RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/08/ron-desantis-is-right-on-the-executive-duty-to-enforce-the-law/

The Florida governor may look like he’s engaging in a power grab, but as the executive, he’s standing up for a core rule-of-law value.

The rule of law is vital to the American system of government. Our system is designed, in the words of John Adams, “to the end that it may be a government of laws and not of men.” That core value imposes a variety of different obligations on different actors in the system. Today’s big announcement by Ron DeSantis, suspending a county attorney who refused as a matter of policy to enforce Florida laws he disliked, highlights one of those obligations: the duty of the executive to enforce the laws written by the legislature.

The people choose the government and retain the power to remove its officials: That makes us a democracy. Nobody has an inherited role or a privileged status above the law: That makes us a republic. The rules are written down: That makes our system constitutional. The rule of law binds these strands together. Once the constitution and the laws are written down, there are only two choices: Challenge the laws in court as conflicting with the written constitution, or change the constitution or the laws through the democratic process. In the meantime, there are only two outcomes: Either the rules are binding as written on everyone, or the people are no longer in charge of the government.

Adams used the phrase “a government of laws and not of men” in the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 to justify the rigorous separation of powers: Only the legislature writes laws, only the executive enforces them, and only the judiciary interprets them. John Marshall used the same phrase in Marbury v. Madison to emphasize a related but distinct point: Judges have not just the power to declare laws invalid if they violate the Constitution, but a duty to do so in order to restrain the legislature: “To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished. . . .”

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/04/the-evasive-mr-wray/

It was time for him to fly.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time since July 2021, insisted he had to leave the hearing by 1:30 p.m. sharp. (It began at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday morning.) 

Despite leading a scandal-ridden agency quickly losing the trust of the American people and congressional Republicans, Wray somehow believes that setting aside less than four hours to answer questions by lawmakers responsible for checking and balancing his work is sufficient.

“I had a flight that I’m supposed to be high-tailing it to, and I had understood that we were going to be done at 1:30, so that’s how we ended up where we are,” Wray told Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the ranking member who asked why the rush. If Wray needed to leave on business, Grassley noted, “you’ve got your own plane,” referring to the taxpayer-funded Gulfstream G550 jet used to ferry the head of the FBI around the country privately.

Wray got his way—the committee wrapped shortly after 1:30 p.m. with no chance for Republicans to ask follow-up questions. It was a symbolic win and another example of how Wray almost always prevails in skirmishes between his agency and members of Congress.

To be fair, an extended appearance only would have resulted in more non-answers and political spin. 

Wray, appointed by Donald Trump in 2018, knows a lot about issues that matter to the Biden regime and national news media, such as the imaginary threat of “domestic violent extremists.” But he isn’t so savvy when it comes to issues that matter to Americans, such as a wide-open southern border, exploding crime rates, an aggressive China on the rise, and foreign terrorists who arrived here in the disorderly evacuation of Afghanistan.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/moral-dimension-crisis-we-face-david-horowitz/

Everyone can sense that the political situation we find ourselves in is anything but normal. Yet the language we use to describe current conflicts is a language designed to frame them in the category of politics as usual – only perhaps more so. In speaking about current conflicts, we focus on the surface “issues” that divide us – a record inflation, off-the-charts crime waves in our urban centers, a humanitarian crisis at our southern border. Sometimes we sum it up as a double standard in the justice system that treats violent leftists as “peaceful protesters” and public school parents concerned about the abuse of their children as “domestic terrorists.” That juxtaposition gets us closer to the true nature of the conflict. But it is still inadequate to the gravity of the political moment, suggesting that progressives simply fail to understand the issues at hand.

But they understand them very well. For progressives the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the “revolution” – the
“re-imagining” and transformation of American society into a future where genders are selected and “social justice” prevails.  That goal is so worthy and so necessary, it justifies any and all means to achieve it. Once this is understood, one can see that under the surface of the crises we face is a sinister force that poses an existential threat to our way of life – a threat far more immediate than the so-called climate apocalypse.

Morality is about following rules that ensure virtuous ends. Detach the means from the ends and what you get are the totalitarian regimes that have blighted the modern era. At the root of the current American crisis is what can only be described as the moral depravity of the “woke” progressives and their radical agenda.

Is this extreme? How else to describe Senator Elizabeth Warren’s response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade with a call – unopposed by her Democrat colleagues – to close the nation’s 3,000 private “crisis pregnancy centers.”[1]

https://mailchi.mp/b694bc49f90d/35b-from-us-taxpayers-funded-world-health-organization-59147?e=0c8ccf8e98

BILLIONS SPENT ON PRIVATE BUSINESS DEALS IN HOSTILE NATIONS

Ever heard of the Export-Import Bank? It’s little-known, but it’s not like your local credit union. It’s part of the federal government and it spends BILLIONS of your tax dollars!

