The Manhattan Institute Wants To Hand The Left New Tools To Punish The Right

As gun owners, we are aware of the propensity of the political class to pass unnecessary gun laws to combat "gun violence" even though there are already laws on the books that could be used if only they were enforced. Of course, the new laws are not really intended to combat crime, but to further restrict the rights of lawful gun owners. 

Well, the same may soon occur to laws regarding protests. Wired reports that "The Manhattan Institute Helped Kill DEI. Now It’s Coming for Protests." The article explains:

    “Today’s left-wing agitators deploy random acts of lawlessness designed to inconvenience and disrupt as many civilians as possible, hoping to pressure them to get the government to change course. This tactic is reasonably described as a form of terrorism, though the activists aren’t murderous like al-Qaida or Hamas—they don’t use guns, bombs, or threats of unpredictable bloodshed. Instead, they engage in civil terrorism,” wrote Manhattan Institute legal policy fellow Tal Fortgang, a recent New York University law graduate who lambasted students protesting against Israel’s war on Gaza for “Jew hatred.”

    Fortgang, who’s spent his career at right-wing think tanks, appears to be the main proponent of the “civil terrorism” theory, beginning with a February 2025 Wall Street Journal op-ed that argued acts of nonviolent disobedience like blocking a road was something far more sinister. More recently, he authored a piece in City Journal, the Manhattan Institute’s in-house magazine, targeting the Answer anti-war protest network’s “central role in organizing an act of civil terrorism and its advocacy on behalf of Venezuela, Iran, and China [which] are reason enough to believe that its actions may be unlawful under statutes like FARA,” the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

    In response to WIRED’s questions, Fortgang claims that he focuses on anti-war, pro-Palestinian, and Black Lives Matter activists in his writings justifying the novel “civil terrorism” theory “because they constitute the overwhelming majority of groups engaged in this behavior.” Asked why states should step up protest-related crimes from misdemeanors to felonies, he wrote: “When hundreds of people gather to commit disorderly conduct together, we are dealing with something completely different. That is what I call civil terrorism: mass commission of minor crimes to intimidate or coerce a population into adopting certain policies.”

Utah has already passed legislation similar to what Fortgang wants to see adopted across the country, while Arizona's legislature is apparently considering it as well.

    I have three issues with this:

• First, we don't need new laws to deal with the issues of which Fortgang wants to address because there were already laws that could have been applied if the political class had wanted. For instance, declaring a riot or an unlawful assembly and sending in the police or requesting that their state leadership call in the national guard. Moreover, if the political class was unwilling to use the tools already at their disposal to stop the BLM riots and street takeovers because they agreed with the aims of the protestors, why would you expect the same people to use these new laws.
• Second, these laws will just hand a new tool to our political opponents to potentially use against us. Because some day it may need to be conservatives out on the street protesting. Just look at the recent protests in England over the death of Henry Nowak while in police custody as he bled to death from multiple stab wounds as the police mocked him and bantered with Nowak's murderer. It is that type of protest that these types of laws would be focused on.
• Third, I generally object to the trend of over criminalizing activities. It is why you read of parents being charged with crimes for letting their kids play outside or walk to a local grocery store. It is nanny statism at its worse. 

What Fortgang is proposing is simply another tool that won't be used by Leftist politicians against their Leftist allies, but will be wielded as a sledge hammer against those on the Right. These proposed laws cannot be allowed.  

Big Country Expat's Kilt Story

Some more "just for fun" posting: Big Country Expat has a humorous account of working in a call center with substandard air conditioning, which was tolerable under a relaxed dress code. But then a new dress code was enforced ... leaving our resourceful hero no choice but to force the company to live up to its own rules. Check it out: "Chinese Curse: 'May You Live In Interesting Times'." The story is near the bottom of the post, after his account of some recent "interesting times" events in his life. 

Just For Fun: Calvin and Hobbes Dance

 

VIDEO: "Calvin and Hobbes Dance"
prettylittlesomeday (30 sec.)

Awaken With JP: News Update

From JP's summary:

We cover a variety of crazy news stories in this episode, most notably: Congress has moved to integrate the US military with Israel. And Don Jr marries daughter of Epstein’s personal banker. That’s right ladies and gentleman, the son of the biggest Epstein criminal protector has married the daughter of Epstein’s personal banker. We have all the details in this episode.

