RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/leadership-in-a-time-of-pandemonium?token

It is difficult, to put it mildly, to peer through the blinding blizzards of partisan mainstream media reporting and venomous malice on social media to detect what is actually happening in both American and British political life.

And in fairness to everyone seeking to explain it all, the almost daily shocks being produced by one extraordinary development after another mean that all previous political signposts have been demolished by the storm.

Like the north star, however, there’s one constant we should keep in sight as we try to decipher the fortunes of both US president Donald Trump and British prime minister Boris Johnson. That constant is why each of them was brought to power. 

Although the circumstances are obviously different, the reason was fundamentally the same. Millions of people, who had had it up to here with an arrogant and unaccountable political and cultural establishment intent upon destroying their right to live in a national home of recognisably shared, historic values and traditions and under a rule of law reflecting their own sovereign and democratic consensus, seized the opportunity to elect a leader who promised to uphold that right against that establishment.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/why-anti-zionism-is-antisemitism?

The indivisible relationship explains much, but few, alas, acknowledge it.

A few days ago Mia Werner, a  Jewish student at the University of Portland, Oregon, described being the victim of an antisemitic incident on her Middle East politics course. You can read her account here. 

The incident occurred when her professor brought in an Iranian dissident as a visiting speaker. Werner writes: 

When he spoke to us, what ensued was three long hours of egregious prejudice. He espoused support for recognised terrorist groups, like Hamas and the Houthis. He called all American soldiers cowards. He went on a long-winded tirade about how Iran could and should blow Israel off the face of the earth. Then he explained how no one in that region was antisemitic. He looked me in the eye and told me that I could go anywhere I wanted to in the Middle East and I wouldn’t be murdered for being a woman nor for being Jewish (lucky me). They would only kill me if I said I supported the existence of Israel, if I admitted to being a Zionist.  

Throughout the entire three hours, my professor never said a word. She sat a few chairs down from me, silently watching as this man spewed absurd and harmful erasure of the persecution of the Jewish people.

The indivisible relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is little understood, even among those who have a reasonably benign view of Israel. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/10/03/anti-americanism-then-and-now/

The habit of liberal accommodation has precipitated a crisis in what one used to be able to call, without apology, manly self-confidence.

As members of Antifa and Black Lives Matter continue their nightly exercise of kinetic economic redistribution, and protestors assemble outside Walter Reed Hospital, where President Trump is receiving treatment for the Wuhan Flu, to shout anti-Trump slogans, I thought it might be useful to step back and consider this current wave of anti-American sentiment in historical context. 

Anti-Americanism is not new, of course. It was, as many writers have noted, a staple of 1960s’ radicalism. What seems novel today, however, is the extent to which radical anti-American sentiment has installed itself into the heart of many institutions that, until about 15 minutes ago, were pillars of the American establishment. How odd that (Democratic) members of Congress should lament that America is guilty, and has always been guilty, of “systemic racism,” etc., etc. Somehow, the fact that Boston Mayor Martin Walsh hoisted the Chinese Communist flag in front of City Hall there epitomizes the rot.

Anti-Americanism is hard to argue with. I don’t mean that there are good arguments in favor of the phenomenon. Quite the contrary: insofar as arguments enter the arena at all, they usually lean heavily on assertion backed up by belligerence and cliché. 

But it is seldom that argument does enter. Anti-Americanism has always been more a matter of attitude than argument. It depends on, it draws its strength from, the wells of passion, not reason. The composition of that passion is complex and shifting. Envy generally enters into it, as does a congeries of political attitudes that the literary critic Frederick Crews aptly dubbed “Left Eclecticism”: a bit of cut-rate Marxism to start with, leavened with a dollop of some trendy academic theory, a dash of utopian fantasy and snobbery, seasoned to taste with resentment and paranoia. 

The late Paul Hollander provided a connoisseur’s overview of the favored configurations in his classic compendium Anti-Americanism: Irrational & Rational, first published in 1995. Reading through Hollander’s inventory, one is again and again struck by the combination of virulence and absolutism that fuels expressions of anti-Americanism. Hollander quotes the Russian writer Vasily Aksyonov, who emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States in the late 1970s: 

Even now, after living in America for more than five years, I keep wondering what provokes so many people in Latin America, Russia, and Europe to anti-American sentiments of such intensity that it can only be called hatred. There is something oddly hysterical about it all.

https://spectator.us/testing-positive-coronavirus-donald-trump/

Almost everyone, no matter his political coloration, has been predicting that the presidential election would be close. I was thinking of writing a column in the next few days arguing against this conventional position. I am no Nate Silver, psephologist to the stars, but the more I looked around, the more it seemed to me that President Trump was going to win handsomely. I was thinking he would take all the states he took last time, with the possible exception of Wisconsin (10 electoral votes). Further, it seemed to me that he had a good chance to pick up Nevada (6 votes), Minnesota (10) and New Hampshire (4). I even thought that Colorado (9 votes) and Virginia (13) might be in play.

