RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/who-funds-the-campaign-to-smear-and-pressure-elon-musk

Elon Musk’s maybe-impending purchase of Twitter is being treated not as a mere business acquisition but as a kind of twilight battle over the fate of the American experiment. Maybe there was a time when hypothetical and probably minor changes to the terms of service of a social networking website could be seen as an eminently survivable event, without any larger implications for long-established rights and customs like free speech. But those days are gone now, as evidenced by yet another high-profile, strong-arm effort by a weirdly open combination of private and public powers acting in unison to taint or scuttle the Twitter sale.

On May 3, a trio of so-called “advocacy groups” sent a letter to Twitter’s major corporate advertisers, including image-conscious and regulation-sensitive heavyweights like Coca-Cola and Disney, urging them to pull their business from Twitter if Musk proves unwilling to censor speech on the platform to those organizations’ satisfaction. “Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter will further toxify our information ecosystem and be a direct threat to public safety,” began the missive, distributed under the letterhead of Media Matters for America, Accountable Tech, and UltraViolet, and co-signed by another two dozen groups, including the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, and NARAL Pro-Choice America. These groups are promising to mobilize their activists, and whatever other resources they might have, to punish companies that will stick by Twitter if it junks its pre-Musk content moderation regime. The pitch was a simple one: Nice store you got there. It would be a shame if someone threw a rock through your window.

Musk seemed to take the not-so-subtle threats of brand damage and possible federal regulation as a challenge. “Who funds these organizations that want to control your access to information? Let’s investigate …” Musk suggested on Twitter. But while the question showed moxie, its scope was also clearly too limited. Better to ask: What function do these “advocacy groups” serve? And for whom?

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/the-ongoing-concern-of-the-state?s=w

The following is an abridged version of a talk delivered on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, during the question and answer portion of an OpenTheBooks.com virtual event. Videos, media, and other speeches are available at YouTube/OpenTheBooks.

QUESTON:

Dr. Hanson, You and I are both native Californians. So looking at California, do you think we’ve lost the state? Or do you have any strategy advice to reverse this current downward trend set up that we have, and bring some success to us? Just in the state of California.

ANSWER — VICTOR DAVIS HANSON:

California is sort of like a prodigal son. We’ve all had members of our family that we love, and we grew up with and we thought they were stable, and then they take drugs or they get wayward, they get in trouble, but we don’t disown them. Well, we don’t move away from them. We try to work with them and hope they can find redemption.

I think that’s what we’re doing in California.

So, there isn’t one Republican statewide officeholder. Republicans only have 11 of 53 Congressional seats. The rest are Democrats. Both houses of the state legislature have super majorities (Democrats). The ninth federal appellate court is the most liberal in the nation. So, they got what they wanted; the left did.

The Left got what they wanted.

https://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2022/05/06/protests-at-supreme-court-justices-homes-are-crimes-n1595691

If you’ve never been to Goochland, Virginia, you’re missing out.

In Goochland, there is a large residential facility with free medical care, free college courses, and wellness programs for visitors, including “thinking for a change.”

You might just win a free trip if you follow through on the threat to “protest at Supreme Court Justice’s homes.” The Virginia Correctional Facility for Woman in Goochland awaits anyone who acts out their rage and shows up out of control at a Supreme Court Justice’s residence in response to the unethical and unprecedented leak of a draft opinion in the Dobbs abortion case.

The people of Virginia have decided that it is a crime to protest at a Virginian’s home.

Virginia Code Section 18.2-418 states:

It is hereby declared that the protection and preservation of the home is the keystone of democratic government; that the public health and welfare and the good order of the community require that members of the community enjoy in their homes a feeling of well-being, tranquility, and privacy, and when absent from their homes carry with them the sense of security inherent in the assurance that they may return to the enjoyment of their homes…

In other words, civil society benefits by keeping homes about family, friends, and peace and not clowns in Handmaid costumes. If you show up and protest a Supreme Court Justice near their home, you are committing a crime in Virginia.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/06/after-horrific-scotus-leak-justices-must-plow-ahead-and-overturn-roe/

The scandalous leak of a full draft of Justice Samuel Alito’s five-justice-strong majority opinion in this term’s marquee Supreme Court case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is an event without precedent in the Court’s history. 

If Alito’s coalition holds, the leaked majority opinion, a February-dated first draft whose authenticity has been confirmed by Chief Justice John Roberts, would represent the culmination of a half-century of pro-life efforts to overturn 1973’s Roe v. Wade atrocity. Roe, which was the Court’s worst decision since 1857’s Dred Scott v. Sandford due to the cases’ similar fundamental lies about human anthropology and human dignity, should have been overturned in 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey. 

