RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-restaurant-lockdown-massacre-11607730189?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

New York’s Andrew Cuomo on Friday joined the stampede of Democratic governors shutting down restaurants despite scant evidence that they are driving a surge in Covid cases. Their shutdowns are hitting minorities the hardest and increasing economic inequality.

Democratic governors in Michigan, Illinois, Oregon and Washington in recent weeks have closed indoor dining. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has banned outdoor patios in most areas too. Mr. Cuomo said Friday that he’s shutting down indoor dining in New York City as of Monday.

According to state contact tracing data, restaurants and bars account for 1.4% of the virus spread in the state while household gatherings make up nearly 74%. That’s not surprising. In New York City, restaurants were limited to 25% capacity. Who limits capacity in their living rooms during football watch parties or Thanksgiving?

Restaurants and other small businesses have spent heavily to comply with government Covid regulations, including buying personal protective equipment for staff and improved ventilation systems. But now they are being punished because, well, government can’t control the virus and Democratic leaders feel they must appear to be doing something.

https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/11/as-swalwell-spy-scandal-spirals-pelosi-wont-say-how-many-other-house-intel-dems-had-sexual-relationships-with-spies/

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will not say if any other Democrats sitting on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have had political or sexual relationships with foreign spies.

This week, reporting by Axios revealed that suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang cultivated deep connections with U.S. Democratic politicians in the Bay Area for years, including with California Rep. Eric Swalwell, to send political intelligence and personal information back to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), one of the country’s primary spying agencies.

Fang reportedly developed a relationship with Swalwell, raising millions for Swalwell’s re-election in 2014 and assisting in placing at least one intern in his Washington, D.C. office before abruptly leaving the country in 2015, around the same time a counterintelligence investigation was opened on her.

The Federalist previously reported that in addition to bundling donors for the congressman, officials believe Fang may have been sexually and romantically involved with Swalwell.

The Federalist asked Pelosi if she knew how many other Democrat members of the House Intelligence Committee have had political, sexual, or relationships with spies for hostile foreign countries. Her office did not comment and instead pointed to her statement that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s questions about the influence Fang had on Swalwell, a sitting member on multiple intelligence committees, are simply a distraction from QAnon conspiracy theories.

“You know what he’s trying to do? He’s trying to deflect attention from the fact that he has QAnon in his delegation over there. And that I think is a danger in terms of our debate here about, you know, what the possibilities are for undue influence to Members of Congress,” she said at a Thursday press conference.

https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2020/12/11/why_we_must_restore_america

Americans take it for granted that they can continue to enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world. And with the Dow at 30,000, why worry?

When asked to list major economic problems, Americans are most likely to cite income inequality at the top of the list. That issue dominated this year’s debates among Democrat Party presidential hopefuls. The perceived problem is unfairness in sharing the national wealth. It is assumed that somehow the hidden machine that produces national wealth will continue to function on its own. The golden goose will keep laying eggs; thus, we need to spread more around for everyone.

The reality that the incoming Biden administration will confront is that our trajectory is not sustainable. Today’s concerns about redistributing wealth will give way to worries about how to create wealth in the first place.

The most telling piece of data published over the last 12 months appeared last week, without attracting any comment: for the first time on record, the U.S. dollar no longer was the dominant currency in international payments, according to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT). More transactions were conducted in euros. Eventually, China’s RMB will challenge the dollar as well.

This matters because the dollar’s status as the main global-reserve currency gives the U.S. trillions of dollars of cheap loans from the rest of the world. Central banks held $7 trillion in dollar reserves as of June 30, 2020, mostly invested in U.S. Treasury securities, and private companies hold many trillions more to pay for trade in goods and services.

https://www.businessinsider.com/barr-knew-hunter-biden-tax-probes-months-before

Attorney General William Barr knew about two criminal investigations into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings for months before the US general election but kept them from the public, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The news is a remarkable twist in Barr’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s attorney general, during which he repeatedly took steps to benefit the president and feed into his conspiracy theories.
According to The Journal, Barr knew about the Biden tax investigations since at least the spring but tried to keep them under wraps in accordance with Justice Department rules meant to keep prosecutors from taking overt investigative steps that could affect the outcome of an election.
The Journal’s report is likely to infuriate Trump, who has been frustrated with Barr in recent months and came close to firing him on several occasions before aides talked the president out of it.

Attorney General William Barr knew for months about two investigations into Hunter Biden’s financial activity but worked to shield them from the public, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

The news is a remarkable twist in Barr’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s attorney general, during which time he repeatedly took steps to aid the president and feed into his talking points about the Russia investigation, the Obama administration, and the 2020 election.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/pen_america_mocks_1st_amendm

On Saturday, I received an email from Stephen Fee, the Communications Director for PEN America, alerting me to a virtual gala celebration on December 8 to honor Barack Obama with its 2020 Voice of Influence Award.

Among other topics, Obama will share with the PEN audience how “disinformation — and media outlets willing to spread it — are an immediate threat to democracy.” PEN’s mission, so they tell us, is “to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.”

Is this a hoax? Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize more than he deserves this award. A report released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in October 2013 showed that only in Bizarro World would Obama merit such an honor.

In the way of background, a group of foreign journalists founded the CPJ in 1981 to protect their colleagues around the world from harassment by authoritarian governments. The CPJ is not exactly part of the much-bruited “right-wing noise machine.” Au contraire!

Over the years the CPJ board of directors has included any number of liberal luminaries, among them Christiane Amanpour, Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Clarence Page, and even serious leftists like Victor Navasky, longtime editor of the Nation. The principal author of the report was Leonard Downie, Jr., former executive editor of the Washington Post. In the opening paragraph of the report, Downie sliced right to the heart of the issue:

In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. An “Insider Threat Program” being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues.