RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/a-game-of-debt-ceiling-chicken/

A feature of divided government, especially when the House of Representatives is not controlled by the president’s party, is “debt-ceiling chicken.” The president’s party tries to bluff, with threats of a default, the House, which is responsible for initiating money bills, into giving the president whatever he wants, usually more money for redistribution, and no cuts to entitlement spending. The House does the same thing, usually pressuring the other party to accept spending cuts.

The cliff they’re both speeding towards is an unprecedented default on the government’s debt, which currently stands at $31 trillion. Each side calculates that voters will blame the other party, which will slam the brakes first as the cliff approaches. This year Joe Biden, or whatever Edgar Bergan or Edith Wilson is actually calling the shots, until a week ago took a hard stand against any negotiations on raising the debt ceiling with a “clean bill” as the early June deadline looms.

The spectators of this show usually decry the “partisanship” and lack of “bipartisan” cooperation the two parties are exhibiting. Yet disputes over the budget illustrate what the Founders had in mind when they crafted a divided and balanced government––to exploit this factional competition, which reflects a flawed human nature and its passions and interests, in order to protect freedom by setting ambition against ambition. Also, this process can force a more careful consideration of a proposed policy, and sift out the dangerous features and a bringing to light better ones.

Money is integral to this process. The desire for gain accompanies ambition and the lust for power. The ensuing disparities in property, as Madison pointed out, are the cause of rival political factions. Control of the public fisc allows factions to pursue their ideological aims at the expense of others.

During the writing of the Constitution, Gouverneur Morris similarly identified the major factions as comprising the poor and the rich, those with “great personal property” and the “aristocratical spirit.” The “Rich will strive to establish dominion & enslave the rest. They always did. They always will.” To check the ambition of the “rich,” “the popular [non elite] interest will be combined [against] it. There will be mutual check and mutual security.”

https://justthenews.com/accountability/whistleblowers/tale-two-whistleblowers-highlights-reprisal-risk-congress-probes

Two different whistleblowers from two separate law enforcement agencies in two separate high-profile criminal cases are raising a disturbing new question for Congress: Is the Biden administration seeking to squash those who report wrongdoing or challenge its official narratives?

Just 24 hours apart, the plights of a decorated FBI intelligence analyst and a decorated supervisory IRS agent burst onto the national scene with detailed accounts alleging they have endured retaliation and reprisal for blowing the whistle.

The publicly unnamed IRS agent – once a star on the Swiss bank tax evasion cases that stunned the world – was unceremoniously dumped along with his entire team from the Hunter Biden tax probe just a few weeks after alleging there was Justice Department political interference in the high-profile matter, his lawyers reported to Congress.

The removal stunned lawmakers who just a week ago won assurance from the IRS chief there would be no reprisals. It also stripped the Hunter Biden prosecution team of a bench with deep knowledge gained by years of investigation into the president’s son.

FBI intelligence analyst Marcus Allen – a combat-tested Marine who just a few years ago was named the Charlotte, N.C. field office employee of the year – has had his security clearance and paychecks revoked after reporting he had found open-source intelligence calling into question the accuracy of Director Chris Wray’s testimony about the Jan. 6 probe, according to his complaint filed with the DOJ inspector general.

The FBI declined comment on Tuesday when asked about Allen’s complaint.

Both cases have lawmakers scratching their heads, concerned that if the whistleblowers allegations are corroborated that Congress has been deprived of opportunities to fix problems impacting American taxpayers.

“It’s unacceptable,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., a key member of the House Intelligence committee, told the “John Solomon Reports” podcast on Tuesday. “We need people inside the agencies to tell us, in many cases, the secrets of those agencies, if we’re going to pass legislation that is going to correct some of the wrongs of the past.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/16/the-hate-industry/

“The most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland is white supremacy.”
— President Joe Biden, speaking at Howard University, May 13, 2023

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, when establishment politicians started to make common use of the term “homeland,” they told us the most dangerous threat to Americans was foreign terrorists. But today, we are instructed to fear the enemy within. A new iconic date, January 6, 2021, is inscribed on our collective consciousness. From coast to coast, Americans are being herded into two camps. There are the “white supremacists,” those bad people who purportedly hate good people. And then there is everyone else, good people who are encouraged to hate the bad people.

The common thread, to state the obvious, is hate.

As Joe Biden’s would-be successor, doing his part to nurture and support the hate industry, California Governor Gavin Newsom on May 4 announced “the Launch of CA vs Hate, a New Statewide Hotline to Report Hate Acts in California.” Proclaiming that “hate will not be tolerated,” the governor said that Californians will have “another tool to ensure that not only justice is served, but that individuals have access to additional resources to help deal with the lingering wounds that remain after such a horrendous crime occurs.”

