RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://victorhanson.com/23776-2/

And on the pedestal these words appear:“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”

I say America is in serious trouble because the Left has attacked systematically all of the U.S.’s great strengths and advantages on the world stage. It apparently thinks it must dismantle the old America before it can create a “new” America, something like a European Union state, only far more radical and volatile.

One, we were the only multiracial constitutional state that had avoided the tribalism and violence of the Balkans, a Rwanda, or the Middle East. Europe, for all its public grandstanding about ecumenicalism, has yet to have a black president or prime minister. The idea that a Barack Obama could become a Russian or Chinese citizen and reach similar pinnacles of political power is absurd. (And for that matter, include Mexico and much of Asia and Latin America.)

Yet race relations in the U.S. are at a historic low. More than 50 years of affirmative action have morphed into woke extremism, or the idea of racially separate graduations, dorms, workshops, and safe spaces. When working out, keeping a reasonable weight, camping, or showing up on time are now deemed racist, then there really is no more Civil Rights movement which has instead descended into caricature.

The more minorities reached parity with, or exceeded the income of, the majority population, the angrier and more volatile racial relations became. The operative principle seems to be something like “Before we can have racially blind relations in the 21st century, we must first make up for the racism, largely in the South, of the prior two centuries by similarly fixating on race, but in reverse fashion of granting preference to nullify past bias.”

No one dares talk about the violence of the inner city that makes 19th-century Dodge or Tombstone seem tame in comparison. No one discusses the utter failure of the inner-city schools or the need for intact families and omnipresent fathers to ensure any chance at parity. Instead, there is apparently the notion that if blacks appear in 50 percent of television commercials, such ecumenicalism will magically either curb gunslinging on Saturday nights in Chicago, or improved math scores in the Detroit or Baltimore public schools.

Why do we obsess over the supposedly suggestive illiberal themes of Jason Aldean’s, “Try That In a Small Town,” when rap and hip-hop for decades have institutionalized violent misogyny, homophobia, violence against the police, anti-Semitism, and blanket anti-white lyrics?

Orwellian censorship, coupled with deplatforming, cancel-culture, ostracism, and shadow banning, make any reasonable discussion of race taboo. The Left—instead of the old 1960s agenda of integration and assimilation—leveraged race and tribalism to create permanent constituencies, nursed on grievance and victimhood, and expectant of endless government redress and largess.

https://victorhanson.com/two-sets-of-laws-for-two-americas/

Two sets of laws now operate in an increasingly unrecognizable America.

Consider the matter of unlawfully removing and storing classified papers.

Donald Trump may go to prison for removing contested White House files to his home.

So far Joe Biden seems exempt from just such legal jeopardy.

But as a senator and Vice President with no right, as does a president, to declassify files, Biden removed and, as a private citizen kept for years classified files in unsecure locations.

Biden’s team strangely revealed the unlawful removals after years of silence.

It did so because the Biden administration found itself in the untenable position of prosecuting the former president for “crimes” that the current president committed as well—albeit far earlier and longer.

Impeachable phone calls?

Donald Trump was impeached by a Democratic House for delaying foreign aid until the Ukrainian government guaranteed that Hunter Biden and his family were no longer engaged in corrupt influence peddling in Kyiv.

In addition, the Left charged that Trump was targeting Joe Biden, his possible 2020 rival.

Yet Biden, with impunity, bragged that he had fired a Ukrainian prosecutor looking into his own son’s schemes by promising to cancel outright American foreign aid.

And the Biden administration’s Justice Department is now targeting Trump, currently the frontrunning challenger to Biden in 2024.

Election denialism?

https://www.thefp.com/p/a-racist-smear-a-tarnished-career-suicide?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Kike Ojo-Thompson, a diversity trainer in Toronto, was explaining to her class of 200 or so public school administrators that Canada is a much more racist country than the United States.

“Canada is a bastion of white supremacy and colonialism,” Thompson said to a sea of nodding heads squeezed into Zoom. “The racism we experience is far worse here than there.”

It was April 26, 2021, and Thompson was leading attendees through a session on systemic inequity.

Thompson acknowledged that this might be hard for Canadians to accept, explaining that Americans “have a fighting posture against, at least, the monarchy. Here we celebrate the monarchy, the very heart and soul and origins of the colonial structure.”

