Opinion: It’s 2019, And Gay People Are Still Being Forced To Attack Themselves In The Streets

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Snopes Fact Checks Babylon Bee’s Story About CNN Offering Jussie Smollett a Job

Babylon Bee is a satirical web magazine

JIM GERAGHTY:

“…There’s no excuse for racist and sexist stereotypes, but as the well-informed audience of this newsletter knows, [Kamala] Harris and Brown did have an extramarital affair (he was married, she wasn’t) starting in 1993, he appointed her to two well-paying state positions during their relationship, and he was no doubt a key connection as she began her career, introducing her to California’s political movers and shakers. It’s completely fair to ask the candidate hard questions about this nepotism, and the fact that some Russian bot is tweeting about it doesn’t mean the topic transmogrifies into “disinformation.”…”

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John McWhorter:

“…Did it not occur to Smollett that if this blew up in his face, he would be tarring by association actual and legitimate claims of racist and homophobic abuse? As someone seeking to be seen as a concerned activist in the vein of his mother and Angela Davis, could Smollett really not understand that a stunt all about making himself more famous was not exactly the wokest approach?

But that’s just it—Smollett, if the latest reporting is true, was an eager puppy, jumping with joyous inattention into American social politics as he has encountered it coming of age in the 21st century. He would have known that in this moment, very important people would find him more interesting for having been hurt on the basis of his identity than for his fine performance on an interesting hit television show. He would have known this so well that it didn’t even occur to him that his story would have to be more credible than the dopey one he threw together about being jumped in near-Arctic temperatures by the only two white bullies in America with a mysterious fondness for a black soap hip-hopera. (Yet again, I’m assuming the latest reporting is accurate.)

Only in an America in which matters of race are not as utterly irredeemable as we are often told could things get to the point that someone would pretend to be tortured in this way, acting oppression rather than suffering it, seeking to play a prophet out of a sense that playing a singer on television is not as glamorous as getting beaten up by white guys. That anyone could feel this way and act on it in the public sphere is, in a twisted way, a kind of privilege, and a sign that we have come further on race than we are often comfortable admitting…”

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Related

CBS Chicago: Smollett Wrote The Hate-Crime Letter Too

Arthur Chrenkoff:

“…The Millennials can’t remember very much – and they don’t learn very much either. It’s easy being hot for socialism or communism when you actually have a very little idea of what it is and what it did throughout the 20th century. And the Ys have that ignorance in spades; one third of them think that George W Bush killed more people than Stalin and 42 per cent have never heard of Mao – but over 70 per cent agree with Bernie Sanders. Some research suggests that only 15 per cent actually have a correct understanding of socialism. It’s not just politics; the Millennials are the most woefully undereducated and miseducated generation in a very long time. To be fair, that’s not strictly their fault; that attaches itself again to their Boomer grandparents who have been in charge of our failing education systems during this time. Combine the modern indoctrination-cum-dumbification taking place in schools and universities with the attention span-killing impact of information technology and social media, and you have a barely literate cohort, which is simply not equipped with the necessary mental tools to learn about the real world even if they wanted to.

Any surprises that socialism is now nearly synonymous with Gen Y?…”

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Sean Davis:

“…A review of existing federal laws makes clear that President Donald Trump has clear statutory authority to build a border wall pursuant to a declaration of a national emergency. Arguments to the contrary either mischaracterize or completely ignore existing federal emergency declarations and appropriations laws that delegate to the president temporary and limited authority to reprogram already appropriated funding toward the creation of a border wall between the United States and Mexico.

To analyze the legal basis for Trump’s declaration of a national emergency and subsequent transfer of existing appropriations to respond to the declared emergency, we must begin and end with the actual text of underlying federal laws governing presidential declarations and appropriations of federal funding. The most important text regarding the latter is Section 9 of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law[.]”

This law is what grants Congress the so-called “power of the purse” and effectively makes Congress the most powerful branch of the federal government. Not one dime may be spent by the federal government in the absence of an act of Congress. As a result, no mere declaration of emergency by the president is sufficient to allow the expenditure of funding that Congress has not already appropriated.

Much news coverage of Trump’s national emergency declaration has suggested that he is unilaterally spending money that has not been appropriated to fund construction of a wall (or fence, or security barrier, or whatever you want to call it) on the U.S. southern border, but that is simply not the case. In fact, the formal declaration of a national emergency on the U.S.-Mexico border cites two specific federal statutes that provide him the legal basis to use emergency funds to secure the border: one authorizing the president to declare national emergencies (50 U.S.C 1601 et. seq.) and the other authorizing the president to reprogram existing federal appropriations in response to an emergency declaration (10 U.S.C. 2808).

Between 2001 and 2014, according to a January 2019 analysis by the Congressional Research Service, Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama used those two laws in tandem 18 separate times to reprogram existing appropriations to address national emergencies, so there’s nothing unusual or unprecedented in Trump using the same authorities to respond to national security threats…”

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WALTER RUSSELL MEAD:

“…But whatever Mr. Trump thinks, European unity matters to U.S. interests. A strong Europe and only a strong Europe can stabilize the region, manage migration and refugee issues in a humane and sustainable way, contain Russia at a reduced cost, and provide the markets that American companies need for growth. On its current course the EU cannot achieve these goals, and the decay or dissolution of the union would only make things worse.

