Sunday, 2 May 2021

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Why Don’t More Twin Cities Blacks Own Homes?

Posted: 02 May 2021 04:52 PM PDT

(John Hinderaker)

For a long time I have believed that the New York Times is America’s worst newspaper, with the Washington Post close behind. Sadly, news coverage in the Wall Street Journal, while not in that dismal league, has declined. If it weren’t for the editorial page, one wonders whether the Journal would be worth subscribing to. Its news coverage is liberal, and in these days, largely “woke.”

A case in point is yesterday’s story titled “Why Black Homeownership Lags Badly in Minneapolis,” co-authored by Rachel Bachman and Douglas Belkin. The subhead is, “Restrictive property covenants once helped keep people of color out of neighborhoods around America. The effects have compounded.”

The takeoff point for this story is that the “gap” between the white home ownership rate and the black home ownership rate in the Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area–the article itself is vague, referring mostly to Minneapolis, but this seems clear from the accompanying charts–is the widest in the nation:

In the Minneapolis metro area, 77% of white residents own homes, compared with 25% of Black residents—a 52-percentage-point difference, larger than in any other major U.S. city….

Actually, the Twin Cities are home to a number of such “gaps,” most notably, in educational achievement. The reasons for this are historic, but the most obvious causal factor is that 15 or 20 years ago (it could still be true, but I haven’t seen the numbers lately) the U.S. zip code that had the highest rate of illegitimate births in the country was North Minneapolis. But don’t hold your breath waiting for liberals to talk about that.

A trove of new research suggests that one factor is a tool of discrimination from 100 years ago: racially restrictive covenants that were attached to thousands of Minneapolis homes in the early 20th century, prohibiting sales to many minorities.

This is a profoundly silly theory. First of all, race-restricted covenants have been unenforceable, as the article acknowledges, since 1948, and have been banned in Minnesota since 1962. The idea that somehow, 60 to 75 years later, those long-gone covenants are still preventing blacks from buying homes, is ridiculous on its face.

Further, the number of blacks who were affected by such covenants was miniscule. As the article notes, “In the early 20th century, Black residents made up just 1% of the population.” Virtually all of the Twin Cities’ black population has moved to the area after restrictive covenants were abolished.

The Journal authors purport to find a lingering impact from deeds that date back the better part of a century, for reasons that can only be characterized as mystical:

It's clear, however, that covenants were the foundation of a disparity that was then compounded by other factors in the ensuing decades.

Really? Nothing in the article makes such a claim “clear.” The authors cite this striking data point:

In Minneapolis, a 1% increase in covenanted houses in a census block was linked to a 19% reduction in Black homeownership as of 2010, according to a draft of a study led by Aradhya Sood, a postdoctoral scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. It isn't clear why the effect of covenants is so enduring, she said. "What did surprise me," she said, "was just the level of the effect."

I think I can explain it. First, though, I can’t tell whether this alleged data point refers to the city of Minneapolis, or to the Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area, which extends into Wisconsin. Taking the authors at their word, I assume it is Minneapolis. This, then, is what is going on: the areas of Minneapolis that existed in the early 20th century and where there were at least a handful of restrictive covenants may or may not have amounted to much at the time, but they are now rather exclusive. Blacks are entirely welcome in South and Southwest Minneapolis, they just have to be able to afford a house that may cost $1 million. The correlation found by the authors is not with restrictive covenants of 100 years ago, but rather with today’s real estate market.

Real estate development in the Twin Cities metro area has occurred mostly since 1948 or, if we choose that date, 1962. The suburb in which I live did not exist in 1962. There have never been any restrictive covenants here, and blacks and others are welcome to buy homes. They just have to make their mortgage payments. That is true for the vast majority of the Twin Cities metro area.

The Journal article includes charts that negate the authors’ thesis. Black home ownership in the metro area was significantly higher in 2000 than today. How can the decline over the last 21 years possibly be the result of covenants from 100 years ago, that covered an infinitesimal portion of the metro area?

Further, the article’s charts show that the rates of home ownership by Asians and by Hispanics born outside the United States have skyrocketed in the last few years. Those groups were also banned by 100-year-old restrictive covenants. While there were probably even fewer of them than the 1% who were black at that time, what is the difference? I could answer that question, but don’t hold your breath waiting for the politically-correct Wall Street Journal to explain.

The best thing about this pathetic Journal article is the comments, of which there are more than 700. I recommend that you check them out. The Journal’s news reporters may have gone downhill, but the paper’s readers haven’t. Not yet, anyway.

For example:

What is the correlation between education and home ownership, or employment by race and home ownership, how about correlation between two income families and home ownership, or other traditional factors and home ownership? This “study” appears to seek data to support a thesis – but can’t. Also, these covenants were designed to exclude Jews and other groups from home ownership in some areas. How are they doing currently? Is the impact as durable for these groups and why or why not?

A discreet veil must be drawn over that last question. More:

"It's clear, however, that covenants were the foundation of a disparity that was then compounded by other factors in the ensuing decades."

Clear? There is not even a definition of what "foundation of a disparity" is supposed to mean, and the article coyly admits that "the covenant data doesn't fully explain why the gap is so persistent." In fact, "the covenant data" explain nothing, at least as presented here.

Racially restrictive covenants were at one time common throughout the United States. This article includes no reason – not even conjectural – why Minneapolis should have had an experience different from any other afflicted city or any claim that Minneapolis is exemplary of a broader phenomenon.

In other words, this article and the study on which it is based are not serious efforts.

This commenter gets more personal, quoting the Journal itself:

“Rachel Bachman is a senior sports reporter in The Wall Street Journal's New York office. She covers the Olympics, college sports, investigations and other sports-related topics. Previously at the Journal, Ms. Bachman wrote about fitness and exercise. She has worked for the Oregonian in Portland, covering college football and basketball, the NBA and issues and trends in sports. She grew up in Minneapolis and graduated from the University of Michigan.”

The Bachmans are one of Minnesota’s wealthy families. I don’t know whether the sportswriter Rachel Bachman, now foraying into politics rather than sports, is from that family or not. But it may be that she grew up in one of those very few homes to which century-old restrictive covenants actually applied, at least until 60 years ago. Growing up wealthy tends to skew one’s perspective, creating the impression that inherited wealth is a big deal, when in fact hardly any of us inherit much from our parents or grandparents. This is why growing up wealthy tends to make one a liberal. If my speculation is misguided, Ms. Bachman can write to us at PowerlineFeedback@gmail.com and I will be happy to publish her contribution.

Be that as it may, this article was almost unbelievably stupid, and we can only join the many WSJ commenters who asked: with reporting this bad, is the Journal still worth subscribing to?

The Giuliani corrections

Posted: 02 May 2021 09:05 AM PDT

(Scott Johnson)

I expressed my doubt about two of Rudy Giuliani’s statements to Tucker Carlson last week here. They discussed the search warrants executed at his apartment and his office in connection with the investigation of an alleged Foreign Agents Registration Act violation. In that post I also took a cynical look at two New York Times stories on the case giving rise to the warrants. I don’t take anything either Giuliani or the Times says at face value and I view FARA as the last refuge of a prosecutorial scoundrel.

The New York Post has now rounded up corrections on a related point made by the Times, the Washington Post, and NBC. The related point bears on an alleged FBI warning about Russian disinformation. Russia! Russia! Russia!

Here is the Times on the second of the two Giuliani warrant stories it ran last week: “An earlier version of this article misstated whether Rudolph W. Giuliani received a formal warning from the F.B.I. about Russian disinformation. Mr. Giuliani did not receive such a so-called defensive briefing." The Times correction comes in the form of a note attached to the story.

Clarice Feldman also provides a good backgrounder on the Giuliani news in the American Thinker column “The Never-ending Hunt for a Trump Crime.” The media corrections came too late for Clarice to add a point about the never-ending embarrassment of the Times and its lessers among the mainstream media.

We are in the land of fake news generated by unidentified sources “familiar” with this and that. Unfortunately, I think the New York Post still owes its readers an explanation of the editor’s note appended to Laura Italiano’s “Kam on in” as well as Mark Moore’s follow-up story. Their stories turn out to have been “Fake news, NY Post style.”

Alan Dershowitz comments on the Giuliani warrants in his Dershow podcast below. Professor Dershowitz argues that the search warrants violated the Fourth Amendment. Among other things, Professor Dershowitz asserts that a search warrant is “essentially thuggery.”

Professor Dershowitz contends that Giuliani should have been served with a subpoena in lieu of the more intrusive search warrants. I believe his comments are consistent with Department of Justice guidelines, but I don’t know that the Supreme Court has ever adopted this practice as a matter of constitutional law under the Fourth Amendment. Indeed, Professor Dershowitz cites no case supporting his argument. Rather, he cites “civil liberties” and relies on “the spirit of the Fourth Amendment.” However, his comments are consistent with Giuliani’s comments to Tucker Carlson.

Following the execution of the Giuliani search warrants last week, Professor Dershowitz agreed to provide constitutional advice to Giuliani’s legal team. The podcast gives us a preview of the advice he will render and the argument that will be made at some point on Giuliani’s behalf. If I were in trouble, I would want Professor Dershowitz on my side, but I infer from his comments that existing law does not support the argument he makes in the podcast.

UPDATE: I unintentionally overlooked Lee Smith’s Epoch Times column on the Giuliani raid. Lee makes several telling points and his thesis may be right.

Renewable Nonsense [With Comment by John]

Posted: 02 May 2021 08:31 AM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

This Barron’s story from a few days ago almost slipped by unnoticed:

90% of Wind and Solar Could Be Economically Competitive by 2030, Says New Study

Prices for wind and solar have collapsed in the past three years, meaning that by the end of the decade, 90% will be economically competitive with fossil fuels, according to a report by U.K.-based think tank Carbontracker. Already, some 60% of global solar resources and 15% of wind are competitive. By 2030, that will be all of solar and more than half of wind, the report says.

Hold on a moment: we’ve been told for quite a while that wind and solar power are competitive with conventional electricity sources now—not at some far off future point. And yet this has been the history of wind and solar power. Large subsidies, favorable tax treatment, and purchase mandates for both started in the late 1970s, and one of the key arguments was that subsidies were necessary to launch an “infant industry” and to help drive down costs. And it is true that with technological progress the cost of wind and solar tech has fallen substantially (especially for solar), and yet 40 years on we’re being told that cost parity is still almost a decade away? This is starting to sound like bait and switch. (The various calculations of what wind and solar actually cost are all over the map, and there isn’t a reliable single figure as the real cost depends heavily on location, grid condition and access, backup sources for when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining, and a number of other factors.) Just how long do we need to continue subsidies for wind and solar? My guess is: forever.

Strangely, the link to the Carbontracker report in the article is now dead. How come? My suspicion is that someone reviewed its claims more closely and spotted multiple large errors. Or someone realized the message that lots of wind power is still more expensive than conventional energy is not politically correct.

John adds: This is the best analysis of the true relative costs of various energy sources of which I am aware. Claims that wind and solar are cost-competitive are completely bogus. Those making the claims always omit some of the largest costs associated with those sources, among others the cost of thousands of miles of transmission lines, the cost of disposal once the brief useful lives of wind turbines and solar panels are finished, and, most important, the cost of the complementary natural gas plants that supply electricity 60% of the time in the case of wind turbines, and up to 82% of the time in the case of solar panels. Unreliable energy is essentially useless energy, as Texas residents recently learned.

As always, the appropriate response to claims that wind and solar energy are cost-competitive is, Great: then there is no problem with eliminating all mandates and subsidies. Somehow, that logical conclusion never seems to follow.

Chauvin trial footnotes (2)

Posted: 02 May 2021 07:07 AM PDT

(Scott Johnson)

Last Sunday I posted a few footnotes to our coverage of the trial of Derek Chauvin for the death of George Floyd. I posted the footnotes in the form of bullet points. Last week’s footnotes are included below under April 25. Today I want to add footnotes in the same form and keep this going as warranted:

• Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder and two lesser included offenses. Minnesota law (i.e., Minn. Stat. § 609.035) follows a “single behavioral incident” rule precluding additional punishment for the same “conduct.” See, e.g., the Minnesota Supreme Court decision in State V. Branch (2020).

• Here all three offenses were inarguably predicated on the same conduct. At least the State does not dispute this point. Accordingly, I believe the rule applies in this case. Chauvin is to be sentenced on the second-degree murder charge, but not on the lesser included offenses.

• The applicability of the third-degree murder charge to the facts of the case raises a question of law. Holding that the third-degree murder charge did not apply to the facts in the case, Judge Cahill originally dismissed it. He reinstated it on the express order of the Minnesota Court of Appeals based on its February 1 ruling in State v. Noor.

• The Minnesota Supreme Court has accepted the Noor case for review. It is to be argued next month. We won’t have a decision in the case until later this year. The third-degree murder charge against Chauvin should stand or fall with that decision. For the reasons stated above, however, it won’t matter unless the second-degree murder charge against Chauvin is reversed on appeal.

• As I have repeatedly noted in my own trial coverage, the Hennepin County District has set up a page with access to all public filings in the case. Here it is. It includes all the wrangling over the third-degree murder charge.

• Chauvin’s sentencing is scheduled for June 25. Sentencing is generally governed by the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines. The presumed sentence in the Chauvin case is around 12-and-a-half years.

• The State has moved for an upward sentencing departure. The State’s memorandum is here. The State has separately filed several Minnesota appellate cases supporting its motion for an upward sentencing departure. Chauvin’s memorandum opposing the State’s motion is here. All these materials are accessible under the April 30 filings.

• I believe the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines were originally adopted in 1980 in part to prevent disparities in sentencing based on race or other inappropriate factors. If they were ever needed for this purpose, I think they have been highly successful. However, that is not the impression one would get from the Minnesota Supreme Court’s farcical 1993 Task Force Report on Racial Bias in the Judicial System. (The report addresses sentencing at pages 49-58.) See my 2013 Federalist Society remarks “Bias in the air.”

• Brandon Mitchell was juror number 52. He participated in the deliberations on the verdict and is the first juror to have spoken to the press about them. KARE 11’s Lou Raguse interviewed Mitchell and has posted the transcript here along with a 30-minute video of the interview.

• Mitchell also spoke to the Associated Press (Amy Forliti and Doug Glass), the Star Tribune (Chao Xiong), and the Wall Street Journal (Joe Barrett and Deena Winter). Lou Raguse, Joe Barrett, and Chao Xiong attended the trial in the Media Business Center across the street from the courthouse.

• Barrett’s WSJ story includes this revelatory tidbit: “Each morning, all jurors would drive to pickup locations in the suburbs and then were driven to the courthouse by deputies in unmarked cars, he said. Then they would leave from several different buildings, sometimes a block or two away from the courthouse.”

• Barrett also quotes Mitchell to the effect that he'd go to his mother's home in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park "to feel some love" after tough trial days. Brooklyn Park is immediately north of Brooklyn Center, the scene of the death of Daunte Wright and related events giving rise to the curfew imposed during Chauvin’s trial.

• It was reported last week — via a leak to the Star Tribune’s Andy Mannix — that the Department of Justice allegedly plans to indict Chauvin and the three other officers facing trial on state charges in August on federal criminal civil rights charges.

• Mannix’s story is sourced with perfect vagueness. The federal project must have been initiated as part of a “backup” plan in case Chauvin would have been acquitted. Mannix’s talkative “sources” apparently did not explain what purpose federal civil rights charges would serve in the event of convictions on the state charges, or Mannix wasn’t asking.

• Every left-wing organization in the United States including colleges, universities, and religious sects has taken the verdicts as an occasion to pronounce on what is to be done. These pronouncements have taken the form of reflections, letters, or messages to alumni and members. Peter Berkowitz responds to the “reflections” of Swarthmore College President Valerie Smith in his own open letter to her. My taste runs to something harsher, but at least Berkowitz is talking back and illustrating one way to do it. I have just deleted the messages in disgust.

APRIL 25

• The thirteenth and fourteenth seated jurors served as alternates and were released at the end of the trial. Juror number 96 — Lisa Christensen — was the thirteenth seated juror. She made the media rounds last week in the aftermath of the verdict.

KARE 11’s Lou Raguse interviewed Christensen in “‘I wish it didn’t have to happen’: Alternate juror reflects on Derek Chauvin trial.” Christensen lives in Brooklyn Center and had to navigate her way home through the crowds blocking intersections to protest the death of Daunte Wright.

Quotable quote:

Raguse: Did you want to be a juror?

Christensen: I had mixed feelings. There was a question on the questionnaire about it and I put I did not know. The reason, at that time, was I did not know what the outcome was going to be, so I felt like either way you are going to disappoint one group or the other. I did not want to go through rioting and destruction again and I was concerned about people coming to my house if they were not happy with the verdict.

• The Biden-Harris Department of Justice announced an investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department the day following the verdict. They are from the federal government and they are here to help us. NR’s Andrew McCarthy explains in the Corner post “Obama Encore: Biden Justice Department Announces Investigation of Minneapolis Police Department.”

• The Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald said everything I would have said if I had “the necessities” in “A troubled rule of law.” Heather’s column is the best thing I have read since the jury handed down the verdicts in the Chauvin trial.

• Alan Dershowitz takes up a theme that has preoccupied me in my own comments on the case in the Gatestone column “A Long and Sordid History of Crowds Threatening Violence in the Event of a Jury Acquittal.”

• As I noted last week, I spoke with Spectator editor Freddy Gray on the Friday before the jury heard closing arguments and retired to deliberate (podcast below). The Spectator also posted the column I wrote immediately following the jury’s return of the verdicts on Tuesday under the headline “How fair was the Derek Chauvin trial?” The Spectator has fixed the proofreading errors that reflected my haste in completing the column the afternoon the verdicts were returned.

• Working on the column put me in mind of Robert Bly’s beautiful poem “Driving toward the Lac Qui Parle River.” Read it and you’ll see why.

• Friends sent me the BBC clips below.

Counting the Ways We Hate “60 Minutes”—A Note from Robby George

Posted: 01 May 2021 08:21 PM PDT

(Steven Hayward)

Needless to say, Power Line has a history with “60 Minutes.” Hence I thought it worth passing along a note from Robert P. George to “60 Minutes” this week. Prof. George—”Robby” to his friends—is the McCormick Professor at Princeton, the chair originally created for Woodrow Wilson, and subsequently filled by Edward Corwin and now by Robby. He is renowned for his genial nature (as you might expect from a proficient banjo player), and good relations with people on the left with whom he disagrees. He team-teaches a very popular course with the far-left Cornel West.

Thus, for Robby to send this note to “60 Minutes” is remarkable:

Earlier this week I received an email message from a Producer at 60 Minutes requesting an interview for a segment they are working on concerning scientific developments in the area of embryo research. Here is my reply:

Dear Mr. _________:
Thanks for your note.
I have been a professor for thirty-six years. I have been involved in a serious way in public affairs for nearly thirty. I have been interviewed in various media hundreds—perhaps thousands—of times. Most of those experiences have been fine. Even hostile interviewers have permitted me to present the case for my perspective on an issue or set of issues and, in nearly every case, quoted or reported what I said accurately. There was, however, one major exception. It was the worst experience I've ever had with media. I regret to say it was with 60 Minutes. And there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that it was driven by ideological bias.
As it happens, the subject was the very one about which you have written to me—the biological and moral status of the developing human embryo. I had served (or was serving—I can't remember the timing) on the President's Council on Bioethics and we had done a major report on embryonic stem cell research. Things actually began well. I gave an hour long off-camera interview to someone associated with 60 Minutes (I've forgotten his name) who asked thoughtful, intelligent questions, listened carefully to my answers, and asked excellent follow-up questions that made clear that he understood my points. All this lulled me into thinking that this was a serious inquiry. Then came the on-camera interview with Lesley Stahl. It was a series of "gotcha questions" which revealed not the slightest acquaintance with what I had said in the pre-interview. Trying to answer such questions for a format such as 60 Minutes is simply hopeless. Exposing the mistaken or tendentious assumptions built into the questions exhausts one's time and energy. I was stunned by the experience and, frankly, angered. The intensity of my anger increased when I saw the broadcast. The editing seemed designed to mislead viewers as to what my views and arguments were. I was appalled.
I said to myself then and there that I will never again have anything to do with 60 Minutes. The recent business with Ron DeSantis brought memories of my unhappy (to say the least) experience with the show flooding back. The subject you have asked about is an important one and, as you noted, there have been significant recent developments pertaining to it. I would love to participate in an effort accurately to inform the public of these developments. I lack confidence, however, in 60 Minutes, and for that reason must decline.
Yours sincerely,

Robert George
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