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Rep. Mike Lawler to Newsmax: Pelosi, Schumer 'Disgraceful' on Netanyahu
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Wednesday, 24 April 2024 10:20 AM EDT
It is "disgraceful" and "unbecoming" for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to call for regime change in Israel with their demands against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Newsmax.
"What you're seeing from Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi is them putting electoral politics ahead of U.S. national security interests," Lawler told Wednesday's "Wake Up America." "They both need to stop immediately."
Democrats speak out often about election interference from foreign governments, but that is what Pelosi, Schumer, and others are doing by demanding that Netanyahu resign, Lawler lamented.
"It is undermining Israel's ability to defend itself at a time when America needs to be standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel," Lawler said.
Pelosi this week joined calls for Netanyahu to resign, coming about a month after Schumer called for Israel to hold new elections and vote the prime minister out.
Meanwhile, Lawler will join House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., at Columbia University on Wednesday, where the speaker plans to speak with Jewish students about the anti-Israel protests that have caused chaos at the school.
There has been some talk that former President Donald Trump, who will not be in court in Manhattan on Wednesday because of the court's day off, will join Johnson at Columbia, but Lawler said he has not heard about that. However, he said it would not surprise him.
The protests, Lawler said, are a continuance of what is going on at college campuses nationwide because of a rapid rise in antisemitism and "ignorance of what's going on in the Middle East."
"Hamas is a terrorist organization that is solely responsible for what happened on Oct. 7," he added. "Israel has a right to defend itself."
Lawler also said anyone in the United States on a visa who is found to be participating in antisemitic attacks should be "deported immediately," and students involved in threats of violence or physical harm should be arrested and expelled.
The congressman recently introduced legislation to stop antisemitism on college campuses that would strip schools like Columbia of all federal dollars including student aid for promoting and sanctioning protests and other acts against Jewish students and staff.
"President [Minouche] Shafik has a responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of all students on campus and her failure to do so should result in her termination," Lawler said.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is "getting his talking points" from people like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and trying to equate how the Jewish college students feel compared to the Palestinians, according to Lawler.
"The reason the Palestinian people are going through difficult times is because of Hamas," he concluded. "All of these pro-Hamas protesters should be demanding Hamas surrender and release all of the hostages. That's where the protest should be aimed at.
"Instead, they continue to attack Jewish students and the Jewish people here in America."
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/mike-lawler-chuck-schumer-nancy-pelosi/2024/04/24/id/1162219/
[BREAKING VIDEO] – Netanyahu gives unequivocal statement Biden should have given on antisemitic mobs taking over college campuses
Apr. 24, 2024 1:18 pm by The Right Scoop
Israeli Prime Minister just gave a video statement that Joe Biden should have given when he was asked to address the antisemitic mobs who have taken over these college campuses like Columbia and NYU.
In the video, Netanyahu blasts these Jew-hating mobs, saying “What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities.”
Netanyahu says “this is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s” and calls it unconscionable.
Watch below:
⭕️Watch PM Netanyahu's statement: "What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities."
📹 – Omer Meron /GPO pic.twitter.com/FUBKpv56FW
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) April 24, 2024
If only we had a president who was worried more about the safety of Jews on college campuses than his own re-election, maybe that president would have given a statement like this condemning the genocidal hatred we see brewing on liberal college campuses.
But that’s not Joe Biden. He’s so weak in the polls right now that he only cares about getting re-elected and if that means ignoring the Nazi-like hatred on display in his own party, that’s what he’ll do. He’s an egomaniacal coward.
https://therightscoop.com/breaking-video-netanyahu-gives-unequivocal-statement-biden-should-have-given-on-antisemitic-mobs-taking-over-college-campuses/
Illegal Alien From Mexico Breaks Into Michigan Home, Sexually Assaults Two Girls Under the Age of 13
by Cristina Laila Apr. 24, 2024 12:00 pm
Joe Biden’s America.
An illegal alien from Mexico broke into a Michigan home and sexually assaulted two girls under the age of 13.
According to police, 25-year-old Miguel Hernandez-Ruiz broke into a mobile home near Sturgis and sexually assaulted two sisters.
