Sunday, January 29, 2023



Jason Whitlock explains the Memphis police murder

image from https://i.imgur.com/sSlNun9.png

Jason Whitlock

There is a racial element. And this is a story about young Black men and their inability to treat each other in a humane way. Everybody involved in this on the street level was either 24 to 32 years old. Everybody. It was a group of young Black men, five-on-one. Looked like gang violence to me.

It looked like what young Black men do when they’re supervised by a single Black woman. And that’s what they got going on in the Memphis Police Department. They’ve elected some, or put some Black woman in charge of the police force, and we are getting the same kind of chaos and disunity and violence that we see in a lot of these cities run by single mothers.

If we want to discuss the breakdown of family that leads to disrespect for authority that causes you to resist the police and run from the police and not comply with the police, because you resist authority at all times, because there was no male authority in your home, let’s have that discussion.

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Idaho Scores A Win Against Homeless Encampments

Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) was granted a score after winning a court battle against homeless encampments outside of the state's capitol, saying it had turned into a “danger zone.”

A judge decided to dismiss a lawsuit filed by activists that challenged his administration’s actions to remove the encampment on public property.

According to Little’s office, activists began gathering on the capitol steps last January, which eventually led to an increased need for police surveillance after the area was starting to become a safety hazard.

Little said that the area had become like a scene out of Portland with hypodermic needles, bags containing human feces, soiled clothing, rotting food, abandoned property, violence, drug abuse, and garbage all over the state property.

“It just looked like heck," Little said, adding that there was “no shortage of people upset about it."

The Republican governor said his office won the case by arguing how unsafe and unsanitary the area had become, and also providing evidence of the waste found at the site.

“But they were there, they were harassing state employees and legislators when they went by," Little said, adding that Idaho has resources for the homeless such as shelters, which always almost have room.

“And we just don't have that in Idaho. But activists got these people – some of them with not much in the way of means, ginned up to stay there even though there were other places they could stay,” he continued.

He blamed activists for escalating the situation beyond its means, and said that his state was not going to be another Portland, San Francisco, or Los Angeles “where public officials have engaged in failed experiments to permit and encourage unsafe and destructive public camping."

According to data, Idaho has the 10th lowest violent crime rate in the nation, ranking it as the third safest state in the nation overall.

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The strange Leftist version of what is normal

One of the American Left's primary goals is to convince us that we are not normal if we do not affirm its ideology, a well established tactic among totalitarians. One of the best examples is the psikhushkas of the old Soviet Union. If you did not agree with Soviet Communism, you were not normal so you’d be placed in a psikhushka, or psychiatric prison.

Few were more clear in articulating this principle than former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev who said of those with whom he disagreed, “Of those who might start calling for opposition to Communism on this basis, we can say that clearly their mental state is not normal.”

The growing militancy of domestic authoritarians who harangue and berate as abnormal those who believe something different begs a simple but important question: What is normal?

The online Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides many definitions of normal. Among them, in descending order, are: “conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern, characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine; according with, constituting, or not deviating from a norm, rule, procedure, or principle; occurring naturally; approximating the statistical average or norm; and generally free from physical or mental impairment or dysfunction,” to name a few.

If we contrast these accepted definitions of normal with many policies and practices of the American Left, a trend emerges. Much of what today’s Left promotes does not comport with what is recognized as normal.

Instructing children how to think and behave like racists, as happens in many government schools through variants of Critical Race Theory, is not normal. Teaching children to judge people by the content of their character is.

Grown men dressed as women and performing provocatively before preschoolers is not normal. Reserving adult entertainment for adults is.

Deliberately depriving people of available energy needed to heat their homes is not normal. Making such resources abundantly available is.

Promoting obesity is not normal. Promoting a healthy diet and living is.

People pretending to be a sex they are not is not normal. Recognizing people for what they are is.

Taking money from people and giving it to other people, otherwise known as wealth redistribution, is not normal. Reaping and keeping the fruits of one’s labor is.

Men using the ladies room is not normal. Men using the men's room is.

Letting criminal suspects out of jail with no restrictions or repercussions is not normal. Keeping criminals locked up is.

Boys playing sports against girls is not normal. Boys playing against other boys is.

Giving away military weaponry to the extent that one’s own military is degraded is not normal. Maintaining a strong defense is.

Surgically mutilating healthy human tissue is not normal. Preserving healthy tissue is.

There are many things actively promoted - often demanded - by the Left that are simply not normal. But if somebody notices and says so, they are marginalized. That is what is happening right now.

People who believe in normal things are under attack in America. They are assaulted on a near continuous basis by Leftists who practice and promote behavior that is clearly abnormal, behavior that deviates from the statistical norm, that does not conform to regular patterns, that does not approximate statistical averages. Frighteningly, some of this behavior is not merely abnormal, it's evil.

