RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/01/29/are-the-walls-closing-in-on-joe-biden-new-details-raise-questions-n1666036

According to a story published on Saturday, the scope of Joe Biden’s classified documents scandal may be bigger than previously thought. Sources close to the investigation say in addition to classified documents, the FBI also seized notebooks from Biden’s Wilmington, Del., home, which were reportedly written by Biden while he was vice president.

“The notebooks were seized because Biden’s notes on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may refer to classified information, this same person said, adding that the notebooks do not have classified markings on them, but some of the handwritten notes inside them could be considered as such given their sensitive content,” NBC News reported. “Other pages in the notebooks, while they may not contain potentially classified information, could still be considered government property under the Presidential Records Act because they pertain to official business Biden conducted as vice president, according to the person familiar with the investigation.”

According to Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives, if Biden shared the notes with staff while he was vice president, they would be considered official records belonging to the government.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/why_preserve_a_world_order_without_freedom.html

Senator Lindsey Graham desperately wants more money and weapons for Ukraine.  Recently standing in Kyiv alongside two (other?) Democrat senators — one who repeatedly lied about his service in Vietnam and another who repeatedly lied about President Trump being a Russian spy — Graham demanded American tanks on the ground immediately.  “World order is at stake!” he declared.  Something serious must be at stake over there; having thrown over a hundred billion dollars to a nation that was known universally as one of the most corrupt in the world before Russia crossed its borders last year, the U.S. government has become “pot committed” to a European war, whether financially struggling Americans care or not.

Just what is this “world order” that keeps Ol’ Lindsey up at night?  Surely he means some combination of American hegemony, military dominance, dollar-denominated financial supremacy, and command over the vaunted “rules-based international system” so-called Western leaders love to defend.  You never hear anything about the importance of defending Western rights and liberties, though, do you?  Senator Graham-nesty isn’t worried about protecting America’s borders.  He says absolutely nothing about securing Westerners’ freedoms from threats of tyranny.  Why?

Because America has relinquished its status as “leader of the free world.”  That is not because dementia-addled Joe Biden is merely a figurehead under the unelected Deep State’s control.  It is because there is no “free world” right now — at least not within the jurisdiction of political governments.  The political persecution of J6 protesters for “thought crimes,” the authoritarian COVID-1984 lockdowns and mandates, and the confirmation through the “Twitter Files” that the U.S. government is heavily invested in censorship and public manipulation all make this damning statement soberingly clear.

Friedrich Hayek warned in The Road to Serfdom, “We shall never prevent the abuse of power if we are not prepared to limit power in a way which occasionally may prevent its use for desirable purposes.”  American independence and the U.S. Constitution embraced this principle.  The “American experiment” was not devoted to creating a vast administrative State in which the expertise and benevolence of “public servants” would usher in a future Utopia.  “Once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of the government to protect the individual against his own foolishness,” Ludwig von Mises observed, “no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments.”  Arguing otherwise has been the fool’s gold of both idealists and tyrants for millennia.  “Freedom is indivisible,” Mises argued.  “As soon as one starts to restrict it, one enters upon a decline on which it is difficult to stop.”  The American system broke with tyrannies of the past, and for doing so, an unelected, mercurial, deceptive, and vicious Deep State has spent decades breaking the American system.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/01/is_america_at_its_worst_economic_point_since_the_great_depression.html

Biden and the Democrats have been boasting about the economic wonders he and his administration have performed with their modernizing, equitable, diverse, green energy economic policies. However, E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis, says that the devil is in the details—and the details behind the latest GDP report show that ordinary Americans are in the worst economic condition they’ve been since the Great Depression.

RNC Research (a very good Twitter feed, despite the RNC’s dismal performance in other areas) assembled a few clips showing Biden’s economic boasts:

In Bidenland, economically speaking, everything is hunky-dory. And maybe that’s true because Biden’s family has become fabulously wealthy, as have all the people surrounding him. It’s a very rosy view from up there, in the Oval Office.

It’s less rosy where real people live. Writing at Fox Business, Antoni says that the Fed’s most recent GDP (“gross domestic product”) report contains within it terrible news about America’s flailing economy.

What Democrats like is that the report shows that the economy is still growing, albeit slowly: “The latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis show that the U.S. economy grew by 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, and 2.1 percent for 2022.” However, despite some growth, says Antoni, “economic growth is slowing down.”

https://justthenews.com/government/security/new-member-house-intelligence-committee-calls-security-damage-assessment-biden

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), one of the newest members of the GOP-led House Intelligence Committee, is calling for a national security damage assessment on the Biden family, following the discovery of classified documents at multiple locations connected to President Biden.

“I think so,” Scott responded when asked Thursday on the John Solomon Reports podcast whether such an assessment should be made. “I would also tell you that the difference I see is that the Biden documents were in an area where other people clearly had access to them. And I have serious questions about the amount of wealth that the Biden family has.”

The Democratic president has been under increased scrutiny since the recent disclosures about such documents being found at his Delaware home and in an office he used after serving as vice president.

