RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/rush/

“There is no one like him. Let’s keep him in our prayers.”   Amen! rsk

I haven’t felt much like working the last couple of days. Or like doing much else. See, Rush Limbaugh is a longtime friend of mine. Like all of Rush’s friends and tens of millions of other Americans, I’m reeling from the sudden diagnosis of advanced lung cancer.

Rush is an American original. It is said of some originals that, if you didn’t have them, you’d have to invent them. (Voltaire was talking about God when he said it; Don King, of course, about himself.) Yet no one could ever have invented Rush, because he was inconceivable.

When he burst upon the national scene over three decades ago, popular political media was the preserve of the political left. The thought of anyone, much less an unabashed conservative, carrying a three-hour daily broadcast through monologues teeming with conviction and good cheer — with the occasional phone call but virtually no guests — was not just unheard of. It was not in the realm of perceived possibility.

It took talent on loan from God, for sure. But it mainly took a guy with supreme belief in himself. Belief that was well-founded because it sprang from a unique combination of life-experience, of getting off the floor when life knocks you down, and of a sense of destiny about doing what you’re born to do. Add to that Rush’s abiding faith in the innate goodness of America — of her traditions, love of liberty, willingness to sacrifice, and grasp that human flourishing means learning from our mistakes.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/68329-is-trumps-unorthodoxy-becoming-orthodox-2020-02-04

When candidate Donald Trump campaigned on calling China to account for its trade piracy, observers thought he was either crazy or dangerous.

Conventional Washington wisdom had assumed that an ascendant Beijing was almost preordained to world hegemony. Trump’s tariffs and polarization of China were considered about the worst thing an American president could do.

The accepted bipartisan strategy was to accommodate, not oppose, China’s growing power. The hope was that its newfound wealth and global influence would liberalize the ruling communist government.

Four years later, only a naif believes that. Instead, there is an emerging consensus that China’s cutthroat violations of international norms were long ago overdue for an accounting.

China’s re-education camps, its Orwellian internal surveillance, its crackdown on Hong Kong democracy activists and its secrecy about the deadly coronavirus outbreak have all convinced the world that China has now become a dangerous international outlier.

Trump courted moderate Arab nations in forming an anti-Iranian coalition opposed to Iran’s terrorist and nuclear agendas. His policies utterly reversed the Obama administration’s estrangement from Israel and outreach to Tehran.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/03/joe-biden-ukraine-and-burismas-sugar-daddy/

No one has challenged the former vice president to account for the billions in U.S. tax dollars he pumped into Ukraine for his own personal and political gain. How did Biden’s involvement gild his largely disastrous foreign policy legacy before his latest run for president?

If Joe Biden fails to win the White House this year, perhaps he can run for president of Ukraine. After all, Ukrainians owe him—big time.

As the White House’s point man in Ukraine during Barack Obama’s second term, Biden acted more like he owned the place: threatening to withhold aid, forcing government officials to be fired, forming special agencies to portray himself as a fighter of international government corruption.

“No one in the U.S. government has wielded more influence over Ukraine than Vice President Joe Biden,” according to a profile on Biden in Foreign Policy magazine a few weeks before the 2016 presidential election. “Ukraine’s government has relied heavily on its direct channel to the U.S. vice president, and Biden’s departure will leave a gaping hole.”

For three years, capitalizing on the country’s political upheaval and armed with congressional authorization to lead yet another nation-building exercise, the vice president drove the gravy train between Washington and Kyiv. That train, laden with goodies courtesy of unsuspecting American taxpayers, got heavier as Obama’s presidency drew to a close. Ukrainian officials were so worried about losing Biden and gaining Donald Trump that they engaged in their own election chicanery in 2016.

While Biden’s son, Hunter, is the main target of the president’s defenders and some of the more fair-minded journalists, the senior Biden also deserves plenty of scrutiny for the billions in American tax dollars he doled out to a nation rife with corruption, political unrest, and no mechanism to account for how those funds would be spent. President Trump has been impeached for briefly delaying appropriated funds to Ukraine last year, yet Biden has faced no questions on the campaign trail about his key role in directing huge sums of U.S. aid to Ukraine when he was vice president.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-2-3-more-government-spending-does-not-buy-results-in-education-or-poverty-reduction

Here in New York, we love to feel good about ourselves for our compassion for the less well off. Yes, we pay higher taxes than they do in other places, but for that we get a much higher level of social services to lift up the poor and the downtrodden. Or at least, that’s the narrative.

