POLITICS Comments turned off

Voter-shaming by the left hits a new low Ruthie Blum

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/voter-shaming-by-the-left-hits-a-new-low/

There is a huge difference between rejecting a politician and debasing his supporters.

(June 23, 2020 / JNS) During a lecture at the New York-based Modern Language Association in the immediate aftermath of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s landslide re-election in November 1972, the late American film critic, Pauline Kael, made a memorable statement.

“I live in a rather special world,” the outspoken movie reviewer acknowledged. “I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where [the rest of them] are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes, when I’m in a theater, I can feel them.”

Though the quote has been bastardized a bit over the years, its gist remains intact—and not only in the United States. What it illustrated nearly five decades ago still holds in Western societies: That no matter how widespread a stance, if it is antithetical to the sentiment and sensibilities of the so-called “intelligentsia” (and of those aspiring to the title), it is rendered invisible.

It is also seen, or at least portrayed, as frightening in some way. Kael admitted to knowing only a single Nixon voter, but said that she could sense others lurking, almost threateningly, in the rows of seats around her in darkened cinemas.

Imagine her amazement, then, when the faceless figures “outside [her] ken” turned out to be a majority of the electorate. After all, no such people ever had graced her table—unless, perhaps, they were serving the meal or cleaning up after it.

BOOKS Comments turned off

The Pathology of American Communism By Lauren Weiner

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-pathology-of-american-communism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick (Verso, 288 pp., $19.95)

Progressives may be riding high these days, but Vivian Gornick believes they lack good role models as they set about trying to “achieve a more just world from the bottom up.” Gornick, the New York journalist and memoirist whose radical feminist writings appeared regularly in the Village Voice, believes The Romance of American Communism is what they need. Verso has reissued her 1977 book, a group portrait of the men and women of her parents’ generation who embraced Communism during its mid-20th-century heyday. 

Much of America scorned the “old Reds,” to use Gornick’s term. The reasons why come through clearly in the interviews she conducted. Her quixotic mission is to make us warm to her interviewees even as they relate, in excruciating detail, how disillusioned the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) left them. One testifies to “all the bullying, all the petty despotism, and all the real horror of being tied to the Soviet line.” His comment is typical. Summarizing the book’s recollections of life in the Party in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Gornick writes: “There are many, many Communists who remember with fear and self-loathing the cruelties both inflicted and received” in the name of “democratic centralism,” the Leninist concept around which a “vicious tyranny,” the CPUSA, was built.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Removal of SDNY’s Interim U.S. Attorney is Washington, Not Watergate By Andrew C. McCarthy

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/removal-of-sdnys-interim-u-s-attorney-is-washington-not-watergate/

Democrats weave a scandal out of an overdue personnel move.

On Saturday evening, I posted an extensive column on the homepage, exploring this weekend’s contretemps between Attorney General William Barr and Geoffrey Berman, the now-former interim United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (where I was a prosecutor for nearly 20 years).

The more one looks at this, the more clear it becomes that Democrats are contorting a long-overdue personnel move into a scandal. This is not an accident. We are four months from Election Day, and Barr has indicated we may be closer to some sort of reckoning in Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham’s investigation. Barr’s deservedly stellar pre-Trump reputation notwithstanding, the president’s opposition is determined to discredit him and, derivatively, any malfeasance uncovered by Durham’s scrutiny of the Obama administration’s Trump-Russia probe.

It is dysfunctional of the Trump administration not to have installed a confirmed SDNY U.S. Attorney serving a four-year term. The post is among the most consequential in the Justice Department — indeed, in the government. Attorney General Barr has been trying to reestablish normalcy in that regard. For the reasons I laid out in the column, however, it is not easy to get nominees confirmed when Democrats hold both Senate seats in the state where the district is located.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Triumph of the Country Mouse By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/protests-urban-chaos-americans-will-seek-to-avoid-big-cities/

 I n Aesop’s Fables and Horace’s Satires a common classical allegory is variously retold about the country mouse and his sophisticated urban cousin.

The city-slicker mouse first visits his rustic cousin’s simple rural hole and is quickly bored and unimpressed by both the calm and the simple fare.

When the roles are soon reversed, the country cousin at first is delighted by big-city mouse’s sumptuous urban food scraps and the majestic halls where they may scuttle about. But as the crafty clawed house cat and sharp-toothed guard dogs threaten both, and the noise and bustle mount, the stressed-out country mouse scampers home — at last realizing that his unappreciated quiet and safe abode trump action and sophistication every time.

