Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Life, Liberty & Levin: Mark Levin, Fox News, YouTube, Jan. 10, 2021 — Mark Levin responds to the breaching of the Capitol.
What Really Happened On January 6th? | Mayor Rudy Giuliani | Ep. 101: Rudy Giuliani’s Common Sense, YouTube, June 8, 2021 — Rudy Giuliani: “ it was a pre planned riot.” I’d like to share with everyone Rudy Giuliani’s latest Common Sense episode where he details what happened January 6,2021.
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Table Of Contents:
The January 6th Capital Riot, Trump & Israel: Initial Reflections: Fredrick Krantz,Isranet,Jan.11, 2021
Media Outrage Over Capitol Riot Isn’t About Defending Democracy, It’s About Wielding Power: John Daniel Davidson, The Federalist, Jan. 8, 2021
Mob’s Capitol Attack Unites a Nation in Horror—Though Not Entirely: Gerald F. Seib, WSJ, Jan. 8, 2021
Exodus and American Nationhood: Leon Kass, WSJ, Jan. 8, 2021
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The January 6th Capitol Riot, Trump & Israel: Initial Reflections
Frederick Krantz
Isranet, Jan. 11, 2021
On January 20, Joe Biden will be President. Given the deep crises he faces, one can only hope that the radical Democrats will not succeed in pushing him into the illusory authoritarian temptation of using his momentary power to try permanently to sideline the Republican opposition or, worse, to make politically advantageous Constitutional changes.
The Wednesday, January 6 riot, which saw an unruly pro-Trump crowd overpower the Capitol Police and occupy the U.S. Congress building in Washington, must be unequivocally condemned. While the occupiers evidently had no clear “revolutionary” program to violently and permanently unseat the legitimate, elected legislators (one hostile observer termed it “silly…a lark”) the occupation was nonetheless confrontational and symbolically violent, and to date six people have, directly and indirectly, tragically died as a result.
A much larger DC demonstration peacefully protested, entirely legitimately, against what participants felt were irregularities in the recent November election. But the intimidatory rump spin-off occupation of Congress was indefensible, and violent participants should be identified, pursued, arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
At the same time, this sad event should not lead to lock-step self-righteous indignation and vengeful retribution. Not triumphalist “gotcha-ism”, but some kind of political truce, providing time and space for reflective evaluation, is badly needed. If not, the division and mutual delegitimation which has for the last four years threatened America’s Constitutional order, will only worsen, and civil discord and violence could spiral out of control.
America faces the continuing crisis of COVID-19 and widespread economic devastation—the incoming Administration with its razor-thin political edge in House and Senate, led by the oldest Chief Executive in U.S. history, will have its hands full without added burdens. It must avoid descending into deepening and dangerous political division, while perhaps [probably?] having to face severe foreign challenges and crises brought on by its rivals’ and enemies’ perception of weakness and confusion.
This prospect has clear implications for Israel’s security and well-being. First, there is the real possibility that the Biden Administration, with its largely Obama-era foreign policy appointees and the influence of the “anti-Zionist” radicals (AOC and Squad, now reinforced by recent “Progressive” Congressmen and Senators} will reverse the remarkably positive initiatives and achievements of the Trump era (e.g., isolation of Iran, Abraham Accords follow-up [Saudi Arabian recognition?], resuscitation of irrational Palestinian dreams,). But beyond this, a weak and divided U.S., plagued by ongoing political and civic struggle, might well tempt Russian, or Chinese (or Iranian, North Korean, Turkish, etc.) adventurism and aggression, which could embroil Israel in dangerous regional conflicts.
At the same time, the DC crisis cannot be condemned in isolation. It is not only politically, but morally, legitimate, and necessary, to place it in the context both of the over four-year-long campaign to destroy Donald J.. Trump’s presidency, and of the last six months of urban political violence. What happened Wednesday is not an isolated, and hence easily contained. event, but part of a much larger, ongoing, and not easily reversed pattern of cultural delegitimation, political conflict, and violence.
We have lived through the phony “Russia hoax” accusations, FBI abuse (Steele Report, FISA court system), three years of the finally fruitless Mueller Commission investigations, and the spurious impeachment campaign waged by Democrats and complicit major media and the large IT and social media corporations. We have also endured–and it still goes on, see Portland a few days ago-over six months of BLM and Antifa-related urban violence, which the media either ignored or termed “peaceful protests”, in which over 30 people were killed, 700 policemen injured, public buildings and privates stores burned and looted (to the tune of over $2 billion in damages) in over 140 American cities.
