America Needs A Political Enema. Palestinians Have Natural Right To Kill! HOOVER and INFRASTRUCTURE Commentary FAIR Update.

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Fatah: Palestinians have “a natural right” to attack and murder Israelis Nan Jacques Zilberdik | May 6, 2021 Read on our website ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ The time has passed for America to take a political enema

Clean House in 2025

By Kurt Schlichter

When President DeSantis is sworn in at 12:00 pm on January 20, 2025, he should give a short speech and by 12:10 be firing people. Lots of people.

Okay, it might not be the current Florida governor – we do know it’s not going to be Gov. Nikki! Haley (R – Establishment) or Kristi! Noem (R-NCAA) – but whoever beats Kamala Harris like a drum needs to come into the Oval Office ready to clear-cut the bureaucracy.

Just level it.

Every keen observer understands that Donald Trump’s first and foremost failure as president was personnel. He did not get it right until the end, and then it was far too late. There are two reasons for this. The first is that for all his iconoclasm, Trump used to believe in our institutions and it took him a while to see how totally corrupt they truly are. For years, he gave the NYT interviews even as it trashed him because, well, it was the Times and the Times was prestigious. For much of his term, he had that same kind of deference to establishment figures. He thought Rex Tillerson would be great because he was a rich head of a huge corporation. He thought generals were impressive because they had medals, and he famously got shafted by each and every one of them that he relied upon. He thought, for too long, that the DoJ and FBI and other agencies really had America’s interests at heart instead of the liberal establishment’s priorities.

It was all baloney.

They were all terrible, and they all worked ceaselessly to undermine and even imprison him. It was only at the end that Trump found trustworthy folks who would do their jobs instead of pursue outside agendas. For example, Trump’s third National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, was the best National Security Advisor maybe ever – gee, he only oversaw achieving peace in the Middle East – and the reason you might not recognize his name is because he never became the story like McMaster or Bolton. Mike Pompeo – who also will never be president, sorry – was likewise a loyal and effective Secretary of State. But it took almost four years to get the team on-board.

The other issue was that Trump had no Rolodex. The Bush cabal had thousands of loyal obedient minions/potential staffers to call upon in the off-chance that hell froze over and Jeb! got elected to something other than “Most Likely to Fail.” Trump had no one to call. That’s a big part of why his administration was staffed with people who had zero loyalty and spent their time undermining him and his policies.

President De Santis will not have that problem – there’s a whole generation of experienced conservatives out there to call upon to staff his administration. And they will to be ready to separate the wheat form the chaff when they take up their places. He needs to get to firing. And right away. He needs to fire Christopher Wray at the FBI and most of the failed Bureau’s leadership. 

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Hanson sees a marked change in American attitude:

https://amgreatness.com/2021/05/05/are-americans-becoming-sovietized/

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HOOVER Monthly regarding infrastructure:

The Hoover Institution Monthly Briefing on the Economy May 2021

INFRASTRUCTURE

Welcome to the Hoover Institution’s monthly newsletter on the economy. This month we examine the cost and benefits of infrastructure projects. Last month, the Biden administration proposed over $2 trillion in new infrastructure spending. The money would go to improving America’s highways and bridges, upgrading the nation’s utilities, and modernizing schools and day cares. The White House promises this investment will create high-quality jobs and increase long-term economic growth, but will the plan fulfill these promises?

Economist Michael Boskin is skeptical. In his recent essay There Will Be Boondoggles, Boskin explains that while the United States has infrastructure needs, the administration’s plan won’t pass a cost-benefit test. First, much of the proposed spending shouldn’t count as infrastructure. The proposal includes hundreds of billions for expanded home care services, workforce development programs, and clean energy tax credits. Even the bona fide infrastructure projects are unlikely to deliver much value, according to Boskin. In recent decades, much of the federal government spending on infrastructure has been wasted on high-profile projects that offered little gains, such as the failed California High-Speed Rail project. Boskin explains why federal dollars are rarely well spent:

When federal funding is plentiful, there are more chances for cronyism and pork-barrel spending on low-return projects designed to make politicians look good. Repairs and maintenance generally offer higher returns than new construction, but only the latter offers a ribbon-cutting photo op in a congressperson’s home district. When federal grants pay for 80% of new highway construction, local authorities have a strong incentive to push for pet projects, because they can tell their voters that they will be on the hook for only 20% of the cost. What they don’t say is that they are also paying for pet projects in all of the other states that receive federal grant money. Voters would reject this fiscal cross-hauling if they were given the full picture.

Even if some of the money is wasted, the administration expects the new spending will accelerate the current economic recovery. But research by economists John Cogan and John Taylor suggests otherwise. They analyzed the effects of the infrastructure spending from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and found the money had little effect on total infrastructure spending. States used the federal dollars for projects that would have happened anyway, and then paid down debts with the savings. Further, what little money that went to new infrastructure was spent far too slowly to stimulate the economy. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, as Cogan and Taylor explain:

The slow pace of infrastructure spending is not unique to the 2009 stimulus. The slow-spending phenomenon has been a common element in public-infrastructure appropriations in stimulus programs dating back to at least the 1970s. The administrative process that federal agencies use to allocate appropriated funds, to include binding obligations, and to eventually liquidate those obligations is cumbersome and slow. The idea of a “shovel ready” job is useful in concept but not in allocating federal funds.

There are better ways to finance the nation’s infrastructure. At a 2019 symposium at the Hoover Institution, scholars explored ways to pay for new infrastructure that wouldn’t require trillions in federal spending. One promising idea is to encourage more public-private partnerships where private companies invest, develop, and manage public services. Economists Aleksandar Andonov, Roman Kräussl, and Joshua Rauh explain that worthwhile infrastructure projects may offer private investors an attractive investment vehicle:

The stated value proposition of infrastructure as an investment is generally that it has attractive financial attributes such as strong returns, a low sensitivity to swings in the cycle, little correlation with equity markets, long-term stable and predictable cash flows, inflation hedging properties, and low default rates. Based on their economic and financial characteristics, infrastructure investments are supposed to offer investors long-term, low-risk, inflation-protected and acyclical returns.

