RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/13/criminals-using-tiktok-to-teach-people-how-to-shoplift/

As the crime crisis worsens across the country, with hundreds of stores in major cities being targeted by mass looting attacks, some of the criminals who engage in organized theft have turned to the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok to teach looting techniques to their followers.

According to the New York Post, such videos appear under the hashtag “borrow tip and tricks,” which has accumulated 8.9 billion views as various “borrowers” share their methods for carrying out such criminal acts.

“Today I went to the mall so I’m going to show you what I borrowed,” said a user by the name of @borrowingqueen. Another user named @b0rrowing.t1ngz ranked stores based on how easy they are to steal from; the list puts Walmart, Walgreens, and Dollar Tree at the top for easiest to loot, while Target, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Sephora are ranked as harder to hit.

The user who gave the ranking then provided additional tips for theft, such as stealing small items first, heading to the restroom to remove the items from their packaging, and avoiding “suspicious” behavior such as looking around for security cameras.

Some of these videos are even being posted by current retail workers, providing information from the inside. One such clip, with over 7.1 million views, was posted by a Target employee who advised potential looters to avoid targeting the same store multiple times.

Mass looting has become a widespread problem in the United States, and particularly in states and cities run by Democrats who favor soft-on-crime policies. California in particular, having recently implemented a law which does not make it a crime to steal as long as the value of the stolen goods remains under $950, has seen a spike in looting even in luxury stores in such cities as Los Angeles. Combined with various bail reform laws that often see criminals released immediately after their arrest, and the penalties for such acts are now lower than ever before.

Looting and organized shoplifting has ultimately cost retail companies a total of over $100 billion, and has led to many prominent stores shutting down flagship locations in large cities due to being unable to combat the rise in crime.

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

From time to time, someone asks me for advice on writing.  I want to encourage people to write because this is a crucial time in history.  As the scourge of censorship takes hold across the West, we do not know whether the platforms of communication available to us today will be around tomorrow.  The days of handwritten samizdat may well return, and for this reason, it is important that freethinkers spend time recording their thoughts so that others may learn and do the same.

Writing is good exercise for the brain, and through trial and error, even non-writers will become writers quickly.  Most of what I know comes from reading the words of others — which is a testament to the power of writing.

The most important thing to know about writing is this: always write without fear.  The word “essay” actually means “an attempt.”  Our current understanding of the word as a form of written composition comes from the great sixteenth-century writer Michel de Montaigne, who recorded his thoughts in a collection of “attempts” (essays) during the French Renaissance.  Writing is not about producing perfection; it is about pursuing perfection.

Michelangelo said, “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”  When I sit down to write, I look for that statue and start to chip away at the rock the best I can.  I begin with an idea of what perfection might look like.  Invariably, I never achieve a perfect result, but sometimes I am a little closer to the ideal in my mind.  Everything I write is an “attempt” to reach this ideal.

Writing should be fun.  “I only write when inspiration strikes,” William Faulkner said before adding, “Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”  Although I have found the early morning hours a particularly rich time to write, I hardly ever write until my head is nearly bursting with ideas.  I let thoughts collect and percolate until my brain feels as if it might explode, and only then do I sit down and attempt to sculpt those ideas into something worth saying.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/13/impeach-joe-biden-3/

Editor’s Note: This editorial originally ran on September 26, 2019. Now that the House has announced plans to begin an impeachment inquiry into Biden, we reprint it here just to show how far ahead of the curve we were and how diligently the mainstream press has buried this story for the past four years.

Until the transcript of President Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky emerged on Wednesday, Democrats were in a mad fury with accusations that Trump had bribed a foreign government to investigate the business dealings of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.

The claim, based on a whistleblower’s second-hand account, which none of them had seen, alleged that Trump withheld aid to Ukraine on the condition that it open an investigation on Biden.

Circumstantially at least, there seemed to be some crumbs to back this up. Aside from the mysterious whistleblower claim, the administration had held up an aid package shortly before the call. And then, statements made by Trump and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, seemed to confirm some elements of the story.

When the transcript of the call came out, however, the story fell apart. There was no discussion of aid. Trump did not cajole or pressure Zelensky.

Of course, since the impeachment train had already left the station, Democrats couldn’t suddenly shrug their shoulders and say “never mind.” So the mere fact that Trump brought up the topic of the Biden investigation is now grounds for impeachment.

But if that’s all there is to it, why isn’t Biden under the impeachment cloud?

After all, no one disputes the fact that he pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by telling officials there, in no uncertain terms, that if they didn’t, they’d lose out on $1 billion in aid.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/census-data-income-inflation-joe-biden-economy-social-welfare-spending-3897dbed?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

You almost have to admire the brass of the Biden White House. The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that Americans are poorer under Bidenomics, and the President quickly changed the subject to blame Republicans for rising child poverty on his watch. As usual, too many in the press corps bought the spin.

Mr. Biden is trying to avoid the real story, which is that the Census Bureau says median household income adjusted for inflation fell last year by $1,750 to $74,580. It is down $3,670 from 2019. Households in the fourth income quintile—those making $94,000 to $153,000—lost $4,600 in 2022 and $6,700 since 2019. Middle-class Americans who think they’re losing ground are right.***

The reason is that inflation has outpaced the earnings growth from work. Real median earnings for full-time workers last year fell $3,620 for men and $2,880 for women despite a tight labor market that had companies paying more to attract and keep workers. The female-to-male earnings gap declined to 16% from 18% in 2019, but mainly because inflation has eroded men’s wages more than women’s. Wages in industries with more female workers such as healthcare and hospitality rose faster than those with more male workers such as manufacturing. But neither men nor women kept pace with the cost of living.

By most statistical measures, income inequality also declined last year. Even when excluding capital gains, higher earners saw a bigger drop in real incomes than Americans at the lower end. One reason is the latter group includes many seniors whose Social Security checks are adjusted for inflation.

https://the-pipeline.org/the-column-a-dictatorship-if-you-can-keep-it/

Everybody knows Benjamin Franklin’s famous riposte when asked after the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia which type of government the Founders had come up with: “A republic, if you can keep it.” The constitution that emerged from the conclave went into effect the following year, and ever since Americans have at least paid lip service both to the document itself and the principles enshrined within. Until now.

From the moment Joe Biden — infirm, incontinent, mentally challenged (even in the best of times), crotchety, cranky, boastful, and mendacious, a lifelong pig sucking at the teat of government — took office and immediately decided to “rule” by executive order, the Constitution has been under explicit attack from those who abjure its existence and wish to see it nullified in nearly every particular. Democrat opposition to the nation-as-founded didn’t start with Biden, of course: during his term in office, Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson’s first vice president, murdered Alexander Hamilton and hatched his plot to sell out the United States. Burr was arrested and charged with treason in 1807 under the clause in the Constitution that reads: 

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.

Owing in large part to specificity of the Treason Clause, Burr was acquitted at trial. Ever since, anti-American rogues have skated. Woodrow Wilson had little or no use for the Constitution and subverted it as often as he could, including his constant odes to “democracy” instead of republican democracy — now the norm on the “progressive” left. Franklin Roosevelt invoked both the Depression and presidential wartime powers to get around many of its pesky provisions, eventually browbeating the Supreme Court into submission. 

Today, the attack on the Constitution is fiercer than ever. Leftists formerly known as “liberals” have all but abandoned their support for the First Amendment’s provisions of freedom of religion, speech, and assembly, especially since such safeguards are no longer useful to them in their charades of patriotism; the Second Amendment, meanwhile, they’ve always hated. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments they view as nugatory and, soon enough, they’ll be advocating the repeal of the Third, although their plan is not to force soldiers into citizens’ home but “asylum” spoofers, economic “migrants” and outright infiltrators. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/juliorosas/2023/09/11/liberal-activist-storm-and-take-over-kevin-mccarthys-office-n2628258

LGBTQ+ activists stormed into and temporarily occupied Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) office in the Rayburn House Office Building, across the street from the Capitol building, on Monday to push Republican lawmakers to fund the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for another five years.

Video taken inside the office shows the protesters sitting down in the reception area, while chanting “Pass PEPFAR now, McCarthy!”

The six protesters were eventually taken into custody by Capitol Police.

Users on X, formerly known as Twitter, dryly asked if those who participated in the protest would be treated the same way as those who were charged with trespassing during the riot at the Capitol building on January 6.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2023/09/12/if-liberals-voted-their-values-america-would-be-saved-n1726281

The greatest reason for the existential threat to America posed by the woke/the progressive/the Left is that liberals vote for them.

