Kamala Harris inserts herself into the current conversation in the most toxic way possible

 Does she not have anybody on her staff who might be inclined to advise her against this?

On Wednesday Vice President Kamala Harris had a big new announcement. 

A new strategy to counter “hate” in America.

Kamala may not be able to fix the southern border crisis. 

Or anything much. 

But she does plan to eradicate “hate.” 

After her success in this effort I’m sure we can look forward to her getting rid of other human evils next.

Perhaps she could move on to “envy” or “gluttony”? 

Who knows?

In any case the Veep had a very specific form of hatred she said she wants to fight. 

And that is the thing called “Islamphobia.”

Personally I do not care for this word. It has always seemed to me to be — as my late friend Christopher Hitchens put it — a word “a word created by fascists, and used by cowards, to manipulate morons.” 

He must have seen Kamala coming.

Because on Wednesday Harris announced that the Biden–Harris administration were planning to leap into action and present a new “National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia.” 

You might have thought that it is Jews who most need a strategy right now to counter Jew-hatred. 

But no, despite the fact that the figures are in.

As FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a Senate hearing this week on hate crimes against Jews, “The reality is that the Jewish community is uniquely targeted by pretty much every terrorist organization across the spectrum. And when you look at a group that makes up 2.4%, roughly, of the American population, it should be jarring to everyone that that same population accounts for something like 60% of all religious-based hate crimes, and so they need our help.”

That’s quite a stat that: 2.4% of the population, but 60% of the victims of hate-crimes.

But Kamala doesn’t seem to know this figure, or doesn’t know what to do about it, and so on a video posted to X this week she said “For years, Muslims in America and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate fueled attacks. As a result of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, we have seen an uptick in anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, antisemitic and Islamophobic incidents across America.”

Of course if there is any such thing as “Islamophobia” it has a very straightforward explanation.

“Islamophobia” is the expression of distaste many people feel about the murderous behavior of radical Muslims.

It behooves us to stay on top of any new information that appears regarding just how this disgusting move was originally cooked up.  

Joe Biden is a very different kind of president from Donald Trump, but he's every bit as terrible

 In the runup to last fall's election, and in the interim period between that and the inauguration, my Twitter feed was full of sentiment along the lines of how refreshing it was going to be to have some moderation, interest in unity,  level-headedness and decency characterizing the office of president. I cringed at every instance of coming across such expressions, most of which came from people who had always voted Republican but were now done with that party due to the Tumpism phenomenon.

For the record - and I've said this in various ways many times here at LITD - I did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020. I wrote someone in both times. From the moment he descended the escalator in 2015, I knew he was bad news. I won't rehash the reasons, which LITD readers are presumably all too familiar with. Even though I never cottoned to the term "Never Trumper," I guess that's what I am.

But I knew Biden was not as he was being portrayed by the tweets. His track record is one way of knowing that. Additionally, there were no signs of pushback against the leftward lurch of the Democrat party during the campaign or transition. He was on board with its agenda and in fact was looking forward to taking the leadership role in implementing it.

And since January 20, it's been one executive order, statement, cabinet appointment and policy proposal after another. From profligate spending to social-justice preening to indulging in climate alarmism, he's behaved in utterly predictable ways.

Consider the last week.

On the subject of race, he went there. He straight-up said the country he presides over is rife with systemic racism. It's a falsehood, and, if one looks at intent, probably a lie:

President Joe Biden has continued to push the narrative of “systemic racism” against black Americans when it comes to police shootings in the aftermath of the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. But Chauvin's conduct is an outlier, not the norm. It isn't just the data that demonstrates this. The very examples that activists themselves choose to highlight undercut their own assertion that racism is an inescapable, ubiquitous part of American life.

The latest example of how shaky the "systemic racism" narrative really is comes from media outlets such as NPR and the New York Times. Short on good, clear examples of unjustifiable brutality, they are now trying to tie the apparently justified police shooting of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant to George Floyd’s death after Chauvin’s trial. 

Body camera footage shows Bryant ignoring officer commands and charging at another woman with a knife. At that point, the officer shoots her four times. Despite what appears to be a clearly justifiable use of force to protect another person's life (a black person's life, in fact), the White House still tried to tie the incident to "systemic racism."

This is typical. The examples that activists and their media allies cite persistently undercut the idea of systemic racism. To this day, the police shooting of Michael Brown continues to be cited as an example of racism. But Brown was shot in self-defense by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, after Brown attacked the officer and reached for the officer’s gun. Jacob Blake, whose case is also cited, was a domestic abuser and an accused sex predator armed with a knife. He ignored police instructions when they confronted him over his violating a restraining order taken out by the woman he had abused.

If the activists' inability to find convincing anecdotes doesn't convince you that "systemic racism" is a bogeyman, then consider the data. Of the roughly 330 million people living in the United States, 1,021 were shot and killed by police officers in 2020, according to the Washington Post police shooting database. Of that number, only 55 were unarmed. Of those 55, 18 were black.

Even those 18 are not clear-cut cases. Fred Brown, for example, was shot after he tried to choke one police officer in a confrontation that occurred because his girlfriend reported him for assault. An officer killed Kurt Reinhold after he got into an altercation with police officers and tried to grab one of their guns. In other cases, such as the shooting death of William Green, the officer was at least charged with murder, so (as in Chauvin's case) it cannot be said that such behavior goes unpunished.

The idea that police officers are gunning down black Americans across the country is complete nonsense. The numbers don’t bear it out, and even the high-profile examples that are cited, from Brown to Blake to Bryant, make it clear that those pushing the narrative can’t back it up.

Then there is his push to halt human advancement - also known as using the coercive power of government to tell energy companies what kinds of energy they can produce and consumers what kinds of energy forms they can buy - hell, even what we can eat:

In anticipation of the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, a two-day global gathering of more than 40 world leaders, President Joe Biden declared that the United States had a "moral imperative" to adopt an "ambitious" goal of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030 and 100% by 2050.

Such an effort, if we were serious about it, would entail massive destruction of wealth, a surrender of our international trade advantages, the creation of a hugely intrusive state-run bureaucracy at home, the inhibition of free markets that have helped make the world a cleaner place and a precipitous drop in the living standards of most citizens -- especially the poor.

Of course, it should be said that those who oppose the expansion of fracking and nuclear energy -- most elected Democrats, it seems -- aren't even remotely serious about "tackling" carbon emissions, anyway. Around 80% of American energy is generated by fossil fuels and nuclear right now. Around 20% is generated by "renewables" -- predominantly wind and hydropower (which is unavailable in most places). Only around 2% of our portfolio consists of inefficient and unreliable solar power -- this, even after decades of subsidies and mandates.

It's always funny to hear people speak about solar panels as if they were some sort of cutting-edge technology. The discovery of the photovoltaic effect goes back to 1888. President Jimmy Carter declared a national "Sun Day" in 1978 and put 30 solar panels atop the White House. One of those panels is now on display at the Science and Technology Museum in China -- not only the top producer of solar panels and carbon emissions but also the nation that would most benefit from the United States' unilateral economic capitulation.

To reach Biden's goal, the United States would need to envelop most of the nation in panels and windmills and then rely on enormous Gaian prayer circles -- may she grant us sunshine and gale-force winds. We would be compelled to eliminate most air travel and cars -- making new ones produces lots of carbon emissions -- and retrofit every home, factory, warehouse and building in America to utilize this type of energy. We would need to dramatically cut back on our meat and dairy intake as well.

And then there is his stoking of resentment against "the rich." The present form that's taking is his push to tax capital gains:

President Joe Biden wants to end the preferential U.S. tax treatment of investment income that has benefited the nation’s wealthy as he seeks to fund a sweeping new social-spending program. But he will need to overcome a major political hurdle in Congress to do so.

The White House plans to propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for those earning $1 million or more, to 39.6%, according to people familiar with the proposal. That wouldn’t affect many. Only about 0.32% of American taxpayers reported adjusted gross income of more than $1 million and capital gains or losses on their returns, according to Internal Revenue Service tax return data from 2018.

The move would send the top federal rate on the appreciation in assets sold by the rich as high as 43.4% when including a surtax to help pay for Obamacare. And it would upend a century-old precedent of under-taxing investment relative to wages and salaries.

Surging stock and property prices over the past year only strengthened the Biden team’s determination to follow through on campaign pledges to demand higher taxes from the best-off. The president is betting the initiative will be popular enough to win passage in Congress, where he can’t lose a single Democratic vote in the Senate and only a handful in the House, since Republicans are likely to be united in opposition.

Stocks dropped the most in more than a month on the news Thursday, with the S&P 500 Index closing down 0.9%, though futures trading early Friday in Asia suggested some stabilization.

Let me reiterate something else I've said many times: From a moral standpoint, it doesn't matter one subatomic particle whether someone is rich, middle-class or poor. His or her money is his or hers. Government ought to have to puke all over itself to take the first red cent of it. If the purpose for which government says it's justified in taking it is not something James Madison would. approve of, no dice. Hands off. 

No, sorry, everybody, Joe Biden is no improvement over the Very Stable Genius. He is greatly pleased with his party's shift even further leftward than where it was under Obama. Its gives him the opportunity to establish a legacy as a Doer Of Big Things like FDR and LBJ. 

Now, back to my point about the Trumpist infection of the Republican Party: the GOP is in no shape to counter this, unless the three percent of sane grownups among its elected officials - people like Liz Cheney, Peter Meijer, Adam Kinzinger and Ben Sasse - can wrest control away from the sycophants, nuts and cowards. That's one hell of a tall order.  Post-America may be too far gone for such a possibility to have a chance. 

 

 

 

The obscene preening over the Georgia election law

 Lots of people and organizations are grandstanding and demagoguing about a piece of legislation in Georgia that is well within the midrange of voting laws to be found around the country, and merely specifies provisions that were considered quite normal less than a decade ago. Their displays of self-congratulation are based on lies and they know it. 

Let's start with President Joe Biden, whose "Jim Crow on steroids" remark and lies about the law's voting-hours provisions garnered four Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact-checker Glenn Kessler:

First he quotes Biden:

“What I’m worried about is how un-American this whole initiative is. It’s sick. It’s sick … deciding that you’re going to end voting at 5 o’clock when working people are just getting off work.” (March 25)

“Among the outrageous parts of this new state law, it ends voting hours early so working people can’t cast their vote after their shift is over.” (March 26)

“You are going to close a polling place at 5 o’clock when working people just get off. This is all about keeping working folks and ordinary folks that I grew up with from being able to vote.”

Then Kessler responds to the president’s claims:

In reality, Election Day hours were not changed and the opportunities to cast a ballot in early voting were expanded. The law made a modest change, replacing a vague phrase “normal business hours” — presumed to be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. — to a more specific 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. time period. (Some rural county election offices worked only part time during the week, not a full eight-hour day, so the shift to more specific times makes it clear they must be open every weekday for at least eight hours.) But that’s the minimum.

Under the new law, counties have the option to extend the voting hours so voters can start casting ballots as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 7 p.m. — the same as Election Day in Georgia. Moreover, an additional mandatory day of early voting on Saturday was added and two days of early voting on Sunday were codified as an option for counties.

The White House did not provide an explanation for Biden’s erroneous statement, which has turned up in a news conference, an official statement and an interview. Astonishingly, at an April 1 news briefing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the president’s comment, incorrectly arguing “it standardizes the ending of voting every day at 5, right?”

The truth is that the Georgia bill codifies drop boxes for ballots as a permanent feature of the state’s voting system (prior to 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic they had never been used there before), expands early voting, and institutes a voter ID requirement that is broadly supported by Americans of all races. Jim Crow it is not, much less a performance-enhancing drugged-up version of it.

Then there's his disgusting distortion of what the handing-out-food-and-water provision says:

Here’s what Biden had to say:

It’s an atrocity. The idea, you want any indication, it has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with decency. They pass a law saying you can’t provide water for people standing in line, while they’re waiting to vote.  You don’t need anything else to know that this is nothing but punitive, designed to keep people from voting. You can’t provide water for people about to vote? Give me a break.

Let’s take a look at what S.B. 202 actually says:

No person shall solicit votes [or] distribute or display any campaign material, nor shall any person give, offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to [a voter] … This Code section shall not be construed to prohibit a poll officer…from making available self-service water from an unattended receptacle to [a voter] waiting in line to vote.

The parts in bold are what S.B. 202 added to the statute. The prohibition applies inside polling places, within 150 feet of a polling place, or “within 25 feet of any voter standing in line to vote at any polling place.”

Now, first of all, notice what is not prohibited here. Voters can still bring bottled water or other food or beverages with them to stand on line to vote, as people often do when waiting at Disney World or to buy concert tickets or in other public places where people stand on long lines. Voters can still also, if they like, order food; the bill doesn’t stop the Domino’s Pizza man or the local hot dog cart or taco truck from doing business. And if you feel impelled to donate food and drink to voters, you can still do that, too; you just have to give it to the poll workers so they can put it out for general use. The president’s claim that “You can’t provide water for people about to vote” is just false. What you cannot do under the new Georgia law is deploy people in National Rifle Association t-shirts and MAGA hats to hand out free Koch-brothers-financed, Federalist Society–branded pizza to voters. 

  

If you read the full Major League Baseball statement, written my commissioner Rob Manfred, also found in the above-linked piece, you'll see he doesn't actually specify any details of the law that the organization finds objectionable. Just a lot of dog waste about Hank Aaron and "fair access to voting."

Delta Airlines peddles falsehoods with a race-card angle in its chime-in on the matter:

Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, issued a foolish statement denouncing Georgia’s election reform legislation. Bastien’s statement parroted false left-wing narratives:

Last week, the Georgia legislature passed a sweeping voting reform act that could make it harder for many Georgians, particularly those in our Black and Brown communities, to exercise their right to vote.

This is false. What the law does is make it harder for non-existent people, people who are not qualified voters, and people who have already cast ballots to vote.

I need to make it crystal clear that the final bill is unacceptable and does not match Delta’s values.

The right to vote is sacred. It is fundamental to our democracy and those rights not only need to be protected, but easily facilitated in a safe and secure manner.

After having time to now fully understand all that is in the bill, coupled with discussions with leaders and employees in the Black community, it’s evident that the bill includes provisions that will make it harder for many underrepresented voters, particularly Black voters, to exercise their constitutional right to elect their representatives. That is wrong.

Again, this is sheer fabrication, and racist fabrication at that. The idea that “Black voters” are somehow unable to participate in an elementary process like voting is insulting to them.

You may remember Gabriel Sterling, the Georgia election official who gave the thunderous speech last December holding Donald Trump responsible for creating a climate in which threats and calls for violence could proliferate, and for costing the GOP the Senate;

My boss, Secretary Raffensperger, his address is out there. They have people doing caravans in front of their house. They’ve had people come on to their property. Tricia, his wife of 40 years, is getting sexualized threats through her cell phone. It has to stop. This is elections. This is the backbone of democracy. And all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. It’s too much. Yes. Fight for every legal vote. Go through your due process. We encourage you. Use your first amendment. That’s fine. Death threats, physical threats, intimidation, it’s too much. It’s not right. They’ve lost the moral high ground to claim that it is.

I don’t have all the best words to do this because I’m angry. The straw that broke the camel’s back today is again, this 20 year old contractor for a voting system company, just trying to do his job. Just there. In fact, I talked to Dominion today and I said, “He’s one of the better ones they got.” His family is getting harassed now. There’s a noose out there with his name on it. That’s not right. I’ve got police protection outside my house. Fine. I took a higher profile job. I get it. Secretary ran for office. His wife knew that too. This kid took a job. He just took a job. And it’s just wrong. I can’t begin to explain the level of anger I have right now over this. And every American, every Georgian, Republican and Democrat alike should have that same level of anger.

Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the state of Georgia. We’re investigating. There’s always a possibility. I get it, and you have the rights to go through the courts. What you don’t have the ability to do, and you need to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone’s going to get hurt. Someone’s going to get shot. Someone’s going to get killed. And it’s not right. It’s not right. And y’all, I don’t have anything scripted. Like I said, I’m going to do my best to keep it together. All of this is wrong.

So he's clearly no fan of the Very Stable Genius. But he also sees that Biden's remarks are every bit as toxic:

Sterling wasn’t pleased. “I think it’s morally reprehensible and disgusting that he’s perpetuating economic blackmail over a lie,” he told The Dispatch. “It’s a lie. This is no different than the lie of Trump saying there was voter fraud in this state. And the people who are going to be most hurt by [a boycott] are the workers in all of these places that are going to be impacted.”

Georgia was by no means purple, even though it wound up sending two Democrats to the Senate in the January runoff.  That was largely due to the boneheaded GOP candidates' behavior and the VSG's antics such as the "find 11,000 votes" call to Brad Raffensperger. My powers of prognostication are decidedly those of an amateur, but I think we can expect 2022 midterm results that show strong backlash to this disgusting bit of strutting by the leftists who have designs on making America unrecognizable. 

UPDATE: A white-hot Governor Brian Kemp lets loose on the MBA and big Georgia-based corporations. 

UPDATE:  Donald Trump needs to shut his stinking rotten mouth and stay the hell out of this situation.

 

 

 

  

 

How to disqualify yourself from talking about that which you're correct about

 There's a fair chance you've seen the short video of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene putting a large sign reading "There Are Two Genders: Male And Female. Trust The Science" on the hallway wall right outside her office door. It must have adhesive backing; she smoothes it out and it clings to the wall. She then wipes her hands that's-that style and gives the camera a quick glimpse of a self-satisfied smirk. 

She did this explicitly because Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) has her office directly across the hall and won't fail to see it whenever she steps into the hallway. Newman has publicly stated her intention to vote for the Equality Act making its way through Congress.

Adam Kinzinger, in his tweet about the matter, provides a bit of backstory concerning that:

Adam Kinzinger

@RepKinzinger

This is sad and I’m sorry this happened.  Rep. Newmans daughter is transgender, and this video and tweet represents the hate and fame driven politics of self-promotion at all evil costs. This garbage must end, in order to #RestoreOurGOP

There's more backstory, though. Newman had raised the transgender flag (whatever that looks like; I wasn't aware transgenderism had a flag) outside her office after House debate on the bill.

Some thoughts:

1.) Marjorie Taylor Greene is a terrible person who is primarily interested in obscene grandstanding such as her Facebook campaign post juxtaposing a photo of herself holding an automatic rifle with a collage of photos of Representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib (each and all of whom - and I'll keep this digression brief - have likewise demonstrated that ideologically charged grandstanding is more important than legislating to them) with the caption "The Squad's Worst Nightmare." She's also the last person who should be proselytizing about any aspect of sexual morality, given her affairs with fitness trainers while her husband stood by eunuch-like.

2.) The sign, taken at face value, is indeed not wrong. There are only two genders, male and female.

3.) As noted above, Newman made the first move by putting up the flag (although that was probably in response to MTG shooting off her mouth with unnecessary invective during the debate). That seems to go beyond any kind of solidarity with her daughter (as an individual) one could infer from the gesture. Nearly everybody loves her or his daughter. It's the most basic and natural of human bonds. To place her daughter in a recently manufactured demographic category ("the transgender community") and add that to reasons for loving her is to gloss over the serious and irreversible implications of the decision the daughter has made to so identify herself.

4.) MTG is a Trumpist, although perhaps it's more accurate to use the term Neo-Trumpist, since the movement has morphed to produce a wave of major figures who will be infecting national affairs whether Donald Trump's influence continues or wanes. It's a force to contend with. Indeed, it seems to have taken over the Republican Party to the point that the likes of Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Ben Sasse et al may have to make the hard decision to join those of us who have given up on the GOP. MTG is yet another example of a mouthpiece through which a basic truth gets uttered who is so (rightly) discredited as to blight the general public's impression of the truth being uttered. 

It seems that every day something occurs that makes the task of an actual conservative more daunting. Combatting the perception on the part of the only-casually-engaged citizen that anyone right of center is a nut, bonehead or bigot is something we will have to become more adept at.

The relevant facts that no one dares to mention

 Here we go again.

A 29-year-old man, Jacob Blake, who happens to black, was shot in a confrontation with police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. 

He was shot seven times in the backbit police and is now in serious condition in a Milwaukee hospital. 

The Kenosha police department has not released details beyond a rudimentary account.

Police were responding to a domestic situation that, by accounts on record so far, Blake was trying to de-escalate. But we don't know details about his conversation with police after being detained, or whether he had their position to return to his car. 

That didn't stop Democrat elected officials like Joe Biden and Wisconsin governor Tony Evers from inferring racism as the officers' motive involved and extrapolating to a general assessment that systemic racism is some kind of huge problem in our country.

Evers said in his pubic statement that

While we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.

Joe Biden said that "[w]e are at an inflection point. We must dismantle systemic racism." 

These demagogues are stoking the situation for immediate political advantage. That's the long and the short of it. Of course there was no way they were going to wait for more details to emerge. 

This incident is emblematic of a pattern we've seen in the other two most-discussed police shootings since May. 

Blake, like Rayshard Brooks and George Floyd, had a criminal background:

According to Wisconsin Circuit Court Access online records, a Jacob S. Blake, same age and with an address in the same exact block where the shooting occurred, had a warrant issued for him on July 7 on pending accusations of misdemeanor criminal trespass to a dwelling with domestic abuse as a modifier; felony third-degree sexual assault with domestic abuse as a modifier; and misdemeanor disorderly conduct with domestic abuse as a modifier. A support action was dismissed, and the only other case that comes up is for not having a driver’s license.

A 2015 story in Racine Eye described how “Racine police say K9 Dozer had to help officers take a man into custody when the man refused to go quietly into custody after he pulled a gun at a local bar.” The man was described as Jacob Blake, 24, of Racine, which makes him the same age as the man shot by police on August 23. The Racine Eye story says he was charged with “one felony count of resisting arrest causing a soft tissue injury to a police officer and one misdemeanor count each of carrying a concealed weapon, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, endangering safety-use of a dangerous weapon, and disorderly conduct.” Those charges don’t show up on the circuit court website though.

That story further alleges, “Blake and two women were at the Brass Monkey tavern, 1436 Junction Avenue, Saturday when Blake got into an argument with another patron and pulled a black handgun. Blake pointed the gun at the other man, and the magazine fell to the floor. The bartender told Blake to leave, and he did but then pointed the gun through the window at patrons inside the bar before walking south on Junction Avenue.”

Police stopped Blake in a “high risk traffic stop” but he “exited the SUV and started walking toward officers and ignored commands to get down on the ground,” the story says. That’s when officers forced him to the ground and used a K9 when he kept resisting, the story adds.

Recall that Brooks, out on probation,  resisted arrest almost certainly because he knew he'd go straight back to jail on his  2014 conviction for false imprisonment, family battery and child cruelty. 

George Floyd had served time for an armed robbery during which he held a gun to a pregnant woman's abdomen. He had a track record of use of hard drugs and was in fact on fentanyl and methamphetamine at the time of his death. 

I've had the please-be-bigger-than-that tactic pulled on me for mentioning this last fact, but recordings subsequent to the original documentation show the police officers attempting to arrest him noticed that he was high and discussed it among themselves.

One more thing: all these guys have multiple children, but, except for Brooks, who wailed on his, no wives. Blake has a fiancé. Is she the mother of any of his kids?

I could see beings tisk-tisked over that as well, but, as Larry Elder tirelessly points out, with a great deal of substantiation, a home without a father living there and married to the mother of the children there is unlikely to be stable. Floyd's dad was out of the picture by the time he was two. At present, I can't find information on Brooks's or Blake's early family life. But in their roles as fathers, given that they were absent from home much of the time due to incarceration, the pattern is being perpetuated into the next generation.

The unrest in reaction to the Blake shooting has begun. A sheriff's department armored vehicle was cornered by a mob of thugs last night. Look for more.

You're not going to get the whole truth about this situation without relentless digging on your own. Most Americans don't have time for that, and will draw conclusions on incomplete and skewed data driven by an agenda. 

And thus does it get ever later in the day in post-America. 

 

An NBC Sports writer gets what Christianity is and what America is all wrong

First, let's look at what San Francisco Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod said about taking the knee:

San Francisco Giants pitcher Sam Coonrod refused to kneel in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement ahead of the team’s season opener Friday, saying he would feel “like a hypocrite” because of his Christian faith and personal beliefs.

“I don’t think I’m better than anybody. I’m just a Christian,” he told reporters. “I believe I can’t kneel before anything but God, Jesus Christ. I chose not to kneel. I feel if I did kneel I’d be a hypocrite. I don’t want to be a hypocrite.”

He added that he “just can’t get on board with a couple things I’ve read about Black Lives Matter. How they lean towards Marxism and … they said some negative things about the nuclear family.”

All his teammates, as well as all the opposing Los Angeles Dodgers, knelt before their game last week. Giants manager Gabe Kapler was gracious about Coonrod's decision, and Coonrod returned the graciousness:

“The one thing we said is we were going to let people express themselves,” Kapler said. “We were going to give them the choice on whether they were going to stand, kneel or do something else. That was a personal decision for Sam.”

Coonrod said he meant “no ill will” by his gesture and added, “I’m not mad at someone who decided to kneel. I just don’t think it’s too much to ask that I just get the same respect.”

Now, NBC Sports journalist Monte Poole seeks to get in on the graciousness vibe, but you can see from the setup that it's going to be backhanded:

All the Giants pitcher did was exercise the right that all Americans have, at least theoretically. Freedom of choice. The right for which millions of Americans fought, with many dying. For that reason, Coonrod’s decision to stand rather than join his kneeling manager and teammates during a pregame moment of unity at Dodger Stadium should be above criticism.

He did nothing wrong.

Okay. So that's the long and the short of it, right?

Not so fast. You see, Coonrod self-identifies as a Christian, and Poole deigns to have the real understanding of what a Christian is - and, for that matter, how humanity is defined:

He said plenty wrong, though, offering up an explanation that slid off his tongue and went dribbling down his chest like liquid contradiction.

"I'm a Christian,” he said.

When did real Christianity opt out of humanity? Give a pass to injustice and inequality? Decide that it’s disrespectful to offer support, if not shelter, to those in need? Does Coonrod not realize that pastors of all faiths are joining crowds around the world fighting for these very ideals?

So being uncomfortable with the significance with which taking a knee is fraught means one is ignoring injustice and inequality? And it seems we're veering awfully close here to saying that America - whose anthem is played when athletes take a knee - is inherently unjust and unequal.

In Poole's formulation, well, yeah, because focusing on BLM's inherent radicalism is just an excuse to take exception to the claim America obviously that it has a core flaw. You see, one is morally obligated to agree that it has a core flaw and bring it to light whenever expressions of patriotism are on the agenda:

But if Coonrod had taken a moment to inform himself, he would see motive behind this movement need not be affiliated with BLM but, rather, to bring greater awareness to the racial injustices that is its focus.

Ian Williams, NBC Sports Bay Area analyst and former 49ers defensive lineman, responded to Coonrod’s reasoning by calling BS on it.

“Let me make this clear,” Williams tweeted. “You don’t have to be on board with BLACK LIVES MATTER. But I do need you to be on board with EQUALITY FOR ALL and ENDING RACISM.

“It’s simple. If you don’t want those 2 simple things, you know what you are.”

Which is to imply Coonrod’s own interests are in conflict with protesting racial inequality.

Why Poole is up to here is really insidious. He's trying to forever, from 2020 on, change the point of sports in American life. It's not just about home runs, three-pointers and touchdowns, about players establishing the status of legends with career achievements, or the legacies of teams. It's about drumming into the heads of all who follow sports that America is wretched and we can't let a little entertainment take our minds off of that. It would be downright un-Christian. 

I don't post about this in order to make some small effort to reverse the tide. The tide is irreversible. The self-ruination of professional sports is now complete. 

All that's left is to stomp the few remaining patriotic Christians involved in that sector of this nation's life into the dust. 

 

 

 

 

The Goya Foods silliness

Speak well of the VSG in any context, however passingly, and watch the jackboots come for your head:

Goya, a popular food brand known as the premier source for authentic Latinx food, has been trending on Twitter since yesterday — but not in a good way. After Goya Foods CEO Robert Unanue spoke at the White House Rose Garden on Thursday afternoon and praised President Donald Trump, loyal customers of the brand created the hashtag #Goyaway.

During a gathering for the launch of the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative on Thursday, President Trump signed an executive order to expand “efforts across all the federal government to deliver educational and economic opportunity for Hispanic Americans.” Trump honored Unanue, whose grandfather founded Goya, by appointing him one of the leaders of the initiative. 

“We are all truly blessed to have a leader like President Trump who is a builder. And that’s what my grandfather did, he came to this country to build, to grow, to prosper, and so we have an incredible builder, and we pray. We pray for our leadership, our president,” Unanue said during his speech. Trump, who was standing several feet away from him, seemed pleased with the praise and thanked him afterwards. 

Permit me a moment of digression. What kind of style guidelines is Yahoo News following that results in the use of this "Latinx" nonsense? Are they not aware that only 2 percent of Hispanics prefer this term?

Anyway, Unanue is learning real quick that you don't speak favorably of Trump, even if you are materially supporting your own demographic:

Despite the fact that Unanue announced that the corporation would be donating 1 million cans of Goya chickpeas and a million pounds of food to those in need during the coronavirus pandemic during that same speech, customers have responded to the CEO’s pro-Trump remarks by promising to stop buying the company’s products altogether. 

Julián Castro, the former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, tweeted his disappointment and called for people to boycott, saying, “Now their CEO, Bob Unanue, is praising a president who villainizes and maliciously attacks Latinos for political gain. Americans should think twice before buying their products. #Goyaway.” 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also quote-tweeted Unanue’s comments, saying, “Oh look, it’s the sound of me Googling ‘how to make your own Adobo.’” 

Major constituents in the community have rebuked Unanue’s speech, too. United We Dream (UWD), an organization that serves young immigrants, also tweeted that it supports boycotting Goya for working with the White House, and started a petition for people to sign. “We don’t support companies who endorse and comply with a White Supremacist regime. Under capitalism, know the power of the dollar in their eyes. We’re using it to make a statement,” UWD said.

Maybe Goya is just willing to work with any administration whose initiatives align with the company's public-giveback aims, as it did in 2012, when it joined forces with Michelle Obama:

Goya Foods, America’s largest Hispanic-owned food company, continues to support the national efforts of First Lady Michelle Obama’s MyPlate campaign as part of the LetsMove health initiative to encourage consumers to eat healthy and exercise.

Goya will participate in the third annual PIX11 Health & Wellness Expo on Saturday, October 19, 2013 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan to help educate consumers on proper nutrition and how to eat healthy.  Nutritionist/Food Scientist MeriTerese Racanelli, M.S. will be on hand to offer expert advice on the nutritional value of Goya products and will conduct three different food demos including one of Goya’s staple dishes GOYA® Rice and Beans using GOYA® low sodium black beans and GOYA® Organic Long Grain Rice which was recently featured in Real Simple magazine for one of the best basic rice varieties on the market. 

“Beans are a super health and wellness food that help lower the risk of heart disease and cancer and provide naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients and anti-inflammatories,” says Racanelli. “It’s also a perfect fitness food with natural muscle-building protein and digestive-supportive dietary fiber that helps prevent blood sugar levels from rising rapidly after a meal and to fill you up, not out.  Choosing low sodium canned beans is a great way for people to combine convenience with nutrition, particularly for people who have high blood pressure, kidney health issues, diabetes and Celiac.”

The Goya booth will also offer additional health and wellness information as well as complimentary samples of GOYA® Coconut Water, GOYA® Rice and Beans, and GOYA® Quinoa Salad. Attendees will learn more about healthy recipes featured on Goya.com and in Goya’s MyPlate cookbook Healthy, Tasty, & Affordable Latin Cooking, as well as participate in t-shirt and product giveaways.  

In January of 2011, Goya became part of the LetsMove campaign to launch MiPlato, the Spanish version of MyPlate, in order to help promote healthy eating among the Hispanic community. Along with the MyPlate cookbook, Goya created thousands of brochures, posters and educational lesson plans highlighting MyPlate, including recipes and the USDA’s “10 tips to a great plate.”  The MyPlate icon was printed on many Goya product labels, including GOYA® Black, Pinto, White and Red Kidney Beans, GOYA® Chick Peas, and Sazón GOYA® Natural and Complete. Goya also expanded their low-sodium, fat-free, gluten-free and sugar-free product lines.  Throughout the year, Goya has integrated healthy eating into the company’s marketing, events, and public relations campaigns and will continue to support new programs and events to promote health and wellness across the nation.

Look, longtime LITD readers know I'm no Trump fan by any stretch (see post below). I'm also none too big on corporate do-gooder-ism in general. I'm more inclined to the Milton Friedman view: show your shareholders a return on their investment, and you've fulfilled your responsibility. And I thought Michelle Obama's nutritional-eating push was a classic case of gummint sticking its nose into the choices of sovereign individuals regarding what they want to eat. (Granted, she didn't hold an official gummint position, but she had a bully pulpit because her husband had the ultimate gummint [position].

But this kind of demonizing is the Left's way of serving notice that there's another player in the marketplace besides consumers and producers, and it intends to have a very big say in the range of choices that consumers have.

Folks, that's why we call 'em Freedom-Haters.

Plenty of stupid to go around - today's edition

Tammy Duckworth probably squelched her chances of getting the number-two slot on the Biden ticket with this outburst:

The Washington Post tells us that Illinois Senator Tammy Duckworth has "quietly emerged as a serious contender," for vice president, which is good news. She's a tough, center-left Democrat, with an incredible story of military service and sacrifice.

The bad news is what happened Sunday morning. Appearing on CNN, she was given a chance to make an easy lay-up on the question of monuments.

 

DANA BASH: "Senator, I know that you support change in the name of military bases named after Confederate leaders, but there are leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who were slave owners. And some people are demanding their monuments come down, too. In your view, where does it end? Should statues, for example, of George Washington come down?"

DUCKWORTH: "Well, let me just say we should start off by having a national dialogue on it at some point. But right now we're in the middle of a global pandemic. And one of our countries that are opposed to us, Russia, has put a bounty on American troops' heads. What really struck me about this speech that the president gave at Mount Rushmore was that he spent more time worried about honoring dead Confederates than he did talking about the lives of our 130,000 Americans who lost their lives to COVID-19, or by warning Russia off of the bounties they're putting on Americans' heads. His priorities are all wrong here. He should be talking about what we're going to do to overcome this pandemic. What are we going to do to push Russia back? Instead, he had no time for that. He spent all his time talking about dead traitors."

 

Ok, but, surely, she didn't mean taking down statues of George Washington? Could she push back on the Trumpian talking point? 
 

BASH: "That may be true, but George Washington, I don't think anybody would call him a traitor and there are moves by some to remove statues of him. Is that a good idea?"

DUCKWORTH: "I think we should listen to everybody. I think we should listen to the argument there, but remember that the president at Mount Rushmore was standing on ground that was stolen from Native Americans who had actually been given that land during a treaty."

As Alexander Hamilton once said, "Oooooof."
 

This was worse than a gaffe. It was political malpractice, because it threw Trump a lifeline at time when even Republicans are rattled by Trump's dark and divisive message. Confederate statues are one thing, but George Washington? Mount Rushmore? Seriously?

But, but, (I'm told on social media) Duckworth was simply saying we should "listen to everybody," and what's wrong with that?

Nothing, if this was a graduate seminar in performative wokeness. But we are in the midst of a presidential campaign and Duckworth just gave an answer that could launch a thousand Trump TV ads. 

Ah, but the standard-bearer for the opposing team also took his dumbass pill today:

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

Has

@BubbaWallace

 apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX? That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!

Mr. Tone-Deaf apparently doesn't realize that Wallace was not the one who reported it to NASCAR and that after the details became clear, Wallace issued a gracious statement about it and moved on.

Pretty bad timing, Mr. President.