It’s Friday, September 23rd, 2016…but first, we take a moment to mark the ten-year anniversary of the retirement of one of the greatest air combat platforms ever built…and the most fearsome Navy fighter ever to fly:

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September 22, 1974 – September 22, 2006

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Though, unlike the MSM, we must confess to a certain degree of bias!

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, while utterly unjustified rioting continues after what appears by all legitimate accounts to be a justifiable shooting in Charlotte, the machinery of the White man’s justice system…run by a half-breed and a half-wit…

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…quietly grinds inexorably forward in Oklahoma:

Tulsa Police Officer Charged in Terence Crutcher’s Death

Officer Betty Shelby faces first-degree manslaughter charges over shooting of unarmed black man

 

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The Journal article linked above fails to mention either that PCP was reportedly found in Crutcher’s vehicle or that Officer Shelby, ostensibly trained to detect narcotics-related behavior, stated she believed Crutcher was on the drug prior to the shooting.

Submitted for your perusal, videos of the incident from ground level and in the air:

We report, you decide.  We for one found Shelby’s failure to employ her taser more than curious, particularly in light of the comments by the crew in the helicopter.  Then again, considering past events…

…we’ll let the Oklahoma court system have the final say.  One thing to keep in mind: just as the hard lessons of Naval Aviation aren’t learned in a vacuum, cops gain knowledge through the unfortunate experiences…often fatal…of those who went before them.  Anyway you cut it, Terence Crutcher wasn’t following a policeman’s repeated instructions.  And though he certainly didn’t deserve to be shot, let alone die, perhaps Betty Shelby wasn’t anxious to join Kyle Dinkhell in a future instructional video.

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Which is it, Progressives?!?

As for the man who’s been on the wrong side of every law enforcement “controversy” since assuming office, he’s been uncharacteristically quiet.

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Thank Heaven for small favors.

Since we’re on the subject of The Dear Misleader’s appalling legacy, if you thought the state of our Military was parlous before, as CDR Salamander, courtesy of Balls Cotton, details, things are far worse than you probably thought possible:

LCS – Annus Horribilis

 

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“…In a quick bulleted list, let’s look at the annus horribilis that has been the last year for PEO LCS. If we had to go to war, exactly what would the LCS we’ve commissioned over the last eight years be able to contribute? Well, we’ve commissioned LCS 1 through LCS 8 – minus LCS 7 that won’t be commissioned until 22 OCT 16. That is seven. Where are they?

  • USS FREEDOM (LCS 1): Unavailable due to mechanical failures from JUL 16. San Diego.
  • USS INDEPENDENCE (LCS 2): Available, PMC ASUW. NMC all other PMA.
  • USS FORT WORTH (LCS 3): Unavailable due to mechanical failures from JAN 16. Limping to San Diego.
  • USS CORONADO (LCS 4): Unavailable due to mechanical failures from AUG 16. Pearl Harbor.
  • USS MILWAUKEE (LCS 5): Unavailable due to mechanical failures from DEC 15. Mayport.
  • USS JACKSON (LCS 6): Unavailable due to post-shock test repairs. Mayport.
  • USS DETROIT (LCS 7): Not commissioned until 22 OCT 16.
  • USS MONTGOMERY (LCS 8): Unavailable due to mechanical failures from SEP 16. Limping to Mayport.

I’m sorry, there is no excuse here. 8-yrs after commissioning of LCS 1, and only one of the ships are available, and that one is the first in class “test ship” that is PMC. Pick any class of warship in the post-WWII era – there has never been this record of failure 8 years in…”

SECNAV Ray Mabus quite literally deserves to be flogged, keel-hauled and hung from the nearest yardarm…along with the villain in our next vignette.

