News of the Week for July 17^th, 2022

• Election 2022
• Abortion
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Election 2022

 

Are Republicans blowing their chance at winning back the Senate?
Legit question. Joe Biden’s not the only one who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, after all. Republicans managed to blow chances to win Senate control in 2010 and in 2012 despite having that goal within reach. Those failures came mainly from too much poll-based cockiness, especially in 2010, and poor candidate selection.

FiveThirtyEight: Biden has the worst midterm rating of any post-WWII president
To quote an old ad from John Houseman, Joe Biden got it the old-fashioned way — he earned it. In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, Biden’s job approval has fallen to 38.6%, more than three points below Donald Trump at the same time of his presidency and far below other predecessors. In fact, Biden appears to be far below all of his predecessors

AJC poll: Kemp up seven in Georgia — but Walker down three?
Have Georgia voters become a ticket-splitting electorate? A new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution appears to show a remarkably flexible approach to the midterms by Peach State voters. According to the poll commissioned by the AARP, Governor Brian Kemp handily leads Stacey Abrams in his re-election bid, but Republican challenger Herschel Walker trails Senate Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock by three points.

 

Abortion

Dobbs Decision

 

California Doctor Wants to Set Up Abortion Clinic off Alabama Coast
Dr. Meg Autry, an OB-GYN in California, hopes to set up an abortion clinic in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Alabama.

Elizabeth Warren: It’s time to start shutting down crisis pregnancy centers
I saw a headline the other day citing her complaint that crisis pregnancy centers heavily outnumber abortion clinics in Massachusetts, but I paid it no mind. She was simply saying that her state needs more abortion providers to even the numbers — I assumed.

Pregnancy Clinic Director Tells Congress the Center had to Hire Security, Install Bullet-Proof Walls Due to Attacks
“Just last week… a man approached our care center with an armed machete.”

DOJ Formalizes the ‘Reproductive Rights Task Force’ Since SCOTUS Overturned Roe
The task force talks about reproductive care so I cannot wait to hear how they will address the violence against pregnancy centers.

National Right to Life lawyer: The raped 10-year-old in Indiana should be required to carry to term
If abortion galvanizes Democratic turnout this fall, this will be the reason. Not Roe being overturned — that’s a serious wound to liberals, but wounds heal in time.

 

Gun Rights

 

NYC bodega group pitches ‘Stand Your Ground’ law after fatal stabbing
A New York City bodega group says the Big Apple should adopt a local version of Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law after a Manhattan store worker was charged with murder for defending himself.

Here we go: House Dems to push assault weapons ban
Is it? A bill that’s going straight down the toilet in the Senate sounds like the opposite of a big deal to me.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

The ‘Green Agenda’ Will Be Revolutionary, Against The Green Agenda
“the pursuit of Net Zero by continually raising the cost of living is going to cause populist revolts that will make Brexit and Trump look like minor blips”

If They Lose, You Will Eat Bugs – Dutch Farmer Spokesperson Explains How EU Climate Change Goals Will Reduce Farm Production
Despite the U.S. media not giving any time, attention or discussion to the rise of farmer protests in Europe, everyone should pay attention because the same climate change goals being enforced in the European Union are coming to North America.

GOP Gambit Could Help U.S. Energy Producers Build Back Better
Republicans can use budget reconciliation to force politically difficult votes on energy policy.

UN tells farmers to cut emissions by 6% globally: “Do more with less”
A new report co-authored by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) calls on farmers to globally reduce emissions by 6% while also increasing yield by 28% to meet food supply demand.

Local ‘Water Rights’ Law Invalidated in Florida
I have written here previously of several attempts to enact “nature rights” kinds of laws, specifically targeting water, in the State of Florida. The threat became so real — with Orange County passing a “rights of water” ordinance — that a law was enacted at the state level prohibiting granting rights to nature.

Professor: Climate change is ‘white colonization of the atmosphere’
White people are at it again — this time they’re “colonizing the atmosphere,” according to an Australian professor.

