Our Summer of Cultural Suicide; "Sports, movies, and schools go woke. And broke?"

Victor Davis Hanson

But viewers do seek out theaters for more lectures from beautiful multimillionaires on their racist, sexist, homophobic country.

Professional sports, universities and the motion picture industry all know that what they are doing is bad for business. But they still believe they are rich and powerful — and thus invulnerable. They also are ignorant of history and cannot be persuaded that they are destroying themselves.

"Cultural suicide used to be a popular diagnosis of why things suddenly just quit.
"Historians such as Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee cited social cannibalism to explain why once-successful states, institutions and cultures simply died off. Their common explanation was that the arrogance of success ensures lethal consequences. Once elites became pampered and arrogant, they feel exempt from their ancestors’ respect for moral and spiritual laws such as thrift, moderation and transcendence.
"Take professional sports. Over the past century, professional football, basketball and baseball were racially integrated and adopted a uniform code of patriotic observance. The three leagues offered fans a pleasant respite from daily barroom politics. As a result, by the 21st century, the NFL, NBA and MLB had become global multibillion-dollar enterprises.
"Then hubris ensued.
"The owners, coaches and players weren’t always racially diverse. But that inconvenient truth did not stop the leagues from hectoring their fans about social activism — even as they no longer honored common patriotic rituals.
"All three leagues have suffered terribly during the viral lockdown, as American life mysteriously went on without them. And they have almost ensured that they won’t fully recover when the quarantine ends. Many of their often-pampered multimillionaire players refuse to honor the national anthem. In the NFL, they now will broadcast their politics on their helmets. They will virtue-signal their moral superiority to increasingly turned-off fans — as if to ensure that their sources of support flee.
"If students can Zoom or Skype their classes from home this fall, why pay $70,000 a year for the campus “experience”?
"Supposedly woke and informed rioters this summer incoherently toppled or damaged the statues of everyone from Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant to Frederick Douglass and Miguel de Cervantes. So the public might begin to wonder how the nation’s multitrillion-dollar investment in higher education actually served the country.
"Soon, popular fury will beget more dangerous questions for American universities. Maybe the country should subsidize the training of more essential electricians, plumbers, contractors and masons instead of unemployable environmental and ethnic studies majors.
"If a university president wanted to devise a plan for how to destroy his university, he could not have come up with a better one than what has happened on campus in recent decades." . . .More...

Tlaib wins Michigan Democratic primary, declares jihad Squad ‘here to stay, and it’s only getting bigger’

By the way: Muslim Convert Convicted in Plot to BEHEAD Pamela Geller Asks for “Compassionate Release”

Geller Report  "Rep. Rashida Tlaib declared victory Wednesday morning in her primary election in Detroit and proclaimed her win shows the progressive Squad is coming back to Congress stronger and bigger.
"Tlaib, one of four members of the freshman Squad, beat Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones in the 13th District primary, The Associated Press called Wednesday morning.
“ 'Let it be known that in the 13th District, just like in communities across our country, we are done with establishment politics that put corporations first,” Tlaib said in a victory statement. “If I was considered the most vulnerable member of the Squad, I think it’s safe to say the Squad is here to stay, and it’s only getting bigger.”
"Tlaib said her win was an endorsement for progressive policies, such as “Medicare-for-All” and a Green New Deal.

Comment: Michael Garfinkel  billetdoux • 3 days ago • edited

The voters of the 13th district in Michigan have turned out to give Rashida Tlaib another term in congress - and why not?She has, after all, made good on the promises she made to acquire office in the first place: to insult American institutions, and to attack the Jews.She distinguished herself early on. Just hours after she was sworn in she announced, referring to the president, "'Baby, they don't,' because we're gonna go in there and we're going to impeach the motherf****r."Of course, it's worth noting that Tlaib's victories take place in an intractably poor, minority district that last elected a Republican to congress in 1947.But the effort to address poverty in the thirteenth is not the point at all. Instead, Rashida Tlaib serves as an icon of "intersectionality" - a Democratic Socialist, and a Palestinian woman of color, who states that "her Allah is a woman."So, we are reminded again of the great George Orwell: “A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices”

Explosive New FBI Notes Confirm Obama Directed Anti-Flynn Operation

"Handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok show that Obama himself directed key aspects of the campaign to target Flynn during a Jan. 5, 2017 meeting in the Oval Office."

The Federalist: Sean Davis and Mollie Hemingway

"Newly released notes confirm President Barack Obama’s key role in surveillance and leak operation against Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump administration national security adviser. The handwritten notes, which were first disclosed in a federal court filing made by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, show President Obama himself personally directed former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate Flynn for having routine phone calls with a Russian counterpart. He also suggests they withhold information from President Trump and his key national security figures.
"The handwritten notes from fired former FBI agent Peter Strzok appear to describe a Jan. 5, 2017, Oval Office meeting between Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Comey, Yates, and then-national security adviser Susan Rice. The meeting and its substance were confirmed in a bizarre Inauguration Day email Rice wrote to herself.
"It was at this meeting, which was confirmed by testimony from Comey and Yates, that Obama gave guidance to key officials who would be tasked with protecting his administration’s utilization of secretly funded Clinton campaign research, which alleged Trump was involved in a treasonous plot to collude with Russia, from being discovered or stopped by the incoming administration.
"Yates told the special counsel that Obama broke the news of Flynn’s phone calls with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak to her during the Jan. 5 meeting. Rice detailed further involvement from Obama. “President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia,” she wrote in her email." 
"The new notes, which record Comey’s accounting to Strzok of the meeting’s substance, constitute definitive evidence that Obama himself was personally directing significant aspects of a criminal investigation into his political enemy’s top foreign policy adviser. An image of the notes is reproduced below. This is a rough transcript of the unredacted portion of the notes:"   . . .

Biden’s Pretend Campaign

The Democrat Party’s story that the violence was caused by the government’s presence and that the protesters were “peaceful” is still maintained, po-faced, by the Democratic-supporting but Orwellian Newspeakers at CNN and MSNBC. They are unruffled by the fact that the riots had been going on for six weeks before there were any federal marshals (the “storm troopers” of Nancy Pelosi’s febrile imagination) . . .

Conrad Black   "The Democrats became so addicted to their need for President Trump to be permanently under a cloud of criminal suspicion for their media lackeys to endlessly celebrate, that their present discomfort is considerable as the weight of prosecutorial scrutiny shifts to another—that is, to their—foot.
"Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ performance at the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday was the most dignified and plausible attempt yet by any serious Obama Administration official to try to maintain the fiction that its justice department and intelligence agencies didn’t go rogue and assault the Constitution.
"She maintained what has become the quaint, almost twee, Democratic preoccupation with Russia—an affected paranoia that nostalgically recalls the piping days of the Cold War when the Kremlin and American leaders routinely intimated an ability to obliterate the other.
"Yates warbled on in the customary manner of Democrats about the already active and implicitly extremely dangerous effort of the Russians to subvert the current election, replete with Democratic senators’ questions asserting that the president was perfectly equable about soliciting foreign interference.
"Does anyone, except the Stelter-Tapper-Blitzer-Scarborough nether region of liberal cable-loopies, still pay any attention to this bunk?
"Russia is a shriveled, hobbled, and pale likeness of the Soviet Union, beset by problems, run by gangsters and with a GDP smaller than Canada’s. It is true the Russians have a good defense production industry, but they have no ability to disturb the United States unless belligerent Democratic nincompoops regained the presidency and drove the Kremlin into the arms of the Chinese—just as the question of dealing with the much more serious challenge of China is finally and determinedly becoming the focus of America and its principal regional allies, led by Japan and India." . . .

A Solution for This Week’s Mystery Announcement

"Trump's war against international money laundering is yet another achievement for which he gets no credit."

Clarice Feldman  "Some weeks there’s a plethora of important stories and this week is no exception, but I’d like to highlight something which is getting far less attention than I think it deserves: The administration is using economic sanctions and anti-money laundering laws to seize the billions of dollars of stolen funds sloshing about the world in international money laundering schemes. 

