Newest Member of The Slapaho Tribe: Eric Schneiderman

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

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

50 shades of hypocrite?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And choked.

And spat upon.

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

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

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

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

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

Voluntary Indebtedness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind Control Media

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

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

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

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

Unarmed Black Man Shot By Police.

If the story contains such a point as:

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

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

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

Slavery Is A Choice. Fear A Great Motivator

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How To Continue A Syria Invasion

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

As stated in 2013:

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

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

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

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

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

Really?

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

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

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

White Lynchings, Black Murders

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US News and World Report noted for 2015 the following:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Alton Sterling Video

You can watch the video here:

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

Two comments on it:

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

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

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

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

Means.
Motive
Opportunity.

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

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

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

Steve Harvey Told a Bold Lie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump: Victim of Revenge Porn

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

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

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

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

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

And the media is OK with this.

The Stick Em Up Negroes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Democracy Dies in The Hands of Women, Blacks and Democrats

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

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

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

Glenn Greenwald on The 'Russia Meddling"

At The Intercept

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

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

Disgrace! Follow Up

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

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

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

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

Natural Law, Second Amendment and Gun Control

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disgrace!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Also

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

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

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

THAT is a disgrace.

MAGA for African-Americans

Shortly after the election I wrote a post that discussed how Trump's "America First" aka "MAGA" movement would be extremely beneficial for African-Americans, particularly those without college degrees:

All those black folks with higher wages than before thanks to the idea of bringing jobs BACK. Black folks stand to win with less illegal immigration and even legal immigration. Black folks stand to win with an America first ideology that brings back or creates manufacturing jobs that can employ those persons not particularly suited for jobs requiring advanced education.

It will be rather interesting if during the presidency of a Republican (in name only?) black unemployment drops significantly.

Not only has Black unemployment dropped, to allegedly historical lows, but we have direct evidence that increased scrutiny of illegal aliens employed by companies has netted many black jobs:

About 800 employees of the main Cloverhill Bakery on the Northwest Side and the company’s bakeries in Cicero and Romeoville lost their jobs when the audit found many were hired after presenting fake or stolen IDs.

Eight what?

In May 2017, the Trump administration sent letters to about 800 employees, saying they weren’t authorized to work in the United States, records examined by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

Those Hispanic employees didn’t return to work, leaving the bakery desperate to fill their jobs. So the company turned to another placement agency, Metro Staff Inc., and it provided Cloverhill with workers screened through the government’s “E-Verification” program. Most of those new employees are African American.

So while the first black president pussy footed around with this company and got SQUAT for black people in Chicago that voted for him. Trump got over 500 (they said most of the 800 not all, so I can only say over 500) black folks in Chicago jobs and you won't hear so much as a "thank you" from any of the talking heads.

Ed French, owner of Elgin-based Metro Staff Inc., says his company became the main provider of workers for the bakery and that about 80 percent of them are black. According to French, workers at the bakery were paid slightly less before his company was hired two and a half years ago — with wages up by about 25 cents an hour, to just above minimum wage.

640 black folks hired AND got more pay than they would have had.

This for a population that voted Democrat by over 90%.

Sheeeeeeeeet.

And what do these mofos do with this gift?

But Okwusa says Cloverhill soon ran into problems. In a memo to the company, Okwusa, who is African American, wrote that the black workers “displayed a higher turnover rate of over 40 percent and a lower efficiency rate than their Hispanic co-workers.”

Now I would hope that this turnover rate is due to going to a better job but I've seen this story before and it's unlikely AND doesn't explain the lower efficiency rate. This kind of behavior is why folks end up not wanting to hire black folks.

At the end of the day, at least for Chicago African-Americans, Trump delivered the goods. If we [continue] to fail when these opportunities are opened to us, then we have no one else to blame but ourselves.

Continuing:

A Hispanic woman who formerly worked at the bakery says the ICE audit cost her husband his job. But she says she didn’t feel tension between Hispanic and black workers because, “In the time that I worked there, honestly, I didn’t see any black workers. They came later.”

