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May 2022

Here’s What the Buffalo Shooter’s Alleged Manifesto Actually Says By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/05/15/heres-what-the-buffalo-shooters-alleged-manifesto-actually-says-n1597997

On Saturday afternoon, an 18-year-old from Upstate New York traveled to Buffalo and live-streamed himself shooting several people, ten of whom he killed, at a Tops Friendly Market in a predominantly black neighborhood. The suspect was captured by law enforcement and has been arraigned on 10 first-degree murder charges.

With their usual swiftness, leftists on Twitter quickly launched a seemingly coordinated effort to blame Fox News and Tucker Carlson for allegedly radicalizing the suspect.

As word of the shooting quickly spread on social media, so did reports that the shooter had posted a 180-page manifesto online, explaining his racist and anti-Semitic motives and detailing how he planned to carry out the attack. PJ Media obtained a copy of the manifesto, and while we cannot independently verify its authenticity, it is widely believed to be genuine, and some left-wing operatives are intent on claiming that the manifesto proves the shooter was radicalized by Fox News and right-wing politics. I’ll show you want the manifesto actually says (though I will not link to it).

First, despite the coordinated effort to blame Fox News, the manifesto attacks a number of news networks, including Fox, for hiring Jews.

A search of the entire manifesto also yields no mentions of Tucker Carlson and specifically mentions “the internet” as where he got his beliefs.

Others have tried to link the shooter in a more general way to right-wing politics. For example, the so-called conservative S.E. Cupp of CNN tried to blame “right-wing extremism” for the shooting.

But here’s what the manifesto says about the shooter’s politics:

The Cycles of Revolutions in Our Midst The world is fragmenting and changing in all different directions. Unfortunately, contemporary America is offering no guidance. By Victor Davis Hanson

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/15/the-cycles-of-revolutions-in-our-midst/

We are witnessing a number of radical military, social, and political revolutions that are changing the United States—and the world—in fundamental ways that we still have not appreciated. 

The taboo about never mentioning the first-strike use of nuclear weapons in a major conventional war is now apparently over. Vladimir Putin routinely threatens their use. Communist China hints at its growing nuclear capability and is hell-bent on rushing into production a huge new nuclear missile force. The world is defining nuclear incineration down.

The more China and North Korea talk about nukes, the more necessary it is that uneasy democracies such as Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan will make adjustments. And the more the United States bows out of its prior role of extending its nuclear umbrella over Western democracies, the more likely these societies will consider going nuclear themselves. Should Iran acquire nuclear weapons—and its patrons Russia and China seem to be ensuring that it will—then the long feared but heretofore never reified nuclear Middle East arms race will finally break out, as the petro-rich Arab world tries to deter Iran’s unhinged theocrats.

There is also a revolutionary vacuum occurring abroad. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are trying to figure out whether there is still any old-style American deterrence, or whether the woke progressives now in power in Washington dislike the customs and traditions of the United States even more than they do.

Lots of disasters have contributed to the current perilous state of affairs, including the precipitous American retreat from and humiliation in Afghanistan. Add in voluntary cutbacks in oil and gas production by the West, and the subsequent embarrassment of a superpower beseeching thuggish regimes to send us their energy. 

The politicized transformation of the U.S. military from a meritocratic force focused on wartime lethality into an  extension of the social welfare state driven by diversity, equity and inclusion has encouraged our enemies to take risks they otherwise might not have taken. 

Other contributors to the American power vacuum are the enormous federal debt, hyperinflation, and likely stagflation and recession this winter—along with the worldwide mania following COVID and the disastrous blanket lockdowns. All of the above has suggested to the world that a cognitively challenged 79-year-old Joe Biden is both an illustration and cause of American decline, rather than a temporary embarrassing aberration. 

A climate change class action lawsuit By Christopher Garbacz

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/a_climate_change_class_action_lawsuit.html

The UN IPCC and associated green activist groups; Federal, state, and local entities; universities; foundations; non-profit groups; and many corporations argue that the world will be destroyed without policies designed to turn on their heads the current energy system and American economy. However, the green agenda that is designed to eradicate fossil fuels will inflict enormous economic damage on America’s ordinary citizens and overall economy—and will do the same to other countries as well. This is true even though the “climate change” models have never been fully and objectively vetted, so there is no solid evidence to justify these upheavals.