I first covered this subject back in the very early days of this blog, on November 13, 2012, in a post titled “Why New York City Is A High Tax Jurisdiction.” That post pointed out that in fact the differential in public spending (and therefore taxes) between New York City and other jurisdictions could be found almost entirely in three things, none of which provided any measurable improvements in life quality to the poor and the downtrodden. The three areas were (1) overspending on public pensions, brought about by early retirement ages that enable New York City workers to have 25 to 40 years of post-retirement leisure at taxpayer expense, (2) overspending on K-12 education, brought about by paying about double the number of workers as other jurisdictions use to do the same work, and (3) overspending on Medicaid, brought about by adding every possible bell and whistle to the program without improving health outcomes in any measurable way.

For example, I had this to say about New York City spending on K-12 education:

According to census bureau figures cited here, New York City school spending was about $19,000 per student in 2009.  That’s about double the nationwide average of $10,615 per student cited here for 2010.  What do we get for double the cost per student?  Worse test scores than the national average. . . .   With over a million school children, the extra $8000 per student is an $8 billion budget item.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2020/02/04/democratic-caucus-results-delayed-by-mobile-app-issues/23918121/

Problems with a mobile app appeared to force a delay in reporting the results of the Iowa caucuses Monday, as the campaigns, voters and the media pressed party officials for an explanation and got few answers.

An Iowa Democratic Party official pointed to “quality control” as the source of the delays — but noted that about a quarter of the state’s nearly 1,700 precincts have reported their data already. The party also said the delay was not caused by a “hack or an intrusion.”

But other officials blamed technology. Des Moines County Democratic Chair Tom Courtney said he heard that in precincts across his county, including his own, a mobile app created for caucus organizers to report results to the party was “a mess.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/trump-impeachment-adam-schiff-warns-of-acquittal-precedent-trump-could-offer-alaska-to-russians/

Representative Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) said Monday that “a whole range of utterly unacceptable conduct in a president would now be beyond reach” if the Senate acquits President Trump in his impeachment trial.

Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, said during closing arguments in the trial that “Trump could offer Alaska to the Russians in exchange for support in the next election, or decide to move to Mar-a-Lago permanently and let Jared Kushner run the country, delegating to him the decision whether to go to war.”

Schiff also accused Trump’s legal team of employing the “dangerous” and “absurd” argument that a president cannot be impeached for anything other than a violation of federal criminal law.

According to Trump’s lawyers, “abuses of power that would help the president get reelected were permissible and therefore unimpeachable, and only those for pecuniary gain were beyond the pale,” Schiff argued. “Under this theory, as long as a president believed his reelection was in the public interest he could do anything and no quid pro quo was too corrupt, no damage to our national security too great.“

https://patriotpost.us/articles/68311-energy-policy-that-wins-2020-02-03

Every president since Richard Nixon has promised energy independence to Americans as a measure of national security. Promises and pledges have come and gone from the White House since the 1970s — but now, the United States of America is an exporter of crude oil as well as natural gas and, yes, Americans can be declared energy independent.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (USEIA), “In November 2019, the United States became a net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil.”

For the very reasons eight presidents prior to Donald Trump promised this energy autonomy, it’s now evidenced with the stability of oil prices that no longer wildly fluctuate with every world event.

Middle East policy has become more shaped by those drilling in Pennsylvania, North Dakota, and Texas. Yet leftists still declare, “We just can’t drill our way out of the problem.” Well, that’s exactly what happened.

Despite, not because of, the policies of the Obama administration, exploration, drilling, and fracking for natural gas and oil expanded with no appearance of turning back as the Trump administration approved last week the Keystone Pipeline right of way for a crucial 46-mile stretch controlled by the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Keystone was first proposed in 2008, but faced repeated rejections during the Obama years. This approval permits the $8 billion construction project expected to move up to 35 million gallons of crude oil every day from western Canada to terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

What does this mean to average Americans?

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2020/02/03/democrats-total-failure-and-utter-humiliation-delights-all-real-americans-n2560542

Now that the Democrats’ dream of stealing the 2016 election through the power of MSNBCNN-fueled outrage, and through plots by fussy lib bureaucrats, lies in ruins, some people might argue that we should be gracious in our total victory and not mock the stinging pain that accompanied this latest agonizing failure. Some people are sissies. Hoist a stein overflowing with the tears of these losers and chug chug chug away.

Then tap another keg. This party is finally getting started, and it’s going to rage on until January 2025. 

Maybe even longer, if you listen to the Bozos, Pennywises, and Krustys they find for those CNN panels. Their genius takeaway from their soul-crushing defeat in trying to impeach Donald Trump for the crime of revealing the massive corruption of Senile Joe and his son Snorty Strippertap is that Trump might decide to never leave office. That’s a good point. What would they do if he didn’t? Take up arms like real men would? Yeah, right.

They will take what they are given and like it.

Perhaps the best thing about this ridiculous kabuki act was how it forced the unwoke Republicans to stop pretending that these antics are legitimate, that we need to treat this crap seriously, and that we need to act like these games are not just another bogus ploy designed to disenfranchise us and re-empower the sorry pack of weirdos, losers, and mutations that make up the Democratic Party. Even Senator Igloo (R?-Frigidaire) got tired of it. Of course, not all Republicans got it. We can forgive Susan Collins because she’s from Maine and maple syrup and moose make you weird. 

But Mitt Romney, aka Thin Jeb!, that simpering goof…who else is about done with that carpetbagging preppie tool? What is Utah thinking? Give us back our 2012 votes. How can someone with so many kids – I believe the nicknames of these Stepford sons are Skippy, Muffy, Bilbo, Tugg, Torpp, Ting, Jipper and Sneep – be so incredibly impotent? 

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/02/up-schiffs-creek/

Just as the off-putting California Democrat sought to take credit for taking out President Trump, so too will he be blamed for only further empowering him.

Adam Schiff is starting to wear on his own. He may be the darling of leftwing cable news. But like a moth to a candle, the California congressman is sucked into the camera lights, without realizing how he is scorched and consumed. He hijacked the Democratic House impeachment effort and then did the same in the Senate. As the inspiration for the entire farce, he is the man most responsible for the ensuing damage to the country and his party.

Remember, Schiff wanted to rush through impeachment in the House before the holidays and, in part, was responsible for not getting proper authorization to issue subpoenas to witnesses. He then politicized the calling of witnesses, and selectively leaked testimonies taken in the House basement—only to whine about partisanship when he wanted to slow down the impeachment trial in the Senate. In other words, he objected to the same sort of partisanship that he had introduced into the inquiry.

But what will be the status of a post-impeachment Schiff, once the impeachment farce has lost its luster? 

Thanks in part to Schiff, President Trump is polling more strongly now than when Schiff began the circus in September. 

Thanks in part to Schiff, the erstwhile frontrunner and best Democratic presidential chance, Joe Biden, is left hemorrhaging from impeachment’s never-ending embarrassments about Hunter Biden. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/02/the_winter_of_nevertrump_discontent.html

If the last few weeks have been bad for Democrats, imagine the dyspepsia and insomnia of the NeverTrump brigade. These are the so-called elite conservatives, intellectuals, smarter than your average Republican rube, the voice of reason and wisdom for the conservative movement.

They have beclowned themselves into irrelevancy since before Donald Trump was even elected, doubling down on stupid as they became punch lines on Twitter. Their latest outrage is President Trump’s impeachment and non-removal from office.

Impeachment is all but over, a wasted exercise in partisan derangement. It was a shiny object for media dogs and cats to chase around the room, never quite catching it.

For President Trump, it was a boost in his popularity, hitting 50 percent total approval in the Jan. 31 Rasmussen Daily Presidential Tracking Poll, the same day the U.S. Senate declined to call additional witnesses, since the House had already heard from 17 hand-picked Democrat witnesses, essentially ending the Senate impeachment trial.

Despite “mountains of evidence” and a “slam dunk case” that was “overwhelming,” House legal eagles Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler failed to make the case for removing a president from office for the unpardonable sin attempting to do his Constitutional duty investigating government corruption.

On schedule, the whiny NeverTrump brigade turned to Twitter to fuss and pout, much like children when told “it’s time for bed” in the middle of a good game of pin the tail on The Donald.

Start with Bill Kristol, founder of the failed Weekly Standard and constant Trump critic, who after impeachment had his “coming out of the closet” moment, revealing what everyone has known for years, that he is really a Democrat.