RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-21-whos-attacking-our-democracy

The breach of the Capitol on January 6 by pro-Trump demonstrators took Americans by surprise. There have been many reactions in the aftermath, but responses by the mainstream media completely miss — or intentionally misrepresent — the underlying issues. The Capitol breach felt like a turning point, but not because Trump supporters are particularly dangerous or violent as the media would like us to believe. If their demonstration attacked our democracy, it’s because we are living in a democracy so divided we no longer share any goals in common. As long as the party in power seizes opportunities to silence or oppress its opposition, that divide can only widen. 

Even while the January 6 events were still unfolding, the mainstream media started talking about the breach of the Capitol as a “violent siege,” conducted by a far-right mob. During the time that protestors were in the building, my iPhone was flooded with breaking news alerts from CNN, NBC, NPR all letting me know first that the Capitol had been breached, that Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi had been moved to a “secure location,” while those on the House floor were told to “shelter in place.” Rioters “vandalized” “occupied” and “ransacked” the building, and attempted to disrupt the certification of the Electoral College votes.

It took a few days for any counter-perspective to come out. Matt Keener, an opinion columnist who was in DC as a peaceful demonstrator, had a different experience. He wrote for American Spectator that: “the atmosphere outside [the Capitol] resembled an open air concert or festival more than a ‘riot.’” He also linked to a video of protestors being let into the building by police.  He believes “the true story [of the demonstration] is getting lost in the propaganda.” 

https://justthenews.com/government/congress/pelosis-office-wont-say-if-she-was-briefed-potential-violence-ahead-jan-6

The offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t say whether the congressional leaders were briefed on potential violence ahead of the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol — or whether they weighed in on requesting help from the National Guard to bolster Capitol security.

Just the News reached out to representatives for Pelosi and asked if the speaker was briefed about threats of violence in advance of the rally. Her office was also asked if the speaker favored or opposed having National Guard troops help Capitol Police to protect the Capitol Building before the rally. Her office didn’t provide a response.

McConnell’s press office was asked the same questions, but they did not return a request for comment. 

Security sources told Just the News that Pelosi’s staff was briefed on threats of violence, but it is unclear if Pelosi herself was briefed directly or indirectly on the situation.

In a timeline of events from the Pentagon, defense officials wrote that U.S. Capitol Police twice said that they did not need help from the military. According to the timeline, Capitol Police confirmed that stance to Defense Department officials and to Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. 

U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reportedly asked House and Senate security officials if they wanted National Guard troops to assist the Capitol Police in protecting the Capitol complex in advance of the Jan. 6 rally. According to The Washington Post, House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he was not in support of declaring an emergency ahead of the rally. Sund and Irving have since resigned. 

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/tyler-o-neil/2021/01/21/republican-files-articles-of-impeachment-against-joe-biden-on-his-second-day-in-office-n1403692

A House Republican officially filed articles of impeachment against President Joe Biden on his second day in office. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — infamous for supporting the QAnon conspiracy theory on a blog before running for Congress — launched a Quixotic attempt to impeach Biden over the Hunter Biden-Burisma scandal.

“President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the Presidency. His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama’s Vice President is lengthy and disturbing. President Biden has demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to bail out his son, Hunter, and line his family’s pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies,” Greene said in a statement on Thursday after filing the articles.

“President Biden is even on tape admitting to a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government threatening to withhold $1,000,000,000 in foreign aid if they did not do his bidding. President Biden residing in the White House is a threat to national security and he must be immediately impeached,” the congresswoman insisted.

Greene’s impeachment effort is unlikely to gain any traction, but it does once again point out the notorious Burisma scandal.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/21/freedoms-funeral/

In Norwegian, the word for inauguration, innsettelse, shares a root with bisettelse, the word for funeral. On the day after Joe Biden was sworn in, my friend Roger in Oslo joked that he’d watched the whole bisettelse on TV.

At a time like this, the only options for a sane freedom-lover are revolution, drugs, and gallows humor.

I watched the bisettelse, too. I thought Lady Gaga did a spectacular job with the National Anthem. She was a terrible choice, though. Her vivacity served only to underscore, by contrast, the fact that the new occupant of the White House is a walking corpse.

While he was delivering his address, I was so focused on the question of the day—would he get through it without zoning out?—that I barely noticed how vapid and mendacious the speech itself was.

But it was both of those things, in spades—vapid and mendacious.

