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July 2023

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Why Has Election Day Turned Into Election Month? By: J. Christian Adams

By on July 11th, 2023

https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/10/why-has-election-day-turned-into-election-month/

A case challenging North Dakota’s 13 extra election days is about helping to bring confidence back to elections nationwide.

Remember when Election Day used to be an actual day? You’d gather with your family and friends to find out who the next president was going to be. It was a time to celebrate our republic as Americans went to have their voices heard at the ballot box. The Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, is fighting in federal court to restore the “day” in Election Day.

We filed a federal lawsuit in North Dakota to enforce federal law and stop the state from accepting ballots up to 13 days after Election Day. We allege that North Dakota’s law allowing the election to drag on for almost two extra weeks conflicts with federal law.

This case doesn’t claim that anyone stole the North Dakota election. Indeed, North Dakota is only involved in the case because it is one of the most extreme states in accepting ballots weeks after the election.

The case challenging North Dakota’s 13 extra election days is about helping to bring confidence back to elections nationwide. It’s time Election Day means Election Day again.

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Americans Have Never Been Less Threatened by ‘Extreme Weather’ More die from over-the-counter headache medicine overdoses. by David Harsanyi

By on July 11th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/americans-have-never-been-less-threatened-by-extreme-weather/

“Extreme heat kills more people in the United States than any other weather hazard” is the first claim in this Washington Post piece warning about the deadly summer heat — and it is almost certainly false. Similar warnings about the deadly weather appear in virtually every mainstream media outlet.

First off, the only reason “extreme” temperature kills more people than other weather hazards is that deaths from weather have plummeted over the century — even as doomsday climate warnings about heat, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and droughts have spiked. All extreme weather accounts for only about 0.1 death for every 100,000 people in the United States each year. That is a massive drop from the time of your grandparents. The Post and others should be celebrating the fact that humans have never been less threatened by the climate in history.

The Post also warns that 62 million people in the U.S. may be “exposed” to dangerous heat “today.” That’s a lot of people, even considering nearly all of them live in the southernmost spots in the country, and it’s summer. The Post counts anyone exposed to heat over 90 F as being in some level of danger. Fortunately, most Americans enjoy the luxury and health benefits of air conditioning, one of the great innovations of the past century.

Nowhere in the piece, however, do the authors tell us exactly how many Americans have perished from the oppressive heat. Anyway, it’s around 700 people a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — if you liberally count heat as both the “underlying” and/or “contributing” causes. It is about 400 people when heat is the underlying cause. And that’s terrible. But, also, it’s around 3,600 fewer people than those who drown every year.

Though there has been an uptick in recent years — as Bjorn Lomborg has pointed out, this is almost surely due to an increasingly aging population that is more susceptible to heat — both numbers are still near-historic lows.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

White Ethnic Flight from America’s Cities What Moynihan understood that Sotomayor doesn’t. by Jack Cashill

By on July 11th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/white-ethnic-flight-from-americas-cities/

In 1965, then undersecretary of labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan foresaw a problem that was about to undo the promise of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and his boss Lyndon Jonson’s 1965 launch of the “Great Society.”

In reading her dissenting opinion last week on the affirmative action case before the Supreme Court, I got the distinct impression that Justice Sonia Sotomayor never read Moynihan’s The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, likely never heard of it, and certainly had no idea of how prescient it would prove to be.

Despite the “full recognition of their civil rights,” argued Moynihan, black Americans were growing increasingly discontent. They were expecting that equal opportunities would “produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups,” but, added Moynihan, “This is not going to happen.” Nor did he think it ever would happen “unless a new and special effort is made.”

Nearly sixty years later Moynihan’s warning seems all the more prophetic. Herculean efforts have been made over the years to  achieve “equal results,” but none has addressed the core issue. Wrote Moynihan:

The fundamental problem, in which this is most clearly the case, is that of family structure. The evidence— not final, but powerfully persuasive—is that the Negro family in the urban ghettos is crumbling. A middle class group has managed to save itself, but for vast numbers of the unskilled, poorly educated city working class the fabric of conventional social relationships has all but disintegrated.