"For this, I must thank an online friend “Melinda,” who brought this to my attention during a week in which the rioting in some Democrat-run cities and the horrific explosion in Beirut drew most of the attention. 

"The mystery began when the President traveled to Cleveland. When he left under very high security, the staff, in what struck some as an unusual move, stood outside the White House to see him off to Ohio. In Cleveland, while standing in front of Whirlpool laundry machines, he said something curious:

"I have a lot of enemies. This may be the last time you see me for a while. I have a lot of very rich enemies. They're not happy with what I'm doing. But I figure we have one chance to do it. No other president is gonna do what I do."

"To what was this in reference? And why the staff sendoff?" . . .

Do Blacks Owe Other Blacks Reparations?

American Thinker

 . . ..Importantly, it needs to be observed that more than just 7.4% of white families were involved in the slave-based economy of the south. . . . 

 . . "If we are going to accept that all whites, including those eking out a living in dying Appalachian coal-mining towns or quadriplegic military veterans, should foot the bill for black millionaire athletes, all for the sins of forefathers long gone (or not even forefathers at all), then it is only fair to assess the sins of all previous slaveowners. 

"That means if we’re being consistent, blacks owe other blacks reparations, too. Referring to an 1830 census, of the 320,000 or so free blacks, almost 4,000 of them owned a total of 12,760 slaves. On its face, this might seem insignificant given that over 4 million slaves were freed in 1865. However, it makes sense to remain logically consistent with the left, which dictates that all whites ought to be burdened with the onus of paying reparations when most white families owned zero slaves (or came here after slavery was abolished altogether). Every slave matters in this conversation.

. . . . . . At the peak of black ownership of black slaves, it is estimated that 7.5% of all free blacks engaged in the practice, reaching a high of 12% of the free black population in Virginia. This is not insignificant. While contemporary observers would say that these free blacks were just being complicit in a white-centric world and thus absolved of responsibility, couldn’t that same argument be made that all actors of their time were simply doing what the system allowed for?" . . .

John Brennan not a target of prosecutors in John Durham investigation: Report

Bosch Fawstin

Washington Examiner  "Former CIA Director John Brennan appears to have avoided prosecution in U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal inquiry into the Russia investigation.

Toon added by TD

"After NBC News reported Thursday that Brennan agreed to do an interview with Durham, signaling that his investigation is nearing its end, a lawyer familiar with the situation told NPR that the Obama-era CIA director has been told he is not a target of prosecutors. Instead, this source said, the interview will mainly consist of technical questions.

"The news is sure to disappoint some of President Trump's most ardent supporters who believe Brennan and other top officials in the Obama administration sought to sabotage Trump's candidacy in 2016 and later his presidency.

"Still, while Brennan may not be indicted, he may yet be harshly criticized in a report. Attorney General William Barr said he expects "developments" from Durham's inquiry by the end of the summer.

“ 'It’s hard to prove criminal intent at their level, and unless there’s a smoking gun, like an email or text, they’ll probably get off with a damning report about their activities," former Assistant FBI Director Chris Swecker, who claims to know Durham personally, told RealClearInvestigations in reference to Brennan and other top intelligence community and law enforcement officials from the Obama administration.

"Durham has reportedly scrutinized Brennan's emails, call logs, and other records from the CIA as his team looked into the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian election interference, whether there was an effort to hide information from other agencies, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s flawed anti-Trump dossier, and other issues." . . .

More

Brennan's choice

Republican Sen. Rand Paul claimed Wednesday that former CIA director John Brennan once voted for the Communist Party ticket.   . . . “You know, John Brennan started out his adulthood by voting for the Communist Party presidential candidate,” he said. “He’s now ending his career by showing himself to be the most biased, bigoted, over-the-top, hyperbolic, sort of unhinged director of the CIA we’ve ever had, and really it’s an insult to everything about our government to have a former head of the CIA calling the president ‘treasonous’ just because he doesn’t like him.”

"Paul’s not the first Republican to accuse Brennan of voting for the Communist Party. Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis, political commentator Sebastian Gorka and others have made similar statements." . . .

