News of the Week for Mar. 7^th, 2021

• Riots & Revolution
• Corona Virus
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Riots & Revolution

 

Minneapolis Hired “Influencers” To Spin The George Floyd Homicide Trials. Hilarity Ensued … Briefly.
This new initiative from the same people who wanted to abolish the police in Minneapolis was doomed to failure one way or another, but the swift end might have been the most merciful outcome for all involved. On the one hand, many in the area expect protests to accelerate during the trials of the four officers involved in the death of George Floyd, so anything that can be done to tamp down outrage could save property and potentially lives. Few people want to relive the summer of 2020 around here — although few people want to live under current high-crime conditions that have extended since then, too.

Minneapolis courthouse turned into fortress for George Floyd murder trial
The Minneapolis courthouse where ex-cop Derek Chauvin will stand trial for murder in the death of George Floyd is being turned into a veritable fortress.

Hmmm: Why Did The DoJ Dismiss “Dozens” Of Portland Riot Cases?
Could it be for lack of evidence — or does it have to do with the change of leadership at the Department of Justice? The outgoing US Attorney told KGW that each case has been reviewed separately, but Billy Williams had promised “consequences” for rioters arrested in Portland’s months-long unrest. So how does dismissals with prejudice match up with that rhetoric (via PJ Media)?

The George Floyd Quotas in Policing Act
Hans Bader and Dan McLaughlin have written about two concerning aspects of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. First, that a disparate impact by race or sex in traffic stops is considered prima facie evidence of racial profiling. Second, that because disparate impact alone is enough to get a police department in trouble, the police will have an incentive either to stop Asian and female motorists who are not speeding, or not to stop black and male motorists who are speeding, all in an effort to “get their numbers right.”

Welp: Michael Brown’s Father Demands $20M From Black Lives Matter, Other Ferguson Activists Request “Funding”
Who had this grift on their 2021 bingo card? The father of Michael Brown is seeking $20M from Black Lives Matter, along with other activists in Ferguson, Missouri. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation released an impact report to the Associated Press last week which shows a whopping $90M raised last year. Brown would like his piece of the pie now.

Biden Adviser: Prioritizing Teachers For COVID Vaccinations Is “An ANTI-EQUITY Move”
Is Joe Biden’s decision to prioritize teachers for COVID-19 vaccinations insufficiently woke? The Hill reports that an epidemiologist who advised the Biden transition has blasted the move, arguing that Biden’s pander to the union comes at the expense of more vulnerable Americans — especially in minority communities. In a tweet that appears to have been deleted, NYU’s Céline Gounder called it “an ANTI-EQUITY move”

As violence surges, some question Portland axing police unit
Elmer Yarborough got a terrifying call from his sister: She wept as she told him two of his nephews may have been shot in broad daylight as they left a bar in Portland, Oregon.

Trump supporters clash with ANTIFA in Manhattan after unfurling a huge flag of Pelosi as a demon outside Trump Tower
President Donald Trump supporters paraded down Fifth Avenue in New York City on Friday afternoon

“The Neoracism in the Suspension of a Law Professor for Nothing Whatsoever at the University of Illinois in Chicago”
That’s from a John McWhorter column on the Kilborn controversy, which came out in late January but which I somehow missed

Ithaca (NY) – Police Officers Found Out About Plan To Eliminate Dept From Article In GQ Magazine
Many officers plan on leaving sooner rather than waiting.

Chauvin pretrial notes
This past Monday I previewed the trial of Derek Chauvin that commences with motions in limine at 8:00 a.m. and jury selection at 9:00 a.m. (Central) tomorrow morning. If you missed my preview and think you might find it of interest, it is posted here (including a link to the CourtTV live stream). I want to add these pretrial notes.

Portland Can Relax. The ‘Enhanced Community Safety Team’ Is On The Job
Portland Oregon politicians decided to drastically cut the budget for the police department at the end of last year, hoping to make their city streets safer — at least for Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

 

Corona Virus

 

Louisiana police officer fatally shot over alleged mask dispute at high school basketball game
A Louisiana police officer providing security at a high school basketball game in New Orleans was shot and killed following a mask-related dispute, authorities said, and a suspect was immediately taken into custody.

Covid-19 Variant in Brazil Overwhelms Local Hospitals, Hits Younger Patients
New coronavirus strain is more contagious and more capable of reinfecting people than earlier strain, studies show

Virus variant races through Italy, especially among children
The variant of the coronavirus discovered in Britain is prevalent among Italy’s infected schoolchildren and is helping to fuel a “robust” uptick in the curve of COVID-19 contagion in the country, the health minister said Tuesday.

“Neanderthal Thinking”: Biden Blasts Texas, Other States For Lifting Mask Mandates
An unfortunate soundbite. From time to time I think of Mike DeWine’s decision early in the pandemic, when the mask wars were just beginning, not to mandate mask-wearing in Ohio. That wasn’t because he didn’t see value in masks, it was because he realized that having the government browbeat mask skeptics about wearing one was apt to make them more resistant to doing so, not less.

WarnerMedia CEO Says Coronavirus “Really Good for Ratings”
CNN’s parent company predicts wall-to-wall COVID coverage ‘not going away anytime soon’

WHO Refuses to Release Interim Report on Investigation Into Virus Origins
The WHO team of scientists who went to China to investigate the origins of the coronavirus will not release an interim report on their findings. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last month that the team would release an interim report on their visit to China and then, several weeks later, issue a final report. Now, the team will release a “summary” of their trip and a final report later.

Bucking The Trend: Governors Of Deep Red Arkansas And West Virginia Stand By Mask Mandates
Didn’t see this coming, especially after the burst of support Greg Abbott got from righties for lifting Texas’s mask mandate and ending capacity limits on businesses amid a torrent of criticism from Democrats and experts. Yesterday it came out that Abbott never consulted with three of the four members of his team of medical advisors before making his move, and the one he did speak with wouldn’t frankly condone the idea when asked afterward. (One of the three who didn’t speak to Abbott later said, “I don’t think this is the right time [to ease restrictions]… Texas has been making some real progress, but it’s too soon for full reopening and to stop masking around others.”) Was his decision truly based on trends in cases and hospitalizations or was it a political calculation?

Suspense: Manchin’s Support For GOP Amendment On Unemployment Benefits Threatens To Upend Dems’ COVID Bill
What a sh*tshow. I mentioned in an earlier post that congressional Dem leaders had struck a deal with the White House today to tweak the unemployment benefits in the House’s COVID stimulus bill. Pelosi’s caucus wanted $400 per week through August. An amendment sponsored by Dem Sen. Ben Carper would change that to $300 per week through early October. Leaner payments but a longer time frame, plus the first $10,200 in UI received by each individual would be tax-free. Biden signed off, Schumer signed off, and presumably Pelosi signed off. Good to go.

Report: Cuomo’s Top Advisors Changed COVID-19 Report on Nursing Home Death
“State officials now say more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and other long-term-care facilities were confirmed or presumed to have died from Covid-19 since March of last year…”

‘FEED ‘EM TO THE FIRE’ Shocking moment Idaho kids toss Covid masks into burning trash can at #BurnTheMask rally
Video footage of the mask-burning rally in Boise, Idaho, captured people of ages, including a handful of children, throwing their protective face-coverings into a fiery garbage can.

 

Gun Rights

 

Tennessee on the Move Toward Constitutional Carry (HB0786/SB0765)
The Tennessee legislature has introduced two bills, one in the House, the other in the Senate, that have a good chance of passage. The bills change current law enough to qualify as a reasonable version of Constitutional Carry.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Cities are starting to ban new gas stations
Petaluma, California, has voted to outlaw new gas stations, the first of what climate activists hope will be numerous cities and counties to do so.

Volvo to go fully electric by 2030
By the end of the decade, the only Volvo you’ll be able to purchase will be electric. And you’ll only be able to buy it online.

Why “Social Cost of Carbon” Is Most Useless Number You’ve Never Heard of
On his very first day in office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order resurrecting the Obama-era social cost of carbon, intended to quantify the economic impact of climate change.

Chuck DeVore: Texas’ blackouts – here’s the truth about why they happened and what we have to do next
There are two general reasons for Texas’ prolonged power outages

DOH! California City Bans New Gas Stations
Okay, folks. Who’s ready to put an end to climate change and global warming? The city of Petaluma, California is, that’s who. And the brilliant plan they’ve decided on looks like a sure-fire winner… to somebody, apparently. As the Washington Times reported this week, the city’s leaders have taken the carbon emissions bull by the horns and wrestled it to the ground. From now on, no new gas stations will be allowed to be built inside the city. If and when the city’s 16 existing gas stations eventually go out of business, gasoline will no longer be available. What could possibly go wrong?

Utopian dream? UVA student gov wants ‘community gardens’ instead of fossil fuels
Student government members at the University of Virginia passed legislation endorsing a call for the school to “divest” from fossil fuel investments.

No Mention Of CO2: New Study Shows African Climate Variability Strongly Linked To Natural Cycles
A new study analyzes patterns of natural rainfall variability and can provide crucial assistance to African countries in seasonal rainfall forecasting for agriculture and protection against droughts & heavy rains.

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Biden Proposes to Expand Obamacare
The American Recovery Act, the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion response to the COVID-19 pandemic, includes a $40 billion down payment on the president’s plan to “build on Obamacare.”

Activists Want to Force Caregivers to Starve Dementia Patients to Death
As I have warned here before, euthanasia activists are pushing for laws that permit people to write advance directives ordering themselves starved to death if they become mentally incapacitated. That effort is apparently gaining steam. The assisted suicide supporting organization Final Exit Network published a poll that supposedly found only 15 percent of respondents would oppose.

 

War & Terror

 

China appears to warn India: Push too hard and the lights could go out
As battles raged in the Himalayas, taking at least two dozen lives, Chinese malware was flowing into the control systems that manage electric supply across India, along with a high-voltage transmission substation and a coal-fired power plant, a new report has just revealed.

Air Force Base Prepping for EMP Vulnerability Tests
In response to a Trump administration executive order, Joint Base San Antonio is getting ready to test its infrastructure against a simulated electromagnetic pulse attack.

The Massacres in Tigray
A few months ago, there were rumors of a massacre of hundreds at the Church of Our Lady Mary Zion in Axum, in northern Ethiopia. It is an area rocked by the Tigray war, which involves the communists of Ethiopia, the Eritrean defense forces, and ethno-nationalist movements. It is a very confusing conflict for those not schooled in the last 40 years of Ethiopian politics. And the nature of the war, happening in the middle of a pandemic, in the midst of unthinkable poverty, has meant that very little reliable information has come out. Initial reports were treated somewhat skeptically — how could anyone kill hundreds of people and there not be video, tweets, and news reports? But now Amnesty International has confirmed that there have been unthinkable massacres in this region, though it has not yet confirmed all the details of the Cathedral story.

Netanyahu: Iran Behind Attack on Israeli Cargo Ship
“This was indeed an operation by Iran. That is clear.”

Bad Idea? NATO Tanks To Go Green—Add Solar Panels
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has suggested that by adding solar panels, tanks could become less reliant on fossil fuels and that will increase the resilience of troops and military operations.

Becerra downplayed China’s abuses as a ‘different perspective’ on human rights
President Biden’s pick to lead his Health and Human Services Department once downplayed China’s human rights abuses amid a push to expand trade with the communist country.

