RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/11/examining-the-controversy-surrounding-tucker-carlsons-interview-with-putin/

I wonder if there is a central clearing office that issues regular updates about what nasty dictators one is allowed to engage with and which ones, for this week anyway, one must avoid.

It was okay for Gavin Newsom to remove the feces and the homeless from the streets of San Francisco in order to fête Xi Jinping. Likewise, it was just fine for CNN and the BBC to interview the leader of Hamas. And of course CNN’s Erin Burnett was on the case with Volodymyr Zelensky in her 2023 interview with the former comedian and crossdressing performance artist (though the soundtrack to this version of Burnett’s love fest is—special).

It was okay to interview or publish Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, and Sirajuddin Haqqani, deputy leader of the Taliban.  It was even okay, once upon a time, for journalists—well, some journalists—to interview Vladimir Putin.

But just let Tucker Carlson travel to Moscow to interview the Russian dictator, and pow!, the media and its minders go nuts.  I watched the entire 2-hour-long interview and the 2-part, 10-minute post-mortem Tucker conducted in an ante-room of the Kremlin and then back at his hotel. I thought both were fascinating.

That does not, by the way—do I really have to say this?—mean that I am “soft on Putin.”  Having published books highly critical of him at Encounter Books—including a scathing anatomy of the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko by plutonium—I am under no illusions about Putin’s brutality.

That said, I believe Donald Trump was right when he said, “It would be a good thing, not a bad thing,” if the United States were to get along with Russia. I have explained why I think so several times, for example, here.

Ever since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, hysteria has ruled.  I’ve written about that too, for example, here.

A leitmotif in Putin’s remarks to Tucker in that marathon interview was, as he saw it, the serial betrayal of Russia by the West. There was a moment, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, when it seemed as though Russia would be welcomed into the family of the West.  You’ll find the word “thaw” featured prominently in lots of stories from the period. And later: Remember Hillary Clinton presenting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with her famous “reset button” in 2009? But that was then.  In 2014, Russia reabsorbed Crimea (which in truth never left the Russian sphere of influence), and then, in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the reset was definitively reset.

Data point: NATO was formed after World War II to counter Soviet aggression towards the West. Many commentators, including Irving Kristol, wondered why, with the demise of the Soviet Union, NATO continued to exist.  I think that is a good question. But it has continued to exist and, in fact, has greatly expanded. NATO originally had 12 members: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1990, Western leaders gave assurances to Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand further east. But today, NATO has 31 member states, including several that border Russia. The prospect of Ukraine’s joining NATO is intolerable and is one thing that sparked the current conflagration in Ukraine. Look at a map, and you will understand why.

The world seems to be divided in two. There are some who believe that Putin is a dangerous, Hitler-like dictator bent on reassembling the Soviet Union, if not, indeed, conquering all of Europe. In the course of his interview with Tucker, Putin several times insisted that he had no revanchist goals and, in response to a direct question from Tucker, said that he was open to a negotiated peace in Ukraine.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/respect_for_authorities_died_suddenly.html

Populations do not obey lunatics and liars for long.

Well, I guess we know where the Federal Aviation Administration got the idea to fill cockpits with pilots suffering from psychological disorders and mental deficiencies.  The FAA has been watching Dementia Joe Biden fly the United States directly into the ground for three years and decided to do for civil aviation what the White House has done for peace and prosperity.  Nothing better reflects a “crash and burn” leadership style than elevating unqualified people into positions where they can do the most harm.  It’s worked for the West Wing, the Pentagon, and the Treasury Department!  Why not for the agency responsible for air traffic control and passenger safety?  What could possibly go wrong?  

Oh, sure, perhaps flyers will die more frequently in fiery collisions or when unbolted aircraft doors shoot off into the clouds, but at least they will leave this mortal coil knowing that the people who build and pilot consumer aircraft represent such an amazing infusion of “diversity” that even the dumbest and most temperamentally unstable among us have been “included” in the life-and-death trust exercise of not falling out of the sky.  That’s what real “equity” requires — redistributing the earned responsibilities of those who have demonstrated merit and commitment to those who have demonstrated mediocrity and unreliability.  It’s why the globalists’ forced DEI standard (diversity, equity, and inclusion — barf!) across the public and private sectors should be more accurately returned to DIE — because wherever the deadly acronym dilutes excellence, living safely becomes less likely.

