RUTHFULLY YOURS

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The word freedom is inherent to our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. It is ingrained in what it means to be an American: “And so let freedom ring,” spoke Martin Luther King on August 28, 1963, “from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire…” The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word: “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint,” which is not too different from the definition Noah Webster assigned the word in his 1828 Webster’s Dictionary: “A state of exemption from the power or control of another.” Freedom from fear and freedom from want (two of FDR’s “Four Freedoms”) are offerings of the state, but they do not meet the classical definition of freedom.

Democrats see the state as providing the conditions, through rules, laws, and regulations, that allow individuals opportunities – what are now called “positive” freedoms. The Swiss-French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that men are born free but “everywhere he is in chains.” So the state exists to guarantee his liberty and freedom from the restraints of society. Without the state, he believed, there is no freedom. Voltaire disagreed. The state can be a trap: “It is difficult to free fools from chains they revere.”

Republicans define freedom, in accordance with John Locke and Thomas Jefferson, as natural rights, characterized by the absence of external (the state) constraints on individual freedoms. These freedoms are now referred to as “negative” freedoms. Locke, two generations earlier than Rousseau, had argued that people are naturally free and equal, and have a right to life, liberty and property that are independent of society’s laws, ideas borrowed by Thomas Jefferson in 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The Bill of Rights, adopted in December 1791, exemplified individual freedom. The colonists had lived under a tyrannical king. Fearful of autocracy that could stem from a strong central government, they desired a limited, federalist government, one composed, as Lincoln later said, “of, by and for the people.”  In a September 25th, 1961 address to the United Nations’ General Assembly, President Kennedy warned: “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.”

Adam, founder of Open the Books was a friend and most admirable person. rsk

One-of-a-kind. Relentless optimist. Fearless visionary. 

These are a few of the descriptors I’ve heard over and over again in the days since we lost our founder and CEO, Adam Andrzejewski. 

It’s with a heavy heart that I tell you he passed unexpectedly last weekend, but he leaves behind a tremendous legacy. 

Adam was a leader in business, a family man, a marathon runner, and unmatched in his advocacy on behalf of taxpayers. We’ll miss him for his good nature, his ability to motivate, his optimism, his collaborative spirit, and so much more. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-progressives-long-march/

The “long march through the institutions” is the name given to the left’s turn towards Cultural Marxism as the means for taking control of the political order and shifting it to the left. For many conservatives, this movement in the Sixties accounts for the subsequent changes in political ideology, government policies, sexual mores, culture high and low, history, and revisions of school curricula from kindergarten to universities.

That narrative is accurate to a point, but it often suggests that before the Sixties our culture and politics were still firmly grounded in the Constitutional order, and Western culture defined by its Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilizational origins. But the way for the left’s “long march” was prepared by the Progressives’ “march” that began over a century ago. The Democrats’ policy platform unveiled during their convention and endorsed by Kamala Harris is a good starting point for seeing Progressivism’s continuity with the Marxist march to the modern center-left Democrat Party that has been taken over by their expanding and hardening leftist caucus.

The platform obviously endorses the Dems’ technocratic, hypertrophied Federal Government, and the greater centralization of power necessary for their utopian ambitions. As the Wall Street Journal puts it, “the platform is also a peek into an economic worldview in which the government is the answer, almost no matter the question. While private businesses are always ‘gouging’ or adding ‘junk fees,’ or otherwise trying to rip somebody off, Washington’s wise men are capable of providing for the American people, if only they have the power to pass the laws and regulations.”

Here is an item from the platform predicated on a Progressive idea more than a century old: “Health care should be a right in America, not a privilege,” the platform asserts. “We’ll never quit fighting to protect and expand the Affordable Care Act.” The ultimate goal is to completely nationalize healthcare, which will no doubt make doctors unionized public employees, and lead to worse outcomes costing trillions of taxpayer dollar––as Britain’s National Health Service and Obamacare serially demonstrate.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20907/china-funding-fentanyl-murders

In a recent national poll, more than half of responding Americans believe that China is deliberately exporting fentanyl to the United States for the purpose of harming, or even destabilizing our nation.

Were that true, some might reasonably describe that strategy as an act of war.

For China, it would be historic payback time.

Having lost a generation, a nation, and an empire to opium introduced by Imperial Britain during the 1800s, no one knows better than the Chinese that a drug scourge can bring a country literally to its knees.

