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March 2022

The Russia/Bermuda Dark Money Subterfuge by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18352/russia-dark-money-environmentalists

If there is one thing you can say about the Russians it is that they stick to their proven playbook no matter what carnage they inflict on the innocents or how greatly they deceive the gullible.

During the height of the Cold War, they sought to stop America’s introduction of sophisticated weapons that would have blunted any planned invasion of Western Europe by the Red Army by infiltrating the “peace movement” with money and resources.

So it should come as no surprise that members of Congress continue to express deep concern that Putin’s Russia may be preventing the West’s energy independence by promoting through third parties, who may be unwilling dupes or active co-conspirators, “green” alternatives that are either impractical, aspirational, or an outright fiction.

It has been reported that Russia has been using a legal loophole to actively fund opponents of American energy independence, by funneling untraceable money through an entity in Bermuda, a nation that does require disclosure as to whether funds originated from a foreign government.

The Right Can Win on Parents’ Rights Terry Schilling

https://americanmind.org/features/parents-rights/the-right-can-win-on-parents-rights/

Following Trump’s lead, a grassroots movement has forced the GOP to fight.

“There’s no such thing as other people’s children,” proclaimed the advocacy group “Together Rising” recently on Twitter. This was in response to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s bill protecting parents’ rights, denying schools the ability to instruct children in sexual orientation and gender identity prior to the fourth grade. This was an outrage to leftists, who ludicrously designated the bill “Don’t Say Gay” and furiously demanded to continue teaching every child—including yours—about every kind of sex.

It has always been an assumption among leftists that experts, rather than parents, ought to be in charge of child-rearing. They used to say it more subtly: “It takes a village,” they would murmur, with winsome smiles. But in recent decades, this faux rhetoric has given way to a much more direct attack. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” said former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, during a pivotal race this year in which President Biden campaigned on his behalf.

Frustrated by the general public’s hesitancy to embrace new, increasingly bizarre ideologies at a moment’s notice, woke elites have found it necessary to assert their power over children with more urgency. Attorney General Merrick Garland labeled concerned parents “domestic terrorists” this year, using the administration’s favorite catch-all accusation to subject dissidents to the full force of the law. Marx’s old demand to abolish the nuclear family has come back in vogue, popularized most notably by Black Lives Matter. Other examples of anti-parent hostility abound.

Diversity Smokescreen The notion that a demographically representative college class makes for better education is a pretext for the real proposition: that certain people deserve reparations. Andrew I. Fillat Henry I. Miller

https://www.city-journal.org/diversity-is-a-smokescreen-in-college-admissions

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two more cases challenging the use of race as a criterion in college admissions, as has allegedly happened at Harvard University (a private institution) and the University of North Carolina (public). On the surface, the argument turns on whether the desire for a diverse student body trumps many laws and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibit discrimination and guarantee equal protection to all. The question applies to virtually all universities because they are either public or accept government money.

The main argument in favor of discrimination in admissions is that diversity enhances the educational experience. But is it true that a student body needs to parallel, even roughly, the demographics of the general population to ensure that students are exposed to people from diverse backgrounds? In fact, we would argue that the very process of using affirmative action—read: “discrimination”—to enhance the numbers of designated identity groups can contribute to the tribalization of the student body rather than helping it cohere into a harmonious whole. Furthermore, even after receiving an affirmative action boost, minority students sufficiently qualified for a given university are already likely to have similar backgrounds to non-minority students, thus limiting the diversity of viewpoints and experiences that affirmative action allegedly enhances.

Know Your Enemy The Russian invasion of Ukraine presents a practical, not moral, conundrum. Lee Siegel

https://www.city-journal.org/how-to-respond-to-russias-ukraine-war

Charles Péguy, the Catholic poet and philosopher, once said that there was no moral complexity in a war. The bad guys were the ones doing the bombing and the good guys were the ones being bombed. That sentiment overlooks just wars in which innocent people tragically suffer and die in the course of lives being saved and humane values being preserved, but the war in Ukraine fits Péguy’s formulation. Russian president Vladimir Putin is visiting unimaginable evil upon an innocent population. The complexity lies in the American response.

