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Christopher Rufo

America’s Verdict

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Christopher F. Rufo

What the Daniel Penny acquittal means for America

A New York City courtroom Monday issued a stunning verdict: Daniel Penny, a veteran US marine who restrained a threatening homeless subway rider named Jordan Neely, who later died in police custody, is not guilty of negligent homicide. And the verdict was not just about Penny. Make no mistake: the Black Lives Matter era of “restorative justice” is over and the real spirit of justice is returning to America.

Penny’s trial captured public attention because it dramatically emblematized this critical cultural faultline. Most immediately, it symbolized a recurrent theme in New York City about the failures of law enforcement, and the appropriate response to criminality. But it was also a story that the Left sought to turn into a racial morality play by repeating the BLM playbook they applied to the death of George Floyd, to Trayvon Martin, to Michael Brown and countless others.

In this story, Daniel Penny (“the white man” in the loaded description of the prosecutor Dafna Yoran) was a racist white man, who cruelly hunted down and killed an innocent black man (a “Micheal Jackson impersonator”) who was peacefully riding the subway. In this telling, neither man is an individual; rather, each is a symbol of a system of racist white supremacy, organized around enacting violence on black bodies, for no reason, in the United States, and across the world.

The first imperative of restorative justice is to recognize this crucial ideological context; a point which Penny’s hyper-ideological prosecutor Dafna Yoran made explicit in a widely circulated video in which she boasted of reducing a felony murder charge in a previous trial to a manslaughter charge because she “felt sorry” for the trauma which the African-American killer had endured.

Daniel Penny, naturally, received no such considerations. In his case, the restorative task was to scapegoat “the white man” in the service of advancing a radical pro-crime agenda, consistent with defunding the police and turning the US criminal justice system into a politically organized system of justice comparable to the two-tier justice system that now exists in the UK.

This was a task that was pursued both inside and outside the courtroom. As with the trial of Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd, professional activists were mobilized to protest on the street outside the trial with the intention to manipulate proceedings: witnesses reported that the shouting of the activists were audible inside the courtroom. But this time, the jury did not surrender to pressure.

Jordan Neely was, in fact, like George Floyd: both were violent criminals with a long record of antisocial behavioral problems who suffered from drug problems, and eventually died under troubling circumstances. But Derek Chauvin’s jury failed in its duty to separate the facts from ideological myths, and failed to stand up to political pressure. Chauvin was convicted by a jury frightened into complicity, and effectively thrown to the mob.

By contrast, in New York Monday, another conception of justice prevailed. Despite the activists ringing the courtroom, a hostile media chumming the waters, and a highly irregular legal procedure which saw the prosecution withdrawing one of Penny’s charges on Friday in order to avoid a mistrial and seek conviction on a lesser charge, the jurors retained their composure, and stuck to the facts and the law. Whatever fear they may have felt, they overcame it, and Penny was correctly found not guilty.

What will happen next? My own suspicion is that the verdict will not generate anything like the violence, riots, and disorder that followed the death of George Floyd. Americans are finished with the failed regime of the Left. The past four years have clarified what “social justice” really means and exhausted all remaining patience for granting activists the benefit of the doubt. The extraordinary shamelessness of Jordan Neely’s father in launching a civil suit against Penny over the death of a son he didn’t raise exemplifies the moral emptiness that was formerly, by many, mistaken for social justice.

In reality, “social justice” was never about justice: it was about the political subversion of justice to achieve pathological and ideological ends. The contrast with Penny himself could not be more striking. Penny is not merely not guilty, he is an unambiguous hero, who correctly understood and carried out his duty, with great courage, in a dangerous situation. He believed that it was his duty to use his training to protect women and children from a violent individual with a previous record of subway assault, and he was right to do so.

Today’s verdict marks the end of an era. BLM, which seemed unstoppable four years ago, is finished. Its activists are discredited, and its grip on the public imagination is broken. No doubt the violent spirit of the movement will seek to resurface in the future, but a brutal and stupid decade of moral and judicial corruption has come to a close.

With its passing, the opportunity returns to truly confront the problems that have plagued American cities for a generation. Penny’s heroism should never have been necessary because Jordan Neely should never have been riding that train. Neely himself was failed by BLM and the ideology of social justice, just as Penny was persecuted by it: it was also social justice which, from misguided ideas of compassion, stopped Neely from getting the treatment he needed.

