RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/30/the-misery-compact/

The wisecrack in MAGA world is that coronavirus hysteria and the catastrophic consequences of related lockdowns have an expiration date: November 4, 2020.

That, of course, is the day after the presidential election, which our political experts currently predict will be won by Joe Biden. Panic over the flu-like virus will disappear; power-grabbing governors will ease house arrest orders; children will go back to school; face coverings will be torched; and the news media’s coronavirus dashboards will be archived for history.

Further, inner-city unrest magically will be cured. Antifa thugs will go back to Starbucks or their bedroom in mom’s Westport mansion or their Ivy League dorm rooms. 

Crisis over.

But that scenario is more than just the cynical view of Trump supporters wary that the current turmoil is the latest attempt to oust the president from the Oval Office—it appears to be the election strategy of the Joe Biden campaign, the Democratic Party, and the news media. And they are making no effort to keep it a secret. 

“[I]f Trump wins a second term—especially if that victory relies on another rural surge to overcome massive opposition across the big metros—the chaos in Portland might look like only the preliminary skirmish for an even more incendiary collision to come,” threatened Ronald Brownstein, a senior editor for The Atlantic, in a recent column.

In other words, rednecks, mayhem, and destruction will continue unless Bad Orange Man goes back to Mar-a-Lago in January.

Reversals of Fortune

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/07/hydroxy_hysteria_reaching_a_fever_pitch.html

COVID-19 can cause a fever, but nothing like the fever of hysteria gripping broadcast and social media over hydroxychloroquine, a potential treatment for the Wuhan flu. Ever since President Trump mentioned hydroxy as a possible therapeutic, the media have castigated it as worse than rat poison. They’ve criticized any use of it in a constant barrage of fear porn, telling everyone that this 60-year-old drug would kill anyone who dared take it.

When Trump mentioned he was taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative, Fox News crank Neil Cavuto had a seizure, telling his audience, “I cannot stress enough. This will kill you.” Tell that to those Americans taking hydroxy to the tune of five million prescriptions written each year.

Hydroxy was FDA-approved in 1955 and is taken for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. FDA approval means the approved drug is both efficacious and safe. All of a sudden, after 60 years, the FDA decided hydroxy is no longer safe because of, “serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.” If it is so unsafe, why did the FDA not rescind its 60-year-old approval?

It is worth noting that diseases treated by hydroxy for the past half century can cause these problems as well. As can COVID, which if severe, can also cause death. So, the FDA deems it safe to treat those sick with lupus and autoimmune diseases with hydroxy but not those sick or hospitalized with COVID.

That makes much sense as blaming both heat and cold, blizzards and droughts, on global warming. But that’s what happens when medicine is practiced by bureaucrats beholden not to science but to politics.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16280/systemic-hypocrisy

“Under conditions that strongly suggest forced labour, Uyghurs are working in factories that are in the supply chains of at least 83 well-known global brands in the technology, clothing and automotive sectors, including Apple, BMW, Gap, Huawei, Nike, Samsung, Sony and Volkswagen. This report estimates that more than 80,000 Uyghurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019, and some of them were sent directly from detention camps. The estimated figure is conservative and the actual figure is likely to be far higher.” — “Uyghurs for Sale,” the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), March 1, 2020, with subsequent updates.

Corporate giants might be more successful at convincing the public that they truly care about social justice, inequality and the communities they claim to “serve” if this “care” did not only manifest itself in statements filled with virtue-signaling but in business practices as well — such as not using forced labor and children in the supply chain.

Finally, pledging funds to Black Lives Matter, a self-described Marxist organization whose stated goal is “alternatives to capitalism”, fails to convince one of much else than a corporate desire to ride the latest wave of wokeness to score easy profits and points.

Since the killing of George Floyd, corporate virtue signaling has reached unprecedented heights.

Apple pledged $100 million reportedly to “combat racism.”

“The unfinished work of racial justice and equality call us all to account,” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook said in a Twitter video. “Things must change, and Apple’s committed to being a force for that change. Today, I’m proud to announce Apple’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, with a $100 million commitment”.

Starbucks pledged $1 million in “Neighborhood Grants to promote racial equity and create more inclusive and just communities”.

https://newswithviews.com/philip-haneys-mysterious-death/

America has become a place of mysterious mass shootings, (Las Vegas), daytime assassinations without any motive (Seth Rich), and the latest murder of Philip Haney that was ruled as a suicide.

