Biden’s Climate Folly By Rich Lowry

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/04/bidens-climate-folly/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=river&utm_content=featured-content-trending&utm_term=first

Making energy more costly, turning a blind eye to China’s brutality.

The White House, in effect, hosted the highest-powered Zoom call ever Thursday with a virtual summit on climate.

Everyone who is somebody participated, from Vladimir Putin (otherwise plotting a potential invasion of Ukraine) and Xi Jinping (taking time out from grinding Hong Kong to dust) to Pope Francis and Bill Gates.

The story line was big, ambitious goals for reduced emissions and a renewal of U.S. “credibility” after President Donald Trump supposedly trashed it by pulling out of the Paris climate accord.

Biden announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions in half from 2005 levels by 2030. This was greeted by huzzahs from elite opinion-makers, but the commitment, and the entire effort, is misbegotten.

A key theory driving it is that if the U.S. cuts its emissions, everyone else around the world will as well, preserving Earth as we know it.

But even well-intentioned countries are liable to miss, or to manipulate, their climate targets, whatever they say. And not all countries are well-intentioned.

Consider China, which the Biden administration has been desperate to get on board. Amazingly enough, climate envoy John Kerry was the first Biden official to visit China, signaling that climate change is more important to the administration than China’s threatening behavior toward Taiwan, its aggression in the South China Sea, its suppression of the Uyghurs, its predatory trade practices or its theft of intellectual property.

Kerry got verbiage from the Chinese about tackling climate change “with the seriousness and urgency that it demands.”

Biden vs. American History John Hinderaker

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/biden-vs-american-history.php

The Biden administration is seeking to institutionalize critical race theory in American education. Thus, on Monday Biden’s Education Department promulgated a proposed rule on American History and Civics Education. The rule “proposes two priorities for the American History and Civics Education programs, including the Presidential and Congressional Academies for American History and Civics(Academies) and National Activities programs….” More broadly, it shows the direction the administration will go as it influences primary and secondary education.

That direction is basically anti-American. It seeks to inculcate a distorted version of American history in our children:

The Department recognizes that COVID-19—with its disproportionate impact on communities of color—and the ongoing national reckoning with systemic racism have highlighted the urgency of improving racial equity throughout our society, including in our education system. As Executive Order 13985 states: “Our country faces converging economic, health, and climate crises that have exposed and exacerbated inequities, while a historic movement for justice has highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism. Our Nation deserves an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda that matches the scale of the opportunities and challenges that we face.”
***
For example, there is growing acknowledgement of the importance of including, in the teaching and learning of our country’s history, both the consequences of slavery, and the significant contributions of Black Americans to our society. This acknowledgement is reflected, for example, in the New York Times’ landmark “1619 Project” and in the resources of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History.[2]

Virginia moving to eliminate all accelerated math courses before 11th grade as part of equity-focused plan State says framework includes ‘differentiated instruction’ catered to the needs of the child Sam Dorman

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-accelerated-math-courses-equity

Virginia exploring plan to end advanced diplomas for gifted students

The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is moving to eliminate all accelerated math options prior to 11th grade, effectively keeping higher-achieving students from advancing as they usually would in the school system.

Loudoun County school board member Ian Serotkin posted about the change via Facebook on Tuesday. According to Serotkin, he learned of the change the night prior during a briefing from staff on the Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI).

“[A]s currently planned, this initiative will eliminate ALL math acceleration prior to 11th grade,” he said. “That is not an exaggeration, nor does there appear to be any discretion in how local districts implement this. All 6th graders will take Foundational Concepts 6. All 7th graders will take Foundational Concepts 7. All 10th graders will take Essential Concepts 10. Only in 11th and 12th grade is there any opportunity for choice in higher math courses.”

His post included a chart with what appeared to be set math courses for 2022-2030.

VDOE spokesperson Charles Pyle indicated to Fox News that the courses would allow for at least some variation depending on students’ skill level. “Differentiated instruction means providing instruction that is catered to the learning needs of each child (appropriate levels of challenge and academic rigor),” Pyle said.

Maxine Waters’s Long History of Reckless Rhetoric The California congresswoman has never been a peacemaker. She’s always been on the side of rioting.By Joseph Perkins

https://www.wsj.com/articles/maxine-waterss-long-history-of-reckless-rhetoric-11619213954?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

“If Rep. Waters continues to get away with her unhinged rants, it may only be a matter of time before she is responsible for a tragedy. Then Auntie Maxine will have no one to blame but herself.”

