Corruption Just Isn’t What It Used To Be Anthony Daniels

https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/12/corruption-just-isnt-what-it-used-to-be/

“Regulatory corruption is much worse than the traditional illicit-payment type, that is to say money passed under the table, for the latter can sometimes actually help to get things done where there are official obstacles to doing them, whereas the former politicises everything and is completely obstructive, uncreative and leads inevitably to the legalised looting of the public purse on a scale that the traditionally corrupt can only dream of, the difference being between wholesale and retail. Moreover, the more traditional kind of corruption is relatively easy to spot and clearly defined, and therefore potentially controllable by means of the law, insofar as anything that is consonant with human nature is controllable by the law, while the intellectual corruption of (say) regulations enforcing positive discrimination exerts a much more baleful effect on society and requires an assault on both freedom and truth.”

A delusion is defined as a fixed false belief that is impervious to reason or evidence and that is out of keeping with a person’s cultural background. The last condition has to be added because, without it, everyone would believe that all those who disagreed with him were deluded. A Muslim would think a Christian deluded, a Christian would think a Muslim deluded, and an atheist would think both deluded. If everyone is deluded, however, no one is. It is therefore dangerous to diagnose delusion in a politician just because you don’t like him.

Nevertheless, twenty years ago I felt that there must be something wrong—medically wrong—with Mr Blair, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. I could not quite put my finger on what it was, however. It came to me in a flash, though, like the illumination of Archimedes in his bath: he was deluded!

Americans Fled ‘Woke’ States in ‘Historic’ Numbers in 2021 By Victoria Taft

The communist Chinese-inflicted COVID virus and reactions by American Democrat politicians created devastating changes in the U.S. population in 2021, according to statistics revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday.

The U.S. experienced a “historic” decline in the number of children that were born, and Americans fled Leftist, freedom-sucking, gulag-like cities and states where Democrat dictators toyed with their constituents the way a cat plays with a flapping bird before devouring it.

First, Americans gave birth to a “record low” number of babies in 2021, in large part due to the pandemic.

The Wall Street Journal reported that although American population replacement has been going down since the 2008-2009 recession — another Democrat-fueled disaster — with “just 393,000 people in the year that ended July 1, including 148,000 more births than deaths … it was the first year in which growth from births exceeding deaths fell below net arrivals from abroad, according to the bureau.”

And there was also a “historic” migration of citizens, whose Democrat politicians issued mandates, lockdowns, and freedom-sucking COVID edicts ever their populations. And those states notched historic net population losses as droves of Americans fled to more free states.

Look at this map from the Census Bureau.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

The map shows the states with the worst COVID restrictions and some of the highest crime rates lost American population.

The states with the worst net population loss — New York, California, and Illinois — chased out nearly 700,000 Americans to other states. Florida, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia had a net influx of 713,000 Americans to their freer and less-crowded states.

The Census Bureau reported:

Between 2020 and 2021, 33 states saw population increases and 17 states and the District of Columbia lost population, 11 of which had losses of over 10,000 people. This is a historically large number of states to lose population in a year.

Oregon and Washington, whose leaders imposed ridiculous COVID lockdowns and mandates, shockingly had a virtual net neutral change according to the Census Bureau, but Americans fled the tropical paradise of Hawaii due to its draconian lockdowns and mandates.

The top spot for population loss in 2021 was Washington, D.C., which reported that 2.9% of its population got the heck out of the nation’s capital.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Americans have voted with their feet, and they’ve shown that they will go to places where there is more freedom to conduct their own lives.

Foreign-born population soars to new record under Biden; highest rate of immigrants since 1910 By Stephen Dinan

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/dec/20/foreign-born-population-soars-to-new-record-under-/

The U.S. has had a massive surge in immigration this year, with as many as 1.5 million newcomers and a record 46.2 million foreign-born people, according to a report for the Center for Immigration Studies.

After a deep trough last year, likely because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel and migration restrictions imposed to control the spread, the flow of people rebounded around the time President Biden was elected.

In numbers never seen before, they are coming legally through airports and land border crossings and illegally across the Rio Grande and remote regions of Arizona and California.

“There was pent-up demand for legal immigration, and illegal immigration has exploded in one of the greatest surges, if not the greatest, we’ve ever seen,” said Steven A. Camarota, the demographer who was the chief author of the report. “It’s driving the numbers up and up and up.”

As it stands, 14.2% of the U.S. population is foreign-born, or 1 out of every 7 people. That is the highest rate of immigrants in the population since 1910, when the number was 14.7%. At current trends, the government says, the U.S. will break that record well before the end of this decade.

