It’s Friday, June 10th, 2022…but before we begin, here’s a familiar clip that sums up our feelings about Chesa Boudin, George Gascon, Larry Krasner and their ill-intentioned ilk:
Here’s hoping the good citizens of Los Angeles, Philadelphia and America’s other urban centers suffering under the pro-criminal policies of George Soros’s stooges send them packing as well.
Speaking of crime and the Dimocrats’ avid embrace of the practitioners thereof, the following, which represents the Dimocrats’ vision of Amerika…
…was the subject of a recent conversation with TLJ, precipitated by us asking what she thought it would take to end such brazen lawlessness. We’ll preface the exchange by noting Jenny is generally of the same political positions as us, though somewhat softer in her solutions to the problems Progressives created which plague the country.
She responded she didn’t know, but then asserted, whatever the answer, the three perpetrators didn’t deserve to be shot for their crime. At which point we realized even our dear, sweet TLJ was the unwitting, unwilling victim of Progressive propaganda. For in reality, it’s the PERPS who should not put THEMSELVES in the position to lose their lives for the sake of a grocery cart full of purloined products.
Here’s the juice: The only way the crime wave Progressives have promoted will end is at the barrel of a gun. And any number of criminals raised to believe there are no consequences for crime will have to die before that lesson sinks in.
…we know one thing for certain: None of what transpired would have happened if Mr. Lyoya had simply (i) Obeyed the officer’s instructions to stay in his vehicle; (ii) Having ignored the officer’s instructions and exited his vehicle, not attempted to flee; and, (iii) Having fled, not subsequently resisted arrest, let alone attempted to gain possession of the officer’s taser.
Sorry, but were we on the jury, based on what we’ve seen to date, we’d vote to acquit, if for no other reason than the photo of the Democratic Republic of Congo flag draping the coffin of a man so devoted to his home country he moved to America.
“Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, while speaking on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court building, March 4, 2020:
I want to tell you [Justice] Gorsuch, I want to tell you [Justice] Kavanaugh, you have unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.
Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All members of the court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.
In a subsequent statement responding to Roberts, Schumer said his remarks “were a reference to the political price Senate Republicans will pay for putting these justices on the court, and warning that the justices will unleash a major grassroots movement on the issue of reproductive rights.” But that ensuing spin was obviously a lie. Schumer didn’t threaten that Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans would pay the price or wouldn’t know what hit them; he specifically directed his remarks to Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. The New York senator knew he had screwed up by directly threatening the justices with harm, so he pretended he had not said what everyone had heard him say. Few people in the national news really thought much of Schumer’s remarks, and they were largely forgotten. Look at that date again — within a week or so, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the world.
But Schumer’s comment — spurred by a case involving a Louisiana law that would restrict access to abortion services — looks spectacularly reckless in light of Wednesday’s news…
…So why did Chuck Schumer, allegedly a smart man, use those words back in March 2020?
Schumer felt he needed to look strong and tough and emotionally aligned with the grassroots of his party. His audience hated Brett Kavanaugh with a passion, and he feared the consequences of not echoing that rage. And he simply didn’t bother to think through the potential consequences of what he was saying. Once he did, he had enough wherewithal to recognize how bad it looked, and thus he implausibly pretended he had been talking about Republican senators instead.
Just about every bit of communication that reaches your eyes or ears aims to elicit an emotional response. Advertisers, entertainers, elected officials, political candidates, prime-time TV hosts, columnists, and even morning-newsletter writers want you to feel some emotional response to what they’re telling you. Sometimes, they want you to feel happy and laugh. Sometimes, they share a sad story illustrating the unavoidable tragedies of life. Sometimes, they want to spark curiosity and wonder.
But the two easiest emotional buttons to push are fear and anger.
…True leadership means handling the public’s fear and anger like nitroglycerin. You don’t just toss it around willy-nilly, and a little bit goes a long way. In a better world, every elected official in the U.S. would recognize the inherent danger in demonizing any individual or group. Over and over again in our society, people choose to define groups by the worst actions of relatively few individuals.
…Alas, we don’t have particularly responsible leaders, and they see the fear and anger buttons as the easiest ways to build their support. “Our political opponents are decent human beings and fellow citizens with some wrongheaded ideas and an inaccurate sense of how the world works” just doesn’t fire people up and get them eager to click, tune in, make donations, and vote.
What’s more, a lot of people out there are looking for someone to hate, and politics gives them a convenient enemy — or perhaps more importantly, a socially acceptable enemy…”
“…Roske of Simi Valley, California, was carrying a gun, knife and pepper spray when arrested and had made violent threats against Kavanaugh, sources said. Roske was picked up on a nearby street after calling police on 911 to report himself.
…He told officers that he wanted “to give his life purpose” and purchased the gun and other items for the purpose of breaking into Kavanaugh’s home and killing the justice and then himself. Roske admitted in a second interview with the FBI of his intent to kill Kavanaugh and himself, according to an affidavit in support of the criminal complaint.
