RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://victorhanson.com/the-frightened-left/

An impeachment inquiry looms and the shrieks of outrage are beginning.

The Left is now suddenly voicing warnings that those who recently undermined the system could be targeted by their own legacies.

So, for example, now we read why impeachment is suddenly a dangerous gambit.

True, the Founders did not envision impeaching a first-term president the moment he lost his House majority. Nor did they imagine impeaching a president twice. And they certainly did not anticipate trying an ex-president in the Senate as a private citizen.

In modern times, the nation has not rushed to impeach a president without a special counsel investigation to determine whether the chief executive was guilty of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

But thanks to the Democrats, recent impeachments now have destroyed all those guardrails. After all, Trump was impeached the first time on the fumes of an exhaustive but fruitless 22-month, $40 million special counsel investigation—one designed to find him guilty of Russian “collusion” and thus to be removed from office but found no actionable offenses at all.

Instead, dejected Democrats moved immediately for a second try. In September 2019 a few weeks after Trump had announced his 2020 reelection bid, the Democratic House began to impeach the president on the new grounds that he had talked to the President Zelensky of Ukraine and said he might delay offensive arms shipments—unless the Ukrainians could demonstrate that they had ended corruption and, in particular, were no longer influenced by the Biden family quid pro quo shakedowns.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/09/ruling_regime_locks_up_george_washington.html

A Missouri man walked into the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, dressed as George Washington.  He caused no damage, engaged in no violence, and was even recorded peacefully speaking with police before leaving.  For daring to dress as America’s pre-eminent Founding Father and symbolically rebuking our corrupt ruling class, Isaac Yoder was surveilled for seven months, eventually arrested, fined, and sentenced to a year in prison.  Welcome to the Imprisoned States of America, where patriotic love of country is condemned and political persecution flourishes.  

At a time when the Biden regime is trying to imprison President Donald Trump for the rest of his life, Yoder’s story seems particularly poignant.  If the American War for Independence were being fought today, there is no doubt that the D.C. despots squeezing the life out of the American people would enthusiastically take sides with the British.  As soon as dishonest and nefarious lawmakers, police officers, prosecutors, and judges decided to treat the J6 protest against election fraud as an “insurrection,” the miscreants who imperiously occupy D.C. made clear that they have fully rejected both the spirit and the principles of 1776. 

If Americans cannot assemble to petition their government for redress of grievances without fear of being labeled “insurrectionists” or “terrorists,” then there is no First Amendment protection remaining.  If the American press corps can stand back and watch this political persecution unfold for years without being bothered to point out the deceitfulness in portraying an unarmed crowd of ordinary citizens as engaging in “rebellion,” then there is no institutional organ outside government extant to fight today’s oppression.  It makes sense that Mr. Yoder would be targeted for especial FBI harassment; if George Washington, Sam Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison were alive today, the FBI would be busy hunting them down, too.  Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Merrick Garland, and Mitt Romney would be calling them “traitors.”  And the news media would be breathlessly reporting about how our Founding Fathers’ fight for liberty is really about their love for slavery and the “patriarchy.” 

Joe Biden joins Russia’s Putin, Nicaragua’s Ortega, Venezuela’s Maduro, Brazil’s Lula, China’s Xi, Iran’s Khamenei, and Turkey’s Erdoğan as another twenty-first-century tyrant with no qualms about locking up his political opponents.  There was a time when both the elected officers and the entrenched bureaucracy in the United States would have universally condemned foreign leaders for their efforts to undermine freedom of speech, dissent, and political self-determination abroad; now it is the United States that follows the example of the world’s worst authoritarians.  And just as every brutal dictator proclaims that he faithfully serves “the people,” America’s ruling regime will continue to insist that its illiberal displays of force, rampant censorship, and political targeting are all necessary to “protect our democracy.”

Across language and geography, ruling regimes throughout history have used a strikingly similar label to demonize their political adversaries: “disloyally affected person.”  The British used the term to lock up members of the Irish Republican Army.  Both Lenin and Mao used the phrase to justify mass executions of anti-communists.  Castro’s Secret Police used the alleged offense as an excuse to imprison and torture political opponents in Cuba.  Now the U.S. government throws around this spurious charge — disloyalty to the State — as if dissent against the permanent ruling class were the height of criminal activity.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/was-trump-an-officer-of-the-united-states-constitution-14th-amendment-50b7d26?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Apart from the four criminal indictments brought against Donald Trump, those who would end his campaign for the presidency by means other than an election seem to be putting increasing faith in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, known as the Insurrection Clause. That faith seems to be seriously misplaced.

