RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/january-6-committees-bid-to-prove-trump-criminally-liable-for-violence-falls-short/?utm_

If anything, the panel has bolstered Trump’s defense rather than undermining it.

The January 6 committee seemed to hit the point of diminishing returns this week. The Democrat-controlled panel is straining to establish that its target, former president Donald Trump, is not just morally and politically but criminally culpable for the deadly Capitol riot, but it can’t make the case. Its evidence of criminal intent is too weak, and its tactic of conflating Trump’s state of mind with the unhinged words of extremists who reacted to his rhetoric is sleight-of-hand.

Plus, Trump has an intent defense: He was trying to ratchet up political pressure on Congress, not provoke a forcible uprising. And the committee is not only ignoring that defense but bolstering it (however inadvertently).

To be clear, I am speaking here narrowly about crimes involving the intent to use force, a necessary element of such offenses as seditious conspiracy, with which the Justice Department has charged several rioters. Trump’s liability for other potential crimes arising out of the events that culminated in the Capitol riot remains an open question. The committee is correct that Trump orchestrated a raucous rally on the National Mall on January 6, 2021. But the evidence that he intended the rally to turn lethally violent, as the committee implies, is slim.

To draw the committee’s conclusion, one must pretend, as the panel mulishly does, that Trump never said, during his speech at the rally that preceded the riot, “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” (Memo to the Committee: In real criminal proceedings, which, unlike scripted political presentations, have cross-examination and the right to present a defense, your case gets laughed out of court when you get caught burying the exculpatory evidence. Competent prosecutors confront the exculpatory evidence head-on. Rather than signaling fear of it, they try to persuade the fact-finder that it’s trumped by other, more compelling evidence. Being persuasive involves playing it straight to maintain your credibility.)

The president’s credibility is shot.

Before leaving for the Middle East, President Biden sat down for an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News. Anchor Yonit Levi asked the president if he would use force to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. “As a last resort, yes,” Biden said.

I’d like to think that Biden is sincere. I hope that he understands the dangers a nuclear Iran would pose to the Greater Middle East, to Europe, and indeed to the world. A nuclear Iran would launch a cycle of proliferation and escalation in the region. Iran’s nuclear missiles would be in range not only of America’s Persian Gulf allies but also of NATO. Iran would intensify its malign activities, from terrorism to proxy war to hostage-taking, knowing that the bomb gives it cover. A nuclear Iran means a world more dangerous, more violent, more flammable than the world is even today.

Which is why Biden is the latest American president to suggest that the use of force remains an option. An air and naval campaign to destroy the nuclear sites known to Western intelligence and to degrade the Islamic Republic’s capacity to retaliate is the best means of delaying and potentially foreclosing the possibility of an Iranian bomb. The objective of such an operation wouldn’t be regime change. The goal would be prevention. Israel and the Gulf States would support us. And Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would pay attention. They would be put on notice: The American president means what he says.

Does he? In the spring of 2021, President Biden was asked about the record numbers of illegal immigrants who began crossing the southern border after he reversed his predecessor’s asylum policies. Biden dismissed the question. The migrant surge was “seasonal,” he said. It happens “every single solitary year.” Not like this, it doesn’t. The season ended long ago. The migration has continued for a year and a half. Last month saw the largest number of illegal crossings on record. Biden’s flippant answer was grossly mistaken, to say the least. He doesn’t seem to care. In fact, if he’s successful in ending Title 42 protocols allowing for the swift repatriation of illegal migrants, he will continue to make the problem worse.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/14/federal-judge-sentences-69-year-old-grandmother-with-cancer-to-2-months-in-jail-for-parading-in-the-capitol-on-january-6/

A federal judge has sentenced a 69-year-old Idaho grandmother and cancer patient to two months behind bars for parading in the Capitol, a misdemeanor.

Pam Hemphill pleaded guilty in January to one count of demonstrating, picketing, or parading in a Capitol building.  The diminutive senior was photographed inside the Capitol Rotunda.

Hemphill, a former drug and alcohol counselor, flew to Washington, D.C. from Idaho on Jan. 5 hoping to see the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned. She was arrested in August of 2021.

At her sentencing hearing Tuesday, Senior U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Reagan appointee, flatly told Hemphill that she will be serving time behind bars.

In addition to the 60 days in jail, Hemphill will spend three years on supervised release. Pursuant to her plea agreement, she will also have to pay $500 in restitution toward the estimated $2.7 million in damages to the Capitol.

“I’m heading to the prison! Just know your prayers and support is keeping me going emotionally and spiritually! Love you guys dearly!” she tweeted on Tuesday.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/starbucks-ceo-progressive-cities-have-abdicated-their-responsibility-in-fighting-crime/

Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, suggested Wednesday that major U.S. cities and those managing their governments are neglecting the crime issue to the detriment of commerce and community safety.

“I must say, in my view at the local, state and federal level, these governments across the country and leaders, mayors and governors, city councils have abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health,” Schultz reportedly said at an internal meeting, according to a video posted on Twitter.

The business leader’s remarks came after his company announced plans to permanently close 16 locations in five progressive U.S. cities, including six in Seattle, six in Los Angeles, two in Portland, one in Philadelphia, and one in Washington, D.C., by the end of the month due to repeated security disturbances. Such incidents included customers and other members of the public using drugs in the stores.

