RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/14/the-real-rising-extremism-in

As the adage goes, “Accuse your opponents of that which you are guilty.” Avoid the blame, or embarrassment, for your own vices by first declaring that your enemies are guilty of those same ills so that the disgust and attention are shifted away from you.

The American Left has all but mastered this tactic, having successfully accused the Republican Party—and the Right as a whole—of being bigoted, sexist, racist, and the like, while completely erasing the Democratic Party’s history as supporters of slavery, against women’s suffrage, and in favor of segregation and Jim Crow. Their dramatic switch came only when it was politically expedient for them to attempt it, as Lyndon Johnson understood with his infamous (private) declaration before signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (For those who aren’t aware . . . let’s just say Johnson had a blunt way of declaring that African-Americans would be loyal to Democrats for the next two centuries.)

But this tactic has never before been used so liberally (pardon the pun) as it is used today, where just about every person to the right of Joseph Stalin is “literally Hitler,” anyone who voted for Trump (if even reluctantly) is “alt-right,” and anyone who opposes open borders, multiculturalism, and globalism is “far-right.” Everyone from libertarians to Christians is part of some kind of fringe, although the definition of “fringe” now encompasses the bulk of the cloth.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/14/the-silencing-of-the-inspectors

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, an Obama Administration appointee, is scheduled to deliver a report this week on DOJ and FBI abuses during the 2016 campaign cycle. Remember: His last investigation of FBI misconduct advised a criminal referral for fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who allegedly lied to federal investigators.

McCabe and at least a half-dozen other FBI employees quit, retired, were fired, or were reassigned as a result of fallout from the politicization of the FBI. Yet, as Barack Obama left office, his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, strangely boasted that the Obama Administration “has been historically free of scandal.” Obama himself recently concluded of his eight-year tenure, “I didn’t have scandals.”

Those were puzzling assertions, given nearly nonstop scandals during Obama’s eight years in office involving the IRS; General Services Administration; Peace Corps; Secret Service; Veterans Administration; and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not to mention the Clinton email server scandal, the Benghazi scandal and the 2016 Democratic National Committee email scandal.

For nearly eight years, the Obama Administration sought to cover up serial wrongdoing by waging a veritable war against the watchdog inspectors general of various federal agencies.

In 2014, 47 of the nation’s 73 inspectors general signed a letter alleging that Obama had stonewalled their “ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/strike-down-obamacare-says-justice-department-1528931393

Twenty states have filed a lawsuit against the federal government arguing that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional—and this time the federal government agrees. When the Justice Department filed a brief last week taking the states’ side, critics furiously insisted that the failure to defend ObamaCare is a threat to the rule of law. Don’t be moved by selective outrage. This refusal to defend is actually more restrained than President Obama’s. And, as before, the courts will decide the ultimate questions.

The new lawsuit, filed in February, arises from a change in the law. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed the penalty for failing to purchase health insurance, while leaving in place language to the effect that doing so is mandatory. In 2012 Chief Justice John Roberts held that the individual mandate could pass constitutional muster only by being construed as a tax. Now that the tax is gone, the plaintiff states argue, the mandate must be considered an attempt to regulate commerce. As such, it’s unconstitutional under the views of a five-justice majority in the 2012 case.

The states further argue that other ACA provisions are inextricably linked with the mandate—a view with which four dissenters agreed in 2012 (and on which Chief Justice Roberts has not expressed an opinion).The Justice Department’s filing turns not on some independent executive judgment about the ACA but on a straightforward interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2012 precedent. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions informed Congress of the decision not to defend the ACA, he emphasized that the department’s decision will not prevent the courts from ultimately having the last word on the constitutional question. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fbis-document-blackouts-1528931262

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray want Congress to trust them about the FBI’s actions in 2016. That would be easier if not for daily proof that they continue to play games when redacting documents.

Senate oversight Chairman Ron Johnson exposed the latest unjustified blackouts in a June 8 letter to Mr. Wray. The Wisconsin Republican is one of several Chairmen objecting to the FBI’s excessive redactions and its refusal to even supply the standard “log” with justifications for each redaction. Under pressure, Justice grudgingly invited Johnson staffers to review some documents in late May.

Those sessions revealed that the bureau is redacting in a way that stymies Congress’s ability to run down leads in its oversight of the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump investigations. Notably, Justice and the FBI have been redacting names or initials of employees involved in handling those cases. This frustrates Congress’s ability to seek more information or interviews with those individuals.

