RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/columns/benshapiro/2021/12/22/the-big-government-covid-19-lie-n1543449

On Oct. 30, 2020, just days before the presidential election, Joe Biden tweeted, “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.” 

This was a lie.

It was a lie because nobody can shut down the virus. 

Government does not have the power to end disease, as a general matter. When it comes to a wildly transmissible coronavirus specifically, no government can end the virus. Even the sainted Dr. Anthony Fauci has admitted as much: “we’re never going to eradicate this … elimination may be too aspirational.”

Which means that government should not aim for elimination; it can aim for some level of control. That control must be balanced with countervailing concerns, ranging from suppression of economic freedom to the effects of social isolation. This means that the lowest-cost intervention was incentivization and distribution of vaccines — a service performed by the Trump administration. The worst form of control would be overbroad, coercive restrictions that fail to achieve their objectives.

And yet it is precisely those forms of control now being sought by Democratic mayors and governors, as well as the Biden administration. To make such tactics even more puzzling, Democrats are pursuing such restrictions in the face of an extraordinarily transmissible variant — some 70 times more transmissible than delta — that has far lower death rates than prior variants. 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/21/pentagon-issues-new-guidance-on-extremist-behavior-within-military-ranks/

On Monday, the Department of Defense, in an effort to further crack down on political dissent, is revising its previous definitions of “extremist behavior” in order to deter uniformed members from certain political affiliations, CNN reports.

The Countering Extremism Working Group, a panel that was created for the purpose of ostensibly investigating “extremism” within military ranks, issued a report outlining its findings, claiming that there are indeed some “extremists” in the military. The report alleges that there were roughly 100 instances of uniformed members who either had “extremist” beliefs or joined “extremist” groups in 2021, which the report claims is an increase from previous years.

Among other rules, the new guidance makes it harder for members to join alleged “extremist” organizations while serving. As one anonymous official said, “any way that someone could sort of actively become a member of an extremist organization, we’ve accounted for them. We don’t think there is a way to be a member of an extremist organization in any meaningful way.”

When reporters were briefed on Monday by Defense Department officials, it was clarified that the new rules are less about prohibiting certain behavior and more about more clearly defining what exactly Pentagon leadership considers “extremism” in the first place.

“We were very conscious of not focusing on any particular ideology or any political organization,” another official said, “but focusing exclusively on actions.”

The Pentagon’s press secretary John Kirby further explained that the new guidance intends to “preserve a service member’s right of expression to the extent possible, while also balancing the need for good order and discipline.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/21/whose-body-is-it-anyway/

In the latest edition of the theater of the absurd, White House COVID coordinator, Jeff Zientz, had some “stark” words for the untouchables, i.e., the unvaccinated masses. At the December 17 press briefing, Zientz commented on the incoming Omicron wave, sounding rather ominous and depressing, “. . . the Omicron variant is more transmissible and our medical experts anticipate it will lead to a rise in cases,” said Zientz. “But unlike last winter, we now have the power to protect ourselves. We are intent on not letting Omicron disrupt work and school for the vaccinated. You’ve done the right thing, and we will get through this. For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families, and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.” [emphasis mine]

In one statement, Zietz divided two groups of Americans and pitted them against each other: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Echoing Dr. Anthony Fauci, Zietz sets himself up as a moral authority who can reward and punish at will. Offering no evidence, no nuance, and constant evasion of questions with meaningless answers, like “it’s still up in the air” and “there are a lot of confounding issues” has become the hallmark of Fauci and this regime. It all sounds like a bad meeting of government bureaucrats nodding their heads, trying to convince a skeptical man that everything is fine: “Yes, we have top men working on this. Top!” 

This is the second year of this absurdity, and it’s pretty clear that the current regime, not just in the United States but globally, is trying to create a social hierarchy based on medical status (which is really just code for obedience). Many cities in America have taken this strategy seriously, as we see in New York and Boston. This is the point where biology and politics merge, but to what end? You can’t really say that the strategy is all perfectly and seamlessly planned because many of these threats are rarely fully implemented, and when they are, the laws surrounding it are incredibly vague. People don’t know if they have any legal rights. It has become a political game, except this is not “politics as usual.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/21/was-the-fbis-whitmer-chicanery-a-warm-up-for-january-6/

As questions mount about the government’s animating role in the Capitol protest on January 6, the criminal case against the men charged with conspiring to “kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 continues to collapse. 

Defense attorneys in the Whitmer case are carefully compiling evidence that depicts an elaborate tale of FBI entrapment; at least a dozen FBI informants were involved in the failed plot—equaling one FBI asset per defendant. FBI agents handling the informants directed every move. They funded training and reconnaissance trips, and even organized a “national militia” conference in Ohio in June 2020 to lure potential accomplices.

Several men were arrested in October 2020 when the lead informant drove them to meet an undercover FBI agent to purchase munitions, the six month-long scheme’s dramatic conclusion. News of the shocking plot made national headlines as early voting was underway in Michigan: Joe Biden, Whitmer, and the media blamed Donald Trump for inciting an attempted domestic terror attack. (Sound familiar?)

As I explained in an October column, the plan to abduct Whitmer—who had a very public feud with Trump throughout 2020—originated from Operation Cold Snap, an undercover multi-state FBI spy ring intended ostensibly to surveil “militia groups” opposed to states’ lockdown policies.

Henrik Impola, one of the FBI special agents managing the Whitmer kidnapping plan, confirmed the existence of Operation Cold Snap in sworn testimony earlier this year. 