It does not advance U.S. interests for Europe to go the way of the Soviet Union or stay deadlocked in decline. A vibrant Europe whose unity is based on common-sense cooperation and pro-growth economic policies suits America best, but neither the immobilism of Angela Merkel’s Germany nor hostile rhetoric from the White House can bring that about.

Instead of reforming itself, a beleaguered European establishment is circling the wagons against critics at home and abroad. Meanwhile, an American president who would rather have a Diet Coke with Viktor Orban than with Angela Merkel is hurling rhetorical firebombs across the Atlantic. No good will come of this sterile trans-Atlantic feuding, though both Russia and China will be happy to exploit the tensions and cleavages that result.

Europe continues to drift toward irrelevance on the global stage. Josef Joffe, longtime editor and publisher of Die Zeit and one of Europe’s most seasoned and respected diplomatic observers, argues in the February issue of Commentary that the Soros warning may be too late. The grand project of building the EU into a superpower has already imploded: At the level of world politics, “ ‘Europe’ does not exist.”

That lifelong proponents of European values like Messrs. Soros and Joffe increasingly share Mr. Trump’s harsh view of the EU as an irrelevant failure should make even the most headstrong Brussels partisans reflect. Europe is not on a sustainable path; nobody knows this better than those who love and value it most…”

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Great article from a sharp gal. Worth clicking over.

Heather Mac Donald:

“…The truth: as instances of actual racism get harder and harder to find, the search to find such bigotry becomes increasingly frenzied and unmoored from reality.

Smollett made a not-irrational wager that a patently preposterous narrative about an anti-black, anti-gay hate crime at 2 A.M. in subzero Chicago would be embraced by virtually the entirety of the mainstream media, leading Democratic politicians, Hollywood, and academia, with no one in these cohorts bothering to fact-check his narrative or entertain even armchair skepticism toward it. He also presumed, again with good reason, that to claim victim status would catapult him to the highest echelons of public admiration and accomplishment. And he was right. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker called it a “modern-day lynching.” Joe Biden warned that “we must no longer give this hate safe harbor,” his implication being that we need to stop winking at such racist attacks. If Beale Street Could Talk’s Barry Jenkins lamented, “This what all that hateful mongering has wrought. Are you PROUD???”  Good Morning America interviewed Smollett without asking a single critical question about his story.

The examples are as numerous as the retractions will be minimal…”

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BEN SHAPIRO:

“…On January 29, 2019, Chicago Police opened a hate crime investigation into the alleged assault of Empire actor Jussie Smollett. Smollett, who is black and gay, alleged that two men approached him at 2 a.m. in Chicago, where they shouted “f*****” and “n*****,” tried to wrap a noose around his neck, and poured bleach on him. He also told TMZ that the men shouted, “This is MAGA country.”

The story received unending press. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), tweeted, “The racist, homophobic attack on [Smollett] is an affront to our humanity.” Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) called it a “modern-day lynching.” Congresswoman and Fresh Face™ of the Democratic Party Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed anyone who questioned the story, tweeting, “The attack was not ‘possibly’ homophobic. It was a racist and homophobic attack.”

The media ran with the story. Good Morning America hosted Smollett, where he maligned anyone who asked questions as a racist and a homophobe. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin stated, “This is America in 2019.” Celebrities parroted their support for Smollett, with many blaming President Trump and Vice President Pence for the attack.

The story was a hoax.

That same night, a Jewish man in New York was beaten by three thugs. Nothing was stolen. The attack was caught on video.

Outside of a report in The Jerusalem Post, the story received virtually no attention.

This isn’t the only story of anti-Semitism in New York. Not by a long shot. Two weeks before that beating, a Jewish man, 19, was “violently assaulted” as he walked past a local laundromat by a group of teenage black males. In December, a 16-year-old Jewish teen spent a week in a hospital after being beaten by two other teens; witnesses said that the teens screamed “Kill the Jew.” The NYPD categorized the attack as “gang related” rather than a hate crime, angering Jews in the area. This weekend, vandals shattered the window of a Chabad in Bushwick as the rabbi and his family slept inside….”

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Surge in Ivy League anti-Trump courses, ‘imminent apocalypse,’ ‘fascism.’

If any of that was true, these nitwits would not be offering these courses for obvious reasons.

Salena Zito:

“…Tito Brown can’t imagine driving a perfectly good thing out of a town that hasn’t had a perfectly good thing come its way in a very long time.

At least, a perfectly good thing the size and scope of the Amazon headquarters that ideological politics drove out of Long Island City on Thursday, when Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., danced on the grave of the deal as Amazon walked away from the New York project.

Brown doesn’t really get that. He governs a city with a declining population, a 40 percent poverty rate, and would welcome the opportunity for a project such as Amazon to have considered locating here.

