Speaking Out Of Turn

On Thursday, Red State posted an article about some recent comments by New York Senator Chuck Schumer.

The article reports:

As RedState reported on Thursday, Sen. Chuck Schumer decided to engage in a bit of foreign election interference by going to the Senate floor and proclaiming that Israel must hold new elections. 

That comes as the American ally gears up to finish Hamas off in Gaza once and for all. In the face of that, Democrats have faced significant pushback from their radical, pro-terrorist base. 

As Jennifer Van Laar shared in her initial report, Schumer’s behavior is insanely inappropriate and telling. 

Schumer’s speech is stunning for a few reasons. First, we usually keep our attempts at regime change a little less public. Second, it reveals Schumer’s evil focus on keeping Netanyahu from quickly and decisively winning this war and obliterating the rapists and child murderers of Hamas. Third, it shows that despite all evidence that a two-state solution will never work, Schumer is still invested in using the United States government to make that happen…

…As I was listening to Schumer’s public statements, knowing that so much more about our government’s interference in foreign elections goes unsaid, the thought hit me once again: If he’s this blatant about his desire to ensure regime change in a sovereign nation, what won’t he and his allies do in this country to ensure that the person they want elected president wins?

The article concludes:

So if Israelis are largely united, with the vast majority opposing a “two-state solution,” what’s this really about? As mentioned above, this is about American domestic politics. Schumer is such a coward that he’s willing to bend the knee to literal terrorist supporters in his party for what he sees as short-term political gain. It’s not going to work, though. Israel isn’t going to heed his call, and the pro-Hamas wing of the Democratic Party will continue to lose its mind. 

It is unfortunate that we have members of a major political party that support a terrorist organization that has engaged in the activities that Hamas engaged in on October 7th and still holds hostages.

“Get Off My Lawn,” He Shouted

Last night I watched the State of the Union Address. I watched the entire speech and the rebuttal. I learned that to our ‘representatives’ and the elites in Washington, the most most important issues are Ukraine and January 6th. In the rebuttal, I learned that the four things important to Republicans are our southern borde5r, conflicts overseas, inflation, and crime–not necessarily in that order. When the State of the Union Address was over, I felt like someone had yelled at me for an hour and a half. The speech proved that President Biden does have the energy to give an hour and a half speech. It also left many Americans wondering if there were drugs involved.

In his speech, the President needed to allay doubts about his cognitive abilities. He also needed a reset from his image as a tired old man. He did a reasonable job on both counts as long as you ignored the yelling and the slurred speech near the end of the address.

There were a number of lies told during the speech. January 6th was not an insurrection–there were no guns involved and no one has been convicted of insurrection. The President did not inherit a struggling economy–he inherited low inflation, low interest rates, energy independence, and an economy on the rebound from the Covid lockdowns. A large number of the jobs he claims to have created were simply people returning to the jobs they held before the Covid lockdowns. I would also like to note that many of the jobs currently being created are part-time jobs. During the past two months, the number of full-time jobs has significantly decreased. The President also claimed that crime is down under his administration. That is simply not true, although much of the increase in crime is due to Democrat-run cities who have eliminated bail and are not keeping criminals in jail. In New York, the National Guard has been called up to patrol the New York City subways because crime has become a serious problem there.

Also, why was there a fence around the Capitol, but not a wall at our southern border? Do fences and walls work or do they not work? There was also a comment about increasing taxes on corporation and on the wealthy. Corporations do not pay taxes–they pass them on to their customers, fueling inflation. “Taxing the rich” is a proposal that simply feeds class envy. If you want to see the results, look at the Laffer Curve. I would also like to note that during the Obama administration, General Electric paid no income taxes. Why weren’t they sharing the burden?

The speech was loud, inaccurate, and divisive. The tone was not attractive. I do wonder if this speech, which seemed more like a campaign speech than a State of the Union Address, actually won over any undecided voters.

Is This Legal?

Campaign finance laws require the candidates to list the names of their donors. Generally that works, although not all candidates follow the law. On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported the following:

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case against former President Donald Trump, made a small donation of $150 to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ campaign prior to his appointment.

McAfee, who was sworn in on Feb. 1, 2023 after being appointed by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, made his donation in June 2020 while still working as an assistant U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice (DOJ), according to financial disclosures. He will soon have to decide whether Willis should be disqualified over allegations that she financially benefited from appointing her romantic partner, Nathan Wade, to work on the Trump case.

McAfee also formerly worked under Fani Willis when she led the complex trial division in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, according to the New York Times.

Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst Philip Holloway told the Daily Caller News Foundation McAfee’s donation was “nominal,” but said it should still have been disclosed to the defendants so they could determine “whether they believed that amounted to a conflict of interest on the part of the judge.”

I agree that the judge should be able to donate whatever amount is legal to whatever candidate he chooses. However, I also agree that the defendants in this case should have been informed of his donations. Logically, they could have asked for a different judge.

From what I have seen of the legal cases against President Trump, I am not convinced of the honesty, integrity or intelligence of those bringing the cases. All of them are fraught with problems on the part of those pursuing them. In Georgia, Fani Willis is going to have her hands full with her own legal issues. In New York, the law was changed to allow Jean Carroll to bring her suit against President Trump. That seems questionable. And also in New York, major business leaders are pulling out of the State, and truckers are refusing to make deliveries there. I don’t think any of these lawsuits are going to have the desired impact and there may be some serious unintended consequences along the way.

The Perversion Of Justice Continues

When something is called a crime but has no victim and the people who were supposedly injured by the ‘crime’ say that they were not injured, what is the appropriate punishment? In New York the punishment is to destroy the person who didn’t commit the crime because you dislike his politics and he might become President.

On Tuesday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted the following screenshot and commentary:

So this is a pre-emptive penalty because no actual fraud occurred?

This quirk in New York’s appellate procedure certainly offers one explanation. Engoron and AG Letitia James want to use the process as the punishment, and want to denude Trump of his legitimate wealth right in the middle of a political campaign they oppose. The massive fine will force Trump to either leverage these properties — and with banks outside of New York, thanks to Engoron — or to sell them off and put a large chunk of his wealth into the hands of New York for years

Did Engoron deliberately scale up the judgment to put Trump in this position? Let’s just say that New York’s system incentivizes it — and based on his deportment in the trial, it’s a reasonable conclusion.

It’s tough to overstate the absurdity of this situation. Appellate courts exist to allow citizens to seek redress for injustices in trials, both criminal and civil, that would result in ruination otherwise. This stands that process on its head. To seek redress for an injustice in a New York courtroom, the citizen must participate in his ruination just to knock on the door — even if an injustice has truly occurred. 

Please follow the link to the article to see exactly what is going on. I firmly believe that this verdict will have a chilling effect on business growth in New York in the coming years.

 

This Is Where We Are

Posted by Charlie Kirk on Twitter:

Every facet of the legal offensive against Trump is utterly unprecedented in American history.

Nothing like today’s ruling in New York, imposing a $354 million fine and banning Trump from all business in New York, has ever happened before. New York’s law allowing for the total dissolution of companies is meant for businesses that are, in fact, fraudulent — those that impersonate other businesses, or rely wholly on fraud to do business. It’s never been used to decapitate a functioning business over a supposed “fraud” that had zero victims.

Nothing like the E. Jean Carroll case has ever happened in American history either. Carroll claims Trump raped her, yet can’t give a year and has a story that matches a TV episode. Trump has never been charged, and all he said is that the allegation was untrue — so he’s been hit with a judgment of more than $83 million. This utterly rewrites the entire concept of defamation law all to attack one person — and I mean that literally, because New York rewrote its state laws specifically to let Carroll bring her ridiculous case, and then had the law sunset six months later.

Nothing like the Alvin Bragg criminal case against Trump has ever happened. Bragg is charging Trump with a felony for falsifying business records. But New York law only allows that to be a felony if it’s done to cover up a separate felony. Yet no other felony has ever been charged — instead, Bragg claims Trump violated FEDERAL election laws simply by making payments to Stormy Daniels. The insane claim is that ANYTHING Trump does to protect his reputation is an election expense that must be reported to the FEC. No court has ever ruled this, and no federal prosecutor has even tried to prosecute Trump for this, yet Bragg, a LOCAL prosecutor, claims the authority to interpret the law this way. Unprecedented.

Nothing like the Fani Willis indictment of Trump has ever happened in this country’s history, either. Fani accused Trump of furthering a “conspiracy” by urging lawmakers to vote a certain way on proposed legislation, and by encouraging the public to watch televised hearings on OANN. Even if Fani Willis’s personal life weren’t a mess of scandal, her case would be a travesty.

And of course, nothing like Jack Smith’s indictment of Donald Trump has ever happened either. No politician in modern US history has ever been charged with a crime for giving a speech where he explicitly told supporters to be peaceful. No American politician has ever been held criminally responsible for every action by any person who supports him. Jack Smith’s case throws out a century of First Amendment law…and it has to, because everything about it completely undermines the First Amendment.

One day, future observers will be shocked and astonished at how America’s leaders ripped up every rule, every norm, and every right that had guaranteed America’s well-being, all for the sake of destroying one man out of hatred.

Pot, Meet Kettle

On January 24th, The Guardian posted the following headline:

Tim Scott’s behaviour around Trump is ‘humiliating’, says the Rev Al Sharpton

Not only is the criticism undeserved, the fact that it comes from Al Sharpton is ridiculous.

Just to refresh your memory, here is part of an NPR article from August 2013:

It was 1987 when a black teenager, Tawana Brawley, said she had been raped and kidnapped by a group of white men in Dutchess County, N.Y.

Her story of being attacked, scrawled with racial slurs, smeared with feces and left beside a road wrapped in a plastic bag made front pages across the nation — especially after the Rev. Al Sharpton took up her case.

But, as The Associated Press reminds readers, “a special state grand jury later determined that Brawley had fabricated her claims, perhaps to avoid punishment for staying out late.”

In 1998, Steven Pagones, who was the county prosecutor at the time, won a defamation suit against Sharpton, Brawley and Brawley’s attorneys. They had accused Pagones of being among Brawley’s attackers.

“Sharpton has since paid off his [$65,000] debt with money raised by his supporters,” the Village Voice says. Brawley was ordered to pay $190,000.

It’s been 15 years. With interest, the judgment against the now 40-year-old Brawley has grown to more than $430,000. Finally, the Poughkeepsie Journal reports, Pagones is receiving some of the money: $3,700, or about 1 percent of what he’s now owed.

Snopes also notes:

Sharpton himself owes New York state $806,875 and has federal liens for unpaid personal income taxes against him totaling $2.6 million, records show.

The Harlem-based NAN owed $813,576 to the federal government at the end of 2012, according to the most recent filings for the group.

