Bookworm Beat 12/5/18 — the American Left’s fascism

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Taking a hard look at the American Left’s fascism (its silencing speech, antisemitism, and moral depravity), with room for some fun and uplifting news too.

Bookworm Beat Woman Writing American Left's fascismThe Flynn sentencing memo shows collusion. No, I haven’t gone crazy. Instead, I agree with Joel Pollak, who says the memo highlights that the real collusion, which took place between the media, the Deep State, and the Obama administration:

In fact, the most explosive piece of information in the sentencing document is not about collusion with Russians, but about the collusion between the media, the intelligence services, and the outgoing members of the Obama administration.

The document begins its recitation of Flynn’s offenses by citing information that had appeared in the Washington Post from a leaked, classified surveillance transcript in which Flynn’s name had been “unmasked”:

Days prior to the FBI’s interview of the defendant, the Washington Post had published a story alleging that he had spoken with Russia’s ambassador to the United States on December 29, 2016, the day the United States announced sanctions and other measures against Russia in response to that government’s actions intended to interfere with the 2016 election (collectively, “sanctions”). See David Ignatius, Why did Obama Dawdle on Russia’s hacking?, WASH. POST (Jan. 12, 2017).

That information, the document suggests, led the FBI to interview Flynn on Jan. 24, 2017 — the conversation in which he did not (according to Comey) lie to them, but which landed him in trouble.

The government had the surveillance transcripts, and it knew what Flynn had told the Russian ambassador. But the Post‘s intervention was crucial in setting the trap in which to ensnare Flynn and turn him into a government witness.

Mueller’s sentencing document does not mention the fact that the information published in the Post was illegally leaked to the press by the intelligence services. And the reason that happened was that the outgoing Obama administration changed the rules on the sharing of classified surveillance among government agencies, weakening privacy protections, probably intending that such information be more difficult to keep secret, and easier to leak.

Moreover, someone in the Obama administration — we do not yet know who, though it had to be someone senior  — “unmasked” Flynn’s name to make sure he was exposed.

So while we do not yet know Mueller’s next moves, what the Flynn sentencing document reinforces is the that the Russia collusion investigation was tainted from the start by a crime committed against Flynn himself — with the collusion of the media, the deep state, and Obama’s loyalists.

Read the whole thing here.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Weingarten reminds us, again, that while Inspector Bob “Javert” Mueller took Flynn down for unintentionally lying about something he’d forgotten, which the FBI knew because of illegally unmasking, people guilty of massive, intentional perjury go completely free. After detailing how Clapper blatantly lied to Congress with no repercussions, as compared to the full-bore attack against Flynn, Weingarten discusses D.C. perjury:

Flynn flouted the political establishment in the most flagrant of ways. Clapper has remained a member in good standing.

Could this in part explain the disparate treatment of these two IC fixtures by a Justice Department still in large part comprised of individuals averse to the anti-establishment president under whom they serve?

To the degree to which politics influences legal decisions made regarding high-ranking government officials — as Sensenbrenner implies — it perverts a justice system that no man is supposed to be above. Our political system and its institutions lose their legitimacy when officials are judged according to different standards. The law must be applied fairly and equally if it is to have any meaning at all. Moreover, to the extent to which the law is a deterrent, if not applied fairly and equally, it may incentivize future misbehavior among individuals who believe they will be protected by being “team players.”

Of all of the things that cause a loss of confidence in and respect for our political system, perhaps the most pernicious is the idea that the game is rigged. The only way to change this perception is for our justice system to demonstrate it is grappling with it through consistent principled action.

No, Trump is not against free trade. Trump is against unfair trade. Here’s a good thread from a few months ago explaining Trump’s approach to tariffs:

Was Bush 41 the indispensable man? I’ve been mostly silent about George Bush, someone I didn’t admire when he was president, because I was an unthinking Dem back in the day, and someone I still don’t admire much today, both because he was a white-shoe Republican while I am a more doctrinaire conservative and because, at the end, he backed Hillary, meaning he chose his elite class over ordinary Americans. Still, I have long admired Bush’s tremendous war heroism, while recognizing his personal dignity and decency.

Don Surber, however, points out one other thing worth admiring, which was the fact that Bush probably handled the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as anyone could have, presiding over a new world order (an order neither Don nor I like) rather than the apocalyptic horrors of a complete world crack-up:

The world rightly feared at least one civil war. Sudan faced two civil wars for most of the past decade.

And given the thousands of nukes that the CCCP (USSR) had, people rightly feared some disenchanted military man or unit would peddle nukes to some rogue nation. I get that would be extremely difficult. But it was within the realm of possibilities.

As head of the sole surviving superpower, President George Herbert Walker Bush had to prevent an implosion.

