Power Line:  Protest Everything Edition

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Mark Wauck, Meaning in History:  The Culture War Is Alive And Well

On the GOP end of the political spectrum, the wild success of Ron DeSantis—following on the wild success of Glenn Youngkin in VA—seems a clear indication that the culture wars will be front and center. Just as clear an indication is Trump’s continuing and overwhelming success in getting his selections elected in GOP primaries. Never mind the quality of some of his endorsements. The point is that Trump, the leader of populism in America, is showing that he owns the New Right and that the New Right continues to be the ticket for GOP electoral success.

In all this we see that cultural issues are combined with class differences, as well. The Dems are increasingly identified not only with cultural issues but those cultural issues are being recognized by Americans as the expression of class differences, as well. The aberrosexual issues that Dems are trying to foist on Blacks, Hispanics, and suburban moms are now seen to be part and parcel with the upper class of urban Whites. What happened in VA, and is happening increasingly across the country, is that people—like suburban moms—who may have once aspired to become part of the genteel urban Upper Class are having second thoughts. They are no longer certain that the class that controls the Dem party and despises their lifestyle is their kind of people, or that they want to entrust their children to them. Identifying themselves as the class that is willing to trash even the most cherished American institutions in their quest for power may also prove to be a losing card for Dems. Americans remain, in many ways, a people that is bound to tradition.

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Samuel Gregg, Common Sense:  'That Doesn’t Feel Like $150 Worth of Groceries'

In 2011, the last time inflation was on the rise, the then-president of the New York Federal Reserve, William Dudley, ventured into a working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, to give a speech explaining why inflation wasn’t a big deal. Finding that he wasn’t making an impact, Dudley famously picked up an iPad 2 and told his audience, “Today you can buy an iPad 2 that costs the same as an iPad 1 that is twice as powerful.”

“I can’t eat an iPad!” someone in the audience shouted back.

I was reminded of this story recently while standing in the checkout line of my local grocery store. An elderly neighbor standing in front of me saw the total price of her purchases flash up on the screen. For a moment, her eyes registered shock. Then I heard her mutter, “That sure doesn’t feel like $150 worth of groceries.”

What my neighbor was sensing was the general increase in the price of goods and services and an associated decline in her money’s purchasing power. That’s the essence of inflation. 

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that a bag of groceries isn’t included in what’s called the “core inflation” measurement. 

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pic.twitter.com/ZwFiLWBeZY

— Rasmussen Reports (@Rasmussen_Poll) May 4, 2022

Jerry Dunleavy, Washington Examiner:  Durham convinces judge to review concealed documents in Clinton privilege battle

Judge Christopher Cooper said Wednesday he would grant the government’s motion, arguing he did not believe it was breaking attorney-client privilege for him to review the records in dispute in an “in camera” setting, away from the public and the press.

British ex-spy Christopher Steele created a dossier on then-candidate Donald Trump after being hired by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which was itself hired by the Perkins Coie law firm and Marc Elias, the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign.

The judge repeatedly pointed to the difference between hiring a firm to do “fact-checking” versus hiring it to do “opposition research.”

Hillary for America, the DNC, and Perkins argue claims of attorney-client privilege should keep the records concealed and claim Fusion simply provided them legal services.

Durham is insisting those groups played a coordinated role in pushing false collusion claims.

The judge said he didn't doubt Elias’s claims about Fusion being hired to provide legal advice but said that didn’t mean everything Fusion did in 2016 is covered by privilege. The judge said he would review the Joffe records too.

It remains to be seen how the judge will rule on the privilege claims after taking a look at the Alfa Bank-related documents. Thirty are internal Fusion emails, and eight relate to Joffe and Fusion.

Clinton’s 2016 campaign and Fusion united in court on Wednesday.

Fusion’s lawyer said the firm asserted privilege over 1,500 documents, adding it also “produced hundreds of documents.” Fusion said the Clinton campaign, DNC, and Perkins had made “judgment calls” on what was privileged.

The judge asked Durham prosecutor Jonathan Algor whether Durham would come back for the other 1,500 documents if the judge ended up agreeing with the prosecution about these 38 records. Algor said “not for this trial” but left the door open for the future, saying that “Your Honor’s decision is important” for the investigation.

Algor told the judge the Clinton campaign and Fusion wrongly "advanced a very broad and novel theory” of attorney-client privilege that “opposition research” is “somehow protected.” He pointed to Fusion emails that have been released and said “nothing shows” any of that related to “legal advice.”

Algor stressed the opposition research was pushed to the FBI, Congress, and the media.

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Dear Rest Of America:  Why Censorship Further Divides America, and How Young People Are Protecting the First Amendment

The framework of America and its ideals, given to us by the Founding Fathers, continues to stand against every un-Constitutional blow because there are still enough people in America who are willing to live by those ideals—even if they’re not fully aware of it.

Originally from New Zealand, millennial Hamish McKenzie co-founded Substack in 2017. The online newsletter platform is pretty hands-off around content moderation. Consequently, the site has hosted writers such as retired tech entrepreneur Steve Kirsch, who has shared and discussed a wealth of statistical and medical data relating to the efficacy and safety of the post-lockdown injections while banned elsewhere on the Internet.

Another millennial, Andrew Torba, is an entrepreneur in northeastern Pennsylvania. As a conservative and Christian, he launched the social media website Gab.com in 2016 after leaving Silicon Valley. Torba and his team have worked to keep Gab online despite being de-platformed from payment processors and mobile app stores in response to the company’s firm stance on free speech. Consequently, the likes of Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was banned on Twitter earlier this year, can use Gab to share her message with potentially millions of users.

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Miranda Devine, New York Post:  Repairman who revealed Hunter Biden laptop sues Schiff, CNN, Politico and The Daily Beast

The Delaware computer repairman who blew the whistle on Hunter Biden’s laptop — filed a multi-million-dollar defamation suit Tuesday against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, CNN, The Daily Beast and Politico, saying they falsely accused him of peddling Russian disinformation.

The former shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, decided to fight back after losing his business and being harassed for 18 months by Big Tech, the media and Delaware locals in President Biden’s home state.

“After fighting to reveal the truth, all I want now is for the rest of the country to know that there was a collective and orchestrated effort by social and mainstream media to block a real story with real consequences for the nation,” the 45-year-old Mac Isaac told The Post.

“This was collusion led by 51 former pillars in the intelligence community and backed by words and actions of a politically motivated DOJ and FBI,” he continued. “I want this lawsuit to reveal that collusion and more importantly, who gave the marching orders.”

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It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff. This leak is the gravest, most unforgivable sin.

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) May 3, 2022

Just the News:  Supreme Court abortion leak latest in series of institutional betrayals

On Monday, Politico published a purported draft of the majority opinion from the Supreme Court that suggests the court voted to overturn the landmark abortion precedent Roe v. Wade. This would be the first-ever major leak from the Supreme Court.

Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told Hannity on Monday night that he thinks that the opinion was leaked by someone seeking to change the case's outcome.

"I strongly oppose overruling Roe vs. Wade after 50 years, but I think it will be overruled," he said, adding that he was "less skeptical" of the opinion than host Sean Hannity.

"I have a theory, and it's only a theory," said Dershowitz. "I think this was leaked by a liberal law clerk who was trying to change the outcome of the case, either by putting pressure on some of the justices to change their mind, or by getting Congress to pack the court even before June, which is very unlikely, or to get Congress to pass a national right-to-abortion law, which would apply to all the states, and that would have to come to the Supreme Court to see whether that could be upheld under the Commerce Clause.

"But I think this is real, and ... my theory is that it was leaked by somebody who wants to change the outcome," the liberal attorney said. "Look, I've been watching Supreme Court for 55 years. And this has all the hallmarks of reality and it does not have the hallmark of a decision that's likely to be changed. Maybe Chief Justice Roberts will go with the minority, but I think they seem to have five votes at this point to overrule Roe vs. Wade."

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Leak is going to back fire. It will strenghten originalists' resolve & another summer of riots is going to turn off moderates who might have been outraged when opinion dropped w/o months of protests. By time opinion drops, Americans will realize what Roe reversal really means.

— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) May 3, 2022

Spin, Strangeness, and Charm:  Breaking: leaked draft SCOTUS opinion overturning Roe vs. Wade

ADDENDUM: FB friend “Martian” argues that the leak is an attempt to sway Roberts, to ensure it’s a 5-4 and not a 6-3 ruling. Yeah, that holds water, I think.

ADDENDUM 2: the usual suspects (even Anna Ahronheim of the JPost) are bleating about how “men should not tell women what to do with their bodies”. You’d think the ruling would prohibit abortion while it does nothing of the sort: it merely says it is a matter of the states, not the federal government.

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When protesters descend on the SCOTUS building, will they get the same treatment as J6 protesters? If there is violence, will they be charged with "corruptly obstructing an official proceeding" or "by force prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States?"

— Dr. Shipwreckedcrew.substack.com (@shipwreckedcrew) May 3, 2022

Voting Democrats out of office this November is the only option if you wish to preserve constitutionally protected freedoms.

— Matthew Kolken (@mkolken) May 2, 2022

This is 100% exactly what I expected the head of the Ministry of Truth to look like. pic.twitter.com/Vo9ICqBmKj

— Alana Mastrangelo (@ARmastrangelo) May 1, 2022

So had a slightly-religious / spiritual 24 hr break from this platform (thanks @15poundstogo for the inspiration.. gonna become a weekly thing 🙏) but let’s talk about the geo-fencing, tagging @donwill94062871, @SpicyNoodles2,@BS2KZ, @TrustIsEarnd
“The Wire” and The Greeks pic.twitter.com/t63EVK1Rbc

— (((Zhuang Zhou Exempt From Your Confuscious Pots)) (@politicalwilli) May 1, 2022

Power Line:  THE WEEK IN PICTURES: KLEPTOCRACY EDITION

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Until broadcast media catches up, if you are feeling lost trying to follow Russiagate, go back and read the last several weeks of articles from:@ProfMJCleveland @Techno_Fog @JerryDunleavy @themarketswork @HansMahncke
Paul Sperry

Tons of information.

— UndeadFOIA (@UndeadFoia) April 30, 2022

Epoch Times:  EXCLUSIVE: New Jan. 6 Bodycam Videos Show DC Police Officer Assaulting Unconscious Protester (Video at the link) 

A District of Columbia police officer used a large wooden stick to strike the body and head of protester Rosanne Boyland three times as she lay motionless on the ground on Jan. 6, 2021, according to bodycam footage from several officers obtained by The Epoch Times.

Use-of-force expert Stanley Kephart, upon reviewing the previously unreleased footage, concluded that the three full-force blows by D.C. police officer Lila Morris constituted a felony assault with intent to cause great bodily harm.

Kephart called Morris’s use of force “indefensible” and the internal-affairs investigation of Boyland’s death a “clear and convincing coverup.”

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Julie Kelly:  McConnell’s ‘Exhilarating’ Insurrection

A dirty little secret about January 6—one of many—is that Democrats and establishment Republicans, not Trump supporters, wanted to shut down the official proceedings of that day.

Just as the first wave of protesters breached the building shortly after 2 p.m., congressional Republicans were poised to present evidence of rampant voting fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Ten incumbent and four newly-elected Republican senators planned to work with their House colleagues to demand the formation of an audit commission to investigate election “irregularities” in the 2020 election. Absent an audit, the group of senators, including Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to reject the Electoral College results from the disputed states.

The Hail Mary effort was doomed to fail; yet the American people would have heard hours of debate related to provable election fraud over the course of the day.

And no one opposed the effort more than ex-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 

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Margot Cleveland:  Emails Surface More Evidence Hillary Clinton Paid For Anti-Trump Disinformation Operation

The law firm of Perkins Coie first hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to conduct opposition research on Trump on behalf of the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. But Fusion GPS did not retain Steele until June 2016, with Steele’s initial memorandum being first dated June 20, 2016. By then, however, Fusion GPS had already targeted Page and highlighted Alfa Bank as suspect. Fusion GPS’s communications with the press pre-Steele also focused on Page’s role as an advisor for the Trump campaign and various connections to Alfa Bank.

Steele’s dossier would later seemingly confirm Fusion GPS’s framing of Page as a Russian agent based on the numerous lies Steele’s “primary sub-source,” Igor Danchenko, fed the former MI6 agent. Among his other lies, Danchenko, who is currently under indictment for making false statements to the FBI, falsely claimed that Millian had provided detailed intel related to the Trump campaign and Page.

[...]

No wonder Fusion GPS paid Steele. They needed his credential as an MI6 agent to provide gravitas to their opposition research and to hide the Clinton-campaign roots of the attacks on Trump. The Clinton campaign also needed Steele to exploit his government contacts, which the former spy did by passing the dossier off to his handler, his pal Bruce Ohr, and later the U.S. State Department. Steele thus served as a facade for Democrats’ attempt to frame Trump as a Russian patsy.

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TK News by Matt Taibbi:  Savor the Great Musk Panic

The hypocrisy of America’s self-appointed culture-protectors this week is breathtaking. They really seem not to realize that what they’ve been seeking for years isn’t an end to speech abuses, but a monopoly on them. They see Musk as a traitor to his class, threatening to upend what they see as a natural order that in recent years placed bluenose squads in deserved roles as vanguards and truth-arbiters. Whether or not Musk ever upends anything is a different question, but critics believe he will, and now they’re panicking, in tones of maximum sanctimony. They’re even pulling out “Who will protect the children?”-style language...

I spent a good part of the last four years warning that asking unaccountable billionaires to meddle more in speech would result in exactly such a table-turning episode, in which the political mainstream’s cocky censor squad would wake up one day to find the wrong tycoon in charge, at which point they would cry foul and howl suddenly about the evils of oligarchy. For failing to cheer their vision of enlightened censorship, colleagues denounced me as a reactionary pervert in the employ of (pick one) Trump/Assad/Putin. So it’s hard to do anything but chuckle at their anguish this week.

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Mark Tapscott, Epoch Times:  Nonprofit Pushing Jan. 6 Ballot Disqualifications Is Funded, Led by Left-Wing Activists

Just minutes after Donald Trump was sworn in as president in January 2017, Free Speech for People (PFS), working with RootsAction, another obscure left-wing activist group, launched the website ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org.

The Trump impeachment website remains live today, but PFS has moved on from years of seeking to drive the embattled Trump from the Oval Office to now trying to remove four of his strongest congressional supporters from their respective November 2022 ballots.

Although officially a nonpartisan educational nonprofit, PFS’s most notable activities since being organized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision have all been directed at Trump and other Republicans.

Most recently, PFS made headlines with litigation it filed against four House Republicans and one Arizona Republican state representative seeking to have state courts remove the officials’ names from the November ballot.

An Arizona Superior Court judge rejected PFS’s request to remove U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, both Arizona congressmen, and Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem from the November ballot. The PFS lawsuit stated that the lawmakers’ alleged efforts in support of the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol amounted to participation in an insurrection seeking to bring down the federal government.

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