Tag Archives: #JenniferRubin

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For Jennifer Rubin, black lives really don’t matter

We have previously mentioned Washington Post columnist and dedicated #NeverTrumper Jennifer Rubin many times before. Most recently we noted a tweet of hers at the end of October:

Crime has shown up as one of the major issues in the upcoming election, so naturally Mrs Rubin has made a silly claim trying to blame Republicans for crime, due to the rather odd attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, by a Canadian nudist hippie who somehow has morphed into an evil reich-wing extremist.

The tweet to the left is actually a screen capture; when someone like Mrs Rubin tweets something dumb — which is fairly frequently — I always assume that she might decide to delete it, but, alas! the internet is forever when there are [insert plural slang term for the anus here] like me around.

As we have reported previously, Pennsylvania’s firearms control laws are pretty much uniform across the Commonwealth; state law prohibits municipalities from imposing restrictions which are stricter than those provided for under state law. In 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

Now there’s a “here she goes again” moment!

Law enforcement is failing to crack down on domestic terrorism

By Jennifer Rubin | Tuesday, November 29, 2022 | 9:00 AM EST

Given the spate of domestic terrorism attacks in recent years — the slaughter at the Tree of Life synagogue, the massacre in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection; for example — you would think law enforcement agencies are engaged in a robust effort to combat such violence, right? Wrong.

Note how Mrs Rubin characterizes the Capitol kerfuffle as “domestic terrorism.”

Earlier this month, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a largely overlooked — yet damning — report detailing the failures of national security agencies on this front.

“Over the past two decades, acts of domestic terrorism have dramatically increased,” the committee reports. “National security agencies now identify domestic terrorism as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland.” The uptick is predominately attributable to “white supremacist and anti-government extremist individuals and groups.” Yet “without better data, it is difficult to evaluate whether federal agencies are appropriately allocating resources and setting priorities.”

The report arrived just as billionaire Elon Musk opened the floodgates to right-wing extremists and purveyors of disinformation on Twitter. The committee notes, “Social media platforms have played an increasing role in the spread of extremist content that translates into real world violence, due in part to business models that incentivize user engagement over safety.” It also found that these companies’ business models “are designed to increase user engagement (i.e., keep people viewing content online) and that, as experts testified before this Committee, more extreme content tends to increase user engagement, thus leading such content to be amplified.”

Well, of course Mrs Rubin is upset, as are so much of the left, that Twitter is reducing — it has not eliminated — censorship of views which she does not like.

The extent of the threat is staggering. The report mentions a 2021 study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies that found there were 110 domestic terrorist plots in 2020 alone, a 244 percent increase from 2019. The Anti-Defamation League also reports that over the past decade, domestic extremists have killed 443 people. More than half of the deaths were attributable to white supremacists. Had foreign terrorists committed such crimes, Republicans would have raised a ruckus.

Perhaps Republicans have “raised a ruckus,” but not the kind of ruckus the left like. She noted that “over the past decade, domestic extremists have killed 443 people,” but as of 11:59 PM EDT on Hallowe’en, more than that, 445 to be precise, had been murdered in Philadelphia alone. But, of course, they weren’t killed by “domestic extremists” or “white supremacists” but other Philadelphians, mostly other black Philadelphians.

That number is up to 472 now, but phht! nobody really cares.

According to the Philadelphia shootings victims dashboard, through Monday, November 28th, there had been 147 total shootings in the City of Brotherly Love, 23 of which had been fatal. From 2015 forward, there have been 2,118 fatal shooting victims in Philly, 76.74% of the total, along with 154 black female victims, 5.58% of the total. In a city which is not majority black, 82.32% of all homicides by gunfire victims have been black.

Hispanic males, which are counted separately, and can be either white or black, constitute 283, 10.25%, of the victims, while Hispanic females suffered 36 such deaths, 1.30%. 93.87% of the homicide by shooting deaths in Philly have been among people The Philadelphia Inquirer would classify as “black or brown,” and though the statistics do not tell us the racial makeup of the known killers — and the Philadelphia Police have a rather low rate of actually solving homicides — we know that, generally speaking, the vast majority of homicides involve intraracial, not interracial violence.

The St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, which does publish racial statistics of apprehended killers, noted that, as of November 29, the vast majority of murder victims, 163 out of a total 179, or 91.06%, have been black, and out of 125 identified homicide suspects, 121, or 96.80%, have been black.

The Census Bureau puts St Louis population as being 45.7% black.

As noted above, Republicans in Pennsylvania have “raised a ruckus,” and are impeaching Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, blaming him for the city’s huge surge in murders, but naturally, the Democrats, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, are appalled, and fighting to save the George Soros-sponsored Mr Krasner.