In a Father’s Day speech in 2008 then candidate Barack Obama affirmed Moynihan’s worst fears. “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important,” Obama told the congregation at a Chicago church.

Here, Obama spoke with a candor not heard since Lyndon Johnson threw Moynihan under the bus. “But if we are honest with ourselves,” he continued, “we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing—missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Donald Trump’s 2024 Panderama On ethanol in Iowa and Yucca Mountain in Nevada, he tells voters whatever he thinks they want to hear, unlike Ron DeSantis.

By on July 11th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-iowa-ron-desantis-yucca-mountain-renewable-fuel-standard-2024-presidential-primary-gop-6796e888?mod=opinion_lead_pos4

President Trump is leading the GOP’s primary polls by 30 points, but maybe he’s more worried about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis than he lets on. The Iowa State Fair is still a month away, but step right up to Mr. Trump’s political booth, ladies and gentlemen of the primary electorate, and he will tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear.

“I fought for Iowa ethanol like no President in history and ethanol, period, like no President,” Mr. Trump said in Council Bluffs. “Every Iowan also needs to know that Ron DeSantis totally despises Iowa ethanol and ethanol generally.” In Congress, Mr. DeSantis supported ending the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS. Mr. Trump called this “his vicious plan to annihilate the Iowa farming industry,” while saying that Mr. DeSantis wants to “outsource every American farming job to a foreign country.”

On Saturday the panderama was in Las Vegas. “DeSanctimonious voted to fund Yucca Mountain as a dumping ground for nuclear waste,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s not just a little area. That stuff, it’s all over the place. What a mess.” As if that were too subtle, Mr. Trump added: “If you don’t mind nuclear waste dumped in your backyard, I suggest you vote for Ron DeSanctimonious.”

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ELECTIONS Comments turned off

The DeSantis Campaign Ain’t Dead. Here’s Why. By Matt Margolis

By on July 11th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/07/10/the-desantis-campaign-aint-dead-heres-why-n1709545

It’s hard to go on social media and not find someone pronouncing the DeSantis campaign as being dead in the water. I’ve seen enough posts desperately making the argument that he GOP primary was over long before it began, and anything other than crowning Trump the victor before a single debate is even held or a single vote cast is met with a chorus of mockery. I should know as I get plenty of hate mail for pointing out that DeSantis has plenty of time to eclipse Trump.

It’s not just the liberal media that seems to thrive on the narrative that DeSantis is choking. One of the common narratives is that his campaign launch was a disaster, even though the launch brought in record-breaking haul of $8.2 million in campaign donations  in the first 24 hours following the announcement. Clearly, there is a considerable base of individuals who believe in his leadership and policy agenda.

Last week, the DeSantis campaign released its first quarter fundraising numbers, and they showed he raised a whopping $20 million since launching his campaign on May 24.  The campaign noted it was the “largest first-quarter filing from any non-incumbent Republican candidate in more than a decade,” and that it even “bests the $18.3 million former president and quasi-incumbent Donald Trump’s campaign raised during his first two fundraising quarters as a candidate ($3.8 in Q4 2022 and $14.5 in Q1 2023).”

Nevertheless the narrative continues. On Fox News on Sunday, host Maria Bartiromo implied DeSantis is dying politically, and asked him outright, “[W]hat’s going on with your campaign? There was a lot of optimism about you running for president earlier in the year.” Then she cited some media headlines about his supposedly lackluster campaign.

“Maria, these are narratives. The media does not want me to be the nominee,” DeSantis explained. “I think that’s very clear. Why? Because they know I’ll beat Biden but even more importantly, they know that I will actually deliver on all these things. We will stop the invasion at the border. We will take on the drug cartels. We will curtail the administrative state. We will get spending under control. We will do all the things that they don’t want to see done and so they are going to continue doing the type of narrative. I can tell you we understand that this is a state-by-state process.”

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ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Global Warming An Infinite Number Of Days To Flatten The CO2 Curve

By on July 11th, 2023

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/07/11/an-infinite-number-of-days-to-flatten-the-co2-curve/

“What we should have learned from the COVID lockdowns is that tolerating petty tyranny leads to absolute tyranny. We’re not there yet, but we’re well on the road to it and it has been paved with malicious intent.”

When three years ago we were told that if we stayed inside for 15 days we could flatten the curve of COVID-19 cases, there was no real effort to respond with civil disobedience. It was a profound mistake, one we paid dearly for and will again, if we don’t stand up to the tyranny.

Yes, we know it was President Donald Trump who issued in March 2020 a set of guidelines that called for 15 days to slow the spread by limiting our travel and staying away from social settings. At the end of March, under more pressure from “experts” he should have fired, he extended the guidelines for another month.

Trump eventually, though tacitly, acknowledged that he made a mistake, when during the summer he said, to great caterwauling from the “closers” on the left, that it was “important for all Americans to recognize that a permanent lockdown is not a viable path forward and would ultimately inflict more harm than it would prevent.”

It was an admission no single Democrat ever made. Indeed, the Democrats wanted the lockdowns to be open-ended. They not only enjoyed taking captive society and commerce in the way that true authoritarians amuse themselves by being in control of others, they took notes so that the next time they will be able to more easily bump restrictions to the next level.

And when might that be? Impossible to say. All we can know is that attempts will be made.

In what other way can we read proposals such as the ​​“climate emergency” initiative referred to by Joseph Goffman, who holds an appointed position at the Environmental Protection Agency? How would the government deal with a climate emergency outside of placing limits on our movements as a free people?

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The States in America Where Incomes Grow Faster New federal data show a striking divergence between earnings growth in GOP-led states and progressive states.

By on July 11th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-states-incomes-economic-growth-bureau-of-economic-analysis-465ce23?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

President Biden will never admit it, but he has Republican-led states to thank for the resilient U.S. economy and labor market. Witness how an earnings surge in right-leaning states is helping compensate for sluggish growth in progressive ones.

New state personal income data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis highlights how aggregate worker and proprietor earnings in red states grew significantly more in the last year than in the blues. The disparity owes to GOP-led states adding more jobs, including in higher-paying industries like tech and finance, along with faster-growing wages.

Earnings nationwide rose 5.4% on average between the first quarters of 2022 and 2023, but much less in New York (2.6%), Indiana (2.6%), California (2.9%), Connecticut (3.4%), Rhode Island (3.6%), Maryland (4%), New Jersey (4.3%), Oregon (4.5%) and Illinois (4.6%). Apart from Indiana, these states are run by Democrats—and most have been for years. They boast high taxes and a high cost of living, which along with Covid lockdowns spurred increased out-migration during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, earnings in the same period surged in North Dakota (9.7%), New Mexico (9.6%), Nevada (9.1%), Florida (9.1%), Nebraska (8.6%), Hawaii (8%), South Carolina (8%), Alaska (7.9%) and Texas (7.7%).

How to explain this? California suffered from tech layoffs. Hawaii, Florida and Nevada benefited from a tourism resurgence after Covid’s Omicron wave ebbed. Higher oil and gas prices and production boosted earnings in New Mexico, North Dakota and Alaska, though less so in Texas, which has a more diverse economy.

States with higher earnings growth also tend to have lower tax rates as well as fast-growing populations. Consider neighboring Utah (7.2%) and Colorado (4.9%), which have similar economies but diverging political climates as Colorado becomes more like California. Could that be affecting its earnings growth?

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Affirmative Action Bred 50 Years of ‘Mismatch’ Thinking elite schools are the only path to success for students is a form of intellectual snobbery. By Heather Mac Donald

By on July 11th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/racial-preferences-bred-50-years-of-mismatch-harvard-sat-scores-equality-7942bd8e?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

Justice Sonia Sotomayor had harsh words for her colleagues who voted last month to bar the use of race in college admissions. She alleged in her dissenting opinion that the six-justice majority in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard had subverted the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law, not upheld it, by “further entrenching racial inequality in education.” Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion slammed shut the door of opportunity to underrepresented minorities, especially black students, who still fight against a society that is “inherently unequal,” she wrote.

Many in academia agreed with Justice Sotomayor. Incoming Harvard president Claudine Gay warned in a video statement that the decision “means the real possibility that opportunities will be foreclosed.” David A. Thomas, president of historically black Morehouse College, asserted that in the absence of racial preferences, black students will rightly conclude that they are “not wanted.” Students “of color” may not feel that they “matter,” according to Angel B. Pérez, chief executive of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

The charge that colorblind admissions will foreclose educational opportunities for blacks rests on a breathtakingly elitist view of education. And the idea that minority students should now conclude that they aren’t “wanted” on college campuses defies reality. Black students will attend college in the same numbers after affirmative action as they did before, if they so choose. Colleges will be as eager to have them. The only difference, assuming compliance with the ruling (a big if), is that such students will attend college on the same footing as most students from unpreferred racial groups: admitted to schools for which their academic skills qualify them.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

My Research on Gender Dysphoria Was Censored. But I Won’t Be. Trans activists forced the retraction of my paper. Their efforts have redoubled my commitment to the truth. J Michael Bailey

By on July 10th, 2023

https://www.thefp.com/p/trans-activists-killed-my-scientific-paper?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

I am a professor of psychology at Northwestern University. I have been a professor for 34 years, and a researcher for 40. Over the decades, I have studied controversial topics—from IQ, to sexual orientation, to transsexualism (what we called transgenderism before 2015), to pedophilia. I have published well over 100 academic articles. I am best known for studying sexual orientation—from genetic influences, to childhood precursors of homosexuality, to laboratory-measured sexual arousal patterns. 

My research has been denounced by people of all political stripes because I have never prioritized a favored constituency over the truth. 

But I have never had an article retracted. Until now.

On March 29, I published an article in the prestigious academic journal Archives of Sexual Behavior. Less than three months later, on June 14, it was retracted by Springer Nature Group, the giant academic publisher of Archives, for an alleged violation of its editorial policies.

Retraction of scientific articles is associated with well-deserved shame: plagiarism, making up data, or grave concerns about the scientific integrity of a study. But my article was not retracted for any shameful reason. It was retracted because it provided evidence for an idea that activists hate.

The retracted article, “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases,” was coauthored with Suzanna Diaz, who I met in 2018 at a small meeting of scientists, journalists, and parents of children they believed had Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD). 

ROGD was first described in the literature in 2018 by the physician and researcher Lisa Littman. It is an explanation of the new phenomenon of adolescents, largely girls, with no history of gender dysphoria, suddenly declaring they want to transition to the opposite sex. It has been a highly contentious diagnosis, with some—and I am one—thinking it’s an important avenue for scientific inquiry, and others declaring it’s a false idea advocated by parents unable to accept they have a transgender child.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Poetic Justice for the Biden ‘Ministry of Truth’ By Roger Kimball

By on July 10th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/07/09/missouri-v-biden-july-4-ruling-is-poetic-justice-case-of-tipple-for-the-judge/

At some point in this column, I have probably had occasion to quote these famous lines from Walter Scott’s poem “Marmion”:

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive.” 

In another, better world, I like to think, the Bidens and their protectors and puppet masters would ruefully be contemplating Scott’s admonitory observation.

In this world, however, I suspect that—until quite recently, anyway—they had smugly sided with J.R. Pope’s sly amendment to Scott’s moralizing couplet:

“But when we’ve practiced for a while 

How vastly we improve our style.”  

I note that Pope’s amusing title for his opuscule is “A Word of Encouragement.”

Many of us feel a great contradiction at the heart of the Biden phenomenon.

On the one hand, he—“Big Guy” Joe—and his entire Snopes-like family—coke-head Hunter, “Dr.” Jill, the litter of grasping, on-the-make siblings—all seem like ciphers, the veritable incarnation of Gertrude Stein’s description of Oakland, CA: “there’s no there there.”

Indeed, from this point of view, Joe’s painful mental and, increasingly, physical vacancy seems to be the objective correlative for the entire Biden enterprise. It’s as if the nasty brother of the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz suddenly came to life and occupied the White House. “If I only had a brain,” he snarls softly to himself, frightening everyone around him.

And that “as if” brings me to the extraordinary “other hand.” Joe Biden is president of the United States, still, if just barely, the most important political office in the world. Amazing. How could that be? Talk about going from zero to one!

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