RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/07/12/joe-bidens-ministry-of-truth/

Under President Joe Biden, the US government has undertaken ‘the most massive attack against free speech in United States history’. That was the extraordinary conclusion reached by a federal judge last week. The case of Missouri v Biden has exposed the incredible lengths to which the Biden White House and other federal agencies have gone to bully social-media platforms into removing political views they dislike.

On America’s Independence Day, the Fourth of July, US district judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction, stipulating that the federal government must cease from communicating with social-media companies for the purpose of ‘urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing’ them to remove or suppress ‘content containing protected free speech’. Essentially, government agencies are now prevented from getting the likes of Facebook, Twitter and other tech giants to censor content on their behalf.

Judge Doughty didn’t mince his words. He said the evidence presented in Missouri v Biden depicted an ‘almost dystopian scenario’. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the US government ‘seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth”’, he wrote. As the ruling notes, the US government worked with the Silicon Valley titans to suppress reports of the lab-leak theory of Covid’s origin, and to gag those who questioned the efficacy of masks, lockdowns and Covid vaccines.

What’s more, this assault on free expression extended far beyond Covid. Doughty’s 155-page ruling describes how the government squashed social-media coverage of many other inconvenient issues. In fact, the groundwork for what the plaintiffs called a ‘systemic and systematic campaign’ of censorship was actually laid by government officials in 2017, four years before Biden took office. Even when Donald Trump was president, officials suppressed stories that might have hurt his Democratic opponents, including the Hunter Biden laptop story and claims about election integrity in 2020, particularly around the security of postal voting.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-student-debt-forgiveness-supreme-court-income-based-repayment-plan-11f1c5fa?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden is determined to make student loans for college a new entitlement even after the Supreme Court struck down his $430 billion cancellation. The Education Department on Friday wrote off another $39 billion in debt. And this is only a down-payment on the President’s bigger plan to sweeten Obama-era repayment plans. Call it debt cancellation on the installment plan.

Obama-era repayment plans cap borrower monthly payments at 10% of discretionary income and let borrowers discharge unpaid debt after 10 to 25 years. Yet the Education Department said Friday that borrowers will receive credit for payments even during months when they weren’t making them. This adds up to $39 billion in new loan forgiveness.

The Administration also boasted that it has approved $116.6 billion in loan forgiveness to date, including $45 billion through “improvements” to public-service loan plans. That’s $68,828 of writeoffs on average for each qualifying government and nonprofit worker. Now the Administration plans to “improve” repayment plans for all borrowers.

The Education Department plans to slash payments to 5% of discretionary income, which would be redefined to exclude more earnings. Borrowers earning less than $32,800 wouldn’t pay a cent. Even years in which they don’t make payments, as during the pandemic, would be counted toward their required payments.

The Administration estimates that a typical graduate of a four-year public university would save nearly $2,000 a year, or about $40,000 over 20 years. That’s several thousand dollars more than the already generous Obama writeoffs, and loan balances wouldn’t grow from unpaid interest as they do now.

A grad earning $50,000 with $50,000 in debt would have to pay only $860 a year compared to some $6,200 under a standard payment plan. Borrowers would have an incentive to take out more debt, and colleges would raise tuition. The Biden plan includes no reforms that would mitigate this debt ratchet.

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/07/donald-trump-and-the-standard-of-evidence/

The headline on the New York Times story of ex-President Trump’s indictment is a wonderfully unintentional guide to the topsy-turveydom of American life in the Biden era: “US Justice System Put on Trial as Trump Denounces the Rule of Law”. To start with, the front-page piece is not a simple factual report—“Trump Indicted on Thirty-Seven Counts”, say—but “news analysis” which signalled Schumpeter’s definition of Marxism (“preaching in the garb of analysis”) even before Wokedom tightened its grip on US journalism.

It’s worse now, of course, and relentless too. An accompanying report inside warns in another headline that “Trump Backers Unleash Wave of Violent Threats, Worrying Some Analysts”. The worries of analysts don’t usually make it into headlines, and we don’t learn about the reactions of “other” analysts. Presumably, if quoted in the NYT, those complacent fellows would argue that the threats—one of which is the simple word “Retribution”—were religious and military metaphors used by all parties at times but, when employed by Republicans, more worrying than the actual if “largely peaceful” riots of the Left.

To revert to the front-page headline, though, Trump did not in fact “denounce the rule of law” unless every indicted man who proclaims his innocence is held to be denouncing it. He said that law enforcement had been “hijacked” by the Democrats, including elected Democratic prosecutors, to take out the most formidable opponent they face in next year’s presidential election, namely himself.

In a few paragraphs I’ll deal with the thirty-seven charges levelled against the former President by the Special Prosecutor looking into, inter alia, his retention of classified national security documents in insecure conditions in his Florida home, Mar-a-Lago. These are serious charges and pose a real threat, namely a long prison sentence. But his claim that the Democrats had hijacked law enforcement to take him out of the 2024 election is largely true.

