Another misnomer: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

image credit: 123rf.com

Stanley Kurtz was the investigative reporter who went to Chicago during the 2008 election cycle to uncover the records from the now-defunct Annenberg Challenge, a foundation that funneled funds to far left educational programs and institutions.  It was noteworthy because future President Barack Obama and the terrorist Bill Ayers both sat on the board.

Last night, Mark Levin interviewed Stanley Kurtz on his hour-long Life, Liberty, and Levin.  Mr. Kurtz has turned his attention to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing legislation, and this innocuous-sounding piece of legislation is, in fact, one of the biggest threats to our way of life.  Candidate Joe Biden is all for it.  The link for Mr. Levin’s broadcast web page is here (video page here), and if you have difficulty with access, here are a few paragraphs from Mr. Kurtz’s essay "Biden and Dems Are Set to Abolish the Suburbs" on line (at the Ethics and Public Policy Center):

. . . Biden has actually promised to go much further than AFFH [Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing]. Biden has embraced Cory Booker’s strategy for ending single-family zoning in the suburbs and creating what you might call “little downtowns” in the suburbs. Combine the Obama-Biden administration’s radical AFFH regulation with Booker’s new strategy, and I don’t see how the suburbs can retain their ability to govern themselves. It will mean the end of local control, the end of a style of living that many people prefer to the city, and therefore the end of meaningful choice in how Americans can live. Shouldn’t voters know that this is what’s at stake in the election?

It is no exaggeration to say that progressive urbanists have long dreamed of abolishing the suburbs. (In fact, I’ve explained it all in a book.) Initially, these anti-suburban radicals wanted large cities to simply annex their surrounding suburbs, like cities did in the 19th century. That way a big city could fatten up its tax base. Once progressives discovered it had since become illegal for a city to annex its surrounding suburbs without voter consent, they cooked up a strategy that would amount to the same thing.

This de facto annexation strategy had three parts: (1) use a kind of quota system to force “economic integration” on the suburbs, pushing urban residents outside of the city; (2) close down suburban growth by regulating development, restricting automobile use, and limiting highway growth and repair, thus forcing would-be suburbanites back to the city; (3) use state and federal laws to force suburbs to redistribute tax revenue to poorer cities in their greater metropolitan region. If you force urbanites into suburbs, force suburbanites back into cities, and redistribute suburban tax revenue, then presto! You have effectively abolished the suburbs.

Read the rest here.

Related:  Mr. Kurtz’s article “Suburbs Hold Key to 2020 Presidential Choice” is here.

This is a subject of concern to every friend, associate, or family member who lives in the suburbs. This is an excellent topic to share with them.

# # #

John Solomon on voter fraud

Investigative reporter John Solomon recently inaugurated his own news aggregator, Just The News. He’s broken many stories, including many about the Russia Russia Russia hoax, the Deep State corruption, and the FISA court abuse.  Today, he sets forth a dozen election fraud example; he begins: 

Many news media, political activists and social media giants have gotten on the bandwagon that voter fraud is fiction. It is not.

A review of court cases and recent indictments – including one this week in Philadelphia against a former congressman – finds there have been at least four dozen cases in criminal and civil court since the last presidential election in 2016 in which voter fraud has led to charges, convictions, lawsuits or plea deals.  

The schemes have ranged from old fashion ballot box stuffing to absentee and mail-in ballot fraud.

Here are a dozen of the more egregious examples.

. . .

Click here to scroll through those dozen cases (Philadelphia, Alabama, New Jersey, California, Illinois, etc).

# # #

Everyone Back to Work

Stephen Green, a/k/a Mr. Vodkapundit, has been posting a daily blog at PJ Media entitled "Insanity Wrap." For those of us who are feeling surrounded by insanity these days, it's a good way to have some fun while following the latest bit of crazy.  His installment today is the 13th, the full installment is here, and below is a segment from it:

The Pandemic Is Over, Everyone Back to Work

And:

Look, are we in a health crisis requiring business and school closures, social distancing, and all the rest, or are we not?

This is a simple question, and Insanity Wrap knows the answer: It depends.

If you’re a member of the new protected class of rioters, you are free to go about the vital business of destroying whatever is left of America’s economy and social fabric.

If you aren’t, then sit down and shut up and stay home and wear the damn mask, hater.

# # #

Heather Mac Donald on government failures: lockdowns and riots

                       

One of our free subscriptions is to Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.  In the latest issue, Heather Mac Donald just published “Four Months of Unprecedented Government Malfeasance” and it is now available online.  She is addressing the unnecessary and arbitrary shutdown due to COVID-19, as well as the passive, not to say complicit, government role with the Black Lives Matter-fueled rioting. 