Sharpton’s company, Rev-Al Communications, owes $447,826 to the state. His Bo-Spanky Consulting firm has only $18.21 in outstanding debt, according to state records.

This is the person who is criticizing Tim Scott. This is also The Guardian giving credence to that criticism. Always consider the source when it comes to news.

 

Things The Media Left Out

On Saturday, Breitbart posted an article about the recent verdict in the defamation case against President Trump. In some ways the charge of rape against President Trump bears a striking resemblance to the charges brought against Justice Kavanaugh–the ‘victim’ can’t remember exactly when it happened, there is no corroborating evidence, there were no contemporary witnesses, and generally speaking there is no actual evidence. Somehow these cases were taken seriously while cases with contemporary evidence were not (Juanita Broderick, Tara Reade).

The article at Breitbart reports:

Here are some facts about Carroll’s story that the establishment media do not want the public to know:

1.  Bergdorf Goodman has no surveillance video of the alleged incident.

2.  There are zero witnesses to the alleged sexual attack.

3.  Carroll first came forward — conveniently — with the allegations while promoting her book What Do We Need Men For? in 2019, which featured a list of “The Most Hideous Men of My Life.”

4.  Carroll was unable to remember when this alleged attack even occurred. She told her lawyer in 2023, “This question, the when, the when, the date, has been something I’ve [been] constantly trying to pin down.” She has jumped years — originally beginning with 1994, then moving to 1995, and even floating to 1996. She cannot remember the season in which the alleged attack occurred either.

5.  The Donna Karan blazer dress she claims to have worn during the alleged incident was not even available at the time of her claims. Trump Attorney Boris Epshteyn told reporters, “She said, ‘This is the dress I wore in 1994.’ They went back, they checked. The dress wasn’t even made in 1994.”

“And that’s why the date’s moved around. This is the 80s. Is it the 90s? Is it the 2000s? President Trump has consistently stated that he was falsely accused, and he has the right to defend himself,” he added.

6.  She never came forward with these allegations over the years despite constantly being open about sexuality, posting things that were very sexual in nature on social media — many of which Trump has shared. They include remarks such as “How do you know your ‘unwanted sexual advance’ is unwanted, until you advance it?” and “Sex Tip I Learned From My Dog: When in heat, chase the male until he collapses with exhaustion … then jump him!”

7.  She said she was never raped, telling the New York Times podcast, The Daily, “Every woman gets to choose her word. Every woman gets to choose how she describes it. This is my way of saying it. This is my word. My word is ‘fight.’ My word is not the ‘victim’ word. I have not — I have not been raped,” she continued. “I have — something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”

8.  She named her cat “Vagina.” “Her dog, or her cat, was named ‘Vagina.’ The judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in — all of these things — but with her, they could put in anything: Access Hollywood,” Trump told CNN.

9.  Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Trump, pointed out in May 2023 that Carroll’s entire story has incredible similarities to a 2012 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In that episode, titled “Theatre and Tricks,” an individual talks about a rape fantasy in Bergdorf Goodman — the same department store where Carroll claims the incident took place.

10.  Speaking of shows, Carroll loved Trump’s show The Apprentice.

11.  Carroll made a joke associating sex with Bergdorf Goodman in a November 1993 edition of Elle, which was before the alleged Trump attack took place.

12.  Carroll is financially backed by anti-Trump Democrat megadonor Reid Hoffman, who has openly admitted to visiting convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s private island.

13.  Democrat party activists back her as well, as Breitbart News detailed:

14.  The lawsuit was only able to proceed after Democrats created the Adult Survivors Act in 2022. She conveniently pursued this suit in November following the law going into effect, which allowed her to avoid the statute of limitations for this case.

15.  Carroll once said, “Most people think of rape as sexy.”

We live in a dangerous world when a woman can simply accuse a man of a sexual crime with no evidence, circumstantial or otherwise and walk away with millions of dollars.

Policies Have Consequences

Recently, The Epoch Times posted an article about the village of Ilion, New York. For two centuries, Ilion has been the home of a Remington Arms Co. manufacturing plant.

The article reports:

In the village of Ilion, New York, 80 miles west of the state capital in Albany, residents are mourning the departure of gunmaker Remington Arms Co. after two centuries of continuous operation.

Without fanfare, the company announced last month that the manufacturing plant would be closing its doors on March 4, 2024.

“I feel like a family member has died,” Ilion Mayor John Stephens told The Epoch Times. “My dad raised four kids on a paycheck from there for 37 years. He walked to work and carried his lunch every day.”

Mr. Stephens said no one expected the announcement a week after Thanksgiving that the plant was set to close.

On Nov. 30, at 3:26 p.m., the company notified village officials of the decision by email. The message noted that “all separations” with the village would be completed by March 18, 2024.

Likewise, the company notified its 270 employees that they would soon be out of a job.

The article notes:

Publicly, the company attributed the plant closure in part to a hostile political climate in Albany regarding firearms production.

“I am writing to inform you that RemArms LLC has decided to close its entire operation at 14 Hoefler Avenue, NY 13357,” Remington Arms said in a letter to employees. “The company expects that operations at the Ilion facility will conclude on or about March 4, 2024.”

The Georgia-based company said it would continue to make firearms at its facility in Huntsville, Alabama, which opened in 2014, a year after New York’s passage of the Safe Act, which created stricter gun laws.

The anti-gun political climate in Democrat-controlled Massachusetts prompted competitor Smith & Wesson to move from its longtime base in Springfield to Maryville, Tennessee. The company announced the opening of its new headquarters there in October.

