RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.racket.news/p/lol-before-and-after-in-house-testimony

I know I said I wasn’t going to dwell on this, but some things are too funny. In yesterday’s surreal House hearing on censorship, the Democrats’ witness Olivia Troye denied to North Carolina congressman Dan Bishop something she’d said in her opening statement.

It turns out the time between Troye statements “Instead of continuing to spread conspiracy theories about government censorship” and “I’ve never said this was a conspiracy, you have not heard that comment from me” was exactly one hour. That has to be a first of some kind, although one minute would’ve been more impressive. Just an FYI from the train home…

https://www.theblaze.com/columns/opinion/how-george-soros-funds-anti-semitism

Congress is debating legislation to strip tax-exempt status from “terrorist-supporting organizations.” The Open Society Foundations would be a prime target.

As pro-Hamas, virulent anti-Semitic propaganda against Israel and Jews erupted and continues spreading after Hamas’ brutal attacks on Israeli civilians on October 7, the silence of the poster boy of anti-Semitic victimhood, George Soros, is deafening.

Deafening but not surprising.

In his 1995 book, “Soros on Soros,” the Hungarian-American financier declared that Zionism “doesn’t appeal” to him because it is “the founding of a nation [Israel] where the Jews are in the majority.” For Soros, “being a Jew [is] being in a minority.” He also asserted moral equivalence between the Jews’ response to attacks and that of their attackers, saying that sometimes Jews choose to “identify with their oppressors” and even “try to become like them.”

In 2003, at a Yivo Institute for Jewish Research event, Soros blamed the rise of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred in Europe on the George W. Bush administration’s war on Islamic terrorism and “likened the behavior of Israel [in defending itself against Arab terrorist attacks] to that of the Nazis, invoking some psychological jargon about victims becoming victimizers.” He was booed, and many walked out of the event.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/climate-protests-at-the-met

So there I was, in the middle of the opening night of Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera, when the shouting started. “Climate protesters,” or “climate activists”—the usual grotesques—were shouting “No opera on a dead planet,” and other such inanities. They placed themselves around the theater, timing it so that when one was arrested, another started shouting somewhere else. I counted five interruptions, though the first press reports say there were only four; did I get it wrong? The audience was displeased; I heard shouts of shame! and even, briefly from one member of the audience, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! The management finally announced that the program would go on no matter what, keeping the lights on so that security could remove people more quickly; either the thugs were exhausted, or the remainder figured that it wasn’t worth bothering with. So we finished the opera, with too much light, and (at least for me) some nervousness at every loud noise, thinking it might be another interruption.

There have been at least two previous intrusions at operas, in Amsterdam and Milan. Less than a day ago, pro-Hamas goons tried to interrupt the lighting of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Less than a week ago, others tried to disrupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. It’s a general campaign to try to make normal life impossible until you give in to the radical demands.

That’s the short version, but it’s worth considering the various elements.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/12/02/why-are-todays-politics-so-awful/

Editor’s note: This is a first in a four-part series).

People often ask, “Why are today’s politics so awful?” There are several reasons, many of which will be explored in this four-part series. In a nutshell (pun intended), the Communications Revolution has enormously contributed to the belief that politics is more awful than ever due to its impact upon the public, the media, the politicians, and the country.

Yet, before considering these reasons, one must avoid the temptation to romanticize the political past as a time of eminently genteel debate in a country where that civility led to a destructive civil war. Even during the period of our nation’s founding, American politics has been contentious as evinced by the political battles between the Royalists and the Revolutionaries. Later, one need only look at how Federalist political pamphleteers attacked President Thomas Jefferson (with the truth, by the way); or how President Andrew Jackson was decried as a “tyrant” and “would-be king” by his political opponents, obloquies later echoed in attacks upon Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and, most recently, Donald Trump.

Nevertheless, while the intensity and invective of political battle has not waned, its visibility has exponentially increased. Due to the Communications Revolution, on a subway or runway, at home or abroad, 24 hours every single day, people possess the ability to casually survey and/or directly engage in politics. No longer does one have to hope the local newspaper publishes their letter to the editor or hope someone in Washington reads their constituent letter. The expression of one’s political opinion and/or agenda can be voiced to the political class and one’s fellow citizens instantaneously and – especially, when in concert with like-minded individuals – effectively.

The consequence of the Communication Revolution’s empowerment of the public it to make politics appear more prevalent and contentious than in the past. While true that more people are publicly expressing their political views, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are new to their opinions or that the intensity of these opinions has increased. What has undoubtedly happened, though, is that technology has facilitated the public’s ability to express their views.

This results in the sense that Americans are more political and, generally, politics more prevalent and awful than ever. True, it can be a bit unsettling to see a friend or neighbor’s political post, more so when one never thought that friend or neighbor shared your views or party affiliation. (They feel the same when they see your post).