RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/why-is-judge-juan-merchan-refusing-to-honor-trumps-due-process-rights/

The principal duty of judges in the United States is to protect Americans from government overreach. Judge Merchan is doing the opposite.

I observed in a post this week that, compared to some of Donald Trump’s other recent complaints about Judge Juan Merchan, there is more substance to his grousing about the judge’s denial of his request that the trial be adjourned for a day so that he may be in attendance at the United States Supreme Court next Thursday, April 25. That’s the day the justices will hear argument on the question of whether the former president has immunity from prosecution in the 2020 election-interference indictment brought in Washington, D.C., by Biden Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.

There are competing legal and practical considerations here.

Practically speaking, if I’m a Trump appellate lawyer, I would prefer that he not come to the Supreme Court argument. I don’t think the justices would appreciate the spectacle. I am thinking in particular of the three justices Trump appointed (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett), who would inevitably be on the receiving end of looney left-wing bloviating that Trump was in attendance for the purpose of pressuring them — bloviating helped along, naturally, by Trump lawyer/flack Alina Habba’s clueless remark in January, in connection with Colorado’s effort to remove Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, that Kavanaugh would “step up” for Trump because the former president “fought for” his nomination and “went through hell to get [him] into place” on the Court.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/21/biden-weaponizes-the-federal-government-for-his-own-reelection-campaign/

President Joe Biden has taken every part of the federal government and transformed it into his personal reelection machine, creating a hyper-partisan election apparatus out of supposedly neutral federal agencies. And American taxpayers pay for all of it.

Just since the beginning of April, several explosive revelations have surfaced that show the extent to which Joe Biden has weaponized the federal government in election matters. This should come as no surprise, as the administration continues to unfairly weaponize the federal courts against January 6 defendants, and state and federal courts maliciously prosecute Donald Trump, his rival in the presidential election.

The plan is as brazen as it is comprehensive, proving the Biden administration doesn’t want a fair election in 2024.

Using Charities to Encourage Illegal Alien Voting

A non-governmental agency (NGO) that receives taxpayer money—and also lobbies the federal government—encourages illegal immigrants to vote for Biden once they get established in the United States. The Daily Signal, citing MuckRaker.com, reported fliers found all over a staging center for migrants in northeastern Mexico, on the US border:

An advocacy group based in Northeastern Mexico that lobbies U.S. lawmakers has distributed and posted flyers encouraging illegal immigrants to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.

Translated from Spanish, the Oversight Project notes, the flyers posted by the organization Resource Center Matamoros say: “Reminder to vote for President Biden when you are in the United States. We need another four years of his term to stay open.”

The Resource Center Matamoros (RCM) works with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), which the Oversight Project says “helps illegal aliens enter the United States.” Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas (D) formerly served on the HIAS board of directors. HIAS has received “numerous” grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundations.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/21/socialisms-survival-the-endurance-of-an-ideological-paradox/

I have written about the death and rebirth of socialism periodically over the years.  But as André Gide said in another context, “Toutes choses sont dites déjà, mais comme personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer”: everything has already been said, but since no one was listening, it is necessary to say it again.

Really, the socialist impulse is a hardy perennial.  How could something so frequently and thoroughly discredited persist in the hearts of men?  Some think it has something to do with the gullibility of the human animal, some (but I repeat myself) with the persistence of the utopian dream.  I suspect there are many explanations, of which the raw desire for power plays an unedifying but also underrated role.  I also favor the explanatory power of original sin, which has profound psychological as well as theological application to many of the more farcical aspects of human experience and what is more farcical than socialism?

At any rate, the career of socialism is a powerful argument for the phenomenon of life after death. Remember: the death of socialism in the United States (except on college campuses) had been solemnly pronounced over and over during the 1980s and 1990s. But for the past several years, we have seen multiple sightings of the beast.

Back in 2018, for example, the actor Jim Carrey told Bill Maher: “We have to say yes to socialism—to the word and everything. We have to stop apologizing.”