This meant he had to a gracious winner. A man whose first act as an adult was to enlist in the Navy to fight a war was fighting to win the peace. Americans are not very good at that.

But if George Marshall could get Europe to rebuild itself after World War II, then George Bush could win the peace.

D.C. Council votes to bring back crime. Back in 1982, when The Atlantic was still a reputable magazine and not a home for reflexive Leftist thinking, it published James Q. Wilson’s and George L. Kelling’s now-famous “Broken Windows” article. In it, they said that policing low level crimes prevents high level crimes. When Mayor Giuliani took that theory and, working with Police Commissioner William Bratton, put it into effect in crime-ridden New York, New York’s crime plummeted until it was one of the safest cities in America (a change Steven Pinker examines in his excellent The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.

I mention the above because the D.C. Council just decided to break some windows:

This will not bode well for those who live and work in D.C.

The enjoyable martyrdom of Neil deGrasse Tyson. I can’t stand Neil deGrasse Tyson. While I can’t speak to his chops as a physicist, something about which I know nothing, I can speak to his supercilious, condescending, arrogant, obnoxious tone when trying to foist his hard Left shibboleths on all the people he thinks are deplorable. He’s a man without humility and, outside the realm of physics, often without knowledge or logic.

I therefore love watching him twisting and turning as his decades of sexual assault and harassment finally come back to haunt him. Sean Davis is watching closely and the show is a fun one:

CBS is disgusting. Before I go further with this squiblet, let me remind you that CBS is part of the hard Left MSM media monolith that truly thinks it is both intellectually and morally superior to anyone who does not follow the Leftist line. And when I say “the Leftist line” I mean, the whole package of Leftism: supporting the Democrat party 100%; hating and trying to destroy all living Republican politicians; supporting the tyranny of political correctness; lauding the Left’s Brownshirts in the form of social justice warriors; pushing the dangerous transgender movement; being hostile to the only free society in the Middle East (i.e., Israel); having a slobbering love affair with the Clintons, Obama, and Europe’s fast-failing (now that American funding is withdrawn) soft socialism, etc.

With that in mind, now I’ll explain now how disgusting CBS is, even though doing so requires a link to the New York Times:

The outside lawyers were told by multiple people that CBS had an employee “who was ‘on call’ to perform oral sex” on Mr. Moonves.

According to the draft report: “A number of employees were aware of this and believed that the woman was protected from discipline or termination as a result of it.”

The report didn’t identify the employee — and the lawyers didn’t interview her — but Mr. Moonves, in one of his multiple interviews with the lawyers, “admitted to receiving oral sex from the woman, his subordinate,” although he described it as consensual.

“Mr. Moonves vehemently denies having any non-consensual sexual relations,” Andrew J. Levander, Mr. Moonves’s lawyer, said on Tuesday. “He never put or kept someone on the payroll for the purpose of sex. He has cooperated extensively and fully with investigators.”

The report found that, in addition to consensual relationships and affairs, “Moonves received oral sex from at least 4 CBS employees under circumstances that sound transactional and improper to the extent that there was no hint of any relationship, romance, or reciprocity.”

The report said that the lawyers weren’t able to speak with any of those women, but that “such a pattern arguably constitutes willful misfeasance and violation of the company’s sexual harassment policy.”

Our moral betters indeed….

I always feel like . . . “somebody’s watching me.” Some of you may remember Rockwell’s 80s 1-hit wonder of the same name:

In today’s internet age, it’s not just a feeling, it’s a reality. Not only are the internet giants using their vast power to police speech and, by automatic extension, thought, they are watching our every move.

Some in the NFL soar. I’ve pretty much had it with the NFL. I do like watching football, but the NFL’s decision to follow the sports media’s turn to hard Left politics, combined with the violent propensities of too many NFL players once off the field, has meant that I’ve turned my back on the institution and the game. Having said that, there are still good people there:

Baltimore Ravens defensive tackle Michael Pierce took to You Tube today to explain why he is using the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats,” campaign to promote an organization dedicated to improving relations between American Christians and Israelis. As part of the campaign, Pierce will rock blue cleats emblazoned with the Israeli flag and the logo of Israel Collective (IC). IC is an initiative of Christians United for Israel, one of the most of important pro-Israeli Christian groups in America.

For Pierce the choice is a personal one. He recently traveled to Israel with the IC on one of their trips in which they expose American Christians to the history and customs of Israel. Of the trip, Pierce said, ““Israel Collective has been a life-changing thing for me. … The message for me is just the oneness and connectedness I feel with that land. … To go over there and see the difference and to see just exactly how the culture is, I went to Shabbat dinner, I just enjoyed their company and learned so many different customs.”

Bravo, Mr. Pierce! I’m pretty sure I won’t see you in the media getting arrested for assaulting someone. I rather suspect that, when you retire from the NFL, you will go on to a successful and fulfilling life, because your values seem to be in the right place.

Meanwhile, a hugely admired Leftist media figure has this to say:

Noah’s got a posh accent and a pretty face, but the guy is an ugly combination of ignorance and antisemitism. He is a reminder that, while the Left squeals endlessly about a handful of marginal, pathetic, neo-Nazis, the real Nazis — the real race-baiters and Jew haters — live at the center of American Leftism and the American Democrat Party.

Speaking of murderous antisemitism. Jew hatred has existed as long as there have been Jews, but certainly Hitler’s Germany earns a place in the top five of rabid, and highly effective, Jew hating. Now it appears that, while Germany has officially disavowed its Jew hating past, German officials — more specifically Angela Merkel — have not:

The founding director of the European Coalition for Israel in Brussels, Tomas Sandell, announced in a shocking video message on Thursday that German Chancellor Angela Merkel waged a campaign to prevent central and eastern European countries from moving their capitals to Jerusalem to preserve the Iran nuclear deal.

Sandell said a Jerusalem Post exclusive report in November that Merkel called Romanian president, Klaus Iohannis, to convince him to not relocate his country’s embassy to Jerusalem,  prompted Sandell to go public.

Speaking from the European parliament, Sandell said, “What we have found out, something I heard for quite some time already, from central and eastern European countries that would have an inclination to move their embassy to Jerusalem, this is the natural thing for them to do, is that they have received phone calls from Berlin, from Angela Merkel, the chancellor. Basically, this cannot happen under any circumstances.”

“I have spoken to many Germans these last few days in Brussels,” he said. “They are not aware of this, and all of them would be shocked that all of the countries in the European Union today would want to block an embassy move to Jerusalem, not only for your own country, but for other countries that have the conviction [that] this is the right thing to do, the only country to do would be Germany. This is a big shock.”

He added “This is something unprecedented. This is not the Germany we once knew. This is not even the Angela Merkel we once knew when she was elected.”

If you combine Merkel’s actions with her decision to invite into Europe millions of people who admire Hitler’s Holocaust, you might begin to think that Merkel has a hidden closet at home that contains a swastika-bedecked shrine to Adolf.

Actually, what I think is really going on is that Merkel made the idiotic decision to flood Germany with Muslims and has now realized that all of her political actions must be taken with an eye to pacifying the Muslim population. Sow evil; reap evil.

A role model in action. Every community with foolish young man needs wise older men. This video shows one of those wise older men who was willing to stop into what could have been a dangerous — because it was volatile — situation:

Two videos on the noble past and the ignoble present. Just as I was not a Bush 41 fan, because I was a Democrat during his political years, I wasn’t a Bob Dole fan either. Still, even as a Democrat, I deeply admired both men’s heroic WWII pasts. Bob Dole continues to be a hero:

And then there’s this generation, as seen in a video showing two men who are probably a little older than Dole and Bush were when they went to war:

The People’s Cube put it all together:

Schools continue to indoctrinate students. As the parent of two school age (now college age) children, I’ve been complaining for years about the indoctrination that goes on in classrooms, both overt and covert. I have to say, though, that my kids never came home with something this disgustingly blatant (or at least they hid it from me so I wouldn’t go on a rant):

If you’re on Twitter, you might want to go to the link, above, and retweet this. I think it should get much wider play than it’s currently received.

Never, ever bow down to SJWs. There is no way to appease social justice warriors. The only way to deal with them is to sneer at them, laugh at them, ignore them, and fight back against them. That’s what a Stanford fraternity did and I cannot applaud that fraternity enough:

Pablo Lozano ’18 is the primary source for the following account. Other individuals, who asked not to be named, have corroborated it.

Lozano told that while on probation, Sigma Chi sought to make itself “an ally of the university.” An administrator assigned to serve as a liaison between Residential Education and Sigma Chi – let’s call him Mr. Z – was, in Lozano’s words, “supportive” in trying to help Sigma Chi outlast probation and “transparent” in explaining often obscure bureaucratic processes. The Sigma Chi brothers appreciated the candid and genuine guidance that Mr. Z offered them throughout their fight for survival.

This context of a friendly relationship with Mr. Z made the following incident all the more surprising. One night during Autumn 2017, Lozano recounted, Mr. Z was invited to eat dinner at Sigma Chi. While discussing improving the fraternity’s image with the university, Mr. Z offhandedly suggested that Sigma Chi remove the potentially discomforting symbol outside: the American flag flown in front of the house. Mr. Z urged Sigma Chi to consider the image being presented to the rest of campus by flying the flag out front. He furthered that if Sigma Chi wished to break away from stereotypes that plagued the house and to change its perception on campus, its members should contemplate un-hoisting the American flag.