Roske told detectives that “he was upset about the leak of a recent Supreme Court draft decision regarding the right to an abortion as well as the recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas,” and believed Kavanaugh “would side with Second Amendment decisions that would loosen gun control laws,” according to the affidavit.
…Shortly after, the Montgomery County Emergency Communication Center fielded a call from Roske, who identified himself and told the call taker he “was having suicidal thoughts and had a firearm in his suitcase.” Roske also told the call taker “he came from California to kill a specific United States Supreme Court Justice,” the affidavit says.
Montgomery County Police Department officers were dispatched to the location near Kavanaugh’s residence, where they encountered Roske still on the phone with the emergency operator. He was taken into custody without incident and a backpack and suitcase in his possession were seized…”
Two items to note: (1). None of the gun control measures Congress is considering would have prevented Mr. Roske from purchasing his handgun; and, (2). This incident begs the question why protesters outside the home of Brett Kavanaugh are allowed to continue violating federal law rather than…
A small group of pro-abortion protesters are outside Justice Kavanaugh’s home to demonstrate about the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade. Police formed a line in front of the home. pic.twitter.com/SdV4Rbrg44
“…Crime is primarily a state and local issue, but there are some things the federal government can do. How about auditing the “homelessness” industry for fraud, graft and corruption? (And the drug rehab industry, while you’re at it.) In the last decade, homeless “advocacy” seems to have displaced Hollywood as the most well-compensated and glamorous industry in California.
Michael Shellenberger’s 2021 book, “San Fransicko: Why Progressives Ruin Cities,” details how progressives are foisting drug-addicted mental patients on an unsuspecting public. The problem is less the homeless — the drug-addicted mental patients you will always have with you — and more the well-healed liberals getting rich off the homelessness racket.
He begins by quoting all manner of homeless “advocates” — i.e., people who make money off of homelessness — such as Dr. Margot Kushel of the University of California-San Francisco (UCSF), who insists that homelessness has NOTHING to do with drugs or mental illness. “We’ve always known,” Kushel said, “that most homelessness is a result, pure and simple, of poverty.”
A lot of valuable information comes from sentences that begin with “we’ve always known.”
Convinced of the truth of this preposterous maxim, San Francisco has been doling out billions of dollars to solve homelessness, by providing the homeless — or as we are now commanded to call them, “our unhoused neighbors” — with shelter, food and massive cash payments. Also free needles! Because homelessness is just a matter of being poor, as “we’ve always known.”
On the other hand…
In 2004, nearly 5,000 homeless people were offered housing by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom. Only 131 accepted.
And because, as Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of excellence — isn’t that the quote? — San Francisco just keeps trying the same thing. Under a different mayor, about 15 years later, 150 vagrants were removed from a homeless encampment and offered free housing. Eight accepted.
But that makes no sense! Homeless advocates assured us our unhoused neighbors are just like you and me, except they can’t afford the rent.
Another possible cause of homelessness is hinted at in a recent Harvard University study of chronically homeless people in Boston who were given permanent housing. After following the group for 14 years, last year the researchers released their results: 86% of their subjects were beset by the “trimorbidity” of mental illness, substance abuse and medical illness. After 10 years, only 12% were still housed. Forty-five percent died before the completion of the study.
Similarly, in 2019, San Francisco’s health department found that fully half of the city’s homeless population — currently housed or not — are both mentally ill and drug addicts. About 1,600 of the city’s estimated 8,035 homeless “frequently used emergency psychiatric services.”
The pernicious — but profitable! — idea that homelessness is caused by poverty has led the city to lavish unimaginable aid on the “poor.” In straight cash welfare, SF offers $588 a month to the poor — and that doesn’t include $192 in food stamps. Compare that to Los Angeles, where the maximum cash payment to the poor is $221, or New York City, where it’s $183.
That $780 a month in cash and food stamps doesn’t include all the free stuff given to the homeless through cutout agencies, like churches and nonprofits, funded by taxpayer dollars and tax-deductible “charitable” donations.
Tom Wolf, a formerly homeless drug addict, said that, thanks to all of San Francisco’s giveaways, he was able to spend his entire general assistance payment on heroin. Which San Francisco also helps out with, giving away 6 million free needles to drug addicts every year. That’s more than New York City dispenses — with a population 10 times larger.
As a result, drug overdose is the leading cause of death among the homeless in San Francisco.
The mother of a drug-addicted, homeless young man told Shellenberger that he describes San Francisco as “Pleasure Island” in the movie “Pinocchio”:
“On one side of the street are people giving you food and clean needles. On the other side of the street are all the drug dealers. It’s like getting all the candy and treats that you think you want. You think you’re having fun. But little by little it’s taking away your humanity and turning you into something you were never meant to be, like how the kids start turning into donkeys in ‘Pinocchio,’ and then end up trapped and in cages.“
What kind of sick society would do this to people?
