RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/2023/01/05/did-someone-or-something-seize-control-of-the-united-states-n1658786

What happened to the U.S. border? Where did it go? Who erased it? Why and how did 5 million people enter our country illegally? Did Congress secretly repeal our immigration laws? Did President Joe Biden issue an executive order allowing foreign nationals to walk across the border and reside in the United States as they pleased?

Since when did money not have to be paid back? Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow? When did America embrace zero interest? Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

When did clean-burning, cheap, and abundant natural gas become the equivalent to dirty coal? How did prized natural gas that had granted America’s wishes of energy self-sufficiency, reduced pollution, and inexpensive electricity become almost overnight a pariah fuel whose extraction was a war against nature? Which lawmakers, which laws, which votes of the people declared natural gas development and pipelines near criminal?

Was it not against federal law to swarm the homes of Supreme Court justices, to picket and to intimidate their households in efforts to affect their rulings? How then with impunity did bullies surround the homes of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas – furious over a court decision on abortion? How could these mobs so easily throng our justices’ homes, with placards declaring “Off with their d–s”?

Since when did Americans create a government Ministry of Truth? And on whose orders did the FBI contract private news organizations to censor stories it did not like and writers whom it feared?

How did we wake up one morning to new customs of impeaching a president over a phone call? Of the speaker of the House tearing up the State of the Union address on national television? Of barring congressional members from serving on their assigned congressional committees?

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/05/twitter-files-prove-evans-law-of-inadequate-paranoia/

“No matter how bad you think things are, if you look closer, you’ll inevitably find it’s worse.” — M. Stanton Evans

For years Twitter denied that it targeted conservatives, despite piles of evidence to the contrary. But who could have imagined that Twitter had been working hand-in-glove with leftist officials in the federal government to silence speech they didn’t like. If Twitter was this bad, imagine what true tech giants like Facebook and Google have been up to.

As conservative paragon M. Stanton Evans rightly observed, whatever you think, it will likely turn out to be far worse.

The revelations that have been emerging over the past month from Twitter’s once-hidden corners – courtesy of Elon Musk – are being greeted with shrugs by reporters and editors who used to care about free speech. For everyone else, each layer uncovered by the Twitter files is worse than even its fiercest critics on the right had imagined.

Matt Taibbi, who is one of the few honest journalists left, has been on top of this from day one, and recently put together a compendium of what we’ve learned about a company that claimed its mission was to give people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”

The first batch exposed the internal machinations over Twitter’s decision to blacklist the New York Post’s explosive Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 elections. Much of that was already known.

The second batch showed that Twitter was in fact shadowbanning people – despite repeated claims to the contrary. “Twitter had a huge toolbox for controlling the visibility of any user,” Taibbi notes, including a “Search Blacklist,” a “Trends Blacklist,” and a “Do Not Amplify” setting.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/03/the-equity-paradox/

If a society strives to achieve “equity” for every citizen merely by providing equal opportunity, it would need to accept unequal outcomes. If a society does not accept unequal outcomes, it would need to provide unequal opportunities. That is a circle that cannot be squared. Societies must choose one or the other.

Every major institution in America denies this paradox. Implicit in that denial is the fantasy that designing a society to favor certain groups in order to achieve equality of outcome will not fatally undermine the cohesion and vitality of the overall society. Theoretically, it might have worked several decades ago when “disadvantaged” groups constituted a minute percentage of the American population. Offering special benefits and privileges to a small fraction of the population might have been a manageable burden. But today, the vast majority of Americans belong to a “protected status group.”

The magnitude of this shift in just six decades bears enumeration. In 1960, at the dawn of the modern civil rights movement, the population of the United States was 89 percent white. The social justice programs that were launched at that time, affirmative action and the war on poverty, had a limited impact. If affirmative action released unqualified students into elite universities or unqualified engineers and executives into upper management, it only represented at most a 10 percent displacement. If welfare and other programs initiated by the war on poverty destroyed the work ethic and broke up the families of the so-called beneficiaries, at least only 10 percent of the U.S. population was so victimized.

