Thursday, December 24, 2020



JK Rowling laughing all the way to the bank

She might have made her fortune through the Harry Potter franchise, but the author is raking in big bucks from a completely different project these days.

Figures that have been revealed this week show that Rowling paid herself dividends of $27 million, reports The Sun.

The huge amount of money has come from her TV show Strike, which was adapted from her novels Cormoran Strike.

She got $22 million in 2018 and $4.3 million last year through her own agency that deals with her television work.

Rowling has definitely been on a winning streak, with her most recent venture Troubled Blood shooting straight to the top of the Amazon book charts.

Interestingly, it was this novel that upset a lot of people.

In September, social media was alight with the hashtag “RIPJ.K.Rowling” after news spread the series featured a transvestite serial killer — who is now a suspect in another murder.

One British reviewer declared the moral of the story was: Never trust a man in a dress.

The characterisation may not have attracted the level of ire it received if Rowling had not being embroiled transgender issues which led to her being accused of “transphobia”.

In that context, a killer transvestite character was seen as tone deaf, to say the least.

In June, Rowling defended past controversial transphobic comments in a lengthy essay, which also revealed that she was sexually assaulted as a young woman.

“I’m concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition and also about the increasing numbers who seem to be detransitioning (returning to their original sex), because they regret taking steps that have, in some cases, altered their bodies irrevocably, and taken away their fertility,” she wrote.

While her comments haven’t sat well with a lot of people, the author continues to be one of the most successful authors of all time.



What's good for Republicans was not good for George Floyd?




Antifa Rioter Tries to Weasel Out of Andy Ngo Lawsuit. This Judge Isn't Having It

On June 29, 2019, Portland antifa rioters physically assaulted Andy Ngo, editor-at-large at The Post Millennial, who was reporting on the riot at the time. After police apparently failed to investigate the assault, Ngo took matters into his own hands in June, filing a lawsuit against Rose City Antifa and members of the mob who allegedly beat up Ngo. Benjamin Bolen, the antifa rioter whom Ngo blamed for one of the assaults, attempted to weasel out of the lawsuit via an Anti-SLAPP motion. Multnomah County Judge Kathleen Dailey rightly refused this move.

“This is finally a step in the right direction for the rule of law in Portland where the police, district attorneys office, and local politicians have totally failed to bring justice to the perpetrators of this heinous act,” Harmeet Dhillon, CEO of the Center for American Liberty and a lawyer representing Ngo, said in a statement Tuesday. “We brought this lawsuit as a last resort in the face of their unwillingness to enforce the law. As we have watched America’s greatest cities burn live on television at the hands of Antifa terrorists, we know they were emboldened by the inaction in Portland.”

Ngo sued Rose City Antifa, Bolen, Corbyn (Katherine) Belyea, Joseph Christian Evans, John Hacker, Madison Lee Allen, and fifty other antifa rioters. He alleged that Bolen punched him in the abdomen on May 1, 2019. According to the lawsuit, John Hacker threw an unknown liquid on Ngo’s head while the journalist was at his local gym.

Then antifa rioters threw containers full of liquid at Ngo’s head at a protest on June 29 — “milkshakes” that Portland Police warned might contain quick-drying concrete. Belyea allegedly threw one of these “milkshakes.” Finally, again on June 29, an antifa mob again attacked Ngo, throwing projectiles at him, punching him, and kicking him. Evans and Allen allegedly took part in this attack.

“Antifa members engage in rioting, property destruction, and armed brawls with political opponents and bystanders or journalists perceived to be allies of their opponents,” the lawsuit explains. “According to Antifa, any violence against public demonstrations by groups they view as fascist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, conservative, or right-wing is inherently ‘self-defense’—irrespective of whether such groups actually subscribe to such views— because such public demonstrations purportedly lead to violence against marginalized groups.”

Ngo’s lawsuit notes that antifa’s attacks on this particular journalist undermine the group’s “self-indulgent proclamations of protecting minority groups,” because Andy Ngo is both gay and of Asian descent.

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages of more than $300,000, tripled to $900,000, along with “temporary, preliminary, and permanent injunctive relief prohibiting Defendants from harassing, threatening, harming, or attempt to do the same to Ngo, and prohibiting Defendants from further engaging in” violence against Ngo.

