RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/inflation-a-long-way-to-go/

The news that the headline rate of inflation (CPI) had eased slightly (to 8.3 percent) was, of course, better than news that it had increased, but, like one of those days when the Entente reported having seized an extra hundred feet of mud on the Western Front in 1916, it was no real cause for celebration.

As AP’s Christopher Rugaber noted:

Wednesday’s report contained some cautionary signs that inflation may be becoming more entrenched. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, so-called core prices jumped twice as much from March to April as they did the previous month. The increases were fueled by spiking prices for airline tickets, hotel rooms and new cars. Apartment rental costs also kept rising.

I can see how the surge in the cost of airline tickets might ease after a while but, given how rising home prices take a while to percolate through to “shelter” costs for the purposes of the CPI, that’s one area (I reckon) that will not be showing slower increases any time soon.

Rugaber:

In April, a fallback in gas prices helped slow overall inflation. Nationally, average prices for a gallon of gas fell to as low as $4.10 in April, according to AAA, after having spiked to $4.32 in March. But since then, gas prices have surged to a record $4.40 a gallon.

Grocery prices, too, are still soaring, in part because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened the cost of wheat and other grains. Food prices rose 1% from March to April and nearly 11% from a year ago. That year-over-year increase is the biggest since 1980.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-whistleblowers-claim-agents-investigated-parents-accused-of-threatening-school-boards-over-mask-policies/

House Judiciary Committee Republicans claimed in a letter on Wednesday that the FBI conducted investigations into Americans based on allegations that they threatened local school boards, citing whistleblowers from the agency.

The FBI’s counterterrorism bureau reportedly created an internal “threat tag” in fall 2021 to track alleged threats against school boards following an October 4 directive from Attorney General Merrick Garland. Garland released his directive after the National School Boards Association called on the Biden administration on September 29 to investigate parents who allegedly threatened boards over policies on school masks and critical race theory, and to determine whether the parents had violated the Patriot Act or hate crimes laws. (The NSBA subsequently apologized for releasing the letter.)

The FBI labeled “dozens” of investigations with the threat tag “EDUOFFICIALS,” Representatives Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) and Mike Johnson (R., La.) claimed in their new letter on Wednesday, citing FBI whistleblowers. Jordan and Johnson wrote that the new revelations contradicted Garland’s congressional testimony denying that parents were intentionally targeted under counterterrorism procedures.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18528/patriotism-music

It should come as no surprise that some of the most heartfelt music about our nation was penned by an immigrant, Irving Berlin. His biography reports that he was born Israel Baline in a Siberian Jewish village. After it was attacked by an anti-Semitic mob, his family realized America was their only hope, settling in Manhattan’s Lower East Side in search of opportunity but — more important — freedom.

Few know America’s exceptionalism better than those who have borne witness to the deprivations of other lands.

When one considers Berlin’s lyrics the reader can appreciate why many call it America’s unofficial anthem.

God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with the light from above
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
God bless America, my home sweet home

Berlin knew why he was writing lyrics from his American soul. He is quoted as stating, “My ambition is to reach the heart of the average American……..the real soul of the country….”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/bidens-racial-preferences-gone-wild/

Despite a century of Supreme Court decisions that forbid discriminating on the basis of race, 140 federal agencies plan to do just that.

In April, the Biden administration powerfully signaled that it will not be constrained by the Constitution or federal law as it implements its “whole-of-government” executive order to embed “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) in all aspects of federal-government policies and American lives.

In 2021 the administration amplified its initial executive order with a second order on DEI in the federal workforce, a government-wide strategic plan, and a Gender Equity Plan that paints a dystopian picture for American women and, like the administration’s other DEI plans, focuses on people of color and members of the LGBTQI+ community. The American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the infrastructure bill included billions to advance equitable outcomes for restaurant owners, farmers, small businesses, homeowners, and construction companies that are denied, depending on the program, to straight white males, other whites, and Asian Americans.

More than once, the Supreme Court has observed that “distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people” (e.g., Rice v. Cayetano [2000] and Hirabayashi v. United States [1943]). As Chief Justice John Roberts has noted, using racial discrimination to undo racial discrimination doesn’t work; rather, “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” (Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 [2007]). In Shaw v. Hunt (1996), the Court put it directly: “Racial classifications are antithetical to the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in federally funded programs, and Title VII does the same in private employment. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 has been construed generally to prohibit the federal government from varying individual property and contract rights based on race or color. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court recently extended these protections to gender identification.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/05/abortion-polls-are-garbage/

Media outlets do everything they can to obfuscate the issue and protect Democrats. It’s obvious in the questions they ask.

With the leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion by Samuel Alito overturning Roe v. Wade, the media have gone into hyperdrive trying to obscure the real contours of the debate. One of the most obvious ways they do it is by highlighting politically motivated surveys and conducting push-polling.

Take Politico’s recent Morning Consult poll, which informs us that 53 percent of voters say Roe should not be overturned. Even among Republican voters, only 48 percent support overturning Roe. First of all, who cares? It’s a completely irrelevant query, really. The court exists not to care what polls tells them. And, really, on what constitutional grounds do these 53 percent of Americans maintain the decision should be upheld? There is tons of evidence illustrating that, other than in the broadest terms, most Americans have no idea what Roe entails.

