Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

(The more things change the more they are the same thing)

For my recent stay in hospital, I took along a famous book to read -- "Dr Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak. I had read in when it first come out in 1957 but had forgotten the story totally so it should have been new to me. It was but I somehow could not get interested in it for long.  It was a good yarn but I just could not concentrate on it for long.

The book is about pre-revolutionary Russia (c. 1905) so the political scenes were of interest to me.  I did gather that they were realistic. One passage which told me that revolutionary politics  had not changed much was a description of the conversation of two Leftists of the day. Their remarks were described (on p. 49 of the first edition) as: "So imbued with contempt for everything in the world that they could quite safely have been replaced by a growling noise".  The politics of hate were alive and well back there too: "contempt for everything in the world".  Quite reminiscent of current Leftist remarks about Mr Trump.  CNN on Trump is mostly a just a growling noise

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‘Flood the streets’: ICE targets sanctuary cities with increased surveillance

Intensifying its enforcement in sanctuary cities across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has begun 24-hour surveillance operations around the homes and workplaces of immigrants living in the country illegally. The agency plans to deploy hundreds of additional officers in unmarked cars in the coming weeks to increase arrests in cities where local law enforcement agencies do not cooperate with federal enforcement.

ICE leadership has requested at least 500 special agents who normally conduct long-term investigations into dangerous criminals and traffickers to join the enhanced arrest campaign rolling out in sanctuary cities, according to an internal e-mail reviewed by The New York Times.

The request follows an earlier decision, made public last month, to deploy elite tactical BORTAC agents — immigration SWAT teams that are normally assigned to risky border smuggling, rescue, and intelligence operations — to help arrest and deport immigrants in sanctuary cities.

The expanded surveillance operations and added manpower are the latest intensification in a conflict between the Trump administration and cities that refuse to help with deportations, including Boston, New York, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Newark. The effort began last month and will run through Dec. 31, according to the internal e-mail, which called the initiative Operation Palladium.

The latest directive is simple: Arrest as many immigrants living in the country illegally as possible, and “flood the streets,” as one official involved said his bosses had put it.

Local leaders in those communities often argue that doing so could make their cities less safe by discouraging people from cooperating with the police.

Because immigration law violations are civil infractions rather than criminal ones, the officers deployed in the expanded ICE operations cannot, in most cases, obtain warrants to forcibly enter places where their subjects are hiding.

Instead, ICE officers are embarking on the aggressive surveillance campaign, which involves closely watching some individuals for more than 12 hours a day in the hopes of arresting them outside their homes or workplaces.

To achieve their goal, officers assigned to the latest operations are working longer hours, and for longer stretches of time, often 10 days in a row rather than the usual five.

“It should be really no surprise; it’s exactly what we said we would do,” said Henry Lucero, the top government official overseeing the division of ICE that conducts street arrests. He added: “If there’s no cooperation, that’s not going to stop ICE from doing its job. We are still going to try to protect the public as much as we can by arresting and removing criminal aliens from the communities before they can get another crime or make another victim.”

SOURCE 

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Donald Trump says federal government will start 'withholding funds' from sanctuary cities after winning court case on stopping extra funding

President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would withhold money from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions after a U.S. court ruled that his administration could block federal law enforcement funds to states and cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The Republican president, who is seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 election, has taken a hardline stance toward legal and illegal immigration. His battle against Democratic-led 'sanctuary' jurisdictions focuses on laws and policies that limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

Cities and states that oppose such cooperation say it can discourage immigrants from coming forward to report crimes to law enforcement because of fears about their immigration status.

Since the beginning of his administration Trump has tried to slash specific law enforcement grants to places that don't comply with ICE requests for information, but his efforts have been challenged in court.

On Feb. 26, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in favor of the administration and said the funding cuts were valid. But three other federal appeals courts have ruled against blocking such funds, setting up a possible appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Trump in a tweet said it would move forward with the cuts.

'As per recent Federal Court ruling, the Federal Government will be withholding funds from Sanctuary Cities. They should change their status and go non-Sanctuary. Do not protect criminals!' Trump tweeted on Thursday, although he gave no other details.

One such 'sanctuary' policy opposed by the administration is a refusal by local jails to hold immigrants in the country illegally in detention beyond their scheduled release times so ICE officials can pick them up and process them for deportation.

Some officials in non-cooperative jurisdictions argue the requests are voluntary and honoring such 'detainer' requests means holding people without a constitutionally valid reason.

The 2nd Circuit overturned a lower court ruling directing the release of federal funds to New York City and the states of New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington.

Three federal appeals courts in Chicago, Philadelphia and San Francisco have upheld injunctions barring enforcement of at least some of the administration's conditions on the funds.

In addition to the funding threats, the administration is now opening up new fronts in the battle against the cities, filing lawsuits and issuing subpoenas in what Attorney General William Barr called part of a 'significant escalation' in the fight against uncooperative jurisdictions.

SOURCE 

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Uh Oh, Trump Says What We're All Thinking: There's Something Wrong With Joe Biden

At a Fox News Town Hall on Thursday evening, President Trump openly suggested that there's something fishy going on with Joe Biden. According to Trump, Biden's many gaffes could be a sign that he's simply not mentally competent.

Super Tuesday, Trump said, came as a surprise to him. He was sure that Bernie was going to win, not only because the polls showed him in the least, but also because Biden is clearly having some mental issues. "We have this crazy thing that happened on Tuesday," Trump explained, "which [Biden] felt was Thursday. But he also said 150 million people were killed with guns, and that he was running for the U.S. Senate."

"There's something going on there," the president concluded.

The leftwing media are constantly giving Confused Joe a pass -- even when he confused his wife with his sister -- but Trump isn't going to do the same. Oh no, if Biden becomes the Democrats' nominee, he will be hammered time and again on his mental fitness. And rightly so, of course. It's obvious to anyone paying attention to this race that Biden has some very serious mental issues. This isn't about "gaffes anymore." It's about Joe not being "all there."

Trump has to go after Biden on this. This isn't about scoring some cheap, easy points, but about warning Americans that they may end up with a president who simply isn't competent.

With all the things going on in America and the rest of the world, that's too big of a risk to take. We're battling this new coronavirus COVID-19 while Iran is stockpiling nuclear material. The most powerful country on earth needs a competent leader, not some old guy who should be spending time with his grandkids while his own children keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't cause any accidents.

SOURCE 

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Betraying the Alamo

RINO George P. Bush wants to whitewash a bloody battle and make it politically correct

"Remember the Alamo!" might become a divisive political slogan as Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has accused his fellow Republican, Land Commissioner George P. Bush, of leading the Alamo restoration project "badly off track." His remarks came one day before the 184th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo, a military defeat that energized the Texas revolution against Mexico and helped America's second-most populous state enter the Union.

"Nothing defines the independent and the courageous spirit of Texas more than our iconic Alamo and, like most Texans, I treasure it. The history of the Alamo is a personal passion of mine. I do not intend to sit quietly and see this project fail," Patrick said in a statement slamming Bush, son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and grandson of President George H. W. Bush. "The job of oversight for this project is the responsibility of the General Land Office headed by Commissioner George P. Bush. It is evident to me that both the design, planning, and execution of the project is badly off track."

Bush has long received criticism over the General Land Office and the City of San Antonio's plan to "reimagine" the site of the Alamo. Texans are incensed over the plan to relocate the Alamo Cenotaph, a monument commissioned on the centennial anniversary of the Battle of the Alamo that serves as a tombstone for the men who gave their lives in the fight for Texas independence in the historic siege (February 23-March 6, 1836).

On Tuesday, Republican voters overwhelmingly approved a proposition on the GOP primary ballot stating, "Texans should protect and preserve all historical monuments, artifacts, and buildings, such as the Alamo Cenotaph and our beloved Alamo, and should oppose any reimagining of the Alamo site." Nearly 98 percent of Republican voters supported it.

Patrick slammed Bush over the Cenotaph relocation and the look and design of new buildings on the site.

"The latest [design] looks like a massive urban park with hundreds of trees—more like Central Park in New York City than Alamo Plaza," the lieutenant governor said. "We have wasted significant public dollars on designs which most Texans would immediately reject." He called on Bush to release all proposed architectural designs and threatened to move the project to another entity in the absence of significant change.

"If the General Land Office cannot handle this important job, and to date it does not appear it can, I will recommend we identify another entity to provide oversight," Patrick warned.

Late Thursday, Bush spokeswoman Karina Erickson said the land commissioner welcomes Patrick's suggestions, the Dallas Morning News reported.

"Lt. Governor Patrick brings up many great ideas -- ideas that are already incorporated in the Alamo Plan, including the intent to restore the Alamo Church and Battleground to the 1836 time period," Erickson said.

Patrick demanded that the restoration effort should include a "world-class visitor center" focused on the 1836 Battle of the Alamo, "not the 200-year history of early Spanish settlement in Texas," which is covered by San Antonio's Mission Trail. Erickson insisted that a focus on the battle will be the focal point of the restoration.

The Texas legislature approved funds for preserving the Alamo and rebuilding the plaza in 2015. Lawmakers intended for Texans and others to be able to "see the battlefield as it was" in 1836, Patrick insisted.

A recent records request exposed another controversy. Members of the Alamo Defenders Descendants Association condemned digging in a graveyard.

Yet the political battle may trace back to Bush's decision to spread rumors that he may challenge Patrick in the 2022 lieutenant governor race. Lieutenant governor is the most powerful position in the Texas government when the legislature is in session because it controls the state Senate's agenda. While the legislature is not scheduled to meet again until January 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-Texas) may call the legislature into a special session to deal with this issue, which would humiliate Bush.

In October, Bush's senior advisor, J. R. Hernandez, insisted that the land commissioner remains focused on his job, attempting to dispel rumors of a planned run against Patrick. "Over the last few months, several activists and donors have asked Commissioner Bush to consider higher office in Texas," Hernandez admitted. "At this time he is 100% focused on doing his job as land commissioner. While he wouldn’t challenge current Governor Abbott or Lieutenant Governor Patrick, if an opening presents itself he would absolutely consider serving Texans in a higher role. When that moment arises, he’s ready."

Political fireworks may be coming to Texas, and "Remember the Alamo!" may be a political rallying cry against Bush.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

RELENTLESS: Economy defied early coronavirus fears in February with 273,000 new jobs, unemployment at 3.5% (Washington Examiner)

"THE APPEARANCE IS NOT GOOD": Romney could block Republican subpoena attempt aimed at the Bidens (Fox News)

POLICY VIOLATION: Facebook removes Trump campaign ads over census confusion (Politico)

FOR THE RECORD: More than 300 illegal aliens from China have been caught at the U.S. border since coronavirus outbreak (MRCTV)

LIKELY ISLAMIST TERRORISM: Explosion near U.S. embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, prompts emergency response (Fox News)

EMBEZZLING AND RACKETEERING: Ex-UAW president Gary Jones charged in corruption probe (Detroit Free Press)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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I am now out of hospital after cancer surgery and appear to be back to normal.  No pain. Today is one of my normal posting days so I have posted pretty much as usual.  Tomorrow is my Sabbath, however, so I will not be posting then -- JR

The delusional Left
 
It’s always important to keep things in proper perspective. That is particularly important as the nation grapples with the fallout from the novel coronavirus, which has infected 100 Americans and killed six people. Sadly, more people died Monday night from the tornadoes that ripped through Tennessee.

But just so you know, the yearly flu has already infected at least 32 million Americans and caused 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths.

The left’s delusional reaction to the coronavirus is more of a public threat than the virus itself. Seriously, friends, let’s just look at how the left has responded to this crisis.

When President Trump imposed travel restrictions on China, the left accused him of xenophobia. Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, one of the nation’s top medical experts, said that the travel restrictions “bought us time and space” to combat the virus.

When the president created the Coronavirus Task Force, the left complained that it was “too white” and “too male.”

The left accused the president of muzzling medical experts. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told reporters over the weekend, “I’ve never been muzzled and I’ve been doing this since Reagan.”

The left accused the president of calling the coronavirus a “hoax.” Even liberal fact checkers have rejected that accusation as false.

The left accused the president of gutting the budgets of vital health-related agencies. That too was false.

The left even mocked the administration for praying, which is what decent people do.

Once again, it’s obvious that the left views everything — yes, even a virus — through a warped, ideological lens. Just think about that for a moment.

If there’s a potentially dangerous virus spreading around the world, the left would refuse to secure the borders. It would demand that experience and expertise take a back seat to racial quotas. It would lie about basic facts and mock people for seeking God’s wisdom and mercy.

Is that really the kind of government we want? Just something to remember in November.

By the way, a recent Gallup survey found that 77% of Americans are confident in the government’s ability to address the coronavirus situation. That confidence level is significantly higher than previous outbreaks involving the bird flu, the swine flu, and Ebola.

SOURCE 

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Biden Tries to Quote Declaration of Independence: 'You Know, the Thing...'

Despite his victory in the South Carolina primary, Crazy Joe Biden has been having a rough few weeks. Most notably forgetting what office he’s running for and getting caught in a lie about being arrested in South Africa. True to form, he made himself look foolish again on Monday when he was quoting—or attempting to quote—the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,” he said, somewhat slurring his speech while campaigning in Texas. “All men and women created by the—you know, you know, the thing."

You know “the thing”? I suppose if Ilan Omar can say 9/11 was “some people did something” it’s not all that shocking that Biden would refer to such an important historical document as “the thing.”

Or did Biden just forget which document he was attempting to quote?

That wouldn’t be surprising either. Biden seems to forget a lot of things these days. But it seems hard to imagine how he could forget one of the most quoted sentences in history.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

It shouldn’t be that hard to remember, Joe. You’ve probably heard it your entire life.

Imagine if Trump had made the same mistake. The media would be all over him. Think the media will call him out for flubbing such a well-known line of such a pivotal document in our nation's history? No wonder Trump wants to run against him.

SOURCE 

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Rep Mark Meadows Just Blew Up the Trump-Russia Scam With One Comment About Super Tuesday

Congressional Democrats have been selling the exhaustively debunked theory about Donald Trump being a Russian secret agent and using Russian President Vladimir Putin's help to win office in 2016.

Two investigations so far have shown that there was no Russian collusion with Trump. The Mueller investigation indictments showed that, to the extent there was interference in the 2016 election, it involved Russian troll farms buying about $100,000 in Facebook ads and setting up Facebook accounts to sow discord among U.S. voters.

Congressman Mark Meadows, an expert on the evidence in the collusion allegations, watched Super Tuesday's contests with more than a little interest. And when Mike Bloomberg got out of the presidential race, Meadows had this bracing take:

"Michael Bloomberg could barely win a delegate in a primary with $500+ million—but if you ask Washington Democrats, a few Russian trolls spending 100K on Facebook ads swung the entire 2016 election. Got it. #CollusionHoax"

The AP reports that Bloomberg ended the contest with 51 delegates. A quick, back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that Bloomberg spent $9,803,921.57  per delegate. The Daily Caller also found that Bloomberg had paid Democratic "superdelegates" $149,000 to give him their vote if the convention went to a second vote.

Money talks but it can't get you over the finish line.

SOURCE 

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More Hate
 
As I noted earlier this week, the left has nothing to offer on the coronavirus debate but hate and vitriol. The Trump administration is calling the shots, not Chuck Schumer, not Nancy Pelosi, not The New York Times.

Of course, that’s not stopping the left from carping, complaining, and offering unsolicited advice. But its progressive prescriptions are absurd. For example:

CNN complained about the racial makeup of the administration’s coronavirus task force. Just more evidence of how far the “woke” left has strayed from Martin Luther King’s dream that we should judge people not based on the color of their skin but on their abilities and the content of their character.

MSNBC is fretting about xenophobia. The left-wing media outlet Vox lectured us on “the history of racism and ‘cleanliness.’”

“Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd suggested that Trump is to blame for the coronavirus panic, saying, “You reap what you sow.” In Todd’s twisted mind, there is panic because no one trusts the government to handle the crisis because Trump has attacked and undermined our vital institutions. Again, this is total nonsense. The Deep State has been doing its best to attack and undermine Trump since before he was elected.

Meanwhile, the left can barely contain its glee over the fear currently roiling the financial markets. It’s not surprising. It doesn’t have much to run on.

Its radical policies — open borders, abortion on demand, free healthcare for illegal aliens, and much more — are tremendously unpopular.

Its candidates are not compelling.

Its convention could turn into a civil war.

But it’s just giddy about coronavirus!

By the way, Democrats have repeatedly complained in recent days that Trump cut the budgets of critical health-related agencies. This charge came up several times during the South Carolina Democrat debate. The only problem is that it is false.

An Associated Press fact check found that while Trump’s budgets have proposed certain cuts, Congress ignored them and actually increased funding. “The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect.”

The Associated Press also rejected Chuck Todd’s claims that Trump has undermined the government’s response, writing:

The public health system has a playbook to follow for pandemic preparation — regardless of who’s president… Those plans were put into place in anticipation of another flu pandemic, but are designed to work for any respiratory-borne disease.

SOURCE 

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Liz Warren Is Finished After Her HUMILIATING Loss in Massachusetts

Great news!  I loathed that female Hitler

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Not to be confused with Pocahontas) arguably should end her presidential campaign after an embarrassing third-place finish in her home state of Massachusetts.

As of 11 p.m. Eastern, former Vice President Joe Biden had won the state with 33 percent of the vote, with Sen. Bernie Sanders (S-USSR) behind him at 27 percent. Warren trailed at 22 percent, almost 100,000 votes behind Biden.