The Ku Klux Klan was in Huntington Beach, Calif., on April 12, holding a “White Lives Matter” rally. It was a 37-minute drive away from the Hawthorne district office of Rep. Maxine Waters. “ Auntie Maxine ” (as the Democrat calls herself) declined to confront the Klan. But she flew all the way to Minneapolis last weekend to coach protesters awaiting the outcome of the Derek Chauvin trial.

“I hope we get a verdict that says guilty, guilty, guilty,” Ms. Waters said. “And if we don’t . . . we’ve got to stay on the street. We have to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational.”

The 82-year-old lawmaker has been notorious for such incendiary language since she was first elected to Congress in 1990. She called the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of the Los Angeles police officers who were filmed beating Rodney King an “insurrection.” She meant it as a term of approbation. Sixty-three people died during the L.A. riots, but Ms. Waters declared that she wouldn’t tell her constituents “to go inside, to be peaceful, that they have to accept the verdict.”

Senate Passes Anti-Asian Hate Crimes Bill That Doesn’t Prohibit Discrimination in College Admissions Plus: Biden proposes a massive tax hike, scientists may have invented a successful malaria vaccine, and more… Robby Soave

https://reason.com/2021/04/23/senate-passes-anti-asian-hate-crimes-bill-that-doesnt-prohibit-discrimination-in-college-admissions/

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill that purportedly combats anti-Asian hate on Thursday. The vote was 94–1.

The bill would create a new position within the Justice Department to review anti-Asian hate crimes related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It also requires the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance on preventing anti-Asian discrimination.

“There has been a dramatic increase in hate crimes and violence against Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders,” the bill asserts. (It explicitly names the Atlanta spa killings as an example of this, though it’s not actually clear the shooter was motivated by anti-Asian animus.)

The lone dissenter on the vote was Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo).

“As a former prosecutor, my view is it’s dangerous to simply give the federal government open-ended authority to define a whole new class of federal hate crime incidents,” said Hawley in a statement.

He has a point, though this bill is not particularly vast or sweeping. The stronger argument against the bill is that it does nothing to address one of the most obvious—and odious—forms of anti-Asian discrimination: college admissions.

Many elite colleges, public universities, and even selective high schools explicitly discriminate against Asian applicants in order to artificially tinker with the racial makeup of the campus population. This means that Asian students whose grades and test scores would have gained them admission had they been white, black, or Hispanic are routinely turned away. Contrary to popular belief, the biggest beneficiaries of these schemes are often white students.

Courts have generally held that race-based admissions do not violate civil rights law if they are very narrowly tailored. But Congress could explicitly require educational institutions that receive federal dollars to cease discriminating against Asian applicants. (They could even call it an antiracist initiative.)

Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) proposed an amendment to the bill along these lines, but it was defeated in a close vote: 48–49. Thus the version that passed the Senate aims to tackle anti-Asian hatred, but is silent on perhaps the most common and systemic form of anti-Asian bigotry in the U.S.

SECOND THOUGHTS ON BIDEN?By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/stop-demonizing-the-columbus-police-officer/

All around us, we’re starting to see consequences of reckless policy decisions, warnings unheeded, and objections dismissed.

President Biden didn’t plan for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to have more than 172,000 “enforcement encounters” on the U.S.-Mexican border in March, but announcing he was undoing his predecessor’s “xenophobic” policies helped make it happen.
President Biden didn’t set out to have the single-biggest one-month jump in the consumer price index in a decade, with food and energy costs leading the way. But maybe the federal government’s decision to pump so much borrowed money into the economy is indeed fueling inflation, as some economists warned.
After word leaked that President Biden hoped to double capital-gains taxes for those making more than $1 million per year, markets tumbled fast yesterday, and analysts at Goldman Sachs calculate that if the market reaction to this potential capital-gains tax hike is like the last one, the rich will sell off about $178 billion in stocks.
I’m not completely convinced that we’re seeing a dramatic decrease in vaccine demand yet, but if we are, maybe the decision to halt the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine over eight cases of blood clots out of 7 million doses administered added to public wariness. Particularly if the FDA is going to say, after nearly a two-week halt, “Never mind, this vaccine is safe, just have doctors be on the lookout for blood clots.”

Actions have consequences, often including unintended consequences, which is why we should act carefully and deliberately, and pause to recalibrate often. You can consider that capital-C “Conservatism,” small-c conservatism, or just hard-learned life wisdom.

Stop Demonizing the Columbus Police Officer By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/stop-demonizing-the-columbus-police-officer/

How prominent Democratic officials are demonizing a justified police shooting in Columbus, Ohio, ensuring that police will now be even less likely to use force in critical situations; and the mounting pile of unintended consequences to Democratic government policies.

Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Wednesday morning: “While the verdict was being read in the Derek Chauvin trial, Columbus police shot and killed a sixteen-year-old girl. Her name was Ma’Khia Bryant. She should be alive right now.”

Valerie Jarrett, one of the most powerful women in the federal government for about eight years, declared, “a Black teenage girl named Ma’Khia Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. Demand accountability. Fight for justice.”

Robert Reich, former secretary of Labor and current UC Berkeley professor, added: “Just yesterday, shortly before the guilty verdict was announced, police killed 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant. Yet another young life stolen. In what world is this public safety?”

The ACLU of Ohio declared: “The systems that allowed George Floyd to be murdered remain FULLY intact. Moments after we celebrated a win for police accountability in Minneapolis, news broke that Columbus Police murdered a 15 year old Black girl.”

There is no indication that any of these people care that Ma’Khia Bryant was about to stab another teenage girl — as seen in the police body-cam footage and separate security-camera footage. As a neighbor who witnessed the incident described it, “Unfortunately, the cop had only seconds to respond. Once I saw the body cam video, I realized the young lady had a knife. It could have been worse. It could have been two people dead if he didn’t respond as fast as he did.”

Notice that the knee-jerk, uncorrected, and un-retracted denunciations of the Columbus Police above are not from random anonymous lunatics on Twitter. This is not nut-picking. This is a U.S. senator, a former top adviser to the president, a fairly widely read columnist of the left, and the state chapter of a major political-litigation group — all relatively mainstream Democrats and progressives with significant followings and prestige. And this isn’t even getting into how arguably the most famous professional athlete of our era posting a photo (since deleted) of the police officer and declaring, “You’re next.”

The delirium of Jew-hatred A French court’s perverse ruling has significance well beyond this one scandalous case Melanie Phillips

https://www.jns.org/opinion/anti-semitism-is-a-form-of-delirium-especially-in-france

The latest shocking development in the scandal over a horrific antisemitic murder in France not only trains a harsh light on that country’s attitude to Jew-hatred. It also illuminates a deeply problematic and wider inability to deal with antisemitism in the west.

In 2017, a 65-year-old Jewish retired doctor and schoolteacher, Sarah Halimi, was murdered in a frenzied antisemitic attack in her Paris apartment.

Her next-door neighbor, Kobili Traoré, a 27-year-old Muslim man of Malian descent, beat her and threw her out of her third-floor window to cries of Allahu akbar, or “God is great,” and calling her a shaitan, or “satan”.

He had previously harassed Halimi’s daughter by calling her a “filthy Jew”. According to one psychiatric report, Traoré had been troubled by Jewish religious artefacts in Halimi’s apartment — her mezuzah and menorah, which “amplified the frantic outburst of hate”.

Last week, France’s highest court, the Court of Cassation, upheld an appeal court ruling that had rejected putting Traoré on trial. This was because, at the time of the murder, he had been high on cannabis causing an episode of “acute mental delirium”.

Under French law, said the Court of Cassation, “a person is not criminally responsible if suffering, at the time of the event, from psychic or neuro-psychic disturbance that has eliminated all discernment or control” over that person’s actions.

The ruling defies comprehension. Many murders and other serious crimes are committed by people under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Yet no-one argues they are therefore not to be held responsible for their actions. As Francis Szpiner, one of the Halimi family’s lawyers, asked in outrage: “Will this also apply to drunk drivers who kill children on the road?”

