RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.city-journal.org/how-did-ron-desantis-outperform-the-gop

The consensus is that, amid generally disappointing results for conservatives, Florida governor Ron DeSantis won the midterms. He defeated his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, by a 19-point margin and turned the state, which was once considered a battleground, deep red. He won everywhere, notching impressive victories with Hispanic and urban voters in formerly Democratic strongholds like Miami-Dade County.

How did DeSantis outperform the rest of the GOP? The answer, I believe, is that he has created a new model for “culture war as public policy,” which combines popular media combat with competent, effective governance.

DeSantis has built his profile by engaging in controversial cultural fights on critical race theory, gender ideology, and other “woke” issues. In his election night victory speech, DeSantis framed himself as a culture-war champion. “We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations,” he said. “We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

But DeSantis is not merely blustering. He has advanced a substantive agenda to rein in left-wing ideologies in Florida’s institutions, passing significant higher education reforms, new curriculum guidance for K–12 schools, a ban on gender theory in grades K–3, and the Stop W.O.K.E. Act, which restricts critical race theory-style racial scapegoating in large institutions, including corporations. Most notably, DeSantis picked a fight with the Walt Disney Company, which had previously been untouchable in Florida politics—and won.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/16/cape-cod-decides-to-boost-its-crime-rate/

Like many places in America today, Massachusetts is not what it used to be. Known in political mythology as the home of the center-Left, tax-cutting Cold Warrior John F. Kennedy, the commonwealth has become increasingly fringe since the days of Camelot. The excesses of Ted Kennedy led to Mike Dukakis, which has led to the bonkers wokeism of Elizabeth Warren and Ayanna Pressley. Those Bay Staters who still cling to pragmatism must feel like orphans by now.

After the recent midterm election, the situation appears even more grim. In Cape Cod’s Barnstable County, voters replaced retiring Sheriff James Cummings with Donna Buckley, who previously worked as general counsel in the sheriff’s office. Despite her time in Cummings’ office, Buckley’s election represents a sea change in how the county protects its citizens, and that’s bad news for residents who value their safety and property.

Cummings spent nearly 50 years in law enforcement and completed four terms as county sheriff. He stood out in Massachusetts as one of only a few sheriffs in the state who participated in the 287(g) program, in which local law enforcement cooperates with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to transfer custody of criminal illegal aliens to the federal agency for arrest and deportation proceedings.

The program seemed to work well in Barnstable County, as crime rates have been below the national average. Despite Massachusetts’ status as a sanctuary state, the county’s assembly of delegates even rejected a resolution in 2018 to oppose Cummings’ participation in the program.

Perhaps because of its effectiveness, 287(g) has been in the crosshairs of the anti-borders Left for several years. The result has been a string of sheriff candidates across the country who have campaigned on a promise to rescind cooperation with ICE. Buckley was one of them.

What can residents of Barnstable County expect now that they have voted for such a dramatic shift in law enforcement posture? The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) earlier this year investigated a similar change in Georgia’s Gwinnett County. Newly elected Sheriff Keybo Taylor ended the county’s participation in the 287(g) program his first day in office in 2020.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/16/let-the-blame-games-begin/

Who or what was responsible for the Republican nationwide collapse in the midterms? After all, pundits, politicos, and pollsters all predicted a “red tsunami.” 

Moreover, the average loss of any president in his first midterm is 25 House seats. And when his approval sinks to or below 43 percent—in the fashion of Joe Biden—the loss, on average, expands to over 40 seats. 

Barack Obama in 2010 lost 63 seats. Is Biden, therefore, more charismatic or more energetic than Obama? Was his agenda more successful and popular? 

Given such high Republican expectations, the blame game for the loss is as strident and confusing as was the election itself. 

Here are some of the most common targets of criticism. 

Donald Trump is being blamed on various counts. Before the midterms, he strangely attacked Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. And he loudly hinted that he would run again. 

Those histrionics supposedly took attention away from Republican candidates. Trump turned off some DeSantis fans from Trump-endorsed candidates, and energized Trump-hating left-wingers to go out and vote to stop the momentum for a second Trump presidency. 

Yet the idea that Trump was erratic or reckless was not really new and surprised no one on either side of the political divide. 

