"Nobody Is In Danger": Nancy Pelosi Dismisses Targeting Of Supreme Court
While Democrats complain about January 6th, the institutional teardown continues
I’ll be hosting Fox News Radio today for Jimmy Failla from 12-3 PM — I hope you’ll tune in. I won’t promise to be as funny or entertaining as Jimmy, but this is a big week with a lot of news to cover, and we have some great guests lined up!
You’d think that the day after the assassination attempt against Justice Brett Kavanaugh was revealed, the left would draw back from their attempts to target justices and their families. And you’d be wrong.

More from Jason Rantz:

Nancy Pelosi says it’s nothing to worry about:

The lesson of this political moment: Don’t be radical, don’t be extreme. Our country is a tea kettle on high flame, at full boil. Wherever possible let the steam out, be part of a steady steam release before the kettle blows.
I finish with Justice Brett Kavanaugh and reports of the young man taken into custody in the middle of the night near his house with a gun, a knife and other gear. Police say he admitted he wanted to assassinate the justice.
The next night demonstrators were still being allowed at Justice Kavanaugh’s house. Shouldn’t the White House, the president, Congress and federal agencies be more fully in this and united against it?
The court is in a continuing crisis of trust and competence, and now of danger, after the leak of the draft of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
NPR reported this week the clerks of the court are upset the investigation might harm their future prospects. A source tells Nina Totenberg, in her paraphrase: “The clerks are terrified that their whole professional lives could be blown up.” Wow—in all my worries about the court I forgot to worry about the mid-six-figure jobs jeopardized at Covington & Burling.
Two centuries of tradition broken and a draft decision leaked to the press, which was a disaster for the court operationally and reputationally. Demonstrations at justices’ houses, and now a guy with a gun.
The court should release the Dobbs decision—stop letting madmen think they can stop or affect it through violence. As for the clerks, yes, it’s generally, perhaps unjustly, assumed a clerk leaked it and hard to doubt it was a clerk for a liberal justice, with the motive of alarming, agitating and urging opponents to rise up.
Mission accomplished. Now the clerk should come forward, confess, and leave his or her fellow clerks professionally unharmed. If you were moral, you would want to protect the innocent. And let some steam out there, too.
Massive, Horrible Inflation Spike
U.S. consumer inflation reached an 8.6% annual rate in May, its highest level in more than four decades as surging energy and food prices pushed prices higher.
The Labor Department on Friday said that the consumer-price index increased 8.6% in May from the same month a year ago, marking its fastest pace since December 1981. That was also up from April’s CPI reading, which was slightly below the previous 40-year high reached in March. The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services.
May’s increase was driven in part by sharp rises in the prices for energy, which rose 34.6% from a year earlier, and groceries, which jumped 11.9% on the year, the biggest increase since 1979. But inflation pressures were distinctly broad-based in May, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo Securities.
J6 Committee Once Again Exaggerates Claims Officer Deaths
So did they die from January 6th or with January 6th? Jerry Dunleavy:
The Democratic chairman of the House committee investigating the events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot said Thursday that law enforcement officers “lost their lives as a result of the attack.”
He made this assertion after prominent Democrats, including President Joe Biden, for months falsely claimed U.S. Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died as a result of the violence at the Capitol despite the medical examiner concluding that he died from a stroke and that his “manner of death” was “natural.”
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who leads the panel, said Thursday during the panel's first prime-time hearing, “I know that some of the witnesses from our first hearing are in the room with us, along with some of the family members, friends, and widows of the officers who lost their lives as a result of the attack. Thank you all for being here for us and for the American people.” Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), the vice chairwoman of the committee, later said that Sicknick’s family was present Thursday night.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, led by Francisco Diaz, told the Washington Examiner in April 2021 that Sicknick’s “cause of death” was “acute brainstem and cerebellar infarcts due to acute basilar artery thrombosis” — a stroke — and that the “manner of death” was “natural.” The medical examiner said Sicknick was sprayed with a chemical substance at about 2:20 p.m. on Jan. 6, collapsed at the Capitol at about 10 p.m., was taken to a local hospital, and died at about 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 7.
Although Diaz told the Washington Post that Sicknick suffered neither an allergic reaction to chemical irritants nor any injuries, he said that “all that transpired played a role in his condition.“
Biden claimed in June 2021 that “criminals” at the Capitol “kill[ed] a police officer.” The medical examiner’s office directly noted that the term “natural” is “used when a disease alone causes death” and that “if death is hastened by an injury, the manner of death is not considered natural.”
Capitol Police officer Caroline Edwards testified Thursday about serving alongside Sicknick during the riot as they pushed back against the rioters. She described Sicknick having his face in his hands after he was sprayed. Video that was played by the committee appeared to show Sicknick in discomfort.
The Justice Department says that more than 800 defendants have been arrested in relation to the Capitol riot, including over 250 defendants charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement officers. No one has been charged with killing police.
