Clarence Thomas Delivers Decisive Ruling in Religious-Free-Speech Case By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/clarence-thomas-delivers-decisive-ruling-in-religious-free-speech-case/

The case, Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, centered on how to address violations of civil rights that cause no economic damage.

  W hat could be more American than a religious-free-speech lawsuit with the name Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski? At issue in the case is state-funded Georgia Gwinnett College’s “free speech zone” policy, which Stanley Kurtz has aptly summarized elsewhere on this site:

Georgia Gwinnett’s two tiny speech zones occupy less than 0.0015 percent of the campus, and are open only 18 hours a week. If you want to speak in public or leaflet about politics or religion anywhere on campus on a Friday, for example, it had better be in those tiny zones between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. or you’re out of luck — and even then you’ll have to get authorization three business days in advance.

Student Chike Uzuegbunam, an Evangelical Christian, was told that if he wanted to evangelize his faith to his fellow students, he would have to apply three days in advance for a permit, and then confine his activities to one of the two free-speech zones. After receiving the permit, he was told by campus cops that he could not share his faith even in one of the speech zones, because doing so violated a campus ban on “disturb[ing] the peace and/or comfort of person(s).” (Of course, these days, almost any opinion, especially on matters of faith, will make someone on campus uncomfortable.) So he sued, represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and supported by Jeff Sessions and the Trump Justice Department. In response, the college changed the policy and tried to get the lawsuit dismissed as moot. Eventually, the issue reached the Supreme Court. And today, Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a clear victory for the plaintiffs.

A bit of background: Courts of law do not exist to issue pronouncements in the abstract about constitutional rights and wrongs; federal courts are restricted to deciding “cases or controversies” in which some particular person, entity, or group has suffered a particular injury and that injury can be relieved by the judiciary. Standing to sue is commonly described as having three elements: (1) injury, (2) traceability, and (3) redressability. Injury means that the plaintiff has suffered a concrete, proven harm. Traceability means that the plaintiff’s injury can fairly be said to have been caused by the defendant’s acts. Redressability means that the kind of relief the plaintiff seeks — e.g. money, an injunction, a declaratory judgment — is within the court’s power to provide.

Sarah Taylor: New medication to treat COVID-19 could quickly turn pandemic on its head: ‘It may be the holy grail’

https://www.theblaze.com/news/new-medication-treat-covid-holy-grail?utm_source=theblaze-breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel said over the weekend that experimental drug molnupiravir could “be the future” of coronavirus treatment, according to a Monday report from Fox News.

Siegel predicted the at-home therapeutic, which could hit the U.S. market in four to five months, could be enough to turn the pandemic on its head and prove to be the “holy grail” of COVID-19 treatment.

On Sunday’s “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Siegel said, “It may be the holy grail on this because it was just studied in phase two trials and it literally stopped the virus in its tracks. And there wasn’t any virus found in the patients that were studied.”

First-stage testing on the drug, which is from Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, showed “promising signs of effectiveness in reducing the virus in patients,” the outlet noted.

The drug, according to Fox, would be used at home as a five-day treatment, not unlike how Tamiflu is prescribed to combat the effects of influenza.

Dragon Ships: China’s Naval Threat by Peter Schweizer

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17159/china-naval-threat

China’s navy is now the world’s largest. It has been for some time. The U.S. Navy may still rule the oceans, but the Chinese rule the vital trade routes in the South China Sea.

China means to threaten the economic security of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and others. America must remain resolute in the face of this build-up in order to maintain freedom of commerce in the Asian seas.

They would say their naval buildup is “for defensive purposes,” but their neighbors do not buy that for a minute…. [China’s] clear intention, for now at least, is to overwhelm anything in its vicinity that threatens its expansion and domination of the Asian sea lanes.

As the Pentagon also noted in its report, the Chinese Communist Party does not intend for its navy to be merely “a showpiece of China’s modernity or to keep it focused solely on regional threats.” It will grow with China’s ambitions.

Its fourth aircraft carrier, however, is expected to be China’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and its first to use advanced launching and landing systems…. Thus, China intends to have a blue-water navy to challenge the U.S. in several years.

All the force investments in the world won’t matter if the US fails to impose enough diplomatic and economic costs to alter Chinese behavior.” — Gregory Poling, director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deutsche Welle, October 21, 2020.

For Americans used to having the biggest and most modern military forces in the world, it is humbling to realize that China’s Navy is now the world’s largest. It has been for some time. The U.S. Navy may still rule the oceans, but China rules the vital trade routes in the South China Sea.

Pentagon planners know this and have called out China’s work on building both capital ships and the swarms of smaller escort vessels that will project the dragon’s breath across those critical trade routes for years to come. The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) is building their capability to control and possibly interdict shipping from other Asian nations, mostly as an economic and political lever. China means to threaten the economic security of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and others. America must remain resolute in the face of this build-up in order to maintain freedom of commerce in the Asian seas.

Biden’s latest executive order is his most frightening yet By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/03/bidens_latest_executive_order_is_his_most_frightening_yet.html

“It also seems as if its worst part should be easy to challenge on constitutional grounds, assuming an honest Supreme Court.”