Much of the analysis has been so focused on the rapidly changing news that it is often simplistic. It is true, as some proponents of a no-fly zone argue, that American and Soviet pilots engaged each other in the air during the Korean War without causing a nuclear conflict. But it is also true that only the United States possessed planes capable of long-range delivery of nuclear bombs; the Soviet Union did not develop that capacity until after the Korean War was over. It is true that a humiliating defeat or setback in Ukraine might lead to Putin’s overthrow, but few have raised the possibility that such a coup could install a more malign leader. In a situation that has launched a thousand speculations, it is vital to take the broadest possible historical and cultural view.

Zelensky’s Ahistorical Speech to Israel’s Knesset By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/03/zelenskys-ahistorical-speech-to-israels-knesset/

Israel surely sides with Ukraine today. But for the record: Ukraine was one of the most violently antisemitic nations in Europe during WWII.

T witter personality Adam Kinzinger recently demanded that American aid to Israel be conditioned on its actions regarding Ukraine. “If we don’t want to directly attack Russia, then our leverage is in the world uniting in sanctions and assistance for the people of Ukraine,” the congressman went on. “This includes everyone, and Israel doesn’t have a special exemption.”

Kinzinger was reacting to Volodymyr Zelensky’s ahistorical speech to the Knesset. “Why hasn’t Israel seriously sanctioned Russia? Why aren’t you putting pressure on businesses?” asked the Ukrainian leader, who warned that Russians were engaged in their own “final solution.” “Ukrainians made their choice 80 years ago. We saved Jews, and that’s why there are Righteous Gentiles among us. People of Israel, you too now have a choice. Thank you!”

No one can blame Zelensky, in a struggle to save his nation, for attempting to create an emotional and historic bond between Ukraine and other besieged people. It is almost surely the case that the Israeli government is rooting for the Ukrainians. But his speech was a distortion of history. If Israel treated Ukraine as Ukraine did its Jewish citizens during World War II, then the Jewish state would be sending weapons to the Russians.

The Jackson Hearings So Far Are a Rout for Progressive Pieties By Dan McLaughlin

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-jackson-hearings-so-far-are-a-rout-for-progressive-pieties/

I have no illusions about the fact that Democratic-appointed judges are almost invariably likely to all vote the same way, at least on big cases. So, my hopes for Ketanji Brown Jackson departing from the party line on the bench are slim. Even with that in mind, however, this hearing so far has been a thoroughgoing rout for progressive theories of law and politics. Jackson has repeatedly embraced interpreting the Constitution according to its original public meaning. More:

She affirmed that “the Supreme Court has established that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right” (although that doesn’t commit her to adhere to that view herself).
Asked by Chuck Grassley about Justice Stephen Breyer’s tendency to cite international law as a source for interpreting the Constitution, Jackson said that she respectfully disagreed with her former boss, and that international law should not be used to determine the meaning of the Constitution.
Asked to name a justice whose philosophy resembles her own, she could have named Breyer, but she didn’t, and declined to name one, instead pointing to her own record.
She has continued to speak movingly about the cops in her family and the role of, and need for, police.
She talked about how her experience growing up was “completely different” from her parents’ attendance of segregated schools, and she cited “how far we have come” as a sign of “the greatness of America.”
She agreed with Lindsey Graham that radical Islamist groups are still at war with us, and that the Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 (AUMF) is still in effect.
Asked by Dianne Feinstein about “super-precedent” status for Roe v. Wade, she simply discussed the normal standards for stare decisis and declined to apply any sort of elevated status for Roe. Asked by John Cornyn, she said that she had never heard of a judge describing a case as a “super-precedent.”

Ukraine: Field Test of the Great Reset

https://gatesofvienna.net/2022/03/ukraine-field-test-of-the-great-reset/

Recommended by Janet Levy.

Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from the Austrian weekly Der Wochenblick:

In the shadow of war: Ukraine as the Great Reset laboratory of the global tech elite

While a very real conflict is raging in Ukraine, naturally no spotlight falls on the digital distribution battles. The advocates of radical world restructuring and total surveillance have long recognized the potential of the Eastern European country. With the strong participation of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine would not only be a Mecca for US bio-weapons laboratories, but also pave the way for digital networking, the Metaverse and the transparent citizen. The lynchpin is the digital ID app “DiiA”, an abbreviation for “The State and I”.

