RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/01/27/another-wave-of-joe-biden-j-o-b-s-losses-n1665451

Let me tell you about a little something important, Fat. It happens to be the “number one job facing the middle class and it happens to be a three-letter word: Jobs!  J–O–B–S!  Jobs!” So declared then-Vice President Joe Biden on behalf of his boss, Barack Obama, back in 2008, the last time the economy was shredded.

Here we are all these years later and Joe Biden, millions of dollars richer, is presiding over another disastrous economy made worse by his government overspending. He must think we all have sons funneling us cash from money laundering operations with Ukraine and China or something.

But no Negative Nellies are allowed here. The president says the economy’s just great, and how dare you say anything any different, Jack, unless you want to do a pushup contest right here and now to settle it.

This week, the Big Guy was broken out of the White House and rushed off to a curated collection of union members to tout what a great economy he has built back better. He put his foot down and whispered; he growled about how he had “no intention of letting the Republicans wreck the economy” that he and the Democrats have done such a top-notch job of destroying.

But sadly for his Happy Days Are Here Again narrative, these past few days brought another round of Big Tech and media sector layoffs. This is beginning to be a weekly occurrence as Silicon Valley’s ones and zeros are marched past the La Cimbali latte machine and the chef’s menu board, down the slide, and into the unemployment lines.

Will anyone tell Joe?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/01/26/the-caesars-of-the-information-age/

I thought I would feel some relief when the social-media giants came to their senses and let Donald Trump back on their platforms. Yet now that it’s happened, now that Meta has decreed that Trump has served his time in the virtual wilderness and may once again post on Facebook and Instagram, I just feel unnerved. Unnerved by the extraordinary power these people wield over who may and who may not engage with the billions of souls who gather online. Unnerved by their supranational authority to grant or rescind a licence to speak in the global town square. Unnerved by the historically unprecedented dominion this small clique of the woke rich enjoys over the liberty to utter.

The unbanning of Trump feels less like a victory for freedom of speech than a triumph of Silicon Valley Caesarism. It sends the message that it is for these Emperors of the Information Age to decide who may enter the modern arena of discussion, who may have to be expelled, how long they should be expelled for, and under what conditions they may be permitted to return once their punishment is complete.

Indeed, even though Meta’s statement on readmitting Trump to Facebook and Instagram is justified in the language of freedom of speech – ‘The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying’, it says, with staggering gall, given it spent the past two years preventing the public from hearing what Trump was saying – it also says it will keep a tight leash on Trump. If he violates any of Meta’s protocols, he’ll be suspended again, they warn, for anywhere between one month and two years. So the politician may speak to the people, so long as he says nothing to offend the arrogant hip capitalists who control 21st-century public discussion. Their message is crystal clear: ‘We’re still in control, and we always will be.’

Trump was banished from social media in January 2021. Following the Capitol Hill riot of 6 January, virtually all of Silicon Valley decreed that he should be unpersoned, blacklisted, silenced. He was kicked off Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify and Twitch. YouTube, Reddit and TikTok brought in stiff restrictions on the expression of pro-Trump sentiment. Google and Apple removed the Parler app from their stores, so that the virtual masses wouldn’t be able to access the one platform that was still allowing Trump to speak.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/01/the-woke-revolution-is-far-from-over/

Just over a year ago, I wrote a lengthy article detailing all the reasons why no one should assume the far-left “Woke” ideological revolution was over, even if conservatives here in the United States were to ride what seemed a “red wave” of popular political dissatisfaction to a sweeping victory in November’s mid-term elections. Well, those elections are now over, and it turns out there wasn’t even any wave to speak of. It’s worth thinking seriously about what that result signals about where this increasingly global ideological revolution is headed.

We are now more than two years downstream from the fiery Year Zero of the Revolution, 2020, when, amid the most widespread and destructive riots in the nation’s history, nearly every public and private institution in American life (and then beyond, across nearly the whole of the broader Western world) simultaneously pledged allegiance to the same transformational illiberal ideology that had inspired the violence. The results were immediate, shocking in scope, and lasting in consequence: the primacy of racial consciousness and grievance was forcefully reintroduced into society in the name of racial “diversity” and “equity”; police departments were defunded and criminal behavior effectively decriminalized in the name of “social justice,” resulting in a deadly ongoing crime wave; elite medical and educational institutions, along with the American government, began not only to mainstream extremist concepts like the mutilating surgical “affirmation” of children’s alleged transgender identity (among other innovations) in the name of “inclusion,” but to actively seek to criminalize any opposition to these and other practices; in a coordinated effort with the state, the world’s largest technology and media giants imposed a great wave of censorship in an effort to entrench and defend the ideological hegemony of the Revolution and its values; mobbed by zealots, dissenters to the new ideological regime were summarily ousted from their positions and livelihoods; families and friendships were torn apart as the window of acceptable opinion shifted with lightning speed… This is only to scratch the surface of the traumatic upheaval that was thrust onto American society.

But now we know that all of this barely moved the needle in America’s tribal politics. There was either no coherent backlash to the Woke revolution at the ballot box, or its adherents proved just as numerous and motivated as its opponents. Those few tentative suggestions about how progressive policies and messaging might have gone too far, which had begun to sporadically appear as anxiety proliferated on the left ahead of the elections, will now all be swiftly forgotten. With no costs imposed for their behavior, and so no incentive to change course, the revolutionaries’ already self-confident zeal will only redouble.

Which, make no mistake, means that the Woke are now winning decisively. The reason for this is straightforward: of the key institutional high ground – from educational institutions to the media and Hollywood and the publishing houses, to the tech giants (with the recent singular exception of Elon Musk’s Twitter), to the law schools and the legal associations, to the healthcare system and medical schools, to the powerful foundations, big banks, corporate consulting giants, and stock exchanges, to even the churches, not to mention the federal government – essentially all of it is already Woke. This means that a 50-50 stalemate in the arena of democratic politics is no stalemate at all, but the continuation of a totally lopsided war of civilizational attrition.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/01/americas_future_is_bleak_when_only_27_of_the_younger_generations_are_proud_to_be_american.html

I first encountered unabashed pride in being American when I came to the United States in 1951.  I sailed across the Atlantic alone.  Perhaps someone along the way told me tht I was going to the United States; however, as a seven or eight-year-old I knew nothing about the nation that had granted me refuge.  Upon disembarking in New York what stood out was not the awe-inspiring and intimidating skyscrapers seemingly reaching to the heavens, or for the first time in my life seeing a city not lying in ruins from the ravages of war, but that there was a palpable atmosphere of confidence, optimism, self-reliance and above all pride among the people in this new and mystifying country.

I soon learned that this mindset permeated the entirety of this vast nation and had since its founding, thus, enabling it to evolve into the most successful nation-state in the annals of mankind.  While no nation can ever create an ideal society, due to certain immutable characteristics of the human race, no country has come closer to doing so.  It is the only nation in history committed to right societal wrongs, to live by the underlying tenets of Judeo-Christianity and govern itself by means of a written Constitution that reflects those values.

As recently as 2004, 91% of Americans were extremely or very proud to be American and the United States ranked first in the world in national pride.  However, in less than twenty years there has been a stunning reversal that portends a dire future for the United States as a precipitous erosion in national pride has undermined societal confidence, self-reliance, optimism, and cohesion. 

A recent poll revealed that a record low of just 68% of the citizenry are extremely or very proud to be American.  However, underlying that overall dismal outcome is the reality that among the two youngest generations only 38% of Millennials and 16% of Gen Z are proud to be American despite being the beneficiaries of living in a unfathomably prosperous nation that has not known any profound national adversity since the Great Depression. 

What we are seeing play out is the reality of demographic change in America as the younger mal-educated generations account for over half of the populace and are increasingly becoming culturally and politically influential.  Within these generations an overwhelming majority have been indoctrinated by socialist/Marxist ideologues to believe that a capitalist United States as founded is irredeemable and must be transformed.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/25/the-real-differences-between-the-biden-and-trump-troves/

Donald Trump for now certainly seems to have had more documents labeled classified at Mar-a-Lago in Florida than did Joe Biden at his various homes in Delaware. 

Yet otherwise, the comparisons between the two cases, contrary to popular punditry, hardly favor Biden. 

First, a stranger would face a far greater challenge entering a post-presidential Mar-a-Lago than a pre-presidential Joe Biden’s home, office, or garage—or who knows where?  

Secret service agents and private security were stationed at Mar-a-Lago. Prior to the 2020 presidential election they were not at citizen Biden’s various troves for most of 2017-2020 much less prior to 2009. 

Second, we seem to forget that for much of the developing controversy, Joe Biden’s own team was investigating Joe Biden. 

On the other hand, the Biden Administration’s Justice Department and the FBI were not just investigating Trump as an outside party, but as a former president—and possible 2024 presidential candidate and opponent of Biden himself. 

Remember, the narrative of the first Democratic impeachment of Donald Trump was the allegation that Trump had used his powers of the presidency to investigate Joe Biden and his family, a likely 2020 challenger to Trump’s reelection bid. 

Third, no one in a position of government authority had passed judgment on Joe Biden’s alleged security violations. 

That was not the case of the still alleged violations of Donald Trump. 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/has-globalism-met-its-waterloo/

Wouldn’t it be great to make 2023 a turning point in the United States, after two years of spiraling degeneration and confusion under a Biden administration that has delivered a myriad of policies that have done much more harm than good for the American people? We have gone awry in large part because of the deceit and encroachment of the Deep State and globalists whose influence has weakened and neutered the Constitution and its legal protections of citizens’ rights and national sovereignty.

Among the most visible and influential globalist organizations is the World Economic Forum (WEF), which coincidentally just completed its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. Reviewing the Biden administration’s policies and forward-looking priorities, it’s self-evident that there is a close correlation with the WEF agenda. For instance, consider: 

The Biden open border policy—resulting in an unprecedented number of illegal aliens, drugs, and human trafficking crossing our southern border—burdens taxpayers and weakens national sovereignty.
 Fear-mongering over CO2 emissions and the alleged related climate apocalypse has diminished America’s competitive advantage in oil and gas production while driving a greater reliance on more expensive and less reliable alternatives, such as wind and solar power, resulting in the loss of U.S. energy independence.
The violation of American citizens’ First Amendment Rights by U.S. government agencies’ overriding influence and manipulation of media and social media to control the public narrative, affect elections, and suppress and cancel contradicting views.
The usurpation of parental authority over their children by government authorities.
The push to surrender control of U.S. healthcare policy to the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).
The plan to regulate digital assets and develop central bank digital currencies (CBDC) was established by Biden’s Executive Order 14067.

American citizens need to hold the majority party of the 118th Congress accountable for bringing about correctives to all of these. But it is also time for Americans to take action against the Globalist agenda at the local and the federal level.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19346/treason-in-america

Benedict Arnold, move over.

Loathed as one of America’s most despised traitors, we are reminded that Arnold once was the hero of Saratoga during the Revolutionary War, only to become a turncoat prepared to hand over West Point to the British.

During the last century there was Aldrich Ames, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer turned KGB double agent. Now serving a life sentence without parole, he did enormous damage to our national security while sending many American intelligence assets to their deaths in the Soviet Union. You want an example of how one American can do incalculable damage to his country? Read the Ames file.

But wait. There is now a 21st Century indictment that, if proven in a court of law, is absolutely mind-numbing.

The FBI’s former top spy-hunter based in New York, Charles McGonigal, has been charged with violating U.S. sanctions and other criminal counts stemming from alleged ties to Russian oligarch billionaire Oleg Deripaska, a confident of Vladimir Putin.

The indictment also says McGonigal is accused of trying to get Deripaska removed from a U.S. sanctions list.

A second indictment accuses the G-man of hiding payments totaling $225,000 that he allegedly received from an individual considered an asset by an Albanian intelligence agency.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2023/01/25/turns-out-the-atlanta-terrorists-are-children-of-privilege-n1664631

We’ve already learned that the vast majority of the Antifa insurrectionists who terrorized Atlanta over the weekend — and have occupied the future site of a public safety training facility for months — hailed from nowhere near Atlanta, but the more we learn about the Antifa criminals who attacked cops and did damage all over downtown Atlanta, we realize that these aren’t oppressed minorities rising up against the system.

It turns out the Atlanta terrorists are largely children of immense privilege.

Take, for example, the rather evil-looking Francis Carroll (whose name WSB misspelled below), the guy who allegedly lit a police cruiser on fire Saturday night.

Carroll hails from Kennebunkport, Maine — yep, the same Kennebunkport that is home to the Bush family compound. And we all know that towns with compounds are always fancy. He’s the scion of a multimillion-dollar family that owns a yacht, and he lived in his parents’ mansion before coming to Atlanta to wreak havoc.

Over at the New York Post, Andy Ngo notes that Carroll “was among six people arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, aggravated assault and other crimes on Dec. 13 following a string of property attacks around the area, a carjacking and assaults on officers. They were all bailed out by activists who crowdfunded their legal defense using Twitter.”

And then there’s Serena Hertal. The Idaho native is a graduate of $82,000-a-year Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif. How has she made use of that high-dollar education? By facing charges of domestic terrorism, aggravated assault, and criminal trespass in Atlanta.

How about Ivan James Ferguson? The 23-year-old Nevada native is a clarinetist who performed with orchestras up and down the West Coast before throwing it all away to interfere with the safety of a city two thousand miles away. Ferguson studied at the swanky San Francisco Conservatory of Music, which should serve him well in jail.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-1-24-biden-and-trump-classified-documents-scandals-progressive-talking-point-falls-apart

I have so far avoided weighing in on the Biden and Trump classified documents scandals, but I guess the time has finally come.

I’ve had a “Secret” clearance in my life, and almost all of the “classified” documents I have seen have been of very underwhelming significance. So when the Trump classified document thing blew up with the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August, I was not impressed. It reeked of something highly likely to be completely devoid of real world significance, but useful to Biden and the left because Trump would be put in a position of not being able to defend himself publicly without disclosing the contents of the documents. Meanwhile Trump as President had had complete authority to declassify the documents if he wanted, and his position was that he had done so. But even if Trump had a good or even excellent position that he had declassified the documents, he would not take the risk of disclosing their contents to defend himself. So it seemed like a total freebie for Biden to go on 60 Minutes in September and say “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”

Here is the picture that the Justice Department filed in court of the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago:

Then on January 9 CBS News broke the story that a cache of classified documents had been discovered in a closet at Biden’s office at the “Penn Biden Center” in Washington, a supposed “think tank” funded by the University of Pennsylvania. Oops. “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”

This was not going to be an easy one to spin. But within a couple of days, the official talking point had emerged, as it always seems to do for the far left press. The official talking point was, this is different because Biden is “cooperating” with the government, whereas Trump was “resisting” the righteous efforts of the National Archives to get back the documents to which they are entitled and which only they can safeguard appropriately.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/charles-mcgonigal-indicted-russia-collusion-james-comey-crossfire-hurricane-fbi-11674685934?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

James Comey may have been right about Russia collusion after all. But instead of the Trump campaign, the alleged culprit was a member of Mr. Comey’s own team at the FBI.

In 2016 Mr. Comey appointed veteran agent Charles McGonigal to head the bureau’s counterintelligence efforts in New York, where he was involved in some of the most sensitive work. They included the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into claims that the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow to steal the 2016 election. Mr. McGonigal was arrested Saturday on twin indictments.

The New York indictment charges him with violating U.S. sanctions on Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch and crony of Vladimir Putin. It alleges that he and Sergey Shestakov—a former Soviet and Russian diplomat—were paid by Mr. Deripaska to investigate a rival oligarch. The two men also allegedly worked, unsuccessfully, to get Mr. Deripaska off the sanctions list. The money laundering charges stem from the attempt to cover up the payments.

Meanwhile in Washington, Mr. McGonigal was also indicted on nine counts of concealing his relationship with a former Albanian intelligence officer. The indictment says he accepted secret cash payments totaling $225,000 from this man. It also says that the FBI, at Mr. McGonigal’s request, opened an investigation into foreign lobbying in which the former Albanian intelligence officer served as a confidential informant.