Month: August 2020

A motorist was dragged from his car, forced to the ground, and beaten unconscious by Portland rioters on Sunday night, as lawlessness continues to reign with no law enforcement in sight.

The incident was reported and shared by Andy Ngo, editor at-large of the Post Millennial. The scenes are graphic.

WATCH: (NSFW)

Ngo then shared a tweet of the moments immediately preceding the assault, where the driver can be seen apparently trying to explain how and why his vehicle crashed. He is then made to sit while others search his vehicle. After trying to get up, the man is violently shoved to the ground.

Then, while the man sat on the ground apparently texting on his phone, one of the rioters who had initially confronted him ran up from behind and kicked him in the side of the head, rendering him unconscious.

Shouts of support for Black Lives Matter can be heard as other rioters began examining the man. A woman can be heard shouting multiple times to call 911 as the man lay bleeding on the street.  Police did not arrive on the scene until after the crash and the violence had already occurred. When the police began attempting to tow away the man’s vehicle, the crowd started accusing them of “protecting white supremacists.”

Portland is entering its 81st consecutive day of riots as demonstrators have moved beyond attacking federal courthouses and have now entered into residential areas. The condition of the man who was knocked unconscious is unknown.

Barack Obama was never a traditional American president. After all, he was the only president ever to come to the White House manifestly disliking and being embarrassed by the country he was elected to lead. With that as a background, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s publicly meddling in the upcoming election in a way that even Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton didn’t try. (Former Republican presidents have more graciously stayed out of the fray.)

Both of Obama’s lines of attack are serious. First, he’s explicitly saying that Trump is trying to throw the election by putting his managerial skills to work to address a postal system that is in complete disarray. Second, he’s attacking his own former Vice President, who is now waiting in the wings to be officially crowned as the Democrat party’s presidential candidate.

The United States Post Office is a mess. In 2018, the Post Office had a net loss of $3.91 billion. In 2019, the net loss had more than doubled, reaching a staggering $8.81 billion. Even considering the claim that some of that money was a result of bookkeeping changes, the net loss was still almost $2 billion greater than in 2018.

Thanks to the Wuhan virus, 2020 is promising to be the worst year ever. At the end of April, the Post Office said that its first-quarter losses were already $4.5 billion. In the second quarter, the Post Office lost another $2.2 billion. It is a barely functional institution.

Nevertheless, Democrats are insisting that, come November, all voting in America must be done via the U.S. Mail, with states mailing ballots to every registered voter and the voters mailing them back. Others have pointed out that this will be a disaster, so I won’t belabor the point. It’s enough to say that the possibilities of fraud on a hitherto unknown scale are enormous. Moreover, with the Postal union just having endorsed Joe Biden, if Trump voters are forced to vote by mail, they’ll have a reasonable fear that their ballots will never get counted.

Donald Trump, looking at this mess, decided to do what he’s done for decades: Install new management to make a business better. This isn’t just his avocation; it’s also his constitutional job.

In June, Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, an experienced businessman, as his Postmaster General. DeJoy immediately set about trying to slow the financial bleeding. Democrats, of course, complained. Things really went “postal,” though, on August 7, when DeJoy reassigned or removed 23 senior postal officials. Management shuffles are a logical step to take when an organization is dysfunctional.

In our politicized age, this was going to be a hot potato under any circumstances. Still, Obama, who should be staying out of things, turned it into a nuclear potato by accusing Trump of deliberately sabotaging the election:

Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for trying to ‘actively kneecap’ the postal service to disenfranchise voters.

Obama did not say Trump’s name but did refer to the ‘president’ in his interview on the podcast of David Plouffe, his former campaign manager, in some of his harshest, direct criticism of Trump to date.

‘What we’ve seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a President who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting,’ Obama said. ‘What we’ve never seen before is a President say, ‘I’m going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I’m doing it.’’ 

‘That’s sort of unheard of,’ he added. 

Ironically, Obama meddled on the same day that Dr. Fauci finally admitted that, if people could shop, they could also do in-person voting.

But that wasn’t the end of Obama’s meddling. There was a leak on Friday (that Obama might have planted) that Obama is unhappy with Biden’s candidacy:

[A] number of anonymously sourced quotes from Obama leaked out throughout the 2020 Biden campaign where the former president allegedly expressed doubts about his former running mates’ fitness for office.

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up,” one Democrat who spoke to the former president recalled him saying.

When lamenting his own diminishing relationship with the current Democratic electorate, particularly in Iowa, Obama reportedly told one 2020 candidate: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”

It sounds to me as if, with Kamala Harris now in place in the campaign, Obama is attempting to remove Biden from the picture entirely. Obama was never really going to let a senile man head the Democrat party ticket, and he may now be getting his ducks in a row to ease Biden out.

Put simply, Russia couldn’t have done a better job at interfering with a presidential election than Obama has done. Four years ago, his interference was covert and illegal. This year, it’s overt and disgusting.

Image: Obama and Biden, by Obama White House; U.S. Government work, public domain.

Barack Obama was never a traditional American president. After all, he was the only president ever to come to the White House manifestly disliking and being embarrassed by the country he was elected to lead. With that as a background, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s publicly meddling in the upcoming election in a way that even Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton didn’t try. (Former Republican presidents have more graciously stayed out of the fray.)

Both of Obama’s lines of attack are serious. First, he’s explicitly saying that Trump is trying to throw the election by putting his managerial skills to work to address a postal system that is in complete disarray. Second, he’s attacking his own former Vice President, who is now waiting in the wings to be officially crowned as the Democrat party’s presidential candidate.

The United States Post Office is a mess. In 2018, the Post Office had a net loss of $3.91 billion. In 2019, the net loss had more than doubled, reaching a staggering $8.81 billion. Even considering the claim that some of that money was a result of bookkeeping changes, the net loss was still almost $2 billion greater than in 2018.

Thanks to the Wuhan virus, 2020 is promising to be the worst year ever. At the end of April, the Post Office said that its first-quarter losses were already $4.5 billion. In the second quarter, the Post Office lost another $2.2 billion. It is a barely functional institution.

Nevertheless, Democrats are insisting that, come November, all voting in America must be done via the U.S. Mail, with states mailing ballots to every registered voter and the voters mailing them back. Others have pointed out that this will be a disaster, so I won’t belabor the point. It’s enough to say that the possibilities of fraud on a hitherto unknown scale are enormous. Moreover, with the Postal union just having endorsed Joe Biden, if Trump voters are forced to vote by mail, they’ll have a reasonable fear that their ballots will never get counted.

Donald Trump, looking at this mess, decided to do what he’s done for decades: Install new management to make a business better. This isn’t just his avocation; it’s also his constitutional job.

In June, Trump appointed Louis DeJoy, an experienced businessman, as his Postmaster General. DeJoy immediately set about trying to slow the financial bleeding. Democrats, of course, complained. Things really went “postal,” though, on August 7, when DeJoy reassigned or removed 23 senior postal officials. Management shuffles are a logical step to take when an organization is dysfunctional.

