RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2022/04/nyc-setting-new-record-antisemitic-crimes-daniel-greenfield/

Crime is up in general. With Democrats eliminating bail and diverting criminals to all sorts of non-penal programs, thugs have nothing to fear and they can get arrested, be out again, and then arrested again. This has obvious consequences for a range of crimes, including antisemitic attacks which, in New York City, tend to be the work of a criminal or aspirational criminal population of the kind that Democrats have labored to shield from the penal system.

The NYPD says there were 86 anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city in the first three months of this year. At this rate, annual totals would far exceed the 242 reported in 2019 – itself a record before the number dropped during the COVID lockdown.

I don’t doubt that the numbers will keep on rising, beyond the general increase in crime, our society is only becoming more broken. 

In an incident that took place on a Saturday evening earlier this month, which is the end of the Jewish Sabbath, teens armed with a sword threatened and made anti-Semitic remarks to six yarmulke-wearing boys on the Upper West Side, according to the NYPD 

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poll-68-percent-of-americans-less-likely-to-do-business-with-disney-over-sexualized-content/

More than 68 percent of general-election voters say they are less likely to do business with Disney after reports that it plans to include sexual ideology in new content for children, a new poll found.

The Trafalgar Group’s new National Issues Survey on Disney, which was sponsored by the Convention of States Action, found that more than 69 percent of respondents said they were likely to support “family-friendly alternatives” to Disney. 

The survey comes after an executive producer admitted to advancing a “not-at-all-secret gay agenda” to insert queerness into children’s animation during a Disney staff meeting on Florida’s Parental Rights in Education legislation last month.

“Our leadership over there has been so welcoming to my, like, not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” said Latoya Raveneau, an executive producer for Disney Television in a video obtained by journalist Christopher Rufo. “I was just, wherever I could, just basically adding queerness. . . . No one would stop me and no one was trying to stop me.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/passover-and-the-constitution-order-freedom-jewish-holiday-seder-tradition-framework-11649779474?mod=opinion_featst_pos1

On Friday after sundown, Jews everywhere will gather in their homes to observe Passover. No doubt familiar themes will be discussed—the liberation from oppression in Egypt, the importance of memory, the duty to hand the story down from parents and grandparents to children, and—as the late Rabbi Jonathan Sachs emphasized—the art of asking questions.

This year, as I prepare for the arrival of my extended family, something new has struck me. The focus of this Jewish holiday, more than any other, is freedom. Indeed, Passover is called the “festival of freedom.” But the celebration of the holiday is called the Seder, which is Hebrew for “order.” We are required not only to do the right things but to do them in the right sequence. Our conversation always returns to what we must do and when we must do it.

This raises a classic issue—the relationship between order and freedom. Some schools of thought view them as antitheses—the more order, the less freedom, and vice versa. Libertarians want to minimize government constraints to maximize liberty. Anarchists carry this thesis to its inevitable, and self-refuting, conclusion.

In the Jewish tradition, by contrast, order makes freedom possible. In the absence of a framework—a law, a text, a tradition—we cannot act freely. Not only are we plunged into debilitating doubt, but our decisions also collide with those of others. The actions of others rarely coordinate harmoniously with our own. And when they don’t, all are prevented from acting as they choose. Without a framework of social order, every individual can seek freedom, but none can achieve it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/it-isnt-vladimir-putins-inflation-white-house-joe-biden-consumer-price-index-energy-wages-11649792567?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

“Inflation is a powerful political force because it can’t be explained away. Nearly every voter feels it every day. If the November elections are a referendum on the cost of living, voters won’t blame the Kremlin. They’ll blame the party in power in Washington.”

White House aides were out in force on Monday warning that Tuesday’s inflation report would be ugly and blaming it on Vladimir Putin. No doubt that beats blaming your own policies. But inflation didn’t wait to appear until the Ukraine invasion, and by now it will be hard to reduce.

The White House was right about the consumer-price index, which rose 1.2% in March, the highest monthly rise since the current inflation set in. The price rise in the last 12 months hit 8.5%, the fastest rate in 40 years.

Energy prices in the month contributed heavily to the increase, and some of that owes to the ructions in oil markets since the invasion. But so-called core prices, excluding food and energy, rose 6.5% over the last 12 months. Service prices excluding energy, which weren’t supposed to be affected by supply-chain disruptions, were up 0.6% for the month and 4.7% over 12 months.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/us-inflation-consumer-price-index-march-2022-11649725215

Gasoline prices have come down slightly in recent weeks, but they remain near record highs.

U.S. inflation surged to a new four-decade high of 8.5% in March from the same month a year ago, driven by skyrocketing energy and food costs, supply constraints and strong consumer demand.

The Labor Department on Tuesday said the consumer-price index—which measures what consumers pay for goods and services—last month rose at its fastest annual pace since December 1981, up from the 7.9% annual rate in February. Rising prices have been unrelenting, with six straight months of inflation above 6% that is well above the Federal Reserve’s average 2% target.

U.S. stocks gave up their early gains and government-bond yields declined following the inflation report.

High inflation is the downside of booming growth as the economy bounces back from Covid-19, powered in part by low interest rates and government stimulus to counter the pandemic’s impact. The Fed’s top goal is to reduce inflation, Fed governor Lael Brainard said Tuesday at The Wall Street Journal Jobs Summit. The central bank faces a tough balancing act of tightening monetary policy without damping growth.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove a March surge in oil and gasoline prices, which hit records in mid-March, and overall energy prices shot up 11% from the prior month, the department said. Prices for groceries accelerated in March, rising 1.5% from a month earlier, while the cost increases for dining out moderated.