RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-3-23-update-on-bill-de-blasio-re

“It is hard to come away with any conclusion other than that de Blasio’s endless blather about income inequality was just a sick joke. He had no idea how income inequality had originated, and no idea how to diminish it. What he has done in 7+ years in office is increase the City budget from about $73 billion to $94 billion annually, in a time of little to no inflation. Another $20+ billion per year to the bureaucracy to accomplish absolutely nothing. It’s the very definition of progressivism.”

Last month, shortly after New York Mayor Bill de Blasio reached his seventh anniversary in office, I had a post giving him a “report card” on his achievements, or lack thereof. As you may know, de Blasio is term-limited at eight years, so he is now in his last year. In fact the contest to replace him is well under way, with the primary (that will likely determine the result) scheduled for June 22.

My February post on de Blasio covered subjects like taxes, spending, crime, schools, and rent regulation. On all of those, his performance has been abysmal, if not worse. But recently it occurred to me that the post had omitted to cover another subject that de Blasio himself has consistently emphasized as being his signature issue. That subject is income inequality.

How has de Blasio done on this issue? The answer is, disastrously. Despite — or maybe because of — de Blasio’s policy initiatives and greatly increased public spending, measured income inequality has actually increased. That result will of course not come as any surprise to Manhattan Contrarian readers. Things like income inequality are just not subject to cure, or even amelioration, by government tax-and-spend programs. So de Blasio’s failure was inevitable. But that has not stopped him and his supporters, let alone his most likely successors, from continuing to believe that the next round of such programs and spending is finally going to work.

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-us-intelligence-community-flouting?token=eyJ1c2

A letter from House Intelligence Committee members demands answers from the DNI about illegal breaches of the wall guarding against CIA and NSA domestic activity.

A report declassified last Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security is raising serious concerns about the possibly illegal involvement by the intelligence community in U.S. domestic political affairs.

Entitled “Domestic Violent Extremism Poses Heightened Threat in 2021,” the March 1 Report from the Director of National Intelligence states that it was prepared “in consultation with the Attorney General and Secretary of Homeland Security—and was drafted by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with contributions from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).”

Its primary point is this: “The IC [intelligence community] assesses that domestic violent extremists (DVEs) who are motivated by a range of ideologies and galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States pose an elevated threat to the Homeland in 2021.” While asserting that “the most lethal” of these threats is posed by “racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and militia violent extremists (MVEs),” it makes clear that its target encompasses a wide range of groups from the left (Antifa, animal rights and environmental activists, pro-choice extremists and anarchists: “those who oppose capitalism and all forms of globalization”) to the right (sovereign citizen movements, anti-abortion activists and those deemed motivated by racial or ethnic hatreds).

The U.S. security state apparatus regards the agenda of “domestic violent extremists” as “derived from anti-government or anti-authority sentiment,” which includes “opposition to perceived economic, racial or social hierarchies.” In sum, to the Department of Homeland Security, an “extremist” is anyone who opposes the current prevailing ruling class and system for distributing power. Anyone they believe is prepared to use violence, intimidation or coercion in pursuit of these causes then becomes a “domestic violent extremist,” subject to a vast array of surveillance, monitoring and other forms of legal restrictions: