RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2019/10/11/crazy-and-woke-on-the-western-front-of-progressive-insanity/

There are alternatives to destroying our cities and suburbs in order to feed profits to investors and power to corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, but they will require a realignment that allows conservatives and liberals to join together to demand quick, decisive, cost-effective action.

The reason progressive extremism persists in America today is because progressives either are making money by embracing progressive policies, or because progressives are not living on the front lines of progressive insanity.

It is hard to imagine a place that would have an electorate any more progressive than Venice Beach. Located on the shores of West Los Angeles in California’s 33rd Congressional District, Venice Beach is represented by Democrat Ted Lieu, who was reelected in 2018 with 70 percent of the vote. But a revolution is brewing in Venice Beach, because Venice Beach is on the front lines of progressive insanity.

Thanks to progressive ideology as expressed in laws and court rulings, in California today you cannot arrest and hold vagrants for petty theft or possession of hard drugs; you cannot move them out of public spaces unless you can provide them with free and “permanent supportive housing;” you cannot commit demonstrably insane people to asylums; and publicly funded shelters must offer food and urgent care without any preconditions whatsoever.

The Streets of Venice Beach Are An Open Sewer

Testimonials from residents of Venice Beach provide ample evidence of what happens when you impose these progressive policies on an urban area bordered on the west by some of the most inviting beaches and agreeable weather in the world. An estimated 1,200 homeless people have set up permanent encampments in this three square mile beach town. They almost never use actual toilets.

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the average human produces one pound of feces per day. Simple math therefore tells us that every week, the homeless population deposits more than four tons of feces into the gutters and onto the sidewalks, driveways, and lawns of Venice Beach residents, where they are dutifully hosed into the sewers and eventually make their way into the ocean.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/whistleblowers-and-the-real-deep-state-11570832622

House Democrats are plowing ahead with an impeachment effort inspired by accusations from an anonymous “whistleblower.” The lawmakers may allow the witness to testify anonymously, sources who themselves remained anonymous told the Washington Post this week. It’s as if the whole effort is designed to confirm President Trump’s complaint that the “deep state” is determined to sabotage his presidency.

By “deep state,” Mr. Trump seems to mean any current or former federal employee who works to undermine him. I find that definition too broad, and it misses an important distinction. Officials like James Comey and John Brennan, respectively former directors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, were appointed by politicians and are subject to some public scrutiny and political accountability.

The “deep state”—if we are to use the term—is better defined as consisting of career civil servants, who have growing power in the administrative state but work in the shadows. As government grows, so do the challenges of supervising a bureaucracy swelling in both size and power. Emboldened by employment rules that make it all but impossible to fire career employees, this internal civil “resistance” has proved willing to take ever more outrageous actions against the president and his policies, using the tools of both traditional and social media.

Government-employed resisters received a call to action within weeks of the new administration. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates became acting attorney general on Mr. Trump’s inauguration and Loretta Lynch’s resignation. A week later, the president signed an executive order restricting travel from seven Middle Eastern and African countries. Ms. Yates instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend the order in court on the grounds that she was not convinced it was “consistent” with the department’s “responsibilities” or even “lawful.” She decreed: “For as long as I am Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the Executive Order.”

Mr. Trump fired her that day, but he shouldn’t have had to. Her obligation was to defend the executive order, or to resign if she felt she couldn’t. Nobody elected Sally Yates.  CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/10/trump_comes_out_swinging.html

As he did Thursday night in Minnesota, President Trump came out swinging in Lake Charles, Louisiana on Friday.

“The Democrats’ policies are crazy, their politicians are corrupt, their candidates are terrible, and they know they can’t win on election day, so they’re pursuing an illegal, invalid, and unconstitutional bullsh*t impeachment.”

The President was ostensibly in town to support two Republican candidates running in a typically oddball Louisiana gubernatorial election featuring Republicans U.S. Rep. Ralph Abraham and businessman Eddie Rispone against incumbent Democrat John Bel Edwards. But in truth it was Donald Trump vs. the political establishment, the media, and the Deep State.

“This is the witch hunt,” Trump said. “They’ve been trying to stop us for three years with a lot of crap.”

“All of our nation’s gains are put at risk by a rage-filled Democrat party that has gone completely insane. The Democrats are fighting to restore the wretched political class that… surrendered our sovereignty, flooded our cities with drugs and crimes and bogged us down in one foreign war after another.”

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had been raked over the coals on Thursday. Last night it was Nancy Pelosi’s turn.

“I used to think she loved the country. She hates the country. Nancy Pelosi hates the United States of America, because she wouldn’t be doing this.”

Joe Biden, not to forget Hunter, also came in for a beating: “Can you imagine if Don Jr. or Eric Trump, or if our beautiful Ivanka… if they walked out with $1.5 billion? They would be saying, ‘Where’s the nearest cell?’”

https://spectator.org/the-greatness-of-donald-trump/?utm

His demeanor makes some of us wince. His language makes many of us uncomfortable. Presidents in democracies reflect something about the people who elect them. In some cases, as with the aptly named House of Representatives, people sometimes even vote to be reflected by an assortment of lowlifes. Ilhan Omar reflects her district, as does Rashida Tlaib, as does [O-] Cortez. Hillary lost because even Democrats were revulsed by the thought that she reflects them.