Mrs Rubin, of course, doesn’t mention any of that, but in just one American city, not even the one with the highest number of total killings, more people have been killed in less than a year than the 443 she told us were murdered by “domestic terrorism,” much of which was perpetrated by “white supremacists.” What am I to conclude other than, for the Post’s august columnist, black lives really don’t matter much?

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Neoconservatives want to fight for American-style freedom and democracy everywhere, but don’t seem to want Americans to have individual rights

If someone was asked to put names to a list of neoconservatives in the United States, Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer, and Norman Podhoretz might come to mind. Irving Kristol was an editor and publisher who served as the managing editor of Commentary magazine, founded the now-defunct magazine The Public Interest, and was described by Jonah Goldberg as the “godfather of neoconservatism.” His son, William Kristol, founded the magazine The Weekly Standard, which quickly took hold to challenge National Review for primacy among conservative opinion journals.

The Weekly Standard failed because, as a fervent #NeverTrumper, Mr Kristol guided the journal into being all-Never Trump, all the time, while National Review, with plenty of Never Trumpers in its fold, still tried to allow pro-Trump articles in its pages and on its website. Mr Kristol (probably) realized that yes, Donald Trump was a factor in Republican politics, and yes, some conservatives really did like his views and his style, but The Weekly Standard was never going to tolerate the views of the riff-raff to pollute its pages and website!

We have already noted how neo-conservative Max Boot of The Washington Post wants to make vaccinations against COVID-19 mandatory. The Post’s other neocon, Jennifer Rubin, while I have not seen anything from her yet urging making vaccination mandatory, certainly wants to do everything that can be done to stifle opposing views. The Post also supports “vaccine passports.”

Now comes the younger Mr Kristol, who, like so many others, wants to force you to be vaccinated. Not trusting Mr Kristol not to delete that tweet, this is a screenshot of it, but the hyperlink will take you to the original. If it’s difficult to see, you can click on it to enlarge it.

Mr Kristol and the neoconservatives, frequently fairly liberal when it comes to domestic and social issues, very much wanted to spread the ideas of American-style freedom and democracy around the world. But I have to ask: when so many of them are now opposed to individual liberty and individual rights, just what does their commitment to American-style freedom and democracy mean? One of the most basic freedoms of all, the right to decide what you will put into your own body, is a freedom they would deny people who have decided differently than they have.

Full disclosure: I have been vaccinated myself, a choice I made freely, and I believe that others should take the same decision I did. While no vaccine is 100% without risk, the benefits of being vaccinated outweigh the risks. But I respect the right, and yes, “right” is precisely the word I mean to use, of other people to choose whether or not to take the vaccine. That’s a right that the neoconservatives don’t seem to want you to have.
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Sarah Longwell and Jennifer Rubin don’t like democracy, not if the rabble don’t kowtow to what they think is right

It was this tweet which caught my eye:

Wikipedia describes The Bulwark as:

an American anti-Trump conservative news and opinion website founded in 2018 by commentators Charlie Sykes and Bill Kristol.[1][2][3] Its publisher is Sarah Longwell.[4] While it launched as a news aggregator, it was revamped into a news and opinion site using key digital staffers from the defunct magazine The Weekly Standard.

Anti-Trump? That’s why Jennifer Rubin likes it! Mrs Rubin has allowed her visceral hatred of former President Trump to change views she previously held:

Rubin has been one of the most vocal conservative-leaning writers to criticize Donald Trump, as well as the overall behavior of the Republican Party during Trump’s term in office. Rubin denounced Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement as “a dog whistle to the far right”, and designed to please his “climate change denial, right-wing base that revels in scientific illiteracy.” Previously, after Barack Obama had approved the agreement, Rubin characterized it as “nonsense” and argued that it would not achieve anything. Rubin described Trump’s 2017 decision to not implement parts of the Iran nuclear deal as the “emotional temper tantrum of an unhinged president.” She had previously said that “if you examine the Iran deal in any detail, you will be horrified as to what is in there.” Rubin strongly supported the United States officially recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Early in his presidency, she criticized Trump for not doing so, saying that it was indicative of his tendency to “never keep his word.” She concluded that Trump “looks buffoonish in his hasty retreat”. In December 2017, after Trump announced that he would move the embassy, she said it was “a foreign policy move without purpose.”[29]

In August 2019, Rubin was a guest on a panel on MSNBC’s “AM Joy” with the premise that Mr. Trump leads “an extreme administration” that is “dangerous.” Rubin said: “It’s not only that Trump has to lose, but that all his enablers have to lose. We have to collectively, in essence, burn down the Republican Party. We have to level them because if there are survivors, if there are people who weather this storm, they will do it again“. [30]

