RUTHFULLY YOURS

The president’s credibility is shot.

Before leaving for the Middle East, President Biden sat down for an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News. Anchor Yonit Levi asked the president if he would use force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “As a last resort, yes,” Biden said.

I’d like to think that Biden is sincere. I hope that he understands the dangers a nuclear Iran would pose to the Greater Middle East, to Europe, and indeed to the world. A nuclear Iran would launch a cycle of proliferation and escalation in the region. Iran’s nuclear missiles would be in range not only of America’s Persian Gulf allies but also of NATO. Iran would intensify its malign activities, from terrorism to proxy war to hostage-taking, knowing that the bomb gives it cover. A nuclear Iran means a world more dangerous, more violent, more flammable than the world is even today.

Which is why Biden is the latest American president to suggest that the use of force remains an option. An air and naval campaign to destroy the nuclear sites known to Western intelligence and to degrade the Islamic Republic’s capacity to retaliate is the best means of delaying and potentially foreclosing the possibility of an Iranian bomb. The objective of such an operation wouldn’t be regime change. The goal would be prevention. Israel and the Gulf States would support us. And Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would pay attention. They would be put on notice: The American president means what he says.

Does he? In the spring of 2021, President Biden was asked about the record numbers of illegal immigrants who began crossing the southern border after he reversed his predecessor’s asylum policies. Biden dismissed the question. The migrant surge was “seasonal,” he said. It happens “every single solitary year.” Not like this, it doesn’t. The season ended long ago. The migration has continued for a year and a half. Last month saw the largest number of illegal crossings on record. Biden’s flippant answer was grossly mistaken, to say the least. He doesn’t seem to care. In fact, if he’s successful in ending Title 42 protocols allowing for the swift repatriation of illegal migrants, he will continue to make the problem worse.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/14/federal-judge-sentences-69-year-old-grandmother-with-cancer-to-2-months-in-jail-for-parading-in-the-capitol-on-january-6/

A federal judge has sentenced a 69-year-old Idaho grandmother and cancer patient to two months behind bars for parading in the Capitol, a misdemeanor.

Pam Hemphill pleaded guilty in January to one count of demonstrating, picketing, or parading in a Capitol building.  The diminutive senior was photographed inside the Capitol Rotunda.

Hemphill, a former drug and alcohol counselor, flew to Washington, D.C. from Idaho on Jan. 5 hoping to see the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned. She was arrested in August of 2021.

At her sentencing hearing Tuesday, Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, flatly told Hemphill that she will be serving time behind bars.

In addition to the 60 days in jail, Hemphill will spend three years on supervised release. Pursuant to her plea agreement, she will also have to pay $500 in restitution toward the estimated $2.7 million in damages to the Capitol.

“I’m heading to the prison! Just know your prayers and support is keeping me going emotionally and spiritually! Love you guys dearly!” she tweeted on Tuesday.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/starbucks-ceo-progressive-cities-have-abdicated-their-responsibility-in-fighting-crime/

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, suggested Wednesday that major U.S. cities and those managing their governments are neglecting the crime issue to the detriment of commerce and community safety.

“I must say, in my view at the local, state and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors and governors, city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health,” Schultz reportedly said at an internal meeting, according to a video posted on Twitter.

The business leader’s remarks came after his company announced plans to permanently close 16 locations in five progressive U.S. cities, including six in Seattle, six in Los Angeles, two in Portland, one in Philadelphia, and one in Washington, D.C., by the end of the month due to repeated security disturbances. Such incidents included customers and other members of the public using drugs in the stores.

“I don’t have to spend too much time on what’s going on in the country and how America is becoming unsafe, but you all read the press release over the last couple of days that we are beginning to close stores that are not unprofitable,” Schultz lamented. “It has shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is their own personal safety.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2022/07/15/the-u-s-misery-index-worsens-as-unchecked-bidenflation-grows-n1612816

The U.S. government announced Wednesday that June’s federal inflation numbers increased to a staggering 9.06% — a 40-year high. According to the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) news release, inflation is being felt keenly and across the board:

The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors. The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also
rising. The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.7 percent in June, after increasing 0.6 percent in the preceding two months. While almost all major component indexes increased over the month, the largest contributors were the indexes for shelter, used cars and trucks, medical care, motor vehicle insurance, and new vehicles. The indexes for motor vehicle repair, apparel, household furnishings and operations, and recreation also increased in June. Among the few major component indexes to decline in June were lodging away from home and airline fares.

From the updated BLS data, economists quantify the economic health of the country. To do so, they add the current U.S. unemployment rate, which is a stagnant 3.6%, to the current rate of U.S. inflation, which is a jarring 9.06%, to produce a snapshot of the country’s economy. The result is known as the U.S. Misery Index.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

War has always been man’s nemesis, combatting his desire for global peace. Unfortunately, war has won, perhaps because the latter is an unrealistic ideal, not possible given man’s imperfections. Nevertheless, just because world peace has never been achieved does not mean the search for it should cease, though any search should be leavened with realism. We live in a world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

Does global peace depend on a governing world order, or does it depend on maintaining a balance of power among sovereign nations having membership in organizations like the UN, the IMF and the WHO? If so, how much authority should each state cede to global authorities? A more basic question: Is lasting peace even possible given the fallibility of humans and with states having myriad views on governance? Limited wars may be unavoidable. What should be paramount is reducing the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons. Should not nations and societies, instead of attempting a world order, first build cultures of respect, tolerance, civility and decency?

In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger wrote: “No truly ‘global’ world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia.” The Peace of Westphalia concluded the Thirty Years War, and it established modern Europe with sovereign states. Yet their efforts did not prevent Napoleon from trying to unite Europe in the first two decades of the 19th Century, nor did it stop Hitler from trying to do the same 120 years later. It did not prevent lights from “going out all over Europe” in August 1914.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/07/15/biden-claims-inflation-numbers-out-of-date-because-of-lower-gas-prices-the-last-two-weeks-n1613112

This is a good example of a desperate man reaching for a life preserver that turns out to be a shark fin.

Joe Biden is in the Middle East, where the Muslims don’t like him or the country he leads very much at all. No American flags greeted Biden as his motorcade made its way through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Biden spent the better part of his first year in office blasting Saudi Arabia and its leader, Mohammed bin Salman, for his part in the death of a Washington Post writer.

Now, he’s coming to the Saudis on his knees, begging them to increase oil production.

Being overseas, Biden is relieved because he doesn’t have to listen to the constant carping of the media and even his own party about prices. The day after the consumer price index showed a frightening rise of 9.1 percent over the last year, and the producer price index showed a rise of 11.3 percent in wholesale prices, Biden decided to pretend things weren’t so bad.