* “Solzhenitsyn Warned Us” (Gary Saul Morson, Commentary)
From the article — Today we can ask: Why do so many cheer, or at least not object, when they witness mobs embracing the bloodthirsty and sadistic Hamas? Perhaps for the same reasons that young, pre-revolutionary Russians once celebrated terrorists who murdered innocent citizens? Having studied his country’s history, Solzhenitsyn foresaw the process that would lead to today’s chants of “globalize the intifada” and “any means necessary.” He repeatedly cautioned that Russia’s past may be America’s future.
How can it be, Solzhenitsyn asked, that so many Russians found the strength to “rise up and free themselves…while those [in the West] who soar unhindered over the peaks of freedom suddenly lose the taste for it, lose the will to defend it, and fatefully, almost [seem] to crave slavery?” Why do crudeness of thought and the repetition of ill-understood slogans pass for sophistication? “I couldn’t have imagined to what extreme degree the West desires to blind itself,” Solzhenitsyn told a London audience in 1976.
* “The Quiet Before the Storms in Ukraine, Gaza, and Taiwan?” (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness)
From the article — Confusion and strategic pauses for the brief moment mark all these conflicts. In part, the hiatuses arose because of uncertainty surrounding the murky intentions and role of the United States. The latter is bogged down in an unpredictable if not bizarre election year, compounded by ambiguity about who is actually in control of the country and for how long, and who will be president after January 2025…
In conclusion, we are entering a very dangerous five-month period.
Joe Biden has been judged by the American people in the polls as too enfeebled to be reelected and declared by his own party to be too cognitively challenged to remain its nominee. That may suggest to foreign risk-takers that the U.S. president is deemed unfit by Americans themselves and thus conclude there might be a vacuum of rapid-response leadership at the White House.
The unspoken corollary is that the American people and both their political parties are certain that, while Biden is incapable of continuing as a normally engaged president through the last half-year of his tenure, he will nevertheless inevitably do so. And that conclusion is likely shared by enemies abroad, who may surmise that if there ever was a time to alter the current geostrategic map or the relative balance of power, that rare occasion is now on the horizon.
* “Germany Vows ‘Knife Control’ After ISIS Refugee Slashes Throats at Diversity Festival” (Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute)
From the article — There were 13,844 “knife crime” incidents in Germany in 2023, which the authorities are blaming on the existence of knives and not the perpetrators, who are reportedly mostly young Muslim men.
But locating the source of the problem is probably “not a very helpful insight,” In the UK, people sharing such insights are being locked up even as Islamic terrorists are being freed.
The German government is more moderate than the Marxist lunatics at Whitehall. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood, a supporter of Islamic terrorism, have decided to ruthlessly suppress all British opposition to mass migration with raids and prison sentences.
Much like the American liberal obsession with gun control, literally objectifying the problem, talking about things so that they don’t have to talk about people, and then talking about broader social and economic issues, is a useful distraction from seeing what is actually taking place.
* “Planned Parenthood tool Platkin hellbent on denying women true choice” (Paul Kanitra, NJ Assembly GOP)
From the article — An open public records act request revealed that Platkin’s office worked with Planned Parenthood to create a consumer alert against pregnancy resource centers, issued in December 2022, that claims CPCs are organizations that seek to prevent people from accessing comprehensive reproductive health care. The alert urges consumers to contact Planned Parenthood for abortion providers and file complaints against the centers with the Division of Consumer Affairs for fraud.
Platkin took his attacks further and issued a subpoena to First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, a nonprofit abortion clinic alternative that does not perform or refer for termination services with five locations throughout the state. The subpoena demands records dating back more than 10 years, which center representatives say place an undue burden and detract from their mission. The Alliance Defending Freedom said Platkin “has never cited any complaint or other substantive evidence of wrongdoing to justify his demands.”
“Platkin is using the courts to cripple pregnancy resource centers into oblivion, plain and simple,” Kanitra said. “It’s a pregnancy resource center. They offer screenings and counseling just like Planned Parenthood does. They don’t offer abortion referrals and services, just like Chick-Fil-A doesn’t sell hamburgers. Sane people know this.”
“Matt Platkin belongs to an elite coalition of blue state attorneys general that prosecute undercover activists for investigating fetal tissue trafficking and persecute pregnancy resource centers for trying to help women and save babies, under the scare tactic heading of ‘misinformation,’” Kanitra said. “The state legislature or even the Feds need to come in and launch their own investigation into Platkin’s motives. If there is no factual basis for his actions against these pregnancy centers, he needs to immediately retract his consumer alert and drop his subpoena.”
* “A Lethal Change in Language” (Denny Hartford, Vital Signs Blog)
From the article — Once again, the science couldn’t be clearer. And the science cannot change. Therefore, for the progressives to fool the public, they went after the words. The population control advocates (and others who wanted to promote the sexual revolution) pressured groups like the American Medical Association to simply ignore the science and change their definition of conception, moving it somewhere “further down the line” from fertilization.
But where along the timeline of the prenatal child’s development could that new definition be placed? For claiming that conception occurs anywhere except the moment of fertilization would be completely arbitrary, completely unscientific, and completely untrue. For, once again, the scientific reality couldn’t be clearer — a new life has already begun at fertilization and will continue until…well, until death.
The response from the population controllers? “Put the new definition of conception anywhere you want — as long as it’s after the abortifacient action that these new drugs and devices utilize. You see, we can’t push the product in certain countries (like Catholic Mexico or Hindu India or Muslim Syria) if the people there realize they act post-conception. They don’t want abortion on their conscience. So, help us change the definition so that we can sell these ‘birth control’ drugs and devices as preventing pregnancy rather than stopping a pregnancy that’s already underway.”
That’s exactly what happened.