RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-auden-things-worth-remembering?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Welcome back to Douglas Murray’s Sunday column, Things Worth Remembering, where he presents passages from great poets he has committed to memory—and explains why you should, too. To listen to Douglas read from W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939,” click below:

I want to turn today to the question of W. H. Auden and what happened to him just as the world was going mad.

Auden was hardly the only one left disoriented—shattered—by the outbreak of World War II, but I think his response to the war—his poem “September 1, 1939”—offers a uniquely powerful illustration of what happens to us when everything we think we know becomes uncertain.

The poem receded for decades—in no small part because Auden didn’t care for it—but after the attacks of 9/11, it achieved a newfound fame. It was especially popular in New York City, where the Twin Towers once stood, and because that’s where Auden wrote it. As he says in the poem’s opening lines:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street

That is a good opening.

What comes next is even more grabbing:

Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:

It’s a perfectly said, deeply appealing line. Who doesn’t want to feel like the poet—smoking a cigarette in a dive on 52nd street, drink and pen in hand—proclaiming boldly in the face of titanic, historical forces?

https://nypost.com/2023/12/09/news/iran-apologists-linked-to-robert-malley-got-50m-from-soros/?utm_campaign=iphone_nyp&utm_source=mail_app

Far-left billionaire George Soros has funneled more than $50 million to a network of Iran-sympathizer groups whose members have gained significant sway within the Biden White House — pushing to defang US sanctions on Tehran while advocating for a renewed nuclear deal.

A Post examination of Soros’ Open Society Foundations records shows the progressive kingmaker has given a staggering $46.7 million since 2016 to the International Crisis Group, a lefty think tank tied to an alleged Iranian plot to manipulate US policy.

Robert Malley, the former US special envoy to Iran now under FBI investigation for his alleged mishandling of classified material, was the ICG’s president until he joined the Biden administration in 2021.

“Soros has continually funded organizations that act as apologists for the Iranian regime – downplaying their severe human rights abuses while working to advance Iranian propaganda,” Gabriel Noronha of the Polaris National Security think tank told The Post.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/12/the-hunter-biden-tax-indictment-is-a-disaster-for-the-white-house/

If you’ve been following the Biden saga, the indictment has some neon-flashing problems for the president.
There are several astonishing things about the 56-page grand-jury indictment filed with nine counts against the president’s son, Hunter Biden, by federal prosecutor David Weiss.

The first is that it’s dizzying.

The indictment is scathing in describing the younger Biden’s unsavory lifestyle, his deep dishonesty, and his willful decision to evade tax liabilities on millions of dollars in income and instead spend the money on escorts, drugs, luxury goods, and the like. Hunter is portrayed as exactly the kind of tax cheat who should be prosecuted. In fact, he appears to be just the sort of elitist scoundrel abominated in the rhetoric of his father and Democrats — privileged, addicted to consumption, producing little of real value, and greedily unwilling to pay his “fair share.”

But here’s the problem: Just four months ago, the same David Weiss tried to bury the same tax case against the same Hunter Biden — offering him a no-jail plea to two puny misdemeanors, a sweetheart deal so out of the ordinary that Weiss’s minions could not answer a judge’s simple questions about it, and that the ever-entitled Hunter’s defense lawyers foolishly blew up over fear of a hypothetical prosecution on tougher charges that Weiss patently had no intention to bring.

It is impossible to square Weiss’s slamming of Hunter in the new indictment with the blind eye he turned toward Hunter in the failed plea bargain — a submission in which the only narrative was a statement of facts sympathetic to Hunter, the drafting of which was clearly controlled by Hunter’s lawyers, not the agents who investigated the case.

In the indictment, Weiss scoffs that Hunter only filed his taxes in the relevant years because he’d been dragged into court in civil cases, which resulted in judges forcing him to fess up about his finances and produce tax returns. The irony here is rich. After all, why do we (finally) have this indictment? Only because Weiss could not rationalize the plea bargain he tried to give Hunter to make the case go away and, in his humiliation, was forced to go back to his office and act like a real prosecutor — whereupon he has thrown the book at Hunter as he should have in the first place . . . or at least that portion of the book that was still left after Weiss allowed statutes of limitations to run on offenses from earlier years.

https://thespectator.com/topic/hunter-biden-refusal-testify-strengthens-impeachment-argument/

Surprise! Surprise! Hunter Biden just told the House Oversight Committee he won’t to comply with their subpoena for a closed-door deposition.

Hunter’s refusal was delivered by his formidable attorney, Abbe Lowell. Their “stonewall strategy” was foreordained when Hunter chose Lowell several months ago. Lowell is smart, tough and relentless. He’s a “let’s fight” litigator, replacing Hunter’s former counsel, who was known for striking deals. When the sweetheart deal blew up in federal court, Hunter switched to Lowell.

Abbe Lowell’s strategy and persona borrow something from Roy Cohn, the equally tough attorney known for representing Joe McCarthy. Cohn once remarked that when prospective clients wanted the toughest SOB in New York for their attorney, he wanted them to think of just one name: Roy Cohn. Lowell has the same marketing strategy in the nation’s capital. He’s a fighter, not a compromiser, and he has demonstrated that in representing Hunter Biden. Presumably, that’s why the president’s son chose him.

Hunter’s latest refusal to testify reiterates his earlier one. The first refusal came wrapped in camouflage. Lowell told the Oversight Committee that Hunter was willing to testify — he couldn’t wait to do it — but that he would do it only in public. Actually, it is the committee, not the witness, who chooses how testimony will be given.