Come to think of it, Joe Biden is DIE’s perfect mascot.  Angry, confused, and incompetent Old Joe is the Chief Dolt and Grand Pooh-bah of an ass-backward system where the least capable in society thrive.

Given the U.S. government’s love affair with censorship and propaganda, I sometimes imagine future historians piecing through the shards of Western civilization in order to understand the reasons for its collapse.  According to the prevailing “narrative,” everything right now is tremendously great!  We are told that the economy is strong, that crime is under control, that our borders are secure, that paying twenty bucks for a fast-food hamburger is cheap, and that endless war produces endless peace.  According to the news media, Americans have never had it so good!  How then, third-millennium anthropologists might wonder, did everything go kaput so quickly?

Well, hopefully, someone in the future will stumble across a time capsule with Joe Biden’s linguistically challenged press conference from the other day, in which he angrily denounced the Potemkin special counsel’s legal conclusion that, while Decrepit Joe committed federal crimes damaging to America’s national security, he is nevertheless too senile to prosecute.

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/fribiden-classified-memos-report-re-ignites-debates-about-dual-justice

Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report on Joe Biden’s willful retention and dissemination of highly classified information is rocking Washington, re-igniting concerns of a dual system of justice while putting the full weight of the government behind the notion that America is currently being served by a president with “diminished faculties.”

Hur’s 388-page report released Thursday may have spared Biden the spectacle of a criminal prosecution similar to that his Justice Department imposed on Donald Trump, but it delivered a devastating blow to the 46th president’s re-election hopes by going out of its way to explain criminal charges weren’t levied in part because jurors might see Biden as a dottering, forgetful old man incapable of criminal intent.

“Mr. Biden will likely present himself to the jury, as he did during his interview with our office, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote in explaining his rational for declining prosecution. “…It would be difficult to convince a jury they should convict him – by then a former president who will be at least well into his eighties – of a serious  felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Later, Hur added for good measure he believed Biden suffered from “diminished faculties in advancing age.”

The political fallout was instant and severe.

Biden’s lone remaining Democrat challenger for the 2024 presidential nomination, Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, said Hur’s report exposed a “sad” reality that “the President cannot continue to serve as our Commander-in-Chief beyond his term.”

https://thespectator.com/topic/justice-department-prosecute-biden-shocked-robert-hur/

“No reasonable prosecutor”: remember him? He’s back! No, not James “Higher Loyalty” Comey. He’s sitting in a corner somewhere counting his doubloons. But like some inky creatures of the deep, he emitted lots of spawn. They’re maturing now and taking after dear old dad. 

Remember the original sitcom. Despite the best efforts of every one from the country’s “intelligence” chiefs to its fawning media, news emerged that Hillary Clinton had essentially run the State Department from an insecure server in her home. 

On that server, it transpired, there were thousands of classified documents (along, of course, with yoga routines and plans for her daughter’s wedding). Presented with a subpoena to turn in the classified docs — there were some 30,000 of them. Hillary simply BleachBit the lot and dared Comey to do something about it.

He didn’t, of course. “No reasonable prosecutor,” you see would pursue such a case. Now James Comey’s spiritual heir has strode into the limelight. Meet Robert Hur, the very, extra-special, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious special counsel charged with looking into Joe Biden’s possession of classified (many “top secret” and above) in his den, basement, in his garage behind his vroom-vroom Corvette and in sundry other places in Washington’s Chinatown. 

Yes, Hur said, Biden’s behavior presented “serious risks to national security.” But he still was declining to prosecute. Why? In part because the president of the United States — an “elderly man with a poor memory” — would be “sympathetic” to a jury.

“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen,” Hur’s 350-page report admitted. “These materials included 1) marked classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, and 2) notebooks containing Mr. Biden’s handwritten entries about issues of national security and foreign policy implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods. FBI agents recovered these materials from the garage, offices and basement den in Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware home.”

Not to worry, though. Hur concluded that the evidence “does not establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” I am not a lawyer, but isn’t that why we have trials, precisely to establish the guilt or innocence of a defendant? 

Back when the news about Biden’s illegal possession of classified documents broke, I wrote a story in these pages pointing out “it’s different when Biden does it.” If you are Donald Trump and have classified documents in a locked room in a secure building protected by the Secret Service, you can expect a raid from the FBI and Jack Smith’s ghoulish salivating rictus to hover over you with subpoenas and the threat of jail or firing squad.

But then Donald Trump is a Republican. He is treated one way. Joe Biden is treated another way. In our increasingly Stalinist system, members of the nomenklatura are treated one way, everyone else is on his own. 

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/08/multiple-drag-queens-in-the-news-this-week-for-appalling-sex-crimes-against-children/

The left’s favorite expression of gay pride has been in the news this week for all the wrong reasons. Multiple “Drag queens” and “transgender stars” have been arrested for appalling sex crimes against children.

The stories feature cross-dressing men who allegedly abused children in Oregon, Australia, West Virginia, and Kentucky.

“Drag queen” Eron David Griffin, 42, accused of sexually abusing minors at his part-time home salon business in Salem Oregon:

BREAKING: Oregon drag queen Eron David Griffin arrested on child s*x crime charges. He was charged with 3 counts of third-degree s*xu*l abuse and commercial s*xu*l solicitation.

Griffin performed with and befriended another drag queen named Kelsey Meta Boren who’s a convicted… pic.twitter.com/Nj4BupB5oa

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 7, 2024

Griffin, who performed under the name “Stella Mess,” was arrested in November but police didn’t publicized the investigation and arrest until this week.  The investigation was reportedly launched in October after multiple minors claimed he sexually abused them.  Police are now seeking other victims of the alleged pedophile.

Griffin has ties to convicted pedophile Kelsey Meta Boren, whose drag stage name was  “Alwaiz Craving” (always craving) the Post Millennial reported.

Boren was convicted in Lane County, Ore. last year of 11 felony counts of encouraging child sexual abuse in the first degree. Boren had worked at an elementary school and was a drag queen ambassador for a queer nonprofit in Oregon.

Griffin was charged with three counts of third-degree sexual abuse and sexual solicitation.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/09/could-joe-biden-order-a-u-s-attack-on-iran/

Could Joe Biden bomb Iran? There are loud calls by some members of Congress and pundits to do this in response to the surge in attacks by Iranian proxy groups against U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria and shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Some thought it was telling last weekend when National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan refused to rule out a U.S. attack on Iran during a press interview.

But why would anyone be calling for American airstrikes against Iran? Why didn’t the massive U.S. airstrikes against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria last week and the 14 or more U.S. airstrikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen halt their attacks?

The answer to both questions is that American deterrence in the Middle East has seriously eroded during the Biden administration.

Much of this erosion is due to three years of American weakness and foreign policy failures caused by the administration’s incompetent foreign policy. This includes the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. feuding with Israel and Saudi Arabia, the Biden administration’s attempts to appease Iran, and a frivolous foreign policy that treats climate change as the principal national security threat to the United States.

American credibility in the Middle East was further undermined by Biden administration policies in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel. Although Biden officials offered strong support for Israel immediately after this attack, there soon were signs of a split between the U.S. and Israel as administration officials began to publicly criticize the Israeli government for the way it was conducting the war against Hamas.

Worried about criticism from his progressive supporters, President Biden and his senior national security officials have pressed the Israeli government to end the war quickly and agree to a peace plan based on the two-state solution. Israeli officials have rejected ending the war before it can guarantee Israel’s security and defeat Hamas. They have also said two-state solution peace plans are off the table due to the October 7 attack.

There have also been press reports of growing tension between Biden and Netanyahu, including the president abruptly ending a December 23 phone call with the Israeli leader, Netanyahu repeatedly rejecting Biden’s calls for Palestinian sovereignty, and a report that Biden was running out of patience with Netanyahu

https://www.frontpagemag.com/domestic-terrorism-history-month/

Last Sunday marked 50 years since the Symbionese Liberation (SLA) Army kidnapped Patricia Hearst, granddaughter of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst. Patty took on the nom de guerre Tania and joined her SLA captors in armed robberies. Arrested in 1975, Hearst drew 35 years but served less than two before President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence.

In 2001, President Bill Clinton granted Hearst a full presidential pardon. She married police officer Bernard Shaw and now showcases her French bulldogs at the Westminster Kennel Club. Nice story, but reports come up short on the SLA and other domestic terrorists, whose influence is now on the rise.

The Symbionese Liberation Army was headed by Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque Mtume, who served five years for robbery, escaped Soledad prison, and hooked up with radical leftist Patricia “Mizmoon” Soltysik. DeFreeze drew inspiration from Ron Karenga, also known as Maulena Karenga, born Ronald McKinley Everett in Maryland in 1941.

In the late 1960s Karenga rose to prominence as a theoretician of the black nationalist movement. In “The Quotable Karenga” handbook, he told followers:  “When it’s burn, let’s see how much you burn. When it’s kill, let’s see how much you kill. When it’s blow up, let’s see how much you blow up.”

In 1971, a court convicted Karenga of kidnapping and torturing two women in his organization. According to “Karenga Tortured Women Followers, Wife Tells Court,” from the May 3, 1971 Los Angeles Times, Karenga stripped naked Deborah Jones and Gail Davis, whipped them with an electrical cord, and beat the women with a karate baton. Karenga also stuck a hot soldering iron into Davis’ mouth and cranked down on her toes with a vice.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-robert-hur-report-classified-documents-119fbb16?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

In a famous case from the 1990s, the mobster Vincent Gigante offered what became known as “the bathrobe defense.” He attended his arraignment in pajamas and a bathrobe and claimed to be mentally impaired. Regarding President Biden’s misuse of classified documents, the country is now asked to believe the forgetful elderly man defense.

That’s likely to be the main public takeaway from special counsel Robert Hur’s 345-page report of his investigation into the secret documents Mr. Biden kept in various places. Mr. Hur reports that he “uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.” But he concludes that “no criminal charges are warranted,” in large part because he doesn’t believe a jury would convict “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

The report says Mr. Biden kept documents with classified markings about Afghanistan, an issue about which he had taken a particular interest during the Obama Presidency. He also kept notebooks “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods” in his garage, offices and basement den.

Mr. Biden used these documents and notes to assist in writing his 2007 and 2017 memoirs, and he shared those secrets with a ghostwriter. Mr. Hur also discovered a recorded 2017 conversation in which Mr. Biden said to his ghostwriter that he “just found all the classified stuff downstairs.” Mr. Hur also makes clear that with his long experience in public life, Mr. Biden was well aware of the rules required to protect national secrets.

Yet while his report is scathing on the facts, it goes easy on the decision to prosecute. A sitting President can’t be prosecuted under longtime Justice Department rules, but Mr. Hur says he also wouldn’t have prosecuted without such a rule. The reason? He didn’t think a jury would convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/a_moment_in_history_pregnant_with_purpose.html

A reader recently posted a comment that has stuck with me.  He asked, “Why do I even bother awakening to face another day of truly impending doom?”  He sarcastically added, “May as well get drunk and go back to sleep cuz the ‘Republicans’ won’t do enough this year or next five to prevent the really bad times coming which will make the Depression/WWII seem like the good old days.”  As someone who regularly partakes in gallows humor, I chuckled at the sentiment.  Over the next day, though, the serious thought behind that sentiment began to increasingly sting like a smart jab to the ribs.

I write a lot about “doom and gloom” issues during this era of great social change, much like how a Bangkok meteorologist writes a lot about rain during monsoon season.  Sometimes the steady downpour of “doom and gloom” feels as if it will never come to an end — just as a persistent monsoon often convinces the body that it will never stop raining.  The wet season, however, does finally pass.  So too will this period of prolonged madness.  

It is why I also write so much about a “Great Awakening” happening both here in America and across the West, in which more and more minds are becoming alert to the evils around us.  Sometimes these “awakenings” happen in spurts, where punctuated events jolt sleeping brains awake for the first time.  Seeing people experience an “Aha!” moment is like watching the clouds part so that sunlight can briefly reach the ground.  Those epiphanies are becoming more frequent, and more sunlight is steadily breaking through the swirling chaos that surrounds us.  That doesn’t just fill me with hope; it provides me with a sustained comfort that comes from a firm belief that we will overcome this chaos together.  Why awaken to face another day of impending doom?  Because we are blessed to be “awake.”