The Democrats who now control Washington, D.C., are determined to change America’s election laws to ensure that they never lose another election. The first salvo in this battle was the House’s vote passing H.R. 1, which opens federal elections to all types of fraud and manipulation. On Sunday, Joe Biden added his bit to the effort by signing yet another Executive Order, this one ostensibly to enhance “voting rights” on the anniversary of the Selma protests in 1965. However, the Order is drafted to allow the federal government to control political speech.

As with most of Biden’s initiatives, it frames the power grab in terms of race (emphasis mine):

The right to vote is the foundation of American democracy.  Free and fair elections that reflect the will of the American people must be protected and defended. But many Americans, especially people of color, confront significant obstacles to exercising that fundamental right. These obstacles include difficulties with voter registration, lack of election information, and barriers to access at polling places.  For generations, Black voters and other voters of color have faced discriminatory policies and other obstacles that disproportionally affect their communities.

Once again, the leftist premise for increasing opportunities for election fraud is the theory that Blacks lack the mental capacity to navigate the American system without the Democrat party at their side, supporting them. It’s an amazingly offensive position but, sadly, Democrats have conditioned Blacks for decades to believe in their own helplessness.

Having established the premise – Blacks are helpless – the edict sets out the solutions: Making it easy to register to vote, vote by mail, and cast ballots; making on-line access to information easier; distributing voter registration and vote-by-mail forms; and helping people fill out the forms. The more worrisome one requires “soliciting and facilitating approved, nonpartisan third-party organizations and State officials to provide voter registration services on agency premises.”

Iraq: Turkey Set to Attack the Yazidis? by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17151/turkey-attack-yazidis

If Turkey targets Sinjar, it will not be the first Turkish military assault against the region. In 2017, Turkish warplanes dropped bombs on Sinjar, hitting a civilian clinic.

“‘[A]nalysts should understand that the fundamental reason that Yezidis join military units is to defend the land from a genocidal invasion…. no one, including Turkey, has the right to expel Yezidis from their homeland under the pretext of the conflict with PKK.” — Pari Ibrahim, Executive Director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.

“We want Sinjar to be under the control of formal Iraqi security forces…. according to the rule of law. Turkey wants much more than Sinjar. Turkey wants to use various excuses to expand its military presence in Iraq and Syria. The whole PKK claim is just an excuse for Turkey’s expansionism in the region.” — Murad Ismael, former executive director of Yazda, interview with Gatestone, February 12, 2021

“Yezidis literally suffered a genocide at the hands of ISIS… Turkey did not take any steps whatsoever to combat ISIS before, during, or after the ISIS atrocities. But now, when Yezidis have been left homeless and are striving to rebuild our land, Turkey warns that it may unilaterally and illegally attack Sinjar…. this is our homeland. It is not a battleground for other forces to use as they see fit.” — Pari Ibrahim, interview with Gatestone, February 3, 2021.

Turkey’s armed forces launched a military operation called “Operation Claw-Eagle 2” against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq on February 10. The assault resulted in the deaths of 13 Turkish hostages, including military and police personnel who were being held by the PKK in a cave complex in the mountainous Gara region.

Turkey’s military operation, in the form of airstrikes, was completed on February 14. Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar announced that 48 PKK members had been “neutralized” in the operation, adding that the PKK had shot the hostages dead — one in the shoulder, and the rest in their heads.

The PKK, however, said that the deaths of the hostages had been caused by the “Turkish army’s heavy bombardments and intense fighting outside and inside the [PKK] camp.”

Iranian Terrorists Claim to Have Active Cells in Washington, D.C. ‘Resistance cells are rooted even in America and its capital’

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/iranian-terrorists-claim-to-have-active-cells-in-washington-d-c/

Iranian militia groups claim to have active cells of operatives stationed in Washington, D.C., and other U.S. cities, according to chatter in online forums used by these groups.

Kawtheryoon Electronic Team, a Telegram network used by Iranian militia groups and supporters, claimed in a recent posting that Iranian “resistance cells are rooted even in America and its capital,” according to a copy of the English-language posting captured by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which tracks radical groups.

The group additionally claimed that terror factions associated with Iran are growing stronger and attracting more support than ever before. The group demanded the United States withdraw all of its troops from Iraq and the Middle East. The post included a picture of caskets containing U.S. soldiers.

China’s Role in Global Lockdowns: The Smoking Gun

https://www.aier.org/article/chinas-role-in-global-lockdowns-the-smoking-gun/

This time last year, Americans were blindsided by a shocking policy to shut down the US economy to control a virus. The presumption of the officials who enacted this policy is that it would be far more deadly than it turned out to be. They further presumed that the virus could be controlled using state power, precisely as China had claimed to have done in Wuhan. 

There are so many problems with all these presumptions, and AIER has covered them almost daily since January 2020. What we’ve lacked until now is an inside look into how US officials, the architects of the lockdowns, went about their decision making. What were their influences? Who was pushing for these policies? 

For the better part of a year, evidence has been mounting that the Chinese Communist Party played an outsized role. We have Dr. Fauci on the record praising the Wuhan response, and many World Health Organization officials as well. AIER has published much of this evidence already. Our December 8, 2020, article on the topic prompted a steady torrent of DDoS attacks on our site that continue to this day. 

Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request initiated by Judicial Watch, we now have 300 pages of emails that landed on Fauci’s email account. They are a picture of chaos. Within that chaos, there is one dominant influence: China. We learn that a US delegation actually went to China to learn about pandemic response in mid-February. We see US officials praising the Communist Party and the “lockdowns” while plotting them right here in the US. 

There is much more to discover within the Fauci emails, which are revealing despite all the redactions. For your reading pleasure or disgust, we offer them here.

J Street’s Selective Memory on Palestinian Antisemitism by Moshe Phillips

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/03/04/j-streets-selective-memory-on-palestinian-antisemitism/

Dylan Williams of J Street, in a recent op-ed, called on the Biden administration to “rebuild the U.S. relationship with moderate Palestinian leaders.”

Since presumably J Street would not claim that the leaders of the genocidal Hamas terrorist group are “moderate,” then the “moderate Palestinian leaders” Williams and J Street have in mind must be Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas and those around him.

Less than three years ago — on April 30, 2018 — Abbas stood before the opening session of the Palestine National Council (PNC) and delivered a blatantly antisemitic speech.

Abbas stated that Jews have “no historical ties” to the Land of Israel because they are actually descendants of the Turkish Khazar tribe (a bizarre and long-discredited conspiracy theory).

Also, Abbas said that there has never been an antisemitic incident against Jews in Arab countries — “Not even once,” he declared. “Do you think I’m exaggerating? I challenge you [to find] even one incident against Jews in over 1,400 years.”

Then Abbas insinuated that the Holocaust was caused by the Jews’ own “social behavior, [charging] interest, and financial matters.”

Abbas’ previous claims about the Holocaust — described in detail in his 1982 doctoral dissertation and subsequent book — include that only a few hundred thousand, not six million, Jews were killed by the Nazis; and that David Ben-Gurion collaborated with the Nazis to kill Jews, in order to garner world sympathy for creating a Jewish state.

Hitting Woke Herd Immunity?  We have become an absurd society obsessed with race but without any mechanism to develop a logical category of victimization and reparation.  By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/07/hitting-woke-herd-immunity/

Two recent polls suggest wokism is beginning to recede on a variety of fronts, from less trust in Black Lives Matter and more confidence in the police, to suspicion that the Capitol “insurrection” account is being used to unfairly suppress political expression while Antifa, increasingly, is seen as a terrorist organization whose violence has been ignored improperly by authorities.

There are tens of millions of Americans who either have been stung, or turned off, by McCarthyite wokeness (and thus have anti-wokeness antibodies). More have been vaccinated from its latest virulent strains by their own values of judging people as individuals, not as racial or gender collectives. So lots of Americans have developed peremptory defenses against it. The result is that daily there are ever-fewer who are susceptible to the woke pandemic. And it will thus begin to fade out—even as the virus desperately seeks to mutate and go after more institutions.

Peak wokeness is nearing also because if it continued in its present incarnation, then the United States as we know would cease to exist—in the sense that 1692-93 Salem or 1793-94 Paris could not have continued apace without destroying society. Woke leftism exists to destroy and tear down, not to unite and build. It is not designed to play down and heal racial differences, but to accentuate and capitalize on them.

Scattershot Immunity

AOC’s Coven of Spitting, #MeFirst Cobras  What makes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s beguiling, baby-like behavior dangerous is that she uses the idiom of emotional anguish to derive legislative leverage.  By Ilana Mercer

https://amgreatness.com/2021/03/07/aocs-coven-of-spitting-mefirst-cobras/

The media scrum framed the Trump impeachment circus, round two, as an “emotional” affair.

Headlines homed in on the “emotion” surrounding the trial. “It Tears at Your Heart. Democrats Make an Emotional Case to Senators—and America—Against Trump,” blared one of many hackneyed screamers, this one from Time.

The case made by the managers “was both meticulous and emotional,” came the repetitive refrain.

Democrat Jamie Raskin, a representative from Maryland and a lead impeachment manager, sniffed “emotionally” as he related what to him was a heartbreaking tidbit: His (privileged) daughter expressed fear of visiting the Capitol again, presumably because of the January 6 fracas. That made Jamie cry. 

And when Jamie Raskin cries, normies outside Rome-on-the-Potomac laugh. Uproariously. 

Impeachment managers had warned all present in the Senate chamber that evidentiary footage would be upsetting. Their presentations were “intentionally emotional,” intoned CNN’s Dana Bash, who had paired up with one Abby Phillips for the “solemn” affair. Phillips’ “coverage” of all things Trump, in scratchy vocal fry, was a reminder that the Left’s “empaneled witches and their housebroken boys are guided more by the spirit of Madame Defarge than by lady justice.”

A lady in an armadillo outfit emoted a lot. She was impeachment manager Stacey Plaskett (D-V.I.). Although not particularly fashionable or feminine, there was a ton of “emotional” praise on the internet for Plaskett’s attire. Armani’s armadillo apparel was certainly a preferred distraction to the decibels of weepy rage emitted over the Trump protest.