Senator Scott’s Home Run By Michael R. Strain

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/senator-scotts-home-run/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=third

I’d recommend that everyone read Senator Tim Scott’s rebuttal to President Biden’s address last night. A few highlights below.

Is America still upwardly mobile? Senator Scott’s own journey is an argument in favor.

Growing up, I never dreamed I would be standing here tonight. When I was a kid, my parents divorced. My mother, my brother and I moved in with my grandparents. Three of us, sharing one bedroom. I was disillusioned and angry, and I nearly failed out of school. But I was blessed.

First, with a praying momma. And let me say this: To the single mothers out there, who are working their tails off, working hard, trying to make ends meet, wondering if it’s worth it? You can bet it is. God bless your amazing effort on the part of your kids.

I was also blessed by a Chick-fil-A operator, John Moniz. And finally, with a string of opportunities that are only possible here in America.

Senator Scott offered a powerful argument for expanding school choice based on the terrible and damaging decisions of so many public schools to keep their doors closed for far too long during the pandemic.

Most of all, I’m saddened that millions of kids have lost a year of learning when they could not afford to lose a single day. Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future. Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries’ did. Private and religious schools did.

Science has shown for months that schools are safe. But too often, powerful grown-ups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind. The clearest case I’ve seen for school choice in our lifetime is because we know that education is the closest thing to magic in America.

And the senator offered a powerful critique of the president’s family policies, arguing that they are designed to support parents who want to use commercial childcare, and offer much less for families who have decided other arrangements are best.

Biden Deserves Zero Credit For Booming Economy, COVID Gains

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/04/30/biden-deserves-zero-credit-for-booming-economy-covid-gains/

In his speech to Congress this week, President Joe Biden heartily patted himself on the back for everything good that is happening right now.

He described a country in crisis when he took office and said that “After 100 days of rescue and renewal, America is ready for a take off.”

The day after Biden’s speech, the Commerce Department reported GDP growth for the first three months of this year was 6.4%. New COVID cases are on the decline, and vaccines are plentiful.

So, it looks like Biden’s right, doesn’t it?

Except he doesn’t deserve any credit for any of those things.

Take the GDP number. Far from being in a Great Depression-scale crisis, the economy had been rapidly recovering from the government-mandated (and scientifically unjustified) lockdowns – with GDP leaping 33.4% in the third quarter of last year and another 4.3% in the fourth quarter.

When Biden took office, Q1 of this year was nearly a third over, and he didn’t sign his “American Rescue Plan” into law until mid-March, just two weeks before the quarter ended. So, even though checks started rolling out to people, that rescue plan was too late to have a significant impact on overall growth.

As a matter of fact, the GDPNow forecast for Q1 – which is a running estimate of the economy based on available data as they are released – was much higher before Biden signed his rescue plan than where it ended up. (See the chart below.)

Israeli Religious Festival Stampede Kills Dozens Tragedy, in which at least 44 people were killed, occurred during celebration of Jewish holiday Lag b’Omer

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dozens-killed-in-stampede-at-israeli-religious-festival-11619748818

TEL AVIV—At least 44 people were killed in a stampede at a religious bonfire festival in northern Israel early Friday, Israel’s national emergency service said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the incident “a terrible disaster,” and Israel’s military dispatched medical teams and an elite rescue unit to assist with evacuating casualties and providing treatment.

Magen David Adom, the emergency medical service, said it had evacuated 103 injured people to local hospitals, including more than 20 in severe condition.

Dozens of ambulances were on scene where military and emergency-service officials set up a field hospital. Rescue workers could be seen on television and video clips shared on social media running into the site trying to navigate large crowds of people.

The Post-Pandemic Boom Biden inherited a very strong economic recovery, not a house ‘on fire.’

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-post-pandemic-boom-11619736069?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden can hardly be blamed for trumpeting the U.S. economic resurgence in his address to Congress. But his claim that “America’s house was on fire” when he entered office? It was already extinguished, as Thursday’s first-quarter GDP report showed.

Real GDP rose 6.4% in the period as vaccines rolled out, state lockdowns eased and Americans spent December stimulus payments. Incredibly, real GDP was a mere 0.87% below the 2019 fourth-quarter business cycle peak and probably would have surpassed it if not for supply-chain problems and disincentives to work. Consumer spending contributed 7.02 percentage-points to growth—about 70% of that for goods, but spending on services also increased, especially on recreation, food and accommodation.

Housing chipped in 0.49 percentage-points as the surge in home building and renovations continued. Business investment added 1.29 percentage-points, mostly from software and IT equipment, despite a global semiconductor shortage and transportation bottlenecks that have snarled manufacturing. Net exports and reduced inventories subtracted 3.51 points.

