RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/courage-strength-optimism/the-grotesque-politicization-of-hurricane-ian

Hurricane Ian ravaged Florida this week and caused enormous suffering. Hundreds have possibly died, a tragic toll that will most likely continue to grow. Millions are without power. The scope and scale of property destruction are impossible to put into words. And while many are stepping up to provide aid and support charitable efforts , much of the country is descending into political squabbles and partisan combat over it all.

The grotesque politicization of Hurricane Ian has come in two primary forms.

The first is a concentrated effort to exploit the natural disaster to push a Green-New-Deal-esque climate change agenda. The most prominent example of this blatant politicization is a now-viral interview in which CNN host Don Lemon repeatedly attempts to get an expert to blame Hurricane Ian on climate change.

When the expert calmly explains that no single disaster can be directly blamed on climate change, Lemon doesn’t accept this answer and asks again. (Now, another guest will apparently be going on to provide a more politically satisfying version of the “science.”)

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/28/why-ray-epps-matters/

For those who do not know who Ray Epps is and why he matters—and this includes most Democrats and many journalists—U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) served up a handy reference guide last week. Gosar did this in the form of a resolution of inquiry (ROI) directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to hand over all documents relevant to the Epps case within 14 days. 

“Multiple videos show Ray Epps repeatedly urging crowds of people in Washington, D.C. on January 5 and January 6, 2021, to go to the United States Capitol and breach the building,“ Gosar explained. “Epps is the one person seen on video directing people towards the Capitol seconds before violence broke out, yet he has never been arrested or charged with any crime while more than 800 others have and countless more remained jailed.”

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday of last week, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) went into more detail, showing numerous video clips and citing Epps’ own admission, captured on video, “I’ll probably go to jail for this. I’ll probably be arrested.” 

Epps had good reason to worry. In his red Trump hat and camo gear, a head taller than those around him, Epps was the most conspicuous of all the January 6 protestors. In fact, he was the only one caught on camera urging others to “go in to the Capitol,” which he did repeatedly on January 5. So suspicious was his behavior that his fellow protestors chanted “no, no, no” and “Fed, Fed, Fed,” over one of his many exhortations.

One video from January 6 shows Epps telling a protester, “When we go in, leave this here. We don’t need to get shot.” The unseen “this” was likely a weapon, perhaps a gun. More damning still, another video captures Epps whispering into the ear of a protester seconds before the young man helped make the first breach of the Capitol Police’s inept defenses.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/28/the-thinnest-veneer-of-civilization/

Civilization is fragile. It hinges on ensuring the stuff of life. 

To be able to eat, to move about, to have shelter, to be free from state or tribal coercion, to be secure abroad, and safe at home—only that allows cultures to be freed from the daily drudgery of mere survival.  

Civilization alone permits humans to pursue sophisticated scientific research, the arts, and the finer aspects of culture. 

So, the great achievement of Western civilization—consensual government, individual freedom, rationalism in partnership with religious belief, free market economics, and constant self-critique and audit—was to liberate people from daily worry over state violence, random crime, famine, and an often-unforgiving nature. 

But so often the resulting leisure and affluence instead deluded arrogant Western societies into thinking that modern man no longer needed to worry about the fruits of civilization he took to be his elemental birthright. 

As a result, the once prosperous Greek city-state, Roman Empire, Renaissance republics, and European democracies of the 1930s imploded—as civilization went headlong in reverse.  

We in the modern Western world are now facing just such a crisis. 

We talk grandly about the globalized Great Reset. We blindly accept the faddish New Green Deal. We virtue signal about defunding the police. We merely shrug at open borders. And we brag about banning fertilizers and pesticides, outlawing the internal combustion engine, and discounting Armageddon in the nuclear age—as if on autopilot we have already reached utopia. 

But meanwhile Westerners are systematically destroying the very elements of our civilization that permitted such fantasies in the first place.  

https://www.frontpagemag.com/will-biden-get-bailed-out-on-she-was-12-i-was-30/

You saw the creepy video right?

It muddied up social media feeds all weekend. People that have never expressed a single political viewpoint to me reacted with gross abhorrence to what Joe Biden appeared to seemingly imply.

As he wraps up some remarks in the video he spots someone in the crowd and in typical Biden stream of consciousness he abruptly changes subjects. Looking directly at the woman he has just spotted he bluntly instructs, “(You) gotta say ‘Hi’ to me.”

Then to the watching crowd he states, “We go back a long way, she was 12 and I was 30 but anyway…”

The crowd belly laughs.

Understanding that legitimate sexual misconduct claims abound all throughout the Biden family I began to ponder how this video—that went everywhere—can be dealt with.

In older chapters of Joe Biden’s life no one cares that Jill Biden was married when she first met Joe. They don’t much seem to care that she was still married when they began to date in March of 1975.

That Hunter Biden took up with his deceased brother’s wife also didn’t seem to matter.