The FBI closed the Los Vegas shooting investigation as a mystery. The DNC staffer, Seth Rich’s death ruled out as a robbery. One of the founders of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and whistleblower during the Obama era, Philip Haney was found dead and appeared to have suffered a single, gunshot wound. Officials immediately ruled out his death as a self-inflicted gunshot wound without investigation.

According to the Amador County Sheriff, “Mr. Haney was located in a park and ride open area immediately adjacent to State Highway 16 near State Highway 124. Highway 16 is a busy state highway and used as the main travel route to and from Sacramento. The location is less than 3 miles from where he was living.”

I had known Philip for a long time, but we were never close friends. However, I often received e-mails from him, praising me for doing basically what he was doing. A week or two before his death he sent me a large manuscript, asked me to review it, and give him my thoughts about it.

Philip was an extraordinary individual. He had dedicated his entire life to keep America safe. He was brilliant in his own area of expertise. He never seemed to get tired of what he passionately loved to do: protecting our American mainland from the threat of Islamic terrorism. Those of us, like Philip, who are glued to our work felt his own premonition that his work would eventually lead to his death.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/07/29/do-burning-cities-mark-start-of-democrats-civil-war-2-0/

The upsurge in rioting, looting, destruction and violence in cities across the country won’t just peter out, as many hope. Sadly, mainstream media outlets refuse to cover the actual news, while Democratic politicians actually express solidarity with those who are burning down our cities. It’s become obvious to one and all: The left media and so-called progressive Democrats would rather see urban bonfires than lose to Donald Trump in November.

Asked recently about 59 straight days of protests and violence in Portland, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler called reports of Antifa rioting there a “myth.” Not to be outdone, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi likened the federal police sent to quell the disturbances to “Nazis.”

This is today what passes for leadership in the Democratic Party, which since losing in 2016, has undergone an extreme makeover to become the most radical “mainstream” party in the U.S. in modern times. To find its equivalent, you’d have to go back to … let’s see, 1860 and 1861, when the very same Democratic Party convinced 11 states to secede from the union, thus setting off the Civil War.

Plus ça change, as the French would say.

Egged on in 2020 by that same radical party, Antifa, Black Lives Matter and other extremist groups have gone on an unchecked spree. Vandalism, looting, murders and politically motivated beatings have metastasized across the nation, making city after city into unlivable hellholes.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/07/attorney-general-barr-scorches-democrats-matthew-vadum/

U.S. Attorney General William Barr gave congressional Democrats a much-deserved dressing down for endlessly excusing the orgy of violence in cities across America that has followed the wrongful death of George Floyd in Minneapolis May 25 at the hands of police.

The Democratic Party officially endorsed Black Lives Matter in 2015 and has all but endorsed Antifa, the purported anti-fascists who embrace fascistic tactics in the name of combating fascism, a term they define promiscuously. President Donald Trump has vowed to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

Even the increasingly anti-American radicals at the New York Times, which gave birth to the hateful propaganda campaign known as the 1619 Project, have been forced to admit that many police have been injured in the violent nightly demonstrations that have raged for months.

In a court filing July 22, the U.S. attorney’s office in Oregon disclosed that 28 federal law enforcement officers had been injured as of that date during the civil unrest in Portland. Another court filing said there are now 114 federal law enforcement officers in Portland, brought in from federal agencies such as Customs and Border Protection and the Federal Protective Service. Local police said separately that 59 officers had been injured.

The deployment of federal agents to Portland began on the Fourth of July weekend. Reportedly, the crowds of angry subversives have since swelled from the hundreds to the thousands, as the radicals viewed the federal presence aimed at protecting federal property as a kind of invasion on their home turf.

Industrial-grade mortar fireworks have reportedly been fired at police officers and federal agents, and on July 27 a bomb was detonated at the federal courthouse in Portland.

https://spectator.us/lunacy-largely-peaceful-protest-riots-orwell/

The great conundrum facing the anti-American left at the moment is how to react to the violent protest ripping up various Democratic-run cities. What is the preferred narrative? The two main choices are 1) it’s all peaceful protest, the ‘right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances’? or 2) let ’er rip: we’re out there destroying stuff and hurting people because the country’s falling apart and the sooner the better. Just so, a contributor to the Oregonian, announcing his fears of an impending ‘anti-democratic, racist police state’, wondered whether he would find ‘the courage to resist racism and fascism’, by which I suspect he means a free, open, and democratic election in which a candidate he does not favor has the indelicacy to win.

For it should go without saying that the overriding criterion for choosing which narrative to plug is this: which story will do the most damage to Donald Trump and Republican prospects in the November election?

