MasterPiece Cake Shop Vs. Govt. SJW Enforcers

No, that's not the actual name of the case decided by The SCOTUS today but it may have well been. This is probably going to be a long post so if you're short on time I suggest coming back later. That said, there are a few items in the decision that I want to bring attention to.

In 2012 a same-sex couple visited MasterpieceCakeshop, a bakery in Colorado, to make inquiries aboutordering a cake for their wedding reception. The shop’sowner told the couple that he would not create a cake for their wedding because of his religious opposition to same-sex marriages—marriages the State of Colorado itself did not recognize at that time.

In my opinion this statement of fact, that not even the state recognized homosexual marriages, should have been grounds for immediate dismissal of the complaint. Particularly since you cannot retroactively apply laws. For a state that did not recognize homosexual marriages to punish a citizen for essentially doing the same is the height of hypocrisy.

Phillips informed the couple that he does not “create”wedding cakes for same-sex weddings. Ibid. He ex-plained, “I’ll make your birthday cakes, shower cakes, sell you cookies and brownies, I just don’t make cakes for samesex weddings.” Ibid . The couple left the shop withoutfurther discussion. The following day, Craig’s mother, who had accompa-nied the couple to the cakeshop and been present for their interaction with Phillips, telephoned to ask Phillips why he had declined to serve her son. Phillips explained that he does not create wedding cakes for same-sex weddingsbecause of his religious opposition to same-sex marriage, and also because Colorado (at that time) did not recognizesame-sex marriages. Id. , at 153. He later explained hisbelief that “to create a wedding cake for an event thatcelebrates something that directly goes against the teach-ings of the Bible, would have been a personal endorsement and participation in the ceremony and relationship that they were entering into.” Ibid . (emphasis deleted).

I have made the argument that the shop owner did not decline service to the couple. The shop owner declined to perform a service that he does not perform. The owner was fully willing to provide service to the customers (birthday cakes, cookies...), he simply did not want to be involved in a homosexual wedding. That is his right. It is your right. None can force you to associate with an event. Most certainly not the government. I also pointed out that the objection was the association with the wedding and not the homosexuality of the potential customers. We know this because the mother called, whom we assume to be heterosexual. Had the store owner been against homosexuals period he could have sold her the cake. But he did not. It didn't matter what the "orientation" of the customer was. He wasn't going to associate with the event. More on that later.

The Commission affirmed the ALJ’s decision in full. Id. , at 57a. The Commission ordered Phillips to “cease and desist from discriminating against . . . same-sex couples byrefusing to sell them wedding cakes or any product [they]would sell to heterosexual couples.” Ibid. It also ordered additional remedial measures, including “comprehensive staff training on the Public Accommodations section” of CADA “and changes to any and all company policies to comply with . . . this Order.” Id. , at 58a. The Commission additionally required Phillips to prepare “quarterly com-pliance reports” for a period of two years documenting “the number of patrons denied service” and why, along with “astatement describing the remedial actions taken.” Ibid.

What we had here was an attempt by the state to dictate to it's citizens what they must do. Not only that but they ordered what amounts to re-education camps. This is how the govt. has grown and how it is abused by those on the left.

Our society has come to the recognition that gay personsand gay couples cannot be treated as social outcasts or asinferior in dignity and worth. For that reason the laws and the Constitution can, and in some instances must, protect them in the exercise of their civil rights.

This is clearly Kennedy writing. How does he say that "society has..." when sitting on a case which clearly shows that what he said is not the case? In any case, we move to the meat of the decision and why the Court found for the baker:

The Civil Rights Commission’s treatment of his case has some elements of a clear and impermissible hostility toward thesincere religious beliefs that motivated his objection. That hostility surfaced at the Commission’s formal, public hearings, as shown by the record. On May 30, 2014, the seven-member Commission convened publicly toconsider Phillips’ case. At several points during its meet-ing, commissioners endorsed the view that religious beliefs cannot legitimately be carried into the public sphere or commercial domain, implying that religious beliefs and persons are less than fully welcome in Colorado’s businesscommunity. One commissioner suggested that Phillipscan believe “what he wants to believe,” but cannot act on his religious beliefs “if he decides to do business in the state.” Tr. 23. A few moments later, the commissioner restated the same position: “[I]f a businessman wants to do business in the state and he’s got an issue with the— the law’s impacting his personal belief system, he needs to look at being able to compromise.” Id ., at 30....The commissioner stated: “I would also like to reiterate what we said in the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimi-nation throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust, whether it be—I mean, we—we can list hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to—to use their religionto hurt others.” Tr. 11–12...

The commissioner even went so far as to compare Phillips’ invocation of his sincerely held religious beliefs to defensesof slavery and the Holocaust. This sentiment is inappro-priate for a Commission charged with the solemn respon-sibility of fair and neutral enforcement of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law—a law that protects discrimination onthe basis of religion as well as sexual orientation.The record shows no objection to these comments fromother commissioners. And the later state-court rulingreviewing the Commission’s decision did not mentionthose comments, much less express concern with their content. Nor were the comments by the commissioners disavowed in the briefs filed in this Court.

Here's what did the state's case in. They openly derided the Christianity of the baker. Indeed, it appears that had the state commissioners not been on their SJW warpath and were professionals, they may have prevailed. People put under the state gun should be sure to note any and all arguments that are presented to them. This case shows that SJW type of talk that is regularly found on social media and even MSM can be used in court. This is a very good thing.

The downside of this decision is that it failed, spectacularly to support the idea that enumerated rights trump these so called "protected classes" and the privileges they are afforded. Clarence Thomas discusses this in his concurring opinion.

Court of Appeals concluded that Phillips’ conduct was not expressive and was not protected speech. It reasoned that an outside observer would think that Phillips was merely complying with Colorado’s public-accommodations law, not expressing a message, and that Phillips could post a disclaimer to that effect. This reasoning flouts bedrock principles of our free-speech jurisprudence and would justifyvirtually any law that compels individuals to speak. It should not pass without comment

Thank you Justice Thomas. Imagine the state telling you to post a sign to disclaim something the state forced you to do.

“[A]s a general matter,” public-accommodations laws do not “target speech” but instead prohibit “the act of discriminating against individuals in the provision of publicly available goods, privileges, and services.”Id., at 572 (emphasis added)

I recently had to point this out to the local "diversity" office which offered "training" in which certain speech and actions were "suggested". I pointed out that state agents may not compel speech. But understand that many lefty types who inhabit these offices seem to be unaware of their constitutional limits.

While this Court acknowledged that the unit’s exclusion might have been “misguided, or even hurtful,” ibid., it rejected the notion that governments can mandate “thoughts and statements acceptable to some groups or,indeed, all people” as the “antithesis” of free speech,id., at 579; accord, Dale,supra, at 660–661.

And..

Forcing Phillips tomake custom wedding cakes for same-sex marriages requires him to, at the very least, acknowledge that same-sex weddings are “weddings” and suggest that they should be celebrated—the precise message he believes his faithforbids. The First Amendment prohibits Colorado from requiring Phillips to “bear witness to [these] fact[s],” Hurley, 515 U. S., at 574, or to “affir[m] . . . a belief withwhich [he] disagrees,”id.,at 573.

I had to make this same exact point to the diversity officer. Their "training" "suggested" that employees "celebrate" whatever it is that the state was trying to push on us. It is not the state to tell citizens what they should or have to celebrate, particularly under threat of punishment.

Phillips routinely sacri-fices profits to ensure that Masterpiece operates in a waythat represents his Christian faith. He is not open on Sundays, he pays his employees a higher-than-average wage, and he loans them money in times of need. Phillipsalso refuses to bake cakes containing alcohol, cakes with racist or homophobic messages, cakes criticizing God, and cakes celebrating Halloween—even though Halloween isone of the most lucrative seasons for bakeries. These efforts to exercise control over the messages that Masterpiece sends are still more evidence that Phillips’ conduct isexpressive.

Same could be said of Chic-fil-A.

The Colorado Court of Appeals also erred by suggesting that Phillips could simply post a disclaimer, disassociating Masterpiece from any support for same-sex marriage. Again, this argument would justify any law compelling speech. And again, this Court has rejected it. We have described similar arguments as “beg[ging] the core question.”Tornillo,supra, at 256. Because the government cannot compel speech, it also cannot “require speakers toaffirm in one breath that which they deny in the next.” Pacific Gas & Elec., 475 U. S., at 16; see also id.,at 15, n. 11 (citing PruneYard, 447 U. S., at 99 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment)). States cannot put individuals to the choice of “be[ing] compelled to affirm someone else’s belief ” or “be[ing] forced to speak when [they] would prefer to remain silent.”Id., at 99>

That this needs to be said is sad. Now what follows should be noted by all:

States cannot punish protected speech because somegroup finds it offensive, hurtful, stigmatic, unreasonable, or undignified. “If there is a bedrock principle underlyingthe First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”Johnson,supra, at 414....If the only reason a public-accommodations law regulates speech is “to produce a society free of . . . biases” against the protected groups, that purpose is “decidedly fatal” to the law’s constitutionality, “for it amounts to nothing less than a proposal to limit speech in the service of orthodox expression.”

