RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectator.org/the-corruption-of-the-biden-administration-is-now-in-plain-sight/

EXCERPTS

Corruption has been around for a long time.

The problem is when we detach power from benevolent responsibility.

So, it should not be surprising that our government of the people, by the people, and for the people could and has at times become the playground of corrupt people. Even in the cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, an exceptional politician in any age, there was corruption. Carl Sandburg writes of how Rep. Thad Stevens complained that Secretary of War Simon Cameron was so dishonest that the only thing he wouldn’t steal was a red-hot stove. Cameron, of course, took offense, and Lincoln tried to calm things down by asking Stevens to retract. “All right,” goes a version of how Stevens replied, “I will retract. He would steal the stove, too.”

In the words quoted, Amos skewered the use of power to obtain sex as well as money. History confirms that this too is a proclivity of powerful people. Whether we speak of the constant parade of women through the bedchambers of such monarchs as Charles II of Britain or Louis XV of France, or of similar parades through the chambers of the Kennedy White House or of wherever Bill Clinton went, or the line of the powerful who flew on the Lolita Express, there is much evidence that power is a supreme aphrodisiac. In grimmer governments, force was used instead (which was made the object of very dark cinematic humor in the British masterpiece The Death of Stalin).

Implicit in Amos’ words is that there is an inevitable price to pay for tolerating corruption. Skilled politicians, adept at feeling the pulse of the people, lose their sharpness through their indulgences. As their corruption increases, competence decreases. Managing the many pretenses that hide its ill-gotten benefits takes up more and more time and energy. Lies need more lies to hide them and so the story keeps getting more and more complicated and less and less plausible. Leaks spring in the dike that quickly become controllable. The collapse can come very quickly.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/a-ghost-story?token=

EXCERPT

In the summer of 2020, George Floyd was killed by a white police officer, and Black Lives Matter protests erupted in cities all over the United States. I feel comfortable saying this now: I felt conflicted. I remember surrendering to the peer pressure to donate every single day, and to post receipts of those donations (like I was in trouble for something—oh yeah, being “white”). I remember my Instagram stories were just re-post after re-post of this, that and the other activist, of whom I had no background knowledge, but who I was told were the people to re-post. I’ve since unfollowed them all because all of them showed themselves to be antisemitic.

I was performing. I was absolutely performing. And I am not ashamed to admit it. I was so scared. I was still a hired freelance journalist, and I knew the impact of staying silent. Freelance writing isn’t a joke. You cannot pay rent if you offend people. So I kept a foot in the world of music writing, and with my paychecks, I splurged on bailing out protestors via GoFundMe pages, or whatnot. At least, I think I did. Who knows?

I remember that Lady Gaga’s album “Chromatica” came out within 48 hours of Floyd’s death, and there was an unspoken directive on Twitter that only BIPOC people were allowed to be joyous about this album release. It was for them and nobody else.

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-common-sense-problem?s=r

The Democrats are bleeding voters, particularly working class voters of all races. There are lots of reasons for this and I’ve written about some of them. One important throughline here is what we might call the common sense problem. As in, Democrats seem to have abandoned it in many areas. This helps explain why there hasn’t been a ”Trump disenchantment dividend” for the Democrats as the former President’s popularity has fallen and for that matter a “nutty GOP politicians” dividend as various Republican pols do and say fairly crazy things. Voters just aren’t sure the Democrats are that well-grounded either.

Awhile ago, I tried to codify some of voters’ common sense views and values into ten short statements to illustrate how Democrats are losing the plot relative to the median voter. I’ll go through some of them here with the aid of some new data demonstrating how widely this common sense is embraced by ordinary Americans in contrast to their rejection by woke liberal activists and some politicians associated with the Democratic party.

1. Equality of opportunity is a fundamental American principle; equality of outcome is not. Americans love equal opportunity! But lately more and more Democrats have embraced, implicitly or explicitly, the idea that we must equalize outcomes as well by emphasizing policies that promote “equity” as opposed to simple equality.

But Americans’ common sense is that opportunities should be made equal if they are not and then let people achieve as they will. There is no guarantee, nor should there be, that everyone will wind up in the same place.