RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-us-reserves-head-overseas-gasoline-prices-stay-high-2022-07-05/

HOUSTON, July 5 (Reuters) – More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency oil reserves release aimed at lowering domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices touched record highs.

The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden designed to lower record pump prices. Biden on Saturday renewed a call for gasoline suppliers to cut their prices, drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

About 1 million barrels per day is being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) through October. The flow is draining the SPR, which last month fell to the lowest since 1986. U.S. crude futures are above $105 per barrel and gasoline and diesel prices above $5 a gallon in one-fifth of the nation. U.S. officials have said oil prices could be higher if the SPR had not been tapped.

The fourth-largest U.S. oil refiner, Phillips 66 (PSX.N), shipped about 470,000 barrels of sour crude from the Big Hill SPR storage site in Texas to Trieste, Italy, according to U.S. Customs data. Trieste is home to a pipeline that sends oil to refineries in central Europe.

Yesterday in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, a rooftop gunman opened fire on the July 4 parade, killing at least six innocent people and wounding many others. As always in such cases, the first reaction on social media was not sympathy for the victims but immediate attempts by both left and right to blame the other side for inspiring a lunatic’s rampage. Within minutes each side was combing Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo and all the rest for ‘evidence’ to make their cases.

The suspect, identified as 22-year-old Robert ‘Bobby’ Crimo, is the son of a Highland Park small-business owner who recently contested the suburb’s mayoralty. Therefore, in the grand tradition of social media speculation, he must be a Donald Trump supporter because an entrepreneurial dad could only ever sire a fascist. As so many have noted, intelligence has never been a requirement for floating one’s insights in the Twitter sewer.

Right-leaning social media types were no less quick to identify a murderous leftist, observing that suspect Cimo’s facial and neck tattoos would not be out of place at an Antifa riot.

It will be for the courts to decide which motivation, if any, was at work in Highland Park, but a couple of recent social media post, though not directly related to the shooter, might help to explain the  mindset of those who treat a nation’s birthday celebration as an obscenity. One such example is atop this column, a tweet from Denver’s Democratic Socialists inviting one and all to come burn Ol’ Glory.

What credence, you might say, can be placed in the ratbaggery of a political party even further to the left than the most wild-eyed Democrats? As the tweeted invitation below attests, a faction in the ‘mainstream’ party of Biden, Schumer and Pelosi shares the same sentiment.

— roger franklin

https://amgreatness.com/2022/07/04/another-january-6-lie-no-armed-mob/

To hear Andrew McCarthy tell it, Donald Trump’s racuous speech at the Ellipse on January 6 ended with a “Braveheart” moment when the president beseeched his throng of weapon-wielding supporters to attack government leaders at the U.S. Capitol that afternoon.

Last week’s testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, the junior White House aide who made a number of dubious claims under oath, has been accepted as fact by most of the corporate news media and NeverTrump pundits including McCarthy, as I explained here. In response to leading questions by Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Hutchinson claimed both the president and chief of staff Mark Meadows knew by mid-morning that the crowd was filled with “armed” supporters but Trump nonetheless urged those alleged self-styled soldiers to head to Capitol Hill as the joint session of Congress was underway.

In a clip of her closed-door testimony to the committee—the loquacious aide met three times with committee investigators talking for roughly 20 hours relying at times on a thick folder of notes—Hutchinson ticked off a list of weapons allegedly confiscated by 10 a.m. as rally-goers passed through security screeners known as magnetometers. Reading from a page in her binder, Hutchinson recalled a conversation with deputy White House chief of staff Tony Ornato, who described the cache to Meadows and her. “I remember Tony mentioning knives, guns in the form of pistols and rifles, um, bear spray, body armor, spears, and flagpoles,” she said.

She further stated that Ornato informed the president about the seized weapons but Trump dismissed any concern and instead instructed his team to “take the effing mags away,” referring to the magnetometers, Hutchinson claimed.

Cheney added more flair to the dramatic scenario by playing radio transmissions she said were obtained from the D.C. Metro Police department. One dispatcher reported that “three men walking down the street in fatigues carrying AR-15 . . . at 14th and Independence.” Another recording indicated a man with a “rifle” was seen near the Ellipse.

Setting aside serious questions as to why these men weren’t found and arrested given their close proximity not only to the president but numerous government officials present at the rally that morning, if true, how is that Trump’s fault? Why did Cheney assume the alleged “armed” men were Trump supporters? She had no other identifying information like, say, an arrest record detailing the motive of the suspects. Who were they? Were their weapons even real? Loaded?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidenomics-101-joe-biden-tweet-gas-prices-refiners-markets-jeff-bezos-11656892820?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Business leaders have chalked up President Biden’s attacks on oil companies to political cynicism, but maybe they’re too generous. His tweet over the weekend ordering gas stations to lower prices betrayed a willful ignorance about the private economy.