Panic! At the DCCC: The Democrats’ House Campaign Arm Is Descending Into Mayhem Matt Vespa

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2021/12/21/panic-at-the-dccc-the-democrats-house-campaign-arm-is-descending-into-mayhem-n2600894

Two dozen House Democrats have decided to file their retirement papers. They’re not going to go through being bloodied and beaten in what could be an absolute bruiser for the Democratic Party as the 2022 midterms begin. For starters, they got a taste of how far they’ve fallen with voters in the 2021 elections. Virginia booted all the Democrats that occupied statewide offices. The GOP retook the governor’s mansion and the House of Delegates. In New Jersey, Republican Jack Ciattarelli came within inches of clipping incumbent Gov. Phil Murphy. State Sen. Stephen Sweeney, a top Democrat in southern New Jersey, was defeated for re-election. That’s something I thought I’d never see. You can’t do much without Sweeney’s blessing as he was the president of the NJ State Senate.

Now, with Build Back Better in the toilet and being flushed down the drain, moderate House Democrats are saddled with defending a vote for this massive left-wing spending package. They threw their lot in with Pelosi and got screwed—royally. To make matters worse, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) appears to be totally out of touch and adrift on what to do. With Biden’s sinking approval ratings, there are no life jackets unless the DCCC can conjure some messaging magic. It hasn’t.

Demolishing Democratic Delusions Byron York

https://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2021/12/22/demolishing-democratic-delusions-n2600922

Sen. Joe Manchin’s announcement that he will not support the Democrats’ giant spending bill should not have been a surprise to anyone who has been watching Manchin for the last few months. Yet many Democrats, especially in the White House and in the progressive wing of the House of Representatives, appeared shocked when Manchin told Fox News’ Bret Baier, “I cannot vote to continue with this piece of legislation. I just can’t.”

They apparently believed Manchin would ultimately come around, and do so before Christmas. When he did not, they were stunned.

Their reaction is the latest manifestation of a mass delusion affecting Democrats in Washington. For nearly a year, since Jan. 20, 2021, they have believed they could enact a nation-changing agenda — shades of FDR and LBJ! — without having won a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate. Somehow, all on their own and without any Republican support, they could bring landmark legislation to a 50-50 tie vote in the Senate, and then have Vice President Kamala Harris break the tie in the Democrat’s favor. They seemed to forget that Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson had huge majorities in both House and Senate when they enacted sprawling New Deal and Great Society legislation, respectively.

Even the structure of their massive spending bill, which they called Build Back Better, was shaped by their lack of a Senate majority. Democratic leaders knew how hard it would be to get anything through the Senate — to keep all 50 of their own senators together — so they packed nearly the entire Biden agenda of social spending and climate projects into a one big bill. Then everyone on their side would have to vote for it, wouldn’t they?

Biden’s Legacy: A Nuclear Iran by Majid Rafizadeh

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18051/biden-legacy-nuclear-iran

The Iranian regime is currently advancing its nuclear program at a rapid pace, spinning centrifuges and enriching uranium at a high level, all while the international community has no access to monitor the regime’s nuclear activities to check how far away the Iranian government is from obtaining nuclear weapons.
While the Iranian leaders claim that the country’s nuclear program is designed for civilian purposes….[a] joint statement issued by the UK, France and Germany acknowledged that the Iranian regime “has no credible civilian need for uranium metal R&D and production, which are a key step in the development of a nuclear weapon.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration is completely silent as the Iranian regime disregards and refuses to answer the IAEA’s questions about three undeclared clandestine nuclear sites in Iran.
All the Biden administration has done so far is to appease a regime that chants “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and that is determined to push the US out of the Middle East.
Iran — one of only four state sponsors of terrorism, according to the US Department of State, as well as a leading violator of human rights — is also committed to uprooting and replacing Israel and seizing all the oil in the Middle East from Syria to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
So, we are just to sit back and watch the predatory, terrorist regime of Iran, which has already begun taking over the entire Middle East, become nuclear state and wreck the Middle East — under the Biden administration’s watch.

The Biden administration seems to have no clear agenda on how to stop the Iranian regime from going nuclear. It has been almost a year and seven rounds of negotiations, but nothing has come out of these talks except that the ruling mullahs of Iran keep advancing their nuclear program, with Russia backing them.

LA Sheriff Slams ‘Careless and Irresponsible’ Liberal DAs Undoing Police Work By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/la-sheriff-slams-careless-and-irresponsible-liberal-das-undoing-police-work/

The Los Angeles County sheriff slammed California’s liberal prosecutors on Tuesday, saying they are living in a “woke palace” and not facing the consequences of their decisions to undermine the work of law enforcement officers amid a surge in crime.

Sheriff Alex Villanueva said during an appearance on Fox News that liberal District Attorney George Gascon has declined to prosecute more than 12,000 cases after county deputies apprehended suspected criminals.

