RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fear-and-self-loathing-at-american-express-11628884963?mod=opinion_lead_pos10

This has been the year of woke and weak corporate CEOs trying to signal virtue by endorsing leftist politics and attacking Republicans. But now we have a bizarre case of a business attacking itself. The Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo writes this week in the New York Post about a lecture hosted by American Express. He reports that at the Amex corporate event a guest speaker argued that the system of capitalism was founded on racism and that “racist logics and forms of domination” have shaped Western society from the Industrial Revolution to the present. Mr. Rufo quotes the insufferable lecturer telling Amex employees, “You are complicit in giving privileges in one community against the other, under the pretext that we live in a meritocratic system where the market judges everyone the same.”

Well, it’s true that the company’s advertisements have touted the privileges enjoyed by consumers who use its ubiquitous green cards. But the history of American Express is the story of a company that has thrived by offering its many services to a broader and broader clientele. The firm’s website says it has more than 100 million cards in use—accepted by millions of merchants. Sure, it has generally served a higher-income segment than Visa and Mastercard, but there are options for all kinds of consumers.

Mr. Rufo describes how American Express employees had to define themselves:

In a foundational session, the outside consulting firm Paradigm trained AmEx employees to deconstruct their own intersectional identities, mapping their “race, sexual orientation, body type, religion, disability status, age, gender identity [and] citizenship” onto an official company worksheet.

https://www.nysun.com/national/beyond-bretton-woods-it-was-as-close-to-economic/91617/

The formula to ensure prosperity is simple: Add a low-rate, broad-based flat tax to spending restraint, free trade, and sound money, and there you have it.

The Great Depression was born out of xenophobic protectionism, embodied in the 1930 passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, plus 1932’s massive increases in tax rates on our country’s most productive members. The economy collapsed as never before.

Gold being then, as it still is, the first refuge of the cautious, became a safe haven. There were runs on banks as depositors demanded gold in exchange for deposits or currency. The value of gold as measured in goods and services soared, meaning that there was a tremendous fall in the price level. Money back then was gold.

President Roosevelt was swept into office in March of 1933. Instead of reversing Hoover’s tariff and tax increases, Roosevelt made gold the scapegoat. In his first month in office, he legislated the so-called Bank Holiday Act, which prohibited banks from buying or selling foreign currencies or specie — especially gold; eliminated all gold clauses in contracts, public or private; and finally made holding gold by Americans illegal.

Gold ceased to be currency in the United States. This was the first step in ridding the monetary system of gold.

In late 1933, to make matters worse, Roosevelt followed his gold confiscation by devaluing the dollar against foreign currencies by some 60% and raising the official price of gold to $35 an ounce from $20.67. This was an enormous wealth tax on former gold holders. The depression settled in, lasting until 1945.

The anomaly was that while gold was removed from the U.S. economy, it still remained the official settlement medium internationally.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/12/questions-about-feds-involvement-in-january-6-demand-answers/

By now it’s clear that federal law enforcement had some degree of infiltration among the crowds gathered at the Capitol on January 6. Intelligence reports released publicly days before the incident indicated “militias” and loosely organized groups of individuals intended to act violently that day. It’s unlikely those reports were based solely on Parler posts. 

Based on the available camera footage, it appears that key individuals were leading the assaults on protected points of entry. One prominent militia leader, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, appears to have actively planned and directed individuals both on the day of the incident and in the days leading up to it. Yet he remains a free man. This is in drastic contrast to the dozens of Americans currently being denied due process in a Justice Department prison in our nation’s capital. 

Our law enforcement and intelligence community officials need to answer some basic questions—questions that can be answered without “exposing sources or methods” or resorting to excuses about classification.

Normally, the FBI oversees domestic human intelligence operations that pertain to terrorism. This helps keep conflicts between law enforcement and intelligence agencies at a minimum. Human intelligence operations are very sensitive in nature, which in turn has given rise to extensive documentation and oversight. 

Congress should subpoena the director of the FBI’s Washington, D.C. field office, the chief of station for the CIA’s national resources office in D.C., the director of the D.C. Joint Terrorism Task Force, the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police and the D.C. Metropolitan Police and ask them the following questions under oath: 

1) How many confidential human sources (CHS), intelligence sources, agents, informants, or undercover law enforcement officers were present at the Capitol on January 6? 

2) What role did these sources/agents/undercovers (SAUs) play during the events of the day? 

3) How and what did the SAUs report to their controlling officers on January 6 and prior to that day?

4) How many SAUs were in direct contact with individuals currently detained or charged by the Justice Department?

5) How much involvement were SAUs allowed to have in illegal activity on January 6 or prior to that day?

6) Were the SAUs instructed to report threats of imminent danger? How many reported any plans to attack prior to January 6 or attacks in progress that day? 

7) Prior to January 6, how many SAUs had infiltrated or were reporting on groups or individuals planning violence against the Capitol? 

https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/12/the-justice-departments-troubling-discovery-delays/

It’s been almost seven months since the FBI conducted a pre-dawn raid at the Virginia farm of Thomas and Sharon Caldwell. Dozens of armed agents broke down their front door, ransacked their home, and arrested Tom Caldwell on January 19. A week later, a grand jury indicted Caldwell and two other alleged Oath Keepers for various crimes related to their participation in the Capitol protest on January 6.

Despite the fact Caldwell never entered the building, carried no weapon, and assaulted no one, the Justice Department sought to keep the 66-year-old former Navy lieutenant with service-related disabilities in jail awaiting trial. Caldwell, a decorated military veteran, has no criminal record.

Nonetheless, on February 12, Judge Amit Mehta ordered Caldwell to remain behind bars: “What Mr. Caldwell is accused of is conspiring with others to plot an insurrection against the government of the United States, particularly the Congress of the United States, while it was attempting to certify the Electoral College vote,” Mehta said during Caldwell’s detention hearing. 

“So the concern with Mr. Caldwell is less what he specifically did on January 6th, like others,” Mehta continued. “It doesn’t look like he actually entered the Capitol building, didn’t assault any police officers. But what he did prior to January the 6th is clearly engage in planning and preparation for conduct that others were engaged in and that others participated in, in the incursion that took place at the Capitol and the violence that followed.” 

Caldwell interrupted the hearing to plead for mercy. “I beg your indulgence, sir. But my life hangs in the balance.”

Caldwell spent 50 days in jail before Mehta reversed himself on March 12 and released Caldwell to very limited home detention.

It now appears Mehta is having additional second thoughts about the Justice Department’s handling of the Capitol breach probe. In dozens of pre-trial detention motions filed by Joe Biden’s Justice Department, the evidence against January 6 defendants rests solely in the hands of the government. Detention hearings act instead almost as ex-parte criminal trials where federal judges in Washington, D.C. declare guilt or innocence based largely on what federal prosecutors present in court, occasionally sending defendants to jail for months before a trial can begin.

Caldwell was one of more than 100 Americans ensnared in what the top prosecutor managing the first stage of the January 6 investigation called a “shock and awe” campaign to intimidate Americans out of coming to the nation’s capital to protest Joe Biden’s inauguration. But that short-term political goal doesn’t seem to be working as a long-term legal strategy for the Justice Department.