RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-the-experiment-in-political-freedom-end-in-failure/

Napoleon supposedly said that from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but one step. This truth applies to great nations as well as great men like Napoleon. The decay of a nation often manifests itself in the trivial and inane, as well as the tragic and existential.

Our current political, cultural, and social dysfunctions have clearly taken that step over the last few decades, and now is putting at risk our country’s successful 247 years of achieving political freedom and equality for all.

Clearly, we Americans are living through attacks on that success no one could have predicted even 20 years ago. And this civilizational failure of nerve and moral exhaustion is leaving us vulnerable to our global enemies. If and when we go, the long great political experiment––freedom and equality and self-rule for all regardless of birth, wealth, or education–– will finally end in failure and despotism.

The bad omens abound. Faith is moribund, banished to the realm of subjective preferences. Love of country and one’s fellow countrymen has been displaced by a specious, “citizen-of-the-world” globalism devoted to power and money. Government, always vulnerable to corruption, is now completely debauched, and justice is sacrificed to political expediency. We are so selfish and short-sighted that we continue to ignore the looming bankruptcy brought on by feckless debt, deficits, and profligate entitlement spending that is morally, as well as fiscally, bankrupting us. And our political factions, especially the “woke,” are conducting our most important policy debates with temper tantrums, violence, censorship, and socio-political “cancellation,” our modern equivalent of Orwell’s “memory hole.”

Indeed, we’ve become so juvenile and surreally silly that even the most obvious facts of science like biological sex are reduced to subjective options, when not promoted as mandatory. More immediately dangerous for many citizens, a “war on cops” as well as “catch and release” prosecutors have turned our largest urban landscapes into dystopian nightmares of violence and squalor.

Most fundamentally, purpose and meaning in our lives come not from faith, country, and family, but from preposterous cults like “transgenderism,” “systemic racism,” and apocalyptic “climate change,” which are preached with myopic hysteria and intolerant fervor.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/04/11/university-of-florida-students-chant-f-desantis-during-inject-in-protest-n1686471

On Friday, the University of Florida was the scene of a trans protest. I know, at this point, a day without a protest is a like a day without gravity. But this particular demonstration took a new tack. At issue were recent moves by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the legislature that could curtail or place regulations on gender treatments  Of course, there was the usual marching, and the crowd of demonstrators participating in the “Inject-In @ SHCC” yelled “F*** DeSantis” as they passed the University’s Chick-fil-A.

Nothing particularly unusual about that. Although someone could have shouted, “Trans chickens are chickens!” Which would have at least put an interesting accent on the day and would have been a nice change of pace. The College Fix provided an account of the affair along with a link, which propriety dictates I not post here. Yes, the “F” word again. Forget surgery, somebody needs to get these people some dictionaries so they can expand their vocabularies. Although to be fair, the decline and fall of civilization may be tied to the use of the “F” word. I have to admit that there are those on the right who could not recite the Preamble to the Constitution, the Pledge of Allegiance or The Lord’s Prayer without dropping the “F-bomb.”  So that may be a systemic problem.

When the crowd reached its destination, everyone fell silent as people began to inject the hormone of their choice. Once that was complete, the crowd broke into cheers.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19553/central-bank-digital-currencies

[E]ven when you have followed every law to the letter and paid every fee to the cent, there is still no guarantee that government agents will not later invoke eminent domain laws to swipe what you own because they believe they can use your private property more fruitfully for the “public good” – and, since Kelo v. New London, even for someone else’s private good. So much for private ownership.

Competition, in theory, forces markets to naturally discard bad and expensive products, while keeping the prices of the best products low…. In practice, however, mature students of capitalism understand that entrepreneurs are never in search of markets for competition but rather conditions for maintaining monopoly.

The end result is that capitalists are always in pursuit of ways in which they may take advantage of laws and regulations, specialized knowledge, government contracts, or other exclusionary mechanisms to restrict potential competitors from ever entering the market.

The usefulness of money over traditional bartering for goods and services comes from its three chief functions providing (1) a unit of account, (2) a store of value, and (3) a medium of exchange.

[O]ver the last century and a half, the important steps have all been the same: First, some form of paper money is introduced and backed by the government’s promise to pay the holder of each note a fixed sum in gold or silver. Next, the introduction of a private central bank comes into existence holding a de facto monopoly power to print paper money according to its best judgment for maintaining a healthy national economy. Finally, the gold or silver backing of those paper money currencies is revoked.

[G]overnments… spend money like drunken sailors precisely because central banks right across the street will buy up their debt and facilitate the printing of more money. How could politicians object to an arrangement that allows them to spend recklessly without any normal free market consequences?

Now with the central banks printing money and reckless government spending pushing Western economic systems to the brink, a new kind of financial hocus-pocus has been proposed: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).

