RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/01/12/bidenomics-is-working-deficits-are-off-to-a-roaring-start/

“We the Democrats are the ones that are fiscally responsible. Let’s get that straight now.” — Joe Biden, October 2022

Just three months into the new fiscal year and the federal deficit already tops $500 billion. How’s that for being “fiscally responsible”?

The latest report from the Treasury Department shows that the federal deficit for October, November, and December of last year (which mark the first quarter of the government’s 2024 fiscal year), had already hit $509.9 billion.

That’s a 21% increase over the prior year. And if this pace holds true, we’re looking at $2 trillion deficits this year. (Biden’s own Treasury Department currently projects it to hit $1.9 trillion.)

The current surge is entirely driven by out-of-control spending. Revenues are so far coming in slightly above last year’s, but spending in the first quarter ballooned by $170 billion.

Spending on entitlement programs is up a relatively modest 4%. Defense spending is up 11%. Discretionary spending, however, is 23% higher so far this year than last – thanks in large part to Biden’s spending sprees.

https://victorhanson.com/biden-saves-democracy-by-destroying-it/

When faced with the possible return of President Donald Trump, the current agenda of the Democratic Party is summed up simply as “We had to destroy democracy to save it.”

The effort shares a common theme: any means necessary are justified to prevent the people from choosing their own president, given the fear that a majority might vote to elect Donald Trump.

Sometimes the anti-democratic paranoia has been outsourced to state and local officials and prosecutors to erase Trump from the primary and likely general election ballots as well.

One unelected official in Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, is a Democrat, an official never elected by the people, and a non-lawyer rendering a legal edict. Yet she has judged Trump guilty of “insurrection.”

And presto, she erased his name from the state’s ballot.

Yet Trump was never charged, much less convicted, of “insurrection.”

The statute Bellows cites is a post-Civil War clause of the 14th Amendment. It was passed over a century and a half ago. It was never intended to be used in an election year by an opposition party to disbar a rival presidential candidate.

In the earlier case of Colorado, the all-Democrat Supreme Court, in a 4-3 vote, took Trump off the ballot.

In sum, just five officials in two states have taken away the rights of some 7 million Americans to vote for the president of their choice.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/cairlifornia/

Last Wednesday in Sacramento, a pro-Hamas mob crashed the state capitol and refused to leave, forcing legislators to adjourn the proceedings. Democrats had branded similar intrusions as an “insurrection,” but Gov. Gavin Newsom issued no statement. Four days later, the lead item on his press site was the link to a CNN story praising California’s gun laws. On the other hand, Gov. Newsom did take the trouble to meet with officials from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

According to a January 4 press release, CAIR, “organized a meeting between Governor Gavin Newsom and Muslim leaders from across the state before the holiday break to discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.” Attendees included representatives from the Northern California Islamic Council, Palestinian American Medical Association, West Valley Muslim Association, Muslim Students Association West, and Shura Council of Southern California. The Muslim groups requested that Newsom support “a permanent ceasefire and a continued commitment to ensure freedom of speech, particularly in universities, as students engage in rallies.”

A statement from CAIR’s California CEO Hussam Ayloush said: “We were pleased by the Governor’s commitment to ensure his Muslim, Palestinian, and Arab constituents are heard as the violent siege on Gaza continues and that CAIR-CA had the platform to request the administration be proactive in ensuring the dignity of Palestinians. In his tenure, Governor Newsom has paved the path as a champion for civil rights, and we urge him to continue to use his voice as the leader of Californians who overwhelmingly demand a ceasefire.”

As Chuck Ross noted at the Free Beacon, Gov. Newsom’s meeting with CAIR came just weeks after the group’s leader, Nihad Awad, said he was “happy to see” the October 7 attack, a comment that “even prompted condemnation from the Biden White House.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-biden-house-oversight-committee-contempt-of-congress-fa909e51?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

Hunter Biden brought his strange political circus to the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, but how this helps him or his father isn’t obvious. The committee was marking up a criminal contempt resolution against him when the President’s son surprised everyone by showing up, and staying about 10 minutes before departing and creating a media spectacle.

It was a repeat of his performance on Dec. 13, the day he had been subpoenaed to give a deposition. Then he showed up outside the Capitol to denounce Republicans, insist he would only testify at a public hearing (where questions are more limited), and then left without taking any questions. Now he is daring them to hold him in contempt.

Cut through the theatrics and the real issue is the ability of Congress to enforce its subpoenas. Despite Democratic claims that Hunter is right to refuse because he offered to testify in public, that’s not his choice to make. His choice is either to answer the question put to him or invoke his Fifth Amendment right to decline. Either way, he has to appear.

