RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/society/2022/08/our-golden-age-of-galloping-hypocrisy/

One of life’s perverse pleasures is logging into social media and observing the panoply of human delusion and hypocrisy. It’s extraordinary what people post on the internet. No virtue is too big to signal. No delusion is too small to share.

It’s not just that people cannot determine fact from fiction; or the widespread inability to recognise good sources of information from nonsense. It’s that a collective amnesia garbles minds as soon as they turn on a computer. Suddenly, nobody can remember their past or their present. Everyone forgets that they could give a university lecture on selfishness, not because they’ve studied the psychology of human greed, but because they’ve seldom rejected an opportunity to indulge their selfish desires. I know I haven’t.

And the bigger the vice, the bigger the delusion and hypocrisy. I’ve known women whose underwear would self destruct at the sight of a rich guy in a sports car but who lecture everyone online about equality. I’ve known men who have never met a woman they didn’t want to have sex with, the sort who make sheep nervous just by driving past a field, and who pose as paragons of sexual propriety on Facebook. It’s mass delusion on an epic scale and it’s one of the defining features of our age.

Hypocrisy is always with us, but something different and more virulent has become the norm. Principles no longer matter. Uttering feel-good platitudes is an end in itself and the appearance of virtue is now synonymous with being virtuous. To appear good, post some dim-witted platitude on social media and wallow in the glow of being virtuous and of being an intellectual, because intelligent people, of course, are all of one mind. The hard decisions that people must make to survive, which inevitably create resentment, and which are impossible to avoid, are smoothed over or ignored. This widespread hypocrisy grants a license to the badly behaved to excuse their own behaviour. Everything is permitted to create a virtuous persona. How many times have you exclaimed out loud while reading social media: ‘you are saying that; really, you, of all people, are posting that on Facebook with a straight face’.

The list is endless.

https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2022/08/03/the-point-of-no-return-n2611153

This is an election year. But the issues this year are not about Democrats and Republicans. The big issue is whether this nation has degenerated to a point of no return — a point where we risk destroying ourselves, before our enemies can destroy us.

If there is one moment that symbolized our degeneration, it was when an enraged mob gathered in front of the Supreme Court and a leader of the United States Senate shouted threats against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, saying “You won’t know what hit you!”

There have always been irresponsible demagogues. But there was once a time when anyone who shouted threats to a Supreme Court Justice would see the end of his own political career, and could not show his face in decent society again.

You either believe in laws or you believe in mob rule. It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the law or agree with the mob on some particular issue. If threats of violence against judges — and publishing where a judge’s children go to school — is the way to settle issues, then there is not much point in having elections or laws.

There is also not much point in expecting to have freedom. Threats and violence were the way the Nazis came to power in Germany. Freedom is not free. If you can’t be bothered to vote against storm-trooper tactics — regardless of who engages in them, or over what issue — then you can forfeit your freedom.

Worse yet, you can forfeit the freedom of generations not yet born.

Some people seem to think that the Supreme Court has banned abortions. It has done nothing of the sort.

https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/02/all-fbi-agents-must-blow-their-whistles-or-theyll-be-complicit-in-bureaus-politicization/

What the FBI needs to rehabilitate itself is a cavalcade of whistleblowers exposing the rot within the bureau.

Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office confirmed to The Federalist that the multiple FBI whistleblowers charging misconduct related to the Hunter Biden investigation only came forward in the last two months. While the existence of these new whistleblowers proves promising, other FBI agents with knowledge of misconduct or political bias must stop hiding behind the chain of command and start blowing their own whistles. 

“Multiple FBI whistleblowers, including those in senior positions” informed the Iowa Republican senator that “Washington Field Office assistant special agent in charge Timothy Thibault and other FBI officials … ‘falsely portray[ed] as disinformation evidence acquired from multiple sources that provided the FBI derogatory information related to Hunter Biden’s financial and foreign business activities, even though some of that information had already been or could be verified.’”

The whistleblowers further charged that “in August of 2020, FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment, which was used by a team of agents at FBI headquarters to improperly discredit and falsely claim that derogatory information about Biden’s activities was disinformation, causing investigative activity and sourcing to be shut down.” “The FBI headquarters team allegedly placed their assessment findings in a restricted access subfolder, effectively flagging sources and derogatory evidence related to Hunter Biden as disinformation while shielding the justification for such findings from scrutiny,” Grassley revealed.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/02/the-big-lies-we-cannot-question/

The following was posted on social media recently by a widely respected California-based journalist:

I don’t like being an alarmist but the epidemic of misinformation is becoming critical and increasingly dangerous. It was bad enough when we had a lying POTUS but it is now clear that it’s become a political tactic of a large part of one of our main political parties. And, if one major party can get away with mass lying, so can the other one, so I fear this will spread across ideological boundaries.