Police uncover “possible plot” by militia to breach Capitol
Capitol Police say they have uncovered intelligence of a “possible plot” by a militia group to breach the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, nearly two months after a mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump stormed the iconic building to try to stop Congress from certifying now-President Joe Biden’s victory.

Threats to Capitol prompt House to cancel Thursday votes
House Democrats will accelerate passage of a sweeping police reform bill, bringing the legislation to the floor Wednesday night — and canceling votes Thursday — amid revelations of new threats to the Capitol.

Mediterranean oil spill is “eco-terrorism” by Iran, Israel says
Sources in the defense establishment said they were not familiar with Gamliel’s claim that the oil spill was the result of terrorism

U.S. Adversaries Weaponize Woke Politics
China says U.S. leads ‘axis of white supremacy’ while Russia smears dissidents

Biden Admin “Pleased” Europeans Dropped Nuclear Censure Plan Against Iran
China joins the Biden White House in welcoming the European decision.

 

National

 

Jerry Nadler Unmasks the True Nature of the ‘Equality Act’
Last Thursday, as the House of Representatives debated H.R. 5, the Orwellian “Equality Act,” a seemingly exasperated Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) arguably revealed the true nature of his party’s radical legislation. In response to Rep. Greg Steube’s (R-Fla.) speech quoting the Bible, Nadler declared that “what any religious tradition describes as God’s will is no concern of this Congress.”

English prof suggests Shakespeare works are racist
An Arizona State English professor claimed that study of British playwright William Shakespeare was used to “civilize” people in the British Empire.

Police Kill Juan Hernandez
Don’t expect to see the #Justice4Juan hashtag trending on social media, nor is it likely that the police shooting of Juan Hernandez will give rise to a #LatinoLivesMatter movement. No, I think everyone in America will agree, Juan Hernandez needed killing

Victims-Rights Advocates Launch Recall Effort Against L.A. County DA Gascón
The real epidemic spreading through California is recall fever.

There Is No Such Thing as “White” Math
I naively believed that STEM would be spared from the ideological takeover. I was wrong, says Princeton professor Sergiu Klainerman.

Liberals Find A Case Of Racism They Don’t Want The Courts To Correct
The editorial board at the Washington Examiner has a good analysis of a pending case before the Supreme Court that could turn some of the current debates over racism in America on its head. The subject at hand once again deals with the college admissions system in this country and the ham-handed way that many schools put their thumbs on the scales for all the wrong reasons. A lawsuit against Harvard is currently attempting to deal with that issue, particularly as it applies to one specific group of minorities. Through an arbitrary “rating system” used by the admissions board, Asian-American applicants are routinely downgraded to the benefit of Black and Hispanic students. So will the Supreme Court finally step in to correct this? Clearly, the elites at our houses of higher education would prefer they didn’t.

Washington Post Publisher: Biden Is Failing His First Major Test of a Campaign Promise
It’s not that surprising that the Washington Post, the paper that employed Jamal Khashoggi, would be particularly disappointed with the Biden administration’s half-a-loaf punishment of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman. The Biden administration has publicly accused MBS of ordering the murder, but as of this moment is not instituting any sanctions upon the prince himself.

Hygiene Socialism on College Campuses
What economics professor Don Boudreaux calls “hygiene socialism” has, as anyone would expect, found favor among college officials. The same people who think it’s necessary to protect students from “harmful” words and “dangerous” books have flexed their muscles to try to keep students, a group at very low risk from COVID, from contracting or spreading it.

Kamala Harris and Other Leftists Spring Rapist From Jail
In the wake of last Summer’s devastating riots in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Hollywood celebrities and left-wing politicians led by Kamala Harris joined forces to bail out violent criminals who committed arson, looting and other felonies. But apparently there were not enough such criminals to go around–not enough who got arrested, anyway–so the Hollywood/D.C. leftists bailed out everyone in sight. Along with other victims, one or more Minnesota women have now suffered kidnapping and assault as a result of Kamala Harris’s largesse

Six Dr. Seuss Books Won’t be Published Again Due to “Racist and Insensitive Imagery”
“These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.”

Experts sound the alarm on declining birth rates among younger generations: “It’s a crisis”
New data is confirming a baby boom that some doctors expected was actually a “baby bust.” Health departments in 27 states provided records to CBS News, showing a 7% drop in births in December — nine months after the first lockdowns began.

6 Dr. Seuss books won’t be published for racist images
Six Dr. Seuss books — including “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and ““If I Ran the Zoo” — will stop being published because of racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author’s legacy said Tuesday.

BUSTED: Democrats Snuck $1 BILLION For “Racial Justice” In Farming Section Of COVID Bill
It should be clear by now that the COVID relief package is little more than a gigantic giveaway to special interests that are loyal to the Democrats and bailouts for mismanaged blue states.

Texas judge and three others arrested on 150 counts of voter fraud
Justice of the Peace Tomas Ramirez is accused of ballot harvesting at assisted living centers in the 2018 primary election.

Frankened: Will This Photo Bury Cuomo?
If a picture normally tells a thousand words, this serendipitous shot corroborating Anna Ruch’s accusation of misconduct by Andrew Cuomo qualifies for a novel. Just as with Al Franken, this photo has the potential to crystallize multiple such allegations into an unforgettable icon that will define New York’s beleaguered governor. But unlike Franken, whose career was ended by a sophomoric prank on a sleeping fellow performer, it could end up overshadowing what should be an even larger scandal complete with a body count.

Colorado Governor Betrays Cattle Ranchers with “MeatOut Day” Declaration
Colorado is a cattle state. The industry brings in billions of dollars a year to Colorado’s economy and is responsible for about 170,000 jobs.

Supreme Court to Hear Case on Federal Funding of Abortion
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving federal funding of abortion providers in the U.S. Early last week, the Court granted cert in a case challenging the “Protect Life” rule, which the Trump administration enacted to prevent abortion providers from obtaining federal funding through the Title X family planning program.

What Do the People Think?
I’m looking over the 189-page results of a recent Harvard-Harris poll of 1,778 voters conducted last week, and there are some interesting findings to pass along

Conspiracy Theorist Neera Tanden Withdraws Nomination After Deleting Controversial Tweets
Hillary Clinton loyalist Neera Tanden’s nomination to head up Joe Biden’s Office of Management and Budget is off. Tanden has withdrawn and Biden has accepted. The prolific and frequently insulting tweeter found that her Twitter history wrecked her chances.

Student newspaper publishes op-ed criticizing return of ‘invasive species’ White peers to ‘Chocolate City’
An American University student compared White students returning to campus with “settler colonialism.”

Oakland Councilor – “All Violence Comes From The Same Root Causes: White Supremacy And Capitalism”
Opinion: Chinatown attacks won’t divide Black and Asian communities

Governor Gropo
Gosh, he was a Democratic Party hero just a few weeks ago

California teacher makes anti-Asian gesture during Zoom class: video
A California high school teacher is under fire for making a “shocking” anti-Asian gesture during a Zoom class last week.

Too Fun To Check: Did “Defund The Police” Drive Non-White Voters To Trump?
If this is true, talk about backfire. Former Obama campaign adviser David Shor argues yes. Democrats thought that slogan would strengthen ethnocentric voting choices. Instead, it forced non-white voters to choose ideology over demographics, especially among Hispanics — and rather than pull voters to Joe Biden by pandering, they drove them to Donald Trump instead

No Escape from Progressive Education
Hostility to private education is a longstanding characteristic of progressivism. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, progressives sought to limit (and in some cases eliminate) parents’ right to educate their children as they saw fit.

Biden Administration Backs Bill That Would Force Cops to Stop Women in the Street for No Reason
The Biden administration is now supporting H.R. 1280, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which among other things contains the “End Racial and Religious Profiling Act of 2021.” That part of the proposed law declares, “No law enforcement agent or law enforcement agency shall engage in racial profiling.” Who could be against that? Well, as is often the case with legislation, the devil is in the details. Hans Bader writes at Liberty Unyielding that there are two glaring problems with this prohibition, especially when you combine the two.

Douglas Anderson School of the Arts criticized for proposing to separate students by race for cultural discussions
Douglas Anderson School of the Arts were planning on holding a cultural discussion with its students on Thursday. The meeting would feature Dr. Tammy Hodo, a local TEDx speaker and lead consultant at All Things Diverse, and Grammy winner/DA Alum Ulysses Owens. Parents received an email Tuesday night informing them of the meeting.

CPAC Stage Designer ‘Fesses Up
During CPAC in Orlando last week, the Twitter mob flew into a frenzy about the “Nazi” stage design that the group was using. Supposedly the stage took the shape of the “Odal rune,” a Norse symbol that some members of the Nazi party used on their uniforms.

An Australia-Style Facebook Law May Be About To Show Up In Washington
Last month, Facebook came to some sort of a deal with the Government of Australia to tentatively lift the blackout they had imposed on any posts linking to news sites. At that time, it seemed as if a deal with Australia wasn’t going to clarify what would be happening elsewhere around the globe. Canada was considering passing a similar law, as were several European countries. There was talk of something like that happening in the United States Congress, but it was mostly just that… talk. Now the situation appears to have changed. The House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing to consider the Journalism Competition and Protection Act (JCPA) which would effectively mirror what was done in Australia.

Huge ‘UFO’ spotted hovering over Las Vegas by multiple witnesses as videos emerge
Witnesses from all sides of Las Vegas flooded Twitter with videos and pictures of the unusual sight, with some claiming they were a large UFO. Others dismissed them as military flares

Mom accuses UTLA of conducting racial opposition research on parents pushing for in-person classes
A local Middle Eastern mom who wants her child back in school is outraged after she says UTLA tried to collect racial opposition research on her.

As schools reopen, Asian American students are missing from classrooms
It’s happening in well-to-do Pakistani households in the suburbs of Washington and among Chinese restaurant workers in Philadelphia. It’s happening among weary Filipino nurses in Queens, Hmong refugee families in Minneapolis and in Silicon Valley’s Asian American community.

WANTED: 8 Civilian Crewmembers for a Private SpaceX Flight Around the Moon
I just signed up for a trip around the moon, tentatively scheduled for sometime in 2023. Sponsored by insanely awesome Japanese billionaire, art collector, and soon-to-be civilian astronaut Yusaku Maezawa, the SpaceX “dearMoon” mission will select eight members of the global public to join him on what promises to be quite a ride.

Equity Policy Results in 2 Veteran Educators Fired for Refusing to Do “Wakanda Salute”
Two veteran educators from the Bronx were recently fired from their jobs after nearly 30 years each of service for the simple act of refusing to do the “Wakanda Salute,” a gesture from the popular Marvel movie “Black Panther.”

Southern Poverty Law Center Pushing Biden to Implement “Curriculum on Structural Racism”
“Americans can only dismantle white supremacy if they understand how racism shaped (and continues to shape) housing, education, policing, health care and other policies”

eBay Pulling Listings of Canceled Dr. Seuss Books Because They Violate the “Offensive Material Policy”
You can still list and buy Mein Kampf, other Hitler items, books written by Che, Mao’s Little Red Book, etc.

FBI Official Tells Senate No One “Recovered” Guns During Capitol Hill Riots
“To my knowledge, we have not recovered any on that day from any other arrests at the scene at this point.”

San Francisco Reporter Went To Cover Car Break-Ins And Was Robbed At Gunpoint
San Francisco has a serious problem with car break-ins. Back in 2018 there were reports that some exhausted city residents who’d had their cars broken into more than once were now leaving notes in the window begging thieves to move on.

House Democrats Vote To Defund The Police
The House Democrats certainly had a busy night on Wednesday. In addition to passing a massive “reimagining” of the way the nation votes, they also found time to push through a sweeping police “reform” bill. Just as with the bill that would mandate changes to the voting system, this one also barely squeaked through on a party-line vote… sort of. (More on that in a moment.) One of the immediate objections raised against this bill noted the massive amount of unfunded mandates that would be imposed on police departments across the nation. These mandates would force precincts to cut costs in other areas in order to remain in compliance, effectively defunding the police. And that’s something Joe Biden has previously claimed he opposed.

Cancelers Get eBay to Purge Dr. Seuss Books
“Don’t worry,” people were telling us as recently as this morning, “taking six Dr. Seuss books out of print is just a business decision, you can still get them, they just won’t be published anymore.” I guess that apologia for cancel culture has now been rendered inoperative, as eBay has announced that it will purge all listings for the books from its site

‘Space hurricane’ that rained electrons observed for the first time
The spiral-armed storm swirled roughly 125 miles over the North Pole, churning in place for almost eight hours.

Cancelers Get eBay to Purge Dr. Seuss Books
“Don’t worry,” people were telling us as recently as this morning, “taking six Dr. Seuss books out of print is just a business decision, you can still get them, they just won’t be published anymore.” I guess that apologia for cancel culture has now been rendered inoperative, as eBay has announced that it will purge all listings for the books from its site

Guess Who Just Admitted Harris and Becerra Violated the First Amendment
Surprising briefs emerge in a First Amendment case before the Supreme Court.

Asteroid as big as Golden Gate Bridge to pass Earth ahead of spring
An asteroid as big as the Golden Gate Bridge is expected to pass Earth ahead of the first day of spring.

Depressing Poll: Most New Yorkers Say Cuomo Shouldn’t Resign, Think He’s Done A Good Job Handling The Pandemic
The last time I saw a poll this depressing was last July. Which also had to do with Andrew Cuomo, not coincidentally.

Baltimore: High School Student With 0.13 GPA Is Near The Top Half Of His Class
This story is shocking on many levels. This week Fox 45 in Baltimore reported on a 17-year-old high school student who was just told that instead of graduating, he is being sent back to 9th grade. How is this possible? Well, it turns out the young man has only been to school about half the time and when he was there he failed almost every class he took

Kentucky bill would make it a crime to insult a police officer
A bill moving through Kentucky’s Senate would make it a crime to insult or taunt a police officer during a riot. Supporters say the bill targets people who unlawfully “cross the line” but opponents call it a blatant attempt to crush protests and a violation of First Amendment rights.

School district officials defend “slave letter writing” assignment at Mississippi school
Officials at a Mississippi school district have addressed the public about a controversial assignment called the “slavery letter writing activity.”

Trump appointee arrested in connection with Capitol riot
Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, was picked up Thursday on charges stemming from the Jan. 6 takeover of Congress.

Capitol riot suspect pictured at Pelosi’s desk screams ‘it’s not fair’ in courtroom tantrum
Richard Barnett, infamously photographed during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot with his feet propped on a desk in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, shouted that it was “not fair” that he remained in jail, in an outburst before a federal judge on Thursday.

Mississippi legislature passes ‘Fairness Act’ to ban trans athletes from women’s sports
The Mississippi state legislature passed a bill to ban transgender female athletes from women’s sports.

The Relentless 9-Year Assault on Jack Phillips Unmasks the True Threat of the ‘Equality Act’
Nine years ago, a gay couple went into Masterpiece Cakeshop and asked baker Jack Phillips to craft a cake to celebrate their same-sex wedding. Phillips refused, based on his Christian conviction that marriage is between one man and one woman, but he offered to sell the men anything else in the shop. They reported him to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, sparking a six-year legal battle up to the Supreme Court. Shortly after the Supreme Court found in favor of Phillips, a transgender lawyer targeted the Christian baker, beginning the battle all over again.

Almost Three-Quarters of U.S. Academics Wouldn’t Even EAT With Someone Who Rejects Transgenderism
The insanity on America’s college campuses appears to have abated somewhat. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) database, university speaker disinvitations peaked in 2016 and have slowly declined since. The Niskanen Center declared that “the campus free speech crisis” ended in 2018, and Commentary magazine reported that things were “looking up on campus” in 2019. The latest education scandals often involve elementary and high schools more than college campuses.

NY Times: Democrats Have A Problem Appealing To Latino Men
This is music to my ears

Biden To Indian-American NASA Engineer: Boy, You Guys Are Taking Over The Country, Huh?
Consider this an answer to yesterday’s question of why Biden hasn’t held a proper press conference since he was sworn in.

Women’s History Month Begins with the Bashing of Women from History
One of my favorite churches in the United States is St. Mary’s in New Haven, Conn. It’s basically on the campus of Yale University, inasmuch as Yale buildings surround it. It’s run by Dominican fathers — many of them in the Province of St. Joseph are friends of mine — and it is where Fr. Michael McGivney’s earthly remains are. He was the founder of the Knights of Columbus, and he was recently beatified (one of the steps to official recognition as a saint).

Mississippi Election Thrown Out for Absentee-Ballot Fraud
As my cover story in the latest issue of the magazine notes, voting and election fraud are real, and we need safeguards against them; they are also unlikely to affect elections decided by anything but the narrowest of margins, and hard to escape detection when frauds involve significant numbers of votes. News from Aberdeen, Miss., underlines all of those points, as a notary’s actions in notarizing ballots without observing their signatures led to vacating the results of an election decided by 37 votes, where 66 ballots were invalid

Killing The SAT Means Hurting Minorities
The evidence is clear. But the woke refuse to accept it.