Sri Lanka: An ‘Organic’ Catastrophe
In the latest Capital Letter, I discussed Dutch farmers pushing back against rules designed to limit emissions of nitrogen oxide, rules so drastic and so rapidly imposed that they may push many out of business.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Biden: I may call a public-health emergency for abortion! WH: Well …
How did Joe Biden come up with the idea of declaring a public-health emergency for abortion access after Roe got overturned?

Biden Considers Declaring Abortion Access “A Public Health Emergency”
Biden told reporters that he’s consulting staff on ‘whether I have the authority’ to call a public health emergency and what impact it would make.

Cuban dictatorship pays prison guards nearly 50% more than they pay doctors
Another example that shows the national priorities of the communist Castro dictatorship, where keeping Cubans imprisoned is more important than keeping them healthy. This is socialism in action.

As Canada’s health system burns, Trudeau and the provinces debate the firehose
A public health-care system that was already straining before the pandemic is now visibly coming apart

 

War & Terror

 

Russia suffers ‘wild shell hunger’ as Ukraine hits arms depots with long-range Western rockets
Vladimir Putin’s forces face ‘out of the blue’ ammunition shortages as warehouses destroyed ‘one by one’ using Himar and MLRS weapons

Harvard Law instructor: ‘It is our civic duty to accost’ the ‘6 justices who overturned Roe’
Harvard Law clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo recently took to Twitter call for the public harassment of the six Justices who voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.

Khamenei adviser says Tehran ‘capable of building nuclear bomb’
Tehran will also directly respond against Israel should its security be targeted, the report says citing the advisor.

Ukrainian Plane Carrying Serbian Munitions Crashes in Northern Greece, 8 Killed
A cargo plane operated by a Ukrainian company and carrying over 11 tons of Serbian munitions crashed in Northern Greece Saturday night, in a fiery wreck that killed all eight crewmen.

 

National

 

Monticello is going woke — and trashing Thomas Jefferson’s legacy in the process
The Charlottesville, Virginia, home of the Founding Father and America’s third president is one of our best-known national monuments, familiar from its appearance on the nickel since 1938.

Over-the-counter birth control? Drugmaker seeks FDA approval
For the first time, a pharmaceutical company has asked for permission to sell a birth control pill over the counter in the U.S.

How will illegal abortions be prosecuted? 1968 NYPD manual offers hints.
With abortion bans in place or likely to be enacted soon in at least 20 states, many worried Americans are now wondering: What does the investigation and prosecution of an illegal abortion look like?

Pregnant woman given HOV ticket argues fetus is passenger, post-Roe
A pregnant Texas woman who was ticketed for driving in the HOV lane suggested that Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court means that her fetus counted as a passenger and that she should not have been cited.

The Origin of Queer Theory: Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex”
People have very rapidly realized, whether in Groomer Schools, marketing, or so many other corners of society that we’ve been suckered into supporting Queer Theory under the banner of a gay and lesbian civil rights movement. We’ve also figured out very quickly that Queer Theory is a branch of Identity Marxism: Queer Marxism, which takes “normalcy” as its special form of bourgeois property to abolish through (Queer) class struggle. Where, though, did Queer Theory come from? It is relatively widely accepted that the first real Queer Theory paper is Gayle Rubin’s 1984 essay “Thinking Sex,” which calls for a new radical politics of sexuality. To help people understand what Queer Theory is and always has been about, James Lindsay proudly hosts a three-part New Discourses Podcast series reading through “Thinking Sex” in full and offering his commentary on it. In this first part, we learn that Queer Theory from its very beginnings is profoundly interested in both child pornography and pedophilia. It’s almost shocking to hear. Join James to understand Queer Theory from its very origins.

Nevada: Republicans Leading by Two on State Legislative Generic Ballot
The new survey conducted by Cygnal found the political environment in Nevada favors state Republicans, as they lead on generic ballot and voters want the Legislature to serve as a check and balance on Biden and want their state government to focus on improving the economy.

