In the news, Tuesday, August 11, 2020

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AUG 10      INDEX      AUG 12

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

KAMALA HARRIS IS BASICALLY OBAMA-CLINTON 2.0, BUT WORSE
No doubt, many of Harris's detractors will call her radical or a tool of the far left. The reality is actually far more alarming. Radicals have a tendency to lose political battles, because they often stand on principle. Harris is unlikely to have that problem. She is very much a savvy player who fits in well within the party's mainstream and who will carry on the center-left political program as we've come to expect it from the likes of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. There's not much here that's new. What has changed, however, is that we live in a country where presidents are ever more rapidly becoming unrestrained in taking unilateral action to do what they want. In ages past it might have been reasonable to assume the Congress might effectively intervene to restrain a president's less popular and more radical proposals. That vision of the US regime is looking more unrealistic than ever.

Why Chicago's Mayor Blames Her City's Murders on Wisconsin and Indiana
It is now well known that the City of Chicago and Illinois overall have adopted stringent gun control laws over the years. Thus, the pro–gun control Giffords Center gives the state of Illinois a lofty "A-" on its "annual gun scorecard." Yet, somehow, shootings are surging in the city this year. Although crime in Chicago—like in the nation overall—is lower today than it was during the 1980s and 1990s, murders have been a perennial problem in Chicago for years. Although it's easier to buy guns in Indiana and Wisconsin than in Chicago, homicide rates are lower in those states than in either Illinois or Chicago.

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from Plough

Iraqi Christians, Bearing Witness

Love and Forgiveness amid Death and Revenge

"Ours is now a missionary role, to give daily witness to the teachings of Christ, to show the truth of Christ that we might provide a living example to our Muslim neighbors of a path to a world of forgiveness, of humility, of love, of peace. Lest there be any confusion here I am not speaking of conversion. Rather, I am speaking of the fundamental truth of forgiveness which we Christians of Iraq can share, and share from a position of historically unique moral clarity. We forgive those who murdered us, who tortured us, who raped us, who sought to destroy everything about us. We forgive them. In the name of Christ, we forgive them. We forgive them not only for the last four years, but for the last 1,400 years. And so we say to oolar ur Muslim neighbors, learn this from us. Let us help you heal. Your wounds are as deep as ours. We know this. We pray for your healing. Let us heal our wounded and tortured country together."

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from Sputnik

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED, Broadcasting & Media Production Company out of Moscow, Russia

Microsoft Staffers Reportedly Oppose 'Unethical' TikTok Deal
The US is currently forcing TikTok to be sold to an American company, saying that the would-be transaction must be completed by 15 September or otherwise the popular video-sharing app used by around 100 million users in the US will be banned in the country.  Microsoft staffers don't want their employer to buy out the short video app TikTok, the brainchild of the Chinese firm ByteDance, as revealed by internal message exchanges cited by the Daily Mail. Writing on a corporate social network called Yammer, they explicitly stated that it feels like a deal and participation in negotiations to this end are not the right thing to do in terms of ethics.

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In the news, Monday, August 10, 2020

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AUG 09      INDEX      AUG 11

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Throwing Printed Money at This Problem Won't Make It Go Away
The crisis we faced in 2008 has not gone away, as we failed to heed its warning to change course and reduce debt levels. Instead, it has become bigger and more dangerous as, to obscure the risks we faced, we proceeded to pile up even more of the debt that had made the economy so susceptible to crisis in the first place.

Reflections on the Failure of Socialism
Max Eastman during the time from the Bolshevik Revolution through the early 1950s was one of the most famous political writers in America, known also for such literary works as The Enjoyment of Laughter. He began as a radical and, surprising though it may seem to us today, he first looked upon Lenin with favor. How was this possible? He was, and remained throughout his life, a devotee of the scientific method, and he saw Lenin as engaged in a great social experiment. After a long struggle, he saw the error of his ways. Lenin was a dogmatist guilty of great crimes, and socialism was a recipe for disaster. He devoted many years to combating the system he had once foolishly favored, and Reflections on the Failure of Socialism is the record of his insightful assault on socialism and his defense of the free market.

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from POLITICO

LEAST BIASED, HIGH, news and opinion website in Arlington, Virginia

Trump: Executive order on pre-existing conditions is 'a signal'
President Donald Trump on Monday acknowledged a prospective executive order he's considering to make insurers cover pre-existing conditions amounted to political messaging — and that Obamacare already offered such protections. "It's a signal to people ... it's a second platform," Trump said at a White House briefing. "Pre-existing conditions will be taken care of 100 percent by Republicans and the Republican party. I actually think it's a very important statement." Trump and Republicans are vulnerable on the issue of pre-existing conditions after waging a lengthy legal battle to strike down Obamacare and its consumer protections without offering a replacement. Trump's administration has also increased the availability of cheap, skimpier health plans that don't meet Obamacare's coverage requirements and wouldn't protect some patients with chronic conditions. Meanwhile, voters rocked by the pandemic and the loss of tens of millions of jobs are increasingly supportive of strengthening the government's safety net. Missouri last week became the sixth Republican-led state to defy GOP leaders and approve Medicaid expansion for some of its poorest adults,

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

________

from United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

CHAIRMAN RISCH: BELARUSIANS DESERVE A FAIR ACCOUNTING OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement in response to the arrest of and violence against Belarusian protestors by military units and riot police after Alexander Lukashenka claimed to have won a landslide victory in Belarus’ presidential election over the weekend: “Over the weekend, the people of Belarus attempted to participate in a democratic process, and expected their votes to be counted truthfully and their choice of leadership honored. That President Lukashenka has chosen to respond to his opposition and protestors with violence and repression is unconscionable. Mr. Lukashenka should allow a true accounting of yesterday’s ballot, and stand down if, as reports indicate, he was not democratically reelected. He should also immediately cease the suppression of the media, internet blackouts, and the arrests of and violence against those who are pursuing another path for Belarus. A peaceful transition of power is vital to the future of Belarus and its sovereignty.”

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from STAT
Media/News Company in Boston reporting from the frontiers of health and medicine

Winter is coming: Why America’s window of opportunity to beat back Covid-19 is closing
Winter is coming. Winter means cold and flu season, which is all but sure to complicate the task of figuring out who is sick with Covid-19 and who is suffering from a less threatening respiratory tract infection. It also means that cherished outdoor freedoms that link us to pre-Covid life — pop-up restaurant patios, picnics in parks, trips to the beach — will soon be out of reach, at least in northern parts of the country.

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In the news, Sunday, August 9, 2020

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AUG 08      INDEX      AUG 10

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from BBC News (UK)

Celtic Christianity: History of Welsh seat of learning revealed
Llantwit Major may be known today as a dormitory town for commuters into Cardiff - but it was once regarded as the cradle of Celtic Christianity. Some 1,500 years ago, Llanilltud Fawr - its name in Welsh - was known as the University of the Atlantic. Around a century before Augustine became the first Bishop of Canterbury in 590 CE, and began consolidating Christianity in Saxon "England", Llanilltud was already spreading the gospel around the Celtic world. The name stems from the first known head of the monastic university, St Illtud, in around 500 CE. However, Philip Morris, former Archdeacon of Margam, explains in his book on Llanilltud: The Story of a Celtic Christian Community that the college was possibly much older than that.

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

Why Fed Bugs Really, Really Hate Gold
Judy Shelton, a Trump nominee to the Fed Board of Governors, may not have coined the excellent term "Fed bug," but she used it to delicious effect in this 2019 Financial Times interview: “People call me a goldbug, and I think, well, what does that make them? A Fed bug,” she says. Can anyone the ​New York Times attacks this dishonestly be all bad? For our purposes, Fed bugs are people with a faith-based belief in the power of central banks (and central bankers) to engineer economic growth using "monetary policy,"despite decades of history and current evidence to the contrary. They believe tinkering with inputs and rates and velocity and flows somehow makes us richer in terms of productivity, goods, and services. They believe in financial alchemy, as economist Nomi Prins puts it, rather than precious metals. They believe paper has value so long as government issues it and legislates its use. Most of all, they believe in technocratic control over money in the economy.

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from NDTV (New Delhi Television Limited)

 LEFT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED, Media/News Company in New Delhi, India

40% Covid Cases Have No Symptoms, May Be Key To Ending Pandemic: Report

When researcher Monica Gandhi began digging deeper into outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, she was struck by the extraordinarily high number of infected people who had no symptoms. During its seven-month global rampage, the coronavirus has claimed more than 700,000 lives. But Gandhi began to think the bigger mystery might be why it has left so many more practically unscathed.

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from The Seattle Times
LEFT-CENTER,  HIGH,  Newspaper in Seattle, WA

Hobbled by 1,000 closures, Washington’s child care industry thrust into de facto teaching
A day after the Seattle Public Schools superintendent announced she would recommend all remote learning in the fall, Angelia Hicks-Maxie, a South Seattle child care provider, said she was “freaking out.” Hicks-Maxie, CEO of Tiny Tots Development Center, whose programs include before- and after-school care, had for months faced an onslaught of risks and changes because of COVID-19. Her enrollment plummeted by more than half as nervous parents kept their kids home. She worked to make her sites as sterile as a hospital, removing carpets, having staff wear nursing scrubs washed every night, and instituting a mask policy for staff and children 4 and up. (The state mandate starts at age 5, with exceptions for eating and outdoor time.) Staff were exhausted from constant cleaning. “Now, they have thrown this in our laps,” said Hicks-Maxie, referring to the school district announcement of remote classes. While some children will log on from home under the supervision of parents, many will need to do so from child care operations. Staffers will have whole new responsibilities: making sure children “get” to class, helping them connect by video chat, and answering questions about schoolwork directed their way. Teachers will be safe at home, Hicks-Maxie noted. She doesn’t blame them. But she said that will leave child care workers as de facto teachers — at half the pay. Many child care workers earn close to the minimum wage, though Hicks-Maxie has given her staff a 25% pandemic bonus and Fridays off.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from The Times of Israel

Burnt remains from 586 BCE Jerusalem may hold key to protecting planet

A new analysis of 1st Temple-era artifacts, magnetized when Babylonians torched the city, provides a way to chart the geomagnetic field – physics’ Holy Grail – and maybe save Earth. The Bible and pure science converge in a new archaeomagnetism study of a large public structure that was razed to the ground on Tisha B’Av 586 BCE during the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem. The resulting data significantly boosts geophysicists’ ability to understand the “Holy Grail” of Earth sciences — Earth’s ever-changing magnetic field.

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In the news, Saturday, August 8, 2020

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AUG 07      INDEX      AUG 09

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________

from CNBC

TV Network in Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Trump signs orders aimed at extending some pandemic relief after Congress fails to reach a deal
President Donald Trump on Saturday signed a series of executive orders expanding coronavirus economic relief to Americans struggling during the pandemic. The president's four orders extend unemployment benefits, provide a payroll tax holiday, defer student loan payments through 2020 and extend the federal protections from evictions. Trump will extend the unemployment bonus at a reduced level of $400 per week, instead of the $600 per week federal unemployment insurance that was approved in March and expired at the end of July.

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from Forbes

Trump Signs Executive Orders To Extend COVID-19 Economic Relief, Includes Unemployment Benefits, Eviction Moratorium
President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to extend economic relief after lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on a new stimulus package. The orders include extending enhanced unemployment benefits and the federal eviction moratorium, imposing a payroll tax holiday and further suspending federal student loan payments. The orders come after the late-July expiration of federal unemployment benefits and a federal eviction moratorium. Trump first announced his plans to sign executive orders to provide further economic relief during the coronavirus at a Friday night press conference.