They had no intentions on hiring black folks.

Black workers couldn’t communicate well with Spanish-speaking Mexican workers and supervisors, according to Lane, who blames the company for the resulting confusion.

“When I first started, and when they first put me in as a packer, I asked the question, ‘Do they speak English?’ ” she says. “And they said: ‘Everybody.’ But when I went to communicate with them, no one spoke English.”

Shouldnt happen in America. But just you wait black folks. If things continue as they have been soon you too will be deemed unqualified to work because you don't speak Spanish.

State Enforced Transgenderism

I'm old. I'm old enough to remember when all that homosexuals said they wanted was to be left alone. I remember when they said that they only wanted the government out of their bedrooms. I remember when they said that all they wanted was the right to be with their loved ones in the hospital. I remember when they said they only wanted the same tax benefits as other "couples". I remember when they said that how does allowing homosexuals to marry have any affect on your life?

Now I see "My Two Dads" being read at school. I see Christian bakers being told they have no rights that a homosexual ought recognize.

I see states and cities passing laws that you can't call a male and male if said male is sick in the head and thinks he's a female.

And now:

On Friday, Ohio parents were denied custody of their daughter for not being supportive enough of her alleged transgenderism...

Hamilton County Judge Sylvia Sieve Hendon granted custody to the girl's maternal grandparents, who are open to transgender hormone therapy. The teenager has been living with them since 2016.

In a sane world, the case would have been thrown out, the child returned to her parents and told that once she is of age (usually 18) she can leave home and do whatever she wants (and can afford) with her body.

But we don't live in a sane world. We live with state enforced transgenderism.

Incentivising Behavior

One of the arguments against welfare is that it encourages idleness. After all, if you can do nothing and receive income, why would you work? Most of us are not wired to accept that kind of existence. However there are a lot of people who will do whatever they have to to remain on the government teat, which is really your wallet. The NY Times recently ran an article that showed an example of this issue.

A few miles away in another wooded suburb, Emilia DiCola, 28, an aspiring opera singer who scrapes by with gigs at churches and in local theaters, has no such complaints. She qualifies for Medicaid — free government health insurance that millions more low-income Americans have gained through an expansion of the program under the Affordable Care Act.

She's an aspiring what? Why should the taxpayer subsidize her dreams of becoming an opera singer rather than doing whatever [else] she can to not be on the government teat?

Though roughly the same age, Ms. DiCola has followed a different course. She dropped out of the Manhattan School of Music in 2009 after her freshman year because she couldn’t keep up with the tuition. Now, to supplement the scant income she gets from singing gigs, she drives for Uber and Lyft a few nights a week, sometimes more, in Boston. She earned about $15,000 last year, making sure she stayed under the threshold to qualify for Medicaid.

“I feel like it’s no different from what corporations do all the time, taking advantage of tax breaks and that sort of thing,” Ms. DiCola, a soprano who talks animatedly about Verdi and Puccini, said of being on Medicaid. “Frankly, if they’re allowed to do it, why shouldn’t I?”

"Making sure she stayed under the threshold to qualify for Medicaid."

Incentivizing behavior.

Then there's this comment about corporations. One big difference between this chick and the vast majority of corporations: They create jobs (The quality of which is not a topic of discussion here). This woman's life goal creates no productive jobs. Meanwhile...:

“I’m totally happy to pay my fair share,” she said, “but I’m also paying someone else’s share, and that’s what makes me insane.”

Ms. Hurd finished college at the University of Massachusetts, with her parents paying for it, and has a master’s degree in communications, which she got tuition-free while working in admissions at Southern New Hampshire University. She’s been working about 30 hours a week at the outlet mall and a small remodeling firm while looking for a job with good benefits in communications or marketing.

Her husband, Matt, started his contracting business a few years ago and is finishing his undergraduate degree with the help of a loan. They bought a 1750s farmhouse just before they married; Ms. Hurd returned to work when their son, Harry, was eight weeks old.

This is what pisses people off. It's one thing to provide help for those who have fallen on hard times. But when people choose to be unproductive, specifically to stay on the government teat, that is unacceptable. What this DiCola person needs to be told is:

Glad you want to be an opera singer but see here, you drive that Uber till the wheels come off. You do part time school to get a degree in something that pays or learn a trade and get off the government teat.

A Nation Of Sitting Ducks

So we have another school shooting. The usual suspicious politicians are saying the usual things and the people are sitting ducks.

Consider this. This guy entered the school grounds and went to at least 5 classrooms shooting at will, meeting no resistance whatsoever and when he was done he walked away and went to McDonalds and Walmart before he was arrested. I saw a report, among many that discussed how teachers locked the doors to the classrooms and waited.

A nation of sitting ducks.

I didn't know that at one time in America, students were taught to handle guns

So then at what point did schools become not only gun free but a place where basic shit like self defense is verboten and people hide behind doors and wait and hope for other men with guns to come rescue them? That is a pretty huge cultural shift.

Policy makers know full well that enabling people to act on the spot will save lives. Witness the proliferation of defibrillators that have been installed in many schools and office buildings. Why are they there? They are there because we know that in an emergency situation, time is of the essence. If we empower the people in the vicinity to render aid then they are more likely to survive until the medical professionals arrive. Yet when it comes to personal safety, the ability to defend oneself, which is the fundamental essence of the second amendment, this fact based knowledge goes out the window.

Had cruz met resistance after making himself known as a threat, far less people would have been killed or injured. As a matter of fact, it is likely that if Cruz knew that he would most definitely meet deadly resistance should he embark on his mission, he may have decided not to go through with the act.

How is it that the American public sees it as a virtue to be socialized into believing it is a good thing to be a helpless potential victim waiting on big daddy government to help them rather than being an individual capable of helping themselves?

I remember in the gym where I work out, going to a room with Chinese Butterfly knives to train with. The number of people who were shook at the sight of these training weapons (they were blunt) surprised me. Never mind that every dumbbell in the gym was a deadly weapon, these folks were shook. I was told I couldn't bring these items back because people felt threatened.

And that's the root of this problem. We have people making decisions based on their emotions and their inability to deal with the risks of a free society. If they feel threatened or uncomfortable, someone else must change their behavior. It's someone else's responsibility to make me feel safe. It is someone else's responsibility to coddle my emotional state. Someone, anyone, must do something so that I do not have to do anything.

Cabbie Learns The Lesson of Immigration Restriction

"It is only at the end that you understand..."

-Emperor Palpatine, Return of The Jedi While Trump gets blasted for making statements about illegal immigration that was common among Democrats until it wasn't, People on the ground continue to live with the results of the non-functioning occupation government that is inhabiting Washington DC. One of the reasons that one restricts immigration is to control population growth. In California they are seeing serious water supply problems. No one there wants to admit it, but part of their problem is the millions of people that are in the state who should not be who use water resources.

Another reason for immigration restriction is to protect jobs and wages for people who are already here. As anyone who has taken pre-economics knows, if you increase the supply of a good or service, then it's value in the marketplace drops. Why should I pay a vendor 50 bucks for a product when there are 12 others who are willing to sell the same product for $5? I was bitten by this very issue when I had a business doing web design and digital video. When ISPs started offering free website design tools and services to my potential clients in return for their monthly bill, I could not compete. Similarly, when iMovie and iDVD made it relatively easy for my potential clients to make their own DVDs, then my services, using Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro were no longer competitive (for the market I was in). I eventually figured out that I was paying my clients to do work for them. I closed up shop for more profitable ventures in casinos. And when you make more money in a casino then you would doing a "real job" you know there is a serious problem.

The point being here that cheap rivals undermine the economy for all competitors with devastating consequences. Meet the suicidal taxi driver.

