Politics And The Markets 08/28/23

""Bun/Crt Ratio 21.98 RATIO ""

Say, uhh, what?

That's my ratio. How nice. I want to have a pet ratio, that I can, you know, get up and walk it outside three times per day. Or maybe call the cops: "Hey, I've got a Bun/Crt ratio of 21.98 right here!"

Turns out that for all of my work get "all healthy and such", my kidneys aren't working so hot. Supposed to be 10-20.

Why bring that up here? Good question, but like blood pressure and your cholesterol numbers, I bet you don't know yours. Maybe you would rather NOT know (I kinda agree, frankly). I didn't know mine, but teased it all apart today from the lab, and, through the magic of Google, was able to read about it.

If you had a spark plug misfiring in your car, you would undoubtedly notice (unless you're @techy46 with that big ol' Mustang!). I have a spark plug misfiring.

Since I think the world of all of you guys/gals, I would like to send a note to implore you to get your annual check (I STILL hate needles! - ouch!) and make sure you're doing a good job of keeping the ol' bod ticking along ... (yes, Rom, even you, wherever you are, - when's the "reinstatement"?). You need to be here, healthy, to keep fighting the good fight. I don't know what happened to Blue. He vanished, real estate can't be all that hot in Florida right now with rates so messed up.

For years, American leftists have yearned for the day they'd see a police mug shot of former President Donald Trump, confident it would decisively terminate his political career.

Thanks to an indictment in Georgia that was clearly conceived and timed for maximum political damage, their wish was granted last week.

However, the spectacle has unfolded in a way that's surely causing a growing sense of horror among Trump's foes: Not only has his booking at one of Atlanta's nastiest jails galvanized typical Trump supporters, it's triggered a surge in support from inside an essential Democratic constituency -- black people.

Considering how Democrats take black support for granted and routinely label Trump a racist and white supremacist, imagine the utter consternation they're feeling as they witness a social media eruption of black sympathy for Trump over an arrest that, for many blacks, parallels the mistreatment they perceive blacks have received in the American criminal justice system.

None of this is to say Trump will win the votes of a majority of blacks...but all it takes is a dent for the unintended consequences of Democrats' political prosecutions to turn the booking of Donald Trump from Democrat dream to Democrat nightmare.

In almost every state, law students who pass their state bar examination, which allows them to practice law, take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution.

But the country's top law schools teach future lawyers and judges the opposite.

Many now teach that the U.S. Constitution, the supreme law of the nation since its ratification in 1788, is broken and should be scrapped.

At least that's what two members of conservative think tanks believe after reviewing courses at the country's Top 10 law schools, as ranked by U.S. News and World Report in 2022. They examined the teaching at Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Columbia universities and others.

Law professors at elite schools are open about their disdain for the U.S. Constitution, the researchers found.

"They're saying they want to get rid of the Constitution—they're making no secret about it," said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. He's also worked for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Edwin Meese III Center and former DOJ counsel, agreed.

The radicalization of law schools is a threat to freedom not previously encountered in the nation's history, Mr. von Spakovsky said.

"In fact, some of them are very direct in teaching kids that they need to be revolutionaries, according to these courses that these law school students are taking," he told The Epoch Times.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley argues in a column published on Saturday that the House has no other option but to open an impeachment investigation into President Joe Biden and that Attorney General Merrick Garland made the "greatest case for an impeachment inquiry."

Garland "appointed the one prosecutor who should have been categorically excluded — David Weiss," Turley also wrote. "Not only did Garland have to ignore his own regulations to appoint Weiss but he also had to ignore the main qualification: The appointed outside counsel should be someone with 'a reputation for integrity and impartial decision-making.'"

Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, had already been investigating Hunter Biden on alleged tax charges. The first son had reached a plea deal with the Justice Department to avoid prison time, but the deal fell apart when a judge questioned its constitutionality.

"While Garland seems incapable of imagining any crime involving the president, he has made a conclusive — if unintended — case for an impeachment inquiry," Turley added.

"With the investigative impediments created by the Weiss appointment and by Garland’s refusal to expressly extend the special counsel’s mandate to the allegations of Biden family influence-peddling, there is little choice but to commence an impeachment inquiry."

The Jacksonville shooter, Ryan Christoper Palmeter (21), was subject to Baker Act detention in 2017. Palmeter would have been approximately 15 or 16. He was obviously an unstable and mentally challenged individual who presumably left a manifesto expressing his intention to kill black people. The media are quick to jump on the typeset and report a racist shooting resulting in 3 deaths.

In a pattern that is all too familiar, every Sunday talk show leads with this Jacksonville racist killing story as their lead. The white male killing black people storyline is the apex narrative for corporate media. There is no media narrative that achieves a higher level of promotion, than a white racist mass shooter.

As would be expected NBC’s Chuck Todd grills Vivek Ramaswamy about the Republican support for racist white men and asks why it is only white people who target and kill black people. This is the media frenzy in its fullest form.

Btw, Palmeter is the first 21-year-old in modern US history with zero social media presence. Odd.

Picture this: A black man is being indicted for a nonviolent crime. Upon surrendering himself to the courthouse, the white judge summarily refuses to release him on bail because he is accused of assaulting an FBI agent. This, despite the fact that his white co-defendants, some charged with much worse, were released on bail.

A case like this would normally be ripe for the picking for members of the left-wing chattering class, wouldn’t it? It’s the type of scene that would attract the likes of Benjamin Crump, Al Sharpton, and others who supposedly serve as stalwart champions in the fight against systemic racism and injustice.

But not in the case of Harrison Floyd, the only black man indicted in Fulton County with former President Donald Trump and 17 other white co-defendants. The judge, for an absurd reason, is denying Floyd his freedom because, well, you know.

One would assume that, under a "worst case" each of the remaining 18 defendants would have the same opportunity to post a bond based on the same, simple addition. Floyd has been charged with three counts: Count 1, Count 30, and Count 31. Three counts should equal a $100,000 bond. But not for Floyd. He was denied bail altogether.

During his preliminary hearing and following Judge Richardson reading him his rights, she inquired if there was any “criminal history” for her to consider regarding the issue of bond. Someone for Fulton County “Pretrial Services” said that Mr. Floyd had a “prior” dated from May 2023: a charge of simple assault on an FBI agent. Floyd correctly said that that the charge was an allegation and added he didn’t have a criminal history. He doesn't.

Richardson said she “knew it was just an allegation” and then proceeded to deny bail. Richardson, knowing that Floyd was in detention and was unrepresented, didn’t make any further inquiry regarding Floyd’s likelihood to appear for future hearings or if he was a candidate to re-offend. She didn’t ask if he had any family, or if he had a job or was supporting anyone. Floyd has a daughter at home. Richardson didn’t ask any other questions that someone trying to determine if Floyd was a flight risk could or should pose. In short, she didn’t do her job.

So let’s get this perfectly clear. This white judge is denying bail to a black man because he was accused of having committed a violent crime. Floyd has no other criminal history we are aware of. But for some reason, she determines he is a flight risk.

Does this case not have all the hallmarks of the type of ingrained racism in our system that leftists would normally show up to protest? What was the real reason Floyd is being treated differently? Is he not entitled to the presumption of innocence, just like any other American?

The silence from the usual players in this game is deafening but not at all surprising. Those who scream the loudest against the notion of systemic racism are those who care about it the least. The way you can tell whether someone truly believes what they say is by watching how they move when applying their stated principles does not benefit them. The reason why we are not hearing from the Sharptons and Crumps of the world is because Harrison Floyd has the wrong political affiliation. That is the only reason.

If these people actually believed what came out of their mouths, they would speak out against this unfair decision from the judge regardless of the politics involved. Progressive types do not view racism as a problem to be solved but as a tool to be used. For these people, race issues are nothing more than a convenient cudgel to be wielded against political opposition—nothing more, nothing less. The reality that they are willing to turn a blind eye to Floyd’s situation further demonstrates that they would rather prioritize politics over the principles they claim to hold.

Neighboring states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are offering lessons in real time of what happens when gun control politicians ignore laws and create barriers for the firearm industry. Gun control politicians, acting on behalf of gun control activists, create havoc and disarray when they foist their own restrictive gun control policies that aren’t in step with state law.

Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals overturned a lower court’s decision to grant an injunction that allowed the City of Columbus to enact their own gun control laws. The appeals court found that Columbus’ attempt to block the state from enforcing uniform laws for firearms was incorrectly granted, since it was sought years after the challenge and after Columbus enacted their own ordinances that barred standard capacity magazines and firearm storage mandates.

Ohio is one of 42 states that have what is called a “preemption” law. That means authority to enact laws that regulate firearms resides with the state legislature and not local municipalities. Those laws protect from cities and towns creating a patchwork of gun control laws that would ensnare state citizens traveling throughout the state.

“The court’s ruling assures that all Ohioans must abide by the same law, state law, when it comes to firearms,” said Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost in a press release following the court’s ruling. “Just like we argued in court, firearms owners statewide should have to follow the same rules.”

The conflict over “home rule” and “self-determination” when it comes to passing a patchwork of gun control laws is playing out now in Lower Merion Township, a suburb of Philadelphia. NPR reported that the town passed a zoning ordinance that would put the only federal firearms licensee, Shot Tec, out of business. Shot Tec doesn’t carry an inventory of firearms. It’s a business that facilitates legal firearm transfers and provides firearm safety classes. Still, town officials want it gone.

Township Commissioner Mike McKeon said the local law is one about zoning and not gun control, yet told NPR, “we’re trying to make everyone feel safer.”

“What the township did is they made it less accessible for people to access their rights and for people to access things like gunsmithing, etc.,” said Shot Tec owner Grant Schmidt, noting his firearm business is the only one in Lower Merion Township.

That’s a sticking point because Pennsylvania has a firearm preemption law. This has been challenged numerous times and was most recently batted down after Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney attempted to ban firearms in city parks and recreation areas. The state’s General Assembly has the exclusive legal authority to write those laws in the Commonwealth. Pittsburgh officials learned that again last year after trying to write their own gun control laws.

The striking irony is that those politicians demanding to pass their own local gun laws aren’t calling for crackdowns on criminals. They’re only demanding that those who obey the law are stripped of their ability to lawfully purchase a firearm.

They’re ignoring state law to press their gun control agenda. These are gun control platitudes that run roughshod on state law and ignores criminals that are the real menace to society.

The largest newspaper publisher in the United States, Gannett Co., is being sued for discriminating against white workers in their efforts to 'diversify' newsrooms.The proposed class action was filed in West Virginia federal court on Friday by five current and former Gannett employees who say they were either fired or passed over for promotions for 'less-qualified women and minorities.'

The root of the discrimination stems from a 2020 announcement under which the company aims to reshape its newsrooms to reflect the demographics of the communities they cover by 2025 - as well as tying executive bonuses and promotions to achieving that goal.

"Gannett executed their reverse race discrimination policy with a callous indifference towards civil rights laws or the welfare of the workers, and prospective workers, whose lives would be upended by it," according to the plaintiffs.

Gannet defended itself, with chief legal counsel Poly Grunfeld Sack saying in a statement: "We will vigorously defend our practice of ensuring equal opportunities for all our valued employees against this meritless lawsuit."

"The lawsuit comes amid growing backlash to increasingly prevalent corporate diversity policies. Unlike other pending cases brought by conservative groups, the claims against Gannett were filed directly by the company's employees.

The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that discriminatory fellowships and programs, which companies often establish on the basis of elite law firms' "civil rights" advice, are now prime targets for legal scrutiny since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June.

These programs "are lawsuits waiting to happen," Noah Peters, the former solicitor of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, told the Free Beacon. -Free Beacon"

Gannet joins a growing list of institutions and businesses facing lawsuits for reverse-discrimination, including law schools, Starbucks, Target, and Progressive Insurance company. More than a dozen complaints have been filed with a federal anti-bias agency by a group founded by former Trump administration officials.

Meanwhile, a group formed by conservative activist Edward Blum, who spearheaded the Supreme Court case that ended affirmative action, sued two major US law firms over fellowships offered only to non-whites and LGBT individuals.

In the Gannett case, plaintiff Steven Bradley says he was fired from a management job at the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, New York - and then subsequently passed over for a different position within Gannett due to the color of his skin. In April, Bradley filed a similar lawsuit in New York state court.

Another plaintiff, Logan Berry, says he was passed over for a promotion at the Progress-Index in Petersburg, VA. After Gannett acquired the paper in 2019, Berry says the news giant gave the job to a less qualified black woman in violation of a federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in contracts.

Joe Biden is warping the law adopted by Congress in order to require abortion support and advocacy from even those who oppose it, according to a new report.

The Washington Stand has documented how Biden is issuing new federal “rules” advancing the abortion industry’s interests under the guise of implementing a pro-life law.

“This is just a brazen attempt from this administration to force abortion even within a pro-life piece of legislation,” explained Roger Severino, vice president for Domestic Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

He was being interviewed on “Washington Watch” by former U.S. Rep. Jody Hice.

“Their creativity apparently knows no bounds when it comes to pushing abortion on the American people.”

The report explains that Biden has taken the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, intended to assure pregnant women of reasonable on-the-job accommodations related to “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions” and issued a rule under it requiring employers with more than 15 workers to provide employees with “abortion-related leave.”

That essentially conscripts corporations into the nation’s “machinery of death,” the report said.

The Stand explains Biden is accomplishing the left’s political goals by redefining the words in the law.

Biden bureaucrats are insisting that the bill’s “definition of ‘pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions’ includes current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential pregnancy, lactation (including breastfeeding and pumping), use of birth control, menstruation, infertility and fertility treatments, endometriosis, miscarriage, stillbirth, or having or choosing not to have an abortion, among other conditions.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said just months ago, “I want to say for the record, however, that under the act, under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, the EEOC, could not — could not — issue any regulation that requires abortion leave, nor does the act permit the EEOC to require employers to provide abortions in violation of state law.”

Casey explained at the time, “This legislation would provide commonsense protections for pregnant workers, like extra bathroom breaks or a stool for workers who stand, so they can continue working while not putting extra strain on their pregnancies.”

The Stand report charged that Biden is turning the bill’s intent on its head.

Severino said, “The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act was a bill designed to protect pregnant workers. What is the opposite of pregnancy? Abortion. Yet this administration, through the EEOC’s proposed regulation, is saying that abortion is going to be a protected, enshrined right that workers will have a right to an accommodation even in pro-life states.”

He warned the Biden agenda promoters “going to recruit employers as part of this machinery of death.”

He said, “The Biden administration is taking something that is meant to protect life, the giving of life” and using it to promote procedures that kill.

Julie Marie Blake, of the ADF, added, “The new law is pro-life, certainly, but in the most holistic way possible: it exists to help every pregnant woman thrive in both her calling as a mother and her calling as a worker. But now, at the behest of the abortion industry, the Biden administration is trying to hitch an abortion mandate to this profoundly pro-woman, pro-life legislation.”

Kristan Hawkins, chief of Students for Life Action, told The Stand, “The Biden administration won’t be happy until abortion pervades every aspect of our lives, as evidenced by their attempt to sneak abortion — the ending of a new human life — into a program that is about the exact opposite: supporting the growth of a new human life.