So, it should not surprise anyone that they have become a center of illicit fentanyl manufacturing, with drug traffickers exporting the killing chemical to the one nation China must strategically injure if they are to make good on their intent to dominate the rest of the 21st Century: the United States. More than simply turning a blind eye to those who are creating the drugs, the U.S. House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party reported this spring that China is directly supporting the creation of fentanyl and other drugs by offering “tax rebates and other financial benefits” to those manufacturers, as long as those drugs are sold outside of China:

“According to the report, Chinese officials encourage production of precursor chemicals by giving ‘monetary grants and awards to companies openly trafficking illicit fentanyl materials.'”

One does not have to be a CIA analyst to appreciate the “why” behind such an action.

The cause and effect have not been lost on the American public. That recent poll, undertaken by the nationally respected polling company McLaughlin & Associates, revealed that a stunning 52.4 percent of Americans suspect that the Chinese are exporting the deadly drug for the specific purpose of destabilizing our society. Some 19.4% disagreed and 28.3% did not have an opinion.

Iran Wants Trump Eliminated by Election Day https://www.newsmax.com/world/globaltalk/iran-trump-election-day/2024/08/21/id/1177404/

The Garbage That Starts Off the Democratic Party Platform https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-garbage-that-starts-off-the-democratic-party-platform/?

Liar-in-chief: Joe Biden’s astonishing legacy of falsehoods, deceptions and slander https://www.wnd.com/2024/08/liar-in-chief-joe-bidens-astonishing-legacy-of-falsehoods-deceptions-and-slander/

*** DNC Livewire Night 1 *** Bidens to Sing Swan Song, Hillary Clinton to Crow About Glass Ceiling Eight Years After Defeat https://www.breitbart.com/2024-election/2024/08/19/dnc-livewire-night-1-bidens-to-sing-swan-song-hillary-clinton-to-crow-about-glass-ceiling-eight-years-after-defeat/

BIDEN’S ANGRY SWAN SONG AT DNC: ‘LIES AND SLURS HIS WAY THROUGH HIS ENTIRE SPEECH’ [VIDEO MONTAGE]

Craig Bannister : Aug 20, 2024  MRCTV.org

‘Bizarre performance’: Douglas Murray analyses Biden’s DNC address https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bBcrg4QPAM

WATCH WND LIVE: Dumb and Dumber at the DNC https://www.wnd.com/2024/08/watch-wnd-live-dumb-and-dumber-at-the-dnc/

BIDEN AND HARRIS WERE COOKING THE BOOKS THE WHOLE TIME! 1 MILLION JOBS VANISH IN DOWNWARD REVISION; TRUMP RESPONDS TO FRAUDULENT JOBS NUMBERS (VIDEO) Cristina Laila : Aug 21, 2024  The Gateway Pundit

CNN commentator leaves panel stunned after blasting Democrats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZJt8pfp92U

Pure Evil: Planned Parenthood Reportedly Ends Lives of 25 Innocent Babies with Medicated Abortions Offered at the DNC https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/pure-evil-planned-parenthood-reportedly-ends-lives-25/

Hillary Clinton receives loudest cheers of the night — seemingly bigger than Kamala Harris — at DNC as she smirks at ‘lock him up’ chants https://nypost.com/2024/08/19/us-news/hillary-clinton-receives-loudest-cheers-of-the-night-with-booming-standing-ovation-at-dnc/

Hillary Clinton: ‘Kamala will restore abortion rights nationwide’ https://www.christianpost.com/news/hillary-clinton-kamala-will-restore-abortion-rights-nationwide.html?clickType=link-topbar-news

Megyn Kelly Exposes the Truth About First Lady Michelle Obama’s Speech at the Democratic Convention https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR7k3soyC6k

WATCH: Barack Obama mocks Trump’s ‘weird obsession with crowd sizes’ https://www.wnd.com/2024/08/watch-barack-obama-mocks-trumps-weird-obsession-with-crowd-sizes/

MICHELLE OBAMA ENDORSES PORN IN SCHOOLS AND TRANSING KIDS ON DNC DAY 2 Ben Johnson : Aug 21, 2024  The Washington Stand

Kamala would be our most pro-Hamas president https://www.wnd.com/2024/08/kamala-would-be-our-most-pro-hamas-president/

Pro-Israel Group, Denied Permit to March, Gathers at ‘Hostage Square’ in Chicago https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2024/08/20/pro-israel-group-denied-permit-to-march-gathers-at-hostage-square-in-chicago/

Pro-Palestinian Protesters Breach Wall at Democratic National Convention https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/08/19/pro-palestinian-protesters-breach-wall-at-democratic-national-convention/

Donald Trump Blasts Kamala Harris’s Economic Plan: ‘Can’t Answer How She’d Pay for It’ https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/08/19/donald-trump-blasts-kamala-harris-s-economic-plan-cant-answer-how-shed-pay-for-it/

UN exhibit memorializing terror victims completely ignores Jews, Erdan says https://www.jns.org/un-exhibit-memorializing-terror-victims-completely-ignores-jews-erdan-says/

By Ignoring the Bidenites’ Advice, Israel Managed to Eliminate Many Hamas Jihadis https://www.frontpagemag.com/by-ignoring-the-bidenites-advice-the-israelis-managed-to-eliminate-many-hamas-jihadis/?