If governments and central banks control the creation, distribution, and exchange of virtual money, whatever remains of free markets will disappear. If governments and central banks monitor every transaction between consumers and producers, then all industries will be subjugated to the centralized command of the State. If governments and central banks assert the legal power to determine who may store value, how much value may be personally stored, and how long that value will be permitted to last, then whatever remains of private property will cease to exist. If governments and central banks maintain a digital monopoly over the only legalized forms of money, then they may redistribute wealth or penalize personal behavior without regard for individual rights or limits to their control.

No doubt propaganda campaigns will cloak this oppressive monitoring in the West’s own “politically correct” language of fighting “hate” or “racism” or “climate change” or the next COVID-like scare, but the West’s system of control over its citizens will be no different from the Chinese communist version: Individuals will have their digital wealth confiscated or replenished according to whether their behavior conforms to the strictures of the State.

[A]n overhaul of the financial system and a transition to mandated CBDCs threaten what remains of Westerners’ personal liberties.

[T]hose who value liberty know that personal ownership and the unfettered exchange of goods, services, and ideas remain the bedrock of those free nations that refuse to be enslaved.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/one-pivot-republicans-make-winning

Republicans have an abortion problem, and there is only one Party leader who can fix it: Donald Trump.

Let me explain. Like the proverbial dog chasing the bus, the GOP spent years campaigning on the promise to appoint Supreme Court justices who would repeal Roe v. Wade but when finally successful, had no idea how to navigate the resulting political landscape. Democrats have used the reversal of Roe and Republicans’ subsequent anti-abortion initiatives to paint the party as extreme, thereby winning over women and younger voters.

The overturning of Roe handed abortion policy back to the states, where it will stay for the foreseeable future. Our country is so divided on the issue that Congress is unlikely to pass a nationwide law any time soon.

Given that power, some red states like Texas have enacted draconian laws banning all or nearly all abortions, a position that is unpopular with the majority of Americans. Other states have had long-standing restrictions on the books that were not enforceable because of Roe; now, some of those are in play.

Wisconsin, for instance, has a statute from 1849 that banned most abortions. That law is under review by the state’s Supreme Court. Just recently, Badger State residents voted to fill a seat on that court; a Democrat who favors abortion rights won that race by a shockingly wide margin after the contest became the most expensive such match-up in Wisconsin’s history. Because of that win, liberals now hold a majority on the state court, for the first time in decades. 

Remember that Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016, and then lost it in 2020 to Joe Biden, both by narrow margins; it is truly a “swing state”. In the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans actually gained seats in Wisconsin’s state legislature. So, the recent loss of the court seat, driven by the dispute over abortion, should be a wake-up call to Republicans.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/12/say-hello-to-the-epa-motor-company-say-goodbye-to-freedom/

How can a regulatory agency force carmakers to sell electric cars?

History may someday record today as the beginning of the end of the internal combustion engine – and of individual liberty in the U.S.

According to news reports, the EPA is scheduled to release proposed auto emissions standards today on new car sales so stringent that the only way for automakers to meet them would be to shift two-thirds of their fleet to electric.

But wait. How can a regulatory agency do that? Consumers aren’t demanding electric cars. Lawmakers didn’t vote to force them on the public. The Environmental Protection Agency knows better, though, and, unless it’s neutered, plans to force EVs on you – for your own good.

As the Washington Post helpfully explains, “while the rule changes wouldn’t order or require auto companies to sell a certain number of electric vehicles, it would set emissions limits so tightly the only way to comply would be to sell large percentages of EVs.”

To be clear, we are not talking about air pollution. We are talking about emissions of carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant but which the EPA has assumed the power to regulate.

The stated goal is to have up to 67% of new cars sold by 2032 be fully electric. (Today, EVs make up a tiny 6% of auto sales.)

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/10/splintered-court-ruling-throws-j6-prosecution-into-chaos/

A Massachusetts man on Friday was charged with a felony related to his participation in the protest at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Mark Sahady already faced misdemeanors for his nonviolent and brief jaunt through the building that afternoon, but the Justice Department decided to add the common “obstruction of an official proceeding” charge to Sahady’s case on April 7.

That same day, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia threw Sahady—and more than 300 January 6 defendants charged with the same obstruction felony—a potential lifeline. In what one judge described as a “splintered decision,” a three-judge panel narrowly reversed a lower court ruling that tossed the obstruction count against three Capitol protesters. D.C. District Court Judge Carl Nichols dismissed the charge last year largely based on the argument that the statute “requires that the defendant have taken some action with respect to a document, record, or other object in order to corruptly obstruct, impede or influence an official proceeding.”

