The Daily Gouge Archive, Friday, April 30th, 2021

On May 2, 2021, in Uncategorized, by magoo1310

It’s Friday, April 30th, 2021…but before beginning, we offer a two word response to 46*’s claim White supremacists have replaced jihadists as the “most lethal terrorist threat” to the United States: Billy Madison. Or perhaps more accurately, this scene from Billy Madison.

It’s all part of what Ben Shapiro terms…

The Circular Logic of Systemic Racism

Last week, ex-police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The evidence on the murder charges was weak; the evidence on manslaughter was significantly stronger. Still, the jury took only 10 hours and zero questions to come to its conclusion: guilty on all counts.

In and of itself, the Chauvin case never should have been a national news story. After all, an average of three suspects are shot by police every day in the United States, and thousands of homicides that have nothing whatsoever to do with the police take place in the United States every year. Theoretically, national news stories should be indicative of profound national problems, not man-bites-dog statistical rarities.

But, of course, that was the entire point of elevating the George Floyd story to national attention: to declare it indicative of a deeper rot at the core of America. Thus, Chauvin was convicted not of his individual criminal activity but of a charge that was never even brought against him: the charge of racism. As Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison admitted, there was no evidence whatsoever that Chauvin was a racist, or that his killing of George Floyd was motivated by race. “We don’t have any evidence that Derek Chauvin factored in George Floyd’s race as he did what he did,” Ellison ruefully told incredulous “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley. And Pelley, speaking for the entire establishment media — a left-wing bubble thoroughly invested in the narrative of systemic American racism — responded, “The whole world sees this as a white officer killing a black man because he is black.” (Thanks to you and your ilk, Scott!)

Pelley isn’t wrong. In the end, evidence for systemic racism is utterly unnecessary. Systemic racism requires no evidence of intent, either individual or systemic. It requires only evidence of disparate outcome by race. Which is why Ellison explained that even though he couldn’t charge Chauvin with a hate crime, he could charge the entire system with racism in the Chauvin case: “In order for us to stop and pay serious attention to this case and be outraged by it, it’s not necessary that Derek Chauvin had a specific racial intent to harm George Floyd. (P)eople of color, Black people, end up with harsh treatment from law enforcement. And other folks doing the exact same thing just don’t.”

Now, statistically speaking, this is simply untrue. In late 2020, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released a report that found no statistically significant difference by race between criminal activity and arrest — in other words, you get arrested in America if you are reported to have committed a crime, no matter your race. Multiple studies, from Harvard’s Roland Fryer to professor Peter Moskos of John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University New York, show that police officers are less likely to kill black Americans than white Americans in similar circumstances.

But to ask for evidence of systemic racism beyond mere inequality of outcome is to be complicit in systemic racism, according to the circular logic of systemic racism. Any incident of white-cop-on-black-suspect violence must be chalked up to the racist system; the evidence of the racist system is the presence of such violence in the first place; to deny that race lies at the root of such incidents makes you a cog in the racist system. The circular logic, protected by an enormous so-called Kafka trap — in which protestations of innocence are treated as proof of guilt — means that systemic racism is subject to no falsification.

And that’s precisely the point. Systemic racism is a fundamentalist religious belief. It posits original sin; it posits saints and prophets; it posits its own malevolent god of the gaps. Most of all, it persecutes heretics in the name of a supposedly higher good. To be saved is to declare fealty to radical racial polarization; to be damned is to deny such fealty.

We’ll grant some buy into such pagan apostasy through ignorance and misinformation, though the truth is available to anyone of a mind to seek it. But what word better describes those who know the truth, yet continue to sow discord and division in the pursuit of personal power and profit than…evil?

Now, here’s The Gouge!

First up, since we’re on the subject of evil, 46* is proposing yet another multi-trillion dollar spending boondoggle, we thought it appropriate we allow Kelly Johnson, writing at Inside Sources, to explain how the promise the middle class won’t see an increase in their taxes to pay for any of this is a bald-faced lie:

How One Biden Tax Proposal Will Hit the Middle Class Hard

“Last year, candidate Biden promised to repeal the “Trump Tax Cuts” that lowered tax rates for everyone and especially corporations. Biden also PROMISED NOT to raise taxes on incomes of less than $400,000 per year.

But terms are redefined constantly by progressives. Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.), for example, tweets that “Supreme Court expansion is infrastructure.” What isn’t?

You will be told that the tax plan only taxes the wealthy. Untrue. Corporations do not ultimately pay taxes – they collect them. Their “promise” won’t include intergenerational transfers of property and assets, like houses, family businesses, family farms, and stock.

Meet stepped-up basis. Here’s how that works. Say you’re a 60-year-old almost-retiree whose 90-year-old parent just passed away. You are bequeathed their Florida home acquired in 1980 for $100,000. Its value is now $500,000. Hopefully, it won’t be complicated by a reverse mortgage or isn’t burdened by other forms of leveraged debt. You sell it for $500,000. Thanks to “stepped-up basis,” you should owe no federal capital gains tax on the sale.

