RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://victorhanson.com/what-the-left-tells-us-about-the-left-part-four/

Police Killing of the Unarmed

Following George Floyd’s death, the Left went ballistic that the Washington Post of all places had found that unarmed black suspects were not necessarily killed in percentages higher than the percentages of blacks among the some 11 million who were arrested each year.

The distinguished Harvard University economist Roland Fryer (an African American) looked at police shootings in Houston and did not find that racial bias was a major factor in the use of deadly force.

The point, then, is that there is little data to suggest that white officers are systematically and inordinately lethally shooting unarmed black suspects. (Note that shortly after his research was published, Fryer was conveniently charged with sexual harassment—resulting mostly from off-color jokes—at Harvard and was put on leave by the university, and had his brilliant career essentially aborted if not destroyed.)

Videos changed the country forever on May 25, 2020. The smart phone clips appeared with a white Minnesota police officer with his knee on the neck of a black arrested suspect who later died. Autopsies (more than one) followed that variously suggested that either drugs or the deliberate use of the officer’s knee to obstruct Floyd’s breathing or both mostly caused Floyd’s death.

The major facts were mostly not in dispute: George Floyd, a career felon, who had been charged, convicted, and incarcerated for prior felonies, including a home-invasion robbery, during which he put a loaded pistol to the stomach of a pregnant woman, was arrested on reports he was attempting to pass counterfeit U.S. currency.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/17/the-garage-papers/

Classified documents have been turning up everywhere, even the garage where Joe Biden stashes his vintage Corvette. As Josh Hammer notes, the Delaware Democrat might have a problem.

Unauthorized possession of classified materials is a serious crime for obvious reasons. As vice president, Biden had no authority to declassify, conceal, or leak the classified materials now being discovered. This might be a sign that the deep state is going after their useful idiot, perhaps to make way for a different 2024 candidate. 

So far, veterans of the intelligence community are not shouting that the classified documents are only “Russian disinformation.” On the other hand, the sudden discoveries and appointment of a special counsel could be another whitewash. 

Special counsel Robert Hur, as Roger Kimball notes, is an “anti-Trump former Robert Mueller apparatchik and swamp monster of the tier-one level.” Nothing to see here folks, so shut up and shelter in place. Revelations pending, it is fully apparent that Joe Biden is a certified Clinton reenactor. 

Former first lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept reams of sensitive data on an unsecured home-brew server. When some 30,000 Clinton emails sparked interest, she bleached the server clean and smashed up phones and other devices. Clinton’s actions violated several statutes but the FBI never conducted a surprise raid in the style of their action against Donald Trump and his associates.

FBI boss James Comey, a longtime Clinton crony, contended that no reasonable prosecutor would pursue the case against Hillary Clinton. To the surprise of nobody, none did. That doubtless encouraged Biden, who may have recalled the experience of Samuel “Sandy” Berger, a Harvard law alum. 

https://dailycaller.com/2023/01/14/opinion-wokeness-is-slowly-hollowing-out-the-fed-ej-antoni/

Are you wondering why checking out at the grocery store these days feels like making a mortgage payment? This week’s four-decade-high inflation is a direct result of the Federal Reserve taking its eye off the ball over the last two years. Instead of focusing on its mandate of keeping prices stable, it has been more concerned with financing massive federal deficits and kowtowing to liberal ideology.

But now the Fed chair is claiming just the opposite.

Chairman Jerome Powell recently said in Stockholm that the Fed must avoid politics to maintain its independence, which is absolutely true. But it is the opposite of what the Fed has done under President Joe Biden.

Powell and other Fed members have routinely opined about climate change, diversity, equity and other left-wing talking points — all while they called inflation transitory. Powell opened Pandora’s box as soon as he jeopardized the Fed’s independence with these political talking points.

The recent change in tone from Powell would be welcome if it did not have the hollow ring of rhetoric behind it. The Fed chair rightly said, “Without explicit congressional legislation, it would be inappropriate for us to use our monetary policy or supervisory tools to promote a greener economy or to achieve other climate-based goals.” He continued, “We are not, and will not be, a ‘climate policy maker.’”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/18/is-u-s-headed-toward-socialism-majority-says-yes-ii-tipp-poll/

In recent years, government in the U.S. has never been bigger, in terms of both spending and its power over individuals and the economy. Some have begun to openly wonder: Is the U.S. evolving into a socialist-style economy? And is that what Americans want? The latest I&I/TIPP Poll has answers.

Over the last three years, due to the COVID pandemic, government spending at all levels averaged just over 44% of GDP, the highest since World War II, when much of the economy was essentially socialized in order to boost war spending.

Today, a majority of Americans agree that the sudden, rapid growth from COVID-related spending and burgeoning top-down control over the domestic economy to address climate change have put U.S. on a path toward socialism.

This comes out of the latest I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,356 Americans across the country, taken online from Jan. 4-6. In it, we asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the following simple statement: “The U.S. is evolving into a big government socialist state.”

The shocking answer: By 51% to 31%, Americans agreed the U.S. is moving toward socialism. Among the remainder, 18% said they were “unsure.” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

Further broken down, of those who agreed, 20% said they did so “strongly,” while 31% said they agreed “somewhat.” For those who disagreed, just 15% disagreed strongly, while 16% said they “somewhat” disagreed.

While usually such politically sensitive questions show wide differences among the different political affiliations, that’s not exactly the case here.