“I don’t have to spend too much time on what’s going on in the country and how America is becoming unsafe, but you all read the press release over the last couple of days that we are beginning to close stores that are not unprofitable,” Schultz lamented. “It has shocked me that one of the primary concerns that our retail partners have is their own personal safety.”

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2022/07/15/the-u-s-misery-index-worsens-as-unchecked-bidenflation-grows-n1612816

The U.S. government announced Wednesday that June’s federal inflation numbers increased to a staggering 9.06% — a 40-year high. According to the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) news release, inflation is being felt keenly and across the board:

The increase was broad-based, with the indexes for gasoline, shelter, and food being the largest contributors. The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also
rising. The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index.

The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.7 percent in June, after increasing 0.6 percent in the preceding two months. While almost all major component indexes increased over the month, the largest contributors were the indexes for shelter, used cars and trucks, medical care, motor vehicle insurance, and new vehicles. The indexes for motor vehicle repair, apparel, household furnishings and operations, and recreation also increased in June. Among the few major component indexes to decline in June were lodging away from home and airline fares.

From the updated BLS data, economists quantify the economic health of the country. To do so, they add the current U.S. unemployment rate, which is a stagnant 3.6%, to the current rate of U.S. inflation, which is a jarring 9.06%, to produce a snapshot of the country’s economy. The result is known as the U.S. Misery Index.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

War has always been man’s nemesis, combatting his desire for global peace. Unfortunately, war has won, perhaps because the latter is an unrealistic ideal, not possible given man’s imperfections. Nevertheless, just because world peace has never been achieved does not mean the search for it should cease, though any search should be leavened with realism. We live in a world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

Does global peace depend on a governing world order, or does it depend on maintaining a balance of power among sovereign nations having membership in organizations like the UN, the IMF and the WHO? If so, how much authority should each state cede to global authorities? A more basic question: Is lasting peace even possible given the fallibility of humans and with states having myriad views on governance? Limited wars may be unavoidable. What should be paramount is reducing the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons. Should not nations and societies, instead of attempting a world order, first build cultures of respect, tolerance, civility and decency?

In his 2014 book World Order, Henry Kissinger wrote: “No truly ‘global’ world order has ever existed. What passes for order in our time was devised in Western Europe nearly four centuries ago, at a peace conference in the German region of Westphalia.” The Peace of Westphalia concluded the Thirty Years War, and it established modern Europe with sovereign states. Yet their efforts did not prevent Napoleon from trying to unite Europe in the first two decades of the 19th Century, nor did it stop Hitler from trying to do the same 120 years later. It did not prevent lights from “going out all over Europe” in August 1914.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/07/15/biden-claims-inflation-numbers-out-of-date-because-of-lower-gas-prices-the-last-two-weeks-n1613112

This is a good example of a desperate man reaching for a life preserver that turns out to be a shark fin.

Joe Biden is in the Middle East, where the Muslims don’t like him or the country he leads very much at all. No American flags greeted Biden as his motorcade made its way through Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Biden spent the better part of his first year in office blasting Saudi Arabia and its leader, Mohammed bin Salman, for his part in the death of a Washington Post writer.

Now, he’s coming to the Saudis on his knees, begging them to increase oil production.

Being overseas, Biden is relieved because he doesn’t have to listen to the constant carping of the media and even his own party about prices. The day after the consumer price index showed a frightening rise of 9.1 percent over the last year, and the producer price index showed a rise of 11.3 percent in wholesale prices, Biden decided to pretend things weren’t so bad.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/who_knew_that_the_word_wild_and_the_phrase_march_peacefully_and_patriotically_incited_violence.html

The media and January 6 congressional committee is outraged that President Trump tweeted this and they say this statement caused the violence: 

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”

That is amazing! It would be like someone going to a concert or party and saying it would be wild.

They also say that his speech to the big crowd where he said “march peacefully and patriotically” caused the January 6 violence. 

Of course, the media and J-6 committee don’t show the public that he said march peacefully and patriotically because the hearings were never meant to be about the truth..

Contrast the reporting with Trump challenging the results of an election with what the Obama/Biden administration did with Iran while they were in office. The media and other Democrats weren’t very interested.

In the case of Iran, President Obama paid billions in kickbacks to the tyrants, shipping billions in unmarked bills in the middle of the night. Democrat ally John Kerry met secretly with the mullahs to assure them of their return to power, behind the Trump administration’s back, allowing them to adjust their actions accordingly to undercut President Trump.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/davidhasanyi/2022/07/15/for-biden-polls-are-probably-worse-than-they-seem-n1613010

President Biden has a miserable 33% job approval rating, according to the New York Times/Siena College poll, making him one of the least popular first-term presidents in history. Sixty-four percent of Democrats say they want another candidate in the 2024 presidential race.

No modern president, as far as I can tell, has faced higher dissatisfaction in his own party during his first term. Only 13% of voters say the United States is on the right track, the lowest number since they began asking this question during the great recession.

Not long ago, left-wing pundits couldn’t stop talking about Donald Trump’s poll numbers — “Donald Trump is remarkably unpopular”; “The unprecedented unpopularity of Donald Trump”; “Trump is officially the most unpopular president since modern polling began in the 1930s. It will forever be his legacy,” and so on. A president with that kind of piddling support, they would argue, had no business initiating policy changes. Nowadays, Democrats want their historically unpopular president to sign “transformative” legislation using reconciliation and unilaterally restructure American governance. The only consistent characteristic of modern liberalism is the unyielding belief that politics should be played by two sets of rules.