On Monday morning, Doug Schifter, a livery driver in his early 60s, killed himself with a shotgun in front of City Hall in Lower Manhattan, having written a lengthy Facebook post several hours earlier laying out the structural cruelties that had left him in such dire circumstance. He was now sometimes forced to work more than 100 hours a week to survive, he said; when he had started out in the 1980s, a 40-hour week was fairly typical. He blamed politicians — mayors Michael R. Bloomberg and Bill de Blasio, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — and their acquiescence to the rich for permitting so many cars to flood the streets. He blamed the Taxi Commission for the fines and hassles it imposed...

He had lost his health insurance and accrued credit card debt and he would no longer work for “chump change,’’ preferring, he said, to die in the hope that his sacrifice would draw attention to what drivers, too often unable to feed their families now, were enduring...

Implicit in his testament was the anger he felt over the de-professionalization of his life’s work. Mr. Schifter had driven more than five million miles throughout his tenure, through five hurricanes and 50 snowstorms. He had chauffeured celebrities and worn a suit. He was not driving a car to supplement the income he was getting from his crepe business and he was not trying to make a little extra money for a gym membership. He was not a participant in the gig economy; he was a casualty of it.

I see personal vehicles being used as taxis all over the place. In fact, if I see a Camry on the road I almost always assume it is a taxi, particularly if it is driven by a non-white male. I would say that I am right 60% of the time. Now you may be wondering what this has to do with immigration. Well in NY, where this event took place, the taxi business is essentially an immigrant work business. The reason why businesses like unrestricted immigration is that it creates an excess of workers. This excess drives down wages. Suddenly a job that could support a family can't. And then you have politicians that will call you lazy because you won't work yourself to death for diminishing wages.

While Uber has sold that “disruption” as positive for riders, for many taxi workers, it has been devastating. Between 2013 and 2016, the gross annual bookings of full-time yellow-taxi drivers in New York, working during the day when fares are typically highest, fell from $88,000 a year to just over $69,000. Medallions, which grant the right to operate a taxi in New York City, were now depreciating assets and drivers who had borrowed money to pay for them, once a sound investment strategy, were deeply in debt. Ms. Desai was routinely seeing grown men cry and she had become increasingly concerned about the possibility that they would begin taking their lives.

Notice that Uber is claiming a "positive for riders". This is like the fake "net neutrality" argument. Riders get "cheap" fares like internet customers get cheap streaming. There is absolutely no discussion of the disruption to the people who were previously making a decent living being taxi drivers. No, all that matters is that riders get cheap rides (and that Uber makes it's cut off each ride). Many failed to understand that the medallion system served two purposes: It kept salaries up by creating scarcity of product (taxis) and reduced congestion, particularly in Manhattan.

For decades there had been no more than 12,000 to 13,000 taxis in New York but now there were myriad new ways to avoid public transportation, in some cases with ride-hailing services like Via that charged little more than $5 to travel in Manhattan. In 2013, there were 47,000 for-hire vehicles in the city. Now there were more than 100,000, approximately two-thirds of them affiliated with Uber.

The situation in the taxi industry is a portrait of what happens when a country is flooded with people. Now replicate this situation in construction. Replicate this in IT. Add the coming advances in AI. But it is only at the end that this guy comes to realize that his livelihood was destroyed by government policies that favored businesses that want plentiful and cheap labour. The same businesses that go all in to tell you how Trump is evil incarnate for suggesting policies that would have kept this guy's income at a level where he would not have been so desperate.

Uber is making money. The dealerships leasing these vehicles are making money. The NYSDMV is making money off the registration and inspection fees (higher for TLC vehicles) and the garages providing brakes, tires and oil changes are making out like bandits.

You want open borders and unlimited workers? You got it. Don't say you weren't warned.

Side note: You see that Via ride for $5 to travel in Manhattan? Let me explain how bad this is. Given the traffic in Manhattan and the time it takes to get to a location, a driver charging $5 per manhattan ride needs at least 20 minutes to complete a transaction. That's $15/hour at best. This same person can learn Blackjack basic strategy for Hit 17, use a 1-3 bet spread and make far more than $15/hour spending his time at Empire City or Resorts world casinos. It is literally and financially better to gamble in the NYC area casinos than to work with Via. This is how bad the "gig economy" is.