Jill Biden Speaks at ‘Latinx IncluXion Luncheon’ and Says Hispanics Are as Unique as Breakfast Tacos
National Association of Hispanic Journalists: “We are not tacos.”

Florida Being Invaded by African Giant Snails That Often Carry “Rat Lungworm” Parasite
After enduing an advertisement from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Florida now has to deal with another pest.

Christian students receive $800k in free speech lawsuit ruling
After a prolonged legal battle with the university over violations of their free speech, students Chike Uzuegbunam and Joseph Bradford have been granted a settlement of $800,000.

Within the war between Russia and Ukraine, a war between Chechens
The long table was set with sliced vegetables, bottles of Coca-Cola and juice, boiled lamb hearts, and kebabs cooked over a fire. Sitting at the head was the man of the hour — the birthday boy. His arms were crossed in front of his broad chest as he leaned back in his chair and observed the rare party.

Roman Polanski could return to the US without serving time with help from DA George Gascon
Director Roman Polanski who admitted to raping a 13-year-old girl and then fled the country to avoid prison, might be coming back to the United States. The Hollywood Reporter has a story up today about the history of the case and a change of approach to it coming from DA George Gascon’s office.

“Agree with Me or I’ll Kill Myself”
This is grotesque bullying from Bridges, and it ought to be condemned as such. First, Bridges says that Hawley’s “line of questioning is transphobic.” Next, she says that “one out of five transgender persons have attempted suicide.” When asked whether Hawley’s line of questioning is responsible for those attempted suicides, Bridges says that “denying that trans people exist, and pretending not to know that they exist” causes those suicide attempts, and then asks Hawley whether he thinks that “men can get pregnant.” When Hawley says “no,” Bridges tells him that he is “denying that trans people exist” — the very act that she just said causes one out of five transgender persons to attempt suicide.

What’s Ahead for Supreme Court After ‘Blockbuster Term’
Few times in American history has the Supreme Court received more attention than in the past two months.

5 Takeaways From Senate Judiciary Committee’s ‘Post-Roe America’ Hearing
As the Biden administration scrambles to respond to the Supreme Court’s landmark June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the legal landscape following the ruling.

Illegal Alien Charged With Raping and Impregnating 10-Year-Old in Ohio
Ann Coulter remarks that now we know why the media weren’t identifying the predator involved in this headline-making atrocity

Her EBT Card Got Declined
See this woman here? Stay away from her. She’s trouble. For days, the media has been going berserk about Jose Alba, 61, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was working July 1 in a bodega (which is what they call a mom-and-pop convenience store in New York City) when he was attacked and responded by fatally stabbing his attacker. Even though the self-defense case seems very strong, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg (who, of course, was elected with money from George Soros) decided to charge Alba with second-degree murder, and had him jailed at Riker’s Island for six days on $250,000 bond before a judge reduced the bond to $50,000 and Alba was released last Thursday.

Scientists Agog Over First Images From the Webb Space Telescope
Scientists may not be able to “know God’s thoughts” as Einstein suggested. But perhaps we can see the universe through His eyes.

Conflict of laws, trans edition
The late Herbert Stein was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Nixon and the author of Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” I wonder if Stein’s Law applies to the madness that has overtaken the Democratic Party, the party’s media adjunct, the United States military, and just about every major American institution. Stein’s Law seems to be running up against (John) O’Sullivan’s First Law: “All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.”

Bookstores Make Surprising Comeback
It’s foolish to deny that Amazon is efficient and convenient. The corporate behemoth started primarily as a book-seller, but has since successfully branched out into . . . well, just about everything, even necromancy. And though book sales represent 10 percent of its overall revenue (“only” $280 billion), that was enough for the company to sell “substantially more than half” of all books in the U.S., “including new and used physical volumes as well as digital and audio formats,” according to a 2019 New York Times story. That story adds that Amazon is also “a platform for third-party sellers, a publisher, a printer, a self-publisher, a review hub, a textbook supplier and a distributor that now runs its own chain of brick-and-mortar stores.”