Hunter’s offer was always a slick gambit, with two purposes in mind. One was to run out the clock, delaying Hunter’s appearance until the committee had moved on and issued a report. The second was to fool the public by pretending Hunter actually wanted to testify and that it was the Republican committee making it impossible. In fact, testifying was the last thing Hunter wanted to do. He’s facing potential criminal charges in California and has a lot of information about how his businesses operated and what role his father played. Why would he possibly want to speak about those matters under oath before a congressional committee?

https://nypost.com/2023/12/06/opinion/joe-biden-is-lying-to-all-of-america-about-his-family-affairs/

A miracle occurred Wednesday. 

President Biden was asked about his involvement in his family’s shady influence peddling schemes at a White house press conference. 

The reporter who asked the question, you won’t be surprised to know, was The Post’s own White House correspondent Steven Nelson — and the only reason he was allowed to ask a question at all was because it happened to be the day when it was his turn to be the reporter assigned by the White House Correspondents Association to represent the rotating “pool” of journalists at White House events and share his information with the other media outlets. 

“President Biden, on Ukraine and also China, there’s polling by the Associated Press that shows that almost 70% of Americans, including 40% of Democrats, believe that you acted either illegally or unethically in regard to your family’s business interests. Can you explain to Americans, amid this impeachment inquiry, why you interacted with so many of your son and brother’s foreign business associates?” 

The president’s eyes narrowed, and his lip curled: “I’m not going to comment on that. I did not. And it’s just a bunch of lies.” 

Nelson followed up: “You didn’t interact with any of their business associates?” 

Prez denies & ditches 

Biden spoke over him: “They’re lies,” he said, before answering: “I did not. They’re lies.” 

Then he turned and walked out of the press conference. 

So, there you have it.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/12/pro-terrorist-mobs-run-wild-in-new-york-city/

Mobs of people waving Palestinian flags and holding signs ran wild in New York City this weekend. Police unsuccessfully tried to contain the crowds at certain points, but the mob was allowed to advance, for the most part.

This type of activity is only increasing, and the temperature keeps rising. The city needs to take control.

Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of New York City again Saturday, storming Times Square after they were rebuffed as they tried to enter the American Museum of Natural History for the second weekend in a row.

The protest, which started at the Upper West Side museum at 2 p.m., included the expectation that demonstrators would enter the institution two hours later for an “anti-colonial tour.”

Around 200 anti-Israel demonstrators gathered outside the museum by 4 p.m., carrying signs and chanting, “Free Palestine,” along with antisemitic slogans like, “there is only one solution, Intifada revolution.”

Within Our Lifetime, the group that organized Saturday’s protest, asked demonstrators to show up to the museum in “small groups” adorned with Palestinian flags and banners, according to an Instagram post…

Marchers who have joined the Within Our Lifetime rallies in recent weeks have vandalized buildings like the New York Public Library, including spraying graffiti and breaking glass doors…

They were also seen going into the Shops at Columbus Circle, another spot they targeted last week.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/12/07/trump-just-won-tom-friedmans-vote/

“What if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day. You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions, and I do think there is a sense of that, on, on everything from the economy to environment.” – New York Times columnist Tom Friedman on “Meet the Press,” May 2010

“I love this guy. He says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one. We’re closing the border and we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.’” – Donald Trump on Fox News, December 2023.

Leftists in the press have been falling over themselves lately to warn Americans that a second Trump term in the White House would usher in an era of dictatorship.

The Hill reports that “The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times each published stories referencing a ‘Trump dictatorship’ in recent days, arguing a new Trump presidency posed a threat to democracy.”

Alleged Republican Liz Cheney warned that the U.S. is “sleep-walking into dictatorship.”

Robert Kagan wrote “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”

It’s almost as if the left has a central clearinghouse where they get their daily talking points.

Whatever the reason, the left must be genuinely worried about the polls showing Donald Trump beating Joe Biden to start resorting to hysterical rhetoric like this. And since his opponents have already accused him of being a Russian stooge, a liar, a racist, a tax cheat, a traitor, an authoritarian, and an insurrectionist, they need something stronger to capture the public’s attention.

But our question is this: Since when did the left start hating dictatorships?

It’s the left, after all, that has had a long and storied string of romances with actual dictators.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/newsom-cancels-public-christmas-tree-lighting-amid-planned-pro-palestinian-protests/

California governor Gavin Newsom will conduct tonight’s Christmas tree–lighting at California’s state capitol virtually, amid threats from pro-Palestinian protesters.

The Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights announced that it would protest at the state capitol on Tuesday night — the same night Newsom was set to direct the annual Christmas tree–lighting ceremony. The group told KCRA Channel 3 that it wants to “out governor Gavin Newsom for hiding from the public because he doesn’t want to face their anger at his shameful stance in regard to the genocide in Gaza.”

“Governor Newsom decided to cancel the tree-lighting ceremony rather than face the public that is enraged by his shameful silence on the genocide in Gaza. This certainly doesn’t add up with his past stance with Native Americans,” Yassar Dahbour of the Sacramento Regional Coalition for Palestinian Rights said.

According to the local outlet, California Highway Patrol’s permit calendar originally slated a tree-lighting ceremony for Tuesday evening but had removed the event from the calendar as of Tuesday morning. The ceremony will now be held remotely, and California Highway Patrol has barricaded the area where the tree is located. Signage around the capitol building warns that trespassers will be arrested and prosecuted.