4th November 2023
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The sense of dread that so often accompanies Mondays could feel slightly more bearable for some next week as Virginians gain another hour of sleep this Sunday from daylight saving time. (Of course, that extra rest comes at the cost of darker nights for the next four months.)
If some lawmakers had their way, the tradition would have ended in Virginia years ago because of its disruptive and impractical nature.
The latest attempt to eliminate daylight saving time in the commonwealth came from Sen. Richard Stuart, R-Westmoreland, whose bill narrowly died on the Senate floor this January.
Everybody talks about it but nobody seems willing to go ahead and do it.
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4th November 2023
Quillette.
There appears to be near-unanimity of opinion that innovative discoveries require public funding of scientific research. A quote from the Lancet neatly summarizes this view: “When governments cut research funding, they are quite literally cutting their future discovery path and hence their future economic capabilities.” The Biden administration has followed suit by asking for a large increase in science and technology funding, which it describes as “the largest ever investment for federal R&D.” This is on top of previous budgetary requests for billions more dollars to fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Cheerleaders for such an approach abound. Writers at Nature believe that such an approach will keep the US “competitive.” A statement from the National Science Foundation (NSF) reads, “The budget makes critical, targeted investments in the American people that will promote greater prosperity and economic growth for decades to come.” Science magazine also welcomed the proposal; its only real criticism was that it would be difficult to gain bipartisan support.
State investment in science is certainly nothing new, but what is fascinating is how easily it is now accepted as the de facto means of spurring scientific innovation. Pew polling confirms that, while government funding does not necessarily inspire trust in science, the public is far less likely to trust scientific findings when funded through an industry source. Additionally, 82 percent of Americans believe government investment in scientific research is usually worthwhile.
Government has two jobs: Make people safe and make people honest. Anything beyond that is corruption.
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3rd November 2023
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3rd November 2023
Steve Sailer.
I can see why Egypt or Turkey would like to own a U.S. Senator — the U.S. is the world’s most powerful country, so it makes sense to bribe a senator — but I don’t get what paying off the mayor of New York, and a rather buffoonish mayor at that, would get you.
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1st November 2023
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1st November 2023
Read it.
Primates other than humans, that is. Monkeys and chimps don’t have government regulations to wade through.
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31st October 2023
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30th October 2023
New York Post.
Closed-door testimony by former Pittsburgh US Attorney Scott Brady to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is a chilling case study of how credible corruption allegations against President Biden and his family were covered up by the FBI and DOJ — before and after the 2020 election.
Brady’s testimony fits a pattern revealed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week, in which over 40 confidential human sources gave information to the FBI, over several years, about potential criminal activity involving the president, his brother James and son Hunter.
In a blistering letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday, Grassley alleged ongoing efforts “among certain Justice Department and FBI officials to improperly delay and stop full and complete investigative activity into the Biden family.”
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30th October 2023
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29th October 2023
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28th October 2023
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27th October 2023
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27th October 2023
The Foundry.
As worshippers gathered at the Calvary Chapel in 2020, they were being watched from above.
Satellites were locking in on cellphones owned by members of the nondenominational Protestant church in San Jose, California. Their location eventually worked its way to a private company, which then sold the information to the government of Santa Clara County.
This data, along with observations from enforcement officers on the ground, was used to levy heavy fines against the church for violating COVID-19 restrictions regarding public gatherings.
“Every Sunday,” Calvary’s assistant pastor, Carson Atherly, would later testify, the officers “would serve me a notice of violation during or after church service.”
Calvary is suing the county for its use of location data, a controversial tool increasingly deployed by governments at all levels—notably in relation to the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. While enabling law enforcement to more easily identify potential offenders, the practice, called “geofencing,” has also emerged as a cutting-edge privacy issue, raising constitutional issues involving warrantless searches and, with Calvary Chapel, religious liberty.
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26th October 2023
The Antiplanner.
Denver’s Regional Transit District (RTD) has announced that it is going to study the “commuter’s dream” of running a commuter rail line from downtown Denver to Longmont, Colorado. This line was originally supposed to be a part of the FasTracks plan approved by voters in 2004, but cost overruns combined with new ridership projections killed it.
…
RTD will never admit it, but the rail lines it did build were effectively a failure. In 2004, RTD promised voters that FasTracks would greatly relieve congestion by taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road. The 2000 census found that 4.79 percent of Denver-area workers took transit to work and approximately 1.0 million vehicles were used by commuters every day. By 2019, after all but the Longmont line had been built, transit carried 4.78 percent of Denver-area workers to work and the number of vehicles used by commuters increased to almost 1.2 million.
