RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-conservatives-won-the-law-1532126300

STEVEN TELES IS A PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AT JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY….

When I was a freshman at the University of California, Berkeley in 2011, the College Republicans announced plans to hold an “Increase Diversity Bake Sale.” The idea was to offer minorities and women discounts on cupcakes while white males would pay full price. This led to an emergency meeting of the student government and widespread calls to defund the group or shut down the event. For its organizers, that alone made it a wild success.

“Affirmative-action bake sale conservatism,” as Steven Teles calls it, has an intellectual legacy dating back to the 1960s. Influenced by the counterculture left, activists aim to provoke a crackdown on conservatives, thereby exposing elite education as a coercive “hegemonic project” that represses disfavored ideas. A more familiar term for this, he says, is “trolling.”

Mr. Teles, a professor of political science at Johns Hopkins University, is more sympathetic to a different model of conservative campus activism, epitomized by the Federalist Society. Instead of seeking to embarrass liberal institutions, the goal is to build conservative ones with social and intellectual resources sufficient to compete directly. In his 2008 book, “The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement,” Mr. Teles chronicles how a coalition of right-leaning law students in debating societies managed, over a few decades, to dethrone liberalism from its dominant position in legal thought. Assuming Judge Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed, judges influenced by this project will soon constitute a majority on the Supreme Court.

Liberals, as they defend their domain, insist that the conservative legal movement is the product of a deep-pocketed conspiracy and that its ideas are fronts for power and greed. Mr. Teles, although a liberal Democrat, wrote his book partly to challenge these preconceptions. “Liberals have this myth of diabolical conservative competence,” he tells me. They imagine their own side as “bumbling . . . but benevolent” and the right as “evil” but “totally farsighted and competent.”

The main achievement of the conservative legal movement, Mr. Teles says, hasn’t been fundraising but education, study and debate. The Federalist Society’s premise is that “we’re going to be smarter than the liberals,” he adds. “We’re going to be more bookish. We’re going to be more intellectual.” Conservative law students would “go down to first principles” to show that liberal students “can’t even describe why they’re in favor of what they’re in favor of.” Many of the early Federalist Society members were former liberals; their goal was to “draw people in” as they had been drawn in, by demonstrating “how thoughtful and how intellectual that project is.”

The past week of Russia hysteria has me longing for the good old days. Like 2009, when a Democratic president could pull missile defense systems out of Poland and the Czech Republic to appease Vladimir Putin without facing charges of treason. Or 2010, when a former Democratic president could take a cool half-million from a suspected Russian government-backed source to speak in Moscow and that wasn’t considered treasonous, either. Or 2012, when no one was screaming for impeachment when a Democratic president on a hot mic assured the Russian president that he’ll have “more flexibility” on missile defense systems once he’s re-elected. Or when the previous Democratic administration helped Putin toward his goal of controlling the worldwide supply chain of uranium and that was really all about “resetting” relationships.

Oh, how the times have changed!

Now, according to screeching harpies like Commie-lover John Brennan or many in the Democratic Party’s kept media, if you don’t say the right words during a press conference, you might be a traitor, worthy of impeachment, and probably Putin’s hand-picked agent sitting in the White House to bring about . . . well, that’s where the narrative gets a little fuzzy.

But the point is not to focus on substance. Just the style. It’s all about words and feelings, not about what actually happens because that would ruin a really good story, much like telling children the story you’re reading them at bedtime isn’t real. Forget such things as facts when you can have a good rip-roaring fairytale that soothes you and distracts the world from reality.

There was no honeymoon for the unlikely winner of the 2016 election. Progressives have in succession tried to sue to overturn Trump’s victory using several different approaches. First on the bogus claim of fraudulent voting machines. Then they sought to subvert the Electoral College by bullying electors into renouncing their respective states’ votes.

Massive protests and boycotts marked the inauguration. Then there were articles of impeachment introduced in the House. Some sued to remove Trump on a warped interpretation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. Others brought in psychiatrists to testify that Trump was ill, disabled, or insane and should be removed in accordance with the 25th Amendment. The former FBI director, CIA director, and director of the Office of National Intelligence have variously smeared the president as a coward, a traitor, and a Russian mole.

