"Hoax hate crimes accomplish three main things, all of them bad.

"First, they cause (usually) minority populations to fear for their lives needlessly. People have every good reason to be scared if, say, it appears that someone is hanging nooses around to intimidate them. If there is no shadowy, violent and racist power making such overt displays, then what special place in hell can be reserved for the person who would make others believe there is one, and to fear for no reason? This result, all on its own, justifies throwing the book at those who fake hate crimes.

"Second, hoax incidents cause people to be suspicious of their neighbors. In falsely convincing people that there exists a large, hostile, and potentially violent population in their midst, it breeds distrust and divides communities. If the goal is to make people hate and distrust each other, hoax hate crimes will do the trick.

"Third, these hoax incidents cause everyone to view all hate-crime incidents, including the ones that turn out to be real, with cynicism and disbelief. This is a natural result of people seeing so many high-profile incidents that turn out to be hoaxes."

Read entire article here.

"The most egregious anti-democratic actions ever taken by the what can now fairly be called the Deep State are confirmed with the publication of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's new book detailing how the FBI and Justice Department plotted to remove President Trump from office for firing FBI Director James Comey.

"Justice Department and FBI officials spied on U.S. citizens with false warrants, gave a pass to one presidential campaign with a predetermined investigation, investigated another political campaign on the basis of no verified evidence, and illegally leaked information on investigations. They discussed wiretapping and using the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove President Trump, and appointed a special counsel as a retaliatory move for Comey's firing.

"It is now crystal clear that the highest echelons of the Justice Department and FBI had morphed from the world's most professional law enforcement organization into a Third World rump group. They had the hubris to believe that they -- not the American people or their duly elected representatives -- should decide who governs and how."

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"Amazon does not need New York City. There are many advantages to operating in a city such as New York, which offers experiences and opportunities that well-paid tech-company executives are not going to find in such business-friendly alternatives as Houston or Las Vegas. But Amazon has decided that these are not worth the price of admission, which in this case would be subjecting itself to a political climate dominated by people who detest the company, its chief executive, and the model of business it stands for. There was a time when a major financial institution, publishing house, or media company simply had to have a New York City presence -- preferably a headquarters -- as a matter of course. But that time has passed. ...

"And that's the pity. A New York City with a functional subway system and schools you wouldn't mind sending your children to wouldn't need to bribe Amazon to set up shop there. It could hold its head a little higher, too."

"When Congress enacted President Trump's tax reform a little over a year ago, many economists, ourselves included, predicted that the lower tax rates would supercharge the national economy but could cause big financial problems for the tri-state region of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. ...

"The danger was clear: Unless these states cut their taxes sharply, they would witness an exodus of wealthy residents, who would migrate to low-tax states like Florida, Tennessee and Texas, taking their money with them and dramatically diminishing the tax base in their home states. ...

"The exodus may already be underway.

"The latest data from the United Van Lines, which are a good proxy for where Americans are moving to and from, show which states had the highest percentage of leavers in 2018. New Jersey was first. Connecticut came third and New York fourth. (Illinois came second -- also a very high tax state.)

"The irony: For years, liberals like Cuomo argued that firms and wealthy individuals don't make location decisions based on taxes. But now they are forced to admit that the SALT cap, which primarily affects the richest 1 percent, is depleting state coffers."

Read entire article here.

"The decision by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a dedicated progressive, to curtail California's high-speed rail project over cost concerns is a sign that the 'Green New Deal' is doomed. ...

"The $40 billion initial cost estimate eventually shot up to as high as $117 billion for the whole project. A scaled-back version focusing on linking Los Angeles to San Francisco was to cost $77 billion.

"In a Tuesday State of the State speech, Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor who ran on a bold progressive agenda, threw in the towel, saying, while they would be able to link Merced and Bakersfield in the Central Valley, 'there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.'

"According to the LA Times, he said, 'But let's be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There's been too little oversight and not enough transparency.'

"If high-speed rail can't make it in California, there is no way that liberals are going to be able to build a vast national high-speed rail network in many states that are less receptive to the idea."

Read entire article here.

"Though it might be tough for progressives to understand, many Americans still prefer Israel over Hamas, the PLO, and Iran for reasons other than money. For example, a shared understanding of liberalism, theological reasons, historic ties, political realities, and practical geopolitical reasons."

"Speaking of bovine flatulence . . .

"Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was supposed to be the Democratic party's fresh new face -- so why is the honorable lady from the Bronx trafficking in ideas from the 1930s?

"The Left really has only one idea: control. At the end of the Cold War, when socialism stood discredited and the memory of its atrocities and repression were fresh in the minds of people who had just watched the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and much of what it stood for, the partisans of central planning found themselves in need of a new host, and what they found was the environmental movement -- another vehicle for supplanting liberalism and free markets with five-year plans and political discipline. Hence the joke about 'watermelons,' the new lefty activists who were green on the outside but red on the inside. The metaphor may occasion some eye-rolling and is prone to abuse, but it speaks to an undeniable truth: Environmentalism has been since the fall of the Soviet Union the world's most important vessel for anti-liberal and anti-market forces.

"Representative Ocasio-Cortez's brief public career offers testimony to a mind that never has been at risk of being violated by a coherent thought, much less an original one, and so she has settled upon the 'Green New Deal,' a concept and a marketing campaign that already was hackneyed and shopworn back when Barack Obama was pushing it years ago, and when Thomas Friedman was pushing it before him, and when the Communist Party USA was pushing it before him."

Read entire article here.

"A number of Democratic Party presidential hopefuls -- including Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julian Castro, and Beto O'Rourke, for starters -- have already endorsed or expressed support for the 'Green New Deal' (GND). Today, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey dropped details about her plan.

"It is not hyperbole to contend that GND is likely the most ridiculous and un-American plan that's ever been presented by an elected official to voters. Not merely because it would necessitate a communist strongman to institute, but also because the societal cost are unfathomable. The risible historic analogies Markey and Ocasio-Cortez rely on, the building of the interstate highway system or moon landing, are nothing but trifling projects compared to a plan that overhauls modernity by voluntarily destroying massive amounts of wealth and technology. That is the GND."

Read entire article here.

"Today, House Democrats are holding hearings on a monstrous, 571-page election- and campaign-finance-reform bill called the 'For the People Act of 2019.' I can think of other, more accurate, names -- like the 'First Amendment Demolition Act,' or perhaps the 'Federalism Repeal Act,' or maybe, most accurate of all, the 'Constitutional Lawyers Enrichment Act,' because the passage of the law would trigger a full decade (at least) of litigation on numerous constitutional fronts.

"At its essence, the bill federalizes control over elections to an unprecedented scale, expands government power over political speech, mandates increased disclosures of private citizens' personal information (down to name and address), places conditions on citizen contact with legislators that inhibits citizens' freedom of expression, and then places enforcement of most of these measures in the hands of a revamped Federal Election Commission that is far more responsive to presidential influence. ...

"As Bradley Smith argues in a comprehensive Institute for Free Speech analysis of the legislation, 'The goal seems to be to limit discussion of candidates to the candidates and parties themselves, at the expense of the public at large.'"

Read entire article here.

"There were laughter, tears, raucous cheers and awkward silences. But more than anything else, it was a punch in the gut that President Trump delivered Tuesday night.

"Time after time, on issue after issue, he laid down a marker about the remaining two years of his term -- and the outlines of his re-election campaign. ...

"True to White House billing, the president was conciliatory at times and urged national unity in the face of domestic and international threats. Perhaps he was even sincere in those wishes, but on virtually all the big issues dividing America, Trump took bold and resolute stances that left little room to the imagination and even less wiggle room.

"'I will get it built,' he said about a wall after a lengthy discourse on the problems of the southern border in which he urged Democrats to join him in ending the scourge of sex trafficking, drugs, gangs and illegal immigration.

"He derided the rising calls on the far left for a socialist approach to economics, declaring, 'America will never be a socialist country.'"

Read entire article here.