RUTHFULLY YOURS

amgreatness.com/2019/08/24/andrew-mccabes-unjust-deserts/

I was going to pass by in silent contempt the news that CNN—the network that patrons of airport lounges cordially dislike and that no one else watches—just decided to hire disgraced former FBI honcho Andrew McCabe as a commentator. He’ll fit right in, I thought, with other such mountebanks barking against Donald Trump not only at CNN but also at MSNBC not to mention The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other retirement homes for the anti-Trump fraternity.

But Andrew McCarthy’s column at NRO on Saturday reminded me that the case of McCabe is important. It says something critical not just about one of the most important players in (to cite the subtitle of McCarthy’s new book) “the plot to rig and election and destroy a presidency,” but also about some larger issues, which from one perspective might be said to turn on the task of guaranteeing the peaceful transition of power in a democracy and, from another, on the ambition of our justice system to provide (as the legend chiseled into the pediment of the Supreme Court says) “equal justice under law.”

As I have noticed before in this space, Andrew McCabe was a central player in the pseudo-investigation of Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified information and self-enrichment schemes while secretary of state. He was one of the people who made sure that the probe went nowhere.

McCabe was also a central figure in the get-Mike-Flynn operation and, later, the Great Trump Hunt that occupied Andrew Weissmann’s Howdy Doody dummy Robert Mueller for some two years. McCabe leaked information about an investigation to a Wall Street Journal reporter and lied about leaking in casual conversations with superiors as well as under oath. Yet he will soon be reporting for duty at CNN.

I was going to pass by in silent contempt the news that CNN—the network that patrons of airport lounges cordially dislike and that no one else watches—just decided to hire disgraced former FBI honcho Andrew McCabe as a commentator. He’ll fit right in, I thought, with other such mountebanks barking against Donald Trump not only at CNN but also at MSNBC not to mention The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other retirement homes for the anti-Trump fraternity.

But Andrew McCarthy’s column at NRO on Saturday reminded me that the case of McCabe is important. It says something critical not just about one of the most important players in (to cite the subtitle of McCarthy’s new book) “the plot to rig and election and destroy a presidency,” but also about some larger issues, which from one perspective might be said to turn on the task of guaranteeing the peaceful transition of power in a democracy and, from another, on the ambition of our justice system to provide (as the legend chiseled into the pediment of the Supreme Court says) “equal justice under law.”

As I have noticed before in this space, Andrew McCabe was a central player in the pseudo-investigation of Hillary Clinton’s misuse of classified information and self-enrichment schemes while secretary of state. He was one of the people who made sure that the probe went nowhere.

McCabe was also a central figure in the get-Mike-Flynn operation and, later, the Great Trump Hunt that occupied Andrew Weissmann’s Howdy Doody dummy Robert Mueller for some two years. McCabe leaked information about an investigation to a Wall Street Journal reporter and lied about leaking in casual conversations with superiors as well as under oath. Yet he will soon be reporting for duty at CNN.

AOC: Jeff Bezos started Amazon fire to ‘make billions in insurance fraud’

https://genesiustimes.com/aoc-jeff-bezos-started-amazon-fire-to-make-billions-in-insurance-fraud/

The feud between US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and businessman Jeff Bezos reached another level today as AOC blamed the Amazon fire on Bezos.

“The Amazon fire is so heartbreaking. And you look at who would profit. Well clearly the man who owns it: Jeff Bezos. He obviously started the fire to make billions in insurance fraud.”

Jordan Peterson: The deepfake artists must be stopped before we no longer know what’s real

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-deep-fake

Something very strange and disturbing happened to me recently. If it was just relevant to me, it wouldn’t be that important (except perhaps to me), and I wouldn’t be writing this column. But it’s something that is likely more important and more ominous than we can even imagine.

There are already common fraudulent schemes being perpetrated by both telephone and internet. One known as the “Grandparent Scam” is particularly reprehensible, first because it is perpetrated on elderly people who are, in general, more susceptible to tech-savvy criminals and second because it is based on the manipulation of familial love, trust and compassion. The criminal running the Grandparent Scam calls, or emails the victim, pretending to represent a grandchild who is now in trouble with the law or who needs money for a hospital bill for an injury that can’t be discussed, say, with parents, because of the moral trouble that might ensue. They generally call late at night — say at four in the morning — because that adds to the confusion. The preferred mechanism of money movement is wire transfer — and that’s a warning: don’t transfer money by wire without knowing for certain who is receiving it, because once it’s gone, it’s not coming back.

amgreatness.com/2019/08/23/the-lefts-three-rs-russia-racism-and-recession/

Long ago when I was young, the fundamental building blocks of education were “the three Rs”: reading, writing, and arithmetic.

Today, for the less-than-edifying Left, the basic brickbats of their 2020 campaign against President Trump also comprise three “Rs”: Russia, racism, and recession.

Tragically, among those suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, the most important “R” is missing. That would be reality. Consequently, the cudgels of their “three Rs” campaign likely won’t prevent another four years of the presidency that has been the bane of their existence. If anything, that campaign is likely to boost his reelection chances next year.

The first of the Left’s three Rs stands for “Russia,” specifically the notion that President Trump is a compromised Putin stooge who, along with his campaign, conspired with the Russian government to steal the 2016 presidential election.

Having run with this seditious myth for more than two years, until Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and his own congressional appearance wrecked the narrative, the Left quickly dumped the trope down the memory hole. Of course, for the more gullible Russia-gate dead-enders, the Left will tweak it every now and again to spur campaign contributions and voter turnout. For those who produced, perpetuated, and pimped this big lie—and who may well find themselves in legal jeopardy—the Left will only trot out the Russian-collusion scam for a broader audience on an as-needed basis, so as to provide a faux, affirmative defense for their potential malfeasance.

Sweden: Purchases of self-defense pepper sprays surge as rape crisis deepens By Arthur Lyons https://voiceofeurope.com/2019/08/sweden-purchases-of-self

Self-defense pepper sprays are selling like hotcakes as Sweden’s ongoing rape crisis seems to be getting worse, according to local media. During June and August, retailers and manufacturers of pepper sprays used for self-defense have reported a 90 percent increase in sales.

Unpacking the Tlaib and Omar Propaganda Tour Jonathan Feldstein
https://unitedwithisrael.org/unpacking-the-tlaib-and-omar-propaganda-tour/ 

Given the hate and malice, allowing Tlaib and Omar to come to Israel could have ended in any number of scenarios that would have created no less bad PR for Israel, perhaps much worse.

https://www.capitolhilloutsider.com/victims-of-islamic-delusion/

Repeated intense indoctrination of the children even changed the perception of some of the charlatan mullahs so that they, themselves, believed their own lies, took their own keys to Allah’s paradise and rushed to their death…

It is important to understand that the human mind is not a perfect discerner of the objective reality. It is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Similarly, it can be said that reality is in the mind of the beholder. The outside world only supplies bits and pieces of raw material that the mind puts together to form its perception—reality. Depending on the type and number of bits and pieces that a given mind receives and its already in-place data, its reality can be very different from that of another mind.

The more prescribed and homogeneous a group, the greater is the group’s consensual reality, since the members share much in common experiential input and reinforce each other’s’ mindset. Thus, members of a given religious order, for instance, tend to think much more similarly to one another than to members of other groups with different experiential histories.

Various approximations of the objective reality, therefore, rule the mind. The degree to which these approximations deviate from the larger group’s consensual reality determines its delusional extent and severity.

A narcotic mainliner, for instance, under the influence of the drug, may become convinced that a bug is burrowing under his skin. In his absolute, although clearly false, certitude of the reality of his perception, cocaine users are known to take a knife to their own body to dig the burrowing bug out before it has penetrated too deeply.

A methamphetamine user’s reality is often distorted in a different way. Under the influence of the drug, an intense paranoia overtakes him. His reality is dominated by the belief that one or more people are lurking about to harm or kill him. He may wield a deadly weapon, going from room to room, from closet to closet, in search of the assailants.

If you believe that a bug is camping deeply in your body, then you might go ahead and try to dig the non-existent bug out. If you believe that people are lurking around the house to harm or kill you, you go after them before they get you. If you believe that all the troubles of the world are due to the evil-doings of the non-Muslims who war against Allah, then you do all you can to fight and kill them, particularly since Allah tells you in the Quran it is your duty to do Quran so. (2:191-193) (3:151)

The drug-induced delusions are hallucinations. They are dramatic and usually transitory, while religiously-based implantation of ideas program the mind with lasting delusions.