Over the last four months, Americans have lived through what is arguably the most consequential period of government malfeasance in U.S. history. Public officials’ overreaction to the novel coronavirus put American cities into a coma; those same officials’ passivity in the face of widespread rioting threatens to deliver the coup de grâce. Together, these back-to-back governmental failures will transform the American polity and cripple urban life for decades.

Before store windows started shattering in the name of racial justice, urban existence was already on life support, thanks to the coronavirus lockdowns. Small businesses—the restaurants and shops that are the lifeblood of cities—were shuttered, many for good, leaving desolate rows of “For Rent” signs on street after street in New York City and elsewhere. Americans huddled in their homes for months on end, believing that if they went outside, death awaited them.

This panic was occasioned by epidemiological models predicting wildly unlikely fatalities from the coronavirus.

On March 30, the infamous Imperial College London model predicted 2.2 million deaths in the U.S. by September 1, absent government action. That prediction was absurd on its face, given the dispersal of the U.S. population and the fact that China’s coronavirus death toll had already levelled off at a few thousand. The authors of that study soon revised it radically downwards.

Too late. It had already become the basis for the exercise of unprecedented government power. California was the first state to lock down its economy and confine its citizens to their homes; eventually almost every other state would follow suit, under enormous media pressure to do so.

Never before had public officials required millions of lawful businesses to shut their doors, throwing tens of millions of people out of work. They did so at the command of one particular group of experts—those in the medical and public health fields—who viewed their mandate as eliminating one particular health risk with every means put at their disposal.

If the politicians who followed their advice weighed a greater set of considerations, balancing the potential harm from the virus against the harm from the shutdowns, they showed no sign of it. Instead, governors and mayors started rolling out one emergency decree after another to terminate economic activity, seemingly heedless of the consequences.

. . .

The full essay is here.  [Note: my only criticism of MacDonald’s essay is that she implies that the behavior of the police officer who restrained George Floyd was “grotesquely callous and contrary to sound tactics.” However, based on the police complaint, the medical examiner’s report with toxicology report, and reasonable analysis by Clarice Feldman, Floyd died of a heart attack while in police custody; the neck restraint was consistent with police training in Minneapolis when an officer is trying to prevent a suspect exhibiting drug-related “excited delirium syndrome” from inflicting injury on himself.]

# # #

Gary Larson: the year 2020 in one cartoon

Gary Larson is a favorite cartoonist and he recently came out of early retirement.  This one is via Mr. Vodkapundit's "Insanity Wrap" at PJMedia:

Larson’s website (The Far Side) has more funny cartoons here.

# # #

Capricious Governors

According to cleveland.com, "Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday during an interview on "Meet the Press" that he would not rule out a statewide mandate to wear masks in public."  Cuyahoga County already has a mandate.  Theaters, sports venues, and other large gathering places are still closed.  

# # #

Every Sports Team Must Change Its Name

Daniel Greenfield’s article “Every Sports Team Must Change Its Name” highlights the insanity of this craze to re-name sports teams.  And of course it won’t stop with sports teams.  Mr. Greenfield begins:

Every name is racist. Every name must change.

The Washington Redskins agreed to change a name that offended no one except white leftists, but the media, which always speaks with forked tongue, is demanding more sports scalps.

The Cleveland Indians have issued a statement whining that "the recent social unrest... has only underscored the need for us to keep improving as an organization on issues of social justice."

Remember when the Indians were just known for being cursed with the second-longest championship drought in sports, now they can be cursed for their commitment to social justice.

The curse used to be known as the Curse of Chief Wahoo, but he's already been purged for political incorrectness. And now the Indians announced that they're "committed to engaging our community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regard to our team name.” Those stakeholders won't be their fans or anyone who knows what baseball is.

. . .

Some media editorialist will, eventually, link the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Southern cavalier mythos and accuse them of white supremacy. The English Civil War would seem to have little to do with a Cleveland team, but King Charles I was involved in the African slave trade.

“The name Cleveland Cavaliers represents a group of daring fearless men, whose life's pact was never surrender, no matter what the odds,” the fan who won a contest to name the team wrote.

We’ll see how long that lasts.

. . .

The simplest solution might be for every team to change its name to Black Lives Matter.

And when the Pittsburgh Heinz Black Lives Matters play the New York MetLife Black Lives Matters, it’ll be a little bit confusing, but that’s okay because no one will be watching.

Read the full article here.

# # #