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Ruth King

How Leftists Quash Housing Development by Getting Gentrification Wrong A recent Harlem project shows that gentrification is a good thing — even for the poor. Richard L. Cravatts

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/how-liberals-quash-housing-development-getting-richard-l-cravatts/

Kristin Richardson Jordan, Harlem’s City Council member, seems to have put the final nail in the coffin of a 917-unit development, One45, proposed by developer Bruce Teitelbaum for a location on West 145th Street in New York.

Even with the developer’s latest pledge that 40 percent of the units in the twin towers would be affordable, Ms. Jordan (pictured above, center) was apparently unsatisfied—in fact, insulted—that the proposed development was not comprised completely of affordable, rather than mixed-income, units, referring contemptuously to Mr. Teitelbaum’s offer as merely “11th-hour breadcrumbs.”

Maintaining a concentration of poverty has no positive benefits for a neighborhood and specifically works to dissuade middle- and upper-income residents from moving into the area, including white ones, whose presence in Harlem will inevitably result in better public services and schools, upgraded businesses, and an enhanced quality of life.

Ms. Jordan may wish to condemn Harlem to being a monoculture of poverty, entrapping its poor, mostly black residents in an intergenerational trap of decaying real estate, dangerous social pathologies as a result of poverty, and a general cultural and physical stagnation, but no one—including Harlem’s poorest residents—should believe that this outcome is either inevitable or desirable.

Housing for the nation’s poorest citizens is the responsibility of the government and taxpayers, not private real estate developers like Teitelbaum who may wish to do the right thing by offering a portion of One45 as affordable housing but whose main concern is, and should be, maximizing a return on his investment.

The Real Reasons Government Schools Are Evil Should we be responsible for the procreative choices that other people make?Jason D. Hill

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/06/real-reasons-government-schools-are-evil-jason-d-hill/

Among many conservatives and opponents of public-funded education in general, there is the idea that government schools are bad because they are conveyor belts of indoctrination; that the state, by means of forcibly exercising a coercive monopoly in the field of education, conscripts the minds of children and stamps them with the insignia of state propaganda. In effect, the brains of children are cognitively nationalized. This is indeed true, but it is not just the case with government schools. The same propaganda and doctrinal philosophies which are simply idea pathogens also infect private education as well and, more importantly, private institutions that also receive government aid. Our private schools today are as WOKE and as progressive in the regressive sense as any left-wing public school that teaches hatred of and disdain for America, individualism, capitalism, self-reliance, and the religious traditions of others.

I would suggest that mind-conscription is incidental, and that it is made possible by a deeper philosophic issue that few grapple with in a consistent manner. The state can only have a coercive monopoly on education and, a fortiori, enforce doctrinal ideas on children if a basic idea is left unchallenged in our society. The idea is that we are responsible for the procreative choices that other people make. This idea codified into a principle results in the fiscal enslavement of people into supporting the reproductive choices others made for themselves which they then penalize others for as a natural right.

Public education is tax-funded education, which means that parents are made to understand that they are not responsible for educating their own children. Society as a whole shall assume the responsibility of paying for the education of your children. Why not pay for their cribs, diapers and birthday cakes? Why specifically should we support the reproductive choices others have made in the educational realm?

One more blockbuster Supreme Court decision could still be coming even after Friday’s abortion ruling

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/one-more-blockbuster-supreme-court-decision-could-still-be-coming-after-fridays-abortion-ruling

Believe it or not, overturning Roe v Wade may not be the Supreme Court’s most dramatic decision this year. Instead, its ruling on West Virginia vs. the Environmental Protection Agency could prove far more consequential. It could literally upend how our government works.

For the better.

West Virginia vs. the EPA asks whether important policies that impact the lives of all Americans should be made by unelected D.C. bureaucrats or by Congress. This SCOTUS could well decide that ruling by executive agency fiat is no longer acceptable.

The case involves the Clean Power Plan, which was adopted under President Barack Obama to fight climate change; the program was estimated to cost as much as $33 billion per year and would have completely reordered our nation’s power grid. The state of West Virginia, joined by two coal companies and others, sued the EPA, arguing the plan was an abuse of power.

By deciding in favor of West Virginia, the court could begin to rein in the vast powers of the alphabet agencies in D.C. that run our lives and return it to legislators whom we elect to create…legislation. Just as the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion laws are more appropriately left up to the people’s elected representatives, it may decide in West Virginia vs. EPA that Congress, and not federal agencies, should write our laws.

