RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-healthy-tax-break-11562021565

By the left’s account you’d think the Trump Administration’s only ambition on health care is to rip insurance from the poor and sick. So note that a Health and Human Services rule finalized last month represents a dramatic expansion in health-care choices for those who may have limited insurance options.

The Trump Administration finished regulations expanding health reimbursement arrangements, often known as HRAs. The arrangements will allow an employer to give a worker tax-exempt dollars to buy a health-insurance plan in the individual market. Such arrangements have existed in some form since the early 2000s, but the Obama Administration used the Affordable Care Act to limit them.

The practical effect of the new rule is to extend the tax advantage for employer health care to individuals who purchase their own insurance. This would help to rectify an injustice in the tax code, which favors employer insurance. The better route economically would be to nix the employer tax exclusion, but Republicans in 2017 couldn’t even agree to nibble at the tax preference as part of doomed bills repealing and replacing ObamaCare. Alas.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/austin-goes-from-harmlessly-weird-to-dangerously-stupid-by-legalizing-camping-on-city-streets/

Austin has long been the weird, liberal capital of Texas. The rest of Texas just sort of shrugs and puts up with it. Austin is quirky. Austin is odd. Austin lives in its own little world. Austin is also home to some of the best live music joints anywhere and you have to work pretty hard to find a bad restaurant in the city, so it’s not without its charms. The joke about Austin is that it’s nice because it’s so close to Texas (its the capital, a deep blue dot surrounded by a vast red sea). Austin is like that oddball cousin we all have. He’s there. He picks his nose and argues with light posts. But he’s nice and basically no threat to anyone, so whaddyagonnado?

Well, Texas’ weird cousin just became a threat to itself and others.

On June 20, the Austin city council passed what has to be one of the dumbest, most nonsensical ordinances since the city’s last idiotic, nonsensical ordinance (they pass a lot of ‘em, bless their hearts).

The city council made it perfectly legal to camp out on the city’s public spaces and sidewalks, under bridges and overpasses and, well, everywhere all over town – except, notably, parks and Austin City Hall.

That’s right. The city council exempted themselves from seeing homeless campouts — let’s call them Adlervilles, after the esteemed Mayor Steve Adler — on their own front porch. Mayor Adler and his cohort deemed city hall camping out of bounds. But you, owner of the local cookie store or overtaxed home, will get to see and step over and around all manner of things right out in your yard 24-7 now. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/01/heres-republicans-ask-robert-mueller-testifies/

When Democrats heard last week that Robert Mueller would testify before the House judiciary and oversight committees on July 17, they were as giddy as a 72-year-old Jerry Nadler waiting to question Hope Hicks. But unless committee Republicans botch the hearing—something entirely possible—the left’s strategy of placing Mueller center stage in their continued attempts to underdo the results of the 2016 presidential election will backfire bigly.

Why? For the simple reason that Mueller’s 400-plus page report presented the worst the special counsel could muster against Trump, so any new revelations will play to the president’s advantage.

So, what should Republicans do to make the most of Mueller’s appearance, both politically and from an oversight perspective? Two things: (1) Leave the political grandstanding to the Democrats and (2) Ask the right questions.

While it might be tempting for Republicans on the Hill to speechify on the left’s continuing witch hunt or condemn the Democrats for wasting the committee’s time on a political stunt, the members on the right side of the aisle would be better served by approaching the hearings seriously. Republican committee members should let Trump score political points via Twitter and resist the urge to pose the “Sir, are you incompetent, or a political hack?” questions they may feel the special counsel deserves. Instead, conservatives should use their limited time to hit five key themes.

Mueller Found No Russia Collusion

https://amgreatness.com/2019/06/30/the-anti-trump-circus/

We are now in the fourth year of an anti-Trump mania, and about reaching the point of caricature.

The Left should have learned something after the failed celebrity appeal to undermine the Electoral College, the initial articles of impeachment, the empty invocations of the Logan Act, the Emoluments Clause, and the 25th Amendment, the 22-month, $35 million Mueller investigation deflation, the periodical silly “bombshell” announcements of perennially wrong and comical Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the pathetic palace coup attempt of Andrew McCabe, the assassination chic from the likes of Madonna, Snoop Dogg, or Kathy Griffin, or the deification of the slimy prophet Michael Avenatti.

Not at all. An entire new cast of carnival characters has arrived on the scene to take up where the now imploded Left off. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) has replaced Schiff in the unhinged congressional investigative limelight. In his latest hearing, Nadler obtusely insisted on addressing former Trump White House aide Hope Hicks as “Ms. Lewandowski.” Even Democrats were puzzled—given that Nadler’s supposed “slip of the tongue” was repeated three times until Hicks finally corrected him.

