RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/10/9-11-19-years-later/

For 19 years, we all lived in the long, dark shadow of 9/11. Every time September 11 rolled around again, we engaged in ritual remembrance of the events of that day and reflected on the ways in which the world had changed in its aftermath. There was pre-9/11 and there was post-9/11.

If the immediate consequence of 9/11 was a feeling of strong national unity, its long-term effect was the opening up of a huge national divide. On one side were those who loved America, cherished its founding principles, and recognized the attacks on 9/11 as an assault on those principles by totalitarian ideologues. On the other side were those who reacted to 9/11 by deciding that America’s enemies must have a point and by buying the claim that America’s legacy is one not of freedom and equality but of prejudice and exploitation. 

On 9/11, who would have imagined that Islam would soon be widely depicted as a religion not of totalitarian conquest but of innocent victimhood, and that Sharia apologists like Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib would be congresswomen? 

It started with George W. Bush’s whitewashing of Islam and his use of 9/11 as an excuse for Middle East nation-building. Barack Obama, who spoke loftily of “one America” as a candidate, but took every opportunity to undermine American unity and question American greatness as president, was far worse, singing Islam’s praises even as 9/11 was succeeded by one act of jihadist mass murder after another.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/remembering-911-woke-year-daniel-greenfield/

The 19th anniversary of 9/11 has been the nation’s darkest in this dreaded cycle.

The Black Lives Matter riots that attacked the statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Christopher Columbus, and Abraham Lincoln, did not spare 9/11 memorials.

The statue of a police officer was beheaded and toppled in  Plymouth, MA at a 9/11 memorial honoring those who had died in the attacks. But the 2,000 pound steel beam from the World Trade Center proved beyond the ability of the vandals to topple.

When Black Lives Matter racists defaced statues and memorials in the Boston Common, including the ‘Glory’ regiment, they didn’t spare the 9/11 memorial in the Public Garden.

A 9/11 memorial honoring five fallen firefighters was defaced and the American flagpole was cut down in Washingtonville, NY,.There was also vandalism at the Decatur, IL memorial site, and a red, white and blue rearing horse 9/11 memorial in Rochester, NY was smeared with red paint.

 Beyond the radical attacks on the monuments of September 11 were the attacks on its heroes.

The NYPD has suffered its worst days since 9/11 with over 400 officers injured in the BLM riots. Police and firefighters went from the heroes of a nation to being smeared as soulless monsters.

“I could see no difference between the officer who killed and the police who died, or the firefighters who died,” Ta-Nehisi Coates, an intellectual godfather of Black Lives Matter, wrote, “They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were the menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/the-lefts-reaction-to-woodwards-coronavirus-scoop-is-revisionist-history/

EXCERPTS:

“It’s also fair to point out that there’s no evidence that those who want to attain power would have been — or would be — any better prepared. And the idea that we could have stopped this in February or March is risible.”

Unlike Cuomo, though, the Trump administration took all kinds of action relatively early. It’s fine to criticize Trump’s response, but I have yet to hear how Democrats could have contained coronavirus, much saved less saved the economy while doing so.

Yet we’ve now gone from “Trump said something stupid” to hysterical partisan accusations such as “Trump will likely shoulder the blame for at least 100,000 American deaths” and “200,000 Americans have died because neither Donald Trump nor Bob Woodward wanted to risk anything substantial to keep the country informed.”

Even ABC News wonders if the disease “might have been contained” had Trump said something different in February. This is unadulterated revisionism.

The day Trump tweeted that coronavirus was “very much under control in the USA,” Nancy Pelosi was imploring people to visit Chinatown in San Francisco. This was weeks after the House had already been briefed on the coronavirus by the CDC.

Can you imagine the nation’s reaction had Trump — or Pelosi — demanded that states shut down their entire economies over five infections and zero known deaths in February?

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/trumps-nobel-peace-prize-nomination-is-futile-opinion-641851

The announcement that US President Donald Trump was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize provided much headline fodder this week, but was it really that dramatic? The answer is no.

For starters, this isn’t the first time that Trump has been nominated for the coveted award that grants laureates nine million Swedish kronor ($935,366). A bit more than two years ago, a group of 18 members of Congress – Rep. Luke Messer (R-Indiana) and 17 other House lawmakers – including Mark Meadows (R-North Carolina), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee), Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), Diane Black (R-Tennessee) and Steve King (R-Iowa) – nominated him for having worked “tirelessly to apply maximum pressure to North Korea to end its illicit weapons programs and bring peace to the region.”

In their letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on May 2, 2018, the congresspeople stated that Trump “successfully united the international community, including China, to impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history.”

They further argued that the sanctions “decimated the North Korean economy and have been largely credited for bringing North Korea to the negotiating table. Although North Korea has evaded demands from the international community to cease its aggression for decades, President Trump’s peace through strength policies are working and bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula.”

