PUNCHING BACK TWICE AS HARD: New Rules Bite Brass in the Backside. “At long last, Republicans have begun to embrace the New Rules bestowed upon our society by the Marxist Left. Just yesterday, my colleague Chris Queen reported on Georgia’s Attorney General Chris Carr following the example recently set by Fulton County DA Fani Willis and wielding the state’s RICO laws. But unlike Willis’s acrobatic interpretation of the statutes to go after Orange Man Bad, Carr is using them to bust up the passel of actual domestic terrorists who have been terrorizing Atlanta over its plans to build a public safety training center.”
Archive for 2023
September 7, 2023
A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: Would-be STEM majors can’t add 1/2 + 1/3.
After a year of remote algebra, Diego Fonseca struggled with advanced algebra. Despite a week at George Mason University’s Math Boot Camp, the would-be computer science major failed the math placement test to qualify for calculus four times. He didn’t know the basics.
Across the country, more students are placing into pre-college math, reports AP’s Collin Binkley. “At many universities, engineering and biology majors are struggling to grasp fractions and exponents.”
At George Mason in Northern Virginia, fewer would-be STEM majors are getting into calculus and more are failing, he writes.
“We’re talking about college-level pre-calculus and calculus classes, and students cannot even add one-half and one-third,” said Maria Emelianenko, chair of George Mason’s math department.
More at the link.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: MIT professor says Oxford press dropped his book for criticism of trans issues.
TAKE OFF AND NUKE IT FROM ORBIT? The Real Problem With DEI and How to Fix It.
I EXPECTED BETTER FROM TEXAS A&M: Texas A&M’s massive glossary of social justice terms: ‘Christian Privilege,’ ‘Critical Race Feminism,’ ‘Critical Race Theory.’
I DOUBT BIDEN WOULD DO THE SAME: Judge Pauline Newman Passes Medical Evaluation with Flying Colors, Forensic Psychologist Says.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance has released a forensic psychologist’s report detailing the clinical evaluation of the Hon. Pauline Newman, whose fellow judges are unlawfully attempting to oust her from a constitutionally appointed lifetime position as a Federal Circuit Court of Appeals judge. The results of the evaluation clearly demonstrate Judge Newman’s fitness to remain in active judicial service. A new video released by NCLA exposes the unjust treatment of Judge Newman and showcases her vibrant mind, vigor, and dignity for all to see.
Dr. Regina M. Carney, a full-time forensic psychologist at Miami Veteran’s Administration Medical Center, and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami’s Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, performed a three-hour medical evaluation of Judge Newman on August 25. Prior to her examination, Dr. Carney reviewed Judge Newman’s medical records and various allegations leveled against her. In her subsequent report, Dr. Carney describes Judge Newman as “a fluent, engaging, strong-willed, highly accomplished and unusually cognitively intact 96-year-old woman…” Dr. Carney opined that “Judge Newman demonstrated no substantial emotional, medical, or psychiatric disability that would interfere with continuation of her longstanding duties as a Judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals.”
This is the second medical evaluation Judge Newman has undergone since early March, when the Judicial Council of the Federal Circuit, led by Chief Judge Kimberly Moore, indefinitely removed her from hearing new cases before any formal investigation even began. The Chief Judge launched an investigation alleging that Judge Newman was mentally incompetent to fulfill her judicial duties, and a Special Committee chaired by the Chief Judge ordered Judge Newman to submit to neurological testing despite lacking a factual basis for such an order.
Judge Newman voluntarily submitted to independent mental health exams by two experts: George Washington University neurologist Dr. Ted Rothstein and the aforementioned Dr. Carney. She was tested. She passed. Twice.
I demand that Joe Biden do the same. And Kamala, for that matter, as her word-salad speeches don’t suggest superior cognition.
CAROL ROTH: Climate extremists want to help China by hurting the US economy.
The move away from traditional energy also threatens the U.S.’s top exports. As of 2022, the U.S. was exporting around 3.6 million barrels per day of oil.
