Woodward and The New York Times Reveal The Deep State

Up until this week, those of us who discussed the fact that there is an unelected "cabal" of Washington insiders who set and enforce policies that are for their own interests rather than that of the people via their elected officials, were dismissed as conspiracy theorists. As of this week none other than mainstream persons and agencies have revealed that such dismissals to be the distractions that they were intended to be. Without a doubt, we can now say the Deep State exists and it is entirely against the will of the will of the electorate as expressed in the Nov 2016 election. First lets look at the anonymous insider published by the NY Times:

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

Firstly I'll say this directly to Mr. Trump:

That's what you get.

Many of your supporters have written that you have surrounded yourself with vipers who are either in it for their own gain (financial and otherwise) or who are, as this person said, hell bent on derailing your agenda. These persons include Ivanka and Jared but are not limited to those persons. You have made poor decisions on who to trust (for reasons only you really know) and it is reflected in many ways. So this entire situation is an own goal.

That said, we, the electorate, the citizenry, regardless of party should be VERY bothered by the idea that an unelected employee of the executive branch, who ultimately works for us has taken upon his or herself to determine what part(s) of the president's agenda (which was approved of by the citizenry via our electoral process) should and should not be enacted.

Fuck that person.

So long as said policies are not unconstitutional or illegal, that person has no rights whatsoever to obstruct the will of the electorate. I don't care if this was Trump or Obama or Bush. If this person felt that they could not in good conscience carry out the orders of the president, he or she should have resigned immediately and gone public. If the actions are so bad, we have a legal and political process by which the people, via their representatives can remove such a bad actor. How dare these persons who claim to be acting in the best interests of the country, bypass the very institutions we have to deal with these issues.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The "do what we can" is a link to Woodward's book. I'll get to points of that later, but I question the entire "democratic institutions" argument when their actions in fact undermine the democratic institutions which they claim to uphold. Never mind that there is no specific example of "democratic institutions" given.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.

It is entirely possible that Trump is amoral, defined as: unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of something. I doubt that though. It think that Trump has a set of morals that differ from those who are in this "resistance". Since calling Trump "immoral" would probably lead to libel or defamation, I think the "amoral" charge was the safest charge to make. However; I still think that this "amorality" charge is one of actual "differences in philosophy" rather than I don't care about right or wrong. And if I am correct, then this underscores the charge that these people are substituting their wishes and "morality" on the rest of us in stark contradiction to the wishes of the people as expressed in the election. This is NOT "protecting democratic institutions".

Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

This statement here represents why this individual and others in his or her group should be removed from whatever positions of power they have. Anyone who has followed the public moods since the election of Obama, knows full well that the reason Trump won was specifically because he was NOT a Republican. He ran as a Republican because that was the path best suited to him just as Bloomberg did his fake Republican thing to get into office in NYC.

Furthermore, the large portion of Trump supporters do not care for Republicans. Not. One. Bit. If you live under the Democratic rock you may not know this. There is a reason why many Republicans and "Conservative" organizations are called "Conservative Inc.". They are seen as a wholly occupied party that are not actual conservatives because these conservatives have conserved nothing at all. They couldn't even keep marriage as defined as between a man and woman. That's some basic shit for a "conservative movement". These conservatives are merely Liberals of a few decades ago. Much of the Trump supporting electorate know this and they believe (rightly or wrongly) that Trump knows this and that is why he is in office and not Clinton or Jeb!

If this is the "amorality" then these people do not only have a problem with Trump, but they have a problem with half the country. They are, indeed undoing the duly elected wishes of the country. Isn't this treason? Seriously.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

If we needed any more proof that this is really about Democrats (and Republican "Conservative Inc. types) trying to undo an election, this is it. Trump may get the media attention for saying the press is the "enemy of the people" but it is not just Trump saying this. Again this is a feeling (and a fact) of many of his supporters. The media has set a new high water of antagonism against a president unseen in my lifetime (I am not young). The media has gone out of it's way to deem anyone who is not in agreement with Liberal policies as white supremacist (etc. To the extent to doxing people. It has covered up rank political violence against non-liberals by groups such as Antifa and has conspired with social media companies to deplatform and censor non-liberal voices in public social media spaces.

Secondly, To paint Trump, an international business man as "anti-trade" has to be the most ridiculous thing I've read. Trump made his money on trade. How do you think those hotels and condos were built? It takes a special kind of stupid to state that Trump the international business man, is against trade. He appears to believe that tariffs against countries he believes to be ripping off the US would address the very real drop in manufacturing, etc. in America. He may be wrong on that, he may be right on that. That is a political decision and political risk. It is not the place of non-elected groups to decide this.

To the charge of "anti-democratic", the writer has leveled no specific charge. His lashing out at a press that has been proven to be generally hostile to him, is not "anti-democratic". He doesn't lose HIS first amendment rights just because he is in office. Name a single thing Trump has done thus far on the domestic front that is "anti-democratic" and/or outside the bounds of the constitution.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

I don't know how Trump behaves in office. But "petty" is a judgement call. And seeing what is being written this week, I have reason to believe that this pettiness is warranted. Perhaps Trump sees that he has snakes around and it bothers him. But that's his own fault. As for it's effectiveness, it is little wonder that it is "ineffective" when the people tasked with carrying out his decisions are busy doing whatever it is they think should be done. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief’s comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims. Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back. “There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,” a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.

Without knowing what specific "policy decisions" are being discussed, I cannot make an informed commentary on how bad or good this is. I can say that I've seen some bad policy decisions made such as the bombing of Syria based on some picture of a dead kid and unproven charges of use of chemical weapons in Syria, a country allied with a nuclear power. But that decision was cheered all around. I could also cite the trespass (migrant) crisis which was wholly manufactured with aide from agencies in the US (who should be charged). The flip flop on detention in the face of a photo of a crying kid, which turned out to be literal fake news, is another example which I too, fault Trump. But I think many flip flops are due to the vipers in his circle. So I'll agree with anonymous here that Trump has many self owns, but we should be given examples so we can judge for ourselves.

Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.

This is another clear example of Deep State. This so called "Preference for autocrats" is really not their business. First of all, North Korea is not a threat oto the US. Period. The US has been provoking Russia for decades now with the expansion of NATO and the fomenting of Color Revolutions in former Soviet block countries, most recently Ukraine. Many of the electorate have had enough of this world wide mischief making. We want an end to the provocations with Russia and the money involved in doing so. We also believe that South Korea, a very rich country should defend itself against North Korea and wonder why we are still there. Secondly, we have seen that the way things have been done so far has not lead to an end of conflict with North Korea so why not do something very different? Why do we have to be antagonistic to Kim and Putin? Is this some law that we are not aware of? No, this is a case of Deep State operatives wanting to make sure that their preferred means of doing things remain unthreatened.

The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.

Once again this shows a clear "we didn't like the election outcome" reasoning behind the letter. Trump has not done anything "to us". The media sat by silent as Trump supporters were literally assaulted for trying to attend rallies. It was Democrats, Hillary in particular who called Trump supporters a "basket of deplorables". Any desire of the citizens to have their borders secured has been labelled nazism and white nationalism by people who wouldn't allow people to trespass on their private property. The constant vilification, censorship and violence engaged in by the Left (and covered up by the media) is not what Trump has done to the country but what the Deep State has done to the country. And if they think that by removing Trump from office that some "civility" is going to re-appear, they are in for a rude awakening.

Now lets get to Woodward.

WASHINGTON — President Trump so alarmed his defense secretary, Jim Mattis, during a discussion last January of the nuclear standoff with North Korea that an exasperated Mr. Mattis told colleagues “the president acted like — and had the understanding of — a ‘fifth or sixth grader.’”

It's September. We're all here. Trump met Kim. Kim did some walking around in South Korea and Singapore. Hasn't happened before. I remember when everyone was saying that the end was near. They were shocked that Kim relented (or seemed to). I knew then as I know now that there are ways you deal with bullies (which Kim is). Trump knows that as well. I figured his way would work. A lot of people said it was childish. Thus far, it's worked. It may not in the long term, but then again, nothing else has either. Point being that what actually bothered Kelly was that someone not doing what was normally done. This is why we say "Deep State". They expect every president, etc. to do what the Deep State says should be done (because they know best). Trump is the first president since.... to not only ask "why should I?" but to do what he thinks should be done. Deep State is not used to that.

At another moment, Mr. Trump’s aides became so worried about his judgment that Gary D. Cohn, then the chief economic adviser, took a letter from the president’s Oval Office desk authorizing the withdrawal of the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Mr. Trump, who had planned to sign the letter, never realized it was missing.