(We have all seen the remarkable videos of news commentators standing in front of urban fires, looting and mayhem, and blithely intoning the “peaceful protest” mantra. And we are all aware of the election-eve ignoring by the media—despite a documented New York Post report, direct testimony, and a two-year ongoing FBI investigation–of alleged Biden family corruption involving the President-elect son’s activities in Ukraine, Moscow, and China.)
As terrible as what went on in the People’s House in DC last week was, and as rightly deserving of condemnation as it is, anyone who remained silent across recent years in the face of truly violent and undemocratic actions by Trump’s opponents, has no moral right now self-righteously to demand retribution and punishment. Hypocrisy may cloak itself in high moral dudgeon, but it remains hypocrisy. Worse, without recognizing the deeper structural problem America faces, divisions can only be deepened, rendering real, positive political change impossible.
The Democrat radicals are now demanding Trump’s dismissal, using Article 25 of the Constitution; barring such recourse, they are threatening to initiate immediate impeachment proceedings. The goal is two-fold: to force him from power as quickly as possible (he is “unhinged”, says House Majority Speaker Pelosi, who seems herself unstable); and, perhaps more to the political point, to ensure that he will be legally disbarred from ever running for office again.
(Indeed, Pelosi even went so far as to call upon Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley to with-hold access to the nuclear codes from the President, a ploy to involve the military in impeachment which Milley and others reportedly did not appreciate.)
Meanwhile, President-elect Biden—even as both he and Kamala Harris condemn Trump and all Republicans with a broad brush, as “thugs”, for the Congress event–speaks publically about restoring “unity”, both within Congress and in the country at large.
What has occurred in DC is shameful, but so is what has gone on in the country since Trump’s 2016 campaign and election. What is most sad, and deeply concerning, about the current impasse is that, perhaps for the first time since the Civil War, it is not at all clear whether the crisis can be overcome, or if an inevitable and fatal decline has in fact set in.
Donald Trump may well not escape unscathed the currently swelling wave of criticism and, in some quarters, sheer unreasoning hatred. While his radically negative reaction to the prospect, and then the reality, of losing the election contributed to his base’s “Stop the Steal” climate of opinion, there is no clear evidence that he consciously instigated the actual occupation of Congress, let alone a premeditated coup d’état. In any case, this seems never, thankfully, to have been a goal—the only gunshot came, tragically, from the Capitol police, and the crowd did respect Trump’s final videoed urging to be peaceful and to “go home”.
What his critics and enemies miss is that it is not “Trump” who is the problem, but the socio-political crisis he identified and politically both spoke to and benefitted from. The seventy-five million “intra-coastal” Americans, largely working- and lower-middle class people, including a growing number of blacks and Hispanics, feeling abandoned by the globally-oriented elites, voted for him. They continue to support him, and are not going away, even if he finally does.
In this regard Trump will, by broadening and deepening its range and appeal, leave behind a legacy–an irrevocably transformed and broader-based Republican party. But what will really have brought him down, however much the details are disputed, was not Joe Biden or even electoral fraud as such, but COVID-19’s destruction of the remarkable economy and, note, the relative stability in foreign affairs, his Administration had achieved prior to February, 2020.
There is of course a tragic personal element in all this, for part of what opened him to his enemies, indeed, what made them his enemies in the first place, was his nature: he was, and saw himself as being, a disruptor, the Patton of politicians, someone with the will to transform politics-as-usual, to “clean up the swamp”. But the swamp, threatened—and supported by the media, the universities, and the big high-tech and media corporations–, fought back.
There is about Trump, despite the bathos, and pathos, the tweeting and the glitz (and the tendency to make own goals), something of the classical tragic hero. Fate lifted him up high, and may now be bringing him low. Hubris, overweening pride, which makes the tragic hero possible, also finally breeds Nemesis, tragic destruction, bringing the hero down. Of course, whether this is, indeed, the play’s last act, remains to be seen.
For those of us concerned deeply with Israel’s well-being and future, alarm bells should clearly be ringing. Trump pursued what is indisputedly the most pro-Israel foreign policy of any President since 1948. Today, Jerusalem is Israel’s recognized capital, the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria (and the Golan) is permanent, and Israel is at peace with and recognized by an ever-increasing number of its Arab neighbors.