Juror in Chauvin Trial Makes Stunning Admission over ‘Guilty’ Verdict:  ‘I Didn’t Want to Go Through the Rioting’ Kyle Becker

https://beckernews.com/i-didnt-want-to-go-through-the-rioting-juror-in-chauvin-trial-makes-stunning-admission-over-guilty-verdict-38729/

On Tuesday, a jury found Derek Chauvin guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in a case that had sparked nationwide riots: The death of George Floyd.

During the course of the trial, Judge Peter Cahill mentioned that the court case was getting dangerously close to mistrial. A new interview with an alternate juror named  Lisa Christensen, who lives in Brooklyn Center, provides new insight into the courtroom dynamics.

“I just had a fascinating sit-down interview with one of the alternate jurors in the Derek Chauvin trial,” Kare 11 reporter Lou Raguse said Thursday on Twitter.

“Lisa Christensen was the juror who lived in Brooklyn Center. One night she could hardly make it home after testimony ended because of protesters blocking intersections.”

“Christensen thought Derek Chauvin was guilty,” Raguse continued. “Dr. Martin Tobin was the witness who influenced her the most toward that conclusion.”

Video clip of interview HERE. 

“That demonstration where the jurors felt their necks? Extremely effective,” he said.

“She went home every night and took additional notes about how each witness,” he continued. “When he turned and said, Number 96, you’re an alternate, yeah, my heart broke a little bit.”

Here is the part where we begin to get a better picture of the immense pressure these jurors were under to deliver a “guilty” verdict.

“This was shocking to me, but Christensen told me she and the other jurors didn’t even share their real names and occupations with each other,” Raguse said. “Just called each other by juror number. Got along but mostly made small talk. Concerned about saying ‘too much.’”

Christenson outright admitted that jury intimidation played a major part in the trial.

Before the ‘guilty’ verdicts were rendered in the case, major Democratic politicians stated that the “right” decision would be a guilty verdict.

“I’m praying the verdict is the right verdict, which is — I think it’s overwhelming, in my view,” President Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. “I wouldn’t say that unless the — the jury was sequestered now and not hearing me say that.”

California Representative Maxine Waters actually flew to Minneapolis amidst rioting, requested police protection, and then further inflamed tensions with inciteful rhetoric. 

“We are looking for a guilty verdict,” Waters said. “We are looking for a guilty verdict. And we are looking to see if all of the talk that took place and has been taking place after they saw what happened to George Floyd. If nothing does not happen then we know.”

Biden And Kerry Get Humiliated On Earth Day, But Are Too Dumb To Realize It Francis Menton

https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?e=a9fdc67db9&u=9d011a88d8fe324cae8c084

 Earth Day. The first such day was 51 years ago, April 22, 1970.

Since that first one, Earth Day has served as an annual opportunity for sanctimonious socialist-minded apocalypticists to issue prophesies of imminent environmental doom. Here from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is a great list of some 50 or so such predictions uttered since the late 1960s, all of which have since been proven wrong. Interestingly, the ones from the time of the first Earth Day mostly concerned overpopulation, famine, and global cooling. Today, those things seem ever so quaint.

Somewhere along the line, the prophesy of a coming ice age faded away, and global warming surged forth as the much more fashionable doomsday prediction. Today, fealty to the global warming apocalypse orthodoxy is a prerequisite for admission to polite society. Our President goes around repeating the mantra that climate change is an “existential threat,” even as he signs Executive Orders and re-directs half the energies of the vast federal government to fight it.

And what better opportunity than the annual return of Earth Day for our great leaders to demonstrate their deep climate change sincerity? Thus last week we had President Biden’s personal climate emissary to the world, John Kerry, traveling to Shanghai to triumphantly welcome China on board with the official plan to “save the planet” through ending the use of fossil fuels; and today, Biden himself has followed up with his Earth Day Climate Summit, a virtual event said to be attended by leaders of some 40 or so nations, including the likes of China, India and Russia. Surely, things have now completely changed course since the evil Trump has been banished, and the world will shortly be saved by the re-invigoration of the glorious Paris Climate Agreement.

The problem of course is that China, Russia, India, and for that matter all the rest of the developing countries, don’t care a whit about the whole climate change thing, and they also know that the Paris Agreement is a total scam. For a developing country, the basic strategy reflected in Paris is to hit up the U.S. and Europe for a lot of money, while simultaneously getting the more developed countries to cripple their own economies even as you yourself commit to absolutely nothing.