RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2023/10/22/the-george-floyd-jr-narrative-unraveled/

I wonder what Derek Chauvin is thinking these days?

He’s the former Minneapolis cop who became the Scapegoat Number One after George Floyd—sorry, St. George Floyd—died from a Fentanyl overdose while resisting arrest in May 2020.

As all the world knows, that is not how The Narrative tells it. Witness Wikipedia, that Great Repository of Approved Narratives. “George Perry Floyd Jr.,” it begins, “was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill, on May 25, 2020.”

“Murdered,” eh?  “May” have passed a counterfeit bill, you say?

Well, that’s what we were told.

It takes a long time for someone to be canonized in the Catholic Church. There is an official process to be followed. Some miracles have to be recorded. One moves from being denominated a Servus Dei, a “servant of God,” to the status of being Venerabilis, to Beatus, and finally Sanctus. It’s much easier and much quicker with our secular saints. All you need is a festering politically correct grievance, a compliant media, and a terrified justice system.

So it was with the woman-and-drug abusing felon George Perry Floyd Jr. His corpse was not cold before he was elevated to secular sainthood  and became the mascot for the Black Lives Matter hooligans who, over the course of a year or more, inflicted more than $2 billion of property damage, injured or maimed scores of people, and released a mesmerizing, racially fortified toxin into the atmosphere that addled the minds and hearts of all the beautiful people who run the country and from which we have yet to recover fully. Last week, on the occasion of Floyd’s birthday, Joe Biden prayed at the shrine, issuing an emetic White House statement “to honor his life and legacy” and urge us “to redeem the soul of America.”

Back in 2021, Derek Chauvin, along with three of his police colleagues, were offered up as sacrificial lambs by Minneapolis prosecutors. ChaUvin was slapped with federal and well as state convictions and, as I write, is rotting in an Arizona prison for the murder of Floyd.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/war-destroys-leftist-orthodoxies-6947fb06?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Wars are times of transition, when old ideologies are discredited: slavery, isolationism, appeasement, socialism. Now, like the 1,200 health professionals who claimed during 2020’s protests and riots that racism was a bigger health concern than Covid, another set of progressives touting tired orthodoxies are being discredited before our eyes.

After Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians, a director of diversity and inclusion at Cornell’s business school glorified terrorism, writing about “the resistance being launched by Palestinians.” Remind me why we have DEI departments? At Harvard more than 30 students groups signed a letter claiming Israel was “the only one to blame.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is worried about “the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” Twitter is littered with tweets saying “this is decolonization in action.” All these support an oppression narrative.

Where did these people get such ideas? The universities. Here’s an introductory-level EMR (Ethnicity, Migration, Rights) class at Harvard: “Global Rebellion: Race, Solidarity, and Decolonization.” The course discusses how “to rebel against global white supremacy.” I found similar courses at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke and other top schools. Another Harvard colonialism course studies “decoloniality”—which sounds like a made-up academic term that turns out to involve “anti-oppression” and “de-Westernizing.” Notice how so many grievances mimic Marxist class struggles. Why does radicalizing and dividing students over identity take precedence over, well, real inclusion?

The attacks were “in light of the orgy of occupation.” Those are the words of Mohammed Deif, military commander of Hamas. Iran’s (drone-stricken) Gen. Qassem Soleimani included Hamas in the “Axis of Resistance.” The United Nations has a Special Committee on Decolonization. Sound familiar? Occupation, resistance, decolonization—progressive talking points all.

The economist Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1947 that the Soviet’s agenda was aided by korisne budale—useful fools, which has since morphed into “useful idiots.” While an overused expression, it fits this time. Those speaking of occupation, resistance and decolonizing are pure and simple useful idiots for terrorism, running interference and providing a rationale for depraved behavior. These witless nitwits have also aided Iran’s attempt to stop Saudi Arabia from joining the Abraham Accords. While many university presidents have since come out against the barbaric attacks, the damage has been done. A Great Discrediting has begun.

Jon Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to China, emailed the University of Pennsylvania’s president saying his family foundation will “close its checkbook” based on Penn’s “moral relativism” and “race to the bottom.” I’ve heard of alumni of Harvard and elsewhere mailing $1 bills to their alma maters—as in, “That is all you’re going to get.” Hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman asked Harvard for the names of terrorist supporters so his firm could avoid hiring them. Boston University last month had an anti-antiracist backlash. “Defund the police” is becoming a distant memory.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/10/20/even-cnn-gets-what-the-biden-administration-doesnt-n1736759

When Biden announced that he was promising $100 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank, it was immediately clear to anyone with common sense that this money would end up in the hands of Hamas and not used for humanitarian purposes.

