RUTHFULLY YOURS

Remember the date: April 27, 2022

That’s when the mask came off the creaky Orwellian juggernaut that is the Biden Administration. 

The senile rictus disappeared and something far more threatening took its place. 

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell called the enforcement mechanism of his totalitarian propaganda regime the “Ministry of Truth.” Appearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, the ironically named Department of Homeland Security was slightly more subtle. 

Too many people have read Nineteen Eighty-Four. Calling a government-funded effort to suppress criticism of the regime the “Ministry of Truth” would cause people to worry and complain. Instead, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board.” 

No, I am not making that up. 

I sympathize with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who said he wondered whether this new assault on free expression was a “belated April Fools’ joke.”

Unfortunately, it’s not.  

Granted, it is as preposterous as an April Fools’ Day prank. So is its director, Nina Jankowicz, a 33-year-old anti-Trump hack, who is described—God help us—as an “internationally recognized expert on disinformation.” You can judge how expert by looking up her truly embarrassing videos on the subject (among many other subjects). 

So what will the Disinformation Governance Board actually do—besides, I mean, provide fodder for standup comics and incredulous commentators? In one sense, it is a little hard to say for sure since its actual duties and extent of its powers have yet to be spelled out.  

But one doesn’t need fine print to know that this new police force will have essentially two jobs.  

One job will be to suppress criticism. Former U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) is right. This is exactly the sort of thing, she told Fox News, one expects to see in dictatorships, not in free countries. The board, she said, amounts to a “department of propaganda” promulgated by a government that is afraid of its own people. Did someone discover that the president’s son had a laptop full of compromising, and probably criminal, information?  

https://pjmedia.com/columns/rabbi-michael-barclay/2022/04/30/nazi-comparisons-n1594179

A criminal is wrongfully killed, and “peaceful demonstrations,” which are actually violent riots, break out nationwide. The flag of a radical and violent group is placed next to the national flag on government buildings. Out of fear of being canceled and losing business, individuals and corporations succumb to publicly supporting this violent organization. Mandated behavior is compelled upon threat of arrest by the political elite and leadership. Despite objections from parents, schools begin teaching an alternative “history” and embrace prejudice, anti-Semitism, and sexual permissiveness as part of the school curriculum.

A President overreaches and takes on “emergency powers,” which create an authoritarian regime that demands supportive behavior and calls any criticism “disinformation.” A new agency of the government is created to “fight this disinformation”… an agency that even has access to armed personnel. This new agency is led by a fanatic who is arguably delusional in their own self-perception and fully committed to stopping the dissemination of any information that is not part of the authoritarian narrative. And through it all the media is a willing accomplice, even striking against other media outlets that try to present opposing views.

Sound like a brief recap of the recent past in this country?

The challenge is that this is actually a description of the development of the Nazi regime in Germany almost a century ago.

If this scares you, it should.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/05/new_york_trump_grand_jury_ends_not_with_a_bang_but_a_whimper.html

Two successive Manhattan District Attorneys, Cyrus Vance, Jr. and Alvin Bragg, have dug for dirt on Donald Trump, looking for something – anything – on which to indict him. And they have failed.

A six-month grand jury that was convened late last year to hear evidence against Donald Trump was set to expire this week, closing a chapter in a lengthy criminal investigation that appears to be fizzling out without charges against the former president, people familiar with matter said.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D), who took office in January, inherited a probe launched by his predecessor, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who was convinced that there was a case against Trump for crimes related to manipulating the value of property assets to secure tax advantages or better loan rates.

The grand jury was convened in November with a mandate to hear evidence against the former president. But the decision on whether to finish the presentation and ask the panel to vote on charges would ultimately fall on Bragg, who decided to pause the process, according to people with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss information that has not been declared publicly.

Nobody wants to be publicly associated with this disappointment for Trump-haters.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/darkest-day-yet-under-biden

DARKEST DAY YET UNDER BIDEN. The specter of recession and war settled over Washington on Thursday, on top of inflation that has already cut into the public’s standard of living and increased its worries about the future. It was, in short, a very bad day — one of the most concerning so far in the presidency of Joe Biden.

Many experts professed to be surprised by the news that the economy shrank by an annual rate of 1.4% in the first quarter of 2022. “Gross domestic product unexpectedly declined at a 1.4 percent annualized pace in the first quarter … the worst since the pandemic-induced recession in 2020,” the business network CNBC reported. “The negative growth rate missed even the subdued Dow Jones estimate of a one percent gain for the quarter.”

For his part, in the course of a single sentence, Biden tried to suggest that the drop was the result of “technical factors” while at the same time blaming events around the world — and, most importantly, not himself. “While last quarter’s growth estimate was affected by technical factors,” he said in a statement, “the United States confronts the challenges of Covid-19 around the world, Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and global inflation from a position of strength.”

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2022-4-28-another-progressive-policy-disaster-homelessness-in-san-francisco

Three and a half years ago, in November 2018, the good people of San Francisco enacted by a referendum called Proposition C a new special corporate payroll tax which would raise multiple hundred million dollars per year for the specific purpose of finally and once and for all solving the problem of homelessness. During the run-up to that referendum, in October 2018, I had two posts discussing Proposition C, the nature of the progressive thinking behind it, and its prospects for success. On October 26 it was “The Morality Of Our Progressive Elite”; and on October 30 it was “More On The Morality Of Our Progressive Elite.”

Toward the end of that second post, I posed this question: “[What are] the prospects that San Francisco’s new $300 million might actually reduce the population deemed ‘homeless’?” My answer was: “Right around zero.”

In the intervening three plus years, I have from time to time checked back to see how it was going with San Francisco’s great project to end homelessness. But up until now I haven’t been able to find good information. Among other issues, the implementation of the new tax was delayed for two years by litigation. However, the information drought on this subject has now ended. On April 26 the San Francisco Chronicle ran a big feature article on the subject, with the headline “Broken Homes” (behind paywall). On April 28, that article was then reviewed and commented on by Steven Hayward at PowerLine (“California’s Ongoing Suicide Attempt”), and by Erica Sandberg at the City Journal (“San Francisco’s Housing First Nightmare”).

And the answer is: The results are far, far worse than mere failure to reduce the population deemed homeless. Since 2018 San Francisco’s spending on the homeless has soared by approximately a factor of four. But meanwhile the number of people deemed homeless has increased by somewhere between 47% and more than 250% (depending on what data you believe for the number of homeless in SF back in 2017). And, at least if you accept the Chronicle’s current reporting, the conditions under which the homeless live have seriously deteriorated. It is an epic disaster of progressive public policy.

How could everything have gone so terribly wrong?