Today, almost everyone belongs to a protected status group. Social justice advocates now demand proportional representation be extended to include not only blacks but all nonwhites, as well as all women. They demand this “equity” be applied to all university admissions, all hiring and promotions, all government contracts, and even in the number of criminal prosecutions and prison populations. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-falsehood-of-white-privilege/

One of the Left’s favorite ways of attacking Whites in general and men in particular is to accuse them of benefiting from white privilege. Their only goal in doing so is the attainment of more power for themselves.

During the past few years, the concept of “white privilege” has taken hold of the Democratic Party and those on the Left. The idea is that all White people have enjoyed and still enjoy privileges and advantages by virtue of their being white, and this state of affairs leaves “people of color” at a structural disadvantage in almost all human endeavors—bringing up a family, getting into college, succeeding in work or business, buying a home and more. The concept of white privilege is used as a cudgel against the Left’s opponents, not to help Black people or others but rather to concentrate power in the hands of politicians, college administrators, woke corporate professionals, entertainers and the like. White privilege is a falsehood in more ways than one.

At the most basic level, the United States has such a mixed and diverse population that there is unfortunately no shortage of poor Whites, whether in Appalachia or in towns where the jobs moved out and fentanyl moved in. Additionally, there are many “people of color” who are wealthy or super-wealthy. Who has privilege—a millionaire Black businessman who grew up in a middle class family or a poor White man whose family has been barely getting by in coal country for generations? Beyond the fact that there are many Americans who do not fit into the patently false narrative of specifically white privilege, the concept itself is based on a falsehood antithetical to the “American Way.”

In the past, when America was a more religious country, one realized that his or her task in this world was to take whatever was given and make the most out of it in a lifetime. If one was born into wealth, then more was expected by society as well as by the person himself.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/outgoing_speaker_pelosi_hails_her_democrats_as_the_greatest_collection_of_intellect_integrity_and_imagination_assembled.html

Who needs nausea when we’ve got Nancy Pelosi?

The outgoing House speaker wrote a farewell letter to her fellow Democrats, with this load of pearl of Pelosi wisdom:

 One final thought that I wanted to leave with you is my belief that the House Democratic Caucus is the greatest collection of intellect, integrity and imagination assembled for the good of the American people.

Breitbart News first spotted that letter and noted it here.

Which is a rather surreal thing to say, given the animal farm menagerie the Democrats have become on her watch, going from a party of moderates and ward heel politicians, to a woke socialist echo chamber where dissent is not permitted.

Is Pelosi really saying that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who condemned cauliflower as racist, expressed amazement about garbage disposals, got caught with her hand in the till on accepting gifts, deceiving voters on a fundraiser, and paying her boyfriend as staff, was a paragon of intelligence and integrity? The woman does her makeup on Instagram. She claimed that “facts don’t matter” when you’re “morally right” when she was caught making up some of them. Is she the best the Democrats can do? That’s what counts as intellect and integrity?

How about Rep Ilhan Omar, who, evidence suggests, married her brother for immigration purposes and has repeatedly been caught spewing anti-Semitic statements?

Let’s move on to some other of these paragons of integrity cited by Pelosi, such as Rep. Adam Schiff who repeatedly lied about the evidence he had regarding his grand show trial of President Trump called impeachment — which ended up amounting to nothing? Let’s also not forget that Mr. Integrity has yet to return those campaign donations he got from convicted pervert and Democrat donor Ed Buck. That’s some intelligence and integrity.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2023/01/03/ron-desantis-inauguration-ceremony-unlike-anything-in-recent-florida-history-n1658348

On Tuesday, Jan. 3, Republican Ron DeSantis was sworn in for the second time as Florida Governor. The inauguration, which also included swearing-in ceremonies for Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, CFO, and Commissioner of Agriculture, had the feel of something much bigger. The ceremony included the 13th Army Band of the Florida National Guard, an artillery salute, and a fighter jet flyover. First Lady Casey DeSantis wore a gown with a cape and gloves, and gave off a Jackie O vibe. DeSantis delivered a speech that highlighted his first-term record of policy achievements, while laying out an aggressive second-term agenda that touched on everything from ending wokeness at public universities to fighting back against overreach from the federal government to calling out the Davos crowd.

