RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/24/on-the-eve-of-the-show-trials/

Guy Reffitt has been in jail since he was arrested by the FBI nearly 14 months ago.

Reffitt, like dozens of Americans who protested the unlawful election of Joe Biden, isn’t in jail because he was convicted of a crime. Neither is Reffitt in jail because he has a criminal record—he does not—or a history of threatening his Bonham, Texas neighbors or community.

Instead, Reffitt has languished behind bars for more than a year because Joe Biden’s Justice Department asked a federal judge to keep him detained awaiting trial for his participation in the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Since then, more than 100 Americans, including several accused of no violent crimes, have been incarcerated under pre-trial detention orders sought by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Constitutional rights such as the presumption of innocence, due process, the right to a speedy trial, and protection from cruel and unusual punishment have been stripped from January 6 defendants based on the Biden regime’s false premise that they are all “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” (None of the January 6 defendants has been charged with terrorism or insurrection.)

Now that the first trials are finally getting underway, the public can assess whether the government prosecutors and federal judges who created America’s first class of political prisoners were justified in doing so, or were shamefully complicit in Joe Biden’s vengeful prosecution of Donald Trump supporters.

Guy Reffitt is one of hundreds of protesters not charged with committing a violent crime on January 6. According to his initial indictment, Reffitt did not assault police officers—to the contrary, he was attacked by law enforcement with rubber bullets and mace—or vandalize any public property. In fact, he never even entered the Capitol building.

But based on the government’s mostly hearsay evidence, a D.C. federal magistrate last year denied Reffitt’s release—and it had little to do with his alleged criminal behavior on January 6. 

“[The] gravity of the offense is not captured by the offenses because it was an attack upon the democracy and the lawful administration of that democracy as there was a transition of power,” Judge Zia Faruqui said during an April detention hearing. “My concern is that he still harbors the belief even after the election results were certified, the Electoral College was processed, that he continued to harbor the belief, the false belief that something untoward was happening with the democratic process.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18268/chinese-censorship-american-soil

Americans are now familiar with the sad spectacle of their own countrymen bowing to Chinese pressure publicly. We see it done by captains of industry, Wall Street’s largest firms, the most elite universities, sports heroes, cultural figures, and politicians alike. It has become so common that it is news when someone instead resists the pressure from Chinese communist regime and suffers financially because of it.

The latest example of that is professional basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom, who was recently traded by the Boston Celtics to the Houston Rockets, which then promptly waived him. The Rockets have offered no reason for this move, but it is no secret that the team has a devoted following in and makes a lot of money from China.

“People’s willingness to speak out about these issues tends to be related to how much business they have in China…. Everyone understands that the quid pro quo of taking Chinese cash is that you never criticize them.” — David Sacks, The Megyn Kelly Show, February 8, 2022.

My latest book, Red Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win, traces these themes…. It is surprising how little attention those chapters have received in mainstream news outlets….

Highlighted are detailed actions and pro-Beijing statements of financial giants such as Larry Fink and Ray Dalio, who run BlackRock and Bridgewater Associates, respectively. An entire chapter catalogs similar kowtowing from Big Tech by Silicon Valley’s wealthiest CEOs, including Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cooke, and Bill Gates. From political dynasties in the US and Canada to philanthropists and Harvard professors, from sports stars to movie actors, the Chinese money talks so loudly it drowns out every other sound.

“News conglomerates do not want to cover bad news about China. But it’s not because of a grand conspiracy theory. It’s simply because they make so much money.” — Alex Marlow, editor-in-chief of Breitbart News and author of the book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption.

Even smaller media outlets such as The Atlantic Monthly and Axios aren’t immune, [Marlow] notes in his book. Both are owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’s widow, whose fortune came from Apple and Disney, two companies that owe a lot of their wealth to their business activities in China.

“Bloomberg News has to extend its contract every two years, so [Michael Bloomberg] goes over there to kiss the ring.” — Alex Marlow, The Drill Down, February 10, 2022

How much longer will our large media outlets ignore the growing threat Chinese influence poses to their core principles of presenting the truth without fear or favor?

As Albert Camus, wrote, “The Welfare of the people… has always been the alibi of tyrants… giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”

Billionaire tech investor David Sacks recently summed up the present state of Communist Chinese intimidation of American business, sports leagues like the NBA, and anyone else with commercial interests in China. He sees it getting worse, not better.

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/595706-biden-not-putin-to-blame-for-higher-gas-prices

President Biden wants you to know that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will drive up oil prices. He warns that it may soon cost more to fill up your tank.

He’s right, but don’t be deceived; that’s been the plan all along. Not, certainly, to foster war in Europe, but to push a hasty and ill-considered switch to renewable fuels, no matter the cost to consumers. Sadly, that has also been the program in Europe, which is now dealing with the ugly consequences of bowing to climate activists. The world still needs oil, and much of it is in the wrong hands.

Russia has Europe over a barrel. Americans must understand that this is no accident. It’s the result of European climate policies just like those that Democrats want to force on Americans, substituting unreliable and costly renewable energy for oil and gas. It is the continent’s adoption of a Green New Deal-like agenda – banning fracking, subsidizing wind and solar, etc. – that has made Europe dependent on a hostile nation to power their economies.

