RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/jeffrey_epstein_took_

What sort of goals would make it worthwhile to hang out with a convicted child sex offender if you are a megalomaniac billionaire?  The curious case of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates just got curiouser.  Anonymous sources, denials, millions of dollars in donations, and claims of lies surround a 2013 visit of Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein to the Strasbourg home of the then-chairman of Norway’s Nobel Committee, which awards the Peace Prize.  The visit was uncovered by Norwegian business daily DN, whose sister publication describes in English the visit and its denial:

Former Nobel Committee chair Thorbjørn Jagland denied having met Jeffrey Epstein when asked by the current chairperson. An investigation by Norwegian business newspaper DN reveals Jagland hosted Epstein and Bill Gates in his Strasbourg residence in 2013.

These uncredited photos via the U.K. Daily Mail allegedly show Epstein and Gates together in Strasbourg and reveal that Jagland, a career politician who was at the time serving as secretary general of the Council of Europe as well as chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, lived in a spectacular home in Strasbourg.  While E.U. positions pay very well, and even though he held two jobs, this house looks suspiciously lavish to me:

It might be worth noting that the first Nobel Peace Prize awarded after Jagland assumed the chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee (whose five members are appointed by that nation’s parliament, where Jagland has previously served, including as a prime minister) was to Barack Obama — shortly after his inauguration as POTUS, before he had accomplished anything remotely worthy of the honor.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-overhyped-story-on-new-yorks-trump-probe/

Despite all the clamor since news broke last night of a purportedly big development in the state of New York’s criminal investigation of former President Donald Trump’s real-estate organization, nothing very meaningful has happened. The development here has to do, merely, with who is investigating. Nothing has changed regarding what is being investigated.

For years, multiple New York state authorities have been eying the Trump organization and the former president himself. As I’ve previously outlined (see, e.g., here), the DA has homed in on suspicions of bank, insurance, and tax fraud, based on what has been reported (particularly by the New York Times) to be a decades-old pattern of inflating or deflating estimates of the value of Trump assets to seek financial advantage (e.g., higher values help with borrowing and real-estate coverage, lower values with tax obligations, and insurance premiums). Meanwhile, the Empire State’s attorney general, Letitia James, has been probing the same subject matter, in anticipation of using her authority to bring civil actions — the AG’s criminal-enforcement authority is more limited than the DA’s.

Last night’s news is that the two offices are now joining forces on the criminal aspect of the investigation. That’s all.

This is not surprising. As I explained back in February (in the column linked above), the DA’s office — which litigated the case all the way to the Supreme Court twice in order to get access to former president Trump’s financial records — has been staffing the probe up. Joining forces with the AG’s office means the DA’s criminal probe will have additional resources, including lawyers experienced in corporate-financial investigations.

James is an ambitious progressive politician who is frequently touted as a future gubernatorial candidate (maybe the not-too-distant future). It makes political sense that she would want a more prominent role in a probe of Trump, who is unpopular in New York (which President Biden carried by 2 million votes in 2020, and Hillary Clinton by 1.7 million in 2016). So the latest shuffling of the prosecutorial deck will add fodder to Trump’s claims that he, his family, and his organization are being subjected to an abusive political vendetta by New York Democrats. Nevertheless, the announcement that James and Vance will be working together, rather than pursuing the case on parallel tracks, does not change the subject matter under investigation.

It is worth adding, as I have noted before, that though the investigation has been going on for a long time, no one has been accused of a crime or sued civilly at this point.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/05/19/accused_russiagate_spy_kilimnik_speaks_-_and_evidence_backs_his_no_collusion_account_777328.html

The man cast as a linchpin of debunked Trump-Russia collusion theories is breaking his silence to vigorously dispute the U.S. government’s effort to brand him a Russian spy and put him behind bars.

In an exclusive interview with RealClearInvestigations, Konstantin Kilimnik stated, “I have no relationship whatsoever to any intelligence services, be they Russian or Ukrainian or American, or anyone else.”

Kilimnik, a longtime employee of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, spoke out in response to an explosive Treasury Department statement declaring that he had “provided the Russian Intelligence Services with sensitive information on polling and campaign strategy” during the 2016 election. That press release, which announced an array of sanctions on Russian nationals last month, also alleged that Kilimnik is a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf.”

Treasury’s claim came shortly after two other accusatory U.S. government statements about the dual Ukrainian-Russian national. In March, a U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment accused Kilimnik of being a “Russian influence agent” who meddled in the 2020 campaign to assist Trump’s reelection. A month earlier, an FBI alert offered $250,000 for information leading to his arrest over a 2018 witness tampering charge in Manafort’s shuttered Ukraine lobbying case, which was unrelated to Russia, collusion, or any elections.

Treasury provided no evidence for its claims, which go beyond the findings of the two most extensive Russiagate investigations: the 448-page report issued in 2019 by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the 966-page report issued in August 2020 by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Treasury has declined all media requests for elaboration on how it reached conclusions that those probes did not. Two unidentified officials told NBC News that U.S. intelligence “has developed new information” about Kilimnik “that leads them to believe” (emphasis added) that he passed on the polling data to Russia. But these  sources “did not identify the source or type of intelligence that had been developed,” nor “when or how” it was received.

“Nobody has seen any evidence to support these claims about Kilimnik,” a congressional source familiar with the House and Senate’s multiple Russia-related investigations told RCI.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2021/05/19/feds_spent_300000_on_virtual_reality_penguin_study_777172.html

How does $300,000 to study penguins through a virtual reality experience sound?

That is what the University of Wisconsin got from the National Science Foundation in 2020 for Arctic and Antarctic research.

The $300,000 grant provides for a project called “Becoming Joey: Promoting Informal Learning Through Embodiment in an Adélie Penguin Virtual Reality Experience.”

To better understand the polar regions, the virtual reality research is “to encourage and support basic research that is best conducted in or can only be conducted in the Arctic and Antarctic.”

The goal is to understand the natural phenomena in the Antarctic and Arctic regions and their role in global systems, according to the grant summary.

The funding helps pay for postdoctoral fellowships in polar regions research, as well as undergraduate student research, laboratory equipment and for research opportunities for women, minority, and disabled scientists and engineers.

The Adélie penguin is found only on the Antarctic continent and is the smallest of the species of penguins found there.

Perhaps we should consider removing the “D” from “CDC,” because liberals at this point don’t seem to care so much about exterminating COVID-19 as they do about keeping a vise grip on what people can and can’t do.

After the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidance last week, determining that fully vaccinated individuals have no need for mask wearing, pandemic-lovers everywhere rushed to call it premature.

There’s no verification of vaccination! Not enough people have been vaccinated! But my mask is like a security blanket!

Dr. Leana Wen of George Washington University, often seen on CNN, wrote Sunday in the Washington Post that President Joe Biden should override the CDC guidance.
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The COVID-19 restrictions in every state

“The Biden team has excelled on many aspects of the COVID-19 response,” she wrote, “but this was a major blunder that threatens to set back much of the progress made. President Biden needs to fix it, urgently.”

Wen’s suggestion for Biden is to reassert the need for countrywide indoor mask mandates and to fulfill the dream of requiring a form of COVID vaccination verification.

Wait, what happened to “following the science?!”

Wen further wrote that Biden “should clarify what it is that the CDC does,” that it only offers “guidance” but doesn’t set policy.

Yeah, that’s what conservatives and level-headed Republicans have been saying for the better part of a year — that a group of scientists at a government agency aren’t tasked with steering a country through a pandemic. That’s what elected leaders are for, and they do that by weighing competing factors, such as the spread of a particular disease, the education of children, and the health of the economy.

True, the CDC’s guidance, in this case, doesn’t go the way that Wen and others would have preferred. But science isn’t there to make anyone happy. It’s there to inform decisions.

These people have never really been interested in following the science anyway. They’ve proven that time and time again. The phrase “follow the science” itself is just a cliche. We should instead say, “Follow DeSantis.”

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida made the determination early on that the pandemic was too big to micromanage. He was right. A highly contagious, airborne virus, at that time with no proven treatment yet, (but fortunately with some identifiable infection patterns) couldn’t be stopped. But it could be managed.

DeSantis realized that those most at risk of severe illness (his state’s large elderly population) could be shielded and that everyone else could be advised and trusted to assess their own condition and behave accordingly.

With that calculation, DeSantis kept his state’s hospital system stable and its economy above water. People died, and each death is a tragedy, but that’s the nature of a pandemic, and they did not die in especially large numbers in Florida. In fact, states with enduring mask mandates and stricter lockdowns fared no better than Florida when you account for population size.

With each passing day, liberals can feel their control over our lives slipping away. They don’t like it, but that’s where “the science

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/kevindowneyjr/2021/05/18/innocent-until-proven-conservative-capitol-protesters-languish-in-jail-are-tortured-while-antifa-and-blm-criminals-walk-n1447802

“People are tortured mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, legally, and spiritually,” Jacob Lang wrote to his dad. He has been in a federal jail since he was arrested on January 16 for his part in the mostly peaceful demonstration at the Capitol on January 6.

“I’ve been in solitary confinement for a hundred days now and haven’t been convicted of any crime with no end in sight,” he continued.

Lang is accused of assaulting a Capitol police officer with a dangerous or deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. As per a text message received by his mother, Lang was reportedly locked in an empty cell with no toilet paper, chair, or blanket for 14 hours after being accused of advising other Capitol protestors to not take a plea deal.

Shockingly (or not), members of the left’s darling street militias, BLM and antifa, have seen a different side of the “system.” People arrested for rioting, looting, burning federal buildings, and assaulting police officers are seeing little, if any, time behind bars. Roughly half of those arrested for federal crimes have had their charges dropped. Most are granted bail and many have had their bail paid by organizations such as the Minnesota Freedom Fund.

Compare that treatment to Capitol protester Ryan Samsel, reported to have been “viciously and savagely” beaten by police while in federal custody.

