RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/treasons-sibling/91966/

If we were President Trump’s lawyers — a stretch to be sure — we would be reading up on a Supreme Court case called Ex Parte Bollman. It centers on a conspiracy of treason in respect of Aaron Burr. A United States magistrate will today weigh whether to deny bail to the leader of the Oath Keepers, Elmer Stewart Rhodes III, on a charge — seditious conspiracy — that Harvard’s Laurence Tribe calls “treason’s sibling.”

Which is where Bollman comes in. It was the first treason ruling by the Supreme Court. Sedition is a lesser crime than treason, which the Constitution confines to levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Yet if Mr. Rhodes et al are convicted, they could spend decades in prison. And so, Bollman warns, could Mr. Trump.

Prosecutors’ intentions to ensnare Mr. Trump in seditious conspiracy charges emerged in court filings for a defendant named Brandon Straka. In Justice Department interviews with Mr. Straka, his lawyer says, “the government was focused on establishing an organized conspiracy” between Mr. Straka, “President Donald J. Trump, and allies of the former president to disrupt the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6.”

This suggests the intention of prosecutors to “reach beyond those who took part in the melee on Jan. 6 and seek to build a case against Mr. Trump,” along with “his allies who helped inspire the violence that day,” the New York Times last week observed. If so, prosecutorial efforts to prove that Mr. Rhodes committed seditious conspiracy will serve as a preview of coming attractions for Mr. Trump.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/biden-calls-fox-news-reporter-a-stupid-son-of-a-b-for-asking-about-inflation-impact-on-midterms/

President Biden was caught insulting Fox News reporter Peter Doocy on Monday for asking if he believes inflation is a “political liability” in the midterms.

“That’s a great asset — more inflation,” Biden responded on a hot mic. “What a stupid son of a b****.”

Biden’s comment comes weeks after a Labor Department report showed inflation increased at the fastest rate in 40 years over the last twelve months. The report showed that the consumer price index, a major inflation gauge, for all items surged 0.5 percent in December and 7.0 percent for the last twelve months ending in December, representing the largest annual spike since June 1982, when inflation hit 7.1 percent.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/01/24/ii-tipp-poll-americans-agree-mcconnell-pelosi-fauci-and-breyer-should-ride-off-into-the-sunset/

In a time marked by widening political differences across the country and growing ideological acrimony, it’s probably no surprise to anyone that politicians and other government officials have come under increasing critical scrutiny.

In a new I&I/TIPP Poll, we asked Americans which of four prominent public officials now making headlines should retire or leave office. Turns out, it’s all of them.

Poll respondents were asked the following question: “Should the following officials retire soon or continue?” People were then given the names of four major public officials: Republican Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chief Presidential Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci, and Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

All of those named, it should be noted, have come under intense public pressure from both political interest groups, activists and media pundits to either retire or resign.

Do ordinary Americans agree?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/saving-democracy-from-pandemic

COVID-19 has killed millions and threatened the prospects of democracy for billions more. Since early 2020, the world has witnessed a marked expansion of governmental decision-making regarding health. Lockdowns and curfews were instated in many countries, and many freedoms were taken away under the justification of a major health threat. Health authorities and politicians alluding to or exploiting health authorities acquired extraordinary power to regulate society at large, including the application of mandates. A Freedom House report found that democracy grew weaker in 80 countries during COVID-19, and that in 2020 the number of free countries reached the lowest level in 15 years. Countries that regressed included ones you’d expect like China and Belarus, but also democratic bulwarks like the United States, France, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The United States was listed as one of the 25 countries that witnessed the steepest declines in freedom. Even if the pandemic enters a less threatening endemic phase (as may already be the case in several countries), the legacy of authoritarian measures and mandates may leave behind a more enduring threat to democracy.

Several governments responded to the lethal pandemic by undermining the very systems that were in place to ensure accountability and to protect public health and well-being. No single individual can be blamed for this—it was a systemic problem, as decisions taken by one government or government agency instantaneously affected the decisions of others. But the result was the restriction of basic freedoms and the normalization of scapegoating and exclusion, both historically a prelude to atrocities. While some extreme actions were justified as efforts to achieve otherwise laudable goals (like increasing rates of vaccination), the attempt to isolate vast numbers of people while whipping the general population into agreement on aggressive public health policies probably damaged even these goals.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/no-biden-reboot-president-outperformed-liz-peek

Joe Biden is not about to pivot. No siree, no reboot for this president’s White House.

Biden is not interested in making any course corrections because, after all, he has, by his own modest estimation, “outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” Further, the president is convinced “we have made enormous progress” and everything is “getting better.”

That’s what he told the country during his recent press conference, which was an eye-opener. Turns out Joe Biden is either seriously delusional or utterly sequestered and misled by his team. Don’t take my word for it; read his own statements.

Addressing his White House’s effort to “shut down” the pandemic, as he promised to do, Biden said, “Am I satisfied with the way in which we have dealt with COVID and all the things that – that go along with it?  Yeah, I am satisfied.  I think we’ve done remarkably well.”

As to the performance of his embattled and unpopular vice president, Biden said of Kamala Harris: “I think she’s doing a good job.” Well, what could he say?

When asked how his administration’s report card might appear to voters as they approach the midterm elections, Biden said it “would look pretty good.”

That’s an interesting assumption, given that a new Politico/Morning Consult poll found 37% of respondents gave Biden an “F” for his first year in office, more than awarded him an “A” or “B.” A poll which, curiously, graded Biden worse that Donald Trump. For Biden voters, that’s the final ignominy.

But, as Biden declared during the presser, “I don’t believe the polls.”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/23/critical-race-promoters-are-more-odious-than-marxists/

Of late, Fox News has been hosting a series called “The MisEducation of America” featuring gatherings of critical race theory’s critics—such as Carol Swain of Vanderbilt University—focusing on the danger of teaching racially divisive versions of American history. According to Swain, a black professor of political science at Vanderbilt, forcing kids to do things like play games called “privilege bingo” are “a prime example of how CRT, has seeped down to K-12 education, and it disturbs students.” Further: “All of these critical theories with Marxist roots are destroying American education, and parents have to save their children. But they also have to work to save other people’s children.”

 Although the media and our universities may choose to ignore Swain’s complaint, she is actually understating the problem she and “MisEducation” host Pete Hegseth are featuring. I’m not sure I see “the Marxist roots” of the crusade against white people and their history in quite the same way Swain and Hegseth see it. We are indeed witnessing class warfare but not of the kind that Marx foresaw. It is a war being waged by white elites against the “basket of deplorables,” the predominantly white, working-class, and small-town Americans whom these elites hate and want to divest of human dignity. Similar conflicts are going on simultaneously in other Western countries, featuring equivalent social conflict.

In none of these cases do we find Marx’s appeals to the proletariat to rise up against those who control the means of production. In fact, we are witnessing exactly the opposite. An alliance of corporate capitalists, feminists, the LGBT lobby, and black race hustlers are directing their fire on the working class, which seems to be the least affected by the hegemonic ideology of wokeness. If anything, we are now looking at what Pedro Gonzalez has characterized as “the counterrevolution of the ruling class.” If Marxist theory, which supposedly is “seeping in” has any application, it would be as an analysis of how our elites are suppressing those they are stepping on and trying through increasingly vicious hate speech to isolate.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/01/23/wokeism-is-a-cruel-and-dangerous-cult/

Wokeism has been described by its critics as the omnipresent use of race—and to a lesser extent, gender—to replace meritocracy and thus ensure equality of result. What follows from implementing that ideology are reparatory actions to reward those of the present by atoning for the injustices done to others in the past. 

Some see it as an update of 1960s cultural Marxism fads. Others scoff that it is just a return to 1980s-style political correctness. 

Still more see it as the logical successor to 1990s-type race, class, and gender obsessions—albeit with a shriller and more dangerous Jacobin, Soviet, and Maoist twist. Wokeism’s hysteria also invites comparisons to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. 

But few have described wokeism as the cruel creed that it is. 

Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda. It is nihilist and destroys everything it touches. It tears apart foes and friends alike, whether by fueling media-driven hatred of Donald Trump or faux-deification of the disaster that is now Joe Biden. 

Woke’s Victims 

Defunding law enforcement and defaming police resulted in record numbers of murders in 12 U.S. cities. A wave of violent crime is even hitting America’s suburbs. 

Without much fear of arrest, indictment, conviction, and incarceration, emboldened violent career criminals for the past year have robbed, assaulted, and killed the innocent with impunity. 

The victims at the bus stop, the subway, or in the furniture store do not seem to warrant media or progressive attention, much less sympathy. 

They are the ignored—the unnamed, and the forgotten collateral damage from the grand experiment of redefining crime as a social construct. The guilty are the elite academics, activists, and billionaires like George Soros who are untouched by what they birthed.

We have all seen videos of the vast expanse of flotsam and jetsam strewn by train thieves along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Yet the Wild West mess is still more than just the concrete manifestations of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón’s unhinged efforts to excuse criminals from legal consequences.