It was ironic to find oneself listening to such a piece of drivel after four years during which the media told us, repeatedly, that Donald Trump spoke at the level of a middle schooler—and spoke too roughly and bluntly, in a style that was scandalously “unpresidential.”

True enough. He shot from the hip. He didn’t waste his audiences’ time with platitudes, with pap. Unlike Barack Obama, Trump didn’t fancy himself an orator come down from Olympus to turn mere words into glorious music.

Truth, Lies, and “Unity”

The media also said that Trump lied. Well, he exaggerated. But lies? Not really. Not about the big stuff, anyway. Biden’s speech, by contrast, in addition to being a string of clichés written on a grade-school level, was one big fat lie. And at its climax, he professed a profound love for the truth.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/21/let-the-senates-show-trial-begin/

So much for unity.

During her first softball briefing, Jen Psaki, Joe Biden’s press secretary, assured America that the U.S. Senate can “multi-task” by conducting its routine business and proceeding with a trial against former President Donald Trump at the same time. “[Biden’s] gonna leave the mechanics, the timing, the specifics of how Congress moves forward on impeachment to them,” the ex-Obama staffer told a Fox News reporter Wednesday.

The House of Representatives hastily impeached Trump a second time on January 13, one week after the so-called insurrection at the Capitol. The former president was charged with “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States” for allegedly provoking the mob with his speech prior to Congress’ formal certification of the 2020 election.

Ten Republican House members, including U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), voted for the resolution; Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), bitter after losing control of the Senate, suggested on the Senate floor last week that Trump did in fact fuel the mob.

To which I say—let the trial begin.

Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters should welcome this opportunity to expose the truth. After all, the former president has been tried in an ex parte court of public outrage and convicted of sedition by the news media, Democrats, and a sizable swath of the American public.

A Proper Defense

Trump and his supporters are denied any defense in the virtual courtroom of social media; tens of thousands of Twitter users, including the former president, were permanently purged from the site following the January 6 melee.

Not only is there a bounty on the heads of people who were involved in the Capitol violence or who even just attended Trump’s speech that day, 74.2 million Americans now are considered “terrorists” for the simple act of voting to reelect the president. Comparisons to Iraqi insurgents or al-Qaeda terrorists easily slip from the tongues of ex-military leaders and alleged “conservative” pundits. Joe Biden mentioned “domestic terrorists” in his inauguration speech. 

“Two weeks ago, when an angry violent mob staged an insurrection and desecrated this temple of our democracy, it awakened us,” Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said in the inauguration’s opening remarks Wednesday.

But more than two weeks later, many questions remain unanswered about exactly what happened on January 6. And just like every other overblown crisis intended to inflict mortal damage to Donald Trump, key parts of the narrative are falling apart while others are swept under the rug.

A Senate trial allows for the only public opportunity to vet the various charges now levied against Trump and his voters.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fauci-refutes-biden-admin-claim-that-trump-left-no-plan-for-vaccine-distribution/

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, refuted a claim by the Biden administration that the outgoing Trump administration left no plan for distributing coronavirus vaccines.

President Biden said at a White House press conference on Thursday that the Trump administration’s distribution of coronavirus vaccines has been a “dismal failure,” and set a goal to vaccinate 100 million Americans by the end of April. Meanwhile, sources in the Biden administration claimed that the previous administration left no vaccine distribution plan.

“There is nothing for us to rework. We are going to have to build everything from scratch,” one source told CNN on Thursday.

However, Dr. Fauci directly refuted this claim after Biden left the press conference.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-1-19-the-obama-era-war-against-the-economy-is-about-to-resume

President Joe Biden ran on gauzy campaign themes of return to calm and normalcy, or something like that. Certainly, he was never challenged by the media in any meaningful way to commit to specifics. But as Inauguration Day approaches, the details are now coming fully into view. In simple terms, Biden plans to resume the Obama-era War Against The Economy.

“War Against The Economy” is the phrase I often used to characterize the Obama administration’s economic policy. Make that the Obama/Biden administration’s economic policy. The year 2013 was the first full year of this blog, and was also the first year of Obama/Biden’s second term. The economy was entering the fifth year of the “recovery” that had begun around the time Obama entered office in 2009, but the “recovery” was notably lethargic and sluggish. In a post in December 2013 titled “Update On The War Against The Economy,” I had a thorough review of the Obama/Biden policies that attacked productive economic activity, and that I thought deserved the lion’s share of the blame for the economic doldrums.