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED

The Covid Crisis Has Helped Make the Blueprint for a European Superstate
After intense negotiations, long days and nights of clashes, and a distinctly sour note underlying the entire summit, European Union leaders finally agreed on an unprecedented €1.82 trillion ($2.1 trillion) budget and covid recovery package. This agreement provides €750 billion in funding meant to counter the impact of the pandemic and also includes €390 billion in nonrepayable grants to the hardest-hit EU members, with Italy and Spain being the main recipients. ... The “cure” to the current crisis that is forced upon all Europeans now is not just worse than the disease; it is the disease.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Friday, August 7, 2020

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AUG 06      INDEX      AUG 08

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________

from CNBC

TV Network in Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Trump threatens executive action if no deal is reached in coronavirus stimulus talks
Another "disappointing" meeting between Democrats and the White House on coronavirus aid yielded little progress. President Donald Trump said that if the sides fail to reach an agreement, he will take executive action on unemployment insurance, evictions, student loan assistance and a payroll tax cut. It is unclear when talks will restart on coronavirus aid legislation, as Pelosi said she will tell the White House to return when it increases the price tag of its relief offer.

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from Conciliar Post

WHAT’S WORSE THAN THE DEVIL YOU KNOW?
One of my favorite movie characters is Gus Portokalos, the patriarch in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Gus’s defining characteristic is his extreme devotion to his homeland, which is summed up in his famous line: “There are two kinds of people in this world: Greeks, and everyone else who wish they was Greek.” I love this joke because it perfectly encapsulates one of the essential characteristics of the human condition: we view the world as “us” and “everyone who isn’t us.” Having so divided, we then dismiss and even demonize those who are not like us. This tendency runs deep; it is obvious in our contemporary political discourse, of course, but even Christianity is not immune. The divisions within our faith run the gamut from major denominational issues dividing Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy, down to minor issues within denominations or individual parishes. The divisions are especially stark in the way we approach Scripture.

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from National Review  RIGHT BIAS

History Is on the Side of Republicans Filling a Supreme Court Vacancy in 2020

If a Supreme Court vacancy opens up between now and the end of the year, Republicans should fill it. Given the vital importance of the Court to rank-and-file Republican voters and grassroots activists, particularly in the five-decade-long quest to overturn Roe v. Wade, it would be political suicide for Republicans to refrain from filling a vacancy unless some law or important traditional norm was against them. There is no such law and no such norm; those are all on their side. Choosing not to fill a vacancy would be a historically unprecedented act of unilateral disarmament. It has never happened once in all of American history. There is no chance that the Democrats, in the same position, would ever reciprocate, as their own history illustrates.

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from Orthodox Christianity – orthochristian.com

Religious Organization in Moscow, Russia

THOUSANDS OF COVID PROTECTIVE SUITS AND GEAR DONATED FOR RUSSIAN PRIESTS
Ten thousand units of individual protective equipment has been donated to Russian dioceses throughout the Russian Orthodox Church for clergy and laypeople working to help people in need. “The Church, and the Association of Volunteer Centers donated anti-COVID personal protective equipment as part of the All-Russian mutual assistance campaign “We are together” (#МыВместе). Ten thousand units of personal protective equipment were donated to employees of diocesan social departments, church volunteers and nurses who continue to help people in need during the spread of coronavirus infection,” RIA Novosti reports. This aid was delivered to fourteen different dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church. An additional 550 full body protective suits were also donated for priests to undertake sick visits. So far, priest of the ROC have made hundreds of visits to the homes of people infected with coronavirus to bring them the Sacraments.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Sue Lani Madsen: Inslee makes government by proclamation the new normal
It’s no longer a state of emergency. It’s the new normal for Washington’s governor, issuing over 500 proclamations as of last Friday. Dictating policy is so much easier than dealing with legislative debate or building consensus. Just make it so. Washington government has been operating under a series of proclamations since Gov. Jay Inslee declared a state of emergency on Feb. 29. Some of those proclamations are or were reviewable by the “four corners,” meaning the Democrats and Republicans in House and Senate leadership. Thirty-seven proclamations were still in effect as of July 31. Another 482 have either expired or their renewal was rejected by one or more members of the legislative leadership group, which includes Sen. Andy Billig, D-Spokane, Sen. Mark Schoesler, R-Ritzville, Speaker of the House Rep. Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, and Rep. J.T. Wilcox, R-Yelm.

