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Thursday, 1 April 2021

Daily Digest

Daily Digest

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About Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

Posted: 01 Apr 2021 05:29 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

Historically, there have been very few hate crimes directed against Asians–just 4.4 percent of hate crimes based on race or ethnicity in the FBI’s most recent report. Lately, though, there has been an uptick, reflected in several highly-publicized and vicious attacks.

Democratic Party news sources have absurdly tried to blame anti-Asian crimes on President Trump. NBC News, for example:

Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder and director of demographic data and policy research nonprofit AAPI Data, told NBC Asian America that while the uptick cannot be entirely attributed to the Trump administration's incendiary, racist rhetoric about the coronavirus…

Reported as a fact.

…he believes former President Donald Trump's wielding of the fact that the virus originated in China and repeated elevation of the "China virus" rhetoric did play a part in fostering hate.

What is the over/under on when the press stops blaming every damn thing that goes wrong on Trump? The coronavirus did, in fact, originate in China, likely in a Chinese laboratory. Regardless, that makes it a Chinese virus by normal standards of nomenclature. If we are looking for a scapegoat, a better candidate is Harvard University, which takes the position that Asian-Americans–not the Chinese Communist Party–are inferior to all others in personal qualities like “leadership.”

But how about those high-profile and in some cases horrifying instances of wanton violence against Asian-Americans? Bari Weiss, whose career has taken a sharp upswing since leaving the moribund New York Times, has a must-read piece at Substack, which is, unlike the Times, a free speech platform. I will excerpt, but you should read the whole thing:

Please watch this 25-second video. It took place yesterday in the middle of the day in midtown Manhattan:


Here, as in most or all of the vicious attacks on Asians that we have seen in recent weeks, the criminal was African-American. Weiss writes eloquently about the fact that security guards stood by and did nothing, except to close their door as the victim struggled to get up. Next:

What is so enraging and heartbreaking of late is that each day there seems to be a new attack and a new video. Here is another, reportedly from a few hours earlier on Monday, which took place on Manhattan-bound J-train in Bushwick. According to this tweet and video, which has nearly four million views, a young-looking Asian man is beaten and reportedly choked unconscious:

Maybe you saw pictures from another subway attack earlier this month, in which a Sri Lankan immigrant named Narayange Bodhi was viciously beaten on the 1 train in Tribeca in the middle of a Friday afternoon. "You motherf—ing Asian," the attacker yelled, according to witness George Okrepkie.

Or perhaps you read the story, the very next day, of a man urinating on an Asian woman in her 20s on a Queens-bound F train.
***
Asian-Americans are being attacked and the media and the political class are contorting themselves to find a way to blame white supremacy or the legacy of Trumpism. Why? Because when the perpetrator is a neo-Nazi it is a moral gimme. When the person carrying out the hate crime comes from a group that's also a target of hate crimes condemnation becomes much more difficult.

Actually, it isn’t more difficult for me. I take my perpetrators as I find them. But Weiss correctly diagnoses not just a sickness in our society, but a sickness in our media culture, which doggedly blinds its eyes to reality.

America Is Back?

Posted: 01 Apr 2021 04:38 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

Democratic politicians and their press adjunct are promoting the absurd idea that “America is back!” As though we had gone away during the Trump years, when American interests were pursued aggressively, successfully and peacefully–a pretty good combination. What is actually happening now is that we have a senile president surrounded by leftists who have no interest in defending American interests or American allies. Hostile powers are moving to fill the vacuum.

The London Times has a sobering account of China’s designs on Taiwan: “With Hong Kong subdued, Xi's gaze turns to defiant Taiwan.”

China is ratcheting up military pressure on Taiwan, probing the air defences of the self-governed island on a near-daily basis amid fears of impending conflict.

According to Taiwan's ministry of national defence, Chinese planes, sometimes in large numbers, entered the zone at least 18 times last month, 17 times in February and 27 times in January.
***
China's constant flexing of its military muscle around the island is part of an intensifying five-year campaign under President Xi, who has vowed to annex Taiwan, if necessary by force, by 2050.

…Under Xi, the campaign to return [Taiwan] to the fold has moved beyond rhetoric and is a tenet of his leadership.

The role of the U.S. is crucial:

As well as trying to sap Taiwan's appetite for a fight, the incursions are a message to the United States. Washington is obliged to equip Taiwan militarily under a defence pact but whether an American president would send US forces to defend the island has always been uncertain. It is an ambiguity that in the past has helped to serve as a deterrent to Chinese aggression. Xi appears willing to test this.

Joe Biden is widely suspected of being in China’s pocket as a result of his own corrupt dealings. But more charitably we can say that, apart from any such corrupt influence, we have a feeble president surrounded by leftists with little interest in national security issues. So China’s aggressiveness is perhaps over-determined.

The Times article assesses Taiwan’s ability to resist a Chinese attack. Then:

Experts generally agree that Beijing would not attack the island unless it was prepared to take on Washington.

Some believe that that moment may be approaching, as China's military grows ever stronger and its economy looks better able to survive sanctions from the West.

It is predictable that Chinese pressure on Taiwan will increase, with no meaningful response from Washington. Maybe the CCP will invade one of these days, at considerable cost. As the Times says, “Taiwan is no easy military target and Beijing would prefer to subdue the island — which is separated from the mainland by at least 100 miles of fast-running strait — without firing a bullet.” Joe Biden’s election makes that goal–along with others sought by the Chinese Communist Party–more attainable.

Biden administration solicits random federal employees to go the border

Posted: 01 Apr 2021 12:00 PM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Here’s a question. If there is no border crisis, why is Joe Biden’s Department of HHS inviting federal employees in departments having nothing to do with immigration or health to travel to the border and provide assistance?

Here’s another question: Isn’t the Biden administration inviting a misappropriation of federal funds?

And finally: What are such federal employees from random agencies supposed to do when they get to the border?

These questions were prompted by a memo from the head of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to the agency’s employees inviting them to the border to lend a hand. The memo states that HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) “needs current Federal civilian employees for 30 to 120 day details to support [its] facilities for unaccompanied children.”

Expenses incurred in connection with the “detail” are reimbursable by ORR. However, the salaries of the employees will be paid by the agency for which they work (in this case the EEOC).

Let’s start with my first question. At a minimum, there certainly is a crisis at the border. Otherwise, this extraordinary solicitation of federal employees wouldn’t have been issued. Indeed, the solicitation suggests that the situation at the border is more like a catastrophe than just a crisis.

On to my second question. It seems to me that sending employees from agencies like the EEOC to the border amounts to a misappropriation of federal funds.

Congress appropriated money to the EEOC so this commission can conduct its statutorily authorized duty of enforcing various employment discrimination laws. It did not appropriate money for other purposes.

If EEOC employees work at refugee resettlement facilities, they will not be enforcing employment discrimination laws or furthering such enforcement in any way. When the EEOC pays the salaries of these employees, the money will be used for purposes unauthorized by Congress.

Perhaps there is some loophole in federal law that permits this. If so, I would hope that the loophole requires some sort of emergency declaration — that is, a public acknowledgement of a serious crisis.

Finally, what are employees at agencies like the EEOC expected to do at the border? Reportedly, they will be asked to act as “youth care workers and case managers, depending on Spanish language proficiency.”

I have known some fine EEOC employees. However, I’m hard pressed to imagine any of them making themselves useful at a refugee camp in a capacity other than, in some cases, competent baby sitters. Shouldn’t the government be able to find competent baby sitters without enlisting well-paid federal employees?

And again, Congress didn’t appropriate money to the EEOC so it could pay its employees to baby sit at refugee camps.

The Geek in Pictures: Wot Happened? Edition

Posted: 01 Apr 2021 10:41 AM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

• Up first: Anti-Semitism. Everyone knows the great historical riddle: how could Germany, the most educated nation in Europe, fall into such a vicious anti-Semitic frenzy? Thank goodness it could never happen here. Oh, wait—turns out the more education you have in the U.S., the more likely you are to support authoritarian measures against faithful Jews. But BLM? Riot on, man!

Pretty sure we should be closing down graduate schools if we’re worried about bigotry and extremism. More at Tablet magazine.

• While we’re on the subject of religion this Easter week, we’re told that the country is becoming more secular, and shown this Gallup time series.

But here’s the thing: the decline in church attendance is heavily skewed to so-called “mainline” denominations that have one big thing in common: they’ve been overrun by the left in most cases. The Catholic church and evangelical denominations have seen much less decline in attendance over the last 50 years:

• Zach Goldberg strikes again. What these two charts show is that support for increased immigration has soared among liberals in recent years—especially white liberal Democrats.

• What happened in 1971? As you probably know, the left has been hopped up for a while now on income inequality, along with the related claim that middle class wages have stagnated since the early 1970s, after having risen steadily in the first two post-war decades. The left likes to blame this on tax cuts, but the supply-side revolution doesn’t get going until the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yet 1971 appears to be the  inflection point. Why? Investor John Mauldin has a nice slide deck going through aspects of the date; here are a few highlights from it:

Note: This chart is almost surely wrong or misleading, but as it is in wide circulation you should know about it.

One thing we know that happened in 1971 is that the U.S. went off the gold standard. Might that have anything to do with trends? The before and after charts sure look it meant something:

Are these inflections occurring after we abandoned the gold link purely coincidental? Maybe. Because there are other factors that also coincide roughly with 1971. Like the explosion in regulation, which increased the capital cost for each new job generated, which in turn put downward pressure on basic labor wages:

What else happened around 1970? Women started entering the workforce in much larger numbers. Compare these next two charts, which show a considerable gender gap in wage trends:

Black income was also rising steadily until about 1970, then stopped. Is there any relationship between this and the changing overall composition of the labor force, not with more women, but also higher rates of immigration that started in the late 1960s? These are questions that labor economists resolutely avoid exploring. Gee, I wonder why?

 

Meanwhile, Mark Perry strikes again:

• Lastly, a few stray charts for you to interpret on your own.

 

And finally. . .

Poland’s national soccer team says no to the knee

Posted: 01 Apr 2021 09:43 AM PDT

(Paul Mirengoff)

Ever since shortly after the George Floyd’s death last May, soccer players in England have been “taking a knee” just before the kickoff of their matches. In my view, athletes should be free to take a knee (or not to) before a match. But why a Minneapolis cop’s excessive use of force, and the death it may or may not have caused, should prompt soccer players in Manchester to take a knee is beyond me. I haven’t even figured out why Floyd’s death should have prompted burning and looting in cities across America.

Yesterday, the Polish national soccer team visited Wembley Stadium in London to take on England in a qualifying match for the 2022 World Cup. I usually fast forward past the kickoff so as to skip the lame virtue signaling. But this time I was curious to see whether the Poles would join the English in taking a knee.

They didn’t. According to the TV announcer, English officials had told Polish officials that the English team would take a knee, and had invited the Poles to join them. But the Poles declined.

Apparently, they haven’t figured out why events in Minneapolis, or in the U.S. generally, should cause them to change their pre-kickoff behavior — let alone indulge in unmanly behavior. Apparently, they haven’t been taught that they are all racists.

England won the match 2-1 on a late goal. However, Poland is likely to qualify for the World Cup (along with England). The Poles will also participate in the European championship this June (as will England). I’ll be rooting for them.

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