RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/metoo-movement

History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” We don’t know for sure whether it was Mark Twain who came up with that bon mot, but it has proved useful enough to deserve a creator of that stature. It comes in particularly handy in times like these, when many seemingly unprecedented events turn out to have familiar echoes from the past.

Such is the case with the #MeToo movement. Extraordinary as this post–Harvey Weinstein moment may seem, it’s not the first time that American women have risen up to protest male misbehavior. During the nineteenth century, women were in the vanguard of reform movements dedicated to fighting licentiousness, most of it male, and much of it sexual. If you squint hard enough to blot out the Victorian archaisms, these #MeToo prototypes can yield considerable insight into today’s reckoning.

Sociopolitical movements like #MeToo have taken root in many parts of the world, but no soil has been quite as fertile for them as that of the United States. Alexis de Tocqueville was struck by this peculiarity of American life during his canonical visit in 1831. “Not only do [Americans] have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part,” he wrote, “but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small.” The Frenchman had a theory about the origin of this early form of community organizing: in a democracy, he suggested, where, unlike aristocracies, power was diffuse, individuals had to join together in groups to wield any influence over their social arrangements. Associations—particularly in the Northeast and the Midwest—were a civic by-product of America’s brand of equality, freed from feudal, hierarchical memory.

If the 26-year-old wunderkind noticed the role that women were playing in these democratic associations, he didn’t mention it. Yet women were the majority, as well as the most energized, of converts during the Second Great Awakening, and they brought their enthusiasm to great moral causes of the era, beginning with a battle against prostitution, a fact of collective life in those days. Ladies of the night were ubiquitous in ports where sailors and other male transients congregated; according to historian Stephen Mintz, as many as 10 percent of women in antebellum cities at least occasionally walked the streets. In an economy that had yet to create jobs for textile “mill girls” and telephone operators, the world’s oldest profession was one of the few available to single women without means. It was a more lucrative choice than the even more prevalent domestic service, though it was not unknown for servants themselves to freelance during free hours. During the Great Awakening, evangelical ministers denounced the practice, but it was their female congregants who turned the cause into a Tocquevillian movement: in 1834, they founded the Female Moral Reform Society in New York. Within a few years, the society had 400 chapters, mostly in northeastern and midwestern states.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/law-enforcement-update-on-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/

Law enforcement officials gave additional insight into Saturday’s shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in an afternoon press conference.

Pittsburgh public safety director Wendell Hissrich told reporters, “There were 11 fatalities as a result of the shooting incident” perpetrated by Robert Bowers, 46, of Pittsburgh. Hissrich added, “There were no children” among the victims.

“At 9:55 this morning,” Hissrich said, “calls were received at the Allegheny County Emergency Operations Center that an active shooter was inside the building.”

“Apparently, an initial contact between the subject and the officers occurred, injuring two of the officers. Two additional officers were injured during the altercation — those were SWAT officers,” he continued. “Multiple agencies responded to this incident this morning and without their courage, this tragedy would have been far worse.”

In addition to the 11 fatalities, there were six people injured, including four police officers, he said. That number does not include the suspect.

Pittsburgh police chief Scott Schubert said that he arrived at the scene shortly after the shooting. “Watching those officers run into the danger to remove people to get them to safety was unbelievable,” he said, noting that the injured officers and SWAT team members are in stable condition at area hospitals.

FBI Special Agent Bob Jones described the attack as the “most horrific crime scene I’ve seen in 22 years with the FBI.” Members of the Tree of Life synagogue “conducting a peaceful service in their place of worship were brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith,” he said. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/after-the-mail-bombs-1540595085?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=1&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

We suppose it was only a matter of time before the hyperpartisan forces now driving American politics overwhelmed the reality of events. With this week’s pipe bombs, that moment may have arrived.

The reality, previously known as the facts, is that for days this week public critics of President Trump received what appeared to be bombs in the mail. On Friday federal authorities arrested a Florida man, Cesar Sayoc, and charged him with crimes related to the mailed bombs. He appears to be a supporter of Mr. Trump.

By any measure, these packages represented a grave public threat. So it was astonishing, even by current standards, to see this threat degenerate immediately into the familiar and crude narrative of the Democrats versus Donald Trump. Congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi asserted in a joint statement, even after a calming presidential statement, that “the President has condoned physical violence and divided Americans.” A New York magazine headline online Friday read: “Trump’s party is the petri dish for diseased minds that grew Cesar Sayoc.”