These Greek and Roman fables reflect the classical world’s paradox of not particularly enjoying life in the fetid, plague-ridden, and dangerous big cities of Athens, Rome, and Alexandria that nevertheless gave the world Socrates, Virgil, and magnificent libraries. As towns grew into metropolises, their sheen as heady places for art, literature, and cultural change began to fade. In response, the once commonplace farm and distant town were increasingly romanticized, especially in such genres as pastoralism and bucolic poetry. The escape to the country estate was the ideal of the Roman senator, the same way that the “ranch” sometimes becomes the getaway from the Washington swamp for American presidents.

Originally, city man was “astute” (asteios/astu: town)  and country man a rustic agroikos or bumpkin (argoikos/agros: farm). But it was not such a simple dichotomy, as even today “urbane” is not always an unqualified compliment, and “rustic” is sometimes a grudging commendation of authenticity.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tucker Carlson: The Real Reason Mobs Across The Country Are Tearing Down American Monuments

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/06/23/tucker_carlson_joe_biden_is_a_trojan_horse_for_the_radical_left_only_republicans_can_save_us.html
Posted By Tim Hains

During his opening monologue Monday, Tucker Carlson said Americans should stop pretending the November election is a contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden because, as he put it, “there is no Joe Biden.”

“The Joe Biden you remember no longer exists,” Carlson said. “The babbling husk you see may have the same name and similar features, but behind the mask there is nothing but a jumbled collection of talking points from the 70s. ‘Turn on your record player, no malarkey’. The candidate has no independent thoughts of his own.”

Carlson claimed that Biden’s actual function is to serve as a “perfect Trojan horse” for the grave intentions of the activist wing of the Democratic Party.”Their plan is to ride him to power,” he said. “Once there, someone tough and calculating and purposeful — Kamala Harris, probably — will change the country.”

“That’s what they learned. They’ll do it again. This time, the ‘Russians’ will be ‘Confederate sympathizers’ or ‘Nazis’ or … whatever other name they’ll choose to give to their political opponents. It doesn’t matter. But once they pick when they will gin up mass hysteria, because that’s what they are good at, the media will collaborate fully and we will have another witch hunt.”

“Who can save us from that? As of right now, only Republicans can save us from that,” he said. “Not because they’re inherently virtuous, not because they want to — they don’t — but because they’re the opposition party to the extent they still have opposition to anything. We have no choice but to ask for their help.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Rep.(R-TX-21) Chip Roy: It’s Time For Republicans To Stand Up For America Already

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/23/its-time-for-republicans-to-stand-up-for-america-already/

The United States of America is starting to resemble a Target in Minneapolis, overrun by lawless mobs and left for dead by the very leaders charged with upholding the rule of law.

Today, we are witnessing the wealthiest, freest, and greatest country in the history of the world, which took more than 240 years to build, being burned to the ground at the hands of radical leftists motivated primarily by anarchy and a Marxist agenda, not racial justice. Compared to previous generations and their peers who sign up to defend America, these folks have contributed precious little to society. Yet, somehow, they have found a way to bend America to their will. How? Because most of our nation’s political class won’t stand up and lead.

Yes, those civilians choosing to loot businesses, paint “Kill Cops” on billboards, destroy property, and promote violence are being propped up by the very politicians—Democrat or Republican, take your pick—you’ve elected. But it goes deeper than that.

The very people you have sent to Washington, D.C. to make laws, uphold them, conduct oversight, and ensure America remains a safe and prosperous nation have cowered to the mob.

Politicians have allowed the community of CHAZ in Seattle, run by a self-proclaimed “warlord,” and BHAZ in downtown Washington (feet from the White House) to take over chunks of sovereign cities. They have sat idly as historical statues and federal monuments have been defaced, torn down, and destroyed. They have allowed the mobs to “cancel” anyone with opinions contrary to their radical agenda.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Canceling Yale By all means, rename the Ivy League university founded on the riches of a slave-trader. But replace it with a more honorable name. By Roger Kimball

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/22/canceling-yale/

By all means, cancel Yale. Remove the horrid name from clothing and other merchandise. But replace it with a more honorable name: Dummer. Dummer University. The Dummer School of Law. The Dummer School of Art. A Dummer degree. The name, as Gwendolen Fairfax said in a different context, produces agreeable vibrations. 

I see that #CancelYale is trending on Twitter and elsewhere in social media. It’s a development I’d like to encourage—not, to be frank, because I think that canceling things is a good idea. Quite the opposite. But if the Left is going to pursue its dream of destroying every reminder of our past it doesn’t like, and if woke institutions like Yale, bloated with too much money and far too much self-regard, are going to betray their raison d’être and join in the effort to control the present by destroying the past, then I think an example should be made of corrupt institutions like Yale and craven leaders like Peter Salovey, the university’s president.

Besides, if the Left can deface or destroy statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Jefferson, and countless others, shouldn’t we insist that they live up to their own ideals and cancel racially tainted liberal institutions like Yale? 