The Biden administration insists there will be safeguards in place to prevent this from happening, but no one really believes it will work—not even the pro-Biden CNN.

On Wednesday’s “Laura Coates Live,” CNN correspondent Hadas Gold and CNN military analyst Col. Cedric Leighton (Ret.) both agreed that preventing humanitarian aid from being seized by Hamas in Gaza would be extremely difficult because there are no mechanisms in place to ensure how the aid is distributed and used.

“Just, in hearing what he had to say about the conditions, really, of being in compliance or going along with what President Biden has said, the conditions about hostages being released, the ideas of how to ensure that the aid is not going to be essentially taken and siphoned off by Hamas. Is it realistic to think that could actually be a condition that could be met before aid gets there?” host Laura Coates asked.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/biden-got-200k-payment-from-family-business-tied-to-islamic-terror-hamas/

In 2020, I dug into what was probably one of the strangest and most overlooked Biden family scandals.

James Biden, Joe’s brother, had become a principal at Americore whose business model was based on buying and turning around rural hospitals. But the turnaround was into the grave.

Obamacare had hit rural hospitals hard, forcing many of them to shut down. By Obama’s last year in office, 4% of rural hospitals had closed down, and hundreds more were on the brink. And the Bidens had figured out a way to profit from the devastation caused by Obama-Biden.

“His brother was very interested in rural health care and very interested in veterans’ health care, and it was something he really wanted to get behind,” an Americore executive recalled Biden telling him. “This would help his brother get elected.”

The hospitals were trashed and patient care fell apart, but James Biden was making money.

Hospital patients might have been able to get basic care and supplies, but the money wasn’t there. Meanwhile, James Biden had allegedly made off with $650,000.

According to the Americore CEO, “Jim Biden directed me to loan him approximately $400,000 of this money for him to use to repay a past-due personal loan.”

Later, “Biden took additional amounts totaling approximately $250,000.”

Thanks to the House Oversight Committee, we now know where some of it went.

In 2018, James Biden received $600,000 in loans from, Americore—a financially distressed and failing rural hospital operator. According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”

On March 1, 2018, Americore wired a $200,000 loan into James and Sara Biden’s personal bank account – not their business bank account. On the same day, James Biden wrote a $200,000 check from this same personal bank account to Joe Biden.

While Joe Biden getting cash courtesy of his brother trading on his name and sending it to the ‘Big Guy’ is bad, the details lead down a very disturbing trail.

According to bankruptcy court documents, James Biden received these loans “based upon representations that his last name, ‘Biden,’ could ‘open doors’ and that he could obtain a large investment from the Middle East based on his political connections.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/10/20/convoluted-condescending-contradictory-biden-defaces-the-nation/

In good old groups-of-three style, your correspondent could have gone several directions in describing President Joe Biden’s spiel Thursday night.

Alliterative: Cringeworthy. Crass. Craven.Assonantal: Eerie. Airy. Arrogant.Rhyming: Stumbling. Bumbling. Crumbling.

But upon review and reflection, fell back upon the tried-and-true repeat-prefix formulation: 

Condescending. Convoluted. And most of all: Contradictory.

Condescending  

Biden immediately reminded his audience that he was “the first American president to travel (to Israel) during a war,” as if that had anything to do with the price of shakshuka in Beersheba. And later, “the first American to enter a war zone not controlled by the United States military since President Lincoln.” 

The “Being There” presidency: 80% of Chance the Chief Executive’s accomplishments involve managing to show up.

Next, you’ll learn he has a “much higher IQ than you.” Or at least than the Israeli leadership he ostensibly traveled to encourage but managed instead to talk down to:

“President Netanyahu and I discussed again … the critical need for Israel to operate by the laws of war … protecting civilians in combat as best as they can.”

You mean the prime minister (not president) whose government – after his people were slaughtered, tortured, raped, abducted, and subjected to a rain of thousands of missiles in brazen violation of “the laws of war” – seeks to minimize civilian casualties by warning an entire country to get out of harm’s way rather than be used as human shields?

“As I said in Israel, as hard as it is, we cannot give up on peace. We cannot give up on a two-state solution.”

Oh. You mean the “two-state solution” that, with your predecessor’s support, Israel and several Arab states shuffled off to the side while entering into true peace accords – now possibly shattered thanks to your encouragement and financing of terrorist organizations and their sponsors? 

