Displaying posts categorized under

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Opinion: The ADL –  Democrats who happen to be Jewish By David Isaac

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-the-adl-democrats-who-happen-to-be-jewish/

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called for Fox New host Tucker Carlson’s head earlier this month.

In an over-the-top letter to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott on April 9, ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt said, “It is time for Carlson to go.” Carlson’s crime? According to the ADL letter, “an impassioned defense of the white supremacist ‘great replacement theory,’ the hateful notion that the white race is in danger of being ‘replaced’ by a rising tide of non-whites.”

Fox Chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch politely declined, pointing out that Carlson “decried and rejected replacement theory” in the April 8 episode in question. Carlson, for his part, gleefully replayed the segment as part of a longer discussion on April 13.

We have watched the segments closely and see nothing from Carlson worthy of the ADL’s censure.

Neither did 1,500 Orthodox rabbis represented by the Coalition for Jewish Values. They publicly went to the mat rebuking the ADL for “grossly misplaced charges of anti-Semitism.”

Carlson argued that “demographic change is the key to the Democratic party’s political ambitions. … When you change who votes, you change who wins. That has nothing inherently to do with race or nationality. It is the nature of democracy.”

One may or may not agree with this, but it’s not anti-Semitism.

Jonathan Tobin, the dean of American Jewish journalism, said the real weakness of the ADL’s argument “is that up until recently, the ones talking about immigrants replacing or overwhelming white voters have been liberals.”

Woke Medicine Will Destroy the Hippocratic Oath The idea of race-based healthcare is morally unethical and transgresses the oath every medical doctor takes. By Shawn Waugh

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/21/woke-medicine-will-destroy-the-hippocratic-oath/

When I entered into the practice of medicine in 2005, I took what is called the “Hippocratic Oath.”

The Hippocratic Oath is one of the oldest documents in human history, dating to Greece around 400 B.C. It is an oath of ethics historically taken by physicians and health care providers entering the practice of medicine. There are numerous modern-day versions of the Hippocratic Oath but the message is essentially the same.

Basic Principles of The Hippocratic Oath

The basic principles of the Hippocratic Oath are beneficence, non-maleficence, justice, and respect for the patient’s autonomy with its two rules of confidentiality and veracity.

We pledge, in essence, to do no harm to those we treat.

In the modern version that I voluntarily repeated, I did not proclaim that would blindly follow government officials and health organizations in considering treatment for my patients.

I have watched as countless numbers of my colleagues proclaim they are “following the science” over the past year. At the same time, they have not been able to adequately produce the “science” to justify their actions. Thus, the COVID religion was birthed and a massive cult following formed. They faithfully follow the four pillars of the Branch Covidian faith.

The practice of medicine has not been immune from the infusion of wokeism into society. It is under attack from leftists all across the globe.

Woke Medicine

Kamala Harris, the missing czar By Richard Dean Young

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/04/kamala_harris_the_missing_czar.html

After Kamala got surprised (it seemed) by Joe’s announcement that she was taking over the “crisis” at the southern border, she has made herself almost invisible in the administration — at least in relation to anything that has to do with the mess farther south.

Various pundits have waxed political and psychological in trying to figure out why Kamala has not yet made a trip to the border with Mexico and has said precious little about the emergency she is purportedly overseeing other than indicating that she’s studying the root causes…which, of course, take a very long time to resolve.

Generally, the interpretations go along the line that the border crisis is a lose-lose proposition for anyone in Washington, D.C., who will surely get tainted by an out-of-control mess that nobody can unravel satisfactorily, at least not without returning to Trump-type solutions, which would be far worse for a left-wing Democrat than actually resolving the havoc.

But we have thought of yet another reason that has to be on Kamala’s mind as she makes herself almost invisible.  Our studied interpretation is nothing more than an educated guess, but it has its roots in real history.  And it has much to do with Kamala rejecting the title of czar as she goes missing on the border.

Now, we have noticed that Kamala doesn’t seem to have a broad sense of history, other than a few quotes from famous women in the past and her own declaration that, along with Biden, “we have a chance to change the course of history.”

‘We Don’t Want You Here!’ BLM Protesters Harass NYC Diners After Chauvin’s Guilty Verdicts Julio Rosas

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2021/04/21/blm-protesters-harass-nyc-dinners-after-chauvins-guilty-verdicts-n2588317

BLM protesters harassed diners in New York City during a march that started after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty on Tuesday of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd. 