In a tweet referenced by CNN Media, Mike Huckabee questioned Rubin, writing: “Jen Rubin is WAPO’s excuse for conservative,” and adding that Rubin’s “contempt for all things Trump exposes her and WAPO as fake news“.[31]

In April 2021 Rubin was declared winner of the second annual Liberal Hack Tournament, hosted by the “Ruthless” variety progrum, becoming the first woman to win the title.[32]

Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic argued that after the 2012 presidential election, Rubin criticized aspects of the Mitt Romney campaign that she had previously praised, with Friedersdorf insisting that she had acted as “a disingenuous mouthpiece for her favored candidate”.[33]

In a November 21, 2013, column, Rubin called on the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) to end its campaign against same-sex marriage.[34]

In September of 2020, she announced that she no longer described herself as a conservative, but given he criticisms of Mitt Romney’s positions and support of same-sex ‘marriage,’ perhaps she should have done that a decade earlier.

On to The Bulwark:

Did We Forget Our Democracy Is Still Under Threat?

Complacency is an inherent weakness of democracy.

by Sarah Longwell | April 22, 2021 | 5:30 AM EDT

Old joke: An old fish and a young fish pass each other. The old fish says, “Fine water today, isn’t it?” The young fish replies, “What’s water?”

This, I have learned in hundreds of hours of focus groups, is how many Americans think about democracy—or more accurately, don’t think about it. Democracy is the system we have, and have inherited, but most of our experiences with any of the alternatives are so remote that we view democracy as the default state. As something that just is.

That isn’t to say that Americans don’t think about politics. Oh, do we. Probably more than is helpful. We have, as a people, some pretty out-there opinions and preferences and expectations about politics.

But mostly when we think about politics, we think about the results we want. These choices are often framed in terms of personalities. Certainly, this phenomenon isn’t limited to the United States: Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson, Bibi Netanyahu, Emmanuel Macron—the list of personalities that more or less define political divides in democratic societies is long and diverse.

Sometimes the results we want are framed not as people, but as policies: higher taxes or lower taxes, more environmental regulation or less, strong national defense or retrenchment. Maybe having policy preferences is civically healthier than having preferences merely for certain individuals over others. Or maybe character is destiny and policy is transient, so choosing the better person is the way to go.

Miss Longwell continues on, to tell us about the enormous, enormous! dangers of the Capitol kerfuffle, but somehow manages to forget the definition of the words she uses:

Our freedom and self-government are under threat from domestic authoritarian cults in tacit—if not enthusiastic—alliance with foreign despots who desire that the world’s oldest democracy succumb to corrupt populist autocracy.

Uhhh, populist is defined as:

(noun) a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.
(adj.) relating to or characteristic of a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups.

while autocracy is defined as:

a system of government by one person with absolute power.

Thus, a “populist autocracy” is a contradiction in terms.

“(D)omestic authoritarian cults”? It isn’t the Republicans who have held themselves in thrall to Democratic Governors exercising apparently unchecked power to issue orders regulating our lives under the pretext of protecting us from the China virus.[1]See this to explain why I have started to, occasionally, refer to COVID-19 as the China virus or Wuhan virus.

It isn’t the Republicans who are trying to control every aspect of our lives, to define other people’s beliefs as “hate crimes,” and to “cancel” people with whom they disagree from public life. Miss Longwell is upset, very upset, that we are now “debating corporate tax rates, Dr. Seuss, and trans bathroom access, like nothing ever happened,” as though she hasn’t come to grips with the fact that, though conservatives might not like it, we recognize that Joe Biden is President, that the Democrats control both Houses of Congress, and that we have to do everything we can to fight back against the leftists’ agenda.

But here’s where Miss Longwell really goes off the reservation:

Our democracy is under attack, for real, by a large portion of a major political party which seeks to utterly transform the relationship between the government and the governed.

Well, yes, we are trying to change the relationship between the government and the governed, because the government has become far, far, far too powerful. When a state Governor says that he can order us not to have too many people in our homes, and sets up ‘snitch hotlines’ so officious little Karens can tattle on us, when the Mayor of our largest city says that he can send the gendarmerie into your homes if you’ve traveled from the United Kingdom, then yes, we want to change that.

But, more than that, if a large portion of a major political party seeks to change that relationship, is that not democracy? If a large group of people want to change things, well doesn’t the First Amendment, which (supposedly) protects our freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the right of the people peaceably to assemble to petition the Government for a redress of grievances, protect our right to seek change, to ask for change, to demand change?

For Miss Longwell and Mrs Rubin, it appears that democracy is all well and good . . . as long as it produces the results they want. But people, acting in concert, to change things away from what they want? Now that’s a threat, and cannot be tolerated.

References

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↑1 See this to explain why I have started to, occasionally, refer to COVID-19 as the China virus or Wuhan virus.