The article notes that the town has been losing population in recent years:

Until recently, Remington Arms employed about 1,500 workers, whose wages helped support the local retail economy, said village public historian Mike Disotelle.

“At noontime, when the employees would go to lunch, there would be a flood of factory employees going to local businesses,” he said.

Mr. Disotelle said Remington Arms was one of the village’s largest employers and a centerpiece of the downtown economy. This remained true even as the village continued to lose residents over the course of several decades, he said.

In 1960, the village had 10,000 residents. Today, that number is down to about 7,700 and could drop below 6,500 by 2030 due to the slow economy, high taxes, and limited housing availability, Mr. Disotelle said.

The northeast is losing its luster because of high taxes, limited housing, and the high cost of living. There is an exodus from blue states to red states. We just need to remind people not to bring their blue politics into red states.

This Could Explain A Lot If It Happens

On Tuesday, The U.K. Daily Mail reported that a Judge has ruled that documents connected to Jeffrey Epstein will be unsealed in early January.

The article reports:

  • A judge has ruled to unseal documents that would name 177 Does who are Epstein’s friends, recruiters and victims within the coming weeks
  • The material is related to a defamation case brought by Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts in New York against Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell 
  • The hundreds of files will shed new light on the late financier’s sex trafficking operation and his network of influence

The article notes:

Judge Loretta Preska wrote ‘unsealed in full’ next to the names of 177 Does who are Epstein’s friends, recruiters, victims and others whose names will be revealed when the material is released within the coming weeks.

The material is related to a defamation case brought by Prince Andrew’s accuser Virginia Roberts in New York against Epstein’s madam Ghislaine Maxwell.

Roberts sued Maxwell for defamation in 2016 and while the case was settled, media outlets filed in order to have the documents made public.

Some of the Does are identified in the ruling through links to interviews they have given to the media, which the judge cited as a reason why they should not stay private.

They include the housekeepers on Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean where some of the worst abuse that he perpetrated was carried out.

In her ruling Judge Preska gave 14 days for any Does who objected to their documents being made public to object, after which they would be unsealed.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I will believe that the full documents will be released when I see them. It makes sense to redact the names of the underage victims. The question is whether other names will be redacted. I suspect there are some American politicians that are going to have a very uncomfortable holiday season.

Will The Jury Listen To The Evidence?

On Thursday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the ongoing trial of President Trump in New York. It seems that the evidence doesn’t fit the charges.

The article reports:

“Financial reporting misconduct is a very important part of any course that I teach,” said Mr. Bartov (Eli Bartov, professor of accounting at NYU’s Stern School of Business and an award-winning researcher,). Being able to detect financial fraud early can be rather profitable, he explained, such as the famous case of Enron.

…Though the judge allowed him to testify as an expert in financial accounting and credit analysis, it came after lengthy objection from the state attorneys, who argued the professor had expertise in valuing publicly traded companies, not Deutsche Bank’s decisions. Mr. Kise commented that the state attorneys have objected to this one witness more than any of the others, “which tells me they’re terrified of this witness.”

Mr. Bartov said that after reviewing the lawsuit against the Trump Organization, “the most important evidence is the credit reports of Deutsche Bank.”

Those reports, rather than the Trump statements of financial condition (SFoCs), “really tell you the whole story,” he explained. “You can spin it any way you want, but everything is there.”

Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.

“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”

“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.

The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”

“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”

Mr. Bartov concluded:

Mr. Bartov, who teaches students how to do credit reports just like the Deutsche Bank credit report on Trump Organization, said the person who prepared this report may well have once been his student.

“I am not going to provide an independent valuation of these because it’s not necessary, not because I can’t do it,” he explained. “My main finding is there is no evidence whatsoever of any accounting fraud.”

“The SFoCs over the years were not materially mistaken,” Mr. Bartov said.

The statement prompted the judge to ask if he meant that the attorney general’s “complaint had no merit.”

“This is absolutely my opinion,” he said. “You read the complaint: the complaint has numerous allegations of valuations of GAAP [generally accepted accounting principles]. There is no specific reference to a provision of GAAP that was violated.”

Is the jury listening? Will the mainstream media report this? The answers to those two questions will tell us (if we don’t know already) whether or not this is a witchhunt.

I Guess That Testimony Did Not Go As Planned

On Friday, Breitbart posted an article about the ongoing trial of President Trump in New York. It is becoming apparent that President Trump is being tried for a crime where there was no victim.

The article reports:

A Deutsche Bank AG executive told a court in New York on Tuesday that it is not unusual for loan clients to overstate their net worth, and that the bank does its own due diligence in determining eligibility for loans.

Another executive testified that the bank had benefited from its business relationship with Trump and had wanted to continue that relationship — all of which runs against Attorney General Letitia James’s civil fraud case against Trump: there was no one harmed by alleged overestimates of his worth.

Trump faces the first case ever brought in New York in which a borrower is being sued for fraud when no one is claiming actual harm. The state is seeking a $250 million fine against Trump, and wants him to be forced to give up control of his businesses.

Judge Arthur Engoron, an elected Democrat, issued a summary judgment that Trump was liable before Trump was ever able to mount a defense. The current phase of the trial is simply about the penalty. But it is undermining the state’s basic allegations.

On December 1st, The Messenger reported:

The evidence shows that banks made money on these loans, which were paid off either early or on time. In fact, none of the banks complained about the Trump organization’s estimations, which were accompanied by a warning that the banks should not rely on those estimates.

