RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/pride-vs-shame/

Perhaps America needs its own walk of shame. If we had one, the traffic would likely be pretty heavy, but the results might be the redemption of our corrupt and tainted souls.

DUBROVNIK, Croatia – Twenty-one episodes of the popular HBO series “Game of Thrones” were filmed in this city of 16th-century high walls and complicated history. One of them was shot along a section of St. Dominic Street, known as the walk of shame.

The very concept of shame seems foreign to us today, like the stockades of the American Puritan era which were designed to humiliate those who violated what were then cultural norms and serve as a warning to others not to tread similar paths.

After Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was recently censured by the Republican House for promoting the Russia collusion fiction in the 2020 election, Democrats chanted “shame, shame, shame.” It’s nice to know they have some standards besides the double standards they usually display.

At the end of the LGBTQIA+ community’s celebration of “Pride Month,” it might be worthwhile to consider some of the downsides of pride and its opposite — shame, or humiliation.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/loving_dad_joe_engages_son_in_life_of_crime.html

The propaganda ministry is in full spin mode, trying to explain why Joe Biden is parading around the world with Hunter in tow.  The two are together for state dinners, overseas junkets, and weekends at Camp David.  As the narrative goes, Hunter is a troubled man, victimized by the demon of addiction.  Any appearance of presidential impropriety is simply a loving father concerned about his son, holding him close to keep him out of trouble.

I say hogwash.

Organized crime bosses protect themselves from legal jeopardy by insulating themselves from the dirty work.  They use underlings to sell their product, collect the money, launder the money, and if necessary take the fall.  If a legal price is to be paid, it’s paid by the expendables.  The boss keeps them quiet with hush money, legal assistance, and witness intimidation.

Does anyone believe that a cartel boss helps an arrested underling out of love?  Nope.  He does it in service to his own selfish interests — which brings me to Hunter Biden’s loving father, Joe.

We’ve learned a great deal about the Biden family business in the last three years from abandoned laptops, congressional investigations, and federal whistleblowers.

We know that Hunter was working on a deal with a Chinese energy company in which 10 percent would go to the “big guy.”  We learned from Hunter’s business partner, Tony Bobulinski, that the “big guy” was Hunter’s code name for his dad, Joe Biden.  Oddly, Bobulinski was never interviewed by Biden’s consigliere or his crew, the Department of Justice.

What was Hunter selling to the Chinese?  We’ve learned that from WhatsApp text messages to Henry Zhao, the group chairman of China’s Harvest Fund Management.  He texted:

The Bidens are the best I know at doing exactly what the chairman wants from this [partnership].

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/12/56-of-voters-agree-biden-likely-took-bribes-in-office-ii-tipp-poll/

Whistleblowers allege President Joe Biden and his family have taken up to $30 million in illicit bribes and payments from foreign sources tied to China, Russia and Ukraine. Biden denies it. Do Americans believe him? No. By more than 2-to-1, they say they believe the whistleblowers, the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.

The online poll of 1,341 adults, taken July 5-7, asked respondents how likely is it that the claims are true? The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.7 percentage points.

The results weren’t close. Americans, by 56% to 27%, called Biden bribery charges “likely,” rather than “unlikely.” Further broken down, the “likely” responses included 34% who called it “very likely” compared to 21% who called it “somewhat likely.” Among the “unlikely” responses, only 12% said it was “not at all likely,” while 15% termed it “not very likely.”

Among the remainder, 18% overall said they weren’t sure.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/10/biden-widely-criticized-after-admitting-to-military-shortages-in-televised-interview/

On Sunday, Joe Biden admitted during a televised interview that the United States is low on 155 mm artillery ammunition rounds, leading to widespread backlash for an act that essentially revealed classified military information to the entire world.

As Fox News reports, Biden made the remarks in an interview on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, while the subject of the Ukraine war was being discussed. Biden was defending his administration’s controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, which he called a “transition period” until more munitions can be produced and sent to the war-torn country.

