RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/president_trump_gives_a_magnificent_statement_on_his_return_to_the_white_house.html

President Trump, who was diagnosed with the Wuhan virus on Thursday and sent to the hospital on Friday, returned to the White House on Monday evening, looking like his usual self. Upon his arrival, he gave a Twitter address to the American people. Although it’s short, it may be one of the most important and powerful statements he’s made as President. In it, Trump talks about a leader’s role, and he urges the American people once again to live without fear.

Here is President Trump’s statement:

The speech echoed a tweet the president had sent out shortly before leaving Walter Reed Medical Center:

There is, of course, a chance that Trump will have a relapse. We can only hope and pray that he won’t.

Regardless of what happens, though, the principles that Trump espoused, both about leadership and living life without fear, are tremendously important. Since February, thanks in large part to Democrats hoping to drive Trump out of office by weaponizing the Wuhan virus, Americans have allowed the Wuhan virus to dominate every aspect of their lives. We’ve entered a form of purgatory, where we’re just marking time until we finally, passively, get sent to some final destination, whatever the heck it might be.

This attitude is utterly foreign to what America has been since its inception. Starting with the original thirteen colonies, America has been defined by its energy, enthusiasm, and courage. Collectively, we march bravely forward – yet we’ve spent this year cowering.

This needs to stop. At a certain point – and the left is counting on this — helplessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because we believe ourselves helpless, we lose the will, desire, and skill to help ourselves.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/james_comey_and_robert_mueller_have_massive_clinton_foundation_problems.html

James Comey is not an effective liar. He fooled only the gullible last week with his evasive testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Previously, Robert Mueller was also not effective deterring the Trump Administration from uncovering significant, far-reaching crimes that the former F.B.I. Director “missed” from September 2001 through September 2013.

For almost 18 years, Comey and Mueller have been covering for powerful Republicans and Democrats, letting serious crimes go unpunished. Many of these involved fake charities that operate internationally, including the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

These are perfect conduits to trade donations for influence, especially for foreign governments who, in theory, are barred from investing in U.S. politicians.

We are approaching a “put up or shut up” moment, where President Trump must deliver on the most important campaign promise he made in closing arguments during the 2016 campaign: that justice would finally be administered to each American, without fear or favor.

This hard deadline is not Nov. 3, 2020 but 13 days later when many Clinton charities must file I.R.S. returns that are complete and truthful. None can do so, yet each must.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16597/gina-haspel-trump-conspirators

What is most interesting is the timing of Gina Haspel’s last tour as London Station Chief — from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and “utility government operative” Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.

The CIA Station Chief is the top intelligence official in any given country. The FBI must inform the Station Chief of what they planned to do and get Station Chief approval. The FBI hates that, but those are the rules. Because the various intelligence agencies are sensitive, they do not use the word “approved.” Instead, they use the word “coordinated.” Jargon aside, nothing would have happened without Haspel’s okay.

That carried forward to a more sophisticated and aggressive plan to carry out a soft coup against President Trump. People around President Trump were prosecuted and/or had their lives destroyed based on a scheme of U.S. government lies. Who appears to have been “in on it” from Day One? Gina Haspel.

The FBI is not allowed to penetrate and subvert a presidential campaign. Executive Order 12333, Section 2.9, “Undisclosed Participation in Organizations in the United States,” prohibits it in plain language… That legal prohibition is the reason the FBI felt the need to manufacture a “foreign counterintelligence threat” in the UK and then “import” the investigation back into the United States.

Gina Haspel is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Haspel is the first career clandestine service officer to become director, and the first woman. She was the CIA Chief of Station in London — twice, and that repeat assignment is very unusual. What is most interesting is the timing of Haspel’s last tour as London Station Chief — from 2014 to early 2017. That is the same timeframe (specifically, the late summer of 2016) when the FBI approached foreign policy academic and “utility government operative” Stefan Halper to begin the operation targeting Carter Page and George Papadopoulos in an FBI-designed foreign counterintelligence operation, against Team Trump, to be launched in Cambridge, England.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/presidents-coronavirus-spikes-trump-derangement-lloyd-billingsley/

Last week, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump tested positive for the coronavirus. Democrats quickly deployed their bullhorns.

“If President Trump can’t be out there on the campaign trail for the next two weeks, then he is going to rely on his surrogates and unfortunately, one of his surrogates is Vladimir Putin,” Sen. Chris Murphy told CNN. “So, unfortunately, you are likely going to see this campaign ramped up by Russia over the next few weeks to try to substitute for the president’s absence on the campaign trail.”

Senate minority leader Charles Schumer said the plan to hold hearings for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was unfeasible. Schumer also demanded isolation for Barrett and “anyone she was in contact with.”

Over in the House, Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib proclaimed that the president “only cares about himself and his life, NOT those around him or the people he took an oath to protect. Too many lives lost because of his deadly lies.” Last year, it might be recalled, Tlaib crowed, “We are going to impeach this motherfucker!”

Donald Trump “knows better than anyone he shouldn’t be president,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in 2016, and last year she derided “his own insecurity as an imposter.” After the president tested positive for the virus, Pelosi told reporters, “I have concerns about the test because obviously the tests that are happening at the White House are not as accurate as they should be.”

Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC told the Speaker she was “second in line for the presidency” and asked whether the White House had contacted “contacted you about the continuity of government?” Pelosi responded “that is an ongoing- not with the White House but with the military, quite frankly, in terms of some officials in the government.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/art-review-making-the-met-metropolitan-museum-of-art/

Making the Met, 1870–2020 makes the case, and no one can deny it: The Met is an unparalleled marvel.

T he new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Making the Met, 1870–2020, commemorates the 150th anniversary of, in my opinion, the unmatched giant among museums in the world today. Its collection, curators, and educational program go from strength to strength. In 1870, the Met’s founding signaled America’s cultural ascendance from provincial to international, from the sweaty work of building a nation from scratch to a time when enrichment of the mind was seen as not only possible but essential to a good life.

From the Gilded Age to the Information Age, the Met’s mission has always pivoted toward the best, in everything it does. It almost always hits the target. Yes, it’s an art museum with intimate as well as sumptuous, grand galleries, but, well beyond that, I’ve always looked at it as a university. Its pedagogical and research functions are huge. With a million moving parts, as many movers and shakers, superb art, and a history of peaks and valleys, the Met’s story is a challenge to tell.

What is its own take on the past 150 years? Expansive but cautious, even corporate. Hygienic, as all the juicy, rapacious bits go unmentioned. Surprising? Not really. The Met’s an enormous place, or, more precisely, a big family where everyone needs to be fed. There’s a little of everything, but the story is coherent. It’s a Cliff Notes version. It shows many great things but not all the best things. It’s about the Met’s best thinking and its high points.

I enjoyed it. How could I not? It’s the greatest museum in the world. It’s the zenith of heritage preservation. It’s a learned storyteller, too, and the story is human creativity. Americans are privileged that it’s here.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-critical-race-theory-11601841968?mod=hp_opin_pos_1

Moderator Chris Wallace asked President Trump during last week’s debate why he “directed federal agencies to end racial-sensitivity training that addresses white privilege or critical race theory.” Mr. Trump answered: “I ended it because it’s racist.” Participants “were asked to do things that were absolutely insane,” he explained. “They were teaching people to hate our country.”

“Nobody’s doing that,” Joe Biden replied. He’s wrong.

My reporting on critical race theory in the federal government was the impetus for the president’s executive order, so I can say with confidence that these training sessions had nothing to do with developing “racial sensitivity.” As I document in detailed reports for City Journal and the New York Post, critical race theory training sessions in public agencies have pushed a deeply ideological agenda that includes reducing people to a racial essence, segregating them, and judging them by their group identity rather than individual character, behavior and merit.

The examples are instructive. At a series of events at the Treasury Department and federal financial agencies, diversity trainer Howard Ross taught employees that America was “built on the backs of people who were enslaved” and that all white Americans are complicit in a system of white supremacy “by automatic response to the ways we’re taught.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/10/chelsea_clinton_demonstrates_what_kind_of_a_hideous_lousy_friend_she_is.html

This week, Melania Trump’s former friend, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, secretly recorded Melania expressing frustration with having to do White House Christmas decorations instead of serve people, and then broadcast her sneakitude to the press for adulation and book deals, literally profiting one, two, many times on her longtime friendship with Melania Trump. Who needs friends when there’s money to be had?

