RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/01/wish-granted-good-and-hard/

EXCERPTS:

Finally, to perspective; a quality sadly missing from much of today’s commentary, plagued as it is by presentism. This incident does not leave Trump’s legacy in tatters. Nor does it diminish the template he created for prosperity at home and peace abroad. Strong borders, fewer regulations, lower taxes, stronger military, tough love for allies, tough measures against China, innovative and brave initiatives for peace in the Middle East. This template will not appeal to Democrats but it most definitely will inform the next Republican administration. Assuming there will be a next Republican administration.

Donald Trump, properly viewed, was (is for little while longer) a great president. He slipped up at the last; pained by his conviction that the election was stolen. I think he felt personally aggrieved and disappointed. But I also think he thought he was fighting for truth, justice and the American way. Of course, the Trump-haters will only ever point to his personal motive.

It was messy. Nonetheless, the evidence of shenanigans in compiling and counting the votes piled up. As I’ve said, some of it caught on video. Mainstream journalists lacked interest. That says it all. Political hacks to a man and woman. Me, I am with Trump. Deeply sceptical that 81 million Americans (51.4 per cent of vote) voted for a guy in the basement whose mind is failing.  Obama managed just 66 million (51.1 per cent) in 2012.

An afterword. Just exactly how much savvy do they have; these so-called conservatives dancing on Trump’s grave? What do they think is now in store for the US and for us all, having played their part in Trump’s demise by four years of merciless sniping?

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2021/01/trump-more-sinned-against-than-sinning/

EXCERPTS

The catalyst for the protest on January 6, the day the Senate ratified the Electoral College, was the presidential election in early November, but the causes of the protest go back to the day Trump announced his candidacy to become president. From that day forward, the Establishment acted in every way to undermine, frustrate, and destroy his presidency. It’s one of the most extraordinary stories in modern American political history. And while the ‘resistance’ or the Establishment — it’s hard to tell which is which in this ill-begotten tale — performed their deeds in plain sight, they also gaslighted the whole world. Then, with the chutzpah of chutzpahs, they denied prima facie evidence of their own malfeasance and corruption, and described anyone who questioned their narrative and tactics as insane or stupid. The hypocrisy was breathtaking. Although some of their followers, to be fair, are so stupid they gaslighted themselves.

The larger question, though, is what did people expect when a democratically elected president is subject to a torrent of abuse, of unrelenting mainstream media lies, false accusations of collusion with Russia, and an impeachment based on a gossamer-thin excuse to remove him from office?  Did they expect that nobody would become enraged at what many people viewed as the Establishment thwarting a democratic mandate? Did people really believe that nobody would notice the groundbreaking hypocrisy of the elites or the fact that the establishment was closing ranks against an outsider, one who was viewed by many voters as a tribune of the people? What did people expect when they witnessed Democratic Party politicians defending Antifa and Black Lives Matter, with Joe Biden, for example, refusing to condemn the burning of American cities, saying that Antifa is just “an ‘idea”, all the while blithely ignoring the wanton destruction? What did people expect when Kamala Harris urged people to donate to the legal funds of the rioters? What should people think when Nancy Pelosi said there was ‘no question’ that the 2016 election was ‘hijacked’? Were people to take them at their word or ignore what they said because it was a ‘debate’, as Kamala Harris excused herself after calling Joe Biden a racist and then signing on as his vice-presidential pick? What did people expect when the Democrats said that the Russians had manipulated the voting machines to ensure Trump won the election? What did people expect when there is evidence that the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency, among others – the security apparatus of America, in other words – were involved in a plot to undermine Trump’s presidency, and which even Barack Obama discussed in the Oval Office?

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/12/good-morning-from-new-iran/

So, President Trump was banned from Twitter. He was also significantly censored by Facebook, Google, and Apple, and likely will remain muzzled by Big Tech through the end of his presidency, if not longer.

We knew this was coming, though perhaps we thought the social media giants would wait at least until he left office. We know it’s going to get worse after January 20, when Joe Biden assumes the Oval Office. The un-personing of Donald Trump is going to be one for the history books, until the history books, too, are inevitably jettisoned.

Still, our prominent conservative “thought leaders” are unprepared for this reality.

“But the president of Iran gets to keep his Twitter account, and that’s not fair,” seems to be their thematic response.

Yes. That’s exactly right. Donald Trump does not get to have a Twitter account, but the president of Iran, and any other authoritarian hellhole dictator you can list, does. But it is time to stop scribing about the hypocrisy of the technocrats and the media and the radical Left, yelling, “See, look how hypocritical they are!” They are perfectly comfortable with their own hypocrisy. They only care about power.