“This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it,” Biden told Zakaria in the interview. “And so, what I finally did, I took the recommendation of the Defense Department to – not permanently – but to allow for this transition period while we get more 155 weapons, these shells, for the Ukrainians.”

The crucial line from the exchange – “and we’re low on it” – has led to criticism, mockery, and warnings that a major national security secret was just leaked live to the entire world, including America’s adversaries.

“Love when the president of America goes on CNN to tell everyone we’re low on ammo,” said political operative Logan Dobson on social media.

“Joe Biden broadcasting to the world that the US is low on 155mm shells. Moron.” tweeted Steve Guest, a conservative commentator. “Does Biden not care that our adversaries in China are listening?”

Meanwhile, Biden’s main challenger in the 2024 Democratic primaries, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., criticized the decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine at all, highlighting the White House’s past statements condemning the use of such weapons.

“Last year, WH Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the use of cluster bombs a ‘war crime.’ Now President Biden plans to send them to Ukraine. Stop the ceaseless escalation! It is time for peace,” Kennedy tweeted.

“Biden was opposed to cluster bombs in 1982 as well, when he opposed their sale to Israel,” Kennedy pointed out in another tweet, before rhetorically asking: “What happened to his conscience?”

In response to the backlash, an Administration official was forced to do damage control by walking back Biden’s remarks, claiming that “everything we send to Ukraine is in excess of that. So, the U.S. is not running out of ammunition ourselves.”

“We are authorizing cluster munitions to ensure that Ukraine is not left defenseless while we wait for our own domestic production of ammunition to ramp up substantially, which we are in the process of doing as are our allies and partners,” the official added. “These cluster munitions are a bridge as we significantly increase production of ammunition over the coming months – and will have much higher production levels soon.”

https://victorhanson.com/awakening-the-snoring-conservative-dragon-part-four/

What can we do to resist Woke? Here are steps 7-10.

7. Continue demanding changes at the university—the incubator of the entire woke revolution. The point is not to harm but to save America’s once premier institution. Conservatives should insist on a program to save higher education to ensure our national preeminence. So:

A. Tax endowment income, given the universities are not just partisan but hyper-partisan and activist. Knowing their enormous income is not tax-free might sober up presidents to eliminate the costly commissars of the DEI industry that only audit and monitor but never teach, create, or advance research.

B. Get the government out of the $2-trillion student loan racket. By the government backing these enormous loans, students more likely default, universities more likely jack up their annual costs above the rate of inflation, and school years bloat from four years to six to eight, as teen-agers become twenty- and thirty-something drifters, with 3 units here, 6 there, going into fatal debt for a major that is often pushed down their throats but ultimately worthless. Again, financial sobriety and reality would check most of the current commissar excess.

C. Cut off all federal funds to universities that will not ensure Bill of Rights protections to their faculty and students. If speakers are shouted down and attacked, or if students are not provided due process when accused of thought crimes or sexual harassment, then universities should simply self-fund and not count on the taxpayers to subsidize their unconstitutional excesses. Why do universities customarily get away with violating the 1964 and 1965 Civil Rights acts by systematically segregating safe spaces, dorms, and graduation ceremonies on the basis of race?

D. Eliminate tenure and replace it with 5-year contracts that spell out required teaching performance, scholarship, and university service. Such requirements might curb politicking and put faculty back into the classroom and library.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/07/china_readying_for_total_war_america_laserfocused_on_pronouns_and_woodfired_pizza_ovens.html

The Chinese military is training kindergarteners in the ways of war.

According to scores of social media accounts reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is teaching the kiddies how to handle firearms and fight like soldiers in boot camps all across China this summer. The boot camps reportedly feature training for both boys and girls…involving a wide variety of ‘toy’ weapons, including knives, grenades, rifles, and shoulder-fired missiles. Moreover, the children are required to adopt military behavior– such as saluting– according to the schools’ social media posts.

