RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

“A modern American industrial strategy identifies specific sectors that are foundational to economic growth, strategic from a national security perspective, and where private industry on its own isn’t poised to make the investments needed to secure our national ambitions.”Jake Sullivan, National Security Adviser Brookings Institution, April 27, 2023

The presumption in Jake Sullivan’s words, quoted above, are astounding – that there is a, yet-to-be-named, “modern American strategy,” which identifies “specific,” but unstated, “sectors that are foundational to economic growth,” which are “strategic from a national security perspective.” But since the private sector has neither the means nor the foresight to “secure our national ambitions” (whatever they are), then it must be left to the public sector to decide how much and where to invest, decisions prior administrations from both parties have left to markets. Sullivan refers to this as Bidenomics. In reality it is central planning.

Greg Ip, in last weekend’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, wrote of Mr. Sullivan’s speech: “Sullivan’s target was what some in the policy world call neoliberalism: the free trade, laissez faire economic priorities shared by Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.” “Executive policy-making,” wrote Christopher DeMuth, a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, in the same issue, “has an ideological basis – that of ‘expertise,’ which holds that modern life demands government by expert administrators in place of amateur legislators.” When did Karl Marx replace Adam Smith?

Certainly, there have been times when government has had to take the lead – in times of war, in building the interstate highway system, DARPA, NASA, etc. But the concept that a state-mandated industrial policy is the wave of the future is to believe that Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. have brought to their people greater efficiencies, higher living standards, a cleaner environment, and greater financial opportunity and equality than the democracy and free market capitalism of the United States, and the West.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19725/donald-trump-lawyer

There are disturbing suggestions that among the reasons lawyers are declining the case is because they fear legal and career reprisals.

There is a nefarious group that calls itself The 65 Project that has as its goal to intimidate lawyers into not representing Trump or anyone associated with him. They have threatened to file bar charges against any such lawyers.

I wrote an op-ed offering to defend pro bono any lawyers that The 65 Project goes after. So The 65 Project immediately went after me, and contrived a charge based on a case in which I was a constitutional consultant, but designed to send a message to potential Trump lawyers: If you defend Trump or anyone associated with him, we will target you and find something to charge you with. The lawyers to whom I spoke are fully aware of this threat — and they are taking it seriously…. It may even be worse today….

Good lawyers… generally welcome challenges, especially in high-profile cases. This case is different: the threats to the lawyers are greater than at any time since McCarthyism. Nor is the comparison to McCarthyism a stretch. I recall during the 1950s how civil liberties lawyers, many of whom despised communism, were cancelled, and attacked if they dared to represent people accused of being communists.

Our system of justice is based on the John Adams standard: he too was attacked for defending the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre, but his representation of these accused killers now serves as a symbol of the 6th Amendment right to counsel. That symbol has now been endangered….

Trump’s lawyers have now alleged that one of the prosecutors has suggested to Stanley Woodward, the lawyer for Waltine Nauta, Trump’s co-defendant, that his application for judgeship may be negatively affected if he persists in defending Nauta vigorously rather than encouraging him to cooperate against Trump. If that is true – and I have not seen the evidence to support it – then it represents a direct attack on the 6th Amendment.

Whatever one may think of Trump or the charges against him, all Americans must stand united against efforts to intimidate lawyers and chill them from defending unpopular clients pursuant to the 6th Amendment. Bar associations must look into the threats and actions of The 65 Project and of prosecutors who try… to influence the representation of clients by threats to their careers or other means.

Hard cases may make bad law but partisan cases endanger constitutional rights. We must do everything to assure that all defendants, including Donald Trump, get the zealous representation to which the Constitution entitled all Americans.

Former President Donald Trump has now been arraigned and pleaded not guilty. He was represented by two lawyers, neither of whom he apparently wants to lead his defense at trial. He has been interviewing Florida lawyers, and several top ones have declined. I know, because I have spoken to them. There are disturbing suggestions that among the reasons lawyers are declining the case is because they fear legal and career reprisals.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/06/14/indict-walt-nauta-why-not-the-biggest-liars-first/

Walt Nauta is a 10-year-Navy veteran and served as an aide to former President Trump both in and out of office. 

Special Counsel Jack Smith has now indicted him for allegedly “making false statements in interviews with the FBI.” The indictment’s subtext is that Nauta refused to cooperate with, and turn state’s evidence to, the special counsel in its efforts to convict the former president. 

But why stop the indictments with a man who loyally served and followed the orders of the former president of the United States, was a Navy veteran, and a hard-working immigrant from Guam? 

Are there not far bigger fish to fry to remind Americans that justice is blind? 

After all, when Special Counsel Smith announced his indictments of Trump, he lectured America on the rule of law and the cherished notion that no one is above it. 

So let us start with the former interim director of the FBI itself, Andrew McCabe. 

McCabe admittedly lied four times about his illegally leaking sensitive information to witnesses and mishandling classified information. 

Have those crimes suddenly ceased being felonies? 

Or is it now the policy of the United States government that an FBI director can lie with impunity, and leak, and mishandle sensitive classified information? 

Yet Walt Nauta may be sent to prison while McCabe will continue to earn a fine salary at CNN as a paid “expert” to deplore . . . what exactly? 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/video-soros-son-boasts-about-meeting-with-vp-harris/

In this short video from Fox Business’ Varney & Co., Matt Palumbo — author of The Man Behind the Curtain — discusses the insidious influence of the Soros family on the Biden administration.

Don’t miss it!

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/06/15/if-youre-going-to-use-the-word-fascism-learn-what-it-means/

A couple of days ago, we posted a satirical piece, call it a sati-torial, with a list of headlines we’re never going to see. One of them said “Democrats Realize They’ve Been Using The Word ‘Fascist’ Wrong For Decades.” There’s a lot of truth in there. The way the political left tosses around that word shows that they have no idea what it means.

Or maybe they do. And they’re intentionally applying it wrongly because they’re driven by their depravity.

Either way, we’ve been hearing it for decades. And its use has accelerated in recent years along with the irresponsible usage of “white supremacy” and “white privilege.”

Exactly two months ago, Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Reich wrote a column for the loose-screw Guardian under the headline “​​The modern Republican party is hurtling towards fascism.”

The Independent, another British propaganda sheet, in 2021 ran the rantings of columnist Patrick Cockburn, who declared Republicans were replicating “the structure of fascist movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.”

In a bizarre speech last summer heavy with Third Reich overtones, Joe Biden said “the entire philosophy that underpins” Trump-supporting Republicans is “like semi-fascism.” His press secretary the next day said “It is very clear” that “what MAGA Republicans have done” fits “the definition of fascism.”

Years earlier, George W. Bush had “come to embody the f-word” – fascist – “for a whole generation of activists.”

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/06/14/trumps_indictment_and_the_collapse_of_confidence_in_our_institutions_149353.html

Democracies cannot thrive – and may not survive – when citizens lose confidence in their basic institutions. That is exactly what is happening in America today. This loss of confidence and a bitter ideological divide are our country’s most profound challenges. Those challenges form the essential backdrop for understanding the controversy surrounding Donald Trump’s indictment.

Before turning to the charges facing Trump, consider their larger political setting, which begins with any democratic government’s most fundamental responsibilities: preserving public order, ensuring its citizens’ safety, and applying the law fairly. The institutions charged with those responsibilities are crumbling at the local, state, and federal levels, and millions of voters on both sides of our gaping ideological spectrum know it. Each blames the other and accepts no blame for themselves.

This collapse of public order is painfully obvious in many major cities, where violent crime, massive organized shoplifting, and homeless encampments have become dangerous facts of ordinary life. Law-abiding citizens, the backbone of those cities, have found the quality of their lives declining.