What’s amazing is that U.S. output is nearly what it was in the fourth-quarter of 2019 even with payrolls being about 5% smaller. Businesses and workers have become more productive during the pandemic. Aggregate employee compensation is 2.9% higher than in 2019’s fourth quarter as businesses have increased pay to reward and attract workers. Total personal income in the first quarter was up a whopping 16.7% from the pre-Covid peak. Much of this is pent-up savings—the personal savings rate was a near record 21%—that will turn into more consumer spending as people resume travel and leisure activities.

Mr. Biden wants to take credit for rescuing an economy in flames, but Democrats in Washington have been dousing dead embers. The economy was poised to accelerate as vaccines rolled out no matter who was President.

For US, Gradual Ruin Is About to Become Sudden Roger Kimball (March 21, 2021)

https://www.theepochtimes.com/for-us-gradual-ruin-is-about-to-become-sudden_3733858.html

EXCERPT:

Elections

Then, there is the more serious stuff: the nearly $2 trillion so-called COVID relief package that all but guarantees a spike in inflation but shovels much, much more money to teachers’ unions and favored racial groups than to people who have suffered from the government lockdowns during the CCP virus pandemic.

There is the passage in the House of H.R. 1, the so-called For the People bill, which would effectively assure that was never another fair election in this country.

It would do this by all but obliterating voter ID requirements—you need an ID to board a plane but not cast a vote—mandating same-day voter registration and at least two weeks of early voting, and by requiring states to provide unsupervised drop boxes to receive completed ballots.

In other words, H.R. 1 would centralize presidential elections, taking responsibility for oversight away from the states, where the Constitution placed it, and arrogating it to the clutches of the federal government and its sprawling bureaucracy.

If, as seems almost certain, H.R. 1 becomes the law of the land, it would be the final nail in the coffin of electoral integrity.

The widespread irregularities (that’s polysyllabic periphrasis for “fraud”) that attended the 2020 election would be codified into law assuring that, for as long as anyone could envision, 2016 would have to be counted as the last free, fair, and open presidential election.

It used to be that American was the land of the free and home of the brave. A robust culture of free speech was every American’s birthright.

Abraham Accords Could Be Next In Biden’s Retreat By Benny Avni

https://www.nysun.com/foreign/abraham-accord-could-be-next-in-bidens-retreat/91493/

As Washington retreats from prior conditions it has set to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, Arab allies recalculate their approach to the Islamic Republic. Can reversal of the Abraham Accords be far behind?d

“We are seeking to have good relations with Iran,” Riyadh’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Saudi TV this week. Huh? Until recently the Kingdom’s de-facto ruler was considered one of the region’s top hardliners on Iran. Now his emissaries are reported to meet in Baghdad with top American and Iranian officials.

What changed? America.

Washington’s attitude toward the Islamic Republic is obviously much softer than it was under President Trump. But now it seems to have softened even in the course of President Biden’s first 100 days.

Gone is National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s vow to seek a “longer and stronger agreement.” Instead American negotiators in Vienna now toil to appease Tehran counterparts with the hope of merely returning to the original 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Yet another American condition for reinking the JCPOA is fast eroding. Washington said it would not remove sanctions before Tehran reverses all recent enrichment violations. That condition is now melting, even as Tehran is resolute, vowing to not move an inch before all sanctions are removed.

Biden Erased Decades of Historic Crimes in His Speech to Congress Biden’s claim that the Capitol Riot was the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” is ahistorical garbage. Glenn Greenwald and Siraj Hashmi

https://outsidevoices.substack.com/p/biden-erased-decades-of-historic?token=eyJ1c2

As President Biden wrapped up a 65-minute joint address to Congress to mark his administration’s first 100 days, what was shared in the lead-up to his speech sowed discord over the entire affair:

Jim Acosta
Biden to refer to Jan 6 insurrection as “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” in speech tonight.

Sure enough, the President delivered on this. Opening his address, Biden stated, “I took the oath of office — lifted my hand off our family Bible — and inherited a nation in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Yes, the January 6th siege on the U.S. Capitol building, often alluded to as an “insurrection,” was an embarrassing day for our country. But to suggest that it was “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” is disingenuous at best. At worst, it’s a malicious attempt to whitewash the history of attacks carried out both by and on the government that have had much more catastrophic results.