Violent Crime Isn’t Just Spreading In Cities
Violent crime isn’t just rising in the nation’s cities. Murder rates across the rural U.S. have soared during the pandemic, data show, bringing the kind of extreme violence long associated with major metropolises to America’s smallest communities.
Homicide rates in rural America rose 25% in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was the largest rural increase since the agency began tracking such data in 1999. The CDC considers counties rural if they are located outside metropolitan areas defined by the federal government.
The rise came close to the 30% spike in homicide rates in metropolitan areas in 2020.
The CDC hasn’t analyzed 2021 homicide data yet. In some rural counties, murder rates remained high last year, while in others they have begun to recede along with Covid, data from local law-enforcement agencies shows.
County sheriffs are trying to hire more deputies. Small-town prosecutors, unaccustomed to handling numerous homicides cases, find themselves overwhelmed with them.
In cities, law enforcement and civic leaders have blamed the increase in violent crime on factors such as police pulling back after racial-justice protests, the proliferation of guns, initiatives to release more criminal suspects without bail and a pandemic pause in gang-violence prevention programs.
In rural counties, where ties between police and locals are often less fraught, officials say the reasons for the rising violence are hard to pinpoint. They speculate that the breakdown of deeply rooted social connections that bind together many small communities, coupled with the stress of the pandemic, played a role.
Pastors point to the suspension of rituals such as in-person church services, town gatherings and everyday exchanges between neighbors. Such interactions can serve as guardrails, helping to prevent conflicts from turning violent. The psychological and financial stress due to isolation and job loss were especially pronounced in remote areas, where social services were limited even before Covid-19 struck, local leaders say.
A Soros-Backed Media Effort To Silence Spanish-Speaking Conservatives
Wait until Americans with origins in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other lands demolished by communism find out that their favorite conservative radio stations are being bought by a media consortium headed by longtime henchman of the Marxist founder of Black Lives Matter, Alicia Garza.
And wait until Mexican Americans, with roots in this country going back to the 17th century or earlier, find out that this BLM confidant, Jess Morales Rocketto, includes as one of her goals to tear down a society and culture that has taken generations to build, or that she told Latinos to follow BLM’s lead during key moments of instability.
And wait until all these voters find out that the justification the consortium, Latino Media Network, gives for the $60 million purchase of 18 stations is that they are too stupid to be able to tell truth from lies, and have been duped by “disinformation” into voting for conservatives.
And wait until these voters hear that, indeed, a big part of the “disinformation” agenda has to do with denying them the same right enjoyed by audiences of English-language media like MSNBC, CNN, Fox, etc.—to wit, being able to choose programming that does not make their blood pressure spike.
Rocketto’s partner in the Latino Media venture, Stephanie Valencia, in fact, warns ominously that “balanced journalism” will be imposed on stations bought, such as Radio Mambi, long a mainstay of the conservative Cuban American community in Miami.
Do NPR listeners want conservative views imposed on them? No. If they did want conservative views, they’d listen to Salem Radio.
I raise the language issue not to imply that American Latins are victims (they’re not), nor to play the identity politics card. I raise it because progressives know too well that if you choose Spanish-language media because you are more comfortable with it, you can be made into a captive audience.
And they are now going to, under their ideological definition of “disinformation,” make 20 million people in the nation’s largest media markets, fully one-third of Latins in the U.S.—and a much higher percentage of those who rely on Spanish—captive to the liberal values of one ultra-lefty corporate giant owner.
Progressives are pushing for censoring conservative views in Spanish because they are panicking about the Democratic Party bleeding Latin voters. A recent Quinnipiac poll, one of several, showed President Joe Biden’s support among these voters at 26%. No wonder Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is calling the media purchase “manipulation.”
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Items of Interest
SecDef Austin meets with Chinese counterpart.
The real reason Africa can’t feed itself isn’t Putin.
Domestic
Strassel: The uncredible J6 Committee.
Lucas: Six takeaways from J6 Committee hearing.
Donald Trump rips Ivanka over January 6 testimony.
71 percent of Wyoming Republicans plan to vote against Liz Cheney.
Ryan Kelley’s arrest may boost him in GOP Michigan governor primary.
De Rugy: Social Security runs toward insolvency.
Paul Pelosi DUI footage won’t be released.
Howard Schultz says Starbucks may not be able to keep bathrooms open.
Media
Miller: Everything is just fine at the Washington Post.
Tech
Avik Roy: Bitcoin would be a better reserve currency, including for America.
The Act Man vs. Quantum TV is a YouTube scandal.
Health
Biden to halt outbound Covid 19 tests for travelers to U.S.
Summer school means the return of masks.
Ephemera
Mull: Why woke culture wants you to be fat.
Virginia decides against Commanders stadium bill.
Warriors can’t beat the Celtics on vibes alone.
At what point do we stop calling Bill Hader’s “Barry” a comedy?
Britney Spears’ wedding crashed by ex-husband.
Quote
“The power of the dramatist, and of the political flack therefore, resides in the ability to state the problem.”
— David Mamet