“As of yet, though, President Biden has declined to punish Iran for the attack on Mr. Rushdie. Nor for as yet unsuccessful attempts against President Trump and officials of his administration, including a former national security adviser, John Bolton, former secretaries of defense and state, Mark Esper and Michael Pompeo, respectively, and the one-time point man on Iran, Brian Hook. Additionally, an American-Iranian dissident, Masih Alinejad, is in hiding after a second attempt on her life was foiled last month at Brooklyn. “Iran is actively plotting against multiple Americans,” the ranking Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, Michael McCall of Texas, said in a statement today, adding, “Waiting to impose consequences until after an attack is a dereliction of duty.””
Biden Takes a Powder in Face of Attempt To Carry Out Fatwa Against Rushdie
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“As Winnie-the-Pooh was a Bear of Very Little Brain, Liz Cheney is a Woman of Very Little Imagination. Just as she could never see the potential and possibilities of Donald Trump and Trumpism, so when she looks ahead to the Republican Party of the future can she see only the party of the past redux, her father’s GOP. That party — it is clear to almost everyone except the Cheneys — is as dead as Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party. Most of its luminaries are in retirement or defunct. Something new is here already, and the question is simply whether Trump or someone in the Trumpist mold will lead and staff it. The fact that Cheney cannot recognize this shows how unsuited she is for public office in America today.”
The last-ditch attempt to rescue Liz Cheney
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“I would say it’s a sad day for political commentary when a random Argentinian tourist has a more acute understanding of American politics than Jonah Goldberg, but I’ve come to realize over the last few years that the “experts” don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. Now Goldberg says we’re un-American for suggesting the FBI isn’t pursuing a majestic and impartial course of justice…Goldberg makes a lot of “belief” in our country. But what Goldberg actually believes in is the Beltway.”
You’re Un-American
https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/11/youre-un-american/
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Republicans will be zeroing in on the FBI, either as best they can from the opposition or more aggressively if their party wins control of Congress in the midterms. Senator Grassley, who serves as the ranking member of the judiciary committee, is telling me that the bureau’s “inconsistent decisions when it comes to politically sensitive investigations in recent years has understandably raised questions about the fair and equal application of the law.”…Part of the problem, according to Mr. Grassley, is that the bureau rarely holds its own accountable. A lawyer who pleaded guilty to doctoring evidence submitted to the secret surveillance court regarding Mr. Page, Kevin Clinesmith, was sentenced to probation in 2021. The District of Columbia Bar in December restored his status to member in “good standing.””
What Merrick Garland Failed To Mention About the FBI
https://www.nysun.com/article/what-merrick-garland-failed-to-mention-about-the-fbi
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“In her post-election book Our Time Is Now (2020), Abrams claimed, “modern-day suppression has swapped rabid dogs and cops with billy clubs for restrictive voter ID and tangled rules for participation.” Richard Lowry in National Review astutely pointed out the contradiction in her book, captured in a single sentence from it: “I watched in real time as the conflicts in our evolving nation became fodder for racist commercials, horrific suppression—and the largest turnout of voters of color in Georgia’s history.” Indeed, the elections of 2018 featured the highest midterm turnout in a century, and black turnout in 2012 and 2020 was at historic highs.”
Voting Rights and Wrongs
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/voting-rights-and-wrongs-2/
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“Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., who has repeatedly called for defunding the police, has seen skyrocketing crime in the Northern Bronx part of his district…Since taking office, Bowman has seen violent crime on the rise in the Northern Bronx region of his 16th congressional district, which includes the Spuyten Duyvil, Woodlawn, Eastchester Heights, and Co-op City neighborhoods of the New York City borough….The analysis found that violent crime is up roughly 30% overall in the Northern Bronx compared to last year, with the biggest uptick occurring in Precinct 50 with a 74% increase. That precinct, which includes the neighborhoods of Spuyten Duyvil, Fieldston and Riverdale, also recorded a 123.5% increase in robberies and a 153% increase in grand larceny auto since last year.”
‘Defund the Police’ Rep. Bowman sees 30% violent crime spike in Northern Bronx
https://apple.news/Al0EEkOdSRKifsqShqdAK8w
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“Abrams’s shift on the issue has generated anger from her former compatriots in progressive-activist circles. Her announcement of the “fund the police” initiative on Twitter garnered so much backlash that the social-media giant — absurdly — felt compelled to attach a “fact check” to her tweet arguing that “law enforcement are often paid less than a living wage.” (“Law enforcement officers in most jurisdictions are paid significantly more than the average worker with much better benefits and job security,” the fact check assured users.) “Abrams’ policy proposals represent another instance of the Democratic Party folding in the face of an all-too-predictable Republican and police backlash to 2020’s anti-police-brutality uprisings,” the Appeal complained. The Root reported that, while “it’s rare that anything Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams says is received with vitriol by Black folks or the political left,” she “may have made a rare political misstep” with her calls for more police pay.”
Is Anybody Buying Stacey Abrams’s Pro-Cop Makeover?
https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/is-anybody-buying-stacey-abramss-pro-cop-makeover/
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“Cheney and her fellow NeverTrumpers and establishmentarians in the GOP would be wise not to expect too much from their newfound admirers on the left in the coming months and years. Now that she is soon to be out of political office and off the January 6 Committee, she will be of little, if any, use to them but rather the opposite, as before; thus reverting in their eyes to her former identity as the daughter of George W. Bush’s war-mongering VP — and as the former reactionary representative who, while she was in Congress, voted for President Trump’s agenda 92 percent of the time.”
Liz Cheney: the end of the affair
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“..what has become of the yas-queening diehards now that the vice president is widely seen to have flopped as second-in-command and is more of a liability than an asset for her party? Savor the Daily Beast’s update on the Kamala fan club, where the mood is dour. One former #KHive member who “requested to speak anonymously so as not to alienate themselves from friends made through the movement” had this to say about Harris’s time in office so far: “I would never, ever say that I regret supporting the first Black woman vice president, ever. But the disappointment is real. I was obsessed with the idea of this person who could undo the systemic, the systematic racism and sexism and heterosexism in government with one fell swoop, and now I’m thinking to myself, did I just make up a person in my head who could do those things?” Yes, anonymous former KHiver. Yes, you did.”
Remember the KHive?
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“Former president Jimmy Carter was, at the time of the original fatwa, the most prominent American to suggest that the crime of murder should be balanced against Rushdie’s crime of blasphemy. The ayatollah’s death sentence “caused writers and public officials in Western nations to become almost exclusively preoccupied with the author’s rights,” Carter wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times. Well, yes. Carter did not only say that many Muslims were offended and wished violence on Rushdie; that was simply a matter of fact, reported frequently in the news pages. He took to the op-ed page to add his view that these fanatics had a point. “While Rushdie’s First Amendment freedoms are important,” he wrote, “we have tended to promote him and his book with little acknowledgment that it is a direct insult to those millions of Moslems whose sacred beliefs have been violated.” Never mind that millions of Muslims take no offense at all, and are insulted by the implication that they should.”
SALMAN RUSHDIE AND THE CULT OF OFFENSE
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/salman-rushdie-fatwa-attack/671139/
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"The stabbing of Sir Salman Rushdie in New York State shocked the world last Friday, with expressions of condemnation and solidarity being issued across the West. Not though, it seems, at NYT Towers where, four days on, there has not been a single opinion piece by one of its many writers decrying the attack on the British author or defending free speech…Still, at least they had space for such gems as “The Joys of Swimming While Fat” and “I Still Believe in the Power of Sexual Freedom.” Talk about solidarity.”
The New York Times’s strange Rushdie silence
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