LA County DA Gascón Closing Unit That Tells Victims of Assailant’s Parole Hearings
“Gascon’s office confirmed the move to Fox News, saying that notifying the victims can be ‘triggering’ to them, that it bogs down resources…”

Dog names are racist, according to scholars
Academics recently applauded a Social Psychology Quarterly study purporting to show a disparity in the time dogs were adopted based on racial associations with the animals’ names. ‘White’ names, according to the study, resulted in shorter adoption times compared to ‘Black’ names.

Teachers Union Wants Democrats to Fight Republicans on Critical Race Theory
“Poll of battleground states conducted for teacher’s union finds voters trust GOP more on education”

Sheldon Whitehouse Calls for Presidential Lawmaking by ‘Executive Beast Mode’
You or I might have read the United States Constitution, and thought, “Maybe the president doesn’t just have the unilateral power to write the laws. Maybe that’s why it says ‘all legislative powers’ are ‘vested in a Congress.'” You or I might have watched the just-ended Supreme Court term, and thought, “The Court is now taking this seriously, if we’re going to big propose new administrative rules, the last thing we should do is just say out loud that we’re having the executive make laws because he can’t get them through Congress.”

Potentially, A Big Win for the 1st Amendment
It has been widely reported that the Biden administration has leaned on tech companies, including social media companies, to censor content with which the administration disagrees. This is not a secret. On the contrary, the administration’s spokespeople have bragged about it, and Congressional Democrats have publicly applied pressure to tech employees, in committee hearings, to censor in accordance with the administration’s preferences.

Race and Gender Quotas In 2021 Infrastructure Law Challenged By Immigrant Who Fled Communist Romania
Contained in the $1.2 trillion Act was a “$37 billion fund … reserved for small businesses owned by certain minorities and women. Bruckner is a white male, so he is excluded.”

Secret Service Erases Message Data Pertinent to January 6
Somebody at the Secret Service has some explaining to do. It ought to be done promptly and under oath.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Overgrown grass, recording the police, and lying officers who lie and ruin people’s lives and get away with it.

Professor Sues University of Washington Over ‘Land Acknowledgment’ Investigation
Stuart Reges placed a land acknowledgment in his syllabus. Just not the one his university wanted.

Sex Changes Now a Funded, Fundamental Right In California
We all know it’s now cool amongst kids in elementary school to universities to want to have a sex change. Now it seems, the University of California, wants to help pay for these sex changes.

The Woke Left is Destroying American History at Founders’ Homes
“Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate reportedly went woke, with visitors saying the displays and tour guides insult his legacy.”

New Jersey Dept. of Corrections Transfers ‘Transgender Woman’ Who Impregnated Two Female Inmates
“…. come on I am African american woman who is transgender… that won’t change…I now have to be there for this child…Unexpected and Unplanned yet appreciative for this,” the inmate wrote in a May Twitter post.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Rent-control backers embrace blissful ignorance
One would hope that those backing a new law would have some idea of its fiscal impact. That doesn’t appear to be the case with Culinary Union Local 226 and its rent control proposal.

Washington Isn’t Ready for Higher Interest Rates
Congress and the White House are not prepared for a world with higher interest rates, and there’s no backup plan.

Inflation rose 9.1% in June, even more than expected, as consumer pressures intensify
The consumer price index increased 9.1% from a year ago in June, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. Excluding food and energy, core CPI rose 5.9%, compared with the 5.7% estimate. Costs surged for gasoline, groceries, rent and dental care. Adjusted for inflation, workers’ hourly wages fell 1% during the month and are down 3.6% from a year ago.

Bonds Slump as Inflation Surge Fuels Bets on 100-Basis-Point Fed Rate Hike
US Treasury yields jumped after another hotter-than-expected inflation report kindled bets that the Federal Reserve could raise rates by as much as a full percentage point this month.

