RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/anti-asian-violence-separating-truth-from-narrative

Viral videos of senseless violence have captured public attention since crime began rising in 2020. Some of the most extreme examples are attacks against Asian-Americans. Earlier this year, for instance, three teens and an 11-year-old, all black, beat and kicked in the head a 70-year-old woman in San Francisco. Yet many academics, advocates, and reporters argue that these cases leave a false impression. “While news reports and social media have perpetuated the idea that anti-Asian violence is committed mostly by people of color,” reported NBC News last year, “a new analysis shows the majority of attackers are white.” Unfortunately, the crime against 70-year-old Mrs. Ren is representative in many ways.

The refrain that most anti-Asian crimes are committed by white people is misleading, if not meaningless. While the Department of Justice estimates that Asians are the victims of over 180,000 violent crimes every year, an average year sees fewer than 24 violent anti-Asian hate crimes. In a discussion about violence directed toward Asians, focusing on hate crimes is a transparent attempt to obscure. The data show that whites, despite being the largest racial group in the country, are not responsible for the largest share of violent crimes against Asians.

Where do these misleading talking points come from? One common source, quoted by both NBC and the San Francisco Chronicle, is a literature review by Janelle Wong of the University of Maryland titled Beyond the Headlines. But Wong’s review does not focus on violent crime: it covers hate incidents against Asian-Americans, the majority of which consist of “verbal harassment” and “shunning”—not crimes. Advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate reported similar findings: 82 percent of recorded anti-Asian incidents were not physically violent. Wong suggests that conservatives are conflating anti-Asian attacks with affirmative action admissions policies that benefit blacks at the expense of Asians—it’s “an old tactic in white supremacy’s playbook,” she says. Wong also claims “there’s not really an empirical basis” for the observation “that it’s predominantly Black people attacking Asian Americans who are elderly.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/06/steven-dantuono-the-fbis-hatchet-man/

Defense attorneys representing two men recently convicted for conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 are seeking a new federal trial for their clients amid claims of jury and judicial misconduct. (The men, Adam Fox and Barry Croft were found guilty in August in a second trial; a jury in April failed to reach a verdict on them. Two co-defendants were acquitted after jurors concluded the men had been entrapped by the FBI.) A separate state trial for three other men accused of participating in the scheme is now underway in Jackson, Michigan.

The ongoing legal drama is a reminder of the handiwork of Steven D’Antuono, former head of the Detroit FBI field office, which was primarily responsible for hatching and executing the Whitmer fednapping hoax. Supervising and undercover agents working out of that Detroit office and its satellite branches managed the day-to-day details of the wide-ranging operation such as handling the main FBI informant, Dan Chappel, who was compensated at least $60,000 in cash and personal items paid by the FBI for luring the men into the trap.

About a week after law enforcement authorities announced arrests in the case on October 8, 2020, D’Antuono was rewarded with a plum assignment: head of the Washington FBI field office where he had worked on two other occasions, including a 2008 stint as supervisor of the public corruption and government fraud squad. FBI Director Christopher Wray presumably promoted D’Antuono for helping to bolster one of the FBI’s most absurd and fact-free political narratives—that “white supremacist” terrorists pose a danger to the country. Coverage of the alleged kidnapping plot dominated the news as Whitmer eagerly played the role of victim to Donald Trump’s villain in another example of the FBI interfering in a presidential election to damage Trump.

The FBI announced D’Antuono’s new gig in an October 13, 2020 press release. Ten days later, a handful of agents in the Washington field office conducted a five-hour voluntary interview with Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Hunter Biden. Bobulinski told Fox News host Tucker Carlson this week that “as much [sic] as six federal agents” participated in the meeting; Bobulinski walked through his background with the Bidens and discussed records associated with their business ventures. One FBI official gave Bobulinski’s lawyers the cell phone number for Tim Thibault, the assistant special agent in charge of the Washington FBI field office and so-called point person on the matter.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/06/if-peacefully-protesting-abortion-is-criminal-but-firebombing-pregnancy-centers-is-not-there-is-no-rule-of-law/

The arrest of peaceful pro-lifers but not of violent pro-abortionists confirms Biden’s DOJ does not equally apply the law.

Less than one month after armed FBI agents handcuffed and dragged Mark Houck, a pro-life activist and father, out of his home in front of his wife and children, the FBI raided another pro-life activist for his involvement in a peaceful protest outside a Tennessee abortion facility.

FBI agents, with weapons drawn, swarmed Chet Gallagher’s home on Wednesday, LifeNews.com reported, for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a law designed to keep people concerned with protecting unborn life away from abortion facilities. Gallagher was not home at the time of the raid so the FBI “demanded his whereabouts from Gallagher’s family” and his neighbors.

Gallagher is one of 11 activists devoted to defending unborn life who were federally indicted by the Department of Justice this week for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act by standing in a hallway outside the Carafem abortion facility in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, in March 2021. Gallagher and six others were also charged with civil rights conspiracy.

You wouldn’t know it from the DOJ’s press release, which claims the 11 individuals “aided and abetted by one another, used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the clinic and a patient who was seeking reproductive health services,” but the Christian pro-lifers spent most of their time peacefully praying, singing, and crying in the hallway leading to the abortion facility. Footage of the gathering eventually shows local police escorting several handcuffed members of the group out of the building and into a police van.

https://dianebederman.com/crime-its-not-about-black-or-white-its-about-family-the-smallest-unit-of-authority-in-a-civilized-society/

Yes, some things are black and white and not based on race, colour, creed or sexual orientation. There is absolute right and absolute wrong.

In the West we know the difference between right and wrong because our culture is firmly rooted in the Judeo/Christian ethic. Of the many teachings, six are most important for a civil society: Honour your mother and father: please note father. Do not murder; do not steal; do not commit adultery or incest; do not gossip and do not covet. These are personal responsibilities. We are to learn them from our parents; our family; the smallest unit of authority in a civilized society.

Except, somewhere along the way, something happened. We started to promote rights over responsibilities. My rights! All about me. My grandiose infantile delusions of rights. Right. I guess it was assumed (error) that people with God given rights would know they come with responsibilities. Otherwise, society crumbles. It is not possible, nor was it ever meant to be, that we have governments and bureaucracies policing us all the time. We are expected to limit ourselves. Follow the social contract. Control our desires. Conform to the Judeo/Christian ethic that underpins our Constitutions.  Responsibility.

Yet, take away the police and remove penalties for breaking the law, and it seems there are those who think it is a call to arms – to go out and take whatever you want, whenever you want and kill people whenever you feel like it. No sense of personal responsibility.

According to the FBI, in 2019 there were more than 10 million arrests in the United States, excluding traffic infractions. There were more than 1.2 million violent crimes and more than 6.9 million property crimes with the remainder being other miscellaneous offenses.  The facts show, however, nearly all crime in America is gang related, economic or domestic in nature.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-is-a-lawless-rogue-who-has-yet-again-violated-his-oath-of-office/

At 11:47 a.m. on January 20, 2021, Joe Biden swore an oath before his God and his country: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” At the heart of the duties imposed by that oath is Article II, Section 3, of that Constitution, which requires of the president that he “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Not some of the laws, but all of them. He is not charged with making those laws: He can veto bad laws that are presented to him by Congress, and he can recommend that bad laws be repealed or reformed, but so long as the laws made by Congress are on the books, it is his sworn, solemn, constitutional duty to take care that they be faithfully executed. This is why Americans used to refer to the president as the country’s “chief magistrate.”

Biden has repeatedly proven himself to be a rogue president contemptuous of his oath. He has, on several occasions now, exceeded his powers by trying to make laws rather than enforce them — and he has repeatedly done so even when he, his legal advisers, and/or the leaders of his party in the Congress acknowledge that he has no power to do so. He did not have the power to make national housing laws, yet he decreed that landlords could not evict deadbeat tenants. He did not have the power to make national medical decisions, yet he ordered every workplace to mandate vaccinations. He did not have the power to appropriate hundreds of billions of dollars to pay off college debts, but he did that, too. The courts have struck down the first two of those flagrant violations of his oath, and only the search for a proper party with standing to sue presents any real risk that they will not strike down the third.

The president’s pardon power, however, is a practically monarchical power, and the courts cannot remedy its abuse; only Congress can do so. Biden apparently now thinks we should not have federal laws against possession of marijuana. He should ask Congress to repeal those laws, which he had a major hand in writing during his 36 years in the Senate. If Congress did repeal them, Biden might have a case for making that repeal effectively retroactive via a blanket presidential pardon.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/07/google-targets-2-time-pulitzer-prize-winning-cartoonist-calls-our-poll-dangerous-and-more/

CALLS ISSUES AND INSIGHTS POLLS “DANGEROUS AND MORE.

Political cartoonist Michael Ramirez has won two Pulitzer Prizes – an achievement only a handful of others in his category have achieved – as well as countless other awards for his unmatched mastery of his craft. His cartoons, syndicated by Creators, run in publications around the world.

Yet, to Google’s content police, Ramirez’s cartoons are “shocking content” and it is restricting ads on a page where a catalog of them appears.

How do we know this? Because it’s against our site that Google has taken this action.

Google’s AdSense network – which is used by some 3.5 million websites to generate revenue – defines “shocking content” as content that:

contains gruesome, graphic, or disgusting accounts or imagery.
depicts acts of violence.
contains a significant amount of or prominently features obscene or profane language.

We appealed this ruling with Google and were denied. No explanation was offered, of course. And there’s no possible way to know what would constitute a “fix” that would satisfy Google.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/10/07/turns_out_bidens_empowering_of_opec_was_a_really_bad_ide

If the average price of a gallon of gas falls by a penny, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain will take to Twitter and credit the Biden administration. In the last few months, due to lower demand and other factors, consumers have experienced a reprieve from historic highs. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre points out this is “the fastest decline in gas prices in over a decade,” which is like bragging about losing a couple of pounds after packing on 20.

Officials haven’t had much to say lately. That trend is likely to continue. Today, the OPEC+ cartel announced it’s going to cut production by 2 million barrels a day. This, even after the Biden administration engaged in a “full-scale pressure campaign,” according to CNN, to dissuade our alleged allies in the Middle East to change their minds.

As a presidential candidate, Biden called Saudi Arabia a “pariah” state. Soon after the election, like all his predecessors, Biden traveled to the kingdom to kiss the ring. And still, he gets nothing. The oft-repeated claim that Biden is a savvy, highly respected foreign policy operator has been relentlessly debunked by reality.

Biden wagered that he could placate his left wing, curbing fossil fuel production while also holding prices in check by pressuring the Saudis and emptying the U.S. strategic reserve, now at a 40-year low. It was a bad bet.

Biden can’t control prices, but he could have mitigated the problem consumers now face had he not disincentivized domestic fossil fuel production and refinery capacity. Remember that on Biden’s first day at work, he revoked permits to build the Keystone XL, a 1,179-mile pipeline that was going to carry approximately 800,000 barrels of oil a day into the United States that was slated to be completed in a few months. Seems like the kind of infrastructure that might be quite helpful.

Days later, Biden signed a batch of executive orders halting any new oil and natural gas leases on all public lands. The administration has issued fewer oil leases than any president since the Second World War.

It’s unsurprising, considering the stated policy goal of his party has been to create fossil-fuel scarcity by “transitioning” — subsidizing, mandating and diverting capital — to unreliable and expensive “clean energy” projects. Democrats’ promises and rhetoric are also baked into the price. Even if Biden loosened regulations today, why would nefarious profit-hungry shareholders of the oil industry plow billions into long-term projects when Democrats promise to destroy their business in the not very distant future?

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/05/an-epidemic-of-cognitive-impairment/

Joe Biden, the nominal head of the Democratic Party, is 79. But he increasingly acts and sounds 89.  

Recently, Biden has pivoted repeatedly on stage with his arm outstretched to shake the hand—of someone not there.  

On one recent occasion Biden called out for Representative Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) who passed away in a car crash in early August. He was insistent, shouting to the crowd, “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I think she wasn’t going to be here—to help make this a reality.” 

Biden’s fantasy was the reality that Rep. Walorski is no longer with us. 

Biden slurs his words. He truncates sentences. He speaks in a muddled voice that often makes comprehension impossible. When questioned, he grows irate, growls, and stutters. 

Biden’s messaging is even more confused than his medium. On any given day, Biden may impetuously announce that U.S. soldiers will defend the soil of Taiwan, or that the “killer” Vladimir Putin, unhinged head of nuclear Russia, must be removed from office promptly.  

If Biden doesn’t like a question, he may deride the reporter as a “stupid son of a bitch.” He habitually lies about everything from COVID-19 vaccinations being unavailable until his presidency to the nature of his son’s military service.  

Biden confuses Iran with Ukraine. He calls a senior African American assistant “my boy.” 

For much of the Trump presidency, leftist opponents sought to remove Trump by the 25th Amendment. A Yale psychiatrist diagnosed Trump in absentia and declared him deserving of a straitjacket forced intervention. Partisan charges grew so intense that Trump voluntarily took—and aced—the Montreal Cognitive Assessment.  

Strangely, the same Left arm-chair psychiatrists offer no such worries about Biden’s clear mental decline.