To the extent its text is relevant here, the section in question denies to a discrete category of people—including those who have taken an oath “as an officer of the United States . . . to support the Constitution of the United States”—the right to serve as a “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office . . . under the United States” if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against same.”

A good deal of attention has focused thus far on whether the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection or rebellion” and, if so, whether Mr. Trump “engaged” in it. Those questions, however, need not be answered until two preliminary questions of law are addressed: Is the presidency an “office . . . under the United States,” and was the presidential oath Mr. Trump swore on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution taken “as an officer of the United States”?

The latter question is easier. The use of the term “officer of the United States” in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In U.S. v. Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that “unless a person in the service of the government . . . holds his place by virtue of an appointment . . ., he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.” Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): “The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States.’ ”

https://newsblaze.com/usnews/crime/lululemon-disorderly-society_192742/

Allegory: A burglar breaks into your home to steal your property. You try to stop him. You get arrested for disturbing the act of burglary.

Lawlessness and Crime Rule

This is what we are witnessing in the United States of America. Lawlessness rules.

A Lululemon store is like your home. Two store employees tried to stop shoplifters who were shoplifting in their store. They two were fired. The shoplifters are roving free with the stolen merchandise.

The Lululemon Athletica Inc., commonly known as Lululemon, is a Canadian multinational athletic apparel retailer headquartered in British Columbia, Canada, and incorporated in Delaware, United States.

Many people living in the United States of America have lost all sense of reality and genuine social justice and have turned the world upside down which is encouraging bad behavior and criminality with impunity.

Shoplifting Episode at ’99 Cent’ store*, Los Angeles

During the week of August 20th 2023, I went shopping at a 99 Cent store, its name tells the reader the value of the items the store offers for sale.

*99 Cents Only Stores is an American price-point retailer chain based in Commerce, California. It offers “a combination of closeout branded merchandise, general merchandise and fresh foods.” The store initially offered all products at 99¢ or less. Today, thanks to inflation, the items sold are at $1.26 and up.

As I was moving around the store doing my shopping, I saw a black man moving fast from aisle to aisle, without a shopping cart, picking up merchandise and collecting them on one of the store’s shelves. I got his drift. He was planning to bag all the merchandise in the black bag he carried and then run out of the store with his loot.

I called the store manager to alert him. He did not bother to step out of his office.

At the cashier, on my way out, I brought up my suspicion. I told her to call for help to stop the shoplifter in his tracks. Here is what she told me almost verbatim: “these shoplifters come here, sometimes even several times a day; they pick up merchandise and leave. The store management and owner don’t care. No one stops them. I see it every day and I am sick of this lawlessness but there is nothing I can do.”

Here Is Some of the Almost Daily News in California

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/manchin-trashes-biden-administration-alaska-oil

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) trashed the Biden administration’s decision to pull oil and gas leases from Alaska on Wednesday, claiming the move was the latest example of the administration “caving to the radical Left.”

The Department of the Interior said on Wednesday it would prohibit oil and gas drilling on more than 10.6 million acres in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, ensuring “maximum protection” for more than 40% of the reserve, which is located in Alaska’s North Slope and is the largest undisturbed public land in the United States.

“I can’t explain to the American people why we would willingly become more dependent on foreign oil imports, eliminate good paying American jobs and drive up the cost of our electric bills and gas prices across the country,” Manchin said. “This is yet another example of this administration caving to the radical Left with no regard for clear direction from Congress or American energy security.”

Manchin called the move “embarrassing” and an attempt to circumvent Congress because the administration allegedly knows it does not have the support to get it approved properly. The senator added that the move allows Iran and Venezuela to produce more oil with fewer environmental regulations.

“We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

                                                                                                                                Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA)  July 31, 1968

Identity politics has divided us into categories, convenient for politicians to address perceived concerns and, more dangerously, to exert control, turning us into a nation of oppressed and oppressors, so that Washington’s “progressives” can ride in as savior. Identity politics places the group above the individual, while those who think independently – outside the box – are slighted, demeaned, or cancelled. One consequence is rising distrust and hatred; a second is that the group, not the individual, defines who we are; and a third is a loss of faith in America, its history and in its accomplishments.

Issues of identity have a long history. Women’s rights date back before the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments in 1848. My paternal grandmother, a well-educated woman, was forty-five when the 19th Amendment was passed, allowing her to vote in 1920. It was in 1965, a hundred years after the civil War, that the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to enforce the right of Blacks to vote. However, even as we made progress – slow as it has been – self-manufactured divisional bitterness increased.