STUDY: Academics systemically hostile toward conservatives
A recent study across Britain, Canada, and the United States revealed that a sizable portion of the professoriate discriminates against conservatives.

Want To Eat At A Diner Or Ride The Bus? Not If Your Equity Credit Score Is Too Low – Immunity Passports Bring Back Racial Segregation
Vaccine passports aren’t coming: they’re already here. And while discriminating against people based on their vaccination status is bad enough: the implications are even worse.

Juxtaposition
It is now leftist orthodoxy that any disparities you can measure between groups are evidence of racism and white supremacy, and that “equity” requires equal outcomes, not equal rights. One reason today’s race-mongers say it is no longer legitimate to treat people as individuals can be grasped by comparing these two news stories from earlier this week involving the educational outcomes of two black teen boys, one in Baltimore, and one in Atlanta.

Our Public Schools: Worse Than You Can Imagine
America’s public education system is so bad that it is an existential threat to the survival of the republic. I have known this for a long time, but I continue to be shocked by the depths to which the teachers’ unions and the Democratic Party have dragged millions of our country’s children.

Humans evolved to use water much more efficiently than apes
The story of humans’ descent from the trees — the journey from ape to early human — often focuses on the development of big brains, dextrous hands and bipedal gait, but new research suggests another difference may have been equally important: water efficiency.

Garland Doesn’t Seem To Know Much About Anything During Questioning
When the Senate confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland to be Joe Biden’s pick for Attorney General kicked off, we quickly learned that there were a number of public policy topics that he’s “never given much thought to,” and didn’t have any opinions to share. Those included issues of illegal immigration and whether or not transgender athletes should be able to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. As the hearings continued, there emerged even more topics that Garland professes to not know very much about. This time the questions dealt with the Second Amendment and the limits of the President’s power to infringe on those rights via the pen and the phone. When Ted Cruz pressed him on some specifics, Garland claimed to be “unfamiliar” with the subject and said that he “cannot offer an opinion.”

Harris on the hot seat
A black minister recently made the following pitch to Kamala Harris. With Purim, a Jewish holiday, in mind, he implored her to follow Queen Esther’s example and rescue low-wage earning Americans by disregarding Senate rules and smuggling a minimum wage hike into pandemic relief legislation.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Waters of the United States, stolen gift cards, and Hester Prynne.

Biden Signing Executive Orders To Change Voting Process
Break out the pen and the phone because President Joe Biden isn’t done signing executive orders yet. Despite having already broken records for the largest number of executive orders signed in the shortest period of time after taking office, Uncle Joe is making his pen work overtime this weekend. To commemorate Bloody Sunday, Biden is signing an executive order intended to “promote voting access” around the country. But can he actually change the nation’s voting laws without new legislation being passed by Congress first? Technically he cannot. But the details of these vaguely defined orders don’t actually make it look like he’s really changing much of anything.

Pile On: Two More Cuomo Accusers Emerge
It’s getting to the point where if you lined up all of the women who have come forward to accuse New York Governor Andrew Cuomo of some form of sexual harassment or another, you’d have the makings for at least the beginning of a parade. Former Cuomo press aide (from his time working at HUD) Karen Hinton and Ana Liss, who once served as an aide to the Governor, both came forward yesterday with their own stories to tell of their boss’s “inappropriate behavior” in the past. At this point, the pressure must surely be mounting inside Cuomo’s office, but at least as of this morning, he’s still denying any wrongdoing. The New York Post has the details of the latest accusations against the allegedly handsy chief executive of the Empire State.

Scientists Detect Signs of a Hidden Structure Inside Earth’s Core
While most of us take the ground beneath our feet for granted, written within its complex layers, like pages of a book, is Earth’s history. Our history.

Scientists Announce a Physical Warp Drive Is Now Possible. Seriously.
In a surprising new paper, scientists say they’ve nailed down a physical model for a warp drive, which flies in the face of what we’ve long thought about the crazy concept of warp speed travel: that it requires exotic, negative forces.

Most life on Earth will be killed by lack of oxygen in a billion years
One billion years from now, Earth’s atmosphere will contain very little oxygen, making it uninhabitable for complex aerobic life.

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Let’s Not Forgive Any Student Debt
President Biden has decided against the most radical Democratic demands regarding student college debt (canceling it all, or nearly all of it), but apparently loan forgiveness of $10,000 is still an option. Is it a good idea?

Have You Noticed Higher Gas Prices Lately? You’re Not Alone
The price for a gallon of regular gas has climbed as high as $4.05 in Orange County recently, which is why many drivers headed to Sam’s Club in Fountain Valley, where gas was going for $3.30 per gallon Monday — a full 75 cents cheaper than the most expensive stations.

Of Course We’ll Suffer Inflation
“Progressives” maintain that the federal government can spend without limit and not affect the value of the dollar. They have a bunch of lapdog economists who take a “Don’t worry, be happy” approach to the vast expansion of federal spending and debt.

With sale of the Venetian, Las Vegas Sands exits the Strip
Las Vegas Sands is selling the iconic Venetian casino resort and its Sands Expo and Convention Center for $6.25 billion, withdrawing from gambling operations on the Las Vegas Strip after changing the nature of the casino business there and just about everywhere else.

Warren’s Wealth Tax and the Return of Feudalism
Once again, Elizabeth Warren is raising the topic of a wealth tax, not because (I suspect) she thinks it is feasible quite yet, but simply as part of a longer-term strategy designed to pave the way for the introduction of such a tax sooner or later.

House Republicans Working to Block New “Wall Street Tax” Proposals
Proposed “Wall Street” taxes would hurt the economy, reduce American competitiveness, and harm working families’ investments.