Moreover, James is seeking to kill a corporation once viewed as iconic in New York, not just by denying the certificates for the Trumps to do business in the city but by imposing $250 million in penalties for money that no one actually lost.

That all became curiouser this week when two bankers were called by the defense. Rosemary Vrablic and David Williams worked on Deutsche Bank loans to the Trumps for years, and they testified that the banks made millions and viewed Trump as a much-sought-after “whale” client — what Vrablic described as a “very high net-worth individual.”

Williams testified that net worth is “subjective” in such documents as property valuations and are offered as mere “estimates.” It is not uncommon for a bank’s estimates to differ from a client’s.

If nothing else, this illustrates the absurdity of the case.

Statements Like This Used To Be Investigated As Criminal

On Sunday, Red State posted an article about a disturbing statement made by a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Representative Dan Goldman, a Democrat from New York, stated in an interview with Jen Psaki that President Trump needs to be eliminated.

The article reports:

Our friends at our sister site, Twitchy, picked up the comment. Goldman was on MSNBC with Jen Psaki. They were talking about an interview former President Donald Trump had with ABC’s Jonathan Karl. In that interview, Trump told Karl that he had wanted to go up to the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot to try to stop what was going on. But Trump said the Secret Service discouraged that. The MSNBC chyron at the bottom of the screen framed that as “New audio: Trump says he wanted to join Jan. 6 crowd,” which miscasts what Trump said.

Representative Godman later tweeted an apology for ‘using the wrong word.’

The article notes:

So let’s see. Saying people should act “peacefully and patriotically” is inciting. But saying someone should be “eliminated” is just using the “wrong word.” That makes a lot of sense. The funny thing here is that had Trump said what Goldman said, Goldman would likely be encouraging people to try to prosecute him over it. But Goldman’s a Democrat, so of course, out comes the pass, and he apologizes, so everything is cool. 

The double standard is alive and well in Washington.

People Vote With Their Feet

On Saturday, The New York Post reported that in the past four years, ten billionaires have changed their residences from New York to Florida.

The article reports:

New York has lost 10 billionaires in the last four years — three of whom fled to Florida — leaving tax coffers lighter by tens of millions of dollars annually.

This year 62 New York-based billionaires appeared on the Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans, compared to 72 in 2019 and 65 last year. 

Investor and Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris, whose net worth was valued at $5.7 billion last year, has grown his fortune to $6.9 billion — but he packed his bags for Florida.

Other billionaires who have relocated from Gotham to the Sunshine State in the last four years include hedge funder Daniel Och — whose net worth now stands at $3.6 billion — and investor Carl Icahn, who’s worth $6.9 billion. 

“You have this incredibly high rate imposed on all of the income of the highest earners [in New York], and living just about anywhere else will substantially reduce your tax burden. Going to Florida will obviously eliminate your individual tax burden, and many of these billionaires clearly have that flexibility,” the National Tax Foundation’s vice president, Jared Walczak, explained.

The article notes:

New York relies on the top 1% of taxpayers to pay for 42% of its tax receipts, and billionaires’ incomes are taxed at the state’s highest rate — a staggering 14.8%, according to Walczak.

Although it’s impossible to quantify the exact loss in state taxes from billionaires’ fleeing without access to private income documents, “If you had someone who was earning $100 million [a year] in New York suddenly move to Florida, that’s something like a $11 million-a-year hit per year recurring to the state,” said Ken Girardin, the research director for the Albany-based think tank, Empire Center for Public Policy.

Even with the tax accountants and tax lawyers that billionaires can afford to hire, eventually they reach the point where it is not worth it to stay in a state that takes more money from them then the Medieval Lords took from the peasants. I just hope that when the leave New York, they leave their big spending government ideas behind.

This Really Isn’t A Surprise

Yesterday MSN posted the following headline:

New York abandons electric snow plows

The article explains the reasons why:

This winter, New York won’t be using electric snow plows. Failure of vehicle tests has caused the local snow removal company to revert to diesel-powered vehicles.

The New York Department of Sanitation had three years ago, requested several Mack electric trucks. Primarily intended to clean streets and remove garbage, one of these trucks had been fitted with a snow plow as part of an experiment. This decision was unsurprising since in the “Big Apple”, it’s standard practice to fit garbage trucks with plows.

The experiment was not successful. The plow, dragging across the road and the snow buildup in front of it, created substantial resistance. Moreover, the plow required almost constant movement, eliminating the option for loading pauses. Consequently, the electric vehicle’s power supply was insufficient for the demands of a New York winter, known for its heavy snowfall, as reported by the website.

…The report further detailed that after nearly two hours, the electric plow had to discontinue the route for recharging. While the truck was efficient for garbage collection, its performance significantly dipped when facing snow removal tasks.

I have a problem with one of the statements above. A New York winter does not have really heavy snowfall. The average yearly New York City snowfall is 40 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Boston is 52.7 inches (source here). The average yearly snowfall for Concord, New Hampshire is 67.7 inches and for Mount Washington, New Hampshire 281.8 inches (source here). If electric snow plows are too wimpy for New York City, imagine how useless they would be in New England.

Where You Lost Your Keys

There is an old joke about a man who lost his car keys and was looking for them under a lamppost. A friend came to help and asked where the man had dropped them. The man replied that he had dropped his keys on the other side of the street, but he was looking on this side of the street because the light is better. That situation describes some of what is going on with our current government.

