WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Friday at her home in Washington, the court says. She was 87.
Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court says.
Friday, September 18, 2020
The Dumbest Smart Set in the World
Never in the history of the world has a so-called Smart Set been so utterly wrong about everything.
posted by Dianny at Patriot Retort
Remember how the media constantly gushed over the super smart people in the Obama Administration? Yes, sir. They were the smartest, bested educated, mostest erudite Smart Set to ever deign to run a country populated by gap-tooth rubes and ignorant yahoos.
We stupid hoi polloi didn’t understand just how smart the Smart Set was because, well, we’re not very bright, and really? We don’t deserve them.
Sure, our spider senses tingled when the Smart Set did things like negotiate with the largest state sponsor of terrorism while handing them billions of dollars cash, or yoke us to an utterly unworkable wealth redistribution scheme masquerading as a Climate Change Accord.
But that’s because we were just too stupid to understand nuance and diplomacy.
The Smart Set knew better, and we should just shut up, bend over and take it.
“Trust us,” they told us. “We know better.”
When Donald Trump was elected President, the Smart Set was aghast.
How dare we stupid voters defy them!
Well, you’ll see, you dumb Americans! You’ll see! Trump is going to destroy our relationships with the world and bring us to the brink of war, and you’ll be begging us to come and save you!
When President Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia to meet with Arab nations not aligned with Iran, the Smart Set took to their fainting couches.
How dare this reckless man put at risk all the tireless work they did normalizing relations with Iran and marginalizing Israel?!
Well, it wasn’t going to work, they assured themselves. Trump’s realigning Middle East relationships was going to backfire and cause the entire region to plunge into war.
Then this reckless President, over the furious, impotent objections of the Smart Set, moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
THIS WILL CAUSE MORE VIOLENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST!!!! They shrieked.
SUPERcut: The experts who predicted doom for Middle East peace if the U.S. moved its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem were wrong again.https://t.co/IqAU52T4mg pic.twitter.com/Lnol6h5U9C
And they were all wrong.
About everything.
This week, in a ceremony largely ignored by the media (except to bitch about the lack of social distancing), President Trump played host to the leaders of Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. After decades of strained and hostile relations, these three Middle East Countries agreed to normalize relations with one another.
And with the stroke of a pen, every doom and gloom prediction the Smart Set made died on the vine.
It turns out you don’t need to grovel to the peace-hating Palestinian Authority and the terror-funders of Iran to affect normalized relations in the Middle East.
In fact, you can treat the Palestinian Authority as a non-entity not worth anyone’s time and make tremendous strides toward peaceful relations between Israel and Arab nations.
The so-called Smart Set didn’t see it coming. But, boy, were they absolutely certain in their wrongness.
Like John Kerry:
John Kerry with a 2016 Middle East take that aged like milk in a sauna. pic.twitter.com/2Vae6yDJFt
This is the dumbest Smart Set in the world. What they lack in smarts, they make up for with lack of smarts.
And yet this Smart Set that got everything wrong regarding the Middle East is poised and ready to retake the reins should Harris and her incontinent meat puppet get elected in November.
These clowns were never smart. Though they are, every single one of them, incredibly arrogant. Just listen to the condescension dripping from the buffoonish John Kerry. They all think that way, and they all talk that way.
They really don’t have a clue, but they are so damn full of themselves they cannot see how wrong they are.
John Kerry, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, the ludicrous Ben Rhodes – Obama’s entire foreign policy team have so convinced themselves of their own brilliance, they can’t imagine anyone being able to accomplish something they could not. Especially anyone like President Trump.
And who is also part of this utterly wrong Smart Set? Well …
Either the Trump Administration is angling for another disastrous war in the Middle East, or they've spent two years saber-rattling against Iran with no strategy and no endgame.⁰
This president is making America weaker and less safe.
Trump’s reckless policies have needlessly endangered our interests in the Middle East. But none of us should be under any illusions about the Iranian regime, and the Iranian people — like all people everywhere — have the right to peaceful protest. The world should support them.
This is why the media is downplaying the Abraham Accords. Their much-loved Smart Set got it all wrong.
And the Trump Administration accomplished more in four years to stabilize the Middle East than the so-called Smart Set has been able to do in a generation.
President Trump's economic team celebrates latest Census Bureau data
Despite the dramatic effect COVID-19 has had on the economy, the latest data from the Census Bureau has the White House cheering. One America's Chief White House Correspondent Chanel Rion has more.
Yes, the DOJ Should Charge Violent Anti-American Radicals with Seditious Conspiracy
Attorney General Bill Barr’s critics rehash failed 1990s arguments.