A fair reading of the law proves Nichols is correct. Passed in 2002 in the wake of the Enron scandal as part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, section 1512(c)(2) closed a legal loophole related to evidence tampering. The law applies to “whoever corruptly . . . otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” It’s a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

When he signed the bill into law in 2002, President George W. Bush, as I explained here, noted that the word “corruptly” would compel the government to prove a defendant’s “criminal state of mind” and the overall provision must not infringe “on the constitutional right to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”

But that hasn’t prevented Attorney General Merrick Garland from weaponizing the statute in exactly that way for more than two years. Dozens of defendants have pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. Jacob Chansley, the “QAnon Shaman,” spent months in solitary confinement and was denied bail before Garland’s prosecutors successfully tormented him into pleading guilty to obstruction. Judge Royce Lamberth, who repeatedly denied his release, sentenced Chansley to 41 months in prison.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2023/04/09/jail-him-or-they-lose-n2621719

They’ve tried literally everything short of ordering a hit on him, and he still stands. They have exhausted every avenue, option, and possibility, and they are left with a bag of nothing.

They tried a fake dossier, a made-up narrative that the media put on repeat. They accused him of a high crime for a transcript of a phone call. They accused him of advocating violence when his words said precisely the opposite. Now they are trying to say he obstructed justice when he, in fact, followed the request of the FBI to the letter. Now they are trying to say that another phone call is evidence of a felony when again, his exact words prove otherwise. Now they have indicted him for something that if a crime is even evident (and clearly it is not), the statute of limitations ran out years ago. They tried to argue he avoided paying taxes, only for the record to show he followed the tax code with precision. They want to argue now that he intends to defraud the government of what he owes in taxes, even though during his four years in public office, he refused his $400k salary and returned it in full to the government coffers.

No elected leader has been more maligned, lied about, and attempted to be neutralized as they have with former President Trump.

I was reflecting on some things over this somber holiday weekend. I am intrinsically interested in relooking at history and seeing what lessons we learn from it. Hence my thoughts scurried to the 2016 cycle, where this imminent fear of Trump created this panic in America’s political left. The ensuing desperation dragged them into the utter gutter of criminal political action. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/04/11/what-happens-to-a-country-that-loses-its-mind/

To see biological males win “woman of the year” awards and others compete against women in sports, and at least one paid to promote sports bras, it’s obvious the American mind has slipped a few gears. But our current troubles are about more than celebrating what is clearly a mental illness that needs to be treated. We have lost our way almost entirely across the board.

The locus of our insanity, one could argue, is Washington, D.C. The federal government developed a habit long ago of spending beyond its means. But the foolishness has reached new levels.

The federal debt is heading to $31.7 trillion like a freight train at full throttle with no brakes. Spending is outpacing revenue by more than $1.5 trillion. Social Security is headed for collapse sooner than its appointed guardians had expected, but the collective vision among our “leaders” on the Potomac doesn’t go beyond the next election. So nothing is done.

Despite the obvious problems, the Democrats want to tax higher and spend more. The supply of vacuity seems endless.

Washington is also at the axis of weaponized government. Free speech is being crushed, dissent from the left’s political agenda is considered an imprisonable offense, and court rulings are to be ignored if they offend progressive sensibilities (yes, we know, two words that don’t belong together). The Democrats see the IRS not as just a revenue collector but also as a truncheon with which to discipline those who refuse to live under their boots. Parents who grouse at school board meetings? They are of course terrorists who must be watched.

It’s no coincidence that we’re living in riotous times. The damage seems to build with every news cycle. But to listen to the Democrats and their communications department, also known as the mainstream media, the only riot in U.S. history was on Jan. 6, 2021. In their twisted minds, rampaging, killing, burning and looting in the name of George Floyd, or some imagined resistance to fascism, are just benign elements of mostly peaceful protests. Democrats have even contributed money to bail out the “protesters.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/classified-document-leak-russia-ukraine-war-offensive-u-s-intelligence-dfda36c9?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

The leak of classified U.S. documents related to the Ukraine war looks like a debacle at many levels—undermining the confidence of allies in the U.S., revealing how much the U.S. knows about Russia’s military deliberations, and above all betraying the weakness of Ukrainian air defenses.

The source of the leak isn’t known, which is disconcerting on its own. The documents first appeared on social media, and the press hasn’t been able to verify their authenticity. But the obvious alarm among U.S. officials suggests that much of the leaked intelligence is accurate. The Justice Department and Pentagon began a criminal investigation last week, for what that is worth.

The leaks are especially damaging because they disclose secret U.S. judgments about the progress of the war. It’s not the same as betraying the location of troop movements, but it’s close. The disclosure of how much the U.S. knows about Russian military plans could be a death sentence for sources in Russia.

The most troubling leak is that Ukraine’s air defenses could be defeated by May, which would give Russia air superiority and a huge tactical advantage. The Kremlin hoped air dominance would help it achieve an early victory, but Ukrainian air defenses held up well against the initial assaults.