RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Left’s crusade against Republican presidential electors is kicking into high gear even as the CIA-attributed story that Russian hackers won the White House for Donald Trump is going up in flames.

There is still no evidence –at least none that has been made publicly available– that the Russian government or Russian-backed cyber militias hacked anything to help Trump win the election but that’s not halting the Left’s efforts to delegitimize his presidency before it even begins.

Against this backdrop, members of the Electoral College are preparing to gather this Monday in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to fulfill their constitutional duty. Adding to the drama, some electors are demanding intelligence briefings on the alleged hacking before they vote.

But sometimes not everyone on the Left gets the memo.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday undermined the Left’s post-election jihad against Trump by rejecting the proposition that the Russian government (or anyone) hacked into voting machines used in the recent election.

“We didn’t see any sort of technical interference that people had concerns about, in terms of voting machines and the like,” she said at an event hosted by Politico.

While community organizers across America whip their followers into a state of frenzy, stories are still being planted in the media by the Central Intelligence Agency or sources claiming to speak for the spy agency. Yet the CIA refuses to be held to account.

When federal lawmakers did their job this week and demanded proof of the Russian hacking allegations, intelligence agencies refused to show up to provide congressional testimony.

Most reasonable people would infer from this appallingly arrogant behavior by the CIA, which has long been home to left-wing Democrats and squishy moderate Republicans, that all this damning evidence we keep hearing about does not actually exist.

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) blasted “Intelligence Community directors” for their “intransigence in sharing intelligence with Congress [which] can enable the manipulation of intelligence for political purposes.”

Intelligence overseer Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) is hopping mad over the CIA’s obstructionism. It is “absolutely disgraceful,” he said, that the intelligence community is refusing to brief lawmakers about the alleged Russian hacking program while false information is being surreptitiously funneled to the media to discredit Donald Trump.

“There is no consensus opinion, and yet we find it in the New York Times and the Washington Post and yet the House Committee on Intelligence was told nothing about this,” King said.

“This violates all protocols and it’s almost as if people in the intelligence community are carrying out a disinformation campaign against the president-elect of the United States,” King said. He acknowledged it is possible that someone in Congress could also be leaking false information.

Obama White House press secretary Josh Earnest escalated the time-limited administration’s war of words against the incoming president.

Kids own their bodies, and must give consent before hugs and kisses from Grandma. That’s an argument from Scary Mommy:

Teaching children about consent is crucial, so why do some parents still insist their kids hug and kiss relatives even if they don’t want to? As consent and bodily autonomy become a bigger conversation, there are those speaking out about how we need to give children agency over their own bodies — even if it means turning down hugs from grandma and grandpa.

The piece shares this meme found on social media:

Author Valerie Williams expounds:

…how many of us grew up with our parents insisting we accept hugs and kisses from grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles with zero regard for our feelings on the subject? I remember being anxious at big family events as a kid knowing how many of our distant relatives would expect to touch me. I recall being nervous of how they smelled or how their beard stubble felt — and the persistent feeling that I simply didn’t want to be touched.

That’s why it’s so crucial that we recognize the validity of those instincts in even the youngest kids. They may not be able to articulate the reason for their discomfort with physical affection, but we need to honor it in order to make good on our lessons of consent. How can we tell our kids that their bodies are their own and then remove that very agency because Aunt Betty wants to give them a kiss? The lesson needs to be that it’s up to them every time — no exceptions.

Except it’s not up to them. From where does this notion of a child’s consent arise? A child’s entire life proceeds without his consent, and often in direct contradiction to his expressed will. That’s a defining aspect of childhood. Aside from physical characteristics, the ability to live by consent is the very thing which distinguishes adults from children. The whole point of parenting is to substitute the guardian’s judgment for the child’s, to override consent on a regular basis.