Not only did Warren lose her own state but she took third place, behind both the ostensible moderate Biden and the socialist Bernie Sanders.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

SCANDAL REOPENS: Federal judge orders Hillary Clinton to give sworn deposition for first time in server scandal (The Daily Wire)

NOT BACKING DOWN: Senate Republicans plan first subpoena in Burisma-Biden probe (The Washington Post)

ROLLERCOASTER OF EMOTIONS: Dow roars back from coronavirus sell-off with biggest gain since 2009, surges 5.1% (CNBC)

THIRD ELECTION IN UNDER A YEAR: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeats Benny Gantz, but is still short a majority (The Jerusalem Post)

TIT FOR TAT: U.S. places new restrictions on Chinese journalists following China's expulsion of three Wall Street Journal reporters (Axois)

OBSTRUCTING AN EFFECTIVE POLICY: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocks Trump administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy (Fox News)

ADMIN TO APPEAL: A federal judge has ruled that Ken Cuccinelli was unlawfully appointed to lead the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency and therefore lacks authority to give asylum seekers less time to prepare for initial screening interviews (ABC News)

DNI NOMINEE: Trump picks John Ratcliffe to lead intelligence community (CBS News)

ROUND 3: Supreme Court will once again consider fate of Affordable Care Act (The Washington Post)

"NOW WE'RE COMING AFTER THEM": Trump goes nuclear on Democrats at CPAC (The Daily Wire)

NO AUTHORITY: House Democrats lose appeal to force White House counsel Don McGahn testimony (Axios)

TAWDRY BEHAVIOR: MSNBC political pundit Chris Matthews absent from air amid sexual-harassment allegations (The Hill)

POLICY: The European welfare state is small compared to what Bernie Sanders is proposing (Foundation for Economic Education)

IDENTITY-THEFT RULING: U.S. Supreme Court gives states latitude to prosecute illegal immigrants (Reuters)

FAKE NEWS MEDIA, PART I: Trump campaign sues The Washington Post for "false, defamatory statements" vis-à-vis Russia (The Daily Wire)

FAKE NEWS MEDIA, PART II: Rep. Devin Nunes sues The Washington Post for Russia-themed "hit piece" (The Daily Wire)

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will drop limits on virus testing (The New York Times)

FOR THE RECORD: Iran triples its uranium stockpile. IAEA chief realizes Trump's suspicion of Iran may be correct. (The Daily Wire)

SHOWDOWN WITH TUBERVILLE: Jeff Sessions forced into runoff in Alabama Senate primary (The Federalist)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Note:  I am going into hospital for some minor cancer surgery later today.  I cannot say at this stage when I will be blogging again but soon, I hope -- JR

Forget Castro, Dem Candidates Are the Authoritarians to Worry About

With his latest wave of accolades heaped upon homicidal communist dictator Fidel Castro, Bernie Sanders equivocated his praise for Cuba’s “literacy programs” with the reminder that he "happens to believe in democracy, not authoritarianism."

Does he though? 

For that matter, do any of the final Democrat candidates for the presidential nomination?

“I believe in Democracy, not authoritarianism” is a strange phrase as it presupposes that democracy is an antonym to authoritarianism. It isn’t, really. Tyranny, totalitarianism, dictatorship, monarchy, those are contradictory systems to democracy.

Democracy is a system of choosing representatives or other elected leaders. Authoritarianism is a system of policies and government programs that could very well be instituted by a democratically-elected political body or leader. And when one examines the policies championed by Sanders and his colleagues on the Democratic presidential ballot, it’s hard to escape their authoritarian tendencies.

Authoritarianism is when an entity or government in authority restricts the liberties and freedoms of individuals under their power and control to enforce a policy or rule.

When every Democrat on this week’s debate stage advocated for restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment rights with regard to the types of guns they would allow an individual to keep and bear, they exhibited their authoritarian instinct. “We know better what type of firearm the people can be trusted with so we will prohibit them from owning those guns we determine they should not own.” Authoritarianism.

When most of the Democrats plan to institute government control over the medical profession by forcing every American to comply with their dictates regarding doctors, hospitals and procedures, all the while prohibiting individuals from choosing, keeping and paying for their own personal health care, it’s authoritarianism.

Even former Republican billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who attempts to push back on Sanders’ propensity for Marxist economic solutions, has a disturbing track record of authoritarianism against the formerly freedom-loving people of New York.

You want a 64 oz. Big Gulp? Fuggetaboutit! You can only have the size soda Mayor Mike decides you can have. He knows best. 

You’re 92-years-old and you want treatment for cancer? Fuggetaboutit! It’s a waste of resources to save the life of an old fogie like you. Mayor Mike knows best.

Want to smoke a cigarette? Vape? Add salt to your food? Fuggetaboutit! That’s the new, New York molded in the “Mayor Mike knows best” vision.

Every one of the candidates for the Democrat’s presidential nomination embraces the “Green New Deal” in one form or another. Under the guise of “saving the planet,” the party demands that we reduce greenhouse gases that, we are told, contribute to global warming.

Regardless of your position on the science behind such a policy, make no mistake: the Democrats’ solutions to reducing CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere are wrapped up in one giant, authoritarian package.

Controls and restrictions (if not outright prohibitions) for oil and gas industry, agriculture, transportation, home building, commercial development, mass transit and more. Stop eating so much red meat. Stop driving certain types of vehicles. Stop driving vehicles completely. Stop flying planes. Stop running the air conditioner. Stop turning on lights.

It all adds up to authoritarianism. The government, run by Bloomberg or Sanders or Warren or any of them, knows best and they’ll tell you what you can and can’t do. And if you defy them, you will be punished. And every single one of their major policy ideas has one, common characteristic: they restrict individual choice, freedom, and self-determination of American citizens in deference to the State’s demand for compliance and adherence to its policies.

It’s all for the greater good. After all, like Cuba, they also have a great literacy program for you so what are you complaining about? They’ll have your kids in a government-run school from infancy, according to Sanders’ newest scheme, and they’ll learn exactly what the State decides they should learn.

SOURCE 

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Socialized Medicine Killed Princess Diana, Surgeon Tells CPAC

Sounds like a myth but he makes the case</>

Congressman Steve Scalise introduced a panel discussion called  “Prescription for Failure: The Ills of Socialized Medicine" at CPAC on Thursday. He established what was at stake in 2020: “2020 will be a contrast election,” he said, between Trump’s freedom agenda or socialism.

“You don’t want socialism, you surely don’t want socialized medicine,” he said. “Tens of thousands of Canadians come to America for life-saving treatment. Do you see Americans going to Canada for life-saving treatment?” he asked rhetorically.

“Healthcare is only one example of what’s at stake in this election,” he said, before concluding that individual freedom will win out in 2020 and predicted that Republicans will keep the Senate and win back the House.

Author Dr. David Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon from Colorado, explained how with socialized medicine, wait times for care “are disastrous.” In Canada, the wait time to see a specialist is two years, and then another two years to get the procedure.

“People in this country would go crazy if you were told you had to wait four months,” he said.

Then he explained how Princess Diana would be alive today, if not for socialized medicine. “Princess Diana was in the car accident in France,” he explained. “They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France.”

“For the first hour after that accident, she was still in that tunnel,” he continued. “And after an hour, they took her to a nearby hospital and she was alive for another three hours and they couldn’t control the bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”

Schneider explained that “there were no trauma-trained people there.”

He continued, “I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America.”

Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, moderated the discussion, and explain the ills of the socialized healthcare system that the Democratic Party is advocating for right now. “Price controls equal choice controls,” he said. “Socialized medicine stifles competition, stifles innovations,” he said, noting that there are two vaccines being developed for the coronavirus right here in the United States.

Barbara Kolm of the Austrian Economics Center, spoke about the problems with European socialized medicine so often cited by Democrats in the United States. “Don’t fall into the trap,” she warned. She explained that in Europe, two-thirds of tax dollars are spent on welfare and healthcare, leaving everything else to be divided amongst the remainder. In Europe, you are “forced to take whatever you get, unless you’re able to afford private insurance.”

“There is no free lunch with healthcare,” she added.

Marc Palazzo, of the Coalition Against Socialized Medicine, also spoke and explained how America provides most of the medical research and development for the world. “That will stop with socialized medicine,” he warned.

“All the Democratic candidates want to get to single-payer medicine eventually,” the crowd was warned, but Bernie Sanders just wants it faster than the rest. So, the main takeaway from the event was not to be fooled. The Democrats want to destroy our system of healthcare, which is by no means perfect, in favor of a system that has failed to provide the quality and access to healthcare we enjoy here in America.

SOURCE 

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The Far-Left is working to take over local community organizations
 
Why are wealthy left-wing donors across the country, the abortion industry and national gun-control groups more interested in your local school board and city council races than most of the people who live in your own town?

Because they’re funding efforts to ensure their far-left agenda pervades our entire society — from getting their abortion curricula into our schools to changing our election laws — and they want to make sure that no city, no town is left to stand against them.

National left-wing organizations are collecting and funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to flip local city councils, school boards and county prosecutors’ offices to the left. They are flooding small elections with big money, and it’s giving them unprecedented influence over our local affairs and greater access to our children.