San Francisco Is Paying $5,000 Per Month For Each Homeless Tent
Homelessness is really expensive for the people who are paying for it. Last year, San Francisco set up six “safe sleeping villages” during the pandemic, including one right outside City Hall. Basically these sites are sanctioned tent camps where the homeless live on city property with bathrooms and free meals. It turns out the city is paying $5,000 per month for each tent

Oof: Bernie Amendment To Raise Minimum Wage To $15 Crashes And Burns, With Eight Dems Voting No; Update: Sinema Gives Thumbs Down, Literally
I’m surprised. Raising the minimum wage polls well. And because any amendment would require 60 votes to pass, there was no risk for centrist Dems that Sanders’s proposal would end up in the final COVID relief bill. Joe Manchin was a guaranteed no, as he’s already said that he won’t go higher than $11 per hour, so you might think that would have freed up the rest of the caucus to vote yes and let Manchin and the GOP take the blame when the amendment went down in flames.

Rebound Or Plateau? US Adds 379,000 Jobs In February, Jobless Rate Ay 6.2%
Good news indeed after two months of stagnation or worse in the jobs market, but it’s not game-changing news. The US economy added 379,000 jobs in February, the best result since the fall, but it essentially just covers the big hole in December’s results. The labor participation rates and unemployment level barely budged, and given the massive amount of slack, this looks mostly incremental

Senate Passes Biden Porkulous Bill; The measure passed 50-49.
“The Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard or less rigorous way”

Senate passes $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill, House Democrats plan final approval Tuesday
Senate Democrats passed their $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package on Saturday, sending it back to the House for expected approval in the coming days.

Biden Labor Board Blocks Construction Workers From Union Exodus
Workers unanimously opted out of carpenters’ union

 

International

 

France’s Sarkozy convicted of corruption, sentenced to jail
A Paris court found French former President Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling on Monday and sentenced him to a year in prison. He can ask to serve that time at home and also plans to appeal.

Study: Neanderthals could perceive and produce human speech
Neanderthals possessed the capacity to hear, process and produce human speech, according to a new survey combining CT scans and computer models.

Blame North Korea’s Horrible Economy on North Korea, Not Sanctions
Pyongyang continues to choose a system that keeps most North Koreans in poverty.

27-year-old “dead” man comes alive on postmortem table
A youth, who was believed to be dead by health personnel, came alive and had a narrow escape from undergoing a postmortem in Mahalingapura town of Rabakavi-Banahatti taluk here on Monday.

‘It’s over’: Macron risks losing left in Le Pen battle
A leading French daily has rattled the ruling party and sparked intense speculation about next year’s presidential election by suggesting that voters won’t come to Emmanuel Macron’s aid if he finds himself in a rematch with the far-right.

Frexit? Unionist paramilitaries renouncing support for Good Friday agreement over Brexit fallout
Will Northern Ireland see a return of The Troubles after the completion of Brexit? At the very least, it appears UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Ireland’s Taoiseach Micheál Martin will get The Headaches. Unionist paramilitary groups have banded together to renounce their support for the Good Friday Agreement after nearly a quarter-century of peach and calm, thanks to the erection of border and trade controls between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

‘Hovering ship’ photographed off Cornish coast by walker
Images of what appears to be a hovering ship have been captured as the result of a rare optical illusion off the coast of England.

Mexico barricades presidential palace ahead of women’s march
Last year’s march was punctuated by clashes between marchers and apparent Nazi sympathizers that left dozens injured

Hyperinflation Pushes Venezuela to Print 1,000,000-Bolivar Bills
Venezuela said it will introduce new large-denomination bolivar notes as hyperinflation renders most bills worthless, forcing citizens to turn to the U.S. dollar for everyday transactions.

India Threatens Jail for Facebook, WhatsApp and Twitter Employees
Country flexes new powers over big platforms while companies are counting on worldp’s second-largest population for growth

 

Opinion

 

A society that can’t debate trans ideology’s effects on kids isn’t a democracy
Should children be given life-altering treatments to help them transition from one gender to another, including puberty blockers and body-mutilating surgeries? Should doctors be encouraged to allow minors to make a choice that will block their physical development and ability to have children when they get older? Is there evidence that doing so might do more harm than good?

Three blind mice
Suppose six former Secretaries of State wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed discussing the urgent need to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Communist China. Their op-ed might make you think the former secretaries were asleep at the switch during their time at Foggy Bottom.

Wake Up to Woke, Before It Is Too Late
Lots of interesting developments in the world of the woke today—too much for one post.

Religious Freedom Wins Again at Supreme Court; But for How Long?
It got little coverage in the Mainstream Media, but the Supreme Court on Friday ruled 6-3 that Santa Clara County, California, officials cannot forbid churches in the Silicon Valley region from holding in-person worship services.

GOP Suicide by Civics
There can be no better illustration of the bankruptcy of the Republican education establishment than yesterday’s Wall Street Journal opinion piece endorsing the “Educating for American Democracy” (EAD) initiative, signed by six former U.S. education secretaries, including three Republicans. These are the folks who brought you the “bipartisan” Common Core fiasco, not to mention the collapse of American education into civic ignorance and woke nonsense. Sure, why not follow their advice?

Today’s Phony Panic about Voting
Today’s talking points on the left, judging from the news media and Twitter, are about a Republican lawyer supposedly admitting to the Supreme Court that the party needs racist voter suppression to win elections.

Critical Race Fragility
The Left has denounced the “war on woke,” but it is afraid to defend the principles of critical race theory in public debate.

HR 1 must be stopped
This Democratic “reform” will undermine democracy far more than anything Donald Trump has done

Dr. Seuss and Copyright
Yesterday, the folks in charge of the Dr. Seuss catalogue decided they’ll no longer be publishing six of his books. These works generally have some archaic depictions of other cultures, and in some cases there’s stuff that’s genuinely shocking to modern racial sensibilities. (I’m looking at you, If I Ran the Zoo.)

