RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-by-and-for-the-elites-biden-wilson-jefferson-democratist-popular-rule-threat-america-tocqueville-11664114737?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

President Biden’s Sept. 1 speech in Philadelphia on “unity” is a poignant example of the confusion surrounding the concept of democracy. Mr. Biden declared that MAGA Republicans threaten “the very foundations of our republic.” The phrase a “threat to American democracy” is so commonplace these days that it hardly carries any meaning—except that it encapsulates the reigning ideology of our time, an ideology so pervasive that it almost goes unnoticed. It is like the air we breathe.

I call it democratism. It is an imaginative and idealistic understanding of popular rule that disdains ordinary people and looks to a cadre of so-called experts to operate the levers of power. Under this ideology, “democracy” and “the people” are rhetorical cover for the will of the elites. Think of social media’s censorship of misinformation in the name of “supporting democracy” and “upholding free expression.” How is it that censorship passes as upholding free expression?

“War is peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength” from Orwell’s “1984” comes to mind, but there is a long tradition in the West of this paradoxical interpretation of democracy. Enlightenment-era thinking, and arguably even Plato, puts forth the thought that an ahistorical ideal of justice ought to act as the primary guide to politics. Jean-Jacques Rousseau applied this idea in “The Social Contract.” The general will, Rousseau says, is what the popular will ought to be, even if it isn’t expressed by actual living people. The general will conveniently requires the translation of a wise legislator for its instantiation.

Many of the most vocal champions of democracy, from Thomas Jefferson to our own day, have been advocates of this Rousseauean inversion, using the word “democracy” as justification for what would otherwise be naked authoritarianism.

https://victorhanson.com/thoughts-on-the-cultural-revolution-in-our-midst-part-one/

We are in the middle of a grand effort to create an equality-of-result, race-based, radical Jacobin society. It is by design entirely antithetical to the Founders’ constitutional republic. And the revolutionary agenda is overseen by an exempt bicoastal oligarchy.

The enforced equality of result will, of course, be mandated by elites not subject to their own demands upon the citizenry: no charter schools for hoi polloi, prep schools for the Guardians; Teslas for the anointed, buses for the masses; walls never work, except to protect Martha’s Vineyard, Napa, and Malibu; high rises are green for you, fourth homes are necessary for them; take light rail and save the planet, fly private to ensure that others do not.

We see these disconnects most shamefully with the outrage from the Left about the bussing of illegal aliens (in small numbers no less) into their elite enclaves.

The Obamas and their Martha Vineyard socialites did not care whether 10,000 swarmed onto the sidewalks of a border Hispanic town, destroying social services, overwhelming their schools, and spiking crime. And they care even less when the Biden administration flew thousands under cover of night into red-state communities. But they do not want anyone loitering on the streets in their own downtowns.

Yet for the Leftist pundit, sending a poor immigrant into Martha’s Vineyard becomes the work of the “Holocaust.” What a sick parallel to compare the systematic murder of six million Jews to an illegal entrant getting a free jet ride to one of the safest, richest, and most picturesque beach towns in the world.

Yet none in the Vineyard, not one, will offer his now empty vacation mansion and expansive grounds to the dispossessed. Instead, for a few hours the blessed virtue signaled their concern—and then bussed out the “welcome” in less than a day.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/24/fair-trials-are-impossible-for-january-6-defendants/

Odds are jurors in Douglas Austin Jensen’s trial took longer to fill out the verdict forms than they took to decide his fate.

After only a few hours of deliberations on Friday, 12 residents of the nation’s capital found Jensen guilty on seven counts related to his involvement in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Jensen, an alleged QAnon follower, infamously confronted Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman inside the building that afternoon; he potentially faces decades in prison for convictions on impeding law enforcement officers and obstruction of an official proceeding, a dubious nonviolent felony punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

NBC News reporter Ryan Reilly, who covers all things January 6, noted in a tweet that “An ongoing issue with these Jan. 6 jury trials is that you barely have time to write the story on closing arguments before the jury returns their guilty verdicts.” Reilly then swooned over the Department of Justice’s “flawless” track record before D.C. juries.

CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane predicted the jury would finish its work in one afternoon since January 6 juries have deliberated “swiftly so far.”

Jensen’s conviction adds to the Department of Justice’s undefeated streak for January 6 jury trials. Once upon a time, that would raise at least a sliver of skepticism from journalists and legal “experts” as to whether the constitutional rights, namely the right to face a jury of your peers, are being protected in an unquestionably political prosecution of dissidents of the regime. Instead, these verdicts are praised by the ruling class as proof that the “rule of law” and “justice” still prevail in this country—all evidence to the contrary, of course.

It is clear, after six months of jury trials for Capitol protesters, i.e., Donald Trump supporters, that no one charged in this sprawling criminal investigation can get a fair trial. 

Judges on the D.C. District Court have denied every change of venue motion, absurdly insisting residents of a city that voted 93 percent for Joe Biden in 2020 can be fair and impartial. Further, judges claim nonstop news coverage in addition to the televised performances of the January 6 select committee do not further taint a demonstrably tainted jury pool.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/09/all_it_takes_is_one_hero.html

Autumn is here.  Brisk mornings have returned.  The midterms are fast approaching.  Electric change saturates the air.  

At a granular level, so much in America today is terribly wrong.  Inflation, crime, unprotected borders, censorship, political persecution, language codes, and other leftist lunacies grip the nation.  From a broader perspective, though, something is right: more and more people in the United States and throughout the West are finally waking up to the sinister machinations of our globalist power brokers and the many miseries they have wrought.  

For so many decades, totalitarianism has spread incrementally across formerly free Western nations, and most citizens were either asleep at the switch or too comfortable to be bothered.  What’s wrong with outlawing speech that’s “hateful”?  Who could be for hate?  What’s wrong with letting private bankers manipulate the value of national currencies?  They do so only to prevent runaway inflation from ruining the economy.  What’s wrong with legislatures spending more money than they have?  They can always print more banknotes, tax more incomes, leverage the properties of ever more distant generations far from being born.  What’s wrong with endless wars against amorphous concepts like “terror”?  Wars against nameless terror could never mutate into military campaigns against domestic civilians.  What’s wrong with disarming civilian populations while arming all-powerful central governments to the hilt?  In “democracies,” after all, “authoritarianism” is not allowed.  

Trust your leaders to do “what’s best,” to do “what’s right,” and everything will be okay.  Believe without hesitation or doubt what the government tells you, and disregard all opposing viewpoints as dangerous lies.  Reject religious traditions as archaic falsehoods instilling bigotry, and accept the State’s “Great Reset” and “Green New Deal” as certain scientific truths.  Support consensus opinion and reject dissent as “extreme.”  Remember that politically incorrect words and unsanctioned beliefs may be recognized as forms of “violence” requiring official response.  Believe the mainstream media.  Trust the scientific bureaucracy.  Report fellow citizens who think too freely.  And no matter what, obey the authorities…for your own good.  

https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2022/09/24/this-is-not-the-america-i-know-dozens-of-fbi-agents-raid-home-of-catholic-pro-life-activist-as-children-scream-in-terror-n1632019

What is going on in America? Every day it seems another story surfaces about an FBI raid on another conservative. This time, it was a Catholic pro-life activist in Pennsylvania. LifeSite News reports:

A well-known pro-life author, sidewalk counselor, and father of seven was the latest victim of a U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored SWAT raid and arrest — for supposed “FACE Act” violations — at his rural home as his children looked on “screaming.”

Mark Houck is the founder and president of The King’s Men, which promotes healing for victims of pornography addiction and promotes Christian virtues among men in the United States and Europe.

According to his wife Ryan-Marie, who spoke with LifeSiteNews, he also drives two hours south to Philadelphia every Wednesday to sidewalk council for six to eight hours at two different abortion centers.