As a related item courtesy of Jeff Foutch and Judicial Watch informs us, when The Obamao and his crew of incompetents aren’t otherwise occupied compromising America’s defense posture overseas, they’re busy back home increasing the threat to her civilian populace:

Sanctuary Jurisdictions Protect Nearly 12,000 Criminal Illegal Immigrants in 19 Months

 

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Señor Oscar Delgado-Perez and his enabler, Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett

“…Last week an illegal immigrant member of the notoriously violent MS-13 street gang murdered a teenager in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The 28-year-old gangbanger from El Salvador, Oscar Delgado-Perez, had been deported twice in the last two years, according to a mainstream newspaper. Nevertheless Delgado-Perez was never removed and, along with two fellow gangbangers, he brutally stabbed an 18-year-old more than 40 times in a Gaithersburg park as the teen begged for his life. Gaithersburg is in Montgomery County, which proudly offers illegal aliens sanctuary. In fact, earlier this year Montgomery County officials publicly reassured illegal aliens that police would play no role in a federal government operation to deport recent undocumented aliens from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

We only wish MS-13 preyed exclusively on the likes of Ike Leggett and the idiots who continue to empower such Progressive panderers.  By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, Ike Leggett and his two-faced, Progressive policies are the reason we’ll never pursue a real estate development opportunity in Montgomery County.

Next up, courtesy of NRO, the great Thomas Sowell offers the only effective solution to the plight of those Progressives have rendered incapable of helping themselves…that is, to anything other than the paychecks of hard-working taxpayers:

Reversing Black Unemployment and Poverty Depends on Education

The most popular political panaceas for helping black communities do not have a successful track record.

 

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Ordinarily, it is not a good idea to base how you vote on just one issue. But if black lives really matter, as they should matter — like all other lives — then it is hard to see any racial issue that matters as much as education. The government could double the amount of money it spends on food stamps or triple the amount it spends on housing subsidies, and it will mean very little if the next generation of young blacks goes out into the world as adults without a decent education.

Many things that are supposed to help blacks actually have a track record of making things worse. Minimum-wage laws have had a devastating effect in making black teenage unemployment several times higher than it once was.

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None of the most popular political panaceas for helping black communities has a track record of making things better, and some have made things much worse.

The one bright spot in black ghettos around the country are the schools that parents are free to choose for their own children. Some are Catholic schools, some are secular private schools, and some are charter schools financed by public school systems but operating without the suffocating rules that apply to other public schools.

Not all of these kinds of schools are successes. But where there are academic successes in black ghettos, they come disproportionately from schools outside the iron grip of the education establishment and the teachers’ unions…”

In other words, just throwing money at the problem through the existing public education establishment ain’t the answer!

Meanwhile, all Black “leaders” seem to want to do is dwell on the past:

Rep Lewis, NAACP: Did Trump Forget About Slavery?

 

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“During a speech in Kenansville, North Carolina on Tuesday, Donald Trump lamented that black communities are in the worst shape ever – “ever ever.” The GOP nominee was referring to the high level of poverty and unemployment among African-Americans – a fact he brings up often. But, his extreme wording has urged some lawmakers like Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) to remind Trump about one of the most tragic periods in our country’s history.

“Is he forgetting about the days of slavery?” Lewis asked at a Politico Playbook event on Wednesday. “Is he forgetting about the whole period of segregation and racial discrimination?”

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Lewis said he would “love” to take Trump on a tour of Atlanta and other major cities across America to prove to him that many African-Americans are doing very well for themselves.

NAACP President Cornell William Brooks was just as offended by Trump’s assertion, telling CNN’s Wolf Blitzer it was both insulting and insensitive. West said Trump’s assertion ignores “the fact that African-Americans were lynched, African-Americans were forced to drink out of colored water fountains, ride the back of the bus, were enslaved in this country … demonstrates a profound ignorance of history and insensitivity to what we are going through at this very moment.”…”

Talk about a complete crock of Progressive sh*t!  The legacies of slavery and Jim Crow have as much to do with what’s ailin’ these fools…

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…as this

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…impacts us!

