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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

The Fed Passes the Buck on Bank Failures Michael Barr’s excuses for regulatory blunders are simply unbelievable.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-michael-barr-senate-testimony-martin-gruenberg-silicon-valley-bank-failure-f16d23d8?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

One certainty in politics is that the Federal Reserve will never accept responsibility for any financial problem. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr played that self-exoneration game on Tuesday before the Senate as he blamed bankers and Congress for Silicon Valley Bank’s failure. This act is simply unbelievable.

No one disputes that bankers failed to hedge the risk posed by rising interest rates to asset prices and deposits. What Mr. Barr didn’t say is that the Fed’s historic monetary mistake created the incentives for the bank blunders. The Fed fueled the fantastic deposit growth at SVB and other banks with its prolonged quantitative easing and zero interest-rate policy that caused banks to pile into longer-term, higher-yielding assets.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg noted in his testimony Tuesday that SVB’s balance sheet more than tripled in size between the end of 2019 and 2022, “coinciding with rapid growth in the innovation economy and a significant increase in the valuation placed on public and private companies.” That’s a cagey way of saying the Fed inflated tech valuations.

Silicon Valley investors cashed out shares at elevated prices and poured their windfall into startups with SVB accounts. SVB had more deposits than it could safely lend, so it loaded up on long-dated Treasurys and Fannie Mae securities that offered relatively high yields and were deemed low or no risk by regulators. What could go wrong?

When near-zero interest rates persist for nearly 13 years with hardly a blip upward, some bankers will bet this will last forever as they hunt for yield. The Fed had also assured the world until very late in 2021 that it had no plans to change its policies because inflation was transitory.

Why the Nashville Christian School Shooting Is About to Disappear from the News Cycle Matt Vespa

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2023/03/27/of-course-you-all-know-why-the-liberal-media-is-going-to-smother-the-nashville-shooting-n2621182

Julio has been covering the tragedy in Nashville, Tennessee. Six people, three children, and three adult staffers, were shot and killed at the Covenant School, a private Christian learning institution. Anti-gun activists hijacked a press conference on the incident earlier today. The Biden White House will probably push the usual talking points about banning so-called assault weapons, which will be echoed by their allies on the gun control issue. Unlike the shootings at Michigan State University and East High School in Denver, Colorado, this perpetrator had a handgun and two AR-15-style rifles. You can already hear the anti-gun Left licking their lips—now they had a chance to score some points. Except they can’t, Audrey Hale was identified as the shooter, and this person was transgender. Hale was shot and killed by police during the assault. 

As Julio wrote, there is a manifesto and maps of potential targets. This shooter planned this attack, and given the setting; a hate crime cannot be ruled out. The lingering question will remain unresolved since a transgender mass shooter is one story the media will avoid like the plague. Authorities said they have a working theory on a motive but are unwilling to disclose it at this time (via NBC News): 

The shooter, Audrey Hale, 28, of Nashville, identified as transgender and had no previous criminal record, according to the chief. 

Only 38% in U.S. Say Patriotism is Important This is what national suicide looks like. by Daniel Greenfield

https://www.frontpagemag.com/only-38-in-u-s-say-patriotism-is-important/

“I have felt broken after elections, but I’ve never lost hope. Seeing numbers like these however is much more devastating. Bad governments can be removed, but what happens when a people loses its soul?”

Wrecking a nation and a society has consequences. Tell people enough that America was built on slavery, that it’s a racist society, or that it’s been governed by a secret elite that starts all the wars, and patriotism goes out the window. Ridicule religion, destroy moral values and you leave behind little more than political religions of cults of personality and conspiracy theories. Announce that the planet will soon die and that carpe diem is the only sensible thing anyway, and how many will choose children over the latest iPhone.

I don’t think we need to worry about WWIII. That’s so 80s. We need to worry that we’re committing cultural suicide.

Some 38% of respondents said patriotism was very important to them, and 39% said religion was very important. That was down sharply from when the Journal first asked the question in 1998, when 70% deemed patriotism to be very important, and 62% said so of religion.

Having children is down to 30%.

But don’t worry, we’re discovering what really matters in life.

The only priority the Journal tested that has grown in importance in the past quarter-century is money, which was cited as very important by 43% in the new survey, up from 31% in 1998.

You can’t get the latest Apple mixed reality headset so you can live in the metaverse without money. Until guaranteed minimum income and full luxury communism arrive.

