Displaying posts published in

May 2022

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

LIZ PEEK: JOE BIDEN IS MAKING AMERICANS POORER

By on May 4th, 2022

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3474968-joe-biden-is-making-americans-poorer/

Americans are getting poorer by the day, and they can thank President Biden.

Too harsh? Not at all. Stock markets are crashing, costing Americans trillions of dollars, and home prices will likely follow. All of this is happening even though our economy remains essentially strong.

Why the disconnect? Americans are worried about inflation and don’t think the Biden administration can fix it without plunging our economy into recession. With the president still hawking even more government spending, higher business taxes and increased regulations – all of which will drive prices higher – why would they?

Almost from the start, Americans knew that Biden’s policies were wrong for the country. From the second quarter of Biden’s presidency, consumer sentiment has trended sharply lower, even as jobs were plentiful and consumers flush with cash.

The University of Michigan consumer sentiment index stood at 88.3 in April 2021; today it has dropped to 59.4, one of the lowest levels since 1980, when the data were first collected. A reading, for sure, completely out of kilter with 3.6 percent unemployment.

According to a Real Clear Politics average of polls, only 38 percent of the nation approves of Biden’s management of the economy.

First, the facts: The economy shrank by an annualized rate of 1.4 percent in the first quarter, not because consumers stopped spending but mainly because we had a big jump in our trade imbalance. Imports surged nearly 18 percent on an annualized basis while exports fell. Economists at ISI Evercore estimate the blowout in the trade gap crimped real GDP growth in the quarter by 3.2 percent.

Continue reading →
ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The Destruction of Election Integrity: Your City Could Be Next by Lawrence Kadish

By on May 4th, 2022

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18498/destruction-of-election-integrity

The language could not be any clearer. You can participate as a voter in our American democracy if you are a citizen, over 18 years of age on Election Day, and meet certain state requirements regarding residency and registration – except in some areas of our nation which, inexplicably, now “allow non-citizens to vote in local elections only.”

What still stands unchallenged is that in all federal elections you must be a citizen of our nation where our leaders are chosen by individuals who are either born into that solemn responsibility or have sworn:

“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America …”

Unless of course if you are living within the five boroughs of the City of New York, where the criteria for voting in local elections has been redefined to meet a Progressive political agenda while broadening the potential for ballot harvesting.

In the closing days of 2021, the New York City Council approved legislation that will allow nearly one million documented non-citizens to vote in local elections. For people seeking to displace our Constitution and alter the very fabric of our nation, this action, coupled with open borders, essentially loads the dice for their candidates, their manifesto, and for non-citizens having an increasingly large say in how America’s cities are run.

In an NPR interview, San Francisco State University political science professor Ron Hayduk suggests that because securing citizenship is a long and challenging task, immigrants should be given the right to vote regardless of their status. But that, Professor Hayduk, is the whole point. One should need to work hard to achieve the priceless gift of deciding how the most populous parts of our country are governed. Allowing non-citizens to vote creates an overwhelming voter advantage on any given Election Day for people who are not American citizens.

Given President Biden’s current dismal showing in the polls, and that last year alone, more than two million new arrivals poured across our southern border — many of whom are being secretly spirited in the dead of night by our government to cities throughout America and with millions more on the way — significant number of Americans are indicating that they are losing confidence in how major issues facing our nation are being managed. The idea of non-citizens lining up to vote will surely have much appeal to those who feel that they cannot win elections if only American citizens are allowed to vote.

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

“Hypocrisy of the Left”- Sydney Williams

By on May 4th, 2022

http://swtotd.blogspot.com

If what we are hearing about Roe v. Wade is true, perhaps Congress will do what it should have done forty-nine years ago – pass a law that reflects the will of the people, rather than depend on the opinions of nine Supreme Court Justices.

“The best defense is a good offense,” is an adage that has been used by many, from George Washington to Mao Zedong. It has been adopted by the Democrat Party. Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter has Democrats atwitter. Columnist Leonard Pitt wrote that the purchase “will turn one of the world’s leading social-media platforms into an even greater transmitter of disinformation and hate…” Keep in mind, Mr. Pitt’s definition of disinformation includes only that uttered by conservatives.