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-

Earlier this week, my colleague, the wise and empathetic Carly Pildis, wrote a thoughtful and powerful piece about the political future of American Jews. In it, she argues that the Democratic Party, notwithstanding a handful of problematic and relatively inconsequential congresswomen, is still the most safe and welcoming space for Jews, while the president is guilty of rhetoric that is downright anti-Semitic.

It is in the spirit of Carly’s call for dialogue that does not shy away from unpleasant assertions that I would like to offer two observations about the political future of American Jews.

The first has to do with the unthinkable descent of the Democratic Party into being not just blind to anti-Jewish bigotry, but an engine of it. We can argue about when and exactly how this happened—I’ll leave the ultimate timelines to historians—but to keep things simple let’s connect only the most recent dots.

Shortly after Trump was elected, the left moved into resistance mode. The feelings here were entirely understandable—I myself found Trump’s election deeply worrisome. But, very quickly, the energy began to be channeled into causes and outfits with deep and clear anti-Semitic associations—including, most prominently, the Women’s March. Over the course of two years, the leaders of this organization sang hosannas to Louis Farrakahn, flagrantly used Nation of Islam as security, and used their influence to reframe Israel as the world’s biggest state criminal—quite a feat when you have such a calamity happening next door. Jews expressed their discomfort, but time and again were ignored—even told by some of their own leadership, by some of our own rabbis, that to want people in shared spaces simply not to foment vicious hatred of us was to selfishly “center ourselves.”

After Tablet published a 10,000-word expose, revealing that the Women’s March leadership was veritably soaked in hatred for Jews and Israel, some prominent people in the Democratic Party (though not all) finally felt compelled to distance themselves from these obvious bigots.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/the-four-sisters-of-anti-

Imagine The Squad  answering this question: What is your goal? Why the destruction of Israel and the death of your civilisation? The four congresswomen’s reply in unison. ‘Surely, you’re not so dim as to think we’ll ever stop’. Here is Rashida Tlaib on Twitter on August 16.

When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions. I can’t allow the State of Israel to take away that light by humiliating me & use my love for my sity [grandmother] to bow down to their oppressive and racist policies

Says it all really. Apparently, Congresswoman Tlaib didn’t win to faithfully represent the interests of those who elected her within her district of Michigan but to represent Palestinian causes, of which destroying Israel sits supreme.

Tlaib and Ilhan Omar were refused entry to Israel. This is because they actively support the iniquitous BDS campaign and provide aid and comfort to Palestinian terrorist organisations. A reasonable posture on Israel’s part, one would think, if one were rational. Unfortunately, rationality, along with its bedfellow common sense, is in meagre supply these days. So various idiots, including some Republicans, expressed disagreement with Israel keeping enemies of the state, intent on using their visit to assist in their wicked cause of destroying the state, out of the state. Just what was Netanyahu thinking?

Here is a clue. Imagine Britain allowing William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) to make a visit in 1943 to assist him in his propaganda efforts when back in Germany. No, that didn’t happen, instead the British captured him in 1945 and hanged him in 1946. Hmm. A terrible idea has entered my head which, out of Christian charity, I’ve dismissed out of hand.

amgreatness.com/2019/08/21/minorities-dont-believe-trump-is-a-racist/

Led by the queen bee New York Times, where the woke clichés are endless, the hive of drone-level leftists in the media and the Democratic Party are easily pivoting from the Russian collusion hoax to the next one: “white supremacism!”

As normal people try to evaluate this latest round of charges, it’s worth remembering one critical and universal characteristic shared by genuine white supremacists: They proudly proclaim their beliefs; they aren’t shy about them.

A political enemy should never be deemed a reliable authority about whether his opponent subscribes to noxious bigotry. One can hardly claim that Elizabeth Warren (to give just one example) is speaking from personal knowledge when she assigns the president the “white supremacist” label. Warren has a bad track record as an honest broker of race issues. She famously and unsuccessfully sought to enlist Native American outrage over Trump nicknaming her “Pocahontas,” as he jeered at her false claims of Cherokee ancestry.

