RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/11/15/cackling-kamala/#slide-1

Observations on a political albatross

Mayday, Code Red, and SOS! As fires bust out everywhere on the Hindenburg of vice presidents, Democrats are sending out dire cries of emergency, not via radio but using their own signaling systems: Politico and Axios and the Washington Post. “How do you solve a problem like Kamala?” the Democrats who demanded a woman of color on the 2020 presidential ticket are asking themselves. Who would have guessed that, as a moss-brained 78-year-old president stumbles around aimlessly through half a dozen crises of his own making, the Halloween screams in the Democratic Party are mostly about the president’s heir apparent?

Kamala Harris is a heartbeat away from becoming the first woman president, the first Asian president, the first woman-of-color president. Big wins all around, right? So why are the Democrats so nervous? They appear to be on the verge of calling in the Henry Wallace treatment and dumping Harris before Joe Biden runs for president again, this time with the election weeks before his 82nd birthday, in 2024. “People think she’s f***ing up, maybe she shouldn’t be the heir apparent,” one Democratic operative told Axios. White House aides use earthy language like “sh**show” to describe Harris’s “poorly managed” office. It’s “an abusive environment,” a staffer “with direct knowledge” told Politico, adding, “It’s not a healthy environment and people often feel mistreated. It’s not a place where people feel supported but a place where people feel treated like sh**.”

What if Biden should decline to run for reelection as an octogenarian? Harris, as his lady in waiting, would almost have to be the party’s designated successor because she is black and female. To replace her, according to the party’s prevailing thought codes and its media enablers, would be racist and sexist. Yet the prospect of riding into battle behind Kamala Harris’s generalship has every Dem in D.C. reaching for the Maalox, if not the Ativan or maybe the hemlock.

Dems including “many current senior administration figures,” says Axios, do not think she could beat any potential foe, from Lord Voldemort to Ernst Stavro Blofeld to Donald Trump. If the options facing the American voter on a future ballot turn out to be “Kamala Harris” and “Literally Anyone Else,” Harris is going to be not just an underdog but a longshot. She’s a lady whose trademark gambit — the deranged cackle, which she Jokerishly emits anytime she can’t answer a question — makes Hillary Clinton seem as lovable as a litter of golden-retriever puppies. Unlike Hillary, Harris does not make people feel sorry for her for having been ritually humiliated in her marriage to an intern-abusing lech. Unlike Hillary, Harris doesn’t make people think “She earned it” or “She paid her dues.” Madam Cankles looks like a redoubtable candidate compared to Madam Cackles.

https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2021/10/31/highly-vaccinated-vermont-has-spiking-covid-cases-what-happened-n425959

When the vaccines first began to roll out on a national scale early this year, the state of Vermont was one of the earliest leaders in volunteering to be jabbed. The state quickly established itself as one of the early adopters and is now ranked as the most highly vaccinated in the nation. At this point, the state boasts a rate of just shy of 80% who have received at least one shot, with the majority of the remainder being made up of children who only just became eligible.

There are a variety of reasons they were able to do this, both anecdotal and statistically supportable. First, the state only has a population of 623,000, largely condensed into a few major population centers, so it wasn’t hard to set up pods for everyone. Also, no matter how controversial it may be to say this, Vermont is one of the whitest states in the nation (92.5% white, 1.32% Black, 1.3% Hispanic). Vaccine hesitancy in America has typically been highest among minorities, so they had less of that to contend with. On top of that, they tend to have a fairly socialist population that doesn’t mind having the government tell them what to do. (They keep electing Bernie Sanders to every imaginable office he likes, so what do you expect?)

So with such a high rate of supposedly immunized residents, why are they having a spike in COVID cases? Granted, it’s not much of a spike compared to more densely populated areas. On October 16 they recorded 342 new cases and two deaths. But still, their numbers are trending in the wrong direction as we make our way through autumn. What gives? According to a report this weekend from the Boston Globe, Vermont may be a “victim of its own success.” They rushed to get vaccinated early and now that may be coming back to bite them.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-democrats-failing-sell-agenda-american-people-poll/story?id=80877850

Negotiations on the infrastructure and social program bills have consumed Capitol Hill for months. Still, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday finds Democrats are failing to sell the legislation to the public, who are broadly unaware of what is in the spending packages or skeptical they would help people like themselves, or the economy, if signed into law.

President Joe Biden was unable to secure a legislative win before departing on his second foreign trip since taking office, even after he laid out a framework for the package focused on social programs and climate change around which he believes Democrats can rally. He pitched that package, which no longer includes paid family and medical leave or free community college, as a “historic economic” opportunity on Thursday, but this poll reflects the continued confusion and intraparty mistrust over these bills.

Although a majority (55%) of the public is following news about the negotiations at least somewhat closely, about 7 in 10 (69%) Americans said they know just some or little to nothing about what’s in both bills. Fewer than half (31%) said they know a great deal or good amount. Despite Republicans having sat on the sidelines while the White House works exclusively with congressional Democrats to get both bills to the president’s desk, the lack of knowledge extends across all parties.