It is important to step back, not to rest on laurels, but to gain perspective and celebrate what our nation has achieved over more than two centuries. Winston Churchill, in a back-handed compliment, is alleged to have observed: “The Americans will always do the right thing…after they have exhausted all the alternatives.” America continues to evolve, too fast for some and too slowly for others. We are best off when momentum is deliberate, when we individually, as Governor Reagan is quoted in the rubric, accept responsibility for our actions.  Our country is unique in the annals of human history. It is based on the rule of law, and on the individual, his sovereignty and his uniqueness – “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” Those words have evolved over time to include more of our citizens. We have further to go, but we have come a long way. We do not want to return to a time where some groups are favored, and others excluded, as identity politics would have us do.
It is true that as social animals we seek out those with common interests, which explains why there are myriad groups devoted to such pursuits as fishing, bridge, antique cars, golf, and P.G. Wodehouse. It is why sororities and fraternities exist on college campuses, why there are different religious denominations, and why civic organizations, like Rotary, Elks, American Legion, and the Knights of Columbus, exist in communities across America. Fifty and sixty years ago, some of these organizations were restrictive, based on race, gender, and/or religion, but such restrictions lessened in the wake of the passage of civil rights legislation and as tolerance became more common. Man’s social progress has always been evolutionary. We live today in a nation more accepting and tolerant than that known to our grandparents. We have further to go, but we have been moving in the right direction.

https://victorhanson.com/what-game-is-hunter-biden-playing/

What shameless act or felonious activity was not evidenced on Hunter Biden’s laptop? Racist attitudes toward Asians? Soliciting prostitution? Felonious use of drugs? Photographed nudity and perverse sex? Admissions to illicit foreign shakedowns?

Hunter all but accused his own father President Joe Biden of also being on the foreign take: “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family… Unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Hunter’s alleged felonies range from bribery to tax evasion. That he has not yet been prosecuted for anything is scandalous. His exemption is attributable only to Attorney General Merrick Garland’s likely weaponized directives to federal prosecutors to downgrade or forget altogether felony charges against Hunter.

So given such wild behavior, why would not Hunter tone it down, stop the global grifting, cease the reckless behavior—and quit redirecting attention to the likely illegal acts of his father, the President?

Why did not Hunter early on just settle the child support suit filed by his paramour Lundeen Roberts? Why haggle over money for his own daughter?

Hunter instead outrageously claimed near poverty. That excuse was hilarious given he flies on private jets and pays nearly $16,000 a month to rent a house in tony, celebrity-ridden Malibu.

Why did Hunter ever get involved with a performance stripper in the first place after his past widely publicized liaisons with prostitutes? Why also with his own widowed sister-in-law?

Given Hunter has little or no experience or training in high-stakes international finance and investment—and thus has no market value as an investor or broker. But he was infamous for translating that nothingness into millions in lucre due solely to his ability to monetize the influence of then Vice President Joe Biden.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/georgia-attorney-general-indicts-61-antifa-members-on-rico-charges/

Chris Carr, the Republican attorney general of Georgia, announced on Tuesday the indictment of 61 individuals allegedly involved in Antifa efforts to prevent the construction of a police training facility outside of Atlanta.

These activists, most of whom don’t live in Georgia, are accused of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a U.S. federal law that allows for the criminal prosecution of organized crime. Of the 61 defendants, some faced additional charges of domestic terrorism, attempted arson, and money laundering.

Carr said in a press release his office is primarily concerned with prosecuting violent acts in the state’s case.

“As this indictment shows, looking the other way when violence occurs is not an option in Georgia,” said Carr. “If you come to our state and shoot a police officer, throw Molotov cocktails at law enforcement, set fire to police vehicles, damage construction equipment, vandalize private homes and businesses, and terrorize their occupants, you can and will be held accountable.”

The indictment focuses on Defend the Atlanta Forest, an environmental group described by the attorney general’s office as an “anarchist, anti-police, and anti-business extremist organization.”

The indictment says the group’s purpose “is to occupy of parts or all of 381 forested acres in DeKalb County, Georgia,” land that is owned by the Atlanta Police Foundation and leased by the Atlanta government. By doing this, they would halt the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.

The Defend the Atlanta Forest movement started organizing in 2020 following the police murders of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minn., and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta. Both incidents occurred months before the training center was announced.