One initial batch of documents contained an Oct. 11, 2016 text message from FBI official Peter Strzok to his FBI paramour Lisa Page. It read: “Currently fighting with”—while the rest was redacted. The unredacted version reads: “Currently fighting with Stu for this FISA,” which may be a reference to the warrant the FBI obtained to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Who is Stu and what was that fight? Congress has a right to know.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/06/13/moms-to-daughters-dont

The case of Ali Watkins offers mothers an opening to have an uncomfortable yet necessary conversation with their daughters:

Don’t sleep your way to the top.

One would think in this #metoo, female empowerment, equal pay, don’t-even-tell-me-my-dress-is-pretty climate of workplace taboos, that conversation would be unnecessary. Twentysomething women and their successors have been programmed to be independent of men—especially white, older men. Our daughters’ internal soundtrack is a nonstop loop of Katy Perry tunes and Hillary Clinton speeches: “I’m With Him” just doesn’t have the same appeal.

So, it’s surprising to discover that young liberal women are still getting ahead the old-fashioned way. And not only is this behavior accepted, it is rewarded by the same news media overlords who have fueled the gender wars; boasted about their fealty to women in the workplace; and ridiculed powerful men preying on ambitious young women.

Web of Deceit
Ali Watkins, 26, is aNew York Times reporter mentioned in a federal indictment handed down last week against a former staffer for the congressional committee who is investigating the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy. James Wolfe, 58, was the head of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee until last December; his main job was to protect classified information.

While Watkins was a college intern at a D.C. news organization, the two started having an affair that lasted more than three years. Wolfe was interviewed by federal officials as part of the FBI’s ongoing investigation into criminal leaks of classified information to the media. When he was asked about his relationship and contact with Watkins and other reporters, he lied. He is now charged with three counts of making a false statement to a government agency.

http://goudsmit.pundicity.com/21275/the-humanitarian-hoax-of-convenient-google
http://lindagoudsmit.com

The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Convenience is prioritized in 21st century life. Electronic devices that communicate with each other are marketed with the flattering descriptor “Smart” devices. Futuristic Smart Homes feature everything Smart from appliances, lighting, heating, air conditioning, TVs, computers, entertainment audio & video systems, security, and camera systems that can communicate with each other and be operated remotely from any location in the world by phone or Internet.

So, how smart is it to have a Smart Home? That depends upon how much you value your privacy and how smart you think it is to allow your metadata to be collected and possibly sold to a third party. Just in case you are wondering whether or not the convenient devices you’ve plugged in are collecting data on you – they are. Kashmir Hill and Surya Mattu reported on an experiment they did in a 2.8.2018 article for Gizmodo titled “The House That Spied on Me.”

https://www.city-journal.org/html/philosophy-expedience-15961.html

Judicial appointments have proved the most successful aspect of the Trump presidency. Neil Gorsuch has begun where Antonin Scalia left off—as a committed originalist and eloquent textualist. Twenty-one appellate justices have been confirmed, a record at this point in a modern President’s term. And, like Gorsuch, these appointees have been schooled in formalist methodologies of judging. Confident of and committed to their judicial philosophy, they will not shift leftward, as have many Republican appointees in the past. These judges are the fruit of institutions like the Federalist Society and of the work of scholars who have carefully formulated the ideas of originalism and textualism. The Left is enraged because the Trump judges will leave their mark for at least a generation. Thus a group, Demand Justice, has been formed to spend millions to assail the Trump appointees and tout progressive judges for the future.

But however much money they spend, judicial progressives face an existential difficulty: the Left has no philosophy of jurisprudence to compete with originalism. Yes, progressives embrace a familiar set of specific legal positions tied to their agenda. They believe that Citizens United—the case that gave corporations the same right to speak at election time as the media—is an abomination. They believe that the Constitution’s enumeration of powers does not prevent the federal government from regulating anything that it wants to regulate. They believe that progressive programs, be they Obamacare or antidiscrimination law, should never yield to claims of religious liberty, and that discrimination is generally fine, so long as it favors minorities—and majorities, too, as long as those are women.