The bank is meant to finance deals that boost exports and small businesses when private capital can’t be found.  But most of the money goes to huge corporations like Boeing and General Electric – or to countries that are openly hostile to the United States! 

Since 2007, Chinese companies have received more than $6.4 billion even though the nation has the second largest GDP in the world – AND even though they’re threatening us over Taiwan! 

Russian companies, which often line the pockets of oligarchs, received $1.9 billion – even though Russia is fighting a land war in Europe and could be responsible for food and fuel shortages worldwide! 

Saudi Arabian companies took over $6.9 billion in financing – even though President Biden called them a pariah over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The icing on this awful cake? These deals and capital assurances are guaranteed by YOU, the American taxpayer. If any of this cash is lost in a country that’s economically or politically unstable, that’s tax dollars down the drain. 

With widespread turmoil around the world, we need to take a SERIOUS look at where we fund private business deals. 

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18772/jewish-democratic-council

This organization — the Jewish Democratic Council — is misnamed. It recruits members and solicits money based on false advertising. It promotes itself as comprised of pro-Israel Jews. But the reality is that its leadership consists mainly of progressive Democrats who just happen to be Jewish. For them Israel, Iran and anti-Semitism are peripheral issues.

That is increasingly true of many Democratic Jewish voters who prioritize other concerns over Israel, over the growing threat of anti-Semitism from the hard left and hard right, and over other issues that directly affect the Jewish people.

[T]hey obviously do not want to hear the perspective of this Jewish Democrat, because the organization is more united behind social policy issues — abortion, gun control, the environment and the Supreme Court — than they are about Israel. I was told by two people who attended the event that the word “Israel” was never even mentioned….

I shake my head in frustration at why so many left-wing Jewish Democrats are willing to abandon Israel and continue to vote blindly for their grandparents’ Democratic Party without demanding that it marginalize its anti-Israel extremists.

We have no loyalty to the current Democrat Party, just as many of its most prominent officials seem to have no loyalty to so many of their Jewish supporters. We certainly should have no loyalty to organizations such as the Jewish Democratic Council that hides its true priorities behind the misleading label “Jewish.” There is nothing Jewish about their agenda, which is to elect Democrats regardless of their views on issues of direct concern to the Jewish community and Israel.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Victory in the Cold War provided the U.S. a peace dividend that lasted ten years, until the attack on 9/11. U.S. defense spending, as a percent of GDP, declined from 5.6% in 1990 to 3.1% in 2000. It peaked in 2010 at 4.9% but fell to 3.7% in 2020. (In comparison, during the Vietnam war defense spending exceeded 9%.) But history did not end with end of the Cold War, evil did not vanish, and people did not become kinder and gentler. While the United States and the West gloated in victory and let their defense systems erode, China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, expanded their defense budgets.

But it is not just spending that is the problem. A smarter and more focused military means commitment on the part of the people and their representatives in Congress. While the U.S. developed technical leadership in social media platforms and video games, it fell behind China and Russia in military technologies. The U.S. graduates about 70,000 engineers each year, which compares to Russia and China, together, graduating ten times that number. The fate of Bell Labs, once known as “the idea factory,” is indicative of our technological decline. As a division of AT&T, and partnering with the U.S. government, it was responsible for world-changing technologies, from the transistor to the laser. Now it is owned by Nokia, a Finnish company. DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) annual budget remained flat in constant dollars over the past twenty-five years, despite significant advances in technology.

Today’s military has embraced wokeism. Soldiers, sailors and airmen are taught to be gender sensitive, to be sure to use the right pronouns. They are instructed in Critical Race Theory and told our nation is systemically racist. In appealing to activists, the military is alienating those most likely to serve.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/03/why-we-lost-trust-in-the-expert-class/

For years, European policy makers had assured the world that the relatively rapid “transition” to “green” energy was the world’s preordained future—regardless of the costs. 

Accordingly, many European Union governments followed the advice of green experts. They eagerly shut down coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants to transition immediately to “renewable energy.” 

Most citizens were afraid to object that in cloudy, cold Germany solar panels were not viable methods of electrical generation—especially in comparison to the country’s vast coal deposits and its large, model nuclear power industry. 

As a result, German government officials warn that this winter, in 19th-century fashion, families will have to burn wood—the dirtiest of modern fuels—to endure the cold. And there is further talk of “warm rooms,” where like pre-civilizational tribal people, the elderly will bunch together within a designated heated room to keep alive. 

Sri Lanka may be the first modern nation to adopt deliberate policies that have led to mass hunger and bankruptcy. The government for a variety of reasons listened to foreign advocates of back-to-nature organic farming, specifically outright abandonment of highly effective synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. 

The result was endemic crop failure. Cash crops for export failed. Widespread hunger followed. Without foreign exchange, it became impossible to import key staples like food and fuel. 

Sri Lanka once had a per capita income twice that of nearby India. Now it cannot feed or fuel itself. 

