RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/destruction-and-obstruction-how-pro-palestinian-protesters-are-defending-hamass-massacre/

Masses of anti-Israel protesters have descended on cities to call for a cease-fire in Gaza in the months following Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. Here are some of the most extreme examples of protesters who have blocked major roadways, vandalized property, and broadcast antisemitic statements:

Washington, D.C.: More than 500 pro-Palestinian protesters staged a sit-in at the United States Capitol in October. The anti-Zionist movement Jewish Voice for Peace led the demonstration, in which protesters demanded a “cease-fire now.”

The protesters first gathered on the National Mall where Cori Bush (D., Mo.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) spoke to the crowd. Tlaib repeated the lie during her remarks that the Israeli military bombed a Gaza hospital (American and Israeli intelligence confirmed that a misfired Palestinian rocket caused the blast).

New York City: Pro-Palestinian protesters blocked the Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and Manhattan Bridges and the Holland Tunnel during rush hour on the morning of January 8. Protesters calling for a “cease-fire now” refused to let commuters into the city. The protest was part of a wider campaign to “Shut It Down for Palestine,” organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, National Students for Justice in Palestine, Answer Coalition, the People’s Forum, International Peoples’ Assembly, Al-Awda in New York, and the Palestinian American Community Center in New Jersey.

Police arrested 325 protesters, the NYPD reported, and the roads were cleared by 11:15 a.m. that morning. Many of the 325 will face misdemeanor charges with a desk appearance ticket, according to NYPD chief of patrol John Chell.

“NYPD, KKK, IDF they’re all the same,” protesters chanted.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/01/the_fabricated_memory_of_january_6th.html

We in America have a collective memory of what slavery was like in the 19th century. And when I say we have a collective memory, I mean we share a fabricated collective memory. Slavery was real, but no one today has a real memory of it.

Our collective memory comes from television shows like Roots and movies like Speilberg’s Amistad and The Color Purple. It comes from every movie you’ve ever seen about slavery in the United States. And so, as a collective culture, we think that because we’ve seen these films, we have an authentic memory of what slavery was like when we are only remembering someone else’s portrayal — someone else’s idea of what they think happened. Whether it’s Alex Haley or Quentin Tarantino, we have someone else’s presentation.

The same thing is now happening with the Democrats when they’re recalling January 6th. The Democrat Party has created a fake and fabricated memory of January 6th. They did it with the help of ABC News, with the editors, camera crews, and the post-production people to create a memory that would be played over and over in the media to create a collective memory of an insurrection.

We know the then-House Speaker invited her niece (a professional photographer) to come down to the Capitol and photograph the historic event. We also know that ABC producers were employed to produce the televised hearings of the January 6 Commission for several weeks, and had a hand in editing actual J6 footage. This was designed to create an altered, fabricated memory of what happened the day thousands of people came to Washington because they were concerned the election of 2020 had unanswered questions. Not necessarily unanswered by a non-asking media, but unanswered, nevertheless.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/01/a-presidency-on-autopilot/

The Biden administration is plagued by lethargy and indifference. Does it expect voters not to notice?

The chances are that most voters do not know where Joe Biden’s secretary of defense is at any given moment. The public is likely to assume that the president, his subordinates, their staffs, and the watchdogs in media whose job it is to chronicle government officials’ activities are on top of it, if only because that was a reasonably safe assumption up until this week. What is likely to bite Biden — if Lloyd Austin’s reckless vanishing act bites the president at all — is the epiphany dawning on voters that no one in the administration was on top of it. And when those voters begin to think about it a little more, they might conclude that Biden hasn’t been on top of very much.

Biden’s presidency is buffeted by events, flitting directionless from one crisis to the next without having much of an impact on the trajectory of any one of them. Austin’s disappearance occurred amid an ongoing national humiliation abroad. No one, administration officials included, denies that Iran is behind the many dozens of attacks on U.S. service personnel in Iraq and Syria. Nor do they quibble about who is pulling the strings in Yemen, where a ragtag rebel group has partially closed crucial Red Sea shipping lanes to commercial traffic.

Presumably at someone’s direction, the Pentagon has retaliated against some of Iran’s proxy forces — with the notable exception of Yemen’s Houthi militia — but in a calibrated fashion that has failed to restore deterrence. Joe Biden and his officials appear content to allow Iran to dictate the tempo of events in the region. At the very least, the nation’s foremost defense official doesn’t see these ongoing assaults on America’s men and women in uniform and the U.S.-led geopolitical order they maintain as an obstacle to taking an unannounced sabbatical. Nor, apparently, does the president believe that Austin’s dereliction merits any sort of reproach.

https://thespectator.com/topic/lloyd-austin-mistake-career-ending/

When the secretary of defense goes AWOL, the clear chain of command is severed.

The disappearance of defense secretary Lloyd Austin for a few days without notifying the White House, or even the second in command at the Pentagon, is more than a one- or two-day story. 

It’s a much larger problem. It’s a problem politically for the White House, an opportunity for Republicans, a dilemma for congressional Democrats and a problem for the most powerful military in the world. And, of course, it’s a major problem for Secretary Austin’s future in the position.

Let’s start with the problem for the military. It is absolutely essential that the military have a clear chain of command that is clearly specified and operational at all times. Within the military, that chain of command goes up to the senior-most officer in each service branch. The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff is above them in the military hierarchy. 

Because the US military operates in a democracy, where political control is essential for major decisions, the top military officials are beneath a civilian secretary for each branch. All of them, plus the chairman of the joint chiefs, are beneath the civilian secretary of defense, who is appointed by the president, subject to Senate approval, and is supervised by the president himself. The civilian secretaries of each branch are also nominees that must be approved by the Senate. That, then, is a clear chain of command under civilian control.

When the secretary of defense goes AWOL, that chain of command is severed. The severance appeared to be even more severe because the second in command to Secretary Austin was herself on vacation and not informed of his being out of the chain because he was in the intensive care unit.