The march began in Brooklyn with protesters chanting, “Whose streets? Our streets!”

Coming upon diners eating outside, some in the BLM crowd began shouting at the patrons. They also targeted the white business owners who make ethnic food.

“We don’t want you here! We don’t want your f**king money!” they chanted.

A Troubled Rule of Law The pervasive sense that cities would burn if Derek Chauvin were not convicted raises questions about whether the jury’s verdict was reached dispassionately. Heather Mac Donald

https://www.city-journal.org/chauvin-verdict-and-americas-troubled-rule-of-law

America’s cities did not burn last night. But the terrified preparations in Minneapolis and elsewhere in anticipation of the George Floyd verdict—the razor wire and barricades around government buildings, the activation of the National Guard, the declaration in Minnesota of a “peacetime emergency,” the fortified police presence, the curfews, the cancellation of school, the boarded up businesses—raise serious questions about the rule of law in the United States. Had the jury failed to convict Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin on all three counts of murder and manslaughter, the ensuing riots would likely have made the conflagrations of 2020 look like a Girl Scout campfire.

This likely outcome was evident long before Congresswoman Maxine Waters encouraged such violence over the weekend. Last year’s precedent, the ensuing 12 months of wildly inaccurate rhetoric about white supremacy, and the recent looting in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, over a fatal police shooting made such rioting a virtual certainty. That inflammatory rhetoric poured forth from every institution in the country—from the presidency, Congress, corporations, law firms, banks, tech companies, academia, and the public school system. The mainstream media pounded home the narrative about unchanging black oppression. And even after the verdict, the White House (perhaps that name will be gone in another year) and the press have doubled down on the systemic racism conceit, despite the coordinated effort to convict among Minnesota’s public officials and the state’s most prestigious members of the private bar.

Going forward, it is an open question whether any police officer can receive a trial free from mob pressure, should he be prosecuted for use of lethal force.

DOJ indicts Illinois professor for secretly working for China while getting US government grants: Jerry Dunleavy

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/doj-indicts-illinois-professor-secretly-working-china-while-getting-us-government-grants

The Justice Department indicted a Chinese-born Illinois college professor on two counts of wire fraud and a false statements charge for secretly working for a Chinese government-affiliated university and concealing those ties when applying for and receiving a $151,099 grant from the U.S. government’s National Science Foundation.

Mingqing Xiao, 59, was accused on Wednesday of “fraudulently” obtaining the federal grant money “by concealing support he was receiving from the Chinese government and a Chinese university” while he worked as a mathematics professor at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he has been employed since 2000. Prosecutors said Xiao “applied for and received NSF grant funds … without informing NSF about another, overlapping grant he had already received from the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province, China” and “failed to inform NSF that he was on the payroll” of Shenzhen University.

“Again, an American professor stands accused of enabling the Chinese government’s efforts to corruptly benefit from U.S. research funding by lying about his obligations to, and support from, an arm of the Chinese government and a Chinese public university,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers said Wednesday.

The D.C. Statehood Gambit The latest House Democratic power grab is unconstitutional.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-d-c-statehood-gambit-11619045039?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

A week after the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee introduced legislation to pack the Supreme Court by adding four new Justices, the House is set to vote on a bill to pack the U.S. Senate by adding two new Senators. Unlike court-packing, the bill granting statehood to Washington, D.C., has majority support among elected Democrats and the official backing of the White House. But the impetus behind both measures is the same—to tilt the constitutional playing field and consolidate liberal power.

Fashioning an independent seat of government in a federal system while affording representation to its residents is a dilemma dating to the founding. The Framers provided in the Constitution’s Article I that Congress could, “by cession of particular states,” control a small area in which the federal government would operate. In 1790 part of the territories of Virginia and Maryland, two of the 13 states that ratified the Constitution, were delineated for federal control.

Advocates of statehood brush aside the constitutional concerns and frame their cause as a simple question of democracy. It’s true that the roughly 700,000 residents of the District don’t have the ability to elect voting Members of Congress. Many hold influence over the federal government as employees and contractors or in other positions, and in the Founding era proximity to the seat of power was itself considered a form of representation.