First, I'm glad Cohn is gone. If he committed a crime by removing the papers from the executive he should be prosecuted. It was not his place to remove the paper from Trump's desk. During the campaign Trump made many comments about South Korea. The people who elected him knew his position on South Korea. By meddling with Trump's trade decision vis-a-vis South Korea, Cohn took it upon himself to undo the democratic will of the people and substituted his own. Maybe Trump's policy would have lead to a better trade agreement. Maybe not. It was NOT Cohn's decision to make. We did no elect him.

Cohn's actions underscores the fact that Trump has vipers in his circle.

In the North Korea meeting, during a period of high tension with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, Mr. Trump questioned Mr. Mattis about why the United States keeps a military presence on the Korean Peninsula. “We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Mr. Mattis responded, according to Mr. Woodward.

That was total bullshit answer by Mattis. The US has been in a state of war with North Korea for 50 odd years. In that time we have developed this thing called "satellite" that allows us to look any and everywhere within the limits of technology. Those troops on the border to 'prevent NOKO from invading SOKO" is all show. South Koreans can do that themselves. We know they have the tech and manpower.

In April 2017, after President Bashar al-Assad of Syria launched a chemical attack on his own people, Mr. Trump called Mr. Mattis and told him that he wanted the United States to assassinate Mr. Assad. “Let’s go in,” the president said, adding a string of expletives.

Oh I believe this happened. This is why I brought up Ivanka and Jared. The vipers have had it in for Assad for a long time. That there were not real allies in office to underscore that Assad is fighting Al-Qaeda and therefore we should mind our business and not get sucked in by the propaganda of the "white helmets" is why Trump made that dumb as shit demand. Many of Trump's supporters disagreed and disagree with the US involvement in Syria and see it as highly influenced by Israel.

Mr. Cohn, Mr. Woodward said, concluded that Mr. Trump was a “professional liar.”

Trump is a saleman. His life is negotiations. In negotiations you make offers that you don't necessarily actually indent to abide by. For example, car salesman says that the bottom line is $1500. They actually mean $1000 but they want to induce you to accept the deal that is better for the car salesman. That $1500 is a lie. Flat out. negotiators lie for a living. This is why you must understand the "art of the deal" in order to deal with salespersons. Most importantly, such sales techniques are rarely personal in nature. The process is adversarial. Sound familiar? This goes back to the beginning of the piece where anonymous says that Trump is amoral and antagonistic. That is the world that he became a success in. The voters ALSO knew that when they picked him over all other Republican candidates and Clinton. We should consider whether Trump's position as "liar" is actually a plus in light of how some cultures work:

For one example of where it has not fully taken root, social anthropologist Roberto DaMatta sums up his country, Brazil: If I am buying from or selling to a relative, I neither seek profit nor concern myself with money. The same can happen in a transaction with a friend. But, if I am dealing with a stranger, then there are no rules, other than the one of exploiting him to the utmost. underlines original

Trump has repeatedly stated his view that the US has been taken advantage of in [recent] trade negotiations. Perhaps he is actually right and we [being the general public] are too gullible to know or to "rule bound" to do anything about it. Or maybe Trump is wrong. He was elected to try his way by the citizenry via our democratic process. It's not the place of Cohn to obstruct that.

In the end the only thing presented here that remotely bothers me about Trump is his alleged desire to assassinate Assad. The US has a non-assassination policy, particularly as it applies to heads of state. We'll just overlook Obama's weekly kill list for the time being. The rest of the op-ed and the examples from the book indicate a set of unelected persons who disagree with Trump's policies and feel that they have the right to obstruct and interfere with implementation of these policies. That is not "defending democratic institutions" at all. It is deep state and they admit it.

Just Do It

Does That Really Mean Schools Are Failing

Also from City Journal:

Carranza made it clear before he arrived that his principal interest is ethnic equilibrium in the nation’s largest public school system, not achieving positive, across-the-board performance outcomes. The system has some bright spots—they’re moving center stage as the chancellor’s obsession with “integration” unfolds—but New York’s schools in general are a mess. As recently as two years ago, 420 of the city’s 525 high schools had prepared fewer than half of their graduates for college or a career.

I'm not going to get into the "ethnic equilibrium" part of quote but I was surprised that the usually critical people at City-Journal wrote about "fewer than half" their graduates as if that is necessarily a problem. It probably is NOT.

The public school system is required by law to enroll every and all students regardless of ability. Private schools may pick and choose who they may enroll. Often these schools have IQ tests called "entrance exams". This allows them to enroll students with above average intelligence which is a prerequisite to performing at a level that is required for college.

Since public schools cannot skim the "cream" of students and often have the cream of the student population removed from their populations, they have less students who have the necessary intelligence to qualify for college than that of private schools.

Anyone familiar with the bell curve distribution of intelligence knows that half the population falls below 100 and generally for college one should be at 105 or so. The hard sciences usually require something closer to 110 and often go above as you head into the nether regions. Only about 25% of the population actually meets this requirement. knowing this, is the fact that half the students from the NYS public school system, which is comprised largely of students from populations with statistically low average IQ's do not graduate able to do college level work? And we're not talking about the multiplying remedial classes that are offered in colleges.

Perhaps what we should be doing is focusing on alternate paths for people who simply are not college material and stop glorifying college as the end all and be all for everybody. People's value to society should not be based on whether they have a college degree and we certainly have use for people who work with their hands and backs more than their fingers. Oh and stop diluting the significance of a college degree by handing them out to unqualified students given inflated grades and junk degrees for "reasons".

Rethinking Medicare For All

I've long been a supporter of single payer healthcare. I believe(d) that the proposals to simply extend medicare to all citizens was the best way to do this. The idea being that it was the least disruptive proposal. It already met constitutional muster and the institutions needed to run it already existed even if there was a need for expansion. Also, this would relieve private businesses from paying for and administrating health insurance plans, which makes up a significant portion of employee "salaries and benefits". This would be, in effect, a tax cut for businesses. I did propose that corp taxes should go up a bit to cover the cost of expansion, but not to the extent that it wiped out the cost savings of no longer being responsible for healthcare for it's employees.

Yesterday I read an article in City-Journal that has me rethinking this.

First, I had no idea how medicare actually worked. I suspect most people who are not retired don't either:

hospitalization in Medicare Part A includes a $1,340 deductible for each benefit period. It imposes no coinsurance on the first 60 days of hospitalization, but a charge of $335 per day between 61 and 90 days in the hospital, and a charge of $670 per day over 90 days. Part B, the medical part of Medicare, includes a $183 yearly deducible and requires the patient to pay 20 percent of the Medicare-approved amount.

Part A, hospitalization, has no monthly cost, but Parts B and D, the medical and drug portions, demand monthly premiums just like any private insurance program. The monthly amount varies with income: retirees today pay $134 a month, on average. But with no copays or deductibles, plus the added benefits that Sanders’s bill seeks, those monthly premiums would surely rise, not least because working people have higher incomes than retirees. It is guesswork to put a figure on how much these costs would go up, though the current Medicare premium for those who want it—but have paid into the system for less than seven-and-a-half years—is $422 a month. And that’s for Medicare as it presently exists, not for the proposed luxury version

Well, that's not "free healthcare, is it"? Also:

Medicare presently covers some 58 million people in one or more of its plans. The government last year spent $597 billion on these beneficiaries, representing about 14 percent of all government spending, and generating 3 percent of economic activity. Had the country extended coverage to all 323 million Americans in 2017, it would have cost Washington more than $2.6 trillion, almost 65 percent of the total budget, and over 75 percent of government revenues for the year.

Oh.

Clearly there is no way to "tax the rich" to pay for this. No seriously. There is no way to pay for this by "taxing the rich". If you tax the rich to the point that they are no longer "rich", then there goes your government income.

Of course the next juicy target would be the military. Good luck getting any huge military budget cut through congress. So for those of us who do believe that a single payer system would be good would do well to bone up on the numbers.

The Cohen Plea: Will It Be The Basis of Impeachment?

At a glance the Cohen plea looks bad for Trump. For one thing it *officially* makes him a liar. Cohen says, under threat of perjury, that he paid off two women to not come forward during the 2016 campaign. He says he did so upon the request of someone called "individual 1" who was associated with the Trump campaign. Now, we officially have no idea (as of this writing) who "Individual 1" is, but we'll guess it's Trump and we assume for the rest of this piece that it is Trump.

One thing this shows is that Giuliani is and was absolutely correct to advise his client to not speak to Mueller. You never talk to the prosecutor unless you are forced to. Period. Lawyering 101.

So lets assume for a minute that the campaign finance law was broken not only by Cohen but by "Individual 1" who we assume to be Trump. The bar for impeachment is: High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Clearly that bar would have been cleared. It doesn't matter if Trump can pardon Cohen (who Trump probably considers a rat bastard of the Mafia kind) once the judgement is in, it's in.

Trump would have to show that payments made to Cohen for "Services rendered" were not campaign contributions even though they benefited the candidate. I'll leave it to better minds than mine to determine how possible that is.