This is agenda-driven hype. The agenda, perfectly expressed by author Michael Shellenberger in a Substack post last week, is to “manufacture a fake ‘hate’ crisis as [a] pretext for mass spying, blacklists, and censorship.” The hype, also exposed by Shellenberger in his recent article, is underscored by the fact that over the past 10 years, hate crime convictions, as opposed to “criminal complaints of hate crimes,” have not increased at all. In a state with 40 million people, hate crime convictions were a minuscule 109 in 2021, and a negligible increase from 107 in 2012.

The hate industry is a vast agglomeration of lucrative hustles, now institutionalized and expanded into multiple and overlapping sectors. There is the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) sector; the equity, social, and governance (ESG) sector; the activist sector comprising countless groups, including Black Lives Matter and Antifa; the corporate, academic, and government sectors; the media sector; the politicians; and the pundits. All of these sectors have spawned scores of thousands of well-paying jobs.

If these institutions weren’t able to point to rising levels of hatred in America, then their specialty, the business of hate, would no longer be a growth industry. Where there is no hate, they must manufacture it. Where hatred has diminished, they must discover new forms of hate, often so subtle that we foolishly fail to recognize it without their assistance.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/danger-government-digital-currency/

President Joe Biden and the media are excited about something new: a Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. It’s a currency like Bitcoin, except controlled by the federal government.

Not everyone is a fan.

“Sometimes government does things that may appear to be benevolent but really are kind of like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” says Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in my new video. “This is a wolf coming as a wolf.”

For months, I’ve tried to get DeSantis to sit down for an interview. What finally got him to agree was government’s plan for digital money.

“If you don’t trust central authority,” DeSantis says, “then you should see this immediately as something that is very problematic.”

Of course, a lot of people do trust central authority. The Biden administration says a CBDC will “protect consumers, investors … and the environment.”

“That last one’s a tell,” laughs DeSantis, “they would impose ideology certain criteria … ‘You’re filling up too much (with gas). Wait a minute — climate change. You can’t be doing that! You bought another firearm? No, no, no.’”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/the_swamp_is_deep_and_the_irs_crocodiles_are_hungry.html

Maybe the IRS should spend their time administering the tax code instead of targeting people they don’t like and protecting criminals whose policies they like. 

These days, it is no different than when they targeted Tea Party members for the sole reason that they did not like President Obama’s big government and high-tax policies. 

Biden compared Tea Party members to domestic terrorists back then, just like he compares MAGA Republicans to domestic terrorists today.

It is Democrats who continually gin up racial hate and division while they pretend they want unity and most of the media cheers. 

Why should we hire 87,000 more IRS agents when the ones we have are more interested in protecting themselves instead of doing their job?

Look at this news here:

IRS Axes ‘Entire Investigative Team’ Probing Hunter Biden Taxes: Report

According to an exclusive report late Monday night from The New York Post, the IRS “removed the ‘entire investigative team’ from its long-running tax fraud probe of first son Hunter Biden in alleged retaliation against the whistleblower who alleged a coverup.”

Biden’s latest financial disclosures are out and he showed no gifts. What about the gifts when Hunter uses kickbacks to pay Daddy’s bills? I bet those gifts have never been shown on any gift tax return. I bet IRS agents don’t care.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/05/what_the_who_has_in_store_for_us.html

The brilliant and evil Saul Alinsky, in his seminal book Rules for Radicals, said in Rule 4, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”  We are about to get a critical lesson in how the U.S. Constitution is going to be used to destroy America.  The World Health Organization (WHO) is about to do that by getting “emergency” medical powers to control U.S. “healthcare” and much more.  Sadly, that appears inevitable.

Here are some predictions about what’s coming.  Their goal will be to do as much irreversible damage as fast as possible to U.S. health care system.  This is for all the marbles.  To paraphrase H.L. Mencken, the elites have waited a long time to shaft the common folk (who are insolently rejecting their Frankenshots), and we are about “to get it good and hard.”

The agreement will pass in the next month and immediately become law.
Using the immediate implementation provisions of the agreement, a “potential” health emergency will quickly be declared.
The WHO will claim very broad powers over “U.S. Healthcare.”  They will either delegate their powers to the CDC, et al. or, more likely, create a new unrestricted “Liaison Agency” (“LiAgency” — Fauci?) to implement the WHO powers.
Near-term actions will include:
Mandatory digital health passports (probably first for travelers, then for everyone).
Mandatory vaccines for everyone (first to travel, then to get access to Healthcare, then to get access to anything).
Since Tedros (head of the WHO) has already declared medical “misinformation” a major health problem (“an epidemic”), a “MisInfo” Directive will provide the legal basis for the more than willing U.S. government (and media Mafia) agencies to massively censor any dissenting medical opinions. (Good luck, Substack.)
First, using Rule 13 — “pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it” — they will target the “worst” MisInfonistas (as enemies of the global state) and any new info they publish.
Next, they will broaden it to include all new “MisInfonistas” publications.
Then they will disappear all past historic MisInfo and eventually outlaw its use.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/05/16/the_numbers_are_in_on_how_biden-era_funding_is_skewing_scientific_research_ever-wokeward_899601.html

While pushing record spending for research and development, the Biden administration is working not just to advance science but also progressive ideology. In line with the administration’s “whole of government” commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, recent grants and requests for proposals from the National Science Foundation encompass research that: 

Examines how artificial intelligence may exhibit bias against “disadvantaged groups.”  