Everything old is new again.
In a conference call last week, Attorney General Bill Barr urged federal prosecutors to be aggressive in filing charges against violent anti-American radicals who are rioting in various cities, attacking government buildings, and targeting law-enforcement officers. The AG reportedly recommended a range of offenses, including seditious conspiracy.
Instantly, according to the Wall Street Journal, “legal experts” warned that the “rarely used statute could be difficult to prove in court and potentially run up against First Amendment protections.”
These are the same arguments that legal experts posited when I charged terrorists with seditious conspiracy for bombing the World Trade Center and plotting to bomb other New York City landmarks in 1993. The experts were wrong then, and they are wrong now.
The seditious-conspiracy statute, which is codified by Section 2384 of the modern federal penal code, was actually enacted by Congress during the Civil War — mainly to deal with Confederate sympathizers in free states who were violently sabotaging the Union war effort. As the Journal’s experts observe, it is rarely used. That is not because the crime is especially difficult to prove; it is much more straightforward than many federal crimes. Rather, it is because the conduct at issue — dangerous conspiracies to levy war against the United States, to violently overthrow our government, or to violently oppose the government’s legitimate authority — is historically unusual.
Notice the thread that runs through these variations of conspiratorial behavior: Force. Keep that in mind and you will easily grasp why apprehensions about sedition charges are specious. Unless prosecutors can prove that the alleged conspirators agreed to use force against the government, there is no such crime.
The notion of prosecuting sedition is anathema to legal experts and some historians because it calls to mind the late 18th century Alien and Sedition Acts, which are justly reviled as an unconstitutional effort to punish political dissent. There is also understandable constitutional concern about the word sedition. Outside the criminal-law context, it can be broadly construed to cover speech that, though it urges people to revolt against a government, does not necessarily advocate violence.
But here, we are talking about the criminal-law context, and the distinction matters. To begin with, the word “sedition” does not appear in the “seditious conspiracy” statute. The adjective “seditious” is in the title, but it does not appear in the statute’s all-important charging language.
What matters in any criminal statute is how Congress has defined the proscribed conduct. In this instance, Congress has taken aim at forcible action against the nation qua nation, or its government qua government. To be precise, Section 2384 makes it a crime, punishable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment, for two or more people to conspire . . .
. . . to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof. [Emphasis added.]
Consequently, if people urge the end of the United States or the dissolution of its government, but they do not contemplate accomplishing these objectives by force, then there is no crime. And even if people do contemplate using force against others, including others who happen to be government officials, there is still no seditious-conspiracy offense unless force is to be used to attack the United States, or to destroy or impede the functions of the U.S. government.
Congress has proscribed a straightforward offense: Force must be used, or at least contemplated, with the specific intent to strike at the United States or its government. Therefore, the fact that the word “sedition” may be fraught with ambiguity and dark historical overtones is irrelevant.
In my terrorism case, this offense was not difficult to prove, and the defendants were duly convicted. We had abundant evidence of jihadists’ proclaiming that they were at war with the United States; that they intended to strike at political and financial targets in order to extort changes in American policy; and that they would attack government buildings and current and former government officials as part of their war against the country.
All those years ago, legal experts also cited the First Amendment as a supposedly fatal complication. The First Amendment protects freedom of conscience, the argument went, and jihadists were motivated by their interpretation of their religion. The First Amendment safeguards political speech to express dissent, and jihadists bitterly opposed American foreign policy and various aspects of American culture.
Again, this was a smokescreen. No one was being charged with having fundamentalists beliefs or harboring hostility to our country and its policies. The defendants were charged with conspiring to use force in prosecuting a war against our country and striking against our government. Their reasons for doing these things formed no part of the crime. As in any criminal case, statements indicative of purpose and motive factor in because they tend to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants committed the charged acts with the requisite criminal intent. But Section 2384 targets violence, not beliefs.
Freedom of speech means the government may not make your speech illegal in and of itself, unless it falls within exceptions that were well known at the time the First Amendment was adopted (e.g., obscenity or incitement to violence). But the First Amendment has never been understood to immunize speech from being used as evidence of crimes.
Let’s say a mafia boss replies, “I hate that guy, whack him,” when the underboss asks what’s to be done about a rival mobster. The mobster is subsequently killed and the boss is charged with murder. At the trial, the boss has no viable First Amendment objection to the admission of his statement as evidence. He is being prosecuted for murder, not the statements; the latter are obviously proof of his motive and intention to commit murder — they are not the murder itself.