Even in the age of gender transitioning and speech reduced to Twitter-like grunts, sane people still do not confuse the four-syllable name of the male Lewandowski as some sort of homophone for the one syllable name of the female Hicks.

Was Nadler in tawdry fashion then trying repeatedly to traffic in stale and unfounded rumors that the married Lewandowski had had an affair with Hicks? In the age of #MeToo was the enlightened feminist Nadler implying that Hicks was somehow the sexually compromised tool of the former controversial Trump aide? Or was he so unhinged in his hatred of the president to the point of conflating his make-believe enemies into some sort of composite delusionary specter? Did a Republican committee member ever repeatedly address witness Lisa Page as “Ms. Strzok”? That “slip of the tongue” or “confusing”of two one-syllable names at least would have been fueled by a real and substantiated affair.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274178/antifa-thugs-brutalize-journalist-andy-ngo-matthew-vadum

Independent journalist Andy Ngo, known for documenting Antifa’s violence, was himself assaulted by members of the radical leftist group June 29 in Portland, Oregon.

The Quillette editor and photojournalist suffered a brain hemorrhage that required him to stay in a hospital overnight, Quillette reports.

The day before the assault, Ngo tweeted his anxieties about covering the June 29 demonstration.

“I am nervous about tomorrow’s Portland Antifa rally. They’re promising ‘physical confrontation’ & have singled me out to be assaulted. I went on Tucker Carlson last year to explain why I think they’re doing this: They’re seeking meaning through violence.”

According to Quillette, “[t]he scene was captured by local reporter Jim Ryan, whose video can be accessed at the link below.”

Quillette offered a warning to potential viewers of the video:

We caution readers that it is an unsettling spectacle—by which we mean not only the violence itself, but the unconstrained glee this pack of mostly young men exhibit as they brutalize a journalist whom they’d spent months demonizing on social media, and whom they’d explicitly singled out for attack.

The attack on Ngo is yet another reminder that the totalitarianism-loving domestic terrorists of Antifa, who call themselves anti-fascist activists, are the real fascists in today’s America because, among other things, they use violent tactics pioneered by the real-live fascist storm-troopers of Weimar Germany, the Sturmabteilung (SA). These Antifa goons opposed the Nazis but eagerly copied their tactics, using their fists to shut down political opponents and break up meetings and rallies. Some Antifa today even dress like Nazis, wearing black and red, the anarchist colors which traditionally have also been used by Nazis.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-lie-of-portlands-anti-fa/

There was a time when “anti-fascist” meant what it said. People who opposed fascism called themselves “anti-fascists.” But then the term slipped. The definition of “fascist” became hazy from over-use and so the term “anti-fascist” also began to move. This might seem to be a theoretical matter. But it is one that ends up encouraging and condoning horrific scenes like those in the center of Portland on Saturday.

For some time, self-described “anti-fascists,” or Antifa, have been finding spurious and imaginary reasons for demonstrating in the city. Though these are less like demonstrations than carnivals of civil disobedience, violence and intimidation. One of the very few journalists to have taken an interest in the repeated shutting down of the city center by these groups has been the young journalist Andy Ngo. Despite the police apparently regularly handing over the city to Antifa to do what they want, there has been relatively little coverage of this whole story in the mainstream press. And despite being repeatedly hounded and intimidated by anti-fa, on Saturday Ngo once again went to cover events in Portland.

This time, Antifa went even further than they have before, with several of their number assaulting Ngo, stealing his equipment, and repeatedly smashing his face with weapons and projectiles. It appears that the Portland police once again stood by and allowed this to happen.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/antifa-fascists/

George Orwell, writing in 1944:

[W]hen we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or Japan or Mussolini’s Italy, we know broadly what we mean. It is in internal politics that this word has lost the last vestige of meaning. For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set of people — certainly no political party or organized body of any kind — which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years…

A copious list then follows.

Orwell:

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless.

But:

Even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.

And the way that penultimate sentence could apply to the vicious assault on journalist Andy Ngo is all too obvious.

In the course of a fine post earlier today on this Corner, Douglas Murray observed:

There was a time when “anti-fascist” meant what it said. People who opposed fascism called themselves “anti-fascists.” But then the term slipped. The definition of “fascist” became hazy from over-use and so the term “anti-fascist” also began to move.

Orwell would agree.

But then Douglas goes on to write this:

Second, anyone in any doubt over who the fascists and the anti-fascists are today should watch the footage of Ngo being attacked. Might the fascists be the thugs who wear face masks in the middle of the day in an American city and carry out mob assaults on journalists?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/jun/29/andy-ngo-beaten-up-by-antifa-activists-at-portland/

An Oregon photojournalist who covers Portland’s frequently violent protest scene was taken to the hospital Saturday after being attacked by black-masked antifa activists.

Andy Ngo, an editor at the online platform Quillette, said he was struck on the head and face “multiple times” by antifa protesters, who also threw objects and a milkshake at him as he tried to walk away.

The attack, recorded in part by the Oregonian and posted on Twitter, came during Saturday’s Rose City Antifa counter-protest against a rally held by the far-right group Proud Boys in downtown Portland.

Mr. Ngo had bloody cuts and bruises on his face, and his hair and shirt were covered with milkshake, as shown in a video he posted on Twitter shortly after the assault.

“I just got beat up by the crowd — no police at all — in the middle of the street,” Mr. Ngo said in the post. “And they stole my GoPro. And they punched me several times in my face and head, and I’m bleeding.”

Mr. Ngo, a right-leaning journalist who regularly films Portland’s protest activity, has written for the Wall Street Journal, National Review, RealClearPolitics and other publications.

Before the protest, Rose City Antifa had singled out Mr. Ngo in an online post promoting the “Community Self Defense Against Proud Boy Attack,” calling him a “[l]ocal far-right Islamophobic journalist.”

Video posts of Saturday’s clash showed a few dozen right-wing activists holding a rally while hundreds of counter-protesters marched in the street amid a heavy police presence.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/trump-must-fight-back-against-big-tech-corporate-control-or-risk-losing-a-winnable-election/

It comes as no surprise that Trump is constantly assaulted by the media, the Democrats, desultory members of his own party, the churches, the “Deep State,” late-night comics, the entertainment industry and by those euphemistically known as the “coastal elites.” After all, he is a member of that rare breed of political personage who put the nation before themselves; in other words, he is a principled president, which is anathema to the host of ideologues and sycophants who constitute the political class and the cultural establishment.

This has been the case since his early candidacy, continuing into the present moment in which his successes concerning the economy, trade, a refractory or hostile international community and border insurgency are regarded as errors of judgment or signs of personal hubris. Notwithstanding, just as Obama is correctly perceived by the more honest and astute observers on the current scene as the worst president in the history of the republic, intent on dismantling a great nation, Trump is seen by many as the best president since Reagan and among the best since Abraham Lincoln.

I would hazard that Trump actually won the popular vote in 2016 despite the reprehensible conduct of the Democrats whose electoral numbers arguably owed much to the unscrupulous rigging of the voting process. Clearly, Trump did not win the dead vote, the multiple vote, the uncounted vote and the unreported vote, yet managed to triumph despite the odds. I have no doubt that he would succeed again, perhaps handily, in the coming election, once more proving the biased and conniving pollsters catastrophically wrong—but only assuming that he recognizes where the real threat to a second term is coming from.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-contradictions-of-john-roberts-11561676526

Chief Justice John Roberts is the Supreme Court’s new swing vote, and he’s proving he won’t be pinned down by the law or judicial philosophy. His decision to join the four liberal Justices on Thursday to block a citizenship question on the Census is wrong on the merits and threatens larger damage to the Constitution’s separation of powers.

The question in Department of Commerce v. New York was whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross acted within his purview in reinstating a citizenship question on the 2020 Census. That’s not the question the Court ended up deciding. Instead, the Chief held that although Mr. Ross acted lawfully, his motives appear to have been less than pure.

Congress has delegated to the Commerce Secretary broad discretion to conduct the Census “in such form and content as he may determine.” It’s indisputable that Mr. Ross had the legal authority to add the citizenship question. But Democratic states argued that he violated the Administrative Procedure Act by overruling Census Bureau bureaucrats who claimed the question could reduce response rates.

According to the states, a citizenship question could result in a population undercount that would reduce their federal funding and representation in Congress. They also claimed the question was motivated by racial animus toward Hispanics and intended to help Republicans gerrymander. There was scant evidence for either claim.

In a memo explaining his decision, Mr. Ross noted that the Justice Department had requested that the Secretary reinstate the citizenship question to gather more granular data to enforce the Voting Rights Act. The data could be useful in reviewing the make-up of majority-minority districts in which a majority of voters are members of a racial or ethnic minority.