Posts Tagged ‘Kevin Murray’

LinkSwarm for June 21, 2024

Friday, June 21st, 2024

More evidence of the Biden Recession, California’s welfare state goes extra crazy, Chicago has to spend mad money to produce illiterate children, an Assistant DA resigns, a cyberattack hits car dealers nationwide, a Brazilian thief gets ventilated, and God unites the entire world in hatred of the New York Yankees. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Statistics show that the economy is contracting. Just like we already knew. Thanks, Joe Biden.
  • California’s tax dollars and welfare state at work:

    Taxpayers are funding a new high-rise building in Los Angeles where homeless people will enjoy skyline views, a cafe, a gym, and an art studio, not to mention the free rent.

    The fancy new building is 19 stories high and has 278 units, each costing about $600,000. The total cost was $165 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. It is the first of three new high-rise buildings that will soon house homeless people.

    Snip.

    This modern tower for the homeless includes a TV in each apartment, a gym, an art room, a soundproofed music room, a computer room with a library, a TV lounge, a courtyard, and a cafe that will host movie nights. There are also six common balconies, four of which have dog runs.

    Where are politicians getting all the money for this project? The buildings are funded by the city’s supportive housing loan program, Proposition HHH, which was approved by city voters in 2016, as well as state housing funds and $56 million in state tax credits.

    The three apartment buildings will be located around the headquarters of the Weingart Center, a nonprofit that assists homeless people. Kevin Murray, a former California state senator, is the man behind the project. He serves as the chief executive of the nonprofit.

    I’m sure all the Homeless Industrial Complex members involved got generously paid for their efforts. Once again, the message of the Democratic Party is: You’re suckers for working for a living.

  • “Chicago Doubles Education Spending, Tragedy Ensues.”

    Illinois Policy just issued a report showing that while CPS has doubled spending per student since 2012, grades are down by 60-80%, depending on the subject. “Just 1-in-4 CPS students can read or perform math at grade level,” the report says. “The percent of students enrolling in college after high school graduation is decreasing. And for those who do enroll, another study found many are struggling to finish college in four years – just 30% get their bachelor’s in four years compared to 47% nationally.”

    By every other measure… there’s no other way to put this… CPS is falling apart.

    • In 2023, 26% of students in grades 3 through 8 across all of CPS could read at grade level and about 18% could do math proficiently. For 11th grade CPS students, only 22% could read at grade level and 19% do math proficiently.
    • CPS’ failure to engage students shows in the chronic absenteeism rate. Chronic absenteeism has skyrocketed.
    • According to ISBE data, 86.3% of teachers in CPS were rated as proficient or excellent in 2023, down from 91.4% in 2019. Yet many students in CPS are struggling to reach proficiency in core subjects.

    There’s much more at the link, all of it tragic. An entire generation of Chicago students is failing — and being failed by their schools and, let’s be brutally honest, by their families.

    If you’re thinking that CPS must be seriously underfunded to achieve such dismal results, you must have been living in a cave for the last 40 or 50 years. CPS will spend a jaw-dropping $29,028 per student this year. My family lives in a lovely exurb of Colorado Springs and our district spends roughly one-third of what CPS does — $10,214 per student — and we get much better results. It isn’t about the money. It rarely is.

  • Turtle tank captured.
  • Another week, another series of Ukrainian strikes on Russia oil depots. First in Platanovka, Tambov region, some 500km from Ukraine…
  • …then the Lukoil Depot in Krasnodar, where fuel trucks were apparently targeted…
  • …and an oil export depot in Rostov-on-Don.
  • MS-13 Gang Leader Arrested in Texas. Cesar Humberto Lopez-Larios will be handed over to a New York court to face terrorism charges.”
  • Loper Bright Enterprises V. Raimondo offers the Supreme Court a way to roll back the Administrative State.

    The case began in November 2022, when Loper Bright Enterprises, a fishery based out of Cape May, New Jersey, appealed a district court opinion to the Supreme Court. The conflict between Loper Bright and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) started after the agency decided to require private fisheries like Loper Bright to pay their regulatory inspectors for their time observing fishery practices.

    While the law doesn’t explicitly allow this practice, the Fishery Service cites the Chevron Deference, a precedent set by a 1984 Supreme Court case, which states that an ambiguous law can be interpreted by government agencies as they see fit. In short, the Fishery Service wants private companies to pay their salaries and found a legal loophole to justify it.

    While this may seem like an isolated incident, it is just one example of a long history of government agencies infringing on individual liberty. The outcome of this case holds supreme importance for the future of our republic and the preservation of our financial and civil freedoms.

    Since 1950, the federal government has steadily grown in size. Today, it has over 2.9 million civilian employees, more than Walmart has worldwide. This growth has paved the way for the creation of a governmental pseudo-branch denoted the “administrative state.” The administrative state contains government employees who have a significant impact on people’s everyday lives but yet aren’t held accountable to citizens in the form of elections. These unelected bureaucrats undermine the central ethos of a republic, where elected officials are supposed to seek the good of their constituents or risk not being re-elected.

    The problem with this system was made evident during the pandemic. During the COVID shutdown, hundreds of millions of Americans were sentenced to lockdowns, impacting their schools, churches, and families. Many of the people behind this policy were members of the CDC, one of the government agencies that comprise the administrative state. The decisions they made were not subject to the traditional checks and balances which typically constrain the US government. Instead, America found itself under a tyranny of the unelected.

    This overreach extends beyond individual liberty into private business. When businesses can be encroached upon at a whim by unelected authorities, long-term investment becomes a much riskier endeavor. When the COVID shutdown occurred, many small businesses, with their small profit margins and high overhead, were unable to weather the storm. For the companies that survived, the blatant government intervention and the severe consequences that followed left a sour taste in their mouth for future capital investments. You’re not going to build a new business if a bureaucrat can shut it down the next day. All of these factors contribute to government agencies having a negative impact on financial markets and investor portfolios.

    The Chevron Deference precedent, which is at the center of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, gives even more power to these governmental agencies. When ambiguity exists, this precedent allows courts to simply defer to agencies’ interpretations, even if those interpretations favor the agencies’ own interests. It also allows courts to seek out ambiguity in order to give near-unbridled power to these agencies.

    If the Supreme Court upholds Chevron, it will further entrench the power of unelected bureaucrats and make it increasingly difficult for individuals and businesses to challenge agency overreach. However, if the Court rules against Chevron, it would represent a shift toward increased restraint of the administrative state, leading to a reevaluation of the scope and authority of federal agencies.

  • Israeli arms exports hit record sales. Funny how having products that actually work stimulates sales. I’m betting Russia is enjoying the opposite right now…
  • Baseball game announcer: We will not be singing the national anthem. Crowd: The hell we won’t! Patriotism ensues.
  • Soros-backed Manhattan DA Alvin Braggs drops all charges against the pro-Hamas protestors who smashed up offices at Columbia. Because of course he did.
  • Speaking of DA’s behaving badly, a followup: Assistant Travis County DA Joseph Frederick, who was charged with aggravated assault, has resigned before he could be fired, his lawyer saying this was to maintain his health benefits, because he has Parkinson’s. Which is strange, because COBRA covers involuntary termination as well.
  • Argentine President Javier Milei has a glorious rant about how you can’t negotiate with leftists.
  • Brazilian thief pulls a gun in a phone store, instantly gets lit up like the 4th of July.
  • No surprise: San Francisco named America’s worst run city.
  • This week’s California restaurant chain closing due to the minimum wage hike: Arby’s. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • “CDK Global, a major software provider to auto dealerships in the U.S., has been hacked, forcing the company to shut down most of its systems temporarily. This cyberattack effectively halted sales operations at approximately 15,000 car dealerships, including those under General Motors, Group 1 Automotive, and Holman.” Without this software, there’s essential dead in the water. (More details.)
  • Man finds a GPS tracker his Toyota dealership installed in his car without telling him, despite him declining that option and despite not financing the car.
  • “MacKenzie Scott Gives Millions to Philly Nonprofit Tied to Anti-Israel Penn Encampment.” Scott is the woman who divorced Jeff Bezos.
  • Another week, another catch and release illegal alien child rapist.
  • Black San Francisco firefighter attacks Asian firefighter with a wrench. So San Francisco fires the Asian guy who was attacked.
  • CNN drops down to 396,000 Total Viewers. Why would any company still buy advertising on such a small platform? (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of money-losing MSM outlets, the incoming editor of the Washington Post says thanks but no thanks after the staff there preemptively published a hit piece on him. How’s that letting the inmates run the asylum working out for you, Jeff Bezos?
  • Ecomorons spread paint on Stonehenge.

  • George R. Nethercutt Jr., the Republican who ousted Democratic Speaker Thomas S. Foley in the Newt Gingrich Contract with America wave of 1994, dead at 79 (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Because tranny pandering is more important than actually healing people, Oregon moves to make reporting microaggressions mandatory for doctors.
  • Tubi, which is free, drew in more viewers than Disney+.
  • Morgan Freeman hates black history month. “My history is American history.”
  • Employees at small Philadelphia chain of three coffee shops unionize, and the owner immediately shuts them down because they’re no longer profitable.
  • Is olive oil good for your brain? I hope so, since it’s an Atkins-compliant dressing for my salad, so I generally get more than the recommended teaspoon a day.
  • Himmler’s top 10 pistols. Some went for pretty breathtaking sums at auction.
  • Another Metal Ball Studios monster height comparison video, but this one is first person.
  • “New Debate Rule Allows Moderators To Zap Trump With Giant Cattle Prods Anytime They Feel Like It.”
  • “Tropical Storm Alberto Crosses Into Texas, Immediately Registered To Vote As A Democrat.”
  • “God Confirms Heaven Will Bring All Nations, Tribes, And Tongues Together In Hatred Of The New York Yankees.”
  • Mine!

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Still between jobs, so hit the tip jar if you’re so inclined.