Similarly, if there is evidence that people are using force or plotting violent attacks against U.S. government installations, there is no viable objection to the introduction of evidence that they hated the United States and called for attacks against the government. The statements are not the crime; they are evidence of the crime, and the First Amendment does not prohibit their use as such. Judges, moreover, carefully instruct juries that people may not be convicted for holding unpopular beliefs; there must be proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in a seditious-conspiracy case, that they conspired to use force against the nation and its government. That’s the crime.
If these forcible, lethally destructive acts are committed by people who are working together to make war against our country or attack our government, then seditious conspiracy is a perfectly apt offense to charge. It not only fits the conduct; it also allows prosecutors to charge the case in a framework that explains what the violent radicals are trying to accomplish. So Barr is right, and his critics’ arguments are as wrong as they were almost 30 years ago.People who join in rioting are engaged in a form of domestic terrorism. They are likely to commit several federal crimes. Rioting itself is a federal crime (Section 2101) if people cross state lines to incite it or carry it out. I’ve recently addressed the Travel Act, which similarly involves crossing state lines to carry out crimes of violence. Arson and the use of explosives are also federal crimes.
African-American INVENTORS, to include, Actors, Singers, etc....
Famous black people who changed the world
A list of inspirational black people who played a key role in the world and American history.
Martin Luther King
(1929 – 1968) – King was a pivotal figure in the non-violent civil
rights movement. During the 1950s and 1960s, he sought to improve race
relations and overturn discrimination in American society. He is
remembered for his powerful speeches which sought to bring about a
united society – where race did not act as a barrier.
Nelson Mandela
(1918 – 2013 ) – Mandela spent most of his life campaigning for an end
to apartheid in South Africa. After over 20 years in prison, he was
released and was able to be the first elected President in
post-apartheid, South Africa. He was also admired for his forgiveness
and willingness to reach out to the white community in South Africa.
Barack Obama
(1961- ) – First US President of African origin. Obama served two terms
as President and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Obama implemented
health care reform and spoke about the need for Americans to remain
united, despite differences of political opinion.
Jesse Owens
(1913-1980) (athletics) Won four Olympic Golds at ‘Hitler’s Olympics’,
Berlin 1936. Owens maintained a dignified stance on civil rights,
despite enduring discrimination during his life.
Desmond Tutu
(1931 – ) Leading figurehead in the South African anti-apartheid
movement. Desmond Tutu is also a leading figure in speaking out for
humanitarian and civil rights issues.
Mohammed Ali
(1942 – ) Great boxer of the 1960s. Refused to fight in Vietnam. Then a
controversial decision, he later became widely admired as a principled
figure of great stature.
Frederick Douglass
(1818-1895) A former slave, Douglass became a leading figurehead in the
anti-slavery movement. One of the most prominent African American
leaders of the Nineteenth Century. His autobiography of life as a slave,
and his speeches denouncing slavery – were influential in changing
public opinion.
Kofi Annan (1938 – ) UN Secretary-General from Ghana who served two terms. Widely admired for his skills of patience and diplomacy.
Toussaint Louverture (1743 – 1803) Leader of Haitian slave
revolt. In 1791, he led the successful military revolt in Saint-Domingue
and over the next years consolidated his power and influence restoring
the plantation system with paid labour. Louverture enabled the colony to
end slavery and in 1804 declared itself the independent Republic of
Haiti.
Booker T. Washington (1856
– 1915) Author and orator, Washington was an adviser to the presidents
of Roosevelt and Taft. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth
century, he was often considered the de facto leader of African-Americans. He advocated an incremental approach to improving education and life prospects of black Americans.
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868 – 1963) Du Bois was an influential
African-American activist who sought to campaign for full equality
between blacks and whites. He rejected the Atlanta compromise of 1909
but insisted on full equality. Thought little change was achieved in the
‘Progressive Era’, Du Bois laid the framework for the NAACP and future
civil rights movements.
Malcolm X
(1925-1965) – Member of the Nation of Islam which advocated black
self-determination and separation of black and white people. He later
disavowed racism and the Nation of Islam.
Pele
(1940 – ) (Brazil, footballer) Pele was the greatest footballer of the
century. Since retirement Pele become a global ambassador for sport and
is a well-known advocate of overcoming poverty.
Oliver Tambo
(1917 – 1993). President of the ANC (1960 – 1990). Tambo was a leading
figure in promoting international opposition to the apartheid regime in
South Africa.
