RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/04/17/portlands-controlled-demolition-into-dystopia-may-be-unrecoverable-thanks-to-george-soros-and-dumb-voters-n1687820

You can’t say Portland had good intentions because they should have known that what they were trying to do wouldn’t “solve” the drug and homeless problems in the metro areas. Free-wheeling drugs and government tents have never worked anywhere they’ve been tried. Never. Not in San Francisco, not in Los Angeles, not in San Diego, and not in Seattle. But the we’re-smarter-than-you set just threw millions more at it, ignoring that Portland doesn’t just have a homeless problem; it’s got a drug problem. And predictably, things are worse.

Oregonians can blame their “progressive” leaders, George Soros, and the voters staring back at them in mirrors for this mess.

The governmental equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle — state progressives, Multnomah county actors, and Portland activists — have worked together to dispirit the people through their lawlessness, destroy their once beautiful metro area with tents and bodies strewn about, and make it a hospitable place, as a local photographer put it, “for people to come to our city to kill themselves.”

These progressives have chased out several retailers. On Monday, Pacific Northwest outdoor outfitter REI told its members it would close its doors in NW downtown, citing break-ins and thefts.

https://nypost.com/2023/04/17/budweiser-releases-new-pro-america-ad-with-iconic-mascot-in-wake-of-anheuser-busch-mulvaney-controversy/?dicbo=v2-dStmkAs

Budweiser has released a new patriotic advertisement as its parent company struggles with controversy over its endorsement partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

The advertisement, which was released on social media Friday, features one of Budweiser’s famous Clydesdale horses traversing the country from New York City to the Grand Canyon, passing by scenes in the American heartland as a narrator delivers a patriotic message.

“This is a story bigger than beer,” the ad’s narrator says in the ad. “This is the story of the American spirit.”

As the ad plays, the Clydesdale horse passes by some of the most famous American landmarks, showcasing the New York City skyline, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, small towns, and farmland.

At one point, the ad showcases two people raising an American flag as one places her hand over her heart.

“Brewed for those who found opportunity in challenge and hope in tomorrow,” the ad’s narrator says as the horse passes by the flag raising duo and the Lincoln Memorial.

The patriotic ad comes as Anheuser-Busch, which owns Budweiser, continues to deal with backlash over a partnership between another one of its popular brands, Bud Light, and Mulvaney.

Anheuser-Busch has suffered a financial hit as calls to boycott its brands have spread across the country, with one Missouri bar owner telling Fox Business last week that sales of bottled Bud Light dropped 30%, while draft sales dropped 50%.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/teen-takeover-terrorizes-chicago-hundreds-children-destroy-property-attack-tourists

Hundreds of teenagers stormed the streets of downtown Chicago, smashing car windows, attacking bystanders and sending panicked tourists running from the sound of gunfire.

“Where are their parents at? That’s my question,” a woman who identified as a Chicago native told Fox 32 as the unruly scene played out in downtown Chicago on Saturday night.

Fox 32 cameras captured video of teenagers crowding the streets and police seeking to restore order to the area.

Large groups of teens were seen blasting music from Bluetooth speakers and roaming in front of traffic, with some attempting to gain access to the city’s Millennium Park, which is off-limits to those under 21 after certain hours, and the downtown Art Institute. 

Some teens in the group began jumping up and down on cars, smashing windows and attacking people inside. One woman told Fox 32 her husband was attacked from the driver side of his vehicle and beaten after a group of teens jumped up and down on the couple’s windshield. The man was taken to a local hospital for treatment.

Hundreds of police officers assisted by SWAT teams descended on downtown in an attempt to restore order as gunfire was reported multiple times amid the unfolding scene.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-western-civilization-dies-put-it-down-as-a-suicide-goldman-sachs-pronouns-merit-ideology-23c3c6c8

A few years ago the then-boss of Goldman Sachs explained to me the main reason he thought the firm had risen to such a dominant position in global investment banking over the previous half century. At the start of that period, banking was still dominated by a blue-blood class. In London especially, where I began my career in finance, the City was a place in which, in a still heavily regulated market, a slot in one of the big institutions was a coveted ticket to a life of riches.

But the tickets were available mainly to men from the right sort of background. The rules for identifying and selecting these men were opaque. There was no formal bar on anyone from a particular socioeconomic status being admitted to the magic circle—that would have been crass and, even then, illegal. Instead a complex system of semiotics did the job of weeding out the riffraff. A flattened vowel pronunciation, a vulgar word for lavatory, the wrong sort of shoes, and you were excluded without even understanding why. In Britain, the system’s overseers had an acronym by which the untouchables were designated: NQOCD, for “not quite our class, dear.”

Goldman came along and cut through this thicket of asinine, self-perpetuating privilege. It simply hired the best people for the job, however they spoke, whatever they looked like. As long as you were smart, driven, ruthless and committed to making money and beating the living daylights out of the competition, you were in. It worked.

I was reminded of this when I read last week that employees at Goldman have recently been encouraged by their leaders to embrace a full rainbow range of “pronouns” when identifying themselves in communications, including such neologisms as “ze,” “zir” and “zemself.”

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/04/history-as-progress-history-as-horror/

Looking recently at a picture of a demonstration against the celebration of Australia Day, I could not help but notice a person of Aboriginal descent dressed in that traditional item of costume, the T-shirt, employing that equally traditional instrument, the megaphone.

The megaphone is the perfect instrument for the expression of one of the most reliable and gratifying of all emotions, self-righteousness. The megaphone is versatile: it is also the perfect instrument for the demagogue. It couldn’t be better for making dialogue impossible, for drowning out dissension and for the propagation of half-truths.

Historiography is now the favoured subject of the self-righteous demagogue. As a science (I use the word in its loose, continental European sense), historiography’s influence on mass psychology is much underestimated. With the rise in the number of educated persons—by which I mean persons who have spent at least a fifth of their lives in supposedly educational establishments—it has become ever more salient, ever more influential.

The protests against the celebration of Australia Day were an illustration of the effect of changing historiography. A day intended to celebrate the founding of a successful, free and prosperous country was turned by demonstrators into its very opposite, a day of lamentation for that very founding. Thus, the same event more than two centuries ago, the arrival of the First Fleet, gave rise to diametrically opposite assessments of its moral and political significance.

All historiographies are incomplete, of course, for they cannot encompass all that happened in history, and therefore are open to attack by those who object to what they omit. I began to think about this matter when I took an interest in medical history. The first book I read on the subject was Singer and Underwood’s A Short History of Medicine (not so short, I thought it), which was in essence an account of the progress of medicine to its state of enlightenment as of 1962, when the book was published. It consisted of brief descriptions of the work of men who had contributed the new and improved ideas that contributed to the science’s upward march, each contributing his mite, with a few, such as Harvey, Pasteur, Lister, Koch and Ehrlich, contributing much more than a mere mite.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/vivek_ramaswamy_is_willing_to_stand_behind_strong_conservative_principles.html

I realized why I like Vivek Ramaswamy when I heard Sen. Tim Scott announce that he’s created an exploratory committee to decide whether he should run for president. Scott speaks like a politician; Vivek speaks like a conservative. The former says what his consultants tell him to say; Vivek offers unfiltered insights into his thinking and is willing to say what politicians have been trained not to say. That’s clear from Vivek’s 25 goals as president and his honesty about so-called “transgenderism.”

Briefly, regarding Tim Scott, I admire him as a person: He’s a highly intelligent man who overcame a difficult childhood to become a successful businessman and politician, and he’s mostly conservative. However, Scott has been marinated in D.C. politics and, to my ear, he’s lost his authenticity. His video about his exploratory committee sounds like it went through two focus groups and three consultants before it finally came out of his mouth:

The same was true of Nikki Haley’s announcement that she was throwing her hat into the ring. In both cases, they as if you could open a 1970s-style catalog called “Politicians,” leaf through its pages for the “generic conservative” line, and find their pictures. (I may learn to think they’ve got what it takes but, for now, I’m reserving judgment.)

Trump wasn’t and isn’t like that. He is a complete original, an iconoclast who loves his country, makes great deals, and is unfettered by any leftist or Uniparty ideas—something that’s true despite his having been a Democrat. Heck, I was once a Democrat, too.

https://goudsmit.pundicity.com/26901/in-a-world-obsessed-with-feelings-whose-feelings

lindagoudsmit.com goudsmit.pundicity.com 

In a society that eliminates meritocracy by shifting its metrics from achievement to feelings, whose feelings actually matter? Let’s find out.

Competence is the mother of self-esteem. We know this is true by simply observing the delight of young children as they learn to dress themselves, feed themselves, or sound out their first words and realize they can read! Each achievement increases the child’s competence and enhances his developing sense of self. Achievement makes little Johnny feel proud of himself and good about himself. Let’s consider what incentivizes competence and achievement, and what doesn’t. Let’s also consider the motivations for incentivizing competence and the motivations for discouraging it.

If you want to know the motive, look at the result. What made America great was its cultural roots in meritocracy. Our society awarded achievement with upward mobility. It was called the American Dream, and America was the land where dreams came true. In every sector of society, little Johnny was encouraged to become an independent, autonomous, rational adult, capable of living a life of ordered liberty in our constitutional republic. In other words, little Johnny was encouraged to grow up and perpetuate the American dream. Not anymore.

In the past, each of little Johnny’s achievements were rewarded with praise when he was a little boy. As he grew older he earned grades in school that marked his achievement. Then he competed in sports with friends, and games with family. His grades were awarded certificates of achievement or advanced placement. His sports achievements were awarded with trophies, and wins in family games were rewarded with more praise.

The competitions all served to incentivize achievement. As Johnny got older he competed for jobs and for advancement. Winning and losing were part of everyone’s private and public life. Meritocracy was society’s infrastructure, rooted in achievement. Those who lost were encourage to try harder, work harder, study more, and try again. In the 1970s, ABC’s Wide World of Sports announcer Jim McKay, immortalized the words, “The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.”

https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/14/19-times-democrats-and-doj-deliberately-politicized-law-enforcement/

Here’s a roundup of the DOJ deploying federal resources to do Democrats’ bidding.

Amid calls from former President Donald Trump to “defund” the partisan Department of Justice and FBI, which treats its friends above the law and its enemies below it, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer defended the agencies.

But a review of the agencies’ track records shows them to be indefensible. Here are 19 times Democrats and DOJ politicized the rule of law, deploying federal resources to do Democrats’ bidding.

1. Infiltration of Catholic Parishes

House Republican Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday after a whistleblower revealed the agency is targeting Catholic parishes.

In February, former Special Agent Kyle Seraphin revealed that “the FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of ‘white supremacy,’ which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass.”

“The document assesses with ‘high confidence’ the FBI can mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics by recruiting sources within the Catholic Church,” Seraphin reported.

Jordan’s letter to Wray Tuesday said the FBI sought to use local religious organizations as ‘new avenues for tripwire and source development.’”

2. FBI Targeted Parents for Domestic Terrorism

Weeks before the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, in which parental rights in education were the centerpiece of Republican campaigns, the FBI deployed counterterrorism resources on parents who raised issues at school board meetings. Parents identified as extremists by FBI activists were labeled with “threat tags” under Attorney General Merrick Garland’s guidance. Whistleblower documents suggest Garland lied about the scandal when testifying before the House Judiciary Committee that October.

In March, the committee published an interim report on the debacle concluding the Biden administration had “no legitimate basis” to crack down on parents as terrorists.

Garland has refused lawmakers’ demands to repeal the controversial memorandum, according to the committee.

3. Crossfire Hurricane

The campaign to impeach former President Donald Trump began well before his 2017 inauguration.

Deep-state officials within the FBI concocted plans known as Crossfire Hurricane to frame Trump as a Russian agent after the Republican businessman secured the GOP presidential nomination. Within four months of Trump’s first term, a special counsel was appointed to investigate allegations of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. After the more than two-year special counsel investigation run entirely by Democrats with unlimited resources, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team found not one person, let alone Trump himself, colluded with the Kremlin.

4. Hillary’s Emails

While the DOJ investigated the Trump campaign in 2016, the agency gave cover to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton over her private email server scandal.

The FBI told journalists there was no evidence that a foreign power reviewed Clinton’s emails improperly stored on a private server. According to a report from the DOJ inspector general in 2018, however, texts show they almost certainly did, “at least one of them classified,” as Federalist Senior Editor David Harsanyi wrote.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-axon-v-ftc-sec-v-cochran-administrative-state-federal-court-elena-kagan-43f6b20?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

The Supreme Court on Friday dealt the administrative state another blow with a 9-0 decision holding that individuals and businesses harpooned by an independent agency don’t have to suffer a torturous government adjudication to challenge its constitutionality in federal court (Axon Enterprise v. FTC and SEC v. Cochran).

The private litigants in these cases want to challenge Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission actions on grounds that the agencies are unconstitutionally structured. But the discrete question before the Court was whether they had to run through the agencies’ long and costly administrative process before they could go to federal court.

The government claimed they did, but a unanimous Court disagreed. In the controlling opinion, Justice Elena Kagan explained that both parties in the two cases allege they are “‘being subjected’ to ‘unconstitutional agency authority’—a ‘proceeding by an unaccountable [administrative law judge].’”

“This Court has made clear that it is ‘a here-and-now injury,’” she writes, citing its Seila Law (2020) precedent. “And—here is the rub—it is impossible to remedy once the proceeding is over, which is when appellate review kicks in.” Judicial review after cases are adjudicated by the government “would come too late to be meaningful.”