RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/biden-gets-more-aggressive-with-the-confiscation-of-capital/

The progressive war on wealth spreads to trusts.

The Biden administration is waging and all-out war on wealth. We already know about the plans to:

Raise the top individual income tax rate to 39.6 percent 43.4 percent if the 3.8 percent tax on net investment income is included,
Raise the top corporate tax rate to 28 percent,
Tax capital gains and dividend income as if they were ordinary income (above a certain percentage) and,
Eliminate the stepped-up basis accorded to assets transferred to heirs upon the death of the owner, something that will (effectively) bring many more people into the death tax, and subject others to a double death tax.

What hasn’t been discussed is a provision that’s buried in the 114-page document released by the U.S. Treasury in May. The document, General Explanations of the Administration’s Fiscal year 2022 Revenue Proposals (the so-called Green Book), broadly explains President Biden’s plan to confiscate vast amounts of wealth from citizens.

I’m referring to the use of trusts as vehicles to preserve family wealth over generations.

That portion of the plan was not discussed at all by Biden during his campaign, nor was it mentioned when he released his plans to “tax the rich” in April. If this element of the plan becomes law, there will be a great deal of consternation among people who have used an estate-planning strategy regularly for many generations — and not just by the richest 1 percent.

A Primer on Trusts

A trust is an entity created by a contract between the grantor (the person setting up the trust) and the trustee (the person who controls the income and assets of the trust). The trustee controls the trust’s assets for the benefit of beneficiaries, the people who ultimately receive the income and assets from the trust.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2021/08/04/when_confidence_in_our_institutions_collapses_146188.html

Sometimes, stories that appear unrelated share common foundations and have cumulative effects, far more serious than any one does individually. Highlighting these common features tells us something profound about our society and its troubles. That’s the case with four stories over the past few days.

The first two involve police. One concerns a New York City gang member who attacked multiple officers and shot one of them. The suspect had more than 25 prior arrests for guns, drug offenses, and other crimes. He was known to be part of a gang affiliated with the “Bloods.” Yet Jerome Roman was roaming the streets, gun in hand, out on bail. It is a story repeated dozens of times each week across the country. The second story involves the inability of Portland, Ore., to recruit police to fight the city’s stunning murder epidemic. For some reason, Portland just can’t find people willing to join the special unit designed to stop the killings.

The next two stories involve a subject that seems far removed from violent crime: COVID masks. One is a news report with photographs of Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser celebrating maskless at an indoor party just hours after she had imposed a comprehensive mask mandate on her city, prohibiting exactly her kind of behavior. This was just the latest in a spate of “rules are for thee, not me” actions by Democratic mayors and governors. One of them, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, is facing a recall effort. The rest continue along their merry way.

Finally, the ubiquitous Dr. Anthony Fauci, our nation’s top official for infectious diseases, told ABC News this past weekend that wearing masks should not be an individual choice. That statement goes beyond saying masks are desirable, based on public health data. It portends a new round of mandates. President Biden also indicated new, stricter rules are coming.

Is there any connection among these stories about police, murder, hypocrisy, and public health advice? Yes, and it is a connection that illuminates our country’s deepest problems.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/08/04/new-report-nearly-300-billion-in-foreign-aid-spent-by-us-government/?sh=6d9463214374

Many Americans would rather spend their hard-earned money elsewhere, according to polling.

The American taxpayer has been generous to foreign countries. Between the years 2013 and 2018, nearly $300 billion in U.S. taxpayer money flowed as “aid” to countries outside the United States.

Each year, the U.S. spent about $47 billion. Half the aid went to Africa and the Middle East in FY2018, the latest year available for these statistics. Interestingly, despite President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, aid to foreign countries remained virtually unchanged in the first two years of his administration.

This week, our organization at OpenTheBooks.com published an oversight report, U.S. Foreign Aid – How And Where The U.S. Spent $282.6 Billion, Plus Updated COVID-19 Aid & Payments To The UN And Other Agencies. Sinclair Broadcast launched the report on their National Desk and 190 local affiliates with ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX.

Our auditors found that U.S. foreign aid dwarfs the federal funds spent by 48 out of 50 state governments annually. Only the state governments of California and New York spent more federal funds than what the U.S. sent abroad each year to foreign countries.

https://dianebederman.com/covid-its-like-smallpox-alan-dershowitz-says-you-must-take-the-vaccine-or-else/

I am not anti vaccines, nor do I believe for a moment that the mRNA gene therapy vaccine for Covid 19 constitutes a “crime against humanity.” However, listening to both sides and demanding a thorough and scientific statistical analysis deserves attention…..rsk

Remember when we were told 18 months ago that we needed a lockdown to flatten the curve for fear the medical establishment would be overwhelmed? And remember we were just told we must take the  vaccine or the medical establishment would be overwhelmed? This is the science? No one should be lockdown or coerced, if not forced, to take an experimental vaccine because of a failing health care system.

Seems We the People are not entitled to know everything there is about the Covid vaccine and side effects. If those promoting mandatory vaccination are so sure of themselves, why is there so much censorship of those with differing opinions?   Science by definition calls for the asking of questions. How do we know who is right or wrong if we cannot read all views? Have we in the West become that stupid that we need our government to tell us right from wrong via social media censorship?