On Wednesday, The New York Post reported:

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema slammed Democratic Party leaders again Wednesday for celebrating more than $100 million in federal funds to help shelter migrants in New York while her own border state of Arizona was given a fraction of that.

The senator, who left the Democratic Party in December to become an independent, doubled down on criticism she made earlier this month of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) after the two boasted in June of securing Gotham $104.6 million of an $800 million grant from the Biden administration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded just $23,890,395 in the same month to organizations in Arizona through its Shelter and Services Program, according to its webpage.

In an interview with Politico published Wednesday, Sinema said the reason for the discrepancy was “fairly obvious.”

“I don’t know if you noticed, but the announcement about that $104 million came out first, in a joint press release from Schumer and Jeffries — not from the White House or from FEMA,” she told the outlet. “The first news of it broke by their press release. Now, how did that happen?”

Last time I checked, New York was not a border state, although New York City has declared itself a sanctuary city. They are perfectly free to declare themselves a sanctuary city, but the rest of the country should not have to pay for their decision. Arizona did not choose to be a border state, and they are being forced to pay for the failed immigration policies of the Biden administration. Let’s put the money where it is needed. Actually, let’s just use the money to seal the southern border. The last time I saw a picture of the illegal immigrants coming into our country, they were mostly men between the ages of 18 and 30. That alone could create serious problems for our country in the future. What happens when these men can’t find work? Will they create the same level of violence that they fled?

 

Making Statistics Say Whatever You Want Them To

On Wednesday, The Washington Examiner posted an article listing the three most unsafe states in the country. The states listed were Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas. I wondered how New York, California, and Illinois didn’t make the list, but then I saw the criteria.

The article reports:

The results of the study were formed by taking 53 key safety indicators that were grouped into five categories, then comparing how all 50 states fared in each of these indicators. The data examined included the percentage of people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 , assaults per capita, and the unemployment rate, all of which fell under five categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, road safety, workplace safety, and emergency preparedness, according to WalletHub.

Just for my own entertainment, I decided to look up some crime statistics for Chicago.

A website called vanlifewanderer reported the following:

Statistically speaking, Chicago is an slightly unsafe place to visit. In 2020, Chicago reported 26,583 violent crimes and had a violent crime rate of 967.93 per 100,000 people. Chicago’s violent crime rate is more than twice the national average and is on par with cities like Philadelphia, Houston and Cincinnati.

The same website reported the following about New Orleans:

In 2021, New Orelans reported 201 homicides, 712 rapes, 1,106 robberies and 3,196 aggravated assaults.New Orleans had the 14th highest violent crime rate in the country in 2020.New Orleans’s violent crime rate is 2.1x greater than the state average.New Orlean’s has a similar crime rate to Albuquerque, Baltimore and Kansas City.

The article at The Washington Examiner reported:

“There may be countless threats and hazards for folks to consider when considering areas to where they might remain or relocate,” said Rebecca Rouse, a professor at Tulane University in Louisiana. “Hazards include weather, climate, air quality, natural disasters, technological failures, accidental events, and more.”

The safest states included in the survey were Vermont, Maine , New Hampshire, Utah, and Hawaii . Vermont and Maine were in the top three states for personal and residential safety, while Maine ranked as the best state for emergency preparedness, the study found.

Based on the number of cases of people fully-vaccinated against Covid who have contacted the disease, I don’t think the rate of vaccination should be considered in calculations involving the safety of a state. The recent spike in subway crime in New York City and the amount of gun violence during an average weekend in Chicago would be much more concerning to me than whether or not the person standing next to me was vaccinated.

 

 

If You Ever Wondered About The Insanity Of The Media…

Recently MSN reported that the personal finance website WalletHub has named New Jersey as the best state in the nation in which to live. Just for the record, New Jersey was one of sixteen states that lost population in the 2020 census. (article here).

The article at MSN reports:

The report evaluated states based on five equally weighted categories — affordability, economy, education and health, quality of life and safety.

Of all 50 states, New Jersey placed number one in safety, fifth in the “Education and Health” category, and seventh for quality of life. The state did not rank as high in the other two categories: it took 32nd place for its economy and came in second-to-last for affordability. 

So a financial site chose as the best state in the nation to live in a state the came in 32nd for its economy and second-to-last for affordability. Wow.  Somehow I don’t think that choice reflects fiscal responsibility. I am sure they could have found states with reasonable numbers in safety, education and health that are more affordable.

The article at MSN continues:

Following New Jersey, the study rated Massachusetts and New York the second and third-best states to live in, respectively. Idaho and Minnesota rounded out the top five. The worst? New Mexico, aka The Land of Enchantment.

Massachusetts and New York both lost population in the 2020 census.

If nothing else, this article shows the contrast between the point of view from the ‘experts’ and the people who actually work for a living and live in America.

When Facts Get In The Way

Just the News posted an article yesterday dealing with presidential candidate Joe Biden’s claims about President Trump’s response to the coronavirus.

The article reports:

As Democrats and their presidential nominee Joe Biden gear up to attack the president’s response to COVID-19, they must grapple with a harsh reality: a third of all U.S. coronavirus deaths occurred in just three states controlled exclusively by Democrats.

Biden has sharply criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic since the first case was confirmed in the U.S. in late January. The Democratic presidential candidate claimed last week that Trump has allowed the disease to ravage the country and kill more than 170,000 citizens.

