RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://americanmind.org/salvo/freecons-vs-natcons/

What time is it? Are we living in normal times or revolutionary times? Is the greatest threat to American conservatism today a Walter Mondale-style big-government liberalism? Or is it a woke revolutionary progressivism that seeks to utterly transform the American way of life—our politics, culture, economy, law, education, morality, manners, and mores? A recently-issued Statement of Principles, co-signed by a group of advocates for Freedom Conservatism, assumes we are living in the world of the former: the world of Reagan vs. Mondale.

To be sure, the FreeCon statement is benign. Friends with whom I agree on 95 percent of all issues have signed the document. It affirms the principles of individual liberty, the pursuit of happiness, private enterprise, the free market, the rule of law, equality of opportunity, secure borders, and a “rational immigration policy.” That is the text. What’s not to like? There is, however, a subtext, explained by Avik Roy (the main organizer of the statement) in a National Review essay. 

Roy makes it clear that the purpose of the document is to repudiate the National Conservatism Statement of Principles (issued last year), of which I was a signatory, along with the tenets of National Conservatism and the New Right more broadly. And so, as Roy suggested, let us examine the significant differences between what is being touted as Freedom Conservatism (or what in Europe and Canada would be liberal conservatism) vs. National Conservatism.

Neither the FreeCon statement nor Roy’s essay evinces any awareness of the powerful adversary that American conservatives and “Americanists” more generally face in the summer of 2023. By “Americanists” I mean those conservatives and patriotic liberals who advocate the affirmation, improvement, and perpetuation of the American way of life. The opposite of an Americanist would be a Transformationist, one who seeks to fundamentally transform the United States of America.  

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/ukraine-turkey-joe-biden-used-personal-email-share-some-government

In late November 2014 — before the rest of the world knew that American Martin O’Connor was about to be released from detention in Turkey — the U.S. embassy in Istanbul sent an email to the State Department that was then forwarded to senior advisers to then-Vice President Joe Biden, the Obama White House point man for many foreign policy crises.

“The lead attorney for Mr. O’Connor reports that the court granted the detention appeal and he expected Mr. O’Connor to be released from jail today, barring any unforeseen problems,” the U.S. embassy in Istanbul wrote in an email that got forwarded to top Obama administration security and diplomacy officials, including current Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland. “Mr. O’Connor will not be allowed to leave the country until his next hearing which is set for December 11, 2014. The lawyer expressed confidence that he will be able to leave after that hearing. The attorney is handling his release arrangements, pick up and temporary housing near his law firm’s office. Istanbul consular plans to speak with Mr. O’Connor after his release.”

State Department officials forwarded the information to the vice president’s office, where Biden aide Colin Kahl (now President Biden’s Undersecretrary of Defense for Policy) sent it to the private email account robinware456@gmail.com. It wasn’t just any private account. It was one of three pseudonym accounts used by Joe Biden.

Soon after the then-vice president would forward the information to his globetrotting son Hunter Biden with the subject line “Fwd: Mr. O’Connor Being Released from Detention today.”

The email is one of more than a dozen that Just the News obtained and reviewed over the last two years showing how Joe Biden’s personal email accounts were sometimes used during his first White House tenure to forward government information or discuss government  business with his son.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/18/left-wing-rage-dont-pretend-it-doesnt-exist/

The Southern Poverty Law Center has its “hate map” of conservative groups that it hopes to marginalize if not kill off entirely. Meanwhile, the feds are looking for vicious, bloodthirsty right-wingers under the bed. But a university survey recently found that the left is more prone to political violence than the right. It’s exactly what we have come to expect from a group that is so sure of its superiority and the importance of its agenda that it’s willing to break an infinite number of eggs so that it can make its authoritarian omelet.

The University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats’ June survey of 3,543 adults has produced a lot of data noise but it also includes some useful information. Of course the media want to ring the bells over one finding in particular: an increase in the percentage those who agree that “the use of force is justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” According to the project, in early April only 4.5% of those polled agreed with that statement. By late June, though, it had risen to (a rounded-up) 7%, “the equivalent of an estimated shift from 12 million to 18 million American adults.”