It was at that point that Richard Bilkszto, the principal of Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute and Adult Learning Centre, put his hand up. (Burnhamthorpe is a high school that caters mostly to students in their twenties who previously dropped out.) Bilkszto had trained in the United States, he was a devout progressive, and he was mystified by Thompson’s comments.

“I just wanted to make a comment about the Canada–U.S. thing, a little bit of a challenge to it,” Bilkszto offered.

Listen to Kike Ojo-Thompson’s claims about Canada in the DEI session here:

And Bilkszto’s challenge to her claims here:

Citing Canada’s public schools, tax regime, and socialized healthcare system, and no doubt drawing on his own experience teaching in a predominantly black high school in Buffalo, New York, he said: “We’re a far more just society.”

There was a momentary silence. None of the other attendees waded in.

Then Thompson, who is black, laced into Bilkszto, who is white.

“What I’m finding interesting is that, in the middle of this Covid disaster, where the inequities in this fair and equal healthcare system have been properly shown to all of us. . . you and your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on with black people—like, is that what you’re doing, ’cause I think that’s what you’re doing, but I’m not sure, so I’m going to leave you space to tell me what you’re doing right now,” she said.

Bilkszto shut up.

That seemed like the end of that.

In fact, it was just the beginning of Bilkszto’s harrowing, two-year descent into an ordeal of public shaming and isolation that ended only when he took his life last month.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/08/02/fbi-finds-200-victims-in-two-week-child-exploitation-operation-n1715567

Soon after mainstream media mocked anti-child trafficking movie “Sound of Freedom” as a QAnon conspiracy theory, a report has come out that the FBI found 200 sex trafficking victims and over 125 suspects during just a couple weeks of a child exploitation operation. Indeed, child exploitation is a severe and increasing problem, not a conspiracy theory.

Libs of TikTok provided a nice visual of multiple leftist outlets that denigrated or scoffed at “Sound of Freedom’s” exposé of child sex trafficking, from NPR to Rolling Stone to CNN:

Stopping child trafficking and exploitation shouldn’t be a politically partisan or divisive issue.

Related: Advisor: Trump Will Reinstate Title 42 to Fight Child Trafficking on Day One

Of course, the problem of child sex trafficking is anything but a “QAnon” “fantasy fit,” despite what the mainstream media claimed. And the latest confirmation of this sobering truth is a report that the FBI found 200 sex trafficking victims and over 125 suspects during just two weeks of a child exploitation operation, “Operation Cross Country.”

NBC News reported Tuesday:

The FBI found 200 sex trafficking victims and more than 125 suspects during a two-week child exploitation operation in July, federal officials said Tuesday…

The FBI-led initiative in partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) “focused on identifying and locating victims of sex trafficking and investigating and arresting individuals and criminal enterprises involved in both child sex and human trafficking,” federal officials said.

This work should be a major priority for the federal government. Instead, the Biden administration’s disastrous border policies are actually facilitating trafficking!

The Asservo Project’s Joe Sweeney, who rescues victims of child exploitation and educates children and adults about the problem, noted in recent exclusive comments to PJ Media that the rise of social media exponentially exacerbated the problem of child exploitation. “This [human trafficking] is a global humanitarian crisis of modern-day…currently it’s over 50 million people…that are believed sold into slavery globally, boasting a $150 billion enterprise,” Sweeney told me. He also said, “The United States is the biggest consumer — and producer, at times — of child pornography in the world.”

That’s very disturbing. How did a country that was founded on the principle of liberty become a major fueler of the child exploitation crisis?

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/08/elites_cannot_hide_from_the_consequences_of_their_actions_.html

In classical Greek mythology, hubris is a fatal flaw that inevitably leads to tragedy.  No matter how admired the hero, any mortal who dares to behave like a god is punished in the end.  Mankind never seems to learn this lesson.

The “elites” of every generation delude themselves into believing that they are superhuman and inherently different from those they consider beneath them.  They are not.  Whatever afflicts ordinary people will eventually come for those who build extravagant sanctuaries intended to rival Mount Olympus.

No “elite” ideology has caused as much suffering as communism for a simple reason: it is a false doctrine that feeds on hubris.  “Communism begins where atheism begins,” Marx wrote.  It permits “elites” to deify themselves.  Because of that delusion, it remains a “spectre” that still “haunts” the world.  

Wherever Marxism has reared its ugly head, it ultimately brings death and desolation.  Wherever communist “elites” believe that they can rule over a land of peasants while remaining safe and secure behind castle walls, those barriers eventually prove as fragile as any Potemkin village constructed from empty promises and outright lies. 

No matter how many hundreds of millions of lives socialism and communism have destroyed, Western “elites” remain enamored of Marxism.  Any system that eliminates private property for all but the aristocratic few and cultivates a slavish devotion to the State is attractive to arrogant human beings who believe it is their birthright to control others.

The “spectre of communism” haunting the world today comes in the form of the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” or the United Nations’ planned technocratic tyranny.  It exists wherever one group of “experts” believes it has the moral prerogative to tell everyone else how to live and what to do.  Vladimir Lenin argued both that “medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism” and that the “establishment of a central bank is ninety percent of communizing a nation.”  Together, central banks and global health authorities are the gateway drugs for communism.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/08/03/anything-democrats-dont-like-is-now-a-threat-to-democracy/

When a handful of Democrats introduced a bill to impose a progressive wealth tax on millionaires and billionaires, they didn’t just say that income inequality was bad. They called it a threat to democracy. Apparently, anything and everything the left doesn’t like is now a threat to democracy.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib, Barbara Lee, Summer Lee, and Jamaal Bowman – four of the most far-left lawmakers in Congress – introduced the OLIGARCH Act (we won’t bother spelling out the acronym) to “tax extreme wealth, reduce inequality, and combat the threat to democracy posed by billionaires.”

“The bill ensures accountability and is an effort to restore democracy,” the press release states.

Tlaib says “billionaires are threatening our democracy.” Not to be outdone, Barbara Lee calls them a “major threat to democracy.”

How exactly do the rich threaten Democracy?

Summer Lee claims that “the 400 richest Americans have 22,000 times the political influence of the bottom 90%” – citing the conclusion of one research paper published 14 years ago.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-lefts-poison-of-accusation

Among all the instances of elite projection and cynical opportunism over the past few years—the censoring Left sees fascism everywhere; the concept of systemic racism offers a blessed distraction from the purges of #MeToo; the agenda-driven media deplores Donald Trump’s bending of the truth—Joe Biden’s demagoguery has got to be the most glaring. It’s bad enough that the self-appointed savior of indebted students is the same man who, as a U.S. senator from Delaware, was instrumental in passing legislation that made it impossible for students to discharge student debt through bankruptcy; Delaware, after all, is where the credit-card empires have their headquarters. Now we have Biden decrying the country’s “divisions,” even as he multiplies them himself. He has gone from disdainful opponent of busing—Biden in 1975: “I oppose busing, it’s an asinine concept”—to bold defier of “Jim Crow 2.0.”

The latest example of truth-bending and rabble-rousing comes from deputy White House press secretary Andrew Bates. Bates was responding to a comment by Greg Gutfeld, a Fox News host who was discussing a section in the Florida Standards for Teaching Black History that addresses, as the Standards state, “various duties and trades performed by the slaves.” The Standards advise teachers to instruct students in “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Referring to Viktor Frankl’s classic work on the Holocaust, Man’s Search for Meaning, Gutfeld said, “Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful. Utility! Utility kept you alive.”

The Biden White House/campaign apparatus leaped. Bates thundered to CNN: “What Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday—and has so far failed to condemn—is an obscenity. In defending a horrid, dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of Americans who suffered from the evil of enslavement, a Fox News host told another horrid, dangerous and extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust. Let’s get something straight that the American people understand full well and that is not complicated: there was nothing good about slavery; there was nothing good about the Holocaust. Full stop. Americans deserve to be brought together, not torn apart with poison.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/08/the-case-for-a-special-counsel-to-investigate-the-bidens/?utm_source=recirc-

To save the DOJ’s rapidly deteriorating reputation, it is high time for Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel.