Miguel Hernandez-Ruiz threatened to kill the girls if they tried to scream. He used his hands to sexually assault the girls and exposed himself, according to court documents, Fox 17 reported.
He was hit with multiple charges including first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child under the age of 13 and home invasion, Fox 17 reported.
The sexual assault happened on March 20. Police finally tracked down Hernandez Ruiz in Fort Wayne, Indiana and arrested him earlier this month. He was arraigned last Friday.
Fox 17 reported:
Miguel Hernandez-Ruiz was arraigned Friday, April 19 on multiple charges including first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child under the age of 13 and home invasion.
Court documents obtained by FOX 17 show that the two girls told investigators the man held them in their rooms at the Sweet Lake Mobile Home Park off US-12 in the early morning hours of March 20.
The sisters, who are both under the age of 13, say the man threatened to kill them if they tried to scream or escape. The girls claim he used his hands to sexually assault them while exposing himself.
An evaluation by trained medical staff revealed evidence of sexual assault on both girls’ bodies.
After days of investigating, family and detectives were able to establish that Hernandez-Ruiz had visited the home roughly a month before the assault. Surveillance video showed a vehicle he was known to drive was the only one captured entering and leaving the neighborhood around the time of the home invasion.
An illegal immigrant from Mexico broke into a Michigan home and sexually assaulted two girls under the age of 13. Sickening. pic.twitter.com/XTH73joHVV
— Mike Berg (@MikeKBerg) April 24, 2024
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/04/illegal-alien-mexico-breaks-michigan-home-sexually-assaults/
Alec Baldwin Tired Of Everyone Screaming ‘Look Out!’ And Diving To The Ground Every Time He Reaches For His Cell Phone
NEW YORK, NY — According to sources, actor Alec Baldwin has already grown tired of everyone screaming "Look out!" and diving to the ground every time he reached for his cell phone.
Ever since Baldwin was involved in the 2021 accidental shooting of a cinematographer on the set of a film, he has struggled with the constant terrified reactions he has received from family, friends, and total strangers any time he makes the slightest movement.
"Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" one man screamed as he fell to his knees when Baldwin walked by. "For the love of all that's holy, I've got a family! Don't kill me!"
Baldwin was seen shaking his head in frustration as people were getting back up off the ground behind him and dusting themselves off after diving for cover. "Give me a break!" he shouted. "I was just getting my phone out of my pocket for crying out loud! I'm not even armed! Just let me be!"
When reached for comment, one frightened passerby explained her actions. "You never know with that guy," she said as she got back to her feet. "I can't help it. It's just a natural reflex. When you see Alec Baldwin coming and you see him reaching for something, your fight-or-flight instinct takes over. I don't want to die."
At publishing time, police had responded to an emergency call placed by a terrified bank teller after they saw Baldwin walk in with his hands in his pockets.
https://babylonbee.com/news/alec-baldwin-tired-of-everyone-screaming-look-out-and-diving-to-the-ground-every-time-he-reaches-for-his-cell-phone
Columbia Admins Promise To Carefully Investigate Whether 'Let’s Kill Every Jew We See On Campus' Chant Violates School’s Conduct Policy
MANHATTAN, NY — After anti-Jewish protests erupted on campus this week, Columbia officials say they are investigating whether calls to murder all Jews on campus violate the university's conduct policy.
"I am deeply saddened by the attention these protests have drawn to our school," Columbia President Minouche Shafik said in a statement this week. "I wish our students could peacefully terrorize Jewish kids without the whole world coming down on them. But anyway, we're reviewing our speech policies to see if these totally normal ‘Let's Kill Every Jew We See On Campus' chants violate school policies."
Columbia joined the ranks of other American universities with massive anti-Jewish protests. School officials say they wish they could restore order on campus but that interfering would risk offending the people burning Jews in effigy on campus.
"Columbia is an inclusive school and we don't want to offend anyone," School administrator Barry Bertram told reporters. "For that reason, we've banned all Jews from campus to make Columbia a safer place for protestors to chant ‘From The River To The Sea, Let's Kill All The Jews'."