++++++++++++++++++++++ FAIR Update: FAIR News Parents Say "No" to CRT in Schools And Other News May 5th, 2021 A Local Election Speaks Volumes Implicit bias training and racial affinity groups coming to K-12 schools have been making headlines across the country. Parents in Southlake, Texas saw what was being proposed in their community and said “no.” A recent school board and city council election in Southlake, Texas garnered national attention. The Dallas suburb had a near-even split in the 2020 general election, with Joe Biden winning the county by less than one percent. However, the recent municipal election centered primarily on the Carroll Independent School District’s attempts to implement a “Cultural Competence Action Plan," which included hiring a director of equity and inclusion and embedding diversity training for all students at all grade levels as a requisite for graduation in order to “educate students about bias and advantages.” Like many other divisive racial training programs, the district’s plan was steeped in flowery language that ultimately suggested that the immutable characteristics of students and staff members were paramount. This is dangerous — not only because such training programs are regressive, but they oftentimes result in the opposite of the intended effect. The community debate over implementing the proposed program in the Carroll Independent School District had been ongoing. With national attention focused on the matter, many anticipated a close race — so very few foresaw a landslide victory, with nearly seventy percent of voters opting for candidates who oppose the program. FAIR Makes National News “When we have a whole bunch of little kids who are told from a very young age that they are defined by their skin color... you are going to end up with a society where everybody is tribal, and everybody is racist,” said FAIR president Bion Bartning on ABC last night. Bartning's brief interview and ABC's mention of FAIR was part of an eight-minute segment on critical race theory in schools. While there is still much to overcome, FAIR being featured in a segment on CRT in schools is a meaningful step toward advancing a pro-human alternative to CRT's poisonous and pessimistic lens into mainstream discourse. Watch FAIR's clip from ABC here. Watch the full segment here. Paul Rossi Continues Speaking Out Paul Rossi, the Grace Church High School whistleblower and FAIR volunteer, has continued ringing the alarm on neo-racism in K-12 schools. Paul has appeared on a multitude of podcasts including the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast, The Dave Rubin Show, and The Fifth Column. “Once it started to cascade I began to feel a real sense of exhilaration and duty that I was doing the right thing. That carried me through up until the present day.” Listen to The Rubin Report episode here. Listen to The Fifth Column episode here. Listen to the Jordan B. Peterson Podcast episode here. Follow Paul Rossi's story here. Other News Robby Soave of Reason magazine wrote an article detailing the motivation behind California’s plan to discourage students from enrolling in advanced math courses in K-12 schools. The California Department of Education explains that inequities in educational outcomes are the reason behind taking such a step. “The essence of good schooling is choice. Individual kids benefit from a wide range of possible educational options. Permitting them to diversify, specialize, and chart their own paths—with helpful input from the adults in their lives—is the course of action that recognizes vast differences in interest and ability. Holding back kids who are gifted at math isn't equitable: On the contrary, it's extremely unfair to everyone.” Read the full article here. In an article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, Amna Khalid lays out how diversity, equity, and inclusion departments on campus serve to bolster universities’ bureaucracies and enrich many along the way. “By insisting on bureaucratic solutions to execute their vision, replete with bullet-pointed action items and measurable outcomes, student activists are only strengthening the neoliberal ‘all-administrative university’ — a model of higher education that privileges market relationships, treats students as consumers and faculty as service providers, all under the umbrella of an ever-expanding regime of bureaucratization. Fulfilling student DEI demands will weaken academe, including, ironically, undermining more meaningful diversity efforts.” Read the full article here. In a piece for Persuasion, Nadia Gill details the capabilities of filmmakers to tell the stories of people unlike themselves. In a time where it is becoming increasingly difficult to celebrate cultures outside of one’s own, the story behind the Oscar-winning director of Nomadland reminds us why pro-human values allow us to share what we all have in common. “Zhao’s meteoric rise shows that it is possible to portray the lives of those with different identities and experiences in a way that honors subjects and enlightens audiences. We should look to her as an example of how to do so effectively.” Read the full article here. FAIR Board of Advisors members Glenn Loury, Kmele Foster, John McWhorter, and Kenny Xu all had brief essays featured on fellow Board member Bari Weiss’ substack piece titled What is Systemic Racism. The comprehensive piece covers topics ranging from prisons in Louisiana, semantics in language, and discrimination against asians in education. “Before the turbulent summer of 2020, you were far more likely to encounter the words ‘systemic racism’ in a scholarly journal than in a primetime presidential address. Now you can’t get through an Oscar speech or a corporate tweet without tripping over it,” wrote Kmele Foster. Read the full article here. FAIR Board of Advisors member Erec Smith penned an insightful essay for Persuasion. Smith unpacks the notion of “black authenticity” pedaled by CRT scholars, such as Ibram X Kendi, and makes a case for “free black thought.” “What the current obsession with a spurious black authenticity and the actual fact of black diversity suggest is that we must begin to attend in a serious way to heterodox black voices.” Read the full article here. FAIR Board of Advisors member Melissa Chen joined Reason for an interview discussing her fight against illiberal identity politics in the United States and authoritarianism in her birthplace of Singapore and elsewhere. The interview covers a range of topics from the mass shooting at a massage parlor in Georgia to politics in Hollywood, and how to counter radicalism. Watch the interview here. FAIR Board of Advisors member John McWhorter also sat down for an interview with Reason. The interview delves into the seemingly religious fervor motivating those who push “anti-racism” and critical race theory, something McWhorter first noted as early as 2015. McWhorter discusses his upcoming book The Elect as well as his most recently published book, Nine Nasty Words. “We're not allowed to admit how much better things have gotten. There's a certain kind of person... where if you point to the good news they don't want to accept it. It's unpleasant for them to hear how much better things have gotten and they're thinking that their job as moral actors is to find evidence to go against it.” Watch the interview here. Join the FAIR Community Click here to become a FAIR volunteer, or to either lead or join a FAIR chapter: Join a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission by clicking here. Or, watch a previously recorded session click here to visit the Member section of www.fairforall.org. Sign the FAIR Pledge for a common culture of fairness, understanding and humanity. Join the FAIR message board to connect and share information with other members of the FAIR community. Join or start a FAIR chapter in your state, to help launch the pro-human movement. Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism 485 Madison Ave, 16th Floor | New York, New York 10022 info@fairforall.org +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++