RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2021/09/29/our-porcine-two-legged-wokists/

“Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

—George Orwell, Animal Farm

What were we to make of multimillionaire Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, and the throng of the woke wealthy and their masked helot attendants?
Was socialist Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suffering for the people when she wore a designer dress to the more than $30,000 a ticket Met gala? Her entourage needs were certainly well attended to by masked Morlock servants.

Did the leftist celebrities at the recent Emmy awards gather to discuss opening Malibu beaches to the homeless when the (unmasked) stars virtue-signaled their wokeness?

For answers about these hypocritical wokeists, always turn first to George Orwell. In his brief allegorical novella, Animal Farm, an array of animal characters—led by the thinking pigs of the farm—staged a revolution, driving out their human overseers. 

The antihuman animal comrades started out sounding like zealous Russian Bolsheviks (“four legs good, two legs bad”). But soon they ended up conned by a murderous cult of pigs under a Joseph Stalin-like leader. And so, the revolution became what it once had opposed (“four legs good, two legs better”).

Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged piggish revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the “white supremacists” and “capitalists,” but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life. 

The Marxist co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise—the rewards for revolutionary service.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/murderous-anti-semitism-effort-kill-iron-dome-richard-l-cravatts/

Even for Congressional Democrats who, in recent years, have shown a growing animosity and even cruelty toward Israel, last week’s effort to remove $1 billion of funding to maintain Israel’s Iron Dome defense system was particularly grotesque. Congressional “Squad” members, led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), pressured the Democratic House leadership to strip funding to Israel for this key military technology that tracks and intercepts incoming rockets and has a success rate of doing so of over 90 percent. 

It is one thing to seek to deprive a country of offensive weapons out of a wish to minimize further conflict, reduce casualties of that country’s enemies, or based on a record of abusive or disproportionate use of weaponry in previous military engagements. But Iron Dome is a defensive weapon, which, in neutralizing incoming and potentially lethal rockets, saves Israeli lives by ensuring that Hamas rockets never reach their intended targets. It also, of course, saves Arab lives, as well, since the inevitable political and military Israeli response to high numbers of its citizens’ casualties that might well occur in Iron Dome’s absence would be more aggressive and prolonged retaliation against Hamas, along with unfortunate, but inevitable, civilian casualties—especially since Hamas regularly (and in violation of international law) embeds itself and fires its rockets from Gazan neighborhoods, mosques, hospitals, and other non-military locations.

Any sentient being understands that Iron Dome reduces deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians, and therefore its use ought to be continued and supported, but not, apparently, the radical Leftist Squad, whose decision to push for these funding cuts cannot be explained away by any other interpretation than that these members of Congress do not care at all about Jewish lives and are willing to sacrifice them in a hollow, though long professed, desire to promote Palestinian self-determination. In seeking social justice for the Arabs, these policymakers, and their fellow Israel-hating travelers, wish to level the playing field of military engagement, favoring the weak in the name of equity and justice.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/respondent-exposing-cartel-family-law-jason-d-hill/

Family breakdown is the single greatest threat to American society. Every day, more than 4,000 children lose a parent because of our archaic and inhumane family-court system. Every day, ten divorced men commit suicide. And now, one in three children in our country is without a father.

The Respondent is Ellis’s personal story about a Hollywood dream razed by internal and external forces. Part memoir, part meditation, and part manifesto, it’s a timely and heartrending portrait of perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the American legal system. Through its candor and moral strength, The Respondent offers guidance and hope. As such, it’s an indispensable read for not only parents enduring the grief of child separation, but all interested in learning about the gross overreach and unrelenting brutality of family law.

This book is a masterpiece and a gem on many levels. To begin with, Ellis is a brilliant writer and stylist. The prose is of another world—elegiac and full of pathos without becoming mawkishly sentimental. The writing is cinematic and evocative. The words create a lush visual image of the harrowing experiences Ellis experienced by losing custody of his children. If you want to learn how deeply family law is antipodal to the interests of the father—then read this book. If you want to learn how one innocent man survived the single-minded goal of his spouse to destroy his life and career, but who emerged with his dignity intact, his love of life burning incandescently, and the way his profound love for his sons have kept him living with sustained purpose and meaning—read this book.

I was struck by Greg Ellis’ graciousness throughout the book. In describing the toxic manner by which his ex-wife and ex-mother-in-law tried to set him up and destroy his life, Ellis does not resort to demonization of those vocationally called to destroy him. Rather, in a dignified and restrained manner he unfolds the chain of events that led to the crisis, orchestrated by his ex-wife, that found him being forced into a psychiatric unit.

