RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/02/05/china-is-not-happy-that-we-shot-down-their-spy-balloon-n2619170

This Chinese spy balloon fiasco could have been avoided—at least, that’s the feeling, and you don’t need a security clearance to have that assumption. We have the capability to track these devices; we’ve been on pins and needles regarding missile launches since the Cold War. We never saw this balloon coming. It’s a balloon—one that measured three bus lengths and drifted at high altitudes, but a balloon, nonetheless. China regretted this spy balloon which hovered over areas where we house nuclear missiles. Montana is where passengers on a commercial airliner reportedly spotted this Beijing bag of tricks launched from Central China. 

China’s reaction to the US was as expected: don’t overreact because this balloon drifted off course. For once, Joe Biden made the right call by wanting to shoot it down—the Pentagon advised against it. This spy balloon drifted with impunity across American skies for days before being shot down yesterday. And Beijing was none too pleased (via NBC News): 

The U.S. downed the Chinese surveillance balloon off the Carolina coast on Saturday, a U.S. official said, setting off a tense exchange between both nations. 

An F-22 raptor with a single missile shot the balloon down at 2:39 p.m., according to a senior defense official. It was between 60,000 to 65,000 feet in the air when it was downed. 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2023/02/04/faa-issues-ground-stop-n2619167

The United States has shot down the Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic, the Associated Press reports.

The United States on Saturday downed a suspected Chinese spy balloon off the Carolina coast after it traversed sensitive military sites across North America and became the latest flashpoint in tensions between Washington and Beijing.

An operation was underway in U.S. territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean to recover debris from the balloon, which had been flying at about 60,000 feet and was estimated to be about the size of three school buses.

President Joe Biden had told reporters earlier Saturday that “we’re going to take care of it,” when asked about the balloon. The Federal Aviation Administration and Coast Guard worked to clear the airspace and water below the balloon as it reached the ocean.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2023/02/04/bombshell-white-house-knew-about-the-chinese-spy-balloon-and-covered-it-up-but-then-n1667854

How cowardly and compromised is the Biden regime? We have fresh evidence of just how bad it is, courtesy of the Chinese spy balloon. The world found out about the now-infamous balloon on Thursday, when a Montana resident named Chase Doak spotted it and posted a video. But that was not the first that Old Joe Biden’s handlers heard of the balloon. Now it has come to light that they knew about it all along but kept the knowledge secret so as to avoid a confrontation with the Chinese Communist Party and keep Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s now-canceled trip to Beijing on track. Patriots can thank Chase Doak for the small show of spine from the Biden State Department that the cancellation represented.

“Not gonna lie,” Doak tweeted with his video. “First, I thought this was a #ufo. Then, I thought it was @elonmusk in a Wizard of Oz cosplay scenario. But it was just a run-of-the mill Chinese spy balloon!” But Bloomberg revealed in a bombshell report Friday that “as it turns out, US authorities were well aware of the unidentified object that had entered American airspace on Jan. 28, that had then left and re-entered over North Idaho on Tuesday.” But Blinken was slated to huddle with the ChiComs in Beijing, and Old Joe and his henchmen didn’t want to let something as trivial as what J. Michael Waller of the Center for Security Policy terms “China’s military espionage incursion into the US” get in the way of a friendly tête-à-tête in the Forbidden City.

In fact, Biden had already been informed about the spy balloon long before Chase Doak spotted it, and his handlers were holding nervous discussions about whether or not to shoot it down. Yet Blinken thundered Friday that China’s decision to launch the spy balloon was an “irresponsible act” that represented a “clear violation of U.S. sovereignty and international law.” He added that China’s “decision to take this action on the eve of my planned visit is detrimental to the substantive discussions that we were prepared to have.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/02/03/responsibility-in-the-debt-ceiling-negotiations-fuhgeddabadit/

AP: “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an Associated Press interview Saturday” that “demands by House Republicans for spending cuts in return for backing an increase are ‘a very irresponsible thing to do.’” — Huffington Post

“The greatest threat to America, it doesn’t matter if you sit before a four-star general, they’ll tell you the debt is the greatest threat to this nation. And for the president to say he won’t even negotiate is irresponsible.” — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy at his weekly news conference

‘Irresponsible?” Seriously? This from an Establishment politician first elected to Congress 16 years ago, during which time federal outlays have more than doubled and national debt has tripled under congresses and administrations of both parties?

And from a liberal Democratic economics near-lifer long known as an inflation dove, who as Fed chair ran an accommodative policy to cover for Obamite profligacy?

Who, as Treasury chief, in just two years has driven into the ground an economy that was roaring back after COVID lockdowns, while insisting inflation was “transitory” and abortions necessary to economic growth?

Not to mention presumably brainstorming and helping shepherd through the Biden economic troupe’s $1.9 trillion American “Rescue” spendapalooza, its $1.2 trillion infrastructure hog trough, its $200 billion semiconductor industry boondoggle, its $1.7 trillion Green New Deal-not-so-lite “Inflation Reduction” hornswoggle, and the $1.9 trillion everything-including-the-kitchen-sink (but not gas stove) omnibus(t)?

Pardon this commentator while he is engulfed in an Earth-shaking belly laugh.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19373/goerge-soros

According to published reports, George Soros is teaching college courses these days to thousands of students.

To be clear, he is not actually on campuses in front of the class. Rather, exhaustive investigations by journalists reveal how his reach, influence, and above all, money, is resetting curriculum to reflect his political ideology wherever and whenever he can.

Investigative author Matt Palumbo wrote in the New York Post last month:

“In 2020 alone, Soros’ Open Society Foundations budgeted more than $63 million, or just over 5% of its budget, toward influencing higher education here and abroad….

“More than 19 colleges had individually received at least $1 million from Soros, including Harvard University, Columbia University, Indiana University, and Georgetown University, among others.”

One institution in particular, Palumbo reveals, has significantly benefited from Soros’ campaign of campus influence, Bard College.

“Bard College had received nearly $80 million total from Soros when he announced in 2020 that he’d be awarding it an additional $100 million over the next decade.”

For what purpose?

It would appear that Soros is seeking to leverage his enormous wealth to create a new political cadre from an emerging generation that will pursue his goals today, and long after he is gone. It is what these goals are that is being questioned (for instance here , here and here).

Soros was a student of Karl Popper (author of The Open Society and Its Enemies) in London. Later, to promote freedom and defeat totalitarianism, Soros donated millions to such causes as Lech Walesa’s Solidarity Movement, which led Poland out of the grip of the Soviet Empire, and to financing democracy movements in Yugoslavia working to oust Slobodan Milosevic.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/02/03/theater-of-the-absurd-in-j6-courtrooms/

The Department of Justice carefully crafted the dramatic moment in court.

A federal prosecutor handed an enclosed paper bag to an FBI agent responsible for investigating members of the Proud Boys, now on trial for seditious conspiracy related to their participation in the events of January 6. The bag contained “evidence of the unlawful entry of the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 and evidence of the disruption to the certification of the 2020 presidential election,” FBI Special Agent Elizabeth D’Angelo told assistant U.S. Attorney Nadia Moore on Wednesday.

D’Angelo cautiously pulled the evidence out of the bag to present to the jury.

Spectators in D.C. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly’s courtroom were on the edge of their seats. What would the mystery bag reveal?

Would it disclose the group’s intricate but failed plot to overthrow the government? A detailed list of weapons the “seditionists” planned to use in service of their dastardly deed? Names of targeted officials?

A nervous hush fell over the room; sweat beads formed on furrowed brows. Finally, the big moment arrived.

It was—a set of challenge coins.

Moore: Can you give a brief description of what they are?

D’Angelo: They are challenge coins. This one is black and gold—and this package contains four black and gold colored challenge coins.

Moore: Are these the same coins that were seized from Zachary Rehl’s home?

D’Angelo: Yes.

What?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gregbyrnes/2023/02/03/helium-supply-chain-failure-worries-hospitals-crime-labs-welders-and-even-balloon-retailers-n1667789

The United States is beginning the third year of a helium supply-chain crisis. Some experts think it will last until at least 2024. Consumers may have noticed some party retailers going out of business, with helium prices in a few markets almost doubling. A Texas retailer reports tanks went from $195 to $365, and they can only get half tanks because of shortages. The Party City chain, where balloons were a key profit center, has filed for bankruptcy.

But helium shortages mean more than fewer fun diversions like blimps, party balloons, or Daffy Duck floating down Broadway.