In our politicized age, this was going to be a hot potato under any circumstances. Still, Obama, who should be staying out of things, turned it into a nuclear potato by accusing Trump of deliberately sabotaging the election:

Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for trying to ‘actively kneecap’ the postal service to disenfranchise voters.

Obama did not say Trump’s name but did refer to the ‘president’ in his interview on the podcast of David Plouffe, his former campaign manager, in some of his harshest, direct criticism of Trump to date.

‘What we’ve seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a President who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting,’ Obama said. ‘What we’ve never seen before is a President say, ‘I’m going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I’m doing it.’’ 

‘That’s sort of unheard of,’ he added. 

Ironically, Obama meddled on the same day that Dr. Fauci finally admitted that, if people could shop, they could also do in-person voting.

But that wasn’t the end of Obama’s meddling. There was a leak on Friday (that Obama might have planted) that Obama is unhappy with Biden’s candidacy:

[A] number of anonymously sourced quotes from Obama leaked out throughout the 2020 Biden campaign where the former president allegedly expressed doubts about his former running mates’ fitness for office.

“Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f–k things up,” one Democrat who spoke to the former president recalled him saying.

When lamenting his own diminishing relationship with the current Democratic electorate, particularly in Iowa, Obama reportedly told one 2020 candidate: “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”

It sounds to me as if, with Kamala Harris now in place in the campaign, Obama is attempting to remove Biden from the picture entirely. Obama was never really going to let a senile man head the Democrat party ticket, and he may now be getting his ducks in a row to ease Biden out.

Put simply, Russia couldn’t have done a better job at interfering with a presidential election than Obama has done. Four years ago, his interference was covert and illegal. This year, it’s overt and disgusting.

Image: Obama and Biden, by Obama White House; U.S. Government work, public domain.

It’s tempting to look on current events as unprecedented, with divisions as deep as at any time since the Civil War.  An antidote to this ahistorical view is to read (or re-read) historian Paul Johnson’s 1983 Modern Times — especially the chapters titled “American’s Suicide Attempt” and “The Collective Seventies.” Moreover, what we are experiencing now, as a renewed suicide attempt gains traction, can be seen as a direct result of those policies and the misconceptions that produced them.   As Johnson sees it, a good part of the suicide attempt stemmed from the Vietnam War and the attempt by another Johnson, President Lyndon Johnson, to eradicate poverty.  

As historian Johnson sees it, President Johnson believed in the boundless capacity of the American economy to deliver.  While President Kennedy found it difficult to educate congress in his social spending ideas, to honor his memory, in the wake of his assassination in 1963, Johnson was able to pass bills to fund “The Great Society.”

 Johnson writes:

The danger of the kind of welfare state Johnson was creating was that it pushed people out of the productive economy permanently and made them dependents of the state.   Poverty increased when families split up, either by old people living apart or by divorce.   Legislation often promoted these processes.

Fast forward: the once stable black family has suffered the most. By 2018, 66 percent of black families were headed by single mothers, as were 33 percent of white families.

President Johnson also believed that education was a miracle cure.  In the golden years of expansion, new colleges were opening at the rate of one a week.  But historian Johnson reports that amassing big new groups of students led to a 49-point decline in verbal and 32-point decline in math skills in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores.  

Fast forwarding, we find that all the money poured into education and the efforts to make the tests “culturally neutral” did nothing to close the gap in group performance on SAT scores.  Asians stubbornly outperformed, especially in math skills, and African Americans underperformed.   So what is the current “solution”?  Abolish the tests.

Paul Johnson asserts that the well-intentioned expansion of higher education had the unintended effect of fueling student violence. In 1964’s “freedom summer” the governor of California had to call in the riot police due to student violence at Berkeley.  The next year, 25,000 students invaded Washington to protest against the Vietnam War.  In 1968, the National Student Association claimed there were 221 major demonstrations at universities in America.   At the Chicago Democratic Convention in August, students fought a pitched battle with 11,900 of Mayor Daley’s police, 7,500 of the Illinois National Guard, and 1000 FBI and Secret Service agents.

In 2020, student discontent is further fueled by student debt, now about $1.56 trillion.  Increasingly, as prospects for graduates (and those who fail to graduate) ever paying off this debt — while also being able to afford marriage and raising a family — shrink, the “solution” most often offered is “Cancel the debt.”  In other words, shift the burden to the taxpayer.

The attempt by successive presidents to obtain justice for American blacks  also produced unintended effects. Johnson reports that while in the 1950s and early 1960s, Federal power had been used to protect blacks from white violence, the initiative in violence shifted to the blacks.  Johnson cites as the turning point the night of 10 May 1962, in Birmingham, Alabama.   There was a black riot, with police forced onto the defensive and white shops demolished: “Let the whole f*cking city burn,” shouted a mob leader, “This’ll show the white motherfuckers!” (Sixty years later, the rhetoric has not changed.)

To quote Johnson: “The first really big and ugly black riots broke out in Harlem and Brooklyn in 18 July 1964, only two weeks after the epoch-making Civil Rights Act was passed.   The violence spread to Rochester in New York State, to Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth in New Jersey, to Dixmoor in Chicago, and Philadelphia.   In August 1965 the Watts riots in Los Angeles lasted six days, involved 15,000 National Guardsmen, killed thirty-four, injured 856 and destroyed $200 million of property…   The riots in Detroit on 24-28 July 1967 were among the most serious in American history, killing forty-three people and forcing a distraught President Johnson to move in the 18th Airborne Corps of paratroopers, whose commander said he entered a city ‘saturated with fear’.” 

What has changed fifty years later is the identification of many Democratic politicians with the rioters leading to calls (and action) to defund the police rather than punish the attackers and looters.  Traveling from city to city,   journalist Michael Tracey has documented the large-scale destruction: “From large metro areas like Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul, to small and mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana and Green Bay, Wisconsin, the number of boarded up, damaged or destroyed buildings I have personally observed — commercial, civic, and residential — is staggering.”

When equal opportunity did not  rapidly produce equal results, starting in the 1970s, Johnson notes, government began to mandate that private companies receiving government funds or contacts had to employ races by quota and “…the rights of women, homosexuals, the handicapped and many other collective entities were interpreted by the courts as enforceable against powerful institutions, such as business or government.” The result, says Johnson, “A growing proportion of business resources and executive time was devoted to responding to litigation: in the 1970s, America had four times as many lawyers per capita as West Germany, twenty times as many as Japan.”

While the shutdown of the economy in response to COVID-19 has driven “climate change” from the headlines, the rise of the environmental movement may yet prove to be the most devastating legacy of America’s earlier “suicide attempt.”  Johnson reports that the ‘Conservation Congress’ of 1968 passed a series of gigantic acts to impose “Ecotopia” on American business.  

