RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/time_for_trump_to_start_the_great_american_party.html

Vice President Mike Pence is an honorable gentleman.  We know from Jenna Ellis, a constitutional law scholar and Donald Trump’s legal counsel, that he is fully aware of the unconstitutionality of the Electoral Count Act.  He is also fully aware that he has the authority to call on the contested states of AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, and WI to have their legislatures revisit the certification of their electoral votes before allowing them to be counted.  And yet… nothing.

Joe Biden will be our next President. He didn’t win, he stole the office. Or more accurately, it was stolen for him. Trump’s trusted ally, Mike Pence, has refused to fight.

To Pence’s name we must add a legion of other subsea invertebrates with “R” after their names.  So-called “Republicans” have in large measure become pale versions of their political counterparts across the aisle.  One wag put it this way: Republicans are Democrats, just twenty years late.  Translated into plain English, our frustration with D.C. is with almost all those who have official chairs in the Congress, the White House, and supporting agencies.  Those people serve themselves, with complete disregard for those of us who live outside the Beltway.  The stolen election has lit a match.

Donald Trump will change his address within a couple of weeks.  He will still have a voice, but the swamp and fake news media will feel free to ignore him unless the Democrats in power decide to prosecute him as an example for any who might ever again deign to think or speak freely.  The Republican Party will happily disregard him as an uncomfortable interlude in their peaceful slide into irrelevance.

If America is to have a future as something other than a vessel for the aggrandizement and enrichment of the privileged few, Donald Trump is probably the only figure large enough to create an organization with the size and sway to elect officials who are committed to the idea that the people are the rulers of America, as he said in his inaugural address.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/08/maga-patriots-the-best-of-people-in-the-worst-of-times/

Why repeat hackneyed phrases about annus horribilis 2020? 

Recall the opening paragraph of A Tale of Two Cities, a classic by Charles Dickens. Interspersed in that epical introduction are countervailing, sweetness-and-light words. Excise these—and you get 2020:

. . . it was the worst of times . . . it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch . . . of incredulity, it was . . . the season of darkness . . . it was the winter of despair. . . . we had nothing before us.

MAGA men and women are just that: The best of people in the worst of times. 

These good people converged on Washington, D.C. Wednesday to protest the certification of the Electoral College vote.

They, who have “nothing before them,” had come to demand that something be done by those who had “brought [them] forth into this wilderness,” yet sit “by the fleshpots [on the Potomac] and [eat] bread to the full.” (My adaptation of Exodus 16:3.)

Cassandra Fairbanks of Gateway Pundit framed her report about the protest that ensued just right: “Patriots Have Stormed the Capitol Building—Masses Breaching Federal Barriers—Cops Losing Control.” 

Yes, patriots. Rage that had been simmering over an election whose results lacked constitutional credibility had finally come to a boil. 

Prior to the eruption, on January 5, patriots had gathered at the Freedom Plaza in D.C. They patiently awaited their president, who was due to deliver a “Stop the Steal” address the following day. In short succession, they recited the “Lord’s Prayer” (from Luke, not the one-chord grunts of Lil Baby, or other rappers, emblematic of the Black Lives Matter repertoire).

These good people, who have been thoroughly marginalized and demonized—their country made diverse to the point of distrust—puncture their prayers with an “amen,” ancient Hebrew for “so be it.” 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/07/the-end/

In the end, almost everyone got what they deserved.

The president’s Achilles’ heel—relying on the wrong people to advance his political interests—led to his final ouster this week. Donald Trump ran out of runway and instead of preparing for a soft landing, he pumped the gas. It’s hard to blame him: His court challenges had been thwarted by the very judges he elevated to the federal bench, his hodgepodge legal team whirred in defeat, and Republican senators he helped elect quickly turned on him.

As usual, the president was right: extensive proof of vote fraud in key states justified his belief, shared by tens of millions of Americans, that the election was stolen from him. Trump’s instinct to fight back was spot-on but the plan and the people he put in place failed to launch yet again. Despite advance warning that a majority mail-in election would doom his chance to win, the president’s team was infuriatingly unprepared both in terms of messaging and legal strategy. An odd press conference the day after the election featured not top-tier legal killers but his son and daughter-in-law.