Looks at the negative experiences of minorities studying engineering and finds ways to create a culture that makes “diversity, equity, and inclusion a priority in the engineering enterprise.”  

Creates “equitable mathematics” by exploring how math instruction “may serve to marginalize students.”

Critics, including some scientists, claim such projects are outside the scope of the National Science Foundation, whose $10 billion annual budget is one of the government’s prime mechanisms for supporting basic research in the non-medical sciences. Through 11,000 awards each year to academic and corporate researchers, the NSF sets the agenda for inquiry in a wide variety of fields including computer science, environmental science, mathematics, engineering, and the social and psychological sciences. 

https://themessenger.com/opinion/durham-report-condemns-the-fbis-russia-probe-but-dont-expect-it-to-make-a-difference

“Raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated.” Those words from the Durham Report summed up one of the most damning investigations in the Justice Department’s history.

In the 305-page report released Monday, special counsel John Durham concluded that the Trump-Russia investigation was launched without a required minimal level of evidence and shattered a host of departmental standards. Let that sink in: The Justice Department — as well as the media that covered it — effectively shut down a duly elected presidency, based on what turned out to be a politically engineered hoax.

That would make anyone angry. Really angry. Trump-level angry.

The fact is, in this instance, Donald Trump was correct when he said he was the target of a political hitjob funded by the Clinton campaign and maintained by virtually every media outlet. There is a word for that: disinformation.

Democrats such as former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California have pushed for censorship by claiming that disinformation is a threat to democracy. Well, this is that threat — the real one. This actually left an administration mired in a faux scandal for years, with high-ranking officials paraded before grand juries and their guilt then proclaimed nightly on cable news shows.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lefts-war-on-the-rule-of-law-constitution-democrats-ethics-reform-kavanaugh-gorsuch-abortion-5f7b2b61?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

The left was able for decades to get through the courts, including the Supreme Court, what it couldn’t get through Congress. Today, however, liberals are trying to subvert the legitimacy of the Supreme Court because it contains a majority of justices committed to the Constitution and the rule of law. Suddenly, instead of repeatedly approving the left’s agenda, the federal judiciary has become one of its greatest impediments. Believing they can no longer win at the court, progressives now want to change the rules of the game. Rather than improving their legal arguments and strategy, they are attacking the referees.

The first contours of the plan emerged in March 2020. As the justices prepared to rule on a Louisiana abortion law, Sen. Chuck Schumer stood in front of the Supreme Court and declared that Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch had “released the whirlwind” and would “pay the price.” He warned that they wouldn’t “know what hit” them if they went forward with “these awful decisions.” The pattern of attack that emerged since then makes it clear that Mr. Schumer meant what he said. The judiciary, and the justices themselves, are in the left’s cross hairs—sometimes literally.

The first step of the left’s plan to transform the courts was to end the filibuster. Breaking this longstanding Senate procedural norm would eventually give the majority party power to overhaul the membership, structure and jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Next came a push for court-packing, both via legislation and President Biden’s presidential commission on court reform. Although these efforts weren’t successful, Democrats haven’t given up. They still want to end the filibuster and pack the court and are merely waiting for the right political moment.

A slew of attacks on judicial norms constituted the next step in the left’s plan to transform the courts. Liberal activists called for term limits for Supreme Court justices. They pressured Justice Stephen Breyer to retire during President Biden’s term. They protested outside the justices’ homes after the Dobbs decision leaked, and a potential assassin even targeted Justice Kavanaugh.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/john-durham-report-special-counsel-fbi-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-russia-peter-strzok-christopher-steele-d4a01d4e?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Two special counsels, several inspector general reports and six years later, the country finally has a more complete account of the FBI’s Russia collusion probe of the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. Special counsel John Durham’s final report makes clear that a partisan FBI became a funnel for disinformation from the Hillary Clinton campaign through a secret investigation the bureau never should have launched.

The 306-page Durham report released Monday afternoon is far more comprehensive than anything issued by original special counsel Robert Mueller. Mr. Durham had already unfurled some of the narrative with his prosecutions of Russian national Igor Danchenko and Democratic lawyer Michael Sussmann. He lost those cases, though the indictments laid out how the Clinton campaign used foreign nationals, an oppo-research outfit, and political insiders to feed the FBI and the media lies about Trump collusion.

The Durham report gives a fuller picture of the FBI’s complicity under former director James Comey and deputy Andrew McCabe. It scores an FBI that “failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law.” Here are some of the specific findings:

• No basis for investigation. The FBI lacked “any actual evidence of collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia when it violated its standards and jumped over several steps to initiate a full investigation, including probes into four members of the Trump campaign.