“Israel and Palestinians equally deserve to live in safety, dignity and peace.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/globalists_fear_spartacus_and_his_slave_rebellion.html

Something intriguing is happening with bitcoin.  What started as a series of perplexing data “inscriptions” containing classified files from the U.S. government has now been confirmed by Bitcoin Magazine as an ongoing effort to cement information in the public record beyond the reach of government censorship.

An anonymous guardian of free speech has begun using bitcoin to republish all of the information originally published by Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks back in 2010.  Codenamed “Project Spartacus,” the operation seeks to take advantage of several inherent bitcoin attributes:

(1) It utilizes bitcoin’s Ordinals protocol that allows users to add personalized data to units of the cryptocurrency’s blockchain.

(2) Because data within integrated parts of the blockchain cannot be subsequently removed, it forms a part of the cryptocurrency’s permanent record.

(3) Because the blockchain of transactions operates on a decentralized, global network of sovereign nodes, there is no tech CEO or other middleman who can intervene to do governments’ censorship bidding.  

Decentralized blockchain technology, in other words, is about much more than cryptocurrencies.  It is a powerful tool that will continue to allow ordinary people to evade government authority.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/desantis-vs-newsom-on-violent-crime-5161224f?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

California Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t running for president in 2024, at least not yet, but he has agreed to a televised Fox News debate next month with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. One worthy topic will be their respective economic records, but they should also spend some time on public safety.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation this week released national statistics on 2022, and the headline was that violent crime fell 1.7%, dipping back to the same level as before the pandemic. But it’s a big country, and those averages don’t tell the whole story. In California violent crime is still up 13% since 2019. In Florida it’s down 31.5%. The rate of violent crime in Mr. Newsom’s state last year, 499.5 per 100,000 people, was nearly double that in Mr. DeSantis’s domain, 258.9 per 100,000.

The nearby chart shows a longer view. Amid the Covid lockdowns, the George Floyd protests, and a public backlash toward law enforcement, violence shot up in Florida, as in many other states, though California stayed on a higher plateau. But the real difference is what happened next: in 2021 and 2022, violent crime plunged in Florida while surging in California. One caveat is that the FBI in 2021 changed its methodology for calculating crime rates, but this affected all states, so it isn’t responsible for the obvious divergence.

2012’13’14’15’16’17’18’19’20’21’22225250275300325350375400425450475500525 Crime rates per 100,000 peopleCalif.Fla.

Mr. Newsom touts California’s strict gun-control laws, but at least a fifth of its aggravated assaults last year were committed with a knife or blunt object. Many of the state’s violent offenses are perpetrated by mentally ill or drug-addicted people living on the streets. Mr. Newsom himself was assaulted in 2021 by a homeless man in Oakland.

The FBI’s numbers on property crime add to the picture. In Florida such offenses are down 27% since 2019, about three times as much as nationwide, while in California they’re up 0.3%. Those figures likely underestimate the true difference, since businesses are less inclined to report theft to law enforcement in jurisdictions where it often goes unprosecuted.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/10/17/open-society-foundations-closing-offices-laying-off-staff-n1735587

Have they tried turning the heat down? Putting on sweaters? Maybe couponing?

It may be a little premature to celebrate, but the Open Society Foundations are closing offices in Africa and laying people off. In fact, 40% of the organization’s offices on the African continent will be hanging out “Sorry, We’re Closed” signs, and the employees will be hitting the want ads. This is in spite of the fact that the organization is worth an estimated $25 billion. Closures also hit offices in Barcelona and Baltimore.

Bloomberg reports that earlier in the month, it obtained emails sent out to staffers announcing that the organization would be scaling back. One of those emails from Binaifer Nowrojee, vice president of programs, read, “With the decision by the board in June to cut the staff by more than 40%, our staffing size and footprint by necessity needs to diminish. We no longer have the bandwidth to operate multiple small offices, and thus the decision to further reduce our locations.”

In another email, Africa Executive Director Muthoni Wanyeki stated, “I’m very sorry that it’s turned out this way. It’s obviously not what any of us expected and I’m also very sorry that I didn’t have the information on this earlier,” she added, saying the changes aren’t what leadership ‘committed to two years ago.’” Grantmaker positions will reportedly be the hardest hit. Only three African offices will remain open. Programming positions outside of the United States will be pared down from 450 to 150 people.

According to Bloomberg, OSF announced that the offices in Spain and Baltimore were slated to be shuttered earlier in the year. The African offices have been in “transition” since 2021.