Looking at any and all those laws like the one in NYC regarding calling a man a man regardless of whether he believes himself a woman. These laws are made for the strict purpose of making [enter group member here] to not feel bad. There is no constitutional right to not have your feelings hurt. Lefty types wish it were so and will act like it is so and enforce such wishes when they have power, but it is not lawful.

Now here comes Thomas's master stroke:

Concerns about “dignity” and “stigma” did not carry the day when this Court affirmed the right of white supremacists to burn a 25-foot cross,Virginia v. Black, 538 U. S. 343 (2003); conduct a rally on MartinLuther King Jr.’s birthday,Forsyth County v.Nationalist Movement, 505 U. S. 123 (1992); or circulate a film featuring hooded Klan members who were brandishing weapons and threatening to “‘Bury the niggers,’” Brandenburg v.Ohio, 395 U. S. 444, 446, n. 1 (1969) ( per curiam ).Nor does the fact that this Court has now decided Ober- gefell v.Hodges, 576 U. S. ___ (2015), somehow diminish Phillips’ right to free speech. “It is one thing . . . to conclude that the Constitution protects a right to same-sexmarriage; it is something else to portray everyone who does not share [that view] as bigoted” and unentitled to express a different view.Id., at ___ (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting)

In other words, Thomas is asking why are homosexuals being afforded extra constitutional rights that were not extended to blacks who faced far greater problems. Of course lefty types will say that those decisions were wrongly decided and that the courts should have found against those who prevailed then. Why? Because "legal for me and not for thee". But really though this is about these fringe groups being given more and more power and normal people being afraid to be labelled racist, bigot or whatever.

In Obergefell, I warned that the Court’s decision would “inevitabl[y] . . . come into conflict” with religious liberty,“as individuals . . . are confronted with demands to participate in and endorse civil marriages between same-sexcouples.” 576 U. S., at ___ (dissenting opinion) (slip op., at 15). This case proves that the conflict has already emerged.

You and me both.

Another Example Of Lefty Racism In NYC

It is a known that many left white persons believe that black people are children who are not to be held responsible for their own actions. In addition lefty white people believe that that black people are generally less intelligent and capable than white people and therefore need white assistance in order to make it. This is in contrast to many on the right who also think that black people are children and are less intelligent than white people. While both parties believe the same things, the latter do not make excuses. Those on the right with the stated position, believe that black people need to stop behaving in such a manner if for no other reason that they do not want to pay taxes to support said behavior or be victims of crimes perpetrated by those persons. Similarly, in stark contrast to the left, righty types do not want to lower standards. Rather they are pretty much accepting (if not liking) of black people who can hold their own without artificial props. Again for no other reason that if you work a job, the presence of un or under qualified persons can in many cases be a life threatening situation. Indeed, being careless about you job in say space travel or vehicle development can result in many deaths. This brings us to the topic at hand. Meet NYC Mayor De Blasio. He thinks that the post prestigious and most difficult NYC public schools to get into should "reflect the demographics of the city". And by that he doesn't mean the academic demographics.

In the face of growing pressure to tackle New York City’s widespread school segregation, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Saturday a proposal that would change how students are admitted to eight of the city’s specialized high schools, a group of highly sought-after institutions where students gain entry based on a single test.

Let me repeat for the hard of hearing: Segregation is not legal in the United States. There are no segregated schools in NYC. Schools are attended by students in a district. You live in a district you go to the local school unless you test into a different school. There are no laws on the books that says that black students cannot go to x, y or z schools. There is a difference between separation and segregation. Learn it.

Black and Hispanic students, who make up 67 percent of the public school population, are grossly underrepresented at the specialized high schools, which include Stuyvesant High School and the Bronx High School of Science.

Who makes up the majority of students at these elite schools. If you said "white" you got the big X. Also, of the black students that make the grade, did you know that most of them are children of immigrants?

Mr. de Blasio campaigned on the issue when he first ran for mayor in 2013, saying the specialized schools should “reflect the city better,” but he has yet to make a dent in the problem. This year, black and Latino students received just 10 percent of the offered seats at specialized high schools, a percentage that has held essentially flat for years.

What does "reflect the city better" mean? Since admission offers are based on results of an exam open to any student, the schools do in fact "reflect the city". What they reflect is the academic performance of the various groups in NYC. For example, the above quote contains a link to another NYT piece where it is stated:

At Stuyvesant, the most competitive of the schools, only 10 black students and 27 Latino students received offers this year; last year, the comparable numbers were 13 and 28.

There are 3,356 students in Stuyvesant. 13 black students? In a school that takes an exam to get into? The problem is not "segregation" people.

“The Specialized High School Admissions Test isn’t just flawed — it’s a roadblock to justice, progress and academic excellence,” Mr. de Blasio wrote in an op-ed published Saturday on the education website Chalkbeat.

Expecting black students to pass an exam that Asian and white students pass is an "injustice" and a roadblock. We have certainly moved on from the whole content of character thing haven't we?

In the linked ChalkBeat article we find the following:

There’s also a geographic problem. There are almost 600 middle schools citywide. Yet, half the students admitted to the specialized high schools last year came from just 21 of those schools. For a perfect illustration of disparity: Just 14 percent of students at Bronx Science come from the Bronx.

If only 21 of the 600 middle schools in NY are producing half the entrants to the elite high schools, then it means that a large number of the middle schools in NY have not too bright students in them.

Can anyone defend this? Can anyone look the parent of a Latino or black child in the eye and tell them their precious daughter or son has an equal chance to get into one of their city’s best high schools? Can anyone say this is the America we signed up for?

I didn't sign up for an America where the NYC Mayor can make speeches about how my people should not be expected to meet the standards that everyone else has to meet. Also, any parent who tells their kid that the reason they didn't get into any of the elite high schools is "racism" rather than that they failed to meet the standards is a failure of a parent.

Then we get the double talk:

So let me be clear. The new system we’re fighting for will raise the bar at the specialized high schools in every way. The pool of talent is going to expand widely and rapidly. That’s going to up the level of competition. The students who emerge from the new process will make these schools even stronger.

The city already messed with the test and saw no change in admissions. Now they want to set aside seats for students who cannot qualify under the exam that every other student must meet. Yet this is called "raising the bar". If you're dumb enough to believe that double talk, you deserve to have your fellow employees or fellow students look at you as an unqualified Affirmative Action case.

The most significant change Mr. de Blasio proposed was replacing the test, called the SHSAT, with a new method that would admit students based on their class rank at their middle school and their scores on statewide standardized tests.

After telling us that most of the 600 middle schools are basically shit when it comes to graduating students prepared to do elite level school work, we are to believe that the top students of all these shit schools are just as good as anyone who passed the test. Really.

Beginning in the fall of 2019, the city would set aside 20 percent of seats in each specialized school for low-income students who score just below the cutoff; those students would be able to earn their spot by attending a summer session called the Discovery program. Five percent of seats for this year’s ninth graders were awarded this way, the city said.

The only reason they are using the term "poor" is because if it was explicitly "black" the courts would be forced to strike it down. Did you know that Queens county has perhaps the largest high income black population in NYC? Yet there is no discussion of getting these relatively well off black students into this pool. Why not?

Let me close this post with a personal account. I took the test for the elite schools. I did not do well. I was and am brighter than most but I was not material for that group. I did test into another school and did well there. I graduated with a decent GPA. I was accepted to all colleges I applied for save Cornell. They gave me a deferred admission. So I went elsewhere for two years. I beat up all classes at that level except for calculus which kicked my entire ass. I transferred to Cornell and proceeded to have the worst academic year of my entire life. I can excuse some of it to the fact that I fell ill (hospitalized) for a good week during my first semester with a total two weeks where I couldn't do much of anything. But I'm grown enough to admit that I was in way over my head. I recognized almost immediately that I was with an entirely different level of student. I was simply not prepared to go at the rate and depth that they were. No shame in that. I would have done better to stay where I was.

This is what's going to happen to a lot of these students who get in because of the wish to "diversify" the schools. They will find themselves out of their depth. They will need tutoring. They will get low grades (or inflated grades). They will have a really hard time and not a few will fail out and have to transfer to a less advanced school. Luckily they won't have thousands in debt to pay off for this experiment.

These calls to "diversify" schools, businesses and whathaveyou where standards are lowered flies in the face of equality. Equality of outcome is not equality it is like segregation in that it forces an outcome regardless of what people can or want to do. The best way for black people to get respect is to stop asking for special favors and to buckle down and do the work. Get your kids off the phones. Keep your kids off the TV and the internet equivalents[2][3]. Make 'em read. Stimulate the minds and hope they have the right genetics.