Michael Jordan
(1963 – ) Considered the greatest basketball player of all time. He was
six times NBA champion and played an influential role in popularising
basketball in 1980s and 1990s.
Thurgood Marshall (1908 – 1993) US civil rights
lawyer and the first African-American appointed to the US Supreme Court
Justice. Marshall was the lead lawyer in the pivotal Supreme Court Case Brown vs Board of Education, Topeka (1954) which overturned legal segregation in the US.
Chinua Achebe (1930 – 2013) Best selling Nigerian novelist. He wrote the 1958 classic, ‘Things Fall Apart’ Achebe
was interested in religion and the influences of both Christianity and
native African traditions. Professor at Bard College, the US.
Usain Bolt (1986
– ) (Jamaica, athletics) Usain Bolt is an iconic figure in athletics.
He won triple Olympic gold at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics, and
broke the world record for 100m and 200m. Also took part in sport with a
natural enthusiasm and joy.
Carl Lewis (1961 – ) (US, athletics) Nine-time Olympic gold
medalist, Carl Lewis won gold over three Olympics and was the great star
of 1980s track and field.
Bob Marley (1945 – 1981) Jamaican singer-songwriter. Cultural icon and global music star. A committed Rastafari who helped make reggae an international phenomenon.
Famous Black women
Sojourner Truth
(1797 – 1883) African-American abolitionist and women’s rights
campaigner. In 1851, gave a famous extemporaneous speech “Ain’t I a
woman?” which supported equal rights for blacks and women.
Harriet Tubman
(1822 – 1913) – A Former slave who escaped and then helped many more to
escape on the Underground Railroad. During the Civil War, she served as
spy and guide to the Union Forces – This included guided a party of
soldiers at Combahee Ferry, which helped free 700 slaves.
Ida Wells (1862
– 1931) Wells was a pioneering journalist and newspaper editor. She
used her position to investigate the practice of lynching in the south. A
fearless civil rights activist and female suffrage campaigner, she was a
founder member of the NAACP in 1909.
Hattie McDaniel (1895 – 1952) McDaniel was an actress, comedian, and
singer-songwriter. She was the first African-American actress to be
awarded an Oscar for best-supporting actress in the 1939 film “Gone With
the Wind”
Rosa Parks
(1913 – 2005) – Instrumental in the US civil rights movement of the
1950s and 60s. It was Parks who began an influential boycott of
segregated buses in 1955. She remained an influential figure in the
civil rights movement, encouraging a break-down of racial barriers.
Billie Holiday (1915–1959)
American jazz singer. Given the title “First Lady of the Blues.” Billie
Holiday was widely considered to be the greatest and most expressive
jazz singer of all time. Her voice was moving in its emotional intensity
and poignancy. Despite dying at the age of only 44, Billie Holiday
helped define the jazz era and her recordings are still widely sold
today.
Shirley Chisholm (1924 – 2005) The first black Congresswoman.
She was elected to the House of Representatives for NY in 1968. She used
her time in Congress to campaign for women’s and civil rights. She
served from 1968 to 1983 and was the first black women to run for the
Democratic Presidential nomination.
Coretta Scott King (1927 –
2006) Scott King was an author, musician, civil rights activist and
wife of Martin Luther King. She played a prominent role in the civil
rights campaigns, both before and after her husband’s assassination. She
founded the King Centre and campaigned for Martin Luther King Day to be
a national holiday (established 1982)
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (1938 – ) Africa’s first elected female Head
of State. She served as president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. She was
jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for her work in supporting
democracy and women’s rights.
Oprah Winfrey
(1954 – ) Influential US media personality with groundbreaking chat
show and own book club. Winfrey is active in many liberal causes and
promotion of civil rights.
Wangari Muta Maathai (1940 – 2011) Kenyan environmental and political activist. Awarded the Nobel peace prize 2004 for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) American poet, writer and civil rights campaigner. Her autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969)
was received to wide-acclaim, she redefined the genre of autobiography
to promote a different perspective on Africa-Americans.
Whoopi Goldberg (1955 – ) American actress, comedian,
author, and television host. Goldberg was the second black female actor
to be awarded an Oscar for best-supporting actress. She was also awarded
an Emmy Award (tv) a Grammy Award (music industry) and a Tony Award
(live theatre)
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
(1962-) US, athletics. One of the most successful female track and
field athletes. Won Olympic gold in Heptathlon and Long Jump.
Michelle Obama (1964 – ) Lawyer and writer, Michelle
was the First Lady of the US during her husband’s presidency 2009-17.
She has often given well-received speeches at the Democratic convention.
