RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-fbis-strange-anthrax-investigation?token=ey

One of the most significant events of the last two decades has been largely memory-holed: the October, 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S. Beginning just one week after 9/11 and extending for another three weeks, a highly weaponized and sophisticated strain of anthrax had been sent around the country through the U.S. Postal Service addressed to some of the country’s most prominent political and media figures. As Americans were still reeling from the devastation of 9/11, the anthrax killed five Americans and sickened another seventeen.

As part of the extensive reporting I did on the subsequent FBI investigation to find the perpetrator(s), I documented how significant these attacks were in the public consciousness. ABC News, led by investigative reporter Brian Ross, spent a full week claiming that unnamed government sources told them that government tests demonstrated a high likelihood that the anthrax came from Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program. The Washington Post, in November, 2001, also raised “the possibility that [this weaponized strain of anthrax] may have slipped through an informal network of scientists to Iraq.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on The David Letterman Show on October 18, 2001, and said: “There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.” Three days later, McCain appeared on Meet the Press with Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and said of the anthrax perpetrators: “perhaps this is an international organization and not one within the United States of America,” while Lieberman said the anthrax was so finely weaponized that “there’s either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program” (Lieberman added: “Dr. Fauci can tell you more detail on that”).

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/jun/2/fauci-should-drop-the-mask-on-wuhan/

While our masks come off, Dr. Anthony Fauci still wears his mask of secrecy – one that cloaks the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ response to COVID-19. The time for an honest discussion regarding Dr. Fauci’s leadership and actions during the pandemic is long overdue.

Scientists have learned a great deal about the coronavirus, including how it transmits and attacks the body and crucially, how to treat patients and create seemingly effective vaccines. However, scientists are requesting more information that they say is necessary to determine how COVID-19 originated and became a pandemic in order to develop strategies to prevent such a pandemic from ever again visiting such destruction upon humanity. But to this day, Dr. Fauci and NIAID have steadfastly refused to release documents that would help answer this and many other important questions. 

Over the past year, Judicial Watch has bird-dogged Dr. Fauci’s records through the Freedom of Information Act. And when FOIA requests were ignored, Judicial Watch filed lawsuits compelling NIAID to comply. Although the agency continues its unprecedented stonewalling, it has released at least some documents, some of which are deeply troubling. In one instance, Dr. Fauci approved a press release that was specifically designed to praise China’s initial response to the coronavirus. In an even more troubling case, officials from the NIH tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms, and the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/blm-founder-patrisse-cullors-marxist-abolitionist-paul-kengor/

Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors has been in the news a lot lately because of controversy over her income and financial dealings, including recent purchases of several new homes. Cullors lashed out at these criticisms by protesting, “The fact that the right-wing media is trying to create hysteria around my spending is, frankly, racist and sexist.”

The fact is that Cullors’ own organization has demanded answers. Hawk Newsome, head of Black Lives Matter Greater New York City, called for “an independent investigation” of Cullors. “If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” says Newsome. “It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement.… We need black firms and black accountants to go in there and find out where the money is going.”

But another particularly striking Cullors revelation of late has gotten almost no publicity. It was flagged for me by Mike Gonzalez, author of an upcoming major new book on BLM. It’s a video by Cullors titled, “What Is Abolition And Am I An Abolitionist?” Posted on her personal YouTube channel, it needs to be widely watched.

In that video, Cullors repeatedly calls herself an “abolitionist.” She talks about her “abolitionist journey” and the “abolitionist future we deserve.” She announces that she’s writing a book titled An Abolitionist Handbook.

Cullors applies her abolitionist goals to police — and not just police but even prisons and jails. She states flatly, “Abolition is the getting rid of police, prisons and jails, surveillance, and courts.”

Yes, the abolition of police, prisons, jails, surveillance, and courts — all part of what Cullors calls the “prison industrial complex.” As many of us have noted, she emphasizes that BLM’s “defund” movement is about literal abolition. That is, not just defunding the police, but abolishing the police. Plus prisons and jails, and now surveillance and courts, too.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/06/senators_manchin_and_sinema_show_the_courage_of_their_convictions.html

In January, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.) entered into a power-sharing agreement with Sen. Chuck Schumer (D. Beijing) that was predicated on his receiving a promise from Sen. Joe Manchin (D. W.Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D. Az.) that they would not join with their fellow Democrat senators to end the filibuster. This was an overwhelmingly important promise because the filibuster is the only thing that stands between America as it has existed for 230 years and a Democrat-run, socialist, despotic future. I must admit that I had no faith whatsoever that Manchin and Sinema would keep their promise but, happily, I seem to be wrong.

