RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/05/ron_desantis_climbs_another_rung_up_the_presidential_ladder.html

It’s currently unclear whether Donald Trump wants to run for President again in 2024 or whether he’ll content himself with playing kingmaker. In the latter case, lots of people are looking at Florida’s Ron DeSantis, whose refusal to bow down to leftist shibboleths is catching conservatives’ attention. His latest pronouncement that Critical Race Theory is “a bunch of horse manure” will only raise his profile with all sensible Americans.

Most people living outside of Florida weren’t paying attention to Florida governor Ron DeSantis before 2020. However, in 2020, DeSantis showed himself to be a different kind of leader. While governors across America, especially Democrat governors, were turning their states into totalitarian dictatorships with broken economies, DeSantis increased protections for the elderly and other vulnerable people in Florida, and then allowed life to continue pretty much as usual – no masks, no lockdowns. (I should add that many conservative states successfully resisted the extreme COVID mask and lockdown madness that Democrat governors showed. None, however, were as large as Florida or as entirely resistant to masks and lockdowns.)

DeSantis’s constitutional, liberty-oriented approach to dealing with COVID has driven leftists around the bend. What’s been especially irritating for them is that mask- and lockdown-free Florida had significantly better COVID outcomes than states with comparable populations, such as California and New York. That’s why outlets such as 60 Minutes have been reduced to using blatant dishonesty to attack DeSantis’s competence and honesty.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/small_businesses_fight_arbitrary_shutdowns.html

Small businesses, critical drivers of innovation and growth, play an important role in our free-market system.  They not only epitomize traditional American values of individuality, creativity, and self-sufficiency, but also present unique opportunities to achieve financial success.  In 2019, the Small Business Administration (SBA) reported that small businesses created two thirds of net jobs, generated 49.2% of private-sector employment, accounted for 44% of U.S. economic activity, and contributed 43.5% to the GDP.

No event in history has devastated small businesses like the coronavirus shutdowns.  In the first three months (February to April 2020) of the pandemic, mandates requiring restricted access, social distancing, and periodic closures caused the number of small business owners to fall 22%.  After seven months of such restrictions, a Federal Reserve survey found that 44% of small businesses had debts of more than $100,000, up from 13% in 2019.  Three out of every ten said they wouldn’t survive 2021 without government assistance.  One report said 27% of small and medium businesses had to reduce their workforce, and 48% had to lay off at least half their employees.  Among the worst hit is the restaurant industry: 110,000 had closed for good by December 2020.

Federal relief, which could have served as a lifeboat, was poorly administered.  Less than two weeks after the SBA received its first application for the emergency Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the money ran out. 

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/05/in-a-move-to-create-safer-prisons-california-plans-early-release-of-76000-prisoners/

After a steady-year of media-supported civil unrest and toxic political choices, a recent review of crime statistics in Los Angeles County shows that murder rates have spiked nearly 200% so far this year compared to the same time in 2020.

There were 60 people murdered in L.A. County as of Feb. 28 – a 186% jump from the 21 killings reported during the same period in 2020, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department told Fox News in a segment that aired Thursday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva told Fox News criminals are emboldened by District Attorney George Gascón’s progressive policies and stressed that people must understand that such elections will have consequences.

“They need to really pick and choose very carefully.because for them it’s very easy to say, ‘Oh yeah, all cops are bad,’ and, ‘Let’s reform and defund the police,’” Villanueva said. “Yet they’re the very first ones to pick up the 911 when someone’s crawling over their back gate trying to get into their house.”

Against this backdrop, it is stunning to learn California officials are planning the early release of up to 76,000 inmates, including violent and repeat felons, to further reduce the population of what once was the nation’s largest state correctional system.

More than 63,000 inmates convicted of violent crimes will be eligible for good behavior credits that shorten their sentences by one-third instead of the one-fifth that had been in place since 2017. That includes nearly 20,000 inmates who are serving life sentences with the possibility of parole.

The new rules take effect Saturday, but it will be months or years before any inmates go free earlier. Corrections officials say the goal is to reward inmates who better themselves while critics said the move will endanger the public.

https://jamieglazov.com/2021/05/02/glazov-gang-the-hate-of-critical-race-theory/

This new Glazov Gang episode features Clare Lopez, the Founder/President of Lopez Liberty LLC,

Clare discusses The Hate of Critical Race Theory, taking us Inside the malice and racist venom of the Counter-American Revolution.

Don’t miss it!

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/05/03/who-gets-to-define-whats-patriotic/

Last week, President Joe Biden said it’s the patriotic duty of Americans to wear masks while outside. Years ago, while campaigning as Barack Obama’s running mate, he said it was patriotic to pay higher taxes. It’s hard to decide if these statements are more akin to the ramblings of a child or are uncomfortably similar to Third World despots who demand obedience from their subordinated citizens.

Frankly, they’re both. Making a distinction is virtually impossible.

When we hear Biden try to force his view of patriotism on the country, we think of Woody Allen’s “Bananas,” the 1971 comedy in which a Castro-style revolutionary declares that not only “from this day on,” the official language of the banana republic of San Marcos “will be Swedish,” in addition, “all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check.” It’s about commanding, not persuading.

Biden wakes up every morning in the White House – whether he knows it or not – but that doesn’t give him the authority to define patriotism, nor to expect us to follow without question or dissent.

We concede that patriotism is not easy to define. We’re familiar with the line that one man’s terrorist is another man’s patriot, and we’re quite aware that waving the flag is sometimes nothing more than just creating a light breeze.

But we also know that George Washington warned us to “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,” and Theodore Roosevelt said “patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/05/affluence-secularism-boredom-leftism-dennis-prager/

Just as physicists look for equations to explain the natural world, I have always thought it useful to look for equations to explain human nature. For example, in my book on happiness, I offer this equation: U = I – R. Unhappiness = Image – Reality. The difference between the images we have for our life and the reality of our life is one way of measuring how much unhappiness we experience.

Here, I offer another theorem, this time to help explain leftism. A + S = B = L Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism

The search for an equation to help explain leftism (as distinguished from traditional liberalism) emanates from these facts:

Most leftists come from the upper and upper-middle class. This was true for the two founders of leftism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx was supported by his family and by Engels, who was a wealthy businessman and the son of a very wealthy businessman. All the Western spies for the Soviet Union were economically secure. And the great funder of radical causes today is a billionaire — George Soros.

Nearly all leftists are irreligious people. And the breeding place of leftism, the university, is the most secular institution in modern society.

These two facts produce a problem: Many people lack meaning in their lives. And lack of meaning is another way of stating “boredom” — a boredom of the soul.