RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com
This essay was prompted by former deputy director of the CIA (2010-2013) Michael Morrell’s interview with House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH). In that interview Morell said he had phoned Antony Blinken in October 2020 about the Hunter Biden laptop story, which had appeared in the New York Post on October 14, 2020. A consequence of that call was that a few days before the 2020 election fifty-one former intelligence officers signed a public letter (a letter prepared by Morrell), which claimed that the Hunter Biden laptop story had all the classic earmarks of a Russian disinformation operation. As those officials have since acknowledged, the letter was written without any evidence of Russian involvement; yet those intelligence officers chose to propagate a false story to help Presidential candidate Joe Biden. Reporters from mainstream media were provided an out from having to follow up on the Hunter Biden laptop story. Integrity, where art thou?

Why, I wondered, would someone with Antony Blinken’s pedigree stoop to such a dirty trick?  At the time he was a senior advisor to the Biden campaign, with hopes of a position in a Biden administration. And why would fifty-one former intelligence officers do something that may have affected the outcome of a Presidential election? Is integrity as rare among Washington’s bureaucracy as it is among elected officials?

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19613/harvard-council-on-academic-freedom

It is good that so many professors signed on to it [the Council on Academic Freedom] so quickly. It is bad that it is even needed at a place like Harvard whose motto, Veritas, means truth. But “truth” can be a double-edged sword, especially at a university.

The “truth” can sometimes be the enemy of freedom. When people believe they, and only they, have access to THE TRUTH, they see little need for debate, dialogue, dissent and disagreement. Indeed they regard such contrary views as heresy. That has been the way of many religions over the years as well as numerous ideologies such as communism and fascism.

[T]he real headline is that so many faculty members refused or declined to participate in an organization whose goal is to promote free speech.

The shared perspective [of the Council] is in favor of freedom of speech and academic freedom for all views, no matter how unpopular. The goal is to protect the expression of all views and to protect those who are threatened or sanctioned for expressing them.

Freedom of speech, due process, the right to counsel and other fundamental liberties are in peril…. Remaining silent is often the safest course, so self-censorship has become a widespread tactic among individuals who do not support the political correctness of the day.

The fact that more than 100 Harvard University professors have now joined together in a council on academic freedom is both good news and bad news. The purpose of the group, organized by my colleague and friend Steven Pinker, is to ensure that freedom of speech and academic freedom survive at Harvard. It is good that so many professors signed on to it so quickly. It is bad that it is even needed at a place like Harvard whose motto, Veritas, means truth. But “truth” can be a double-edged sword, especially at a university.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/05/why-harlan-crow-purchased-the-home-of-clarence-thomass-mother/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_

The attacks on Justice Thomas never stop. Shortly after falsely accusing him of breaking the law by failing to disclose trips he took with his close friend Harlan Crow, the Democrats and their media allies are now smearing the justice by claiming that Crow’s purchase of Justice Thomas’s mother’s home was some scheme to enrich the justice.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Justice Thomas and Harlan Crow both acted honorably and ethically in this transaction, and it’s important to understand what led Crow to want to purchase this home. (Full disclosure: I worked on Justice Thomas’s confirmation as a lawyer in the White House in 1991, and I remain close friends with him. I have also co-edited the book Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words and have gone on trips with him and Harlan Crow, with whom I’m also friends. I have also represented Ginni Thomas in the House Select January 6 Committee inquiry.)

Crow, the son of a nationally renowned real-estate developer, was born into a wealthy family. Thomas was born into abject poverty, to uneducated parents, and had a father who abandoned the family when he was two years old. He grew up under segregation in the Deep South. Despite their different backgrounds, Crow’s and Thomas’s shared interests and values led them to cross paths. The two developed a close friendship after first meeting in 1996.

As has been well reported, Crow is a serious collector of American historical artifacts. He strives to preserve, learn from, and celebrate the history of our nation’s journey. As a friend of Justice Thomas, Harlan also recognized that the justice’s life story is one of the great American stories that highlights the best of America.

In 2001, Crow and Thomas visited the justice’s hometown of Savannah, Ga. During the visit, Crow visited the Carnegie Library, which was segregated when Thomas was growing up. It was here that Thomas fell in love with reading and widened his worldview to look beyond the racist laws and practices that were then in place. The library was in disrepair, and Crow wanted to help. He decided to provide funding in 2001 to restore this building where his friend, who was now the second black Supreme Court justice in our history, had first learned to dream. To honor this incredible success story, the gift came with a request to name a wing of the library after Justice Thomas.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/05/01/rep-james-comer-hunter-bidens-lawyers-testing-the-limits-of-witness-intimidation-by-contacting-potential-whistelblowers/

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman James Comer is accusing Hunter Biden’s lawyers of “testing the limits” of witness intimidation in the Republican-led investigation into the Biden Family’s influence-peddling operation.

Rep. Comer (R-Ky.) said witnesses and subpoenaed individuals cooperating with their probe have told his staff that Biden’s attorneys have inappropriately contacted them with veiled threats about their own potential liability in regard to the Biden clan’s shady business schemes.

“We feel that this is close to crossing the line,” he told Fox News’ Sandra Smith Monday.  “Obviously their objective, in my opinion, is witness intimidation.”

Comer added that his subpoena authority has proven to be a “very fruitful” oversight tool in the Oversight Republicans’ Biden probe.

“We have bank records, we have access to all the bank violations in the Treasury cabinet and now we have whistleblowers who are coming forward,” he said.

When asked if he stands by his accusation of witness intimidation,” Comer replied, “it depends on your definition of intimidation.”

“If you get a call from the lawyers and they remind you of your potential liability in some of these business schemes, then yes, I would consider that witness intimidation,” he said. Comer told Smith that Republicans are now trying to get immunity for the witnesses “going forward” due to the threats.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-top-ten-woke-lies-part-4/

At the heart of wokeness is a lie – the Marxist lie that human society is reducible to power imbalances between the oppressor and the oppressed. Thus wokeness depends on false narratives to sell itself and smear its opponents.

Below is the next pair in a series of the Top Ten Woke Lies subverting American politics and culture. To see the first 5 lies in the series, numbers 10-6 in ascending order, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.

5) “We’re Not Coming For Your Precious Guns”

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” declared then-candidate Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke during a 2019 presidential debate. Give him credit for that moment of honesty, because the usual dismissive response from the Left to conservative concerns about endangered gun rights is some variation of, “We’re not coming for your precious guns, you right-wing conspiracy nut!”

The Left’s insistence that they have no intention of confiscating guns but simply want “commonsense gun laws” is one of the most blatant of woke lies. First, we already have commonsense gun laws in this country. It will never matter how many more restrictions we pile on, we are never going to end all gun crime because – steady yourself, because this will blow your mind – criminals by definition do not respect the law. Indeed, the areas with the strictest gun control suffer the most gun violence. Take Chicago (please, as the late comedian Henny Youngman might add). The only people burdened by tighter and tighter gun restrictions are law-abiding gun owners.

Ah, but that is exactly the demographic that leftists want to control. Today’s pro-crime Left is completely indifferent to the scourges of gang-related or black-on-black gun crime. They never launch protests or grandstand in Congress about children killed in drive-by shootings or by stray bullets in the inner city. They have no interest in understanding, much less addressing, the cultural or moral reasons that might explain why America suffers more mass shootings now than in decades past when there was widespread access to guns. They call immediately for more gun control in the wake of a mass shooting rather than waiting for all the facts or ascertaining the shooter’s motivation because the Left doesn’t actually care about getting to the root of gun violence, but about exploiting the most-publicized tragedies to demonize gun ownership itself.