RUTHFULLY YOURS

www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/05/ny-times-slow-joe-getting-slower.php?

The New York Times has a remarkable story out this weekend that offers its typical “behind the scenes” construction of how the White House operates—in this case, under President Biden. While the story tries to soften the blows with lots of fluff and filler, it paints a devastating picture of Biden for the careful reader. It explains he has a quick temper, takes a long time to make decisions, and needs to be heavily propped up by staff to function. It reminds us that Biden is indeed a creature of the Senate, where he mostly attended hearings, made speeches, fiddled with legislation, and seldom made any decisions that suggested executive skill (Quick—can anyone name a major piece of Biden legislation? The crime bill of 1994? Likely written mostly by the Clinton Justice Department. The bankruptcy reform bill of 2007? Likely written largely by Delaware-based banks. You get the picture.)

Here’s one early paragraph:

On policy issues, Mr. Biden, 78, takes days or weeks to make up his mind as he examines and second-guesses himself and others. It is a method of governing that can feel at odds with the urgency of a country still reeling from a pandemic and an economy struggling to recover.

One passage details weeks and weeks of meetings, briefings, and deliberations about how to confront Putin, culminating with this astonishing paragraph:

In the end, Mr. Biden called Mr. Putin directly and then delivered a public statement on Russia sanctions that lasted only five minutes and 49 seconds. For as much as Mr. Biden projects an aura of ease — with his frequent backslapping, references to Irish poetry and liberal use of the phrase “c’mon, man” — his aides say it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to prepare him to project an assured demeanor.

www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/05/the_beasts_smell_blood.html?

China and Russia are aggressively raising their stakes against Taiwan and Ukraine.  Why?  Just take a sober view of Biden’s America, at war with itself.  China and Russia came to a pragmatic conclusion: America in 2021 has neither the desire nor the courage nor the political will to protect itself and its allies.

It was under Biden that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline work continued.  It was under Biden that the preparations for the seizure of Taiwan by China entered the final phase.  Under Biden, China’s seizure of the South China Sea, suspended by Trump, is close to completion.  Under Biden, both Russia and China decided on something that was simply unthinkable under Trump — they forced preparations for open aggression against neighbors.

Trump, at the end of a dinner with the Chinese leader, three months into his presidency, fired 60 Tomahawk missiles at Syria.  Everything was organized so no one doubted that the missiles were intended for China and Russia’s leaders, although they were fired into Syria.  A year later, in February 2018, a platoon of American Rangers defeated a battalion tactical group of Russian mercenaries in Syria.  Of the 500 people, few survived, and all 27 tanks and armored vehicles were destroyed in a four-hour battle.

Both China and Russia immediately realized that, with Trump, the guy who brought down a billion dollars’ worth of missiles while sweets were being served, it was necessary to remain within the bounds of decency.  Under Biden, no one is going to remain within these bounds.  On the contrary, Beijing and Moscow are well aware that Biden is a temporary, accidental person in the White House, and it is necessary to strike while the iron is hot.  Under Biden, Beijing’s and Moscow’s expansionist plans are destined to come true.

Russia and China are united against a common enemy.  China’s #1 territorial objective is the capture of Taiwan.  Russia’s territorial task #1 is the seizure of Ukraine.  Trump was an insurmountable obstacle to their aggressive plans for four years.  Putin has taught the world that he is amassing troops on the border with Ukraine every spring.  But with each escalation, nothing happens.  More precisely, nothing happened during the Trump era, but with Biden, it can explode.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/may/13/wheres-durham-investigation-russia-collusion-probe/?

Former President Trump gushed “I am so proud” when then-Attorney General William P. Barr tapped John Durham to look for widespread wrongdoing by FBI officials in the early stages of its Russia-collusion probe.

That was in May 2019.

Two years later, Mr. Trump and other conservatives mock the investigation that has practically disappeared without an utterance from Mr. Durham or any sign that he has uncovered anything.

“Where’s Durham?” Mr. Trump said in March. “Is he a living, breathing human being? Will there ever be a Durham report?”