The prologue already was written.

A vacuum created by a complete lack of interest from his own Justice Department—led by a man the president refused to fire even though he had cause to do so months before—was filled with any number of caricatures peddling far-fetched claims obscuring legitimate evidence. The president, as is his wont, whether because of loyalty or ignorance, didn’t shut them down until it was too late. The damage to his case was done, another self-inflicted wound suffered unnecessarily at the most crucial time imaginable.

As the president greeted tens of thousands of Americans who had traveled to the nation’s capital to show their support for Trump’s last stand, Senate Republicans learned they would lose control of the chamber after both Georgia races were called for the Democrats.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/08/lefts-hypocrisy-on-full-display-after-d-c-insurrection/

The angry election fraud protest that led to the temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol Wednesday perfectly illuminates the hypocrisy of the Democratic far left when it comes to political violence.

Republican officials and rank-and-file GOP conservatives immediately and forcefully condemned the pro-Trump rioters. Nothing unusual about that: During this riot-torn year, Republicans have consistently, loudly and frequently denounced violence, no matter who did it.

What about the Democrats and their extreme-left supporters? Tragically, for them, violence is always acceptable when it’s in service to their cause. That’s especially true since the riots and mass protests began in late May following the death of George Floyd.

But, as usual, congressional Democrats, the legacy press and social media giants have misreported, distorted and twisted facts to suit their own leftist agenda and inflame public opinion.

Republicans, however, have taken a mature and responsible path.

Oklahoma Republican Rep. Markwayne Mullin, appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday, didn’t excuse the behavior. Far from it.

“There is no excuse and no one is to blame but ourselves,” he told host George Stephanopoulos. “We need to take a hard look at our country, we need to take a hard look at the way we debate. We can agree to disagree but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. That doesn’t mean I don’t care for you. That doesn’t mean I don’t love this country any more or less than you but what we did yesterday was absolutely inexcusable.”

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Defending President Trump over the past four years has sometimes felt like being caught in a whirlwind. No matter which way I turned, something or somebody was coming at me. While most comments I receive are supportive, I have been accused of being insensitive, stupid, a racist and, if not a Nazi, something akin to a storm trooper. 

Despite his obvious character flaws, I have defended Mr. Trump for five essential reasons: First, I believed (and still do) that Washington’s morass of arrogant and sanctimonious bureaucrats needed (and needs) disrupting. Second, his appointment of dozens of conservative judges and three justices. Third, his accomplishments in terms of the economy, particularly what he did for black and minority unemployment, and in world affairs, especially in the Middle East where, in 2020, he was instrumental in getting four Arab nations to recognize Israel. Fourth, he fought for public school choice and against undemocratic trends toward political correctness, identity politics, “cancel” culture and the prohibition of conservative speech on college campuses. And fifth, his courage in fending off attempts by Democrats to undo the 2016 election and their attempt to create roadblocks for his new administration in 2017 and beyond. And this he did while continuously being assaulted by a feckless mainstream media, and a social media industry intent on separating him from his followers. As well, I was impressed with Operation Warp Speed and how quickly, and against most expectations, the vaccine appeared.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/trump-supporters-take-stock-of-jan-6-feel-mischara

““People can go to Portland and Seattle and burn buildings down and take over police stations and everything else, and it’s called Summer of Love.”

WASHINGTON—Empty streets and a subdued atmosphere characterized Washington on Jan. 7 as Trump supporters processed the events of the previous day and the certification of the Electoral College votes by Congress overnight.

Many were packing up to go home, at the same time a fence was being erected around the Capitol; the National Guard presence was obvious.

Marine veteran Tony Good traveled from Florida and walked to the Ellipse to hear President Donald Trump speak in the morning. He said Trump didn’t incite violence in his speech.

“No, absolutely not. There’s a line between inciting to riot and standing on convictions,” Good told The Epoch Times. “He wasn’t telling anybody to riot, he was just telling them it’s our right to protest. That’s a right we have in America.”

