RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cairlifornia/

Last Wednesday in Sacramento, a pro-Hamas mob crashed the state capitol and refused to leave, forcing legislators to adjourn the proceedings. Democrats had branded similar intrusions as an “insurrection,” but Gov. Gavin Newsom issued no statement. Four days later, the lead item on his press site was the link to a CNN story praising California’s gun laws. On the other hand, Gov. Newsom did take the trouble to meet with officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

According to a January 4 press release, CAIR, “organized a meeting between Governor Gavin Newsom and Muslim leaders from across the state before the holiday break to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Attendees included representatives from the Northern California Islamic Council, Palestinian American Medical Association, West Valley Muslim Association, Muslim Students Association West, and Shura Council of Southern California. The Muslim groups requested that Newsom support “a permanent ceasefire and a continued commitment to ensure freedom of speech, particularly in universities, as students engage in rallies.”

A statement from CAIR’s California CEO Hussam Ayloush said: “We were pleased by the Governor’s commitment to ensure his Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab constituents are heard as the violent siege on Gaza continues and that CAIR-CA had the platform to request the administration be proactive in ensuring the dignity of Palestinians. In his tenure, Governor Newsom has paved the path as a champion for civil rights, and we urge him to continue to use his voice as the leader of Californians who overwhelmingly demand a ceasefire.”

As Chuck Ross noted at the Free Beacon, Gov. Newsom’s meeting with CAIR came just weeks after the group’s leader, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” the October 7 attack, a comment that “even prompted condemnation from the Biden White House.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-biden-house-oversight-committee-contempt-of-congress-fa909e51?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Hunter Biden brought his strange political circus to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, but how this helps him or his father isn’t obvious. The committee was marking up a criminal contempt resolution against him when the President’s son surprised everyone by showing up, and staying about 10 minutes before departing and creating a media spectacle.

It was a repeat of his performance on Dec. 13, the day he had been subpoenaed to give a deposition. Then he showed up outside the Capitol to denounce Republicans, insist he would only testify at a public hearing (where questions are more limited), and then left without taking any questions. Now he is daring them to hold him in contempt.

Cut through the theatrics and the real issue is the ability of Congress to enforce its subpoenas. Despite Democratic claims that Hunter is right to refuse because he offered to testify in public, that’s not his choice to make. His choice is either to answer the question put to him or invoke his Fifth Amendment right to decline. Either way, he has to appear.

When Steve Bannon defied a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee, we supported the contempt motion and his subsequent prosecution as a way to ensure that Congressional subpoenas are respected. We said the same about former Trump aide Peter Navarro.

Today House Republicans want Hunter Biden to do what those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee had to do: testify in a closed-door deposition before appearing at a public hearing. In the end Hunter’s stunt probably eliminated any Republican reservations about holding him in contempt.

https://victorhanson.com/the-dei-ruse-is-imploding-part-one/

Diversity

Has there ever been a sane nation in the world that preferred “diversity” to “unity”?

The former Yugoslavia was certainly “diverse,” and it finally stressed its diversity to the point of unending death and destruction. Ditto Rwanda and Iraq.

So what exactly was the advantage of ditching the melting pot for the tribalist salad bowl? What was the historical argument for making race essential rather than incidental to who we are—other than institutionalizing racial bias and prejudice to further the careers of mostly middle-class and upper-middle-class “marginalized people”?

And what sort of diversity did DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) promote? 

Religious?

Not at all, at least in the case of Christianity. Declaring oneself overtly Catholic or Protestant would certainly be unorthodox and “diverse” on campus, but not encouraged and more likely a cause for social or career ostracism.

Ideology? Was diversity designed to ensure a matter of all sorts of political views?

Again, no.

Most polls of faculty, especially on the supposed “elite” campuses—whether calibrated by party identification, donations to political causes and candidates, or by ideology—consistently show somewhere between 90–95 percent of academics identify as Democrats or parties to their left, or as “progressive,” or even further still to the left.

Did diversity imply or include class in its definition? Not at all.

Most academics are from the upper-middle or professional or aristocratic classes. Claudine Gay, for example, is from a rich Haitian immigrant family (family cement magnates)—a world away from East Palestine, Ohio.

https://victorhanson.com/the-dei-ruse-is-imploding-part-two/

Equity

Equity was rebranded as a word to redefine equality as a mandated equalness of result rather than an equality of opportunity.

This “spread the wealth” ideology is by design contrary to the Constitution’s devotion to liberty and freedom.

DEI’s “equity,” then, is the neo-socialist effort to use government power, reinforced by popular culture, to suppress the perceived wealthy, the more fortunate, and the better off, and then to redistribute their money, influence, and power—summed up as “privilege”—to those arbitrarily labeled less well-off and less fortunate.

And there is always the age-old Marxist qualifier that the revolutionaries who determine who is oppressed and who is oppressive are themselves never subject to the consequences of their own ideology. It is the John Kerry logic that only by flying in a carbon-spewing private jet can he hit all the climate conferences and reduce carbon spewing.

So our cultural Marxists demand teachers’ unions and hate vouchers and charter schools—as their kids go to prep schools. They defund the police—but usually have access to private security. They demand all-electric vehicles—while they fly on Citations and Gulfstreams. They are versions of the old revolutionaries that were all born rich or at least upper-middle-class—our era’s Trotskys, Lenins, Marxes, Ho Chi Minhs, Mao Zedongs, Castros, and Che Guevaras. The most dangerous Marxists always arise from the bored and guilty privileged and well-off.

DEI’s idea of “equity” shares the Marxist boilerplate of just two classes at war with each other.