A decision that puts Congress in charge would stall environmental rules intended to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. Legislators, back in the driver’s seat, would have to debate and go public with the consequences – and costs — of regulations that are now adopted with little buy-in from the public.

GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin Wins New York’s Republican Gubernatorial Primary By Brittany Bernstein

Representative Lee Zeldin (R., N.Y.) beat out three competitors to win the GOP nomination for New York governor on Tuesday, the Associated Press projects.

Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, was Zeldin’s closest competitor. Zeldin had notched 42.5 percent of the vote compared with Giuliani’s 23.7 percent with 53 percent of the vote reported on Tuesday evening.

Zeldin, a four-term congressman who represents New York’s first congressional district, also beat out former Westchester County executive Rob Astorino and businessman Harry Wilson.
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Zeldin is an attorney and Iraq War veteran who has represented eastern Long Island since 2015. He is a staunch supporter former president Donald Trump.

He will face off against New York governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, in the general election in November. She easily won her own primary on Tuesday, fending off challenges from Representative Tom Suozzi and New York City public advocate Jumaane Williams.

Hochul was sworn in last August after her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, resigned following a sexual-harassment scandal.

Won’t Get Fooled Again  We don’t need the new boss. We need a change. Self-government is something we have done before, and we can do it again. By Vincent McCaffrey

https://amgreatness.com/2022/06/28/wont-get-fooled-again/

Let’s explore the possibilities. This is America, after all. We have some experience with such explorations, even if most of us now sit for a living.

Let’s start with the macro view. In order to compete in this world today, we need enormous corporations able to manage huge amounts of capital and command large workforces, while influencing government priorities. Efficiency is gained by size and access to raw materials as well as the access to markets that is gained by using government mandates. This view of economics has been taught since World War II and there are millions of pages of text detailing the potentials, the patterns, and pitfalls. It is often labeled “capitalism” though, like China’s uses of markets, it is only that in passing.

What could go wrong?

There are those who think this arrangement is just swell. Look how big and powerful we have become using these methods. Look on our works, ye mighty, and despair! 

This view is usually promoted by individuals at the upper levels of the food chain, political insiders, and members of established families with sufficient wealth to see them through the ups and downs of an economy based on the myriad uses of power. It’s the way the world works, they say. The way it’s always been. True enough, it is really not so different from 15th-century Italy, is it? The internal combustion engine and the airfoil changed some of the uses of power, but not the big picture. 

THE LEFT ABORTS ITS RIGHT TO BE CALLED TOLERANT OR INTELLIGENT

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/06/28/the-left-aborts-its-right-to-be-called-tolerant-or-intelligent/

The violent and idiotic reaction to Roe is all you need.

Let’s review the news since Friday’s Supreme Court decision – a decision that gave power back to the people to decide what laws should apply when it comes to abortion. Riots. Arson. Calls to assassinate a sitting justice. Threats of violence against anyone who is pro-life.

Here’s a small sampling of headlines.

Calls for Clarence Thomas’ assassination spread across social media after Roe reversed

Christian Clinic Torched

Antifa Packed A Flamethrower For Abortion Riot

Man arrested for attempted murder of LAPD officers amid Roe v. Wade protests

Abortionists go mad, shut down L.A. freeway

Pregnancy Center in Virginia Vandalized

Someone Set Fire to ‘Christ-Centered Ministry,’ Vandalized Premises After Supreme Court’s Abortion Ruling

Violent Portland Pro-Abortion Protesters Destroy, Vandalize Property

Vermont State House vandalized: ‘If abortions aren’t safe you’re not either’

Crisis pregnancy centers under attack after Roe v Wade overturned

LIVE UPDATES: Riots Across U.S.

Notice that several instances of violence are in states that will almost certainly retain liberal access to abortion. Rationality isn’t a strong suit for those on the left. Temper tantrums, yes.

Anger: Sydney Williams

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

The essayist and author Lance Morrow recently penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal: “Could this be an Antebellum Age?” It certainly seems that way, though with luck a Civil War will not break out as it did in 1861. Nevertheless, anger dominates our politics, media and our culture. It separates friends and divides families. It affects judgements and makes impossible civilized debate. It permeates school board meetings, clouds differences regarding climate change, denies respectful discussion of gender politics; it was the impetus behind the January 6 riots and the subsequent, eponymous Congressional commission, and it has distorted the meaning of the Supreme Court’s decision rescinding Roe v. Wade.