The Mueller Investigation

We are about 430 days into Robert Mueller’s investigation; the special prosecutor whose team of lawyers and investigators has in a large part been made up either of Clinton donors, clear Clinton partisans, lawyers who have in the past represented Clinton interests or employees, or partisans already removed for expressing clear Trump hatred. The media grew ecstatic over its creation, dubbing it an “all-star” or “dream” team, as leaks assured the public that next week, next month, or “soon” there would be a sensational indictment proving that Trump colluded with the Russians to win the presidency.

We have gone through the psychodramas surrounding Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels, Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and a host of others. Any second, any minute they would be indicted for collusion in throwing an election, or they would soon flip and end the Trump presidency.

The world is currently divided between those who seek internationalized one world global governance and those who demand national sovereignty. Western countries are bifurcated internally along the same political lines. In the United States two political teams have emerged who are in a tournament that will determine the future of America.

The International Team composed of leftist Democrat players and Republicans In Name Only (RINO) are challenging the National Team pennant holders for the championship title. The International Team is following their general manager Obama toward socialism – the prerequisite for internationalized global governance called Globalism.

The National Team composed of American patriots who support individualism, national sovereignty, the Constitution, and the rule of law have elected their MVP President Donald Trump to fend off the collectivist challengers and take America to the championship games to preserve their national title. What does it all mean?

The geopolitical landscape is changing and the draft is underway. The International Team has chosen the UN flag as its banner, identity politics, the European Union, open borders, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamism, anarchy, and activist judges to play on their team.

The National Team has chosen to fly the American flag, the Constitution, the rule of law, protected borders, legal immigration, and traditional secular American norms that do not recognize the authority of Islamic Sharia law to play on their team.

The two teams have opposing playbooks. The International Team relies on Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals and the colluding globalist mainstream media to create cognitive dissonance and disorient the National Team. Alinsky’s playbook instructs the team on how to target MVP player President Trump and focus on taking him out of the game by any means to win the World Series. The International Team is playing offense.

The National Team is playing defense and relies on the Constitution, the Supreme Court, and President Trump’s direct communication with the fans to win the game.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/19/trump-must-navigate-in-a-

So the Straight Arrow has now gone and indicted a dozen members of the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, on charges relating to—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—meddling in America’s internal affairs. That such meddling entirely fits their job description, and that Mr. Well Respected has exactly zero chance of ever bringing them to “justice” in an American courtroom is beside the point.

The partisan clown car that is the Robert Mueller investigation into something—anything!— continues to roll along, excreting great columns of smoke behind it in the hope that an even more partisan media can convince the public that it’s the result of fire, instead of hot air.

When the best you can do is bark at the canine for biting the man, you know your “investigation” has descended to a level of self-parody physically embodied by its hangdog front man, the Real Inspector Hound. Mueller has doggedly gone about accomplishing exactly nothing since (follow the bouncing ball): Rod Rosenstein wrote the memo that president Trump used as justification for firing former FBI chief and sanctimonious scold James Comey; who had succeeded his pal Mr. Incorruptible in that office; who then wrote some memos to himself and leaked them to the New York Times, in order to; motivate Rosenstein to appoint a special counsel to look into wholly (and still) unsubstantiated charges of Trump’s putative “collusion” (not a statutory crime, by the way) with the Russians; to the cheers of former members of the intelligence community, including Comey, as well as its long-time laughingstock, former CIA director John Brennan, whose antipathy for Trump is daily on display.

In short, the whole mess stinks to high heaven and has since the bumbling Jeff Sessions mysteriously recused himself from anything to do with the Russians and has basically vanished since. This has left the president pretty much at the mercy of his enemies on both sides of the aisle (Rosenstein the butler; Brennan the saboteur) and unable effectively to fight back except via Twitter. For the truth is, the most virulent opposition Trump has faced since his surprise election has come from the Intelligence Community—which, at the top, is largely a left-leaning collection of malignant bureaucrats entirely intent on career advancement.

And how do these left-leaning IC bureaucrats assure their career advancement? By not upsetting the cozy arrangement they’ve long had with … the Russians.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-delivers-on-russia-1531868274?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=2&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

Robert Mueller did his reputation for nonpartisanship no service by launching his indictment of Russia’s military hackers on the eve of what 99% of the media now say was a disastrous performance by President Trump in his summit with Vladimir Putin.