It is also time to face a harsh reality: today’s American regime has far more in common with the Iranian regime than we’d like to think, and Americans are more like subjects of totalitarian tyrants than citizens who have consented to being governed.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/01/beware-democrats-bearing-law-and-order-platitudes-don-feder/

The Party of Lawlessness has become the Party of Law and Order. The Party of Burn-Baby-Burn now sounds very much like Richard Nixon, circa 1969.

In the annals of political hypocrisy, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. deserves his own chapter.

Following the so-called rioting at the Capitol on Wednesday, Biden stuck out his hollow chest, struck a heroic pose and thundered: “What we witnessed was not dissent; it was disorder. It was not a protest [unlike all of the ‘peaceful protests’ Democrats abetted since the death of George Floyd]. It was chaos. They weren’t protestors, don’t dare to call them protestors. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists. It’s that basic. It’s that simple.”

We pause for applause.

Like the rest of his party, Biden hopes that we were all born yesterday.

It took the President-elect three months — from May 25 to August 30 — to weakly condemn the violence, arson, assaults and murders that were rocking the nation. Of course, in ritualistic fashion, he also condemned “police violence” and mythical right-wing militias. Antifa is “just an idea” he assured us. Far from calling the Black Lives Matter thugs a riotous mob, insurrectionists or domestic terrorists, he’s yet to criticize them in any way.

But when President Trump castigated the lawlessness and called for a return to democracy, he was “throwing gasoline on the fire,” said Sheriff Joe.      

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/01/13/cold-civil-war-heats-up-social-media-bans-threaten-free-speech/

After last week’s Washington, D.C., protests, it didn’t take long for the Big Tech billionaires who own, control and run much of the internet and social media to reveal what they truly are: willing tools, a Fifth Column even, of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and enemies of free speech. A reckoning is due.

In a scene reminiscent of “The Godfather,” the Big Tech companies moved aggressively last weekend to “settle all family business” by deplatforming President Donald Trump, his supporters, a swath of the conservative movement, and anyone else who dares to voice an “unWoke” opinion.

Triggered and emboldened by a direct request from former First Lady Michelle Obama, Twitter did as told, leading to a bizarre cascade of “me-too” social media activity. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat all blacklisted Trump and, in some cases, his followers.

“After close review of recent tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them – specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter – we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said, via a statement.

Third-ranking GOP Rep. Liz Cheney said she will vote to impeach President Donald Trump for his role in a mob attack on the Capitol last week.
She joins Republican Rep. John Katko, who was the first Republican to say he would back impeachment, along with GOP Reps. Adam Kinzinger, Fred Upton and Jaime Herrera Beutler.
The New York Times separately reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell believes Trump committed impeachable offenses.
NATIONAL REVIEW HEADLINES:
Impeach, Convict, RemoveBy Kevin D. Williamson

And if there isn’t time for removal, he should still be impeached and convicted, anyway.
The End of the GOP

By Kevin D. Williamson

A dog in this condition would be put to sleep. It would be a piece of mercy.
House GOP Leaders Won’t Lobby Caucus to Oppose Impeachment

By Zachary Evans 
The decision comes after Trump incited a mob of his supporters to demonstrate outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
Twitter Deranged Our Politics

By Rich Lowry 
Trump was the foremost offender, but Twitter hasn’t done us any favors in this period of our national life.

….”Stuart Stevens, a senior advisor to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, tweeted Saturday that “we are constructing a database of Trump officials & staff that will detail their roles in the Trump administration & track where they are now.” He added: “No personal info, only professional. But they will be held accountable & not allowed to pretend they were not involved.”

The Lincoln Project is a well-funded political action group, run mostly by former GOP consultants, that made ads for Democrats in the 2020 election cycle. We often disagreed, especially with the group’s effort to unseat principled GOP Senators, but never begrudged donors exercising their First Amendment right to influence the political process.

It’s something else to turn fire on former public servants in private life. Mr. Stevens tells us in an email that he’s doing nothing more than Wikipedia does with its pages listing past Administration alumni. But then why broadcast his stigmatizing intentions?

The only reason for an anti-Trump group to publicize the employment information of former officials is to deter employers from hiring them. If they are hired, progressive employees could scour the list and create petitions for them to be fired or doxed. This will deepen America’s civic strife.

https://pjmedia.com/spengler/2021/01/11/heres-how-we-flatten-the-democratic-part

Trump made a colossal tactical blunder by telling his supporters to fight vote fraud in the streets. That led to last week’s excesses, and the biggest crackdown on conservatives in American history. David Horowitz likes to say, inside every progressive is a totalitarian screaming to get out. Is he ever right!