People need to reclaim normalcy.

But ordinary people are often intimidated into going along with abnormal ideologies because it’s easier than being screeched at by somebody who demands we affirm their abnormal behavior.

This intimidation prompts many people to tip-toe around the fact that much of what we see in America today just isn’t normal and sometimes, we keep quiet even though we know it’s not normal. This is how normal becomes redefined. It’s how Soviet Communism found a way to imprison and torture those with whom they disagreed; they just weren’t normal. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew that all too well.

None of this is to suggest we should be mean to or discriminate against people with such beliefs. Many of these people have been deceived, coerced or extorted into affirming abnormal behavior and ideas, and they deserve our compassion.

By the same token, other Americans have every right to withhold their acquiescence of abnormal behaviors without fear. A little more ‘live-and-let-live’ would go a long way.

But live-and-let-live is a two-way street. As long as ordinary people are under attack, we have an obligation to recognize and call out the abnormal behavior of those who demand we agree with their misguided ideology.

It’s time to stand up and say, “That’s not normal,” when something abnormal is being foisted upon us. Promoting normalcy is the only way to prevent normal from being perverted and redefined. The best defense against the abnormal is to call it what it is, and to elevate normalcy at every opportunity.

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Spendaholic Politicians Are Destroying Your Economic Future

Most people don't lie awake at night worried about the national debt. Unfortunately, that includes President Joe Biden and the spendaholic Democrats in Congress.

They should be worried. Frankly, so should you, no matter what your politics. Economics is a science, and numerous studies by world-class economists confirm that when a nation's debt gets too high, it pushes the economy into decline. Inflation soars, jobs become scarcer and mortgage rates to buy a home are unaffordable. Ouch.

The U.S. is heading off that cliff. The national debt is at the highest level since WWII, and is forecast to break that record soon. In 2022, it hit 98% of GDP -- everything we all produce going to work every day -- and is growing rapidly. The U.S. is in the company of nations such as Mozambique, Bhutan, Angola, Portugal and Greece. We don't want our kids to live in a crumbling economy.

It wasn't always like this. Over the last 50 years, debt to GDP has averaged 46%.

Republicans, who recently won control of the House of Representatives, are withholding the House's approval to raise the debt ceiling -- the amount the nation is legally permitted to borrow -- until Democrats negotiate a plan to reduce spending and pull the nation back from its dire straits.

Biden, visiting Al Sharpton's National Action Network on Jan. 16, called the House Republicans "fiscally demented." It takes nerve for Biden to call anybody "demented."

Never mind. The Republicans are making a reasonable demand. If Washington's leaders won't rein in government spending, who will?

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls the House Republicans' quid pro quo economic terrorism. Nonsense. The real domestic terrorism is Congress' continued spending on borrowed money.

It can only go on so long. Ordinary people who live on credit cards and pay only the monthly minimum can tell you that. Eventually, credit card payments don't pay for any new goods or services, just interest.

That's what our nation faces if it doesn't change course now. Interest expenses will mount, rates will go up and an increasing proportion of tax revenues will be consumed paying interest. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that over the next 10 years, interest expense will triple. In a decade, interest outlays will exceed defense spending. Yikes.

Eventually, if fiscal sanity is not restored, government will have to cut services or impose massive tax hikes, or both.

Worse, as government borrows more, less money is available to make loans to businesses and homebuyers. Jobs dry up and wages decline. The economy spirals downward. It isn't a pretty picture. Ask economists who have examined high-debt countries.

Harvard's Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff analyzed 44 countries in their landmark analysis for the American Economic Review. They found that when national debt exceeds 90% of GDP -- a benchmark that's already in the U.S.' rearview mirror -- the economy falters.

Thirty-six other studies confirm that excessive government borrowing sabotages economic growth. Washington pols need to stop padding their own political fortunes and look at these scientific facts.

Sadly, there is no hope Democrats will agree to spending reforms without pressure from House Republicans withholding the debt ceiling hike.

After all, in December, as a last hurrah before ceding control of the House, Democrats enacted an omnibus spending bill that included 7,200 earmarks -- favorite projects of often unnamed legislators bringing pork home to their own district. Earmarks, a symbol of corruption, had been banned for a decade, but in 2021 the Democratic controlled Congress reinstated them in a flourish of political cynicism. Like holding up a middle finger to the unsuspecting public.

The rhetorical attacks on Republicans for delaying a hike in the debt ceiling are mounting. Bloomberg's editors call the Republican strategy "malpractice." Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) accuses the Republicans of an "extremist agenda."

There is nothing "extremist" about putting the nation on a responsible fiscal plan. Republicans need to stay unified -- a formidable challenge -- and hold their ground.

The party of unlimited spending and vote buying must be stopped, before the U.S. economy and our standard of living are destroyed.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

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

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

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

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

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

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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