RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/23/will-democracy-die-in-darkness-after-november/

The Republicans were always going to win big in November, regardless of what biased pundits professed. 

There was likely never a sudden “blue resurgence” or “red collapse” of late summer. 

Those fantasies were mostly Democratic Party talking points. They were readily regurgitated by the fusion media and biased pollsters. The ruse was transparently designed to dampen conservative turnout and fundraising, while fueling interparty squabbling over supposedly “unelectable MAGA candidates.”

As it turns out, all the late infusions of millions of dollars of Silicon Valley dark “cabal” money will be to no avail.  

All the last-minute Joe Biden giveaways like student-loan forgiveness, marijuana pardons, and COVID relief checks will be too little, too late.  

All the Trump-derangement syndrome psychodramatic distractions from the January 6 committee to the Mar-a-Lago raid will be too transparently desperate. 

And all the shrill 11th-hour warnings of a new variant of racism from the multimillionaire Obamas on the stump will be just that—shrill.

Yes, the Democrats will soon chant democracy is dying because they are terrified it is thriving as never before. And that grass-roots resurgence is mostly because Republicans are no longer so easily stereotyped as the out-of-touch party of aristocratic Mitt Romneys and condescending Bill Kristols.  

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/win_with_wisdom.html

The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued, “A man’s character is his fate,” by which he meant that we are all capable of shaping our futures.  It is also true that a nation’s character is its fate and that countries prosper or perish by their own hands.

Taking these two truths together, it is easy to look around today and lose hope about what lies ahead.  Western civilization is in moral peril and spiritual decay.  Increasingly authoritarian political leaders have abandoned Enlightenment principles recognizing the sanctity of individual rights and a social compact ensuring that legitimate government arises only from the “consent of the governed.”  Virtue is maligned, while sin is lauded.  Constitutional protections and inherent freedoms are ignored.  Manipulated language and propaganda supplant both meaning and the pursuit of truth.  Surely, we are damned.

Or maybe the endless winds of chaos and change have conspired to make sure we are here to lead at this moment in history.  Maybe you see the collapse around us clearly because you are meant to help rebuild and lift others up.  When our brains and hearts tell us that something is terribly amiss in the world, then we are given an opportunity to fix what’s out of place.  When everything around us seems wrong, then we are given the chance to change everything.  That is either a heavy burden or an extraordinary gift, but which it is remains our choice.  The great blessings of free will flourish only with sacrifice and duty.  We are, as English poet William Ernest Henley reminded, the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls.  It is our character that will decide what is to come.  It is our choices that will shape what lies down our road.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/ryanledendecker/2022/10/23/bidens-next-crisis-home-heating-oil-rationing-begins-in-northeast-and-its-not-even-winter-yet-n1639328

It looks like President Joe Biden might get his winter of death after all, and it’s not because of the unvaccinated.

If you live in the Northeast, you know that even in normal times, heating oil bills constitute a significant expense because winters are usually brutal. Unfortunately, this year could be the worst year ever for residents of the region hoping to adequately heat their homes. Not only are heating oil prices through the roof on anti-fossil fuel President Joe Biden’s watch, but even for those who have the funds to stock up, it doesn’t really matter: heating oil rationing is already taking place.

Rationing. Like toilet paper and baby formula rationing. Why is all this rationing happening on Biden’s watch? For the record, we never once worried about rationing under former President Donald Trump.

But the worst part about this unfolding crisis is that it’s not even winter. 

According to a bombshell Bloomberg report:

The US Northeast is so short on heating oil that the fuel used to power home furnaces is being rationed even before the start of winter.

Some wholesalers in Connecticut are putting retailers on allocation, meaning they can only get a limited amount of fuel based on availability, according to Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, which represents around 600 family-owned retailers in the state. These retailers must in turn ration their customers.

Bloomberg’s data matches what former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, told radio talk show host Howie Carr this week, in that the heating oil shortage situation in the Northeast is beyond frightening and a genuine cause for concern. LePage essentially begged current Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills to do something, anything, to bring attention to the situation before it’s too late and people start dying, while also blaming Biden for not properly addressing the issue.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-real-epidemic-in-our-cities-lawlessness/

America’s recent crime wave has been fostered by poor policy decisions, prosecutorial activism, and apathy for justice. At least a dozen major American cities set records for murder totals in 2021, including Tucson, Arizona. While some are calling for enacting harsher criminal penalties, the problem in many American cities is rooted in the lack of criminal accountability and an unwillingness of prosecutors and elected officials to enforce the laws we already have.

Amidst the persistence of the “defund the police” movement, the recent collective response to rioting, looting, and lawlessness in most major cities has been flaccid. In cities like Phoenix, leaders recklessly allow homeless camps filled with the mentally ill and drug addicted to flourish near helpless businesses and property owners. Attacks on Phoenix police are up 30 percent in the past five years. Across the country, elected officials and prosecutors entrusted to enforce the law are implementing reckless bail “reform.” Across the country, organized shoplifting and retail theft crimes have become more violent, brazen, and sophisticated.

Arizona isn’t California or New York – yet. But with the influence of recent massive political winds in Arizona, far left officials preside over several local and state offices, increasingly embracing the same extreme ideologies and failed criminal enforcement policies ingrained in other states. The next Arizona Attorney General must be up to the task of standing against those trying to mirror “soft” on crime policies and laws like California or New York – or the quality of life we enjoy as Arizonans will be lost.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/22/not-consensus-but-truth/

We use the word “steal,” as we use many words, in several distinct but related senses. Here is an illustration of the core meaning. Joe goes into a candy store, looks around furtively (from the Latin fūr, “thief”) and then, when he sees that the shopkeeper is distracted, pockets some M&M’s and walks out. Joe just stole the M&M’s. 

That act of theft is simple. There are plenty of more complex and nuanced ones, but the element of assuming as one’s own something that rightfully belongs to another is key. 

Our elaborate and often convoluted financial system is replete with examples. So is our political life. 

Perhaps the most popular meme floating about in polite society today is the contention that any hint of the 2020 presidential election being tainted is a “Big Lie.” It is so popular, in fact, that some journalists and politicians appear to present themselves to the Office of Acceptable Propaganda each day before setting off on their rounds. They collect their allotted quota of different ways of ridiculing and dismissing those imprudent enough to suggest that, as a matter of fact, there were lots of problems with the 2020 elections. 

It is important that these approved scribes and politicians engage in this ritual because there are many different ways in which this rhetorical epithet needs to be expressed if it is to achieve its goal: to silence debate by intimidating people. 

To this end, a number of different rhetorical registers must be sounded. Some are blunt and angry, as for example this tweet from a writer for The Bulwark, a marginal NeverTrump site supported by leftist billionaires: “Chris Sununu, Doug Ducey, Brian Kemp, and Glenn Youngkin . . . every single one of them is campaigning either for or with an election-denying lunatic.”

The obloquy is directed not simply against certain ideas, but also against the people who express, or might express, them. Thus we find Michael Steele, an anti-Trump Republican and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, castigating supporters of the former president as “lice, fleas, and blood sucking ticks.” The formula does have the advantage of clarity: I mean, partly because of its unsavory historical echoes, you know where you stand with Steele. 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/10/the_road_to_mediocrity.html

Woke progressivism seeks to strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

We are told that the MAGA cult, Trump voters, and Republicans in general are a threat to democracy, who, if not neutralized, will lead the nation into fascism.  In theory, a politically divided nation such as ours could evolve into fascism or socialism, should a political faction gain autocratic control.  In reality, however, we are confronted with the threat of evolving into a much more unique political structure – a Mediocracy.

A Mediocracy is a social structure in which mediocrity prevails.  Those who would change America pursue mediocrity under the banner of our moral obligation to elevate the status of the underachievers, marginalized, and minorities in our society.  The basic ploy is to lump such individuals into groups and to define them as victims of oppression.  They suffer solely from the oppressive social structure of patriarchal white supremacy, which must be dismantled.  

To entertain other reasons for the obstacles they might face is hateful, immoral, and racist.  White underachievers are dispensed with as irredeemable deplorables and deserve no further attention.  Our society, based in racism and xenophobia, is deemed illegitimate.  The fact that it has grown to become the most honored and respected on earth does not redeem it.  We must throw out the baby with the bath water and restructure society.