One possible answer: a society that rewards money-grubbing narcissists with no concern for their fellow man, masquerading as giants of compassion. There’s a ton of money to be made in the helping-the-homeless business. As the formerly homeless Wolf told Shellenberger, “[The homeless nonprofits’] whole intention is to keep more people in this cycle because they’re getting money for it.”
Say, whatever happened with UCSF’s Kushel — of the “we’ve always known” metric? In 2019, she was the lucky recipient of a $30 million grant from San Francisco billionaire Marc Benioff (Salesforce founder) to study homelessness.
Gosh, they’re virtuous.“
Yeah,…in the same way Mad Vlad, Yasser Arafat, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong-Un have virtuously served their respective peoples…for their personal profit!
Moving on, here’s a septet of special selections certain to pique the interest of inquiring Conservative minds:
(1). The mother of a survivor of the mass shooting at Buffalo, New York, grocery store testified before Congress Wednesday, stating, “Domestic terrorism exists in this country for three reasons. America is inherently violent, access to guns is as easy as buying a piece of bubble gum from the store, and we have an inadequate education system. America is inherently violent. This is who we are as a nation.”
Sorry, Zeneta B. Everhart, Buffalo native, former TV news producer and currently the Director of Diversity & Inclusion for the office of Democratic New York state Sen. Tim Kennedy, but a wounded son doesn’t convey any special status to your baseless bullsh*t.
(2). Since we’re on the subject of baseless bullsh*t, The Washington Free Beacon informs us the The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority launched a campaign at stations across the D.C. area pledging to make “Metro safer” by reducing harassment of transgender passengers, despite only one such incident having occurred on the entire Metro system in the past two years. One advertisement features a white male with a man bun and beard yelling “transphobic slurs” at a gender-ambiguous person sitting on a train…
…though 99% of anti-trans incidents don’t involve White men.
(4). In a related item courtesy of AEI via Carl “The Great One” Polizzi, John Ferrari accurately assesses the U.S. Navy is broken, and Congress needs to launch a commission to find a path forward. Two quick thoughts come to mind: First, not this Congress, and second, ridding the ranks of the likes of Mike Mullen, John Casey and J.R. Allen will be a critical part of any meaningful solution.
(6). In expressing his belief the Dimocrats were wasting their time with Thursday night’s kabuki theater intended to once again raise the specter of The Donald, Andy McCarthy eloquently observes:
“Good luck with that. Trump derangement still seizes the media–Democrat complex and some Republican pockets, but the vast majority of Americans have moved on from Trump and the events of January 6. That includes Republicans who approved of much of what Trump did — those many of us who appreciate that the Trump administration was far better for the country than the train wreck that is the Biden administration, but who have no use for Trump the man and no interest in a reprise of Trump the president. (Can we hear an “amen“, brothers and sisters?!?)
No one approves of rioting — not the five-hour riot by Trump fanatics at the seat of our government, but also not the months of lethal rioting, looting, and arson perpetrated by the radical Left after George Floyd’s death in police custody. The problem for Biden and the Democrats is that no one is fooled by their claptrap about how the Insurrection™ was different because it was an attack on democracy itself. Not when they are no longer content just to avert their eyes from the jack-booted neo-Marxists on their own side, but now go the extra mile to coddle violent radical lawyers who firebomb police cars.
Down here on Earth, where all political violence is to be condemned regardless of what “ism” ignites it, we’re not very interested in further hysteria about the Capitol riot. Not from people who go out of their way not to notice that our streets have been torched. Not when our cities are engulfed by crime because those people won’t enforce the laws against anyone other than Trump and his myrmidons.
I really have no time for lectures about how Trump poses an unprecedented threat to American democracy. That wasn’t Trump plotting to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh yesterday. Trump is out of office. He has no ability to influence events. Populist Republican opportunists? Sure, he can influence them, because they’re hoping to inherit — or at least to not be eaten by — his supporters. But he can’t influence events: not inflation, gas prices, food prices, interest rates, Putin, Xi, crime, gun laws, deficits, Ukraine, the Taliban, the Iran deal 2.0, Covid variants, Monkeypox — none of it…”
For more on the subject, we highly recommend the latest from the Journal‘s Kim Strassel as she details the uncredible Jan. 6 Committee.
(7). Evidently utterly unaware of who is doing most of the killing in America’s urban enclaves, the brain-dead Joy Behar stated Wednesday gun laws will change in the U.S. “once Black people get guns.” ‘Cause then…what?…the slaves will be armed and able to revolt?!? Behar makes Billy Madison…
…look like Albert Einstein.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these from Balls…
…Speed…
…and James Patrick:
Enjoy your weekend.
Magoo
Video of the Day
Ronald Reagan dispels the deliberate, despicable Dimocratic distortion of Republicans being inherently racist.
Tales of The Darkside
Tucker accurately identifies the greatest threat facing America…OTHER than its illegitimate misleader.
On the Lighter Side
There are idiots, damn idiots, then there’s Dimocrats…and finally, this a*s clown!
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