When Steve Bannon defied a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 committee, we supported the contempt motion and his subsequent prosecution as a way to ensure that Congressional subpoenas are respected. We said the same about former Trump aide Peter Navarro.

Today House Republicans want Hunter Biden to do what those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee had to do: testify in a closed-door deposition before appearing at a public hearing. In the end Hunter’s stunt probably eliminated any Republican reservations about holding him in contempt.

https://victorhanson.com/the-dei-ruse-is-imploding-part-one/

Diversity

Has there ever been a sane nation in the world that preferred “diversity” to “unity”?

The former Yugoslavia was certainly “diverse,” and it finally stressed its diversity to the point of unending death and destruction. Ditto Rwanda and Iraq.

So what exactly was the advantage of ditching the melting pot for the tribalist salad bowl? What was the historical argument for making race essential rather than incidental to who we are—other than institutionalizing racial bias and prejudice to further the careers of mostly middle-class and upper-middle-class “marginalized people”?

And what sort of diversity did DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) promote? 

Religious?

Not at all, at least in the case of Christianity. Declaring oneself overtly Catholic or Protestant would certainly be unorthodox and “diverse” on campus, but not encouraged and more likely a cause for social or career ostracism.

Ideology? Was diversity designed to ensure a matter of all sorts of political views?

Again, no.

Most polls of faculty, especially on the supposed “elite” campuses—whether calibrated by party identification, donations to political causes and candidates, or by ideology—consistently show somewhere between 90–95 percent of academics identify as Democrats or parties to their left, or as “progressive,” or even further still to the left.

Did diversity imply or include class in its definition? Not at all.

Most academics are from the upper-middle or professional or aristocratic classes. Claudine Gay, for example, is from a rich Haitian immigrant family (family cement magnates)—a world away from East Palestine, Ohio.

https://victorhanson.com/the-dei-ruse-is-imploding-part-two/

Equity

Equity was rebranded as a word to redefine equality as a mandated equalness of result rather than an equality of opportunity.

This “spread the wealth” ideology is by design contrary to the Constitution’s devotion to liberty and freedom.

DEI’s “equity,” then, is the neo-socialist effort to use government power, reinforced by popular culture, to suppress the perceived wealthy, the more fortunate, and the better off, and then to redistribute their money, influence, and power—summed up as “privilege”—to those arbitrarily labeled less well-off and less fortunate.

And there is always the age-old Marxist qualifier that the revolutionaries who determine who is oppressed and who is oppressive are themselves never subject to the consequences of their own ideology. It is the John Kerry logic that only by flying in a carbon-spewing private jet can he hit all the climate conferences and reduce carbon spewing.

So our cultural Marxists demand teachers’ unions and hate vouchers and charter schools—as their kids go to prep schools. They defund the police—but usually have access to private security. They demand all-electric vehicles—while they fly on Citations and Gulfstreams. They are versions of the old revolutionaries that were all born rich or at least upper-middle-class—our era’s Trotskys, Lenins, Marxes, Ho Chi Minhs, Mao Zedongs, Castros, and Che Guevaras. The most dangerous Marxists always arise from the bored and guilty privileged and well-off.

DEI’s idea of “equity” shares the Marxist boilerplate of just two classes at war with each other.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-houthis-are-emboldened-by-bidens-weakness/

It’s starting to feel like an exercise in futility to continue to hector and cajole the commander in chief of the armed forces into doing his job. Joe Biden seems perfectly happy to absorb the consequences associated with the Iran-backed campaign of terrorism engulfing the Middle East. When the Pentagon does respond to attacks on U.S. service personnel and American interests — that is, when the Defense Department isn’t in “full cover-their-a** mode” — it does so in a calibrated way that conveys America’s desire to avoid escalation more than its interest in restoring deterrence. That message has been received loud and clear, and the Iran-sponsored Houthi rebels are making the most of their free hand.

“This is the largest attack on commercial shipping,” one unnamed national-security official told CNBC reporters yesterday. The observation followed reports that the terroristic outfit launched a large missile and drone attack on merchant vessels in defiance of the multinational naval operation, Prosperity Guardian, which is tasked with providing security for commercial traffic in the region. U.S. and British naval forces reportedly shot down “18 drones, two anti-ship cruise missiles and one anti-ship ballistic missile,” but the Houthis did not limit its targeting to commercial vessels.

British secretary of state for defense Grant “Shapps said that Royal Navy ship HMS Diamond, which repelled the attacks along with U.S. warships, may have been specifically targeted,” Reuters reported, “adding there was also ‘a generalized attack on all shipping.’” Shapps made note of the untenable nature of the status quo emerging amid months of unmolested Houthi attacks on military and commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden. “This cannot continue and cannot be allowed to continue,” he said simply.