It wasn’t. On the contrary, pro-lifers were deigned to by a relativistic Court plurality, which mused in Casey: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe and of the mystery of human life.” Now, at long last, after an unconscionable 63 million unborn children have been snuffed out in the womb since Roe, the Court in Dobbs seems poised to do what it could not do in Casey: declare the moral and legal illiteracy of Roe‘s central holding of a constitutional “right” to abortion.

Poised, that is. It is premature to celebrate; pro-lifers have been burned far too many times before. Furthermore, votes can still flip even at this late hour, as anyone with a long enough memory to recall the chief justice’s flip-flop in the 2012 Obamacare case, NFIB v. Sebelius, can attest. 

And that leads us to the leaker, whose identity is surprisingly still unknown as of this writing.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-intimidation-game-11651869753?mod=opinion_lead_pos11

Five years ago the Journal’s prescient Kim Strassel published “The Intimidation Game” about the political left’s bare-knuckled attempts to silence conservatives. Now the so-called progressives who run much of the American government are encouraging or condoning efforts to bully the Supreme Court into political obedience.

Today Ms. Strassel writes:

The liberal response to Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade was as predictable as it was substance-free. Forget any discussion about the legal reasoning in the case. Or any soul-searching as to how Democrats came to face a 6-3 conservative high-court majority. Or any internal debate about how the party might craft an agenda that resonates with the public, so that it can maintain its hold on power and begin the process of reshaping the court.
Instead, Democrats proposed to burn every Washington institution down. Party leaders and activists openly attempted to intimidate the justices, hoping to change the outcome.

The unapologetic effort to bring political pressure to bear on the judiciary is shocking even to some media folk. Here’s the transcript of an interview T.J. Holmes of ABC News conducted this week with Rep. Karen Bass (D., Calif.) after Justice Alito’s draft opinion was leaked:

Mr. Holmes: Congresswoman, the Chief Justice called this an egregious breach, this leak. What should happen to the person who leaked this? It might not rise to the level of a criminal act, but–but it’s not just that this was a leak. This was a leak in this particular case, at this particular moment. What should happen to the person who leaked this?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whos-a-threat-to-democracy-supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-ruth-sent-us-11651875512?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The latest theme on the political left is that the Supreme Court Justices who might overturn Roe v. Wade are at war with democracy. It’s a strange argument, since overturning Roe would merely return abortion policy to the states for political debate in elections and legislatures. That’s the definition of democracy.

But since they brought it up, by all means let’s talk about who is really threatening democracy. An independent judiciary is crucial to democratic self-government, and after the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion, the left is targeting the Justices who might vote to end Roe.

***

An outfit known as Ruth Sent Us is inviting people to harass six “extremist justices.” The group, named after the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, this week published the locations of their homes in a map on its website (though it vanished without explanation on Friday).

The group is calling for protests at Catholic churches this Sunday and at the Justices’ homes next week. Why Catholic? Presumably because the church teaches that abortion is wrong and four of the five Justices said to be joining Justice Alito’s opinion are Catholic. The anti-religious animus at work here isn’t subtle.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/the-museum-of-jewish-heritage-needs-to-remember-its-own-mission/

Its reported decision to ban Governor Ron DeSantis is unacceptable.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan overlooks the harbor of New York with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty in the distance. From the grounds, visitors are reminded of potent American symbols and values that drew so many to this nation’s shore before and after the Shoah. And one of the most sacred American values for those “yearning to breathe free” is that of open and unrestricted expression — the ability to question, debate, and disagree without state threat. So the entire Jewish community should be appalled over organizers’ claims that the museum banned Florida governor Ron DeSantis from speaking at the Tikvah Fund’s upcoming Jewish Leadership Conference, which was intended to host a variety of writers, politicians, and thought leaders to talk about conservative ideas that “can help strengthen the Jewish people, the Jewish nation, and the American civic future.” This move is a direct contradiction of the museum’s very mission and Jewish tradition.

The Tikvah Fund is a philanthropic organization established to support the “intellectual, religious, and political leaders of the Jewish people and the Jewish State,” and it invests in a wide range of educational initiatives around the world with a particular focus on teaching young Jews about Jewish history and civilization. The organization has hosted a conference at the museum in the past and was set to host another meeting on June 12, with DeSantis set to speak about the thriving Jewish community in the Sunshine State. According to Tikvah Fund organizers writing in the Wall Street Journal, Governor DeSantis did not “align with the museum’s values and its message of inclusivity,” and organizers were told that either the governor could be disinvited, or the event would not be welcome at the museum.