The suspension of President Trump’s Twitter account (denounced by Germany’s Angela Merkel and top French officials as a violation of basic rights) is an affront to democracy: Whatever Trump did or didn’t do, he is the elected president of the United States, convicted in no court of law, and the people have the right to hear from him. The suspension of the free-speech social media platform Parler is another totalitarian outrage by what France’s Finance Minister calls “the digital oligarchy.” And now CNN demands that cable companies drop Fox News and Newsmax.

The Trump campaign’s vote fraud lawsuits crashed and burned because the standard of proof required by a court to overturn an election is extremely high. Proof of some fraud, or a statistical proof that the outcome was highly improbable, do not meet that standard. It must be proven that sufficient votes were stolen or invented to change the outcome. No one can collect that kind of information in a few weeks. But it can be collected in months or years, and that’s what it will take.

Either we are in this for the duration, or we’ve lost. But we have not lost yet. There was massive fraud. Whether there was sufficient fraud to determine the outcome is beside the point. Large parts of the Democratic Party are criminal organizations and have to be held accountable. Take a cold shower and a deep breath, and prepare for a long war. Ask yourself if you want to win, or just let off steam.

I believe that I speak for many Americans who would want to affirm the letter that I recently wrote to President Trump.  We need to stick together against the overwhelming evil that has been dealt our country.

Dear Mr. President:

With a very heavy heart, I am writing this letter to you.  You have been an inspiration to all patriotic Americans and what has been done to you and, ultimately to us is unconscionable. The proof of the election steal is obvious to any sentient individual.  That all venues of recourse have been shut down is terrifying as I see my country being taken over by a totalitarian mindset.

I cannot imagine the stress that you and your loved ones have been under.  Yet, you never waver in your belief in Making America Great Again.  The people who voted for your opponent have no idea what they have ushered in.  And, of course, the Red-Green Alliance of communist Leftists and jihadists gloat as they see our country split apart.

As one of the few conservative instructors in a college, I daily see the indoctrination of malleable minds.  It is child abuse of the highest form and with Biden and, ultimately, Harris controlling the reins of office, critical race theory will become the dominant theory. Thus, another generation of young Americans will be exposed to this dangerous drivel.

I am scared for my young grandsons.  I want them to experience the freedom that America stands for.  I don’t want them to be taught by those who despise our country.  These babies look to us for guidance.  We cannot let them down.

When Cuomo’s initial limited vaccine roll out proved disastrous—vaccines were being thrown out because of the difficulty of finding patients who exactly matched strict guidelines while huge penalties loomed if anyone else was vaccinated—the governor decided that as of January 11, New York State would also vaccinate people who fell into the next priority class, including teachers and those over 75 years old. 

My husband and I live in Westchester County, are both over 75, and decided to register for vaccination.  So, on Jan. 11, we went to the state web site (Covid19vaccine.healthny.gov/what you should know) and discovered what we should know was that we should call a local Rite Aid for an appointment, with the phone number given for various Rite Aids.  As any five year old could have foreseen  (but not apparently the “experts” employed by the governor), all you got by phoning was a busy signal.  (A Northwell Hospital web address was given as an alternative.  I hit that and was informed there were no slots available.)

Given the permanent busy signal, today (Monday) I went into one of the Rite Aids listed on the web site. I spoke to the pharmacist who said they had no vaccines and had never had any vaccines and to the best of his knowledge no Rite Aid had received any vaccines.  

If you go to the health/gov website now there has been a change.  In a slight bow to reality, the Rite Aids are still listed but unlike yesterday, the viewer is cautioned to wait  a few days before trying to make contact.  There are assorted other individual pharmacies listed with their phone numbers suggesting the state is claiming they  have the vaccine.  Of course if you try to phone any of them all you get is the inevitable busy signal.

Our son is computer savvy and managed to get the email of the NY state government communications officer.  I sent an email to him reporting that we were not able to schedule an appointment through the website and in reply he said we could schedule an appointment by calling 1-833-NYS-4-VAX.  We have called that number innumerable times with the same result—a recorded message saying the call cannot be completed at this time.

In other words,  the vaccine roll out that was supposed to start Jan. 11 is a complete sham.  Apparently determined to escalate the chaos even more, Cuomo has now asserted he is expanding eligibility of the vaccine—which no one over 75 can get–to those over 65.   

Today’s (Jan. 12) New York Post  complains of glitches in the city’s roll out of the vaccine, but at least the city is vaccinating people in the group on whom Cuomo has perpetrated a hoax worthy of the tailors in the Emperor’s new clothes. The applauding audience in this case, apart from Cuomo himself, is the media.  (I can’t wait to hear Cuomo congratulate himself before an ecstatic media for his achievement in making the vaccine available to all,  never forgetting the demands of social justice.)  Cuomo  is definitely due for another Emmy—all show and zero substance.