Yet the natural remedy for the imperfect status quo, if representation is the real concern, would be for Congress to do something it has done before—return part of the District to the state that ceded it in the first place. That’s what happened in 1846 when Congress reinstated Virginia’s control over the D.C. suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria.

Biden Indicts the Minneapolis Police Investigating the entire department will burden the crime-plagued city.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-indicts-the-minneapolis-police-11619045332?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Derek Chauvin awaits his murder sentence at a Minnesota Correctional Facility, yet the federal government spared hardly a moment before shifting its scrutiny toward his former colleagues. A new Justice Department probe of the Minneapolis Police Department is targeting the city’s officers in an effort to prove the Democratic narrative of “systemic” police racism.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday announced a pattern-or-practice investigation of Minneapolis police. Federal investigators in coming months will examine the department’s record and policing methods. If they find behavior they dislike, they have the power to force reform of the department through a consent decree. Mr. Garland referred to the process as a matter of straightforward oversight, saying “good officers welcome accountability.”

Yet Minneapolis police are right to suspect that Washington is probing them with a foregone conclusion. In his address after Mr. Chauvin’s conviction Tuesday, President Biden said his Administration’s next step would be “confronting head-on systemic racism and the racial disparities that exist in policing.” The man who drafted the 1994 crime bill that led to the arrest of countless black drug users is now claiming racism is endemic among American police.

Last May then-Attorney General William Barr launched a federal civil-rights probe into the death of George Floyd in police custody, and that investigation continues. But Democrats are now expanding the charge of wrongdoing to the entire department, seeking proof that Mr. Chauvin’s actions represent the culture of policing today. No matter that the Minneapolis police chief since 2017, Medaria Arradondo, testified for the prosecution in the Chauvin trial and has pushed to reform certain police practices like choke holds.

How Much Ruin Do We Have Left? Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/04/21/how-much-ruin-do-we-have-left/

As Americans know from their own illustrious history, any nation’s well-being hinges on only a few factors. Its prosperity, freedom and overall stability depend on its constitutional and political stability. A secure currency and financial order are also essential, as is a strong military.

Perhaps most important is a first-rate inductive educational system. Of course, nothing is possible without general social calm (often dependent on a reverence for the past) and secure borders.

The ability to produce or easily acquire food, fuel and key natural resources ensures a nation’s independence and autonomy.

Unfortunately, in the last few months, all of those centuries-old reasons to be confident in American strength and resiliency have been put into doubt.

The challenge is not just enemies abroad such as China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. The greater problem lies within us, as we erode the inherited and acquired strengths that made us singular, both materially and spiritually.

We are now witnessing a concentrated effort to alter the constitutional order and centuries of custom and tradition. The left believes that’s the only way it can retain its transient power, given the unpopularity of most of its current agenda.

A nation’s institutions are its bedrock. Yet, the Electoral College and the Constitution’s emphasis on individual states establishing voting laws are under assault.

Why A Free People Cannot Exist Without Free Speech Free speech in America is not a custom of deference to the law — it is the law’s deference to the people’s ancient cultural right. By Kyle Sammin

https://thefederalist.com/2021/04/21/why-a-free-people-cannot-exist-without-free-speech/

Free speech is perhaps the most important liberty Americans enjoy. People exercise it every day without even thinking about it, and for good reason it is mentioned in the very first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But free speech is more than just the words in the Bill of Rights. Before there was a law, there was the idea of free speech. The law limits the government to protect the right, but does not define the right.

More than simply a legal issue, free speech is a part of American culture—an important distinction. If free speech meant only the words in the Constitution, if all it guaranteed were that the government could not jail us for our words, it would be a dead letter. Governments across the world guarantee rights in their laws yet violate them daily.

Indeed, free speech was not invented in 1791. The law only codifies what the Founders and their contemporaries already believed: that a free people must be allowed to openly express themselves, and that the cure for bad ideas is good ideas, not censorship.

The First Amendment is essential, but the American people believe in the principle of free speech. That includes more than just being free of government punishment. It includes the idea that no power — be it government, corporation, or mob — should be able to suppress the free exchange of ideas.

We often speak of the “marketplace of ideas,” and just as with markets for goods, the concept came first, and laws to protect it followed. Now, the concept is under threat. Should it fail, and should deplatforming, monopoly pressures, and “heckler’s vetoes” become accepted practices, then no matter what the law says, free speech as a concept will die.

The English Roots of Free Speech