Here’s the short version of subsequent events: Starting in 2017, Trump undid most of the counterproductive Obama/Biden policies. Economic performance returned to normal healthy growth, at least until the pandemic hit. Biden now proposes to re-instate essentially all of the most economically destructive policies.

For today, I’ll focus on my favorite subject, the area of policy known to rational people as “energy” policy, and to hysterics as “climate” policy. In recent days, Biden’s people have let it be known that among his first actions in office will be (1) rejoining the Paris climate accord, and (2) canceling the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. Meanwhile, Biden has also announce prospective appointments to the EPA who can be counted on to resume the war against fossil fuels, beginning with coal, without regard to negative economic consequences.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/biden-promises-pain-matthew-vadum/

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 78, was installed North Korea-style as the placeholder president of the United States of America on January 20, surrounded by 25,000 U.S. troops, along with hundreds of socially-distancing well-wishers in front of an empty National Mall populated with a vast forest of planted American flags to distract from the fact that no one was there.

How long he will last before Nancy Pelosi invokes the 25th Amendment to replace him with the predatory Obama wannabe Kamala Harris is anyone’s guess.

The speech came as the Washington Post admitted hours after militia members were charged in connection with the January riot that former President Donald Trump had nothing to do with the civil disturbance that delayed our Potemkin parliament’s certification of electors a few hours. This was, of course, the riot after which Biden, statist simpleton that he is, scolded lawmakers who thought they were running for their very lives for not stopping to put face masks on.

In the process Biden misgendered his own home state House member, saying he was “so proud of my congressman right here in the state of Delaware, Lisa Blunt Rochester,” for trying to distribute masks to other lawmakers during the riot. Reportedly, some Republicans declined the offer, prompting Biden to growl, “What the hell’s the matter with them? It’s time to grow up.”

No one needed to worry about riots in the nation’s capital, not only because of the armed soldiers and out-of-state police that occupied the city, but because the nonentity who blundered his way into becoming the leader of the free world does not inspire passion, except perhaps in the most radical precincts of the Left. While he enjoyed his first half-day in the Oval Office busily trying to erase the legacy of Orange Man Bad by executive fiat, mostly peaceful Antifa rioters marked the occasion in Seattle, Denver, and Portland, Oregon.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/regenerons-antibody-miracle-for-covid-19-11611270897?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Three weeks ago my wife and I were toasting the New Year and giving blessings for the last. It was a year in which we welcomed our first grandchild, reason enough to be thankful. It was also a year during which we maintained our health, despite living, shopping, working and commuting in the heart of the city with the world’s worst Covid-19 death record. It appeared we were going to skate through the pandemic into the post-pandemic era without getting sick.

Then the coughing began.

After a long day at work, I went to bed early and kept waking up with a hacking cough. I rose the next morning feeling dizzy and achy with a cold sweat. I called my doctor, who got right to the point: “You probably have Covid; that’s the only thing getting through masks these days.”

Since I had a fever, I went directly to NYU Hospital’s emergency Covid ward. Although it was overcrowded, an unexpected calm prevailed. Several of the nurses and aides told me they’d already had Covid. Others had been vaccinated. More important, they said, they now have powerful weapons to use against the virus.

The weapon that interested me most was the antibody cocktail by Regeneron that has emerged from this crisis as a giant-killer. Once my test came back positive, I asked the nurses whether I could get the casirivimab and imdevimab drugs that night. They said it’s only given the day after you’re diagnosed. I also learned that despite Operation Warp Speed’s remarkable achievements in bringing drugs like this to the market quickly, there were still regulatory barriers to its distribution that seemed needlessly bureaucratic.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/justice-department-asks-supreme-court-to-reverse-trump-twitter-decision_3666557.html

The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling that found that former President Donald Trump’s blocking of critics on the microblogging website Twitter violated the First Amendment, saying the ruling was “deeply problematic.”

President Joe Biden, as well as future presidents and government officials, should not be bound by the decision the high court may well have overturned had the question not become moot by Trump completing his term of office, Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall argued in a supplemental brief filed on Jan. 19 in Trump v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Wall had previously argued that Trump’s ability “to use the features of his personal Twitter account … are independent of his presidential office,” adding that “blocking third-party accounts … is a purely personal action that does not involve any ‘right or privilege created by the State,’” he wrote, referencing a previous precedent.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled unanimously in 2019  that Trump’s use of his personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, created “an official channel of communication.”

The feed for that account had been constantly filled with replies from users who taunted and insulted the president, often using expletives, and Trump had locked horns with Twitter management on many occasions.