RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.businessinsider.com/barr-knew-hunter-biden-tax-probes-months-before

Attorney General William Barr knew about two criminal investigations into Hunter Biden’s financial dealings for months before the US general election but kept them from the public, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The news is a remarkable twist in Barr’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s attorney general, during which he repeatedly took steps to benefit the president and feed into his conspiracy theories.
According to The Journal, Barr knew about the Biden tax investigations since at least the spring but tried to keep them under wraps in accordance with Justice Department rules meant to keep prosecutors from taking overt investigative steps that could affect the outcome of an election.
The Journal’s report is likely to infuriate Trump, who has been frustrated with Barr in recent months and came close to firing him on several occasions before aides talked the president out of it.

Attorney General William Barr knew for months about two investigations into Hunter Biden’s financial activity but worked to shield them from the public, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

The news is a remarkable twist in Barr’s tenure as President Donald Trump’s attorney general, during which time he repeatedly took steps to aid the president and feed into his talking points about the Russia investigation, the Obama administration, and the 2020 election.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/pen_america_mocks_1st_amendm

On Saturday, I received an email from Stephen Fee, the Communications Director for PEN America, alerting me to a virtual gala celebration on December 8 to honor Barack Obama with its 2020 Voice of Influence Award.

Among other topics, Obama will share with the PEN audience how “disinformation — and media outlets willing to spread it — are an immediate threat to democracy.” PEN’s mission, so they tell us, is “to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide.”

Is this a hoax? Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize more than he deserves this award. A report released by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in October 2013 showed that only in Bizarro World would Obama merit such an honor.

In the way of background, a group of foreign journalists founded the CPJ in 1981 to protect their colleagues around the world from harassment by authoritarian governments. The CPJ is not exactly part of the much-bruited “right-wing noise machine.” Au contraire!

Over the years the CPJ board of directors has included any number of liberal luminaries, among them Christiane Amanpour, Gwen Ifill, Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, Clarence Page, and even serious leftists like Victor Navasky, longtime editor of the Nation. The principal author of the report was Leonard Downie, Jr., former executive editor of the Washington Post. In the opening paragraph of the report, Downie sliced right to the heart of the issue:

In the Obama administration’s Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press. Those suspected of discussing with reporters anything that the government has classified as secret are subject to investigation, including lie-detector tests and scrutiny of their telephone and e-mail records. An “Insider Threat Program” being implemented in every government department requires all federal employees to help prevent unauthorized disclosures of information by monitoring the behavior of their colleagues.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/will-america-become-chinas-vassal-gary-gindler/

On election day, Fox News betrayed President Trump, and this has puzzled many patriots. The confusion vanishes if one assumes that this episode could be just a small part of the process of China’s colonization of America. China has already colonized some countries in the Pacific region, South America, and Africa for all practical purposes. Add to this list the de facto colonization of northern Italy and a large part of Russia in Eastern Siberia. Also, communist China greedily devours real estate and businesses in the United States.

Therefore, the 2020 presidential election should be seen as an integral part of this process.

From this perspective, Trump and Biden symbolize two diametrically opposed approaches to America’s future. If Biden made it clear that he was ready to swear allegiance to the new master, Trump is fighting for America’s economic and political independence. Biden is helped not only by the so-called “Democrats” and numerous anti-Trump Republicans but also by the world socialist movement.

The current leading force of palace intrigues in China is Xi Jinping’s group of supporters of Soviet methods: “Xi Jinping belongs to the faction long forgotten in China, which at one time was aligned with the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin.” When this group came to power, a wave of repressions swept across China, like two drops of water similar to Stalin’s repressions of the 30s and 40s. China’s economic policy is generally reminiscent of the Soviet one. For example, foreign companies’ penetration into Chinese markets is only possible if joint ventures with China are established, and all the know-how is transferred to the Chinese side.

Donald Trump, of course, is fighting for the presidency. Nevertheless, for Trump, the presidency is only part of a more significant challenge. Trump seeks not only to win these elections but to destroy once and for all the leftist movements in general. Obviously, it includes China and the so-called “Democrats.” That is a much more important goal, and it looks like Trump would prevail. What if Trump loses? In this case, all his actions will be aimed at ensuring that by the next electoral cycle – in 2022 – no one in his or her right mind would even think to vote for (D)ecadence.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/12/what-truly-source-native-american-poverty-jason-d-hill/

The dire conditions under which Native Americans live in the United States are pitiful. Statistics grow dated by the month. According to the American Community Survey, one in three Native Americans live in poverty with a median income of around $23,000 per year.