However; the next hurdle would be fraud. Cohen is admitting to committing bank fraud. The next question will be whether "individual 1" knew and collaborated to commit this fraud. That would be conspiracy to commit fraud. Again, grounds for impeachment.

This was and is, in my opinion, the true reason for the "Russia probe". Just like Whitewater and Clinton. They just needed to find a lie or someone close who did something, anything. Cohen is Trump's something and anything. And here's the thing, he's disappointed enough of his base (no wall, no real movement on sanctuary cities, Sessions going for civil forfeiture, Not calling out Antifa, etc.) that unlike Clinton who was extremely popular, Trump may well find himself a one (or half) term president.

We shall see how this develops. If "Individual 1" is not Trump then a lot of other doors open in favor of Trump.

Colorado Continues to Harass Cake Artist

Ricochet is reporting on the state of Colorado continuing to harass the owners of Masterpiece Cakeshop:

On June 26, 2017, the same day that the Supreme Court agreed to take up Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, an attorney asked Phillips to create a cake designed pink on the inside and blue on the outside, which the attorney said was to celebrate a gender transition from male to female. Phillips declined the request because the custom cake would have expressed messages about sex and gender identity that conflict with his religious beliefs. Less than a month after the Supreme Court ruled for Phillips in his first case, the state surprised him by finding probable cause to believe that Colorado law requires him to create the requested gender-transition cake.

Firstly I believe this was a total setup. No one who has not been under a rock and sleeping like Rip Van Winkle didn't know what and who Masterpiece Cakeshop was and what they were not down with. Particularly if said person was in Colorado. I believe, 100% that this person went there with the intention of creating a litigious situation. I also believe that they were sent there by a member or members of the commission.

Secondly I believe that the reason the commission went after Masterpiece again is because of the softer than jello reasoning that made up the majority decision by the SCOTUS. The majority decision against the state of Colorado was based on the fact that transcripts showed that the commissioners had been prejudicial to the religion of the owners of Masterpiece. It DID NOT rule based on the free speech and free exercise of religion; which it should have.

This left the door open for the Colorado commission to harass Masterpiece so long as they "watched their mouths" during the proceedings so that an appeals court could not rule that they were being discriminatory. I wrote about this:

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.

And Justice Thomas agreed saying:

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 justify virtually any law that compels individuals to speak. It should not pass without comment

And his comment, in order to refresh the memories:

States cannot punish protected speech because some group finds it offensive, hurtful, stigmatic, unreasonable, or undignified. “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the 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.”

The New High Water Mark of Left Censorship

Yesterday, in an act of "collusion", Apple, YouTube and Facebook all decided to de-platform InfoWars. This surprises no one who has been paying attention. Almost a year ago today I wrote:

Having lost what little decency the left had left, when Trump won the election the [tech] powers that be decided that free speech and free expression of ideas (that don't directly incite violence) could no longer be accepted. In fact, the left made a great leap into censorship when it came to the subject of illegal immigration and the fake refugee conspiracy being used to ethnically cleanse various European nation states. And that's what it is: ethnic cleansing of Europe. Google/Youtube has just raised the ante on this behavior:

Remember that the Left (and bullies in general) use what we'll call the Test Technique. That is, they will do something provocative and see how you react. If the reaction is "strong" but not fatal (in that there are serious consequences) then the the bully will wait and then push again. Hence what we see here is the next step. When YouTube, etc. decided to "shadow ban", de-monetize, etc. certain types of video, it was a test. When the response was simply a lot of hand waving and shouting, YouTube knew that conservatives (the main target of these actions) were the paper tigers of Chinese lore.

I said some time ago when Target essentially told it's non-liberal customers to fuck off when they announced their new changing and bathroom policy, that if those opposed could not cause empty parking lots in Target stores across the nation then they would be seen as a non threat for more "onerous" policies. Empty parking lots did not happen and more onerous actions have appeared as expected.

So one of the big lessons here is that non-left people (including moderates) have been boxed in. The left played a very long game and have gotten themselves into pivotal and powerful positions within private as well as public entities and are now showing their true faces (and asses). With the decimation of "mom and pop" stores, large corporations can essentially control the purchasing power and ability to earn of larger and larger swaths of the public. You can thank Republicans for that too. When a non-left objects to a corporate policy, the corporation can simply say "So where else are you going to go?" If you depend on Facebook for your business and Facebook bans you. Bye bye business. If you depend on Apple Inc. for your business and Apple Inc. decides not to do business with "haters", well good luck with Linux. If you make your living off YouTube and YouTube decides to ban you, well...Bitchute?

Oh you want to see just how far this rabbit hole goes?

If MasterCard, Visa and Discover decide that they are not going to do business with "haters", how exactly do you plan to do financial transactions? PayPal has already de-platformed "haters" and gets away with it because it's business is not considered a "financial transaction".

Oh you are going to get your own domain pay for hosting? Well what if the registrar refuses to do business with "haters"? No Domain registration means no DNS entry and therefore no website. Game over.

Oh and if an ISP decides that it won't do business with haters and therefore refuses to give you internet service.

That's how far this goes. Don't think that because MasterCard, etc. are considered financial entities that they cannot be allowed by law to not service "haters". Right now in NYS, governor Cuomo is using the power of the state to pressure private businesses to not do business with a legal entity, the NRA, which has committed no crimes nor is under any investigation for crimes. The power of the state is being used against the NRA simply because the head of that state dislikes the political philosophy of that organization. Once the state decides who (or what) is a "persona non-grata", then all protections are off. Which leads to the real problem.

Let's all be clear here. The First Amendment is a prohibition against government censorship. It does nothing to prevent private entities from censoring. Hence, it is not my argument that the actions of Apple, etc. are somehow illegal. Nor should it be your argument. What YouTube (TheirTube), etc. actions are symbolic of is a fundamental shift in the customs and mores of the general population. I had often read on what would be considered "far right" publications that America would not survive the changing demographics because the political enterprise that has been America was the outgrowth of the people who created said country. If you replaced the founding population with one that does not share the same customs and mores then inevitably the country itself changes. So for example, if the country is founded be people who are highly suspicious of government power and therefore create a limited and restrained government, is then populated by those characterized by belief that government should be *very* powerful, then you have a problem for the founding population (well their descendants).

America until very recently was characterized in part by the idea of free speech. Embedded in the sovereign document, this concept is understood that offensive speech was just as protected as "complementary speech". That is, you cannot have free speech if speech cannot offend, insult, etc. And because of this understanding, it was understood by all (or the vast vast majority) that we suffered "the fools" in order to protect this vital freedom. This was a political as well as cultural understanding. The very few exceptions were direct incitement to violence and things like yelling "fire" in a crowded room. This common understanding of free speech is no longer applicable in America. What changed?

We have to go back 50 years to get at the genesis of the change. When the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed, it changed a very fundamental concept in America: Freedom of association (and dissociation). For the first time, the government could punish private entities for not "serving" citizens. Of course if you were black in Jim Crow America, this was a good thing (at least on one level). But this change planted the seed of what we are seeing today. Once the government was able to legally tell a private business what it could not do the precedent was set.

The next thing was a creation of "protected class" of citizens. The 14th clearly states:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The concept of "protected class" is in direct contradiction to the provisions of the 14th Amendment. "Protected classes" means that there are two classes of citizens: "Protected" and "Not Protected". Again, this may have been done with "good intention" but the fallout is now clear for all to see. Understand that under strict reading, being white is protected. That is, the text doesn't say "black". However in practice the "race" protected class is generally understood to be "not-white and not heterosexual".

You might be thinking: What does an employment law have to do with censorship? Well follow me.

We have what I'll call the "Discrimination Complex" which is the network of so called "Civil Rights Organizations", lawyers and government agencies who make a living finding and making money off of discrimination. This complex which got the government to accept "disparate impact" and vague concepts of "hostile work places" meant that if an employee of any firm felt that the company was being discriminatory or the magic creating a hostile work environment then the employer was on the hook with the feds who had gained power over private companies.

So we saw that Brendan Eich was tossed from Mozilla because he donated in favor of a political issue that an employee disagreed with. All that (or those) employees had to do was say that they "felt unsafe" or some other permutation and the company was on notice for "a discriminatory climate". Mozilla got away with this firing. Blood was in the water.

More recently in a huge step up Damore got the axe from Google for discussing known sex differences in a public forum. Once again, employees, asserting their "protected status", made claim that they felt "discriminated against" and that there was a "hostile work environment" created by allowing Damore's speech to go unpunished. Never mind that Damore's text was:

1) Scientifically sound.
2) Not threatening to anyone.
3) Did not discriminate against anyone.

What mattered was that the new class of super citizens had been offended and such offense is enough to support a claim of "hostile work environment" which spells legal problems for their employers.