Arguably, our biggest export is U.S. dollars, which provides cheap financing for the U.S., particularly for the government and its unwieldy expansion. In 2022, the BIS (Bank for International Settlements, the central bank of central banks, so to speak) said, “The average turnover per day with the USD on one side of the transaction was $6.6 trillion.”
Moving away from traditional energy is weakening the dollar’s role in terms of global oil trading, meaning potentially less oil traded in U.S. dollars and fewer “petrodollars” to be plowed back into the U.S. Treasury market.
China is trying to capitalize on this as well, working to form stronger alliances with countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The hope is that this will move even more global trade away from the US’s highly entrenched position.
Having given up our manufacturing and wage edge to China, giving up our energy advantage is fiscally and otherwise irresponsible.
And China is counting on the short-sightedness of U.S. central planners to repeat their mistakes again.
Shortsighted or on Beijing’s payroll? You make the call.
UPDATE (FROM GLENN):
The aliens never visit China to warn about climate change because China already has a communist government.
— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) July 31, 2023
LIGHTNING DEAL: COOFANDY Men’s Casual Linen Shirt. #CommissionEarned
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Laser-Focused Trump FINALLY Ready to Debate…Meghan Markle. “What’s bothering me now — and I’ve written about this a lot — is that the Donald Trump running around this year is not the same guy I would have walked through fire to vote for just three short years ago.”
SARAH HOYT’S SHOCKED FACE IS STUCK LIKE THAT: Biden’s Green Energy Inflation Reduction Act Needs a Big Bailout Already.
According to a report late last month by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (Nyserda), large offshore wind developers are asking for an average 48% price adjustment in their contracts to cover rising costs. The Alliance for Clean Energy NY is also requesting an average 64% price increase on 86 solar and wind projects.
The IRA includes federal tax credits that can offset 50% of a project’s costs. But renewable developers say their costs are increasing faster than inflation and that the projects will “not be economically viable and would be unable to proceed to construction and operation under their existing pricing,” says Nyserda.
Irony alert: One reason is that the government-forced green energy transition is driving up demand for equipment, material and labor. “Growing demand for renewable energy projects nationwide ‘has exacerbated inflation for renewable project cost components relative to broader inflation levels,’” Nyserda says, citing the Alliance for Clean Energy NY.
More:
The speed at which these projects blew up seems stunning. But it really isn’t.
EVs, solar, and wind projects don’t scale. Heck, they don’t scale even with subsidies. I have been saying this for months.
Needed minerals and and skilled labor are in short supply. The US is still dependent on China and other foreign countries for materials.
Biden has escalated trade wars with China, but China hasn’t even retaliated much yet. It can with rare earth elements.
Bidenomics is inflation necessitating bailouts for the subsidized.
I wonder how long before price controls get added to the equation.
BOTTOM OF THE HEAP: ‘Abysmal’: Harvard Places Dead Last In Annual College Free Speech Rankings.
IF YOU’RE IN MISSISSIPPI NEXT WEEK: On Thursday, September 14, David Bernstein, Peter Kirsanow, and I will be joining Chris Green at Ole Miss for a Constitution Day discussion of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions on issues of equality.
This is a presentation of the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom. I hope you’ll join us if you’re in the area.
This will be my first trip to Mississippi. I’m looking forward to it.
DON SURBER: Getting black people not to vote for Biden.
The National Desk reported, “Black voters are a core group for Democrats and the president’s rating with them is 52%, which is down from 82% when he first took office. Meanwhile, 27% of black people say they would definitely or probably vote for former President Donald Trump and 12% of black people voted for him in 2020.”
That 27% for Trump is delusional. He won’t get 27% of the black vote. The number that is important is that 30-point drop in black support for Biden. A drop of that size would mean most black voters will stay out of the election. Every Biden supporter who stays home in 2024 helps Donald Trump, so expect more racial strife and pandering by Biden and his goons next year too.
Yep.
I WOULD TUNE INTO THIS: Trump ‘Would Love’ to Debate Meghan Markle for Some Reason.
HMM: A “Flu” at the U.S. Open? “The thing is, nobody knows whether it’s COVID. Players are no longer required to test for it.”
Related:
CDC Warns Of New 'Stealth' COVID Variant Where You Test Negative And Get No Symptoms https://t.co/Xac53JqlwG pic.twitter.com/SxqGcOk2uO
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) September 5, 2023
OUT: FOLLOW THE SCIENCE! In: ‘This Is Extremely Dangerous’: Inside the Biden Administration’s Push To Swap Science for ‘Indigenous Knowledge.’
LOL: Let’s Drink to the “Crusty Working-Class Guys.” “David Brooks will have a mineral water, please.”
THE UK POPULACE NEEDS TO START STOCKPILING TAR, FEATHERS, AND ROPES: UK: you may soon go to jail if you don’t upgrade your energy efficiency.
RON HART: Unless you’re a lobbyist, the Washington, D.C. gerontocracy is failing us all.
Even for the left, it is getting harder to ignore the aging of Joe Biden that is happening before our eyes. Biden takes as many vacations as an 80-year-old in retirement with no job.
As of this writing, Biden is at one of his beachfront homes, fighting back rising sea levels for us. By one estimate, he has vacationed 40% of his tenure as president, which I take as a positive; it means things could have been 60% percent worse.
Even though Joe Biden could throw himself a successful surprise party, he is not the only one aging out in Washington. Senators Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein are on their last legs. They have too much power for their parties to let them step down. Along with Biden, they have become Weekend at Bernie’s politicians.
Propped up by their lobbyists, staff and benefactors to perpetuate their power for the benefit of those who bought and paid for them, our gerontocracy shuffles on.
Maybe I am too hard on lobbyists. We need them. Who else would pay $550,000 for Hunter Biden’s artwork? “Three Dogs Playing Poker while Smoking Crack” art is in the eye of the beholder.
It probably does not matter how mentally impaired those in Congress are (Senator John Fetterman of PA comes to mind). With votes dictated by their party leaders, D.C. is shirts and skins; everyone votes as they are told along party lines. For years now, there has been no real debate or intellectual swaying of opinions.
Caligula sent a horse to the Senate. We just send part of the horse.
Plus: “The difference between a prostitute and a politician? No one would walk up three flights of stairs at one in the morning to spend time with a politician.”
LOL, SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: New Supreme Court Scandal: ‘Improper Opining’: Sheldon Whitehouse sees a conspiracy in a Journal interview with Justice Samuel Alito.
We thought we’d seen everything, but here’s a new one: Justice Samuel Alito stands accused of the grave offense of “improper opining.”
That’s the bizarre charge leveled Monday by Senator Ahab, er, Sheldon Whitehouse, in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts. The Rhode Island Democrat wants the Chief Justice to investigate Associate Justice Alito for saying things the Senator doesn’t like.
Mr. Whitehouse is famous for publicly examining Brett Kavanaugh’s high-school yearbook for subtle messages of, well, we never could figure it out. And now he says Justice Alito committed “improper opining on a legal issue that may come before the court” in his recent interview with this newspaper.
Mr. Whitehouse writes in his letter that “during the interview, Justice Alito stated that ‘[n]o provision in the Constitution gives [Congress] the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period.’” The Senator says this is improper because the “comments appeared in connection” to his Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act. Since the Supreme Court might someday rule on that legislation, the Senator says Justice Alito has violated judicial ethics.
This is nonsense even by Mr. Whitehouse’s standards. Justice Alito wasn’t opining on a case heading to the Court, or on Mr. Whitehouse’s legislation, which hasn’t passed the Senate and may never become law or the subject of litigation. The Justice was expressing his opinion on the general question of Congress’s power to regulate the Supreme Court.
This is no violation of Supreme Court obligations, and if it is then Justice Elena Kagan did the same when she also recently opined on Congress’s power to regulate the Court. Mr. Whitehouse’s letter doesn’t mention Justice Kagan’s comments, perhaps because they differed somewhat with Justice Alito’s. The point is that neither Justice did anything wrong in offering an opinion about the Constitution, Congress and the Court.
The Supreme Court will be smeared with help from a compliant media as long as it fails to toe the line.
GOOD QUESTION: What Rights Are You Missing?