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In the news, Thursday, August 6, 2020

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AUG 05      INDEX      AUG 07

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________

from The Americano

News & Media Website created by Latinos for Latinos, focused on politics

An Eighth Soldier Has Been Found Dead at Fort Hood
Texas officials identified the body of 24-year-old specialist Francisco Gilberto Hernández-Vargas on Tuesday. The Fort Hood soldier had gone on a boating trip on Saturday and was reported missing that afternoon. On Sunday, officials recovered his body near the Stillhouse Hollow Lake, which is 15 miles from Fort Hood. Just last month, another Fort Hood soldier was found dead at the same lake. Initial police reports indicate that Hernández-Vargas drowned, but the autopsy is underway. The Bell County Sheriff’s Department is also investigating his death. According to independent military news publication Stars & Stripes, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department said that Hernández-Vargas was riding an inflatable tube and being pulled by a boat when he fell off and disappeared from view. Hernández-Vargas is the 8th Fort Hood soldier to die since March, and the second one to be found at Stillhouse Hollow Lake.

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from FEE (Foundation for Economic Education)

RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, HIGH, non-profit organization

Why the Rule of Law Is Vanishing in the Age of COVID-19
When is a law a law? The question seems simple enough, but things get complicated pretty quickly. We have our Constitution, of course. But we also have federal, state, county, and local laws, and then there are numerous federal, state, and local regulations that various bodies enact to carry out laws. ... When the law becomes incomprehensible and inconsistent, people lose faith in both the law and government institutions that secure it. This may go a long way toward explaining the growing political animosity of the past decades. In ceasing to be a nation of laws, we have become instead a nation of lawmakers. If the law is to be king, it must speak in a clear and consistent voice. And if that can’t happen, it should say as little as possible.

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from MedPage Today

Here's What We Know About COVID-19 Vaccines
There are more than 200 COVID-19 vaccines in development, all designed to destroy a common enemy: SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen involved with the COVID-19 infection that has killed more than 700,000 people globally. About two dozen vaccine candidates are currently being tested in clinical trials. Although nearly all of the frontrunner candidates have demonstrated some form of immune response in early studies, many trials measured this response with different tests, making it difficult to compare their findings directly. Moreover, the science behind many of these candidates is novel and none have been shown to generate a lasting immune response that protects against the virus in a final-stage trial.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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from USA Today

Defeat COVID-19 by requiring vaccination for all. It's not un-American, it's patriotic.
Opinion: Make vaccines free, don't allow religious or personal objections, and punish those who won't be vaccinated. They are threatening the lives of others.
Dr. Michael Lederman, Maxwell J. Mehlman, and Dr. Stuart Youngner.
To win the war against the novel coronavirus that has now killed over 158,000 people in this country, the only answer is compulsory vaccination — for all of us. And while the measures that will be necessary to defeat the coronavirus will seem draconian, even anti-American to some, we believe that there is no alternative. Simply put, getting vaccinated is going to be our patriotic duty. The reason: When an effective vaccine is available for COVID-19, it will only defeat the pandemic if it is widely used, creating “herd immunity.” It is important to note that, during an epidemic, there is no threshold above which the protection conferred by “herd immunity” cannot be improved. Thus, the more people who are immunized, the lower the risk for all of us, including those who are not vaccinated. 

The Voting Rights Act was signed 55 years ago. Black women led the movement behind it.
In March of 1965, Amelia Boynton Robinson walked with hundreds of other protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Boynton Robinson, who planned the march from Selma to the Alabama capital of Montgomery along with Rev. C.T. Vivian and others, was struck with a baton  by Alabama state troopers that day. “They came from the right, the left, the front and started beating people," she told The Crisis, the official magazine of the NAACP, in 2005. “The second time I was hit at the base of my neck. I fell unconscious. I woke up in a hospital.” A photograph of the incident was widely published in newspapers, and the march, which came to be known as Bloody Sunday, was part of the campaign that pushed President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act months later. The marches drew civil rights icons including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and late Georgia congressman John Lewis to Selma, but long before their arrival "women were the engine of the civil rights movement right from the beginning," according to Lynne Olson, author of Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement from 1830 to 1970. "Men always got the attention, but the ones who were really organizing it and were really making it work were women," Olson said. "And that was true going back to the time of the time of abolitionists."