They bear much of the blame themselves. They elected the district attorneys who refuse to prosecute serious crimes and so encourage even more. They elected the mayors and legislators who justify such rampant disorder under the heart-warming name of “social justice.” How do armed robberies, looting, and gang violence qualify as social justice? The same citizens stood silent as police forces were decimated by “defund the police” movements and a torrent of criticism from senior elected officials and political activists.

The results were predictable. The cops hired to “serve and protect” began to retire, without adequate replacements. Who wants that dangerous and thankless job? Many of those who remained on the force concluded that it was smarter and safer to sit in their cars than to pursue criminals. When they know the mayor and city council won’t offer support, why not remain in the squad car, await their pension, and retire early?

https://spectator.org/bidens-banana-republic/

It was amazing to see Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointed special counsel, Jack Smith, step in front of the cameras and say of the indictment of former President Donald Trump: “No one is above the law.”

Which is to say, Jack Smith looked the American people in the eye and straight up lied. It was the stuff of a banana republic.

Fact? Joe Biden, who did the same thing with classified documents as Donald Trump — and four times over — is not being indicted. He is above the law.

Fact? As Rep. James Comer’s House Oversight Committee is revealing, Joe Biden now stands accused of routinely accepting bribes from China to enrich his family. No indictment forthcoming. Because Joe Biden is above the law.

As the New York Post reports: 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has said the FBI has additional documents expanding on an informant file alleging President Biden participated in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme during his vice presidency.

Fact? Hillary Clinton broke the law in handling her emails. No indictment. Because Hillary Clinton is above the law.

All of which is to say that Biden, Garland, and Smith — with ex-FBI Director James Comey coming in right behind them — are four of the most corrupt officials to come down the pike in all of American history.

No less than the Wall Street Journal, no fan of the former president, correctly warns that: 

[H]is indictment by President Biden’s Justice Department is a fraught moment for American democracy. For the first time in U.S. history, the prosecutorial power of the federal government has been used against a former President who is also running against the sitting President.

https://tippinsights.com/deep-state-vs-trump-persecution-through-prosecution/?ref=tippinsights-newsletter

Friday marked a somber day for America as the nation crossed a Rubicon with the 37-count criminal indictment of former President Trump, making it the first-ever federal indictment of a former president in the nation’s history. Trump now faces a maximum sentence of 400 years in prison and a $9M fine due to the indictment.

Ongoing War

Americans must realize that there is more to this situation than meets the eye. The administrative state has been waging a war against Donald Trump, and Friday’s indictment is the most recent development in this ongoing conflict—a fresh offensive against Trump. The administrative state is torpedoing Trump with lawfare, aiming to break his resolve and force him to stand down from running in 2024.

The war actually began before the 2016 election, when the FBI initiated a counterintelligence probe called ‘Crossfire Hurricane’ without proper justification. Following the inauguration, the administrative state launched a relentless assault on the new president, who was a non-politician, through the protracted Russia hoax.

President Trump recognizes this.

At the CPAC 2023, he said: “I didn’t know that they want to lynch you for doing nothing wrong. I didn’t know they want to lynch you for doing a great job. I didn’t know they want to put you away because your poll numbers are better than anybody they’ve seen in years.”

Politically, Trump is winning. He is the frontrunner for the Republican party for the 2024 presidential race.

He is also winning in the game of optics. For example, the recent Durham Report disproved claims that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. The FBI and the DOJ looked terrible for perpetrating the hoax for nearly three years, and President Trump was vindicated.

Deep State And Media Are Terrified

The administrative state and its media partners are deeply terrified by the prospect of Trump’s potential return to the presidency in 2024. Their fear is palpable, and a few recent examples echo this deep-seated unease.

MSNBC’s Jen Psaki’s sit-down interview with Former FBI Director James Comey aired past Sunday.

Comey told Psaki, ‘Think about what four years of a retribution presidency might look like. He could order the investigation and prosecution of individuals who he sees as enemies.’