RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/31/can-midterm-election-red-wave-heal-divided-america-ii-tipp-poll/

Americans remain deeply gloomy about the state of the nation’s unity, new data from the latest I&I/TIPP Poll show. The big question that looms is will the electorate’s sense that the U.S. has become more fragmented have a major impact on the outcome of the midterm election?

Each month, I&I/TIPP asks voters “In general, would you say the United States is”, followed by five possible responses: “Very united,” “Somewhat united,” “Somewhat divided,” “Very divided,” and “Not sure.” From these data we get a monthly reading, plus create an index that allows us to make comparisons over the lifetime of the index.

For October’s poll, the results showed a nation deeply concerned about the lack of unity of their fellow citizens, suggesting a growing political, cultural and ideological fragmentation among the electorate.

Just 28% said the nation was “united,” with only 13% saying “very united” and 15% saying “somewhat united.” That compares with 69%, or more than two to one, calling the nation “divided.” That includes 28% saying we’re “somewhat divided” and 41% saying we’re “very divided. Only 3% said they were not sure.

https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/pelosi-and-kavanaugh-murder-plots

David DePape, the suspect in an alleged assassination attempt against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, wrote a series of right-wing blog posts in recent weeks. “Many of the posts were filled with screeds against Jews, Black people, Democrats, the media and transgender people,” notes The Washington Post. “In one post, written on Oct. 19, the author urged former President Donald J. Trump to choose Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii, as his vice-presidential candidate in 2024,” reports The New York Times. “In another,” wrote The Los Angeles Times, “he called ‘equity’ a leftist dog whistle ‘for the systematic oppression of white people’ and ‘diversity’ a ‘dog whistle for the genocide of the white race.’”

But the blog posts confirm my original reporting yesterday that DePape has been, for at least a decade, in the grip of a psychosis caused by mental illness and/or drug use. The Washington Post, to its credit, reports in the first paragraph that DePape’s blog was filled with “delusional thoughts, including that an invisible fairy attacked an acquaintance and sometimes appeared to him in the form of a bird” and that, as each post loaded, “a reader briefly glimpses an image of a person wearing a giant inflatable unicorn costume.” The New York Times acknowledged that, “mixed in with those posts were others about religion, the occult and images of fairies that the user said he had produced using an artificial intelligence imaging system,” albeit not until the 22nd paragraph.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-gop-let-biden-nominate-an-extremist-irs-boss-to-terrorize-americans/

Biden’s illegal Inflation Increase Act has prepped the IRS to act as a weapon of political terror. But it needs someone at the top to run the machine.

Here’s the stage being set.

Looming Leadership Void at I.R.S. Raises Concerns Over $80 Billion Overhaul – New York Times

Former commissioners warn that delays in nominating a new commissioner raise the prospect that transformation efforts will fail.

You know the kind of transformation they have in mind.

Last month, we were told that the Biden regime had narrowed its list of candidates. And based on the track record, we’re likely looking at a Warren person, someone with a background in advocating political crackdowns on conservative organizations and finding new ways to bend the tax code to pursue leftist agendas. As a plus, it’s likely to be a woman and a member of a minority group.

Now, Commissioner Rettig is officially stepping down.

The Treasury Department on Friday announced the departure of IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, an appointee of former President Trump whose term is set to end in mid-November.

Before Congress approves a new permanent IRS head, the agency will be headed by deputy commissioner Douglas O’Donnell as acting chief, the Treasury said.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/26/sacheen-littlefeather-and-the-rise-of-the-race-fakers/

When Sacheen Littlefeather died earlier this month, obituaries celebrated her as a brave Native American activist who dared to take on the Hollywood establishment. Since then, she has been exposed as an imposter.

Littlefeather achieved international fame and notoriety at the 1973 Academy Awards, when she refused an Oscar on behalf of Marlon Brando. Dressed in buckskin and with traditional hair-ties, she denounced the American film industry’s treatment of Native Americans. At the time, the audience was outraged and her speech was booed.

