RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/supremes-signal-a-brave-new-world-of-popular-presidential-elections/

The Court’s decision in Chiafalo v. Washington seems sure to intensify the partisan fight over the Electoral College’s future.

Whither the Electoral College?

The Supreme Court had its say on the matter during the always-eventful last week of the term. To repeat a contention often made in these columns, the High Court has evolved into an essentially political institution, robed in the judiciary’s apolitical veneer. Given that we are a deeply divided nation, that the late-term cases are usually the most controversial, and that the four left-leaning justices — those appointed by Democratic presidents Clinton and Obama — tend to vote as a bloc in these cliffhanger rulings, one doesn’t expect many 9–0 decisions when the calendar reaches late June (let alone July).

Yet there it was on Monday: Chiafalo v. Washington. At issue was the question of “faithless electors.” Specifically, may a state enforce the pledge it compels electors to make to vote for the presidential candidate who wins the state’s popular vote? The Court’s holding that states have the power to do so was unanimous. Significantly, though, the Court was not of one mind about why.

The case is worth our attention because of what’s been going on under the radar.

Among the Left’s many transformative projects is the drive to have presidents elected by a national popular vote. The project, known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, would effectively eliminate the Constitution’s Electoral College system. It would reduce the College to a nullity by requiring a state’s electors to vote for the candidate who wins the national popular vote — regardless of whether that candidate loses the state’s popular vote. As Hillary Clinton and Al Gore could tell you, that would radically change how presidents are elected, and ultimately how we are governed.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/alex-berenson-schools-should-reopen-no-restrictions

Former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson told Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on the “Hemmer Time” podcast that his preferred response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic “is not that different than what people who are experts on infectious disease were saying we should do about flu pandemics.

“That means,” added Berenson, “you don’t shut down the schools. You know, maybe you temporarily shut them down if there’s a large rash of cases for a week or two. But you don’t shut down the schools. You don’t shut down society. You don’t force people to wear masks in public unless there’s really good evidence that doing so is going to reduce transmission, which we don’t have.”

Berenson, the author of “Unreported Truths About COVID-19 and Lockdowns,” has drawn a large social media following — and become a divisive figure — for his skepticism about the effectiveness of lockdowns and mask-wearing in stopping the spread of the virus.

He told Hemmer that a case to “temporarily shut down the country … for a week or 10 days or two weeks” could have been made around mid-March, as confirmed cases began to multiply in early hotspots like New York City.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/07/10/fauci-is-a-deep-state-fraud/

I knew for sure that Anthony Fauci is a fraud after listening to him for about 10 seconds—as anyone who listens carefully would have known as well. President Trump had been charging the Chinese government with obscurancy and deception in its handling of the novel coronavirus outbreak. Fauci had dealt intimately with the Chinese on that matter. His National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control had partially financed the notorious Wuhan laboratory where Chinese scientists were researching the virus. Fauci knew a lot.

A reporter asked Fauci if he agreed with Trump that the Chinese have not been fully forthcoming about the scope of the pandemic. Fauci answered that although the Chinese had lacked candor in previous years, this time they had turned over “the sequence of the virus.” Spoken like a wily swamp reptile!

His words were factually correct. The Chinese had turned over all they knew about the virus’s “sequence”—namely, its genetic structure. But the reporter and the audience neither knew nor cared about that. They were interested in the Chinese government’s misrepresentations of the virus’s contagion, fatality rate, and so forth. That is what they had dissembled and lied about. 

Fauci’s answer artfully deceived the audience into believing the opposite of the truth. Thus did Fauci help plant a dagger between Trump’s shoulder blades and help his party—the Democrats and the deep state—extort the American people’s compliance to their agendas.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/07/the_racism_and_sexism_at_americas_woke_institutions.html

You may recall that an organization called Sleeping Giants was one of the primary movers and shakers behind the corporate boycott side of the left’s cancel culture. Most famously, it was the tip of the spear in the attack against Breitbart after Trump’s election. Now, one of its founders stands accused of racist and sexist behavior. This is an increasingly common charge against woke companies, and it makes sense, not just because employees are marinated in victimhood, but because of the moral hazard doctrine.

Moral hazard describes a situation in which someone who is insulated from consequences is more likely to engage in risky behavior. Although the term is mostly used in economics, we see it routinely in people’s overall conduct.

For example, you might have noticed that, as cars get safer, people are more likely to take driving risks, such as tailgating or weaving through traffic. Likewise, as football helmets seemingly became more sophisticated, the game changed with players using their heads as battering rams. Sadly, the high incidence of ALS shows that the helmets weren’t as safe as people thought they were.

A variation of moral hazard also shows up when people have behaved virtuously in one area of life. Draped in their moral superiority, they think they have a pass in other areas. A perfect example comes from bicycles. As a former Bay Area resident, I can tell you that many urban bicyclists are deeply impressed with their moral purity in eschewing polluting automobiles. Borne upon a cloud of self-righteousness, they entirely ignore not only bicycle safety rules but general traffic safety rules. In their minds, their one act of virtue is a hedge against all risks.

And that gets us to the stories about accusations of racism, sexism, homophobia, and other bad behaviors at excessively woke organizations. These companies tout all the appropriate leftist virtues: They despise Trump, hate Republicans generally, fight climate change, donate millions to Black Lives Matter, offer 52 gender options for their employees, and so on. One would think, then, that women, minorities, and people on the LGBTQ etc. spectrum would be thrilled at these places . . . but they’re not.