RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/the_realities_of_hate_speech.html

Language is the battleground for ideas.  Which words become common and which go out of style record the advances and retreats of competing beliefs.  People who use words as weapons understand that hijacking a country’s vocabulary is the shortest path toward claiming total control over a country’s thoughts.  In a war of words, what is forbidden from being said out loud is more important than what is allowed. 

Sometimes language bans are explicit, such as Ireland’s continuing crusade against so-called “hate” speech or Facebook’s policy directives to censor as “misinformation” any commentary questioning the effectiveness of COVID “vaccines.”  In other instances, certain words are stigmatized until populations learn to see them as “politically incorrect,” if not downright vulgar or taboo.  Whether enforced through official corporate policy, criminal statute, or polite society’s behavioral codes, the effect of limiting speech is identical: free expression is reduced to a verbal minefield.

Can I say that?  Should I say that?  Will I be punished for saying that?  Just asking those questions encourages a degree of self-censorship unpalatable in any truly “free” society.  If human innovation is a product of argument and debate, then any kind of debate that limits which words may be spoken also limits mankind’s capacity for discovery.  Stifled thoughts lead to closed minds.

A June poll from the Commonwealth Foundation in Pennsylvania found that nearly 60% of Americans feel their right to free speech has significantly eroded in the last decade.  Over 40% said that they or someone they know has self-censored during the last year to avoid punishment or harassment.  “We have heard from numerous individuals who are bullied into silence and fear retaliation if they speak,” Jeremy Samek, senior counsel at Pennsylvania Family Institute, told the Epoch Times.  “They fear retribution from their private employers, government employers, and even by those in the media.”  In the United States — where free speech was once considered as quintessentially American as baseball and apple pie — ordinary people are afraid to speak.  That fact should shock the sensibilities of any American who once believed totalitarianism died in the twentieth century.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19780/sex-trafficking-child-abuse-biden-administration

Currently, at least 85,000 children are believed to be missing.

“Whether intentional or not, it can be argued that the US Government has become the middleman in a large scale, multi-billion-dollar, child trafficking operation run by bad actors seeking to profit off the lives of children…. Realizing that we were not offering children the American dream, but instead putting them into modern-day slavery with wicked overlords was a terrible revelation…. They threatened me with an investigation. They… took my badge. It is a terrible thing when you blow the whistle to try to save children and you’re retaliated against for trying to help. The HHS [The United States Department of Health and Human Services] did everything they could to keep all of this silent.” — Tara Lee Rodas, testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, April 26, 2023.

“Over the last two years, this country has become an international hub for child trafficking. And the US government is behind it. Under Biden, hundreds of thousands of children have come into this country illegally. Once they get here, most are sold for sex, used for cheap labor, or forced to join gangs.” — Rachel Campos-Duffy, Fox News, April 26, 2023.

“In April 2021, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott learned of allegations of abuse of unaccompanied minors in a federal facility in San Antonio, he said, ‘The Biden administration is presiding over the abuse of children.’ He also called on the administration to shut these facilities down. Instead, the administration has only expanded them without communicating with state or local authorities. Local communities are not told how long the minors will be there, or where they will go when released and with no concern of the impact to local citizens. I am requesting that Congress launch a full investigation into the federal agencies responsible for approving the contracts for these facilities.” — Sheena Rodriguez, president of the Alliance for a Safe Texas, testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, April 26, 2023.

“The mass migration crisis instigated by the Biden administration’s misguided immigration policies has caused incalculable harm…. These migrants were enticed by these policies to… cross the border illegally, led by criminal smuggling and trafficking organizations, and enabled by government agencies and contractors…. The Biden administration has implemented policies that incentivize the illegal entry of unaccompanied alien children on a massive scale, to the profit of criminal smugglers and traffickers, even with full knowledge of the risks that such policies will endanger the safety and well-being of the migrant children. Some supporters of these policies have defended them on the belief that they are aiding the reunification of families, providing a safe haven from difficult living environments in their home countries, and even benefiting US employers. On the contrary, I submit that there is no possible rationalization for policies that have facilitated the abuse and exploitation of child migrants on such a large scale for so many years. There is no possible humanitarian or economic motive that could justify or make up for the damage that has been done to the victims by the smugglers, traffickers, abusive sponsors, and even family members who participated in these dreadful arrangements.” — Jessica M. Vaughan, director of Policy Studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, April 26, 2023.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described what is happening as “effectively the largest human smuggling operation in American history.”

“This is criminal… The FBI needs to be involved. They need to go find every single one of these kids — 85,000 or more — who are lost. The FBI needs to find them. We need to have an investigation by the FBI into the Homeland Security Department, into HHS to figure out who is facilitating these smuggling rings, are they deliberately not doing their job, are they deliberately or negligently turning these kids over to smugglers? We need to find out. The FBI needs to get on it and launch a full-scale investigation right now.” — Senator Josh Hawley (R- MO), Fox News, April 26, 2023.