If we continue down a similar path, we could find ourselves back in the 1970s, overly reliant for oil on Saudi Arabia, as well as Russia and other hostile nations. In 1973, OPEC cut off oil exports to the U.S.; oil prices quadrupled, plunging the U.S. into recession.

Here’s the reality: We will still be burning oil and gas to heat our homes and generate our electricity for years to come. We can either produce those fuels at home or, like Europe, import them from abroad.

Since Biden became president, he has clearly chosen the latter path; this is a grave mistake. In thrall to well-heeled and noisy climate activists, Biden has set about junking one of America’s greatest geopolitical advantages – abundant, cheap energy – in a reckless quest to drive down carbon emissions.

A quest, by the way, that even the president admitted was pointless. Last April, Biden acknowledged that 85 percent of emissions come from outside the U.S. and confessed, “That’s why I kept my commitment to rejoin the Paris accord, because [even] if we do everything perfectly, it’s not going to matter.” He was correct. Whatever we do will be overwhelmed by increased emissions from China and India.

Even as Russian tanks lined up on the Ukraine border, Biden’s administration froze U.S. drilling on federal lands and slapped on rules making it even more difficult to build natural gas pipelines. What can they be thinking?

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/desantis-declares-florida-citadel-of-freedom-touts-opposition-to-crt-covid-restrictions-in-cpac-speech/

Florida Governor Ron Desantis declared his state a “citadel of freedom” primed to push back against the left’s embrace of critical race theory in K-12 curricula, illegal immigration, and Covid restrictions.

Speaking at the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, DeSantis noted that Florida tourism and transplant rates have been off the charts, especially during the pandemic when so many progressive states saw net population outflows. Some of Florida’s guests have included those Democratic politicians that regularly criticize the state’s leadership, he noted.

While the state’s record has been  a leader on all manner of culture war issues, he claimed, the main attraction for prospective residents and visitors was that “we refused to let this state descend into some kind of Faucian dystopia where people’s freedoms are curtailed and their livelihoods are destroyed.”

Florida rejected the “biomedical security state” and the temptation to defer to “health bureaucrats” during the apex of the Covid crisis, even when that approach was politically unpopular at first.

“My job is to stand up and protect the freedoms and the jobs of the people I represent and if that puts me in political jeopardy then so be it,” he said as the audience erupted into applause.

“I believe that if Florida had not led the way, this country could look like Canada and Australia,” he said noting the seemingly authoritarian downslide of those liberal societies over the last two years.

DeSantis spoke as President Biden was addressing the nation on the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. He did not mention the situation in Ukraine during his speech.

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/ukraine-debacle-showcases-joe-biden-failures/

Snap quiz: who was president when Vladimir Putin gobbled up Crimea?

If you said Barack Obama, go to the head of the class.

What countries did Putin invade while Donald Trump was president?

If you said “None,” you get to stay at the head of the class.

This is a harder one: who was president when Putin once again violated Ukraine’s borders, sending in Russian troops to two breakaway regions in Eastern Ukraine?

I say that this is harder because the obvious answer — “Joe Biden” — is not really, or not wholly, correct.

Joe Biden is an empty shell. On good days, he looks like a mannequin. Really, though, he is a puppet, a creature controlled by others. I have called those others “The Committee.” I am not more specific because I do not know for sure who has seats at that table. Anyway, if you said “Joe Biden” in response to the question, you get full points only if you added an asterisk next to his name.

To appreciate what we are up against, ponder Joe Biden’s performance at this roundtable about Ukraine. A reporter asks, “Do you think you may have underestimated Putin?” Biden smirks, looks vacantly about the room, and then picks at his teeth. Answer came there none. The president of the United States, ladies and gentlemen. It is an unnerving exhibition.

tps://amgreatness.com/2022/02/23/hundreds-of-u-s-truckers-kick-off-peoples-convoy-in-california-demanding-an-end-to-the-covid-national-emergency/

Inspired by the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada, American truckers have organized their own nationwide “Convoy to DC” in protest of the Biden regime’s authoritarian COVID policies.

Truckers gathered in San Bernardino County, California, Wednesday, to launch their “People’s Convoy” cross country road trip to Washington D.C. to demand an end to the declaration of national emergency concerning the COVID-19 pandemic, and the restoration of our Constitution.

Hundreds of vehicles assembled at the Adelanto Stadium parking lot for a rally ahead of the group’s eastward trek on Interstate 40 to Kingman, Arizona for the Convoy’s first stop.

The convoy plans to take a southern route through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma, before veering northeast through Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, arriving in the D.C. area on March 5

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/02/a_decade_of_deceit_and_division_what_trayvon_wrought.html

Although he certainly did not intend to, the drugged and despondent 17-year-old who wandered through a failing Florida subdivision on a rainy February night ten years ago Saturday launched a new phase in the American civil rights movement.

This was to be the Jacobin phase, the phase in which traditional civil rights standards such as equality before the law and innocent until proven guilty yielded to mob rule and race-based outcomes.

Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin would not live to see this transition.  The 28-year-old man who shot and killed Trayvon, George Zimmerman, has lived in the shadows of Jacobin justice every day of the last ten years, always with an eye out for assassins like the one who nearly killed him in 2015.

On February 26, 2012, Trayvon had reason to be despondent.  His school had suspended him for the third time that school year.  His mother, Sybrina Fulton, had kicked him out of the house.  His father, Tracy Martin, had abandoned the stepmother who helped raise Trayvon for a new girlfriend, Brandy Green.  And, most immediately, “Diamond,” the 16-year-old who had stolen his heart, was playing him for a fool.

Exiled to Green’s townhouse in Sanford, 250 miles from his Miami home, Trayvon texted and called throughout that last day looking for reassurance from Diamond.  He didn’t get it.  Instead, she taunted him with tales of her “clubbing” adventures the night before.  In his final texts that rainy Sunday, Trayvon’s desperation showed through: “wat up with u man how u feel bout me cuz u not say cuz bout to hung up ur ass.”

For George, meanwhile, it was just another Sunday.  About 7 P.M. that evening, he headed out to Target to buy lunch meat for a week’s worth of sandwiches.  While taking night classes in law enforcement, he worked during the day as a forensic review analyst at a fraud detection company.

https://www.city-journal.org/canada-trucker-protests-and-the-new-class-divide

The world is watching what’s happening in Canada with a mixture of fascination and horror. The weeks-long saga of the “Freedom Convoy” protest against pandemic restrictions, spearheaded by Canadian truckers, has taken an authoritarian turn. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked emergency powers to crush the peaceful protest, suspending civil liberties protections, arresting hundreds, and taking the unprecedented step of ordering dissident citizens entirely frozen out of the financial system. What brought Canada’s normally placid politics to this point?

Many have slotted this drama into a familiar framework of right-wing populists versus left-wing elites. But a different way of looking at it may be more helpful in explaining not only what has happened in Canada but also why the political divide now looks so strikingly similar across the developed world, from Ottawa to Wellington.

While much has been made of the “working class” and its alienation from “the elite,” this phrasing comes with associations about material wealth and economic class that aren’t necessarily helpful. Many of those who support “populist” politics in opposition to the elite tend to be relatively solidly middle class, while many a starving artist supports the establishment Left. The character of one’s work and lifestyle seems to shape the common values of each side of the class divide more than income does.

Consider instead two main classes of people in society, who tend to navigate and interact with the world in fundamentally different ways. The first are those people who work primarily in the real, physical world. Maybe they work directly with their hands, like a carpenter, or a mechanic, or a farmer. Or maybe they are only a step away: they own or manage a business where they organize and direct employees who work with their hands and buy or sell or move things around in the real world, like a transport logistics company. This class necessarily works in a physical location or owns or operates physical assets central to its trade.

https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2022/02/23/the-woke-ama-n2603652

The American Medical Association now tells doctors: Use woke language! It’s issued a 54-page guide telling doctors things like, don’t say “equality”; say “equity.” Don’t say “minority”; say “historically marginalized.”

Much of the AMA’s advisory sounds like Marxism: “Expose … property rights … Individualism is problematic … Corporations … limit prospects for good health … people underpaid and forced into poverty as a result of banking policies.”

This is too much even for some on the left, like writer Matthew Yglesias, whose article about the AMA caught my attention.

“Can you imagine anyone actually doing this?” asks Yglesias in my new video. “What would happen if you were in a clinical setting, and somebody starts giving you this lecture about landowners? … Nobody practices medicine like that, and it wouldn’t be helpful to anybody!”

He points out that while the AMA now tells doctors to call poor neighborhoods “systematically divested,” not “poor,” it has long lobbied for things that (SET ITAL)hurt(END ITAL) poor people, like restricting the number of doctors.

https://pjmedia.com/uncategorized/david-solway-2/2022/02/22/canada-has-become-a-standing-joke-n1561240

There are a number of Canadian jokes making the rounds these days. Here are four.

What’s the difference between Canada and North Korea?

One country is a police state under the boot of a young tyrant scion of his father’s dynasty who brutally crushes opponents, free speech, and liberty, and the other is a country in Asia.

Here’s another from The Babylon Bee: “Under orders from the Supreme Chancellor of the People’s Republic of Canada Justin Trudeau, all ATMs will screen people for unacceptable views before they can withdraw funds. According to sources, anti-mandate freedom protestors have already formed their own parallel economy trading in beaver pelts, maple syrup, and Bitcoin.”

And another (of a kind): Romanian Member of the European Parliament Cristian Terhes denounces Justin Trudeau for his declaration of martial law to crush the trucker convoy in Ottawa: “The prime minister of Canada, the way he’s behaving right now, he’s exactly like a tyrant, a dictator. He’s like Ceaușescu in Romania.” Can this really be? Ceaușescu? In Canada? It must be a joke, no?

Last, this one: How many Canadians does it take to change a light bulb?

What’s a Canadian? What’s a light bulb?