Nevertheless, American Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency and, indeed, almost every federal agency and their federally funded cohorts in many state agencies are committed to decarbonization. This is true for a commitment that they admit that they do not know how to implement, as to which they cannot ascertain the final cost, and they’re unable to determined the overall consequences of their policies.

Daniel Yergin, in his The New Map, explains that the current energy system took 100 years to develop. To turn it on its head within a few decades is simply not possible. He predicts that we will move towards decarbonization, though at a slower pace than currently targeted. Further he claims that the “climate change” debate is over, even if the green winners are found to be grossly wrong and trillions of dollars are wasted. But should we accept that a debate that never really took place is over?

The Desecration of Joseph’s Tomb: What Lessons Can Be Drawn? Does a society that maintains a near-maniacal intolerance for other religions or cultures deserve statehood?Ari Lieberman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/desecration-josephs-tomb-what-lessons-can-be-drawn-ari-lieberman/

I recently visited the Tomb of Rachel also known as Kever Rachel, located just south of Jerusalem in “Area C,” near the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Bethlehem. Bethlehem is in “Area A,” which denotes full Palestinian control. Kever Rachel has been identified as the place where the Matriarch Rachel was interred and has been revered by Jews for centuries, though Palestinians and their eager apologists now claim it as a site exclusively holy to Muslims.

As I was exiting, I couldn’t help but recall the stark contrast between how the place used to look like before Israel transferred control of Bethlehem to Yasser Arafat’s PA. Back then, it was a quaint, simple structure with a white dome and large menorah perched on the rooftop. Entrance to the site was made through a gate that was flanked by two impressive Ottoman Sebils. Hanging above the gate was a sign in Hebrew that said “Kever Rachel Imeinu,” which translates to the Tomb of Rachel our Mother.

Today, the original structure is entombed in a fortress-like building and is virtually unrecognizable. The change was made necessary due to several violent attempts by Palestinians to ransack the place and harm visiting Jewish worshipers. Their desire to destroy the site is rather ironic given their claim that Kever Rachel is a holy Muslim site.

In 1995, Israel transferred control of Bethlehem to the Arafat and his gang of gunmen in the misguided belief that they were dealing with rational people. Rachel’s Tomb however, perched just on the outskirts of Bethlehem, was retained by Israel. Concurrent with this transfer, Israel ceded control of the city of Shechem (Nablus) as well. Within Shechem was another site holy to Jews known as Kever Yosef or the Tomb of Joseph, believed by some to be Joseph’s final resting place. Palestinians claim this site to be holy to them as well but evidence for this remains scant.

Kever Yosef, which housed a synagogue was also retained by Israel, and a small force of Israeli troops was garrisoned there to protect the site and ensure the safety of worshipers. But in October 2000, following an outbreak of extreme Palestinian violence, Israel ceded Kever Yosef to the PA in a misguided effort to placate the rioters. Predictably, Palestinian rioters then stormed the tomb, destroying fixtures and torching prayer books. They then proceeded to paint its white-domed roof green, symbolizing the completion of the Islamic takeover.

The Nina-Merrick Unholy Alliance Fighting for racist indoctrination of students. Lloyd Billingsley

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/nina-merrick-unholy-alliance-lloyd-billingsley/

“For decades a collective farm of mediocrity and failure, the government education monopoly now serves the left as a one-stop indoctrination center. Call it the disinformation inherent in the system.”

“Critical race theory has become one of those hot-button issues that the Republicans and other disinformers, who are engaged in disinformation for profit, frankly have seized on,” said Nina Jankowicz at an October 29, 2021. Profiteering was going on, but not by those Jankowicz accused.

In September, 2021, the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote to Joe Biden claiming that parents who complained about critical race theory indoctrination were engaging in “domestic terrorism.” Days later, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo on “threats of violence” against teachers and school board members.