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

The Con of the Surrender Cons If legacy conservatism had its own statue, it would be one big slippery slope curving left and capped with a white flag. By Julie Kelly

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/22/the-con-of-the-surrender-cons/

The column, written in the heated aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, sounded like a typical anti-American screed published in the New York Times or posted on MSNBC.

“Racism in America is a fatal wound,” the author lamented. “Every time another incident occurs we put a Band-Aid on it, but the Band-Aid keeps falling off. Band-Aids are not enough to ever stitch this country back together.”

She went on: “Nothing can bring George Floyd back to life. But if his horrific and needless death proves to be a turning point to make Americans finally end the ugly racism that stains our nation’s history and afflicts us like a cancer of the soul, he will leave behind a legacy we sorely need.”

That inflammatory, crude condemnation of America—not to mention the glorification of Floyd, a man with a criminal record who was doped up on drugs and committing another crime when the fatal encounter occurred—was made by Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation. James, the first woman and first African American to head the conservative think tank, like so many on the performative Right, jumped on the Left’s latest anti-America crusade while betraying the constituency her organization purports to represent.

Embracing the Left’s Language

It is a reflex, unfortunately, that’s commonplace on the establishment Right, an infuriating capitulation to our country’s most insidious foes. The Left intends to destroy the nation and use race as the carpet-bomb—and that approach is working even as blacks continue to make solid economic, occupational, and educational gains.

So, what was James’s point? There is no evidence Floyd’s death had anything to do with race. One incident, or even a random handful, hardly proves her diagnosis that racism is a “fatal wound” to America. The unfolding mayhem and chaos that followed Floyd’s death would have been a perfect opportunity for James to explain why conservatives, not radicals on the Left, have better solutions to improve the lives of all minorities. James, after all, has a triumphant personal story of her own; her success is a testament to our country’s unparalleled progress on matters of race and equality.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Coronavirus Cases Are Climbing Again. So What?

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/06/23/covid-19-cases-are-climbing-again-so-what/

THE LEGACY MEDIA ARE SCARING THE PUBLIC BY HIDING RELEVANT DATA

A dozen states have seen record highs in new coronavirus cases, blares the news media, accompanied by dire warnings of a “second wave” of the disease because those awful Republican states reopened too soon. Once again, however, the mainstream press is needlessly scaring the public by hiding the relevant context.

One news outlet put it this way: “The U.S. reported more than 33,000 new coronavirus cases on Saturday – the highest total since May 1 – while the surge of infections in several states is outpacing growth in coronavirus testing.”

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow tried to tamp down the panic by declaring that there is no second wave. “There are some hotspots. We’re on it,” he said.

Even if there is a “second wave,” it doesn’t mean anything in and of itself.

For one thing the Centers for Disease Control has long predicted that coronavirus cases would increase as the country reopened, for the simple reason that the lockdowns were never intended to stop the spread of the disease, only to slow it down. Remember? Flatten the curve?

The point of the lockdown was to give the country the time to ramp up testing, look for treatments, and increase medical supplies. By curbing the spread, health officials could more readily identify hotspots and conduct contact tracing, and the health care system could cope with any increase in demand. Which, as Kudlow points out, is exactly what’s happening now.

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

A Brief History of Antifa: Part II Antifa in the United States by Soeren Kern

Posted By on June 23rd, 2020

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16149/antifa-history-part-2

“The only long-term solution to the fascist menace is to undermine its pillars of strength in society grounded not only in white supremacy but also in ableism, heteronormativity, patriarchy, nationalism, transphobia, class rule, and many others.” — Mark Bray, “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” 2017.

“They’re coming from other cities. That cost money. They didn’t do this on their own. Somebody’s paying for this…. What Antifa is doing is they’re basically hijacking the black community as their army. They instigate, they antagonize, they get these young black men and women to go out there and do stupid things, and then they disappear off into the sunset.” — Bernard Kerik, former commissioner of the New York City Police Department.

The coordinated violence raises questions about how Antifa is financed. The Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ) is an organizing group that serves as a fiscal sponsor to numerous radical left-wing initiatives, according to Influence Watch, a research group that collects data on advocacy organizations, foundations and donors…. The Open Society Foundations, Tides Foundation, Arca Foundation, Surdna Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation, and the Brightwater Fund have all made contributions to AFGJ, according to Influence Watch.

One of the groups funded by AFGJ is called Refuse Fascism … an offshoot of the Radical Communist Party (RCP)…. The group’s slogan states: “This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”

Editor’s note: This is Part II of a series on the history of the global Antifa movement. Part I described Antifa and explored the ideological origins of the group. Part II examines the history, tactics and goals of the movement in the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump recently announced that the American government would designate Antifa — a militant “anti-fascist” movement — as a terrorist organization due to the violence that erupted at George Floyd protests across the United States.