I’m pretty sure that no one told this poor fellow that, were socialism to be instituted in the United States, one of the first things that would happen is that people like Mr. Carrey would be instantly pauperized.

Did I say “poor” fellow?

As of 2023, Mr. Carrey had an estimated net worth of $180 million. But what are the two fundamental pillars of socialism?

One: The abolition of private property.

Two: The equalization of wealth.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20587/confidence-in-ruler-confucius

“Tsekung asked about government, and Confucius replied: ‘People must have sufficient to eat; there must be a sufficient army; and there must be sufficient confidence of the people in the ruler.’ ‘If you are forced to give up one of these three objectives, what would you go without first?’ asked Tsekung. Confucius said, ‘I would go without the army first.’ ‘And if you were forced to go without one of the two remaining factors, what would you rather go without?’ asked Tsekung again. ‘I would rather go without sufficient food for the people. There have always been deaths in every generation since men lived, but a nation cannot exist without confidence in its ruler.'”
— From The Wisdom of China and India by Lin Yutang.*

Americans have lately been witnessing threats to our republic, starting with election interference (here, here and here); the US abandonment of Afghanistan; an inflation that has reportedly forced people to choose between “heating and eating” and delay medical care; a 2000-mile-long open border that has allowed into the United States “1.7 gotaways” that we know about, as well as reportedly 10 million others, allegedly doubling the number already here, who serve to swell the census, which currently determines the number of seats allocated in the House of Representatives for ten years, as well as the number of delegates in the electoral college; accommodating Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has been causing “more than 112,000 deaths from fentanyl” in just a 12-month period, the equivalent of one large plane crash a day; failing to challenge the CCP’s spy balloon and discontinue TikTok, which has been called “170 million spy balloons”; attempts to criminalize parents “who protest critical race theory and other school policies,” Catholics who attend Latin Mass, and attempts generally to “criminalize dissent”; attempts to criminalize politics and political opponents; fabrications that that Hunter Biden’s laptop “had all the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation”; alleged lies about involvement in family business dealings; unequal application of the law; funding both sides of both the Hamas-Israel War and Russia’s war on Ukraine; engaging in government censorship (here, here, here and here); flouting and the law (here, here and here), then “proudly admitting it,” among other activities.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbia-university-protesters-israel-hamas-palestine-nypd-nemat-minouche-shafik-0f6feba4?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Protesters across the country these days claim they are fighting for the rights of Palestinians but show contempt for the rights of those whose lives they disrupt. On Thursday Columbia University President Minouche Shafik had enough. When the protesters who set up a “Gaza solidarity encampment” on the university’s South Lawn ignored repeated warnings to leave, she called in the New York Police Department to have them removed.

Ms. Shafik waited too long to address the problems festering on her campus, and her move came only after she was grilled by Congress on antisemitism on Columbia’s campus. But give her credit for acting. In a statement she explains that the protesters ignored multiple warnings that they were violating university policies.

Other leaders should take heed—especially the Democrats and progressives who run America’s cities and most institutions. In recent weeks similar protests have shut down San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, blocked access to Chicago’s airport and interrupted Congressional hearings. They even crashed a fundraiser in New York to heckle President Biden, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

It is hardly surprising that the most progressive cities have seen the most protests. No surprise, either, that among those arrested at Columbia Thursday was Barnard student Isra Hirsi, daughter of anti-Israel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.). An unbowed Ms. Hirsi tweeted that, in addition to Columbia’s divestment from Israel, she and her fellow protesters are demanding “FULL amnesty for all students facing repression.” Naturally.

Ms. Hirsi and the other protesters are fully entitled to express their view that Israel is pursuing genocide in its war with Hamas. But what the country saw Thursday at Columbia wasn’t about free expression. As President Shafik pointed out, the protest was about disrupting campus life for everyone else and creating “a harassing and intimidating environment for many of our students.” It’s the same for protests designed to prevent others from commuting to work, catching a flight or getting to class.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/04/20/the-lefts-repressive-tolerance/

As one watches hundreds of Columbia University students march through New York demanding an end to the state of Israel and the removal of all Zionists from their presence; as one watches Loyola University’s “Anti Racism Center Fellow” demand that “all you ugly ass little Jewish people” “get the f*ck out of here;” as one watches NPR retaliate against the internal watchdog who called it out for its radical leftist bias and then watches as the watchdog’s (now former) colleagues turn on him and insist that he is a liar, two things are worth keeping in mind. First, these are all the fruits of the “tolerant” left, the people who insist that “diversity is our strength” and that narrow-mindedness is the most heinous sin of all. Second, the “tolerant” left’s manifest intolerance is not an accident, nor is it an example of hypocrisy. It is, rather, intentionally and lucidly undertaken. It is the purposeful and unapologetic manifestation of an ideology that the left adopted decades ago in its remorseless pursuit of cultural and political hegemony.

Once upon a time, the American Left was—at least in theory—thoroughly dedicated to the ideas of free speech and free expression. The leftist students of the University of California, Berkeley, spent years protesting and agitating for an end to speech codes, making their campus the home of the “Free Speech Movement.” The American Civil Liberties Union fought tooth and nail to enable neo-Nazis to exercise their First Amendment rights to march through Skokie, Illinois.  The left rallied around pornographer Larry Flynt in his fight against Rev. Jerry Falwell, who sued Flynt for libel over a crass parody. Leftists loved free speech and wanted everyone, everywhere, to enjoy its inarguable benefits. Or so they said.

The catch is that while the American Left professed a deep and abiding affection for the idea of free speech, it never really cared about that idea at all. Indeed, it never really cared too much about any ideas. One thing that has always distinguished the American Left from its European counterparts is its complete disinterest in theories and philosophy and its attendant obsession with power and the tactics necessary to achieve it.  What little philosophical thought the New Left did absorb in the 1960s was that which reinforced its non-intellectual origins and aims. “The Port Huron Statement”—the New Left’s founding charter (and a document bought and paid for by the United Auto Workers union)—was not, as it is often described, a statement of “ideas.”  Rather, it was a statement of strategies—strategies for achieving and maintaining power.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2024/04/17/impeachment_whistleblower_was_in_the_loop_of_biden-ukraine_affairs_that_trump_wanted_probed_1024937.html

The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.

Eric Ciaramella: Privately expressed shock — “Yikes” — at linking U.S. aid to firing a prosecutor probing the firm paying Biden’s son. But he kept mum publicly, so was he really shocked?
Harvard University/Davis Center

In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.

But four years earlier, while working as a national security analyst attached to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, Ciaramella was a close adviser when Biden threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings. At the time, the corruption-riddled energy giant was paying Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars.

Those payments – along with other evidence tying Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings – received little attention in 2019 as Ciaramella accused Trump of a corrupt quid pro quo. Neither did subsequent evidence indicating that Hunter Biden’s associates had identified Shokin as a “key target.” These matters are now part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

“It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial [to exonerate Trump],” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has testified as an expert witness in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry. “Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.”

Ciaramella’s role – including high-level discussions with top Biden aides and Ukrainian prosecutors – is only now coming to light thanks to the recent release of White House emails and photos from the National Archives.

The emails show Ciaramella expressed shock – “Yikes” is what he wrote – at Biden’s move to withhold the $1 billion in aid from Kyiv, which represented a sudden shift in U.S. policy. They also show he was drawn into White House communications over how to control adverse publicity from Hunter taking a lucrative seat on Burisma’s board.

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c5&id=d08064d2fc

You are undoubtedly familiar with many efforts of the fascist left to use its control of government offices, bureaucracies, and other institutions to delegitimize and silence mainstream conservative speech: things like the Censorship Industrial Complex, otherwise known as pressure by government functionaries to induce social media platforms to shut down wrong think on topics ranging from Covid to climate change to Trump; de-monetization of perfectly reasonable sites like PJ Media or Watts Up With That; the political prosecutions of presumptive Republican nominee Trump, including locking him in a courtroom to prevent him from campaigning; and many more such.