Parents who complained about critical race theory were guilty of “a form of domestic terrorism and hate crime” and Garland wanted to deploy the FBI, DOJ and Department of Homeland Security against the parents. As it turned out, the critical race theory profiteer was a member of Garland’s own family.

Garland’s son-in-law Xan Tanner is co-founder, board member, and president of Panorama Education, a vendor of surveys on the “social and emotional climate.” Last October, Panorama recommended that teachers read “Teaching Toward Freedom,” an essay by Weather Underground alum Bill Ayers.

“You should know that the system you’ll be joining hates Black and Brown and poor kids,” Ayers wrote. “I have factual evidence that the system is organized to miseducate these children, and it includes the shameful lack of resources, enforced racial segregation, the dumbed-down and Eurocentric curriculum accompanied by a stifling top-down pedagogy, and arcane rules and routines that result predictably in social shaming and widespread exclusions.” And so on.

The Ultra-Buck Passer and Liar in the White House Still deflecting blame for Bidenflation. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/05/ultra-buck-passer-and-liar-white-house-joseph-klein/

On May 10th, President Joe Biden delivered a speech on inflation in an effort to get ahead of the expected bad news the next day concerning the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The president said that fighting inflation was now his “top domestic priority” even though it was not that long ago when he dismissed the steep price increases Americans were experiencing as merely “transitory.”

President Biden is calling inflation “a real tough problem to solve.” Too bad that the president has no clue on how to solve the “real tough problem” that he had a big hand in creating.

President Biden’s speech was long on passing the buck to others and short on offering real solutions. The president refused to accept any responsibility for the inflation that began surging early in his term.

Instead of following the advice from the sign on President Harry Truman’s desk in his White House office, “The Buck Stops Here,” Biden took to heart President Truman’s quip: “If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

Indeed, President Biden tried to spin his own disastrous economic policies into something positive. He shamelessly boasted, “I think our policies help, not hurt.”

At a Democratic National Committee fundraiser on May 11th, Biden said that “until we got elected and we changed presidents, I think people started to lose faith in the capacity of the American government to deliver — to deliver, to make life better for people.”

The American people are not fooled. A majority has lost faith in President Biden’s capacity to perform his job and make life better for the American people. About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the economy, according to a poll reported by CNN earlier this month.

The House Subpoena Wars The Jan. 6 committee tries to coerce the testimony of Members.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-house-subpoena-wars-jan-6-committee-congress-kevin-mccarthy-jim-jordan-nancy-pelosi-11652479291?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Partisanship on Capitol Hill is as bitter as we can recall, and it’s about to get worse. The Jan. 6 special committee has unleashed the subpoena power of the House against fellow Members.

The committee on Thursday issued commands to five GOP Members of Congress to testify about events surrounding the Jan 6 Capitol riot. Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.)and Reps. Scott Perry (Pa.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Mo Brooks (Ala.) have refused to answer committee questions, so they’re getting unprecedented subpoena treatment.

House subpoenas to Members are typically reserved for investigations by the Ethics Committee focusing on allegations of corruption. The Ethics Committee has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and its investigations (if not always its judgments) are traditionally bipartisan.

The Jan. 6 committee has two GOP Members, though they were chosen by Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she rejected two of Mr. McCarthy’s candidates. The Minority Leader then declined to nominate anyone else. Republicans are sure to see the subpoenas as a case of turning the investigative power of the House against the opposition party.

If Democrats think this will be a one-time-only event, they are dreaming. If Republicans retake the House in November, you can guarantee that Mr. Jordan, as likely Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, will find some reason to subpoena Democrats about oh, say, what they knew about the Russian collusion narrative or Democrats who objected to the electoral vote counts in 2000, 2004, or 2016.

My Lawsuit Will Shine a Light on Twitter Censorship I got booted for dissent over the Covid vaccines—after Biden said critics were ‘killing people.’ By Alex Berenson

https://www.wsj.com/articles/my-lawsuit-will-shine-a-light-on-twitter-censorship-soical-media-big-tech-facebook-speech-11652634888?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Do social-media companies collude with the federal government to suppress speech? On April 29, Judge William Alsup issued a ruling in a case I brought against Twitter that could become a watershed in holding social-media companies accountable for censorship.

This problem became acute at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. On Jan. 29, 2020, Twitter declared: “We’re committed to playing our part to amplify authoritative, official content across the globe.” Facebook essentially forbade discussion that the virus might have leaked from a Chinese lab. Today debate over the lab-leak theory is allowed, but free discussion of the side effects and efficacy of Covid vaccines isn’t.

Censorship by these vastly powerful companies is antithetical to the advancement of science and basic democratic principles, both of which require open debate. But the companies and government have closely guarded the secrets of how they work together—including whether and how they target dissenters like me.

After March 2020, I became a prominent skeptic of the U.S. coronavirus response, arguing that neither “nonpharmaceutical” interventions like masks nor vaccine mandates were likely to change the course of the epidemic. Much of what I wrote, though controversial at the time, is now conventional wisdom. Twitter—open to the public, available globally, and a crucial platform for journalism—was my primary outlet.

On the Baltic Frontier By Andrew Stuttaford

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2022/05/30/on-the-baltic-frontier/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=top-of-nav&utm_content=hero-module

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania keep a wary eye on Russia

Estonia and Latvia

Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Estonia’s president between 2006 and 2016, is not known for mincing his words about Russia. Nevertheless, as we drove towards a restaurant amid the refurbished industrial buildings and new waterfront apartments in a neighborhood that is a monument of sorts to Estonia’s astonishingly successful tech sector, it was evident that, had circumstances allowed, he would rather have been talking about the future that this small, determined nation is making for itself than about the latest poisonous eruption from the past.

As Ilves and I finished dinner, one of Estonia’s high-tech entrepreneurs wandered over. What had brought me to the country? “The neighbors, I’m afraid.” “Ah yes.” The neighbors are, by definition, not going away. Nor are they likely to change for the better. Russia’s ruling class seems disinclined to abandon political, imperial, and military principles that, despite brief interludes, have remained fundamentally unchanged for centuries. In discussions in Latvia and Estonia (sadly, there was no time to visit Lithuania), it was emphasized to me more than once that the war in Ukraine was Russia’s war, not just Putin’s. To the extent it can be believed (somewhat), polling in Russia appears to support that thesis, at least up to now. But this is not inconsistent with the argument made by James Sherr, an analyst at Estonia’s respected International Centre for Defence and Security, that “Putin’s views about Ukraine are widely shared, but without him there might have been no war.” Something similar, I suppose, might be said about Germany and Hitler.

Ilves anticipated “a hard road ahead,” as did Sherr, who warned that “there is no safe path through this.” A defense official in Tallinn forecast mounting escalation and saw little chance of a return to peaceful conditions. But, for all that, neither Tallinn nor the Latvian capital, Riga, felt like a city on a precipice. There were no troops in the streets. Restaurants looked to be doing good business; shops were busy and well stocked.

Yet Another Anti-Conservative Study Was Fake News By Andrew Follett

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/yet-another-anti-conservative-study-was-fake-news/

Virtually all social-science hypotheses that attempt to find dark psychological reasons for conservatism haven’t held up at all under peer review.

Yet another major study claiming conservatism is caused by mental problems has been conclusively proven to be junk science.

The now-debunked study suggested conservatism is associated with conspiratorial thinking and “negativity bias.” But it proved impossible to replicate when tested by other researchers.

“We find no consistent evidence that negativity bias promotes right-wing ideology; promotes ‘closed’ values or personality traits, such as need for closure or (low) openness to experience; or interacts with political engagement,” researchers doing the debunking wrote in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature. “To support these null results, we conduct a series of data quality and robustness checks that suggest our data is comparable in quality to that of previous work and our results do not hinge on particular operationalizations or modeling choices. Indeed, our results are consistent with several recent studies that fail to replicate associations between physiological indicators of threat sensitivity and political ideology.”

Perhaps nothing confirms that the root of the crisis in science is government control as much as watching people with doctorates make mistakes that should be obvious to a freshman. The critical error of endlessly privileging hypotheses that coincide with progressive political preferences has become sadly common.