Once it was established among the power brokers that "wrong think" and "wrong speak" can be regulated on the grounds of "protecting 'victim' classes" the foundation for corporate censorship was laid. Censorship became OK because "victim classes" had to be protected. Failure to protect "victim classes" could become costly both legally and supposedly commercially. I say supposedly because there has been no concrete evidence that the people and organizations that do the most complaining actually have an impact on the bottom line of the many companies they target. However; since corporations avoid bad press by any means necessary they bend to these campaigns. This is why YouTube, FaceBook et-al discuss their actions in terms of "safety" and "harm" and the like. Who could be against "safe"? Who can be against stopping "harm"?

When combined with the ideology that "victim classes" cannot be victimizers, an ideology that is a direct outgrowth of the misunderstood concepts discussed in The Isis Papers and it's foundational text The Textbook For Victims of White Supremacy, you get a super class of citizens who are immune from the very same laws that get the lower class of citizens in financial and legal trouble.

This Super and Lower Citizen is why Alex Jones is persona-non-grata while Sarah Jeong got a job at the prestigious New York Times in spite of writing material that if targeted at any group would have been an automatic disqualification for even mail room duty. Jeong is a part of the super citizen class. There are no consequences for the NYT's actions just as there will be zero consequences for Apple, YouTube or FaceBook. Trust and believe that Apple will continue to be a trillion or near trillion dollar company tomorrow. YouTube will continue to have new uploads and FaceBook will continue to get page views. Where else are they going to go?

And this is a serious question. Alex Jones supposedly had millions of subscribers across platforms. How many of those subscribers quit the platforms? I know that quite a few of his supporters are still on this platforms. So aside from a lot of complaining what has been the actual consequence?

Not a damn thing.

And this "zero consequences" is why this will escalate. A bully continues to harass his victim because the victim is unable or unwilling to do what is necessary to stop the bully. The victim lives in fear of continued bullying and hopes that today they manage to not be picked on. But the real solution to the bully is:

If non-left people are actually serious about consequences for YouTube, then they should go to other platforms. There are other video sharing platforms out there. Disappear the entire content on YouTube and repost to these platforms. Same for the other social platforms. The only way to "win" is total disengagement. To-tal. These companies will not change tactics if they continue to make money off the same people who are complaining (short of legal changes). We need to recall the lesson of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

It worked because the buses looked like that. Empty. It became VERY expensive to treat certain citizens badly.

Reminder: You Have No Expectation Of Privacy In Public Places

The EFF has a post in which they raise an alarm about license plate readers being used by a private company in private malls.

Automated license plate recognition is a form of mass surveillance in which cameras capture images of license plates, convert the plate into plaintext characters, and append a time, date, and GPS location. This data is usually fed into a database, allowing the operator to search for a particular vehicle’s travel patterns or identify visitors to a particular location. By adding certain vehicles to a “hot list,” an ALPR operator can receive near-real time alerts on a person’s whereabouts.

OK. I may not "like" this, but I have no expectation of privacy when I am in public. Your license plate is in clear view of anyone who has line of sight. Not only that, but most if not all mall parking lots have cameras that record your comings and goings. You may think that because the mall parking lot is "private property" that somehow YOU have an expectation of privacy. No. The owner of said private property has an expectation of privacy. You, the guest do not.

You know where else does this kind of thing? Casinos. Many advantaged players who are known to a Casino are spotted in the parking lot and 'security" can be waiting for them at the entrance. Is the EFF interested in this? Of course not. Why? I.C.E.

In December 2017, ICE signed a contract with Vigilant Solutions to access its license-plate reader database. Data from Irvine Company’s malls directly feeds into Vigilant Solutions’ database system, according to the policy. This could mean that ICE can spy on mall visitors without their knowledge and receive near-real-time alerts when a targeted vehicle is spotted in a shopping center’s parking lot.

EFF has joined other lefty organizations in being against the US enforcing it's immigration laws. This is why this is "news". Of course the actual problem is that there are people who are in the US illegally who have been given a driver's license and other forms of "ID", often fraudulently obtained (fake SS numbers, etc.). That's the real problem. But EFF isn't really worried about all that.

Troubling First Amendment View By Kavanaugh

Read the following yesterday:

Under Supreme Court precedents, "the First Amendment bars the Government from restricting the editorial discretion of Internet service providers, absent a showing that an Internet service provider possesses market power in a relevant geographic market," Kavanaugh wrote. "Here, however, the FCC has not even tried to make a market power showing. Therefore, under the Supreme Court's precedents applying the First Amendment, the net neutrality rule violates the First Amendment."

Now I have my strong issues with proponents of net neutrality but this "editorial discretion" point was new to me. What exactly is "editorial" about data traveling over/through the data connection between a website and it's viewer?

"Internet service providers may not necessarily generate much content of their own, but they may decide what content they will transmit, just as cable operators decide what content they will transmit," Kavanaugh wrote. "Deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN and deciding whether and how to transmit ESPN.com are not meaningfully different for First Amendment purposes."

Um. No.

When you click on a link or enter a location in your browser (for example) the ISP is not generating any content whatsoever. Transmission of content is not the generation of content. When an ISP intercepts traffic and injects advertising then they are creating content. I doubt that Kavanaugh was discussing that. But things such as advertising injection is the only time the ISP is "generating content". The content of a website is not an ISP's editorial content. It doesn't belong to the ISP. The ISP doesn't get ownership rights over that material simply because it travelled over their fibre or copper.

Now the next item, that they may decide what content they will transmit, is the actual crux of the argument. As recent events have shown, many companies are flexing their muscle to censor websites and organizations they do not like from using internet services. I suppose Kavanaugh has no problem with that. I do.

I'll skip over the "decide what content they will transmit" because the article discusses that, but to think that there is no "meaningful" difference between transmitting ESPN the channel which (ESPN app aside) cannot be viewed by those without a TV and cable subscription, and ESPN.com which is accessible by anyone, anywhere without a subscription to any "reception provider" is certainly a "meaningful difference". I'm troubled that Kavanaugh would not recognize that.

Kavanaugh's argument did not address the business differences between cable TV and Internet service. Cable TV providers generally have to pay programmers for the right to carry their channels, and cable TV providers have to fit all the channels they carry into a limited amount of bandwidth. At least for now, major Internet providers don't offer a set package of websites—they just route users to whichever sites the users are requesting. ISPs also don't have to pay those websites for the right to "transmit" them, but ISPs have argued that they should be able to demand fees from websites.

I would hold that this argument by Ars authors holds water even if cable providers did not have limited bandwidth.

Srinivasan and Tatel also provided the two votes supporting the FCC's right to impose net neutrality rules in the 2016 version of the case. "Because a broadband provider does not—and is not understood by users to—'speak' when providing neutral access to Internet content as common carriage, the First Amendment poses no bar to the open Internet rules," they wrote at the time.

The net neutrality rules forbid ISPs from blocking lawful websites and did not apply when ISPs cooperated with emergency communications and law enforcement officials, public safety agencies, and national security authorities.

And this is where I depart with most net neutrality people. If we are to agree that ISPs do not speak when providing "access" to information or services, then the same should apply to any other website offering "access". That PayPal can cut off financial services (though claimed not to be financial services) to websites it objects to is "speech" by PayPal and it suppresses the "speech" of those seeking to do legal financial transactions. Similarly when Twitter bans a user for "hate speech" (whatever that is, since SCOTUS says there is no such legal thing) but offers an endorsement (via blue check mark) of others who engage in the same speech, then it is no longer neutral, it is engaging in "speech" and suppressing the speech rights of others. These are not neutral actions. You cannot say that an ISP must grant access to any and everything and then exempt owners of public forums from the same.

The bar needs to be that so long as the speech is legal, those providing public services must allow it or ban it equally or be subject to civil liability. To do otherwise would be to make a [continued] mockery of things such as DMCA's safe harbor rules that ONLY apply if the actor is neutral.

Jimmy Carter: You Are Dead Wrong

Jimmy Carter said on Huffpost live:

Former U.S. President Carter said on Sunday he believes “Jesus would approve of gay marriage.”

“I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else and I don’t see that gay marriage damages anyone else,” Carter, who describes himself as a born-again Christian, told HuffPost Live.

It is so sad to see so called Christians who are either so unfamiliar with their foundational texts or who are purposely deceitful about said text in order to curry favor with certain groups. Let me clue Jimmy Carter in.

First:

Genesis:2:24:

24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh. 25And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Second:

Matthew 19:

3The Pharisees also came unto Him, testing {tempting} Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? 4And He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that He Who made them at the beginning made them male and female, 5And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they two {twain} shall be one flesh? 6Wherefore they are no more two {twain}, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Both KJV.

So let's be real here: Jimmy Carter knows not what he speaks. His so called Christian friends and associates should publicly correct him and then he should publicly apologize for misrepresenting "his" faith.

