The White House and DC last night: A Contrast between Law and Lawlessness By Carol Greenwald

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/the_white_house_and_dc_last_night_a_contrast_between_law_and_lawlessness_.html#ixzz6WQqU6god

Last night I was privileged to attend the final night of the Republican National Convention as a guest sitting on the South Lawn of the White House. It was a sultry Washington DC summer evening and the guests were happy and excited to be there. But getting there had been a shock.

I was part of the Maryland delegation who had met for dinner at the Williard hotel across the street from the White House. We were told that the Maryland Republican Party had hired armed security guards to walk us across the street to the White House grounds. I said that I was glad to have the guards since I could hear the screaming mob but was deeply offended that it was necessary to be under armed guard to cross a street in my nation’s capital.

During the evening, we could hear the noise from the protestors in the streets as they tried to drown out the speakers. They seemed to have brought noise makers. They were not successful, but it was a constant drumbeat in the background, letting us know that our fellow citizens did not believe that the President of the U.S. should be allowed to present his case for re-election.

I do not know if the television stations showed what happened after the amazing fireworks display. The entire First Family stayed on the stage and joined with the crowd in singing a medley of traditional American greats like “America the Beautiful” and  “I’m Proud to Be an American.” It was wonderful.

‘We Act Like a Bunch of Punks:’ Black Tennessee Lawmaker Shames Rioters, Invokes Family Legacy of Peaceful Protest By Zachary Evans

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/we-act-like-a-bunch-of-punks-black-tennessee-lawmaker-shames-rioters-invokes-family-legacy-of-peaceful-protest/

Tennessee State Representative John Deberry, a Democrat from Memphis, tore into rioters and demonstrators in Portland, Seattle, and elsewhere in the U.S. in a blistering speech to the Tennessee House earlier this month.

Deberry spoke as lawmakers debated a law on August 12 to increase penalties for demonstrators suspected of certain violent offenses against police officers, including throwing bodily excrement at officers. Deberry, who is African American, repeatedly referenced his family’s participation in the civil rights activism of the mid-twentieth century to draw a contrast between that movement and current demonstrations.

“People who are looking at what’s happening in Washington, in Detroit, in Portland and Seattle–they’re getting emboldened because we act like a bunch of punks, too frightened to stand up and protect our own stuff,” Deberry said. “You’re telling me that someone got the right to tear down property that Tennessee taxpayers paid for? That American taxpayers paid for? And somebody has the right to destroy it, deface it, and tear it down? What kind of people have we become that we can’t protect our own stuff?!”

HEROES Act: Democrats’ Wasteful Bailout C By Thomas W. Smith & Adam Andrzejewski

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/08/28/heroes_act_democrats_wasteful_bailout.html

Taxpayers of America, you may soon be funding a $500 billion bailout of the 50 states, all U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia. But where is this vast sum of money going?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “HEROES Act” — more accurately titled “Pelosi Throw-Money-at-the-States Bailout Bill” — vividly illustrates why transparency is crucial. If the Senate passes the legislation, taxpaying citizens of financially responsible states will bear the burden of financially irresponsible states.

At OpenTheBooks, our goal is transparency. We are nonpartisan. We believe you, the American taxpayer, should be able to access every government expense — local, state, and federal — in real-time on your mobile phone, iPad, and computer. It’s your money. You deserve to see where every dime is spent. We have posted 5 billion government expenditures online.

Last year, we filed 41,500 Freedom of Information Act requests. We documented the salaries and pensions of 23 million public employee. We sued three states that refused to give us information about how they spent your money.

Here are a few of the unlimited examples in just four “deep blue” Democratic areas — California, New York, and Illinois, along with Washington, D.C. Here you can see how your tax dollars are wasted, which the Pelosi Bailout Bill conveniently overlooks, and why blank checks are unwise even during an economic crisis.

New York’s Big Brother Has Gone Bananas By Jack Cashill

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/new_yorks_big_brother_has_gone_bananas.html

In reading the New York State travel advisory, I am reminded of one of my favorite scenes from a Woody Allen movie, this one from Bananas.  Having ascended to power, the dictatorial rebel leader Esposito announces his new rules for San Marcos:

From this day on, the official language of San Marcos will be Swedish. … In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now…16 years old!

Woody’s character Fielding Mellish cracks, “What’s the Spanish word for straitjacket?”  The Spanish word is camisa de fuerza.  The Swedish word is tvångströja.  In any language, Gov. Andrew Cuomo surely needs one.  It is bad enough that he is running the state by executive order.  Worse is that the orders are nuts.  If Woody Allen were to make a comic version of 1984, he could model “Big Brother” on Andrew Cuomo.

Last week, I flew into Buffalo.  It was my first flight this year into New York, a state in which I have owned a summer cottage for the last 30 years.  Coming from Missouri, a state on New York’s travel advisory, I had to fill out a two-sided form promising that I would quarantine in place for 14 days.  As if.

Missouri has had about 25 COVID-19 deaths per 100,00 people.  New York has had about 165.  In the western part of Missouri where I live, the rate is considerably lower.  No matter.  By some perverse calculation, my return to New York threatened to put the state’s residents at some elevated risk.

To visit my own cottage, I had to promise not to be in public or otherwise leave the quarters that they have identified as “suitable.”  These “quarters” — how quaint — had to have “separate bathroom facilities for each individual or family group.”  More than that, I had to have “access to a sink with soap and water, and paper towels.”

The Fatal Attraction Of Faction Gary M. Galles

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/28/the-fatal-attraction-of-faction/

So far, 2020 has been a dystopian nightmare from George Washington’s perspective. He was once “first in war, first in peace, and first in the minds of his countrymen,” as Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee eulogized him. But now statues of Washington are being toppled, damaged and defaced.

Our first president, who paid careful attention to setting precedents that might allow America not to only survive, but to “live long and prosper,” would find such acts nearly a mirror image of his hopes for what could make our experiment in liberty last. How do we know? Just look at his emphatic warnings to do everything possible to avoid the violence of faction in his 1796 farewell address in contrast to the violence of faction that has played out on our city streets.  

Washington offered “sentiments which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people.” In particular, he insisted that we keep “indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest.”

One of the expedients of party to acquire influence … is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other[s]. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.

Is The Coronavirus Crisis Finally Over?

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/08/28/is-the-coronavirus-crisis-finally-over/

Much of America has been in some phase or another of a lockdown since the middle of March. Most of us want to know when we can return to normal. But the officials who have cooped us up, shut down businesses, ruined personal finances, outlawed gatherings, and created an environment of fear won’t tell us when we’ll be free of their grip. To call our situation discouraging is to understate the case.

Numbers from the Centers for Disease Control’s most recently posted data set are reason for optimism, though. The chart below shows the most current figures available, through the week of Aug. 15.

The blue bars that indicate overall weekly deaths, which have been inflated due to COVID-19 fatalities, have almost converged with the roughly horizontal line that shows the average expected number of deaths. The two are the closest they have been since March 21, right after the pandemic lockdowns. Based on the trend, we should expect the bars and the baseline to fully converge when the newest data set is released next week. In other words, back to normal.

An Open Letter to Julia Louis-Dreyfus Reconsider your stand if you consider yourself anything of an advocate for the people. Bruce Bawer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/open-letter-julia-louis-dreyfus-bruce-bawer/

Dear Julia,

To begin with, though I found Watching Ellie stunningly bad, though The New Adventures of Old Christine left a bad taste in my mouth, and though I’ve never been able to get into Veep (which feels to me hopelessly derivative of better one-camera comedy series like Curb Your Enthusiasm), I still have a residual fondness of you based on your performance as Elaine in Seinfeld. So I was dismayed to learn that you were lending your talents to the fourth and final night of this year’s Democratic National Convention. And sure enough, even as the rioters and vandals and anarchists were destroying Portland, Oregon, and other cities under the twin banners of Black Lives Matter and Antifa – the former of which the Democratic Party openly celebrates and the latter of which they refuse to condemn – there you were on our screens, as big as life, flashing a bright smile and acting as if absolutely none of these horrors were taking place.

No, instead of acknowledging the madness in the streets, you stood there, describing yourself as “a loyal union member, a passionate climate activist, and a patriotic Democrat,” heaping hyperbolic praise on Michelle Obama (“joking” that her speech had been so spectacular that there’d be a fifth convention night on which it would be re-run “on a loop”) and Kamala “Lock-‘Em-Up” Harris (“She was fabulous!” you gushed), and implying, with a breathtakingly irresponsible gag about Putin, that the disgusting lies about Trump-Russia collusion, now known to have been concocted by crooked leaders of the Obama Administration in what may turn out to be the most scandalous top-down betrayal of the U.S. Constitution on record, were, in fact, true.

Then there was that special moment that you led up to with this ardent declamation:

Here’s the big question. How much of your time and energy are you willing to devote to elect Joe Biden?

Charles Jacobs Video: The Failure of Jewish Leadership Today The leadership of major Jewish organizations is failing to protect the community. Why?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/charles-jacobs-video-failure-jewish-leadership-frontpagemagcom/

This video is brought to you by a Freedom Center-Glazov Gang collaboration on a new exclusive webinar series, Teach-Ins for the Twenty-First Century. Join us as some of the leading thinkers and pundits on the scene today discuss key issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and its ongoing implications, confronting the Left, the jihad terror threat, and much, much more. And make sure to ask your own questions of our experts.

Hosted by Anni Cyrus, producer of The Glazov Gang and Founder of Live Up To Freedom.

This new webinar features Dr. Charles Jacobs, the president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance,

Charles discusses The Failure of Jewish Leadership Today, unveiling how the leadership of major Jewish organizations is failing to protect the community. And he answers the question: Why?

Don’t miss it!

Black-Only Student Housing on NYU Campus? Welcome to racial self-segregation in the age of post-oppression. Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/black-only-student-housing-nyu-campus-jason-d-hill/

In yet another gesture of shameful appeasement to racist demands by black students for yet more racial self-segregation in the Age of Post-Oppression, New York University recently opened negotiations with students to create black resident floors on campus next year. A “themed engagement floor” for black students is being advanced by a group called “Black Violets NYU.” The group has complained that the overwhelming presence of white students has made it difficult for black students “to connect.” Black Violets has also called for more black professors in its politics department, and for the creation of a black student lounge on campus.

In June of this year, students at Rice University had demanded that the University fund a “non-residential Black House” on campus. They also wanted a statue of the university’s founder removed. Other demands included that new students’ requests for black roommates be met during orientation weeks. This demand is clearly at odds with federal civil rights laws. Other demands included that course descriptions have tags indicating what race and ethnic groups are involved, since  several course titles did not make it clear if diverse perspectives were offered in their course materials. 

We must jog our memories and remember that in June, 2017 Harvard University held separate commencement ceremonies for black graduate students. One hundred and twenty students attended the third LatinX commencement ceremony replete with Latin music. Emory University and Henry College held diversity and inclusion year-end ceremonies. The University of Delaware joined a growing list with “Lavender” graduations.

There is no doubt that by the time this article is published there will be a multiplicity of schools meeting mostly new black students’ demands for special black student lounges, all-black dorms, black seating spaces in cafeterias, and more spaces such as we witnessed at Evergreen University — where white people are absent for days so black students can have a time on campus to feel special as black people. What next? All black libraries with only black authors, black gyms, black professors teaching only black students to avoid the racial trauma of being taught by a white instructor? If you think this is hyperbolic, observe that one of the demands made by the black students at Rice University is that the school hire more black counselors and therapists, and that they be trained in how to handle racial trauma.  

China’s ‘Debt-Trap’ Diplomacy with Third-World Nations by Lawrence A. Franklin

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16396/china-debt-trap-diplomacy

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping’s grand thoroughfares are now global in scope, extending as far as Djibouti, a strategic maritime chokepoint in Africa, just west of the Arabian Peninsula, or Ecuador, home to South America’s third-largest oil reserves.

The economic benefits, however, of some of these deals between China and poor “Third World” countries in Africa and Latin America are questionable. A few of these bilateral packages appear contrived to imprison already impoverished states into realms of permanent economic vassalage to China.

The objectives of China’s global BRI programs are clearly as much strategic and political as they are economic. BRI projects seem not designed so much to win new friends as to win new dependents, especially in areas either neglected by the West or in the Western sphere of influence.

The ultimate objective of the global dimension of China’s BRI enterprise appears to be geared toward replacing the existing political, military and economic dimension of the West’s liberal democratic order — again not surprisingly — with one dominated solely by the Communist Party of China.

Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy proposal has been the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) commercial and strategic program. At first, the network was pitched as a restoration of the ancient overland trade route, the “Silk Road,” that linked China to Europe. This “New Silk Road,” like its predecessor, would traverse the vast steppes of Central Asia — but the contemporary BRI is allegedly meant to serve also as an economic boon for all the countries along the route.