Johnson writes: “By 1976 it was calculated that compliance with the new [environmental] regulations was costing business $63 billion a year, plus a further $3 billion to the taxpayer to maintain the government regulatory agencies.   Total costs rose to over $100 billion by 1979.”

Fast forward to 2020, when activists want to replace all fossil fuel by renewable energy.  The cost of this is in the stratosphere.  Moreover, as critics have pointed out to the disinterest of the mainstream media, the net effect will be to damage the environment.  One such knowledgeable critic, Paul Driessen notes: “Just one electric car or backup-power battery weighs 1,000 pounds and requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of various ores…. The true costs of “green” energy are staggering.”

Will this second suicide attempt be more successful than the first? In many ways this round dwarfs what Paul Johnson describes. White America in that earlier era did not hate itself.  In the 1960s and 70s one could not imagine  elementary school children in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States (Lower Merion outside Philadelphia), as part of its “cultural proficiency” curriculum,  being assigned books claiming white people who relate to police officers are “complicit in racism.” An indignant parent (to whose complaint the school board did not even deign to reply) told the Washington Free Beacon: “This book teaches kids not only to defy parents but to hate themselves…”

America’s suicide attempt has been both cultural and economic.  If we do not reverse course, America will be neither a land of opportunity nor a land of freedom. 

Victor Davis Hanson offers as a best-case scenario;   “There will be a counterrevolution because without one there is not much of America left.”

It’s tempting to look on current events as unprecedented, with divisions as deep as at any time since the Civil War.  An antidote to this ahistorical view is to read (or re-read) historian Paul Johnson’s 1983 Modern Times — especially the chapters titled “American’s Suicide Attempt” and “The Collective Seventies.” Moreover, what we are experiencing now, as a renewed suicide attempt gains traction, can be seen as a direct result of those policies and the misconceptions that produced them.   As Johnson sees it, a good part of the suicide attempt stemmed from the Vietnam War and the attempt by another Johnson, President Lyndon Johnson, to eradicate poverty.  

As historian Johnson sees it, President Johnson believed in the boundless capacity of the American economy to deliver.  While President Kennedy found it difficult to educate congress in his social spending ideas, to honor his memory, in the wake of his assassination in 1963, Johnson was able to pass bills to fund “The Great Society.”

 Johnson writes:

The danger of the kind of welfare state Johnson was creating was that it pushed people out of the productive economy permanently and made them dependents of the state.   Poverty increased when families split up, either by old people living apart or by divorce.   Legislation often promoted these processes.

Fast forward: the once stable black family has suffered the most. By 2018, 66 percent of black families were headed by single mothers, as were 33 percent of white families.

President Johnson also believed that education was a miracle cure.  In the golden years of expansion, new colleges were opening at the rate of one a week.  But historian Johnson reports that amassing big new groups of students led to a 49-point decline in verbal and 32-point decline in math skills in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores.  

Fast forwarding, we find that all the money poured into education and the efforts to make the tests “culturally neutral” did nothing to close the gap in group performance on SAT scores.  Asians stubbornly outperformed, especially in math skills, and African Americans underperformed.   So what is the current “solution”?  Abolish the tests.

Paul Johnson asserts that the well-intentioned expansion of higher education had the unintended effect of fueling student violence. In 1964’s “freedom summer” the governor of California had to call in the riot police due to student violence at Berkeley.  The next year, 25,000 students invaded Washington to protest against the Vietnam War.  In 1968, the National Student Association claimed there were 221 major demonstrations at universities in America.   At the Chicago Democratic Convention in August, students fought a pitched battle with 11,900 of Mayor Daley’s police, 7,500 of the Illinois National Guard, and 1000 FBI and Secret Service agents.

In 2020, student discontent is further fueled by student debt, now about $1.56 trillion.  Increasingly, as prospects for graduates (and those who fail to graduate) ever paying off this debt — while also being able to afford marriage and raising a family — shrink, the “solution” most often offered is “Cancel the debt.”  In other words, shift the burden to the taxpayer.

The attempt by successive presidents to obtain justice for American blacks  also produced unintended effects. Johnson reports that while in the 1950s and early 1960s, Federal power had been used to protect blacks from white violence, the initiative in violence shifted to the blacks.  Johnson cites as the turning point the night of 10 May 1962, in Birmingham, Alabama.   There was a black riot, with police forced onto the defensive and white shops demolished: “Let the whole f*cking city burn,” shouted a mob leader, “This’ll show the white motherfuckers!” (Sixty years later, the rhetoric has not changed.)

To quote Johnson: “The first really big and ugly black riots broke out in Harlem and Brooklyn in 18 July 1964, only two weeks after the epoch-making Civil Rights Act was passed.   The violence spread to Rochester in New York State, to Jersey City, Paterson, and Elizabeth in New Jersey, to Dixmoor in Chicago, and Philadelphia.   In August 1965 the Watts riots in Los Angeles lasted six days, involved 15,000 National Guardsmen, killed thirty-four, injured 856 and destroyed $200 million of property…   The riots in Detroit on 24-28 July 1967 were among the most serious in American history, killing forty-three people and forcing a distraught President Johnson to move in the 18th Airborne Corps of paratroopers, whose commander said he entered a city ‘saturated with fear’.” 

What has changed fifty years later is the identification of many Democratic politicians with the rioters leading to calls (and action) to defund the police rather than punish the attackers and looters.  Traveling from city to city,   journalist Michael Tracey has documented the large-scale destruction: “From large metro areas like Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul, to small and mid-sized cities like Fort Wayne, Indiana and Green Bay, Wisconsin, the number of boarded up, damaged or destroyed buildings I have personally observed — commercial, civic, and residential — is staggering.”

When equal opportunity did not  rapidly produce equal results, starting in the 1970s, Johnson notes, government began to mandate that private companies receiving government funds or contacts had to employ races by quota and “…the rights of women, homosexuals, the handicapped and many other collective entities were interpreted by the courts as enforceable against powerful institutions, such as business or government.” The result, says Johnson, “A growing proportion of business resources and executive time was devoted to responding to litigation: in the 1970s, America had four times as many lawyers per capita as West Germany, twenty times as many as Japan.”

While the shutdown of the economy in response to COVID-19 has driven “climate change” from the headlines, the rise of the environmental movement may yet prove to be the most devastating legacy of America’s earlier “suicide attempt.”  Johnson reports that the ‘Conservation Congress’ of 1968 passed a series of gigantic acts to impose “Ecotopia” on American business.  

Johnson writes: “By 1976 it was calculated that compliance with the new [environmental] regulations was costing business $63 billion a year, plus a further $3 billion to the taxpayer to maintain the government regulatory agencies.   Total costs rose to over $100 billion by 1979.”

Fast forward to 2020, when activists want to replace all fossil fuel by renewable energy.  The cost of this is in the stratosphere.  Moreover, as critics have pointed out to the disinterest of the mainstream media, the net effect will be to damage the environment.  One such knowledgeable critic, Paul Driessen notes: “Just one electric car or backup-power battery weighs 1,000 pounds and requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of various ores…. The true costs of “green” energy are staggering.”

Will this second suicide attempt be more successful than the first? In many ways this round dwarfs what Paul Johnson describes. White America in that earlier era did not hate itself.  In the 1960s and 70s one could not imagine  elementary school children in one of the wealthiest counties in the United States (Lower Merion outside Philadelphia), as part of its “cultural proficiency” curriculum,  being assigned books claiming white people who relate to police officers are “complicit in racism.” An indignant parent (to whose complaint the school board did not even deign to reply) told the Washington Free Beacon: “This book teaches kids not only to defy parents but to hate themselves…”

America’s suicide attempt has been both cultural and economic.  If we do not reverse course, America will be neither a land of opportunity nor a land of freedom. 

Victor Davis Hanson offers as a best-case scenario;   “There will be a counterrevolution because without one there is not much of America left.”

Joe Biden wants you to be miserable when you vote. This is not an unusual wish for out-of-office politicians. Miserable people tend to vote against the incumbent.

Earlier this year, Joe Biden faced daunting odds. The economy was stronger than it had ever been, ISIS had been defeated, North Korea had been silenced, Iran had been cowed, bad trade deals had been renegotiated, and the border wall was being built. People were happy.

Then the China virus hit. It was a godsend to Democrats. It’s real. It can kill you. And best of all, it has stopped Trump’s huge rallies.

Naturally, Democrats want the virus to appear as deadly as possible for as long as possible. They’ve done a terrific job of it. They (including their supporters in the press and the bureaucracy) have kept the China virus in the headlines for the past five months by exaggerating its effects (overstating the numbers of infections and deaths), maximizing its inconvenience (shutting down businesses, schools, and sports), and mandating a constant visual reminder of the ever-present danger (masks for everybody all the time).

Things were going well for them, politically speaking, until the unruly wing of the Democrat Party saw an opportunity in the death of George Floyd and decided to flex their muscles. No one realized how weak the mainstream Democrat Party had become, or how powerful Black Lives Matter and Antifa had become, until they destroyed downtown Minneapolis.

Until then, they had done little more than make nuisances of themselves. Antifa had pulled down statues, broken windows, and disrupted traffic. Black Lives Matter had marched through cities shouting: “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!” and “Pigs in a blanket. Fry ‘em like bacon!” Small stuff with little lasting damage, so far as Democrats were concerned. They decided to countenance the violence and threats with silence. And that was when they missed their best chance to distance themselves from all the mayhem that would follow.

The riots that started in Minneapolis quickly spread to Seattle, Chicago, New York, Portland, and dozens of other Democrat-run cities. Local authorities didn’t know how to react. After all, the rioters were presumptive Democrat voters.

Public Domain

Democrat mayors and governors decided to dance with the devil. They would side with the rioters and try to minimize all the damage they did – political, not physical damage — with words. They declared the riots to be “mostly peaceful protests.” They described the anarchy as an expression of “love.” And they announced that any intervention by the Feds would itself be an unprovoked act of aggression. (I am reminded of a story Abraham Lincoln related in his Cooper Union speech: “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’”) 

In this third month of the siege of American cities, nary a word of criticism has passed Democrat lips. Liberal media continue to characterize the riots as righteous exercises of our First Amendment if they mention them at all. In a conversation with Joe Biden, President Obama described the mayhem as “…an extraordinary mobilization across the country.”

Black Lives Matter and Antifa seem to have thoroughly cowed the Democrat Party. Whatever they wish, Democrats shall do. You want us to defund the police? Sure. Paint BLM “murals” on city streets? Hand me a roller. Don’t want us to prosecute rioters? Wouldn’t think of it. Looting is payback for long-overdue reparations? Well, yeah. Okay.

Democrats must surely worry about the optics of bowing to the rioters’ will. But they worry even more about what might happen if they should refuse to do as BLM and Antifa demand. War might break out between the unruly and ruling wings of the Democrat Party, and that could cause them to lose not just the presidency, but possibly both houses of Congress as well. They calculate that their better option is to pay lip service to the gangs and keep the chaos out of the news. Make the pandemic the big story. That’ll keep the voters terrified.

Mark Twain once observed: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Some of us will recall familiar strains from a half century ago. In 1968 we were beset by a pandemic (the Hong Kong flu), saw riots engulf the nation (incited by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), and held a presidential election between Vice President Hubert Humphrey and former Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon campaigned on the theme of “law and order,” and he won. 

Joe Biden wants you to be miserable when you vote. This is not an unusual wish for out-of-office politicians. Miserable people tend to vote against the incumbent.

Earlier this year, Joe Biden faced daunting odds. The economy was stronger than it had ever been, ISIS had been defeated, North Korea had been silenced, Iran had been cowed, bad trade deals had been renegotiated, and the border wall was being built. People were happy.

Then the China virus hit. It was a godsend to Democrats. It’s real. It can kill you. And best of all, it has stopped Trump’s huge rallies.

Naturally, Democrats want the virus to appear as deadly as possible for as long as possible. They’ve done a terrific job of it. They (including their supporters in the press and the bureaucracy) have kept the China virus in the headlines for the past five months by exaggerating its effects (overstating the numbers of infections and deaths), maximizing its inconvenience (shutting down businesses, schools, and sports), and mandating a constant visual reminder of the ever-present danger (masks for everybody all the time).

Things were going well for them, politically speaking, until the unruly wing of the Democrat Party saw an opportunity in the death of George Floyd and decided to flex their muscles. No one realized how weak the mainstream Democrat Party had become, or how powerful Black Lives Matter and Antifa had become, until they destroyed downtown Minneapolis.

Until then, they had done little more than make nuisances of themselves. Antifa had pulled down statues, broken windows, and disrupted traffic. Black Lives Matter had marched through cities shouting: “What do we want? Dead cops! When do we want them? Now!” and “Pigs in a blanket. Fry ‘em like bacon!” Small stuff with little lasting damage, so far as Democrats were concerned. They decided to countenance the violence and threats with silence. And that was when they missed their best chance to distance themselves from all the mayhem that would follow.

The riots that started in Minneapolis quickly spread to Seattle, Chicago, New York, Portland, and dozens of other Democrat-run cities. Local authorities didn’t know how to react. After all, the rioters were presumptive Democrat voters.

Public Domain

Democrat mayors and governors decided to dance with the devil. They would side with the rioters and try to minimize all the damage they did – political, not physical damage — with words. They declared the riots to be “mostly peaceful protests.” They described the anarchy as an expression of “love.” And they announced that any intervention by the Feds would itself be an unprovoked act of aggression. (I am reminded of a story Abraham Lincoln related in his Cooper Union speech: “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’”) 

In this third month of the siege of American cities, nary a word of criticism has passed Democrat lips. Liberal media continue to characterize the riots as righteous exercises of our First Amendment if they mention them at all. In a conversation with Joe Biden, President Obama described the mayhem as “…an extraordinary mobilization across the country.”