Formal accusations of sexual misconduct by non-family members didn’t phase anyone. And the literally hundreds of  images of Joe Biden, touching, kissing, refusing to let go of, and of course sniffing bother some. He’s done it to women of all ages-school aged little girls all the way up to whatever age Hillary Clinton purports to be.

Yet in recent years there has been a bit of out-sized interest in some of the misconduct alleged of he and his family members.

We have one single goal: to capture government spending and show you how your tax dollars are being “invested.” Remember, it’s YOUR money!

After a dogfight lasting a decade, OpenTheBooks:

successfully opened up the California state checkbook for the first time in history;
uncovered $300+ million in third-party royalty payments to the National Institutes of Health, its leaders and 2,250 of its scientists;
Not to mention being canceled by Forbes after we published investigations on the highest paid federal employee, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

But those are just a few things we’ve done this year. And we aren’t stopping…

Learn more. Last weekend, our CEO and founder, Adam Andrzejewski, presented to the Road To Freedom Seminar at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara hosted by Young America’s Foundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–QS_UyW2SY

https://amac.us/soros-backed-prosecutors-face-backlash-in-virginia/

In what has become a disturbing and alarming pattern in Fairfax County, Virginia, a defendant charged with sexually assaulting a minor walked free with only misdemeanor charges last week following a mishandling of the case by Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano, one of nearly 100 Democrat prosecutors funded by far-left billionaire George Soros. Now, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares are ramping up pressure on Descano as well as the Old Dominion’s other radical prosecutors to enforce the law, just the latest example of widespread backlash against Soros-backed prosecutors’ radical criminal justice “reform” agenda.

In the case that concluded last week and drew considerable public outrage, 36-year-old Ronnie Reel, who was originally arrested in July of 2021 on charges of forcible sodomy and aggravated sexual battery against an 11-year-old boy, was released on time served. According to the victim’s mother, Reel “was confessing every little detail that he did, and it was making me sick to my stomach…It was horrible. He literally confessed to me why he did it.”

The case seemed like a slam dunk, and a successful conviction likely would have led to the offender receiving life in prison. But when the case came to trial, the Judge ruled that most of the evidence, including the criminal’s confession, was inadmissible in court due to Descano’s office missing a filing deadline. The case then fell on the shoulders of the 11-year-old victim, who was forced to testify to the assault. Without the corroborating evidence, it was clear that the sex offender would be found not guilty. Descano ultimately offered the sex offender a deal in which he needed only to plead guilty to Misdemeanor Assault and Battery. Notably, the charges Reel pled guilty to do not require him to register as a sex offender, and he is not on supervised probation.

Descano has denied any responsibility for the failure, and incredibly seemed to blame the adolescent victim, saying in a statement that “young victims often have difficulty recalling the details of such significant trauma – which is why prosecuting these crimes is uniquely challenging.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/3664064-the-west-needs-leadership-biden-has-failed-the-test/

Global economies are in free fall even as inflation runs unchecked. The Western world looks to the president of the United States for leadership; they look in vain.

President Biden has not undertaken the two things that might help the economy here at home and others around the world regain their footing: stop the gusher of cash coming from the federal government and help U.S. oil and gas industries ramp up production to bring down energy prices.

By determining to cut our deficits and drive energy production higher, Biden could immediately signal that he is serious about helping the Federal Reserve fight inflation and willing to buck climate-obsessed progressives in his party in the face of a global emergency.

Currently, he is signaling the exact opposite. While Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has (finally) undertaken stiff measures to rein in money supply growth, the White House nullifies his efforts by continuing to pump money into the economy as fast as possible.

The latest spending spree from Biden is his plan to cancel student debt, a regressive program estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to cost $400 billion. Given that the CBO neglected to cost out parts of the program that could add to the tally, the Committee for a Responsible Government Budget puts the expense at closer to $600 billion.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/09/27/bidens-depletion-of-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve-could-be-catastrophic-soon-n1632699

Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan may have tanked his approval ratings, but record inflation and soaring gas prices kept them underwater.

As fuel prices reached historic highs, Biden stubbornly refused to do anything that would increase domestic supply, opting instead to buy fuel from overseas before eventually raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It was a foolish thing to do, and while gas prices have gone down, the impact of raiding the reserves is debatable. But one thing is for sure: Biden depleted the reserves, which are now at a 37-year low, to boost his poll numbers.

Now that Hurricane Ian is headed for Florida, the folly of Biden’s tactic is on full display.

That’s not to say he shouldn’t have seen this coming. Jeffrey Lord predicted this exact scenario back in July.

“The Biden administration, for political purposes with an eye on the November election, is using the SPR to lower the price of gas. And just where is the SPR getting its crude in the first place? That would be the Gulf of Mexico — which is exactly where so many hurricanes wind up in the United States,” Lord wrote at The American Spectator. “All of which means Biden is lowering U.S. reserves — and taking the chance that no hurricane will hit the gulf in this coming hurricane season that will halt the ability of the U.S. to refill the reserves it has used for the purely political purpose of lowering the price of gas at the pump.”