RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/11/08/john_durham_is_getting_close_to_the_jugular_146702.html

Last week, John Durham’s grand jury issued its third criminal indictment in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. The person who was arrested may be obscure; the news may have been buried after Virginia’s bombshell election results; but Durham’s move is a big deal. It shows that the special counsel’s probe is methodically unraveling a huge conspiracy, seemingly engineered by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and implicating James Comey’s FBI, either as a willing participant or as utterly incompetent boobs.

The latest indictment also damages the mainstream media, which is why so many news outlets have ignored or underplayed it. After all, they broadcast a false story for years and are none too eager to revisit it. Other losers are the prosecutors assembled by Robert Mueller, most of them Democrats, who had reams of this damaging information and ignored it.

What Durham and a few intrepid reporters are uncovering may well be the most ambitious dirty trick pulled in an American election and its aftermath. The question now is whether Durham can expose the full extent of this malfeasance and charge those who planned and executed it.

Durham’s latest indictment charges Igor Danchenko (pictured) with lying multiple times to the FBI. Danchenko, who worked at the Brookings Institution as a Russian expert, may not be a household name, but he was a crucial player in concocting the false story that Donald Trump was collaborating with the Kremlin to win the White House. The real conspiracy, it turns out, was aimed at Trump and was conducted by the Clinton campaign and her longtime associates. It was financed jointly by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Some leaked emails suggested it was approved by the candidate herself. The FBI continued running with it long after it had ample evidence to know it was a concoction. House Democrats ran with it even longer, basking in fulsome, uncritical media coverage. All of it was false.

The Danchenko indictment matters because his bogus information was the heart of the “Steele dossier,” which, in turn, was the heart of the anti-Trump investigation. The dossier was compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who had been hired by people working for Clinton. Steele claimed his information about Trump, including salacious sexual allegations, came from Russian sources. It didn’t. It came from Danchenko, who was working at a Washington think tank. As Danchenko admitted to the FBI, much of what he told Steele was old rumors or exaggerations. Some of it appears to have  been simply fabricated. Steele incorporated it, and the Democrats deployed it.

https://spectator.org/the-friends-of-igor-danchenko/

The Trump-Russia collusion hoax is the most successful and destructive partisan political scam in the history of our nation. Based on lies portraying Donald Trump as a covert Russian operative, it was cited by the Obama-era FBI and Justice Department as the putative justification for using the nation’s vast intelligence apparatus to investigate Trump and concomitantly benefit Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The underlying lies were compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele upon whose “dossier” the FBI based its FISA warrant applications to spy on Trump advisor Carter Page and, by extension, Trump and his presidential campaign. The Steele Dossier consists of 17 now-discredited reports which collectively allege that Trump was subject to blackmail by the Kremlin for bizarre sexual behavior in a Moscow hotel and that his campaign operatives were conspiring with the Russians to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

When he wrote those reports, Steele was working under contract with Fusion GPS, a private investigations firm that had been retained by Marc Elias, legal counsel to the Clinton campaign, to do opposition research on Trump.

Well after the 2016 election, the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) reviewed the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.

According to the OIG’s report, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to investigate, among other things, “whether there were any ties between the Russian government and Trump or his campaign. Steele’s work for Fusion GPS resulted in his producing numerous election-related reports.” With Fusion GPS’s authorization, he “directly provided more than a dozen of his reports to the FBI between July and October 2016, and several others to the FBI through [DOJ attorney Bruce] Ohr and other third parties.”

The OIG found that that the FBI used Steele’s information to obtain FISA warrants to conduct electronic surveillance of Page. In its warrant applications, the FBI advised the court that “Steele was believed to be a reliable source for three reasons: his professional background; his history of work as an FBI CHS [confidential human source] since 2013; and his prior non-election reporting, which the FBI described as ‘corroborated and used in criminal proceedings.’”

In other words, the FBI averred under oath that, based on Steele’s credibility, derogatory information about Trump and his campaign warranted investigation by means of electronic surveillance.

The OIG also found that, in October 2016, Steele provided briefings regarding his findings to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets. In each, Steele’s credibility as an experienced former British agent who worked Russian intelligence was a material factor in establishing the credibility of the Trump-Russia collusion smear.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/11/07/trickle-down-bidenism/

Can 10 months really make a real difference in America? Not normally.

But weld together a hard-left socialist agenda with the control of the White House and Congress onto the combined forces of progressive woke media, Silicon Valley, the corporate boardrooms, the entertainment industry, academia, and the Wall Street borg—all in the age of instant and intrusive communications—and it’s no wonder a country, even a nation as resilient as the United States, can descend quite quickly in ways that make America almost unrecognizable.