We’re witnessing the election of leftist local prosecutors who are refusing to prosecute whole classes of crimes. Rather than working with their state legislatures or city councils to reform the criminal justice system the right way, they are choosing to ignore the laws they took oaths to uphold and are single-handedly nullifying laws they don’t like.

Prosecutors who promise leniency have won races across the country, including in Philadelphia and Chicago, cities with two of the highest crime rates in the nation. Their campaigns have been supported by wealthy out-of-state billionaires, one of whom spent millions just last November backing candidates in several Virginia counties.

It’s not only prosecutors’ offices, though. In one example, community organizers from national organizations descended on one county in Tennessee to take over the school board and county commission. They ran left-wing candidates for the school board and gained control of the school curriculum. Newsweek reported on one teacher training session that included a talk on “white privilege” that asserted, “Even when minorities express or practice prejudice against whites, they are not racists.”

National abortion groups have donated millions to elect state and local candidates who vow to weaken abortion laws and give the abortion industry access to our schools. Those groups use their influence to get officials to adopt their sex education curriculum in local schools. One group has even created high school “clubs” where it trains students in abortion activism.

Another part of the takeover agenda is gun control. In last fall’s Virginia elections, one anti-Second Amendment group spent $2.5 million to elect gun-control advocates to the Virginia General Assembly. It was the largest out-of-state spender in Virginia’s elections, and its candidates have helped push the unprecedented gun-control legislation we’re now seeing.

These far-left groups aren’t going to stop, and they have the money and the people on the ground to insert themselves in communities across the country. Fighting them is going to require local citizens working together, and national organizations like The Heritage Foundation and others working to expose them.

We’ve all heard the story when, as he was leaving the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked whether America had ended up with a republic or a monarchy. He replied, “A republic — if you can keep it.” The same character and sacrifice that were required to found this republic are now desperately needed to keep her.

Our Founders pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to the cause of a free nation. We must do the same. Fortunately, we don’t have to die for this cause, but we do have to give our lives in the sense that we must dedicate our time and a portion of our treasure to defending this nation — community by community — against those who would destroy it from within.

That means calling and writing your elected officials about proposed legislation, attending city council and school board meetings to prevent them from adopting these agendas, and volunteering for and giving money to candidates who will forward limited government, free market principles and traditional American values. Then we must multiply our voices by getting 10 of our like-minded friends registered to vote and to turn out on Election Day.

Conservatives must do more than complain. We must be willing to stand up and fight. We must engage in the battle, otherwise, we will cede the battlefield and, ultimately, our country.

I don’t want to leave my children and my grandchildren an America that’s less free than the one I inherited. Protecting our hard-fought American way of life is one of the greatest gifts we can pass on to the next generation.

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Death by a Thousand Progressives

Leftists are destroying our great country one attack at a time, and we have to stop them.

Pete Buttigieg is encouraging a nine-year-old boy to “come out the closet” on the stage of a presidential campaign. Hip Hop rapper YG targeted a conservative young man and threw him out of his concert because he would not say, “F— Donald Trump!” Two young Trump supporters were run off the road by a car because of their Trump flags on their bikes. To top it off liberal style, there are rumors that the tarnished Hillary Clinton is being courted as a VP candidate for Bloomberg. Sigh.

If America is to be destroyed it will not explode from outside, but implode from the inside. Hence the phrase “death by a thousand progressives.” America as we know it is being threatened by communism, socialism, and Marxism during this election year. Over a century ago, President Abraham Lincoln had this to say about the potential downfall of America:

At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Death of a free nation by suicide? This indeed holds true over 150 years later. America is the freest nation in the world. This nation began with the Constitution setting it apart from the rest of the world. Our forefathers put a vision to flight that progressives are trying to willfully crash. The tolerant are really intolerant. The gender benders are actually confused with too much time on their hands. The party “for the people” is actually the party that wants to lord over the people.

Where do we go from here? Grab your first time voters in your family and explain to them what is at stake in America 2020. Tell your nieces and nephews how this great nation became great. Start a conversation with the youth who are leaders at your local church and have a dialogue how faith affects politics. The next generation is watching how we respond to these “progressive” suicide attacks on our great nation. Be humble, yet firm. Show courage in the face of fear.

SOURCE 

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Sanders loves dictators
 
This week, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the socialist Democratic presidential front-runner, made waves when he merely reiterated his lifelong warmth toward the viciously evil Cuban communist regime. Brushing off the human rights violations of Fidel Castro — a man whose revolution ended with the murder or imprisonment of tens of thousands of his countrymen, and decades of impoverishment and repression for millions — Sanders explained: “We’re very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know, it’s unfair to simply say everything is bad. … When Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing, even though Fidel Castro did it?”

But, of course, Sanders hasn’t merely praised Castro’s literacy programs (which, by the way, were propagandistic exploits. Cuba had an 80% literacy rate before Castro’s coup). Back in the 1980s, Sanders explained that he was “physically nauseated” by former President John F. Kennedy’s “hatred for the Cuban revolution.” In 1989, Sanders stated after visiting Cuba: “I did not see a hungry child. I did not see any homeless people.” He said that the Cuban people “had an almost religious affection” for Castro.

As it turns out, there is hardly a single communist regime of the past half-century for which Sanders has not expressed some level of moral support. This week, Sanders went out of his way to praise China, explaining: “It’s is an authoritarian country. … But can anyone deny — I mean, the facts are clear — that they have taken more people out of extreme poverty than any country in history?” Naturally, Sanders neglects to mention that China’s embrace of free trade and profit margin in the 1990s was responsible for that rise from poverty. That would cut against his socialist worldview.

Then there’s the Nicaraguan communist regime of Daniel Ortega, which murdered thousands. Sanders celebrated the Sandinista revolution in the 1980s (he attended a rally at which protesters chanted, “the Yankee will die”), visited Nicaragua and returned to tut-tut Ortega’s human rights abuses by citing Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus. It’s no wonder Ortega has endorsed Sanders for the presidency.

Or how about the Venezuelan regime? Sanders refused to call socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro a dictator as late as last year, and refused to call opposition Juan Guaido the legitimate leader of the country. The Sanders Senate website carried an editorial for years that favorably compared the regime of Hugo Chavez with the poverty record of the United States.

And, of course, there’s Sanders’ long record of propagandizing on behalf of the Soviet regime. Not only did Sanders visit the Soviet Union for a honeymoon/business trip with his new wife in 1988; he returned and declared that Moscow had “the most effective mass transit system” he had ever seen. He then celebrated that the Soviets were moving “forward into some of the early visions of their revolution, what their revolution was about in 1917.”

Sanders isn’t a European social democrat, warm toward Denmark and Norway. He’s a lifelong communist — a man who declared himself fully on board with the nationalization of nearly every major American industry in the 1970s — and an advocate for anti-Americanism abroad. The fact that it has taken until the verge of his nomination as the 2020 Democratic presidential nominee for members of the media and fellow Democrats to take note of this rather important truth demonstrates that the left’s gatekeeping function has been irrevocably broken.

SOURCE 

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Paterson, N.J., Gets Muslim Police Chief and Islamic Call to Prayer Over Loudspeakers

The next Democratic debate isn’t in Paterson, New Jersey, but it should be: that unlikely city is blazing new trails in multiculturalism and diversity. On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously (with two members not voting) to grant preliminary approval to the Islamic call to prayer being broadcast over loudspeakers in the city. This followed the swearing-in earlier this month, on the Qur’an, of course, of Paterson’s new police chief, Ibrahim “Mike” Baycora, the first Muslim police chief in an American city.

Celebrate diversity, right? Sure. The problem is that it is by no means certain that this diversity will celebrate us. The Paterson noise ordinance says: “The city shall permit ‘Adhan’, call to prayer’, ‘church bells’ and other reasonable means of announcing religious meetings to be amplified between the hours of 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. for duration not to exceed five minutes.”

So the Islamic call to prayer is just like church bells. Sure, and informed, devout Muslims are just Methodists with hats and beards. Reality, however, is not so rosy. The Islamic call to prayer, now to be sounded three times a day in Paterson, New Jersey (there are five daily prayers, but two of them fall outside the 6AM-10PM parameters of the ordinance), declares:

Allah is greater (Allahu akbar, four times)

I testify that there is no God but Allah (Ashhadu anna la ila ill Allah) (twice)

I testify that Mohammed is Allah’s Prophet (Ashhadu anna Muhammadan rasul Allah) (twice)

Come to prayer (Hayya alas salah, twice)

Come to success (Hayya alal falah, twice)

Allah is greater (Allahu akbar) (twice)

There is no God but Allah (La ilah ill Allah) (once)

Besides being screamed out by Islamic jihad terrorists all over the world (9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta said it “strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers"), “Allahu akbar” is a clear demonstration of supremacism. It is often mistranslated in the Western media as “God is great,” but its actual meaning is “Allah is greater,” meaning Allah Is Greater Than Your God or Government. It is an aggressive declaration that Allah and Islam are dominant over every other form of government, religion, law, or ethic, which is why Islamic jihadists in the midst of killing infidels so often shout it.

