RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/donald-trump-show-cassidy-hutchinson/

Since it debuted in 2016, The Donald Trump Show — the televised meta-commentary from hell we’ve all been living in — has been through many reinventions. Its first season was a tautly plotted election thriller that managed to make the impossible seem possible; its middling stretches were a darkly comic take on The West Wing. It even proved later on that it could continue without its main character, introducing a new president, Joe Biden, who ushered in elements of slapstick humor and cringe comedy.

Now, with last night’s episode, The Donald Trump Show has veered into Kiefer Sutherland territory.

The testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson before Congress was one of the program’s most dramatic moments yet. Just when you thought Trump had finally been written out of the script, there he was again, chewing the scenery and possibly drenching it in ketchup. The writers, via Hutchinson, introduced a side of Trump that we’d never seen before, not just chaotic but violent and even dangerous. Per Hutchinson, Trump once slung his lunch at the wall in a fit of rage and tried to choke his own Secret Service agent.

Or did he? This is the great thing about The Donald Trump Show going all the way back to the James Comey arc: it never lets you get too comfortable. No sooner had Hutchinson testified than — plot twist! — a source told reporters that the Secret Service had denied the allegations. The writers have thus put two very different and sympathetic characters on a collision course: the twenty-five-year-old civil servant and the head of the former president’s security detail. One of them has to be lying…or both? With plotting this devilish, who can be sure?

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/hillary-clinton-trashes-clarence-thomas-sotomayor-disagrees/

A few mornings ago, Cockburn caught Hillary Clinton on one of the CBS morning shows. As it turned out, she was on to discuss the recent Dobbs decision, and she had some choice words for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“I went to law school with him,” she said. “He’s been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him. Resentment, grievance, anger…women are going to die, Gayle. Women will die.”

Clinton is entitled to her opinion (though who is she to call anyone else resentful?) but her sentiment on Thomas’s statements has been contradicted by none other than Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Thomas’s ideological opposite on the Supreme Court. Here’s what Sotomayor said two weeks ago in a speech to the American Constitution Society:

I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice; that we have not joined each other’s opinion more than anybody else. And yet, Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name… He is the first one who will go up to someone when you’re walking with him and say, “is your son okay?” …He is the first one that when my stepfather died, sent me flowers in Florida. He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution, about the people who work there, about the people.

The point is that while Sotomayor disagrees with Thomas, she still sees him as a good man doing what he sees as right. And while Thomas has become the mainstream media’s biggest target since his controversial Dobbs opinion, her comments seem far more informed than those of her fellow birthing person.

The question should be asked: who knows Thomas better? Someone who might crossed paths with him at law school decades ago? Or someone who currently works with him every day? Cockburn can only suppose the latter.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/06/a_jan_6_witness_ludicrously_claims_trump_tried_to_choke_his_secret_service_agent.html

The headlines were ominous and the leftist gloating on Facebook was disturbing: It seemed as if the January 6 Committee finally had its smoking gun in the form of an attractive, mid-20s woman named Cassidy Hutchinson. The big excitement came when she recounted a wild tale about President Trump, desperate to get to the Capitol, trying to choke his Secret Service agent as they wrestled for control of Trump’s car, Outside of the kangaroo court, though, actual facts indicate that nothing she said actually happened.

The media was in a frenzy of excitement over Hutchinson’s testimony. Among other things, she testified that, when the Secret Service informed Trump that there were armed with everything from rifles to bear spray at the Stop the Steal rally, and asked to limit the crowd, Trump pushed back. “I don’t f***ing care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me.”

But the real bombshell was some hearsay Hutchinson offered. She claimed she learned the following from Tony Ornato, the deputy White House chief of staff for operations:

When Trump was told it was not safe to go [to the Capitol] — the riot was already under way — he was quoted saying words to the effect of, “I’m the f- – -ing president, take me up the Capitol now.” Then he had reached up to the front of the vehicle to try to grab the steering wheel. Robert Engel, the head of Trump’s security detail, grabbed his arm and said, “Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We’re going back to the West Wing. We’re not going to the Capitol.” With his free hand, Trump “lunged” at Engel and Ornato gestured toward his clavicles, suggesting Trump went for Engel’s throat.

There was more, of course, all sorts of gossip and tittle-tattle. But that bit about Trump turning into a wild man and trying to beat his way through the Secret Service agents in the car to grab the steering wheel and take control was the biggie. My Facebook page, on which I have a lot of  “friends” from my past life in Democrat enclaves, exploded with glee, with many claiming Hutchinson was a new American heroine.