“So that is disheartening for any cop to think all their work is being undone by a careless and irresponsible district attorney,” he said. “But they’re not going to stop doing their job. The deputies … keep doing your job, don’t use the excuse of someone else not doing their job to avoid it – and it’s working.”

“So we’re making the effort out there,” he added. “What we need now is, we need responsible district attorneys who are going to file their cases. And if they want to play the role of public defender, they should just quit their job and go over to the public defenders – and everything they say makes perfect sense for a public defender, not a district attorney.”

Villanueva also reacted to San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s claims that calls for action against recent crime spikes are “knee-jerk reactions” and that smash-and-grab looting in California is “not new.”

The unicorns of crime-wave California As violence surges and police dwindle, the woke take shelter in magical thinking Gilbert T. Sewall

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/unicorns-crime-wave-woke-california/

A crime wave haunts blue-state America, and nowhere more so than in super-blue California. Los Angeles police chief Michel Moore is trying to assure residents and tourists that violent crime is not out of control, which is not at all reassuring. Police departments statewide are stressed, and finding able recruits is a struggle. Faced with surging gun violence and a dwindling number of police officers, Oakland has proposed $50,000 signing bonuses to veteran cops.

Since 2014, California voters have unshackled a fast-expanding criminal class that rolls expertly with the dice. Starting with Proposition 47, the state penal code has reduced many felonies to misdemeanors. Shoplifting and petty theft have been effectively decriminalized. Serious crimes go unprosecuted. Elected officials and residents alike prefer virtue theater to civic management.

One eighth of the nation’s residents live in the economic and cultural colossus of California, so what direction the state takes matters. Why its progressive leaders and their constituencies condone violence against persons and property, car break-ins, prostitution, open-air drug dealing, and aggressive begging remains puzzling.

The Palestinian School of Terrorism by Bassam Tawil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18038/palestinian-schools

The young terrorists have been brainwashed by Palestinian leaders and “scholars” spewing hate against Israel and Jews on a daily basis.

In addition, they are being assured that anyone who dies while carrying out a terrorist attack against Jews is a “martyr” whose place in heaven is guaranteed.

IMPACT-se found that Palestinian leaders have failed to fulfill their promise to Western donors to change the textbooks. The study showed, in fact, that the newly published textbooks were even more radical than previous ones.

“There is a systematic insertion [in Palestinian textbooks] of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Extreme nationalism and Islamist ideologies are widespread throughout the curriculum, including science and math textbooks. The possibility of peace with Israel is rejected.” — Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), May 2021.

The textbooks demonize Israel, and the Jews are maligned and presented as a rival of the prophet of Islam. “In short, there is no encouragement towards coexistence throughout the entire curriculum,” according to the study.

This is the poison that is being injected into the hearts and minds of Palestinians at the very moment that the Biden administration continues to talk about funding the Palestinian Authority and the need to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Biden administration is prattling on about peace and a “two-state solution” while Palestinian leaders are doing their utmost to prepare the next generation to stick more knives into Jews.

A Palestinian teacher and three school children were directly involved in the recent spate of terror attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem and the West Bank. This came as little surprise to those familiar with the ongoing hate and incitement against Israel in Palestinian schools and textbooks, as well as in the media, mosques and university campuses.

Durham zeroes in on Clinton campaign, could call some aides to testify, court memo reveals New court filing in Steele dossier source Igor Danchenko’s criminal case shows prosecutors want to know if Clinton campaign knew false intel was going to FBI. Expert calls it an “incredible twist.”By John Solomon

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/durham-zeroes-clinton-campaign-could-call-some-aides

Hillary Clinton’s team long fought to keep its ties to Christopher Steele’s dossier from public view, but Special Counsel John Durham is now making clear he has a strong interest in her campaign’s behavior during the Russia collusion probe. He is even suggesting some of her aides could be summoned as trial witnesses.

Durham’s earth-shaking revelation came inside a routine court filing this month in the case of Igor Y. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was a primary source in 2016 for Steele’s now-infamous dossier. Danchenko has been charged with repeatedly lying to the FBI during the Russia collusion probe and has pleaded innocent.

Durham’s motion asked the presiding judge to determine whether Danchenko’s lawyers —Danny Onorato and Stuart Sears of the Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears law firm — pose a conflict of interest because the firm also represents the Hillary for America campaign as well as several former campaign officials in “matters before the special counsel.”

“The Clinton Campaign financed the opposition research reports, colloquially known as the ‘Dossier,’ that are central to the Indictment against the defendant,” the Durham team stated in the motion. “Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, the government respectfully requests that the Court inquire into the potential conflict issues set forth herein.”