This message is delivered to the masses via mediocracy, the utilization of the media to control, mislead, and manipulate public thought through ambiguous and deceptive language, analogous to Orwellian newspeak.  Those not adhering to the mediocracy are debased as deniers, haters, or purveyors of disinformation, and need to be silenced.  

(Cancel culture is a natural extension of political correctness; from “you shouldn’t say that” to “you can’t say that”.)

To elevate the status of those defined as oppressed, we must embark upon a program of diversity, equity, and inclusivity.  “Diversity is our strength!”  Is it?  The strength of our society lies in its ability to achieve its constitutional purpose, requiring it to align its forces with sufficient magnitude and direction so as to achieve its goals.  In physics, this thrust is referred to as a primary vector.  Diverse forces flying off in all directions only serve to weaken the vector forces.  

https://victorhanson.com/the-unmentionable-unspeakable-and-unutterable-part-two/

Crime Everywhere

Now we come to the current crime wave.

We see weekly YouTube videos of the knock-out game, of Saturday night Al Capone-gangland massacring, of vulnerable joggers raped and killed, of a mother and her daughter carjacked, of a woman at a rail crossing murdered, of a petite woman pushed to death under a subway car, of an innocent young man simply executed on the streets, of an ax-wielding-nut terrorizing the helpless, of subway monsters assaulting with impunity all whom they please. Walking up to a stranger, slugging him in the temple, inflicting brain damage, all that is now a sort of blood sport.

Drug stores and food minimarkets in big cities are either of two sorts: one, they have been looted and ransacked; or, two, in fear of that fate, they have put almost all their goods behind protective wire or glass, cut back their nocturnal and morning hours, multiplied their security cameras, and hired guards.

There is also a growing, but again muted sense that inner-city, black-on-black gangland killing is now moving to the suburbs. Such violence is beginning more to target random strangers, often solitary drivers, pedestrians, and joggers.

And the reaction?

Zilch, except for a periodic rant from Joy Reid, Al Sharpton, the Obamas, or the Biden racialists about “racism,” as if a projectionist, unsubstantiated, Mark Milley/Lloyd Austin-like charge of “white rage” will preempt any American from saying out loud what millions of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and whites know to be true: that about four percent of the population (black males from ages 12-30) are committing over 50 percent of the violent assaults, rapes, and murders—that are reported.

Second, the additional truth that we dare not speak is that this two-year-long, post-George Floyd rampage is entirely predicated on three simple subtexts:

One, the black leadership—an Al Sharpton, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Louis Farrakhan, the Obamas, Oprah, LeBron James—who are so eager to talk of collectives, such as “whites” and “white people” as 230 million indistinguishable citizens who act as mindless racial automatons (as if George Soros, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Tucker Carlson by reason of their similar hue, can be predictably stereotyped) will never address this asymmetry. And if others do, they will seek to mute anyone by charges of racism! Do they have a duty to?

https://victorhanson.com/biden-democrats-use-midterm-mass-distraction-strategy-to-hide-counterculture-revolution-from-angry-voters/

The contours of the upcoming November midterms seem clear. President Joe Biden scarcely polls above 40% approval. His disastrous energy, economic, crime, immigration, and foreign policies proved even more unpopular.

In reaction, frightened Democratic candidates on script are resorting to strategies of diversion. They avoid mention of their prior lockstep support for Biden agendas that induced current high gas prices, spiraling inflation, deflated 401(k) retirement plans, out-of-control violent crime, 3 million illegal aliens pouring across the southern border, and the disaster in Afghanistan and its aftermath.

Most Democrats are quietly relieved that a 79-year-old, cognitively challenged Biden does not appear with them on the campaign trail, preferring he continue his frequent down time at his Delaware retreat.

Democrats also increasingly rely on a series of ginned up Trump-MAGA psychodramas. That way they hope to make the midterms a referendum on a supposedly demonic Donald Trump—with help from the media, the January 6th House Committee hearings, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and now periodic Biden rants about “semi-fascist” Trump supporters.

These efforts of mass distraction will not work.

