Partnership With ADL Compromises FBI’s Integrity and Fairness

The ADL is just a far-Left outfit these days. The only remnant of their original advocacy for Jews is their hatred of Christians

Most Americans recognize that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as a far-left, dark-money behemoth with assets of nearly a quarter-billion dollars. The once-respected FBI is now viewed as being similarly politicized. Overall support for the agency has nose-dived to only 37% among the general public and a meager 17% among Republicans.

Yet few Americans realize how closely the ADL works with the FBI to advance their leadership’s political interests. This is a dangerous collaboration wherein the increasingly radical group provides ideologically driven guidance to people with the guns.

Right now, the FBI is pointing those guns at the political enemies of the far Left.

The ADL’s work covers the usual left-wing causes célèbres: fighting voting integrity measures, pushing for open-borders policies and amnesty for illegal aliens, and vigorously defending the Black Lives Matter riots, to name a few.

The group has now politically weaponized its charges of antisemitism, falsely smearing conservatives while excusing blatant antisemitism among its political allies. For example, the organization has groundlessly denounced Elon Musk, a powerful libertarian voice, as an antisemite in a baldfaced effort to drain his social network, X, of advertising revenue. Yet, when now-Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) came to the defense of his uncle for antisemitic remarks he made in the ’90s, the organization refused to condemn him.

Jonathan Tobin of Jewish News Syndicate traces ADL’s hard-left turn to its change in leadership from longtime leader Abe Foxman to Jonathan Greenblatt, a former staffer in the Clinton and Obama White Houses. Tobin writes, “Greenblatt has helped shift the ADL from its former stance as the nonpartisan gold standard for monitoring hate to being just another liberal activist group whose priority is helping the Democratic Party.”

Last month, The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project released an investigative report detailing an “Extremist Sitrep” email from the “ADL Law Enforcement” account to The Washington State Fusion Center, a collective of various law enforcement entities spanning from local to the FBI. The email advises law enforcement officers responsible for investigating domestic terrorists to focus their resources on the likes of Matt Walsh, Chris Rufo and Libs of TikTok. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)

Much like the FBI’s infamous anti-Catholic targeting memo, the ADL email suggests that law enforcement agencies—people with guns and the power to imprison and financially destroy enemies of the state-should concentrate their efforts on nonviolent citizens whose only “crime” is to have exercised their First Amendment freedoms in support of political viewpoints contrary to the authoritarian Left.

The goal here is clearly to punish the “thought criminals” and force adherence to the dogmas of the state.

What’s the big deal about such a problematic email? Law enforcement agencies must get all sorts of memorandums, requests and phony tips from every corner of the nation, right?

The problem here is that, according to former FBI agents, they are conditioned from the very beginning of their careers to be receptive to ADL propaganda. One of the first experiences of a new agent is an ADL-sponsored trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The ostensible purpose of the trip is to impress on new agents that they bear a tremendous responsibility that should never be abused.

That lesson should be salubrious. But former agents tell me the trip’s real purpose is to prepare agents to be receptive to the onslaught of propaganda and rewards that the ADL will be sending their way throughout the coming years. At the very beginning of an agent’s career, the FBI is sending the clear message that the ADL is a trusted partner.

The ADL and FBI partnership only grows from there. According to the ADL’s website, “We educate annually an estimated 15,000 law enforcement personnel from local, state and federal agencies.” Moreover, “in 2021 alone, the ADL Center on Extremism (COE) provided law enforcement with critical intelligence about extremism over 1,300 times and tracked over 7,300 incidents of hate on our online, interactive H.E.A.T. map.” The ADL even operates a school for executive-level law enforcement officials:

In 2003, the ADL founded the Advanced Training School, which has provided education on extremism and terrorism for senior law enforcement from more than 250 agencies across the U.S. This three-day course provides an examination of major types of extremist movements, case studies of recent terrorist acts presented by law enforcement leaders with firsthand experience, and guidance on the critical importance of protecting civil rights and liberties.

The very agency the feds trust to educate them on matters of “extremism” is producing politically driven, far-left reports on who counts as an extremist. Much like the Southern Poverty Law Center, the ADL writes and applies the definition they wish government to enforce. They take care to ensure that it predominantly captures those opposed to their ideology, while excusing their political allies.

Were these organizations to apply a neutral definition of hate or extremism, it would undercut the leftist narrative that so-called MAGA extremists and their ilk are the most clear-and-present danger to the United States.

Beyond orientation, training, and propaganda, the ADL provides FBI personnel with awards. Since 2010, the ADL has been handing out “ADL SHIELD Awards” to FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors for investigative and prosecutorial successes. It’s a brilliantly subversive tactic. The awards cost the ADL next to nothing, and in exchange, the organization receives a false veneer of legitimacy and builds a list of FBI executives and agents beholden to the ADL.

Conditioning FBI personnel to be receptive to ADL political propaganda and then doling out rewards to FBI leaders is beyond unseemly. With this incentive structure in place, is there any reason to doubt that the FBI would be more inclined to take in and act on slanted ADL material?

Small wonder that public confidence in the FBI is at record lows. One obvious remedial measure would be to end the partnership between the ADL and the FBI. It’s time to draw a bright line between dark, far-left operations and the most powerful law enforcement entity in the country and make sure that line is not crossed.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/02/16/time-end-fbi-adl-partnership/

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The feuding tearing apart the Royal Society of Literature

You’d think, wouldn’t you, that the Royal Society of Literature (founded 1820) might be one of those institutions that chugs on benignly year in year out with nothing to disturb the peace of its members. But on Thursday morning, a letter in the Times Literary Supplement, got up as I understand it by Jeremy Treglown and signed by 14 more distinguished writers (among them Ian McEwan, Alan Hollinghurst, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Fleur Adcock), calls on the leadership of the RSL to refer itself to the Charity Commission. That is, as charitable foundations go, something like demanding that they turn themselves in to the cops.

Everybody is briefing everybody, furious letters are circulating about leaks, and the whole thing is adding to the gaiety of nations

It’s only the latest fusillade in what seems to be something barely short of civil war in this longstanding institution. Many longstanding Fellows of the Society are deeply unhappy with the current management – principally its director, Molly Rosenberg and its chair, the poet Daljit Nagra. Everybody is briefing everybody, furious letters are circulating about leaks, and the whole thing is adding to the gaiety of nations and the public stock of harmless pleasures for popcorn-chewing onlookers, while causing considerable distress to those directly involved.

‘It’s such a clusterfuck! It’s such a clusterfuck! Everyone is falling out with everyone else,’ said one RSL Fellow I spoke to this week, with the characteristic mixture of grief and glee that attends any feud between writers. ‘It’s just unbelievable how much everyone hates each other. It’s like one of those long marriages that seems to have been perfectly happy… and then suddenly you discover they’ve both been seeing other people and have called in the lawyers.’

This rather well captures the multi-dimensional quality of the warfare going on. It’s a slightly tricky row to unpick, as the charge sheet against the present management of the RSL consists of several unrelated (or only marginally related) disgruntlements, but here goes.

The first (and it’s what has kicked off the latest round of sniping, writing of open letters, thinly veiled legal threats and furious behind-the-scenes gossiping) is the suppression of the society’s own journal, the RSL Review, and the alleged summary firing of its editor Maggie Fergusson. I should say, incidentally, that Maggie is a friend of, and frequent contributor to, the books pages of The Spectator. The RSL Review was in final proof, just before Christmas, when the RSL’s director Molly Rosenberg apparently took exception to an article in it about writers in Palestine. The whole magazine was summarily pulled from publication and the editor (a three-decade servant of the RSL and a former director herself) was hoofed out.

The RSL’s version is that the magazine’s publication has merely been ‘postponed’ for editorial improvements, that Maggie Fergusson departed by mutual agreement, that she had always known that this would be the last issue she edited (both of which claims Fergusson flatly denies), and that all contributors to the postponed magazine have been kept informed as to the fates of their contributions. Far be it from me to call this a pack of lies. But it does seem that, using the unimprovable formula of the late Queen, ‘Some recollections may vary.’ At any rate, the signatories of the letter to the TLS clearly feel on firm ground saying: ‘The issues to be investigated would have to include the censorship attempt, which we are quite sure occurred and which plainly contravened fundamental literary values.’

The second issue, which strikes that one slightly slant, is to do with a change in the way that Fellows of the society are elected. The laws of the society have it that candidates must have at least two works of ‘outstanding literary merit’ to their name, be proposed and seconded by existing Fellows, and approved by the Council. In the interests of diversifying the membership – which does skew whiter and older than the population at large – and making the RSL an institution ‘for all writers’ (as its president Bernardine Evaristo has put it) some new methods of election have been put in place. Evaristo wrote in this week’s Guardian that in ‘some schemes, members of the public sometimes get the chance to nominate writers who might otherwise be overlooked because they are outside the elite London literary networks’.

There will be those who frame this as a woke-youngsters-versus-traditionalists ding-dong, in which a doddery and snobbish old guard seeks to defend the citadel of their white privilege from the younger, browner writers hitherto denied their due by the literary establishment. I don’t presume to take a view on how the RSL manages its affairs. It also seems fair to Bernardine to make clear that her role in the RSL is ceremonial, so she is not the prime mover behind the controversial changes. (If this was all about a ‘woke agenda’, incidentally, it’s surprising that the piece alleged to have been censored was one sympathetic to the Palestinian side in the conflict.)

