RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/beyond-woke-mark-tapson/

Like many other linguistic irritants the left has introduced into our cultural lexicon, “woke” has become a household term seemingly overnight. It is generally understood to refer to some kind of Progressive state of self-righteous enlightenment, but what is its origin? How and why does one become woke, and what, if anything, lies beyond this condition? What are the philosophical underpinnings of this social justice religion? If you want to truly understand it and not simply dismiss it with an eyeroll, you can hardly do better than to look to writer, philosopher, poet, and former New York University professor Michael Rectenwald. Few contemporary scholars have researched the left’s totalitarian mindset more deeply, and elucidated it so thoroughly, as he.

In January of 2018 I interviewed Michael Rectenwald for FrontPage Mag here about being outed as “the Deplorable Prof,” the man behind an anonymous Twitter account which he used to criticize the “anti-education and anti-intellectual” social justice ideology of his (at the time) fellow leftist academics. The subsequent shunning and harassment he endured from his colleagues and the NYU administration drove Rectenwald to declare himself officially done with the left. He later published a book about it titled Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and its Postmodern Parentage (which I reviewed for FrontPage Mag here) from the fine people at New English Review Press. The book is a must-read for understanding how identity politics has, as Rectenwald put it, eroded academic integrity and intellectual rigor in the American university.

Rectenwald quickly went on to publish another short but vital work, Google Archipelago: The Digital Gulag and the Simulation of Freedom (I interviewed him about that one, which you can read here). In this book he argues successfully that the “Big Digital” technologies and their principals like Google represent a new form of corporate state power and leftist authoritarianism.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/blackout-vs-white-fragility-daniel-greenfield/

White Fragility, a racist tract by Robin DiAngelo, a white leftist, has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of a million copies. It’s been praised by Democrats, assigned on Fortune 500 corporate reading lists, and DiAngelo commands speaking fees as high as $20,000.

Blackout by Candace Owens won’t show up at your local critical race theory seminar. The conservative activist isn’t welcome because she tells the truth about racism and its profiteers. Where DiAngelo has a  PhD in Multicultural Education from the University of Washington, Owens has a degree in experiencing real-life racism that the Seattle institution can’t offer.

Owens doesn’t have a Ph.D. in Multicultural Education; instead, as she writes of her childhood, she grew up as part of ”a family of six” in a “small, three-bedroom apartment within a run-down, roach-infested building” where “fistfights, police visits, and drama were commonplace.”

To DiAngelo, racism is about the experience of being white. Black people exist in DiAngelo’s world as objects, not subjects, casting light on the elemental evil of whiteness. To be white is to be racist, while being black means being the victim of white racism. Black people only matter as weapons in a struggle between white people over the meaning of race, nationhood, and justice.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/marsha_blackburn_explores_the_mind_of_a_conservative_woman.html

The Mind of a Conservative Woman by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is an insightful commentary for all women regardless of their political affiliation.  Blackburn delves into maintaining the traditions of family, freedom, faith, a free market, and respecting those with differing opinions. 

She exclaimed, “Nearly a decade ago, I wrote the book, Life Equity.  My literary agent told me I should write a second book.  I laid out the premise of the new book.  I thought how women in the public eye elevated to office told me that conservative women are treated differently than liberal women.  The mainstream media will elevate liberal women yet mock and diminish conservative women.”

Fairness is not always prevalent.  What the senator wants is an even playing field.  “In my book, there is a chapter where I discuss how the liberals want everybody to spout their talking points even if someone is not in complete agreement.  Some of the liberal women’s organizations sent an open letter to all of the newsrooms.  It explained how people should talk to a female vice presidential candidate — basically, what could and could not be said and how to approach them.  I fired off a letter to all of the signatories and all of the newsrooms, stating that this treatment should apply to all women.  Of course, I got zero response on my letter.”

The book encourages women to believe in themselves, think for themselves, and strive to be the best they can to succeed.  “When I would speak to groups of women, they would always tell me during a Q&A how they considered themselves independent, neither a Democrat or Republican.  They want to make up their minds about an issue by doing research.  I would ask them to consider the Constitution, rule of law, justice, equality, equal treatment, and to have government get off people’s backs.  I emphasized how I want to make decisions on education and health care for my children, not the government.  As I say in my book, no one should think that an American woman is too weak and stupid to handle their own life.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/09/revealed_the_shocking_full_extent_of_big_tech_censorship_of_conservatives.html

Allum Bokhari, the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News, has performed an extraordinarily valuable service by giving us his new book #Deleted: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election. While the social media giants’ efforts to suppress all dissent from their far-left, anti-American agenda have been going on for years, few people are aware of the full depth and breadth of this sinister initiative, or of how it is much more than just a bias toward the left, but a carefully planned and coordinated endeavor that, if left unchecked, will do nothing less than relegate our First Amendment right of freedom of speech to the dustbin of history.

In #Deleted, Allum Bokhari tells the whole shocking story. For those who don’t realize the implications of what is going on, he includes a Prologue entitled “The Typewriter That Talked Back” that is as amusing as it is disturbing, and that makes abundantly clear even to the most technically challenged among us what is really happening to our foremost and most important freedom, right under our noses. Bokhari paints a vivid picture of a 1968 in which a typewriter refuses to type, typing instead its own message: “We regret to inform you that your last letter violated our terms of service (Rule 32: Abusive & Offensive Content). We have suspended access to your typewriter for 24 hours.” Newsstands remove from sale magazines that third-party “fact-checkers” have deemed to be “fake news.” The Post Office returns your mail because you told a joke in a letter that a censor found offensive.

It’s all funny until you realize that all this is exactly what email providers and big tech censors are doing to Americans today, every day on the Internet. In the pre-Internet world of 1968, it would have been preposterous. Americans would not have accepted it. But it has all happened gradually, as we gave away our freedom by clicking our agreement to dense and unreadable Terms of Service that turned over our right to say what we believe to shadowy, anonymous guardians of acceptable opinion. Most Americans today are only dimly aware, at best, that it is happening at all, and those that are approach it with grim resignation. After all, what are you going to do? Start your own Facebook?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/was-russia-collusion-a-diversion-from-the-real-scandal_3435809.html

Was ‘Russia Collusion’ a Diversion From the Real Scandal? Deep-dive with John Solomon and Seamus Bruner, co-authors of the new book “Fallout”By Jan Jekielek

According to investigative journalists John Solomon and Seamus Bruner, co-authors of “Fallout,” the seeds of this scandal go back well before President Trump came into the picture, as far back as 2009—and directly involve the highest offices of the country.

This is American Thought Leaders 🇺🇸, and I’m Jan Jekielek.

Jan Jekielek: John Solomon, Seamus Bruner, it’s such a pleasure to have you both on American Thought Leaders.

John Solomon: Thank you.

Seamus Bruner: It’s a pleasure.

Mr. Jekielek: You [co-wrote] this incredible book, “Fallout.” I’ve been reading it. Man, is this a dense book—lots of facts, lots of information in there. You make an incredible connection in there. We’ll talk about this; we’ll dig in, but basically, you make the case that the Russia collusion hoax has its origins in the Obama administration’s mishandling of the Russia relationship. That would be one way to put it. Tell me more.

Mr. Solomon: I think the seminal moment for me when I realized that these events, going back from 2009 all the way to the president’s impeachment in 2019, were connected was when I had a dinner with a senior Clinton campaign official about two springs ago. I started talking about everything I learned about Christopher Steele, and he said, “Why do you think we did the project?” I said, “Well, I assume it was to dirty up Donald Trump,” and he said, “Well, actually it started much earlier than that.” [I asked,] “What does that mean?”

He said, “Well, we came into the 2016 campaign worried that Peter Schweizer’s book, “Clinton Cash,” or the Clintons’ cashing in on the Russia policy was going to be one of our liabilities, and we want to scare Republicans away from it. So we started researching people like Paul Manafort and all the figures that later came out in the scandal. We were just looking for a way to scare Republicans off from using Russia as an election issue.”