The Logical Ends of "Gun Control"

Arguments against the private ownership of firearms are not really arguments for safety or reductions in crime as they are actually about pacifying the public and extending control of the government in(to) a nanny state. The goal being to subject the citizenry to the whims of those who control the levers of power. Since those in power are deathly afraid of being called xenophobes or racists, they do not look at who are committing gun crimes or since when things such as school shootings became a thing. Instead they look at inanimate objects as the cause of the phenomenon they observe much as the idolator believes the object they created is the direct cause of their good or mis fortune.

The general argument is that since school/work shootings happen then to solve the problem we should ban guns. Of course the fact that those with criminal intent do not care about laws and therefore any and all laws restricting gun ownership only applies and restricts the freedom of those without criminal intent doesn't even faze these people. Indeed for them, this fact doesn't matter. They want to restrict the freedom of the law abiding because, they would feel "more safe" with the law abiding being unarmed, except police....when they are not indiscriminately shooting black people for no reason whatsoever. So the question is, what happens if all the guns are gone? By the logic of those opposed to gun ownership, the killings stop. But we know this isn't the case. See England

A judge has called for a nationwide programme to round the points of kitchen knives, and for authorities to restrict the sale of chefs’ knives to professionals amidst surging youth violence in Britain.

For those unawares, the UK has had a long standing ban on private ownership of firearms. Thus it is a perfect example of what happens when guns are not available. Now recall that we recently had a retired Supreme Court justice say that it is time to repeal the Second Amendment. Now we have a judge in "no second amendment land" calling to now ban knives because well knives are killing people, don't you know?

See, the next ban is never far away because those in power are not really interested in dealing with the problem. They are entranced by their latest totem.

Long, sharp blades are deadly and unnecessary for ordinary food preparation at home, Judge Nic Madge told Luton Crown Court last week, stating that a ban on kitchen knives would save lives.

Remember that not too long ago, the novel argument was that no one "needs" an AR. No one needs, x, y or z weapon, as if need is a prerequisite for ownership. But how soon the "need" argument becomes extended to other inanimate objects.

“I would urge all those with any role in relation to knives — manufacturers, shops, the police, local authorities, the government — to consider preventing the sale of long pointed knives, except in rare, defined circumstances, and replacing such knives with rounded ends,” he said.

Seems it never occurred to this fellow, just as it doesn't occur to many "gun control" advocates that for many hundreds of years, long knives have been in kitchens across the UK without a rash of stabbings, slashing and decapitation. What could possibly have changed in the UK where such things are so common that measures such as banning kitchen knives are even considered?

The retiring judge lamented that current anti-knife crime measures such as preventing the sale of sharp implements to minors were having “almost no effect” in limiting availability because kitchen drawers in households across the nation contain “potential murder weapons” in the shape of ordinary knives.

"Current anti-knife". Again. These things are "current". What else is "current" that didn't exist in previously "knife crime free" UK?

In order to get a grip on knife violence, police should organise a nationwide programme at which “kitchen knives, which have been properly and lawfully bought for culinary purposes, could be taken somewhere to be modified, with the points being ground down into rounded ends”, according to the judge.

"Properly and lawfully bought for culinary purposes". You cannot make this kind of stuff up.

Look, I've said it before, The UK is occupied territory. It is a fallen country that oppresses it's own native population in order to protect foreigners, even when said foreigners rape their women and children without remorse. So I don't find it strange that such statements and sentiments would come from "authorities" in that country. However; it serves as a warning to those of us in the US. It isn't about the guns. It's about the control. After the gun ban, comes the knife ban (which actually exists in some states/cities). Just as bans on speech are proceeding with quickened pace. These are the logical ends of these arguments.

The Trump-Twitter Ruling

So reading through this decision I found the following interesting:

First, to potentially qualify as a forum, the space in question must be owned or controlled by the government.

Let's see how the court decides this. Last I checked Twitter Inc. was a private company. It produces a product "twitter.com" that is offered to the public at large. Twitter can, for any reason or no reason at all, ban any user from it's platform. And it has done so. Furthermore, Twitter acts to "verify" it's users and has gone so far as to only allow speech/content that it approves of on the platform. Recently a disgruntled employee took @realdonaldtrump offline. It seems clear to the average person that Twitter, including the @realdonaldtrump account is not owned by the government since both the platform and the account can be deleted without any prior notification or approval of the government. Furthermore, while the government is allowed the "exclusive" use of the @realdonaldtrump account, it must do so under the rules set by twitter. So if anything it's control of the account is limited and definitely non-exclusive. The court says:

This requirement of governmental control, rather than complete governmental ownership, is not only consistent with forum analysis’s focus on “the extent to which the Government can control access” to the space and whether that control comports with the First Amendment, Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 800, but also better reflects that a space can be “a forum more in a metaphysical than in a spatial or geographic sense,” Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995), and may “lack[] a physical situs,” Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 801, in which case traditional conceptions of “ownership” may fit less well.

So the court takes the or split from the first quote and bends ownership to further it's argument.

Here, the government-control prong of the analysis is met. Though Twitter is a private (though publicly traded) company that is not government-owned, the President and Scavino nonetheless exercise control over various aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account: they control the content of the tweets that are sent from the account and they hold the ability to prevent, through blocking, other Twitter users, including the individual plaintiffs here, from accessing the @realDonaldTrump timeline (while logged into the blocked account) and from participating in the interactive space associated with the tweets sent by the @realDonaldTrump account, Stip. ¶¶ 12, 28-32, 39, 54. Though Twitter also maintains control over the @realDonaldTrump account (and all other Twitter accounts), we nonetheless conclude that the extent to which the President and Scavino can, and do, exercise control over aspects of the @realDonaldTrump account are sufficient to establish the government-control element as to the content of the tweets sent by the @realDonaldTrump account, the timeline compiling those tweets, and the interactive space associated with each of those tweets.

Having determined that the govt. has control over Trump's twitter account the court moved to the First Amendment issue:

“[a] person’s right to speak is not infringed when government simply ignores that person while listening to others,” or when the government “amplifies” the voice of one speaker over those of others. Minn. State Bd., 465 U.S. at 288. Nonetheless, when the government goes beyond merely amplifying certain speakers’ voices and not engaging with others, and actively restricts “the right of an individual to speak freely [and] to advocate ideas,” it treads into territory proscribed by the First Amendment. Id. at 286 (quoting Smith, 441 U.S. at 464).

So the heart of the matter is whether the act of blocking a specific account is "actively restricting the right of an individual to speak freely [and] advocate ideas. I don't see how the block function does that. The plaintiffs in this case could still see Trump's tweets. They could still see responses. They could still "@" Trump until their hearts were content. Nothing that Trump did stopped the plaintiffs from speaking freely and advocating ideas. What did the court think? The court decided to look at the different options available to Trump. Mute or Block.

The elimination of the blocked user’s ability to reply directly is more than the blocking user merely ignoring the blocked user; it is the blocking user limiting the blocked user’s right to speak in a discrete, measurable way.

Muting equally vindicates the President’s right to ignore certain speakers and to selectively amplify the voices of certain others but -- unlike blocking -- does so without restricting the right of the ignored to speak.

I don't see how the right of the plaintiff to speak was restricted. Again. They could "@" Trump all day long. Blocking doesn't restrict what a user can type into their tweet. Blocking prevents that tweet from reaching the person or entity that is '@-ed". What the blocked user cannot do is read the material originating from the blocked account without going through extra steps. Does the plaintiff have the right to unfettered access to Trump's writings?

a reply is visible to others, Stip. ¶ 22, and may itself be replied to by other users, Stip. ¶¶ 57-58. The audience for a reply extends more broadly than the sender of the tweet being replied to, and blocking restricts the ability of a blocked user to speak to that audience. While the right to speak and the right to be heard may be functionally identical if the speech is directed at only one listener, they are not when there is more than one.

It may be the case that a reply reaches persons other than the original speaker. But the act of blocking does not prevent the plaintiff from speaking to those other persons. Since the plaintiff admits that they can see @realdonaldtrump's tweets by other means (logging out and secondary accounts), it is clear that they are able to see who is replying to said tweets and may respond to those from whatever account they choose. Again the question I have is whether having total unfettered access to Trump's writings a right.

All that said, the following has wide implications:

That i~teractive space is susceptible to analysis under the Supreme Court's forum doctrines, and is properly characterized as a designated public forum. The viewpoint-based exclusion of the individual plaintiffs from that designated public forum 1s proscribed by the First Amendment and cannot be justified by the President's personal First Amendment interests.