Barack Obama, speaking at a conference organized by The Atlantic called “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy,” opined: “It’s very difficult to get out of the reality that is constructed for us.” Constructed by whom, one might ask? As the New York Sun editorialized, Obama’s words were an “apt description of what Mr. Obama and the Democrat Press have built. Forget the metaverse. This is an alternative reality.” Speaking at Stanford University, a few days later Mr. Obama added that social media censors don’t go far enough, suggesting the government must step in. Six days later, the Biden Administration announced the establishment of a Disinformation Governance Board (DGB), an Orwellian-like “Ministry of Truth.” Coincidence? The DGB’s mission is to separate fact from fiction for the American people. Its real purpose, I feel certain, is to censor information that does not accord with the Administration’s narrative. The Board will be chaired by Nina Jankowicz who will report to Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Secretary for Homeland Security. Ms. Jankowicz seems an odd choice, as she disbelieved the truth of Hunter Biden’s laptop, claiming it was Trump “disinformation.” On the other hand, she did believe Christopher Steele, the discredited purveyor of disinformation about the fake Russian collusion story.

Continue reading →
EDUCATION Comments turned off

Antisemitism Comes to Harvard, in Both Intent and Effect Apart from raw animus against the Jewish State, how could any thoughtful person today regard Russia and Israel on the same plane when Russia is waging a war of aggression?

By on May 4th, 2022

https://www.nysun.com/article/antisemitism-comes-to-harvard-in-both-intent-and-effect?utm_content=The%20Evening%20Sun

During my presidency of Harvard 20 years ago I warned that “serious and thoughtful people are advocating measures that would be antisemitic in their effect if not their intent.” 

In light of the recent exhibition by the Palestinian Solidarity Committee in Harvard Yard and the resounding endorsement of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions by the Harvard Crimson, it is clear to me that antisemitism is being practiced in both intent and effect.

To be clear at the outset, free expression must be sacrosanct in an academic community. The PSC and the Crimson have every right to express their view no matter how upsetting it may be to others. Academic freedom, though, does not mean freedom from criticism or the right to have contemptible views treated with respect. It is no shield against moral bankruptcy.  

This has long been recognized at Harvard as, say, when Drew Faust was president and deemed a student-led Black Mass — a ritual performed by satanic cults to parody the Catholic Church — to be abhorrent and a fundamental affront to academic values of inclusion even as she ruled out any suggestion that event be banned. 

Likewise when controversial conservative scholar Charles Murray was invited to speak at Harvard, a variety of communications were sent to students labeling him a practitioner of racist pseudoscience.

So there is nothing “anti-First Amendment” about calling out antisemitism. Indeed not identifying and attacking antisemitism in our midst would be a major moral failing, especially when it comes in conjunction with proposals to instrumentalize the university by having it engage in antisemitism.

The question that remains is whether the BDS agenda enthusiastically embraced by the PSC and the Crimson is in fact antisemitic. The Crimson and other BDS proponents ​​condemn antisemitism and note that there are people of Jewish descent who support BDS. That is true.

It’s also true that President Trump asserts firmly that he is not racist and can point to prominent African-American supporters and to having received more than a million votes from African Americans. At Harvard we don’t consider such assertions “arguments.”

Continue reading →
NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

There is no valid defense of Roe. That’s why that side resorts to threats By  Timothy P. Carney

By on May 4th, 2022

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/restoring-america/equality-not-elitism/there-is-no-valid-defense-of-roe-thats-why-that-side-resorts-to-threats

Roe v. Wade “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” That was the conclusion in the Yale Law Journal of pro-choice legal scholar John Hart Ely.

“One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” That’s liberal legal scholar Laurence Tribe.

It’s near-consensus among legal scholars, even those who believe abortion should be legal, that Roe was a shoddy decision, not grounded in the Constitution.

“You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result,” wrote pro-choice scholar Kermit Roosevelt in the Washington Post.

“This is not surprising,” Roosevelt continued. “As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent.”

The Constitution quite obviously does not protect abortion as a fundamental right. Roe relied on a “right of privacy” “emanating” from a “penumbra” cast by actually enumerated rights. It was clearly motivated reasoning.

Abortion has thus been protected from democracy by a ruling that everyone knows is garbage, motivated reasoning . I’ve collected here many pro-choice legal scholars saying how bad Roe was.

Subject to scrutiny, Roe falls, and abortion defenders need to convince politicians to vote in order to strip unborn babies of any legal protections.

This is why the pro-Roe side is relying on threats to protect Roe. Democrats promise that they will declare the Supreme Court illegitimate if it doesn’t uphold their decision. That directly implies that they believe the federal government and state courts should disregard any subsequent rulings from the court.

Continue reading →