 VIDEO: "It Doesn't Get Any Crazier Than This! - News Update"
AwakenWithJP (12 min.)

VIDEO: Don't Forget These Items In Your Medical Kit

Now that many in the self-defense and prepping community are packing around IFAKs to deal with serious trauma, a reminder that not every injury needs a tourniquet, pressure bandage, or a 5-foot roll of gauze. The author reviews a few pre-made kits of lessor items--"boo boo" kits--packaged and sealed that you can slip into an IFAK, a backpack, or into a pocket.  

VIDEO: "The Medical Layer Most IFAKs Are Missing: Field Austere Medical"
PreparedAirman (6 min.)

Israel Has Benefitted The Most From The Iran War

From the Daily Mail: "Why Israel is quietly emerging as the biggest winner from the Iran war." The key point from the article is that Israel's war aims are different from ours:

    Unlike the US, which sought the nebulous goal of regime change, or Iran, whose sole aim was simply to survive, Israel's calculated involvement has delivered tangible and perhaps lasting geopolitical gains.

    'Israel's goal was always to inflict maximum destruction on Iran, its proxy groups and its ability to rebuild after the war,' Pleasance explained.

    'Their strategy was therefore to fight as intensely as possible, for as long as possible.'

    This war aim, Pleasance said, put Israel at odds with its closest ally. While Trump had promised the American people a swift end to the conflict, Netanyahu needed the fighting to keep going.

    Yet despite the war entering its fourth month, Israel has managed to maintain its crucial alliance with Washington.

    In that time, according to US military figures, Iran has been crippled, with the majority of its air defences, navy and missile factories reportedly destroyed alongside every one of its drone production facilities.

    While the US has borne the brunt of the diplomatic pressure and footed much of the bill, Israel has been quietly eliminating many of its most dangerous enemies.

And this explains why Israel keeps sabotaging attempts to resolve the conflict. 

Trump's Secret Weapon Against China

 An interesting piece from Rod Martin (h/t Instapundit) which asks "Is Scott Bessent Working to Crash the Yuan?" Bessent is the current Treasury Secretary. But back in the day, Martin relates, Bessent was part of the team at Soros Fund Management that “broke the Bank of England.” So he knows how to crash a country's currency. Martin hypothesizes that Trump wanted Bessent to head up the Treasury Department because of his experience in exploiting weaknesses in currencies, and wanted to apply that against China. 

    Martin explains:

Speculators do not destroy sound currencies by magic. They attack when governments defend lies. They see the contradiction before politicians admit it, before central bankers explain it away, before the press corps discovers it three years too late and pretends it was obvious all along. Britain broke. The pound fell. The Bank of England lost.     

[snip]

    China is not Britain in 1992. The analogy is not exact, nor does it need to be. Britain was defending a currency arrangement markets no longer believed. China is defending something far bigger: the fiction that an overbuilt, overleveraged, export-addicted dictatorship with too little domestic consumption and evaporating foreign direct investment can keep growing forever while its own people are trapped behind financial walls and its customers are shutting their doors.

    That fiction is embodied, crystallized in the yuan.

    The yuan is not a normal currency. It is not the dollar. It’s not even the euro. It is a managed instrument of Communist Party control. A real reserve currency requires trust. It requires convertibility. It requires deep and open capital markets. It requires the rule of law. It requires confidence that the government will not trap your savings the moment they become politically inconvenient. 

As Martin continues, Trumps tariffs go the heart of the matter because it forces China to defend one of its lies at the expense of revealing the contradiction on other points. 

Trump isn’t just raising costs. He is forcing choices. He’s making China decide which lie it wants to defend first: the lie that its export machine can survive without unrestricted access to the American consumer, the lie that its domestic economy is healthy, the lie that the yuan is trusted, or the lie that Communist capital controls are compatible with global financial leadership. 

Lead Up To Civil War: "Adultism" Workshop Says Teachers Are Oppressors

Another bunch of racists are complaining about having to interact with white people. From the New York Post: "San Francisco ‘adult supremacy’ workshop brands teachers as oppressors — as fringe trend spreads in California schools." The article explains:

    A San Francisco public school reportedly hosted a workshop on “adult supremacy” — a new woke trend labeling teachers and adults “oppressors” that’s quietly gaining traction in California.

    The confab, held at John O’Connell High School during an “Ethnic Studies Everywhere” weekend seminar in April, was titled “Youth as Knowledge Producers: Challenging Adult Supremacy Through Ethnic Studies,” according to an attendee who spoke with The Post.

    “Due to systemic power dynamics inherently the relationship between students and educators is an oppressive one. Oppressor (educator) & oppressed (student),” a presentation slide explained. 

    The workshop was led by Jennifer Sanchez, a third-year ethnic studies educator in the Central Valley, and convened by Teachers 4 Social Justice, a nonprofit that aims to create “empowering learning environments, more equitable access to resources and power, and realizing a just and caring culture,” according to its website.

    Teachers 4 Social Justice was founded by local teacher activist Jeremiah Jeffries, who led an unpopular push to rename public schools during the pandemic that was abandoned after sparking outrage from local parents.

Translating the aims of Teachers 4 Social Justice, it is using the race card to insist that white teachers be replaced with black or Hispanic teachers. This is another example of what Peter Turchin termed "elite overproduction." You might not think of teachers are being part of the elites, but they fit into the lower echelons of the elites due to their government jobs and benefits. They will certainly enter retirement much more comfortable than the majority of people due to generous public pensions--particularly in wealthy states. This is just an example of a type of competition for these public jobs. And, according to Turchin, "elite overproduction" is a key factor in producing revolution or civil war. 

Tribalism And The Justice System

 We all know that there is a risk that jurors will decide cases on ethnic lines. For instance, back in 2020, Carrie Bess, who had served as a juror on the O.J. Simpson murder trial, admitted that the not-guilty verdict was payback for the LAPD beating Rodney King. Of course, that explanation is suspect because there was no connection between Simpson's dead wife and King. Rather, the more likely explanation was simply that the jurors did not believe Simpson--a successful black man--should be punished for killing a white woman. But at least in that case, there were serious mistakes made by the police investigators and prosecutors that a biased jury could use to justify their vote. 

    This bias will probably be cropping up again in the murder trial of  Karmelo Anthony for his stabbing Austin Metcalf to death. If you don't remember the case, it occurred at a football game. Anthony, who is black, decided to sit under a shelter set up for a different school's players. Metcalf, who was white, tried to get Anthony to leave. But you don't want to make the black kids angry! Anthony stabbed Metcalf to death and then claimed that it was self defense.

    The New York Post has interviewed a legal expert, Randy Zelin, about the case and likely outcome. Of course, if the jury follows the law, Anthony will be found guilty of murder because he illegally and without justification used lethal force against someone who, at most, put hands on him to escort him from a place he had no right to be. Moreover, it appears from the evidence that Anthony intended to stab anyone that interfered with him. But Zelin adds this caveat:

    But Anthony has one ace in the hole, Zelin added: his race.

    Anthony’s defense has tried to cast Metcalf as a white bully flagrantly assaulting a black victim, with the murder charge the product of a racist justice system.    

This might seem outlandish, but keep in mind that Anthony raised $600,000 from people that obviously believed black teens shouldn't be held responsible for murdering white kids.  

Wilder: The Death Of College

John Wilder's latest piece is entitled "One Hour. One Dead 80-Year Math Problem. Welcome to the End of College As We Know It." His article is the result of an AI solving what was considered an unsolvable math problem proposed by the mathematician, Paul Erdős, which had gone unsolved for 80 years. John uses this as an example of the rapidly growing capabilities of AI. And a warning that:

    Now college is facing the twin problems of not being able to bring in the smart students or even requiring kids to read, while AI is everywhere.

    What is college even for anymore?  What’s the purpose?

Particularly if many new college students have never cracked open a book, learned critical thinking, or wrestled with difficult ideas. 

    If you want to know more about the AI solving the math problem and an explanation of the problem, check out "An OpenAI model solved a famous math problem that stumped humans for 80 years" at Ars Technica.