I restrict myself to a couple of observations. One is that the idea of the RSL being ‘for all writers’ is questionable: as one person I spoke to pointed out, we already have an organisation for all writers, and it’s called the Society of Authors. The RSL is supposed to be an organisation for really good writers. Which is as much as to say that being involved with ‘elite… literary networks’ is sort of the point. And if the guiding principle is to have two works of ‘outstanding literary merit’ in print, you would expect it to skew a bit older. Many, perhaps most, writers go a whole career without getting even one ‘OLM’; you can expect the majority to take a decade or two to get two written. It’s not like football, where if you haven’t done it by 23 you’re finished: the longer you go at it, in general, the better you get.

On race, there is, no doubt, a pipeline problem here, too. If the publishing establishment has been reluctant until relatively recently to give writers of colour a fair shake (which I think you’d be a fool to dispute), the pool of candidates for Fellowship at this point will on average be whiter than maybe you’d like. There will be fewer writers of colour mid-career and with a belt full of OLMs, because 20 years ago fewer writers of colour were getting the chance to begin a career. You can take the view that this is a problem that time will solve – the fruits of today’s determination across the industry to platform diverse voices will be filtering through in the next decade or two – or you can put your thumb on the scales.

The third and final strand in the current row is the question of whether, and how, the RSL is to take a view on supporting writers’ freedoms and freedom of expression in general. Many Fellows were distinctly dismayed when a motion in Council to speak out in support of Salman Rushdie after an Islamist lunatic attempted to murder him was squashed. The reasoning, according to Evaristo, is that the RSL should remain ‘impartial’ in political matters. Let us say of this only that several writers, including Sir Salman himself, were not super impressed by this stance.

What unites these disparate threads seems to be a reluctance by the senior management to engage directly with the membership they ostensibly serve. ‘They’re treating us like enemies, rather than like colleagues,’ one Fellow told me. Complaints, queries, requests for explanations have, according to more than one Fellow I’ve spoken to, gone unanswered or been bureaucratically stonewalled. If Daljit Nagra does decide to bring the Charity Commission in (an option he seems to have at least countenanced in conversation with Treglown) that will at least be a step in the direction of clearing the air.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/the-feuding-tearing-apart-the-royal-society-of-literature/

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The problem with the ‘paraglider girls’ ruling

Leftists can do and say no wrong

Yesterday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, three women were convicted of terror offences for wearing clothes or carrying signs that appeared to glorify Hamas – and they were let off virtually scot-free.

The leniency of this ruling raises yet more questions about judicial impartiality in this country

At a central London pro-Palestine march the week after the October 7 attack in Israel last year, Heba Alhayek, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, had attached images of paragliders to their backs, while Noimutu Olayinka Taiwo, 27, had attached one to a sign. Paragliders, as had been reported widely in the media, were how Hamas terrorists crossed the Gaza-Israel border to carry out their barbaric pogrom against Israeli civilians. The trio were found guilty of appearing to show support for a terrorist group after a two-day trial. The Judge said there was no evidence that the individuals were supporters of Hamas, but the CPS said displaying the images amounted to the ‘glorification of the actions’ of the terrorist group.

Convicted under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act, they faced a possible six months in prison. But district judge Tan Ikram said he had ‘decided not to punish’ the defendants, instead handing the trio a 12-month conditional discharge each.

From a purely free-speech point of view, this leniency is welcome. Any glorification of the slaughter of more than 1,200 Jews is of course grotesque. Yet as hateful as these kinds of sentiments are, it is generally better to have them out in the open and to know they exist than forcing them underground. Unless it is clear and direct incitement to violence, the best answer to vile speech is rarely punishment or censorship, but counter-speech.

But the leniency of this ruling raises yet more questions about judicial impartiality in this country. These are questions that have been hanging over the justice system more widely since 7 October, after what many saw as a soft-touch approach by the police toward the pro-Palestine marches last autumn.

It’s not as if this leniency toward the ‘paraglider girls’ is down to Britain being a haven for free speech. Quite the contrary: the British state has proven it will come down hard on anyone who seems to violate today’s ever-expanding progressive taboos. Ed West has recently detailed the many sorry examples, such as a woman interrogated by police after photographing a sticker on a trans pride poster; a teenager arrested for saying a policewoman looked like her ‘lesbian nana’; and a Conservative councillor arrested for an alleged hate crime after retweeting a video criticising police treatment of a Christian street preacher.

Indeed, the record of the judge in this case, Tan Ikram, has repeatedly sparked concerns that woke sensibilities may be distorting the British justice system. In an unprecedented ruling in 2022, he jailed police constable James Watts for 20 weeks for sharing racist WhatsApp memes mocking George Floyd, the patron saint of Black Lives Matter. Not only was this sentence extraordinarily harsh, last year Ikram appeared to act against judicial conduct guidance that says judges should not talk about their cases in public, when he publicly boasted about the sentence: ‘This was a police officer bringing the police service into disrepute,’ he told American law students. ‘So I gave him a long prison sentence. The police were horrified by that.’