Inflation hits 9.1 percent
Inflation hit a new four-decade high in June as prices rose 9.1 percent from last year — 1.3 percent from the prior month — according to the data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning. The BLS’s “all items index increased 9.1 percent for the 12 months ending June, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.”

Bidenflation pushes producer-price index up 11.3% in June
Fasten your seatbelts, because inflation’s still going to be a bumpy ride for the next few months. Despite repeated insistence from the White House that we’ve seen the worst of inflation, the producer-price index rose at its fastest level in three months in June. Final-demand year-on-year PPI inflation hit near a new record at 11.6% as well

Truckers Say California Law Likely to Make U.S. Supply Chain Crisis Even Worse
Touted as the leftist cure to save gig workers from exploitation, in reality, AB5 is simply a job- and freedom-killing monstrosity. AB5 limits the freedom of California’s workers to be independent contractors. Instead, it forces them to be considered salaried employees, which means the employers are also forced to place them under the existing laws for health insurance, retirement, and a myriad of other regulations concerning full-time employees. While AB5 does exempt some specific occupations from its onerous regulations, the state’s over 70,000 independent truckers were not explicitly among those exemptions in the original bill.

Major railroad union authorizes potential strike over labor contract fight
The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, known as BLET, said Tuesday that more than 99% of its members voted to authorize a strike.

China uses AI to ‘improve’ courts – with computers ‘correcting perceived human errors in a verdict’ and JUDGES forced to submit a written explanation to the MACHINE if they disagree
China has been developing a ‘smart court’ system since at least 2016, aiming to increase ‘fairness, efficiency, and credibility’ of its judges

California vs. Truckers
Since the Supreme Court declined to hear the California Trucking Association’s appeal regarding AB5 on June 30, it’s still unclear exactly how California’s trucking industry will be affected.

Transportation Strikes Continue around the World
So far this year, we’ve seen in numerous examples around the world that unions have the upper hand in labor negotiations, and they have no qualms making supply-chain problems worse.

 

International

 

The solar system could collapse because of a passing star, scientists predict
Scientists have warned that if a passing star moves Neptune’s orbit by just 0.1 per cent, the resulting chaos could cause the other planets in our solar system to collide.

Race to Replace Johnson Intensifies as Truss Announces Bid
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss entered the race to replace Boris Johnson as UK premier, the latest cabinet minister to make her move in an already fractious contest.

Robots predicted to rule the world by 2060 humans forced to be servants
ROBOTS are predicted to rule the world by the 2060s, a survey found. That is forecast to be the peak of Artificial Intelligence capability — with machines in control of politics and economics.

Brazil party official shot dead as pre-election political violence escalates
A local official from Brazil’s leftist opposition Workers’ Party (PT) was shot dead on Saturday by a federal prison guard shouting support for right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, according to state law enforcement and a witness.

Just How Stable Is China Right Now?
The Chinese government, like all authoritarian regimes, requires a narrative of universal competence and wisdom in its leaders, which means the regime can never openly admit a mistake. Everything is always going according to the five-year plan, the state is always right, the leaders are always all-knowing and all-seeing, and any corruption, failures or incompetence that is exposed is always isolated incidents involving rogue low-level employees.

Reports from Cuba: Havana, a dead city with ‘more police than people on the street’ and no lines
The harassment of independent activists and journalists since last week already foretold that this Monday, the one-year anniversary of the historic 11J demonstrations in Cuba, would be a day without disturbances. This is the case, at least in Havana, where numerous police officers, uniform and civilian, are deployed in the streets of the center. In their effort to maintain order, the authorities have even done what seemed impossible: they made the lines disappear.

 

Opinion

 

“Molotov” Mixes a Double
I find myself reading the Powerline equivalent of Pravda, to wit, the comments on my very first Powerline blog post about the ineffable Gavin Newsom contemplating a run for the presidency.