Black Lives Matter and Antifa seem to have thoroughly cowed the Democrat Party. Whatever they wish, Democrats shall do. You want us to defund the police? Sure. Paint BLM “murals” on city streets? Hand me a roller. Don’t want us to prosecute rioters? Wouldn’t think of it. Looting is payback for long-overdue reparations? Well, yeah. Okay.

Democrats must surely worry about the optics of bowing to the rioters’ will. But they worry even more about what might happen if they should refuse to do as BLM and Antifa demand. War might break out between the unruly and ruling wings of the Democrat Party, and that could cause them to lose not just the presidency, but possibly both houses of Congress as well. They calculate that their better option is to pay lip service to the gangs and keep the chaos out of the news. Make the pandemic the big story. That’ll keep the voters terrified.

Mark Twain once observed: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Some of us will recall familiar strains from a half century ago. In 1968 we were beset by a pandemic (the Hong Kong flu), saw riots engulf the nation (incited by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.), and held a presidential election between Vice President Hubert Humphrey and former Vice President Richard Nixon. Nixon campaigned on the theme of “law and order,” and he won. 

This story takes place in Texas of all places: In October 2019, Americans learned about Jeffrey Younger’s desperate fight to block his ex-wife from turning their then seven-year-old son into a girl. A jury tried to hand sole custody and decision-making over to the boy’s mother, but a judge stepped in and gave both parents an equal say, with a different judge to render a verdict over any disagreements the parents could not resolve. That second judge has now given sole decision-making power to the mother, who wants to turn her son into a girl. To add insult to injury, the judge is making the father pay.

To realize how disturbing this case is, there are several things you need to know. Younger has argued that, when the boy is in his company, all he wants to do is be a boy. Younger makes the point that, just because James likes Frozen, that does not mean he wants to be a princess for life. Anne Georgulas, however, has gone the “therapeutic” route and inundated the jury and the new judge with evidence from therapists.

Few people have paid attention to the identity of these therapists, but their avocation is key to what’s being done to this little boy. Keep in mind the saying that, to a hammer, everything is a nail. Back in the 1980s, we witnessed scores of lives being destroyed as monomaniacal, mentally-ill therapists trained little children to believe that their pre-schools were satanic worship centers.

Georgulas, whether because she has serious issues of her own or because she wanted to be a “responsible,” virtue-signaling mother, took her child to a “Gender Affirming Care Program” at Children’s Health in Dallas. This program is not in the business of recognizing that young children try on different identities and cycle through different interests. Instead, it is dedicated to using therapy and radical hormone treatments to push the dangerous fantasy that people can “become” the opposite sex:

GENECIS provides comprehensive, gender-affirming care to transgender and gender-diverse youth in a supportive and safe environment so they may live fulfilling lives within their families and communities.

[snip]

We support youth of all gender expressions and identities, and provide evidence-based, gender-affirming care in a supportive and safe environment. Gender identity is unique for every child and may be different from the sex assigned to them at birth. Our care is individualized and developed through collaboration with patients and their families.

In this regard, it’s important to understand that this is all bunk. There is no evidence to support any reality behind gender dysphoria, any more than there is evidence to say that emaciated girls with anorexia are fat because they think they are. Just recently, a major study had to be walked back because its claims about so-called “transgenderism” were unfounded.

As for Rebekka Ouer, the child’s therapist, her whole practice is centered on affirming the so-called LGBT spectrum, as if the sexual desires of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (a behavior) are the same as traumatized people’s body dysmorphia (a denial of biological reality). It’s not unreasonable that someone like that would work with a little boy whose mother is determined to make him the daughter she never had. (Understand that I am not accusing Ouer of malpractice or being evil. Between the bias of her professional background and Georgulas’s determination, Ouer never stood a chance.)

And where does this all end up? With Younger being told to shut up and pay his ex-wife $5,000 a month to have his son turned into a girl:

Yesterday, a Dallas judge took away Jeffrey Younger’s say in his son James’ medical, psychological, and psychiatric care, giving that power to James’ mother, who wants to “transition” him into a “girl.”

[snip]

Yesterday, Judge Mary Brown, who was appointed to the case in January, granted Georgulas’ requests to force Mr. Younger to pay for counseling for James and Jude and attend family counseling. 

[snip]

According to the “Save James” Facebook page, Judge Brown’s order will also allow Georgulas to enroll James in school as “Luna.”

In a sane society, one gently tries to counsel a confused person back into alignment with his or her biological sex and, perhaps, uses hormones consistent with that biological sex. In an insane society, judges side with mothers who want to pretend that a healthy little boy is, instead, a girl. It’s time to stop the madness and Make America Normal Again.

Image: Children boys play, by Insights Unspoken; Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 2.0

This story takes place in Texas of all places: In October 2019, Americans learned about Jeffrey Younger’s desperate fight to block his ex-wife from turning their then seven-year-old son into a girl. A jury tried to hand sole custody and decision-making over to the boy’s mother, but a judge stepped in and gave both parents an equal say, with a different judge to render a verdict over any disagreements the parents could not resolve. That second judge has now given sole decision-making power to the mother, who wants to turn her son into a girl. To add insult to injury, the judge is making the father pay.

To realize how disturbing this case is, there are several things you need to know. Younger has argued that, when the boy is in his company, all he wants to do is be a boy. Younger makes the point that, just because James likes Frozen, that does not mean he wants to be a princess for life. Anne Georgulas, however, has gone the “therapeutic” route and inundated the jury and the new judge with evidence from therapists.

Few people have paid attention to the identity of these therapists, but their avocation is key to what’s being done to this little boy. Keep in mind the saying that, to a hammer, everything is a nail. Back in the 1980s, we witnessed scores of lives being destroyed as monomaniacal, mentally-ill therapists trained little children to believe that their pre-schools were satanic worship centers.

Georgulas, whether because she has serious issues of her own or because she wanted to be a “responsible,” virtue-signaling mother, took her child to a “Gender Affirming Care Program” at Children’s Health in Dallas. This program is not in the business of recognizing that young children try on different identities and cycle through different interests. Instead, it is dedicated to using therapy and radical hormone treatments to push the dangerous fantasy that people can “become” the opposite sex:

GENECIS provides comprehensive, gender-affirming care to transgender and gender-diverse youth in a supportive and safe environment so they may live fulfilling lives within their families and communities.

[snip]

We support youth of all gender expressions and identities, and provide evidence-based, gender-affirming care in a supportive and safe environment. Gender identity is unique for every child and may be different from the sex assigned to them at birth. Our care is individualized and developed through collaboration with patients and their families.

In this regard, it’s important to understand that this is all bunk. There is no evidence to support any reality behind gender dysphoria, any more than there is evidence to say that emaciated girls with anorexia are fat because they think they are. Just recently, a major study had to be walked back because its claims about so-called “transgenderism” were unfounded.

As for Rebekka Ouer, the child’s therapist, her whole practice is centered on affirming the so-called LGBT spectrum, as if the sexual desires of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals (a behavior) are the same as traumatized people’s body dysmorphia (a denial of biological reality). It’s not unreasonable that someone like that would work with a little boy whose mother is determined to make him the daughter she never had. (Understand that I am not accusing Ouer of malpractice or being evil. Between the bias of her professional background and Georgulas’s determination, Ouer never stood a chance.)

And where does this all end up? With Younger being told to shut up and pay his ex-wife $5,000 a month to have his son turned into a girl:

Yesterday, a Dallas judge took away Jeffrey Younger’s say in his son James’ medical, psychological, and psychiatric care, giving that power to James’ mother, who wants to “transition” him into a “girl.”

[snip]

Yesterday, Judge Mary Brown, who was appointed to the case in January, granted Georgulas’ requests to force Mr. Younger to pay for counseling for James and Jude and attend family counseling. 

[snip]

According to the “Save James” Facebook page, Judge Brown’s order will also allow Georgulas to enroll James in school as “Luna.”

In a sane society, one gently tries to counsel a confused person back into alignment with his or her biological sex and, perhaps, uses hormones consistent with that biological sex. In an insane society, judges side with mothers who want to pretend that a healthy little boy is, instead, a girl. It’s time to stop the madness and Make America Normal Again.

Image: Children boys play, by Insights Unspoken; Creative Commons license CC BY-SA 2.0

Should Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win election in November, the radical far-left, Marxist  elements dominating and controlling today’s Democrat party have a sinister plan to use the 25th Amendment to make Kamala Harris president of the United States.  This article predicts that the speed with which this happens will be mind-boggling to millions of Americans.  How this could and most likely will occur is described herein.

As Attorney General William Barr recently stated, the radical left “has a lust for power.”  ”That’s what turns them on — they are not concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans.”  Nothing, absolutely nothing, should be ruled out regarding the lengths to which radical leftists will go to effectively shred America’s constitution to gain governing power and control over the daily lives of Americans.

Most certainly, freedom-loving Americans do not want a radical far-left politician like Kamala Harris becoming commander-in-chief of America’s military forces.  According to GovTrack.us, Harris was voted the most liberal U.S. senator in 2019, outranking senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren!  Thus, if Kamala Harris ever becomes president, for sure, there will be a litany of radical far-left, Marxist policies and actions emanating from the White House and a radical far-left administration.

Given all the above, exactly how could Vice President Harris become President Harris soon after inauguration in January 2021?  The answer is relatively simple and requires use of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The basic purpose of the 25th Amendment is to clarify the procedure and authority for the Vice President to assume the office of president in the event that the president dies, resigns, or otherwise is removed from office.  Thus, if President Biden takes action himself to resign or declare himself unable to carry out the duties of his office, Kamala Harris becomes “acting president,” most likely for the remainder of Biden’s four-year term of office.

However, if President Biden refuses to resign or declare that he cannot carry out the duties of his office, then the language contained in Section Four of the 25th Amendment allows as follows:            

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thus, if President Biden does not voluntarily resign or declare himself unfit for the presidency, he can be forced to leave office simply by agreement among a small number of like-minded radical leftist bureaucrats (Cabinet members, etc.) and the vice president.

The above realistic possibility (nay — probability) should shock freedom-loving Americans to the core and be a strong motivator to ensure that President Donald J. Trump and other conservative candidates win election in November.

If Mr. Trump is not re-elected, the American people will be subjected to the dictates and whims of controlling, radical far-left politicians on a scale the likes of which the nation and population have never experienced.  This must not be allowed to happen.

Paul S. Gardiner is an avid lover of America and a Vietnam veteran.  He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Alabama, and the United States Army War College.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

Should Joe Biden and Kamala Harris win election in November, the radical far-left, Marxist  elements dominating and controlling today’s Democrat party have a sinister plan to use the 25th Amendment to make Kamala Harris president of the United States.  This article predicts that the speed with which this happens will be mind-boggling to millions of Americans.  How this could and most likely will occur is described herein.

As Attorney General William Barr recently stated, the radical left “has a lust for power.”  ”That’s what turns them on — they are not concerned about the lives of ordinary Americans.”  Nothing, absolutely nothing, should be ruled out regarding the lengths to which radical leftists will go to effectively shred America’s constitution to gain governing power and control over the daily lives of Americans.

Most certainly, freedom-loving Americans do not want a radical far-left politician like Kamala Harris becoming commander-in-chief of America’s military forces.  According to GovTrack.us, Harris was voted the most liberal U.S. senator in 2019, outranking senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren!  Thus, if Kamala Harris ever becomes president, for sure, there will be a litany of radical far-left, Marxist policies and actions emanating from the White House and a radical far-left administration.

Given all the above, exactly how could Vice President Harris become President Harris soon after inauguration in January 2021?  The answer is relatively simple and requires use of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The basic purpose of the 25th Amendment is to clarify the procedure and authority for the Vice President to assume the office of president in the event that the president dies, resigns, or otherwise is removed from office.  Thus, if President Biden takes action himself to resign or declare himself unable to carry out the duties of his office, Kamala Harris becomes “acting president,” most likely for the remainder of Biden’s four-year term of office.

However, if President Biden refuses to resign or declare that he cannot carry out the duties of his office, then the language contained in Section Four of the 25th Amendment allows as follows:            

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thus, if President Biden does not voluntarily resign or declare himself unfit for the presidency, he can be forced to leave office simply by agreement among a small number of like-minded radical leftist bureaucrats (Cabinet members, etc.) and the vice president.

The above realistic possibility (nay — probability) should shock freedom-loving Americans to the core and be a strong motivator to ensure that President Donald J. Trump and other conservative candidates win election in November.

If Mr. Trump is not re-elected, the American people will be subjected to the dictates and whims of controlling, radical far-left politicians on a scale the likes of which the nation and population have never experienced.  This must not be allowed to happen.

Paul S. Gardiner is an avid lover of America and a Vietnam veteran.  He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Alabama, and the United States Army War College.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr.

First, Minneapolis officials let rioters burn down and otherwise destroy nearly 100 businesses over the course of several nights. They told police to stand down. Since then, they have refused to let the owners remove the twisted wreckage of their demolished businesses without a permit. A permit they would not grant unless the owners of the now defunct shops, service outlets and eateries prepaid the second half of their 2020 property taxes. And contractors cannot provide an estimate of how much it will cost to rebuild their businesses until the debris is removed. St. Paul, the Minneapple’s sister city, has waived the tax requirement.