“Just judge this president on the facts,” Biden said during his acceptance speech during the Democratic National Convention. “Five million Americans infected with COVID-19. More than 170,000 Americans have died. By far the worst performance of any nation on Earth.”

The article notes two important aspects of that number:

Biden’s assessment is only partly factual. The U.S. has indeed recorded the highest total number of COVID-19 deaths in the world, but adjusted for population the nation falls to number 10, behind numerous countries in Europe and South America, including the United Kingdsom and Spain.

Perhaps more notably, more than a third of the American deaths Biden cited have occurred in the Democrat-run states of New York, New Jersey and California.

The article concludes:

A range of policies appear to have had varied effects elsewhere. California, another Democratic stronghold, has also been under strict lockdown measures for months, and its adjusted death rate is comparatively low at number 28 in the nation. South Dakota, whose Republican governor has famously refused to institute the lockdown measures of most other states, is even better at number 39.

As November approaches, Biden may continue to criticize the U.S. as having “the worst performance” of any country worldwide, with the blame laid at the feet of the current Republican administration. Democratic-run New Jersey and New York’s respective adjusted death tolls, meanwhile, both remain roughly three times the national average.

One things the article does not mention is the fact that Governor Cuomo of New York sent infected patients into nursing homes. That fact alone resulted in huge numbers of virus deaths. I am hopeful that many Americans will see through the false claims of Joe Biden. Our future depends on it.

Under The Radar

On Wednesday The Epoch Times reported the following:

President Donald Trump and Attorney General William Barr announced on Wednesday significant developments in the administration’s efforts to eradicate the notorious MS-13 gang, including its plan to seek the death penalty of an alleged gang member in connection to the slayings of two New York teens.

Trump said his administration’s “campaign to destroy MS-13” had lead to the arrest and indictment of dozens of MS-13 members and its leaders. The Justice Department launched Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) in August 2019 in an effort to disrupt, dismantle, and ultimately destroy the vicious gang, which has been responsible for a wide range of criminal activity across the United States such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and murder.

Among the arrests include the indictment of Melgar Diaz, who became the first MS-13 member to be charged with terrorism-related offenses, officials say.

“He was responsible for activities in 13 states—20 cliques in the United States.  He was also the person who would greenlight assassinations in the United States.  The orders come from El Salvador—or they request to assassinate people who go down to El Salvador, and he would greenlight the hit,” Barr said during a press conference at the oval office on Wednesday.

Diaz, whose indictment was unsealed on July 14, was charged with offenses including conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, conspiring to kill or maim individuals overseas, and conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries.

The article concludes:

The attorney general told reporters that more actions against the leadership of MS-13 are expected, saying that the administration had been working very closely with counterparts in El Salvador.

MS-13 was initially formed by Salvadoran immigrants that came to the United States in order to escape the civil war in their home country, according to a study published in the Journal of Gang Research in 2009.

This action is long overdue. Securing our borders is one way to keep members of MS-13 from coming into the country. Arresting the members that are already here is another step toward making America a safer place.

The Need To Pay Attention

In a speech in Dublin, Ireland, on July 10, 1790, John Philpot Curran stated, “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” The quote has been changed slightly and attributed to other people, but that is the original quote. That quote is particularly applicable right now as there are those (some in our government) who are blatantly attacking one of the pillars of our representative republic.

On July 6th, I posted an article about the Supreme Court decision regarding the requirement that electors in the Electoral College vote for their state’s popular vote winner. That decision was a win for the Constitution. However, that decision is not the last we will hear on the subject.

Yesterday The New York Sun posted an editorial noting the next attack on the Electoral College. Understand that the Electoral College is what stands between the representative republic we now have and mob rule. If you believe that New York, California, and a few other populous states are well run, then abolishing the Electoral College would allow those states to run the entire country. That is a scary thought.

The editorial notes:

Now that the Supreme Court has vouchsafed the power of a state to require its presidential electors to vote in line with their state’s popular vote, a new question glimmers in the constitutional mist: Could a state require its electors to vote against the wishes of the state’s own voters? That might seem a ridiculous question. Feature, though, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

It’s a workaround designed to commit the states to use the Electoral College to deliver the presidency to the winner of the national popular vote. It’s the first thing that came to mind when the Supreme Court today unanimously concluded that states have the power to punish faithless electors. Most justices credited the language in Article 2, which grants states the power to appoint electors.

The key phrase is that each state shall appoint its electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” The court, in an opinion by Justice Kagan, reckons this gives the states the power to attach conditions to the electors it appoints, such as the requirement that they vote for the candidate their home-state voters prefer. It can punish them if they don’t.

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, though, is a scheme under which states agree to instruct their electors to ignore what their own state’s voters want and, instead, vote for the winner of the national popular vote. The compact goes into effect when it has been ratified by states whose combined electoral vote count is 270, i.e., enough to choose a president.

The editorial concludes:

A Very Costly Decision

The decision to send coronavirus patients into nursing homes was a very expensive decision. In early June The New York Post reported that nearly one fourth of the deaths from the coronavirus occurred in nursing homes. More recent statistics show a higher percentage. A number of states required nursing homes to accept patients with the disease after they were discharged from the hospital. In New York, this is particularly aggravating because beds were available at the Javits Center and the hospital ship that was docked in the harbor. Both had been refitted to allow them to take patients with the virus. There was also the hospital set up by Samaritan’s Purse in Central Park. There were other options than nursing homes. The decision to send the coronavirus patients back to nursing homes in New York was made by Governor Cuomo.

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about Governor Cuomo’s decision.

The article reports on Governor Cuomo’s latest efforts to avoid responsibility for that decision:

His latest bid is simply scandalous. Cuomo has the nerve to blame grieving family members and heroic nursing-home staffers, charging they were the ones who infected and killed as many 12,000 elderly and helpless residents.

Desperation is no excuse. This is shamelessness on stilts. And it is heartlessly cruel to blame the victims.

The outrageous claims came in a report released by state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, along with hospital administrators. Conveniently, the report they prepared absolves all of them of any responsibility. What a coincidence!

Coverups don’t get any more brazen. Or less credible.

The fact remains that Zucker wrote, with obvious hospital ­input, the March 25 order forcing all nursing homes to take people infected with the coronavirus. It ultimately resulted in 6,326 sick patients being transferred from hospitals to nursing homes between March 25 and May 8.

The homes and other long-term-care facilities were given no warning, advice or help in preparing to receive those patients. There were no inspections to learn whether the facilities had space and staff to segregate COVID patients from the long-term residents, most of whom were especially vulnerable to the virus.

The order was so flawed that it even blocked the facilities from asking if those being transferred had tested positive for the virus. All those demands run counter to federal recommendations and requirements.

The article continues:

While there may have been isolated cases of infected, asymptomatic visitors, the fact remains that the nearly 600 facilities involved did not have significant numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths until the days and weeks following the March 25 order. Some had zero cases until then.

The insistence that the order played no role won’t wash. For one thing, Cuomo’s office claims the Zucker report was “peer reviewed,” but only by organizations that have a stake in its conclusions.

For another, in addition to The Post, which first recognized the lethality of the order, numerous other media outlets have independently confirmed the consequences. In this case, that’s peer review worth the name.

Indeed, it became so obvious that the March 25 order was a fatal blunder that Cuomo effectively rescinded it on May 10. Then, with a quick pivot and a grinding of gears, he shifted into an ­unconscionable hunt for scapegoats.

And hasn’t stopped. Some days, there is more than one. Trump is a frequent target, with Cuomo saying recently that the president “makes up facts, he makes up science.”

He also accused the president of being in “denial of the problem” and added, “He is facilitating the virus, he is enabling the virus.”

If that sounds familiar, it’s because many people say exactly the same things about Cuomo.

It is understood that Governor Cuomo wants to run for President. I don’t know how he could pull that off in 2020, but we can expect to see him on the Democrat ticket in 2024. He needs to put the nursing home death scandal behind him before he runs. I am not sure that a biased report by the State Health Commissioner can accomplish that.

Upholding The Constitution

The New York Post is reporting today that the Supreme Court has ruled that Presidential electors must cast their votes for the person who won the majority of the votes in their state.

The article reports:

The ruling, just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind their share of the 538 electors to vote for the states’ popular-vote winner.

The states’ Electors almost always do so anyway.

The unanimous decision in the “faithless elector” case was a defeat for those who want to change the Electoral College, and who believed a win would lead to presidential elections based on the popular or total number of votes.

But it was a win for state election officials who feared that giving more power to electors to make their own choice would cause chaos — and even lead to attempted bribery.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that a state may instruct “electors that they have no ground for reversing the vote of millions of its citizens. That direction accords with the Constitution — as well as with the trust of a Nation that here, We the People rule.”

The justices had scheduled arguments for the spring so they could resolve the issue before the election, rather than amid a potential political crisis after the country votes.

This was a unanimous decision. When was the last time all the justices on the Supreme Court agreed on anything?

This decision makes sense if you understand the purpose of the Electoral College. The Electoral College was put in place by our Founding Fathers so that a group of densely populated states would not be able to elect a President without the support of less populated states. Without the Electoral College, New York, California, New Jersey, and Connecticut would elect our President. Smaller states would never see a candidate, nor would their votes count. That is what the Electoral College was put in place to prevent.

The Truth About Covid-19 Begins To Emerge

Yesterday Just the News posted an article about Colorado health officials beginning to correct the number of deaths reported to have been caused by Covid-19.

The article reports:

Colorado health officials this week implemented a more precise coronavirus data metric to measure deaths from the virus in that state, one that sent confirmed COVID-19 fatalities tumbling by a full 25%.

Public health officials in the state elected to start distinguishing between individuals who died directly from the disease and those who simply died with the virus in their systems. Authorities in that state had faced criticism this week for classifying as a COVID-19 death a man whose blood-alcohol content registered an astronomical .55.

With the new system in place, confirmed coronavirus deaths in Colorado plummeted from 1150 to 878, a drop of almost 25%.

…The state’s coronavirus dashboard lists 21,232 confirmed cases of the virus there as of Saturday afternoon, with over 3,800 hospitalizations. Over 90% of deaths in the state were of individuals 60 or older. Deaths appear to have peaked there on April 25. 

I suspect an honest counting of deaths due to Covid-19 would be very different from the numbers that have been reported. One thing we do know is that people in nursing homes or extended care facilities need to be protected from the disease. Allowing patients with the disease to be placed in these facilities is very dangerous to the residents who are already there.

On May 12th, I posted an article stating that a new study reveals that 39% of all US coronavirus deaths occurred in nursing homes. These are the people who need to be protected. Florida is the gold standard for protecting the elderly. Florida has a large elderly population and has not had nearly the number of cases and deaths as New York. It’s time to protect the vulnerable and send the rest of us back to work.