Biden, at least since his successful 2020 presidential bid, had been under scrutiny regarding whether he profited or stood to profit from son Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas business negotiations including those with China. 

“I just don’t I don’t see how you accumulate that much making $175,000 a year,” Scott said about the president’s personal wealth. “I guess he made a little more as vice president, maybe $300,000 a year. But I don’t see how you accumulate that the type of wealth that he has.”

The FBI last August ceased classified document from former President Trump’s Florida home. And Vice President Mike Pence announced this week that a sweep of Indiana home had turned up such materials. 

Scott said that all people with classified documents need to be held accountable. 

https://nypost.com/2023/01/26/the-mike-pompeo-speech-on-chinas-influence-on-us-universities-that-mit-killed/

“Pompeo says that American schools that are “hooked on the CCP’s sugar must go into rehab.”Frankly I think a lot of institutions — including some of our financial institutions — should join them there. In the end it´s about whose side you are on. It would be good to know that American universities were on America’s side — for once.”

It’s always the way with political memoirs that everyone sifts them for the high-grade gossip. So it is with Mike Pompeo’s memoir, “Never Give an Inch” released this week. Media reports have understandably focused on the former CIA director and Secretary of State’s opinions on Donald Trump, John Bolton, Kim Jong-Un and a bunch of other folks.

But as is often the case, one of the biggest stories in the book has so far been overlooked.

When Pompeo was Secretary of State he took probably the most hawkish view any American official has yet taken towards the Communist Party of China. In a speech in October 2019, he told an audience of business-people (many of whom made money in China) that the Communist Party of China is “a Marxist-Leninist party focused on struggle and international domination.” He couldn’t be more correct. But something that happened afterwards proved his point.

As Pompeo relates it, he wanted to give a major speech on China and especially the way in which the CCP is distorting universities and other research institutes inside the United States. Not just by funding these institutions, and directing their research, but by trying to turn Chinese students into agents of the communist regime. It’s a crucial subject and was high time that an American official made such an intervention.

The speech was scheduled to take place at MIT, which had previously held an MIT-China Summit in Beijing sponsored by Chinese tech companies including ones that are now under sanctions for providing technology to crush human rights in China.

But shortly before the speech MIT said they couldn’t host the US Secretary of State after all. A strange move, no? Well according to Pompeo he picked up the phone and spoke with the president of MIT, Rafael Reif. And Reif claimed that there was no way that the speech could go ahead because of the risk of offending Chinese students. By MIT’s own data in 2021-22 a full 25% of international students at the university were from China.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2023/01/26/more-than-half-of-democrats-question-bidens-mental-fitness-n2618805

President Joe Biden is facing a series of rough patches as he enters his third year in the Oval Office, sparking concern over his ability to govern the country from both sides of the political aisle. 

According to a Harvard/ Harris 2024 survey, six in ten respondents have doubts regarding Biden’s mental capabilities, with 65 percent believing that the 80-year-old is “too old” to run the country. 

Nearly a quarter of those who say Biden is too old, are Democrats, while 87 percent were Republicans and 67 percent were Independents.

The poll also found that 61 percent of Americans believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, while the majority, 56 percent, have an unfavorable view of Biden. 

Less than half of respondents believe that the president has failed on major issues such as immigration and the economy with 37 percent approving of how he has handled the crisis at the southern border, while 62 percent highly disapprove of his take on “fixing” the economy.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the bombshell revelations that multiple classified documents were found in Biden’s possession, American’s approval of the president slipped under the rocks even more.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/26/january-6-was-the-worst-incident-of-police-brutality-since-civil-rights-era/

One might be inclined to apply Hanlon’s razor—never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity—to the actions of law enforcement on January 6, 2021. One might even be inclined to replace “stupidity” with “incompetence” to explain why police behaved the way they did that afternoon.

But a growing body of evidence suggests neither stupidity nor incompetence can justify what now appears to be the worst incident of police brutality against political protesters since the civil rights era. After two years of watching cherry-picked video clips produced by the Department of Justice and the news media to depict Trump supporters as the violent aggressors on January 6, the public now has an opportunity to see what really happened thanks to police body camera footage released at trial.

It’s ugly—and clearly malicious.

As American Greatness has reported for nearly two years, members of the Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police Department were involved in egregious acts of excessive force during the Capitol protest. Some use of force, obviously, was necessary. But police officers initiated most of the confrontations with otherwise peaceful protesters lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights in the nation’s capital. 

Protesters by and large were not attempting to commit any crime and did not know the entire lawn surrounding the Capitol building had been declared off-limits. After all, police officials have since admitted that by the time people who attended Donald Trump’s speech arrived at the Capitol, signage and fencing indicating the campus was closed had been torn down.

The conclusion of Trump’s speech at around 1:10 p.m. coincided nearly to the minute with law enforcement’s first use of munitions on protesters assembled on the west side of the Capitol. Roughly 20 minutes earlier, a police barricade of metal racks on the far exterior of the grounds had been breached. But footage captured by the body camera of a D.C. Metro police officer showed that law enforcement had successfully pushed a growing crowd away from the building by 1:15 p.m.