It is through the airing of differences that a consensus is found. Debate is integral to our government and our way of life. In his 1990 autobiography, An American Life, Ronald Reagan, wrote that when he became president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, he “learned while negotiating contracts you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: ‘I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.’ If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later…”

In a country as large and as diverse as ours there will always be differences in terms of what constitutes the best way forward. It is why we have elections, and it is why, at least nationally, power ricochets back and forth between the two political parties. Compromise has worked in the past, Consider the relationship between two politicians who had in common only their Irish American heritage, Republican President Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O’Neill. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 was based on mutual trust and compromise. Similarly, a decade and a half later, Democrat President Bill Clinton reached out to Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and the result was the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Yet, similar discussions between President Biden and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy are as impossible to imagine as President Trump inviting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a quiet sherry and constructive talk.

Bolstering Bibi by deriding his backers: Ruthie Blum

https://www.jns.org/opinion/bolstering-bibi-by-deriding-his-backers/

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 on Monday, former TV news anchor Gadi Sukenik unwittingly gave a boost to the very politician whose supporters he was trying to discredit. Discussing Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, the alternate premier who is about to replace Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the helm until the next government is established, he took a typically elitist stab at the competition.

“Yesh Atid members are at a much higher level than the societal average,” he announced, referring to himself and his cohorts, of course.

“Compare it to other parties that are ostensibly ‘democratic,’” he continued, using air quotes to demonstrate his disdain for the fact that the Likud Party, headed by opposition chair and former Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, holds primaries to select its list for the parliament. This is while Yesh Atid did so in January for the first time in a decade.

“Take a look at the body that elects [their Knesset members]; Likud, for instance. The Likud Central Committee is rife with interests, infected with all the diseases of the world. Those it selects are in kind. And, as a citizen—I try to say this as an objective citizen—they are generally at a much lower level than those of Yesh Atid.”

Asked what he meant by that, Sukenik replied, “A low level of functioning, of intelligence, of culture and discourse.”
Coming from the person who makes his living as the face of the company Credit Clean—and whose most recent claim to fame was his participation in the Israeli version of the reality show, “The Masked Singer”—this remark was both amusing and revealing.

Questioned as to whether he was really saying that Likud MKs are “less intelligent” than Yesh Atid’s, he gave a resounding positive answer.

NO POSTING UNTIL WEDNESDAY JUNE 29, 2022

“We Are Your Death”: The Persecution of Christians, May 2022 by Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18651/persecution-of-christians-may

In the video, the Christians appear on their knees, their hands tied behind their backs. A man holding a knife stands behind them. The terrorists claim that the murder of these 20 Christians is “payback” for ISIS leaders killed three months earlier in Syria by the U.S…. [A] 2015 video [Muslim terrorists slaughtering 21 Christians in Libya] received six times less media coverage than the killing of a gorilla about the same time. The video of the Nigerian Christian also barely made a peep in the Western media — as if the ritual slaughter of Christians is now so normal, it does not merit a report. — saharareporters.com, May 12, 2022, Nigeria.

The same day the video was released, a Muslim mob beat, stoned and then burned the body of Deborah Emmanuel, a Christian college student who earlier had refused the sexual advances of a Muslim man. — Ganzi Magwi, Twitter, May 12, 2022, Nigeria.

“We know and have evidence of how some of these allegations of blasphemy are false and just for blackmail or settling scores with perceived enemies or well-mannered young girls who have refused sexual advances by the opposite sex from another religion. We are also aware of how fanatics have in the past raised lies in the name of blasphemy.” — The Rev. Joseph John Hayab, Morning Star News, May 23, 2022, Nigeria.

Anooshavan Avedian, a 60-year-old Iranian-Armenian Christian, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for teaching other Christians in his house church what Judge Imam Afshari called “educational and propaganda activities contrary to and disturbing to the holy religion of Islam.” — articeeighteen.com, May 5, 2022, Iran.

A married Muslim couple who converted to Christianity face a 100-lashes punishment on the bizarre charge of “adultery.” — Morning Star News, May 3, 2022, Sudan.

The following are among the abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of May 2022: