RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/john-brennan-enemy-of-the-people/

The just-released Durham report confirmed that the FBI not only failed to corroborate the Steele dossier, Hillary Clinton’s oppo-doc against former President Donald Trump, but it regularly ignored existing, sometimes dispositive, evidence to keep the investigation alive. Some officials were credulous. Others were devious. But no one “stole” our democracy — other than perhaps intelligence officials and the journalists who helped feed the collective hysteria over Russia.

John Brennan, Hamas-loving authoritarian and partisan propagandist, almost surely knew it was a con from the start. Yet he spent four years on television sounding like a deranged subreddit commenter. Even after privately admitting he knew there was no collusion, Brennan kept lying and using his credentials to mislead the public.

From John Durham’s report:

“CIA Director John Brennan and Deputy Director David Cohen were interviewed by the Office and were asked about their knowledge of any actual evidence of members of the Trump campaign conspiring or colluding with Russian officials. When Brennan was provided with an overview of the origins of the Attorney General’s Review after Special Counsel Mueller finding a lack of evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian authorities, Brennan offered that ‘they found no conspiracy.’”

As Durham points out, even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered his report, and after Brennan admitted no one found a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, the former head of the CIA went on air with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, another all-star election “denier,” and claimed that he “suspected there was more” to collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian President Vladimir Putin than Mueller had let on.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fake-history-and-redistributing-wealth/

Calls for reparations payments for the descendants of slaves and colonized peoples, the “latest obsession of the radical left,” as The Hill puts it, are currently growing, as is the tab. For example, San Francisco is proposing paying $5 million to each black resident, along with a guaranteed income of $97,000 for 250 years, and a home for a dollar. California is proposing cash payments of up to $1.2 million at a cost of $800 billion–three times the state’s annual budget. Not to be left out of the bidding, the Feds are asking for $14 trillion. But sponsor Rep. Cori Bush claims that is nowhere near the $97 trillion owed to blacks for slavery and Jim Crow.

This combination of obsession and grift also has infected England. On the eve of his coronation, Charles III was served a statement from the “commonwealth indigenous leaders.” They called on the new king “to acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonization,” and to “redistribute the wealth that underpins the crown back to the peoples from whom it was stolen.” Given the extent and duration of the British Empire, that tab will no doubt be astronomical.

The rationale for this prohibitively expensive largess is a crude, Orwellian politicized history of the sort the left is famous for. The current proposals are unlikely to happen, but they are nonetheless racist and divisive, a testimony to how badly we are teaching history and civics––despite how dangerous to the public weal such neglect can be.

In practical terms, these schemes have numerous problems. How will eligibility be determined? Will state and federal governments investigate the genealogy of every American to determine if their ancestors were slave-owners? And what about the multiple millions of descendants of immigrants, including ethnic Africans, who came after the Civil War? Just in California there are more than 15 million ethnic Hispanics guiltless of American slavery and Jim Crow segregation.

Other questions abound. Will foreign-born blacks or their descendants be eligible? How about mixed-race Americans? Will the payments be means-tested? Or will the programs rely on “systemic racism” rhetorical sleight-of-hand to avoid these complications? In that view, given that all blacks have suffered,  and given that all so-called “white people,” no matter how poor, are born with “white privilege,” all people of pallor should pay. And since tax-revenues will be used to fund the payments, all ethnicities, with their own histories of oppression and injustice, will have to pay their fellow citizens who never suffered slavery.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/24/160-plus-retired-military-brass-urge-congress-to-root-out-dods-poisonous-diversity-and-equity-programs/

More than 160 retired generals and admirals recently signed a letter calling on Congress to remove so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs from the Department of Defense and remove funding for such programs from the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“As our Nation faces looming threats from ‘foreign’ adversaries/enemies, our military is under assault from a culture war stemming from ‘domestic’ ideologically inspired political policies and practices. … Our military must be laser focused on one mission — readiness, undiminished by the culture war engulfing our country,” Flag Officers 4 America wrote in the letter addressed to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Armed Services Subcommittee Chairman Mike Rogers, and Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert.

The signatories — which included former National Security Advisor John Poindexter, Medal of Honor recipient Maj. Gen. James E. Livingston, and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Gerald Boykin — expressed concern about how divisive and discriminatory DEI policies affect national security. So-called “equity,” they wrote, “sounds benign, but in practice it lowers standards. While equality provides equal opportunities, equity’s goal is equal outcomes.”

The officers argued that equal opportunity and meritocracy provide the greatest foundation for both equality and national defense, while the cultural Marxism promoted by DEI policies is a domestic threat to our national security.

“To achieve equal outcomes using identity group characteristics, standards must be lowered to accommodate the desired equity outcomes. Lower standards reduce performance where even slight differences in capability impact readiness and can determine war fighting mission success or failure,” they wrote. Furthermore, obsession with identity causes “friction and distrust in the ranks, damaging unit cohesion, teamwork and unity of effort, further degrading readiness.”

Instead of DEI, the signatories advocated for a return to longstanding meritocratic military recruitment standards, pointing to a long history of true inclusivity and diversity that accompanied those standards.

“Service Members (SMs) were judged not by the color of their skin but by their character, duty performance, and potential,” the officers explained. “Meritocracy, coupled with equal opportunity, created conditions for all to advance and excel, which stimulates healthy competition, thereby raising standards.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/05/24/many-of-our-elected-officials-are-unfit-to-serve-medical-problems-are-sometimes-the-cause/

Two U.S. senators recently became incapacitated – John Fetterman, D-Pa., with severe depression that required a months-long hospitalization, and whose outcome is uncertain; and Dianne Feinstein, D-Ca., who had a shingles infection that developed into encephalitis, from which she has not fully recovered. (And at age 89, she is unlikely to.) Marked by inflammation and swelling of the brain, post-shingles encephalitis can leave patients with lasting memory or language problems, sleep disorders, bouts of confusion, mood disorders, headaches and difficulty walking.

Feinstein was absent from Washington and unable to fulfill her political responsibilities for months, leaving me and other Californians without half our Senate representation. She has returned to Washington but is confused and seemingly bewildered, even denying her protracted absence. The New York Times described Feinstein’s return this way on May 18: “The grim tableau of her re-emergence on Capitol Hill laid bare a bleak reality known to virtually everyone who has come into contact with her in recent days: She was far from ready to return to work when she did, and she is now struggling to function.”

This isn’t the first time that such situations have arisen, of course. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., was sufficiently forthright to reveal in 2007 that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal lobar degeneration – an inexorably progressive, incurable disease characterized by the wasting away of the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain. Because of the behavioral changes and dementia that accompany this condition, Domenici announced that he would not seek reelection the following year.

I had great sympathy for Domenici, but should the people of New Mexico have been represented for another year by a senator who admitted to suffering from progressive dementia? I believe he should have resigned at the time his illness was diagnosed.

https://dianebederman.com/is-america-a-christian-country/

Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Green are two of many Conservatives who talk about America as a Christian country. Is that correct?

How will that sit with people like President Donald Trump? Will President Trump’s family feel welcome in that country? His daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren are Orthodox Jews. How could they promote a Christian country?  How could President Trump?

I fear if Conservatives start promoting America as a Christian country, they will be undermining the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They could divide Conservatives over religion and provide Democrats with a sledge hammer. Is that what the Republicans want?

Dividing America on religious lines is exactly what the Founding Fathers wanted to prevent. They intentionally stated America would be a secular country. Period. They had experienced living in countries that had a stated religion and had gone to wars over religion.

Many of the earliest pilgrims who settled the “New England” of America in early 17th century were Puritan refugees escaping religious persecutions in Europe.

These Puritans viewed their emigration from England as a virtual re-enactment of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. To them, England was Egypt, the king was Pharaoh, the Atlantic Ocean was the Red Sea, America was the Land of Israel, and the Indians were the ancient Canaanites. They were the new Israelites, entering into a new covenant with God in a new Promised Land.

