RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/01/18/d-c-city-council-overrides-mayors-veto-of-criminal-justice-reform-that-would-lessen-penalties-for-violent-crime-n1662915

Washington, D.C. is in the midst of a violent crime epidemic, but that didn’t stop the all-Democrat city council from overriding Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto to pass a criminal justice reform bill that contains several problematic provisions, including lessening the penalties for violent crimes and allowing people charged with a misdemeanor to demand a trial — a move experts say will cause the D.C. court system to collapse under a tsunami of unnecessary and expensive trials.

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto argued, “allowing the veto to stand would be a significant step back in our work to modernize the criminal code, negating years of work, compromise, and engagement by the council.”

It’s true. The city council has been writing, debating, and massaging this bill for 16 years. But is that any reason to pass a bill if it’s bad?

Bowser’s objections were straightforward. “Anytime there’s a policy that reduces penalties, I think that sends the wrong message. That takes the focus off using guns or possessing guns, and I think that’s the wrong way to go,” Bowser wrote about her decision to veto.

Washington Post:

The bill would, among other things, eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, allow for jury trials in almost all misdemeanor cases, and reduce the maximum penalties for offenses such as burglaries, carjackings and robberies. Law enforcement leaders had expressed concern that it could burden an already stretched court system and would send the wrong message to residents at a time when the city is struggling with gun violence.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hunter-biden-laptop-denier-now-admits-emails-real-dont-let-him-get-away-with-it

Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director and former senior CIA operations officer, is back in the news this week. 

In an interview with The Australian, Wise admits that he and others always knew that the emails on the Hunter Biden laptop were likely genuine. It was a remarkable admission from one of more than 50 former intelligence officials who signed a letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 presidential election as likely “Russian disinformation.” 

Yet, Wise still maintains that, while true, he and the other officials were right to call it out as likely “disinformation.” Arguing that something is true, but still constitutes disinformation sounds a lot like . . . well . . . disinformation.

The infamous letter from the former intel officials (including such Democrat figures like John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, and Jeremy Bash) was used by the media to assure the public that there was nothing to see in the scandal. It was the perfect deflection in giving a cooperative media cover to bury the story of how the Biden family engaged in influence peddling worth millions with foreign figures, including some with foreign intelligence connections.

It worked beautifully. It was not until two years later that NPR, the New York Times, and other media outlets got around to telling the public the truth.

Now some of the signatories are trying to rehabilitate themselves. It is not hard. Figures like Bash have been rewarded for their loyalty. Others like Brennan and Clapper have become regulars on CNN to continue to give their takes on intelligence.

https://victorhanson.com/what-the-left-tells-us-about-the-left-part-four/

Police Killing of the Unarmed

Following George Floyd’s death, the Left went ballistic that the Washington Post of all places had found that unarmed black suspects were not necessarily killed in percentages higher than the percentages of blacks among the some 11 million who were arrested each year.

The distinguished Harvard University economist Roland Fryer (an African American) looked at police shootings in Houston and did not find that racial bias was a major factor in the use of deadly force.

The point, then, is that there is little data to suggest that white officers are systematically and inordinately lethally shooting unarmed black suspects. (Note that shortly after his research was published, Fryer was conveniently charged with sexual harassment—resulting mostly from off-color jokes—at Harvard and was put on leave by the university, and had his brilliant career essentially aborted if not destroyed.)

Videos changed the country forever on May 25, 2020. The smart phone clips appeared with a white Minnesota police officer with his knee on the neck of a black arrested suspect who later died. Autopsies (more than one) followed that variously suggested that either drugs or the deliberate use of the officer’s knee to obstruct Floyd’s breathing or both mostly caused Floyd’s death.

The major facts were mostly not in dispute: George Floyd, a career felon, who had been charged, convicted, and incarcerated for prior felonies, including a home-invasion robbery, during which he put a loaded pistol to the stomach of a pregnant woman, was arrested on reports he was attempting to pass counterfeit U.S. currency.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/17/the-garage-papers/

Classified documents have been turning up everywhere, even the garage where Joe Biden stashes his vintage Corvette. As Josh Hammer notes, the Delaware Democrat might have a problem.

Unauthorized possession of classified materials is a serious crime for obvious reasons. As vice president, Biden had no authority to declassify, conceal, or leak the classified materials now being discovered. This might be a sign that the deep state is going after their useful idiot, perhaps to make way for a different 2024 candidate. 

So far, veterans of the intelligence community are not shouting that the classified documents are only “Russian disinformation.” On the other hand, the sudden discoveries and appointment of a special counsel could be another whitewash. 

Special counsel Robert Hur, as Roger Kimball notes, is an “anti-Trump former Robert Mueller apparatchik and swamp monster of the tier-one level.” Nothing to see here folks, so shut up and shelter in place. Revelations pending, it is fully apparent that Joe Biden is a certified Clinton reenactor. 

Former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept reams of sensitive data on an unsecured home-brew server. When some 30,000 Clinton emails sparked interest, she bleached the server clean and smashed up phones and other devices. Clinton’s actions violated several statutes but the FBI never conducted a surprise raid in the style of their action against Donald Trump and his associates.

FBI boss James Comey, a longtime Clinton crony, contended that no reasonable prosecutor would pursue the case against Hillary Clinton. To the surprise of nobody, none did. That doubtless encouraged Biden, who may have recalled the experience of Samuel “Sandy” Berger, a Harvard law alum. 

https://dailycaller.com/2023/01/14/opinion-wokeness-is-slowly-hollowing-out-the-fed-ej-antoni/

Are you wondering why checking out at the grocery store these days feels like making a mortgage payment? This week’s four-decade-high inflation is a direct result of the Federal Reserve taking its eye off the ball over the last two years. Instead of focusing on its mandate of keeping prices stable, it has been more concerned with financing massive federal deficits and kowtowing to liberal ideology.

But now the Fed chair is claiming just the opposite.

Chairman Jerome Powell recently said in Stockholm that the Fed must avoid politics to maintain its independence, which is absolutely true. But it is the opposite of what the Fed has done under President Joe Biden.

Powell and other Fed members have routinely opined about climate change, diversity, equity and other left-wing talking points — all while they called inflation transitory. Powell opened Pandora’s box as soon as he jeopardized the Fed’s independence with these political talking points.

The recent change in tone from Powell would be welcome if it did not have the hollow ring of rhetoric behind it. The Fed chair rightly said, “Without explicit congressional legislation, it would be inappropriate for us to use our monetary policy or supervisory tools to promote a greener economy or to achieve other climate-based goals.” He continued, “We are not, and will not be, a ‘climate policy maker.’”