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25th October 2023
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24th October 2023
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23rd October 2023
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22nd October 2023
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21st October 2023
500 Biden Democrat Staffers Signed Anti-Israel Letter (NewsMax)
Reports: David Weiss to Appear Before Judiciary Panel (NewsMax)
Biden Speech: Welcome Back to the Cold War
Leadership: Biden Asks Hamas Politely If They Might Maybe Consider Perhaps Letting Hostages Go If They Feel Like It (Babylon Bee) Why is Biden always squinting, as if he just woken up, when he appears in public? (Perhaps because he just did?) 
Biden Warns of ‘Islamophobia,’ Tries to Separate Hamas From Palestinians in Prime-Time Speech
3,700 Detroit Casino Workers Walk Off The Job, Strike For Higher Wages Due To Rising Cost Of Living
Trump leads Biden, builds support among young voters: poll (The Hill)
Homeland Security Immigration Officer On Leave After “F**k Israel” Post
Emerson College Poll: Trump Has Slim Lead Over Biden
Pentagon CFO’s Chief of Staff Has Family Ties to Islamic Terrorism
It Turns Out Joe Biden Is Running His Own Administration (New Yorker) Either Jonathan Chait is stupid or he thinks his readers are stupid. Of course, both could be true.
Biden Plans To Buy 6 Million Barrels Of Oil For The SPR At $79
Before Joining Biden Admin, Some White House Staffers Attacked ‘Apartheid’ Israel
Biden Appears to Read Note Aloud During Address
U.S. watchdog: Verified X accounts are main source of misinformation about Israel-Hamas war (UPI)
James Comer Finds Direct Payment to Joe Biden From His Family’s Influence-Peddling Operation
Rep. Comer: Joe Biden’s Brother Paid Him $200K in 2018
Ted Cruz Exposes Anti-Israel Elements in Biden’s State Department
Joe Biden: The Ayatollahs’ Best Friend Forever
After Crying ‘No Evidence,’ ABC/CBS/NBC Ignore Direct Payment to Biden
WATCH: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 65)
As Biden Seeks Second Term, Some Voters Question His Record No shit.
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20th October 2023
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19th October 2023
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The US government is the only sector to have notably borrowed on a net basis over the last five years. The market sees that as inflationary, driving yields higher.
The pandemic saw an increase in the borrowing of all sectors. But it was the government that saw the biggest rise in GDP terms, and it is the government whose debt is still considerably higher than it was before the pandemic – the debt-to-GDP ratio is up 16 percentage points over the last five years.
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17th October 2023
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17th October 2023
The American Mind.
Colinford Mattis went to Princeton University; Urooj Rahman went to Fordham. They earned their law degrees from NYU in 2018 and 2019, respectively, by which time they were saturated in the combustible self-righteousness of left-wing politics.
A spark arrived on May 30, 2020, when the George Floyd riots reached New York. Mattis and Rahman were angry: Rahman recorded herself opining that “all the police stations” and “probably all the courts” need to be burned down and “the only way they hear us is through violence.” She never defined “they” and never explained why she and Mattis were appropriate messengers. Their message was never particularly clear, though the “raised fist” T-shirt depicted in Rahman’s mugshot tells you what you need to know.
What was clear, however, was that Mattis and Rahman were bent on destroying a symbol of law and order. Around 1 a.m., Mattis drove a minivan toward an NYPD precinct in Brooklyn while Rahman sat in the passenger seat, armed with two Molotov cocktails. As they approached, Mattis parked the van, and Rahman exited the passenger side, ignited the incendiary, and threw the burning concoction through the window of a parked police van in the vicinity of other rioters. They fled but were arrested shortly thereafter. Police found another Molotov cocktail and precursor materials, indicating that Mattis and Rahman planned to do it again.
They were charged in a seven-count indictment. When charges were filed, a senior FBI official promised that “the consequences for conducting this alleged attack…will be severe.” Simultaneously, the NYPD’s police commissioner was “confident that the severest penalties under the law [would] be sought.” These claims were justified—one count of the indictment carried a 30-year minimum sentence.
But it never happened. Instead, Mattis and Rahman were sentenced to 12 and 15 months’ imprisonment respectively. How did this happen?
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17th October 2023
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“Donald Trump Followers Targeted by FBI as 2024 Election Nears” headlined the October 4 report in Newsweek. “The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers.” Author William M. Arkin, an “award-winning journalist” and author of best-selling books, thus sets the tone right from the top.
Donald Trump has “followers,” language readers might expect for a religious cult leader, and these followers constitute an “army.” The challenge for the FBI, Arkin explains, “is to pursue and prevent what it calls domestic terrorism without direct reference to political parties or affiliations—even though the vast majority of its current ‘anti-government’ investigations are of Trump supporters, according to classified data obtained by Newsweek.” That data is not the article’s only source.
“A current FBI official who requested anonymity” told Arkin “the FBI is intent on stopping domestic terrorism and any repeat of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.” No pushback from Arkin on the government claim that the Jan. 6 protesters were domestic terrorists launching an “attack” on the Capitol. They weren’t, and for the best reporting on Jan. 6 see Julie Kelly at American Greatness and Substack.