If you want to delve into the topic, a more far more worthwhile line of inquiry would be: “Do you believe the issue of abortion should be a protected constitutional right, or should voters be able to decide the issue on a state level?” This properly lays out the reality of choices that voters face. And I suspect the numbers would look quite different when the issue is framed properly. But, of course, that would mean informing those being questioned that overturning Roe doesn’t necessarily mean an abortion ban. That would be inconvenient.

The Morning Consult poll also finds that 41 percent of voters say it is “very important” for them to vote for a candidate in the 2022 midterms who supports “abortion access.” Every Republican-led law that’s been enacted on the issue of abortion in recent years, including the Mississippi bill that sparked the Dobbs case, provides “access” to abortion. Maybe some future bill won’t, but these do. Do you think those 41 percent understand this reality — one that is purposedly obscured by the question? I don’t.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/11/theyre-not-insane-they-have-a-plan/

What has happened to politics in America? I know we should never look to Hollywood for sagacity or nuanced political analysis, but things are out of control. Do you remember the TV show “Beauty and the Beast”? Or the original “HellBoy” movie? Ron Perlman starred in both and made a name for himself over the years play-acting tough guys. He seems to have forgotten it was all make-believe and that he’s only an actor. 

In the reaction he posted online to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signing a bill to prevent the systematic sexualization of children in Florida, Perlman ranted in an expletive-laden tirade like a character out of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” And it’s not just actors who have lost the plot. 

In response to the eminently reasonable law, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a former cop who should know better, has spent taxpayer dollars on billboards in Florida to lure gay Floridians to move to New York. He seems to think homosexual Americans should love high taxes and skyrocketing crime rates. 

Is it just deranged thespians and virtue-signaling politicians who have been driven mad? Not quite. The ideological infection has spread all the way to the White House, with outgoing White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki breaking down at the prospect of the excellent Florida Bill becoming law. 

I could go on. Just consider the organized indoctrination in our schools by delightful teachers parading their trans agenda on TikTok. But at least the lunacy can’t affect the real world that you live in, where 2 + 2 = 4. The empirical world of real jobs, free markets, and concrete bottom lines will remain apart from this nonsense, right? Wrong. Thanks to the investigative journalism of Christopher Rufo, we now have internal videos from one of the biggest for-profit, capitalist entities in the world, the Walt Disney Co. These videos show their perverse agenda to sexualize their young viewers.  

Where did this all come from, and what do we do about it? Well, as with most diabolical movements in Western Civilization today, the radical transgender project can be traced back to the Frankfurt School of neo-Marxists. Whether it’s environmentalism, globalism, open-borders policies, or just systematic anti-Americanism, it can usually be traced back to that motley crew of malcontents. 

Transgenderism itself is particularly rooted in something called “queer theory,” the best analysis of which can be found in Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay’s crucial work Cynical Theories.  In it, using the works of key postmodernists, we learn that: “Queer Theory is a political project [designed] to challenge what is called normativity—that some things are more common or regular to the human condition.” If it’s normal, if it’s morally sound, if it’s traditional, it must be challenged and eventually overturned. 

https://amgreatness.com/2022/05/11/imagine-the-unimaginable/

Americans are now entering uncharted, revolutionary territory. They may witness things over the next five months that once would have seemed unimaginable.

Until the Ukrainian conflict, we had never witnessed a major land war inside Europe directly involving a nuclear power.

In desperation, Russia’s impaired and unhinged leader Vladimir Putin now talks trash about the likelihood of nuclear war. 

A 79-year-old Joe Biden bellows back that his war-losing nuclear adversary is a murderer, a war criminal, and a butcher who should be removed from power. 

After a year of politicizing the U.S. military and its self-induced catastrophe in Afghanistan, America has lost deterrence abroad. China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia are conniving how best to exploit this rare window of global military opportunity. 

The traditional bedrocks of the American system—a stable economy, energy independence, vast surpluses of food, hallowed universities, a professional judiciary, law enforcement, and a credible criminal justice system—are dissolving.

Gas and diesel prices are hitting historic levels. Inflation is at a 40-year high. New cars and homes are unaffordable. The necessary remedy of high interest and tight money will be almost as bad as the disease of hyperinflation.

There is no southern border.

Expect over 1 million foreign nationals to swarm this summer into the United States without audit, COVID testing, or vaccination. None will have any worry of consequences for breaking U.S. immigration law.

Police are underfunded and increasingly defunded. District attorneys deliberately release violent criminals without charges. (Literally 10,000 people witnessed a deranged man with a knife attack comedian Dave Chappelle on stage at the Hollywood Bowl last week, and the Los Angeles County D.A. refused to press felony charges.) Murder and assault are spiraling. Carjacking and smash-and-grab thefts are now normal big-city events.  

Crime is now mostly a political matter. Ideology, race, and politics determine whether the law is even applied.