Georgetown Hosts Prof Who Says War on Terror Is 'Manifestation of Islamophobia'
That ain’t exactly an exact analogy to church bells.

Baycora’s swearing-in on the Qur’an presents a similar problem. Whenever this kind of thing comes up, there is no discussion of what the Qur’an actually says. It calls for warfare against (2:191, 4:89, 8:39, 9:5, 9:73, 47:4, etc.) and subjugation of unbelievers (9:29), second-class status for women (4:3, 4:34), hatred of Jews (5:59-60, 5:82, etc.), and more. Americans generally assume that every book that some group of people somewhere in the world thinks of as a holy book teaches love and magnanimity, generosity, tolerance, and peace.

Anyone who has read the Qur’an carefully knows that it doesn’t. So a case can be made that this was not the best course of action for Paterson officials to take. At the very least, a public discussion should take place.

That such a public discussion will take place, however, is about as likely as Bernie apologizing for his entire political career and endorsing Trump. Anyone who raises any question about the wisdom of any of this is immediately denounced as a racist, bigoted “Islamophobe.” In that vein, after the broadcasting of the call to prayer was approved, Paterson Council President Maritza Davila lamented: “The amount of things I saw on social media was so sad. It truly was disheartening.”

Something is indeed disheartening here, but that isn’t necessarily it. The idea that one cannot even raise questions about the wisdom of oath-taking on the Qur’an or the broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer over loudspeakers, and that anyone who does so has thereby incriminated himself as a “hatemonger,” is in line with the left’s sinister and increasingly open authoritarianism. It is not, however, remotely in line with the American principle of free inquiry. If it’s so fond of messages amplified over loudspeakers, Paterson would have been better advised to start broadcasting the text of the First Amendment in the long run.

Of course, many would say that to oppose the amending of the Paterson noise ordinance and the swearing-in of public officials on the Qur’an is itself an infringement of the freedom of religion. It isn’t in either case. There is no Islamic command that the call to prayer be sounded over loudspeakers, which didn’t exist in Muhammad’s day, and the idea that any book would do for a swearing-in has already been made a mockery when St. Louis County Councilwoman Kelli Dunaway was sworn in on a Dr. Seuss book.

Ultimately, free and open discussion of the questions raised by the recent developments in Paterson won’t happen now, but it will not and cannot be foreclosed forever. Eventually, these questions will become absolutely unavoidable.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

CLOSING IN: Bernie Sanders the favorite to win all Super Tuesday states except Alabama (Bongino.com)

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Cuba's Communist Party newspaper gives Sanders a glowing review (MRCTV)

SCOTUS REVIEW LIKELY: Court hands Trump win in sanctuary-city fight, says administration can deny grant money (Fox News)

FRANKLY, RULE OF LAW — NOT REFORMS — IS THE ISSUE: Republicans break with Attorney General William Barr on FISA renewal, urge reforms before reauthorization (National Review)

SUSPICIOUS BACK-TO-BACK REFINERY FIRES: Cause of Los Angeles-area refinery fire under investigation (AP) | Fire erupts at ExxonMobil refinery in Louisiana (USA Today)

SYMBOLISM: House passes anti-lynching bill after 120 years of failure (The New York Times)

POLICY: Trump's India statecraft is forward-thinking and necessary (Washington Examiner)

MARKET TURBULENCE PERSISTS: After plummeting 1,200 points Thursday, Dow tumbles 900 points early Friday as worst week since the financial crisis continues (CNBC)

TASK-FORCE RECRUIT: White House names AIDS expert Debbie Birx to help lead coronavirus response (NPR)

GOOD NEWS: Israel makes "exciting breakthrough" in race for coronavirus vaccine (The Daily Wire)

INTRAPARTY TURMOIL: Democrat superdelegates say they're willing to prevent Bernie Sanders from becoming the nominee (The Daily Caller)

"THEY NEED TO INVESTIGATE THIS": Joe Biden under probe in Ukraine for alleged link to top prosecutor's 2016 ouster (Fox News)

TRYING TO THREAD A NEEDLE: Venezuelans seeking asylum present unique challenge to Trump administration (The Washington Post)

FOR THE RECORD: Hillary Clinton took more cash from Harvey Weinstein than any other Democrat (New York Post)

HEADS TO INFANTICIDE-SUPPORTING GOVERNOR: Virginia legislature passes bill rolling back abortion restrictions (National Review)

DEPRAVITY: Viral TikTok shows teenage girls giggling while one gets an abortion (The Federalist)

POLICY: The direct-primary-care solution for America's healthcare woes (National Review)

POLICY: The Great Recession recovery wasn't powered by Obama; it was oil and gas (Washington Examiner)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Quality of medical care

A message from a reader who is a retired  anesthesiologist:

Recently, Dems (especially mini-Bernie) have emphasized the NEED for “better healthcare”.

In my not so humble opinion, as an expert in medical care (largely based on my own experience), is that it can’t get much “better”.

Retired, with Medicare and United Advantage from my former employer, I have had GREAT CARE. In fact, the “county hospitals” (mostly teaching hospitals) have provided better care than any private hospitals I have been in.

In truth, “the poor” get better hospital care than “the rich”.

The argument that “minority women” don’t have good pregnancy outcomes is because of “lack of access to care”. Nonsense; most cities have multiple satellite clinics in “poor neighborhoods).

Much illness is no doubt preventable. For example, untreated high blood pressure can be damaging or fatal; yet this cannot be the fault of doctors. Blood pressure can be measured FOR FREE at many stores. Treatment is cheap ($4/month for most common medications), much less than the price of cigarettes.

And not smoking is not under the control of doctors.

In summary, the “need for better care” is a fantasy for mini-Bernie and his kind.

Via email

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LIBEL: Trump Campaign Sues New York Times Over Article Claiming an 'Overarching Deal' With Russia

President Donald Trump's re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The New York Times on Wednesday, accusing America's newspaper of record of defamation in an article claiming that Trump's 2016 campaign had an "overarching deal" with Russia regardless of the fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion.

"Today the President’s re-election campaign filed suit against the New York Times for falsely stating the Campaign had an 'overarching deal' with 'Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy' to 'help the campaign against Hillary Clinton' in exchange for 'a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from ... economic sanctions,'" Jenna Ellis, senior legal aid to the Trump campaign, said in a statement.

"The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process," she insisted.

The article in question, "The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo," an op-ed by Max Frankel (executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994), claimed that there was a clear deal between Trump and Russia.

"There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions," Frankel wrote. "The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo."

The lawsuit explains that this article is entirely false.

"The Defamatory Article does not allege or refer to any proof of its claims of a 'quid pro quo' or 'deal' between the Campaign and Russia. Rather, the Defamatory Article selectively refers to previously-reported contacts between a Russian lawyer and persons connected with the Campaign. The Defamatory Article, however, insinuates that these contacts must have resulted in a quid pro quo or a deal, and the Defamatory Article does not acknowledge that, in fact, there had been extensive reporting, including in The Times, that the meetings and contacts that the Defamatory Article refers to did not result in any quid pro quo or deal between the Campaign and Russia, or anyone connected with either of them," the lawsuit explains.

NYT Columnist Condemns Facebook for ... Adopting NYT's Ad Policy
"The Times’ story is false. The falsity of the story has been confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election released on or about April 18, 2019 (the “Mueller Report”), and many other published sources, that there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and Russia in connection with the 2016 United States Presidential Election, or otherwise," the campaign's lawsuit argues.

The First Amendment defends freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but there are limits to both. Defamation of character is one such exception, although it has been highly limited by the Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan (1964). In the case of alleged defamation against a public figure like the Trump campaign, the campaign would have to prove malicious intent and a reckless disregard for the truth.

The lawsuit cites evidence of bias against the Trump campaign and claims both maliciousness and that reckless disregard.

"There is extensive evidence that The Times is extremely biased against the Campaign, and against Republicans in general. This evidence includes, among other things, the fact that The Times has endorsed the Democrat in every United States presidential election of the past sixty (60) years. Also, Max Frankel, the author of the Defamatory Article, described himself in an interview as 'a Democrat with a vengeance,'" the filing states.

"The Times obviously had a malicious motive, and also acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Extensive information, including stories in The Times published before the Defamatory Article, had put The Times and the world on notice that there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and the Russian government, and there was no 'quid pro quo' or 'deal' between them," the lawsuit argues. "Moreover, extensive information, including stories in The Times published before the Defamatory Article, established that, at most, there had been isolated contacts between individual Russians and some persons associated with the Campaign, which did not result in any 'deal' or 'quid pro quo.'"

It is important to note that the Trump campaign, not President Donald Trump himself, filed this lawsuit. The organization, not the president himself — in neither his personal nor his official capacity — is bringing this legal action against The Times.

