Saturday, December 05, 2020



The joy of living with defunded police: Minneapolis

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports carjackings have skyrocketed in 2020. They’re up a “staggering” 537% over last year.

Over the past two months, Minneapolis police have logged more than 125 carjackings in the city, a troubling surge that authorities had largely linked to small groups of marauding teens. But an increasing number of adults have been arrested in recent weeks for the same crime.

Within a one-hour period Saturday morning, police reported three separate carjackings in southeast Minneapolis, including one where an elderly woman was struck on the head. Such attacks are up 537% this month when compared with last November.

James Lileks described one carjacking in harrowing detail earlier this week.

Minneapolis has blazed the rhetorical trail on defunding police over the past half year, though its actual cuts have been more modest than, say, radical Austin, Texas, which cut a whopping $143 million from its police budget and canceled upcoming police cadet classes. Minneapolis is looking at cutting about $8 million

The rhetoric matters. Police in Minneapolis and elsewhere across the country are demoralized after being demonized relentlessly for months. Many are walking off the force and won’t be replaced anytime soon. Why put your life on the line when your city’s elected officials not only do not have your back, they’re openly stabbing you in the back?

After spending decades reversing the extreme crime rates of the 1990s, cities like Minneapolis see crime surging again. Democrats who control those cities have no answers that won’t just make crime worse. And it will get worse.

All of this was predictable. In fact, I predicted it when “defund the police” became a thing across the country.

The title of a piece I published here on July 2 was “‘Defunding’ Police Will Lead to More Violent Crime, But Don’t Ask the Mainstream Media.” Media totally abdicated its responsibility to report anything fairly or honestly with regard to the defund movement. Media didn’t report its goals, its origins, where it was likely to lead, or anything else at the time. Media failed to report that majorities of about 80% across all demographics oppose defunding police. Big Tech didn’t flag or censor the defund movement for inciting violence, which it obviously was and still is. “Defund the police” is destroying cities such as Minneapolis.

Before that piece, I wrote about New York City’s murder surge. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio led defunding the city’s police. Before that, back on June 8, I took a look at the history of violent crime in America and why we were likely to see more of it as the defund movement took off. Predicting that demoralizing and chopping police would lead to more crime was probably the easiest prediction of my entire career. But no one in the mainstream media made the same obvious case.

Our cities are getting what they voted for, unchecked Democrat power, and they’re getting it good and hard. Along with a crime surge, they’re getting arbitrary and often politically-motivated shutdowns of small businesses, and of schools, the latter powered more by the teachers’ unions relentless demands for power than by the science, which clearly states and has stated for months that children are not likely conduits to spread COVID.

The school closure is hurting our children: In Houston, Texas’ largest school district, a whopping 42% of students are failing at least one class, according to the Houston Chronicle. Houston is, of course, Democrat-run. Houston’s schools have been on remote learning for months, but few of its 215,000 students seem to be learning.

This will lead to an increase in the dropout rate, which will in turn lead to more crime. Houston, at least, hasn’t defunded its police. It’s better run than Austin, which has, and led the nation in the rate of increase in violent crime earlier this year.

Portland and Seattle are basket cases and may be beyond saving at this point.

Returning to Minneapolis, police didn’t even track carjackings as a separate statistic until this fall because they were so infrequent. Now they’re almost unavoidable and they’re spread all across the city.

MPD didn’t specifically track this type of crime until Sept. 22 because they were so infrequent. Previous cases fell under the larger umbrella of robberies and auto theft. The agency created a new coding system after the summer months yielded an unusually high number of attacks.

A retroactive count by analysts determined that Minneapolis has seen at least 375 carjackings this year — including 17 last week. That overall tally is more than three times higher than 2019.

It’s going to get worse until sanity prevails. When that will happen is anyone’s guess. Voters in cities such as Minneapolis will have to vote their cities’ destroyers out of office and replace them with people who have some contact with reality. For that to happen, media in those cities will have to report what is actually happening. City councils will have to hear and respond to voices other than the far-left radicals who proposed defunding police, without any conscience for the inevitable consequences. Local media will have to report all this accurately. The Star-Tribune has started, about six months too late and long after the trajectory of crime was obvious.

