13th August 2023
Steve Sailer.
I haven’t been to the Nancy Pelosi building, but I’ve been to Mayne’s CalTrans building in downtown Los Angeles, and it radiates a palpable hatred toward the bureaucrats and visitors who must come into contact with it. Genius is said to be an infinite capacity for taking pains, but Mayne is a peculiar kind of genius, once with an infinite capacity for inflicting psychic pains on the public forced to deal with his buildings.
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13th August 2023
Read it.
The Taliban government in Afghanistan – the nation that until recently produced 90% of the world’s heroin – has drastically reduced opium cultivation across the country. Western sources estimate an up to 99% reduction in some provinces. This raises serious questions about the seriousness of U.S. drug eradication efforts in the country over the past 20 years. And, as global heroin supplies dry up, experts tell MintPress News that they fear this could spark the growing use of fentanyl – a drug dozens of times stronger than heroin that already kills more than 100,000 Americans yearly.
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11th August 2023
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10th August 2023
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9th August 2023
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7th August 2023
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6th August 2023
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6th August 2023
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4th August 2023
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4th August 2023
The Foundry.
Rising interest rates and a shortage of lower-cost houses under the Biden administration continue to make homeownership unobtainable for many young families. Instead of working to solve actual problems like these, President Joe Biden is once again choosing to prioritize the expansive promotion of woke diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in housing policies, as a recent proposed rule from the Department of Housing and Urban Development shows.
The proposed regulation would encourage taxpayer-funded housing agencies to abandon the goal of ensuring fairness in the housing market and instead pursue the elimination of all inequality in housing and income.
Under the rule, program participants—entities like public housing agencies, grant recipients, private entities that supply public or subsidized housing, and other entities receiving HUD funds—must supply an “Equity Plan” to HUD, describing the steps they have taken to “eliminate disparities in housing-related opportunities.”
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1st August 2023
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31st July 2023
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30th July 2023
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30th July 2023
Read it.
The United States is in big trouble militarily. That’s the upshot of a new RAND publication called “Inflection Point”:
[I]t has become increasingly clear that the U.S. defense strategy and posture have become insolvent. The tasks that the nation expects its military forces and other elements of national power to do internationally greatly exceed the means that have become available to accomplish those tasks. Reversing this erosion will call for sustained, coordinated efforts by the United States, its allies, and its key partners[.]
Basically, the report says that the U.S. military’s technological superiority has mostly eroded, and to address that, we need to shift from projecting power to defending against attacks by other powers (i.e. China). RAND then gives a large number of concrete recommendations on how to change the U.S. military in order to do that. But transforming the military costs a lot of money; even if we don’t end up with a bigger military after the shift, getting from here to there will involve a lot of research, design, testing, and equipment purchasing.
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29th July 2023
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27th July 2023
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26th July 2023
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25th July 2023
OffGuardian.
It feels weird to write sceptically about this, because, as a self-proclaimed leftist for most of my life, free school meals is exactly the kind of policy I likely would have supported without question just a few short years ago…
…but those few years were Covid years, and they’ve taught us all a lot.
Firstly, and most importantly, its become increasingly apparent that any policy is only as fair as the people implementing it, and only as decent as the intention behind it, and, however superficially humane this plan might sound, the practical impact would be to hand yet more control over to the same murderous, eugenicist state that very recently killed thousands with a lie.
Secondly, a monopoly is a monopoly – whether private or state-backed – and the moment a monopoly exists the freedom to choose is dead. Freedom of choice is always the first liberty to go, but never the last.
I used to bring my lunch in a brown paper bag. I guess that’s not allowed any more.
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24th July 2023
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24th July 2023
Read it.
As they do.
Perhaps the single biggest legislative fight this year has been over federal spending.
There’s a good reason for that: The national debt is now an eye-popping $32.5 trillion (roughly $250,000 per household), and out-of-control deficit spending is one of the main reasons why families are struggling with inflation.
In May, Congress passed a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for reforms that would supposedly reduce spending levels.
Some parts of the deal were good, but as we learn more about the details of the package, it looks more and more like a raw deal for current and future taxpayers.
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23rd July 2023
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22nd July 2023
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22nd July 2023
OffGuardian.
There was a time when the census was just a head count. That is no longer the case.
The American Community Survey (ACS), sent to about 3.5 million homes every year, is the byproduct of a government that believes it has the right to know all of your personal business.
…
A far cry from the traditional census, which is limited to ascertaining the number of persons living in each dwelling, their ages and ethnicities, the ownership of the dwelling and telephone numbers, the ACS contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire.
At 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), these questions concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among other highly personal and private matters.
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21st July 2023
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20th July 2023
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19th July 2023
Read it.
A popular tax break in the form of being able to make so-called catch-up contributions to 401(k) retirement savings plans is set to vanish for many higher-earning Americans at the end of this year.
Catch-up contributions refer to a provision in 401(k) plans that allows individuals aged 50 and older to contribute extra money to their retirement savings accounts. The aim of catch-up contributions is to enable older workers to accelerate their retirement savings in the years leading up to their retirement.
All your money are belong to us.
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18th July 2023
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17th July 2023
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17th July 2023
Read it.
And you know their names.
The U.S. Supreme Court is finished for the term, but questions about accuracy should follow some justices into the next session in October. For example: Was Justice Sonia Sotomayor correct in her description of a key historical event in a recent dissenting opinion—or did she obscure details to suit her purposes? And with the revelation that her colleague, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, incorrectly cited research findings in a dissent, Americans are right to ask whether the justices bend facts to fit their arguments.
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16th July 2023
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14th July 2023
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14th July 2023
John Hinderaker at Power Line.
After an 11-day alleged investigation, the Secret Service announced today that it cannot identify the person who left cocaine in the White House. The Service says that there were no usable finger prints on the bag that held the cocaine, and not enough DNA for an identification. So the investigation is being closed.
No one is going to buy this. The general area is under video surveillance, and there is a log of people who enter the West Wing.
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13th July 2023
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13th July 2023
Scott Johnson at Power Line.
The White House must be the most heavily guarded and surveilled building in the United States. Yet the case of the cocaine baggie outside the Situation Room is apparently damn near impossible to crack, if I may use that term in this context. I’m not sure if the White House is still taking the line that the area is “highly trafficked,” but that is the line that Politico persists in peddling.
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13th July 2023
Washington Free Beacon.
The socialist mayor of South Fulton, Ga., returned to work this week, days after police arrested him for entering a resident’s lake house.
Khalid Kamau, a vocal Democratic Socialist and cofounder of the Atlanta chapter of Black Lives Matter, is charged with first-degree trespass and burglary after a homeowner caught him entering his home on Saturday.
“We have never backed down from courageous conversations, but now is not the time for those discussions,” Kamau said upon his return Tuesday during a city council session. “We have city business to get to.”
He noted that “a lot has happened in the past few days” and he will “announce a time and place for those conversations to happen.”
If he were Republican, the Narrative media would be howling (HOWLING) for him to resign.
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12th July 2023
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11th July 2023
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11th July 2023
The Antiplanner.
Like San Francisco BART, the DC Metro rail system is facing a fiscal cliff, with a $750 million projected shortfall in operating funds in 2025. So why is the agency considering spending tens of billions of dollars on a new rail extension that will increase annual operating costs by $200 million?
Like BART, DC’s rail system historically has covered a high percentage of its operating costs with fares. Though that has declined from 68 percent in 2011 to 48 percent in 2019, the agency was still more vulnerable to ridership declines than agencies such as San Jose’s VTA, which before the pandemic covered less than 10 percent of its operating costs out of fares.
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10th July 2023
Why aren’t Americans happier about the economy? (The Guardian) Robert Reich just can’t understand it. (Cash-Strapped Consumers Resort To ‘Dumpster Dining’ To Save On Grocery Bill)
No health-insurance choice for YOU! (N.Y. Plost)
CNN’s Zakaria Declares Biden a Great President, ‘Brought Economy Back’ Uh, sure….
AG Morrisey to Newsmax: Biden EV Standards ‘Devastating’
NPR Politics Podcast Claims House GOP Has ‘No Evidence of Wrongdoing’ by Bidens Whistleblower? What whistleblower? Laptop? What laptop?
“It’s Seven Grandchildren, Mr. President”: NYT Rips Biden For Ghosting Granddaughter
NBC’s Todd: GOP Ugly for Pointing Out Biden Ignores 7th Grandkid
RFK Jr. Criticizes Biden for Sending Cluster Munitions to Ukraine Picking up the free money sitting on the table.
How U.S. Foreign Aid to Iraq Funds Terrorism Against Americans
Top Treasury sanctions official to visit southern border as it ramps up efforts to crack down on deadly fentanyl trade (CNN)
IRS Whistleblower’s Lawyer: WashPost Helping Hunter’s Team
Military Efficiency? Biden’s Electric Vehicle Push Adds Hours to Routine Marine Trip
Who Is Leslie Wolf? ‘Obstructive’ Prosecutor in Biden Bribery Case, a Democrat Donor, Ignored IRS Whistleblowers
Reconstructing a Corrupted FBI From the Ground Up
Harris’ Word Salads Make Biden Look Articulate By Comparison
U.S. Attorney David Weiss says he has not requested special counsel status as part of the years-long investigation into Hunter Biden. (Politico) After all, he’s not supposed to actually find anything.
So, are they preparing Joe’s retirement dinner? (The New Neo)
GOP Plan Would Close Foreign Dark Money Loophole for 2024 Democrats, of course, oppose it.
Another Free Speech Victory! Judge Denies Biden’s Request to Censor Americans
CNN: Biden’s Low Ratings Have Nothing to Do With Facts or Actions
Brain Rage: Biden’s Violent Temper a Common Symptom of Dementia, Alzheimer’s
Jankowicz Claims Gov’t Flagging Content Isn’t Censorship But it’s a big step down that road.
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10th July 2023
The Antiplanner.
Honolulu officials worried that their new train would be “overwhelmed” with riders when it opened at 2 pm on June 30. They needn’t have worried; a local news station reported that “scores of people lined up to ride the trains, which were free the first five days of operation.
In fact, about 9,000 people rode the train the first afternoon. Considering that each train can hold 800 passengers and they ran six times an hour until 6:30 pm, they were operating at about 40 percent of their capacity on opening day.
Over the next four days, another 62,000 people rode the trains, less than 25 percent of their capacity. When the agency began to charge fares, daily ridership fell to under 1,300 per day, or about 2 percent of the rail line’s capacity.
Taxpayers spent $9.9 billion, or $900 million per mile, for this 11-mile line to nowhere. The original plan was to build 20 miles from suburban Ewa to downtown Honolulu, but when costs more than doubled, the line from Ewa was terminated at Aloha Stadium. City officials hope to finish another 5 miles by 2025, and the rest by 2031, but don’t know where all of the money will come from to do so.
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9th July 2023
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8th July 2023
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