Therefore, they concluded, “We can think of no one more deserving of the committee’s recognition in 2019 than President Trump for his tireless work to bring peace to our world.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/job-openings-surge-by-10-percent-to-6-6-million-topping-expectations_3493679.html

Job openings in the United States, which are a measure of labor demand, rose by 10 percent to 6.6 million in July, while the number of people quitting their jobs rose by 2.1 percent between June and July, suggesting an uptick in confidence in being able to find work.

The Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released Wednesday, showed that the number of job vacancies jumped by 617,000 to 6.6 million on the last day of July, above the 6 million that economists surveyed by FactSet predicted.

Manufacturing saw a 17.9 percent surge in job openings. Industries that saw the largest increases in vacancies were retail trade (172,000), health care and social assistance (146,000), and construction (90,000). The U.S. housing market, in particular, has shown remarkable resilience amid the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) virus outbreak, with an August report from the U.S. Census Bureau (pdf) showing building permits, a predictor of future activity, rising by 18.8 percent from June to July. Housing starts, meanwhile, surged by 22.6 percent between June and July. In another sign that the economic recovery may be picking up speed, U.S. home sales rose at a record rate for a second straight month in July.

Wednesday’s JOLTS report showed that vacancies were highest in trade, transportation, and utilities (1.292 million), followed by education and health services (1.262 million), and business and professional services (1.2 million), with all three categories seeing growth from the month before.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/nyc-to-allow-indoor-dining-at-25-percent-capacity-marking-covid-recovery-milestone/

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday that he would allow New York City restaurants to reopen for indoor dining at 25 percent capacity beginning September 30.

The announcement comes more than two months after Cuomo and mayor Bill de Blasio put the brakes on a plan to reopen indoor dining at restaurants in light of continued concerns about the spread of coronavirus.

Now that “compliance is better” — New York’s infection rate has stayed below 1 percent for several weeks — “we can now take the next step,” the governor said.  

While the city’s restaurants have suffered economically since the outset of the pandemic, many have tried to get by on outdoor dining and takeout services this summer but have worried what colder weather would hold in store. 

Aside from reduced capacity, restaurants and patrons will face other restrictions including the requirement to wear face coverings when not seated.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16429/transforming-the-us

Local businesses have been moving out. Greg Goodman, co-president of Portland’s Downtown Development Group recently wrote in a letter to Mayor Ted Wheeler and the city council that the number of businesses moving out of the city “is like nothing I have seen in 42 years of doing business in downtown”. Goodman said that the businesses leaving included Daimler Chrysler, Air B&B, Banana Republic and Microsoft, and argued that their departure “does have most everything to do with the lawlessness you are endorsing downtown.”

“I would encourage each of you to walk around downtown Portland in the morning. You aren’t sweeping the streets, needles are all over the place, garbage cans are broken and left open, glass from car windows that have been broken out is all over the streets, parks are strewn with litter… You are willfully neglecting your duties as elected officials to keep our city safe and clean.” — Greg Goodman, in a letter to Portland’s Mayor Ted Wheeler and the city council.

One influential national politician, however, promised with a smile that the “protests” are “not going to stop… They’re not going to stop before election day in November and they’re not going to stop after election day…. They’re not going to let up and they should not…”

America could indeed be “transformed,” but if safe and successful cities keep being transformed into places of crime-ridden lawlessness, is that what Americans want?

At least 13 US cities “have cut funding from police department budgets or decreased officer numbers with several more in the process,” according to a recent report by Forbes. Austin, Texas, one of the recent additions to the list of cities defunding police, cut $150 million, nearly a third of its police budget.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/08/rochester-proves-black-lives-dont-matter-to-blm/

Over the July 4 weekend, 13 people were shot in this city of just 200,000 people. But has BLM organized marches on the homes of notorious domestic abusers or drug dens? Of course not.

For almost a week, Black Lives Matter and like-minded activists have been marching in the streets of Rochester, New York, protesting the death of Daniel Prude at the hands of police. BLM zealots even harassed diners and overturned tables at two restaurants located next to the apartment building in which I live, creating a social media firestorm. Events in Rochester have even attracted the notice of none other than President Donald Trump.

We Rochesterians are not used to playing a starring role in the national news cycle. Well, now we are, like it or not.

The curious thing? Daniel Prude died months ago, and under circumstances that hardly suggest racial animus played a role in his demise. He was a mentally deranged man on drugs—someone the police had to restrain as best they could. And restrain him they did, based on well-established policies and procedures. Unfortunately, based on a variety of circumstances—some of them completely outside the control of the police officers who detained him—Prude later died. This makes Tuesday’s announcement by the police chief that he and his entire command staff would resign at once baffling and unfortunate. The move only reinforces the (false) perception that the police were culpable in Prude’s death.

The facts be damned, however—the media and the anti-police outrage industry can turn almost any questionable incident caught on camera into an instant scandal. In fact, as we see in this case, a police “killing” need not even be recent to excite “anti-racist” fervor. Nor must it be demonstrably racist, as events this summer have proved beyond a shadow of a doubt.