“From the FBI through the domestic terrorism operation center, I was aware of other FBI investigations in Baltimore and Milwaukee and Cincinnati and Indiana involving other militia members,” Impola told a judge in March.  

Impola’s role in the Whitmer caper, in fact, stemmed from his work as a case agent for Operation Cold Snap. The 11-year bureau veteran has spent his entire FBI career investigating counterrorism, including “militia extremism,” which enabled Impola to designate the Wolverine Watchmen, a Facebook group with no real organization coincidentally formed just months before the sting, a “terror enterprise” to justify the government’s central involvement in rigging the kidnapping scheme.

Impola, working out of a satellite office in Flint that reports to Michigan’s only FBI field office in Detroit, was deeply involved in every facet of the Whitmer plot. His testimony is crucial to persuading a jury that the men on trial conspired to abduct Whitmer from her vacation home last year.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/12/why_la_must_show_the_gascon_the_door.html

If Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon has his way, the City of Angels will have sex offenders and violent criminals in their teens roaming free, under the pretext that they are juveniles.  Never mind that they may be repeat offenders.  Never mind that such leniency will encourage gangs to get their work done by those who should be in school or on the playground.

Thankfully, there is growing outrage against Gascon’s abominable ideas and a campaign to have him recalled is gathering steam.  It must succeed so that Los Angeles is spared the fate of San Francisco, which Gascon (as DA in 2011-19) left in shambles and, in the words of former San Francisco deputy DA Nancy Tung, with the reputation of a city “where you can commit a crime and get away with it.”

In L.A., Gascon’s Restorative Enhanced Diversion for Youth Pathway (REDY) program extends the privilege accorded to juveniles who have committed relatively minor offenses to those accused of serious and violent crimes.  Such leniency will only reinforce criminal behavior by giving juvenile delinquents an early taste of impunity.  Moreover, this is a dangerous perversion of the rationale behind handling juvenile criminals with kid gloves.

Why would a DA, whose job, first and foremost, is to deter crime through efficient prosecution, even consider letting serious crimes go unpunished?  Why would someone in the hard-nosed business of presenting evidence and bringing criminals to justice step out of his domain to entertain quixotic ideas about criminal sociology that are best left to experts and the deliberative process of legislation?

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/manchin-saves-country-horrible-build-back-better-joseph-klein/

Democrat Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia declared emphatically that he cannot back President Joe Biden’s signature Build Back Better legislation in its present form. The White House and progressive Democrats are fuming. Instead, they should take Senator Manchin’s words to heart and rethink their priorities in this age of inflation, soaring national debt, an unrelenting pandemic, and grave national security threats.

“I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation,” said Manchin in an interview during the “Fox News Sunday”  December 19th broadcast. “I just can’t. I’ve tried everything humanly possible. I can’t get there.” When Manchin was asked directly by the show’s anchor Bret Baier whether that meant the moderate Democrat would vote “no” if the legislation were brought to a Senate vote, Manchin replied, “This is a no.”

Manchin cited several reasons for his opposition to the $2.2 trillion social welfare and green climate bill. He said that he is concerned about rising inflation that shows no sign of letting up soon, the exploding national debt, and the continuing problems caused by the spread of the coronavirus.

Manchin sharply criticized the budget gimmicks using so-called “sunset” clauses for certain programs that make the price tag appear much smaller than it will actually be.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/biden-bans-conservatives-and-christians-military-daniel-greenfield/

In Disloyal: How the Military Brass is Betraying Our Country, the David Horowitz Freedom Center had warned that the Countering Extremist Activity Working Group imposed by the Biden administration and headed by Bishop Garrison, a racist who constantly accused Republicans of racism for the most frivolous reasons, was preparing to purge conservatives from the military.

Now the purge has arrived.

The first task of Garrison’s CEWG was to develop a new definition of extremism. The newly added definition, which takes effect immediately, doesn’t actually define extremism. Since extremism is inherently relative to someone else’s moderation, it can’t be legally defined. But the CEWG’s definition was cunningly written to target conservatives and protect leftists.

The majority of the definitions are already covered by existing military codes and laws against terrorism and treason. The only real addition here is the final definition of “extremism activities” which includes, “advocating widespread unlawful discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

The wording initially appears generic, but it’s actually written to provide military leaders with a wide latitude for targeting conservatives while exempting black nationalists like Garrison.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/21/biden-lied-about-why-covid-tests-are-in-short-supply/

When Joe Biden was running for president from the basement of his Delaware home, he issued what he described as a seven-point plan “to beat COVID-19.” More than a year later, Biden announced his latest plan, which basically repeats everything he promised he’d do when running for president.

The big news announced on Tuesday was that the administration would buy and distribute half a billion at-home tests to anyone who asks because, he said, testing is key to getting COVID under control.

But Biden promised the same thing last year. In fact, the very first item on his seven-point plan was to “fix Trump’s testing-and-tracing fiasco to ensure all Americans have access to regular, reliable, and free testing.”

Biden said he’d “double the number of drive-through testing sites … scale up our testing capacity by orders of magnitude … stand up a Pandemic Testing Board like Roosevelt’s War Production Board (to) produce and distribute tens of millions of tests.”

Yet the news today is filled with stories of people who can’t get tests.

At his press briefing Tuesday, a reporter asked Biden if the lack of sufficient tests was a failure. “No,” was Biden’s response. “COVID is spreading so rapidly. It just happened almost overnight.” He denied that it took too long to ramp up testing, saying that “the Omicron virus spread more rapidly than anybody thought … All of a sudden it was like everybody rushed to the counter.”