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In the news, Wednesday, August 5, 2020

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AUG 04      INDEX      AUG 06

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________

from Conciliar Post

THE WRATH OF GOD REVEALED
The basic meaning of the verb ‘to reveal’ is something like, ‘to make known, to disclose, to bring to attention, to lay open.’ ... Saying that coronavirus is manifest of the curse, and that the curse is God’s judgement for human rebellion, and that God’s judgement for human rebellion is for bringing about his purposes in his free, rational creatures, does not permit me to point my finger at others, to declare their sin to them. It does not give me license to take to Facebook or Twitter and declare that God has had it with American ________ (fill in the blank). The point of giving this answer is so that I will repent.

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from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Without Proper Context, Leaked COVID-19 Data Is Worse Than Misleading
What’s the No. 1 coronavirus hot spot in America? The answer, according to a recently leaked Centers for Disease Control and Prevention document: Columbia County, Florida. If you’ve never heard of Columbia County, you’re not alone. It’s as obscure as most of the other COVID-19 hot spots identified in the CDC document, as reported in a Yahoo News story headlined “Nine of the Top 10 U.S. Coronavirus Hot Spots Are in Florida and Texas.” A closer look at those so-called “hot spots” shows how public health officials too often use statistics to misinform the public about the COVID-19 pandemic. In this case, the CDC defined a “hot spot” as a county with the most cases per 100,000 population over the most recent two-week period. The metric is prone to designate sparsely populated counties reporting temporary spikes in cases as being hotbeds of coronavirus infection. It turns out that there was an outbreak at the Columbia Correctional Institution, a state facility that can house 1,427 inmates. That outbreak, which involved hundreds of prisoners, accounts for 54% of the county’s COVID-19 cases.

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from HumanProgress.org

Education Website

Heroes of Progress, Pt. 50: Bill Gates

This week, our hero is Bill Gates – an American software developer, businessman, and philanthropist. Thanks to Microsoft, the company that Gates co-founded, personal computers went from being used almost exclusively by computer hobbyists, to being a staple in millions of homes and offices around the world. By helping to make computers available to the masses, Gates’ work dramatically changed the world we live in and made many once-complicated tasks much simpler. Moreover, global productivity increases enabled by his computers have likely added trillions to the world’s economy. 

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from New York Post
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED,  Newspaper in New York

Why won’t Democrats listen to blacks about defunding cops?

Talk about out-of-touch pols. According to a new Gallup survey, nearly nine out of 10 respondents — and more than eight of 10 African Americans — oppose having police spend less time in their areas. Yet Democratic politicians have been racing to “defund the police” all the same. The survey found 19 percent of the public wants cops to spend more time in their areas; 67 percent are OK with their current presence. Only 14 percent want fewer cops. It’s similar for African Americans: 20 percent want more cops; 61 percent are good with the current level. Just 19 percent prefer cops to spend less time in their areas. Among Hispanics, 83 percent want the same or more policing.

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from PoliticusUSA

[Information from this site may be questionable.]

Mitch McConnell Crushed As Democrats Win On Extending Unemployment Benefits
Sen. Mitch McConnell admitted defeat and said that he will bring a compromise virus relief bill that will need Democratic votes to the Senate floor. What we’re hoping for here is a bipartisan proposal negotiated by the president of the United States and his team that can sign a bill into law and the Democratic majority in the House that can appeal to a significant percentage of Republicans in the House and the Senate.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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In the news, Tuesday, August 4, 2020

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AUG 03      INDEX      AUG 05

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________

from The Heritage Foundation
RIGHT BIAS,  MIXED  American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

The “Housing First” Approach Has Failed: Time to Reform Federal Policy and Make it Work for Homeless Americans

Homelessness has gained national attention with the growth of public encampments and street disorder, particularly in West Coast cities. Over the past decade, the federal government has spent billions on “Housing First” programs, which provide permanent housing for the homeless without requiring sobriety or participation in treatment. Although Housing First programs demonstrate strong rates of short-term housing retention, they do not improve symptoms related to drug addiction, mental illness, and general well-being—and have not reduced overall rates of homelessness. Moving forward, policymakers must re-orient federal homelessness policy toward better outcomes, prioritizing programs that require treatment, accountability, and a path to self-sufficiency for the homeless. Policymakers must rethink the federal government’s Housing First policy, which has failed to reduce overall homelessness and does not improve human well-being. Treatment First programs address the substance abuse and mental illness behind much homelessness, and provide the most effective pathway to self-sufficiency. Policymakers should redirect housing funds to programs with a proven record of helping the homeless to overcome addiction, find employment, and achieve independence.

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from Hoover Institution
Nonprofit Organization in Stanford, California

Hagia Sophia Becomes A Mosque Once Again
On Friday, July 24, Hagia Sophia was reopened as a mosque, after about a century as a museum. About 1,000 people attended Friday prayers there. The date, July 24, was not chosen at random, but marks a significant moment in military history. On July 24, 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. Well-known in Turkey, the treaty deserves more attention in the West, because it marks one of the first successful revisions to the Peace of Paris imposed by the Allies at the end of the First World War. German and Italian aspirations to revise the treaty would eventually lead to World War Two. Three years earlier, in 1920, the Allies had imposed another agreement, the Treaty of Sèvres, on the former Ottoman Empire, under which large parts of Anatolia and Eastern Thrace would have been lost to Turkish rule. The Turkish National Movement, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, rejected Sèvres. Under Atatürk’s leadership, Turkish armies drove out the Allies in the Turkish War of Independence, a conflict that led to large casualties, both military and civilian on both sides, unleashed a storm of forced migration, and established the Republic of Turkey in October 1923. Atatürk, the Republic’s first President, represented the movement to make the new Turkey a secular state. The Republic abolished the Ottoman caliphate, under which the empire had claimed leadership of the Muslim world. An important symbol of Turkish secularism was the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a museum, thereby making it more open to people of all faiths.

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from KXLY 4 News (ABC Spokane)

Pig Out in the Park 2020 canceled
Iconic Spokane event Pig Out in the Park has been canceled due to COVID-19. The 41st annual Pig Out in the Park will now be held September 1-6, 2021.

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from MyNorthwest.com

Media/News Company in Seattle

Rantz: Defund Seattle police activists are acting like terrorists
Some defund Seattle police activists are threatening public officials by showing up to their homes. Their intent? Intimidate politicians into supporting their position. One councilmember was even threatened with physical injury if he didn’t vote the way they demanded. Activists are also publishing personal information of officers, including phone numbers. The intent? Harassment. The conduct comes awfully close to the textbook definition of domestic terrorism. In some cases, I think it meets the definition. It’s no way to act. And it’s certainly not a peaceful protest.

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from National Review  RIGHT BIAS

To Curb Polarization, Everyone Must Accept a Possibility of Temporary Loss
Early in 2016, the political scientists Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels published Democracy for Realists. There they argue that American elections are often decided not as informed referenda on ideas or on the performance of a governing party. Instead, feelings of group identity and belonging profoundly shape American elections. ... Stable democratic governance depends on patience, compromise, and the acceptance of loss. If members of a losing faction nevertheless remain invested in the institutions of a given democratic order, they will accept momentary losses as a way of shoring up those institutions over a longer term — and creating the possibility of victory in the future. Meanwhile, to secure democratic stability, a winning coalition must also accept the possibility of loss in the future. This in part means resisting the temptation to transform existing civil institutions into a mere apparatus of a partisan machine and abiding by certain constraints on power (such as longstanding protections for minority parties). Those norms are, of course, in tension with the politics of apocalypse and emergency that has become so fashionable.

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from The Spokesman-Review

Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

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