Self-proclaimed experts on Native American poverty such as sociologist Beth Redbird point out that despite heavy investments in education, up to 80% of Native Americans move back to their rural communities. Given that poverty tends to be higher in rural areas, the poverty gap between Native Americans who live in rural areas and urban areas is larger than the white rural and urban gap. The conclusion is that poverty is not driven by the propensity of Native Americans to live in rural areas.

Redbird concludes that amazing things would happen if Native Americans had the same employment rates, occupations, levels of education, lived in the same geographic locations and were in the same types of white households as white Americans. She claims the payoff to education is not nearly as great as the payoff to jobs. In other words, if such conditions held, Native American poverty would decrease because poverty could be reduced for the Indian-only population by nearly 20% with employment.

She cites the abysmal failures of Native Americans to address their own economic development through tribal gaming and energy. Reports from the census show that when tribes started gaming establishments or energy projects that poverty rates did not decrease, and that few lasting jobs were created. In 2015 alone, casinos created about only 25 jobs, while energy had hardly any effect on reservations with more than 2,000 residents on average.

The solution? Redbird wants tribes to invest in a variety of job initiatives and to diversify economic opportunities. This will require federal negotiations and, Redbird admits, “Indians don’t have the highest trust in federal policy.”

Let us pause here and state the obvious. Autonomy, sovereignty and self-determination have simply not worked for American Indians. Their self-determination and alleged autonomy really rest on one set of collective entitlements after another to preserve their distinct tribal heritages to the detriment of economic growth and well-being. Even Redbird admits that economic well-being at the local level might look different for a tribe in Wyoming versus one in California—all of which lead to a variety of outcomes.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/12/critical_race_theory_as_pseudo_as_pseudoscience_gets.html

Racial relations are a complicated and controversial topic, so many are uncomfortable and even afraid to discuss it.  I consider myself an exception, given my “suitable background”: I am a European-American, based on my geographical place of birth; I am a Middle Eastern American, based on my historical homeland; and I am also an African-American, based on the origin of my species, Homo sapiens sapiens!  I came from a third-world country where I experienced racist hostility toward my ethnicity and fought back in various ways until I immigrated to the United States.  Therefore, the issue of race relations is not at all alien to me.

Recently, reading a seminal book on Critical Race Theory (CRT) gave me a long forgotten and unpleasant feeling from my student days in the ex–Soviet Union.  It was a feeling that I was wasting time and effort in studying inherently wrong subjects that were ideologically driven and lacking in any practical validation and usefulness.  (These subjects were scientific communism, Marxist-Leninist philosophy, and political economy of socialism).  Studying these subjects and experiencing firsthand their practical implementation had expanded my knowledge about the development of human society only to the extent that socialism is a dead end of societal evolution.

My first impression of the book was that CRT is a shining example of politically and ideologically driven yet illogical pseudoscience.  As the title suggests, the subject of this “critical” study is race and the relationship between people of different races, while at the same time, one of its pillars is the assertion that races are artificial, human-invented categories that do not have any biological and genetic basis.

This assertion does not constitute a fact since the question of the existence or non-existence of the biological nature of races has not yet been settled by science.  Instead, it reflects the penchant of some modern anthropologists, biologists, geneticists, and sociologists who question traditional race-based human taxonomy and propose to classify people by geographic origins or ethnic groups. 

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/12/10/why-doesnt-the-covidocracy-care-about-vitamin-d-findings/

There’s actually very limited evidence in favor of mass masking, but advocates argue it’s relatively inexpensive (true) and what’s the harm (none if your intent is to create division and distrust among “your” people). But what about something to reduce COVID-19 severity and mortality that’s cheap, easy, and has solid scientific evidence behind it?

Finally someone in official capacity is pushing this treatment. It’s called “vitamin D.” England has announced that more than 2.5 million of its more vulnerable people, namely those in long-term care facilities, will be offered free vitamin D supplements this winter.

Like all vitamins and some minerals, it seems vitamin D has been presented by various sources as a form of snake oil in a capsule – with the (possible) exception of growing hair on a bowling ball. You can find at least one study for practically everything. But we know it’s essential to human life and we know many people aren’t getting enough. That’s especially true among people with darker skin, the elderly, and those living at higher latitudes. Older age and darker skin have both clearly been associated with worse COVID-19 outcomes.

COVID-19 aside, vitamin D insufficiency affects almost 50% of the population worldwide, while an estimated 1 billion people, across all ethnicities and age groups, have vitamin D deficiency. Our ancestors didn’t sit behind monitors and TVs in caves all day long.