Ryan-Marie, who is a homeschool mother, explained the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents swarmed their property with around 15 vehicles at 7:05 a.m. this morning. Having quickly surrounded the house with rifles in firing position, “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”

The raid apparently stems from events in October 2021 at an abortion clinic. According to Ryan-Marie, on several occasions last year, Mark, 48, took the eldest of his seven children, then age 12, to an abortion clinic where he went to counsel mothers planning to abort their children. For “weeks and weeks,” a pro-abortion protester got in her son’s face, screaming “crude… inappropriate and disgusting things… such as, ‘Your dad’s a fag’” and other statements too vile for the Catholic mom to repeat.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2022/09/23/scammers-stole-an-insane-amount-of-pandemic-funding-n2613497

According to a new Department of Labor Inspector General report, scammers were able to steal nearly $46 billion in pandemic cash through state unemployment insurance [UI] programs. 

“Inspector General Larry D. Turner, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), announced that the Office of Inspector General’s (DOL-OIG) investigations have resulted in more than 1,000 individuals being charged with crimes involving Unemployment Insurance (UI) fraud since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.1 The DOL-OIG also issued an Alert Memorandum identifying $45.6 billion in potentially fraudulent UI benefits paid to individuals with Social Security numbers: (1) filed in multiple states, (2) of deceased persons, (3) filed with suspicious email accounts, and (4) of federal prisoners,” the Office of the Inspector General released this week.

The office also found pandemic relief programs were vulnerable for abuse given how much money the federal government was quickly pushing out the door without proper accountability and tracking programs or mechanisms in place. 

“Following the start of the pandemic in the United States in early 2020, unemployment compensation claims rose exponentially to historically unprecedented levels. Prior to the pandemic, numbers of UI claims were historically low. On March 14, 2020, the Department reported 282,000 initial claims. Within 2 to 3 weeks, initial claims rose to 10 times pre-pandemic levels, far higher than state systems were designed to handle. Within 5 months, through August 15, 2020, the Department reported 57.4 million initial claims, the largest increase since the Department began tracking UI data in 1967. The CARES Act provided significant funding to the federal-state UI program, which resulted in hundreds of billions of dollars in additional payments,” the office explains.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/23/woke-youths-state-sanctioned-rebellion/

Though I know the cliché has lost its cache, I am, in fact, old enough to remember when youthful rebellion was organic, autonomous, and anti-establishment. Such is no longer the case amongst today’s woke youth, who have been indoctrinated to serve as tools of the leftist establishment.

Woke youth’s “rebellion” is not organic. This is not to say that woke youth’s rebellious streak isn’t innate. But their youthful “outrage” is conditioned; and their rebellious acts are channeled at progressivism’s opponents by the Left’s civil religion and its high priests—namely, the deep state, the Democratic Party power-brokers, woke corporations, and the dinosaur media and social media.

Encapsulated by the DIE cult (“diversity, inclusion, and equity”), the Left’s civil religion has been inculcated into woke youth from birth—in some cases, by their leftist parents, and/or by leftist institutions, such as public K-12 schools and those of “higher learning.” Ultimately, their “rebellious” streak continues to be honed by public and private institutions and, of course, corporate and social media. It is this external, controlling impact of these leftist entities that prevents woke youth from committing organic acts of rebellion. And it is by design. 

Because it is inculcated by the leftist establishment to serve its civil religion, woke youth’s “rebellion” is not organic and, ergo, it is incapable of being autonomous. The leftist establishment provides the targets, the rules of engagement, the propaganda and justifications, and the rewards for rebellious woke youth. Thus, woke youth have about as much autonomy over their rebellious acts as an “at will” employee. 

