RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/01/18/d-c-city-council-overrides-mayors-veto-of-criminal-justice-reform-that-would-lessen-penalties-for-violent-crime-n1662915

Washington, D.C. is in the midst of a violent crime epidemic, but that didn’t stop the all-Democrat city council from overriding Mayor Muriel Bowser’s veto to pass a criminal justice reform bill that contains several problematic provisions, including lessening the penalties for violent crimes and allowing people charged with a misdemeanor to demand a trial — a move experts say will cause the D.C. court system to collapse under a tsunami of unnecessary and expensive trials.

Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto argued, “allowing the veto to stand would be a significant step back in our work to modernize the criminal code, negating years of work, compromise, and engagement by the council.”

It’s true. The city council has been writing, debating, and massaging this bill for 16 years. But is that any reason to pass a bill if it’s bad?

Bowser’s objections were straightforward. “Anytime there’s a policy that reduces penalties, I think that sends the wrong message. That takes the focus off using guns or possessing guns, and I think that’s the wrong way to go,” Bowser wrote about her decision to veto.

Washington Post:

The bill would, among other things, eliminate most mandatory minimum sentences, allow for jury trials in almost all misdemeanor cases, and reduce the maximum penalties for offenses such as burglaries, carjackings and robberies. Law enforcement leaders had expressed concern that it could burden an already stretched court system and would send the wrong message to residents at a time when the city is struggling with gun violence.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/hunter-biden-laptop-denier-now-admits-emails-real-dont-let-him-get-away-with-it

Douglas Wise, a former Defense Intelligence Agency deputy director and former senior CIA operations officer, is back in the news this week. 

In an interview with The Australian, Wise admits that he and others always knew that the emails on the Hunter Biden laptop were likely genuine. It was a remarkable admission from one of more than 50 former intelligence officials who signed a letter dismissing the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 presidential election as likely “Russian disinformation.” 

Yet, Wise still maintains that, while true, he and the other officials were right to call it out as likely “disinformation.” Arguing that something is true, but still constitutes disinformation sounds a lot like . . . well . . . disinformation.

The infamous letter from the former intel officials (including such Democrat figures like John Brennan, James Clapper, Leon Panetta, and Jeremy Bash) was used by the media to assure the public that there was nothing to see in the scandal. It was the perfect deflection in giving a cooperative media cover to bury the story of how the Biden family engaged in influence peddling worth millions with foreign figures, including some with foreign intelligence connections.

It worked beautifully. It was not until two years later that NPR, the New York Times, and other media outlets got around to telling the public the truth.

Now some of the signatories are trying to rehabilitate themselves. It is not hard. Figures like Bash have been rewarded for their loyalty. Others like Brennan and Clapper have become regulars on CNN to continue to give their takes on intelligence.

https://victorhanson.com/what-the-left-tells-us-about-the-left-part-four/

Police Killing of the Unarmed

Following George Floyd’s death, the Left went ballistic that the Washington Post of all places had found that unarmed black suspects were not necessarily killed in percentages higher than the percentages of blacks among the some 11 million who were arrested each year.

The distinguished Harvard University economist Roland Fryer (an African American) looked at police shootings in Houston and did not find that racial bias was a major factor in the use of deadly force.

The point, then, is that there is little data to suggest that white officers are systematically and inordinately lethally shooting unarmed black suspects. (Note that shortly after his research was published, Fryer was conveniently charged with sexual harassment—resulting mostly from off-color jokes—at Harvard and was put on leave by the university, and had his brilliant career essentially aborted if not destroyed.)

Videos changed the country forever on May 25, 2020. The smart phone clips appeared with a white Minnesota police officer with his knee on the neck of a black arrested suspect who later died. Autopsies (more than one) followed that variously suggested that either drugs or the deliberate use of the officer’s knee to obstruct Floyd’s breathing or both mostly caused Floyd’s death.

The major facts were mostly not in dispute: George Floyd, a career felon, who had been charged, convicted, and incarcerated for prior felonies, including a home-invasion robbery, during which he put a loaded pistol to the stomach of a pregnant woman, was arrested on reports he was attempting to pass counterfeit U.S. currency.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/17/the-garage-papers/

Classified documents have been turning up everywhere, even the garage where Joe Biden stashes his vintage Corvette. As Josh Hammer notes, the Delaware Democrat might have a problem.

Unauthorized possession of classified materials is a serious crime for obvious reasons. As vice president, Biden had no authority to declassify, conceal, or leak the classified materials now being discovered. This might be a sign that the deep state is going after their useful idiot, perhaps to make way for a different 2024 candidate. 

So far, veterans of the intelligence community are not shouting that the classified documents are only “Russian disinformation.” On the other hand, the sudden discoveries and appointment of a special counsel could be another whitewash. 

Special counsel Robert Hur, as Roger Kimball notes, is an “anti-Trump former Robert Mueller apparatchik and swamp monster of the tier-one level.” Nothing to see here folks, so shut up and shelter in place. Revelations pending, it is fully apparent that Joe Biden is a certified Clinton reenactor. 

Former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept reams of sensitive data on an unsecured home-brew server. When some 30,000 Clinton emails sparked interest, she bleached the server clean and smashed up phones and other devices. Clinton’s actions violated several statutes but the FBI never conducted a surprise raid in the style of their action against Donald Trump and his associates.

FBI boss James Comey, a longtime Clinton crony, contended that no reasonable prosecutor would pursue the case against Hillary Clinton. To the surprise of nobody, none did. That doubtless encouraged Biden, who may have recalled the experience of Samuel “Sandy” Berger, a Harvard law alum. 

https://dailycaller.com/2023/01/14/opinion-wokeness-is-slowly-hollowing-out-the-fed-ej-antoni/

Are you wondering why checking out at the grocery store these days feels like making a mortgage payment? This week’s four-decade-high inflation is a direct result of the Federal Reserve taking its eye off the ball over the last two years. Instead of focusing on its mandate of keeping prices stable, it has been more concerned with financing massive federal deficits and kowtowing to liberal ideology.

But now the Fed chair is claiming just the opposite.

Chairman Jerome Powell recently said in Stockholm that the Fed must avoid politics to maintain its independence, which is absolutely true. But it is the opposite of what the Fed has done under President Joe Biden.

Powell and other Fed members have routinely opined about climate change, diversity, equity and other left-wing talking points — all while they called inflation transitory. Powell opened Pandora’s box as soon as he jeopardized the Fed’s independence with these political talking points.

The recent change in tone from Powell would be welcome if it did not have the hollow ring of rhetoric behind it. The Fed chair rightly said, “Without explicit congressional legislation, it would be inappropriate for us to use our monetary policy or supervisory tools to promote a greener economy or to achieve other climate-based goals.” He continued, “We are not, and will not be, a ‘climate policy maker.’”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/18/is-u-s-headed-toward-socialism-majority-says-yes-ii-tipp-poll/

In recent years, government in the U.S. has never been bigger, in terms of both spending and its power over individuals and the economy. Some have begun to openly wonder: Is the U.S. evolving into a socialist-style economy? And is that what Americans want? The latest I&I/TIPP Poll has answers.

Over the last three years, due to the COVID pandemic, government spending at all levels averaged just over 44% of GDP, the highest since World War II, when much of the economy was essentially socialized in order to boost war spending.

Today, a majority of Americans agree that the sudden, rapid growth from COVID-related spending and burgeoning top-down control over the domestic economy to address climate change have put U.S. on a path toward socialism.

This comes out of the latest I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,356 Americans across the country, taken online from Jan. 4-6. In it, we asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the following simple statement: “The U.S. is evolving into a big government socialist state.”

The shocking answer: By 51% to 31%, Americans agreed the U.S. is moving toward socialism. Among the remainder, 18% said they were “unsure.” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

Further broken down, of those who agreed, 20% said they did so “strongly,” while 31% said they agreed “somewhat.” For those who disagreed, just 15% disagreed strongly, while 16% said they “somewhat” disagreed.

While usually such politically sensitive questions show wide differences among the different political affiliations, that’s not exactly the case here.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/the-consumer-product-safety-commission-is-out-of-control/

The agency that floated a gas-stove ban is also harassing the maker of a child-care product, while its ex-chair argues it should be able to regulate guns.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) made headlines last week for entertaining the idea of a ban on gas-powered stoves, before quickly backtracking amid a fierce public outcry. Though that was a particularly notable instance of the CPSC’s attempted administrative overreach, it was not the only one.

The CPSC is currently in the process of harassing a small-business owner whose product has been used safely by thousands of people since 2009. Leachco, an Oklahoma-based firm founded by Jamie and Clyde Leach, manufactures the Podster, a lounge pillow for infants. The pillow has sides that cup babies to keep them in place. Over 180,000 have been sold since the product first came to market.

In 2015, a day-care worker broke state law and the day-care center’s rules by leaving an infant unattended in a Podster for over an hour and a half. In 2018, two parents accidentally smothered their baby in bed while co-sleeping. Both those infants tragically died.

The CPSC is using those cases to warn consumers to “immediately stop using the Podster.” Both babies were in a Podster when they died, but anyone with common sense can see that the negligence of adults, not the safety of the product, was the likely culprit. Those are the only two infant deaths the CPSC cites as being associated with the Podster, which has otherwise been used safely by thousands of parents.

The CPSC’s administrative proceedings against Leachco acknowledge that in those two instances, adults were using the product improperly. It says, “The Podster is not and has never been advertised by [Leachco] as a sleep product” and that “the Podster contains warnings that the product should not be used for sleep and that adult supervision is always required.” Nonetheless, the CPSC says that “it is foreseeable that caregivers will use the Podster without supervision.”

If an agency can ban any product that, even with proper warnings, could possibly be misused by two people, then no product is safe.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian public-interest-law firm, is representing Leachco before the CPSC and has brought a separate federal suit against the agency, challenging the constitutionality of the action. Attorney Oliver Dunford told NR, “We think this kind of claim should be before a court of law, not an agency.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/16/hunter-biden-fighting-in-court-to-bar-his-4-year-old-love-child-from-using-his-surname/

Scandal-plagued Hunter Biden is resisting a motion in court to allow his 4-year-old daughter to use his surname, arguing that it is in her best interest not to share his family’s name.

According to the New York Post, Lunden Roberts made the request on December 27 amid an ongoing paternity case in Independence, Ark, where Biden is fighting to lower his child-support payments for his illegitimate daughter Navy Joan Roberts.

On Dec. 27, Roberts, 31, asked Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer to allow Navy to take the Biden name, claiming it would benefit their daughter because it is “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute and politically powerful.” Roberts also argued that the Biden name would open up opportunities for the girl “just like it has for other members of the Biden family.”

In a court filing on January 6, Biden’s lawyer argued in response that his surname would rob the child of a “peaceful existence” because it has become a lightning rod for criticism. He told the judge that his daughter should decide for herself once “the disparagement of the Biden name is not at its height.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/16/new-body-worn-camera-footage-from-j6-supports-calls-for-release-of-all-video/

Body-worn camera footage obtained by American Greatness of a D.C. Metropolitan police officer on duty on January 6, 2021, shows the chaos unfolding in real-time that day and how law enforcement’s response to the protest led to rising tension and deadly violence.

Officer Terrence Craig, an 11-year veteran of the force, testified last week in the criminal trial of Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man notoriously photographed with his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office on January 6, 2021. Nearly two-and-a-half hours of video was captured by Craig’s body-worn camera, providing an uninterrupted and shocking view of what happened inside and outside the building. 

Never-before-seen interactions with police and protesters bolster demands by House Republicans to release all surveillance video recorded by Capitol security cameras on January 6.

Craig’s video starts with a group of D.C. Metro and Capitol Police advancing toward the west side of the building at 2:30 p.m. The first physical breach occurred about 15 minutes beforehand; Capitol police had used “nonlethal” munitions such as flashbangs, pepper balls, and tear gas on the crowd assembled outside on Capitol grounds for roughly an hour—the first time in department history that officers were ordered to use such dangerous crowd control devices on political protesters.

D.C. police were ordered to dress in full riot gear, including gas masks, face shields, gloves, and ballistic vests. Under cross-examination by Joseph McBride, one of Barnett’s defense attorneys, Craig admitted the officers were “fully geared up” before taking their positions.