Aside from Democrats’ inability to mask their prior support for the disastrous Biden record, most presidents lose dozens of congressional seats in their first midterm election. And when a president’s approval rating stays stuck at about 40 percent, down-ticket party candidates do poorly.

But even more importantly, in the last month of the election, there is a growing consensus that our very civilization itself is imploding and America’s current trajectory is unsustainable.

https://victorhanson.com/what-now-exactly-are-impeachable-offenses-part-one/

We know that Donald Trump was once impeached for calling up his Ukrainian counterpart and complaining that the Ukrainian government had been too involved with the corrupt Biden family. Trump then warned that if Ukraine did not clean up its quid-pro-quo act, he would delay approved military aid.

And while Trump eventually sent offensive weapons to Ukraine that the Obama-Biden administration had vetoed, he was still impeached. Apparently, his sin was that he had anticipated Biden as a future 2020 Democratic rival candidate for president, and thus was intermingling politics and foreign policy to his own benefit and the nation’s detriment.

As such, it did not matter that his phone call did not affect U.S. policy because Ukraine got its weapons, and better ones than those approved by the prior administration.

Nor did it apparently matter that Trump was correct, as we know from the later Hunter Biden laptop revelations, that the entire Biden family syndicate was corrupt. Indeed, Joe Biden himself—known to the family as the “Big Guy” and “Mr. Ten-percent” and “pedo”—cannot explain his sudden wealth, lavish pre-presidential lifestyle, or various estates without some source of extra (non-taxed?) income.

Nor does it matter apparently that Trump’s call was listened to by partisan Ukrainian American Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman who relayed it—although initially denied doing so—to the technically still “anonymous” whistleblower. The latter filed a complaint with the congressional intelligence committees, based on hearsay (from Vindman no doubt), and then coordinated with Adam Schiff to set the stage for impeachment proceedings. That fact was denied by the prevaricating Schiff, who also lied about several elements of the impeachment proceedings.

So, what then is the new bar for impeachment for warping U.S. policy for perceived political advantage?

Why was not Barack Obama impeached for his hot-mic revelations in Seoul, South Korea in early election year 2012?

After all, Obama was caught:

a) trying to alter U.S. policy to the nation’s disadvantage (by cancelling preapproved missile defense systems with Poland and the Czech Republic) in exchange for advancing his own political interests in getting reelected (asking Vladimir for “space” so that Obama would not be embarrassed by Russian adventurism during his “last” election).

b) And unlike Trump, who did send aid to Ukraine, Obama did not go forward with missile defense. And, unlike Trump’s call that did not affect events on the ground, Putin did, as promised, not invade Ukraine until 2014 after Obama was reelected.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/10/21/race-baiting-celebrity-j6-cop-once-involved-in-race-related-lawsuit/

Michael Fanone, the former D.C. Metropolitan police officer using his presence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 as a pathway to fame and fortune, is on a major publicity blitz. Along with his Pulitzer-prize finalist co-author, Fanone managed to turn his 30-minute struggle that afternoon into a 256-page book: Hold the Line: The Insurrection and One Cop’s Battle for America’s Soul is an “urgent warning about the growing threat to our democracy from a twenty-year police veteran and former Trump supporter who nearly lost his life during the insurrection of January 6th.

Never mind that Fanone was well enough on the evening of January 6 to call CNN and complain about its news coverage or that he sat for a lengthy interview with a Washington Post reporter a few days later. Fanone is part of a quartet of celebrity cops juicing every second of their involvement in the four-hour disturbance nearly two years ago, earning lucrative book deals, congressional awards, and cable news gigs in the process.

Fanone has lots to say in his memoir—heavily sprinkled with obscenities—while ranting about Donald Trump and his supporters. (Fanone begins with a brazen lie that Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick died of “wounds” sustained on January 6.)

He condemns Republican lawmakers for refusing to go along with the “insurrection” narrative and he names names: A secretly recorded meeting with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is described in the book. “While you were on the phone with [Trump], I was getting the shit kicked out of me, almost losing my life,” Fanone told McCarthy in 2021. “The way that he, you know, saying this is what happens when you steal an election. Go home. I love you. What the fuck is that!?”

But one name is missing from Fanone’s profane screed: Michael A. Maddox.