“Florida is where woke goes to die!” DeSantis roared. The crowd roared back.

Several insiders in the press corral said they had never seen anything like it, likening it more to a presidential inauguration than a gubernatorial ceremony.

Bleachers on both sides of the steps of the historic Capitol Building in Tallahassee contained a crowd of what looked like a couple of thousand attendees. U.S. and Florida flags were everywhere. The production value of the ceremony was evident in the tight security, the numerous satellite trucks, and the professional camera work; fixed cameras, crane shots, even drones were deployed.

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2023/01/03/new_york_lawmakers_silent_on_crime_migrants_give_themselves_29_raise_872723.html

The New York State Senate and Assembly recently returned to Albany for a special session, not to rethink the “bail reform” that allows violent criminals to be released immediately after getting arrested, or to do something about the migrant crisis that is seeing thousands of illegal immigrants overwhelm New York City.

No, they ended their session then reconvened for a special session to give themselves a 29% raise, from $110,000 to $142,000, making them the highest paid state lawmakers in the country, The New York Post reported.

The Senate voted 32-23 in favor of the raise, and the Assembly later approved it 81-52, with opposition mostly from Republicans. With a veto-proof supermajority, however, it doesn’t matter how Republicans nor Gov. Kathy Hochul feel about the raise.

Hochul initially tried to tie the proposed pay raise to lawmakers passing tougher bail rules for people charged with violent felonies, domestic offenses, and hate crimes. But she changed her tune once Sen. John Mannion (D-Syracuse) won reelection following a recount of his tight race with Republican Rebecca Shiroff.

Mannion’s return to another term makes the Democrats’ veto-proof supermajorities in both the Senate and Assembly even stronger, so Republicans have nowhere near any power in Albany. Why negotiate a pay raise?

The pay hike comes after lawmakers got a 38% raise in 2018 from $79,500. That was after they got another 38% raise in 1998 when their salaries rose from $57,500 a year.

One Democrat, an outgoing state senator who lost reelection, broke ranks to vote against the raises.

“Inflation has hit everyone, and legislators increasing their pay at a time when people are feeling the pain of economic pressure doesn’t feel right,” Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick (D-Nanuet) said, The Post reported. “If this were the right thing to do, we could have handled it during the regular session.”

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

https://americanmind.org/salvo/desantis-goes-to-war/

And rightly so.

On election night, I was half-watching Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s victory remarks when something quite extraordinary and encouraging caught my attention. DeSantis evoked Churchill’s “fighting on the beaches” speech, in which Churchill stirred the resolve and patriotism of the British people in anticipation of the invasion of their homeland by the Nazis. DeSantis, of course, was not warning against Nazism: he was warning against wokeism, which he was implicitly equating with Nazism. I had never heard a national political figure treat wokeism with such (deserved) gravity.

Before rephrasing Churchill, DeSantis said:

States and cities governed by leftist politicians have seen crime skyrocket. They’ve seen their taxpayers abused, they’ve seen medical authoritarianism imposed, and they’ve seen American principles discarded. The woke agenda has caused millions of Americans to leave these jurisdictions for greener pastures.

People do not uproot themselves and leave the rhythms of home “for light and transient causes.” These people are not coming to Florida just for the weather. They are fleeing the woke regime of blue America—an abusive, lawless, totalitarian regime which is waging war against American principles and the American way of life.

DeSantis continued:

Now, this great exodus of Americans, for those folks, Florida, for so many of them, has served as the promised land. We have embraced freedom. We have maintained law and order. We have protected the rights of parents. We have respected our taxpayers, and we reject woke ideology. We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.