Don Blyly, owner of a bookstore destroyed in the riots, told the Minneapolis StarTribune: “Minneapolis has not been particularly friendly toward business for some time.” This is a candidate for Understatement of the Year, akin to saying that “Joe Biden hasn’t been the most eloquent person on the face of the Earth lately.” Blyly prepaid $8,847 in second half taxes a week ago, yet still hasn’t received his permit. Minneapolis officials lamely cited a state law for their intransigence. However, the law clearly leaves enforcement up to the counties, and Hennepin County officials say they made it clear to the city of Minneapolis earlier this summer that they would not enforce the requirement for any riot-damaged or destroyed properties.

Large stretches of Lake Street and other areas of the city have been reduced to piles of rubble. Piles of rubble that are still there, ugly, depressing and filled with hazardous materials. Basim Sabri is the owner of several properties on or near Lake Street. He told the StarTribune: “You can’t just allow a bunch of rubble and hazardous material to sit in the middle of Lake Street. People could get hurt. Where are our City Council members? What are they doing? Have they seen it?” They are too busy virtue-signaling and hiring private security for their own protection to tend to the needs of their city’s business community, Mr. Sabri.

On average, the paper reported, the owners of properties destroyed or significantly damaged owe $25,000 in taxes for the second half of 2020. Moreover, most of these owners will also have to pay $35,000 to $100,000 to have their sites cleared of debris. For many, their businesses were their only source of income. Already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the riots have left them unable to comply with the city’s mandates. Unsurprisingly, owners say the lack of progress has discouraged reinvestment and is forcing customers—and businesses—to look elsewhere.

To recap, businesses pay property taxes in large part to secure the services of the police and the fire department. City officials took the business owners’ first half 2020 taxes but then refused to let the police and fire department protect their businesses. Talk about a breach of contract. They didn’t demand any payment or recompense from the thugs and criminals who looted and plundered the businesses, but did demand payment of second half taxes from the businesses they let be destroyed, before they would “let” them clean up the mess the thugs and city created. Try to wrap your mind around that.

Shortly after the paper published the article, the city waived the pre-paid second half 2020 tax requirement. Mayor Jacob Frey announced the change and said, “I recently learned about the predicament and took quick action to fix it. For the sake of our businesses, we need to be removing every last possible barrier to recovery and reopening.” He recently learned about “the predicament?” That seems odd, him being the city’s mayor and all. Plus, Andrew Johnson is the one City Council member who has been sympathetic to the business owners’ plight. Frey issued a statement saying that he consulted with Johnson before deciding to waive the collection of property taxes as part of the debris removal process. Johnson has been lobbying city (and county) officials to address the issue and rectify the situation since June. And this is the first the feckless Frey had heard about it?

The wealthy are fleeing New York due to exorbitantly high taxes and a drastic increase in crime. The state’s clueless governor attempts to woo them back by offering to buy them a drink. Businesses are leaving New York, Illinois and California for the same reasons.  Now Minneapolis has joined the list of leftist-run states and cities seemingly determined to erode their tax bases to appease the frenzied mob.

Better raise taxes on the remaining businesses, right, Mayor Frey?

Image credit: CBS screen shot from shareable YouTube video

First, Minneapolis officials let rioters burn down and otherwise destroy nearly 100 businesses over the course of several nights. They told police to stand down. Since then, they have refused to let the owners remove the twisted wreckage of their demolished businesses without a permit. A permit they would not grant unless the owners of the now defunct shops, service outlets and eateries prepaid the second half of their 2020 property taxes. And contractors cannot provide an estimate of how much it will cost to rebuild their businesses until the debris is removed. St. Paul, the Minneapple’s sister city, has waived the tax requirement.

Don Blyly, owner of a bookstore destroyed in the riots, told the Minneapolis StarTribune: “Minneapolis has not been particularly friendly toward business for some time.” This is a candidate for Understatement of the Year, akin to saying that “Joe Biden hasn’t been the most eloquent person on the face of the Earth lately.” Blyly prepaid $8,847 in second half taxes a week ago, yet still hasn’t received his permit. Minneapolis officials lamely cited a state law for their intransigence. However, the law clearly leaves enforcement up to the counties, and Hennepin County officials say they made it clear to the city of Minneapolis earlier this summer that they would not enforce the requirement for any riot-damaged or destroyed properties.

Large stretches of Lake Street and other areas of the city have been reduced to piles of rubble. Piles of rubble that are still there, ugly, depressing and filled with hazardous materials. Basim Sabri is the owner of several properties on or near Lake Street. He told the StarTribune: “You can’t just allow a bunch of rubble and hazardous material to sit in the middle of Lake Street. People could get hurt. Where are our City Council members? What are they doing? Have they seen it?” They are too busy virtue-signaling and hiring private security for their own protection to tend to the needs of their city’s business community, Mr. Sabri.

On average, the paper reported, the owners of properties destroyed or significantly damaged owe $25,000 in taxes for the second half of 2020. Moreover, most of these owners will also have to pay $35,000 to $100,000 to have their sites cleared of debris. For many, their businesses were their only source of income. Already hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, the riots have left them unable to comply with the city’s mandates. Unsurprisingly, owners say the lack of progress has discouraged reinvestment and is forcing customers—and businesses—to look elsewhere.

To recap, businesses pay property taxes in large part to secure the services of the police and the fire department. City officials took the business owners’ first half 2020 taxes but then refused to let the police and fire department protect their businesses. Talk about a breach of contract. They didn’t demand any payment or recompense from the thugs and criminals who looted and plundered the businesses, but did demand payment of second half taxes from the businesses they let be destroyed, before they would “let” them clean up the mess the thugs and city created. Try to wrap your mind around that.

Shortly after the paper published the article, the city waived the pre-paid second half 2020 tax requirement. Mayor Jacob Frey announced the change and said, “I recently learned about the predicament and took quick action to fix it. For the sake of our businesses, we need to be removing every last possible barrier to recovery and reopening.” He recently learned about “the predicament?” That seems odd, him being the city’s mayor and all. Plus, Andrew Johnson is the one City Council member who has been sympathetic to the business owners’ plight. Frey issued a statement saying that he consulted with Johnson before deciding to waive the collection of property taxes as part of the debris removal process. Johnson has been lobbying city (and county) officials to address the issue and rectify the situation since June. And this is the first the feckless Frey had heard about it?

The wealthy are fleeing New York due to exorbitantly high taxes and a drastic increase in crime. The state’s clueless governor attempts to woo them back by offering to buy them a drink. Businesses are leaving New York, Illinois and California for the same reasons.  Now Minneapolis has joined the list of leftist-run states and cities seemingly determined to erode their tax bases to appease the frenzied mob.

Better raise taxes on the remaining businesses, right, Mayor Frey?

Image credit: CBS screen shot from shareable YouTube video

This is an outrageous instance of misplaced compassion.  Brooke Singman of Fox News reports:

A federal judge on Thursday, citing the coronavirus pandemic, ordered the release, of a Rhode Island man who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for participating in a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller on behalf of the Islamic State.

