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Biden as Paradox By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/06/joe-biden-paradox-his-weaknesses-are-his-strengths-not-running-for-president/#slide-1

His weaknesses are his strength, and he’s not running for the presidency.

  I t is now conventional punditry that should Joe Biden win in November, his vice president, in 1944-style, will sooner rather than later become president.

Biden, to reboot and secure the identity-politics base, thought he had to discriminate by sex and race in advance by selecting his vice president. But given recent poor performances, Biden’s promise to select a woman or minority or both on the ticket is a wink-and-nod admission that she or he will soon be the real president while on the ballot as vice president.

In 2019–20, Biden had moved hard left to get nominated and more or less renounced all his previous old-style liberal voting record, such as tough sentencing of drug dealers, opposition to court-mandated school busing, opposition to illegal immigration, and support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His contrition over his most recent offensive putdown (“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black”), alongside the nationwide protesting and rioting, will make it even more likely that Biden will select a progressive with the sort of agendas that went nowhere even in liberal Democrat primaries, and will stay nowhere after the rioting.

Yet Biden apparently believes that his dilemmas and personal foibles will soon be turned upside down, and that his weakness somehow will be seen as strength. A limp Biden in seclusion believes he is far more effective than fighting Joe Biden on the stump. And in a strange way, he could be sort of right.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

“Truth or Consequences” Sydney Williams

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

http://swtotd.blogspot.com/

Truth or Consequences was a long-running American game show, originally hosted by Ralph Edwards. If the contestant could not complete the “truth” portion there would be “consequences,” generally an embarrassing stunt. In 1950, Ralph Edwards announced he would host a show from the first town that changed its name to Truth and Consequences. On April Fool’s Day 1950, the town of Hot Spring, New Mexico voted to become Truth and Consequences.

“Quid est veritas?”, asked Pilate of Jesus. To Christians, truth is the word of God, for whom His son Jesus bore witness. For Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the “central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society,” while the “central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself.”

The United States is a multi-racial and multi-ethnic country. We are White, Black, Native American, Asian, Hispanic and Pacific Islanders. According to the U.S. Census, 350 languages are spoken in the U.S. We identify as Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and multiple other religions. We come (or came) from most every country in the world. Yet, despite those differences in heritage, as Americans we have fundamental interests in common. We live under a Constitution that consumes only forty-one pages, at least in my copy – a Constitution that restrains rather than enables government. We live in a country where liberty is prized above all else; where fundamental rights are guaranteed. under the rule of law. We have a government comprised of three co-equal branches, and a military to safeguard us from foreign enemies. We have police forces to carry out our state and local laws. And we have a judicial system to assure laws are adjudicated fairly and equitably, and to protect us from those in government, be they politicians, bureaucrats or police who use power for their own purposes.

FOREIGN POLICY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

To Prove Courage Of Convictions, Woke Capital Must Challenge China’s Hong Kong Crackdown By Ben Weingarten

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/02/to-prove-courage-of-convictions-woke-capital

With the Trump administration formally recognizing the sad reality on the ground that once-free and democratic Hong Kong is being subsumed by communist China to such a degree that it can no longer treat the two systems as distinct, woke capital is being presented with an opportunity to practice what it preaches.

Will it steadfastly protest Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tyranny, or sit idly by in spite of its stated devotion to progressive principles in the service of all “stakeholders”?

Woke capital, consisting broadly of the financial services industry and Big Business, is particularly well-suited to challenge China because it plays such an outsized role in U.S.-China relations.

Commerce has been core to the development of such relations since before President Richard Nixon went to China.

The U.S. government, backed since at least the 1970s by the private sector, would, over time, foster economic ties with China and welcome it into the global economic and financial architecture America largely built and maintained. It did so on the bases of economic self-interest and idealism. The potential economic benefits were obvious.

CHARLOTTE'S NEWS WEB Comments turned off

How do we explain the many thousands of Americans who believe they are entitled to steal? Patricia McCarthy

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/06/how_do_we_explain_the_many_thousands_of_americans_who_believe_they_are_entitled_to_steal_.html

For days now, since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Americans have seen riots take over many of our big cities.  Countless properties have been vandalized and businesses have been looted and torched — damage that only hurt the neighborhoods of the rioters.  But the most disturbing revelation of these clearly organized riots throughout the country has been seeing the thousands of people in all the affected cities who feel they have a right to steal that which does not belong to them.  Night after night, we have watched thieving thugs break windows of small and large businesses, charge into them, and run out with as much merchandise as they can carry.  They stuff their booty into large SUVs, many of which have the license plates removed.  They are wearing masks so do not fear facial recognition software.

