Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay-area U.S. representatives and senators are highlighting $83.7 million for the Norfolk Harbor widening and deepening project in President Biden’s recently unveiled $6 trillion budget proposal. The budget provision is a response to a letter Virginia’s congressional and senate delegation sent to Biden in March requesting the funds.
Read MoreDay: June 8, 2021
Commentary: The Lethal Wages of Trump Derangement Madness
Think about it: For about five years, anything candidate, president-elect, and President Trump said or did, the media, the Left, and progressive popular culture opposed in Pavlovian fashion.
Anything that Trump touched was ridiculed or discredited—regardless of evidence, data, or cogency. The merits of a Trump policy, a Trump assessment, a Trump initiative were irrelevant—given the primordial hatred of the Left of all things Trump: the president, the person, the family.
Under the reductionist malady of Trump Derangement Syndrome, facts and logic did not matter. Instead, anything not said or done in opposition to Trump empowered the supposed existential Trump threat. Ironically, some of the most deductive and reductionist Trump haters were supposedly professionals, the highly educated, and the self-proclaimed devotees of the Enlightenment. And yet in their uncontrolled aversion and detestation, they suspended all the rules of empiricism, logic, and rationality—and people died as a result.
Read MorePension Bailout Agency Flagged for Contract Bribery, Fraud and Payments to Dead Americans
This week’s Golden Horseshoe award goes to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the nation’s pension bailout agency that is still reeling from revelations its chief of contracting engaged in a bribery scheme that steered $4.8 million in fraudulent business to a vendor in return for more than $1 million in personal benefits.
The bribery scheme involving the now convicted director of PBGC’s Procurement Department was possible because the agency suffered from several vulnerabilities, including reduced competition among vendors, missing legal reviews and sole-source contracts that evaded bidding designed to get taxpayers the best bargain, the PBGC’s inspector general reported.
“His actions were enabled by internal control weaknesses; specifically, inadequate oversight of PD procurements and a lack of a control mechanism to ensure that PD sent all requisite contract actions for legal review,” the inspector general reported. “Although PBGC began requiring that more contract actions receive legal review after the PD Director resigned in February 2020, it does not have a mechanism to ensure PD complies with this requirement.”
Read MoreNew York Psychiatrist Admits in Yale Lecture to Fantasizing About Shooting White People
A psychiatrist from New York City went on a racist rant back in April in which she expressed her desire to kill White people simply because they are White, as heard in recently-revealed audio of the lecture, the New York Post reports.
The comments were made by Dr. Aruna Khilanani during a lecture to the Yale School of Medicine on April 6th. She said that she dreams of “unloading a revolver into the head of any White person that got in my way,” and that if she did so, she would leave the scene of the crime “with a bounce in my step.” She added that White people “make [her] blood boil,” and also believes that White people “are out of their minds and have been for a long time.”
The lecture was titled “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” During the speech, Khilanani talked about “learning objectives” such as “[setting] up White people’s absence of empathy towards black rage as a problem,” and also claiming that “White people are psychologically dependent on black rage.” These details, along with the full audio of the lecture, were posted online via Substack on Friday, by former New York Times editor Bari Weiss.
Read MoreRepublicans Win Big in Texas Mayoral Races with Increased Latino Support
Republicans swept Texas’ mayoral elections over the weekend, relying on increased Hispanic support to win in large and mid-sized cities alike.
In Forth Worth, a city of just over 1 million, 37-year-old Republican Mattie Parker cruised to victory against Democrat Deborah Peoples, making her the youngest mayor in the city’s history, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. In McAllen, Texas, a border town of approximately 150,000 where 85% of residents are Hispanic, Republican Javier Villalobos became the first GOP mayor elected since 1997, Valley Central News reported.
Republicans were also victorious in Arlington, Texas, a suburb of 400,000 just outside Forth Worth. GOP candidate Jim Ross, a former police officer in the city, beat the Democratic candidate after campaigning on an anti-crime platform and earning endorsements from several police groups, according to the Star-Telegram.
Read MoreFormer President Trump Calls on All Republican Lawmakers to Ban Critical Race Theory
Former President Trump urged Republicans “at every level” throughout the county to ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) education.
“Republicans at every level should move to immediately ban critical race theory in schools, and we should ban it in workplaces, we should ban it in our states, and we should ban in the federal government. And it should be done immediately,” Trump said while speaking at the North Carolina Republican Party state convention.
