RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/04/if-the-hunter-biden-story-was-irrelevant-why-was-it-censored/

At the University of Chicago’s “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference this week — a “how to” discussion, apparently — the Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum was asked about the use of the “disinformation” charge as a pretext for suppressing news. Specifically, the student was referring to the concerted effort by mass media, Big Tech, and government to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story to protect Joe Biden.“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop is I think it’s totally irrelevant,” she responded. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation. . . . I didn’t think Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States.”

Someone might let the January 6 committee, which questioned Ivanka Trump for eight hours the other day, know that the actions of the president’s offspring are totally irrelevant. Applebaum believed questions about presidential kids were relevant during the Trump years. She shared dozens of them, and wrote her own piece about their alleged corruption. And when the Hunter story broke, Applebaum thought it relevant enough to note that the “amazing thing is that even the fraudulent claims about Hunter Biden are so much less bad than many genuine, fully-reported, well-known stories about Trump, his children and their business deals.”

My italics indicate a word that is a synonym of disinformation. That was Applebaum’s contention. Now that a Politico reporter, the Washington Post, and New York Times have all confirmed the veracity of the New York Post’s reporting (probably because that information is going to be revealed in some filing), suddenly the story is a mere distraction.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-politicizes-irs-internal-revenue-service-affordable-care-act-subsidies-families-tax-code-healthcare-biden-obama-11649337661?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

President Obama visited the White House Tuesday to support his successor’s attempts to expand ObamaCare. The big news is that the Biden White House has succeeded in convincing the Internal Revenue Service to propose a rule that would illegally extend insurance subsidies to people who are ineligible for them.

Mr. Obama’s presence at the White House was ironic given that the IRS’s proposed policy reverses its decision from a decade ago, when he was president. At that time, the IRS believed it had to follow the law as written. The reversal shows that the enforcement of the tax code has become deeply politicized. Through this rule, if finalized, the IRS will expand ObamaCare subsidies by billions of dollars a year beyond what Congress authorized.

At issue is whether an employer’s offer to provide health insurance to an employee’s dependents disqualifies those dependents from ObamaCare subsidies. The 2010 law created large subsidies for plans in the new exchanges—so large that lawmakers worried the fiscal cost would be untenable. Mr. Obama insisted that ObamaCare cost less than $1 trillion in its first decade. To meet that demand, Congress limited subsidies to people without access to Medicaid or an affordable employer plan.

The trick was determining affordability. ObamaCare based affordability on the cost of coverage for the employee alone. Both he and his dependents offered coverage are ineligible for subsidies if his premium payment for self-only coverage exceeds 9.6% of income.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/questions-media-hunter-biden-dad-andrew-mccarthy

At a 2020 debate, President Donald Trump tried to press his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, on an intriguing financial transaction: $3.5 million invested in a fund controlled by Biden’s son. Though Hunter Biden is better known for drug addiction and overall instability than business acumen, Elena Baturina, the widow of Yuri Luzhkov, longtime mayor of Moscow and confidant of Vladimir Putin, for some reason saw wisdom in pouring Russian money into a Hunter venture. 

If Biden had been the Republican in the race, Trump would not have had to raise the question. The media would already have been asking it incessantly. The animating question of the campaign would have been why, when President Barack Obama made his vice president the point-man on administration policy regarding such countries as Russia, Ukraine, and China, people connected to those notoriously corrupt regimes suddenly thought it expedient to pay Biden’s ne’er-do-well son millions upon millions of dollars.

But Biden was the Democrat in the race. The media-Democrat complex, far from haranguing him until he answered such questions, was sure to help him deflect. In fact, an establishment-friendly assortment of former intelligence officials baselessly floated the notion that damning data on a computer that patently belonged to Hunter might be Russian disinformation. The press dutifully ran with it. 

So, in response to Trump, Biden parroted the disinformation dodge, dismissed his opponent as a “clown,” and posed as if the Hunter questions were not worth dignifying with answers.

The tables have turned.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/04/06/judge-acquits-j6-protester-in-first-defeat-for-doj/

D.C. District Court Judge Trevor McFadden today delivered a major blow to the Justice Department’s aggressive prosecution of January 6 protesters. Following a bench trial this week for Matthew Martin, a New Mexico man charged with the most common misdemeanors related to the Capitol protest, McFadden found Martin not guilty on all counts. It is the first acquittal in a January 6 case; nearly 800 Americans have been arrested and charged, mostly on petty offenses, for their involvement in the four-hour disturbance that day.

Martin was arrested a year ago on four counts: entering and remaining in a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, violent entry, and parading in the Capitol building. Prosecutors confirmed he was in the building for roughly 10 minutes.

He pleaded not guilty and opted for a bench trial before McFadden, a Trump appointee. Taking the stand in his own defense, Martin said he was “waved” into the building by Capitol police. According to BuzzFeed’s Zoe Tillman, who is covering the in-person trials in Washington, an official for the U.S. Capitol Police testified that police “were so vastly outnumbered and couldn’t stop people [and] all they could do was observe [and] try to make sure no one got hurt.”

Calling Martin’s conduct “minimal and non-serious,” McFadden found it “plausible” that Martin was allowed into the building and did not realize the grounds were off-limits to the public.

McFadden’s ruling could impact pending cases and plea offers since a government witness confirmed for the first time under oath that police stood by as people entered the Capitol. The next trial for a January 6 defendant facing the same charges is scheduled for April 13 when Russell Dean Alford will appear before Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee.