RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/07/is-biden-national-security-threat-majority-says-yes-ii-tipp-poll/

Across the globe, the U.S. faces a growing list of dangerous foreign policy challenges. But is the 80-year-old President Joe Biden, with growing signs of age-related mental issues, up to the task? A large majority of Americans, including Democrats, say no, according to the latest I&I/TIPP Poll.

Global dangers abound. China’s engaged in a massive military buildup and poised to attack Taiwan. Meanwhile, Russia wages a bloody war with U.S.-supported Ukraine. In the Mideast, Iran’s nuclear program nears completion, and the U.S.’ 2021 Afghanistan departure has left a power vacuum across the region. This is just a partial list of growing threats.

With these in mind and a looming presidential election, the online I&I/TIPP Poll asked 1,351 adults around the country: “How concerned are you that Biden’s age and mental capacity pose a national security threat?” The poll, taken from Aug. 30-Sept. 1, has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.

The response was clear: After rounding the data, 70% of all respondents said they were either “very concerned” (44%) or “somewhat concerned” (25%). Just 15% answered “not very concerned,” while 13% said “not at all concerned,” for a total of 28%.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/09/leftists_make_great_pets_but_lousy_leaders.html

It is striking just how much leftists enjoy being dominated by Big Government.  Please make us stand six feet apart!  Please monitor and police our speech!  Please punish us for skirting COVID lockdowns!  Please mandate new experimental goop for our veins!  Every time the oppressive authoritarians in positions of power abuse that power to make outrageous and unconstitutional demands of the American people, the leftists hop to and beg for even more obnoxious restrictions.  Politicians and bureaucrats are just people (often bad people), but to leftists, they’re celebrities, (needed) father figures, and the atheist’s empty-suited pantheon of false gods. 

As Sam J. wrote in a righteous, all-caps, truth-telling rant over at Twitchy, no matter how nonsensical or harmful the government’s often-illegal-but-always-idiotic commands, the masochistic left can be heard shrieking, “YEAH, THAT’S A GOOD IDEA.  GOVERN ME HARDER, DADDY!  MASK ME UP!  TAKE SCHOOL FROM MY KIDS!  YAAAAS!”  Nothing makes the left happier than a system that insists on ruling over leftists in perpetuity.  No group is more worthy of the left’s hero worship than an army of control freaks who take pleasure in inconveniencing, voyeuristically surveilling, and intimidating the masses.  Silence the vaccine skeptics!  Force the anti-maskers into hiding!  Imprison anyone who still attends church even after the State’s Marxist priests banned the unapproved exercise of religion!  In this brave new world, the cowards demand cowardice from everyone.

Or, as the Babylon Bee insightfully observes, the reason Democrats are so irrationally offended by the appearance of Revolutionary War–era Gadsden flags is because everything they have been brainwashed to believe screams out, “TREAD ON ME!”  Perhaps it is natural for those with crushed souls to plead for crushed spines, too.  If leftists didn’t snuggle up next to tyranny, after all, there would be little else to keep them warm at night.  It is as O’Brien — the enigmatic Inner Party inquisitor from Orwell’s 1984 — tells Winston Smith: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – for ever.”  Leftists alive today crave that boot stamping on their collective face.  They need the threat of that boot’s punishment to find any sense of meaning in their otherwise empty, fruitless lives.  Receiving and inflicting pain is the only way for them to feel…something.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/for-wokism-to-live-free-speech-must-die/

“Wokism” is the “highest stage” of Marxism, to borrow Lenin’s phrase, the final descent of that malign, murderous ideology into intellectual degradation and absurd triviality. After all, “wokism” is, like communism, a mash-up of radical secularism, scientism, technocratic tyranny, and a ruthless “any means necessary” modus operandi. Hence like Marxism, for “wokism” to succeed, coherent arguments, empirical evidence, common sense, and truth itself must be discredited, distorted, and demonized, at the same time alternative authorities––God, the Constitution, real science–– subjected to tyrannical elimination or refashioning.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that for decades the left has targeted the First Amendment and silenced dissent. Especially after the collapse of Soviet communism, which its last president Mikhail Gorbachev facilitated with his policy of glasnost or greater freedom for public expression, the “new left” children of communism were not going to make the same mistake. Hence, they have for decades doubled-down on their intolerance for dissent manifested in “political correctness” and censorship.

And that means the First Amendment must die.

Leftism has two bad ideas that from its beginning have programmed it to be tyrannical. The first is to deny the reality available to common sense and experience. The natural world and human nature––the latter’s corruptibility empirically verified on every page of history––cannot be allowed to compromise the utopian outcomes promised by communist theory.

British historian Thomas Carlyle in 1857 identified this leftist sacrifice of reality to theory as it appeared among the radicals of the French Revolution, the precursors of the Bolsheviks: “Formulas, Philosophies, Respectabilities, what has been written in Books, and admitted by the Cultivated Classes: this inadequate Scheme of Nature’s working is all that Nature, let her work as she will, can reveal to these men. . . . [T]hey will do one thing: prove, to demonstration, that the Reality will not translate into their Formula; that they and their Formula are incompatible with the Reality: and, in its dark wrath, the Reality will extinguish it and them!”

Thus the truths of nature must be subordinated to the revolutionary’s fanciful imagination and will to power. For example, biological sex, an unchanging fact of nature, must be altered into “gender,” a mere preference from an endless catalogue of invented manifestations––no matter that this preposterous belief is obviously unscientific.

Clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson points out this patent truth: “Trans is clearly identifiable as a fad, comparable to preceding fads, or ‘transmissible psychological diseases,’ like outbreaks of alleged multiple personality disorder, hysteria, self-mutilation, and anorexia. The typical victim is a young female with an underlying neurosis that seeks a socially acceptable form of expression. These forms of expression vary with the times.” But no matter the form, the facts of biology must be denied in order for an illiberal political ideology to undermine reality in order to aggrandize political power and control.

As for human nature, its tragic reality also is denied, and its inevitable improvement simply asserted as our birthright stolen by the wicked oppressors du jour. These villains profit from forbidding humanity the boons of the collectivist paradise it will enjoy once its good and noble nature is restored by the revolution. Achieving this impossible goal entails a rejection of the tragic nature of human existence, the permanence of suffering and misery that follows from our destructive passions and interests.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/06/the-nations-fiscal-crisis-just-got-real/

Over the weekend, the Washington Post let it slip that all is not well in Bidenomicsville. The deficit, it reports, could end up hitting $2 trillion when the current fiscal year ends in three weeks, which it describes as an “unexpected deficit surge.”

In other words, the deficit will nearly double this year, calling the lie on one of President Joe Biden’s favorite boasts about how he cut the deficit more than any president in history.

But while this apparently comes as a shock to the Post, as well as other liberal news sites that picked up on the Post report, anyone paying attention knew this was happening.

Back in February, for example, we pointed out that Biden’s reckless economic policies had added more than $5 trillion to projected deficits, even as he claimed he’d done more to cut the deficit than “any president in history.”

In early June, we noted that revenues had been plunging this year, despite all the boasts about a strong economy, and that “the projected deficit for the entire year is now close to $1.6 trillion, which is almost $300 billion higher than Treasury projected at the start of this fiscal year.”

In July, we pointed out that Bidenflation was pushing up the cost of federal entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and had resulted in a 37% increase in interest payments on the national debt in the first nine months of this fiscal year. That was the result of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, which were also a result of Bidenflation.

https://thespectator.com/topic/impeachment-inquiry-looms-joe-biden/

The signals coming from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy are that his Republican majority will soon launch a formal impeachment investigation. The final decision hasn’t been announced — 

 and an investigation is still a far cry from a full House vote. But setting up an impeachment committee is an essential first step. Most of his caucus wants to take it. 

Most, but not all. The reservations of some Republicans and the calculations behind them are why McCarthy has moved slowly. The speaker’s problem is more than rounding up votes. The other problem is the investigation carries real risks as well as benefits. 

The biggest benefit is a technical, legal one. It gives House investigators the power to compel testimony and documents from all Executive Branch agencies, even the most reluctant, as well as private parties. According to the Office of Legal Counsel, the Department of Justice’s in-house legal advisor, “The House of Representatives must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation” in order to compel testimony and document production. With that committee, they can go to court directly to demand compliance. 

The president may be entitled to some protection for official communications, but, in 2020, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly rejected President Trump’s expansive claim that he and his aides had absolute immunity from congressional subpoenas. “Executive privilege” didn’t extend nearly that far. Instead, the High Court set standards to guide lower courts on what Congress could rightfully demand, including demands on the president himself. 

The court’s standards are a multi-part test:  

Subpoenas must be ‘detailed and substantial’;  
They must have legislative purpose, which includes impeachment;  
The materials must not be available to Congress another way; and 
Compliance must not ‘unduly burden’ the president as he fulfills his other duties 

The SCOTUS decision was “new law” since, for over two centuries, the president and Congress managed to resolve these disputes without the courts’ intervention. When that cooperation broke down, the court was forced to decide between the other two branches. 

https://www.city-journal.org/article/chicago-mayor-brandon-johnsons-first-100-days

Brandon Johnson has reached the 100-day mark as mayor of Chicago. His actions and statements in that time suggest that the city will face continued decline. He remains beholden to the group most responsible for his election: the Chicago Teachers Union. And when it comes to the twin dangers shadowing Chicago’s future—crime and fiscal irresponsibility—he has set the stage to make them even worse.  

Johnson was a former member of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), and the union provided him with crucial support that enabled him to vault past better-known candidates into the mayoral runoff. He has wasted no time in repaying his benefactor. He named Jen Johnson (no relation), the CTU’s former chief of staff, to be his deputy mayor of Education, Youth, and Human Services—a position that has traditionally taken part in negotiations with the union. But even before union negotiations for the next contract began, the mayor unilaterally gave the union a gratuity, extending parental leave to 12 weeks. That’s one less arrow in the city’s quiver for negotiations.

Mayor Johnson also fired Allison Arwady, the city’s health commissioner. Arwady was unpopular with the teachers’ union because she aided Lori Lightfoot in executing one of her best policies—reopening public schools during Covid. School closures have caused widespread learning loss in children, particularly ones in the most vulnerable communities that Johnson purports to serve. Nothing better illustrates Johnson’s likely course on education policy: he will serve special interests at the expense of Chicago’s children. When asked why he fired Arwady without having even met with her, Johnson gave no answer other than to quote a cryptic rap lyric. Chicagoans should expect no transparency when it comes to the mayor’s relations with the union, which has essentially taken over city government.

Shortly before Johnson became mayor, a large group of teenagers came downtown on a weekend evening, vandalized stores, and harassed and beat up passersby. Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the violence. Johnson, in contrast, labeled the behavior unacceptable but also sought to excuse it, saying that it was not constructive to “demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.” Asked after he had become mayor when crime would come down, Johnson responded that one could not expect results until poverty and the trauma of communities were addressed. This claim flies in the face of all that we know about crime control. Many communities poorer than Chicago’s have nothing like the city’s levels of crime. Moreover, proven strategies are available for reducing crime, like simply filling the many vacant positions in the Chicago police force. But Johnson is more interested in making crime a prop for his progressive talking points about inequality.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2023/09/trump-is-a-vulgarian-but-hes-a-competent-vulgarian/

EXCERPT

Apropos Western civilisation, Sheridan writes: “Trump was right to argue the ideological left had blighted schools. He was right to champion communities left behind by globalisation, right to want to secure borders. There were also many things he was wrong about.”

What “many things”? Please tell.

What things of substance did Trump do that were wrong? Getting NATO countries to stump up more for their own defence? Moving America’s embassy in Israel to West Jerusalem? Here’s some more things that apparently Trump did right according to Sheridan: creating a booming economy pre-COVID, calling out China and imposing selective tariffs, increasing US defence spending, the Abraham Peace Accords and “appointing three brilliant judges to the US Supreme Court.”

Why wouldn’t people vote for Trump if they read of his achievement’s in Sheridan’s many articles, supposedly decrying Trump. Professor so-and-so has a very brusque and crude manner and even though he is on the brink of discovering how to commercialise nuclear fusion, we can’t possibly have him on the faculty. Hmm? If you can handle a bit of Trump’s rough and tumble language, it’s all gravy from there on.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/alex_soros_announces_shifting_priorities_to_confront_the_threat_of_a_maga_victory_that_stands_to_undermine_the_war_in_ukraine.html

Alex Soros wants to set the record straight: what might look like a retreat in Europe is really just a shifting of priorities to head off the swelling tide of freedom and populism in the West, or what Soros calls the “MAGA-style Republican” movement and President Donald Trump.

Soros, heir of notorious Nazi collaborator George Soros and chair of the Open Society Foundations, authored a brief essay recently published by Politico; from the article:

News reports that the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and Soros are ‘leaving Europe’ are misleading. We are not leaving.

When looking at the current state of Europe, however, it’s clear that our foundation needs to change….

So, as OSF retools the way it works globally, we are shifting our priorities in Europe accordingly. Yes, this means we will be exiting some areas of work as we focus on today’s challenges, as well as those we will face tomorrow. And yes, we will also be reducing our headcount significantly, seeking to ensure more money goes out to where it’s most needed.

As Soros also writes, “we need to be ready and able to respond to an uncertain and dangerous future” which is… ? Well, the threat isn’t a “what” but rather a who. In one of the last paragraphs, we find this:

As someone who spends up to half their time working on the Continent and thinks former United States President Donald Trump — or at least someone with his isolationist and anti-European policies — will be the Republican nominee, I believe a MAGA-style Republican victory in next year’s U.S. presidential election could, in the end, be worse for the EU than for the U.S. Such an outcome will imperil European unity and undermine the progress achieved on many fronts in response to the war in Ukraine.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/05/can-bidens-jobs-number-be-trusted-any-more/

President Joe Biden has staked so much on his claim that he’s “created” 13.5 million jobs since taking office that it’s worth asking if his Labor Department is now goosing job growth figures to help him out.

On Friday just before the holiday weekend, Labor released its estimates for job growth in August – which it said worked out to 187,000, beating economists’ forecasts.

But at the same time, the government cut the job growth numbers for the previous two months by a total of 110,000.

As a matter of fact, Labor has quietly cut its initial job growth estimates for every month this year.

Based on its initial estimates, the economy should have created 2.2 million jobs in 2023. Now Commerce says that number is less than 1.9 million. In other words, it’s exaggerated job gains by more than 300,000 – or 19%.

“Every single month this year has seen its payroll numbers revised down. It’s difficult to stress how unusual this is as it’s so statistically unlikely. There is clearly something wrong with the estimations being done by President Joe Biden’s Department of Labor,” said EJ Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation.

Earlier this year, we noted that Biden’s jobs record could be even more exaggerated because of the way the Labor Department fills in gaps in its survey data. We wrote that:

Jonathan Pingle, chief U.S. economist at UBS, told the Journal ‘that the level of nonfarm payroll employment at the end of 2022 was likely too high by several hundred thousand, and that the overstatement might have carried into 2023.’

The White House touted the August jobs news, with Biden declaring that “America is now in one of the strongest job-creating periods in our history — in the history of our country.”

He also bragged that “more than 700,000 people joined the labor force last month, which means the highest share of working-age Americans are in the workforce now than at any time in the past 20 years.”

He added, “People are coming off the sidelines, getting back to their workplaces.”

But that’s not what’s happening at all.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/austins-nightmarish-escalating-crime/

On the heels of the death of George Floyd, hundreds flooded to the streets, convincing city officials that cutting the budget of our police officers would be a necessary step in “making things right.” But now, years later, we’re seeing the effect of such a campaign, which is not only hurting thousands of fellow officers, but also the cities that they desperately tried so hard to protect.

One of those cities is Austin, Texas. That’s right, one of the sparkling jewels of that great state has now fallen to a higher level of violence. It’s seen a massive increase in homicide over the past few years; and its police presence has dwindled, to the point that the city’s own Police Chief has had enough.

Thomas Villarreal, president of the Austin Police Association, recently appeared on Fox & Friends to discuss the hazardous actions of city officials. He discussed how the city cut a massive $150 million from the police budget three years ago, and how the force hasn’t bounced back since.

“We just continue to have a city council that doesn’t show its police officers that [it] cares about them,” he explained.

Villarreal continued, “Back in December 2017, we had a city council vote down a police contract for the first time in the history of negotiating contracts. And, you know, we pushed forward to 2018, tried to get back under contract. Our city decided to go through what they called reimagining police oversight. And then, you know, we got back under contract.”