Government documents note that the militarization of even extremely young Chinese is occurring subsequent to a 2019 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee decision to push for increased “National Defense Education,” which includes a mandate that schools hold National Defense Education activities starting in 2022.

Brandon Weichert, a U.S. Air Force consultant, told the DCNF “There’s sort of a ‘get ‘em while they’re young’ mentality that has always been part of the communist ethos.” Weichert added, “Xi Jinping is trying to inculcate not just a patriotic fervor among the next generation, but I think he’s trying to also create actual next soldiers for the inevitable campaigns that he plans on waging militarily.”

And we in America—and the West in general—are hell-bent on fighting climate change and trans phobia while also aggressively prosecuting a war against those who “misgender” or “deadname” someone. (And there’s also the Russia-Ukraine War, a conflict which we helped bring about, and which would not have occurred if the Clinton administration hadn’t cajoled Ukraine into handing its nuclear weapons over to Russia and/or if Trump were still in office.)

In China, kindergarteners are effectively mandated to take up arms for the glory of the CCP, but neither they nor adults are allowed to own or possess a firearm privately for their own use or protection. You must know how to use guns, grenades—and shoulder-fired missiles—for the advancement of the glorious communist cause, but are prohibited by the state from owning or using them to protect yourself and your family from criminals, and, well…the state. By contrast, Americans freedoms and security are guaranteed by the Second Amendment. Or they used to be.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/07/incorporating_outofstate_regulations_is_unconstitutional.html

Can one state implement a law enacted by another?

Can it enforce regulations set by bureaucrats in another?

If it does, isn’t the state ignoring the will of its people? And isn’t that unconstitutional? The commonsense answers are evident. But the practice of outsourcing is widespread in emissions regulation.

Besides Washington D.C., as many as 14 states – the CARB states, so called after the California Air Resources Board – apply the bluebook, California’s stringent air pollution control laws. In most of them, lawmakers have neither legislated on the matter nor consulted citizens.

This anomaly is being challenged as unconstitutional by Peters Brothers Inc., a trucking firm based in Lenhartsville, Pennsylvania. The family business owns a fleet of refrigerated trucks. Recent changes in California emission standards have imposed unexpected heavy expenses that were never deliberated by Pennsylvania’s legislators and citizens. The Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association (PMTA), another trucking company, and two truck dealers are also petitioners in the case. The case has been taken up by the pro bono Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), which takes a special interest in separation-of-powers cases.

In Peters Brothers Inc, et al. v. Pennsylvania Dept of Environmental Protection, et al, filed last month in the Commonwealth Court, Harrisburg, the PLF argues that only the Pennsylvania General Assembly can make laws for the state: the legislature speaks for, and is accountable to, the people it represents. The lawsuit’s direct challenge is to 25 Pa. Code § 126.501, which incorporates in Pennsylvania standards set by bureaucrats in California.

But it digs deeper. The Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board, which adopted regulations from California, claims it has rule-making authority under the Pennsylvania Air Pollution Control Act (PAPCA). The lawsuit asserts that this is invalid. It argues that if indeed the General Assembly, in framing PAPCA, gave the board, a state agency, the power to adopt California regulations, the Assembly has violated the non-delegation doctrine: a legislature cannot, after all, give away its law-making power.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-states-incomes-economic-growth-bureau-of-economic-analysis-465ce23?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden will never admit it, but he has Republican-led states to thank for the resilient U.S. economy and labor market. Witness how an earnings surge in right-leaning states is helping compensate for sluggish growth in progressive ones.

New state personal income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis highlights how aggregate worker and proprietor earnings in red states grew significantly more in the last year than in the blues. The disparity owes to GOP-led states adding more jobs, including in higher-paying industries like tech and finance, along with faster-growing wages.

