RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/21/doj-identifies-nyc-portland-seattle-as-violent-anarchist-jurisdictions-in-move-to-revoke-federal-funding/

The Department of Justice on Monday identified three cities—New York City, Portland, and Seattle—as jurisdictions that have permitted “violence and destruction of property,” thereby meeting President Trump’s criteria for withholding federal funding to those areas.

Earlier this month, the president issued a memorandum asking the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Secretary of Homeland Security, and Attorney General Barr to list the areas that “have permitted violence and the destruction of property to persist and have refused to undertake reasonable measures to counteract these criminal activities.”

Trump called the cities “anarchist jurisdictions” and asked the OMB to issue guidance to the heads of executive departments and agencies “restricting eligibility” and “disfavoring” them from federal funding.

“My Administration will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities,” Trump wrote.

The DOJ noted that all three cities rejected federal law enforcement support amid skyrocketing increases in crime.

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/22/anyone-notice-that-the-trump-recovery-is-doing-much-better-than-expected/

A news report out on Monday said that 83% of companies in the S&P 500 beat expectations for earnings in the second quarter of the year, the first time that’s happened in more than a decade.

That’s been a common refrain over the past several months, as the economic recovery from the COVID-19 shutdowns has repeatedly outperformed what the “experts” expected. Here’s a sampling of headlines:

“US economy added 1.8m jobs in July, beating expectations”
“Jobs Numbers in July Beat Expectations for Third Straight Month”
“Corporate Earnings Beat Analysts’ Lowered Expectations”
“US consumer sentiment hit a 6-month high in September, beating economist forecasts”
“U.S. new home sales beat expectations in July”

In some cases, the difference between what economists were predicting at the start of the pandemic and what’s actually occurred is stark.

Take the forecasts for unemployment.

In March, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis projected the unemployment rate would top 32%.

That same month, Goldman Sachs said the unemployment rate will peak at around 15% later in the year.

A May survey of economists by FiveThirtyEight.com found that the median forecast for the May unemployment rate was 20%.

Even White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett predicted April’s unemployment rate would be 16-17%.

What actually happened?

The unemployment rate peaked in April at 14.7%, then dropped to 13.3% in May.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/minneapolis-guilty-whites-think-blm-lawn-signs-katie-hopkins/

It’s a strange time to be staying in Downtown Minneapolis.

This apartment block on 5th and 7th is all but empty. There are long corridors of fresh paint and new-smelling carpets and a reception area with fancy furniture and free coffee all set to welcome people, except the people never came.

If I lacked purpose, I could go for days without seeing a soul, and even chance meetings near elevators or stairwells make people scurry away like frightened rats.

No one comes here anymore.

As I walked back from NoGo Minneapolis yesterday, a man rose from his little group of thieves to follow me as I passed, putting a scarf across his face as he approached to take whatever I had. He was different from other men in other cities who have done the same, and knew in a heartbeat my reactions mattered in this moment, if I was to walk away unharmed. This man had nothing to lose.

The streets are eerily empty too. Its like the day after some kind of apocalypse where shocked survivors venture out to find water, only to quickly scurry away, hugging the outline of buildings in the shadows with their faces down to the curb.

Minneapolis is lost.

Lost people want to believe in something, anything. They need to in order to endure another day.

Some think they can find it in the bottom of a bottle — their sadness never quenched. Many here put their faith in drugs; the stained pants and vomit splashes on the t-shirt of the man who passes me when I go to find food makes me less sure I want any after all.

These lost souls explain George Floyd too. Not just his death from fentanyl and drug abuse, but the cult-like worship of his name after he died. The half-dead lifted him up to give themselves something to believe in. Abandoned by all others, they raised up George Floyd and prayed to him instead. At least he was somehow one of them, failing right alongside them in this festering sewer of a place.

I walked to 38th and Chicago to spend time at the streets his disciples have turned into the “State of George Floyd.” Barricaded for two blocks in either direction, filled with the stuff of protest and vigil, these streets have become a kind of church to these people — albeit in the open air and carpeted with asphalt and stickiness. The pews are made from old sofas, peppered with holes from a thousand cigarettes, marooned in a place where gas used to pump and incomes were made.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-household-net-worth-spikes-surpassing-pre-pandemic-peak/

Household net worth increased by $7.6 trillion in the second quarter, surpassing the pre-pandemic high as rebounding stocks bolstered Americans’ wealth, a Federal Reserve report revealed on Monday.

Household net worth increased 6.8 percent to $119 trillion, the largest gain in quarterly records dating back to 1952. Federal government borrowing spiked as lawmakers passed fiscal relief measures, according to the report.

Household net worth saw a record decline in the first quarter as the coronavirus pandemic and shutdowns pushed the economy into a recession. Increasing household net worth is one sign of the nation’s uneven recovery.

While the labor market has continued to struggle, the value of equities increased by $5.7 trillion over the first quarter and real estate grew by $458 billion. The S&P 500 matched pre-pandemic levels in mid-August and has since set new highs.

For the first time in at least four years, consumer credit not including mortgage debt fell in the second quarter. Credit decreased $69 billion as consumers did less credit-card borrowing in light of the pandemic.

https://thenationalpulse.com/news/transition-integrity-project-execution/

Gilman, who serves as Vice President of Programs at the Chinese Communist Party-linked Berggruen Institute, took to Twitter to express his desire that Anton be executed in the same fashion as Robert Brasillach.

NILS GILMAN, THE FOUNDER OF THE SO-CALLED “BIPARTISAN” TRANSITION INTEGRITY PROJECT, CALLED FOR THE EXECUTION OF FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL MICHAEL ANTON IN LIGHT OF ANTON WRITING CRITICALLY ABOUT THE GROUP’S EFFORTS TO STEAL THE 2020 ELECTION AND SECURE A VICTORY FOR DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOE BIDEN.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/20/the-loathsomeness-of-reza-aslan/

No one who was familiar with Aslan’s writings should have been terribly surprised by his Friday night tweet, which some would justifiably describe as an explicit threat of physical violence.

The tweet, sent out on the evening of September 18, only minutes after the announcement of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, was succinct and straightforward: “If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire f—ing thing down.” Within hours, these words had been widely retweeted and commented upon. 

Apparently, it was the author’s most attention-getting tweet since January 19, 2019, when—in the wake of the instantly famous encounter at the Lincoln Memorial involving a group of polite MAGA cap-wearing boys from Covington High School in Kentucky, a drum-banging Native American provocateur named Nathan Phillips, and a trash-talking gang of Black Hebrew Israelites—the selfsame author posted the now-iconic picture of one of the boys, Nick Sandmann, standing calmly in the face of Phillips’ provocation, and wrote: “Have you ever seen a more punchable face than this kid’s?”

The author in question was Reza Aslan, who, when he himself was a kid, fled the Iranian Revolution with his parents for the United States, where he grew up in the Bay Area. He went on to collect a B.A. in religious studies from Santa Clara University, an M.A. in theological studies from Harvard, an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Iowa, and a Ph.D. in sociology from UC Santa Barbara. His first book, No god but God (2005), whitewashed Islam and blamed Islamic terror on Western imperialism; the predictable plaudits in such left-wing organs as the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Los Angeles Times, and Financial Times made it a “worldwide success” (The Guardian) and launched his career as a “multimedia force” (L.A. Review of Books). 

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/09/dont-go-wobbly-senate-republicans-bruce-thornton/

The death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has occasioned the usual displays of progressive hypocrisy and flexible standards of decorum, not to mention the Dems’ scorched-earth tactics of vilification.

But the Senate Republicans can’t go wobbly at this critical moment. Donald Trump must nominate a replacement, and the Senate must confirm him or her, thus ensuring that even if Joe Biden somehow gets elected, the Supreme Court will have a 6-3 majority of youngish originalists on the court as a bulwark against the progressive project to dismantle the Constitution and “fundamentally transform” America into a technocratic “soft despotism.”

Once Donald Trump defied all predictions and defeated Hillary Clinton, the Supreme Court became the Democrats’ primary object of concern. Two vacancies filled by originalists have increased their angst. Ever since FDR threatened the Court with increasing its numbers, it has been the go-to option for progressives who stand little chance of their socialist policies and big state assaults on the Bill of Rights to pass muster with voters. Donald Trump’s improbable victory and judicial appointments have slowed that decades-long process, even though some presumably originalist justices like Chief Justice John Roberts have joined the progressives in legislating from the bench.

RBG, as she is known to progressives, became a particular worry once Trump became president. She was, as The Atlantic puts it, a “bulwark protecting abortion rights and a wide range of other progressive ideals on a conservative Supreme Court,” including issues like same-sex marriage and transgender rights that, like abortion, have no basis in the Constitution. More treacly was the Independent’s Holly Baxter, who keened, “Sometimes it felt like she was America’s last hope.” Such extravagance recalls Oscar Wilde’s quip, “One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/breaking-judicial-norms-a-history-11600639835?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is widely reported to have told his Democratic colleagues on Saturday that “nothing is off the table for next year” if Republicans confirm a Supreme Court nominee in this Congress. He means this as a threat that Democrats will break the filibuster and pack the Court with more Justices in 2021 if they take control of the Senate in November’s election.

So what else is new? Democrats have a long history of breaking procedural norms on judges. While packing the Court would be their most radical decision to date, it would fit their escalating pattern. Let’s review the modern historical lowlights to see which party has really been the political norm-breaker:

• The Bork assault. When Ronald Reagan selected Robert Bork in 1987, the judge was among the most qualified ever nominated. No less than Joe Biden had previously said he might have to vote to confirm him. Then Ted Kennedy issued his demagogic assault from the Senate floor, complete with lies about women “forced into back-alley abortions” and blacks who would have to “sit at segregated lunch counters.” Democrats and the press then unleashed an unprecedented political assault.

Previous nominees who had failed in the Senate were suspected of corruption (Abe Fortas) or thought unqualified (Harrold Carswell). Bork was defeated because of distortions about his jurisprudence. This began the modern era of hyper-politicized judicial nominations, though for the Supreme Court it has largely been a one-way partisan street.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/09/20/replacing_ginsburg_could_force_a_constitutional_crisis_144252.html

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life in the law cast a long shadow. In death, she casts a long shadow, too.

Since Justice Ginsburg was both historic figure and reliable liberal vote on the United States Supreme Court, replacing her was always going to be contentious. After all, the court’s direction for years to come is at stake. Candidate Donald Trump made the “activist federal courts” a major campaign issue in 2016. As president, he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have delivered on that issue. They have confirmed over 200 new judges, almost all of them strenuously opposed by Democrats. Now, he has been given his third opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice. His first appointment replaced the late conservative icon, Antonio Scalia, with another conservative, Neil Gorsuch. His second replaced Anthony Kennedy, a moderate conservative and occasional swing vote, with Brett Kavanaugh, a more consistent conservative vote.

Replacing any Supreme Court justice is important, but substituting a conservative for a liberal giant like Ginsburg or the 82-year-old Justice Stephen Breyer, when he retires, would be far more consequential. That’s why the fight over the Ginsburg’s vacant seat will be so fierce, worse even than the brawl over Kavanaugh, who was smeared by multiple, last-minute allegations of sexual assault, none of which were substantiated. That fight was so toxic that several senior Democrats openly rejected the idea that Kavanaugh should be presumed “innocent until proven guilty,” a bedrock assumption of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence for over a thousand years.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/systemic-racism-criminal-justice-system-make-critics-prove-charge/

Progressives say racism is everywhere in the criminal-justice system, but they don’t provide many specifics.

I  worked in the criminal-justice system for a quarter century. It is run, day-to-day, by the crème de la crème of graduates from America’s top law schools. Those institutions wear their progressive bona fides on their sleeves and proclaim it for all the world to hear.

In their offhand rhetoric — insouciant, because they know their bien pensant allies in politics and media will never call them on it — legal elites will tell you that the administration of justice in America is systemically racist. But they are the system. The judges, the top prosecutors, the defense bar, the experts who craft the sentencing guidelines and the standards of confinement — overwhelmingly, they are political progressives.

That’s fine. I’m a lawyer from New York City. I’ve not only lived in and around this world for decades, I have affection for lots of its denizens. Most of them are proud of being on the left. I don’t agree with them politically, but the routine handling of criminal cases is not political. It is clinical: professionals doing the best they can.

And that’s just the point: They do the best they can. That is the antithesis of racism.

These professionals strive to do justice for individual defendants. The concrete experience of routine cases in the justice system is fairness to a fault. The enforcement authorities, defense counsel, and the court frequently bend over backwards to plead cases out to softer versions of the criminal conduct’s harsh reality. They do so precisely to rationalize the avoidance or reduction of jail time.