RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/washington-swamp/

The incoming Biden administration has begun to appoint personnel and articulate policies, both directly and through the extended voice of the foreign policy establishment and the media. The return of second-tier Obama administration personnel and the marginalization of left-wing progressives portends a return to the process-laden policies of the past. International agreements and institutions, and a return to 20th century “rules” and “norms”, are unlikely to be adequate to confront rogue states like China and Iran.

Washington, DC is built on a swamp at the convergence of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers. Like all swamps it is subject to periodic flooding.

The DC foreign policy swamp has well and truly returned. The presumptive Biden administration has made a series of appointments that, along with a growing number of pronouncements from insiders and hangers-on, is beginning to give shape and color to its foreign policy.

What are some of its salient features? First are three interlinked phenomena: the return of second-tier players from the Obama administration, the explicit marginalization of overt progressives and radical ideas, and the empowerment of progressives in lower-level staff positions.

The appointment of Anthony Blinken as Secretary of State and Avril Haines as Director of Central Intelligence returns faithful Obama apparatchiks to power. Blinken, former Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Secretary of State, epitomizes, in the words of European analysts, a “Europeanist, multilateralist, internationalist” viewpoint. The fulsome praise for his public service, “Jewish roots, European conscience,” and flawless, unaccented French neatly, if not parodically, sums up the viewpoint and expectations of the European elite.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/governor_desantis_just_keeps_getting_better.html

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has shown real star quality throughout 2020, thanks to his temperate handling of the Wuhan virus. He refused to put his state into lockdown but still managed to keep Florida from turning into a Wuhan virus nightmare. On Monday, he also proved that he knows how to handle the hostile media. Other Republican politicians would do well to follow his lead.

California and Florida have been perfect examples of the two ways in which American states can handle the Wuhan virus because they’re relatively close in size. California, which had around 39,512,223 people before they started fleeing the state this year, is America’s most populous state. Florida, with approximately 21,477,737 people, is America’s third most populous state. (Texas sits between the two with around 28,995,881 people.)

When the Wuhan virus hit, California embarked on a series of rolling lockouts. These varied from making most people prisoners of their own homes to regulations that destroyed small businesses and isolated people when they weren’t making their permitted runs to Walmart or other huge retailers. The lockdowns devastated the California economy.

They also devastated Californians. After only a couple of months of lockdowns, suicides increased in the state. In San Francisco alone, drug overdoses outpace Wuhan virus deaths.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/when-tony-met-kary-lloyd-billingsley/

“As we get into the end of the summer, the beginning of the fall of 2021, we can start to approach some degree of normality,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci as he rang in the new year. People might wonder if it was 2022 that Fauci really had in mind for “the approach of some degree of normality.”

For most of 2020, Dr. Fauci claimed that to reach herd immunity about 60 to 70 percent of the nation would need a vaccine. Then in a December 24 interview with the New York Times, Fauci said he had been looking at “polls” showing that only half of all Americans would take a vaccine. Fauci thought, “I can nudge this up a bit,” and boosted the number for herd immunity to 80-85 percent. That caught the attention of Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican. 

Fauci “made the decision to mislead with nothing but good intentions,” said Rubio in December 30 Fox News opinion piece. “However, let’s be clear about what he was doing: lying to the American people in order to manipulate their behavior.”

Fauci is an “unelected technocrat,” Rubio wrote, and “if he wants to lead the nation, he should run for office.” If not, “he should give us an honest and transparent reading of the science, not polling data, and let the rest of us —policymakers and the American people who have elected them — do our jobs.”

That long overdue smackdown was hardly the first Fauci had received. Back in the 1990s, one of the world’s leading scientists held doubts that Fauci  should even be an unelected bureaucrat.

“This man thinks you can take a blood sample and stick it in an electron microscope and if it’s got a virus in there, you will know it. He doesn’t understand electron microscopy and he doesn’t understand medicine. He should not be in a position like he’s in.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/01/new-york-city-back-daniel-greenfield/

New York is back! No, I don’t mean Rudy Giuliani’s revived New York City. I mean the nightmarish New York City of Dinkins, Beame and Lindsay.

I mean the Death Wish and Warriors city.

And now Bill de Blasio’s New York City before it’s passed on to some even more nightmarishly incompetent and corrupt leftist whose only agenda is identity politics.

New York City is back, baby.

Bat-wielding man injures multiple people in NYC during crazy crime spree – New York Post

Violence adds to NYC’s 2020 death toll, with 97% jump in shootings and 45% increase in murders — criminal carnage not seen in 14 years – New York Daily News

NYPD: 8 People Shot In 6 Different Shootings Not Even 2 Hours Into 2021 – CBS 2

NYPD: Man Shot, Killed on Eve of His 21st Birthday – NBC 4

NYPD searching for suspect who shot into parked car in Brooklyn – ABC 7

‘Everybody is in shock’: New York City Christmas concert ends with police shooting gunman on cathedral steps – USA Today

Nearly 70 percent of 2020 shootings in NYC are unsolved: NYPD – New York Post

Start spreading the news. These vagabond bullets. Are yearning to stray. I’m leaving today. I don’t want to be a part of it. New York, New York.

“The fact that this bill was even drafted and introduced gives you an incredible insight into the totalitarian, socialist mentality of New York Democrats” 

Albany, New York–January 4th…New York Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy today blasted New York Democrats for their deeply disturbing and unconstitutional legislation that would allow the governor or his surrogates the power to detain individuals whom they deem to pose a ‘threat to public health.’ 

Chairman Langworthy is calling for an immediate withdrawal of the legislation for the 2021 session and blasted Governor Cuomo for refusing to outright condemn the bill’s objective or pledge a veto if it were to pass. 

After the bill was discovered and a backlash ensued, Cuomo and other Democrats tried to downplay the bill’s chances of passage, but not a single one condemned the objective of the legislation or assured New Yorkers that they would not vote for it. 

“The fact that this bill was even drafted and introduced gives you an incredible insight into the totalitarian, socialist mentality of New York Democrats,” fumed Chairman Langworthy. “King Cuomo and his lemmings in the legislature who have abdicated their power to him have already trampled over our constitutional rights with this virus. There isn’t a chance in hell New Yorkers should trust that this couldn’t become a reality.” 

He continued, “Since the day he was elected, Andrew Cuomo has shown an utter disregard for the rule of law, and thanks to his feckless, rubber-stamp legislature, for nearly a year he has been allowed to rule like the dictator he’s always wanted to be. New Yorkers need to wake up–we cannot be complacent about the very real and present danger of our rights being taken from us under one-Party Democrat rule.”