But what happens if all this happens after Democrats eliminate this so-called “loophole?” You’ll owe capital gains taxes on the gain in value since the property was purchased 41 years ago, most of which is probably inflation. That’s a likely 20 percent tax hit on the “gain” of $400,000 – some $80,000 to Uncle Sam. For people with incomes over $1 million, Biden may raise Capital Gains taxes to match the highest personal income tax rate of 39.5 percent.

The Biden plan may exempt the first $1 million of “unrealized” gains, but that’s a shallow threshold for many family businesses and farms. And it is not just homes or beach property. It includes stocks and family businesses.

Being allowed to keep your or your family’s own money is now a “tax loophole.” …”

This reminds us of the caveat the preacher offers at the end of this scene from High Plains Drifter:

As The Boss noted, all the while, we’re borrowing money to provide food, shelter, education and health care for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants streaming over the our open southern border. Yeah,…along with the tens of millions already here. Or as Jim Freeman termed it at Best of the Web, we’re “funding massive entitlements with payers to be named later.”, as well as “imposing more federal debt on our children to enrich the education system that keeps informing us from a distance that it cares about our children.”

Is there a snowflake’s chance in Hell someone on the Socialist side of the Senate aisle will finally realize enough is enough?!?

Next, we offer seven selections specifically chosen for inquiring Conservative minds:

(1). Bill Meisen forwarded a real shocker, as FOX informs us Louisville police department staffing ‘in dire straits’ amid high crime rates, recruitment woes. As River City Fraternal Order of Police press secretary Dave Mutchler, observed, “We can’t emphasize enough how critically and dangerously low our manpower is, and interestingly enough, those who would break the law are paying attention to that. Our homicide rates and our violent crime rates are through the roof.” This at the same time Dimocrats are trying to take away our only means of self-defense.

As Walt Meisen noted, this may well be the end result the Socialists have always intended, providing them the opening to eliminate state and local law enforcement and enact a national security force who will enforce their unconstitutional edicts. Fact is, as Tucker states, the DOJ and FBI already have the totalitarian ball rolling. The video’s a bit long, but it’s WELL worth your time.

Here’s the juice: as the sage Daniel Francis once said, if you want to know what the Dimocrats are up to, just listen to what they’re accusing their opponents of doing:

(2). In another shocker, District Attorney Andrew Womble told a judge at a hearing Wednesday Andrew Brown Jr.’s car made contact with deputies twice as it backed out of the driveway prior to law enforcement opening fire, and furthermore statements made by attorney Chantel Cherry-Lassiter at a press conference describing the body camera footage are “painfully false”. “Painfully” or “patently”? Whichever.

But hey, there’s nothing quite like rioting before learning the facts.

(3). Since we’re on the subject of a rush to injustice, the first juror to speak publicly about the trial, one Brandon Mitchell, has revealed he felt like coming to a verdict of guilty should have only taken 20 minutes. After all, why take time to consider and discuss a mountain of complex evidence when you can just get wrap it up and go home. Particularly when, as this tweet forwarded by James Nichols suggests, Mr. Mitchell may well have been far more focused on driving social change than ruling on the facts of the case as required by law.

(4). Speaking of encouraging lawlessness, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has limited ICE’s ability to arrest illegal immigrants near courthouses, “ensuring that individuals have access to the courts advances the fair administration of justice, promotes safety for crime victims, and helps to guarantee equal protection under the law.” You know, to ILLEGAL immigrants…people who are by definition criminals. Which begs the question whether this clown car of an Administration will prohibit police from apprehending U.S. citizens wanted for committing criminal acts near courthouses?

(5). Just so it’s clear what these Marxists stand for, Black Lies Matter co-founder Patrisse…

…Cullors has repeatedly praised convicted cop-killer Assata Shakur, who escaped prison and was granted asylum in Cuba, in her social media posts.

(6). Ya gotta love a fully-vaccinated and masked 46* walking outside alone to announce…

…if you’re fully-vaccinated and outside you no longer need to wear a mask, evidently not understanding no one with even a modicum of common sense or scintilla of intelligence has ever worn a mask outside since the scamdemic started.

(7). In a curious twist, the ACLU has issued written notice to the Biden clown car warning against its planned ban on menthol cigarettes, citing “racial justice implications“. Why, inquiring minds might wonder? Because Blacks are far more likely to smoke menthols than Whites, leading to increased potential any effort to enforce the ban would disproportionately involve Blacks.

In what can only be described as, to borrow a phrase from Cordell Hull, a document so crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions so huge it could only have come from a Socialist institution, the ACLU notice goes on to state:

“A number of police encounters resulting in tragic deaths are linked to police enforcement of tobacco laws: Eric Garner, killed by a police chokehold, was illegally selling ‘loosie’ cigarettes, and Michael Brown was killed after being suspected of stealing a box of cigarillos,” the letter stated. “Even in the case of George Floyd, police were called to investigate a counterfeit bill used to purchase cigarettes.”

Soooo,…in the Bizarro World of the ACLU, police responding to the theft of cigarillos and passing of a counterfeit $20 bill to obtain cigarettes somehow constitute enforcement of tobacco laws. Really?!? Allow us to recall the details of the altercation which led to Michael Brown’s encounter with law enforcement…

…as well as remind the ACLU the supposed Gentle Giant was killed after attempting to wrest Officer Darren Wilson’s service weapon from his possession.

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side: