Friday, March 11, 2022
How Politicized Is the Federal Reserve?
President Biden’s nomination of two progressive economists to key positions at the Federal Reserve has triggered accusations from conservatives and Republicans that the president is trying to politicize the Fed. But it’s too late; the central bank is already deeply politicized.
Congress mandates that the Federal Reserve promote price stability and full employment. Yet even as inflation rages, the Fed’s economists increasingly have been focused on issues such as climate change, race and sex discrimination, and economic inequality. Since 2020 the Fed’s regional banks and Board of Governors have conducted numerous seminars and conferences and published voluminous research papers on these politically charged topics.
Several regional banks have explicitly indicated their partisan commitments. The New York Fed announces on its homepage that it “stands in unity with all those who oppose racism, hate, and violence.” It wishes “to root out the intolerable inequities and injustice grounded in systemic racism that persist in our society” and believes this job won’t be done “until access to health, education, safety, and justice knows no racial or other boundaries.”
What is the source of this mission drift? The answer, I believe, is simple: Many of the key research and analysis positions in the Federal Reserve System are held by left-leaning Democrats.
I recently set out to determine the political affiliation of every Federal Reserve System economist using various state, county and city voter-registration databases. What I found was that in 2021 the overall Democrat-to-Republican ratio was 10.4 to 1. For every Republican economist at the Federal Reserve System, there are more than 10 Democrats. The lack of political diversity is especially pronounced among the economists of the Board of Governors, where the ratio is 48.5 to 1.
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Biden’s HHS Pushes ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility’ Agenda to Racialize Government
President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services is creating a “strategic plan” to advance goals for “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” in the federal workforce, according to an internal document obtained by The Daily Signal.
The strategic plan at HHS, implemented in response to Biden’s executive order in June 2021, will build on existing diversity initiatives already in line with administration policy.
Because HHS is the largest grant-making agency in the federal government, awarding more dollars than all other agencies combined, its final strategic plan to increase diversity likely will influence who or what entities will be awarded grants in the future.
“We are a very multiethnic country. You cannot make decisions to apply the law differently because of skin color,” Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal when asked to comment on the HHS project. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)
The HHS diversity plan, like those of other agencies, is supposed to be finalized by March 23. From that point forward, the Department of Health and Human Services must “establish quarterly goals and report annually on goal progress,” the document says.
In late November, the Biden administration followed up on the president’s executive order by giving HHS and other agencies a “road map” to help each craft a strategic plan, reported FCW, a digital publication for federal information technology officials.
Biden’s order included definitions of the terms diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility—as well as “underserved communities”—that are meant to serve as a guide for the entire federal workforce.
The definition of underserved communities is the most verbose, taking in “individuals who belong to communities of color, such as Black and African American, Hispanic and Latino, Native American, Alaska Native and Indigenous, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern and North American persons.”
The definition also “includes individuals who belong to communities that face discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity (including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, gender non-conforming, and non-binary (LGBTQ+) persons),” “individuals with limited English proficiency,” “immigrants,” and “individuals who belong to communities that may face employment barriers based on older age or former incarceration.”
Biden’s order says it is possible for individuals to belong to more than one underserved community.
‘A Racist Reorganization’
Xavier Becerra, the former attorney general for California who was tapped by Biden as secretary of health and human services, contributes an introductory message to the document.
In it, Becerra says team members “will work hand-in-hand with each operating division and each staff division engaging members of underserved communities to ensure tight collaboration, partnership, accountability, and ultimately, progress toward our DEIA-related ambitions.”
The goal, Becerra adds, is to “embed DEIA [diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility] into the fabric” of the work done not just at Health and Human Services, but throughout the entire administration.
An HHS spokesperson did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment on its draft strategic plan.
Mike Howell, a senior adviser on government relations at The Heritage Foundation, said he sees a Biden administration effort to reorganize the federal government along racial lines.
“The Biden administration is beholden to the woke agenda,” Howell said in an email to The Daily Signal. “This country has real problems to solve, and instead the Biden administration is focused on a racist reorganization of the federal government not seen since Democrat President Woodrow Wilson resegregated the government.”
“Nothing good comes of this,” he said.
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Actor Jussie Smollett sentenced to probation, jail time for staging fake hate crime
Actor Jussie Smollett, one-time cast member of the TV drama Empire, was sentenced in a Chicago court to 30 months probation and 150 days in jail for staging a hate crime against himself.
Smollett, 39, was also ordered to pay $US120,000 ($163,000) in restitution and fined $US25,000 by Cook County Circuit Court Judge James Linn.
Smollett was found guilty by a jury in December of five of the six felony disorderly conduct counts he faced, one for each time he was accused of lying to police.
Prosecutors said Smollett, who is Black and gay, lied to police when he told them he was accosted on a dark Chicago street by two masked strangers in January 2019.
Smollett claimed the attackers threw a noose around his neck and poured chemicals on him while yelling racist and homophobic slurs and expressions of support for former US president Donald Trump.
Police arrested the actor a month later, saying he paid two brothers $US3,500 to stage the attack in an effort to raise his show-business profile.
He eventually pleaded not guilty to six counts of felony disorderly conduct.
His case took an unexpected turn in spring 2019 when the Cook County state's attorney's office dropped a 16-count indictment against him in exchange for Smollett forfeiting his $US10,000 bond without admitting wrongdoing.
The dismissal drew criticism from then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago's police superintendent, who called the reversal a miscarriage of justice.
In 2019, a special prosecutor assigned to the case recommended charging Smollett again and a grand jury returned an indictment.
Smollett's acting career declined after the incident. He lost his role as a singer-songwriter in the final season of Empire, hip-hop drama that ended a five-year run in 2020.
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Australian police officer Zachary Rolfe found not guilty of murder over fatal shooting of aggressive Aborigine
Northern Territory police officer Zachary Rolfe has been cleared of all charges over the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Kumanjayi Walker during an attempted arrest in the remote community of Yuendumu.
The jury found Constable Rolfe not guilty of murder as well as the two alternative charges of manslaughter and engaging in a violent act causing death.
Constable Rolfe, 30, showed no emotion as the verdict was announced in the NT Supreme Court. Afterwards, he smiled and hugged his defence lawyer.
The jury returned following just under seven hours of deliberations.
Mr Walker was shot three times during a struggle with officers in a home in the community 300 kilometres north-west of Alice Springs in November 2019.
The first shot, which came after Mr Walker stabbed Constable Rolfe in the shoulder with a pair of scissors, was not the subject of any charges.
Constable Rolfe's legal team argued he was acting in defence of himself and his partner and in line with his training and duties.
Constable Rolfe addressed a media scrum outside the court shortly after the verdict was announced. "Obviously I think that was the right decision to make," he said.
"But a lot of people are hurting today — Kumanjayi's family and his community ... and I'm going to leave this space for them."
Constable Rolfe's defence lawyer David Edwardson QC told the waiting media "there are no winners in this case." "A young man died and that's tragic," he said.
"At the same time, Zachary Rolfe, in my view was wrongly charged in the first place. "It was an appalling investigation and very much regretted."
The jury heard almost five weeks of evidence and testimony from more than 40 witnesses before retiring to deliberate at lunchtime on Thursday.
Constable Rolfe had pleaded not guilty to all charges laid over the shooting, which happened just after 7:20pm on Saturday, November 9, 2019.
Police body-worn camera footage played throughout the trial captured the struggle that started less than a minute after Constable Rolfe and his policing partner, Constable Adam Eberl, entered a home in Yuendumu and identified Kumanjayi Walker.
The 19-year-old was wanted by police because of an incident that took place three days prior, when he had confronted two local officers with an axe as they tried to arrest him for breaching a suspended sentence.
Prosecutors agreed the first shot was legally justifiable because it came after Constable Rolfe was stabbed in the shoulder with a pair of scissors and while Mr Walker was on his feet and struggling with Constable Eberl.
But they argued that Mr Walker had been effectively restrained on the ground by Constable Eberl when Constable Rolfe fired his second shot 2.6 seconds after the first and a third shot 0.5 seconds after the second.
The prosecution case was that Constable Rolfe did not have an honest belief that the second and third shots were necessary and therefore was not acting reasonably and in good faith in the performance of his duties.
Constable Rolfe said Mr Walker was not restrained and that he feared for his fellow officer's life when the second and third shots were fired.
He said police training held that officers should fire as many rounds as necessary to "incapacitate" a threat involving an edged weapon.
He rejected the prosecution's suggestion that he lied in his evidence about having seen Mr Walker stabbing Constable Eberl in order to justify his actions.
Mr Walker died around an hour after the shooting, in the Yuendumu police station, where he was given first aid because health clinic staff had been evacuated earlier that day.
Constable Rolfe, who was bailed after he was charged and suspended on full pay, faced the NT's mandatory minimum non-parole period of 20 years if found guilty of murder.
Mr Walker's death and the charge against Constable Rolfe made global headlines and sparked protests against Aboriginal deaths in custody around Australia.
Constable Rolfe was the first NT police officer to face trial over an Aboriginal death in custody since the 1991 royal commission.
In his closing address, Constable Rolfe's defence lawyer said the murder charge, which was laid four days after the shooting, came before a proper investigation was carried out. He described the pursuit of the case by the NT Police executive as a disgrace.
Senior NT police officers, including an assistant commissioner, gave evidence as prosecution witnesses during the trial.
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My other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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