It is stunning how woke youth refuse to understand an elementary fact that is, however, not lost upon the objects of their rebellion—namely, that the Left are now the American establishment. In many ways, this has long been the case and it is the more so the harder the Left continues to deny it. Bluntly, they must. To concede they are the current establishment will destroy the Left’s most cherished, core myth: that they speak—and rebel—for the downtrodden and dispossessed. If one recognizes the Left is speaking, not for the poor, but to do the bidding of Bill Gates, Big Tech, the deep state, et al.—how outré! One knows this is the case, however, because their acts of rebellion garner not rebukes, but praise in the pages of the Washington Post and social media posts across cyberspace. Where is the “noble” rebellion in that? 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/09/is_biden_deliberately_destroying_americas_military_defenses.html

It’s not just the newest Air Force Academy initiative that explicitly bars straight men. It’s everything!

The Supreme Court has made clear that discriminating against people based on sex or sexual orientation is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. That has not stopped the Air Force Academy from initiating a new program explicitly closed to “cisgender men.” Horrible as that is, it pales compared to some of the other things Biden has been doing that will destroy America’s military readiness.

The Air Force Academy notified its cadets (i.e., students) that it is offering a new fellowship program—the Brooke Owens Fellowship—for “gender minorities” only, with straight men explicitly excluded:

If you are a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demi gender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you. If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you… but we encourage you to check out our spin- off programs, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program!

The Brooke Owens fellowship was established to encourage more women to enter the aerospace field. That kind of discrimination has long been accepted, although it shouldn’t be. The feeling was that it was still a necessary form of affirmative action for women. The program’s having morphed from women to myriad imaginary genders, though, blows apart any pretense that this is a women-only program. It’s now discriminating against both women and men.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-seeks-marijuana-dealers-with-experience-convictions-regulation-licenses-dispensaries-commerce-cannabis-weed-11663949176?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

New York state seeks people “with experience” to help establish what could become the biggest legal marijuana market in the country. The explanation sounds like a punch line: New York will offer licenses and subsidies to people with marijuana convictions on their records.

New York legalized the possession and use of marijuana for adults last year and created a licensing system to govern eventual sales in brick-and-mortar stores. New Yorkers will even be able to get joints delivered.

The application window for these licenses closes Sept. 26. The state anticipates the first legal dispensaries will open before the end of the year. The size of the legal marijuana market in New York could ultimately be more than $7 billion annually.

Politicians are eager to tax and regulate all this commerce, and the legal marijuana market could be the source of massive new revenue for New York. Many states have already piled excessive taxes on legal weed sales. New York plans an array of taxes, including a complex tax based on the potency of the pot. There will also be rules preventing cannabis businesses from writing off standard expenses. That is in addition to a 9% state sales tax and any local sales taxes that get tacked on.

But what legislators ignore is that all these taxes have the perverse effect of increasing black-market demand. After Prohibition ended, people didn’t continue to buy bathtub gin when legal and safer alcohol was available. But states also didn’t massively increase the price of newly legal alcohol to make bathtub gin more attractive. In New York there is already a $2 billion marijuana black market.

https://www.newsweek.com/fbi-paid-russian-disinformation-while-punishing-patriot-opinion-1745574

To understand the state of disrepair of our national security and law enforcement apparatus, look to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s contrasting treatment of Russian disinformation-spinner Igor Danchenko, and whistleblowing Special Agent Steven Friend.

We recently learned the Bureau rewarded the former for his lies, while punishing the latter for his truths.

Danchenko, a Russian national, was the key researcher behind the key document—the Steele dossier—behind the key effort to undermine candidate, and then topple, President Donald J. Trump: Russiagate.

Today, we know Danchenko fabricated communications with the purported central source behind some of the document’s most salacious claims. By lying to the FBI about that, and much else that would have called into question his credibility, as well as the dossier’s veracity, Danchenko played a seminal role in corrupting our political and legal systems. He helped subvert a presidency and the will of the public, foist a fraud on the FISA court, and eviscerate the civil liberties, ravage the reputations, and drain the banks accounts of those wrongfully ensnared in the Russiagate hoax—along with our rotten Deep State.

Compounding the outrage, after the FBI learned Danchenko had misled it, it claimed in multiple FISA warrant applications used to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page and Trump world that Danchenko, Steele’s “primary sub-source,” was “truthful and cooperative.”