Zelensky’s social credit system

The journey takes us back to 2019. Zelensky had only been a few months in office, and founded a “Ministry for Digital Transformation”. Its most important task was to create a platform for the “state on a smartphone”, the DiiA app finally rolled out in February of 2020. Since then everything has been going fast: more than 50 applications, proofs and official channels are now running via the app: driver’s license, Covid vaccination pass, student card, starting a business, insurance, social benefits. A French tech portal writes: “A model that we only knew from China with its social credit system.” By the way: “ID Austria” is supposed to go in this direction in the final phase.

Ketanji Brown Jackson getting the respect that Amy Coney Barrett was denied The lack of clarity around Ketanji Brown Jackson’s judicial philosophy will be a key question as her Supreme Court confirmation hearings unfold. Jonathan Turley

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnists/2022/03/22/ketanji-brown-jackson-amy-coney-barrett/7113216001/

The lack of clarity around Ketanji Brown Jackson’s judicial philosophy will be a key question as her Supreme Court confirmation hearings unfold.

The famous “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Politics is the art of controlling your environment.” The confirmation hearing of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is about to vividly show what Thompson meant. Less than two years after the abusive treatment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Senate is holding a hearing that is dramatically different in the treatment of the Supreme Court nominee and the issues considered relevant to her confirmation.

For those with memories going back to 2020, there have been striking differences in how the news media haved covered Jackson’s nomination in recent weeks. When Barrett was nominated, the media ran unrelenting attacks on her and her background. Nothing was viewed as out of bounds, from her religion to her personal life to fabricated theories of prior assurances on pending cases.

From the start of the Jackson hearing, this is clearly different in both optics and approaches. Barrett was surrounded by pictures of people relying on the Affordable Care Act, a framing to portray Barrett as threatening the very lives of sick people. It was all part of an absurd claim (fostered by liberal legal experts) that Barrett was appointed to kill the ACA.

I objected at the time that senators were radically misconstruing the pending case and that Barrett was more likely to vote to preserve the ACA. (Barrett ultimately voted to preserve the act, as expected.)

Lia Thomas doesn’t deserve our compassion The only way to ensure fair competition is for biological men and women to compete in separate categories Amber Athey

https://spectatorworld.com/life/lia-thomas-compassion-swimming-transgender-upenn/

Reka Gyorgy showed commendable courage this weekend for finally speaking out against the National College Athletic Association’s rules regarding trans competitors. The Virginia Tech swimmer and Olympian was bumped out of a finals spot in the 500 free due to transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation.

In a letter posted to her Instagram account, Gyorgy wrote, “It feels like that final spot was taken away from me because of the NCAA’s decision to let someone who is not a biological female compete… [Thursday] is the result of the NCAA and their lack of interest in protecting their athletes.”

Gyorgy is one of the first NCAA female swimmers to speak publicly about the negative impact Thomas’s participation in the sport has on women. She deserves massive credit for putting her name to her views while others cower in fear of being called transphobic. But even Gyorgy couched her criticism of the NCAA’s rules with an entire paragraph expressing that she “respects” and “fully stands” with Thomas.

Joe Biden’s Lust By Joan Swirsky

https://www.thepostemail.com/2022/03/22/joe-bidens-lust/

“ANTI-SEMITISM ON STEROIDS”

(March 22, 2022)—Let’s dispense with the Mt. Everest of words that have been written to rationalize Joe Biden & Company’s passion––indeed, lust––to put nuclear weapons in the hands of the fanatical mullahs in the terrorist-run state of Iran.

To be sure, the powers-in-power––more accurately those who are pulling their strings––have been busy creating distractions like Covid-19, the corrupt investigation into the January 6th so-called insurrection, and the strange “war” between Russia and Ukraine. But while Biden & Co. rally against Vladimir Putin, the U.S. continues to buy millions of dollars a day of Russian oil, in essence helping to finance the war against Ukraine, and Biden continues to count on ole Vlad to broker the new Iran deal with U.S. negotiators in Vienna.

Looking back, it is more than fishy that on his first day in office, according to Jim Hoft of The Gateway Pundit, “Joe Biden killed off 42,100 jobs in America by ending construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline,” and not long after “waived sanctions on Russia’s gas pipeline to Germany.”

Clearly, this was to set the stage for the Biden regime to actualize their real goal, their mission, their obsession–––finally, finally, finally to get rid of the arch nemesis of all of them: Israel, with the bonus being half of all the Jews on earth.