If liberals voted for their values, the Left-wing destruction of every American institution — the American Medical Association and medical profession generally; the universities, high school and elementary schools; and the military, among many others — could not happen.

This is the American tragedy in a nutshell: The Left votes its values. The Right votes its values. Liberals do not vote their values. Liberalism has almost nothing in common with leftism, yet virtually every liberal votes for the Left.

Liberals believe in racial integration. The Left believes in racial segregation (all-black dorms on college campuses, for example).

Liberals believe in the ideal of color-blindness. The Left rejects the ideal of color-blindness. In fact, the Left claims the very term “color-blind” is racist.

The Left maintains that all whites are racist. No liberals do.

Liberals have always believed in America (without ignoring its flaws). The Left believes America is and has always been a fundamentally immoral country.

Liberals have always believed in free speech, which, by definition, includes “hate speech.” The Left, on the other hand, does not believe in freedom of speech. There is no example in history — from the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution to the contemporary American campus — of the Left not suppressing dissent.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/joe-biden-has-become-a-global-embarrassment/

What time is it? A bit like the emperor Domitian, Joe Biden seems confused about the time. Warned by an omen that his death would come at midday, Domitian daily pestered people around him with that question, relaxing only after the dreaded hour had passed. 

Alas, his caution availed him not. One day in September 96 AD, a treacherous servant lied to Domitian about the time, inducing him to let down his guard. A knife-wielding steward did the rest. 

I am not sure that President Biden is still possessed of a guard he can drop. But if his recent performance in Hanoi is any indication, he does seem to be confused about the time of day.

‘Good evening, everyone. It is evening, isn’t it? This around the world in five days is interesting. Well, one of my staff members said, “Remember the famous song, ‘Good Morning, Vietnam?’ Well, good evening, Vietnam.”’

It was a feeble effort to make a joke, emphasis on ‘feeble.’ The president’s increasingly wary aides took the hint. They had been holding their collective breath as he rambled on. ‘Lying dog-faced pony solider,’ ‘John Wayne,’ ‘my brother,’ ‘climate change,’ ‘worse than nuclear war.’ 

‘We talked about stability,’ Biden slurred, ‘we talked about the Third World, excuse me, the Third World, the uh, uh the southern hemisphere has access to change…’ 

This wasn’t going well. You can’t talk about ‘the Third World’ in polite company anymore. Suddenly, Biden’s mic was cut and the dulcet tones of his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre intervened: ‘Thank you everybody. This ends the press conference. Thanks everyone.’ Unaware of what happened, Biden maundered on for a few seconds. Then, like Nietzsche’s Last Man, he gazed vacantly about him and blinked. Then he shuffled slowly off stage and disappeared behind the drapery. 

The leader of the free world, ladies and gentlemen! A few days earlier in New Delhi, Biden stumbled over the name of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman: ‘Mohamet bin Slam, excuse me, Mohammad bin ’Slam.’ Cringe.  

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/09/12/rob-reiner-reveals-what-democrats-really-mean-by-threats-to-democracy/

In a tweet sent out over the weekend, Rob “Meathead” Reiner declared that “For our Democracy to survive, two things have to happen. Donald Trump needs to be Convicted for Jan. 6th and there can be no Third Party Candidate.”

Reiner’s comment was so blatantly anti-democratic that it elicited an avalanche of criticism, some of it from leftists who didn’t particularly like the idea of barring third-party candidates. As one person on X (formerly known as Twitter) responded: “Better make sure there’s no second party candidate either, just to be safe. For Democracy.”

Another way of putting what Reiner said: We need to kill democracy in order to save it.

So, who cares what Reiner thinks? Well, alarming as his view might be, it’s fast becoming the position of a huge swath of Democrats. Namely, that the biggest threat to “democracy” is that people won’t vote the way the left wants them to, and that anything, including violence, is acceptable to avoid that fate.

We noted in this space recently how the left has started labeling anything it don’t like as a threat to “democracy.”

Election laws designed to mitigate fraud are threats to democracy. ‘Misinformation’ – defined as anything the left doesn’t like to hear – is a threat to democracy. Recent Supreme Court rulings are a threat to democracy. The prevalence of guns is a threat to democracy. Climate change is a threat to democracy. The ‘war on woke’ is … you guessed it … a threat to democracy.