Mr. Trump’s about-face is emblematic of the extent to which conservatives have soured on the Durham investigation. Those who once breathlessly predicted the probe would uncover a deep state conspiracy against Mr. Trump have now reduced it to a punchline.

When a poll last month revealed that 67% of Americans are unaware of the Durham probe, some internet jokesters wondered if Mr. Durham himself was among those oblivious to its existence.

As the investigation sputters toward its second anniversary on Thursday with few signs of life, conservatives are questioning what Mr. Durham has been up to for the past 24 months and if the public ever finds out, will anyone care?

“To say there has been a federal investigation into these FBI abuses and there has been one plea deal is to condemn it,” said Tom Fitton, president of the conservative activist group Judicial Watch. “You are describing failure.”

Once hopeful conservatives believed Mr. Durham would ride into town and aggressively expose malfeasance by Obama-era FBI and Justice Department officials. They expected his probe would shed light on whether FBI officials knowingly misled a court when it obtained permission to wiretap former Trump adviser, Carter Page.

Now they are puzzled as to why he has yet to interview FBI officials who held senior roles in 2016. Former FBI Director James B. Comey, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and anti-Trump investigator Peter Strzok haven’t spoken with Mr. Durham, according to people familiar with the probe.

Mr. Durham did interview former CIA Director John O. Brennan in 2020 but told him that he was not the target of any criminal inquiry. The reason for the Brennan interview remains opaque.

Robert Ray, who succeeded Kenneth Starr as independent counsel during investigations into then-President Clinton, said these types of investigations have a shelf life. The longer an investigation runs, the more obstacles emerge because witnesses’ memories fade and cooperation becomes more difficult to obtain.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/306076

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the Biden Administration for the ongoing Hamas and Islamic Jihad rocket fire on Israel.

“Biden delayed his call with Israeli leadership and restarted funding to the Palestinian Authority through the UN — both signal to Hamas & terrorists in the West Bank that America places less value on our relationship with Israel. It matters who leads,” the former secretary of state tweeted Wednesday,

Pompeo’s statement comes as over 1,050 rockets have been launched at Israel since Monday.

Six Israelis have been killed in the rocket attacks so far.

The Biden Administration has come under fire for drawing a moral equivalence between Hamas’ attacks on Israel’s efforts to defend itself. Yester, State Department Spokesman Ned Price stated that “Israel has the right to defend itself and to respond to rocket attacks. The Palestinian people also have the right to safety and security just as Israelis do.”

“We call on all sides to exercise restraint and calm,” Price said, lamenting the loss of life on both sides and the hundreds of Arab rioters who were injured in clashes with Israeli police in Jerusalem prior to the rocket attacks,” Price said.

https://patriotpost.us/opinion/79815-biden-sets-everything-on-fire-2021-05-12?mailing_id=5833&utm_medium=email&utm_source=pp.email.5833&utm_campaign=alexander&utm_content=body

Joe Biden is the luckiest man to ever assume the presidency.

He succeeded an unpopular figure. He was inaugurated just two weeks after the dramatic storming of the U.S. Capitol by extremist Donald Trump supporters seeking to stop the certification of the 2020 election, which was also the beginning of the year after widespread race riots. He inherited COVID-19 vaccines and a vaccine rollout plan, and could rightly expect to ride the tsunami of natural economic recovery that was predicted for the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic; he inherited a series of historic Middle Eastern peace deals.

In other words, President Biden had it easy. All he had to do was nothing. He could expect a new era of good feelings emerging from a tumultuous time. He could expect a booming economy, a more peaceful Middle East, a solution to the pandemic. All he had to do was calm the waters.

This, after all, was what Americans voted for: not a transformational figure or a figure of radical change but a stodgy, supposedly empathetic grandfather figure who could barely be bothered to leave his basement for the entirety of the presidential campaign. Normalcy could be restored by installing a nearly inanimate object as president.

Instead, Biden has served as a facade for the most radical administration in modern American history. And America is already paying the price.

In his first few months in office, Biden rammed through a $1.9 trillion spending package that completely rewrote the bargain between individuals and the state, shifting the incentive structure for people to go back to work. He simultaneously proposed another $4 trillion in spending — to go along with the annual $4 trillion budget. The result: skyrocketing inflation in commodities, along with dramatic labor shortages resulting in an April shortfall of three-quarters of a million new jobs.

https://www.objectivityistheobjective.com/post/life-finds-a-way

“The kind of control you’re attempting here is… it’s not possible,” Dr. Malcom told billionaire John Hammond in the movie, Jurassic Park, when it was explained that all the dinosaurs on the island were female, because “there is no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park.” Dr. Malcom argued that, “life will not be contained. Life breaks free. Expands to new places and crashes through barriers.”

When asked by resident scientist Henry Wu, “You’re implying that a group composed entirely of females will… breed?” Dr. Malcolm simply replied, “life… finds a way.” He was proven right later in the movie when fellow scientist Dr. Grant stumbled upon a nest of recently hatched dinosaur eggs in the wild. Dr. Grant whispered to himself, “life finds a way.”

I thought of this quote many times over the last 15 months with each new mandate and restriction that was imposed on our country. No matter how much the government wanted to control and restrict small businesses and restaurants, many were able to “find a way” to work in and around the restrictions to stay viable, to stay alive. From hand sanitizing stations to social distancing tables to outdoor dining, curbside pick-up, or enhanced delivery service, these businesses found a way no matter how many rules and restrictions the government imposed on them which should have run them out of business.

This is why black markets spring up inside Communist and fascist countries. Black markets are free markets living alongside the restrictive controlling markets of totalitarian countries. But more to the point, black markets are life finding a way, not being contained, breaking free. That is the natural state of humanity, of all life, freedom.

When Facebook, Twitter, YouTube were censoring and blocking the accounts of conservatives, free speech Parler emerged and received millions of subscribers in one day. When they shut that platform down, other free speech sites Gab and Rumble popped up. Life finds a way. Do they think our voices will be contained? Do they think we will not find alternative avenues to voice our beliefs if these other sites get shut down as well? In Nazi Germany and Communist Russia when the government controlled the press and shut down dissenting voices, the truth was printed in basements and attics and spread through the underground. Life found a way.

We are living through a dystopian time in our country, a time that was never envisioned by our founders, a time that would have horrified them, a vision of our country completely opposite of the original vision. The rights and freedoms of United States citizens are being incrementally and systematically taken. But the level of control over the population that our current leaders are attempting is impossible. Life is freedom, and freedom is life, and life will always find a way.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/cia-dead-spy-stumbling-new-generation-self-serving-dysfunctional

I entered on duty with the CIA in September 1985. I spent a year in the Career Trainee Program and then, in September 1986, took up my work as the lone Honduran analyst in the Central American Branch. That was a hot position that put me in the frontline of one of the top foreign policy priorities at the time of the Reagan Administration–the Central American Wars and Soviet interference in Nicaragua. When I write, “hot position,” I mean that I was writing two to three times a week for the Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) and the National Intelligence Daily (NID).

I had a front-row seat to watch the struggle to present intelligence that cut against the grain of the political priorities of the Reagan Administration. I recall vividly sitting in a “Warning Meeting” that was chaired by the National Intelligence Officer (NIO) for Latin America. At one point during my briefing I referred to the Contras who were based in the Salient in southern Honduras. The NIO interrupted and ordered me to refer to them as “the Nicaraguan Democrat Resistance.” Me being me responded, “But the President calls them the Contras.” The NIO responded, “Yes, but he’s the President.”

When you start dictating politically correct language to an intelligence analyst you are on the threshold of Orwell’s 1984. I count myself fortunate to have worked at the CIA when it still had some shred of integrity intact. My experience was not the first time that a political agenda intruded on the intelligence process. Cuba in the 1960s and the Vietnam War preceded me as other dark examples of trying to cook the intelligence to match White House priorities.

Now we have this ridiculous recruiting video featuring the new generation of CIA officers:

The CIA has released its recruitment video that features an “intersectional” and “cisgender” Latina mother who says that her employment was not a slip through the cracks and wants to make it known she is “educated, qualified and competent.”

Instead of committing to serve America, this new generation is self-serving and dysfunctional.