A shortage has long been associated with a host of problems. “Emerging research supports the possible role of vitamin D against cancer, heart disease, fractures and falls, autoimmune diseases, influenza, type-2 diabetes, and depression,” notes one paper.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bidens-and-beijing-11607627205?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

“Mr. Trump mentioned that he used to wonder why his Beltway adversaries always use Russia when advancing conspiracy theories about him. He chuckled as he recounted the moment he understood why and said, “They never use China. You know why? ’Cause they’re all getting rich on China.”

Hunter Biden may have wanted to hold 10% for the “big guy,” but did he forget to set aside 37% for Uncle Sam? A tax investigation focused on the Biden family’s highly questionable sources of income may finally force them to answer precisely how such income is generated in the first place.

The Journal’s Ken Thomas and Sabrina Siddiqui report:

Hunter Biden, the son of President-elect Joe Biden, said in a statement Wednesday that the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware is “investigating my tax affairs,” putting his financial dealings in the spotlight, as his father builds his administration.
Hunter Biden said he takes the matter “very seriously” and is “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”
The Justice Department declined to comment on Wednesday.

Exactly one year ago, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and six Democrats chairing House committees unveiled their plan to charge President Donald Trump with impeachment articles which did not claim he had committed any crimes. Mr. Trump’s alleged offense was suggesting that a foreign government look into Hunter Biden dealings which any reasonable person would say deserved examination. A source now tells the Journal that the feds began investigating Biden taxes in 2018. One year ago today, did any of the congressional Democrats know that as they were accusing Mr. Trump of non-crimes, the subject of his scrutiny was already under U.S. criminal investigation?

https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/no-bail-just-part-of-it-las-new-da-totally-eviscerating-basic-law/

Los Angeles’ newly elected district attorney, George Gascon, has a plan for ensuring compliance with the county’s draconian stay-at-home orders: make the city so dangerous that Angelenos will be terrified to step outside.

Gascon belongs to a wave of well-funded left-wing prosecutors who have come to office promising to eliminate racial disparities in the criminal-justice system. They are doing so by eliminating key components of the criminal-justice system itself. Gascon’s office will no longer prosecute a wide range of misdemeanor offenses.

They include:

Trespass. Los Angeles streets, in all but its wealthiest neighborhoods, are already overrun by squalid encampments. Business owners who have managed so far to survive the lockdown regularly have to sweep vagrants off their property in the morning, along with ­feces and drug paraphernalia. The vagrant won’t leave? Don’t bother calling the police. Any arrest an officer makes will simply be dismissed. If a homeowner sees a ­vagrant climbing the fence to his house, he will have to deal with it himself.

Driving without a license or driving with a suspended license. The risk of being hit and possibly killed by a drunk driver or by someone who just can’t operate a car just went up, in a sop to the ­illegal-immigrant lobby.

Disturbing the peace. Los Angeles has seen a spate of shootings at rowdy illegal house parties. Too bad if such a party breaks out on your block. Just hope that no one feels dissed and pulls a gun.

Public intoxication and loitering to commit prostitution. These activities are the prelude to greater problems, as law-abiding residents of high-crime communities know too well. The sister of an assassinated Chicago cop warned in The Chicago Sun-Times this summer that illegal drug and alcohol use on residential streets easily escalates into ­fatal shootings, because the perpetrators “think no one cares.”

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084c

Reality is harsh. Let’s face it, our world is imperfect, often even deadly. Not only that, it’s always going to be imperfect. So let’s get to work on enjoying our brief lives as best we can amidst the imperfection, while striving for such incremental improvements to the world as are within our modest capabilities.

If you think that way, you definitely are not “woke.” To be a woke progressive the first requirement is that you must refuse to acknowledge the real world as it exists. You must pretend that the world is something else, something immediately transformable into a fantasy of perfection through coercive collective action. You also must firmly close your eyes to any facts or evidence that might contradict such progressive fantasy, and indeed you must demand that any such facts or evidence be suppressed and never mentioned.

Among numerous illustrations of this point, perhaps the most striking is the current hysteria sometimes going by the name “anti-racism.” Here, the official progressive fantasy is that any under-representation of blacks (or other minority group of your choice) at designated heights of society can only be the result of “systemic racism.” Therefore all must commit to the coerced program of “anti-racism,” whereupon, I presume, perfection will promptly be achieved.

Over the past several months, you cannot have missed the parade of major societal institutions — large corporations, banks, law firms, universities, and so on — caught with insufficient numbers of minorities in their ranks and pledging to rectify the situation immediately if not sooner.