By and large the media has opted for option one, reasoning that most people, taking note of the Democratic character of all the most serious sites of mayhem, might forget to blame Donald Trump for the rampaging fiends tearing up our cities and shooting toddlers, policemen, stray pedestrians and each other.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/democrats-make-mockery-of-barr-hearing/

Barr brings out the worst in them, which is saying something.

If it’s a “hearing,” Bill Barr asked with an irked tongue in cheek, “aren’t I the one who’s supposed to be heard?”

His frustration was more than justified. Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler (D., N.Y.) and the other Democrats who control the House demanded for months that Barr come to a “hearing” and “testify.” But of course, it wasn’t anything like an actual hearing, and they didn’t want him to testify — as in actually answer questions. The session was a coveted election-year opportunity for Democrats to berate the attorney general of the United States in five-minute installments, accusing Barr of corruption, perjury, violating his oath, betraying the Constitution — at one point, even of killing thousands of COVID-19 victims (apparently, by being attorney general during a pandemic).

Especially at the beginning of the hearing, Barr easily parried the hostile questions — soliloquies with question-marks at the end. He picked apart their misstatements and disingenuous premises, and answered with aplomb. Democrats thus dropped the threadbare pretense that this was a hearing. In the main, the rest of the afternoon was devoted to raging, mock-anguished perorations about how Trump is a dictator and how Barr is helping him destroy our democracy.

These were punctuated by the occasional petulant demand that Barr answer “yes or no” a question that was either loaded or incoherent. When Barr would begin to answer, there would be foot-stomping, indignant, “I’m reclaiming my time” interruptions, claims that there was no question pending (usually after a question had just been posed), and then more Democrat filibustering about how the American people could clearly see that Barr was afraid to answer their questions . . . that they wouldn’t let him answer.

It was an embarrassing spectacle.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/attorney-general-william-barr-excellent-witness-hostile-hearing/

The Barr hearing wasn’t very edifying, in large part because Democrats were utterly committed to keeping him from saying anything. One of them would make a sermonettte, pause to ask Barr a hostile question, and then angrily interrupt him when he started to answer, accusing him of taking up valuable time. Then, the sermonette would start up again.

One thing was definitely established, though — Democrats fervently believe that federal officers are attacking peaceful protesters in Portland.

Here is a typical riff from Representative Pramila Jayapal complaining that federal officers weren’t called in to crack down on anti-Whitmer protesters in Michigan:

Jayapal paints a highly misleading picture of the Michigan protesters, but, whatever you think of them, they weren’t attacking federal property or federal officers — the rioters in Portland are.

In general, Barr is an excellent witness. He’s sober, usually doesn’t let his irritation show (although he will spin his pen faster), never says more than he has to, and knows more than anyone else in the room.

It’s a tribute to how good he is that Democrats were desperate never to get caught up in a genuine back-and-forth with him

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/27/brookings-institution-flush-with-qatari-cash-nevertrump-donors/

Accepting millions from a state sponsor of terrorism, foisting one of the biggest frauds in history on the American people, and acting as a laundering agent of sorts for Democratic political contributions disguised as policy grants isn’t a good look for such an esteemed institution.

One would be hard-pressed to name a more influential think tank than the Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit routinely ranks at the top of the list of the best think tanks in the world; Brookings scholars produce a steady flow of reports, symposiums, and news releases that sway the conversation on any number of issues ranging from domestic and economic policy to foreign affairs.

Brookings is home to lots of Beltway power players: Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen, former chairmen of the Federal Reserve, are Brookings fellows. Top officials from both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations lend political heft to the organization.

From 2002 until 2017, the organization’s president was Strobe Talbott. He’s a longtime BFF of Bill Clinton; they met in the 1970s at Oxford University and have been tight ever since. Talbott was a top aide to both President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Talbott, who translated Nikita Khrushchev’s memoirs 50 years ago, is widely considered an expert on Russia. According to a 1994 Washington Post profile, Talbott’s dream job was ambassador to Moscow. Instead, he advised Clinton on Russia policy as his deputy secretary of state.

But Talbott’s interest in all things Russian is facing new scrutiny that threatens to tarnish Brookings’ stellar reputation—its role in perpetuating the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. As I wrote last week, the Lawfare blog, a project of Brookings, was a repository of collusion propaganda for nearly three years.

Brookings-based fellows working at Lawfare were the media’s go-to legal “experts” to legitimize the concocted crime; the outlet manipulated much of the news coverage on collusion by pumping out primers and guidance on how to report collusion events from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment to his final report.