RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/11/how-forced-isolation-makes-huge-power-grabs-possible/

Social isolation has always been the primary weapon in the totalitarian arsenal. Tyrants know how to manipulate the primal human terror of isolation through threats of defamation, firings, and worse.

Pick a dictator, any dictator—Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Mao Zedong, Jim Jones (dictator of his own realm)—and you’ll find a common pattern of imposing aloneness and the terror of it on their prey. You can probably name more examples from the world stage as well as from smaller domains. They may vary in their methods and territories, but all use social pressure to live out the ancient principle of divide-and-conquer. As political philosopher Hannah Arendt noted, totalitarians must first get people isolated against one other in order to rule over them.

Tactics for grabbing power always involve some form of imposed isolation through social pressures: mob swarming, forced false confessions; struggle sessions; hostility towards family, religion, and history; snitch culture; censorship; constant propaganda; and more. “Cancel culture” is just a new term for an old custom of tyrants who use social pressures to go after the raw power they crave. Former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss aptly described cancel culture as social murder.

We should keep all of this in mind as we navigate the fallout of today’s leftist war on reality. Social murderers on Twitter will swarm and attack anyone who states sex distinctions are real, as author J.K. Rowling showed. The hit men of “white fragility” will tell you it’s racist to be colorblind in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/opinion/susan-rice-africa.html

In its 2011 World Report, Human Rights Watch noted the following about Ethiopia under the rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi: The ruling party had won parliamentary elections with 99.6 percent of the vote. Supporters of opposition parties endured months of constant intimidation. Journalists and human-rights activists had been forced to leave the country. And hundreds of political prisoners were “in jail and at risk of torture and ill-treatment.”

Meles died the following year. Susan Rice, then the Obama administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, flew to Addis Ababa to deliver a eulogy. 

“Prime Minister Meles was an uncommon leader, a rare visionary, and a true friend to me and many,” she said. While briefly allowing that the two could disagree on issues of democracy and human rights, she showered the deceased strongman with praise. He was, she said, “uncommonly wise,” “brilliant” and “selfless.”

“I suspect we all feel it deeply unfair, to lose such a talented and vital leader so soon, when he still had so much more to give,” she said.

Days later, the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was set ablaze by terrorists; four Americans were killed; and Rice became notorious for offering some factually challenged talking points regarding the cause of the attack. That performance likely sank her chances of succeeding Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. But it’s her overall record as a U.S. diplomat in Africa that should be examined more closely as she is among the final few whom Joe Biden is considering as a running mate.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/swirsky/200810

In 1984, David S. Wyman, a professor of history at Amherst College, published The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945, in which he documented the degree to which leftist icons like President Franklin Delano Roosevelt were presented with irrefutable evidence of Jewish genocide and did nothing to stop the mass murder of six-million Jews in Hitler’s Europe.

Jewish leaders who were given an “audience” with FDR implored him, beseeched him to intervene in this unprecedented annihilation, and showed him graphic evidence of:

Jews being herded into asphyxiating cattle cars on their way to concentration camps,
Jewish infants and children being ripped from the arms of their parents,
Jews clawing at the walls of gas chambers until their last-gasp deaths.

But FDR did nothing! If there is blood on the hands of any politician in the last thousand years, it is on the hands of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

And yet, leftist American Jews––to this day––celebrate his presidency.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16331/new-york-attorney-general-nra

If the evidence were to show selective investigation of the NRA, that would be part of a larger problem: the weaponization of our justice system for partisan and ideological purposes.

“Who will guard the guardians?” Who is investigating the decision by the Attorney General of New York to try to shut down the NRA?

Are there governing standards for conducting such investigations or shutting down first amendment-protected organizations? Or does the Attorney General claim the power to pick and choose which charitable organizations to investigate and shut down?

These and other questions should be addressed by the media, by lawyer’s groups in New York, by the ACLU and by others interested in the equal application of the law.

The announcement that the Attorney General of New York is investigating the National Rifle Association and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. I am no fan of the NRA. Politically, I think it wields too much influence against reasonable gun control, which I support as consistent with the Second Amendment. It is too closely connected with the profitability of gun manufacturers. It advocates positions and supports candidates, even if indirectly, that I believe undercut our safety.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cuomo-rejects-independent-investigation-of-n-y-nursing-home-deaths-saying-it-would-be-political/

New York governor Andrew Cuomo rejected calls for an independent investigation into deaths of coronavirus patients in state nursing homes, saying such an investigation would be “political.”

The state has seen over 32,000 deaths from coronavirus, with at least 6,500 of those deaths among residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities. However, if a nursing home resident dies of coronavirus after having been transferred to a hospital, the fatality is not listed in state records as a “nursing home” death. This practice has led to speculation that the death count among nursing home residents is higher than reported.

“I wouldn’t do an investigation [into nursing home deaths] whether or not it’s political,” Cuomo said at a press conference. “I think you’d have to be blind to realize it’s not political.”

The governor dismissed allegations that the state had not adequately protected nursing home residents from coronavirus.

“Just look at where it comes from and look at the sources and look at their political affiliations…and look at what publications raise it and what media outward networks raise it,” Cuomo said.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/donald_trump_shows_grace_under_pressure.html

On Monday, immediately after President Trump started his press briefing, Secret Service agents suddenly appeared and hustled him away. It turned out that there had been a shooting so near the White House that the Secret Service believed the president to be at risk. After the danger had passed, President Trump went right back to the press conference, dismissing even the possibility that he might be shaken. By comparison, his opponent in the presidential race refuses to come out of the basement even to accept his nomination.

As every parent knows, if something bad happens, the last thing you want to do is panic in front of young children. After all, they are looking to you for emotional guidance. The same is true for a nation’s leader. As our children do with us, we look to him (or her) to know whether we should be worried.

Additionally, when there’s a crisis, we grade a leader’s performance – can this leader handle the heat? When the going gets tough and scary, will this person be there for the nation? Will the leader show grace under pressure?

We’ve seen examples of that grace under pressure over the years, especially from Ronald Reagan. In 1981, while John Hinckley thankfully failed to assassinate Reagan, he did give Reagan a collapsed lung and a bullet less than an inch from his heart. Arriving at the hospital, Reagan ignored his extreme pain and smiled as he walked into the emergency room, only to collapse once the doors closed behind him.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/08/how_faucis_stubborness_costs_lives.html

Dr. Anthony Fauci, between magazine photo shoots and throwing the first pitch at baseball games, seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule of medicine – first, do no harm. By downplaying the effectiveness and highlighting the alleged dangers of  hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), it can be argued he has cost American lives, and will cost more, coming as he has between real doctors and real patients and real world experience with a drug that has been safely used to treat conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis for six decades without any serious side effects.

Fauci is in love with clinical studies, which are fine to determine effectiveness and risk of vaccines, but pale in comparison to the results of actual use.

One can understand the opposition of Big Pharma and Democrats in Congress to HCQ use against the Wuhan Chinese virus. There’s no money in a commonly available drug that costs something like 50 cents a pill. And if its widespread use were as effective here as it has been worldwide, it destroys a key rationale for the lockdowns which give liberals unconstitutional power to control every aspect of our lives  Worse yet, for some people, it might indeed save a great many American lives and that would improve public perception of President Donald J. Trump’s handling of the crisis and boost Trump’s reelection chances. Can’t have that, even if it costs American lives.

Dr. Fauci, who has not wasted this crisis and parlayed it into a media career, recently opined on one of the main HCQ opponents, telling the doctors at MSNBC:

White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that all the “valid” scientific data shows malaria drug hydroxychloroquine isn’t effective in treating the coronavirus, contradicting President Donald Trump’s opinion of the drug.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-chicago-downtown-looting-20200810-3zwa3b7zzrc5vdyb4qjqywrjvu-story.html

Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Monday decried “a false rumor on social media” that police officers killed a 15-year-old boy. That led residents to clash with police officers in Englewood and prompted calls to head toward downtown.

Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores and confronting police after officers shot a suspect in Englewood hours earlier.

The mayhem marked the second time since late May that the city’s upscale shopping district has been targeted by looters amid unrest, reigniting the debate over policing as city leaders continued to point fingers and downtown again was shut down overnight heading to Tuesday.

As businesses owners boarded up shops and braced for the possibility of additional looting, some cautioned against simplifying the situation or blaming any single issue.

“It’s not just people looting,” said Patsy Mullins, whose Gold Coast store, Accessorize, was completely emptied. “Let’s dig to the root of the problem, let’s not look at the surface. … We need to get to the bottom of this. Otherwise, well, this problem will never be solved and it will continue again and again.”

City officials said the seeds for the crime spree were sown on social media Sunday afternoon, after officers shot and wounded a 20-year-old man who allegedly had fled and fired shots at them.

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/sharpe/200810

Something fundamentally disquieting, like some noxious alien plant, has been allowed to take hideous root in our beloved America. Going back to 2016, when Donald Trump won the presidency, we have witnessed increasing hysteria on the Left, but also within what passes as the Establishment. After all Trump has never been a part of the establishment elites and so we now have a President who answers directly to the people and not to the Washington insider crowd.

A perfect storm has arrived – the Chinese virus – or what we are told must be called Covid-19 in order to be politically correct and not upset the Communist Chinese government. Thanks also to Dr. Fauci we have become the locked down nation, morphed into mass helplessness and forced to wear masks. Many in the medical profession consider him a hero while others have a more jaundiced opinion.

If Dr. Fauci has his way we may soon have to add goggles to cover not only nose and mouth but also eyes. Imagine looking out of the windows of our homes and seeing strangely garbed neighbors passing by.

Leftist Democrat mayors encourage the “protestors,” who in reality are rioting millennial mobsters, to get on with their dirty work because the police are being defunded so in all likelihood the spoilt millennials won’t be arrested. This is the Left’s perfect storm but is America’s misfortune.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/08/alarming-progress-hate-america-left-david-horowitz/

On the Rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington is inscribed these words: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” This statement by Thomas Jefferson is the heart of the democracy in whose founding he played so central a role.  It is why the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment and not the Second, or Fourth, or Fifth.

Today our nation is facing the most serious threat to establish such a tyranny in our entire history.  This threat comes from the political left, which deceptively calls its reactionary creed “progressive.” Its tyranny is advanced under the Orwellian names, “political correctness,” “cancel culture,” “wokeness” and “anti-racism,” which is a recently minted doctrine that condemns every deviation from the leftwing party line as “racist” and therefore worthy of suppression.

The gravity of this attempt to abolish our democracy can be seen in the attack on America’s founding – an attack led by America’s intellectual establishment. Under the rubric of “The 1619 Project,” The New York Times, the Pulitzer and MacArthur Foundations and other arbiters of the culture have promoted the monstrous libel that America was founded as slave state and that the American revolution was designed to preserve this hateful institution which had survived in countries all over the world for 3,000 years.