The Left's Gender Theories Are Anti-Scientific Nonsense, but They're Gaining Ground

Ben Shapiro

On Nov. 22, 2020, New York Times columnist Charles Blow unleashed one of the most bizarre tweets in recent memory. "Stop doing gender reveals," he stated. "They're not cute; they're violent. All we know before a child is born is their anatomy. They will reveal their gender. It may match your expectations of that anatomy, and it may not. If you love the child you will be patience, attentive and open."

This is patently insane for a variety of reasons.

First, the characterization of gender reveal parties -- parties during which parents celebrate finding out whether their unborn children are boys or girls -- as "violent" is, in and of itself, radically nuts. Parents are excited to learn whether their children will be boys or girls. That is absolutely unobjectionable. But for an ardent fan of abortion on demand such as Blow to characterize a gender reveal party celebrating the sex of an unborn baby as "violent" while characterizing the in utero dismemberment of that same unborn baby as "choice" is so morally benighted as to boggle the mind.

Blow's tweet goes further. The implication that parents are doing violence against their own children if they connect sex and gender is utterly anti-evidentiary. Sex and gender are interconnected. For nearly every human being born, biological sex will correspond with genital development in the womb. And gender, contrary to the idiotic, pseudoscientific paganism of the gender theory set, is not some free-floating set of biases we bring to the table. Males and females have different qualities in a variety of functions, attitudes, desires and capabilities. In every human culture -- indeed, in every mammalian species -- meaningful distinctions between male and female remain. To reduce children to genderless unicorns simply awaiting hormonal guidance from within piles absurdity upon absurdity.

And, of course, Blow's take on "patience" is not limitless. Presumably, should your daughter announce that she is a boy at the tender age of 5, all measures will immediately be taken to ensure that she is treated as a boy by those such as Blow. There will be no call for watchful waiting; to do so would be yet another act of "violence."

Why does any of this matter? Because Blow's perspective has become mainstream on the left. In October, Healthline, a supposed medical resource, ran an article reviewed by a licensed marriage and family therapist titled "'Do Vulva Owners Like Sex?' Is the Wrong Question -- Here's What You Should Ask Instead." Whether "vulva owners" like sex is indeed the wrong question. The right question, to begin, might be what makes "vulva owners" distinct from women; as a follow-up, we might ask how one would go about leasing or renting a vulva if ownership seems like too much of a burden.

But the madness gains ground. CNN reported in July that the American Cancer Society had changed its recommendations on the proper age for cervical cancer screenings for women, only CNN termed women "individuals with a cervix." Which seems rather degrading to women, come to think of it.

Lest we believe that this is merely some lunatic fringe, it is worth noting that Blow, Healthline and CNN are merely saying out loud what those who place gender pronouns in their Twitter bios, such as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, imply: that gender and sex are completely severable, and that biology has nothing to do with the former. President-elect Joe Biden has openly stated that an 8-year-old can decide on his transgenderism; Sen. Elizabeth Warren infamously stated that she would have a 9-year-old transgender child screen her secretary of education nominee. Male and female are arbitrary categories to which anyone can claim membership.

Unless, of course, the left wishes to treat sex as an important characteristic. Then the logic changes. Thus, it is historic that Biden has nominated an all-female communications team, and it is deeply moving that Harris is a woman.

It's almost as though the definitions of words have no meaning, according to the left. All that matters is fealty to whatever narrative the chosen moral caste dictates on a daily basis. And if you cross it, you're doing violence.

The sacredness of trannies reaches a peak in Norway

For more than 15 years, I have been saying that gay activists calling for “equality” and “tolerance” would want to silence dissenting voices. About 10 years ago, a Christian attorney said to me, “Mike, take that one step farther. Those who were once put in jail will want to put us in jail.”

When I repeated his comment on Christian TV, I was widely ridiculed by the left. “No one wants to put people like you in jail!”

That tune quickly changed when, in 2015 Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, was jailed for refusing to follow a court order and issue a marriage certificate for a same-sex couple.

Many on the left applauded her arrest, thrilled that she was in jail and hoping she would not get out anytime soon. And on social media, comments were completely unhinged, like this one.

“But,” someone might say, “the arrest of Kim Davis proves you’re exaggerating your point. She refused a direct order from a judge, and still, she only spent a few days in jail. Don’t make a martyr out of her or give the false impression that this is an everyday affair.”

Actually, I could multiply other examples, not just from America but from other countries as well, like the case of a father whom I met last year in Canada.

He objected to his 14-year-old daughter’s desire to identify as a male and receive hormone therapy. But the courts ruled with the daughter, not only affirming her “right” to begin the therapy, but also banning him from referring to his own daughter by her birth name or referring to her as female, even in the privacy of his home. If he dared to do so, he could be arrested on the spot.

For several years now, in New York City, “discriminatory” treatment in the workplace against those who identify as transgender can result in a $250,000 fine. And what, exactly, constitutes discriminatory treatment?

According to the official government website, this would include failing to use an individual’s preferred name or pronoun, refusing to allow them to use the bathroom of their choice, or even “sex stereotyping.” Cross any of these lines, and you could be in a heap of debt – or worse.

Now, “Norway Has Made Biphobic, Transphobic Speech Illegal.” More specifically, “The penal code states that those who are guilty of hate speech face a fine or up to a year in jail for private comments, and a maximum of three years in jail for public remarks. Furthermore, those charged with violent crimes that are motivated by a victim’s orientation or gender identity will receive harsher sentences.”

So, a private comment deemed hateful to an LGBT person or persons could get you a one-year jail sentence. Make this comment in public, and you’re looking at three years in jail, the same penalty for third-degree murder (meaning, by neglect) in Norway. You heard that right.

Supporters of the bill note that “for prosecution, comments must be direct attacks against LGBTQ+ people or include language that intentionally dehumanizes them to the public.”

But would quoting relevant verses from the Bible cross that line? Would stating that there are only two sexes cross that line? Would denying the term “marriage” to a same-sex union cross that line?

This much is sure. There are plenty of LGBT activists and allies who are more than ready to bring potential cases to court.

Back here in America, in January of this year, Joe Biden tweeted that transgender rights are the Civil Rights issue of the day. And he has made clear that one of his first legislative priorities (in the event that he is sworn in as our next president) will be to pass the Equality Act, which constitutes a direct threat to our religious freedoms.

Do not be deceived.

This is one of many reasons so many of us strongly opposed a Biden-Harris administration. And it’s another reminder that my Christian attorney friend, who himself was on the front lines of the culture wars, was hardly exaggerating at all.

Now would make a great time to determine that you will do what is right and stand up for what is right regardless of cost or consequence. Your compassionate courage could be the very thing that stands as the last bulwark against dangerous government overreach.

Stock exchange Invests in Racial Discrimination

As ABC News reports, “Nasdaq filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday that would require all companies listed on its U.S. stock exchange to publicly disclose the diversity statistics of its board of directors. Moreover, the new rules would require companies on the stock exchange to have at least one woman director and one who self-identifies as an ‘underrepresented minority’ or member of the LGBTQ community — or face possible delisting.”

NASDAQ President Nelson Griggs, however, couched this ominous threat of delisting as — what else? — an opportunity. Now, instead of working to improve the quality of their product or service, these companies can focus on the critical task of “increasing representation of women, underrepresented minorities and the LGBTQ+ community on their boards.”

As Power Line’s John Hinderaker points out, “The purpose of a board of directors is to manage a corporation for the benefit of its shareholders. It is not to advance a collateral liberal agenda, which is what NASDAQ no doubt has in mind. It is noteworthy that the American Civil Liberties Union, which once advocated for civil rights but now is on the other side, applauded NASDAQ’s crudely discriminatory initiative.”

Not so fast, though, says attorney Hans Bader, who notes that NASDAQ’s discriminatory designs seem to runs afoul of federal law. “The stock exchange NASDAQ plans to impose racial quotas on companies that are listed on it,” he writes, “requiring them to violate federal law. Under a proposed NASDAQ rule, corporations would have to put at least one minority and one woman on their board of directors. Such racial quotas violate a federal statute, 42 U.S.C. 1981, which forbids racial discrimination in contracts, and which has been interpreted by the Supreme Court as forbidding racial quotas even when such quotas are motivated by a desire for diversity.”

Ah, yes, the Supreme Court. Thirteen years ago, in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No.1, Chief Justice John Roberts famously wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Seems like a pretty sensible concept.

If NASDAQ’s dopey diversity directive ever winds its way to the nation’s highest court, we’ll get to find out whether the chief justice really believes what he says he believes.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com TONGUE-TIED)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://john-ray.blogspot.com (FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

https://heofen.blogspot.com/ (MY OTHER BLOGS)

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