Apart from the September 11th terrorist attacks that targeted the country’s financial system, Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the defenders of our democracy when a hijacked American Airlines flight 77 flew into the Pentagon. Were it not for the heroes who resisted against the hijackers of United flight 93, Al Qaeda’s attempt to fly a commercial airline into the White House or U.S. Capitol building would have come to fruition. Despite being a horrific tragedy, 9/11 has been dismissed by some as being explicitly a “foreign attack,” not one from within.

So, let’s explore attacks on our democracy from within.

Racism Suit Filed against Elite New York Private School By Brittany Bernstein

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/racism-suit-filed-against-elite-new-york-private-school/

The Ethical Culture Fieldston School in New York City is facing yet another scandal, this time involving allegations of discrimination against black students, according to a new report.

Kim Emile, the parent of one former and one current student, has filed a lawsuit against the elite private school in the Bronx claiming that her children were met with racial hostility and bias there for more than a decade, according to the New York Post.

Fieldston “proved itself not to be the bastion of educational, racial, and social justice it has long proclaimed itself to be,” claims the suit filed in Manhattan federal court.

The lawsuit alleges that the school’s administrators, including head of school Jessica Bagby, did not take appropriate action against students who participated in racist behavior. School leadership also failed to provide black students with the same academic opportunities as white students, the claim alleges.

The suit details an alleged incident in which a group of white male students participating in a challenge that prohibited masturbation for one month encouraged each other in a group chat to view pictures of black and brown female students whose photos were posted to the chat as a way to sexually ‘turn off’ the young men participating in the challenge,” according to the suit.

“This objectification and denigration of Black and Brown young women and their bodies at Fieldston are clearly rooted in racism, sexism, and classism, and serve to continue their oppression dating to the slave era, when Black and Brown women were considered subhuman,” the suit states.

Emile, who is also an alumna of the school, says two white students called her son a racial slur during an October 2020 Snapchat conversation. Those students were allegedly given leniency while Bagby retaliated against Emile’s son with an investigation into his behavior, according to the suit.

The Ugly Reaction to Tim Scott’s Speech Is Telling By David Harsanyi

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-ugly-reaction-to-tim-scotts-speech-is-telling/

Tim Scott gave a competent Republican response to Joe Biden’s mendacious speech last night. And boy, the contrived, hyperbolic outrage and derision we saw from liberal talking heads was something to behold.

Some of it was just farcical. Take MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace’s contention that the speech, in which Scott praised the Trump administration vaccines, was “delivered from a planet where facts don’t matter.” Operation Warp Speed, she claimed, “didn’t do anything to get a needle in the arms, so a lot of disinformation.” Well, it did help boost the life-saving innovation that flows through those needles – not to mention a million needles into arms every day by the time Joe Biden got his shot.

But Scott’s most controversial statement, allegedly, was to contend that, “America is not a racist country.” All the usual suspects took to social media to mock the senator for simultaneously saying the nation wasn’t racist and pointing out that he had personally experienced bigotry. Of course America is a racist nation, they wailed, before getting “Uncle Tim” trending on Twitter to try and prove it. The Left’s demeaning of any African American who strays from leftist orthodoxy is one of the ugliest acceptable smears in our political discourse.

Scott’s two claims are wholly compatible. Bad actors and ugly ideas exist among people of all nations, and always will, and yet that does not necessarily mean the nation itself is fundamentally, legally, culturally, or systemically racist. We can always do better, but by world standards, the United States is likely the least racist place.

What’s “Normal” in America? A Simon and Schuster petition reveals the confusions of the woke movement that inspired it. Lee Siegel

https://www.city-journal.org/whats-normal-in-america

A few days ago, 216 employees of Simon and Schuster, along with several thousand people from outside the trade publishing house, sent a petition to top executives of the company demanding that they stop publishing anyone who had anything to do with the Trump administration. Their rationale for making such a demand was that Trump’s presidency was a dangerous historical aberration. According to the Wall Street Journal, the letter insists that Simon and Schuster not treat “the Trump administration as a ‘normal’ chapter in American history.” 

Before I sat down to write this essay, I had to ask myself several questions. Will the opinions I express jeopardize my position at the liberal university where I teach? Will they endanger my relationship with my liberal publisher? Will they roil my relations with my neighbors in the ultra-progressive New Jersey suburb where I live? 

That I had to ask is not “normal.” 

For a long time, dictators, from the European tyrants of the 1930s to the military leaders of the Latin American juntas, skillfully used the violent excesses of dissenters to seize and preserve power. Now so-called liberal “resistance” to “fascism” justifies its attacks on freedom of speech by citing the threat posed by a former American president. Susan Sontag famously enraged the New Left by calling Communism “fascism with a human face.” The current woke movement has all the trappings of fascism with an anti-fascist face.