The media-wide implication is that the growing support for using force to put Trump back in the White House is fueled by the extremism (and dare we say “semi-fascism”?) of Republicans and MAGA followers. A prime example of this bias is found in the headline over a story in The Hill. It reads “More say violence could be necessary to restore Trump to White House.”

A closer look at the data, however, show both Democrats (4.5%) and independents (7.8%) agree with the statement. So it’s not just Republicans who would be sympathetic to the use of force in favor of Trump. Isn’t that a point worthy of highlighting?

There’s another figure that raises concerns that the media don’t seem to care much about: 9% of Democrats “strongly” agree that “the use of force is justified to prevent Donald Trump from becoming president,” and another 7.1% merely agree. That’s a total of 16.1%, compared to the total of 9.5% of Republicans who strongly agree or just agree that force is justified to hand the presidency back to Trump.

Again, isn’t this a fact that needs to be emphasized?

https://www.city-journal.org/article/stop-stop-aapi-hate

America’s latest era of racial turmoil has been a boon to many organizations. Black Lives Matter is merely the highest-profile group to claim the mantle of authority on racism, while bringing in millions of dollars in contributions. Stop AAPI Hate (AAPI stands for Asian American and Pacific Islander), purporting to be the leading authority on “anti-Asian hate crimes,” has followed BLM’s model, promoting the story that America is racist toward Asians. Its motto reflects that mission: it seeks to “advance equity, justice, and power by dismantling systemic racism.”

Stop AAPI Hate’s first cause for suspicion is its loftiness. Asians in America don’t need a victimhood narrative: they are, in broad demographic terms, flourishing in the United States. This does not mean, of course, that prejudice against them does not exist. It certainly does, but AAPI and like-minded groups have little or nothing to say about its most substantive manifestations. To the extent that Asian Americans are experiencing racism, it’s either coming directly from progressive elites (as in college admissions policies that have discriminated against Asian students) or is only selectively discussed by progressive elites (as in the case of violence against Asians, which the Left is interested in blaming only on whites). What Stop AAPI Hate does choose to focus on is subjective, to say the least, and tailored to fit a desired political narrative.

Stop AAPI Hate’s selling point to the public and to its funders is its database of anti-Asian hate crimes, which documents a rise in violence against Asian Americans in 2020 and 2021. “New Data Shows that Asian Americans Remain Under Attack,” reads an August 12, 2021, press release.

The methodology underlying these data is flawed. For one, it is self-reported to the group through surveys that it administers, via its website. The alleged increase in hate crimes comes from more people reporting to Stop AAPI Hate about hate crimes. A self-reinforcing bias could be at work here: the more attention that Stop AAPI Hate and others draw to racism narratives, the more incentive people have to characterize threats against them as racist.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/11/the-dangers-of-good-intentions/

There have been many attempts to explain the ascendency of wokeness – that extreme, irrational and unreasonable ideology that has taken over our institutions. Some blame postmodern relativism. Others point to the left’s cultural turn, which has entrenched new forms of identity politics. Add to this the different mindset of newer generations – Millennials and Generation Z are accused of being more sensitive and censorious than their forebears – and the emergence of social media, which have polarised and poisoned political discourse. These explanations are okay. But another reason is seldom mentioned. The truth is, wokeness was allowed to take over.

It was allowed to happen because today’s fanatics appeared to begin with good intentions. They called for tolerance towards gay people and those who don’t conform to gender roles. They were nominally against racism. They wanted to ‘save the planet’. Who could have argued with such noble, commonplace sentiments when they were initially being uttered 20-odd years ago? Few did. It was obviously all well-meaning and nice. And that was why so many let their guard down.

Twenty-odd years later, when much woke-think has become mainstream and even enshrined in law, we must rue forgetting that old adage: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That is the lesson of history. Beware pious idealists with good on their side, boasting ostentatiously of their righteousness and compassion, for they are tomorrow’s fanatics and tyrants. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in 1883: ‘Where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate? And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?’