The reason the filibuster matters so much is that the Senate is split 50-50. Technically, Kamala Harris is the tie-breaking vote but, if the Republicans invoke the filibuster (which dates back to 1806), it takes three-fifths of the Senate to override a filibuster. It is the filibuster that stands between America and the Democrat plans to pack the Supreme Court (turning it into a Democrat super-legislature), pass the Equality Act (opening the way to men in women’s restrooms, locker rooms, sports, and prisons), give amnesty to millions of illegal aliens (reshaping the American electorate forever), and enshrine fraud as an integral part of American elections (need I say more?).

Almost six months into the Biden era, as the Democrats get ever more aggressive in dividing the nation along racial lines, destroying the economy, supporting Iran, enshrining the mental illness that is so-called “transgenderism,” etc., it was nerve-wracking to think that the only thing between us and turning America into a racially-riven, sexually-obsessed version of China was a promise from Joe Manchin who rather consistently takes stands and then abandons them, and Sinema, who started out in the Green Party and Code Pink.

But Manchin and Sinema have held firm. Indeed, they’ve held so firm that Biden, during his disgraceful race-baiting speech in Tulsa, was forced to lie about them in order to pressure them into yielding on the same filibuster Biden once declared practically sacred. To that end, he accused them of voting with the enemy (i.e., the GOP):

Biden did not name the Democratic senators that could stand in the way of passing bills like the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, although he was likely referring to Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). Both senators are moderates who have come under heavy criticism this year over perceptions that they are obstructing elements of the Democratic agenda, particularly due to their refusal to support eliminating the Senate‘s filibuster rule.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/adls-brief-history-antisemitism-focuses-christians-christine-douglass-williams/

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) first published its “Brief History on Antisemitism” in 2013, but it is newly relevant amid the dramatic recent upswing in antisemitic attacks all over Europe and North America. The ongoing united efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state and support a Palestinian “resistance” that has sought to annihilate Israel from the day of its founding have been relentless, and have gained new impetus in recent weeks. Unfortunately, the ADL plays it safe in its history, ignoring Iran’s hatred of Jews, Arab nationalism and the alliance of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with Hitler during the Holocaust.

This is unfortunate on many levels. The ADL has been foundational in advocating for American Jewry, and its influence extends beyond American borders. According to its website, “the ADL was born at a time when American Jews—both new immigrants and generations-long members of our society—were experiencing deep-seated bigotry.”

Founded in 1913 by the Independent Order of B’nai Brith, the ADL split from B’nai Brith to become an independent organization committed to combating antisemitism. In 2018, it rebranded itself more broadly as an “anti-hate” organization, often taking up the cause of controversial groups and entering into what has become known as the culture war, eliciting criticism in the war of ideas, often from both sides of the right-left divide and anything in between.

Robert Spencer recently noted that ADL called accurate reporting of Muslim responses to coronavirus “anti-Muslim bigotry.” “Anti-hate” today is synonymous with opposition to racism. Opposition to “hate” is based on a notion of whites oppressing non-whites. Those who subscribe to this way of thinking also classify Islam as a “race,” so that when Islamic doctrines and practices are scrutinized and criticized, the offender is deemed to be “Islamophobic.” Similar brandings include “racist,” “white supremacist,” “xenophobic,” “bigoted,” “intolerant,” and the like. The two “safe” groups to criticize are Christians and Jews, who are both largely viewed by Westerners as “white.” Jews are now facing global abuse at levels reminiscent of the Nazi era, but it’s not generated by Christians; rather, it emanates from the Palestinian jihad against the Jewish state of Israel, backed by powerful Islamic powerbrokers — an “unsafe” longstanding issue that the ADL avoids –  failure of nerve that many share.