Two, Trump promoted many losing candidates, often on the narrow basis of whether they had accepted his charges of a rigged 2020 election. His critics countered that while his MAGA candidates won primaries in states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, they had little chance of going on to win general elections. 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mark-milley-and-the-coming-civil-military-crisis-joint-chiefs-ukraine-negotiation-russia-politics-president-11668634194?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Gen. Mark Milley apparently thinks Ukraine should negotiate with its Russian aggressors and the U.S. should shift its policy toward Kyiv. That’s the upshot of a New York Times piece, published last week, about remarks the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff made at the Economic Club of New York. Such views aren’t merely strategically irrational. They also demonstrate the risks of elevating general officers to positions of political prominence. As partisanship continues to plague American politics, we need a new chairman to repair the military’s fractious relationship with civilian authorities.

The airing of Gen. Milley’s comments isn’t surprising. Since the war began, there have been leaks about intra-White House disputes, particularly over whether to provide Ukraine with long-range weapons. Though Gen. Milley may not have shared all those sentiments, it also shouldn’t be surprising that he is fearful of—and vocal about—escalated conflict with Russia.

Gen. Milley, who became chairman of the Joint Chiefs in October 2019, has a track record of political activity. In September 2021, he admitted that he sought to assure his Chinese counterparts in late 2020 that there was no possibility of a Sino-American war. He took the same approach to Iran in 2020, apparently resisting then-President Trump’s desire to strike the regime in the final months of his term. Never mind that such wartime decisions are the sole constitutional authority of the commander in chief, not senior military officials.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/democracy-dies-in-illinois-democrats-unions-j-b-pritzker-11668462531?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden says last Tuesday was “a good day” for democracy, but he must not be paying attention to what happened in Illinois. Behold a case study in how Democrats change the rules to limit political competition and entrench one-party, public-union rule.

Democrats held supermajorities in both legislative chambers and a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court before the election. But their ex-boss Michael Madigan’s corruption scandal gave Republicans a chance to make gains in the statehouse, compete for Governor, and take control of the state Supreme Court for the first time in more than 50 years.

After deposing Mr. Madigan, Democrats last year did him proud by jamming through new state legislative maps that forced 12 Republican incumbents into six House districts. Democrats held 73 of 118 House seats under Mr. Madigan’s gerrymander. Their new, more extreme gerrymander helped them pick up four to five more seats.

Democrats also redrew state Supreme Court districts for the first time in 60 years. Three Justices are elected exclusively from Cook County, which includes Chicago. This guarantees Democrats three seats. But their majority looked in danger after a Democratic Justice representing central Illinois lost a retention election in November 2020 for the first time in state history.

Unions and Democrats have counted on the Democratic Supreme Court to block pension reforms and a ballot initiative backed by former GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner that would have established an independent redistricting commission. Democratic Justices have prevented citizens from using the ballot process to bypass the Legislature and enact government reforms.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/17/mayorkas-lies-again-to-congress-isnt-that-illegal/

On Monday, the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol reported that it had “encountered” 230,678 migrants illegally crossing into the country, the highest number ever recorded in October and the third highest in the nation’s history.

On Tuesday, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas assured Congress that the border is secure and that “we are working day in and day out to enhance its security.”
 
The back-to-back events lead to a question: How many times can a Cabinet secretary blatantly lie to Congress before he gets brought up on charges?
 
Federal law, after all, makes it a crime to “knowingly and willfully” give “materially” false statements to Congress, even if you’re not under oath. The penalty includes fines and up to five years in prison, or up to eight if the lie involves international or domestic terrorism.

Mayorkas is a serial offender who deserves the eight-year beef.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/11/15/mob-rule-and-the-death-of-trust/

It’s been clear to millions of Americans for decades that the media was biased, that the Democratic Party and their government employee union allies controlled and corrupted big city elections, and that the “climate crises” and the threat of “white supremacy” were being oversold. These and other annoyances were perennial. But for many skeptics, the level of mistrust remained tolerable. The system itself was resilient. Nothing is perfect. The tide can turn. The good guys could still win. The 2015 arrival of Donald Trump on the national political scene changed the rules. The system not only revealed itself to be even more fraudulent than most people had previously believed, but it became malevolent.

For over six years, representatives of every established institution in the country have stereotyped Americans who voted for President Trump as bigots, idiots, ignoramuses, haters, psychopaths, and traitors. The virulence of this condemnation has escalated each year, culminating during the 2022 mid-term election cycle with a full-court press to tag anyone who supports the former president as a fascist and and potential “domestic terrorist.”

Those who openly proclaimed their support for Trump, even if they expressed themselves with tact and rational arguments, focusing on his policies, and even while acknowledging Trump’s often confrontational persona, lost lifelong friends and faced threats to their livelihood. By the millions, they were made to feel unwelcome in their own country.

Anger breeds anger. Contempt breeds contempt. With Newtonian certainty, the disgust has become mutual. But on one side, with rare exceptions, the entire institutional weight of the most powerful nation in the world has lined up. The media, the search engine and social media platforms, the entertainers, the teachers and professors, the corporations, the government agencies, the politically active billionaires: Almost all of them proclaim Trump supporters to be horrible, dangerous people.

This asymmetrical assault is personal and profoundly alienating. Perhaps more than 100 million Americans now believe, with good reason, that they have been completely rejected by the nation in which they grew up.

Trump didn’t attract millions of Americans to support him because of his bombastic attacks on his opponents in politics and the media. That was comedic relief. Trump’s instant and enduring popularity owes to the way he speaks for millions of people who feel betrayed by the institutions they need to trust. Trump’s resiliency offers inspiration to them as he defies a mob that has destroyed the lives of countless individuals who dare to challenge a growing assortment of absurdities.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/11/leftists_are_dangerously_dehumanizing_their_political_opponents.html

On November 3, Sunny Hostin, a cohost on The View, said, “White suburban women voting for Republicans are like roaches voting for the bug spray Raid.” Her hostility supposedly stemmed from Republican opposition to abortion. A co-panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin pointed out her previous opposition to abortion based on her Catholic faith, but Hostin was not deterred. On the one hand, this is a silly spat on a silly show. On the other hand, it matters a great deal when someone with a national platform likens people to insects.

Hostin’s language is similar to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in 2018, referring to Jews as termites. Of course, Farrakhan is a hateful man who’s made a living from hate. He stopped attending college after three years and briefly made a living as a Calypso singer known as “Calypso Gene” before embracing his calling. He has generously expressed hatred of whites, Jews, and homosexuals. Hostin, however, has a different resume. She is a lawyer and has been in the media for a long time, including as a senior legal analyst for ABC News.

Two very different people but both doing something extremely dangerous, which is to dehumanize people. David Livingstone Smith has dedicated an entire book to this problem: Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. Smith argues that it is important to define and describe dehumanization because it is what opens the door to cruelty and genocide: “During the Holocaust, Nazis referred to Jews as rats. African Hutus involved in the Rwanda genocide called Tutsis cockroaches. Slave owners throughout history considered slaves subhuman animals.”

https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/11/16/trump-shocks-the-world-by-nearly-putting-us-to-sleep-n659519

EXCERPTS…..

For all those tuning into Donald Trump’s announcement of his presidential candidacy Tuesday night expecting to see a rip-roaring, fired-up Trump tearing into Joe Biden, trashing the fake news, and just generally riling up the crowd, you were disappointed. Trump was unusually calm, almost somber even, and spoke mostly in a slightly-hoarse monotone. While he certainly delivered some of his red meat lines, he rarely went into his trademark ranting mode and stayed away from hot topics like the 2020 election, Crooked Hillary, and January 6. The words “Russia collusion” never came out of his mouth.

The substance of the speech was fine, although meandering. First, he delivered a defense of all he accomplished while he was president (which was a lot), then he turned his attention to criticizing Biden, which he did but—again—with a surprising lack of passion. Biden’s attacks on Trump have been much more savage than that as of late.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/11/16/voters-reject-amnesty-for-big-mistakes-made-during-covid-ii-tipp-poll/
Americans seek COVID accountability after lockdowns, economic damage, and thousands of deaths.

A recent online magazine article proposed a controversial idea: Those government and private officials who might have made serious errors during the COVID-19 pandemic should be granted “amnesty” for their mistakes. Will it fly? As the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows, the answer is “not likely.”

The article in question, Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty, appeared in the Oct. 31 online edition of The Atlantic. Specifically, the article, written by Brown University economist Emily Oster (who herself was heavily criticized for supporting school reopenings during COVID) urged:

We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty. We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.

But Americans mostly disagree with that idea, according to the latest national I&I/TIPP Poll, conducted online from a sampling of 1,359 adults from Nov. 2-4. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.