“He has definitely suffered serious injuries, including a shattered orbital floor, a broken orbital bone, his jaw was broken, his nose was broken,” Elisabeth Pasqualini, attorney for Ryan Samsel said, adding that Samsel is currently not able to see out of his right eye and may permanently lose vision in it. His hands were reportedly zip-tied together behind his back at the time of his beat down.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/dennis-prager/2021/05/18/men-give-birth-america-was-founded-in-1619-and-israel-is-the-aggressor-n1447656

When you meditate for a moment on what the left expects honest and decent people to believe, you confront the world of absurdities and lies in which we live.

The left demands we believe and announce that men menstruate and give birth, and that it is in no way unfair to girls and women when biological men compete in girls’ and women’s sports.

In tens of thousands of American schools, students are brainwashed to believe that America was not founded in 1776 but in 1619, the year the first Africans were brought to North America as indentured servants or slaves. This is the “1619 Project” lie: It was labelled a lie by almost every leading historian of early America, many of whom are Democrats and liberals who supported the impeachment of former President Donald Trump.

And now, with Hamas — a totalitarian theocratic Islamist terror group — unleashing thousands of rockets on Israel’s civilian population and Israel responding to this latest of repeated attempts at mass murder, the world’s left demands that we believe Israel is the villain and Hamas is the victim.

The left’s condemnation of Israel and sympathy for Hamas is just another example of the morally inverted world the left has constructed.

We live in a world in which the mass media and academia — all nothing more than mouthpieces of the left — repeatedly tell the world that America fought the Revolutionary War in order to preserve slavery, that men menstruate and that Hamas is a victim of Israeli aggression.

How such gargantuan lies have become mainstream truths is a question for another column. Suffice it to say they are all as absurd as they are mendacious.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2021/05/18/texas-gov-greg-abbott-orders-a-mandate-against-mask-mandates-and-it-gets-better-from-there-n1447892

Texas Governor Greg Abbott just threw down the gauntlet to any tin-pot water commissioner, mayor, or school board member who wants to keep Texans wrapped up in a mask. He’s turned COVID mask mandates on their ear by prohibiting mask mandates by any governmental entity in the state.

That’s right, it’s a mandate against mask mandates.

He signed an emergency declaration on Tuesday announcing that Texans have a “liberty to choose” whether or not they’ll wear a mask.

We can continue to mitigate COVID-19 while defending Texans’ liberty to choose whether or not they mask up.

Imagine that: an elected leader who believes individuals can conduct their own affairs in a waning pandemic.

But, wait, it gets better.

Just to make sure liberal Travis County mask scolds don’t try any funny stuff, Abbott’s new rule says any governmental outfit requiring masks can be fined $1,000.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/05/the-essential-anti-semitism-of-the-socialist/

In matters pertaining to all aspects of society, socialists like to present themselves as righteous priests of the moral high ground. The record of socialism in practice, however, has shown it has rarely matched the rhetoric of its followers.

Despite claims to promote peace, equality and liberty, socialists have been in the vanguard of violent demonstrations, demonising anyone who disagrees with them and, wherever possible, suppressing human rights. Far from being the advocates of social reform and advanced thinking, socialist governments invariably embrace a conservative statism in which individuals have neither freedom nor peace.

The equality “enjoyed” by them results from having had their moral and material standards reduced to that of the lowest common social denominator. Socialists invariably confuse equality with sameness.

They also believe the socialist movement sprang from the Enlightenment. This is true, but not in the way they like to imagine. Socialism was a reaction to the Enlightenment, a counter-movement, based on an ideology that scorns rational thinking.

Nevertheless, the Left cling to the term “scientific socialism”, believing it gives a veneer of rationalism to their ideology. It is actually an oxymoron.

The phrase “scientific socialism” was coined in 1840 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first self-proclaimed anarchist, in his dissertation “Property is Theft”, and was used later by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.

Underlying a socialist veneer of rational thought is a set of prefabricated rules and directives in which science, reason and empirical evidence play no part. It is a pseudoscience that led Karl Popper, the philosopher of science, to write, “Thus scientific socialism is not a social technology, it does not teach the ways and means of constructing social institutions.” (Popper, K. The Open Society and its Enemies, Vol Two: Hegel and Marx. Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.  2002, 95)

In the practice of socialism, history and truth are mangled in any way that fits a Marxist mould. Failure to do this would reveal that Marx’s analysis of history and predictions, in respect of the future course of capitalism, were sloppy and selective.

In addition, socialism is riddled with contradictions. One in particular has been its attitude to Jews. On the one hand it recognised them as a down-trodden minority—the type of group that feeds the Left’s predilection for victims; at the same time, it condemned Jews as capitalists who are responsible for creating an impoverished under-class—the all-but vanished proletariat.

Nineteenth-century France was the cradle of socialism. It was there that Pierre Leroux, who coined the term “socialism”, was the first person to describe Jews as “Christ-killers”. He wrote of the Jewish spirit as “the spirit of profit, of lucre, of gain, the spirit of commerce, of speculation, in a word, the bankers’ spirit” (Quoted in Edmund Silberner.  ‘Pierre Leroux’s Ideas on the Jewish People.’ Jewish Social Studies Vol. 12, No. 4 (Oct. 1950).  Indiana University Press, 367-384).