Wokery, including its allied movement of radical environmentalism, emerged a few decades after the fall of a genuine form of ideological totalitarianism: Soviet and Eastern Bloc Communism. From the early 1920s to the mid 1950s, this had seemed an attractive prospect to both insiders and outsiders on account of its good intentions. Yet it went bad from very early on, and it was partly allowed to do so because its crimes and misdeeds were for the ‘greater good’ and therefore excused. George Orwell became attuned to this barbaric, exculpatory mindset during the Spanish Civil War. He satirised it in Animal Farm, with its deluded cart-horses, Boxer and Clover, working themselves to death for an apparently noble cause.

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/on-the-cowardice-of-american-scientists

Why do mRNA Covid jabs cause myocarditis and autoimmune diseases?

What is the impact of the unusual immune system changes they provoke?

Do their risks increase with each dose, and if so, does offering them to anyone now make sense?

Most of all, are the shots safe long-term?

None of these questions have quick answers. mRNA shots are hugely complex, and scientists have almost no long-term data on them. Before 2020 they were just another unproven biotechnology slowly moving through early-stage human trials.

But answers must be found. Over one billion people received the mRNAs, making them maybe the largest medical experiment ever. It is now clear the clinical trials from Pfizer and Moderna missed crucial risks and side effects, including menstrual disruption, myocarditis and other cardiovascular problems, and autoimmune crises.

Some scientists are trying to perform the crucial work that’s needed.

In only the last few weeks, researchers in Switzerland, Hong Kong, and Italy have published papers suggesting mRNA-caused myocarditis is more common and may hurt the heart for longer than previously known, while South Korean cardiologists reported almost two dozen fatal mRNA-caused myocarditis cases.

Only yesterday, immunologists in Hungary reported the mRNAs over time cause people to produce more of a type of antibody that does not destroy the coronavirus, building on findings last winter from German researchers.

Meanwhile, Japanese scientists have published many studies and case reports on potential autoimmune side effects of the mRNAs, including thyroid disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/bidens-iran-envoy-to-teach-at-princeton-while-fbi-investigates-him-for-mishandling-classified-info/

One nation. Two sets of rules.

We already know what happens if you’re accused of mishandling classified information while being a conservative or an ordinary person. Here’s what happens when you’re a member of the ‘party’.

Robert Malley, an Obama campaign advisor dumped over meetings with Hamas, then brought back and elevated through the National Security Council despite a history of terrorist sympathies and a background that would give any self-respecting official in charge of national security clearances a severe fit, had his security clearance suspended while the FBI investigated the Iran envoy for alleged mishandling of classified information.

None of this was announced. Obviously. Instead, the Biden administration lied to senators to imply that Malley wasn’t taking part in negotiations because he had medical issues, and maintained an official listing of Malley as the Iran envoy even though he couldn’t properly fulfill that function. When the story leaked, there were no apologies, just the pretense that everything was completely normal.

Malley’s security clearance appears to have been suspended in late April or early May. A U.S. official said he went on a partial paid personal leave in late April. But until late June, Malley continued doing State Department work, including giving media interviews.

Malley’s changing role first drew attention from Congress when he didn’t participate in a May 16 briefing to senators.

When lawmakers’ offices asked about Malley’s absence, “We were told, ‘It’s extended personal leave’ with hints of, ‘Well, you know, it’s medical, we can’t talk about it,’” a Hill staffer told POLITICO. “It was deliberately done as a hand-waving thing.” Another congressional staffer said they received a similar response. Officials at State also told journalists Malley had taken a personal leave.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/15/when-the-justice-system-falls-apart-so-does-the-republic/

If we no longer uphold equal justice under the law, we still have a country, but not the one we thought we had.

Democrats’ crusade to weaponize the criminal justice system to put their chief political opponent in jail escalated again Monday night, with the release of an indictment pursued by Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against former President Donald Trump. The indictment, targeting not just Trump but 18 of his lawyers and advisers, is a clear message that if you’re a Republican, challenging election results — something Democrats have done after every GOP presidential victory this century — is now a criminal offense.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice is tripping over itself to insulate Biden and his son from scrutiny or criminal consequences for their apparent scheme to get rich off of peddling American political influence abroad.

The hacks at DOJ, by the way, also indicted Trump over a classified documents dispute, after raiding his house and rifling through his wife’s closet. Soon after, Biden was found to have classified documents lying around in his garage, but in his case, the feds are content to play nice. Oh, and Hillary Clinton also had a classified records scandal — in which her team destroyed emails and devices with BleachBit and literal hammers — but enjoyed the protection of then-FBI Director James Comey.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-reduction-act-bidenomics-ira-2024-president-cost-of-living-energy-jobs-unemployment-fossil-fuel-318d577f?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

It isn’t surprising that President Biden is marking the Inflation Reduction Act’s first anniversary by traveling the country trying to convince voters that the law is working and the economy is getting better. Good luck to him.

A recent CNN poll found Americans still consider the economy the most pressing issue facing the country. More than half of Americans think the economy is bad and getting worse, and only 37% approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy. Just 30% approve of his handling of inflation.

That doesn’t augur well for the credibility of Democrats and the legislation Mr. Biden promised would “reduce inflation at the kitchen table” and kick-start new economic growth. Every Democrat in Congress supported the bill. It should doom them in 2024.

Republicans must aggressively articulate what is wrong with the legislation. The most obvious point: After a year, the legislation hasn’t reduced inflation. Food and consumer costs are increasing again. Rent is going up too. Even Mr. Biden conceded that the title is a misnomer, telling donors at a fundraiser, “I wish I hadn’t called it that.”

His administration has admitted the act could cost Americans their jobs. Brian Anderson, executive director of the administration’s interagency working group on energy communities, says the law will hit workers in the fossil-fuel industry especially hard.

The fossil-fuel industry supports nearly 100,000 jobs in West Virginia and more than 350,000 in Ohio, two states critical to control of the Senate. Yet Mr. Anderson told the New York Times, “We’re standing right at the cusp of potentially still leaving them behind again.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/14/joe-bidens-race-against-the-truth/

Joe Biden has about 17 months left as an elected politician—if he is lucky. That projection guides most of the inexplicable and shameless behavior of the Department of Justice and Biden himself. View Biden as in a race against the truth. Will he be physically and mentally able to complete his term and head to retirement before his decades-long crimes of corruption catch up to him?

Joe Biden’s serial yarn that he never knew anything about his son Hunter’s quid pro quo grifting with rich foreign grandees has been finally exposed as the old lie it always was.

Biden’s fallback untruth—that he never got involved in Hunter’s business—proved instantly laughable, given prior damning testimonies from Hunter’s business associates, from IRS whistleblowers, from the assertions of foreign beneficiaries, from Hunter’s own laptop, and from Joe’s own earlier loudmouth braggadocio about using threats of canceling U.S. foreign aid to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into corruption of the sort in which his own son was knee deep. (Did not then president Barack Obama know the nature of Biden corruption when he appointed him as point man on Ukraine)?

To his partners in corruption, Hunter referred to his father variously as the “big guy” as well as the recipient of “ten percent” of the leveraged income. And apparently as a rather greedy pop, Hunter whined that Joe himself demanded half of all Hunter’s own shake-down income from abroad—despite Hunter’s payment of many of Joe’s monthly bills incurred on his palatial lakeshore mansion.

At some point, even the corrupt leftwing media and DNC cannot continue to laugh off eyewitness testimonies, whistleblowers’ revelations, bank records, Hunter Biden’s own computer messaging, Joe Biden’s phone calls and personal appearances, and the evidence from foreign beneficiaries.

And then there is simply the power of reason and logic.

Over the last five years of this hushed-up tawdry saga, Americans knew immediately that Joe Biden was lying in all his denials of any involvement whatsoever in the procurement of a large part of his income from abroad simply because no one in the entire Biden family had any business, investment, or energy expertise. In other words, as grifters without Joe, the Bidens had zero market value.