RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/idiocy-shared-oppression

“I have no dog in this unfortunate fight, other than to point out that women’s rights and transgender inclusivity clearly are not the same cause, any more than racial equality will be advanced by eliminating carbon emissions. All of which is a good argument for old-school, incremental, single-issue activism, and for leaving the old LGBT pride flag alone.”

It’s not true, and betrays the reality of historical suffering

Has anyone else noticed that the rainbow flag of sexual diversity keeps expanding to include the full possible spectrum of visible colors? I recently saw that something called the Intersex Inclusion Campaign introduced a new “intersex inclusive pride progress flag,” which is the old LGBT pride flag altered from six bars to 12, with the bonus introduction of triangles and a circle. I learned that these fresh shapes and colors symbolize not only the transgender community and the intersex people once crudely called hermaphrodites, but also Black people, Hispanics, and other “brown” folx. In an unforgettable piece of symbolism, the new identity markers now take up more than half the old pride flag, swooping into it (from the left, naturally) in a wedge shaped vaguely like a boar’s head. “A bit invasive,” I thought.

Tablet columnist Wesley Yang has referred to this kind of thing as the “unity of oppression thesis,” “the astroturfed credo of the activist class” which insists, for example, that “LGBTQ parades have to call for freeing Palestine and White House plans for gender equity have to call for the elimination of cash bail.” Kristine Hadeed, a left-leaning writer and apparent member of that class, made a good-faith attempt to explain the phenomenon to Yang on Twitter: “It’s because they recognize that the roots of oppression are intertwined. None of us are truly liberated unless all of us are liberated. Oppressed people uniting for collective liberation is the only way liberation will ever happen.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/13/458-police-officers-died-in-the-line-of-duty-in-2021-the-deadliest-year-on-record/

The year 2021 saw the highest number of police officers killed in the line of duty in modern history, with 458 officers dying over the course of the year.

As reported by Fox News, the number is the highest since record-keeping first began, surpassing the previous high of 1930, which saw 312 officers killed on the job. The report was released on Tuesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF), pointing out that the numbers reflected an increase of 55 percent over the 2020 total of 295 deaths. The comprehensive report includes officers at every level, including municipal, county, state, and federal, as well as military, territorial, campus, and tribal law enforcement.

The report claims that COVID-19 was the leading cause of law enforcement deaths, with NLEOMF executive director Troy Anderson remarking that “this number appears to be increasing almost daily.” The second-highest cause of death was firearms-related incidents, with traffic fatalities coming in third.

“The magnitude of this type of loss is everlasting in the hearts and minds of those left behind to continue the work of public safety,” Anderson said in a video statement. “While much of this report is delivered through numbers and statistics, it is paramount that we keep in mind that every number here represents someone’s loved one – a life, a son or daughter, a mother or father. A law enforcement officer who made the ultimate sacrifice for a profession that they believed in and died for.”

Although the group mentioned that the numbers in the report were preliminary and not complete, it claimed that 301 officers, roughly 66 percent of the overall total, died of the coronavirus. Sixty-two officers were killed by firearms, with October being the deadliest month for these types of incidents, seeing eight officers killed in the line of duty. Another fifty-eight officers died in traffic-related incidents.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/13/we-are-all-domestic-terrorists-now/

Paul Hodgkins, according to Joe Biden’s Justice Department, is a domestic terrorist.

A working-class man from Tampa, Hodgkins committed what Democrats and the media consider a murderous crime comparable to flying a packed jetliner into a skyscraper or detonating a truck filled with explosives under a crowded federal building. 

Paul Hodgkins entered the Capitol building on January 6, 2021.

What exactly did Hodgkins do on that day of infamy? He followed a group of like-minded Donald Trump supporters into the hallowed halls and chambers of the U.S. Senate. In that sacred space, where people far more important and educated than poor Hodgkins, according to those very important and very educated senators, make speeches and whatnot. Hodgkins, a crane operator, traveled alone by bus from central Florida to Washington—he was not chauffeured into the nation’s capital in a black SUV and detail team in the way that very important senators roll into town.

When he entered the sacred Senate chambers, Hodgkins carried with him a weapon so offensive that the mere sight of the device prompted the judge in his case to question Hodgkin’s loyalty to his own country. That weapon was a flag bearing the words “Trump 2020.”

Although Hodgkins did not commit a single violent act on January 6, federal prosecutors nonetheless consider him a domestic terrorist and want him punished accordingly. 

“The need to deter others is especially strong in cases involving domestic terrorism, which the breach of the Capitol certainly was,” a prosecutor wrote in a July sentencing motion, asking a judge to send Hodgkins to prison for 18 months after he pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction. “Moreover, with respect to specific deterrence, courts have recognized that ‘terrorists[,] [even those] with no prior criminal behavior, are unique among criminals in the likelihood of recidivism, the difficulty of rehabilitation, and the need for incapacitation.’”

Judge Randolph Moss agreed with the Justice Department’s assessment. The Obama appointee claimed the four-hour disturbance at the Capitol on January 6 caused political and personal damage that “will persist in this country for decades.” Moss was outraged at the sight of Hodgkins hoisting a Trump flag. “The symbolism of that act is unmistakable. He was staking a claim on the Senate floor, declaring his loyalty to a single individual over a nation,” Moss ranted before sentencing Hodgkins to serve 15 months in jail.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/01/supreme-court-blocks-bidens-vaccine-mandate-robert-spencer/

The Trump Supreme Court finally worked exactly the way it was designed to work on Thursday, when it struck a massive blow for freedom in ordering a stay on Joe Biden’s handlers’ authoritarian and destructive vaccine mandate for private employers with more than 100 employees. The Court, again oddly inconsistent as it has often been since Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett took their seats, at the same time upheld the mandate for health care workers. Still, the high court’s refusal to rubber-stamp Biden’s mandate for employers is yet another failure for this disastrous administration, and a major victory for the defenders of individual freedom who have been fighting the mandates from the beginning.

The private employer mandate, which was imposed through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), was rejected on a 6-3 vote, with Trump’s three new justices forming the margin of victory. The Court’s order stated with admirable common sense and restraint that “although COVID-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an OCCUPATIONAL hazard in most. COVID-19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather. That kind of universal risk is no different from the day-to-day dangers that all face from crime, air pollution, or any number of communicable diseases. Permitting OSHA to regulate the hazards of daily life – simply because most Americans have jobs and face those same risks while on the clock – would significantly expand OSHA’s regulatory authority without clear congressional authorization.”

That is absolutely true, and is a refreshing departure from the seemingly inexorable advance of government power over the lives of Americans. It is a sharp rebuke to the nanny state mentality that has been dominant far too long, and that looks to government to take care of all our needs and wants, and to protect us from all dangers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yeshiva-university-the-jewish-college-basketball-powerhouse-sports-teamwork-nba-division-iii-11642112193?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

The Jewish people can take pride in collective accomplishments across a range of human endeavors. I never imagined that basketball would be one of them, but it’s not the only thing that’s taken me by surprise since I became president of Yeshiva University four years ago.

As 2021 came to an end, so did our Division III basketball team’s remarkable 50-game winning streak. The Yeshiva University Maccabees had not lost a game since Nov. 9, 2019, when they fell to Illinois Wesleyan on Dec. 30. The accomplishment still was notable enough for the National Basketball Association to tweet congratulations, and I’ve spent some time reflecting on what it all means.

When I took this job, I anticipated celebrating student success in rabbinics, law, the humanities, business, tech and science. I never expected the energy and excitement of presiding over a sports powerhouse. For the past few years, I have watched game after game in which young men with great Jewish pride score basket after basket. It is beautiful and breathtaking to see their graceful play and teamwork in action.

Many have asked me if I think these wins are an act of divine intervention. This is the wrong question. As a rabbi—as a Jew, for that matter—I believe that everything in life involves divine intervention coupled with human agency. Even losing. The right question is: How could a small research university produce such a team?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/01/why-we-saw-a-split-decision-on-the-biden-vaccine-mandates/

It’s about separation of powers: The executive may not exercise powers Congress has not given.

I ’m sure the thing you most desire at the moment must be more analysis from the guy who, after carefully studying the Biden mandate cases for a couple of weeks, just got finished telling you we probably wouldn’t get a decision for another week or three. Yes, yes, I know: The ink was not yet dry on my post when the Supreme Court issued its two rulings.

But at least I was half right, and, though off on the timing, I did not misguide you on the important thing — the substance. We got the split decision that, a couple of days ago, I warned we might get: The Court torpedoed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) mandate in a 6–3 ruling, but by a bare 5–4 margin upheld the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate (involving 15 categories of entities that do business with CMS — HHS’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).