Officer Daniel Thau, however, was on a mission. Sounding alternatively like a mad man or a bully, Thau desperately pleaded with other officers to give him munitions to use against the crowd despite a relatively controlled atmosphere outside. 

https://theleoterrell.com/florida-unemployment-rate-drops-to-2-5-as-red-states-economies-continue-to-outperform-blue-states/?utm_source=jeeng&utm_medium=email

On Friday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that his state’s unemployment rate dropped to 2.5 percent in December, far below the national average. The news follows the pattern of Republican-led states outperforming Democrat-led states in economically recovering from the pandemic. 

“Florida continues to outpace the nation and withstand negative headwinds due to federal policy,” DeSantis said. “I look forward to building off our success with record tax relief in the upcoming legislative session.”

As explained in a press release from DeSantis’ office, Florida’s unemployment rate in December was “2.5 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than the previous month’s rate and 1.0 percentage point lower than the national rate of 3.5 percent.”

“Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has been lower than the national rate for 25 consecutive months since December 2020,” the press release continued. “Between December 2021 and December 2022, Florida’s labor force grew by 361,000, or 3.5 percent. This was faster than the national labor force growth rate of 1.6 percent over the year.”

“Between December 2021 and December 2022, total private sector employment grew by 425,800 jobs (+5.3 percent), faster than the national private sector job growth rate of 3.3 percent over the year,” the press release added. “As of December 2022, Florida employers have added jobs for 32 consecutive months since May 2020. Florida’s private sector over-the-year job growth rate has exceeded the nation’s for 21 consecutive months since April 2021.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/vladimir-lenin-and-the-american-left/

At the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress in October 2022, Xi Jinping’s report included the following statement: “Over the past decade, we have stayed committed to Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory…” Karl Marx was a scumbag (study his life), Deng Xiaoping was the thug who killed over 3,000 protesters at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, and Mao Zedong was the greatest mass murderer in human history (read more about him here). These men are the forerunners and mentors of Leftists in America today. This is the Left, folks. Study history to find out more about what these men were and believed. And thus, what their American offspring have in store for our country.

In this article, I want to home in on Vladimir Lenin, who Xi also mentioned, and who was the major instigator and theoretician of the communist revolution in Russia in 1917. I only have space to share with you a few quotes from this man whom, again, the Left idolizes. You’ll get an idea of what Lenin was and what the Left is.

1. “We must hate—hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.” Hate is indeed a major characteristic of the Left; it is probably the main motivation for most of them. They have no clue what love is. Contrast Lenin’s words with the following: “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Jesus, Matthew 5:44). Which system would you rather live under?

2. “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” Most decent people think lying is wrong, but not Leftists. Anything to advance the cause is morally acceptable. And American Leftists certainly follow this adage of Lenin, hoping the American people will eventually accept their lies as truth. Sadly, too many do.

3. “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” This is frightening but is one of the reasons the Left is trying to “groom” children now. Indoctrinate them, as early as possible, with Leftist propaganda. It’s right out of Lenin’s playbook.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/chinas-useful-idiots/

A nation that is obsessed with apologizing for itself is ill-prepared to confront external threats.

The anti–“zero Covid” protesters in China may be finished with the CCP, but the CCP isn’t finished with them. After making a public show of easing some Covid restrictions, Xi Jinping and his army of Stasi-like thugs set about making an example of those involved in the regime’s monthslong embarrassment. The show of force against the protest movement was typical of dictatorships that rely, at least in part, on fear as a mechanism for maintaining power. But the efforts to delegitimize the anti-regime demonstrations had an ideological component as well. A New York Times piece on the crackdown today reported:

The party is also working to discredit the protesters by casting them as tools of malevolent foreign powers. Beijing has long dismissed dissent at home — from calls for women’s rights to pro-democracy activism to ethnic unrest — as the result of Western-backed subversion. The protests against “zero Covid” were no exception: One Chinese diplomat suggested that some of the demonstrators had been “bought by external forces.”

Describing the detention of four Chinese women who were alleged to have been involved in anti-regime activities, the Times reported: “The police have asked the women about their use of overseas messaging platforms or involvement in feminist activities, such as reading groups. . . . Chinese propaganda has decried feminism as another tool of foreign influence.” As a descriptive matter, feminist movements in China probably do draw inspiration from Western ideology. Yet the irony in Beijing’s narrative is that Chairman Xi still has plenty of enablers in the West — particularly among the left-wing cultural movements tied to the kind of activism his regime decries.

This is not to say that the progressive forces that have emerged from academia in recent years — fourth-wave feminism, critical race and gender theory, and so on — are pro-CCP. When pressed, most of their advocates would likely mouth bromides about the Chinese regime’s human-rights violations and its oppression of women. The Left, for the most part, is not motivated by an admiration for China, as segments of it were toward the Soviet Union. What today’s progressives are motivated by is a distaste for the idea of America having a set of “national interests,” let alone any serious efforts to defend them.