#WalkingAlong

[Updated 1:27 PM]

So there's this thing going on where people are discussing why they "walked away" from the Democratic party. This would be my addition to this discussion. First, I cannot say I "walked away" from Democrats because I never was one. I was also not a Republican. Still not either. As the header of this blog indicates, I'm a Pan-Africanist so I have no affiliation with the major US political parties. That said, for much of my life I have been sympathetic and supportive of Democratic politicians because generally speaking they reflected the things I believed in. What were these things?

1) Civil Rights: All American citizens have rights as outlined by the constitution. No govt. entity should be abridging those rights.

2) Economic fairness: Monopoly capitalism is bad. Govt should prevent the excesses of capitalism. Workers should be treated and paid fairly.

3) Freedom of Speech/Expression: A mighty tool that allowed Black people to get out from under Jim Crow. No free speech means no means to change public opinion and government policy.

4) General apathy to warfare: I say general because Dems have never really been anti-war. But generally speaking were against imperial war making.

5) Generally against African exploitation: I say, generally.

I hadn't really even though of immigration even though I lived in an immigrant community. Nor did I really consider finer points of things like minimum wage other than when I was making it I would have gladly accepted more. I did however believe that if you wanted more than minimum wage you should do work that was more valuable.

If you have followed this blog since it's inception you'll notice there has been a distinct change in tone which started somewhere around the time Obama was running for office. The reason for this is that I noticed that when Obama was running for office, that people in my circle suddenly changed their tune in regards to a lot of things. For example, there was an interview in which Obama was commenting on Iranians and said something to the effect that they didn't understand the ramifications of having an atomic bomb. Now, had such a thing popped out the mouth of a white male, he would have been called racist on the spot. However, the people I associated with were quick to brush this off. See, all this time I thought a racist statement was a racist statement was a racist statement. This is when I discovered that certain things only applies to non-blacks.

Really though, I shouldn't have been surprised since I had engaged in this kind of double think. I had actually internalized and propagated silly shit like "blacks can't be racist because we have no [systemic] power" and "racism is [literally] white supremacy." These are two points I have written on (refuting) at length so I won't go into it here.

Indeed what had happened was that I re-evaluated and studied up on the things I believed. I put them to the test and a lot of them came up wanting. Going back to the changes my peers were going through for their "black president", we had the bombing of Libya. Folks were like, Oh well, I'm sure Obama knows what he's doing. Aside from the current fact that Libya now has open slave trading going on as a result of "Obama knowing what he was doing", how did these former "US should stop imperial wars in Africa" come to "US should start an imperial war in Africa"?

On some other matter, I had folks tell me how Obama couldn't do x,y or z because "Republicans in congress would fillibuster". Previously these folks were "any means necessary". Besides at the time Democrats controlled the executive and both houses.

But that was just the beginning. Ferguson was what really opened my eyes to what was really going on. I've written extensively on that situation. The amounts of outright lies told by Democrats (including the media) was staggering. Never mind that the actual grand jury testimony, by black witnesses no less, confirmed that Mike Brown not only assaulted the store owner, but had assaulted the police officer. Every left wing talking head was against the facts. On top of that you had black people actually carrying signs calling for lynchings.

Black. People. Calling. For. Lynchings.

It was at this point that I realized that Democrats and the left had gone into orbit. Facts and truth did not matter. BLM (sic) rose up and made all kinds of easily disprovable claims yet no one on the left would call them on it. BLM would say shit like "Black on Black Crime isn't really a thing" which is not only demonstrably wrong but a massive FUCK YOU to the families of thousands of dead black people killed by other black people. BLM literally got people killed with their bullshit and yet to this day they have not been cast out by Democrats.

Then we had Obama use the power of the state to bully North Carolina into "accepting" gender dysphoria over the objections of the voters of that state. So I saw that the Democrats had no respect for the voters. It was about power. Raw power. They had an agenda and you will go along with it whether you like it or not.

Not satisfied with that abuse of power, Democrats went along with persecuting Christians. I'm a former Christian. Seventh Day Adventist to be specific. When the whole homosexual marriage thing came about, I knew it was a direct attack on freedom of religion. The reason being that if one rejected homosexual marriage and such a rejection became codified in law as a [fill in the blank] crime, then Christians were at risk (among others). Not only was SCOTUS wrong in it's decision since there is no right in the Constitution to same sex marriage, or marriage of any kind, but also that English common law, which US law is based upon (often stated right in state constitutions) recognized marriage as only between a husband and wife. Man and woman...distantly related at worst. When Christian bakers were prosecuted by state agencies on behalf of homosexuals who had no numerated right to demand any Christian (or anyone else for that matter) attend to their wedding in any capacity caught to abridge the numerated right of a Christian (or any other religion) to freely practice his faith, the left had abandoned any pretense of adherence to the rule of law. This was about power (and revenge). Nothing more. Then came the treason. While we can understand regular internal disputes that citizens of a country can have, there should never be a case where citizens prefer or organize on behalf of foreigners. Period. The government of a country acts for the benefit of it's citizens above everyone else. Not only do leftists spend an inordinate amount of time and money on people who have no legal right to be in the country but they have used the government to do so. Not a few "representatives" have outright claimed that they will use their [elected] office to the benefit of foreigners. This is treason.

This doesn't even include the negative effects of both legal and illegal immigration (trespassing) on the source countries who are brain drained. No person who cares about the "third world" can justify brain draining poor countries so America can be "more diverse". No person who claims that they care about the working poor in America can also be for importing low wage workers to compete with citizens for jobs. If nothing else has shown how far out the Democrats and the left has gone (Past orbit, we're in interstellar territory here) it is the immigration issue. When a political party cannot bring itself to publicly state that it is working for it's citizens and that trespassing will simply not be tolerated, it is no longer a political party but a foreign occupying power.

Just the other day, some lefty publication declared that Bernie Sanders was not really a Socialist because he doesn't want to abolish ICE. Seriously. They've turned on a declared Socialist because he still has a bit of sense.

In the end the Democrats have painted themselves out of serious consideration. If we can't talk about immigration without being called a Nazi, then we can't talk. If we can't talk about the real threats to black lives without being called Nazis, then we can't talk. If we cannot have free speech, without being called a Nazi, then we cannot talk. If we cannot state that men and women and state the fact that tranny's are mentally ill, then we cannot talk. If everything you don't like is "phobic" then we don't have anything to talk about. We can do what the song says, You see me on the street, walk on by.

Reflection on The SCOTUS Union Ruling

If I were a Justice I suppose I would have concurred in part and dissented in part. On the one hand I clearly understand and agree with the court's First Amendment finding. Because public sector unions are dealing with state employees and employers that have higher First Amendment bars than private organizations, compelled speech is a serious issue. Since it has already been determined that financial transactions are a form of speech, the court really didn't have any other choice, if it wanted to follow the law.

On the other hand unions, including public sector ones, provide a service. Employees who are beneficiaries of the services provided for by a Union should compensate those unions for their efforts. To do otherwise is theft of services, IMO. When a union negotiates a raise for employees at, say, a university, even those who oppose the union's political shenanigans benefit. They should contribute towards the union. Otherwise, it would be proper for those employees to NOT get the benefit of the pay raise. Same goes for other benefits. Thus, if I understand the ruling, employees who do not pay into the unions can still benefit from union activities that benefit them. I think many unions are going to be revisiting this state of affairs and stipulating that anything they negotiate on behalf of their members only apply to their members.

Then we have to deal with why this case came up in the first place: Union political activity. I've seen for myself that unions are essentially arms of the DNC. This last election showed that there is a disconnect between union leadership and the membership. Many union members were not happy with Clinton and voted for Trump while the union leadership spent union dues on political campaigning in favor of Clinton or other Democrats. I know that I personally received e-mails regularly speaking ill of Trump (some deserved and some not) from the union I belong to. I eventually asked to be taken off the mailing list. I'm disinclined to pay dues to an organization that not only fail represent my political positions but doesn't have the curtesy to recognize that it has dues paying members who do not agree with the politics of the leadership. To that end, my suggestion for unions going forward is that they stick very closely to issues that directly affect it's membership. That unions cease to align themselves with any political party but rather let their members organize among themselves for whatever causes they wish. That dues not be used for any political purposes. Instead members should be asked if they wish to further contribute (or whatever language is appropriate) to the political campaigning done by the union. This would resolve the conflict that created the case and return unions to their primary function.

Justice Thomas: Y'all Can Read.

So, in keeping with the law, as passed by congress, The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the executive in regards to the travel ban. There are a couple of points made in the decision that I think should be noted (since the MSM won't do it):

1) Foreign Nationals Have No Constitutional Right to Entry:

Nonetheless, although foreign nationals seeking admission have no constitutional right to entry, this Court has engaged in a circumscribed judicial inquiry when the denial of a visa allegedly burdens the constitutional rights of a U. S. citizen.