“It doesn’t get much more backwards than that, but that’s exactly what we’ve seen time and again from this administration.”

It looks like another job for Alliance Defending Freedom once this EEOC proposed regulation is implemented. Another Biden power grab down the toilet.

A top aide to special counsel Jack Smith met with a member of the White House counsel's office and an FBI agent just weeks before Smith brought charges against former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents, White House visitor logs show, causing conservatives to raise the alarm about possible coordinated efforts to target President Joe Biden's likely 2024 opponent.

Jay Bratt, who joined Smith's team in November 2022, met on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, the deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel's office. FBI Washington field office agent Danielle Ray also joined the meeting, per visitor logs reviewed Saturday by the New York Post.

Nine weeks after the meeting, Smith's office issued its first indictment of Trump.

Special counsel spokesman Peter Carr said Bratt visited the White House for a "case-related interview," but he declined further comment.

Saba left the administration in May to attend law school, according to Politico.

Bratt, who leads the Justice Department's counterintelligence and export division, also met with Saba in November 2021 while Trump was negotiating with the National Archives about returning presidential records before a formal investigation had been opened.

Bratt also visited the White House in September 2021 to meet with Katherine Reily, a White House chief of staff advisor.

There is no publicly available information about the discussions that occurred in the meetings.

"There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels," Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor, said, according to the Post.

"What’s happening is they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It is a Biden state prosecutor and a Biden state police," he also said.

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the meeting "raises obvious concerns about visits to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel."

Turley also said: "There is no reason why the Justice Department should not be able to confirm whether this meeting was related to the ongoing investigation or concerns some other matter."

Attorney Stanley Woodward, who has represented multiple Trump aides, reportedly accused Bratt of misconduct in the case.

The Guardian reported in June that the Trump attorney stated in a letter filed under seal that Bratt suggested Woodward's application to become a judge may be more favorably considered if he and his client, Walt Nauta, cooperated against Trump.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is deliberately not releasing the monthly totals of all illegal migrants who wind up getting released into the U.S. after they are encountered by U.S. authorities at the border, a former U.S. immigration judge says.

Andrew Arthur, who served for eight years as an immigration judge at the now-closed immigration court in York, Pennsylvania, told Just the News that DHS does track the total number of migrants released after an encounter with border agents, but making that data available to the public would paint the Biden Administration in a negative light.

"The only reason why ICE and OFO [Office of Field Operations] would refuse to disclose that information is to hide the fact that it is releasing more than 100,000 aliens per month into the United States, and to conceal the effects of those migrant releases on communities across the United States," he said.

Arthur also said that DHS should be required to release the information the same way that the monthly data on encounters of illegal immigrants is posted online.

Arthur also said the "monthly court-ordered disclosures in Texas v. Biden," the lawsuit over the Remain in Mexico policy, demonstrated DHS "can provide the American people with statistics on the tens of thousands of illegal entrants that CBP encounters at the southwest border whom DHS releases" into the U.S. The agency has "refused to do so since those orders were vacated in August 2022," Arthur explained.

U.S. immigration judges, formerly called "special inquiry officers'" are not part of the federal judiciary, but rather are employees of the United States Department of Justice and report to the Attorney General.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which describes itself as "a non-partisan, public interest organization" with more than three million diverse members and supporters, said that the Biden administration is not being transparent with the public about how many migrants without U.S. legal status are being released into the U.S.

DHS should be "required to release all pertinent information to the public," a spokesperson for FAIR told Just the News. "It should be done as a matter of course because the public has a right to know. But if it requires an act of Congress, then so be it."

The office of Rep. Darrell Issa, (R-Cal.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the total number of migrants DHS is releasing should be reported to Congress on a daily basis. A spokesperson for Issa told Just the News that it's "obvious why the Biden Admin does everything it can to minimize transparency."