“Je Suis Charlie” in 2020: Elan Journo Talks with Fleming Rose

Dec 16, 2020 | Politics

In 2005, [Rose] was an editor at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten when it commissioned and later published cartoons on the subject of Islam to assess the seeming climate of self-censorship. That decision led to boycotts, deadly protests, and a global crisis. Al Qaeda put Mr. Rose on a hit list, and today when he leaves home, he must be accompanied by bodyguards. We talked about the “cartoons crisis,” which has become shrouded in misconceptions, the worldwide protests and boycotts that ensued, and the massacre at Charlie Hebdo (it had republished the Danish cartoons in support of freedom of speech). Following that attack, millions flocked to the streets of Paris to show their solidarity with the murdered journalists, declaring on banners, “Je Suis Charlie” (“I am Charlie”). What became of that visceral outpouring of support in the years since?

WSJ: A.G. William Barr Resigns

Dec 15, 2020 | Politics

…Mr. Barr…wanted to clean up a Justice Department that he rightly knew had been tainted by a corrupt FBI under James Comey and political appointees in both parties who lacked the courage or tenacity to take responsibility for hard prosecutorial judgments.[He navigated] the end of the Robert Mueller probe while protecting the office of the Presidency from unconstitutional conclusions about obstruction of justice. Future Presidents of both parties will thank him.He was willing to endure media and Democratic smears by taking fresh looks at old investigations…. His release of documents has helped to show the FBI probe began in partisan scheming and unlawful practices…Mr. Barr also had the guts to ask another U.S. Attorney, Jeffrey Jensen, to re-examine Mr. Mueller’s prosecution of Michael Flynn. That probe turned up more malpractice and a decision to dismiss charges that never should have been brought……Perhaps Mr. Barr’s greatest contribution was speaking truth to Mr. Trump, who wanted his tormentors prosecuted whether or not the evidence warranted. This resistance chafed on Mr. Trump as Mr. Barr’s tenure went on, and especially when Mr. Durham declined to bring indictments or leak evidence before the presidential election. This was the right decision and shows Mr. Barr’s adherence to principle. [“Thank You Bill Bar”, WSJ, 14 Dec 2020]

Salsman: The Intellectuals Assault on American Institutions and Values

Dec 13, 2020 | Politics

“This assault is not by the hands of a foreign adversary, but by her own intellectuals and the ruling class, including professors, editorialists, policy wonks, pundits, politicians, and entertainers…The battle isn’t simply over capitalism vs. socialism. The battle is over peace, prosperity, and human happiness vs. war, poverty, and human misery.”

Greenwald: NYT, CNN & NPR are No Safeguards Against Misinformation

Nov 25, 2020 | Politics

The problem with this claim is that it’s a complete and utter fraud, one that is easily demonstrated as such. There are few sites more “hyper-partisan” than the three outlets which the NYT applauded Facebook for promoting. In the 2020 election, over 70 million Americans — close to half of the voting population — voted for Donald Trump, yet not one of them is employed by the op-ed page of the “non-partisan” New York Times and are almost never heard on NPR or CNN. That’s because those news outlets, by design, are pro-Democratic-Party organs, who speak overwhelmingly to Democratic readers and viewers.[…]Over the last four years, they devoted themselves to the ultimate deranged, mangled conspiracy theory: that the Kremlin had infiltrated the U.S. and was clandestinely controlling the levers of American power through some combination of sexual and financial blackmail. The endless pursuit of that twisted conspiracy led them to produce one article after the next that spread utter falsehoods, embraced reckless journalism and fostered humiliating debacles. The only thing more absurd than these hyper-partisan, reckless outlets posturing as the alternatives to hyper-partisanship is them insisting that they’re the only safeguards against misinformation.

Kimberley Strassel: The 2020 Election “Fix”

Nov 15, 2020 | Politics

Mrs. Pelosi unveiled a 600-plus page bill devoted to “election reform.” Some of the legislation was aimed at weaponizing campaign-finance law, giving Democrats more power to control political speech and to intimidate opponents. But the bill was equally focused on empowering the federal government to dictate how states conduct elections—with new rules designed to water down ballot integrity and to corral huge new tranches of Democratic voters.[…][Pelosi’s] bill would require states to offer early voting. They also would have to allow Election Day and online voter registration, diluting the accuracy of voting rolls. H.R. 1 would make states register voters automatically from government databases, including federal welfare recipients. Colleges and universities were designated a s voter-registration hubs, and 16-year-olds would be registered to vote two years in advance. The bill would require “no fault” absentee ballots, allowing anyone to vote by mail, for any reason. It envisioned prepaid postage for federal absentee ballots. It would cripple most state voter-ID laws. It left in place the “ballot harvesting” rules that let paid activists canvass neighborhoods to hoover up absentee votes.[…]Mrs. Pelosi’s bill didn’t become law, despite her attempts this year to jam some of its provisions into coronavirus bills. But it turns out she didn’t really need it. Using the virus as an excuse, Democratic and liberal groups brought scores of lawsuits to force states to adopt its provisions. Many Democratic politicians and courts happily agreed. States mailed out ballots to everyone. Judges disregarded statutory deadlines for receipt of votes. They scrapped absentee-ballot witness requirements. States set up curbside voting and drop-off boxes. They signed off on ballot harvesting.

Meaning, “the fix” (as it were) was in well before anyone started counting votes. Pollsters aside, political operatives understood this election would be close– potentially closer in key states than it was in 2016. The Democratic strategy from the start, as evidenced by that legal onslaught, was to get rules in place that would allow them to flood the zone with additional mail-in ballots.[…]Yet the beauty of ballot harvesting is that it is nearly impossible to prove fraud. How many harvesters offered to deliver votes, only to throw away inconvenient ones? How many voters were pushed or cajoled, or even paid–or had a ballot filled and returned for them without their knowledge? And this is before questions of what other mischief went on amid millions of mailed ballots (which went to wrong addresses or deceased people) and reduced voter verification rules.

Nothing in our founding document contemplates the kind of judicial intervention that took place here, nor is there precedent for it in 230 years of this Court’s decisions.Last-minute changes to longstanding election rules risk other problems too, inviting confusion and chaos and eroding public confidence in electoral outcomes. No one doubts that conducting a national election amid a pandemic poses serious challenges. But none of that means individual judges may improvise with their own election rules in place of those the people’s representatives have adopted.