If Ikram’s comments suggest he might hold a grudge against the police, his later rulings do not dispel that suspicion. In December, he gave six retired Met officers suspended sentences and community service for racist messages sent in a private WhatsApp group chat. This followed his extraordinary ruling that, though the messages were never intended to be seen by anyone else, they were nevertheless ‘offensive to many good people in this country and not only people who might be directly offended’. One of the officers had sent a boomer meme about parrots and was convicted by Ikram on the sole basis of its offensive ‘implication’.

That Ikram has handed down prison sentences for private memes makes his leniency towards the paraglider trio more difficult to swallow. Attempting to explain his decision not to punish the defendants for their support of a terror group, Ikram said the offences had taken place at a time of ‘much passion and polarisation’. ‘You crossed the line’, he said, ‘but it would have been fair to say that emotions ran very high on this issue’. But why should the fact that emotions were running high reduce the severity of the punishment? No less bizarre was his claim that the defendants’ ‘lesson has been well learned’ – despite them being let off by the court.

It is not quite clear which emotions Ikram referred to in his sentence. It is indeed fair to say that emotions were running high at that time. Many will have seen the alarm, shock and distress of British Jews – who first witnessed a barbaric pogrom in Israel, in which many lost friends and loved ones – and then the orgy of violent anti-Semitism it brought to the streets of London. But it seems that to a judiciary steeped in identity politics, it is only certain emotions that count.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/02/the-problem-with-the-paraglider-girls-ruling

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#MeToo has driven young men into an opposing stance of bullish conservatism

Feminism has driven men and women apart -- a loss for both

We have a problem. As a species. Particularly in the western world. An ideological divide is opening up in many countries that goes to the heart of the human race, the future of us. It is a problematic divide between girls and boys, a widening philosophical gap in terms of aspiration/outlook that’s having impacts in many arenas. Not least in our high schools.

Recent research shows that girls are becoming more progressive; boys, more conservative. The rift is demonstrated in a study from the Gallup Poll Social Series, which shows that political ideology for females aged 18-29 in countries such as the US, Germany, the UK and South Korea is veering towards a small-l liberal ideology, but boys, in opposition, are cleaving to conservatism.

So, Gen Z is split. Two separate worlds. Of increasingly aware girls not afraid to call it out, and frustrated boys trying to deal with the new voices roaring at them. What will the future be, for all of them, together? How will these findings affect marriage rates, birth trends, the politics of the schoolyard, workplace relations, societal harmony? The new dynamic is already being demonstrated in elections here – the rise of the Teals was thanks in large part to women. The trend will continue as females search for representatives who understand them, listen.

And ahead, an even more dramatically cleaved society. I watch, perturbed, feeling for both sides. The impetus for the girls is towards fairness and equality; a move away from subservience. A natural step for the educated, and why the Taliban wants to stop females from being educated at all. Ignorance keeps the female subjugated, in servitude to the male; it removes the threat of women with a voice.

The impetus for boys, understandably, is to preserve what they had. Which was power and control, for millennia. My heart goes out to males because so many are hurting, raging, lost. Imagine it. A person born to be at the top of the tree, who has expected this all their childhood, and who steps into adulthood wanting this cosy arrangement to continue. But girls are now digging in their heels, saying enough, we want those chances too. Life’s been unfair for usfor a very long time, and we’re just as competent.

Why all this now, so fractiously? A theory. The very loud #MeToo movement, which galvanised young women, has driven young men into an opposing stance of bullish conservatism. We all have to work through it, with compassion and sensitivity, until equality is normalised and young males don’t see this new way of being as a threat. But it will take many years. Generations.

What we have now is the fulcrum, the tipping point. Boys flinching into conservatism, into what’s been comfortable and known throughout history; conservatism by nature means a cleaving to traditional models, the status quo. Progressivism is about social reform. Embracing it, facilitating it. Which is where a lot of educated young women are now and there’s no going back from it. #MeToo and the first and second wave feminist movements before it are exploding the parameters that kept females in their place.

Meanwhile boys and girls retreat into their siloed worlds online, with little crossover. There’s a lack of tolerance for the “other” on both sides, a scorning and sneering at these divergent environments. Some boys find their Andrew Tates to cling to, while for girls the messaging all around them is that they can now be anything, do anything, and as well as the boys. Female teens are unstoppable and school boys have to concede some of their traditional power. But it’s messy. I feel for teachers in co-ed high schools right now, the cauldrons of this vast societal shift. What’s needed, urgently, is empathy and understanding. From both sides.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/columnists/metoo-has-driven-young-men-into-an-opposing-stance-of-bullish-conservatism/news-story/25dc565729f566e31579486553bbe9d0

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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