The Equalizer: Hero in a World Without Knights Denzel is back. Fear his wrath.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-equalizer-hero-in-a-world-without-knights/

Action flicks these days aren’t dominated anymore by square-jawed, one-note actors like Van Damme, Schwarzenegger, and Statham (they aren’t even mostly the domain anymore of men, but that’s an article for another day). In recent years, the leading men of the best “actioners,” as they’re known in Variety-speak, are heavy-hitting thespians like Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington, whose acting chops elevate the genre to a whole new level. In The Equalizer movies, for example, Denzel brings compelling depth to a character that would be one-dimensional in a lesser talent: a chivalric hero in a world without knights.

The Equalizer 3 opened in theaters last week, and I was in one of them to check out the latest installment of the franchise, happily contributing a few dollars toward the $42 million the film raked in domestically over the long Labor Day weekend.

If you’re unfamiliar with the movies, in the first Equalizer outing in 2014, Denzel (and let’s face it, he has reached the stratosphere of one-name celebrity, like Sting or Madonna) plays Robert McCall, a quiet, mysterious loner whose unassuming demeanor belies his lethal special ops training. Living like a monk, as one baffled character puts it, while working nine-to-five at a Home Depot-type store, the widowed McCall, a retired assassin from “the Agency,” flies under everyone’s radar.

McCall confesses in that film that he had once done things that he wasn’t proud of, but that he had promised his now-deceased wife that “I would never go back to being that person.” And indeed, he now lives by such an honorable code that he chides acquaintances about character failings like swearing and eating junk food. But he is supportive and inspiring as well: he helps coach a hapless coworker to prepare for a better-paying job as a security guard, for example, and he encourages the dream of a singing career for a young Russian call girl he has befriended at the local coffee shop, where he hangs out and reads during sleepless nights. Coming to the aid of this damsel in distress brings down the wrath of ruthless Russian sex traffickers – but they, like everyone else, underestimate McCall.

McCall is also a big reader, working his way through a list of the 100 Best Books. At one point the call girl sees him with a new book and asks what it’s about. “It is about a guy who is a knight in shining armor,” McCall replies, “except he lives in a world where knights don’t exist anymore.”

Biden Freezes U.S. Arctic Oil Interior Secretary Deb Haaland relies on ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ as a legal justification to block drilling. No joke.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-cancels-anwr-oil-drilling-leases-deb-haaland-energy-russia-24a5c647?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Oil prices have climbed this week after Saudi Arabia and Russia extended their production cuts. The Biden Administration’s response? Restrict U.S. oil and gas development.

The Interior Department on Wednesday canceled seven oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and moved to limit development on 13 million acres in the state’s National Petroleum Reserve. “President Biden is delivering on the most ambitious climate and conservation agenda in history,” Secretary Deb Haaland boasted.

Its climate agenda is also the most lawless and economically destructive in history. The 2017 GOP tax reform mandated two lease sales within the Coastal Plain of ANWR. The first occurred in January 2021, and the second is required to be held before Dec. 22, 2024.

Mr. Biden on his first day in office imposed a leasing moratorium in ANWR. Now Ms. Haaland is revoking seven ANWR leases issued by the Trump Administration in January 2021. She claims to have “the authority to cancel or suspend oil and gas leases issued in violation of a statute or regulation,” and that the ANWR leases include “fundamental legal deficiencies.”

Was Trump ‘an Officer of the United States’? A careful look at the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause shows that it doesn’t apply to him. By Michael B. Mukasey

https://www.wsj.com/articles/was-trump-an-officer-of-the-united-states-constitution-14th-amendment-50b7d26?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Apart from the four criminal indictments brought against Donald Trump, those who would end his campaign for the presidency by means other than an election seem to be putting increasing faith in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, known as the Insurrection Clause. That faith seems to be seriously misplaced.

To the extent its text is relevant here, the section in question denies to a discrete category of people—including those who have taken an oath “as an officer of the United States . . . to support the Constitution of the United States”—the right to serve as a “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office . . . under the United States” if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against same.”

A good deal of attention has focused thus far on whether the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an “insurrection or rebellion” and, if so, whether Mr. Trump “engaged” in it. Those questions, however, need not be answered until two preliminary questions of law are addressed: Is the presidency an “office . . . under the United States,” and was the presidential oath Mr. Trump swore on Jan. 20, 2016, to support the Constitution taken “as an officer of the United States”?