Unfortunately, its incompetent government trusted radical environmental advisors, many of them foreign experts. Sri Lanka believed it could become the woke darling of the “Environmental, Social, Governance” movement, and that way draw in unlimited Western woke investment. 

Instead, it has embraced a policy of national suicide. 

Recently, a group of 55 distinguished pro-administration economists assured us that Joe Biden’s massive borrowing and new entitlements agenda were not inflationary. In September 2021, these economists with 14 Nobel prize winners among them declared that Biden’s inflationary policies would actually “ease” inflation. 

Last month, inflation spiked to an annualized rate of 9.1 percent. None of these “blue-chip” economists have offered any apologies for lending their prestige to convince Americans of the absurd: that inflating the money supply, spiking new government spending, incentivizing labor non-participation, and keeping interest rates artificially low would not cause inflation. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/04/in-battle-of-red-vs-blue-states-red-states-are-winning-handily/

In the state-level struggle for the future of America, there can be little doubt: The Red State model of free markets, low taxes, and minimal regulation is beating the daylights out of the Blue State model of top-down control, high taxes, and pervasive nanny-state regulation. But will it last?

The Wall Street Journal, deploying data from the center-left Brookings Institution, last month reported that Blue states, those governed by Democrats, were still 1.3 million jobs short of where they were before the COVID-19 pandemic. Red states, those led by Republicans, had managed to add 350,000 jobs.

A big reason for the disparity is the fact that millions fled Blue states during COVID.

“Forty-six million people moved to a different ZIP Code in the year through February 2022, the most in any 12-month period in records going back to 2010,” the Journal wrote. And most of them moved from Blue to Red states, with Florida, Texas, and North Carolina the biggest gainers, while California, New York, and Illinois lost the most.

Big, blue cities, in particular, lost huge numbers of people as soaring crime, sidewalk homeless encampments, COVID lockdowns, high taxes, and miserably underperforming schools made once-beautiful metropolises unlivable for many.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/08/the_fightback_against_racial_quotas.html

Victories in court over affirmative action discrimination are accumulating, with more in prospect soon.

E pluribus unum, the traditional motto of the United States, means ‘Out of many, one.’ It asserts that our strength is in assimilation of shared values, goals, and vision. It unifies our diverse races, religions, and other groups by appealing to the ideals of a constitutional republic – freedom, equality, the pursuit of wealth, happiness and excellence through free market competition.

But the hackneyed shibboleth of the Left – Diversity is our strength – stands in direct contradiction to our original national motto. It serves their destructive aim of Balkanizing us by race, gender, sexual orientation, and other sub-groups du jour. Denigrating and rewriting our history, the Left aims to radically transform our culture: discounting merit, hard work, knowledge and experience, it wants to make identity the ubiquitous sine qua non of representation in American society.

This strategy is reified in the so-called ‘social justice’ components of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) guidelines; and critical race theory (CRT) based programs. Such programs try to cure historical discrimination with more discrimination – in the form of quotas based on race, sex, and other increasingly complicated factors – a disastrous strategy that only intensifies social discord instead of ameliorating it. Under such programs, educational institutions, government, businesses and other employers are forced to sacrifice quality and excellence in favor of a diversity that discriminates de novo and is unconstitutional.

One front in the fightback against such quotas is the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CERF) v. Alameda County case, recently brought before the Superior Court of California. It exemplifies the conflict between ‘woke’ rhetoric and the enduring legal framework protecting the rights of all citizens – regardless of race, sex, or national origin. CERF, represented by the non-profit Pacific Legal Foundation, is challenging race-based quotas for awarding contracts, contending that this amounts to using taxpayer funds to promote discrimination.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-dam-breaks-and-key-dems-run-away-from-biden-24

You’ve seen the polls showing that large majorities of Democratic voters want the party to pick a new nominee for president in 2024, bypassing incumbent President Joe Biden. Now we’re seeing the living embodiment of those polls as some important Democratic lawmakers distance themselves from, or outright oppose, a reelection run by the nearly 80-year-old president.

It’s not that senior Democrats are eager to disparage a president of their own party. They’re not. Instead, they’re being forced into it by the process of the 2022 campaign, in which they are trying to assure their own reelections. They’re campaigning, doing interviews, and taking part in debates, and the question comes up.

Start with Reps. Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN). Last week, Phillips appeared on radio station WCCO, where host Chad Hartman asked him outright: “Do you want Joe Biden to run in 2024? Because the number of Democrats who don’t is staggeringly high.”

Phillips began with obligatory praise of the president — any Democrat who wants Biden to leave has to say how many excellent qualities Biden has. “I have respect for Joe Biden,” Phillips said. “I think he has — despite some mistakes and some missteps, despite his age, I think he’s a man of decency, of good principle, of compassion, of empathy, and of strength.” And then: “But to answer your question directly, which I know is quite rare, uh no, I don’t. I think the country would be well served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared, dynamic Democrats to step up.”