The book is suspenseful and a real page-turner. Fathers matter. They love their children deeply and want to protect them. This is the story of a devoted father viewed as almost sub-human by the guardians and enforcers of family law. If your marriage is on the rocks and you honestly think divorce is a possibility—then read this book. It is chock full of profound insights about the nature of family law, and the hidden anti-male attitudes embedded in our culture that influence that law. Thousands of fathers like Greg Ellis have suffered unspeakable injustice by a legal system that regards men—by nature—as disposable, toxic and incapable of efficacious parenting.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/09/hows-anti-trump-doing-not-so-good-bruce-thornton/

Joe Biden was touted by his supporters as the anti-Trump, the seasoned politician and “centrist” who had the experience, gravitas, and governing skills that the radical “demagogue” Donald Trump lacked. Supposedly, Biden also possessed the respect for “democratic norms” and the “empathy” lacking in the abrasive tweetster and crude-talking ex-reality show host. Elect Biden, the pitch went, and the “adults” will be back in charge, the sacred “norms” and “decorum” once again respected, and our status in the world restored.

This appeal, of course, depended on hyping Trump’s “mean” tweets and rhetoric, while ignoring his successful first term achievements both at home and abroad. It also required burnishing Biden’s decades of mediocrity and trimming, his gaffes and plagiarism, his unseemly attention to women and girls, and the stench of corruption wafting from his career. Indeed, the odor was so strong that his media and social media courtiers had to discredit, censor, and embargo the blockbuster New York Post story about son Hunter’s laptop and emails, which we now know is authentic and contains strong, corroborated evidence of Biden’s complicity in his son’s influence-peddling grift. And as the campaign progressed, the Dems’ media flaks were compelled to ignore as well the obvious signs of Biden’s cognitive decline.

But last November the Dems and the media pulled Biden across the finish line, leaving another bad odor of electoral anomalies the bipartisan establishment keeps declaring is actually the stink of conspiracy theories that––without a thorough investigation conducted to settle the issue–– they somehow know are in fact MAGA fantasies. Biden took office, and immediately began undoing Trump’s successes, as if to show that his policies, like his confected “presidential” persona, will be the antitheses of Trump’s.

In just eight months, we have now a record with which we can judge that governing principle.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-bidens-energy-price-shock-oil-gas-opec-shortage-11632950693?mod=opinion_lead_pos3

Crude prices hit $80 a barrel on Tuesday, and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) warned oil could skyrocket without increased investment in new production. So much for the claim that the death of fossil fuels is nigh.

Europe’s climate follies have created fuel shortages and price spikes that are rippling through global energy markets. Demand for liquefied natural gas in Europe has soared due to waning wind production, the shutdown of coal and nuclear plants, and lower Russian gas deliveries. But there’s not enough LNG to supply Europe and the world.

Asia and Europe are having to burn more coal to keep their lights on. But coal is also in short supply, and factories in China are shutting down as local governments ration power. Gas-powered generators in Asia are switching to burning oil, which is also pushing up crude prices.

Goldman Sachs projects that crude could hit $90 a barrel by year end, which could add 10 to 20 cents a gallon to gasoline prices at the pump. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday assured Americans that the Administration is speaking “to international partners, including OPEC” about “doing more to support the recovery.” How about encouraging more U.S. production?

https://www.city-journal.org/three-facts-about-crime

Though academics, the media, and politicians can’t seem to agree on much when it comes to crime in the United States, three stubborn facts generally apply.

First, crime is heavily concentrated by place. As a general matter, 5 percent of the locations in a given city account for 50 percent of that city’s crime. This finding has been replicated so often that it is sometimes referred to as “the law of crime concentration.” As David Weisburd and Taryn Zastrow note in a recent Manhattan Institute report, “there is tremendous consistency in the degree to which crime is concentrated at hot spots across cities.” This is not just a matter of neighborhoods: between 3 percent and 5 percent of specific addresses on city blocks generate 50 percent or more of reported crimes. And if the focus is strictly on violent crime, such as shootings, then even fewer locations—perhaps a drug house or a liquor-store check-cashing operation—are magnets for an even greater percentage of violent crime.

This first rule has important implications for law enforcement. Identifying and concentrating on hot spots can yield big rewards. Merely parking a patrol car outside of these addresses can lessen crime; even better to identify what exactly is going on there. Some crime may be displaced to other locations when the police shut down hot spots, but evidence shows that suppressing crime at these magnet addresses may create a diffusion of benefits that extends beyond the hot spot. After all, setting up another stash house or problematic liquor store is not always so simple.