Thanksgiving—first celebrated in 1621, a year after the Mayflower landed—was initially conceived as a day parallel to the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur; it was to be a day of fasting, introspection, prayer and gratitude.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/biden-wants-blame-debt-crisis-group-cant-avoid-economic-incompetence

President Biden says Republicans want to tank the debt-ceiling talks because they know a default would bring down the economy and hurt his re-election bid. He is wrong, for three reasons: 

The economy is already barreling towards recession, regardless of the debt-limit debate;

Biden’s re-election hopes are dim, independent of the economic outlook;
Biden has it backwards. He knows a recession looms, thanks to his reckless spending, and hopes to pin it on the GOP. Hence, the scary talk from Treasury Secretary Yellen about the catastrophic impact of default.

Biden is being dishonest with the American people. When the Conference Board puts the odds of a recession over the next 12 months at 99%, a position the pre-dates the debt ceiling debate, you can bet a downturn is coming.  

President Joe Biden is trying to lay the debt-crisis blame on Republicans, despite his own big-spending decisions.

After assuming the Oval Office, President Joe Biden and his Democrat colleagues blew out trillions of dollars in unnecessary spending (long past the COVID-19 emergency), igniting an overheated economy and rampant inflation. Fed Chair Jay Powell let the embers smolder far too long, worried that raising interest rates might cost him his reappointment bid. Finally, in March 2022, he initiated one of the most aggressive rate hiking cycles in our country’s history. 

Changes in monetary policy impact the economy with a 12- to 18-month lag; we are now seeing the fall-out from 10 rate increases. Generally, interest-rate sensitive industries like housing are hit first and, sure enough, housing starts and permits are now down substantially from last year.  

In addition to housing, jacking up interest rates has led to the failures of three large U.S. banks, which has cast a shadow over credit. Solvent banks are lending more cautiously, anxious about unrealized losses on their balance sheets and deposit outflows. That slows economic growth. 

Another fallout from rapid interest rate hikes is that stock and bond markets sold off sharply last year. The S&P 500 was down nearly 20% and the bond market suffered one of the worst years ever. Financial losses impact consumer sentiment, which has tumbled, and also spending. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/obama_torpedoed_us_relations_with_russia__to_perpetuate_lies_about_trump_durham_report_found.html

In late 2016, Obama was angry.

Oh, not about the election of Donald Trump, of course, if his public statements were any indication.

He was supposedly angry, so angry, at Russia and its supposed interference in our 2016 election that he got out his pen and phone and expelled 35 Russian diplomats. 

Here is what the New York Times reported:

WASHINGTON — President Obama struck back at Russia on Thursday for its efforts to influence the 2016 election, ejecting 35 suspected Russian intelligence operatives from the United States and imposing sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services.

The administration also penalized four top officers of one of those services, the powerful military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U.

Intelligence agencies have concluded that the G.R.U. ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations, with the approval of the Kremlin, and ultimately enabled the publication of the emails it harvested to benefit Donald J. Trump’s campaign.

The Hill reported that it was quite an array of sanctions at the time:

The measures include a slate of economic sanctions, diplomatic censure, and public “naming and shaming.” The president also hinted at possible covert cyber measures but did not provide details. 

The president also announced that the State Department will expel 35 Russian intelligence operatives and shutter two Russian compounds, in Maryland and New York, used by Russia for intelligence purposes. 

The Times added:

Taken together, the sweeping actions announced by the White House, the Treasury, the State Department and intelligence agencies on Thursday amount to the strongest American response yet to a state-sponsored cyberattack. They also appeared intended to box in President-elect Trump, who will now have to decide whether to lift the sanctions on Russian intelligence agencies when he takes office next month.