Its new Trump-brokered relations with the Abraham Accord states are excellent and, remarkably, tiny Israel now leads the world in COVID vaccinations. But a more leftist Biden Middle East policy, and American instability and division, if they not only continue, but worsen, can erase recent progress. Crises can erupt out of instability, from the South China Sea to the Gulf of Hormuz and Iran, from the Indian-Chinese frontier to Iraq, Turkey and to Israel’s borders with Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Authority.
Much is a stake. We are living a fraught world-historical moment. Biden should seek bi-partisan support to address real problems. One can only hope that he, his Administration, and the Republican opposition will rise to the occasion, and that the American Republic will endure, and retain the mantle of world, and Middle East, leadership it has assumed since World War II.
(Prof. Frederick Krantz, is Director of the Canadian Institute
for Jewish Research, and Editor of the Daily Isranet Briefing.
. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Media Outrage Over Capitol Riot Isn’t About Defending Democracy, It’s About Wielding Power
John Daniel Davidson
The Federalist, Jan. 8, 2021
After the pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Twitter blue-checks, politicians, and elite corporate journalists wailed and rent their garments in outrage. But they weren’t really outraged.
Yes, the breach of the capitol was appalling and disturbing. Most people didn’t see it coming and were understandably shocked when images of MAGA bros fighting capitol police began popping up on social media (although the authorities should have been better prepared, most of all D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who had earlier rejected offers of additional law enforcement.) There’s no question the protesters who decided to riot should be prosecuted, as all rioters everywhere should be.
But elite outrage is not really about what happened at the capitol—about the “sacred citadel of our democracy being defiled” and so on. The outrage, like almost all expressions of righteous indignation from our elites in the Trump era, is performative. It is in service of a larger purpose that has nothing to do with the peaceful transfer of power and everything to do with the wielding of power.
Specifically, it’s about punishing supporters of President Trump. If the pro-Trump mob can be depicted as “terrorists” and “traitors,” then there’s almost nothing we shouldn’t do to silence them. Right? Rick Klein, the political director at ABC News, said the quiet part out loud on Thursday when he mused (in a now-deleted tweet) that getting rid of Trump is “the easy part” and the more difficult task will be “cleansing the movement he commands.”
That’s not the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of reporting the news. It’s the kind of language you use when you’re in the business of social control.
A lot of people on the right have noted the supposed hypocrisy of media elites like Klein, but it’s not really hypocrisy because Klein and his comrades don’t really have a problem with violent mobs storming into buildings and smashing windows, so long as they agree with the mob’s agenda. That’s why corporate media was so tolerant of much larger and more dangerous mobs destroying American cities for months on end last year. When Black Lives Matter rioters stormed city halls and police stations, burned down churches, and ransacked shopping districts in major U.S. cities, killing dozens and destroying livelihoods, the media offered support for the rioters’ cause, which they invoked time and again to justify their criminal acts.
That’s why CNN’s Chris Cuomo said, “Please, show me where it says protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful.” That’s why his colleague, Don Lemon, compared the riots to the Boston Tea Party, saying, “This is how our country started.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Mob’s Capitol Attack Unites a Nation in Horror—Though Not Entirely
Gerald F. Seib
WSJ, Jan. 8, 2021
Almost without exception, Americans responded with shock, horror and condemnation to the storming of the Capitol this week by a mob of Trump supporters.
America’s constitutional processes were stopped, the seat of its democracy was desecrated, the power of its model for the world tarnished. Capitol Police officers were clubbed; one has died. Nearly all agree: The damage done not just to the Capitol building but to the image America tries to project internally and externally will be lasting.
Yet even within those anguished reactions lie some subtle—and in some cases not-so-subtle—differences that illustrate just how divided the nation remains at the end of President Trump’s term and in the aftermath of a tumultuous 2020.
For some, the condemnations were accompanied by a belief that if members of this week’s almost entirely white mob had been Black, they would have been dealt with more swiftly and harshly, as were protesters in American streets during 2020’s summer of racial reckoning.
President-elect Joe Biden gave voice to that view in his initial reaction to the violence. “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently from the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” he said. “We all know that’s true. And it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.” Mr. Biden cited the reaction of his own granddaughter, who compared the heavily armed military unit that met protesters at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial this summer with the lightly armed Capitol Police who confronted those assaulting the Capitol.
Jimmie Briggs, a Black writer, gave a more personal reaction. In a piece written for Vanity Fair, he saw the treatment as an example of the “social hypocrisy displayed by our institutions toward nonwhite Americans when compared to the treatment of their white counterparts.” He argued that “despite the mobsters’ extraordinary disregard for the rule of law, for agents of law enforcement, and for social norms regarding government, government property, and government processes, a near-mythical graciousness was shown to the insurrectionists.” … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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Exodus and American Nationhood
Leon Kass
WSJ, Jan. 8, 2021
What makes a people a people? What forms their communal identity, holds them together, guides their lives? To what do they look up? For what should they strive?