Climate Meltdown: Ivy League Scientists Expose Climate Fraud https://libertysentinel.substack.com/p/climate-meltdown-ivy-league-scientists?

Keir Starmer accused of having ‘his head in the sand’ over migration crisis https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/outsiders/keir-starmer-accused-of-having-his-head-in-the-sand-over-migration-crisis/video/189652d2aeea6abdd11c8bac8b09324f

‘Furious’ – Netanyahu refusing to meet British FM after UK embraces ICC arrest warrant – report https://worldisraelnews.com/furious-netanyahu-refusing-to-meet-british-fm-after-uk-embraces-icc-arrest-warrant-report/?

Exposing The New York Times: A Legacy of Antisemitism and Deception https://rairfoundation.com/exposing-new-york-times-legacy-antisemitism-deception/

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS REJECTS TRANSGENDER SURGERIES FOR MINORS Matt Lamb : Aug 19, 2024  LifeSiteNews.com

Danish Drugmaker Ready to Cash In with 10 Million Monkeypox Vaccine Doses Set for Production Following WHO’s Global Health Emergency Declaration https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/08/danish-drugmaker-ready-cash-10-million-monkeypox-vaccine/

South African group refutes WHO’s declaration of an mpox emergency and warns the public about the risks of the vaccines https://expose-news.com/2024/08/22/south-african-group-refutes-whos-declaration/

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2024-8-23-the-big-difference-between-the-us-and-venezuela-is-economic-policy

Here in the U.S., we are accustomed to economic growth almost every year. Look at a chart of U.S. GDP over the course of the last century, and the impression is of near-continuous and extremely robust growth. Here is such a chart from USA Facts, based on data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (Commerce Department).

The so-called “Great Recession” of 2008-09 registers as barely a blip. Same for the Covid-related dip of 2020. (Note in the graph that backing out inflation flattens the slope of the curves to some degree, but does not change the basic form of robust and continuous growth.)

This pattern of continual growth is unfortunately not true for all countries. For an extreme case of the opposite situation, consider Venezuela. Venezuela elected the socialist Hugo Chavez in 1998, and he and his ideologically-aligned successor Nicolas Maduro have ruled ever since. It is not easy to get useful economic data from Venezuela. The best I can find for its GDP since the Chavez election and to the present is from Statista. Here is their chart:

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4842492-job-additions-overstated-biden-harris/

The government recently reported that job gains between March 2023 and March 2024 had been overstated by 818,000, a breath-taking “goof” by the official bean counters. All those reports that were cheered by the Biden-Harris administration? They were as phony as a three-dollar bill. 

Has the Biden-Harris White House been cooking the books, as some have claimed? Maybe, but there is another possible explanation for the significant downward revision in the jobs number — equally unflattering to the administration and its happy-talk about the economy. 

Simply put, many middle-class workers have taken on multiple jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. Those extra shifts are included in the Bureau of Labor Statistics data as multiple jobs; they are, in reality, just overworked Americans trying to navigate the Biden-Harris inflation tsunami.

While it is normal for the BLS to issue modest annual revisions to the monthly jobs figures, this year’s restatement is the largest revision in 15 years, since the time when reporting was being muddled by the turmoil of the Great Recession.  

Given the importance that policy-makers attach to the BLS tallies, the revision is quite alarming — and also inexcusable.  

Economists have been warning that something is not right about the monthly employment reports. In June, when the government reported against all odds that 272,000 jobs had been created in May, even Fed Chairman Jay Powell expressed skepticism, saying there was the possibility the reports “may be a bit overstated.”  

Last year, job numbers were revised downward (never upward) for 10 months — not a stellar record. In June 2023, for instance, instead of adding 209,000 jobs, as originally reported, it turns out the economy added only 105,000. That kind of repeated error makes people suspicious.  

https://www.city-journal.org/article/comparing-the-u-s-with-europe

European vacation season isn’t over yet, and this year more Americans than ever have been flying across the Atlantic. By August’s end, they’ll be returning by the 787-full, jetlagged but jubilant, ready to regale friends with tales of their travels—and often enough, the view that the Europeans really have this quality-of-life thing figured out.

