RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/from-migrant-busing-to-climate-change-were-awash-in-fake-virtue-esg-carbon-capitalism-moral-imperative-

“American-led capitalism—unencumbered by the modern mandates of ESG, impact investing and the rest—has done an astonishing job of creating wealth for all, lifting more people out of poverty than any economic system ever devised. The morally righteous urge to rein it in has always led to greater poverty, and the current prevailing ideology will be no different.”

With the labor market tight, you would think that the transfer of buses and planes of migrants to Democratic strongholds would be considered an economic opportunity for struggling liberal plutocrats.

If you were a leading progressive warrior for diversity, equity and inclusion battling it out in the trenches of Martha’s Vineyard, wouldn’t you be delighted at the sudden arrival of a little extra (minimum-wage) help from down south to assist in the final push toward social justice?

What self-respecting ESG fund manager wouldn’t welcome some additional (low-cost) labor to lower the Pride flag over her perfectly whitewashed clapboard colonial every evening or iron her copy of the New York Times in the morning?

But the layers of hypocrisy in our immigration debate are so thick you could wear them to shield yourself from the stiff breeze that can ruin your T-shot to the short 16th at the Edgartown Golf Club.

The White House calls the transfers “shameful.” New York Mayor Eric Adams describes them as “horrific.” Leading Democrats condemn them as “literally human trafficking” and “crimes against humanity.”

Somehow the Biden administration’s own shipping of thousands of migrants to New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere isn’t judged by the same standards. Homeland Security Department officials reportedly dubbed the moves the “Abbott plan,” in jocular homage to the earlier transfers organized by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, whose actions progressives put on a moral par with those of the greatest despots in history.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/20/a-requiem-for-black-lives-matter/

Black Lives Matter has yet to receive a requiem, a summation in print. More than seven years into the globally unavoidable anti-police movement, there certainly exists a sizable BLM academic literature, dealing – as my political science colleague Bob Maranto has pointed out – with questions ranging from how the movement impacted on youth-voter turnout to the social impact of Ben & Jerry’s selling politically themed flavours of ice-cream.

However, almost no one has examined how well Black Lives Matter met its initial goals: reducing the police violence that was invariably presented as ‘epidemic’ or ‘genocidal’ and reducing crime more broadly, as brothers and others came to trust a fairer criminal justice system. For that matter, whatever happened to the literally billions of dollars donated, in good faith, to national and local BLM chapters?

This article takes a shot at those tough questions. In most cases, unfortunately, the blunt but real answer seems to be: Black Lives Matter had few, if any, positive impacts. Police violence is down slightly, if at all, while overall crime in BLM-affected areas has sky-rocketed back to 1990s levels. As Dr Maranto and I recently noted for Commentary magazine, rates of fatal shootings of civilians by US police – per an authoritative database from the Washington Post – appear to have hardly budged during the post-2014 BLM era. There were 994 fatal police shootings in toto in 2015, 958 in 2016, 981 in 2017, 993 in 2018, 999 in 2019, and 1,020 in 2020.

Not only was this change in rate clearly not significant in statistical terms, police shootings of citizens actually increased almost three per cent during the period under review. Fatal police shootings specifically of black Americans followed a very similar pattern year-on-year, with 258 black men and women shot in 2015, 236 shot in 2016, 222 in 2017, 228 in 2018, 251 in 2019, and 243 in 2020. The same was true for killings of unarmed persons: 95 ‘fatal shootings of an unarmed individual’ did take place in the outlier year of 2015, but we then saw 64 in 2016, 71 in 2017, 58 in 2018, 54 in 2019, and 60 in 2020 – a variance of less than seven per cent between the first typical year given here and the last.

https://www.commonsense.news/p/crime-is-a-construct-my-morning-with?utm_source=email

In the last couple of months in Park Slope—the baby bjorn-wearing capital of bourgeois-bohemian New York—a thief absconded with $200,000 worth of jewelry in a smash and grab, three boys stole a bunch of iPhones off of subway riders, a ticked off customer attacked the owner of a bike store, $6,000 was stolen from an auto shop, and a beloved pet was catnapped from a bodega on Seventh Avenue. 

But it was the death of a golden retriever mix named Moose that activated the residents of the South Brooklyn enclave. 

Early in the morning on August 3, Moose and his owner—Jessica Chrustic, 41—were out on a walk when a homeless man who lives in the park gave chase. He hit them both with a large stick and threw a container of urine on Moose, while muttering about immigrants taking over the park. The dog died a few days later from internal injuries, after two emergency surgeries. The man who killed him is still at large.

A few weeks later, on August 20, Kristian Nammack issued a call to action on Nextdoor, a social media site for local organizing: “Do we want to organize a community safety patrol, and take our park back? Think what the Guardian Angels did to take back the subways in the 70s/early 80s. We may also get to wear cool berets. I’m being serious.” 

Nammack, 59, had been part of the 2008 Occupy Wall Street protests, and his financial consultancy firm focuses on themes of “climate, renewable energy, gender lens, racial equity, economic advancement. “How about PARK SLOPE PANTHERS as a group name?” he suggested.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/09/19/justice-department-desperate-to-conceal-classified-records/

With one sentence, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon spoke for the majority of Americans who no longer have faith in the nation’s top law enforcement agency. “It is also true, of course, that even-handed procedure does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice,” she wrote in her September 15 order denying the government’s request to prevent a third-party review of allegedly “classified” documents seized by the FBI during the raid of Mar-a-Lago last month.

At issue is the validity of claims made by prosecutors that roughly 100 records taken in the unprecedented pillage of a former president’s home on August 8 have classified markings and therefore do not belong to him. The kerfuffle began earlier this year when the Justice Department acted on a criminal referral by the national archivist, who accused Trump of unlawfully keeping classified material at his home. 

Although Trump’s representatives cooperated with investigators for months, Attorney General Merrick Garland nonetheless authorized the nine-hour raid conducted by at least a dozen FBI agents resulting in the seizure of more than 11,000 pieces of evidence, including personal items such as books, medical files, tax information, apparel, and passports.

And his office has been backpedaling ever since.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/administrative-bloat-and-bidens-college-loan-forgiveness/

In a nod to his progressive base and what seems to be a naked tactic to buy the votes of young, educated future Democrats, President Biden seems to have made good on at least one of his campaign promises.

In August, the White House announced a plan to eliminate for borrowers some of the “skyrocketing cumulative federal student loan debt—$1.6 trillion and rising for more than 45 million borrowers.”

“The Department of Education,” the statement read, “will provide up to $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients [usually awarded only to undergraduate students who display ‘exceptional financial need’] . . , and up to $10,000 in debt cancellation to non-Pell Grant recipients. Borrowers are eligible for this relief if their individual income is less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples).”

Criticism of the loan relief program was immediate and ubiquitous, the cost to American taxpayers being foremost among it. Experts estimated the final amounts to range between $360 billion and $427 billion; a forecast from the National Taxpayer Union Foundation (NTUF) also “calculate[d] that the average burden per taxpayer in the U.S. is $2,503.22, up from [its] earlier estimate of $2,085.59.”

Beyond the high projected cost to taxpayers, and even the ability of the President to unilaterally and legally forgive loans in the first place, is the issue of fairness. Why should taxpayers who may have never even attended college themselves be responsible for paying the indebtedness of someone who chose to go to college and signed a loan to make that possible?

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/09/20/joe-biden-puts-humpty-dumpty-to-shame/

‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ — Humpty Dumpty, ‘Through the Looking Glass‘

Last week, the Biden administration tried to convince the public that inflation was a thing of the past and the southern border was secure. Before that, the president attempted to redefine inflation. It’s been a running theme of this administration, one Joe Biden never gets called on because the press is too busy accepting whatever meaning he chooses.

So here, as a reader service, is a collection of how Humpty Dumpty Biden is choosing what words will mean.

“Zero Percent:” Last week Biden stood behind his presidential podium and declared that “we received news that our economy had 0% inflation in the month of July — 0%.” In a statement, he went further, saying “overall, prices have been essentially flat in our country these last two months: that is welcome news for American families.”

That depends on what 0% means. Food prices were up 1.1% in July and 0.8% in August. Housing costs climbed a total of 1.3% over those months. Medical care was up 1.2%. The only reason the overall inflation rate didn’t climb in July and August was because of a sharp drop in gasoline prices. That’s little comfort to those trying to put food on the table or pay rent.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18924/schumer-manchin-backroom-deal

Washington is a city that thrives on secrets. That is a good thing over at the CIA but it is a very bad thing when Congressional politics are practiced in the dark, far from public scrutiny and for purposes that could unravel our nation’s democracy.

No surprise then that published reports reveal seething lawmaker anger over the closed door deal cut between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer and Senator Joseph Manchin that will allow the White House to acquire and dispense some $700 billion dollars as it sees fit through the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.”

“We don’t know what [the substance of their deal]… is. They haven’t released the text, they don’t give us the detailed explanation,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was quoted in the Washington insider publication, The Hill.

The Senator continued, “So, I don’t know how you could ask people to vote for something they don’t know what it is.”

What we do know is that the Biden Administration will be offered the opportunity to channel money – huge amounts of money – to selected programs, agencies, and election districts throughout the nation at a time when Congressional campaigning is reaching its peak.

Some would wonder if Facebook multi-billionaire Mark Zuckerberg could spend close to a half billion dollars to boost Democratic candidates during the Trump-Biden race just imagine what $700 billion in taxpayer monies could accomplish in the hands of the White House.

http://www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Webster’s defines common sense as “sound and prudent judgement, based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” Lucretia Peabody Hale’s The Peterkin Papers provides fictions best (and most amusing) examples of common sense – with the “Lady from Philadelphia” offering obvious solutions to what seem insurmountable obstacles to the Peterkin family.

A year ago, I wrote an essay regretting the loss of common sense in the political realm: “Common Sense – Where has it Gone?” (September 29, 2021). It was a lament, without answer.

Now, three disparate events remind me that common sense remains AWOL: First, I have been re-reading a 1999 collection of essays by Thomas Sowell, Barbarians Inside the Gates. The book speaks to the loss of common sense in political, social, and cultural realms. Second, Queen Elizabeth’s death was a reminder of the importance of personal traits like common sense, stability, tradition, and personal virtue, which Western culture has replaced with silliness, variability, ignorance, and social virtues. And third, a eulogy for Common Sense was recently sent me. I had seen it before, but it is worth re-reading.

Sowell’s book, published in 1999, was prophetic, as conditions he then wrote about remain with us – racism, declines in education standards, hyperbole over man-caused climate change, the advocacy for socialism and the criticism of capitalism in the West, and political extremism. Sowell is a realist who relies on facts and who cares little for sentiment. His observations reflect his intolerance for the idiocy of most politicians. In an essay titled “From Marxism to the Market,” he wrote: “The rhetoric of socialism may be inspiring, but the actual record is dismal.” In another, “The Multiculturalism Cult,” he wrote of how real people around the world do not “celebrate diversity;” they “pick and choose which of their own cultural features they want to keep and which they want to dump…” In a third, “Life is Culturally Biased,” he noted: “As limited human beings, we must make our choices among the alternatives actually available.” A fourth essay, “Anti-Elitism in Education:” “…you cannot let everyone go to Stuyvesant (where Sowell went in the late 1940s) without its ceasing to be the kind of school that makes them want to go there.” That the problems he wrote of so long ago have only worsened is a sad commentary on our social, cultural, and political life.

https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/the-governments-war-on-transparency

Originally published in The Wall Street Journal Weekend edition, Section A, Page A9, September 17, 2022 as a paid editorial.

Dear Mr. and Ms. Taxpayer Voter,

Federal spending is out of control and they don’t want you to know about it. The fiscal irresponsibility of your elected officials and bureaucrats has taken the federal debt to levels not seen since World War II. With no end in sight.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) redacted 350,000 federal executive agency employee names from our FOIA request (2021)—roughly $30 billion in compensation. In the last year of the Obama administration, only 2,367 names were redacted. OPM stated, “For those instances where data element are not released, they are being withheld under FOIA Exemption 6… the disclosure of which would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

The Federal Reserve has 23,000 employees. They gave us the salaries of only 367 executives. They stated, “Releasing the names and specific salary information for all employees would not shed any further light on the Board’s performance of its statutory duties.” They told us that a database of their expenditures, a checkbook, does not exist. “Staff searched Board records and made suitable inquiries with knowledgeable staff but did not locate the information you seek.” This from our country’s central bank! 23,000 employees! No database of expenditures!

The Vice President refused to give us any information. They claimed, “The Office of Vice President is not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.” One would think the Vice President would want you, taxpaying voters, to know how she spent your tax dollars. Not so. Why?

The U.S. Postal Service refused to produce line-by-line checkbook expenditures. They stated that doing so would expose their “trade secrets.” It is hard to imagine Federal Express or UPS benefitting from the USPS’s money-losing “trade secrets.” USPS also refuses to produce bonuses paid.”