We’re just finishing Sowell’s incredibly informative…

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…in which he exposes the fallacies inherent in every aspect of race-based Liberal policies.  We challenge anyone to read it and find fault with his findings.  For a book written in 2005, it’s incredibly prescient.  Thus the rule of law is overridden by the rule of the mob; resulting in complete and utter lawlessness…which includes, thanks to John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court.

Speaking of the fallacies inherent in the Progressive system, also writing at NRO, David French reports how…

The Left Is Weaponizing Sports

What happens when a culture loses its last neutral ground?

 

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“Striking the latest blow for pregnant and “chest-feeding” men, the NCAA has mounted its righteous high horse and is pulling seven championship events from North Carolina venues. The Tar Heel State, you see, has the hateful audacity to mandate that its citizens use the public bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex. The NCAA’s decision comes on the heels of the NBA pulling its all-star game from Charlotte, and in the midst of a rolling series of small-scale (though much-hyped) national-anthem protests at NFL football games.

Before I turn to the larger issues, can we just take a moment to ponder the pathetic absurdity that is the NCAA? This is an organization, mind you, that reaps billions of dollars of rewards off the labor of disproportionately poor and minority students while imposing on them — as a condition for even participating in college sports — economic restrictions not imposed on any other college student. So-called student-athletes don’t own their time, or even the rights to their own names. The vast majority of them don’t go on to play pro sports, so they’re effectively prevented from making money during the time when their earning potential is at its highest. But the NCAA is now suddenly discovering social justice? Please.

While the NCAA — as perhaps the peak representative of progressive hypocrisy and cheap virtue signaling — is an easy target, its action raises a much more significant concern. Simply put, there are not many cultural spaces remaining where Americans can meet on more or less neutral ground — where Americans of all faiths and political beliefs can meet, unite, and share a positive communal experience.

Our political polarization is but one symptom of our increasing Balkanization. When I speak, I sometimes challenge audiences to name one significant cultural force or trend that is binding Americans together, rather than pulling them apart.

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Same song, similar stupidity.

The result is clear: Not only do Americans believe different things, they dislike their political opponents more than at any other time in recent memory. Indeed, the dislike is so strong that Americans tend to despise the other side more than they like their own side.

Sports are perhaps the only significant cultural force to counter this troubling trend. America still watches the Super Bowl. The opening days of March Madness still cripple workplaces across the land. And when a home team wins a championship, the explosion of collective civic joy completely swallows politics — just ask the inhabitants of “Believeland” after their miracle comeback against Golden State.

But it’s more than just the events themselves. Sports carry with them an entire culture through which fans can meet, form friendships, and establish lifelong bonds. Some of the most meaningful friendships of my life were formed through my law-school fantasy-baseball league. More than two decades later, we still have the league and we still love each other like brothers, despite our vast political differences. Sports give us the opportunity to connect and to dig deeper than politics or ideology — to know a person as something other than a collection of political positions.

Social-justice warriors, however, can’t leave well enough alone. Is the trend now that major sporting events can only occur in progressive-approved locations? Will we now be subject to a parade of progressive-approved (and only progressive-approved) player demonstrations? And spare me any argument that our sporting culture is opening itself up to free expression. I’m glad neither the NFL nor the San Francisco 49ers are punishing Colin Kaepernick, but just ask Curt Schilling how much the progressive sports elite values dissent from the social-justice orthodoxy…”

Concurrently, NFL viewership continues to slide: 

Poll: 44% Likely to Turn Off NFL If National Anthem Protests Continue

 

We only hope the slope increases asymptotically, ‘cuz like so many others, we have had…

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enough!

Turning to The Lighter Side

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Finally, as this last item from Life Site News via Bill Meisen confirms, just when you thought The Left couldn’t sink any lower or sound more unhinged, they’re more than ready, willing and able to prove you wrong:

Steinem: ‘Forced childbirth is the single biggest cause of global warming

 

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For once in her benighted existence, Madeleine’s right: unfortunately for her and so many like her, that special place is for those who fail to help unborn women…and men, for that matter!

To borrow a phrase from Diamonds Are Forever

And you too, Gloria!

Magoo



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