RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/08/trumps-attorney-general-explains-raid-trumps-lloyd-billingsley/

“Number one is that I think a lot of the attacks on the FBI are over the top because a decision like this is not made by the FBI,” former Attorney General William Barr told the Bari Weiss podcast on August 25.

“In fact, I don’t think the FBI would push a decision that it’s best to go in and search and obtain those documents after being jerked around for a year and a half. The decision would be made at the Department of Justice, by subordinates of the AG, and ultimately signed off on by the AG. The FBI would be told to go and execute it. I think the idea that the FBI is the problem here is misplaced.”

The former AG was more disturbed by “the constant pandering to outrage” on the right, without discussion of whether the outrage had any merit. The FBI seized Trump’s passports, leaving the impression that the former president had committed a crime and was now a flight risk. FBI agents also rummaged through the closets of Melania Trump, an act of pure intimidation. With Trump attorneys forced outside, the FBI could easily have planted or destroyed information. If that is not cause for outrage, it’s hard to imagine what might qualify.

Weiss brought up the “Russiagate” episode, as the host explained, “the idea that Donald Trump was a compromised agent of Moscow. That there were deep connections between Trump’s people and Russian intelligence. That the Trump campaign had colluded with the Russians, including by hacking Democratic National Committee emails.” Barr was all over it.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/08/31/its-time-for-voters-to-channel-their-inner-howard-beale/

“Voters had better get mad, stay mad until November, and kick the left out of every leadership position it holds. Because Biden and Co. are setting the nation on a road that will lead to disaster. If voters don’t get mad now and force a course correction, they will only have themselves to blame when the inevitable crash comes.”

The mainstream press sees a glimmer of hope in recent polls showing President Joe Biden’s approval rating inching up and Democrats’ prospects looking brighter for the midterm elections. Don’t let yourself, or your friends, family, and neighbors be conned.

Biden’s string of “victories” includes getting a massive growth-killing tax-and-spend bill through Congress and canceling about $1 trillion worth of student loan debt to benefit a small minority of college-educated Americans.

The only thing these recent events have in common is that they are designed specifically to improve Democrats’ chances in November.

These are awfully big price tags for vote buying. And you are paying for it.

So why isn’t the public mad as hell?

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/08/30/biden-to-warn-that-republicans-will-destroy-the-country-in-prime-time-nationwide-address-n1625223

Joe Biden is going to give a prime-time address to the nation Thursday evening in order to warn us that Republicans want to destroy America.

What does he mean by that? Last week, the president addressed a Democratic National Committee event in Maryland where he spelled out exactly the line of attack against Republicans he will deliver on Thursday night.

“They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace — political violence. They don’t believe in democracy,” he said. “This is why, in this moment, those of you who love this country — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we must be stronger, more determined, and more committed to saving America than the MAGA Republicans are to destroying America.”

Sheesh. Laying it on kind of thick, isn’t he?

“Vote for Democrats or you’re dead” is kind of a silly campaign slogan. But it’s what Democrats have been saying for months — ever since it became clear that Biden had so trashed the economy and tarnished our reputation overseas with his incompetent botched withdrawal from Afghanistan that Democrats were going to get a huge shellacking in the midterms.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/08/30/meghans-empire-of-cringe/

What do they see in her? That’s the question staring us in the face once again as Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is trending once again, this time due to a toe-curling interview in the Cut and the arrival of her new podcast, Archetypes. Most Brits have been distinctly unimpressed with Markle since she and Prince Harry abandoned their royal duties in 2020, alleging they were hounded out by a racist palace, a racist press and ultimately a racist public, with zero evidence of this supposedly foul treatment. According to YouGov, just a quarter of the public holds a favourable view of Markle and she ranks 14th – just above Prince Andrew – in the list of the most popular royals. Meanwhile, the liberal media continue to treat Meghan as a hero and saintly victim, splashing ever-more adoring column inches and lavish photoshoots on her.

This new 6,409-word Cut article has to be seen to be believed. It represents a spectacular failure of self-awareness, a bottomless brunch of Californian cringe. It begins with journalist Allison Davis being welcomed into the Sussexes’ vast Montecito mansion – described as ‘the kind of big that startles you into remembering that unimaginable wealth is actually someone’s daily reality’ – before Meghan proceeds to talk about her oppressive treatment in Britain and triumphant reinvention as a sort of faux-humanitarian influencer. The couple’s multimillion-dollar deals with Spotify and Netflix – the piece hints at a new fly-on-the-wall doc in the pipeline – are presented as somewhere between acts of public service and acts of self-realisation. ‘I feel different. I feel clearer. It’s like I’m finding – not finding my voice. I’ve had my voice for a long time, but being able to use it’, Meghan says of her new podcast, aimed at challenging the sexist stereotypes that supposedly hold women back.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-failure-of-progressive-criminal-justice-reforms

For the last decade, radical prosecutors and progressive politicians have been proposing and enacting illogical criminal-justice policies, often with little consideration for the real-world effects of these ideas. Enough time has passed for an evidence-based assessment of how these policies have played out in the real world.

Gun Buybacks: Politicians in big cities believe that gun-buyback programs will reduce the violent crime that is spiking in America’s urban centers. But comprehensive research shows no evidence that such programs work. Philadelphia just completed a three-year gun-buyback program that yielded over 1,000 firearms. Not a single recovered firearm was linked to violent crime and, during the course of the program, Philadelphia set new all-time records for homicides. “It’s not reaching the area of the community that’s possessing illegal guns and using them,” says criminologist Joseph Giacalone. “It’s political theater.”

“Violence Interrupters”: Progressive prosecutors tout violence interrupters—former gang members and convicts who mediate disputes on the streets—as a serious weapon against crime. Cities led by “reform” prosecutors, such as Baltimore, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia have staked a lot on this idea. The results have not been encouraging. Multiple violence interrupters have been murdered in Baltimore. In Indianapolis, the former convict in charge of training violence interrupters was arrested for threatening a woman and had to be fired. In Philadelphia, a violence interrupter shot three people in a bar while he was working his anti-violence job. And a recent research paper states that violence interrupters, despite their tough histories, are suffering from severe trauma, mainly because they are being exposed to the type of violence that police officers face every day (imagine that). The real question for violence-interruption programs is whether they might be adding fuel to the fire of violent crime.