The President’s announcement earlier today that he and Melania had tested positive for the Chinese flu has made me pause to reconsider that prognostication.

One of the reasons I was so upbeat in my psephological prophecy was the vigor of the President’s campaign. Notwithstanding the restrictions imposed on public gatherings by our latest Chinese import, his team has devised and robust strategy for him to campaign safely and effectively. His rallies are outdoors, usually involve Air Force One as an elegant prop, and the draw large and enthusiastic crowds.

But wait, how can I say that these rallies are safe when the President has just tested positive for COVID? I won’t give you a lecture about the difference between post hoc and propter hoc but will merely observe that we have no idea from where the President was exposed to the virus.

Naturally, the left is having none of. The Los Angeles Times, for example, wheeled into print with an editorial gleefully lambasting the President for his ‘recklessness’ (in fact ‘deadly, foolish recklessness’).

Moreover, we do not know whether he will sicken from the exposure. The vast majority of people who test positive are asymptomatic, many more experience on mild symptoms.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/trivialising-nazism?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoxNDc

There is clearly no limit to the depths of moral perversity that the enemies of President Donald Trump are prepared to plumb, not least within America’s Jewish community.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America has released a new campaign ad aimed at Jewish voters in swing states which compares Trump’s presidency to the rise of fascism in Germany.

The ad features parallel images of antisemitism and nationalism in Nazi Germany and today’s America. There are images of antisemitic graffiti from 1930s Germany, along with similar attacks on a modern American synagogue and Jewish cemetery.

The narration states: “History shows us what happens when leaders use hatred and nationalism to divide their people.” The ad ends with a warning: “Hate does not stop itself. It must be stopped. VOTE.”

The council’s executive director, Halie Soifer, said: “A majority of American Jews feel less safe today than they did four years ago due to the rise of white nationalism and antisemitism under Donald Trump.”

“This, coupled with Trump’s assault on our democratic institutions, are [sic] reminiscent of the rise of fascism in 1930s Germany. President Trump’s use of hatred for political purposes has made America less safe for Jews and we are voting accordingly.”

Nor is this the only linkage of Trump with the Nazis. The Democratic presidential contender, Joe Biden, has likened him to the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

All of this is appalling for two reasons.

When it all blows over the final opinion will be that President Trump was way off his game which is small wonder now that we know he has tested positive for Covid; that Chris Wallace was on his game, namely, propping up Biden; and that Joe Biden has no game. He is a doddering cur who answered no pertinent questions, used vulgar and unseemly invective and lied about the chicanery of his son Hunter Biden.   rsk

P.S. If you want to talk about man-made disasters, Trump was spot on about California’s wildfires and dismal forest management.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/why-establishment-media-hates-tucker-carlson-so-jason-d-hill/

The attacks on Fox News host Tucker Carlson as a racist, white nationalist, xenophobic, immigrant-hating troll have become coin of the realm in the establishment media. Last week, the Daily Beast hit an all-time low when one of its reporters accused Carlson of blaming George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Jacob Blake for their own deaths and injuries from police. The almost libelous article attributes claims that Carlson actually never made on his show. The Daily Beast reporter simply offers his own dubious interpretations of Carlson’s interpretation of news and facts as he receives them.

Carlson has been lambasted for criticizing Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D. IL), a former contender for vice-presidential running mate for Joe Biden, as a “deeply silly and unimpressive person” who “[hates] America.” Carlson made this comment because Duckworth showed sympathy on CNN for removing the monuments of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson amid the ongoing conversations on race following the death of George Floyd.

So what? Carlson is a patriot who reveres the founders of our republic, and he does not take kindly to someone who thinks that removing monuments bearing their likeness is negotiable. He saw the implication of Duckworth’s attitude: down with Jefferson today and then down with every single monument—including, as we witnessed, even those of figures who were ardent opponents of slavery and who fought for its eradication. This is exactly what happened during the feral statue-toppling hysteria that gripped the country and even other parts of the world. In London, a statue of Abraham Lincoln was vandalized at a Black Lives Matter protest.

https://spectator.org/benjamin-crump-breonna-taylor/

With precious little comment from the mainstream media, American progressives have disavowed Atticus Finch and aligned themselves with the mob in front of the county jail — this summer, the mob calling for the head of whichever white cop Benjamin Crump has chosen to lynch.