Read MoreYellen Admits Inflation Is About to Surge But Says It Will Be ‘Plus For Society’s Point of View’
Increased inflation could ultimately be a net positive for the U.S. economy and large government spending won’t overheat the economy, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Bloomberg.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who previously chaired the Federal Reserve, said the central bank has been more concerned about inflation levels that are too low, according to Bloomberg. Increasing consumer prices could signal a return to normal, she said.
“We’ve been fighting inflation that’s too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade,” Yellen told Bloomberg in an interview Sunday.
Read MoreGoogle ‘Diversity Head’ Posted Anti-Semitic Comments, Will Stay with Company
Google announced that it will remove its global lead for diversity strategy and research, Kamau Bobb, after a 2007 blog post in which he’d made antisemitic comments surfaced, Fox News reported. Bobb will be reassigned to a STEM research role.
The reassignment comes after revelations that Bobb had previously authored a blog post that contained antisemitic statements.
In a 2007 blog post by Bobb titled “If I Were a Jew,” he wrote that Jewish people had an “insensitivity” to suffering and stated “If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.” The post has since been removed, but is recorded here.
Read MoreCommentary: Twenty Billion Reasons to Take Homeschooling More Seriously
American public education is so hard to reform because of its great size. The economy of K-12 education here is bigger than some countries, and we’re not talking rinky-dink countries either.
“Federal, state, and local governments spend $720.9 billion, or $14,840 per pupil, to fund K-12 public education,” reports the website Education Data.
By contrast, the annual gross domestic product of oil giant Saudi Arabia in 2017 was only $687 billion, according to World Bank statistics. That same year, Switzerland, with its banks, watches, cheese, and army knives, raked in only $679 billion.
Read MoreArizona Gains 66,000 New Taxpayers, Mostly from California
Taxpayers are coming to Arizona from other states by the tens of thousands and bringing billions of dollars in annual earnings with them.
The Internal Revenue Service released its annual migration statistics, a record of address changes by filers and their dependents between tax years. The data released in late May reflects changes from the 2018-2019 tax years, which symbolize moves that occurred between 2017 and 2018. Nationwide, 8 million people relocated to either another state or county.
Arizona gained 218,736 new taxpayers in that time. Having lost 152,769, that’s a net gain of 65,967 exemptions from one tax year to the next. That’s nearly 1,000 more than the previous tax year.
Read MoreSupreme Court Denies Green Cards for Migrants Granted Temporary Protected Status
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an effort to allow migrants who have claimed temporary humanitarian relief from deportation to obtain permanent residency.
In an increasingly rare, unanimous decision, the court states that the country’s immigration laws prevent migrants who entered the country illegally and now have Temporary Protected Status (TPS) from seeking “green cards” to stay in the U.S. permanently
Read MoreMusic Spotlight: Bailey Callahan
Excerpt. Bailey Callahan released a new country-rock album, ‘The A & B Sides’ on June 4th. She will be touring to promote the record throughout the summer.
Read MoreFormer Treasury Official Sentenced to Prison for Leaking Russia, Manafort Docs
A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced to six months in prison for leaking thousands of confidential reports on financial transactions related to people tied to former President Donald Trump and Russia, including former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 42, pleaded guilty last year to a conspiracy charge. According to federal prosecutors, Edwards leaked the confidential documents to BuzzFeed News reporter Jason Leopold. Leopold then shared thousands of suspicious activity reports with publications worldwide.
Court documents reveal that beginning in 2017, she leaked banking reports related to people being investigated in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of foreign interference in U.S. elections. The material included reports concerning Manafort, his business associate Rick Gates, the Russian Embassy and Maria Butina, among others.
Read MoreCommentary: Fighting Back in a Woke World of Cancel Culture
By now there are enough “cancel culture” stories to fill volumes. After my own story about standing up to a woke mob – and succeeding – went viral on Twitter, I decided to speak out, because I am convinced that Americans need more encouraging stories about standing up to cancel culture, and information on how they can do it themselves.
In order to withstand attacks, you’ll need to be armed with an understanding of the ideas in play, and the courage to stand up to bullies. I hope my story can help give you both.
My story began in 2010, when my husband and I founded a nonprofit organization that trains people around the world who are providing care for survivors of trauma. We were pleased with the success of our organization for the first several years, but around 2016, we noticed a change.
Read MorePrimary Day: Democrats Pick Their Ticket, GOP Watches House Primaries in Districts 9, 83
Virginia Democrats have been voting for months, but Tuesday is the final day of voting in the Democratic primaries for governor, attorney general, and lieutenant governor. The races have highlighted a contrast between progressive and establishment wings of the party, with battles over identity, past scandals, and private versus corporate campaign funding. But Tuesday’s voting includes both Democratic and Republican primaries for House of Delegates districts across the state.
Read More