In response to this lawsuit, Bolen filed an Anti-SLAPP motion, claiming that Ngo targeted him for his constitutionally-protected speech. This move amounted to an attempt to weasel out of the lawsuit on false pretenses. Judge Kathleen Dailey refused his motion and she struck from the record as inadmissible certain attacks on Ngo that Bolen included in his affidavit.

Bolen claimed that he did not attack Ngo. Rather, he accused Ngo of mixing him up with someone else and attacking Bolen because he exercised his constitutional right to protest. Oregon’s anti-SLAPP law shields people from lawsuits based on claims that “arise out of” their exercise of such rights.

Yet Ngo is not suing Bolen for taking part in a protest. Ngo claimed that Bolen physically assaulted him. Physical assault is not protected speech, and Bolen admitted as much.

Bolen may be innocent of assaulting Ngo, but he cannot use an anti-SLAPP law to strike Ngo’s claims against him. His attempt to weasel out of the lawsuit may only weaken his position.

Judge Dailey also struck some of Bolen’s remarks from the record. Bolen claimed that Ngo “appears at these rallies in an effort to dox leftists, which means to uncover their identity and then publicly post personal identifying information online so white nationalist or right wing groups can access the information and use it to target leftists and their families with harassment, threats, and sometimes even violence.”

Bolen claimed that Ngo “believes that racially motivated crimes are hoaxes” and that the journalist “engages in stochastic terrorism by both demonizing leftists and posting their personal identifying information online.” The antifa fellow-traveler also claimed, “Mr. Ngo does not care about the truth or about being accurate.”

The judge struck these accusations because they are either inadmissible or because they are based on “insufficient evidence” or a “lack of personal knowledge.”

Judge Dailey served the cause of justice by refusing Bolen’s attempt to weasel out of Ngo’s lawsuit, but the journalist still faces a difficult legal battle to hold his antifa assailants accountable.

Seattle’s ‘Poverty Excuse’ Would Destroy the City

Matthew Humphrey recently lost $4,000 worth of goods in a theft of his Seattle barbershop. Under a new proposal the Seattle City Council is considering this month, what happened to him wouldn’t even be a crime—if the thieves claimed they were driven by poverty, that is.

“I think it’s insane,” the victimized barber told a local news outlet. “It’s one of these well-intended concepts (of) we want to take care of people that can’t take care of themselves. But what you are really doing is hurting other people.”

Up for debate is a reform proposed by Seattle City Council-member Lisa Herbold. For up to 100 different misdemeanor crimes, including theft, harassment, shoplifting, trespassing, and more, an individual could be excused if he or she claims poverty was their motive.

“In a situation where you took that sandwich because you were hungry and you were trying to meet your basic need of satisfying your hunger; we as the community will know that we should not punish that,” King County Director of Public Defense Anita Khandelwal said of the proposal, which she helped craft. “That conduct is excused.”

The intent of the proposal is to avoid punishing desperate people just trying to survive. But the provision exempts not only stealing food or similar necessities, but stealing anything—if you claim the money gained from its sale would be used for essentials.

First and foremost, this policy would obviously incentivize more crime and more theft.

It would basically give anyone with a good sob story a green light to violate property rights at will. In doing so, it would condemn Seattle to economic decline. In a free market with secure property rights, people can engage in mutually-beneficial commerce. In working to earn a profit, they will create employment opportunities and provide others with the goods and services they need. Businesses can invest and communities can grow.

Without secure property rights, none of this is possible.

Think about it using Humphrey, the aforementioned barber, as an example. As a small business owner, he employs people in his Seattle neighborhood. They go out and spend their money elsewhere around town. Meanwhile, locals can get haircuts they want at a price that’s worth it to them (otherwise, he’d be out of business with no one willing to pay).

Yet if the Seattle proposal became law, Humphrey and thousands of other small business owners would likely have to shut down.

“It’s a little upside-down world,” he said. “The end result is small companies like mine have to close their doors because they can’t afford to be broken in [to] all the time.”

You certainly can’t blame him. There’s no way any small business owner could possibly operate when anyone who is poor or homeless—or claims to be—is able to rob their store and get away with it. Survival, let alone profitability, is impossible amid such unpredictability and lawlessness.

And so, while perhaps some homeless or poor people might benefit from lawless looting in the very short-term, this reform would almost certainly destabilize and erode the city’s economy and incentivize crime. If businesses cannot operate, jobs will not exist, wages will not be offered, taxes will not be paid, and, in short order, crime and poverty will only increase.

This is why free-market economist Thomas Sowell once said that property rights “belong legally to individuals, but their real function is social, to benefit vast numbers of people who do not themselves exercise these rights.”

None of this is conjecture. The strength of property rights in a nation (and it’s certainly true for a city as well) closely correlates with its average per-person income.

Progressive Seattle officials might have the best of intentions behind their proposal to create a hardship exemption to property crimes. But, if successful, their naïve efforts would undermine the rule of law and property rights necessary for Seattle’s economy to survive.

Defund Police, Destroy Prosperity

Defunding the police is a popular notion espoused by the most radical of left-wing politicians and activists. Prominent voices in the black community support this idea that less policing would result in saved lives by way of reduced police brutality. But what does “defunding the police” really look like for our most desperate communities?

For nearly a decade, Black Lives Matter supporters have used brute force to push their narrative regarding police brutality, leveraging the rarest instances of police stops resulting in the death of a suspect. Starting with the Trayvon Martin case, progressives have villainized law enforcement officers across the nation. In 2020, the George Floyd case quite literally set cities on fire, taking with it members of the police force. Just two months after the incident took place in Minneapolis, “nearly 200” law enforcement officers applied to leave their positions, with similar instances occurring in other riot-ravaged areas. Despite this, the city council recently voted to redirect $8 million from the police budget to “violent prevention,” among other services.

A full-on “defunding” has yet to take place, yet police officers are already leaving in significant numbers. Disrespected and abused, the men and women in blue are being forced out of the most desperate communities to an unknown fate. Video testimonies and personal posts all highlight the painful decision to hang their hats for good.

So what does a world without police look like?

According to the Defund the Police website, the term defunding the police “does not mean the abolishing of community safety.” So what should it mean? The website goes on to explain how there are “alternatives” to law enforcement services that are “more effective.” It also includes decriminalization, disarmament, and demilitarization. Some municipalities even suggest replacing law enforcement with social workers. But this isn’t right. None of these demands is of sound logic.

For one, what person decides who is most effective at the scene of a crime? Law enforcement officers have upheld the tried-and-true tradition of being able to mitigate sensitive and potentially fatal situations unlike any other public safety sector. It’s not simply about protecting the life of the person of interest and the officer but also the lives of those nearby. A social worker isn’t trained to engage with anyone but his or her own client with whom he or she has an existing medical relationship. And in many of these cases, there’s little time for observation and questionnaires — even in cases when mental health is a concern. This only serves to add an additional person in harm’s way — for the inevitable police officer to arrive anyway. Case in point, the swift response of a true first responder will always be essential in the eyes of the people being protected. Defunding this only delays the help when time is of the essence.

Imagine if police officers were disarmed. While studies suggest that few police interactions require deadly force that would require a gun or weapon, people do tend to feel safer when police are around. Part of that has to do with the fact that police officers are armed. A friend or neighbor doesn’t offer the same peace of mind, much less an unarmed police officer — especially in desperate urban areas where homicides are highest. An unarmed officer is another sitting duck, another victim in a potential crossfire. This would call for the dispatch of even more police to rectify an unfortunate situation that could have been prevented with just one armed officer nearby.

Finally, imagine decriminalization, a notion echoed by many on the far Left. To the naive, it sounds like the libertarian thing to do — live and let live. This sounds good until someone runs low on his supply and decides that robbing his neighbor is the best course of action. Remember, drugs impair judgement, and while some argue that drug users aren’t all bad, law enforcement officers know exactly how illicit substances influence fatal interactions with others. Decriminalization only allows for this plague of bad judgment to proliferate, leading to physical abuse of spouses and children, neglect of minors and the elderly, and destruction of property — all mitigated with the presence of law enforcement to discourage its use and sale. This is why defunding police is hardly a remedy.

To those who maintain their argument for divesting funds away from local police forces, I challenge you to do a ride-along in the worst neighborhoods in your area. If the fear you experience doesn’t make your stomach turn upside down, then we can discuss alternative methods to law enforcement. Until then, you need them, possibly more than you could ever know.

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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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