It’s fair to say this reflects a majority opinion among journalists throughout the American media, and it invites a response. This journalist accuses “one of our main political parties” of engaging in “mass lying,” obviously referring to the Republicans and obviously blind to the lies promulgated by the Democrats.

The biggest lie allegedly spread by Republicans, now called “The Big Lie,” is to claim the 2020 election was illegitimate. But even if the 2020 election was not compromised due to a relentlessly hostile and partisan media, endless political persecution designed to damage Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, voting rules that were violated and manipulated in swing states, Zuckerbucks, and possibly much more, this assertion still isn’t a Republican “lie.” For better or for worse, there are diverse opinions within the ranks of Republicans. Some think it was a stolen election; others don’t.

But no such dissent exists among Democrats over some of the biggest lies ever told.

The lies Democrats unanimously affirm, with the active complicity of almost every major American institution, are treated as background facts. To deny any of them is to spread “misinformation.” They have become the premises upon which reports are prepared, decisions are made, debates are framed, and policies are imposed. They’re so ubiquitous that if you’re not a skeptic, you don’t even notice. 

Collectively, these lies are destroying our civilization.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/priorities-us-military-base-hosting-drag-show-robert-spencer/

It seems as if every day lately there is another reason to break out the champagne in Moscow and Beijing, and Saturday was no exception: it was the day of Joint Base Langley-Eustis (JBLE)’s first “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summer Festival,” featuring (what else), a drag show. What does all this woke nonsense have to do with winning wars? Oh, never mind that; that’s the old, white supremacist military! The new diverse military has other priorities altogether

The festival, according to the Daily Wire, will feature “a series of performances and speeches, including a poem on ‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ and a drag show by Joshua Kelley, who performs under the moniker Harpy Daniels.”

This isn’t some outsider, non-military-grade drag show, either. Harpy Daniels is actually a yeoman 3rd class in the United States Navy, and you can just imagine how proud John Paul Jones and Chester Nimitz would be if they saw young Harpy in action. He actually joined the Navy in order to finance his drag career. Back in the bad old days, young men joined the Navy out of a sense of patriotism (and no doubt a desire for adventure), but for Harpy it’s just a means to an end: “With drag being my number one passion,” Yeoman Harpy explained, “it quickly became costly. On top of just struggling to make ends meet and then pay college loans, the Navy became a great option to get myself situated in life.“

They’re going to get a bravura performance at JBLE, because Harpy gives it his or her or xis all: “Doing drag allows me to embrace my feminine side and allows me to bring my diversity and creativity out. When I put on a face, it’s a face of art and creativity, not just a face of make-up. To hear people cheer, laugh or cry, or even join in with you during a performance is an absolute thrill.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-irs-is-about-to-go-beast-mode-chuck-schumer-joe-manchin-audit-taxes-middle-class-joe-biden-11659477320?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Progressives want Joe Biden to unleash what they call “beast mode” executive power, and the Schumer-Manchin tax bill supplies the cash to turn the Internal Revenue Service into Wolverine.

The pact between Sen. Joe Manchin and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer includes $80 billion in new funding for the tax man. Democrats claim this “investment” will yield more than $200 billion in revenue. That estimate is highly speculative, but if it’s anywhere close to right IRS auditors will soon be coming after tens of millions of Americans.

The $80 billion is more than six times the current annual IRS budget of $12.6 billion. The money will be ladled out over nine years and comes with few strings attached. The main Democratic command is for the tax agency to bring the hammer down on taxpayers.

The bill earmarks $45.6 billion for “enforcement,” including “litigation,” “criminal investigations,” “investigative technology,” “digital asset monitoring” and a new fleet of tax-collector cars. The result will be far more audits, civil suits and criminal referrals.

The main targets will by necessity be the middle- and upper-middle class because that’s where the money is. The Joint Committee on Taxation, Congress’s official tax scorekeeper, says that from 78% to 90% of the money raised from under-reported income would likely come from those making less than $200,000 a year. Only 4% to 9% would come from those making more than $500,000.

The IRS knows the super-wealthy employ lawyers and accountants who make litigation time-consuming and risky. It also knows that Democrats would howl if the agency pursues fraud in the earned-income tax credit program, despite what the IRS has estimated are $18 billion in improper payments each year.

A particular audit target will be “pass throughs” including Subchapter S businesses that file under the individual tax code. Democrats failed to raise the top individual tax rate, so unleashing IRS auditors is Plan B.

RE:Why I Support Reform Prosecutors Justice or safety? It’s a false choice. They reinforce each other.By George Soros(https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-support-reform-prosecutors-law-enforces-jail-prison-crime-rate-justice-police-funding-11659277441)

Dear Sirs,

The article by George Soros is as inaccurate as it is self-congratulatory. The only thing missing apart from any caring reference to the victims of the crime wave he has financed is the implied belief that we should be grateful to him for his incessant, tinkering, blood-drenched, philanthropy and his ubiquitous subversion of law & order in America. He thinks he deserves a “Thank You” card.

Mr. Soros has never allowed his spirit to roam beyond his own self-interest, just ask the Bank of England. He lives safely sheltered and heavily protected from the ravages and destruction of the policies he constantly seeks to impose on others. A good deal of hypocrisy is required to turn his suppurating, self-justifying, hand-washing article into a plausible argument for criminal justice reform but hypocrisy is something Mr. Soros has in abundance. 

“Americans need a more thoughtful discussion about our response to crime”, he tells us. Very well then, here it is: 

We want it stopped. We want more police officers better paid, better equipped and well-trained with stronger immunity from criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits. We want vicious thugs, with criminal records so long they wouldn’t fit onto the side of a bus, kept in jail until trial. We want the 45,000 gang members in L.A. County, count them, off the streets and if it takes the temporary suspension of the Posse Comitatus Act to do it we don’t mind. We want the politicians and officials who have allowed this plague on our streets prosecuted and sent to the same prisons as the gang members. We want violent underage criminals tried as adults. We want drug dealers, not drug users, executed. It works well in Singapore.

Mr. Soros intones that, “We need to acknowledged that black people in the U.S. are five times likely to be sent to jail as white people.” That would be unjust if they were committing the same crime but it implies that the police are out deliberately hunting down black people, trumping up charges and sending them off to jail because of their color. It’s preposterous. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/3584709-love-him-or-hate-him-trump-is-right-about-crime/

Love him or hate him, there is no denying that Donald Trump has extraordinary political instincts. For a billionaire real estate developer to win the Oval Office on a campaign of helping out working-class Americans, and to single-handedly realign our two great political parties in the process, was nothing short of astonishing.

Which is why, despite his multiple missteps, Republicans should pay attention to Trump.

When he ran his first-ever political campaign in 2016, Trump focused on the border and on China. Calling out the rising flood of people entering the country illegally and Beijing’s monstrous theft of America’s intellectual property got the attention of voters. “Build the wall!” became a chant heard across the country.

Today, Trump has a different focus. Addressing the America First Agenda Summit in Washington, D.C., recently, he talked about public safety, concluding that “our country is now a cesspool of crime.”

As we approach the November elections, that is what Republican candidates should talk about as well.

Why? Because, according to a recent survey, 81 percent of registered voters say crime is a major problem in the U.S., and 79 percent say crime and personal safety is one of their top concerns.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/wit-and-wisdom-kamala-daniel-greenfield/

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris might be the single worst pair of communicators to occupy the White House. Both Joe and Kamala are wedded to teleprompters because he has too much to say and she has nothing to say. Teleprompters are there to keep Joe Biden from telling wildly inappropriate stories about his leg hairs or announcing an impromptu surrender to China, but they’re also there because in her natural state Kamala is incapable of saying anything at all.

Presidents and their veeps are supposed to be a balance of strengths and weaknesses like a good marriage, but instead Biden and Kamala are a bad marriage in which their weaknesses are mirror opposites, but also so far apart that they’re incapable of balancing each other out.

Neither Joe or Kamala have any real skills. They both got to where they are as a combination of political accidents by men who were attracted to their weakness and incompetence.

Obama picked Biden because the failed presidential candidate was an old white man who would be too inept to build his own power base or function independently of his team. And Obama proved correct when Biden not only failed to declare his independence during eight years as his second banana, but even after Obama twice refused to endorse his presidential run is still dependent on Obama’s people to tell him what to do, where to go and what to say.

Kamala was handpicked by Willie Brown for her willingness to sleep with a much older man. And to represent Willie’s interests on various commissions. Despite no apparent skills or real track record, she advanced through the ranks because she was a hollow vessel. Having very little in the way of a mind of her own, she could be counted on to do what her bosses wanted.