In other words, 40 weeks of relentless Bidenism finally permeates most of the nation.

Fuel Prices, Inflation, and Border Chaos

Out in the California foothills and Central Valley, relatively “cheap” propane now has more than doubled to a rate of $3.91 a gallon.

At about the same time that I got the propane bill, I filled up the truck with diesel fuel. It was $4.87 a gallon with a credit card, up in price almost $2 a gallon from over a year ago. I thought myself lucky since the week prior in Palo Alto it was about $5.29 a gallon.

I spoke not long ago in Bakersfield to an oil man. He described impending California new rules on the horizon concerning almost every aspect of horizontal drilling and fracking—as part of his own larger fears that the entire industry is shrinking even as demands and profits soar, and consumers need more natural gas and gasoline than ever.

Has anyone ever heard of liberal Americans deliberately not pumping oil and gas, but still needing so much more output that they beg the illiberal Saudis and Russians to bail us out? At other times in our history, we have suffered plenty of fossil fuel scarcities due to war, embargoes, and declining reserves. But never has America deliberately created shortages amid a sea of our own gas and oil.

What has been the reaction from those who slashed natural gas and oil production by cancelling new federal leases and pipelines, and oil fields in Alaska, or warned frackers that new regulations and taxes were just the prerequisites to a rapid phase out of their existence altogether—on the pathway to a wind and solar nirvana?

When asked if the United States would at least increase (e.g., restore previous levels of) oil production, Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm laughed, “That is hilarious.”

To whom is that comical? The guy with an older model pickup doing daily landscape work for his wealthy clients? The waitress who drives 20 miles to work? The broke student who commutes to campus?

I drove today along a rural avenue next to my farm. Both sides of the street were littered—far more than usually so—with trash. They were not just the usual garbage bags and tires, but washers, dryers, refrigerators, car seats, furniture—and mattresses of all shapes and sizes. It was an intensification of the now old story of rural California as an open dumping ground of refuse.

I stopped to inspect the flotsam and jetsam. The dumpers are careful to glean out their personal addresses. They rarely leave traceable material. But all the magazines, newspapers, and printed material were in Spanish. Note there are no green regulators out here who patrol rural avenues to stop the pollution and desecration of the natural landscape; in the hierarchy of wokeness, illegal immigration trumps the environment.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/federal-court-blocks-biden-vaccine-mandate-lloyd-billingsley/

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Saturday blocked a Biden vaccine mandate that would have forced private companies with more than 100 employees to get workers vaccinated, submit to weekly tests, or face steep fines. 

Due to start on January 4 and affecting more than 80 million workers, the mandate was to be enforced through the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The appeal court cited “grave statutory and constitutional issues” with the Biden plan, which drew lawsuits from, among others, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton.

“WE WON,” Paxton tweeted after Saturday’s ruling. “The fight is not over and I will never stop resisting this Admin’s unconstitutional overreach!” Paxton told reporters the ruling “gives people hope that they aren’t going to lose their jobs and the president isn’t going to be able to ruin people’s careers and make their lives more difficult.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted. “Emergency hearings will take place soon. We will have our day in court to strike down Biden’s unconstitutional abuse of authority.”

A full 26 states had filed suit against the Biden mandate. Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry called it “unlawful overreach,” adding that the administration “will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by our Constitution.” For West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey the ruling was “good news” and “Biden’s vaccine mandates are unlawful, unconstitutional and just wrong!”

Companies opposing the Biden mandate included the Daily Wire news website. As co-founder and  CEO Jeremy Boreing explained, “forcing Americans to choose between their livelihoods and their freedom is a grotesque abuse of power and we won’t be a party to it. We will not incur the cost of implementing this testing regime. We will not incur the liability of inserting ourselves into the private health decisions and information of our employees. Our company was founded to stand against tyranny, and we will.”

Biden charged that “the virus will not go away by itself, or because we wish it away. We have to act.” It had apparently escaped the Delaware Democrat’s notice that the vaccines currently being imposed have not exactly been trouble-free. For example, Finland, Sweden and Norway have paused the use of the Moderna vaccine, citing a risk of myocarditis.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/11/bidens_poll_numbers_continue_to_collapse.html

Thanks to relentless mainstream media propaganda, Joe Biden entered the Oval office with very good poll numbers. Despite the contentious campaign season and the even more contentious election, Americans were willing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt, with 57% of them expressing approval for him in the first weeks of his presidency. Since then, he’s had nowhere to go but down. The latest poll puts his approval at 38% and the slide shows no signs of stopping.