In evoking Churchill’s speech, DeSantis lets us know that the woke regime is bearing down on America. In the urgent cadences of war, DeSantis tells us that America will not survive unless she defeats the woke regime. He believes this regime is so evil and powerful that he can, without bathos, compare it to the Nazi regime.

Some Unsolicited Advice

DeSantis has made a good start. He has told us that we are at war with a deadly regime, the woke regime. You cannot win a war unless you know you are in one.

But at some point soon, he must go further. He must show a voting majority of Americans that wokeism is the challenge of our generation, as Nazism was the challenge of the WWII generation and Communism for two generations thereafter.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/02/the-baleful-cargo-of-woke-diversity-worship/

What do all our notable fabricators—George Santos, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama—have in common? 

Well, quite like the Ward ChurchilIs or Rachel Dolezals of the world, one way or another, they lied about their identities. Or they sought fraudulent ways of suggesting their ancestries were marginalized. Or they had claims on being victims on the theory their constructed personas brought career advantages. 

George Santos claimed, apparently in search of a victimized status, that he was an “American Jew” and a “Latino Jew,” and a descendent of Holocaust survivors. 

Joe Biden lied that he went to “shul” as well as that he grew up in a veritable Puerto Rican household and just happened to attend a black college as well as being an honorary Greek.

Elizabeth Warren ended up a laughingstock for claiming her high cheekbones were proof of her Native-American ancestry—a lie she rode all the way to being the “first” Native-American professor on the Harvard Law school faculty. 

Somehow the half-white, prep-schooled Barry Soetoro, who had taken his Indonesian stepfather’s last name, rebooted in the university back to Barack Obama. The latter oddly did not catch his literary agent “misidentifying” him in a book promo as being born in Africa. And only as president, did we learn his “autobiographical” memoir was mostly a concoction.

This fixation with constructing identities is one of the great pathologies of our woke era.

When we obsess in neo-Confederate style on race, ethnicity, or religion as the defining element of who we are, and we do this to leverage political advantage, then we set off a chain-reaction of Yugoslavian- or Lebanese-style tribalism. Like nuclear proliferation, once one group goes tribal, then all others will strain to find their own deterrent tribal identity.

https://swtotd.blogspot.com/

When sixteen, with a new license in my wallet, I took my father for a drive. He cautioned me about driving too fast. I replied, “My reflexes are faster than yours.” “Yes,” he responded, “but you lack judgment.” His words were wise, while mine, which may have retained a scintilla of truth, were foolish.

Having good judgement means having the ability to see things from all sides, the ability to make a choice based on logic, experience, reason, and good sense. Good judgement is related to wisdom, which can be defined as having insight, understanding, perception, and common sense. Mimicking Einstein’s words in the rubric above, the four sources of wisdom, according to the Book of Proverbs, are: observation and experience, instruction based on experience, learning from mistakes, and revelation. The latter refers to the fact that the Bible teaches us that God is the ultimate source of wisdom.

But today wisdom has yielded to wokeness, which is defined as the state of being aware of social problems: racism, inequality, sustainability, and injustice. Everyone agrees that racism and injustice should be combatted wherever found. We all agree that equality before the law is critical to a democracy, and that equal opportunities should be offered to all. But we are not equal in abilities or aspiration, so outcomes will never be equal. In his new book, Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategies, Henry Kissinger wrote of “the natural inequalities of endowments,” which should be harnessed “for the public good.” Individually, we should play to our strengths, be they academic, athletic, mechanical, or artistic. We should strive to do what we are best at: teaching, building homes, playing the Cello, investing, or plumbing. It is what makes a strong community. And while we should agree that care for the environment is a sacred trust, it would be foolish to let the quest for sustainability destroy our capitalist system, which has raised living standards, reduced poverty, and made life more bearable for the world’s poorest. We can and should do both.