RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/12/tutus-no-nos-bruce-bawer/

EXCERPTS

Tutu’s glow faded even more for me after 9/11. Of course he lamented the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon – how could he do otherwise, given all the checks he’d received, drawn on New York banks? – but he sounded far more emotionally worked up when he condemned the subsequent acts of retaliation by NATO. Indeed, while he soft-pedaled his criticism of Islamic terrorists – and stubbornly refused to criticize Islam itself, asserting in 2006 that “no religion is inherently violent or encourages violence” and that people of one faith “mustn’t despise, disparage or speak ill of another faith” – he savaged George W. Bush and Tony Blair, both of whom, he maintained, should be tried for war crimes in The Hague. (No Truth and Reconciliation Commission, apparently, for them.)

And although he’d publicly proclaimed his love for Winnie Mandela, Tutu refused to sit down with Blair at a 2012 conference, lecturing the prime minister afterwards in a Guardian op-ed: “You are a member of our family, God’s family. You are made for goodness, for honesty, for morality, for love; so are our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in the U.S., in Syria, in Israel and Iran.” Pondering this op-ed in Canada’s National Post, a writer named Wayne K. Spear rightly dismissed it as so much “greasy pontification,” pointing out that

Whether or not our brothers and sisters were “made for goodness,” some of them are committed to the destruction of apostate and infidel. Saddam Hussein seems to have been made, like the communist Russian dictator he both admired and emulated, for engendering terror among his rivals. As long as our world produces people such as these, leaders must from time to time have recourse to the necessary evil of war.

By this point, for me, the bloom was definitely off Tutu’s rose. But I didn’t fully grasp the scale of his awfulness until he started speaking up frequently about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His sympathies, he made clear, were entirely with Yasser Arafat and company. He compared Israel to Nazi Germany. He used his clout to get the University of Johannesburg to sever its ties with its Israeli fellows. But he wasn’t just critical of Israel. He criticized Jews. In fact, it became pretty apparent that he hated Jews. In a 2011 article, Alan Dershowitz offered a brief summing-up of Tutu’s comments on the subject:

He has called the Jews “a peculiar people” and has accused “the Jews” of causing many of the world’s problems….He has said that “the Jews thought they had a monopoly of God: Jesus was angry that they could shut out other human beings.” He has said that Jews have been “fighting against” and being “opposed to” his God. He has “compared the features of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem to the features of the apartheid system in South Africa.” He has complained that “the Jewish people with their traditions, religion and long history of persecution sometimes appear to have caused a refugee problem among others.” Tutu has minimized the suffering of those murdered in the Holocaust by asserting that “the gas chambers” made for “a neater death” than did apartheid. He has demanded that its victims must “forgive the Nazis for the Holocaust,” while refusing to forgive the “Jewish people” for “persecute[ing] others.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-prices-havent-been-going-up-generics-inflation-caps-biden-costs-innovation-11640533671?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Build Back Better may be dead, but its proposed drug price controls will likely reappear: negotiating prices for high-cost drugs in Medicare and price controls for most drugs limiting price increases to the annual inflation rate.

President Biden insists such controls are needed because pharmaceutical companies are “jacking up prices on a range of medicines.” He promises “to end the days when drug companies could increase their prices with no oversight and no accountability.” Yet while inflation has skyrocketed under Mr. Biden, drug prices are lower than when he took office. As the consumer-price index over the past year rose 6.8%, the largest increase in 39 years, prescription-drug prices fell 0.3%.

Mr. Biden and other pharmaceutical critics have mistakenly focused on increases in the list prices set by companies. But the actual prices consumers pay, after various discounts and rebates, are considerably lower than list prices, and changes in the two measures differ substantially. Insulin, with large increases in list prices over the past few decades, has become the poster child for unreasonable price increases. Yet net prices have increased much more slowly or not at all.

