RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18022/supreme-court-political-cases

No one has a legitimate right to prevent people from making sexual and marital choices that do not involve other people.

The argument that a fetus is a person who is entitled to the right to life goes too far — even for the justices, such as Neil Kavanaugh, who would have the Supreme Court be “neutral” on abortion and leave it to the states. Under that argument, no state would have the right to deny life to a fetus and abortions would be unconstitutional throughout America, regardless of state legislation.

But the public would never accept a national ban on all abortions. That’s why pro-lifers want it left to the states, where they would get half a loaf.

Overruling or severally limiting Roe v. Wade would increase the likelihood that Democrats will try to pack the Supreme Court. It would be widely viewed as an unprincipled act of partisan power as distinguished from a proper exercise in legal judgment. The commission appointed by US President Joe Biden to explore this among other options did not make a recommendation regarding court packing, though some of members favored it. It would get more support from Democratic voters if a woman’s right to choose abortion were severely curtailed. It would also diminish the standing of the High Court.

This fear was expressed by liberal members of the Court’s minority and is almost certainly of deep concern to Chief Justice John Roberts. The High Court’s standing in polls has dropped considerably since its transparently partisan decision in Bush v. Gore 21 years ago. Since that time, it has rendered controversial decisions, both increasing and undercutting fundamental rights such as gay marriage, and religious freedom. It has also dramatically expanded gun rights. During this period, the pendulum has swung quite narrowly. Justices appointed by Republican presidents have occasionally voted with those appointed by Democratic presidents and vice-versa.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/omarovas-failed-nomination-hints-at-the-lefts-long-game/?itm_campaign=

While we ask why Biden would risk damaging Democrats’ electoral hopes by nominating Marxists for top jobs, progressives laugh . . . and transform our society.

C harles C. W. Cooke’s column on Wednesday compellingly noted all the reasons why it seems crazy for President Biden to have nominated Saule Omarova, an unreconstructed Marxist, to be comptroller of the currency. But I think there’s a rational calculation behind the apparent madness, which is why, as Charlie points out, only 10 percent of Senate Democrats voted Omarova’s nomination down. For the rest, as for Biden, supporting the inevitable loser was a solidarity-signaling freebie.

The problem is what Charlie aptly describes as “the lunatics and fabulists” in Biden’s party. The sad fact is that they represent the Left’s energy, its muscle, and a lot of its money. These Bolsheviks cede no ground to norms: doxing opponents, making mayhem at their homes, harassing their children, giving them no peace upon encountering them at a restaurant or a store, unabashedly defending allies who riot and perjure themselves, etc.

Funny thing about extortion: It works.

Biden and congressional Democrats are not going to be able to give these people the utopia they demand. But unfortunately, establishment Democrats are not just afraid of the Bolsheviks, they need them. The hard Left is less of a fringe than we’d like to think. It is a meaningful minority bloc of voters, and it is now powerful enough that, having thrashed the Democratic establishment in many elections, it runs several major American cities. It makes the blue states blue.

So, as a very relevant someone famously asked, “What is to be done?”

Biden figures that he must signal he is with the hard Left, and congressional Democrats figure that they must vote accordingly. Omarova is a case in point. She wasn’t going to be confirmed regardless, so her nomination gave Biden and Senate Democrats a cost-free way of keeping their crazies on board.

Cost-free? I must be nuts, you’re thinking, because when the next election rolls around, voters will remember that so many Democrats backed an out-and-out socialist. Maybe, maybe not. No one ever went broke underestimating the memory of voters, after all. But consider the alternative scenario: What if Biden and establishment Democrats lost the hard Left by refusing to engage in these gestures? The result would be internal fracturing, primaries, and the party establishment on the receiving end of the tactics for which the Bolsheviks are notorious. (You may have noticed that it wasn’t conservatives who ran the Cuomo brothers out of their powerful gigs.)

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/12/the-unmitigated-gall-of-ilhan-omar/

It’s worth asking why Democrats consistently have the audacity to demand the other party enforce standards that they don’t themselves follow.

I lhan Omar is demanding that Congress censure a colleague over offensive remarks. This is a real demand happening right now, and reporters write about her demands without peppering their prose with incredulous exclamation marks.

House progressives, in fact, are reportedly planning to introduce a resolution that would strip Republican representative Lauren Boebert of committee assignments over her stupid and bigoted joke about Omar.

“I have had a conversation with the speaker, and I’m very confident that she will take decisive action next week,” Omar had the temerity to tell CNN’s Jake Tapper last weekend. The same congresswoman, who claimed criticism about her smear that Jews were brainwashing the world was “all about the Benjamins,” says it’s “important for us to say, this kind of language, this kind of hate cannot be condoned by the House of Representatives. And we should punish and sanction Boebert by stripping her of her committees, by rebuking her language, by doing everything that we can to send a clear and decisive message to the American public that, if the Republicans are not going to be adults and condone — condemn this, that we are going to do that.”

First of all, Democrats have already created a new norm — stripping Paul Gosar and the Rothschild-laser-curious Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee seats. They probably deserved this. And if Republicans have any spine, they will — perhaps as early as 2022 — begin throwing Jew-baiting progressives and conspiracy theorists such as Omar and Rashida Tlaib off their perches, as well. Democrats struggle to comprehend that they won’t be in perpetual power.

https://www.aier.org/article/omicron-means-enough/

We don’t know much about it yet, but Omicron is already prompting many governments to reimpose travel bans – a useless gesture. By the time these bans are in place, the variant is likely already past national borders. Like most of what we’ve done in the “fight against Covid,” travel bans are theater.

The real issue here is how long will we allow variants to be exploited to maintain a permanent Covidocracy?

Omicron does appear to be highly unstable, which is bad. But instability is part and parcel to Covid, much more so than even flu, and vastly more so than most pathogenic viruses from smallpox to measles that appear never to mutate in any appreciable sense.

The apparent good news is that the pharmaceutical companies can deploy a new vaccine to deal with new variants in just 100 days. That’s a fantastic leap in medical science.

And it looks like 100 days is going to be enough for Omicron, and for pretty much any other variant that spreads worldwide. But keep in mind that after 11 months of vaccinating, far less than half the world’s population is fully covered. And many of the unvaccinated simply don’t trust their governments and Big Pharma, and see this as a way to control and jab them forever. Pfizer expects an incredible $36 billion this year alone in pre-tax revenue from its Covid vaccine. The unvaccinated will doubtlessly view further rounds of injections suspiciously.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/12/10/tony-fauci-jackbooted-thug/

Two days ago, when most were thinking about the joy of the upcoming holidays, Anthony Fauci, the country’s No. 1 public health enemy, had ruining Christmas on his mind. The man actually suggested Americans demand that their guests show them proof of vaccination before allowing them in their homes. If such a comment doesn’t set off a public campaign demanding he be fired, then this country is in deeper trouble than we thought.

Appearing Wednesday on a Washington Post Live interview, Fauci said Americans who invite others into their homes should “essentially ask and maybe require that people show evidence that they are vaccinated, or give their honest and good faith word that they have been vaccinated.”

Does the good doctor, whose name and authoritarian urges have inspired critics to coin the terms “Faucist” and “Faucism,” understand that he said, in effect, Americans should be demanding “your papers, please” of their friends and family? Was he unaware that signs saying ​​”Unvaccinated Not Welcome” now have been seen in Germany? Or was he inspired by them?

(To be fair, it appears the “signs” might be the work of someone making a political statement rather than a warning from the shopkeeper. But the fact is, Germany is locking the “unvaccinated out of public life.” If someone is making a point, it’s not an exaggeration.)

As dangerous as novel coronavirus has been, the response to the pandemic by elected and unelected officials has been worse. Lockdowns cost livelihoods – and lives. Delayed health screenings and surgeries have caused premature deaths, while the unemployment shock caused by shuttering the economy will eventually have a similar effect on mortality.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-would-make-daycare-even-pricier-child-care-cost-quality-regulation-build-back-better-11639084122?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Child care is already a major expense for parents, and President Biden pledges to reduce its cost with his multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better bill. Yet while some of those who receive government subsidies may see reduced costs, millions of other working parents could see their child-care costs double. The new program would act like a $20,000 to $30,000 annual tax on middle-income families.

The bill’s latest draft proposes to reinvent child care with a trifecta of cost-increasing forces. First, it would remove much of the incentive to offer lower-cost care. Millions of families would have their child-care expenses capped by statute, which means they’d pay the same at an expensive facility as at a cheaper one.

Providers would quickly discover that lower prices no longer are much of a competitive advantage. Moreover, the providers would be reimbursed extra for what Congress calls “quality,” which is a euphemism for having more staff per child. The history of rate regulation is that cost-plus schemes result in needless waste and higher prices for consumers without quality improvements.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-covid-vaccine-mandate-wipeout-courts-11639076342?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

What legal sage advised President Biden to impose vaccine mandates? The adviser needs to have his law licence pulled because the courts are repudiating the Administration’s mandates at an astonishing pace. A federal judge in Georgia was the latest on Tuesday when he blocked its vaccine requirement for employees of federal contractors—the fifth judicial rebuke in less than a month.

Judge R. Stan Baker ruled in a challenge brought by seven states that the Administration had exceeded its authority under the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. The President claimed his executive order would “promote economy and efficiency in procurement” by contracting with sources “that provide adequate Covid-19 safeguards for their workforce.”

But the law does not give the President “the right to impose virtually any kind of requirement on businesses that wish to contract with the Government (and, thereby, on those businesses’ employees) so long as he determines it could lead to a healthier and thus more efficient workforce or it could reduce absenteeism,” Judge Baker wrote.

Last week federal Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove enjoined the Administration from enforcing the contractor mandate in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. While conceding that Congress delegated broad power to the President, the judge noted that his “authority is not absolute” and the President’s overreach raises “several concerning statutory and constitutional implications.” The mandate “intrudes on an area that is traditionally reserved to the States,” Judge Tatenhove wrote, noting the Constitution grants the states general police powers to regulate public health and welfare.

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/09/1062453165/npr-marist-poll-biden-democrats-infrastructure-build-back-better

Americans don’t feel the direct payments or expanded child tax credits doled out earlier this year helped them much, according to the latest NPR/Marist poll, and they don’t see Democrats’ signature legislation as addressing their top economic concern — inflation.

Additionally, they’re down on the job President Biden is doing, don’t give him much credit for the direct payments or tax credits, and have soured on the direction of the country.

The results, out Thursday, come as Democrats prepare a nationwide push to sell voters on their policies ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when the party will defend its slim majorities in both the House and the Senate.

Americans do mostly endorse the new infrastructure law but are less supportive of Democrats’ Build Back Better bill that has passed the House. And while that legislation would expand the social safety net, survey respondents weren’t convinced that it would help people like them.

“They [Democrats] don’t have a unified message for what they’re doing, and that does not bode well for the party,” said Barbara Carvalho, director of the Marist Poll.

Views on direct payments and the child tax credit

More than 6 in 10 respondents said they received the onetime direct payment of up to $1,400 earlier this year. As of late April, the Internal Revenue Service estimated that more than 163 million people had received payments from that program.

However, 4 in 5 of those who received the payments said the money helped at least a little, but only a quarter said it helped a lot.

Democrats have called their agenda under Biden “transformative” for most Americans. They say policies like the direct payments and changes to the child tax credit are part of a broader plan for the federal government to provide needed services and support to people who have historically been disadvantaged in the economy.

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/when-the-crime-wave-hits-your-family

My wife and I are scrambling to find daycare for our 16-month-old son. We’ve had a “nanny share” up until now, which means we and another couple employ a nanny for both couples’ kids and split the cost. Our nanny is wonderful, and she lives just a few blocks from us. But a few weeks ago, someone walked up her street spraying bullets into random houses. One of the bullets found its way into her living room, as she and her family ducked for cover. At that moment, she and her husband decided they were moving their family out of Oakland.

The shooting didn’t even make the local news. Apparently, in the Bay Area right now, you can walk up a residential street firing your gun into houses, and you still won’t be able to compete for attention with all of the other sensational crimes. 

Perhaps you’ve heard about some of them or seen the videos.

Shoplifters casually walk into Walgreens stores in San Francisco filling garbage bags full of merchandise. They’ve spat on, bitten, assaulted, and thrown bottles of urine at employees. 

The flashmob-style “smash and grab” robberies that originated here—in places like Union Square in San Francisco and the shopping plaza in affluent Walnut Creek—have now spread across the country. 

Asian seniors are brazenly assaulted in the street; one octogenarian was body slammed to death. This week, an Afghan refugee—a father of three who had worked as a translator for the U.S. army—was shot dead near a playground in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood.

And now freeway shootings are a thing. A few weeks ago, at nine in the morning, a 29-year-old mom on her way from Oakland to San Francisco for a job interview with her fiancé and two kids was randomly shot and killed in her SUV at the Bay Bridge toll plaza. In an interview, the victim’s mother recalled being heartbroken after hearing the story of an earlier crime, in which Jasper Wu, a two year-old who was sleeping in his car seat, was shot and killed by a stray bullet fired from another car driving in the opposite direction. It was not even two weeks later when she lost her own daughter the same way.

I recently finished reading “San Fransicko,” by Michael Shellenberger. I recommend it. The subtitle is provocative: “Why Progressives Ruin Cities.” But, as Shellenberger explains, he does not mean to imply that progressives always ruin the cities they govern. He’s just interested in the specific phenomenon of when progressives do ruin cities, and explaining why that happens.

And progressives—I count myself as one of them—do ruin cities.