With this Case, the Court Can Tell Campus Officials They Must Respect Free Speech
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case that’s hard to pronounce but extremely important for free speech on college campuses.

The Church and Critical Theory
Critical theory is a funny thing. No matter how much one might study it, like the Marxism from which it is derived, if you do not embrace it, you clearly do not understand it.

“He’s an unqualified radical”: Will Becerra’s nomination survive a Senate floor vote?
Senate Republicans scored a rhetorical victory by forcing Neera Tanden to withdraw her nomination as OMB director. Now they want a policy victory, or at least score a more political point, by blocking Xavier Becerra’s confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In fact, Ben Sasse (R-NE) explicitly took aim at Becerra in his statement last night in response to Tanden’s withdrawal

Critical Race Fragility
The Left has denounced the “war on woke,” but it is afraid to defend the principles of critical race theory in public debate.

The self-silencing majority
In red America and blue America, an epidemic of self-censorship is threatening democracy

9 Huge Reasons Why HR 1 ‘For the People Act’ Is Disastrous for American Election Integrity
The 2021 “For the People Act” – HR 1 – is one of the worst bills ever given political life. Authors claim it would “expand Americans’ access to the ballot box” and indeed it does. It changes our elections into something akin to an open-air market, where every “individual” – not “citizen” – can vote. Its passage late Wednesday night proves again why nothing good ever happens when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lurks with her cartoon-sized gavel after dark.

Biden Is Training Kamala As His Foreign Policy Apprentice. That Should Scare Us All.
Don’t look now but Kamala Harris reached out and spoke with another foreign leader this week. The vice-president spoke with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday. Harris does not have any foreign policy experience and Joe Biden has taken it upon himself to mentor her. This should scare anyone who has paid the least bit of attention to foreign affairs during Biden’s time in government.

Pelosi’s H.R. 1 Is an Authoritarian Outrage
Democrats want to corrode the system because they believe it will help them win.

How Corporate America’s Insane Hypocrisy on China Can Actually Liberate Us
A friend and longtime reader writes in, responding to yesterday’s Morning Jolt about how corporate America is likely to avert its eyes from a Chinese court ruling that homosexuality is a mental disorder, and asks, “What should people do when such profound hypocrisy is evident? Do we just hunker down and hope for the best?”

If Democrats Circle the Wagons around Andrew Cuomo, They’re Just Asking for Worse Behavior
The only person who really benefits when a political party rallies around and defends a scandal-ridden jerk is the scandal-ridden jerk. There is no evidence to prove that scandal-ridden jerks are somehow more effective or better leaders than those who manage to never get their hands caught in the cookie jar.

Sociologist Nathalie Heinich on French Academics’ Opposition to America’s Race-Based Ideologies
Jonathan Kay speaks to eminent French sociologist Nathalie Heinich, founder of a new organization that opposes the spread of America’s race-fixated academic movements into French campuses. While conservatives have traditionally complained about the excesses of “French theory,” Prof. Heinich argues, many harmful ideas are now crossing the Atlantic in the opposite direction.

The Freedom to Read Is Good Indeed
Books are tremendously important and powerful, and we used to defend them from moralizing censors.

Republicans Can Learn from the 1892 Election
It’s time to organize, unify, and sharpen the message. And then watch Joe Biden be shown the door by his party’s young ideological zealots.

No, Republicans Are Not the “Democrats Following the Civil War”
At The Bulwark, Jonathan V. Last offers up a piece of historical illiteracy so remarkable that it can’t be left unremarked upon. Describing the Republican Party as a “revanchist minority,” Last writes

The Tide Starts to Turn
Gee—who could have predicted this (aside from me), from USA Today?

David Shor’s Illusory Path Forward for the Democrats
If I commented on every interesting part of this interview that Eric Levitz conducted for New York magazine with socialist data scientist David Shor, I’d end up recapitulating the whole thing. Shor has a lot to say that strikes me as plainly correct. But he also develops one line of thought that strikes me as completely nuts.

Republicans and the Working Class
Trip Gabriel writes in the New York Times that while Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) talk about a new working-class conservatism, they haven’t been offering much to blue-collar workers. Gabriel has two pieces of evidence: They didn’t talk about a blue-collar agenda when they spoke recently at CPAC, and they’re not supporting Biden’s COVID-relief plan.

Does Sheldon Whitehouse consider the NAACP to be right-wing ‘dark money’?
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, is worried that too many groups are expressing political views without providing a list of all their supporters to the government they may be criticizing. So he’s put out a video about it, and it’s deeply misleading in some key ways.

Federal judge says states acted too late to ratify Equal Rights Amendment
Three states had argued that the Constitution does not give Congress any power to set a time limit on the ratification process.

Haley, Noem Differ in Approach to Trump as 2024 Jockeying Begins
One of the two women in prospective GOP White House field has sought distance from former president, while the other has embraced him

It will be Vice (or) President Harris against Gov. DeSantis in 2024 — bet on it
In our politically polarized nation, commonsense observations about “the other side” are ignored or forcefully rejected via poisonous rhetoric. One such observation is that much of the mainstream media have morphed into a quasi-official propaganda arm for the Democratic Party. Cue the denials … except, when Donald Trump was in the White House a number of journalists cast aside their objectivity to proclaim they were part of the #Resistance.

Biden’s “Equity” Push Is Actually a Push for Unequal Treatment
Unity is not just an empty slogan; it truly is something all Americans should be striving to achieve. Many Americans still share virtues, such as attachment to hard work and devotion to principles such as equality, around which a president can create national harmony.

R-A-A-A-A-A-CISM!
The point is that this is all about pure partisan politics.