Schumer is calling for another country to ignore the elected leader and have another election hoping that the winner would be more sympothetic to Hamas.
What’s unbelieveable is that Schumer said that we would get involved with shaping Israel’s policy if he doesn’t get his way.
Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., said Netanyahu has “lost his way” and accused the prime minister of being “too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza.” Netanyahu, he went on, “no longer fits the needs of Israel after Oct. 7,” when Hamas terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis, including women, children and infants.
Hunter caught lying. Who can forget the press conference outside the Capitol where Hunter demanded a open public hearing? Well he got his wish. Hunter’s former associates Devon Archer, Tony Bobulinski and Jason Galanis were also invited to testify on March 20.
Hunter Biden for months stated he wanted a public hearing, but now that one has been offered alongside his business associates that he worked with for years, he is refusing to come,” the House Oversight Committee said.
“During our deposition and interview phase of our investigation, Hunter Biden confirmed key evidence, including evidence that his father, President Joe Biden, lied to the American people about his family’s business dealings and in fact attended meetings, spoke on speakerphone, and had coffee with his foreign business associates who collectively funneled millions to the Bidens. However, parts of Hunter Biden’s testimony contradict the testimonies of Devon Archer, Jason Galanis, and Tony Bobulinski,” Republicans said.
“Next week’s hearing with Hunter Biden and his associates is moving forward and we fully expect Hunter Biden to participate. The American people demand the truth and accountability for the Bidens’ corruption,” the GOP Oversight said.
Stories we missed. Republicans control all major offices in Louisiana. Something changed this past January. Republicans had a clean sweep. They took the Governor, Secretary of State, Treasure, and Attorneys offices. And some thought it may turn purple or blue. I see Red.
The result gives the GOP a 100 percent lock on all the state’s top offices as well as control of the state Senate and House of Representatives. The GOP is back after only having full control of the top positions between 2011 and 2015, before losing the governor’s office between 2016 and 2023.
The GOP also controls the second tier of state offices including, Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain, and Insurance Commissioner Tim Temple. Strain also became the first Republican in state history to win the AG office.
Georgia Judge Dismisses Some Charges Against Trump, Beginning of the end? Could this be the start of the cases against Trump are starting to fall apart?
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom talks to reporters in the spin room at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., on Sept. 27, 2023. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
In his March 11 ruling, a federal judge said that the one-gun-a-month (OGM) law does not adhere to requirements for gun restrictions outlined by the U.S. Supreme Court in a pivotal 2022 decision.
“Defendants have not met their burden of producing a ‘well-established and representative historical analogue’ to the OGM law,” U.S. District Judge William Q. Hayes wrote in the decision.
“The court therefore concludes that plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment as to the constitutionality of the OGM law under the Second Amendment.”
The U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
The Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen says that if a law regulates conduct covered by the Second Amendment, officials defending the law must show it is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
Defendants must provide “historical precedent from before, during, and even after the founding [that] evinces a comparable tradition of regulation,” the high court stated.
Justices instructed lower courts not to “uphold every modern law that remotely resembles a historical analogue” but that “analogical reasoning requires only that the government identify a well-established and representative historical analogue, not a historical twin.”
They also issued guidance for judges to consider “how and why the regulations burden a law-abiding citizen’s right to armed self-defense” and to examine “whether modern and historical regulations impose a comparable burden on the right of armed self-defense and whether that burden is comparably justified are central considerations when engaging in an analogical inquiry.”
The law, signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019, barred people who bought a handgun or semiautomatic centerfire rifle from a dealer from applying to buy another handgun or semiautomatic centerfire rifle for at least 30 days.
“Gun violence is an epidemic in this country, one that’s been enflamed by the inaction of politicians in Washington,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said at the time.
“While Washington has refused to act on even the most basic gun safety reforms, California is once again leading the nation in passing meaningful gun safety reforms.”
Gun owners and groups sued in 2020, saying the law violated their constitutional rights.
After the 2022 Supreme Court ruling, defendants were ordered to provide historical examples of similar laws.
California officials offered four categories of historical restrictions, including regulations on selling guns to Native Americans and regulations on gunpowder.
Those regulations are not relevant to the law in question, Judge Hayes said.
Differing Objectives
The restrictions on Native Americans, for instance, “do not impose a comparable burden” to the California law, he wrote.
“The identified historical laws targeted only a narrow subset of the population perceived as dangerous, while the OGM law, with limited exceptions, affects all people acquiring handguns and semiautomatic centerfire rifles in California.
“Further, laws restricting the sale of arms to Native Americans impose neither a quantity nor time limitation similar to that of the OGM law.”
The gunpowder regulations were comparable because they “placed limits on the ownership and storage of gunpowder,” but “did not completely prevent people from purchasing gunpowder,” the state argued.
The regulations and the 2019 California law are “comparably justified” because both were imposed to “promote public safety,” the state said.
Judge Hayes, though, noted that officials have said previously that the California law was aimed at reducing firearms trafficking and disarming criminals, while the gunpowder regulations were put in place to prevent fires and explosions.
“Put simply, gunpowder regulations addressed fire-related risks, while the OGM law addresses risks associated with illegal gun trafficking and gun violence. Gunpowder restrictions and the OGM law are therefore not comparably justified,” he said.
Judge Hayes, a George W. Bush appointee, entered a stay of the order for 30 days to enable California officials to appeal.
“We are currently evaluating the decision, but it is important to acknowledge that the law limiting firearm purchases to one every thirty days remains in effect at this time,” a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, told The Epoch Times via email.
“Another week, another California gun control law declared unconstitutional by a federal court,” Cody J. Wisniewski, vice president and general counsel of the Firearms Policy Coalition, said in a statement. Some of the group’s members are among the plaintiffs.
“California’s one-gun-a-month law directly violates California residents’ right to acquire arms and has no basis in history,” Mr. Wisniewski said. “Given it seems certain California will refuse to learn its lesson, we look forward to continuing to strike down its gun control regime and to defending this victory.”
“This is a win for gun rights and California gun owners,” Alan M. Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, another plaintiff, said in a statement. “There is no historical justification for limiting law-abiding citizens to a single handgun or rifle purchase during a one-month period, and Judge Hayes’ ruling clearly points that out.”
This is an old article, and I remember when this came out the left lost it. Long read, but a good read.
IT HAS BECOME increasingly popular to speak of racial and ethnic diversity as a civic strength. From multicultural festivals to pronouncements from political leaders, the message is the same: our differences make us stronger.
But a massive new study, based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America, has concluded just the opposite. Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam — famous for “Bowling Alone,” his 2000 book on declining civic engagement — has found that the greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings. The study, the largest ever on civic engagement in America, found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings.
“The extent of the effect is shocking,” says Scott Page, a University of Michigan political scientist.
The study comes at a time when the future of the American melting pot is the focus of intense political debate, from immigration to race-based admissions to schools, and it poses challenges to advocates on all sides of the issues. The study is already being cited by some conservatives as proof of the harm large-scale immigration causes to the nation’s social fabric. But with demographic trends already pushing the nation inexorably toward greater diversity, the real question may yet lie ahead: how to handle the unsettling social changes that Putnam’s research predicts.
“We can’t ignore the findings,” says Ali Noorani, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “The big question we have to ask ourselves is, what do we do about it; what are the next steps?”
The study is part of a fascinating new portrait of diversity emerging from recent scholarship. Diversity, it shows, makes us uncomfortable — but discomfort, it turns out, isn’t always a bad thing. Unease with differences helps explain why teams of engineers from different cultures may be ideally suited to solve a vexing problem. Culture clashes can produce a dynamic give-and-take, generating a solution that may have eluded a group of people with more similar backgrounds and approaches. At the same time, though, Putnam’s work adds to a growing body of research indicating that more diverse populations seem to extend themselves less on behalf of collective needs and goals.
His findings on the downsides of diversity have also posed a challenge for Putnam, a liberal academic whose own values put him squarely in the pro-diversity camp. Suddenly finding himself the bearer of bad news, Putnam has struggled with how to present his work. He gathered the initial raw data in 2000 and issued a press release the following year outlining the results. He then spent several years testing other possible explanations
When he finally published a detailed scholarly analysis in June in the journal Scandinavian Political Studies, he faced criticism for straying from data into advocacy. His paper argues strongly that the negative effects of diversity can be remedied, and says history suggests that ethnic diversity may eventually fade as a sharp line of social demarcation.
“Having aligned himself with the central planners intent on sustaining such social engineering, Putnam concludes the facts with a stern pep talk,” wrote conservative commentator Ilana Mercer, in a recent Orange County Register op-ed titled “Greater diversity equals more misery.”
Putnam has long staked out ground as both a researcher and a civic player, someone willing to describe social problems and then have a hand in addressing them. He says social science should be “simultaneously rigorous and relevant,” meeting high research standards while also “speaking to concerns of our fellow citizens.” But on a topic as charged as ethnicity and race, Putnam worries that many people hear only what they want to.
“It would be unfortunate if a politically correct progressivism were to deny the reality of the challenge to social solidarity posed by diversity,” he writes in the new report. “It would be equally unfortunate if an ahistorical and ethnocentric conservatism were to deny that addressing that challenge is both feasible and desirable.”
Putnam is the nation’s premier guru of civic engagement. After studying civic life in Italy in the 1970s and 1980s, Putnam turned his attention to the US, publishing an influential journal article on civic engagement in 1995 that he expanded five years later into the best-selling “Bowling Alone.” The book sounded a national wake-up call on what Putnam called a sharp drop in civic connections among Americans. It won him audiences with presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and made him one of the country’s best known social scientists.
Putnam claims the US has experienced a pronounced decline in “social capital,” a term he helped popularize. Social capital refers to the social networks — whether friendships or religious congregations or neighborhood associations — that he says are key indicators of civic well-being. When social capital is high, says Putnam, communities are better places to live. Neighborhoods are safer; people are healthier; and more citizens vote.
The results of his new study come from a survey Putnam directed among residents in 41 US communities, including Boston. Residents were sorted into the four principal categories used by the US Census: black, white, Hispanic, and Asian. They were asked how much they trusted their neighbors and those of each racial category, and questioned about a long list of civic attitudes and practices, including their views on local government, their involvement in community projects, and their friendships. What emerged in more diverse communities was a bleak picture of civic desolation, affecting everything from political engagement to the state of social ties.
Putnam knew he had provocative findings on his hands. He worried about coming under some of the same liberal attacks that greeted Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s landmark 1965 report on the social costs associated with the breakdown of the black family. There is always the risk of being pilloried as the bearer of “an inconvenient truth,” says Putnam.
After releasing the initial results in 2001, Putnam says he spent time “kicking the tires really hard” to be sure the study had it right. Putnam realized, for instance, that more diverse communities tended to be larger, have greater income ranges, higher crime rates, and more mobility among their residents — all factors that could depress social capital independent of any impact ethnic diversity might have.
“People would say, ‘I bet you forgot about X,'” Putnam says of the string of suggestions from colleagues. “There were 20 or 30 X’s.”
But even after statistically taking them all into account, the connection remained strong: Higher diversity meant lower social capital. In his findings, Putnam writes that those in more diverse communities tend to “distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
“People living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ — that is, to pull in like a turtle,” Putnam writes.
In documenting that hunkering down, Putnam challenged the two dominant schools of thought on ethnic and racial diversity, the “contact” theory and the “conflict” theory. Under the contact theory, more time spent with those of other backgrounds leads to greater understanding and harmony between groups. Under the conflict theory, that proximity produces tension and discord.
Putnam’s findings reject both theories. In more diverse communities, he says, there were neither great bonds formed across group lines nor heightened ethnic tensions, but a general civic malaise. And in perhaps the most surprising result of all, levels of trust were not only lower between groups in more diverse settings, but even among members of the same group.
“Diversity, at least in the short run,” he writes, “seems to bring out the turtle in all of us.”
The overall findings may be jarring during a time when it’s become commonplace to sing the praises of diverse communities, but researchers in the field say they shouldn’t be.
“It’s an important addition to a growing body of evidence on the challenges created by diversity,” says Harvard economist Edward Glaeser
In a recent study, Glaeser and colleague Alberto Alesina demonstrated that roughly half the difference in social welfare spending between the US and Europe — Europe spends far more — can be attributed to the greater ethnic diversity of the US population. Glaeser says lower national social welfare spending in the US is a “macro” version of the decreased civic engagement Putnam found in more diverse communities within the country.
Economists Matthew Kahn of UCLA and Dora Costa of MIT reviewed 15 recent studies in a 2003 paper, all of which linked diversity with lower levels of social capital. Greater ethnic diversity was linked, for example, to lower school funding, census response rates, and trust in others. Kahn and Costa’s own research documented higher desertion rates in the Civil War among Union Army soldiers serving in companies whose soldiers varied more by age, occupation, and birthplace.
Birds of different feathers may sometimes flock together, but they are also less likely to look out for one another. “Everyone is a little self-conscious that this is not politically correct stuff,” says Kahn.
So how to explain New York, London, Rio de Janiero, Los Angeles — the great melting-pot cities that drive the world’s creative and financial economies?
The image of civic lassitude dragging down more diverse communities is at odds with the vigor often associated with urban centers, where ethnic diversity is greatest. It turns out there is a flip side to the discomfort diversity can cause. If ethnic diversity, at least in the short run, is a liability for social connectedness, a parallel line of emerging research suggests it can be a big asset when it comes to driving productivity and innovation. In high-skill workplace settings, says Scott Page, the University of Michigan political scientist, the different ways of thinking among people from different cultures can be a boon.
“Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, that’s challenging,” says Page, author of “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies.” “But by hanging out with people different than you, you’re likely to get more insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive.”
In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.
Page calls it the “diversity paradox.” He thinks the contrasting positive and negative effects of diversity can coexist in communities, but “there’s got to be a limit.” If civic engagement falls off too far, he says, it’s easy to imagine the positive effects of diversity beginning to wane as well. “That’s what’s unsettling about his findings,” Page says of Putnam’s new work.
Meanwhile, by drawing a portrait of civic engagement in which more homogeneous communities seem much healthier, some of Putnam’s worst fears about how his results could be used have been realized. A stream of conservative commentary has begun — from places like the Manhattan Institute and “The American Conservative” — highlighting the harm the study suggests will come from large-scale immigration. But Putnam says he’s also received hundreds of complimentary emails laced with bigoted language. “It certainly is not pleasant when David Duke’s website hails me as the guy who found out racism is good,” he says.
In the final quarter of his paper, Putnam puts the diversity challenge in a broader context by describing how social identity can change over time. Experience shows that social divisions can eventually give way to “more encompassing identities” that create a “new, more capacious sense of ‘we,'” he writes.
Growing up in the 1950s in small Midwestern town, Putnam knew the religion of virtually every member of his high school graduating class because, he says, such information was crucial to the question of “who was a possible mate or date.” The importance of marrying within one’s faith, he says, has largely faded since then, at least among many mainline Protestants, Catholics, and Jews.
While acknowledging that racial and ethnic divisions may prove more stubborn, Putnam argues that such examples bode well for the long-term prospects for social capital in a multiethnic America.
In his paper, Putnam cites the work done by Page and others, and uses it to help frame his conclusion that increasing diversity in America is not only inevitable, but ultimately valuable and enriching. As for smoothing over the divisions that hinder civic engagement, Putnam argues that Americans can help that process along through targeted efforts. He suggests expanding support for English-language instruction and investing in community centers and other places that allow for “meaningful interaction across ethnic lines.”
Some critics have found his prescriptions underwhelming. And in offering ideas for mitigating his findings, Putnam has drawn scorn for stepping out of the role of dispassionate researcher. “You’re just supposed to tell your peers what you found,” says John Leo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “I don’t expect academics to fret about these matters.”
But fretting about the state of American civic health is exactly what Putnam has spent more than a decade doing. While continuing to research questions involving social capital, he has directed the Saguaro Seminar, a project he started at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government that promotes efforts throughout the country to increase civic connections in communities.
“Social scientists are both scientists and citizens,” says Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, who sees nothing wrong in Putnam’s efforts to affect some of the phenomena he studies.
Wolfe says what is unusual is that Putnam has published findings as a social scientist that are not the ones he would have wished for as a civic leader. There are plenty of social scientists, says Wolfe, who never produce research results at odds with their own worldview.
“The problem too often,” says Wolfe, “is people are never uncomfortable about their findings.”
Michael Jonas is acting editor of CommonWealth magazine, published by MassINC, a nonpartisan public-policy think tank in Boston.
Why Biden’s wrong on saying Inflation is down to 3%. Biden keeps on saying how Inflation’s only 3%. It’s not. It’s over 17%. What cost you $100.00 in 2021 doesn’t cost you $103.00. It’s over $117.00 today. That according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The 3% he’s claiming is on top of inflation from 2021,2022, and 2023.Since 2021, inflation costs the typical household $11,434 annually.
Gov. Ned Lamont wants to eliminate the distinguishing marks on driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants, a change that would make it difficult to identify ineligible voters according to local election officials.
In a press release on Friday, Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., of the Committee on House Administration's Subcommittee on Oversight unveiled a previously suppressed interview conducted by the Jan. 6 Select Committee with Anthony Ornato, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
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Liz Cheney, Jan. 6 Committee Hid Trump Evidence. This came out Friday. Newsmax covered this.
By Jim Thomas |
In a press release on Friday, Chairman Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., of the Committee on House Administration’s Subcommittee on Oversight unveiled a previously suppressed interview conducted by the Jan. 6 Select Committee with Anthony Ornato, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff.
Ornato’s testimony reveals that former President Donald Trump advocated deploying 10,000 National Guard troops to safeguard the nation’s capital on January 6, 2021.The Select Committee conducted Ornato’s interview in Jan. 2022.
“This is just one example of important information the former Select Committee hid from the public because it contradicted what they wanted the American people to believe. And this is exactly why my investigation is committed to uncovering all the facts, no matter the outcome,” Loudermilk said.
The chairman added, “The former J6 Select Committee apparently withheld Mr. Ornato’s critical witness testimony from the American people because it contradicted their pre-determined narrative.”
The released interview highlights the White House’s frustration over the delayed assistance deployment. It contradicts the previous narrative presented by the Jan. 6 Select Committee that Trump incited the U.S. Capitol attack.
“Mr. Ornato’s testimony proves what Mr. [Mark] Meadows has said all along: President Trump did, in fact, offer 10,000 National Guard troops to secure the U.S. Capitol, which was turned down,” Loudermilk said.
Meadows “wanted to know if she [D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser] needed any more guardsmen,” Ornato testified. “And I remember the number 10,000 coming up of, you know, ‘The president wants to make sure that you have enough.’ You know, ‘He is willing to ask for 10,000.’ I remember that number. Now that you said it, it reminded me of it. And that she was all set. She had, I think, it was like 350 or so for intersection control, and those types of things not in the law enforcement capacity at the time.”
The distinction between the Select Committee’s findings and Ornato’s testimony turns on the word “ordered” instead of “offered.” While the Select Committee said that Trump did not “order” 10,000 troops to be deployed, reported NBC News, according to Ornato’s testimony, he did “offer” them.
The Federalist uncovered further details, revealing that the Jan. 6 Committee had suppressed exonerating evidence regarding Trump’s push for National Guard deployment.
When the D.C. mayor declined Trump’s offer of 10,000 troops, Ornato said the White House still requested a “quick reaction force” out of the Defense Department if needed.
As events unfolded on Jan. 6, Ornato recounted the Trump administration’s urgent appeals for the force’s deployment from Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller.
“So, then I remember the chief saying, ‘Hey, I’m calling the secretary of defense to get that [quick reaction force] in here,” Ornato testified. Later, he said, “And then I remember the chief telling Miller, ‘Get them in here, get them in here to secure the Capitol now.'”
The testimony contradicts claims made by Committee member Liz Cheney, the former Republican representative of Wyoming, who asserted there was “no evidence” supporting the White House’s desire for National Guard troops on Jan. 6.
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