Direct blow to the "open borders" crowd. And no, a US Citizen does not have the constitutional right to bring a foreign national into the country. 2) The Courts Cannot Substitute it's Own Assessment for that of the Executive

More fundamentally, plaintiffs and the dissent chal- lenge the entry suspension based on their perception of its effectiveness and wisdom. They suggest that the policy is overbroad and does little to serve national security inter- ests. But we cannot substitute our own assessment for the Executive’s predictive judgments on such matters, all of which “are delicate, complex, and involve large elements of prophecy.”

Justice Thomas deals with this later. 3) The Use of Irrelevant Events:

Finally, the dissent invokes Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214 (1944). Whatever rhetorical advantage the dissent may see in doing so, Korematsu has nothing to do with this case. The forcible relocation of U. S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Pres- idential authority.

Since foreign nationals have no constitutional right of entry (among other things) internment camp examples, where the rights of citizens were violated are not even relevant. That we have Supreme Court judges that do not understand this, is quite troubling to say the least. Now let's turn to Thomas' concurring remarks:

Section 1182(f) does not set forth any judicially enforceable limits that constrain the President. See Webster v. Doe, 486 U. S. 592, 600 (1988). Nor could it, since the President has inherent authority to exclude aliens from the country.

That is exactly right.

Further, the Establishment Clause does not create an individual right to be free from all laws that a “reasonable observer” views as religious or antireligious.

This too.

The plaintiffs cannot raise any other First Amendment claim, since the alleged religious discrimination in this case was directed at aliens abroad.

Duh.

It's as if Thomas shares my belief that this case is and was a total waste of time and should have been stopped dead in it's tracks in the lower courts.

District courts, including the one here, have begun imposing universal injunctions without considering their authority to grant such sweeping relief. These injunctions are beginning to take a toll on the federal court system— preventing legal questions from percolating through the federal courts, encouraging forum shopping, and making every case a national emergency for the courts and for the Executive Branch.

Indeed this is the real issue. Even today we have a new ruling with a nationwide injunction against the executive on extremely dubious grounds. This issue takes up most of Thomas' concurrence which I won't repeat here but you should read it. Lastly Sotomayor....

Just weeks ago, the Court rendered its decision in Mas­ terpiece Cakeshop, 584 U. S. ___, which applied the bed­ rock principles of religious neutrality and tolerance in considering a First Amendment challenge to government action. See id., at ___ (slip op., at 17) (“The Constitution ‘commits government itself to religious tolerance, and upon even slight suspicion that proposals for state inter­ vention stem from animosity to religion or distrust of its practices, all officials must pause to remember their own high duty to the Constitution and to the rights it secures’”

Yes. Yes it did...in regard to a US Citizen who's constitutional rights were abridged. Foreign nationals have no constitutional rights. How does she not understand this?

And then we have this footnote:

7 It is important to note, particularly given the nature of this case, that many consider “using the term ‘alien’ to refer to other human beings” to be “offensive and demeaning.” Flores v. United States Citizenship & Immigration Servs., 718 F. 3d 548, 551–552, n. 1 (CA6 2013). I use the term here only where necessary “to be consistent with the statutory language” that Congress has chosen and “to avoid any confusion in replacing a legal term of art with a more appropriate term.” Ibid.

Political correctness in the court system. Never mind that "alien" has been used in reference to any foreign national since before "space aliens" of the "Aliens" franchise kind were stuck into the national consciousness. If I were on the court, I would say "alien" at any and every occasion I could find.

The Left Crow Rises

So we're back to this eh?

I have previously discussed the beginning of The New Left Crow:

In addition to that the New Left Crow has an entitlement complex. Just as Jim Crow operated to keep the undesirables in line, the Left Crow increasingly leverages the law to enforce it's on privileges. No longer is it the case that you should leave those one dislikes or disagrees with alone. One must also endorse that which they do.If you do not you are to be sanctioned. Do you own a store that happens to make wedding cakes. If you don't make one for a gay wedding you get to have a day in court and possibly get run out of business. Is it because you told the gay couple to get out your store?...

That businesses have a legitimate reason to decline services in such a way that is not legally discrimination. A business may not be allowed to decline a person of service because of that person but a business can decline to provide service to behavior they do not wish to be associated with.

Of course what is also entirely different here is that none of the Knights of the KKK would bother to BOTHER such a group to begin with. But not for these folks. The Left Crow says it's OK to purposely invade other peoples spaces and force themselves on them.

Over the weekend The Left Crow upped it's game by refusing service to Trump's spokesperson Sarah Sanders. Many on The Left Crow have made the specious claim that it is not different than the Christian baker who refused to create a wedding cake for a gay couple. So let's review for the hard headed:

The Christian baker, as discussed in previous posts did not decline service to a gay couple. He/they refused to associate themselves with a behavior which the gay couple were asking him to associate with: Their upcoming marriage. The baker told them, which is in all the relevant transcripts, he would sell them (AKA: Provide service) cookies, brownies or anything else in the store. He told them he would gladly make them a birthday cake. In other words, the Christian baker, who was morally opposed to the gay couple's behavior, was in fact willing to provide services to the couple.

In stark contrast, Sarah Sanders was seated in a restaurant and was told flat out to leave. She was declined any and all service, in what should be regarded as a blatant violation of her civil rights. The owner has allegedly claimed that her [gay and supposedly immigrant] wait staff and cooks were bothered (read: being total drama queens), by the prospect of serving niggers, sorry, Sanders. Sanders hadn't asked the restaurant to do anything special for her. She did not ask for a special "immigrant" meal. She did not ask for a special "fuck the gays" meal. She did not enter the premises without a shirt. She did not enter the premises without shoes. She was not being loud and obnoxious (like repeatedly using the word "nigga" in public like so many black people do). No She was denied any and every service because of who she was and for behavior that the restaurant was not a, nor asked to be a party to.

Rather than object strongly to this blatant violation of civil rights, one traitor US representative, Maxine Waters, who should know better, told a crowd of people that Trump staff should be harassed anywhere they are seen in public. So yes, the Left Crow is back to the behavior shown at the head of this post.

I'm just wondering when the lawn burnings start up again.

Runaway Jury

The headline grabbed me:

Jury Awards $45 Million to Woman Struck by Falling Shopping Cart

First:

Falling what? Shopping carts fall? When exactly do they leave the ground? Have you ever seen a shopping cart in the air? Overhead? Ever? This is some "when pigs fly" kind of stuff. So I had to read:

Nearly seven years after two boys pushed a shopping cart off a walkway at a Manhattan mall, severely injuring a woman four stories below, a jury decided to award more than $45 million to her and her family.

Ohhhhhhh.

So the shopping cart didn't fall. It was pushed off a walkway. But how do you push a cart off a walkway? No city inspector who wants to not only keep his job, but not be sued would sign off on a walkway without a railing or fencing to keep people (as well as things) from falling off the edges. Right?

The woman, Marion Hedges, had just shopped for Halloween candy with her son, Dayton, then 13, at the East River Plaza Mall in East Harlem in October 2011 and was at a parking kiosk when the two boys hoisted the cart over a railing above. It plummeted more than 70 feet and struck Ms. Hedges on the head.

Oh...So the cart was not pushed off the edge. It was picked up and THROWN over a railing.

So let's review:

Woman was minding her business on the ground floor of a mall. Two boys on an upper floor picked up a shopping cart, went to the walkway. Picked up the shopping cart and threw it over the edge, hitting the woman who was minding her business. Quick: Who's at fault?

1) The Boys

2) The Shopping Cart

3) Gravity

4) The Mall owner

5) The security guards

6) Anyone remotely connected with deep pockets

Well if you picked 6. You get the gold star.

Court documents show that Ms. Hedges and her family sued the mall and Planned Security Service, which was under contract to secure the mall’s common areas, including the walkway where the boys pushed the shopping cart over the edge.

Conspicuously absent are the parents of the boys or the estate of the boys who picked up a shopping cart and threw it over a walkway, nearly killing someone.

On Friday, the six-person jury decided to award about $41 million in damages to Ms. Hedges, $2.5 million to her son and $2 million to her husband. It said the boys who threw the cart — ages 12 and 13 at the time of the injury — were 10 percent responsible, the security company was 25 percent responsible and the mall was 65 percent responsible.

So lets understand what this jury thinks: The boys who picked up the shopping cart and tossed it over the edge were only 10% responsible for their own behavior. However, the mall who supplies the shopping carts, for it's customers is 65%m responsible. Because what? They cannot control each and every individual? Because they didn't have the foresight to think that civilized people do not need to be encaged so that they do not throw shopping carts off walkways?

The security company is responsible because it cannot control the actions of every individual who enters the mall?

In his statements to the court, Mr. Moore said the security company knew about repeated instances of objects being thrown from the pedestrian walkways, presenting a danger to passers-by below that was never adequately addressed.

This is common?