As of publishing time, Columbia officials had announced they would be moving all classes online to make it safer for protestors to harass Jews from the comfort of their homes.
https://babylonbee.com/news/columbia-admins-promise-to-carefully-investigate-whether-lets-kill-every-jew-we-see-on-campus-chant-violates-schools-speech-policy
Columbia Protestors Clarify They Only Want Death To America After America Is Done Paying Their Student Loans
NEW YORK, NY — As pro-Palestine groups continued to gather on campus following the establishment of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, Columbia University protestors clarified that they only want "Death to America" after America is done paying their student loans for them.
"Death to America… in like, 3 or 4 years when I graduate!" shouted one student protestor. "America truly is the ‘Great Satan' that ravages and oppresses other countries and deserves to be wiped off the face of the earth…as soon as the American taxpayers finish paying off our tuition loans!
"But as soon as that's done, then, yeah, totally, death to America!"
The mob of angry students occupying the Gaza Solidarity Encampment agreed that this was an entirely reasonable requirement. "America owes us. You, know, for being all evil and horrible and stuff," said an apparently well-educated student at the university. "We demand loan forgiveness from America. Then it can die as soon as that's done."
As part of this agreement, Columbia students vowed to maintain barely passing grades in all of their liberal arts classes for the duration of time it takes taxpayers to cover their debt.
At publishing time, the Columbia protestors had also called for the death of Elon Musk, but only after they get a Tesla.
https://babylonbee.com/news/columbia-protestors-clarify-they-only-want-death-to-america-after-america-is-done-paying-their-student-loans
Where's mom? Omar's daughter, suspended from Columbia, whines about being homeless and hungry
By Monica Showalter
we can forget about any truth coming our from the MSM.
And the liberals on the left depend on the crap the fake news spews.
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The crux of the Mar-a-Lago jury instruction dispute: property interest and authorization
By Elliott Wainwright
Prior to the mid-1970s, neither the Espionage Act, federal records law, nor executive orders on classified information did away with presidents’ “complete dominion and control over their presidential papers.” Nixon’s papers were seized not by executive branch regulation or at the whim of his successor, but pursuant to Congress’s exercise of the federal eminent domain power in the Presidential Recordings and Materials Preservation Act of 1974. Congress asserted public ownership of “presidential records” starting on January 20, 1981 in § 2202 of the Presidential Records Act. Without the PRA, all presidential papers and “the right to possess, use and dispose of” them would still belong to former presidents.
Jack Smith’s prosecutors consider a property interest to have no bearing on “unauthorized possession” under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e). While acknowledging that diaries are former presidents’ personal property under the PRA, they insist that a former president is not allowed to retain those diaries if he puts national defense information in them the way Reagan did. They maintain “the Court should not infer from silence on Congress’s part an intention to disturb the framework governing the handling of classified information that was in place at the time the PRA was passed.”
If the PRA changed nothing and 793(e) currently allows prosecution of former presidents whose retention of personal property runs afoul of internal executive branch rules, a property interest would likewise have been an unavailing defense to “unauthorized possession” before the PRA. The Special Counsel presupposes that 793(e) liability attached in the pre-PRA era of “complete dominion and control” to ex-presidents whose storage, handling, or use of their national defense-related presidential papers derogated from executive branch policies. The Special Counsel sees executive orders on classified information prevailing over the rights inhering in personal property.
The restrictions Congress imposed in the PRA did not abrogate presidents’ property interest in material excluded from the definition of “presidential records.” “Personal records” are not the only documentary material falling outside that definition. § 2201(2)(B)(iv) of the PRA excludes “extra copies of documents produced only for convenience of reference, when such copies are clearly so identified.” The defense proposed this month that the jury be instructed not to convict on any Espionage Act count should the document in question be a copy.
Whatever can lawfully go into a burn bag on the spot is not a “record.” If it is not a “record,” the PRA does not wrest ownership from a former president. Press revelations,? Hur’s Report,?? and accounts of former staff? and officials? indicate that destruction of classified materials is a normal practice at the White House and the Naval Observatory.