These questions have risen to the surface in our turbulent times, as controversy swirls about the goodness of the nation-state and the meaning of “peoplehood.” Celebrating globalization, cosmopolitan elites increasingly act and regard themselves as “citizens of the world.” Reasserting older identities, many citizens who treasure their own nation’s ways see them as being threatened by foreign ideologies and non-assimilating immigrants. Even in our long-established American republic, what defines and unifies the nation has become an urgent question.
For help in thinking about these issues, I have turned to the book of Exodus. Why Exodus? This biblical book not only recounts the political founding of one of the world’s oldest and most consequential peoples. It also invites us to think about the moral meaning of communal life, the requirements of political self-rule and the standards for judging a social order better or worse.
Many great thinkers, religious and not, have studied Exodus for its political wisdom. In the 17th century, political thinkers found guidance for reform in the ancient “Hebrew Republic,” while jurists saw in the Hebrew Bible the foundation for universal principles of justice. The idea that the best body politic rests on the biblical notion of covenant entered the American colonies with the Mayflower Compact, and the American tradition of civic republicanism owes much to the Puritans’ devotion to the Hebrew Bible.
The case for investigating the political teachings of Exodus was made perhaps most eloquently and succinctly by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the late 18th century: “The Jews provide us with an astonishing spectacle: the laws of [Greek and Roman lawgivers] are dead; the very much older laws of Moses are still alive. Any man, whosoever he is, must acknowledge this as a unique marvel, the causes of which, divine or human, certainly deserve the study and admiration of the sages.”
What then can we learn when we turn to Exodus?
The second book of the Bible tells the story—begun in Genesis on the family level—of how God addresses the evils and miseries of uninstructed human existence by instituting His teaching for humankind among the Children of Israel. Offered as an alternative to the ways of the Mesopotamians, the Canaanites and especially the Egyptians, it is a way devoted to human decency and dignity, to righteousness and holiness.
As Exodus starts, the Israelites are flourishing in Egypt. Seeking to curb their proliferation, a new Pharaoh reduces them to slavery and orders the drowning of all male infants. When the Israelites finally cry out from their oppression, God charges Moses and his brother Aaron with securing from Pharaoh the release of His people through a series of “signs, wonders, and chastisements”—the so-called ten plagues. After the tenth and most devastating plague, Pharaoh finally relents and urges the Israelites to depart, only to set out the following morning in pursuit of the escaped ex-slaves and, for his efforts, to drown with his troops in the Sea of Reeds. … [To read the full article, click the following LINK – Ed.]
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For Further Reference:
Victor Davis Hanson on Capitol Riots: Fox News, YouTube, Jan 7, 2021
Watch: The U.S. Is In A ‘Sharp Decline’ And Canada Can Pick Up The Slack: Interview with Conrad Black, BNN, Bloomberg, YouTube, Jan. 5, 2021
WATCH: Silicon Valley Moves To Shut Down Parler, Conservatives’ Answer To Twitter: Tucker Carlson, Fox News, Jan. 10, 2021 — Parler, a social media platform popular with conservatives, has become the target of Silicon Valley in the wake of last week’s riots at the U.S. Capitol.
Democrats Cannot Impeach Trump, and You Can’t Impeach Him After Leaving Office: Dershowitz: Jack Phillips, Epoch Times, Jan. 10, 2021 — Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Democrats have virtually no chance of successfully impeaching and removing President Donald Trump before Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Rasmussen: Trump’s Approval Rating Rises After DC Protests: Newsmax, Jan. 8, 2021 — The Rasmussen poll, one of the most accurate polls of the 2020 election, finds President Trump’s approval is actually rising after Wednesday ‘s protests. As Democrats move to impeachment and some establishment Republicans call for the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, the poll finds 48% approve of the President’s job performance.
Potemkin Parliament, Pseudo-Legislature: Mark Steyn, Steynonline, Jan. 7, 2021 — As I said earlier, I find myself at odds with virtually the entire politico-media class in my reaction to the “storming” of the US Capitol. As I put it: The political class (represented by a Speaker who flies home to San Francisco on her own government plane) has been largely insulated from the pathologies they have loosed upon the land. For a few hours yesterday they weren’t.