The editor-in-chief, Julian Reichelt, of Germany’s top newspaper Bild has apologized for the news outlet’s fear-driven coverage of COVID, specifically to children who were told “that they were going to murder their grandma.”

“When a state steals the rights of a child, it must prove that by doing so it protects him against concrete and imminent danger. This proof has never been provided. It has been replaced by propaganda presenting the child as a vector of the pandemic.”

Julian Reichelt noted how moderate voices who attempted to offer calmer perspectives on the pandemic “were never invited to the expert table” and urged viewers “don’t believe this lie,” when encountering alarmist proclamations from the government.

Thankfully, a large team of more than 1,000 lawyers and more than 10,000 medical experts, led by Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, has initiated legal proceedings against the CDC, WHO and the Davos Group for crimes against humanity regarding the mRNA gene therapy vaccine for Covid 19.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/the_most_hypocritical_birthday_party_ever.html

As we all know, conceited, narcissist Barack Obama has never been one pass up an opportunity to be worshipped by fawning sycophants, especially if the worshippers are rich and famous. That’s why, on August 7, the multi-millionaire/community organizer will host his own star-studded 60th birthday party.  

According to a source at The Hill, “It’s going to be big.” 

As the nation hurts, Hollywood’s crème de la crème will descend, en masse, on Martha’s Vineyard to attend a gazillion-dollar birthday party feting Kenya’s most famous imposter.

The swanky gala will take place on the grounds of Obama’s 30-acre/$12,000,000, summer compound located on the waterfront in Edgartown. Attending to the needs of A-list leftist race baiters and politically correct sympathizers will be 200 ethnically-diverse servants who will ensure the champagne flows and the hors d’oeuvres include racially sensitive cuisine.

Historically, aristocrats make merry while masked commoners struggle to breathe, subsist, and sustain a respectable lifestyle. With 500 guests, 200 servers, and a hairdresser on-site to style a Pearl Jam band member’s hair, Obama and Michelle’s haughty self-indulgence personifies the “rules for thee but not for me” mentality that is pervasive among a ruling class who parties while imposing despotic diktats on the peons.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/obama_birthday_bash_to_smash_all_known_woke_values.html

Forget about the violation of Covid protocols — those are a passing fancy on the left.  Barack Obama’s sixtieth birthday bash this coming weekend threatens to violate just about every progressive virtue the Obamas and their woke pals have ever signaled.

Officially, Obama’s birthday falls on August 4.  As I will explain, that may not be the real date, but the “optics” problem facing Barry and his bourgeois buddies is a more pressing one.

As planned, some 475 invited guests and at least 200 worker bees will swarm the Obamas’ waterfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, a tony little island off the coast of Massachusetts.  In addition to their vax cards, I suspect the worker bees and even the guests will have to show a photo ID.  Apparently, birthday invites are more vulnerable than ballots in Obama world.

On a side note, rumor has it that the ever cautious Georgia congressman, Hank Johnson, passed on the invite for fear that the whole island would become so overly populated that it would tip over and capsize.

Among the invited guests are George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah.  I could be wrong, but my guess is that these and the Obamas’ other jet-setting friends are not going to fly commercial.

The Obamas bought this nearly 7,000-square-foot waterfront home in the fall of 2019.  They paid nearly $12 million for their new digs.  No big deal.  They had pocketed a reported $65 million advance for their respective memoirs from Penguin Random House.

In his 2020 memoir A Promised Land, Obama worries that he did not do enough to deal with “America’s escalating inequality.”  He wonders if he should have tried “to exact more economic pain” on corporate America in the hope of creating a more just economic order.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/08/04/free-state-serf-state-n2593491

I flew out to Texas and back to California last weekend, and boy, are my arms tired and my patience tested. To leave the sordid hellhole that is Los Angeles for the functioning area around Houston (the city itself is a blue stronghold and a failed state, though less comprehensively than LA) is to see a vivid contrast between red success and blue dystopia. If only someone had written a bestselling series of conservative action novels about that scenario.

Also, President Asterisk is getting more senile by the day. He’s recently claimed he was an 18-wheel rig driver; let’s get him a chimp and make a reality show called “JB and the Bear.” At least with a monkey, this appalling fiasco might be amusing.

The pride of the libs, sausage-esqe Alexander Vindman, wrote a book, of a sort, and astonishingly it’s not a cookbook.

Two Americas and One of Them Sucks

The first thing you notice in Houston is that the airport is not a complete disaster. It is a partial disaster, with a lot of construction, but it is not as comprehensively miserable as LAX. Everyone and his brother – excuse my gender assumptions – was flying on a recent Friday morning and I had to drop the family and go find some off-airport parking lot like a sucker. LAX was wall-to-wall with people leaving the Golden State. Houston was civilized, and the luggage was there when we got to baggage claim. Of course, it took a half-hour to walk there, but anyway…

There are few bums. I saw one or two, but I did not see the massive collections of shanties, lean-tos, and shebangs that make up the urban villages of the damned you see all over Los Angeles. It could be the weather – there’s this thing called humidity outside of Cali, and it rains in summer if you can believe it – but I think it’s that in Texas you’re just not allowed to be a hobo. Maybe in Austin, but not in the Houston suburbs.

