RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/520153-not-treason-not-a-crime-but-definit

President Trump did himself no favors with Wednesday’s ALL-CAPS tweet about how the latest disclosures from Director of National Intelligence (DNI) John Ratcliffe implicate President Obama, Vice President Biden and Hillary Clinton in a “TREASONOUS PLOT.” 

Ratcliffe has declassified and released handwritten notes by former CIA director John Brennan (undated, but probably from late July 2016) and a memo from the CIA to the FBI (dated Sept. 7, 2016). These documents corroborate Ratcliffe’s revelation, in a Sept. 29 letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, to wit: In late July 2016, Russian intelligence assessed that Mrs. Clinton approved her campaign advisers’ proposal to blame Moscow’s hacking of Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails on a conspiracy between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

Put aside Ratcliffe’s acknowledgement that, although U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Russian intelligence assessment is authentic, they cannot say with confidence that it is true. There is, after all, abundant evidence that the Clinton campaign blamed Trump for the Russian hacking of DNC emails that were published on the eve of the 2016 Democratic national convention. The Clinton campaign would not have done that unless the candidate authorized it.

That said, what is the crime?

Don’t get me wrong. I have argued for years that the real “collusion” in the 2016 presidential campaign was not between Trump and Russia — it was between the Clinton campaign and the Obama administration, which put its intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus in the service, first, of Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy and, ultimately, of the Democratic Party’s resistance to Trump’s presidency. This arrangement centered on a false political narrative that Trump and his campaign were complicit in Russia’s suspected hacking of Democrats’ emails.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

“The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.”James Madison (1751-1836)

We should forever be thankful for the brave and wise men who fought our revolution and created our government, between the years 1775 and 1789. They defeated the world’s foremost military power. Their experience with Parliament and the King made them wary of governmental power. They knew enough about human nature to recognize that power was an aphrodisiac. In February 1775, Alexander Hamilton wrote in “A Farmer Refuted:” “A fondness for power is implanted in most men, and it is natural to abuse it when acquired.” They recognized that warning applied to them – and their political heirs.

Later, looking back on those years, Madison, in the same speech quoted in the rubric above, spoke to the risks of different forms of government – that monarchies can become despotic and aristocracies may sacrifice the rights and welfare of the many to the demands of the few. In republics, he added, “the great danger is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.” It was because of the failings and risks of other forms of government, along with the fallibility of man, that the Founders created a government based on a written Constitution, which emphasized the natural rights of individuals that must be protected. It clearly stated that power would be diffused through three equal branches, with the legislative branch being bicameral – a lower chamber reflecting the population of the nation and a Senate representing each state equally. It further stated that powers not delegated to the federal government, nor prohibited by it, are reserved for the States or the people. Freedom for the individual came foremost; governmental abuse of power was the great internal risk.

In 1789, the federal bureaucracy consisted of employees in three departments – State, Treasury and War. Today, the Federal Register lists 454 departments, agencies and sub-agencies.  Excluding members of the military, approximately three million people are employed in the federal government, plus about four million federal government contract employees – the fastest growing segment of the federal workforce.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/is-there-a-doctor-in-the-house/91291/

Too bad there’s not a 25th Amendment-type clause in the Constitution granting to the cabinet the power to remove from office the Speaker of the House. That’s our reaction to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement that she is going to lead tomorrow in the House a discussion in respect of using the 25th Amendment against President Trump. She’s upset that he called off negotiations with her over a Covid relief bill.

It seems the speaker thinks that might have been a reaction to the steroid the president is taking for his case of the coronavirus. The Daily Mail is reporting that some doctors are concerned that it can cause insomnia, mania, mood swings, and rage. Then again, Congress itself has been known to cause in ordinary taxpayers insomnia, mania, mood swings, and rage. So this could yet turn out to be tomorrow quite a discussion.

Plus, one doesn’t have to be taking a steroid to see the logic of Mr. Trump calling off negotiations with the Speaker and her camarilla. Just read the Wall Street Journal, which issues what is, clinically speaking, the sanest editorial page in the Milky Way. It noted that the talks from which Mr. Trump withdrew were over a “ransom demand” for a $2 trillion “blowout” in new covid relief spending. Mrs. Pelosi would take nothing less.

That’s just crazy. Particularly since in order to get the $2 trillion, the Congress would have to borrow the money from the Chinese communists or other lenders. Or just have the Federal Reserve create it out of pixels (it would be borrowing 2 trillion dollars whose value has not been set by, in the Congress, the only body empowered to regulate the value of the dollar). Put that, as they say, in your 25th Amendment and smoke it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-wont-the-media-listen-to-these-scientists-11602013456?st=eb16j3x84nc3q0n&reflink=article_copyURL_share

This week dozens of esteemed medical experts with blue-chip academic credentials published a warning about the destructive policies adopted to address Covid-19. Since the Sunday publication of this “Great Barrington Declaration” more than a thousand biological scientists and more than 1,500 medical practitioners have added their names to the petition. Yet it’s been almost entirely ignored by the media outlets that spend much of their days presenting themselves as obedient to science.

Maybe this is because the accomplished group of scientists behind the declaration is refusing to obey political narratives. According to the petition:

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

The scientists go on to note that the poor are “disproportionately harmed” by current policies and that for children, “COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.” They add that the best approach “is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.”

This means that those “who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal,” including attending schools, going to restaurants, participating in sports and even gathering at public events. Meanwhile attention should be focused on protecting those most at risk. According to the scientists.

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/biden-surrogate-jane-fonda-calls-covid-gods-gift-to-the-left/

“I just think that COVID is God’s gift to the Left,” Fonda said. “That’s a terrible thing to say. I think it was a very difficult thing to send down to us, but it has ripped the band-aid off who [Trump] is and what he stands for and what is being done to average people and working people in this country.”

“What a great gift, what a tremendous opportunity, we are so lucky, we have to use it with every ounce of intelligence and courage and wherewithal we have,” she added.