Though a private individual’s property interest in national defense information may be a rarity, once it is established, seizure by the Executive should be contingent on a statutory eminent domain authorization, like Sections 5, 11, and 13 of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946. Congress did not include such authorization in Section 10 of that Act, which created the “restricted data” designation, nor in Section 793 of the Espionage Act four years later.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/the_crux_of_the_mar_a_lago_jury_instruction_dispute_property_interest_and_authorization.html
Two catastrophic airline disasters in the space of 3 days narrowly averted as controllers apparently not up to the job
By Thomas Lifson
The Dexter Taylor Case: a black man follows the law (but thinks for himself) and suffers the wrath of the Democrat left
By Olivia Murray
LOL. That was great. Thanks for sharing.
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Is Joe Biden a sitting duck? Biden should be more concerned than anyone about the precedent the Trump trials are setting
By Monica Showalter
With news about the White House's collusion with prosecutors in the slew of trials thrown at President Trump as he campaigns for re-election, it's natural to think that Joe Biden and his mentor, Barack Obama, are mainly interested in knocking him out of the race before anyone can get a chance to vote for him.
Obama, after all, got his start in politics by doing just that. No one can say that Obama doesn't know the Chicago Way.
But while this activity is natural for Obama, Joe Biden looks more like a sitting duck, an unwitting boob, a goose, slowly being fattened for the Christmas dinner.
Alex Berenson's essay about the bad precedent these trials set drew me to this idea. He wrote:
And so the world - at least that part of the world that’s paid any attention to the charges underlying the case - will be confronted with the spectacle of the leading opposition candidate for President being hamstrung and hauled into court twice by prosecutors affiliated with the ruling party in cases that - at the least - stink of selective prosecution.
If this isn’t lawfare, I don’t know what is
He outlines the absurdity of the case, a ledger error within Trump's own personal notes as at the crux of the case, and a claimed underlying crime of trying to influence his own election, which is absurd. On that, he notes that the so-called crime happened in 2017, which was after he was already elected president.
The whole kangaroo case would be laughable if it didn't involve jailtime for Trump if he is convicted by a Democrat judge and jury, meaning, they could knock him out of the race to do their version of kangaroo "justice" as appeals go on.
It's lawfare, as Berenson noted, more powerful than the votes of the electorate and if it works, sets an ominous precedent for all presidents or those seeking the White House.
Here's the thing, though: Joe Biden would not be immune from such lawfare, not just from Republicans and all-red state governments, a few of which are out there, but from his own people.
Because the ongoing narrative in the Democrat party these days are that Democrat voters should just hold their noses and vote for Joe Biden for re-election, because they'll find a way to get rid of the senile old dotard afterward. They want the White House now, though, to hold onto the seat of power.
Were the move against Trump to succeed and Biden somehow got re-elected, the stage would be set for the next attack on a president, and Democrats are most likely to target Joe. They'll find and pin something on him, and after that take him out from the presidency. Biden is unpopular, even among Democrats, with few allies, and no enthusiasm among Democrat voters, all he has going for him is his adherence to the Democrat party line, and well, any Democrat could take his place.
So the reports of plans to get rid of Joe next, taking Kamala Harris out first on some tax or campaign finance charge, and replacing her with someone more to the establishment's liking, and then taking out Joe politically is definitely something that could happen. That's if she is not involved, too, and don't bet on that. Harris herself has asked about the applicability of the 25th Amendment for removing an incapacitated president, so she, too, could be in on the palace coup among the blue party elites.
That's bad news for Joe Biden, because with precedent set, he's almost certain to be next.
Careful what you wish for in that rigged prosecution you've got there against President Trump, Joe.
Biden should be more nervous about a Trump conviction than a Trump acquittal, given the lawfare banquet he's laid out. He'll be next.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/04/joe_biden_should_be_more_concerned_than_anyone_about_the_precedent_the_trump_trial_set.html
Biden’s EPA poised to allow California to move forward with its ‘zero-emissions’ locomotives regulations
By Olivia Murray
A bad day for junk justice in Arizona
By Monica Showalter
This is not your 1992 Democrat Party
By Silvio Canto, Jr.