The Cop City Vote Coalition, which is trying to force a public vote on the public center, objected to the recent indictment. The group of organizers condemned the “blatantly authoritarian RICO charges” brought forward by Carr following his announcement.

The indictment alleged a total of 225 “overt acts” took place in the city, from July 5, 2020, up to about two weeks ago.

Instances of the reported violence during that time included throwing rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails at police vehicles, vandalizing private property, attacking private citizens and utility workers, and shooting state troopers. Police responded to the criminal actions by arresting protesters, and in one case, killed an Antifa member who shot at the cops.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/05/im-being-professionally-canceled-for-my-moral-stance-on-trans-butchery/

Recently, the College of Psychologists in Ontario ordered Jordan B. Peterson — a clinical psychologist, professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto and best-selling author — to undergo “professional coaching.” His sin? Tweeting opinions the college deemed “unbecoming of a psychologist.” Here, Peterson explains to The Post what he said, why he was right — and why it was imperative he speak out.

I am likely to soon lose my license to practice as a clinical psychologist in my home province of Ontario, in the Canada whose historically prosaic internal politics should by all reasonable standards still be off the international radar.

Why? A variety of charges have been brought against me by the administrative board granted government mandate to protect the public from misbehavior on the part of the practitioners of my profession.

What are those charges — pertaining to attitudes and actions that have caused unproven harm to others and brought hypothetical disgrace upon the practice of psychotherapy itself — all brought forward, by the way, by individuals who were never my clients?

Two stem from criticisms I levied directly against the current leader of Canada, one Justin Trudeau, now recognized by a majority of the inhabitants of this frigid and sparsely inhabited land as the worst Prime Minister in this country’s history.

Psychologist Jordan Peterson was ordered to undergo “professional coaching” by the College of Psychologists in Ontario due to public statements that he has made.
Photo by Chris Williamson/Getty Images
The complaints against Peterson include tweets he wrote criticizing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Elliot Page’s “gender affirmation” surgery.
Photo by Romy Arroyo Fernandez/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Four were a consequence of other arguably political opinions: a judgemental comment I directed toward Trudeau’s former chief of staff, who resigned under a cloud of controversy some years ago; an ironic comment about the diverse “identity” claimed by an Ottawa city councillor whose attitude toward the Canadian Trucker Convoy raised my hackles; and the entire transcript (I kid you not) of a three-hour public discussion with podcaster Joe Rogan, where I criticized the unreliable climate and economic “models” upon which we are now predicating our increasingly tyrannical international order.

One indicated my refusal to accede to the hypocritical woke insistence that an obese cover model was in fact a fit and beautiful athlete.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/actually_joe_biden_has_doubled_the_deficit.html

Over the past two years, President Joe Biden has made numerous statements suggesting that he is a deficit hawk on par with past presidents such as Calvin Coolidge or Andrew Jackson. For instance, earlier this year, Biden claimed, “In my first two years, I reduced the debt by $1.7 trillion. No President has ever done that.”

In reality, Biden was half right. No president, including Biden, has ever done anything close to reducing the national debt by such a gigantic amount in his first two years or any two-year period, for that matter.

Here are the facts. When Biden entered the White House, the national debt stood at $27.7 trillion. Two years later, the national debt stands at $32.9 trillion. Using simple arithmetic, the national debt has increased by $5.2 trillion under Biden. That is a big difference from a $1.7 trillion reduction.

However, I’ll do Joe a favor and give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was referring to the deficit, not the debt.

So, let’s take a peek at annual deficits under the Biden administration. In fiscal year 2021, the federal deficit registered at $2.8 trillion. In fiscal year 2022, the deficit was $1.4 trillion. And, in fiscal year 2023, the deficit is expected to surpass the $2 trillion threshold, again.

Before analyzing these figures, I must mention that fiscal years (FY) are different from calendar years because fiscal years encompass the period from October 1 through September 30. This matters quite a bit because fiscal year 2021 included a $920 billion COVID-19 relief package signed into law by President Donald Trump in late December of 2020. In other words, days before Biden entered the Oval Office, another $1 trillion was added to the deficit under the Trump administration, which basically accounts for the deficit reduction from FY 2021 to FY 2022 that Biden takes credit for.

Interestingly, as Biden takes victory laps for the deficit reduction that occurred from FY 2021 to FY 2022, we must not forget that this hollow triumph took place despite Biden, not because of him. By this, I am referring to the fact that immediately upon taking office, Biden signed into law the massive $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which completely obliterated any deficit reduction that would have come to fruition once the previous COVID-19 spending bills came off the books.