By the time Littlefeather died, America had changed substantially. No one in Hollywood would dare boo an activist in this way for making allegations of racism. Had she delivered the same speech today, she would have been applauded. In fact, just last month, the Academy organised an ‘evening with Sacheen Littlefeather’. And it issued a formal apology for the ‘unwarranted and unjustified abuse she received’ following her 1973 speech.

Now, after her death, members of her family have come forward to tell the world that Littlefeather has no Native American ancestry. It turns out that her birth name is Marie Louise Cruz. She was born to a white mother and a father of Mexican descent.

Littlefeather’s case is not a one off. In the US and Canada it has become fashionable to fake a Native American or First Nations identity. And in Australia, there has been an explosion of white people identifying as indigenous.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-and-the-great-fear-of-free-speech/

So he’s done it. The richest man in the world and self-styled ‘free-speech absolutist’ has taken over Twitter. The bête noire of illiberal liberals has got his hands on social media. Cue meltdown. Listening to the woke set you’d be forgiven for thinking that the gates of hell had been flung open and every manner of evil and blasphemy will now pour forth. Twitter could become a ‘soap box for hate speech’, fretted one media outlet yesterday. It really is extraordinary how much some people fear freedom.

Elon Musk hinted at his takeover of Twitter with a real-life pun. ‘Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!’, he tweeted on Wednesday, alongside a vid of him bringing a literal sink into the Twitter offices. But the Twitterati don’t need hammy rich-geek humour for Musk’s conquering of Twitter to ‘sink in’. The horrifying prospect of a Musk-run social media, of a tad more liberty online, of women being allowed to call men men, and of Trump being let loose once more to fire off spicy tweets, has been sinking into their minds since this was all first floated a few months ago. Twitter could become a ‘cesspool of hate speech and disinformation’, whimpered a writer for the New York Times in April. Cesspool! You say ‘freedom of speech’, they hear ‘cistern for the storage of human shit’.

‘The bird is freed’, Musk tweeted following his $44 billion takeover. He has reportedly started turfing out the old guard. Apparently the boss, Parag Agrawal, is gone, as are other chief execs. And even though he’s made it pretty clear that he’s not so absolutist on free speech after all – Twitter ‘obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape’, he said yesterday – still the freedomphobes are petrified. Musk’s ‘idea of “free speech”’ will help to ‘ruin America’, says a frantic writer at the New Republic this week. ‘The fascists will take over’, apparently. There you have it – freedom is fascism.

The most striking thing about Musk and Twitter is the demented reaction to it. Musk himself is not going to singlehandedly restore the hard fought-for liberty to utter. It will take more than online ventures by a contrarian billionaire to turn back the tide of censorship, cancellation and social shaming for wrongthink that have become such a key and horrid feature of Anglo-American political life. Musk’s plan for Twitter is sensible, not revolutionary. It is ‘important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence’, he said in his note of reassurance to advertisers yesterday. That town square should not be a ‘hellscape’, he said, where ‘anything can be said with no consequences’. A town square, you say? With people talking? Fetch my smelling salts.

Who could possibly be affronted by such a polite, classical-liberal vision? And yet affronted people are. Loads of them. Hysterically so. Their dread of Twitter without moderation is intense. ‘Twitter without content moderation… means lies and disinformation will overwhelm the truth’, says that New Republic piece. We’ve come a long way since John Milton’s 1644 cry against the censorship of the press: ‘Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worst in a free and open encounter?’ Today’s woke set did. In their eyes truth will always be bettered by bullshit in an open clash. If only they knew how much this told us about the corrosion of their own faith in humankind, about the decay of their trust in ordinary people and our capacity for reason and goodness, I think they’d stop saying it.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-a-biden-go-to-prison-instead-of-trump/

Soon after he announced his run for President in June of 2015, the Democrats – along with their obedient lap dogs in the media – went after then New York City businessman Donald J. Trump hammer and tongs.

In collusion with elements of the “Deep State” within our own Federal government, fabricated accusation after fabricated accusation was hurled at then candidate Trump.  Once he was elected President, the left’s smear machine went into overdrive.