But the White House is unmoved. Neither the president nor his subordinates appear concerned that their facile warnings about the “consequences” the Houthis will bear for these provocations are being ignored. They don’t seem to care that this Iran-backed terror campaign has already had deleterious effects on the global maritime trade regime and the international supply chain. They are willing to look beyond direct attacks on U.S. warships and those of their allies — targeting of which the Houthis boast, despite the Pentagon’s claims that the group doesn’t really mean it — even if that increases the threat born by U.S. service personnel in hot spots all over the globe.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/hunter-biden-piles-contempt-upon-contempt/

The president’s troubled son, Hunter Biden, has treated the congressional inquiry into his conduct and the Justice Department’s curious response to it with disdain from Day One.

Late last year, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena seeking testimony from the younger Biden, compelling him to answer the committee’s questions behind closed doors. His attorneys disregarded this courtesy, treating it as an opportunity to enter into public negotiations with the committee over the terms to which their client might graciously submit to Congress’s demand.

Hunter Biden wanted to testify in public and before the cameras — a request the Republican-led committee denied. Rather than observe Congress’s authority, Hunter Biden made a theatrical show of appearing in Washington on the day he was supposed to comply with the subpoena, but only to issue a fiery condemnation of House Republicans.

“I’m here to testify at a public hearing today to answer any of the committee’s legitimate questions,” the president’s son exclaimed. “What are they afraid of? I’m here. I’m ready.” But the subject of a congressional inquiry doesn’t get to make the rules — Congress does. So, in response to Hunter’s display of contempt, Congress elected to formalize that status. “Hunter Biden today defied lawful subpoenas, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress proceedings,” House Republicans declared in mid December.

https://amgreatness.com/2024/01/10/the-inherently-destructive-uniparty-agenda/

It’s easy enough to blame Democrats for everything, but as a rapidly increasing percentage of American voters have realized, Republicans share the blame. These politicians are controlled by their donors, and in America today, the big donors are in agreement regardless of which party or which candidate gets their money.

This, then, is what has become dubbed America’s uniparty. And while wealthy elites have always exercised disproportionate influence in American politics, and, for that matter, the politics of virtually every nation that has ever existed, what is happening in 21st century America is unique.

To begin with, for most of American history, elites have competed for political power and influence, with the differing agenda and interests preventing one faction from acquiring absolute power. But today, on the issues that will have the most profound impact on our future, America’s elites are perfectly aligned. Also today and without precedent in American history, the goals of America’s elites are in conflict with the interests of the American people.

There are two broad, interrelated areas where the uniparty consensus currently aims to break the American people, destroying our coherence as a nation along with our prosperity and individual freedom. They both relate to how we are handling immigration. America’s de facto immigration policy is to invite millions of people per year to enter the United States. Because this policy also effectively excludes immigrants who have the means and the integrity to attempt legal entry, the millions who cross our borders each year are the most desperate people from the most failed nations.

America’s immigration policy, in practice, admits people whose life experience is to barely survive in nations ruled by thugs and fanatics. They are accustomed to endemic corruption and extreme poverty. As for the small fraction of immigrants who enter the United States legally, the criteria for their admission is more of a lottery than a merit-based criteria that might arguably be in the national interest.

But immigration—even the uncontrolled, meritless, flagrantly illegal, massive wave that Americans are now experiencing—would probably not be enough to break our unity and our freedom. It would be a challenge, but absent two other nihilistic factors, both driven by America’s elites, we might eventually assimilate the new arrivals and continue to thrive as a nation.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20296/lawyers-defending-become-accused

Ensuring the integrity of elections is… a fundamental requirement to support the legitimacy of the American democratic republic.

We do not have to speculate about the motives of The 65 Project. The head of the group has admitted that their goal is “to deter right-wing talent from signing on to any future GOP efforts” to challenge elections, not only by bringing bar complaints but to “shame them and make them toxic in their communities and their firms.”

The 65 Project’s straight-faced motto, incidentally, is, “Defending Democracy and the Rule of Law.” If only!

We are witnessing a shift in the legal system from lawyers representing and defending clients to lawyers becoming the accused, and, as a form of pseudo-juridical destruction, being charged with unfounded claims.

One of the many great provisions in the American Constitution provides that everyone is entitled to a defense. The “right to counsel” is guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment and the “due process” clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

What, however, are the implications when the lawyers who provide that defense are threatened with disbarment proceedings, crushing legal costs to defend their licenses, exclusion from participation in the broader legal and academic communities, and having their reputations smeared, all because they represented clients who were deemed unpopular or took on cases fraught with controversy?

Lawyers throughout America are being subjected to these very ordeals due to their participation in cases related to the 2020 presidential election. One of the principal groups pursuing this strategy operates under the name “The 65 Project.”