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17th October 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
On Thursday, the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a joint statement that cautions banks and other lenders against “discriminating” against borrowers on the basis of immigration status. These agencies admit that no such prohibition is explicit in the relevant statutes, but nevertheless, banks should beware of federal enforcement action….
“Immigration status” could simply refer to legal aliens who apply for loans or mortgages, but that phrase is usually used to refer to illegal immigrants. Commentators, as far as I can tell, have universally interpreted this statement as a warning to banks and other lenders not to “discriminate” against people whose very presence in this country is illegal. Given the lack of any qualification to the phrase “immigration status,” and the common meaning of that phrase, I think that interpretation is correct. The fact that the statement does not even bother to distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants is telling.
I wonder when they’ll get around to characterizing a bank robbery as ‘undocumented withdrawal’.
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17th October 2023
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The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has proposed an experiment in which it will provide additional benefits to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients who purchase more fruits and vegetables.
Named the Electronic Healthy Incentive Projects (eHip), the well-meaning programs are intended to encourage people on low-incomes to eat more healthy foods (MHFs).
(No, I made that last one up.)
As almost every endeavor undertaken by the government will demonstrate, well-meaning intentions that are funded via the force of law often go amiss — at best, achieving less than hoped, and at worst, achieving the opposite of what was intended.
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16th October 2023
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15th October 2023
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15th October 2023
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14th October 2023
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13th October 2023
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13th October 2023
NewsBusters.
Basically, you’re hosed.
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12th October 2023
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12th October 2023
New York Times.
With about 66,000 students — more than the public school enrollment in Boston or Seattle — the Pentagon’s schools for children of military members and civilian employees quietly achieve results most educators can only dream of.
On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a federal exam that is considered the gold standard for comparing states and large districts, the Defense Department’s schools outscored every jurisdiction in math and reading last year and managed to avoid widespread pandemic losses.
Modern ‘journalism’ requires that every article be started with a ‘heart-warming’ (or ‘chilling’) anecdote. Just ignore it and cut to what used to be called the Topic Sentence. (Sometimes the old ways are best.)
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11th October 2023
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10th October 2023
Biden admin has let 99% of migrants stay in US since 2021: Congressional report (N.Y. Post)
Prosecutor: Weiss Wanted to Charge Hunter Biden in D.C.
“A Real Trend”: Trump Now Ahead Of Biden In Key Battleground States According To Polls
ABC Skips Biden’s $6 Billion Iran Payment, CBS, NBC Note GOP Criticism
Biden interviewed about classified documents found at his office, home (Washington Poop)
The White House and lawmakers weigh linking Ukraine and Israel aid (NBC News)
Senior Biden Adviser’s Legal Group Pledges To Defend Hamas Sympathizers in New York City
Biden’s 2nd Try to Void Student Loans Moves Forward
Cut to Special-Operations Forces ‘Weakens’ National Security
Biden faces a host of crises and a stress test for his theory of the presidency (Politico)
Obama’s Coming Fourth Term
Bidenomics: National Debt Increases By Another Half-Trillion In Just 20 Days
Navy Misses Recruiting Goal by More Than 7,000 Sailors as Services Fall Short on Efforts to Bring in More Troops
In Search of Kamala Harris (N.Y. Times) Be careful what you look for, you just might find it.
Ticket Fees, ‘Big Pharma,’ and Indigenous Green Energy: Here Are the Issues Biden’s Admin Pushed Ahead of Israel
Iran Has Made $80 Billion in Illicit Oil Sales Since Biden Took Office Destroying their means of extracting, refining, and shipping oil would be a good first step.
Data Reveals Over 70,000 Illegal Aliens From Terrorist or Suspect Nations Encountered at Border
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9th October 2023
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8th October 2023
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7th October 2023
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6th October 2023
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6th October 2023
Read it.
Net worth before his term as president and after.
- Trump—3B to 2.3B, loss of 700 million
- Obama—1.3M to 70M, gain of 68.7 million
- Bush—20M to 40M, gain of 20 million
- Clinton—1.3M to 241.5M, gain of 240.2 million
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4th October 2023
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2nd October 2023
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It has become painfully clear in recent decades that, more and more, the major stumbling block in weapon acquisition programs is software, rather than hardware.
The F-35, for example, has failed on the software side of things rather than the hardware. The all-encompassing, mission planning, parts inventory controlling, maintenance regulating, aircraft health assessing ALIS software has been a colossal, and to date, unrecoverable, failure. Further, the F-35 was planned to be fully combat capable only with the advent of the Block 4 software upgrade which is now hopelessly behind schedule and has had many of its planned features deleted or deferred to some undetermined future time.
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1st October 2023
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