The correct moral attitude, as well as the right social policy, is to dismantle this system entirely—in academia and media, where it generates its alibis, but above all in criminal justice. That means holding the attorneys responsible for this shameful prosecution accountable, returning to the system of “broken windows” policing that made New York under Giuliani the safest big city in America—and extending that system across the rest of the United States.

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This article was originally published in IM—1776.

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Automotive

Trump Must Act to Halt the Tesla Terror Campaign

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Christopher F. Rufo

The Left’s splintering violence threatens a veto over democratic power.

Elon Musk finds himself at the fulcrum of American life. His companies are leading the field across the automotive, space, robotics, and AI industries. His ownership of the social platform X gives him significant influence over political discourse. And his DOGE initiative represents the single greatest threat to the permanent administrative state. Musk is arguably the most powerful man in the United States, including President Trump.

The Left has taken notice. Left-wing activists have long practiced a tactic called “power mapping,” which entails diagramming the opposing political movement and identifying “chokepoints.” They have designated Musk as one such chokepoint. This month, activists claimed to have organized 500 protests against Elon Musk’s Tesla—dubbed the “Tesla Takedown”—with demonstrations outside sales lots and a series of incidents of vandalism, property destruction, and fire bombings. A pattern has also emerged of individuals scratching or spray-painting parked Teslas, looking to intimidate owners and potential owners or just to express hatred of Musk.

Precedents exist for this kind of escalation. In the 1970s, following the frustrations of the civil rights era, left-wing splinter groups launched targeted terror campaigns and symbolic acts of violence. They bombed the U.S. Capitol, assassinated police officers, and even self-immolated in imitation of Buddhist monks. We may be entering a similar phase today, as the collapse of the Black Lives Matter movement gives rise to radicalized left-wing factions willing to embrace violence. If so, Musk’s Tesla may be the Number One target.

What, exactly, motivates this campaign? At its core, the Left appears to be shifting from an “antiracist” narrative to an anti-wealth one—from a racial frame to an economic one. The sentiment driving the Tesla Takedown is rooted in economic resentment and a desire for leveling. Musk has become a symbol of everything progressives oppose: oligarchy, capitalism, wealth, and innovation. These, in their view, are marks of the oppressor. They scorn the futuristic Cybertruck, SpaceX rockets, and Optimus robots, believing that such creations should be dismantled and repurposed into chassis for public buses or I-beams for public housing.

A certain element of left-wing Luddism is at work here, but the greater part of these activists’ motives is resentment. Musk represents the triumph of the great man of industry, something the Left believes should not exist.

Unfortunately, the Tesla Takedown may succeed. The Left has likely identified Tesla as a chokepoint because it’s easier to dissuade consumers from buying a car they associate with a malevolent political cause—or fear might be vandalized—than it is to persuade them to buy one in support of Musk and DOGE. When it comes to purchasing a Tesla, fear among the average American is a more powerful motivator than enthusiasm among the MAGA base.

Some evidence suggests that the campaign has made an economic impact. Tesla stock peaked around the time of President Trump’s inauguration and since then has lost approximately 40 percent of its value. Musk has accumulated more power than any other American, but that means that he has more points of vulnerability. His wealth and power are tied to his companies—most importantly, his consumer car company, which depends on individual purchases rather than institutional contracts (like SpaceX).

Trump has signaled that he understands this dilemma. He appeared at the White House in a Tesla and has voiced support for Musk’s firms. Justice Department prosecutors—and their allies in state government—must translate this support into policy by identifying and punishing those who destroy property as a means of political intimidation.

The administration needs to make clear that radical left-wing factions cannot use violence to wield a veto over democratic governance. If the partnership between Trump and Musk is to produce meaningful results, it must be backed by the full protection of the law.

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Business

The NSA’s Secret Sex Chats

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Intelligence officials maintained a chatroom to discuss polyamory and transgender surgeries, internal documents reveal.

The “intelligence community” is one of the most powerful parts of the American national security apparatus. In theory, it works tirelessly to keep the nation safe. But according to internal documents that we obtained, some intelligence agency employees have another on-the-job priority: sex chats.

We have cultivated sources within the National Security Agency—one current employee and one former employee—who have provided chat logs from the NSA’s Intelink messaging program. According to an NSA press official, “All NSA employees sign agreements stating that publishing non-mission related material on Intelink is a usage violation and will result in disciplinary action.” Nonetheless, these logs, dating back two years, are lurid, featuring wide-ranging discussions of sex, kink, polyamory, and castration.

One popular chat topic was male-to-female transgender surgery, which involves surgically removing the penis and turning it into an artificial vagina. “[M]ine is everything,” said one male who claimed to have had gender reconstruction surgery. “[I]’ve found that i like being penetrated (never liked it before GRS), but all the rest is just as important as well.” Another intelligence official boasted that genital surgery allowed him “to wear leggings or bikinis without having to wear a gaff under it.”

These employees discussed hair removal, estrogen injections, and the experience of sexual pleasure post-castration. “[G]etting my butthole zapped by a laser was . . . shocking,” said one transgender-identifying intel employee who spent thousands on hair removal. “Look, I just enjoy helping other people experience boobs,” said another about estrogen treatments. “[O]ne of the weirdest things that gives me euphoria is when i pee, i don’t have to push anything down to make sure it aims right,” a Defense Intelligence Agency employee added.

These revelations come at a moment of heightened scrutiny for the intelligence community. President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard have each made the case that the intelligence agencies have gone “woke,” prioritizing left-wing activism over national security. These chat logs confirm their suspicions and raise fundamental questions about competence and professionalism.

According to our sources, the sex chats were legitimized as part of the NSA’s commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Activists within the agency used LGBTQ+ “employee resource groups” to turn their kinks and pathologies into official work duties. According to the current NSA employee, these groups “spent all day” recruiting activists and holding meetings with titles such as “Privilege,” “Ally Awareness,” “Pride,” and “Transgender Community Inclusion.” And they did so with the full support of NSA leadership, which declared that DEI was “not only mission critical, but mission imperative.”

In this case, “diversity” was not a byword for racialism, but rather a euphemism for sex talk. Last January, chatroom members discussed their practice of polyamory, or “ethical non-monogamy.” “[A] polycule is a polyamorous group,” one employee explained. “A is my [girlfriend], and B-G are her partners. . . . then B&C are dating but not C&D, nor E, F, or G with any of the others, though there are several MWB (metas-with-benefits) connections.” Another employee claimed to be part of a nine-member “polycule,” adding that “some of our friends are practically poly-mers, with all the connected compounds.”

At other times, the conversations became explicit. The active source at the NSA claimed to have witnessed hundreds of sexually provocative discussions, which, he added, occurred mostly on taxpayer time. The former NSA source who was familiar with the chats recalled being “disgusted” by a particularly shocking thread discussing weekend “gangbangs.”

The NSA sources also raised the question of some staffers’ mental fitness for the job. In one chat, an NSA employee insists on using “it” pronouns in lieu of the human “he” or “she” pronouns. “[I]t/its user here. While I understand we can make some people uncomfortable, keep in mind that the dehumanizing aspect either a) doesn’t apply or b) is a positive effect when we’re requesting it.” A commenter who disagreed was quickly dismissed by employees of the NSA and CIA, who claimed that refusing to use “it/its” pronouns amounted to “erasing” a transgender identity.

“These are folks with top secret clearances believing they are an IT!” said the NSA source.

With the Trump administration taking over, we may see changes. The NSA source said that staffers involved in employee resource groups fear the end of DEI. “[T]here are legal restrictions in place, but this admin has shown they don’t give a f**k about legality,” a staffer in space intelligence remarked about DEI staffers being placed on leave. Others have expressed opposition to Trump’s cabinet nominees.

A conflict is coming. These NSA chat logs suggest the presence of at least hundreds of gender activists within the intelligence services who cannot distinguish between male and female, and who believe that discussing castration, polyamory, and “gangbangs” is an appropriate use of public resources. For psychological and ideological reasons, these kinds of people will not be easily sidelined. The Trump administration should not only dismantle the structure of DEI but also terminate the employees who use it to advance gender activism at the expense of national security.

A guest post by
Hannah Grossman

Hannah is a Member of the World Jewish Congress Diplomatic Corps where she focuses on Holocaust research and education.

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