“To solve the problem, Congress must change the immigration laws and rein in the executive policies that are incentivizing the mass illegal migration of both adults and minors.” What is needed is “more opportunity for state and local governments to investigate and penalize human trafficking and the illegal migration, human smuggling, identity fraud, and illegal employment.” — Jessica M. Vaughan, testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, April 26, 2023.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/what_is_there_to_be_said_about_jill_biden.html

What is the ultimate verdict on a woman like not-a-real-doctor Jill Biden? She has for at least four years now, with help from the malevolent left, been a willing party to the installation of her brain-addled husband into the Oval Office.  As his infirmities become more and more obvious to the global public, Jill and her accomplices in crime continue to pretend that Joe is sentient, capable of being the President of the United States, when everyone knows he is not. He is done; gone. And yet his handlers continue to use and abuse him as if he is some ventriloquist huckster’s puppet.  The man is an embarrassment on the world stage. 

Jill is primarily responsible for this crime against the American people.  She alone could have put a stop to what has befallen America since he was inaugurated.

We all know by now that the American left embraces cultural Marxism, the ideology that is meant to destroy the nuclear family, erase any sense of morality and all traditional Judeo-Christian values from the minds of the American people.  The Democrats will sign on to any scheme, no matter how absurd, if it furthers their agenda.  

They signed on to Biden when it seemed like Bernie Sanders might become the Democrat nominee in 2020.  They couldn’t have that!  Bernie would be too blatant a socialist candidate.  So, with help from James Clyburn, Biden it was; the most hapless, moronic and corrupt man to hold office for fifty years in Congress.  His reward for being exactly that, moronic and corrupt, was to fail upward, to be illegitimately installed as President.  And now, as a result of massive election theft, the ordination of the most incompetent, the most corrupt member of Congress, the man owned by China, Ukraine and perhaps even Romania, is our President.  He is the man that withdrew from Afghanistan in the most catastrophic pro-China manner possible, the man who on day one of his presidency opened our southern border to all comers, the man who has purposefully increased the ease with which the drug and sex trafficking cartels can operate within and without America with impunity. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-drudgery-and-danger-of-a-meritless-society/

EXCERPT

Singled Out for Merit

Today, if you attend a Little League awards banquet, the champions are given awards along with all others. Everybody receives an award for participation, much like what occurs in the larger society. Merit counts for little because the mentality today is simply participating, which means that you are worthy.

To hand out participation trophies is a sham; however, the same sham that’s taking place in many aspects of our culture. The Leftists among us are seeking to quash merit-based testing everywhere. Out with Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs), they’re racist. They’re sexist. They’re transphobic. Out with the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). Out with writing an essay to get into college. Out with letter grades.

So it goes into too many aspects of society.

Ah, but you and I don’t want to live in a meritless basic society. I guarantee that you don’t want to be operated on by a brain surgeon who went to a medical school where grades were not important. You don’t want to fly in a plane with pilots who have not proven both in testing and in flight simulation that they are fully capable.

You don’t want to drive over a bridge constructed by an engineer who went to a school where testing was deemed to be worthless or racist, or biased. We’ve come too far in human civilization to resort to a time when anybody could pick up a scalpel and perform surgery or where anyone could construct a bridge because in the early days, perhaps, almost anyone had to.

Credentials matter. Academic performance matters. Competence matters. Demonstrating one’s intellectual capabilities is among the vital signs that you’re being served by a professional.

https://nypost.com/2023/07/05/missing-biden-corruption-case-witness-dr-gal-luft-details-allegations-against-presidents-family-in-extraordinary-video/

The “missing witness” from the Biden corruption investigation, Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, has laid out his bribery allegations against the president’s family in an extraordinary video filmed in an undisclosed location while on the run. 

In the 14-minute recording, obtained exclusively by The Post, the fugitive former Israeli army officer claims he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence, and that they had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their benefactors from the China-controlled energy company CEFC. 

The self-proclaimed fall guy says he provided the incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice in a secret meeting in Brussels in March 2019 — but alleges that it was covered up. 

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life on the run . . .” 

“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda . . . I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal — only this time with China. Sadly, because of the DOJ’s coverup, this is exactly what happened . . .” 

Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft laid out his bribery allegations against President Biden’s family in an extraordinary video filmed in an undisclosed location while on the run.Luft claims he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence.AP

https://nypost.com/2023/07/04/san-francisco-moms-nannies-robbed-by-masked-teens-in-violent-spree/

San Francisco mothers, including a pregnant woman, and nannies are being targeted in violent, broad-daylight robberies at the hands of masked minors in the crime-ridden city.

Police have connected a group of teenagers to at least 11 such attacks last week in Noe Valley and nearby areas, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

The young suspects, wearing ski masks, allegedly pushed, and punched the female victims in order to steal their smartphones before escaping in a stolen runaway car, cops said.

One juvenile male suspect has since been arrested in connection to the string of robberies and police are searching for his alleged co-conspirators, the local paper reported.

The brazen crime in the affluent sections of the city has left residents on high alert.

The teens appeared to spare no mercy in the attacks, having victimized a pregnant woman and a person with a stroller in two cases, Noe Valley Supervisor Rafael Mandelman told the Chronicle.