Americans also do not feel like these bills would help them or the U.S. economy if they become law.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2021/10/30/an-alarming-letter-from-january-6-protester-nathan-degrave-from-his-jail-cell-in-washington-dc/

A twitter thread shared by Brad Geyer relays a letter presented by a jailed J6 detainee held inside the Washington DC Department of Corrections. [Twitter Link Here]  The content of the letter written by a detainee named Nathan DeGrave is very disturbing.  The allegations within the letter are alarming; however, they are supported by other detainees who have described similar conditions.

Dear fellow Americans:

I never thought I’d write a letter like this, but we’re living in very different times. This is my cry for help.

My name is Nathan DeGrave, and as a non violent participant at the Jan 6th rally, I’ve spent the last 9 months detained as a political prisoner in pod C2B at the DC Department of Corrections (DOC) otherwise known as DC’s Gitmo.

The conditions here for Jan 6ers have been inhumane. In fact, some inmates are even begging to be transferred to GUANTANAMO BAY, where even THEY have more acceptable standards.

Class action LAWSUITS are being filed against this prison; and even the ACLU has gotten involved. Senators Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have since attempted to gain access to this facility and inspect the conditions of the jail, only to be denied.  The vile filth of what has become our daily life is being illegally HIDDEN from the members of OUR OWN CONGRESS.

So let me tell you about what me and many of the other Jan 6ers have been experiencing in DC’s Gitmo. It is my hope that with MEDIA EXPOSURE and the awareness of the American public, that SOMETHING may be done and this never happens to anyone ever again.

https://www.openthebooks.com/judicial-watch-sues-on-behalf-of-openthebookscom-for-fauci-financial-disclosure-records-and-royalties-paid-to-nih-employees/

Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on behalf of  OpenTheBooks.com against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the employment contracts; financial, conflict of interest, and confidentiality disclosure documents; and job description of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., as well as royalties paid to NIH employees by outside entities (American Transparency, DBA OpenTheBooks.com v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-02821)).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is an agency of HHS, failed to comply fully with three FOIA requests filed between January 28, 2021, and September 2021, for the following records about Dr. Fauci:

All employment contracts, modifications and addendums since hiring as Director of National Institute for Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (January 28, 2021)
Daily calendar from 1/1/2019 to the present time. (January 28, 2021) (After a phone call in January with NIH, we agreed to narrow our request and took this calendar request out.)
Any confidentiality documents, conflict documents, and economic interest disclosure documents. (January 28, 2021)
Current job description. (January 28, 2021)
Any confidentiality agreements, conflict of interest documents, and economic interest disclosure documents pertaining to calendar year 2020 to the present. These include but are not limited to the OGE Form 278e and accompanying paperwork filed for 2020 with a May 2021 deadline. (May 27, 2021)
A complete list/database of all personal royalties paid (including, but not limited to, FY2020) to current and former National Institutes of Health employees for work done while they were federally employed. The list/database should include, but not be limited to, the royalty recipient’s name, the amount of the royalty, the reason for the royalty, the date the royalty was paid, and the name of the entity paying the royalty. (September 15, 2021)

“No one is above the law including Dr. Anthony Fauci. It shouldn’t take a subpoena or a lawsuit to force open basic employment documents that executive-level federal bureaucrats are required by law to file,” said Adam Andrzejewski, CEO and founder of OpenTheBooks.com. “We thank Judicial Watch for being a good friend and partner in this important matter.”

https://townhall.com/columnists/christianjosi/2021/10/28/building-back-bonkers-n2598145

Were there an American Book of Bad Ideas, progressives’ old reliable fever-dream tax proposals would be chapter one. Just when we think we have seen it all, someone steps up to make the dumb story dumber. In fact, it’s happening right now as Democrats, desperate to push through some sort of legislative package that will appeal to people who aren’t entirely insane and save face before an already dubious public, now have to deal with Senator Ron Wyden’s (D-OR) bonkers “Billionaires Income Tax.” Talk about bad timing.

Of all the wrongheaded nonsense that’s floated in and out of proposed legislative vehicles for President Biden’s “Build Back Better” punchbowl, Wyden’s 11th hour turd is by far the most wild-eyed of them all. The plan would tax tradable assets (think stocks) in the name of taxing the rich. One of the many problems here beyond general obnoxiousness has to do with constitutionality. Taxation is not traditionally imposed until someone sells an asset or engages in a so called “taxable event.” The reason why Democrats want this is so they can claim they have found the money to pay for their uberwoke agenda now, and deal with trifling matters like constitutionality later.

How can Democratic party leadership not see how reckless these utterly unworkable tax-grabs look to voters? Well, in this case, it appears at least some of them can, as evidenced in Politico Wednesday:

“The jeering section includes House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who feels like months of work from his panel is being undercut…” 

“Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) chimed in that Wyden’s plan is ‘just a public relations idea, it’s not a substantive policy suggestion.’ Even those who support the concept, like Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), complained it’s coming too late given its complexity.” 

Or, perhaps to put the sentiments of these and many other congressional Democrats in plainer terms, it’s like Dems have smoke pouring out of all four engines and Wyden is taking bong hits in the back row of the plane.

Unsurprisingly, the targets of this piece of work, which actually would be the first tax in American history on unrealized gains, aren‘t down with the Wyden plan, which is really a culmination of years of huddling and scheming between Wyden, and his partners in wack, Sens. Bernie Sanders ( D-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). (The very thought of taxing unrealized capital gains is a preview of things to come from the party of broken supply chains and hyperinflation. When you run out of real money, just start taxing hypothetical money).

https://newswithviews.com/hell-hath-no-fury/

Yes, Shakespeare said that of “a woman scorned.” But even the English bard could never have imagined the red-hot rage of multimillions of women who learned that the children they love and protect and would give their lives for were being taught by their local friendly teachers to hate themselves and hate their country.

As everyone now knows, there has been a massive eruption of nationwide protests as tens, no hundreds, no thousands of mostly Muslim women (and a few of their husbands) have descended on School Board meetings across the country to protest the fact that Critical Race Theory (CRT)is now being inflicted on their children, starting in kindergarten.

They are telling the powers-that-be how much they resent that their children will be taught that Muslims are evil and dangerous––going back to the problems President Thomas Jefferson had with the treacherous Muslim Barbary Pirates––and that this kind of information would be used to warp the minds of their innocent children.

These impassioned Muslim mothers (and some fathers) insist that they are upright and contributory American citizens who benefit America, have been elected to high public office, and pay their taxes. And they list the historical events they insist is their prerogative—and not the role of racist teachers––to explain to their children:

The deadly bombing of Marine headquarters in Lebanon in 1983, in which 240 American Marines and 21 American seamen were annihilated, thanks to a Muslim suicide bomber.
The September 11, 2001, attack on America, in which nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered by Muslims who brought down the Twin Towers, attacked the Pentagon, and sought to obliterate the White House.
The thousands of Muslim jihadist attacks around the world, going back decades and continuing to this day.
The existence––here in America––of female genital mutilation (FGM) performed on four- and five-year-old girls, ostensibly to suppress their sexuality.
The existence––here in America––of Honor Killings (i.e., murder) to punish Americanized Muslim high school girls who dare to date an American schoolmate.
The relentless propaganda their children are exposed to, for instance a cartoon that depicts the Koranic story of Jews being turned into apes.
And just the other day, a 27-year-old Muslim man who murdered his mother because she converted to Christianity.

Who can blame these Muslim women (and some husbands) for protesting and even yelling at the School Board members and even “threatening” to take their children out of school for contaminating their innocent children with what they define as racist misinformation against what even American presidents have called “the religion of peace”?

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/joe-biden-failure-g20-cop26-rome-glasgow/

How’s the ice cream in Rome? Joe Biden is about to find out. Word is he is excited about the gelato, which is A-OK, since it may distract him from the fact that he has nothing to report when he gets there.

The president — I mean, Joe Biden — was supposed to reestablish “normality” to an office so badly bruised by the mad tweeter — no, make that “ex-tweeter” — who came before.

“Normality” was one big selling point. The other was Biden’s vaunted foreign policy experience. Reality check one: was Joe Biden’s performance at that town hall with Anderson Cooper last week an exhibition of “normality”? Or was it yet another disagreeable instance of elder abuse, parading a man suffering from senile dementia before the cameras? Is there anything normal about that angry and intemperate old man.

And here’s reality check number two: the world historical disaster that was our collapse in Afghanistan, the likes of which we haven’t seen since at least the fall of Saigon and maybe not since William Elphinstone fled Kabul in 1842 with a crew of 16,000, precisely one of whom made it out alive. Joe Biden called the evacuation and collapse of Afghanistan an “extraordinary success.”  I’m told that the Chinese are having “Extraordinary Success” printed on t-shirts, to go along with ones bearing the legend “Let’s Go Brandon.”

High on the agenda in Rome is a “global minimum tax,” a truly grotesque idea that only someone who had given up on the nation state, as many of the participants in Rome will have already done, could entertain seriously. Joe had to leave the Swamp before Congress voted on his profligate infrastructure spending bill, mostly because it is not sufficiently profligate to suit the really crazed lefties who never learned how to count. A “global minimum tax” is just a gigantic wealth redistribution scheme, but why should rich countries subsidize poor ones? They shouldn’t, and besides declaring a supranational tax is one thing; enforcing it is something else.

Biden’s lack of a vote is also going to be a problem after he leaves Rome and travels to Glasgow to talk about “climate change.” He was supposed to have lots of money for that, too. Glasgow is a good place to hold a conference on climate change, because the weather there is always changing, though of course partisans of the green agenda don’t mean “weather” when they utter the word “climate.”