RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18905/executive-privilege-trump

[L]et’s see how this would have played out if the shoe were on the other foot.

What if Obama was called by a congressional committee to turn over all internal communications— written and oral— regarding his decision, and he claimed executive privilege? And what if then President Trump waived Obama’s privilege?

One thing we know to be certain: many of the academic “experts” and media “pundits” who now support the argument that an incumbent president can waive the executive privilege of his predecessor would be making exactly the opposite argument. They would be saying— as I am saying now— that presidents would be reluctant to have confidential communications with their aides if they knew these communications could be made public by their successor in order to gain partisan electoral advantage. It would essentially mark the end of executive privilege, which is rooted in Article II of the Constitution.

Accurate predictions today require us to know which persons or parties will be helped or hurt by particular outcomes. Hypocrisy reigns. And those who engage in it are not even embarrassed when their double standards are exposed. The current “principle” is that the ends justify the means, especially if the end is the end of Trump.

“Because we can” has become the current mantra of both parties. Neutral principles, which apply equally without regard to partisan advantage, is for wimps, not party leaders or other government officials. “They do it too” has become the excuse de jure. Both parties do it, but that is not a valid excuse even in hardball politics. Two constitutional violations do not cancel each other. They only make things worse.

Executive privilege is important to both parties — and to the constitutional rule of law. Today’s partisan victory for Democrats if their waiver argument is accepted, will soon become their loss, should Republicans take control.

So beware of what you wish for. Today’s dream may well become tomorrow’s nightmare.

https://dailycaller.com/2022/09/13/food-prices-hit-40-year-high-keep-breaking-records-every-month/

Food prices have increased every month of 2022, with each month since February breaking 40-year records, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The price of food at home increased 13.5% year-over-year in August, the highest it’s been since May 1979, according to the BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI) report. Since February, when the year-over-year cost of food at home increased by 8.6% — at the time the highest level since 1981 — grocery prices have increased every month, first breaking a 10% year-on-year increase in March, according to archived CPI reports by the BLS.

The rate of increase blows away the increases over the past two years, with food at home prices increasing 3.5% in 2020 and 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The increases are also well above the USDA’s Aug. 25 estimate of a year-on-year food at home price increase between 10% and 11% in 2022.

Cereal and other bakery products cost 16.4% more year-over-year, while dairy products rose 16.2% year-on-year, according to the BLS August report. Chicken was up 16.6%, ham and pork were up 9.2% and 6.8% respectively, while beef was an exception, increasing only 2.5%.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/13/the-regimes-operation-maga-fascist-gains-ground/

After nearly two years of lies related to the events of January 6, 2021, the regime finally has admitted the truth: The widening legal dragnet to scoop up Donald Trump, his associates, and his voters has nothing to do with the four-hour disturbance on Capitol Hill that afternoon. It is, rather, a thus-far successful crusade to criminalize wrong think about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

A barrage of subpoenas issued recently by the Department of Justice—U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves’ office specifically—against Trump aides is not seeking  information about the Capitol protest but personal communications discussing what happened with the election and plans to fight the results. Graves wants records dating back to October 2020 “constituting any evidence (a) tending to show that there was fraud of any kind in or relating to the 2020 Presidential Election, or (b) used or relied upon to support any claim of fraud in relation to the 2020 Presidential Election.”

Targets must produce correspondence detailing “any strategies or options for ensuring the certification of Donald J. Trump.” Graves also is demanding information about how Trump raised money from “efforts to contest the 2020 election.”

Of course, this is what the January 6 hysteria has always been about. As the chaos unfolded on January 6, Joe Biden and his apparatchiks immediately denounced believers of the so-called “Big Lie”—the claim the election had been rigged, if not stolen, by powerful interests who wanted nothing more than to defeat Trump—and vowed revenge would come swiftly. “The totalitarian company line is any suggestion that election fraud exists is tantamount to sedition,” I wrote on January 11, 2021. “Americans who dare doubt the results, a popular political sport for Democrats over the past four years, are now vilified as ‘insurrectionists’ and plenty of our fellow countrymen want it punished accordingly.”

Oh, how their dreams have come true. Nearly 900 Americans face criminal charges for mostly nonviolent participation in the Capitol protest; lives have been destroyed, even ended, as a result of this cruel, vengeful prosecution recently rebranded the “Capitol Siege” investigation by Graves’ office. The weapons used in the first war on terror—secret surveillance, invasive investigation, armed raids, torture, and political prisons to name a few tactics—have been aimed at Trump supporters across the country in a show of force and intimidation.

“Operation MAGA Fascist” appears to be the commander-in-chief’s unofficial name of the regime’s war on terror against millions of Americans, which now is reaching a version of the Battle of Fallujah but without the bloodshed. (Let’s hope.) The unprecedented FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago on August 8 ratcheted up the fever of the war by a considerable measure—the regime’s desired response. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-civil-rights-to-diversity-affirmative-action-grutter-harvard-supreme-court-race-discrimination-america-jfk-treatment-11661886845?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

In a nation where the issue of race never seems to be fully settled, we are again confronted with the question of what to do about affirmative action. America is dedicated to the proposition that each of us is equal at birth and constitutionally entitled to be treated equally by our government. We enshrined that right as the 14th Amendment. But the spirit of fairness sometimes compels us to take a detour from our foundational principles in the name of becoming a more perfect union.

America has come a long way since 1939, when I was born in Jim Crow Louisiana. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required federal contractors to take “affirmative action” to ensure that employees wouldn’t be discriminated against because of race, creed, color or national origin. It wasn’t meant to discriminate against formerly favored groups. “Race has no place in American life or law,” JFK said.

Martin Luther King Jr. believed Kennedy’s order was insufficient to achieve integration, and he lobbied President Lyndon B. Johnson to strengthen affirmative action. After Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act, LBJ signed Executive Order 11246 on Sept. 24, 1965, firmly establishing that nondiscrimination in employment would be the law of our land.

Yet this strategy to prevent discrimination ended up driving discrimination against whites and Asians in education—all in the name of “diversity.” That’s a word I rarely heard before I began my 12-year term as a regent of the University of California in 1993, but I heard repeatedly until my departure in 2005. It wasn’t a description but a goal, something we were expected to make a conscious effort to “build.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18902/national-debt

For as long as there have been politics there have been deals.

Of course, it is illegal to trade one’s vote for cash, but those with the power to dispense patronage, projects, and promotions have a unique advantage in seeking the support of those whose endorsements can tip the balance for any given issue.

Whether it was the drafting of the Constitution, confronting the infamous slave trade, Tammany Hall’s “favored sons” or directing federal funds for a bridge, this kind of give-and-get has long been woven into the cynical side of politics.

It is unprecedented, however, when the stakes have become so high that these kinds of backroom deals can disrupt an election or even plunge a nation into an unrecoverable cycle of debt and economic despair.

That is why the “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022” that has come out of the Senate “sausage machine,” courtesy of its current majority leader, Sen. Charles Schumer, and his surprising enabler, Sen. Joe Manchin, needs to be closely examined. With its $700 billion price tag, it has the potential to seriously harm our nation’s economic future.

One of its elements requires a particularly hefty dose of sunlight. This massive spending plan will allow John Podesta, a Biden adviser, former Clinton aide, and longtime Democratic political strategist, to administer some $370 billion in energy programs of his selective choosing.