The most recent presidential approval poll comes from USA TODAY/Suffolk University and was taken between Wednesday and Friday last week. That means it caught the responses to the elections on Tuesday, including the way Virginia, which easily gave its Electoral College votes to Biden in 2020, has now turned red, with a Republican Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, and State House.

USA TODAY sums up the most recent poll results:

A year before the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans hold a clear lead on the congressional ballot as President Joe Biden’s approval rating sinks to a new low of 38%.

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, taken Wednesday through Friday, found that Biden’s support cratered among the independent voters who delivered his margin of victory over President Donald Trump one year ago.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/11/rage-against-reality-bruce-bawer/

The other day, for the first time since the pandemic began, I was in a properly jam-packed watering hole. The establishment in question was my old Oslo hangout, a largish and rather legendary gay bar called London Pub. I was alone – in fact I seemed to be the only person who was alone in the whole place – and so I just sat there with my $12 glass of wine (welcome to Norway!) and, after a year and a half of living mostly like a hermit, took in the glorious sight of fellow human beings, maskless, enjoying one another’s company.

The patrons could hardly have been more varied, ranging from twenty-somethings to octogenarians, from tiny Asians to doorway-tall Norwegians, from rail-thin to massively obese. The attire was all over the place, from black tie to Lederhosen (Oktoberfest was underway), and there were more blacks than there would have been ten years ago, when I last lived in Oslo. And there was, as always, a sprinkling of women – even, for the first time in my experience, among the staff.

And what struck me was how mellow it all was. There was no tension in the air. Everybody was having a good time together.

My friend Frank, a straight American who used to tend bar at London Pub, wrote on Facebook just the other day that it’s better to work in a gay bar than a straight bar, because you never have to break up fights. A bit of an exaggeration, maybe – but just a bit.

I’ve always opposed the term “gay community,” because it rarely feels like a community. Some gay bars of my acquaintance have guys working the door who turn away the old and the unlovely.

https://jonathanturley.org/2021/11/07/fbi-raids-project-veritas-over-a-missing-biden-diary/

There is a curious story out this weekend on reported FBI raids of writers or associates of Project Veritas, the conservative investigative journalism outfit. Project Veritas has been described variously as “Gonzo” or “guerilla” journalism and some insist it is more of a political than a press organization. However, it fits the definition of journalism, in my view, and that makes the raids troubling. All the more troubling is the cause: the missing diary of President Biden’s daughter Ashley. [Update: The FBI reportedly also raided O’Keefe’s home]

The New York Times reported that the FBI searched two locations in New York in search of the “stolen” diary that went missing days before the 2020 presidential election. Project founder James O’Keefe questioned how the Times received the story within an hour of the first raid.

O’Keefe says that the organization actually received a tip that the diary was abandoned in a room, an allegation that harkened back to the abandoned laptop of Hunter Biden.  However, Ashley reportedly insisted it was stolen.

The use of the FBI is also reminiscent of the still unexplained use of the FBI when Joe Biden was Vice President to search for a gun owned by Hunter Biden that was discarded behind a restaurant.

Project Veritas decided not to run the story because it could not verify that the diary belonged to Biden. (The FBI may have just offered that confirmation). Instead, it alerted the police, according to O’Keefe: “Project Veritas gave the diary to law enforcement to ensure it could be returned to its rightful owner. We never published it.”

So why the raids?  Since when does the FBI conducted raids over missing diaries?

The FBI can cite the interstate elements of the alleged theft as raising a federal crime. However, what is the crime? It is not clear if they are suggesting that the responsible parties were seeking to sell the diary or that there was some national security element (which would be bizarre since Biden’s daughter was writing before her father ever became president).

https://brownstone.org/author/vinay-prasad/

Vinay Prasad MD MPH is a hematologist-oncologist and Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California San Francisco. He runs the VKPrasad lab at UCSF, which studies cancer drugs, health policy, clinical trials and better decision making. He is author of over 300 academic articles, and the books Ending Medical Reversal (2015), and Malignant (2020).

I recently came across two tweets that caught my eye.

Here is the first one from the CDC director:

And here is the second one, from a couple months back:

Together they got me thinking. What do they have in common? What do they tell us about the state of the public communication of science?

Let’s start with the one by Dr. Walensky. I don’t know how to put this politely, but it is a lie, and a truly unbelievable one at that.

First, of all, if it were true, it would mean that masking was more effective that the J&J vaccine (implausible). Second of all, we have actual cluster RCT data from Bangladesh showing a 11% (relative risk reduction). This occurred in a massive trial where masks were provided for free and encouraged. Even here, only surgical masks worked, and cloth did not, and had no where near this effect size. The idea that masks could reduce the chance of infection by 80% is simply untrue, implausible, and cannot be supported by any reliable data.