Video footage shows that three boys were together on the fourth-level walkway just before the cart was tossed. One appeared to try stop the other two from throwing the cart. Then he ran away, and the other two lifted it over the railing. It got stuck, just for a moment, before one boy gave a final shove to send it hurtling over the edge.

Kudos to the one boy who tried to stop the others and declined to participate. This jury though, got this entire thing wrong. Now when the people (mostly black and "hispanic") end up behind a fence and feel like they are in a cage, they can thank this jury. Imagine, a company had the gall...unmitigated gall to think that they could build a facility where they did not have to worry about the patrons throwing large objects over the guard railing...what kind of neighborhood did they think they were in?

Per That Sexual Harassment in Sciences Report

So a number of outlets have reported on the NAP report: Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. I have a few issues with the report and the way it has been reported on. Firstly, at almost 200 pages, I seriously doubt that most, if not all commentators have read the entire report. This is common in popular media so I'm not surprised. If one has read the report, in particular, the data collection portion, a few very important things should jump out at you:

First:

N=40? This is not representative of women in STEM. Period. You simply cannot have a N of 40 and make the claims that are made here. This is not to say that the incidences reported did not happen or are not serious, but that they are not representative of most women's experience in academia. Furthermore, since the reports are self reported with absolutely no attempts at verification or contacting the accused party there is no way to know if these incidents actually occurred in the manner the reporter said they did..

Second:

So 340 women responded. Out of those 65 were eligible. This would be around 20%. Again. 65 people is simply not representative. While 20% experiencing harassment is no laughing matter, it also shows that the vast majority (80%) have not and do not had "qualifying" experiences.

Third:

So 40 people were interviewed. 2 were black. I guess finding "qualified" blacks is hard all the way around eh...

Also, apparently you must believe in the current nonsense of "cis-gender" and all that shit. This is important because when they start talking about "harassment", those who are not in agreement with the current feminist cis this and LBG the other are in for a rough time. Perspective matters because:

Note the "sexist remarks" in regards to people who have gender identity dysphoria. NAP is pushing an agenda. If I'm not with the gender dysphoria bullshit and I say it, it's sexist. If you are WITH the gender dysphoria bullshit and you say it, then it is NOT sexist.

Secondly, who solicits jokes? No really. Who goes up to a co-worker and says: "hey you have permission to send me a joke." This is the passive-aggressive bullshit NAP is pushing here. You received an e-mail and you didn't care for the contents, while most everyone else did? OK. Reply-all: "Hey don't send me stuff like that. Thanks."

Done and done.

The unwanted touching thing. Definitely a no-no. Keep your hands to yourself. Fourth:

Please note the "was understood by researchers to constitute sexual harassment" part. There are not a few cases where people have been convinced they were sexually assaulted. This frequently occurs at "women's centers" and other such places. Sometimes it's a feminist friend who does the convincing. This is one of the growing "intervention" trends where third parties get to determine if something is harassment, etc. on behalf of someone else who is deemed to "uninformed" to understand that they are a victim. No researcher should be "determining" if someone was harassed. If the person did not think they were a victim, then they were not. Period. If a uninvited sexual joke was said and did not bother the interviewer, then she is not a victim of harassment no matter what the researcher thinks of it.

Fifth:

From one of the 2 black people:

Translation: I'm good with the gender dysphoria and I'm upset that the people I work with aren't good with it and aren't afraid to say so. This is harassment.

Again NAP is pushing an agenda. Sixth:

Schools and companies like to talk about how much they support women, minorities and whatnot. Awards are given out for this kind of stuff. The entire premise of this report is that more women are needed in STEM and certain attitudes and behaviors keep this from happening. But when a man works to increase women in STEM and talks about it he's a sexist pig. You cannot win with these folks. This is why I don't even try to appease these folks. Seriously. This guys statements is being considered harassment. Seventh:

Not with the gender dysphoria? Fired. At least they're letting us know what they intend for those of us who refuse to submit.

There were a lot of snippets from interviews. As stated earlier we have no way to verify the stories. Some of the interviewees were in the middle of proceedings, but there was no commentary on those who had gone through. Were any of these stories deemed unfounded (if reported)? Did the researchers assume that such a finding did not matter? We do not know. Many of the stories do not even include descriptions of the precipitating event. "It wouldn't happen to a male?" What wouldn't happen? What would a male be subject to that a female would not? There is no doubt that harassment does indeed happen. But being sympathetic to such victims does not negate doing due diligence when reporting on the matter.

The Ohio Decision: Just How Lazy Does Sotomayor Think We Are?

So SCOTUS handed down a decision in regards to Ohio removing *inactive* voters from it's rolls. Headlines blared that "minorities" and "the poor" would be disenfranchised, the sun would explode and all life on earth would cease to exist. Except roaches, because they can survive anything. So, per usual, I decided to read the actual decision rather than trusting the talking heads to tell me what I should think about it. As usual I found that the talking heads are intent on insulting my intelligence and negating the agency of the black and the poor. So let's first look at what the decision actually said in regards to the law:

The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) addresses the removal of ineligible voters from state voting rolls, 52 U. S. C. §20501(b), includ- ing those who are ineligible “by reason of” a change in residence, §20507(a)(4). The Act prescribes requirements that a State must meet in order to remove a name on change-of-residence grounds, §§20507(b), (c), (d). The most relevant of these are found in subsec- tion (d), which provides that a State may not remove a name on change-of-residence grounds unless the registrant either (A) confirms in writing that he or she has moved or (B) fails to return a pread- dressed, postage prepaid “return card” containing statutorily pre- scribed content and then fails to vote in any election during the peri- od covering the next two general federal elections.

So to summarize, it is the law, already that if you fail to vote in two federal elections, that if you fail to respond to a postcard asking if you still live in the district, you can be removed from the rolls. Here's the important part:

fails to return a pread- dressed, postage prepaid “return card” containing statutorily pre- scribed content

The state, at taxpayer expense, sends an individual a pre-addressed and PRE-PAID postcard. All the voter has to do is indicate that they are still living in the district and drop the card in the postbox. No money need be expended. No writing is needed. Check the box, drop in mailbox. How hard is this?

In addition to these specific change-of-residence requirements, the NVRA also contains a general “Failure-to-Vote Clause,” §20507(b)(2), consisting of two parts. It first provides that a state removal pro- gram “shall not result in the removal of the name of any per- son . . . by reason of the person’s failure to vote.” Second, as added by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA), it specifies that “nothing in [this prohibition] may be construed to prohibit a State from using the procedures” described above—sending a return card and remov- ing registrants who fail to return the card and fail to vote for the req- uisite time. Since one of the requirements for removal under subsec- tion (d) is the failure to vote, the explanation added by HAVA makes clear that the Failure-to-Vote Clause’s prohibition on removal “by reason of the person’s failure to vote” does not categorically preclude using nonvoting as part of a test for removal. Another provision makes this point even more clearly by providing that “no registrant may be removed solely by reason of a failure to vote.” §21083(a)(4)(A) (emphasis added). Respondents contend that Ohio’s process for removing voters on change-of-residence grounds violates this federal law. The Ohio pro- cess at issue relies on the failure to vote for two years as a rough way of identifying voters who may have moved. It sends these nonvoters a preaddressed, postage prepaid return card, asking them to verify that they still reside at the same address. Voters who do not return the card and fail to vote in any election for four more years are pre- sumed to have moved and are removed from the rolls.

So to get kicked off the Ohio voter rolls, you have to have NOT voted for 4 years in addition to not returning the pre-paid and pre-addressed postcard that was sent to your house at the expense of the taxpayer.

Let's just pause here and think about that.

Now lets look at the arguments that were made:

(4) Respondents’ additional argument—that so many registered voters discard return cards upon receipt that the failure to send cards back is worthless as evidence that an addressee has moved—is based on a dubious empirical conclusion that conflicts with the congression- al judgment found in subsection (d). Congress clearly did not think that the failure to send back a return card was of no evidentiary val- ue, having made that conduct one of the two requirements for remov- al under subsection (d). Pp. 15–16.

So lets understand here. People who are being represented by these groups are soooooooooo interested in voting that when they are sent a pre-paid and pre-addressed postcard, at taxpayer's expense to verify their address, they toss the paper in the garbage. It's almost as if these people don't give a damn about the process of voting.

How do you stand up in court with an argument that your clients didn't care enough about the issue you are representing them for to actually respond to a pre-paid and pre-addressed card sent to them in regards to the issue?

Hey, if you're too lazy to ensure you are registered to vote in addition to not voting then why are we even having the discussion?

those 1.5 million notices, Ohio only received back about 60,000 return cards (or 4%) which said, in effect, “You are right, Ohio. I have, in fact, moved.” Ibid. In addition, Ohio received back about 235,000 return cards which said, in effect, “You are wrong, Ohio, I have not moved.” In the end, however, there were more than 1,000,000 notices—the vast majority of notices sent—to which Ohio received back no return card at all. Ibid.