She is widely admired for the promotion of causes such as good health,
exercise and nutrition – an approach that has transcended partisan
boundaries.
Deratu Tulu (1972 – ) (Ethiopia, athlete) The first Ethiopian female athlete to win Olympic gold. Tulu won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics in the 10,000m.
Tegla Laroupe
(1973 – ) – Keynan long distance runner and global spokesperson for
peace. Broke world records from 20km to the marathon. Now runs Tegla
Loroupe Peace Foundation.
Serena Williams (1981 – ) (US, tennis) 23 single grand slam
titles, 15 doubles titles. Also has won four Olympic gold medals.
Williams is most decorated and highest earning female tennis player in
history.
Michael Jackson
(1958 – 2009) – Musician and singer. Famous for albums such as ‘Bad’
and “Off the Wall”. Jackson was also a pioneer of music videos.
Beyonce (1981 – ) (US, singer) American singer, songwriter, record producer and actress. One of the best selling artists of the modern era. Also noted for positions on women and civil rights.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Soros Cover-Up
Americans can’t let Twitter noise overwhelm political reality.
posted by Newt Gingrich at The American Mind
I have been watching a truly curious phenomenon over the past few days.
It seems there is suddenly a movement in media to silence anyone who speaks out against George Soros—and, specifically, his funding of radical prosecutors seeking to change the criminal justice system by simply ignoring certain crimes.
This happened to me personally this week while I was being interviewed on Fox’s Outnumbered. When I brought up Soros’s plan to get pro-criminal, anti-police prosecutors elected across the country, two of the show’s participants interrupted me and forcefully asserted that Soros was not involved.
Host Harris Faulkner, it seemed, was stunned by the interruptions, and did her part to move the show forward after some awkward silence. The next day, she addressed the strange moment during the show and condemned censorship.
Immediately after the show, Twitter and other social media went crazy. People were alleging that any criticism of Soros’s political involvement is automatically false, anti-Semitic, or both.
This is ludicrous. Soros’s plan to elect these prosecutors has been well documented already—and it has nothing to do with his spiritual or ethnic background. The Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Politico, USA Today, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, CBS, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel—even Fox News itself, among others, have all thoroughly reported on it.
There are plenty of specific examples of Soros’s work in action.
Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot, who campaigned on the promise that he would not prosecute a host of crimes—including thefts—admitted his campaign was largely funded through Soros or his groups. He has been so dismissive of crime and police that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has had to send in the Texas State Patrol to police large swaths of Dallas.
Soros gave $333,000 to the Safety and Justice PAC in 2016 to support then-Cook County District Attorney candidate Kim Foxx in Illinois—who is currently presiding over terrible violence and mayhem in Chicago, where murders are twice what they were in 2019.
Soros and his organizations spent $1.7 million to help get Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner elected in 2018. Before being elected, Krasner earned a name for himself by suing the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times. Since he took office, dozens of experienced prosecutors have either been fired or resigned. Criminal prosecutions have plummeted and crime has risen. Philadelphia now has the second-highest murder rate among large cities in the country.
Former Hugo Chavez advisor and current San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin was also funded by Soros and his groups. Boudin has called prison “an act of violence” and has refused to prosecute a slew of illegal acts, from public urination to the public solicitation of sex, which he deems to be “quality of life crimes.” By the way, Boudin is the foster child of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, of terrorist group Weather Underground fame. His birth parents were convicted and imprisoned for their involvement in an armed robbery-turned-homicide.
One of Soros’s favored PACs spent $402,000 to support a failed San Diego County District Attorney bid by Geneviéve Jones-Wright.
In 2016, a Soros-funded super PAC donated $107,000 to benefit Raul Torrez in his Bernalillo County District Attorney primary—which he won by a 2-to-1 margin. In fact, Soros’s huge funding prompted the Republican running to bow out because it was just too expensive to run against Torrez.
Soros-backed George Gascon is currently challenging Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, who has been targeted and systematically harassed by Black Lives Matter supporters.
I’m not overly surprised to see the Twitter mob embrace a sudden, near-universal denial of these facts. I am alarmed to see that the force of this groupthink on social media appears to be strongly influencing professional media.
I think the heart of this mass denial is that Democrats and the Left are watching the terrible human cost of their misguided, pro-criminal, anti-police justice policies, and they are beginning to worry that the American people will realize who is responsible for them.
Rather than deal with something difficult—or admit they were wrong—the activists of the radical Left are trying to find some way to scream “racist” and get the media to follow suit.
America will suffer if our professional media continue to be overruled by our social media.