The latter question is easier. The use of the term “officer of the United States” in other constitutional provisions shows that it refers only to appointed officials, not to elected ones. In U.S. v. Mouat (1888), the Supreme Court ruled that “unless a person in the service of the government . . . holds his place by virtue of an appointment . . ., he is not, strictly speaking, an officer of the United States.” Chief Justice John Roberts reiterated the point in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010): “The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States.’ ”

Lululemon, The Face Of Disorderly Society By  Nurit Greenger

https://newsblaze.com/usnews/crime/lululemon-disorderly-society_192742/

Allegory: A burglar breaks into your home to steal your property. You try to stop him. You get arrested for disturbing the act of burglary.

Lawlessness and Crime Rule

This is what we are witnessing in the United States of America. Lawlessness rules.

A Lululemon store is like your home. Two store employees tried to stop shoplifters who were shoplifting in their store. They two were fired. The shoplifters are roving free with the stolen merchandise.

The Lululemon Athletica Inc., commonly known as Lululemon, is a Canadian multinational athletic apparel retailer headquartered in British Columbia, Canada, and incorporated in Delaware, United States.

Many people living in the United States of America have lost all sense of reality and genuine social justice and have turned the world upside down which is encouraging bad behavior and criminality with impunity.

Shoplifting Episode at ’99 Cent’ store*, Los Angeles

During the week of August 20th 2023, I went shopping at a 99 Cent store, its name tells the reader the value of the items the store offers for sale.

*99 Cents Only Stores is an American price-point retailer chain based in Commerce, California. It offers “a combination of closeout branded merchandise, general merchandise and fresh foods.” The store initially offered all products at 99¢ or less. Today, thanks to inflation, the items sold are at $1.26 and up.

As I was moving around the store doing my shopping, I saw a black man moving fast from aisle to aisle, without a shopping cart, picking up merchandise and collecting them on one of the store’s shelves. I got his drift. He was planning to bag all the merchandise in the black bag he carried and then run out of the store with his loot.

I called the store manager to alert him. He did not bother to step out of his office.

At the cashier, on my way out, I brought up my suspicion. I told her to call for help to stop the shoplifter in his tracks. Here is what she told me almost verbatim: “these shoplifters come here, sometimes even several times a day; they pick up merchandise and leave. The store management and owner don’t care. No one stops them. I see it every day and I am sick of this lawlessness but there is nothing I can do.”

Here Is Some of the Almost Daily News in California

The 21st Century Will NOT Be Chinese by Drieu Godefridi

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19948/china-21st-century

[T]he news of the week is most likely the crash of China. Real estate, currency, stock markets, technology, demographics: it all fits together, and what lies ahead for China looks like stagnation at best.

There are an estimated 80 million unoccupied homes in China — a huge number, even for a giant country. While real estate has driven China’s growth for decades, it is now in danger of wrecking it.

Then came the marginalization of the Chinese currency, the yuan, presented as destined to replace the dollar. Not quite yet. The yuan may or may not be weak, but above all no one wants it as an international currency because no one trusts the reliability of the Chinese regime in the long run. No one wants to buy Chinese bonds.

“It is very hard to create a reserve currency, without attractive reserve assets. China has a problem. It wants foreigners to buy bonds but they have been selling since early 2022” — Jens Nordvig, founder and CEO of Exante, Reuters, May 16, 2023.

Regarding the concept of a dedicated currency for BRICS nations, experts have expressed their skepticism. Danny Bradlow from the University of Pretoria in South Africa, cast doubt on the practicality of reverting to the gold standard — there is not enough of it if everyone wanted it a redemption — or using cryptocurrencies. He questioned their reliability in global trade. There are serious investors who regard cryptocurrencies as essentially a conceit, like the 17th century’s Dutch tulip mania. Even then, at least you had a tulip bulb.

Chris Weafer, an investment analyst specializing in Russia and Eurasia at Macro-Advisory, labeled the proposition of a BRICS currency a “non-starter.”

It is likely that Chinese Communist Party Chairman Xi Jinping does not really understand how markets work… Why would anyone want to invest in a stock market that is constantly at the mercy of a communist ‘Prince’ and his subjective whims and predilections?

According to China’s new “Anti-Sanctions Law,” just about anything can be a crime, and one’s assets seized if the Communist Party leaders want them to be. The raid on the Shanghai headquarters of Bain & Company and the colonization (seizure) of the Hong Kong financial center by China’s imperialists also had the effect, from a strictly financial point of view, of emptying the Chinese market of all reliability.

