RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/16/job-one-for-the-gop-kill-the-inflation-reduction-act/

“Simply put, the IRA is jam-packed with Democratic Party crackpot ideas that couldn’t get passed on their own. It is the most rancid of rotten policy stews cooked up in more than a decade. Republicans need to campaign for the midterms on the sworn pledge that if they get veto-proof majorities in both chambers, they’ll repeal it. Fake promises, like the ones made about Obamacare, are unacceptable.”

Joe Biden’s $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act passed both the Senate and House without a single vote from Republicans. It has zero redeeming value and is the most wretched bill out of Washington since Obamacare was approved in 2010. The GOP has to take it off the books.

As we pointed out in this space weeks ago, the entire bill is a lie. It has nothing whatsoever to do with inflation and, in fact, won’t reduce it at all. The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model says the IRA’s “impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero.” Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, says it won’t rein in rising prices “over the short run.” Even the Congressional Budget Office says ​​it does nothing to address inflation.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-administration-urges-court-to-keep-trump-search-affidavit-sealed_4666445.html

President Joe Biden’s administration on Aug. 15 urged a federal court to keep the affidavit that led to the approval of a search warrant on former President Donald Trump’s resort shielded from the public.

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers said unsealing the affidavit would “irreparably harm the government’s ongoing criminal investigation.”

“Even when the public is already aware of the general nature of the investigation, revealing the specific contents of a search warrant affidavit could alter the investigation’s trajectory, reveal ongoing and future investigative efforts, and undermine agents’ ability to collect evidence or obtain truthful testimony,” they wrote in a 13-page filing to U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is overseeing the case.

“In addition to the implications for the investigation, the release of this type of investigative material could have ‘devastating consequences’ for the reputations and rights of individuals whose actions and statements are described,” they added, citing a previous decision in a different case.

A slew of parties, including Judicial Watch, media outlets, and the Florida Center for Governmental Accountability, have lodged motions after the Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago, arguing it is in the public interest to unseal the affidavit and other related documents.

The government and Trump’s lawyers agreed on some of the documents, and Reinhart unsealed the search warrant and several attachments on Aug. 12, revealing that the government believes Trump violated multiple laws.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2022/08/15/how-western-civilization-was-erased/

When I was a student, school principles and university administrations were very supportive of teachers.  It was understood that once teachers could be accused by students, learning discipline would break down, and  control would be lost over grading, standards, and course content.  

This is what has happened. A teacher’s life has changed from imparting information and challenging ideas  to students into dodging accusations from leftists, feminists, blacks, homosexuals, and transgendered.  Today even use of a gender pronoun can be cause for termination.

The slippery slope began with the sexual revolution. Female students began seducing professors for better grades.  Feminists turned this into sexual harassment by teachers and soon the presence of novels such as  Flaubert’s Madame Bovary on reading lists became sexual harassment.  Next blacks found that they could be offended by almost everything and “I am offended” became a way to control the teacher and the course content.  Facts had to be made to fit with black suppositions.  Homosexuals found that they could find evidence of homophobia in some assignments.  Today gender pronouns are taboo and males have to be permitted to use female facilities and to compete in female sports.  This process has gone so far that mathematics departments in universities are faced with the charge that mathematics is racist and a tool of white oppression.  Areas of science, such as the genetic basis of intelligence, have been closed down. Histories  of the Age of Exploration, of the US “Civil War,” and slavery have been rewritten to fit the desired narratives. Schools and universities teach white students that they are racists.  It has become impossible to acquire a university degree and emerge with a positive attitude toward Western civilization. Indeed, students cannot emerge with a positive attitude toward white people or the founders of the United States. Even the historic homes of the founders are used to denigrate them.  See for example: https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/dragging-the-founders-through-the-mud/ 

“There is a difference between victimization and victimhood. We are all likely to be victimized in someway in the course of our lives. At some point we will suffer some kind of affliction or calamity or abuse, caused by circumstances or people or institutions over which we have little or no control… In contrast, victimhood comes from the inside. No one can make you a victim but you. We become victims not because of what happens to us but when we choose to hold on to our victimization…”Edith Eger (1927-)

Too often, we accept victimhood, which can come in myriad guises: A college student cowers under a torrent of “hurtful” words; a banker worries an employee will be offended by the wrong pronoun; a comedian is booed by those claiming victimhood, for humor deemed racist, sexist, or homophobic. The American people were told by elitist Democrats, and “never-Trumpers,” that we were victims of a “fascist-like” Donald Trump.  Doing so, freed his political opponents to pursue any means to destroy him: false accusations of Russian collusion; a two-year, multi-million-dollar (and futile) Mueller investigation; two impeachments, and the recent FBI raid on his home at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach. No matter one’s view of the egotistical Mr. Trump, has not he become a victim?

In this surrealistic world, who is the victim and who the victimizer depends – not on facts – but on political ideology. When Twitter or Facebook censor news reports from conservatives to “protect” readers or viewers from “fake” or “malicious” stories, are not they promoting victimhood? If a corporation does not comply with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) protocols, it is accused of victimizing its employees. Should investment managers seek to maximize portfolio returns, or should they find investments that are ESG (environmental, social, and governance) friendly, regardless of the comparative investment return potential? Have not some pensioners and mutual fund holders become victims to the political aspirations of portfolio managers? The acceptance of victimhood affects the way we value meritocracy and perceive equal opportunity – that past inequities and unequal outcomes make necessary the racial bigotry inherent in affirmative action, which accentuates the divide among people. Is it fair, for example, to lower college admission standards based on race, but not on economic class?

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/14/why-merrick-garland-is-losing-the-people/

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday held a belated press conference to explain that he had personally approved the FBI’s raid of Donald Trump’s Florida residence to seize documents deemed U.S. government property.

