RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/02/28/joe-biden-and-offensive-moments-in-self-regard/

Joe Biden capped off another rotten week of his sinking presidency saying he hopes his legacy “is that I restored the soul of this country.” His dementia might be relatively new, but he’s been a raging narcissist throughout his public life. Who does he think he is, Barack Obama? Or maybe even the Almighty?

In an interview Saturday, Biden also said that he wanted to be remembered for returning “some decency and honor to the office” and bringing “the middle class back to a place where they had real opportunity.” We might take on those delusions another time, but for now we want to focus on his irksome comment about restoring the soul of America. 

First of all, it’s not the president’s job to heal the nation’s spirit. Of course presidents can, and some certainly have, done damage to their country. Count Biden among them.

An embarrassing botched retreat from Afghanistan. Carter-era inflation. Short on jobs. Lagging incomes. Confidence down, dissatisfaction up. Bitter political and cultural divisions. We are without question worse off today in so many ways than we were before he took office last year. Biden has done nothing to boost Americans’ outlooks, but he’s done quite enough to pare them down.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/02/joe_biden_says_delusional_americans_are_imagining_inflation_.html

Hard-left podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen interviewed Biden. The topics were what would expect—Biden’s race- and sex-based Supreme Court nominee, claims that Trump and other Republicans support Putin, boasts about his strategic genius, etc.—but the real surprise was Biden’s claim that COVID has made Americans so psychologically unstable they can’t understand that the Biden economy is wonderful.

Here’s what Americans know: They are facing hard times. The economy is creeping back, but it’s nowhere near what it was under Trump before COVID. In 2019, unemployment was 3.6%. It went up to 6.7% in 2020. It’s now 4%, still short of the pre-COVID rate.

That 4% doesn’t even include the millions of people who dropped out of the workforce. CBS blames long COVID but it’s a good bet stimulus checks have also depressed the workforce. If people are paid not to work, they won’t work. When government money finally ends, they might come back.

Inflation is a problem, too. While wages have increased, those increases haven’t kept pace inflation’s 40 year high. A 3.5% raise is meaningless if life’s necessities (food, shelter, energy costs) increase in price by 7% or more.

Reagan rightly said of inflation that it’s “as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hitman.” People don’t care whether the inflation is because of the supply chain problem or because Biden’s green energy (or, really, green lack-of-energy) policies have dramatically bumped up the price of fuel. What matters is that their money is losing value daily.

People also feel despair because it’s frightening to live in the shadow of a potential third world war. They worry that an increasingly desperate, angry Putin, rather than retreating from Ukraine may, instead, go on the attack against Sweden and Finland. They also understand that other tyrants are watching. China, Iran, and North Korea (which just launched a ballistic missile) are gaining courage because they recognize that Biden is weak.

This is why 62% of Americans say Putin would never have attacked Ukraine if Trump were still in the White House. Perhaps they remember Trump’s 2019 threat to Erdogan. In a jovial letter, Trump said work with me for a good deal or I’ll destroy Turkey’s economy. The media sneered, but Erodgan retreated. Biden, however, invited Putin to engage in a “minor incursion.” Putin took that invitation and ran with it.

Things really are bad and Americans know it. Biden’s theory, though, is that everything is great. The problem, he says, is that Americans have become delusional thanks to COVID stress.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/02/26/this-happy-breed-of-men/

“There’s a deal of ruin in a nation,” Adam Smith wrote to a young correspondent who contemplated with alarm British losses in the American War of Independence. As it happened, Britain absorbed the parturition of the United States with aplomb, growing ever stronger for more than a century. Where are we now? There’s lots of ruin about: no one disputes that. But how are we—we, the English-speaking peoples of the world?—

I am not sure who coined the term “Anglosphere,” but James Bennett gave it currency in his book The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-first Century. Bennett’s book was published in 2004. A paperback edition, with a new Afterword, appeared in 2007. The Anglosphere Challenge endeavored to make good on its optimistic subtitle. The 19th century had been the British century. The 20th century belonged to America. Today, the conventional wisdom predicts that the 21st century will belong to China.  But, Bennett argued, “If the English-speaking nations grasp the opportunity, the twenty-first century will be the Anglosphere century.”

