RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-woke-see-no-eviland-nothing-but-evil-11608925768?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

It is impossible to read Mark Twain in the 21st century without being aware, each time one encounters it, of the single most unspeakable word in the English language today; a word that in Twain’s time was as common as mud and therefore completely unremarkable on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. The issue concerning the appropriateness of designating “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” in their original and unexpurgated state as assigned reading in English classes in the public schools has troubled teachers and administrators since at least the 1990s.

I am not concerned here with the question of whether the bowdlerization of these texts is defensible, a moral imperative, or an offense against literature—New South published a sanitized edition of the two books in 2011—but rather with the paradoxical character of postmodern political correctness. That character was exposed, also in 2011, when the Virginia Department of Education adopted a textbook, “Our Virginia: Past and Present” by Joy Masoff, which contained the claim that “thousands of Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks, including two under the command of Stonewall Jackson.” That prompted anger and indignation on the left and an advisory to teachers from the department to ignore the passage.

Yet it is a historically confirmed fact that many Southern blacks, freemen as well as slaves, fought on the side of the Confederacy, as attested to by the historian William Freehling and documented by Harvard’s Prof. John Stauffer in an essay for TheRoot.com. Even so, many Civil War historians continue to deny it for ideological reasons.

The dispute over the existence of black Confederate soldiers is a clear instance of how radical progressives, in their war on America, have been pursuing two contradictory aims at once. First, they have worked tirelessly to expose what they view as the fundamentally and indelibly racist character of America from its inception. Thus the central purpose of the “1619 Project,” conceived by Nikole Hannah-Jones and subsequently developed by the New York Times magazine: to rewrite, edit and otherwise “correct” the history of the American Republic. Second, they have sought to sanitize America’s cultural achievements and thereby satisfy the moral demands of the present time, all for the good of future generations.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/obamas_spending_christmas_in_hawaii_and_generate_the_embest_picture_everem_of_the_former_first_couple.html

It’s no surprise anymore when our ruling class travels for Christmas or any other reason that strikes their fancy, while the rest of us are told to give up family reunions, and even church services. So seeing Barack and Michelle Obama in Hawaii, able to jet around wherever their fancy takes them, enjoying their scores of millions of dollars earned from Netflix, books and other post-presidential activities is no surprise. Obviously, Barack has not reached the point he mentioned in 2010, when he said, “I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.”

I am actually grateful they took the opportunity to go kayaking and generate the picture in the tweet below, which is to my eyes the best, most revealing view of the couple ever taken.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/531543-joe-bidens-continued-russian-misinformation-defense-of-hunter-is

President-elect Joe Biden continued his campaign strategy of running from anything resembling a tough question from a reporter when attempting to leave the stage after another “press conference” on Tuesday, calling said reporter a “one-horse pony” while continuing to assert that his son, Hunter Biden, is the target of a smear campaign fueled by Russian misinformation. 

The exchange occurred between Biden and Peter Doocy, a Fox News correspondent, after the president-elect took hard-hitting questions that included: 

“Do you believe that you will have a honeymoon to get things right?”

“Are you concerned about [Trump] lingering around? I see you smiling, but I still have to ask it. And kind of a corollary to that, would you consider filing for reelection early next year to show that you’re not going to be a lame duck?”

“Has the issue of the investigation of your son come up in discussions with your team and with potential candidates about the attorney general?”  

You get the idea, in terms of tone and temperature. What was a hostile four years between the press and President Trump is now a hospitable period between the press and Biden. And, in a related story, the freewheeling press conferences of Trump randomly calling on anyone and everyone are gone, with Biden’s staff deciding who gets to ask questions and who gets boxed out indefinitely. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/12/ignore_the_leftist_hype_the_blackwater_pardons_were_the_right_thing_to_do.html

On December 22, President Trump issued 15 pardons. Among those pardoned were Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, and Dustin Heard. If the names are unfamiliar, you might recognize them collectively as the Blackwater private contractors. In September 2007, these former veterans ended up in a shootout in Nisour Square, Baghdad, that left 17 Iraqis dead and 20 wounded. Slatten got life in prison; the other men each got 30 years. The left would like to see them continue to rot in jail, but President Trump made the right decision to let them go.

I have to admit that, for no good reason, I did not pay too much attention at the time to the original shootout in Iraq or to the men’s railroading over the course of several years after the shootout. That’s why I was at a loss for words when a leftist friend called me to ask accusingly, “So, what do you think of your President Trump now for pardoning those mass murderers?”

That friend wasn’t the only one taking that stand. Several leftists I know on Facebook posted a New York Times article about the pardon. The following is just the title but, after reading it, you really don’t need to waste your time (and it will be wasted) reading the rest of the article:

Blackwater’s Bullets Scarred Iraqis. Trump’s Pardon Renewed the Pain: Iraqi witnesses against Blackwater guards were promised justice after a mass killing in Baghdad in 2007. ‘Today,’ one said, the bullets still in his leg, ‘they proved to me it was just theater.’

