RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/23/the_systemic_racism_trap_143779.html

Is America a deeply racist society, whose very institutions perpetuate the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow? Unfortunately, to answer “No” — even a qualified “No” — is becoming harder by the day. Since the horrific killing of George Floyd, millions have taken to the streets to protest not just police violence but to insist that systemic racism infects everything, everywhere in the lives of African Americans and others of color.

If blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately more likely than whites to be shot by police, live in poverty, have higher unemployment rates, or die from COVID-19, racism must play a primary role — or so the narrative widely repeated on the streets and in the media goes. To suggest that these statistical snapshots of complicated problems do not lend themselves to easy conclusions is heresy. Already, some academics have been ostracized and others persuaded to withdraw legitimate research that provided a more nuanced analysis of police violence. To even question whether systemic racism and white privilege are pervasive today risks being mistaken for a racist or deemed hopelessly ignorant. But the story of race in America is both more difficult and complex and attempts to eradicate all disparities are likely to lead to bad fixes that end up doing real harm.

I have spent a professional lifetime studying the effects of race-based preferences in college admissions programs. Most colleges — large and small, public and private, undergraduate and post-graduate — admit black and Hispanic students with, on average, lower standardized test scores and high school grades than white and Asian students who are admitted. My Center for Equal Opportunity found that among Virginia’s public universities, for example, the most competitive schools in the state, namely University of Virginia and William and Mary, admitted black students with SAT scores that were, on average, 180 and 190 points lower, respectively, than whites, and 240 points lower than Asians admitted.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/todays-progressive-revolutionaries-more-dangerous-than-1960s-predecessors/

In the 1960s and early ’70s, the U.S. was convulsed by massive protests calling for radical changes in the country’s attitudes on race, class, gender and sexual orientation. The Vietnam War and widespread college deferments were likely the fuel that ignited prior peaceful civil disobedience.

Sometimes the demonstrations became violent, as with the Watts riots of 1965 and the protests at the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Terrorists from the Weathermen (later called the Weather Underground) bombed dozens of government buildings.

The ’60s revolution introduced to the country everything from hippies, communes, free love, mass tattooing, commonplace profanity, rampant drug use, rock music and high divorce rates to the war on poverty, massive government growth, feminism, affirmative action and race/gender/ethnic college curricula.

The enemies of the ’60s counterculture were the “establishment” — politicians, corporations, the military and the “square” generation” in general. Leftists targeted their parents, who had grown up in the Great Depression. That generation had won World War II and returned to create a booming postwar economy. After growing up with economic and military hardship, they sought a return to comfortable conformity in the 1950s.

A half-century after the earlier revolution, today’s cultural revolution is vastly different — and far more dangerous.

Government and debt have grown. Social activism is already institutionalized in hundreds of newer federal programs. The “Great Society” inaugurated a multitrillion-dollar investment in the welfare state. Divorce rates soared. The nuclear family waned. Immigration, both legal and illegal, skyrocketed.

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2020-7-22-soho-forum-presentation-why-libertarians-should-vote-for-trump-in-2020

I hope that many readers watched my online debate for the Soho Forum this evening. Below I am posting a somewhat abbreviated version of my opening statement, together with some of my closing remarks. Note that I made some very substantial deviations from this text in the actual oral presentation. I understand that the full debate — including the presentations of the other debaters — will be posted on the Soho Forum website within a few days.

From my opening statement:

Whom should a Libertarian vote for for President in 2020?  The answer is obvious:  Donald Trump.

The main reason is not quite as obvious.  We have a two party system.  Each of the two parties represents a broad coalition of groups and interests seeking to achieve sufficient votes and in the right places to win a majority of the electoral college in the election.  Because we have a two-party system, if you want to participate meaningfully in a presidential election, you must join one of the two broad coalitions that effectively compete for the presidency.  If you refuse to join one of those two broad coalitions, you are just voluntarily excluding yourself from any effective participation in the process.

The two broad coalitions are called the Republicans and the Democrats.  And thus I submit that your only real choices are Biden and Trump.  Between those two, the choice for a Libertarian of Trump over Biden is extremely compelling.

https://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-justice/508509-trump-v-big-city-mayors-when-the-feds-should-and-shouldnt-act

More than 38,000 cops protect and serve the city of New York. By contrast, in the entire country, the FBI employs just 14,000 agents. And comparatively few of those are assigned to combat violent street crime. 

These are facts the Trump administration must weigh as the president and the Justice Department design a federal response to the surge in crime that is plaguing major American cities.

Let’s draw important distinctions, from the federal standpoint, between what is possible, what is imperative, and what would be a prudent exercise of discretion.

First, what is legally possible. It is patently absurd to contend, as many have, that the federal government needs state government permission to conduct law enforcement operations within a state’s territory. The Constitution explicitly commands the president to see that federal law is faithfully executed. The FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies not only may but routinely do enforce federal law without even giving state authorities notice, much less asking for their approval.

But there is an important limitation: There must be a federal criminal law that justifies federal enforcement. 

In our federalist system, policing crime within a state’s jurisdiction — particularly violent crime and property crime — is primarily a state responsibility. The feds, by contrast, may prosecute only if Congress has enacted a law based on some responsibility the Constitution assigns to Washington.

That brings us to what it is imperative for the federal government to do.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/22/gottliebs-pfizer-announces-1-95-billion-deal-with-feds-for-covid-19-vaccine/

One would be hard-pressed to find a more influential figure in the ongoing coronavirus crisis than Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former chief of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. In late March, Gottlieb, now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, authored a lengthy report detailing how the country could get back to normal after the 15-day “Flatten the Curve/Stop the Spread” order. (Remember that?)

“A Road Map to Reopening” established the phased-in process most public officials are following as America struggles to recapture the daily life we abruptly abandoned more than four months ago. Much of the report fixated on the need to develop a widely-available vaccine to fight COVID-19; only then, according to Gottlieb, could the country return to some sense of “normal.”

The media, Democratic and Republican governors, and the White House have embraced Gottlieb’s report as the gold standard. Trump’s ex-FDA commissioner is a fixture on CNBC and the Sunday morning talk shows, where he often touts the need for a vaccine. “Life’s never going to be perfectly normal until we get to a vaccine,” he said March 22 on “Face the Nation.”

It looks like Gottlieb is getting his wish. On Wednesday morning, the federal government announced plans to purchase and distribute 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine; this is the first step in fulfilling the goal of “Operation Warp Speed,” a public-private partnership committed to delivering 300 million doses of a “safe, effective vaccine for COVID-19 by January 2021.”

The initial order, paid for by the U.S. government but nonetheless advertised as “free” to Americans, will cost $1.95 billion.

In a joint statement, Pfizer and BioNTech, the two companies providing the vaccines, confirmed that two trial vaccines have received fast-track approval from the FDA; pending further testing, the companies will seek emergency regulatory approval “as early as October.” The companies plan to have 1.3 billion vaccines available by the end of 2021. Gottlieb should be thrilled.