Israel’s Judicial System Is The Dream Of The American Left By: David Harsanyi

https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/27/israels-judicial-system-is-the-dream-of-the-american-left/

No constitution. No limiting principles of governance. Entrenched leftist judges who get to appoint their own successors in perpetuity. Courts that offer arbitrary, expedient, constantly evolving, sometimes contradictory rulings to block laws passed by duly-elected, center-right governments. An attorney general empowered to bar elected leaders from participating in national debates. Sounds like a progressive paradise.

This is the reality of the Israeli high court, which is likely imbued with more power than any other in the Western world. It is not always wrong. It is not always nakedly partisan. But it has power to act as a judicial dictatorship, and often does.

And after Benjamin Netanyahu’s government proposed reforming this insane system — procedural reforms that would be in place no matter who was in power — the left acted as the contemporary left always acts when it doesn’t get its way. It got hysterical. The mass protests that erupted were hardly “spontaneous,” though, contrary to many reports in the establishment media. Most of the demonstrations were organized by Israel’s biggest unions and egged on by foreigners. Because a less powerful judiciary threatens the center-left’s power.

A country without a constitution or bill of rights, and only a single house of parliament — one that, by the nature of the system, is controlled by the prime minister (or vice versa) — will struggle to maintain any genuine checks and balances. The direct democratic character of Israel’s government, one that American progressives would like to emulate, gives both too much power to the prime minister and too much power to fringe parties the prime minister needs to keep in line to rule. It’s a dysfunctional mess.

But the nation’s judicial system is even worse. Israel’s political system was created by leftists who envisioned a one-party state. From its inception, the nation’s socialists suppressed — sometimes violently — political opposition. And in the 1950s, a ruling Labor Party preempted the opposition from infiltrating the courts by empowering judges to veto appointees to the bench. This created a self-perpetuating, generationally cocooned judiciary that functions without any set of cohesive legal principles or oversight.

The USA is experiencing a crisis of faith — in itself By Vivek Ramaswamy

https://nypost.com/2023/03/27/the-usa-is-experiencing-a-crisis-of-faith-in-itself/

I’m the first millennial Republican to run for US president. If you ask most people my age what it means to be an American today, you get a blank stare in response. Faith, patriotism, family and hard work are disappearing. 

A recent Wall Street Journal survey reveals that young people in particular are responsible for driving this trend: 59% of Americans age 65 and older say that patriotism is “very important” to them, compared with only 23% of adults under age 30. The survey observed a similar gap with respect to interest in religion, hard work and having children. 

This is sad but unsurprising. Our nation’s higher-education institutions reliably sing their America-bashing chorus: Recently Stanford University deemed the term “American” to be “harmful language.” 

National identity 

Even more disturbingly, the “America is bad” ilk has slinked its way into our elementary schools under the auspices of equity and social justice. Students in classrooms across America today are taught to apologize for our country’s history rather than to be proud of it. Critical race theory and gender theory pervades K-12 education, where children are taught to identify themselves as members of an “oppressor” or “oppressed” category based on their skin color and sexual preferences. 

Public schools endlessly celebrate “diversity” as our strength without reminding students of what binds us together as one people. 

Another Train Carrying Hazardous Materials Derails. What’s Going On? By Matt Margolis

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/03/27/another-train-carrying-hazardous-materials-derails-whats-going-on-n1681823

Move over “died suddenly,” because “train carrying hazardous materials derails” is quickly becoming the most common story to pop up in our news feeds.

As per local reports, a train belonging to Canadian Pacific, consisting of 70 cars transporting hazardous materials, derailed late Sunday night in North Dakota, approximately one mile southeast of Wyndmere in Richland County at around 11:15 p.m.  According to the report, 31 of the 70 cars derailed, and some were found to be leaking petroleum used in the production of asphalt. No injuries have been reported.

Officials said crews will wait for the cold weather to solidify the leaked material, which is expected to transform into a gel.

Related: Three Train Derailments and a Developing Bio-Disaster — Where Are the Eco-Harpies?

As worries about railroad safety persist in the United States, the recent incident in North Dakota is the latest in a string of train derailments.

Man Who Stabbed Rand Paul Senate Aide in Broad Daylight Had Just Been Released from Prison By Victoria Taft

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/03/28/man-who-stabbed-rand-paul-senate-aide-in-broad-daylight-had-just-been-released-from-prison-n1682037

A staffer for Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was stabbed “in broad daylight” by a man who had just been released from prison the day before. The unidentified staffer is in serious condition in a D.C. hospital.

