RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://outreach.senate.gov/iqextranet/view_newsletter.aspx?id=111545&c=JErnst

Thousands of calls to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from veterans seeking mental health services are going unanswered.

Desperate travelers are waiting hours on the phone or in line hoping to speak with someone at the State Department about passport delays that are causing vacation cancelations.

Seniors calling the Social Security Administration are increasingly being greeted with busy messages, waiting longer to speak to a representative, or having their calls go unanswered altogether as the agency shifts towards remote work.

Frustrated Americans are being put on hold while too many federal employees are phoning it in.

A manager of a VA medical center responsible for overseeing the scheduling of veterans’ care appointments actually called into a meeting from a bubble bath—and even posted a selfie on social media with the caption, “my office for the next hour.” Another VA staffer lamented, “It’s almost as if this employee is making a mockery of all the veterans. I can sit here in my tub and relax, and you just have to wait.”

And that is exactly what is happening.

The VA is still providing misleading wait times to hide the problem, but the heartbreaking stories of veterans continuing to go without urgent, medically necessary care—sometimes for months—tell the real story.

Taxpayers are also picking up the cost of maintaining mostly empty buildings in Washington. Seventy-five percent or more of the office space at the headquarters of most federal agencies is not being used, according to a review conducted by the Government Accountability Office.

The vacant offices beg the question: Where are all the federal employees?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/crime/boosters-fencers-cleaners-cartel-criminals-retail-theft

A nationwide retail theft epidemic cost the United States close to $100 billion in 2021. Stores are being forced to raise prices or shut up shop, insurers are refusing to help, and smaller mom and pop stores are being left behind. In this series, Mayhem on Main Street, the Washington Examiner will investigate the causes behind the scourge of shoplifting, the role of the cartels, the cost to stores big and small, and the complicity of lax prosecutors. Part 2 investigates the role of the cartels. To read Part 1, click here.

Mexican cartels are behind the spike in organized retail crime and are deeply entrenched in every level of the process, according to the federal government’s chief investigative agency.

Retailers nationwide sustained nearly $100 billion worth of losses in 2021, the highest year on record, according to the National Retail Federation report published in September 2022. The growing number of cartel-run theft rings around the country drove that figure up from $70 billion in 2019.

“Organized retail crime is leading to more brazen and more violent attacks in retail stores throughout the country. Many of the criminal rings orchestrating these thefts are also involved in other serious criminal activity such as human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, weapon trafficking, and more,” said Steve Francis, acting executive associate director for Homeland Security Investigations, in a statement. HSI is part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association described the acceleration of organized retail crime in recent years as having “exploded.”

In fact, 80% of retailers polled nationwide reported an increase in merchandise stolen in 2022, according to the National Retail Federation.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/08/the_national_archives_refuses_to_release_5400_emails_biden_sent_using_fake_names.html

The National Archives and Records Administration, also known as “NARA,” has become ideologically corrupt. It no longer operates as a non-partisan repository of our nation’s documents. It is, instead, a Democrat-run institution that rides roughshod over American values, has dedicated itself to destroying Trump, and, most recently, has provided cover for Joe Biden. How else can one explain the fact that it’s spent more than a year trying to prevent the release of thousands of emails that Biden wrote using fake names?

In June 2021, the National Archives turned on itself for being insufficiently woke, with a task force announcing that the institution was structurally racist, right down to its rotunda, which focuses on American history.

In September 2021, the National Archives declared that the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence merited a “Harmful Language Alert.”

In November 2021, when the House select committee investigating January 6 asked NARA to produce documents from Trump’s presidency, Trump filed a motion to block that initiative. NARA, violating its founding obligation to be non-partisan, filed a brief opposing Trump.

In August 2022, the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago at the behest of the National Archives, which claimed that Trump refused to return to them his presidential records. The records, at the time, were in a secure area under guard by the Secret Service.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/08/20/the-death-of-the-great-american-city/

The King of Wall Street has spoken, but the peasants are not listening. Ever since the end of the lockdowns, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, like many of his elite counterparts in cities from New York to Seattle, has been calling for the workers to return to their cubicles and daily commutes. The business elites have been cheered on by big-city corporate media, like The Economist. Even the White House, despite its green posturing, is pushing to get most Americans back on the road, often for long, mind-numbing, energy-consuming commutes.

Yet American workers – particularly more seasoned employees – are refusing to kowtow. The shift to companies offering some remote work seems to be on the increase. As Stanford researcher Nicholas Bloom notes, the number of job postings for remote-friendly roles is hitting record levels.

In fact, according to the Flex Index, the share of people in the office full time dropped from 49 per cent in the first quarter of 2023 to 42 per cent in the second quarter. A Gallup survey found that only two in 10 workers in jobs that can be done remotely are working full-time in the office.

This is not merely an American phenomenon. In London, office attendance is still down 35 per cent on pre-pandemic levels. Canary Wharf in east London is being hit particularly hard, as employers like HSBC and Barclays downsize their operations.

All this suggests a dramatic comedown for many of our most elite business districts. North America’s largest central business districts are all in distress. Overall, office buildings in the 10 leading metro areas remain roughly 50 per cent occupied. And when workers do turn up at the office, it is usually midweek. On Mondays and Fridays office visits fall by around half.

In some ways, this reverses the patterns of the industrial age, as portrayed in Friedrich Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England or in Jacob Riis’ How the Other Half Lives. As factory labour swelled, and artisanal industries declined, workers left their more bucolic towns to live in cities, as Engels put it, amid ‘the most distressing scenes of misery and poverty’.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/28/sleepy-joe-mails-it-in/

I rarely watch TV, but I check-in occasionally to understand the nonstop propaganda stream influencing normie America. During my visit, I happened to catch Joe Biden’s speech about the Maui wildfires.

It was shockingly bad. His delivery was lethargic and disinterested. His mumbling and inconsistent dropping of syllables reminded me of a kid struggling with third-grade phonics. He read off his notes, kept his head down, and did not emphasize anything appropriately.

Heroically giving up a day of vacation, he gave the impression of someone who was forced to pretend to care. This dreadful scene highlighted his earlier, insulting offer of $700 to displaced families, a pittance compared to their needs, and a mere fraction of the billions we have sent to Ukraine.

As usual, Biden made these events about him. This is a narcissist’s way of mimicking empathy. “Oh something bad happened to you, well something equally bad—worse actually—happened to me!” He thought a minor house fire, in which he almost lost his beloved Corvette, equaled the pain of people who just lost their homes and kids.

Obviously, I don’t think Biden or any president is responsible for natural disasters. These things happen.  Nor do I think, generally, the federal government should be the “go to” agency for handling the response to such events.  States and cities are supposed to take up the laboring oar on natural disasters. But you still expect the federal government to juice locals’ efforts, throw some funding around, and maybe say a few words that show solidarity.

Unfortunately, state government in Democrat-dominated Hawaii appears completely incompetent. The guy in charge of water decided to delay its release when it was requested for firefighting, possibly because of his earlier-stated concerns about equity. He resigned from office in ignominy (and probably fear).

There are also unexplained stories of police stopping people from fleeing or sending them back into danger. Some people suggest as many as 1,000 have died. This is not merely a tragedy, but a series of failures that deserve a thorough investigation.

The media frequently praises Biden for his world-famous empathy. He’s the lovable Uncle Joe, who can relate to the common man because of his humble beginnings and early-life tragedies.

This is all made-up propaganda. It is true, he had some difficult situations early in life, including the loss of his wife and daughter in a car accident. But, for years, he has milked these stories for clout, even as he repeatedly lost his cool with regular voters, frequently insulting them when they did not kiss the ring.