This is the same Mr. Mueller who, as FBI chief, sat for five years on the indictment of a Russian uranium executive when it would have been embarrassing to Mr. Obama’s own Russia rapprochement—and doubly embarrassing to his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, because of the connection of the Clinton Foundation to the Russian uranium business in question.

Mr. Mueller’s timing on Friday was unnecessary. His indictment is only for show. The Russian culprits will never be seen in a U.S. court.

It raises a question I did not expect to be raised: Should we now see Mr. Mueller as part of the retinue that includes former Obama CIA chief John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and (ambiguously) former FBI chief James Comey ? These men don’t like Mr. Trump or his Russia rapprochement; Mr. Brennan openly calls him a traitor.

One hesitates to draw the comparison, but Truman and Eisenhower were assailed as agents of the Soviet Union by Joseph McCarthy. Reagan was accused (by George Will) of selling out to Gorbachev. Critics of FDR’s foreign policy were actually proved right in the historical archives: The British were seeking to assure his re-election in 1940.

Politics never did stop at the water’s edge. It can’t. All presidents use foreign policy the way they do domestic policy: to create, expand or protect their domestic political capital. That’s how our system works.

And their opponents will always have recourse to the accusation that a president is a dupe or worse of foreign interests.

Mr. Trump’s performance in Helsinki left a great deal to be desired, but he delivered the policy he has promised since the 2016 campaign. It is identical to the policy of his two most recent predecessors.

Mr. Trump has a history of financial relations with Russians. He has a history of statements saying that American leaders were “weak” and relations with Russia would improve if the U.S. had a “strong” leader.

He has sought to expand America’s military power; he has sought to expand its energy power. One senses his walloping of Germany over the Nord Stream pipeline is less aimed at weakening Russia than at expanding U.S. gas sales but it would still weaken Russia.

He has said for 30 years that America’s trade deficits and its military spending on allies are related (as they are, sort of).

The best you can say about all this, there’s a consistency here. Mr. Trump may not know Palmerston, who said countries don’t have permanent friends, only permanent interests, but I wouldn’t put it past him to have seen the quote in a Charles Krauthammer column.

Of course, you can never disprove sinister influences, an impossibility on which certain fellow journalists will be hanging their reputations for years to come. But a reliable assumption that covers all cases is that presidents act in their own interest. Meanwhile, we have a democratic process, not to mention an extensive permanent bureaucracy with its own ideas, to help sort it out.

The hell of our situation is that 2016 created a big incentive for Democrats and others to adopt anti-Russia hysteria, likening Russia’s meddling to “Pearl Harbor,” a risky simile when two countries have enough nuclear weapons aimed at each other to make the world uninhabitable.

The only good news is Mr. Trump’s apparent indifference to the media’s attempt to shame him into adopting the media’s Russia policy. He may have no idea of the pressures and constraints under which Mr. Putin acts, but Mr. Trump is a one-man brake on a non-adroit hostility that doesn’t serve U.S. interests. CONTINUE AT SITE

By the sea…
With the fishies splashing
By the sea
Wouldn’t that be smashing
Down by the sea ……Stephen Sondheim

I will be out of town at the seashore this weekend….
Back on Monday morning…..rsk

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/07/the_racism_of_the_alleged_affronted.html

At the Consortium of Higher Education for LGBT Resource Professionals, one learns that at an upcoming webinar, “queer and trans people of color are welcome to join and engage in or observe the space. However, we do want to provide a content warning that in these spaces we hope white folks will process our thoughts and behaviors in a learning environment so we can address them and discuss and [sic] tactics of decentering whiteness.”

The topic is “How our institutions center whiteness as a dominant narrative and how we can decenter whiteness at an organizational level. Facilitators: Jesse Beal, they/them, Director, Women’s and Gender Center, Amherst College” and “Kayla Lisenby, they/them or she/her, Assistant Director, LGBTQ Center, Wake Forest University.”

Under the social justice rubric, being born white makes one evil, plain and simple. In fact, according to Dr. Kathy Obear, one can either be a good white ally or a bad one. Thus, everything is seen through the prism of race.