This is no small transition. The Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird (not the buzzkill Atticus of the Harper Lee’s earlier effort, Go Set a Watchman) defies the racist mob and demands due process. Crump stirs up the racist mob and subverts due process. Atticus leads with evidence. Crump leads with accusations. Atticus sticks to the facts. Crump invents facts, occasionally invents witnesses, and consistently conjures up an America foreign to every black person under 70.

Historically, the Left, with occasional help from the Comintern, has made heroes out of defense attorneys. If fictional defense attorneys like Atticus defended the innocent, his real-life counterparts were not so particular. That these attorneys often defended the conspicuously guilty — from Sacco and Vanzetti to Mumia Abu-Jamal — did not much matter. The larger goal was not to free the accused but to indict America for its systemic racism and injustice.

Crump also indicts America for its systemic racism and injustice. As a trial lawyer, however, he does so to stir the mob and scare the cash out of the besieged party, a reported $12 million out of the City of Louisville in the shooting death of 26-year-old Breonna Taylor. Last week found Crump back in Louisville inciting the crowd to disorder after the grand jury refused to indict any of the implicated three police offers for Taylor’s death. As is his custom — “Skittles and iced tea,” Hands up, don’t shoot,” “I can’t breathe” — Crump and his public relations team served up a mantra for the occasion: “Release the transcripts.”

The grand jury transcripts will prove nothing that is not already known. As with George Floyd, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin before her, Taylor’s consistently disastrous lifestyle choices put her in harm’s way. If Taylor had not been shot in the police raid, she might have ended up like Fernandez Bowman, the man found dead in her rental car in 2016. Or she might have ended up in prison like her boyfriend, Jamarcus Glover, who made 26 of the 48 calls from that prison to Taylor.

Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) Guide for the Perplexed, 2020
 https://bit.ly/3n2dZVR  

1. Jewish national liberation is the 3rd Jewish pilgrimage holiday (following Passover and Shavou’ot – Pentecost), which has been celebrated for the last 3,300 years. Sukkot commemorates the Exodus, the 40 years of wandering in the Sinai Desert, the construction of the Holy Tabernacle and the victories along the way into the Land of Israel. It reaffirms faith in G-D, gratitude for the harvest and the Ingathering of Jews in their Homeland, and the highlighting of reality-based optimism.

2. Commemorating the Exodus. Sukkot (in Hebrew) is named after the first stop during the 40-year-Exodus from Egypt, the town of Sukkota (סוכותה), as documented in Exodus 13:20-22 and Numbers 33:3-5.  It commemorates the gradual transition from slavery in Egypt and nomadic life in the desert to liberty in the Land of Israel; from oblivion to deliverance; and from the spiritual state-of-mind during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to the mundane of the rest of the year.

3. The Hebrew meaning of Sukkot. The Hebrew root of Sukkot ()stands for the key characteristics of the relationship between the Jewish people, the Jewish Homeland and faith in God. The Hebrew word Sukkah () means wholeness and totality (), the shelter of the tabernacle (), to anoint (), divine curtain/shelter() and attentiveness ().

4. The 7-day-holiday. The 7 days of Sukkot are dedicated to the 7 Ushpizin (monumental leaders/guests), who represent positive human and, particularly, leadership qualities in their pursuit of ground-breaking initiatives: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron and David, who were endowed with faith, humility, magnanimity, compassion, reality-based optimism, tenacity in face of dramatic odds, courage, peace-through-strength, principle-driven leadership.   

https://www.jns.org/opinion/amy-coney-barrett-jewish-liberals-and-the-us-constituti

For Jews who worship at the altar of abortion and gun control, RBG was practically a religious figure, and filling her seat with a Catholic who rejects judicial activism is blasphemous.

The apoplexy on the part of Democrats in general and Jewish liberals in particular to the appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court was to be expected. Anything that President Donald Trump does drives them crazy.

But the fact that he decided to fill the seat vacated by the Sept. 18 death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the fast-approaching election has been more than they can tolerate. How dare the president exercise his right to do so, they have been moaning, when his days in office are numbered?

Or so they have been praying. Literally.

Indeed, when news of Ginsburg’s death on the eve of Rosh Hashanah reached many Reform and Conservative congregants (the Orthodox don’t tune into electronic devices on Friday night, and certainly not during the Jewish New Year), their rabbis devoted the following morning’s services to her legacy.

RBG, as she came to be called, had been their heroine. She was not only the first Jewish woman to sit on the Supreme Court and the second woman after Sandra Day O’Connor. She was a warrior for all left-wing causes, whose opinions on and off the bench gained her the adoration of liberals far and wide, including in Israel, which has one of the Western world’s most politically interventionist Supreme Court.