RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/claim-trump-wont-leave-office-if-he-loses-

T here have been many “interesting times” in human history, even if there is actually no ancient Chinese curse wishing that we may live in them. On the contrary, had some sage conjured up a hex along the lines of “May you live in stupid times,” our time would fit perfectly.

One could have that reaction daily to many media reports. This week, my nominee is this one in the Washington Post: “Trump’s assault on election integrity forces question: What would happen if he refused to accept a loss?”

The premise is that the president is engaged in “relentless efforts to sow doubts about the legitimacy of this year’s election” by “escalating attacks on the security of mail-in ballots.” This is coupled with Trump’s refusal, a priori, to accept the legitimacy of the election outcome, echoing the position he took in the last presidential campaign — you know, before the same Democrats who feigned outrage over Trump’s demurral began four years of mulishly refusing to accept the outcome of the 2016 election.

The Post distorts the president’s refusal to rubber-stamp an election that has not happened yet — under circumstances where there is immense reason for concern about mail-in ballots — as a “refusal … to reassure the country that he would abide by the voters’ will.” Of course, Trump is not saying he won’t abide by the result; only that he won’t concede at this point that it will be an honest result. Recall that Richard Nixon abided by the result in 1960 even though there were grounds to doubt that it was on the up and up.

The Post’s cold sweats are amplified by William A. Galston, a columnist and former Clinton administration official who is with the strenuously anti-Trump Brookings Institution. He declaims that Trump is “undermining confidence in the most basic democratic process we have” and “arousing his core supporters for a truly damaging crisis.” Galston is so disturbed that, he informs us, “Words almost fail me.” Almost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YpfJgVZ5ow

https://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2020/02/06/the-unteachables-n2560821

Last week, I received a phone call from a professor who teaches in another department here at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington (UNCW), where I have taught for the past 27 years. He was reporting a case of possible discrimination, which resulted in a professor being denied tenure thus losing his livelihood very soon. When I received the call, I immediately began asking questions to assess the validity of his concern. After just a few questions, I came across some information that will shock the conscience of any clear thinking, rational individual.

By way of background information, professors at our university must pass through several hoops to get tenure after they are initially hired for a tenure-track position. The initial contract is only for a few years. If professors get reappointed, a few years later they have an opportunity to apply for lifetime tenure. But to get this tenure, they first have to get approval from a majority of the tenured professors in their department, their department chair, and their college dean. If applicants succeed at this, they face a final vote from the university-wide Reappointment, Tenure, and Promotion (RTP) Committee. Since every faculty member must pass through this committee, its chair is arguably the most powerful professor on campus.

In the case that was reported to me, the applicant had received all three initial approvals. But, then, the RTP committee chair rejected the application. When I learned this, I asked about who is currently on the RTP committee. That is when I learned that its chair is Dr. Kimberly Cook.

https://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2020/06/02/white-man-cant-breathe-n2

Cary Aspinwall and Dave Boucher are investigative reporters for The Dallas Morning News. They deserve a Pulitzer Prize for an article written last summer that apparently no one in America has read, which is why I am summarizing it here today. It was about a man named Tony Timpa who cried for help more than 30 times as Dallas police officers pinned his neck to the ground. Before he died, Timpa shouted repeatedly, “You’re gonna kill me!”

And kill him the police officers did. After Timpa became unconscious, the officers who had him cuffed assumed he was asleep. As the minutes passed, the officers joked about waking him up for school and making him waffles for breakfast.

Body camera footage shows first responders waited at least four minutes after Timpa became unresponsive to begin CPR. Even worse, the police officers pinned his handcuffed arms behind his back for nearly 14 minutes and zip-tied his legs together. Shortly after he was loaded onto a gurney and put into an ambulance, Timpa was pronounced dead.

This culminated an incident that began when Timpa called 911 from the parking lot of a Dallas porn store. He told a dispatcher he suffered from schizophrenia and depression and was off his prescription medication. Later, police incident reports falsely claimed Timpa’s behavior that night was aggressive. In stark contradiction, the police video shows Timpa struggling to breathe and asking the officers to stop pinning him down. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/democrats_have_completely_abandoned_civility.html

On July 20, Nancy Pelosi said that if President Trump refuses to accept the results of the November election, he will have to be “fumigated” out of the White House.  Fumigation is a technique used against insects, and the idea that human beings are insects has a long history in totalitarian discourse.  Hitler described Jews as “vermin” and “parasites,” a form of dehumanization that is always just one step away from physical violence.  Speaker Pelosi should apologize immediately, and profusely, for her use of this inappropriate rhetoric.

Most thoughtful persons would agree that labeling another an “insect” is uncivil.  A cultured individual who practices civility is tolerant of the opinions and beliefs of others, and indeed, toleration is the best measure of civility.  One may be a Catholic, but he practices tolerance toward other Christian and non-Christian forms of belief, even including atheism and agnosticism.  He may be a liberal, but he values the opinions of conservatives and treats conservatives with respect.

By this measure, Joe Biden and the radicals who now support him have not been civil.  Biden now expresses contempt for conservative policies before even considering their potential value.  So it was with President Trump’s pledge to buy American-made goods.  That pledge of “America First” drew harsh criticism from Biden and his party — until Biden stole the idea and made it part of his own platform.  Biden could not bring himself to admit that Trump was right.  That sort of contempt for another is the essence of incivility. 

Like most liberals, Biden’s contempt is all-encompassing.  In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., ultimately decided in Hobby Lobby’s favor by the Supreme Court, Biden sided with those who would force persons of traditional Christian faith to pay for employees’ contraceptives.  Indeed, it was Biden’s Affordable Care Act that forced Hobby Lobby to provide all twenty FDA-approved contraceptives to employees.  The Obama administration was intolerant of traditionalists when it wrote the contraceptive mandate into the Affordable Care Act, and Biden would only double down on this intolerance if he sought to restore the mandate to his “expanded” version of Obamacare.

Hobby Lobby was not an isolated case of liberal intolerance.  In every free speech case that arose during the Obama years, Biden seemed more than willing to force his opinions on others.