U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts William Young on Thursday announced the release of 29-year-old Nicholas Rovinski, whose lawyers this week argued that due to his medical conditions, which include cerebral palsy and hypertension, he is vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19.

Where is the compassion for Pamela?  (American Thinker readers know Pamela very well, for she has been a frequent contributor to our site and is a leading critic of violent jihad and those who promote it.)

Fox News video screen grab (cropped).

Her efforts to sponsor an exhibition of Mohammed cartoons in Dallas led to the plot to behead her.  At the exhibit, a jhadist attack led to two jihadis being killed by law enforcement.

Does Judge Young, a Reagan appointee who was born in 1940, 80 years ago, think jihad killers give up their goals after imprisonment?  Has he no compassion for someone threatened with the same sort of barbaric execution that ISIS — on whose behalf Rovinski plotted — regularly carried out?

Judge Young did not temporarily free Rovinski for the duration of the pandemic; he terminated the sentence to time served:

Young reduced Rovinski’s sentence to time served, and ordered him to spend the next 10 years in home confinement with electronic monitoring, with the first six months in “strict home confinement.”

Perhaps Judge Young thinks he is adequately protecting Pamela with home confinement, including six months of “strict home confinement,” a term that suggests that the remaining nine and a half years will be lenient home confinement.  Would Judge Young be comfortable if he or his loved ones were under religious threat of beheading, and the avowed perpetrator was free to communicate with others to re-engage in a plot to behead them?

Judge Young also insisted that no appeal could delay the release:

Young also denied prosecutors’ request to delay Rovinski’s release for 30 days while they consider an appeal. Prosecutors argued that the decision is an outcome “most would find hard to fathom under the circumstances, especially in the absence of any concrete rationale for the result.”

“We disagree with the court’s decision to now nullify that sentence — after only five years — based on COVID concerns,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press.

“We realize that Rovinski has certain medical issues, but this does not justify releasing to ‘home confinement’ — after serving a mere third of his sentence — someone who willfully conspired to kill people for ISIS,” he wrote.

Pamela Geller must now live in fear.  On her site, Gellerreport.com, she writes:  

How does Judge William Young know that Nicholas Rovinski won’t try to murder me again? He doesn’t. But he clearly doesn’t care. The “compassion” in Rovinski’s “compassionate release” is all for the perpetrator, not for his intended victim or others he might have killed in his jihad as well. Does Judge William Young not realize the gravity, the seriousness, the implications of freeing someone who plotted a beheading for a cartoon or piece of art that violated Islamic law? Does he not realize, or not care about, the freedom of speech? Maybe he doesn’t. After all, it is under attack on numerous fronts today. Maybe William Young is one of those people who believe in the spurious concept of “hate speech,” which is an entirely subjective thing, essentially a weapon of the powerful to smear and silence those who lack power.

The First Amendment is our most precious freedom — Rovinski should be serving life without the possibility of parole. Instead, he is on the streets again, as if he did nothing. The electronic monitoring is a joke, as is the home confinement. Last year a Muslim wearing an electronic tag killed a man in his deradicalization class and went out to wage jihad on the London Bridge. If Nicholas Rovinski participates in another plot to murder me, will Judge William Young be prosecuted?

Pray for Pamela’s safety, for the federal judiciary is indifferent to her peril.

This is an outrageous instance of misplaced compassion.  Brooke Singman of Fox News reports:

A federal judge on Thursday, citing the coronavirus pandemic, ordered the release, of a Rhode Island man who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for participating in a plot to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller on behalf of the Islamic State.

U.S. District Judge for Massachusetts William Young on Thursday announced the release of 29-year-old Nicholas Rovinski, whose lawyers this week argued that due to his medical conditions, which include cerebral palsy and hypertension, he is vulnerable to serious illness from COVID-19.

Where is the compassion for Pamela?  (American Thinker readers know Pamela very well, for she has been a frequent contributor to our site and is a leading critic of violent jihad and those who promote it.)

Fox News video screen grab (cropped).

Her efforts to sponsor an exhibition of Mohammed cartoons in Dallas led to the plot to behead her.  At the exhibit, a jhadist attack led to two jihadis being killed by law enforcement.

Does Judge Young, a Reagan appointee who was born in 1940, 80 years ago, think jihad killers give up their goals after imprisonment?  Has he no compassion for someone threatened with the same sort of barbaric execution that ISIS — on whose behalf Rovinski plotted — regularly carried out?

Judge Young did not temporarily free Rovinski for the duration of the pandemic; he terminated the sentence to time served:

Young reduced Rovinski’s sentence to time served, and ordered him to spend the next 10 years in home confinement with electronic monitoring, with the first six months in “strict home confinement.”

Perhaps Judge Young thinks he is adequately protecting Pamela with home confinement, including six months of “strict home confinement,” a term that suggests that the remaining nine and a half years will be lenient home confinement.  Would Judge Young be comfortable if he or his loved ones were under religious threat of beheading, and the avowed perpetrator was free to communicate with others to re-engage in a plot to behead them?

Judge Young also insisted that no appeal could delay the release:

Young also denied prosecutors’ request to delay Rovinski’s release for 30 days while they consider an appeal. Prosecutors argued that the decision is an outcome “most would find hard to fathom under the circumstances, especially in the absence of any concrete rationale for the result.”

“We disagree with the court’s decision to now nullify that sentence — after only five years — based on COVID concerns,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said in an emailed statement to the Associated Press.

“We realize that Rovinski has certain medical issues, but this does not justify releasing to ‘home confinement’ — after serving a mere third of his sentence — someone who willfully conspired to kill people for ISIS,” he wrote.

Pamela Geller must now live in fear.  On her site, Gellerreport.com, she writes:  

How does Judge William Young know that Nicholas Rovinski won’t try to murder me again? He doesn’t. But he clearly doesn’t care. The “compassion” in Rovinski’s “compassionate release” is all for the perpetrator, not for his intended victim or others he might have killed in his jihad as well. Does Judge William Young not realize the gravity, the seriousness, the implications of freeing someone who plotted a beheading for a cartoon or piece of art that violated Islamic law? Does he not realize, or not care about, the freedom of speech? Maybe he doesn’t. After all, it is under attack on numerous fronts today. Maybe William Young is one of those people who believe in the spurious concept of “hate speech,” which is an entirely subjective thing, essentially a weapon of the powerful to smear and silence those who lack power.

The First Amendment is our most precious freedom — Rovinski should be serving life without the possibility of parole. Instead, he is on the streets again, as if he did nothing. The electronic monitoring is a joke, as is the home confinement. Last year a Muslim wearing an electronic tag killed a man in his deradicalization class and went out to wage jihad on the London Bridge. If Nicholas Rovinski participates in another plot to murder me, will Judge William Young be prosecuted?

Pray for Pamela’s safety, for the federal judiciary is indifferent to her peril.