This will not only apply to POTUS. Assuming this is upheld on appeal, any person holding public office (elected or otherwise) who has either a designated social media account or a personal social media account where they engage in speech reasonably seen as a part of their public duties would be unable to block any account for any reason short of criminal behavior (stalking, threats, etc.).

One point here though. I've seen people say that this decision means that the twitter platform itself is a public space. This decision doesn't make such a claim. It is claiming that the accounts created or run by agents of the government and thereby controlled by the government are public spaces, if made available to the public (a private page/account may not be so construed).

Achievement Gaps and IT Workers

So the Urban League has jumped on the "where are the black IT workers" train. Specifically they are doing what I call the "Demographics Dance". This is where you point out that so and so makes up x amount of the general population and therefore should make up x amount of your employees, or prisoners, or whatever else. What these people don't like having discussed are the actual relevant statistics on why so and so population is overwhelmingly white, black, male or female. In the case of IT, even though there are relatively few black people with advanced computer science degrees, the rent seekers continue to blather on about the lack of "representation" at IT firms, as if these firms exist to do "representation".

In total disregard to the fact that these IT firms are doing quite well with the numbers of male and non-black employees, particularly the programmers, the rent seekers continue to make the unfounded assertion that somehow these companies could be doing better if they just put more black/female faces in the programming room. But this is not a post about that. What this post is about is the continued lack of achievement on the part of black students as the explainer of the lack of numbers. From the LA Times:

Under the previous test, last given to public school students two years ago, the gap separating Asian and black students was 35 percentage points in English. The gap increased to 44 percentage points under the new test. Asian students' results dropped the least on the new tests, which widened the gap between them and those who are white, black or Latino, the analysis showed.

English. I'll go out on a limb and suggest that Trap music is not helping.

A similar pattern occurred with students from low-income families. Their scores in math, for example, declined at a steeper rate (51%) than those of students from more affluent backgrounds (16%). In the last decade, all ethnic groups made significant academic gains compared to where their scores started. But the gap separating the scores of blacks and Latinos from whites and Asians changed little.

So a "similar pattern" occurs for upper and lower income families. Black students, regardless of family income do worse than their Asian and white counterparts. What are we to do about this Asian Supremacy?

And now the relevant kicker:

. "There is something going on here when you talk about the difference in the size of the gap, particularly in math."

In that subject, 69% of Asian students achieved the state targets compared to 49% of whites, 21% of Latinos and 16% of blacks.

69% of Asian students achieved state targets in math vs. 16% of black students. There's your IT gap right there. Lets be clear. If you suck at logical thinking (which is what math develops and depends upon) you will not be doing any high level programming. Not happening. Swift doesn't care who you are. If you code incorrectly, the program will fail and no amount of cries of racism will change that.

In math, the percentage of Asians who met state targets declined 12%. White students went down 21%, Latinos 50%, black students 54%.

54% decline?

And now the excuses:

Schools that did worse may have "relied on narrow forms of test preparation, so they spent less time on critical thinking activities" which are emphasized on the test, said Maria Brenes, executive director of InnerCity Struggle, a nonprofit that works with schools east of downtown, which have mostly Latino students.

So they are saying that the black students are not performing well on critical thinking tasks. You cannot program well unless you have very good critical thinking skills. So if a majority of black students lack the math proficiency and critical thinking skills, how do you expect to see them in any large numbers in fields that demand these things?

To narrow the achievement gap, she said L.A. Unified should invest more in technology, teacher training and parent education about the new learning goals.

Technology is not the solution. Seriously. People have been developing math skills long before the advent of the computer. Critical thinking skills were developed long before the iPhone. Technology in teaching is NOT the issue at all.

"Students in lower-wealth schools that did not have extensive technology access and who do not have technology at home had another challenge in taking these tests,"

Amazingly I did well in both math and English without the use of a computer (other than a Casio calculator). Technology is not the problem.

There is a lot of fascination with technology and the internet for teaching. But the fact of the matter is that these things are not necessary in the least bit to develop math skills or critical thinking. We need to get off the tech bandwagon and get back to basics. And so long as black students fail at such high rates, we will continue to see low numbers in Tech businesses.

That Yale Student

So reading and watching the reports about the Yale student that had the Yale police called on her, I thought it was "strange" that the complaining student was so adamant about the fact that the offending student was sleeping in the common area. It seemed to me that there must be some rule that she knew about that the offending student was breaking rather than some random "you can't sleep here because I don't like it." Of course there were no reporters asking about what the rules are in regards to common areas in the dorms so I looked them up. Here's Yale's official dorm policies as it regards common areas:

Common Rooms There are common rooms in each building for social and academic gather- ings. Every resident has access to these spaces and equipment. Residents must respect the established community standards regarding the use of the space.

I'll stop here briefly. If it were just this comment, then we could say that there was a social conflict in that the "established" order was that there is no sleeping in common areas. But that "rule" not being "official" could be subject to change if the "community" decided that it was OK. But then we have this:

You may have a guest stay with you for a 3-day, 2-night period occasionally. All guests are to sleep in student rooms, not in common rooms or any other space outside of the student’s room. Keys are not issued to guests.

So here's the kicker. While the offending student is not a guest, it is still the case that sleeping in common areas is prohibited. I see no reason why the sleeping rule would apply ONLY to guests, as if resident students are expected to just lay about whenever the feeling hits them. Imagine a student with a guest who allows the guest to sleep in their room while they, the resident, sleeps in the common room. That certainly would not fly.

So it seems that in reality the complaining student was enforcing the rules as written by Yale and the offending student was at fault. Now we can argue as to whether it was a "call the police" event, but the offending student was at fault. Furthermore, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that it may be the case that this was not the first time the offending student was seen sleeping in the common area. It certainly would explain the escalation by the complaining student this far into the semester.

But this is another example of an institution, in this case Yale, throwing someone under the bus for enforcing its own rules. And shame on reporters for not asking whether there was an actual rule against sleeping in common areas.

Newest Member of The Slapaho Tribe: Eric Schneiderman

As usual, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. That said:

“Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did,” Selvaratnam said.

50 shades of hypocrite?

“He started calling me his ‘brown slave’ and demanding that I repeat that I was ‘his property.’”

I suppose she should be glad she wasn't his black slave. There may have been chains and whips involved.

Selvaratnam said, “The slaps started after we’d gotten to know each other

That's usually how it starts. No abuser worth his title starts the slapping at the first meet.

“It was at first as if he were testing me. Then it got stronger and harder. It wasn’t consensual. This wasn’t sexual playacting. This was abusive, demeaning, threatening behavior.”

Yes. Yes he was testing you. I've read memoirs of pimps and they always do something "out of place" to see how a woman reacts. If she doesn't object to the "out of place' behavior, he knows he's got his next ho.

This leads to the issue of consent. See, normal, self-respecting women would have ended the relationship after the first slap (assuming even that they accept the "your my brown slave" shit). So I can accept that the first slap was non-consensual, however...

She said that as the violence grew, so did his sexual demands.

“He was obsessed with having a threesome and said it was my job to find a woman,” Selvaratnam said. “He said he’d have nothing to look forward to if I didn’t and would hit me until I agreed.”

Wayyyyyyyyyyminute. So after the first hand to the face, I assume it was to the face. She stayed in the relationship? REALLY? See this is where I stop being sympathetic to the "victim". Nobody has to accept being slapped around. This chick is a Harvard educated woman. There's no financial reason to keep getting smacked around. This reeks of desperate chick trying to land Mr. Rich and White. So she put up with bullshit. Doesn't excuse his behavior but really though:

What self-respecting woman allows herself to be called some white man's "brown slave" and to be slapped around?

The abuse increased until Schneiderman was not only slapping her but spitting on her and choking her, she said.

And choked.

And spat upon.

Is there a peeing event we haven't been told about yet?

“In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex, which is a line I would not cross.”

Translation: Yes I smacked, choked and spat on the bitch but she was good with getting the D.

And those women Cosby gave downers to thought they had it bad.

The one thing that I hope comes out of this is the lesson that many of these "feminist" dudes who make a show of how much they support women are really low lives.

Voluntary Indebtedness

An article currently headlining UNZ entitled Donald Trump and the Next Crash has an interesting paragraph:

At a time when inequality, economic hardship, and household and personal debt levels are escalating and wages are not, why should any of this matter to the rest of us? The answer is simple enough: because the Fed sets the level of interest rates and so the cost of money. This, in turn, indirectly impacts the value of the dollar, which means everything you buy.

I'm going to guess that this writer is one of the left leaning of the writers found on the site due to the "inequality" commentary but what I really have issues with is "personal debt levels are escalating and wages are not" part. To be clear, I completely agree with the issue of wage stagnation. Real wages have basically stalled at 1990s levels or thereabouts. It's not all the Fed's fault either. Automation has done a lot to reshape the labour market, particularly in manufacturing. AI threatens to demolish other jobs, particularly those in the middle income areas. For example those self-checkout lines in supermarkets. The use of "scan-it" items in conjunction with self-checkout lines which, for those unfamiliar, allows the customer to scan their items as they shop and then just pay without going through the "scan each item at the register and then bag it" thing.