“Oh, any time I can get regional and/or economic growth in my community, I would absolutely want that here,” he said. “It’s budget time.”

Ocasio-Cortez, who has become the leader of the left-wing insurgency within the Democratic Party, slammed the plan in a tweet the moment it was announced in mid-November last year.

She initially said the response to the Amazon announcement from her constituents was outrage, arguing that the tax breaks Amazon would receive should be spent by city and state officials on the subway system and communities instead of billion-dollar corporations.

Which isn’t how tax breaks work. It’s not like there is a pile of money they would hand to Amazon that could have been spent on the subway system, but that is a story for a different day.

What this moment signifies in the Democratic Party is one that has been in existence for several years, but the party establishment and ruling class have been unwilling to face: the leftist populism punching up to take the reins of the party…”

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Satire, but is it?

Nation’s Liberals Devastated After Learning Hate Crime Didn’t Actually Happen

Good article. Worth clicking over.

DOV FISCHER:

“…When Ocasio-Cortez speaks, she reflects not only an element of Personal Stupid, but she also reflects a generation of college graduates who literally do not know what World War II was, what Hitler and Stalin were, what mass genocide and Golodomor and Holocaust are. That was part of the bounty of White Male Privilege…”

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ROBERT STACY MCCAIN:

“…Four below zero — that’s how cold it was at 2 a.m. in Chicago on Jan. 29, when actor Jussie Smollett claims he was the victim of a racist, homophobic hate crime perpetrated by two white Trump supporters. There were many reasons to be skeptical of Smollett’s story, but the fact that Chicago was experiencing a “polar vortex” of arctic cold was high on the list of doubts. Even if you could believe that two right-wingers would be stalking a not-very-famous actor in downtown Chicago, waiting for a chance to attack him on his way back from a wee-hours trip to a sandwich shop, why would they be doing this in -4°F weather?

Smollett’s story never made sense, and it came completely unraveled last week after Chicago police apprehended two of the Empire actor’s friends when they flew into O’Hare Airport, returning from a trip to Nigeria. According to reports by Chicago’s WBBM-TV and other outlets, brothers Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo were paid $3,500 by Smollett to stage the fake hate crime. Police have not yet filed any charges or given an official explanation of exactly what happened, and Smollett’s attorneys issued a statement Saturday asserting his innocence, but there is now every reason to believe that the whole thing was a complete hoax. If this proves to be the case, will any of the liberals who rushed to exploit Smollett’s tale face any consequences for smearing Trump supporters?

Consider, for example, what Stephen Colbert did on The Late Show. Two days after Smollett claimed he was attacked, Colbert invited lesbian actress Ellen Page onto the CBS program to blame the Trump administration, and particularly Vice President Mike Pence, for “what happened the other day to Jussie.” After describing Pence’s conservative policies as having “hurt LGBTQ people so badly,” Page said: “Connect the dots. This is what happens if you are in a position of power and you hate people and you want to cause suffering to them — you go through the trouble, you spend your career trying to cause suffering, what do you think is going to happen?” This was either deliberate slander, or evidence of insuperable stupidity, but neither Colbert nor Page have acknowledged any error, because they don’t have to. Presumably, the advertisers and executives at CBS have no problem paying Colbert to falsely blame Republicans for a “hate crime” that turns out to be a hoax, and Page knows that every liberal in Hollywood will applaud her “courage” for insulting the vice president…”

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And

Two years were wasted on this investigation to find out what most people already knew.

• Senate Finds No Direct Evidence of Trump-Russia Collusion

And look who else was cleared.

• Investigation Clears Covington Catholic Students, “No Evidence of Offensive or Racist Statements”

Now let’s look at some real collusion.

• Andrew McCabe: DOJ considered how to remove Trump under 25th Amendment after Comey firing
• Alan Dershowitz: Yes, Using the 25th Amendment to Oust Trump is an Attempted Coup

Here we go.

• Trump will sign omnibus, then declare National Emergency to get border wall built
• Trump Declares National Emergency to Stop ‘Invasion of Our Country With Drugs, Human Traffickers’

No jobs for you!

• Ocasio-Cortez Victory: Amazon Won’t Build Headquarters in New York City
• Amazon, Others Rip Into Ocasio-Cortez After Company Flees NYC Deal, Taking 25k Jobs With It

It didn’t work.

• Minnesota Jewish Leaders Attempted an Intervention With Ilhan Omar Last Year

Lovely.

• Report: Rep. Rashida Tlaib Penned Column for Anti-Semitic Farrakhan Publication in 2006

The truth comes out.

• Democrats Come Out in Support of Taking Down Existing Border Barriers

Surprise!

• Antifa Mobster Arrested for Allegedly Taking Part in the Assault of Two Marines Was a Go-To Democrat Activist

World news.

• India Vows Revenge After Deadly Islamist Terror Attack
• Report: Egypt pumped deadly gas into tunnel between Gaza and Sinai, killing two
• EU Election: Study Says Right-Wing Gains Could ‘Paralyze’ the Bloc

Branco cartoons!

• Branco Cartoon – Justice for Some
• Branco Cartoon – Blowhard

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