Largely? Well, Trump is probably not the most formidable challenger Biden could face next year. He may be the strongest candidate in the GOP primaries, but his negatives are so high with the full electorate that he would probably lose to the President where a challenger like Florida’s governor, Ron de Santis, would enter the race as the favourite.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/07/13/and-just-like-that-its-no-longer-an-insurrection-n1710334

And just like that, the January 6 insurrection is no more. And the deconstruction story is really something. At the center of this narrative switcheroo is non-other than Ray Epps.

Before we get to that, let’s remember how we got here. It took only moments for the Democrat media complex to anoint the January 6 breach and riot at the U.S. Capitol Building an “insurrection.” As if beckoned by an unseen force, narrative builders dutifully lined up to receive the official wafer on their tongues, and voilà! “Trump supporters” who had never committed an act of violence at years of peaceful and crowded rallies were eligible for a 20-year prison stretch.

Shortly thereafter, the insurrection became a deadly insurrection when the same media reported, wrongly, that police officers were killed by rioters on January 6.

The only ones who died on January 6 were killed by police.

Awful it was, but insurrection? No.

Now, however, insurrection is just passé.

And you can thank Ray Epps

https://www.frontpagemag.com/affirmative-action-battle-moves-on-to-the-military/

One of the Biden administration’s big arguments for racially discriminating against white and Asian students in college admissions was the need for military diversity. More than half of the ‘national interest’ section in its amicus brief argued that the military “depends on a well-qualified and diverse officer corps” which requires that colleges select for diversity over merit.

“It is not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the Supreme Court.

The Roberts decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard shot down affirmative action as a legal practice, but punted on the question of racial discrimination within the military and its service branch academies. A footnote briefly stated that, “no military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below addressed the propriety of race-based admissions systems in that context. This opinion also does not address the issue, in light of the potentially distinct interests that military academies may present.”

The idea that racial discrimination should be illegal at colleges, but still legal at service branch academies like the Air Force Academy and the Naval Academy, is a loophole. Justice Sotomayor argued that the exception proves that “the Fourteenth Amendment does not categorically prohibit the use of race in college admissions.” And it’s hard to deny her reasoning. Either racially discriminating against students is legal or it’s illegal. National security can only go so far to justify an illegal practice especially when it’s a social element with an indirect effect.

Democrats quickly attacked Justice Roberts for seemingly leaving the carveout on military diversity that the Biden administration had demanded as a matter of national security.

“Adding insult to injury is that the Court exempted military service academies, like West Point and the Naval Academy, from its own ruling,” Rep. Elissa Slotkin complained. “So the majority on the Court does in fact recognize the inherent importance of a diverse military and that diversity makes our country not only more fair, but more stable and secure — but they refuse to allow our colleges and universities to hold the same values.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/12/ten-reasons-why-affirmative-action-died/

The end of affirmative action was inevitable. The only surprise was that such intentions gone terribly wrong lasted so long.

First, supporters of racial preferences always pushed back the goal posts for the program’s success. Was institutionalized reverse bias to last 20 years, 60 years, or ad infinitum? Parity became defined as an absolute equality of result. If “equity” was not obtained, then only institutionalized “racism” explained disparities. And only reverse racism was deemed the cure.

Second, affirmative action was imposed on the back end in adult hiring and college admissions. However, to achieve parity, remediation early at the K-12 school level would have been the only solution. Yet such intervention was made impossible by teachers’ unions, the rise of identity politics and government entitlements. All were opposed to school choice, self-help programs, critiques of cultural impediments, or restrictions on those blanket entitlements,

Third, class, the true barometer of privilege, was rendered meaningless. Surrealism followed. The truly privileged Barack and Michelle Obama and Meghan Markel lectured the country on its unfairness—as if they had it far rougher than the impoverished “deplorables” of East Palestine, Ohio.

Fourth, affirmative action supporters could never square the circle of proving that racial prejudices didn’t violate the spirt of the Declaration of Independence and the text of the Constitution. What they were left with was the lame argument that because long ago the 90% white majority had violated their own foundational documents, then such past bad unconstitutional bias could legitimately be rectified by present-day “good” unconstitutional bias.

Fifth, supporters never adequately explained why the sins of prior generations fell on their descendants who grew up in the post-Civil Rights era. Nor could they account for why those who had never experienced institutionalized racism, much less Jim Crow apartheid or slavery, were to be compensated collectively for the suffering of long-dead individuals. No wonder 70% of the American people in many polls favored ending affirmative action including a half of African-Americans.

Sixth, there never was a “rainbow” coalition of shared non-white victimhood—a concept necessary to perpetuate the premise of white privilege, supremacy, and rage, so integral to race-based reverse discrimination. More than a dozen ethnicities earn more per capita than do whites.

Asians have been subject to coerced internment, immigration restrictions and zoning exclusions. Yet on average they do better than whites economically and enjoy lower suicide rates and longer life expectancies. The arguments for affirmative action never explained why Asians and other minorities who faced discrimination outperformed the majority white population. As a result, affirmative action ended up discriminating against Asians on the premise they were too successful!

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.