RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/19/here-come-the-tantrums/

Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton in 2016 led to an election denial that still runs hot today in Democrat circles. But the left also threw anti-Trump tantrums across the country, many of them long before anyone had voted. Should Republicans unseat the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate in the coming midterms, as is expected, we will again see the childishness and narcissism that drives the Democratic Party.

Who can forget the videos of celebrities as well as the unknowns wailing and shrieking and coming apart at the thought of Trump in the White House? In several instances, the demonstrations against the president-elect on the evening of the 2016 election and after turned violent. These political hissy fits have been a combination of performative art and a childish expression of emotion. Despite the differences, the aim is the same: Extortion.

When a toddler has a conniption, flails about and pounds the floor, he is saying: “Give me what I want or I will make your life miserable.” In the case of frothy political meltdowns, the adult children are saying that if they don’t get their way in elections, they will continue to cry, screech, and hold their breath. And of course the high temperatures are stoked by the Democratic Party-media industrial complex, which has become somewhat indistinguishable from a playroom swarming with spoiled tots.

Even after Trump left office, the deranged venting of spleens remained a staple of the left. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Democrats again looked liked overgrown preschoolers. At the time we pointed out, in an editorial headlined The American Mushroom Cloud, that Democratic Sen. Elizabeth “Warren’s fevered tirade clearly shows we have reached the point that the left has decided that policy will not be made like sausage but through tantrum, intimidation, and riot.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/17/the-fbis-million-dollar-men/

Proceedings underway in three U.S. courtrooms are providing a coordinated view into the abuse of the FBI’s confidential human source (CHS) program, a cash-flush operation now primarily used to bolster Democratic Party narratives instead of detecting and preventing crime.

As I’ve reported, the FBI spends an average of $42 million per year to pay informants and does so with absolutely no financial or legal accountability. Confidential human sources are paid in cash; they can offer their services for a variety of reasons including financial need or to obtain a change in immigration status. FBI agents are required to keep at least one informant on the books, an FBI whistleblower told me; successfully using a CHS to bust up a crime is one way to get promoted.

But ongoing trials related to the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, January 6, and the Whitmer fednapping case are once again shining a light on the way the bureau hires snitches to advance political goals.

After numerous investigations over the course of more than six years—not to mention an obsessive fixation by the national media—the scandal known as Russiagate produced another bombshell revelation during the perjury trial of Igor Danchenko, the key source for the Steele dossier. The FBI offered to pay Christopher Steele, its author, up to $1 million in cash if he could verify the dossier’s declarations about Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. He could not.

Described for years as a “former British intelligence officer,” Steele, in fact, was a private consultant with several paymasters in 2016. Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee retained Steele to write his dossier that alleged shadowy connections between the Kremlin and Trump associates. At the same time, Steele was lobbying the U.S. government on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who ran afoul of the Obama Administration.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/watch-joe-bidens-senior-moment-of-the-week-vol-15/

President Joe Biden suffered through another challenging week of interviews and public appearances. He dropped his cheat sheet during a discussion with CNN’s Jake Tapper and invented a new number: “a billion, a trillion, 700 million dollar, billion dollars.” He also touted his party’s passage of the “Inflation Act,” which is actually a more accurate way to describe the Inflation Reduction Act, which has not reduced inflation.

The commander in chief went to Colorado and marveled at the “mountains stretching 14 feet high,” concocting unusual words such as “certally” and phrases such as “has I not gotten to seen these.” Meanwhile, there is “trepidation” in the White House among Biden aides who would like to “downplay” the president’s fast-approaching 80th birthday on November 20.

If it were up to us, his handlers would be in prison, sharing a cell with Hillary Clinton, for abetting elder abuse. But it’s not up to us, so the best we can do is speak truth to power by chronicling these moments every week and letting you, the American voter, express your feelings at the ballot box.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/17/the-new-lawlessness-gripping-america/

One evening a few weeks ago, about 100 young people ransacked a Wawa convenience store in Philadelphia. The mob stole merchandise, knocked over shelves and threw food and drinks around, leaving the store looking like a natural disaster had hit it. Many got their phones out to record the madness. As chaos reigned, a young woman twerked on a counter. Fighting spilled out into the parking lot.

The rampage in Wawa mirrored an incident in Philadelphia a month earlier, when dozens of youths trashed the Zion Cuisine restaurant in the Germantown area of the city. Teens flipped tables, broke glasses and threw chairs at the staff. And scenes such as those at Wawa and Zion Cuisine are not unique to Philadelphia – they are happening all over America. Two weeks ago in Virginia, a group of teens assaulted a movie-theatre employee while ransacking a concession counter.