One mother who asked to be identified by her initials CW for fear of retaliation, told the newspaper she was on her way to pick up her daughter from daycare last Monday when she was attacked.

She said she was pushing an empty stroller when a person in a gray ski mask hopped out of a car and knocked her to the sidewalk as he snatched her phone.

“I was shoved to the ground aggressively,” she said, adding that San Francisco police seemed reluctant to offer help.

A daycare worker who only provided her first name Laura told the publication that she too was violently robbed of her phone the same day while waiting for the train.

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/06/say-looks-like-that-supply-side-stuff-works-after-all/

Bidenomonics has been, and will continue to be, a disaster. This is what happens when lawmakers manipulate economies. No one should ever expect a different outcome when politicians enact ideas that they believe are so brilliant that they will overcome the laws of economics. The way out of this mess is to make a policy U-turn to both unleash the economy and expand precious liberty.

President Joe Biden last week bragged that his economic policies — straight from the Democrats blueprint that says “borrow, tax, spend, regulate, then do it all again” — are working. But as we’ve noted, Bidenomics has been a wreck, a flop that is taking us into a recession.

Not only did Biden openly boast as our sclerosis grows worse, he also, as Democrats always do, took a jab at “trickle-down economics,” claiming it has “failed the middle class … failed America … blew up the deficit” and “increased inequity.”

He probably would have blamed the Canadian wildfires on “trickle-down economics” had he thought about it. But there’s not much thinking going on in his head — and in fact there never has been, with his ungovernable mouth leading the way throughout his career as an elected grifter.

We don’t see Biden or any other Democrat ever coming around to supply-side economic policies, the correct terminology for what they sneeringly call “trickle-down economics,” which asserts that lower taxes and less regulatory meddling fuel economic growth. Yet they are exactly what our economy — any economy – needs, now and forever.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-jacksons-incredible-statistic-black-newborns-doctors-math-flaw-mortality-4115ff62?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Even Supreme Court justices are known to be gullible. In a dissent from last week’s ruling against racial preferences in college admissions, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson enumerated purported benefits of “diversity” in education. “It saves lives,” she asserts. “For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live.”

A moment’s thought should be enough to realize that this claim is wildly implausible. Imagine if 40% of black newborns died—thousands of dead infants every week. But even so, that’s a 60% survival rate, which is mathematically impossible to double. And the actual survival rate is over 99%.

How could Justice Jackson make such an innumerate mistake? A footnote cites a friend-of-the-court brief by the Association of American Medical Colleges, which makes the same claim in almost identical language. It, in turn, refers to a 2020 study whose lead author is Brad Greenwood, a professor at the George Mason University School of Business.

The study makes no such claims. It examines mortality rates in Florida newborns between 1992 and 2015 and shows a 0.13% to 0.2% improvement in survival rates for black newborns with black pediatricians (though no statistically significant improvement for black obstetricians).

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/05/lacking-unity-can-america-survive-our-growing-differences-ii-tipp-poll/

How are Americans feeling these days? Certainly not united. Our nation appears to be indivisible in name only. Even more surprising, a significant number of people have even begun to wonder if the United States of America as we know it will even exist in the future, data from the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

Starting with the Unity Index, the proprietary I&I/TIPP gauge of national harmony, we ask people each month if they feel our common bond remains. They are then given five possible responses: “very united,” “somewhat united,” “somewhat divided,” “very divided” or “unsure.”

For June’s national online I&I/TIPP poll of 1,358 adults, taken from May 31-June 2, just 24% of respondents declared that they felt the U.S. was “united.” Among that group, only 9% said the U.S. was “very united,” while 15% called it “somewhat united.”

But by nearly 3-to-1, 74% of respondents called America “divided.” Of those, 42% said it was “very divided,” while 32% termed it “somewhat divided.”

https://weingarten.substack.com/p/americas-censorship-regime-is-in?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Chilling revelations on the rise of feds’ Orwellian speech police

Imagine an America where the feds surge actual speech police wherever chatter on social media questions the integrity of the vote — speech police who then take to the airwaves to attack those making the claims.

If this sounds far-fetched, consider that last summer a national-security agency actually mulled the idea of deploying a “rapid response team” to local jurisdictions to help election officials fend off “mis-, dis- and mal-information”-related “threats,” including through communications — an idea one federal official called “fascinating.”

That revelation comes from a new report from the House Weaponization Subcommittee on little-known Homeland Security sub-agency Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — which as readers know was the focus of my Congressional testimony in May as the linchpin of federal government-led speech policing.

I wrote about that report in today’s New York Post, detailing the ways in which through both oversight and legislation action, the Republican-led House is working to defund and dismantle the regime.

My column comes on the heels of an incredible July 4th ruling from Judge Terry Doughty out of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.

The judge, who presides over Missouri v. Biden, the case that has blown the lid off the mass public-private surveillance and censorship regime under which Americans have been suffering, issued a temporary injunction on Independence Day freezing all federal government-led censorship efforts.