RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/10/28/dont-be-seduced-by-the-billionaires-tax/

The 19th Century German statesman Otto von Bismarck observed famously that “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best.” Sometimes, however, it’s not even the next best; it can be illogical, unworkable, and pie-in-the sky. Such is the nature of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden’s tax proposal – which should be called the Wyden-Warren-Sanders’ Folly – to tax billionaires’ unrealized capital gains, such as stocks, valuable art works, or jewels, that appreciate in value with time. The gains are not “realized” until the item is sold.

This might be seductive to those who want “the rich to pay their fair share,” but it’s certainly not fair. It’s unwieldy and susceptible to manipulation, merely a wilted fig leaf to offer the illusion that President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar expenditures on social programs will be “paid for.” Ultimately, the expenditures will occur, but the revenues won’t materialize.

It’s one thing to tax income, which most Americans dislike but have gotten more or less used to, but taxing wealth in the form of unrealized capital gains is a horse of a different color – possibly literally.

What do I mean by that? Well, suppose you own a racehorse of not particularly distinguished lineage that you bought for, say, $50,000, and on a whim, you enter him in the Kentucky Derby and he wins it. Immediately, he could be worth $50 million, with stud fees in six figures. Under the Wyden-Warren-Sanders’ tax plan, you could have a huge tax bill for the horse (possibly, every year that you own him), because of his potential. But this could be finessed: You could reduce the tax due by (with a wink and a nod) selling the horse to a friend for a far lesser price, and have him sell the animal back to you, again on the cheap. In the face of actual sales transactions, who’s to say that the horse was undervalued?

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

In a House hearing on Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) questioned AG Merrick Garland about a mysterious man, Ray Epps, instructing protesters to enter the US Capitol building on January 5, and who later shepherded crowds towards the Capitol on January 6.

The story of the mystery man, Ray Epps, featured in Rep. Massie’s video above is in fact far more shocking than even the good Congressman implies in the hearing. It’s a story so strange, and so scandalous at every turn, that it threatens to shatter the entire official narrative of the “Capitol Breach” and expose yet another dimension of proactive federal involvement in the so-called “insurrection” of January 6th.

If Revolver News’s previous reporting points to a proactive role of the federal government in relation to the conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the Ray Epps story that follows suggests a similar, yet more egregious, explicit, direct and immediate degree of federal involvement in the breach of the Capitol itself.

Here is a transcript of Thomas Massie’s exchange with the Attorney General, just in case you skipped past the video above.

Rep. Massie: As far as we can determine, the individual who was saying he’ll probably go to jail, he’ll probably be arrested, but they need to go into the Capitol the next day, is then directing people into the Capitol the next day, is then the next day directing people to the Capitol. And as far as we can find. You said this is one of the most sweeping in history. Have you seen that video, or those frames from that video?

AG Garland: So as I said at the outset, one of the norms of the Justice Department is to not comment on pending investigations, and particularly not to comment on particular scenes or particular individuals.

Rep. Massie: I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6. Can you tell us, without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did?

AG Garland: So I’m not going to violate this norm of, uh, of, of, of, the rule of law.

[Looks down and away]

I’m not going to comment on an investigation that’s ongoing.

There is good reason why AG Garland ran from Massie’s question faster than he could find words — and why he couldn’t even keep eye contact as he was dodging Massie’s gaze.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/27/exclusive-biden-fbi-joins-pelosi-in-blocking-gop-from-investigating-january-

In the case of the House Committee on Jan. 6., Pelosi blocked minority party participation for the first time in House history to pursue a preferred political narrative.

The leading Republican tasked with his party’s investigation into the preparedness and response of the U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies to the Capitol riot on January 6 is being blocked by President Joseph Biden’s FBI from gathering information, a new document reveals.

The FBI told Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks it would not provide Republicans the same information provided to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked committee consisting only of Democrat-appointed members.

“We respectfully refer you to the Select Committee regarding issues of access to records and information,” the agency wrote in response to a Republican request for information, referring to the official House panel established by the speaker.

Pelosi took what she admitted was an “unprecedented” step of refusing the appointments made by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, barring Navy officer and Afghanistan veteran Banks and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, from participation. In a fiery denunciation of Pelosi’s politicization of the committee, McCarthy, R-Calif., publicly announced Banks would lead Republicans’ investigation despite Pelosi blowing up the committee.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/poor_bret_stephens_reveals_himself_by_sneering_at_trump.html

First, permit me to make this suggestion about the left’s aim on their mammoth spending bill: they always intended to pass a $1.5-trillion measure and started out at $3 trillion so as 1) to seem conciliatory by accepting reduction by half and 2) to appear as accommodating the wishes of stalking horse Joe (I don’t trust him to be a moderate) Manchin.

Now to comment on the weekly Bret (Stephens) and Gail (Collins) show on what used to be called the op-ed page of The New York Times — but, when they have their seemingly anodyne chats transcribed, becomes the paper’s weekly steno pad.

The Bret and Gail chat for October 26 began with expressions of sympathy for Republican turncoat Liz Cheney, from Republican turncoat Bret Stephens, who went over to the other side when he quit The Wall Street Journal for The New York Times at the time of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign.