These riots seem to prove that, despite our protestations to the contrary, we do live in something of a third-world nation.  When that many people in as many cities that are under siege right now feel no allegiance to the law, to their families, to their neighbors, to civil society, we are indeed a nation in need of a reboot.  Fifty-plus years of the left’s smearing of American values, their opposition to the nuclear family, the promotion of the idea that out-of-wedlock births are just another lifestyle choice have, as we see now, made for a population sullied by the acceptance of abject criminality.  That is what we are all seeing on our TV screens.  This is not about race; it is all about respect or the lack of it and values. 

When the young people we saw gleefully run from breached businesses with their hands full of stolen goods, do they take them home to their parents?  Are those parents horrified by their children’s stealing, or do they congratulate them?  How is it that these thousands of Americans are so comfortable taking what is not theirs?  Do they go home and brag that they set some building on fire or that they torched a police car?  It is very likely that they are proud of themselves.  The media certainly support them, seem to give them permission.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Ruthie Blum :Owing the ultra-Orthodox an apology Suddenly, the discussion is no longer about the identity of the coronavirus carriers; no accusations are being flung at them for the way in which they choose to observe their Judaism.

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://www.jns.org/opinion/owing-the-ultra-orthodox-an-apology/

Two weeks after Israel gradually reopened its education system, students and teachers around the country came down with the coronavirus, forcing thousands of their peers and family members into quarantine.

The main hotspot has been the Jerusalem high school, Hagymnasia Haivrit, in the capital’s Rechavia neighborhood, which had to shut down due to the more than 130 adults and teenagers who tested positive to COVID-19.

More than 17 additional schools also closed, some by ministerial order, and a few by parental decree.

If the trend continues, the Education Ministry may succumb to pressure from health officials to send everyone home to resume classes via Zoom—just like during the good old days less than a month ago.

Kids were honest about how this happened. Few adhered to social-distancing and mask-wearing regulations. Many greeted one another with hugs and kisses. The general feeling among all was that the crisis was over.

The thousands of beach-goers who descended upon the shores of the Mediterranean as soon as the government lifted restrictions on doing so exhibited a similar sense of freedom from lockdown bondage. Ditto for the diners and partiers who piled in to cafes, restaurants, bars and nightclubs with great fervor, but little attention to the government’s frequent urgent requests to practice social distancing, wash hands and wear masks.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, MEDIA Comments turned off

Planet of the Censoring Humans The campaign to remove Michael Moore’s new documentary from the Internet – led by Moore’s erstwhile progressive “allies” – is a significant advance in the censorship revolution Matt Taibbi

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/planet-of-the-censoring-humans

On April 21st, 2020, just before the 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, Oscar-winning director/producer Michael Moore released a new movie called Planet of the Humans. Directed by Jeff Gibbs, the film is a searing look at the ostensible failures of the environmentalist movement, to which Moore and Gibbs both belonged.

“Jeff and I were at the first Earth Day celebrations,” Moore laughs. “That’s how old we are.”

Distributed for free on YouTube, the film’s central argument is that the environmentalist movement, fattened by corporate donations, has become seduced by an industrialist delusion.

“The whole idea of the film was to ask a question – after fifty years of the environmentalist movement, how are we doing?” recounts Moore. “It looks like, not very well.”

Moore and Gibbs challenged the idea that both the planet and humankind’s current patterns of industrial production can be saved through the magic bullet of “renewable energy.” The film shows lurid examples of various deceptions, like the oft-used trick of replacing coal plants with new natural gas plants, which are then called “clean” or “green,” or the hideous trend of describing the burning of trees as a “renewable” energy source.

Environmentalists denounced the film as riddled with “lies” and “misinformation,” claiming among other things that Moore used old data to discredit green technology. A campaign to remove the film from circulation immediately took shape.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Bad Day At BlackRock? ESG investing is already taking a toll on state pension funds—now it might transform the world’s largest private asset manager, too. Rupert Darwall

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://www.city-journal.org/blackrock-esg-strategy

“I don’t give a damn what these powerful corporations tell us and I don’t care about their profit margin. We need to get out of these fossil fuels before it’s too late for everybody.” These are not the words of a Sunrise Movement activist, though they could easily be mistaken for one, but New York City comptroller Scott Stringer, speaking at an online People’s Assembly on BlackRock last week. The gathering of activists and advocates was intended to discuss strategies for pushing BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to make good on its promises to “place sustainability at the center” of its investment strategy. As environmental activists see it, the firm has a long way to go.

Stringer, an anti-fracking campaigner and protégé of Congressman Jerry Nadler, became comptroller in January 2014, when Bill de Blasio took over as mayor. He wanted to remake his office into “a think-tank for innovation and ideas,” Stringer declared on his first day. That’s a risky outlook for one assuming a position defined by law as the custodian of the city’s five pension funds, which totaled, in February 2020, $221.2 billion in assets. Early on, Stringer proclaimed a devotion to environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors in investing, and to finding investment managers dedicated to these principles. He launched a campaign on proxy access to enable shareholders to nominate directors—ticking the “G” for governance. He then moved on to the “S” with his Boardroom Accountability Project, writing to 151 companies asking that they disclose, among other things, the sexual orientation of their directors.