Europe’s cities, towns, and countrysides surely are pleasant places to visit. But does their appeal go further? Are they superior to America as places to live? For an evidence-based answer, the natural starting points are big-figure economic numbers such as GDP per capita and disposable incomes. On that score, America clearly comes out ahead of Europe (we’ll focus on EU countries for our purposes here). According to the World Bank, 2023 per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power in the United States is more than one-third higher than that of the EU, at $81,695 vs. $60,350. Disposable incomes favor the U.S. as well.

Of course, while it is widely accepted that Americans are on average more productive and richer than Europeans, both America and Europe are sufficiently diverse and vast that generalizing isn’t that useful. Given that newcomers to the EU are still climbing out of the hole dug by Communism, a comparison with the richer corners of Europe is more apt. Moreover, Americans tend to work more for the money they earn. If we’re trying to puzzle out who has it better, it makes sense to adjust for the more plentiful leisure time afforded Europeans.

Last year, The Economist performed an exercise of this kind, stacking European countries up against the United States on the basis of per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power and hours worked. The analysis found that EU countries Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Sweden (along with non-EU Norway and Switzerland) eclipse the U.S. in per-capita GDP when adjusting for those considerations. These countries, in a manner of speaking, have higher individual productivity than America. But if we isolate Norway’s 6 million people, Belgium’s 12 million, and the like, why not do the same for American states? That comparison tells another story.

https://quillette.com/2024/08/21/the-return-of-history-liberal-values-and-global-realities-ukraine-russia-europe/

My socialisation into polite liberal society—my crunchy, Quaker-school education and my progressive cultural milieu in a Northeastern American metropolis—helped to forge my worldview. I was, after all, the product of a culture and a generation in which the liberal world presided over the most peaceful and prosperous societies in the history of humanity. Liberalism seemed to be the natural order of things. I failed to appreciate that my experience was born of a unique moment in human history, and that my enculturation represented a break with normal human existence.

Rather than people competing in conquest and blood, as was the case for nearly all of human history, postwar liberal democracies relied upon consent and converging economic incentives to a greater degree than at any previous time. In this new world, it was taken for granted that liberal values would appeal to anyone given the choice, and reorient people towards economic interdependence and international cooperation. Western societies were free and prosperous, so after the Cold War, many Western commentators and analysts naturally assumed that those newly liberated from tyranny would want to emulate them.

The time I spent living and working in a small Baltic country bordered by an aggressively imperial neighbour forced me to reassess the assumptions with which I was raised. Lithuanians understand that the default state of human beings is not cooperation and humanist values. They were therefore not surprised that, after the Cold War, some actors continued to defy economic self-interest in the name of ideology and festering resentment, bucking the trend of liberalisation.

A failure to appreciate this reality is where well-intentioned liberals like me went wrong.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/08/22/who-is-destroying-democracy-in-darkness/

The 2023-2024 campaign season is not just the strangest on record, it’s also arguably the most anti-democratic.

Ostensibly, the Democratic Party has claimed over the last decade that Donald Trump posed a continued and existential threat to the republic.

That allegation subsequently justified a variety of anti-democratic means to neuter his first two presidential candidacies, his presidency, and now his third and final run for the White House.

A near decade ago, we witnessed the 2015-2016 Hillary Clinton/Democratic National Committee/FBI-assisted effort to plant the false accusation of Trump-Russian collusion to warp the 2016 election.

That gambit centered around the fraudulent Steele dossier and nearly fatally crippled the Trump 2016 campaign. That hoax would later sidetrack 22 months of his presidency before being proven a fantasy.

On the eve of the 2020 election, the left next birthed the Russian laptop disinformation campaign.

That hoax also warped a presidential debate with false charges that Hunter Biden’s own incriminating laptop was once again the work of Russians seeking to conspire with Trump.

Those unusual efforts continued during the Biden administration.

For the first time in election history, the allies of one campaign sought to persuade some 16 states to try to remove a major party’s likely nominee from their primary and general election ballots.

The plan was to smother a Trump third presidential bid in its infancy, and thus once again not allow the people to accept or reject his candidacy.

Nearly simultaneously, four federal, state, and local prosecutors filed dozens of felony charges against Trump.

They all shared some strange similarities.

These indictments would likely not have been filed, had Trump not run for office. Nor would any of them have proceeded had Trump not been a controversial conservative Republican seeking reelection.