The way things roll on the left is that you can simultaneously be angry at Trump for wanting to draw down America’s military presence in Afghanistan and the rest of the world, while still accusing him of being an imperialist and lambasting him for pardoning men involved in a war Trump didn’t even support.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/24/congress-christmas-tree-bill-loaded-with-climate-ornaments/

The goodies tucked inside the COVID “relief” bill are just a down payment on future climate compromises. It might not be the Green New Deal, but close enough.

Americans on both sides of the political aisle—and politicians as divergent as President Trump and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.)—are justifiably outraged at the $900 billion pork barrel spending bill disguised as COVID-19 “relief” that won congressional approval on Monday.

The president is pushing back, posting video messages that detail the bill’s giveaways to foreign countries and special interests unrelated to easing the devastating economic consequences of shutdowns ordered by Democratic and Republican governors alike. 

There is no end in sight to these punitive, costly decrees, which have done nothing to stop the spread of a virus that cannot be stopped; viruses outsmart humans almost every time and considering the sad crop of human leadership in the world right now, it’s not exactly a high wall for any pathogen to scale.

One group, however, is very pleased with this monstrosity of a bill: environmentalists. “Climate change,” just as it was for his previous boss and BFF, is a top priority in a Joe Biden Administration. Team Biden will work quickly to restore most if not all of Barack Obama’s climate change agenda, a legacy Donald Trump successfully razed.

The presumptive president promises to address the “existential threat” allegedly caused by manmade climate change; he’s regrouping Obama’s climate band, including former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, who used her agency to thwart Congress and almost single-handedly advanced Obama’s extreme climate policies, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. As Biden’s “climate czar,” Kerry, a chief negotiator on the Paris Climate deal, will fulfill Biden’s pledge to re-enter that pact.

Thanks to House Democrats and Senate Republicans, however, Biden is getting a head start on his climate change wish list. 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/12/24/what-the-lockdown-leviathans-dont-get/

Sure—usually “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” by, say, the end of November.  But Meredith Willson’s classic Holiday tune didn’t quite come true this year.

After all, here’s just a starter list of things that were either banned or restricted this holiday season: Christmas family gatherings; Christmas concerts; Christmas tree lighting ceremonies; Christmas parties; Christmas worship services; Christmas sing-alongs; Christmas season sporting events; Christmas shopping trips; and even Christmas visits with Santa. 

More broadly, nearly every conceivable social activity, aside from popping out to a grocery store to stave off starvation (or, possibly, suicide) for another week, was either banned or severely restricted this year for millions of us.

Don’t like it? Don’t worry, said the experts: If you’re feeling a mite lonely after nine months of house arrest in Papillon-like solitary confinement, just throw a rollicking Christmas “social” event in which you stare, all alone, at a computer screen on a Zoom call, as the most ruthless, repressive, imperialist regime on earth monitors everything you say, and then instantly disables your account if you dare to criticize it. (Soon, no doubt, it won’t only be the Chinese government doing the monitoring and disabling, but our own—supposing it hasn’t merged with the CCP by then).

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/christmas-message-dr-fauci-wayne-allyn-root/

This can’t be a mistake. No one can be this dumb. No one can be this clueless. Not even Democrats. Not even moronic Democratic governors. Not even nanny-state government bureaucrats like Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci jasked Americans to cancel Christmas. He said, “…it’s just one of those things you’re going to have to accept.” He reported he would not even allow his own three daughters to come home for Christmas this year. He wants all Americans to “painfully” isolate. He says he and his wife will be spending the holiday alone.

I have a message for Dr Fauci: “First, not just no. HELL NO. This is America. This is a free country. If we want to celebrate Christmas, we will. If we want to go to church, we will. If we want to spend the holidays with our children, we will. We’re adults. We make our own decisions. This isn’t a nanny state. It’s not the Soviet Union. It’s not Nazi Germany. We don’t need government bureaucrats telling us what to do, how to live our lives or how to spend the holidays.

Second, you’re a typical Ivy League egghead. You’re too smart for your own good. You have IQ but clearly no emotional intelligence. And certainly no common sense.

Third, how can I see this nicely? SCREW YOU. I love my family. I love my children. I love Christmas. I don’t know you. I don’t owe you. And I don’t answer to you.”

Fauci and his crowd of moronic Democratic governors are control freaks. But no one is listening, certainly not conservatives, not Trump deplorables, not patriots and not Christians. We love Christmas. We love our families. And no one is taking that away from us. Not in America.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-calls-amazon-jobs-scam-jason-d-hill/

Americans spoke loud and clear when Bernie Sanders and his brand of socialism were defeated in the Democratic primaries. They said no to socialism and all that was promised with it. Socialism is just not in our political DNA, Americans pointed out. Even those who voted for Joe Biden thought they were electing a liberal centrist; someone closer to near-fiscal conservatives, rather than rapacious, wealth-appropriating socialists. They might be wrong. But I think that they rejected socialism when they voted against Bernie Sanders.

Yet here is that naïve activist masquerading as a politician, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, making a crass and abrasive demand for socialism by attacking a symbol of the free market: Amazon. Last week, AOC came out in a series of incendiary attacks against Amazon, accusing the company of providing sham jobs for workers because it left them homeless. In a series of tweets on Twitter, AOC referenced a Bloomberg News article which reported that more than 4,000 Amazon employees are on food stamps.

AOC immediately tweeted: “A Job that leaves you homeless & on food stamps isn’t a job. It’s a scam.” She further went on to state that Amazon’s jobs are a “scam” because they’re not creating financial security for workers.

Mixing categories in a way that first year students of logic would not, AOC went on to state: “This is why “Amazon jobs” aren’t it & we should instead focus our public investments + incentives on small businesses, public infrastructure, & worker cooperatives that actually support dignified life.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/unfair-criticism-aimed-trumps-pardons-joseph-klein/

President Trump is coming under fire by the usual Trump-hating naysayers for issuing pre-Christmas pardons on December 23rd to several of his associates who were caught up in the Russia collusion hoax. They were treated unfairly by the FBI and prosecutors involved in the Mueller investigation. One of the most notable pardons went to Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign manager who received an overly harsh sentence and even spent some time in solitary confinement for white collar crimes.  Another pardon went to Roger J. Stone Jr., a political ally and longtime friend of Trump’s who was arrested following a pre-dawn raid of his home by more than a dozen FBI agents. CNN just happened to be there to capture this outrageous exercise of overkill.  President Trump had previously pardoned retired United States Army lieutenant general Michael T. Flynn and former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, both of whom were hounded for what are known as process crimes.

President Trump is also being criticized for pardoning his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, who served two years in prison after pleading guilty in 2004 to tax evasion, retaliating against a federal witness and lying to the Federal Election Commission.

The New York Times editorial board claimed that Trump had abused his pardon powers and “made a mockery of mercy, doling out clemency to some of the most deplorable people in the country.” As usual, the Times’ editors have it all wrong. President Trump’s grants of pardons and clemency are well within his broad constitutional authority. There are also plenty of precedents for what Trump has done from the acts of prior presidents. The Times editorial acknowledged only two prior presidential pardons that it put in the abusive category – Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton’s pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich. The editors neglected to mention Bill Clinton’s pardon of his half-brother Roger Clinton Jr.

And then there is the darling of the mainstream press, Barack Obama. Obama commuted sentences for a member of the U.S. Army convicted of violating the Espionage Act and a convicted terrorist.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/of_merit_and_melanin_identity_politics_and_the_balkanization_of_america.html

On May 22, 2019, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams gave a speech at the Center for American Progress. Ms. Abrams spoke out strongly in her defense of Identity Politics, stating that “Identity Politics is exactly who we are and exactly how we won,” and arguing that Identity Politics “brought new folks to the process.” That is untrue.

America is based on the idea of pluralism, the notion that, regardless of our race, religion, creed, or national origin, we would all co-exist within one nation. Countless millions migrated here from every continent and continue to do so. They retained their ethnic, religious, and cultural identity, but regarded themselves as Americans. Most worked and studied hard, going to school in the evening to master English and prepare for the difficult citizenship exam. Many have said that the proudest moment of their lives was when they were sworn in as American citizens.

To this day, many families still retain old and worn naturalization certificates as part of their family heirlooms. To them, and for hundreds of millions around the world, America was and is, a source of hope and inspiration. This is the reason why protesters in Hong Kong wave American, not Chinese flags. It is why, from Central America to China, families give all they have to smugglers, sometimes having to resort to selling themselves into virtual slavery to get here. Probably, half the world’s population would emigrate here right now if they had the wherewithal to do so.

Identity Politics strips away the idea that we are all Americans first. It places race, religion, creed, sexuality, and most importantly, skin pigmentation at the forefront of one’s identity. It maintains that America is a horrible place, filled with racists, sexists, and xenophobes, and is, in fact, the source of most of the world’s problems. This is a reversion to tribalism. It repudiates everything that America stands for and could ultimately have catastrophic consequences.

Just ask the former citizens of what used to be called Yugoslavia. That nation devolved into civil war and anarchy with various ethnic and religious groups, mainly Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, competing for power and control. It ruined the city of Sarajevo and, ultimately, the nation of Yugoslavia and introduced two new terms to our language: “Ethnic Cleansing” and “Balkanization.”