Still, I am not going up in a balloon about that. The Constitution was my basis for thinking the Court could split on the mandates: OSHA is rooted in the Commerce Clause; HHS is rooted in Congress’s power to spend in furtherance of the general welfare.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/14/biden-is-out-of-touch-with-reality-on-inflation/

These days, when President Joe Biden isn’t lying about being arrested during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, he’s telling equally large fibs about “making progress” on inflation and the economy. Truth is, in the space of less than a year, he’s turned a recovering economy into dross.

Thursday brought yet more disastrous news about the “transitory” upsurge in inflation the media shills and Biden administration economic advisers talk about.

After Wednesday’s consumer price data showed a 7% rise in consumer prices for 2021, the highest since 1982, came worse news for producer prices: They rose a record 9.7% last year, as supply-chain issues and a massive burst of money printing by the Fed created a classic case of too much money chasing too few goods.

Yet, in a statement Wednesday, Biden claimed “we are making progress in slowing the rate of price increases.”

“Progress?” Really? As the New York Post helpfully points out: “Although Biden claimed food prices were falling, the new Consumer Price Index data indicate that food prices actually increased by 0.5% from November to December, up in total 6.3% over 12 months. The monthly rate of increase slowed from 0.7% in November.”

The supply-chain disruption and resulting shortages are also putting pressure on prices. Biden seems to want to simply declare victory and go home, saying just before Christmas: “The much-predicted crisis didn’t occur. Packages are moving. Gifts are being delivered. Shelves are not empty.”

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain took it a step further, describing the supply-chain chaos as “an overhyped narrative.”

Recall, it was a mere six months ago that Biden poo-poohed the very idea of inflation, claiming that “no serious economist” believed there was a problem.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

In 1935, while Nazism and Fascism swept across Europe, Sinclair Lewis published a novel, “It Can’t Happen Here.” The story was based on Huey Long, then governor of Louisiana. It tells the story of how “Buzz” Windrip, running on a populist platform and portraying himself as a champion of traditional values, defeats FDR at the Democratic convention and then goes on to win the 1936 election for President. He soon takes complete control of government and, with a paramilitary force, like that of Hitler’s and Mussolini’s, he imposes totalitarian rule.

Is Lewis’ story a lesson for today? Despite accusations from Democrats, I suspect the threat to democracy is more likely to emerge from left field. As Gerard Baker put it in Tuesday’s The Wall Street Journal, regarding Democrats’ desire to preserve political power as we head toward the mid-terms: “…the identification of the domestic opposition as a seditious enemy may be their last, best hope of salvaging something.” After a failed start to his Presidency, it is all Mr. Biden has left.

There is a natural tendency to look to the past as a guide for dealing with today and tomorrow. Professor George Santayana (1863-1952), in his 1905 book Reason in Common Sense, warned: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Wise advice, but perspective is also needed. Politics is a competitive sport, appealing to many who make it their life’s work. Power, prestige and money are on the line. It was unsurprising when outsider Donald Trump, acting as a populist and portraying himself as a patriot and champion of middle-American values, was deemed a threat to democracy. He was narcissistic and loose with facts, and he fed off the resentment of many middle-Americans toward coastal elitists who dominate Washington’s bureaucracies, especially its intelligence agencies, run universities, manage media and entertainment companies, professional sports, Wall Street and Silicon Valley. But was Trump a threat to our democratic system? I think not. Too many forces were assembled against him.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/01/ten_statistics_to_ruin_your_day.html

Over the past few years, I’ve encountered various statistics that ruined my day, so to spread the pain, I’ve collected a few here.  Let’s start with:

The nuclear family fades in the USA:

According to a Pew Research study, the United States has the highest number of children living in single-parent households.  Almost one-fourth (23%) of children in the U.S. under the age of 18 live with one parent and no other adult, which is the highest in the world.

Astronomical debt:

Our national debt in 2021 was over 28 trillion dollars.  This was 122% of GDP.  That ratio is important because investors worry about default when the debt-to-GDP ratio is greater than 77% — that’s the tipping point.  To give you an idea of how big a trillion is, the sun is less than half a trillion feet away from the Earth.

Tens of millions can’t read:

More than 30 million adults in the United States cannot read, write, or do basic math above a third-grade level.

But our competitors can read:

China in 2015 awarded 1.2 million bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering, according to the National Science Foundation, six times the number in the United States, and the absolute number of Chinese graduates, as well as the ratio of Chinese to American graduates, have grown since then.

We’re not having kids: