Politics

The Amazing Journey of Stacey Abrams Through the Non-Profit World

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There’s been a lot of stuff in the news the past five weeks about public money, the political-nonprofit industrial complex, and the resulting waste and abuse.

Sometimes it’s helpful to see these things through case studies, perhaps through the experiences of a given person.

A certain name has come up several times in the news over the past month regarding non-profits: Stacey Abrams, the celebrated author and twice-failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate. No word yet if she will team up with Beto O’Rourke to do a lecture tour on how to keep losing election campaigns and still remain popular.

My bad, it’s now twice-failed candidate, celebrated author, and successful businesswoman Stacey Abrams. Because she was the senior counsel for Power Forward Communities’ parent organization, Rewiring America.

Rewiring  America went from $100 in revenue to $2 billion in three months (take that, Elon):

DOGE discovered $2 billion in taxpayer funds set aside for a fledgling nonprofit linked to perennial Georgia Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams.

 

The Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration awarded Power Forward Communities the grant in April 2024 as part of the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program. Power Forward Communities received the green energy grant despite the fact that it was founded months earlier in late 2023 and never managed anywhere near the grant’s dollar figure—it reported just $100 in total revenue during its first three months in operation, according to its latest tax filings.

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Trevor Noah and Brown v. Board

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I have the guilty pleasure of scanning the traditional media and entertainment. It’s not that any of the various personalities I come across have any intelligent thoughts of their own, witness the ramblings of Margaret Brennan, but their utterances provide a glimpse into the larger sociology of the Left.

So it was of interest that I came across former “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah’s “What Now?” podcast where he interviews Princeton University professor Ruha Benjamin. Noah states:

“And that’s a really powerful thing I’ve learned in communicating with other people. When I’m in a room with anyone where we start to tie together multiple things. So, if I’m in a room with Black people, already there’s like an implicit trust because we know what certain actions, words, and vibes mean.”

I find Noah to be a poseur, and of course he has to have a podcast. But he provides us a great service by providing a gathering place, much like a watering hole on the Serengeti, where he and his ideological ilk can gather in a place of perceived safety and can be observed. So Noah extends his remarks and a little later asks Benjamin:

“Do you think that integration was the right move?”

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Brennan, JD Vance, and the Spirit of 1776

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I’m sure most of you by now have heard of Margaret Brennan’s comment during her exchange with Secretary of State Rubio on “Face the Nation.”

“Well he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide…”

Brennan got raked over the coals by the Right for that comment, since she seemed to imply that the Nazis 1) were in favor of free speech and 2) were using free speech to conduct the Holocaust in the same way they used gas chambers and bullets. Her point, that words are violent (I thought it was silence that was violence), was reinforced by the fact that Vance’s speech brought the chairman of the Munich Security Conference to tears.

Mr. Heusgen is obviously a man who doesn’t think about the Roman Empire every day.

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Quote of the Day

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Dominic Cummings:

The EU has kneecapped itself and is failing in all important areas: productivity, debt, public order, immigration, defence, technology, political extremism. Brussels chose self-sabotage on advanced technology. Unlike Britain which at least has DeepMind here, the EU has none of the leading labs. As the Commission said, we will be leaders not in AI but ‘trust in AI’! Mission semi-accomplished comrades! Brussels can kneecap itself and other countries that choose to follow its regulations but it will not compete with US and PRC or shape the global struggle over AI. Valley companies have already made clear they will simply not release models in the EU rather than follow EU regs. Taliban today can download new models now blocked for Brussels elites. Those who think AI will be like aspects of post-war car regulation are wrong. AI is ultimately about power and Great Powers will not let Brussels set the rules. I’ve watched SW1 repeat soundbites from the EU for 25 years on ‘strategic autonomy’ and ‘now we’re going to get serious on technology’. They’ve always been hollow. I said in 2022-4 that covid predicted that not even wanting to prevail in Ukraine would force either the MoD or Brussels to stop the delusions. They babbled and watched. They left defence industry and procurement a farce. They encouraged deindustrialisation and sabotaged industrial production while babbling about net zero. Thanks to Brexit and the work we did in 2020 with the secret part of the Integrated review exposing the disaster zone of the MoD and agreeing a plan for radical change, we could have sorted ourselves out. Instead, 2021-4 the Tories worked with the worst parts of the MoD to continue the lies and delusions and followed the EU into escalating a dumb war which could have been avoided. The latest defence review is a disaster and the UK and EU will be humiliated month after month.

 

Thoughts:

1. There but for the grace of God go we.

2. UK and EU politics and culture are farther gone than ours. However, as in the 1970s with Thatcher and perhaps now with Trump, political and cultural course reversals are possible given gifted opposition leaders and a preference cascade or two.

3. The British establishment, by criminalizing dissent, insure that even more than our Democrats  they will not see the political wave coming that turns them out of power.

4. It’s never over.

Elections and Atom Blasters

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“It’s a poor blaster that won’t point both ways”
Issac Asimov, Foundation

U.K. Orders Apple to Let It Spy on Users’ Encrypted Accounts:

“Security officials in the United Kingdom have demanded that Apple create a back door allowing them to retrieve all the content any Apple user worldwide has uploaded to the cloud, people familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

“The British government’s undisclosed order, issued last month, requires blanket capability to view fully encrypted material, not merely assistance in cracking a specific account, and has no known precedent in major democracies. Its application would mark a significant defeat for tech companies in their decades-long battle to avoid being wielded as government tools against their users, the people said, speaking under the condition of anonymity to discuss legally and politically sensitive issues.”

The 2024 US election marked a choice between two alternatives, between a chance at restoring the constitutional republic and a continued, perhaps even accelerated, slide into progressive materialism.

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