In the banking industry, tellers are replaced by ATMs and the increasing use of debit card transactions such that there is little reason for a customer to enter a bank, much less talk to anyone in one. AI's will be doing the loan thing in the near future, so the loan officer's job is about done.

I could go on about this topic but that's not the focus here. The focus here is on the idea that personal debt by Americans is some unavoidable phenomenon. As David Ramsey has shown, Americans are volunteering to be in debt by dint of their behavior. With the exception of medical emergencies and involuntary unemployment, debt is avoidable. When debt is taken on, it should be with a clear income producingend.

One of the biggest debts Americans have outside of their mortgages, is auto debt. It is so bad that the industry is gearing up for 84 month car notes.

In the third quarter of 2015, the average monthly car payment surged to $482, up $12 per month from the year before. But, brace yourself, it gets worse. The average term of a new car loan is now 67 months – or five-and-a-half years.

hen there’s the 84-month car loan. Consumer Affairs wrote about this awful idea last year, noting the many reasons why a seven-year car loan is the worst of all worlds. Only a few lenders have rolled out this product, the piece notes, but not because they’re worried about consumers getting in over their heads; it’s mostly because car companies want you to buy a new car more often than every seven years.

I won't sign for a 5 year note, I know for damn sure I'm not paying for a car for 7 years. Why would anyone pay for a car for 7 years? Why would you allow a company to put their hands into your bank account and take nearly $500 for 7 years? That's $42,000. On a car that averages $28,000? Really? Why would anyone do that when they can get a used car for far less? The fact is that Americans have been volunteering to be in debt. They take out home equity loans. They run up credit card debt that they cannot pay off at the end of the month and charge far more than they should. They buy clothes when they have clothes they haven't worn in years. They take vacations to places they cannot afford to go, and while there they spend money they don't have.

Americans don't have a personal debt problem. Americans have an impulse control problem.

Mind Control Media

Late last week Steve Sailer posted an item in regards to media headlines. In this case the New Yorker:

When did we start seeing this kind of headline in magazines? I can imagine a 1940 Methodist publication using the same “How Should We Think About …” formula. The Daily Worker, too. I can even imagine the 1930 New Yorker running a Robert Benchley parody of a Sunday sermon with this kind of headline.

My response to this question is that it's been going on for quite a bit of time. I can't vouch for print media but this kind of headline is common in places like The Guardian, The Independent and various other left toppled over media. Once I see a headline that starts with "how should you" or "You should be terrified" or "You'll be horrified" or "So and So's response to Such and Such was perfect..", I know that the publication is trying to prime me into an emotional state. A lot of people don't believe that repeated and suggestive statements actually affect people. There are even research that discredits things like NLP But there are billions spent on advertising that says otherwise. These repeated bold headlines are not accidental in the least bit. If you've ever had a jingle or a phrase stick in your head or be spontaneously "recalled" upon seeing a certain product or behavior, you have just proven that repeated honed messages work.

Here's how these headlines work. You see a "You'll be horrified when..." headline and the vast majority of people will go further expecting some kind of "traumatic" story to be relayed. Then when going in, the details are laid out and one has to either accept that the events relayed are "horrifying" or they are not. Here's the thing though, in order to decide that something is not "horrifying" one has to be willing to question the headline. Usually, the stories behind the headline will have framed the story (the narrative) in such a way that contradictory information is omitted or so far towards the end that the average reader will not reach it. For example it's easy to trigger African-Americans and liberal whites by producing a headline that says:

Unarmed Black Man Shot By Police.

If the story contains such a point as:

police were called after neighbors saw the suspect breaking into vehicles.

It will be near the end of the story and will make the rounds. Those who point out the "suspect was..." part, will be in violation of the "you should be horrified" narrative.

Personally, my bullshit alarm goes off every time I see a "you should" or "you'll be" headline. I know that there is an attempt to condition my mind and I immediately put up mental barriers. In fact, I generally avoid articles that have these headlines. True journalism does not tell me how I should emotionally react to information being given to me. Journalism is supposed to give me the information. I decide what I feel about it during or after.

Slavery Is A Choice. Fear A Great Motivator

So apparently there is some controversy surrounding the fact that one's state of existence is, generally speaking, dependent upon the choices one makes. This apparently has come to a shock to people who also collectively spent millions on a movie called The Matrix, particularly The Matrix Reloaded, which explained this concept in great detail. Yet here we are in 2018 and various talking heads are lambasting Kanye West (who has his issues) on his factual statement that being a slave is a choice.

The historical truth of this statement can be seen in the Republic of Haiti. For all it's poverty, that nation was created in the wake of a massive uprising of African slaves. They chose to be free rather than to be slaves. They risked life and limb to do it. Slavery was a choice. They chose not to have it.

In Brazil we have the example of Zumbi de Palmares. These Africans set up their own communities in the mountains of Brazil instead of being slaves.

In Jamaica we have the Maroons. Who escaped slavery and set up their own communities. As a matter of fact, the living descendants of these Maroons still speak a language closely related to their origins. And by the way, these Maroons were once lead by a woman who is referred to as "Granny or Nanny, depending on who you speak with"

I offer these examples of large scale decisions by communities of Africans to NOT BE SLAVES. Which stands in direct contradiction to the talking heads trying to discredit Kanye. And in this I include those who have tried to defend Kanye by saying he wasn't referring to "actual" slavery. When I did a documentary on Denmark Vesey, another Black man who refused to be a slave and laid down his life to free many Africans in South Carolina, I found many records of individual men and women who decided that they were NOT GOING TO BE SLAVES. These bold men and woman took their lives into their own hands and braved the swamps to get free. I've visited those swamps and I can tell you from personal experience that most of these know it all negroes wouldn't have the fortitude to spend one night in one of those swamps, much less navigate them while having slave catchers on their tails and rewards on their heads.

This brings us to why so many Africans did not try to escape slavery: Fear. I don't say this to denigrate the memory of those who were enslaved. Fear is a great motivator. We humans are hard wired for self-preservation. And for many the very real and high probability of death vs. staying put made for an "easy" decision. This brings to mind a skit by Eddie Murphy (I could be wrong_ that is on a mix I have:

I ain't no mutha fuckin' slave.
Ain't like those mutha fuckas wanted to do that shit.
I'm quite sure the first dude that got off the boat said "suck my dick".
Then like 10 motha fuckas with whips said
Whoppishhh!
The one behind him said
We'll bail the shit, just keep the fuck back with the whips.
Modern day soul brothers we act like we coulda never been slaves and shit.
I be hearing brothers say
Shit man if I was a motha fuckin slave

This routine encapsulates why so many stayed on plantations and whatnot. The most rebellious were executed in front of the rest as an example of what happens to "trouble". Most people fall in line when this happens. There's no shame in that. I think a lot of the anger at Kanye is because there is a lot of shame in the African-American community as it regards slavery. And therefore if anyone says anything that calls into question the motives of those who did not rebel it is taken as a personal affront.

The fact is that other than when you're born and when you die, there are no situations in your life that are not a product of some decision. Sure we can say that the African that was caught up by the slave raiders and sold off to the Europeans and shipped overseas didn't have a choice in that situation. Indeed. However nothing stopped that person from leaving or die trying than his own fear of the consequences of getting caught.

This fear is the same fear that has people staying in abusive relationships. Keeps them in gangs. Keeps them in jobs that are going nowhere. It's the same fear. On a different level to be sure, but it is the same fear: It might not work out.

So it is clear that being enslaved is a choice. Not the easiest choice but a choice none the less. There is a reason for the phrase "Freedom or Death". If those aren't the bottom line considerations, then one may well find oneself a slave. Kanye is right. The know nothing naysayers are wrong. History shows that. End of argument.

[edit: 5-3- 1PM] There is also the issue of those persons who were comfortable being slaves. To the professionally offended this concept is hard to swallow but there were a good number of Africans who were OK with their status. This was particularly the case where the owner was not "cruel" (I put that in quotes to separate that out from the inherently cruel state that is person ownership). Since a slave, like any other piece of livestock, requires shelter and food. If an owner was particularly "kind" in his providing for the material needs of his property, then, just as we see in Stockholm syndrome, a person can identify with or see himself as a part of the family of their owner. In such cases the fact that the owner has title on them is but a minor issue.

Again I'll point to research I did during my documentary of Denmark Vesey. There were many persons who were quite satisfied with their station in life. Indeed it was one of those persons who sold out Vesey (do not even THINK that it is only the so called "house negroes" who would rat out a rebellion. Some rebellions were lead and organized by "house negroes".

How To Continue A Syria Invasion

This is the third installment of the ongoing attempts to depose Assad and install a [more] puppet regime in that nation by way of aiding ISIS and other jihadis.

As stated in 2013:

First you make an announcement that "chemical weapons use" is the "red line":

This has the effect of letting all opposition parties know exactly how to get the US involved. Then, SURPRISE, someone decides to announce that Syria has used chemical weapons:

Mind you the person on the hook at that time was Obama. What I did not know at the time was that the US was this close to a shooting war:

“It was touch and go, just as risky as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them – the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships. Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination. (We shall return to these two missiles later).

Now once again we have a very real threat of conflict in Syria just a few short days after Trump said he wanted US troops out of that country. I mean the timing of the alleged chemical attack in Syria was simply toooo convenient. Someone online said that "well that's what Assad does."

Really?

So Assad's thinking, and that of his generals is that, since they are winning and Trump said he wants out of the country, let's go throw a chemical munition, which we had supposedly shipped off to Russia or destroyed, on a civilian population. No one will notice. No one will say anything. And no one will do anything because Trump said he wants out.

I mean really. There are people who believe this kind of explanation. When the more plausible explanation that there are agents on the ground who have an existential interest in the US staying in Syria either deployed this chemical attack or fabricated the story.

It's times like these when I wish we had an active draft, with minimal exceptions, so that the idiots who are beating war drums have to deal with the very real thought that they or their children may have to be sent to die, half a world away for the dumb shit they espouse.

White Lynchings, Black Murders

So 60 minutes had a piece on lynchings. I've no problem with going into that subject. History is history and has lessons for everyone. Here it is:

However there were two things that I think should be noted about this era in American history that everyone and particularly African-Americans should be cognizant of:

Bryan Stevenson: We want to call this community to repentance, to acknowledgement, to shame. We want to tell the truth, because we believe in truth and reconciliation but we know that truth and reconciliation are sequential. We can't get to where we're trying to go if we don't tell the truth first.

So far, Stevenson's team has chronicled more than 4,300 lynchings. They continue to find more.

This is in line with the NAACP report on the total number of lynchings in the US:

From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black. The blacks lynched accounted for 72.7% of the people lynched. These numbers seem large, but it is known that not all of the lynchings were ever recorded. Out of the 4,743 people lynched only 1,297 white people were lynched. That is only 27.3%. Many of the whites lynched were lynched for helping the black or being anti lynching and even for domestic crimes.

So in a space of 86 years we have the statistical average of 55 lynchings per year or just under 1 every 8 days or so. Lets call it once a week.For the entire country. Indeed no one should be lynched. And we should not look upon those days as something good. However; when we look at it as murder, the carnage that black people, particularly black men do to each other makes the lynch era of the United States look like utopia.

US News and World Report noted for 2015 the following:

What we see here is that on average, between 2001 and 2015, roughly 3,000 black people were killed by other black people.Per year.That is nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than the lynching era of the US. For those who don't know, an order of magnitude is multiplying by 10, otherwise known as moving the decimal point over one place for each order.

To look at it another way, if we look at the 15 year span we find 45,000 dead black people. That is 10 times more than the 86 year span of lynchings. And that is only accounting for 2001 to 2015. If we were to extend this back to 1969 and come forward, we would see a far far higher number. So while it is completely acceptable to discuss the lynching era as the stain the country that it is, to act as if a far more deadly (and I can say fratricidal) phenomenon is occurring right now. And no amount of staring back at lynchings is going to solve that problem. Which brings me to the second issue.

Since 60 minutes has generally ceased to be a news organization, it allowed Oprah and her guest, Walker to make the totally speculative and incorrect statements:

Stevenson wants people to understand that lynchings were not just brutal footnotes in history, they reflected a belief in racial differences that reinforced segregation in the 1950s and 60s, and, he says, has resulted in a pattern of unequal justice today.

Bryan Stevenson: And now we live in a landscape where you see young black boys and men being rounded up. One in three black male babies born in this country is expected to go to jail or prison.

Oprah Winfrey: You actually think that slavery and lynchings led to African-Americans being disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system?

Bryan Stevenson: Yes, I do. And I think, actually, it's not a hard thing to understand, you know, I look at--

Oprah Winfrey: I think it is a hard thing to understand for people who think people get locked up, people are locked up because they commit crimes.

Bryan Stevenson: About 13 percent of the people illegally in possession of drugs in this country are black. That's about our proportion of the population. You know what percentage are arrested? That's about 35 percent. That is an echo of this consciousness that doesn't value the lives of these folks.

"Black men are being rounded up". Really? Police generally respond to crimes they either see occurring or that are reported to them. When there is a dead body, there is a dead body. Suspects are rounded up. How does Walker not understand this. Ahh because he wants to run to the drugs straw man. He, and by extension 60 minutes, wants the viewership to think that all these "rounded up" men are being rounded up because of drug possession. No sir. Most possession laws result in a fine. to graduate to a prison term one has far more drugs (and more potent drugs) than a simple splif.

But even Walker's math is wrong. While African-Americans may make up 13% of the population (which is what he was trying to say earlier) black men are about half that population. Hence you have 6% of the population that commits offenses far above what their population would suggest. If we return to the homicide chart above, we see that blacks and whites commit roughly the same numbers of homicides. However; once we realize that white males are 38% of the population and that black males are 6% of the population, you realize the the 6% population is committing waaaaaay more murders than they should be if all things were equal.

Lastly, since 60 minutes wanted to discuss interracial violence and terrorism, the following two graphs become very relevant:

You'll note that by percentage of victims, in the past decade whites have been victimized by blacks more often than the reverse. Now lets be completely fair here: We are not seeing blacks go to a park and set out a blanket with their kids to watch a white person get murdered and burned. However; murder is murder.

By the raw numbers more white people have been killed by blacks in the time space of 2001 to 2015 than all blacks known to have been lynched during the US lynch era.

So to close, I agree with Oprah and Walker that there needs to be an honest discussion of racial violence in America. However; I do not think that black people are willing to have that honest discussion because as the old saying goes, when you point a finger at me, three others are pointing back at you.

The Alton Sterling Video

You can watch the video here:

http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/alton_sterling/article_209c1f62-33c7-11e8-a2c8-179ff7c92a3f.html

Two comments on it:

1) As usual, this altercation escalated because Sterling refused to put his hands on the vehicle as requested.

However. The police officer never told Sterling that he was being detained. He never told Sterling why they were detaining him. A citizen has a right to be told he is being detained and for what reason. Personally, since I know that police have a license to kill, I'm going to cooperate, that is, I would have put my hands on the car as requested, while continuing to ask if I was being detained and why I was being detained.

This is particularly important because there was no crime in progress where police have far more discretion in detaining people *right now*. As we see in the video, Sterling has nothing in his hand except for what appears to be a cigarette and was in the middle of a business transaction with a woman. He did not have his other hand in his pocket. His hands were visible to the officers and he was not a threat. Even with the report of a "man with a gun" (none of which we hear on the muted audio) once at the scene the circumstances didn't warrant that approach.

What is worse though is that once Sterling had his hands on the car, the "cursing officer" continued to act extremely aggressively towards Sterling and requested that he be tasered while Sterling once again simply asked why he was being detained (which is his right). His hands were up and at his side. They did not fall until he was shot with the taser. The taser clearly didn't work on Sterling. This may need to be addressed with the manufacturer. What it does tell us though is that the officers attempted to use less than lethal force. Usually this would go in the officer's favor because it would show a lack of intent to kill. However, one officer had already said that he would shoot Sterling in the head. That is intent. That officer should be up for murder charges. Why? Because he (and his partner) escalated a situation while threatening to kill Sterling, then created a situation that lead to a fulfillment of that promise.

Means.
Motive
Opportunity.

Furthermore; while tasing Sterling, the officers kept barking orders. My understanding is that a person hit with a taser essentially loses motor control. That is above and beyond the pain induced by being shocked. To bark orders and expect them to be followed by someone who has a high electric current running through their body is not productive and in my opinion, negligent. The way I see it, if you're going to shock a person into compliance, you wait until they are down, no longer being shocked and then give orders.

2) Once Sterling was brought to the ground he had been partially mounted by one of the cops. At this point the gun that Sterling had was seen/located and the officer announces gun. Fine. Then the shooting starts. Again though, Sterling had just been shocked at least 3 times and could not, from what I saw, be in any condition to get to the gun and fire it at anyone.

Again, I'm not clear on how the grand jury declined to charge the officers. The video presented in the linked page is pretty damning to me. There will be lawsuits and they will be won.

Steve Harvey Told a Bold Lie

On Wednesday morning, I caught Steve Harvey saying that police only shoot black people. By which I assume he meant unarmed black people. None of his co-workers corrected him or even hinted that Mr. Harvey may be wrong. The epic fail that this represents cannot be overstated. Though Mr. Harvey saw his ratings drop after his visit with Trump, he still has a massive audience.

He has been syndicated since 2005 and has been on Majic since then. He is heard weekly by an estimated 7 million listeners.

7 million would be half the US black population, including children. If you eliminate minors that would be a rather large proportion of Black people (assuming that's his main audience). Thus when Steve Harvey says something, there are a lot of people who are going to listen and a large portion of whom will agree and pass along the "info". Hence the statement made by Mr. Harvey was not only damaging to his credibility (and the radio stations that let it pass) but served to misinform a large portion of the public. So lets get into this "only black people get shot by police" comment. The only relevant question is: what do the facts say?

From The Washington Post (accessed 3-29-2018):

As we can see here more white people have been shot by police while running away from police than black people. in fact 50% more white people have been shot by police while fleeing on foot than have black people.

As we can see more white people have been shot by police while fleeing in a vehicle than black people. Once again, 50% more while people have been shot while fleeing in a vehicle than black people.

We see that so far in 2018 the same number of white and black people have been shot by police while unarmed. Clearly these numbers will not go up at the same time since police don't shoot people in racial pairs to "clean up" the numbers.

In general white people have been shot by police 2x more than black people. Keep in mind that black people commit crimes (particularly violent crimes such as homicide) far more than white people do so that so many white people are being plugged with state lead shows that police are, if anything, shooting and killing white suspects in far disproportion to their threat level to the public. So having shown that Steve Harvey had no clue of what he was speaking on, the question is why his co-workers let it slide. Why did the stations that carry his show, allow such massive misinformation to go unchecked? And lastly will anyone tell Steve Harvey to apologize and correct the record in the same manner that he lied about it?

Trump: Victim of Revenge Porn

Whether you like Trump or not one should be troubled by these hoes coming out the closet to exact revenge on Trump for having fucked 'em and left 'em.

Whether one agrees with adultery or not is not relevant here. We have a lawyer going on tv talking about how he has a DVD that may have evidence that Trump had consensual sex with [one of?] his favorite porn stars. In any other context this would be a threat of blackmail and this lawyer would be in danger of losing his license. His client would be a target of a police investigation. However; since so many people in the press are against Trump, this kind of smear campaign, and that's what it is, is acceptable.

60 Minutes, a show that at one time was one of the pinnacles of respectable journalism allowed Trump's mistress to essentially brag about having sex with a married man. I mean really. Forget Trump for a minute, why are the news media shitting all over Melania for? Has anyone even considered how she feels about having these hoes on international TV bragging about sleeping with her husband? It's bad enough he did it, but shit why does the media have to broadcast her betrayal worldwide?

This is catty female bullshit of the lowest order. So called respectable news outlets are engaged in teenage girl gossip circles and wonder why half the country thinks they are shit. One of these hoes, and that's what these women are, was talking about how she was given the tour of the Trump pad. I mean, how do you NOT see this is some "I slept with your man and there's nothing you can do about it?" shit?

This is the same media that continues to glorify Bill Clinton, who in addition to [allegedly] raping a few women, "abused" his power while in office to get a blow job while at work on the tax payer's dime. But now these same media personalities are all worked up because some hoe slept with the current president 10 years ago, took cash and now want's to supplement her cam-show income.

And the media is OK with this.

The Stick Em Up Negroes

Generally speaking there are two types of what I'll call Negro Activists: There is the hand out Negro Activist and the stick 'em up negro activist. The former complains about how white people aren't giving them enough. Everything would be a crystal stair if only white people gave us more stuff. The latter is usually a convert from the former. Realizing that the "giving" may either not happen or never be enough, they embark on making white people give stuff. To be sure, these archetypes are not unique to Negro Activists. Feminists have the same types but generally target men. But I'm not talking about them today.

Much of the "black rights movement" was lead by the hand out type. When Garvey came along and announced the "New Negro" that would build his own shit and thereby show the world his equality through the strength of his own work, these hand out Negroes lined up to denounce Garvey. These hand out Negroes worked with the feds to get rid of Garvey and to thwart his plans in Africa and the Caribbean (I'm looking at you NAACP). Now, in the year 2018, hand out negroes and stick 'em up Negroes are in high demand as white people have lost their collective minds and allowed themselves to be guilted into supporting all kinds of bullshit that benefits a small number of Negroes who live off of rent seeking off the success of whites. Today's example comes from Uber:

Bozoma Saint John, Uber's chief brand officer, called on white men to help diversify their workplaces.

"I want white men to look around in their office and say, 'Oh look, there's a lot of white men here. Let's change this,'" Saint John said at the SXSW festival on Sunday.

"Brand officer"? That's corporate speak for someone who did none of the hard engineering work to make the business work. But that's not even the point here. the question that ought to be asked is: Why should white men who collectively worked to make a successful company (legal and ethical issues aside) "look around" and change the environment? That's like asking a championship team with a near perfect record to consider fucking up the team because someone wants in.

Saint John said the onus should not be on people of color to improve diversity at work: "Why do I — as the black woman — have to fix that? There's 50 of you, there's one of me. Ya'll fix it. ... Everybody else needs to make the noise — I want white men to make the noise."

You know what? She's right! It's not the job of black people (I'm not speaking on the other POC's cause we all know that she's NOT speaking about Asians be they east or south). If Black people, or women since she brought it up, want to see themselves in huge populations in businesses, you START ONE.

Uber, like most tech companies, is working to diversify its workforce. Its first diversity report, released in March 2017, showed that Uber had no technical leaders who are black or Hispanic. Among non-technical leadership positions, 3.7% were black and 1.2% were Hispanic.

Which is in line with the population of Blacks and Hispanics (not a race) with advanced computer science degrees or other non social science advanced degrees.

"The number of African Americans in Silicon Valley is dismal," said Saint John, who left her marketing leadership job at Apple Music for Uber. "It's not up to one company — it's up to the entire industry to make sure that we are moving the conversation forward. Sometimes those walls of competition need to come down so we can move the entire industry forward."[ My underlines]

So competition needs to "come down" so black folks can get jobs? This means that Bozoma doesn't think that black people are intelligent enough to compete with everyone else in high tech. This means that Bozoma thinks black people are inferior to everyone else. People who think they are inferior to others beg for hand outs or try to do the stick 'em up thing. Which is exactly what she's doing here.

It really gets tiring watching lefty racism on display without so much as a peep from the people who are being insulted. These Negro Activists almost universally believe that black people are either children or inferior adults that need for everybody to stop what they are doing to help them. It's hard to imagine that at one time a man and woman walked the earth who thought that black people were actual adults who should be responsible for their own futures regardless of any hostility they faced.

Democracy Dies in The Hands of Women, Blacks and Democrats

You know how certain MSM says that "Democracy Dies in Darkness"? Well a nice handy dandy chart shows where Democracy actually dies. Robbed from Steve Sailer at UNZ who screencapped it from the NYT:

Freedom of Speech is an enumerated right in the US Constitution. Diversity is an ideology not enumerated in the US Constitution. Three groups are clearly a present threat to US Constitutional rights: Women, Blacks and Democrats. 64% of [polled] women think diversity is more important than an enumerated right. 68% of Blacks [polled] think that diversity is more important than an enumerated right to which they were specifically denied during and after slavery and post reconstruction. 66% of [polled] Democrats think diversity is more important than an enumerated right.

Many of these same populations used the "free speech" argument to gain rights and privileges in America. Having come to a point where they have power, they have turned against the very freedom that got them power. It is very clear they have no respect for, as some have put it, "muh constitution".

Glenn Greenwald on The 'Russia Meddling"

At The Intercept

But the more important question is the one these chest-beating politicians and pundits notably refrain from addressing. If Russian election meddling is on par with the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks, then should the U.S. response be on par with its response to those attacks? Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor prompted U.S. involvement in a world war and, ultimately, dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan; 9/11 initiated wars in multiple countries that still, 17 years later, have no end in sight, along with a systematic and still-worsening erosion of basic civil liberties.

I too had this question when I saw the "news". It just goes to show that a lot of these folks are just out to say anything. You'll note that the above claims have been memory holed. It's not an accident. The MSM doesn't really want people asking these questions. Besides if tweets and Facebook posts are Pearl Harbor then what was the take down of the government in Ukraine?

Disgrace! Follow Up

I promise I did not read this before writing my original post but it definitely underscores the point of that post:

Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch issued a concurring opinion, noting that the courts should never have granted standing to this alien to begin with and that the case should immediately be dismissed, not just remanded. Existing law (8 U.S.C. §§ 1252(b)(9), 1226(c)) already kicks the courts out of this case altogether, in their opinion. Thomas seemed bewildered that the DOJ didn’t even assert this argument. This is a point I’ve made, that the DOJ didn’t assert a similar jurisdiction-stripping provision (§1201(h)(i)) against litigation pertaining to denial of visas as part of the immigration pause executive order.

