Helen Keller was blind, deaf and mute, so to suggest she had ‘white privilege’ is racism at its very worst

I’ll freely admit that anytime one of the woke mob opens their mouth, all I hear or see is a word salad. It seems there are more and more activists who simply jumble together a bunch of terms that are used as accusations against others.

In some cases, it gets so nonsensical that it feels like the whole world needs to stop for a second to pull the idea apart so people on the outside can understand exactly what is wrong with what is being said. And here’s the most recent, crazy example: ‘Helen Keller had white privilege.’

For those who do not know the story of Helen Keller (1880-1968), she was a woman who was born blind, deaf and mute. It was the intervention of a tutor that enabled her to finally communicate after her parents had given up on her.

She later went on to become an author and a prolific member of the Socialist Party of America. She should be an icon to the far left but, in a piece in Time by Olivia Waxman, she has been called “just another privileged white person” by Anita Cameron, who is described as a ‘disability rights activist.’

Yes, you read that right. Helen Keller, who battled adversity and campaigned for the rights of people with disabilities her whole life, was “privileged.”

Here’s what makes no sense. You have one person who is an advocate for the rights of the disabled trashing the most famous advocate for the rights of the disabled, and why? On the basis of the color of her skin.

Because privilege is non-existent here. And I’m going to use the term as it is read and defined, because this situation deserves a bit of sanity. It is a privilege for my eyes, ears and tongue to work. Any person who is not blessed with this at birth is not privileged.

There is no privilege in having to maneuver your life in an absolute darkness. So what are we left with? We are left simply with someone furious over another person’s skin color. In the sane world, we call that racism.

Among those who agree is the executive director of the Senate Conservatives Fund, Mary Vought, who told the Washington Examiner, “As a mother to a child with a disability, this is extremely offensive. Helen Keller dedicated her life to advocating for those with disabilities and illness. To suddenly cancel her now because of her skin color is not only outrageous, it’s racist.”

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/510108-helen-keller-white-privilege/

Rep. Debbie Dingell Demands Facebook Remove Criticism of Islam

The Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has always had friends in high places, and on Wednesday it celebrated another, announcing that it had “thanked Congresswoman Debbie Dingell (D-MI) – and the 29 congressional colleagues that joined her – in urging Facebook to take immediate action to eliminate anti-Muslim bigotry from that social media platform.” CAIR’s longtime spokesman Ibrahim “Honest Ibe” Hooper noted proudly that it was “one of several organizations named by Rep. Dingell in her press release announcing the letter.”

Dingell and her colleagues demanded that Facebook’s chief Mark Zuckerberg “immediately implement” measures including the formation of “a working group comprised of senior staff focused on anti-Muslim bigotry issues”; enforcing “your hate content and hate group policies in a way that ensures militias and white supremacists cannot use your event and group pages to terrorize targeted communities”; agreeing to “an independent third-party review of the company’s role in enabling anti-Muslim violence, genocide and internment”; working toward and committing to a “100 percent proactive detection and removal of anti-Muslim content and all other forms of hate before it is even seen”; committing to “regular anti-discrimination training for your entire staff world-wide [sic]”; and “training key staff on civil rights issues and common words, phrases, tropes or visuals used by hate actors to dehumanize and demonize Muslims.”

Joining Dingell in this call for sweeping censorship, according to CAIR, were a rogue’s gallery of the most sinister anti-free speech forces in Congress, including Representatives Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (where Ayanna Pressley, the fourth member of The Squad, was on this was not disclosed). Also signing were the House’s quietest Muslim member, André Carson, as well as Carolyn B. Maloney, Jahana Hayes, Max Rose, Barbara Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Bobby L. Rush, Daniel T. Kildee, Jared Huffman, Kathy Castor, Gwen S. Moore, Lauren Underwood, Jan Schakowsky, Mark Pocan, Grace Meng, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Darren Soto, Donald S. Beyer Jr., James P. McGovern, Peter Welch, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Yvette D. Clarke, Raúl M. Grijalva, Earl Blumenauer, and Nydia M. Velázquez.

No one could reasonably object to removing calls for “anti-Muslim violence, genocide and internment.” The problem arises over the demand that Facebook remove “anti-Muslim content…before it is even seen.” CAIR and its allies have for years defamed any and all opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women, gays and others as “anti-Muslim bigotry,” lumping such opposition together indiscriminately with calls for “violence, genocide and internment,” stigmatizing it all. This was not careless or rhetorical excess; it was a concerted, well-executed strategy. Now it is taken for granted that the slightest negative word about how Islamic jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and make recruits among peaceful Muslims, and the smallest hint of disapproval of anything related to Islam, is immediately denounced and dismissed as anti-Muslim bigotry.

Skeptical? Consider, then, the case of British journalist Julie Burchill. Apparently oblivious to the titanic dimensions of the irony, the publisher Little, Brown just canceled her book Welcome to the Woke Trials: How #Identity Killed Progressive Politics because of an “Islamophobic” Twitter exchange Burchill had with Muslim writer Ash Sarkar. In the course of the exchange, Burchill alluded to Muhammad’s marriage to a six-year-old girl when he was 51, an event that is attested to in the earliest available Islamic texts. Yet for stating something that millions of Muslims around the world take as axiomatically true, Burchill’s book on the cancel culture was canceled.

And now Dingell and her henchmen are demanding that Facebook implement policies that will institutionalize and universalize such fascist hysteria. Even worse, the political climate is so rancid today that Dingell will pay no political price either for her association with Hamas-linked CAIR or for her open opposition to the freedom of speech. If she doesn’t know that Hamas-linked CAIR and its allies have for years been demonizing and stigmatizing honest discussion of the motivating ideology behind jihad terrorism as “anti-Muslim,” and that her demands will also likely result in the silencing of such discussion, she should know it. Dingell is actively aiding an endeavor to silence all criticism of Islam, which is all smeared in the same way, and enabling the tacit acceptance of Sharia blasphemy law, which forbids such criticism. She is, in short, the very definition of a useful idiot.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/robert-spencer/2020/12/19/rep-debbie-dingell-demands-facebook-remove-criticism-of-islam-n1220996

Cuomo Sentences Small Businesses to Death with Minimum Wage Hike

Despite an unemployment rate of ten percent and about one-third of small businesses already shuttered as a result of his coronavirus lockdowns, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is apparently unsatisfied in his efforts in the state. So he’s decided to go ahead with a planned minimum wage hike.

That’s OK. All business people are rich, aren’t they?

Reason:

The New York Department of Labor announced Wednesday that it will move forward with plans to hike the state’s minimum wage on December 31. Under the state’s phased-in minimum wage increase that started in 2016, businesses in New York City are already required to pay workers a minimum of $15 per hour. On December 31, the minimum wage in Long Island and Westchester County will increase by $1 to $14 per hour, and the minimum wage across the rest of the state will jump from $11.80 to $12.50 per hour.

Cuomo’s Labor Department considered canceling or postponing the increase — especially after the governor reimposed many lockdown orders and promised more in the future. After all, “minimum wage” is sort of irrelevant when no one is getting paid any wages at all.

But the fight for social justice and economic equality must go on — even if it kills off every business in the state.

Greg Biryla, New York director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), told the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle that the Cuomo administration’s reasoning for approving the minimum wage hike “defies logic.” Even with assistance from the state and federal governments, 39 percent of NFIB members say they could be out of business in the next year.

Doesn’t Cuomo care about what he’s doing to these small businesses? The answer is no.

The infuriating thing is that the state is well aware of the additional burden it is creating—the Cuomo administration just doesn’t seem to care. A report commissioned by the labor department to review the potential costs of hiking the state’s minimum wage in the middle of a pandemic and economic crisis notes that “COVID-19 has dramatically changed the economic landscape, casting doubt on whether the capacity to absorb minimum wage increases without adverse impact can continue over the near-term.”

Bureaucratic understatement can be so maddening.

But the analysts add that “Anecdotally, our research has found examples of job openings upstate offering wages well above $12.50,” and conclude that “these examples could be interpreted as evidence that upstate businesses are able to offer the wages necessary to attract the workers they need.”

“Anecdotally” means they don’t have any hard data or evidence of any kind. I guess the bureaucrats’ Auntie Midge told them about how Hank’s Hardware Store in Schenectady was paying $13.00 an hour. She heard it from Uncle Bob, so it’s got to be true.

Cuomo is determined to ignore reality. The consequences of this idiocy will be felt by thousands of small businesses that might be willing to reopen their doors when the pandemic passes, but will be unable to afford the new wages until they get back on their feet. Cuomo has condemned these businesses to death.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2020/12/18/cuomo-sentences-small-businesses-to-death-with-minimum-wage-hike-n1219075

Justin Amash Introduces Bill To End Civil Asset Forfeiture Nationwide

Rep. Justin Amash (L–Mich.) on Thursday introduced a bill to end civil asset forfeiture, which allows the government to take property from someone without ever charging them with a crime.

Law enforcement on the local, state, and federal levels can seize assets if they were thought to be used in connection with illegal activity. That's often based solely on suspicion, though. Many people never receive their items back, even if they were acquitted or never charged in the first place. Since 2000, state and local governments have robbed people of more than $68 billion.

Police often deposit those sums into slush funds for their departments.

What's more, the property seized doesn't necessarily have to have been used by the alleged criminal in question. Such was the case with Kevin McBride, who had his Jeep taken by police in Tucson, Arizona, after his girlfriend allegedly used it to sell $25 worth of weed to an undercover cop.

Amash's bill would eliminate the practice as we know it nationwide. "Civil asset forfeiture is a due process violation, and it always has been," said Amash in a statement. "Its history is riddled with injustices not because it's a valid practice that gets misused, but because its central premise—denying people their procedural rights—is inherently flawed. By ending it, my bill helps fulfill Congress's obligation to stop rights violations at both the state and federal level, and it ends a practice that contributes to the frayed relationship between law enforcement and the public."

It seems to be commonsense that civil asset forfeiture plainly violates our constitutional rights, particularly as laid out under the Fourth and 14th Amendments. On the federal level, Amash's bill ends the practice outright. "No person shall be required, under the laws of the United States, to forfeit to the United States any property, real or personal, pursuant to a civil forfeiture proceeding, including a nonjudicial civil forfeiture proceeding," the bill reads. Such a change would ensure, for instance, that the Drug Enforcement Administration is no longer allowed to seize money at airports, as has been their practice when travelers carry large sums. The agency stole $43,000 from a woman in Wilmington, North Carolina, and $82,373 from an elderly man in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, simply because they dared to fly with it. Neither was ever charged with involvement in the drug trade.

The legislation also quashes the practice at the state level by prohibiting governments from taking assets unless they secure a conviction against the alleged criminal or determine via a civil proceeding that the property owner committed the offense begetting forfeiture.

The libertarian congressman, who is retiring after this session, has long been a proponent of criminal justice reform. Earlier this year, he introduced the first bill to abolish qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that makes it difficult to hold public officials accountable for violating your civil rights.

"The Constitution authorizes and obligates each branch of the Federal Government to protect individual rights," the bill reads. "The long-term failure of Congress, presidents, and the judiciary to recognize the illegitimacy of the government's civil forfeiture practices does not divest them of the authority to do so. The government cannot lawfully jettison the rights of the accused for the sake of convenience and profit."

https://reason.com/2020/12/17/justin-amash-introduces-bill-to-end-civil-asset-forfeiture-nationwide/

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