Stephens, in his opening remark, alluded to the “latest effort [of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy] to make Liz Cheney’s life as unpleasant as possible.”  This is projection from Stephens, as it is Cheney who is intent on making the lives of true House Republicans “as unpleasant as possible” by her service as a Pelosi puppet on the January 6 “sham” (quoting Rep. Jim Banks, barred from the panel by Pelosi diktat) select committee.  I quickly add that Stephens did not elaborate on the alleged effort from Mr. McCarthy vis-à-vis turncoat Cheney.  Would that it were her ouster from the House Republican Conference.

Stephens went on, in response to a question from Collins, to shrug that Cheney’s quest for re-election is not likely to succeed, while at the same time he issued a statement despicable but expectable from the likes of leftist fanatics: “But I’m guessing that Cheney’s re-election chances aren’t great, either.  I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes.”  It takes an apostate desperate for approval from his new masters to be so mendaciously malevolent.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/biden-makes-us-energy-dependent-again-joseph-klein/

President Biden was not done humiliating the United States with his disastrous withdrawal of all American troops from Afghanistan. Now he is literally begging Saudi Arabia and other OPEC cartel countries for more oil.

Gas prices at the pump are at a seven-year high. The average retail gasoline price is now more than one dollar per gallon higher than it was a year ago. Americans are feeling the pain every time they fill up their gas tanks.

During his softball CNN town hall on October 21st, Biden conceded that “we’re about $3.30 a gallon most places now,” noting that the price had previously been “down in the single digits — I mean single digits, a dollar-plus.”

What is Biden’s explanation for the incredible rise in gas prices over the last year? He blamed Americans’ plight on the supply of oil “being withheld by OPEC.”

Import petroleum prices have increased 70.5 percent from September 2020 to September 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. There is no sign that this trend will be reversed anytime soon.

Thus, it is unsurprising that Biden admitted he doesn’t see gas prices coming down until “into next year, 2022,” at the earliest. “I don’t see anything that’s going to happen in the meantime that’s going to significantly reduce gas prices,” Biden said.

What Biden did not say, of course, is that his own war on fossil fuels largely caused this problem. Biden turned the clock back to the time when the United States was dependent on Middle East oil — before former President Donald Trump had managed to make the U.S. energy-independent.

“There’s a possibility to be able to bring it down, depends on — a little bit on Saudi Arabia and a few other things that are in the offing,” Biden said without specifying what those “few other things” are.

Trump had managed to wean the country off of dependence on Middle East oil. During the Trump administration, the United States became the number one producer of oil in the world while maintaining America’s position as the number one producer of natural gas. For the first time in nearly 70 years, the United States had become a net energy exporter.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/is_the_national_strategy_on_gender_equity_and_equality_just_a_start_for_the_biden_administration.html

Vice-President Kamala Harris proudly took to Twitter to announce that the White House has issued “the first ever National Gender Strategy.”

 No wonder she and President Biden haven’t had time to visit the border with Mexico.

The official document, adorned with a miniature White House under which the words “The White House” and “Washington” appear, is officially titled “National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality.”

Rumor has it that administration officials also considered naming the vital strategic document “National Strategy On Gender Equality And Equity” before opting for “National Strategy On Gender Equity And Equality.” One unnamed official reportedly said heated debate ran on for many hours between those who thought one or the other title was itself more equal and equitable.

In any case, Americans should thank God — well, actually, Uncle Sam — that their federal government now has an official Gender Strategy. And the administration isn’t expected to take much time to savor its accomplishment before attempting to put together a comprehensive blueprint for the consumption of baked goods. Insiders say a “National Strategy On Pastries And Bagel Eating” could be unveiled as early as next month. And that, they say, could be followed by a program detailing a national strategy for the advancement of origami.

Some “MAGA” types, and other opponents of the administration, have mocked the creation of a “national gender strategy,” and have suggested that a strategy for dealing with China, Russia, Iran or North Korea would have been more pertinent, timely, and beneficial. Other critics claim that many Americans would have preferred the rollout of programs for dealing with the border crisis, economy, national debt, and ongoing pandemic with the subsequent loss of their personal liberty.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/what_wokeness_really_means.html

“I am an American. I have no skin color worthy of note, no particular geographical heritage I care to claim as my own. My race is called Freedom, my People come in every hue. I will stand with my brothers and sisters of all skin hues against every tyranny known to man. I will not back down. I refuse to be afraid. I’m an American, the most fearsome ethnicity ever devised.”

The tacit premise of Wokeness is that minorities are intellectually deficient and hopelessly oppressed by everything around them (thanks to the inherent racism of all White people and the irredeemably xenophobic the institutions that they created).

The problem with calling Wokeness an anti-racism movement is self-evident. Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow people are not dumber than White people. Some of my favorite brainy individuals could never be mistaken for a White Supremacists (except maybe by the delusional NPR).  Moreover, of all the minorities I’ve known and befriended during my lifetime, not a single one has ever expressed any belief that Whitey is on the hunt for them, rigging everything from Math to English against them. I’m the type to specifically ask questions like:

“Hey, Bro… with all the talk of racism everywhere, do you feel like your life is consumed by White folks oppressing you at every turn?”

The reason I’ve never received a “yes” answer to any such question is that I tend to have responsible friends — skin color in no way part of the equation. What Woke really rests on is people who don’t take personal responsibility, the victim mentality type.