This position is simply unacceptable. It should be noted that the Museum of Jewish Heritage has disputed the claims, calling its decision a “logistical” one and saying, “No one was banned or cancelled.” But if the Tikvah account is even mostly accurate, the museum’s board and staff need a lesson in history and speech.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/former-ag-barr-hunter-biden-case-shameful-self-dealing-by-biden-family

Some Republicans want a special counsel appointed to investigate presidential son Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings in Ukraine, China, and elsewhere. The calls started in the last months of the Trump administration, when revelations about his activities, and suspicion that his father, President Joe Biden, might have been involved, began to emerge. (Those were, of course, the revelations some big media organizations tried to downplay and that social media giants Twitter and Facebook tried to suppress.)

The attorney general at the time, William Barr, declined to appoint a counsel, explaining that the case was being handled “responsibly and professionally” within the Justice Department by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware. This week, Barr, now a year and a half out of office, said he still believes his decision was the correct one. But in remarks to the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, discussing his memoir One Damn Thing After Another, Barr issued a devastating critique of what the Hunter Biden case represents.

“Whether it is a crime or not,” Barr said of the Biden case, the people can “see what it was, which was shameful self-dealing by that family.”

The question for Barr was what the Justice Department should do about it. First, remember that the department was already investigating Hunter Biden’s taxes and, perhaps, the question of whether he properly registered as a foreign agent. That investigation was being overseen by David Weiss, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney in Delaware. We still do not know the extent of that investigation, but there have been reports that Hunter Biden has paid at least $1 million in back taxes in an effort to fend off indictment. That may or may not be successful.

Barr noted that the purpose of a special counsel is to conduct an investigation when the Justice Department has a serious conflict of interest in a matter. The Trump Justice Department had no such conflict, Barr said. Maybe the Biden Justice Department does, but not the Trump Justice Department.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18505/metropolitan-opera-discrimination

The law of New York and many other jurisdictions prohibits employment discrimination based on national origin. Anna Netrebko’s firing would seem on its face illegal. Had she been born in the Donbas region of Ukraine instead of across the border in Russia, she would not have been fired even if she had refused to condemn the war or Putin.

She did condemn the war but refused to condemn Putin personally. If she had, she would be endangering her family, friends and her own ability to ever return safely to her homeland.

Netrebko is an Austrian citizen, but her country of origin is Russia.

“Forcing artists, or any public figure, to voice their political opinions in public and to denounce their homeland is not right…. I am not a political person…. I am an artist and my purpose is to unite people across political divides.” — Anna Netrebko, quoted in The New York Times, March 2, 2022.

“She’s damned if she does, and damned if she doesn’t.” — Simon Morrison, Princeton Professor of Music, The New York Times, April 1, 2022.

[W]e want artists to speak out — when we agree with what they are saying. But in this age of quickly changing criteria for cancellation….

I had planned to see the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Turandot staring Anna Netrebko. But the Met fired her on the ground that she is Russian and did not sufficiently condemn Vladimir Putin for waging war in Ukraine. She did condemn the war, but refused to condemn Putin personally. If she had, she would be endangering her family, friends and her own ability to ever return safely to her homeland. Netrebko is an Austrian citizen, but her country of origin is Russia.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/05/05/meet-the-shady-left-wing-group-targeting-scotus-justices-and-their-families/

A shadowy left-wing group operating under the moniker “Ruth Sent Us” is asking activists to target Supreme Court justices who may overturn Roe v. Wade with demonstrations at their private homes.

On Thursday, the group published the alleged home locations of the six conservative justices who heard Mississippi’s request to return the abortion debate to the states by overturning the 1973 decision. A February draft opinion leaked to Politico on Monday revealed five out of the six, Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch, were planning to vote to overturn the Roe decision with Chief Justice John Roberts remaining undecided. Each of their homes is targeted for protests between now and Wednesday.

“Our 6-3 extremist Supreme Court routinely issues rulings that hurt women, racial minorities, LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights,” reads the group’s website. “We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics.”

Stipends are being offered to artists who join the march. Payment and compensation were also offered to protesters who came to Washington to disrupt the constitutional proceedings at the Senate to confirm Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.

The organizing group’s leadership remains concealed on its website, even though it uses a .us URL. Websites with a .us URL are unusual, and according to Wired in 2005, new registrants could not include privacy protection in .us domain name purchases. RuthSent.us, however, redacted information related to its owners’ purchase. Another online domain tool, “WHOIS,” revealed the name Sam Spiegel as its registrant along with a P.O. box.