The New York Times is currently facing another defamation lawsuit, albeit a far less high profile one. Immigration hawk and VDARE founder Peter Brimelow sued The Times for defamation after it echoed the Southern Poverty Law Center's claim that he is an "open white nationalist," in contrast to its own journalistic ethics.

SOURCE 

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Claims of Russian Election Meddling Are Still a Scam

If you can’t handle some memes or misleading ads, you probably shouldn’t be voting.

The fearmongering over Russian election “interference” might be the most destructive moral panic in American political life since the Red Scare. Then again, to be fair, those who prosecuted the post-war hunt for Communists had the decency to uncover a handful of infiltrators. We’ve yet to meet a single American who’s been brainwashed or had their vote snatched away by an SVR Twitterbot. Probably because no such person exists.

Nevertheless, millions of Americans believe that a handful of terrible memes — and I mean the most amateurish and puerile efforts imaginable — on social media were enough to overturn a presidential election in the most powerful nation on earth. Or, more likely, most pretend to believe it. As Donald Trump’s fortunes have turned somewhat in recent weeks, and socialist Bernie Sanders looks poised to take the Democratic Party nomination, the Russians are once again coming to snatch your vote.

There were lots of “wows” from journalists on Twitter last week when the New York Times reported that members of the House Intelligence Committee were warned by an aide to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that Russia would be meddling in the 2020 campaign in order to get President Trump reelected. When Trump found out, the Times reported, he was furious that briefers had given Adam Schiff ammunition for political attacks.

First off, this isn’t an absurd concern. In his effort to undermine the public’s confidence in the elections for partisan purposes, Schiff has shown an ugly and cynical propensity to exaggerate and lie about Russian attempted meddling. He’s done more harm in undercutting American trust in “democracy” than Putin.

He’s not the only one.

“Putin’s Puppet is at it again, taking Russian help for himself,” Hillary Clinton, still struggling to come to terms with her devastating loss, said Friday. “He knows he can’t win without it. And we can’t let it happen.”

“We are now in a full-blown national security crisis,” tweeted former CIA Director John Brennan, one of the leading culprits perpetrating the Russia fraud. “By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.”

As if often the case in Trump era, the initial thinly sourced story and subsequent freakout was quickly tempered by additional reporting. CNN’s Jake Tapper, for instance, reported that there was no intelligence showing that Russians would interfere for Trump, only that they likely had a “preference” for Trump because he was “a dealmaker.”

Here is Bloomberg’s Eli Lake:

In fact, Schiff — who was present at the briefing in question — knows that there is no formal intelligence finding that Russia is meddling on behalf of Trump. Administration and House Republican sources tell me that the intelligence official who was briefing the committee went “off script” when asked about Russia’s preference for Trump in the presidential election. No other representatives from the intelligence community at the briefing backed up her assertion, these sources say, nor did the briefers provide specific intelligence, such as intercepted emails or conversations, to support the claim.

The Washington Post also reported on Friday that Sanders had been briefed by U.S. officials warning that Russia was trying to help his presidential campaign. Democratic Party operatives took to the Sunday shows to blame Russia for supporting Sanders — all in an effort to get Trump reelected. Never mind that Bernie could easily have won the nomination in 2016. Never mind that Sanders has built an impressive national movement over the years. Never mind that the champions of the Democratic Party establishment are astonishingly weak. Never mind the party’s base has been dramatically moving Left for years. It’s gotta be Putin!

The Washington Post piece is thin on specifics, which should lead us to believe the story is a politically motivated leak meant to slow Sanders’s momentum. (Then again, Bernie was implying that the Russians were responsible for the toxic campaign behavior of his Bro-sheviks, so maybe he deserves it.)

There are few people who detest the candidacy and philosophy of Sanders more than I, yet I’m positive that the KGB can’t give him the Democratic Party nomination any more than they can install Donald Trump in the White House. Only voters can.

It’s likely that Russia, as it did in 2016, will engage in amateurish efforts to foment divisions among some American — as if we needed any help. If they actually “hack” an election — a word incessantly, and erroneously, used by journalists at the height of the Russia scare in 2017 — we’ll know.

But the Russian hysteria plays into a long-standing liberal conviction that feeble-minded conservatives vote against their own interests only because they’ve been hoodwinked. It might be the doing of a foreign power. It might be the plutocrats. It might be “special interests.” It might even be domestic tricksters, like the ones in the much-discussed recent McKay Coppins piece in The Atlantic, “The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President” — a piece that offers over 8,000 chilling words describing traditional political operations as something dark, undemocratic, and new. Be prepared for a flood of similar pieces. Democrats never lose elections. Elections are only stolen from them. Nothing but Trump stepping down and admitting he’s a Putin asset will stop Democrats from questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Of course, if you can’t handle some memes or misleading ads, you probably shouldn’t be voting, anyway. You’re clearly not prepared for the civic responsibilities that come with an open debate, which is often messy and ugly, rather than hermetically sealed in a media-approved bubble.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

MARKET STATE OF HEALTH: Coronavirus fears continue to spook markets; CDC warns of "inevitable" spread in the U.S. (The Washington Post)

"TAKING THE NECESSARY STEPS": San Francisco declares state of emergency over coronavirus (Fox News)

ABANDONING THE PARTY OF SOCIALISM: Eight Mississippi elected officials leave Democrats and independents, join GOP (The Daily Wire)

A WHOLE NEW WORLD: Disney's Bob Iger steps down as CEO, will remain executive chairman through 2021 (Fox News)

CULTURE OF DEATH: The Senate on Tuesday rejected two Republican abortion bills, one that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks and another that would attempt to raise the standard of care for newborns born alive after botched abortions (National Review)

BLEXIT: Poll from black-led PAC: Blacks getting fed up with Democrat Party (The Daily Wire)

DAMAGE CONTROL: ABC News suspends reporter on eve of Project Veritas exposure (The Daily Caller)

POLICY: When it comes to raw power, few have more of it than central bankers (Mises Institute)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Canada: A Dead Country Walking

Canada is presently in the throes of social and political disintegration. A left-leaning electorate has once again empowered a socialist government promoting all the lunatic ideological shibboleths of the day: global warming or “climate change,” radical feminism, indigenous sovereignty, expansionary government, environmental strangulation of energy production, and the presumed efficiency of totalitarian legislation. Industry and manufacturing are abandoning the country in droves and heading south.

Canada is now reaping the whirlwind. The Red-Green Axis consisting of social justice warriors, hereditary band chiefs, renewable energy cronies, cultural Marxists, and their political and media enablers have effectively shut down the country. The economy is at a standstill, legislatures and City Halls have been barricaded, blockades dot the landscape, roads and bridges have been sabotaged, trains have been derailed (three crude-by-rail spillages in the last two months), goods are rotting in warehouses, heating supplies remain undelivered, violent protests and demonstrations continue to wreak havoc—and the hapless Prime Minister, who spent a week swanning around Africa as the crisis unfolded, is clearly out of his depth and has no idea how to control the mayhem.

No surprise here. A wock pupper politico in thrall to the Marxist project and corporate financial interests, Justin Trudeau is generally baffed out when it comes to any serious or demanding concerns involving the welfare of the people and the economic vitality of the nation. Little is to be expected of him in the current emergency apart from boilerplate clichés and vague exhalations of roseate sentiment.

Still, Trudeau may have been right about one thing when he told The New York Times that Canada had no core identity—although this is not what a Prime Minister should say in public. Canada was always two “nations,” based on two founding peoples, the French and the English, which novelist Hugh MacLennan famously described as “two solitudes” in his book of that title. But it may be closer to the truth to portray Canada as an imaginary nation which comprises three territories and ten provinces, two of which, Quebec and Newfoundland, cherish a near-majoritarian conception of themselves as independent countries in their own right. Newfoundland narrowly joined Confederation only in 1949 and Quebec held two successive sovereignty referenda that came a hair’s breadth from breaking up the country.

The latest entry in the exit sweepstakes is oil-rich but hard-done-by Alberta, a province which suffered under the National Energy Program introduced in 1980 by the current PM’s father Pierre Trudeau, and is currently struggling under a concerted left-wing campaign, sponsored by Green-progressivist foundations (American consortiums masking via proxies as Canadian coalitions), clueless Nobel laureates at their virtue-signaling best, and a Liberal government ideologically aligned with the NDP (New Democratic Party) and the Greens, to prevent the development of its vast oil reserves. Alberta has always resented the indifference to and domination of the Canadian West by the so-called Laurentian Elite comprising “the political, academic, cultural, media and business elites” of central Canada. There is now a Wexit movement gathering momentum.

It might just as plausibly be argued that Canada is composed of a veritable congeries of competing, self-identified mini-nations—English, French, Islamic, Chinese, Sikh, native tribes with multiple patrimonies and unpronounceable names, and sundry political constituencies affiliated with the global left. Contributing factors like indiscriminate immigration from dysfunctional countries, metastasizing socialist doctrine verging on nascent totalitarianism, a state-funded national broadcaster and a deeply compromised print media subsidized by the Liberal government added to the destabilizing brew. Meanwhile, to quote lawyer and former philosophy professor Grant Brown, “the education system invites Extinction Rebellion kooks into the classroom to terrify the children” (personal communication). An army of little Gretas will carry the country-killing revolution even further.

George Grant’s 1965 Lament for a Nation argued that Canada had ceased to be a nation, having surrendered its identity to the continental thrust of American dynamism and to the historical progress of the “universalist and homogeneous state [as] the pinnacle of political striving.” He goes on to argue that the “impossibility of conservatism in our era is the impossibility of Canada,” especially as the country falls ever more under the sway of “the Canadian establishment and its political instrument, the Liberals.” The book has been extremely controversial and may appear a little dated, shrouded in the mists of nostalgia for “the narrow provincialism and our backwoods culture”—although, no doubt tongue in cheek, suggesting that “Perhaps we should rejoice in the disappearance of Canada.” Lamenting or rejoicing, we are looking at a fait accompli.

It is often noted that America is a nation evenly divided between progressivist and conservative populations, a civil dilemma not easily resolved. But Canada is divided approximately 65-35 by these constituencies, and if one considers that the federal Conservative Party in its present manifestation can fairly be described as Liberal Lite, the breakdown is more like 95-5. This means there is no chance of reconciliation between our political disparities, such as they are, and Canada is doomed to plummet down the esker of every failed socialist experiment that preceded it and, indeed, that is presently on display in various foundering nations around the globe—North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and counting.

Trudeau père invoked the War Measures Act in 1970 to quell the Quebec separatist movement, the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), after a series of bombings and murders. It is obvious that the son has neither the political smarts nor the strength of character to act decisively against those who are busy reducing an already patchwork country into a heap of shards and rubble.

And there we find the proof that, whatever Canada may once have been and whatever the talking heads may incessantly proclaim, Canada is no longer a viable political construct. It is a dead country walking.

SOURCE 

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Britain's NHS Tribalizes Healthcare

A warning: It's adding protections to make sure the "wrong" ideas aren't communicated by patients

The leading presidential contenders in the Democrat Party all favor eliminating private healthcare insurance by different means, and the machinations they use to get there are about what Democrats are always about: The acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary. Equally contemptible? Democrats have long made it clear that anyone who disagrees with any part of their agenda is unworthy of consideration. Those wondering what such a combination would yield in terms of healthcare need wonder no more: Beginning in April, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) will be able to refuse nonemergency care for “sexist” and “racist” patients.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who believes “no act of violence or abuse is minor,” wrote to all NHS staffers, “Being assaulted or abused is not part of the job. Far too often I hear stories that the people you are trying to help lash out. I’ve seen it for myself in A&Es, on night shifts, and on ambulances.”

To implement his new program, Hancock has reached a joint agreement with police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It will grant the police greater powers to investigate and prosecute cases where NHS staffers are presumably victims of a crime. “All assault and hate crimes against NHS staff must be investigated with care, compassion, diligence and commitment,” he declared.

No sane person would argue that healthcare providers must endure people who threaten them with violence or are actually physically abusive. In fact, staff can currently refuse to treat such people. Yet the additional measures are pure pablum aimed at assuaging progressive sensibilities. As Sky News puts it, the new protections will “extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.”

Defined by whom? Some hypersensitive snowflake indoctrinated to believe “white privilege,” gender “fluidity,” “social justice,” or any other manifestation of the “woke agenda” should be part of the criteria for determining who gets treated and who doesn’t?

Apparently so. While a 2019 survey of 569,000 NHS employees revealed that 15% have experienced physical assault, rising to 34% among ambulance staffers, more than one in four stated they had experienced harassment, bullying, or abuse over the past year. “Racism was the most common form of discrimination, but 2019 also saw the highest levels of reported sexism and intolerance of religion and sexuality,” the Daily Mail reports.

“All colleagues in the NHS deserve to work in a safe, caring and compassionate environment,” Hancock insists. “You deserve a working environment that supports your physical and mental health, and helps you be the very best you can be.”

Again, with a large exception for safety, this is utter nonsense. There is no perfect world where patients, already injured, impaired, and/or stressed enough to seek care, will comport themselves solely in a manner that uplifts the entire consumer-provider relationship and helps the provider to be “the very best you can be.”

As for a compassionate and caring environment, who’s kidding whom? In 2008, British medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock asserted that people suffering from dementia are a burden on the NHS and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia, even if they are not in pain.

Four years later, Professor Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Kent, asserted that the “Liverpool Care Pathway,” which provided palliative care for terminally ill patients, was killing off 130,00 people per year, because they were difficult to manage — or to free up beds for other patients.

In 2017, the NHS decided to single out obese people and smokers. Those with a body mass index over 40 were denied nonemergency surgery unless they lost weight. Smokers had to quit for at least eight weeks and then had to be tested to detect the levels of carbon monoxide in their blood to make sure. Also in 2017, the NHS took away the parental rights of Chris Gard and Connie Yates so their gravely ill son, Charlie, could “die with dignity” rather than receive experimental treatment in America.

Thus, while the latest agreement precipitated by Hancock refers to the possibility that NHS staffers may be abused by people in crisis or with neurological conditions who will ostensibly be handled appropriately, the track record of antipathy toward “certain” types of patients — as in those insufficiently attuned to progressive sensibilities — is impossible to ignore.

The group most likely to offend? “Elderly people make up most of the patients in any health care system,” explains columnist Andrea Widburg. “They are also the people least likely to be ‘woke.’ Without malice, they may use old-fashioned phrases that are now considered offensive when referring to women, homosexuality, or race. They probably don’t even have a vocabulary for ‘non-binary’ people.”

Even more to the point, conditions like early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s engender serious changes in behavior, often manifested as hostility. How will those patients be “appropriately handled”? Columnist Paul Joseph Watson illuminates the arc from the present to a highly dystopian future — one that isn’t solely about lack of treatment for the elderly. “First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages.” he writes. “Now it’s deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people’s right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.”

Right now, when Americans go to a hospital for nonemergency care, they are usually asked to present proof of insurance and/or another from of identification, such as a driver’s license. Will those politicians who champion a system similar or identical to the NHS ultimately require patients to submit access to their social-media accounts as well?

As columnist Laura Hollis explains, “The new NHS rule is intended to protect health care workers from insults and slurs. But it is easy to see how something similar in the United States could be twisted for political advantage, particularly given the widespread tendency in some quarters to treat every political, policy or cultural disagreement as an expression of hate: racism, sexism, homophobia or other bigotry.”

That would be progressive quarters where “microaggressions,” “triggering,” and “implicit bias” are seen as reasonable ways to determine “improper” behavior.

Yet even Hollis somewhat misses the point. In certain professions, putting up with annoying or tough customers is part of the job, and the notion that anyone could err to the side of hypersensitivity with regard to refusing someone healthcare is absurd. Moreover, unlike Britain, we have a First Amendment that allows for free speech, even if — or especially if — it is offensive.

In reality, the NHS is embracing an exclusionary political agenda sold as compassion. That’s not healthcare. It’s tribalism.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

GLOBAL RESPECT: President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a raucous welcome when they held a rally at the world's largest cricket stadium (Daily Mail)

PRO-LIFE WIN: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules Trump admin stripping funding from abortion clinics is constitutional (The Daily Caller)

PIVOTAL DECISION: Supreme Court to hear case on gay "rights" and foster care (The New York Times)

DOUBLING DOWN: Sanders garrisons Castro comments by defending communist China (The Daily Caller)

JEWISH IN NAME ONLY: AIPAC blasts Sanders after 2020 frontrunner says he'll skip conference (Fox News)

HERE WE GO AGAIN: U.S. Women's National Soccer Team files $66 million "gender discrimination" lawsuit against U.S. Soccer Federation (MRCTV)

POLICY: Will the U.S. and India play the long game on trade? (Hudson Institute)

POLICY: Weinstein and the complicated legacy of #MeToo (The Federalist)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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Study Insists Journalists Aren't Swayed by Leftist Bias

A recent research paper published by the University of Virginia dubiously concludes, “There is No Liberal Media Bias in the News Political Journalists Choose to Cover.” While the researchers did find that the vast majority of mainstream journalists lean hard to the left — to the left of even socialist Bernie Sanders — they still maintained that this reality doesn’t skew their reporting.

Of course, if this were genuinely the case, the political leanings of mainstream-media journalists would be a mystery to us — at least insofar as their reporting is concerned.

“The funny thing about this study is that it purports to show that even though journalists are overwhelmingly liberal, their political bias doesn’t affect the stories they choose to cover or not cover,” observes Power Line’s John Hinderaker. “Which is why the press paid a hundred times as much attention to the biggest political scandal in US history, the coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Justice to swing the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton, or, failing that, to disable the Trump presidency, as to the entirely fabricated, implausible and politically paid-for fantasy that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Right?”