On June 14 last year, James Hodgkinson—the left-wing mirror image of the apparently right-wing Cesar Sayoc—opened fire with a rifle into the Republicans’ Congressional softball practice. Two Capitol police shot him dead. Earlier, Hodgkinson had posted on Facebook: “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” Hodgkinson was an ardent supporter of Senator Bernie Sanders. We cite the Hodgkinson shooting not for the purpose of establishing moral equivalence between these two events, but to make clear that both came from the country’s extreme lunatic fringe.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/3-growth-if-we-can-keep-it-1540595205

Can economic growth from tax reform and deregulation stand up to the headwinds from higher interest rates, tariffs and perhaps a Democratic Congress? That’s the question we take away from Friday’s strong but somewhat disappointing report on economic growth in the third quarter. The answer isn’t obvious.

The Commerce Department reported that the economy grew at a robust 3.5% in the third quarter, a mild slowdown from 4.2% in the second. Consumer spending led the way with a 4% increase rooted in a tight job market and wage gains that have bolstered economic confidence. The economy has now grown by 3% over the last 12 months.

The U.S. economy hasn’t grown at 3% in a calendar year since 2005, and that is now achievable this year. Barack Obama has recently been claiming credit for this faster growth as he campaigns for Democrats, but that boast is right up there with his promise that if you like your health plan you can keep it.

It’s clear that the Republican policy mix of tax reform, deregulation and general encouragement for risk-taking rescued an expansion that was fading fast and almost fell into recession in the last six quarters of the Obama Administration. The nearby chart tells the story that Mr. Obama and his economists won’t admit. Soaring business and consumer confidence have been central to this rebound.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/andrew_mccabe_the_deep_state_henchman.html

The process by which the FBI and Department of Justice were corrupted into serving as political attack machines for the Democrats is finally coming into focus. In an article in The Hill that is today’s read of the day, a retired senior FBI executive puts together the evidence already on the record to offer a roadmap of how the politicization of these powerful bureaucracies was accomplished.

Kevin R. Brock, who is identified as “former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC),” sees Andrew McCabe as the point man, pulled up through the career bureaucracy of the bureau by his mentor, James Comey, who was, after all, an outsider political appointee in need of a henchman to implement his political machinations. Once Comey was fired, McCabe became the key figure leading the law enforcement branch of the Deep State’s resistance to Trump.

This is an article that deserves to be read in full, but here are a couple of tidbits to entice you, demonstrating the wit and experience that Brock brings to the subject.

According to FBI executives, Comey personally fast-tracked McCabe’s career into the deputy director position. McCabe was not happy that the president fired his boss and that Rosenstein provided the ammo.

Comey, who has urged America to vote Democrat, apparently liked what he saw in McCabe, who was overseeing the Clinton email investigation in the Washington Field Office, even though his wife, a Democratic candidate for Virginia Senate, had accepted over $1 million bundled together by longtime Clinton loyalist Terry McAuliffe for her campaign just two weeks prior to the 2015 election that she lost.

http://thefederalist.com/2018/10/26/know-suspected-package-bomb-sender-far/

A man has been arrested in connection to the packaged bombs sent to prominent Democratic leaders Friday morning. Authorities say DNA evidence linked 56-year-old Cesar Altieri Sayoc, of Florida, to the dozen packages with explosive devices sent earlier this week to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Joe Biden, CNN contributor John Brennan, among others, CBS news reports.

A van reportedly confiscated by the FBI that is believed to belong to Sayoc displayed numerous decals depicting targets on liberal leaders, including Clinton. Sayoc reportedly used to work as a stripper and “lived like a gypsy,” the Washington Examiner reported.

“He really couldn’t find his niche in life, and I guess he found it now,” Sayoc’s former employer Tony Valentine told the Examiner. “Back in the ’90s, he was running around from Minnesota to the Carolinas to Florida. He was like a gypsy.”

Sayoc is a registered Republican who has been arrested numerous times, including an arrest in 2002 for attempting to use a bomb. NBC News reports Sayoc was living out of his van and showering at the gym. A cousin of the suspect called him “a lost soul,” according to The Guardian.

“He’s been in the strip clubs since he was 22, that was his life,” the relative told The Guardian. “He was a male dancer and he wanted to be a wrestler. He was taking steroids. He was all buffed up….He was built like a rock.”

Democratic strategist Rochelle Ritchie claims Sayoc threatened her via Twitter after she appeared on Fox News.

https://spectator.us/bombgate-political-theatre/

Andrew McCarthy, writing in National Review Online a couple of days ago, was certainly correct that it would have been outrageous and irresponsible to have suggested, at that early juncture of this still-unfolding episode, that the pipe ‘bombs’ were hoaxes devised by leftist activists to make it appear that nebulous right wing activists are targeting famous critics of Donald Trump, from Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, all the way down the food chain to Senator ‘Spartacus’ Booker and Mad Maxine Waters.

But the fact that McCarthy’s column is titled ‘Why No One Trusts the Media’ tells you that his prudent restraint is redolent of that device rhetoricians denominate apophasis or praeteritio. ‘After all,’ quoth McCarthy, ‘there is no evidence that the atrocious but thankfully unsuccessful targeting . . . was carried out by political leftists. There is no proof that any Democrat was hoping to cast suspicion on Republican supporters, to suggest to voters, less than two weeks before the midterms, that Trump and GOP rhetoric incites violence. To intimate, in the absence of any proof, that left-wing agitators may be responsible would be a condemnable smear.’ And it is surely premature, not to say unjustified, to say that Mark Antony pimped his wife, had unnatural relations with Octavian, and is guilty of bribery, extortion, and desecration.

Here’s what we know as of Friday morning, October 26 2018, at about 10:30. A dozen, apparently make-believe bombs, none of which has detonated, and at least some of which could not be detonated, have been sent by nobody knows whom to an A and B list of prominent Trump haters. This has precipitated round-the-clock, flood-the-zone coverage. ‘Hundreds’ of journalists have signed a letter condemning President Trump’s ‘attacks on the press.’ CNN even ran a chyron referring to recipients of the fantasy bombs as ‘Trump’s targets.’ And a man in Florida called Cesar Sayoc has just been arrested in connection with the envelopes.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271751/chelsea-clinton-saving-planet-shorter-showers-daniel-greenfield

Don’t you care about the planet?

While you wallow lasciviously in your shower for a whole 5 minutes or 600 seconds, the noble heroes of the Left are sacrificing their shower time to save the planet.

Here’s a heartbreaking interview with Chelsea Clinton, possible presidential candidate in 2024.

Q. What changes have you made in the past five years in your family life to be environmentally conscious?

A. I’ve always recycled and used smart light bulbs and tried to take short showers. The things that seem small are the things that if we all did would make a profound impact.

And the really small things, like taking smaller private jets.

Chelsea Clinton opted to travel to a “clean energy” roundtable in this week in a private jet to campaign on behalf of her mother Hillary Clinton.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271753/non-functioning-bombs-and-double-standards-matthew-vadum

Political terrorism is almost exclusively the province of the Left in America, so naturally, conservatives find the timing of the delivery of non-functioning, vaguely scary-looking replicas of letter bombs this week to opponents of President Trump suspicious to say the least.

Remember that the Democratic National Committee has officially endorsed the violent Black Lives Matter movement and that more than a few Democrats support the Antifa terrorist movement. Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 running-mate, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), whose son Woody is an Antifa terrorist, said recently that Democrats need to “fight in the streets” against Republicans.

Intended recipients of the packages include former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former CIA Director John Brennan, former Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Trump critic and actor Robert DeNiro, and leftist billionaire George Soros, CBS News reports.

Some of those targeted are the worst purveyors of violent rhetoric targeting Republicans.

Hillary Clinton embraced violence against Republicans when she said Oct. 9, “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about. That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and/or the Senate that’s when civility can start again.”

So did Maxine Waters when she said June 23, “And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore anywhere”

Eric Holder said Oct. 10 that Democrats need to get physical with Republicans. “Michelle [Obama] always says ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No. No. When they go low, we kick them,” he said to a cheering crowd at a political rally.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/413019-president-trumps-war-on-federal-wa

Recently, President Donald Trump declared war on federal waste. The president pledged to cut spending and asked his agency heads to cut five percent of their budgets. It’s a great first step and an achievable goal.

Under the previous two administrations, the federal debt has tripled. The last Bush administration began with a $5.7 billion national debt and ended with $10.7 trillion. By the end of the Obama Administration, the debt had reached $19.5 trillion. Today, our national debt exceeds $21.5 trillion.

Economists differ on how much of a threat the debt poses to our economy. We share the view of President Obama’s chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen who said the debt is a our greatest national security threat. However, everyone can agree that misallocating tax dollars for activities that produce no benefit keeps tax rates artificially high and deprives investors and innovators of scarce capital.

Our recent investigations and oversight reports show that the president has a target-rich environment. Here is a small sample of our findings:

The federal government doled out more than $600 billion in grants last year; many produced little value for taxpayers. A $1.4 million grant funded sex-education for California prostitutes, another one studied “where it hurts the most to be stung by a bee.” And a $1 million grant sought to prepare religions for the discovery of extraterrestrial life. Lastly, NASA spent $2.5 million to produce “Space Racers,” an animated children’s cartoon. The American taxpayer paid for a $9.2 million grant to the airport on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Even America’s most elite universities and successful corporations received plenty of taxpayer subsidies. In a six-year period, the eight schools of the Ivy League received $22 billion in federal grants — despite having $120 billion amassed in their endowments. Over the last three years, Fortune 100 companies received $3.2 billion in grants. Boeing can’t argue it needed the $774 million in federal grants while reporting nearly $100 billion in annual revenue.