Last year the Miami-Dade Police crime lab and the Medical Examiner’s Office had to pay $1,800 per tank for helium to run instruments to identify deadly drugs and complete autopsy blood tests. Helium is used by semiconductor manufacturers and welders, and of critical importance, it is used to cool MRI machines in hospitals.

Without a reliable supply of helium in medical care, the public may face hard choices: rationing, sky-high pricing, or limiting tests patients can get. All could be on the horizon. This may not represent a complete regression to third-world medical care, but the supply chain failure is not without consequences for public health and safety. That this is happening in one of the most natural resource-rich countries in the world is more than strange. If one consequence of Biden’s green energy policy is the collapse of this vital supply chain, what can Congress do to reverse course?

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest sources of helium, but with supply not meeting demand, prices are skyrocketing. Helium is captured as a byproduct of natural gas drilling, which has been targeted by the Biden administration as part of its war on fossil fuels. Currently, the United State’s helium reserve is in Amarillo, Texas, a state replete with natural gas.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2023/02/03/joe_manchins_wifes_commission_received_200m_from_omnibus_bill_878323.html

Included in the $1.7 trillion omnibus package supported by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was a provision to give $200 million to the Appalachian Regional Commission, an agency headed by Manchin’s wife, Gayle.

The Appalachian Regional Commission operates as an economic development partnership between the federal government and 13 Appalachian states, distributing infrastructure grants in those states.

Its head, Gayle Manchin, makes $160,000 in her role as its federal co-chair, according to a Fox News report. She was confirmed by the Senate in 2021.

The $200 million in funding is a $5 million increase from last year.

“The West Virginia senator previously helped craft earlier legislation, following his wife’s 2021 appointment, that allocated $1 billion in funding over five years for the ARC,” Fox reported. Sen. Manchin was a key Democratic negotiator of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which doubled the commission’s funding level.

Gayle Manchin defended the spending increase in 2021, claiming this funding is necessary to, “more adequately meet the overwhelming needs of communities impacted by job losses resulting from the decline in the coal industry. These grants will be instrumental to the long-term diversification and economic growth in Appalachia.”

https://swtotd.blogspot.com

“On Thursday the University of North Carolina board of trustees vote 12-0 to create a new school committed to free expression in higher education.”    Editorial, The Wall Street Journal   January 26, 2023

 As is always true, many problems confront our nation, but one is in the forefront of what divides us: culture. It is the culture wars that strike at the heart of what it means to be an American, a nation of people from every corner of the world, individuals with myriad beliefs but with one common objective: to live freely. But what happens when definitions of freedom are in conflict – when, for example, the wishes of teenagers, empowered by teachers, run counter to the desires of parents? When we disagree as to the founding principles of our nation, or when merit is subservient to racial diversity in college admissions?

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” is a saying attributed to Albert Einstein. It is applicable in the “Woke”[1] world we inhabit: Does it make sense to persist in pouring money into the gaping jaws of public education, in hopes that this time money will cure failing schools? Why do teachers, administrators, and the curriculum escape blame when students score poorly on international tests? Does it make sense to blame the weapon above the one who pulled the trigger in a mass shooting? And why are criminals so often released without bail, even after having committed armed robbery, and why is the mental health of the gunman not considered a cause for the crime. And why were interest rates kept artificially low, even as federal debt expanded exponentially?

https://thespectator.com/topic/the-ever-shifting-excuses-about-hunter-bidens-laptop/

Hunter Biden’s defense about his incriminating laptop sounds like an old joke about a trial lawyer who was accused of letting his dog bite a stranger. The lawyer’s first line of defense was that “it couldn’t happen because my dog was tied up that night.” When told there were witnesses who had seen him walking the dog, he said, “Okay, we were out walking but my dog doesn’t bite.” If that fails, then, “Well, yes, my dog did give you a little nip, but it wasn’t a bad one.” Then, “Granted, you had to go to the hospital for surgery, but you provoked my sweet pup.” If all else fails, “What do you mean I own a dog?”

That, in essence, is how Hunter Biden and his family have defended themselves against the damning information on the laptop that he abandoned at a Delaware repair shop. Or, as his lawyers might say, “allegedly abandoned in the alleged state of Delaware.” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine has aptly labeled the computer the “laptop from hell,” and Hunter is none too eager to admit ownership or culpability. Neither is his family, who see both legal and political peril in the computer’s contents.

Just look at this long list of Hunter’s defenses, one crumbling after the other, like the lawyer with a dog.