There is a lot of talk about crime in the US at the moment. Republican candidates have prioritised the issue while campaigning for next month’s Midterm elections. Their focus on crime is understandable. Since 2020 and the George Floyd riots, there have been spikes in assaults, burglary, robbery and car thefts. Homicides jumped up 29 per cent in 2020 and rose again by 4.3 per cent in 2021. Crime is also a concern shared by many Americans. A Morning Consult poll finds that more than three-quarters of voters think violent crime is a major problem in the United States. And another poll, from Monmouth University, finds that crime is the second-highest priority, after inflation, for all voters going into the Midterms.

At the same time, we shouldn’t slip into thinking that the latest crime discussion is just a revival of traditional ‘law and order’ politics. Yes, the Republicans are trying to use the issue to their advantage. But rising crime is a real problem. And while some Democrats respond with shouts of ‘that’s racist’, both black and white Americans are concerned about crime – indeed, black people in urban areas are disproportionately the victims of crime.

More importantly, many people now feel American society is spinning out of control. There is a growing sense of social breakdown, a sense that the veneer of civilisation is being eroded.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/16/the-tentacles-of-the-social-media-octopus/

A shared theme in all dystopian explorations of future and current totalitarian regimes—whether China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba—is government control of all media information, fueled by electronic surveillance. 

A skeptical public learns to say one thing publicly but quite another privately. It nervously nods yes at the news while at work, but at home cynically assumes the opposite of whatever is publicly said to be true.  

RIP, First Amendment

Such electronic propaganda has sadly become characteristic of the world’s oldest consensual government. 

In America we once believed our First Amendment prevented a government monopoly on information. But in the age of globalization, the Internet, and social media, the state has become the enemy—not the protector—of free speech. 

One obvious sign is that the Biden Administration keeps trying to create new sorts of ministries of truth or “Disinformation Governance Boards.” It alleges such Orwellian censors must combat “disinformation” and “misinformation.” In fact, these bureaucracies are designed to criminalize unwanted free expression while also advancing state propaganda. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/durhams_inyourface_danchenko_gambit.html

In the larger drama we’ll call “Russiagate” Igor Danchenko gets nowhere near top billing. Even today, after his week-long trial, not one American out of ten could identify this FBI informant by name. Fewer still could tell you word one about the drama’s other walk-ons, Sergei Millian and Charles Dolan. Although the Democrats and major media are anxious to see all three of these minor players vanish into the ether, Special Counsel John Durham made future stars out of them all.

Danchenko was accused of lying to the FBI about his relationships with both Millian and Dolan. These are lies, said Durham’s co-counsel Michael Keilty in his opening statement that “the FBI should have uncovered but never did.” So saying, team Durham put Washington on notice. This trial was not really about Danchenko at all. It was about the FBI, the Department of Justice, and, finally, the Mueller investigation.

“The evidence in this trial will show that the Steele dossier would cause the FBI to engage in troubling conduct that would ultimately result in the extended surveillance of the United States Citizens,” said Keilty. That conduct, the trial revealed, included offering Christopher Steele what amounted to a million-dollar bribe to corroborate his infamous dossier, paying Danchenko to be a confidential human source (CHS) after he proved to be a serial liar, and basing a multi-year persecution of President Trump on information the FBI had every reason to believe was bunk.

The attempted bribe, revealed on Day One of the trial, should have stopped the presses. Specifically, Durham asked FBI supervisor Brian Auten what the FBI offered Steele for “corroborative information.” Said Auten, “Mr. Steele was offered anywhere up to a million dollars for any information, documentary, physical evidence, anything of that sort which could help to prove the allegations.”

This offer reeks of desperation. The FBI made it in early October 2016, two weeks before it filed its first FISA application against American businessman Carter Page. As Auten admitted, Steele did not and could not provide “anything.” Ever. Yet without any corroboration, the FBI went ahead and filed not just one but four FISA applications against Page with the unproven Steele information as its foundation — a clear violation of FISA law.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/10/16/brain-freeze-biden-says-economy-strong-as-hell-during-ice-cream-stop-n1637517

During a campaign stop at a Baskin-Robbins in Portland, Ore., on Saturday, Joe Biden declared the economy to be “strong as hell” under his administration.

“Our economy is strong as hell,” Biden claimed while going to town on his ice cream, before adding, “the internals of it.”

What internals is he talking about? Historic inflation? Record gas prices? The weakening dollar? Economic contraction?

“I’m not concerned about the strength of the dollar. I’m concerned about the rest of the world. Does that make sense?” he said, before blaming other countries for America’s economic woes.

“The problem is the lack of economic growth and sound policy in other countries, not so much ours,” he insisted. “And that’s having, it’s worldwide inflation, and it’s consequential.”

Well, it’s appropriate he was in a Baskin-Robbins because that’s 31 flavors of stupid right there.