RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/john-kerry-not-in-chinas-lane/

One of the more appalling moments in a political career lacking much in the way to celebrate was the time when John Kerry appeared to shrug his shoulders at genocide. He had more important things to worry about, you see.

As a reminder (via the New York Post, November 11, 2021):

US special climate envoy John Kerry sidestepped a question about China’s use of slave labor during the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference on Wednesday, saying the issue was “not my lane.”

Kerry was responding to a query from a reporter who asked the former secretary of state if he had mentioned human rights issues — including Beijing’s “use of forced labor in Xinjiang for building solar panels” — during recent meetings with Chinese leaders.

“Well, we’re honest. We’re honest about the differences, and we certainly know what they are and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my lane here,” Kerry said. “That’s — my job is to be the climate guy, and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”…

Throughout his time as President Biden’s special envoy, Kerry has urged China to “be part of the solution.”

“Climate is existential for everybody on the planet,” he said in May. “We have to deal with it and because China is nearly 30 percent of all the emissions on the planet, China’s got to be part of the solution.”

The Chinese, however, do not seem to see things the same way. To the extent that they have invested in renewables, it’s either been as a business opportunity (and one that it has used to leave the West dangerously reliant on Chinese suppliers) or as part of the country’s current drive to a form of autarky.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ron-desantis-was-right-to-suspend-tampas-woke-prosecutor/

This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made another shrewd political move, showing why many Republicans think he is their best shot to win back the White House. DeSantis suspended Tampa’s woke prosecutor, Andrew Warren, for failing to do his duty and enforce the law. The governor didn’t just assert his power. He laid out a clear, detailed, substantive case for why he is suspending Warren from office.

DeSantis’s move was both smart politically and sound constitutionally (assuming the courts uphold his suspension). Let’s take the politics first.

Poll after poll shows rising crime is one of the country’s top issues, second only to inflation. What DeSantis’s suspension of Warren did was to make crime and punishment his own issue — one he was willing to act upon. That’s a big national story, not only because crime is so important but because Warren is one of many “Justice Democrat” prosecutors under fire for coddling criminals. Voters are fed up. They are tired of lax law enforcement and “soft on crime” prosecutors. They want safety and protection, and they want it done fairly, without excessive force or racial prejudice.

The public understands that governments have a core duty to protect citizens and their property. Local governments in particular are charged with shielding law-abiding people from criminals, thugs, thieves, and predators. They know that the best way to deter crimes tomorrow is to catch and punish criminals today.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/06/the-grasshopper-elite-and-its-enemy/

Many publications provide their writers with “style sheets,” a list of dos and don’ts with respect to things like diction, punctuation, grammar, and linguistic etiquette. My personal list of “dos” includes the Oxford comma (apples, oranges, and pears: that last comma is requisite) and, in most cases, using the singular masculine pronoun after collective nouns like “everyone” and “someone” (e.g., “Everyone likes to have his [not ‘their’] own way”).

Style sheet prescriptions (and proscriptions) can be more elaborate, and can affect substantive as well as stylistic matters. Over the last year or so, I have noticed an innovation, at once stylistic and substantive, that has taken root throughout the regime media. It is this: whenever referring to Donald Trump and the 2020 presidential election, be sure to insert editorial comments to the effect that any concerns about the fairness of that election are “baseless” or the result of “lies.”

I do not remember when I first noticed these little injections of partisan squid ink, but by now they are ubiquitous in the anti-Trump fraternity. Just one example: in a column Saturday about Donald Trump’s weekend rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, the writer claimed Trump “spent much of his speech focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election” (emphasis added).

To the writing teachers out there, let me ask: Would that sentence have been better—less obviously partisan, hence more persuasive—had the word “baseless” been omitted?

Or how about this bit from later on in the piece: “Trump spent much of his speech touting the accomplishments of his term as president . . . and promoting the lie that the 2020 election was ‘rigged and stolen’” (again, emphasis added). What do you think?

Or how about this: Trump was in Wisconsin “ostensibly” to stump for Tim Michels, the person Trump backs for Tuesday’s GOP gubernatorial primary, but he devoted much of his speech “focusing on his baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election.”

This last sentence offers connoisseurs of cant not one but two morsels to chew on.

Since 2016, we’ve questioned why rank and file, paper pushing regulatory agencies are arming up, i.e. HHS, VA, EPA, IRS, ED, etc.

Just who are these federal agencies preparing to battle? After grabbing legal power, federal agencies are amassing firepower!

GET THE FULL BREAKDOWN OF GUNS, AMMUNITION, AND MILITARY-STYLE EQUIPMENT IN THE RANK AND FILE FEDERAL AGENCIES.

FACT: There are now more federal agents with arrest and firearm authority (200,000+) than U.S. Marines (186,000)!