What all these leftists (in the media and out) forgot is that a kangaroo court doesn’t get to the truth. It is, instead, a forum for promoting lies. After all, in a court of law, Hutchinson would never have been allowed to get away with quoting Guiliani and other unnamed people in the office or recounting the narrative about a frenzied Trump fighting for control of his armored car. Every bit of it (and most of the other things she testified to) is hearsay and inadmissible.

There’s good reason for hearsay’s inadmissibility: Hearsay is inherently unreliable. Subject to specific exceptions, in a proper proceeding, one hedged about with due process protections, unless it comes from the horse’s mouth, it’s kept out lest it prejudice the defendant—and Trump is a defendant here, despite his being denied any opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or present his case.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18661/failed-leadership-america

A contemporary of Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, penned a series of acerbic commentaries and observations in a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, still in print.

Some of his biting but spot-on definitions include:

Apologize, (verb) – to lay the foundation for a future offense.

Acquaintance, (noun) – A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous.

Politics, (noun) – A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

Year, (noun) – a period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments.

Bierce was clear eyed about the human condition and politics in particular. One can only imagine what he would make of our current political landscape.

Consider some of today’s words and phrases that would provide him with much to consider. He might hope that his scathing wit could prompt within us the wisdom we all need now. Channeling our inner “Ambrose Bierce,” we might tackle these words with the following definitions:

Schadenfreude, (noun) – In German, it means taking pleasure in the pain of others; in Washington, it seems a state of being.

Power Player Profiteers, (noun) – Lobbyists, political advisors, and special interests reportedly sometimes masquerading as patriots.

Fifth Columnists, (noun) – Clandestine political forces hiding in plain sight while waiting for the moment we are distracted to undermine our democracy.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18615/biden-energy-crisis

The ongoing world energy crisis… seems to have proven for once and all that energy independence is a matter of national security.

To transition to renewable energy, America would have to transform its energy infrastructure and invest heavily in wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars, all of which require rare earth materials as central components. A single industrial-size wind turbine, for instance, requires about one ton of four different kinds of rare earth materials.

Guess who mines more than 70 % of the world’s rare earth materials, and holds at least 85% of the world’s capacity to process them into materials that manufacturers can use? China. Who produces more than 60% of the world’s solar panels, and 45% of the global supply of solar-grade polysilicon, the base material used in solar cells? China. Moreover, rare earths is not a market that outsiders can simply enter. According to the Danish Institute for International Studies: “China today has the expertise, IP rights and production facilities, as well as its own REE- [rare earth elements] consuming industries. China also manufactures a significant and growing share of goods containing REEs, making it practically impossible for competing companies outside China to get a foothold.”

The ongoing world energy crisis, which began in 2021 and has caused record price spikes for oil, natural gas and coal — in combination with Russia’s war on Ukraine — seems to have proven for once and all that energy independence is a matter of national security. Both Europe and the US have recently had to relearn this lesson — yet again — when Russian President Vladimir Putin cut gas supplies to a number of European countries after they refused to pay in Russian rubles — and before that, when the West was confronted with the need to sanction Russian oil and gas exports, while at the same time being dependent on them.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/how-liberals-quash-housing-development-getting-richard-l-cravatts/

Kristin Richardson Jordan, Harlem’s City Council member, seems to have put the final nail in the coffin of a 917-unit development, One45, proposed by developer Bruce Teitelbaum for a location on West 145th Street in New York.

Even with the developer’s latest pledge that 40 percent of the units in the twin towers would be affordable, Ms. Jordan (pictured above, center) was apparently unsatisfied—in fact, insulted—that the proposed development was not comprised completely of affordable, rather than mixed-income, units, referring contemptuously to Mr. Teitelbaum’s offer as merely “11th-hour breadcrumbs.”

Maintaining a concentration of poverty has no positive benefits for a neighborhood and specifically works to dissuade middle- and upper-income residents from moving into the area, including white ones, whose presence in Harlem will inevitably result in better public services and schools, upgraded businesses, and an enhanced quality of life.

Ms. Jordan may wish to condemn Harlem to being a monoculture of poverty, entrapping its poor, mostly black residents in an intergenerational trap of decaying real estate, dangerous social pathologies as a result of poverty, and a general cultural and physical stagnation, but no one—including Harlem’s poorest residents—should believe that this outcome is either inevitable or desirable.

Housing for the nation’s poorest citizens is the responsibility of the government and taxpayers, not private real estate developers like Teitelbaum who may wish to do the right thing by offering a portion of One45 as affordable housing but whose main concern is, and should be, maximizing a return on his investment.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/one-more-blockbuster-supreme-court-decision-could-still-be-coming-after-fridays-abortion-ruling

Believe it or not, overturning Roe v Wade may not be the Supreme Court’s most dramatic decision this year. Instead, its ruling on West Virginia vs. the Environmental Protection Agency could prove far more consequential. It could literally upend how our government works.