There is also the problem that in China there are no private companies: under the Chinese Communist Party’s notion of “civil-military fusion,” all companies belong to the central government and can be raided for information at any time.

Manchin trashes Biden administration decision to pull US oil and gas leases in Alaska Misty Severi

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senate/manchin-trashes-biden-administration-alaska-oil

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) trashed the Biden administration’s decision to pull oil and gas leases from Alaska on Wednesday, claiming the move was the latest example of the administration “caving to the radical Left.”

The Department of the Interior said on Wednesday it would prohibit oil and gas drilling on more than 10.6 million acres in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve, ensuring “maximum protection” for more than 40% of the reserve, which is located in Alaska’s North Slope and is the largest undisturbed public land in the United States.

“I can’t explain to the American people why we would willingly become more dependent on foreign oil imports, eliminate good paying American jobs and drive up the cost of our electric bills and gas prices across the country,” Manchin said. “This is yet another example of this administration caving to the radical Left with no regard for clear direction from Congress or American energy security.”

Manchin called the move “embarrassing” and an attempt to circumvent Congress because the administration allegedly knows it does not have the support to get it approved properly. The senator added that the move allows Iran and Venezuela to produce more oil with fewer environmental regulations.

INTERESTING POLL

General Election Polls (CNN)
Trump (R) 47, Biden (D) 46

Biden (D) 47, DeSantis (R) 47

Biden (D) 46, Ramaswamy (R) 45

Haley (R) 49, Biden (D) 43

Biden vs. Pence, Scott, Christie

Energy Insufficiency With a mission to create green jobs and bring green-energy loans to the poor, BlocPower has gained powerful backers in tech, finance, and government. Where are the results? by Lee Harris

https://prospect.org/environment/2023-09-06-energy-insufficiency-blocpower/

For years, Donna Hope has helped landlords make their buildings greener. Two years ago, she told herself, “I’m going to walk the walk.”

The boiler at her two-family property in New Rochelle, New York, had just conked out. Hope inherited the cream-yellow house from her parents, and now leases out both units. When I visited in August, pear trees in the yard were dripping with ripe fruit.

Hope has degrees in civil and environmental engineering, and has made a career helping business owners comply with environmental laws, including work in the sustainability offices of two New York City mayors. So, she figured, why not switch to electric heat pumps? She reached out to several contractors, and to BlocPower, a green loan provider that also offers engineering and project management.

For over a decade, BlocPower has received glowing press for its promise to make clean energy affordable for poor households and small businesses. It emphasizes air-source heat pumps, the focus of a growing drive to electrify buildings, as well as insulation and other repairs necessary to make the heat pumps work. The idea is to bring decarbonization to people who can’t afford to buy the equipment outright.

To customers, it advertises itself as a “turnkey” provider, offering no-money-down financing, auditing buildings, and bringing in quality contractors. To governments, it has pitched itself as able to build community trust and convince building owners to use existing decarbonization incentives, while stretching every public dollar by combining it with private capital.

BlocPower’s lease is a separate payment from a customer’s electricity bill, but the company says customers will see such high savings from more efficient power use that the lease will more than pay for itself. The commitment, then, is to save customers money, reduce local and global air pollution, and deliver returns for its investors—a win-win-win.

“I knew of BlocPower and their rise to fame,” Hope said, through mutual acquaintances with CEO Donnel Baird. She loved what she heard, and selected BlocPower as her project manager.

That’s where Hope’s troubles started. After facing a bevy of problems with the system, Hope reported her concerns to an adviser with the state energy agency, NYSERDA, and requested an inspection. Today, she told the Prospect, she is considering suing BlocPower for the retrofit they financed, which has saddled her with a 15-year lease for equipment she fears has been damaged, and a long-term relationship with a firm she distrusts. “God knows I’ve had my share of shifty contractors,” she said. “This has been one of the most egregious.”

I FIRST WROTE ABOUT BLOCPOWER IN 2021, when the company invited Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Michael Regan to tour a Bronx church it had retrofitted. In January of this year, I published a deeper dive on its business model.

On average, BlocPower says, its customers save 20 to 40 percent on their annual heating and cooling bills by switching to heat pumps. But it offers no financial guarantee, and multiple HVAC contractors told the Prospect that such high average savings are unlikely.

Long popular in the Southeast, heat pumps have recently taken off in colder states like Maine as an electric-powered replacement for burning heating oil. But in states like California and New York, where electricity is expensive and most households rely on gas, it can be tough for conversions to create value at the kitchen table. Heat pumps can also be harder to install in the older, more run-down buildings BlocPower says it targets.

Baird is forthright about the challenges of retrofitting low-income buildings, which often need structural repairs. “We hope to fix neglect WHILE making buildings green. Most times it works,” Baird recently wrote on LinkedIn. “In 5-10% of our projects the Electrification has NOT gone well.”

NYC Mayor Eric Adams Gripes About Mass Influx of Illegal Aliens; Says They ‘Will Destroy’ the City By Debra Heine

http://NYC Mayor Eric Adams Gripes About Mass Influx of Illegal Aliens; Says They ‘Will Destroy’ the City By Debra Heine

New York City Mayor Eric Adams predicted Wednesday that the nonstop influx of illegal aliens into the Big Apple “will destroy” the city and blamed “the madman in Texas” for busing many of them there.  More than 110,000 migrants have reportedly poured into the sanctuary city in the past year.

“What happened? It started with a mad man down in Texas, decided he wanted to bus people up to New York City,” the mayor said bitterly. “One hundred ten thousand migrants. We have to feed, clothe, house, educate the children, wash their laundry sheets, give them everything they need, health care. And this team here, we stated, let’s do everything possible before we have to push it out into neighborhoods and communities.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March of 2021 to deal with the Biden regime’s manufactured border crisis. The governor announced on Tuesday that Texas has bused more than 35,000 migrants to sanctuary cities across the nation, including more than 13,300 to New York City since August 2022.

The federal government also relocates “asylum seekers” from the border to cities across the U.S., including  New York City. Stopping short of calling out the Biden administration by name, Adams griped that the city has been left to fend for itself without the help of federal assistance.

“Month after month I stood up and said this is gonna come to a neighborhood near you. Well, we’re here, we’re getting no support on this national crisis, and we’re receiving no support,” he said.

THE DANGER OF IDENTITY POLITICS: SYDNEY WILLIAMS

“We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

                                                                                                                                Governor Ronald Reagan (R-CA)  July 31, 1968

Identity politics has divided us into categories, convenient for politicians to address perceived concerns and, more dangerously, to exert control, turning us into a nation of oppressed and oppressors, so that Washington’s “progressives” can ride in as savior. Identity politics places the group above the individual, while those who think independently – outside the box – are slighted, demeaned, or cancelled. One consequence is rising distrust and hatred; a second is that the group, not the individual, defines who we are; and a third is a loss of faith in America, its history and in its accomplishments.

Issues of identity have a long history. Women’s rights date back before the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments in 1848. My paternal grandmother, a well-educated woman, was forty-five when the 19th Amendment was passed, allowing her to vote in 1920. It was in 1965, a hundred years after the civil War, that the Voting Rights Act directed the Attorney General to enforce the right of Blacks to vote. However, even as we made progress – slow as it has been – self-manufactured divisional bitterness increased.

It is important to step back, not to rest on laurels, but to gain perspective and celebrate what our nation has achieved over more than two centuries. Winston Churchill, in a back-handed compliment, is alleged to have observed: “The Americans will always do the right thing…after they have exhausted all the alternatives.” America continues to evolve, too fast for some and too slowly for others. We are best off when momentum is deliberate, when we individually, as Governor Reagan is quoted in the rubric, accept responsibility for our actions.  Our country is unique in the annals of human history. It is based on the rule of law, and on the individual, his sovereignty and his uniqueness – “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights…” Those words have evolved over time to include more of our citizens. We have further to go, but we have come a long way. We do not want to return to a time where some groups are favored, and others excluded, as identity politics would have us do.
It is true that as social animals we seek out those with common interests, which explains why there are myriad groups devoted to such pursuits as fishing, bridge, antique cars, golf, and P.G. Wodehouse. It is why sororities and fraternities exist on college campuses, why there are different religious denominations, and why civic organizations, like Rotary, Elks, American Legion, and the Knights of Columbus, exist in communities across America. Fifty and sixty years ago, some of these organizations were restrictive, based on race, gender, and/or religion, but such restrictions lessened in the wake of the passage of civil rights legislation and as tolerance became more common. Man’s social progress has always been evolutionary. We live today in a nation more accepting and tolerant than that known to our grandparents. We have further to go, but we have been moving in the right direction.