In answering a question about the Supreme Court in a presidential debate with Trump, Hillary Clinton characteristically subordinated law to a grab bag of progressive policy objectives. “I feel that at this point in our country’s history, it is important that we not reverse marriage equality, that we not reverse Roe v. Wade, that we stand up against Citizens United, we stand up for the rights of people in the workplace.” In contrast, Trump provided a general legal standard based on a principle: “Interpret the Constitution the way the Founders wanted it interpreted.” This is a rough but handy description of originalism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/a_glimpse_inside_george_soross_open_society_foundations.html

If you wake up with a spearmint-fresh brain that hasn’t read a magazine, seen a newscast or exchanged what’s been happening, you could be excused for being charmed and seduced by the programs offered by the Open Society Foundations, a “rights” organization that bills itself as a grant-making association formed by billionaire George Soros in 1993.

Materials available at the entrance to his Open Society building lobby assert that Soros is one of the world’s biggest philanthropists, having given away, his materials say, over $32 billion. Recipients of his international meddling would have other nomenclatures for this.

Offered at the Open Society every few weeks are slide-ameliorated talks on issues of concern to mostly Third World countries. And, of course, progressive Democrats.

The recent one, was held, as are most, at Soros’ luxe building on West 57th off Broadway. The topic, which was preceded by a color documentary of some 20 minutes’ duration in Spanish (English subtitles, mostly), was titled: “The Industrialization of Coca.” The lecture title could have been interpreted as a criticism of coca leaves’ commercialization. But it wasn’t. Instead, four panelists, a translator, and a moderator spoke of the many medicinal and commercial uses of coca leaves, trying to dispel the taint that instantly accompanies the noun coca.

https://www.wsj.com/news/opinion

We live in intolerant times, and if you don’t believe it, consider that the CEO of Twitter this weekend was assailed, and than apologized, for eating at one of America’s most popular fast-food restaurant chains.

Jack Dorsey probably didn’t think twice when he tweeted Saturday that he had used his new Cash app to pay for a meal at Chick-fil-A. Perhaps he thought a chicken sandwich is merely a meal, but now he knows it’s also a political statement.

Chick-fil-A is run by CEO Dan Cathy, who has offended America’s progressive political guardians by publicly supporting the traditional religious definition of marriage as between a man and a woman.

Mr. Cathy, a Christian, was expressing his personal beliefs. His restaurants serve everyone, except on Sunday when they’re closed. But it is nonetheless now a sin against political orthodoxy to eat at Chick-fil-A, and Mr. Dorsey was immediately roasted on a Twitter spit for saying he had done so. Soledad O’Brien, the cable TV personality, tweeted that “This is an interesting company to boost during [LGBT] Pride month, @jack.” Others were nastier.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-victory-for-voting-law-1528759554

A 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court on Monday upheld Ohio’s policy of clearing from registration rolls voters who don’t show up for several years. This is a victory for federalism and the plain reading of the law, notwithstanding howls that this is somehow about purging minority voters.

In Husted v. Randolph Institute, left-leaning groups challenged Ohio’s procedure for removing people from its voter rolls under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which was intended to increase voter registration and protect the integrity of the ballot. More than 10% of Americans move every year, and 2.75 million are estimated to be registered in more than one state.

The federal law requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names” of voters who are ineligible “by reason of” death or change in residence. But it also prohibits states from removing registrants unless they fail to return a prepaid postage card ascertaining that they still live in the district. States also cannot remove people “solely” for failing to vote.

Within these limits states have wide latitude to cull their rolls to prevent fraud. Ohio sends postage cards to registered voters who haven’t voted for two years to verify that they still live at the same address. Those who don’t return cards or vote for four more years are removed from the rolls.

Liberals argued that the National Voter Registration Act says states can’t remove people “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” But the law says that “nothing in [this prohibition] may be construed to prohibit a State from using” other procedures identified in the law including the failure to return a card.

Congress added in 2002 that “registrants who have not responded to a notice” and “have not voted in two consecutive general elections for Federal office shall be removed.” It’s hard to be clearer than that. As Justice Samuel Alito explained in his majority opinion, “no sensible person would read the Failure-to-Vote Clause as prohibiting what [other sections of the law] expressly allow.”

The four liberal Justices disagreed, though their real gripe is with Congress. Justice Stephen Breyer opined that Ohio’s process violates the law’s requirement that states make a “reasonable effort” to remove ineligible voters because failing to return a postage card doesn’t provide enough information to make such a judgment. But the federal law expressly endorses the postcard test.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the majority upholds a scheme that promotes the “disenfranchisement of minority and low-income voters,” but there’s no evidence that the law has been applied in a biased fashion.

Voter registration has become an emotive political issue on the left, and the four liberals are riding that political wave in wanting judges to define what is reasonable under the federal statute. Too bad they don’t have the law on their side.