Obama even amended his own executive order to extend his powers to sanction, with travel bans and asset freezes on some Russian officials.

https://themessenger.com/opinion/wheres-a-special-counsel-when-you-need-one

Some people say nothing is certain in this life. I beg to differ, and I defy anyone to show that I have this wrong: If Donald Trump were president, and one of his sons had been under investigation by his Department of Justice (DOJ) for several years with no action, and his attorney general had stubbornly declined to appoint a special counsel — lamely contending that there was no insuperable conflict of interest for the president’s Justice Department to investigate the president’s son — that would be the lead story in nearly every press outlet. The outrage in Washington would be palpable.  

Of course, it wouldn’t come to that. The media-Democrat complex drumbeat would be too tirelessly cacophonous. Conservative pundits would concede that, while they were generally skeptical of special counsels, the Justice Department is bound by regulations to appoint one when there are (a) good-faith grounds for an investigation or prosecution, and (b) a conflict of interest that prevents the Justice Department from credibly investigating or prosecuting the matter in the normal course.

Congressional Democrats would inveigh on the Capitol steps, in its hearing rooms, and in ceaseless cable TV interviews from the Rotunda, that a special counsel must be appointed — and, if not, then the attorney general should be held in contempt of Congress or perhaps even impeached. It would not take long before the Republican-controlled Justice Department wilted, just as the Trump Justice Department did in 2017, amid the hysteria of the “Russiagate” farce and the equally nonsensical claim that Trump’s firing of then-FBI director James Comey amounted to an “obstruction” of the supposed Russia-collusion caper (i.e., the investigation that the FBI knew by then was baseless, according to the Durham Report). And just as the Bush DOJ did in 2003, in response to a manufactured controversy over the leak of a CIA officer’s identity (under circumstances where investigators already knew who the leaker was and that the leak had not violated federal law).

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/22/why-is-everyone-protecting-ray-epps/

Over the past month, speculation has swirled around why Fox News honchos ousted the nation’s most popular cable news host just hours before he was set to begin his nightly monologue. Tucker Carlson reportedly was stunned by the news, which was announced in a terse statement released by the network on April 24: “FOX News Media and Tucker Carlson have agreed to part ways. We thank him for his service to the network as a host and prior to that as a contributor.”

Subsequent reports suggested any number of reasons why Carlson was yanked off the air, including the company’s settlement with Dominion Voting Systems, a separate lawsuit filed by a one-time producer for “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” political differences with the sons of Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch, and his questioning of the war in Ukraine.

But the timing of his removal—less than 24 hours after “60 Minutes” aired a puff piece on Ray Epps, the infamous January 6 instigator frequently covered by Carlson’s show—fueled rumors that Fox News wanted to silence Carlson before he could respond to several accusations made in the interview. 

Carlson is “obsessed with me,” Epps told reporter Bill Whitaker, who repeatedly used the term “conspiracy theory” to describe claims Epps’ acted as a federal agent during the Capitol protest. “He’s going to any means possible to destroy me.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/05/the_path_to_national_suicide.html

Without unrestricted immigration, nations like the United States cannot survive unless women have about 2.1 children each (the .1 reflects women who do not have children).  The bad news is that the U.S. is falling short in reproducing itself. Occasional exceptions such as the Baby Boom aside, U.S. fertility rates have dropped over the last two centuries and show no sign of rising to the 2.1 replacement level. We are currently at 1.6.

The baby shortfall has huge consequences beyond potentially filling the nation with immigrants. An aging population brings higher healthcare costs, budgets devoured by pensions, shrinking tax bases, labor shortages, empty schools and universities, and a stagnant economy.

Moreover, Africa aside, depopulation is worldwide and, apparently unfixable. Countries as diverse as Japan and Russia have tried the “obvious” solutions such as free childcare and subsidies, but to no avail.  Scandinavian countries offer lavish child-friendly policies but likewise fail to move the needle. Between 2006 and 2021, South Korea spent $200 billion for maternity leave, paid childcare, and similar pro-natal measures, but the fertility rate dropped from 1.1 to .81.  

This should be a major political issue regardless of one’s ideology. The Left surely needs a healthy economy to finance its welfare state while businesses depend on factory and service workers. Nobody wants a shrinking workforce whose principal responsibility is to fund a growing geriatric population.