If white people ask people of color to teach them how to say things correctly to avoid racism, this actually results in a burden on people of color to constantly educate. Thus, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

In fact, calling on someone to check his so-called privilege is an ad hominem attack. In particular, this logical fallacy is guilt by association. Being a part of the Caucasian race automatically makes a person guilty.

In actuality, white privilege is predicated on the idea that there needs to be “universal white guilt on the one hand and universal black innocence on the other.” For example, at the Crunk Feminist Collective, one learns that in 2012 Arizona governor Jan Brewer should have kept her fingers to herself when she confronted President Barack Obama about his immigration policies. Brewer was engaging in white female privilege and was “being disrespectful as hell.” Rather than explaining that she was incensed that a president of the United States could trample over the rights of American citizens, this episode is seen only through the prism of race and gender.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/11/making-american

In his book Why Are Jews Liberals, Norman Podhoretz described a “Torah of Liberalism” as the guiding political philosophy of contemporary American Jews.

Lacking religious devotion to the ancient Biblical text and Rabbinic tradition, or to the ritual observances practiced by “Orthodox” Jewry, Jewish Americans affiliated with liberal denominations, or disaffiliated completely from religious life, not only mimic predominant secular, urban political faith, they often lead it.

For many decades, prominent political movements of the Left—Communism, socialism, feminism, environmentalism, statism, welfarism, gay rights activism, and pro-abortionism—have been led by Jewish atheists, academics, and activists replacing God-based religious belief and behavior with a secular “social action” agenda. Podhoretz argued these Jews are religiously passionate, it’s just that their religion is now liberalism (not classical liberalism but modern progressivism).

The common Hebrew term heard at left-wing Jewish seminaries, synagogues, temples, summer camps, and communal organizations is “tikkun olam,” translated as “repairing the world.” The actual historical term, “L’taken olam b’malchut shaddai” was once an idea that served the social order, for example, by endorsing capital punishment to protect the community. Some leaders of the American Jewish establishment now selectively hijack Jewish law to authorize a range of social justice warfare intent on moving objectively nuanced and long-debated Jewish ethical concepts into subjective partisanship.

https://humanprogress.org/article.php?p=1084

At the end of last year on CapX, I documented the constant stream of technological, scientific and medical breakthroughs that are improving the lives of billions of ordinary people. Given all this good news, the real question is why people are so unbelievably pessimistic.

Judging by a 2016 poll of close to 20,000 people in some of the world’s richest countries, you could barely overstate the extent of the gloominess. In response to the question “All things considered, do you think the world is getting better or worse, or neither getting better nor worse?”, just 10 per cent in Sweden, 6 per cent in the US, 4 per cent in Germany and 3 per cent in France thought things were getting better. Why? Because, it turns out, we are pessimists by nature.

Over the last 200 years or so, the world has experienced previously unimaginable improvements in standards of living. The process of rapid economic growth started in Europe and America, but today some of the world’s fastest growing countries can be found in Asia and Africa – lifting billions of people from absolute poverty. Historical evidence, therefore, makes a potent case for optimism. Yet, pessimism is everywhere. As the British author Matt Ridley noted in The Rational Optimist:

The bookshops are groaning under ziggurats of pessimism. The airwaves are crammed with doom. In my own adult lifetime, I have listened to the implacable predictions of growing poverty, coming famines, expanding deserts, imminent plagues, impending water wars, inevitable oil exhaustion, mineral shortages, falling sperm counts, thinning ozone, acidifying rain, nuclear winters, mad-cow epidemics, Y2K computer bugs, killer bees, sex-change fish, global warming, ocean acidification and even asteroid impacts that would presently bring this happy interlude to a terrible end. I cannot recall a time when one or other of these scares was not solemnly espoused by sober, distinguished and serious elites and hysterically echoed by the media. I cannot recall a time when I was not being urged by somebody that the world could only survive if it abandoned the foolish goal of economic growth. The fashionable reason for pessimism changed, but the pessimism was constant. In the 1960s the population explosion and global famine were top of the charts, in the 1970s the exhaustion of resources, in the 1980s acid rain, in the 1990s pandemics, in the 2000s global warming. One by one these scares came and (all but the last) went.

Ridley raises a more specific point that general pessimism: Why are we as a species so willing to believe in doomsday scenarios that virtually never materialise?