It doesn’t matter that the president repeatedly has condemned political violence and racism. The Left and the media repeatedly twist and distort his words into vile racial epithets. Consider the common mischaracterization of his remarks at Charlottesville where the media is relentless in insisting that the “very fine” people Trump acknowledged there were the Neo-Nazis, people he explicitly condemned. The whole  “very fine people” hoax has been debunked thoroughly.

Recall, too, that Trump allegedly told members of Congress to “go back to where they came from.” In truth, he merely (and sarcastically) told them to share their supposed good policy ideas with the governments of their countries of origin—not that they should leave the U.S. permanently. He specifically added that they should “come back and show us how it is done.”

How is it possible that an alleged white supremacist president could draw “record support” from African Americans?

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/insight/

The crocodile tears for Tlaib’s grandmother on on the West Bank were supposed to make Israel look bad. For anyone even marginally aware of the history of the Israel, the territories and relationship among them, it won’t work. But watch out – this, not facts and objective judgments – will continue to be the line of attack against Israel. We have to be prepared to see through the maudlin handkerchief twisting. S.B.

Rashida Tlaib was in tears over the conditions in which her grandmother lives in the West Bank, and furious that her mother, an American citizen, was forced to go through a “checkpoint” from Israel once in order to visit her. “As a young girl, visiting Palestine to see my grandparents, I watched as my mother had to go through dehumanizing checkpoints — even though she was a United States citizen and proud American.” She was so sad. Teary. Emotional. Distraught.

In light of that …

Is it insensitive to point out that international Arab wars in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, terror wars (so-called intifadas) in 1989 and 2001, and rocket wars in 2006, 2009, and 2014 have all been started by Arab states or Palestinian leaders against the state of Israel with the intention of destroying it?

It is, perhaps, rude to point out that in the 1949 war of annihilation he declared on Israel, the King of Jordan scooped up the territory that had been allocated for a Palestinian-Arab state. It’s probably uncharitable to mention that he annexed the Palestinian-allotted territory in a move recognized only by Great Britain and Pakistan, but no one did anything about it. And pitiless to mention that Tlaib’s grandmother was thus illegally occupied from 1949 – 1967. By Jordan. And thick-skinned, perhaps, to point out that Israel only entered the Palestinian picture when the Jordanian King — in a mind-bogglingly stupid moment — entered 1967’s Six-Day War on the fourth day and managed to lose all of his illegally held possessions.

And given what Ms. Tlaib considers to be her grandmother’s suffering, it seems hardhearted to point out that there were no checkpoints during the Jordanian occupation because no Israeli person — no Jewish person — ever passed from Israel into Jordanian-held Jerusalem at all between 1949 and 1967. No Jewish person could pray at the holiest of Jewish sites and 58 synagogues on the eastern side of the city were dynamited and destroyed. And no Jordanian or Palestinian person was permitted by Jordan to pass from Jordan into Israel during that period for work, medical care, or school.

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/466795-celebrity-expert-americans-opinion/
FROM DPS

Americans are blessed to have a plethora of benevolent celebrities who are willing to share their infinite knowledge and wisdom with them.

After a thorough examination by a team of top-notch doctors, I was recently given some very disturbing news… I was diagnosed with an acute case of stage 4 platonic celebriphilia. In case you don’t know, celebriphilia is a disease where the afflicted have an abnormal and overwhelming adoration of celebrity.

My medical team, which includes Dr Phil, Dr Drew and Dr Oz, tells me that the symptoms of celebriphilia include feeling a false sense of familiarity and intimacy with celebrities which leads to the afflicted projecting an inordinate amount of inappropriate intelligence, wisdom and expertise upon celebrities.

Also on rt.com ‘Russians killed Epstein’: Go home everyone, Alec Baldwin is on the case

My celebriphilia first manifested itself a few years ago when Academy Award-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow created her “lifestyle brand” Goop. Through Goop, Gwyneth sold new-age, alternative therapies and devices at exorbitant prices, including “vaginal eggs” that were meant to be inserted into the vagina in order to aid “hormonal balance, and feminine energy.”