Trump, too, reflects his electorate: we who put him there. In balancing all that he comprises, we focused in November 2016 on greatness. Eight years of Obama — incompetence, weakness, economic malaise, societal decay — left us focused on restoring greatness. Thus, even Christian pastors, devout Catholic theologians, and Orthodox rabbis vigorously support Donald Trump. The free world’s last great hope is America, and she was in peril.

What about his language, some of his dishonorable private deeds, flaws in his character?

Yes, excellence of personal character is desirable. A Mike Huckabee, a Mike Pence might offer an interesting successor model in 2024 after the Democrats manage to impeach Trump into an impeccable second full term. Yet we will look back on Trump’s presidency wistfully decades hence as we today look back on the Ronald Reagan years. The man, whatever his flaws, has proven to be a great president of historic dimensions.

Those who complain about Trump’s character invariably are the same “deplorables” who voted for the lying, cheating, false-faced Hillary. They had no problem with an ethical deviant who had committed felonious spoliation of evidence, lied about her emails (yoga and wedding dresses?), lied about Benghazi (an incoherent YouTube video with few views?), lied about her very name (named for a guy who became famous only after she was born?), lied about her trips abroad (landing amid gunfire in Bosnia, when in fact she was greeted by schoolgirls presenting her flowers), lying about and defaming the women whom her husband sexually assaulted, even lying and joking in a fake Southern drawl (back when her husband was Arkansas governor) about successfully defending a guy who raped a 12-year-old girl. They likewise had no compunction voting for her better half despite his raping Juanita Broaddrick, assaulting Kathleen Willey, exposing himself to Paula Corbin Jones, manipulating a gullible Monica Lewinsky — later explaining, “because I could.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/on-the-whistleblower-kerfuffle-imagine-a-different-scenario/

Imagine . . .

If in early 2015, some White House staffers transcribing confidential presidential calls were disturbed about one conversation that President Obama had with Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif. The two allegedly had confidentially discussed the staggered release of some $1.7 billion in withheld U.S. dollars to Iran — as an understood exchange for the release of 4 American hostages, $400 million of which was to be delivered, in an unmarked cargo plane at night, and in various currencies to Tehran.

The payments were allegedly to take place in the general context of the ongoing “Iran Deal” nuclear nonproliferation negotiations, and a time when Iranian-funded Hezbollah was staging terrorist operations in Syria and from Lebanon.

Imagine further that a few of the insider staffers/transcribers talked about their worries over such a quid pro quo and the disconnect between what their president was saying to the Iranians and what the administration was denying to the press. And they were further outraged because such payments were hidden from the public and in apparent violation of US policy prohibiting cash payments for hostage releases.

At that point, a furious conservative Republican, former CIA analyst, and former Dick Cheney staffer, with ties to a likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate, working in the National Intelligence Program, contacted the staff of Representative Nunes, Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. The latter’s staff then helped to prep and advise the complainant, along with a mostly conservative leaning law firm, before submitting the formal charges to the inspector general.

The gist of the brief, citing legal precedents, footnoted to often-conservative media, and prepared as a formal legal document, was that the anonymous complainant had heard and learned from anonymous bureaucrats that they in turn had heard the Obama–Zarif call. Such hearsay in the complaint was allowable given that the whistleblower protocols have been mysteriously recently altered to permit such second-hand complaints.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/10/11/donald-trump-has-done-far-more-for-gay-people-than-the-stonewall-democrats/

Stonewall Democrats don’t want you to know gay Republicans exist. But we do, our ideas are better than theirs, and we’re not going anywhere.

There is no easier way to make the left mad than being a gay Republican. This time, it’s the Stonewall Democratic Club that’s up in arms.

Stonewall is a group of LGBT Democrats who purport to champion “equality for all.” You wouldn’t know this from their record.

Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (DADT) during his first term. These acts outlawed gay marriage and military service for openly LGBT soldiers, respectively. It took 20 years to undo that codified discrimination. But Stonewall endorsed Clinton for reelection in 1996 anyway.

Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 opposing gay marriage. Stonewall endorsed him nonetheless. From 2008 to 2010, although Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress, Obama did nothing to advance LGBT equality. Stonewall endorsed him again in 2012.

Recently, the Stonewall Democrats of San Antonio terrorized a Hispanic gay Republican running for Congress in Texas, threatening “economic sanctions” against the gay nightclub he owns unless he leaves the race.

Despite this shameful history, Stonewall’s Ryan Basham recently wrote an article condemning the Log Cabin Republicans for endorsing Donald Trump. We at Log Cabin represent LGBT conservatives and allies. Our endorsement is the latest addition to a record that is actually far superior to Stonewall’s.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-smoke-and-mirrors-11570746257

Democrats and the media for three years used a fog of facts and speculation to lull America into forgetting there was never a shred of evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. They flooded the zone with another flurry of scattershot claims in their campaign against Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Republicans might bear these tactics in mind as they confront the left’s new impeachment push.

In the two weeks since the White House released the transcript of President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the debate has descended into the weeds of process and people. This is unsurprising given House Democrats’ decision to keep hidden the central doings of their impeachment inquiry, and the media’s need to fill a void.

The press has responded by seeking to weave dozens of obscure Ukrainian and U.S. names into a crazy quilt of corruption. Readers have no time to keep track of all the Vlads, envoys and meetings in Spain, and that’s the point. The goal is to cover the Trump administration in ugly.

Republicans for their part are miffed at the highly irregular manner in which all this is unfolding. So they’re highlighting the anonymous whistleblower, his motives and his methods. They’ve pointed out the whistleblower’s admission that his information was secondhand. They’re drilling into whether he was biased on behalf of a current Democratic presidential candidate. They are (correctly) pointing out that the whistleblower has no legal right to anonymity.

Motive matters, but what matters more is the accuracy of the complaint itself. The real news of the past few weeks has been the steady accumulation of evidence that its central claim is totally wrong.

Which shouldn’t be surprising, given how many facts the complaint mangled about the call. It alleged, for instance, that Mr. Trump asked Ukraine to “locate and turn over servers.” He didn’t. It claims Mr. Trump “praised” a prosecutor named Yuriy Lutsenko and suggested the Ukrainian president “keep him in his position.” That didn’t happen either. There’s more, and when the whistleblower can’t get the facts of the call right, it’s no surprise he got his conclusion wrong too.

There is simply no evidence of what House Democrats have made the central claim of their impeachment inquiry: that Mr. Trump engaged in a “quid pro quo” by withholding aid to Ukraine unless it “opened an investigation” into former Vice President Joe Biden. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.openthebooks.com/openthebooks_oversight_report_-_the_congressional
Breaking.Why is it that 97% of Congress get reelected each year even though only 17% of Americans believe they’re doing a good job? 

Our latest breaking report on The Congressional Favor Factory investigates this suspicious phenomenon.

We followed the money and found a culture that has “conflict-of-interest” written all over it. 

Even worse, Congress writes their own rules to protect their re-election campaigns.

Click here to download our breaking report, free of charge.

https://issuesinsights.com/2019/10/09/how-unreasoned-impeachment-dysfunction-is-trashing-democrats/

This puts the party in a new direction.”

These words were uttered by no less than Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that the House of Representatives would formally seek President Donald Trump’s impeachment.

How prophetic, how true … and how deadly for the traditional Democratic Party of blue-collar workers and their families.

The socialist/progressives whom AOC represents are now in charge of the “blue” party, whose character is clearly defined by the most left-wing New York and California politicians and voters. While these progressives love their unfounded impeachment dreams, they have no sense of what it is doing to the traditional, common-sense, family-oriented center of the Democrat party.

Their claim that Trump committed an impeachable offense in his conversation with the Ukrainian president when the resident discussed Joe Biden and his son’s payoff to enormous personal benefit is not a Trump problem. It is a Biden problem that Biden must deal with. 

Neither the Ukrainian phone call transcript which the White House released, nor the whistleblowers’ version, suggest that the president sought a “payoff” for himself or anyone in his administration. The conversation just involved pursuit of Biden’s actions for a big Ukrainian “payoff” for his son, which is the actual violation of law.

The Ukrainian president had just won in a landslide on an anti-corruption platform, the U.S. has an anti-corruption treaty with Ukraine, and Trump is the top law enforcement officer in the United States. So the phone conversation was more than justified. Following Hillary Clinton with Biden as the nominee would cement Democrats as the party of corruption.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-10-6-the-bidens-stone-cold-crooked-2

After posting the first installment of this series last night, I had a few more inspirations that I thought deserved an additional post.

I’ll start with this Washington Post defense of Biden’s conduct with respect to Ukraine, that appeared September 27. It’s an unsigned editorial, headline “The Ukraine facts are clear. But does truth still matter?” As to the Bidens and Ukraine, here is the key quote:

Mr. Trump has thrown up a smokescreen of denials, insults — and blatant lies. Over and over, he and his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, have repeated the easily disproved claim that Mr. Biden sought to have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired to protect his son. Senior Ukrainian officials, including one of Mr. Giuliani’s own sources, have publicly stated that the story is false; multiple media investigations have definitively debunked it.

Recall that the issue we are examining here is whether Joe Biden had the corrupt motive of benefiting his son Hunter when he used the threat of withholding U.S. loan guarantees to force the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. The Post says that the allegation of Biden’s corruption is “easily disproved” because “senior Ukrainian officials” (unnamed) have “publicly stated that the story is false.”

And what is it that these “senior Ukrainian officials” have stated is false? Certainly not that Joe Biden forced Shokin’s firing by the threat to withhold U.S. aid; and certainly not that Hunter Biden got the $600,000/yr directorship at Burisma within 30 days after Joe Biden became the “point person” for U.S. policy to that country; and certainly not that after Shokin was fired the investigation of Burisma was disrupted and Hunter Biden continued to receive his director fees there for several more years.