For the better.

West Virginia vs. the EPA asks whether important policies that impact the lives of all Americans should be made by unelected D.C. bureaucrats or by Congress. This SCOTUS could well decide that ruling by executive agency fiat is no longer acceptable.

The case involves the Clean Power Plan, which was adopted under President Barack Obama to fight climate change; the program was estimated to cost as much as $33 billion per year and would have completely reordered our nation’s power grid. The state of West Virginia, joined by two coal companies and others, sued the EPA, arguing the plan was an abuse of power.

By deciding in favor of West Virginia, the court could begin to rein in the vast powers of the alphabet agencies in D.C. that run our lives and return it to legislators whom we elect to create…legislation. Just as the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion laws are more appropriately left up to the people’s elected representatives, it may decide in West Virginia vs. EPA that Congress, and not federal agencies, should write our laws.

A decision that puts Congress in charge would stall environmental rules intended to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. Legislators, back in the driver’s seat, would have to debate and go public with the consequences – and costs — of regulations that are now adopted with little buy-in from the public.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/28/wont-get-fooled-again/

Let’s explore the possibilities. This is America, after all. We have some experience with such explorations, even if most of us now sit for a living.

Let’s start with the macro view. In order to compete in this world today, we need enormous corporations able to manage huge amounts of capital and command large workforces, while influencing government priorities. Efficiency is gained by size and access to raw materials as well as the access to markets that is gained by using government mandates. This view of economics has been taught since World War II and there are millions of pages of text detailing the potentials, the patterns, and pitfalls. It is often labeled “capitalism” though, like China’s uses of markets, it is only that in passing.

What could go wrong?

There are those who think this arrangement is just swell. Look how big and powerful we have become using these methods. Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair! 

This view is usually promoted by individuals at the upper levels of the food chain, political insiders, and members of established families with sufficient wealth to see them through the ups and downs of an economy based on the myriad uses of power. It’s the way the world works, they say. The way it’s always been. True enough, it is really not so different from 15th-century Italy, is it? The internal combustion engine and the airfoil changed some of the uses of power, but not the big picture. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/28/the-left-aborts-its-right-to-be-called-tolerant-or-intelligent/

The violent and idiotic reaction to Roe is all you need.

Let’s review the news since Friday’s Supreme Court decision – a decision that gave power back to the people to decide what laws should apply when it comes to abortion. Riots. Arson. Calls to assassinate a sitting justice. Threats of violence against anyone who is pro-life.

Here’s a small sampling of headlines.

Calls for Clarence Thomas’ assassination spread across social media after Roe reversed

Christian Clinic Torched

Antifa Packed A Flamethrower For Abortion Riot

Man arrested for attempted murder of LAPD officers amid Roe v. Wade protests

Abortionists go mad, shut down L.A. freeway

Pregnancy Center in Virginia Vandalized

Someone Set Fire to ‘Christ-Centered Ministry,’ Vandalized Premises After Supreme Court’s Abortion Ruling

Violent Portland Pro-Abortion Protesters Destroy, Vandalize Property

Vermont State House vandalized: ‘If abortions aren’t safe you’re not either’

Crisis pregnancy centers under attack after Roe v Wade overturned

LIVE UPDATES: Riots Across U.S.

Notice that several instances of violence are in states that will almost certainly retain liberal access to abortion. Rationality isn’t a strong suit for those on the left. Temper tantrums, yes.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

The essayist and author Lance Morrow recently penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal: “Could this be an Antebellum Age?” It certainly seems that way, though with luck a Civil War will not break out as it did in 1861. Nevertheless, anger dominates our politics, media and our culture. It separates friends and divides families. It affects judgements and makes impossible civilized debate. It permeates school board meetings, clouds differences regarding climate change, denies respectful discussion of gender politics; it was the impetus behind the January 6 riots and the subsequent, eponymous Congressional commission, and it has distorted the meaning of the Supreme Court’s decision rescinding Roe v. Wade.

It is through the airing of differences that a consensus is found. Debate is integral to our government and our way of life. In his 1990 autobiography, An American Life, Ronald Reagan, wrote that when he became president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, he “learned while negotiating contracts you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later…”

In a country as large and as diverse as ours there will always be differences in terms of what constitutes the best way forward. It is why we have elections, and it is why, at least nationally, power ricochets back and forth between the two political parties. Compromise has worked in the past, Consider the relationship between two politicians who had in common only their Irish American heritage, Republican President Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was based on mutual trust and compromise. Similarly, a decade and a half later, Democrat President Bill Clinton reached out to Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the result was the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Yet, similar discussions between President Biden and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are as impossible to imagine as President Trump inviting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a quiet sherry and constructive talk.