RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/whats-next-for-antifa

Before the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center warned that a Georgia militiaman had said that a “rigged election” would lead to rebellion, and that the Oath Keepers militia would monitor polls nationwide to ensure that only U.S. citizens voted. The New York Times likewise asserted that an “army” of Trump supporters would “go into the polls and watch very carefully” in Philadelphia. Notwithstanding President Trump’s allegations of ballot irregularities, including in Philadelphia, none of the pre-election predictions of right-wing mayhem was borne out.

Many of these predictions were predicated on Trump’s alleged call to violence during the first debate, when he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” The Proud Boys, a men’s club that includes members of all races, self-describe as “Western chauvinists” and are certainly uncouth. They hold rallies for Trump and oppose things like “drag queen story hour” for children at public libraries. They exist, however, in a dialectic with Antifa, the far-Left militant group that doxes “fascists” and engages in violence against both property and persons. For Antifa, fascist is a catchall term that includes anyone who believes in private property and sees a place for police in a functioning society.

Antifa differs from other far left-wing groups, including the Democratic Socialists of America, in that it explicitly endorses “physical confrontation” in order to deny freedom of speech and assembly to its opponents. Antifa was relatively unknown in the U.S. until Trump’s 2016 presidential victory. Its most notable action in 2017 was preventing Ann Coulter’s speech at the University of California, Berkeley, by threatening clashes with campus security and Coulter’s Proud Boy bodyguards. Later that year, members of Antifa were mixed in with the large and varied group protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where one person was killed by a white supremacist in a vehicular attack. Last year, Antifa beat up journalist Andy Ngo, who was reporting on a Proud Boys rally in Portland.

In most cases, Antifa’s violence is employed against innocuous demonstrators. For example, African-American Proud Boy Philip Anderson organized a pre-election protest against tech censorship of conservatives in San Francisco. A Black Lives Matter supporter wearing Antifa-style black-bloc garb punched Anderson, knocking out his front teeth. In September, Antifa member Michael Reinoehl targeted and murdered Trump supporter Aaron Danielson in Portland following a car parade.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/74934-a-justice-speaks-out-2020-11-16

It’s no surprise that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s speech last week to The Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention received little coverage in the popular press. Why would it? Alito lacks the rhetorical flourish and the mischief-making wit of his late Supreme Court colleague Antonin Scalia, and he was speaking a language — the language of Liberty — that those in the Leftmedia neither understand nor appreciate.

Nor, it seems, are a majority of Justice Alito’s colleagues on the High Court fluent in that language.

In this respect, Alito seems like a quietly but firmly conservative version of the late Democrat Senator Paul Wellstone, who often took a friendly swipe at his consensus-seeking colleagues. “I’m from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party!” he’d roar. Similarly, it seems, Justice Alito is from the conservative wing of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

“The pandemic has obviously taken a heavy human toll,” Alito began. “Thousands dead, many more hospitalized, millions on employed the dreams of many small business owners dashed. But what has it meant for the rule of law? I’m now going to say something that I hope will not be twisted or misunderstood. But I have spent more than 20 years in Washington, so I’m not overly optimistic. In any event, here goes. The pandemic has resulted in previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty. Now, notice what I am not saying or even implying: I am not diminishing the severity of the virus’s threat to public health. And putting aside what I will say shortly about a few Supreme Court cases, I’m not saying anything about the legality of COVID restrictions. Nor am I saying anything about whether any of these restrictions represent good public policy. I’m a judge, not a policymaker. All that I’m saying is this, and I think it is an indisputable statement of fact: We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive, and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/beijing-sees-biden-as-someone-susceptible-to-chinese-influence-expert_3580446.html

The Chinese regime would be happy to see a new U.S. administration without President Donald Trump, according to historian Victor Davis Hanson.

If Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden wins the election, Beijing would also press harder on its U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region, said Hanson, who is a senior fellow at the Stanford University-based think tank Hoover Institution.

On The Epoch Times’ “American Thought Leaders” program, Hanson said that Beijing sees Biden as someone that would work with the communist regime—“a sign of weakness to be exploited.”

While many media outlets have declared Biden the winner of the presidential election, The Epoch Times will not call the race until all results are certified and any legal challenges are resolved.

Hanson analyzed Beijing’s view of the election: “I think they’re gonna be much more confident now because of the Biden victory, because I think their chief nemesis and biggest worry is gone, if Trump loses.”

The Trump administration has confronted the Chinese Communist Party on a range of issues, including unfair trade practices, espionage, malign influence in the United States, security threats posed by Chinese technology, and human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Hong Kong.