Quick Hits: Volume CCCXXVIII

 - Whenever a high profile incident occurs in which "progressives" believe can be used as a cudgel against the political right (i.e. the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, VA), they'll milk if for all it's worth. Even if right-of-center politicos unequivocally condemn such incidents, proggies will still weaponize them in an attempt to paint all Republicans as enablers. 

Since the Hamas terror attack on Israel nearly three weeks ago, the virulent anti-Semitism has been coming from the left. And in what should be a surprise to no one, the left doesn't seem to hold their own to the same standard.  Nevertheless, Noah Rothman at National Review correctly points out that thorough condemnations should be handed down. 

Democrats must take stock of the challenge the pro-Hamas faction on the frontier of their coalition now represents. Casting this lot off into the wilderness cannot be a passive activity. It won’t be done though inference, by declining to name names and citing no infringing activities in particular. Democrats had the opportunity to throttle the rising antisemitic sentiments in their coalition in their infancy when Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib made it easy. Their routine contraventions of basic standards of decency were condemnable, and they should have been condemned. But a revolt within the party over the discomfort associated with censuring its own scuttled the enterprise, leaving Democrats to endorse a flaccid document that condemned hate in all its forms — not the very specific hate that took one discrete form.

That act of cowardice ensured that the Democrats’ task would be even more difficult the next time they were confronted with the antisemitism in their ranks. If Democrats pass on the opportunity again, the threat will only grow, and the challenge will seem even less surmountable down the road. But there can be no more ignoring this menace. Calling out anti-Jewish hate that manifests today in support for a barbarian horde that massacres women and children is an absolute imperative. It may be difficult. It may irritate the activists in the streets and the ideologues who populate cable-news sets. It may come at the cost of a few political careers. But the time has come for Democrats of good conscience to stand up and be counted. That, or float passively along with the mobs who plague America’s streets.

This is no longer about how "REPUBLICANS POUNCE!!!!" on the Dems' fecklessness here, thus turning it in to an electoral advantage. Truth is, it won't much matter which political party has control if this kind of deplorable rhetoric is not openly abhorred by everyone. 

- Mere hours after my Congressman was nominated by a plurality of House Republicans to be Speaker, he declined to move forward with his campaign. 

 

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) dropped out of the speaker race just a couple hours after winning the GOP nomination on Tuesday.

The news came after Emmer reportedly walked out of a GOP conference meeting as roughly two dozen Republicans refused to support him and former President Donald Trump unleashed a Truth Social post against his bid for the speakership.

 

Let's be honest: Trump's opposition to Emmer has nothing to do with policy and ideology as his loony ramblings would suggest. No, when it comes to being the target of Trump's wrath, it has everything to do with perceived personal slights. 

- Prog Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty was elected under a platform of "restorative justice," which is basically a euphemism for being soft on violent crimes. The one hope in tamping down on returning dangerous criminals to the streets is that a sane judge would step up. Thankfully that has happened in one high profile case. 

Judge Michael Burns rejected a plea deal Monday that Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty’s office offered to one of the defendants in the 2019 murder of Steve Markey.

Moriarty announced a plea deal Aug. 4 for 20-year-old Husayn Braveheart, who was 15 in June 2019 when he and Jared Ohsman killed the 39-year-old Markey during an attempted carjacking in Northeast Minneapolis.

Under the deal, Braveheart pled guilty to one count of aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder. In exchange, he was to serve up to one year in the workhouse and five years of probation with a suspended prison sentence of 21 years, meaning he would have only served time in prison if he violated the terms of his probation.

In a rare move, Burns rejected that deal in court Monday afternoon.

Given that Mr. Burns was appointed to this vacated position by then Gov. Mark Dayton in 2016 and then elected unopposed in 2018, I suspect he's quite liberal. So the fact the even he drew a line in the sand over Moriarty's plea deals would indicate the public and elected officials alike have grown weary of her shenanigans. 

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