Earnings nationwide rose 5.4% on average between the first quarters of 2022 and 2023, but much less in New York (2.6%), Indiana (2.6%), California (2.9%), Connecticut (3.4%), Rhode Island (3.6%), Maryland (4%), New Jersey (4.3%), Oregon (4.5%) and Illinois (4.6%). Apart from Indiana, these states are run by Democrats—and most have been for years. They boast high taxes and a high cost of living, which along with Covid lockdowns spurred increased out-migration during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, earnings in the same period surged in North Dakota (9.7%), New Mexico (9.6%), Nevada (9.1%), Florida (9.1%), Nebraska (8.6%), Hawaii (8%), South Carolina (8%), Alaska (7.9%) and Texas (7.7%).

How to explain this? California suffered from tech layoffs. Hawaii, Florida and Nevada benefited from a tourism resurgence after Covid’s Omicron wave ebbed. Higher oil and gas prices and production boosted earnings in New Mexico, North Dakota and Alaska, though less so in Texas, which has a more diverse economy.

States with higher earnings growth also tend to have lower tax rates as well as fast-growing populations. Consider neighboring Utah (7.2%) and Colorado (4.9%), which have similar economies but diverging political climates as Colorado becomes more like California. Could that be affecting its earnings growth?

https://www.thefp.com/p/trans-activists-killed-my-scientific-paper?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I am a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. I have been a professor for 34 years, and a researcher for 40. Over the decades, I have studied controversial topics—from IQ, to sexual orientation, to transsexualism (what we called transgenderism before 2015), to pedophilia. I have published well over 100 academic articles. I am best known for studying sexual orientation—from genetic influences, to childhood precursors of homosexuality, to laboratory-measured sexual arousal patterns. 

My research has been denounced by people of all political stripes because I have never prioritized a favored constituency over the truth. 

But I have never had an article retracted. Until now.

On March 29, I published an article in the prestigious academic journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Less than three months later, on June 14, it was retracted by Springer Nature Group, the giant academic publisher of Archives, for an alleged violation of its editorial policies.

Retraction of scientific articles is associated with well-deserved shame: plagiarism, making up data, or grave concerns about the scientific integrity of a study. But my article was not retracted for any shameful reason. It was retracted because it provided evidence for an idea that activists hate.

The retracted article, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” was coauthored with Suzanna Diaz, who I met in 2018 at a small meeting of scientists, journalists, and parents of children they believed had Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). 

ROGD was first described in the literature in 2018 by the physician and researcher Lisa Littman. It is an explanation of the new phenomenon of adolescents, largely girls, with no history of gender dysphoria, suddenly declaring they want to transition to the opposite sex. It has been a highly contentious diagnosis, with some—and I am one—thinking it’s an important avenue for scientific inquiry, and others declaring it’s a false idea advocated by parents unable to accept they have a transgender child.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/09/missouri-v-biden-july-4-ruling-is-poetic-justice-case-of-tipple-for-the-judge/

At some point in this column, I have probably had occasion to quote these famous lines from Walter Scott’s poem “Marmion”:

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive.” 

In another, better world, I like to think, the Bidens and their protectors and puppet masters would ruefully be contemplating Scott’s admonitory observation.

In this world, however, I suspect that—until quite recently, anyway—they had smugly sided with J.R. Pope’s sly amendment to Scott’s moralizing couplet:

“But when we’ve practiced for a while 

How vastly we improve our style.”  

I note that Pope’s amusing title for his opuscule is “A Word of Encouragement.”

Many of us feel a great contradiction at the heart of the Biden phenomenon.

On the one hand, he—“Big Guy” Joe—and his entire Snopes-like family—coke-head Hunter, “Dr.” Jill, the litter of grasping, on-the-make siblings—all seem like ciphers, the veritable incarnation of Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland, CA: “there’s no there there.”

Indeed, from this point of view, Joe’s painful mental and, increasingly, physical vacancy seems to be the objective correlative for the entire Biden enterprise. It’s as if the nasty brother of the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz suddenly came to life and occupied the White House. “If I only had a brain,” he snarls softly to himself, frightening everyone around him.

And that “as if” brings me to the extraordinary “other hand.” Joe Biden is president of the United States, still, if just barely, the most important political office in the world. Amazing. How could that be? Talk about going from zero to one!