The best measure is the consumer-price index for prescription drugs, or CPI-Rx, which measures price changes in a large basket of drugs over time, accounting for discounts and most rebates. Another strength of the CPI-Rx is that it accounts for price declines that occur when consumers substitute cheaper generic versions for brand-name drugs. Too often, Mr. Biden and others focus on a few high-priced drugs and fail to consider the entire market.

https://drrichswier.com/category/culture-war/

A timeless paean for peace, written millennia ago by the Biblical Jewish prophet Isaiah, appears on a wall across the street from the entrance to the building in New York City ironically housing that most unholy and unjust organization: the United Nations. The delegates from every part of the world walk by it but most see and understand it not. The words include:

And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift-up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Isaiah 2:4.

On the other hand, Thomas Jefferson once wrote:

Those who hammer their guns into plows, will plow for those who do not.

In a perfect world, Isaiah’s words should be paramount. But this is not a perfect world; it never has been. Jefferson knew it, and it may sadly be much delayed before it yet becomes such a world as envisioned by Isaiah. All we can do is strive mightily to bring the world to a better place than it is now.

But the first two decades of the 21st century do not augur well for humanity. It is, therefore, prudent to maintain personal and national defense against all who harbor ill will and genocidal ambitions against us.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/12/new_york_surrenders_to_the_woke_revolution.html

I teared up a bit today as I passed the American Museum of Natural History, where an iconic statue of Teddy Roosevelt atop a horse had entranced New York children since 1940. Now only a scaffolding covered by tarp can be seen, as the “racist” statue is prepared for banishment to North Dakota. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter riots, the New York City Council voted unanimously to remove the statue, which depicts Roosevelt leading a Native American and an African. As descendent Theodore Roosevelt V helpfully explained, the statue is “problematic in its hierarchal depiction of its subjects.”

Perhaps Teddy is better off in North Dakota because he’d be aghast at the cowardly state of his beloved New York. Roosevelt belonged to an America that relished bold, confident action. Today, the museum which celebrated Teddy as “the man in the arena” and placed statues of explorers Lewis and Clark and Daniel Boone atop its façade now demands vaccine passports from five-year-olds before they’re allowed to enter. An engraving on the museum’s front praises Teddy as “A great leader of the youth of America In energy and fortitude In the faith of our fathers In defense of the rights of the people.” Today, the youth of America can receive enforced vaccine experiments inside the museum, then proceed to the exhibits on Viruses and Vaccines, where they will be terrified into further submission.

Teddy isn’t the only legend who’s been hurled into oblivion by the New York City Council recently. Thomas Jefferson also isn’t good enough for the Council worthies, who disappeared his statue from their chamber, where it had stood for over a hundred years. The author of the Declaration of Independence was condemned as a pedophile slaveowner with no redeeming qualities, but I think the Council was uneasy having the Founding Father whose motto was “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God” looking over their shoulder.

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/bidens-checklist-promises

What the president said he’d do — and what he actually did

President Joe Biden entered office with an ambitious agenda. He promised the American people that he would unite the country, defeat a pandemic, rebuild the middle class, and make the U.S. a respected force for good around the world.

He finishes the year with a large list of unfinished business, and slumping approval. The Real Clear Politics average of polls show 53% of American disapprove of the 46th president’s performance, compared to just 43% who approve.

Here’s a checklist of some of the president’s biggest promises and where they stand.

COVID-19

Days before the 2020 election, Biden told a rally in Cleveland that the COVID-19 pandemic would end on his watch. “I’m never going to raise the white flag and surrender,” he said. “We’re going to beat this virus. We’re going to get it under control, I promise you.”

In June, Biden declared victory over the virus. “On July 4, we’re going to celebrate our independence from the virus, as we celebrate our independence of our nation,” he said.

Less than a month later, however, the Delta variant of the virus surged across the U.S., and cases continued to pile up. The Biden administration responded at the end of the summer by announcing vaccine mandates for federal workers and contractors, health care workers, and large private businesses. Those mandates have been struck down repeatedly in federal courts, with judges deeming them unconstitutional.

Last week, the Omicron variant accounted for 73.2% of all new COVID-19 infections in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In less than a month, Omicron overtook Delta as the primary COVID-19 variant in the country, causing cases to spike nationwide.

The economy