It’s Not ‘Minority Rule’; It’s the Point
One of the more popular complaints of the contemporary left is that the Constitution subverts “democracy” for “minority rule.” If the United States is really more divided than ever, we have even less reason to dispense with the mechanisms and institutions that diffuse power and constrain one side of the divide from lording over the other. Institutions like the Electoral College and the Senate temper divisions.

What Comes After Boris?
The challenge of replacing a force of nature

Stop Lying. Divorce Is Hell on Kids
Few things enrage me more than outright dishonesty, and one of those is outright dishonesty in the service of doing harm to children. There is an entire cottage industry of media devoted to reassuring parents that divorce is not bad for children. The reason why there is an evergreen market for this is obvious: guilt. Divorced parents need desperately to believe that they are not being selfish and making their children miserable, so they are fed a steady stream of reassurance from center-left media sources.

Will Dems Dump Biden *Before* November?
Even out in the middle of the Atlantic, where internet access is slow and hard to come by, the two bombshell New York Times articles that tacitly declare that It’s Over for Joe Biden managed to get through.

As Canada’s health system burns, Trudeau and the provinces debate the firehose
A public health-care system that was already straining before the pandemic is now visibly coming apart

Don’t Abandon the University—Save It
Dissenters from progressive orthodoxy would be wrong to leave the American university to wither on the vine.

Michael Barone: Why not the worst?
Here’s my take, based in part on a recent visit to the Warren G. Harding Museum and Home in Marion, Ohio. Harding is often rated one of the poorest presidents — quite wrongly in my view, as I have written on other occasions.

Gavin Newsom’s Weird Idea of ‘Freedom’
In a run-up to what is likely to be a 2024 presidential bid, California Governor Gavin Newsom hit upon the bizarre idea of boasting in commercials that California is America’s true “free” state.

It Must Be Nice To Have John Marshall On Your Side, Except for Indian Law
Justice Gorsuch embraces Worcester v. Georgia, while Justice Kavanaugh rejects the great Chief Justice.

Eric Schmitt and Vicky Hartzler Need to Chat
Ego is a hell of a thing. It prevents people from seeing the world around them as it is. It has cost Missouri voters before and might just cost the nation now.

Woke Hollywood Celebrates Slavers Because They’re Black Women
The left’s obsession with centering everything on race and sex has reached a new and despicable low with an upcoming movie called “The Woman King.”

Historic Thoughts on ‘Our Democracy’
America’s form of government is unique among nations, in that we are a federal republic. Other nations may call themselves such, but they do not have our distinct history, in which 13 separate British colonies, having fought and won a war for independence from their homeland, then developed a new charter for their combined government as a federation of states. As a condition of ratifying that charter, the constitutional conventions of several states — most particularly Virginia — insisted that it must be amended to include guarantees of certain rights.

Andrew Sullivan: The skeptic’s case for Ron DeSantis
Andrew Sullivan doesn’t exactly sound eager to support Gov. DeSantis’ possible bid for the White House in 2024, but he does tick through the arguments against him and suggests that given a choice between what we have now and a return of Donald Trump, DeSantis may in fact be the best choice.

‘White People Don’t Ride the Bus’
When I got hired by The Washington Times in 1997, we moved from small-town Georgia to the D.C. suburbs in Montgomery, Maryland. I found an apartment in Gaithersburg, and told my old college buddy Patrick Carter — who grew up in the suburbs of Washington — how pleased I was with the location: Our apartment was just three miles from the northwest terminus of the Metro rail Red Line at Shady Grove Station, and there was a bus stop right next to the apartment complex, which would make my commute to D.C. much easier.

Transgender ‘Rights’ vs. Common Sense
Say hello to Demetrius Minor, who was 16 when he was sentenced to 30 years in prison after a plea bargain on manslaughter and carjacking charges in 2011 in Camden County, New Jersey

How the 2012 Election Deranged America
It gave us the politics of trolling and demographic obsession