Good became separated from his group and returned to his hotel to regroup after the speech. He didn’t go to the Capitol, but said he wishes he had.

“I call yesterday the first day in the 10-year war,” he said. “It’s going to be 10 years before this gets turned around. It’s going to take that long. War in the sense of … getting things to where they should be in America, as far as fair and free elections, election integrity.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/294448

Hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters did what people do when they believe their government has abandoned them – they went to Washington to protest. Unfortunately, a small percentage, (whether or not there were a number of Antifa members among them) succeeded in spoiling the non-violent nature of the protest and attacked the American Congress building. No Senator or Congressman or police officer was hurt but one woman, a 14 years military veteran, who was unarmed, was shot by police and killed.

We cannot be too timid in our repudiation of political violence. Violence begets more violence, and those who participated in violence must be sanctioned by the legal system.

On the other hand, when Antifa and Black Lives Matter extended their violent riots to Washington steps from the White House, the anti-Trump media had nothing to say about violence. Republicans compete with how strong they can make their criticism of the violent part of the protest in Washington but Democratic politicians were mostly silent as violent protests went on all summer. People noticed that. They also notice that big Tech like Facebook, Twitter and Google censor conservative speech but not leftist speech.

Some say that President Trump incited violence, but his communications throughout the day made it clear that people should go home “in peace”.

Without tolerating violence in any way, we need to understand the context, the context of what Democratic Party power-brokers have done to them and their political choices, including the President, for four years
The worst mistake we make when analyzing critical events like this one, is to lose sight of the context. Here the context was that hundreds of thousands of peaceful American citizens from all over such a large country drove all night or otherwise found transportation to Washington. They came because they feel that the elites in government and media and the academy and the bureaucracy disdain them, care not for their human rights, and hate the man they voted for in 2016.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/01/remember_when_lefties_stormed_into_and_occupied_a_senate_office_building_in_2018_and_the_wisconsin_state_capitol_in_2011.html

Mobs breaking into and occupying government buildings are always bad, but when leftists are responsible, a memory hole soon opens and engulfs the media’s recollections.  True conservatives support law and order and peaceful protest for redress of grievances, a sacred constitutional right.  Rights bring with them responsibilities, and strict adherence to the law is a fundamental obligation of those who speak out in disapproval.

The U.S. Capitol is a sacred temple of our democratic republic and ought to be viewed as such, not a target for violence.  Period.  But a little historical perspective is in order in understanding how mob violence directed at official buildings is no monopoly of conservatives or Trump-supporters.

Just over two years ago, the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill was occupied by protestors seeking to block the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh.  See this video from MSNBC:

JUST IN: Anti-Kavanaugh protesters take over the Hart Senate Office Bldg. atrium on Capitol Hill. https://t.co/jCIbxhTKeu pic.twitter.com/DkOgzngMh4

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 4, 2018

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While a Senate office building is not the same as the Capitol itself, the occupants — senators and staffers — were just as intimidated as those who were caught in the Capitol yesterday.

And when it comes to a capitol building itself, the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison was taken over and occupied by protesters battling against right-to-work legislation opposed by government employee unions.

Photo credit: Joe Rowley, CC BY-SA 3.0 license.

The Wisconsin rioters did substantial damage to the state capitol, primarily with graffiti to the white marble.

At the time, I was outraged (as I am outraged by the violation of the U.S. Capitol yesterday), but the mainstream media did not use it as a cudgel to attack unions or leftists.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2021/01/07/kamala-harris-called-riots-a-movement-last-summer-said-they-should-not-stop-n1310640

Violence is never the answer to resolving conflict, but it’s hard not to see the hypocrisy of the left when they act surprised or condemn what happened at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday.

In June 2020, in the aftermath of the nationwide rioting following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, Kamala Harris even gleefully predicted that the rioting wouldn’t end, telling Stephen Colbert, host of “The Late Show,” that they shouldn’t end.

“They’re not going to stop. They’re not going to stop,” she told him. “This is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop. And everyone beware because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day and they’re not going to stop after Election Day. And everyone should take note of that. They’re not gonna let up and they should not.”