If 1.5 million notices went out and of that 1 million of them went unresponsive AND failed to vote in any district in 4 years, how important is voting to these persons? Serious question. I'm having a hard time being sympathetic to people who claim to value their vote who fail to vote in any federal election and do not take the small effort to confirm their residency. Here's Breyer again:

the failure to respond to a forwardable notice is an irrelevant factor in terms of what it shows about whether that registrant changed his or her residence. To add an irrelevant factor to a failure to vote, say, a factor like having gone on vacation or having eaten too large a meal, cannot change Ohio’s sole use of “failure to vote” into something it is not.

How is it irrelevant? Breyer spent a lot of time contradicting himself in his dissent. If you get a notice saying, in effect: "Hey we noticed you didn't vote in the last election. Do you still live here?" and you fail to respond and then continue not to vote, that it is not reasonable to think that the person no longer lives at that address? That they may be deceased (you'd be surprised at the number of deceased people voting). They may have moved a block over, which threw them into a new district. The district may have been re-mapped and the voter no longer is in the same district as before. It is not solely the act of not voting. It is the act of not voting in addition to the lack of response to the residency query. What Breyer wants to do is the programmatically equivalent of: if [ Person != Vote ]; then can't do shit. exit fi Rather than what the law actually allows: if [person != vote]; then check residence if [ !$response ]; then TwoElectionCycles elif [ $response = "non-resident" ]; then purge elif [ $response = "resident" ]; then exit fi else exit fi TwoElectionCycles() if [ $twocyclesmissed ]; then purge else exit fi Fun for you programmers out there. But clearly the two programs show that Ohio is not using nonvoting as the reason to remove a voter. Rather not voting is a trigger for a query in regards to residency which is then used in conjunction with continued non-voting as grounds for removal.

Now I do think Breyer has a point in regards to forwardable mail. If Ohio is not using forwarded mail, then it may have an issue. But now onto Sotomayor....*eye roll* First, as also mentioned by Breyer:

‘[r]estrictive registration laws and administrative proce- dures’ came to use across the United States.” Ante, at 1–2 (opinion of BREYER, J.). States enforced “poll tax[es], literacy tests, residency requirements, selective purges, . . . and annual registration requirements,” which were developed “to keep certain groups of citizens from voting.”

This is not the 1950s or 1960s. Enough of this.

“discrimina- tory and unfair registration laws and procedures can have a direct and damaging effect on voter participation . . . and disproportionately harm voter participation by various groups, including racial minorities.”

Because racial minorities are to lazy to put a pre-paid and pre-addressed postcard in the mailbox like "racial majorities" can. OK.

while States are required to make a “reasonable effort” to re- move ineligible voters from the registration lists, §20507(a)(4), such removal programs must be developed in a manner that “prevent[s] poor and illiterate voters from being caught in a purge system which will require them to needlessly re-register” and “prevent[s] abuse which has a disparate impact on minority communities,” S. Rep. No. 103–6, at 18.

Poor people cannot put pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox.

Minorities cannot put pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox.

I know this seems repetitive but this is the crux of the statement. All the legalese is cover for the above, oft repeated statement.

Oh and notice the "disparate impact" statement. Wherever lefties want to avoid having to explain how something is actual discrimination, they roll out "disparate impact".

At best, purged voters are forced to “needlessly reregister” if they decide to vote in a subsequent election; at worst, they are prevented from voting at all because they never receive information about when and where elections are taking place.

So we are to believe that the 1 million people who Breyer previously said were extremely likely to still be living at the address they originally registered in, who didn't give a good damn about voting in no less than 3 federal elections AND failed to put pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox are so concerned about being "prevented from voting". Seriously.

Now watch this:

It is unsurprising in light of the history of such purge programs that numerous amici report that the Supple- mental Process has disproportionately affected minority, low-income, disabled, and veteran voters. As one example, amici point to an investigation that revealed that in Ham- ilton County, “African-American-majority neighborhoods in downtown Cincinnati had 10% of their voters removed due to inactivity” since 2012, as “compared to only 4% of voters in a suburban, majority-white neighborhood.” Brief for National Association for the Advancement of Colored People et al. as Amici Curiae 18–19. Amici also explain at length how low voter turnout rates, language-access prob- lems, mail delivery issues, inflexible work schedules, and transportation issues, among other obstacles, make it more difficult for many minority, low-income, disabled, homeless, and veteran voters to cast a ballot or return a notice, rendering them particularly vulnerable to unwar- ranted removal under the Supplemental Process.

First: Why are people with " language-access prob- lems," voting in American elections? English proficiency is a requirement of naturalization and English is the default, though not official, language of the United States. Nobody voting in American elections should have "language access problems". If they do, then someone committed fraud when bestowing citizenship on said person.

Second: How exactly does "inflexible work schedules" prevent a person from dropping a pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox? Even if you're disabled. I you can get mail, you can send it. If you are homeless, then you have no residency and therefore you can't vote. How does being a veteran prevent you from putting a pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox? Seriously. Do we expect anything from citizens other than taxes these days?

Our democracy rests on the ability of all individuals, regardless of race, income, or status, to exercise their right to vote.

I missed the part where the Ohio law said that it was only going to pick on non-white residents. Or maybe the part about only white residents were to be targeted. I'm missing the part of the evidence that Ohio was systematically messing up the black residents by sending them different postcards or changing the mail pickup and delivery schedules so that the postcards couldn't be sent or returned.

Communities that are disproportionately affected by unnecessarily harsh registration laws should not toler- ate efforts to marginalize their influence in the political process, nor should allies who recognize blatant unfairness stand idly by.

Because "communities" that are not white should not be expected to drop pre-paid and pre-addressed postcards sent to them at taxpayer expense into the nearest postbox. Because that's just too hard. In the end, Sotomayor thinks that black people are lazy. That's the bottom line. If you require black people to make any effort whatsoever it's discrimination.

Lastly, per the CNN article:

Just last week, Sotomayor appeared before the liberal American Constitution Society and spoke about her style. She was asked if she felt the "weight of being the only woman of color on the court." "Yes," she responded. "To the extent that I speak frankly in my decisions, and directly, it's because I want people to understand what I am saying, not in legal terms, but in legal terms that touch the heart. I want people to understand the consequences of law and how it affects them."

Never mind that Clarence Thomas " who grew up in a sharecropper's shack in Georgia" is on the court. You'd think the opinion of a person who actually lived the segregation of the US would be also be given consideration. But CNN didn't even think to consider that 'cause you know, if you don't think a certain way your opinion (or facts) on a matter don't matter.

What Technology Has Done To Us

For those of us who grew up pre-internet and pre call waiting, we understand that there was a time when a person simply could not be reached. A time when a busy signal meant the other person had no clue that we tried to reach them. Where you had nothing else to do other than what you could come up with and if that wasn't watching TV, it usually had to involve being outdoors and/or involve other people...in the flesh. It meant alone time. It meant think time. It mean reading non-trivial stuff. Indeed it was a lot less distracting. So I was watching this guy on YouTube and wanted to share because it highlights just how much technology and modern life has changed how we live and how fast we live. Are you unable to sit down, by yourself and not be "doing" anything?

Since We're Talking Education

So in my last post in regards to preparation for HS in NYC I mentioned the following:

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.

So I just ran across a posting by Walter Williams which really underscores this problem.

The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math. For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. It's grossly dishonest for the education establishment and politicians to boast about unprecedented graduation rates when the high school diplomas, for the most part, do not represent academic achievement. At best, they certify attendance.

I have discussed testing results before but it really hadn't hit me the extent of the fraud involved. It does explain the number of "woke" people who have a hard time understanding basic statistical problems and issues of scope*. But here's the kicker:

. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of white high school graduates in 2016 enrolled in college, and 58 percent of black high school graduates enrolled in college. Here are my questions to you: If only 37 percent of white high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 70 percent of them? And if roughly 17 percent of black high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 58 percent of them?

Indeed.

----

* Issues of scope relate to the whole demographics arguments that are often presented by liberals. If the population of a country has 13% blacks, they say that 13% of all engineers should be black. However they don't understand that the number of blacks engineers is constrained by the population that is bright enough to be engineers. That population is far less than 13%. Such commentary also underscores that many people underestimate what kind of intelligence is needed to work in the highest level of engineering. To make it simple I compare this to the 100 meter dash or a marathon. Personally I'm better than 85% of the people out there who run either distances. However the gap between me and Olympic level 100 meter runners and marathoners is huge. We're talking times that are at least half my best times. That an Olympic level athlete will blow by me as if I was taking a stroll while I will blow by most people as if they were taking a stroll shows how far the elite level is compares to even the "top quartile". If one has graduated school without such a basic understanding, one cannot be trusted to properly comment on "disparities" much less be put into a position where one can influence or dictate policy.