Why hasn't the DOJ assert the argument? Politics. Why isn't the DOJ asserting federal law? Because the people running the place do not have the will to do so. Disgrace.

We have the laws. We lack the leadership to implement them.

Natural Law, Second Amendment and Gun Control

So the recent shooting that has not occurred in a black neighborhood, where such things are apparently not worthy of much, if any, attention has the press doing it's usual shtick. Men who are slowly but surely becoming as emotional as women when it comes to these things are generally competing to see who can be the most sympathetic and approval seeking. Rational minded people, both men and women, are being cast as kid killers, Nazis, and klan members for simply upholding their rights and objecting to be treated like criminals. It seems that one of the issues is that perhaps a large portion of US society fails to understand (or even know) natural law and how man made laws sprung out of it.

In all of our genes is the coding for a flight or fight response. Most of us have little control over these reactions. Heart rates increase. Blood pressure goes up. Adrenaline kicks in. Vision narrows. These reactions are nature's means of telling us to defend our lives. Sometimes that defense is running as fast as you can. Sometimes that defense is harming the threat until it isn't a threat any more. The vast majority of times the run response is the path taken. We can call this cowardice if we want to, but it's a natural reaction. Among mammalian species the female typically will fight if her young are threatened. The male on the other hand will not only fight to protect himself, but he will fight to protect his female mate and often his offspring. Mostly because in nature if he does not do so, the next male will kill his offspring and mate with the now available female.

I was watching an episode of Blue Planet where a polar bear had found a female to mate with. This occurrence is apparently a rare event. This bear mated with the female and fought a number of other males, to the point where he was limping and blood was all over his body. Just to make sure he could mate. The female? She was wandering off, pregnant and unscarred. That's some male privilege for you. But I digress. The point being that self defense by whatever means necessary is a natural law. If you are threatened you have the natural right to end that threat.

Armaments are extensions of this law. Not many species can craft weapons. That takes a level of intelligence AND a body capable of manipulating materials. This ability to create weapons is an extension of the natural right to defend oneself. Whether that weapon is a arrow, blade, sword, sling shot, or firearm. There is no doubt that the founders of the Republic understood this. The second amendment was not created as some means to protect "hunting" as so many in the gun control side of the argument like to say. While hunting may be an activity in which guns are used, one should not be fooled into thinking that one needs to have such a justification for gun ownership or ownership of any weapon of any kind.

What has informed the gun control issue is the rapid urbanization of society in addition to racial angles. Modern gun control was initiated as a response to the Black Panther party for self defense. When the Black Panthers decided to patrol the streets with guns and watch police, which was perfectly legal, there was alarm about "armed negroes". Gun control legislation soon flourished. To be sure that is not the first time that alarm about "armed negroes" occurred in America, but it should serve as a reminder to those who are for gun control to know that it has been historically used to control an "undesirable" population. Yesterday that undesirable population was black folks. Today it is white, largely rural, heterosexual males.

Urbanization has come along with often heavily armed police who are often not present when the threat to one's person is actually occurring. Since such threats are, at least for non-blacks, a rare occurrence, it allows non-black persons to believe that no one is in *need* of arms. Even though there is no constitutional requirement of personal *need* in order to have the right to a firearm (or weapon of any kind). While we are inundated with news about criminals (new or old) who shoot up schools or worksites, we rarely hear of the times when a person who is not a police officer used a gun to defend themselves or others. Yet these things happen often.

Incredibly, the fact that gun restriction laws do nothing to stop those intent on breaking the law from obtaining and using guns seems to escape the conversation. It's as if it is inconceivable to a large proportion of US society that there are people who don't give a flip about laws on the books. Murder is illegal, yet it happens. Rape is illegal, yet it happens. Assault and battery are illegal, yet it happens. I could go on and on. The fact is that law breakers don't care what legal obstacles are in place. Their only real concern is whether they can get away with said act (assuming not to be suicidal).

Increasingly society is being turned into "mandatory flight". laws are on the books that if someone is threatening you then you must try to remove yourself from the situation. If you know how to defend yourself and stand your ground and seriously injure or kill a person who poses a threat to you, YOU may end up prosecuted for using unreasonable force or murder. When these school shootings happen, the instructions are to run and hide. Fight only if it's the last resort (the gunman has entered the room you barricaded yourself in and hope you can take him out with hand to hand combat. Sure.

Those of us who do not desire to be rendered sitting ducks by the state are seen as unreasonable. We are called all manner of names because we wish to act in our own defense (and those of others). The state is acting in manner that constrains the law abiding rather than the law breaking. That 10 day waiting period? Won't stop a criminal. That "gun must be unloaded and carried in a container separate from the ammunition" law? Yeah, criminals certainly unload their weapons when traveling. That concealed carry permit that is only good in one state? Yeah, criminals are certainly observing that. Can't have your weapon in an Airport? Sure. All constraints on the law abiding. But this is what is going on in America. The state seeks to constrain the law abiding. Be it gun control or speech.

Disgrace!

So Sessions is annoyed enough by Trump's commentary about him to respond somewhat. That's nice but lets be clear: Sessions IS a disgrace and that fruit has not fallen far from the tree.

The Attorney General generally takes his cue from the executive. After all, he reports to and can be fired by the executive (for whatever reason) regardless of what certain members of congress think. Hence an inactive or distracted justice department is a direct reflection of the executive. Why are both Sessions and Trump a disgrace? All we have to do is look at the states and cities in open rebellion against the union and the non reaction to them.

Lets take a walk down memory lane to when Obama was president. Arizona, a state, decided that it was going to finally "do something" about illegal aliens in it's borders. It passed a law that allowed it's officers to check the immigration status of anyone they stopped. The constitutional basis for this was that once police have probable cause to stop someone, they can use their discretion to inquire about immigration status. "Hispanic" leadership immediately took offense, saying that this amounted to racial profiling (Hispanic is not a race). Never mind that over 70% of illegal aliens in the United States are Mexican nationals and Arizona borders Mexico.

What did the Obama administration do? Did they sit on their ass? Did they give a news conference and then go about business as usual? No. The Obama administration immediately sued the state:

The lawsuit is part of a broader approach by President Barack Obama to deal with the 10.8 million illegal immigrants believed to be in the country, arguing that immigration is the responsibility of the federal government not each state.

“Seeking to address the issue through a patchwork of state laws will only create more problems than it solves,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, said in a statement.

The Arizona law was passed on April 9, 2010. The lawsuit was filed in July 6, 2010 before the law could take effect. That was 3 months. Three months. What did the Supreme Court say when the case reached them?

“Arizona may have under­standable frustrations with the problems caused by illegal immigration while that process continues,” he wrote, “but the state may not pursue policies that undermine federal law.”

The court threw out three such provisions in the Arizona law. It said the state cannot make it a misdemeanor for immigrants to not carry registration documents; criminalize the act of an illegal immigrant seeking employment; or authorize state officers to arrest someone on the belief that the person has committed an offense that makes him deportable.

If it is opinion of the highest court in the land that the states have limited ability to deal with illegal aliens and that they cannot pursue policies that undermine federal law? Then why are all these cities and states getting away with doing just that? Why are Sessions and Trump sitting on their asses on this matter?

In September of 2017 California passes a "sanctuary state" law. How long ago was that? 6 months ago. In January of 2018 the law went into effect. Where is Sessions? Where is Trump?

When Arizona passed its laws, which the supreme court said wasn't within its rights because immigration is a federal issue, the Obama administration went directly into action. They didn't even wait for the law to go into effect. Meanwhile California brazenly proposed, passed and allowed a law that contravenes federal law and the only thing Sessions did was give a speech.

That is a disgrace. thats fucking incompetence or complete dereliction of duty.

In Chicago they are giving ID's and benefits to illegal aliens in that city.

City clerk Anna Valencia is asking for another million dollars to establish the ID program, which would provide cards not only for undocumented immigrants, but also for others who can’t get officials IDs.

However, Ald. David Moore, and others like him, question whether the program is necessary, given that there is a state ID card already available...

Also

The proposal requires all city departments to accept the city card as a valid form of identification, a key point for Emanuel as he seeks to give undocumented immigrants a way to identify themselves while filing police reports, buying city stickers, paying bills or seeking to gain access to public buildings.

Plain as day violation of federal law which prohibit helping an illegal alien to enter and remain in the United States. And Chicago is not alone with this. Where is Sessions? Where is Trump. Federal law is being openly violated. Nobody is hiding the fact that they are committing felonies and are doing so in an organized fashion. Where are the arrests? Where are the indictments?

We have indictments of foreign nationals who are not even in the country for posting shit on Facebook and Twitter, yet we can't indict and arrest government officials for clear violations of federal law?

THAT is a disgrace.