I started to think, “Oh my gosh. This isn’t what we thought it was. It was a neutralization effort to keep an issue off the table in the 2016 election. Then Donald Trump kind of plays into it, and then when Christopher Steele takes it to the FBI, it takes off in an entirely different direction. Is that what happened?” And I remember the aide looked up and down about two or three times and finally said, “Yeah, that’s what happened.” And so that gave us the inspiration to go back and say, “Well, what failed so badly that they felt like they needed to cover it up, or have a neutralization, or a stay away sign on it?” We put that story together. In the process of my interview, which Seamus didn’t even know I had, he digs up a document, and this document is extraordinary. It’s a document of the polling data. Why don’t you tell him what you found?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-russia-farce-continues-11600466740?mod=opinion_featst_pos3

“For the truly disgraceful aspect here is the efforts of people like Mr. Strzok, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (who calls the president Mr. Putin’s “useful idiot”) and others to label Mr. Trump a traitor because he insists on pursuing the policies he explicitly sold the American people. You don’t have to agree with Trump priorities but Mr. Strzok et al.’s method of disagreeing is slimy.”

Contrary to a media chorus, the Justice Department inspector general did not find the FBI handling of the Clinton and Trump cases free of “political bias.”

He found no “documentary or testimonial evidence” of such bias to explain actions for which “no satisfactory explanations” were offered. Obama appointee Michael Horowitz detailed at great length a series of chaotic, insubordinate and unprincipled acts by FBI bureaucrats navigating 2016’s treacherous waters.

One of these officials was Peter Strzok, as you know too well. All of us, even in modestly sensitive positions, are constantly reminded about compromising personal behavior on company networks. And yet, using an FBI messaging system, he not only conducted an extramarital affair with a colleague, not only engaged in prejudicial political banter, but did so while leading supremely sensitive FBI investigations into both major-party candidates in the middle of a presidential election.

His comeuppance was unsurprising and now he’s contributing, on behalf of Democrats, to a campaign to delegitimize the next election if their guy doesn’t win. CONTINUE AT SITE

From the phony Russia collusion narrative to the coordinated riots laying waste to US cities, it’s the same ongoing operation orchestrated by the left and targeting not just President Trump but hundreds of millions of Americans who revere their country and what it stands for. For the first time, crusading investigative journalist Lee Smith reveals who was responsible and the never before known involvement of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and senior military officials who engineered a coup against a sitting president.

Beginning in late 2015, political operatives, intelligence officials, and the press pushed a conspiracy theory about Trump-he was a Russian asset and spied on his campaign and his presidency in order to undo an election.

Because the ultimate goal of the anti-Trump operation is not simply to topple the president but rather to change the character and constitution of the country, the Deep State’s machinations didn’t stop even after Trump was cleared of charges of “colluding” with Moscow. Their efforts became even more fierce, more desperate, and more divisive, threatening to scar America permanently.

In their zeal to bring down President Trump, Deep State conspirators had unwittingly revealed the origins of the anti-Trump operation and exposed corruption at the very highest levels of the Democratic party-including former Vice President Biden and his boss, Barack Obama.

Lee Smith brings to this story the same incisive reporting and commentary that distinguished his runaway bestseller, The Plot Against the President. His investigation, identifying crimes and abuses committed by senior US officials, was later confirmed by a major Department of Justice report.

For The Impeachment Plot, Smith again enjoys unrivaled and exclusive access to the main players defending America and uncovering Deep State crimes-including Congressman Devin Nunes and the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

woodward-attack-says-trump-told-public-the-reality-of-what-was-going-on-n911707

Reports on Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book Rage have the usual suspects accusing President Trump of irresponsibly downplaying the COVID-19 virus. Trump being accused of downplaying the virus is nothing new.

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump said.

Trump’s critics have taken this to mean that Trump was misleading the American public about the severity of the disease—an allegation disputed by none other than Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

During an interview on Fox News on Wednesday, Dr. Fauci disputed the notion that Trump ever downplayed the coronavirus. According to Fauci, Trump’s public statements were no different than sentiments expressed during White House Task Force meetings.

“In my discussions and the discussions of other task force members with the president, we were talking about the reality of what was going on, and then we would get up in front of the press conferences … he really didn’t say anything different than we discussed when we were with him.”

“I didn’t really see any discrepancies between what he told us and what we told him in what he ultimately came out publicly and said.”

“Did you get a sense that [President Trump] was or wasn’t playing this down?” Fox News’ John Roberts asked.

“No, no, I didn’t. I didn’t get any sense that he was distorting anything,” Fauci replied. “In my discussions with him, they were always straightforward about the concerns that we had. We related that to him. When he would go out, I’d hear him discussing the same sort of things.”