a popular political rival from the field. The Attorney General of New York, Letitia James actually campaigned on the promise that she would “get Trump.” How is that OK? What has happened is that the law—or, more precisely, the paraphernalia and accoutrements of the law—is simply the weapon of choice, all else having failed. Those who point out that the effort to transform a political rival into a pariah is tantamount to banana republic tactics are right. But to say that is not yet to do justice the breathtaking situation in which a former president who happens to be, by a wide margin, his party’s favorite for the presidential nomination is treated worse than a common criminal. Common criminals, as a rule, are not subject to gag orders for trying to defend themselves.  “Shut up, or you might convince people you are being unfairly persecuted!” What a blow against “Our Democracy™” that would be.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/26/more-bad-news-for-biden-just-34-of-americans-say-theyre-better-off-than-four-years-ago-ii-tipp-poll/

Despite a multi-year campaign by the White House and its allies to convince the public that the economy is booming, the vast majority of Americans say they’re worse off today than they were four years ago. And despite claims that partisanship is driving the public’s sour mood, negative views about the economy and President Joe Biden’s performance are almost universal.

That’s according to the latest I&I/TIPP poll of likely voters, which finds that 58% say they aren’t better off than they were four years ago – before the COVID-19 pandemic – while only 34% say they are.

Meanwhile, a mere 23% of those surveyed say Biden is doing an “excellent” or “good” job handling the economy, including fewer than half of Democrats.

The I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,464 Americans two questions related to the economy: “Comparing your situation today to what it was four years ago, are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and “How would you grade President Biden’s performance handling the economy?” The poll, taken from Nov. 29-Dec. 1, has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

The question about whether people are better off than four years ago – famously asked by Ronald Reagan in 1980 before his landslide election over Jimmy Carter – is clearly weighing on minds at the White House.

https://thehill.com/opinion/civil-rights/4374248-happy-plessivus-democrats-celebrate-the-holidays-with-separate-but-equal-policies/

For some, it seems, Christmas is so last century, and “Festivus” is so last decade.Happy Plessivus, the new rage in politically correct holiday celebration.

Now, as we approach the 70th anniversary of the rejection of Plessy v. Ferguson and the concept of separate-but-equal with the Supreme Court’s 1954 landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, many people seem to be embracing racial segregation as a public good.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu offered just such an alternative with a holiday party that excluded guests on the basis of race. Wu was criticized after her staff mistakenly sent the entire city council an invitation to the party at the city-owned Parkman House. However, the invitation told white city council members that they could not attend due to their race.

It was not exactly what most of us think of as being in the spirit of the holidays. Yet, it is precisely what Wu wanted to capture for a racialized holiday theme with a hefty helping of identity politics.

It seems that, today, the three kings would be told by the angel to just drop off the gold, frankincense and myrrh at the door of the stable if they were not the right race.

What was most striking about the controversy is that Wu’s office apologized — but not for the racially exclusive policy. It apologized for sending the invite to white city council members.

Despite the criticism, Wu proudly posted a photo of all the attendees at her “electeds of color” holiday party. Six of the city’s 13 council members are people of color.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/dec/22/move-united-nations-to-gaza/

What a great idea and make John Kerry our ambassador to the UN….rsk

Since the United Nations is anti-American to its rotten core, wouldn’t it be happier somewhere else? The war in Gaza is the perfect opportunity to relocate the world body to a more congenial clime.

Of course, the ideologues masquerading as diplomats will miss the five-star restaurants and high-class hookers they enjoy in Manhattan.

But real estate in Gaza City is dirt cheap, thanks to urban renewal by the Israel Defense Forces. And it would give the U.N. an opportunity to truly express solidarity with its favorite victims. It’s practically part of Hamas as it is.

Don’t misunderstand me. As a connoisseur of hypocrisy, I appreciate the hollow chest-beating that goes on at the whorehouse on the East River.

Where else can we be lectured about human rights by people who treat women as property, on tolerance by states that make antisemitism their official policy, on climate change by nations that make a killing from fossil fuels and on peace by states that subsidize international terrorism?

In the heady days following World War II, America made the tragic mistake of taking the lead in organizing the United Nations. One of the U.N.’s first acts was to approve a partition plan for Palestine, then a British Mandate, which led to the creation of the state of Israel. Now, it is dedicated to the annihilation of Israel.

When the U.N. was established, a majority of its members were Western democracies. Today, the General Assembly is dominated by totalitarian states, theocracies and nations on the brink of extinction due to dramatically declining fertility.

The U.N. has a history of antisemitism stretching back decades. Half of all resolutions passed by the Human Rights Commission target Israel.

While assuring us that gang rape, genital mutilation and baking babies alive are not cool, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres insisted that the Oct. 7 atrocities “did not happen in a vacuum.” In other words, how dare Israel fight for its survival.