Washington, D.C., has been growing more unsafe by the day because of local policies that reward criminal acts instead of punishing criminals. And this reality is getting better known because Capitol Hill workers are becoming more frequent victims of the Democrat-run city’s laissez-faire attitude about crime. Indeed, it nearly required a literal act of Congress and a presidential decree to get the woke city council to back off yet another easy-on-crime bright idea to reduce penalties for robberies and carjackings.

The New York Post reported that “the attack occurred on the same street as, and less than a mile away from, Rep. Angie Craig’s (D-Minn.) apartment building, where she was attacked by a crazed suspect with a long rap sheet inside the building’s lobby elevator last month.”

Liz Peek: Will the White House dump Fed Chair Jerome Powell?

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3920055-will-the-white-house-dump-fed-chair-jerome-powell/

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wants to oust Jerome Powell. Last week she went after the Federal Reserve chair, saying in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “My views on Jay Powell are well-known at this point. He has had two jobs. One is to deal with monetary policy. One is to deal with regulation. He has failed at both.”

It is hard to disagree with the Massachusetts senator, though Powell is certainly not the only one responsible for bringing us to the brink of recession. Democrats recklessly spent too much, heedless of the overheating economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been AWOL throughout; and bank supervisors did a lousy job preventing problems even as alarm bells rang.

But Powell is in the driver’s seat and is coming under increased scrutiny. Democrats, worried that a recession could hurt them badly in the elections of 2024, need a scapegoat. But it’s not just Democrats who are critical of Powell’s actions.

Ed Hyman, Wall Street’s top economist and a generally optimistic fellow, wrote clients a cryptic message last week titled: “Not Good.” His email alert came the day after Powell announced another rate hike, of 25 basis points. 

Employers Need to Put the Squeeze on Woke Intolerance Young people like the Stanford students who heckled Kyle Duncan should be unemployable. Gerard Baker

https://www.wsj.com/articles/employers-need-to-put-the-squeeze-on-woke-intolerance-stanford-law-school-duncan-steinbach-free-speech-13f4ed90?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Stanford Law School’s career services website boasts the kind of professional opportunities the school’s graduates can expect when they venture beyond the safe spaces of the palm-speckled campus.

Ninety-seven of the nation’s top 100 law firms employ Stanford graduates as partners; 92 have Stanford alums as attorneys. For 48 consecutive years Stanford graduates have clerked on the Supreme Court. Microsoft, Google, Cisco and many other top firms have employed a graduate as general counsel.

So my question to the senior partners of law firms, corporate chief executives, judges and others who will employ these privileged people is: Do you stand with Jenny Martinez or do you cower behind Tirien Steinbach? Do you want your institutions to be places where the law is respected as the authority that mediates our disputes is blindfolded or are you going to continue to connive at the transformation of the law into a tool of the new identity-class struggle? Are you going to keep facilitating the degradation of the most basic of our freedoms—speech—or will you begin the long struggle against the controlling zeitgeist of totalitarianism?

Who Says That Chance Rules in the Affairs of Men? Our foresight is always an adventure, practiced at the pleasure of the unpredictable. By Roger Kimball

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/26/who-says-that-chance-rules-in-the-affairs-of-men/

Some years ago, while driving into Boston to attend a conference on “Changing and Unchanging Values in the World of the Future,” I noticed a billboard advertising not the latest consumer gadget but a sage observation attributed to Winston Churchill.  “The farther backward you can look,” it said in large black letters, “the farther forward you are likely to see.” 

It seemed more than a coincidence that the conference I was attending was at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University.  Had some representative of that institution contrived to place Churchill’s fortifying admonition at the city gates?

I was disappointed to learn that the message had been arranged, not by the Pardee Center, but by some other civic-minded entity or individual. Nevertheless, if Churchill’s observation is not the motto of the Pardee Center, perhaps it should be.

The past does not provide a window overlooking the future, exactly; nothing short of clairvoyance can promise that. Nor is it even quite true, as George Santayana famously remarked, that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (I recently had something to say about that in this space.)

History is not a form of prophylaxis. But knowledge of history does acquaint us with the permanent moral and political alternatives that mankind confronts in its journey through time.

It reminds us, for example, how regularly tyranny masquerades as virtue, how inhumanity is apt to cloak itself in the rhetoric of righteousness. (This is not, as St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians reminds us, a new insight: “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”)

Above all, perhaps, knowledge of history can serve to temper our presumption. As I reflected on Churchill’s observation and the subject of the conference, I was struck anew by the large quota of optimism that language budgets into our lives.