The predominantly “unsafe” groups to criticize are black and Islamic. Certainly not all Muslims are antisemitic, but Islamic antisemitism is a powerful, united global influencer leading to an increasingly violent new outbreak of antisemitism, as the Palestinian “resistance” is used and recycled as a social justice cause embraced by the anti-racism industry.

https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/rick-moran/2021/06/02/fridays-jobs-report-may-blow-up-bidens-presidency-n1451467

Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release May’s jobs report and it’s expected to be “unexpectedly” bad.

Employers are still desperate for workers but workers are taking their own sweet time getting back to work. The rate of people leaving unemployment is falling and a top Fed official is warning that the job numbers may look “odd.”

Lingering restrictions on some businesses in some states — bars and restaurants, especially — are putting the brakes on the economic recovery. It’s like putting the gas pedal to the floor while engaging the emergency brake. And some economists expect it to show up in Friday’s report.

Where are all the jobs, Joe? Whatever happened to “Build Back Better”?

April’s jobs report was a disaster. Instead of the million jobs created that were expected by economists, only 266,000 positions were filled. And March’s numbers — a robust 916,000 new jobs — were revised downward to 770,00.

The economic recovery is sputtering and it could spell big trouble for Biden’s inflationary agenda.

Politico:

Democrats have downplayed the concerns, maintaining that the path back to full employment was always going to be winding and stacked with challenges. And economists are predicting the report will show 630,000 jobs were created in May, a robust number. But while Biden has been polling strongly on his handling of the economy, a second straight month of slower-than-expected job creation could embolden critics of his multitrillion-dollar infrastructure spending plans and raise fears that the labor market is facing a long road back to normal.

At the very least, weak numbers will blow up Biden’s agenda in the near future.

“There is growing anxiety about inflation, the economy overheating, unemployment not coming down fast enough and businesses that can’t find jobs,” said Brian Riedl, a former economic aide to Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and other GOP lawmakers. “Another bad jobs report may further the narrative of a White House overextending itself on stimulus and in over its head.”

For May’s numbers, most economists are cautiously optimistic, predicting up to 630,000 new jobs created. That’s a nice number but considering all that pent-up economic energy, it’s disappointing. Something or someone is holding the American economy back.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/06/03/yeah-right-after-border-debacle-biden-picks-kamala-to-push-voting-rights-reform/

You have to hand it to her: Vice President Kamala Harris has a knack for having her career advanced by others, despite continual abysmal performance as a public official. Unfair, you say? How else can you describe someone who fails so badly at one job, and then is immediately rewarded with another job of even greater importance?

There are lots of definitions out there for “failing upward” but probably the best comes from the “Simplicable” website, which calls it “a common feature of cronyism” in which members of a “social group continue to promote and reward each other despite an ongoing string of failures.”

Could anything better describe Harris’ political career, especially her latest turn as President Joe Biden’s “immigration czar”?

The most polite thing you can say about Harris’ so-far brief tenure as border czar is that she’s done little to make things worse. That’s largely because she’s a political cipher, picked precisely because she wouldn’t do a thing to stop illegal immigrants from crossing our borders.

That takes the heat off of Biden, whose early moves undid President Donald Trump’s smart, humane policy (which led to an enormous decline in both illegal contraband and border crossings), and replaced it with the Democrats’ dangerous, divisive open-border policy.

Harris is plainly incapable of doing the job. And that’s the point.

How else could you describe someone who claims that “climate adaptation” in Latin America is key to ending the U.S. border crisis?

Or someone who explained the “root causes” of the thousands of Central Americans illegally crossing the U.S. southern border by referencing the television show “Cheers,” where “everyone knows your name“?

Or someone who has focused on luring American companies to invest in Central America as a way to stop the surge, rather than focusing on the cause: Biden’s open-border policy?

Or someone who, during her 71 days as czar, refused to even visit the border or meet with border-state governors, who have desperately pleaded for help from Washington to handle Biden’s growing disaster?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/reparations-are-political-suicide-and-joe-biden-knows-it/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

H.R. 40, the reparations bill, is DOA. Per Politico:

As a candidate, Biden said he supported a commission on reparations. But the administration has yet to endorse the actual bill. After his speech Tuesday, the president met with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who brought up the need for H.R. 40, which is named after the “40 acres and a mule” promise that now symbolizes the lack of support formerly enslaved people received from the federal government. According to those involved in the conversations, Biden let them down gently.

“He didn’t disagree with what we’re doing,” said Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), the 2nd vice chair of the CBC. “He did talk about his plate [being] full with trying to get the infrastructure bill passed and that he really wanted to make sure that he could get that through before he took on anything else.”

Ouch.

H.R. 40, note, would not spend any money on reparations. It would simply create a commission to look into spending money on reparations. If Joe Biden is against even that at this early point in his presidency, then he’s going to be against the idea at every single point in his presidency. The next few months are going to be taken up with attempt to spend trillions of dollars on “infrastructure,” and, after that, the midterm election season will be upon us. In a cosmic sense, Biden may not “disagree with” what the CBC is doing. In practical terms, though, he’s running away from them as fast as he possibly can — and, in so doing, killing the idea dead for at least the rest of his tenure.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-biden-attacks-courageous-maverick-democrats/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=second

President Joe Biden dinged both Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin during a speech in Tulsa, Oklahoma, yesterday, calling them “two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends.” Some coverage alleged that Biden had merely insinuated that the duo voted against more than with him, but it’s a lie that would have generated cheeky chyron corrections on CNN and instantaneous across-the-board fact-checking — five Pinocchios and all the rest — had it been Donald Trump.

It’s not to say that Sinema and Manchin have signed on to all of Biden’s multitrillion-dollar agenda items — often larded with proposals that Biden himself opposed only a couple of years ago, such as ending the Hyde amendment and allowing unlimited taxpayer funding of abortions. But, to this point, Sinema and Manchin have voted with the president 100 percent of the time. If Republicans are looking to them to be saviors, they will likely be disappointed.

Biden’s quip was meant to pressure both to help pass H.R. 1, and to give Democrats an excuse to blow up the Senate filibuster. The president, after all, framed their obstinance as a roadblock to protecting the “sacred right” of voting, again claiming that state laws that codify traditional integrity measures, rather than allowing the chaotic COVID–style free-for-all voting to become the norm, were on par with Jim Crow. H.R. 1 is an attack on free expression, an unconstitutional federal takeover of elections. Its scope is unprecedented. Yet, since the press has adopted the Democrats’ framing of the legislation — a “voting rights” bill meant to stop “Republican-led voting restrictions across the country” — many voters are probably confused by any reluctancy to support it.

Of course, the way Sinema and Manchin are portrayed by the press bears little resemblance to the coverage of, say, Susan Collins, who often held up Republican-agenda items. She was a plucky maverick ready to stand up for her beliefs. And Mitch McConnell was not, as far as I recall, asked daily whether he was willing to destroy the republican norms of the Senate to ram through his legislative agenda with a razor-thin majority. And even if he had been, reporters wouldn’t be referring to it as “filibuster reform.” Yet, the filibuster is the obsession of political media. Sinema and Manchin are the obsession of the political media. All of it geared to help one party realize its goals.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/06/02/never-let-a-plague-go-to-waste/

During America’s first-ever national lockdown, thousands of unelected bureaucrats, as well as federal and state governments, assumed enormous powers not usually accorded to them.

They picked and chose which businesses could stay open without much rationale. They sent the infected into nursing homes occupied by the weak and vulnerable.

Their rules for prosecuting those who violated social distancing, sheltering in place, mask wearing, or violent protesting often hinged on political grounds. Their spending measures on “infrastructure” and “health care” were excuses to lard up redistributive entitlements.

Conservatives moaned that left-wing agendas were at work beneath the pretenses of saving us from the pandemic. And the giddy left bragged that it was true.

After the 2008 financial meltdown, Barack Obama spoke of “fundamentally transforming” the country. Now he’s back, weighing in on the panic-driven, multitrillion-dollar spending that has pushed America’s debt to nearly $30 trillion.

“There’s a teachable moment about maybe this whole deficit hawk thing of the federal government,” Obama said in a recent interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times. “Just being nervous about our debt 30 years from now, while millions of people are suffering—maybe that’s not a smart way to think about our economics.”

He apparently means that borrowing tons of money in a pandemic and not worrying too much about paying it back is a new, better approach to economics.

Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom boasted about leveraging California’s statewide quarantine.

“There is opportunity for reimagining a progressive era as it pertains to capitalism,” Newsom said. “So yes, absolutely, we see this as an opportunity to reshape the way we do business and how we govern.”