Consider this clarion call for a special counsel:

There are certain extraordinary moments of crisis when the people’s faith in the integrity and independence of their elected officials is caused to waiver [sic]. These scandals tarnish the view that the Attorney General is an independent executive official who can be trusted to enforce the criminal law in the high offices of the government. To restore the utmost public confidence in the investigation of criminal wrongdoing by high-ranking government officials, the appointment of a special prosecutor then becomes necessary.

It did not come from Senator Charles Grassley or Representative James Comer, even though both men continue to diligently investigate allegations that Biden administration appointees either slow-walked or interfered with Justice Department probes into Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes. Nor did it come from Republican presidential-primary candidates who have called for a special counsel after the collapse of Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal, apparently designed to grant immunity from very serious felony charges.

No, the above quote comes from President Biden himself, in a 1987 article in the North Carolina Law Review defending independent counsels, who at that time possessed far more powers than do today’s special counsels. Writing as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden argued that the executive branch could not be trusted to investigate and prosecute its own members. Instead of allowing DOJ to conduct such investigations, he argued, Congress could override the normal separation of powers and create independent prosecutors with unlimited budgets and no accountability

Biden strongly supported the appointment of an array of special prosecutors to investigate those involved in the Iran–Contra scandal — cabinet members, DOJ officials, and even expanding to include Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In a January 1987 interview, Biden stated that the Reagan DOJ, “at a minimum, gives the appearance of attempting to prevent certain information from coming to the fore,” and that, at worst, “someone tried to actively suppress an investigation.” In 2003, Biden and other Democratic senators sent a letter to President George W. Bush demanding a special counsel in the leak case involving CIA officer Valerie Plame. “We do not believe that this investigation of senior administration officials, possibly including high-level White House staff, can be conducted by

On Tuesday, the Biden Administration deliberately chose to not refill the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR) after depleting it to combat a surge in gas prices last year.

According to the Daily Caller, the report from Bloomberg said that the administration considered it to be “too expensive” to refill the vital reserve supply, as the current price of a barrel of oil is roughly $80. The SPR is still at a record low level after Biden released at least 180 million barrels in 2022, in an effort to reduce historically high gas prices prior to the 2022 midterm elections.

“The [Department of Energy (DOE)] remains committed to its replenishment strategy for the SPR, including direct purchases when we can secure a good deal for taxpayers; exchange returns; and cancellation of planned sales where drawdown is unnecessary, in coordination with Congress,” a DOE spokesman said in a statement.

The Biden Administration had previously said it would consider buying back oil to replenish the SPR once the average barrel price falls between $62 and $72, but the average price has instead been on the rise in recent months. On Tuesday, the price of Brent oil crude futures closed at $85.

The decision on Tuesday marked the fourth round of bids to refill the SPR, a crucial reserve supply that had previously only been meant for emergencies such as wartime. Biden’s decision to raid the SPR for the simple purpose of reducing domestic gas prices, so that he and his party would not suffer the consequences in an election, was widely criticized.

DOE Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in July that the Biden Administration would seek to refill the SPR, but admitted that the task may have to wait for a second term.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-invites-kamala-harris-to-florida-to-settle-benefits-of-slavery-drama/

Florida governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday invited vice president Kamala Harris to Florida to debate her claims that the Sunshine State’s history curriculum endorses slavery.

“Over the past several weeks, the Biden administration has repeatedly disparaged our state and misinformed Americans about our education system,” the 2024 GOP candidate wrote in the letter.

Harris and other Democratic politicians have accused Florida’s  African American history curriculum of teaching that “enslaved people benefited from slavery.” Teachers’ union, the Florida Education Association, and the NAACP branded the standards “an attempt to bring our country back to a 19th century America where Black life was not valued, nor our rights protected.”

The curriculum includes 191 lessons emphasizing the punitive nature of slave codes, the economic undercurrents of the slave trade, as well as the post-abolition era of segregation and racism. Behind progressives’ hysteria, however, is one item instructing junior-high-school classrooms to “examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).” An appended “Clarification” adds that students should consider “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Harris tweeted last week that “extremists” in Florida erased African-American history. She then announced she’d visit Jacksonville, where she delivered remarks blasting the standards. DeSantis asked her to come back for another visit to settle the misunderstandings around the curriculum.