Why?

The main reason being that “They” – meaning the Democrats, the entrenched Republican-elites, and the Deep State – could not control him.  Ever.  President Trump was not part of the DC “Club” or “Cabal.”

He didn’t need their fawning approval nor their special interest connections or money.  He was in it to put forth what he believed to be the best policy initiatives designed to benefit the vast majority of the American people.  Most especially the working and middle-class.

As far as President Trump was concerned, it was: “Damn the partisan; special interest; and corrupt-liberal-media torpedoes.  Full speed ahead.”

Except…if you are instituting policies to help protect the vast majority of the American people, you will invariably expose numerous politicians as outright frauds, while identifying countless organizations and individuals greedily feeding from the tax-payer trough at the direct expense of the American people.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-completes-twitter-takeover-11666918031?mod=hp_lead_pos1

Agrawal and Ned Segal are out as takeover begins; billionaire visited headquarters this week
Elon Musk fired several Twitter Inc. executives after completing his takeover of the company, according to people familiar with the matter, capping an unusual corporate battle and setting up one of the world’s most influential social-media platforms for potentially broad change.

Mr. Musk fired Chief Executive Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal after the deal closed, the people said. Mr. Musk also fired Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top legal and policy executive, and Sean Edgett, general counsel. Spokespeople for Twitter didn’t comment.

Hours after those actions, Mr. Musk tweeted: “the bird is freed” in a seeming reference to Twitter, which has a blue bird as its logo.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/27/biden-tells-an-absurd-whopper-claims-average-price-of-gas-was-5-00-when-he-took-office/

Joe Biden was caught telling a ridiculous, easily disproven lie during a speech on the CHIPS Act in Syracuse, New York, on Thursday, claiming the price of gasoline was “over five dollars” when he took office, when it was actually only $2.39.

“The most common price of gas in America is $3.39 down from over five dollars when I took office,” Biden told the audience. “We need to keep making that progress by having energy companies bring down the cost of a gallon of gas that reflects the cost of paying for a barrel of oil.”

According to Fox Business, “the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the week ending on Jan. 25, 2021, shortly after Biden took office, was $2.39,” and “the average price for a gallon of regular gasoline didn’t reach $5.00 until June 2022, well over a year after Biden took office.”

The current national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is actually $3.76, over 30 cents more than Biden claimed Thursday, Fox Business reported.

Upon taking office, Biden immediately halted construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would have delivered up to 700,000 barrels of oil per day into the U.S. from Canada. He also put hurdles in front of oil companies, increasing regulations for oil and gas leases, froze new drilling permits and stopped leases on federal lands.

He ran his whole campaign on destroying the energy industry, and prices started going up almost immediately after he entered office.

During the same speech, Biden also claimed  that “the price of inflation is down.”

https://thefederalist.com/2022/10/27/publishing-professionals-we-must-censor-amy-coney-barrett-to-save-free-speech/

More than 350 literary workers—agents, editors, publicists, and writers—have signed an open letter demanding Penguin Random House drop publication of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s upcoming book. It should be noted, that there are some legitimate editors on the list, but many signees –-“Leslie” and editorial interns and so on –- are not exactly Nan Talese. And yet, the document, brimming with nonsensical, contradictory, confusingly reasoned claims, is a useful window into the increasingly authoritarian mindset of the cultural American left.

The letter argues that Random House has a duty to stop the publication of ACB’s book to save free speech. “This is not just a book that we disagree with, and we are not calling for censorship,” says the letter, titled “We Dissent.” “We cannot stand idly by while our industry misuses free speech to destroy our rights.” It quotes British leftist David Puttnam, who contends that the media has a duty to “balance freedom of expression with wider moral and social responsibilities.”

That’s the rub, of course: who gets to decide the contours of the “wider moral and social responsibilities” and the “misuses” of free speech? Even if we formed a consensus on those alleged duties, one of the reasons (real) liberals treat speech as a neutral principle is to protect dissent and challenge conventional wisdom. Rationalizing censorship as a means of protecting people from harmful ideas is as old as censorship itself.