You can carry a gun, like a citizen. That’s cool. And there are a bunch of awesome breweries. Maybe don’t mix those two. The food is good. And people are nice. People in LA are not mean. They just don’t care. They got their thing and you got yours. In Texas, people say “Hi.” They also don’t wear masks like a bunch of sissies. That right there is enough to grant this round of the competition to the Lone Star State. No wonder everyone is moving there.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_morningbrief/fda-authorizes-antibody-cocktail-as-covid-19-prevention-treatment_

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authorized a monoclonal antibody cocktail as a measure to prevent infection in some groups of people who were exposed to the CCP virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19.

The FDA on Friday announced that it had revised its emergency use authorization (EUA) for REGEN-COV, a treatment consisting of jointly administered casirivimab and imdevimab, expanding its use beyond just the treatment of patients who test positive for the virus.

While the product remains authorized for treating confirmed COVID-19 patients over age 12 who are at high risk of severe illness, the agency said the drug combo can now be given to high-risk groups as a measure after exposure to prevent progression of the disease.

The antibody treatment is only authorized for use in people who have been exposed to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, not as a pre-exposure preventive measure, the FDA said.

The agency added that REGEN-COV should only be used as a post-exposure prophylaxis by people who are not fully vaccinated or whose immune systems are unlikely to mount an adequate response to the virus, like those who take immunosuppressive medications or who are otherwise immunocompromised.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/andrew-cuomo-and-the-tragedy-of-politicized-feminism/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=top-bar-latest&utm_term=fifth

The new report from New York State’s attorney general confirms what many have known for a long time: Andrew Cuomo is a man abusing his position of power to harass women.

Looking at this story from a feminist perspective, one would be completely unsurprised by it. In fact, it’s exactly what one would expect. Men have power and treat women unjustly; that’s the problem that feminism diagnoses and wants to solve.

Yet feminist groups don’t have a lot of credibility to speak out against Cuomo because many of them have endorsed him for public office over the years. The National Organization for Women–New York (NOW-NY) endorsed him for governor in 2018, and their president said, “This was an easy decision. . . . Year in and year out Governor Cuomo has put women’s rights front and center.” The organization’s endorsement says:

Governor Cuomo is building a legacy of real change for the women and girls of New York: raising the minimum wage of which women make up two-thirds of earners; enacting paid family leave; making it harder to discriminate against pregnant workers; and paving a path for young New Yorkers to earn tuition-free four-year degrees.

See the sleight of hand there? Cuomo’s “legacy of real change for the women and girls of New York” is really just progressivism. The minimum wage, paid family leave, and tuition-free college aren’t specific to women (and if you believe men can get pregnant too, as some progressives argue, neither is discriminating against pregnant workers).

There is reasoning behind feminists’ casting their lots with progressivism. They point to disparate-impact issues (such as the “women make up two-thirds of earners” part about the minimum wage) and say that since many progressive policies would benefit women more than men, they are feminist issues.

Conservatives, pretty generally, have been opposed to institutional feminism. Conservative hostility probably played a role in feminists’ believing that adopting progressivism was the best move for the success of their movement. It was enemy-of-my-enemy thinking combined with the simple fact that many feminists were sympathetic to the progressive agenda to begin with.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/the-real-story-of-the-central-park?token=

Amy Cooper was not the internet’s first “Karen” — the pejorative used for a demanding, entitled white woman. But as the Central Park dog walker who called the police on a black birdwatcher last year, she quickly became the paragon of the archetype.

In a video that went instantly viral, we watch as she summons law enforcement to protect her from the man, whose race she mentions three times in a matter of moments: “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”

Just over a minute long, the video flooded social media alongside a second one filmed that same day: the horrifying footage of a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a man named George Floyd.

The conflation of these two stories in the public imagination began almost immediately — and not without cause. The Central Park video looked really bad. 

Many accused Amy Cooper of “weaponizing white tears.” They said she was deliberately attempting to sic racist cops on the birdwatcher, Christian Cooper (no relation). Comparisons to Emmett Till were instant.

“It’s important for us to remember that what happened to George Floyd is what Amy Cooper would have wanted to happen to Christian Cooper,” as one YouTuber put it, reflecting a sentiment echoed broadly across Twitter and beyond.

The outcry was overwhelming, and it was supercharged by the mainstream press. The New York Times ran a dozen stories, letters, and Op-Eds in the first week alone. A rattled Gayle King said it felt like “open season” on black men, with Amy “nearly strangling her dog to falsely accuse another black man.” Trevor Noah said that Amy “blatantly knew how to use the power of her whiteness to threaten the life of another man and his blackness.”

By the next day, Amy Cooper had been doxxed, had surrendered her dog, had lost her job, and had issued a half-hearted defense followed by an abject apology. Christian Cooper would go on to become a minor celebrity, penning a story for D.C. Comics inspired by the incident, heralded across the media and even by Joe Biden. “You made an incredible contribution at a very important moment,” the future president said.