While this remark was just one in a larger discussion on rebranding the house, it stands out. Mr. Z’s recommendation insinuated not only that the flag made others uncomfortable but that its being flown tainted Sigma Chi’s reputation and, presumably, worsened its chance of survival. Lozano understood Mr. Z to imply that the American flag, as a symbol, could be intimidating, aggressive or alienating. Mr. Z’s tone further signaled to Lozano that he found the mere sight of the American flag to be offensive.

Lozano recounted that the more the house talked about Mr. Z’s suggestion, the more it bothered them. Many found the proposal weird. The remark was, according to Lozano, out of the blue and incongruent with the candid rapport they had shared with Mr. Z up and until then. Furthermore, they wondered, since when is an American flag flown at an institution in the United States offensive? Lozano later observed that right down the road from Sigma Chi, an American flag is flown outside Stanford’s Post Office. Similarly, he noted, an American flag is flown outside Green Library’s Bing Wingand was once flown outside Memorial Auditorium, which commemorates fallen Stanford soldiers from WWI onward. According to Lozano’s knowledge, Mr. Z raised no objections to the Dominican flag flown by a student from his bedroom window in Sigma Chi or to the Palestinian flag which was hung across the street at Columbae.

In protest of Mr. Z’s suggestion, the house declined to remove the flag, instead choosing to replace it with an even bigger one. Some members, of course, abstained from the discussion about and decision to purchase a bigger flag. The following day, by Lozano’s doing, Sigma Chi upgraded from a three-by-five-foot flag to a four-by-six-foot flag. The former flag was then framed and placed on display inside the house. This decision was, in Lozano’s words, a “silent but visible protest” against the classification of the American flag as a potentially stigmatizing symbol by a member of the Stanford administration.

Meanwhile, at Columbia University, one of the hardest Left and most antisemitic campuses in America, some SJW students kicked off the stage not-Left-enough Saturday Night Live comedian Nimesh Patel:

Columbia University students invited Saturday Night Live comedian Nimesh Patel to perform on campus this weekend, then cut his mic and kicked him off stage after he allegedly made “rude” and “offensive” jokes.

[snip]

The event quickly spiraled out of control.

Patel allegedly made numerous “offensive” jokes, including about how being a gay black man isn’t a choice since “no one looks in the mirror and thinks, ‘this black thing is too easy, let me just add another thing to it.’”

The crowd of roughly 100 students didn’t seem fazed. Three students reported to PJ Media by phone that there was no booing or shouting, but mostly silence as Patel’s racially and ethnically themed jokes fell on politically correct ears.

Halfway through his skit, organizers jumped on stage, stole the mic, denounced Patel’s jokes, and asked him to wrap up his set. Patel pushed back, and said he was exposing students to ideas that could be found “in the real world.”

Students then cut his mic and kicked him off stage.

Patel, rather than ridiculing those students for being baby Nazis, has gone completely silent. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that an apology is forthcoming — not an apology from the fascist students, mind you, but from Patel himself.

The one thing you’ll never hear is an apology from the campus administrations that took people who may once have been normal and turned them into hypersensitive Nazis:

Just before Thanksgiving, a large rainbow flag went missing from the front of one of the [Holy Cross in Worcester, MA] Catholic college’s social-justice centers — and the school’s vice president of student affairs, Michele Murray, treated it as a crisis.

In an email to the entire student body, Dean Murray was “saddened to report” the “deeply troubling” disappearance of the flag “hung to demonstrate support for and solidarity with our LGBTQIA+ community.”

Any student who is “in need of support regarding this incident,” she went on, can get it via “the confidential LGBTQIA+ support groups” or the school’s Counseling Center.

She also noted that the college recognizes “the pain caused by bias and hate, and we resolve to stand with, and dedicate resources for, targeted groups and individuals.”

Read the rest here.

Once a Marine . . . always a Marine. If you haven’t already seen this video of a former Marine, now a Fed Ex driver, stop to fold a fallen flag, you should see it. I will make you feel good about America and Americans. (If you’re impatient, as I am, the meat of the video starts at 1:00.)

Made me smile. I was never a big Michael Jackson fan. I recognize his outsize talent as a singer and dancer, but I didn’t particularly like his music and, when it come to his private life, I found him alternatively pathetic and (if accusations are true) debased. But all of that aside, I thought this was a wonderful video:

If you’re in California. . . . We’ve gotten rid of a governor before and we can do it again:

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