This week along comes a new and quite extreme instance that you may have missed. A European group called the National Conservatives scheduled a two-day conference for Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels. The signature issue of the National Conservative movement is immigration, which they want to restrict; but beyond that their Conference appeared to feature a wide range of voices from Europe’s right, including some prominent elected officials. Examples of speakers were Nigel Farage of the UK (one of the leaders of the Brexit movement, and now leading a political party in the UK called the Reform Party, that looks likely to win significant seats when the next election is held); Suella Braverman, a Conservative MP in the UK, and recently, if briefly, the Home Secretary (which is one of the top cabinet positions); Eric Zemmour of France, head of a political party called “Reconquête!”, and winner of about 7% of the votes in the last presidential election; and Viktor Orban, current (and since 2010) Prime Minister of Hungary.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/inflation-hits-the-drive-through

You don’t need to be a close follower of economic data to know that food has gotten more expensive. The sticker shock at the grocery store and the anecdotes on social media reflect the truth: food prices at groceries and restaurants have increased by more than 25 percent in the last four years. That’s more than overall inflation (about 20 percent) and slightly more than average wage growth (about 24 percent). The Wall Street Journal recently reported on USDA data showing that Americans are now devoting more than 11.3 percent of their disposable income on food, the highest percentage in 30 years. While other food-spending measurements show a slightly smaller rise than the USDA’s, Americans are certainly spending more on food than they were immediately before the pandemic.

The data contain one puzzle, though: Americans don’t seem to be cutting back on dining out. Eating at restaurants is rightly considered something of a luxury; the more frugal way to consume food, generally, is to prepare it yourself. As the USDA shows, Americans are spending less of their income on groceries today than they were 30 years ago, even with recent food-price increases. At restaurants, however, Americans on average are spending quite a bit more of their income than they were three decades ago—well over 5 percent today versus about 4 percent in the early 1990s.

To understand this development, some historical perspective is useful. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditures Survey tracks household spending on goods and services back to 1901. Over the course of the twentieth century, BLS reports that households cut the portion of their income spent on food from over 40 percent to about 10 percent. That remarkable change left Americans with much more money to spend on other things, both luxuries and necessities.

The BLS lumps together grocery and restaurant spending for most of its past data but separates the two from 1984 onward. The more recent data also allow us to focus on specific demographics, such as middle-class families (the middle 20 percent of earners in this dataset). In the mid-1980s, middle-class Americans spent about 7 percent of their gross income on food at restaurants, and about 10 percent on groceries. By the late 2010s, these numbers had fallen to about 5 percent on restaurants and 7.5 percent on groceries, similar to the numbers from 2022 (4.6 percent on restaurants and 8.4 percent on groceries).

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nypd-arrests-more-than-100-protesters-including-ilhan-omars-daughter-at-anti-israel-protest-on-columbia-campus/

New York City police arrested 108 anti-Israel protesters on Columbia University’s campus on Thursday after the university’s president asked law enforcement to step in and break up the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.”

NYPD officers in riot gear arrived on campus Thursday afternoon, more than 30 hours after the protest began, and warned protesters to disperse several times before they began making arrests for trespassing. Two protesters were charged with obstruction of governmental administration in addition to trespassing, city officials said at a news conference.

“These arrests were made without incident, and we will now let the rest of the criminal-justice system run its course,” police commissioner Edward Caban said during a news conference on Thursday evening.

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of progressive representative Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), was among the protesters who were arrested.

Mayor Eric Adams said police “ensured that there was no violence or injuries during the disturbance.”

“Columbia University students have a proud history of protest and raising their voices,” Adams said during the news conference. “Students have a right to free speech — they do not have a right to violate university policies and disrupt learning on campus.”

Asked why the Columbia sit-in was not considered a peaceful protest, Adams said “a peaceful protest is not in violation of city laws” or on public property.

“I know the conflict in the Middle East has left many of us grieving and angry,” he added. “This is a painful moment for our city, for our country, and for the globe. New Yorkers have every right to express their sorrow, but that heartbreak does not give you the right to harass others, to spread hate.”