Second, violent crime is heavily concentrated in a relatively few individuals. In general, 5 percent of the criminal offenders (not 5 percent of the general population) in a given city commit about 50 percent of that city’s violent crime. One study found that just 1 percent of offenders were responsible for over 60 percent of violent crime.

https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/anti-semitic-attacks-in-2020-outnumbered-attacks-against-muslims-asians-transgender-people-combined/

More American Jews suffered hate crime attacks in 2020 than Asians, Muslims, and transgender people combined, according to FBI crime tracking data.

The agency recorded 676 instances of criminal offenses motivated by prejudice or hatred of Jews, making anti-Semitic hate crimes the third most common type of hate crimes, trailing anti-black and anti-white attacks.

While the media and politicians have focused on an increase of domestic hate crime attacks against Asians—a trend that has also been the centerpiece of Chinese Communist Party propaganda operations—the FBI recorded just 274 total incidents in 2020. Americans who identify as Asian make up roughly 7 percent of the U.S. population. Jews, who make up just 1.75 percent of the population, are more than twice as likely to experience hate crimes as Asian Americans.

Biden in March signed into law the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which seeks to make the reporting of hate crimes easier for the public and was written in the wake of the #StopAsianHate social media campaign. The bill also directs the Department of Justice to give grants to state and local governments to study ways to reduce hate crimes.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/30/when-will-the-u-s-be-released-from-covid-prison/

Japan announced Tuesday that it was lifting its coronavirus state of emergency. The country joins Norway, Sweden, and Denmark in returning to normal. America, however, will continue to be largely under the boot of politicians, bureaucrats, and meddlesome public health officials. Even convicts have release dates. But we have no idea when we’ll be liberated because there are no objective standards, only political whim.

When asked Monday “how many Americans need to be vaccinated for us to go back to normal,” President Joe Biden replied: “I think we get the vast majority … 96, 97, 98 percent.”

First of all, that’s unrealistic. There is no single activity that more than 95% of the population, any population, will agree to participate in. Even if Biden said that Washington was going to hand out $1 million to every American next week, there would be holdouts. So the president’s benchmark is never going to be met. Which might very well be by design.

Second, herd immunity can be achieved when as little as “70% of the population – more than 200 million people” have recovered from COVID-19, says the Mayo Clinic, which also acknowledges that “reaching herd immunity through vaccination against COVID-19 might be difficult for many reasons.”

Of course a combination of those who have recovered and those who’ve taken the shot(s) could provide herd immunity.

Opinions, of course, vary. Others say the threshold is higher. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, whose credibility is suspect at best, said at one time that herd immunity could be reached at a 60% to 70% vaccination rate. He then changed it to 70% to 75%, then to 80% to 85%, even suggesting but not claiming that the minimum is 90%, while also admitting that he’s basing his estimates on a gut feeling.

Seems obvious where Biden is getting his “science” from.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-9-28-ze34w2ee653q7kff96h9vux9j86rcy

I feel that I should comment on the indictment of lawyer Michael Sussman by Special Counsel John Durham while the issue is still current. Very likely you have already read extensively about Durham’s indictment of Sussman, which came down on September 16. Sussman was one of the lawyers, although not the head lawyer, at the firm of Perkins Coie, who worked for the DNC and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign in 2016.

This indictment is another instance by which we are learning step by step how the Democratic powers and their press side-kicks, through strict control of a “narrative,” think that they can get a critical mass of the American people to believe literally anything, no matter how preposterous. And to a remarkable extent, they are right.

From mid-2016 to mid-2019, we had about three years of non-stop Russia! Russia! Russia! obsession from the Democratic Party and its media adjunct. The stories advancing the narrative numbered in the thousands, and ultimately turned into nothing when Special Counsel Robert Mueller finally issued his report at the end of that period. But how did this whole thing get going and continued for such a long period of time?

On its face, the Sussman indictment appears to be a very odd bird, and by itself not a particularly significant one. The charge is a single count of “lying to the FBI” (18 U.S.C. Section 1001). This statute is a favorite of the feds because almost anyone dumb enough to talk to the FBI can be tripped up on something. The defendant is a relatively small fish in the school of barracudas who had to have been involved in orchestrating the “Trump/Russia collusion” hoax in the 2016 election and thereafter. The “lie” in question is on the seemingly peripheral issue of whether Sussman was working for a client, i.e., the Clinton campaign, or just reporting to the FBI as a public-spirited citizen. Could the FBI really have been fooled about that? And is this really the best they’ve got?

On the flip side, there are some serious indications — although we can’t know for sure — that there is more coming.