GM Larry-
Walls don't work only when they impede the flow of future democrat voters.
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Adult failure on campus
By Peter Olsson, M.D.
Obama Gets Around to Commenting on Hamas at Columbia
By Jack Cashill
Tree Equity Is Trivial
By Noel S. Williams
With so many social ills plaguing our cities, some dyed-in-the-wool liberals are obsessed with tree equity. Their complaint: White neighborhoods have more trees than minority neighborhoods.
Constantly looking for something to ruminate upon (no wonder they’re depressed), the lefty tree-huggers maintain that being immersed in nature has benefits impacting cognitive function, blood pressure, mental health, physical activity, and sleep. But before lamenting the inequitable dispersal of green spaces, how about addressing issues that are more predictive of well-being, such as education, a sense of safety, and nurturing families?
With our cities in progressive turmoil, dwelling on tree equity is perhaps the apotheosis of Parkinson’s Law of Triviality, which essentially states that people give disproportionate attention to trivial issues while being inattentive to important things.
For sure, trees are lovely when not falling on us, dispersing pollen, or hosting incontinent birds aiming for our noggins. There’s a reason people “forest bathe.” While their benefits are appreciated, they’re trivial compared to the greater impact on well-being that crime, education, stable families, and supportive communities have. Education, not tree proliferation, is the number-one predictor of long-term health.
Tree equity is not a panacea to urban blight. It should not detract from addressing more fundamental dysfunctions in minority communities, such as the high levels of crime in some of the most forested cities in America. It will require further study, but it seems more trees are associated with more crime.
For example, crime-ridden Seattle, Wash., is ranked (using MIT-affirmed algorithms) as the most forested city in America, boasting a forest cover of 66 percent on a landscape of 83.94 square miles. This is closely aligned with other rankings that show the density of Seattle’s forest as second in the entire country (seventh in the world, indeed). Clearly, the abundance of trees is not ameliorating concerns over crime, rents, and homelessness, as people are escaping the Emerald City for “greener” pastures.
Per the MIT researchers’ ranking system, Portland, Ore., is the third most forested city, with 44 percent of a total of 133.43 square miles of landscape covered by forests. However, residents are fleeing in record numbers not because of abundant trees, but largely because of crime.
Other forested cities of note include Atlanta, Ga., which ranks a high 8th, having a tree canopy covering about 32 percent of its landscape.
Now let’s see some evidence-based data showing how those forested cities compare when it comes to crime and education. Is the greenery really soothing their inhabitants’ souls, making them more Zen-like? In a word — nope!
Take Seattle, once a resplendent city that is now under leftist scourge (remember the dystopian CHOP zone during the 2020 protests?). Per NeighborhoodScout.com, a site that provides custom analytics on demographics, crime, and public school ratings:
With a crime rate of 66 per one thousand residents, Seattle has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes ... when NeighborhoodScout compared it to communities of similar population size, its crime rate per thousand residents stands out as higher than most.
Their schools are a disgrace, too, having canceled their gifted and talented programs because minorities are not well represented, which highlights the embarrassing achievement gap. Still, they have plenty of trees.
Portland’s robust woodlands don’t seem to be assuaging the minority residents’ crime instincts, either. In fact, “Portland has a combined rate of violent and property crime that is very high compared to other places of similar population size.” Other places with fewer trees, too.
While busybody social and climate warriors worry their perverted little minds over tree equity, woody Oregon’s school performance metrics are abysmal. Portland doesn’t even measure performance, and it’s hard to improve what is not measured. But they have time to measure tree occupancy, of course.
Atlanta (as a reminder, ranked as the 8th most forested city using the MIT scale) has crime and school stats that are equally detrimental to long-term well-being, far outweighing any trivial benefit from the ubiquitous trees. The same can be said for other cities in the top ten.
Since the trivial tree-equity brigade like to remind us of the emotional benefits of a verdant environment, it’s time for some perspective: safety and education are much more direct predictors of health.