The fact of the matter is, an individual’s political bias is both inescapable and influential — and journalists aren’t somehow magically exempt from human nature. This bias can only be mitigated if it is recognized, acknowledged, and balanced with competing ideological perspectives. If mainstream-media journalists continue to maintain the fiction that their reporting is impervious to their personal bias, they’ll continue to earn the enmity and deep distrust of the American people. And rightly so.

SOURCE 

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Time to End the Tyranny of District Court Judges’ Nationwide Injunctions

"The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the concurring cases before them," wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch, pictured in 2017, recently. "Whether framed as injunctions of 'nationwide,' 'universal,' or 'cosmic' scope, these orders share the same basic flaw—they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case."

Question: What is the difference between God and a federal judge?

Answer: God knows that He isn’t a federal judge.

On Feb. 6, U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs of North Carolina issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from implementing a new policy that changes how the government calculates the duration of an illegal immigrant’s unlawful presence in the country.

Although an injunction is the correct legal tool to stop someone from doing something, Biggs had a choice in how broad that injunction should be.

She could use an injunction that prevented the government from using the new calculation on the plaintiffs who sued, or she could use a so-called nationwide injunction that barred the government from using the new calculation against anyone, anywhere.

Biggs chose to issue a nationwide injunction. Actually, that’s a misnomer. These are better called “universal” or even “absent-party” injunctions, because they aren’t limited either by their geographic scope or the parties they cover.

Instead, they stop the government from enforcing a law or policy against anyone, anywhere.

These universal injunctions are controversial. U.S. Attorney General William Barr denounced them in a speech last May. Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen did so in a speech on Feb. 12, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have criticized them as well.

So, what exactly are these strange things, and are they legal?

As always, it’s wise to start our analysis with the Constitution. The Constitution defines the judicial branch’s role in our system of government. Judges don’t pass laws or set broad policies, because that’s the job of the other branches.

Instead, according to Article III, judges decide “Cases” and “Controversies,” which are actual legal disputes between specific parties. Whether civil suits between private parties or criminal cases involving the government, these disputes are brought by the parties, and judges settle them for the parties.

It makes sense, therefore, that when a judge issues an injunction in the process of deciding a particular case, that injunction will not cover more than is necessary.

Historically, when a plaintiff successfully challenged a law as unconstitutional, for example, the judge would most often block the government from enforcing the law against the plaintiff, rather than completely wipe that law from the books.

But the judiciary has grown more powerful than America’s Founders intended and, since the 1960s, this has included issuing universal injunctions.

This type of injunction has become increasingly common over the past few decades as political activists try to enlist judges to make the kind of widespread policy changes that the legislative or executive branches are designed to handle.

Like a gavel thrown into a well-oiled machine, these universal injunctions cause a host of problems for our constitutional government—and for the judiciary itself.

First, they empower judges to exercise power over the entire government, rather than just the parties who brought a case before them.

Second, universal injunctions give individual district judges far more power than they ought to have. Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law, or limited their injunctions only to the parties in specific cases, one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere.

Third, they undermine public confidence in the judiciary by giving activists judges near limitless power to undo the laws and policies of the democratically accountable branches of government.

One infamous activist judge, the now-deceased Stephen Reinhardt, once joked of his lawless decisions that “they [the Supreme Court] can’t catch them all.”

Finally, universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues.

When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right. 

The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.

The criticism of universal injunctions has reached a boiling point, and now it’s likely that the Supreme Court will step in. On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court accepted the case of Trump v. Pennsylvania.

One of the questions presented there is whether the court of appeals erred when it affirmed a universal injunction striking down regulations that would have allowed employers with sincere religious or moral objections to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage in employers’ insurance plans.

The high court should take this opportunity to end the practice of issuing universal injunctions. It should remind the lower courts that their power is limited to resolving cases and controversies, and that they are not gods sitting in judgment over the rest of the government

SOURCE 

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Bernie's Wrong: We Are Better Off Today Than We Were 45 Years Ago
 
A record-high number of Americans — 90% — say they are satisfied with their personal lives, according to Gallup. And 74% are optimistic that they will continue being financially satisfied moving forward. Needless to say, the United States will never be a utopia, but for the vast majority of its citizens, most things are going in the right direction.

During the Democratic presidential debate last night, Bernie Sanders, lamenting how a once-prosperous society had been hollowed out by capitalism, claimed that we are no better off today than we were many years ago. It’s a shame that not a single debate moderator ever challenges this farcical assertion. In Sanders’ telling, “people … after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago.”

For those who weren’t alive then, the 1970s were largely a crime-ridden decade of stagnant economics, city bankruptcies, crushing energy prices, sky-high interest rates, institutional rot, garbage and retirement-destroying inflation. Though it was a far better place than the Communist hot spots Sanders praised during those years, it certainly was not ideal.

And a big part of the post-‘70s economic boom we’re still experiencing today — the one that certain progressive and some statist right-wingers like to disparage — was propelled by policies that freed Americans from overbearing technocratic oversight, intrusive regulations and stifling taxes that undermined growth.

The alleged “wage stagnation” to which Sanders and others are constantly referring is a myth. For one thing, “wage stagnation” fails to take into account the health care benefits, pensions, vacations, family leave and other perks now embedded in job packages — somewhere around 30% of an employee’s overall benefits. Once those benefits are added, Americans probably have seen about a 45% wage increase since 1964. More important, the amount of time we work to buy things we need is less. What we buy does more, and it’s of higher quality. Does anyone believe that a dollar spent on medical care in 1975 equals a dollar spent today?

Partly because of a worldwide retreat from collectivism, extreme poverty has dramatically decreased. Massive new markets have opened to us. Despite the perception of many, medium household incomes are at an all-time high. The middle class is growing — especially the upper-middle class. In the past 50 years, spending on food and clothing as a share of family income has fallen from 42% to 17%. Your house is probably more expensive than the average house was in 1975, but it’s also more comfortable and safer.

The year Sanders graduated from college, less than 6% of his fellow Americans — the majority of them wealthy, very few of them minorities or women — were enrolled in higher education. In 1975, only around 11% were enrolled in college. According to the Federal Reserve study, millennials are the most educated generation, with 65% of them possessing at least an associate’s degree.

Better education, soaring productivity and technological advances allow an increasing number of Americans to pick vocations that are safer, less monotonous and more rewarding.

In 1970, around 14,000 workers were killed on the job in the United States. That’s somewhere around 10,000 more deaths yearly than the number of those who perished in the entire Iraq War. Although the workforce had more than doubled since then, the number of occupational deaths in the United States has dropped to around 5,100.

There’s a decent chance that Sanders’ heart attack would have killed a 78-year-old man in 1975. If not, it would have required dangerous surgery. Despite a small dip recently, life expectancy has skyrocketed in the United States over the past 45 years — adding more than six years since 1975. The cancer casualty rate has fallen more than 27% in the past 25 years — which adds up to more than 2 million deaths averted during that time. We’ve been able to mitigate the damage of so many diseases and ailments over the past 45 years — allowing millions to lead longer, more active and less painful lives — that it would take a book to lay out the miraculous number of advances properly.

Most of these developments, not incidentally, were brought to us by profit-driven companies.

In 1975, the child mortality rate was 18.8 per 1,000. In 2019, it was 5.7. Fatalities due to weather events have plunged. Deaths due to air pollution — surely near its smoggy height in 1975 — have fallen, as well. We have cleaner water and cleaner streets.

In 1975, Sanders’ hometown of New York City saw 1,645 murders and rampant criminality. In 2017, there were 286 homicides in NYC. Vehicular fatalities per 100 million in 1975 were at 3.35; now they’re near a historic low of 1.13.

Also, you have a supercomputer in your pocket that offers you instant access to all of human knowledge.

Yes, some Americans still suffer, and some of our goods and services are more expensive than they once were (usually due to market intervention). But we are, by nearly every quantifiable measure, collectively better off today than ever before. And what sufferings millennials do experience today often are a result of their making different choices than their parents did. Bernie should understand this better than most. It’s not in every country that a professional revolutionary can afford to buy a dacha on Lake Champlain.

SOURCE 

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IN BRIEF

MEANWHILE... Shelby Pierson "misled" lawmakers about Russia helping Trump win reelection (Townhall)

STATE VISIT: President Donald Trump tours Taj Mahal, draws large crowds in India (CNN)

DAMAGE CONTROL: Michael Bloomberg agrees to release three women from nondisclosure agreements his firm signed over comments he made (The Hill)

MORE FAUXCAHONTAS DOUBLE STANDARDS: In about-face, Elizabeth Warren welcomes super PAC help she once shunned (The Washington Free Beacon)

SNUBBING THE RULE OF LAW: Greyhound bans immigration checks on buses (Hot Air)

POLICY: Why Chinese communism could be the final casualty of the coronavirus (Foundation for Economic Education)

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here  (Personal).  My annual picture page is here.  Home page supplement

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