“If.” A tiny word that prompts large questions. What were those opportunities that needed grasping? How sure was our grip? And who, by the way, were “we”? What was this Anglosphere that Bennett apostrophized? Winston Churchill’s opus on the English-speaking peoples, published in four volumes in the mid-1950s, principally included Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. He commenced his story in 55 B.C., when Julius Caesar first “turned his gaze” upon Britain, and concluded as Victoria’s long reign ended. By 2006, when Andrew Roberts extended Churchill’s work in his magisterial History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900, the Anglosphere had expanded to include Commonwealth Caribbean countries and, more to the point, India with its 1.4 billion people and the burgeoning capitalist dynamo that is its economy.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2022/02/25/canada-the-crisis-is-not-over-n1561994

The news cycle today is dominated by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the cognitive absence of the American president. Canada has been all but forgotten, but the situation in this country threatens to destabilize a Western democracy that shares a border with the U.S. It still requires to be addressed.

As long as Justin Trudeau and his inner cabinet remain intact, Canada will always live under the shadow of potential or imminent crisis. With the sudden and, for many, inexplicable revoking of the Emergencies Act, the country—or the best part of it—breathed a collective sigh of relief. But there is no guarantee against further irruptions to civic and political life. Our whirling dervish of a prime minister, like his favorite totalitarian regime, changes his mind “on a dime.” A man so labile and shallow cannot offer stability and democratic governance to his country, only insecurity, upheaval, and rule by edict.

It is by no means clear why Trudeau needed to invoke the Emergencies Act to dismantle and criminalize a peaceful, blue-collar trucker convoy protesting the vaccine mandates or why a brief interval later he saw fit to revoke it. One day it was necessary; the next day it was not. One theory is that Trudeau saw the polls were turning against him. Another hypothesis, as the Conservative Treehouse explains, is that the undermining of the banking system, caused by the targeting of accounts of those involved with the Freedom Convoy could not be allowed to stand because it obstructed the plans of the World Economic Forum and the collaborative use of the Canadian Bankers Association to create a digital ID system. This assumption seems implausible to me as Trudeau and his finance minister Chrystia Freeland must surely have been on the same page as their WEF masters.

A third possibility, which seems to me the most likely, is that the obligatory Senate vote, judging from the powerful speeches against the legitimacy of the Act, would have been an embarrassing rebuke to Trudeau’s dictatorial and unjustifiable actions, which may have ultimately caused a vote of no confidence in his government.

https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/russias-invasion-ukraine-renews-pennsylvania-lawmakers-keystone

Three Pennsylvania senators are soliciting cosponsors for legislation to urge the Biden administration to rethink its opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Sens. Wayne Langerholc, R-Johnstown; Joe Pittman, R-Indiana; and Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, posted a cosponsorship memorandum, outlining plans to introduce a resolution urging President Joe Biden to reopen the Keystone XL Pipeline.

“This week oil prices have soared over $100 per barrel and currently, the United States is importing over 800,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia,” they wrote. “These barrels are either going to become more expensive or completely unavailable as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine continues to escalate.

“The United States cannot continue to rely so heavily on foreign oil when we have the resources to fuel our vehicles and heat our homes,” the memo read. “It was expected that the Keystone XL Pipeline would transport 830,000 barrels of oil per day, which would help offset the current supply received daily from Russia.

“Re-opening the Keystone XL Pipeline will start to ease the burden that Pennsylvanians are feeling every day and protect our national energy security going forward.”

The senators wrote they plan to introduce the resolution “in the near future.”

Biden issued an executive order Jan. 20, 2021, to revoke the permit granted to TC Energy Corporation for the final phase of the Keystone Pipeline, known as Keystone XL, which runs from Alberta, Canada, through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

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?