Leftists are imprisoned in an equity paradigm. Well, it’s not the preponderance of trees. Here’s what’s truly inequitable: as of 2022, about 63% of black children live in single-parent families (and that’s probably a conservative number). By contrast, about 24% of non-Hispanic whites do, and only 16% of Asian/Pacific Islanders. It takes someone like former NFL player Jack Brewer, not unprincipled lefties, to tackle the fatherlessness crisis.
So, rather than fall victim to Parkinson’s Law of (Tree) Triviality, social activists might focus on more intrinsic issues affecting the enduring achievement gaps, like improving schools (including attendance, no phones in classroom, choice, thwarting the teachers union, etc.), and promoting the nuclear family rather than overreliance on the granny state. Accusing the trees, roads, outdoors, dogs, math, electricity/solar — and just about everything else under the sun — of contributing to racism, only excuses their lethargy to succeed.
Forget tree-less communities — focus on family fatherlessness, which greatly exacerbates poverty and crime. Besides, by the time the trees are mature enough to exert salubrious environmental influences, the minorities will be in the burbs due to Biden’s zoning laws.
Biden and his bureaucratic minions are coming after the suburbs. The rezoning that the structural equity proponents propose will allow apartments and multiplex residences. Ultimately, it will undermine the American Dream of a single-family house with a splendid white picket fence, a loyal dog, and playful children in a leafy suburb — dreams increasingly realized by minorities as their rates of homeownership rise.
Surely, the proposed rezoning in the suburbs means more concrete, more broken families, more congestion, more crime, and fewer gardens and trees — for whites and minorities who work hard. Meanwhile, the trees they’re planting back in the city may block solar radiation from reaching solar rooftops in disadvantaged communities, thus thwarting the EPA’s Solar for All program.
By comparison to education, crime, family stability, and attaining the wholesome American Dream, tree equity is trivial.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/04/tree_equity_is_trivial.html
And who is so blind that they can't see it.
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Why 2020 ‘Election Denialism’ Is Not Denialism at All
By Tom G.K. Swift
The penultimate stolen-election argument of Democrats is roughly as follows.
Premise 1: Trump says the 2020 election was stolen.
Premise 2: Trump’s testimony is untrustworthy.
Premise 3: It's unreasonable to accept testimony that’s untrustworthy.
Conclusion: It’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen.
The conclusion doesn’t quite follow, because even if Trump’s testimony were untrustworthy, Dave’s testimony might be trustworthy, even though Dave is another “election denier.” (It’s a sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome that Democrats totally believe arguments like this.) Anyway, this penultimate Democrat argument leads right on to their ultimate argument, in which the conclusion of the first argument becomes a premise.
Premise 1: It’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen.
Premise 2: The unreasonableness of a belief is an indication of the presumptive falsity of the belief.
Conclusion: The 2020 election presumptively was not stolen.
For Democrats and other anti-Trump types, this is the considered (although generally implicit) view, with “presumptively” as a qualifier because that’s what strictly follows from the second premise, and also because it’s necessitated by the woefully inadequate election fraud investigations of the government. The latter alone makes it impossible to justify the stronger claim that the election wasn’t stolen, period.
This argument is, however, little more than a magic trick. Logically, it’s a fallacy.
The informal logical fallacy here is that of begging the question. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy explains that this is where a “circular argument has been used to disguise or cover up a failure to fulfill a burden of proof.” Such a failure occurs when “the conclusion that was supposed to be proved is presumed within the premises to be granted by the respondent of the argument.” (The respondent is the person to whom the argument is addressed.) Question-begging exists if the person to whom the argument is directed would believe one of the premises only if he already believed the conclusion — a magic trick, indeed! Whereas with any “epistemically serious” argument, “there should be a way in which we can learn the truth of the premises,” somebody rightly said.
Obviously, we can’t do that in the Democrats’ ultimate argument. Question-begging precludes the possibility of doing it, even while making the problem seemingly vanish with a wave of the magician’s wand.
Plainly, the special counsel, Jack Smith, is on perilous logical ground in his election case indictments. The premise that it’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen takes for granted that the election presumptively was not stolen, instead of proving it by properly fulfilling the burden of proof. Smith, as an avid proponent of the Democrats’ ultimate argument, is trying to force us to accede to his conclusion (“Don’t be a dummy who thinks the election was stolen”) without making it seem as though he is doing anything argumentatively improper. The fallacy essentially involves using a sophistical tactic to shut off criticism about the conclusion of the argument — namely, that the 2020 election is to be presumed not to have been stolen. The unreasonableness postulate — Premise 1, in the ultimate argument — effectively blocks the demand to find independent evidence. The matter has been decided; to talk of a stolen 2020 election is election denialism. Or so we are supposed to believe, and without any further discussion.
There’s no problem with the second premise of the ultimate argument. The problem entirely concerns the questionable (read: sophistical) relationship between the conclusion and the first premise in that argument. Basically, what that relationship amounts to is “‘Shut up,’ he explained.” There you have Jack Smith in a nutshell.
Such a devious form of argumentation does not necessarily mean that Jack Smith is trying to deceive, but rather that the argumentative tactic he’s using is deceptive, regardless of his intent. (In theory, he could be as pure as the driven snow.) I suspect that Smith’s team is trying to deceive and, along with the entire Democrat party, is forever hiding behind a question-begging fallacy. Even so, the tactic of argumentation is deceptive simply by virtue of being question-begging, and not necessarily because of any nefarious intent.
Now, to say Trump’s opponents’ argument is fallacious is to say it’s null and void. This seriously, and probably fatally, undermines every evidential facet of the election-related case against Trump, from alternate slates of electors to the phone call with Mike Pence. Moreover, it has the same import for Trump’s private actions as it does for his official actions as president. In a brief submitted to SCOTUS two weeks ago, the special counsel urged the Court to allow Trump to be charged as a private actor, should the Court decide that he possesses criminal immunity for his official actions: “At the core of the charged conspiracies,” according to Smith, “is a private scheme with private actors to achieve a private end: petitioner’s effort to remain in power by fraud. Those allegations of private misconduct are more than sufficient to support the indictment.” The question-begging part of this is “petitioner’s effort to remain in power by fraud.”
Keep your eyes on the ball. That’s the ball. The question-begging phrasing varies, naturally, across the Democrat and NeverTrump parallel universes.
It’s truly remarkable how important petitio principii is to the Democrats’ modus operandi. Later on down the road, at trial, the judge must take care to isolate and segregate the Unreasonableness View, as expressed by Premise 1, so that it doesn’t distort the facts (evidentiary findings) and their real significance. This includes weeding out potential jurors who think it’s unreasonable to believe that the 2020 election was stolen. Otherwise, Trump will inevitably, and probably deliberately, be getting railroaded. Thus does philosophy, in the form of informal logical fallacies, enable us to ramp up the attack on Democrat lawfare.
In a strange way, the pervasiveness of the Unreasonableness View among Trump skeptics is a good thing. It means that 61 trial court judges, and the Supreme Court in the election case brought by Texas — where, in every courtroom, the lawsuits were dismissed without proceeding to the merits (the constitutional merits in SCOTUS’s case) — need not necessarily be considered corrupt upholders of the status quo. The Judiciary may simply have unthinkingly bought in to the Unreasonableness View. That, and not corruption, conceivably explains the heedlessness of those judges as to the wild irregularities (to put it mildly) of the 2020 election. Arguments or points of view that are question-begging, or otherwise seriously flawed, can be beguiling, and they can fool anyone.
But while that may be true — it’s the way of all flesh, and we “see through a glass darkly” — it’s still hard to know exactly why the deceptive and sophistical reasoning of the Democrats’ ultimate argument has not been widely mocked and repudiated. Maybe because the Unreasonableness View (Premise 1 of this fallacious argument) has such great political value for Democrats and, to a lesser extent, for some establishment Republicans. The fallacy, which the Unreasonableness View makes possible, says to all purportedly good and right-minded people: do whatever it takes to defeat Trump and save our democracy — even if what it takes is the subversion of reason and logic in the law.
Welcome, banana republic!
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/04/why_2020_election_denialism_is_not_denialism_at_all.html
The Democrats’ Anti-Business Policies Create The Food Deserts They Decry
By Vince Coyner