A clearly agitated and nervous Garland sought to exude confidence in the raid. He went on to heatedly defend the professionalism and integrity of the Justice Department and FBI.

But almost immediately after his sermon, the Justice Department and its affiliates were back to their usual selective leaking (“sources say” . . . “according to people familiar with the investigation”) to liberal newspapers.

In no time, the Washington Post claimed the raid was aimed at finding Trump Administration documents relating to “nuclear secrets.” The now-familiar desired effect was achieved. “Presidential historian” Michael Beschloss quickly tweeted a picture of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, noting that in the past revealing such nuclear secrets had led to the death penalty. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden, previously known for comparing Trump’s border detention facilities to Auschwitz and falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian “disinformation,” replied: “Sounds about right.” That is, without any proof, it was legitimate to imagine that the former president of the United States, like the Rosenbergs, should be executed for passing nuclear secrets.

So, as intended, the Justice Department and FBI leaks touched off a round of intended liberal hysteria of the sort we saw during Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged Russian collusion with Trump’s 2016 campaign aimed at disguising government misdeeds or overreach.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/internal-radical-service-david-horowitz-and-john-perazzo/

David Horowitz’s Introduction: On August 7, the Democrats passed a bill that authorizes a ten-year, $80 billion hike in federal funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which will make it possible for the IRS to hire 87,000 new agents and will make it larger than the Pentagon, the State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol combined.

The IRS has already been weaponized as a national federal police force to harass, punish and obstruct conservative and religious organizations. Under President Obama, the IRS blocked the efforts of hundreds of Tea Party and other conservative groups to apply for tax-exempt status. The objective was to prevent those groups – and the millions of voters whom they might potentially have influenced – from having a voice in our democracy.

But this persecution of conservatives is only half the story. Over the years, the IRS has allowed hundreds of billions of tax-payer dollars to fund left-wing tax-exempt foundations violating its own rules, while denying conservative foundations the same access. This has had the effect of creating a lobby within the Democrat Party that has transformed it into a radical force bent on “fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijing-gets-a-great-leap-forward-from-congress-inflation-reduction-act-green-energy-subsidies-innovation-price-controls-capitalism-xi-jinping-11660502287?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

“Capitalism and free markets made the U.S. the world’s leading innovator, energy producer and economic superpower. Though alarms about China’s supplanting the U.S. in recent years have probably been overplayed, they could wind up being a self-fulfilling prophecy if Congress keeps passing self-defeating laws.”

China’s economy is limping under the weight of government-created market inefficiencies, draconian Covid lockdown policies, an imploding real-estate bubble, and an aging population. But Congress’s self-defeating Inflation Reduction Act gives President Xi Jinping something to celebrate this November at the Communist Party’s 20th National Congress.

With a single legislative act, Democrats have increased Beijing’s geopolitical leverage, reduced American living standards and global economic competitiveness, and assisted Mr. Xi’s ambitions to dominate biotech. The kicker is that Democrats have told Americans their bill will deal a blow to China. Americans will be in for a rude awakening when they discover the truth.

Take the legislation’s effect on American energy production. The U.S. has become the world’s top oil and natural-gas producer owing to its abundant natural resources, hydraulic shale fracturing and other technological advances. The Inflation Reduction Act, however, effectively concedes American energy supremacy to China by turbocharging the government’s green-energy transition with $370 billion in climate spending.

Renewable energy requires vast amounts of critical minerals such as cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium and graphite. China controls a large share of the world’s supply of each and also maintains a chokehold on their refining. Its near-total global monopoly extends to the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries, cells and components as well as solar cells.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/but-her-emails-a-defense-of-whataboutism-trump-clinton-sandy-berger-fbi-equal-protection-double-standard-justice-presidential-records-act-11660482495?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

EXCERPT

Why didn’t the Justice Department seek to enforce the subpoena it apparently had issued, rather than seek a search warrant? Was this consistent with the “standard practice” Mr. Garland articulated in his statement—“to seek less intrusive alternatives to a search” whenever possible?

Why was the matter handled so differently from the prior investigations of Sandy Berger and Hillary Clinton, who were also suspected of mishandling classified material? Mrs. Clinton herself mocked that question by sporting a baseball cap with the logo “But her emails.”

Her hat is intended to deride the argument made by Trump supporters and some civil libertarians that the investigation of Mr. Trump’s alleged security breaches should be evaluated against the way in which earlier cases were handled. Berger and Mrs. Clinton were suspected of mishandling confidential materials—he by removing them from the National Archives in 2005, she by transmitting them over her private email server while serving as secretary of state. Berger was administratively fined, and Mrs. Clinton was rebuked by James Comey, then director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which might have cost her the 2016 election. But neither was subjected to broad search warrants or criminal prosecution.

Those who reject this comparison accuse those who make it of “whataboutism.” But treating like cases alike is crucial to the equal protection of the laws. The way in which Berger and Mrs. Clinton were treated is highly relevant in determining whether Mr. Trump is being subjected to a double standard of justice.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2022/08/13/the-justice-department-knew-that-no-classified-docs-were-at-mar-a-lago-last-june-n2611704

As if the FBI’s raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home wasn’t controversial enough, the Department of Justice might have known that there were no classified documents at the home of the former president since last June. One of Trump’s attorneys verified that no classified documents remained on-site, but someone at the Justice Department appears to have disregarded it as federal agents swarmed the residence last Monday (via NYT):

 At least one lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump signed a written statement in June asserting that all material marked as classified and held in boxes in a storage area at Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and club had been returned to the government, four people with knowledge of the document said.

The written declaration was made after a visit on June 3 to Mar-a-Lago by Jay I. Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in the Justice Department’s national security division.