"Brennan had to take a polygraph test to gain admission to the CIA, and during the test, he was asked whether he had ever worked with or for a group dedicated to overthrowing the U.S. government. “This was back in 1980, and I thought back to a previous election where I voted, and I voted for the Communist Party candidate,” he told the audience.

"Brennan voted for Gus Hall, the [perrennial] presidential candidate for the Communist Party USA, in 1976." . . .

Girl Slaughtered After Her Alleged Rapist Was Released From Jail Over COVID Concerns

The Federalist  "An alleged rapist killed his accuser after being released from jail over concerns he and his lawyers would contract coronavirus. 

"According to the Washington Post, Ibrahim Bouaichi hunted and killed his accuser, Karla Dominguez, after being released from jail because of concerns the Wuhan coronavirus would put Bouaichi and his lawyers at risk of falling ill. Bouaichi was indicted on charges of rape, strangulation, and abduction after Dominguez, a native of Venezuela, told law enforcement in Alexandria, Va., that he sexually assaulted her in October. 

"Eleven days after his indictment, Bouaichi turned himself into authorities, and a judge ordered him to be held without bond. Bouaichi’s lawyers requested bond, arguing their client could not be safe from the Wuhan virus because it was “impossible” to provide adequate social distancing and other safety measures behind bars. The men added that the arrangement also put them at risk, explaining that lawyers seeking a contact visit would “also expose themselves to contaminated air and surfaces.”

Since the pandemic panic, leaders on the left have advocated for the release of thousands of incarcerated people in order to keep prisoners from being infected. On Thursday, Fox News reported that California is on track to release a total of 17,600 inmates.

New York Attorney General Files Lawsuit To Dissolve NRA – NRA Says They Will Not Back Down

AND Magazine "Yesterday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a lawsuit against the NRA, following a year-long investigation of that organization. According to NBC News, “New York Attorney General Letitia James sued the National Rifle Association and four individuals, including its chief executive, Wayne LaPierre, on Thursday, seeking to dissolve the gun rights advocacy group and accusing top executives of “years of illegal self-dealings” that funded a “lavish lifestyle.”
"The NRA’s Chief Executive, Wayne LaPierre said they were not backing down, the organization was financially solvent and that this was a “premeditated” attack on the NRA and Americans’ gun rights.

“This is an unconstitutional, premeditated attack aiming to dismantle and destroy the NRA — the fiercest defender of America’s freedom at the ballot box for decades,” he said. “The NRA is well governed, financially solvent, and committed to good governance. We’re ready for the fight. Bring it on.” Wayne LaPierre, NRA

"Ms. James stated that the NRA “doesn’t represent gun owners. They exist to protect gun industry profits and enrich their executives.”
"Below is a tweet with video of Ms. James’ announcement.  . . . "

New York: SOROS-Backed Radical Attorney General Seeks to Dissolve NRA in Its Entirety In New Lawsuit   "George Soros spent millions of dollars around the nation to elect state and local prosecutors as part of an on-going campaign to radically transform law enforcement in the United States and weaponize the law to use it against those who won’t go along with the radical-left manifesto.He’s enjoyed success at the county level in Virginia, in Chicago and at the state level in Missouri, New York and California. Jennifer Soros, daughter-in-law of hedge fund manager George Soros was a major donor to James.
"Here’s the pay-off.
"Another nail in the coffin of Democrat run New York. Cuomo is begging New Yorkers to come back. They’re not coming back." . . .

Desperate: Biden grasps for Gretchen Whitmer as potential running mate

"And guess what - Maxine Waters tells Biden no dice if his running mate isn't black."  American Thinker

 Monica Showalter   . . . "Here's one more problem for Joe:

"Rep. Maxine Waters of California, who's a powerhouse in the Congressional Black Caucus, says no dice on Gretchen Whitmer. 

"We know that we're going to have a Black woman as vice president," Waters told Essence in an interview. "Let me guarantee you this, based on everything that I know and understand, and the help that he has already gotten from the Black community ... he can't go home without a Black woman being VP." 

"Whitmer seems to be popular with Black voters but for Waters that's not good enough. She wants a black female candidate or else. That's potent because already Black voters are unenthusiastic about Joe. Seems that Joe can have Michigan with Whitmer, but he's going to lose the black vote, same as all the other losses he would take with the problematic black female candidates - e.g., Florida.

"Any questions as to why Biden can't seem to decide? This is a sign of a campaign in trouble, and Biden's got a load of bad candidates, all of them as baggage-laden as himself. If he can't pick a running mate unless it's someone who brings him nothing, he's a goner. And his desperation is showing."

http://www.terrellaftermath.com/

Border Checkpoints Further New York City’s Descent into Tyranny and Economic Hardship   "People in New York City have been subjected to one of the most repressive coronavirus crackdowns in America. Included have been months-long forced closure of many businesses and extreme limitations placed on businesses that have been allowed to resume some operations during incremental scaling back of closure orders. Such government actions have decimated businesses in the city. A Sunday report by Lauren Thomas at CNBC illustrates the continuing economic destruction by describing vacancies and bankruptcies, along with a large drop in rents sought, in 16 major retail corridors of the Manhattan borough of the city.

"The plummeting economy has come hand-in-hand with plummeting respect for liberty, with people in New York City having been prohibited from doing many of the things, in addition to operating or working at businesses, that people have long considered basic to living — doing daily activities outside home without wearing a mask, attending religious services, meeting friends at a bar for a beer, and taking children to a playground, for example." . . .

Why New York Is In Trouble – 290,304 Public Employees With $100,000+ Paychecks Cost Taxpayers $38 Billion

. . . New York City (114,045) – Only in New York can school janitors out-earn the principals. We found 40 “custodial engineers” who earned between $154,000 and $256,000, while 57 principals made less than $154,000.

In 2019, the city spent its entire income tax collection (and more) on its six-figure salaried workforce ($14.5 billion). Costs included $1.8 billion on overtime – which allowed 36 plumbers to make between $200,000 and $285,000.

Mayor Bill de Blasio paid 184 staffers in his office $100,000+. High earners included first deputy Dean Fuleihan ($282,659); a press officer Wiley Norvell ($184,050) and even the chef at Gracie Mansion ($123,537).  . . .

Why President Trump is Our Only Hope: A letter from the son of a Holocaust survivor.

Image by Plutønium Press

Frontpage "Let’s look at this man for one second.

Walking back to the White House after a long day.

"A 74-year-old man coming back home from work at 2AM while most men his age are retired in their vacation homes.

"He comes back after a long day that probably started before the sun rose and gets back home exhausted with his tie open and hat in his hand feeling that an accomplished day is finally over.

"That amazing man is in the age of many people’s grandfathers, great grandfathers or my grandfather when he passed away, but this man just came back home from work, for me, for you.
"This man, left his massive gold-covered mansion where he could retire happily and play golf all day long.
"But this man put his wealth aside and went to work for free, for $1 a year, for me, for you, for us, for AMERICA.   
"While other presidents became rich from the presidency, this man LOST over 2 billion dollars of his wealth during this short 4 years of his life. Yet, he donated 1 million dollars to flood victims in Houston.  
"He put aside his amazing retirement lifestyle for getting ambushed every single day by the media and the Radical Left Democrats that trash this man who works for them until 1 AM for free.
"He doesn't do it for money or power, he already had it. He is doing it so their houses will be safe, so their schools will get better, so they will be able to find jobs or start a new business easier, so they will be able to keep few dollars in their pockets at the end of the month while other presidents before him made sure to keep digging in their pockets and empty them for taxes.
"Look at this picture again, that man is at the age of your fathers, grandfathers or maybe YOU. Where is your respect? Honor? Appreciation? Are you THAT BLIND? THAT BLIND to not see a thing this man is doing for you and for your family?
"THAT BLIND that after all his work for minority groups in America you keep calling him a racist? I am the son of an Auschwitz Survivor and someone who lost 99% of my family to the camps and ovens of Nazi Germany. And I’m no fool. DONALD TRUMP IS NO RACIST OR ANTI-SEMITE."