“My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: this is a time of war and global peril,” Mr. Biden tweeted Saturday. “Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you’re paying for the product. And do it now.” Had Donald Trump issued such a command as President, the left would have cried “authoritarian.”

It’s embarrassing for the leader of the free world to sound like he’s channeling Hugo Chávez. A Chinese state media flack praised Mr. Biden’s tweet: “Now US President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn’t believe this before.” Or maybe he did, and nobody wanted to believe it.

You’d think that the President’s Ivy League-educated economic advisers would have informed him that large refiners own fewer than 5% of all gas stations in America. More than 60% are operated by an individual or family that owns a single store, and the rest are independently owned chains or grocery stores that sell fuel. Many license brands from refiners.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/07/the_sinister_strategy_of_the_progressives_running_the_democrat_partu.html

“Democrats are using a Leninist strategy to overthrow a government and install socialism.  By creating as much chaos, strife, terror, and pain on a populace and blaming these problems on the existing government, people will then be more susceptible to believing the lie that socialism will restore order, peace, and stability — enabling them to seize power and control. ”

Biden, leftist progressive Democrats, and legacy and social media news have all promoted a psychotic and psychopathological hatred of Trump, Republicans, conservatives, Christians, capitalism, our Constitution, and anyone who opposes or questions their policies.

Election improprieties were ignored and are not covered, yet they oppose commonsense election integrity laws such as requiring an ID to vote, and they call for “common sense gun laws.”

Our legacy news media spread Democrat talking points, propaganda, and lies.  For years they touted the Hillary-Clinton-paid-for, fake, and salacious Steele Dossier as true.  They have said “inflation will be transitory, high gas prices are not our fault, and our economy is much better under Biden.”  They have claimed that “America does not have open borders” as we see thousands freely crossing.  They say “crime is down” while at the same time releasing violent criminals back into our neighborhoods.  They ignore and not report contrary FBI reports documenting the tremendous increase in violent crime in Democrat-run cities.

Meanwhile, our schools are indoctrinating 1st- to 3rd-graders with hateful identity politics, promoting socialism as good and capitalism as bad, touting racist Critical Race Theory as anti-racist, preaching that Marxist “equity” theory needs to replace our foundation of “equality,” touting transgenderism and pedophilia as normal, and encouraging “sex change” surgery and puberty-blockers on our children.

https://freebeacon.com/columns/whos-in-charge/

“Which way am I going?” asked President Biden when he ended Thursday’s press conference at the NATO summit in Madrid. He began to exit stage right, before someone redirected him toward stage left. This combination of ignorance and indecision was not new. Throughout his 18 months as president, Biden has been confused, uncertain, sluggish. He behaves as if he is guided by unseen forces. He moves on a course set by hidden captains.

People notice. Every time I speak to a conservative audience, I am asked who is really in charge in the White House. My answer has been that the president is in command. After all, institutions take on the character of their leaders. If all the White House has to offer is excuses, if decisions are made either slowly or randomly, if the communications team and the president and vice president seem to live on different planets, if incompetence and mismanagement appear throughout the government, it is because the chief executive allows it. No conspiracy is required to explain the ineptitude. This is Joe Biden we are talking about.

Lately, though, I have been having second thoughts. Not that Barack Obama or Ron Klain or Dr. Jill are running the show in secret. What I have been wondering, instead, is whether anyone is leading the government at all. There is no power, either overt or covert, in or behind the throne. The throne is empty.

Think of the economy, the border, and Ukraine. From time to time, Biden addresses these issues. He may even answer questions about them. The White House sends out press releases describing its latest initiatives. Vice President Harris or the second gentleman pops up somewhere to talk about all the good she and he are doing.

Yet each of these elements—the president, his staff, his spokesperson, his vice president, his policy—comes across as disconnected, discombobulated, as if each inhabits a separate sphere of activity. Whether because of Biden’s age, or his weekend trips to Delaware, or years of remote work, or lower-level staff turnover, or a painstakingly slow decision-making process, or ideological stubbornness, or a lack of a strategic plan, this administration drifts from crisis to crisis, and from one bad headline to the next. And nothing improves.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2022/07/the-abolitionist-aftermath-of-the-american-revolution/

The presence of slavery at the Founding is America’s great stain, but the Revolution was the beginning of its erasure.

‘I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

Those were the words of John Adams in a letter to his wife, Abigail, after the Continental Congress’s approval of the Declaration of Independence. In predicting that America’s Independence Day would be celebrated in epochs succeeding his, he was mostly correct, but he was wrong on a couple of things. First, he was referring to July 2, when the Congress voted on the resolution on independence, not July 4, the day of its signing that we celebrate instead. Second, while most people in the country give proper due to the heroism of the Founding Fathers, some choose to denounce them. Their chief complaint is that Adams and the others did not do enough to outlaw slavery from the country’s outset. This grievance is pretty solid. Slavery is a moral abomination, and our country’s dereliction is our original sin.

But to say that the American Revolution was a mistake because of it, as did “3 Reasons the American Revolution Was a Mistake,” a notorious piece from Vox, is ill-advised and discounts the abolitionist fire already burning in the nascent nation. A main thrust of the argument is that America should have remained under British tyranny because the Crown outlawed slavery throughout the Empire in 1833, more than 30 years before the 13th Amendment in the United States. The factual basis for the claim is true, technically — but certain American states made tremendous gains for abolition in the immediate aftermath of the Revolution, which set the course for the country as a whole in the clash yet to come.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2022/07/04/the-establishment-is-running-out-of-cannon-fodder-for-its-woke-military-n2609664

Jump out of a perfectly good airplane, charge a machine gun nest, be stationed at Ft. Irwin – these are just three of the myriad miseries American patriots are willing to endure to defend our country. But today’s military is asking too much of our young people, as evidenced by the crashing recruitment rates that threaten to deplete a military already running short of soldiers. Have our young people suddenly turned from heroes to zeros, ne’er-do-well heirs of the brave warriors who confronted the forces of tyrannical gun control at Lexington and Concord?

No. The kids are alright. The problems lie echelons above.

Here’s a little leadership secret that’s actually not a secret at all to competent commissioned and non-commissioned officers. There are no bad cohorts of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and whatever the hell Space Force people are called. There are only bad leaders, and we have the worst military leadership in American history, starting right at the top with a commander-in-chief who is less like Ike than Beavis.

In fact – and this rips me up to say because I would not trade my about 27 years in the Army for anything – the reluctance to enlist of the traditional, normal Americans who are most likely to serve and who are the most desirable for service, is entirely rational. You do have an obligation to serve your country in some way, the military being the highest and best way for those who are able. But you do not have an obligation to do so if your life is going to be squandered by a leadership whose strategies are a disaster, whose priorities are not the defense of this country but some sort of bizarre pan-global progressive ideology, and who will use you as a guinea pig in freakish and morally bankrupt social experiments, all while failing to fulfill even the most basic obligations of the leaders to the led. Our military today is failing to meet its recruiting goals because it has failed to earn the trust of normal Americans who would otherwise be inclined to raise their hands.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18659/woke-inquisitors

Once governments normalize censorship and the punishment of points of view, free expression is firmly stamped with an expiration date.

Whenever censorship slithers back into polite society, it is always draped in the mantle of “good intentions.” Fifteenth-century Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola’s “bonfire of the vanities” destroyed anything that could be seen to invite or reflect sin. The notorious 1933 Nazi book burning… in Berlin torched some 20,000 books deemed subversive or “un-German”. During Communist China’s decade-long Cultural Revolution in the 1960s and ’70s, the vast majority of China’s traditional scrolls, literature and religious antiquities went up in smoke.

All three atrocities were celebrated as achievements for the “greater good” of society… Much like today’s new censors who claim to “fight hate” because “that’s not who we are,” the arsonists of the past saw themselves as moral paragons, too. They purged anything “obscene” or “traditional” or “old,” so that theocracy, Nazism, or communism could take root and grow.

There will one day be much disagreement as to how the same Western Civilization that produced the Enlightenment and its hallowed regard for free expression could once again surrender itself to the petty tyranny of censorship…. The answer is that the West has fallen into the same trap that always catches unsuspecting citizens by surprise: the steady encroachment on free speech has been sold as a “virtue” that all good people should applaud.

First, certain thoughts became “aggravating factors” that turned traditional crimes into new “hate crimes” deserving of additional punishment. Then the definition of what is “hateful” grew until politicians could comfortably decree anything at odds with their agendas to be examples of “hate.” Who would be for “hate,” after all? Surely no-one of good sense or good manners.

Now “hate” has transformed into an elusive description for any speech that can be alleged to cause the slightest of harms. From there, it was easy for the state to decree that “disinformation,” or rather anything that can be seen to contradict the state’s own official narratives, causes “harm,” too. Those who despise free speech told society, “If you do not punish hate, then you’re a bigot.” And today, if you oppose the government’s COVID-19, climate change, immigration or other contentious policies, your harmful “disinformation” must be punished, too.

On a plaque in the square [where the Nazis burned books] is a commemorative engraving… “That was only a prelude; where they burn books, they will in the end also burn people.” That warning comes with no expiration date.

Attacks on free speech are on the rise. A British college recently expelled a student for expressing support for the government’s official policy of deporting illegal immigrants. A Wisconsin school district charged three middle-schoolers with sexual harassment last month for refusing to use the plural pronoun “they” when referring to a single classmate. US President Joe Biden’s National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy recently encouraged social media companies to censor from their online platforms any opinions that contradict Biden’s climate change narrative.