“E” for environment is the big one. When de Blasio announced in January 2018 that city pension funds would divest $5 billion worth of equity in fossil-fuel companies, Stringer justified the move by claiming retirees’ financial future was “linked to the sustainability of the planet.” The comptroller allocated 12 percent of the fund assets of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System—the largest of the city’s five pension funds—into the Developed Environmental Activist asset class, according to an American Council for Capital Formation report by Timothy Doyle. The move dragged down the fund’s already-poor investment returns. 

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Science says: ‘Open the schools’ By Dr. Scott W. Atlas and Paul E. Peterson

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/500349-science-says-open-the-schools

To stop COVID-19 dead in its tracks, many governors, mayors and superintendents are threatening to keep schools closed this fall, failing to consider the greater harm that comes from refusing to open them.

“We have to make sure kids are safe, family members are safe, educators are safe, staff is safe,” says New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. “If for any reason we are not confident of that, then you can just stick with the pure online learning.” Similarly, teacher unions insist that comprehensive testing, tracing and distancing are essential if reopening is to be done safely.

The irony in such language is that children are safe at school already. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that of the first 68,998 U.S. deaths from COVID-19, only 12 have been in children under age 14 — less than 0.02 percent. Nor is coronavirus killing teenagers. At last count, the fatality total among children under 18 without an underlying condition is one; only ten of the 16,469 confirmed coronavirus deaths in New York City were among those under the age of 18. That’s similar to the fatality rate for those under 20 in France, estimated at 0.001 percent, and in Spain.

The death of even one child is tragic, of course. Yet, it must be kept in mind that as many as 600 children in the United States died from seasonal influenza in 2017-18, according to CDC estimates, while the CDC’s estimate for COVID-19 fatalities number just 12. A just-released JAMA Pediatrics study flatly states: “Our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.” If the COVID-19 hazard sets the new standard for health safety, the country will need to close its schools each year from November until April to guard against influenza.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Time for the FBI to Disclose, Discharge, and Disinfect Charles Lipson

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/02/time_for_the_fbi_to_disclose_discharge_and_disinfect___143342.html

When Christopher Wray was named director of the FBI in August 2017, he had two crucial tasks: clean the Augean Stables, which had been fouled by James Comey, and restore public confidence in the bureau. Comey presided over a carnival of misconduct. Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, supervised all of it and handpicked most of the other agents involved.

Wray’s job was to muck out this mess, disclose the wrongdoing, fire the bad guys, and win back public support. To put it bluntly: he has failed at the job. He has failed the country, the president, and his fellow agents.

Firing Wray before the election would be too incendiary. It would instantly descend into a partisan food fight, like all American politics these days, and would cloud the important work of U.S. Attorney John Durham. But if Wray cannot be fired immediately, neither should he be allowed to block the public from seeing what went wrong at the bureau. That’s exactly what he has been doing, and it needs to stop.

Wray shouldn’t be allowed to hide or slow-walk the evidence that American citizens have every right to see. Remember, it was the current FBI team, not Jim Comey, that said it couldn’t find Peter Strzok and Lisa Page’s devastating text messages. It was the Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, not Wray’s agents, who discovered the “lost” messages and thousands more. They were released by Rod Rosenstein, who was effectively running DoJ at the time. The FBI brass were not happy.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Dennis Prager: The Left Couldn’t Care Less About Blacks

Posted By on June 2nd, 2020

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/06/02/the_left_couldnt_care_less_about_blacks_143347.html

A typical left-wing reaction to all this was written in June 2019 by journalist Michael Coard in the Philadelphia Tribune: “Today’s black so-called thugs/monsters are created by the evil American system that miseducates them, unemploys them, underemploys them, over-polices them, and over-incarcerates them. America is Dr. Victor Frankenstein.” Note “over-polices.”

Coard is correct about one thing: Today’s blacks are often miseducated, which leads to their unemployment, underemployment and other terrible consequences. Who has been running America’s schools for decades now? (Hint: Not the right.) But that doesn’t cause violence. Black murderers and rapists are the only people in America told that no matter what they did, they are not responsible for it. America is. And the people telling them that are all on the left.

Why does the left do this?

First, because, as opposed to liberals, the left — everywhere in the world — hates America. And why does the left hate America? Because it is a living refutation of left-wing ideology. America is the most successful country while also being the most capitalist, most religious and most nationality-affirming of all the industrialized democracies.