But not to be outdone, Chelsea Clinton has stepped forward into the spotlight, to tell everyone why she refuses to speak to her longtime childhood friend, Ivanka Trump, and it’s a doozy. 

According to USAToday:

Chelsea Clinton offered a detailed explanation about her fallout with former friend Ivanka Trump, which followed the 2016 presidential election when Ivanka’s dad defeated Chelsea’s mom.

On Thursday’s episode of “Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen,” Chelsea Clinton, 40, said she and Ivanka Trump haven’t spoken since 2016. During the discussion with host Andy Cohen, Clinton criticized the first daughter for “actively taking part in this administration’s everyday collision of cruelty and incompetence.”

Clinton didn’t hold back in her criticism of her former pal.

“We were in touch at the beginning of the campaign, but it’s just really hard when there’s someone who’s actively embracing their candidate, whether it’s their father or not, who is trafficking in racism and sexism and anti-semitism and Islamophobia and homophobia and transphobia and conspiracy theories and lies and is so fundamentally corrupt,” Clinton explained.

Umm, Chels, that’s not ‘actively embracing’ a candidate, that’s actually her actively embracing dad.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/stats-hold-a-surprise-lockdowns-may-have-had-little-effect-on-covid-19-spread/

Data suggest mandatory lockdowns exacted a great cost, with a questionable effect on transmission.

In 1932, Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis famously called the states “laboratories of democracy.” Different states can test out different policies, and they can learn from each other. That proved true in 2020. Governors in different states responded to the COVID-19 pandemic at different times and in different ways. Some states, such as California, ordered sweeping shutdowns. Others, such as Florida, took a more targeted approach. Still others, such as South Dakota, dispensed information but had no lockdowns at all.

As a result, we can now compare outcomes in different states, to test the question no one wants to ask: Did the lockdowns make a difference?

If lockdowns really altered the course of this pandemic, then coronavirus case counts should have clearly dropped whenever and wherever lockdowns took place. The effect should have been obvious, though with a time lag. It takes time for new coronavirus infections to be officially counted, so we would expect the numbers to plummet as soon as the waiting time was over.

How long? New infections should drop on day one and be noticed about ten or eleven days from the beginning of the lockdown. By day six, the number of people with first symptoms of infection should plummet (six days is the average time for symptoms to appear). By day nine or ten, far fewer people would be heading to doctors with worsening symptoms. If COVID-19 tests were performed right away, we would expect the positives to drop clearly on day ten or eleven (assuming quick turnarounds on tests).

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16590/colorful-american-politics

White supremacists forget that in most cases what they present as lawbreaking by blacks is primarily caused by socio-economic factors, not skin color. Even then, lawbreakers form a small minority of black Americans, who account for 12 percent of the population.

While racists, both white and black, do exist in the United States, it is wrong to talk of across the board institutional racism. A majority of Americans of all colors understand that slavery was an evil and harmed every American regardless of color. They have also seen in real life that advancing equality benefits all, not only those of any particular color.

The way world media cover the current US election campaigns may foster the impression that the nation is gripped by a crisis due to institutional racism with black Americans as victims. Professional anti-Americans even claim that the US perpetuates a version of apartheid.

How accurate are such claims?

There is no doubt that race, or skin color, remains a cause of friction with small radical groups, both white and black, seeking to legitimize their agendas by fomenting fear and loathing with racial themes.

On the right, white supremacists try to portray black fellow citizens as genetic criminals whose presence is a cause of anxiety. They cite figures showing that a disproportionate number of blacks are in prison for breaking the law.

On the left, some radical anti-capitalists try to cast blacks as victims of institutional racism and use the concept of victimhood to justify violence.

White supremacists forget that in most cases, what they present as lawbreaking by blacks is primarily caused by socio-economic factors, not skin color. Even then, lawbreakers form a small minority of black Americans, who account for 12 percent of the population.